Ultimately, each one of us experiences spirituality according to our individual values. In other words, if your highest value is your family and your children, then you’ll feel that your highest calling is to raise a magnificent family. President Kennedy’s mother, Rose, provided an obvious example when she said, “I looked at child rearing not only as a work of love and duty, but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world, and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.” Raising her children was her spiritual quest.

We are all unique in every sense of the word. We are unique in our looks, our likes and dislikes, and definitely in our ways of thinking and behavior. It is this very difference in our personal characteristics which can make interaction with others both so much fun - and quite challenging at the same time.

As a person chooses to take more time towards better understanding themselves as to why they think the way they think, feel the way they feel, and do what they do, something quite amazing happens… One finds that just as this information is applicable to better understanding oneself; it can also be effectively used to better understand others.

To give a flavor for how the power of intention is being studied in the laboratory, let’s briefly consider two experiments recently conducted at IONS. The first explored the quantum observer effect - modern physics’ “skeleton in the closet” suggesting that consciousness is inextricably wound into the fabric of reality.

Experienced meditators and nonmeditators were asked to imagine that they could intuitively perceive a low-intensity laser beam in a distant, shielded Michelson interferometer. If such nonlocal observation were possible, it would theoretically “collapse” the photons’ quantum wave-functions and change the pattern of light produced by the interferometer.

Few topics generate more false confidence or genuine bewilderment than the nature of consciousness. At scientific conferences, debates about the origins of consciousness - especially the purposeful, intentional aspects of consciousness - resemble professional wrestling matches more than sober academic affairs. Skeptics hold meetings where they fervently reinforce their belief that intentions (like consciousness) are mere illusions manufactured by the brain. Popular books and movies promoting the power of intention, such as The Secret, are runaway bestsellers.

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing sounds easy until you think about how much conditioning has taken place in your life, and how many of your current thoughts were influenced by geography, the religious beliefs of your ancestors, the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes, the political orientation of your parents, your size, your gender, the schools that were selected for you, and the vocation of your great-grandparents, to list only some possibilities.

In certain spiritual schools of thought, we have been conditioned to think of the ego in a negative and limited way. However it is an erroneous mentality to think of the ego as something that’s unwanted and to get rid off for spirituality purpose. The ego exists for a purpose and it’s an integral part of spirituality and the totality of being. To remove the ego is like removing the left hand and keeping the right. It’s a ridiculous concept that shouldn’t even be thought of at all. Spirit and ego go hand and hand for complete experience.

When it comes to manifesting intention, there is a misconception about the principle of what you think about is what you get. Some people have the idea that in order for their intention to manifest, they need to focus on it as much as possible. So they make it almost a habit of thinking about their intention all the time. But then they learn that in order for any intention to manifest, there needs to be a period of temporary forgetfulness so that spirit can do its work uninterrupted. This makes them feel confused.

We have been taught that to use the law of attraction to create the reality we desire, we must focus more on what we want and less on what we don’t want. But yet there are times when the things we don’t want continue to be created even though we try not to focus on them. The truth is that there are times when we must focus on what we don’t want so that we can attract it out fully and see it for what it is. What we don’t want could be part of what we want and that is why we are still creating it unknowingly.

Did you know that the human brain starts slowing down as early as age 30? The good news is that you can speed it up, and improve even your most basic cognitive abilities at any age.

Keep your brain performing at its best with Lumosity, a brain training program consisting of engaging brain games and exercises developed by some of the leading neuroscientists in the country.

What are the benefits of brain training?
The ACTIVE study, funded by NIH, demonstrated that adults can improve cognitive abilities such as memory, processing speed, and reasoning with proper training. The brain is healthiest when it is active and regularly challenged. With frequent cognitive training, the brain performs optimally and maintains its abilities through the years.

Have you come across a person who is so naturally friendly that when you put him inside a room of strangers, he’ll be friends with almost everyone in no time? We call such a people-person, someone unbelievably nice and charismatic that he can charm anyone into doing anything.

A socially-empowered person achieves so much greatness, basically because of the people that catapult him to success. He earns the trust and all-out support of the people, whom he had helped before. He never runs out of help. He can do anything with the plethora of people behind him. All because he knows he maximizes his social potential!

In using the law of attraction to manifest our desire, it is the strength of intent that determines our attracting power. Some of us make the mistake of having weak intention when intending with detachment. When we detach, it means we let go of the outcome so that we do not freeze the process of manifestation but allow it to happen freely. But we are still strongly intent on a particular outcome to happen. This combination of concentrated and relaxed attitude allows our desire to manifest powerfully and freely.

Your ability to create and retain wealth is determined by your relationship with money. Like everything else, money is a form of energy which is attracted to the energy that is like itself. Your relationship with anything determines how much of that thing you are attracting or repelling. Money does not exist by itself but it is always attached with the energy of the person who relates with it. The same money can be experienced by different people in different ways according to the relationship they each have with it.