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RE: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A COSMIC RELIGION?
5/23/2016 4:06:52 PM
“It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand.” - Apache

My 'lightning is writing' ... Thank You for sharing Luis

Have a winning day

Jan aka Jaz

Quote:



15 NATIVE AMERICAN PROVERBS THAT WILL SPEAK TO YOUR SOUL


Imagine if these peaceful tribes we’re never raided and their land and lives never taken. The history of our world would have transpired completely differently. We would be in touch with nature, ourselves and the Earth.

We would be able to connect with animals, the stars, the flowers and each other so deeply; something so simple that has been lost through modern reality. Let us never forget the wisdom these natives shared. Let us re-create the world of cosmic, earthly and universal understanding they once knew.

storytellerindian_phixr

“Don’t be afraid to cry. It will free your mind of sorrowful thoughts.” - Hopi
“It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand.” - Apache
“All plants are our brothers and sisters. They talk to us and if we listen, we can hear them.” -Arapaho
“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.” – Tribe Unknown
“When we show our respect for other living things, they respond with respect for us.” – Arapaho
“Those that lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.” – Blackfoot

Lakota-Rendezvous-1024x768

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”- Blackfoot
“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” -Cherokee
“Those who have one foot in the canoe, and one foot in the boat, are going to fall into the river.” - Tuscarora
“Our first teacher is our own heart.” - Cheyenne

FoundingFathers

“Remember that your children are not your own, but are lent to you by the Creator.” - Mohawk
“Man’s law changes with his understanding of man. Only the laws of the spirit remain always the same.” - Crow
“There is no death, only a change of worlds.” - Duwamish
“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” - Navajo

“All dreams spin out from the same web.” - Hopi


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RE: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A COSMIC RELIGION?
5/23/2016 4:20:09 PM
Read this several times in reminiscing camping out for months back in 2012 ...

SOLITUDE and Listening to the surroundings of my camp site; works for me.

Quote:

A Look at Transcendental Meditation

Credit: youqueen.com

By Wes Annac, Culture of Awareness

I think meditation is essential for any spiritual seeker who wants to elevate their consciousness, because it takes us out of the mind and into a place of peace and bliss. Meditation can reduce stress and encourage balance and calmness, and it can help us understand that life doesn’t have to be chaotic or stressful.

Life is as easy as we let it be, but most people are too rushed and stressed to stop for a moment, find their center, and let their inner peace return.

Along with other spiritual practices, meditation gives us peace of mind and the ability to persevere in stressful situations. Everyone has times when they don’t feel like they can keep going, but if we regularly meditate, we might find it easier to stay strong.

Here, I’d like to look at a specific meditative practice, which is known transcendental meditation. This is arguably the most popular form, with spiritual gurus and celebrities alike endorsing its scientifically validated benefits. Anyone who practices TM will tell you that it’s valuable and it’s helped them a lot on their journey, and the more we practice it, the better it’ll get.

It could eventually get to the point where we have no problem exploring our consciousness or dealing with stress from a clam, centered place, and we’ll have this form of meditation to thank for it. All of our anger, stress and frustration will gradually fade if we keep practicing, and life will become a lot easier when we routinely explore our inner realms.

“Natural Healing for All” tells us about transcendental meditation.

“So what is Transcendental Meditation? Transcendental meditation or TM as it is often called is a type of mantra meditation.

“Transcendental meditation isn’t a religion; it is not based on any kind of religious teaching. It does not require any set of beliefs; neither does anyone have to give up their religious beliefs in order to practice it.” (1)

Credit: trialx.com

Anyone, in any religion, can practice TM, and it isn’t limited to a specific philosophy or belief system. It’s free for everyone, and everyone would probably benefit from it. It can introduce us to a whole new reality that’s been here all along if we decide to practice it, and it can give us some ease and peace of mind as we go about our day.

People who practice TM are encouraged to find symbols and other things that help them go even deeper. Religious people might focus on an image or thought form of God, while generally spiritual people might focus on something else that has to do with their ‘faith’ or their spiritual practices.

“Transcendental meditation learners are encouraged to adopt symbols that have depth and significance to them. Let me give you a few examples, an agnostic might decide to use some kind of image from nature, like a sunset or a lake. A rabbi might use [an] image or symbol entrenched in Judaism to add to the usefulness of the session. Transcendental meditation is flexible.” (2)

The flexibility of TM is what encourages a lot of people to give it a try, and this is one reason it’s attracted celebrities and all kinds of other people who might not ordinarily embrace it.

Someone who has depression might not embrace meditation or other religious/spiritual practices because they don’t consider themselves spiritual, but the uniqueness and flexibility of TM could encourage them to give it a try because it fits with their individuality. They aren’t being forced to meditate a certain way or sing praises to God while they meditate, and they can practice in whatever way they enjoy.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogii

“Natural Healing for All” then tells us about Maharishi Mahesh Yogii, the founder of TM, as well as the scientific studies that have confirmed TM’s value.

“Transcendental Meditation was introduced worldwide by Maharishi Mahesh Yogii in 1957. A number of famous people, such as the Clint Eastwood (one of my favorite actors), Andy Kaufman and Deepak Chopra have used the TM technique.

“TM is the only meditation method that has over five hundred independent scientific studies shore up its claims. The studies were done at over two hundred independent universities as well as research institutes in thirty three countries regarding different benefits of TN technique; the results were published in over one hundred respected scientific journals.” (3)

A 1989 meta-analysis showed that TM worked better than other relaxation techniques in treating anxiety, which, in my opinion, can be linked with depression.

“A meta-analysis in 1989 that was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology compared one hundred and forty six independent studies on the effect that different relaxation and meditation techniques in lowering trait anxiety.

TM was found to make a larger difference than other types of relaxation and meditation in reducing trait anxiety.” (4)

We’re also told about a TM study that was done in Japan, which also displayed the effectiveness of this form of meditation.

“A study that was published in the Japanese Journal of Industrial Health in 1990, done at Sumitomo Heavy Industries by the Japanese Ministry of Labour, researched transcendental meditation as well as its effect on industrial workers and mental health.

“In this study four hundred and forty employees learned TM. Three hundred twenty one workers served as controls.

“After five months, the researchers found considerable reductions in anxiety, impulsiveness, major physical complaints and emotional instability in the meditators in comparison to the controls.

“These meditators also had considerable decreases in depression, digestive problems, and tendencies towards smoking, insomnia and psychosomatic disease.” (5)

TM helped treat some of these peoples’ physical and psychological issues, and anyone who regularly meditates will tell you that there are a lot of psychological benefits. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s easier to have peace of mind if we routinely meditate, because we’ll be more connected with our higher consciousness, which is our source of love, bliss, and wellness.

Credit: wondergressive.com

Life doesn’t have to be so painful or demanding, and this is one thing regular meditation teaches us. I’d recommend setting some kind of schedule where you meditate at least once a day, and you might notice pretty soon that the benefits are enormous.

In our final quote, “Natural Healing for All” shares a meditation technique that differs from TM but can still be useful.

“This is not transcendental meditation but it is a technique that can help you to relax.

  1. “Sit down and get settled and comfortable. Make sure that there are no distractions.
  2. “Close your eyes, then allow your mind and body to relax.
  3. “Breath slowly and deeply, let yourself feel the mind relaxing.
  4. “Say the mantra you have chosen softly and continue to repeat the mantra for about one minute. Making your voice softer and softer as you do so.
  5. “Once you have said the mantra as softly as you can, repeat the mantra in your head, without saying your mantra out loud. Feel the mantra and do not force yourself to concentrate on the mantra.
  6. “Allow yourself to focus on the universe as well as the feeling of closeness and togetherness with the universe, while you continue to mentally repeat your mantra for about twenty minutes.

“If you forget the mantra, keep calm and allow the mantra to come back naturally. Should a different thought enter your head, do not allow yourself to focus on it.

“Let yourself come back to your mantra naturally. This technique (…) is usually practised twice everyday, once before breakfast and again in the afternoon before dinnertime.” (6)

Credit: Worldspiritualuniversity.org

We can diminish the chaos we experience on a daily basis by routinely meditating, returning to our center and bringing our patience and perseverance back up to the surface, and without patience and the ability to persevere, life will continue to seem like an uphill climb.

We can transcend the struggle of daily life by looking to our spirituality, and even those who don’t consider themselves spiritual can embrace TM and move beyond the stress that occupies their minds. Everyone has to deal with stress at some point, but we have certain tools in our inner arsenal that can make it easier to handle.

If we keep meditating, I’m confident that stress can be a thing of the past. We no longer have to give into it or let it keep us from balance or centeredness, and along with other spiritual practices, meditation can help us to be free of its overbearing influence.

So keep meditating (or perhaps start meditating if you haven’t yet), and watch as all of the stress and negativity fade away. It won’t happen overnight, and we can’t expect all of our stress to be gone from us instantly. It will happen if we can stay committed to our meditative practices, however, and it helps to call on our higher consciousness when we aren’t meditating to be with us and help us find some peace of mind.

I look forward to a time when inner peace is instantaneous and we no longer need help calling on it, and that time will eventually come if we stay dedicated to the practices that help us stay centered and peaceful within.

Footnotes:

  1. “What Is Transcendental Meditation?” Natural Healing for All – http://www.natural-healing-for-all.com/What_is_transcendental_meditation.html
  2. Loc. cit.
  3. Loc. cit.
  4. Loc. cit.
  5. Loc. cit.
  6. “How to do Transcendental Meditation” Natural Healing for All – http://www.natural-healing-for-all.com/how_to_do_transcendental_meditation.html

Share freely.

I’m a twenty-two year old spiritual writer, blogger, musician, and channel for the creative expression of the inner universe, and I created The Culture of Awareness daily news site.

The Culture of Awareness features daily spiritual and alternative news, articles I’ve written, and more. Its purpose is to awaken and uplift by providing material about the fall of the planetary elite and a new paradigm of unity and spirituality.

I’ve contributed to a few different spiritual websites including The Master Shift, Waking Times, Golden Age of Gaia, Wake Up World and Expanded Consciousness. I can also be found on Facebook (Wes Annac and The Culture of Awareness) and Twitter, and I write a paid weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to for $11.11 a month here.
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Myrna Ferguson

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RE: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A COSMIC RELIGION?
5/24/2016 8:50:50 PM
Hi Miguel,

I think Steve out did himself on this one. It is beautiful. I want to come back and read it again to get more out of it.
I liked this part:
King David confirms this as well when he says that “the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” (29) It converts the soul to the truth of who we are, helping us to solve for ourselves the great mystery of life – the knowledge of the truth of who we are (God).
LOVE IS THE ANSWER
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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A COSMIC RELIGION?
7/8/2016 2:09:59 AM

Quick Review of Ascension and Sahaja Samadhi

Ascension 782Reposted from Sept. 2013

I’ve just had a very interesting conversation with a reader about Ascension and enlightenment and our journey to God. I’m sure the reader won’t mind if I repost some of the points we discussed there.

Ascension constitutes a full and permanent heart opening and equates with a level of enlightenment known as Sahaja Samadhi. Most sages achieve Brahmajnana, which is a temporary heart-opening and are said to be halfway up the mountain. Sahaja is the mountain top.

That is not the same as saying “full enlightenment.” In my view there’s no “full” enlightenment until we reunite with God. (1)

The heart that opens is neither the physical heart nor the heart chakra. It is the hridayam or spiritual heart-aperture, “located” (it’s not Third Dimensional) two digits right of the breastbone. The hridayam is a closed hole smaller than a pinhead, which remains shut until Sahaja. (2)

On the other side of the heart pinhole resides the Soul, the Self, the Child of God, the Christ, Atman, prince of peace and pearl of great price which makes its influence felt but completes its connection with God in Sahaja.

Sahaja and Ascension (they are the same) results in an end to the need to be reborn into the realm of physical matter. It’s what Jesus was speaking of when he said they shall be made a pillar in the temple and go no more out. He meant go no more out into the material world by being physically born.

Of course, all dimensions are physical, until we reach the Transcendent One. Only the One is not physical. It’s just that the substance of the higher dimensions becomes more and more rarified or refined. But it’s still matter (mater, Mother).

The Face of the One in the material domain is the Divine Mother. The Mother and the Father are one. But the Father in his native state does not move and makes no sound. The Mother is the Voice in the Silence, the Voice of One crying in the wilderness.

When silent we call God, the Father; when sonic, we call God, the Mother. When still, we call him/her (God has no gender) the Father; when active, we call him/her the Mother.

It’s the Mother whose creative sound (Aum/Amen) calls all matter into being, holds it for a while, and then transforms it.

Once anchored in the Fifth Dimension and having attained Sahaja Samadhi, we’ve achieved what all this learning is about – liberation from birth and death. We need never be born again into matter and we need never die again.

Of course, all of us were immortal from the get-go. When we die, we don’t die. We simply shed this encumbrance we call a body.

But past the Fifth Dimension, we no longer have to be born into a physical body. If we tire of this one, we create a new look for ourselves – extreme makeover! So Jesus, by saying we’d become immortal upon the resurrection, is really meaning not needing to be born again and die in the world of matter.

It’s the resistance presented by the body that allows us to learn lessons because we’re brought face to face with hard and sometimes painful circumstances and these precipitate mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. It’s said that we can learn in ten years in a physical body what it would take us 100 years to learn in an astral body.

Life on the other side, whether in 4D (the astral plane) or 5D (the mental plane) presents us with no such resistance and so we sail through life and learn less.

But all learning is simply geared to win us release from the wheel of birth and rebirth anyways. All learning is designed to bring us out of duality consciousness and into unitive consciousness, which Ascension will do. After that, learning is easier and our consciousness unfolds without the drag or inhibition that materiality places upon it.

Sahaja Samadhi is a higher state than 99.99999999999% of all humans alive today enjoy. Only Ramana that I know of achieved Sahaja Samadhi among terrestrials, excepting of course avatars like Gautama Buddha, Sri Ramakrishna and Mata Amritanandamayi. But they’re not ascenders; they’re descenders.

Self-Realization is a relative term. Every enlightenment experience can be said to be Self-Realization, just at greater and greater depths. Awakening is an unfoldment. Enlightenment itself in some ways is the same but the intensity of the experience and the depth of the reception determines the extent of the opening. Sahaja completes the opening of the heart and the heart stays open, connecting and uniting the person and its Soul (the Christ, the Atman, the Self).

Personally, if I were fully in Fifth Dimensionality and enjoyed Sahaja Samadhi, I would probably not give a further thought to enlightenment for, oh, perhaps a few hundred years because Ascension in itself is an exalted state compared to Third Dimensionality.

I’d probably be more interested in service and would gradually unfold from there on in. The really tough lessons would have been behind me by that stage.

Footnotes

(1) In the Sixties and Seventies we used to call Brahmajnana “full” or “complete enlightenment.” But of course it was not.

Conceiving it as full enlightenment led to confusion because allegedly fully-enlightened sages were still carrying on in ways that one would not expect from an enlightened being – having sex with their students, driving dozens of cars, and carrying on in other ways.

We now know that the vasanas are not completed until Sahaja so Brahmajnanis were still in the grip of their vasanas. Only after Sahaja are the vasanas or seeds of action and reaction fried to a crisp. A sahaji like Ramana would never carry on with his students like a Brahmajnani might.

(2) That is, except for a brief or temporary opening in Brahmajnana. Brahmajnana occurs when the kundalini reaches the seventh or crown chakra. Sahaja occurs when the kundalini doubles back on the spiritual heart.


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A COSMIC RELIGION?
9/15/2016 8:14:32 PM

An Adaptation of Mahatma Gandhi’s Principles of Satyagraha

GandhiSome years ago I took a discussion of Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of satyagraha or civil disobedience by my friend Tim Conway and organized it for him in summary format, just for fun. And practice.

The discussion is interesting given that we’ll be taking Gandhi’s work a step down the road by irrigating society to liberate it from the same world-dominating viewpoint that Gandhi opposed.

So his philosophy of non-violent social action becomes good background reading and grist for the Post-Reval mill. A book in a new, online Alexandrian Library? (Librarian’s job is vacant. Good pay. Must be a self-starter.)

Tim’s original discussion can be found at his site below.

An Adaptation of Mahatma Gandhi’s Principles of Satyagraha

by Steve Beckow

http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Mahatma_Gandhi.html

Attitude Towards First Principles

· Adhere to the truth, which includes honesty, but goes beyond this to mean living fully in accord with and in devotion to that which is true.
· Have a living faith in God.
· Have faith in the inherent goodness of human nature which you expect to evoke in your conflict-partners by suffering in the satyagraha effort.

Attitude Towards Desires and Possessions

· Adhere to chastity (brahmacharya), including sexual chastity, but also including the subordination of other sensual desires to the primary devotion to truth.
· Control the palate.
· Abstain from alcohol and other intoxicants.
· Observe non-possession (poverty).
· Do not steal.
· If you are a trustee of property, defend that property (non-violently) from confiscation with your life.

Attitude Towards Suffering

· Be willing to undergo suffering.
· Be willing to endure the suffering that might be inflicted on family and friends.
· Voluntarily submit to arrest.
· In the event that you have possessions, be willing to have them confiscated or to lose all of them.
· Be willing to die.

Attitude Towards Opponents

· Harbour no anger.
· Suffer the anger of the opponent.
· Be nonviolent. (ahimsa).
· Be fearless.
· Never retaliate to assaults or punishment; but do not submit, out of fear of punishment or assault, to an order given in anger.
· Do not curse or swear.
· Do not insult the opponent.
· Neither salute nor insult the flag of your opponent or your opponent’s leaders.
· If anyone attempts to insult or assault your opponent, defend your opponent (non-violently) with your life.

Attitude Towards Laws and Confinement

· Appreciate the other laws of the State and obey them voluntarily.
· Tolerate these laws, even when they are inconvenient.
· Obey the jail rules unless they are specially devised to hurt your self respect.
· As a prisoner, behave courteously and obey prison regulations (except any that are contrary to self-respect).
· As a prisoner, do not ask for special favourable treatment.
· As a prisoner, do not fast in an attempt to gain conveniences whose deprivation does not involve any injury to your self-respect.

Attitude Towards Civil Disobedience

· Joyfully obey the orders of the leaders of the civil disobedience action.
· Willingly carry out all the rules of discipline that are issued.
· Do not pick and choose amongst the orders you obey; if you find the action as a whole improper or immoral, sever your connection with the action entirely.
· Do not make your participation conditional on your comrades taking care of your dependents while you are engaging in the campaign or are in prison; do not expect them to provide such support.
· Do not become a cause of communal quarrels.
· Avoid occasions that may give rise to communal quarrels.
· Do not take sides in such quarrels, but assist only that party which is demonstrably in the right; in the case of inter-religious conflict, give your life to protect (non-violently) those in danger on either side.
· Do not take part in processions that would wound the religious sensibilities of any community.
· Show equal respect for all religions.
· Remain free from caste, class and other prejudices.
· Offer body-labor or bread-labor.

· Observe self-sufficiency (Swadeshi).


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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