This Is Water

This speech is fantastic!

part one:

and part two:

now let it sink in.

here it is in writing:
If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I'd advise you to go ahead, because I'm sure going to. In fact I'm gonna [mumbles while pulling up his gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].) Greetings ["parents"?] and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story ["thing"] turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about "teaching you how to think". If you're like me as a student, you've never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I'm going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your scepticism about the value of the totally obvious.

Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp."

It's easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis: the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Plus, there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.
The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.

Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education--least in my own case--is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualise stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.

As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotised by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master".

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.
You get the idea.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

"This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.

-----------------
not much to add after such utter brilliance.
 

Much Love!

Love

Cause of death - sitting!

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

The Observing and Masternig of your emotions

This is a BIG one!

How do you stay in control of your emotions, rather than letting your emotions control you?

Emotions are important, they can help you guide your life. If you know how to use them and if you use them correctly.
If not, they run your life for you, without you even knowing or having a real say in the matter. This is what we want to avoid. It is important to be in charge, and to get to know your emotions.

Emotions change your physiological state: your breathing, your posture and your thinking; it changes your body chemistry - in other words, it changes you!

Emotions dictate your day-today-life. As you react to your surrounding; through anchored cues, which pull an emotion to the forefront, and run the show for you.

Lets see what the dictionary  says about it:

emotion

1. A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.
2. A state of mental agitation or disturbance: spoke unsteadily in a voice that betrayed his emotion.
3. The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility: 

So,

How do you master your emotions then?

It has to start with learning to observe yourself - recognizing when you are in different emotional states, and how your body and thoughts are affected by it - posture, facial expression, breathing, focus, thoughts etc.

Secondly observe your thoughts, truly stay with them. Observing what you think, and how your thoughts affect you. This might be a tricky one; it's like being a second awareness in your head - "seeing" what you think.

Monitor your thoughts, and your emotional state with it. Get to know your feelings, and learn to recognize when you are under the control of a certain emotion.

If you want to break a negative emotion coming on, do something unexpected, like clap your hands, spin around, jump, slap yourself - anything - to break your mind starting to run it's normal program, with the undesired emotion.

Just going for a walk or a light run will help your body chemistry, and turn around a sour mood. Or doing two of the following : Change your posture to a good one, put a smile on your face(even if it's a fake one), focus your thoughts on the positive, control and slow your breathing - taking deep slow breaths through your nose.


In Conclusion.

To master your emotions practice to observe your thoughts - learn staying aware of what you think

- and how you think about it.

As this sets you in the direction of your emotion.

A smile, a good posture and calm breathing will also put your mind in the right direction.

The better you get on observing yourself the easier it gets to halt and turn negative emotions once they start. You will also find that you will also experience less "negative" emotions.


Just for the record.

I don't really think there are such a thing as "Good" or "Bad". As, "it's all good" - however there are emotions that benefit your life and there are emotions that just help to give nuance to "the life experience". It is important to feel all emotions, but equally important to be in charge of your emotions so that you are the one who act, and not the emotion.

I mean, is it you or your emotions who buy/eat/choose/do/want: "the new I-pod", "the red one", "just a small chocolate", "a coke", "a line of coke", "a cigarette", "the chips", "a newer version", "delivered pizza", "ohhh the shiny one" and "whatever else they are advertising nowadays" or "whatever else you use to numb your emotions"

Good reading on the subject are among many others:
Paul Ekman - Emotions Revealed
and
Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence

Much Love

Inspiration - rewiring

Hello my Lovelies!
 
the importance is not to know things, but to be what you know!

Time to wake up!



Bruce Lipton is rather phenomenal, and one of P's favourites, she found this yesterday and has acted, she is now determined to start being what she knows, rather than just knowing but not being... and that is awesome news...

Be present with your concious, watch the 'program play', then re-record the 'tapes' needed

Much Love,

Money and Revolution (eiher or (or both) it's up to you)

The following started off the discussion on the Revolution, and I quote:

A revolution is bound to happen within this century. Drastic measures and changes will occur. Hopefully dropping the money system completely. Any ideas on how and what’s going to happen?

 An interesting discussion followed, mostly centring around the argument if money is the blame or if there is some other issue that is causing all (supposed) world problems.

This is what I had to say about the issue:

Money is a state of mind!

Money is not the problem, there is money everywhere, as a matter of fact, there is more money in the world now than there has ever been before… money can literally be made-up from thin air, I mean, that is (really) how it’s made. This means you can make money, because it is as real as you make it…Money is just a token of exchange, if you don’t like it don’t use it.

And if you don’t use money, you would have some sort of exchange of goods and services. But in any case, the important thing to understand here is that money is a state of mind, just like everything else, it’s a belief in both the actual sense – the fact that we give it value – and a belief system – The beliefs you have about yourself; the beliefs about your situation, your relationships with money etc.

Naturally this belief system goes further than just money, whatever you hold to be true, will be so. If money is the issue, well then get yourself out of the money system – make yourself self sufficient, or change your belief, both are liberating.

- not needing money and having plenty of money.

So the revolution then?

Well the revolution is here all around you, and it starts with you, the individual. Like Ghandi said, be the change you want to see in the world

the revolution will not come to you, because it is already in you,

YOU ARE the REVOLUTION

If you don’t like the system, change the system, lead, don’t follow, live like you want the world to live, don’t wait for the world to live like you want.

----

To read the full discussion go to High Existence

Much Love!

Live food - Raw food - Heated food - Dead food - Deadly food

What do you eat?
If you find that you are eating mostly from the Deadly food list maybe it is time to think twice about your eating habits.


Live food - this is food which is alive
Examples:
Shoots and Sprouted seeds and nuts
Wild or Organic leaves/fruits/mushrooms/vegetables/flowers/berries/grasses. consumed straight after picking
Insects (eaten by mistake or with purpose as a part of the above)
Eggs (as above, picked from the nest)
Oysters
Living bacterial cultures - sauerkraut/nut or seed cheeses - this can be either raw or dead foods that you make alive with foreign bacteria through, for example fermentation


Raw food - food which has not been heated.
Examples:
Fruits
Vegetables
Dried Fruits
Sashimi

This one is easy, anything that has not been heated. Full of enzymes and fibres (if plant products), vitamins, minerals, good fats etc.


Heated food and/or Dead food - food that has been heated.
The nutritional value has decreased and the water has for the most part been cooked out of it. The molecule structure of the food changes and enzymes are killed. Some foods can have certain compounds released better through cooking, for example due to the fibres breaking down.
Depending on how you prepare the food it will be more or less dead. When I say dead food, it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, as in some cases you will receive more energy (calories), however you will not come close to the nutritional content in raw or live foods.

Superior ways of heating foods are: steaming, stir-frying in a wok using lime or water (not oil), using the oven on low-heat, and boiling (soups).

Deadly food - food that actively does harm to your health and your organism.
OK, here are the killers, I have more or less put them in the order that I rank them when it comes to damaged caused, particularly the first seven:
Soda - any kind of soda, you know them, Coke and all the rest.
Sugar - refined sugar in particular - sugar is (a) seriously addictive and harmful (drug). Avoid at all cost.
Flour - particularly white flour.
Artificial/Chemicals - Aspartame and all the other scary conservatives and e-numbers, they cause you serious harm.
Fast food - or more appropriately named, Junk food (you are what you eat, junk=trash people)
Ready Meals - same as fast food, it is trash!
Cooked or hydrogenated fats - Deep fried foods, or heated fats in general - seriously a bad idea.
Refined salt - Pure Sodium, if you want salt, change it for a natural salt, with the minerals all intact, a real salt has colour (red, grey, pink, purple, black) any colour but white.
Smoked foods - the smoking process creates carcinogens.   
Dairy- pasteurized dairy, no matter what the add campaigns say, it's bad news. It has puss, blood, hormones, vaccines, the protein casein (which promotes cancer growth), and it causes serious mucus build up in your lungs and sinus. Furthermore, it promotes asthma and allergy, and if you are not white European you will have even bigger problems with dairy. 
Soya - Most likely GM - Full of female hormones and other nasty substances, if you want to eat this your best bet is to eat small amounts and make it yourself (then it is a live food)
Meat - another dark horse to your health, if you really want to eat meat, eat only organic meat and fish from clean water, and do so in small amounts, and infrequently. Wild game is the best meat you can eat - pig (pork), cow (beef) and commercial chicken are some of the worst. And naturally sausages and hot dogs, they are nasty things and don't really deserve to be called meat. 
Alcohol -not a food but it has to be on here, as it does your body serious harm, if you want to drink, do so modestly and infrequently.

Simple tips that will get you away from the Deadly list are:

• Change your products from refined products to unrefined whole products - wholegrain etc
• Substitute your rice/pasta/potatoes etc. for Quinoa
• Change your soda drinks for fresh juice or water 
• Start using a real salt
• Use the cooking tips as given under heated foods
• Stop using your microwave oven
• Stop buying fast food, McDonald's and Co does not serve happy meals, they serve depression.
• Always eat organic. Particularly meat products.
• Start reading the ingredients on the products that you buy, if they have conservatives, sugar, salt, hydrogenated fats and soya lecithin (to just mention a few) just don't buy it.... if you really want cookies, well do like your grandmother, make your own (but use unrefined sugar and wholegrain flour)

Simple tips to improve your health through the diet:

• Eat a fruit before every meal
• Don't drink with your meal
• Drink plenty of water in-between meals
• Drink a fresh juice every day
• Start your day with a Green smoothie
• Chew your food properly and eat in a calm state
• Give thanks for your food
• Leave two hours after eating before going to bed
• Feel no guilt in combination to your food choices, eat and love it.

That's it for now people, Love yourself and treat your body with respect, it deserves it.

PS. at the moment the only animal products I eat are honey, bee pollen and insects (unknowingly).

You are not NORMAL

Normal changes both with time, culture and customs.
What normal then is, is always relative.

Are you normal?

Normal as an adjective, here are the first three definitions from Collins English Dictionary:


normal
           1. usual; regular; common; typical the normal way of
                doing it the normal level
              2. constituting a standard if we take this as normal
              3. (Psychology) Psychol
               a. being within certain limits of intelligence,
                   educational success or ability, etc.
               b. conforming to the conventions of one's group

I am not Normal!


I don't quite remember when I realized that I wasn't normal, however it must of happened quite early on in my journey as a human being.

Sure, I've tried to be normal many-times, all with varied success.

Using the definitions of normal above; I can honestly say that the less normal I am the better I feel. The more fun I have, the more I experience and the more I achieve.

Many strive to be normal, to be accepted, not to stick out, or to create ripples.

But here is the thing, YOU are not normal. you ARE unique, and that is what makes you so very SPECIAL.
Life is all about creating ripples, life is not about being accepted, but about accepting yourself.

Accepting all of you - flaws, successes, losses, background, situation, mind - you get the drift - all of it, accept it, then LOVE IT!

You are a creation of pure bliss, let it drive your life.

Much Love

Interesting - The Mind and the Universe

It is key to know and understand your mind. How your reality is created and how your actions and reactions work, how you defend your own unconscious behaviour and how your belief system locks you inside a box.

This film is great, it is actually two films; the first one is about your mind and the second about quantum physics..
.
I am posting it mainly for the first film, however the second is interesting too.


oh, and thanks to Sarah for showing this to me.

Much Love

This is a no brainer - time to act!

This is an urgent message please take the time to hear it, then sign the petition:

http://www.savenaturalhealth.eu/


 For more information about Alliance for natural health go to their website:

http://www.anh-europe.org/

People can lose their freedoms in matter of seconds and not come to miss them for decades

Apathy is not an option, only action is!

Stand up for what is right!

Much love.

What's the big deal with what you eat?

You are what you eat - a saying that you no doubt have heard. However, judging by how majority of people eat, I believe few people actually take in the reality of this statement.

You are what you eat - quite literally

Your body is constantly changing. Cells are dying, new ones are getting made in place of the old ones, fresh blood cells are being created, and much much more. Different cells/parts of your body regenerate with different frequency, everything from daily to yearly or more. But to give you a good idea of your body's regeneration, every 7 years you are a completely new make up of cells. Or to put it in another way; Today you are a completely new/different biological organism than you were 7 years ago.

Now here is a vital part; Your body creates its new cells from the minerals, vitamins, lipids, amino acids etc. that it receives from what you digest. Or to paraphrase once more; The compounds of what you digest becomes you!

This is pretty powerful information; You are constantly creating the new you, and play a direct role in the creation; You are the one who choose the building materials. You are the one who decides what your body will be made from.

You quite literally have the choice to degenerate by poor dietary choices or regenerating yourself by eating the best food ever.

quick green smoothie!

Sitting drinking a green smoothie!

what is that?

a smoothie, which is green.

any dark leafy green of your choice, water and fruit of your choice.
Banana, peach, apple, pear... well you get the drift.

at the moment I am drinking a smoothie made from
Couve (like kale) (16 - 20 big leaves)
pint of water
4 small bananas
one avocado
juice from a small lime...

Blend all ingredients - except avocado which you blend in just in the end.

it isn't one for the beginners as it is tasting very green... however just put more bananas in there and maybe a bit less green and you will love it... The avo makes it nice thick and creamy.

Start your day with a green smoothie, and you will notice an improvment, no matter what dietary habits you follow...

oh and you make it in under 5 minutes, fast, simple and oh so yummy...

much love

MY MORNING ROUTINE

My mornings are started with the drinking of around a litre of water upon wakening... a big glass before I leave the bed, and then I fill the glass and drink it again, during the waking process... I go to the bathroom and I empty, making my day start with a nicely clean and empty intestine each day...

I eat a raw vegetarian diet, rich in fibres and water.
I avoid eating 2 hours before I go to bed, and I avoid eating late at nights, so that my body can have time to do both the digestive process and general body maintenance while I sleep.

After I have been to the toilet, and I have finished my water, I flush my teeth with olive oil (cold pressed).
I flush and chew a table spoon of oil for 3-4 minutes, this helps my body to release toxins from the blood stream, through my mouth. I spit, then rinse with mineral salt and water, or bicarbonate soda and water; then I repeat the process. This is called oil pulling.

After this I brush my tongue a bit, and my teeth, then it is time for food. Depending on how much time I have available I either have a fruit to start me off, or I go for a green smoothie right away.

Today will be some melon, with a green smoothie following after about 30 - 45 minutes.

I always start my day with a green smoothie, which is a mixture of any dark leafy green, fruit (I usually use banana) and water, it's delicious and it sets me off for the best start of the day ever, full of energy and health.

- The water helps hydrate me and helps flush my kidney and liver in the morning.

- The oil helps me have whiter and cleaner teeth, a less toxic body and better health.

- The green smoothie helps me get a good helping of healthy greens in my stomach when my digestive fires are high, which sets for good assimilation and good energy to last.

habits create results, if you have good habits you will get good results!

Much love!

Best food ever!

first post of 2011.

it will be about food.

over the last 5-6 years I have gradually and comfortably changed my diet from:

"a normal cooked omnivore diet"
- to
"an organic cooked omnivore diet"
- to
"an organic and pescatarian diet" -
to
"a cooked organic vegetarian diet"
- to
"a 50-60% raw organic vegetarian diet"
- to
"a 70-90% raw vegetarian diet"
- to a
"95-100% raw vegetarian diet"

It has been a carefree and natural transition, and I have really enjoyed the food I have eaten and in all of the different stages. However where I am now; "95-100% raw vegetarian diet" is the most delicious.

My transition has been information based, and the information I have received has suited my transition perfectly.

I have gradually learnt the harms of meat, milk, eggs, heavy metals, herbicides and pesticides, soya, sugar, salt, flour, cooked fat, heating of foods, medicines, food and politics, GM products, food chemicals etc.

I have learnt of water, acidity and alkalinity, detoxing, chlorophyll, stomach acids, the immune-system, minerals, antioxidants, vitamins, amino acids, good fats, enzymes, fibres, cells, the body, the sun, the mind, bacteria, healing, spirituality, detachment, fasting and much much more...

It has been one of the best journeys ever, I have learnt, I have applied the knowledge, I have seen and felt the positive results. I have learnt more, applied, improved, and so it goes.

I have seen other people apply my knowledge and improve and I have seen them ignore the knowledge to then decline again. I have seen and felt the healing powers of the best foods, and I have seen and felt the destructive powers of bad foods.

I lately asked myself, if you know what you know, do you really let your friends and family go on like they always have done?
slowly degenerating themselves with what should really give them nourishment - their food!

I know that you can't change others, just yourself, so it is an interesting question.

rain in paradise!

and what glorious rain it is!

cools things down, and gives you a nice break from the heat.

also gives me some time to upload a few things I want to share with you.



now that's what I'm talking about!

in peace!

5% vs 95%

so who runs your world?

are you in control of what is happening in your life.

who do you feel is in charge?

• the government
• your boss
• your mum
• your partner
• your friends
• the media
• God

You might think all or none of the above runs your life. in any case the one thing to realise is that you are in charge. you are the boss of your body and your mind.

That's all well and fine then, you are in charge.

but how do you control yourself and where did it come from!



much love

We are the thieves

We are the thieves of our freedom.
We are the thieves of our life.
We are the thieves of our health.
We are the thieves of our good fortune
Through our choices we choose to have or not to to have.
Through our beliefs we choose to receive or reject.
Through our actions we create our life
Through consciousness we live

no one can steal your life away - but you.

Start question everything.

Been a bit docile of late when it comes to the writing of my blog....

I have however spent allot of time reading, doing research and moving to a new country, so I haven´t been inactive. Just tied up in what I perceive to be my reality.

Everything you learnt in school, university from press and TV, is not your knowledge, it is knowledge past down to you from someone else, this means that everything you know, or hold to be true, is not your knowledge but it is coming from somewhere.... how do you know you are not a part of a big lie?

How can you know that what you hold to be true is true?

Question everything!

What truly is truth, is a great question all by itself.

and here is my answer to the above question:

I would say, that truth is what you hold to be reality, and what your reality is for you will be your truth..... so with that logic, everything and nothing is true...

In religion and in politics, truth itself is usually the first casualty.

good questions to ask yourself:

What does someone (organizations, governments, business, etc) gain on me believing in X or trusting that Y is real.

Who is making money on X and Y.

Where does the information/knowledge for X and Y come from. where was it created, where can you read/see/hear about it.

Are there any opposing information/knowledge for X and Y.

When did X and Y become "truth".

Why would someone want me to think X and Y is true.

Does believing that X and Y is true limit me?

There is a war on Love and freedom - information is the greatest weapon you have to defend yourself against it. make your truth one that is helpful for life, freedom and love.

Anyway, it is time to speak up!!!



If you see the lies around you, it is not you who is mad, it's your surrounding.

Apathy is the greatest threat to the truth, for our freedom and for love.

it's time to wake up and not only smell the flowers, but also see the thorns.

The revolution is now, the revolution is love!

Music and Now Revolution

Because that's what friends do isn't it.

the world on higher downs
http://www.myspace.com/theworldonhigherdowns

Turn your speakers up and listen, rather nice I think.

keep believing, and keep preparing for the revolution. it will not be televised, and it will not be reported on by anyone but you. The revolution is already here, so wake up, start seeing the present, give thanks to the moment, you don't have to like what you see, but you have to see it for what it is, reality, and reality in itself is beautiful. Now is the only moment that matters, if you are not present Now, it will have past, so don't spend the Now thinking about the past or the what ifs of the future. think of the now, act on the now, and do the best of the now, now. Every thing you think of and do becomes your future, what you do now, will have an impact on your future, and the now is constantly changing as is the past and future. impact your future by being in the now with positive thoughts and positive actions, now creates your future, what you are thinking right now will create how you will respond, look or think about something in the future, or in the new now. try to catch your negative actions and thoughts when they come in the now. stop yourself when you are thinking of the what ifs from the past, think of the now. Think of the wonder that you are creating every moment of every second: your life. a truly glorious gift, make the most of it, and remember that you, your mind, your body and your spirit is free, and belongs to no man, woman, organization or government. you are born free, and it is your right to remain free. look around you and see what encroaches on your personal freedom and question it. you are free, and now is the moment to be free.

For the Revolution!

For the Now!

For Love

Because you are worth it!

Each and every one of us have the potential to be the best we can and each of us can do the best we can to release that potential.

We all come from different places and mindsets but that doesn't stop the fact that we can always improve, to release more of the greatness which is you.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
Mark Twain

It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not;

Don't set limits for your thoughts and dreams as you will never reach further than your beliefs. Negative thoughts will bring you negative results, and negative results will only give you confirmation that you were right, which is the only satisfaction you can reap from it.

If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.
Henrik Ibsen

Don't limit your life by limiting beliefs about yourself, you are a wonderful human being and you can manage anything you put your heart and mind to.

Most people never realize their own magnificence - and sadly the world is a darker place for it. What we see around us today is a society built on self-doubt, guilt, fear, confusion and self-hatred, to release you from thoughts that put blame on yourself, of any kind, is to invite life.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt

When you look at life without any of the negative feelings and insecurities you hold towards yourself and your circumstances you will start to enjoy every moment of it!

To be truly present is the greatest gift of all, and perhaps also the hardest. I assume this is why most people prefer hard presents - They are a metaphor for living in the NOW.

Don't let the past steal your present.
Cherralea Morgen

Every morning, seek out a mirror of your own choosing and look yourself in they eyes and say: "I am a beautiful, magnificent human being, and I am grateful for everything life brings me!"

Smile to yourself, take a deep breath and say it again.

"I am a beautiful, magnificent human being, and I am grateful for everything life brings me!"

keep repeating it as many times you feel like, you truly can't say it enough.

"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval"

Mark Twain

Through out the day, if you are having any negative thoughts, encounters or moments, which will set your mood in the wrong direction, think back to the morning chat you had with yourself. That's right, you, talking to yourself in the mirror. Remember that you are a beautiful, magnificent human being and what ever just happened was a gift from life, and guess what, you are grateful for it.

Take a deep breath, and slowly breath out, and thank yourself for being mindful enough to remind yourself of your magnificence.

All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts; only needing circumstances to evoke them. Charles Dickens

The road I am talking about so much (www.whatistheroad.blogspot.com) is happiness and joy, The reason it is a road is because life's a journey, not a destination, so don't try to get to a happier or better place, it doesn't exist anywhere, it exists everywhere at all times.

You are living it right now, embrace it!

That's it folks, keep on truckin!

Don't reinvent the wheel; don't change the wheel, just roll with it.