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Tools For Conscious Awareness
Newsletter For
A Next Step...Light Center for Transformation and Healing
Vol. 99 -Addendum- December, 2008
In Truth, Simplicity, Love and Service
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FEATURES:
GOD CREATED TIME
WIDESPREAD SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
GOD TALKS WITH ARJUNA: THE BHAGAVAD GITA
WINGMAKER PERSPECTIVE
6 WAYS TO REDUCE INFLAMMATION -- Without a Statin Drug
A ‘FRICIN’ ELEPHANT
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"All the love we give is sent back to us in ways we have no way to measure."
Lou Bognon - "A Walk on the Sacred Side"
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First… You use your mind as
The ultimate jigsaw.
You take Totality
And cut it up
Into a million tiny pieces.
Then… Having tired of that game,
You sit down and try to
Reassemble this jumble of pieces
Into something comprehensible.
Ram Tzu knows… God invented time
Just so you could do this.
- Ram Tzu
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
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"It has been said by many that we cannot save this planet unless there’s
widespread spiritual or religious awakening. When I’ve heard that in the
past I have sort of buckled and sort of stiffened - not because I didn’t
think it’d be a good idea, but because I thought, well, yeah, but we have
work to do. Things are going so fast. We can’t depend on such a thing
arising. But in my research for the book, I have come to think about
this in a different way. And my question to you is, would we recognize
a spiritual awakening in this world if we saw one? Or let me put out
another question to you, what if an awakening was already deeply in
place and we don’t see it? In other words, it’s here."
- Paul Hawken -
from The Golden Rule: Restoring the Earth by Restoring Human Dignity
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Scientists work by comparing people's reported happiness and a host of other factors such as age, sex, marital status, religion, health, income, unemployment and so on. In survey after survey involving huge groups of people, significant correlations between happiness and some other factors are repeated. At the moment scientists cannot prove causation, whether for example people are healthy because they are happy, or whether people are happy because they are healthy. However, psychologists have been able to identify some very strong links.
According to Professor Diener the evidence suggests that happy people live longer than depressed people. "In one study, the difference was nine years between the happiest group and the unhappiest group, so that's a huge effect." Cigarette smoking can knock a few years off your life, three years; if you really smoke a lot, six years. "So nine years for happiness is a huge effect." Richer but no happier -- Happiness researchers have been monitoring people's life satisfaction for decades. Happy people have close friends.
Yet despite all the massive increase in our wealth in the last 50 years our levels of happiness have not increased." Standard of living has increased dramatically and happiness has increased not at all, and in some cases has diminished slightly," said Professor Daniel Kahneman of the University of Princeton. "There is a lot of evidence that being richer... isn't making us happier." The research suggests that richer countries do tend to be happier than poor ones, but once you have a home, food and clothes, then extra money does not seem to make people much happier.
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Verse 50
The supreme art of action which totally frees the soul from karma
THAT EXALTED ONE WHO by ecstatic meditation has united his consciousness with the Universal Omniscience remains no longer imprisoned by the judgments of karmic law. In this very life, the prison bars of karma and desires—the effects of ego-instigated good and evil actions—are removed. Therefore, O devotee, strive above all else to become merged in constant divine union; in oneness with the transcendent wisdom of God perform all your actions. To work united with God is the greatest art to be mastered in this world. To carry on activities with God-consciousness is the supreme yoga (nirvikalpa samadhi yoga].
When a man is identified with material life, owing to a false consciousness of himself as the doer of actions, he is bound to reap the good and bad results of his prenatal and postnatal actions. But when he becomes one with omnipresent wisdom he possesses immunity to the limiting good and bad influences in the prison-house of earthly life. He feels not the ego but God working in all his actions.
To earn money in difficult times, to create anything unusual in this world, to invent new things, to attain great skill—these achievements are laudatory; but when a person's actions are performed solely with the consciousness of God, he has become a specialist in the greatest art of all. To carry on life's activities with God-consciousness is called the supreme art of proper action because it totally frees the soul from the earthly bondage of karmic effects of actions and ensures permanent freedom in Spirit.
A prisoner who serves his time rebelliously is not set at liberty until he has worked out his full term, but a prisoner who works to please the warden by right action and behavior may find himself quickly paroled! Similarly, men who labor in this world guided by their rebellious desires find themselves long imprisoned in misery, while those who work only to please God find themselves quickly liberated.
The ordinary individual, in everything he does, is wholly identified with the body, its sensations, and the multiple desires patterned after its sensations. When such a man dies he takes with him from world his unfinished longings and karmic debts. Just recompense being due, he has to come back again.
In the state of ecstasy the false consciousness of the ego as the doer is dissolved. Hence the vanished ego's prenatal seeds of good and evil actions, implanted in the brain, wither away, not finding any egotistical consciousness as soil on which to grow.
Yoga, or union with Spirit, is the only way to evade being swept along in the flood of the effects of good and evil past actions. Being otherwise unable to stem the karmic tide, the devotee should seek refuge by meditating on the oneness of the little self with the almighty Spirit. The expanded consciousness is thereby rendered invulnerable-the flood of action sweeps past without affecting it. The effects of past actions cannot impress themselves on a God-tuned ego. Yoga is thus spoken of as the art of preventing past karma from overwhelming the soul.
A soul united to God becomes God; that soul automatically disowns all the effects of its past actions of past lives. The status of the soul is changed from a body-identified, limited, and karma-bound entity to a state ever free, beyond the influence of karma. Therefore the yogi should always remain concentrated at the Christ-consciousness center between the eyebrows, feeling the omnipresent joy of God even while attentively performing dutiful actions. When he is able to do that, he knows the greatest art of action and is a true yogi.
Bhagavan Krishna's instruction to the highly advanced disciple Arjuna concerning divine union expresses the ultimate state to be attained. Though unbroken continuity in God-consciousness while yet performing all of life's exacting duties (nirvikalpa samadhi) is not quickly attained by even the veteran devotee, yet every moment of deep meditation spent in seeking union with God, every effort to practice even mindedness and renunciation of desire for the fruits of actions, brings its reward—removing sorrow and establishing peace and joy; and mitigating karma and lessening errors in decisive actions by greater attunement with God's guiding wisdom.
As advised by the Gita, in serious spiritual endeavor the blessing and guidance of the guru are essential. The true disciple follows with great devotion the sadhana (the path of spiritual discipline and yogi technique of meditation) given by the guru. Through this sadhana, his guru invisibly helps him to attain the successively higher steps in the art of divine union. The disciple who daily and deeply practices his spiritual exercises and advances in the path may find the guru appearing visibly on the astral plane to guide him onward. With the help of the guru, all the screens of ignorance in the true disciple are burnt away, revealing to him the indescribable glory of the inner world of soul and Spirit.
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Hello,
This is some very great stuff.. And in my opinion, right freakin' on...There have always been huge questions, here are a few answers. Beware, not everyone is ready for this info... If it starts to upset you even a little, stop reading. Get away from it for awhile... go back if and when you feel ready. Here's a bit of what is written...
"2012 is a single page in the “book” called the Era of Transparency and Expansion. The life of deception – the era of veils over veils over veils – is dissipating, provided enough people rise up within themselves and honor the Sovereign Integral within by expressing its truth. But to do this, people must become attuned to its consciousness apart from the HMS (Human Mind System), and this is the course of action that people must engage in.
The seeking of information is over. The seeking of a master, guru, religion, spiritual path, or way-shower is over. The seeking of objects of blame is over. The seeking of hidden information behind the dark forces is over. It is the expression of the Sovereign Integral consciousness and the deactivation of the suppression framework that becomes the focus of each individual in this new era.
The Earth is not shifting to a new dimension in order to raise its consciousness and ascend to a higher state. Nor are the fortunate few going to be swept along because they did something better than others and therefore they are the chosen. We, as a human family, are being prepared to live as Sovereign Integrals upon Earth. Will this happen in 2012? No.
2012 will feel like any other year for most people. There is no year or specific time that will define the era of transparency and expansion, the rise of the Sovereign Integral. It is happening quietly in the most unexpected places. People are beginning to see that what has been encoded within their human instrument is a system of control, deception and manipulation. And at some deeper level, they glimpse a new clarity, as fleeting as it might be; they perceive themselves to be more than a system of feelings and thoughts packaged inside a body. This is what is to come… people awakening from a virtual reality inside a virtual reality. "
http://projectcamelot.org/james_wingmakers_sovereign_integral.html
I was told by our teacher Jim Dvorak to be reading wingmaker website... here is most of what is there in short... and it says it pretty much right on. We do have our work cut out for us ---if what we want is freedom. If not, oh well.
Anyway, enjoy, as much as you can...
In TSL,
Kelley
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Experts predict that as a result of the so-called JUPITER study, which seemed to show that the statin drug Crestor lowers the risk of heart attacks and strokes in those with high levels of inflammation, will lead to millions of people being put on statin drugs.
But the benefits were actually tiny -- about 0.72 percent of the statin takers in the trial had a heart attack or stroke, compared with 1.5 percent of those taking placebos.
Instead of a statin drug that comes with dangerous side effects, try these six measures instead:
Stop smoking. Smoking hardens the arteries and increase inflammation. But research shows you can reverse all the damaging effects to your arteries within 10 years of quitting.
Think olive oil, fish, and nuts. People who stick with a Mediterranean-style diet based on fruits, vegetables, nuts, and olive oil can lower their levels of inflammation. It works by increasing the amount of foods you eat that are rich in omega-3 fats, which fight inflammation.
Get active. Exercise a great way to lower inflammation without any of the side effects associated with medications.
Shrink your waist size. If you're a woman with a waist measurement of over 35 inches or a man with a waist of over 40 inches, you probably have high inflammation. Whittling a few inches off the waist by reducing your portions and increasing activity can go a long way toward solving that problem.
Get enough sleep. A new study shows that elderly people with high blood pressure who sleep less than 7.5 hours a night have dramatically elevated chances of having a stroke or heart attack. Other research has shown that both too little and too much sleep increases inflammation. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says most adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep each night.
Reduce stress. High levels of stress hormones can lead to the release of excess inflammatory chemicals.
Sources:
U.S. News & World Report November 11, 2008
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
I can’t tell you how pleased I am that the “latest and greatest” study on statin benefits, called JUPITER, has been exposed by even mainstream media as being both deceptive and steeped in conflicts of interest. I commented on this study just last week.
With at least 12 million Americans taking statins, and “experts'” recommending that another 23 million “should” be taking them, it's important to educate yourself on the use of these drugs.
Statins are already one of the most widely prescribed class of drugs, and the JUPITER study’s misleading conclusions about the benefits of Crestor have the potential to push their already vastly inflated usage over the edge.
Don’t fall for it.
The language used to publicize their results has been thoroughly massaged and manipulated to make the drug sound vastly better than it really is. A staggering 5,000 percent better, to be precise. Because whereas headlines are boasting a 50 percent or higher reduced risk of heart attack and strokes, the REAL difference in cardiovascular events between those taking the statin drug Crestor and those taking a placebo was just 1.2 percent.
The REAL “benefit” of Crestor is this: If 100 people are treated with Crestor for one year, only ONE will be spared a cardiovascular event they otherwise might have had.
I for one am underwhelmed by these findings.
Exposing 100 people to the potentially lethal side effects of Crestor, or any other statin drug, to save one person from a cardiovascular event that could have been prevented with lifestyle changes, is not what I call good medicine.
Why are Statin Drugs Prescribed to Otherwise “Healthy” Individuals?
The JUPITER study involved 17,800 people who had high C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, which is a good indicator of inflammation, and hence, heart disease risk, even among those otherwise considered healthy.
Statins are now frequently prescribed to individuals who have normal cholesterol levels if they have elevated C-reactive protein levels, to combat inflammation, and presumably reduce their risk of developing heart disease.
But taking a statin in this case will NOT resolve the underlying problem causing the increase in inflammation!
Elevated C-reactive protein levels are due to chronic damage being done to your arteries, which leads to inflammation. This is how your body responds to invaders; it’s your body’s natural and purposeful response to healing.
The REAL problem is what’s causing the damage in the first place, such as having chronically elevated blood sugar. The sugar molecule, in fact, causes far more damage than any other molecule.
If you decide to take cholesterol-lowering drugs instead of addressing the underlying problem of excess sugar in your blood stream, you are not only stopping your body’s natural healing process, you are also exposing yourself to drugs that are loaded with side effects and can deteriorate your health even further.
Instead, the CRP screening test could be a handy indicator showing that lifestyle changes are in order to naturally lower your body’s excess inflammation, which will naturally decrease your heart disease risk – no drugs required.
Your Diet – The Most Important Way to Reduce Inflammation
It’s important to realize that there are different sizes of LDL cholesterol particles, and it’s the LDL particle size that is relevant, as small particles get stuck easily and causes more inflammation.
Naturally, the drug companies really don’t want you to know this. Statins do not modulate LDL particle size, so if this became widespread knowledge it would severely limit the number of people going on cholesterol-lowering drugs.
The only way to make sure your LDL particles are large enough to not get stuck and cause inflammation and damage is through your diet. In fact, it’s one of the major things that insulin does.
So rather than taking a statin drug, you really need to focus on your diet to reduce the inflammation in your body, which is aggravated by:
Oxidized cholesterol (cholesterol that has gone rancid, such as that from overcooked, scrambled eggs)
Eating lots of sugar and grains
Eating foods cooked at high temperatures
Eating trans fats
Other Lifestyle Changes That Will Naturally Reduce Inflammation
In addition to the six excellent recommendations in the article above, and avoiding the dietary hazards just mentioned, here are a few more recommendations that can have a profound impact on reducing inflammation in your body and reducing your risk of heart disease.
*One of the most important steps in lowering your heart disease risk is to take a high-quality krill oil that is chock full of beneficial omega-3 fats.
*Make sure you’re eating the right foods for your body’s unique nutritional type.
*Optimize your insulin levels. If your fasting insulin level is not lower than three consider limiting or eliminating your intake of grains and sugars until you optimize your insulin level.
*Make sure your vitamin D levels are optimized. Most people are not aware that vitamin D can have a profoundly dramatic impact on normalizing blood pressure and lowering your risk for heart disease.
Your best source of vitamin D is through your skin being exposed to the sun. In the wintertime, however, you may need to take an oral supplement. Just make sure you’re taking the right form of vitamin D in the appropriate amounts to reap the benefits, and remember to get your vitamin D levels tested regularly.
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My five-year old students, are learning to read.
Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said,
'Look at this! It's a frickin' elephant!'
I took a deep breath, then asked...'What did you call it?'
'It's a frickin' elephant!
It says so on the picture!'
And so the picture did say...
' A f r i c a n Elephant '
Hooked on phonics!
Ain't it wonderful?
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In Truth, Simplicity, Love and Service,
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Om Peace.
Young Toni Delgado and Young Kelley Elkins
A NEXT STEP...Light Center for Transformation and Healing
P.O.Box 429
Dona Ana, New Mexico 88032
toni@anextstep.org
www.anextstep.org
575-382-8771
Buy Toni's new book: A CALL TO MOTHER’S GRACE AND GIFTS
Go to OUR STORE: bottom of page at www.anextstep.org to order it.
Also available at iuniverse.com, amazon, barnesandnoble, borders.
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