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Features
Ramtha: Create Your Day(Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, 2005) "Create your day, what does that mean? Waking up every single morning is a gift, don't you know? Life is a gift. And who is creating it? Creating, well, creating is a privilege. It goes along with being a divine person. Divinity gets to create and that is why you want to know how to do it, because you are a divine entity." Create Your DaySM is an original teaching and technique created by Ramtha that he has been teaching his students since 1992 at Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. This teaching has been copyright protected since that time. The original Create Your DaySM technique available through Ramtha's School is protected as a service mark also to safeguard its authenticity and originality. "I would make a strong suggestion that every day you get up and you sit in this discipline, roll your eyes back, and instead of rushing around, sleeping in late, do this and focus, create your day. All you have to do is to see that this day is filled with sublime adventure. And if you know it and you feel it and you have given it life, it will be. So be it." From: Ramtha Dialogues®, Tape 323, Beginning C&E® Workshop, September 20-21, 1992 (Yelm: Ramtha Dialogues®, 1992) Copyright © 1992 JZ Knight JZK Publishing, A Division of JZK, Inc. *For information on Ramtha and Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, please contact: Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, P.O.Box 1210, Yelm, WA 98597, or call 1.800.347.0439, 1.360.458.5201. http://www.ramtha.com
The Oneness MovementBy Cate MontanaIn his Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling wrote "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." Few people know the second line to that verse, which actually provides for ultimate reunion: "Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat." Facing the turn of the 21st century has been much like facing Judgment. Humanity as a collective has dragged ancient ills — war, corruption, greed, competition and fear — into yet another millennium. At the same time, balancing the scales, there has been a tremendous shift in consciousness; an awakening to a greater sense of self-responsibility, an eagerness to engage a healing of mind and body and a restless urge to evoke the spirit from its hiding place within; a great yearning for union with each other and with the Divine. Into this world fractured by divided religious and socio-political camps comes the Oneness Movement. Started in India in 1991 by twin avatars Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma, the stated purpose of the Oneness Movement is to uplift humanity's consciousness from a state of chronic separation and suffering into a state of enlightenment — the awareness of wholeness and oneness — mainly through an energy transmission process called deeksha. Acknowledged as teachers and bringers of enlightenment and god-realization by more than 20 million adherents around the world, Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma's goal is to bring enlightenment to a minimum of 64,000 people worldwide by the year 2012. The primary methodology to accomplish this is deeksha, a transmission of the energy or frequency state of enlightened oneness. Deeksha has been made available to people outside the confines of the Oneness Movement's India headquarters since 2003, and often takes the form of a laying on of hands. The transmission, which is accomplished by a trained initiate, is designed to re-pattern neural functioning in the brain, and thus create a shift in thought processes and the dissolution of personal perceptual filters that foster the illusion of separateness. Although new on the world stage, the process of deeksha has already drawn the interest of German Ph.D. biochemist Christian Optiz, who has performed extensive tests in India, scanning individual's brains before and after deeksha. Utilizing an advanced electromagnetic frequency diagnostic device called KARNAK, which was developed at the University of Milan, Opitz established individual's baseline brain functions, then retested after deeksha had been given. His tests showed significant, replicable shifts in subjects' brain activity and striking changes in certain areas of the brain. "I checked what Bhagavan was saying against what I could measure about the deactivation of the parietal lobes and the activation of the frontal lobes," says Opitz. "And I found that this was really true; that in people who had received a substantial amount of deeksha, the parietal lobes were so much more quiet than the frontal lobes, which were so much more activated - and always with a slight dominance of the left frontal lobe. Which is exactly what you want to see, because happiness and integrated spiritual experience go hand-in-hand with a slight dominance of the left frontal lobe. Whereas when people have spiritual experiences that may actually make them more pathological, or people are even hallucinating, then the right frontal lobe dominates. This is just frontal lobes, not whole brain hemispheres." As Opitz determined a consistent pattern, he expanded his investigations to include studying the wave forms that followers' DNA emanated. Apparently, the wave forms increase in strength as a person continues to receive the enlightened transmissions, which are described as a golden ball of energy descending into the head. He found that the reptilian brain, or brain stem, which holds much of our primitive fight or flight responses, was quieted through deeksha. He also measured growth in certain brain centers. "In some of the dhasas (direct disciples of Bhagavan and Amma) in India, I measured their septum pellucidum, which is also called the brain's joy center, and it was huge. I mean, I've never seen anything like that. It's a brain center that's under-active in most people, and it's severely shrunk in people who are depressed. It grows when real joy becomes a basic experience of the person's life. If it's shrunk, if it's de-active, then people know only the fake joy of stimulated pleasure." Opitz's tests also seemed to indicate that unlike results of similar investigations monitoring long-term meditators and people who do other kinds of energy work, the effects of deeksha appear to be permanent. In three short years, millions of individuals around the world have received deeksha. Many have had 'direct experiences' of oneness, and their lives have changed significantly in terms of internal happiness and their capacity for love and peaceful coexistence in the world. According to Sri Raniji, the appointed Spiritual Leader and Founder of the Oneness Movement in North America, some have attained permanent 'enlightenment,' a non-mystical state of mind that is the constant recognition of the reality of oneness: the recognition of life as a field of unified consciousness in which individual existence and expression is purely perceptual. Those attracted to participate in Oneness Movement workshops and experience deeksha are advised that "enlightenment" rarely happens instantly and that it doesn't automatically occur in everyone - which is in alignment with many current views of the dynamics of advanced spiritual states. As David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. points out in his book Power vs. Force, enlightened states calibrate between 700-1000. Before those states are achieved, individuals must move up through the stages of unconditional love (500), joy (540), and peace (600). Considering that using Hawkins' scale 80% of the world's population still calibrates below 200, it is understandable that enlightenment is a journey. To accomplish the goal of uplifting humanity, Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma have established the Oneness University at Batthalavallam, 70 km outside the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) in southeast India. The Oneness University which is close to the movement's headquarters in what is now known as the Golden City, is a center for learning that is designed to teach people who they really are; to move them through meditations and inner processes that awaken them to the falseness of the separate self. Most importantly they also receive deeksha, which enables that limited condition to be transcended. Courses are experiential and designed to set men and women free of their limited mind-self to walk the path of discovering Oneness with God. The dhasas who teach at the Oneness University are understood to have achieved a permanent state of enlightenment. "Oneness University can be considered as the university for universities. It exists to make one into a true human being," Sri Bhagavan has stated. "The function of the University is not only to give an understanding of the human mind, human consciousness and life itself but also to bestow the state of enlightenment or Oneness. Seekers are not only given the state, but are also empowered to transfer this state to others. One is fully empowered to help others become enlightened. The effort is to create a new humanity which would have discovered Oneness." The largest structure at the Golden City is the Oneness Temple, a mammoth three floor marble structure twenty times the size of the Taj Mahal, which is scheduled for completion in 2006. Designed for many functions, the temple includes a great hall where 8,000 people can meditate together, purposefully influencing the morphogenetic fields across the earth and helping to elevate humankind into enlightenment. For those familiar with the work of quantum physicist John Hagelin, Ph.D. Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Peace University in Fairfield, Iowa, the number 8,000 should ring a bell. It is, roughly, the square root of one percent of the world's current population of 6.5 billion, which is the number calculated by his staff during years of research on the field effects of meditation, as the minimum number of people necessary to affect the morphogenic fields of human consciousness worldwide and trigger a paradigm shift. Because of wave amplification dynamics, having one large group meditating together, as is planned for the Oneness Temple, is ideal.
Non-sectarian followers What is unique about this movement is that it is not a religion, nor is it a particular spiritual path or set of religious beliefs. Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma, who are husband and wife (which is certainly a break from eastern tradition) are understood as being the outer manifestations of oneness in the twin form of the masculine and feminine expressions. They maintain they are not interested in forming a new religion, nor being worshiped as gurus. Rather they are simply here to perform their divine mission of uplifting humanity. Pauline Baumann, a naturopathic physician from Portland who has been a spiritual seeker since age 15, went to India last year to learn how to perform deeksha. She says the meditations and the highly psychological depth processing work the movement uses, combined with the transmission of higher consciousness via deeksha makes the Oneness Movement unique in her experience. The non-religious orientation appealed to her western sensibilities. "This is not all exotic and mystical and that sort of thing," says Baumann. "It's about becoming functionally awakened. This is not about going into dysfunctional, mystical states, because that's not really going to help the world a whole heck of a lot. Bhagavan is very interested in people being functional, being able to be enlightened in pursuit of their own vocation; not that you become enlightened and you become a spiritual teacher. Because there's not necessarily that specific need. There is the need for there to be enlightened doctors, enlightened politicians, enlightened plumbers, enlightened landscape designers, architects, parents. There's just a need for everybody to be enlightened and bring it to their own vocation and be very functional in the world." Baumann, admits that the promise of enlightenment was absolutely a strong pull to go to India. When she came back she was, "in a very good space." "I don't know how to describe it," she muses. "Relatively enlightened? And that state was very, very peaceful, very relaxed. My heart was very open. My mind was just very optimistic and positive. I tend to have, historically, a critical turn of mind. I'm the kind of person that sees the imperfections in things... I'm comparing things all the time.... That was just sort of gone. When I came back here, we came back to a really kind of catastrophic thing with our house. Instead of freaking out, you just deal with it. It's fine, not to worry. That was kind of an interesting little test." For Baumann, enlightenment has not come like a bolt from the blue, but rather as a steadily increasing capacity to be present and to love. As she has continued to give deeksha to Oneness Movement participants in the Portland area, (which is also a way to receive the higher energies as they pour through her) she is experiencing a gradual deepening and strengthening of her heightened original state. She mentions that, in the west especially, there is tremendous confusion and overawe about what enlightenment really is. New York television show host of A Better World, Mitchell Rabin, agrees. "The experiences that I had in India, I feel, opened up channels in me and reminded me of a level of a cosmic reality that I had been losing sight of," says Rabin who is also a transpersonal psychologist and acupuncturist. "It was an amazing experience, magnificent in its simplicity. "What's going on now, is, I have to say, it's much more transitory. I personally do not feel that the full awakening, permanent state of awakening, has occurred to me, that's for sure. I have disabused myself of all considerations of enlightenment. Quite honestly I think that's actually a very healthy thing, and it's part of a very important disillusioning process that I think is inherent in spiritual practice: To become utterly, completely sober and present in the moment, instead of [chasing after] what I think enlightenment is and even what I'd wanted it to be." Oneness Movement leaders, like Raniji, and practitioners like Baumann agree that "enlightenment" is a unique, individual process. It is also a state of mind that cannot be pursued or attained through personal effort. Rather it is attained by Divine Grace. East meets west On February 14, 2005, American Christian spiritual leader Ron Roth was awakened in his Illinois home by a voice chanting "Sri Bhagavan, Sri Bhagavan" over and over. As founder of the Celebrating Life Ministries, the Spirit of Peace Monastic Community and a former Roman Catholic priest, Roth was bemused by the experience. However, after inquiring amongst his staff, he learned about the Oneness Movement and contacted Sri Raniji at US headquarters in Monte Sereno, California . Despite the obvious congruencies between his healing ministry and that of the Oneness Movement, Roth was uninterested in heading to India... until several months of contemplation brought him to an inevitable feeling that he had to go. At the Golden City he was welcomed with open arms — and recognition by Sri Bhagavan that he was an avatar in his own right and deeply aligned with the Oneness Movement and the task of bringing enlightenment to the planet. Roth says his experiences in India, talking at length with Sri Bhagavan and Sri Amma, receiving Deeksha and undergoing spiritual "surgery" by the dhasas, were extraordinary. "What I like about Bhagavan, is 1) he really is into Oneness. You don't even have to believe what he teaches," says Roth. "He has no doctrines. If you want to eat meat, eat meat. If you want to be a vegetarian, be a vegetarian. It's your personal life. But to recognize the beingness of God in you is very important. 2) I know of no other avatar who's ever been married. I think he broke the mold with that one. "But the interesting thing about Bhagavan is this whole idea of being devoid of doctrine. So many [religious organizations] do have their strict rules. You must be a vegetarian. You must be this. You must be that. Kind of like what people have done with Christianity, instead of focusing on the experience. But when you go to the Golden City, you get an experience of the Divine." Roth, whom Bhagavan named Satchitananda, which refers to the three aspects of God, consciousness, existence and bliss, is now heading up the American branch of the Oneness Movement. In addition to running Celebrating Life Ministries events, Roth also works with Sri Raniji developing workshops with the Oneness Movement. Like so many who have experienced enlightenment or even gradations thereof, for Roth everything has changed and nothing has changed. "I told Bhagavan before I left India, 'I've never felt so complete in my life. I really feel perfectly that I'm on the path now where I belong.' He said, 'When you go back to America, do it the way you've been doing it.' People here ask me, 'Is your healing life or your prayer life changed?' I would honestly have to say, 'No.' But it has certainly deepened and expanded. I don't see it as a change. I still follow the principles I've always followed. It's just that now my consciousness is far more expanded than it was." Patricia Resch and friends will be demonstrating the techniques taught by Bhagavan and Sri Amma at this year's Wesak Celebration, May 12-14, 2006. For information about the Oneness Movement contact www.trueawakening.org. For information about Celebrating Life Ministries contact www.ronroth.com. Reprinted with permission from WhattheBleep.com.
Love and Spirit: a conversation with Deepak Chopraby Michael TomsDeepak Chopra is a pioneer in helping individuals achieve success and fulfillment through mind-body techniques. A best-selling author and motivational speaker, Chopra expands the concept of good health and self-knowledge through a blending of Western medicine and Ayurvedic techniques. His books include The Way of the Wizard; The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success; Ageless Body, Timeless Mind; and his first novel, The Return of Merlin. He is also the author of The Path to Love: Renewing the Power of Spirit in Your Life. Love makes the world go around, or so the saying goes. No other living creature's offspring needs as much love and caring from it's mother as a human infant. None of us would grow up without love at the beginning. We've all received it, and we're all looking for it. What is this magic elixir of love all about? And why is so important to our lives? Dr. Deepak Chopra explores these questions. Michael Toms: Your books have been largely oriented to healing and the body, body-mind connection and so forth, and with 1997's The Path to Love: Renewing the Power of Spirit in Your you've went on to the path of love. What motivated that? Deepak Chopra: In many ways it is not a departure; it's a continuing evolution of the same exploration into the realm of consciousness and how it influences our lives, and particularly how it influences the healing process. I've become aware of a number of scientific studies that show very clearly the power of love to heal, to renew, to rejuvenate, and actually change your biological age. There is no doubt in my mind now that love heals, love renews, love makes you feel safe, love inspires you, love empowers you, love can bring you closer to God. I've been looking at some of the medical evidence, which is absolutely astonishing. If you happen to have had a heart attack and a nurse or social worker calls you once a week on the phone for about a minute and says, "Mr. Smith, how are you doing? We care about you; we love you," your mortality rate post-infarction drops by 60%. That's with one phone call lasting less than a minute! If a drug did that and you didn't use it, you would be sued for malpractice. But such is our bias that this is not considered remarkably effective therapy. There are other studies that show when nurses bond with cancer patients, particularly women with breast cancer, if they give loving support to each other, the survival rate of the patients doubles. It's about time that we examined the phenomenon of love much more seriously than we've ever done before, because in a sense we're in a crisis. With racism and ethnocentrism and prejudice and bigotry and hatred and war and violence and terrorism, we are certainly suffering from a world deficiency of love. What's intriguing to me is that in the West, particularly in a highly materialistic culture like America, our concept of love doesn't include the spiritual. DC: Actually, what I'm saying is that love and spirit are the same force. That at the core of every being there is only love, because the core of every being is only spirit. The two are the same force — an abstract, unifying force in nature, not just in the human experience, but in nature. It's all pervasive. And we experience it in our lives in the flavors of human relationship — with attraction, infatuation, communion and courtship, intimacy and sexuality, surrender and non-attachment, and passion and ecstasy. These are the different flavors of love in human relationships that I've examined in the book. But my intent was to show that each of these is actually a window into the experience of the spirit as a real force. I want to take love into its aspect in relationship, because that's where I think most of us experience love. You wrote that partners are mirrors of ourselves, and so in falling in love we're falling in love with some aspect of ourselves. DC: Yes, when we find delight in another person, we've actually found something joyful inside ourselves that involves a shift in our awareness, a shift in our perception, because the same person is not necessarily attractive to other people. In relationship, whenever we're drawn to someone or repelled by someone, they're both mirrors of the self. We're attracted to people in whom we find traits that we want or desire in our own selves. And we are repelled by people in whom we find traits that we're denying in ourselves. So relationship is a true mirror of where we are in our evolution in consciousness. In relationship then, you can borrow those traits from your loved one, which would be a loving relationship born out of need — ultimately not a healthy situation. If it's born out of need it would lead to an addictive relationship. On the other hand, we could decide to become those qualities. I'm drawn to this person because of her inner beauty, because of her naturalness, because of her affectionate nature, because of her tenderness, because of her nurturing qualities, because of her intuition and wisdom. Well then, these are the qualities I need to culture in my own self. So I don't borrow, I become. Or I might be repelled by this person because he seems to be racist, he seems to be bigoted, he seems to be prejudiced, he seems to be angry and confrontational. I'm so charged by this, I must examine these qualities in my own self and see that, to some extent, I do have these, because everyone of us is a conglomeration of ambiguities of opposing archetypal energies. So if we have the divine, we also have the diabolical. If we have the sacred, we also have the profane. If we have the saint inside us, we also have the sinner inside us. We usually deny that, but it's true. We have forbidden lust and unconditional love at the same time. When we embrace our shadow energies, when we confront them, and we're honest about them, and we recognize that that's what is going on inside us, then we spontaneously become less judgmental of others. The best way to achieve that so-called exalted state of non-judgment is to confront your own shadows. Isn't it possible that, if we're falling in love with aspects of ourselves we're suppressing, we'll become dependent on the other person? Because we're still suppressing those things, and we're looking for them to be filled by the other person? DC: Yes, and that's what happens frequently. That's why I said we can either borrow or we can become. And that's part of the whole stage of love that I address as communion — that's the third stage of love, the first two being attraction and infatuation. And in communion, if it is to succeed, there has to be a process of soul connecting to soul, spirit connecting to spirit. And, of course, body connecting to body, too, is part of the intimacy of the relationship. If you really want to connect on the level of soul, then there are three things that you must understand: equality, sensitivity and communication. Equality means no one, no one in the world, is either superior or inferior to me at the level of spirit. We have different qualities of spirit, but we are equal. And when we are drawn to somebody, it is to mutually nourish each other. In order to cultivate that, we have to begin to become aware of what I just said — why we are drawn. Sensitivity is the ability to know what is going on in the other person. Sensitivity implies that you are comfortable with the fact that people can be emotionally quite troubled and still be normal, and that emotions are frequently conflicting, confusing, paradoxical, contradictory. So when we make statements like, "I don't know what the heck is going on inside you," or "I don't see why you're reacting like this," or "I don't see why you're so emotionally charged about this," we're not really being sensitive. In order to be sensitive, we have to, at least for the time being, abandon the need to be right all the time. We have to abandon the need to be in control all the time. We have to, for the time being at least, ignore our own needs. That's what sensitivity means. And communication is about exposing your own vulnerabilities, particularly your own fears. So, if you pay attention to these three qualities of communion: equality, sensitivity and communication, then you have a chance of connecting; otherwise, most relationships end up as co-dependent. You wrote, "Surrender is the door to find passion." So that's what you're talking about. DC: Right, and when I speak of passion in love, I also mean passion in life. When you lose passion in love, then you lose passion for everything else, because life is an expression of that passion that you have in love. One of my favorite poets has been Rumi, whom I quote very frequently. He said the most important thing you can do in your life is to become a passionate lover, and if you are a passionate lover, then you'll be a lover in life, you'll be a lover in death, you'll be a lover in the tomb, you'll be a lover on the day of Resurrection, you'll be a lover in Paradise, and you'll be a lover forever. And if you've not been a passionate lover, then don't count your life as having been lived. Passion is crucial for existence. It is the source of our creativity. And passion is the next stage beyond detachment and surrender. In the Hindu world view, from where I've borrowed a lot of my concepts, passion is the dynamic dance of the male and feminine energies of the universe, often symbolized as Shiva and Shakti. The five male qualities and the energies of the universe are creation, protection, destruction (of that which is obsolete and effete and unnecessary and toxic), revelation and concealment. You can find these qualities in anything that's alive. Look at a flower and you see that there's that creative energy inside it; you see there's that energy that protects the integrity of it against the onslaughts of the environment; and you see that destructive energy which is getting rid of all the toxicity as it accumulates through strains and stresses. And at the same time, you see that the spirit is hiding within it, that's concealment. And if you're careful, and you look carefully, then you can see that the spirit is also shining through it. If you can't see spirit in a flower, or God in a flower, if you can't see God in the rainbow, or you can't find God in the blade of grass, or in the eyes of a being, you won't find God in a book of religion. God is life-centered, present-moment spirit in all that lives. God is passion. So those are the five male qualities. The five female qualities, or the feminine qualities of the universe — often referred to as Shakti — are pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure knowledge (which means that knowledge which organizes and orchestrates the infinite correlative activity of the universe), pure action (action which is non-binding — doesn't have the bondage of karma. Action which has the bondage of karma comes from the ego. It's based on beliefs and expectations and interpretations and fears and judgments and past memories, whereas non-binding action, which is non-Karmic, is called kriya — action rooted in pure awareness and creativity. So you've gone beyond the being the bundle of conditioned reflexes that's either in a fight or flight mode. You're in the intuitive, in the creative, in the visionary and the sacred mode. And that's an expression of Shakti). And finally, of course, there is the expression of desire, the fifth female quality. Desire is pure potentiality seeking manifestation. When you have Shiva and Shakti dancing and in synchronicity with each other — the dynamic interplay of these energies — then you have the experience of passion, which is ultimately still a prelude to the state of ecstasy. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there's the Vajrasattva, where you see the man entwined with the woman, and it's the same energy. DC: Right, it's the same energy. In this book, I think for the first time in my writing, I've addressed the whole issue of sexuality and how it relates to spirituality. In our culture we have considered sex profane and love sacred, when in fact, sex is an aspect of love, and sexual energy is, in fact, the creative energy of the universe — so could it be spirit? I address that, very strongly, and make a good case for it, I think, because I examine the peak experience, for example, in sexuality, referred to as orgasm. You can see, if you examine the qualities of that experience, there's timelessness, there's loss of ego, there is naturalness, there is surrender, there is communion, there's lack of defensiveness and vigilance. These are sacred qualities, so peak experiences in physical love actually are a temporary window into the state of true liberation or freedom. This is an insight into ecstasy. And ecstasy is an experience of primordial energy state. Have you seen babies? They spontaneously bubble with bliss sometimes. There's no reason, they just do it. That's a primordial energy state. Addictive behavior is the number one disease in our civilization — it's not heart disease, not AIDS, and not cancer, but addiction. It is my belief, and the belief of a number of people who looked at the problem of addiction, that addictive behavior — whether it's to drugs, food, alcohol, work, sex, or whatever — is actually a search for ecstasy. I used to work in a VA Hospital and treated a lot of hard-core addicts. And they were the most spiritual people I've known in my life. Addicts are searching for what we're all searching for. That experience of Oneness. DC: That experience of oneness, of the ecstatic state. The word ecstasy comes from the Greek word ectosis, which means, to step outside of the world of space, time, form and phenomenon into the experience of unboundedness, into a world that is causeless, timeless and eternal. That's what ecstasy truly means. And ultimately ecstasy is a combination of physical, mythological and sacred needs. When physical sensuality or sensory experience is carried to it's ultimate, you have ecstasy, whether it's in the physical contact or sensory delight. But then there's another kind of ecstasy, which comes from our mythical motivations. Beneath the turmoil of our daily activity, our unconscious motivations dwell within the mythical world, in other words, inside us there are primal gods and goddesses. And we know this without knowing it, in that we act out our mythical drives without necessarily bringing them into our conscious awareness. So striving to succeed in the corporate takeover bid partakes of the hero's quest as much as the Argonaut seeking the golden fleece. Climbing Mt. Everest is driven by the same ambition--to reach the abode of the gods--as Icarus flying toward the sun. In mythical terms, ecstasy is a sacred journey into the underworld, or the unconscious. It's been portrayed in countless versions, from Persephone's abduction by Pluto to Orpheus seeking his bride in the shades of Hades. Why don't we know this? Because we are actually acting out our mythical needs. The reason is, we're so caught up by the trivial and the mundane in our daily activity. Ulysses didn't have to commute through tangled traffic every day. And Athena's mind wasn't full of worries about meeting the mortgage this month. And yet there is such a primal need for this kind of ecstasy. We are an emotionally and spiritually bankrupt civilization right now, because we've lost mythology. Joseph Campbell once said. "Mythology is much more important than history. If you want to know a people, understand their mythology." So, there's physical ecstasy, then there's mythical ecstasy, and finally there's sacred ecstasy. Sacred ecstasy comes from stepping out of our ordinary states of waking, dreaming and sleeping consciousness into what has been called glimpsing the soul, or cosmic consciousness, divine consciousness, unity consciousness. When Walt Whitman says "I must not be awake now, for everything looks to me as it never did before. Or else I'm awake for the first time, and all that was before was just a dream," he's talking about the transcendent, and, of course, the great writers and philosophers like Thoreau and Emerson (from this tradition) and, of course, all the great sages of the East, have spoken of the same thing. When you have the combination of all three — physical, mythical, and sacred — then you have true bliss consciousness. Read the Song of Solomon and the Torah when Solomon says, "You split me open, you tore my heart and poured your love into me. You poured your spirit and filled me with it. I knew you as I know myself. My eyes are radiant with your light; my nostrils filled with your fragrance. My ears delight with your music and my face is covered with your dew. You have made all things new. You have made me see all things shinning. You have granted me perfect ease. I have become like Paradise." Here in the Torah, in the Book of Genesis itself, we find the best description of ecstasy. And that is the final culmination of the experience of love. If you'd like to be in touch with the work and schedule of Dr. Deepak Chopra, you can write to: The Chopra Center for Well-Being, 7630 Fay Avenue, La Jolla, CA 92037. Phone: 1-888-424-6772 (toll-free). This article has been excerpted from New Dimensions Program #2606.
Entering the Soul Light EraBy Master ShaMaster and Dr. Zhi Gang Sha is an extraordinary healer and advanced spiritual master. His teachings emanate from a lineage of Buddhist and Taoist spiritual wisdom thousands of years old. His own powerful contribution is to make these teachings simple, practical and accessible to anyone who wants to understand and access modern spiritual abilities and embark on a journey of healing and self-realization. In 2003, he was selected as a direct divine channel. At that time, he was given many extraordinary healing powers and an infinite source of teachings from and about the Soul World. Through Soul Mind Body Medicine®, Master Sha teaches, "Heal the soul first; then healing of the mind and body will follow." By combining the power of the soul as expressed through love and forgiveness with the 5,000-year-old secrets of Chinese energy and spiritual healing wisdom that Master Sha teaches in its purest essence, you will experience life-transforming healing of your soul, mind and body. Master Sha teaches Four Power Techniques®: Body Power, Sound Power, Mind Power and Soul Power. Body Power consists of special hand and body positions for healing the soul, mind and body. Sound Power adds healing mantras and the powerful vibration of sound to promote healing. Mind Power is creative visualization that engages mental processes in both the left and right brain. Soul Power, a totally new dimension, teaches how to access and develop one's unique Soul Language to communicate and request the inner soul's assistance in healing and also to call upon the buddhas, saints and great healing angels and masters from beyond. The practices that Master Sha will teach on Friday night at the Wesak festival have been credited with treating a wide array of common ailments including joint pain, migraines and inflammation. Mental and emotional benefits include diminished symptoms of depression and anxiety, increased concentration and improved memory. THE POWER OF SOUL In his newest book, Soul Mind Body Medicine, Master Sha leads us to recognize that everything has a soul, not just humans. Learning which souls to engage and how to engage them in your healing is the topic of Master Sha's Friday workshop entitled The Power of Soul — Soul Healing and Blessing. Love melts any blockage. Forgiveness brings peace.All souls want to be of service, but few know how. Opening your spiritual channels will enable you to communicate directly with your Heaven's Team and receive guidance. You will be able to learn directly from your spiritual teachers and mentors and use that knowledge to bring focus and purpose to your life. In turn, this will enable you to serve with clarity, steadfastness and compassion during the transition time on Mother Earth. As the Soul Light Era dawns, more and more scientists are looking to the right brain and the domain of inspiration to fathom the mysteries of time, space and the universes large and small. Medical intuitive abilities, astral travel, remote viewing and other Third Eye capabilities are beginning to reclaim a higher status as tools for the direct "knowing" of universal truths. Master Sha, in his advanced study on accessing the powers of the soul, steps into unique new territory and breaks ground by teaching people how to bring out and translate their Soul Language, which is each soul's unique and distinct tongue. Soul Language, inherently accessible and understood by all, is a universal communication tool for the new era. It will be presented in the Saturday workshop, Open Spiritual Channels — Align Yourself with Divine and Universal Consciousness. SOUL DOWNLOADS / DIVINE TRANSMISSIONS As a direct channel, vehicle and messenger of the Divine since 2003, Master Sha has been given the authority and the honor to offer the divine healing service of Soul Downloads. These divine transmissions are advanced spiritual healing blessings — frequencies of divine light, love, compassion, forgiveness and presence — that Master Sha transmits to the soul of the recipient directly from the Divine. They carry divine love and light that can remove or transform energy and spiritual blockages on the soul, mind and body levels of the individual and even radiate far beyond that person. Soul Downloads enable you to accomplish more in less time — to build the foundational power of your Lower Dan Tian, open your Message Center, transform your soul, and boost your spiritual standing. Soul Downloads have different frequencies depending on the healing intention and location where they are sent. Most often, they are transmitted to organs, bodily systems such as the digestive system, body parts like the upper back, or energy centers such as the Message Center or Third Eye. When a Soul Download is transmitted from the Divine through Master Sha, it is possible for energy blockages or deficiencies to be transformed because the root cause of disease, suffering and pain in the recipient may be transmuted into pure light. In some cases, a Soul Download can instantly transform and heal an energy blockage on all levels. Sometimes, these self-healing treasures take time to generate perceptible benefits. Individual results vary. Once a Zhi Gang Sha Soul Download is transmitted to you, it is a permanent spiritual tool that is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the rest of your life. In practicing daily, you work with your Soul Download to purify, heal, bless, transform, enlighten and boost energy in your organs, systems and energy centers. Sunday's workshop, Divine Transmissions — Permanent Divine Healing and Blessing Treasures to Heal, Bless and Transform Your Life, covers this topic in detail. To find out about the variety of Soul Downloads available, visit the Divine Healings and Blessings section of Master Sha's website, www.drsha.com. In the Soul Light Era, says Master Sha, the power is given by Heaven. Many great beings are now coming to Mother Earth to help in her dramatic transition. Many blockages will be cleared in many ways by many hands. One of the most challenging is the karmic blockages that limit and taint not only individuals but nations and evolution in general. Some people, though rare for the moment, will have the power to cleanse karmic debt and enlighten. Though it is most often reserved for his advanced Soul Retreats, Master Sha will demonstrate karma cleansing at the last Mount Shasta workshop to honor the spirit of Wesak. Suggested Works by Master Sha You are invited to visit www.drsha.com to find out about a wealth of healing knowledge. Be sure to register for Master Sha's powerful free remote healing sessions weekly via teleconference. For secrets of rejuvenation, tune into to Master Sha's free Friday program on Internet radio at health.voiceamerica.com. © 2006 Institute of Soul Mind Body Medicine
Where in God's Name Did We Go Wrong?By Jean Claude KovenWhen people ask me if I am religious, I tell them I love God far too much to be religious. "Oh, then you must believe in God?" they inevitably ask. "Of course not," I reply with a smile, "does a fish believe in water?" For me, God is all there is. What's to believe? Although the world's major religions all agree that God (however they define the term) is omnipresent, it seems that very few of their followers - including their clerical hierarchy - actually understand what omnipresence really means. And therein lies the source of the world's ills. For a start, we take our relationship to God far too seriously. We bring so much solemnity to the way we view God — awe, veneration, obedience, and the like — that we end up creating distance between us and the object of our worship. Expressions such as "God is my judge," "God forbid," and "God bless you" creep into our language, and consequently our thoughts. People are actually proud to call themselves God-fearing folk. For too many of us, God is somewhere out there, watching and judging us as we struggle through our imperfect lives. And consider this: Some religions consider the name of God so holy that it is never pronounced. Instead they create a litany of substitute terms so they can talk about God without having to commit the blasphemy of actually using his name - much as many of the characters in the Harry Potter novels avoid pronouncing the name of Lord Voldemort lest they unleash some fearsome effect. When practitioners of these religions write about their deity, they are instructed to omit the vowel: G-d. Other religions take the opposite tack. They encourage their devotees to chant or meditate on the name of God for hours at a time. To their way of believing, focusing on God leads to a state of bliss that opens the door to transcendence and enlightenment. But if God is truly all that is, what can possibly make one of his names more powerful than any other? For that matter, what is the purpose of naming him (or her or it) in the first place? Naming anything creates a subject/object relationship between you and the thing named, and that in and of itself means a separation. Every name of God, no matter how holy, drives a wedge between the creator and the created - which includes you and me. This separation is the primal breeding ground for fear, for we then see ourselves as tiny beings, abandoned (or evicted from Paradise) and living on the fringe of an incomprehensibly huge cosmos. It's no wonder most of humanity takes this whole God business so seriously - it appears to be no less than a matter of life and death. But what if the phrase "God is all that is" were literally true? This is what R. Buckminster Fuller must have understood when he said, "God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun." His words, when I first read them, lodged in my mind. But I didn't get their full import until many years later, during my first visit to Findhorn, the renowned spiritual community in northeast Scotland. It was there, sitting in a circle with my fellow newbies, that the penny dropped. One young man in our group, Peter, suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, wow, I finally see it. It's not that God is in all things; it's that God is all things." His exclamation triggered two remarkable realizations for me. First, the obvious is obvious only to those who are sufficiently present to see it. The delivery of Peter's life-changing epiphany had virtually no effect on the rest of the group. Our facilitator was so consumed by his orientation agenda that he missed the moment completely. Thanking Peter for his contribution, he simply asked the group if anyone else had anything to share. Second, what Peter said is literally true. In an instant, Bucky's words became crystal clear. God is indeed a verb. He is not the creator. He is the ongoing unfoldment of creation itself. There is nothing that is not a part of this unfolding. Thus there can be nothing separate from God. God is infinite and infinity is One. From that moment, everything in my life began to change. It wasn't immediate; it was rather like a giant oil tanker slowly making a U-turn. As if I were facing in a new direction, I looked at the world in a new way "How," I asked myself, "do we dupe ourselves so completely? How come so few people see what Bucky and Peter see? How could I myself have been so blind?" When we perceive God as a noun, we envision him as the creator, the architect of, and therefore separate from, his creation. Identifying ourselves as part of that creation, we see ourselves not only separate from our source but separate from each other and all other manifest things as well. This is the fatally flawed axiom underlying virtually all of the world's faiths. They may collectively call for love and peace, but the rampant divisiveness, greed, and competition that currently pervade human culture are the only inevitable outcomes of their separative philosophies. Once I viewed God as a verb instead of a noun, my perception of life shifted. Everything around me, manifest or no, became God. There was only God. When someone spoke to me, it was with God's voice; when I listened, it was with God's heart. I invite you to try it. The small shift from noun to verb may well be the antidote to the forbidden fruit that banished us from Eden. As you begin to view God not as the creator but as the constantly changing dance of creation itself, you'll discover him in everything you see — including yourself. The old you — that fish swimming blindly in search of water — fades away as you dissolve into the simple meaning of it all. Perhaps, when your vision finally clears, you will find yourself living in the Promised Land that so many others are still praying for. Jean CLaude Koven is a featured speaker at this year's Wesak Celebration in Mt. Shasta, May 12-14. Jean-Claude Koven is a writer and speaker based in Rancho Mirage, CA. He is the author of Going Deeper: How to Make Sense of Your Life When Your Life Makes No Sense, the Allbooks Reviews editor's choice for the best metaphysical book of 2004. Recipient of USABookNews.com best metaphysical book award. For more information, please visit www.goingdeeper.org. © 2005. Jean-Claude Koven / All Rights Reserved. This article is copyrighted, but you have permission to share it through any medium as long as the proper copyright and credit line is included.
Translating Good Intentions into Great Choicesby David Simon, M.D.Most of us sense what we need to create a life of joy, love, health, and meaning. The challenge each of us faces is translating our intentions into actions that improve our lives. In the Western world, the Ten Commandments provide the foundation for the moral values of our society. As the underlying rules of life in our Western world, they have guided our ethical choices for thousands of years. They offer a powerful prescription for social health, and if being told how to behave resulted in people doing what was ultimately good for them, the world would be a much better place. However, it is one thing to be commanded; it is another to make choices that serve the greatest good. We are commanded not to kill, but over sixteen thousand people are murdered each year in the United States and in the name of God or country, tens of thousands are killed in armed conflicts. We are commanded not to steal, but over ten million thefts occur annually. We have a prohibition against adultery, yet studies suggest that at least half of married people engage in extra-marital affairs. Treated as children, people respond as children. It is time to replace commandment with commitment. People have an innate tendency to resist demands. If we observe children being disciplined by their parents or teachers, it becomes apparent why, even as adults, we often resist making the choices that are more likely to generate health and happiness. Living a life based upon the fear of punishment keeps us in resistance to our higher self. Tapping deep into our core and envisioning who we want to be in the world enables us to take responsibility for our lives and make choices that express our deepest purpose. The world is in need of peace, which can only come when each individual has access to an internal state of peace. Although most people in the Western world have grown up with The Ten Commandments, the vast majority would have difficulty articulating them, suggesting that that they drive our behaviors unconsciously. Translating a commandment into a commitment empowers us to make conscious choices, reflecting the recognition that we co-create our realities. The first commandment in the Old Testament is I am the Lord, thy God, who brought you out of the house of slavery. Although this is traditionally interpreted as reminding us that there is one true God, it's possible to see a deeper and perhaps more relevant spiritual message — that of freedom. Most people live in voluntary confinement, believing that the security they gain outweighs the freedom surrendered. But the desire for freedom is not relinquished so easily. Freedom to speak, to act, to love, and to find meaning in life are universal impulses expressed across time and culture. The first of The Ten Commandments proclaims that God freed his people from slavery. This is the essential message of spirituality —freedom from internally or externally imposed limitations — freedom from bondage. Most people mistakenly believe that external forces limit their happiness. "I am depressed because I'm stuck in an abusive marriage." "I have this ulcer because my boss is controlling." "My relationships repeatedly fail because my father abandoned me when I was young." We accept these limiting beliefs and engage in perpetual internal negotiations with these restrictive voices, never reaching agreement on the terms for our release. Common excuses I hear include: "As soon as my youngest child graduates high school, I'm leaving this toxic marriage," or "Once I'm vested in my pension plan, I am saying goodbye to this stagnant job" or "After I get through the holidays, I am going to start exercising." It's time to use the key residing in your soul to unlock the door that frees you from self-imposed incarceration. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes, and become aware of any sensations of discomfort in your body. If you identify a place in your body that feels constricted or congested, ask yourself, "What life issue is this sensation telling me about?" Recognizing that emotional conflicts are often expressed as physical tension, allow any bodily sensations to bring your attention to possible mental debates you are having with yourself. Ask what you can do to create inner peace and free yourself from conflict. Plot your escape. After liberation from Egypt, the Israelis wandered in the desert for forty years. This reminds us that after taking a step toward freedom, it may take some time for the full expression of the choice to manifest (although hopefully not forty years). Entering into the land of milk and honey is possible only after you make the commitment to freedom. The Ten Commitments reframes each of The Ten Commandments. For example, rather than accepting that the second commandment to not make unto thee a graven image is about avoiding statue worship, we can recognize that a false idol is anything that keeps us from being fully authentic. Investing too much power in a car, house, job, or relationship turns the object of worship into a graven image. Seen from this perspective, the second commandment can be translated into a commitment to authenticity. Each commandment can be seen in a new light as a powerful commitment to healing and transformational.
Embracing commitment enables you to make good choices, not out of fear of being caught or punished, but as a reflection the person you are. Through commitment, the quiet voice of your soul that wants you to be happy, know love, feel vital, and have meaning and purpose will find its expression. Dr. Simon, MD, is a trained neurologist who has been instrumental in pioneering a new model of health that integrates body, mind, and spirit. As Medical Director and Cofounder of The Chopra Center, he has worked closely with Deepak Chopra to forge a new synthesis between Eastern and Western thought. He is the author of The Ten Commitments: Translating Good Intentions into Great Choices.
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