Vedas Beyond Science

Do Plants Have Intelligency

2014-03-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Like higher organisms, plants appear able to make complex decisions. A new study shows that plants may be able to initiate a survival mechanism by aborting their own seeds to prevent parasite infestation.

Plants have previously been shown to draw alternative sources of energy from other plants. Plants influence each other in many ways and they communicate through“nanomechanical oscillations” vibrations on the tiniest atomic or molecular scale or as close as you can get to telepathic communication.

Plants exhibit intelligence with an intrinsic ability to process information from several type of stimuli that allows optimal decisions about future activities in a given environment.

Stefano Mancuso from the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology at the University of Florence, Italy, and his colleagues are starting to apply rigorous standards to study plant hearing (Trends in Plant Sciences, vol17, p323). Their preliminary results indicate that corn roots grow towards specific frequencies of vibrations. What is even more surprising is their finding that roots themselves may also be emitting sound waves. For now, though, we have no idea how a plant might produce sound signals let alone how they might detect them.

Scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Gottingen have now shown from their investigations on Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), that it is is able to abort its own seeds to prevent parasite infestation.

The results, as reported in a news release, are the first ecological evidence of complex behaviour in plants. They indicate that this species has a structural memory, is able to differentiate between inner and outer conditions as well as anticipate future risks, scientists write in the renowned journal American Naturalist — the premier peer-reviewed American journal for theoretical ecology.

The European barberry or simply Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) is a species of shrub distributed throughout Europe. It is related to the Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) that is native to North America and that has been spreading through Europe for years. Scientists compared both species to find a marked difference in parasite infestation:“a highly specialized species of tephritid fruit fly, whose larvae actually feed on the seeds of the native Barberry, was found to have a tenfold higher population density on its new host plant, the Oregon grape”, reports Dr. Harald Auge, a biologist at the UFZ.

This led scientists to examine the seeds of the Barberry more closely. Approximately 2000 berries were collected from different regions of Germany, examined for signs of piercing and then cut open to examine any infestation by the larvae of the tephritid fruit fly (Rhagoletis meigenii). This parasite punctures the berries in order to lay its eggs inside them. If the larva is able to develop, it will often feed on all of the seeds in the berry. A special characteristic of the Barberry is that each berry usually has two seeds and that the plant is able to stop the development of its seeds in order to save its resources. This mechanism is also employed to defend it from the tephritid fruit fly. If a seed is infested with the parasite, later on the developing larva will feed on both seeds. If however the plant aborts the infested seed, then the parasite in that seed will also die and the second seed in the berry is saved.

When analysing the seeds, the scientists came across a surprising discovery: “the seeds of the infested fruits are not always aborted, but rather it depends on how many seeds there are in the berries”, explains Dr. Katrin M. Meyer, who analysed the data at the UFZ and currently works at the University of Goettingen. If the infested fruit contains two seeds, then in 75 per cent of cases, the plants will abort the infested seeds, in order to save the second intact seed. If however the infested fruit only contains one seed, then the plant will only abort the infested seed in 5 per cent of cases. The data from fieldwork were put into a computer model which resulted in a conclusive picture. Using computer model calculations, scientists were able to demonstrate how those plants subjected to stress from parasite infestation reacted very differently from those without stress. “If the Barberry aborts a fruit with only one infested seed, then the entire fruit would be lost. Instead it appears to ‘speculate’ that the larva could die naturally, which is a possibility. Slight chances are better than none at all”, explains Dr. Hans-Hermann Thulke from the UFZ. “This anticipative behaviour, whereby anticipated losses and outer conditions are weighed up, very much surprised us. The message of our study is therefore that plant intelligence is entering the realms of ecological possibility.”

But how does the Barberry know what is in store for it after the tephritid fruit fly has punctured a berry? It is still unclear as to how the plant processes information and how this complex behaviour was able to develop over the course of its evolution. The Oregon grape that is closely related to the Barberry has been living in Europe for some 200 years with the risk of being infested by the tephritid fruit fly and yet it has not developed any such comparable defence strategy. These new insights shed some light on the underestimated abilities of plants, while at the same time bringing up many new questions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

April McCarthy is a community journalist playing an active role reporting and analyzing world events to advance our health and eco-friendly initiatives.

Credits: April McCarthy, Prevent Disease

Three Scientific Concepts That Can Make Us More Spiritual

2014-03-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

“There is nothing you can learn from as much as a problem you cannot fully solve. Unsolved problems can be some of the greatest tormentors, but also the greatest teachers. Unsolved problems keep the mind hungry and the eyes open.” –Jonathan Zap

When it comes down to it, the universe is a baffling place. There is perhaps nothing more baffling than the fact that there’s even a universe to be baffled by. How many universes are there? Some scientists claim the answer could be anything between zero (this universe is an illusion) and infinity (multiverse). Nobody really knows the answer. And yet, the more we know, the more fascinating everything seems. The more baffling the question, the more exhilaration we feel. It’s the unanswered questions that pull us forward and bring a sense of the spiritual to the task of figuring things out.

Even the things we have figured out are minuscule compared to the things we can’t even imagine we can’t explain. Like Werner Heisenberg said, “The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.” Here then are four basic unexplained scientific concepts that seemingly bridge the gap between science and spirituality, and just might make us more spiritual in the process of trying to figure them out.

1.) INFINITY

“We, aeronauts of the spirit! …it was our fate to be wrecked against infinity.” –Nietzsche

Infinity says we’re everything, finitude says we’re nothing. Between the two, we flow. From microcosm to macrocosm we are infinite beings perceiving an infinite reality using finite faculties. As such, infinity will always elude us. Infinity cannot be pigeonholed into finite scientific inquiry. The universe is infinite at every point. Every point is itself infinite, creating an infinite array of infinities: an infinite super-infinity multiplied by other super-infinities equaling an infinitely more infinite level of uber-infinity (Cantor’s Set Theory). And that’s just the infinite water molecule on the infinite ice cube balancing on the tip of an infinite iceberg, as this just speaks toward the spatial aspects of infinity. Once you throw in the temporal aspects of infinity then the brain-flipping really begins.

Temporal infinity leads us down a wormhole of infinite realities, where timelines are nothing more than quantized time-particles themselves. Every nano-second of every timeline is an infinite nano-second branching off into infinite timelines each with their own set of nano-seconds branching off infinitely through something outside of time. Huh? Toss in the never-ending irrational number Pi, which is so long that it cannot even be contained by our universe and may even contain the universe within itself, and then the brain-crushing somersaults really begins.

Are you baffled? Good, because that’s a healthy reaction. But there is a veritable boon of spiritual gold in the perplexing conundrum of infinity. I mean, as long as infinity is the rule, there can be no such thing as boredom. If spirituality means anything it means honoring the sacred and respecting the soul of things while also relating to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind. It means having a genuine concern for that which is unseen and intangible as well as what’s physical and mundane.

If we’re bored we cannot be spiritual. There’s no space for spirituality if there is no awe, no astonishment, and no baffling curiosity to grapple with. The concept of infinity promises that we will never be bored. If there’s always something more to learn (infinite knowledge) then there can be no boredom, which brings up an interesting correlation between boredom and knowing. If we knew everything, we’d be cursed with eternal boredom and tedium. But since there’s always something more to learn, we’re blessed with eternal awe and fascination. It turns out that an infinite mind aware is infinitely bored, while a finite mind aware is infinitely enchanted.

2.) QUANTUM MECHANICS (SPACE & TIME)

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.” –Carl Sagan

Atoms consist of 99.9999999% empty space. That means: everything from the chair you’re sitting on, the computer you’re staring at, even you, are only 000000001% there. In all actuality, nothing can exist separate from anything else. Everything is needed for anything to be possible. Maybe intuiting “space” is the mind’s way of preventing everything from being in the same place. Maybe “time” is the mind’s way of preventing everything from happening at once. Either way, much spiritual abundance is here to be had.

Perhaps space-time is nothing more than the insomnia of Infinity. Perhaps our searching for an explanation to time is akin to a fish searching for water. The fact that scientists can’t even explain something as simple as why the “arrow of time” only seems to move in one direction is absolutely bewildering. Most physicists even go so far as to claim that time is an illusion. And that’s because most of the research is pointing in exactly that direction. Pun intended. From Einstein’s relativity theory to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, from Schrödinger’s equation to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, from quantum tunneling to the now eleven dimensions of space, space-time is one giant conundrum. It screams paradox. But is it really?

We find ourselves looking back and wondering: if history has proven, time and time again, that human perception is inadequate for explaining the way things “actually” are (flat earth, geocentric solar system, uniform time, etc.) who is to say that our perceptions are not tricking us into seeing what we think is real, as opposed to what is “actually” real? Perhaps the paradox isn’t time and space. Perhaps the paradox is us. It’s not reality that’s begging the question. It’s us, we, the very things pointing at everything and screaming “paradox” that needs to be questioned, measured, and deemed fallible. When we grasp the utter futility and beauty of this conundrum, a sense of humiliation and joy combines to gift us a spiritual goldmine of cosmic proportions.

3.) CONSCIOUSNESS

“Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about – yet. There have been other great mysteries: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity… With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist — and hope — that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.” -Daniel C. Dennett

Consciousness is the granddaddy of all unexplained scientific concepts, the be-all-end-all of all things unexplainable. I mean, we don’t even know how to go about thinking about not understanding it. Consciousness is the muddled soup of the previous two unexplained concepts combined, with the added bonus of being an unexplained concept itself, and the only tool we have to explain how unexplainable it is. Can you say Möbius-snake eating its own Möbius-tail? Can you say Schrödinger’s alive-cat chasing Schrödinger’s dead-cat around in a box that may or may not exist?

From Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds interpretation of the collapsing wave-function to the multiple histories in Feynman’s Diagrams, each and every particle (electrons, photons, protons) is in an infinite superposition across the multiverse of reality. The wavefunction of each infinite particle collapses only when something, a conscious observer, attempts to measure it. In fact, the research is showing that the particles are not even quantized particles UNTIL they are observed. Before observation, they are merely an infinitely smeared-out wavefunction quantum entangled with everything else.

Even stranger is how the research shows that each of us (who are also made up of protons and electrons), and every single object in the universe, are entangled in the superposition of each and every other particle. This means that not only are all particles spread out infinitely throughout the multiverse, but so are we. So is everything! It’s only conscious observation itself that is bringing tangibility to anything. Without conscious observation, everything is simply infinite, no beginning and no ending, merely infinite energy. With conscious observation, however, we have form and shape and texture and flowers and mountains and planets and galaxies and the universe. More importantly, we have ourselves, observing the absolute miracle of it all.

Consciousness is the medium by which reality, as we know it, exists. It is both the glue that binds all things and the force that separates things into conceivable constructs. It’s a matrix within a matrix observing and creating the matrix it’s in while branching out into an infinite amount of parallel matrixes in a multi-matrix which is spread out through the uber-matrix of time and space. Indeed, it is that which dares to count to Pi. Without conscious observation, everything is everything. With conscious observation, everything is separate, dynamic, beautiful, meaningful, and, yes, spiritual. And suddenly we are not so small.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary ‘Z’ McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world.

The New Natural Testoesterone that boost your rave

2014-03-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

Wow... I'm getting old.

It's a disturbing thought, one that usually hits after an unexpected physical challenge. Maybe you've been unable to maintain your usual workout levels, or recovery is taking a lot longer than it used to. Perhaps fixes to the house are just a bit more difficult, or you can't perform in the bedroom the way you used to.

What's most startling about this realization is that you don't normally "feel old" but, nevertheless, you know you don't look or feel like the man you used to be.

And the issue? You might not have enough free testosterone

A person's bloodstream contains two types of testosterone: bonded testosterone and free testosterone. Bonded testosterone attaches to molecules in the body and is mostly ineffective. However, free testosterone can enter your cells easily and plays a vital role in libido, strength, stamina, and vitality—all of which are important to men.

Over the last few years the market has been flooded with questionable options for increasing a man's free testosterone levels: useless pills, questionable supplements, and dangerous or illegal medical treatments. But now a group of researchers in Boston, Massachusetts have developed a dietary supplement that triggers the body to increase its levels of free testosterone naturally and safely.

Called Nugenix, the supplement primarily relies on an ingredient called Testofen®, which comes from the rare Fenugreek plant. Testofen® has been shown in clinical trials to boost free testosterone levels, increase sex drive, and improve libido. Adding to Nugenix's potency are additional key ingredients like zinc and vitamins B12 and B6, which have been shown to improve physical performance and strength, increase drive, and aid in recovery.

Nugenix has no harmful side effects, is manufactured in the United States under FDA Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and has been shown to deliver improvements in strength and endurance in as little as a week.

This isn't product hype delivered by a know-it-all enthusiast from the gym. According to studies held in both Irvine, California and Queensland, Australia, the results from Nugenix are nothing short of spectacular. From greater muscle definition and quicker recovery times, to increased sex drive and feelings of alertness, these users are reporting virtual transformations as a result of safely boosting their free testosterone with Nugenix.

Nugenix is the top selling men’s vitality product in GNC, outselling every other brand —many of which don’t contain the clinically substantiated amounts of Testofen® needed to see actual results.

Has Science Finally Sure the Existence of Acupuncture Points, Validating Chinese Medicine?

2014-03-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

The number of acupuncturists, Traditional Chinese Medicinal (TCM) doctors, and complimentary alternative medicine (CAM) patients is growing in the United States, yet mainstream science, medicine and health insurance companies often disregard acupuncture as a legitimate medical treatment.

However, it appears that science may finally be able to visually verify the existence of acupuncture points, meridians (vessels within the body that conduct Chi, or life force energy, much like the wires in an electrical circuit), and Chi cavities within the human body.

Using a new combination of imaging techniques and CT scans (computerized tomography), researchers have observed concentrated points of microvascular structures that clearly correspond to the map of acupuncture points created by Chinese energy doctors nearly 2000 years ago.

“In this study published in the Journal of Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena, researchers used in-line phase contrast CT imaging with synchrotron radiation on both non-acupuncture points and acupuncture points. The CT scans revealed clear distinctions between the non-acupuncture point and acupuncture point anatomical structures.

A CT (computerized tomography) scan is a series of X-rays used to create cross-sectional images. In this study published in the Journal of Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena, researchers used in-line phase contrast CT imaging with synchrotron radiation on both non-acupuncture points and acupuncture points. The CT scans revealed clear distinctions between the non-acupuncture point and acupuncture point anatomical structures.” [Source]

The CT scans have discovered that known acupuncture points within the body have a higher density of “micro-vessels and contain a large amount of involuted microvascular structures.”

According to Chinese medicine, life force energy is carried throughout the body in a complex system of vessels called Meridians, and follows the free flow of blood within the body. If the movement of blood is restricted within the body, then so is the movement of life force energy, thereby causing disharmony in the otherwise proper symbiotic functioning of the organs.

The physical and esoteric arts of Tai Chi and Qi Gong deliberately work to improve the vascular flow of blood in order to move Chi more freely throughout the body. The effect of which is improved health and immunity, higher energy levels, and improved mental and emotional functioning. This would appear to now be validated scientifically by this research, which concludes that acupuncture points have higher concentrations of micro-vessels near the surface of the skin. The points do indeed appear to be connected to locations within the body where more blood can be concentrated.

“Acupuncture points have a higher density of micro-vessels and contain a large amount of involuted microvascular structures. The non-acupuncture points did not exhibit these properties.”

This study also identifies some of the major Meridians in the body, which are credited to have been discovered over 2000 years ago during the reign of the mystical Yellow Emporer (Huang Di), who is broadly accepted as the founder of Chinese medicine and acupuncture.

“They also commented that other research has found unique structures of acupuncture points and acupuncture meridians using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), infrared imaging, LCD thermal photography, ultrasound and other CT imaging methods. The researchers commented that many studies using these technological approaches have already shown that acupuncture points exist.”

Related studies using amperometric oxygen microsensors has revealed partial oxygen pressure variations which, again, correspond with the energetic maps of the human body developed by the Chinese, who, without our modern technology somehow derived this system of health and wellness which has benefitted millions over the years. Below are images related to these scans:

This research should provide a boon for complementary alternative medicine, which undoubtedly provides relief and healing to many people, yet is constantly being derided and downplayed by so called ‘skeptics’ and rigid scientists as ‘pseudo-science.’ Many detractors of acupuncture claim that the treatments represent nothing more than elaborate placebos, yet, for those who’ve directly benefitted from TCM or who’ve committed themselves to the practices of the Chinese energetic arts there really is no dependency on Western science for validation of the effectiveness of TCM.

About the Author

Buck Rogers is the earth bound incarnation of that familiar part of our timeless cosmic selves, the rebel within. He is a surfer of ideals and meditates often on the promise of happiness in a world battered by the angry seas of human thoughtlessness. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com, where this article was originally featured.

References:

http://arthuryinfan.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/how-many-acupuncturists-in-united-states-in-2009-how-much-dollars-business-these-provider-created/

http://www.acupuncture.org.uk/public-content/public-traditional-acupuncture/history-of-acupuncture.html

http://www.healthcmi.com/Acupuncture-Continuing-Education-News/1230-new-ct-scans-reveal-acupuncture-points

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/acupuncture-goes-mainstream

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

15 Tips For Empaths And Highly Sensitive People

2014-03-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

Empathic ability allows you to read and understand people’s energy. This ability may be genetic, passing from generation to generation. You may share this ability with a relative, so look at your family tree; does anyone else seem to fit the description? Empaths have the ability to scan another’s energy for thoughts, feelings and possibly for past, present, and future life occurrences. Most empaths are unaware of how this really works, and have accepted that they are sensitive to other people’s energy. The ability to correctly perceive and to some extent mirror the energy of another is a challenge. This gift allows us to steer ourselves through life with added perception. You need to be selective and have coping skills in place, if not you will easily be overwhelmed.

These are some excellent methods for coping:

1. Schedule time with you:

Spending time alone creates the space needed to release emotion, energy and stress.

2. Positive Affirmations:

Short messages that train thought patterns. An example: “Let me receive what is in my best and highest good at this time”3. Shielding:

Placing a protective shield of white light that is around and encasing you in a bubble, remember to make a grounding cord so you don’t float away!

4. Chakra Cleansing and Balancing:

Regular cleaning of the chakras will keep your energy field free of negative or unwanted energy. Re-balance them by bringing in energy that will create alignment and balance.

5. Centering:

Align yourself with spirit and get out of Ego. Try to live in the moment and whatever emotion comes up express and release it.

6. Stones:

Some people find that crystals and gemstones aid in clearing negative energy and maintaining balance. Choose yours by trying several different stones,and by paying attention to how each feels.

7. Aroma therapy:

Essential oils can enhance well being. Choose what elevates or calms your mood.

8. Forgiveness:

Forgiving others and forgiving self is one of the most powerful tools you have. It will clear your energy and raise your vibrational rate.

9. Grounding:

We have a grounding cord in the root chakra that connects us to the earth. Being aware of this and using this cord to both send negative energy into the earth where it is absorbed and drawing nourishing energy up from the center of the earth will increase your energetic flow.

10. Meditation:

Quiets the mind so you can center, be present and listen to the voice within.

11. Soothing Sounds:

Relax yourself using music or nature sounds.

12. Animals and Nature:

Being in Nature or spending time with our pets is a great way to relax, clear energy and connect.

13. Smudging:

The Native Americans have been doing this with great results for years. Burning sage while stating an intention is a great method for clearing energy.

14. Yoga:

Yoga is effective because it combines breathing, centering and grounding. A wonderful way to raise vibrational energy.

15. Gratitude and intention journal:

Ending the day by writing a list of things you are grateful for and then stating an intention to work towards keeps the energetic flow steady.

Credits: Lynn Zambrano of www.omtimes.com

About the Author:

Lynn Zambrano R.N., has worked professionally as a nurse on a psychiatric crisis unit. While working as a nurse she studied energy healing and further developed her intuitive gifts. As an intuitive life guide she helps others achieve the success they want by breaking through perceived barriers, finding inner wisdom, clarity of mind, and inner strength. Twitter and Facebook, or email her at Lightminded1@yahoo.com. You can also visit Lynn at www.holisticmindcoach.com

Research reveal Exercise Grow Our Brain

2014-03-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Scientists know that exercise can foster the growth of new brain cells, but the factors responsible for this phenomenon have not been well understood.

In a recent study, researchers have discovered the chemical process that makes this happen. What’s more is that they may be able to “bottle” the chemical that produces this benefit, so a brain-growth pill may be coming to your drug store in the future.

EXERCISE AND THE BRAIN

A part of the brain particularly receptive to new nerve cell growth in response to endurance exercise is the hippocampus, which is a structure associated with learning and memory. The process by which this happens was unclear until recently.

Scientists knew that when endurance exercise works up a sweat, the body produces and releases into the blood stream a protein known as FNDC5. In this study, they found over time that FNDC5 activates the production of another brain protein known as Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). This protein is the factor that stimulates the growth of new nerves as well as the synapses, structures that allow information to pass between nerve cells. Additionally, BDNF helps facilitate the survival of existing brain cells.

How does this process affect you? Endurance exercise, such as jogging or brisk walking, makes your brain stronger and enables it to grow. It fosters improved memory and ability to learn, along with the other benefits of exercise like enhanced heart health.

These benefits are available to anyone who exercises — but what about those who are unable to have a workout? Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Harvard Medical School found the protein that activates brain growth could potentially be bottled and prescribed for patients experiencing cognitive decline. In effect, the protein would trick the body into thinking it had exercised, resulting in brain growth and improved brain function.

EXERCISE IN A BOTTLE

Co-senior author Bruce Spiegelman, Ph.D. expressed excitement that a natural substance can be given in the bloodstream that simulates some of the benefits of exercise on the brain. In the new study, this natural benefit from exercise was produced artificially in non-exercising mice.

The protein that exercise stimulates, FNDC5, was injected into the bloodstream of mice. After a week, scientists found a notable increase in BDNF in the brain’s hippocampus, a learning and memory region. In other words, the researchers were able to generate the brain growth benefit in the mice independently of exercise. The effect on the brain could be likened to “exercise in a bottle.”

Although the researchers caution that the effects of the study involving mice would need to be duplicated in studies involving humans, the results are promising. In the meantime, the study gives people one more reason to exercise.

About the author:

Mary West is a natural health enthusiast, as she believes this area can profoundly enhance overall wellness. Ms. West is the author of Fight Cancer Through Powerful Natural Strategies, and the creator of alternativemedicinetruth.com, a natural healing website where she focuses on solutions to health problems that work without side effects.

References:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2013/10/13/how-exercise-makes-your-brain-grow/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/267396.php
http://www.medicaldaily.com/exercise-could-prevent-alzheimers-boost-brain-health-through-domino-effect-protein-production-259836

Credits: **This article was originally featured on: Live in the Now

The Conscious, Subconscious, And Unconscious Mind – How Does It All Work?

2014-03-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Just how does the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind work? And what is the difference between them?

In these series of articles we’ll have a look at how the three minds – conscious, subconscious, and unconscious – work together to create your reality … and how to use that knowledge to change your habits and create a happier, more peaceful and confident you.

A WALK THROUGH THE HUMAN MIND

The concept of three levels of mind is nothing new.Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychologist was probably the first to popularize it into mainstream society as we know it today. Even though his theories have subsequently been widely disputed in Psychology circles because they are very hard to scientifically prove, Freud nonetheless created a useful model of the mind, which he separated into 3 tiers or sections – the conscious mind or ego, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind.

The best way I have found to illustrate the concept of the three minds is by using a triangle. If you imagine at the very tip of the triangle is your conscious mind. It occupies only a small portion of space at the top, a bit like an iceberg where only a fraction of it is showing above the water. It probably represents about 10% of your brain capacity.

Below this is a slightly larger section that Freud called the preconscious, or what some refer to as the subconscious. It is much larger than the conscious mind and accounts for around 50-60% of your brain capabilities.

The section below this is the unconscious mind. It occupies the whole width of the base of the triangle and fills out the other 30-40% of the triangle. It is vast and deep and largely inaccessible to conscious thought, a bit like the dark depths of the ocean.

A WALK THROUGH THE HUMAN MIND

The concept of three levels of mind is nothing new.Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychologist was probably the first to popularize it into mainstream society as we know it today. Even though his theories have subsequently been widely disputed in Psychology circles because they are very hard to scientifically prove, Freud nonetheless created a useful model of the mind, which he separated into 3 tiers or sections – the conscious mind or ego, the preconscious, and the unconscious mind.

The best way I have found to illustrate the concept of the three minds is by using a triangle. If you imagine at the very tip of the triangle is your conscious mind. It occupies only a small portion of space at the top, a bit like an iceberg where only a fraction of it is showing above the water. It probably represents about 10% of your brain capacity.

Below this is a slightly larger section that Freud called the preconscious, or what some refer to as the subconscious. It is much larger than the conscious mind and accounts for around 50-60% of your brain capabilities.

The section below this is the unconscious mind. It occupies the whole width of the base of the triangle and fills out the other 30-40% of the triangle. It is vast and deep and largely inaccessible to conscious thought, a bit like the dark depths of the ocean.

HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER

Your conscious mind is what most people associate with who you are, because that is where most people live day to day. But it’s by no means where all the action takes place.

Your conscious mind is a bit like the captain of a ship standing on the bridge giving out orders. In reality it’s the crew in the engine room below deck (the subconscious and the deeper unconscious) that carry out the orders. The captain may be in charge of the ship and give the orders but its the crew that actually guides the ship, all according to what training they had been given over the years to best do so.

The conscious mind communicates to the outside world and the inner self through speech, pictures, writing, physical movement, and thought.

The subconscious mind, on the other hand, is in charge of our recent memories, and is in continuous contact with the resources of the unconscious mind.

The unconscious mind is the storehouse of all memories and past experiences, both those that have been repressed through trauma and those that have simply been consciously forgotten and no longer important to us. It’s from these memories and experiences that our beliefs, habits, and behaviors are formed.

The unconscious constantly communicates with the conscious mind via our subconscious, and is what provides us with the meaning to all our interactions with the world, as filtered through your beliefs and habits. It communicates through feelings, emotions, imagination, sensations, and dreams.

THE MIND IN ACTION

The following analogy may help to clarify the concept of how the three minds work a little more.

If you imagine you mind is like a computer …

Your conscious mind is best represented by the keyboard and monitor. Data is inputted on the keyboard and the results are thrown up on the monitor screen. That is how your conscious mind works – information is taken in via some outside (or internal) stimulus from your environment and the results are thrown up instantaneously into your consciousness.

Your subconscious is like the RAM in your computer. For those who don’t know, RAM is the place in a computer where programs and data that are currently in use are kept so they can easily be reached quickly by the computer processor. It is much faster than other types of memory, such as the hard disk or CD-ROM.

Your subconscious works in the same way. Any recent memories are stored there for quick recall when needed, such as what your telephone number is or the name of a person you just met. It also holds your current programs that you run every day, such as your current recurring thoughts, behavior patterns, habits, and feelings.

Your unconscious is like the hard disk drive in your computer. It is the long term storage place for all your memories and programs that have been installed since birth.

Your unconscious mind (and ultimately your subconscious mind) then uses these programs to make sense of all the data you receive from the world and to keep you safe and ensure your survival. The logic of these two minds is that if it worked in the past and you survived, then it will help you get through similar situations by the same means, no matter how misguided, painful, and unhelpful the results may be to you personally in the outside world.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

As mentioned, these sections and their functions have been hotly debated over the years by many other psychologists, philosophers, and scientists, because it’s very hard to empirically prove they exist. Despite all this, I still find it a great analogy to use, and at the end of the day if it works for you and makes sense, then that’s all that matters.

THE CONSCIOUS MIND

If you ask most people to define what the conscious mind does you’ll get varying answers. Some say what distinguishes it from the subconscious (or even the unconscious) is awareness.

But to say the subconscious is unaware is plain wrong. It has been well documented that you can be influenced by your surroundings or what people say even when your conscious mind is totally out of it, such as when you’re under anesthetic or asleep. And what about when you drive to some destination but when you get there you have no memory of the trip. In those situations it’s your subconscious that stays aware and performs the necessary functions.

Another argument people put forth is that the conscious mind is where you do all your thinking and logical reasoning. But that too doesn’t entirely distinguish it from your subconscious or unconscious. Your unconscious minds are the storage place of all your memories, emotions and habits and are in fact very good at reasoning and logic.

Take, for example, when you were a baby. Your conscious mind had not yet developed enough to test and measure all the information from your environment, so at this age it sits in the background and it’s your subconscious and unconscious that does all the data gathering and reasoning – identifying that the bottle or nipple is a source of food, that crying gets you attention, that cuddles from mum means you are safe. In this stage it’s your other two minds hard at work forming logical patterns of association (habits, beliefs, and emotions) that help you to survive.

By far the best explanation that I have found for the two most powerful functions your fully developed conscious mind can do that the other two can’t is …

Its ability to direct your focus.
Its ability to imagine that which is not real

It’s these two very important abilities that can change your life. Lets take a quick look at each …

DIRECTING YOUR FOCUS

While your subconscious mind has a much stronger sense of awareness of your surroundings than your conscious mind (some suggest it’s where your “sixth sense” comes from) and is always switched on, even when asleep, it really does just obey orders from your conscious mind. If all you do is focus your conscious thoughts continually on negative things, then your subconscious will obediently deliver the feelings, emotions, and memories that you have associated with that type of thinking. And because those feelings will become your reality, you can then be caught up in a never ending loop of negativity, fear, and anxiety, constantly looking for the bad in every situation.

Take, for example, when you are laying in bed late at night and hear something go “bump” in the night. If you let your thoughts and imagination wander to all the horrible things that might happen, then your subconscious will throw up the feelings, emotions, and memories of past events that you’ve associated with those thoughts. Its your subconscious’s way of protecting you and preparing you for fight or flight in those situations.

On the other hand, if you consciously tell yourself and direct your focus to more rational, calming thoughts, then the feelings will subside or disappear.

Some people find it quite easy and natural to direct their thoughts towards a more positive outlook on life and every situation. It really depends on the type of programming your subconscious and unconscious has had since birth. For example – do you sway towards pessimism or optimism, negative thinking or positive thinking, happiness or anger, or somewhere in between? Identifying which way you sway is the start to improving it.

This ability of your conscious mind to direct your attention and awareness is one of the most important powers you have, and to create change in your life you must learn to control what you consciously focus on.

But how do you do that? The actual skill of directing your focus is quite simple … all it comes down to is making a choice. Deciding how you will think and what thoughts you will allow into your mind will determine your destiny. It can literally be used for good or evil, for constructive or destructive means.

Our mental thoughts are probably the only one true freedom we have in this world that we can actually control. A man can be physically trapped in prison in absolute inhumane conditions and yet still be free in his own mind – Victor Frankl and Nelson Mandela (among many others) are testament to that fact. We alone can choose how we are going to respond to our experiences in life.

USING YOUR IMAGINATION

The other important ability of the conscious mind is the use of visualization. Your mind can literally imagine something that is totally new and unique – something you’ve never physically experienced before. By contrast, your subconscious can only offer versions of what memories it has stored of your past experiences.

But the really neat trick is that the subconscious can’t distinguish between that which the conscious mind imagines and that which is real, so whatever is brought up by conscious imagination and intently focused on, also brings up all the emotions and feelings that are associated with that image in your mind for you to experience.

For example, if you’ve ever day dreamed before about winning lotto, or perhaps looked forward to being with that someone special you love, then you would have felt the joy that those thoughts had conjured up in your head, even though you knew intellectually it wasn’t physically happening at that very moment. But your subconscious thought it was happening to you, and that’s why it offered those feelings and emotions it associated with those thoughts. It truly is a marvelous gift we have!

Visualization can be used to create some amazing results. In one sporting study three groups of people were tested on their ability to improve their free throw accuracy in basketball. They were tested at the start of the experiment and at the end.

One group was instructed to physically practice free throws for 20 days in a row. The second group was not allowed to train at all. The third group spent 20 minutes a day getting into a relaxed state and only imagining themselves performing the free throws. They were also taught that if they missed in their minds, to adjust slightly and see themselves getting it the next time.

At the end of the experiment the results were incredible. The group that physically practiced each day improved their score by 24%. The second group who didn’t practice understandably didn’t improve at all. But the third group, who had only visualized doing it, actually improved their score by an amazing 23% – nearly as much as group one! Don’t under estimate the power of the conscious mind.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS IS THE WORK DESK OF YOUR MIND. CONTROLLING AND DIRECTING IT IS THE KEY TO PERSONAL CHANGE.

As I said earlier, your subconscious is a bit like the RAM in your computer. (For those who don’t know – RAM is the term used for the short term memory in a computer, and its job is to hold the programs and data that are currently in use so they can be reached quickly and easily by the computer processor. It’s a lot faster than the other types of memory, such as the hard disk or CD-ROM.)

Your subconscious works in a similar way to computer RAM. It holds short term memory and current daily used programs.

THE ROLE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS

Apart from short term memory, the subconscious also plays an important role in our day to day functioning.

It works hard at ensuring you have everything you need for quick recall and access to when you need it. Things like -

Memories – such as what your telephone number is, how to drive a car without having to consciously think about it, what you need to get from the shop on the way home etc.
Current programs you run daily, such as behaviors, habits, mood
Filters (such as beliefs and values) to run information through to test their validity according to your perception of the world
Sensations taken in via your 5 senses and what it means to you

If it doesn’t happen to have a filter or reference point in its RAM for some bits of information that come in, then it has a direct line to the storage place of the mind – the unconscious. It will ask the unconscious to pull out the programs that it best associates with the incoming data to help make sense of it all.

The subconscious is also constantly at work, staying a lot more aware of your surroundings than you realize. In fact, according to the NLP communication model we are assaulted with over 2 million bits if data every second. If your conscious mind had to deal with all that you would very quickly become overwhelmed and not be able to get anything done.

Instead, your subconscious filters out all the unnecessary information and delivers only that which is needed at the time, around 7 chunks of information. It does all this behind the scenes so you can perform your daily work uninhibited. And it does this as logically as it can, based on the programs it has access to in your unconscious.

And as discussed earlier in the article, it then communicates all the results into consciousness via emotions, feelings, sensations and reflexes, images and dreams. It doesn’t communicate in words.

THE LINK INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS

One of the truly great things about the subconscious (and one which we need to take advantage of to affect change) is … it obeys orders!

People often erroneously think that the subconscious is in charge and you are merely at its mercy. In fact it’s the complete opposite. Your conscious mind gives it the direction, the environment if you like, for which it operates in. The subconscious will only deliver the emotions and feelings of what you continuously think about.

Now I’m not saying it’s as easy as changing what you think of in one moment and your entire life will be changed. In most cases your default programs have too much energy attached to them to change instantaneously. It can be done though – such as after a massive life altering event or if enough pain is associated with the old behavior – but without a major shift like that it is likely the old programs will reemerge.

THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND

THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND IN THAT IT ALSO DEALS WITH MEMORIES. BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO.

If you remember the symbol of the triangle I used to describe the levels of the human mind, then you’ll remember that the unconscious sits a layer deeper in the mind under the subconscious. Although the subconscious and unconscious have direct links to each other and deal with similar things, the unconscious mind is really the cellar, the underground library if you like, of all your memories, habits, and behaviors. It is the storehouse of all your deep seated emotions that have been programmed since birth.

If you want significant change at a core level, then this is the place to work on … but it’s not easy to get to!

UNCONSCIOUS VERSUS SUBCONSCIOUS – WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

There’s been plenty of debate over what is the correct term – subconscious or unconscious.

Unconscious is the term usually preferred by Psychologists and Psychiatrists to refer to the thoughts we have that are “out of reach” of our consciousness. It shouldn’t be confused with the medical term for unconscious, which basically means knocked out or anesthetized, although both definitions do have similar qualities.

In simple terms, the unconscious is the storage place for all our memories that have been repressed or which we don’t wish to recall. A traumatic event in our childhood that has been blocked out is an example, but it doesn’t have to be so serious as this. It could be something very distant like what you had for lunch on your first day of school or what the name was of the childhood friend you played with a couple of times.

It’s a memory that we can’t pull out at our choosing. It’s there, but we can’t remember it no matter how hard we try. Certain psychoanalytical methods can bring back these memories (such as hypnosis) or it can be triggered by a particular event (a scent, a familiar place etc).

The important point to remember here, is that we cannot, by choice, remember anything in our unconscious without some special event or technique. This is the unconscious.

The subconscious, on the other hand, is almost the same, but the major difference is we can choose to remember. The memories are closer to the surface and more easily accessible with a little focus.

For example, if I were to ask you to remember what your phone number is, then you could easily bring that into conscious thought. The interesting thing is that before I asked you to recall it, you had no conscious thought of it at all. It was stored in your subconscious available for ready recall when needed, a bit like RAM in a computer because it’s something that you require quite regularly to remember.

If, however, it wasn’t important to you to recall your phone number that often then it may be stored a bit deeper, and as a result when you’re asked for your phone number on the spot you might struggle to remember it.

THE ROLE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

In many respects the unconscious deals with all the same tasks as the subconscious – memory, habits, feelings, emotions, and behaviors. The difference between the two minds, however, is that the unconscious is the source of all these programs that your subconscious uses

It is the place where all your memories and experiences since birth have been stored. Its from these memories that your beliefs, habits, and behaviors are formed and reinforced over time.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

If you want to affect change in your life at a core level then you will have to work on your programs that are held in the unconscious mind. There are specialized ways to make that happen, and if you’ve read the entire series of these articles then you’ll know that the place to start doing that is in the conscious mind.

By continuously being in charge of your own thoughts through directing your focus and using visualization, you can influence what programs the subconscious mind constantly runs. Do this often enough (and with enough emotional energy) then it will start to reprogram your unconscious internal representation and belief system.

And when that happens you’ll experience change on a very deep level!

It’s very much a top down approach. After all, it’s how your habits, behaviors and beliefs were created in the first place. Give it a try and see how it works for you. And remember, enjoy the journey!

Credits: ** This article was originally featured on: www.mindset-habits.com

A Man Walked Longest Way about 300 Miles. Before and After photo will Shock you

2014-03-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

Christoph Rehage started walking on November 9, 2007 and stopped in October 2008. He traveled over 4500 kilometers (2796 miles). All of the distance from Beijing to Ürümqi was completely on foot. The times where you can see him in the video riding a boat or sitting on a plane are during breaks Christoph had to take from walking, either to sort out bureaucracy issues or to take care of some personal issues.

Christoph was asked about his state of mind while he was walking and what he was thinking. He replied “It was just the way it would be on any normal day. Sometimes you think. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you worry about passports, dangers, pains, relatives and loved ones, and at other times your steps are light and you sing songs in the desert. Sometimes it is boring. And sometimes you feel at peace.”

When he was asked why he stopped walking, Christoph said, “I wanted to gain back my life. I had to regain control over myself, eliminate the inner boss that was telling me what to do. A lot of people look at the video thinking “I want to be free like that guy!” – but they don’t realize that I was driven by something, and maybe I was losing control over it.”

Credit: vimeo.com, LifeBuzz

This looks like an amazing adventure and it’s very inspiring. I would love to do something like this one day, maybe not quite as long. Share this with your friends, they’ll enjoy it.

Scientist research reveals: Animals Have Conscious Awareness, Just Like Humans

2014-03-07T09:43:00.001-08:00

An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are — a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus. But will this make us stop treating these animals in totally inhumane ways?

While it might not sound like much for scientists to declare that many nonhuman animals possess conscious states, it’s the open acknowledgement that’s the big news here. The body of scientific evidence is increasingly showing that most animals are conscious in the same way that we are, and it’s no longer something we can ignore.

What’s also very interesting about the declaration is the group’s acknowledgement that consciousness can emerge in those animals that are very much unlike humans, including those that evolved along different evolutionary tracks, namely birds and some cephalopods.

“The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states,” they write, “Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors.”

Consequently, say the signatories, the scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.

consists of cognitive scientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists, and computational neuroscientists — all of whom were attending the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-Human Animals. The declaration was signed in the presence of Stephen Hawking, and included such signatories as Christof Koch, David Edelman, Edward Boyden, Philip Low, Irene Pepperberg, and many more.

The declaration made the following observations:

The field of Consciousness research is rapidly evolving. Abundant new techniques and strategies for human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data is becoming readily available, and this calls for a periodic reevaluation of previously held preconceptions in this field. Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences. Moreover, in humans, new non-invasive techniques are readily available to survey the correlates of consciousness.

The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young human and nonhuman animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).

Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has been most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously thought. Moreover, certain species of birds have been found to exhibit neural sleep patterns similar to those of mammals, including REM sleep and, as was demonstrated in zebra finches, neurophysiological patterns, previously thought to require a mammalian neocortex. Magpies in articular have been shown to exhibit striking similarities to humans, great apes, dolphins, and elephants in studies of mirror self-recognition.

In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption in cortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in non-human animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness. Evidence that human and nonhuman animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.

Read more about this here and here.

H/t to Katherine Harmon of SciAM. Image via Vittorio Bruno/Shutterstock.com Inset image of elephant passing the mirror test via. Inset image of Irene Pepperberg and Alex via.

Credits/Source: I09

Students Invent Water Purification Disc That Could Revolutionize Clean Water Access - Africa

2014-03-07T09:31:00.001-08:00

Students at the University of Virginia have developed a new way of purifying water that they say could bring improved water quality for millions in the developing world. It’s called a Madi Drop. Field testing begins this month in South Africa.

The lab operates like a kitchen. They add several ingredients. Then they mix, weigh, press and bake them.

What’s created is called a MadiDrop – a ceramic disc infused with silver.

When dropped in water, silver ions, which are atoms that have an electrical charge,, are released to purify the water. And, testing here at the University of Virginia shows clean, safe water.

“It’s not just about making a really great technology that effectively removes or kills bacteria and pathogens. It’s about making a low cost, simple to use one, tailored to people in developing countries who don’t have many resources,” said Beeta Ehdaie, a doctoral candidate at UVA.

The students are experimenting with different sizes of MadiDrops to correspond with different sized water containers. Why the name “MadiDrop”?

The word “madi” means water in Tshivenda, a language of Limpopo Province in South Africa. Fifty women run a water filter factory, set up by the university in the province last summer.

The women mix sawdust and clay and make flower pot shaped filters that they use to purify drinking water.

The water flows through the filters to trap bacteria and solid particles. The factory sells the filters to local families. Manager Certinah Khashane says the work has changed the women’s lives.

“When they get money for those pots, they buy school uniforms for their children,” Khashane said.

But the MadiDrop is smaller and less expensive than the filters. So, over the next few months, students will conduct field trials of the MadiDrop here in South Africa.

Water experts say further testing will determine if the MadiDrop is indeed a breakthrough. Maggie Montgomery, who is with the World Health Organization, explained what field testing should reveal.

“Do they find it convenient, does it have a certain taste they don’t like to the water, what happens once it becomes exhausted?,” she said.

If successful, the South African women will produce and sell MadiDrops. The goal is to expand the existing factories to other developing countries and impact millions of lives per year.

“Imagine a magic stone and you take this magic stone and you drop it in your water container. It purifies the water and makes it safe to drink. And then imagine that this magic stone only costs a few dollars. That’s what a MadiDrop is,” said Jim Smith, the engineering professor leading the project.

The project has been presented to the American Chemical Society and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Smith says he’s received calls from corporations interested in producing the MadiDrop….which might mean Smith and his students have truly invented a magic stone.

About The Author

Carolyn Presutti is an award-winning television reporter who works out of VOA’s Washington headquarters. She has won an Emmy, many Associated Press awards, and a Clarion for her coverage of Haiti, national politics, the southern economy, and the 9/11 bombing anniversary. In 2013, Carolyn aired exclusive stories on the Syrian medical crisis and the Asiana plane crash, and was VOA’s chief reporter from the Boston Marathon bombing.

Originally posted on: VOA News

Birth of black hole witnessed!

2013-12-05T01:32:00.003-08:00

The virtual impossibility of observational astronomy has never been clearer. With astronomers having recorded so many events, now that they’ve used so many different instruments to wring all possible insight from what little information somehow makes it all the way to Earth, simply pointing telescopes at stars is providing diminishing returns. To keep moving forward we need to make use of the universe’s most unusual and, in many cases, violent events so we can see some truly novel data. It’s not just a matter of patience, since the the space industry can’t possibly set up enough telescopes to look everywhere at once. With so much depth through which to zoom, it would seem a lost cause to try to capture unexpected, short-lived events.

And yet, this week a momentous event occurred somewhere in the universe, now dubbed GRB 130427A, and an “armada of instruments” from all over the world saw it produce a gamma ray burst more powerful than what many researchers believed theoretically possible. Now thought to be the collapse of a giant star and the birth of a black hole, the event has been described as a “Rosetta stone moment” for astronomy. It has sent out information astronomers will be studying for many years to come, and while it’s too soon to draw any real conclusions, there is already widespread excitement about the sheer newness of it.

And yet, GRB 130427A only lasted about 80 seconds at observable intensities; with so much empty space to trawl, how did astronomers manage to notice the event at all, let alone document it so thoroughly? The answer lies in New Mexico, at the Los Alamos National Laboratories, in the form of six robotic cameras collectively referred to as RAPTOR, or RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response. The RAPTOR telescopes are networked together and all obey a central computer brain; between their dedicated computing hardware and robotic swivel-mounts, they can turn to view any point in the sky in less than three seconds.

As the world’s fastest “optical response” devices, RAPTOR’s telescopes have a great duty: to make sure we don’t miss the big stuff when it happens, because in astronomy there are no second chances. This gamma ray burst is thought to be the brightest in decades, perhaps in a century, and if astronomers had missed it, it’s likely that nobody working today would have gotten the chance to capture one again.

They accomplish their goal by performing extremely diffuse, wide-angle sweeps of the sky to pick up hints at about where and when a major event is taking place. When one of the telescopes sees a hint of something good, it and the others quickly reorient and zoom to capture it in full detail. The telescopes have different specializations — for instance RAPTOR-T, which views all events through four aligned lenses with four different color filters. By looking at the differences in color distribution in the sample, RAPTOR-T can provide info about the distance to an event or about some elements of its environment.

How Memory Works: 10 Things Most People Get Wrong

2013-12-05T01:28:00.000-08:00

“If we remembered everything we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.” ~William James

It’s often said that a person is the sum of their memories. Your experience is what makes you who you are.

Despite this, memory is generally poorly understood, which is why many people say they have ‘bad memories’. That’s partly because the analogies we have to hand—like that of computer memory—are not helpful. Human memory is vastly more complicated and quirky than the memory residing in our laptops, tablets or phones.

Here is my 10-point guide to the psychology of memory (it is based on an excellent review chapter by the distinguished UCLA memory expert, Professor Robert A. Bjork)

1. MEMORY DOES NOT DECAY

Everyone has experienced the frustration of not being able to recall a fact from memory. It could be someone’s name, the French for ‘town hall’ or where the car is parked.

So it seems obvious that memories decay, like fruit going off. But the research tends not to support this view. Instead many researchers think that in fact memory has a limitless capacity. Everything is stored in there but, without rehearsal, memories become harder to access. This means it’s not the memory that’s ‘going off’ it’s the ability to retrieve it.

But what on earth is the point of a brain that remembers everything but can’t recall most of it? Here’s what:

2. FORGETTING HELPS YOU LEARN

The idea that forgetting helps you learn seems counter-intuitive, but think of it this way: imagine if you created a brain that could remember and recall everything. When this amazing brain was trying to remember where it parked the car, it would immediately bring to mind all the car parks it had ever seen, then it would have to sort through the lot.

Obviously the only one that’s of interest is the most recent. And this is generally true of most of our memories. Recent events are usually much more important than ones that happened a long time ago.

To make your super-brain quicker and more useful in the real world you’d have to build in some system for discounting old, useless info. In fact, of course, we all have one of these super-brains with a discounting system: we call it ‘forgetting’.

That’s why forgetting helps you learn: as less relevant information becomes inaccessible, we are naturally left with the information that is most important to our daily survival.

3. ‘LOST’ MEMORIES CAN LIVE AGAIN

There’s another side to the fact that memories do not decay. That’s the idea that although memories may become less accessible, they can be revived.

Even things that you have long been unable to recall are still there, waiting to be woken. Experiments have shown that even information that has long become inaccessible can still be revived. Indeed it is then re-learned more quickly than new information.

This is like the fact that you never forget how to ride a bike, but it doesn’t just apply to motor skills, it also applies to memories.

4. RECALLING MEMORIES ALTERS THEM

Although it’s a fundamental of memory, the idea that recall alters memories seems intuitively wrong. How can recalling a memory change it?

Well, just by recalling a memory, it becomes stronger in comparison to other memories. Let’s run this through an example. Say you think back to one particular birthday from childhood and you recall getting a Lego spaceship. Each time you recall that fact, the other things you got for your birthday that day become weaker in comparison.

The process of recall, then, is actually actively constructing the past, or at least the parts of your past that you can remember.

This is only the beginning though. False memories can potentially be created by this process of falsely recalling the past. Indeed, psychologists haveexperimentally implanted false memories.

This raises the fascinating idea that effectively we create ourselves by choosing which memories to recall.

5. MEMORY IS UNSTABLE

The fact that the simple act of recall changes memory means that it is relatively unstable. But people tend to think that memory is relatively stable: we forget that we forgot and so we think we won’t forget in the future what we now know.

What this means is that students, in particular, vastly underestimate how much effort will be required to commit material to memory. And they’re not the only ones. This leads to…

6. THE FORESIGHT BIAS

Everyone must have experienced this. You have an idea that is so great you think it’s impossible you’ll ever forget it. So you don’t bother writing it down. Within ten minutes you’ve forgotten it and it never comes back.

We see the same thing in the lab. In one study by Koriat and Bjork (2005) people learned pairs of words like ‘light-lamp’, then are asked to estimate how likely it is they’ll be able to answer ‘lamp’ when later given the prompt ‘light’. They are massively over-confident and the reason is this foresight bias. When they get the word ‘light’ later all kinds of other things come to mind like ‘bulb’ or ‘shade’ and the correct answer isn’t nearly as easy to recall as they predicted.

7. WHEN RECALL IS EASY, LEARNING IS LOW

We feel clever when we recall something instantly and stupid when it takes ages. But in terms of learning, we should feel the exact reverse. When something comes to mind quickly, i.e. we do no work to recall it, no learning occurs. When we have to work hard to bring it to consciousness, something cool happens: we learn.

When people’s memories are tested, the more work they have done to construct, or re-construct, the target memory, the stronger the memory eventually becomes. This is why proper learning techniques always involve testing, because just staring at the information isn’t good enough: learning needs effortful recall.

8. LEARNING DEPENDS HEAVILY ON CONTEXT

Have you ever noticed that when you learn something in one context, like the classroom, it becomes difficult to recall when that context changes?

This is because learning depends heavily on how and where you do it: it depends on who is there, what is around you and how you learn.

It turns out that in the long-term people learn information best when they are exposed to it in different ways or different contexts. When learning is highly context-dependent, it doesn’t transfer well or stick as well over the years.

I had a friend at University who swore that standing on a chair or up against a wall helped him to revise. I used to laugh at him but there was method in his madness.

9. MEMORY, RELOADED

If you want to learn to play tennis, is it better to spend one week learning to serve, the next week the forehand, the week after the backhand, and so on? Or should you mix it all up with serves, forehands and backhands every day?

It turns out that for long-term retention, memories are more easily recalled if learning is mixed up. This is just as true for both motor learning, like tennis, as it is for declarative memory, like what’s the capital of Venezuela (to save you googling: it’s Caracas).

The trouble is that learning like this is worse to start off with. If you practice your serve then quickly switch to the forehand, you ‘forget’ how to serve. So you feel things are going worse than if you just practice your serve over-and-over again. But, in the long-run this kind of mix-and-match learning works best.

One explanation for why this works is called the ‘reloading hypothesis’. Each time we switch tasks we have to ‘reload’ the memory. This process of reloading strengthens the learning.

10. LEARNING IS UNDER YOUR CONTROL

The practical upshot of these facts about memory is that we often underestimate how much control we have over our own memory.

For example, people tend to think that some things are, by their nature, harder to learn, and so they give up. However, techniques like using different contexts, switching between tasks and strenuous reconstruction of memories can all help boost retention.

People also tend to think that the past is fixed and gone; it can’t be changed. But how we recall the past and think about it can be changed. Recalling memories in different ways can help us re-interpret the past and set us off on a different path in the future. For example, studies have shown that people can crowd out painful negative memories by focusing on more positive ones (Levy & Anderson, 2008).

All in all, our memory isn’t as poor as we might imagine. It may not work like a computer, but that’s what makes it all the more fascinating to understand and experience.

Originally posted on: PsyBlog

30 things start doing youself

2013-12-04T00:49:00.000-08:00

Our previous article, 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself , was well received by most of our readers, but several of you suggested that we follow it up with a list of things to start doing. In one reader’s words, “I would love to see you revisit each of these 30 principles, but instead of presenting us with a ‘to-don’t’ list, present us with a ‘to-do’ list that we all can start working on today, together.”

So I sat down last night with our original article and the two reader’s revisions as a guide, and a couple hours later finalized a new list of 30 things; which ended up being, I think, a perfect complement to the original.

Here it is, a positive ‘to-do’ list for the upcoming year – 30 things to start doing for yourself:

Start spending time with the right people. – These are the people you enjoy, who love and appreciate you, and who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways. They are the ones who make you feel more alive, and not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be, unconditionally.
Start facing your problems head on. – It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them. Problems will not disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they add up to yards and miles in the long run.
Start being honest with yourself about everything. – Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life, always. Because you are the one person you can forever count on. Search your soul, for the truth, so that you truly know who you are. Once you do, you’ll have a better understanding of where you are now and how you got here, and you’ll be better equipped to identify where you want to go and how to get there. Read The Road Less Traveled
Start making your own happiness a priority. – Your needs matter. If you don’t value yourself, look out for yourself, and stick up for yourself, you’re sabotaging yourself. Remember, it IS possible to take care of your own needs while simultaneously caring for those around you. And once your needs are met, you will likely be far more capable of helping those who need you most.
Start being yourself, genuinely and proudly. – Trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are. Be yourself. Embrace that individual inside you that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else. Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you – on your terms. Above all, be true to YOU, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.
Start noticing and living in the present. – Right now is a miracle. Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. Right now is life. So stop thinking about how great things will be in the future. Stop dwelling on what did or didn’t happen in the past. Learn to be in the ‘here and now’ and experience life as it’s happening. Appreciate the world for the beauty that it holds, right now.
Start valuing the lessons your mistakes teach you. – Mistakes are okay; they’re the stepping stones of progress. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not trying hard enough and you’re not learning. Take risks, stumble, fall, and then get up and try again. Appreciate that you are pushing yourself, learning, growing and improving. Significant achievements are almost invariably realized at the end of a long road of failures. One of the ‘mistakes’ you fear might just be the link to your greatest achievement yet.
Start being more polite to yourself. – If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak to yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend? The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. You must love who you are or no one else will.
Start enjoying the things you already have. – The problem with many of us is that we think we’ll be happy when we reach a certain level in life – a level we see others operating at – your boss with her corner office, that friend of a friend who owns a mansion on the beach, etc. Unfortunately, it takes awhile before you get there, and when you get there you’ll likely have a new destination in mind. You’ll end up spending your whole life working toward something new without ever stopping to enjoy the things you have now. So take a quiet moment every morning when you first awake to appreciate where you are and what you already have.
Start creating your own happiness. – If you are waiting for someone else to make you happy, you’re missing out. Smile because you can. Choose happiness. Be the change you want to see in the world. Be happy with who you are now, and let your positivity inspire your journey into tomorrow. Happiness is often found when and where you decide to seek it. If you look for happiness within the opportunities you have, you will eventually find it. But if you constantly look for something else, unfortunately, you’ll find that too. Read Stumbling on Happiness
Start giving your ideas and dreams a chance. – In life, it’s rarely about getting a chance; it’s about taking a chance. You’ll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work. Most of the time you just have to go for it! And no matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should be. Either you succeed or you learn something. Win-Win.
Start believing that you’re ready for the next step. – You are ready! Think about it. You have everything you need right now to take the next small, realistic step forward. So embrace the opportunities that come your way, and accept the challenges – they’re gifts that will help you to grow.
Start entering new relationships for the right reasons. – Enter new relationships with dependable, honest people who reflect the person you are and the person you want to be. Choose friends you are proud to know, people you admire, who show you love and respect – people who reciprocate your kindness and commitment. And pay attention to what people do, because a person’s actions are much more important than their words or how others represent them.
Start giving new people you meet a chance. – It sounds harsh, but you cannot keep every friend you’ve ever made. People and priorities change. As some relationships fade others will grow. Appreciate the possibility of new relationships as you naturally let go of old ones that no longer work. Trust your judgment. Embrace new relationships, knowing that you are entering into unfamiliar territory. Be ready to learn, be ready for a challenge, and be ready to meet someone that might just change your life forever.
Start competing against an earlier version of yourself. – Be inspired by others, appreciate others, learn from others, but know that competing against them is a waste of time. You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be. Aim to break your own personal records.
Start cheering for other people’s victories. – Start noticing what you like about others and tell them. Having an appreciation for how amazing the people around you are leads to good places – productive, fulfilling, peaceful places. So be happy for those who are making progress. Cheer for their victories. Be thankful for their blessings, openly. What goes around comes around, and sooner or later the people you’re cheering for will start cheering for you.
Start looking for the silver lining in tough situations. – When things are hard, and you feel down, take a few deep breaths and look for the silver lining – the small glimmers of hope. Remind yourself that you can and will grow stronger from these hard times. And remain conscious of your blessings and victories – all the things in your life that are right. Focus on what you have, not on what you haven’t.
Start forgiving yourself and others. – We’ve all been hurt by our own decisions and by others. And while the pain of these experiences is normal, sometimes it lingers for too long. We relive the pain over and over and have a hard time letting go. Forgiveness is the remedy. It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the past, or forgetting what happened. It means you’re letting go of the resentment and pain, and instead choosing to learn from the incident and move on with your life.
Start helping those around you. – Care about people. Guide them if you know a better way. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you. Love and kindness begets love and kindness. And so on and so forth.
Start listening to your own inner voice. – If it helps, discuss your ideas with those closest to you, but give yourself enough room to follow your own intuition. Be true to yourself. Say what you need to say. Do what you know in your heart is right.
Start being attentive to your stress level and take short breaks.– Slow down. Breathe. Give yourself permission to pause, regroup and move forward with clarity and purpose. When you’re at your busiest, a brief recess can rejuvenate your mind and increase your productivity. These short breaks will help you regain your sanity and reflect on your recent actions so you can be sure they’re in line with your goals.
Start noticing the beauty of small moments. – Instead of waiting for the big things to happen – marriage, kids, big promotion, winning the lottery – find happiness in the small things that happen every day. Little things like having a quiet cup of coffee in the early morning, or the delicious taste and smell of a homemade meal, or the pleasure of sharing something you enjoy with someone else, or holding hands with your partner. Noticing these small pleasures on a daily basis makes a big difference in the quality of your life.
Start accepting things when they are less than perfect. – Remember, ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good.’ One of the biggest challenges for people who want to improve themselves and improve the world is learning to accept things as they are. Sometimes it’s better to accept and appreciate the world as it is, and people as they are, rather than to trying to make everything and everyone conform to an impossible ideal. No, you shouldn’t accept a life of mediocrity, but learn to love and value things when they are less than perfect.
Start working toward your goals every single day. – Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Whatever it is you dream about, start taking small, logical steps every day to make it happen. Get out there and DO something! The harder you work the luckier you will become. While many of us decide at some point during the course of our lives that we want to answer our calling, only an astute few of us actually work on it. By ‘working on it,’ I mean consistently devoting oneself to the end result. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Start being more open about how you feel. – If you’re hurting, give yourself the necessary space and time to hurt, but be open about it. Talk to those closest to you. Tell them the truth about how you feel. Let them listen. The simple act of getting things off your chest and into the open is your first step toward feeling good again.
Start taking full accountability for your own life. – Own your choices and mistakes, and be willing to take the necessary steps to improve upon them. Either you take accountability for your life or someone else will. And when they do, you’ll become a slave to their ideas and dreams instead of a pioneer of your own. You are the only one who can directly control the outcome of your life. And no, it won’t always be easy. Every person has a stack of obstacles in front of them. But you must take accountability for your situation and overcome these obstacles. Choosing not to is choosing a lifetime of mere existence.
Start actively nurturing your most important relationships. – Bring real, honest joy into your life and the lives of those you love by simply telling them how much they mean to you on a regular basis. You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be everything to a few people. Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty. Remember, you don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of.
Start concentrating on the things you can control. – You can’t change everything, but you can always change something. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control, and act on them now.
Start focusing on the possibility of positive outcomes. – The mind must believe it CAN do something before it is capable of actually doing it. The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful. Listen to your self-talk and replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Regardless of how a situation seems, focus on what you DO WANT to happen, and then take the next positive step forward. No, you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react to things. Everyone’s life has positive and negative aspects – whether or not you’re happy and successful in the long run depends greatly on which aspects you focus on. Read The How of Happiness
Start noticing how wealthy you are right now. – Henry David Thoreau once said, “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” Even when times are tough, it’s always important to keep things in perspective. You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night. You didn’t go to sleep outside. You had a choice of what clothes to wear this morning. You hardly broke a sweat today. You didn’t spend a minute in fear. You have access to clean drinking water. You have access to medical care. You have access to the Internet. You can read. Some might say you are incredibly wealthy, so remember to be grateful for all the things you do have.

Get the Doomsday

2013-12-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

We have very imaginative and creative minds, we humans. Driving a great deal of our imagination is the desire to pick up on what’s coming, especially with regard to the biggie: survival. We believe that if we know, we can fall in line with the right action, make the right plan or choose the right religion or belief system and improve our chances, work it out or escape, or elevate ourselves up and out of a mess.

Humans don’t like feeling insecure, that much is clear. The tension of not knowing really serves to push us… one direction or another. We can learn to live comfortably with the tension,

accepting it as a platform from which to learn and perceive and create the new, or in the alternative, we can take up believing in something that makes us feel safe and in the know. When security wins, we give up the journey to true information.

The collapse of the world as we know it, or as we have known it, is on all of our minds. Afraid or unafraid, we do exist within a vast range of probabilities and possibilities. Voices predicting doomsday based on prophesies, what ifs, piecing things together, simply imagining things, can be heard across the Internet. It’s quite a banquet of images.

So let’s talk about that a bit. When thinking about the subject, I remembered a video that I watched sometime in mid 2012. It featured a dignified, seemingly rational, passionate woman talking about three days of darkness that were going to occur at the end of the year.

She referred to prophesies and present day occurrences that seemed to coincide, as she described a time when sunlight would not return in the morning and people would lose their minds, leave their homes, become overwhelmed by demonic forces, break into others’ homes… wow… what a scene. She gave the dates and urged us to prepare and stay walled up inside during those three days. She said that after the three days, the sunlight would return and the world would be beautiful as springtime.So how did I feel about what I heard? Well… I said to myself, “Nonsense… that prophesy is not meant to be understood literally.” Then I wondered how she thought people could happily walk out into a beautiful day with all kinds of dead bodies laying around. Either that’s a bit of a glitch or maybe she’s counting on ascension for the survivors.

She was so authoritative and passionate that her images of demonic shrieking outside my door stuck in my head like a bad movie. Yep, the Bible includes some fear conditioning.

As we’ve seen happen in the past, fear conditioning can have very disturbing and sad outcomes with people believing so deeply in a doomsday scenario that they actually create the scenario and self-destruct. Poison Kool-Aid for the susceptible mind. Let’s get past it.

There is a realm of all possibilities, and we really can’t expand consciousness unless we are open to infinite possibilities existing beyond the probabilities. So we are caught a bit. For open minds, discernment must come into the picture along with the feeling sense and the truth bell. We ask, ‘how does this feel’, and we take note. We listen for the ‘ding ding’: incoming information resonating with the inner truth.Recently I happened across another video that was really interesting. This one was more of a ‘New Age based imagination’ setup. A man was explaining how he had absorbed all of the knowledge of the ancient, hidden mystery and initiate schools and he was prepared to teach it all in a five day seminar. Really!! But I kept listening as he insisted it had to be done this way… there isn’t time to do it the old way.

He went on to say that soon an event will happen that hasn’t occurred in well over 100,000 years. The event had something to do with themagnetic field and people’s memory being completely erased, somewhat like the info on a CD being erased. His course would teach people how to protect against that by building their own field… I think… as by that time I had partially tuned his message out.

Of course my thoughts went to the obvious: who would want to be walking around in a world where people’s brains had been wiped clean… geeze what an image. So obviously ascension had to be part of the plan too… just ascend out of it and leave the rest to do whatever people do without a brain.

If those two stories were the only ones we’re exposed to, no problem. But oh my dear eyes and ears… there is a glut of this kind of doomsday scenario + survival + ascension information being structured into belief systems. Obviously human imagination traveling in this direction is not new. You have to give it to people for pulling from the field of all possibilities. I guess Xenu and the Scientology spacecraft story is possible, but then again so is ‘the cow jumped over the moon’.

If people wish to believe in these structures, and the bottom line is that their belief makes them better human beings, then value can be found. Ideally, one would hope for beliefs that make the world a better place for all of us and not just the group of ascending believers.

The fear-based mass extinction scenarios are so prevalent now, with messages about comets and planets and UFOs and plans of the evil powers that we have to wonder why we are collectively projecting in that direction. Within the realm of all possibilities surely there exist as many beneficent possibilities as there are punitive ones.

Do we need to be so doomsday hungry that we create scenarios where none exist? Honestly, let’s look around. We have human-based doomsday possibilities right here. We don’t know which will occur as we anticipate. We also don’t know how the earth herself will respond and repair, or how the brave humans who are coming awake will respond and repair. All is in flux, with battles being engaged both here in 3-D and transdimensionally.

Since the future is always in flux, let’s not plant our feet in fear and determine that there is only one track in which to travel.

We can look at option #2. Split off a part of our creative imagining and let it proceed in another direction. We are, in essence, equal parts of all that is. The great source and flow of information that is divine Grace, and truth, and love, is not only available to us… we are already part of it. We do have the power to engage in our own ascension (evolution); one that is not predicated upon everyone else being ‘out of the loop’.

Let’s envision that ascension as not elitist, or exclusive to believers in one thing or another. Yes, it may include some metaphysical possibilities, but always driven by human beings in a physical world taking steps to enlighten themselves from within.

I look at it from a personal responsibility perspective as to my mind that’s the only way to transition to anywhere. Our experience of the celestial is one of profound reverence… for the purity and the beauty is astounding. We can’t imagine our own energy being the ‘same as’, and yet moving in that direction is our task. We clean ourselves up in this transformational work… that’s what we do: clean and beautify.

We may start with the most simple things, such as being kind, and respectful, and just in our dealings with others. We move on repair injustices of the past: clean slate. Then we practice being truthful and loving ourselves and others. We develop an internal honor code, which leads to trusting in our connection to the divinity within. To me, this is ascension. Everyone has the capacity to begin, from wherever they are, and grow.

And now let’s look at picking up on what’s coming: fact is, we don’t know. Even the greatest visionaries will not know the exact parameters and time frame of the events that they see. And like I said, everything is in flux. The forces at work are both us… and beyond us. Within our momentary, daily thoughts and actions we do have powers of creation… perhaps quite a lot of power as we raise our energy and expand our consciousness. So much depends upon what we believe.

Doomsday need not hang over our heads like a dark cloud. If we are empowering ourselves, raising our energy, becoming more intuitive, becoming more perceptive and connected, we are making ourselves better equipped for all possibilities. It is from a position of power and creativity that we can meet the future and whatever it brings. This power is personal and silent: not granted but developed within through honesty, courage and commitment.

About the Author

Ida Lawrence is an author, blogger, copywriter and editor based in Atlanta, Georgia. She has contributed to and edited two books on racial justice and human rights, and numerous articles on human rights, self-empowerment and related subjects. Her latest book is entitled The Warrior’s Way to Heaven on Earth. Ida has also published a companion book of blog favorites from http://talk2momz.com/.

The Mechanics and science of Prayer

2013-12-03T10:10:00.001-08:00

Prayer means many different things to many different people. It is something that is so pervasive in our lives that it permeates fully through our societies and cultures. All cultures and religious traditions have their own practices when it comes to prayer, but let us acknowledge the similar theme. People all over the world right now are praying, to influence their world and the universe in myriad ways. But what factors determine the effectiveness of prayer, what is the fundamental basis of its function? How does it work to influence our daily lives and shape our world?

Prayer is our divine and innate connection with the fabric of reality, the way that we write our free will upon the world. To completely examine the nature of prayer we must look at it through various lenses and perspectives, involving spirituality and science, to find the common factors that describe this ancient tradition

To better understand the mechanics of prayer, let us view it through the Quantum lens. A crucial part of Quantum physics, Warner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle dictates that we can only measure where a particle is, or how fast it is moving. The act of measuring one of these quantities actually increases uncertainty in the other. What this means is that energy exists as a wave when unobserved, and as a particle when we measure observe it in a location. Observation is the action that separates a particle into either state. But what is the particle when it is not being observed?

Waves in Quantum are actually waves of probability, where everything exists as a formless potentia throughout which any possible outcome can arise. Consciousness interacts with the infinite potentia to create and collapse the world around us into what we call our reality. But our true reality lies within the infinite, as parts of the all connected unitive consciousness of energy. Every particle and atom in the universe is born from the same infinite miasma, and as such, absolutely everything in the universe is one.

The focus of prayer does not need to be directed outward to an external source, it needs to be directed inwards, into our own personal connection with the source. By actively focusing our consciousness, we collapse the wave function of energies, and we consciously create the universe around us. We have stumbled through Quantum theory to finally come to the conclusion that its fundamental function works exactly as prayer does. But with this new foundation in mind, let us examine prayer in its current state.

But to focus our energy is more than just naming the new reality or possibility, it requires complementing it with thought, feeling, and belief. To influence the fabric of existence, we must consciously create with ourintent. Prayers are more than just reciting words and chants, it is to be done with feeling, with purpose, and with intent. The combination and arrangement of words isn’t what makes prayer powerful, but what comes from our hearts. By feeling and making a vibration, we send that wave out to influence the infinite probabilities and possibilities in the universe.

Intent and strong feeling are the ways that we create our vibration, and manage the frequency of our wave. Every feeling, mindset, emotion, and thought has a corresponding coherent wave pattern that propagates outward into the fabric of the universe. As it moves through the infinite potential energy, it creates further waves and ripples, and influences all of the energy it comes into contact with. When praying, our intent and pure emotion are the catalysts that actually shape the universe around us, that collapse all of the waves into existence, into reality. We create and shape the world around us with simple, natural, human feelings.

But the caveat from Heisenberg again is that we can influence the wave with our energy, but when we observe it collapses. In prayer, if we are so tied up and entangled with our intent, trying to observe our reality and call it into existence at the same time, we make the energy collapse. Intent fails if we are attached to the outcome of our prayers, for the energy cannot occupy both states; we can know it as wave/vibration or as particle/location due to uncertainty. The most important part of effective prayer and manifesting is to be free of attachment to the outcomes, so that your vibration and intent are not interfered with by observation.

The ego mind plays the biggest role in attaching to the outcomes, as it is focused upon controlling the ‘how’ of the universe, or the particular way and pattern the energy expresses itself. But we cannot bend the universe to our will; we can work with it to influence and shape the expression of its energy. Instead of wishing, hoping for something to come to pass, we must instead be and feel the vibration that we wish to experience, that we wish to send out and influence the rest of the universe. One must feel, completely and wholly, that an intent or outcome already exists in the universe, is already happening. By surrounding ourselves with our new reality, our present reality grows to encompass the new vibration.

With this new glimpse at the mechanics of prayer, we see people all around the world, whether knowingly or unknowingly, constantly shape their daily existence. The universe is made of energy, and to better understand and interact with it, we need to only speak in its language; emotion. Prayer molds the medium, and paints the picture of the world around us. We simply need to be the vibration, be the wave, and be the change in the world that we want to see. We aren’t waiting for the world to change, it is already happening, right now, in each moment. As we all consciously focus our awareness, intent, and emotion to call forth the vibrations and the energy we wish to experience in our universe.

About the Author

Adam Lanka, originally from North Carolina, is a traveling philosopher, energetic arts healer, and physicist. His passion and interest are in bridging the gaps in the dominant paradigm, uniting science and spirituality into one journey of consciousness, and elevating the vibration of humanity. To learn more about Adam, please visit his personal blog, The Wanderlust. Find him on Facebook at Gateway Explorations.

Food and Nutrition to Detoxify Pineal gland

2013-12-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

There are two types of foods: acid-forming or alkaline-forming. Your body is designed for your blood pH balance to be between 7.35-7.45. The differences between the two are like night and day.

All sickness, whether the common cold or cancer can only thrive in an acidic body. Too much acid in the blood causes imbalance and creates calcification of the pineal gland. Whenever you eat something that is acidic, your body has to pull the nutrients out of your body’s minerals to try to neutralize the acidity.The following is a list of foods that help to decalcify your pineal gland and awaken your third eye~

1. Organic Blue Ice Skate Fish Oil- contains a very powerful substance called “Activator X” discovered by Weston Price.

2. MSM- Very powerful for general detoxification. Great supplement for hair, skin, nails and building bones. Start with a low dose and work your way up to around 7,000-10,000mg per day.

3. Raw Cacao-great pineal gland detoxifier because of the high antioxidant content, MAOI’s also occur in raw cacao – which is one reason raw chocolate makes people feel good. Cacao is the number one source of magnesium of any food on the planet, contains 314% of the US RDA of iron per serving, contains the highest concentration of antioxidants of any food in the world, and is also exceptionally rich in chromium, anandamide (the bliss chemical), theobromine, manganese, zinc, copper, vitamin C, omega-6 fatty acids, PEA, trytophan, serotonin, and more.

4. Raw Lemon- juiced and consumed is great at detoxifying your pineal gland- start adding lemon to every glass of water and juice, juice, juice and consume! Highly alkalizing (that’s right- not acidic)

5. Garlic- amazing for decalcification because it is able to dissolve calcium and acts as a natural antibiotic and kick starts our immune system.

6. Raw Apple Cider Vinegar-Very good for detoxification of your pineal gland, as it contains malic acid. This is the only type of vinegar I use! Braggs is a great brand.

7. Oregano oil and Neem extract-Acts as a natural antibiotic against the calcium shells that nanobacteria create around themselves in the pineal gland.

8. Activator X (Vitamin K1/K2) it is a super potent detoxifier, especially when mixed with Vitamin A and D3. It can reverse the process of arteriosclerosis, allowing the enzymatic balance to be restored. This then allows for the calcium to be removed from the arteries and other locations (i.e. pineal gland) and placed where it belongs, in the bone. It is also a potent catalyst for vitamin and mineral absorption. The vitamin occurs naturally in two forms:
K1 (phylloquinone) is found in green leafy vegetables
K2 (comprised of menaquinones) is created by intestinal microflora and also obtained from food sources such as organ meats, liver (goose/chicken are best), egg yolks, fermented dairy products like cheese or butter (from cows eating rapidly growing green grass), Japanese fermented soybean dish Natto (the richest K2 food source), sauerkraut, marine oils, fish eggs and shellfish

9. Boron-present in beets and best consumed by eating organic beets or trying beet powder mixed with spring water or other liquids & foods

10. Iodine- has been clinically proven to increase the removal of sodium fluoride from the body-seaweed is a MUST to add to your diet! Seaweed vegetables that are sun-dried by the sun contain high amounts of vitamin D, many B-vitamins and iodine. Kombu, arame, wakame, dulse, nori, sea lettuce are all excellent

11. Tamarind-widely used in Ayurvedic Medicine. The pulp, bark, and leaves from the tamarind tree can be used to make teas, extracts and tinctures that will help eliminate fluoride.

12. Distilled Water- very important to stop drinking water that contains flouride.

13. Dark leafy greens like kale, turnip greens, mustard greens, bok choy, collard greens are
extremely nourishing for the pineal gland and alkalizing to the body

14. Noni also known as “Polynesian Miracle Fruit-stimulates pineal gland cells providing the gland with its main food, xeronine. Since most of the nutrients are found in the pulp, you want to avoid Noni juice. Noni extracts contains extracts from all parts of the fruit, not just the juice, and are a better form

15. Gotu Kola: The tea, extracts, and encapsulated whole herb of Gotu Kola is known to be a potent detoxifier and stimulator of the pineal gland and overall beneficial to the entire brain
16.Blue Green Algae contains the broadest array of phyto-nutrients of any known algae, including rare trace elements, biologically active enzymes, amino acids, essential fatty acids, chlorophyll, Phenylethylamine (PEA), glycol-proteins, complex sugars, vitamins and minerals, the chlorophyll molecule found in Blue-Green Algae has something in common with the hemoglobin molecule in your blood-
They have the same geometry, which is 12 atoms surrounding a central 13th atom. In your blood, the 13th atom at the center is iron.
In the chlorophyll found in blue-green algae, the central atom is magnesium.
BLUE-GREEN ALGAE has one of the highest percentages of chlorophyll of any food on the planet.

Originally posted on: http://wolfzencafe.com

10 WAYS TO REDUCE CANCER CAUSING AGENTS

2013-11-23T23:39:00.002-08:00

While it’s impossible to avoid all of the toxins and cancer causing agents that surround you, there are some simple, yet effective steps you can take that will greatly decrease your exposure to toxic substances. Making these painless adjustments can lower your risk for just about every type of cancer along with a whole slew of other diseases. The key to this list is that each of the items exposes you to toxins or cancer causing agents on a daily, or almost daily, basis. By eliminating them you are effectively cutting out a large majority of your exposure.

1. Purchase organic foods

By going organic, you are not only avoiding pesticides; you are also avoiding GMOs, artificial ingredients and harmful preservatives.

2. Filter your tap water

Tap water contains arsenic, fluoride and chlorine; all of which are highly toxic. Using a water filter for your drinking water is a great start; however, the body absorbs a substantial amount of water through the skin during showers and baths. One good option is to install an entire house water filter which can remove 99 percent of these chemicals.

3. Get the mercury fillings taken out of your mouth

Mercury is highly toxic and the old fillings in your mouth may be slowing leeching into your system. When making an appointment to get your mercury fillings removed, be sure to find a dentist that has expertise in this area.

4. Make your own deodorant

Deodorants and antiperspirants contain dangerous chemicals including aluminum, parabens, propylene glycol, FD&C colors, talc and more. Making your own natural deodorant is as easy as mixing coconut oil, baking soda and shea butter.

5. Buy natural toothpaste and mouthwash

Fluoride is very toxic and should not be swallowed. Many toothpastes and mouthwashes contain fluoride, triclosan, saccharin and artificial colors such as FD&C Blue #1. Avoid these ingredients by purchasing natural toothpastes and mouthwashes. You can also make your own mouthwash with water, baking soda or sea salt, and a drop of peppermint or tea tree oil.

6. Buy natural bodywash, shampoo and conditioner

Avoid ingredients including triclosan, fragrance, PEG, ceteareth, polyethylene, DMDM hydantoin and parabens including propyl, isopropyl, butyl, isobutyl.

7. Make your own natural home cleaners

Cleaners such as AJAX, Lysol, bleach and the like produce very toxic fumes. They can be replaced by a simple and inexpensive mixture of vinegar and lemon. There are many simple recipes for non-toxic, homemade cleaners.

8. Buy natural laundry detergent

Most name brand laundry detergents leave chemical residue on your clothes which is absorbed by your skin. Ingredients to avoid include linear alkyl sodium sulfonates, petroleum distillates, phenols and sodium hypochlorite (house bleach).

9. Don’t use the microwave

Microwaves kill food, plain and simple. The way they cook is unnatural. Instead use your oven, stove-top, toaster or toaster oven whenever possible.

10. Limit your cell phone use

The radiation from cell phones can cause cancer. Limit your cell phone use and try to use hands free options such as Bluetooth and speakerphone whenever possible.

A few other notables include:

- Use natural makeup
- Don’t use baby powder (talcum)
- Don’t use weed killers or pesticides

Sources for this article include:
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://static.ewg.org/pdf/EWG_cosmeticsguide_2011.pdf
http://www.naturalnews.com/030651_microwave_cooking_cancer.html
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/water/water-toxins
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/index.html
http://www.naturalcosmeticnews.com

14 Stories That Prove Animals Have Souls

2013-10-25T02:04:00.000-07:00

1. Koko the gorilla responds to a sad moment in her favorite film.

LINK

Watch the video here.

youtube.com

2. The parrot with the moving last words.

Alex the African gray parrot was able to count and identify colors, and he had a beautiful relationship with his person, Irene Pepperberg. When Alex died in 2007, his last words to her were “You be good. I love you.”

Source: npr.org

3. The fact that cows have best friends and get stressed when they are separated.

According to scientist Krista McLennan, “When heifers have their preferred partner with them, their stress levels in terms of their heart rates are reduced compared with if they were with a random individual.”

Source: dailymail.co.uk / via: peta.org

4. The two guide dogs who led their owners down 70 floors in the World Trade Center before the towers collapsed on September 11.

Guide dogs Salty and Roselle were awarded a joint Dickin Medal “For remaining loyally at the side of their blind owners, courageously leading them down more than 70 floors of the World Trade Center and to a place of safety following the terrorist attack on New York on 11 September 2001.”

Source: en.wikipedia.org

5. The Jack Russell Terrier who gave his life to rescue five children from wild dogs.

In 2007, five children were playing with George when they were attacked by pit bulls. “George tried to protect us by barking and rushing at them,” said one of the children about the attack, “but they started to bite him - one on the head and the other on the back.” His heroic intervention saved the children, though he later died from his injuries. George was posthumously awarded a medal for bravery.

Source: dailymail.co.uk / via: en.wikipedia.org

6. The beluga whale who saved a free diver who had cramped up 20 feet below the surface.

Source: telegraph.co.uk / via: treehugger.com

When free-diver Yang Yun tried to return from the bottom of an arctic pool, she found that her legs had cramped up and she couldn’t move.

“I began to choke and sank even lower and I thought that was it for me – I was dead. Until I felt this incredible force under me driving me to the surface.”

A Beluga whale named Mila had seen what was happening and sprang into action, guiding Yun safely back to the top of the pool.

Source: telegraph.co.uk / via: treehugger.com

7. The cat who can sense when someone is about to die.

Oscar could always sense when one of the residents at the nursing home where he lived was near death and would sit quietly on their bed during their last moments.

One relative of two sisters who died in the nursing home said of Oscar’s vigil, “Oscar’s presence gave a sense of completion and contentment. Both women loved pets. Oscar brought a special serenity to the room. What’s more peaceful than a purring cat? What sound more beautiful to fill one’s ears when leaving this life?”

Via: smh.com.au

Source: reuters.com

8. The Staffordshire bull terrier who protected her owner from a machete gang.

Patricia Adshead was making tea when three men wearing masks and wielding machetes broke into her home. Adshead’s ex-husband rushed to help, but one of the assailants sliced through his hand with a machete.

“I was trapped in the kitchen with Oi and one of the men. He raised the machete over my head,” she said.

“Oi jumped up and bit his hand. He brought the machete down on her head but she still chased him out of the house. If she hadn’t gone for him I would have been dead. She saved my life.”

Via: newsshopper.co.uk

9. The gorilla who remembered his old friend.

Via: pawnation.com

LINK

Watch the video here.

youtube.com

Source: youtube.com

10. The recent discovery that fish use tools to perform tasks.

In 2011, a professional diver captured this amazing image of a fish smashing a clam against a rock to get at its innards, proving that fish have vastly superior capacities than most people believe.

Source: wired.co.uk / via: peta.org

11. The German Shepherd who has become a seeing eye dog for a blind spaniel.

Source: menmedia.co.uk / via: pawnation.com

When Ellie, a blind spaniel, was adopted by shelter manager Jean Spencer, she never expected that her other dog, Leo, would choose to become her very own seeing-eye dog. “I take them for walks in the park and Leo guides Ellie around,” says Spencer. “He is so protective and herds the more boisterous dogs away from her.”

Source: menmedia.co.uk / via: pawnation.com

12. The abused circus elephants who were reunited at an elephant sanctuary after 25 years apart.

Source: advocacy.britannica.com / via: yesmagazine.org

13. The amazing story of Christian the lion.

Source: youtube.com

LINK

Watch the full video here.

Source: youtube.com

14. The chimps who grieved for their dead friend.

At a Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, a chimp named Dorothy died of heart failure. What happened next was amazing: Her fellow chimps hugged each other in solidarity and solemnly watched as their friend was laid to rest.

Source: dailymail.co.uk / via: twitter

Originally posted on: BuzzFeed

Using Meditation to Overcome Ego

2013-10-25T01:47:00.000-07:00

Debbie West, Contributor
Waking Times

In order to combat the harmful illusion of self that is created by our ideals of who we are based on past experiences and judgments of ourselves and others, we must overcome the ego. The ego-self is created by a complex and powerful overlay of our mind that is designed as a shield to protect us from harm and suffering. The ego unchecked over time expands, falsifying our idea of true self. The result is an unbalanced, disconnected, external self focused solely on safety and attachments with narcissistic concerns about appearance and position,
yearning for admiration and superiority and bogging us down with negative and false fear-based thoughts of judgment, anger and resentment. In the quest to overcome the false self or ego self, many have turned to meditation practices which detoxify our minds, cleanse the soul, and reactivate our higher self connection to a universal and compassionate consciousness. It has been proven that positive thoughts and a joyful outlook, combined with a forgiving nature filled with love and gratitude, have the capacity to heal our minds and bodies. Using meditation ignites the spiritual connection within us so frequently manipulated by our ego’s desire to be in charge.

Connecting to Soul Self thru Meditation

One of the primary benefits of meditation is creating a sense of stillness and calm that is present throughout one’s entire life. This stillness and inner peace is one of the most attractive aspects of making meditation a daily practice. Meditation is clearing the mind, and in clearing the mind it silences the ego. During meditation, a sense of peace is created with the universe, allowing the experience of true identity, also known as “cosmic ego.” There are multiple layers to the mind, and meditation assists in breaking thru the outer ego-defense layer to reach the inner self. Often, we do not realize what is missing in our human experience, but a sense of emptiness or being overcome by psychological traumas such as depression, anxiety, bipolar may lead to seeking treatment. Finding a spiritual connection using meditation relieves mental anguish, develops a healthy mind and body, and promotes overall health and well-being.

Religions Agree on the Philosophy of No-Ego

Seemingly, all traditions agree that no great spiritual attainment is possible without conquest of egocentricity. And while a healthy dose of self-esteem and self-confidence are valuable traits, one must replace conceit with modesty and arrogance with humility. This is where meditation can help us tremendously. The truth lies within and is an internal connection to the eternal soul. Which practice we choose or what skills we use, whether we are religious or not, are not significant. Atman, a term commonly used in the Hindu and eastern traditions, describes the connection to higher self and someone who has reached a state of no-ego. Atman means the individual soul or essence. A person who is entirely in touch with their spiritual side is an example of someone deeply connected to atman.

Chung Hyun Kyung, Professor of Ecumenical Theology and Interfaith Engagement at Union Theological Seminary and a Buddhist Dharma teacher, states:

“In a way, the Christian notion of being in Christ and Buddhist notion of no-self and true self have something in common. That commonality is, you are free from this binding ego. You step outside of ego and are then open to receive love of God and open to act as a good Christian disciple or a good Buddhist. So whatever needs arise around you, you respond to it freely without clinging to your old unchanging self.”

In Tibetan practices, it is taught that our true self is eternal and is the God force within us. The way of our higher self is to reflect our inner reality rather than the outer illusion. The description given by Sogyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is a wonderful explanation of this discovery:

“Two people have been living in you all of your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to.”

He refers to this hidden spiritual being as our wise guide. When we learn to transcend the illusions sponsored by the ego, we can access this wise guide. We can invite in the higher aspects of ourselves to function in their natural, loving and integrated design.

Identifying EGO

Eckart Tolle was asked, “How do you know whether a feeling you have is coming from your Ego, or from a deeper source?” His response:

“Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell. One criterion you can use is to know, if there is any negativity involved, anger, resentment, irritation, then Ego is present there. If there is no negativity but there is an underlying field of peace, then it arises from a deeper place that is not the Ego.”

When we view the world in competition and judgment and others as less than, often our Ego is driving our behavior and our thoughts. This means the Ego is fulfilling its need to be right, self-important and drives us away from our true nature as loving beings.

“Negativity is the key,” explains Tolle. “Knowing whether or not that is present in you. You need to be present to know whether it’s there or not. If you are identified with negativity, then you won’t even know that there is negativity. To the Ego, a negative feeling is something good. The Ego loves to be angry. It strengthens itself with that.”

Sigmond Freud (1923), known as the founding father of psychoanalysis, coined the terms id, ego and superego, the three parts of his psychoanalytic personality theory stating that they work together in creating human behavior. According to the Freud terminology, the id is irrational and creates demands, the ego adds the needs of reality in meeting the demands of the id, and the superego adds morality to the action which is taken. The superego can punish the ego with feelings of guilt. These concepts do not contradict the current views on the human personality and ego based vs. cosmic consciousness.

Overcoming Ego using Meditation in the Mainstream

The rise in great spiritual leaders of this decade who have inspired millions in a non-religious pursuit of spiritual fulfillment has increased the wide spread use of meditation practices in the West. Respected authors such as Dr. Wayne Dyer, Eckert Tolle, and Deepak Chopra have transcended religious doctrines with a new message of finding joy and purpose by identifying with the soul self. When asked about ego, Dr. Wayne Dyer says:

“No one has ever seen the face of ego. It is like a ghost that we accept as a controlling influence in our lives. I look upon the ego as nothing more than an idea that each of us has about ourselves. The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self and is a backwards way of assessing and living life.”

Losing the identity to ego-self transcends religious beliefs and acknowledges that the internal spirit of an individual’s higher self is the connection to God consciousness, uplifting the soul in peace and unity of both ourselves and others. Dr. Susan Dillbeck, president of the International Foundation of Consciousness-Based Education, says that meditation is very important and encourages everyone to practice it often.

“When we meditate, we begin to feel the touch of our spirit we sense our vibration increasing in an internal, eternal, melding of self with our soul. A quiet mind hears the voice of the angels more easily. The more you relax your mind, the easier it is for you to hear the answer. Open our heart and mind, this abundant love has no boundaries.” – Dr. Susan Dillbeck

Using daily meditation, results from brain scans now reveal an increase in gray-matter density in areas of the brain associated with memory, self-awareness, compassion and introspection, and a decrease in density of gray matter in areas associated with stress and anxiety.

As society reaches new levels of awareness, seeking solutions to overcoming the limiting beliefs placed on us by ego-based thinking, meditation is becoming more popular amongst mainstream thought leaders in science, psychology and religion. Knowing that we control our thoughts and that we are not our minds, but in reality we are our spiritual essence or soul, science and spirituality continue to help society grasp a more advanced knowledge of the science of the mind.

Read the first 2 articles of 3-part series:

Ego – Overcoming the Limitations of Personality While in Search of the Cosmic Self

Meditation – The Rise of Futuristic Medicine From An Ageless Practice

About the Author

Deborah West worked in corporate public relations and media for over 20 years and is currently a freelancer, reporting on a wide variety of topics including disclosure, ancient and multidimensional civilizations, the the shift in humanity’s consciousness and brings truthful reporting to topics ranging from healthcare to energy. She writes a column called Lost Knowledge at The New Era Times and has a weekly radio show called Lost Knowledge on Tuesdays 3-5pm CST. To see her articles go to: http://www.tnetimes.com/contributor/deborah_west/92/

How and Why Hemp became illegal : Marijuana link

2013-10-21T05:26:00.003-07:00

If I told you there was a plant available to us today that could be grown in pretty much any soil, requires no pesticides and it takes very little maintenance to grow, and this magical plant could be used for a very large number of necessities and goods we use today yet we don’t use it, would you think to yourself “Joe you must be high or on some other cheap drug?”

Well potential naysayers out there, I’m not high nor do I get high, but let me tell you, there is a plant available right now and it is often mistaken to be marijuana but has capabilities that are beyond what you could imagine. It’s called Hemp. To be clear, even the plant we refer to as Marijuana is actually hemp. Most accurately, hemp that is composed of less than .3% THC is considered non-remedial hemp. Hemp that contains more than .3% THC is considered remedial hemp. This is the type many call Marijuana. Right off the top, Hemp looks very much like marijuana as it technically is the same plant. But unlike maryjane, it does not contain anywhere near the amount of THC needed for someone to get high if they tried to smoke it. Funny thing is, in the United States, Hemp is just as illegal to grow as Marijuana is. How can this be? The plant doesn’t even provide THC to get high and yet it’s still illegal? Yes…

Hemp used to be used for many things: clothes, cars, plastics, building materials, rope, paper, linens, food, medicine and so on. In fact, it used to be mandatory in the United States for farmers to grow hemp if they had the land. There are plenty more stats regarding hemp you can find here.

The fact is Hemp was very popular throughout the 1800’s and 1900’since it was incredibly useful for so many reasons. But one day that all changed, and now it is illegal.. so how did this happen?

The History
During Hoover’s presidency, Andrew Mellon became Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury and Dupont’s primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. This then led these men to take an obscure Mexican slang word: ‘marihuana’ and push it into the consciousness of America. The reason why they changed the name was because everyone knew of hemp and how amazing it was for the world. They would never be able to get away with banning hemp, so they used a name they knew no one would care about.

Not long after this plan was set in place, the media began a blitz of ‘yellow journalism’ in the late 1920s and 1930s. Yellow journalism is essentially journalism where stories with catchy headlines are put into the mainstream media to get attention, yet these stories are not well researched or backed up. They are often used simply to create public opinion. Many newspapers were pumping stories emphasizing the horrors and dangers of marihuana. The “menace” of marihuana made headlines everywhere. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to losing morality and it wasn’t long before public opinion started to shape.

Next came several films like ‘Reefer Madness’ (1936), ‘Marihuana: Assassin of Youth’ (1935) and ‘Marihuana: The Devil’s Weed’ (1936) which were all propaganda films designed by these industrialists to create an enemy out of marihuana. Reefer Madness was possibly the most interesting of the films as it depicted a man going crazy from smoking marijuana and then murdering his family with an ax. With all of these films, the goal was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed without objection.

Have a look at the following regarding marihuana from ‘The Burning Question’ aka Reefer Madness:

-A violent narcotic
-Acts of shocking violence
-Incurable insanity
-Soul-destroying effects
-Under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax
-More vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (heroin, cocaine) is the menace of marihuana!

Unlike most films with a simple ending, Reefer Madness ended with bold words on the screen: TELL YOUR CHILDREN.

In the 1930s, things were different than today. The population did not question things very much. They did not have tools like the Internet to quickly spread information and learn about things that were happening. Most built their opinions and beliefs off of the news via print or the radio. As a result and what was instructed by mainstream news, many people did tell their children about marihuana and thus shaping a strong public opinion about it.

On April 14, 1937, the Prohibitive Marihuana Tax Law or the bill that outlawed hemp was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. Simply put, this committee is the only one that could introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. At the time, the Chairman of the Ways and Means was Robert Doughton who was a Dupont supporter. With vested interest, he insured that the bill would pass Congress.

In an attempt to stop the bill from being passed, Dr. James Woodward, a physician and attorney, attempted to testify on behalf of the American Medical Association. He mentioned that the reason the AMA had not denounced the Marihuana Tax Law sooner was that the Association had just discovered that marihuana was hemp. Or at least a strain of it. Hemp and Marijuana are both varieties of Cannabis sativa, but this distinction was purposely not made well known to the public. Since the law was not so much focused on banning one or the other, both found their way into the ban. The AMA recognized cannabis/marihuana as a medicine found in numerous healing products sold and used for quite some time. The AMA like many other’s did not realize that the deadly menace they had been reading about in the media was in fact hemp.

In September of 1937, hemp prohibition began. Arguably the most useful plant known to man has become illegal to grow and use both in its non THC strain and THC strain called marihuana. To this day, this plant is still illegal to grow in the United States.

To the public, Congress banned hemp because it was said to be a violent and dangerous drug. In reality, Hemp does nothing more than act as an amazing resource to virtually any industry and any product. As you can imagine, this was also a big reason for the ban of Hemp as it was a serious threat to many of the big industries out there. At the time it was mainly plastics, oil and paper.

Here we are in modern day times and it is clear we are in some trouble when it comes to how we treat our environment. The resources and practices we use today for energy as well as product creation is very harmful and toxic to not just our planet but ourselves also. Despite the full awareness that exists surrounding hemp as an option to transform how things can be done on this planet, governments continue to have the plant banned and it is still often mistaken for marihuana due to how it looks.

http://www.hempfarm.org/Papers/Hemp_Facts.html

http://www.hempcar.org/hempfacts.shtml

Source: Collective Evolution

5 Step to get your Destiny

2013-10-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

Destiny is the path that leads you to the most terrifying thing in your life that most excites you. It’s a journey that requires you to grow to do what you are most passionate about—to do the thing you were born to do. If you think of your life as a video game character, the destiny is the golden path that the video game programmer created to give you the most fulfilling game-playing experience. And to be fulfilling, it must challenge you to become the biggest version of yourself so you can get to the highest level. That means you must
face and conquer your demons and follow your instincts even if they are diametrically opposed to everything the people in your life think that you should be doing. It requires being able to quiet down the screaming voice of society so that you can hear the whispers of your soul.

If you already know what you should be doing with your life, that’s all the advice you really need. But what if you don’t? What if you have no clue what you should be doing, aren’t completely sure, or are second-guessing what you thought was your destiny? Then this article is for you. I will show you the five simple steps to uncover the path that will bring you the most fulfillment.

You’ll know you’ve found it because it will immediately resonate. You will feel light, blissful, and suddenly empowered, which may quickly be followed by doubt, fear, and a sinking feeling in your stomach. This is just your mind trying to hold you back. It doesn’t want you to change. It wants you to be safe. But safe is boring. I can guarantee that if you’ve been playing it safe up until now, you’re probably pretty unfulfilled at best, and really miserable at worst.

On some level, we all already know what our own destiny is. It’s just that sometimes we let fear and the opinions of others cause us to stray so far from our path, we no longer recognize it. I promise you that no matter how far you may have strayed, there is always a way back. In fact, sometimes one tiny, simple decision, event, or encounter can get you right back there. Your life can change on a dime. Know this to be true. Once you believe, you are ready to re-member your path.

Step 1: Your Name

What’s in a name? Everything. Your name is like your brand, especially these days with the omnipresence of social media. If you don’t know the significance of your name, then you don’t know what you stand for. If you hate your name, change it, choose a nickname, or see if there’s a deeper meaning to it that resonates. Do a search on the various meanings of your name—including your middle and last name and any other names you are known by (religious name, family name, Native American name, etc). Focus on the parts that work for you and forget the rest.

Seeing how I broke down the meaning of my name should help you uncover the deeper meaning of your own. My full name is Marc Andrew Oromaner. Marc comes from Mars and means “warlike” or “warrior.” Interestingly, my middle name, Andrew, also means “warrior,” as well as “man.” When pronounced correctly (a rare occurrence), my last name sounds like aura-manner. The manner of an aura is like one’s soul. “Orah” also means “light” in Hebrew and “meyer” means “brightness” or “shines,” so “orah-mayer” is a brightly shining light. In Spanish, “oro” is gold and “manera” means “way.”

So it seems that my full name means either “warrior of the bright light” or “warrior of the golden way.” I interpret this as a choice—an inner battle—to make my life about following material riches or spiritual enrichment. This dual choice also relates to my zodiac sign, which segues nicely into the next step.

Step 2: Your Birthday

Don’t believe in astrology? No matter, it believes in you. I do believe there is a science to astrology, but that’s a topic for another time. For now, let’s just say that the giant planetary masses of energy that encircle our world act kind of like filters that enable certain electromagnetic energies to get through. Those energies that are in alignment at the time we’re born have more influence on us while those that aren’t have less. In this way, everyone is born with different combinations of personalities and challenges depending on where the planets, sun, and moon are when they entered the world. It’s all very calculated and precise, enabling a full range of personalities and qualities to be experienced among different beings, all based on a cyclical, automatic process. Once again, use my personal example as a template for interpreting your birth date.

Born June 16, I’m a Gemini. We’re air signs so we tend to live in the mind and lean towards spiritual interests, yet, we’re also superficial and flighty—hence the contradiction that ties into my twin paths, which focus on the material or the spiritual.

June 16 is also about five days short of the summer solstice—the day when the light (spiritual) completely dominates over darkness (material). Five days short? Almost seems as though I’m meant to initiate some kind of spiritual movement but won’t be able to take it to completion during my lifetime. Perhaps my twin daughters Aliyah and Brienna (both names meaning “rise” or “ascend” in different languages) will carry on my work as they were born March 21—the first day of spring when the light first begins to overtake the darkness. And yes, also interesting to note that as a Gemini I fathered twins.

For the Maya, the birthday was the only step needed to uncover one’s destiny. One of the Mayan calendars known as the Calendar Round combines their circular 260-day Tzolkin calendar with their circular 365-day Haab calendar together as two interlocking gears. Each day (one of the gears) represented a different energy to the Maya. Since the two calendars each had a different number of gears, they would interlock at varying points over time.

The combination of the two gears that connected on the day you were born represented your destiny. So for me, those two gears might have been “spirituality” and “stories” (or “media” in modern terms) since I have a passion for interpreting the hidden spiritual wisdom found in movies and TV shows. For you it might be “teaching” and “music” or “animals” and “medicine” or “eating” and “napping” or whatever it is you have a passion for.

Step 3: Your Parents

Whoever was most influential in raising you whether it be your birth parents, adoptive parents, grandparents, or close family friend (i.e., Robert Kiyosaki’s experience as explained in Rich Dad, Poor Dad) is of utmost importance when it comes to figuring out your destiny. There are no accidents. If you’re meant to be a famous trapeze artist, chances are you won’t be born to an accountant and a stockbroker—unless those careers would turn you off so much that you run off and join the circus.

On the other hand, if your mother is an art teacher and your father a doctor, maybe you’re meant to be an art therapist. Your father is very religious and your mother is a scientist? Perhaps you’re meant to bridge the two philosophies. Your birth parents are hippies and your adoptive parents are bankers and your adoptive dad got divorced and remarried to an attorney and your adoptive mom now has a lesbian relationship with a waitress and your stepbrother is a children’s party clown? I’ll let you figure that one out, but you get the point.

My dad grew up with a lot of money while my mom did not. And yet, based on the stories I heard from my parents growing up, it seemed like my mom had a happier childhood despite incredible challenges. From that lesson I’d decided that money and material possessions did not bring happiness. Since then I’ve come to believe that money has no intrinsic value. It’s a tool that when used correctly can be used to help one reach one’s dreams, and vice-versa. I’ve found that the trick is to not value yourself based on what you have, but rather, what you are. Then your self-worth will not be contingent upon money.

Sometimes, those that raised us are meant to give us positive examples of how to behave, while other times they are meant to teach us what not to do and to learn to forgive. But either way, their influence is obvious. And whether overwhelmingly positive or negative, upon reaching adulthood, we must detach ourselves from the sphere of their influence in order to find our own way. This is a major part of the hero’s journey and shows up in some form in most mythological stories, including Abraham’s story in the Bible.

For me, I feel I was meant to break away from the material aspects of my dad’s financial consulting job while embracing his path as a business owner. I believe I was also meant to have my mother’s social butterfly, real estate agent skills rub off on me while letting go of her desires for me to have a “normal” life (i.e., steady job with benefits and a typical family experience similar to how I’d grown up). Looking at your own parents’ dreams and fears, their occupations, values, friends, and personalities can provide an important clue as to how they were meant to guide you on your journey.

Step 4: Your Surroundings

As I wrote in “Turns Out Life IS Fair,” if you aren’t sure what’s important to you in your life, look around you. Everything you’re surrounded by is what’s important to you. And by important I mean what you give energy to. For me, I value love, friendship, fun, creativity, spirituality and time. Unfortunately, the latter doesn’t jive well with full time jobs, so I don’t get a lot of those. Riches aren’t necessary to have any of those values so I haven’t experienced a lot of that either. But I also tend to avoid a lot of drama, mean people, jealousy, hatred, violence, and all that negative stuff…because I don’t focus on it. I rarely watch the news or dramatic reality shows, I don’t have a need to show off material possessions or brag about my accomplishments, and I tend to feel that the less you need to be happy, the more likely you are to be happy. I also have a lot of clutter in my life, because my brain is kind of cluttered. I’m working on that. But looking at my life, yes, it’s pretty much filled with what I give energy too.

What’s in your life? Wondering why you never have relationships that last? Perhaps it’s because you highly value your independence. Feel like certain people and situations always come your way? How might they connect to something you’ve wanted to do? Have you still held on to old sports trophies, artwork, dance outfits, theater awards, academic achievements, newspaper clippings, or anything that brings back fond memories of days gone by? Is there a way to parlay those old hobbies or skills into what you’re doing now—or could do? As a pseudo-hoarder, I hold onto everything. Then again, I write a blog called “The Layman’s Answers To Everything” so it seems to relate.

Step 5: Examine Your Life In Reverse

Once you have a meaning for your name and birth date, can identify the influence of those who raised you, and can make out a common theme running through your surroundings, you now have the answer to your destiny. What you’re missing though, is the question.

Imagine that you are a god, or better yet, your own soul creating a destiny for yourself before you were born. Envision yourself choosing the name, birth date, parents, and passions that you have, or, envision some random being who has the same. Now, just ask yourself, what might be the intended goal for someone who’s had these various skills, interests, and aspects of their life picked out for them? In other words, what kind of destiny would you have in mind for someone who has all these elements in their life? You have all the pieces, but what does the finished puzzle look like? You need to work backwards. Assuming you’re the one who chose the path for your life, you ought to know.

I believe that you created or at least co-created your life. So nobody can figure out your own destiny better than you. You chose all the players and situations—why did you do that? What were you trying to nudge yourself towards? What fears and obstacles has your life helped you overcome and which have held you back? What could overcoming these fears lead to? Answer these questions and you have your destiny. And once you know it, and focus on it, the universe will conspire in your favor to make it happen. Clues, people, and events will begin to pop up, or you’ll recognize the significance of those that already exist in your life. A pattern will emerge, forming a picture of your path.

It’s a path with all kinds of twists and turns that will introduce you to interesting characters, wise mentors, and evil villains while taking you through dark forests, over challenging terrain, and ultimately, to greener pastures. It’s a lot like The Wizard of Oz with the yellow brick road guiding you towards the Emerald City. There, you eventually learn to see past the illusionary curtain, discovering that everything you’ve ever needed for happiness has been within you all along. The story of our lives is embedded in the film, and that’s why it has resonated with so many people from so many generations.

To make your destiny become a reality, give as much energy as you can to the end result and allow the universe to take care of the details. It probably won’t happen the way you’d expect, so making space for the unknown or initially uncomfortable is important. And when you come to a fork in the road, choose the more challenging path. It’s almost always the correct route. Because the more challenging the journey, the more fulfilled we are when we reach our goal. And yet, the goal itself isn’t the point. The growth we experience getting there is.

May your inner spark grow to light your way,
The Layman

About the Author

Marc Oromaner is the author of The Myth of Lost, which deciphers the hidden wisdom of the hit TV show and explains how we can use this wisdom to overcome challenges and uncover our destiny. His website, The Layman’s Answers To Everything, points out the patterns that run through all great stories including our own. These patterns are clues that are meant to guide us towards a life full of love, light, and fulfillment.

How Long to Nap for the Biggest Brain Benefits

2013-10-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

Taking a nap, we've seen time and again, is like rebooting your brain. But napping may be as much of an art as it is a science. Scientists offer recommendations for planning your perfect nap, including how long to nap and when.
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The sleep experts in the article say a 10-to-20-minute power nap gives you the best "bang for your buck," but depending on what you want the nap to do for you, other durations might be ideal:

For a quick boost of alertness, experts say a 10-to-20-minute power nap is adequate for getting back to work in a pinch.

For cognitive memory processing, however, a 60-minute nap may do more good, Dr. Mednick said. Including slow-wave sleep helps with remembering facts, places and faces. The downside: some grogginess upon waking.

Finally, the 90-minute nap will likely involve a full cycle of sleep, which aids creativity and emotional and procedural memory, such as learning how to ride a bike. Waking up after REM sleep usually means a minimal amount of sleep inertia, Dr. Mednick said.P

In addition to those recommendations, one surprising suggestion is to sit slightly upright during your nap, because it will help you avoid a deep sleep. And if you find yourself dreaming during your power naps, it may be a sign you're sleep deprived. While you're planning your nap, don't forget to time it during the right time of day as well.

Source: LifeHacker.

7 Mind Blowing Facts About Your Body

2013-10-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

The human body is even more impressive and magnificent than you can imagine. While we may sometimes look at it and see how weak and fragile it is, we also need to realize the mind blowing wonders we all hold inside ourselves. When our body works, we do not feel, or even notice it is doing anything special, however, it is. As we go about our daily lives like nothing is happening, the body is working, using power, and healing. Here are 7 mind blowing facts about your body.

1. Your brain operates on the same amount of power as a 10 watt light bulb

The human brain uses about 200 kilocalories per day, which equates to approximately 10 watts of power. For comparison's sake, that's about 10 percent of the power that it takes to run a 100-watt light bulb. So the cartoon image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn't too far off the mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you're sleeping.

2. Every 7 years your body completely replaces itself

25,000,000 of your cells died while you read this sentence. It's okay though, your body made more than 300 billion new ones today.
The cells that make up your body are dying and being replaced all the time. This happens so often that about every 7 years you have a completely new body of cells. While this is true for most cells, such as the cells lining the stomach, some of the most important cells in your body (those of your bones, your brain, and your heart) don't regenerate much at all, so treat them with care.

3. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 250 miles per hour

The speed of nerve impulses varies enormously but the fastest travel at about 250 mph. That's as fast as a Formula 1 racing car! However this demand for speed uses a lot of energy and is found only in neurons that need to transfer information urgently. For example, if you burn your fingers it is important that your brain gets the message to withdraw your hand very quickly.

4. There are more cells in your body than stars in the galaxy

Your entire body is made up of around 75 trillion cells. Each one of your cells is like a small city with thousands of different types of complex molecules interacting with each other to keep you alive and conscious. When you compare this to the 400 billion stars in our galaxy, you can understand just how magical your existence really is. So the next time you are feeling down or insignificant, simply remember, you are made of 75,000,000,000,000 cells, and that's far from “insignificant”!

5. There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in an adult human body

If you took all of the blood vessels out of an average child, and laid them out in one line, the line would be over 60,000 miles long. An adult's vessels would be closer to 100,000 miles long! That means an adult's blood vessels could go around the circumference of the world more than 4 times!

6. The cells in your body react to your thoughts

Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said: “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions”. Your mind is a powerful machine and controls every function of the body. But the good news is you have the power to control your mind. Experiencing positive thoughts leads to more positive thoughts and an even broader view of everything around us. For example, positive thoughts can strengthen your immune system while negative thoughts can bring it down.

7. You are made of stardust

As Carl Sagan used to say, we are made of “star stuff”. It sounds like a line from a poem, but there is some concrete science behind this statement: almost every element on Earth was formed at the heart of a star. The carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our bodies, as well as atoms of all other heavy elements, were created in previous generations of stars over 4.5 billion years ago. So next time you're out gazing at stars twinkling in the night sky, remember, we are all made of star dust, we are all one!

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

Article sources:
academictips.org
sciencemuseum.org.uk
wisegeek.com
divinecaroline.com
fi.edu

Shree Krishna Wallpaper

2013-10-19T03:42:00.001-07:00

Right click on the image and click "save image as" to download image
and click on the image to view all image in sequence

Rare Undersea Discovery Could Extend Your Life by 10, 20 or 30 Years

2013-10-19T03:08:00.003-07:00

Humans have made incredible health strides and are living longer lives than ever. Many of the maladies that struck down our ancestors have for the most part been completely eliminated – everything from tuberculosis, to polio to malaria.

Today, the biggest killers stem as much from our lifestyles as from microscopic bacteria and viruses. One of the worst of these is heart disease, and specifically high blood pressure.
It’s a slow, but efficient killer that robs many people of what should be the last 10, 20 or 30 years of their lives.

Part of the reason that heart disease is so prevalent and intractable is that it often requires massive changes to one’s lifestyle— changes that are not easy to make. Everything from radically altering ones diet to implementing serious exercise routines. And while it’s never too late to start, people often realize the true danger only when it’s too late to make the changes and the damage is done.

Now, however, there may be a scientific breakthrough that could have an impact on high blood pressure comparable to penicillin’s ability treat infections or quinine’s effect on malaria.

Scientists are claiming that they have now isolated unusual ingredients in a rare seaweed discovered by fishermen off the coast of Korea that offer incredible health benefits—including the ability to restore blood pressure to normal levels.

Dr. Haengwoo Lee, a renowned biochemist living near Seattle, Washington conducted a massive 15 year, multimillion dollar clinical study on these two ingredients. The first is Seanol, an extremely rare seaweed extract from Ecklonia Cava that's proven to be 100 times more powerful than any land-based antioxidant. That's because it stays working in your body for 12 hours, compared to land-based antioxidants that work for 30 minutes.

"Its secret is its make-up of special polyphenol antioxidants that are a whopping 40% lipid (fat) soluble," Dr. Lee explains. "Unlike nearly all land-based antioxidants that are water soluble, Seanol's protective compounds can get into things like the fatty tissues of your brain and penetrate all three layers of your cells, including the outside, the oil-based cell membranes, and your DNA."

Indeed, Seanol is so powerful, it's the only FDA-approved Ecklonia Cava marine-algae extract in existence.

The second ingredient is Calamarine, a deep-sea omega-3 discovery that delivers 85% more DHA omega-3s to your heart, brain, joints, and eyes. It's known to combat everything from fatigue and poor memory, to vision problems, joint pain, mood swings and depression.

With that research in mind, Dr. Lee combined Seanol and Calamarine with a high dose of vitamin D to form Marine-D3, the newest supplement in the fight against age-related illnesses and high blood pressure.

According to the CDC, about 1 in 3 U.S. adults has high blood pressure, which increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, the two leading causes of death in the United States. Increasing your omega-3 intake can reduce high blood pressure, and because it's difficult to get enough omega-3s in foods like fish and nuts, many people turn to supplements.

Dr. Lee found that Calamarine delivers some of the greatest concentration of omega-3s known to science, and has been able to formulate it without any fishy burps or aftertaste. Combined with Seanol's ability to reduce body inflammation, as well as help cells get the nutrients they need to thrive, stay healthy and protected, Marine-D3 is able to boost a body's entire well being.

The makers of Marine-D3 are so confident that you'll see fast dramatic results from this product, that if you aren't happy after two full months, simply return the unused portion and they'll buy it back. They'll even give you ten dollars extra just for giving it an honest try! That kind of faith, combined with Dr. Lee's exhaustive research, shows that Marine-D3 really is a one-of-a-kind product.