Planet Awakening

Overcoming Separateness

By Ram Dass

We try so hard to overcome separateness with others. More intimacy. More rubbing of bodies. More exchanging of ideas. But always it’s as if you are yelling out of your room and I am yelling out of mine. Even trying to get out of the room invests the room with a reality. Who am I? The room that the mind built.

We spend so much effort to get out of something that didn’t exist until we created it. Something that is gone in a moment. We’ve all had moments when there was no room. But we freaked. Or explained it away, ignored it, or let it pass by.

A moment. The moment of orgasm. The moment by the ocean when there is just the wave. The moment of being in love. The moment of crisis when we forget ourselves and do just what is needed.
We each come out again and again. We turn and look and realize we’re out – and panic. We run back in the room, close the door, panting heavily. Now I know where I am. I’m back home. Safe. No matter how squalid the room is, no matter how unmade the bed, no matter how many bugs are crawling around the kitchen. Safe.

These moments appear again and again in our lives. For many people it first comes as a glimpse into other states of consciousness brought about by emotional trauma, drugs, sex, nature, or a love affair. This glimpse reveals to the person that there is something more. That he or she isn’t exactly who he or she thought.

You may link these moments with the conditions out of which they arose. Perhaps it’s the moment of sexual orgasm when you transcend self-consciousness. Perhaps it’s a moment of trauma, of extreme danger when you “forget yourself.” Perhaps it’s when you are out in the woods away from people and you let down your defenses, loosen the boundaries of your self-consciousness. Perhaps when you are lazing by a stream. Perhaps when you are sitting quietly with friends you trust and love.

For surfers it is the moment when they come into equilibrium with the incredible force of the wave. For skiers it is when the balance is perfect. When our skills fit the demand perfectly, then there is no anxiety. Then we have proved ourselves. There is nothing left to do. In that moment our awareness expands.

From: https://www.ramdass.org/overcoming-separateness/

To Everything There Is a Season

by Ram Dass

The transformation that comes through meditation is not a straight-line progression. It’s a spiral, a cycle. My own life is very much a series of spirals in which at times I am pulled toward some particular form of sadhana or lifestyle and make a commitment to it for maybe six months or a year. After this time I assess its effects. At times I work with external methods such as service. At other times the pull is inward, and I retreat from society to spent more time alone.

The timing for these phases in the spiral must be in tune with your inner voice and your outer life. Don’t get too rigidly attached to any one method – turn to others when their time comes, when you are ripe for them.

I first became involved in the journey through study, intellectual analysis and service. I found it difficult to work with methods of the heart. I would try to open my heart, but the methods seemed absurd. I recall going to the Avalon Ballroom in the early 1960’s to hear Allen Ginsberg introduce Swami Bhaktivedanta, who led a Hare Krishna chant. This chant seemed weird to me. It left me cold and cynical. I recall thinking, “It’s too bad – Allen’s really gone over the edge. This chant just doesn’t make it.” In the years since, I’ve had moments of ecstasy with the Hare Krishna chant. My heart has opened wide to the beauty of the blue Krishna and the radiant Ram, and I’ve laughed at my own changes and growth.

A student once came to me and told me that he felt turned off by devotional practices. His practice was Buddhist; his meditation was on the dharma, the laws of the universe. Yet he felt troubled that his heart was closed. So I started him on the practice of the mantra “I love you dharma,” breathing in and out of the heart saying, “I love you dharma.” He loved it.

It’s not an all-or-nothing game. You’re not totally out of one phase before you start the next – there’s a gradual shift.

From: https://www.ramdass.org/everything-season/

Holy Man Hasn’t Eaten In 75 Years – Confirmed By Doctors

What is the longest you have gone without a piece of food or a glass of water? A holy man in India claims that he has not eaten or drank anything for 75 years! Prahlad Jani is the 83-year old man who lives in a cave near Amba JI Temple without any kind of food or water since the age of 7. Why in the world would a man choose to not eat for such a long time, and how is he still alive?

Mr. Jani claims that he has left his home at the age of seven searching for spiritual mystery when he was blessed by 3 Hindu goddesses. Here is the story in his own words:

“Three goddesses appeared to me and bade me to follow. Ma Kali, Ma Lakshmi, and Ma Saraswati. I consented, prepared myself, and asked: ‘What about my food?’ They each put a finger on my lip and said ‘You need not be concerned about food ever again’. I was 7, and from that day I stopped eating and drinking.”

Ever since that blessing, Prahlad Jani claims that he has gained his sustenance from the nectar that filters down through a hole in his palate. A bunch of bogus, right? Maybe not.

His claims were scientifically studied by a team of 30 specialists during three weeks of a variety of tests at a hospital.

They took him into then Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, India. They put him under 24 hour observation in front of cameras and found out that he did not take any kind of food or water in the 15 days that he was in hospital. No food or water for half that time would be a sure death for anybody else. And he did not pass urine or stool either.

The doctors were completely surprised at this miracle. “We believe that the sadhu Prahlad Jani’s body went through biological transformation as a result of meditation and powerful yoga in a completely natural environment that he stays.” said neurologist Dr. Sudhir Shah.

The doctors in India are guessing that this phenomenon relates the Amrita Chakra (third eye chakra), as Hindu vedas speak of it being able to produce a divine nectar which sustains life.

What’s more is that his brain resembles that of a 25 year old man at 83 years of age. His practices have somehow miraculously transformed the biological functioning of his body, which no longer needs energy and sustenance from external material sources.

Is this even possible?

This sounds crazy, but let’s think about it for a minute. What do we need from food? The minerals, which are made out of molecules, which are made out of atoms, which are made out of quarks, which are made out of superstrings, which is ultimately part of the Unified Field or Superstring Field.

At a fundamental level of nature, nutrition is really just vibrating strings of non-local energy. Could he somehow be receiving this information somehow without the need to physically ingest food? Here is a news report by the doctors who observed him at the hospital:

From: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/holy-man-hasnt-eaten-in-75-years/

Headaches After Meditation, Pineal Gland Third Eye Activation & Body Cleansing

by

It’s normal to experience some discomfort or physical pain when you start to meditate for the first time. Some individuals, not all, experience physical pain or emotional turmoil when they first achieve silence of the mind and open the gateway to cosmic energy. Much cleansing occurs within both your physical body complex and subtle spirit body. Some stored-up negative energies are dislodging and beginning to clear, causing some physical symptoms to occur. Headaches are common, especially at the top of the head or the forehead due to the pineal gland, or third eye, getting a work-out that it’s not used to.

When you close your eyes the darkness activates the pineal gland, which then secretes melatonin into your cerebral fluid which starts the process of sleep. You are conscious however during meditation, but the same effect is felt – meditation is conscious sleep. Turn out the lights, the pineal gland activates and the gateway to intelligent infinity opens. You use your pineal gland during sleep and at certain points of the day while subconsciously sending and receiving energies and communications to and from the spirit world. However, the process of meditation gives your pineal gland a more strenuous workout than usual.
If you rarely used your left arm and had to lift a heavy weight, it’d be hard work right? It might even hurt at the time or ache after. The same is true for the pineal gland. You need to exercise this organ and increase blood flow by using it. It will become stronger as a result.

During the first week or two you may experience headaches straight after meditation. The headache can last for several hours. There are two possible causes for the headache – the new strenuous workout as already mentioned, plus the clearing of negative energies from the pineal gland and the head area itself.

Imagine that many years of stress, anxiety, and negative energies have built up in this area before your spiritual awakening and urge to meditate began. The process of dislodging and expelling these negative energies causes pain and discomfort in the affected regions of the body. As few as five to ten, half-hour long meditation sessions could clear these blockages, but meditation should be continued to keep them clear.

Pain can be felt throughout the body. One reason is that you may not be used to sitting in your meditative position, such as the lotus position. This may be resulting in some backache. Set down some cushions and give yourself a back rest to lean against. Your body should adjust and get used to your new positioning over time.

(Here’s a good book: Pineal Gland & Your Third Eye: Proven Methods to Develop Your Higher Self).

Pain can also be felt throughout your physical body, or in different areas of the body due to accumulation of negative energies. Daily stresses, worries and negative emotions are stored in several parts of your body, but each person tends to have a main area where these energies build up. Some people experience upper back pain, others digestive discomfort, others headaches, and so on.

Have you ever noticed that during times of intense stress, your usual physical ailments flair up? You are collecting and storing your negative energies in the usual place in your body. Once your area of concentrated negative energy accumulation is targeted by healing energies, a great deal of pain can be experienced in that area. You’re being healed however and you will feel better soon.

When you first start to meditate, you open the gateway to intelligent infinity and cleansing healing energies. These enter through the top of the head, through the pineal gland and trickle down through your body. Your subtle (or spirit) body is cleansed and your physical body in turn is cleansed. Your chakras are being unblocked so that energy is free to flow in balanced amounts, your sub energy centers and energy pathways too are cleared and energized. Negative energy is ousted and removed.

The mind is also rejuvenated by the in-pouring of healing energies. The process of cleansing the mind, and the unblocking and balancing of the chakras, can cause emotional flare-ups and turmoil. You may find yourself thinking ‘why am I acting like this?’ You could become quite bi-polar in your emotions, that is for instance, angry for a time and then very happy soon after. Stored up negative thought forms and emotional energies are being dislodged and cleared. This outpouring of negative energies can cause emotional and erratic behavior on it’s way out.
While physical pain and emotional flare-ups only occur for some people when they start to meditate for the first time, it should not discourage anyone from meditating. More and more meditation will clear your physical complaints and fully activate your energy centers, cleansing the physical and subtle body over time. Know that the benefits both physically and mentally will have a big impact on your life.

Headaches After Meditation, Pineal Gland Third Eye Activation & Cleansing – Video
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnSumwCoAcA&w=560&h=315]
http://www.spiritual-awakening.net/2014/06/beginners-meditation-headaches-and-pain.html

This Is What’s Happening In the Brains of People Who “See” Music

To Pharrell Williams, the verses of his years-long hit “Happy” have always been yellow and red. Or reddish. “[W]ell … it’s not red, it’s more like orange, but then it’s a little pink, a little rainbow-y, because of the minor chords or whatever,” Williams told the Dinner Party Download.
Williams has an auditory-specific form of a neurological condition called synesthesia. It’s a condition in which one’s sensory perceptions are involuntarily unified. Seeing colors and patterns based off music is one of the most common varieties, also called chromaesthesia. But other synesthetes can taste music, or, see colors associated with certain numbers or days of the week. 
Though it was once thought of as a disorder, it is common to some of the most brilliant musicians. The list of artists who have it is long, including Billy Joel, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Dev Hynes, Frank Ocean and Mary J. Blige. This is what we know about the mysterious inside of the synesthete’s mind.
Disorder or eccentricity? For years, synesthesia has suffered the stigma of being a mental “disorder.” Throughout the years, many synesthetes remained silent about their gifts. In some artists’ cases, they feared it would invalidate their actual musical talents.
“People were very afraid to admit they had it because they didn’t want people to think that this special gift was the sole basis for their talent,” Carol Steen, co-founder of the American Synesthesia Association, told Pitchfork. “They’d think, ‘If I tell people that I have this gift, maybe they’ll think that all the practicing I’ve done doesn’t mean anything.'”
But the sting of that stigma has lessened recently, replaced by a fascination. Indie pop crooner Dev Hynes has been very open about his synesthesia. Last November, he gave a TED talk describing his process of writing music using his synesthetic connections. His tone colors are markedly different from those Pharrell describes, which points to a fundamental truth about synesthesia: Every artist’s color associations and experiences with the condition are different. Several artists, like Melissa McCracken, even put what they see onto canvas.
Early research. Scientists largely declined to study synesthesia until around the 1980s, when MRIs suggested there was a legitimate neurological basis for the feeling. Early research suggested that synesthesia was simply a case of crossed mental wires. The auditory cortex, where music and sound are first processed, is close to the occipital lobe, where the brain distinguishes color and shape. 
Simultaneously triggered senses are examples of the brain making excess neurological connections or failing to prune existing connections. In fact, the brains of infant primates show evidence that their senses are all a hyperconnective blend until a few weeks or months after birth. By that logic, we all may be synesthetes until we grow out of it.
Neonatal theory has been criticized in recent years, though, as has all research that frames synesthesia as a neurological disorder. Researchers out of the University of London and the University of Oxford argued that the development of adult synesthesia is “better explained by their being learned” than by erroneously pruned connections.
Learning to see sound. In March 2015, neurologists Jean-Michel Hupé and Michel Dojat studied the brain scans of synesthetes and found no evidence of any structural differences in their brains. “If none of the proposed structural or functional differences [claimed to exist in synesthesia are] confirmed,” they write, according to Discover, “this would speak against synesthesia being a neurological condition. But, then, what could be the nature of synesthesia?”
They proposed that synesthesia may be learned and arise from childhood memories. A 2014 study performed by Olympia Colizoli of University of Amsterdam supports this hypothesis to a certain extent. Colizoli trained a group of participants to associate colors with specific letters to simulate a grapheme-color synesthesia (one of the most common forms) by having participants read passages where specific letters were colored. Another 2014 study from the University of Sussex reviewed a 1944 study in which researchers successfully taught listeners to create sound-color synesthesia connections. 
How exactly children learn sound-color synesthesia, and why some children retain the ability and some don’t, remains a mystery. But science is getting closer to finding an answer, and if it does nail down the process, it could prove to be a game changer for music education. In a February 2015 article for the Psychologist, Jack Dutton looked at research that found that people with chromaesthesia are more likely to engage with creative pursuits and play instruments, which would explain the long list of artists with that specific neurological profile.
“These findings imply that if scientists are able to figure out a way to teach people chromaesthesia, it may enhance how well people learn to read and compose music,” Dutton wrote. 
It’s a fascinating prospect. One day, any child might be able to grow up see Pharrell-like rainbows in music, if they so choose. 
Whether it’s considered a disorder, a blessing or a choice, synesthesia is one of the most strange and magnificent things the human mind can do.

The Warriors of the Rainbow Prophecy

One day… there would come a time, when the earth being ravaged and polluted, the forests being destroyed, the birds would fall from the air, the waters would be blackened, the fish being poisoned in the streams, and the trees would no longer be, mankind as we would know it would all but cease to exist.

This is how the ‘Rainbow prophecy’ begins, as retold by a woman of the Cree Indian nation of America over a century ago.

The Cree are one of the largest groups of the First Nations Native Americans in North America. There are over 135 bands of Cree living in Canada, with a total population of approximately 200,000 today.

The Rainbow prophecy, as it has come to be known, refers to the keepers of the legends, rituals, and other myths that will be needed when the time comes to restore the health on Earth.  It is believed that these legendary beings will return on a day of awakening, when all people will unite and create a new world of justice, peace and freedom, and they will be named the ‘Warriors of the Rainbow’. They will reteach the values and the knowledge that has been lost in time, demonstrating how to have wisdom and extra-perception, and how unity, harmony and love is the only way forward.

The rainbow reference relates to the different colours of the original people:

At the beginning of this cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit came down and He made an appearance and He gathered the peoples of this earth together, they say on an island which is now beneath the water, and He said to the human beings, “I’m going to send you to four directions and over time I’m going to change you to four colours, but I’m going to give you some teachings and you will call these the Original Teachings and when you come back together with each other you will share these so that you can live and have peace on earth, and a great civilization will come about.
Prophecy as told by Lee Brown of the Salish Tribe at the 1986 Continental Indigenous Council, Alaska.

A particularly interesting part of the prophecy relates to the choosing of leaders.  According to the story, a leader will not be the one that talks the loudest, boasts of successes, or has the support of the elite. Leaders will be those whose actions speak the loudest, the ones that have demonstrated wisdom and courage and have proven that they work for the benefit of all. Isn’t this how things should be?

The Rainbow has always held special significance among the different Native American Indian Nations. It is connected to the Spirit (Supreme God/Creator) in all things. Apart from the Cree prophecy there are many prophecies and stories from the Hopi, the Zuni and the Cherokee related to the rainbow warriors.

There will come a day when people of all races, colors, and creeds will put aside their differences. They will come together in love, joining hands in unification, to heal the Earth and all Her children. They will move over the Earth like a great Whirling Rainbow, bringing peace, understanding and healing everywhere they go. Many creatures thought to be extinct or mythical will resurface at this time; the great trees that perished will return almost overnight. All living things will flourish, drawing sustenance from the breast of our Mother, the Earth.

The great spiritual Teachers who walked the Earth and taught the basics of the truths of the Whirling Rainbow Prophecy will return and walk amongst us once more, sharing their power and understanding with all. We will learn how to see and hear in a sacred manner. Men and women will be equals in the way Creator intended them to be; all children will be safe anywhere they want to go. Elders will be respected and valued for their contributions to life. Their wisdom will be sought out. The whole Human race will be called The People and there will be no more war, sickness or hunger forever.
Navajo-Hopi Prophecy of the Whirling Rainbow

In the time of the Seventh Fire, a New People would emerge. They would retrace their steps to find the wisdom that was left by the side of the trail long ago. Their steps would take them to the elders, who they would ask to guide them on their journey. If the New People remain strong in their quest, the sacred drum will again sound its voice. There will be an awakening of the people, and the sacred fire will again be lit. At this time, the light-skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. One road is the road of greed and technology without wisdom or respect for life. This road represents a rush to destruction. The other road is spirituality, a slower path that includes respect for all living things. If we choose the spiritual path, we can light yet another fire, an Eight Fire, and begin an extended period of Peace and healthy growth.
Grandfather William Commanda, Circle of All Nations Prophecy of the Seven Fires of the Anishnabe, From Ancient Wampum Belt

References to a new Era, a Golden Age characterized by harmony, stability and prosperity, do not just belong to the Native Americans, but can be found in myths and legends from all over the world.  It is known as Chryson Genos in Greek mythology, the Kali yuga in Vedic and Hindu culture, and gullaldr in Norse mythology.  One aspect that is common among many legends of the Golden era is the return of beings or gods that will aid in the restoration of the Earth.

In classical Greek mythology the Golden Age was presided over by the leading Titan Cronus. In some version of the myth Astraea, also ruled. She lived with men until the end of the Silver Age, but in the Bronze Age, when men became violent and greedy, fled to the stars, where she appears as the constellation Virgo, holding the scales of Justice, or Libra.

Whether these prophecies are true or not, much of what is spoken about – the era of greed and violence – is a reality throughout much of the world today.  Corruption, greed, poverty, consumerism, power to the few, and injustice are predominant characteristics of our civilization accompanied by a great technological advancement that has become a weapon for mass destruction and a tool for supressing resistance.  Whether beings from the past will interfere or not, one thing is for sure, life cannot continue in this way forever.


 By John Black

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/warriors-rainbow-prophecy-001577

Feel Lost, Disconnected, Without Passion or Purpose? Unexplained Physical Pain? Here’s Why You Are Expanding

For those of you have unexplained symptoms of physical or emotional pain, know that you are not alone. Feeling lost, disconnected, without passion or purpose? You are on a path of self discovery. You are riding a wave of new energy. What you are feeling at this very moment is a transition–only one step of many on this grand journey of ascension on this planet that is progressing every second. Much of what you still see in the world and in your experiences is illusion and it is competing heavily with what the heart knows to be true. It’s time to start listening to what matters most and embracing that you are now in an accelerated state of expansion.

The 6 shifts in consciousness are being realized. The spring equinox has brought a fascinating wave of expansion throughout the planet. It is pushing people outside of their comfort zone and that is manifesting in some very interesting ways inside and outside the body.

Outside the body, electronic devices are behaving erratically. Your mobile phone, television, computer, network devices or even internet connection may not be functioning as they have in the past. You may experience unusual and unexplained downtime, yet there is nothing wrong with the actual devices because the problem is not the devices. The problem is your energy not properly grounding to where it needs to be. For some others the problem is appearing in their motor vehicles. They are all signs of what is happening in and around you.

Inside the body, unexplained symptoms, pain and illness may have surfaced in the last 3-6 months. Sleep patterns, fluctuating biorhythms, changes in blood pressure, intense pain in joints, headaches, changes in blood sugar and even more serious illnesses may have presented themselves. Although many of these symptoms are prolonged, rest assured they are not permanent.

The cellular structure is currently being recoded in the human body and in the process it is purging and letting go of predominant resident frequencies that are being eliminated. For this energy to clear, the immune system and actually all systems within the body must be effectively weakened. So while the body may appear to be in a state of illness, it is more or less in a state of clearing.

Unfortunately, this is the only way you will be able to prepare and move into the energy that is coming in the next 18 months–an energy critical for the Earth in the next decade. If the body fails to make the upgrade it will stop functioning entirely. The important thing is to recognize that you can change every single symptom that appears with the appropriate intention. Do not fall into negative patterning with assumptions that it is your own negative thoughts that have created these symptoms or that you must “fix” the problem. Focus on the fact that you are realigning your body to where it needs to be. Avoid statements to yourself such as: “I’m in pain…I’m sick…I’m ill”. Focus on: “I am healing…I am realigning…I am clearing my energy.” You are not broken, so there is nothing to fix. Accept what is and move forward while welcoming the wonderful changes that are leading to the new you.

The reason more people are feeling disconnected and without a sense of purpose is they are still holding on to old programming. “It’s not safe”, “I fear for my future or my family’s”, “people don’t understand me”, “the world is doomed”, and any other self defeating things you tell yourself which are based on fear, not reality. With practice and repetition, you are breaking out of this patterning at the subconscious level and consciously creating a different reality. Consciously directing energy is far more powerful than subconscious directives and this is part of what humanity is now transitioning to.

The media and engines of deception that control your world understand exactly what is happening so they are attempting to condition the public further with mass mind manipulation which is failing on a grand scale since so many people are now awakened. This unfortunately is causing more separation between those who are ascending and those who have chosen not to, as each in their own right will be true to their path and each will be exactly where they need to be.

If you could comprehend how many battles are being won right now, how many terrorist events are being stopped in their tracks, how many wars are being averted simply by the changing energy, you would see what is happening in the world in a very different light. These events are now daily, all because intention is spurring from the heart and more than ever before. Lower frequency experiences are being rejected worldwide.

The dominant masculine energy on Earth no longer has a hold on humans as it once did. You can no longer create from masculine energy alone which is how your society is structured.

The feminine energy is being grounded everywhere. It now surrounds the planet and it is allowing humanity to nurture and integrate benevolent experiences at all levels. The most efficient manifesters moving forward will be those who are attentive to calming, opening and receiving information in a way that allows it to pass through the feminine filter.

Again, those who still feel the need to control global governments are in full manipulation mode and they understand these processes operating at different dimensional levels. So they will place a female president in 2016 in the United States in an effort to capitalize on this wave of feminine energy. Unfortunately, this person will not have benevolent intentions and the world will realize it very quickly, but her role will be significant in the sense that she will serve as a symbol of global acceptance of the feminine divine. The irony is that because she will largely manifest from the masculine divine, she will fail miserably as leader in a country that can no longer be conditioned by fear. The next 18 months are truly a defining period of change for the United States and the rest of the world.

It’s imperative to connect with children and their energy at this time. If you have children, be involved with them as much as possible. If you don’t have children, then seek a loved one who does and learn as much as you can from a child’s energy. They have the ingredients so many adults are missing at this time.

Come to terms with how important your life is right now on the time space continuum. You are on the Earth at possibly the best time EVER in the history of the human species. You are integral in the consciousness equation moving forward and you’re inspiring others in ways you cannot imagine. Any feeling of insignificance, disconnection, fear, anger, loneliness are simply illusions because you are nothing but significant, connected, loved and could not be alone if you tried.

You complete the Earth and you matter, so wake up each and every morning with one thought…”I am here and I am making history,” and never think for a second that your contribution, no matter how small, is not important, because it is significant.

Michael Forrester is a spiritual counselor and is a practicing motivational speaker for corporations in Japan, Canada and the United States.

From: http://preventdisease.com/news/15/050815_Feel-Lost-Disconnected-Unexplained-Physical-Pain-Heres-Why-You-Are-Expanding.shtml

Awakening To The Truth: You’ve Felt It Your Entire Life

Written by Sophie McAdam  at trueactivist.com

If you haven’t seen this short video by Collective Evolution (entitled You’ve felt it your entire life), it’s well worth watching (and sharing). With Morpheus‘s message to Neo making a powerful voice-over, the video uses a montage of clips from films like The Matrix, Into the Wild and cult classic They Live to illustrate a few (difficult) truths about the society we live in.

Contrasting some beautiful shots of nature with some ugly shots of our violence towards it, this video has a powerful message. Morpheus says it better than anyone could:

“You’ve felt it your entire life. There’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.”

It doesn’t have to be this way, the film tells us. There is so much more to life than consumerism, mainstream culture and media lies, environmental devastation, working in jobs we hate until we die, eating junk food and spending more time on social media than we do speaking to our friends and family. This is a real-life matrix. But all of us have the power to take the red pill, offer it to others, and makechoices to change our lives- and the lives of those around us- for the better.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPJtPwdk8k]

We Are Living In A Hologram Designed By Aliens, Says NASA Scientist

by MessageToEagle,

Who says there are no open-minded scientists at NASA?

A NASA scientist suggests you are living inside a hologram created by advanced alien species.
What if everything you have ever done or will do is simply the product of a highly-advanced computer code? Every relationship, every sentiment, every memory could have been generated by banks of supercomputers.

This was the intriguing theory first proposed by Nick Bostrom, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University and founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute and of the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology within the Oxford Martin School, there are several scientists who subscribe to this theory.

MessageToEagle.com has previously reported on how Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggested our creator is a cosmic computer programmer.

This would imply that we are living in a holographic world and everything around us, including ourselves is not “real”. Rich Terrile, still stands by his opinion. “Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain,” the NASA scientist told Vice.

“If you make a simple calculation using Moore’s Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you’ll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.

“In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they’re being observed.

“Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.

“One explanation is that we’re living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.

“What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that’s cool.”

The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos, like for example our quest for extraterrestrial life and the mystery of dark matter.

However, there also those who think the Matrix theory is flawed. “The theory seems to be based on the assumption that ‘superminds’ would do things in much the same way as we would do them,” Professor Peter Millican, who teaches philosophy and computer science at Oxford University says.

“If they think this world is a simulation, then why do they think the superminds – who are outside the simulation – would be constrained by the same sorts of thoughts and methods that we are?

“They assume that the ultimate structure of a real world can’t be grid like, and also that the superminds would have to implement a virtual world using grids.

“We can’t conclude that a grid structure is evidence of a pretend reality just because our ways of implementing a pretend reality involve a grid.”

However, Professor Millican does believe there is worth in investigating the idea.

“It is an interesting idea, and it’s healthy to have some crazy ideas,” he told The Telegraph.

“You don’t want to censor ideas according to whether they seem sensible or not because sometimes important new advances will seem crazy to start with.

“You never know when good ideas may come from thinking outside the box.

“This Matrix thought-experiment is actually a bit like some ideas of Descartes and Berkeley, hundreds of years ago. “Even if there turns out to be nothing in it, the fact that you have got into the habit of thinking crazy things could mean that at some point you are going to think of something that initially may seem rather way out, but turns out not to be crazy at all.”

What Happens to People Who Meditate for the First Time

There have been numerous studies detailing what happens to the brain in long-term meditators, but what exactly happens to people who meditate for the first time?

Sara Lazar, a Harvard researcher, has gained quite some notoriety detailing how the brain actually grows grey matter when people meditate.

Other studies have shown that meditation improves IQ, and lessens depression. In addition to these benefits, meditation also:

  • Reduces alcohol and substance consumption, reduces blood pressure (Chiesa, 2009),
  • Decreases anxiety, depressive symptoms, and relapses (Coelho, Canter, & Ernst, 2007; Kim et al., 2009)
  • Helps patients suffering from various types of chronic pain (Chiesa & Serretti, in press)
  • Lowers the incidence of stress (Chiesa & Serretti, 2009)
  • Aids cancer patients (Ledesma & Kumano, 2009)

Most people think they have to meditate for years before they start seeing any of these improvements, but a study conducted by Chiesa, Calati, and Serretti shows that after just eight short weeks of meditation, people start to experience improved cognitive functioning.

Still not fast enough for you?
Meditation for the First Time

Here’s what happens to the brain after someone completes just one meditation session who has never meditated before:

  • People start to become less ‘me’ centered as the brain balances the Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which allows us to ruminate our worry, and the Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which allows us to empathize with others and feel more connected to those who we usually view as dissimilar to ourselves.
  • The fear-center is calmed via the amygdala and the two branches of the nervous system. You know that ‘uh-oh’ feeling you sometimes get? Meditation helps to make sure that you only feel low-level stress when you really need to, such as when you are about to put your hand on a hot stove, or you need to put the brakes on in traffic. Even then, meditation can help take the stress out of stress-full experiences.
  • The very first time you try to meditate, the mind calms down. It doesn’t mean you will experience profound inner peace the first time your bum touches a meditation cushion, but it does mean that you are already setting up new neural pathways that allow positive change. Each time you ‘sit’ again, you enhance them.
  • You’ll feel less depressed. Meditation is getting a lot of press lately because of this study by Mahav Goyal published at JAMA. 47 trials conducted with over 3,500 patients proved that meditation was as effective as anti-depressants. (The effect of meditation was moderate, at 0.3. If this sounds low, keep in mind that the effect size for antidepressants is also 0.3.) The difference is, of course, that meditation can’t kill you or cause other unwanted side effects, like psychotic episodes, panic attacks, hostility, etc.

Beginner Meditators

Though it takes a few more sessions, here is what happens when you meditate a little more frequently:

  • You’ll feel less physical pain in just four meditation sessions. Brain activity decreases in the areas responsible for relaying sensory information surrounding a feeling of pain. Also, regions of the brain that modulate pain get busier, and volunteers who participated in a study reported that pain was less intense after meditation practice. These results were all reported at an annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.
  • The ‘me-center’ slowly evaporates. As the connection between bodily sensations and the vmPFC withers, you will no longer assume that a bodily sensation or momentary feeling of fear means something is wrong with you or that you are the problem. You can just let it rise and pass, without hardly giving it a second thought.
  • Empathy becomes stronger. The vmPFC part of the ‘me center’ subsides and the dmPFC grows more dominant, which means you can feel others’ pain or sadness, but with the same ability as you’ve learned to handle your own bodily sensations.

Masters of Meditation

Once you’re an old pro at meditation you can look forward to even more benefits, many of which science is still reaching to understand.

  • Tibetan monks can sit for hours in meditation as easily as most of us can spend the same amount of time sleeping or surfing the net. These monks recently dried wet sheets with their bodies by utilizing a form of meditation called g Tum-mo. Monks were cloaked in wet, cold sheets (49 f / 9.4 c) and placed in a 40 f (4.5 c) room. In conditions such as these the average     person would likely experience uncontrollable shivering and suffer hypothermia. However, through deep concentration, the monks were able to generate body heat, and within minutes the researchers noticed steam rising from those sheets. In about an hour the sheets were completely dry.

  • Yogis in India who practice meditation are able to slow their hearts so completely that they are hardly detectable on EKG equipment. In 1935 a French cardiologist, Therese Brosse, took an electrocardiograph to India and studied yogis who said they could stop their heart. According to Brosse’s published report, readings produced by a single EKG lead and pulse recordings indicated that  the heart potentials and pulse of one of her subjects decreased almost to zero, where they stayed for several seconds. (Brosse, 1946)
  • A master meditator, Munishri Ajitchandrasagarji, is a Jain monk who credits his incredible memory to meditation practice. He can recite 500 items from memory, whether it is a phrase from one of six different languages, a math problem, or the name of a random object. He recently performed this  feat in front of an audience of 6,000 to verify his amazing level of skill. It took six hours for the crowd to feed him the list of items, and he recited them back perfectly.
  • Dutchman Wim Hof is able to control his immune system with meditation. He has been in the Guinness Book of World Records 20 times for accomplishments like climbing Mt. Everest and Kilimanjaro in nothing but a pair of shorts and shoes, with no water or food, when temperatures easily reach 50 degrees celcius. He uses a special breathing meditation.

So maybe the first time you learn to control your thoughts by focusing on your breath, or simply observing your thoughts like clouds passing in the sky won’t make you a master meditator capable of these staggering acts, but even with your first twenty minute ‘sit’ you are well on your way to other-worldly abilities.

By Christina Sarich, Collective Evolution