The Course is a system of mind training is what it really is. Its main objective is to reduce fearful thinking and guilt and to promote forgiveness, kindness, healing and inner peace. It is easy going. Students typically share with me that the course opens them to joyfully experiencing and practicing loving kindness. You might begin with this video introduction, <‘What It Says’>.
From A Course In Miracles, let’s examine the opening statements:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.
A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Divine “Knowledge” is truth, under one law, the law of Love. “Truth” is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous. Truth might be unrecognized, but it will not be changed. Truth applies to everything that God created, and only what God created is real and true. This is beyond learning because it is beyond time and beyond the limited awareness of processing thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
Truth has no opposite; no beginning and no end. Truth is real, unchanging and it is the serene peace of faithfulness.
“It is particularly helpful to remember applying it when we read in the news about such fearful things as terrorist attacks. If there is anything that seems frightening to us, we can remember this opening statement and it can remind us again that we need not make illusions of attack and death real in our mind. We can return to the Truth. It is our choice. We need not make the sharp edged children’s toys of belief in separation real in our mind. We can ask the Holy Spirit for a different way to see what seems to be in front of us. The Holy Spirit reminds us that there is only Love or a call for Love. And no matter which it is, the appropriate response is Love.”¹
Program Description Introduction and Principles of Miracles from A Course in Miracles
Fear originates from fractured ego mind-like-experiences. An experience of fear is an experience that reinforces belief in separation. Fear is a sharply occurring illusion. Every fearful experience is useful only to remind us that the peace of God is real truth. So, with practice, fear becomes a signal that a fractured ego mind-like-experience is really a call for help and a need for healing, peaceful faith.
The ego cannot understand the difference between real and unreal. With practice, peaceful faith will remove the habits of fear and fearful thoughts. So, if we practice using the opening statement we’ll understand and remember that only Love is real, no matter what sensations or images appear. Consciously return to the serene peacefulness of faith. Practice reinforces our enthusiasm and motivation for continuing training and studying the Course. …
. 1 “A Course in Miracles” Foundation for A Course in Miracles. Web. 06 May 2016. <facim.org/what-is-acim.aspx> .
Any level student / teacher will be welcome. The training sessions cover all 31 chapters, the Song Of Payer, and the Manual for Teachers. Students will have the reading assignments and online resources before each session. There are no fees or expectations. My main objective is to extend joy and to promote discovering serenity, honesty, openness and comfortable willingness to advance in spiritual growth.
The Course is a system of mind training is what it really is. Its main objective is to reduce fearful thinking and guilt and to promote forgiveness, kindness, healing and inner peace. It is easy going. Students typically share with me that the course opens them to joyfully experiencing and practicing loving kindness. You might begin with this video introduction, <‘What It Says’>.
Anyone may join weekly meetings.
7-8:15 pm (USA Eastern times) Saturdays… My email, eric.samsung.email@gmail.com
Any level student will be welcome. There is no charge. From A Course In Miracles, let’s examine the opening statements:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.
A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Divine “Knowledge” is truth, under one law, the law of Love. “Truth” is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous. Truth might be unrecognized, but it will not be changed. Truth applies to everything that God created, and only what God created is real and true. This is beyond learning because it is beyond time and beyond the limited awareness of processing thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
Truth has no opposite; no beginning and no end. Truth is real, unchanging and it is the serene peace of faithfulness.
“It is particularly helpful to remember applying it when we read in the news about such fearful things as terrorist attacks. If there is anything that seems frightening to us, we can remember this opening statement and it can remind us again that we need not make illusions of attack and death real in our mind. We can return to the Truth. It is our choice. We need not make the sharp edged children’s toys of belief in separation real in our mind. We can ask the Holy Spirit for a different way to see what seems to be in front of us. The Holy Spirit reminds us that there is only Love or a call for Love. And no matter which it is, the appropriate response is Love.”
Fear originates from fractured ego mind-like-experiences. An experience of fear is an experience that reinforces belief in separation. Fear is a sharply occurring illusion. Every fearful experience is useful only to remind us that the peace of God is real truth. So, with practice, fear becomes a signal that a fractured ego mind-like-experience is really a call for help and a need for healing, peaceful faith.
The ego cannot understand the difference between real and unreal. With practice, peaceful faith will remove the habits of fear and fearful thoughts. So, if we practice using the opening statement we’ll understand and remember that only Love is real, no matter what sensations or images appear. Consciously return to the serene peacefulness of faith. Practice reinforces our enthusiasm and motivation for continuing training and studying the Course. . “A Course in Miracles” Foundation for A Course in Miracles. <facim.org/what-is-acim.aspx> .My main objective is to extend joy and to promote discovering serenity, honesty, openness and comfortable willingness to advance in spiritual growth.
What if (I ask this seriously) our minds are the surroundings? Happiness is a wondrous achievement that seeks us. Striving instead for pleasure is the greatest sin against one’s self. How shall I perceive this world? It’s my choice, isn’t it.”
.
The Awakening of the Self
The awakening of the self is to a new and more active plane of being; new and more personal relationships with reality; new and more work which it will accomplish. It is the transcendent in the physical plane; the shifting of consciousness from lower to higher levels. This awakening places a person in a higher order of reality, past the instincts of self-preservation. Larger consciousness impresses the individual consciousness and alters the attitude regarding the world and reality. It is a momentous change of tastes regarding life itself.
“You can quite literally measure how well you are doing in your spiritual journey or personal development by focusing on your perception of the world and of others. When our light within grows we stop resonating with the “shadow” parts of the world and actually don’t see things from this perspective any longer.”
Have you ever noticed that happy, peaceful people seem to see a world that is becoming more loving, accepting and open minded? And people who seem to be negative or are always complaining about things seem to be convinced that this world is “going to hell in a handbasket.” Why do you think that is? What many do not realize is that the world is only a reflection of our inner world. The more shadow we have in our emotional and mental body the more shadow we see in the world. You can quite literally measure how well you are doing in your spiritual journey or personal development by focusing on your perception of the world and of others. When our light within grows we stop resonating with the “shadow” parts of the world and actually don’t see things from this perspective any longer. While some may say this is…
“Authentic wisdom is the ability to monitor yourself at all times to determine your relative state of weakness or strength, and to shift out of those thoughts that weaken you.” Wayne Dyer, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace
I was reflecting on authenticity and that as I am out and about or busy with my work that the love that I seek is not really Love… but that it is a state of consciousness in my mind and that it really is based on body sensations and notions, however subtle, that are not true and wholesome like the ideal of love. True love does not come and go and it cannot be found in the world and as I stayed with this, with the stillness, I knew love cannot be found one moment and then lost in another. This presence with Love is timeless, without objects and it might be characterized, although there are no properties in the stillness, I’m saying it is a Self-knowing, Self-recognizing peaceful and serene consciousness of I know this awareness.. a consciousness I recall the experience of as like I’d been in a deep sleep and it is refreshing like a deep object-less sleep.
‘Tis the season for some to take offense when a store clerk says “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” or when a coffee chain converts to plain red cups for the holiday. The “war on Christmas” trope seems to surface with Black Friday sales, but who is actually at war?
.
It is easy to imagine saying “merry Christmas” as another cudgel in the culture wars between Christians and the irreligious. The actual story, however, is much more nuanced. Public Religion Research Institute asked a nationally representative sample of Americans whether retailers should greet their customers with “happy holidays” or “season’s greetings” — rather than “merry Christmas” — “out of respect for people of different faiths.” Although a slim majority of those with a preference want retailers to say “happy holidays” or “season’s greetings,” we found that preference depends on your level of tension with the culture where you live. To explore these cultural tensions, we analyzed the PRRI data jointly with the 2010 Religion Census results.
According to the findings, evangelicals, on average, strongly favor “merry Christmas” and seculars prefer “happy holidays” or “season’s greetings.” But the war on Christmas is not simply a religious divide. One of the more surprising findings is that the Bible-Belt South does not show the weakest preference for “happy holidays” (54 percent). That distinction belongs to the Midwest (44 percent). One reason for the difference is African-Americans (20 percent of the South in this sample), who strongly prefer “happy holidays” despite their high levels of religiosity.
.
Preferences, not surprisingly, are filtered through a political lens, with Republicans opposing “happy holidays” at the strongest rates and most consistently across the nation. Republican responses probably reflect opposition to political correctness as much as (and perhaps more so than) spiritual sympathies. Republicans as a whole (30 percent) outpace even evangelical Republicans (38 percent) in their anemic support for saying “happy holidays.”1
Since Christmas is such a public holiday — people put out displays and pass out cookies, and they feel compelled to wish people some version of merriment — it is no surprise that reactions to it vary across communities. Non-Christians and the nonreligious in states with large white Christian populations are the most likely groups to urge stores to adopt a “happy holidays” regimen. Support for “happy holidays,” however, drops dramatically for secular citizens in largely nonreligious states like Oregon. In these areas, the social stakes are low — Christmas is not an entre to conversations about what church you attend, but more about presents, ugly sweaters and Santa. In such nonreligious states, secular’ support for “happy holidays” is the same as it is among evangelicals nationwide (48 percent).
The next time you hear or read a media dispatch about the war on Christmas, such as Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller’s threat to slap the next person who says “happy holidays” to him, realize that it does not reflect a national war but rather local skirmishes. There is no orchestrated war against saying “merry Christmas,” but it is important to recognize that Christmas can be a potent symbol that reflects inter-group tensions and signals exclusion to some Americans.
.
Footnotes
As we argued in a recent piece, Republicanism also appears to trump religion when it comes to anti-Muslim views.
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is error, the truth; Where there is doubt, the faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled, as to console; To be understood, as to understand; To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
Spiritual revelations relating to love, life and living life for love, and as being love.
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world. The story occurs in three different time lines; 16th Century Spain, present day America and in the far future in the unknown of deep space. In all three times there is the character played by Hugh Jackman and a parallel romantic figure played by Rachel Weisz.
Tom (Hugh Jackman) experiences and re-experiences [meditatively] three simultaneous lifetimes; a quest for immortality and to save Isabella, his wife, the woman (Rachel Weisz) he deeply adores and loves.
As a 16th-century conquistador, Tomás searches for the legendary Fountain of Youth. As a present-day scientist, he desperately struggles to cure the cancer that is killing his wife. Finally, as a 26th-century astronaut in deep space, Tom discovers the inner experience of mysteries of life; love, dying, and the path to eternal joy.
In one sense, the stories all take place in the present and there is one “real” Hugh Jackman character, Tommy. The conquistador, named Tomás is the hero of the novel his wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz) is writing, and the spaceman named Tom Creo is the hero of that novel’s final chapter, a chapter that Tommy writes after his deathbed promise to his wife. Creo is Spanish for “I believe.” Spanish is a language the conquistador would speak, and from the stories inspirations, Tommy comes to believe that a cure will be found for death. The tree sharing the exospheric space bubble with Creo is the Tree of Life that Tomás sought in the early chapters. The spacecraft is en route to a nebula that Tommy and Izzy saw which was believed by the Mayans to be the place for the origins of life.
.
.
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” (2006) With cinematography by Matthew Libatique; following the graphic novel storyline. Youtube video link: “The Fountain” recut/remix .
The Fountain is a drama and a romance story. It’s an intricately designed and conceived work of science fiction. In my opinion it is a story of a meditation on existence. The story is of a spirituality awakening guiding subtle senses day by day on life’s quest.
In narrative terms each time is a journey in itself. However, the story is best understood as that all three ‘livetimes’ effectively occur at once with the beginning and the end of the stories in the quest being the joining to the central lifetimes.
As parts of the whole: The first lifetime is in Spain beginning the quest to find the tree of life, the second in modern times is central as a professional and personal race against time to find a cure for cancer and to stave off death by love, and in the third part an ambiguous and minimal narrative is experiential of the journey of an exospheric space craft containing the Jackman character and the tree of life as it is passing through a nebula toward the great re-birthing of a new cycle of now greater possibilities and expansion of the three livetimes.
All three times intersect with each other throughout the film. Although there is a clear and purposeful flow, it may seem disorientating, especially in the beginning. Get used to the rhythm and the pace and the time shifts and clarity emerges.
The film was in the making for about seven years. Aronofsky said that science fiction has been hijacked by over use of technology and he strongly wanted a film with psychedelic sci-fi when it came to The Fountain. Filming of future Tom and his exospheric space craft took more than four years for Aronofsky to perfect and he was quite proud of it finally. To avoid CGI effects, they photographed chemical reactions through a microscope for the elements that surround Tom’s ship. Linking the past, present, and future, many shots were re-rehearsed and shots were added and edited. This too was time consuming work of perfection. One element that is often missed is that the three times represent three spiritual revelations relating to love, life and living life for love, and as being love.
.
Isabella/Izzi/Isabel
In her past life, Isabella is the Queen of Spain. There, she is relying on Tomás, the conquistador, to find the Tree of Life. She believes that with it, she can stop the struggle for the throne between herself and a cleric who is attempting to take it from her. Isabella promises to wed Tomás when they return to Spain but Tomás never makes it back. .|
Tomás /Thomas-Tommy/Tom
Tomás is the past life version of Tommy, and a conquistador commissioned by Queen Isabella of Spain, the past life version of Izzi, to travel to the New World in search of the Tree of Life. Tomás fights hordes of Mayans until he gets to a temple. The priest protecting the temple stabs him, then realizes that he is carrying a ceremonial dagger that was given to him before. Tomás then passes and carries on to what he believes is the tree of life. He uses the sap to heal his wound, then drinks it. But, like the Mayan myth about the First Father told by Izzi, he gives birth to new life as vegetation sprouts from his body, killing him.
In 2500, future Tom is always with the Tree. It sustains him and keeps him alive. The bubble is his exospheric space craft for he and the tree, a means of transportation to get to the nebula, Xibalba, as the Mayans called it. He is going there to see Izzi’s life restored. But, moments before he arrives at Xibalba, the tree dies and Izzi appears to him. He finally realizes that they will be together again and accepts his death as the dying star explodes. The tree then blooms and Izzi picks fruit from it and gives it to Tommy, who plants it on Izzi’s grave in 2005; which is where the tree cycles about from in the film. This particular tree then is the symbol of enduring love throughout the linked lives and circumstances of these particular manifestations of Thomas and Isabel.
Also noteworthy, another interpretation is different. In it, Izzy is writing the story of the Spanish quest and she is unable to finish the story. Thomas picks up where she left of and evolves the links to the future, using his conversations with Izzy as inspirations for the story..
The Tree
In Tommy’s lifetime, after Izzi dies, he plants a seed on her grave in reference to a story she told him about how a Mayan’s dead father lived on in a tree nourished by his dead body buried beneath it. I believe that this is Izzi’s tree that Tom won’t leave, he continues to attempt to find a cure for death so that he and Izzi can be together again. As they make their way to the nebula that Izzi pointed out in 2005, the tree dies. Realizing that there is no way around dying, Tom finally accepts his death and realizes that he will see Izzi again.
.
Provided here (so far) also:
The Fountain Analysis
Time=9:17
.
Darren Aronofsky Director’s Commentary
Time=1:36:347
.
.
Image: An exospheric space craft vision with the tree of life is passing through a nebula:
.
Image: The tree of life is found:
.
Image: The exospheric space craft is a vision to carry the tree of life in preserving love in our memories:
.
Image: Queen Isabella commissions Tomás on his quest:
.
Image: Conquistador Tomás is receiving the commission for his quest
.
Image: Mortally wounded, Tomás is passed on as his future life enters to dispel the wound and receive the knowledge of eternal love.
Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold Laughter Produces Endorphins,
Study Finds:
“Laughter is very weird stuff, actually,” Dr. Dunbar said. “That’s why we got interested in it.” The simple muscular exertions involved in producing the familiar ha, ha, ha, trigger an increase in endorphins. Laughter contributes to group bonding and may have been important in the evolution of highly social humans. .
In five sets of studies in the laboratory and one field study at comedy performances, Dr. Dunbar and colleagues tested resistance to pain both before and after bouts of social laughter. See: Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold
I connected with more than 1600 friends at Facebook during this past year and my work consumes most of my online time. I hope you will drop on by my FB page if you’d like… really.
I was in peace with gentle knowing of a lovely vision this morning. I did watch this sky. In it a man about my age met me and we took a stairway. He told me of a dimensional mirror. He showed this to me. I saw the stillness of light and the universe in a single point. I saw this all reflect into the now. This was so lovely that all fear subsided. I was for that moment now-ness.
.
.
Are mirrors portals to other dimensions?
When mirrors face each other, there is a tunnel of light. Nothing moves. Its just so easy. Being there was everywhere. There is no movement in the stillness and yet all potentiality may emerge here from unconditional love into perfection of a point. This repeats in light; waves of light reflect electromagnetically each choice form.
.
.
Light does not travel. Within the cubes shown in this video, there appears an endless radial universe that doesn’t exist. In reality, there are only 6 mirrors and an empty cube. This is how our universe works. The omnipresent light is repeated wave field to wave field. All lights give to all other lights. All is truly one expressing itself in infinite diversity.
“Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.” ~ Lao Tzu
A guide to personal freedom … disengaging from the matrix.
.
Awareness
Step 1 Awakening free will and personal freedom
I’ll borrow from Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you have time to ponder this, you may agree: “For non-conformity, the world whips you with its displeasure.” It may seem as “clapped into jail by his own consciousness.” Personal fulfillment requires disengaging from society and embracing physical and intellectual solitude … “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members,” Emerson argues. Let us not cease making progress. There is a way to accept what is and be free.
Step 2
Being Loving Kindness
Loving-kindness meditation practice is mindfully practicing kindness for positive growth; practicing systematically developing qualities of loving-acceptance. Loving-kindness acts as a form of self-psychotherapy, a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from its pain and confusion. Loving-kindness has the immediate benefit of sweetening patterns of mind.
.
Step 3
Unconditional Love
Now, join Harold W. Becker as he hosts this hour long powerful presentation of inspiration and insight on how to become aware of, embrace and experience unconditional love throughout your life.
Marianne Williamson dives into some of the world’s greatest challenges and the concept of how our global society is experiencing a global mutation. The points she makes will motivate you to think of what we can do—and think—as a collective unit, to overcome society’s challenges, heal our spiritual malignancies, and thrive through this global shift.
Epigenetics is a foundational Frontier Science for Positive Human Evolution.
The Biology of Belief is a groundbreaking work in the field of new biology. Theories of evolution and genetics have long taught that genetic mutation is entirely beyond our control. However, genetics has been gradually discovering that we may establish that some self-directed biological transformations occur.
Scientific evidence clearly is demonstrating that emotions effect health, job performance, relationships and much more. You are what you feel and think.
Author Dr. Bruce H. Lipton is a former medical school professor and research scientist. His experiments, and those of other leading-edge scientists, have examined in great detail the mechanisms by which cells receive and process information. The implications of this research radically change our understanding of life. It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology; that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic feeling messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts. Dr. Liptons’s profoundly hopeful synthesis of the latest and best research in cell biology and quantum physics is being hailed as a major breakthrough, showing that our bodies can be changed as we retrain our thinking.
.
.
Program Description Through the research of Dr Lipton and other leading-edge scientists, stunning new discoveries have been made about the interaction between your mind and body and the processes by which cells receive information. It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts. Using simple language, illustrations, humor, and everyday examples, he demonstrates how the new science of Epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of the link between mind and matter and the profound effects it has on our personal lives and the collective life of our species. This paperback edition of The Biology of Belief fully updates and revises the material from the bestselling original edition, and adds material in the light of the seismic effect the book has had.
The practice of living consciously is the first pillar of self-esteem.
.
.
Look at the area where your life is working least satisfactorily. Self-esteem may increase in direct correlation to professionalism. That is, your ability to represent yourself appropriately, perform on the job and be a person with whom others can relate, is an indication of success in whatever you choose to do.
Upon honest self-examination, notice that you tend to be more conscious in some areas of our life than in others. According to Nathaniel Brandon, author of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, “What determines the level of self-esteem is what the individual does.”
Branden continues by saying: “A ‘practice’ implies a discipline of acting in a certain way over and over again—consistently. It is not action by fits and starts, or even an appropriate response to a crisis. Rather, it is a way of operating day by day, in big issues and small, a way of behaving that is also a way of being.”
For improving self, try using a sentence stem like “Living consciously to me means…” and create 6-10 completions of that sentence.
The most widely accepted definition is that ofNathaniel Branden, who defines healthy self-esteem as “the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with life’s challenges and being worthy of happiness.” (1994) This definition implies not only being worthy of respect, but also as having the basic skills and competencies required to be successful in life. Studies show that people with low self-esteem have more poorly defined self-concepts (Baumeister, 1993). Also, we must like, respect, and love ourselves before we can maintain loving kindness for others or respect for property.
1. The Practice of Living Consciously 2. The Practice of Self-Acceptance 3. The Practice of Self-Responsibility 4. The Practice of Self-Assertiveness 5. The Practice of Living Purposefully 6. The Practice of Personal Integrity
1. The Practice of Living Consciously 2. The Practice of Self-Acceptance 3. The Practice of Self-Responsibility 4. The Practice of Self-Assertiveness 5. The Practice of Living Purposefully 6. The Practice of Personal Integrity
.
.
Branden introduces the six pillars — six action-based practices for daily living — providing a foundation for self-esteem and explores the central importance of self-esteem in the five areas of the workplace, parenting, education, psychotherapy, and the culture at large.
.
.
No one may be successful if bypassing their basic needs for self-esteem. The ego is not a thing to fight against. It is not even available for debate. The ego is a sense of needs that we may mistakenly believe is the self. However, by opening to greater self-awareness, we come to understand that the ego is just a function of temporary needs messages. I hope that this program and the related links are helpful. I know I attain growth by reviewing of these basic life skills.
To date, one of biology’s greatest achievements, mapping the human genome, is only just beginning to translate into medical advances. But in 2014 there will likely be more headlines about another type of study in genetics that is already impacting everyone.
We are referring to a different aspect of our genome, which radically revises a model that is decades old, dating back as far as the original discovery of DNA. In the original model, the effects of our genes were considered to be fixed and unchanging, controlling every aspect of our physical makeup, behavior, and susceptibility to disease. Not just eye color, height, and other physical characteristics were predetermined by inherited genes, but perhaps all kinds of behaviors, from criminality to belief in God.
The new model, however, portrays a more fluid, dynamic genome that responds quickly, even instantly, to all that we experience, including how you think, feel, speak, and act. Every day brings new evidence that the mind-body connection reaches right down to the activities of our genes. How this activity changes in response to our life experiences is referred to as “epigenetics.” Regardless of the nature of the genes we inherit from our parents, dynamic change at this level allows us almost unlimited influence on our fate.
Theories of evolution and genetics have long taught that genetic mutation is entirely random. However, genetics has been gradually stepping into a new era of “self-directed biological transformation,” a mouthful perhaps, but with great significance in each word:
Self-Directed: Voluntary activity in your thoughts, feelings, habits, and desires. This is the realm of personal choice
Biological: Effects at every level of the mind-body system, including reactions by your genetic material
Transformation: Major shifts in cellular activity leading to physiological changes
This means that control is being given back to each person; we are no longer seen as puppets of our DNA. The human genome is set to be the stage for future evolution that we ourselves direct, making choice an integral part of genetics. This is in stark contrast to the “biology as destiny” view where genes override choice. Unless decisions, lifestyle, environment, and personal preferences are included, a full picture of the mysteries of our DNA cannot be attained.
The speed and extent of change at the genetic level would astonish researchers even a few years ago. Yoga and meditation, for example, can trigger almost immediate responses in genetic activity. Exercise, a balanced diet, good sleep, and stress reduction—all well-known for improving bodily function—exert beneficial effects via our genes. So the next frontier will be to discover how deep and lasting such changes are, how much control we have over them individually, and how they can be passed on to future generations through so-called “soft inheritance,” in which the parents’ life experiences and behavior directly influence the genome of their offspring (transmitted via the epigenome, which controls how the activities of our genes are turned up and down).
How Genes Deliver Results
Genes don’t simply switch on and off but work on a sliding scale, more like a rheostat. In addition, genes communicate fluidly, so that the old view, where a single gene determined a single characteristic, like eye color, must be revised. There are some genetically determined characteristics that require only a single gene, but they are relatively rare. The vast number of genetic influences are created by a dance or symphony of genes delivering dynamic input to the whole system.
Between any two persons’ genomes there are an average of three million differences or mutations. The implications for medicine are major. Only 5% or less of disease-related mutations are fully penetrant, i.e., guaranteeing a disease when inherited. For the remaining 95%, other genes, lifestyle, and environmental influences also determine disease risk.
The Emergence of Self-Directed Biology
The mind and emotions directly affect gene activity, and since the mind is the source of a person’s lifestyle and behavior, it directs one’s biological transformations. Self-awareness holds the key to this process of self-transformation. Consciousness is invisibly reaching into the biochemistry of every moment of life. In your body, as in every cell, regulation is holistic, self-generated, self-organizing, and self-directed in concert with consciousness.
Darwin didn’t know about epigenetics and “soft inheritance.” Otherwise, he may have written a very different treatise, in which evolution wouldn’t solely result from random gene mutations. Self-directed evolution is the emerging paradigm.
As emphasized in our recent book, Super Brain, we believe there is also a better approach to understanding the brain. Your neural networks are being reshaped with every thought, feeling word, and act. This process is intimately tied to genetic activity. Today you will casually perform some very mysterious actions: As an aware being you will imbue your desires with intention (“I’ll have the tuna salad”), direct your attention to specific objects and aspects of the world (“Just look at that sunset!”), and experience the shifting landscape of your inner world (“This movie is boring”) as you navigate the terrain of your mind.
However, no research has been able to define the scientific basis of these actions. There is no explanation for how the firing of action potentials in trillions of synapses made by billions of nerve cells actually produces an experience.
This is a perfect example of how the map isn’t the territory. The wiring of your brain is ever-changing, depending on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and habits. Many millions of dollars are being spent on the connectome, a complete mapping of the brain. But this will not explain how genes and neural circuits work together to bring us consciousness.
Brain and genome maps must be aligned with the fullness of human experience, since what you think, say, and do today shapes your genetic future. Nothing less than the equivalent of a “consciousome project” will suffice to serve this loftiest of scientific endeavors.
This is so nicely stated and for me at least, right on. I am not familiar with the ritual just this way — this is a visualization though that is powerful and guided by Holy Spirit in my experience the same as you describe.”
Visit http://globalmeditation.chopra.com/ and sign up to be part of the global meditation event of the year, and help set the Guinness World Record for the largest meditation gathering in history. Join Deepak Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstein, India Arie, and Maya Tiwari.
.
There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed.
I was inspired Saturday to look more into what I read in a blog by my friend Eve. I was really impressed on what I found out about from many articles on the life and spiritual blessing to humanity of Mirra Alfassa, also known as The Mother.
There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother was only for all this. She did her work here in the body to bring what was not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here – we may regard her as the Divine Shakti (the “empowerment” of primordial cosmic energy). She was that in body, but in her whole consciousness she was always with all aspects of the Divine and she was as an agent of all changes. Her mission clearly was for all Godliness and not religiousness.
Born Mirra Alfassa in Paris on 21 February 1878, The Mother established Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, and in 1968 an international township, Auroville. She had left behind spiritual deprivation saying:
“I came into contact with many people who said that they had a great inner aspiration, an urge towards something deeper and truer, but that they were tied down, subjected, slaves to that brutal necessity of earning their living, and that this weighed them down so much, took up so much of their time and energy that they could not engage in any other activity, inner or outer. I heard this very often, I saw many poor people — I don’t mean poor from the monetary point of view, but poor because they felt imprisoned in a material necessity, narrow and deadening.”
“I was very young at that time, and I always used to tell myself that if ever I could do it, I would try to create a little world — oh! quite a small one, but still… a small world where people would be able to live without having to be preoccupied with food and lodging and clothing and the imperative necessities of life, so as to see whether all the energies freed by this certainty of a secure material living would turn spontaneously towards the divine life and the inner realisation.”
Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this Universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play… regarding the structures in symbol of spiritual development. [Wikipedia]
The Matrimandir (Sanskrit for Temple of The Mother) is an edifice of spiritual significance for practitioners of Integral yoga, situated at the centre of Auroville initiated by The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is called soul of the city and is situated in a large open space called Peace. Matrimandir does not belong to any particular religion or sect. [Wikipedia]”
“…her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness”.
“…vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace”.
EACH time that a heart leaps at the touch of Thy divine breath, a little more beauty seems to be born upon the Earth, the air is embalmed with a sweet perfume, all becomes more friendly.
How great is Thy power, O Lord of all existences, that an atom of Thy joy is sufficient to efface so much darkness, so many sorrows and a single ray of Thy glory can light up thus the dullest pebble, illumine the blackest consciousness!…
Thou hast heaped Thy favours upon me, Thou hast unveiled to me many secrets, Thou hast made me taste many unexpected and unhoped for joys, but no grace of Thine can be equal to this Thou grantest to me when a heart leaps at the touch of Thy divine breath. At these blessed hours all earth sings a hymn of gladness, the grasses shudder with pleasure, the air is vibrant with light, the trees lift towards heaven their most ardent prayer, the chant of the birds becomes a canticle, the waves of the sea billow with love, the smile of children tells of the infinite and the souls of men appear in their eyes.…
Tell me, wilt Thou grant me the marvellous power to give birth to this dawn in expectant hearts, to awaken the consciousness of men to Thy sublime presence, and in this bare and sorrowful world awaken a little of Thy true Paradise? What happiness, what riches, what terrestrial powers can equal this wonderful gift!
Krishnamurti claimed allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy. He spent most of his life travelling the world, speaking to large and small groups and individuals… more
Freedom from the Known
TRANSCRIPT
Pursuit of Pleasure Jiddu Krishnamurti
We said in the last chapter that joy was something entirely different from pleasure, so let us find out what is involved in pleasure and whether it is at all possible to live in a world that does not contain pleasure but a tremendous sense of joy, of bliss.
We are all engaged in the pursuit of pleasure in some form or other – intellectual, sensuous or cultural pleasure, the pleasure of reforming, telling others what to do, of modifying the evils of society, of doing good – the pleasure of greater knowledge, greater physical satisfaction, greater experience, greater understanding of life, all the clever, cunning things of the mind – and the ultimate pleasure is, of course, to have God.
Pleasure is the structure of society. From childhood until death we are secretly, cunningly or obviously pursuing pleasure. So whatever our form of pleasure is, I think we should be very clear about it because it is going to guide and shape our lives. It is therefore important for each one of us to investigate closely, hesitantly and delicately this question of pleasure, for to find pleasure, and then nourish and sustain it, is a basic demand of life and without it existence becomes dull, stupid, lonely and meaningless.
You may ask why then should life not be guided by pleasure? For the very simple reason that pleasure must bring pain, frustration, sorrow and fear, and, out of fear, violence. If you want to live that way, live that way. Most of the world does, anyway, but if you want to be free from sorrow you must understand the whole structure of pleasure
To understand pleasure is not to deny it. We are not condemning it or saying it is right or wrong, but if we pursue it, let us do so with our eyes open, knowing that a mind that is all the time seeking pleasure must inevitably find its shadow, pain. They cannot be separated, although we run after pleasure and try to avoid pain.
Now, why is the mind always demanding pleasure? Why is it that we do noble and ignoble things with the undercurrent of pleasure? Why is it we sacrifice and suffer on the thin thread of pleasure? What is pleasure and how does it come into being? I wonder if any of you have asked yourself these questions and followed the answers to the very end?
Pleasure comes into being through four stages – perception, sensation, contact and desire. I see a beautiful motor car, say; then I get a sensation, a reaction, from looking at it; then I touch it or imagine touching it, and then there is the desire to own and show myself off in it. Or I see a lovely cloud, or a mountain clear against the sky, or a leaf that has just come in springtime, or a deep valley full of loveliness and splendour, or a glorious sunset, or a beautiful face, intelligent, alive, not self-conscious and therefore no longer beautiful. I look at these things with intense delight and as I observe them there is no observer but only sheer beauty like love. For a moment I am absent with all my problems, anxieties and miseries – there is only that marvellous thing. I can look at it with joy and the next moment forget it, or else the mind steps in, and then the problem begins; my mind thinks over what it has seen and thinks how beautiful it was; I tell myself I should like to see it again many times. Thought begins to compare, judge, and say `l must have it again tomorrow’. The continuity of an experience that has given delight for a second is sustained by thought.
It is the same with sexual desire or any other form of desire. There is nothing wrong with desire. To react is perfectly normal. If you stick a pin in me I shall react unless I am paralysed. But then thought steps in and chews over the delight and turns it into pleasure. Thought wants to repeat the experience, and the more you repeat, the more mechanical it becomes; the more you think about it, the more strength thought gives to pleasure. So thought creates and sustains pleasure through desire, and gives it continuity, and therefore the natural reaction of desire to any beautiful thing is perverted by thought. Thought turns it into a memory and memory is then nourished by thinking about it over and over again.
Of course, memory has a place at a certain level. In everyday life we could not function at all without it. In its own field it must be efficient but there is a state of mind where it has very little place. A mind which is not crippled by memory has real freedom.
Have you ever noticed that when you respond to something totally, with all your heart, there is very little memory? It is only when you do not respond to a challenge with your whole being that there is a conflict, a struggle, and this brings confusion and pleasure or pain. And the struggle breeds memory. That memory is added to all the time by other memories and it is those memories which respond. Anything that is the result of memory is old and therefore never free. There is no such thing as freedom of thought. It is sheer nonsense.
Thought is never new, for thought is the response of memory, experience, knowledge. Thought, because it is old, makes this thing which you have looked at with delight and felt tremendously for the moment, old. From the old you derive pleasure, never from the new. There is no time in the new.
So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in – at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives delight – if you can look at it without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear, and therefore tremendous joy.
It is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate pleasure which turns it into pain. Watch it in yourself. The very demand for the repetition of pleasure brings about pain, because it is not the same, as it was yesterday. You struggle to achieve the same delight, not only to your aesthetic sense but the same inward quality of the mind, and you are hurt and disappointed because it is denied to you.
Have you observed what happens to you when you are denied a little pleasure? When you don’t get what you want you become anxious, envious, hateful. Have you noticed when you have been denied the pleasure of drinking or smoking or sex or whatever it is – have you noticed what battles you go through? And all that is a form of fear, isn’t it? You are afraid of not getting what you want or of losing what you have. When some particular faith or ideology which you have held for years is shaken or torn away from you by logic or life, aren’t you afraid of standing alone? That belief has for years given you satisfaction and pleasure, and when it is taken away you are left stranded, empty, and the fear remains until you find another form of pleasure, another belief.
It seems to me so simple and because it is so simple we refuse to see its simplicity. We like to complicate everything. When your wife turns away from you, aren’t you jealous? Aren’t you angry? Don’t you hate the man who has attracted her? And what is all that but fear of losing something which has given you a great deal of pleasure, a companionship, a certain quality of assurance and the satisfaction of possession?
So if you understand that where there is a search for pleasure there must be pain, live that way if you want to, but don’t just slip into it. If you want to end pleasure, though, which is to end pain, you must be totally attentive to the whole structure of pleasure – not cut it out as monks and sannyasis do, never looking at a woman because they think it is a sin and thereby destroying the vitality of their understanding – but seeing the whole meaning and significance of pleasure. Then you will have tremendous joy in life. You cannot think about joy. Joy is an immediate thing and by thinking about it, you turn it into pleasure. Living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it.
Eric
Eric
the Hunt for Truth 
Epigenetics is a foundational Frontier Science for Positive Human Evolution.