Leo Tolstoy wrote a story, The Three Hermits. His friend Nicholas Roerich summarized the tale:
On an island there lived three old hermits. They were so simple that the only prayer they used was: “We are three; Thou art Three have mercy on us!”
Great miracles were manifested during this naive prayer.
A local bishop came to hear about the three hermits and their prayer, and he decided to visit them to teach them the canonical invocations. He arrived on the island, told the hermits that their heavenly petition was undignified, and taught them many of the customary prayers. The bishop then left on a boat. He saw, following the ship, a radiant light. As it approached, he discerned the three hermits, who were holding hands and running upon the waves in an effort to overtake the vessel.
“We have forgotten the prayers you taught us,” they cried as they reached the bishop, “and have hastened to ask you to repeat them.”
The awed bishop shook his head.
“Dear ones,” he replied humbly, “continue to live with your old prayer!”
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EDMR)
The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense issued clinical practice guidelines that recommend EDMR for the treatment of PTSD. Perhaps, the rapid eye movement allows the patient less opportunity to consciously react to the distress that they are reviewing. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. Positive controlled outcome studies demonstrate that >80% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress after only three 90-minute sessions. Reportedly, Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer suffer with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. EMDR Institute, Inc. reported that 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions.
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EDMR) 20/20 Report
. Francine Shapiro is the originator and developer of EMDR.
In 1987, she made the chance observation that moving her eyes from side to side appeared to reduce the disturbance of negative thoughts and memories. This experience led her to examine this phenomenon more systematically. Working with approximately 70 volunteers, she developed standardized procedures to maximize therapeutic outcomes, conducted additional research and a published randomized controlled study with trauma victims. After further research and elaboration of the methodology, she published a textbook in 1995 detailing the eight phases of this form of psychotherapy. EMDR is now recommended as an effective treatment for trauma in numerous international practice guidelines, including those of the American Psychiatric Association and the Department of Defense.
Dr. Shapiro is a Senior Research Fellow Emeritus at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, Executive Director of the EMDR Institute in Watsonville, CA, and founder and President Emeritus of the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs, a non-profit organization that coordinates disaster response and low fee training worldwide. see also: https://www.emdr.com/
Earth Sentinels: The Storm Creators eBook
Only 99¢ – In recognition of Indigenous People’s Day
A must read!” says Dennis Nighthawk, healer, spiritual leader and tribe member of the White Laurel Band of Cherokee.
Lonny Hall, tribe member of Kon Kow Valley Band of Maidu, said, “Earth Sentinels is gripping, takes the reader hostage, and educates on the cultural similarities and differences of spiritual leaders from all over the world.
A human being is not a “single” living entity, we are actually a community of upwards of fifty trillion sentient cellular citizens. In truth, we are “skin-covered” Petri dishes containing trillions of cells. The culture medium in our bodies is the blood. Consequently, the fate of our body’s cells is influenced by the composition of our blood in the same manner that the fate of cultured stem cells are influenced by changing the chemistry of the culture environment (Note: Yes, the above has already been stated in other posts in the biology of belief blog).
The big question then amounts to, “What controls the chemistry of our blood, which in turn influences the fate of our health and biology?” As mentioned above, the trillions of cells comprising our bodies are organized into a massive community, within which cells take on specialized functions to support the life of the community. Some…
The practice of living consciously is the first pillar of self-esteem.
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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
Earth Sentinels a novel I like . . .. Everything that is, is, in some way, an integral part of the universe. Throughout history in every past that we know of, humans have been at odds with other humans. Recently, a lot of people are fed up with that..I know, I was fed up with that. I wanted to discover a divine nature. I wanted to give up fighting and contrasting and find ways to connect and to share. I was entirely fed up with being against something..Here is where I was when I picked up the story, The Earth Sentinels: The Storm Creators, by Shaman Elizabeth Herrera..All of our being is part of all of being. Our struggles from all around the world are connected just as our joys in a moment with a few we love are globally and integrally connected to all that is. .
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As Telling and Accurate as “Animal Farm” and “Fahrenheit 451.”
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The newly released novel, “Earth Sentinels: The Storm Creators” by Shaman Elizabeth Herrera is a no-holds-barred piece of literary realism that sheds light on the serious issues affecting our planet while artfully weaving a captivating story filled with fascinating characters.
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
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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.
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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.
Scientists have been searching for more evidence with regard to pathogenesis and pathophysiology of depression and the resultant neurobiological effects thereof. But the elucidation of the underlying pathophysiology of this condition continues to be elusive. Some theories claim that depression is linked to a dysfunction of the dopaminergic and GABA-ergic system. Others assert that it is associated with a deficit of norepinephrine and serotonin exacerbated by an alteration in the expression of neuropeptides. Yet another theory claims that the overdrive of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal system is another risk factor for depression.
Chances are that a combination of all these factors can certainly intensify the onset of depression.
Depression can be draining. It can take away your energy, dampen your hopes for the future and your drive. It even cripples the desire to do what is needed to feel better. Scientists tell us that some of the symptoms of depression include agitation, significant low sex drive, being irritable, having digestive disorders, experiencing headaches, being fatigued, having feelings of guilty and helplessness as well as insomnia. But there are also times when depressed people might want to sleep all the time.
Although the word ‘depression’ does not appear in the Bible except in the New Living Translation, there are many people who manifested depressive symptoms in the Bible such as Elijah, Hannah, King Saul, John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Job and many others. God does not get upset, nor does He punish us just because we experience discouragement and depression. These disorders are often triggered by events beyond our control such as the death of a loved one, divorce or loss of job.
Living in a fallen, sinful world means that we will experience the tragic dimensions of life from time to time until the Lord comes to take us home.
The joy of our salvation is in the confident assurance of God’s manward abundant mercies and in the realization that He responds to our hurts as a loving Father. The Bible says in Psalm 34:18 that the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. It also says “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever,” (John 14:16). Furthermore, knowing that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53: 3) means that He is not a stranger to our suffering, and because He has already been there and has overcome, we also can overcome through Him. This is our hope and our strength through it all.
Discover time-tested guidelines for disease prevention that will change your life for good at: The Perfect Prescription by Reigh Simuzoshya.
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The Perfect Prescription
Godly Wisdom on Public Health by Reigh Simuzoshya
This book is also available for purchase as an eBook download.
Do you know that God is more interested in your health than you could ever be?
The Bible is full of holistic principles and guidelines, which, if applied consistently, can prevent disease and promote optimum health. Preventive measures are often less costly than curative therapies, and these principles can be applied at individual, family, and community levels.
The human body is a fearful and wonderful machine, capable of performing incredible functions. God has stamped his own image on it. How absurd it is then to look elsewhere other than to the omnipotent and omniscient Manufacturer of the human body for guidelines regarding its well-being and health?
Far from being an obsolete and archaic document saturated with myths and superstition, the Bible is a rich repository, an inexhaustible mine, of counsel for all facets of life, including health and longevity.
Explore the time-tested, efficacious principles that are foundational for disease prevention, health enhancement, and long life straight from the creator of our bodies himself with “The Perfect Prescription.”
Today’s post is directed at my fellow bloggers who write. I follow a lot of authors’ blogs and feel honored to read where you are on your journey, whether you have been established and have several books published or whether you are just getting started following your dream. I enjoy reading about those of you that have taken the traditional publishing route, as well as those of you who have mastered the arduous task of figuring out the self-publishing world.
As such, I thought it would be fun to interview some of you, then I will publish a post about you and what you are currently writing (as well as anything you may have already published, if you are already there in your journey). So if you would be interested in being a featured writer, please email me at the address below (which I have put in JPEG format to elude spammers). Once you send me an email telling me you are up for an interview, I’ll send you some questions and you can send back your answers as well as any photos of you and/or your book[s] that you want included, and links to where other bloggers can find your blog and your work.
Thank you all, and I look forward to hearing from you.
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
Depression can be draining. It can take away your energy, dampen your hopes for the future and your drive. It even cripples the desire to do what is needed to feel better. Scientists tell us that some of the symptoms of depression include agitation, significant low sex drive, being irritable, having digestive disorders, experiencing headaches, being fatigued, having feelings of guilty and helplessness as well as insomnia. But there are also times when depressed people might want to sleep all the time.
Eric
the Hunt for Truth 