June 2007

Everybody starts out on the path of success for everyone starts out seeking something in life. Unfortunately for many, their seeking ends in failure. They might start out with gusto and passion but fail because they didn't balance the passion with knowledge. Today, too many people believe that if they can visualize success, they will have it. But what they don't realize is that they will fail if they don't take the required steps in learning about the path they are setting upon. You can have a boat and a desire to sail to Lihue, Hawaii, but if you don't know how to sail or navigate, you won't get there.
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Freedom from Reactions
June 3, 2007

Freedom from reactions becomes more of a priority when it is seen how often reactions imprison us. Everybody wants to be happy but most people don't give the proper attention to what makes them miserable. So much unhappiness comes from reflex-like reactions to circumstances. Sometimes we react to what people say. Sometimes we react to what happens or doesn't happen. Sometimes we react to what might happen and sometimes we react to what happened in the past. These reactions stem from our mental programming, which includes the culture and society we live in, and from the impressions of our past experiences, even from past lives.
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Health Care Crisis
and Medical Tourism
June 5, 2007

There is a health care crisis going on in the United States, and I, like millions of others, are being crushed by it. It's caused by the high cost of medical care and health insurance. To put this into perspective, over the last five years, inflation increased at a rate of under 3% per year. The cost of health care insurance has increased by 12% per year. My situation is better than most but it is not ideal. My wife and I, both self-employed, have a health insurance policy. But to keep the cost of the policy affordable ($300 per month is still costly) we elected a plan with a $10,000 deductible. This policy includes a free physical exam each year up to $300. That's good. But last week my doctor recommended a test that would cost me several thousand dollars. That's not so good because my insurance won't cover it. What do I do? What would you do?
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Personal Magnetism
June 7, 2007

If you ever need an example of what personal magnetism is, I once read that Henry David Thoreau walked 20 miles to hear Emerson give a lecture. What was it in Emerson that had the power to inspire Thoreau to walk so far? After all, there were thousands of other people much closer who would have been happy to give Thoreau advice. In human relationships, personal magnetism has a healing effect. It soothes, it pacifies, it energizes, it empowers and it enlivens. It does this by aligning all of the energies within you to work in harmony. It's like a laser beam of light, which has all of its light waves aligned coherently. Ordinary light is scattered energy while a laser light is focused, and thus, powerful.
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Inspiration and Consciousness
June 9, 2007

When I tap into inspiration and consciousness, I view it as an opportunity. It's like a caged bird being set free. It offers a whole new world of possibilities and freedom of expression. The only problem is the intensified sense of limitation when the inspiration disappears, which is the equivalent of the bird being put back in the cage.
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Spiritual Vision Board
June 11, 2007

If you watched The Secret, you might remember seeing a vision board being used as a tool to manifest envisioned reality. This past weekend my wife and I visited my sister in the Washington, DC area. I noticed immediately she had turned the front of her refrigerator into what I would call a spiritual vision board. To give you some idea of what a spiritual vision board might consist of, I have reproduced the words of wisdom that comprised hers. These quotes were collected from greeting cards and postcards that people had sent her over the years, as well as some that she collected.
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Inner Vision
June 13, 2007

Do you ever think about inner vision and how important it is? Yesterday I had my eyes examined. I received some good news and some not so good news. And although the results I learned are important to me, it’s also important for me to keep those results in perspective. After all, with my eyes I see the outer world. Important yes, but not as important as that faculty that allows me to see the inner world to the extent that I do. For this is the vision that I take with me when I leave this physical realm.
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Making a Good Brain Great -- A Review
June 14, 2007

Today I decided to write a review of Making a Good Brain Great by Dr. Daniel G. Amen. And the reason is simple: It's an important book. If you just consider the high percentage of elderly people in the United States with Alzheimer's disease you will probably agree with me. I only became aware of the book this past weekend, while visiting Washington, DC. My wife and I noticed it at my sister’s house. My sister was enthusiastic about the book and encouraged us to borrow it, which we did.
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High Potassium Level
June 15, 2007

Today I received a phone call from my doctor saying that my blood work showed a high potassium level and that she wants me to return next week to have another test. She seemed very concerned and asked what I was eating, what vitamins I was taking. I told her that the night before the test I did eat one source of high potassium: mashed potatoes. She said that might be the cause.
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Vitamin C from China -- Is It Safe?
June 17, 2007

Take a look at your vitamin C bottle. Chances are it doesn’t say where it was produced. But since vitamin C from China makes up at least an 80% of the world’s supply, most likely yours comes from there. Some estimates of the Chinese market share is put at 90%. In fact, the Washington Post reports that there are no longer any manufacturers of vitamin C in the United States, and only one in the Western world. (I was told, however, by Nutribiotic, that their Meta C product is manufactured in the United States.)
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Ten Consciousness Raising Quotations
June 18, 2007

Here are ten consciousness raising quotations that have made an impact in my life that you might find useful in your contemplation meditations.

1. Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. --Rumi

I am drawn to this quote because it reminds us that although we have full consciousness, capable of self-realization, we miss the mark due to the identification with our false self. It’s the same as Michelangelo saying that David already existed in the marble, he just needed to remove what was extraneous.

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Suffering and Spirituality
-- A Process of Awakening
June 19, 2007

Last night I attended a reading group. The group reading focused on suffering and spirituality, or more specifically, the role of suffering in the process of spiritual awakening. It seems that suffering is often the precursor to the launching of many people onto the spiritual path. One person said that when she worked as a director of a cancer clinic, she would hear patients say how they wished they had gotten their cancer years earlier, such was their renewed sense of aliveness. Each moment of life had become that precious to them. When her friends would ask if her work as a group leader for cancer patients was depressing she would say no. It enriched her life to see the increased happiness of the patients. There were no more neurotic moments in their lives. Life became real.
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Purpose in Life
June 20, 2007

No one wants to feel or be called irresponsible. But until a person finds purpose in life, then the life being lived is one of irresponsibility. I don’t mean that in a judgmental way. But if a person does not express in his or her life what the soul most earnestly wants to express, then the life is no more useful than a musical instrument being used as a paper weight. A purpose may be served, but it is not the intended purpose. Life is not meant to be lived frivolously.
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Harmony with All
June 21, 2007

"Mankind’s role is to fulfill his heaven-sent purpose through a sincere heart that is in harmony with all creation and loves all things."-- Morihei Ueshiba (Founder of Aikido)

Morihei Ueshiba wasn’t just philosophizing, he was speaking from his own experience. Even when people would attack him, he would find the harmony and love required to create an environment of non-violence. His harmony with all creation was such that he was able to transcend the physical. How? By having consciousness of the subtle realms.
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The Essential
June 22, 2007

Knowledge of the essential varies from person to person. When I was 27-years-old I shared an apartment on Venice Beach, California with an old philosopher, a man who lived life very simply. He had a only a few things in his life that were essential. They were walking on the beach every night, eating organic fruits and vegetables, and focusing on photographs of his spiritual master which he would meditate on for several hours a day.
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Simple Pleasures
June 24, 2007

The capacity to enjoy the simple pleasures of life is essential to the enjoyment of the human experience. Enjoying the joke of a friend, the smile of a stranger, the fragrance of a garden flower, or the turning of the autumn leaves, these are the little things that keep us grounded in the unfoldment of the present moment. When people rush through life because they are too busy, these moments are missed.

I believe these moments are manifestations of an infinite intelligence that pervades the universe. This intelligence is the source of an unseen order that creates beauty, harmony, resonance and meaning in a world that otherwise would be total chaos. To appreciate it is to acknowledge it and to acknowledge it is to experience it at ever deeper levels.
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Peaceful Warrior
June 27, 2007

Last night my wife and I watched Peaceful Warrior in DVD format, renting it on the first day of its release in video stores.The film is based on the autobiographical novel of Dan Millman. If you haven’t read the book, it’s a story about an older spiritual mentor, in the guise of a service station mechanic (in the film he is played by Nick Nolte) and a college athlete, Dan Millman (played by Scott Mechlowicz) who has trained his body to perfection but has done little training of his inner self. The mechanic, whom the athlete calls Socrates, gradually initiates Millman into new worlds of inner strength and understanding. One of the ways he does this is by telling the resistant Dan Millman "to take out the trash," referring to all the stuff that passes through his head that he doesn't need.
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Personal Development Resources
June 28, 2007

I'm always lookining for new personal development resources and I just came across a couple good ones. Jarle Husefest of personaldevelopmentbooks.net/Blog is putting out some great content and resources like free ebooks and generating some serious traffic. Do yourself a favor and check out his site. I have really enjoyed reading his free download of The Master Key. Great wisdom in that book. Other sites sell it, but he gives it away. This is a book that inspired Napoleon Hill to success, a book that was banned by the Church, and that has been out of print until recently. In 2001 a rumor started that it was this very book that inspired Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard to pursue his vision of Microsoft. Whether that is true or not, I don’t know, but I do know that If I had read it while I was in college, I would have dropped out. There is nothing like solid confirmation that we live in an abundant universe.
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Online Memorials -- Registry of Life
June 29, 2007

Online memorials are becoming more and more common. And for good reason. When people lose a loved one to death, the question of how best to remember and honor the departed needs to be answered, along with how to deal with the grief of the loss. On-line memorials serve all of those purposes. Why should memories end with a memorial service? Why should a grave stone be the only way to tell the world that someone lived here on Earth, someone who was vitally important in the lives of many, whether as a father or mother, a brother or sister, or as a son or daughter, or as a dear friend?
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