SpiritualBlog.com

Top articles for Feb 2009

Stop Living on auto-pilot – The Secrets of Conscious Living
How To Quit Smoking
Use Your Intuition or Lose It
Changing Life Patterns and Snapping Out of It!
Tantric Yoga – Techniques at Spiritual Blog

Great Reading

One of the recent articles worth checking out from the "Inner Noodle" is an excellent exploration of language and self-talk. Here are a few other articles posted this week that are worth reading:

Fear: The Reason Fear Is Good
Personal Development Roadblocks
How to Do Twice the Work in Half the Time
Can Spirit Guides Give Bad Advice?

Top Downloads

Fantastic Lucid Dreaming Trance Session

Experience deep trance and astral travel with the new Lucid Dreaming MP3 download. Lucid dreaming is dreaming that involves conscious awareness. Taking conscious control of dreams — connecting with the higher self and light bodies — and traveling to dream-realms.

There is said to be a secret underground organization that can predict how someone will act in advance. This organization uses the data from millions of street and network cameras in countries around the world to map and predict human behaviour.

Is this true? Does such an organization exist? For this topic it's not important – what is important is the following question:

If Someone Has a Recording Of 60-80 Hours or More of Your Behaviours (E.g. Driving … walking into shops … etc. the common places that are videotaped) Then How Much Could That Person Predict Your Future Behaviour?

Read on »

The number of thoughts and mental images we process is tremendous. Most of those images are digital content — whether it be TV, computer screens or MP3 audio. Consider the amount of content that goes into our minds on a constant basis.

The magnitude of content is much larger than it was a few decades ago – and even larger than it was just last decade.

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Tantric Yoga techniques have a spiritual basis that is often misunderstood. There is a big difference between being in a relationship that works and being in a relationship that flows. There is also a large difference between a regular sexual connection with another human being and an intimate emotional one.

Read on »

Interesting 5 minute movie-based palm reading hand chart on how to read palms. There is also a good reading at wikihow on this technique. The article outlines 4 lines which are important in palm reading: The Heart Line. The Head Line. The Life Line and The Fate Line.

Read the full article at wikihow

Over the next few weeks I'd like to cover some behaviour modification topics like how to quit smoking. Overcoming addictions like this is difficult and to do so is a commendable demonstration of willpower. In this article I'll talk about using positive and negative reinforcement for behaviour modification to quit smoking.

Most of us aren't aware that we can change our behaviour through simple behaviour modification plans. I wasn't aware of this up until a few months ago but I have found this to be an effective method of personal transformation and learning the value of exercising willpower.

It is after all quite difficult to just get up and claim: "I'm not going to do this from now on" and then expect results. You might as well claim the opposite! Our minds just don't function like that. Or at least not if we haven't trained them to.

Using Negative Reinforcement

People become addicted to something because it makes them feel good. It acts as a positive reinforcement – and this is what makes it so difficult to break the habit. So what we're going to do instead is to entrain a negative reinforcement each time after smoking.

Part One

Each time after smoking choose an undesirable consequence and put it into action. For example… after each cigarette place a $5 dollar bill inside a locked cabinet or coin storage case. Here our negative reinforcement is: losing five dollars for each cigarette smoked.

You will be able to open this cabinet after reducing the number of cigarettes smoked. It should have accumulated quite a lot of cash at that point! This is a positive outcome of achieving a difficult goal… Now smoking isn't all that "good" from the perspective of the subconscious mind. There is a sudden punishment there now.

Note that if $5 doesn't hold much value then this won't work. Pick something of value and hide or restrict it after each cigarette smoked and soon cigarettes will be associated with something bad.

Even as I put this image in front of readers it can trigger a craving for cigarettes. But train the mind with negative re-enforcers for a few weeks on a consistent basis and when looking at this image once again the immediate mental response will be disgust and aversion – not craving!

Positive Reinforcement

Part Two

Each time after smoking a cigarette write down the total number smoked in a notepad. Each evening look at the number of cigarettes smoked. If the number is less than the previous evening then do something rewarding such as watching extra TV or making some personal time to relax. This rewarding action is a positive re-enforcement.

You might also like to create a bigger reward towards the end of the week if the number of cigarettes smoked is reduced to half of what it was the previous week.

Part Three – Create a behaviour modification plan

Create a personal plan that lists the details below. I recommend keeping a notepad or even a digital journal to record and update this information.

1. Goal - quit smoking or reduce smoking?
2. Negative reinforcement - what will happen for each cigarette smoked?
3. Sub-goals - stepping stones on the path towards achieving the final goal. For example "smoke less than X cigarettes per week" is a sub-goal.
4. Positive rewards and reinforcements - which rewards will I use for each of the sub-goals reached?

Create a record to write all of this information and count each cigarette smoked. Make sure to enforce each of the negative and positive reinforcements. This takes some willpower at first. You can also ask for the support of friends or relatives in monitoring the progress towards each of the sub-goals and the final achievement of giving up smoking for good.

This is an effective method of overcoming addiction. It aims to reduce the positive reinforcement received from the addiction while increasing positive reinforcement for exercising willpower and avoiding the addiction.

Earlier this week I posted a short article about intuition that has got me thinking about horoscopes and "love calculator" readings for soulmates and relationships. There is at least one advertisement about 'love tests' each time I turn on the TV. It does surprise me somewhat about how much stock people put into these so-called calculators.

Horoscope charts can provide a great amount of insight and self-awareness when we sit down and read them in depth. But how about those advertisements that ask people to SMS in their name and their partner's name to evaluate how compatible their relationship is? To me it seems pointless.

Read on »

Intuition is the guide that each one of us has which leads us through life. The more we listen to our intuition the stronger it becomes. However if we neglect it then it disappears altogether – or become so small and insignificant that it has almost no meaning.

There are a number of reasons for developing intuition rather than ignoring it and letting it disappear. For one – it's much easier to be "in flow" with life when we trust our intuition. Individuals who believe that all of life's events need to be calculated to an absolute mathematical formula before making an informed decision are at a large disadvantage.

In fact what I have learnt about how intuition works indicates that it's not that much different from methodical and precise planning…

photo credit: Kuz

Developing Intuition

Your intuition resides in the subconscious mind. So when something happens that requires a "gut response" the subconscious mind does all of the calculation. It does all of the difficult processing. So the planning process is still there but we're not aware of it happening.

You trust the subconscious mind rather than demanding full conscious control of the process.

Each one of us stores millions of experiences within the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is also capable of processing millions of operations per second — it can compile plans and organize opportunities within milliseconds. How fast is the conscious mind?

The main point I am heading towards is that intuition is not some enigmatic force that leads us in the right direction. It's a part of each one of us. It arises out of surrendering to the universal consciousness – sub consciousness – or Super-ego (whatever we choose to call it).

Intuition Exercises To Do

For most of us the subconscious mind  prompts us with constant suggestions and insights all the time. But most of us ignore them putting the needs of the conscious ego first. So after a while that part of the mind becomes quite and stops offering advice.

On the other hand the more we listen to it and trust in this advice the louder the sound of intuition becomes.

Exercise

There is a mantra that works quite well for activating spiritual sight and intuition called the "OM" mantra.

One variation is to verbalise and pronounce the 'Ooommmm' sound while visualising the colour purple spiralling in a clockwise direction.

How To Know If Your Intuition Is Right

The biggest obstacle often arises when we're forced to choose between the rational mind and the intuition. The intuition will be right. But the question is "how do I know that what I'm feeling is intuition and not an emotion of false hope for example?"

In the beginning stages of developing intuition it is difficult to discern the difference and to separate emotions that conceal themselves as intuition. However as our intuition strengthens it develops a loud and clear voice of its own that becomes unmistakable. Practising Mantras and self-trust goes quite far in developing intuition and a heightened sense of spiritual coordination and guidance.

Few people are conscious of the astounding and life-changing power that images have. Self-image is one of the major internal "images" that each one of us has come to hold on to. However there are image representations all around us — images that represent fragments of our world.

It's fascinating how someone can make us feel different just through how that person sees us. How often is it that people adapt their behaviour based on how others see them?

photo credit: coin

Do You See what I see?

From right at the beginning of childhood if a teacher does not see potential and unlimited possibilities in each child and in fact perceives some children as inferior then the negative effect is tremendous. It's not about just what's said or even implied in interpersonal relationships that defines people. It's how we see each other.

There is an interesting point to note here that a therapist cannot help his clients if he doesn't believe in them. In fact we cannot do much at all if we don't believe that others are capable and have the resources to move forward on their own.

Imagine that the Buddha taught a school class in the modern education structure. Imagine how much potential would arise in each of the students. It doesn't take a bunch of lessons stating "You Can't" achieve this and that to limit an individual's self-image. It just requires that Your self image is limited to start off with! Your self-image determines Your Capabilities to see greater potential in others and to bring that potential out.

If we look with disapproval and expectation and condescension then we compress the amount of "space" others around us have to allow their self-image to shine. On the other hand practice seeing each individual person as a greater being than their surface-presentation and that person will have the space to actualise their self-image.

photo credit: ago1.com

The genuine self-image that each individual is born with is that of light: the potential to flow in new directions of experience. But when that self-image is defined in absolute terms this flow becomes limited. "Is this all I am?" is one of the questions that come to mind. Just through seeing oneself as more we see others around us as more too. To see is to allow. To see resourcefulness in others is to allow resourcefulness. To see happiness is to allow happiness. To see negative intentions is also to allow (and encourage) negative intentions.

To see is to allow

The following is a useful technique to practice becoming aware of one's own self-image.

Imagine in mind-sight a large black TV box. This large TV is blank and centred right in the middle of the mind.

Now on this TV screen imagine a stream of images from a significant conversation that happened in the last week with someone else or with the group of people. Just allow the visual images from this event float on to the mental TV screen as the picture sharpens.

Include as much detail as possible from the memories recollected about this conversation. The TV picture is now moving from frame-to-frame as the event progresses as though memories running like a DVD streaming in the mind. Imagine that this event was recorded on a camcorder.

photo credit: globalindex

You are seeing the entire conversation occurring from the perspective of the camera. Remember the camera does not have feelings or judgements. It just sees what is.

Now consider what is. Consider what this conversation or event looks like from this other perspective. Most of the time when practising this retrospection exercise we pick up on behaviour and attitudes present in ourselves and others that we had no idea about during the actual conversation. It's when we "rewind" and look at it again that a number of these realisations about hidden assumptions come to surface.

If we run through our old tapes and clear out the mental archives there is a goldmine of information available to us. Information about our patterns and associations that the mind has recorded. Each time we look at one of these visual recordings a little bit of insight becomes known about our  perceived self-image. That insight often comes in the form of "this is how I choose to project who I am – but it's not who I am (at least not in absolute terms)."

Our emotions from the past come up again and again in the present situations. One of the habits that people are conditioned to have is to follow the same patterns. If someone makes us feel uncomfortable after a certain action then the chances are that we won't do that same thing again in the future.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgxEpzCB9bU]

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