Meditation Is Rest: Rest Makes Your Mind Efficient

October 26, 2013 | By WakingTimes | Reply

OSHO
Waking Times

Meditation makes you a master and the mind becomes a slave. And remember: the mind as a master is dangerous because, after all, it is a machine; but the mind as a slave is tremendously significant, useful.

“When I say, “Drop the ego, drop the mind,” I don’t mean that you cannot use the mind any more. In fact, when you don’t cling to the mind you can use it in a far better, far more efficient way, because the energy that was involved in clinging becomes available. And when you are not continuously in the mind, twenty-four hours a day in the mind, the mind also gets a little time to rest.

“Do you know? – even metals need rest, even metals get tired. So what to say about this subtle mechanism in the world. In such a small skull you are carrying such a complicated bio-computer that no computer made by man is yet capable of competing with it. The scientists say a single man’s brain can contain all the libraries of the world and yet there will space enough to contain more.

“And you are continuously using it – uselessly, unnecessarily! You have forgotten how to put it off. For seventy, eighty years it remains on, working, working tired. That’s why people lose intelligence: for the simple reason that they are so tired. If the mind can have little rest, if you can leave the mind alone for a few hours every day, if once in a while you can give the mind a holiday, it will be rejuvenated; it will come out more intelligent, more efficient, more skillful.

“So I am not saying that you are not to use your mind, but don’t be used by the mind. Right now the mind is the master and you are only a slave.

“Meditation makes you a master and the mind becomes a slave. And remember: the mind as a master is dangerous because, after all, it is a machine; but the mind as a slave is tremendously significant, useful. A machine should function as a machine, not as a master. Our priorities are all upside down – your consciousness should be the master.

“So whenever you want to use it, in the East or in the West – of course you will need it in the marketplace – use it! But when you don’t need it, when you are resting at home by the side of your swimming pool or in the garden, there is no need. Put it aside. Forget all about it! Then just be.”

Osho, Ah, This!, Talk #2

Levels of Consciousness

October 4, 2013 | By WakingTimes | 5 Replies

Steve Pavlina, Guest
Waking Times

In the book Power vs. Force by David R. Hawkins, there’s a hierarchy of levels of human consciousness. It’s an interesting paradigm. If you read the book, it’s also fairly easy to figure out where you fall on this hierarchy based on your current life situation.

From low to high, the levels of consciousness are: shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, enlightenment.

While we can pop in and out of different levels at various times, usually there’s a predominant “normal” state for us. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re at least at the level of courage because if you were at a lower level, you’d likely have no conscious interest in personal growth.

I’ll go over these levels in order, mostly focusing on the ones between courage and reason, since that’s the range where you’re most likely to land. The labels are Hawkins’. The descriptions of each level are based onHawkins’ descriptions but blended with my own thoughts. Hawkins defines this as a logarithmic scale, so there are far fewer people at the higher levels than at the lower ones. An increase from one level to another will result in enormous change in your life.

Shame – Just a step above death. You’re probably contemplating suicide at this level. Either that or you’re a serial killer. Think of this as self-directed hatred.

Guilt – A step above shame, but you still may be having thoughts of suicide. You think of yourself as a sinner, unable to forgive yourself for past transgressions.

Apathy – Feeling hopeless or victimized. The state of learned helplessness. Many homeless people are stuck here.

Grief – A state of perpetual sadness and loss. You might drop down here after losing a loved one. Depression. Still higher than apathy, since you’re beginning to escape the numbness.

Fear – Seeing the world as dangerous and unsafe. Paranoia. Usually you’ll need help to rise above this level, or you’ll remain trapped for a long time, such as in an abusive relationship.

Desire – Not to be confused with setting and achieving goals, this is the level of addiction, craving, and lust — for money, approval, power, fame, etc. Consumerism. Materialism. This is the level of smoking and drinking and doing drugs.

Anger – the level of frustration, often from not having your desires met at the lower level. This level can spur you to action at higher levels, or it can keep you stuck in hatred. In an abusive relationship, you’ll often see an anger person coupled with a fear person.

Pride – The first level where you start to feel good, but it’s a false feeling. It’s dependent on external circumstances (money, prestige, etc), so it’s vulnerable. Pride can lead to nationalism, racism, and religious wars. Think Nazis. A state of irrational denial and defensiveness. Religious fundamentalism is also stuck at this level. You become so closely enmeshed in your beliefs that you see an attack on your beliefs as an attack on you.

Courage – The first level of true strength. I’ve made a previous post about this level:Courage is the Gateway. This is where you start to see life as challenging and exciting instead of overwhelming. You begin to have an inkling of interest in personal growth, although at this level you’ll probably call it something else like skill-building, career advancement, education, etc. You start to see your future as an improvement upon your past, rather than a continuation of the same.

Neutrality – This level is epitomized by the phrase, “live and let live.” It’s flexible, relaxed, and unattached. Whatever happens, you roll with the punches. You don’t have anything to prove. You feel safe and get along well with other people. A lot of self-employed people are at this level. A very comfortable place. The level of complacency and laziness. You’re taking care of your needs, but you don’t push yourself too hard.

Willingness – Now that you’re basically safe and comfortable, you start using your energy more effectively. Just getting by isn’t good enough anymore. You begin caring about doing a good job — perhaps even your best. You think about time management and productivity and getting organized, things that weren’t so important to you at the level of neutrality. Think of this level as the development of willpower and self-discipline. These people are the “troopers” of society; they get things done well and don’t complain much. If you’re in school, then you’re a really good student; you take your studies seriously and put in the time to do a good job. This is the point where your consciousness becomes more organized and disciplined.

Acceptance – Now a powerful shift happens, and you awaken to the possibilities of living proactively. At the level of willingness you’ve become competent, and now you want to put your abilities to good use. This is the level of setting and achieving goals. I don’t like the label “acceptance” that Hawkins uses here, but it basically means that you begin accepting responsibility for your role in the world. If something isn’t right about your life (your career, your health, your relationship), you define your desired outcome and change it. You start to see the big picture of your life more clearly. This level drives many people to switch careers, start a new business, or change their diets.

Reason – At this level you transcend the emotional aspects of the lower levels and begin to think clearly and rationally. Hawkins defines this as the level of medicine and science. The way I see it, when you reach this level, you become capable of using your reasoning abilities to their fullest extent. You now have the discipline and the proactivity to fully exploit your natural abilities. You’ve reached the point where you say, “Wow. I can do all this stuff, and I know I must put it to good use. So what’s the best use of my talents?” You take a look around the world and start making meaningful contributions. At the very high end, this is the level of Einstein and Freud. It’s probably obvious that most people never reach this level in their entire lives.

Love – I don’t like Hawkins’ label “love” here because this isn’t the emotion of love. It’s unconditional love, a permanent understanding of your connectedness with all that exists. Think compassion. At the level of reason, you live in service to your head. But that eventually becomes a dead end where you fall into the trap of over-intellectualizing. You see that you need a bigger context than just thinking for its own sake. At the level of love, you now place your head and all your other talents and abilities in service to your heart (not your emotions, but your greater sense of right and wrong — your conscience). I see this as the level of awakening to your true purpose. Your motives at this level are pure and uncorrupted by the desires of the ego. This is the level of lifetime service to humanity. Think Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. At this level you also begin to be guided by a force greater than yourself. It’s a feeling of letting go. Your intuition becomes extremely strong. Hawkins claims this level is reached only by 1 in 250 people during their entire lifetimes.

Joy – A state of pervasive, unshakable happiness. Eckhart Tolle describes this state inThe Power of Now. The level of saints and advanced spiritual teachers. Just being around people at this level makes you feel incredible. At this level life is fully guided by synchronicity and intuition. There’s no more need to set goals and make detailed plans — the expansion of your consciousness allows you to operate at a much higher level. A near-death experience can temporarily bump you to this level.

Peace – Total transcendence. Hawkins claims this level is reached only by one person in 10 million.

Enlightenment – The highest level of human consciousness, where humanity blends with divinity. Extremely rare. The level of Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus. Even just thinking about people at this level can raise your consciousness.

I think you’ll find this model worthy of reflection. Not only people but also objects, events, and whole societies can be ranked at these levels. Within your own life, you’ll see that some parts of your life are at different levels than others, but you should be able to identify your current overall level. You might be at the level of neutrality overall but still be addicted to smoking (level of desire). The lower levels you find within yourself will serve as a drag that holds the rest of you back. But you’ll also find higher levels in your life. You may be at the level of acceptance and read a book at the level of reason and feel really inspired. Think about the strongest influences in your life right now. Which ones raise your consciousness? Which ones lower it?

One thing I like about these levels of consciousness is that I can trace back over my own life and see how I’ve been moving through them. I remember being stuck at the level of guilt for a long time – as a child I was indoctrinated into a belief system where I was a helpless sinner, being judged according to the standards of someone at the level of love or higher. From there I graduated to the state of apathy, feeling numb to the whole thing. By high school I had reached the level of pride — I was a straight-A student, captain of the Academic Decathlon team, showered with accolades and awards, but I became dependent on them. I hit the level of Courage in my late teens, but the courage was very unfocused, and I overdid it and got myself into all sorts of trouble. I then spent about a year in neutrality and moved through willingness and acceptance during my 20s with a lot of conscious effort. At present I’m at the level of reason and getting closer and closer to completing the leap to love. I experience the state of love more and more often, and it’s guiding many of my decisions already, but it hasn’t yet stuck as my natural state. I’ve also experienced the state of joy for days at a time, but never with any permanence yet. That state is a pervasive feeling of natural euphoria, as if I’m exploding on the inside with positive energy. It literally forces me to smile. I’ve been in that state for most of this morning, probably because I haven’t eaten anything yet today (I find it easier to hit that state of consciousness when I eat lightly or not at all).

We’ll naturally fluctuate between multiple states throughout the course of any given week, so you’ll probably see a range of 3-4 levels where you spend most of your time. One way to figure out your “natural” state is to think about how you perform under pressure. If you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice because that’s what’s inside. What comes out of you when you get squeezed by external events? Do you become paranoid and shut down (fear)? Do you start yelling at people (anger)? Do you become defensive (pride)? What happens to me under pressure is that I become hyper-analytical, but recently I just had a pressure situation where I handled it mostly by intuition, which was a big change for me. This tells me I’m getting close to the unconditional love state because in that state, intuition can be effectively accessed even under pressure.

Everything in your environment will have an effect on your level of consciousness. TV. Movies. Books. Web sites. People. Places. Objects. Food. If you’re at the level of reason, watching TV news (which is predominantly at the levels of fear and desire) will temporarily lower your consciousness. If you’re at the level of guilt, TV news will actually raise it up.

Progressing from one level to the next requires an enormous amount of energy. I wrote about this previously when discussing quantum leaps. Without conscious effort or the help of others, you’ll likely just stay at your current level until some outside force comes into your life.

Notice the natural progression of levels, and consider what happens when you try to short-cut the process. If you try to reach the level of reason before mastering self-discipline (willingness) and goal-setting (acceptance), you’ll be too disorganized and unfocused to use your mind to its full extent. If you try to push yourself to the level of love before you’ve mastered reason, you’ll suffer from gullibility and may end up in a cult.

Going up even one level can be extremely hard; most people don’t do so in their entire lives. A change in just one level can radically alter everything in your life. This is why people below the level of courage aren’t likely to progress without external help. Courage is required to work on this consciously; it comes down to repeatedly betting your whole reality for the chance to become more conscious and aware. But whenever you reach that next level, you realize clearly that it was a good bet. For example, when you hit the level of courage, all your past fears and false pride seem silly to you now. When you reach the level of acceptance (setting and achieving goals), you look back on the level of willingness and see you were like a mouse running on a treadmill — you were a good runner, but you didn’t pick a direction.

I think the most important work we can do as human beings is to raise our individual level of consciousness. When we do this, we spread higher levels of consciousness to everyone around us. Imagine what an incredible world this would be if we could at least get everyone to the level of acceptance. According to Hawkins 85% of the people on earth live below the level of courage.

When you temporarily experience the higher levels, you can see where you must go next. You have one of those moments of clarity where you understand that things have to change. But when you sink into the lower levels, that memory becomes clouded.

We have to keep consciously taking ourselves back to the sources that can help us complete the next leap. Each step requires different solutions. I recall when making the shift from neutrality to willingness, I listened to time management tapes almost every day. I immersed myself in sources created by people at the level of willingness until I eventually shifted. But a book on time management will be of little use to someone who’s at the level of pride; they’ll reject the very notion with a lot of defensiveness. And time management is meaningless to someone at the level of peace. But you can’t hit the higher levels if you haven’t mastered the basics first. Jesus was a carpenter. Gandhi was a lawyer. Buddha was a prince. We all have to start somewhere.

Look at this hierarchy with an open mind and see if it leads you to new insights that may help you take the next leap in your own life. No levels are any more right or wrong than others. Try not to get your ego wrapped up in the idea of being at any particular level, unless you’re currently at the level of pride of course.

This article originally appeared at StevePavlina.com.

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

The 3 Stages of Awakening, by Richard Harvey

November 23, 2013 | By WakingTimes | Reply

Richard Harvey, Therapy & Spirituality
Waking Times

Editor’s Note: Richard Harvey. psychotherapist, author and spiritual teacher, answers questions about the threefold model of human awakening.

You speak of a threefold model of human awakening through deepening levels of awareness. The first level is what we usually think of as personal therapy, the second is a personal transformation that leads to authenticity, and the third is the realization of the true Self. Could you clearly summarize the relationship between personal therapy, personal authenticity and Self-Realization? 

Deep inner change leads to personal transformation and spiritual awakening. It begins with personal therapy. Personal therapy may be an end in itself or a prelude for the life of authenticity, genuine relationship and engagement with others and the world. Personal therapy is connected to spiritual growth through this middle stage, which I call the transformation into authenticity.

Personal therapy can be completed. In the process of inner work there is a point where you feel a sense of completion or personal wholeness. This is the condition of embracing your so-called shadow side, which comprises all that you have denied or repressed, and stored in your deep unconscious. When you live with an acceptance of the shadow alongside your acceptance of your conscious self, you have embraced your whole self. This sense of completion is like a journey around the self. You have realized the wholeness of your personality and found the edges of your egoic limits.

So, beyond the usual parameters of personal therapy, a permanent transformation may come about, which is the flowering of inner work. This is the authentic self. Personal authenticity prepares the way for awakening by connecting us to the source of life or consciousness.

So, to summarize, in personal therapy you begin with the practice of awareness which leads to self-discovery and change, where you reach the edges of the personality, the conditioning from your early life and your small sense of self.

In the second stage you can choose to cross a psychological threshold – it is a kind of death, but it is also the birth of the psyche or soul into the world and it represents an irreversible transformation of the self into authenticity.

In the third stage the true Self awakens, but it has always been here in consciousness as a reflection of the Absolute and you journey past the world of duality, the opposites, and division and separation in which the individual personality is dissolved. This is human awakening. It’s like waking up into a place you have been asleep in or unaware of or oblivious to. This is why the journey of personal and spiritual growth, when you see it through, brings you to a place of great joy, a mood of tremendous elation.

This is expressed in the idea of rapture, ecstasy or bliss – or satchitananda in the Hindu tradition. After all you have been through, all the tests and ordeals, all the suffering and trials, the struggle, confusion and angst, the end of the road is finally realizing that there is no journey to the present moment: no way or path is necessary to where we already are! Your whole dualistic way of thinking prescribed your experience for you: it was never really like that at all!

So, first we discover ourselves, then we transform into authenticity and, finally, we awaken?

The order of awakening is awareness, transformation, and realization. Today we are having a hard time meeting the first of these – awareness. Because it seems increasingly hard in a relatively superficial, increasingly amoral, fickle and speed-driven culture to recognize, honor or even value such things as these. After all they are essentially invisible and practicing them doesn’t necessarily give you status in a materialistic world where prestige, acquisition and conformity are prized so highly.

But when we awaken aren’t we simply conforming too, albeit to another set of values? 

No. Awakening is the full flowering of the self. Transcendence is expressed in individual form; even the ego is surrendered in service to the All. The way it is done is impersonal, but the expression is intensely personal.

What are the roles of fear and desire?
The twin states of fear and desire dominate human existence. When we succumb to them they limit our potential for growth and discovery. To guide us beyond both is the role of the psycho-spiritual therapist.

Fear is founded on our self-contraction, on our projection of a death-dealing force outside ourselves. Desire is rooted in our belief in lack, that something outside ourselves is required to make us whole and complete. Developing courage, resilience and applying ourselves to true ‘unfolding’, we see through the lies of fear and desire and grow into our true potential and beyond our exclusive identity with our self.

Would you say something about self-identity and the troubled state of the world today, because it seems to me that the two are somehow connected?

Essentially we do not know who we are. Thoughts, fantasy and unreality form a false self. We do not know how to act in relationship to one another and to the world. When being is not connected with doing, others become merely screens for our projections of inner states; thoughts, feelings, judgments and reactions. The condition of the world is a broader projection canvas that we create in our own image by projecting and manifesting our fears and anger. We feel disconnected from the source of life; educated by parents, teachers, politicians and other authority figures to not see, speak or honor deep truth and matters of soul and spirit. Love, compassion, wisdom,enlightenment become misunderstood, misrepresented or simply avoided altogether.

Today, in the affluent West, our concerns are many and diverse. We are obsessed and distracted by fantasies of happiness and fulfillment, anxious about physical and mental health, illness and aging. We dream about money and wealth, loving relationships and how to be better human beings. We desire and long for the house, home and lifestyle we want. We are ambitious and seek our self worth in our work and careers. We are confused about how to deal with strong emotions like depression, anxiety, anger and grief. We wrestle with inner conflicts and many suffer from a sense of meaninglessness or lack of purpose. Others are troubled at their lack of creativity and passion. Some struggle with personal development and spiritual hunger.

And how should we deal with this surfeit of hardships and difficulties? 

We need to truly relate to ourselves, others and the world with clarity, compassion and wisdom, by centering in our heart and seeking a new way of being, doing, working and relating, and by illuminating our inner world through the practices of awareness and wise reflection.

But how can we do this? How do we attain these levels of inner and outer practices?

We can attain all this through taking ourselves seriously and embarking on the inner journey to wholeness and by realizing our true nature through inner work.

And inner work is the practice of therapy and spiritual growth?

Yes.

About the Author

Richard Harvey is a psychotherapist, author and spiritual teacher. He is the founder-director of Therapy and Spirituality, a personal and spiritual growth center situated in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain. His background is in Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologies, Taoism and Zen. He is trained in western psychology and eastern meditative methods, psycho-spiritual psychotherapy and bodywork. The author of The Flight of Consciousness and several other books and articles focused on realizing our true selves, his innovative approach to human development, The Three Stages of Awakening, is discussed in his latest book, Human Awakening.

Email: richard@therapyandspirituality.com
Website: http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Therapy-and-Spirituality/138888839521420

Beyond positive thinking - The harmony of thoughts, beliefs, inner feelings and actions

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 by: Lance Johnson Tags: positive thinking, reality, frequency

(NaturalNews) What role can positive thinking have on our reality?

More importantly, how do you feel about positive thinking?

If you feel that positive thinking has little influence on reality, if you believe that positive people are fake people, that positivity is all for dreamers who can't face reality, then you do not understand the power of thought, belief, feeling, and action working together to attract positive results.

Positive thinking will fail you if your desires are not clear and in harmony with your belief and action. You have a unique ability to attract both positivity and negativity. If you want a life of purpose and joy, you have to think beyond what is in front of you and truly believe in the invisible. New results are attainable, attractable, achievable.

When thoughts, beliefs feelings and actions come together in unity, your own reality can be manifested. A positive thought can attract similar positive energy when your feelings and actions align with it. What is holding you back in your spirit?

The importance of how you feel about the outcome

If you feel that the outcome is impossible, then it will always be just that - impossible. You set the limits. You can accept a new universe of faith and explore the infinite, if you let it happen. It's not what happens to you that determines your reality. It's what you do about it. You can change your world for the better.

The power of positive thinking is connected to how strongly you feel about the desired result. Passion can guide that feeling, taking a thought and creating a reality through dedicated belief and an unrelenting feeling of commitment to the goal. The power of positive thinking comes from more than just the bantering of positive words and phrases. Saying positive words is nice, but if you don't feel good intentions behind what you say, if you don't believe that the positive words will have an impact, then those positive musings may have little to no effect at all on your life. Turn words into positive affirmations.

Acting out in faith

Boldly acting in faith, always pressing forward with committed energy, will carve a new destiny, moving stubborn mountains.

Action must be taken to make a positive thought and a strong feeling react and move into existence. Actions must be backed by endurance, as you move forward despite opposition. Your dream may meet many different forces of negative, opposing energy. Continuous forward movement will push you through the struggles. Don't focus on the struggle. When something doesn't work out the way you planned, always believe that something better is about to be attracted.

Learning how to manipulate reality

Reality can be deceptive. In a way, you can manipulate your current circumstances and change your reality by giving thanks. Many times our thought patterns can attract the same life circumstances over and over again because we are constantly disgusted with the result. Instead, be thankful. In order to manipulate what we see and change it all for the better, we must learn to envision something completely different. To change the course, we must then feel strongly about the fruition, showing and thinking with no doubt. Finally, we must move in ways that correspond to the manifestation of that thought.

• Looking for a soul mate? Go out of your way to include them in your life and be thankful that they are there, even if they don't exist.

• Want to be a more generous man of wealth? It's time to stop thinking that you live paycheck to paycheck. Start giving more to the deserving in preparation for who you are to become.

• Want to be healthy? Start thinking, feeling and acting the way healthy people do. Hang out with them and do what they do.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.in5d.com

http://www.optimalmodification.com

http://www.shiftfrequency.com

About the author:
Lance Johnson is avid learner of natural health, who's creating an all natural products movement from the ground up at: www.allnaturalfreespirit.com As more hearts move toward natural solutions in a world of toxins and propaganda, Lance believes real health opportunities exist. Pick up a 100% Natural Armed Defense Deodorant or a few bars of Liberty Soap from the Free Spirit online store.

Lance and his wife are also passionate about nutrient utilization and detoxification at the cellular level. They love sharing their testimony and reaching out to those seeking positive lifestyle changes.

Contact Lance and Kender on their site for more empowering health information.www.allnaturalfreespirit.com

The Consciousness Revolution...It can not be STOPPED!

November 19, 2013 | By WakingTimes | 1 Reply

Graham Hancock, GrahamHancock.com
Waking Times

Here’s the full text of the article Russell Brand kindly invited me to contribute to last week’s issue of the New Statesman. The article, entitled The War on Consciousness, had to be shortened to fit the space available in the magazine, but I reproduce the complete unedited text here.

Consciousness is one of the great mysteries of science – perhaps the greatest mystery. We all know we have it, when we think, when we dream, when we savour tastes and aromas, when we hear a great symphony, when we fall in love, and it is surely the most intimate, the most sapient, the most personal part of ourselves. Yet no one can really claim to have understood and explained it completely. There’s no doubt it’s associated with the brain in some way but the nature of that association is far from clear. In particular how do these three pounds of material stuff inside our skulls allow us to have experiences?

Professor David Chalmers of the Australian National University has dubbed this the “hard problem” of consciousness; but many scientists, particularly those (still in the majority) who are philosophically inclined to believe that all phenomena can be reduced to material interactions, deny that any problem exists. To them it seems self-evident that physical processes within the stuff of the brain produce consciousness rather in the way that a generator produces electricity – i.e. consciousness is an “epiphenomenon” of brain activity. And they see it as equally obvious that there cannot be such things as conscious survival of death or out-of-body experiences since both consciousness and experience are confined to the brain and must die when the brain dies.

Yet other scientists with equally impressive credentials are not so sure and are increasingly willing to consider a very different analogy – namely that the relationship of consciousness to the brain may be less like the relationship of the generator to the electricity it produces and more like the relationship of the TV signal to the TV set. In that case when the TV set is destroyed – dead – the signal still continues. Nothing in the present state of knowledge of neuroscience rules this revolutionary possibility out. True, if you damage certain areas of the brain certain areas of consciousness are compromised, but this does not prove that those areas of the brain generate the relevant areas of consciousness. If you were to damage certain areas of your TV set the picture would deteriorate or vanish but the TV signal would remain intact.

We are, in other words, confronted by at least as much mystery as fact around the subject of consciousness and this being the case we should remember that what seems obvious and self-evident to one generation may not seem at all obvious or self-evident to the next. For hundreds of years it was obvious and self-evident to the greatest human minds that the sun moved around the earth – one need only look to the sky, they said, to see the truth of this proposition. Indeed those who maintained the revolutionary view that the earth moved around the sun faced the Inquisition and death by burning at the stake. Yet as it turned out the revolutionaries were right and orthodoxy was terribly, ridiculously wrong.

The same may well prove to be true with the mystery of consciousness. Yes, it does seem obvious and self-evident that the brain produces it (the generator analogy), but this is a deduction from incomplete data and categorically NOT yet an established and irrefutable fact. New discoveries may force materialist science to rescind this theory in favour of something more like the TV analogy in which the brain comes to be understood as a transceiver rather than as a generator of consciousness and in which consciousness is recognized as fundamentally “non-local” in nature – perhaps even as one of the basic driving forces of the universe. At the very least we should withhold judgment on this “hard problem” until more evidence is in and view with suspicion those who hold dogmatic and ideological views about the nature of consciousness.

It’s at this point that the whole seemingly academic issue becomes intensely political and current because modern technological society idealises and is monopolistically focused on only one state of consciousness – the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness that makes us efficient producers and consumers of material goods and services. At the same time our society seeks to police and control a wide range of other “altered” states of consciousness on the basis of the unproven proposition that consciousness is generated by the brain.

I refer here to the so-called “war on drugs” which is really better understood as a war on consciousness and which maintains, supposedly in the interests of society, that we as adults do not have the right or maturity to make sovereign decisions about our own consciousness and about the states of consciousness we wish to explore and embrace. This extraordinary imposition on adult cognitive liberty is justified by the idea that our brain activity, disturbed by drugs, will adversely impact our behaviour towards others. Yet anyone who pauses to think seriously for even a moment must realize that we already have adequate laws that govern adverse behaviour towards others and that the real purpose of the “war on drugs” must therefore be to bear down on consciousness itself.

Confirmation that this is so came from the last British Labour government. It declared that its drug policy would be based on scientific evidence yet in 2009 it sacked Professor David Nutt, Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for stating the simple statistical fact that cannabis is less dangerous (in terms of measured “harms”) than tobacco and alcohol and that ecstasy is less dangerous than horse-riding. Clearly what was at play here were ideological issues of great importance to the powers that be. And this is an ideology that sticks stubbornly in place regardless of changes in the complexion of the government of the day. The present Conservative-Liberal coalition remains just as adamant in its enforcement of the so-called war on drugs as its Labour predecessor, and continues in the name of this “war” to pour public money – our money – into large, armed, drug-enforcement bureaucracies which are entitled to break down our doors at dead of night, invade our homes, ruin our reputations and put us behind bars.

All of this, we have been persuaded, is in our own interests. Yet if we as adults are not free to make sovereign decisions – right or wrong – about our own consciousness, that most intimate, that most sapient, that most personal part of ourselves, then in what useful sense can we be said to be free at all? And how are we to begin to take real and meaningful responsibility for all the other aspects of our lives when our governments seek to disenfranchise us from this most fundamental of all human rights and responsibilities?

In this connection it is interesting to note that our society has no objection to altering consciousness per se. On the contrary many consciousness-altering drugs, such as Prozac, Seroxat, Ritalin and alcohol, are either massively over-prescribed or freely available today, and make huge fortunes for their manufacturers, but remain entirely legal despite causing obvious harms. Could this be because such legal drugs do not alter consciousness in ways that threaten the monopolistic dominance of the alert problem-solving state of consciousness, while a good number of illegal drugs, such as cannabis, LSD, DMT and psilocybin, do?

There is a revolution in the making here, and what is at stake transcends the case for cognitive liberty as an essential and inalienable adult human right. If it turns out that the brain is not a generator but a transceiver of consciousness then we must consider some little-known scientific research that points to a seemingly outlandish possibility, namely that a particular category of illegal drugs, the hallucinogens such as LSD, DMT and psilocybin, may alter the receiver wavelength of the brain and allow us to gain contact with intelligent non-material entities, “light beings”, “spirits”, “machine elves” (as Terence McKenna called them) – perhaps even the inhabitants of other dimensions. This possibility is regarded as plain fact by shamans in hunter-gatherer societies who for thousands of years have made use of visionary plants and fungi to enter and interact with what they construe as the “spirit world”. Intriguingly it was also specifically envisaged by Dr Rick Strassman, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, following his ground-breaking research with human volunteers and DMT carried out in the 1990’s – a project that produced findings with shattering implications for our understanding of the nature of reality. For further information on Strassman’s revolutionary work see his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule.

The Synchronicity and Meditation Connection

November 15, 2013 | By WakingTimes | 2 Replies

Dr. Robert Puff, Ph.D., Meditation for Health
Waking Times

You’re talking to a friend and there’s a pause in the conversation. You break the silence by saying what just popped in your mind. Your friend responds with, “No way! I was thinking the exact same thing.”

You stumble upon a friend’s number in your address book; you decide to give her a ring to see how she is. She picks up the phone and shares that her grandmother just died, and she really needed your support. You reached out to her at the precise moment that she was seeking comfort.

Events like these have a small probability of occurring, yet they still happen. Some would call them coincidences. But I encourage you to think differently. The focus of this post is on the phenomenon called synchronicity.

The Subjective Truth of Synchronicity

Synchronicity is related to probability. Because synchronous events usually take place between two people, and they are rare and unplanned, scientific study of them is few and far between. But that doesn’t mean that they are outside our experiences. We find proof of synchronicity in our lives and by listening to the experiences of others. In fact, sharing our synchronous experiences are a powerful way to reinforce their validity

The chance of something out-of-the-ordinary taking place between two people is miniscule, yet it happens. When you experience it, it’s very real and meaningful, but because it’s so personal, other people can’t necessarily prove it.

I’d like to share a story that illustrates my point. Years ago, I was working with a client who was very, very busy. I encouraged her to slow down and take time for herself. “If you don’t, there could be serious consequences from your behavior,” I recall telling her. I didn’t say it to frighten her. Rather, I sought to help her avoid possible suffering.

Shortly after our conversation, she was driving on the freeway. And as always, her car was going way past the speed limit. Suddenly, a truck in front of her spun out of control. As the massive vehicle came within inches of killing her, the words “Slow Down” were written on the side of the truck. To my client, it was an undeniable message telling her that if she didn’t re-evaluate the frenetic pace of her life, she’d experience negative consequences.

Later she joked that I had magically made the words “Slow Down” appear. Of course, I didn’t have anything to do with it; it was just another remarkable event that could be discounted as mere coincidence.
The Synchronicity and Meditation Connection

Perhaps you too have had a time where—to use the language of religion and spirituality—the Universe, or God, or whatever name you use, seemed to send you a message so loudly and clearly that it grabbed your attention. So what does this have to do with meditation?

The goal of meditation is to slow you down, quiet your mind, and maintain stillness. As you do this, you may find that synchronous events increase.

Because meditation is such a powerful force for change, and helpful in countless ways, I wonder if God perhaps gives back to us. Synchronous events let us know that we are on the right track and encourage us to continue meditating. In my experience, they happen with greater frequency the more I meditate.

There’s only one person who can validate or disqualify the claim that synchronicity increases the more you meditate. That person is you. One way to measure this is by keeping a notebook where you record so-called coincidences or out-of-the-ordinary moments. As you commit to meditation, see if these don’t happen more often.

I encourage that you write synchronous experiences down because once they take place, we tend to forget them. We may notice them, but we don’t become attached to them once they occur, which is typically a good thing. In this case, however, I believe that by recording synchronous events, you’ll notice that they increase as your meditative practice deepens. You may recognize that synchronicity is another benefit of meditationand yet another example of meditation’s transformative power.

Suspend judgment for a while and just give it a try. Meditate regularly, once in the morning and once in the evening, and see if life flows better. Witness if synchronous events happen with greater frequency. And feel free to share your stories with me.

Lesson 1: The Role of Toxins USED Against Spiritual Advancement

The Role of Toxins in Spiritual Advancement

November 9, 2013 | By WakingTimes | Reply

Christina Sarich, Staff
Waking Times

It is your birthright to grow spiritually. You will mature spiritually even if you try not to, since all experience, whether labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’ facilitates our return to spirit. Practices like Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi-Gong, and other esoteric wisdom aim at expediting our growth instead of slowing it. It is our choice as a parcel of larger consciousness to grow at a rate we choose for ourselves. The practices that will help us tap into our deeper “God Mind” are made available to us to catalyze this return of our full capacities when we seek them, but environmental toxins such as chemtrails, oil spills, and the industrial waste dumped on this planet by the military industrial complex, cell phone and other electromagnetic frequencies, retard our spiritual growth.

Eating toxic foods, devoid of life-force or nutrition, also depletes our physical bodies so that we have less energy to devote to spiritual practice. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) likely will be found to have little energetic value and surely are causing our physical symptoms to heighten and disease to run rampant. This is because all life must be kept in balance. Genetically altering mother nature’s perfection is against the wisdom of the Higher Mind, and the ramifications are a large lesson in learning to be at one with nature instead of against her.

The insight which comes from deep spiritual wisdom is halted by the overabundance of toxicity in our food, our air, our water, and our soil.

Anyone who has done a yogic cleanse or practiced living a ‘clean’ lifestyle can tell you that their meditations become easier, their insights come more often, and their connection to Spirit or Source feels more like a DSL connection, rather than dial-up. There is also ample evidence that environmental toxins, such as the aluminum particulate in chemtrails and the fluoride in our water, calcify the pineal gland, an important endocrine gland which allows access to higher states of awareness.

While I am not of the belief system that ‘evil’ can take over the world, since it is only a reflection of our darkest, cast-off selves, I do think that educating yourself about the seeming forces which would try to reduce your connection to God should be acknowledged and dealt with. Putting our heads in the sand in regard to these toxins has already caused an epidemic of ill health, and the physical body is the last place that disease manifests. We know from the yogic wisdom of Himalayan masters that there are sheaths called koshas in the body, and all energy affects the outer-most ‘shell’, or sheath, first, then trickles down from the physical level into other more-subtle layers.

Like trying to shine a flashlight in murky water, the light will always get through, but illumination through a clear pool is much easier. Toxins obscure the chakra system, our pranic power houses, which help to absorb photons of light energy and help to keep us vital and alive. Concentrate that light, like a laser, and it will be able to shine into even the darkest, haziest water. By clearing our bodies of toxins, we create a laser-like light that can enliven and enlighten our entire energetic matrix – the Self. This is why so many ancient yogic practices teach Saucha – or the cleansing of the entire self. The purity of the body and mind are listed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, as well as numerous ancient yogic texts.

Yoga asana also helps to cleanse the body of toxins. Asanas, or physical postures, are so effective that the entire digestive system - the liver, kidneys, bladder, and bowels - are made new again, and thus are more likely to be able to adapt to the toxic onslaught that has become our bane in this modern world. The bitter pill to swallow is that we live in a world where corporate greed has allowed this to become the norm, but the soothing salve is knowing that there are tools (like Shank Prakshalana) to remove toxins for better physical and spiritual health.

About the Author

Christina Sarich is a musician, yogi, humanitarian and freelance writer who channels many hours of studying Lao Tzu, Paramahansa Yogananda, Rob Brezny,  Miles Davis, and Tom Robbins into interesting tidbits to help you Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga.

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.