A presentation on the Work of Byron Katie

Here’s a short video presentation on the work of Byron Katie which I found to be very clear and concise. I like Byron Katie’s work because it is a very simple and direct method to bring insights and self realizations. However, you do need a lot of courage and self honesty for this inquiry work.

Neuroplasticity: Train your mind, Change your brain

In the past, scientists believe that our brain cells stop growing after adulthood. Recent scientific researches, however, have consistently show that our brain is more versatile than that. In fact, our brain cells continue to grow all the time, and with some training of the mind, we can actually consciously affect physical changes in our brain. This property of the brain to change is called neuroplasticity.

This finding is not at all surprising for those who believe that mind is the forerunner of all states, and that mind is in fact the precursor to our physicality. There have also been many research findings that have indeed shown that our mind can actually affect physical changes in our body. The placebo effect is one such well known effect. In a particularly visible experiment, a patient who was allergic to a certain leaf of a plant was told to close his eyes. He was then touched on his right forearm with a leaf and on the left forearm with a different leaf. When he was told that the leaf touching the right arm is the leaf that he is allergic to, there is a clear allergic rash that appeared on that forearm, even though in reality it was the left forearm that was touched with the leaf that he was allergic to. This demonstrates the powerful effect of our mind on our body.

Many are now aware that our mind affects our emotion. In other words, the state of our emotion is determined by what we think, and what we choose to think is a choice that we can consciously make. This is important because it means that we need not allow ourselves to be the victims of circumstances. Even in the mist of difficulties and bad experiences, we can choose to focus on the positive and thereby maintain a positive emotion, which in turns lead to a greater feeling of well being despite the challenges.

However, if you already have the habit of focusing only on the negative, then to change your habit would requires effort. Meditation is one method of training your mind to focus on the positive or the neutral, and is highly recommended if you want to be the master of your own destiny.

Here’s an interesting 1-hour video report on mind science and neuroplasticity and the effect of meditation on the mind.

You can also go here for a written report on neuroplasticity from the Mind and Life Institute.

The bottomline is that in order to transform our lives, we must change the way we think, and to do that we need to train our mind through meditation.

Self Awareness in animals

Human beings are not the only living things with self awareness. Experiments have shown that some mammals like dolphins, elephants and apes are capable of being self aware.

Now a new study done by scientists from the Goethe Institute in Germany have also found that magpies may also have self awareness. The experiment to test self awareness is designed using a mirror. To find out how this is done, please go here.

Another interesting news is the apparent transfer of skills from dolphins in captivity to those in the wild, without any apparent direct link. Here is the story.

We have notice for some time now that global human consciousness is increasing. People around the world are increasingly becoming more self aware. Is it possible that this simultaneously also raise the awareness of other living beings on earth or are we just observing more of what we did not observe before?

The Five Ranks of Tozan

The 5 ranks of Tozan is a description on the various stages of enlightenment. Tozan was a Zen Master who lived more than 1,200 years ago.

According to this description, there are 5 stages that one goes through as he progresses towards enlightenment. The majority of people in the world today are in pre-stage one.

Pre-Stage One

At this stage, one is fully engaged and absorbed in the physical reality, and only in this physical reality. One is still unaware of the other reality that is transcendental and sublime. In pre-stage one, one’s main focus and attention is on the day to day survival as well as physical accumulation of wealth. This is because one is able to see only this physical world as real. The spiritual and transcendental reality is not perceived as real. One may be able to conceptualize and rationalize about spirituality but one does not truly appreciate the reality of this subtle realm.

Stage One

In this stage, one is now convinced of the reality of the transcendental realm. One behaves and lives according to this perception and acceptance of this new reality. This means that one’s priorities in lives change to put more emphasis on the importance of spirituality. More time and energy is directed towards the pursue of this spiritual understanding and growth. Material comfort and accumulation become secondary.

Accumulating spiritual understanding means acquiring more understanding about the reality of the transcendental realm, its nature, its qualities. It initially leads to the accumulation of more new beliefs, concepts and assumptions about the various spiritual teachings. The rational mind tries to make sense of all these terminologies, concepts and beliefs.

Stage Two

This is the stage where the rational mind comes against a wall. It soon realizes that the rational mind cannot fully grasp the transcendental reality. After all, how can a mind that functions in time and space fully grasp what is beyond time and space? There arise great doubts about the whole concept of understanding via the rational mind. It begins to see the limitation of names, labels, concepts and beliefs.

To progress, the spiritual seeker needs to surrender all his attachments and clinging to concepts and names. In fact, he needs to let go entirely of the need to rationalize with his rational mind. To do that, he needs a great leap of faith in the beyond – believing that whatever is beyond the rational mind is far more superior and sublime than the rational mind. He needs to literally jump off the edge of a cliff and have faith that his fall is safe. This is the great death that will lead to a great rebirth.

Stage Three

After the great death comes a new rebirth into the transcendental realm. It is here in this transcendental realm that is timeless and limitless that one experiences only the now. Here one experiences the oneness of all things. Here is peace. Here is eternity. Here is now. Many who have caught or taste a glimpse of this realm believe themselves to be fully enlightened. The experience in this realm is one of detachment from the physical world, even to the point of not caring for physical existence. One may try to convince oneself that here at last he has completely eliminate his ego. However, he will only be deluding himself as the denial of the suffering of the physical world is still a denial, albeit a sublimely subtle one. That is why this stage is sometimes said to have a big mind but no heart. If not careful, one can completely indulge oneself by staying in this realm indefinitely as a form of escapism.

Stage Four

At some point, one begins to realize the remnant of his subtle ego. The ego has matured tremendously at this stage but one is still not completely free of it. Soon there follows a fall from grace. From this great transcendental realm, one fall into a greater realization of the need to interact with the physical world.

Stage Five

In this final stage of Tozan, one finally fully realizes and is able to integrate both the transcendental experience with the physical world. One is able to be “in this world, yet not of this world”. In other words, one develops a great heart of compassion for all sentient beings who are still caught in the physical world and comes back to co-exist for the well-beings and uplifting of their spirituality. This is the stage of big mind, big heart. One is able to live a full physical life and yet is above all the conflicts and sufferings that normally accompanies a physical life.

Another way of looking at this is by drawing a triangle as shown above. The left corner represents the human aspects of our existence, where everything is perceived in relative dualism using the rational mind. Here we experience both pain and pleasure. The right corner represents the transcendental aspects of our being where oneness is experienced. Here is peace and is where the rational mind cannot fully comprehend due to its limiting nature. The transcendental or intuitive mind functions here.

To exclusively dwell in either one of these domains is unhealthy for us as human beings. To be a human being, we must be both able to experience the human aspect of ourselves as well as the transcendental aspect. A fully enlightened being is one who has fully integrated both, as represented by the apex in the triangle.

From Fear to Love

We are increasingly living in a fear-based society where national policies are motivated by fear. We have fear of terrorism and lately fear of recession. Individually, we are also increasingly living and doing things with fear as the main motivator. We fear loss of job, loss of income, loss of health, loss of security and loss of self esteem.

In a world where the natural law of attraction works without exception, now more than ever we need to remind ourselves that the world we experience externally is a mirror reflection of our inner thoughts. Therefore, if we continue to focus on fear, we will only be attracting more fear into our lives.

We must constantly remind ourselves to focus only on what we want, not on what we don’t want. By focusing on fear, we continue to perpetuate the vicious cycle. To change that external experience, we must turn our attention to unconditional love and faith in the universe.

In fact, unconditional love that is all inclusive, all embracing and perfect is the only reality. The rest is only an illusion created by our own mind. I love the quote from A Course in Miracles which says,

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

How can we live a life that is motivated by unconditional love?

We can only do so if we can see ourselves as more than just this physical body. We are spiritual beings, with a mind that is limitless, beyond time and space – a mind that is the key to determining our own destiny. Only through understanding our spirituality and our relation to the universe can we have faith that the universe will provide for all our needs.

In accordance with the Law of Attraction, the universe will give to us whatever we give to it through our thoughts. We are the owner of our thoughts and are totally responsible for the consequences arising from them. Shirking this responsibility is not an option and is done at our own expenses.

For more on From Fear to Love, go here.

How to Create Your Life One Day at a Time

Our lives consist of our daily events and experiences strung together from the day we were born to the day we die. So the best way to create our ideal lives is to live each day in the best possible way.

Many of us live our lives each day as an extension of the previous day. We drag along all our past limitations, mental habits, worn out beliefs and concepts, and all the baggage we’ve collected along the road of life.

I want to suggest to you to change that old way of living. Instead, try this formula for 30 days. You’ll be surprised by the change.

1. Begin each day as if it is the first day of your life. Discard all the old worn out beliefs, pains and frustrations, hurts and blames. Make a conscious decision to drop them all. Just let them go.

2. Remind yourself that you are a spiritual being – complete and whole. You are holy and pure, unblemished, untainted. You are a luminous light of radiant love that is unconditional, all embracing.

3. Realize that you create your life through your thoughts. You are fully responsible for all your creations – good or bad. You are the owner of your thoughts, your feelings and your actions. You reap the consequences of your thoughts and actions.

4. Spend the first 20 minutes of your day creating your perfect day. Visualize how you want today to be for you. See it in every single detail. Hear the conversations and the things you will say. Feel the emotions or passions related to each event and experience. Use all your senses, including smell, touch and taste. Experience it as if it is happening right now. The more “real” it feels to you, the easier it is to attract this reality into your life.

5. Live the day with a sense of heightened awareness. By this, I mean be mindful of your thoughts, feelings and actions. Note your thoughts. Are they self limiting and negative? If so, why? If you trace their sources, you will discover a limiting belief. As you learn to become more mindful of your thoughts, you will be able to discard more negative thoughts and replace them with positive, self affirming thoughts. When your inner mental state changed, you will see a corresponding change in your external experiences.

6. At the end of the day, spend another 20 minutes or so reflecting on the day. Be thankful for all the good things that have happened to you – the family and friends you have, your colleagues, your work, your hobbies and whatever else you have, though little there may be. Gratitude is a strong attractor that will bring you more of the same. Be joyful for the day and look forward to creating another new day tomorrow.

Remember to do this for 30 days. If you do it diligently, by the end of the month you would have acquired a new and more effective habit and way of living your life – one that attracts more abundance, good health and joy into your life.

A Complete Mind Science package

It has taken me quite a while but finally I’ve managed to put everything together in one place.

The Complete Mind Science package is finally here!

The unique one-of-a-kind package contains all the information and knowledge about mental science and its application that you will need to put into proper practice. However, what makes this package special is that it also contains the mind tools that you will need to facilitate your mental cultivation. These mind tools – such as meditation, brainwave entrainment, affirmations, subliminal messages, hypnosis and visualization – when used properly can greatly enhance the positive outcome of your mental practice.

T his special package provides you with short video clips on positive affirmations and visualization that I myself have used to great success. I placed them on my computer and every now and then will watch them as a way to re-enforce positive beliefs or replace negative thoughts and beliefs. Within this package, you also get a simple desktop subliminal software that you can load to your computer to flash positive affirmations to your subconscious mind as you work at your computer. There are already pre-programmed affirmations within the software but you have the additional option of adding or changing the affirmations.

The brainwave entrainment sub-section gives you e-books that guide you on the usage of the latest brainwave entrainment technologies and gives you links to download binaural beats products that you can use for free as well as guides to other professionally made ones.

All in all, these are the products and tools I myself have been using for some times now for my own personal transformation. I have found them to be of immense value to my progress, which is why I have included them in this package.

You can check it out personally here – http://mindscience101.com/MindScience1/

Cultivate Your Mind

Many people begin their new year making resolutions to improve their lives. I want to remind you that the best way to do so is to cultivate your mind. Since mind is the forerunner of all states, mastering your mind empowers you to have the life you want. Needless to say, meditation is the best way to cultivate your mind. For your own spiritual progress, it is not enough to just avoid evil and do good. Purify your mind too.

Therefore, if you want to make just one resolution this year, let it be to meditate regularly. It will be the best decision you’ll ever make!

New Year, New Resolutions

Every new year, people begin by making resolutions to improve their lives – resolutions that most never ever kept. Whenever I am asked as to the best way to keep a new year resolution, my reply is that you should keep it simple. Instead of listing 5 – 10 things you want to change, just have ONE and keep it!

For example, you may want to un-clutter your life this year. Keep your life simple. Rather than trying to slot in tons of activities into your week or day, choose only 1 or 2 and focus your energy and effort into getting the most out of them.

When you have to do too many things to stay occupied, you should ask yourself whether you’re not doing them simple to avoid looking deep within you for change.

Rather than making changes outside, what you really need to change is inside – your MIND. Change your attitude towards life, your self limiting beliefs, your limiting concepts about self and life, and what you regard as important in life.

Find the courage within to face your self, your shadow and all your fears. Regain the power you have lost. Only by changing from within can things truly change for the better in your life.

If there is one product that I can recommend to you for this, I’ll say it is Wallace Wattles’ The Personal Power course. See for yourself if this is right for you:

The Personal Power Course by Wallace D. Wattles

Science and Spirituality

These days there seem to be more and more books and movies about science and spirituality. Instead of disproving God and spirituality, science seems to be providing ample proofs for spirituality, especially in the areas of quantum physics and the mind.

Here are some of my favorite books on science and spirituality:

1. The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot

2. Mind into Matter, by Fred Alan Wolf

3. The Divine Matrix, by Gregg Braden

4. The Field, by Lynne McTaggart

Some of the movies making waves are:

1. The Secret

2. What the Bleep do we know?

3. Down the Rabbit Hole

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