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Get Real! – Learn Meditation
November 3, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 3 Comments
It has become an increasingly dominant belief that positive thinking is necessary for health, wealth and success in all things. But a new study* by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, says ‘it ain’t necessarily so’.
The study has found that feeling sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory. It seems that people in a negative state are more critical of, and pay more attention to, their surroundings than happier people. The happy folk it seems are more likely to believe what they are told.
Dr Forgas said "Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world,"
He went on to add "Our research suggests that sadness … promotes
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreWelcome back! Keep updated - Subscribe to my RSS feed & Scroll Down to leave a Comment
7 Reasons To Learn Meditation
July 17, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 4 Comments
If you are thinking about learning meditation, have done it and let it slide, here are 7 really significant reasons to learn to meditate and keep practicing.
1: Meditation Improves Physical Health
The amount of supportive information for how meditation improves our physical health is vast. In the simplest and most basic terms I believe the benefits derive from one thing. When we meditate we consciously choose to relax the body while keeping the mind alert. This was termed the ‘relaxation response’ by Dr. Herbert Benson after his groundbreaking research into the physical effects of meditation. In essence all bodily function improve towards optimum function in the absence of stress in the body.
The relaxation response of meditation allows the body to de-stress and allows the Autonomic Parasympathetic nervous system which governs all major bodily functions, immune, cardiovascular, digestive, reproductive etc, to move towards the optimal state of homeostasis – a stable constant condition. Here is an article dedicated to the health benefits of meditation.
2: Meditation Improves Mental Health
That the body and mind are continually effecting each other is now pretty much undisputed. It follows then that as the body benefits from meditation so the does the mind. Clinical research has proven that meditation reduces anxiety and even depression. But more than this
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreGod & Life Tweets
July 9, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
God – Great Mystery, only fools would claim to know thee and thy ways
The Divine Mother creates the world – we just get to play in it : )
The mystery does not have limits; it is not controllable; it cannot be contained.
love is the force that animates creation and weaves this unfathomably wondrous web. Hard to see often doesn’t make it not so
Whatever we think God is can only ever be a very limited view
Your spiritual core is all that is real – the rest is a charade of mind
In the Mystery we cease to have to know or control, we trust in the perfection of each moment’s unfolding
Love by its nature doesn’t want anything, it simply IS
Life is love seeking to remember and become itself
Life is a stream, it only flows in one direction, resistance is slowly, inevitable worn away
Truth is Always Simple
We are in any moment in the flow of life- our spiritual process, or in resistance to it There are no other positions
We are all in this together, we are forging our collective future in every moment
Life will not allow inertia, resist as hard as we like it’s nature is movement and will not be denied
Life without Edge is just a Hedge
We always have one of two choices: we either contract into separation or we expand into unity.
Selflove is oft misunderstood & misinterpreted as ‘it’s all about me’ We have to dig deeper 2 a more authentic experience of love 2 get it
Where we have love and acceptance for anyone or anything outside of us is a reflection of where we have love and acceptance of ourselves
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
God, Spiritual Oneness & Separation
July 8, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
If it is that God and our true nature is One-ness, then why is it that it is not our living experience?
Indian spiritual philosophy addresses the God concept in a way that supports what I am saying. It sees God in two aspects – the manifest and the un-manifest. The un-manifest is the purest state of conscious, beyond description or comprehension Within it is all potential existence. The manifest aspect is this consciousness in expression as the entirety of manifestation. There are many similarities in the Taoist philosophy of yin and yang with yin as the un-manifest and yang as the manifest.
My perception of why Oneness or Unity isn’t our lived experience is this. In the process of entering into manifest existence as an individuated point of life within that existence, we experience separation in the transition from un-manifest to manifest. This ‘moment’ we could call the ‘birth’ of our soul. Why is this experience of separation necessary if in truth there is only One? The one word answer I see is ‘creation’. The purpose and design of the One in manifest existence, is the evolution and expansion of consciousness, or put another way, the endless creative manifesting of the One, in appearance and form.
A huge hindrance we have in embracing and understanding this is our conception of the One as God, is
Fear, Conflict & Spirituality Tweets
July 6, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Continuing my practice of accumulating some of my ruminations on Twitter here’s some from the past months on Fear, Conflict & Spirituality
The energy of fear inhibits the minds of humanity, the release of fear is the solution for every situation that challenges humanity
Fear is the root of all suffering
Fear acts like gravity on human consciousness, keeping perspective narrow
Fear is like a weed that will keep growing in the mind until every root is removed
Fear is the inner lie that hides the Divine
Healing all fear = liberation
FEAR = False Energy Appearing Real. Fear is the source of illusion/samskara/maya
How many thoughts, words, actions, even positive appearing, actually arise from fear?
All control arises from fear
Whether it’s terrorists or flu pandemics it’s Fear Feeding & Fear is the real disease
As long as it is a fight, it will continue
Conflict is self perpetuating – only in Unity is there Peace
Sometimes anger is an appropriate response
The enemy is always ourselves projected out
As long as we believe we can continue to consume without regard to consequence – we are doomed as a species on earth
The shift in global consciousness is carried as our own consciousness, what can u do to raise yours today
Spirituality cannot be an appendage to our lives, which allows us to be more relaxed or peaceful but unchanged
Spirituality is not for the faint of heart
How many people are really ready to embrace a game changing global paradigm shift – that will be a true spiritual test
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreLeaping Into The Unknown
June 6, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 5 Comments
I tend to believe that human beings in their general nature are lazy, as such we tend to stay in our comfort zone. A comfort zone can be physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual. it takes something extra to push ourselves beyond the safe and known. I believe that extra something is an impulse from our soul.
When we do manage to extend ourselves that bit further, in whatever way, there is usually some benefit or reward. This can be as simple as we feel good about ourselves and hey that’s no small thing. when that pay off has greater attraction than our resistant to doing whatever it is, we tend to keep doing it.
I began performing on stage when I was around 17 or 18, possibly it saved my life and certainly I fell in love with it. I can still remember walking off stage after my very first public performance feeling like I was walking on air. The stage gave me the opportunity to be somebody other than the angry young man that I was. It was a kind of freedom.
It wasn’t long before I became strangely attracted to dance. I’d never really seen any but something in me started pushing in that direction. I really came up against my laziness when I started to dance. Dancers train really hard to make it look really easy when they perform, hours and hours and hours of training. obviously to be a dancer, passion and love for it is greater than the efforts of all that hard work.
Pretty much from the beginning I was interested in exploring the body itself as the site of human experience. Then when I was 25 the healing ability showed up and added another dimension to my exploration.
When I’m actually going with all of this is June 29th 1996. At 6 AM on that Saturday morning I began a 36 hour performance entitled “36 Hours In-Quest-ion". I’d been
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreKarma And Relationships
May 22, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 3 Comments
In relationship, more accurately with intimate/committed relationship there is karmic compatibility. This means that both people have the same unresolved/unhealed/incomplete energy (not in every way of course – but in significant areas).It’s that pesky Law of Attraction again.
This ‘karmic’ energy usually manifests as a polarity, one person holds one end of the spectrum and the other person the opposite. In manifest behaviour/characteristics, it then looks very different – opposite in fact. The relationship then dances around the ‘appearance’ of this duality as the two people seek resolution within themselves.
When one steps out of this dance and chooses to find healing within themselves and without the drama of the
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more8 Major Meditation Misunderstandings
May 5, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 9 Comments
Misunderstanding #1 Meditation is stopping thinking and having a blank mind.
This is probably the number one misunderstanding about meditation – that meditation is to “stop thinking.” Certainly, a benefit of long term meditation is a reduction in the the amount of thinking that goes on, and that is great. The inane, repetitive and usually negative chatter of thoughts that jump one to another in their minds is one of the first things people new to meditation are confronted by.
But what would a blank mind mean? The confusion arises because we are most of the time identify with our mental thoughts (our inner monologue) and we believe it is reporting the truth of our experience. So a blank mind is assumed to be the absence of thought. But the vastness of mind encompasses so much more that thought.
In meditation we aim to develop mindfulness, that’s the
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreTime Of Great Spiritual Change
April 29, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
There is at this time a massive effort going on to raise the collective vibration of human consciousness and more help available than we imagine.
It is important that we ask for help, in many cases it is only when we do that it can be forthcoming in all the ways possible. It is also advantageous if we are really clear on exactly what we want help with. For example if we have an area in our psyche where we experience contraction, fear or any kind of limitation, that is a good thing to ask for help with. As I have written about all over this site we evolve by unwinding and transmuting these energies of limiting past.
There are very real and disastrous potentials if we don’t. So all spiritual endeavor at this time is for the good of all. The ‘reward’ for reaching a certain degree of spiritual evolution is that we then actively begin transmuting collective karma as well as our own. Pain is pain and fear is fear whether it’s experienced in your body or mine and at a certain level there is no difference if it is experienced here or there.
The potential to Awaken to Truth is also greater than it has ever been, right now. Many many souls evolutionary process has been focused on being at the point of Awakening in THIS life for this reason. There is an unimaginably vast intelligence at play behind all of this. And we have been given this enormous gift of free will, we get to choose, and we collectively have brought ourselves to the brink of destruction.
Let’s be very honest about this and not go all positive thinking head in the sand. We collectively have been systematically destroying the planetary ecosystems that sustain life on earth. If that isn’t the definition of insanity I don’t know what is. I am sure that many of you reading this are not actively participating in this destruction and are probably making choices from a position of sustainability.
This is a collective issue and not an individual one. We can’t believe in Oneness and Unity as some spiritual concept that we then separate from life and aspire to like the idea of heaven.
As I see it there is a single energy at the root of all negative tendencies. It is fear. Fear limits us, and the presence of fear in us allows our emotional manipulation on every level from the personal to the collective. It is also the root cause of our own efforts to manipulate life to our own ends. So probably the greatest good we could do is to identify where and how it vibrates in us and to use all the tools that we have, and ask for all the help available, to heal and release it.
We don’t need to do this to the exclusion of anything else, it is of course equally important to give attention to and express what in us aligns with our true nature, expansive, joyful and creative. Invariably when we open into these places in ourselves through our spiritual practices, or the expression of our spirituality in whatever form, new layers of fear will sooner or later present themselves. It is a process, it’s all process. The process is Consciousness evolving, through us, as us.
We are only just beginning to understand life in vibrational terms. The long dominance of fear in the human psyche has also been borne by mother Earth and there is stress in the entire system as a consequence. The increasing number of natural disaster is a direct consequence of this stress. On the other side of the equation more ‘light’ is being held in the planet than ever before and we are engaged in a precarious act of maintaining equilibrium in the midst of transformation.
It is my belief that there is nothing more important or responsible than our engagement in our spiritual evolution, a process of healing and awakening. It is also my belief that to fully embody this we have to live it and express it in how we live, what we say, what we think. Every single choice that we make increases or decreases our vibration, and never before in the Earths history have the consequences of that ever been greater.
The Magic Of DOING What You Are Doing! (2)
April 25, 2009 by Kate Mathers · 1 Comment
By Kate Mathers www.magicofallowing.com
Some more ‘spot meditations’, this time oriented to those that may be as relevant for men as for women. ‘Spot’ or ‘Mini-Mindfulness’ Meditations work to defuse tension on the spot by bringing you right into the present. Note that they all involve tuning in to the world of the senses and allowing yourself to really notice what you are doing while you are doing it!
Tuning in to the present moment this way can rejuvenate soul, mind and body in seconds. The power of the present moment cannot be overestimated.
TRY: doing a mini-mindfulness or spot meditation when you clean your teeth each morning: mindfully note how your arm and hand reaches for your toothbrush, how the brush feels in your hand, the texture and shape and colour of it; and do the same with the toothpaste tube and its contents; observe the colours and design on the tube, the way it yields its contents as you squeeze the paste out of the tube, and the minty aroma; notice the sensation of the brush and the paste once in your mouth; is there a zinging sensation? Enjoy it. Check to make sure you are not already holding unnecessary tension in
