A Spectator Unto Yourself

To achieve an authentic sense of being requires a deep desire to get at the truth. It requires that you be open to the unknown and willing to dispense with all of the knowledge, beliefs, ideals, character traits, etc. that you have accumulated over the course of your life.

Ideally, all sense of self – your deep-rooted need to survive, your insatiable need to conceptualize and react to all outside stimuli, to weigh the pros and cons, to compare, compromise, judge, etc. – all must be eliminated. This is not an easy task. Most of us will never achieve a total disposition and removal of self.

Our entire evolution, our entire experience up to this moment in time has revolved around our sense of self and need to survive. Any effort to dispel this self will be met with immediate and swift reaction from that which you are trying to dispel. You see, the self needs to survive. Any effort to eliminate it is viewed as an effort to kill off the person the self belongs to. The self needs to survive as much as your physical body does.

Where does this leave us? Certainly a bit confused. If we can’t eliminate the self, which is the main cause of all of our struggle, pain and suffering, then what is the purpose of all this intellectual discussion?

The purpose is to develop a deep understanding of the role that the self and the need to survive play in our human psyche and consciousness. With this understanding comes great wisdom and intelligence and leads to the ability to grasp the very reasons that you act and react. This is called mental clarity. Soon you realize that others act and react for the same reasons as you do. The importance of this knowledge is beyond words.

Now you gain the ability to move beyond what most people view as ordinary existence and consciousness. Now you are starting to get it. You are attaining mental clarity and awareness. You are becoming a contemplative human being.

You begin to ask very serious questions like, “Who am I?” or “What is the meaning of life?” or “What is my true nature and being?” You become a seeker of the truth. Not a follower of those who came before you but a leader in the true meaning of life. An explorer into the most relevant issues we are faced with, but which so many choose to ignore.

You may ask, “Why bother with all of this? I’m perfectly happy the way I am.” I say to this, “If you are perfectly happy living in a state of ignorance, then more power to you. Then there is absolutely no reason to look any further. You have already found your paradise.”

However, if, like most of us, you are not perfectly happy with your current state of being and you know there must be more to life, then the way is clear. It is necessary to search for the answers to your most deep-rooted questions. Only when you find the truth will you find true freedom to live.

There is some more good news. You don’t have to eliminate the self and the need to survive entirely to make major progress. In fact each time you become aware of even a facet of the self survival disposition you make progress. For with this awareness comes and mental clarity comes the ability to eliminate that small part of you that is interfering with you experiencing that which you seek: a truly authentic state of being. Most would agree that a life spent trying to achieve an authentic state of being even in the absence of the total elimination of the self and conceptual survival needs is a life well spent indeed.

Instead of completely eliminating the self, what if it were possible to live with it in glorious harmony, fully aware of its shortcomings and moving ever closer to an authentic state of being and consciousness? What if it were possible to watch your life unfold from the perspective of an individual in the audience watching – not judging or criticizing or reacting – just watching the play of life as it unfolds? Watching your own life as it unfolds. Accepting all that happens and knowing that everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. Your life is as it is.

To Self Awareness, Abundance and Excellent Health

Namaste,

Tony D’Agostino, Founder of YogaAwakening

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Related posts:

1. Loneliness
2. Mental Clarity!

In Honor of My Good Friend Ronnie

When it rains, it pours.

Just two weeks ago at my father-in-law’s funeral service I was speaking with my good friend Ronnie. He looked fine and was in great spirits.

Ronnie had heard about our loss through a mutual friend and telephoned us immediately. One of the first things he said to me was, “How can I help?”

That was Ronnie, always wondering what he could do to help others out.

Ronnie was one of my first really good childhood friends. We did a lot together and had some great experiences. The kind of experiences that can never be fully understood except by those who you share them with.

You know there’s something magical about childhood friendships. Maybe it’s the innocence, the fresh perspective or the freedom of youth. I’m not sure, but I can say with certainty that these relationships are very special and will last forever.

To my recollection Ronnie never had a bad thing to say about anyone. Regarding me, he always did whatever he could to support and stand by me, even in difficult times.

Ron was a solid family man. I have met his son and daughter, both college age and can attest that both he and his lovely wife did an excellent job raising them. They are both very well-rounded and likable kids.

Ron was also about the hardest worker that I’ve ever met. He owned several successful businesses and was very passionate about all of them. He devoted himself completely to their actualization and success.

Although over the years we had lost touch with each other, my good friend was never very far from my thoughts. You see, we live over a thousand miles away from each other. Yet in spite of this great distance, we had recently begun to reignite our friendship. The kids are all grown up now, and we were looking forward to and excited about the future and getting to spend more time together.

Unfortunately, the future can never be accurately predicted.

Ronnie became very ill on a Sunday night and had a massive heart attack and died that Monday morning.

To my good friend Ron, rest in peace.

I’ll miss you deeply and if possible will see you again someday.

But I hope not too soon. So please be patient.

In the meantime you will always be in my thoughts and I will always consider you to be my good friend.

To good friends,
Tony D’Agostino

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1. In Honor of Grandpa Louie

In Honor of Grandpa Louie

Death is a part of life that most of us ignore and tuck away neatly in the farthest recesses of our minds. We fear death and choose to hide from the fact that what happens after we die represents but one of the many vast unknown truths that have yet to be revealed to us. I suggest we spend less time on fear of death and the unknown and more time celebrating the accomplishments of those great men and women whose footsteps we choose to follow.

The measure of a man is not the amount of wealth or power he aspires to, but instead the amount of dignity he possessses and the amount of love he shares with others while he lives. Case in point: my father-in-law, Grandpa Louie. He was one of those men who spoke few words but whose words carried significant meaning. The people whose lives he touched all share a very beautiful memory…that Grandpa Louie was a very kind and gentle man who possessed a heart of gold.

At the funeral service my daughter Dianna spoke the following heartfelt words about her Grandpa Louie that I wish to share with you today:

Grandpa Louie spent his life striving to be a wonderful husband, father and grandfather. He succeeded.

Growing up I have heard many stories about his life. I was told that he sailed from Italy to live in America. He was a veteran in the Korean war. He was a dedicated and hard-working butcher. But to me, these stories didn’t explain who he was. To me, he was always Grandpa. Since as far back as I can remember, he was the man who would drive for days to come see his grandchildren.

The man who would be waiting at the kitchen table at 6AM for me and my sisters to wake up and give him big kisses good morning. The man who lit up upon hearing his 3-year-old grandaughter say, “Imagine grandpa, I very much love you.” He was the man with a sweet tooth who was content just sitting quietly and enjoying the company of those he cared for. The man who loved his family in an unconditional way that is hard to find in the world today.

And, although he is no longer here in person, I can’t help but think of how much he is still with us. I hear him every time my Uncle Vin laughs. I feel him every time my Aunt Teri sits next to me just to be close. I see him every time my mother watches lovingly over me and my sisters. Most of all, I know that my Grandma Anne still carries him closely every day in her heart, as do we all.

These past couple of days I have learned a lot about my Grandpa Louie.  Grandma Anne told me a story in particular at the funeral home which I would like to share. She said that Grandpa would always tell her, ‘Thank God for your mom and dad. Thank God.’ And she would ask him, ‘Why?’ He would look back at her and say, ‘Because they made you.’ I thought about how sweet and heartfelt this story was for a while and then looked up and glanced around the room. What I saw was no longer his nieces, cousins and friends. What I saw was a room filled with people whose lives he had touched. A room filled with people who were thankful for his mom and dad having made him.

Imagine Grandpa, we very much love you.

To Unknown Truths, Abundance, and Excellent Health,

Namaste,

Tony D’Agostino

Founder and CEO of YogaAwakening

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Positive Mental Attitude!

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company …a church …a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude …I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you …we are in charge of our attitudes.”

~ Charles Swindoll

The above quote eloquently describes the importance that having a positive mental attitude has in our lives. This may be the single most important self-improvement technique that we can use to improve our lives.

What is an Attitude?

An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual’s degree of like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event– this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive attitudes and negative attitudes toward the item in question.

Negative attitudes can be useful in times of perceived threat, but note I use the word perceived. This word automatically implies a high level of subjectivity that is influenced by a person’s beliefs, culture, and other long-standing ideas and concepts. So in actuality, the perception of a threat may not be truthful and is most likely formed by conceptual modalities that in fact tend to only cloud our ability to truthfully perceive reality.

So then were does this leave us? One must admit that having or maintaining negative attitudes about a person, place, thing or event may serve no purpose other than to perpetuate an inaccurate concept created by an outdated and often misleading and incorrect set of beliefs.

So I say let’s forget about negative attitudes all together. They serve no real purpose and only make us and the others around us feel uncomfortable, emotionally challenged and tend to lead to negative responses and actions.

Instead, let’s focus on creating positive attitudes in life that are likely to lead to positive responses and actions. These positive mental attitudes may in fact be no more valid than their negative counterparts for the reasons discussed above, because they are based in concept. But positive attitudes do possess something that their negative counterparts do not: the potential to generate positive emotional states and responses both in our selves and in the others around us. Positive attitudes are contagious.

This alone is worth the price of admission.

So I suggest that every morning and evening as part of your normal meditation practice you try focusing on those things that you are truly grateful for. This in turn will lead to a positive mental attitude. I call this technique ‘generating an attitude of gratitude.’ It may very well be the most important thing that you can do to improve your life.

In The Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection we dedicate an entire section towards developing a positive mental attitude. The steps of this process are as follows:

• Enter a deep meditative state – It is well documented that the mind is much more receptive when in a state of deep meditation.
• Repeat several positive affirmations – These positive attitude-generating statements must be relevant to your life and very personal to your own life experience.
• Allow yourself to feel emotionally connected – In time you will come to understand what it means to have a positive mental attitude. Emotional stimulation serves to enhance the process and allows the mind to solidify and bond the positive attitude you’re trying to achieve at both your conscious and subconscious levels.

That’s it. Start every day with a positive mental attitude and I guarantee that everything in your life will change for the better.

To a Positive Mental Attitude, Abundance and Excellent Health,

Namaste

Tony D’Agostino, Founder of YogaAwakening

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Yoga and Meditation Techniques

The most important thing that I can share with you about yoga and meditation is that it’s a personal journey of self-exploration. It’s the ultimate personal experiment into the exploration of the psyche that is performed solely in the recesses of your own mind and body.

You will find inspiration from experienced yoga meditation instructors and treasured information that those great early meditation explorers have provided. But in the end this practice is all about you and is quite unique and personal.

Of course, in the beginning you will need a lot of guidance and structure to develop the basic skills needed to sit quietly. These basic yoga meditation techniques will help you attain the discipline needed to meditate regularly and effectively and to find comfort, quiet the mind and achieve razor sharp focus and attention.

As you progress you will catch your mind wandering and wavering, then you will gently return to your breath and focus. In time you will catch the wave of meditation. A new energy will flow effortlessly through your body and mind as you begin to experience quiet periods even during the day when you’re not actively meditating. Miraculously, a sense of peace and contentment spreads throughout your entire life that few ever get to experience.

You come to realize how natural it is to meditate. You realize that meditation is a natural state and that the act of living is in total harmony with the act of meditation. You achieve emotional stability even when faced with uncomfortable and stressful situations. Your creative juices soar and insight and intuition will become welcome companions. The very act of meditating energizes your entire day and somehow makes it a little sweeter, calmer and more enjoyable.

As this process unfolds, subtle questions arise. You actively contemplate actions and reactions, causes and effects, motivations towards pleasure and away from pain, instinctual survival behavior, and deep-rooted issues of the self. At this stage of the process, insight, intuition and creativity lead a natural path towards wisdom. No longer a reactive being, you now possess the skills and powers necessary to leap beyond anything you ever imagined possible.

But we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. So let’s take a step back and look at what’s needed to achieve a proficient yoga meditation practice.

• Balancing polarities – focus versus letting go, structure versus freedom, strength versus flexibility
• Good sitting posture – the ability to get comfortable and keep your spine erect
• Concentration – the act of Dharana, as defined in the Yoga Sutras
• Awareness – of the breath, the mind, body and spirit
• Self inquiry
• Openness
• Honesty and the desire to find the truth – ultimately, to find personal freedom from the prison walls that hold you captive.

We begin our meditation practice with 10 minutes and begin to add a few more minutes each day. Never force the process and always move within your own personal zone of comfort. A practice of 20 minutes two times a day establishes a good core practice. To reach the deepest meditative states, you may eventually prefer to practice for 50 minutes to an hour at a time.

To develop a core practice takes some time and patience but will prove well worth the effort. The rewards are numerous and include a deeper sense of emotional stability, enhanced mental clarity and intuition, increased confidence, increased energy and awareness, and improved memory, concentration and focus.

You will learn over 20 core yoga and meditation techniques in The Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection, all designed to give you the tools necessary to develop a solid core yoga and meditation practice.

Most core practices fall into 6 basic categories:

• Mindfulness
• Mantra
• Inner Body
• Breathe Awareness
• Visualization
• Self Inquiry

The Yoga Awakening Meditation Program provides guided meditation techniques and training in each of these 6 different categories. You will work with each of these basic training categories over a period of time and are encouraged to fully understand and explore each of the methods presented before moving on. In this way, each yoga and meditation technique becomes very comfortable and personal. You will get a clear sense of how each basic category and specific technique impacts and affects you and which works best.

Following are some basic assumptions to use in developing your core yoga and meditation practice:

First, your core yoga and meditation practice should feel pleasurable and enjoyable to you. This is the only way to maintain your practice over time. If it’s not enjoyable, you won’t want to do it.

Second, your practice should feel natural. If you are not a visually-oriented person, a core practice based on visualization is not well suited for you. The Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection guides you towards those techniques that work best and are most intuitively geared towards your own individual innate characteristics, traits and natural skill set.

Third, your core practice should quiet the mind so that you may turn inward towards your source and recognize your true inner being. The Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection uses guided meditation techniques to effectively help you achieve a deep sense of mental clarity, awareness and calm. You are literally guided to a place of extremely deep meditation. In this way you become intimate with the feeling and in time can return to this place of total peace and tranquility again and again and again.

So that’s how the process works. You develop a core yoga meditation practice with the help of The Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection.  From there, the sky’s the limit. Once your core practice is in place your meditation practice will expand beyond anything that can be conveyed with mere words. You will become a self-explorer and through personal experience and self realization, will ride the wave of meditation to a new state of comprehension and consciousness that’s truly amazing.

To Yoga and Meditation Techniques, Abundance and Excellent Health,

Namaste

Tony D’Agostino, Founder of YogaAwakening

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2. Why Choose Yoga Meditation?
3. Yoga & Meditation: Why Meditate?

Loneliness

To feel loneliness one needs to understand and embrace the concept of self. What’s in it for me? How will this affect me? How will I feel by myself? Will I feel better with others around? Why do I feel so lonely when I’m by myself? To fully understand the concept of self one needs to enhance mental clarity.

You see, without a self image or self-conscious awareness there would be no loneliness. We create a myriad of characteristics and traits to project our self image outwards for all to see. We create a self that we believe will be perceived by others in a positive way and that will allow us to be accepted by others. We want to fit in socially and be accepted.

Through it all we lose sight of our true selves. Our true essence of being, who we really are, is lost and covered up by layers of abstract and conceptual thoughts. We become so used to projecting, protecting and promoting our false self that we lose any sense of who we really are.

The thought of being without the other frightens us. We have great difficulty being alone because we aren’t quite sure who we are. There’s an overall sense of inauthenticity. We project ourselves in a certain way to allow our self image to perpetuate and be socially accepted. But we have lost a sense of who we are and we are frightened by that.

We become attached to our false self, to the memories and experiences that we have created over a very long period of time. All of these memories and experiences are absorbed into our consciousness. They in fact become our consciousness. That which we know, the knowledge of our past becomes our conscious self.

What are we to do? Now being alone is frightening. We are left alone with only this false self we have created. There is a sense that we are not genuine, an overall sense that something is missing from our lives. We are alone and feel alienated and cut-off, we have a sense that we are in some way not whole. So being alone with our false self is frightening.

We look to others for a sense of well-being and security because we cannot find these things within ourselves. We are in fact quite empty and void of any true perception and experience. Our entire existence is a lie, an act, created in an effort to project an acceptable self to be approved by others. Every action we take, every feeling and emotion we have is generated by this false self image we have created.

We are so used to this false self that it has become our reality. We don’t even recognize it as being false. We accept the falseness as being real. We live in a state of delusion and falsehood. The only way to become aware of all of this is to enhance mental clarity and focus.

The distinctions are very subtle. Only our sense of inauthenticity and lack of genuine action and emotions reveal to us that something is not right. Yet we are unable to put our finger on the problem. We can’t recognize as a problem that which has become so real to us. Mental clarity is void and must be enhanced to reveal the problem to us.

When we encounter a person that we perceive as being interesting we feel threatened and become uneasy. We hide these feelings and pretend that they don’t exist. When we encounter someone we perceive as being a phony, we come to dislike them and push them away. We rationalize that because of their phoniness they aren’t worth our time, attention or effort. These people have struck a cord with us and have generated incongruent emotions that are in reality the result of our own uneasiness with our own false self.

If we can’t even be at ease, genuine and authentic in dealing with others in social situations, how can we hope to be at ease and comfortable with ourselves when we are alone?

To eliminate fear and loneliness from our lives it is necessary to become unattached to the concept of self and to live in the world with true enhanced mental clarity and to perceive the truth in everything we do. In this way the need for self will melt away. As this false self falls away, experiences become more real and meaningful and you can begin to create lasting memories from your true self. You will never be lonely again.

Meditation is a time-proven way to improve mental functioning, develop mental clarity, increase confidence, achieve natural stress relief, develop intuition, improve memory, concentration and focus and to understand the conceptual self. Make it one of your daily activities and highest priorities. I assure you that once you do, you will never stop. This program will dramatically enhance your life for the better.

To Enhanced Mental Clarity, Abundance, and Excellent Health,

Namaste
Tony D’Agostino

Founder and CEO of YogaAwakening

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Conceptual Self

We all want authentic life experiences. We want to exist within our natural state of being without all of the fluff and pretense that usually circumvents authentic and true life experiences.

Discussion thus far has led to the conclusion that for a myriad of reasons, the self, our representation of our self to the world and to our selves, prevents authentic life experiences. Inundated with survival needs, we create a conceptual self image that we believe is authentic and attempt to convince the world of that authenticity.

We navigate the social scene perpetuating this conceptual self along the way. We are social animals after all and our social concerns take up a tremendous amount of our time and energy. We pretend, defend, compare, justify, judge, intimidate, imitate, satisfy, clarify, and fortify our relationships.

The mere existence of another human creates the need for social interplay. Within the context of our conceptual self we generate feelings like jealousy, judgment, comparison, manipulation, fear, anger, sexuality, desire. Without a conceptual self there would be no need for ideas like self-esteem, value, attachment, individuality, beauty, competition, envy, deceit, or honesty. Nor would we experience emotions like hurt feelings, empathy, loneliness, love, caring, compassion, respect, embarrassment, pride, hate, and shame.

We instinctually know how to breathe and use our basic senses. The rest we get from our family and culture. We learn how to walk, talk, laugh, cry, eat and even brush our teeth from observing others.

Life would indeed be quite simple if all we were concerned about was meeting our basic needs. Putting a roof over our head and eating an ample amount of food and drink to sustain our existence and sleeping when necessary.

But we are conceptual beings and as such want much more than this. We have aspirations for the future, dreams to be something more than what we currently are. We have children to perpetuate our existence and want the best for them. We add on many layers of complexity and intricacy to even the most basic and fundamental needs, such as eating. We have the south beach diet, weight watchers, high protein, low protein, high carbohydrate, low carbohydrate diets, and of course the latest craze, all-natural health foods.

The cars we drive, the homes we live in, and the jobs we aspire to all carry significant meaning to us. As we consider these issues, all manner of good and bad are interacting, garnering multiple layers of reaction and attention on an unconscious and conscious level.

These meanings create strong emotions like embarrassment and pride. We worry about paying the bills, create budgets and plan for our future prospects. We work to create new and improved possibilities for the future. All the while being hopeful, regretful, indignant, greedy, selfish, embarrassed, proud and much more. All of this activity is conceptual in nature.

So much of our effort goes towards physical self survival that we can easily convince ourselves that these actions are meaningful. I refer to all of the scheming, planning, positioning, wishing, and reacting that takes place on a conceptual level. These are not meaningful actions. Instead they just get in the way of meaningful action.

To put a piece of food in your mouth requires only the intent to act and an action. Thinking about it, scheming, calculating calories, worrying about it, these are all conceptual activities, add-ons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual act of eating. This is all of the fluff and pretense of our conceptual self existence. The physical act of putting food in your mouth requires a bare minimal of conscious thought. In fact this act alone would probably go unnoticed, without thinking, if not for all of the fluff we add to it.

Since we are conceptual beings it follows that most of our activity and effort occurs within the conceptual realm. On a daily basis we may interact with family members, praise a loved one, criticize a co-worker, help a friend, justify our existence or watch television. These are not activities that would commonly be considered as self survival but yet they serve the purpose of self persistence in our daily lives. As such they are helping us to survive on a social level.

Meditation is a time-proven way to improve mental functioning, develop mental clarity, increase confidence, achieve natural stress relief, develop intuition, improve memory, concentration and focus and to understand the conceptual self. Make it one of your daily activities and highest priorities. I assure you that once you do it, you will never stop. This program will dramatically enhance your life for the better.

To Conceptual Self Understanding, Abundance, and Excellent Health,

Namaste
Tony D’Agostino

Founder and CEO of YogaAwakening

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1. Loneliness
2. Meditation Techniques: The Survival Instinct!
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The Law of Karma (Cause and Effect)

The Law of karma states that for every action you take in life there is an energy that returns to you in kind. The premise is that you sow what you reap. If you consciously choose appropriate actions of kindness and compassion towards others, those same actions will be returned to you in kind. The opposite also applies. If your actions are without consideration for others or the environment, etc. then negative forces will permeate and perpetuate throughout your own existence and experience.

One interpretation of the Law of Karma is that we are caught in an endless cycle of reactivity, in effect imprisoned by our own choices as we react poorly and make unacceptable decisions in life.

However I believe a more accurate view is that we are faced with an infinite number of choices in life. Most of those choices are made on the unconscious level in response to deep rooted survival instincts. And that the best way to take advantage of the Law of Karma is to consciously become aware of the choices that we make in each moment as they occur.

Whether you like it or not everything that is happening to you in this present moment is the result of choices and actions that you’ve made in the past. When you choose unconsciously, it is wise to take a closer look at that decision. Be witness to the decisions that you make and in that moment of awareness that choice will move from the unconscious to the conscious realm.

In every moment there are countless choices, decisions and actions to be taken. Make your choices wisely. When you make that one correct choice it will nourish you and everyone else around you. Make those choices that bring happiness and joy to both your self and others and the Law of Karma will reward you.

We are all held captive by our instinctual need to survive. When faced with the impulse to survive, our choices tend to be self-serving and without concern for others. They lack compassion and are void of any real substance other than the fulfillment of self-serving need and desires. They lack any cosmic energy towards the greater good of humanity. Unchecked, our survival instinct causes the Law of Karma to bring us only difficulty, pain and suffering.

Every single thing that you do on the unconscious level comes from a place of survival and instinctual needs. Consider this very carefully. If you are totally honest with yourself you will see the truth in it. As such, your actions are purely reactive in nature. You are faced with some perceived threat, and in a millisecond countless interpretations are made based on your past experiences and memories in order to determine the safety or threat to your personal well being.

In this tiny time frame we access our past memories and compare, assess, judge, and prioritize our perceptions and make interpretations that lead to our actions. Consequently our actions are based purely in the past. And our past actions are what got us to this particular moment in time in the first place.

So we react to others and our environment based upon the past, upon perceptions that may or may not be accurate. These memories of past experiences are faded and tarnished by time. They may not have even been perceived accurately in the first place.

Remember that all of our perceptions are made as they relate to us. This is dictated by the survival instinct. Consequently our own perceptions tend to be very self-serving and lopsided. Other views are surely more accurate than our own self-serving views. Our perceptions are not made objectively.

So we tend to react to our environment and the actions of others based upon our clouded views of the world. We perceive a threat or some pleasurable circumstance and we react. This is what is meant by being imprisoned in a state of reactivity under the Law of Karma.

This reactive state can be broken by making conscious choices with awareness. By taking a moment to step back to see things objectively and not reacting impulsively from the perspective of the self. By seeing things for themselves as they truly are. Then the cycle of reactivity can be permanently broken and the Law of Karma can finally begin to work in your favor.

On a personal note: Thousands of you read these articles on a regular basis. If you have not yet ordered the Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection, I urge you to give it a try. You will learn so much more about mind, body, and spiritual synthesis than you can from simply reading the articles. These articles only lightly touch on various subjects of interest like the Law of Karma. The details, the why’s and how to’s, are all found in the actual program.

So please don’t deprive yourself. If you are interested enough to read the articles I know that you will benefit greatly from the program itself. So do your self a favor and head over to our main page now to order this amazing program:

http://www.yogaawakening.com/regain-mastery-of-your-mind

You are literally only moments away from transforming your entire life.

The best part is that you have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. That’s my personal guarantee to you. If you decide for any reason the program is not right for you, just let me know and I’ll refund your money within 24 hours. No questions asked.

Meditation is a time-proven way to improve mental functioning, develop mental clarity, increase confidence, achieve natural stress relief, develop intuition, improve memory, concentration and focus and get the Law of Karma on your side. Make it one of your daily activities and highest priorities. I assure you that once you do it, you will never stop. This program will dramatically enhance your life for the better.

To The Law of Karma, Abundance, and Excellent Health,

Namaste

Tony D’Agostino

Founder and CEO of YogaAwakening

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Related posts:

1. Meditation Techniques: The Survival Instinct!

Improve Mental Functioning As You Age!

Most of us believe that once we reach mid-life it’s all downhill from there. What’s worse is that the statistics do seem to confirm this. In fact two thirds of us experience some form of mental decline after the age of 40 primarily due to physiological changes like thinning neuron and synaptic connections. In fact, 1 in 8 of us that are age 65 and older will develop Alzheimer’s disease.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Your brain is not destined to decline and break down with age. There are certain pre-emptive steps that you can take to avoid this bleak scenario. Improved mental clarity, memory concentration and focus are all possible if you start to pay attention and take the right steps now.

The predominant view is that at a certain age our brains mature and the number of brain cells remains fixed thereafter. Michael Merzenich, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, and pioneer of the concept of neuroplasticity, says, “We now understand that the brain is continuously rewiring itself based on our experiences.”

“Not only can you form new wiring among existing brain cells, you also can grow new ones,” says neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, author of The Better Brain Book. “We were always told you were given a finite number of brain cells and that it was a downhill slide as you aged. But, in fact, the human brain retains the ability to grow new brain cells throughout your lifetime”

There are several important steps that you can follow to dramatically enhance your mental functioning and attain increased mental clarity and focus as you age.

• Regularly challenge your brain. Doing crossword puzzles are fine but after doing thousands of them you can expect only limited future benefits. Instead find some mental activity that you find challenging and interesting. For instance learn a new language or try playing an instrument. Your mind craves new and novel approaches to learning, so provide them. The very reading of these articles will challenge your mind and help attain improved memory and concentration.
• Challenge yourself physically. Aerobic exercise has been proven to improve brain functioning and improve synaptic activity. This is probably due to the improved oxygen intake to the brain resulting from improved cardiovascular physiology. Work out 50 to 60 minutes 3 to 4 times a week. You will immediately achieve natural stress relief, increased confidence, and enhanced mental clarity.
• Watch your diet. Specifically, increase your intake of colorful fruits and vegetables. The anti-oxidants contained in these foods have been proven to fend off free radicals in the brain and decrease inflammation, which has been shown to increase dementia.
• DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). This Omega 3 fatty acid is common in oily fish, algae and human breast milk. It may be the best brain nutrient available to improve mental health.
• Meditate. People who meditate have significantly lower levels of stress and anxiety than non meditators. Stress and anxiety have been tied to memory problems. A 2009 study by neuroscientists at the UCLA School of Medicine used MRIs to examine the brains of 22 long-term meditators and 22 people who did not meditate. The meditators showed significantly higher levels of gray matter in the right orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. This is the brain’s memory center. Meditation is a surefire way to improve memory concentration and focus. With practice, meditation will even help you to develop intuition and advanced cognitive abilities well beyond your current levels of comprehension.
• Make sleep a priority. Get at least 8 hours a day. Sleep helps to consolidate and store your daily memories and experiences. Without the correct amount of rest, your mind will be unable to retrieve valuable information when it’s needed. Getting enough rest will immediately increase energy, improve memory concentration and focus, and provide a deep level of mental clarity.

On a personal note: Thousands of you read these articles on a regular basis but have not yet ordered the Yoga Awakening Meditation Collection. I urge you to give it a try. You will learn so much more about mind, body, and spiritual synthesis. These articles only lightly touch on various subjects of interest. The details, the why’s and how to’s, are all found in the actual program.

Please don’t deprive yourself. If you are interested enough to read these articles I know that you will benefit dramatically from the program itself. So do your self a favor, head over to our main page now and order this amazing program. You are only moments away from transforming your entire life.

The best part is you have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. That’s my personal guarantee to you. If you decide for any reason the program is not right for you, just let me know and I’ll refund your money within 24 hours. No question asked.

Meditation is a time-proven way to improve mental functioning, develop mental clarity, increase confidence, achieve natural stress relief, develop intuition, and improve memory concentration and focus. Make it one of your daily activities and highest priorities. I assure you that once you do it, you will never stop. This program will dramatically enhance your life for the better.

To Improved Mental Clarity, Abundance, and Excellent Health,

Namaste,

Tony D’Agostino

Founder and CEO of Yoga Awakening

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1. Improve Memory, Concentration and Focus!
2. Yoga Citta Vritti Nirodhah
3. Improve Confidence!

Yoga Awakening

Most of us have been bound and crippled by our past, by our education process and by our traditions and beliefs, to think in limiting ways. If you choose to keep these mental boundaries intact, be aware that your ability to think will also be limited to these constraining boundaries. You will never be able to expand your consciousness beyond these limitations and boundaries. Effectively you have imprisoned your consciousness behind a wall of ignorance.

First: Become aware of your mind. Its needs, wants and desires. With this awareness comes the ability to capture even your swiftest thoughts in the moment they occur. In this awareness will come a new awakening of consciousness and intelligence that you have never experienced before, and an awakening of mental clarity. This is the transformation from with in as dictated by a Yoga Awakening.

Second: Find out why you are thinking the way you do. Find out why you feel certain things and have certain emotions and feelings. Don’t try to alter or analyze these thoughts and emotions. Just accept them. Understand them. Through understanding there will come a new mental clarity and intensity to your life.

Third: Find out what motivates you. What are your likes and dislikes? What brings you happiness, joy and satisfaction? What brings you pain, suffering and displeasure?

You will find these motives through analysis. But this is only a preliminary step, not the solution. Total comprehension still cannot be real or complete. You still cannot achieve total understanding. It will be real only when there is an intense awareness, in the moment these actions and feelings occur. Then you will see their relevance, extraordinary subtlety, and their fine delicacy.

Forth: You must forego the dualities you create in life. The “I must” or “I must not.” The “I must have this” or “I must not have this.” “I want to achieve this” or “I want to change this.” In this compulsion you will never be totally observant of the swift wandering and perversion of thought.

The more you learn about yourself, the clearer you will see things.

Your quest for self knowledge is endless and will eventually lead to self awareness and wisdom.

As your journey continues you will become at peace and your mind will become calm and tranquil.

It is through this journey for awareness that true mental clarity takes place and that true happiness can be found.

A real transformation must start from within.

With this transformation the true seeing of reality will begin. This encompasses the meaning of Yoga Awakening.

Fifth: Focus all of your energy and attention on your problems and find resolutions. Accept what is and either choose to stay with it (not change and accept the status quo), or to change it.

But the key is that you look at it closely and understand it. Most people don’t even take this first step. As a consequence they find themselves truly lost. They are tossed aimlessly without purpose or intention by their own circumstances and life’s random challenges.

Sixth: Take charge. Take control of your life now, and deal with the inevitable conflicts as they arise. Face your existence and accept yourself and life for what it truly is. Don’t shade it with your opinions, prejudice, comparison, and beliefs. Then decide with eyes wide open, if this is the life that you truly want or if you need to change it.

Seventh: Look at your reality. See the true you and be totally honest with yourself. Is this true happiness or just what you envision that you need and want? Is there more for you? Then decide what to do and live……………….

To Mental Clarity, Abundance and Excellent Health,

Namaste,

Tony D’Agostino Founder and CEO of Yoga Awakening

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1. Mental Clarity!
2. Yoga and Meditation: Understanding and Self Awareness
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