Recent findings in remote temple sites where these traditions remain today, combined with new research into some of the most sacred and esoteric traditions of our past, lead me to believe that the answer is “Yes!”

Much of our conditioning in western traditions for the last one and one half millennia has invited us to “ask” that specific circumstances in our world change through divine intervention; that our prayers be answered. In our well-intentioned asking, however, we may unknowingly empower the very conditions that we are praying to change. For example, when we ask, “Dear God, please let there be peace in the world,” in effect we are stating that peace does not exist in the present.

Ancient traditions remind us that prayers of asking are one form of prayer, among other forms, that empower us to find peace in our world through the quality of thought, feeling and emotion that we create in our body. Once we allow the qualities of peace in our mind and fuel our prayer through feelings of peace in our body, the fifth mode of prayer states that the outcome has already happened.

Quantum science now takes this idea one step further, stating that it is precisely such conditions of feeling that creation responds to, by matching the feeling (prayer) of our inner world with like conditions in our outer world. Though the outcome of our prayer may not yet be apparent in our outer world, we are invited to acknowledge our communion with creation and live as if our prayer has already been answered.

Through the words of another time, the ancients invited us to embrace our lost mode of prayer as a consciousness that we become, rather than a prescribed form of action that we perform upon occasion. In words that are as simple as they are elegant, we are reminded to be “surrounded” by the answer to our prayers and “enveloped” by the conditions that we choose to experience. In the modern idiom, this description suggests to us that to effect change in our world, we are invited to first have the feelings of the change having happened.

As modern science continues to validate a relationship between our thoughts, feelings and dreams with the world that surrounds us, it becomes more likely that a forgotten bridge links our prayers with that of our experience. The beauty of such an inner technology is that it is based upon human qualities that we already possess. From the prophets who saw us in their dreams, we are reminded that in honoring all life, we accomplish nothing less than the survival of our species and the future of the only home we know.

Comparing Modes of Prayer Through the Example of Global Peace

Logic-based prayer: asking for intervention:

1. We Focus upon present conditions where we believe that peace does not exist.

2. We may feel helpless, powerless or angry at the events and conditions that we are witness to.

3. We employ our prayer of asking by inviting divine intervention from a higher power to bring peace to bear upon individuals, conditions and places where we believe that peace is absent.

4. Through our asking, we may unknowingly affirm the very conditions that we least desire. When we say “Please let there be peace,” for example, we are declaring that peace is not present in a particular situation. In doing so, we may actually fuel the condition that we have chosen to change.

5. We continue to ask for intervention until we see the change actually come to pass in our world.

Feeling-based prayer: knowing that our prayer is already answered

1. We witness all events, those of peace and those that we see as the absence of peace, as possibilities without judgement of right, wrong, bad or good.

2. We release our judgement of the situation by Blessing those conditions that have caused us pain. The Blessing does not condone or consent to the event or condition. Rather, it acknowledges that the event is part of the single source of all that is. (Please see the book, Walking Between the Worlds: The Science of Compassion, for details.)

3. By feeling the feelings of our prayer already answered, we demonstrate the ancient quantum principle stating that the conditions of peace within our bodies are mirrored in the world beyond our bodies.

4. We acknowledge the power of our prayer and know (feel) that the focus of our prayer has already come to pass.

5. Our prayer now consists of:

a. acknowledging the peace already is present in our world by living from the knowledge that such changes have occurred.

b. empowering our prayer by giving thanks for the opportunity to choose peace over suffering.

About the Author:
A former Senior Computer Systems Designer for Martin Marietta Aerospace, Computer geologist for Phillips Petroleum and a Technical Operations Manager for Cisco Systems, Braden is now considered a leading authority on bridging the wisdom of our past with the science and peace of our future. Through his journeys into the remote mountain villages, temples and monasteries of times past, Braden marries the wisdom of ancient traditions and modern science to benefit our lives today.

For more information visit: Gregg Braden

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Meditation does require some effort, or personal discipline, and it takes up the most precious commodity in our lives – time. Yet, to derive all of the benefits takes practice. So why go to all the trouble of learning to meditate? Isn’t it all too hard? The short answer is that learning to meditate will invariably help your well-being. One of the best answers is that you will feel the benefits almost immediately, which is definitely one of the greatest aspects of meditation. I like to think of meditation as an insurance policy to protect your most precious asset – your mind.

The core benefit of meditation is that it’s a proven way to truly rest and clear your mind. We know how important it is to rest our body. We could not keep going for days on end without resting. We do not work most machines continuously without giving them a rest, for fear they might heat up and explode. But somehow, when it comes to resting our minds, we imagine the same laws don’t apply.

Most people consider sleep to be the best way to rest and rejuvenate their minds. But a growing problem in today’s world is that sleep does not equal rest for many people. And the lack of mental rest is not merely caused by lack of sleep, because when we sleep, we keep processing information from the day or other issues that needed but did not get our attention. In essence, we still use our minds during sleep. It is not easy to give the mind the real rest it craves.

We also have the notion that we can rest our minds when we go on vacation or just take time away from our normal life. How many times have you been on vacation, sitting on a lovely beach or walking in the green hills somewhere, when suddenly – pop! – up comes some worry or concern? How often has the stress of day-to-day life reemerged in your head the minute your relaxing vacation was over?

What is happening is that – despite attempts to relax, distract, and slow down – the mind still processes problems in your conscious and unconscious spheres. To truly stop the clutter and “traffic,” we need to control our flow of thoughts and our brain waves. Meditation is a way to do just that. Through meditation we develop the skills and power to relax and clear our minds, and through this comes rest and a great many more benefits.

Many of us are paid to use our minds to add value to the organizations and communities we work in. To do this, we must have the clarity to make better decisions and the ability to focus our minds to the task at hand, so that we use more of our mental capacities. By actively training these two areas by meditating, we can enhance our careers and offer more value.

It is in moments of decision making when we add or destroy value to ourselves and the people around us. The decisions may be large or small, but theoretically, for each of them, we gather as much information as we can, analyze that information, weigh our options, and make a decision. Some decisions may involve spending vast sums of money that carry huge consequences for the lives and livelihoods of many people. Other decisions might concern how to better serve a client’s needs.

If you work in the medical profession or in law enforcement, your decisions sometimes involve life and death. And, astonishingly, these decisions often need to be made rapidly, sometimes in a matter of minutes or seconds.

The most important factor in effective and sound decision making is clarity of mind. If your mind is full of mental noise or distracting thoughts, then it will have to work harder, and take longer, to process information and make decisions. Additionally, if we have unconstructive emotions bubbling up inside us, our minds will likely feel fatigued, and our decisions won’t necessarily be congruent with our internal values. Instead, our decisions will be based on the mental clutter whirring around in our minds.

Mental Resilience Training can help reduce your mental chatter. And, without the chaos that such noise brings with it, you will be better able to make more insightful and effective decisions.

Once you establish a sustained meditation practice, you become aware of the mental chatter and more adept at clearing it. You have the tools to develop some space to perceive a situation with greater clarity before you make any crucial decisions. The time needed to create this mental space is not hours or days; it is, literally, a few moments.

About the author:
Kamal Sarma is the author of Mental Resilience: The Power of Clarity – How to Develop the Focus of a Warrior and the Peace of a Monk. For over ten years, he has guided corporate executives on maintaining clarity and peace while balancing intense work demands, work, and relationships.

Excerpted with permission from the book Mental Resilience: The Power of Clarity – How to Develop the Focus of a Warrior and the Peace of a Monk. © 2008 by Kamal Sarma. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800-972-6657 ext. 52.

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Jose Silva was born in Laredo, Texas. He and his older sister and younger brother were raised by their grandmother. Silva supported the family from a very young age by selling newspapers, shining shoes, and doing odd jobs. He never attended school, but learned to read and write by watching his sister and brother do their homework.

Silva was able to study a correspondence course on radio repair through an agreement with the town barber, under which the barber rented the lessons to Silva, and Silva earned the diploma in the barber’s name.

At the age of fifteen, Silva began to repair radios and built a successful business. He had invested over a half-million dollars on his research over a period of 25 years before retiring from his radio repair business.

Early Mind Experiments
Silva’s mind experiments were based on his background in electronics and study of psychology. He had read about alpha waves and the electrical activity in the human brain and theorized that the electrical impedance of the brain could be lowered to improve efficiency.

Silva believed that the brain was more energetic when it was less active, and that at lower frequencies the brain received and stored more information. The crucial problem for Silva was to keep the mind alert at these frequencies, which are associated more with daydreaming and sleep than with practical activity.

Silva experimented with hypnosis, but while hypnosis made the mind more receptive, he felt that more individual control was necessary for improving brain function. He experimented next with mental training exercises to quiet the brain yet keep it more independently alert than in hypnosis. This, he reasoned, would lead to improved memory combined with understanding and hence to higher I.Q. scores.

The exercises from which Silva’s techniques evolved called for relaxed concentration and vivid mental visualization and ways of reaching lower levels. He believed that these levels proved more effective in learning than the fully awake, or beta wave, level. The proof for Silva was that in the three-year period that he worked with his children to develop his techniques, their grades in school sharply improved.

Silva was the first person to demonstrate that humans can learn to be aware of the alpha and theta rhythms of the brain, which is used in some modern biofeedback techniques.

Alleged successes with his methods convinced Silva that everyone has such abilities and can be taught to develop them, and that it is not an extra sense at all, but an unneeded – therefore undeveloped – sense. Everything happens first in the mind, he reasoned, then happens in the body. A person mentally decides to pick up a glass of water and drink it, then does it physically. Your life is the manipulation of the set rules of this universe, the trick is learning how to manipulate the rules right.

Expansion
The Silva Method is now a multi-million dollar business with thousands of Silva Method instructors teaching the system over several days to groups of students in numerous countries worldwide.

The system has also spawned many books, some of them authored or co-authored by José Silva, with many others based on the basic principles of the method but spreading into other areas of awareness and application whilst in the alpha state.

Mind Research
“A research project conduct by Dr. George Maycock at Appalachian State University in North Carolina demonstrated that students who completed the Silva training showed a significant increase in creative and intuitive-functioning. Of the 30 students who participated, 25 showed gains in intuitive abilities. Four of the other five (who did not show improvement) were already functioning in a high intuitive mode before the training. Intuition is valuable for students- and for adults too. One researcher found that 70 percent of gifted or high-IQ students were predominantly intuitive, while only 39% of students in regular classes were intuitive.”

Dr. George Maycock from Appalachian State University in North Carolina

The Comeback of The Silva Mind System
I attended two of their workshops and it was a fascinating experience for me. It helped me tremendously by shaping my abilities to learn more about the potential of my mind. Some of their exercises were absolutely amazing – I was just blown away by them. I remember, that I was sooo excited to get to their second workshop, that I slept in my car instead of booking a hotel room – just to afford it.

Now, Mr. Silva’s daughter, Laura, has created an incredible new system that is changing millions of lives. And you don’t even have to attend a workshop any more…it is coming to your home!

Go here to find out more: Silva Life System

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Memory is useful because it gives us a sense of continuity. But memory is also imprisoning because it conditions us in predictable ways. The great yogi Lord Shiva said, “I use memories, but I do not allow memories to use me.” We have to use memories; otherwise we wouldn’t find our way home. When we use memories, we are creators. But when our memories use us, we become victims.

Are you ready to step out of the prison of memory and conditioned responses into the experience of freedom? If so, then observe your addictive behaviors without judgment. Addiction is the number-one disease of civilization, and it’s directly and indirectly related to all other diseases. Besides physical addictions, such as the addiction to food, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, there are psychological addictions, such as the addiction to work, to sex, to television, to shopping, to appearing young, to suffering, to anxiety, to melodrama, to perfection.

Why are we addicted to all these things?
We are addicted because we are not living from our source; we have lost our connection to our soul. The use of food, alcohol, or drugs is essentially a material response to a need that is not really physical at its foundation. Drunkenness, for example, is really a forgetting of personal memory so we can experience the joy of the nonpersonal, the universal. What we are looking for is pure joy rather than mere sensation, or even oblivion of sensation. Self-destructive behavior is unrecognized spiritual craving. All addictions are really a search for the exultation of spirit, and this search has to do with the expansion of consciousness, the intoxication of love, which is pure consciousness.

Over and over, people have tried to overcome their addictions through psychological and behavioral methods or through medication. None of these offers a permanent cure. The only cure for addiction is spiritual. We hunger for the ecstatic experience, which is a need as basic as the need for food, water, or shelter. Ecstasy, or ek-tasis, literally means stepping out. True ecstasy is stepping out of the bondage of the time-bound, space-bound world of materialism. We long to step out of the limitations of the body. We long to be free of fear and limitation. We hunger for the oblivion of our ego so that we can experience our infinite Being.

When the ego or the image of the self overshadows the unbounded Self, we feel cut off or disconnected from infinite consciousness, our source. This is the beginning of fear, the onset of suffering, and all of the problems of humanity, from our minor insecurities to our major catastrophes, such as war.

Start today to transcend your addictive behaviors by observing them without judgment. Wake every day with a prayer: “Thank you, God, for making me just as I am,” and then observe yourself. Be a witness to your thoughts, your moods, your reactions, your behaviors. They represent your memories of the past, and by witnessing them in the present, you liberate yourself of the past. By observing your addictive behaviors, you observe your conditioning. And when you observe your conditioning, you are free of it, because you are not your conditioning; you are the observer of your conditioning.

Observe the silence between your thoughts, your actions, your reactions, and you will feel the presence of spirit in the stillness of those spaces. In the mere observation of yourself, you begin the process of healing and transformation. And if you keep practicing ever-present awareness of your own self, then insight, intuition, and imagination will begin to blossom.

People have asked me, “If the universe is so elegantly organized and we are born with all this human potential and creativity, then why are we so ignorant?” Well, if we were already enlightened, there would be nothing to do. It’s a process. If you occasionally succumb to your addictive behavior, understand that this, too, is part of the process. You may keep falling, but you can always get up and continue on your journey.

No matter how hysterical your environment appears to be, remain alert and sober in your ever-present witnessing awareness. Resolve not to get drawn into the melodrama around you. Remind yourself, I am neither superior nor inferior to anyone who exists. Saint or sinner, the spirit that resides within me is the divine spirit. It has taken on a certain role in this lifetime; it has taken on other roles in other lifetimes. I honor the divine spirit in myself and in all beings as holy and sacred no matter what role it is playing.

None of us are the roles we play. Recognizing this truth, it is easier to forgive all perceived transgressions. We don’t feel compelled to label, evaluate, analyze, or judge ourselves or others. When we have no need to label or judge, it’s easier to relinquish the desire to control and manipulate others.

In this very moment, you are surrounded by a field of pure consciousness. Pure consciousness illuminates and animates your mind and body, and it is powerful, nourishing, invincible, unbounded, and free. By knowing your true nature, it is possible to go beyond suffering. When you go beyond suffering, you help others to go beyond suffering. As you continue on your journey of healing, you help others to heal. And you can start to heal by observing your addictive behaviors without judgment. Once you find your true self, once you become whole, the only intoxication you have is the intoxication of pure consciousness, pure Being.

Available at amazon: Power, Freedom & Grace

Excerpted from Power, Freedom, & Grace: Living from the Source of Lasting Happiness. Published by Permission of Amber-Allen Publishing, Inc., San Rafael, California � 2006 by Deepak Chopra, Publication Date: August 2006

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Think about the mysterious magical nature of this liquid energy that we take for granted. Try to squeeze it, and it eludes us; relax our hands into it, and we experience it readily. If it stays stationary, it will become stagnant; if it is allowed to flow, it will stay pure. It does not seek the high spots to be above it all, but settles for the lowest places. It gathers into rivers, lakes, and streams; courses to the sea; and then evaporates to fall again as rain. It maps out nothing and it plays no favorites: It doesn’t intend to provide sustenance to the animals and plants. It has no plans to irrigate the fields; to slake our thirst; or to provide the opportunity to swim, sail, ski, and scuba dive. These are some of the benefits that come naturally from water simply doing what it does and being what it is.

The Tao asks you to clearly see the parallels between you and this naturally flowing substance that allows life to sustain itself. Live as water lives, since you are water. Become as contented as is the fluid that animates and supports you. Let your thoughts and behaviors move smoothly in accordance with the nature of all things. It is natural for you to be gentle, to allow others to be free to go where they’re inclined to go, and to be as they need to be without interference from you. It is natural to trust in the eternal flow, be true to your inner inclinations, and stick to your word. It is natural to treat everyone as an equal.

Observe The Flow of Water
All of these lessons can be derived by observing how water, which sustains all life, behaves. It simply moves, and the benefits it provides occur from it being what it is, in harmony with the present moment and knowing the truth of precisely how to behave. What follows is what Lao-tzu might say to you, based upon his writing of the 8th verse of the Tao Te Ching:

When you’re free to flow as water, you’re free to communicate naturally-information is exchanged, and knowledge advances in a way that benefits everyone.

Be careful not to assign yourself a place of importance above anyone else. Be receptive to everyone, particularly those who may not routinely receive respect, such as the uneducated, homeless, or troubled members of our society. Go to the “low places loathed by all men,” and have an open mind when you’re there. Look for the Tao in everyone you encounter; and make a special effort to have acceptance, gentleness, and kindness course through you to others.

By not being irritating, you’ll be received with respect. By making every effort to avoid controlling the lives of others, you’ll be in peaceful harmony with the natural order of the Tao. This is the way you nourish others without trying. Be like water-which creates opportunities for swimming, fishing, surfing, drinking, wading, sprinkling, floating, and an endless list of benefits-by not trying to do anything other than simply flow.

Let Your Thoughts Float Free
Forget about fighting life or trying to be something else; rather, allow yourself to be like the material compound that comprises every aspect of your physical being. In The Hidden Messages in Water, Masaru Emoto explains that we are water, and water wants to be free. The author has thoroughly explored the ways in which this compound reacts, noting that by respecting and loving it, we can literally change its crystallization process. If kept in a container with the words love, thank you, or you’re beautiful imprinted on it, water becomes beautiful radiant crystals. Yet if the words on the container are you fool, Satan, or I will kill you, the crystals break apart, are distorted, and seem confused.

The implications of Emoto’s work are stupendous. Since consciousness is located within us and we’re essentially water, then if we’re out of balance in our intentions, it’s within the realm of possibility that our intentions can impact the entire planet (and beyond) in a destructive way. As our creator, the eternal Tao, might put it, “Water of life am I, poured forth for thirsty men.”

Do the Tao Now
Drink water silently today, while reminding yourself with each sip to nourish others in the same life-flourishing way that streams give to the animals and rain delivers to the plants. Note how many places water is there for you-serving you by flowing naturally. Say a prayer of gratitude for this life-sustaining, always-flowing substance.

This excerpt is taken from the book Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life – Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Wayne Dyer. It is published by Hay House (June 2007) and available at all bookstores or online at: amazon.

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What is doubly interesting about this discovery is a parallel explanation of how evolution happens that comes from an ancient Buddhist/Hindu/Taoist perspective, explaining why lowering the carrier frequency in our modern, high-tech method is so powerful.

For several thousands of years, mystics have said that the entire universe is a vibrating energy and that everything in creation has its own vibrational rate, the frequency of which depends on its evolutionary development. The simpler and less evolved aspects of the universe have a high frequency and a low amplitude of vibration (contrary to popular metaphysical lore, which claims that the opposite is true). Frequency refers to the number of cycles the vibrating wave makes in a certain length of time, while amplitude refers to the height of the wave itself.

In naturally occurring waves, the tendency is for higher frequencies to have lower amplitude, and vice versa. You can see this, for instance, at the beach. The waves that come in more frequently are the smaller ones, those of low amplitude. The larger waves (those of high amplitude), come in at lower frequency. Also note that the high amplitude waves are those with more power, while those with low amplitude are weaker.

The energy field of a human being is also vibrating, and the frequency and amplitude of this vibration vary with the degree of evolution of the individual. The less evolved person, one who often experiences his or her world in terms of separation, dis-ease, stress, and imbalance, has a vibratory level that is high in frequency and low in amplitude. And just as the low amplitude ocean waves have little power, the un-evolved individual has little personal power. As evolution takes place, however, the vibratory frequency slows down, and the amplitude (and with it the individual’s personal power) increases.

This vibration is carried in the body, according to Buddhist/Hindu to Taoist thought systems, in a series of over 365,000,000 branching channels called nadis found in what mystics call the subtle body. The major channels in this system make up what the Chinese call the acupuncture meridians. Initially these channels are tight, and just as a tight guitar string plays a high frequency note, tight nadis vibrate at a high frequency.

As an individual evolves spiritually and in self-awareness, the nadis loosen, gradually vibrating at slower, more powerful frequencies. Why are the nadis of an un-evolved individual tight? Because imbedded in them are all the unconscious programs regarding who we are and what our relationship is to the rest of the universe. To the degree that this programming is something other than oneness, love, harmony, balance, and peace, the nadis remain tight and constricted, keeping the life force energy from flowing freely and causing them to vibrate at high frequency, low amplitude rates.

As we let go of this untruthful programming, the nadis loosen, the life force energy flows more freely, and the vibrational rate decreases. As this happens, personal power increases, and we increasingly experience our oneness with the universe rather than our separation from it. This brings more happiness and
inner peace.

When we expose ourselves on a daily basis to the Centerpointe soundtracks, we are really doing three things. First, we are taking ourselves into the deeper alpha, theta, and delta brain wave states of deep meditation. This opens the unconscious areas of the mind and accesses untruthful programming that is buried beneath our conscious awareness. In addition, beginning in Awakening Level 1 we use silent affirmations to help shift this programming, although merely accessing this part of the mind and bringing this material to conscious awareness causes it to shift, even without the affirmations.

Finally, we are exposing the nadis to frequencies below their current rate of vibration. This lower frequency acts on the nadis like a tuning fork: the nadis attempt to vibrate at this new lower frequency, but since they are constricted with untruthful unconscious beliefs about who we are, they have difficulty doing this – unless they can let go of what is blocking them, which, of course, is exactly what happens.

As you meditate with the Centerpointe soundtracks, your nadis are exposed on a daily basis to a frequency lower than that at which they were vibrating when you began the program. Because of this, all of the untruthful programming vibrating higher than that frequency has been gradually released, until finally the nadis can easily vibrate at the same rate as the technology embedded in the soundtrack.

Once this happens, you have fully integrated that particular level of the program. At this point the soundtracks will not seem as strong as they once did and will not have the same impact on you. When you then move to the next deeper level, you expose the nadis to an even lower vibratory rate, once again creating new evolutionary possibilities.

This is the same process that seekers have undergone in the East for many thousands of years, except that the low frequency tuning fork effect has traditionally been provided by the guru, whose energy field is already vibrating at super low vibratory rates. (This low frequency energy radiated by the guru to anyone in his vicinity is called shakti in the Hindu system, ch’i in the Chinese system, and ki in the Japanese system.)

This is the real power of the Centerpointe program. Not only do we use the Holosync� technology to open the unconscious parts of the mind, allowing what was suppressed to come into conscious awareness so it can be released and healed (helping this process along in the levels after Awakening Prologue with the use of silent affirmations recorded in the participant’s own voice), but we also, bit by bit, gradually reduce the overall vibratory rate of the energy field, allowing more life force energy to flow through the nervous system.

And, as we have said many times, this process can be cathartic. But it is worth repeating once again that catharsis is not intrinsically painful. It is our resistance to the movement of this lower and more powerful energy through the nadis that causes our pain. We resist because we identify with the blockages that are being eliminated.

These blockages are nothing more than our concepts of who we are (often called the ego). In other words, our pain is caused by a case of mistaken identity! We are not these concepts and beliefs – we are much, much more. As we learn to watch the process with curiosity rather than resist it, we relax, we become more peaceful, and the process begins to move more smoothly and more quickly.

If you are already in the program and you have noticed that your soundtracks do not have the same impact they had when you began your current level of the program, and if you are easily able to remain alert throughout your meditation time (though you may still nod out if you meditate when tired), you have probably integrated your current level and may be ready to move on to something more powerful.

As each level is completed, many participants notice a smoothing out of their life experience, but this may not be your experience, especially if you are predisposed to resist, which many are during the first few levels of the program. (I know I certainly was!) If you have any questions about whether or not you are ready to go on, please call our office.

Let me close this letter by once again acknowledging those of you who are in the program for the commitment you have shown to your growth. This program is definitely evolution in the fast lane and can, at times, be intense. It can also be rewarding beyond your wildest dreams as each quantum leap in awareness shows you new aspects of yourself and your world. I want to thank you for allowing me to play a small part in facilitating this process for you – that, at least in part, is my dream.

I eagerly look forward to your new growth and new breakthroughs as you move on to deeper levels of the program.

If you’re not in the program, please – take the leap. We’ve done everything we can to make giving the program a try risk-free and financially easy, and we invite you to join us in creating greater happiness, inner peace, and greate self-awareness in our lives.

For a free demo CD please visit: Centerpointe

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Instead of being an automatic response mechanism, responding to the world based on unconscious rules, beliefs, fears, and limitations, he is able to consciously evaluate each situation, in the moment, and instantly and instinctively know exactly what to do and how to respond in order to gain the most resourceful outcome, both for himself and for others.

The Underlying Peace of Mind
Mainly, he watches as he plays his part and marvels at the complexity, the infinite permutations, the surprises, the certainties, and the uncertainties. He is calm most of the time, but sometimes his part requires him to be upset or to have some other emotion or reaction. That is being human. But whatever his mood, there is an underlying peace of mind, an underlying, effortless happiness.

You can be this way, too. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can happen. Using the Centerpointe program isn’t the only way it can happen, but it’s a very good and very fast way.

In the book, this description is given in a larger context that makes it easier (I think) to understand exactly what I mean, so I want to supply some of that context here. In addition, as I’m always thinking about these concepts and principles, and trying to come up with better ways to communicate them to you, I’ll add some other comments that will, hopefully, shed further light on this very important concept and how to apply it to your life.

What Does Being Conscious NOT Mean
First of all (and I hate to even have to say this, but some people misunderstand, so I have to mention this), I’m not talking about the difference between sleeping and waking states. Second, being conscious does not mean being anti-war, or helping the poor, and saving the rain forest (though a conscious person might be or do any or all of these things�but then again, they might not).

It also doesn’t mean that you’re “beyond,” or in some way not subject to, experiencing normal human emotions, such as anger, fear, being down, and so on. And, it doesn’t mean that you’re immune to getting sick, or that you can’t die some dread disease (there are many instances of famous saints who die of heart disease or cancer or other terminal illnesses). It also doesn’t mean you’ll magically be prosperous, or powerful, or that you’ll always find a parking space when you need one, or that you’ll win the lottery or receive other potentially synchronous karmic goodies.

And, trust me, it doesn’t mean that you don’t experience the normal, everyday problems of being human. Your toilet will still overflow occasionally, your car may break down, the power may go off, the cable company might still screw up your bill and then blame you, your dog may roll in something that smells terrible…and on and on. Such is life.

On the other hand, by being conscious, you certainly have a greater ability to influence all of these outer – and, to an even greater degree – inner circumstances in your life. But since six billion other people are also doing their best to gain the outcomes they want, which often will conflict with what you want, and because many non-human natural forces are also occurring (think hurricanes, for instance, or just everyday weather, for that matter), you do not have total control over what happens around you.

Being conscious also does not necessarily mean you are in constant experiential and ecstatic union with God or whatever other heavenly entities happen to be your personal favorites.

Despite what you may have read in spiritual books, being conscious is not some fairy tale where you get everything you want and all your problems are solved. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s just the way it is.

However, in my opinion, being conscious is, in many ways, better than all of these things.

So, then, what IS “being conscious”?
In my opinion, one of the most important distinctions between being conscious and being unconscious is that the UNconscious person is creating whatever happens in their life, whether it is an inner experience or an outer result, automatically and unconsciously, while the conscious person is in total control of what their mind does to create their life and circumstances.

As you know if you’ve been reading these articles for a while, each person has what I call an Internal Map of Reality. It is important that you realize that this map of reality generates all your internal experience of life, and has a huge effect (though not total control) over your external circumstances. You might say that your internal map of reality is the software that generates your life.

A number of things combine and interact to make up your internal map of reality: beliefs, values, decisions, strategies, the language you speak, the ways you perceive and sort incoming information, the way you store and remember information, and a few other things.

The important thing is that all of these different aspects of this internal map of reality combine to create your life. In the unconscious person (which is almost everyone), the results created seem as if they just happen, because the unconscious person does not see the creative part of the process. They do not see the link between these various parts of the internal map and the results they create.

The conscious person, on the other hand, DOES see this creative process. She sees the entire process of how a certain belief, for instance, attracts the people and events that make it come true, or how the belief leads to distortions in perception that make it at least appear to be true, even if it isn’t.

Life is Just Happening to You
If you are unconscious, it appears that life is just happening, and, as a result you tend to feel like a victim, especially in situations where what happens is unpleasant. A victim is someone who 1) feels as if they have little or no control over what is happening, 2) thinks that whatever is happening is coming from something outside of themselves, and 3) experiences whatever is happening as unpleasant. This puts the unconscious person in the position of (seemingly) not being able to do anything about what is happening. Since what happens seems to come from something outside of themselves, they think they can only change things by changing the (supposed) outside source – something that is usually very difficult to do (have you ever tried to get your husband or wife to change something about themselves?).

Now, let’s look at what happens to the conscious person when they experience an unpleasant result. The conscious person, because they see the entire chain of events that generated the result, knows that it originated from something in them – not from something external – despite any external appearance to the contrary.

Knowing this, and having watched the actual creative process from start to finish, they find it very difficult to continue to create something that does not serve them. A person can only continue to create results that do not serve them, whether internal or external, if they are blind to how the results are created – that is, if they are creating them unconsciously.

Automatic Response or Creating What You Want?
The unconscious person is pretty much an automatic response mechanism, whereas the conscious person creates things they way they want them (either that, or they allow them to be created in whatever way they happen to be created, but don’t care what the result is). In fact, they have to create them in a way that is resourceful, because they cannot do otherwise AND be conscious. You just cannot create unresourceful results while you are consciously seeing yourself create them.

This means that “being conscious” is NOT the same as cognitively knowing that you do something. You may know very well that you continue to be attracted to people who mistreat you, or that you continually get angry when someone disagrees with you, or that you tend to get involved in business deals that never turn out (or whatever). Most people who’ve been in personal growth a while could write a book on their “stuff.” Knowing about your stuff is not the same as being conscious.

What is The Difference?
When you are conscious, you are WATCHING the creative process, all the time – which is different than just knowing that you do it (you could know that you create something, but not watch the process, but you can’t watch the process without knowing that you create the result).

How Can You Do This Watching?
Doesn’t watching take attention and effort, and if you’re watching the creative process generated by your internal map of reality (thousands of examples of which are going on at any given moment), won’t that keep you from attending to whatever else you’re doing?

You would think so, but that’s not the case. Conscious awareness is not the same as noticing, or really even the same as paying attention to something (now I’m really confusing you, aren’t I?). The kind of conscious awareness I’m talking about is effortless, and can go on in the background while your mind carries out whatever other cognitive duties it needs to perform. It is a kind of meta-awareness that rides along above it all, just watching. And, it can handle watching an infinitely complex matrix of creations, all at the same time.

How Do You Develop This Kind of Conscious Awareness?
Here are three ways:

1. Meditate, especially with Holosync (MUCH faster and easier),
2. Go through every part of your internal map of reality and examine it, piece by piece (in other words, look at all your beliefs and determine what results they create and how they are created, look at all your values ad determine what results they create and how they are created, etc., etc.), and
3. Relentlessly practice watching your feelings and thoughts and internal and external results until you begin to do it automatically

Of these three, meditation is by far the most powerful. Meditating AND doing the other two is the fastest method. This is, in fact, what I’m trying to help you do: first, get you to use Holosync to make you more consciously aware. Then, in the support materials, including these articles in Mind Chatter, help you to examine your current internal map of reality. Finally, help you learn how to be the witness.

People have a way of trying to make the process of becoming increasingly conscious much more difficult, and more exotic, than it really is. They think there must be some secret formula that, if they can only discover it, will make it all clear to them. In actual fact, the whole thing is super-simple. It just seems complicated and difficult, until you get it – kind of like riding a bike seemed hard until you did it, and then it seemed easy and you did it without having to think about it at all.

Though it may not seem so now, if you do these things, you will get it, I promise. If you feel stuck, and you are a Centerpointe program participant, call the Telephone Hotline and get some help. Consider attending a Centerpointe retreat (which you can do even if you are not in the program), which is guaranteed to give you a huge boost in your progress.

Once you do get it, everything in your life will come together. Your problems won’t disappear, but when there are problems, you know just what to do, you’ll be unattached to the outcome in any case, and you will not suffer over them, no matter what happens – unless for some reason you choose to create it that way.

Bill Harris, Director Centerpointe Institute

For more information please visit: The Centerpointe Institute

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But despite this reality and thousands of years of philosophical examination, there is little consensus today on what consciousness is. Neuroscience, which employs an objective perspective�looking at the brain as an object of study�has made strikingly little headway in this understanding, despite having tremendous success in observing close correlations between parts of the brain and mental states. A comprehensive scientific study of consciousness must therefore embrace both objective and subjective methods: It cannot ignore the reality of first-person experience but must observe all the rules of scientific rigor.

I am suggesting the need for the method of our investigation to be appropriate to the object of inquiry. Given that one of the primary characteristics of consciousness is its subjective and experiential nature, any systematic study of it must adopt a method that will give access to the dimensions of subjectivity and experience. So the critical question is this: Can we envision a scientific methodology for the study of consciousness whereby a robust first-person method, which does full justice to the phenomenology of experience, can be combined with the objectivist perspective of the study of the brain?Here I feel that a close collaboration between modern science and the contemplative traditions, such as Buddhism, could prove beneficial. Buddhism has a long history of investigation into the nature of the mind and its various aspects�this is effectively what Buddhist meditation and its critical analysis constitute. Unlike that of modern science, Buddhism�s approach has been primarily from first-person experience. The contemplative method, as developed by Buddhism, is an empirical use of introspection, sustained by rigorous training in technique and robust testing of the reliability of experience. All meditatively valid subjective experiences must be verifiable both through repetition by the same practitioner and through other individuals being able to attain the same state by the same practice. If they are thus verified, such states may be taken to be universal, at any rate for human beings.

The Buddhist understanding of the mind is primarily derived from empirical observations grounded in the phenomenology of experience, which includes the contemplative techniques of meditation. Working models of the mind and its various aspects and functions are generated on this basis; they are then subjected to sustained critical and philosophical analysis and empirical testing through both meditation and mindful observation. This process offers a first-person empirical method with relation to the mind.

I am aware that there is a deep suspicion of first-person methods in modern science. I have been told that, given the problem inherent in developing objective criteria to adjudicate between competing first-person claims of different individuals, introspection as a method for the study of the mind in psychology has been abandoned in the West. Given the dominance of third-person scientific method as a paradigm for acquiring knowledge, this disquiet is entirely understandable.

I agree with the Harvard psychologist Stephen Kosslyn that it is critical to recognize the natural boundaries of introspection. No matter how highly trained a person may be, we have no evidence that his or her introspection can reveal the intricacies of the neural networks and the biochemical composition of the human brain, or the physical correlates of specific mental activities�tasks that can be most accurately performed by empirical observation through application of powerful instruments. However, a disciplined use of introspection would be most suited to probe the psychological and phenomenological aspects of our cognitive and emotional states.

What occurs during meditative contemplation in a tradition such as Buddhism and what occurs during introspection in the ordinary sense are two quite different things. In the context of Buddhism, introspection is employed with careful attention to the dangers of extreme subjectivism�such as fantasies and delusions�and with the cultivation of a disciplined state of mind. Refinement of attention, in terms of stability and vividness, is a crucial preparation for the utilization of rigorous introspection, much as a telescope is crucial for the detailed examination of celestial phenomena. Just as in science, there is a series of protocols and procedures which contemplative introspection must employ. Upon entering a laboratory, someone untrained in science would not know what to look at, would have no capacity to recognize when something is found; in the same way, an untrained mind will have no ability to apply the introspective focus on a chosen object and will fail to recognize when processes of the mind show themselves. Just like a trained scientist, a disciplined mind will have the knowledge of what to look for and the ability to recognize when discoveries are made.

It may well be that the question of whether consciousness can ultimately be reduced to physical processes, or whether our subjective experiences are non-material features of the world, will remain a matter of philosophical choice. The key issue here is to bracket out the metaphysical questions about mind and matter, and to explore together how to understand scientifically the various modalities of the mind. I believe that it is possible for Buddhism and modern science to engage in collaborative research in the understanding of consciousness while leaving aside the philosophical question of whether consciousness is ultimately physical. By bringing together these two modes of inquiry, both disciplines may be enriched. Such collaborative study will contribute not only to greater human understanding of consciousness but also to a better understanding of the dynamics of the human mind and its relation to suffering. This is a precious gateway into the alleviation of suffering, which I believe to be our principal task on this earth.

Adapted from the Book: The Universe in a Single Atom

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