Alienation and Indifference

When we as individuals go through life, we pass periods or phases when we change our identity -- from baby to child, adolescent, adult, parent, maturity, old age, end of life. Each change may be accompanied by some sort of identity crisis. As a species we also encounter periods of challenge and change when we must consider just who we are and will be. Feudalism, religious repression, scientism, materialism, and an education system designed for capitalism have all conditioned us for subjugation and compliance and a lack of emotional intelligence. As it happens we live in interesting times when we are faced with decisions which may drastically affect the future of our species. This generation may remembered for a very long time for what we do or don't do about critical choices which must be made, concerning issues such as the environment, genetic manipulation, and weapons of mass destruction. It seems that we are facing a kind of  collective end of adolescence which implies dealing with our issues of power, greed, lust, and progeny. How an adult handles these issues becomes the measure of who they are. It is obviously time to have a look at some of our shadow issues. A few of the characteristics of adulthood  include accepting the consequence of ones actions, coping with delayed gratification, and taking care of family. Most people seem to get their beliefs from the media, and that's messed up. The media as we know it, grew up inside an odd paradigm where the attitude toward the natural order of reality was skewed toward empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science. The dogma, attitude and methods of this science was thought to be universally applicable to all phenomena, and was based on Reductionism, which is a philosophical position which holds that anything and everything is just the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. While Reductionism was useful in developing of the objective laws of physics and chemistry, it is becomes problematic when applied to more subjective realms. Where reductionists most often disagree among themselves is how much this "reduction paradigm" can be expected to apply to the understanding of living things. "I'm not contained between my hat and my boots"  - Walt Whitman, (''Song Of Myself'' ) Scientism is a rather recent word, associated with many other “isms” with long and turbulent histories: materialism, naturalism, reductionism, empiricism, and positivism, and behaviorism. Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints. The roots of scientism extend as far back as early 17th century Europe, an era that came to be known as the Scientific Revolution. Up to that point, most scholars had been largely concerned with a combination of Judeo-Christian scripture and ancient Greek philosophy. But a torrent of new learning during the late Renaissance began to challenge the authority of the ancients, and long-established intellectual foundations began to crack. The Englishman Francis Bacon, the Frenchman Rene Descartes, and the Italian Galileo Galilei spearheaded an international movement proclaiming a new foundation for learning, one that involved careful scrutiny of nature instead of analysis of ancient texts. Descartes and Bacon used particularly strong rhetoric to carve out space for their new methods. They claimed that by learning how the physical world worked, we could become “masters and possessors of nature.”                     - Thomas Burnett Before the 17 th century, people generally believed that Earth was at the center of the universe. Galileo, however, was not afraid to challenge existing beliefs when he published his work in support of the Sun-centered, or heliocentric, Copernican theory. For a very long time before that dominant moral paradigm had been based on what Joseph Campbell referred to as " Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy." This old paradigm that had become stagnant and corrupt and the Renaissance brought a general sense of relief. In a way the new view of the universe was larger and more grand, but it meant that mankind was no longer at the center of the universe. The Scientific Revolution continued the trend or paradigm change and it brought changes in humanity's diminishing view of itself, nature, and God. Newton and his contemporaries viewed the universe as a machine. For a time, this model saw the universe as orderly, coherent, and natural. God was viewed as the creator of this machine, who brought into being the world in its lawfulness, regularity, and beauty. This image viewed God as the master builder who created a perfect machine and then let it run. This view of God was called Deism, and was accepted by many who supported the " new philosophy. At age 26 Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands for only 3 weeks. But what he saw there allowed him to connect the dots with ideas others had been developing about geological evolution so he could see how biology follows a similar pattern. Since Darwin's publication of his "Origin of Species" there has been a increasingly widespread acceptance, particularly in the 'westernized' parts of the world, of the idea that Mankind 'evolved' from earlier forms of life. In a big way this further diminished Man's Place in Nature, while it unified all of nature. At about the same time,  Karl Marx appropriated science as a justification for his theories, and how science replaced religion in Marxist communism. Marx changed history drastically because his writing inspired various revolutions. Religious reductionism generally consists of explaining religion by boiling it down to certain nonreligious causes. Sigmund Freud's idea that religion is nothing more than an illusion, or even a mental illness. As an atheist, Sigmund Freud reduces God to a dream of man. As a materialist, he reduces man to his body, the human body to animal desire. He laid the foundations of reductionism in psychology, which refers to a theory that seems to over-simplify human behavior or cognitive processes, the belief that human behavior can be explained by breaking it down into smaller component parts. Freud adopted an interactionist approach, in that he considered that behavior was the results of dynamic interaction between id, ego and superego, and that "No other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the organism." Behaviorism was a school of psychology that takes the objective evidence of behavior (as measured responses to stimuli) as the only concern of its research and the only basis of its theory without reference to conscious experience or introspection ism. Behaviorism emphasized the outward behavioral aspects of thought and dismissed the inward aspects of existence. Behaviorism also became a pervasive worldview that operates on a principle of "stimulus-response" conditioning, primarily concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. This belief that all behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness led to a kind of survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog pessimism. In Literature this set of beliefs became known as Naturalism, which the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world. This deterministic view of human life and actions represents a rejection of idealism. Humans are portrayed as victims in a hostile universe of alien forces they cannot understand or control. This raw, slice-of-life attitude has become pervasive in melodrama media plots where might makes right and sensationalism rules. "Survival of the fittest" is a 19th-century concept of human society, inspired by the principle of natural selection, postulating that those who are eliminated in the struggle for existence are the unfit. In this scenario, life is usually portrayed as a competition where there is one winner and the others are all losers. Once upon a time a fable or legend was about a heroic figure who braved the unknown for the good of all, or at least for his own community. Now cult media icons are more apt to be antiheroes whose character and goals are apt to be associated with things like drug abuse, exploitation, criminal activity, and self destructive behaviors. To have an immense popularity  means not becoming too mainstream if you don't want to loose your their fan base and fabulous earnings. An exploitation film is typically both low budget and of low moral or artistic merit, and therefore apparently attempting to gain financial success by "exploiting" a current trend or a niche genre or a base desire for lurid subject matter. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex, violence, or romance. An "exploitation film", however, due to its low budget, relies more heavily than usual on "exploitation".  Some films even might be advertised by the producers themselves as "exploitation films" in order to pique the interest of those who seek out films of this type. The media in general exploits the public by pandering sensationalism, sex, violence and relentless commercialism. There is always something exciting, enjoyable and tempting to grab our attention. There is a false presumption of instant gratification and quick attainability of happiness or of contentedness. Loyalty, patience and persistence are mostly absent. But even worse is the desensitization resulting in the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. We seem to be ever more emotionally insensitive or callous; as normal emotional response (as of fear, anxiety, or guilt) to stimuli that formerly induced it is extinguished. In this brave new world everything is energy and intention. Getting past adolescence requires dealing with self-doubt and self-centeredness and being responsible for our actions. Humans or no longer in a paradigm where the earth is the center of the universe. And the old-fashioned frontiers are mostly behind us where most issues were dealt with with a gun and a bottle of whiskey. Territorialism, colonialism, and imperialism have failed and in the past paradigm our place in the universe has been diminished and confusing. People in the old world had a sense of their identity and entitlements, limited though they were. Now it seems that anything goes and chaos reigns. According to Cellular Biologist Sondra Barrett, the structure and behavior of Leukemia cells is chaotic. There is no order at all compared to a normal blood cell. And since all life must have a place to exist, then perhaps in some way we must be taking in or creating chaotic conditions internally which promotes cancer. A cancerous cell gets stuck so that the normal growth pattern doesn't move into its final phase, but keeps on growing. The normal cell programs the final phase which is cell death. Living cells maintain regular vibrations, while dying a cell's frequency of vibrations increases until the cell disintegrates.According to Gwilda Wiyaka, physical manifestations cannot exist at very high frequencies. She extrapolates that  illness happens when we internalize the chaotic conditions around us in the external world. So at some level, confusion and chaos can make us ill. She believes that one of the most important lessons is LETTING GO. She observed that people who go into remission find a way of letting go of some of their larger patterns of in their lives, especially patterns of being rigid. When something important is holding us in patterns related to being rigid, it interferes with the normal programming of cells. Letting go means letting go of struggle and moving into peacefulness; letting go of guilt or fear. Bruce Lipton writes that the only way to move from fear into love is through the heart. So what is there for you that can be heartfelt; where/what is your bliss? What attachments can you let go of. According to the string theory, cells are made up of particles made of intelligent strings that are vibrating. Entraining your vibrations (resonance) into peacefulness is a positive approach. Scheduling down time nature walks, beautiful music, literature, poetry or art is one way.  Careful preparation and enjoyment of healthy food is another. Meditation, Chi Gong, Yoga, or spiritual practice based on gratitude are other proven ways. The bottom line is just listening and experiencing without criticizing, judging or becoming defensive. Emotion is the catalyst that draws something to you. Reactions of either love and hate magnetizes externals and draws them into your internal personal sphere experience. It is important here to make the distinction between detachment and indifference. A response of "I don't care," says you will take whatever you get. Such indifference just promotes alienation and the dangers of anonymity. But an attitude that everything will somehow be OK, says I care, and am open to creativity.  Einstein said that the greatest decision in life is whether we live in a friendly or a hostile world. Simplicity is without pretension, though it takes on a spiritual dimension, an overview that moves beyond the fear of loss or deprivation. True simplicity purifies, clarifies, unifies and frees us. Simplicity allows us to let go of yearning for the future, preoccupation with the past, and strategies to protect the present. There is nowhere left to go but where we are. To connect deeply with the present moment is to be able to appreciate the ultimate beauty of reality. Great simplicity is only obtained by a few who are able to eliminate the superfluous trivia of the complex world, and the intricacies of our own body, to find essence. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.  - Leonardo DaVinci Links Entrainment Citoskeleton tensegrity Donald Ingber I AM, an exploration of our world, what's wrong with it, and what we can do to make it better,

Our Paradigm

For a long time we thought of the world as a machine. Now we are beginning to see it as organic. The New Physics reveals that everything is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. This has profound implications. The main way we relate to this energy is with a brain that in in a dark cavity with no direct contact with the external world. It receives information form our sensory organs in the form of electrical signals which are translated into thoughts after it is first categorized into hierarchies. Apparently about 95% of this process takes place in our subconscious mind, which does not use words, so we are consciously aware of only a small, filtered version of the over-all experience. One of the most important filters is emotion. Thoughts flagged with strong emotion have the highest priority in the order of what is to be considered. Survival is the strongest emotion. The two basic motives we all have are approach and avoidance. If a child touches something hot and burns a finger, it triggers an unconscious memory process. After that if a finger touches something hot, instinct takes over and the body begins to withdraw the finger even before there is any conscious awareness if injury. Instinctual programming operates on several levels. For example emotional trauma programs an avoidance pattern not unlike a burned finger. On another level we develop behavior patterns with which we were programmed very early in life. More or less automatically we adopt the social beliefs and behaviors of our relatives, our tribe, and even our geographic region to some extent. Some of these values may be problematic, antiquated, prejudiced, or otherwise incorrect. So we can sometimes be quite sincere but dead wrong. Tradition has advantages and disadvantages. A paradigm shift brings about large scale changes. What seemed to be working in the past is challenged and changed. Individually and collectively our value structures get an overhaul. Paradigms can be social, intellectual, political, economic, etc. Often it is a combination of those factors. A few of the past paradigm shifts: when humans went from hunter-gatherer nomads to an agriculturalists living in houses; feudalism, the printing press, Discovery of the New World; The European Renaissance and Religious Reformation; The Industrial Revolution, Newtonian Scientism. Obviously some paradigms last a long time and overlap. Some of the current overlapping paradigms include: The Nuclear Age, The Space Age, The Digital Age, Climate Change, The population Explosion, the Digital Age, the Virus Pandemic, and economic instability. There are other paradigm shifts happening related to our understanding of the ultimate nature of reality. Apparently a New Age Paradigm is also bringing about big changes having to do with Sociology, Psychology, Health and Wellness. Much of this is in response to big changes in stress levels, diseases, and drastic changes in the food chain. We are apparently seeing the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, which is supposed to last for about 2,500 years. Some believe that there is also a kind of Spiritual paradigm change happening. Astrologers say that a 26,000 year cycle has ended. Some Gurus say that there is a shift from masculine dominated energies into an era when feminine energies will be prevalent. They say that masculine forces of aggression, violence, exploitation, and war has brought us to the brink of annihilation as a species. They say that for thousands of years feminine energies have been oppressed and violated, and a return to honoring feminine energies becoming prevalent again may be our salvation. It seems that there is yet another paradigm which is about extra-terrestrial aliens. It may not in fact be a new occurrence, but possibly very very old, though suppressed. However this topic is getting considerable internet coverage and much of it seems more and more credible. Wikipedia encyclopedia has a very long list of reported UFO sightings and another large reference list. YouTube also offers many videos about UFOs. On TV the History Channel has a whole section devoted to extra-terrestrials, This topic has been sensationalized by the media to such an extent as to seem part of a plot to bury the facts in mountains of misinformation. One of the more profound implications about recent UFO info is that our ideas of divinity may have derived in part from extra-terrestrial beings that seemed like gods to ancient humans.They had super-human abilities; they traveled in "fiery ships in the sky," and did various things that seemed miraculous to humans. They seemed to be immortal, apparently regenerated damage, possessed superhuman physical attributes, and had heightened senses, much like what we call angels or gods. The Anunnaki are "the Sumerian deities of the old primordial time;" a pantheon of gods who were the children of the sky god Anu and his sister, Ki. These gods are very similar to the gods that you would know from ancient Greece and Rome, and this is the first time that we hear about the garden of Eden that we know from the Bible. Within the Sumerian tablets, Ninlil asks the Council of seven to create what is called "Eden." which is a heavenly garden. Former US military pilots say that aliens have deactivated British and US nuclear missiles. Many of the internet videos about UFOs are intentionally spooky, or just plain silly, like a Halloween carnival (especially the older ones). But if you click the negative stuff away there is some interesting and enlightening choices.    The Living Universe  Wikipedia on UFOs Sumerian UFOs  -   Extraterrestrials

Brain Plasticity

Once upon a time people spent most of their efforts finding food and shelter. But life has become so complex that we need to deal with a large array of situations and problems that our ancestors could not have imagined. The pace of our lives seems to keep speeding up and causing problems.  These problems can seem to outweigh our ability to understand and act accordingly. So we need to develop some strategy to cope. In just the last few decades we are facing what seems like an onslaught of big problems that are profoundly affecting the quality of life globally. Many believe that our entire species could be at risk. Yet this topic is conspicuously missing in even the most important political campaigns.  We seem dazed and ineffectual as if we lack the will or understanding to even discuss making necessary changes. Such personal distress and withdrawal behavior needs to be examined. But what goes on inside us often seems mysterious or hidden. Biofeedback is a technique using signals from our bodies to find out about the internal mysteries. Fast brainwaves are associated with stress-related hormones such as cortisol,  and a high level of anxiety causes decreased learning ability, inhibits the immune system and increases homocysteine and bad cholesterol levels. Slower brainwaves associate with "feel good" hormones such as serotonin. Chronic stress can be viewed as a delicate balance between the demands presented to us as we grasp them, and how we conceive our resources, our ability to react to those demands. It is the perception of these components that apparently triggers the release of cortisol to mobilize the body's physiological processes against attack or infection. Prolonged or chronic stress can cause various health problems, addictions, dissociation, and alienation. Demands that are perceived as overwhelming may cause us to enter into a vicious feedback loop. Our thoughts play tricks on us, leading to anxiety, which in turn brings about a new wave of disturbing and depressed thoughts leading to erratic behavior, causing unfulfilled demands, which leads to a new wave of disturbing thoughts, etc. If we change our thoughts, our perception of the demands or of our resources we can break this loop and engage the relaxation response. Fear, vulnerability and insecurity are part of the nature. Often our fear produces a withdrawal into a protection mode . Our fear may have come from our personal trauma and wounding that we carry, or from the cultural traumas that we live with. Without understanding fear, we build fortress of walled off relationships, all as attempts to find security or protect ourselves. To want to protect ourselves is an understandable thing which can help in some situations. But we can’t really protect ourselves fully from insecurity and so we also need the wisdom of insecurity and compassion. If fear is up - compassion down, and vice versa, so to cultivate compassion learn to work with your fears and to learn emotion regulation strategies as well as positive compassionate feelings. This could have enormous implications for society as a whole. This ability to relax and live in the face of uncertainty is learned a little bit at a time. As you befriend your fear, you say, “oh, this is fear.”  After many times of noticing it or  working with it, you start to say, “oh I know you, I know what fear is like, I know what insecurity is like” and you begin to relax. Eventually you understand that it is possible to be present and that awareness and compassion are bigger than the fear. So there comes a shift of identity from being lost in the fear to being able to be present with our insecurity and the tenderness of vulnerability. When we accept our genuine vulnerability we open in a way that allows for a wise and much more fully lived life. Compassion arises when someone brushes up against suffering and is a combination of empathy, feeling what another is feeling, and also an opening of the heart where there is a wanting to help in some way. As science reveals the benefits of cultivating compassion, it is starting to gain more prominence as something that could have a positive impact not just in our personal lives, but around the globe. One study has shown that experienced meditators show more activity in the Insula in response to stimuli that were meant to generate compassion. The Insula is part of the brain that is responsible for the awareness of our embodied emotions. This suggests that we can take advantage of the brain’s plasticity and by generating compassion, we can change our brain. It seems that a continued and intentional practice of compassion can not only change our lives individually, but the ripple effect can be significant. People do this every day by giving donations, making sandwiches for people on the street, helping someone across the street, visiting those who are dying, or even just offering a smile to someone who seems to be having a tough day. This intentional attention not only primes your mind to be more compassionate, but apparently can take advantage of your brain’s plasticity and change your brain Neuronal plasticity describes the capacity of neurons to grow and build new connections throughout our lives, depending on what we pay attention to.  Can we train ourselves to be compassionate? A new study suggests the answer is yes. Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states, say researchers. The use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indicates that positive emotions such as loving-kindness and compassion can be learned in the same way as playing a musical instrument or being proficient in a sport. The scans revealed that brain circuits used to detect emotions and feelings were dramatically changed in subjects who had extensive experience practicing compassion meditation. "Many contemplative traditions speak of loving-kindness as the wish for happiness for others and of compassion as the wish to relieve others' suffering. There is pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. Human happiness and mental well-being doesn’t come from avoiding these changing circumstances, they happen to all of us. True happiness comes from the openness of heart, compassion, resiliency and mindfulness, the wisdom that we bring to it, that gives perspective and meaning. Our sufferings don’t define us. Most psychological suffering is optional. Empathy is a necessary precondition for compassion to arise but it is hard to pick up the distress of others when you are distressed. Compassion is a mixture of a feeling of love for another person, a wish to see that person happy. So if that person is suffering there is a desire to do something about it and to have a motivation to help. Compassion moves to pain and is  a way of unconditional love which is love that is not conditioned to getting something back, or even wanting something back. If you feel compassion, your out of the way, and it's good for you, like a heroic act where there is a feeling close to real freedom. Compassion and Brain Plasticity The Cutting Edge Working with the Shadow Self Meditation

Fear

Both fear and anxiety are provoked by danger. Fear is the response to a specific and immediate danger. Anxiety results from a non-specific concern or threat. The purpose of fear is to keep you out of trouble. However, the nature of trouble has changed over the years. In ancient times, trouble was apt to be aggression from a wild animal, and the situation was resolved fairly quickly by fight or flight. And before the invention of modern weapons even aggression from another person was much less likely to be lethal. But in today's world we are troubled by a much wider range of problems. Industrialization happened fairly recently and has drastically increased the complexity and duration of stressful situations. Once most people worked for themselves, worked at home, or in a village, in familiar surroundings where they had a greater degree of control and autonomy. As industry urbanized the population more people go to noisy, crowded, sometimes toxic workplaces, doing jobs that are often repetitious, tiresome, and stressful. Management soon learned to impose quotas and strict rules, uncomfortable, sometimes dirty or hazardous conditions. Machines became larger, faster, and more numerous and threatening. Ever increasing traffic congestion, environmental degradation, weaponry and violence are examples of more lasting stressors. Even at home we are exposed to media that is constantly pandering illness, terror, war, crime, and atrocities. Today many threats are psychological rather than physical. Both are harmful and the extent of that harm depends on the intensity and the duration of the trauma and how early in life the trauma is experienced. Dysfunction means something that is impaired or abnormal. Most of us have experienced  some dysfunction. Others of us have seen a lot of it, as in times of war, when it seems to taint almost everything and whole nations become dysfunctional. Certain family dynamics lead to excess stress, such as when a member of the family has mental illness, drug or alcohol problems, fanatical religious beliefs, physical disabilities, emotional problems, or is abusive. Dysfunctional families are often closed when it comes to getting outside help and keep their problems to themselves. Firm limits between parent and child may not be present.  Rules may be non-existent or swing to the other extreme with rigid, inflexible rules and mandatory compliance. Dysfunctional families don’t cope with stress in a healthy manner. Escapism, alcohol or drugs are often a coping mechanism for stress. A member of a dysfunctional family may become depressed or feel overwhelmed at the scope of a particular problem. Blame is plentiful in a dysfunctional family. Rather than dealing with the stress that is causing problems, dysfunctional families lash out at each other. Cognitive Dissonance is the conflict between actions and beliefs. An example is taking a job where you are disrespected or expected to disrespect others, or where there is a feeling that what you are doing is exploitative or bad for the planet. Growing up surrounded by dysfunction, or in times of war, cognitive dissonance can cause prolonged inner conflicts.  There are several direct triggers for fear, including: something hurling rapidly toward you, sudden loss of support, such as the floor giving way, the threat of physical pain. Also, there are any number of indirect triggers for fear, such as receiving a letter from the IRS, being called to the principal's office, or entering a dark room. People also fear losing control, humiliation, shame, or insignificance. The common theme is avoiding threats. Fear causes a variety of reactions depending on the intensity, timing, and coping options available. We estimate the risks and vulnerability of the threat almost instantly and then fight, freeze, focus, or flee based on this assessment. Sharply focusing our attention can mobilize us to act to reduce or eliminate the danger when we can take effective action to cope with the threat. We may run to escaping from the immediate danger. Or we may fight to destroy the object of our fear. Fear also often causes cold hands, deeper and more rapid breathing, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, sweating, dry mouth, and trembling or tightening of the muscles, especially in the arms and legs. Or freezing in place and feeling terror if we can't do anything to avoid the immediate danger, we may feel panic, including shortness of breath, racing heartbeat, and the inability to focus on anything but worrying about the feared future event. Instincts help us survive -- a heightened sense of our environment so that we could nourish ourselves and procreate. As we became more dependent upon machines and technology for our quality of life and survival, our instincts and senses diminished and our mental processes strengthened. As we became more and more identified with our minds as our source of supply and safety, our thoughts and emotions carried more weight. Fear shifted its focus from our instinctual nature to our emotional nature. Fear is not a rational response and can can cause us to make an irrational reactions to challenges we face. Fear imposes limits on our minds, removing our clarity and leaving only negative thought patterns. Fear causes us to act emotionally because we panic, our mind shuts down and we respond instinctively to protect ourselves Fear, anger and prolonged stress activates the sympathetic nervous system and puts the cells in "protection mode." Stress hormones shut down functions unnecessary during an emergency. Growth, reproduction, and the immune system all go on hold -- are shut off. If we let fears and negative beliefs and thought patterns control us we inhibit our cellular growth and can eventually produce disease. Guilt is a kind of fear that works best to help us grow and mature when our behavior has been offensive or hurtful to others or ourselves. Guilt is usually very situational and specific. Unhealthy guilt lingers and makes us feel badly for an legitimate reason. Even worse is having no guilt -- not having a conscience or feelings of guilt or remorse or concern for the well-being of others. When you feel guilty – is it trying to teach you something rational and helpful about your behavior, or is it just an emotional, irrational response to a situation. Guilt and Shame create within us beliefs about who we are and what we can or cannot become. This sense of unworthiness is toxic shame. Abuse creates toxic shame - the feeling of being flawed and diminished and never measuring up. Toxic shame feels much worse than guilt. With guilt, you've done something wrong; but you can repair that - you can do something about it. With toxic shame there's something wrong with you and there's nothing you can do about it; you are inadequate and defective. Toxic shame is the core of the wounded child. This meditation sums up the ways that the wonderful child got wounded. The loss of your I AMness is spiritual bankruptcy. The wonder child is abandoned and all alone. Fear of failure is one of the most crippling emotions that can limit your potential in life. Fear of social censure makes one feel isolated. Thoughts like these have the power to bring you down. They carry an energy that weighs down on your mind, because part of you is constantly thinking about it. The guilt begins popping up in everything you do. Our thoughts can easily become a downward spiral. While dwelling on a self-defeating thought pattern, if we do not interrupt it and consciously bring ourselves out, we can become paralyzed by fear and lack. Learn more and more about the object that you are afraid of. You want to chuck your job and plunge into your own business, but are afraid of the risks involved? Then the best way to reduce the fears is to consciously learn about the business in as much depth as you can. Preparation increases confidence and calms those butterflies in the stomach. It is important to develop a conscious strategy to be more centered and balanced. Meditation - calms and balances your energy and is the gateway to better awareness. Affirmations - Use self-affirmations that give a positive spin to whatever it is that you fear. Visualization – Positive visualization is projecting an image of yourself overcoming your fears, and is a powerful technique to fight your fears. Watch your language when speaking to another person. Watch the phrases you use, are you making excuses? Are you justifying a situation with thoughts of lack and limitation? Stress hormones Emotional scars 3 Magic Words - a new movie that explores the metaphysical realms of time and space and presents a new way for people to see themselves beyond their physical existence.  Dr Joe Dispenza on FEAR    More

So What's New about the New Age?

One of the most intriguing aspects of the new age is recent insights into human history. Another new area is the question of what reality really is. Apparently our brains are  normally only interested in informing us of just enough information for survival. Reality is much more complex than it appears to be. We  not only have a new physics and a new biology that has revealed that nature cannot be reduced to matter. But we have a new understanding of our past that tells us life on our planet has undergone extremes which we had scarcely imagined. Apparently most of human history has yet to be explored. During the Ice Age humans had been nomadic, following the animal herds that lived on the lush vegetation at the melting edges of glaciers. The run off water formed rivers and fertile deltas where humans learned to plant food crops, and build homes. This was the beginning of architecture, not just homes but granaries and municipal and religious buildings, roads, and cities. Stored food had to be protected so a hierarchy evolved of protectors and administrators. A portion of the population was given power to govern and decide not only what would be allowed/disallowed, but who would own what. So that paradigm began with ownership, but as it grew and was politicized it gradually led to militarization, colonization, and exploitation of all sorts. This continued until eventually almost everything became commodified, for sale to the highest bidder. The mind/body connection is a popular New Age topic. Perhaps this will lead to a better understanding of the mind/body disconnection which has become so chronic that we have deeply betrayed the future generations economically and environmentally. "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." The idea of "dominion over the earth" was used to justify objectification and subjugation in ways that are unsustainable if not downright immoral. Eventually as the church gained more power over governments, that power was also corrupted. About 500 years ago it was decided that science could only deal with matter, while morality was to be regulated by the church. This led to a schism or power struggle between science and religion. For a long time, science would not settle for recognition of anything beyond the material universe, while the church would not recognize secular morality. One of the effects of religion has been to divide the human psyche into a good and a worthless portion, "we are right, they are wrong". The first part of any oppression is to dehumanize the group which is oppressed. Such  objectification is a demotion or degrading of a person or class of people, or an animal to the status of a mere object. The more it becomes acceptable to slur or demean, the easier it becomes to slaughter. Objectification begets violence, abuse, and exploitation. It is a dismissal of the intrinsic value of the objectified to justify cruelty, often towards women, wildlife, the disadvantaged, or or the enemy. The worst inhumanity invariably comes under the guise of religious bigotry. For thousands of years, up until about 150 years ago (the time of Charles Darwin), the central theme of western thought was the noble struggle of mankind under the egress of the Divine. A God who created the universe, set it going, left, and hasn't been seen since, with the exception of rare supernatural revelations about morality, mostly prohibitions "thou shalt not." A non-interventionist creator -- who permits the universe to run itself according to natural laws, but may show up again to reward or punish those who did or did not follow his law. After Darwin it was presumed humans were doomed by our genetics, victims of our DNA. There was a dreary tendency toward strict adherence to the physical reality and rejection of ideals. Naturalism commonly refers to the viewpoint that only laws of nature operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe. Philosopher Paul Draper wrote, naturalism is "the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system" in the sense that "nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it." Especially in the media, Naturalism portrays us as victims of our environments and circumstances. Instead of featuring man’s free will, naturalists emphasized the deterministic nature of human life. In other words, man's fate is dictated by factors other than his own free will. People may try to do better, but they are small and ineffectual compared with the natural environment. The universe, indifferent to the state of humankind, will go on regardless of what humans do. Seen as deeply impacted by hereditary and environmental factors, people became tragic characters, victims of circumstance. Such alienation can be seen as the result of a long history of Dualism, which is the moral or spiritual belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which oppose each other. Dualistic cosmology is the polarized religious belief that the universe is created or governed by two deities or spiritual forces. Dualism as a philosophy is a materialistic set of mechanistic, linear views about the relationship between mind and matter as defined by Issac Newton. Nondualism is a term used to denote affinity, or unity, rather than duality or separateness or multiplicity. The next paradigm seems to be some version of  Nondualism. The old scientific paradigm would have us believe that whatever isn't measurable or somehow quantified, isn't real. Only very recently physics and metaphysics have come full circle and embraced each other. New Age describes a movement in western culture to explore spiritual matters without the constrains of any set religious doctrine. The Winter Solstice date of December 21, 2012 is a rare event. In astronomic terms, the Sun conjuncts the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. The Milky Way, extends in a general north-south direction in the night sky. The plane of the ecliptic is the track the Sun, Moon, planets and stars appear to travel in the sky, from east to west. "The cosmic cross formed by the intersecting Milky Way and plane of the ecliptic was called the Sacred Tree by the Maya. The trunk of the tree, the Axis Mundi, is the Milky Way, and the main branch intersecting the tree is the plane of the ecliptic. Mystically, at sunrise on December 21, 2012, the Sun - our Father - rises to conjoin the center of the Sacred Tree, the World Tree, the Tree of Life... The Sun has not conjoined the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic since some 25,800 years ago. Due to a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, caused by the Earth's wobble that lasts almost 26,000 years, the apparent location of the Winter Solstice sunrise has been ever so slowly moving toward the Galactic Center. Precession may be understood by watching a spinning top. Over many revolutions the top will rise and dip on its axis, not unlike how the Earth does over an extremely long period of time. One complete rise and dip constitutes the cycle of precession. ... By using an invention called the Long Count, the Mayans fast-forwarded to anchor December 21, 2012 as the end of their Great Cycle and then counted backwards to decide where the calendar would begin.... The Great Cycle, lasting 1,872,000 days and equivalent to 5,125.36 years, is but one fifth of the Great Great Cycle, known scientifically as the Great Year or the Platonic Year - the length of the precession of the equinoxes. To use a metaphor from the modern industrial world, on Winter Solstice CE (Common Era) 2012 it is as if the Giant Odometer of Humanity on Earth hits 100,000 miles and all the cycles big and small turn over to begin anew. The present world age will end and a new world age will begin. Over a year's time the Sun transits through the twelve houses of the zodiac....Upping the scale to the Platonic Year - the 26,000 year long cycle - we are shifting, astrologically, from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. The Mayan calendar does not really "end" in 2012, but rather, all the cycles turn over and start again, vibrating to a new era. It is as if humanity and the Earth will graduate in the eyes of the Father Sun and Grandmother Milky Way." Knowledge is not wisdom. In spite of, and maybe even partly because of the astronomical acumen of the Maya, they apparently conquered, enslaved and abused so many people that a huge revolt wiped them out. So there was simply no one left to continue their calendar. Abuse of power led to greed and hubris. It has been almost 100 years since these idea that All Matter is Energy was first put forward by Einstein and others. And since this has become accepted as fact by scientists world-wide, more evidence of validity is also apparent from studies of quanta and objects in far distant space. In The Tao of Physics (1975 Fritjof Capra), represented a rejection of the world as machine, and went back to the notion of an organic, living, and spiritual universe. Carl Jung predicted long ago that someday quantum physics and psychology would come together. This integration is a fascinating aspect of the paradigm shift in science right now. In her book, The Intention Experiment, Lynne McTaggart discusses research in the field of human consciousness, which she says supports the theory that "the universe is connected by a vast quantum energy field" and can be influenced by thought.  Science as a whole can no longer neglect such things as parapsychology, meditation, and holistic medicine. Intuition or "spiritual guidance" is now seen as more common guide to enlightenment and growth than, say, rationalism, skepticism, or a scientific method. So Jung introduced a new level of subtlety. And in  a similar way New Age energies is yet another level of subtleties. Apparently many other worlds exist besides this one, invisible to us but real. We seem to be hearing that modern research is leading to a new world view that unites physical science with psychology, philosophy, and religion -- a new model of the universe. People are discussing ideas like holistic mind-body interaction, the beginning of the universe, and of life, and quantum physics. Biologist, Bruce Lipton is known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person's beliefs. Quantum mechanics gives us a picture of the world that has changed our perspective on reality itself, raising profound questions about concepts such as cause and effect, measurement of time and space. Two quantum particles can interact at a distance in a way that seems almost telepathic and even in the complete vacuum of empty space, there is still a vast amount of energy. Both the quantum world and the metaphysical world can be understood as one unity if we adopt a new point of view about a multidimensional model of the universe, based on recent developments in physics and biology. We cannot see the multidimensional reality because our senses are limited to three dimensions, yet the higher dimensional environment may be a more substantial reality than our world -- if our three-dimensional world is only a subset of the multidimensional system. As an interrelated set of holistic principles is developed, and the multidimensional world is then explored with this holistic logic system, we look for plausible answers to many unresolved questions, such as the mind-body interaction, the inner structure of the human psyche, the true nature of life, and the creative nature of evolution. It is apparent that things are quickly changing in very profound ways and some things seem to be falling apart while scientists sit and discuss abstractions. That which is unsustainable must fail, along with the institutions supporting it. A stellium of 7 planets in Aquarius in February 2021 marks a global energy shift fron 3D consciousness into 5D consciousness. 3D consciousness is viewing things from a purely physical state. You are seen as an individual that is separate from others. Life feels like “the survival of the fittest” and you are identified by the way you look, the job you have, and the people you surround yourself with. Living in fear is about missing out or not having enough. In 5D, we experience an intense feeling of oneness and connection. 5D consciousness does not think about the physicality or duality or matter but rather talks and understands things happening to connect itself with its ultimate purpose. In the 5-D world, intuitive knowing is the way to operate. A natural by-product of awakening in higher frequencies is a strong intuition, this is the dimension of light and unconditional love, spiritual awakening process. The New Physics - All is Energy The New Biology - Epigentics and Neuro-plasticity 5 Things You Need To Know About The Age Of Aquarius Lewis Howes - Greatness clips    Yoga Nidra downloads   YouTube New dimensions