Eastern Body Western Mind Quotes

The Presence of the demon keeps the chakra from doing its job, but that challenge also forces us to bring more awareness to that job, so eventually we can do it better.

The mighty oak was once a little nut that stood its ground.

We either get success or lessons. If we learn our lessons successfully, we get both.

If it is true that you are what you eat, it may just as accurately be said that you are what you listen to. STEVEN HALPERN

Devotion is a spiritual act of egoless surrender. When the Self blinds the spirit too tightly, then devotion expands the blinding by lifting us beyond ourselves. We get the powerful lesson that the Self survives even without constant attention.

Our culture, so proud of its mind-over-matter philosophy, cuts us off from our bodily experience and from the earth itself. In this severance, our sexuality is negated, our senses assaulted, our environment abused, and our power manipulated. Our ground is our form, and without it we lose our individuality.

Lose your mind and come to your senses. FRITZ PERLS

how can we know all the possibilities in an infinite universe?

How would you behave if you knew you were a God or Goddess? How would you treat yourself, how would you treat others? What kind of consciousness would you hold about your smallest actions if you knew their effects influenced the rest of creation? If your awakenings could bring joy to the multitudes? What kind of mindfulness would that inspire?

Shame-bound people honor their thoughts more than their instincts, especially the internal voices that constantly tell them how worthless and inferior they are. Spontaneity is limited by internal scrutiny, which binds and disempowers the will.

To the extent that you actually realize that you are not, for example, your anxieties, then your anxieties no longer threaten you. Even if anxiety is present, it no longer overwhelms you because you are no longer exclusively tied to it. You are no longer courting it, fighting it, resisting it, or running from it. In the most radical fashion, anxiety is thoroughly accepted as it is and allowed to move as it will. You have nothing to lose, nothing to gain, by its presence or absence, for you are simply watching it pass by. Thus, any emotion, sensation, thought, memory, or experience that disturbs you is simply one with which you have exclusively identified yourself, and the ultimate resolution of the disturbance is simply to dis-identify with it. You cleanly let all of them drop away by realizing that they are not you--since you can see them, they cannot be the true Seer and Subject. Since they are not your real self, there is no reason whatsoever for you to identify with them, hold on to them, or allow your self to be bound by them. Slowly, gently, as you pursue this dis-identification "therapy," you may find that your entire individual self (persona, ego, centaur), which heretofore you have fought to defend and protect, begins to go transparent and drop away. Not that it literally falls off and you find yourself floating, disembodied, through space. Rather, you begin to feel that what happens to your personal self—your wishes, hopes, desires, hurts—is not a matter of life-or-death seriousness, because there is within you a deeper and more basic self which is not touched by these peripheral fluctuations, these surface waves of grand commotion but feeble substance. Thus, your personal mind-and-body may be in pain, or humiliation, or fear, but as long as you abide as the witness of these affairs, as if from on high, they no longer threaten you, and thus you are no longer moved to manipulate them, wrestle with them, or subdue them. Because you are willing to witness them, to look at them impartially, you are able to transcend them. As St. Thomas put it, "Whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature." Thus, if the eye were colored red, it wouldn't be able to perceive red objects. It can see red because it is clear, or "redless." Likewise, if we can but watch or witness our distresses, we prove ourselves thereby to be "distress-less," free of the witnessed turmoil. That within which feels pain is itself pain-less; that which feels fear is fear-less; that which perceives tension is tensionless. To witness these states is to transcend them. They no longer seize you from behind because you look at them up front.

Soul is the individual expression of spirit, and spirit is the universal expression of soul.

All abusive relationships teach a form of love. JOHN BRADSHAW

The shadow side of this exposure is that, at least in the West, any cultural meme that gets seized by the collective consciousness runs the risk of trivialization, thus diluting its power.

Many spiritual disciplines, especially those oriented toward ascendance, advise us to give up the self, to surrender all to a master, guru, or a particular concept of God. While it is important to give up attachments to the lower egos, what is really called for is to become one with the divine. There is no we without an I. To become one with the divine is not to abandon the Self (as archetype of wholeness) but to realize that divine consciousness of who that Self really is.

Though we have talked about the chakras individually, remember that we are a complete, indivisible system. What affects one part affects the whole. As we change ourselves, so do we change the world.

The traumas and abuses we suffer as children, the lack of consciousness with which we operate, the blind spots of our culture -all these serve to shut us down and twist our path off its basic course.

Sound awareness is especially important, for although we easily close our mouth and eyes to what we don’t want to take in, we can’t really close our ears. Nature did not give us earlids. Our ears remain open and working even when we sleep. STEVEN HALPERN

The more we allow one kind of energy, the more the other can come through. Once a commitment is made, it is easier to allow a partner their solitude or freedom. Once we know our freedom is respected, we can more easily make a commitment. Conversely, the more a partner insists on one aspect, the more his lover will yearn for its opposite. Dynamic balance is a dance between attachment and freedom.

All life is rhythmic. From the rise and fall of the sun to the rise and fall of our breath, from the beating of our heart to the infinite vibrations of atomic particles within our cells, we are a mass of vibrations that miraculously resonate together as a single system. In fact, our ability to function as a unified whole depends upon the coherent resonance of the many subtle vibrations within us. The task of the fifth chakra is to enhance this resonance.

And the day came when the need to remain closed became more painful than the risk to open. ANONYMOUS

The purpose of the fourth chakra in the system as a whole is to get us to expand beyond our limited egos into a wider sense of connection with all life. This is the movement of the liberating current. While it is important not to deny or neglect the smaller self, it is indeed a liberating experience to rise beyond the confines of our own needs and find joy in service and altruism.

As we interact with others, our etheric fields become engaged. The most rewarding connections occur when there is resonance between vibrational fields. Just as people who speak the same language resonate with spoken symbols, the subtle resonance between our etheric field and those of others deepens our feeling of connection. The greater our internal resonance, the more deeply we can resonate with those around us.

All life is rhythmic. From the rise and fall of the sun to the rise and fall of our breath, from the beating of our heart to the infinite vibrations of atomic particles within our cells, we are a mass of vibrations that miraculously resonate together as a single system.

At the level of the fifth chakra, our attention moves from the physical plane into the subtler etheric fields. Commonly known as the aura, this etheric field is generated by the totality of internal processes—from the energetic exchange of subatomic particles to the digestion of food in our cells, from the firing of neurons to our current emotional state, and on to the larger rhythms of our outer activities. Our very life force can be seen as a stream of pulsating energy. When the stream is not fragmented by blocks in the body armor, then pulsation moves freely through the body and out into the world. This streaming creates a resonant, etheric field around the body—an aura of wholeness. A resonant field makes coherent connections with the outside world. A fragmented field makes fragmented connections.

Love her,” he told the man. “I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore,” the man replied. “Love her,” Covey replied. “You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there,” repeated the man. “Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.” “But how do you love when you do not love?” asked the man. Covey replied: “My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?” Love is a feeling, yes, but a feeling that is created out of action. The fourth chakra sits neatly above the third chakra will. Love is a daily, even hourly, conscious commitment to behave in a loving and caring fashion toward ourselves and others. When the feeling fades, it is our responsibility to find ways to create new love. Like a garden that is carefully tended, the rewards are well worth the effort.

Love her,” he told the man. “I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore,” the man replied. “Love her,” Covey replied. “You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there,” repeated the man. “Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.” “But how do you love when you do not love?” asked the man. Covey replied: “My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?” Love is a feeling, yes, but a feeling that is created out of action. The fourth chakra sits neatly above the third chakra will. Love is a daily, even hourly, conscious commitment to behave in a loving and caring fashion toward ourselves and others. When the feeling fades, it is our responsibility to find ways to create a new love. Like a garden that is carefully tended, the rewards are well worth the effort.

Hisako Arato... ... is an expert at medicinal cooking!" MEDICINAL COOKING Based on both Western and Eastern medicinal practices, it melds together food and pharmaceutical science. It is a culinary specialty that incorporates natural remedies and Chinese medicine into recipes to promote overall dietary health. "Besides the four traditional natural remedies, I also added Jiāng Huáng, Dà huí Xiāng, and Xiāo huí Xiāng... ... to create my own original 'Medicinal Spice Mix.' Steeping them in water for an hour drew out their medicinal properties. Then I added the mutton and various vegetables and boiled them until they were tender. Some Shaoxing wine and a cilantro garnish at the end gave it a strong, refreshing fragrance. " "That's right! Now that you mention it, there's a whole lot of overlap between medicinal cooking and curry. The medicinal herbs Jiāng Huáng, Dà huí Xiāng, and Xiāo huí Xiāng are commonly called turmeric, star anise and fennel! All three of those are spices any good curry's gotta have!" "By basing her dish on those spices, she was able to tie her medicinal cooking techniques into the curry. That makes this a dish that only she could create!" "Yes. This is my version of a Medicinal Curry... It's called 'Si wu Tang Mutton Curry'!" "I can feel it! I can feel the healing energies flowing through my body!" "Delicious! The spices highlight the strong, robust flavor of the mutton perfectly! And the mild sweetness of the vegetables has seeped into the roux, mellowing the overall flavor!" Thanks to Si wu Tang, just a few bites have the curry's heat spreading through my whole body!" "Yes. Si wu Tang is said to soothe the kidneys, boost inner chi... ... and purge both body and mind of impurities!