Dovid Krafchow author of Kabbalistic Tarot explains the meaning behind the Mayan calendar according to Jewish knowledge and scientific investigation.
If you're really seeking the kingdom of heaven, the glory of God and the true vision that Jesus had, check out some great Christian articles . These articles are designed to teach and educate Christians.
What Are AffirmationsZen meditation is a little different as compared to other traditional forms of meditation. Here the person who meditates does not get into a "trance" and they experience the beauty of life, in each breath of the present moment to the fullest.
How To Meditate
Select a quiet, comfortable place. The spot should not be too cold or too hot, nor too dark or bright. Place a cushion on the carpet or a blanket. You can keep it on the floor or on a thin pad.
These meditation pads and cushions (also called as zabutons and zafus) can be easily purchased. However other materials like rolled up blankets, sofa cushions or pillows is good enough for beginners.
The benefits of Zen meditation are as follows:
- Builds focus and concentration
- Generates awareness of Big Self
- Compassion,calmness,spontaneous joy
- Improves health and overall well being
- Builds character and increases will power
- Bestows psychic powers
The sitting postures under this type of meditation have been illustrated in many books. There are various postures like the full lotus posture, quarter lotus posture, half lotus posture, Burmese posture and kneeling posture which can be practiced by following the instructions given in the book.
In all these postures, it is necessary to keep your spinal cord straight, chin tucked in, buttocks thrust out and hands held closed to your body in "cosmic mudra". Here the left hand rests on the top of your right hand with palms open.
After you are through with the sitting posture, you have to take deep breath which would allow the lungs to expand. Focus all your attention on your breath during this process of meditation. If thoughts arise, acknowledge them, let them pass and treat them as a passing cloud.
If you are counting your breath, then you should count the breath from 1 to 10 when you exhale and inhale. You can purchase items like a bell, a ringing bowl or a incense to signal the start and the end of meditation period.
Initially you can practice this meditation for a period of 10 minutes. As you gain experience, you can extend the period up to 20 minutes. You should sit for meditation at the time when distractions are minimum preferably in the early morning. However there are some people who would love to meditate in the evening as well.
If you are following your breath then focus your attention on the breath as you exhale and inhale. When your mind flickers and wanders here and there then bring back the attention to your breath. Do not punish yourself if the attention wanders. The main purpose of your mind is to create thoughts. They are always with you. You should overcome those thoughts and focus on your breath.
While meditating, make sure you wear loose clothing. It is not recommended to sit for meditation after a heavy meal.
While practicing Zen meditation, you may experience cramps or aches in the legs and back. Don't force yourself so that it becomes strenuous. If you feel like doing Zen meditation in a group then you can look for various groups on the World Wide Web.
Here's an excellent way to start enjoying the benefits of meditation today. The Deep Zen audio program is easy for anyone wanting to learn how to meditate and helps advanced meditators achieve deeper levels of meditation too. Try your free demo here: http://holothink.org
It's probably hard to find facts if your mind is already made up. If you're trying to find information on anything, more than likely you will find exactly what you're looking for, if you look hard enough. With all the information out there, available in books, media, and of course the Internet, would we really know the honest to God truth if we ran into one.
Not something that man made up and forced our ancestors to believe in.
If you're studying on faith alone and trying to prove or disprove something, you will succeed. If you're reading the Bible and looking for answers to problems in your life, eventually you will find the answers. All you need is to believe in your God and he will show you the way. Has he truly shown you the way or are you basing your religious beliefs on faith alone.
I have studied the Bible for many years and came to the conclusion that, I was often blinded by the way I view the information and couldn't get the facts most of the time. I always enjoyed reading Proverbs and the story of Job, both of these books in the Bible inspired me to become a better person.
By studying the Bible without faith and looking for information based on facts, it wasn't long before I realized this book could be and I say could be a group of stories that man over the centuries combined into one book during the Council of Nicaea in 325A.D and became religious doctrine for Christians.
In order to study anything effectively, you need to keep an open mind, this might require you to reprogram your thinking. You have been taught for years that only your religion is correct and all other religions are wrong. You can't think like this and gather information effectively.
Studying on faith alone could close your mind and keep you on the path of spiritual resistance. You know you're on this path if only the things you believe in make sense. Nothing nobody else says can make much sense if you're studying on faith alone.
What would it hurt to read a life changing spiritual book on another religion or form of spirituality? If you can't read another religious book, because you're religious organization tells you to only read their spiritual books to gather information, you're following a path of spiritual resistance.
If you're really going to study on faith alone then I suggest studying with intention to learn instead of follow.
Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing, and personal development. Check out one of his recommended reading, Stories from the Old Testament
Greg is currently working on a religious and spiritual answers library filled with great subjects on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world. His views on religious freedom are slowly changing the way people think about institutional religion
Too many people in business today are not media savvy and continue to make one mistake after the other in their dealings with the media. It is important for business people to become more media savvy and less media ignorant. There needs to be a commitment made to learn more about working with the media in a positive way.
Based upon more than 35 years of experience in working with the media, your strategic thinking business coach created a list of ten (10) tips on what to avoid doing when you work with the media in order to foster more positive media relations. Here is the list of actions to avoid:
1. DONT send your media release to every possible media you can think of.
2. DONT try to use publicity as a substitute for advertising.
3. DONT demand editorial space in return for placing advertisements.
4. DONT even think of asking a journalist to review his or her story before it is published so you can approve it.
5. DONT ask or expect journalists to let you know when an article or story will run.
6. DONT make it difficult for journalists to get information about you and/or your company.
7. DONT have a policy to only speak to or seek out the media when there is good news.
8. DONT expect to build relationships with the media over lunch.
9. DONT annoy the media by calling and asking them if they received your release and are they going to run it?
10. DONT ask journalists to send you a copy of their story or article after it is printed.
Your strategic thinking business coach encourages you to use strategic thinking to plan for your media relations also. If you would like to learn more about how to and how not to work with the media, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at http://www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com
Glenn Ebersole, Jr. is a multi-faceted professional, who is recognized as a visionary, guide and facilitator in the fields of business coaching, marketing, public relations, management, strategic planning and engineering. Glenn is the Founder and Chief Executive of two Lancaster, PA based consulting practices: The Renaissance Group, a creative marketing, public relations, strategic planning and business development consulting firm and J. G. Ebersole Associates, an independent professional engineering, marketing, and management consulting firm. He is a Certified Facilitator and serves as a business coach and a strategic planning facilitator and consultant to a diverse list of clients. Glenn is also the author of a monthly newsletter, Glenns Guiding Lines Thoughts From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach and has published more than 250 articles on business.
If you're like many of us, at some point you've visited a bookstore hoping to find the answer to a problem in your life. Self-help books and recordings abound and, predictably, they define the source of our problems several different ways.
Let's narrow down our focus to the five main causes for our problems that most self-help writers cite. Those are: physiology, behaviors, thinking patterns, emotions, and conscious beliefs. What you'll find offered by most writers as a root cause to life's difficulties falls into those five categories.
A second opinion
Another school of thought says that while it's true you may be able to change yourself to some extent by addressing deficiencies in those areas, those inadequacies are actually symptoms of a much deeper problem.
What that means is that lasting change cannot be accomplished in life until you recognize the true source of your problems, rather than simply identifying the symptoms. Unless we're able to go directly to the root of problem areas in our lives, we continue to deal with symptoms which tend to return.
Think of it as a tree with a deep taproot. If the tree becomes diseased, you can choose to cut it off at the ground (get rid of the obvious symptom), but new shoots will probably appear from what's unseen under the ground. You can, however, dig out the taproot as well as cutting down the tree and completely remove the disease.
Lasting change - the true goal
Here's another way to think of it: we've heard a great deal recently about "conscious intention" and its power to bring about change. Unfortunately, conscious intention or "willpower" doesn't always bring about lasting change. If it did, we'd all be skinny, happy, and rich!
The reason conscious intentions alone don't bring permanent change is that they seek to overcome symptoms, not cure the root source. When that fails to make us happy, we usually move on to any number of negative behaviors that move us further away from peace and satisfaction.
When all else fails...blame!
One of the things we tend to do when our conscious intentions don't overcome damaging behavior is to turn the spotlight on someone else's behavior. Blaming someone else for our life's failures is much easier than looking for the root causes of them. Becoming judgmental, however, actually just adds another layer of pain in our relationships instead of solving our problems. Whether we blame a politician, a spouse, or even God for our pain, it's still a negative behavior that moves us farther away from solutions.
Intentions - Conscious or Unconscious?
Doesn't it make sense to instead find and deal with the root causes? To begin to do that, we must first identify the things that are blocking us from life and health. Those stumbling blocks are our "unconscious intentions." If those unconscious intentions don't match the efforts of our willpower, we're doomed to failure!
As Dr. Alex Loyd, founder of The Healing Codes reports, scientific research has already proven that basing your future happiness on conscious intention almost never brings the results you desire. The key to lasting happiness in life is in aligning what we really want (our unconscious intentions) with what we say we want (our conscious intentions). Only then can all our energy be focused on improving our lives.
Once we're willing to stop blaming others and stop focusing on the symptoms, rather than the source, of our problems, we've taken the first step to finding health, peace, and happiness in our lives.Commit to discovering the deeply embedded roots that anchor you to unhappiness, and begin focusing your energy on healing that pain for good.
And now I'd like to invite you to get your free instant access to a special report explaining the basic principles of The Healing Codes when you visit http://thecoachingpair.com/thcreport.php
You'll receive information on a new revolutionary healing system which is definitely changing lives.
From Jerry Graham - aka DocJerry & the other half of The Coaching Pair
Hey how's life going? I say this and I really mean it, how is your life going overall right now, at this point in time? Are you happy? Are you where you want to be in your career? Do you enjoy the time you spend with your friends and family? Over all are you satisfied with where you're at with your life as a whole? There are important questions that we need to ask ourselves. It's not a daily thing, but at some point we all think about questions like these. All of us enjoy reviewing our situations, and looking for ways to improve upon it. One way you can improve is to seek help. It's very easy to find, have you ever looked at the self help books section of your local book store? It's a wonderful resource just waiting to help you with any of your current troubles.
Now have you ever actually read any self help books? A personal friend of mine had one sitting in his living room the last time I was over. At first glance I saw it and began poking fun at him, but he claimed that it was self help books that helped him through a rough patch with his job and his relationship. I'll admit I always though self help books were just a money grab by the publishers, but after taking a closer look at it I quickly changed my opinion. I changed my view so much so that I just recently purchased a self help book for my brother. When I first gave it to him he thought I was some how making fun of him. When in reality I really wanted to help. He took the book read it , loved it and now recommends self help books to his friends. Since no one is perfect it's pretty safe to say that at some point in our lives we all require help in some way or another. Whether we find that help from a professional or a book the key is that it's better to get that help sooner then later.
So are you looking for some good self help books to solve little troubles in your life? There very easy to come by at your local book chain or store. Or even easier with the massive number of book retailers on the web you can find just about any title with a few keystrokes and clicks. So fire up your favorite search engine and get over to Amazon and browse their self help books, it's time to straighten your life out today, and you'll soon find yourself on the path you've always dreamed of.
If you'd like more information on Helping yourself check out our website at Help yourself healthy
Maybe learning to meditate intimidates you, and in any case it's tough to find the time for daily meditation. The solution to both problems is an easy meditation you can learn right now, that will only take a minute to do each day.
An Easy Meditation Technique
Breathing through your mouth expands your chest, but if you breath through your nose you'll notice how your abdomen extends. You see, nose-breathing causes the diaphram to pull air to the bottom of your lungs. This delivers a good dose of oxygen into your bloodstream and brain. It also tends to relax you.
Breathing through your nose is healthier, and it's the basis of this one-minute meditation. You simply close your eyes, let the tension go out of your muscles, let go of your thoughts (to the extent possible), and take four slow, deep breaths through your nose, paying attention to your breathing.
Is Meditation This Easy?
You're not likey to get you into a deep meditative state with this simple exercise. You will get benefits, though. These will almost certainly include a clearer mind and a reduction in stress.
Try to develop a "trigger" for your meditation. You can do your four breaths when you get into the car, for example, or right after lunch each day. A trigger is a place or time that reminds you, so your meditation becomes a habit.
Some may say this isn't "real" meditation, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying the relaxation you'll get from this technique. You can always pursue deeper meditation later, if you wish. In the meantime, remember that not everything has to be difficult to be of value. Why not do an easy one-minute meditation right now?
Steve Gillman writes on many self help topics including boosting brainpower, losing weight, meditation, habits of mind, creative problem solving, learning gratitude, generating luck and anything related to self improvement. You'll find more at http://www.SelfImprovementNow.com
