Maria Duval - Epiphany at the Portola

Epiphany at the Portola
Last month I took a group of students, primarily high-powered businessmen and women, to China and Tibet for a meditation retreat. I was amazed at how much China had changed from the late eighties. Back then almost everyone wore a drab uniform and very few people looked happy. What I remembered most were all the guards carrying machine guns and being watched very carefully wherever I went. Now, in Shanghai and Beijing anyway, I was happy to see thoroughly modern cities. People were wearing bright colors and had happy, hopeful faces. Evidence of prosperity was everywhere. Even the guards at the Great Wall would sit and laugh with us. Tibet was even more amazing. It is such a beautiful country, with majestic mountains and magical temples filled with brilliant murals and golden beaming Buddha's. We were quite taken aback when at every temple and every statue we would be met by a monk who would inform us of the fee for taking a picture. Ten Yuan for this room, twenty for this Buddha, forty to videotape it. Of course, we were happy to make some donations to help restore the temples and delighted to support the ongoing work at the monasteries. But the gift that was given to us, perhaps by the Prosperity Buddha, was the idea of being open to receive and how money served as a means to help people. In my early years of meditating as a "yogi in training," I adopted the notion that money was un-spiritual. My mind had created a division between my business life and my spiritual life. As a result I lived in lack because my mind thought it was a more spiritual state to be in. Teaching yoga and meditation in the eighties I would always teach on a donation basis but rarely received enough to pay for the overhead. For years SAI remained a meditation backwater in Orange County. Then, in the early 21st Century, my friend, student and teacher Matthew Ferry, pointed out to me that my lack of prosperity consciousness was keeping my work from being enjoyed by other people. Once I was open to receive, others began to receive more too. Once my consciousness shifted from lack to value, The Self Awareness Institute grew from a few hundred people to tens of thousands all over the world in just a few years. This same shift may be helpful for you too. Are you living in lack? Do you deny yourself prosperity, happiness or peace of mind? Later this month I am conducting a Prosperity Consciousness workshop that I encourage you to attend. Prosperity is a state of consciousness, and your prosperity contributes to global prosperity. Lack serves nobody. This epiphany occurred at the Portola Palace in Lhasa. God bless the people of Tibet. Check out the photos visit: www.selfawareness.com/VideoPhotoGallery.html. From the heart, Steven S. Sadleir

Steven S. Sadleir is the Director of the Self Awareness Institute and is recognized as a Shaktipat Master in two lineages. He has developed powerful distance learning programs for people of all cultures and faiths, trained thousands of people from all over the world, and welcomes all of you who are ready for full Self-Realization. Visit http://www.SelfAwareness.com for FREE guided meditation mp3s and ebook!

Meditations: Developing Your Weekly Meditation Plan
Meditating without a clear plan or purpose is like going on a safari trip with out a map. You will get lost very quickly and you will not achieve what you setout to achieve. A meditation plan should simply set out how you want to plan your meditation for the week and what you want to focus on during that week but be advised there are few elements you will want to consider. Meditation is a fantastic tool in helping you address issues within your life and the role of the meditation plan is to help you set down how you are going to plan your week of meditation, what meditation types you will use for the week to get the outcome you are looking for. For example, the majority of people simply use meditation for relaxation which is absolutely fine but if you want to overcome what is causing the stress then your meditation needs to address the root cause of the stress. Let us say that your stress is being caused by somebody who is being obnoxious and rude to you at work. The clear objective of your meditation must be for you to develop strategy on how to deal with this person because you cannot physically change the other person you can only work on yourself. The first thing that you must do is to read, that is go to the library and look up as many books as you can on "Dealing with Rude and Obnoxious people". Read the strategies that they recommend. Check out videos by professional psychologists or television professional like Dr Phil and watch what they recommend in dealing with this sort of person. Work out how you believe the best way is to deal with them and that is what you are going to meditate on. Now to develop your weekly meditation plan … We should always start off with our Weekly Meditation Plan on a Sunday. I also recommend meditating twice a day, 20 minutes in the morning and at least 20 minutes in the night, preferably 40 minutes. Our meditation plan runs from Sunday to Saturday. Your Sunday morning meditation session should simply be for the purpose of relaxing. The meditation session should include meditation techniques such as the Stillness Meditation Type, Deep-Breathing Meditation or Numbers Meditation. The session should take no more than 20 minutes and could include meditation music to help you with your meditation. Your Sunday afternoon meditation session is the start of your reflective meditation sessions on helping to deal with the person who is rude and obnoxious. The first 5 to 10 minutes should be spent on clearing your mind and working to get calm. The next ten minutes should encompass reflecting on the material you have read. You should also reflect in that time on how you have reacted to that person. Literally in your minds eye, look at yourself and the other person, look at how you deal with them, how you expect them to act, try and reflect on using the techniques you learned and how the other person reacted when you used those techniques. To finish off your Sunday afternoon meditation session spend five minutes relaxing before finishing your meditation session and clear your mind. Do not get caught into stressing out on what might happen in the following day. Expect the Sunday afternoon meditation session to last up to 40 minutes. If you find that you cannot meditate that long, then do not force yourself but do try to encapsulate all the material covered. During the week your morning meditation sessions are about preparing you for the day. The key issue here is to not work yourself up before you get to work. The morning meditation sessions should be 20 minutes in length and should focus primarily on stress relief and preparing for a calm day. Towards the end of the meditation session take a moment to simply reflect on the key points on how to handle a rude and obnoxious person, by simply bringing the key points to the front of your mind. This is simply a refresher session. Your afternoon sessions are going to be a very important wind down session from the day's challenges. This session will give you an opportunity to deal with anything that may have happened during the day. The first 5 to 10 minutes should be to focus on relieving any stress or anxiety that has built up during the day. Then once you have done that part of the meditation it is time to review the day. During your day, how did you cope, how did you deal with the person who is rude and obnoxious, did you over react, what caused you to over act and so forth. Then once you have identified those issues, reflective meditate on those issues for example, how you could have dealt with those issues better, what you would have preferred your reactions to be etc. To finish this part of the meditation off, simply reflect in your mind the bullet points on how you want to react and deal with this person in the future. Before completing this session each night make sure that you do five minutes of meditation on de-stressing and bringing the mind to focus. Friday nights is important nights for meditating as you need to use relaxation meditation that night so that the stress from the week before does not ruin your weekend. You will need to do a minimum of 40 minutes of meditation if you have had a difficult week. This whole time should be spent undertaking relaxation meditation. Saturday morning meditation sessions should be used to review the whole week and to reflect on how you have grown during the week. To review how you dealt with issues at the start of the week compared to the end of the week. Whether you actually moved forward and addressed some of the issues related to the person being rude. This is also a good time to look and decide if during your reflective meditation if there is any issues you need to research that may help you deal with this person. On Saturday evenings, I like to recommend to people to take time out from meditating and to go out and enjoy themselves. During the week you have grown and now its time to simply take a break. By developing a meditation plan like I outlined above, you are working towards the resolution of an issue and training your mind to deal with certain types of people more effectively. Meditation planning does not need to be hugely in depth, but having a clear plan on how to meditate will mean that your meditation sessions have more purpose and will help you in achieving the objective you wish. Whilst this meditation plan looked at dealing with an obnoxious person, it could be used to for any purpose you require.

If you are interested in reading the Think and Grow Rich book by Napoleon Hill and learning the thirteen secrets to success, it is available at our website as a PDF as well as an MP3 Audio version. The best type of Meditation Music is Baroque Music played at 60 beats per minute and this music is also available at our website.

Meditation: Old Wisdom Today
These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future - Vernon Cooper Two hundred years ago, collecting information was the name of the game. The world was ruled by those who mastered the skills of information gathering. Knowledge was power. In today's world, the TV world, the world of live broadcasts, of information at your fingertips, a fast track world loaded with information, the advantage changed sides. Today, the world belongs to those who master the regulation of the flow of information. Today, it's not how much you know but how effective you are at finding what you need in the overwhelming rush of new facts coming straight at you from all around. When I started my teaching journey, believing that all the people around the world were gifted, I faced a dilemma. As a person who brought information collection to a level of art, I was actually giving my students the greatest disadvantage of the 21st century. I was guiding them to where "they couldn't see the forest for the trees." After I realised this, I spent years looking for the balance between collecting and regulating. Everything around us encourages collecting. At school, we learn how to gather and process information for our assignments, but not how to handle the enormous stream of information we absorb anyway. Imagine that your brain is an office, where every piece of information is like the people seeking your service or incoming messages requiring your processing and filing. Most of the processing happens while you're a sleep. The more information you receive, the more time it takes you to process it. Have you noticed that when you're stressed you feel tired? Have you noticed that kids sleep much more than adults do? That's because the load of information they need to process is greater - almost everything is new. Because the world moved into "fast forward," we receive information that is much greater than twenty years ago. To realise this, think about kids. Their knowledge nowadays is diverse and they know much more than what their parents knew at the same age. Gifted children, for example, have very superior collection channels. They can collect a lot of information at any given time. Unfortunately, not long after, the child will have loads of information without the time to process and the "clerk" in the "office" will scream, "That's it. Too much input. I can't handle this any more," and the child will feel overload and pressure. A simple thing like walking in the street stimulates a lot of incoming mail. The colours, the faces, the conversation of the couple you've just seen, the traffic jam and the smell and taste of the apples you bought in the supermarket. All this input is processed and stored for later use. When you are absorbing all this, seemingly without an effort, you brain is working overtime to process and you might feel stressed without being able to pinpoint the reason. A lot has been said about the ways to regulate this overload. Stress management actually tackles this from different angles. One way to handle stress is to try to divert our attention from the thing we consider the problem, where in fact we don't have any idea which information is sorted while we are asleep. The clerk processes the information as he sees fit without us having the conscious ability to control it. An example of diverting the attention for the supposedly a stress source, is the attempt to divert kids' attention from academic stimulants and encourage them to move into sports, art or music. This attempt only oils their superior machine and, instead of filtering out information, they open new channels of input as if the clerk now opened new doors to his office. Another method to overcome stress is to avoid dealing with some of the issues. Some people prefer the ostrich approach but are not aware of the fact that the office is open to the public as long as they're awake. Every minute you are not asleep, your office is receiving input. Sleep is just the way your clerk is working quietly with no disturbance. Has it happened to you that you wanted to stay at work after hours, when no one was around, so you can do the job without disturbance. Meditation is one of the best ways to regulate the incoming flow of information. In our model, meditation is like hanging a sign on the door, which says, "Away from the office. Back in 20 minutes." During this time, we allow our clerk to file the information without letting any new information to come in. Mediation research shows that it's being neither asleep nor awake. It's a state between the two, in which the brain is very calm, yet very sharp. My first encounter with meditation was when my inspiring sister, 16 years old at the time, went to study Transcendental Mediation. I remember her taking time off, closing her eyes and sitting still for a while. She looked a bit ridiculous, but she was brilliant at every thing she did. My first meditation experience happened when Gal and I went to study all kinds of meditation - affirmation, light, sound, eating, dancing, walking, mantra and visualisation. It was fun! I remember coming back home dead tired from meditation class, remembering that our instructor said, "Your body knows exactly what it needs. Listen to it. You probably need to sleep." Some time afterwards, I was working in Texas with a group of 2-year-old toddlers that used to wreak havoc during sleep time, so the centre had to reorganise the place and bring 10 adults to put them to sleep. The grownups sat there tapping the kids' backs and patting their heads for an hour and a half, until the last one fell asleep. In our staff meeting, I suggested to introduce visualisation. Familiar? "Close your eyes and imagine you are on a soft cloud, like cotton." We decided to try it for a month and reassess. On the first day, the last staff member left after 45 minutes. On the third day, they left after 10 minutes. The kids were still fully awake, relaxed, but with their eyes closed. At that time, we introduced soft meditation music in the background for an hour and a half. After a successful week, we felt we were ready to hand control over to the kids (remember, they were only two years old). We put the music on, "floated" for 3 minutes on our soft cotton cloud and then we asked them to take a deep breath and count one, two, three, one two, three. This way, within two weeks, we had 15 meditating toddlers, relaxed and saving the expensive resources of 10 extra staff members. You can imagine how happy the centre management, the parents and the teachers were. When we moved to Melbourne, Gal and I registered for a Transcendental Mediation course. Our instructor suggested we bring the kids along. It sounded funny, because they were only 4 and 10 years old. I remember her asking us what kind of improvements we would like to see in the kids. We looked at each other, not knowing what to answer. They were perfect kids - friendly, flexible, curious, smart, loving and understanding. We went there every evening for a week, watched some videos and learned to mediate. After 4 days, Gal got really sick, so Marg, our instructor, gave him 3 tea bags and told him to drink them during the day. She told him his body was adjusting. Like magic, he got up the day after, healthy and alert. About a month later, our perfect little son started drumming on everything. We had to look all around town to find someone who was willing to teach percussions to a 4-year-old. Ivan, bless his soul, taught him only because he himself started learning at the age of 4. After 4 weeks, Tsoof was so advanced that we had to send Gal with him, so he could help him at home with his practice. Within a year, he had 4 different drum teachers teaching him different styles and he started playing with adults, because there wasn't any children group at his level. We believe the mediation was the main reason for this. So now in our house, every health issue is solved in this order: 1. Drink plenty of water 2. Take vitamin C 3. Meditate 4. Sleep And you know what? This works for most things. In Transcendental Mediation, people meditate with a mantra. Children until the age of 10 can mediate for 5 minutes with their eyes open any time they wish. From the age of 10, they start meditating for the number of minutes equal to their age, until they turn 20. They just hang up the sign "I'm on break. Back in 10 minutes," twice a day. Every mediation session is considered equivalent to two hours of sleep and there you have it - people full of energy and focused who efficiently use another 4 hours of collecting information. Six years after our kids started meditating, we can tell by their behaviour whether they hanged the "on break" sign this week or not. Meditation doesn't prevent the information from entering. It only regulates the incoming flow to allow more information to come in. In a world full of information, a world of many words, many people, loads of feelings, lots of noise and visions, the name of the game is quiet. Many people are afraid they don't do it well because they still think of things while meditating. Remember, the goal in mediation is not to clear the brain from thought but to prevent new input from entering your office. Thinking during mediation is natural. In time, you feel much more relaxed, focused, energetic and happy. If two hundred years ago all we wanted was more knowledge, then today our best asset is a sign, which says on one side "on break" to allow cleaning the head and on its other side, for when we've restored our energy, "open to public!"

© Ronit Baras, Be Happy in LIFE - life coaching. Ronit Baras is a life coach, educator, author, journalist, justice of peace and public speaker living in Brisbane, Australia, specializing in relationships and families and an expert on motivation for kids.

Spring Cleaning For The Mind
A look at how mindless tasks help us connect to the universe You know the feeling you get right after spring-cleaning your whole house. I don’t mean just the routine cleaning. I mean a real reorganization of your entire household complete with moving furniture and elbow grease. What a great feeling it is when you’re all done and you sit back for the first time and just relax. This good feeling comes not just because you have a freshly cleaned house. Nor is it just a feeling of self-gratification for accomplishing, what is in my case, a monumental task. It is also the result of your recent connection with the universe through your own subconscious thoughts. You may not realize it but as you focus your attention on physical activities you are actually allowing your subconscious mind to surface with new ideas. When you really focus on something as mindless as cleaning your kitchen or garage you are actually distracting yourself from all the external influences that surround us all the time. It is this distraction that allows your subconscious mind to rise to the level of awareness with new ideas fresh from the universe for you to act upon. Ever have any great ideas in the shower or while shaving? As the master teachers of mindscapes when I’m faced with uncertainty. It helps me clear my head and focus on what my creative side is trying to tell me. I try to let my subconscious mind create the images and shapes as I draw, without expectation of what will come of the art. I enjoy the “now” moments that come with the creation as I draw and it is in those moments of connection with the universe that I project a mental image of what I really want to attract. Occasionally those images end up in the art. In some cases it’s pretty obvious what I wanted to attract at the time of “the doing” but finding the answer to what it is that you really want is half the battle of getting it. So many people believe that the answer to all their problems is money, especially if they don’t have any. I think it’s funny how we humans spend so much of our time following some grand fortune to bring us bliss, when it doesn’t cost anything to be happy. Happiness can be found just about anywhere you care to look for it. I’ll bet if you take a look around you right now you can easily find something or someone close by that makes you happy. There is nothing wrong with believing that it’s easier to be happy when you’re rich. The irony is, very few people realize that the opposite is true. It’s easier to get rich when you’re happy. People make things too hard. Have a Happy Day. www.neopoe.com

neopoe is a rouge scholar with absolutely no credentials, just a freethinking individual with nearly 30 years of study in personal development and metaphysics. See http://www.neopoe.com

Natural Ways To Keep Food Fresh Longer
If you are interested in health and diet, you have probably read all the research which points to the benefits of fresh, unprocessed foods. Eating healthier nearly always means opting for fresh fruits, whole grains and unprocessed meats and fish. Unfortunately, choosing foods without preservatives does have a down side - food spoils faster. That is no reason to go back to eating over-processed foods full of chemical preservatives, though. Long before our dependence on chemical preservatives, our mothers knew the secrets to keeping food fresh longer naturally. Here are some tips to help you keep fresh fruits, grains, vegetables, meat and fish fresh longer - the natural way.

General Tips

1. Keep your refrigerator at the right temperature. It should be kept between 38 and 40 F. to keep your foods as fresh as possible without freezing them.

2. Keep your eye on expiration dates when you shop.

3. Do not store highly perishable foods in the refrigerator or freezer door. They are more prone to temperature fluctuation.

4. Moisture promotes rotting and mold. Wipe vegetables and fruits dry before storing and avoid storing in plastic bags.

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Vegetables and fruits give off a gas called ethylene as they ripen. The ethylene sets off a chain reaction that causes the release of more ethylene, causing the food to ripen further. When fruits and vegetables are exposed to ethylene, they ripen faster. Some fruits and vegetables give off more ethylene than others - and some of them are more sensitive to ethylene than others.

1. Ethylene producers include apricots, avocados, bananas, cantaloupes, honeydew melons, kiwis, mangoes, nectarines, papayas, peaches, pears, plums, and tomatoes.

2. Fruits and vegetables that are sensitive to the effects of ethylene include: apples, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, eggplants, green beans, lettuces and other greens, potatoes, summer squash, and watermelons.

3. To keep fresh fruits and vegetables fresh longer, do not store any of the former group n the same drawers as those in the latter group.

4. Store fruits and vegetables in the warmest part of your fridge to preserve flavor.

5. Remove produce from plastic bags before storing. The bags trap the ethylene close to the fruit so that it ripens faster.

6.Wash produce and then dry well before storing. Moisture speeds rotting.

Meats and Eggs

1. Keep fresh meats refrigerated between 38-40 F.

2. Keep meat in original wrapping in refrigerator if you will be using it within two days.

3. Wrap meat in foil or freezer paper before freezing.

4. Make sure that there is plenty of air circulation around meat products in your refrigerator.

5. Store eggs pointed side down.

6. Wrap smoked meats like ham or bacon in a vinegar-soaked cloth.

7. Cool cooked meats quickly and completely before placing them in refrigerator.

Bread and Cereal Products

1. Store fresh bread in a cool, dark, dry place like a cupboard or breadbox.

2. Close the waxed paper inner bag of breakfast cereals tightly to preserve freshness. Better yet, transfer the cereal into a zipper lock plastic bag and put it back in the box.

3. Freeze bread that will not be used within a week. If you freeze artisan breads pre-sliced, you can just take a slice when you need it.

4. Keep soft cookies soft by storing them in a cookie jar or airtight container with a slice of bread.

5. Cut slices from loaf cakes like banana bread and pound cake from the middle instead of the end. After slicing, push the two ends together to reform the 'loaf'. You don't leave a cut end to get stale that way.

6. To keep cake moist, store it with half an apple in the container.


Dairy Products and Cheese

1. Store milk in its original container.

2. Do not store milk in the door where temperature is warmer.

3. Put milk back in refrigerator immediately after using.

4. Wrap cheese in waxed paper or plastic, then store in deli drawer.

5. Do not store ice cream in the freezer door. Keep it in the main part of the freezer.

6. Place a sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper directly on the surface of the ice cream before storing. It will keep fresh longer.

Miscellaneous

1. Store coffee in an airtight, opaque container to preserver flavor and freshness.

2. Buy coffee in whole bean form and grind enough for one pot at a time.

3. If you buy more coffee than you can use in 3-4 days, store in an airtight container in the freezer/

4. Store avocadoes unbagged in the refrigerator.

5. Store bananas on the counter, unbagged.

6. Berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries) should be stored in their plastic container or a resealable plastic bag in the back of the refrigerator.

7. Wrap lettuce in damp paper towels and store in a plastic bag.

Stephanie Larkin is a freelance writer who writes about topics and products concerning food storage such as Green Bags.

The Practice Of Not Furthering Out From This One by Elysha
It is completely understandable how you are forever hopeful that there may just be some golden elixir out there that is going to relieve you of the suffering that you find yourself in, from within your daily living. You do not understand how it is you being lost in the mechanics of trying to be something that is not true of who you are, that is creating your own reflection in life; that you furthering out and away from this "you" that is already true of you, is what has you hankering for other "out there" extravaganzas to distract you from the daily and momentary round of pain and dissatisfaction that you keep on feeling the frustration of. You keep on wishing for, looking for, something from outside of yourself to relieve you of it all. Someone comes along and offers you "golden balls" that is going to magically dissolve you of the very thing that you get up to without awareness; that you keep on actively trying to do, which obviously does not work for you. You can certainly receive "siddhi" - spiritual juice or power - from outside of yourself but this cannot relieve you of your own daily activity of trying to be something that is not true of who "you" are. You can attempt to meditate and try to go inside who you think you are and hope for some revelation to come along that is going to relieve you of your own pain, but alas, this is not going to do it for you either. Internally "out there" or externally "out there" is not going to have you standing freely in the reality of who you already are - which is the free standing one of all time that is already flowing through the eyes of this mindbody that you have so mistakenly identified yourself as being. Going within is a poetical expression for finding the "you" of you which is already free of all arisings, even as they arise. Going within means the aligning of your conscious focus of attention to "that" which already is the happening thing right now - it is flowing through the eyes of who you think you are. It is flowing through this mindbody that you keep on unconsciously trying to be. Without this "you" your mindbody would not even be; without your mindbody "you" would still be - you cannot get away from this "you" that you are, ever. Going within means finding who you already are and stopping at and as this one - your "areness”, your "amness”, your "youness;" that which is already flowing through this mindbody that you keep on thinking that you are and that you keep on trying to be. It is this "motion of seeing" that is flowing through your very eyes right now - this very "you" that is flowing through and that you keep on failing to recognise. Recognise means to know again. You already know who you are but there has been a veil preventing you from realizing this "you" of you for so long now, that it appears that you cannot and are not capable of finding it. This is no longer true for you. The dormant seed of this "you" has come to light - the veil has been rent - and you are now very capable of realizing this "you" of you if this is what you so wish to do. Who you are is this "motion of aliveness" that is flowing through your eyes right now. Aligning your conscious focus of attention to this very "seeing" and coming to rest as this very "aliveness" will have you standing free of who you think you are. It is through the practice of not furthering out from this one that is flowing through the eyes of this mindbody that you find yourself flowing through, that you begin walking the journey of self discovery of the heart of existence. It is through this finding and stopping at and as this "you" that the mindbody begins to unravel from its falsehood of being informed by the mind, freeing you to being the free standing one that already is here.

If you are interested in being the freedom of your heart visit Elysha's website for more free information and self help products. http://www.elysha.org/self.html