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Firewalking: Testing the Power of your Mind

Garima Roy
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0
Firewalking: Testing the Power of your Mind

For seminar 4 Firewalking, a traditional practice dating back to 4000 years ago, is based on the theory of mind over matter or understanding the mind with matter. Fire being one of the five elements of Earth, is considered an important tool for self-development and evolvement, and the ritual of firewalking is engraved in many cultures.

Firewalking has been practiced in many parts of the world for rites of healing, initiation, and faith. The earliest reference dating back to Ancient India, then Africa, China and Greece, Japan, New Zealand, Mauritius, Spain, Tahiti, Fiji islands, the Kahunas of the Hawaiian Islands, and several other fragments of the world. It is also quite popular among the Native Americans.

People wonder how does one go through the process of firewalking without getting burned? For many years people actually believed that it was a miracle and the ones who lacked faith and power ended up getting burnt.

However, there is a concrete reasoning behind the technicalities of firewalking. To understand the logic, you will have to understand the physics of heat conduction. In simpler terms, when you open the oven to take out a baked cake, you don’t fear putting your hand in the over air, this is because air is a poor conductor of heat. marche-sur-le-feu-reunion-1
Similarly, the wood or coal, which is used for firewalking, is almost entirely made up of carbon, which is a poor conductor of heat. It takes a relatively long time for heat to transfer from the glowing coal to your skin, even when the temperature of the coal is over 1000 degrees F.

Another reason is that our feet and palms largely consist of water and water takes time to heat up. You get burnt when you are in contact with the object for a longer duration and firewalking is a brisk form of walking which takes about few seconds (3-10 seconds), so there is no scope of getting burned.

However, if there are foreign objects like metal in the coal, chances are you might get injured; therefore, you should attempt firewalking with the help of an instructor who will ensure, you have a safe experience. Fire walking instructors are found across the world.

Why fire walking?

Firewalking is not just limited to adrenaline rush that you get after bungee jumping or skydiving. As I mentioned before, its spiritual benefits have been observed since ages. The impact of firewalking on the mind and body leads to an understanding of our thought patterns that eventually impact our body. For example, a person with negative thoughts is constantly evoking reaction of negative chemicals (hormones) in his/her body.
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On the other hand, positive thoughts of a person keeps his/her body in a positive state, keeping negative hormones (Cortisol etc.) at bay. Our state of body highly depends on our state of mind, which is constantly producing chemicals (good or bad) using our thoughts as a catalyst. During firewalking, a person is supposed to observe his/her thoughts and alter it into positive, thereby instigating positive reactions in the body.

Fire walking instructors have noticed that people with negative thoughts (fear, anger) live with negative chemicals in their body, and their belief that they will get burned turns out to be true. If your mind anticipates harm, so will your body, and, of course, the other way round. Firewalking teaches one to be a careful observer of their thoughts and see it’s power after indulging in the activity.

After firewalking many people have been able to think positively and differently. It can help your mind integrate the idea that things which seem impossible can be possible. Just like in daily life, our problems seem like they have no solution – until we shift our perspective.

After all, everything exists within you and your mind. The exercise of firewalking is a beautiful representation to demonstrate the same. It is not magic, but a beautiful amalgamation of science and spirituality.

Here is an interesting video that talks about firewalking and it’s healing and spiritual advantages.

References and Image Source
Firewalking theory

Oil Pulling, Your Gateway to Good Health

Bhavika
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22
Oil Pulling, Your Gateway to Good Health

Every morning for the past 12 days, my husband has been swishing a tablespoon of coconut oil in his mouth for 20 minutes. After widely reading about the immense benefits of ‘Oil Pulling’ for oral health (since he has a lot of cavities), he was curious to try it out.

What is Oil Pulling?

oil pullingOil Pulling, an ancient Ayurvedic method that has been around for thousands of years, detoxifies and cleanses our body by pulling out harmful bacteria, fungus and other organisms from the mouth, teeth and gums.

According to Ayurveda each section of the tongue connects to or corresponds to different organs like the liver, heart, kidneys, lungs, spleen, pancreas, small intestines, stomach, colon, and spine.

When you swish the oil around the tongue, you effectively soothe and stimulate the key meridians of the body, and their corresponding organs.

How to do Oil Pulling?

It simply involves swishing a tablespoon of unrefined oil in your mouth, “pushing, pulling and swirling” it between your teeth, around your gums, and allow it to touch every part of your mouth (like how you would use a mouthwash, except don’t gargle with it). Continue doing this for about 15-20 minutes.

Lipids in the oil begin to draw toxins out of the saliva. Also as the oil mixes with the saliva, it turns into a thin, white liquid. Ensure that you do not swallow the oil as the swished oil contains bacteria and toxins. If the oil is still yellow, then it has not been pulled long enough.

After you are done swishing, spit the toxic oil from the mouth, then rinse and wash your mouth thoroughly. Oil pulling is done best before breakfast, but it can be done at any time. To accelerate the healing process, you can repeat it three times a day, but always before meals on an empty stomach.

You can use oils like cold-pressed sesame, coconut, olive and sunflower oil. Oil Pulling is one of the easiest ways to improve your oral health (study 1) naturally, especially if you use coconut oil (study 3), which is a powerful destroyer of all kinds of microbes, from viruses to bacteria to protozoa, many of which can be harmful.

What Happens after Oil Pulling?

benefits-of-oil-pullingThe first thing you will notice after you start oil pulling is an improvement in your oral health – whiter teeth, fresher breath, and healthy looking tongue and gums. Even problems such as bleeding gums, tooth decay, and gum disease greatly diminish or completely heal.

Bruce Fife, author of Oil Pulling Therapy: Detoxifying and Healing the Body Through Oral Cleansing, mentions, “Oil pulling is one of the most remarkable methods of detoxification and healing I have ever experienced in my career as a naturopathic physician. It helped me overcome a chronic skin problem that other forms of detoxification, including numerous juice fasts lasting up to 30 days, were unable to cure.

Oil pulling can work its magic almost instantly. Some people report relief from certain conditions after doing it only once. Minor problems often clear up within a few days. More serious, chronic problems may require a few weeks or several months or more depending on lifestyle issues.”

It is believed to help those with chronic sinus congestion, asthma, allergies, fatigue, diabetes, migraine headaches, PMS, and skin disorders such as psoriasis. We need to understand that oil pulling is an ancient ayurveda remedy and it takes time to show effective results. Its a simple, completely harmless and inexpensive method unlike other medical treatments, that it’s hard to ignore it!

(Always do you research before trying out anything new. Certain chronic or serious conditions require extra care and only this simple method might not be enough.)

References:
Study 1
Study 2
Study 3
Benefits

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The Fractal Hologram: A Story of Death and Rebirth

Joey Hartley
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12
The Fractal Hologram: A Story of Death and Rebirth

You can feel it, can’t you? I’m talking about the collective sickness that lives within us and is projected into the physical world around us. The cancer has grown and spread throughout our bodies.

We are now terminally ill. Don’t be afraid. Fear is not the answer. Fear is the disease. It’s going to kill you. It’ll kill us all. This is a story of death and rebirth.

Looking through the pages of human history we find a common trend; an endless pattern of creation and annihilation. A dream within a dream becomes misguided by fear and we scramble to hold on to an intangible illusion. Every thought that we subjectively experience sends a ripple throughout the super hologram.

Like billions of spiders building a web, we co-create a matrix of information to be perceived as reality. Our individual perception of this reality is but a single pattern within an infinite fractal. The more powerful our beliefs become, the more they influence the super hologram.

Consciousness creates. Everywhere we look we will find. What we find depends on what we believe. What we see outside of us is but a projection of what lives within us. We pass down our stories from one generation to the next; idolizing the righteous heroes that have courageously faced the demons of their time in order to save the day. It is an endless expression of duality. We create darkness just to have a void to fill with our own light.
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The demons that we’re fighting are our own creations. The monsters that we see in the world around us live inside of us. We are not at war with some dark force that is independent of ourselves. We are at war with our self. We have created a disease for which there is no cure.

Created by fear, our sickness has become manifested within the matrix and continues to spread. We seek to heal ourselves, but yet we perpetuate the disease. From the disease model of medicine to the planet’s polluted environment, it is all a reflection of the sickness that lives within us.

We cannot heal our self individually without healing the entire super hologram. You see, an interesting characteristic of a hologram is that if you look at any small part of the hologram, you see the entire hologram. This is the fractal universe.

We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively from infinite perspectives; united by love. The hologram is merely a web of information; an illusion. Understand that who you are beneath form and self-identification is indestructible. The body will die, but that which animates the body will live on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkDicwjRQs

The disease has contaminated the ego, and it is terminally ill. Like the phoenix, humanity must die and be reborn from the ashes. The individual self must die before we can evolve to compassionately embrace the whole of existence as our self. Stop fearing the suffering that you experience. We are all experiencing it. It is part of our transformation.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could spare them from all suffering? No, it wouldn’t. They would not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things. Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form. A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego–but not until you suffer consciously.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

We currently stand on the threshold of transformation unlike anything ever before experienced. Through the awakening of our true self, we will live together in harmony with the understanding that although we perceive our existence subjectively, we are all a single being. We are one light that is fragmented into many colors.

When you suffer in this life, remember that this is only a dream. Tell yourself that fear is a liar. Only love exists, and it is who you are fundamentally. Be here now and enjoy the journey. Experience the duality and uncertainty with faith, knowing that this is a passing dream that you chose to experience. To awaken is to find yourself at home in each step.

The Healing Properties of Water Stored in Copper

Bhavika
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52
The Healing Properties of Water Stored in Copper

During my childhood days, I remember my mother storing water in a copper vessel, and we used to drink it after keeping it in the vessel for 7-8 hours. She claimed that water when stored in a copper vessel was extremely healthy for the mind and body.

Now, when I see these ancient customs re-emerging, I look back and think, I should have taken my mom’s advice seriously.

Ayurvedic texts recommend drinking water stored in copper, because copper is believed to have anti-microbial, antioxidant, anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory properties.

It’s an essential mineral for our body, and medical studies have proved the benefits of drinking water stored in copper jugs or glasses, although not in excess.

Research supports healing properties of water stored in copper

According to a 2012 study, storing contaminated water in copper pots for up to 16 hours at room temperature considerably reduced the presence of harmful microbes. The researchers inferred, “Copper holds promise as a point-of-use solution for microbial purification of drinking-water, especially in developing countries.”

Another study found that copper surfaces killed 97% of hospital ICU bacteria that can cause infections, resulting in 40% decrease in the infection rates.

While another very interesting research was conducted to check, if wearing a copper bracelet has a placebo effect on arthritis patients. The researchers came to a conclusion that wearing a copper bracelet on your wrist or ankle can have a therapeutic value.

The effect of water stored in copper on the Doshas

“If you keep water in a copper vessel, preferably overnight or at least for four hours, the water acquires a certain quality from the copper which is very good for your liver in particular and your health and energy in general.” ~ Sadhguru

Ayurveda texts suggest that water stored in a copper vessel has the ability to balance all the three doshas in your body (vata, kapha and pitta).

Doshas is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘mind-body constitution’ and all three doshas are present in every cell, tissue, and organ – for movement, metabolism, and fluidity – are essential components of our life.

How will you benefit by drinking water in copper?

  • benefits-of-drinking-water-stored-in-copperDrinking a glass of water from a copper vessel (at room temperature) flushes the kidneys and the gastrointestinal tract.
  • Copper is a good tonic for the liver, spleen, and lymphatic system.
  • Helps in maintaining digestive health
  • Stimulates your brain
  • Produces melanin (pigmentation of eyes, hair and skin) in our bodies
  • Helps in absorption of iron in the body
  • Kills harmful bacteria in water
  • Regulates the functioning of the thyroid gland
  • Relieves aches and pains caused due to swollen joints like in case of arthritis
  • Slows down ageing
  • Help regulate blood pressure, heart rate and lowers one’s cholesterol and triglyceride levels
  • Heal wounds faster

You simply need to pour water in a jug, keep it overnight and drink the positively charged water early morning or 2-3 times in a day – that is more than enough to reap its benefits. Don’t refrigerate that water. Wash the copper pot regularly with fresh lemon or a paste made out of salt and tamarind.

In this modern age, we often choose convenience over a healthier living – drinking bottled water for example is not only harmful for the environment but also pose health risks. Isn’t it better to follow this old practice instead?

(Always do your research before you start with something new. Don’t overdo this process…)

Image Source and references

Copper benefits
Copper properties
Copper

6 Steps to Transforming Ego into Soul

Gary Z McGee
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16
6 Steps to Transforming Ego into Soul

We live in an excessively unhealthy culture. We are constantly surrounded by victims. This is because we are all victims of an egocentric society, and hence victims of our own ego-attachment to such perspectives.

I’ve written about transforming wounds into wisdom and victims into warriors.

This article will analyze tactics for transforming Ego into Soul; to go from a state of instability to a state of impeccability.

ego-soul1. Expand all boundaries

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” ~ Bruce Lee

Utopia is a goal, never an end. When I walk two steps, the goal moves two steps further into the horizon. What is the goal for? It’s a reminder to keep moving, to keep going. Don’t stop, because the goal is constantly moving further and further away. Indeed, the journey truly is the thing.

Keep stretching your comfort zone until it becomes the world then keep stretching it until it becomes the universe, and then keep going. Never stop.

Like Sarah Lewis wrote in The Rise, “Masters are not masters because they take a subject to its conceptual end. They are masters because they realize that there isn’t one. On utterly smooth ground, the path from aim to attainment is in the permanent future.”

2. Subsume nature

“Tradition is the illusion of permanence.” ~ Woody Allen

Exhaust the primitive. Nothing remains the same. The only permanence is the impermanence of nature. When we subsume nature we realize that we are nature. We realize that we are constantly changing along with nature.

starve-the-egoThe only healthy response to an every-changing system is to be open to change. We do so by exhausting the primitive both within and outside us so as to shatter any and all illusions of tradition or permanence.

I always hear this argument against the nature-based perspective: that the primitive is nowhere near as efficacious for the control of nature as our domesticated civilization. To which I retort: But of course, nature-based living may not be able to control the world, but at least it isn’t in any danger of destroying it.

Our civilization controls the world up to a point at which it seems to be destroying it. And so we have become the antithesis of man as human animal (ego), whereas nature-based man is the apotheosis (soul).

Instead of only using our vainglorious narcissistic faces as mirrors for each other, we need to once again learn how to use the entire cosmos as a reflection.

Like Jung fabulously articulated, “What is needed is to call a halt to the fatal dissociation that exists between our higher and lower being; we must unite the conscious aspect with the primitive.”

3. Verify the irrational

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” ~ Tony Schwartz

Nothing entrenches the ego in itself more than certainty. Always leave room for doubt, especially in such areas as religion, nationalism, sexuality and racism. irrational_number_pi_bannerThe soul flies when the ego dies. It is from the blood and guts of the ego that the soul gets its fuel for flight.

Like the blood and guts of the caterpillar must be annihilated in order to transform into the butterfly, so too must our egos be annihilated.

We do this by consistently verifying the irrational. We do this by constantly interrogating our worldviews. We do this by daily questioning and re-questioning our perspectives in relation to others.

Like Philip Guston wrote, “To know and then how not to know is the greatest puzzle of all… so much preparation for a few moments of desperate play. To learn how to unlearn.”

Remember: God interrogating itself to the limit is you; you interrogating yourself to the limit is God. Like Gerry Spence said, “I’d rather have a mind open by wonder than one closed by belief.”

4. Obtain a sublime reputation

“The day you stop racing, is the day you win the race.” ~ Bob Marley

When it comes to advice about life, my attitude is very simple: seek it out, absorb it, synthesize it, but when you are in the throes of living, forget it, and just live it. There is transcendence in letting go of transcendence.

The daily rat race of chasing money for the sake of money has us all going through the motions of chasing each other’s tails through an indecipherable maze of one-upmanship. Let. It. Go! Live your life. Don’t let life live you.

If there is somebody telling you it can’t be done, inspire them by showing them how it can be done. Uplift the downtrodden. Move the unmoved. Exalt the un-exalted. Don’t just inspire, inspire awe through daily acts of courage and love.

The status quo is the Ego’s prison. But the bars are an illusion. It’s up to you to realize that fact and free yourself, and then act as an example for others through your sublime reputation. Then again…

best way to predict future

5. Create one demon at least

“The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Create at least one monster. Life is full of shoulds and shouldnots. It’s also full of should-a, would-a, could-a. One way to decalcify the ego, and thus magnify the soul, is by creating our own art: the kind of art that rejuvenates the spirit and is cathartic for the ego.

Art is less about what you have not done and more about what you have done. The demon to be created and then consumed is the transformation of what we have not done into something we have done. This usually takes the form of art. Like Bertolt Brecht said, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

This seems contradictory to #4 but this is only because art is contradictory. Objectively, art is alive in a way forbidden natural objects and, subjectively, in a way subsuming the subjects who create them.

We humans are a fallible species. More so we are an excruciatingly complex and insecure species. Art is the cathartic process of our self-actualized inadequacies. Through our own creative expression we, in one fell swoop, free our demons and give them wings.

Like Scott Adams wrote, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

So create at least one empathymonster. Scare people with it. Shake them out of their too-comfortable comfort zones. Have the courage of the artist. Her courage is the ability to swallow the status quo and create new forms of perceiving.

Like Bansky brilliantly tagged: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

6. Inhabit everyone

“Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

Sojourn with all things. Try your best to “walk a mile in their shoes” or “stand on the shoulders of giants.” If you can consistently do this, then your wisdom will become a force to be reckoned with. The reason is because of the interconnectedness of all things, cosmically, and our need for empathy, socially. We need each other. Our insecurity alone reveals that absolute fact.

Empathy shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s vulnerability. Being vulnerable is constantly being in a state to receive new information without fear that it will change us; because it will change us. And that’s okay.

Like Alexander Velazquez pointed out: “Buddha mapped enlightenment as the nautical ley lines to inner peace. Jesus walked on waves of self-sacrifice and plotted love as a way to helm the soul to salvation. Nietzsche rode against currents of religious piety—and in the face of that behemoth, sailed the breakers of nihilism to eternal joy. King sailed through channels of racial inequality and anchored western culture to paths of desegregation.

Malcom challenged legions of racist warships and conquered waters of racial identity and power. Sartre showed us clouds of self-creation and tactical action as the guide to horizons of happiness. Gödel built compasses of mathematical rebellion to defy currents and streams, enabling circumnavigation through new straits.

Wittgenstein stripped ships of their excess cargo of intangible and irrelevant philosophy in pursuit of truth. And Jung, by covering the entire ocean of the spirit, drew our first maps of the person. It is in studying carefully these great maps and utilizing their initiatives that we can invent new means and passages to distant frontiers.”

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