Give Yourself as a Gift

    Change is always inevitable.... and it comes with a price. 

    Sometimes we think the price of change is too much, and sometimes it is. Change is what keeps us thinking and evolving, lest we stagnate as water in a sewer. I think I have come through a change and risen up from the ashes of the phoenix, risen from the drop of the Eagles claws and dropped into a new way of thinking and dreaming....
    Do we think or do we listen ~ today, I have some simple thoughts, "When you find someone who you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!" (from, When Harry Met Sally)  Think about this and give a lot of thanks, if you have that someone already in your life, today, now! I've been thinking about relationships and boundaries, I believe the mark of a healthy, intimate relationship is to feel calm, centered and focused. We will feel taken care of, wanted, unconditionally accepted and loved just for existing and being alive. We will feel a part of something and not alone. We will experience forgiviness and being forgiven with no reminding us of past offenses or shortcomings. We find ourselves giving thanks for just being alive in this relationship. We will experience being free to be who we are rather than who we think we need to be for the others. This relationship makes you free from the "paralysis of analysis" needing to analyze every minute detail of what goes on in it. A healthy intimate relationship encourages your personal growth and supports your individuality, causing the spiritual growth of both people.

America the Beautiful

Is the American system due for a major overhaul? Three recent crises have exposed major weaknesses in that system. The economic bubble burst after decades of rising prosperity. Health care expenses have soared beyond reason. The military finds itself mired in two wars. Even though we are told that a rocky recovery is underway, these crises are more fundamental than they appear. Three pillars of American life are cracking, along with the beliefs that hold them up. The first, the economic crisis, attacks the belief that money is a panacea. We are so used to prosperity that it's almost an American patent. Our typical approach to any problem is to throw billions of dollars at it. To be rich is the same as being happy. None of this is necessarily true. Billions of dollars haven't stopped the drug trade, ended poverty, or cured cancer. On the darker side, the rich have grown obscenely richer, Congress has been deeply corrupted by special interests groups, and even getting elected to higher office is a privilege open almost entirely to the wealthy. New York has a billionaire mayor who spent in excess of $100 million of his own fortune to be re-elected. On the health front, the skyrocketing cost of medical care reflects the belief that drugs and surgery are the best cures. After decades of teaching and preaching, Americans continue to ignore exercise, diet, and general prevention. As a result, we are an aging society suffering from obesity and a host of lifestyle diseases like coronary artery disease and type II diabetes. Instead of practicing wellness, we allow ourselves to be gouged by hospitals, big pharma, and a Medicare system that pays doctors to perform unnecessary procedures that line their pockets. On the military front, two wars have resulted directly from the belief that armies and armaments produce security. America spends an inhuman amount on so-called defense, playing into the hands of reckless militarists, whose foreign adventures destroyed Iraqi society and killed at least 100,000 innocent civilians. In Afghanistan our best intentions have mired us in tribal hatred that goes back for centuries, not to mention a failed state where the most basic institutions have collapsed. How can it be that this country depends on greed, militarism, and medical extortion? I am not painting a bleak picture in order to frighten or depress anyone. It seems only realistic to examine a belief system with fatal flaws. Perhaps it's time for some false gods to topple. The good news is that we now have leadership in Washington that seems to understand what these crises mean. President Obama represents a turning of the page, and although he faces enormous challenges, he could be the right leader at the right time. He understands that endless military actions, soaring healthcare costs, and unfettered greed aren't just bad things. They undermine the basis of a healthy society. But there's a huge gap between rhetoric and achievement. Without the collective will behind him, and in the face of entrenched special interest groups, Obama will be stranded. A general is helpless without an army, and in this case the army is us, ordinary citizens who can rally behind necessary change. One can only hope that Obama will be able to open the eyes of more and more people, because the future definitely depends on it! written by Deepak Chopra

Our Miraculous Bodies

In our quest to grow and evolve, we all run into obstacles. We meet resistance. Change proves stubborn and at times impossible. Anything that I can do to overcome these obstacles is a contribution I never wish to pass up. In my new book I address the most difficult obstacle of all: The Body. The human body can be a source of the miraculous. The very minute I write this message to you, someone in a laboratory somewhere is breaking through old concepts about the body, discovering that what was once a machine made of flesh and bones is actually a living process, a river without boundaries. Yet you and I find ourselves with bodies that wear out, age, grow sick, and disappoint our highest aspirations for freedom and creativity. Clearly, the body needs to be reinvented. That's the main theme of my new book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul. I throw out every fixed belief about what the body can and cannot do. In their place, I offer five breakthrough ideas that can completely alter how you see your body and what you do with it. Breakthrough #1 ~ Your Physical Body Is an Illusion Breakthrough #2 ~ Your Real Body Is Energy Breakthrough #3 ~ Awareness Has magic Breakthrough #4 ~ You Can Improve Your Genes Breakthrough #5 ~ Time Isn't Your enemy Each of these breakthroughs overturns an outmoded belief that turns into a physical limitation. If you think of your body as a physical object, you will cooperate with aging, because what is aging but a physical object wearing out? If you believe that time is your enemy, aging has gained another ally. If you accept that your genes are fixed, they take away your freedom to change. What these five breakthroughs have in common is this: you can change your body through consciousness, because despite its physical appearance, your body is the product of consciousness to begin with. There is no difference between a thought and a molecule in the brain. Each intention sends signals to every cell in the body, causing the cell to change. Therefore, the most natural way to achieve change is through the power of intention. The second half of the book's title, Resurrecting the Soul, extends the power of consciousness far beyond the physical. The soul is your spiritual body. It brings nourishment to every cell as surely as nutrients are brought by the blood. Most people believe they have a soul, but they rarely if ever feel connected to it. When you reconnect, a kind of resurrection occurs: you discover that the closer you live to your soul, the better for your body. Health, anti-aging, a strong sense of self, centeredness, spontaneous right action, the increase of love and compassion -- these are all united at the deepest level of consciousness. Every cell is aware of the state of your soul, and vice versa. One consciousness, constantly moving and evolving, is who you really are. This conclusion is the most important one I've arrived at after thirty years of teaching people how to unite body, mind, and soul. Union cannot be achieved one piece at a time. Even though most people attack their problems one at a time and have mixed priorities in their lives, the truth is that wholeness is wholeness. People don't feel whole because they have excluded their bodies from the spiritual journey, judging the body to be inferior, defective, ugly, and devoid of intelligence. At the other end of the scale, they have sent the soul into a never-never region above and beyond this world. So as you reinvent your body, which means accepting it as part of your whole consciousness, the soul must also be brought back into partnership with it. Five soul breakthroughs are needed: Breakthrough #6 ~ There's an Easier Way to Live Breakthrough #7 ~ Love Awakens the Soul Breakthrough #8 ~ Be as Boundless as Your Soul Breakthrough #9 ~ The Fruit of Surrender Is Grace Breakthrough #10~ The Universe Evolves through You When you absorb these ten ideas, and follow the practical exercises attached to each, you will turn the process of life in a new direction. Instead of being blocked by obstacles, areas of freedom open up where you never imagined them. I speak personally, because the seed of this book dates back to my first days in medical school. When I used a scalpel to slice beyond the barrier of the skin, I gained scientific knowledge about the body, but at the same time I sacrificed the body's mystery and holiness. We need to have both. The reason you can reinvent the body rests upon solid new evidence about the brain, genes, and lifestyle changes. Yet those are the windows through which a much greater truth can be seen, which is this. When the flow of life encompasses mind, body, and soul, a person has found the easiest way to live. We must put out of our heads that unity is an exotic, faraway goal reached only by the spiritually gifted. When you delve into Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, your allegiance will shift to wholeness. You won't be fixated on your body, your mind, or your spiritual path. The three will merge, as they must in order to be whole. The reunion is the most joyous experience anyone can have, and happily for all of us, it's also the most natural. written by: Deepak Chopra

Season of Grief

Death is one experience we all have in common, but it is also among our most personal. My mother's death is just like your mother's except it isn't. Every person who dies is unique; so too is every person who survives them. The tangle of loss and recovery that accompanies each death, too, is unique. No one really knows another's journey. But there is one universal. Death always means that everything having to do with this world has run out. The tangible, visible, touchable is gone. All the tools of medicine failed. When the doctor says there's nothing more she can do, it's time to close the door on the solutions of the world. From here on in, the answers have to come from elsewhere. Death is a reminder that you only get it all when you die to this world and open yourself to the next. When the heart monitor stops ticking, the Kingdom of God takes over. Eternity is on the other side but that other side is also unknown. There's an undeniable terror in that. I've spent a lot of time trying to understand how both of these can be true--how my mother's life could have brought so much of God's presence here on earth for me and happily for many others, while at the same time, God's presence could only be hers in the next life. In a strange way, the words of the late Jesuit leader, Pedro Arrupe, have helped me live this journey. His counsel in dealing with the mystery of life and death was as simple as it was profound: "Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." That's my prayer now. Let love decide everything. The Kingdom of God is about letting love decide everything, now and forever too. I've always likened living in God's kingdom here on earth to entering a river. The water (God) washes all over me, cleansing me, feeding me, moving me to where He wants me to go, empowering me to do what He wants me to do until He brings me out on the other side. I am living in the Kingdom of God now and hopefully sharing the Kingdom and taking the Kingdom to others.

Great Love

No, this trick won't work...

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms

of chemistry and physics so important a biological

phenomenon as the emotions of love?

Happy to be Alive!

Happiness, is not a thing set apart from ourself, but the conditions with which one approaches their own attitude of living!

When we consider that the position of ourself is hard to bear, is not as desired, then the desire of our heart often makes us afraid ~ unless that desire is the attitude of accepting myself as I am.

"Though He slay me, though He bruise me in mine own selfish or unseen ways; yet will I trust Him day by day," and He will not forsake me; neither will He allow me to be afraid; for He will raise me up, and He understands all the hardships, the little things, the separations, the variations in the surroundings I must trust Him!"

Companionship......

Every person feels a longing for companionship, there is within each of us an innate desire to be loved and accepted by another person. At times we may understand this desire as a directive of our love towards God, and at other times, as a desire for a beautiful relationship with another person. Two ideas come together regarding the choice of our life partner. First, is the principle that we are here on earth for the purpose of growth and development in consciousness, a desire to care for others. Now, associations with some individuals are more conducive to growth than associations with others, therefore, it is prudent to choose carefully our companions and most importantly our commitment to another person that we love. This principle is probably easiest for us to accept if we merely take time to reflect on the types of influences our various friends and acquaintances have had on us during our journey. The impact is most powerful in a marriage relationship, and a good union should be founded upon a shared purpose in life and the capacity to help each other to grow.

STILLNESS

It is absolutely essential to bring some stillness into our relationships, particularly into our close relationships. If spacious stillness is missing, the relationship will be dominated by our mind and can easily be taken over by problems and conflict! If stillness is there, it can contain anything...

Button-Proof Your Life!!

One of the reasons so many people end up frustrated and stressed out by others is that they have their goals mixed up. If you desire a happy life, the idea is not to create a life where your buttons are never pushed. Instead, the goal is to create a state of mind where, even when your buttons are pushed, that's okay because it won't bother you very much. Let's face it!! There are always going to be people who push your buttons! Most of the time it's going to be unintentional, but sometimes it's going to be on purpose. That shouldn't surprise you; it's just the way things are. Therefore, to insist that you will be happy or at peace only when everyone starts to treat you exactly the way you would like to be treated. And, to postpone your peace of mind until no one ever pushes your buttons, is an almost guaranteed way to remain stressed out for the rest of your life. It's far wiser, I believe, and far more realistic to strive to become "button-proof." Can you imagine how great it would be to almost never get upset, annoyed, or bothered simply because someone was acting in a way that was inconsistent with your wishes? This doesn't mean you wouldn't prefer that people act in a certain way; we all do. It simply suggests that you would have the ability to brush things off, walk away, ignore, or dismiss potentially irritating comments, gestures, or behavior. The way to make this happen for you is relatively easy! Instead of reacting to others as usual with resistance or repulsion, begin to receive the things that usually seem bothersome with an attitude of acceptance. So, instead of saying to yourself, "not again, I hate this," try looking at it differently... Instead, say to yourself, "Here's another chance to build my joy, here's an opportunity to change my attitude! Start with the little things, and each time you succeed in letting something go, you will become stronger, and wiser for it. You will begin to enjoy life more and see the sunsets as sunrises, although the sun never really sets, that's just an illusion anyway!!

LOVE it returns to you!

Generally, as you give love out, it's received and reciprocated ~ and then it grows.

That's the beauty of Love,

Love is an amazing energy force of the universe!

You can give it to other people, and they in turn give it to others, then eventually.... it comes back to you....