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CONTENTS • OMTIMES

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Rupert Sheldrake Of Science and Spiritual Practice by Sandra Sedgbeer

Menopause From a Holistic perspective

10 Ways To Get Exercise in Your Life

Waiting for Jesus

20 Paths to A More Peaceful Mind

By Stefanie Arend

By Andrew Pacholyk, MS L.Ac

By Arthur Telling

By Andrew Pacholyk, MS L.Ac

August 2019 B EDITION

CONTENTS • OMTIMES

9 Ways to Feng Shui your Life and Improve your Destiny

Yoga Studio at Home- How to Update and Zen it Out

The Mysterious Beauty of a Synchronicity

3 Ways to Cook Tofu that Doesn't Suck

Table of Content

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Table of Contents 94 100 106 114 118 124 130 134 140 146 152

Compost, Compost Piles, and Bins, Oh My Love, Relationships and Other Decisions Why Do So Many Adults Join Cults? Are You a Clairaudient? The Annunaki Rx Give and Glow Love Without Labels Being Fearlessly Authentic Why Do We Ignore the Suffering of Animals How to Start Your Own Little Free Library in 6 Easy Steps Zen with Alan Watts

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FEATURE

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Science & Spiritual Practice Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author, best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance.

Interview By Sandra Sedgbeer

GEARS

He was the director of the Perrott-Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He's world-renowned books include Morphic Resonance and New Science of Life. Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, The Presence of the Past, Seven Experiments that Could Change the World, and The Science Delusion, and many more. Rupert Sheldrake joins me to discuss the things that religion, atheism, spirituality, rituals, and ceremony covered in his two latest books, science, and spiritual practices reconnect in through direct experience. And his soon-to-be-published sequel, Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work: Seven Spiritual Practices in a Scientific Age. OMTIMES| AUGUST B EDITION

Sandie Sedgbeer: Thank you and welcome Rupert Sheldrake. In the preface to Science and Spiritual Practices, you share that you had a fairly conventional Christian upbringing. Your family was Methodist, and you went to an Anglican boarding school for boys. But later on, you became an atheist. What prompted you to make that transition? Rupert Sheldrake: Well, it just seems to happen naturally at the time. The message I got from my science teachers was that science and reason are all about progress and the future. And religion is all about superstition and credulity, and Dogma and I wanted to be on the side of progress. So it wasn't really a kind of agonizing decision. It was just smoothly going with the flow of scientific education in the secular worldview. Sandie Sedgbeer: So, over the last 35 years or more, you've been doing experimental research on plant growth, morphic resonance, homing pigeons, dogs that know when their owners are coming home, the sense of being stared at, telephone telepathy, and a range of other subjects. What attracted you to those areas, and how have they changed your ideas about religion and atheism? Rupert Sheldrake: Well, I began to doubt the mechanistic materialist theory of life when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge. I began to feel that I loved animals and plants, that's why I did biology, and that's why I was studying it. And I noticed the first thing we did was kill whatever we were studying. So I felt something had gone wrong. It wasn't really a science of life. It was a science of parts of living organisms when they're dead. So, I began to think in terms of finding a more holistic alternative.

OMTIMES| AUGUST B EDITION

That was part of my quest. After being an undergraduate, I went to Harvard, where I studied history and philosophy of science to try and get a bigger picture. I really came to the view by about 10 years after I graduated. I was doing research at Cambridge at the time that biology is not best explained in terms of mechanisms, but there are organizing principles,

OMTIMES| AUGUST B EDITION

While I was doing that, while I was moving towards a more holistic view in biology, I got more and more entrenched like Consciousness, partly through psychedelics, in the early 1970s, and then through meditation and Yoga. And that led me to an interest in Hindu philosophy. I took a job in India at an international institute doing agricultural research that, very surprisingly, the interest in the Indian spirituality, being in India, led me back to the Christian path.

which I now call morphic fields, and a kind of memory in nature, which I call morphic resonance, which leads to a completely different way of interpreting living organisms. I realized that the mechanistic materialist world view, which has dominated for so long and still does excluded whole areas of research that was treated by science as taboo and beyond the borders of anything you could work on. It's precise because they'd been so neglected that they were so fascinating. It's like exploring whole new territories. So when I found out I could break out of that dogmatic belief system of mechanistic materialism, I found whole new frontiers of science opened up and some of them I've done research on, which you've just summarized some of the topics I've worked on.

Now I actually confirmed in the church of south India in my thirties, and I then found an extraordinary teacher in India called Father Bede Griffiths, who is an English Benedictine monk living in an Ashram in South India on the bank of a sacred river. I wrote my first book, The New Science of Life, in his Ashram. I then went back to work at my agricultural institute, but I took two years to write that book,and that, for me, was a tremendous expansion of consciousness, reconnecting with the Christian mystical tradition

which I didn't know much about before, and finding a way through Father Bede of integrating eastern and Western spiritual ideas. Sandie Sedgbeer: There's been a huge decline, in religion in Europe and in North America in recent years and for many years there's been a huge divide between organized religion and the so-called New Age spiritual philosophies. But of late, there seems to be more of a coming together, more people who would describe themselves as spiritual, but not religious. What do you think is behind this shift? Rupert Sheldrake: Well, I think that a lot of people have been put off by religion. The religion that's lost most adherents is Christianity. Most atheists come from Christian backgrounds, some from Jewish backgrounds, but you don't often meet Hindu atheists or Muslim atheists. I think part of it is there has been relentless antiChristian propaganda within the educational system since the enlightenment near the end of the 18th century. The French revolution in 1793 abolished Catholicism in France and proclaimed the state cult of science and reason.

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They guillotined thousands of priests. They destroyed the monasteries. It was a very, very strongly antiChristian movement. The communists in the 19th century were also very anti-Christian, and atheism was the official doctrine of communism and of continental socialism, not so in England with socialists, but on the continent.

RUPERT SHELDRAKE

Atheism became a kind of political movement, opposing the power of the church because, in many cases, it propped up reactionary governments. So it was very politicized, and I think that kind of anti-Christian polemic has now become completely built into the default educational mode of people who go to university or secondary school. It's just part of the air you breathe in an academic environment. As I did myself. I didn't pay thoughtfully, or in an evidence-based way, go through these arguments. I just drifted away from the Christian tradition, assuming that it proved I was smarter than everyone else. The general message is that it is not smart to be a Christian or believe in God, whereas it is much smarter not to. So that led to a great prejudice against organized religion.

And then, of course, some people had very negative experiences, such as clerical abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Some people felt they were being brainwashed or indoctrinated, or they had intolerant and puritanical upbringings and so on. The state we've gotten to in Britain now is that the great majority of young people are brought up in with no religion at all. They knew very little about any religion, so it's not as if they're reacting personally against it, they have just absorbed this general prejudice. But there is a spiritual need, I think, in all of us, and I think that the rise of an interest in spiritual practice, yoga and meditation is the most obvious, and the new age movement that preceded that, has helped a lot of people to find a spiritual path, but without being part of an organized religion.

Connect with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake at www.sheldrake.org

The morphic fields include all kinds of organizing fields...: The organizing fields of animal and human behaviour, of social and cultural systems, and of mental activity can all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent memory.

So a lot of people I know say they're spiritual, but not religious, which is really quite a common attitude to have nowadays. I say of myself that I am spiritual and religious, and some people treat them as if they're opposite. So you can't be one, you've got to be one or the other. I see them as complementary. Some of the spiritual practices, like meditation, are very much about personal development. I think one of the strengths of religious traditions is that they have a more communal aspect. They bring communities together. You're seen with other people, you celebrate festivals together. When I lived in India, it was very striking, the sharing of religious tradition in Indian villages and towns has a tremendous bonding effect on the population. They are celebrating together in these great festivals, whereas in Europe, many of the great religious festivals, for example, September the 29th, The Feast of Saint Michael and all the Angels, most people don't even know it's happening.

So there is a loss of that communal aspect in this very individualistic form of spirituality. I think that reconnecting with religious traditions can help to reconnect us with that communal aspect. Sandie Sedgbeer: It's a very important aspect. What we see nowadays is people might meditate together, but actually they're meditating on their own in the same room as others, or they may all be joined by an app. They're doing some meditation, but they're not really connected. Rupert Sheldrake: No. I think with some spiritual practices, it is perfectly fine to withdraw into one's own consciousness. I meditate every morning, so I'm certainly not against meditation, but I also pray and, in my book, Ways To Go Beyond and Why They Work, I discuss the difference between prayer and meditation. I think they are complementary to each other.

Science at its best is an open-minded method of inquiry, not a belief system. RUPERT SHELDRAKE

OMTIMES MAGAZINE

I think meditation is more like breathing in, you're withdrawing your attention from the world around you and then when you're meditating, withdrawing your attention from the train of thoughts and worries and ruminations that is going on inside your mind, the internal chatter and dialogue, by having another focus, either the breathing or a mantra. It is a kind of withdrawal from engagement in daily life, personal worries, and so on, to get to the ground of consciousness itself. And that's very important, and it has a very connecting effect, not with other people necessarily, but with the ground of being. On the other hand, petitionary prayer, asking for things, is the opposite. You start with making a spiritual connection. All prayers begin with invocations like "Our Father who art in heaven," or "Hail Mary, full of grace," or "Om Namah Shivaya." Starting with an invocation, invoking a spiritual being, and then connecting, that spiritual power with needs, wants, requests:

people often pray for healing for themselves or for others, or for protection, or for success in business, or exams, or all sorts of every day and rather mundane things, as a focus of much of this petitionary prayer. But what that's doing is connecting the spiritual realm with these concerns. The meditation is withdrawing from them, prayers connecting with them. So it's a flow in the opposite direction. I don't see these as either/or. I see it as both hands, and I meditate in the mornings, and I pray and evenings before I go to bed.

I think that prayer is something which can be done more communally and, of course, in all religious services, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, people are praying together with other people and so it can have a unifying effect to pray with others. The other thing that has a very unifying effect through the practice of traditional religion is singing and chanting because all religions have singing and chanting as part of them. When you sing and chant with other people, then you literally come into resonance with them. It's a very bonding and connecting experience. OMTIMES MAGAZINE

That's why I think singing together is good for people in secular societies where they no longer sing every week in church with each other. I think that's why community choirs and other forms of communal singing have become so popular because they do have this bonding effect. They connect you with other people. Sandie Sedgbeer: Science, and Spiritual Practices has been described as a book for anyone who suspects that in the drive towards radical secularism.Â Rituals and the ceremonies that not only connect us to each other as families and communities but also connect us to something bigger than ourselves. In what are the ways do we connect and what are the benefits have we lost through the spiritual practices that we don't practice?

Rupert Sheldrake: Well, I think all religious traditions have a whole mixture of spiritual practices, rituals, prayer, singing, and chanting, celebrations together through festivals and holy days, pilgrimage, fasting. There's a whole range of these practices which are common to all religions, and you can do them without being part of a religion as well. And that's why I wrote this book because it's clear that there's a wide range of spiritual practices. It's also clear that they are common across the world. It's also clear that the reason so many people do them, the reason they're traditionally adopted, is that they work, they have measurable effects on brains, physiology, people's wellbeing, a sense of community and so on. And there have now been a lot of scientific studies that show that's the case. So that's the whole point of my books to show how the scientific evidence points to their effectiveness, personal experience points to their effectiveness. In each of the chapters, I suggest ways in which people can do these things themselves.

I would say one of the simplest of them all is gratitude. There's now a lot of research by positive psychologists, psychologists who look into what makes people happy, that suggests that it's people who are grateful are much happier than people who are not grateful. If you do gratefulness exercises, then you get happier. Quite simple things like just making a list of things, good things that have happened in the previous week, or people to whom you feel grateful, who have helped you, actually makes people feel happier. It also makes them more popular because this research has shown something that is not really very surprising: it's that people who are grateful and who appreciate what's going on around them and what people do for them are more popular than people who take everything for granted and instead of being grateful, complain. They're less popular, they're less fun to be with. It's obvious really, but now there's scientific evidence that this is the case. Coming back to gratitude, it can be done individually,

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one can make a list mentally or writing it done, or it can be done together. One of the things I suggest in my chapter on gratitude in Science and Spiritual Practices is simply restoring what used to be a standard practice in many families. Certainly, when I was growing up, it was quite common, families before meals would sit down together and share a grace, someone would say grace or they'd say grace together, and so there was a way that everyone came together in giving thanks. Indeed, there's no reason why atheists secular humanists should object to giving thanks, because, even if you don't believe in God, there's a lot to be thankful for: the people who prepare our food, grow it, the sun that enables the plants to produce our crops, and so on. There is plenty to be thankful for even if one doesn't believe in God. So I think that these simple practices like this can actually have a transformative effect on people's lives. In other words, people who don't do these things are really missing out.

RUPERT SHELDRAKE Sandie Sedgbeer: The other thing is that the hypothesis of morphic resonance illuminates what we are tapping into when we do engage in ceremony, or ritual, or chanting, or singing. There's this whole field that we're stepping into which is rich and historical and that must be beneficial on many levels that we cannot see. Rupert Sheldrake: Morphic resonance is the idea that there's a memory in nature and it's based on similarity. In its most general sense, it says that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits and also that each species has a kind of collective memory. This is rather like Jung's idea of the collective unconscious. But where it affects rituals is that morphic resonance happens based on similarity.

The most similar patterns of activity are, the more they resonate across space and time with those who've done them beforehand. The whole point of rituals is that people do things in a similar way to the way it has been done before. For example, the American thanksgiving dinner is a national ritual. Rituals don't have to be religious, they can be secular or national as well. It involves coming together, it involves having a meal together, of all giving thanks. It involves a particular kind of meal. It's re-enacting, in a way, of the first thanksgiving dinner of the first settlers in the new world around 1620. By taking part in it, Americans connect with other people, they're sharing the ritual with family and friends, andÂ

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They also connect with all those who've done it before, right back to the first time. The same thing happens with the Jewish Passover ritual or the Christian holy communion itself, which originated at Passover dinner. People who take part in these rituals connect with other people who are doing them at the same time, connecting with other cocelebrators or participants, but also, through morphic resonance, linking to all those who've done it before, across the generations, and linking to all those who will do it in the future. So these rituals are about connection. They're about the connection with other people who are taking part in the same ritual and also connecting with those who've done it in past generations with ancestors and those who've come before and with those who follow. And that I think is why rituals are so important and so powerful because this sense of connection is something, we all need. Happiness is very much to do with feeling connected, being in the flow, and being connected to a kind of flow, and rituals connect us with the flow through the generations, the flow of the community that we're part of.

Whereas unhappiness is about being disconnected, separated, alienated, and lonely. I think that's the reason that rituals are so important. I think that's why they play such an important role in every single culture in the world. Sandie Sedgbeer: You offer seven spiritual practices in Science, and Spiritual Practices and one of the ones which I particularly enjoyed was a pilgrimage. You say that pilgrimage has the great advantage of being both a practice and a metaphor? Tell us about the metaphor part. Rupert Sheldrake: Well, pilgrimage is a journey to go a holy place, and all religions have them: Muslims go to Mecca, Hindus go to temples or the Sacred River Ganges, and Jews go to Jerusalem. There are many focuses on pilgrimage, but they all have this quality. You go on a journey, which is a literal physical expression of the spiritual quest, you're going to connect with this place of the spiritual path that links Heaven and Earth. It's a place where people who have been transformed before, where there's been opening up of the spiritual dimension.

So, it's a physical journey, but it's also a metaphor because one can see the whole of life as a pilgrimage with a spiritual goal. In fact, that's what happened in that very famous book of 17th Century English literature, The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, it takes the idea of a pilgrimage and makes it into a metaphor for our whole journey through life. So, I think that the metaphor of pilgrimage is a very good one for life, but it doesn't really work so well as a metaphor unless you've actually made a pilgrimage. Otherwise, it's just an idea, but if you've actually done a pilgrimage or done several, it means much more. It fleshes out this metaphor. It makes it a living experience. Sandie Sedgbeer: In your forthcoming book, Ways To Go Beyond and Why They Work: Seven Spiritual Practices in a Scientific Age, you combine the latest scientific research with your extensive knowledge of mystical traditions to show how we may tune into more than human realms of consciousness. Give us a brief overview of the seven spiritual practices you're writing about in that book?

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Rupert Sheldrake: Yes, the first one I write about in the book is on sports and for most people that's a surprise because, in a secular world, most people don't think of sports as a spiritual practice. But actually, I think that the principle way in which most people in the modern world do actually enter altered states of consciousness have a sense of connection and presence that they don't get through the more mundane parts of their life. One of the things about spiritual practices is coming into the present, and in meditation, one of the important things is to come into the present through the mantra, or the breathing, rather than being taken away from it all the time by ruminations, thoughts, worries, et Cetera. If you're skiing downhill at 60 miles an hour and there's a cliff on one side, you could easily go over. If you're driving a racing motor-bicycle very fast, you have to be in the present. You have to be in the present because otherwise, you're dead or at least going to have a serious accident. So one thing sports does is it brings people into the present, into a state of flow. Many people actually have mystical Experiences through sports. I have a whole chapter on the spiritual dimension of Sports.

Then I have a chapter on learning from animals. Many people find that surprising because animals are normally considered not part of the spiritual realm, but any spiritual view of nature has to include the fact that all creation is a reflection of the divine. In all animals, there's something of the divine, and we can see it in lots of ways. There is beauty. Some animals are very beautiful. In the way they move and the way they look. All of the nonhuman animals don't have the problems we do. We have worries, and inner chatter, internal dialogue. They don't have language, so they don't have internal dialogues. That means they're much more in the present. And one of the aims of spiritual practices is to come into the present. Animals don't have to work at it. And that's their natural condition, which is why I think we can learn from them. For example, if you've got a cat sitting on your lap, purring, the cats completely in the present, is expressing its pleasure and joy at being in the present. And one way is just stroke it distractedly while thinking of something else to just enter into that sense of presence with the cat. It can actually help you come into a sense of presence and connection. I count spiritual practice as coming into the present. I think that animals may also have a kind of mysticaltype experiences. I think it's very arrogant of us humans to think we're the only ones with the hotline to God. I think animals have many of the features we experience as spiritual. They live in the present. They often show altruistic behavior, even insects like ants or bees. They're not in it for the money. They're not in it for themselves. They're in it for the good of the greater community, far more so than most humans. Dogs are famous for their loyalty and the unconditional love they show us. Among humans, that level of unconditional love is found in saintly people, but most people fall short of the levelÂ shownÂ by the average dog. OMTIMES MAGAZINE

I think it's quite possible that when a lizard is basking in the sun or when a songbird is singing his beautiful song, it has a sense of connection to something much greater than itself, beauty, the sun, and the wider universe. So I think we can learn from animals about spirituality. Then, I talk about fasting because fasting is a spiritual practice in old traditions. Jewish people fast Yom Kippur, Muslims in Ramadan, Christians in Lent, Hindus have various fasting days. Shamanic cultures often have fasted before ceremonies or rites of initiation or do them during vision quests.

The physiology of fasting is that you go into Ketosis where the body breaks down stored fats. The ketone bodies in the blood, acetone, acetoacetate, and betahydroxybutyrate, actually affect the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Beta hydroxybutyric acid is psychoactive in a sense it changes the levels of neurotransmitters leading to altered states of consciousness. People, when they're fasting often feel their minds are clearer, they can pray and meditate better, concentrate better. It's known to have enormous health benefits to fast, that is for people who are in reasonable condition to start with, obviously not recommended for anorexics or for people on vast numbers of pills that the whole fasting might disrupt or, in a difficult medical situation. But for most people, fasting is tremendously good for them both spiritually and physically. I do it every year during Lent for at least four days and usually just before Easter and find it a really helpful practice. Sandie Sedgbeer: You also write about cannabis and psychedelics. Rupert Sheldrake: Yes, I also write about cannabis and psychedelics. That's probably for some people surprising, even shocking, and perhaps unexpected. But the reason I do that is partly because for me, in my own lifetime, both cannabis and psychedelics have been helpful spiritually. I've had kind of spiritual openings and this; in the 1970s when I was in my kind of atheistic rather narrow scientific phase. I first took LSD in 1970, and I would have been 28, and the effect was extraordinary. It gave me the sense of a vastly greater realm of consciousness that no one had ever told me about before, that I'd never thought of before. The same thing happened when I first took cannabis, which I did in India with a holy man in the Himalayas. OMTIMES

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August B edition

It was the first time I ever experienced it. It was a kind of mystical, spiritual

In some like Colorado, who have

experience for me. Cannabis and psychedelics have been used in shamanic cultures and in religious practices for a long time. There are now psychedelic churches. The Santo Daime church in Brazil is a psychedelic Christian Church where people take ayahuasca as a kind of communion in services. So, certainly, there are a lot of people who do feel that these things have a spiritual value and for many young people in our society where we

magic mushrooms. So now it's possible

no longer have powerful rites of passage, I think psychedelics, for many people, serve as a kind of rite of passage, as they did for me. I think it's better to acknowledge that and recognize that this can be a spiritual opening than to pretend that it's meaningless, valueless and so on. Because people who've had these experiences don't find them meaningless or valueless. They often feel that they have openings and they're helpful. Of course, cannabis and psychedelics can be dangerous, particularly for people prone to psychosis, and I'm certainly not advocating the indiscriminate use of illegal substances, but I, I think the situation in the United States and in Canada is now a very interesting one because cannabis is now legal in many states.

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decriminalized the use of psilocybin, to do these things without the stigma of illegality, and I think that churches and synagogues and other religious organizations are going to have to come to terms with this. They could just say no when it was illegal. As a matter of fact, there are now Jewish groups in the United States, in states where cannabis is legal. They've introduced taking cannabis into their Havdalah ceremonies which are at the end of the sabbath, they have communal meal at the end of the Sabbath on Saturday evening, where traditionally they drink wine, and they have sweet spices, but some now have cannabis-infused bagels. They find that it brings the communal spirit, the celebration, the togetherness of the group of friends, and makes it more powerful and really helps.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Exactly. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, thank you so much. Science and Spiritual Practices and the soon to be published, Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work are published by Counterpoint Press. Connect with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake at www.sheldrake.org

August B edition

Health & Wellness

Innovative new approaches to Healing as well as holistic methods for dealing with health issues and personal growth

BOOK FEATURE

MENOPAUSE FROM A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE

During menopause, a woman’s hormones adjust, and her body changes gradually. Most women notice these changes between the ages of forty and fifty-five. They are often accompanied by unpleasant symptoms such as hot flushes, irritability, aggression, lethargy, feeling faint, gaining weight, or hair loss. The inner attitude of the woman also has a major effect on how the menopause progresses. If she is positive about this phase of life, the typical menopause complaints are much less severe or may not even be perceived as such. You can see this in cultures that celebrate this transition instead of meeting it critically.

Many women question themselves and their own lives intensively during this period, and may also concentrate more on themselves again, as they have reached a very stable phase of life and no longer have to—or want to—subject themselves to the pressures of society as they might have in the past. Mothers, in particular, will have done an amazing and brilliant job for many years (and given a considerable amount of themselves, through pregnancy and the raising of children), and they should really enjoy having more time to themselves once their children are independent.

In this phase, plans and wishes that women have kept on the back burner for some time should now be implemented and enjoyed before possible physical limitations might start to become apparent and these opportunities would no longer be possible.

FROM A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE, MENOPAUSE IS A TIME WHEN A WOMAN QUESTIONS HERSELF AGAIN

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As the Yin energy should be nurtured during menopause, Yin Yoga is naturally ideal here. It also has a cooling effect, which can have a very favorable influence on hot flushes. Many women intuitively gravitate to calmer styles of yoga in these years, as they no longer have the strength or willingness for active types of yoga. However, many use it consciously as a form of balance to neutralize the excessive Yang, which has often built up in the first half of life. From a holistic perspective, menopause is a time when a woman questions herself again. She is starting the second half of her life and losing her fertility at a physical level, which can also give her new freedom. Although it is frequently devalued in the West, the midlife crisis, which men may also experience, should not be viewed negatively. This upheaval should really be a welcome opportunity to set new objectives or venture into a change of directionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to be able to look back on a fulfilled life and to have no regrets about not having lived life to the fullest. Vegetarians and vegans usually have fewer menopausal complaints than omnivores. If you suffer badly from hot flushes, etc., then you should avoid animal products as far as possible for a while. Some women are also helped by phytoestrogens, secondary plant substances with a hormonal effect.

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MENOPAUSE

The best-known representative of this is isoflavone, which is found in red clover and soy in particular. Asians seem to benefit from this more (and Europeans a little less, probably because they have different intestinal flora and metabolize soy differently). The lignans contained especially in flaxseed, legumes, vegetables, whole grains, and fruit (particularly in pomegranates) may also have a balancing effect. I would not recommend taking highly concentrated phytoestrogens

Supplements, however, as they can have unwanted side effects. On the other hand, women going through menopause should pay particular attention to their bone health and make sure they intake a sufficient supply of calcium and vitamin D, as a lack of estrogen can also lead to Osteoporosis. Good supplies of calcium include seaweed, dandelion, cabbage, fennel, nuts, almonds, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds.

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Yoga Practices Unfortunately, the vitamin D requirement is not just covered by nutrition, as it is mainly formed in the skin via UV-B radiation. Moderate sunbathing is fantastic to increase vitamin D levels. However, if there is a proven lack in vitamin D sufficiency (there is a blood test for this), a supplement is recommended. During the fall and winter months, I take a supplement myself because the sun is not high enough in the European countries to give us sufficient vitamin D. Possible questions for reflection are: Have I sufficiently accepted my femininity? How can I live out my intellectual and spiritual sides more? Am I ready to move on to new topics and tasks? In TCM, there are two conflicting notions. One assumes that with menopause, there is a lack of Yin, which allows the Yang to increase excessively, and the other presumes that the Chi dynamic is out of control. In modern China, the “School of Yin nourishment” dominates, so that it is treated as follows:

Effect Sitting Twisted Roots works on the meridians of the bladder and gallbladder.

Practicing the Exercise Place a yoga bolster or a rolled-up blanket lengthways on the mat, and sit left of it on the floor. If you would like to integrate a little more opening of the hips, bend your legs comfortably to the left, at 90 degrees to the ankle if you wish. Place your fingers on the floor and press them in to create length in the spine. Now rotate your upper body to the right and lie relaxed on the bolster. Bend the arms and place your head in such a way that you are looking to the left. If this is too intense for your cervical spine, then keep the head in the middle or look to the right. Direct your breath gently towards the abdomen. Hold the position for three to five minutes, push yourself up again, and change sides. Then place the props to the side and relax into the position where you are lying on your stomach or go into Relaxed Supine Position.

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•For hot flushes worsened by stress: kidney, liver, and large intestine; if sleep disturbances also occur, the heart and liver as well • For hot flushes with heavy sweats: kidney • For restlessness, sleep disturbances, and palpitations: heart, liver, and kidney; if there is also faintness, then liver, spleen, and stomach as well

Sitting Twisted Roots (Jathara Parivartanasana) This position gently massages and mobilizes the spine.

Twisted Roots (Jathara Parivartanasana)

Butterfly (Baddha Konasana) The position stretches the entire back and the insides of the legs. It is particularly good for women during menstruation and is also a suitable yoga position in pregnancy.

Butterfly works on the meridians of the liver, kidneys, spleen, and bladder. The side bend and rotation also stimulate the gallbladder meridian and, in the side bend, the small intestine, large intestine, and triple warmer meridian. Butterfly (Baddha Konasana)

Practicing the Exercise

1. Sit on the mat, place the soles of your feet together, and pull the feet towards the pelvis. Let the knees drop gently outwards, or support the outsides of the legs with two blocks if this stretch is too intense for you. You can also sit on a blanket or a cushion. Relax the back, let your upper body sink forward passively, and place your arms where it is comfortable for you. Dragon (Anjaneyasana)

3. You can also combine Butterfly with an active rotation.

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2. If you want to try more variations, straighten up again and come into a side bend. Place the left hand next to the left knee and lean leftwards with your upper body. Leave the right arm behind your back or take it above the head for more stretch. Then change sides and perform the side bend to the right.

To do this, grip your right knee with your left hand, place your right hand behind the pelvis, and turn rightwards with a straight spine. Then change sides and carry out the rotation to the left. 4. In addition to the stretch, you can also activate the bubbling spring acupressure point with your fingers; this is the kidney point on the sole of the foot, which is located centrally directly underneath the ball of the foot. It counteracts anxiety and exhaustion, clears and calms the mind, and has a grounding effect. OMTIMES |AUG B

Remain in Butterfly for three to five minutes, including the rotation and the side bend. Alternatively, you can also stay in the forward bend only. Press the acupressure point gently as long as it feels good. Then come back to the center and extend both legs again. Relax into Supine position. Dragon (Anjaneyasana) Dragon is one of the more intense positions, as the Yang element can clearly be felt here. This is absolutely okay, as there is always some Yang in all Yin, and vice versa. But try to reduce the Yang element as much as you can by allowing yourself to go into the pose in the best way possible, or by using props. With Dragon, the focus is on the meridians of the stomach, spleen, liver, kidneys, gallbladder, and bladder, depending on the version you practice. It intensively stretches the groin, the fronts of the thighs, and the bridge of the feet, and (depending on the variation) the upper body, buttocks, and hip area as well. Dragon is also very good preparation for Saddle.

Practicing the Exercise 1 and 2. Come onto all fours, and place a blanket under the knees if you are sensitive to pressure here. Then take your right leg from between your hands and place your left knee on the floor. If you want the position to be gentler, then pull the left knee forward slightly; for more intensity, take it further back. The right knee can be placed in front of, above, or behind the ankle, but this should not cause any pain in the knee. Let the pelvis sink towards the floor very passively. Now place the hands either left or right next to the foot, or both on the inside. The position becomes more intense if you support yourself on your forearms, and it is slightly easier if you use propsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for example, blocks or a yoga bolster. 3. If you want to intensify the backbend, you can put your hands on the front of your thigh for support. 4. For the version that includes rotation, place your right hand on the right knee and turn your upper body to the right while looking upwards. As Dragon is a rather intense exercise, I recommend trying different variations. Remain on the right side for three to five minutes, including the back bend and rotation versions, and then repeat the sequence with the left leg forward. To release or to change sides, you can move slowly into a Resting Pose.

Excerpted from Be Healthy with Yin Yoga: The Gentle Way to Free Your Body of Everyday Ailments and Emotional Stress by Stefanie Arend (She Writes Press, August 2019). For more information, visit: https://www.yinyoga.de/en Stefanie Arend is a renowned Yin Yoga instructor, holistic health coach, nutritionist, and energy worker. As the first German author to focus exclusively on Yin Yoga, she is the author of six books, including the classic bestseller, Yin Yoga: The Gentle Path to the Inner Center (2011) and Surya Namaskar: The Sun Salutation (2014), both of which were named Best Yoga Book of the Year in German-speaking countries. Be Healthy with Yin Yoga is her first English language book. For more information about Stefanie or to watch her videos, website and YouTube channel.

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10 Ways To Get Exercise in Your Life

By increasing lifestyle activities each day, try doing four 10-minute increases at least five days a week. The idea is just to do more of what you are already doing. Here are some great ideas on getting motivated: 1. Aerobics: The word aerobic means “with oxygen” or “in the presence of oxygen.” Aerobic exercise is any activity that uses large muscle Omtimes.com

groups, can be maintained continuously for a long period, and is rhythmic. Aerobic activity trains the heart, lungs, and cardiovascular system to process and deliver oxygen more quickly and efficiently to every part of the body. As the heart muscle becomes stronger and more efficient, a larger amount of blood can be pumped with each stroke. Fewer strokes are then required to transport

oxygen to all parts of the body rapidly. An aerobically fit individual can work longer, more vigorously, and achieve a quicker recovery at the end of the aerobic session. 2. Mind Quieting: A disciplined mind is a free mind. Gain control over your thoughts and you maintain control over your life. Retrain your mind, and you regain your freedom. Calming the mind is a behavioral technique used to interrupt, minimize, and eliminate “psychological noise.” Obsessive, repetitive thoughts, anxiety, and fears are all apart of negative, selfdestructive patterns that can benefit from the power of music and mind quieting. 3. Breathing: Breath is life! Exchange of electrons. The flow of energy. Air is the primary nutrient. Survival without it is measured in minutes. It is so important that you do it without thinking. Your breathing is the voice of your spirit. It’s depth, smoothness, sound, and rate reflect your mood. If you become aware of your breath and breathe the way you

do when you are calm, you will become calm. Practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing. With the addition of music and its rhythm, the “musical breath” can even help stressrelated health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders. Fall into the rhythm of the music and breathe. Focus on your breathing and music. 4. Weight Bearing: exercise stimulates tissue growth in bone and muscles, strengthening the body’s structure. A stronger skeleton reduces the risk of osteoporosis, arthritic joint pain, and other bone conditions. Also known as resistance training, weightbearing exercise can be any activity that involves carrying, lifting, or pushing a heavy object. Walking is considered to be weight-bearing, as muscles and the skeleton support body weight. You do not need to “pump iron” to benefit from this form of exercise. 5. Yoga: Many different types of yoga workouts exist. But Omtimes.com

many times, in our quest for fitness and a hard body, at some point it becomes just a workout and not yoga. If you come to this path with fitness in mind, that is important, but Yoga is extremely powerful. If you try to rush it, you will only slow yourself down. Yoga is not minded over the body. It is the harmony between them. In yoga, the mind is used to perceive (diagnose) and guide (heal) the body. Not to “control” it and never to force it. 6. Stretching: Just as there are different types of flexibility, there are also different types of stretching. Stretches are either dynamic (meaning they involve motion) or static (meaning they involve no motion). Dynamic stretches affect dynamic flexibility, and static stretches affect static flexibility (and dynamic flexibility to some degree). 7. Power Walking: Studies have suggested a link between increased physical activity and a decreased chance of developing the disease in general. Exercise of any kind trims your odds by improving Omtimes.com

the body’s sensitivity to the insulin-a hormone, helps control cholesterol, weight, and blood pressure, which further guards you against adult-onset of disease. 8. Swimming: It’s hard to beat swimming when it comes to a sport that builds the body, soothes the mind, regulates breathing, stimulates circulation, and puts no stress on the joints. That’s why it’s an ideal exercise for just about everyone — older adults, overweight people, young people, people with hip, knee and ankle problems, and active people with no health problems at all. Plus, swimming has a calorieburning potential of 350-420 calories per hour. No wonder it’s one of the most popular fitness sports around. 9. Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Aikido: TaiChi, QiGong, Aikido: these Asian art forms have been practiced for centuries. QiQong is one of the four pillars of traditional Chinese medicine: Acupuncture, Massage, Herbal Medicines, and Qigong. Of these, Qigong is the one that can be most

easily self-initiated. Both massage and herbal remedies can also be done as selfcare. However, Qigong is the mother of Chinese self-healing. Patients who use Qigong faithfully need less medication, less acupuncture, and heal faster. Tai Chi is a martial arts form that enhances balance and body awareness through slow, graceful, and precise body movements can significantly cut the risk of falls among older people and may be beneficial in maintaining gains made by people aged 70 and older who undergo other types of balance and strength training. Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba (often referred to by his title ‘O Sensei’ or ‘Great Teacher’). On a purely physical level, it is an art involving some throws and joint locks that are derived from Jujitsu and some throws and other techniques derived from Kenjutsu. Aikido focuses not on punching or kicking opponents, but rather on using their energy to gain control of them or to throw them away

from you. 10. Elastic Bands: Resistance training is the benefit of elastic bands or tubing. As long as we have gravity, we can challenge our muscles effectively. Doing a push-up is one example of a resistance exercise. Instead of using weight from another source, you’re using your body weight to challenge your chest and arm muscles, and you will get toned up just as well as you would using a pec deck or a bench press. Elastic tubing and bands are great for those who want to get the benefits of weight training without using traditional weights. The most important way to get exercise into your life is to SCHEDULE it into your day. You schedule appointments, dinner, meeting, exercise (as a priority) should be no different. Keep moving!! Andrew Pacholyk, MS L.Ac https://www.peacefulmind. com/exercise “Living life, consciously”Therapies for healing mind, body, spirit Omtimes.com

Simply Spiritual To perceive reality from a different perspective is to open oneself to the wonders and unlimited wealth of creation. Simply Spiritual offers the opportunity to visit new places, new methods, and different ways to perceive the vast human knowledge of our Universe.

Upon waiting 2000 years for Apostle Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s promise of Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; impending return, it is time to consider other possibilities. The problem for all religions and disciplines is not obtaining eternal life, but rather of

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accepting and coming to terms with the notion of living in eternity. We’ve been given the tools; we must learn to use them. A Promise that Never Came The Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Thessalonians: Jesus will return he assured them, it is taking longer than believed because more Pagans need to hear the Word and be saved. The year was about 50 AD. Jesus will come. But Jesus didn’t come, and none in that generation witnessed the promised second coming. And Paul’s churches -- in today’s Turkey and Syria – were eventually overrun and conquered by 7h century Muslim invaders. But Paul’s promise still gives hope to Christians today two-thousand years later. It is time that the Church take a second look at this longstanding promise that has yet to arrive. Everything’s been tried, but no one has succeeded. From the “new age” until now, and from earlier times of enlightenment and human advancement,

Western man has sought to know and understand the mechanics behind life and death and our reason and purpose for being alive. And, despite considerable evidence of activity happening in parallel realities glimpsed in dreams, intuition, and inner forms of communication, we continue to be born and die having none to little knowledge of what we will become, or where we’ll go, or even whether we’ll still exist. It should not be the case. Eternal Life an Elusive Dream Those willing to skirt the outside boundaries of acceptable conventional knowledge find a wealth of information answering some of the difficult and mystifying questions. It usually involves communication with beings who reside outside of our physical reality of whom better see the makeup of our world, which seems so solid and real to us. Ample books are there in the metaphysical section of bookstores, also found in Eastern religions, mysticism, new-age spiritualism and developing sciences like Omtimes.com

biocentrism. But these areas are considered taboo by the majority establishment and working class. In our centers of education, the old Church doctrine continues to prevail, as both accepted and rejected discourse. Atheism, as the West defines, is a mere rejection of salvation through the Lord Jesus and answers no questions. A dogmatic approach, whether the Church or an Atheist reaction, brings just temporal relief, offering pleasant-sounding abstractions or distractions without substance. Those brave enough to defy the dire warnings of the twothousand-year-old Church find a wide variety of information on the subject of life and death. An explosion of such information poured into the 1960’s Vietnam War-era societal counterculture, and it must have then seemed that a resolution would be coming. Still, pop-culture events and media like the film “Jesus Christ Superstar” and the many popular songs emerging with countercultural spiritual themes were perhaps more intense and emotive, giving Omtimes.com

hints as to man’s eternal nature. Peace was right, war wrong, and reincarnation guaranteed us an unending present and continued past — still, no resolution. Wars continue, and we die without knowing what will happen or where we’ll be. There are answers; we are looking in the wrong places. Escape from the World the Answer? Those delving into spiritualism and mystic religions often view the conventional world as ignorant and evil, and simple, methodical answers handed out like candy are presented as the true reality. We must all learn to see what they see: war is wrong, love is right, and we must see the present moment and live in the “now.” But sixty years after the dawning of the new age of enlightenment and harmony, this great new direction has not emerged, nor did any such movement come into clarity in the enlightenment eras in Europe, or anywhere. Shouldn’t we by now have some idea of our continuing future nature

or even as to whether such is even in the offering? We may meditate and focus on living in the present, and on depriving ourselves of material goods, and on taming and quieting the mind, as Buddhists and Hindus and spiritualists do, but in doing so we are not doing so. We are seeking to flee, not see, the moment in front of us. We will not ever see the present until we do see the present. And we really will see the present when we look at and study the diverse variety of forms and sounds and sensations perpetually surrounding us. We will see the present when we make an effort at understanding the “why” of it: Why are all these various colorful shapes and vibrations here in front of us? While meditation and other methods for taming the mind are useful, they have not answered these questions, nor have they ultimately revealed what life would become after death. It is something that we, ourselves, must do, and those colorful forms and vibrations are just the right vehicle.

The Problem Identifies the Solution Everything standing before us is language, in both waking and dreams. Here lies our answer. But we must first learn how to use this colorful language that arises from the depths of our very beings: The universe is speaking to us, but we cannot hear until we learn the ancient language; how to read, and how to write the language of the five physical senses: form, sound, feeling. Once accomplished, we will perpetually perform, actors on the grand stage of eternity, death being, at most, inclusive in the actor’s script. We perform; we are the artists. It is our heritage, our futures, our eternal abode. And it is good. Arthur Telling has written numerous stories and articles on religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. His article, “A Different Jesus Message” appeared in the Nov. 2011 AMORC Rosicrucian Digest. Telling is the author of seven books, including: “The Verbal Truth of Christianity – How the Church Coopted the Jesus Message.” His website: www. arthurtelling.com Omtimes.com

OMTimes Magazine Relax… Let your worries drift away into the moment… OMTimes is a free publication and can be delivered right to your inbox… Subscribe at: Free OMTimes Subscription Visit our website at: www.omtimes.com

OM Living For those living a more Conscious Lifestyle

20 Paths to A More Peaceful Mind by Andrew Pacholyk, MS L.Ac

Peace. That place you wish to go to when all the world around you is in turmoil.Â Peace is the desired goal of most of us, the world over. For without peace, we are in constant conflict.Â It is often

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the situations that we put ourselves in, which create the greatest amount of stress or discomfort. Of course, peace is a two-sided coin. For if we did not know strife, pain, or imbalance, we would not find the motivation, drive, or desire to want peace of mind in the first place. What is the choice for yourself? Peace is something you want to choose. I see some people who strive to create drama in their life and others. It has a deep psychological connection to their insecurities and unhappiness. It is a choice they wish for themselves. It is their choice. It does not affect your choice. No one affects your choice, but you. You must find peace and happiness in your life. It is your decision. Not anyone else’s. 1. Peace is a practice. Peace is a desired effect we should strive for every day. It is an intention that we must work to manifest. It is a mental attitude we must choose to follow. Anything you wish to get better at, you work

on. You want to get better at doing handstands, you practice. You want to hit the ball into the outfield, you practice. Working on bringing peace into your life is no different. 2. Motivate yourself with compassion, not anger. Rage is usually misdirected. Who does rage affect most? Ourselves. For the person or situation, we are enraged with, usually does not affect It person or situation at all. They are oblivious to it, or they don’t care. So why get angry about it? You hurt only yourself. Practice selfkindness. 3. Drive yourself consciously. You are made aware of your “lack of peace,” due to whatever circumstance is causing the conflict. When you choose to be consciously aware of It situation, you can then choose to react differently. You can choose not to let It interfere with your path to peace. When you are not conscious about your feelings, you blindly react without thought. Choose Omtimes.com

to pay attention and react accordingly. 4. Conflict is the antagonist of peace. Internal problems that you allow create blocks. These conflicts are governed by fear, insecurity, and a sense of feeling scattered. What is the real conflict here? Are you tripping over your ego? Is it because you are stubborn (with yourself or others?) As long as there is an antagonist, there will be a lack of peace? What will you do about it? 5 A peaceful mind comes from trust. Trusting has a Universal Purpose. It allows spiritual guidance. Peace is allowing your heart to sing without the ties that bind it to earthly issues or material traps. Trusting in yourself and a Universal trajectory is how you can choose to relinquish fear and accept the path. 6. Trust and acceptance complement each other. Accepting your path does not mean it’s a compromise. Accepting your path is the opening up of your heart, allowing for the journey to unfold. You can “trust” in Omtimes.com

knowing you are being led by the hand down the path you are supposed to follow... 7. Detach from outcomes and results. When we get involved in the outcome of a situation, we are then holding on to what, we believe, has control over us. Not letting life “flow.” Because of It, we are living life attached to the result of any given situation, and it usually is the cause of our suffering. The practice of non-attachment means that your happiness is no longer defined by anything outside of you. You, therefore, remain free. 8. Give up the control. The practice of non-attachment has you look at outcomes that you have no control over and choose to release them. Knowing a situation that you can control (consciousness) and a situation you have no control over (unconsciousness) determines your peace. 9. Attention to your needs. Peace comes from setting boundaries. You will need to do It constantly, as others will continually try to set

your boundaries for you. You will need to be strong with yourself and spend time on what you need to make you happy. So often we put the needs of others before ourselves. It is wonderful until it starts infringing on our own time, or feelings of resentment start to surface. Your needs must be met, as well. 10. Affection for yourself. Self-love is not selfish to love. Self-love is probably the most important love we can do for ourselves AND our peace of mind. It is very important that we love ourselves first. When It truly occurs, the Universe allows all things to fall in to place very nicely. Spending even a few moments each day doing something that delights us and increases our feelings of well-being, makes it easier to do even more of our soul’s passion. It gives us the confidence to love and respect ourselves that much more. 11. Appreciation for what you have. If you do not find appreciation in what you have for yourself, then its time to stop and take a breath. Your peace of mind

can be seen through a sense of gratitude for what you currently have in your life. If you are constantly chasing a better life, you are missing the best qualities of the one life you currently have. 12. Acceptance of who you are. You may or may not know It, but you are a wonderful and unique human being. Isn’t it time you recognized It? How often do you go through the day (mentally) beating yourself up, putting yourself down, or not valuing who you are? There is no peace found within It frame of mind. Not finding acceptance for that one-of-a-kind person you are, overshadows the same peace you are trying to manifest. Self-acceptance cultivates a path to a peaceful mind. 13. Don’t worry, be happy. How many times have you heard It? And how many times have you laughed it off and not followed the advice? Every system in your body is affected by worry. Worry can only serve you well if you worry and recognize that a plan of action is needed. Omtimes.com

In stressful situations, you need to act on that plan of action. Most people worry about situations they have no control over. They stress about the outcome. A peaceful mind comes from letting go of the things you cannot control. 14. Cultivate your peaceful plan. We often know the kind of peaceful life we desire. We explain to others what our ideal life of harmony would look like, “living life on a beach,” “traveling the world,” “having a little cabin in the woods.” What we don’t seem to recognize is a plan in which to create It peaceful wish. Start today. Start small. But start planning how you are going to get to your “happy place.” Start by removing the obstacles that prevent you from only talking about it. 15. Look within. The distractions we seek for temporary happiness are simply that. Temporary. We seek to fulfill our lives with overindulgence of food, random acts of pleasure, nights of drinking and carousing, overspending on Omtimes.com

wants and desires. These fill an immediate need. Some people find themselves, repeating the same acts week after week until it becomes a pattern. Once you break these habits that are as much an addiction as anything else, you will be more available to spend time looking at what gives you long-term peace and happiness. 16. The expectation is the disillusion of peace. “The greater you expect things to be, the harder it is to deal with things that do not go your way.” Having no expectation is one of the greatest lessons we can accept. Embracing new ideas, no matter how different they are from yours, is a key step to allowing peace to thrive. Conflicting thoughts are not a threat. They can be a window of opportunity. Be available mentally, emotionally, spiritually, for an approach that may be different from your own. Ego and expectation are roadblocks. No Expectations = Endless Possibilities. 17. Problems will always

be there. Guard your mind. One of the most constant things in our lives is change. Everything will eventually change around us. Life fluctuates. Our relationship could dissolve; we can lose our job, or endure the loss of a loved one. These situations are all possible and inevitable. When we change ourselves and how we handle these situations, It is when we find true peace of mind. Anxiousness and tranquility come from the same place in our minds. Take the time to cultivate tranquility. 18. You have full control over what you believe. Our free will is an absolute gift. Free will is our ability to choose between different possible courses of action. Free will allows us to feel a responsibility, praise, or peace. It also allows us to feel guilt, sin, or other judgments. You have control over which actions you freely choose to believe. Choose peace. 19. Keep hanging on to guilt, fear, anger, worry, resentment...and you will never have peace in your

mind, or heart. It is not until you decide to let go of these “anchors,” will your spirit be light, free, and at ease. 20. Confidence, discipline, understanding, and flexibility are the keys which unlock the gate to a peaceful path to trusting, accepting, honoring, and respecting your divine right to enjoying your sense of peace and tranquility. In conclusion, when we feel peace, our mind is clear, and our spirit is calm. Our heart senses joy, and we are at ease with everything around us. Of course, It fluctuates like a barometer, but the real test of ease is finding more times that you are at peace, than your heart is in turmoil. (from Andrew’s newest book, Lead Us To A Place ~ your spiritual journey through life’s seasons) Andrew Pacholyk MS L.Ac https://www.peacefulmind. com”Living life, consciously” Therapies for healing mind, body, spirit

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9 Ways to Feng Shui your Life and Improve your Destiny by Janet Li Hoi Yan

If you want to improve your destiny, the basic thing you should do is to be a someone with highest-level moral integrity. However, there is some secondary way, such as non-moral good behavior

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(the behavior that can improve the living of the people). Only combining these two methods, one can substantially improve its destiny. The suggested methods you can employ to improve your destiny are as follows: Reinforce the training in various kind of thinking method, such as language analysis, logic thinking, creative thinking, etc. to cultivate the possibility to have clear ways of clear expression. The above point is the â&#x20AC;&#x153;scientific goodnessâ&#x20AC;?; it is also the part of non-moral goodness. Watch more humorous programs and shows; joke, comedy, be open to ludic experiences. Smile more, avoid trouble face and stern attitudes. Cultivate the artistic appreciation for life. The ability to be creative and to cultivate an artistic feeling would greatly improve your outlook in life. You are not limited to appreciate those

arts in a narrow sense, such as painting, sculpture, and music, but in a broader sense encompassing all aspects of life itself. Improve the Feng Shui of your home. The design of your home can be finished according to the aesthetic standards, yet harmonizing directly with the feelings from your heart. When rearranging your living space, chose simplicity as a standard style of living over-complicated beauty. Apart from that, the energy of travel and change of workplaces are also methods of temporarily changing the Feng Shui of your existence. Change the outward beauty of yourself. Change your appearance; Your fashion style, your appearance, your hairstyle, etc. The point is to improve your bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Feng Shui. Excercise. To make the body and the heart remain at a happy and healthy state. If so, you can remove much bad luck. Omtimes.com

If you dislike your name, you can take a pen name or a nickname. If you like your name, you should understand the meaning of your name that was chosen by your parents. You could create a better and rich explanation for your name. Once you have the opportunity to introduce yourself, you can introduce yourself by also explaining what it is the meaning of your name. Understand the culture of your residence. For example, if you live in America, you should understand the advantages and disadvantages of the culture of America. If you live in Taiwan, you should learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of the culture of Taiwan. You should adapt to the advantages of this culture, prevent the disadvantages, and transform the disadvantages. Accumulate good Karma practicing good heartcentered actions. You should act on love to permanently elevate your fate. Anyone Omtimes.com

who wants to elevate his/ her fate, including present age, coming age, or in the next life should make sure to be centered in Kindness and compassionate thoughts and actions. The most important thing is having a caring heart to take care of others and help others. A good heart is the nature of humanity. The readers should remember to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do not refuse to carry out your compassionate action because of its smallness.No matter how big or small, the point of sp[reading love is the changing of the energies that interact with your life. Furthermore, goodness and love have no difference in quantity. It mainly depends on the largeness of your ability, the motives, and the results. Janet Li Hoi Yan- Based in Hong Kong, I am a freelance writer who specializes in palmistry. While writing some articles, I read the palms for the people. You can find my website at https://www. palmistblog.com.

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Yoga Studio at HomeHow to Update and Zen it Out by Rachelle Wilber

When you’re looking to take your yoga practice to the next level, it’s important to make sure it’s consistent. You also want a consistent space to do your yoga practice in. This is why it’s an excellent idea to develop a yoga studio at home. If you already have one that needs to be updated, consider the following tips. Get Rid of Clutter If you’re dealing with a ton of clutter in your yoga room, Omtimes.com

this will directly impact your ability to relax. This is why it’s important to look around and see how you can consolidate or get rid of clutter. If you have clunky bookshelves, consider getting rid of the bookshelves and purchasing floating shelves instead. If you need to create an organizing system for paperwork, find an option that’s thin and easy to conceal. If you can create as much space as you possibly can, the better off you’ll be.

Provide Visual Tranquility Paint the walls a color that looks calming, peaceful and relaxing. Add a few beautiful pieces of artwork to the room. If you have bright, fluorescent lighting, this might not be easy on the eyes. Instead, consider dim lighting or lighting that’s easy to adjust. It’s always nice to include natural light as it can be extremely uplifting. Consider a beautiful window replacement that allow the light to flood the room. If you need to get your windows replaced, this is a major investment to consider. Think about Scents The way a room smells can impact the way a room feels. A lot of people are really in love with essential oils. Purchase an essential oil diffuser. Use oils like lavender, eucalyptus and cedar wood to customize and create a scent that works for your mood on any particular day. Make it Comfortable While you won’t need a recliner sofa in your yoga office, it’s nice to have comfortable pieces in the room. In addition to a well-padded, comfortable yoga

mat, consider options like floor pillows and yoga blocks. If you just want to hang out in your yoga office to read or enjoy a peaceful meditation and a nap, it’s nice to have a simple cot that you can roll out or unfold in order to get comfortable for a longer period of time. As you move forward in your efforts to create a beautiful yoga room, include these tips. They’ll do a lot to set the tone of the room. They’ll also dramatically upgrade your yoga experience. Before long, it’ll be hard for you to leave the room once your yoga practice is over. Rachelle Wilber is a freelance writer living in the San Diego, California area. She graduated from San Diego State University with her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. She tries to find an interest in all topics and themes, which prompts her writing. When she isn’t on her porch writing in the sun, you can find her shopping, at the beach, or at the gym. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @RachelleWilber; https://www.facebook.com/ profile.php? Omtimes.com

The Mysterious Beauty of a Synchronicity

My friend was walking in the woods thinking about his father, who had recently died when a huge buck emerged from the trees and stepped onto the path in front of him. It looked

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directly into his eyes, and my friend paused to take in the mysterious beauty of the deer’s appearance. Then it lost interest in him and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the path. “I knew with certainty that my father had sent it,” my friend said as he told me the story. “He was reassuring me that he’s still with me.” Was his inner knowing a trick of his mind? It’s possible, but who is to say? You, too, may have experienced signs that you are still connected with someone who has passed. Or maybe there was a day when you observed an inexplicable lining up of events that seemed to defy the odds, such as a friend phoning you right at the moment when you were thinking about them for the first time in months. Some people believe that coincidences happen randomly and there’s no point in exploring whether

they might bear messages for you. Others would agree with Carl Jung, who said that coincidences can be meaningful and are worth thinking about. He labeled such events “synchronicities.” I believe there’s value in looking at them as potentially meaningful. Have you ever pondered the mysterious beauty of synchronicity? What did you make of it? Such moments can make us think about the way we interact with the matrix or energy field that all of us share with the planet earth and her multitude of organisms. Maybe synchronicities are messages from Source, the wise conscious force of the universe. What would Source be trying to communicate? Perhaps it’s this: that much is hidden from us when we are in ordinary consciousness and going about our everyday tasks, but we shouldn’t forget that the reality of the

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senses is only one reality. There is also a reality of dreams and mystery and hidden connections. In that reality, we share fields of energy with others—perhaps even with souls who have passed, like my friend’s father. Maybe we are able to communicate with these souls in ways the rational mind can’t explain, but the heart understands. Most of us spend a lot of time in our heads, thinking about the challenges we face, planning for the future, analyzing the past, and so on. Understandably, we can be skeptical about coincidences having meaning, but sometimes, we strongly sense that they do. Why not listen to that part of yourself that notices synchronicities and wants to understand the “why”? Maybe by reflecting on them, you’ll discover something important. Maybe you will simply feel reassured that you are interconnected with the web of life.

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Maybe you will feel less alone in the world. Why not be open to the idea that what we call the soul exists before we come into this life and after we leave it, and that there is a loving force called Source that is always connected to you? The next time you experience a coincidence, don’t shrug it off. Take a moment to stop and consider the possibility that you are receiving a message meant to help you in some way. The beauty of synchronicity is that no one can say for certain what it means, but each of us can choose to reflect on it and decide for ourselves what to make of the mystery. Carl Greer, Ph.D., PsyD, is a practicing clinical psychologist, Jungian analyst, and shamanic practitioner. He teaches at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and is on staff at the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. Learn more at CarlGreer.com.

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Ode to the Tofu

3 Ways To Cook Tofu That Doesn’t Suck

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3 Ways To Cook Tofu That Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Suck

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What is Tofu? Tofu is a plant-based food whose main ingredient is soy-milk; tofu is one of the most popular products on the vegetarian and vegan diet because of its high protein. It is the result off a process in which soy-milk is compressed, reduced, boiled and then sifted; tofu is presented as a block that resembles a type of Vegan/vegetarian cheese. Despite its physical similarity to cheese, it is important to note

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that soybean cheese differs in many ways from tofu food, especially in terms of taste and composition. Tofu, or doufu, as the Chinese call it, began centuries ago in China. Manufacturing was first recorded during the Han Dynasty (between 206 BC and 220 AD) about 2,000 years ago. Some say it was discovered by a Chinese cook who accidentally curdled soymilk when he added nigari algae.

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It took hundreds of years before Japan got in on the action. When the Japanese started making soy curds, they called them "tofu" as we do in America today. The Creation and consumption of Tofu have continued to advance throughout Asia over the years. The spread of tofu corresponded to the spread of Buddhism as it is a common source of protein in the vegetarian diet of East Asian Buddhism.

Different Types of Tofu Tofu can be prepared in countless ways for consumption, which one of its different forms the Tofu change in texture and taste: Smoked Tofu Smoked tofu maintains the properties of common tofu and varies only in its higher concentration of protein and minerals. However, nutritionists have explained that smoking may be associated with the use of salts (sodium chloride, sodium nitrite) and Benzedrine compounds present in the smoke. “They can hurt health when consumed in excess. Therefore, it is recommended to limit consumption for a few occasions,”, warns the nutritionist. Firm Tofu The firm, like smoked tofu, is also very proteinfocused and can be prepared in a variety of ways. Very versatile, it can be baked, grilled, marinated, fried, or diced for use in soups, vegan bacon, for instance.

Tofu can be prepared in countless ways for consumption

Â Soft Tofu Unlike firmer, soft soy cheese has less protein concentration because it carries more water in its preparation. Ideally, its use is more common in the preparation of mousses, creams, pastes, mayonnaise, or even raw and accompanied by soy sauce and salads. One of our favorite Vegan Chefs on the internet shows us three different ways of cooking this wonderful plant-based food.

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Tofu Tofu Tofu! These vegan tofu dishes are leveled up three fun and delicious ways; basic marinated tofu you can eat raw, baked, fried or air fried; Crispy tofu cubes that can be baked fried or air fried and a super yummy vegan sweet and sour tofu recipe to top your stir-fries ! All three vegan tofu recipes are the perfect vegan dinner idea for friends and family. TOFU MARINADE

2/3 cup apple cider or white wine vinegar 1 cup tamari or soy sauce 1/3 cup water One block firm or extra-firm tofu, cut into cubes CRISPY TOFU COATING:

1 cup nutritional yeast, ground in a spice grinder or blender 1/2 cup wheat germ, ground in a spice grinder or blender 1 tbsp garlic powder 1/4 tsp sea salt SWEET & SOUR TOFU SAUCE 1 cup pineapple juice 2/3 cup coconut sugar 1/3 cup rice vinegar 3 tbsp ketchup 2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce Cornstarch Slurry: 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp water

Get your copy of: "The Edgy Veg Cookbook - 138 Carnivore Approved Vegan Recipes" http://theedgyveg.com/edgy-veg-cookbook/

Compost, Compost Piles, and Bins, Oh My!

Compost piles can be freestanding, or they are also contained in a compost bin. If you have plenty of lands, I suggest you place one pile next to the garden and one close to the house for kitchen

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wastes. At the community garden, we have three open compost heaps piled with seeds, old plants, and other organic materials through the season. Animal manure is added when we can find it. The piles are turned once a season. It takes about a year for the bottom half to decompose. Woodchuck gardeners can create enclosed compost bins from straw bales, cinder blocks, old snow fences, and wood pallets. You can also use an old garbage can with holes placed in the sides and one large hole on the bottom for the final product, or you can purchase compost plastic bins on sale at a garden store. There are even plastic bags with holes used for compost bins. The possibilities are endless. The ideal scenario is to have three bins built next to each other, the first holding fresh stuff, the second for compost in the process and the third for completed compost. Then you keep rotating them. By the way, most compost is in open piles, not bins. Go figure. Backyard compost bins generally don’t have enough

nitrogen. That’s why they sit there and take longer to break down. My neighbors supply me with nitrogen in the form of fresh lawn clippings, and some even like to throw their vegetable scraps in my backyard compost bins. Turn your piles at least once. If you don’t turn the compost heap, it will just take longer to decompose, but it’s not mandatory. You do what you can. Most commercial operations turn the pile at least twice and some as many as five times. How to Start - Begin the process by placing old mulch at the bottom of the pile to soak up all the juices. Add any remains of an old compost pile. Clean up your garden and put all the weeds, stalks, and sod on the pile. Throw in leaves and old mulch, wood ashes, kitchen garbage, manure and whatever else you have. If you have any well-ripened compost, use it as a starter-inoculant. Most of the time backyard compost needs to sit about a year to decompose properly once the pile is built. If you keep adding organic materials to the top of the pile, it only Omtimes.com

makes sense that the bottom half or more will break down into compost and the top part will need more time to break down. Creating black gold takes patience and experience like anything else in life. One woodchuck trick is to place heaps of compost over your garden beds in the fall and then cover them with leaves. For some reason, earthworms seem to be attracted to leaves more than mulch hay and other organic materials. The worms pull the leaf down by the stem into its home and have a meal. In the spring you will find worm castings, the richest compost in the world, spread throughout the beds. These results are warmer soil, easier tillage and earlier planting as compared to the garden beds which hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been covered with leaves or other types of mulch. The Four Stages of Compost Breakdown: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth A fresh manure pile goes through a succession of four phases of change. In the first phase, a kind of Omtimes.com

primal condition arises in which microorganisms proliferate in the breakdown of organic substances. The microorganisms create heat by decomposing organic material. The second phase, in which the quantities of microorganisms and fungi continue to increase, is characterized by an interchange in the air with oxygen respiration and the escape of carbon dioxide and ammonia gas. In the third phase, the transformation of the substances takes place in the fluid medium in which proliferation slows down to an inner structuring of the solid element. The fourth and final phase completes the structuring in the solid element. The Roles of Bacteria, Actinomycetes, and the Fungi in forming of the compost pile. The compost pile supports a food chain with three main characters: bacteria, actinomycete and fungi-along with guest appearances by worms, slugs, mites, snails, ants, beetles, flies, centipedes, and more. Bacteria do most of the primary breakdown of

waste and generate heat. Then the fungi and actinomycete get to work when the temperature begins to cool. They are joined by white worms, roundworms (nematodes), slugs, earthworms, mites, millipedes, and flies. Later on, the waste encounters protozoa, flatworms, springtails, mold mites, and beetle mites. Chomping, chewing, munching, these critters finish off the physical breakdown of the waste. Finally, compost is almost ready except for the centipedes, ground and rove beetles, and the ants that continue to eat and aerate the pile. What’s fascinating is how different insects permeate the different stages of breakdown. In the first stage, they show little relationship to light with slight coloration, and their eyes are reduced or absent. As the pile goes through the four changes, the number of insects increases and they develop eyes and more coloration. When the heap changes in the fourth stage to humus-rich soil, worms begin to appear with few insects left. Eventually, the

worms leave the pile in search of other food sources. Ron Krupp, teacher, writer, entrepreneur, and community organizer has been farming and gardening in Vermont for more than thirty years. He has a master’s degree in teaching from Antioch University and a master’s degree in agriculture from the University of Vermont. He studied biodynamic gardening and farming at Emerson College, U.K. In the 80’s he edited The Green Mountain Farmer. In the mid 90’s he had a garden column in The Vermont Times and a garden commentary show on Vermont Public Radio. He is a frequent guest for features on the Vermont Public Broadcasting System and does garden and farm commentaries. His book The Woodchuck’s Guide to Gardening is going into its tenth printing revised 2013 with over 20,000 books sold). His second book titled Lifting the Yoke: Local Solutions to America’s Farm and Food Crisis is in its second printing. He is working on a third book titled The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening Omtimes.com

Relationships The interconnectiveness among all human beings and, consequently, the relationships among us are the focus of this section. The dynamics of the web of connections we make is one of the most prominent aspects of human existence: how we interlace with each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existence in a meaningful way.

Love, Relationships and Other Decisions

It may strike you as a, particularly unromantic thought that I should classify such themes as love and relationships within decision-making. After all, shouldn’t love just to happen, rather than being a matter of choice? Shakespeare understood the intricate and deeper layers of love when he wrote in Romeo and Juliet (Act I, scene 1): “Love is heavy and light, bright Omtimes.com

and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake – it’s everything except what it is!” If love creates such exacerbated and passionate feelings (from pathos, the Greek word for ‘suffering’), it may be precisely because it is never simply ‘bright’ or ‘dark,’ never so clear cut. Love and relationships may be exciting precisely because they are the locus of a permanent question, of a permanent tension between opposites.

Aristotle, back in the 4th Century B.C., defined virtue as “a disposition to behave like a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess.” The mean for Aristotle is the opposite of both extremes, and we reach excellence through the habit of seeking and finding this mean between all the extremes in our lives. Love and relationships are therefore soul-enhancing parts of our lives as they pose this permanent question (Heavy or light? Bright or dark? Etc) and require our ongoing positioning between both extremes. Love is a permanent decision. We all know that love and relationships can also be areas of “stuckness” in our lives. We may end up either paralyzed by the lack of connection (as evidenced by the proliferation of dating apps), or by the strong feeling of inadequacy in a relationship from which we find it hard to extricate ourselves. Sometimes, this feeling is rendered more complex when we cannot even identify what we truly want. In Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the

Woods,” one of the characters asks: “Are you sure that what you wish is also what you want?” In relationships and many other areas of decision-making, different parts of us may want different things. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a simple formula, an easy-to-use algorithm that would solve all our decisions, in particular, those relating to relationships? This is what Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, had to say on the subject: “When deciding minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.” In this context, it is essential to think of what drives us towards relationships. According to the Jungian Omtimes.com

psychoanalyst James Hollis, the yearning to return to a mythical paradise is “the primary motive, the hidden agenda in any relationship.” We may regard as particularly ill-omened the fact that our very first decision as human beings back in Eden, was the Original Sin – not the best start to a life of independent decision making! However, Schopenhauer regarded the original sin as our original design: through breaching the tacit contract with God, it marks the start of our autonomous lives outside the Garden, even if it comes with the yearning to return! In my mind, this is not limited to the relationship between two people. It also describes our relationship with ourselves. As the psychologist, Dr. Tim Pychyl asserted, one of the explanations for indecisiveness and procrastination is the poor relationship between us and our future selves. Neuroscience has shown that procrastinators demonstrate a lack of “future self-continuity,” favouring the demands of the present self over the needs of the future self.

But let’s return to Eden for a moment. It is also the place of God’s first question. In Genesis 3.9, God asks Adam: “Where are you?” In biblical Hebrew, the question is even shorter, just one word: Ayeka? Naturally, we can assume that God knows full well where Adam is physically hiding: his question is essential. This is the question we should also ask ourselves when we struggle with our decisions and end up hiding behind the comfort of procrastination. Where are we in our lives, whether in our careers, in our relationships, our friendships, as well as our spiritual and intellectual growth? Put differently; I don’t believe that there are many fundamentally complicated decisions. However, I think there are fundamentally complicated humans. And this description applies to all of us, whether seldom or often. Therefore, we need to locate the self wherever it is stuck and reignite the engine of our volition. In The Art of Decision Making,

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I have endeavoured to track the self through the nooks and crannies of our most challenging decisions. It may be stuck in any of the six chambers that make up what I describe as the COSARC pyramid: Creativity: Did you employ enough lateral thinking when envisaging not only your options but also your objectives? Options: Have you considered the consequences of each option? And do you know which parts of you may want different things? Selection: How do you operate this critical step which will cut you off from other possibilities? Action: How do you commit to your preferred choice and evacuate doubt from the equation? Resolve: Can you avoid the pull of potential regrets and stick with your decision without being side-tracked by any distractions or difficulties? Completion: How can you lead your decision through this ultimate step, without either

giving up too early or dwelling in this last step so long that its completion is delayed endlessly? Identifying our precise location and re-energizing our volition is the keys to decision making. Succeeding in this endeavor leads us to the realization that the most important question isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t how we, as human beings, can become better decisionmakers. It is instead: how we, as decision-makers, can become better human beings. About the author: Joseph Bikart is a founding member, founding partner, and director of the international consulting firm Templar Advisors. For the past 20 years, following a first career in investment banking, he has advised leaders in corporate and public life on their communication and negotiations. Through his work with thousands of decision-makers, he has created Decisiology, an innovative approach to executive coaching, drawing from his studies at the Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Tavistock in London. He is also a keynote speaker and a lecturer at the London Business School.

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Why Do So Many Adults Join Cults by Marcia Sirota, MD.

A lot has been written about the kinds of people who choose to lead a cult. Like Charles Manson, Jim Jones or Sun Myung Moon, these are power-crazed narcissists and sociopaths, highly invested in manipulating and controlling

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others to do their bidding. It’s not enough for these individuals to have personal power; they’re compelled to have others bend to their will. But what causes a seemingly normal person to cast aside their autonomy and allow a charismatic stranger to tell them what to think and what to do? Cult followers give up their money and personal possessions to the leader; they abandon their family and friends; they willingly offer their bodies to the leader, allowing themselves to be married off, impregnated, or literally, to “drink the Kool-ade.” Cult followers – whether religious, political or survivalist – are so in the thrall of their leaders that tragically, the news often contains stories of how these followers are willing to die if that’s what their leader directs them to do. It seems incomprehensible when you take a step back and look at it; especially when you consider that these were once people

with spouses, houses, careers and full, active lives. In totalitarian states, people fight tooth and nail to free themselves from the bonds of oppression, but adult cult members join up willingly and gladly give away their voice and their freedom of choice. Adult cult members want to be parented I’ve concluded that there’s one main psychological reason that could explain why people are so willing to give up their power and autonomy and allow some authoritarian bully to do their thinking for them. It all comes down to wanting to be parented. The adult cult follower could be any age, but if they carry deep emotional wounds or unmet needs for love and care from a hurtful or neglectful childhood, they might harbor an unconscious but powerful desire to be parented today. If a child grows up without receiving all the love, nurturing, protection, and

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support that they need, they can become adults who carry unconscious emotional wounds. The person is compelled to be healed, but most often, they aren’t aware of these wounds or the fact that they’re driven to find healing. When bad things happen to us in childhood, it’s hard to recognize them for what they are because as children, we have no basis for comparison. Neglect and abuse might feel bad, but a child can’t see that these things shouldn’t have happened since it’s all that they know. When they grow into adults with emotional wounds, they can’t recognize the fact that they’ve been hurt and that the hurts have come from experiences in their past. The reason why people are in denial of hurtful parents: Even when someone goes for counseling for an emotional problem or addiction, they could have a knee-jerk denial about hurtful or neglectful parents. This happens because

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it’s painful to face such truth. Individuals with emotional problems don’t want to associate their symptoms of anxiety, depression, low selfesteem, or addiction with the way that they were parented. Many adults turn to addiction to fill up an inner sense of emptiness or to distract or numb them from their emotional pain. They don’t connect their symptoms with their past experiences, so they don’t realize that this is why they’re addicted. Sadly, this is a significant reason why so many people fail to overcome their addictions. If we don’t understand the cause of the problem, we won’t be able to find a solution for it. Many people who didn’t receive the love and care the needed as a child will become people-pleasers in their adult lives, believing that if they’re nice, accommodating and helpful that someone will finally give them the approval and support they so desperately crave. Again, all of this happens on an

unconscious level. Some people go even further to deal with their unconscious inner wounds. They join a cult. The appeal of a cult for these individuals is that they finally get to be parented. The problem with being parented as an adult is that it’s completely inappropriate. When we’re little, we’re incapable of making most of our own decisions, so we need a grown-up who loves us and wants the best for us to make these decisions for us. As we grow older, our parents should be giving us more and more autonomy and decisionmaking ability, so that we grow up to be confident, competent adults, able to run our own lives. Why adults need to think for themselves: As adults, it’s never a good idea to have someone else making our decisions for us. Unless the person truly loves us and wants the best for us, it’s too easy for this other person to prioritize their

agenda and put their needs ahead of our own. In the case of cult leaders, this is the rule, rather than the exception. And even if the other person truly loves us and cares for us, normal healthy grownups don’t want to make all the decisions for another adult. They want to be with an equal; someone who’s capable of making their own choices, as opposed to a passive, dependent person who expects them to be in full control. As adults, we need to take responsibility for ourselves, and if we didn’t get the right kind of parenting when we were kids, having someone parent us as adults won’t fix the problem. It’s doomed to backfire. When we abdicate our adult autonomy and let someone else do our thinking and deciding for us, instead of healing our deep inner wounds, it makes them worse. To heal, and to live our best life, we need to be

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empowered, not helpless. We need to take responsibility for ourselves and discover our innate ability to love and care for ourselves. This is the only way for us to heal. If we give away our decisionmaking ability to another person, the likelihood is that they’ll abuse the privilege. Instead of being loved and cared for the way we always wanted, we’ll be taken advantage of, exploited, and abused. Or, if the other person happens to be normal and healthy as opposed to a manipulative, toxic narcissist, they’ll be confused with our willful passivity or resent our demands for them to baby us. Normal, healthy people don’t want to control us: Normal, healthy people don’t want to control us, and they won’t want to take care of another adult, so the only people who’ll promise to care for us (if we abdicate our autonomy) are the users and abusers out there.

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If anyone is all too happy to take over our decision-making capacity, it shows us who they are. Their willingness to parent us is an irrefutable sign that they’re a toxic narcissist who only wants to control and exploit us. This is why cults are so destructive and dangerous. It’s because the only people who’d want to lead a cult are abusive, power-mad individuals. These are the worst type of pseudoparents. They take advantage of the emotional needs of wounded adults who harbor the unconscious hope to be parented again. Sign up here for my free, monthly newsletter. Childhood abuse can often lead to a pattern of abusive relationships in adulthood. For more insights and tools for coping, check out my new online course, “How to deal with difficult family members, once and for all.”

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WE ENGINEER SECOND CHANCES

Metaphysics

Are You Clairaudient? by John Holland

In a previous article, I have mentioned the three most popular psychic abilities: clairvoyance (“clear seeing”), clairaudience (“clear hearing”), and clairsentience (“clear feeling”) and how you can develop your inner sensing.

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In this issue, I’d like to talk about clairaudience, your inner sense of hearing. It’s the ability to hear names, dates, certain sayings, and yes, even songs and melodies. Some people hear objectively, which is outside themselves. When you hear subjectively (in your mind), you’ll become aware of sounds as though they’re words spoken in your own voice. Have you ever heard your name called out only to find out that no one was there? It may be from a loved one in Spirit, or it can be someone here who’s thinking of you. If you feel it’s the latter, try calling that person on the phone. Most likely, they’ll tell you that they were just thinking of you. Another good example of clairaudience is when you hear a song playing in your head. Stop for a minute and make a mental note of the song. Listen to the lyrics; often, there is a message of encouragement or advice for you within the words, or for someone close to you who needs a lift or a helping hand. The next time you’re on the

phone with someone, close your eyes and really listen to their voice on the other end of the line. Let the person’s tone and words completely enter your space so that your intuition takes over from your conscious reaction. You may notice colors, images, or even feelings that have nothing to do with the conversation. Don’t just listen with your ears — listen with your intuition. Are you a clairaudient? Take time to carefully answer the following 5 questions. Each yes is a strong indicator of your clairaudience: Do you always think inside your head instead of out loud? Can you tell when someone’s not telling the truth? Does a high-pitched sound ever suddenly come into your ear? Do you ever hear music or a particular song playing in your head? Do you ever hear what others are thinking?

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JOHN’S LESSON The first stage of developing your clairaudient ability starts by learning to differentiate and separate psychic information from your everyday thoughts and mind chatter. To do this, you’ll need to practice improving your clairaudience. Over time, the information you receive, via your inner voice will start to flow and develop a sharper sense of clarity. Generally, this information should always be of the highest good and should have a positive feeling to it. One very important piece of information I give to people who are beginning their psychic training is this: When you believe that you’re receiving psychic information, step back and ask yourself: “Is this information coming to me or from me?” In doing so, you’ll be able to maintain a balance with your psychic development and remain subjective at all times. If you have any other specific questions about being clairsentient, feel free to ask them in the comments section on my Facebook page. Omtimes.com

THE ANUNNAKI by Judy Carroll

The Anunnaki are major players in the history of Earth, with many different claims being made about them, so who are they and where did they come from? Human life on Earth did not evolve naturally, as Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests. Nor has it occurred suddenly and miraculously out of clay by the hand of God, as described in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. It is actually a combination of both natural evolution and intelligent design by more highly evolved off-planet human-type beings who are widely acknowlOmtimes.com

edged by the indigenous people of Earth as Creator Beings, Sky Fathers, Star Elder, etc. Illustrations of some of these beings, known as Wandjinas, can be found in Australian Aboriginal rock paintings. Only the most recent genesis event, the creation of “Adam” and “Eve,” is acknowledged in the Old Testament, but what is not generally known is that there was an earlier human genesis event on Earth during the time of the dinosaurs, long before mammalian homo sapiens

came onto the scene. It involved the creation of a reptoid-human species out of a bipedal dinosaur species, and was carried out by a group of off-planet creator beings known as the Draconians. In my book, Extraterrestrial Presence on Earth: Lessons in History, I refer to this earlier Earth human culture as “Repterrans,” to denote that they are an Earth (Terra) human species, but derived out of reptilians rather than mammals. These Repterrans were the founders of the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations that were carried over from Atlantis. In the Sumerian language, the Repterrans were known as the Anunnaki. They were the gods and demigods of Greek legend, as well as the Roman, Egyptian and Norse pantheons. In fact, nearly every country on Earth makes mention of these more-than-human beings in their folkloric traditions. Their ultimate role in the pre-history of the West is that of the “God” of the Old Testament. The Anunnaki had acquired a very high level of technology from their Draconian forebears, and they established an advanced society on Earth that is referred

to as “Atlantis.” In Atlantean society, gold was highly valued, as it is today. The Anunnaki established gold mines in Africa, and bio-engineered a species of mammalian primates in that country to a point where these creatures were able to carry out menial tasks. These half-human/ half-animal beings were known as “Mixtures,” and were used as slaves to work the mines for the Anunnaki. Earth was a very violent place, with the various Anunnaki groups fighting among themselves for ownership of the planet, and all of them exploiting the Mixtures. Off-planet intervention arrived in the form of creator beings (mainly Pleiadians), who stepped in to assist the Mixtures through a program of genetic enhancement, to fully humanize and hopefully free them from exploitation by the Anunnaki. This is the real story behind the “Adam and Eve” parable. The Anunnaki saw what was happening, and they felt threatened by this development of a more upgraded Homo sapiens species, with a stronger infusion of off-planet genetics in their make-up. This prompted them Omtimes.com

to carry out an act of interference, which is recorded in the Old Testament as the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in the “Fall of Man.” It was not about the “eating of forbidden fruit,” but rather involved genetic tampering with the newly enhanced DNA of the new human species, causing their energy frequency to “fall back down the scale.” As the new humans began to multiply, the Anunnaki maintained control over them by displays of power using advanced technology passed down from their Draconian forebears. This technology included off-planet ships, perceived by the newer humans as “Chariots of Fire,” in which the Anunnaki travelled across the skies, and the “Wheels Within Wheels” described by the Prophet Ezekiel. These were not the silent, inter-dimensional “UFOs” seen today, but rather thunderously noisy flying vehicles that made the earth shake and the clouds seem to be on fire as they passed overhead. Of course, they terrorized and amazed the younger human species, and thoroughly convinced them that these larger-than-life beings who appeared in human Omtimes.com

form, were “God.” They knew them by various names such as Yahweh and Jehovah. Thus, the Anunnaki were able to keep tight control of the younger human culture. Further control was practiced in the form of divide-and-conquer techniques, with “God” sending various human tribes out to wage wars on each other. This age-old and well-proven technique continues to be used by the Repterran Anunnaki, who still incarnate on Earth to this day, controlling and exploiting the younger Homo sapiens species . In modern society, the Repterran Anunnaki are known as the Cabal, the Illuminati, and the Controllers. They comprise the shadow government that hides behind and controls Earth’s legitimate governments. The Anunnaki bloodlines run through all the royal families on Earth. It is this ancient bloodline that endows them with an inbred sense of superiority, entitlement and privilege. The Anunnaki also control humanity through religion. They “hijacked” the Christian religion 300 to 400 years after the crucifixion of Jesus by distorting his message

of love. This distortion occurred under the Emperors Justinian and Constantine, who changed and deleted much of Jesus’s teachings, including the understanding and acceptance of reincarnation, which is a vital component of human spiritual evolution. The divide-and-conquer agenda of the “God” of the Old Testament is still very much in force on Earth, and it was stepped up to a critical point with the development of nuclear weaponry during World War II. The atomic bomb detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki sent shockwaves and fall-out far off into the solar system and through to other dimensions, alerting the Cosmos to the need for help and intervention on Earth. So began the massive increase in the sighting of UFOs in the skies since the late 1940s, and many thousands of people coming forward with stories of contact with beings from other planets and dimensions. Despite widespread disinformation by the Controllers who want us to perceive the off-planet visitors as threats, thousands of people on Earth have benefitted in positive and uplifting ways from ET contact. A major awak-

ening and genetic enhancement of humanity is now being carried out to enable an escape from the Controllers’ influence. This in turn is the catalyst for an upward and expanded shift in the consciousness of Earth-plane humanity, thus enabling evolution to a higher level. Judy Carroll was born and still lives in Australia. She has had 60 years of encounters with Grey ETs since her early childhood. She introduced her life-long connections to the Zeta Greys in her first two books, The Zeta Message and Human by Day, Zeta by Night. In her most recent book, Extraterrestrial Presence on Earth, she reveals that she is a “blended” soul whose conscious awareness spans two planetary connections—both Earth human and Zeta Grey. Judy’s mission, along with other blended souls now incarnated as Earth humans, is to be an inter-planetary ambassador, introducing more clarity and deeper understanding of what has happened here in the past, offering understanding of present time global events, and providing guidance on how to heal our future as a planetary civilization. For more information on Judy, please check out: www. ufogreyinfo.com Omtimes.com

This is all part of the perennial philosophy that Emerson was drawing on when he wrote,

Give and Glow

“No man [or woman] can sincerely help

Giving and loving and contributing to the lives of

good is to be in harmony with oneself.”

others is the prescription for meaning and at least

Thoreau wrote, “Goodness is the only

some degree of happiness. The boy calls this “give

investment that never fails.”

and glow” or the “giver’s glow.”

And Proverbs 11:25 assures us that “Those who

another without helping himself.” Or, as Oscar Wilde put it, echoing Plato, “To be

refresh others are themselves refreshed.” The twentieth-century Hindu sage Krishnamurti

On the inside cover of the boy’s copy of The

had it right: “It is no measure of health to be well

Book of Common Prayer, given to him two

adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” To be

decades ago by the Rev. William B.

enduringly happy in the ways of materialism and

Eddy of Christ Church, Tarrytown, is the boy’s

the sensate indignities that characterize much of

ever-growing list of people he

the popular culture can be a challenge. Judging

has seen as models of kindness and

from the epidemic of depression that defines our

generosity over the course of his life.

era, self-indulgence and materialism may be near exhaustion and about to collapse, although consumerism.

OMTIMES MAGAZINE

All of them have died, and by all accounts, they continued to show generosity to all even in their final days, or at least prior to the onset of dementia. From time to time, he reflects on the lives of these good people and recalls that each of them took joy in being consistently generous and affirming to all, even in difficult moments when they had to solemnly “care-front” (rather than simply “confront”) destructive or unjust behaviors, jealousy, betrayal, and other manifestations of the shadowy side of human nature. They did not know all live easy lives, but the lives of all of them were good. Their lives are proof that giving to others without thinking about payback is vital and fulfilling. Their wise giving constitutes genius in the spiritual and moral sense. They understood that happiness is not to be found so much in getting (although this is often a very good thing) as in giving, and they taught by example.

Have you ever noticed feeling an especially warm glow during seasons of gift-giving? Jesus of Nazareth said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”[1]

This blessed feeling seems to be a common experience, however much it is outmatched by our dominant “I don’t do Nuthin’ for Nuthin’” cultural message. Most people already know this from experience, and now there are fMRI studies of the brain that show how planning a donation activates the mesolimbic pathway, which is associated with increased dopamine (one of four natural happiness chemicals).

[1] Acts 20:35.

OMTIMES MAGAZINE

AUGUST B | OMTIMES

Helping others directly triggers activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people experience happiness. No wonder, then, that old St. Nick (also known as “Santa Claus”) is always laughing and cheerful as he gives away his gifts. No wonder that most of us actually do find a little more joy in giving gifts than in receiving them. The brain science is not terribly surprising; it just confirms the obvious. Is it really more blessed to give than to receive? Do benevolent people experience higher levels of mental well-being? Are they healthier? Do they live longer? Increasingly, mainstream scientists are studying people who take a kindly, charitable interest in others, and the behaviors that go along with it, to find out whether there are associated health benefits.

How are we changed when we extend active love? First, we are freed from preoccupation with the self and its problems, over-thinking, and destructive emotions. Of course, disappointments and betrayals are unavoidable in life; it is easy to get sucked down into a negative vortex of bitterness, despair, and resentment. But simple acts of loving-kindness can transform us emotionally. It is said that even if you do not feel happy, smile anyway and happiness will likely follow.

The key to forgiveness is acts of love coupled

Fifth, loving others is a source of hope,

with patience because, with the passing of

because as active agents we use our

time, our perspectives mature.[1]

strengths to make a difference in the lives of

others, and we can, therefore, have greater

Second, life becomes interesting. Selfishness

confidence in shaping the future. This is an

is boring, but when we seek the happiness,

active hope, rather than the passive variety

security, and well-being of another as an

that just waits for something to happen.

expression of creative love, the world

becomes full and engaging. Sir John

Sixth, loving others is a source of joy.

Templeton once wrote that it is impossible to

Happiness is to joy, as optimism is to hope.

be bored if you love your neighbor.

Joy, like hope, is not a mere innate

disposition, but a virtue honed through

Third, loving others gives us a reason to

bringing creative goodness to the life of the

develop our gifts. Students learn more when

beloved. Thus, we should not worry much

they tutor younger peers, or when they learn

about reciprocity, because we are already

in groups and are responsible for teaching

reaping the benefits inwardly. As they say,

one another. Most great people have fine-

“pay it forward,” although a note of gratitude

tuned their talents through service to their

is nice.

neighbors.

Excerpted from God and Love on Route 80:

Fourth, we make deeper friendships. Our

The Hidden Mystery of Human Connectedness

friends are no longer the people we just hang

by Stephen G. Post (Mango Publishing, August

out with, but the ones with whom we share an

2019). Foreword by Larry Dossey.

exhilarating common cause and commitment. When we extend active love, we finally gain serious friends, the kind who are loyal and want to keep us on our course and true to our higher selves.

Stephen G. Post is a

bestselling author and the founding director of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love. Dr. Post, a professor at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, NY, where he also directs the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics. A leader in medicine, research [1] See www.stephengpost.com/the-hidden-

and spirituality, God and Love on Route 80 is

gifts-of-helping.

a meditation on the meaning of life and the

importance of spirituality.

https://stephengpost.com

Personal Growth & Development

We grow as individuals as we face challenges and overcome lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s obstacles. This section is dedicated to helping you chart your course

Love without Labels

When one of my coaching clients complained to her doctor that she was depressed, he diagnosed her as having a personality disorder and referred her to a psychiatrist. The Omtimes.com

psychiatrist told her she did not at all have a personality disorder; she was just depressed. She talked through her feelings and walked out of the session, feeling liberated from the burden of a label. The medical world is highly invested in labels. While it is certainly practical to be able to identify and categorize diseases, it becomes attractive for practitioners to jump to a trendy diagnosis. While lots of people have ADHD, Bipolar, and Personality Disorder, lots of other people suffer under misapplied labels that box them into stifling identities. Naming things gives us power over them. It also gives them power over us. A coaching client told me, “I am a sex addict.” “Who told you that?” I asked him. “My girlfriend,” he replied. As we discussed his relationship, it turned out that he simply wanted to have sex more than his girlfriend did. So, she called him a sex addict.

It’s easy to project our fear, pain, and judgments onto others. If they accept our projection, we both suffer. When a friend of mine fought with his roommate, the roommate blurted out, “You are psychotic. I took a psychology course in college, so I know what I am talking about.” A few days later, my friend did a favor for his roommate. “I was wrong about you are psychotic,” she said. “You just have a personality disorder.” When the roommate was angry at my friend, her weapon was to lay a harsh diagnosis on him. When she liked him again, she downgraded the diagnosis? Funny creatures, we humans. I heard a lecture by a famous gynecologist. He humorously confessed, “Women who just had a baby would ask me, ‘How long until I can have sex with my husband again?’ If I liked the woman, I would tell her, ‘A few days.’ If I didn’t like her, I would tell

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her, “A few weeks.’ Funny creatures, we humans. Medical doctors and psychotherapists must issue a diagnosis if they want to get paid by insurance companies. They have to assign each patient a disease, often associated with a number, to maintain their livelihood. Imagine what would happen to a medical doctor if he wrote in his insurance report: “Jane is a beautiful child of God who has just forgotten who she is. She has momentarily gotten caught up in the illusion of limitation. I suggested she meditate regularly and love herself more, and I expect she’ll awaken to her true self.” No check for that doctor. A friend of mine is a talented chef who owns a well-known natural foods restaurant. Some of his patrons belong to a popular health maintenance organization. Doctors who work for that HMO are required to prescribe

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medication for every patient they see. While I’m sure many of the prescriptions are helpful, other patients end up taking drugs they don’t need. Some of those drugs, such as antidepressants, are extremely addictive. Clients get hooked on them and have a hard time kicking them. On the brighter side, this HMO now allows their physicians to write prescriptions for patients to upgrade their diet in lieu of taking prescription drugs. The HMO pays the chef to teach their patients natural foods, cooking classes. Hallelujah, we are starting to wake up! Chinese medicine is lighter on labeling diseases. The practice is more about recognizing where the life force is blocked, and then opening up the blockage to allow energy to flow again. This highlights a fundamental difference between form and energy. Form is based on things, and energy is based

on flow. When you “thing” a disease, you give it a life of its own and bestow it with power. You also become a “thing.” But you are not a thing. You are not even a body. You are a spiritual being expressing in the world of form. Who you are is greater than any disease anyone could name? Never let a disease define you. The key to healing is to recognize that you are a perfect, free, unlimited spirit. In the world, we must use labels. But there is a world beyond labels. The Bible tells us to be in the world but not of it. When the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” he answered, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Likewise, your kingdom is not of this world. Even while your body moves about the physical dimension, your spirit soars far beyond it. You can never, ever be defined by a label or diagnosis. Any name you can give a disease is far smaller than your true self. Remember who you are,

and you have power over all disease. The real you could never have a personality disorder because you are not a personality. The word “personality” comes from the Greek “persona,” meaning, “mask.” Your mask can appear ugly, ripped, or marred, but you cannot be so damaged. When you remove the mask, you have no flaws. Love knows no labels. Love just loves. Alan Cohen is the bestselling author of A Course in Miracles Made Easy. Join Alan and musician Karen Drucker in Hawaii, December 1-6, for an extraordinary retreat, “A Course in Miracles: the Easy Path.” For more information about this program, Alan’s Holistic Life Coach Training beginning January 1, his books and videos, free daily inspirational quotes, online courses, and weekly radio show, visit www.alancohen.com.

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Being Fearlessly Authentic by Dagny Grant and Beth Donnelly

Today, with all of the technical software available to make us look better, sound better, appear happier than we areâ&#x20AC;Śwhere is the real you?

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We can come into our power when we are our authentic self. Finding a tribe who values our authenticity can be an interesting challenge these days. There are many avenues one can take to find like-minded people. Between social media platforms, clubs, church groups, political activities, hobbies, and meet up events, there are numerous ways people can connect. The key for being “fearlessly authentic” is our ability to walk-in to those connections being unafraid to present ourselves honestly. To be confident in who we truly are, we need to be “okay” with who we are! We might even say that being authentic is honoring our connection to our creator. Is it selfish to be authentic? Yes, but that is good. It may be seen as self-serving to focus on anything that causes us to feel good when there is suffering in the world. However, allowing ourselves to be honest, results in sharing vulnerable and kind energy that people are drawn to. It invites others

to trust us and be their authentic selves in return. Being inauthentic constricts our energy and can cause illness. The Continual putting forth a false impression of who we are reaffirming our belief that we are not enough, which is a literal toxin in our cells. Dr. Bruce Lipton speaks about this in his work “The Biology of Belief.” Below is a thoughtprovoking quote from him regarding the power of our thought focus. “The function of the mind is to create coherence between our beliefs and the reality we experience. What that means is that your mind will adjust the body’s biology and behavior to fit with your beliefs. If you’ve been told you’ll die in six months and your mind believes it, you most likely will die in six months. That’s called the nocebo effect, the result of a negative thought, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, where a positive thought mediates healing.” –Dr. Bruce Lipton Omtimes.com

How do we know when we are our authentic self?

relationship, business, family, etc.

• It feels good.

Our belief system is an inside job, and regulating it is completely up to us. No one else can force us to think, feel, or believe anything. Our first step is taking personal responsibility for the creation and shifting of that energy.

• People reflect authenticity. • We aren’t worried what others think about how we look or what we say. • We encourage others to be graciously unavailable to judgment. • We share stories freely and listen with genuine interest and empathy. • We are consciously in the moment. • We embrace our unique connection to what we bring to the world and see and appreciate the same in others. What are the fear motivators that keep people in a state of inauthenticity? Ultimately, these flow from I AM statements: I AM not pretty, smart, talented, wealthy, influential enough to belong in this group, circumstance, Omtimes.com

7 Ways we can shift selfinflicted negative & judgmental energy: • Be mindful of how we feel. • What thought were we having right before that feeling emerged? • Breathe deeply, slowly and allow a new thought, based on kindness and empathy. • Check-in with our feelings again. • Is our energy focused in our heart or our head? • Connect the two with loving intention.

• Move forward with the new belief: I AM Enough! Let’s face it; no one wants to hang out with fake people. People are hungry for authenticity and for the opportunity to be authentic themselves. True friendships, family relationships, business connections, and mentoring opportunities all benefit from fearless authenticity by everyone involved. It’s up to us to fearlessly allow our authentic selves to be seen! Matrix Productions is a multimedia company represented by partners Beth Donnelly and Dagny Grant. Co-authors of the internationally BestSelling Children’s book series “Journey of Joy,” they share mind, body and spirit connections, teaching mindfulness and I AM principles. Their publication of books, and “Echoes of the Soul” multi-media projects, produce tools that shape the thoughts and hearts of like-minded people. Find them at http://bit.do/ MatrixMedia and http://bit. do/FaceBookMatrix! Omtimes.com

When you look at the view of Earth from space, you are immediately in awe of what you do see: the incredible beauty of Creation. It is not until you look closer that you realize what you do not see. You do not see lines partitioning countries. You do not see separation between races. You do not see division between religions. You do not see the walls people build to isolate themselves from each other. There is only One Planet. There is only One Humanity. This section is dedicated to introducing thoughts and ideas to foster a greater understanding of Humanityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interdependence.

World Vision

Why Do We Ignore the Suffering of Animals? by Cathedral of the Soul

Because we are methodically programmed to ignore their misery, anguish, and pain. We arrived in this world already being deceived. Our modern way of life created a vast scope of absurd conditioning that we end up absorbing passively as truths and part of our reality. We are induced not to question, but to accept and finally to be part of this great worldly Omtimes.com

theater of blood, pain, and constant suffering. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. –Thomas Jefferson We cannot wake up from this immense nightmare that we promote, for our protectionism only towards certain species is there to deliver us from guilt. Some religious perspectives strengthen our belief that we are the only one among millions of species chosen by a “God,” and the ones able to have the gift of consciousness. Besides this, we are also indoctrinated that we have received the divine command and power over the other beings on this planet, and therefore they would be our property and belong to us as inanimate things for our disposal and inventory. Yet there are some animals that are treated differently from others, despite of their intelligence and abilities to show emotions and love. This Ideological doctrine is called Carnism. Carnism is a concept used

in discussions of humanity’s relation to other animals, defined as a prevailing ideology in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions. The term carnism was coined by social psychologist and author Melanie Joy in 2001 and popularized by her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Jeff Mannes writes that carnism is rooted in a paradox between most people’s values and actions: they oppose harming animals, and yet eat them. He argues that this conflict leads to cognitive dissonance, which people attempt to attenuate through psychic numbing. Using a new modern language of power, the various levels of human society, from governments to civil societies institutionalized the human supremacy; and transformed a shared world into to an exclusively human world governed by self-protection laws. The rest is the rest. Omtimes.com

But Animals are not somethings; they are Sentient Beings; they are â&#x20AC;&#x153;somebodies.â&#x20AC;? We either commit or accept passively unspeakable atrocities, and yet we are not monsters, for our vision is distorted and led to see everything in the best way, the most beautiful prism, and the most fanciful joy. We are spared from witnessing the misery at the mega industrial level that we comment on, and much of us or the vast majority do not know, or even imagine the holocaust that is promoted here on Earth by ourselves. A matter of existential sleep that many will sleep without ever waking up, until their death. The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of Great Kindness. â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Gautama Buddha The Human species, we know, it is comprised of highly individualistic beings, collectively indifferent of its species, would not be different from the regard of others. We are conditionally grounded in anthropocentrism, we feel elected and special before a

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universe beyond infinite, with infinite possibilities, but they have become the biggest problem in the life of other species. It is a fantasy world that promotes pain for many to the joy of the few. It is ethically questionable that we, just one species, can promote the misery of millions of other species. The funniest thing being that it can create incredible things through the beauty of Human intelligence, and at the same time, we are the ones that can behave primitively through the most basic of customs dragged from the earliest times, and barbarically satisfying our hunger through the death of others beings. A potentially deadly industry, is today responsible for catastrophic damages at all levels of our environment, ranging from climate, deforestation, pollution, extinction of species, mono agriculture, drought, famine and misery, in general, the maintenance of our appetite for animal flesh had accelerated the earthly degradation.

The point of this article is to show the numbing of our feelings and of our natural inclination towards compassion. It is a great psychological process of constant brainwashing, inducing dumbness, and idiotization, and the promise of prompt rewards and instant gratification hardening our hearts towards millions of sentient beings of many species and even towards other human beings.

weigh in our reasons if we were free to think and feel? We are programmed to ignore the suffering of animals. We are programmed to be fed daily by dubious, dishonest, and ethically objectionable foods. We cannot see the obvious, for the machine of illusions continues to hypnotize us, to dope us, and to make us insensible, even to the voiceless cry of pain. “It’s not me; it’s more for me.”

Food on planet Earth is the most profitable source that exists, and therefore, in the hands of the greedy agricultural Business, had made our planet, not a place to live in harmony will all nature, but instead to survive as hungry ghosts, desperate for blood, flesh, and pleasure. We have enough planetary wealth to satisfy the hunger of all, but not to continue to supply the greed of the few. We have food free from cruelty, but someone or something still wants us to feed on our blood, the flesh of our flesh. Where is the feeling? Where is that something good, that would

We did not come to this planet here to accept the unacceptable, we came here to question, not to impose to others what we would not like done into us. We are beings capable of thinking and feeling, but the great majority of Humanity is being guided and manipulated by an unsustainable and uncompassionate system rooted in insatiability, and greed. This system is generating such great suffering that no longer can be ignored or dismissed. The denial is slowly but surely killing our moral standing as the enlighten species in charge. It is here and meteorically is killing us all in every way.

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How to Start Your Own Little Free Library in 6 Easy Steps

Little Free Libraries are simply brilliant. They create a sense of place and connect people while supporting literacy. As Margret Aldrich, author of the Little Free Library Book told Shareable; neighbors started coming over to visit as soon as she put a Little Free Library in her yard.

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“When we placed the Little Free Library in front of our house, it was instant,” she says. “The minute we had it in the ground, we had neighbors crossing the street and coming from down the block to stop by and tell us how great it was. People who I had never spoken to came over to chat with us.” To help people create a Little Free Library in their neighborhood, the International Literacy Association and Little Free Library created Service Project Kit: Build a Little Free Library. The guide is full of tips for choosing a location, getting started, spreading the word about your library, and more. It also provides tips for teachers interested in putting a Little Free Library in their classroom. Here are the six main steps on how to create a little free library from the guide: 1. Find a Great Location: When choosing a location for your library, look for a visible place with lots of foot traffic. Keep in mind

that people of all ages and abilities will be using your library, so make it as easy as possible to access. 2. Build Your Little Free Library: When building your library, you can either design your own or order a kit from Little Free Library. When deciding which route to take, consider whether your library will have a theme, what you want it to look like, what materials you have access to, the budget you have for materials, and who will be doing the building. Some Little Free Libraries are very simple, and some are out of this world. 3. Create a Community of Support: When building your library, ask for support from people in your immediate circle and consider reaching out to local organizations and businesses to donate supplies, plans, or building time. This creates a community-building spirit before you’ve even Omtimes.com

started and offered others the opportunity to get involved. Having an active, involved community is key to a successful Little Free Library. 4. Spread the Word: To launch your library, consider holding an event, such as a ribboncutting or storytelling gathering, complete with refreshments, a book exchange, and an introduction to the library. It is a great way to kick off the community that will support and grow the library. Be sure to alert the local media to your event. 5. Fill the Little Free Library with Books: You can’t have a Little Free Library without books, so before you launch, you’ll need to collect books to seed your library. Two good suggestions for collecting books are to hold a book drive, where friends and community members can donate their gently used books, or hold a fundraiser,

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to purchase books from the local thrift store. Note: don’t try to buy new books for your library. It will be far too expensive and is unsustainable. It also takes away from the community spirit. Remember, this is a project you want everyone to participate in. 6. Designate a Steward to Keep the Library Running: Who will be the steward of your library? If you’re reading this, the chances are good that it will be you. But, if not, be sure to designate one. A steward makes sure that a Little Free Library is always stocked, clean, and maintained. You will find, however, that a successful Little Free Library belongs to the community and that others, often anonymously, will restock and tidy up. Bonus Tips from the Build a Little Free Library Guide. Communicate from the start that this is an effort for the common good—giving

offers as much satisfaction as taking. Thank people in writing and person. That’s why having a library-building event or welcoming party can be so valuable. Keep a suggestion box or notebook in the library so that anyone can offer comments, recommendations, or requests. Use bookplates where donors and sharers can tell why they contributed the book and what they value about it. You can design and print your own or download them at littlefreelibrary.org/ downloadtemplates/. Remember, it’s not just the content of books, but the memories and thoughts books generate that matter. Build a backup reserve of books by involving book lovers—book clubs and discussion groups, people who have big home libraries, friends of public libraries, used

bookstores, and folks who will thoughtfully patronize thrift stores and yard sales. The more people on your support team, the better! Follow http://littlefreelibrary. org/ for additional tips on maintaining your library. Cat Johnson Twitter | Facebook Cat Johnson is a writer, and content strategist focused on coworking, collaboration, and community. She’s the author of Coworking Out Loud, a guide to content marketing for coworking space operators. Publications include Yes! Magazine, Utne Reader, GOOD, Shareable, Triple Pundit, Mother Jones, Future Perfect, and Lifehacker. Cat helps coworking spaces and collaborative organizations tell their stories, amplify their message, and grow their communities. See more on her coworking blog. Follow Cat on Twitter: @CatJohnson Article originally published on https://www.shareable.net/

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Books

Zen Historically, Zen is the embodiment of the common truth contained in the HinduBuddhist tradition and the Taoist tradition, the synthesis of the contemplative insight of Indian religion, the dynamic liveliness of Taoism, and the down-to-earthness of Confucianism. Zen is rounded precisely in this faith or trust that ordinary life is Tao and is to be accepted or loved as such. The Zen master Chaochu was asked, “What is the Tao?” He replied, “Everyday life is the Tao.” “How,” pursued the inquirer, “does one get into harmony with it?”

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“If you try to get into harmony with it, you will get away from it.” The attempt suggests the absence of the Reality, and proceeds from lack of faith in the truth that harmony already is. Lack of faith in this harmony creates a sense of inadequacy and insecurity, which underlies all our aggressive and evil actions. But Zen is more than a synthesis of these various Trends in Indian and Chinese religion. The unique contribution of Zen to higher religion is its method of presenting the truth, a method involving “No dependence on words and letters and direct pointing to the soul of man” — that is, to the Tao, Buddhanature, or Reality itself.

Basically, there is simply nothing to worry about, because you yourself are the eternal energy of the universe. ALAN WATTS

August B | Edition

THE MOMENTOUS HARMONY WORDS BY ALAN WATTS

It is all too easy for ideas and concepts to conceal rather than reveal Reality. Thus, the Zen masters say that ideas are fingers pointing at the moon of Reality, but that most people mistake the finger for the moon.

statement that ordinary Furthermore, we have already The is Tao, or that we are one seen that it is quite impossible life Reality just as we are, here for ideas to describe or convey with now, is still the idea, and the deepest the truth of life, and it remains an idea it is still since ideas are forms and Reality while an attempt To capture the is too. truth in a fixed formula. Living to be held in any form. Zen, living to understand Zen we therefore, does not consist of Really to get away from this acquiring new ideas about Reality have and the dead realm of and our relation to it; it consists abstract concepts and come face-toof getting rid of ideas and with Reality as it stands feelings about life in order that face quite clearly before us here and we may get to life itself. now.

There is only one place where we are truly alive, where we come into immediate contact with Reality, and that is now â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this present moment. The past was only real when it was the present moment, and the future will only be real when it becomes it. The past continues to be real to the extent that it lives on effectually in the present. But real life is always now. Â OMTIMES MAGAZINE

THE MOMENTOUS HARMONY

In fact, we have no knowledge of any other reality than the present moment, and, strictly speaking, nothing Has any existence save in this moment. Yet what we call the present moment is strangely elusive. As soon as we try to catch hold of it, it seems to run away. We cannot delay or hold it in any of the forms which it assumes or contains.

We have moments of pleasure and moments of pain, but when we try to grab hold of the moment of pleasure, the moment, the movement, the life leaves the pleasure, and it turns to dust in our hands. So, too, when we try to examine the moment, we cannot discover it, for it is too small to see. The more we look for it, the tinier it becomes, until we realize that it is infinitesimal and thus infinite.

Yet however much we may try to delay or grasp the moment, the fact remains that while, from one point of view, it eludes us, from another, we cannot get away from it. We may try to lag behind in the past or to hurry on into the future, but inevitably we do our lagging or hurrying in the present moment. As soon as we realize that the moment is, in reality, inescapable, we shall no longer try to grasp it; for whether we know it or not, it grasps us. For the now, this present moment is Reality. All things proceed from it and exist in it, and yet when we look at it directly, it seems nothing. Now is Tao, and Tao is now, and even though we do our damnedest to possess it, we are still unable to get out of it. Our union with Reality is the truth whether we realize it or not, whether we strive to attain it or not.

But to say that the now is Tao, or is Reality, at once introduces a concept which, useful though it may be for a time, instantly distracts our attention from the Real now. At once our religion becomes dead and removed from life, for although this now, this eternal moment looks so void and so uninteresting to sense and thought, in fact, it is the mysterious source of all Liveliness and power. The genius of Zen lies in its way of pointing to the real now without distracting the Attention with concepts. But the human mind, because of its inherently possessive nature, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s go of concepts with extreme reluctance, for which reason Zen has sometimes to attack and smash them quite violently. Thus, its technique has often the appearance of spiritual shock tactics.

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“There is nothing that men desire more than life… In one form or another, they try to possess it by every possible means,as happiness, as power, as joy, as wealth, as spiritual insight, and even as simple existence to which they cling with all their might for fear that it will be taken away. But one thing is certain: the harder you try to possess life, the faster it slips away from you, and the less you understand of its mystery.” — ALAN WATTS IN ZEN

The New York Times has called Alan Watts, “the foremost Western interpreter of Eastern thought for the modern world.” In a sense, this book embodies the aesthetic of Zen itself. Like a brushstroke in a Japanese ink painting, each word has been sparingly and precisely arranged, with no unnecessary embellishments. In seven brief chapters, Watts captures the essence of Zen Buddhism as a religion and a way of life. He explains fundamental Zen concepts, introduces revered Zen thinkers, places Zen within the broader context of Eastern religion, and traces the influence of Zen in the arts

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Zen by Alan Watts • July 30, 2019 • Buddhism / Gift • Hardcover Roundback • 80 pages Black-and-White Drawings & Calligraphy •

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