The Most Unknown takes you through an experience that applies the scientific method to existential questions such as consciousness, life on other planets, and unsolved mysteries in physics. The documentary explores the endeavors of nine scientist, who share the goals and findings of their respective fields of study to one and other within the group. Reminiscent of a marathon, where a torch is passed from one person to the next, each scientist transfers their curiosity of their area of study from researcher to researcher. They mutually learning from the differences and similarities within their respective fields of study.

This documentary demonstrates the collaborative and also codependent nature of science. The nine branches of science in this film share an almost symbiotic relationship in the quest for existential truth. It seems to be that perhaps many scientific challenges require a collaborative effort to work with other scientific fields of study to understand common issues and curiosities. Among their common languages is mathematics, applied relatively to each discipline, the uniqueness of each endeavor is as complex as the universe itself. The dynamics of the natural world require multiple disciplines of study that co-create our understanding of it. The continuity of this documentary is mathematics, and its scientific process to which all the scientist utilize to follow along and keep up with what they were being taught.

You’ll get a glimpse into the day and the life of a researcher, not only observing their work process, but understanding the human needs that make them do what they do. Understanding the person who is conducting the science gives us a glimpse into the motives and drives that play a part in navigating the experiment.

The captivating element of this documentary is that it showed the viewer how advanced a society can be when all the vital branches of science are working together to better understand the limiting problems of the present day. Knowledge is pursued with the same curiosity and vision as a philosopher or spiritualist, armed with objective empirical data to validate the hypotheses.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because break throughs in each of these disciplines ultimately effect everyone in the long run. It gives us more control over the variables that effect our day to day lives, more control over what effects our existence. With that comes greater efficiency and more doors of possibilities in our symbiotic relationship with the natural world.

The documentary is enjoyable for anyone, even if you don’t have a scientific background. Although the documentary was discussing complex topics, the film was not difficult to understand. Any young person wanting to get into a scientific discipline would find this film useful, as it serves a purpose in inspiring the viewer to get involved in science.

The Most Unknown was produced by Ian Cheney, an Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He grew up in New England and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University. 

About the Author: Ascension Lifestyle Staff Writer John Azu

How To Make Your Home Environmentally Friendly

Sustainable homes have been on the rise in the recent years and it’s quite understandable. A growing number of people want to have their share of responsibility in fighting this problem, opting for making their homes environmentally friendly. Another contributing factor to going green in your home is also the opportunity to save money, as an eco-friendly home is also an energy-efficient home.

Here’s how you can make your home environmentally friendly and reduce your ecological footprint but also give it a stylish touch.

Choose your wood furniture wisely

The best option would be to try to find vintage pieces instead of buying new ones – a dash of spray paint will turn the piece into an astonishing decorative item. Another environmentally friendly option is to look for reclaimed wood, namely, wood that has been reused from previous construction. It will also add to the warm industrial look in case you prefer it.

On the other hand, if you really want to buy new wooden furniture pieces, then opt for certified sustainably harvested furniture. Also, try to buy local products – that way, you will reduce your ecological footprint but also support local craftsmen.

Mindful minimalism

Getting rid of the clutter in your home automatically means you will be more attentive to the things you buy. Minimalism is a way of life – be honest with yourself: do you really need all those things in your home? Separate the things that you haven’t used in months and do the following with them: donate them, give them away or recycle them.

The next step is to, every time you want to buy something, stop and think: Do I really need this item or I just want to buy it? It is necessary or it’s just an emotional response? With mindful purchasing, your ecological print will be much lower and you will save a lot of money.

Green roof and walls

The aesthetics and energy-efficiency of green roofs are truly remarkable. Installing them today has become easier and practical. Not only will you have a natural way to cool your home but you will have the chance to design beautiful and natural landscape.

Opt for proper lighting

Whenever you can, use natural light in your home. Of course, for the evenings choose LED lighting instead of the usual electric bulbs. They are both environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. There are several types – some give off cold, blue-base light and others give off the yellow-based light. You can also choose between warm white, soft white and daylight – options are numerous, offering you the possibility to add to the specific ambiance of your home.

Save water in your household

Small leaks can make a big difference when it comes to water consumption. If you don’t do anything about a leaking tap or a leaking toilet, the amount of wasted water can go up to 300,000 liters annually. Don’t wait until the leak makes a more serious damage to your home and consult reliable plumbing services to deal with the issue. Another option is to install a water saving shower head with a low flow – it could reduce your water consumption by up to 40%.

Mind the tags

It’s not a sure thing anymore that using natural fibers for clothing means you are being eco-friendly. Unfortunately, cotton production today means using a lot of pesticides, so look for organic cotton – it also presumes using natural dyes. Wool should be made from humanely-treated animals, while linen and hemp are eco-friendly natural fibers for sure. If you buy synthetics, then look for recycled polyester tag, the one that brands like Patagonia make.

All in all

Having a green home today means several things: it helps the environment but it also helps you save money in various ways. What’s also great about green homes is that they can also be aesthetically beautiful and comfortable to live in – a dream come true!

About the Author: Stella Ryne

Stella is an art historian, traveler, conscious consumer and a proud mother. When she is not trying to improve the things around her (and herself, for that matter), she likes to lose herself in a good book.

How starting a little retail business set me on the path to spiritual advancement.

​Ever since the first time I floated, I knew I was going to open a float center. It was just something I had to do. What I experienced in the tank that day changed me forever and starting and running this business over the last two years has been nothing short of the perfect script for spiritual advancement. I’ve learned more than I ever dreamed of about myself, business and the meaning of life through this process but I didn’t come at all the way I expected. Or, gently.

​My first float was in Whitefish at a little place that was tucked in an office building downtown, just around the corner from the retail shops and the big restaurants and bars. I stayed up there in a little cabin just outside of town and cell phone range, decompressing in silence, thinking about the future for a few days.

I had come a long way over the past few years. I had hit bottom in college, when my lifestyle and the lasting effects of my military service caught up with me. One of the things that helped pull me out of it was my interest in entrepreneurship. I learned quickly that what I could produce was a direct function of what kind of physical and mental shape I was in. And I really wanted to create something awesome. Not for the money, but for the stories. For the experience of it.

I started working on my self and things were really falling into place. I got back in shape, starting eating well, cut back on drinking significantly, got a great paying job, moved in with a great girl, adopted and old dog and planned our future together. I had every reason to be happy but I wasn’t and in the tank that first time, I figured out why.

I spent the first half of the float quietly breathing, trying to comprehend how there was absolutely nothing that demanded my attention at the present moment and marveling at just how busy I had been for the last ten years. I hadn’t stopped to do nothing…ever. The second half was spent observing the problems my conscious mind served up to fill that void and just how much of that narrative was really negative, dark and frankly, bullshit.

These patterns of thought I had developed, I noticed, were all formed during the most traumatic periods of my life, mostly things that I had developed in combat and childhood. I remember how anxious I used to get in crowds, mostly at bars when I was in College. I just tried to sit there with the memory and the feeling it evoked in me. My shoulders were stuck up by my ears, my eyes were scanning the crowd and my mind was thinking up ways I could kill each and every person in the room if I had to.

I ran through a dozen of these scripts – anger, depression, anxiety, self hatred, coping mechanisms, especially shutting off. I realized that almost all of them were born in traumas of the past but I was unconsciously carrying these patterns into every new moment. They weren’t helping me anymore. In fact, they were eating me alive. They were turning me into stone, piece by piece, calcifying my body and blinding me to who I really was. I never truly connected with others because I was too busy projecting who I wanted them to think I was.

I can’t describe how deep these realizations were. It was like waking up and realizing I had been asleep my entire life. I was living out my traumatic past and it was all happening right behind my awareness. Worse, that inner critic hated me. All day, every day, he was telling me what I piece of shit I was. An impostor. Broken. Just kill yourself already. It was always there, just beneath the surface.

Figuring out what the hell that was, where I got it and what I was going to do about became my highest priority. I couldn’t un-see it. I had to find a way to beat it. The only way I had found so far was floating and I was dead set on opening my own place to focus on that full time. I quit my job, I got a small business loan, I signed a lease on a location, hired contractors, got permits. I was still stressed to the max but I felt deeply aligned with my true self. I felt like I was on the path. I was energized.

Then…

I realized we weren’t going to have enough money to get the doors open. Then, I found out the building owner was welching on the fifty grand he committed to the project. Then, the general contractors bid came in six-fold over budget. I had a choice to make – walk away and lose everything or double down and find the money to finish the project. The second option required going out and asking for more money which, probably as a result of my humble upbringing, I was very ashamed to do.

Instead, I stepped in as the de-facto general contractor, slashed the size of the project and worked day and night doing any manual labor I could. After all that, we were still twenty five grand short. We turned to Kickstarter but to be successful, I knew I would have to open up about why I was doing this. I was mortified. I had been in the closet even to myself about my struggles with anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, PTSD, substance abuse, etc. I thought no one would ever invest in a business run by a broken piece of shit like me.

I was terrified about how people’s perception of me would change after this got out. I worried about shit like my life insurance policy being revoked or something worse that I hadn’t even conceived of yet. I knew this would help me sort myself out and I thought it would help other people too. That’s not exactly a business model but the message resonated and raised over $26,000 in just two weeks. We were off and running and finally opened the doors on Valentine’s day 2017.

Over the last 18 months, we’ve floated over four thousand people about six thousand times. That took just shy of twelve thousand labor hours, five thousand pounds of salt, six thousand towels and as many earplugs. Turning over a room in between sessions takes about ten minutes, so we’ve spent about a thousand hours or forty one days wiping down tanks, laying out towels and earplugs and introducing people to floating. We’ve spent three hundred more hours or twelve days on our hands and knees cleaning every inch of the lab, the stuff no one sees.

When we finally opened our doors, I worked ninety hours a week for three months straight. I ate chinese food out of the container with my bare hands and napped on the concrete floor in between appointments. Over the past two years, I’ve paid myself about eight thousand dollars. I’ve worked no less than six thousand hours, so I make about $1.33 an hour. And I’m still $125,000 in debt.

The business has turned a profit most months since we opened and when it does, I’ve poured that money into improving and expanding what we offer. Some months we lose a little bit of money and those are the months I don’t get paid. Sometimes I give back what I was paid in the past. Sometimes I have to shuffle around the bills like a shell game just to make ends meet. Sometimes ends don’t meet.

Then, just as things were seeming to stabilize, I got divorced. It called everything into question – who I was, where I was going, even where I had been. Everything was up in the air.

I did the logical thing. I doubled down again and slept at the Lab for a few weeks. I would work all day and sleep in the unfinished room in the back and wake up, shower in one of the rooms, brush my teeth in the bathroom and get ready for the first customers of the day. The couch everyone loves in the lounge, yeah, that’s the couch from my apartment. I didn’t have anywhere to put it, so I put it there. I once ate an ice cream sandwich in the sauna wearing a robe while watching Workaholics on the iPad.

It got dark.

My own life was in shambles but I couldn’t tell anyone. I wouldn’t know what to say anyway. I was so invested in being an entrepreneur, being the owner of the Lab, being someone who had sorted themselves out that I simply could not admit that I had lost almost everything, including myself…and the Lab could be next.

A few months ago, I woke with a bit of a hangover, checked the calendar and saw that I didn’t have any appointments until after noon. I thought, ‘I don’t want to go to work and I don’t get paid, so why should I? The business is just another thing I use to punish myself.’ I thought better of it, maybe someone will need me.

Someone did. One of our first ever members came barreling through the door and told me, through the tears, that his young wife had died last week of an aneurysm and he had just buried her and how he was dealing with their four kids. It was a devastating tragedy but also beautiful and deeply meaningful. He told me about the last day they spent together at the Kettlehouse Amphitheater and how a year ago, they were on the really struggling in their marriage and how her floating had given them the space they needed to get through it and allowed them to have that last day together.

She was a trauma surgeon, you see, and she poured herself out at work all day too. What he got to see was whatever was left when she got home but floating had given her just a little bit of extra compassion in her tank to spend at home with her kids and her husband. He thanked me for giving them that time together.

It drove home not just the meaningful nature of the work that I was doing but what a cost I had paid for it and how silently I had suffered.

I took a week off after that. I had to because I couldn’t stop crying. I sat in meditation for three days and floated after hours each night. I had been in intensive therapy since my marriage fell apart. I also dedicated every minute of free time I had to sorting myself out. Layers of the onion started to peel back.

I can’t begin to unveil all the things I’ve learned about myself, life and whatever happens after. But, one of the things I learned is critical to this piece. I recognized that I don’t particularly like myself. I felt like I had some existential debt to pay and sacrificing my own wellbeing in the service of others is the path to repaying that debt.

That’s why I joined the Army. That’s why I opened the Lab. I desperately wanted to unfuck myself but I didn’t think I deserved it unless I was first offering that to others. I got so wrapped up in helping others, I forgot to help myself. I didn’t float. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep or I slept too much. I worked my ass off seven days a week and drank every night until I could shut off that inner critic I discovered in my first float that was telling me what a piece of shit I was. Broken. Blind. Just kill yourself.

Ah, welcome back, old friend.

When that little voice came back, I was ready for it. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t try to shut it off. I just sat there with it. I tried to point out where it lived in my body. I tried to accept that it was there, that it was real. Not accepting the underlying narrative about why it was there, just that it was there. If I could sit there and be present with it for long enough, the deeper truth would come out. I was scared of being alone. I was scared I would never be happy. I was scared that if I wasn’t the owner of the Lab, I wasn’t good enough.

But who I was, who I was underneath that inner voice, who I found myself to be in my deepest states of meditation in the tank, had absolutely nothing to do with that. It dawned on me that I had done it. I had gone behind the voice of that inner critic and met my true self for the first time, who I was behind all the stories I told.

When I went back to work, I was different. I had lost almost everything – my marriage, my plans for the future, who I thought I was – all of it had burned off. But I still had the Lab. I had already made peace with the fact that it could and probably would fail some day but that wouldn’t say anything about who I am. I had a renewed energy. All the pressure was off. I started thinking about what I really wanted to do with this creation of mine.

First, I’d like everyone to try floating. If you’ve heard about it and this story resonates with you, consider this a formal invitation. If you’re like me and floating has helped you, share your story with friends and family. If you can’t share your story, share mine. Some of us need a little push to take better care of ourselves. I’d really love to introduce a few thousand more people to floating this year.
​
Second, I really want every Veteran and their spouse to try floating. I believe in it so much that I’m going to make it free starting in December this year. To do that, I’m partnering with the Red Willow Learning Center to raise $15,000 to provide free float sessions to any Veteran, their spouse or caregiver. That’s 250 people I can trade stories with in person and I think we’ll all be better for it. You can join me in that mission here.

About the Author: Matt Gangloff

Matt is a two-tour combat veteran of the US Army and is the owner of Enlyten Lab float center in Missoula Montana. You can find him at https://www.enlytenlab.com

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s often difficult to maintain the most important aspects of your life, specifically, your mental health. Having to beat the clock and fight the emotional battles of workplace competition can take a toll on your emotional state and upset your balance. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and you have the power to make a change starting today.

Stop the Clock

Day in and day out it’s the same routine. Show up to the office, grab a cup of coffee, listen to your co-workers complain about the boss, and choke down a bite of lunch while rushing to get back to the grind within a paltry 60 minutes. Even if your days don’t look like that, you’ve likely found that your workplace affects you both physically and emotionally, and you’re not alone. Slate recently shed light on the alarming reality of how irregular working hours, nonexistent work/life balance, and economic insecurity leads to approximately 120,000 deaths each year and costs Americans nearly $200 billion annually in added healthcare expenditures.

If you ever wish you could just quit your job and rely on your own skills, knowledge, and expertise to make a living, you’re in luck. The self-employment, or “gig,” economy has made it easier than ever to pull the hands right off the clock and live and work on your own terms.

A New Kind of Balance

Exiting the nine-to-five world is very freeing. It allows you to handle important aspects of your self-care, such as sleep, exercise, and nurturing strong relationships without sacrificing an income. However, it requires dedication and a willingness to hunt for your own opportunities. Marketing yourself may be intimidating, and competition is fierce when it comes to online contract employment opportunities.

One of the biggest hurdles many fledgling entrepreneurs face is learning how to manage finances for both a business and a home. This is where self-discipline comes into play and you must have your proverbial ducks in a row when it comes to keeping up with your income, collecting payments, and managing expenditures. If you plan on acquiring financing for your business, which include flexible SBA loans and business lines of credit, do your research and don’t just apply for the first loan you think you’ll qualify for.

A newfound flexibility can also open a Pandora’s Box of issues if you don’t have time management skills. You’re responsible for setting your own structure and that can be difficult with distractions such as social media. Once you learn when you are at your most productive, however, you can give yourself back many hours that would otherwise have been spent working for a paycheck that you had no control over.

Self-Care and Self-Employment

As a self-employed individual, you give yourself the gift of holding the reins of your financial future. You can avoid office politics, excessive traffic, and workplace drama, all of which can take a toll on your mental health. Perhaps the biggest benefit of leaping into the world of the gig economy is having an opportunity to focus on your own needs. Overlooked self-care practices, such as getting enough sleep and taking the time to prepare a nutritious lunch, are benefits those who work for themselves enjoy. By taking the time to focus on your needs instead of simply your finances, you will be more effective in your chosen career and more available for your family and friends.

While working for yourself presents its own unique challenges, freelance contract work is ideal if you suffer with depression, anxiety, or other mental health care concerns. Not only do you become your own boss, but you are also empowered to say no to taking on more responsibilities and to say yes to living your best life.

 About the Author Julie Morris:

Ms. Morris is a life and career coach who strives to help others live the best lives that they can. She believes she can relate to clients who feel run over by life because of her own experiences. She spent years in an unfulfilling career in finance before deciding to help people in other ways.

Image via Pixabay

Inflammation has long been a well-known symptom of many infectious diseases, but molecular and epidemiological research increasingly suggests that it is also intimately linked with a broad range of non-infectious diseases, perhaps even all of them. Although these insights might not lead to a unified theory of disease, the crucial role of inflammatory processes makes possible the development of a new generation of drugs to treat conditions including cancers, autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases.

An increasing body of evidence shows that chronic inflammation causes and advances many common diseases. This opens new possibilities for treatment and therapy by blocking the inflammatory processes.

Multi-disciplinary research has revealed that electrically conductive contact of the human body with the surface of the Earth (grounding or earthing) produces intriguing effects on physiology and health. Such effects relate to inflammation, immune responses, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.  Specifically, grounding an organism produces measurable differences in the concentrations of white blood cells, cytokines, and other molecules involved in the inflammatory response.

The best ways to strengthen your bond to the Earth is to spend time outside—walking barefoot on sand or grass, swimming in the ocean or a lake, taking moon baths, and hugging trees. Our ancestors had no trouble connecting with Mother Nature, and getting grounded. They were outside every day, all day, rain or shine. We are lucky to have a roof over our heads but the downside is a loss of that daily interaction with the earth, and a corresponding lack of grounding. Connecting physically to the Earth releases negative energy from your field into the ground, and draws positive energy from Mother Nature into your field and chakras, which replenishes and recharges your whole being.

So we know grounding is scientifically proven to drastically increase health, but how do we ground ourselves when we aren’t around nature, stuck inside, are in cold climates or during winter? What happens to our bodies when we get disconnected from Mother Earth for too long?

Got Brain Fog?

Your first chakra, also known as your root or base chakra, is the foundation for the energy flow in your body. This chakra keeps you firmly in your body and grounded, and if it needs cleansing or charging, you may feel a little “spacey” or somewhat out of your body. Additional symptoms of a dysfunctional first chakra can include: lightheadedness or a “floaty” feeling, forgetfulness, clumsiness, a feeling of being lost or actually getting lost, having trouble staying focused or present, fatigue, and a general dazed sensation. With an imbalanced first chakra, your other chakras are likely to be affected and become dysfunctional as well. Grounding will balance this chakra, which is the foundation for our energy meridian system.

As the weather shifts from the heat of summer to the crispness of fall and then the deep chill of winter, you are less likely to be spending time barefoot outside your heated indoor space. So how can you stay grounded during these months?

Sungaze. Even inside. 

If you’re lucky enough to live in a part of the world where winter still gets some sunlight, take advantage of that! Not only does the sun provide natural vitamin D, which boosts your immune system, it also charges and replenishes your energy field. Sunlight is like natural rays of energy healing from the heavens, so soak it up as much as possible. Like a cat curling up for a nap in the window, have a seat in a patch of sunlight coming through a window and let it radiate into your skin, into your chakras and energy field. Twenty minutes in the early morning or late afternoon would be perfect!

Hold the earth in your hands.

Stones are direct conduits to earth energy. They are literally earth, so they can help ground you just by touching them. Kyanite, hematite, smokey quartz, black tourmaline and garnet are good choices for grounding crystals, but any piece of rock will do. You can bless it for the purpose of keeping you centered and connected to Mother Nature, and then keep it in your pocket for quick access anytime you start to feel disassociated from the earth or your body.

Exercise.

Getting out of your head and being present in your body is an important part of grounding. Physical activity can help to shift your energy from your thoughts to your body as you focus your attention on your body and the world around you. Yoga, pilates or martial arts can be particularly effective because they center your mind, body, and spirit simultaneously.

Food.

Like exercise, mindfully eating brings your attention to your body. Gaining sustenance from the earth also helps to connect you to it—to remind you of that fundamental truth of energy medicine: you are connected to everything. Try to eat as many fresh vegetables as you can, and especially root vegetables which grow under the soil and carry strong earth energy.

Salt Bathes.

Salts have natural healing capabilities, as does water, so when you combine them in a warm tub, you take cleansing to a spiritual level. This helps to heal and cleanse your body, mind, and soul, including stripping unwanted negative energy you may have stuck to you from someone else. Salt baths simulate swimming in the ocean, which is one of the best ways to ground yourself. Adding in herbs and essential oils is another way to bring the magic of mother nature indoors. Even a foot bath alone will ground you.

Visualization.

There is an easy visualizations you can do from home that will help to connect you to the earth. Picture yourself as a tree, with roots growing from your feet. Feel your roots sinking into the soil, extracting nourishment and energy that you can bring into your body making you healthier. Imagine your roots sinking deeper and deeper, giving you a stronger foundation, a sense of calm, and a greater bond with nature.

Remember to embrace the darkness. 

Darkness is an important place for deep work. Winter is a powerful time, symbolizing both life and death, the cycle of death and rebirth, of disintegration and renewal that controls all life on earth.. including me and including you. It is the time that although motion ceases… at the same moment, life begins to stir again. Animals go into hibernation and seeds sleep deep beneath the snow. They will not move until the spring, but deep within them a process has completed itself. There is an infinite contraction of energy that the long nights and cold days reflect. This energy reaches its limit, and the cycle reverses itself. From that moment on, even though the winter will continue to gather strength and unfold as it must… the spring has been born. And in just a short few months, the light will be increasing again, and next thing you know, you’ll be back outside in the sunlight and back barefoot in the grass!

Ascension Lifestyle Staff Writer: Genevieve Elena

http://www.originseducation.com
http://www.twitter.com/phenomenality
http://instagram.com/therealphenomenality

Citations:

Deborah King4
4Seven Ways to Get Grounded Inside.

This is a transcription of an audio lecture, modified for article format:

Meditation is a state of Consciousness; it is a state of being. In that sense, it is something that is natural and inherent to all living things. It is the state of Consciousness when it is unfiltered, unconditioned, and its natural state, without any interference in its ability to perceive and understand. That is the real nature of the Consciousness.

As we are now, our perception and our understanding are filtered. They are conditioned by many factors. In order for us to experience the state of Meditation, we need to remove the Consciousness from its conditioning, and when we can successfully do that, we then spontaneously and naturally experience the state of Meditation. Therefore, you could say that the correct attitude to develop the skill to meditate properly is not to focus attention on trying to reach the state of Meditation, but instead to focus attention on removing the obstacles that prevents it. This is a very significant difference. Most people who study Meditation are seeking the state of Meditation. They are seeking an experience or a sensation. They want to feel something or not feel something. Some people go to Meditation studies and practice Meditation to escape their life, to escape from themselves. Those who are chasing after a sensation or an experience will always be disappointed, because truthfully, real Meditation does not work that way. In the first few lectures we explained that.  Today we are going to take those principles a little bit further.

We are going to talk about action and how through our constant action from moment to moment we create a trajectory or a movement across the whole of our life. If we become conscious of our action from moment to moment, we can become very skilled at accessing the state of Meditation. It has to be approached in that way, because the state of Meditation cannot be accessed unless one devotes everything to it; that may sound extreme, but it really does work that way. Meditation is a lifestyle. Meditation requires a very fundamental change in how we behave from moment to moment, how we engage the Consciousness in each moment, how we utilize our energy in each moment, and how we utilize our perception in each moment. All of that united and working together is what makes our circumstances change, so that the state of Meditation becomes more easily accessed, more easily experienced.

If we do not make those fundamental changes in each moment, we will never be able to enter the state of Meditation at will. If we are attempting Meditation regularly anyway, we might be able to enter that state occasionally by accident, and this is what happens with most people who learn Meditation practices. They may learn how to sit properly, they may learn a mantra, they may learn a posture, and they may learn certain type of techniques and rigorously work with them, but because they do not modify how they use their Consciousness and energy during the other twenty-three hours of their daily life, they cannot access the state of Meditation at will, but only occasionally by accident. They may go months or years of trying to meditate, even on a daily basis, but fail to access that state. As a result, they may become frustrated and abandon their practice. This is extremely common, however it does not have to be that way.

If they learn to train their attention for the remaining time of the day that they are not actively sitting and practicing Meditation, then when they actually do sit to practice Meditation it will be easy because they have already been training all day and all night in preparation. That is why today’s lecture is called “Action”.

To understand what we mean by action we are going to look at this image from Tibetan Buddhism of the stages of meditative concentration.

The Stages of Meditative Concentration

This image depicts a gradual process through which the one who wants to access the state of Meditationworks on modifying the relationship of Consciousness (attention) with the psyche (mind, emotion, body). This teaching of the stages of meditative concentration was given by the Buddha Maitreya, so it is a reliable teaching. It is a very profound teaching. It is also a beginner level teaching. It is something that sets forth basic principles that are really useful for anyone who is trying to understand what Meditation is and also to understand where we are in relationship to reaching that experience, and being able to sustain it and reach it at will.

The nine stages of meditative stability.

The very bottom portion represents the experience of the wildest quality of mind: the wild animals (the elephant and monkey) run freely, randomly, without control. The monk (our Consciousness) chases them in hopes of gaining control. This clearly represents the psychological condition of someone who has not yet learned to meditate: such a person has a  mind that is out of control, chaotic, and painful. The one who is steadily advancing in their efforts to stabilize psychologically progresses up this winding path, and as you can see the mind represented by the animals gradually become under control. They become stable. They become manageable. At the very top, we see that the monk now has a psyche that serves the interest of the meditator rather than being an opponent. Rather than being a wild animal, it becomes a loyal friend.

This progression from the wild animal to the loyal friend is something very scientific. It does not happen by accident. It does not happen by wishing or believing. It happens because of action: very specific action. The value of this teaching is that it guides us to perform the right actions at the right stages in sequence, so that this consequence naturally arrives: a calm, steady, serene psyche.

Broadly speaking, when we seek to understand Meditation we are trying to transform our current chaotic state — the state of not knowing and the state of pain and suffering — into a state in which we can access profound insight into our fundamental problems.

The Three Trainings

That process is outlined in Buddhism as having three essential stages. These are called the Three Trainings. They are:

1. Sila: Ethics
2. Samadhi: Ecstasy
3. Prajna: Profound Wisdom

In simple English, these terms are ethics, ecstasy, and profound wisdom, but those English words do not convey the full meaning of the Sanskrit words.

The goal is Prajna, which means “profound wisdom.” This is not the wisdom you can acquire from books. Prajna is an active, living intelligence. It is a living force. In Kabbalah it is called Binah, Chokmah, and Kether. It has three aspects. In Kabbalah it is represented by the three supernals, the top three sephiroth on the Tree of Life. In Greek it is the three Logoi or Logos that are written about in the Bible (John 1:1). Those three aspects are a trinity that is represented in all religions. In Buddhism, they are called the trikaya. These are the fundamental bodies or states of experience of any awakened being.

At the highest levels of nature, there is an intelligence, a type of wisdom, a type of understanding that is far beyond anything that our intellect can conceive. That is what is indicated by Prajna. It is a type of penetrating wisdom that can cut through to the substantial heart of anything. It is the wisdom mind of a Buddha, of the greatest masters that you can imagine.

Meditation is the process through which we learn to access that profound wisdom in ourselves. Obviously, that is a very transformative powerful thing. It cannot happen by accident. It happens through action: specific, scientific actions. To reach it, one must know how to access the second of the two trainings, which is Samadhi.

In English we translate Samadhi as “ecstasy.” It is not a physical ecstasy. It is not any type of sensation related to the physical senses. Samadhi is a state of Consciousness in which the very essence of ourselves, the purest heart of who we are, is liberated from its conditioning and it experiences its fundamental state, which is joyful, radiant, happy. That is why we translate Samadhi as ecstasy: it is the ecstasy of the soul, the Consciousness. We do not feel that now because our Consciousness is trapped, conditioned. When our Consciousness escapes conditioning —even for an instant — free of the cage, outside of the hell that it is trapped in now, it feels ecstasy, liberation, happiness, and joy.

Samadhi is a perceptive, active, living state of being. It is not vague or vaporous, elusive or insubstantial. The experience of Samadhi is more real than our physical life. The experience of Samadhi is an experience of our true self or true nature. That is why it is called ecstasy.

Thus, you can understand by simple logic that only in that state of Samadhi — completely free of anger, lust, pride, fear, trauma, any desire — can the essence of ourselves, the Consciousness then perceive clearly and have Prajna, profound wisdom, to see the heart, the true meaning, the true understanding, and the true cause of things.

It is rather obvious when you look at that. It makes sense… If we are trapped in anger and pride, then everything we see is filtered by the anger and pride. If we are trapped in our pain, in our suffering, in our lust, in our envy, we cannot see the truth. We can only see through the filters of those desires.

By liberating the Consciousness from those desires through ethics (the first training), having the state of ecstasy (which is the second training), we can then access third training, which is Prajna.

The First Training

You can only reach the second training, Samadhi, through the first training, which is Sila, ethics. Of course, everybody wants to skip the first step and go directly to the second. Everybody who studies Meditation wants to skip over ethics. Everyone thinks, “I am smart enough, I can just skip that part and go straight to Samadhi, and I am sort of frustrated, so I am going to come up with my own way to do that.” So people study books and traditions, and think they going to make up their own way, but inevitably they fail. They either give up eventually (the most common outcome), or they involved in groups that encourage them to use drugs, sex, alcohol, or other types of stimulants to propel themselves into a “state of ecstasy.” What they fail to realize is that they are breaking the first training. They are not abiding by ethics. Instead of liberating themselves from conditioning, they are adding to their conditioning. They become alcohol addicts. They become drug addicts. They become sex addicts. They indulge themselves in all their desires and think through that indulgence they will understand and liberate themselves. They are wrong, and the proof is in their suffering.

Traditional Meditation practice in every country, in every tradition in the world, starts with ethics. You cannot skip ethics. If you really want to learn Meditation, you cannot skip the first stage. There is a reason ethics are first.

The nature of ethics is scientific, and based on cause and effect.

When training in ethics, we are concerned with the actions that we perform with our Consciousness, and the consequences of those actions.

To develop the first training, we observe our actions and their consequences. If the actions we perform physically, emotionally, and mentally produce conditioning for the Consciousness, those actions must be abandoned, because they contradict our goal of reaching Samadhi and Prajna. That is all ethics are: recognition of cause and effect, and the conscious choice to abandon actions that cause conditioning and suffering, while adopting actions that lead to samadhi, ecstasy.

Stated in another way, on the painting we see this monk at the beginning chasing the elephant and the monkey. The elephant and monkey represent aspects of our wild mind. If we are letting that wild mind do whatever it wants — chase its lust, its interest in sensations, like food, alcohol, drugs, money, violence, sex, TV, video games, buying things, selling things, whatever it is that gets us excited and fascinated — then that animal will just keep running, because it is taking all of our energy. We are letting it be in charge. That is why ethics are essential to begin the path.

It is through our ethics, through knowing how action and consequence work in us, that we begin to calm the wild energy that dominates our lives. For that, we have to understand action and consequence.

1. The certainty of cause and effect.

Action and consequence is an immutable, infallible law of nature. It is the basis of existence in every level of nature, without any exception.

Many people nowadays think that we can do whatever we want, and we should do whatever we want because we’re going to die anyway, so why not? Everyone thinks we might as well do what we want before we die, because they believe that death is the end for us. Those people are deeply ignorant of the truth. They do not understand that death is not our end, it is only a transformation of matter into energy. The Consciousness does not die.

Every action we perform has a consequence that affects us, and that is true no matter what level of nature we live in. Of course, at this moment we live in the physical world, which on the Tree of Life is related to Malkuth, the lowest of those ten spheres. Notice that the sphere is between the heavens, which are above it, and the hells, which are below it. This is something that is taught in every religion and mystical tradition in the world. We are in this in-between place. Every religion tells us that according to our actions we will receive our due. The bible says: Whatever you sow you will reap. In Asian philosophy everyone knows about karma.

The word karma does not mean punishment, but rather it means “action.” It is understood that every action has a consequence. This is the first fundamental truth about action and consequence we have to understand. It is a law. It is not optional. It does not only apply if God is watching, but it applies to everything, in every instant. Every movement of your body produces a consequence.

Nowadays, the physicists who study quantum mechanics have come to realize that even the tiniest, seemingly insignificant movement can produce consequences in the rest of the universe. This is overwhelming the minds of physicists and mathematicians; there is a famous statement about the fluttering of a butterfly’s wing causing a catastrophe on the other side of the world. Mathematically and scientifically it is already demonstrated, and yet we refuse to hear it. We still persist in this idea that whatever we do there is no consequence.

All levels of nature, from the most dense level all way to the most subtle level of nature, exist because of cause and effect. We are just mites of dust drifting through an incredibly complex and beautiful universe. Universes and atoms are both bound by cause and effect. We are also subject to action and consequence, but we ignore it. That is why we suffer.

The first thing that we learn when we enter any genuine tradition at the most basic level is this first thing: action and consequence. Every religion has basic rules: do not steal, kill, drink, sleep around, etc. Those rules are an attempt to codify ethics. Beginners learn to follow those rules so that they can stabilize their psychology. Those who do not follow them remain with their psyche in chaos. Unfortunately, because people always seek ways to get around the rules or morals in order to fulfill their desires, they do not want to understand why those rules exist. People only see those rules as something negative, limiting, confining. People do not realize that those rules are actually the beginning of freedom from suffering.

The most fundamental thing to comprehend about your life is that everything you do has consequences. Just because you cannot see the consequences, it does not mean they are not there. There are consequences for every action. That is an immutable and infallible law of nature.

2.  The effects of any action are always greater than the action that produced it.

People completely ignore or get really confused about this fact, but it is not hard to demonstrate. Here is a simple way to test this. When you are with other people, experiment with your tone, with your behavior, with your attitude, observe how your tone affects others. Notice how if you are smiling and happy, that simple choice affects everyone else. That little smile, that act of kindness, affects other people far more than the energy it took to produce that smile. The same is true if you are in anger. That anger will affect people and reverberate like an echo in ways that you cannot perceive. It affects everyone in profound ways. A single word of kindness can have an immense impact on others, just as a single word of cruelty. Even the look on your face can change the course of someone’s life. The effects that we radiate physically, emotionally, and mentally are far greater than the action of producing our attitudes, actions, or words.

We can relate this to the simple fact that if you pick up a stone and toss it into a lake, that little action does not cost much energy to perform, but that stone striking the water can create ripples that go for miles. It can affect every living thing in that lake and be heard by other creatures for miles and miles. It is a simple example, but it illustrates what happens with everything that we do on levels that we cannot perceive with our physical senses. Effects are greater than their cause.

3. You cannot receive the consequence without committing its corresponding action.

Everyone thinks they are going to heaven. Everyone thinks that when we die we are going to go to heaven and God will welcome us with open arms, and all of our family and loved ones will be there waiting for us and everything is going to be great. We fail to realize that the levels of the heavens, of the nirvanas are the levels of gods, angels. Those beings do not have lust, they do not have anger, and they do not have envy like we do, jealousy like we do, fear like we do, and pride like we do. They have their own issues, but they do not have the animal bestiality, the cruelty, the violence, and the potential to harm others, to harm ourselves, that we do. They are not liars like us, murders, rapist, killers, and thieves, like we are. All of those qualities that we have cannot go to the superior worlds; they do not belong there. Those qualities are demonic. They abide in the lower realms. Whatever is heavy sinks, whatever is light rises. This is what happens when we die. We are bound by the trajectory of our level of being, by the quality of our stream of Consciousness. If in our mind constantly flowing and influencing us are all of our desires and fears, and anger, and pride, and lust, and all those qualities, then when we die that is exactly what is going to pull us along through the internal worlds, it is all those qualities. Physical death does not kill our defects, it only returns the physical body back to nature. Our psyche continues to exist as it was.

We receive the consequences of our condition particularly because we are always acting on those conditions. The anger that rises up- we act on it. We do not control it. We do not destroy it. We indulge in it. We feel justified to be angry. The lust comes up, we satisfy it. We let it rule our body, our heart and our mind. How about envy? We feel justified that what other people have we deserve so we act on our envy. We do not understand that envy is demonic and we do not understand that we will receive the consequences for having envy.

Similarly, we cannot access bliss, ecstasy, samadhi, if we have not performed the actions that create that result.

All of us want to be free of suffering, which means that all of us want to experience blissfulness, samadhi. That is the “consequence” we long to experience. But nothing is free. Everything has a cost. The cost is the action that produces the consequence. If you want to live, you have to be born, then breathe, eat, drink. If you want to experience samadhi, you have to abide by the ethics that produce samadhi.

Samadhi, ecstasy, is the state of experience that happens naturally when the Consciousness is not conditioned by desire, lust, anger, envy, pride, etc. To experience samadhi, we must produce the action that leads to it: we must extract the Consciousness from the limiting conditions. There is no other way to access samadhi.

Samadhi, the second training, is a result of action. Produce the corresponding action (ethics, the first training), and samadhi will happen: it is a law of nature. It cannot be any other way.

However, if we do not produce the corresponding action, which is ethics, the first training, then we will not experience samadhi, whether here and now, or after death.

4. Once an action is performed it cannot be erased.

People believe that as long as no one sees us perform an action that we can do whatever we want, or even if people see us, who cares. We still are going to do what we want to do and who cares. We may think that right before we die we will beg God for forgiveness and we will accept Jesus as our savior and so we will go to heaven anyway. We can just do whatever we want up until the moment we die and right the last minute the priest will come and say “I forgive you my son and you can go on to heaven now.” Reality does not work like that. The hell realms are filled with people who thought that way.  The truth is that every action has consequences (#1), the consequences are severe because the effects are greater than the cause (#2), and everything we do is done: it cannot be undone or erased. We can apologize or try to make amends, but no action can ever be erased from nature.

Every action we perform has a profound reach.

Reality is not the way our desires want it be.

When people hear about these laws of nature, they get very uncomfortable and do not want to hear anymore and want to go where they are going to be made to feel better, but the truth is these four fundamentals of action are laws of nature. They are not good or bad. They are just what they are. Someone who has training can turn these four laws to their advantage.

The law of action and consequence is what makes liberation possible.

Instead of indulging in bad behaviors, desire, anger, lust and all the other qualities that cause suffering, if we choose to adopt the superior way of being, then we take advantage of these laws.

Superior actions produce consequences (#1), create effects that are greater than their cause (#2), bring the consequences we want (#3), and once the actions are performed, it cannot be erased (#4). This is how we tip the scales of justice in our favor. This is how we can negotiate our karma: by constantly performing superior actions.

These four qualities of action are explained in the Lam Rim (The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment: The Lamrim Chenmo) by Tsongkhapa, who is an incredibly important master of the Buddhist tradition.

What was not explicitly stated as one of the qualities of karma is a fifth, which is:

5. A superior law always overcomes an inferior law.

This is implicit in all religions. This is the hope and faith of humanity: that evil can be overcome, that suffering can be overcome, that happiness can be acheived, because a superior law overcomes the inferior law. Therefore: we need to know what the superior laws are. We need to perform superior actions.

If you perform a superior action, you can overcome your mistakes. You can choose to adopt a higher way of being, to take a higher path, to renounce the actions that cause suffering and to begin to perform the actions that produce happiness, that produce liberation.

We need to study how that happens in our moment to moment experience.

The Two Lines

The line of life describes our experience from birth to death. You could say this is the line of time, because it applies to us while we are incarnated in a body, but from a wider and more compressive view it also applies to us from existence to existence. We can consider it as the course of our Consciousness through all of its experiences: through many births and deaths. From this perspective, we can say that it is a measurement of our experience of existence, no matter the condition of our matter and energy (whether in a body or out of a body). Whether we are physically alive or physically dead, the energy of our actions is still propelled. Physical death does not end the movement our actions towards consequences. Death is just a transformation, not an end. The energy is still moving.

Albert Einstein explained that energy does not die, it simply changes form. Therefore, regarding all of the energy that we have put into motion through our moment to moment actions throughout our lifetime: where does that energy go when we die? The physical body dies, but all of that energy is still moving, and that is what produces our next existence. (You can learn more about this in the course Death and the books Beyond Death and Hell, the Devil, and Karma).

The key thing is that we are in a physical body now. We have this incredible machine that has incredible power, and if we are smart we can utilize that physical matter to transform energy in a very powerful way to produce incredible change.

In each moment, we are drawing closer and closer to death. We do not know when. It could be today, or it could be tomorrow. This is an unknown to us, and from moment to moment, from instant to instant, the distance between this moment and death is shrinking. Every expenditure of energy is advancing us towards death, but to our disgrace we do not know whether our use of energy is raising our level of being or lowering our level of being. Therefore, we need to study an additional line, which is the line of being.

The line of being is vertical, and it is intersecting the line of life exactly in this moment. The point at which these two lines cross is this very instant, right now.

In every moment, according to our condition psychologically, we have a “level of being.” That level of being is the vertical line of the Tree of Life: the heavens and hells. Yes, we are in a physical body that corresponds to the sephirah Malkuth, and yes, all of the rest of the sephiroth of the Tree of Life are within us, but where is our center of gravity? Where on the Tree of Life are we rooted in each moment? What are the factual qualities of our mind and heart?

Set aside the cherished belief that you’re as good as you think you are. Instead, look at the facts of what is happening from moment to moment in your mind, in your dreams, in your reactions to events. Do you feel anger, lust, pride, fear? Are you awakened in your dreams, capable of consciously traveling the internal worlds as you wish? Can you come and go in the heavens to talk with the beings who reside there? Or do you feel most at home in a bar, in a brothel, in a battle field of some form?

If our mind is characterized by doubt, fear, resentment, envy, lust, jealousy, and all those types of qualities, then our level of being is very low. It is in the demonic levels, the animal levels. Those qualities belong to demons and all the beings that are in the vibration of hell. Honestly, when we are very sincere with ourselves, we will see that it is the case for humanity. Humanity is not an advanced civilization. It is a very animalistic, very cruel, very violent civilization, that does not have any interest in profoundly developing generosity, Chastity, patience, or conscious love. This society has no interest in virtue, ethics. Our society wants sex, money, and to dominate others. That is all animal. That is demonic, and we all have that. Our level of being as a world and as individuals is very low on the scale of things.

However, we can take advantage of action and choose to adopt positive behaviors. We can choose to advance ourselves from moment to moment by choosing superior types of actions physically, emotionally and mentally. We can raise our level of being, little by little, step by step, from moment to moment.

We can consciously take control of our animal mind, dominate that animal, train it, and convert it from an adversary into a helper. That is a difficult process, but it can be done, it has been done, and it will be done by anyone who takes this seriously.

When we meditate, we want to experience the superior levels. To do so, we have to produce the actions that result in those consequences. The experience of Nirvana, of Samadhi, of entering the heavenly realms, of going out of the body and having spiritual experiences are the consequences of action. This is scientific. Experiences do not happen by accident. They happen because of cause and effect. If our interest is to reach Samadhi (the second training) and then Prajna / wisdom (the third training), we can do it, but we must produce the actions that create that result. As explained already, this means we need to work on sila / ethics, the first training.

The first training, ethics, should be applied all the time, specifically in our daily life and also during our Meditation practice. If we are afflicted with pain, anger, resentment, doubt, fear, those qualities can only take us to hell since they belong to hell. If we want to be free from suffering, then we need to free ourselves of the qualities of the lower realms. To do so, we have to see those qualities factually, in terms of cause and effect. Anger can only create pain. Envy only creates pain. Lust only creates more lust and more suffering. In each case, by seeing the facts of those qualities, by seeing them for what they are, only then can we extract ourselves from them. Only then can we adopt superior action.

When we sit to meditate, we are in our physical body (Malkuth). Most people when they practice Meditation remain in their physical body throughout their practice, because they do not know they should let the body go so the Consciousness can be free of its conditioning. So they may have music playing, incense burning, they may have somebody talking next door or a dog barking next door, and so they sit and they look like they are meditating, but really they are listening to all those sounds, they are smelling the incense, they are feeling the pain in their back, or their knee, or their leg, and their attention is 100% absorbed in the physical sensations. That is why they never experience the state of Meditation because they are producing the action that results in staying in the physical body. Attached to physicality, focused on physicality, they cannot leave it. They are not adopting a superior action.

Some people become relaxed enough to extract attention from the physical senses; they start to feel other types of sensations. They may feel like they are starting to blow up like a balloon. They may feel like they become extremely heavy or extremely light. They may feel that even though they can feel the physical body, they also feel like they are leaning to one side or another, and it feels strange. This person is starting to extract their attention from physicality and is becoming aware of the energy of that body, which is in Kabbalah called Yesod, the foundation. That is the foundation of the physical body. That is the body of Chi, the vital body.

Someone who is able to relax further then becomes more attuned to what is happening emotionally. They may start to see images, visions, and this is related to the astral realm, the world of dreams (Hod).

More subtle is thought (Netzach), more subtle is will (Tiphereth), more subtle is Consciousness (Geburah), and even more subtle than that is spirit (Chesed). There is a progression. The meditator who is very careful in using attention, who wants to enter into the superior worlds, does it simply this way: extracting attention from each level, and centering the attention deeper and deeper within itself, within the Consciousness itself.

In synthesis: let go of the physical body, leave it alone, let it rest, forget about it. Take all the attention inside. Shut the physical senses down. In other words, we extract the Consciousness from the physical body. We proceed to do the same with every perceptible phenomenon within us: energy, emotion, thought, memory, analysis, visions, etc.

This process of withdrawing attention is the same process of entering into the heavenly worlds from level to level. The more you can withdraw the Consciousness from being fascinated by what it perceives, the higher you can go in your absorption states, in your Samadhi, and therefore the greater wisdom you can discover.

Anyone can do this. It is just a matter of producing the action. Here and now we start with working with our moment to moment experience.

The Five Centers

We have five centers of psychological activity.

The intellect is where we experience thought. It is related with our physical brain.

The emotional center is related with our heart, the center of our chest. It is where we feel emotions.

The motor, instinctual and sexual centers are more subtle, but if we observe ourselves we can see how each one behaves. The motor center is where we learn behaviors, such as how to move the body, how to drive a car, how to walk, how to run, how to use a keyboard and a mouse, a computer, and how to perform our job. Those are motor skills. The instinctual center is the base of the spinal column, and that is where our instinctual behaviors are controlled. There is a center of intelligence there that manages all those animal instinctive types of behaviors, like preservation of life. Finally, the most powerful and the most difficult to deal with is the sexual center, which is the one that creates all of these other ones. We are born through sex and we are controlled ultimately constantly in every way by the sexual energy.

How we use the five centers produces consequences from moment to moment, so we need to become aware of them from moment to moment, and be in control of them.

The two lines intersect in this moment, right now. If we want to raise our level of being now, and continue raising it, then we need to know: what is happening in the intellect? What is happening in the emotional center? What is happening in the body?

To observe oneself is an action. To control oneself is an action. To choose to think is an action. To choose emotion is an action. How we use energy through these five centers creates our life.

Everything about ourselves on every level exists in its current condition because of how we used these five centers throughout our previous lifetimes up until this moment. This is a very profound statement and I invite you to reflect on it very seriously.

Your experience right now — the state of your life — is the result of all of your previous actions, not only through your physical body, but also through your emotions and your thoughts.

All of that – your physical actions, your emotional actions, and your mental actions – are all produced by willpower. You wanted to do what you did. That will is Tiphereth, here in the center of the Tree of Life. That is the Human Soul in Kabbalah.

Will (Tiphereth) takes our energy and uses it through thought, emotion, energy, and physicality.

What gives will the ability to act? It is the Consciousness that flows through it, and that Consciousness is Geburah on the Tree of Life.

What gives the Consciousness existence is the Being, the Spirit, Atman, our own Inner Buddha, which is Chesed on the Tree of Life. Chesed exists because of the three sephrioth above it. So you see the interdependence of the parts of the tree, and how energy moves through us from the most subtle levels to the densest.

All of that is manifesting here in our five centers right now.

The potential for liberation is not in the future. It is in this moment, and it is a matter of how you choose to use the energy that is flowing in your five centers from moment to moment. It is a matter of choosing superior actions instead of inferior ones. For that you have to firstly pay attention. You have to be observing phenomena, not caught up in thinking, emotions, or physical sensations, but consciously observing all phenomena. That does not happen automatically or mechanically or on autopilot or just because you heard about it. It is an action of observation. It is an active use of energy from moment to moment: to actively observe our way of thinking, our way of feeling, and our way of behaving physically.  If we learn to do that, we can change the trajectory of our experience.

If we want to be what we are not, we first have to not be what we are. That means if we want to raise our level of being, if we want to go up, to not be a demon or an animal, but to become a real human being and more, we have to first stop being an animal and stop being a demon. We have to renounce harmful manners of behavior and choose better ones. To do that, we have some exercises that we can use.

Exercises

First, observe yourself. Take it seriously. Make a commitment to really develop the sense of self-observation. It is a sense. It is not a belief. It is not a theory. It is not just something that we like and agree with. It is an action that has to be continually performed. It is not easy, especially in the beginning. It is very difficult because we do not have that sense trained. This is why in this image in the very bottom we see the monk trailing far behind the animals, but he is looking towards the animals to observe them. But you also see over here this raging fire and that fire represents how much energy it takes in the beginning. So beginners always tell us, “I am trying to observe myself, but I am so tired, it is so hard.” And they think, “I’m doing it wrong,” but actually they are doing it right; at first it is exhausting. It is like when you first start going to the gym or you first take on a new diet or a new job, something totally new to you that you are not familiar with. It takes a lot of energy to learn. Self-observation takes much more energy than any sort of mundane type of endeavor because you are not just harnessing your physical senses, you are learning to use your conscious senses. That requires energy that is much more subtle, and we have no training with it. Our society does not encourage this behavior at all. At every turn society wants us to remain hypnotized, mechanical. Society does not want us to self-observe.

This is the first exercise: make the effort to develop your self-observation.

The second is to begin a daily review of what you observed during the day. Every night at the end of the day, sit and relax, close all your senses down, and review in your mind’s eye the facts of everything that you observed that day. It is how you are reconstructing a filmstrip or a movie, like security cameras that recorded everything you did all day. Your security camera is your self-observation. You are going to record just the facts. Try to remember everything you can. No analysis, just observation of facts. Do not interpret them, or speculate about them. Just gather the facts.

Finally, the third is to begin a spiritual diary:

Download: Practical Spirituality 02 Spiritual Diary PDF

We have prepared a list. It is a short list of questions that you can start to use to stimulate yourself to become more aware of your spiritual life.

Even though it may seem silly to you, if you actually use the spiritual diary it will change your life. It will show you what you do not want to see about yourself, and that is precisely its value. It is to show you things that you willfully ignore. Of course, firstly you have to use it, and secondly you have to be honest.

You can use the spiritual diary in the way that you see fit. If you want to just try it for a week to see how it goes that is fine. If you do not want to use all the questions provided, that is fine too. It is a resource that you can use that is designed to provoke observation. How far you take that is entirely up to you.

This information was originally published on gnosticteachings.org. You can find more lecture transcripts by visiting them online.

We live in a time of accelerated change and transformation. There are many names for this time period. Some call it, The Great Awakening, The Rebirth, New Earth, The Second Coming, The Golden Age, The End Times, The New Millennium, The Age of Aquarius, The Return of Christ, The Rapture, The Apocalypse, Armageddon, The Quickening or Planetary Ascension. Regardless of what you call it we are entering the most intensified purification process the Earth and humanity has ever experienced.

Learning to find ease in every situation becomes a major tool in managing energy. We refer to this as the path of least resistance. This is a path of being true to yourself, listening to the heart and living in the here and now fully. Trust the divine plan. Master the art of Allowing. Surrender to the flow and know that All That Is truly is working to support your wellbeing at all times. Recognize the importance of divine timing and understand that sometimes there are certain pieces that must line up before life can play out the way that it is destined to.

Currently, we are in the photon belt, entering a 2,000- year cycle of en-lighten-ment receiving the transformational and transmutational energies of higher consciousness. Encodings that activate our memory and DNA are sent through the rays of the sunlight and solar flares that are encouraging us to spiritually evolve beyond our current state of consciousness to a more enlightened state of being. We may see a glimpse of this energy in times of great joy, however unless we are able to change our vibration at the DNA level, it is most difficult to maintain. We will not see permanent changes in your lives nor the world around you that reflect your state of being. Changing the frequency of our DNA is the process of clearing out dense energy that no longer serve us. It is the process of infusing our body with light. This can transform our physical bodies and elevate our consciousness. By reaching for the light and transforming our being we can begin to understand the realms of the beyond and step into our infinite potential.

What I am speaking to is indeed a lifestyle change. It requires mindfulness with every aspect of our being including what we eat, who we spend time with, what we expose our senses to, how we spend our time, what we think, what we speak into creation and most certainly healing our emotions and forgiving our past. When you make a commitment to this process of raising your vibration expect to see dramatic changes. You may see all of your relationships transform. You may be surrounded by people who do not understand this process, whom you may need to take space from or even eventually let go of. You may feel compelled to move out of the environment that you are living in. It all depends on your own soul’s personal journey.

For me this has been a seven year process that required me learning to trust the urges inside of me that were calling me deeply into the unknown. For the most part, my primary support was all in the unseen realms. There were many times that I questioned and doubted myself as it would feel I had stepped into an entirely new world alone. However it was my purpose to serve as a teacher of ascension/awakening and ultimately everything happened exactly as it needed. Only now in hindsight I can say that with confidence. I can truly say there is nothing more beautiful than being alive and awake right now with this level of awareness. I have guided many people to transform their state of consciousness and their life circumstances from all walks of life because this is my highest passion.

Peace and blessings to All.

By: Ascension Lifestyle Contributor Hasnaa

Raised by two parents who are spiritual teachers, Hasnaa has been immersed in a world of mysticism, ceremony and celebration since before she was born. She is currently in training as a Priestess and has found her calling teaching others how to embody their higher self and their soul’s purpose. Born a clairsentient, she has learned the importance of living in alignment with one’s intuition and most authentic self. Hasnaa uses her etheric abilities to remind people of the vibrational, energetic nature of this universe. The key elements that differentiate her work from others include the depth of knowledge and experience within a diverse range of esoteric spiritual traditions and energetic practices. She is an experienced in metaphysics, universal law, spiritual law, ceremony, ritual, reincarnation and meditation. She specializes in helping people honor their soul’s highest purpose and their pre-birth plan. Hasnaa incorporates ancient knowledge as well as cutting edge information to intuitively create a program for her private clients that will awaken their potential and create deep transformational healing.

Please sign up for my newsletter
http://www.twitter.com/thatgirlhas
http://instagram.com/vibrationalmedicine

Gratitude is essential for a life of mindfulness and contentment. Most of us learn this through trial and error. The mind that it always fixated on acquiring more and more neglects what it has. The greedy person lives in a perpetual state of inadequacy. But the mind that redirects this energy inward experiences something different and remarkable. In this sense, gratitude is the inverse of greed. When we admire the people around us, our safety, health and simple pleasures, we become happier people. When we have respect for life and for the meager tasks of daily life, we experience joy. When we are always thirsting for the future, we miss out on life and cause waste, suffering, and frustration.

The way to overcome daily suffering is pretty simple, but we like to pretend that life is more complicated than it is. If we make life seem like an impossible task to surmount, we feel comfortable not putting any effort in. People of all walks of life, from bums to billionaires, are always finding scapegoats and blaming external institutions, value systems and circumstances for their problems. Displacing your unhappiness onto something way bigger than yourself is a way of avoiding responsibility for your life. We blame ‘the other’ to avoid having to confront the self.

Zen monks practice gratitude in the form of highly disciplined respect for their space. When they aren’t meditating, they are maintaining their environment to keep it pristine and orderly. They clean, cook and interact with the utmost concentration, treating each task as diligently as the last. What does this do for the mind? Should we not prioritize certain tasks over others? We should of course be cognizant of what’s important and not get too lost in the moment; we aren’t monks, after all. But we can learn from Zen monks the supreme value of approaching every moment with respect and conscientiousness.

Gratitude makes us as ‘ideal’ as human beings can be. It allows us to be content with a simple life, to love people around us, and to have time to develop self-discipline and self-respect. It is a value that cannot be learned; it must be practiced to be understood. We all experience gratitude, usually during our happiest moments. The magic of gratitude, though, is that it can be consciously applied to most scenarios. When eating a meal, savor each bite. When speaking with someone, listen with your full attention. When meditating, breathe each breath with pure mind. I like to think of this like a road trip. It’s important to concentrate on the road and also to enjoy the sights rather than obsessively fantasize about the destination.

The results of simply remembering to be grateful are phenomenal. It really is so simple— you either see your life as enough, or you see it as lacking. If you see it as lacking, you will be unhappy and delusional until you learn you see it as enough. If you see it as enough, you will be happy until some sort of external factor encourages you to start being greedy again. As modern people, we are subject to countless false influences. These influences degenerate the human spirit and transform us into greedy materialistic machines. When we make the decision to be grateful, to live simply, and to love what is rather than what could be, we make the world a better place.

Charlie Ambler is the creator of The Daily Zen and @dailyzen on Twitter. He began the site in 2008 as a way to chronicle his study of Zen and practice of meditation. He is currently working on raising enough funding to work on Daily Zen full-time and is also writing a book about Zen practice and contemporary life. Charlie live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and enjoys playing drums, walking, and petting other peoples’ dogs. You can support his work by clicking here.