Sage
Published on March 28, 2007
Archive for March, 2007
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Weekly Consciousness Tune Up…Yehuda Berg 3/25-3/31/07
Published on March 27, 2007
What’s the first thing you do when you walk into a room filled with people?
Me, I’m a bit shy, so I tend to scan the crowd and look for a familiar face. If I don’t find one, I seek out the most comfy corner of the room. Many times I’d rather sit alone on the couch than take the risk of starting a conversation with a total stranger.
However, I usually catch myself, becoming aware that I’m trapped in my thoughts playing mental Twister. What gets me out is the consciousness of, “What can I do or say that will improve someone’s life right now?”
I know everyone reading this has at one time or another been saved from a run-away train headed for depressionville, or worse, simply by a stranger’s kind words. Our mission this week, as we ramp up to Pesach, is to turn around as many trains as possible.
This means when you walk into your office tomorrow and you notice the receptionist is glum, instead of walking by her because your to-do list is a mile long, stop and say, “Hey, nice dress. That color looks good on you.” Or next time you’re at a cocktail party and you notice someone sulking in the corner, go up to them and say, “Hey, great party!” Remind yourself that you never know whose life you can elevate simply by saying a few thoughtful words.
When I spoke to friends and students about the topic for this tune up, many told me that the biggest reason for their shyness was they did not know what to say. I told them what my mother (and teacher) Karen Berg tells me:
“Words come easy. It’s the intention of brightening another’s life that requires effort.”
If every single reader of this email takes time to lighten 5 more lives every day this week, that’s 35 lives changed per person who reads this email. Who knows what kind of global transformation this light will bring to our lives this week?
All the best,
Yehuda
Keywords: Weekly Tune-up, Kabbalah
Attachment
Published on
Ajahn Sumedho, in ‘Teachings of a Buddhist Monk’:
“Desire can be compared to fire. If we grasp fire, what happens? Does it lead to happiness?
If we say: “Oh, look at that beautiful fire! Look at the beautiful colors! I love red and orange; they’re my favorite colors,” and then grasp it, we would find a certain amount of suffering entering the body. And then if we were to contemplate the cause of that suffering we would discover it was the result of having grasped that fire. On that information, we would hopefully, then let the fire go. Once we let fire go then we know that it is something not to be attached to.
This does not mean we have to hate it, or put it out. We can enjoy fire, can’t we? It’s nice having a fire, it keeps the room warm, but we do not have to burn ourselves in it.”
HANDLING ATTACHMENT
“One man can conquer a thousand times thousand men in battle,
but one who conquers himself is the greatest of conquerors.”
The Dhammapada
The following antidotes can be applied throughout daily life, but are profound meditation exercises as well.
ANTIDOTE 1 - Observe Yourself: Do I exaggerate positive qualities of things I am attached to, are they really worth all my troubles? Is it really worth to work hard for days, weeks or months to have an hour of fun?
ANTIDOTE 2 - Use Your Inner Wisdom: Discover how exaggerated attachment is and how desire works against oneself. Try to be wiser than the monkey and let go of the candy to be free.
ANTIDOTE 3 - Reflect on the Unsatisfactory Nature of Existence. This is also called the First Noble Truth. How much fun is fun really, and how much is it forgetting the pain? Do desires ever stop or is it an endless job to fulfil them?
ANTIDOTE 4 - Reflect on Impermanence. How important is the person or object: everything will end someday, people die, things break.
ANTIDOTE 5 - Reflect on the Problems of Attachment. Lying in the sun is great, but it quickly leads to sunburn. Eating nice food is great, but it leads to indigestion and obesity. Driving around in big cars is great, but how long do I have to work to enjoy this?
ANTIDOTE 6 - Reflect on bodily attraction (lust for sex). Loving someone is great, but what happens when the “honeymoon-days” are over? But what is the body really? What more is it than a skin bag filled with bones, flesh, disgusting organs and fluids?
ANTIDOTE 7 - Reflect on the Results of Attachment. Greed and craving lead to stealing and all kinds of crime, including war. Addiction to alcohol and drugs are simply forms of strong craving; they destroy the addict and the surroundings. Uncontrolled lust leads to sexual abuse. The feeling of greed, craving and lust in themselves can be easily seen as forms of suffering.
ANTIDOTE 8 - Reflect on Death. What are all objects of attachment worth at “the moment of truth” or death?
ANTIDOTE 9 - Emptiness. The ultimate antidote to attachment and all other negative emotions is the realisation of emptiness.
Keywords: Buddhism, Attachment
The Body
Published on March 24, 2007
What does the body have to do with enlightenment and God?
The body is a physical representation of the manifestation of the presence of God, in a separate linear form containing our individualized spirit/essence — all of which is within The Infinite Electromagnetic, All-Powerful, Omniscient, Omnipresent Field of the Source of All That Exists.
The scientific evolution of our human form, is the content within the context of the entire 
evolution/creation from the Godhead to this nonlinear/linear point in time. The exclusion herein of the explanations of scientific form, is due to the vast amount of integrous information available. In keeping with the journey to enlightenment and spiritual explanations, further material regarding evolutionary descriptions will be deferred to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The word “the” has been used for our body because personalization of the body, immediately creates ownership. ‘My body’ has a different sense than ‘this’ body or ‘the’ body. When ownership is assigned to the body, all personal feeling stemming from the ego takes precedence.
The purpose of the body is to represent the essence of what we are on a material plane for karmic consideration. This is a tough karmic school. Our karmic inheritance and proclivities are worked out best on a linear world, even though the eternal Spirit is in a constant mode of learning and experiencing in all realms.
Feelings arise prenatally. Sensory perception allows us to recognize feelings such as pain, pleasure, discomfort, heat, cold, and eventually how we view ourselves in the world against the backdrop of others. As we age, our opinions of others and ourselves form from our parents, peers, society, media, worldly glamorization, and both subtle and overt indoctrination.
What our intentions are regarding the use of the body in each incarnation, is more relevant than what happens to the body. For example: an event may cause severe limitations on the body, but how one chooses to accept and use the situation to the highest advantage, is related to levels of consciousness and karma. Ones choice of acceptance and surrender versus regret and anger is directly connected to the purpose of that particular karmic journey. Each journey is a gift from Divinity to work out our individual purposes for incarnating.
How we relate and react to other bodies is a direct response from one’s level of consciousness also. As physical beings we have infinite choices in how to react to or view others. The ego can be condemning, judgmental, and solicitous. On the other hand, as ego diminishes, we can be accepting, kind, considerate and compassionate. All of our choices have karmic consequences.
At higher levels of consciousness what we become does not judge, nor denigrate what we see. Everything as every body, is a gift from God to the rest of the world. All life forms on the planet are to be respected and revered for the separate but divine entities, which they are, spawned from the Infinite Unified Field of the Divine Presence.
What really matters regarding the body?
Our care of the body is related to how we view, as well as feel about it. Some take extremely good care of the body throughout their lives via proper nutrition, exercise, and general health considerations. Others have no concern whatsoever about these matters.
How we treat the body has more to do with personal intrinsic levels of consciousness which often preempts what has been learned. Addictions, and extreme or base behaviors, exemplify one’s disrespect for the body. Plying the body with alcohol and drugs, and/or intense interest in extreme actions in the form of high-risk taking sports and other such behaviors, is a clear indication that life is being lived for the thrill, and not for spiritual growth.
Basic respect for the body as our form of worldly transportation in this life, is a product of higher levels of consciousness. With spirituality and/or religious devotion to God, the body is seen as a divine gift to be treated with reverence and respect. Higher levels of consciousness do not look a gift horse in the mouth.
Fears regarding the body tend to spring forth from fear of pain or death. Unnatural or overly intense fears should be addressed through proper professional counseling due to certain psychiatric conditions, and both physical, mental, and spiritual manifestations (i.e. disease).
After this world, what?
As spirit passes from the material to the non-material realm, physicality is left behind like an old set of clothing. It is uninteresting and unimportant to our essence at this point, although our survivors tend to treat it with reverence as the disposal, burial and grieving process begins.
Life for spirit continues on in the realm we float to according to our level of consciousness and karmic inheritance. You might say we retain a nonphysical body, which encompasses our essence or essential nature. At higher levels of consciousness, any form is not necessary although a non-linear sensory perception is retained. Essence sees without eyes, hears without ears, speaks without a voice, and thinks without a brain. We are what we are at the level of our consciousness and other factors, and we are privy to this body (of ) knowledge only after crossing into the nonphysical realm.
Lifetimes of incarnations, spiritual knowledge and ascending levels of consciousness, are the path to God. Just like in the earthly realm, the non-earthly realm does not preclude spirit from remaining at certain levels infinitely without overcoming obstacles to higher levels. Neither does the spirit realm mean that we have instant access to God or are godly in our essential existence. Hierarchies preclude spirit from having access to other realms and our spiritual intentions send us toward what we become, as we continue throughout our eternal existence.
As a new incarnation begins, we again are prepared to accept spiritual amnesia, as we go forth into the unknown with our tiny body and our karmic inheritance, ready for a brand new life and a tough school of learning ahead. This is the perfect sequence of evolution/creation via The Presence of Divinity.
Keywords: God, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Divinity, Karma, Surrender, Ego, The Body
Manifestation, Meaning and Money
Published on March 14, 2007
While it’s perfectly clear that if you walk into the spiritual section of any bookstore you are bound to see hundreds of books about manifesting abundance. The word abundance is synonymous with wealth, however it also means “great quantities of.” What is it that we need great quantities of other than money? Of course the abundance that is spoken of, is usually about money, due to the fact that the majority of the people on the planet (especially in modern societies), never think they have enough. The fastest way to sell a book, if you are out there promoting it, would be to make it about getting more, having more, and how to manifest more.– The more being wealth, which it is assumed no one has enough of. 
To presume that you don’t have enough of something is putting yourself in the position of believing that you know what is best for you. This is presumptuous considering the majority of the population of the world cannot discern Truth from falsehood on their own. How can we as humans know what is best for us when we don’t even know as a majority what the Truth is about anything (even though we think we do)?
There is no secret to getting or having money. You can work hard for it, go to school to earn a degree in a particular field, purchase something that luckily appreciates in value, or inherit it. You may also be clever enough to discover something the world needs that it didn’t have before. So you see there are no secrets here, other than potentiating the conditions under which you will create what you need.
Furthermore, there are no secret rituals of manifestation which will provide you with what you need to survive. Being given the gift of physical life precludes all other egoic wishes. We are here to endure and learn until we are relieved of the physical, and return to our essential state. The one thing which must be known at your core level, is that everyone is worthy of creating. This is about the “what” of the creation and not the how. Once inspired (motivated), the how becomes clear.
This journey is to enlightenment and there are no secrets to manifesting enlightenment.– Just transcending the obstacles to that state. That is why we are here and you are here reading this. There is nothing more important than the realization of God and our transcendence of the obstacles.
The beauty of all this is that we have eternity to get all this under our spiritual belt. When a certain state is reached, the realization that we are complete and perfect at all times becomes perfectly clear. Money at that point becomes more than a means to an imaginary end, but something that we must as stewards, take responsibility for. The glamorization of society shows that an overabundance of money in the hands of people who are not ready for the responsibility, tends to be used frivolously.
If we want to place a higher meaning on wealth and/or abundance on our journey to enlightenment, higher manifestation is a necessity. This would take the form of lovingness, generosity, wisdom, discernment, patience, willingness, orderliness, fairness, peacefulness, intelligence, and kindness. When manifestation such as this is actualized, you have cracked the highest secret code—being like your Creator.
Keywords: God, Truth, Enlightenment, Money, Ego
Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds
Published on March 12, 2007
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 12 March 2007
07:27 am ET
Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events. 
Others argue that such claims are misleading and create the false impression that rapid global warming, as Earth is experiencing, is a natural phenomenon.
While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species.
Wobbly Mars
Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun’s output. Abdussamatov also blamed solar fluctuations for Earth’s current global warming trend. His initial comments were published online by National Geographic News. Continued
The Secret
Published on March 3, 2007
Another secret book has hit the book stores. It is called The Secret, which is a fair assumption that the book has a greatly prized secret to bring to the world. I have not read it due to the fact that it calibrates well below 200 (the level of integrity and Truth). I have however, witnessed debate about it, as it is professed to be a science which allows the practitioner (reader) to manifest desires by acknowledging a law of Attraction. On the uncovered discovery scale this would be right up there with electricity and the cell phone, however it is no secret. It is a contrivance of over-glamorized myths of the spiritual and self-help set. 
Books about manifesting have filled book shelves for decades, but this is an old secret, which glamorizes and entices. It has also been touted by the most famous of talk show hosts, which makes it instantly credible, and of course a best seller. Best sellers have nothing to do with Truth, however. Popularity as shown throughout history, has not brought Truth, but has furthered ignorance of Truth. When people are given partial information, they are given useless information.
The one thing any book about manifesting lacks is the knowledge of Absolute Truth, Karma, God, and Divine Intention (which we are not privy to), and not necessarily in that order. Our karma has an overwhelming effect on what happens to us on this planet. Creating things can happen if conditions are appropriate, but sometimes they aren’t.
Are we only here to get what we want and never give, or is getting what we wish for always our highest good? What is it that we lack that we must be continually presented with the idea that we are not enough and should (and could) have it all? What is the all that we don’t have? Society in its many forms radiates the idea that we came to the planet without something, and the secret to that something can be had for the price of a book or DVD. The truth is we are perfect as we are and are continually perfect as we become more of what we are. This one idea may leave all the secrets uncovered.
Seeing wishes come true is not always in our best interest. Sometimes the adage, “Be careful what you wish for,” holds true. Along with the all of what we do not have comes the responsibility to hold onto that all. This in itself creates more issues. Dr. David R. Hawkins (Power vs Force), says what we hold in mind tends to manifest. However the doctor does include the fact that karma, creation/evolution, future propensities, and The Creator have something to do with what is actualized.
We all have the capacity to put an intention out in the universe, but then we must create the proper conditions for the manifestation to appear. The time that it appears in is not in our hands. The author may have mentioned that it might not be in this lifetime. That would certainly hamper having that first windfall this time around, as well as thousands of people feeling depressed about failing to have their desired intentions manifested. It doesn’t assist people to fill them with fantasies of having all they desire, only to have them disappointed because they didn’t get the True point of existence.
We are not here just to get something other than The Truth and we come here with karmic inheritance. The Truth is no secret, just elusive to most, and karma is what we are here to work through. If there is a secret to having wishes come true, it is through the grace of God and not a “secret” science. The Truth is always,” There Are No Secrets.”
This life is not about wishes coming true or having what we want. Although this statement may not have the makings of a best seller, it is Truth. Suggesting that having material wealth or other material or worldly concerns is what we came here for, does not do justice to our higher purpose. If we all came to the planet wishing for some elusive something, we would never feel complete. All of these types of books suggest that we aren’t enough and don’t have enough. They play on the fact that most people feel like this.
We always get what we need. God sees to that. All of the manifestation books and courses are about the glamorization of having it all. Life gives us all the paths, and they are mostly about not getting what it is we think we want.
Higher consciousness and transcendence of the obstacles to being enlightened, will give us exactly what we need. At that point, the world will see that what it is they have is exactly what they want. Who could wish for more?
"The Secret": How to take it apart - Personal Development for Smart People Forums Says:
April 9th, 2007 at 9:27 pmVisit "The Secret": How to take it apart - Personal Development for Smart People Forums
[…] to this article which will tell you why "The Secret" rubs you the wrong way:
Myswizard � The Secret
I think you’ll find it quite enlightening. Shocking at […]