Drugs and the Meaning of Life (Photo by JB Banks) (Note 6/4/2014: I have revised this 2011 essay and added an audio version.—SH) Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. Drugs are another means toward this end. One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting and for what purpose and which are not. However, we should not be too quick to feel nostalgia for the counterculture of the 1960s. Drug abuse and addiction are real problems, of course, the remedy for which is education and medical treatment, not incarceration. I discuss issues of drug policy in some detail in my first book, The End of Faith, and my thinking on the subject has not changed. I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. (Pokhara, Nepal) Recommended Reading:
How to Sense Subtle Etheric Spiritual Energy What is Spiritual Energy? First of all, we are not talking about “ghosts” here, but the spiritual (not religious) level vibrational radiance from all matter in all dimensions, including non-physical ones. This is the emanation of the clear, clean, loving, primordial energy that allows things to exist. One day soon this energy will be universally recognized as the basic organizational level of all things. It is Creational energy coming through as the signature vibrations of individuated forms. Science does not yet have a way to reliably detect or measure this energy nor do the inane “ghostbusters” on TV shows. There are also subtle energies that are not so spiritual in nature. When and how do people notice or feel subtle or spiritual "energy"? People sense subtle energy in different ways. To notice these subtle energies, you have to know that Spiritual energy exists. Can just anyone feel these energies? “Close your eyes,” I said, “Can you feel me sitting next to you without looking?”
10 Questions: On Finding Your ‘Soul-Life’ in a 130-Year-Old Book Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams are two of our generation’s greatest gifts. Brooke is the author of four books, and he offers deep meditations on wilderness and wild lands, as well as working actively in defense of the pristine, most recently with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Terry is legendary for her intensely personal explorations of nature and life and the human resonance between the two, and she’s the author of the critically acclaimed Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place and numerous other books. The couple, who divide their time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Jackson, Wyoming, were in a book shop in Maine when Terry stumbled across a volume called The Story of My Heart. Recently, I caught up with the two to learn more about how and why The Story of My Heart got under their skin, and what lessons it has for us today. 1. Brooke Williams: The Story of My Heart, I believe, comes from the collective unconscious, into which Jefferies was able to tap.
Mindfulness Meditation With Binaural Beats Meditation is a massive part of my life, and also a big part of cultivating mindfulness on a daily basis. As we know, mindfulness isn’t simply about being aware – I mean we all have the awareness that we are someone, living, in this world – but rather being purposely aware, really being present in the moment to see the nakedness of the self and the world around us. For example, I might be aware that I am gardening, but am I really aware of the interaction with nature and the beauty of its impermanence and intrinsic connection with everything around me, including myself? This might be going over your head a bit if you’re new to all this, but don’t worry, this is a journey you won’t regret taking, and getting to grips with the language used to describe mindfulness takes a level of understanding to get to grips with – even though it shouldn’t, which was the main reason I put the Pocket Mindfulness series together.
Coincidence is an Illusion - What is Synchronicity? All Coincidences Have Meaning Nothing Happens by Chance Have you ever experienced a coincidence so incredible that it left you stunned? If so, then you have just taken a step into the amazing world of Synchronicity. What happens in most people’s lives is beyond their control. Your most carefully planned project can be ruined by a single chance event, but a seemingly ridiculous idea could be a huge success due to chance! Cause and Effect are an Illusion How much has chance played a role in your life? It isn’t enough to just plan your future. Chance Will be the Defining Factor in Your Life Don’t believe it? Johnny Depp the American actor went to an audition with a friend. Why don’t people believe in chance? If you think luck doesn’t play a role in your life, you’re kidding yourself. Did you know that you can influence chance and luck in a precise way? Control is not the answer. Chaos Theory Chaos theory is about how complex the world is. Can you see how a small change affects your whole life?
INFJ Relationships, Dating, Love, & Compatibility By Dr. A.J. Drenth INFJs are outwardly warm and engaging. Despite their status as introverts, there is little INFJs value more than quality conversation. Misunderstandings in INFJ Relationships & Dating INFJs commonly report feeling misunderstood. A common assumption among males is that all females have similar perspectives on romance. Another common misunderstanding is that INFJs are controlling or closed-minded. Nor is it the case that INFJs are overly controlling, or even want to be in control, in their relationships. Another misconception about INFJs is that they are emotionally “needy.” Yet another misunderstanding is the claim that INFJs “read into things that are not there” or “make mountains out of molehills.” The Inferior Function in INFJ Dating & Relationships No relationship can be optimally navigated without an adequate understanding of each partner’s “weak spots.” Se can also affect INFJs’ view of themselves and their bodies. INFJ Compatibility with Various Personality Types
Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence – An Interview with Dr. Kirby Surprise The experience of meaningful coincidences is universal. They are reported by people of every culture, every belief system, and time period. Traditionally these synchronistic events are made acceptable by ascribing them to outside supernatural forces such as divinities, or in modern times, impersonal archetypal influences. Dr. Kirby Surprise demonstrates that synchronistic events, based on the activity of the mind, are actually caused by the person who perceives them, and reflect many levels of their consciousness. His research reveals that what we believe and the way we look for patterns in the world generates synchronistic events that mirror our own assumptions. A licensed psychologist who makes his living assessing, diagnosing and treating delusions and thought disorders, Dr. His groundbreaking new book is titled Synchronicity: The Art of Coincidence, Change, and Unlocking Your Mind (New Page Books, 2012). New Dawn recently spoke to Dr. NEW DAWN (ND): Dr. DR. “OK,” I said to myself.
The 10 Lies We Tell Ourselves “The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we’re afraid. Most of us don’t like liars. 1. Correction- your past can haunt you if you let it. 2. There are no failures, just results. 3. There are two ways of being rich in happiness: One is to have all you want, the other is to be satisfied with all you have. 4. As John F Kennedy once said, “The Chinese symbol for the word “crisis” is written using two strokes of a pen. 5. You are never too old to go after what you want. 6. So many people believe this. 7. It’s a nice thought and useful if you’re a particularly self-centered individual but I don’t think it’s true. 8. Maybe one of the most frequent lies we tell ourselves. 9. We tell ourselves over and over again, “I need to be happy.” 10. Sometimes being selfish is healthy. About the Author This article was written by Whitney Anthony. Credits: Purpose Fairy. Image source
How Mind-Wandering and “Positive Constructive Daydreaming” Enhance Creativity and Improve Our Social Skills by Maria Popova The science of why fantasy and imaginative escapism are essential elements of a satisfying mental life. Freud asserted that daydreaming is essential to creative writing — something a number of famous creators and theorists intuited in asserting that unconscious processing is essential to how creativity works, from T. S. Eliot’s notion of “idea incubation” to Alexander Graham Bell’s “unconscious cerebration” to Lewis Carroll’s “mental mastication.” In the 1950s, Yale psychologist Jerome L. In a recent paper titled “Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming” (PDF), published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, writer Rebecca McMillan and NYU cognitive psychologist Scott Kaufman, author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, revisit Singer’s work to deliver new insights into how the first style of Singer’s mind-wandering, rather than robbing us of happiness, plays an essential, empowering role in daily life and creativity. Thanks, Scott Myers Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
The Benjamin Franklin Effect: The Surprising Psychology of How to Handle Haters “We are what we pretend to be,” Kurt Vonnegut famously wrote, “so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” But given how much our minds mislead us, what if we don’t realize when we’re pretending — who are we then? That’s precisely what David McRaney explores in You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself (public library) — a “book about self-delusion, but also a celebration of it,” a fascinating and pleasantly uncomfortable-making look at why “self-delusion is as much a part of the human condition as fingers and toes,” and the follow-up to McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart, one of the best psychology books of 2011. McRaney, with his signature fusion of intelligent irreverence and irreverent intelligence, writes in the introduction: The human mind is obviously vaster and more powerful than any other animal mind, and that’s something people throughout all human history couldn’t help but notice.
Colour my world Colour does not exist. Not out in the world at any rate. All that exists in the world is a smooth continuum of light of different wavelengths. Colour is a construction of our brains. A lot is known about how the brain does this, beginning with complicated circuits in the retina itself. Thanks to a new paper from Greg Field and colleagues we now have an even more detailed picture of how retinal circuits are wired to enable light to be categorized into different colours. Colour discrimination begins with the absorption of light of different wavelengths. Colour information only arises by comparing the responses of multiple cone cells. The L/M system evolved much more recently, due to a gene duplication that occurred in the lineage of Old World primates, probably around 40 million years ago. All of this raises an important question – how are the inputs to these different cone cells compared? This has been known for quite a long time now. Amazingly, this may extend to humans as well.
Understanding the Human Aura “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” ~ Nikola Tesla We often see painters showing a ball of light or halo around the heads of enlightened figures. This invisible, divine energy that actually surrounds every living thing in the universe, is the aura. It is scientifically proven that electromagnetic fields exist around every object in the known world. The aura surrounds the body in an oval-shaped field, also known as the Auric egg. The aura consists of seven layers or levels that correspond to the seven chakras. Mind Over Matter To bridge our understanding of the unseen world of energy, Princeton University and Dr Konstantin Korotkov, professor of physics at St. “We are developing the idea that our consciousness is part of the material world and that with our consciousness we can directly influence our world,” said Dr Korotkov. The color and size of aura varies depending on the emotional and physical health of an individual.