Category: Paradigm Shift

Purpose: It’s what gives Life meaning. WHAT IS YOUR WHY?

“In prison, illusions can offer comfort.” – Nelson Mandela

For a magician to fool his audience his deceit must go unseen, and to this end he crafts an illusion to avert attention from reality. While the audience is entranced, the deceptive act is committed, and for the fool, reality then becomes inexplicably built upon on a lie. That is, until the fool wakes up and recognizes the truth in the fact that he has been duped.

Maintaining the suspension of disbelief in the illusion, however, is often more comforting than acknowledging the magician’s secrets.

We live in a world of illusion. So many of the concerns that occupy the mind and the tasks that fill the calendar arise from planted impulses to become someone or something that we are not. This is no accident. As we are indoctrinated into this authoritarian-corporate-consumer culture that now dominates the human race, we are trained that certain aspects of our society are untouchable truths, and that particular ways of being and behaving are preferred.

(To read the rest of this fascinating article, click on the image, above.)

The Mystery behind the Karma or Action..

For some, Christmas can be a massive headache. All the queuing, crowds and spending can really get a person down. Add to that the rabid indulgence demanded by roast potatoes and Christmas cakes and you have a recipe for some very stern New Years’ resolutions.

But forget the commercialism of the festive season for a second…

Most people get to spend time with their families over the Christmas holidays. The pressures of work ease off and one can genuinely reflect on the past year. Sit still long enough, and one might even consider the fact that people of all creeds value the same things: family, security and a chance at the lasting contentment of being valued for who they are.

Ostensibly, Jesus the son of the Christian God was born to Mary the virgin on the 25^th of December. This event has been derided by rabid atheists and other worshippers of logic, denied or marginalized by the other monotheistic religions and explained away by researchers into ancient astrological practices. In fact, if you don’t profess to be a Christian, you probably feel compelled to laugh at the patent absurdity of the whole scenario.

That is, if you feel it’s actually the event itself you’re supposed to be celebrating. This humble blog post proposes that you look at it from another perspective.

There’s a lot of discussion surrounding the ideas of what a ‘Star Child’ is.

Are you one of them?

If you’re reading this or have an interest in the world’s collective evolution, then you probably are!

These titles or categories of ‘Star People’ hold a different meaning to each person.

To me, this essentially means your purpose in life is to help break down the existing paradigms to really start the shift into our next stages of evolution.

Everyone has bits and pieces of the traits that come with being a Star Person, it’s how you act out your intentions that would make you resonate more with a specific category.

If you’re reading the postings here, you’re beginning to learn about all the toxic chemicals that are liberally used in retail products you trusted to be “safe” for you, your family, your pets and the Planet. Now, hopefully, you’ll not continue to buy these poisons out of sheer convenience.  The Aloha Wellness Company partners with a manufacturer which creates 100% non-toxic products that benefit your body’s health and well-being and are “green” for the planet so our water tables won’t be contaminated … no allergies, no disease, no warning labels that threaten death by exposure or ingestion.  We already know our answers and are walking the talk by living Green and toxins-free.  The future of the next seven generations is in our collective hands …  So, is complacency and convenience going to be your continued way of being in 2015?  What’s your Plan B … what are YOU going to do differently to safeguard the wellness of our children TODAY? 

This is something many people out there have experienced. Why do our best friends become strangers?

It’s over, you’ve bottled it, and the ashes in your mouth taste horrendous. It feels as if the world finally knows how pathetic and useless you really are, and everyone’s laughing at you. You’ve failed. Your third-grade teacher’s theatrical sighs ring in your ears, followed shortly by her now-proven-true prediction: “You’ll never amount to anything.”

Failure. We fear it because it hurts. It dents our egos and makes us vulnerable to the pointed barbs of others. But if you feel like a failure, first ask yourself this: How did I fail? Because if you gave it your all, if you put your heart and your soul on the line and fate simply decided against you, you shouldn’t be all that concerned. Here’s why.

You didn’t really fail. You just discovered a way that didn’t work.

Straight from the horse’s mouth. A horse named Thomas Edison (OK, not a horse, but the genius inventor) who failed numerous times over the course of his lifetime. Edison had a pragmatic view of failure: every failure provided information, and eventually, all that information would provide the basis for his success. “Many of life’s failures,” Edison is recorded as saying, “are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Real failure is to be content with failure.

You only really fail if you accept that you have failed. And the real treat is that no one can decide this except you. If you’re alive, you can try, and no one can tell you differently. “When I was young,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, “I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.”

Being successful without failing first just doesn’t feel right.

How much fun could it possibly be to succeed all the time? Would you even know what success felt like, if it was all you had? Failure provides both a helpful reality check and a counterpoint to success. The champagne tastes that much sweeter when you’ve really earned it.

You’re never a failure unless you blame others.

Taking responsibility for your failures enables you to learn from them. How often in society do we see the buck getting passed, with no one willing to stand up and admit their error? It takes a brave person to face the music, to shoulder the disappointment or scorn of others. But that attitude can only bring success in the long term, as it breeds the strength necessary to persevere.

Failure is an event, not a person.

If you fail at something, your failure doesn’t define you. You are just as unique and able to make a difference as you’ve always been, so why take it personally? If anything, your failure tells you something positive about yourself. Consider the words of Woody Allen: “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very

For many people, the holiday season is the busiest, most complicated, most stressful time of year.

Holiday parties, gift shopping and wrapping, decorating, travel plans, end-of-the-year projects, planning for the new year … these are all added on top of your regular business. And life before the holidays was already pretty busy.

So what can we do to simplify? Is it even possible to simplify when things are getting crazy?

Yes, it’s possible — with some willingness to change. If you want things to be exactly as they are, you can’t simplify. But if you’re open to change, and have an open mind about your routines and priorities and projects and more, you can simplify.

One method to go about this is to ask yourself a series of questions. Now, it takes a minute or two to reflect on these questions … but if you have five questions, that will only take 5-10 minutes. That’s totally worth the time investment if it greatly simplifies your life, reduces your busy-ness and stress, and makes you calmer and happier. Take the time now to reflect.

Here are the ones I’ve found useful:

What are you striving for? In our lives, we’re always striving for something: success, higher numbers at work, a new house, achievements to add to the notches on our belts, financial independence, an image that we want others to have of us … something. We aren’t always aware of it. So take a minute to reflect: what are you striving for right now? You can tell what it is by what’s stressing you out, what’s been occupying your mind, what fills your life with things to do. But if you can loosen your grip on what you’re striving for, you can simplify. You might even realize that this thing you’re striving for isn’t real, and is only a fantasy. It’s not important. In fact, you can have happiness right now, without this thing you’re striving for, if you accept that what you have is already good enough. Where you are is already perfect.

What are you clinging to? We all cling to things in our lives: our Christmas traditions, our love of sweets, our Internet distractions, our need to be right, our desire for justice in unfair situations, our craving for recognition and admiration. We are not usually aware of this clinging, but it feels like a tightness, stress, unwillingness to let go of how things are or how you want them to be. Take a minute to reflect on what you don’t want to let go of, what causes you this tightness and stress, what makes you dig in your heels.

What can you limit yourself to? If you have 50 things on your plate, will you really have time to eat all those things? Will you have the space to give any of them focus? Will you enjoy all of them? What if you only limited your plate to five things? You’d have more space, more focus, more enjoyment. Take a minute to look at the various areas of your life right now, and see if you can limit each one: have a limit on your tasks each day, a limit on meetings or parties, a limit on requests you can say yes to, a limit on how much time you spend on email or social media, a limit on how many hours you work. Set arbitrary limits and force yourself to make choices. Adjust the limits if absolutely necessary, but don’t just widen the floodgates because you don’t want to choose. Choose, and your life will get simpler. Say no to the rest, or get out of those commitments by saying you can’t do them.

Who do you want to spend more time with? Spending time with friends and loved ones is the best way to use your holiday time. But you can’t say yes to everyone: what if you could only choose 3-5 people to spend more time with? Maybe fewer, depending on what your family situation is (people with 6 kids can’t cut out a few kids from the list, but if you don’t have kids, your list can be shorter). Take a minute to think who that might be. Now prioritize your time so that you limit everything else (Question 4 above) but make time for those people. Make some dates/appointments with them, block off time on your calendar, and make this time actually happen.

What can you let go of? Think of the things you’re striving for, clinging to … can you let go of them? Before you say no, consider how it might be possible. And when you limit things in your life, see if you can let go of the things that don’t make the cut.

Letting go isn’t easy, because if it’s in our lives, that means we’ve already said yes, have already decided its important enough to be in our lives. But if you don’t let go, your life remains complicated. You are trying to say yes to everything, and that means you have too much on your plate. That leads to busy-ness, stress, unhappiness, and worse health.

Simplicity requires asking these tough questions, and then learning to let go. That isn’t easy work, but the alternative is much harder.

Geniuses like Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci, and Mahatma Gandhi abstained from eating animals. Plutarch wrote, “When we clog and cloy our body with flesh, we also render our mind and intellect coarse. When the body’s clogged with unnatural food, the mind becomes confused and dull and loses its cheerfulness. Such minds engage in trivial pursuits, because they lack the clearness and vigor for higher thinking.”

Prayer Circle for Today
Today let us send our prayers to all animals vivisected in laboratories and classrooms.

May compassion and love reign over all the earth for all animals used in experiments. Dear primates, dogs, cats, mice; rats, pigs, lambs, rabbits, frogs, and all of you who are imprisoned in cages, tortured in useless experiments, separated from your loved ones, and suffering constant pain, fear, and loneliness, sometimes for many long years.

Dear ones, we bear witness to your suffering, we take action to permanently end it, and we continually send out an energy field of love and compassion to comfort you and to transform the hearts and souls of those who support this violent oppression.

We send our tears and our prayers on wings of love to you. Our love is all around you.

Compassion encircles the earth for each of you and for all beings.

And so it is.

A 220 year old document written in an entirely different context to today's United States would seem to be outdated.  What are the arguments for retaining it?  I could imagine a scenario where a Constitutional Convention is formed containing law makers from all sides of politics, religious leaders from all faiths, prominent moral leaders and others to be recommended.  It would meet far from Washington in a closed private session, no assistants, no phones, no lobbyists, no outside influence.  Their task is to write a new constitution based on principles that make sense today.  The resulting document would need to have 100% approval, be automatically signed into law and take effect on the first day of the following year.
Comments?

US Constitution: Would it make sense to scrap the US Constitution and rewrite a document more in touch with modern-day America?

Just Because You Didn’t Post It, Doesn’t Mean It Didn’t Happen

Our lives are overrun by social media. Not a half hour goes by that we are not confronted with a screen. While there are many virtues in technology today, the sheer volume of information we’re confronted with is not only overwhelming, but distracting. We are so used to being “plugged in” that it has become a default way of being: you’re probably not a stranger to checking Instagram or Facebook on your smart phone while waiting for a pot to boil. We all do this. And while we proclaim that we’re so busy and that we have no choice but to stay connected at all times, this simply isn’t true, is it? The less flattering reality is that we have become reliant on this distraction. We can’t wait for a friend to arrive at a coffee shop without reaching for our newsfeeds.

Ironically, you’re probably standing in a queue somewhere as you read this. Why do we do this? Why has it become so difficult to look up and smile at a stranger? Our constant access to technology has become a screen between ourselves and others; a social mask behind which to hide ourselves. But there’s a price to pay. And that’s loneliness.

Social media isolates us

We have never been more connected, but at the same time, we have never been more isolated from each other. We fear connection and really being seen. It’s become easier to create a profile so that world sees only your flattering angles and how interesting you are. Everyone has become so cool. It has never been more about image. It’s all we have access to. The surface is all we’re willing to share. You don’t ‘like’ that controversial post because you’re worried what someone might think. You do ‘like’ that controversial post because you’re trying to make a point. It’s all so calculated, so conceited. Even if you’re not aware of it, everything we choose to share online says something about how we want others to perceive us.

Some might argue that social media offers an incredible opportunity for self-expression and a way of connecting with like-minded communities. And this is true. But very few people only log in once a week to read an article or catch up with a friend. Most people are on social media ALL THE TIME. We can’t eat a meal without posting a photo of it; we can’t meet a friend without telling everyone about it. And while there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, the energy we invest in living our lives online is totally out of whack. We have lost connection with the moment, with the person sitting across the table with us, with ourselves.

So what do we do? How do we begin to rid ourselves of all this superficiality? It’s so simple. TURN IT OFF! Nothing bad will happen. I promise. You might actually enjoy that meal a lot more if you’re not fiddling with filters while you eat it. Your partner might actually feel more witnessed if you’re not on your phone while they tell you about their day. You might feel more connected to them if you actually start listening to what they’re saying without distraction. And you don’t have to post a pic of your running shoes every time you go to gym. It still counts. Show up for your life because it’s happening right now. You can smell it, see it, touch and taste it. Don’t miss out because you’re afraid. Who knows, maybe the girl at the book shop likes you back. So put down your phone and go speak to her because life doesn’t happen on a screen.

The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In “Beyond Science” Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities.  Are they true?  You decide.

By David Gutierrez, contributing writer to Natural News

In the largest such study ever conducted, researchers have found evidence that consciousness continues even after brain activity has ceased. This evidence of life after death came from a study led by researchers from the University of Southampton and published in the journal Resuscitation.

“Contrary to perception, death is not a specific moment but a potentially reversible process that occurs after any severe illness or accident causes the heart, lungs and brain to cease functioning,” lead researcher Dr. Sam Parnia said. “If attempts are made to reverse this process, it is referred to as ‘cardiac arrest’; however, if these attempts do not succeed it is called ‘death.’ “

Wide Diversity of Near-Death Experiences

The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study sought to use the scientific method to investigate the experiences typically described by the imprecise terms near-death experience (NDE) and out-of-body experience (OBE). Researchers interviewed 2,060 patients who had survived cardiac arrest from 15 hospitals across Austria, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“In this study we wanted to go beyond the emotionally charged yet poorly defined term of NDEs to explore objectively what happens when we die,” Dr. Parnia said.

The researchers found that 39 percent of cardiac arrest survivors interviewed described a sense that they had been “aware” following cardiac arrest. But many had no specific memories associated with the perception.

“This suggests more people may have mental activity initially but then lose their memories after recovery, either due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on memory recall,” Dr. Parnia said.

Of those who reported a perception of awareness, only 2 percent described an experience consistent with the popular idea of an OBE, such as seeing or hearing events taking place around their bodies. Nine percent reported experiences consistent with the popular idea of an NDE, such as feelings of warmth or the presence of a light. Forty-six percent, however, reported experiences that were not consistent with either an OBE or an NDE, including fearful or persecutory experiences.

Clinical Confirmation of Out-of-Body Experience

Perhaps the study’s most significant finding was what may be the first-ever clinical confirmation of an OBE. In this case, a 57-year-old social worker accurately reported things that were happening around him after his brain activity had ceased.

“This is significant, since it has often been assumed that experiences in relation to death are likely hallucinations or illusions,” said Dr. Parnia said, “occurring either before the heart stops or after the heart has been successfully restarted, but not an experience corresponding with ‘real’ events when the heart isn’t beating.

“In this case, consciousness and awareness appeared to occur during a three-minute period when there was no heartbeat. This is paradoxical, since the brain typically ceases functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping and doesn’t resume again until the heart has been restarted. Furthermore, the detailed recollections of visual awareness in this case were

consistent with verified events.”

The man’s memories were not only accurate but even helped the researchers place his experience in time.

“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the [experience] lasted for,” Dr. Parnia said.

“He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.”

“The researchers are to be congratulated on the completion of a fascinating study that will open the door to more extensive research into what happens when we die,” wrote Dr. Jerry Nolan, editor-in-chief of Resuscitation.

Source:  Epoch Times

The thoughts and ideas that you hold in your mind can become a reality with consistent action and a strong knowingness that “it is possible.”