Today and for all the days to come I am sending prayers of love and support and angels with eternal love and compassion on their wings.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for the survivors of this most devastating disaster.  Our hearts and our thoughts of love are with you.

From your brothers and sisters around the world -

Village-Earth

Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith

Life is all about the choices that we make and how conscious or aware we are when we make those choices.  We have choices when we pick a life partner or not, when we choose to bear off-spring or not, what food we will or will not eat today, where we will or will not go today.  It’s all about choices and for me it’s about doing what’s right – - not just for me but for my family, my home, my environment and my planet.

Earth is a living, breathing entity and so far she has been a beautiful home for many species for millions of years.  So why is it that our species in this day and age is so destructive to Earth and ultimately ourselves?  What sets us apart from the billions or trillions that have travelled on Earth before us?  My belief is that they lived consciously, and with revered gratitude each and every moment that they existed.  What is it going to take to get the attention of the human race of today to start taking care of the hand that feeds us?

And what about us?  What makes us so destructive towards ourselves?  From what I can see, the human race is far more self-destructive today than ever before.  For reasons which elude most of us we are compelled to ingest unhealthy foods, consume mass quantities of alcohol or drugs, surround ourselves with toxic relationships and believe that we are not the captains of our own ships.  What’s up with THAT??

Every day we have an opportunity to create our day and our universe.  Several years ago I used to describe myself as a tumbleweed – I would just blow where ever the winds took me.  Now I see myself as a conscious creator in my universe or my movie of my life.

Did you know that you can make a conscious choice to have an excellent day filled with miracles or you can choose to create a day of misery?  Your brain sends out actual frequencies that can be measured by sophisticated machinery and medical instruments as it sends out this information and your universe will begin to shape itself to respond to the nature of your song that you have created.  When I was a teenager my grandmother shared some of her wisdom with me.  She said quite simply, “What goes around, comes around”.  So if I make up my mind in the morning that I am going to go out and be a conscious member of humanity and be the very best that I can be, then I am going to have an awful lot of power behind me to see that it happens.  But if I have even the tiniest bit of doubt, that will come to fruition as well.  I can’t say, ‘Yeah, but what if… “.  I have to believe with all of my being and know that it is so.  That belief is what will propel me to move in the direction of creation. Believe it and know it.

I have a favorite quote that I would like to share with you.  I have a copy of this on my bathroom mirror that has been laminated.  I read it in the morning and at night when getting ready for bed.  I love to take this into dreamtime with me.  I hope you enjoy it.

“I believe that you are great…  I know that there is something magnificent about you.  Regardless of what has happened to you in your life.  Regardless of how young or how old you think you might be.  The moment you begin to think properly- – this “something” that is within you… this power that is within you… that’s greater than the world, will begin to emerge.  It will take over your life.  It will feed you.  It will guide you, protect you, and it will sustain your very existence if you let it.  Now THAT is what I know for sure.”

Reverend Dr. Michael Beckwith

Quote from the film “The Secret”

So as you begin the rest of your day and the rest of your life, go out and be the magnificent creator that you are meant to be.  I believe that you are great…

The male and female brains have perceptive differences that are complex and widespread.  For example, in the brain centers for language and hearing, women have an advantage of 11% capacity of more neurons than men.  The hippocampus which is the principal hub of memory formation and emotion is also larger in the female brain.  This could point to why women generally express themselves emotionally more readily than men.  It could also explain why women remember an emotionally charged event more clearly than most men.  I know for a fact that my husband and I do not remember the same details from a heated debate of any caliber.  I believe that my emotional recall is far more accurate.

Now take that same brain space in a man.  A man’s brain has two and a half times the space devoted to sexual drive and larger brain centers for action and aggression.  It is not news that a man thinks about sex every 52 seconds during the day and a woman may usually think about sex only once per day.  Why is that?

These basic structural variances could explain perceptive differences.  A man can see a couple talking and imagine it leading to a sexual encounter and a woman sees the same two people talking as just two people talking.

The home of the “fight or flight” center of the brain is the amygdala and the male brain just happens to have a larger processor for these emotions.  Men can be more confrontational while women will tend to lean towards being the peace-makers.  Being a woman I can attest that the stress of conflict will register more deeply in my brain than in my husband’s brain.  It also has a tendency to settle in many areas of my body (which is a whole different category – which I would also like to share with you.  It is called EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique).

Even though we as humans have evolved beautifully over that last several millenia, we are still built to live in the wild.  Our fore-mothers have passed on our deeply wired instincts of being able to respond to stress in the wild, while reacting to physical dangers and life-threatening situations while protecting not only ourselves by our young.  Now place that anciently wired brain in a modern day woman who has to juggle running a household, holding down a job (or even two), caring for the children, and add that many women do not receive the emotional support that they need to cope with all of it.  Something as mundane as cooking dinner or paying the bills can be perceived as life-threatening bringing the woman to tears or worse. No wonder many women are just not “in the mood” after a day of “fight or flight” – - or as I have said in the past, “hunt and gather”.

Women are born with powerful and unique mental aptitudes.  We possess superior verbal agility and we are usually able to connect on a deeper level of friendship than most men.  Scientifically we are almost psychic about being able to hear someone’s tone of voice and read their face and be undeniably accurate.  It isn’t called Woman’s Intuition for naught.  Top that off with the admirable ability to be the Peace Maker.  I am proud to be a member of this gender.

Men have many unique and wonderful attributes as well, but they will be discussed in the future.    I am sure my husband will have a few things to say about that topic!

Our consciousness is in our mind the moment that we are born but the human race doesn’t fully understand the nature of mind and all of it’s sensitivities.  Few of us (if any) are born to parents that fully understand the mind and how it works.  Yet we sit in the drivers seat.  How do we know where we want to go?  How do we decide what our goals and desires are?  How do we know what obstacles  to avoid?  How do we know what to fear without putting ourselves in harms way? It sounds like an accident looking for a place to happen and that is exactly what happens with many of us.  So we end up sitting in a therapists office trying to figure out what happened.

So as we begin our path we ponder things like will we be loved or will we make a difference to the human race or will we be financially independent.  Now if we don’t understand the nature of our minds, then the other things really don’t matter.  If you don’t know your mind, then how do you know for sure that you love someone or that they love you?  If you don’t understand your mind then how do you decide what you can do to contribute to humanity?  According to Dr. David Frawley in “Ayurveda and the Mind: the Healing of Consciousness” the real issue is how to use the most important and central instrument in our lives – our MIND (emphasis by the author).

Frawley says that learning the right use of the mind not only solves our psychological problems, but directs us to our higher potential of Self-realization.  It leads to the spiritual life which is the real occupation as CONSCIOUS beings (emphasis by the author) then we can transcend mind – which is inherently limited – to Pure awareness which is unbounded by time, space, or causation.  For all things in life we must start with understanding the mind.

I agree with just about all that he says, but I think that the mind is UNlimited.   I believe that our minds are our vehicles to the universe.

Just my two-cents worth.

Websters ÍI New Riverside University dictionary defines consciousness as:

1. The state of being conscious.  2. The totality of attitudes, opinions, and sensitivities held or thought to be held by an individual or group<moral consciousness>.   3. Psychoanal. The conscious.  4. a. A critical awareness of one’s own situation and identity.  b. Awareness, concern.

So now let’s look at the definition of conscious.

It comes from the latin word conscius, knowing with others.  1. a. Aware of one’s own existence, sensations, and thoughts and of one’s environment < received a hard blow but remained conscious> b. Capable of thought, will, or perception.  2. Subjectively known or felt< conscious regret> 3. Deliberately conceived or done : INTENTIONAL <a conscious rebuke> <made a conscious effort to keep awake> 4. Having or showing self-consciousness: AWARE. –n.  Psychoanal. The component of waking awareness perceptible by an individual at a given instant ; CONSCIOUSNESS.   conscious-ly adv.

So why is a clear definition of consciousness so elusive to our modern day quantum scientists?  Do you think they are privy to some info that we are not yet aware of?  I think so!

There is a fabulous and concise book out by William A. Tiller, Ph. D called Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality, and Consciousness.  Professor emeritus from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.  Dr. Tiller describes consciousness as: Thought by most to be the totality of the impressions, thoughts and feelings of an individual.  Here, it is all the output expressions from the manifested in-dwelling spirit of that individual.

Now that is something that I can sink my teeth in to.  Dr. Tiller’s definition is what gives this blog some direction(s) in which to move.  Thank you Dr. Tiller.

Next post: Brain and mind.

If you have had the chance to view the Stanford research paper here on the blog, then you will also see the oral and graphic presentation that accompanied the paper (if this is not up yet, it will be very soon).  In the graphic presentation there is a photo of a Tibetan monk, who was a member of a group, volunteered by the Dalai Lama to undergo experiments regarding the different phases of brain wave activity that accompanied the monks when in meditation.  This research was a blast to do.  The process of preparing the monks for the experiments was arduous and each experiment involved the placement of 256 electrodes to the head of each monk.  Can you imagine the amount of time it would take to complete this task?

The Tibetan Buddhist monks, as we all know, are incredible.  They are a basic key to understanding how mind works.  What they can do with their minds is nothing less than miraculous.  Hopefully we will have an opportunity to explore this area too.

I am also passionate about yoga and in particular, therapeutic yoga.  The privilege of watching people turn their lives around from a practice as beautiful as yoga is almost beyond words.  It is so simple, yet so complex.  Isn’t the human body amazing?