Mind-body war and peace
Mind-body practices are becoming increasingly popular. Consciously or subconsciously, we are seeking for ways to connect the body with the mind.
A scientific view of a relationship between the mind and the brain is quite controversial. An author of The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s stirred a debate on TED. His provocative talk on ten dogmas of science was removed from TED’s distribution channel. One of the dogmas is that the mind is inside a human’s brain. Dr. Sheldrake argues that the mind is extended beyond the brain and has field-like properties. This concept is appealing to a mind-body practitioner. If a mind is a field of something, then is it possible to spread it out to the corners of the Universe, or zero it in on a tiniest particle? Perhaps, even send messages of love and hope to all humanity and the Earth?
I certainly did not think so when I started my journey to inner peace. My mind was my biggest enemy – thinking thoughts I did not want to think, judging, comparing, making excuses, etc. I thought the only solution was to endure that crappy small mind. Until I experienced a bigger mind during an intense hot yoga class. I was at a low point of my life – a failed relationship, depression. Nothing seemed to work, no matter how hard I tried. In my mind I surrendered and admitted defeat. At that moment a bigger mind appeared. That wondrous moment gave me hope and I started to look for ways to expand my mind. I deduced that intense physical exertion was one of the prerequisites to enter the gate and that the only way to subdue the small mind was to declare a mind-body war – wear out the body, challenge it with painful exercises, and the small mind will retreat. Tame the beast. This short-term surrender of the small mind does not guarantee long-term benefits, though, and the body will eventually get weaker and weaker.
The other end of the spectrum is meditation and mindfulness practices (e.g., Kigong, a healing martial art). Growing the mind is the first priority. The small mind may be kicking and screaming, throwing tantrums or whispering gentle comforting words. Enduring a mind’s revolt could be a painful and mind-numbing experience. It is important to remember that small mind does not define you, is not you, and has as much power as you are willing to give to it. This realization leads to a first denial of self.
When meditation and Kigong are practiced with the right principles and direction, all the other benefits will follow – physical health, tranquility, blossoming of talents, creativity, improved quality of life. What a great return on investment with generous dividends and unlimited payoff potential in the long run.
Every time I experience the expansion of the mind and overflow of energy through daily practice of meditation and Kigong, it truly feels like a miracle – a miracle of Life and human potential.
Meditate – in your dreams!
Lucid dreams are the dreams in which one is aware that one is dreaming.
My friend had recently described his lucid dream to me. I was captivated by it. Strangely enough, the next morning I myself had a lucid dream. I am saying morning because I was aware it was early morning. In that dream I was trying to find my friend without success. I looked and I searched everywhere and I could not find her. I was desperate. It was nighttime in my dream, yet I was aware of the actual time of the day. Finally I decided to stop worrying and meditate. I sat, focused, and after feeling empty fullness and calmness, I sent bright pure energy to my missing friend. It felt good. Then I woke up refreshed and puzzled by the dream.
The first thing I did was calling my friend to make sure she was okay. She was. Then I realized I made a subconscious/conscious choice in my dream – instead of worrying I chose hope. I chose to help from my heart. I meditated in my dream.
Little by little conscious consistent choices in real life clear and purify my subconscious world and even dreams change.
Have bright dreams!
One year and six months
I was feeling sick. I was so very continuously sick for several years. I had an insurmountable amount of responsibility and no energy to handle even a third of what I needed to. I had a calendar filled with doctor’s appointments, medication schedules and self-pity parties. I was living my life in mental emergency survival mode every minute of every day. My focus was obsessively determined to perfect minute details of things like the organizational structure of my sock drawer but the bigger picture of my life was lost to an over-bearing feeling that everything was out of my control.
If you’ve ever experienced this kind of struggle, you will always remember how it felt. You keep it as near and dear to you as some of your happiest moments in life. Because it was the culmination of your resistance. When you get to the ultimate bottom, something happens. You surrender. You have no fight left in you and you look up. You look up for help when you are at your most helpless. The beauty of that moment is unrecognizable to the tortured soul experiencing it, but in truth the reason you look up is because you have hope.
Hope, love and peace come to us especially in our moments of most distress. Time carried hope from that destined moment to a much more peaceful existence for me. I now keep a much clearer calendar and messier sock drawer.
Westfield Library Presentation
On Tuesday evening, January 15th, 2013, Master Johwa delivered a presentation on Brain Health to approximately 70 participants at the Westfield Public Library. Master Johwa first explained that habits and thoughts can indeed influence the brain’s health.
If we are experiencing conflict with others or even within ourselves, he specified, we create a kind of torture for ourselves to endure. As much as we dislike this, he clarified further; it feels as though we cannot stop ourselves from engaging in it. The audience members agreed with all that had been described, but many were unsure if there was a way to really address these habits and to rid these conflicts from their lives. The audience members then learned and actively applied three practical meditations to help keep thoughts and emotions in a calmed state.
As Master Johwa progressed through introducing these various meditations, it was apparent by the smiles on audience members faces and from their enthusiastic responses to their experiences, that the meditations were in fact easing stress away from these participants. Master Johwa then issued a challenge to the audience to try these mediations once a day for twenty one days and he guaranteed their effectiveness on their overall well-being.
Many audience members truly enjoyed the prospect of carrying-out this challenge. They voiced that the meditations were personally satisfying and yet simple to do. Once conflicting thoughts and emotions are neutralized, explained Master Johwa, you can experience a better quality of life. He illuminated that having this kind of practice daily will indeed enhance our brain’s health and will even balance our physical body’s systems of blood flow, energy flow, and hormone flow. It was evident that several participants felt empowered and inspired by what was presented that evening. Countless asked follow-up, more detailed questions about how long they should do it for and at what time of day.
Choices
In the past, I had perceived making choices of any kind to be difficult and stressful. I often asked others about how they decided for themselves and if they were satisfied with their outcomes as a result. I behaved as if I could prevent any mis-step or guarantee my own happiness based on someone else’s experience. I struggled with decisions as simple as selecting an entree from a menu and as complex as selecting which colleges I should apply to.
Since working very diligently toward getting to know myself better, I have a much easier time approaching a decision. I am more confident in my purpose in this life and therefore much more able to decipher whether something aligns well to that purpose or not. It seems so simple to me now, but when I was under the fog of indecision and lack of centered-ness, nothing was ever easy or simple. Now that I have trained more intensively with the guidance of Master Johwa and with the support of the other participants at the center, I understand that it is the simple things that matter most to me and yet for me they are also the most difficult to attain.
I am learning and experiencing that the first step to getting what it is you want is to make a choice. For this new year I choose joy and I wish joy to this entire universe as well.
Happy New Year! 2013
Bliss of Responsibility
As a practitioner seeking to improve myself, I struggle with challenges of life, work, and relationships. Before I started teaching meditation and Ki-Gong classes, I was told by my guide and other practitioners that teaching would help me to open my heart and grow much faster. I chose to follow that advice despite my perceived obstacles – fear, responsibility, lack of experience, etc. And I reaped enormous benefits over the years of teaching which I would like to share.
One of the memorable experiences from my early years of teaching was feeling a powerful Ki energy flow in the back of my legs during stretching exercise. My bladder meridians were wide open and I felt as if my legs were electrical poles. I did not want to stand up.
Some days I would take a class as a student and then teach a class right after. The difference in the ability to clear away unproductive emotions and thoughts between taking and teaching a class has always astounded me. Whatever accumulated stress and emotions I had prior to teaching class, would disappear almost immediately once I start focusing on delivering what practitioners need the most in that particular moment in time. My mind would become focused, yet spread out. Inquisitive, yet centered. My heart would become content and overflowing with love.
Who gets the most benefit from my classes? You guessed right – I do, thus proving the well-known principle “giving is receiving.”
“With freedom comes responsibility.” said Eleanor Roosevelt. I’d say: “With responsibility of growing myself comes freedom to choose my Higher Self.”
Thank you for providing me with the practical tools and a stage to grow, Harmony Meditation!
Pain vs. Spiritual Enlightenment
Where is pain?
What are the causes of pains to you?
There are physical, mental and spiritual pain to you if you say that you have physical body, your consciousness and your spirit.
You have pain. Do you know why?
What did you say?
You are NOT a good example of meditator if you can’t answer it very clearly.
.
Can’t find the answer right away?
That’s ok but you can’t learn what you need to learn from this opportunity unless you meditate about it sincerely instead of getting answer promptly.
Here is the 1st simple answer for you and you find the others.
You feel pain and you are in pain because you possess the causes. You possess your physical body and want it so much, so you have pain. It’s fair. You possess your ego and want it so deeply, so you have pain. It’s fair. It’s fair because the more you possess, the more pain you get.
The spiritually enlightened also feel remarkable pains because they possess their desire of helping numerous people in infinite period. But they know they possess nothing beyond Nothingness.
Pain or Spiritual Enlightenment, which one do you prefer now?
Do you know numbers?
Let’s start looking at the table.
I guess you can count numbers from 1 to infinity. There are some numbers though that we don’t even know their names because whether they are too big or too small. Which numbers do you use the most usually?
1. Which number is the one that you dream?
2. Which one is your actual number though?
Did you answer?
Scroll down if you said, YES.
.
What were the numbers in your answer about? Money or Memory chip? People or technology?
OK. Fine.
Now did you notice that there was one number missing in the chart? Maybe that number should be located and described at the center of the chart or somewhere else. That is “0″ Do we know “0″? You can call that as “Nothingness” or “Nothing” The “0″ is a number or not? Oh… Please answer it very carefully because it is really critical and it matters so much in your life and the life of Cosmos.
Are you questioning…?
.
..
………………………………..up to NOW? …….Very Good.
Have a nice day!
“I am the hope anyway.”
I heard a story in the dream and I want to share with you.
Once upon a time there was an enlightened healer who always helps others in many ways. People didn’t know who he is and where he lives though because he was always traveling from this town to that town. He didn’t want to stay one place long time and didn’t want to be known to people. He just liked to help people, animals and trees.
One day he was passing a village and he found out that really bad smell was in the air spreading in a certain area. Nobody was around there and he noticed that the smell was not just bad but very toxic as well. He wanted to stay a bigger town NOT this one but his generosity stopped him to help this town. What he found later was a chicken, pigs in a barn, a snake and peoples.
He was observing what’s happening around the barn from a distance for 3 days and found these.
1. It was a sick chicken caught influenza and trapped in the pig barn that made a lot of complaints.
2. It was pigs in the barn that made dirty smell and noise as well.
3. It was a snake that ate eggs from that chicken.
4. It was lots of shit in the barn that made peoples kept away from it.
Since the sick chicken was trapped in the barn people didn’t come to take her eggs on the pig’s shit. The snake couldn’t come and enjoy his special food, which is egg because he was afraid of pigs in the barn. Usually pigs are very good at eating snakes. Pigs didn’t like the sick chicken either. The healer found that the solution was simple. Save the chicken!
He absolutely didn’t like the smell and virus but his benevolence made him jump into the barn. He got the chicken and used a healing method originated Not from thoughts or knowledge But from his pure heart to heal the chicken. Later the healthier chicken was running in the yard with peace. He was just looking the sky.
When he was returning to his place to take his belongings, people start talking about the smell from him. His clothing got some shit from the barn obviously. He didn’t care about it but suddenly some people start yelling at him saying, “Go away with your smell” Maybe some people didn’t like the chicken running around again making noise in their yard. Maybe some people didn’t want to get any judgment from others about what they have done so far about the pig barn. They just got back from their church after a long time of prayers about forgiveness, gratefulness and love.
The enlightened healer made a choice. He left the town with peace giving prayers to the people who yelled at him. He was grateful about it anyway though. It reminded of what he heard from his friend. His friend said, “In some really big towns, most people like to stay with dogs around NOT with people, even family members.” With this thought he noticed a bitter taste in his mouth.
He started walking again. On his way to next journey he looked over the sky and started singing his favorite song. It says, “Human, humanity is hope anyway.” – The end.
What do you think? Here is a song for you.
CLICK the photo (English)
Protect the Dreamer
Do you have a person or a teacher in your life who gives you magnificent hopes and dreams? Dreams about a better you, your life, and the Earth? To dream is to have hope, creativity, and the power to actualize the dreams in reality. Productive dreaming requires a conjoint and deliberate effort of the heart and the mind.
If you have a guide who helps you utilize your brain for dreaming and creation, congratulations! Protect the dreamer in your guide and yourself.
Design your most incredible, heat-warming and uplifting dream. Infuse it with focus, persistence, and courage. Awesomize with amazing people who will help you along the way. Sprinkle with memorable and happy pictures. Nourish with utmost care and unyielding will.
I wish your heart’s deepest desire and dream come true!
I dream, therefore I exist.
August Strindberg
