Z, Contributing Writer
Waking Times
The concept of counting coup is a Native American act of courage referring to the winning of prestige in battle. A person wins prestige by uncommon acts of bravery in the face of an enemy. Danger and risk is required to count coup and it can be recorded by touching an enemy in battle and then escaping unharmed.
We have all the choice to make. To continue to operate and experience the limitation of fear and separation, or we can let it go and move forward into a more natural state of expansive, playful consciousness where anything is possible. Absolutely anything!
Excerpted from J. Krishnamurti’s Life Story and Teachings. Krishnamurti asks us to give deep attention to this question of why we won’t change when we already understand the importance of changing. Why won’t we prevent all wars to save our own children? Will we be forever nationalistic? We are psychologically conditioned, and to actually change for the better we must each individually break through this conditioning.
“Yoga is to make yourself better than what you were before.” – Shubha
“It is a way of developing mental peace, and also a way of respecting mental peace in others.” – Sribhashyam
The new man will not have any guilt. The new man will not have any split. The new man will have only one religion; that is awareness. The new man will have only one world, this world. Because that world is hidden behind it. This world is like a circumference, and that world is the center. And I call the whole man the holy man; then he becomes Zorba the Buddha.
The “tree of life” represents the human body, Adam represents the masculine energy in our bodies (yang in Chinese Theory) and Eve represents the feminine energy in our bodies (yin in Chinese theory). The snake or serpent represents the sexual/life-force energy inside our bodies (known as “Kundalini” in Yoga, which is also represented as a snake or serpent).
Sub-atomic particles, molecules, and cells work together to form the tissues, muscles, and organ systems that make living beings. Many organisms live together in populations and communities, and along with their surrounding form giant, interdependent ecosystems. Together, all of these things inhabit our biosphere, and the Earth itself is dependent on the parts of its whole. But the connection does not stop there.
For me, questions are the way we activate our thought processes but they should not be necessarily considered answerable. After all, how could one expect the finite to comprehend the infinite?
We are automata entirely controlled by the forces of the medium being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant of the impulses from the outside for free will… A very sensitive and observant being, with his highly developed mechanism all intact, and acting with precision in obedience to the changing conditions of the environment, is endowed with a transcending mechanical sense, enabling him to evade perils too subtle to be directly perceived. – Tesla, 1919
We cannot just go to the spirits and expect them to give us what we want. They may well have other plans for us. In fact, rather than asking — or, as some people do, demanding — that they heal us, or transform us, or make us into someone else, we should just pour out our hearts to them in prayer. We should not go to them with requests or demands or even expectations.
When such values are systematically sabotaged, then you can say that the dawn of the doomsday has begun. When we look at a harmless beggar as a pest and envy billionaires who routinely destroy the earth, we are inviting doomsday to come.
It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life – a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure.
Most people who experience Ayahuasca report some sort of spiritual experience. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to describe the spiritual effects due to the lack of spirit in our language. Western culture is simply ignorant of the science of spirit that is still practiced today in the Amazon Rainforest.
Research in the new discipline of neurocardiology shows that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated center for receiving and processing information. The nervous system within the heart (or “heart brain”) enables it to learn, remember, and make functional decisions independent of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Moreover, numerous experiments have demonstrated that the signals the heart continuously sends to the brain influence the function of higher brain centers involved in perception, cognition, and emotional processing.
THE LAW OF FOCUS
You can’t think of two things at the same time.
When our focus is on Spiritual Values it is impossible for us to have lower thoughts such as greed or anger.
As I listened to Louise, I thought about the classic wake-up call, the often-abrupt and unexpected rupture that can occur in a comfortably numb life. I certainly had my share of these before I finally started to wake up—gut-wrenching heartbreaks, the shame of being fired from a job, and a real fire that destroyed our family business. In fact, it was that fire that ultimately brought me out of my deep sleep and planted me firmly on the spiritual path.
The absence of fear is love. I believe the collective reality in the world would change overnight if love replaced fear in the forefront of our thoughts. And I think love is the secret ingredient to solve all of the seemingly complex issues of our time. I may be wrong about all this, but experience tells me there is definitely something to it.
Researcher and inspiring lecturer David Wilcock talks about consciousness, our psyches and how we can heal the world through meditative awareness and conscious intention. A must watch.
At its most basic level and now widely accepted understanding, meditation is simply stilling the mind and settling into the ever present “now.” When we also take into consideration that past and future are simply linear constructs and the present is all that exists (and persists), the process for focusing on the now can become a lot easier to experience and the practice of meditation far more effective. Perhaps it would be helpful to meditate on that concept, in and of itself.
To truly desire great health, try visualizing what your life and body would be like once you have it. Think about how you would look and feel after having achieved your short-term goal, and then think about it again after having achieved a long-term goal. Want to kick it up and notch and really amplify progress? Imagine you are incredibly healthy and have the perfect body in the present.
