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With this issue we're pleased to add a new element to our offering - Featured Videos. You can now view videos directly from our magazine. We're beginning with two; the first, Barbara Walter's interview with the Dalai Lama. An eye opening peek into the nature of the Dalai Lama and Barbara Walters. Secondly, "Validation"; a very popular dramatization that makes a tremendous point in a very entertaining way. It only lasts about 16 minutes and we recommend it highly. We have also expanded the poetry which we offer each month. In addition to the selections from Kahlil Gibran and myself, we are also introducing Rabindranath Tagore - a Nobel laureate and one of the most touching and inspiring spiritual poets of the last several centuries. Also in this issue, we are excited to present the fifth chapter of "The Third Eye" by T. Lobsang Rampa, a fascinating, controversial and very popular account of the life and esoteric experiences of a Tibetian Monk. In addition, we are offering the next chapter of "A Romance of Two Worlds" by Marie Corelli. This best selling Victorian novel explores the relationship between the occult and Christianity, plus a discussion of guardian angels and life after death along with mystery, romance and tragedy. We are pleased to present a fascinating and informative article by Paramahansa Yogananda entitled "The Nature of Life After Death" in which the famous Swami speaks in detail on the nature of the astral and causal worlds - a tremendous solace for those who have lost loved ones, and a real eye opener for those curious about whether the soul really is immortal. We continue with a new essay by Ernest Holmes, in which he offers his explanation of "How To Visualize". As always, Dr. Holmes' thoughts are empowering and encouraging. We're also offering a new essay entitled "Thinking In A Certain Way For Wealth"; an excellent exploration of the power of visualization and how to practice it, by the author of "The Science of Getting Rich". Taken together these two articles by Dr. Holmes and Mr. Wattles offer an in-depth opportunity to add the powerful tool of effective visualization to your personal growth practice. We also continue our exploration of 12 Step Programs and their ability to support personal and spiritual transformation. We're pleased to offer two articles for your consideration: "One Day At A Time" and "Beginning Today"; both offering inspiration for everyone regardless of their tradition or field of interest. We've added several new articles to keep you current with the latest explorations in health, including: "Planting A Medicinal Herb Garden", "Vegetable Juice May Help With Weight Loss", an extensive exploration of "The Power of Silence" and a report of a scientific study entitled "Stop Worrying and Think Positively To Prevent Memory Loss" - taken together these articles give holistic support to the improvement of all parts of your being - body, mind and soul. As usual, our online magazine also includes an article by one of our most thought-provoking writers, Steve Roberts and his new essay, "My Son Was Born Smiling, Bald and 220 Pounds". Finally, consistent with our desire to support those who have a desire for increased hope, inspiration and opportunity for growth; we are offering a completely free subscription to either of our daily inspirational emails - Conscious Word or Conscious Wisdom. This subscription is totally free for as long as you wish, with no strings attached. We hope you won't miss this opportunity to bring a new, continuing gift of love and light into your life. As always, we are so grateful to all of you who visit our website, and contribute through your generous donations, purchases, emails and article submissions. Thank you for letting us share this issue of our online magazine with you. William Simpson |
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| Serial: The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa |
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CHAPTER FIVE LIFE AS A CHELA Our “day” started at midnight at Chakpori. As the midnight trumpet sounded, echoing through the dimly lit corridors, we would roll sleepily off our bed-cushions and fumble in the darkness for our robes. We all slept in the nude, the usual system in Tibet where there is no false modesty. With our robes on, off we would go, tucking our belongings into the pouched-up front of our dress. Down the passageways we would clatter, not in a good mood at that hour. Part of our teaching was : “It is better to rest with a peaceful mind than to sit like Buddha and pray when angry.” My irreverent thought often was: “Well, why can't we rest with a peaceful mind? This midnight stunt makes me angry!” But no one gave me a satisfactory answer, and I had to go with the others into the Prayer Hall. Here the innumerable butter-lamps struggled to shed their rays of light through the drifting clouds of incense smoke. In the flickering light, with the shifting shadows, the giant sacred figures seemed to become alive, to bow and sway in response to our chants. The hundreds of monks and boys would sit cross-legged| on cushions on the floor. All would sit in rows the length of the hall. Each pair or rows would face each other so that the first and second rows would be face to face, the second and third would be back to back, and so on. We would have our chants and sacred songs which employ special tonal scales because in the East it is realized that sounds have power. Just as a musical note can shatter a glass, so can a combination of notes build up metaphysical power. There would also be readings from the Kan-gyur. It was a most impressive sight to see these hundreds of men in blood-red robes and golden stoles, swaying and chanting in unison, with the silver tinkle of fittle bells, and the throbbing of drums. Blue clouds of incense smoke coiled and wreathed about the knees of the gods, and every so often it seemed, in the uncertain light, that one or other of the figures was gazing straight at us. The service would last about an hour, then we would return to our sleeping-cushions until four in the morning. Another service would start at about four-fifteen. At five we would have our first meal, of tsampa and buttered tea. Even at this meal the Reader would be droning out his words and the Disciplinarian would be watchful at his side. At this meal any special orders or information would be given. It might be that something was wanted from Lhasa, and then at the breakfast meal the names of the monks would be called, those who were going to take or collect the goods. They would also be given special dispensation to be away from the lamasery for such and such a time, and to miss a certain number of services. At six o'clock we would be assembled in our classrooms ready for the first session of our studies. The second of our Tibetan Laws was: “You shall perform religious observances, and study.” In my seven-year-old ignorance I could not understand why we had to obey that Law, when the fifth Law, “You shall honour your elders, and those of high birth”, was flaunted and broken. All my experience had led me to believe that there was something shameful in being of “high birth”. Certainly I had been victimized for it. It did not occur to me then that it is not the rank of birth that matters, but the character of the person concemed. We attended another service at nine in the morning, interrupting our studies for about forty minutes. Quite a welcome break, some- times, but we had to be in class again by a quarter to ten. A different subject was started then, and we had to work at it until one dclock. Still we were not free to eat ; a half hour service came first and then we had our buttered tea and tsampa. One hour of manual labour followed, to give us exercise and to teach us humility. I seemed more often than not to collect the messiest of most unpleasant type of job. Three o'clock saw us trooping off for an hour of enforced rest; we were not allowed to talk or move, but just had to fie still. This was not a popular time because the hou1 was too short for a sleep and too long to stay idle. We could think of much better things to do! At four, after this rest, we returned to our studies. This was the dread period of the day, five hours without a break, five hours when we could not leave the room for anything without incurring the severest penalties. Our teachers were quite free with their stout canes and some of them tackled the punishment of offenders with real enthusiasm. Only the badly pressed or most foolhardy pupils asked to “be excused” when punishment on one's return was inevitable. Our release came at nine o'clock when we had the last meal of the day. Again this was buttered tea and tsampa. Sometimes—only sometimes—we had vegetables. Usually that meant sliced turnips, or some very small beans. They were raw, but to hungry boys they were very acceptable. On one unforgettable occasion, when I was eight, we had some pickled walnuts. I was particularly fond of them, having had them often at home. Now, foolishly, I tried to work an exchange with another boy: he to have my spare robe in exchange for his pickled walnuts. The Disciplinarian heard, and I was called to the middle of the hall and made to confess my sin. As a punishment for “greediness” I had to remain without food or drink for twenty-four hours. My spare robe was taken from me as it was said that I had no use for it, “having been willing to barter it for that which was not essential”. At nine-thirty we went to our sleeping-cushions, “bed” to us. No one was late for bed! I thought the long hours would kill me, I thought that I should drop dead at any moment, or that I would fall asleep and never again awaken. At first I, and the other new boys, used to hide in corners for a good doze. After quite a short time I became used to the long hours and took no notice at all of the length of the day. It was just before six in the morning when, with the help of the boy who had awakened me, I found myself in front of the Lama Mingyar Dondup's door. Although I had not knocked, he called for me to enter. His room was a very pleasant one and there were wonderful wall paintings, some of them actually painted on the walls and others painted on silk and hanging. A few small statuettes were on low tables, they were of gods and goddesses and were made of jade, gold, and cloisonné. A large Wheel of Life also hung upon the wall. The lama was sitting in the lotus attitude on his cushion and before him, on a low table, he had a number of books, one of which he was studying as I entered. “Sit here with me, Lobsang,” he said, “we have a lot of things to discuss together, but first an important question to a growing man: have you had enough to eat and drink?” I assured him that I had. “The Lord Abbot has said that we can work together. We have traced your previous incarnation and it was a good one. Now we want to redevelop certain powers and abilities you then had. In the space of a very few years we want you to have more knowledge than a lama has in a very long life.” He paused, and looked at me long and hard. His eyes were very piercing. “All men must be free to choose their own path,” he continued, “your way will be hard for forty years, if you take the right path, but it will lead to great benefits in the next life. The wrong path now will give you com- forts, softness, and riches in this life, but you will not develop. You and you alone can choose.” He stopped, and looked at me. “Sir,” I replied, “my father told me that if I failed at the lamasery I was not to return home. How then would I have softness and comfort if I had no home to which to return? And who would show me the right path if I choose it?” He smiled at me and answered: “Have you already forgotten? We have traced your previous incarnation. If you choose the wrong path, the path of softness, you will be installed in a lamasery as a Living Incarnation, and in a very few years will be an abbot in charge. Your father would not call that failure!” Something in the way he spoke made me ask a further question: “Would you consider it a failure?” “Yes,” he replied, “knowing what I know, I would call it a failure.” “And who will show me the way ?” “I will be your guide if you take the right path, but you are the one to choose, no one can influence your decision.” I looked at him, stared at him. And liked what I saw. A big man, with keen black eyes. A broad open face, and a high forehead. Yes, I liked what I saw. Although only seven years of age, I had had a hard life, and met many people, and really could judge if a man was good. “Sir,” I said, “I would like to be your pupil and take the right path.” I added somewhat ruefully, I suppose, “But I still don't like hard work!” He laughed, and his laugh was deep and warming. “Lobsang, Lobsang, none of us really like hard work, but few of us are truthful enough to admit it.” He looked through his papers. “We shall need to do a little operation to your head soon to force clairvoyance, and then we will speed your studies hypnotically. We are going to take you far in metaphysics, as well as in medicine!”
I felt a bit gloomy, more hard work. It seemed to me that I had had to work hard all my seven years, and there seemed to be little play, or kite flying. The lama seemed to know my thoughts. “Oh yes, young man. There will be much kite flying later, the real thing: man-lifters. But first we must map out how best to arrange these studies.” He turned to his papers, and riffled through them. “Let me see, nine o’clock until one. Yes, that will do for a start. Come here every day at nine, instead of attending service, and we will see what interesting things we can discuss. Starting from tomorrow. Have you any message for your father and mother? I'm seeing them today. Giving them your pigtail!” I was quite overcome. When a boy was accepted by a lamasery his pigtail was cut off and his head shaved, the pigtail would be sent to the parents, carried by a small acolyte, as a symbol that their son had been accepted. Now the Lama Mingyar Dondup was taking my pigtail to deliver in person. That meant that he had accepted me as his own personal charge, as his “spiritual son”. This lama was a very important man, a very clever man, one who had a most enviable reputation throughout Tibet. I knew that I could not fail under such a man. That morning, back in the classroom, I was a most inattentive pupil. My thoughts were elsewhere, and the teacher had ample time and opportunity to satisfy his joy in punishing at least one small boy! It all seemed very hard, the severity of the teachers. But then, I consoled myself, that is why I came, to learn. That is why I reincarnated, although then I did not remember what it was that I had to relearn. We firmly believe in reincarnation, in Tibet. We believe that when one reaches a certain advanced stage of evolution, one can choose to go on to another plane of existence, or return to earth to learn something more, or to help others. It may be that a wise man had a certain mission in life, but died before he could complete his work. In that case, so we believe, he can return to complete his task, providing that the result will be of benefit to others. Very few people could have their previous incarnations traced back, there had to be certain signs and the cost and time would prohibit it. Those who had those signs, as I had, were termed “Living Incarnations”. They were subjected to the sternest of stern treatment when they were young—as I had been—but became objects of reverence when they became older. In my case I was going to have special treatment to “force-feed” my occult knowledge. Why, I did not know, then! A rain of blows on my shoulders brought me back to the reality of the classroom with a violent jerk. “Fool, dolt, imbecile! Have the mind demons penetrated your thick skull? It is more than I could do. You are fortunate that it is now time to attend service.” With that remark, the enraged teacher gave me a final hearty blow, for good measure, and stalked out of the room. The boy next to me said, “Don't forget, it's our turn to work in the kitchens this afternoon. Hope we get a chance to fill our tsampa bags.” Kitchen work was hard, the “regulars” there used to treat us boys as slaves. There was no hour of rest for us after kitchen hour. Two solid hours of hard labour, then straight to the classroom again. Some- times we would be kept later in the kitchens, and so be late for class. A fuming teacher would be waiting for us, and would lay about him with his stick without giving us any opportunity of explaining the reason. My first day of work in the kitchens was nearly my last. We trooped reluctantly along the stone-flagged corridors towards the kitchens. At the door we were met by an angry monk: “Come on, you lazy, useless rascals,” he shouted. “The first ten of you, get in there and stoke the fires.” I was the tenth. Down another flight of steps we went. The heat was overpowering. In front of us we saw a ruddy light, the light of roaring fires. Huge piles of yak-dung lay about, this was fuel for the furnaces. “Get those iron scoops and stoke for your lives,” the monk in charge yelled. I was just a poor seven-year-old among the others of my class, among whom was none younger than seventeen. I could scarcely lift the scoop, and in straining to put the fuel in the fire I tipped it over the monk's feet. With a roar of rage he seized me by the throat, swung me round—and tripped. I was sent flying backwards. A terrible pain shot through me, and there was the sickening smell of burning flesh. I had fallen against the red-hot end of a bar protruding from the furnace. I fell with a scream to the floor, among the hot ashes. At the top of my left leg, almost at the leg joint, the bar had burned its way in until stopped by the bone. I still have the dead- white scar, which even now causes me some trouble. By this scar I was in later years to be identified by the Japanese. There was uproar. Monks came rushing from everywhere. I was still among the hot ashes but was soon lifted out. Quite a lot of my body had superficial burns, but the leg burn really was serious. Quickly I was carried upstairs to a lama. He was a medical lama, and applied himself to the task of saving my leg. The iron had been rusty, and when it entered my leg, flakes of rust had remained behind. He had to probe round and scoop out the pieces until the wound was clean. Then it was tightly packed with a powdered herb compress. The rest of my body was dabbed with a herbal lotion which certainly eased the pain of the fire. My leg was throbbing and throbbing and I was sure that I would never walk again. When he had finished, the lama called a monk to carry me to a small side-room, where I was put to bed on cushions. An old monk came in and sat on the floor beside me and started muttering prayers over me. I thought to myself that it was a fine thing to offer prayers for my safety after the accident had happened. I also decided to lead a good life, as I now had personal experience of what it felt like when the fire devils tormented one. I thought of a picture I had seen, in which a devil was prodding an unfortunate victim in much the same place as I had been burned. It may be thought that monks were terrible people, not at all what one would expect. But — “monks”—what does it mean? We understand that word as anyone, male, living in the lamastic service. Not necessarily a religious person. In Tibet almost any- one can become a monk. Often a boy is “sent to be a monk” with- out having any choice at all in the matter. Or a man may decide that he had had enough of sheep herding, and wants to be sure of a roof over his head when the temperature is forty below zero. He becomes a monk not through religious convictions, but for his own creature comfort. The lamaseries had “monks” as their domestic staff, as their builders, labourers, and scavengers. In other parts of the world they would be termed “servants” or the equivalent. Most of them had had a hard time; life at twelve to twenty thousand feet can be difficult, and often they were hard on us boys just for sheer want of thought or feeling. To us the term “monk” was synonymous with “man”. We named the members of the priesthood quite differently. A chela was a boy pupil, a novice, or acolyte. Nearest to what the average man means by “monk” is trappa. He is the most numerous of those in a lamasery. Then we come to that most abused term, a lama. If the trappas are the non-commissioned soldiers, then the lama is the commissioned officer. Judging by the way most people in the West talk and write, there are more officers than men! Lamas are masters, gurus, as we term them. The Lama Mingyar Dondup was going to be my guru, and I his chela. After the lamas there were the abbots. Not all of them were in charge of lamaseries, many were engaged in the general duties of senior administration, or traveling from lama- sery to lamasery. In some instances, a particular lama could be of higher status than an abbot, it depended upon what he was doing. Those who were “Living Incarnations”, such as I had been proved, could be made abbots at the age of fourteen; it depended upon whether they could pass the severe examinations. These groups were strict and stern, but they were not cruel; they were at all times just. A further example of “monks” can be seen in the term “police monks”. Their sole purpose was to keep order, they were not concerned with the temple ceremonial except that they had to be present to make sure that everything was orderly. The police monks often were cruel and, as stated, so were the domestic staff. One could not condemn a bishop because his under-gardener misbehaved! Nor expect the under-gardener to be a saint just because he worked for a bishop. In the lamasery we had a prison. Not by any means a pleasant place to be in, but the characters of those who were consigned to it were not pleasant either. My solitary experience of it was when I had to treat a prisoner who had been taken ill. It was when I was almost ready to leave the lamasery that I was called to the prison cell. Out in the back courtyard were a number of circular parapets, about three feet high. The massive stones forming them were as wide as they were high. Covering the tops were stone bars each as thick as a man's thigh. They covered a circular opening about nine feet across. Four police monks grasped the centre bar, and dragged it aside. One stooped and picked up a yak-hair rope, at the end of which there was a flimsy-looking loop. I looked on unhappily; trust myself to that? “Now, Honourable Medical Lama,” said the man, “if you will step here and put your foot in this we will lower you.” Gloomily I complied. “You will want a light, sir,” the police monk said, and passed me a flaring torch made of yarn soaked in butter. My gloom increased; I had to hold on to the rope, and hold the torch, and avoid setting myself on fire or burning through the thin little rope which so dubiously sup- ported me. But down I went, twenty-five or thirty feet, down between walls glistening with water, down to the filthy stone floor. By the light of the torch I saw an evil-looking wretch crouched against the wall. Just one look was enough, there was no aura around him, so no life. I said a prayer for the soul wandering between the planes of existence, and closed the wild, staring eyes, then called to be pulled up. My work was finished, now the body- breakers would take over. I asked what had been his crime, and was told that he had been a wandering beggar who had come to the lamasery for food and shelter, and then, in the night, killed a monk for his few possessions. He had been overtaken while escaping, and brought back to the scene of his crime. But all that is somewhat of a digression from the incident of my first attempt at kitchen work. The effects of the cooling lotions were wearing off, and I felt as if the skin were being scorched off my body. The throbbing in my leg increased, it seemed as if it was going to explode; to my fevered imagination the hole was filled with a flaming torch. Time dragged; throughout the lamasery there were sounds, some that I knew, and many that I did not. The pain was sweeping up my body in great fiery gouts. I lay on my face, but the front of my body also was burned, burned by the hot ashes. There was a faint rustle, and someone sat beside me. A kind, compassionate voice, the voice of the Lalna Mingyar Dondup said: “Little friend, it is too much. Sleep.” Gentle fingers swept along my spine. Again, and again, and I knew no more. A pale sun was shining in my eyes. I blinked awake, and with the first returning consciousness thought that someone was kicking me—that I had overslept. I tried to jump up, to attend service, but fell back in agony. My leg! A soothing voice spoke: “Keep still, Lobsang, this is a day of rest for you.” I turned my head stiffly, and saw with great astonishment that I was in the lama’s room, and that he was sitting beside me. He saw my look and smiled. “And why the amazement? Is it not right that two friends should be together when one is sick?” My somewhat faint reply was: “But you are a Head Lama, and I am just a boy.” “Lobsang, we have gone far together in other lives. In this, yet, you do not remember. I do, we were very close together in our last incarnations. But now you must rest and regain your strength. We are going to save your leg for you, so do not worry.” I thought of the Wheel of Existence, I thought of the injunction in our Buddhist Scriptures: The prosperity of the generous man never fails, while the miser finds no comforter. Let the powerful man be generous to the suppliant. Let him look down the long path of lives. For riches revolve like the wheels of a cart, they come now to one, now to another. The beggar today is a prince tomorrow, and the prince may come as a beggar. It was obvious to me even then that the lama who was now my guide was indeed a good man, and one whom I would follow to the utmost of my ability. It was clear that he knew a very great deal about me, far more than I knew myself. I was looking forward to studying with him, and I resolved that no one should have a better pupil. There was, as I could plainly feel, a very strong affinity between us, and I marveled at the workings of Fate which had placed me in his care. I turned my head to look out of the window. My bed-cushions had been placed on a table so that I could see out. It seemed very strange to be resting off the floor, some four feet in the air. My childish fancy likened it to a bird roosting in a tree! But there was much to see. Far away over the lower roofs beneath the window, I could see Lhasa sprawled in the sunlight. Little houses, dwarfed by the distance, and all of delicate pastel shades. The meandering waters of the Kyi River flowed through the level valley, flanked by the greenest of green grass. In the distance the mountains were purple, surmounted with white caps of shining snow. The nearer mountain-sides were speckled with golden-roofed lamaseries. To the left was the Potala with its immense bulk forming a small mountain. Slightly to the right of us was a small wood from which peeped temples and colleges. This was the home of the State Oracle of Tibet, an important gentleman whose sole task in life is to connect the material world with the immaterial. Below, in the forecourt, monks of all ranks were passing to and fro. Some wore a sombre brown robe, these were the worker monks. A small group of boys were wearing white, student monks from some more distant lamasery. Higher ranks were there, too: those in blood red, and those with purple robes. These latter often had golden stoles upon them, indicating that they were connected with the higher admin- istration. A number were on horses or ponies. The laity rode coloured animals, while the priests used only white. But all this was taking me away from the immediate present. I was more concerned now about getting better and being able to move around again. After three days it was thought better for me to get up and move around. My leg was very stiff and shockingly painful. The whole area was inflamed and there was much discharge caused by the particles of iron rust which had not been removed. As I could not walk unaided, a crutch was made, and I hopped about on this with some resemblance to a wounded bird. My body still had a large number of burns and blisters from the hot ashes, but the whole lot together was not as painful as my leg. Sitting was im- possible, I had to lie on my right side or on my face. Obviously I could not attend services or the classrooms, so my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, taught me almost full time. He expressed him- self as well satisfied with the amount I had learnt in my few years, and said, “But a lot of this you have unconsciously remembered from your last incarnation.” Tuesday Lobsang Rampa was a very popular writer who claimed to have been a Lama in Tibet before spending the second part of his life in the body of a British man, Cyril Henry Hoskin, who described himself as the "host" of T. Lobsang Rampa. To many, Dr. Rampa was a revolutionary of his time, one of the first of the Eastern teachers to bring Buddhism and metaphysics to the West in a popular fashion. He wrote many books about spiritual matters, beginning with "The Third Eye". Lobsang Rampa attempts to teach the timeless universal truths, while traveling along the spiritual path. Dr. Rampa's books also discuss the state of humanity's progress and he shows how we can be a positive force for good, thus improving ourselves and helping our fellow humans and all sentient beings. Look for the next chapter in The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa in the next edition of our magazine or prior chapters in previous editions. To read other books by T. Lobsang Rampa, visit our free Ebook section by clicking Here. |
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Essay: How To Visualize by Ernest Holmes
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There is no power in holding thoughts; indeed, the real secret of successful mental work is to loose thought and let Mind operate upon it.
The first thing to do is to decide what you wish to image into Mind. After having become composed in thought, begin to see the complete outcome of your desires, in mental pictures. Suppose that you wish to demonstrate a home; you should know just what kind of home you wish. Of course, if you simply thought of house you would get something, but the more definite the picture the better the results will be. In order to make the picture complete, decide just what kind of a home you wish to live in; then, in the silence of your thought, mentally look at this house; go from there to look at some piece of furniture or at some picture on the wall. Make the whole thing real, as far as possible; enter the house, sit down and feel that you are actually living there, saying, "I am now living in this house." You have set a word in motion through the Law which will bring a realization of your desire, unless you, yourself, neutralize the picture by doubting it. Do this every day until the house appears. Use the same process in visualizing anything.
In order that you may fully understand just what I mean, I will illustrate by drawing a mental picture which I will ask you to follow as you read these lines. Imagine that you are with me; we will suppose that I am a man about six feet tall, with light hair and complexion. We are sitting on the front porch of a house that is painted green; it is a two-story house and sits quite far back from the road; there are tall trees standing in front of the house through which the sun is shining. We can see the little shadows as they play upon the porch through the open spaces between the trees. The breeze is gently blowing and the leaves are waving back and forth. I am talking to you, saying, "Let us take a walk together." We immediately rise from our seats, which are made of wicker, and walk down three stone steps to a gravel walk, leading to the street. As we go out through a stone gate we are suddenly met by a dog which is running along the street; he is a large, yellow dog, and is running rapidly. We watch him as he runs, barking, down the street, till he turns a corner,—and our picture is at an end. Now, if you have carefully imaged each step in the above picture, you will understand what visualizing means.
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Affirmation: (Selection from The Conscious Word Daily Affirmation) |
God is the only power and
That power is within me.
There is only one plan, God's plan, and
That plan now comes to pass.
(The preceding is a selection from our daily affirmation, emailed directly to you each morning, called The Conscious Word. You can obtain more information and view a sample issue by clicking Here.)
Essay: My Son Was Born Smiling, Bald and 220 Pounds by Steve Roberts
When
I met my younger son, 41, for the first time a few
months ago, I wasn’t surprised to find myself dazed
and elated, saying, “My life will never be the
same.” What surprised me was why.
A short time earlier, this boy of my heart was inspired to explore the ancestry of his biological mother’s surname (the only biological surname he knew, since it was his at birth, changed immediately thereafter upon adoption). Just to see what would happen he Googled his complete birth name, first and last—and presto!—up popped on the very first page that name, his birth date and the name of the hospital where he was born.
Wait a minute, he thought, that’s me!
Clicking the related link, an on-line registry I’d joined that helps connect biological children and parents, he found my smiling face and the message that I was his original dad. Until that day, that moment, he’d known absolutely nothing about me. In fact, he told me later, he’d not given much thought to looking for his biological parents, not from any particular resistance (he presumed it would happen at some point), but because the love he received from his family left him with no void of identity aching to be filled.
Quickly, however, he found my website, where, among photos, biographical info and so on, he came upon several dozen of my essays—noodlings on my basic sense that the universe is a friendly place—including an essay about him, “The Power of Invisible People,” on the occasion of his 40th birthday.
Plus, he learned I’d authored a book of essays and stories, which he ordered from Amazon overnight. Thumbing through it, he paused at the acknowledgements, where he found himself listed among those who most conspicuously shape my life. “Projectile weeping,” he says, was his response. Soon after, he wrote the letter that began, “Hello Steve, I am your son….”
His name, I now know, is Craig. I’ve read his letter to any number of friends and family, and invariably each echoes the sentiment: “My God, he sounds just like you.”
The litany of common idiosyncrasies is enjoyably endless. The guy builds stone sculptures, for crying out loud. Then there are those connections of spirit that seem to exist beyond the paradigm of shared DNA. The part of me that, since birth, has experienced the universe as playful, loving and deep resides noticeably in him as well. As a kid in the early morning darkness after a snowstorm, Craig would surreptitiously take red food coloring and paint hearts on random front lawns in his town.
I came into this world with a bit of an attitude: I was going to experience God or die trying. (Of course, there are those who would say that I was also committed to being the person your mother warned you about.) By “experience,” I mean something way beyond thinking, studying, reading or talking about God, or even going to church: I mean realizing consciously, in every particle of my being, my Oneness with all of existence: my true identity. From that intention I have drawn to me endless beautiful, destructive, uplifting and nasty happenings that call me to be relentless in giving up my attachment to any belief, any choice, any anything that keeps me separate from Love. It’s messy at times, steep being the price of pretense, but there’s also fun. The more I’m dead certain about less and less; the more I get that every person, place or thing is a mirror showing me myself; the more I breathe through both joy and pain; the more I see everything as a manifestation of the Divine—the more I am open to what Paramahansa Yogananda calls the illimitable sky of wisdom.
The sun in this sky warms within me a passion to share what I’m learning with fellow travelers, beginning with my family of spirit and blood. It’s one reason I write essays, photograph my stone sculptures and draw with pen and ink as a form of journaling. No matter when Craig learned of my identity, even if he chose not meet me (or couldn’t because I was no longer walking the earth), I wished to provide him an opportunity to learn something about himself from my life, should he find that useful.
Now that he’s actually been born to me—smiling, bald and 220 pounds—the awe and reverence of a grand adventure marks the prospect of being with him in whatever ways lay before us.
And yet, and this is the surprising part, if, after receiving Craig’s letter, he and I were somehow prevented from enjoying any further contact—no phone calls, no long days in one another’s company, no emails, no sharing photos, no nothing—my heart would still be singing.
His letter satisfied a hunger that I hadn’t acknowledged I’d been living with all these years, a hunger that had always been central to my intentions for him: that he be making his way surrounded by love, and thriving in that love. In the context of his written words that prompted me to say to my wife on the day I received them, “He’s such a beautiful boy,” two sentences leapt out: “I was raised…by the most loving family a boy could ever want,” and “I am blessed with a…circle of friends who never miss an opportunity to love me shamelessly.”
Among Craig’s earliest memories is seeing his parents, Wilma and Max, standing in his bedroom doorway, watching him sleep. Speechless with gratitude, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s certainly my primary feeling—gratitude for the privilege of meeting this boy of my heart, but mostly gratitude for the privilege of learning that his soul has been well-tended.
To find out more about Steve, see examples of his stone sculptures or read a chapter from his book, click Here.
Steve Roberts is the author of Cool Mind Warm Heart, a collection of essays, stories, and photographs of stone sculptures he builds on his Vermont farm. He can be found on the web at CoolMindWarmHeart.com and at TheHeartOfTheEarth.com.
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The Conscious Word is an email newsletter sent directly to you each day. Each issue contains an inspirational affirmation designed to help uplift your spirits and support your conscious efforts at personal and spiritual growth and development. By practicing the affirmation which we email to you, for 3 to 4 minutes a day, you create an effective tool that will help you experience an ongoing positive change in your life. We all “know” many things. However, “knowing” something, in and of itself, does not make it “true” to us. We can read all about oranges; we can look at pictures of oranges and we can talk to people who have eaten oranges. But, until we taste the orange ourselves, we do not truly understand the full truth about what an orange is. Likewise, we can experience the “truth”, the real nature, of many more subtle and essential concepts by “tasting” them. One of the capabilities of an affirmation is to provide us with a “taste” of the subject matter of the affirmation. However, something else is also at work in an affirmation. One of the secrets of the universe is that when a human believes something is so, it becomes what he or she believes. Jesus said “Verily I say unto you, if ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, `Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea,' it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Book of Matthew verses 21 and 22) The key words in this quote are “If ye have faith and doubt not..” and “all things whatsoever ye shall ask believing..” Jesus is describing this receptivity of the universe to human belief. However, there are requirements for this belief to be effective. Jesus says we must have “faith” without doubt and that we must “believe” as we ask. James Allen’s famous premise “As a man Thinketh, so it is” expresses this same truth. In essence, when we become utterly convinced of the truth of something, which means we have absolutely no doubts about it, the universe will be molded and shaped to match our conviction. The challenging part is to find a way to become convinced of something that is not yet actualized. To cultivate our faith. This is where affirmations can help. By taking a thought or collection of thoughts and impressing them deeply upon the mind with persistence and concentration, a conviction can be cultivated. Developing our own personal convictions, especially about ourselves, and then deepening and persisting in those convictions is a major key to our health, happiness and success in life. For More Information, an example issue and A Two Week Free Trial, Click Here. After your 2 week free trial, our normal subscription rate is $3.50 each month.
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| News: Stop Worrying, Think Positively To Avoid Memory Loss |
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(Reuters Life!) - Think positive, especially if you want to retain a
good memory as you age. That's the advice of scientists at North Carolina State University who found that expecting to have a diminishing memory with age could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a study published in the journal Experimental Aging Research, they found that seniors who do not believe in the negative stereotype that memory loss is a natural occurrence in old age did better on tests than other elderly people. 'Older people will perform more poorly on a memory test if they are told that older folks do poorly on that particular type of memory test,' Dr Tom Hess, who headed the study, said in a statement. He and his team tested memory performance of adults 60 to 70 years old and others who were 71 to 82. In addition to doing more poorly in tests if they bought into the negative stereotype of aging and memory, seniors also performed poorly if they thought they were stigmatized, or looked down on, because of their age. 'Such situations may be part of older adults' everyday experience, such as being concerned about what others think of them at work having a negative effect on their performance—and thus potentially reinforcing the negative stereotypes,' said Hess. The negative effects were strongest in adults with the highest level of education, according to the researchers. But on the plus side, if seniors have a more positive view of aging their memory performance scores are higher. 'The take-home message is that social factors may have a negative effect on older adults' memory performance,' he added. Copyright 2009 Reuters. Reprinted with permission from Reuters. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution or Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters Sphere Logo are registered trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. For additional information about Reuters content and services, please visit Reuters website at www.reuters.com. License # REU-4198-JJM. |
| News: New Product Line Added To Our Catalog: Spiritual Classical Music |
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Conscious Living Foundation is pleased to announce that we have added an
entirely new category of music to our product catalog. In addition
to our wide variety of New Age music CDs and Cassettes, we are now
offering a variety of classical recordings of the very highest quality.This expanding selection of recordings are primarily performances by the acclaimed choral group Gloriae Dei Cantores. You will find selections by Renaissance masters, sacred music of Russia (including numbers by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky), Palestrina, Brahms and Mozart. In addition, there are more traditional spiritual songs such as Amazing Grace, What A Friend We Have In Jesus and Simple Gifts. As always, free audio samples from each album are available for your download and enjoyment. Click Here for more information and lots of free samples. Spiritual encouragement can come in many forms - one of the most powerful are these recordings of the deep attunement and inspiration of these great masters. |
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In addition to our Inspirational Products, we also now offer many other products
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News: The Power of Silence by Steven Taylor
Modern humans have lost touch with their inner "true self". Silence and
stillness are a means to recovering happiness and contentment.
In the modern world silence has practically ceased to exist. The human race
has stamped its authority over the planet Earth not just by covering its surface
with concrete and destroying its plant and animal life, but also by burying the
natural sounds of the Earth beneath a cacophony of man-made noise. We live our
lives against the background of this cacophony, with the jagged mechanical
sounds of urban-industrial society continually assaulting our ears: the roar of
cars, aeroplanes and trains, the clanging and thudding of machinery, the noise
of building and renovating, the chatter of radios and TVs in other people's cars
and houses, and pop music blaring from every conceivable place. But nothing, of
course, has done more to obliterate silence than the car. In the modern world
it's very difficult to go anywhere where there's no possibility of being
disturbed by the sound of passing cars, and the only chance that city or town
dwellers get to experience something of the quietness which existed everywhere
in the pre-car world is sometimes on Sundays, when the mad rushing to and fro of
modern life slows down. This quietness seems so foreign now that it seems
difficult to believe that a hundred years ago and before it was everywhere all
the time. Back then this quietness would even have filled the busiest city
centres, which would have probably had a noise level equivalent to that of a
modern small village. There's also more noise than ever before inside our houses.
It's unusual to go into a house nowadays where there isn't at least one
television set chattering away somewhere, even if the residents aren't actually
watching it, and other forms of home entertainment compete against TV to produce
the most noise: radios, CD players, computer and video games etc. In fact the
only sound which is largely absent from people's houses nowadays is the voices
of their occupants actually talking to one another. Living in the midst of all this noise is bound to have a bad
effect on us. All man-made noise is fundamentally disturbing—we find the sound
of birds singing or of wind rushing through trees pleasing, but mechanical noise
always jars and grates. And since we live our lives against a background of
mechanical noise it follows that there's always an undercurrent of agitation
inside us, produced by the noise. This noise is certainly one of the reasons why
modern life is so stressful as well. In modern life our senses are bombarded
with massive amounts of external stimuli—our fields of vision are always crowded
with different (and constantly shifting) things, and our ears are bombarded with
a bewildering variety of sounds, all of which clamour for our attention. Our
senses have to absorb and process all this material, which takes up a lot of
energy, and means that we're liable to become drained of energy or 'run down'
easily. We can get out of this state by removing ourselves from all external
stimuli and letting our energy-batteries naturally recharge themselves—i.e., by
relaxing. But there's so much external stimuli around in the modern world and
people are so unaccustomed to the absence of it, that we may never be able relax
properly, which could mean living in a permanently 'run down' state. This lack of quietness has also meant is that people are no
longer used to silence, and have even, as a result, become afraid of it. Along
with inactivity, silence has become something which most people are determined
to avoid at all costs, and which, when they are confronted with it, unnerves
them. People have become so used to the frantic pace and the ceaseless activity
of modern life that they feel uneasy when they're left at a loose end with
nothing to occupy their attention even for a few moments, and they feel equally
uneasy when the noise they live their lives against the background of subsides.
Why else is it that they need to have their radios and televisions chattering
away in the background even when they're not paying attention to them? In other words, in the modern world silence has become an
enemy. And this is a terrible shame, because in reality silence is one of our
greatest friends, and can—if it's allowed to reveal itself to us—have a
powerfully beneficial effect on us. It's not just the noise outside us which causes us problems,
though, but also the noise inside us. In the same way that the natural quietness and stillness of
the world around us is always covered over with man-made noise, the natural
quietness of our minds is constantly disturbed by the chattering of our
ego-selves. This chattering fills our minds from the moment we wake up in the
morning till the moment we go to sleep at night—an endless stream of daydreams,
memories, deliberations, worries, plans etc. which we have no control over and
which even continues (in the form of dreams) when we fall asleep. This 'inner
noise' has as many bad effects as the mechanical noise outside us. It actually
creates problems in our lives, when we mull over tiny inconveniences or
uncertainties which seem to become important just because we're giving so much
attention to them, and when we imagine all kinds of possible scenarios about
future events instead of just taking them as they come. It means that we don't
live in the present, because we're always either planning for and anticipating
the future or remembering the past—'wandering about in times that do not belong
to us and never thinking of the one that does' as Blaise Pascal wrote. And this
constant inner chattering also means that we can never give our full attention
to our surroundings and to the activities of our lives. Our attention is always
partly taken up by the thoughts in our minds, so that wherever we are and
whatever we're doing we're never completely there. It's probably possible to say that there's also more of this
'inner noise' inside human beings than there's ever been before. The hectic pace
and the constant activity of our lives, the massive amount of external stimuli
we're bombarded with, and the barrage of information which the mass media sends
our way, have made our minds more restless and active. We've got to juggle
dozens of different problems and concerns in our minds just to get by from day
to day, and every new thing we see or every new piece of information which is
sent our way is potentially the beginning of a whole new train of thought to
occupy our minds. Ultimately, the most serious consequence of both this inner
chattering and the noise and activity of the modern world is that they separate
us from our true selves. Our 'true self' might be called the ground, or the essence,
of our beings. It's the pure consciousness inside us, the
consciousness-in-itself which remains when we're not actually conscious of
anything. It's what remains when our the activity of our senses and the activity
of our minds cease. The sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the
thoughts which run through our minds are like the images on a cinema screen, but
our 'true self' is the cinema screen itself, which is still there even when
there aren't any images being projected on to it. Experiencing this 'consciousness-in-itself' can have a
massively therapeutic effect. It brings a sense of being firmly rooted in
ourselves, of being truly who we are. We also have a sense of being truly where
we are, realising that before we were only half-present, and everything we see
around us seems intensely real and alive, as if our perceptions have become much
more acute. But above all, we experience a profound sense of inner peace and
natural happiness. As the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always held, the
nature of consciousness-in-itself (which means the consciousness inside us and
the consciousness which pervades the whole universe) is bliss. Getting into
contact with the pure consciousness inside us enables us, therefore, to
experience this bliss. Indeed, it could be said that it's only when we do this
that we can experience true happiness. Usually what we think of as happiness is
hedonistic or ego-based—that is, based around pressing instinctive 'pleasure
buttons' or around receiving attention and praise from others and increasing our
self-esteem. But the kind of deep and rich happiness we experience when we're in
touch with the ground or essence of our beings is a natural, spiritual
happiness, which doesn't depend on anything external, and doesn't vanish as soon
as the thing which produced it is taken away. It's a happiness which comes from
experiencing the divine inside us—and also the divine inside everything else,
since the pure consciousness inside us is the same pure consciousness inside
everything else, and the pure consciousness of the universe itself. Whether we're in touch with this 'true self' or not depends
on how much external stimuli our senses are taking in from the world around us,
and on how much activity there is going on in our minds. If there is a lot of
noise, movement and activity taking place around us then we can't help but give
our attention to it; and in the same way, when there is a lot of 'inner noise'
taking place we have to give our attention to that too. And when our attention
is completely absorbed in this way—either by external stumuli on their own, such
as when we watch TV; by 'inner noise' on its own, such as when we daydream; or
by both of them at the same time—it's impossible for us to be in contact with
our 'true self' to any degree, in the same way that it's impossible to see a
cinema screen in itself when it's full of dancing images. Being in contact with
our 'true self' is a state of attentionless-ness, when our minds are completely
empty. What we have to do if we want to get into contact with this
part of ourselves is, therefore, to withdraw our attention from these things.
And this is, of course, what we do when we meditate: first of all, we remove
ourselves from external stimuli, by sitting in a quiet room and closing our
eyes. And then there's only 'inner noise' standing between us and
consciousness-in-itself, which we try to quieten by concentrating on a mantra or
on our breathing. If we manage to stop the inner noise (and therefore stop our
attention being absorbed in it) pure consciousness immerses us and we become our
true selves. And this brings us back to the most serious problem caused by
the massive amount of external stimuli (including noise) which our senses are
bombarded with in the modern world, and by the intensified 'inner noise' which
modern life generates. It's not just a question of completely closing yourself
off to external stimuli and shutting down 'inner noise', so that you can
experience a state of total immersion in pure consciousness. It's possible to
have a foot in both camps, so to speak—to live a normal life in the world, being
exposed to external stimuli and experiencing inner noise, and at the same time
still be rooted in your real self. That is, it's possible to be partially
immersed in consciousness-in-itself, and for your attention to be partially
absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. But this can only happen when there
is just a moderate degree of both of the latter. It would probably have been quite easy for our ancestors to
live in this way, because they weren't exposed to a great deal of external
stimuli and because their lives were relatively slow-paced and stress-free,
which would have meant that their attention needn't have been completely
absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. Perhaps this even partly explains
why native peoples seem to possess a natural contentment which modern city
dwellers have lost—because their more sedate lives mean that they're able to be
in touch with the ground of their being as they go about their lives, and that
they can therefore continually experience something of the bliss of which is the
nature of consciousness-in-itself. For us, however, this has become very difficult. There's
always so much noise and activity both inside and outside us that our attention
is always completely absorbed, so that we can't be in contact with our real
selves. We spend all our time living outside ourselves, lost in the external
world of activity and stimuli or in the inner world of our own thoughts. We're
like a person who plans to go away for a few days but finds so much to occupy
them in the place they go to that they never go home again, and never again
experience the peace and contentment which lie there. This is certainly one of
the reasons why so many people nowadays seem to live in a state of
dissatisfaction—because they've lost touch with the natural happiness inside
them. That natural happiness has been buried underneath a storm of external
stimuli and what Meister Eckhart called 'the storm of inward thought'. As a result of this it's essential for us, in the modern
world, to go out of our way to cultivate silence ourselves. Circumstances may
oblige us to live in cities, and our jobs may be stressful and demanding, but
we're still free to remove ourselves from external stimuli and to try to quieten
our minds by meditating, going out into the countryside, or just by sitting
quietly in our rooms. We don't have to fill our free time with
attention-absorbing distractions like TV and computer games, which take us even
further away from ourselves. We should do the opposite: stop our attention being
absorbed like this so that we can find ourselves again. We need silence and stillness to become our true selves and
to be truly happy. 'Be still,' said Jesus, 'and know that I am God.' But he
might have added, 'and know that you are God.' Steven Taylor is a free-lance writer and
teacher residing in Manchester, England. This article was published in New Renaissance magazine
Vol. 8, No. 2Inner Noise
The True Self
Making Contact with the True Self
Conscious Friends - Creating a World-Wide Spiritual
Community
To that end, The Conscious Living
Foundation is pleased to announce the formal launch of the Conscious Friends
section of our website, in the hope that we all can find new like-minded
friends, develop deeper relationships and work together to enhance our
world. Conscious Friends offers several excellent features
designed to help us communicate with each other, including access to custom
created profiles of spiritually oriented people, a wide range of stimulating
and thought-provoking forums, public and private chat rooms, instant
messaging and our own private and confidential internal email system.
However, the most valuable assets within Conscious Friends
are the people who create the community. Even in its infancy, we have
members from Croatia, Great Britain, Switzerland, India, South Africa,
Nigeria, Canada, France, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe,
Portugal, Oman and Norway, as well as all over the United States. And,
our membership continues to grow every day. Don't miss this great
opportunity to discover how wide-spread, optimistic and hopeful our global
spiritual community really is. Joined together we can create a world-wide Spirit village,
a global community of high-minded individuals who can help uplift and serve
each other and all our brothers and sisters hungry for a deeper meaning in
their lives. Membership is free, so we invite you to visit Conscious
Friends and discover for yourself the great opportunities which await you -
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of thousands of people visit The Conscious Living Foundation website.
Married or single, male or female, youth or senior, we all appreciate having
friends who share our common interest in personal and spiritual growth.
As we learn and mature, many of us have realized that relationships are an
important part of creating and maintaining a harmonious and uplifting life.
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growth does not stop regardless of economic conditions.In our small way, to help with this dilemma, The Conscious Living Foundation is offering a free subscription to either of our most popular inspirational daily email products. Choice One - The Conscious Word is an email newsletter sent directly to you each day. Each issue contains an inspirational affirmation designed to help uplift your spirits and support your conscious efforts at personal and spiritual growth and development; along with instructions on how to practice the affirmation effectively. To see an example issue and read more details, click Here. Choice Two - Conscious Wisdom is an email newsletter also sent directly to you each day. Each issue contains an inspirational quotation providing guidance and wisdom to uplift your spirits and support your conscious efforts at personal and spiritual growth and development. Our inspirational quotations include selections from Ernest Holmes, James Allen, The Bagavad Gita, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, Thomas a Kempis, the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapada, the Bible, Florence Scovel Shin, Emilie Cady, Ralph Waldo Trine, Prentice Mulford, Charles Filmore, Wallace Wattles and many other saints, sages and wise ones from all religions. To see an example issue and read more details, click Here.The Nature of the Free Offer - We are offering you a free subscription to either of these emails. There is no limit on your subscription. This is not a 2 week free trial. If you subscribe through this online magazine, you may continue to receive your subscription for as long as you wish - at no charge - no strings attached. You can, of course, cancel your subscription at any time. How To Get Your Free Subscription
If you wish to subscribe to Conscious Wisdom, Please click ConsciousWisdom@ConsciousLivingFoundation.org This will send an email to us notifying us that you wish a free subscription. We will use the email address you use as the email address to which we send the daily email. Your email address is private with us and will not be given, sold or rented to any other individual or organization. Please note that we can only offer one free subscription to each person.It is our hope that our daily emails will help provide the inspiration, guidance and hope you are seeking. Wishing you the best, as always, |
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Serial: A Romance of Two Worlds
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Marie Corelli
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We make buying even easier with our Special Product discounts. We have collected together some of our most popular spoken word audio CDs at tremendous savings. Click Here to see our great selection of best sellers and favorites. They include audio versions of your all time favorites, perfect to listen to while driving or exercising.
Deepen your practice of the techniques that bring new joy and hope into your life - and give the gift of a deeper spiritual life and increased personal growth. Share the Spirit!
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| News: Exploring The
Free Downloads Library of The Conscious Living Foundation |
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One of the most popular sections of our website is our Free Downloads Library. It is made up of several sections which are updated on a continuous basis. We have just added a large number of new items - especially in the E-Book and Video sections. (Click on any underlined words to go directly to that section):
E-Books
Titles include works by: James Allen, Emilie Cady, Catherine Ponder, Walter Lanyon, Charles Filmore, Wallace Wattles, Mary Baker Eddy, Florence Scovel Shin, Ernest Holmes, William Atkinson, Confucius, Aristotle, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Hesse, Signmund Freud, Ralph Waldo Trine, Thomas A Kempis, Rabindranath Tagore, Lao Tze, Paramahansa Yogananda, Krishnamurti, Kahlil Gibran, Buddha, Patanjali, Napoleon Hill, Mahatma Gandhi plus Literature by authors such as: Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, a Sherlock Holmes Collection, Edgar Rice Burroughs, P.G. Wodehouse, Alexander Dumas, H.G. Wells, a Wizard of Oz Collection and hundreds of other titles!
(Lectures, Talks, Sermons, Recorded Comments, Classes and Workshops)
In addition, it contains recordings of works such as: The Book of Proverbs, The Game of Life by Florence Scovel Shin, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A' Kempis, Practicing The Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles, The Dialogs of St. Catherine of Siena and As a Man Thinketh and Byways To Blessedness by James Allen.
(Music and sounds from a variety of sources, styles and historical periods)
(Large variety of films and videos, historic and modern, documentary and talks)
Our Video section currently contains: The Ocean At Dusk - Guided Relaxation, A Biography of Mother Teresa, Meditation and Movement, Imagination Meditation, Laughter Meditation, Music for Meditation and Healing, A CNN Report on the Health Benefits of Meditation, A Biography of Mary Baker Eddy, A Man of God - An Interview with Leonard Ravenhill, Paramahansa Yogananda & Sri Yukteswar, Paramahansa Yogananda & Ramana Maharshi, Paramahansa Yogananda at Mt. Washington, Paramahansa Yogananda on a Walk In New York, Paramahansa Yogananda Demonstrating How To Sleep, Krishnamurti Talks on Freedom, Krishnamurti Talks on Life and Death, Krishnamurti Talks on Meditation and Krishnamurti Talks on World Suffering.
(Nature Pictures, Saints, Sages, Gurus, Mandalas, Chakras, Fine Art)
(Complete Plays, Radio Dramatizations, Books Read Aloud and Stories To Entertain The Entire Family - With a special collection for children)
Our audio classics are dramatic portrayals designed to primarily entertain, but with wholesome content that expresses positive values and that are suitable for the entire family to experience together. They include such titles as:
The Importance of Being Earnest, Treasure Island, A Tale of Two Cities, War of the Worlds, Abraham Lincoln, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Immortal Sherlock Holmes, Around The World In 80 Days, Pickwick Papers, Julius Caesar and Jane Eyre.
In addition, there is a special Children's Section containing dramatizations and readings especially created for younger children. They include such titles as: The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, Jack and The Bean Stalk, Puss and Boots, Blue Beard, Thumbelina, Cinderella, Twas the Night Before Christmas, Snowdrop and the 7 Dwarves, Robin Hood, The Golden Fleece, Beauty and The Beast, Rapunzel, King Arthur, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Magic Carpet and many, many more!
(Large Beautiful Pictures with Inspirational Quotes Suitable To Place on The Background of Your Computer Desktop or Screensaver Program.)
The images in this section of the magazine are a few of the selections contained in our Wall Paper Download Library. To read the inspirational inscriptions, visit us by clicking "Wall Paper" above.
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Article:
The Nature of Life After Death - The Astral and Causal Worlds by Paramahansa
Yogananda
The following is an excerpt from Paramahansa
Yogananda's Autobiography (the first edition).
In it, his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar describes his
experience after the death of his physical body and the nature of life in
the astral and causal worlds.
The final half of this exposition
will be offered in the next issue of our online
magazine.
"You have read in
the scriptures," Master went on,
"that God encased
For a collection of affirmations, click
Here.
Essay: Thinking In A Certain Way For Wealth by
Wallace D. Wattles
You must form a clear and definite mental picture of
what you want; you cannot transmit an idea unless you
have it yourself. You must have it before you can give it; and many
people fail to impress Thinking Substance because they
have themselves only a vague and misty concept of the
things they want to do, to have, or to become. It is not enough that you should have a general
desire for wealth "to do good with"; everybody has that
desire. It is not enough that you should have a wish to
travel, see things, live more, etc. Everybody has those
desires also. If you were going to send a wireless
message to a friend, you would not send the letters of
the alphabet in their order, and let him construct the
message for himself; nor would you take words at random
from the dictionary. You would send a coherent sentence;
one which meant something. When you try to impress your
wants upon Substance, remember that it must be done by a
coherent statement; you must know what you want, and be
definite. You can never get rich, or start the creative
power into action, by sending out unformed longings and
vague desires. Go over your desires just as the man I have described
went over his house; see just what you want, and get a
clear mental picture of it as you wish it to look when
you get it. That clear mental picture you must have continually
in mind, as the sailor has in mind the port toward which
he is sailing the ship; you must keep your face toward
it all the time. You must no more lose sight of it than
the steersman loses sight of the compass. It is not necessary to take exercises in
concentration, nor to set apart special times for prayer
and affirmation, nor to "go into the silence," nor to do
occult stunts of any kind. There things are well enough,
but all you need is to know what you want, and to want
it badly enough so that it will stay in your thoughts.
Spend as much of your leisure time as you can in
contemplating your picture, but no one needs to take
exercises to concentrate his mind on a thing which he
really wants; it is the things you do not really care
about which require effort to fix your attention upon
them. And unless you really want to get rich, so that the
desire is strong enough to hold your thoughts directed
to the purpose as the magnetic pole holds the needle of
the compass, it will hardly be worth while for you to
try to carry out the instructions given in this book.
The methods herein set forth are for people whose
desire for riches is strong enough to overcome mental
laziness and the love of ease, and make them work. The more clear and definite you make your picture
then, and the more you dwell upon it, bringing out all
its delightful details, the stronger your desire will
be; and the stronger your desire, the easier it will be
to hold your mind fixed upon the picture of what you
want. Something more is necessary, however, than merely to
see the picture clearly. If that is all you do, you are
only a dreamer, and will have little or no power for
accomplishment. Behind your clear vision must be the purpose to
realize it; to bring it out in tangible expression. And behind this purpose must be an invincible and
unwavering FAITH that the thing is already yours; that
it is "at hand" and you have only to take possession of
it. Live in the new house, mentally, until it takes form
around you physically. In the mental realm, enter at
once into full enjoyment of the things you want. "Whatsoever things ye ask for when ye pray, believe
that ye receive them, and ye shall have them," said
Jesus. See the things you want as if they were actually
around you all the time; see yourself as owning and
using them. Make use of them in imagination just as you
will use them when they are your tangible possessions.
Dwell upon your mental picture until it is clear and
distinct, and then take the Mental Attitude of Ownership
toward everything in that picture. Take possession of
it, in mind, in the full faith that it is actually
yours. Hold to this mental ownership; do not waiver for
an instant in the faith that it is real. And remember what was said in a proceeding chapter
about gratitude; be as thankful for it all the time as
you expect to be when it has taken form. The man who can
sincerely thank God for the things which as yet he owns
only in imagination, has real faith. He will get rich;
he will cause the creation of whatsoever he wants. You do not need to pray repeatedly for things you
want; it is not necessary to tell God about it every
day. "Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do," said
Jesus said to his pupils, "for your Father knoweth the
ye have need of these things before ye ask Him." Your part is to intelligently formulate your desire
for the things which make for a larger life, and to get
these desire arranged into a coherent whole; and then to
impress this Whole Desire upon the Formless Substance,
which has the power and the will to bring you what you
want. You do not make this impression by repeating strings
of words; you make it by holding the vision with
unshakable PURPOSE to attain it, and with steadfast
FAITH that you do attain it. The answer to prayer is not according to your faith
while you are talking, but according to your faith while
you are working. You cannot impress the mind of God by having a
special Sabbath day set apart to tell Him what you want,
and the forgetting Him during the rest of the week. You
cannot impress Him by having special hours to go into
your closet and pray, if you then dismiss the matter
from your mind until the hour of prayer comes again. Oral prayer is well enough, and has its effect,
especially upon yourself, in clarifying your vision and
strengthening your faith; but it is not your oral
petitions which get you what you want. In order to get
rich you do not need a "sweet hour of prayer"; you need
to "pray without ceasing." And by prayer I mean holding
steadily to your vision, with the purpose to cause its
creation into solid form, and the faith that you are
doing so. "Believe that ye receive them." The whole matter turns on receiving, once you have
clearly formed your vision. When you have formed it, it
is well to make an oral statement, addressing the
Supreme in reverent prayer; and from that moment you
must, in mind, receive what you ask for. Live in the new
house; wear the fine clothes; ride in the automobile; go
on the journey, and confidently plan for greater
journeys. Think and speak of all the things you have
asked for in terms of actual present ownership. Imagine
an environment, and a financial condition exactly as you
want them, and live all the time in that imaginary
environment and financial condition. Mind, however, that
you do not do this as a mere dreamer and castle builder;
hold to the FAITH that the imaginary is being realized,
and to the PURPOSE to realize it. Remember that it is
faith and purpose in the use of the imagination which
make the difference between the scientist and the
dreamer. And having learned this fact, it is here that
you must learn the proper use of the Will.
News: Conscious Money Circulation "Abundant
Blessings"
Would
you like to have a greater feeling of being
in the flow of abundance? Is the
activity
Abundant Blessings
© contains a meditation and affirmations for
Conscious Money circulation. The meditation
guides you within, to a place of centered
calm. Affirmations of abundance and
gratitude play in the background while you
pay your bills or any time that you would
like to be uplifted. Play this CD and
transform the mundane into the miraculous as
you pay bills with gratitude and JOY! To find
out more about Abundant Blessings, click
Here.
The Conscious Living Foundation is proud to announce the translation of
our website into Spanish. The entire website, with all of our
articles, poems, inspiring stories, affirmations, previous newsletters,
quotations and affirmations are now available. We are excited
about the prospect of being able to reach others who were unable to
share in all of the resources of the site because they didn't read
English. To visit the Spanish language version of our site, click
Here.
In addition, we have begun creating our first products for those who prefer
to read in Spanish. The
Conscious Word and
Conscious Wisdom are both now available in
a Spanish version.
We have also translated 14 wonderful, inspirational masterpieces and are
offering them as E-books in Spanish. The titles include:
As A Man
Thinketh by James Allen
This E-book collection in Spanish can be purchased for $7.00 by clicking
Here.
He
desterrado el pasado
Ahora vivo
en el maravilloso presente
Donde
regocijantes sorpresas
Llegan
envolviendome
Todos los
dias.
If you have any suggestion on other titles which we should translate, or
other languages we should support, we would love to hear from you. You
can email us at:
CLF@consciouslivingfoundation.org
A Poem by William
Simpson -
I Shall Not Leave Your Presence
Again Bathed in Your eternal light,
I shall not leave Your presence
again. Deeply I merge into Your center, Clinging to You, Without a movement or thought. When this body shall drop, My life with You shall not end. I shall go on, eternally, Loving You. Ever entering deeper and deeper Into Your limitless heart. Thank you my God. For this greatest of blessings. (From the collection, "From The Path - Verses On
The Mystic Journey" click
Here for more) Copyright 2004 by The Conscious Living
Foundation, All Rights Reserved
Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of
Death." And he said: You would know the secret
of death. But how shall you find it
unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound
eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold
the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one,
even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes
and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming
beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in
them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but
the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is
to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful
beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful
of his trembling? For what is it to die but
to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease
breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise
and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from
the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached
the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. The Conscious Living Foundation is pleased
to offer an original 2 CD recording of Kahlil Gibran's mystical
masterpiece, "The Prophet". For complete details and samples from
the recording, please click
Here.
The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long. I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my
voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star
and planet. It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that
training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a
tune. The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and
one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine
at the end. My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'
The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand
streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'
YOGA HEART HEALING was created from the need to heal Anahata, the fourth
chakra, considered the seat of universal love. Anahata is the
color green. Our recording was created to support your practice of
yoga, massage and other nurturing and healing activities.
Inspired by
Dharma teachings from both Hindu and Buddhist wisdom, Yoga Heart Healing
will open your heart chakra with its rich vibrant textures of soothing
melodic transitions. - just click
Here!
There is only one happiness in life ... to love and be loved. When I look into the future, it's so bright it burns my eyes.
Shallow men believe in luck ~
Until you make peace with who you are,
It takes a lot of courage
News: Planting A Medicinal Herb Garden
Many medicinal
herbs are easy to germinate, easy to grow, and will give you a
bountiful harvest throughout the summer, fall, and even winter.
Most herbs like a nice sunny spot, though many will tolerate
only a half day's sun, or filtered sunlight. Of course if you go
the extra mile and fortify your soil with compost, seaweed,
grass clippings, a little limestone, and maybe even some animal
manure (best if aged), you can have a spectacular herb garden
that will keep you happy and healthy throughout the year. Here
are a few herbal suggestions for getting started.
FEVERFEW
(Tanacetum vulgare) is a profusely-flowering, bushy perennial
(when winter has not been severely cold) whose florets look very
much like our old friend Chamomile: little white petals
surrounding a yellow center. However, Feverfew's petals radiate
horizontally while Chamomile's tend to droop. Medicinally, we
use this herb for aches, pains, and fevers (as its name clearly
implies), but its most famous use is for migraine headaches.
Because it is very bitter and not pleasant to the taste, it
might be best to tincture this herb, then add to a little juice
to make it more palatable. Or, if you do dry it for use as a
tea, blend it with other yummy herbs like Lemon Balm, Chamomile,
or some of the stronger mints. ECHINACEA
(Echinacea species) is probably the most popular herb in the
western world. It is indigenous to this country and, thus, you
should not have a difficult time growing it — especially if you
stick to the variety "purpurea" which grows and blooms profusely
in the Cape Cod area. It is a stimulant to the immune system and
is used to treat colds, flus, and infections including ear aches
and yeast infections. It blooms for five or six weeks and thus
is an excellent garden ornamental as well as a superior
medicinal herb. You may use all parts of this plant: roots,
herbaceous (stems and leaves), flowers and seeds. Don't forget
to save some of the seed heads in October or November for next
year's planting. COMFREY
(Symphytum officinale) is one very aggressive plant! This is the
bully of the garden! The weight-lifting Bubba (or Bertha!) that
just can't stop growing! A few plants should be sufficient for
home use (maybe even just one?) Comfrey grows so fast that you
can take at least three cuttings per season and not harm the
plant. It is used primarily for cuts, wounds, scrapes, etc.,
either in the form of a poultice or as a salve. It causes cells
to proliferate more rapidly, thus healing over a wound. Can also
be used effectively as a tea or tincture for ulcers as, again,
it heals wounds. Be cautious when using internally as there has
been a hot debate for many years over whether or not one of the
alkaloids in Comfrey may injure the liver, although people have
been using Comfrey for hundreds of years with very few reported
problems. Use it sensibly, perhaps no more than three cups per
day for not more than three weeks. This indispensable plant
really shines, however, when used as a salve, along with the
flower buds of our indigenous friend St. Johns Wort, and the
flowers of the old-fashioned Marigold, or Calendula. This
combination is used by almost every herbalist in the western
world, and for good reason; it is fabulous for eczema,
psoriasis, dry and cracked skin, scrapes, bruises, diaper rash,
and on it goes. Every home in America ought to have a jar of
homemade Comfrey salve at the ready! VIOLET
(Viola odorata) may be planted in the shadier parts of the
garden, or property. You probably never thought of this common,
fast-spreading little beauty as having medicinal qualities but
it has been used successfully to treat cancers, especially of
the mouth and throat. Violet is also used for colds and coughs,
to dispel mucous and soothe inflamed mucous membranes, for sore
throats, and for headaches and fevers. Gather the fresh leaves
and make a tea or tincture for help in dealing with swollen
breasts or breast cancer. It is taken not only internally, but
is also used externally as a poultice. CALENDULA
(Calendula offinicalis) makes a spectacular show of bright
yellow and orange blossoms. It loves full sun. The seeds form
quite early in the season and you may be able to sow a second
crop with them and have more flowers before the fall frosts!
Calendula is a great anti- inflammatory both topically for bug
bites, rashes, infections; and internally for digestive problems
including ulcers, ulcerative colitis and heartburn. BLACK COHOSH
(Cimicifuga racemosa) likes a little shade, as its native
habitat is the borderland between hardwood forest and field. Its
lovely white, fuzzy flowers on spikes bloom in mid to late
summer. I have seen Black cohosh grow as high as seven feet and
it is spectacular! In the nursery business it is sometimes
(appropriately) called "Fairy Candle." Medicinally, it is an
excellent anti-spasmodic used frequently by women experiencing
painful menstrual cramps or by women going through the
menopausal years. I use this herb in several formulas to help
relieve the muscular pain associated with fibromyalgia or Lyme
disease, as well as stiff muscles and joints from exercise and
for lower back pain.
ELECAMPANE
(Inula helenium) is a member of the sunflower family. It grows
three to six feet tall and thus would do well at the back of the
garden! Harvest the second year roots in autumn and use for
thinning the mucous, for strengthening the lungs, as an
expectorant, and for coughs and wheezing. Its leaves are huge
and the flowers have lovely, spider-like yellow petals in mid to
late summer. WOOD BETONY
(Stachys betonica) is an adorable plant and one of my personal
"herbal allies!" I love its compact growth, dark green foliage,
and lovely blue spiked flowers that bloom for many weeks in mid
summer. It is an excellent ornamental as well as a medicinal.
Use it for headaches, migraines, nervous system rejuvenation, as
well as for bronchial catarrh. As with other nervines (excepting
Valerian) the foliage is the part of the plant used for your tea
or tincture. This plant is a premier addition to the modern herb
garden that incorporates a variety of culinary, medicinal and
ornamental plants. HYSSOP
(Hyssop officinalis) is a woody herb that forms a beautiful
little hedge up to two and a half feet tall. You could border
one or several sides of a small garden, enjoying the profuse,
tiny blue blossoms in mid to late summer. Shear it in late
summer to thicken it up, possibly using it as a windbreak for
more tender occupants of the garden. Tincture it for treating
colds and congestion. Hyssop is also used to treat the Karposi's
sarcoma found in more advanced stages of HIV infection. LEMON BALM
(Melissa officinalis) is the best herb for a delicious
summertime tea! The coolness of lemon in a plant of the mint
family — yum! It's flower is not conspicuous, but the delicious
fragrance of its bruised foliage is, so go out and pick the
leaves any time between mid-May and late September for a very
fresh and refreshing herbal beverage. Pick and dry the leaves
(preferably in early summer) for later use as a relaxing hot tea
in fall and winter. Herbalists call Melissa "the cheery herb"
because of its spirit-lifting quality. As a tincture it can be
used for herpes sores and, as either tea or tincture is a
nourisher for an exhausted nervous system. Lemon balm prefers a
slightly shady home in moist, rich garden loam. We do quite well
with it at the farm in Brewster, so the thinner soil of Cape Cod
is not a huge problem. Grow lots! WILD INDIGO
(Baptisia tinctoria), like Echinacea, is a great immune system
enhancer. As an ornamental it is somewhat vinelike and has
strikingly blue flowers that develop into large seed pods.
Leaves are flat and paddle-like, adding a unique foliar texture
to your garden. WORMWOOD
(Artemisia absinthium) is one of the most bitter herbs in the
world — reportedly only one drop of tincture in 50,000 parts of
water is still detectable to the taste! As its name implies, it
is used to expel worms and parasites, but also, as with all
other bitter herbs, it enhances the digestion by stimulating the
bile and digestive enzymes. Take a few drops in an ounce or two
of water before meals. As a garden ornamental, it is especially
effective in the "moon garden" because of its soft, silvery
foliage that reflects moonlight. It wants to grow to four feet
or more, at which time it gets a bit "leggy," so trim it back
once or twice a year to keep it fuller. One of its cousins is
the Silver Mound Artemisia that you find in nurseries and garden
centers. HOREHOUND
(Marrubium vulgare) is a very useful herb to have in the garden.
The leaves are used to treat coughs, lung problems, and
hoarseness. It is often used in a syrup or in lozenges for those
conditions. Its unusual, wrinkled foliage is unmistakable, and
the flowers are arranged in little balls, one above the other
with spaces between, along the main stalks. The bees love it!
CHINESE ASTRAGALUS
(Astragalus membranaceus) was, until recently, only available
from Asian sources, but since it grows so well in the United
States more and more people are now planting it. It germinates
quite easily and only takes seven days! I suggest planting a
dozen at least. Astragalus is one of the very best herbs for
boosting a depleted deep immune system, or bone marrow reserve
immune system (vs. the superficial, or secretory immune system
for which Echinacea and Wild Indigo are so helpful). This
extraordinary herb can be used with people who have frequent
colds/flus/infections, or with those undergoing chemotherapy
where the immune system has been greatly depleted. The root is
not harvested for at least four years, preferably longer. It has
a delightfully sweet taste, and I suggest using it in soups and
stews in the cold seasons. (I call this Immunity Stew). I highly
recommend planting Astragalus (if you can find it!), as I
believe that the demand for good, organic root will be strong in
years to come, but even more importantly, because we need to be
taking this herb frequently in order to rebuild our immunity
which has been severely compromised by the profligate use of
antibiotics, corticosteroids, and the toxins of everyday life. CHINESE CODONOPSIS
(Codonopsis pilosula), an herb which I feel the same way about
as I do Astragalus — plant it now and save your health! The
nickname for this plant is "poor man's ginseng" because it acts
so much like ginseng — energizing, immune supporting, and
helping us to adapt to the stresses of contemporary life on
planet Earth. But it is much easier to grow and far less
expensive. As an ornamental, it is a vine that loves to climb.
Thus it would be nice on a stake, trellis, or perhaps climbing
up a lamp post, or over an arbor. The flower is a large, deep-
throated bell that is a pale creamy green with veins of
lavender. Seed pods may be gathered in late autumn and saved for
the following year. As with Astragalus and true Ginseng, you
should grow this plant for four or five years before harvesting
the root. And like Astragalus — the root is sweet and a perfect
addition to Immunity Stew. GINKGO
(Gingko biloba), the oldest tree species on the Earth — over 200
million years old — can be thought of as our "connection with
the eons." It represents stamina, endurance, overcoming-the-odds
and surviving, persistence, and our will to overcome adversity
and thrive! Plant one in a very special place in your garden and
allow it to be "the ancient one" that looks over and protects
all the other "junior" plants. In the autumn when the leaves
begin to turn yellow, harvest them and make a tincture. Hundreds
of scientific studies and clinical trials have shown Ginkgo to
be effective in increasing the circulation to the brain, thereby
helping memory and increasing mental alertness. It is the
Ginkgo's gift to us. Give him/her a revered place in your garden
(and in your life...) Medicinal herb gardening is easy, lots of fun
and extremely rewarding both in the medicines that can be made
for free and in the gorgeous blossoms and foliage textures that
will make your garden the pride of the neighborhood. Help carry
on our Western herbal traditions by teaching others about the
wonderful healing qualities of the herbs in your garden! Stephan Brown is a self-taught
practitioner of traditional western herbalism. He owns an
organic medicinal herb farm on Cape Cod on which he grows plants
for his herbal apothecary and crystal shop, Great Cape Herbs. He
is also known to many as The Ginkgo Man for his love of the
world's oldest tree. Contact Stephan at Great Cape Herbs, 2628
Rt. 6A, PO Box 1206, Brewster, MA 02631. Phone: 508 896-5900.
Email:
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News: New Audio CD - Embracing The Stillness
- Lessons In Meditation
It contains the following
tracks:
"There is an essential part of our being which exists beyond thought
and feeling - pure awareness. When we can remain present,
alert and calm, we discover the fertile ground upon which we can
plant the seeds of immediate growth, positive change and joy".
William Simpson - To hear some sample selections
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The Conscious Living Foundation
the human soul successively in
three bodies-the idea, or
causal,
body; the subtle astral body,
seat of man's mental and
emotional
natures; and the gross physical
body. On earth a man is equipped
with
his physical senses. An astral
being works with his
consciousness
and feelings and a body made of
lifetrons. A
causal-bodied
being remains in the blissful
realm of ideas. My work is with
those
astral beings who are preparing
to enter the causal world."
"Adorable Master, please tell me
more about the astral cosmos."
Though I had slightly relaxed my
embrace at Sri Yukteswar's
request,
my arms were still around him.
Treasure beyond all treasures,
my
guru who had laughed at death to
reach me!
"There are many astral planets,
teeming with astral beings,"
Master
began. "The inhabitants use
astral planes, or masses of
light,
to travel from one planet to
another, faster than electricity
and
radioactive energies.
"The astral universe, made of
various subtle vibrations of
light
and color, is hundreds of times
larger than the material cosmos.
The entire physical creation
hangs like a little solid basket
under the huge luminous balloon
of the astral sphere. Just as
many
physical suns and stars roam in
space, so there are also
countless
astral solar and stellar
systems. Their planets have
astral suns and
moons, more beautiful than the
physical ones. The astral
luminaries
resemble the aurora borealis-the
sunny astral aurora being more
dazzling than the mild-rayed
moon-aurora. The astral day and
night
are longer than those of earth.
"The astral world is infinitely
beautiful, clean, pure, and
orderly. There are no dead
planets or barren lands. The
terrestrial
blemishes--weeds, bacteria,
insects, snakes-are absent.
Unlike
the variable climates and
seasons of the earth, the astral
planets
maintain the even temperature of
an eternal spring, with
occasional
luminous white snow and rain of
many-colored lights. Astral
planets
abound in opal lakes and bright
seas and rainbow rivers.
"The ordinary astral
universe-not the subtler astral
heaven
of Hiranyaloka-is peopled with
millions of astral beings who
have
come, more or less recently,
from the earth, and also with
myriads
of fairies, mermaids, fishes,
animals, goblins, gnomes,
demigods
and spirits, all residing on
different astral planets in
accordance
with karmic qualifications.
Various spheric mansions or
vibratory
regions are provided for good
and evil spirits. Good ones can
travel
freely, but the evil spirits are
confined to limited zones. In
the
same way that human beings live
on the surface of the earth,
worms
inside the soil, fish in water,
and birds in air, so astral
beings
of different grades are assigned
to suitable vibratory quarters.
"Among the fallen dark angels
expelled from other worlds,
friction
and war take place with
lifetronic bombs or mental
MANTRIC
vibratory rays. These beings
dwell in the gloom-drenched
regions
of the lower astral cosmos,
working out their evil karma.
"In the vast realms above the
dark astral prison, all is
shining
and beautiful. The astral cosmos
is more naturally attuned than
the earth to the divine will and
plan of perfection. Every astral
object is manifested primarily
by the will of God, and
partially by
the will-call of astral beings.
They possess the power of
modifying
or enhancing the grace and form
of anything already created by
the
Lord. He has given His astral
children the freedom and
privilege
of changing or improving at will
the astral cosmos. On earth a
solid must be transformed into
liquid or other form through
natural
or chemical processes, but
astral solids are changed into
astral
liquids, gases, or energy solely
and instantly by the will of the
inhabitants.
"The earth is dark with warfare
and murder in the sea, land,
and air," my guru continued,
"but the astral realms know a
happy
harmony and equality. Astral
beings dematerialize or
materialize
their forms at will. Flowers or
fish or animals can metamorphose
themselves, for a time, into
astral men. All astral beings
are
free to assume any form, and can
easily commune together. No
fixed,
definite, natural law hems them
round-any astral tree, for
example,
can be successfully asked to
produce an astral mango or other
desired fruit, flower, or indeed
any other object. Certain karmic
restrictions are present, but
there are no distinctions in the
astral world about desirability
of various forms. Everything is
vibrant with God's creative
light.
"No one is born of woman;
offspring are materialized by
astral beings
through the help of their cosmic
will into specially patterned,
astrally condensed forms. The
recently physically disembodied
being
arrives in an astral family
through invitation, drawn by
similar
mental and spiritual tendencies.
"The astral body is not subject
to cold or heat or other
natural conditions. The anatomy
includes an astral brain, or the
thousand-petaled lotus of light,
and six awakened centers in the
SUSHUMNA, or astral cerebro-spinal
axis. The heart draws cosmic
energy as well as light from the
astral brain, and pumps it to
the astral nerves and body
cells, or lifetrons. Astral
beings can
affect their bodies by
lifetronic force or by MANTRIC
vibrations.
"The astral body is an exact
counterpart of the last physical
form.
Astral beings retain the same
appearance which they possessed
in
youth in their previous earthly
sojourn; occasionally an astral
being chooses, like myself, to
retain his old age appearance."
Master, emanating the very
essence of youth, chuckled
merrily.
"Unlike the spacial,
three-dimensional physical world
cognized
only by the five senses, the
astral spheres are visible to
the
all-inclusive sixth
sense-intuition," Sri Yukteswar
went on. "By
sheer intuitional feeling, all
astral beings see, hear, smell,
taste, and touch. They possess
three eyes, two of which are
partly
closed. The third and chief
astral eye, vertically placed on
the forehead, is open. Astral
beings have all the outer
sensory
organs-ears, eyes, nose, tongue,
and skin-but they employ the
intuitional sense to experience
sensations through any part of
the
body; they can see through the
ear, or nose, or skin. They are
able
to hear through the eyes or
tongue, and can taste through
the ears
or skin, and so forth.
"Man's physical body is exposed
to countless dangers, and is
easily
hurt or maimed; the ethereal
astral body may occasionally be
cut
or bruised but is healed at once
by mere willing."
"Gurudeva, are all astral
persons beautiful?"
"Beauty in the astral world is
known to be a spiritual quality,
and not an outward
conformation," Sri Yukteswar
replied. "Astral
beings therefore attach little
importance to facial features.
They
have the privilege, however, of
costuming themselves at will
with
new, colorful, astrally
materialized bodies. Just as
worldly men
don new array for gala events,
so astral beings find occasions
to
bedeck themselves in specially
designed forms.
"Joyous astral festivities on
the higher astral planets like
Hiranyaloka take place when a
being is liberated from the
astral
world through spiritual
advancement, and is therefore
ready to enter
the heaven of the causal world.
On such occasions the Invisible
Heavenly Father, and the saints
who are merged in Him,
materialize
Themselves into bodies of Their
own choice and join the astral
celebration. In order to please
His beloved devotee, the Lord
takes
any desired form. If the devotee
worshiped through devotion, he
sees God as the Divine Mother.
To Jesus, the Father-aspect of
the
Infinite One was appealing
beyond other conceptions. The
individuality
with which the Creator has
endowed each of His creatures
makes every
conceivable and inconceivable
demand on the Lord's
versatility!"
My guru and I laughed happily
together.
"Friends of other lives easily
recognize one another in the
astral
world," Sri Yukteswar went on in
his beautiful, flutelike voice.
"Rejoicing at the immortality of
friendship, they realize the
indestructibility of love, often
doubted at the time of the sad,
delusive partings of earthly
life.
"The intuition of astral beings
pierces through the veil and
observes human activities on
earth, but man cannot view the
astral
world unless his sixth sense is
somewhat developed. Thousands
of earth-dwellers have
momentarily glimpsed an astral
being or an
astral world.
"The advanced beings on
Hiranyaloka remain mostly awake
in ecstasy
during the long astral day and
night, helping to work out
intricate
problems of cosmic government
and the redemption of prodigal
sons, earthbound souls. When the
Hiranyaloka beings sleep, they
have occasional dreamlike astral
visions. Their minds are usually
engrossed in the conscious state
of highest NIRBIKALPA bliss.
"Inhabitants in all parts of the
astral worlds are still subject
to mental agonies. The sensitive
minds of the higher beings on
planets like Hiranyaloka feel
keen pain if any mistake is made
in
conduct or perception of truth.
These advanced beings endeavor
to
attune their every act and
thought with the perfection of
spiritual
law.
"Communication among the astral
inhabitants is held entirely by
astral telepathy and television;
there is none of the confusion
and
misunderstanding of the written
and spoken word which
earth-dwellers
must endure. Just as persons on
the cinema screen appear to move
and act through a series of
light pictures, and do not
actually
breathe, so the astral beings
walk and work as intelligently
guided
and coordinated images of light,
without the necessity of drawing
power from oxygen. Man depends
upon solids, liquids, gases, and
energy for sustenance; astral
beings sustain themselves
principally
by cosmic light."
"Master mine, do astral beings
eat anything?" I was drinking in
his
marvelous elucidations with the
receptivity of all my
faculties-mind,
heart, soul. Superconscious
perceptions of truth are
permanently
real and changeless, while
fleeting sense experiences and
impressions
are never more than temporarily
or relatively true, and soon
lose
in memory all their vividness.
My guru's words were so
penetratingly
imprinted on the parchment of my
being that at any time, by
transferring my mind to the
superconscious state, I can
clearly
relive the divine experience.
"Luminous raylike vegetables
abound in the astral soils," he
answered.
"The astral beings consume
vegetables, and drink a nectar
flowing
from glorious fountains of light
and from astral brooks and
rivers.
Just as invisible images of
persons on the earth can be dug
out of
the ether and made visible by a
television apparatus, later
being
dismissed again into space, so
the God-created, unseen astral
blueprints of vegetables and
plants floating in the ether are
precipitated on an astral planet
by the will of its inhabitants.
In the same way, from the
wildest fancy of these beings,
whole
gardens of fragrant flowers are
materialized, returning later to
the etheric invisibility.
Although dwellers on the
heavenly planets
like Hiranyaloka are almost
freed from any necessity of
eating,
still higher is the
unconditioned existence of
almost completely
liberated souls in the causal
world, who eat nothing save the
manna
of bliss.
"The earth-liberated astral
being meets a multitude of
relatives,
fathers, mothers, wives,
husbands, and friends, acquired
during
different incarnations on earth,
as they appear from
time
to time in various parts of the
astral realms. He is therefore
at
a loss to understand whom to
love especially; he learns in
this way
to give a divine and equal love
to all, as children and
individualized
expressions of God. Though the
outward appearance of loved ones
may have changed, more or less
according to the development of
new
qualities in the latest life of
any particular soul, the astral
being employs his unerring
intuition to recognize all those
once dear
to him in other planes of
existence, and to welcome them
to their
new astral home. Because every
atom in creation is
inextinguishably
dowered with individuality,
an astral friend will
be
recognized no matter what
costume he may don, even as on
earth an
actor's identity is discoverable
by close observation despite any
disguise.
"The span of life in the astral
world is much longer than on
earth.
A normal advanced astral being's
average life period is from five
hundred to one thousand years,
measured in accordance with
earthly
standards of time. As certain
redwood trees outlive most trees
by
millenniums, or as some yogis
live several hundred years
though
most men die before the age of
sixty, so some astral beings
live
much longer than the usual span
of astral existence. Visitors
to the astral world dwell there
for a longer or shorter period
in
accordance with the weight of
their physical karma, which
draws
them back to earth within a
specified time.
"The astral being does not have
to contend painfully with death
at the time of shedding his
luminous body. Many of these
beings
nevertheless feel slightly
nervous at the thought of
dropping their
astral form for the subtler
causal one. The astral world is
free
from unwilling death, disease,
and old age. These three dreads
are the curse of earth, where
man has allowed his
consciousness to
identify itself almost wholly
with a frail physical body
requiring
constant aid from air, food, and
sleep in order to exist at all.
"Physical death is attended by
the disappearance of breath and
the disintegration of fleshly
cells. Astral death consists of
the
dispersement of lifetrons, those
manifest units of energy which
constitute the life of astral
beings. At physical death a
being
loses his consciousness of flesh
and becomes aware of his subtle
body in the astral world.
Experiencing astral death in due
time, a
being thus passes from the
consciousness of astral birth
and death
to that of physical birth and
death. These recurrent cycles of
astral and physical encasement
are the ineluctable destiny of
all
unenlightened beings. Scriptural
definitions of heaven and hell
sometimes stir man's
deeper-than-subconscious
memories of his long
series of experiences in the
blithesome astral and
disappointing
terrestrial worlds."
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Essay:
One Day At A Time - A Personal Collection of Thoughts on Recovery
Happiness is an achievement brought about by inner productiveness.
People succeed at being happy by building a liking for themselves.
Erich Fromm
It has been said that if one of us ever treated another human being the way we treated ourselves, we would be liable for criminal charges. I did not treat myself as a friend, someone I loved; I constantly fed into my unhappiness.
Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill W. was asked, shortly before he died, to sum up the program in the lowest common denominator. He replied, "Get right with yourself, with God, then with your neighbor." Therefore, it stands to reason that I must start making friends with myself. I must treat myself with love and dignity, and the result will be happiness. To be happy, joyous, and free is the by-product of obedience to the program.
One Day at a Time . . .
Am I going to try being happy?
Am I going to make friends with myself?
If not today, when?
George Sand
It took me many, many years to really and truly discover what turned out to be something that I have yearned for all of my life. That "something" was love ~ both the ability to love and to accept love.
As a child, I felt I had to achieve to be loved and, in the process of achieving, lost a great deal of my childhood. This carried over to adulthood and thus began the years of doing what was expected of me (or so I thought) in order to be loved, valued and respected.
Recovery has taught me so much about myself and about love. One of the greatest truths I have learned about myself and my ability to love is that for me to love someone, it is not necessary that they love me back. My loving someone else never depends on their loving me ... but how wonderful it is when they do.
One Day at a Time . . .
Let me realize that love is something that just happens ... I can't make it happen ... and I can't stop it from happening.
Oprah Winfrey
I receive the gift of abstinence one day at a time. I am relieved from the obsession to eat one day at a time. With the help of my Higher Power, I can live life on life's terms... one day at a time.
As my recovery builds and builds, I start to imagine all the possibilities for my life. Things I never had the confidence or emotional stability to pursue are options for me. Now that I am free from the despair and self-destruction of overeating, there is space to actualize new adventures. But before I become overwhelmed or grandiose in my thinking, the Program gently reminds me that it is STILL just one day a time.
One Day at a Time . . .
I will work my program so that I have a future.
Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Abstinence did not happen for me until I made a commitment to it. I realized that I would have abstinence until something was a bit too uncomfortable for me to face or feel. Then I would have a slip. So it became a game for me. Was this event or circumstance enough to justify another slip? Sure, why not? That's the nature of the disease. Everything and anything was an excuse to eat.
It wasn't until I made a commitment to abstinence that I was forced to find my solutions in the Twelve Steps and really let go of my addiction. I'm grateful to my Higher Power that I hit the bottom I did. By accepting the truth about myself and my food addiction, I am now free to live in the solution.
One Day at a Time . . .
I will renew my commitment by receiving the gift of abstinence and practicing my program to the best of my ability.
you will never be content with what you have.
Doris Mortman
Through abstinence and recovery, I can begin to accept myself. I can pay attention to my likes and my dislikes as I continue to grow and learn about me. Learning about myself is a new adventure. There are so many layers that have been hidden under years of food abuse and weight obsession. Exploring and discovering the new me requires a lot of acceptance. There are parts of me that I do not like, and there are also wonderful surprises. By accepting all parts of myself, I am honoring my Higher Power and demonstrating spiritual recovery.
One Day at a Time . . .
I will accept myself. By learning to accept myself, I will find myself growing in my acceptance of others.
to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck
I remember first starting my Twelve Step program. I had lots of expectations and dreams, but I couldn't talk to anyone about them. I thought my dreams were stupid and that nobody there really cared about who I was or what I wanted to achieve.
This is a big problem with all of us compulsive overeaters. We all have hopes and dreams of losing our impulse to eat all the time, and of losing our excess weight. Thinking we're not worth anyone's time keeps us strong in our addiction.
As we work through the Steps and learn to trust our new family of choice, we get the courage to begin to open up and share our dreams and hopes. We all find our hidden courage by praying and trusting our Higher Power. We find the courage to tell people about ourselves and trust that nobody will put us down for our past or for the future we dream of achieving. Our dreams have no time limit; they don't have to happen immediately. They may happen immediately, or it may take a long time of struggling, but as long as we have hope and courage, they will become a reality in Higher Power's time.
One Day at a Time . . .
I remember that we learn that, together, things become much easier. As we share our experience, strength and dreams with others, they will help us learn how we can work with a special program and plan. With Higher Power and our recovery friends, our courage grows stronger, and we find we can and will succeed.
Why go to the drug store for medicine when you
can have many medicinal remedies for a wide variety of ailments
growing right in your own back yard?! It's easy. It's fun. It's
inexpensive. It's very rewarding. And you don't have to be a
master gardener to do it! 
VALERIAN
(Valerian officinalis) is one of the herb world's best nervine
relaxants. This is the guy (or gal!) that helps you get to sleep
after a stressful day. It loves full sun but will take a bit of
shade. Valerian has a beautiful arching foliage that is
alternately leaved, and has a large white flower head, perhaps
like Queen Ann's Lace. I have seen it grow in my own medicinal
herb garden to a height of five feet. In June when it blooms and
the wind is out of the southwest, the fragrance carries right
down into our shop through the back door and just fills the old
pine board building, and is it sweet! We use the root of this
plant and, as with most roots, we harvest in the fall when the
energy of the plant has returned below ground. When the root is
fresh it has little fragrance, But as it dries it takes on the
very characteristic odor that makes most people think of sweaty
gym socks! Don't laugh until you smell it for yourself!
Personally, I adore its earthy richness, but each of us has a
completely unique constitution. You must decide for yourself if
Valerian is one of your "herbal allies."
CATNIP
(Nepeta cataria) is not only for your cat! I like to say that
it's a good remedy "for rampaging children!" It is an excellent
relaxing herb, and is lush, lovely and fragrant in your garden.
Use other mints as well for their cooling and tonifying
properties. Try Chocolate Mint, Orange Mint, Lemon Balm, as well
as the usual Peppermint and Spearmint. All of the mints make
great summertime teas because the energetics or properties of
the mints are "cooling" — being very aromatic, they open your
skin pores, thus promoting perspiration, and through
evaporation, a cooling effect.
ST.
JOHN'S WORT (Hypericum perforatum), the current "star"
of the herb world, can treat mild to moderate depression as
effectively as Prozac, and it grows everywhere! Its sunny
yellow, five-petaled flowers bloom on the day named for St. John
the Baptist— on or around June 22nd. Plant some on your own
property in a sunny, sandy location, and see if it will spread
as the years go by, then harvest and make your own products.
Infused into olive oil, it is better than Aloe for burns and
sunburn, as well as joint and muscle aches and pains. One of the
most useful of the medicinal plants, let it naturalize itself
for future generations.
Embracing The Stillness is a collection of meditation
techniques explained and practiced with the Director
of The Conscious Living Foundation, William Simpson. 
from
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Essay: Beginning Today
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