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What Is Living Liberation?
November 25, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
What is Living Liberation? In essence it is the culmination of 20 years of spiritual practice and working with hundreds of clients doing Spiritual healing. It is the understanding of life itself as a spiritual process, that there is in fact nothing else going on.
But,,, you may be thinking….. there are thousands of things going on and not very many of them look like a spiritual development. And you are quite right, they do not ‘look like’ spiritual evolution if we don’t understand it’s principles. And let’s face it, most of us don’t look at life that way, but then, we have probably never been taught how.
Living Liberation will show you exactly what the principles of life as a spiritual process are, and more, will give you tools to integrate this understanding into how you live your life.
At it’s heart Living Liberation teaches you a meditation practice. It’s purpose is to practice the principles of conscious healing and awakening – the spiritual process of life. This is done in six components, designed to be added weekly. This is not because the meditation is complicated, but to give time for each component to be understood and integrated.
Accompanying each meditation component is a commentary and workbook to further connect your understanding of the principle being practiced into everyday life.
Living Liberation has been both a workshop and course since 1992. I have taught it in England, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and the USA. On the web page you will see testimonials from people who have learnt it, real people, honest feedback so don’t just take my word for it that this course works.
Not being American I do not have much association with the celebration of Thanks Giving, but living here now it has become part of my life.
So in the spirit of the occasion I am offering a $30 discount on the Living Liberation™ home study course.
To get your $30 discount use code THANKFUL
Have a blessed Thanks Giving
“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
Can Meditation Be Harmful?
July 30, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
These days it is pretty common knowledge that meditation is good for you, it’s scientifically proven. But is there any way in which meditation can be harmful for you?
Meditation is a form of self exploration. Because the majority of who we are lies in the subconscious mind, meditation is in many ways a bridge between the conscious and subconscious. As our subconscious mind contains all past experience – meaning every life we have ever lived, there can be, and in my experience, both personally and professionally, is, an array of dark and painful experiences in there. And herein lies the potential hazard of meditation.
Let me clearly qualify how and why this hazard can become harmful.
If you are dabbling in meditation and trying out all kinds of different practices and techniques without really understanding what you are doing. Worse than this is if you actually start mixing them together.
Hazard because you are basically playing with your own mind, and it’s vast array of hidden unknowns. There are many esoteric meditation techniques designed to access, stimulate, awaken even purge energies in your system. Your ’system’ is your subconscious mind, your body is your subconscious mind. These kinds of practices are not intended for beginners, many not even for those who are not exclusively dedicating their time to spiritual practice. Today in our potpourri of spiritual materialism, when such practices can be found by anyone in books, this is a real issue.
If you are new to meditation or haven’t yet done much inner work and self exploration, and you start meditating for long periods of time.
The potential harm in this is that dark and painful things hidden in the subconscious mind can surface suddenly and with great force. This can be very challenging to one who has already done much inner work, to one who hasn’t, it could cause serious mental imbalance. You might think I am exaggerating, but in India I have seen it happen. It can be exacerbated when the person stops taking care of the basic necessities of food and sleep as well.
Meditation is also a bridge to the core of who we are, our inner wisdom, higher self, soul, spirit, call it as you will. When we are able to access this deeper truth of what we are and follow it’s intuitive guidance, we are unlikely to run into such problems as I have outlined. We are also unlikely to get caught in the rigidity and rules that can also accompany spiritual teachers and practices, when they do not align with what is helpful and healthy for us. Each one of us walk a unique path of spiritual evolution, besides perhaps a perfect master, only our own true nature knows the precise process of that unfolding. Meditation can be one of the most useful tools on this journey.
Meditation Slows AIDS & Effects Your Genes
July 22, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
Interestingly this article on American research onto the effect of meditation on the AIDS virus shows up in the Times of India
Meditation may slow the worsening of AIDS in just a few weeks, perhaps by affecting the immune system, US researchers reported.
If the findings are borne out in larger studies, it could offer a cheap and pleasant way to help people battle the incurable and often fatal condition, the team at the University of California Los Angeles said on Thursday.
They tested a stress-lowering program called mindfulness meditation, defined as practicing an open and receptive awareness of the present moment, avoiding thinking of the past or worrying about the future. The more often the volunteers meditated, the higher their CD4 T-cell counts – a standard measure of how well the immune system is fighting the AIDS virus. The CD4 counts were measured before and after the two-month programme.
"This study provides the first indication that mindfulness meditation stress-management training can have a direct impact on slowing HIV disease progression," said David Creswell, who led the study.
His team tested 67 HIV-positive adults from the Los Angeles area, 48 of whom did some or all of the meditation. Most were likely to have highly stressful lives, Creswell said.
While the Huffington post carries this interesting interview with Dr Susan Smalley a geneticist and founder of the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA in which she speaks about the formation of MARC and it’s work. Below are selected extracts.
PF: What are some of the goals and visions for MARC?
SS: Our primary goal is education and research.
Our center is committed to teach practices that are secular and have empiric scientific research backing their wellness benefits and to teach them by well qualified people.
I’m sure we will add other methods that enhance mindfulness, like various other forms of meditation (in addition to mindfulness meditation) as well as some forms of yoga and even self-hypnosis.
We want to offer a host of different kinds of practices, all with scientific support, well-trained instructors, and taught in a secular fashion.
PF: What are some interesting areas of research for mindfulness?
Mike Irwin’s group is doing a lot of research on the neurobiology and the immune changes associated with mindfulness. They’ve written several interesting papers on the topic. A recent study by David Creswell, a research scientist who worked in Mike Irwin’s group, used a self-report questionnaire that measures how mindful you are – as a trait in the population.
Then they studied brain function and its relationship to these mindfulness scores – how do people that are very highly mindful vs. not so mindful differ in brain function?
They used an fMRI scan (functional magnetic resonance imaging) during what is called an affect labeling task. So they had people do this task where they have to label someone’s emotional expression (e.g. fearful or surprised). There are certain parts of the brain that are known to be involved in doing that task, particularly the prefrontal cortex modulating the emotional center which is the amygdala. When they did this study they found that the more mindful people were, the more activity in the frontal cortex quieting down the emotional center.
In other studies, mindfulness is shown to change brain activity and even structure with practice. For example, Sara Lazar’s research found that the structure of parts of the brain differed in long-time meditators compared to non-meditators. There are now many studies supporting brain changes with various sorts of meditation, including mindfulness meditation.
Read the full interview text here
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
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 moreAcceptance Of Meditation Widens
June 12, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Meditation is becoming increasingly mainstream. A 2007 survey by the government found that about 1 out of 11 Americans, that’s more than 20 million people, meditated in the past year. This widening acceptance of meditation is also reflected in a growing number of medical centers teaching meditation to patients for relief of pain and stress. More than 240 programs in clinics and hospitals teach mindfulness meditation.
This widening acceptance has much to do with the continuing research into the effects and benefits of meditation. The first scientific research on meditation began at Yale University in the 1930s. Research over the next 4 decades was sporadic and focused on experienced Yoga and Zen masters. In the 1970’s researchers really began in earnest to look into the effects of meditation in quantifiable detail.
Numerous studies have shown evidence that practicing meditation can ease pain, improve concentration and immune function, lower blood pressure, curb anxiety and insomnia, and even help prevent depression. The latest research tools, such as brain imaging scans, show how meditation can have surprising effects.
In a brain-scan study of meditators who have practiced for a long-time was compared with a control group that never meditated. Brain scanning showed the meditators had increased thickness in areas of the brain associated with attention and with sensitivity to internal sensations of the body. A consequence of this is greater awareness of the body’s responses to external stimuli. For example stressful conditions would be noticed as tension in the body and shortening of the breath.
Another UCLA study published in May found that, in comparison with a control group that didn’t meditate, meditators’ brains have larger volume in areas important for attention, focus and regulating emotion. They also have more gray matter, which could sharpen mental function, according to study leader and neuroscientist, Eileen Luders.
Scientist argue that nobody knows if these meditators brains were already different. According to Richard Davidson, a pioneering meditation researcher and neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, while studies have improved, most still need to be bigger and have good control groups.
His research shows that even novice meditators have greater activation in a part of the brain tied to well-being. The more activation, the greater their antibody response to a flu vaccine, which makes the vaccine more protective. By changing the brain, meditation could affect many biological processes, he says.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and today millions of people will testify to the value and benefit of meditation in their lives, scientist will continue to explore and understand why.
Another manifestation of this widening acceptance is in schools. In scattered locations across the USA, children are learning meditation at school to tangible benefit.
Steve Reidman, a fourth-grade teacher in North Hollywood, CA, reports that teaching meditation to children has helped curb fighting and also sharpening students focus. "You can just watch them breathe deeply and settle down rather than lashing out."
Another study showed that Los Angeles preschoolers ability to pay attention and focus improved after they were taught meditation.
As research expands, scientists expect to understand more of the benefits of meditation. Meanwhile, for those who don’t need scientific proof to know they benefit… assume the position!
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreMeditation Improves Insomnia & Depression
June 10, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Meditation may be an effective remedy in treating insomnia, according to new research.
Dr. Ramadevi Gourineni, principal study investigator and director of the insomnia programme at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Illinois, says insomnia is thought to be a 24-hour problem of hyper-arousal. As such, elevated measures of arousal are seen throughout the day. By teaching people how to relax and clear their minds during the day, they sleep better at night.
"Results of the study show that teaching deep relaxation techniques during the daytime can help improve sleep at night," said Dr. Gourineni.
The study collected data from 11 healthy subjects between the ages of 25 and 45 years who suffered from chronic primary insomnia. Participants were divided into two intervention groups for two months.
The first group was taught Kriya Yoga, a form of meditation that is used to focus internalized attention and has been shown to reduce measures of arousal. The second group received health education.
Both groups received sleep hygiene education; members of the health education group also received information about health-related topics and how to improve health through exercise, nutrition, weight loss and stress management.
The results certainly suggested that participants had improvements in subjective sleep quality. The meditation group experienced improvements in sleep quality and quantity, according to their sleep diaries. They also took less time to fall asleep, slept longer, woke fewer times, over all had better sleep quality and had fewer symptoms of depression.
Findings of this study were presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Another new report gives further evidence to support that Meditation may reduce depression
For people struggling with severe depression, practicing meditation may offer mood-lifting benefits. In a recent pilot study, researchers randomly assigned 28 people dealing with depression (all of whom had previous depression episodes and thoughts of suicide) to two groups: One group continued their usual treatment, while the other paired standard care with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (or MBCT, a healing approach that combines mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavior therapy). Results showed that symptoms of depression decreased from severe to mild levels in the MBCT group, but remained the same in the group of participants receiving conventional care only.
Even in the most severe cases, depression is a highly treatable disorder. While it’s critical to work with a physician in treating depression, certain self-care strategies—such as exercising regularly, practicing yoga, and using nutritional therapy—may produce mood-improving effects and ease depression symptoms.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out morePrayer, Meditation, And Contemplation
May 28, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Mysticism is a wide spectrum, involving many different facets and outlets for the experiencing of the Ultimate. The most common and prevalent in Western culture are the practices of prayer, meditation, and contemplation. By examining Kenneth Leech`s ideas on prayer as a window to our true nature, Kierkegaard`s idea that God is the criterion in each person`s process of becoming, and Thomas Merton`s ideas on contemplation as the prerequisite for positive action, this paper will claim that mystical experiences such as prayer, meditation, and contemplation are essential practices for those seeking spiritual completeness and progressive action, even for contemporary college students who feel they have no time for such practices.
Before an understanding can exist of the significance of prayer, one must first understand what prayer is. Leech writes that To know God is to know one`s own true Self, the ground of one`s being. So prayer is an intensely human experience in which our eyes are opened and we begin to see more clearly our own true nature. Prayer, then, starts with the Self. One must look within him or herself and have a genuine desire to commune with the Ultimate before that person can engage in a true prayer. God resides in each person uniquely; so to open up a communication with Him is to look within oneself and understand the subject`s true nature which has been constructed by God. This true nature is the essence of the subject aside from temptation and weakness. It is the ideal that resides in each person, and this ideal, as Kierkegaard says, is God.
Read the complete article here
5 Months On Silent Retreat
May 19, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Jay Michaelson has been a law professor, magazine editor, and the director of national nonprofit organization. A student Yale Law School, founder of a successful dot-com software company, and author of three books. Last year, he decided to spend five months on silent meditation retreat, mostly in Nepal……..
"What, my friends have asked (at least the ones who didn’t think I’d lost my mind), is it like to spend five months without talking, writing, or even updating my facebook status? Short answer: not what you’d expect, but more powerful.
First of all, not talking is the easy part. You don’t go crazy, and you don’t forget how to speak. (The silence was never absolute, either; I had a ten-minute interview with my teacher every day.) There’s just not that much to say anyway, when all you’re doing is sitting and walking, and noticing the moment-to-moment sensations of whatever is going on. Eventually, the silence becomes second nature — even for someone like me.
Much harder than not talking, though, is not thinking. In the form of Buddhist meditation I practiced, vipassana, or "insight," meditation, the objective is neither to indulge thought nor to suppress it, but simply to let it be, along with everything else. Thoughts arise, thoughts pass, and the job of the meditator is just to notice them and move on. In this way, it’s possible to gradually unlearn the habitual tendency to grab onto pleasant perceptions, thoughts, and feelings and push away bad ones. The Buddha, my teachers, and I have found that some measure of liberation eventually results.
Easier said than done, of course. In practice, it’s just about impossible to stop thinking. This, itself, is an important lesson: that the mind is not under our control. Nor does it naturally stay on lofty topics like the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I often daydreamed of utterly meaningless drivel — I must’ve rehashed the plots of the Star Wars saga a hundred times over the five months of retreat, for reasons which still escape me. (I think it had something to do with meditation training being a lot like Jedi training, but who knows.) All this without any intention from me.
It’s at this point in the story that most of my friends usually roll their eyes and say that the whole thing sounds crazy. However, having emerged from five months of silence, I can safely say that it was among the sanest things I’ve ever done. Not the easiest, to be sure, but infinitely more balanced, awake, and instructive than the chatter-filled world I live in most of the time.
Eventually, you see, the noise really did subside, and the mind started to relax. This is the trick: that in meditation, every goal is achieved by giving up on it. The more force one applies, the more resistance arises in response. On the other hand, the more letting-go, the more letting-be — the more peacefulness, clarity, and awareness.
Once again, this is easier said than done, because for several billion years, we’ve evolved the basic instinct to hold onto the pleasant and push away the unpleasant. If we didn’t do this, we wouldn’t eat, run away from predators, fight when necessary, or reproduce. Natural selection does not favor Buddhism. So while "letting go" may sound pleasant and relaxing, it runs against aeons of biological conditioning."
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreMay Is Meditation Month
May 17, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
I just read somewhere that May is meditation month – who knew? I have no idea who decided or why, but why not. So to celebrate I thought I’d post the top ten most popular articles on meditation on LifeDivine. Leave a comment to let me know which is your favourite, and if there is a meditation issue you’d like me to write on?
1: Benefits Of Meditation – Physical Health
2: 20 Meditation Tips For Beginners
5: Meditation Benefits – Psychological
6: Meditation Fun & Fantastic Facts
8: Overcoming Objections To Meditation
9: Meditation Is Training For Life
10: Meditation – As Good As Sleep?
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
Meditation Of A Spiritual Warrior
May 16, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
This is a wonderful 14th Century Samurai Warrior meditation. The author is unknown, but it is a timeless jewel of wisdom that can inspire you to discover the Spiritual Warrior inside of you.
I have no parents:
I make the heaven and earth my parents.
I have no home:
I make awareness my home.
I have no life and death:
I make the tides of breathing my life and death.
I have no divine powers:
I make honesty my divine power.
I have no means:
I make understanding my means.
I have no secrets:
I make character my secret.
I have no body:
I make endurance my body.
I have no strategy:
I make "unshadowed by thought" my strategy.
I have no design:
I make "seizing opportunity by the forelock" my design.
I have no miracles:
I make right action my miracle.
I have no principles:
I make adaptability to all circumstances my principle.
I have no tactics:
I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.
I have no talent:
I make ready wit my talent.
I have no friends:
I make my mind my friend.
I have no enemy:
I make carelessness my enemy.
I have no armor:
I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.
I have no castle:
I make immovable mind my castle.
I have no sword:
I make absence of self my sword.
The idea of the spiritual warrior is one much prone to misunderstanding, especially for those who like shaolin monk kung fu movies!It is though a principle that I feel quite strongly, because my own experience of spiritual evolution is that it takes a great deal of courage.
When we choose meditation, not as a form of stress management, emotional management manifesting technique, or any one of the numerous other applications that use the term these days, but as a means to sit with the darkness, fear and rage within in us, it takes a warriors courage to keep returning to that place and meditate as a means of transforming these illusions of separation.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
