READ: Why Do We Enjoy Making Fun of Others? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Two men and a woman videoed themselves enthusiastically laughing as they beat up an old man. Nineteen year-old Tyler Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and a friend secretly video taped him having gay sex and put it out on the internet. Children giggle when another child falls down; when the opposition team wins we call them nasty names; when someone is bloodily beat up in a boxing match we shout hooray. America’s Funniest Home Videos is full of images of people falling, crashing, making mistakes, and the resounding laughter that accompanies them.

Why do we find this so amusing? We may not always agree with others, but why do we need to make fun of their suffering? Why do we think it’s funny to put down, hurt, or even abuse another person?

In the political arena constant put-downs are normal, especially this year with all the Rep versus Dem barbs. Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly called Sandra Fluke a slut for defending women’s rights and said he wants President Obama to fail: “If Obama fails, America is saved.”

When we find fault in someone we feel good, we belittle another as a way of making ourselves look better, finding fault or putting them down makes us feel superior. This tends to happen more when we are down ourselves, as misery loves company: feel bad and we invariably make others the problem.

You would hope that as healthy human beings we would be concerned about another’s good fortune and happy to respect their preferences and choices. When we have a genuine regard for ourselves we naturally extend that by wishing others success. Mudita is a Sanskrit term meaning “sympathetic joy,” or taking joy in other people’s happiness and well-being.

Now, in essence, this sounds very easy and obvious—feeling joyful for another’s joy—but someone else’s good fortune may be at the expense of our own (they got the job but we didn’t) so can we still be happy for them? It may highlight our own lack of good fortune, or challenge our self-worth and value. In other words, taking joy in someone you may have a negative feeling toward certainly does not happen overnight.

Mudita confronts us with those places that are wrapped up in our ego, such as jealousy, envy, judgment and greed. Jealousy isn’t going to get us anywhere other than into further pain and suffering, but how often do we wish someone does not succeed because their success highlights our own sense of failure? We judge others in comparison to our own beliefs and preferences but we can respect their choices, even if they are different to our own. Greed and self-centeredness take us out of the present and stop us from appreciating what we have right now.

Mudita asks that we let go of envy and comparison by seeing the other as ourselves, that there is no difference: we all experience the human condition, we breathe the same air, and we all want to be happy. Releasing judgment means stepping outside of our limited view and letting go of fixed and predictable patterns of thinking and behaving.

As mudita takes root, so we genuinely wish others be well. We actually want them to be happy! It makes us feel good. We want them to be free from suffering and to succeed at whatever they do. We recognize that our happiness and their happiness are no different and so we experience a deep joy in their well-being.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com 

 

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What The Buddha Might Say To Mitt Romney by Ed and Deb Shapiro

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. Buddha
One of the truly great things in life is to discover our genuine and authentic self, to dance to the beat of our own drum. And so, conversely, one of the greatest challenges is to know what we think, feel, and believe, for ourselves. It is far easier to agree with others, or be influenced by them to believe as they do, than it is to be firm in our own convictions.

Compassion The Dalai Lama Way by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Shortly after we were married we went to India and spent our honeymoon in ashrams and monasteries, and then in McCleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile in northern India along with other Tibetan refugees who have escaped Chinese rule in Tibet. Once there we went to the Office of Securities to request a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

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READ: Sex, Love, and Spirit by Mahasatvaa Ananda Sarita

Evolution is an integral aspect of each life form. We evolve physically, mentally and spiritually, in ever ascending spirals, moving from order to chaos, and from chaos to a higher level of order, and so on ad infinitum. The chaos factor is necessary, in order for old patterns, which no longer serve us, to break down and dissolve. As we discover how to accept these life changes and learn from them, life becomes ever more rich and inspiring with each new cycle.

An area where evolution of body and psyche is very apparent is the arena of relationship. It is considered normal for two people to feel sexually attracted to each other, and jump into bed to experience sexual ecstasy together. The heat of sexual experience, if lived deeply and totally, will naturally give rise to feelings of love and a desire for emotional intimacy. The couple may then decide to live together, and explore the shift from ‘honeymoon hormones’ to ‘nesting hormones.’ This phase may include giving birth to children and raising them. However, life should not end there.

In the usual scenario, a couple will move from parenthood to grandparenthood, and from there into old age and into assisted living, waiting for inevitable death. This pattern brings with it, feelings of depression and even desperation, the reason being that life has much more to offer. And if we do not live what is offered by existence, we feel, quite rightly, like we have missed the train.

If individuals and couples learn meditation and apply this to sexuality, love and relating, as happens in Tantra, a wonderful opportunity opens up. Powerfully lived sexuality, coupled with awareness, naturally blossoms into love. And when love is deeply lived as a path of meditation, it very naturally evolves into prayer. My definition of prayer is, when each cell of the body is attuned to source, and we sense ourselves to be an open conduit for ever-flowing divine energy.

Sex, love and prayer is all the same energy, lived in different ways. It is like having a 3-story house. It is the same house, but the experience of the 3 floors will each be uniquely different. Our life experience goes on expanding to include more of our evolutionary potential. In this sense, as we get older, we do not have to degenerate, but can continue to evolve, discovering more of who we are in relation to the whole.

That is why, in our ancestral past, elders were highly respected. It was understood that they had evolved into higher wisdom, having more of an overview of the full spectrum of life.

And there is another step, which is even more profound than linear evolution. If we are able to expand our consciousness to include all three aspects at once, we become one with all that is. The merging of sexuality, love and spirituality as one organic unity, is an enlightened state of consciousness. It is a big yes to life in it’s totality.

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WOMEN’S SEXUAL ANATOMY

Sarita is a world renowned Tantra master and mystic offering courses and retreats across the globe. Having received a direct transmission from Osho, she is true to the spiritual essence of Tantra and leads us on the path to self realisation. At the same time she takes care to help us transcend the psychological blockages that we carry as a result of our cultural background and past experiences. She is also a master healer, author and consultant. website: http://www.tantra-essence.com

 

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Tantra and the Divine Feminine by Mahasatvaa Ananda Sarita

In the last 2000 years or so, women have been considered to be the weaker sex in much of the so-called civilized world. In actual fact, women have simply forgotten how to access their own power, the Divine feminine. In Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, he says:

Tantra and the Divine Masculine by Mahasatvaa Ananda Sarita

The Divine Masculine is a timely subject for 2012, as this is the year when the old world transmutes into a new world, according to the famous Maya predictions. Bring it on! The old world has been dominated primarily by an imbalanced masculine, which shows itself in the number of wars and general raping of planetary resources. This has happened because the masculine has been divorced from the feminine for a few thousand years, and by so doing has gone into a fevered testosterone fueled orgy of competition and destruction. I am by no means saying,…

READ: Seeing with New Eyes by Ed and Deb Shapiro

A monk asks, ‘Is there anything more miraculous than the wonders of nature?’ The master replies, ‘Yes, your awareness of the wonders of nature.’ Angelus Silesius

We lived in Dartmouth, Devon, on the south coast of England, and each day we would take walks along the gorgeous river Dart to the estuary. One day we were standing and gazing at the water when it struck us that though the river always looked the same, day after day, it was no more the same as it was even a second ago. It was constantly changing, always moving, always different.

Which is just like our thoughts and feelings. What we are thinking now instantly becomes a past thought. Can you remember what you were thinking that seemed so important just yesterday, let alone just an hour ago? Our feelings are always changing and moving. Who we are now is not who we were last year, last week, yesterday, even a few minutes ago. Already we have changed, moved to a different place inside ourselves.

When Ed looked at the river it was as if he was seeing with new eyes, free of the clutter of his own ideas, projections, judgments, or conceptions. When we can see in this way we find that the world is not quite as we had imagined it to be.

Normally we are looking through the lens of our own habitual patterns, conditioning, prejudices and needs, through past regrets or future hopes, but without any of these we find everything is constantly new and unknown. No longer the same boring sameness, each moment is infused with uniqueness.

You can experience this by imagining you have never been here before. Everything you see is completely new to you, completely unknown, waiting to be explored and discovered. Whether you are brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, or any other equally mundane act, you can see it completely through new eyes.

All you have to do is pay attention and look without expectation. By paying attention you see yourself and others and all things just as they are, which enables you to see the inherent beauty within each one.

Being aware in this way extends you beyond yourself. It takes you out of the ego, out of the fixed way you believe things to be, out of self-centeredness and into awareness of connectedness, of yourself in relation to everything and everybody else.

A Walk On The Wild Side

Try taking a walk in nature – whether in a city park, through a wood, on a beach, by a lake. Make this time an opportunity to see with new eyes and to appreciate what you see: the colors and shapes, the smells and sounds.

Open yourself to the beauty of the natural world. If it is raining then enjoy the feeling of water on your face, appreciate how it is nourishing the earth and the plants; if it is windy then marvel at the power of nature, a force that is beyond your control; if it is cloudy then observe the subtle colors and the softness of the air. Be aware of each footstep.

Although we protect ourselves from nature with raincoats, boots, gloves and hats, we are a part of it and we need the nourishment of the earth, the plants, the sun, the wind and rain. Life is a treasure to be enjoyed. When we see with new eyes the world becomes the greatest of all gifts.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

 

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Why Yoga Is So Misunderstood ~ How It Has Gone From the Sane to the Bizarre by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Yoga has come a long way from its roots in the east. As it has become more popular in the west teachers have added their own twist – both literally & figuratively. In the process of becoming so widespread, however, it often gets misunderstood by both teachers and practitioners.

Mindful Living – When You Need It Most by Jacquelyn O’Brien

Isn’t it unfair the way that life gets in the way of your practice? Whether you’re experiencing life challenges or pleasures, whether they’re large or small, they do have a habit of getting in the way of our time on the yoga mat or the meditation cushion.

 

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READ: Are You Out of Your Mind? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

One of the most insulting things someone can say to us is, “Are you out of your mind?” implying we somehow mistaken or even crazy. But what if it is actually the coolest thing we could say? What if being out of our mind means we are not disturbed by the madness of our mind and are more in touch with our feelings, heart, and freedom?

Have you ever wondered how extraordinary the mind is? How it can reach from the sublime heights of intellectual ecstasy to the depths of suicidal despair, from piercing clarity to confused schizophrenia? It is the same mind that longs for that sumptuous chocolate cake or that stunning dress or shirt, then afterwards may wonder why we ate something so rich, or lets the clothing go unworn in the closet and feels guilty that we bought it in the first place.

This mind is capable of understanding the most intricate scientific and mathematical theories and can make complicated corporate decisions, yet the same mind can get caught up in trivia and nonsense, becoming upset or even unglued over a seemingly harmless remark. It runs our lives, pushing us in all directions, from attraction to repulsion, creating endless dramas that reflect our insecurities and fears.

The tragedy is that this mental play is considered to be normal—”My mind is so busy it’s driving me crazy!”—as if this were some sort of achievement. In order to reinforce these patterns we surround ourselves with people who think and feel the same way. It is a basic human need to feel loved and that we belong, so as long as there are others out there supporting and agreeing with us we feel fine.

There is no denying the importance and value of the mind—there is great brilliance and beauty here—but there is also great misunderstanding. Thinking, for instance, is not wrong at all, but are our thoughts constructive ones or do they generate further confusion? For no matter how intellectually astute or creative we may be, this aptitude often has little or no effect upon repetitive patterns of fear, guilt, anxiety, neurosis, and self-centeredness.

Humankind has come a long way in terms of physical evolution, we have developed our world beyond any other known life form and have achieved enormous technical advancement, but there is still a long way to go in the evolution of consciousness. Evolution takes us from the gross to the subtle, while involution takes us from the subtle to the sublime. We have yet to touch the depth of true wisdom and liberation that is our natural state by turning within instead of outside ourselves.

When we get out of our minds and into our heart, then we get away from our insecurities, judgments and selfishness, away from everything that keeps us confused and fearful, away from the dramas and stories that reinforce who we think we are.

The great Zen teacher Alan Watts, said, “We all need to go out of our minds at least once a day!” In other words, we all need to come out of our minds and into our hearts. Into the place where unconditional love, compassion, and kindness reign supreme.

Imagine you are free of all the limitations and difficulties you are dealing with, see if you can actually create that vision of being free of who you think you are. Just close your eyes and see yourself as a completely free being with nothing stopping you from being or doing anything you want to. You can be happy! You can be free!

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See our award-winning book: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Byron Katie, Jane Fonda, Marianne Williamson, and many others.

Deb is the author of the award-winning YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, Decoding the Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual Messages That Underlie Illness.

Our 3 meditation CD’s: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation, are available at: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

 

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What Your Heart Has To Say by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Love is letting go of fear — Gerald Jamplosky Love is in the air! Everywhere we see red hearts beaming from cards and boxes of chocolates. The color red is entrenched in our collective psyche as the symbol of love —a dozen roses do not have quite the same impact if they are yellow! But few of us realize how deeply our physical heart is entwined with our emotions.

 

Becoming Love by Janice Chrysler

A simple touch, a gentle kiss, a warm embrace, sitting silently while holding someone’s hand or a loving smile from across the room can all bring peace and calm to a troubled stranger or friend. Just think of when you were a child and how magical it felt to have someone kiss away your “boo-boos” after you had fallen and hurt yourself.  Anyone who has had pets can relate to their instinct in knowing when to come and curl up on your lap or lay beside your bed when you are not feeling well.  Love, whether it comes from another person or animal can bring balance and healing into our,…

 

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READ: Cosmic Cheerleaders by Edie Wienstein

Candy Danzis refers to herself as “The Mainstream Mystic” and that she is, as she bridges the worlds of the mainstream and metaphysical. For most of her career, she worked in the world of finance, making sense of dollars and cents. Now she works with senses of a different type….clairaudience (the sense of clear hearing), clairsentience (the sense of clear feeling), clairvoyance (the sense of clear seeing), and claircognizance  (the sense of clear knowing).  In front of a room, she radiates warmth and humor, ‘rock star’ microphone on her ear, perfectly coiffed blond hair across shoulders usually draped with a vivid color; today it was ‘hot mama’ raspberry pink. Her husband Brian Danzis is, as she refers to him “The brains” (the techno-dude who makes sure that the sound system works)  behind this one woman road show that on this day, brought them from their home near Hershey, PA to my interfaith community called Circle of Miracles, outside of Philadelphia. He is also known as “Mr. Candy” and as someone else joked today “The Candy Man”.

Besides being a savvy business woman and angel communicator, she is also a cancer survivor. Healthy for most of her life, this stealth condition took her by complete surprise and brought with it a chance for huge emotional and spiritual growth.  In 2008, as she was planning the annual Claim Your Power Conference, she received the diagnosis, which put the event on hold. At first, she viewed the treatment she was to receive as toxic. Then a friend suggested that she shift her perception so that she saw the chemotherapy as being divinely inspired.  In the many months that followed, not once did she feel ill from side effects. Today, she stood before us in in radiant good health.

Her message was clear and simple, and that is that each of us has a guardian angel assigned to us at birth whose job it is to guide us. They, along with a host of various Divine messengers are just waiting to be asked to help. In fact, she stated that by our acceptance of their assistance, we are doing them a favor. As she shared those words, which I have heard many times before, tears sprung up and I really got it.  I had this image of a row of cosmic cheerleaders with pom poms waving, kicking up their heels as they rooted for my transcendent touchdown.

She spoke of the grand opportunities she sees in 2012 which flies in the face of the mainstream media view of the cataclysmic end of the world

Candy sees it as a chance to experience positive shifts with dynamic outcomes. She invited us to engage in five specific practices that would enhance our lives.

1. Practice Joy, making it our ‘new normal’. What if you could truly live in joy, immersing yourself in its bubbling over essence? Joy attracts more joy, pleasure, more pleasure. It is contagious and draws into our experience, other people who live in that juicy way as well. I’m all for that!
2. Accept what is. The past is over and unless we can invent a time machine to return to it, it serves no valuable purpose except as a teacher of what to continue doing that worked and what never worked in the first place and we ought not to do THAT again.  Once you take stock of where you are, consider whether you want to stay put, or move ahead.
3. Raise your vibration. Her statement that “the planet is moving to a higher vibration”, calls for us to join in and amp ours up as well. She talks about “feeding our spirit” with loving thoughts, positive people, meditation, energy work, affirmations, exercise, being in nature and restorative sleep. Like attracts like, once again.
4. Trust you Gift of Creation. Candy invited us to move beyond the gloom and doom mass consciousness mentality and into conscious creativity of what it is that we do want, rather than what we may fear.
5. Take Guided Action. She sees this as a beyond expectation time to manifest from our heart’s desires.  Calling on the angels, our spiritual tools and this transformative statement:  “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”, coined by Emile Coue’  When used through the day, she shared, that it made a huge difference in the way she felt.

I felt a hardy YES! resonating through me as she reinforced “Everybody and everything is conspiring for my Highest Good.  How about them apples?

www.candydanzis.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvz8AMvZKGo    There’s A New World Coming by Mama Cass Elliot

Rev. Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW is a Renaissance Woman and Bliss Mistress who delights in inviting people to live rich, full, juicy lives. Edie is an internationally recognized, sought after, colorfully creative journalist, interviewer and author, a dynamic and inspiring speaker, licensed social worker, interfaith minister, offering uniquely designed spiritual rituals. In addition, she is a PR Goddess, promoting events and transformational teachers, healers, writers and artists. She speaks on the subjects of wellness, spirituality, sexuality, creativity, time management, recovery, body image, mindfulness, self esteem, stress management, re-creating yourself, caring for the caregiver, loss and grief. She is a frequent guest on radio and TV. Edie is currently writing her first best selling book entitled The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming the Ordinary Into The Extraordinary and is offering a workshop for women who want to re-create their lives, based on those concepts. A 20 year old journalistic vision came to pass in July of 2008 when she interviewed His Holiness The Dalai Lama. It was a potent reminder to never, ever, ever give up on our dreams. Over the years, Edie has written for mainstream and transformational publications. She has interviewed hundred of notables in the transformational fields, including Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Debbie Ford, Leonard Peltier, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Beckwith, Jonathan Goldman, Gregg Braden, Neale Donald Walsch, Mary Manin Morrissey, Dan Millman, Alan Cohen, Ram Dass, Jack Canfield, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Patch Adams, Ben and Jerry, Donna DeLory, James Twyman, Elizabeth Lesser, Michael Franti and Jean Houston. Her website is http://www.liveinjoy.org 

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Wabi Sabi Love by Edie Weinstein

What if there was a guide to prevailing over the potential pitfalls and perils of the relationship journey that felt like a friendly hand to assist you in maneuvering the myriad mudholes?  Today is your lucky day, if you are discovering Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships. Written by  Arielle Ford, author of  The Soulmate Secret, it speaks to the challenges we face regardless of ,…
Does Your Relationship Ever Get You Down? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Shortly after we were married we went to India and spent our honeymoon in monasteries and ashrams. We also had a private meeting with the Dalai Lama at his residence in McLeod Ganj, in the foothills of the Himalayas. As Ed recalls: After some thirty minutes of talking with him I was feeling so moved by this gentle and loving man that I didn’t want to leave! I was completely in love with this delightful being. He was so ordinary, sitting between us and holding our hands. Finally, I said to him, ‘I don’t want to leave! I just want to stay here with you!’ I knew he would understand my sincerity and would say yes,…

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