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Cultivate Life!

July 1st, 2008

Quotes of the Week

"There is a wisdom of the head, and ... a wisdom of the heart!" --Charles Dickens

"Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also." --Robert Browning

"It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason." --Blaise Pascal

Learn Out Loud

I was particularly pleased to discover that Learn Out Loud is featuring all 146 of the Cultivate Life! Podcasts on their site. This is a convenient way to access the Podcasts online (while you're there would you please give us a review?) And there's more... a free subscription to Learn Out Loud entitles you to a whole range of excellent free audio and video downloads, with more added each week. Highly recommended!

New Features at Trans4mind
Wallace Huey visited me here in France during the last week. As a result, there is no Heart to Heart Coaching in the issue this week, but of course it will return in the next issue. We had a productive time however... When next week's issue arrives, you'll find that the name of the magazine has changed and the Trans4mind site itself has been completely revamped! All sorts of changes are in the pipeline and we think you'll be happy.

In this week's magazine we include two very long articles - please don't be put off by their length... I believe they contain a lot of very interesting information.

The Many Benefits of Heart-Centeredness

There is a new trend these days, a positive one in the direction of wholeness, toward becoming more heart-centered. Begging the question, what is meant by "heart-centeredness"?

Actually, the term "heart-centered" may be a bit misleading, as it might indicate a move from the head to the heart. I prefer, instead, to look at this phenomenon as opening up the heart, and to call it "heart-openness." (As we shall soon find out, current scientific research shows that we may already be more heart-centered than we know.)

As a believer in wholism and being whole, I feel that we are healthier and more whole when we develop and use more of our faculties and abilities. In the present context, this means that we want to use our heads and hearts (as well as our guts, intuition, etc.)--and have them all work together in a seamless whole. In order to become more heart-centered, we don't want to stop thinking! We just want to open up our feeling center more and feel while we think and think while we feel. We may not need open-heart surgery, as much as we may need heart-opening surgery!

The move toward heart-centeredness in Western industrialized societies is truly a step toward wholeness. Yet it is not just Western societies that are starting to inch toward wholeness: interestingly, there is also a move in less industrialized, "third-world" societies (that have traditionally been more heart-centered) toward further developing their rational, head-oriented faculties (technical, analytical, etc.)--thus embracing their wholeness.

So, why aren't we in the West already "heart-open"?

The Age of Reason propelled our Western society increasingly into our heads, and our contemporary materialistic focus has served to cement us there. As we have become more "rational," we have tended to discount and dismiss the "non-rational" (i.e., heart-centered) faculties as beneath us or as lesser attributes not to be relied upon. The rational, empirical and pragmatic alone are to be trusted. Interestingly, even if we tend to see ourselves as "left-brain" or "right-brain," we're still viewing ourselves as being in our heads. If we truly wished to be head-centered, we could at least be whole-brain, rather than half-brain!

Thus, our excessive rationalism has led us to disown our feelings and live in our (divided) heads. And if we do get into our feelings, we tend just to talk about them, rather than genuinely feel them. Certainly, our age of specialization has led us to be more one-dimensional, relying on only one facet of ourselves and leading us to be less than we can really be.

When we layer in on top of these factors another influence that we have seen in our society in the last thirty years--that of hiding our feelings--it is easy to see why we are not more heart-open. There has been increasing pressure in our society not to show emotions (or "wear our hearts on our sleeves") and thus be vulnerable. We must protect ourselves by appearing "cool." This tendency has been further aided and abetted by our advertising and popular media that have encouraged us to be image-conscious. In addition, increasing urbanization and crowding, to say nothing of an escalating crime rate, have led many of us to protect ourselves by putting our emotional armor on and erecting walls between ourselves and others.

On the flip side, if we're not image-conscious or acting cool, this may indicate that we have closed down emotionally. The extreme emotional sensitivity and past pains of some of us may have led us to feel pain more easily than pleasure or happiness. Our hearts may have become figuratively scarred (because, perhaps, we're scared) and closed off. It's no wonder, then, that some of us shut our hearts, live in our heads, or fall into habits of negative thinking such cynicism or fearfulness.

Given all of the above, why should we even want to become more heart-centered? What is so special about the heart?

Physically seated in the chest, protected by the ribs, and actually fairly tough, the heart is pear-shaped and consists of four chambers. It is composed of muscle and is a little bigger than a fist. Health-wise, the heart can be affected by hypertension, clogged arteries, etc. A healthy flow in the heart is vital to its health, just as a healthy flow is desirable in our overall energy.

Figuratively, according to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, we know the heart as the "seat of emotion," the place where "our inmost thoughts and feelings" reside. The heart is also seen as "the vital or most essential part; the real meaning; the core."

We have always accorded the heart a special place in our world, almost as if we have an innate sense of its complex importance. We use phrases such as "to set one's heart on" and "with all one's heart" on a daily basis. While we have apparently always had an intuitive awareness of the key role of the heart in our emotional wellbeing, scientists may have tended to dispute the validity or empirical value of these idioms and have therefore discounted such folksy wisdom.

It is fascinating that we have traditionally viewed the heart in two ways, both as a physical organ and, figuratively, as vital and involved with emotion--because recent scientific research has yielded some provocative findings that show a basis for such a wedding of viewpoints.

Last summer I was fortunate enough to attend the annual IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences) conference, where I was introduced to the work of the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) in California. Aside from research into phantom DNA and subtle energy (they've also invented an instrument that measures subtle energy), they have done extensive research into the heart, which sheds light on the subject of heart-centeredness. I'll share some of their research here. Should you want more detail, you can visit their web site and read the research for yourself.

The IHM's research points out that the heart is the largest wave generator in the body, with an electrical field that has been detected and measured five feet away from the body. The waves the heart generates (as measured by an EKG) can actually entrain the brain's waves (as measured by an EEG). Entrainment involves synchronizing two wave or energy systems. In a very wholistic way, the heart's waves can actually entrain our whole physical system (brain, immune system, etc.). Writes Joseph Sundram of the IHM, "The heart generates an electrical information field that not only permeates every cell in the body, including the cells of the brain, but also radiates out into space." In addition, one person's heart waves can affect another person's brain-wave patterns!

There is also an intelligence and consciousness in the heart. Writes Doc Lew Childre of the IHM, the "heart has unusual perceptual and intuitive information-processing capabilities ... and has its own frequency range of intelligence that is not controlled by the brain or the autonomic nervous system. The heart is autorhythmic, which means that it beats on its own without requiring input from the brain or nervous system." The heart and brain communicate with each other via nerves and hormones, and the heart's communication to the brain "directly affects perception, reaction speeds, balance, intuition, and decision-making ability." The "feeling and emotional perceptions of the heart," when communicated to the brain, trigger "chemical changes in neurotransmitters and hormones throughout the body."

Simplified, this research indicates that the heart affects our consciousness to such an extent that, in order truly to understand anything, we need to have our hearts open while we are thinking. Thinking with the mind alone (extreme intellectualism), or divorcing the heart while in the act of cogitation, leads to sterile thoughts devoid of true understanding.

The heart also impacts the health of the immune system, hormonal balance (including the production of DHEA), thinking ability and creativity, DNA, entrainment, and healthy cell growth--and can even inhibit the growth of tumor cells! 

What makes the difference in whether the heart's effects are positive or negative? Importantly, it is the type of emotions we have that affect our heart function--and how, in turn, this entrains our whole physical system. Dan Winter, a psychophysiologist, has mapped emotions in the heart. Twice he has spoken at SFF (Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship) meetings, and I was serendipitously fortunate enough to hear him both times. He has shown how coherent emotions--ones, such as love and appreciation, that create wave patterns in phase with each other--affect the braiding (patterning) of DNA.

Similarly, the IHM has researched how coherent emotions affect the heart and health. Coherent emotions produce a heart-wave pattern that is smooth and symmetrical; noncoherent emotions (anger, frustration, resentment, caustic humor, etc.), by contrast, produce a jagged wave pattern. Coherent emotions produce heart rate variability, vital for life and health, whereas negative emotions do not. Noncoherent, or negative, emotions close the heart down and cause constriction.

In addition to the way they feel, negative emotions are also potentially accompanied by the following ill effects: suppression of the immune system; hormonal imbalance; inability to think clearly; cardiovascular strain; a tendency to negatively impact others; tumor growth; and a negative impact on DNA. Indeed, recalling an angry memory for just five minutes can suppress the immune system for up to five hours. (On the other hand, let it be noted, suppressing anger can also have ill health effects.)

It is through feeling--not thinking about, but really feeling--coherent emotions that we optimize health, reduce stress, promote longevity, optimize our thinking and creative faculties, access intuitive intelligence, gain true understanding, entrain our physical system (for wholeness), experience a healthy flow of energy, and positively affect others. And if this weren't enough, again to cite Doc Lew Childre, IHM research further indicates that "the quantum electrical field of the heart is where love, or Spirit, enters the human system ... where Spirit meets matter." 

So how do we start to feel coherent emotions more in our stressful contemporary lives?

At present, there are two techniques I am aware of that can help. One is the "Freeze Frame" technique devised by IHM (and delineated in the book Freeze Frame: One Minute Stress Management by Doc Lew Childre), which incorporates recognizing the stressful feeling by becoming consciously aware of it (conscious living), shifting your focus to your heart for ten seconds, recalling a "positive, fun feeling" and re-experiencing it, asking your heart what would be a more efficient response to the stressful situation, listening to your heart's answer, and then writing down your response. (Please note that this is a bare outline of the technique and does not do it full justice. IHM conducts workshops in Freeze Frame.)

The second technique is called The Natural Process. It, too, is a meditative method--but contains more elements of what I would call spirituality. Information on The Natural Process technique was received by Margaret Keen in a near-death experience (NDE) she had in 1978. She was told in her NDE not to release the technique until 1993. I was fortunate enough to learn it in 1994 and I currently offer workshops on the technique and incorporate it into my healing practice.

The Natural Process simulates a near-death experience through which one experiences love, peace, knowing, light, perfection, and oneness. It is truly a method that enables one to move towards heart-centeredness (and heart-openness) in a positive way, facilitating the feeling of coherent emotions and the resultant positive benefits in one's body. One can receive transformative and lasting effects from The Natural Process as well.

I'm confident, as time goes on, that we'll see more techniques facilitating the opening of our heart and allowing us to move forward toward wholeness. What an exciting time we're living in, in which science continues to validate many of the world's venerable spiritual teachings! 

Copyright © 2008 by Diane Brandon. All Rights Reserved.
Diane Brandon is the Host of "Living Your Power" on the Health & Wellness Channel of VoiceAmerica.com and the new show, "Vibrant Living," debuting late May 2008 on Webtalkradio.net, as well as an Intuition Expert and Teacher, Integrative Intuitive Counselor, and Speaker. She is author of Invisible Blueprints and several articles on personal growth topics, as well as contributing author to Speaking Out and The Long Way Around: How 34 Women Found the Lives They Love. Her private work with individuals focuses on personal growth, working with dreams, and personal empowerment. In addition, she has done corporate seminars on intuition, creativity, and listening skills. More information may be found on her websites, DianeBrandon.com.

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Does Consciousness Depend on the Brain?

"In this materialistic age, dualists are often accused of smuggling outmoded religious beliefs back into science, of introducing superfluous spiritual forces into biology, and of venerating an invisible "ghost in the machine." However, our utter ignorance concerning the real origins of human consciousness marks such criticism more a matter of taste than of logical thinking. At this stage of mind science, dualism is not irrational, merely somewhat unfashionable." --Nick Herbert, Elemental Mind.

The strongest arguments against the existence of an afterlife are those that deny the possibility of consciousness existing apart from the biological brain. These arguments derive their strongest force from common and undeniable facts of experience, and from their supposed association with the findings of modern science. But in fact, these arguments have an ancient history.

The Greek atomists were the first to define the soul in terms of material atoms. Epicurus (342-270 BC) defined the soul as "a body of fine particles ... most resembling breath with an admixture of heat." He stressed the complete dependence of soul on body, so that when the body loses breath and heat, the soul is dispersed and extinguished. The Roman poet Lucretius (99-55 BC) took up the arguments of Epicurus, and continued the atomist tradition of describing the mind as composed of extremely fine particles. Lucretius wrote one of the earliest and most cogent treatises advancing the arguments that the relation between mind and body is so close that the mind depends upon the body and therefore cannot exist without it. First, he argued that the mind matures and ages with the growth and decay of the body; second, that wine and disease of the body can affect the mind; third, the mind is disturbed when the body is stunned by a blow; and finally, if the soul is immortal, why does it have no memories of its previous existence?

Similar arguments, to the effect that the mind is a function of the brain, were taken up with greater force nineteen centuries later, in the work of men such as Thomas Huxley. More recently, Corliss Lamont, former president of the American Humanist Association, has written one of the most extensive statements of the materialist positions in his book The Illusion of Immortality, the title of which speaks for itself. He tells us in the preface that he started out as a believer in a future life, but does not give us the reasons why he held the belief against which he reacted so strongly.

Lamont rightly contends that the fundamental issue is the relationship of personality to body, and divides the various positions into two broad categories: monism, which asserts that body and personality are bound together and cannot exist apart; and dualism, which asserts that body and personality are separable entities which may exist apart. Lamont is convinced that the facts of modern science weigh heavily in favor of monism, and offers the following as scientific evidence that the mind depends upon the body:

• In the evolutionary process the versatility of living forms increases with the development and complexity of their nervous systems
• The mind matures and ages with the growth and decay of the body
• Alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs can affect the mind
• Destruction of brain tissue by disease, or by a severe blow to the head, can impair normal mental activity; the functions of seeing, hearing and speech are correlated with specific areas of the brain.
• Thinking and memory depend upon the cortex of the brain, and so "it is difficult beyond measure to understand how they could survive after the dissolution, decay or destruction of the living brain in which they had their original locus."

Lamont briefly considers the findings of psychical research, but contends that they do not alter the picture, because of the possibility of other interpretations, such as fraud and telepathy. However, Lamont's portrayal of psychic research is extremely superficial, and contains several incorrect and misleading statements. For a trenchant critique of Lamont's book, exposing a mass of inconsistencies and non-sequitur, see chapter XIII of A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life after Death, by C. J. Ducasse.

In summary, the various arguments against the possibility of survival are: the effects of age, disease, and drugs on the mind; the effect of brain damage on mental activity, and specifically, the fact that lesions of certain regions of the brain eliminates or impairs particular capacities; and the idea that memories are stored in the brain and therefore cannot survive the destruction of the brain. The inference drawn from these observations is that the correlation of mental and physical processes is so close that it is inconceivable how the mind could exist apart from the brain. Except for the appeals of the modern writers to the terminology of neuroscience, the arguments advanced in favor of the dependence of the mental on the physical are essentially the same as those advanced by Lucretius.

There are really two separate issues here: one is the logical possibility of survival, and the other is the empirical possibility. The post-mortem existence of consciousness is at least a logical possibility - that is, there is no self-contradiction in the assertion that consciousness may exist in the absence of a brain. Then the question becomes whether or not survival is an empirical possibility - that is, whether or not the idea of survival is compatible with the facts and laws of nature as currently understood.

All the arguments mentioned above that are opposed to the empirical possibility of survival are based upon a certain assumption of the relationship between mind and body that usually goes unstated. For instance, one of the arguments mentioned earlier starts with the observation that a severe blow to the head can cause the cessation of consciousness; from this it is concluded that consciousness is produced by a properly functioning brain, and so cannot exist in its absence.

However, this conclusion is not based on the evidence alone. There is an implicit, unstated assumption behind this argument, and it is often unconsciously employed. The hidden premise behind this argument can be illustrated with the analogy of listening to music on a radio, smashing the radio's receiver, and thereby concluding that the radio was producing the music. The implicit assumption made in all the arguments discussed above was that the relationship between brain activity and consciousness was always one of cause to effect, and never that of effect to cause. But this assumption is not known to be true, and it is not the only conceivable one consistent with the observed facts mentioned earlier. Just as consistent with the observed facts is the idea that the brain's function is that of an intermediary between mind and body - or in other words, that the brain's function is that of a receiver-transmitter - sometimes from body to mind, and sometimes from mind to body.

The idea that the brain functions as an intermediary between mind and body is an ancient one. We have seen how Hippocrates described the brain as "the messenger to consciousness" and as "the interpreter for consciousness." But, like the materialist theory, this ancient argument also has its modern proponents - most notably Schiller, Bergson, and James.

Ferdinand Schiller was an Oxford philosopher in 1891 when a book titled Riddles of the Sphinx: A Study in the Philosophy of Humanism appeared which, according to the cover, was written by a 'Troglodyte' (cave-dweller). This troglodyte turned out to be Schiller, who in his book attacked the prevailing materialism of the late nineteenth without revealing his name in order to avoid "the barren honours of a useless martyrdom." Schiller likened himself to the man in Plato's Republic who has glimpsed the truth but finds that his fellow cave-dwellers simply do not believe his accounts, and so consider him ridiculous.

In his book Schiller proposes that "matter is admirably calculated machinery for regulating, limiting and restraining the consciousness which it encases." He argues that the simpler physical structure of 'lower beings' depresses their consciousness to a lower point, and that the higher organizational complexity of man allows a higher level of consciousness. In other words,

Matter is not what produces consciousness but what limits it and confines its intensity within certain limits. This explanation admits the connection of Matter and Consciousness, but contends that the course of interpretation must proceed in the contrary direction. Thus it will fit the facts which Materialism rejected as 'supernatural' and thereby attains to an explanation which is ultimately tenable instead of one which is ultimately absurd. And it is an explanation the possibility of which no evidence in favour of Materialism can possibly affect.

As for the effects of brain injury, Schiller argues that an equally good explanation is to say that the manifestation of consciousness has been prevented by the injury, rather than extinguished by it. With regard to memory, he thinks that it is forgetfulness rather than memory that is in need of a physical explanation: pointing out the total recall experienced under hypnosis and 'the extraordinary memories of the drowning and dying generally', he argues that we never really forget anything, but rather are prevented from recalling it by the limitations of the brain.

The French philosopher Henri Bergson held similar ideas to those of Schiller, although it is unclear if he ever read Riddles of the Sphinx. Bergson attempted to reconcile physical determinism with the apparent freedom of human behavior by proposing a theory of evolution whereby matter is crossed by creative consciousness: matter and consciousness interact, with both being elemental components of the universe, neither reducible to the other.

According to Bergson the brain canalizes and limits the mind, restricting its focus of attention and excluding factors irrelevant for the organism's survival and propagation. He assumed that memories have an extra-cerebral location, but that most are normally screened out for practical purposes, and in support of this, refers to near-death experiences in which the subjects' entire life histories flashed before their eyes. The brain is therefore both "the organ of attention to life" and an obstacle to wider awareness. He speculates that if the brain is a limiting obstacle, filtering out forms of consciousness not necessary for the organism's biological needs, then freedom from the body may well result in a more extended form of consciousness, which continues along its path of creative evolution.

In 1898 the American psychologist and philosopher William James delivered the Ingersoll Lecture. At the start of the lecture he first remarks that "Every one knows that arrests of brain development occasion imbecility, that blows on the head abolish memory or consciousness, and that brain-stimulants and poisons change the quality of our ideas." He then makes the point that modern physiologists "have only shown this generally admitted fact of a dependence to be detailed and minute" in that "the various special forms of thinking are functions of special portions of the brain."

James then explores the various possibilities for the exact type of functional dependence between the brain and consciousness. It is normally thought of as productive, in the sense that steam is produced as a function of the kettle. But this is not the only form of function that we find in nature: we also have at least two other forms of functional dependence: the permissive function, as found in the trigger of a crossbow; and the transmissive function, as of a lens or a prism. The lens or prism do not produce the light but merely transmit it in a different form. As James writes:

"Similarly, the keys of an organ have only a transmissive function. They open successively the various pipes and let the wind in the air-chest escape in various ways. The voices of the various pipes are constituted by the columns of air trembling as they emerge. But the air is not engendered in the organ. The organ proper, as distinguished from its air-chest, is only an apparatus for letting portions of it loose upon the world in these peculiarly limited shapes."

James then raises an objection to the transmissive theory of the body-mind relationship: yes, the transmission theory may be a logical possibility, but isn't it just unbridled speculation? Isn't the production hypothesis simpler? Is it not more rigorously scientific to take the relationship between brain and mind to be one of production, not transmission?

But as James points out, from the standpoint of strictly empirical science, these objections carry no weight whatsoever. Strictly speaking, the most we can ever observe is concomitant variation between states of the brain and states of mind - when brain activity changes in a certain way, then consciousness changes also. The hypothesis of production, or of transmission, is something that we add to the observations of concomitant variation in order to account for it. A scientist never observes states of the brain producing states of consciousness. Indeed, it is not even clear what we could possibly mean by observing such production.

And as for the objection that the transmission hypothesis is somehow fantastic, exactly the same objection can be raised against the production theory. In the case of the production of steam by a kettle we have an easily understood model - of alterations of molecular motion - because the components that change are physically homogenous with each other. But part of the reason the mind-body relationship has seemed so puzzling for so long is because mental and physical events seem so completely unlike each other. This radical difference in their natures makes it exceedingly difficult to conceptualize the relationship between the two in terms of anything of which we are familiar. It is partly for this reason that even though it has been more than a century since James delivered his lecture, in all that time neither psychology nor physiology has been able to produce any intelligible model of how biochemical processes could possibly be transformed into conscious experience.

It has been pointed out many times that there is no logical requirement that only 'like can cause like' - or in other words, that only things of a similar nature can affect each other. But this consideration has not removed the mystery from the mind-body relationship.

As James wrote, the production of consciousness by the brain, if it does in fact occur, is "as far as our understanding goes, as great a miracle as if we said, thought is 'spontaneously generated,' or 'created out of nothing.'" James continued:

"The theory of production is therefore not a jot more simple or credible in itself than any other conceivable theory. It is only a little more popular. All that one need do, therefore, if the ordinary materialist should challenge one to explain how the brain can be an organ for limiting and determining to a certain form a consciousness elsewhere produced, is to ask him in turn to explain how it can be an organ for producing consciousness out of whole cloth. For polemic purposes, the two theories are thus exactly on a par."

James wrote these works around the turn of the nineteenth century, but since then these arguments have been endorsed and developed by several more recent philosophers and psychologists, such as philosophers Curt Ducasse and David Lund, and psychologist Cyril Burt. The latter elegantly summarized the position set forth earlier by Schiller, Bergson, and James:

"The brain is not an organ that generates consciousness, but rather an instrument evolved to transmit and limit the processes of consciousness and of conscious attention so as to restrict them to those aspects of the material environment which at any moment are crucial for the terrestrial success of the individual. In that case such phenomena as telepathy and clairvoyance would be merely instances in which some of the limitations were removed."

Chris Carter is author of Parapsychology and the Skeptics: A Scientific Argument for the Existence of ESP. Carter describes how the so-called skeptics have gone to the most extraordinary lengths to deny, distort, and suppress the amazing evidence for psychic (psi) phenomena, and he explains the reasons for the continuing refusal of belief. He convincingly shows that for these 'skeptics,' protecting an ideology based on outmoded science is more important than getting to the truth. The Parapsychology and the Skeptics site contains book excerpts, interviews and articles.

"This is one of the longest running debates in the history of science, but changes could soon come faster than most people think possible. Parapsychology and the Skeptics is an invaluable guide to what is going on. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to be part of a scientific revolution in the making." --Rupert Sheldrake

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Imaginations

Wild imaginations
Prove incredible capacity of mind
When ideas wander
Thousands of mysteries entwine

Erratic thoughts
Passing through crests and troughs
Struggling way through this maze
Seems really tough

Thousands of webs woven
Then hundreds of them broken
Human mind still wandering
Melting desires that are frozen

Plethora of flamboyant dreams
Web of utopian concepts
Unending phantasmagoric shadows
Surreal emptiness

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Finding Truth!

Do you get tired? Me too.

What do you do to relieve it? I find that just sitting with the fact of being tired, helps to alleviate the feeling. Sit still, get quiet, rest your mind. BREATHE. This is my favorite thing to do.

In another word, it is a call to MEDITATE (for those who like to label).

If it is really bad I will take a nap or sleep, if that is what I need. The key is to be aware of you. Know who you are, Find out every bit of information that makes you who you are. Now re-read that last sentence again for I believe it has huge meaning. "Find out every bit of information that makes you who you are."

This leads me to think about how "who we think we are is just a projection of our mind." Your life is a movie that is being projected onto the screen. The reason that it seems so real to you correlates directly to the degree with which you are buying into or believing it to be true.

Does this lead you to understand how truly powerful you really are? If you could be aware of the core beliefs and thoughts that are creating your perception or image of reality then you could interrupt those beliefs and thoughts and transform them to anything you would like to change them to. It is a matter of going to the beginning or I could say, the end, for in reality they are all the same.

Now here is what I would think you would find... If you traveled to the beginning or the end of time what you would discover would be TRUTH. That's right, if you strip away all the layers and coverings that have been placed over truth, what will you find? Truth!

Truth is all powerful, eternal and unchanging. Man in their ignorance cannot dilute or change truth. The only thing man or ego can do is hide it, obscure it or cover it. That is why it is only when you remove awareness from the external, when you place that awareness in the internal and travel deep down into your inner being, you find the eternal.

You find truth! That's right. The only path to truth is through an inner path, it cannot be found outside of you. That is why all you see is an illusion, it can't possibly be true because it exists externally from truth and the true you!

Your truth was there all along, you have covered it over so completely you can't seem to find it unless you actively search for it. This is the path that all are called for today! Unpeel the coverings! Find your truth!

All of a sudden, I am not so tired.

Gavin (GJ) Anderson - if you enjoyed this article please feel free to check out our website at SpiritUnitedSourceCenter.com: The Doorway to Health, Wealth and Spiritual Freedom.

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Sixty... and Counting

I'm sitting here on my sixtieth birthday.
A beautiful Saturday morning....
May 10, 2008
Listening to some Sarah McLachlan and Uncle Sam
And doing a bit of time traveling.

"For me, it all started sixty years ago..."
Is what I first typed here,
But before I had the words complete I had a fleeting feeling-image of being in my mother's belly,
And even further back.....

Having a sense that "I" have somehow been here before.

The essence of what this time around is called "Charlie"
Feels as if it's been in the primordial soup for a long time.
However "long" long is!

There has been a lot in this life already,
A LOT of intense feelings,
A lot of pain...

A lot of
Love,
Solidarity
Brotherhood and sisterhood

Many blessings,
And at times great glory and exaltation!

When I am able to calmly feel back into my past,
All of what I have been through
All that I am
Leads to a sweet sense of living fully.

Is the concept I am striving to more fully comprehend,
And embody.

Staying away from categorizing,
Good or bad,
Painful or pleasant.

And simply staying with the fullness of it all.
The beatings....
The time in jail....
The romances....
The love....
The friendships....
The talented giving teachers....

It's deeply touching to recall and understand....
How the seemingly wonderful times often brought along some pain as well.
And sometimes the pain was intense and long lasting.
Like when losing a loved one.

While the seemingly bad times,
Invariably brought along heartfelt relationships and expressions of humanity pouring forth from others.

This is crucial to understand.

How over time,
Good and bad come together,
And are never really separate.
There were times when people risked their lives to save or protect mine,
Even though we had known each other for only a few minutes, or a few days.

I have been in awe of human spirit, and so deeply grateful, as I felt how powerful and complete a bond between two or more people can be.
Living or dying is not always what matters.
Life needs to be about a whole lot more than that.

Standing up for what one believes in regardless of the consequences, can be one of the greatest moments in any person's life.
Especially when you're standing up to say "I believe in my friend, and I will willingly give my life as an expression of our solidarity."

It's my experience, that standing up for a friend during times of danger, has little to do with "bravery".
And a LOT to do with love

A love that is very different than "falling in love".
A love that is more like a parent's love for their child.

Neither rational or irrational.
It's a moment in time when you're fully present and your whole being says "Yes!"
And you know that if you die in this moment, your life will have been well spent.
There would be no regrets.

So yes, I've definitely been involved in slaying some dragons,
And perhaps sometimes I've also appeared blase or macho about it all,
But I have also spent a fair amount of my life, frozen in overwhelm by the possibility of FAILING!

Never really having a clear definition of what the term "failure" meant to me.
No rational definition that is,
But this has not lessened my feeling that "failure" was stalking me.
Like an assassin hiding in my closet at night, waiting to pounce.

You think I'm just imagining all this?
No way!
I just heard the movement of hangers in my closet,
And I'm pretty damn certain I saw the doorknob turning,
Ever so slowly.

But wait!
Before I get carried away,
I take a deep breath...

And I realize,
I'm sitting here on a beautiful Saturday morning....
May 10, 2008
Listening to what has turned into some Cirque du Soleil show tunes....

Realizing how lucky I am to be here, now...
With the best and only time to truly enjoy life,
Beginning with this breath...

Right now...
Is the only moment, the only life I have,
And I intend to enjoy it to the fullest!

Regrets can wait til later.
There'll be plenty of time for that once I'm done.

Happy Birthday to you as well, when it's your turn!

Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from Charlie's thought-provoking ideas and various self-help Practices, by subscribing to his complimentary newsletter "Pure Heart, Simple Mind".

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The Vibrant Moment: Is Your Message Making the Connection You Want?

The clearer your message, the better your chances are for making a proper connection to that which you desire. Whether you want to attract a healthy romantic relationship, make more money, get more clients or sense the subtle energy of the universe. You have to be clear in order to be received. You have to be clear in order to receive the things you ask for!

You might not be as clear as you think.

Many of us in the business of offering services to others are usually very effective in what we do, but not very effective in telling the world about what we do. For years I resisted even thinking of my holistic psychology practice as a real business. I was a highly emotionally intelligent person but I did not have a business mind. Many therapists, coaches, health practitioners and other creative people have this same problem.

In the 1980s in the USA our health care switched over to corporate control, which is called managed care. This was the moment I knew I did not want to participate with managed care. I also knew that I needed to learn marketing in order to survive on my own. So I took the first class I could find with a teacher I trusted. The first thing I learned in marketing was that my message was not clear. Gee, the truth is, I was really unclear. I was offering a unique service but I could not put what I was doing into words so people knew what I was doing.

Ask yourself:
Does my marketing message bring in new clients?
Does my web site sell products to potential customers?
Am I saying what I am doing so others understand me?

Getting your valuable service into a clear, focused message that communicates to the world what you have to offer is one of the hardest things to do for any business. After 30 years of practice, I am getting better at this simple, but confusing task. Here is an exercise to help you become clear:

1. Write down all the words that relate to you and your business on a piece of paper.
2. Using these words write one sentence clearly describing what you do.
3. Bounce your new sentence off people to see how your marketing message works.

Know that it will take you time, mistakes and creative thinking to get your message clear. When you get a sentence that is better than the marketing message you have been using, put it into play.

This is the sentence you want on your web site. This is the message you want on your business card. This is what you say out-loud to the next person who asks you what you do.

It may take you a few years to get a powerful, effective sentence. Each day can bring improvement as you fine tune your marketing message. You will know when you are clear because you get immediate feedback. You will be results. You will make the proper connection between what you ask for and what you get!

Have fun along the way and enjoy the process of putting your clear message out into the world. You will connect with your desires in business, in your personal life and in your spiritual life.

Doris Jeanette, offers affordable marketing help for your private practice, small business and products that set you on the path to success. She works with you on the phone, online and in person. Her next Holistic Health Marketing Workshop is July 14th in Center City, Philadelphia. Subscribers of this ezine can get a $25.00 discount by calling 215-732-6197 and mentioning Peter before July 11, 2008. If you cannot get to Philadelphia check out Dr. Jeanette's Holistic Psychology Mentoring Program which also includes marketing help.

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