On a thread, Chagur wrote Has it not been said "When the student is ready, the teacher shall appear'? I replied, it is true. Here is a story that happened to me several years ago. I have many. Background: As a hobby, I teach yoga, meditation and stress management. Mostly I teach at community colleges under Continuing Education Format. Sometimes I was asked to do the same at a private, new age centers. To me this teaching is a two way learning process away from my hard technology consulting career. I learn the psycological and sociological underpinnings of why people come to meditation classes and what specific factors causes stress in their life. I was also involved with some musicians to record their music in a special method I developed that sounds much better than normal digital recordings. Story: One day, I was in a music store where I was talking to the owner who was retired but in his prime time played piano in carnegie hall. A very beautiful lady came in to pick up some sheet music for her daughter. This lady, let us call her Terri, stuck up conversation with both of us. When she found out, I teach meditation, she immidiately wanted to take private lessons irrespective of the expense involved (she was rich). It turned out that she was badly in need of help, having been to her doctor, shrink and family. Her marriage was ready to break apart, her husband was having an affair, she had insomnia, not to mention all types of physical problems. It took about six months to solve each problem one by one. The husband had his problems too. I ended up counseling in his business ventures which caused a lot of problems that created a domino effect that spilled over to his marriage. The stupid shrink recommended divorce. I am happy to say that they are doing very well both in business and family life. I am not making any claims here - just interesting in relation to what Chagur wrote.
That was an amazing story. I got all teary eyed. You saved their marriage. You made them realize the deeper meaning of love. Hey, why don´t you come over to Sweden and become my private meditation teacher too? I meditate when I get the time to spare and also practise yoga. I started with yoga last fall, and totally fell in love with it. I will never stop. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Hi Bebelina Thanks for the offer. Several years ago some business friends wanted me to open a Holistic Stress Management Center for Business People. The reason was that, due to rapid changes in technology, a lot of senior management get stressed out. Their marriage gets on the rocks, they have affairs and so on...Since I also do Management Consulting, hence.... I did a business plan but needed to raise $5 million dollars which we could not at the time. Mostly for a custom design habitat. So the idea was selved. So one of these days, when I retire may be.... Thanks for the encouragement....
5 MILLIONS??? Oh, that was a lot! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Couldn´t it really have been done with less money? Just a small center to begin with, and then expand with time?
Many years ago, a friend of mine moved from India to Sweden, married there and moved to Boston (here in US). He started a small Yoga center while his wife studied Nursing. They were doing fine but not very successful. So I decided if I ever do something like that, it will be done professionally to cater to upper management. Besides, the design of the facility will include, all amenities a health club provides, food, walking, jogging trail, massage therapy, nurses (we dont want a CEO crap out while jogging) plus a special color & sound therapy I have developed. Plus it can be franchised too. Anyway, someday we will get there...
Sounds luxurious! I can understand the amount of money it would take to build a center like that. I hope you will do it some day. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
hey all i have a question!?!? does anyone know how to get intouch with spirit guides? anyone had experience in it? i am very keen to chat about it. groove on all Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I've never had luck with "spirit guides". Let your own spirit guide you. You'll find what's right for you. I am a practitioner of zen, having been put onto it by a teacher when I was doing time at Santa Cruz High School. I call it "doing time" because I felt like I was imprisoned in a life that was destined to be rootless and lacking any foundation. We had been moving a lot and I developed trouble forming relationships. What's the point when you're just going to be moving again? Two teachers at the school, genuine hippies from the 60s, turned me on to zen. I learned transcendential meditation from another former hippy and found myself spending almost a year "blowing my mind" without narcotics. That's when something hit me. All was transient. Nothing would last. It was all going to go away at any moment. I could not count on any situation being there from one moment to the next. People I knew would not be around for long and nothing seemed real. I thought I was going stark raving mad. I was even contemplating suicide to prevent any further suffering. I had made up my mind to go over West Cliff in my 1958 Chevy. As a junkyard refugee, I felt it would be a fitting coffin. On the way there I stopped. I gave my mind one last chance. I called the suicide prevention hotline. Nobody answered. Seriously. The phone just rang and rang, echoing the emptiness, the nothingness. I hung up the payphone and stood there for a moment. Then I burst out laughing. A passing stranger asked if I was okay. I hugged him closely and laughed "I'm okay now. I feel absolutely fine!" He said that he wanted to be sure, so he bought a couple of ice creams and we ate them as I related my story. Then he asked me something that I hadn't had asked to me since my days in the MGM programs. "What have you learned from this?" What I learned was that I had to go through hell and die the spiritual death of the shattered soul I was in possession of. When the phone went unanswered, I learned that I had to land on my own two feet, that I was living without a safety net. Once I learned that I was in control and that nobody was going to "take the wheel" from me, I became as one reborn. Life has been wonderful ever since, and I haven't regretted a moment of it. My relationships are all on track and everything is A-OK. Forget the spirit guides. Look to your own spirit to guide you.
Thank you Oxygen, for sharing such a wonderful personal experience. We learn from others experiences as well as our own. About those spirit guides: My only experience with them was when I was invited to a new age group. I never pass the opportunity to see human psychology and sociology in action. A lady channeled a spirit, answered peoples questions. When I asked a question such as the health of my brother (I do not have any) I got a long convoluted answer as to how he will be fine though he is not as strong as he was. That he is having some problems at work and so on....I just nodded my head.... After years of research, I came to the understanding (I could be wrong if new information comes along) that our subconscious (SC) mind is more powerful than our conscious (C) mind. The SC does long term planning and does most of the decisions since it has access to the full knowledge base in the memory. There is an excellent book called "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Dr. Oliver Sacks - that shows the interplay between SC and C minds. Here individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations. Anyway, our perception of reality comes from this SC mind. There are techniques in the care and feeding of this mind. Buddhism deals with this, so is Hinduism and Kabala. You can separate the SC mind and call it a spirit guide, god, angel, friend or whatever, but it is always within you. I also have this crazy theory that somehow this SC mind is connected to every other SC mind on the planet. It happened just this morning. My friend is in a bind to find a new customer for his business. He called me this morning sounding desperate in California. Two hours later, I got a cold call from lady from New Hampshire about some other stuff. As we were chatting, I said something about helping my friend. Behold! I found out, she could be the perfect customer my friend is looking for! Now I am setting up the conference call between them. If the theory turns out to be true, can you guess the potential of our species?
hey all knguru im pleased for your friend. i am somewhat saddenned by the lack of understanding on this subject of eastern philosophy which i had obviousely confused with eastern religous philosophy :/ nevermind. a hari krishna once exclaimed his thought to me of "how could anyone not believe there is a god"?!? i had assumed that the seat of eastern philosophy was founded on their religouse principals? as we follow the path of those who have never walked before us we are so often confused as to why we have no map for the road ahead! stopping and pondering ... did i choose this path or was i pushed by a force i have never seen nor recognised, felt or believed in? then one might choose to ponder...if i had choices...? why did i not recognise them to be so obviouse? when all i want is peace and love! groove on all Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Hello ripple: I will do my best to un-confuse you. When I was growing up in India among a large number of Christian neighbors (both Catholic and Protestant) and in school mixing with Moslems, I really got confused about the whole religious thing. Luckily I did not have a Buddhist kid in that school, otherwise I would have gone insane. Anyway, so like any 10 year old would do, I asked my tutor who was a Brahmin Priest (in the side, to get some extra money). He said: Hinduism is all encompassing, i.e. every philosophy and idea is included in it. Therefore the base philosophy breaks down to two groups 1) Theist 2) Atheist. I did not study the Atheist side, so I do not know how deep the argument goes in that line. I was more interested in the Theist side, after all, as a kid I wanted all types of stuff from God. The Theist side breakdown to two thoughts 1) Akar (means Form) 2) Nirakar (Formless). That is some believe God is formless and pure energy, others believe God has form but can be pure energy when he chooses to. From "form" starts the tenets of basic Hinduism that majority subscribe to. Such as Trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) - the three aspects of that one form. Brahma - the creator, Vishnu - the preserver, Shiva - the destroyer. These aspects are discussed in great detail at a philosophical level in ancient texts. It did not stop there. Because those good old days, people wanted more, a whole cottage industry was setup just to explain these philosophy to the masses. So analogies and parables became a part of the religious landscape to a point of having 330 million Gods with a similar life style as humans - with rituals, stories and myths and so on. I stopped at the philosophical level which still carries with it the presence of divine thought and power. Most Hindus who study the religion and philosophy usually come to that understanding. The parables are nice because you learn from it and so on. At a core level, where it counts, I do not have any arguments against the God of Koran (Islam - which is formless), Old Testament (The thought, light(energy), creation), New Testament (Peace, Love and Harmony, surrender to God), Buddhism (Surrender to God).
Surrender to god???? At a 'core level, where it counts', Buddhism has never espoused surrendering to 'God' As a matter of fact, although the Enlightened One never actually denied the existence of gods, he denied them a special role, even to the point of considering them to experience death. And that in no way were they either creators or in control of anything, especially human destiny.
I agree. The reason I had to use "Surrender to God" is because, the prime tenet of Buddhism is basically "Eliminate desire you eliminate sorrow" - that is what Gautama was most interested. On the otherhand, the chant "Buddham saranum gachhami" basically means I surrender to the enlighten one. And most Buddhists attribute Buddha with divinity. A better phrase could be "Truth through enlightenment".
hey all Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! kmguru & chagur you bring me enlightenment with your discussion Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! i once read a note that stated that buddha taut by example. to light the path by teaching light. (my speal Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) i do not consider myself a person by faith as a label such like christian, buddhist, and so on but enjoy the mental challenge of the buddhist doctrine in line with my interest in martial arts. i have discoverd the superior power it can unleash with the correct mental discipline. which in turn gives me a certain level of mamalian brain material security Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! please continue the discussion, i hope we can maintain a constructive philisophical discusion to further all our interests Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! groove on all Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
