The Purpose of Mantras In Meditation

Although there are many different meditation techniques, methods, and theories, the end goal of meditation is always the same: to quiet the mind and establish a closer connection with your true Self (or soul or God). There are different schools of thought on what exactly the most efficient ways to do that are.

As a refresher, the value of quieting your mind is that you are consciously (even if it's for a short while) redirecting energy away from negative thoughts or beliefs that are not serving you. When you withdraw your focus and energy from negative thoughts, you immediately shift into a more positive, higher energy field. When you stop thought, you stop negative thought, and your energy frequency naturally rises.

This has beneficial effects on both the body (lower blood pressure, deeper breathing, relaxation of muscles, healing in cells, lower anxiety levels) and the mind (increased clarity, focus, and concentration, as well as better sleep and improved mood).

So how do you get to a place of non-thought?? And once you're there, how do you maintain it? This is something the yogis of thousands of years ago struggled with, and out of which the knowledge of mantras was slowly developed.

"Mantra" is a Sanskrit word comprised of the root "man" which means mind and "tra," or instrument. So mantra literally translates to "instrument of the mind." Mantras were a tool that the yogis used to get from a place of scattered thought and outward focus, to stillness and inner focus. Turns out, focusing on a single thought or phrase that is neutral in nature (meaning it doesn't bring up strong emotions or connections to anything in the physical world), is an excellent way to begin to focus and tone the mind.

Repeating a mantra especially during the beginning of a period of meditation allows you to focus on a single thought or idea, which naturally prevents distraction from other random ideas, thoughts, and emotions that may keep cropping up. Also, it is infinitely easier to focus on a single thought and slowly slip into a state of thoughtlessness than to try to get to a place of non-thought immediately.

Mantras act as an effective tool to help you focus, calm, and train your mind so that you can free yourself from outward concerns, and connect to an inward space of infinite stillness, silence, and love.

Learning To Be Your Authentic Self

When we are young, most of us are taught to measure how we feel about ourselves by how others react to our behavior. When someone praised you as a child, for example, you naturally tried to repeat that smile-inducing, head-nodding behavior. When some scolded or criticized you, you were probably taught that you did something wrong.

Thus begins a vicious life-long cycle for many people of trying desperately to please everyone - parents, teachers, friends, relatives, co-workers, and even strangers that may be judging us. After all, the rules of socialization tell us that we must fit in, conform, and abide by social norms that were most likely (and ironically) set by disconnected people in a largely dysfunctional society.

Many people forgot long ago to listen to the only voice that really matters: themselves. Their real, authentic self. Not who society says you should be. Not who you think people want you to be. And not even how you were taught to be. But rather, who you want to be and are.

How do you know what your authentic self is? And why is it so critical to come from a place of authenticity? First of all, not caring what other people think, and tuning out the voices and advice of others, can be a daunting task. After all, it's not that your friends and family don't mean well. But they all have their own biases, agendas, limitations, and viewpoints - which may or may not be right for you. In order for you to discover your authentic self, you have to dig deep and do some soul-searching. What makes you tick? What makes you happy? What truths resonate with you??

Most people that are successful, happy, and fulfilled come from a place of authenticity and sincerity. They understand and accept themselves, and feel confident that the world will understand and accept them as well. Ironically, the secret is, when you stop caring about what other people think, and come from a place of truth and self-acceptance, people are usually more drawn to you. They sense your connection to Source (or soul or God) and they unconsciously pick up on your positive energy.

In fact, all your relationships with other people are simply a reflection of the one true connection - the connection with yourself. The more you do what inspires you, indulge your passions, and honor your emotions (which may seem selfish at first), the more you begin to follow the call of Source (or your authentic soul self).

You may find that being 100% authentic is not always the easiest road, but ultimately an immensely satisfying and fulfilling one.

My Favorite Tips For Making the Law of Attraction Work For You

1. Act "as if." A recent study showed that the brain waves generated and neurotransmitters released when someone visualizes sitting on a beach (for example) are exactly the same as the brain waves of a person who is actually sitting on that beach. Your mind (and the Universe) doesn't recognize the difference between what you perceive as "real" and "imaginary." It only reads vibration. The easiest way to attract something into your experience is to evoke the FEELING and VIBRATION of already having it, and then hold your attention to that feeling as long as possible, preferably until it becomes second nature. Feeling as if what you want is already here may seem like a exercise in delusion, but remember, reality is pliable. Your physical reality is constantly changing and conforming to the energy frequency you are holding.

2. Role play. When someone recently asked the entertainer Lady Gaga how she became so famous so quickly, she responded, "I knew I was famous even before anyone ever knew me." She would feel, think, and act like people she admired even before the physical manifestation of her own fame.

Who are some people that inspire you? Who would you want to be like? It doesn't have to be anyone "famous" - just someone that you admire and has had an impact on you. There are many archetypes for you to choose from. Try to get out of your own head a little bit and think and feel more like the person that inspires you. How would they think about a situation? What would they do? Aside from being a fun exercise, this can help you shift your perceptions and create new energy patterns.

3. Do what inspires you. As cliche as it sounds, some people have no idea what inspires them. They are so stuck in a rut of a 9 to 5 job, daily responsibilities, and every day issues, that they don't even have the time or energy to think about "inspiration" - the concept seems too abstract and fanciful. But every day, the Universe gives you hints and clues as to what sort of things might make you happy. Carve out even 15 minutes every day to do something, anything that makes your heart sing. Meditate. Take a bath. Listen to your favorite song. Reconnect with someone that you have forgotten. 15 minutes of being in a state of allowing a day, done every day, will at least open a window where you're allowing the Universe a chance to please you and create an opening for bigger doses of inspiration to sneak in.

4. Think back to when you were a kid. Seriously. Before you had all the problems, issues, hassles, and aggravations of being an adult with so-called "real" responsibilities, what were you like? What sort of things fascinated you? What made you feel excited? What did you dream about? Kids are generally less disconnected from Source energy and still remember what it feels like to be loving and loved at all times. They are still excited, open, curious, adventurous, and honest about how they feel on a daily basis. Would it be such a bad thing to give up being an adult for a moment and actually feel some of those things again?

5. Appreciate. The Universe LOVES it when you appreciate something. Anything. It is the absolute clearest signal you can offer that you want more of whatever it is that you are appreciating. Along with joy and love, the feeling of appreciation has the highest energy vibration on the emotional scale. Energy immediately begins to coalesce around whatever situation, person, thing, or circumstance you are holding as your object of attention, and begins to shape your future moments to bring you more experiences with a similar energy frequency.

5 Simple Steps To Creating Change

1. Think a different thought. We all have certain beliefs, expectations, and patterns of thought about certain subjects that seem natural to us, because we have practiced those thoughts for so long. The number one reason it's hard to get out of a rut or create change is because we keep thinking the same thoughts about a given subject. Jolt yourself out of an energy rut by forcing your mind to view things from a different, more favorable perspective, and then try to hold that new perspective for as long as possible.

2. Take a different action. As they say, madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results. If you are wanting something to be different in your life, or just wanting to create some excitement, the change has to start with you first. There are no boring lives, only boring people. So if you want a different result, take a different action, even if it is small one.

3. Come from a place of abundance, not lack. A lot of times, when people want something or someone in their life to be different, they automatically start from a place of negativity and lackfulness, which undermines the change they are hoping to create. "I hate my job, I wish I had a different one" will continue to bring you more experiences that reinforce that same belief. A simple shift to, "I'm grateful for having a job and am in the process of creating an even better one" can be really impactful. This new statement puts you in a more powerful vibrational place of appreciation and hope rather than desperation. Always act as if what you want is already on its way to you and a part of your life already. What's showing up in your life isn't necessarily what you want. You're simply getting a reflection of what you already believe about yourself and your world. A belief in lack only creates more lack. Creating change from a present place of appreciation and abundance is much more powerful than a feeling of lack.

4. Live in the moment. All of your power is exactly in the Now. The past and future are literally figments of our imagination. Tools for the mind to be able to string experiences together into a linear fashion. The Universe only understands now, now, now. Take advantage of the infinite potential that each moment holds when it is unclouded by regrets from the past and worries about the future. Remember, changing your energy vibration in the current moment is literally shaping your point of attraction for the future. So getting happy now is actually like making an investment in your future.

5. Pay attention to your gut. Don't ignore your intuition. 95% of the information we get from a person or situation is non-verbal in nature. Pay attention to how something or someone is making you feel. Your emotions are your guidance system and will never fail you, when you learn to quiet your mind and tune in. Your instinct will steer you in the right direction and help you create positive change if you learn to listen.

How To Raise Your H.Q.- Part 2

Editor's Note: Please reference Part 1 of this article in the archive section.

As the saying goes, "An unhappy journey can never lead to a happy destination." But does being "happy" really influence outcomes and shape our future experience, or is it merely a glass-half-full, Pollyana-ish sentiment?

People have critiqued the notion that being happy really does influence one's reality in a, well, real way. "It's just a way of seeing the world with rose-colored glasses on," the skeptics say, or, "That's so naive to think you can just be happy and everything will work out." Sometimes yes, sometimes no. These people don't really understand the transformational quality of happiness on an energetic, vibrational level.

First of all, what does being "happy" truly mean? It runs deeper than pretending that you are ok, putting a fake smile on your face for the sake of appearances, or desensitizing yourself to negative emotion. In fact, these techniques tend to make things worse. Acknowledging the way you feel, and figuring out why you feel that way, is a key ingredient of finding true happiness. Emotions are an indicator of how high your energy frequency is (and how much in the flow of life you are). They are like the gas gauge in your automobile. The gauge doesn't create or use gasoline; it's simply an objective indicator. Similarly, your emotions are an indicator of your underlying core beliefs and energy frequency. If you pay close attention to your emotions, you may find a constant unease, or worry, or some other negative emotion underneath the surface that preventing you from being truly happy.

It's important to acknowledge emotions because if you are consistently feeling depressed, angry, irritated, etc. that should be a clear sign that you're vibrating at a low frequency, and attracting similar frequencies to yourself unconsciously. A chronic negative emotional response that is ignored inevitably yields in a negative manifestation.

When people use the term happiness, it usually signifies contentment, peace, elation, excitement, enthusiasm, passion, joy. Every single human being is striving for (from whatever their current point of attraction or emotion is), to feel these things.

Any of these emotions (which we can lump into the catch all term of "happiness") are an indication that your vibrational set point is high. Your energy is cleaner and purer and faster. So what does that get you? When you are vibration is high, you automatically attract similar high vibrations, and the Universe begins to work with you. You begin to see more synchronicities in your life. Things tend to work in your favor. You find yourself not struggling as hard with action steps. You feel more inspired. The right people come into your life at the right time.

Being in the flow requires that you cooperate with the Universe. The easiest way to begin to cooperate is to replace negative thought patterns and emotions with more positive ones. Then you are beginning to see yourself how the Universe (or God) sees you - as wholly good, worthy, abundant, healthy, and loved. Any perception that deviates from this is a false perception created by the egoic mind. It leads to more negativity and resistance, which takes you out of the flow.

Learning to find happiness in the moment is critical because it is literally setting energy patterns into motion that are paving your future experiences. And that's the true basis of the saying, "An unhappy journey can never lead to a happy destination".

Five Step Process To Breaking a Negative Thought Pattern

A simple, five step process to recognizing and breaking negative thought patterns:

1. Catch yourself in the act.

Most people don't even recognize when they are having a negative thought, because it is so ingrained in their thought pattern, that they don't even perceive it as "negative". They see it as Truth. As reality. Most people also erroneously assume that other people would have the same thought / reaction if faced with a similar stimuli or circumstance. For example, take the thought, "This traffic is so terrible. I am wasting so much time. I can't believe I have to deal with this."

This thought, while it may seem logical and true, creates a stress response in the body. The basis of this thought is, "I have been put into an unpleasant circumstance that I cannot control. I will attempt to fight back by reacting negatively and with resistance." Feel the emotional space of helplessness and anger that this thought places you in. If you hold this negative emotion strongly enough, and for long enough, you will find yourself in many, many other circumstances where you feel helpless and out of control, because Law of Attraction naturally continues to draw to you what you are most dominantly feeling. That's why it is so important to catch yourself in a chronic, negative underlying thought pattern.

2. Recognize that you are thinking the thought; the thought is not thinking you.

This gives you some immediate relief, as you now have some power back as you realize that you are thinker of this thought - it did not just think you (although sometimes it seems as if our thoughts are thinking us). This also almost instantly diffuses the negative energy associated with thought, because as you shine a spotlight on it, it loses its power. As you begin to observe your thoughts, you gain a more objective, detached perspective that helps you assess the situation more rationally.

In the example above, you may say to yourself, "I may not be able to control the traffic, but I can control how I feel. I recognize that this thought is not serving me, and I choose to not allow it to overwhelm me."

3. Consciously release the negative energy or emotion that is associated with the thought.

As you release the negative emotion and tension associated with the negative thought, it has less of a negative influence on your vibrational frequency. This is an extremely important step. Remember, this is not some intellectual exercise of seeing the glass half full. You are trying to consciously change your thoughts and emotions to change your vibrational frequency and energy pattern. Releasing negative emotion at its core releases resistance so that you begin to attract more positive energy automatically.

What are the underlying emotions of being irritated in traffic, for example? Lack of control, helplessness, anger, frustration - to name a few. Are there other aspects of your life that you feel this way? Chances are, one of these emotions might be a chronic negative emotional pattern for you. This is when you begin to see that it has nothing to do with the traffic. It never did. The traffic is just a consequence, a mirror, to what you are already feeling and vibrating. This is a powerful realization.

4. Replace the negative thought, with a more positive (but believable) one.

For this concrete example, you might say to yourself, "Well the traffic is bad, and I would rather not be here, but maybe I can use this time to take in some deep breaths and relax. Maybe I can listen to a nice song or program on the radio." Anything can be a meditative experience, if you will let it be. Releasing resistance and negative energy is all about accepting the moment as it is, rather than fighting it. The key here is to begin to soothe yourself by telling yourself things that you can actually sort of believe - otherwise the exercise will seem disingenuous and forced.

5. Feel the positive energy or emotion associated with the new thought and then place conscious focus and attention on it for as long as possible.

This is the last and most important step. Focusing on the positive emotion and feelings of the new thought is what allows a new energy pattern to replace the old one. You new thought might have made you feel more relaxed, less stressed, less anxious. You are now in a completely different emotional and vibrational place than you were a few minutes ago.

This now allows you to access all of the creative solutions the Universe has already created for you. At a higher vibrational frequency, these solutions become visible in a way they were not when you were in a bad place emotionally. You might think of a shortcut or alternate route that you had not thought of before. The traffic may become (seemingly magically) lighter - this is the Universe or your higher self working on your behalf. Another mode of transport or another way to commute might occur to you. Or you might find that you are actually enjoying being alone and relaxed with your thoughts for those few extra minutes- and your energy is better, which will have an automatic positive impact on all other areas of your life as well.

Whatever the case, you have now dealt with a seemingly negative situation in a much more powerful, intuitive, and effective way.

Why Your Ego Is Preventing You From Getting What You Really Want

Once you understand the fundamentals of the law of attraction, and get the basic concept that your thoughts carry a vibrational frequency that is attracting like frequencies, it is sometimes easy to get carried away in trying to force things to happen through your thoughts. You become obsessed thinking about something in an effort to make it happen. And then the thing you want most continues to elude you. What's going on here? If I desire something strongly, and the Universe is responding to my thoughts, then why am I not getting what I'm thinking about?

There is a difference between leveraging your thoughts, and paying attention to your emotions (which are always an accurate indicator of your vibration), and trying to force things to happen through your mind.

Pantangali, and other great yogic mystics, have described the process of creation through four basic elements: ego, mind, body, and soul. Your soul (or the non-physical part of self that is connected to all Energy) is what coordinates all the cooperative components of your experience. It is what does the creating, and the assembling of synchronous events, people, and circumstances.

The mind, ego, and body do not create. They are simply tools to help you decipher what you want. The mind can only observe, categorize, and collect evidence from the reality it is faced with, and use this information to formulate the desire for a change, or new reality. But it cannot make that desire come to fruition. Similarly, the ego can perpetuate the desire and make it stronger. And the body can use its senses to experience the current reality. But it cannot create a new one. So how does it all fit together?

To put in into the vernacular, you understand it when you get that both of the following statements are simultaneously true:

God helps those who help themselves.

Let go and let God.

You are the creator of your own reality- through your deciphering of the contrast in your environment, your ego and mind come to new conclusions and new desires. The key is to then release these new intentions and desires to the Universe (or your higher Self), and ALLOW their creation and manifestation into your experience. Letting go of your desire and releasing attachment from the outcome is a key aspect of manifestation that many people miss.

Sometimes hyper-focusing on what you want is detrimental, because you are still vibrating the lack of it, so your vibrational frequency is not really shifting. The Universe cannot give you what you want if you are not a vibrational match to it. When you take your mind and ego out of the equation, you get out of your own way. You have to practice setting forth an intention, letting go of it, and then trusting that the Universe will float it gently into your experience.

Creating Perfect Health

"Every cell in your body has a direct relationship with Creative Life Force, and each cell is independently responding. When you feel joy, all the circuits are open and the Life Force or God Force can be fully received. When you feel guilt or blame or fear or anger, the circuits are hindered and the Life Force cannot flow as effectively. Physical experience is about monitoring those circuits and keeping them as open as possible. The cells know what to do. They are summoning the Energy." - Abraham Hicks

The relationship between emotional state and physical health has been well-established. We have long known that happier people tend to have stronger immune systems, people with strong social support systems live longer, and stress is a cardiac risk factor. But scientists and physicians alike have barely scratched the surface of these interesting phenomenon - all we have right now are statistics and anecdotal correlations.

The fact is, words like "stress" and "happiness" and "Energy" scare most researchers. They are abstract and hard to quantify. Happiness is not an accepted measurement of anything in clinical trials; it is too vague, too subjective, and veers into unknown territory; the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and health seems to befuddle even the best of us.

But the above examples of the relationship between your thoughts and the effect they have on your physical body are hard to ignore. And when you understand the concept of quantum health, they are not as difficult to understand. Every cell in your body is responding to an energy vibration. Energy comes in the form of either negative or positive thoughts, which cause a negative or positive emotional response. A chronic negative emotional state will be read by the cells as toxic - even if you are not recognizing chronic negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, anger, or hate, your body is feeling the energy vibration from them.

Over time, there is a negative physical manifestation to correlate with the chronic vibration. If you haven't been paying attention to the way you feel for years, you might be surprised and say, "Well I've never thought about a heart attack before. Or I didn't even know about that kind of cancer. So I don't know how I could have created that myself." But the cells of your body, that maintain an exquisite equilibrium, are responding perfectly to your vibration, no exceptions.

The good news is that they also have the infinite intelligence to go back to perfect equilibrium; what keeps them in dis-ease is your continued pattern of negative thought. If you figure out what is bothering you and eliminate those stressors from your life, and turn your thoughts away from your illness, you will go a long way in getting out of your body's ability to heal itself.

What Is Leveraging Thought?

So we are moving to a new server. Same concept, different name - check out the work in progress at http://www.leveragingthought.com/. Because applying the Law of Attraction goes beyond just physical health and applies to all areas of your life, I wanted to expand the site from quantum health to understand how to leverage thought (and energy) in general (hence the new name).

There will still be a focus on health and wellness, though, given my background as a physician. Anyway, here is more on the concept of leveraging thought - enjoy and stay tuned for the almost complete new site!!

Thoughts are a form of energy. Energy is, at its root core, vibration. Everything is made of atoms, which can be broken down into individual quarks, which are basically vibrating units of energy. That isn't spiritual ideology - it's just pure physics. In fact, everything around us is made up of this energy - including light, sound, and physical matter. All energy vibrates at different frequencies, and the energy of your thoughts creates a literal vibrational force field around you, that attracts similar energy and physical circumstances, people, places, and events to you at all times. You are literally creating your own reality through the power of your thoughts, intentions, and emotions (which are simply an indicator of your vibration). Emotions of love, joy, passion, and enthusiasm vibrate with high frequency and attract similar circumstances. That's what the Law of Attraction is all about. Emotions such as hate, jealousy, anger, depression take you lower and lower on the vibrational scale of emotions, and then attract more of the same negative energy into your life. The energy of everyone's thoughts, then, comprises the Universal mind (or God, the Universe, Energy, Christ consciousness, Inner Self, Soul, whatever). The Universe (or God) is constantly coordinating everything in your favor in ways that your conscious mind cannot understand. The goal is to align your thoughts, feelings, and actions in a way that gets into the flow of this universal, life-giving energy stream. And that's goal of this site as well: to help you align with the greater part of yourself, to help you understand the actual process by which thoughts become things, and to show you, step-by-step, how to harnass and leverage the power of your thoughts.

How Passion Correlates To Success

Examining personality traits of people that have accomplished a great deal in any given field, the one theme that resonates in all of them is that highly successful people are usually also highly passionate. What do I mean by passion? It's not necessarily an outward display of emotion, or a frantic, do-or-die mentality. Quite the opposite, highly successful people are usually centered, calm, and self-assured. Yet they are passionate about what they do and what they are good at, and have an intense focus of thought (even if it is for a short period of time), in which they become fully absorbed with what they are involved in.

But here is the really critical part. Ready? Successful, passionate people live their life from the inside out. They are not passionate to get to an end goal. They are passionate because they are in love with what they are doing in the moment. Read those last two sentences very carefully, because the two vibrational energies that correlate with each frame of mind are very different.

For example, if you are trying to be passionate about something because you think you will "get rich" as a result of performing that action, the desire for the end goal dilutes the purity of what you are doing in that moment. If on the other hand, you are completely absorbed and in love with what you are doing, you are fulfilling your highest purpose in life - which is simply to experience more joy and more enthusiasm at any given moment. This is when you are most aligned with your highest, broader, non-physical self. This is also when your energy vibration is the highest. Regardless of your current belief system, following your passion in life (no matter what it is) is always supported by the Universe- because that is who you really are. Enthusiasm, passion, love, and joy are vibrational indicators that you are on the right path. It may not seem like the most direct path to achieving abundance, or freedom, or whatever you are striving toward. But it really is the path of least resistance, and will allow you to get into the flow of a very powerfully positive life force or stream.

So take a lesson from highly successful people- live your life from the inside out. Disregard what others think about what is good for you and what you should be doing. When you follow other people, you are living from the outside, and hoping you will experience change as a result. When you follow yourself, you are creating change from within, and the Universe will take its cue from you. Don't go down a path because you think it will yield more abundance and freedom at the end of it- an unhappy journey can never have a happy ending. Instead, learn to follow your passion, and allow the Universe to effortlessly yield abundance, freedom, and joy to you.

Define Spirituality?

Editor's note : Part 2 of "How To Raise Your H.Q." will be published shortly. This article felt more inspired in this moment, and stems from a quote I read today from one of my favorite authors, Abraham Hicks.
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Questioner: Is finding my purpose in life more about asking what life wants from me, or what I want from life?

Abraham: It is what you want from life; you are the creator. And, really, the other part of it you can't get wrong anyway. Because, what life wants from me -- oh, such a good question -- what life wants for me is talking about this non-physical energy that is really you.

In other words, who you were prior to coming into this physical body is still who that non-physical energy is (your soul). In other words: So, you came with intention. So, then as you stand in your physical form, you could accurately ask the question, "What does that part of me want from me?" And we would say, "What that non- physical part of you wants from you is new experience. New life, new contrast, new exploration; new conclusions...that what? New conclusions that that part of you can sink it's teeth in; can vibrationally become.

There are a lot of people who are saying, "It is inappropriate to want." And, sometimes we go there, as we visit, because we know, we hear it from many: that there are some philosophies that seem to take issue with the idea of you, egotistically, identifying anything as desire. And, sometimes, as we listen (and we always love to hear the conversations no matter what they are about, because people are earnestly seeking) and, after they talk about how desire is inappropriate and that they have been taught that if they can be desireless, that it will be better and we say, "And what is it that you will gain from this philosophy of letting lose of desire?" and they say, "We'll be happier!" And we say, "And is not happiness a desire?

So, what life (God) wants from you, is joyful expansion!

And, what you want from life (God) is joyful expansion.
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Although people tend to view materialism and spiritualism as polar opposites, there is really nothing in your life that is not "spiritual." You are, by defintion, non-physical God Energy, in physical form. Everything that you do, think, feel, believe, and desire stems from your body, ego, and mind, but on a deeper level, your soul. The degree to which your body, ego, and mind are aligned with what your soul wants is the only variable.

While some religious philosophies tell you that it is wrong to desire anything, this logically does not make sense, as why would a non-physical soul come into physical form in the first place if it did not want to experience life? And to experience and live life, one must have desire. God (or the energy of all that is, that you are also a part of), does not judge your desires. You were born with the intention to experience contrast, draw new conclusions of what you wish to create next, and expand as a result. As you expand in your thoughts, knowledge, and love, the Universe expands with you. That's the purpose. That's the game.

The key is not to not have desires (God doesn't label himself or herself as an "anti-materialist." God is just pure, positive Energy). The key is learn how to have a desire, and then learn to align your thoughts, feelings, and Energy with that desire so you feel the happiness of the desire as well as the happiness of its fulfillment. It's learning to happy in the moment, in the gap between your wanting and receiving. The paradox is that the happier you get in the moment (regardless of the manifestation of what you want), the faster what you want comes into being.

As you expand through your alignment with Non-physical Source energy, the Universe expands with you- it literally experiences itself through your physical experience. Being your authentic self is profoundly spiritual.

Spirituality, then, is simply allowing the Universe to experience more love, more joy, more creation, more everything - through you.

How To Raise Your H.Q.- Part 1

The terms I.Q. and now even E.Q. (emotional quotient, which correlates with emotional intelligence) have long ago made it into the vernacular. But there is another "quotient" so to speak that everyone strives for but not many people really understand. So I'm going to go out on a limb and coin a new phrase: let's just call it H.Q. - or the Happiness Quotient.

What is H.Q.? It's long been understood that some people just have a lower threshold for happiness. You know, those annoying people that derive great pleasure from the smallest of things. Like eating ice cream. Or watching football. Or whatever. Frankly, I never used to be one of those people. In fact, I think I simultaneously despised and envied people that were happy for no reason (I mean, what was their deal anyway?). Weren't they smart enough to see everything that was wrong in their lives and want to fix it? Wasn't it normal to endlessly examine and rationalize one's own deficiencies? To conquer childish optimism and replace it with jaded "maturity"?

Then one day, in my attempts at introspection, I realized that my forced realism, pragmatism, rationalism, and other -isms that I can't think of right now, were only making me more miserable. I had been socially trained to be all those things. Creativity, spontaneity, and passion were mere luxuries - not a normal part of everyday life. And then I began to pay attention to my emotions, and my happiness level (it's hard to quantify, but you know it when you have it).

I began to consciously infuse moments of happiness into everyday life. I would eat an ice cream cone in the middle of the afternoon (there is a great gelato place near where I work); calories be damned. I would take five minutes in the morning before I got out of bed and just lay there and daydream (I prefer to call it "visualization"); alarm be damned. I would sit in a chair in my apartment every night and close my eyes and just breathe; personal phone calls and emails waiting to be answered be damned. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but to my surprise, focused breathing was actually pleasurable and relaxing.

And then something interesting happened. As I got happier (for no apparent reason), the Universe seemed to cooperate with me more. I started noticing more favorable coincidences in my life. There seemed to be a positive momentum where my inner happiness seemed to attract more outer happiness (through synchronous people, places, events)- a phenomenon that I thought deserved further exploring.

Were those annoyingly happy people onto something? And does getting happy really influence outcomes and shape our future experience by moving energy, or is merely a change in perception?

Part 2- What's happiness got to do with it?

To Be Continued...

Leverage Your Thoughts and Influence Your Health

The following article was written by Deepak Chopra and published on June 9 in the Huffington Post. I've taken excerpts of it here, as I think it is an interesting perspective on the idea of quantum health and mind-body medicine, and points to the fact that we are really beginning to see as a patient-driven paradigm shift in the field of medicine.

Mainstream Medicine and the Oprah Factor
by: Deepak Chopra

"The medical profession is burdened with a host of problems that Oprah addresses with more candor and force than the AMA. She promotes wellness and prevention, two areas that drastically need improvement. She brings up creative solutions to problems that medical science is baffled by, such as the healing response itself and the role of subjectivity in patient response. These are issues that few M.D.s are willing to explore, yet she has done so for decades."

"Every illness has a subjective component -- after all, to be sick is to change your moods and emotions, and severe illness causes one to examine primal issues like life and death and the meaning of existence. Do these subjective changes affect healing? Obviously they do, or we wouldn't have the placebo effect, which comes into play at least 30% of the time in illness.Scientific medicine by and large ignores wellness, prevention, and alternative medicine in general. On a daily basis doctors don't deal in these things; few take courses in medical school centered on them. That's why a massive movement has arisen driven by patients themselves."

"In Seattle a recent study of 638 patients with chronic lower back pain were given either some sort of acupuncture or standard treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs and massage. On average, the acupuncture patients received twice as much benefit as those on standard treatment. The kicker is that some of the patients received fake acupuncture -- they were pricked superficially with toothpicks -- and received the same relief."

"The benefit of lifestyle changes has been grossly underestimated and underused. Coronary heart disease, prostate cancer/breast cancer, diabetes, and obesity account for 75% of health care costs, yet the progression of these diseases may often be stopped or even reversed by making intensive lifestyle changes. The most recent findings show that such changes actually cause beneficial alterations at the genetic level, affecting up to 400 genes through such measures as improved diet, exercise, and meditation."

"Does the most brilliant researcher in the world know why cancer sometimes spontaneously disappears? Why a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression can respond equally well to talk therapy and drugs -- that is, why talk is as effective as chemicals in altering the brain? Or how the body's healing system is influenced by outside forces?The answer is no. Which means that mysteries remain to be solved, and creative solutions have every chance of arising from unexpected quarters. Autoimmune diseases are one in which the body's immune system attacks the body itself. There are few known causes; it is baffling to grasp why the body's chief defender against illness should turn around and become the cause of illness. This study suggests a human connection rather than a biological one. Or rather, human distress leads to biological distress. Doctors don't officially believe that; millions of ordinary citizens do. Earlier studies had already correlated adverse childhood conditions with the risk of inflammatory conditions. In the little picture, a new finding has been added to the long list of mind-body links for illness and aging. In the bigger picture, the fact that we don't fully understand the mind-body connection, much less use it for healing in official medicine, comes into glaring relief."

Ways To Raise Your Vibration in Five Minutes Or Less

In my last post, I promised to share with you guys ways to quickly and effectively raise your energy vibration. A higher vibration means you are more closely aligned with Source energy. Changing your energy vibration is also the only way you can start attracting better things to you - remember, anything that is currently manifesting in your reality started with a energy impulse first, then eventually translated into physical matter (in the form of a specific person, situation, circumstance, etc. coming into your life).

The most sustainable way to alter your destiny is by changing your vibration slowly through positive thought. Sustained positive beliefs, coupled with positive expectation, are a surefire way to consistently keep good things coming into your experience. But what if you want faster, more effective results? Here are 5 ways to boost your vibrational quotient, fast.

1. MEDITATE!! If I could name one thing that every single human being should be doing, this would be it. After eating, drinking water, and sleeping, this should be the next biggest priority in your life. Check out previous posts for how to meditate and what to expect, but basically, this is THE most effective way to cause a quantum leap in your energy vibration. When you stop thought, you stop negative thought, and Source energy can begin to flood through you. You'll FEEL it - deeper breathing, relaxed muscles (or the opposite with involuntary muscle movements, which just means you are releasing resistance), a flash of light, an intuitive hit or thought that occurs to you, or even just a feeling of peace. These are all signs that your meditation efforts are working. It takes a while to experience these things, so keep at it.

2. Visualize. Close your eyes, relax, and imagine the circumstances you are wishing to create. Don't do it with the forced intention of trying to make something happen, or trying to tell the Universe what you want - it already knows, so trust that what you want has already happened in a vibrational reality somewhere. The point of visualizing is for the pleasure of it. The act of being purely focused on something that makes you happy (without any ulterior motives) is an excellent way to raise vibration.

3. Breathe. As cliche as it sounds, the old yogic saying is still true today: breath is life. All the cells of your body are crying out for oxygen all the time. Fortunately, your body handles this for you most of the time without your consciously thinking about it. But in times of increased stress, extra oxygen in your cells helps every single process in your body - metabolism, excretion, brain function, releasing of toxins, and so on. So focus on your breathing - take a deep breath, and then take in a little more oxygen. Don't exhale just yet - even if your lungs feel full, take in a little more. And then a little more. Then just exhale slowly. Enjoy it. Your breath is the most tactile, visceral way for you to feel the cyclical, rhythmic ebb and flow of Energy pulsing through you.

4. Love. Thoughts of love (not necessarily the romantic kind, but rather love as in pure appreciation) vibrate higher than any other emotion. Period. You (in your non-physical form) are essentially unlimited love, joy, and abundance. Everything that everyone wants in their life is because they think it will give them a taste of these things - love, freedom, and joy.

The basis of your life is freedom.

The purpose of your life is joy.

That is why you are here. So find something, anything that you love and just fixate completely on it for a few minutes. It doesn't matter what the object of your love is - just feeling the emotion purely will raise your vibration.

5. And, finally, Sleep. This one is tricky. When you sleep, your consciousness merges with Source energy; that is how it draws strength and sustains itself for when it must accompany you during your waking hours. If you are usually in pure positive appreciation, and loving your life, your Consciousness likes staying awake, as it experiences joy along with you. Sometimes the most aligned people need the least amount of sleep. When you are in a constant state of negative emotion and resistance, however, your Consciousness demands a break from all of the negativity more often, and you feel tired and the need for more sleep. When you sleep, you release resistance. But unlike meditation, when you wake up you return to your original vibration; when you come out of meditation on the other hand, your vibration remains higher (this is how meditation differs from sleep).

One caveat to this: wanting sleep does not always mean you are vibrating very negatively. Sometimes, if someone's desires are very strong and the Energy is moving very fast, the fast moving energy stream can cause you to feel tired if you are not "keeping up" with You. In other words, if you are not in an allowing place in which you believe your desires are manifesting, it can cause a gap between where you want to be and where you are. This can cause a feeling of fatigue, because you are summoning more and more energy, but are not in a state of relaxed allowing. Sleep can temporarily relieve some of that resistance and let you close the gap.

There you have it - 5 easy (and fun) ways to raise your vibration. Try one or two that appeal to you. Then try all of them over the course of a few days or weeks to see what works best for you!

How Information Overload Affects Your Energy

It's no secret we are in a world of information overload. Between facebook, twitter, cell phones, 24 hour news channels, digital billboards, TV ads, text messaging, and a hundred other ways to "stay connected," we are in a perpetual state of sorting through a bombardment of information that is flowing to us through multiple channels at any given moment. Some of it we care about, some is completely irrelevant. There are some pieces of information we want to know about our friends, relatives, and colleagues, and other things that we really don't.

But we sometimes have little control over what information we are exposed to. And even more importantly, most people do not consciously monitor how that information is making them feel. If you were ordering your news through a take-out window, you might get the following: 5 murders, 3 wars, 2 disease epidemics, and 1 collapsing global economy, to go, please.

You wouldn't necessarily fuel your body with unhealthy junk, so why would feed your mind with unhealthy, depressing thoughts? A lot of people see the benefit of monitoring what they put in their bodies, but not their minds.

You can't always bury your head in the sand and ignore every piece of negative information that is out there. (Isn't it important to face reality)? But just because it is someone else's reality doesn't mean it has to become your own. There's a huge contrast of things happening out there, both those which you deem "good" and those which you deem "bad". Only you get to decide what you let in into your own world. How do you decide? By choosing what you focus on. By directing your thoughts, emotions, and attention to that which you want to see expand in your own life.

It might be true that there are people starving out there- but most people don't zero in on starvation, worry that they might become a victim of it, and constantly focus their attention on it. What would be the upside of worrying? You feeling bad won't benefit the person that is starving, and it certainly won't benefit you. So why lower your energy vibration by thinking depressing thoughts? This is an extreme example, but people do this with the all sorts of things all the time like the economy, their health, their relationships, etc. They pick up on the negativity from the constant barrage of information being fed to them, internalize it, feel negative emotion based on what they read and hear, and then act surprised when negativity shows up in their own life. If you are internalizing negativity from your surroundings, it lowers your vibration, so that you are then more likely to attract negativity into your own life. That's just law.

Instead of feeling bad when you hear something bad, just remember that everyone is creating their own reality. Everyone has their own source of internal power, and everyone has the ability to be happy. When you are bombarded with information from any source, learn to be a selective sorter. Does the information make you feel good? Then focus on it. Does it make you feel bad, anxious, or worried? Then take action on it if you need to (and can), otherwise discard it from your mind. Taking care of what you put in your mind just as carefully as what you put in your body is critical to your mental and psychological health and well-being.

The Karma Cop-out

So I've gotten used to various friends, family members, and acquaintances who regularly ask me for spiritual advice (or who disagree with me on some point or the other, and just want to have a spirited debate). I respect the latter just as much as the former, by the way.

This past weekend, someone very close to me brought up a very good point: "But what about karma? What about fate? Surely you don't believe that you can control everything. I mean, sure we have free will, and our thoughts can influence some things, but a lot of things are out of our control."

So here is my two paragraph explanation of a centuries old problem: free will versus destiny.

First, there is the accumulation of thought that has brought you to where you currently are. There is continuity from lifetime to lifetime. This is what most people mean when they say "karma." So this is true. But you see, the thing is, things are not really happening in a nice, linear way like our mind likes to think. In reality, our souls exist in a multi-dimensional reality where everything is happening in the NOW. The past and future are projections of our mind; a neat trick the mind uses to categorize and fully understand different experiences. Within the boundaries of a time-space continuum, if you are living unconsciously from lifetime to lifetime, without recognition that your thoughts are driving your reality, and without any connection to Source energy, then yes, your life just becomes a continuation of previous energy. You will seemingly have very little control in this scenario, and the "good" and "bad" things that happen in your life can be attributed to a previous life. This is what I call the "karma cop-out." The karma cop-out is abdicating responsibility for certain things in your life by using the excuse that this is your "fate" or "destiny."

But here's the really interesting thing: in the moment that you begin to realize that you are a greater Energy Being in physical form, and that only part of that greater soul or energy stream that is You is physically focused, then you can begin to reconnect to who You really are. Your so-called "karma" begins to dissolve the moment you become conscious of your thoughts and start controlling them. As you slowly change your energy vibration to that of love, appreciation, and joy and learn to hold this energy pattern for extended periods of time, you vibrational reality, and thus physical reality, can shift very, very quickly. New avenues will open up for you. Old energy patterns (which are mirrored by behavioral patterns, physical traits like metabolism, luck, and a myriad of other things that people think can't change), begin to shift.

You probably won't be able to change an energy pattern overnight. If you've been living in poverty consciousness for many lifetimes, it might be hard to manifest a million dollars overnight. Or even in a year. But NO ONE is "destined" to be poor, or get cancer, or be unhappy. By becoming conscious that you are the creator of your reality, you hold the power to change that reality, starting Now.

So don't fall for the karma cop-out.

Editor's note: The next article will focus on ways to raise your energy vibration quickly and effectively. If you're not sure how vibration relates to physical reality, please read some earlier posts on the law of attraction to get caught up!

What Are Phytonutrients?

So recently I was introduced to the concept of phytonutrients. Not having heard this term before, I have to admit I was skeptical. After a bit of digging though, I discovered that phytonutrients are essentially plant-based nutrients that come from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Here's what all the buzz is about:

What exactly are phytonutrients?

Phytonutrients are plant-derived nutrients. They are also referred to as phytochemicals or "superfoods." They have been touted as having anti-viral, anti-cancer, and anti-bacterial properties. Currently, many clinical trials are underway examining the use of phytochemicals from certain plants that may have medicinal properties. For example, an important cancer drug, Taxol (paclitaxel), is a phytochemical initially extracted and purified from the Pacific yew tree.

What health benefits do phytonutrients provide?

Some of the top benefits include boosting immunity, providing an antioxidant boost (antioxidants have anti-cancer properties), protecting against heart disease, and possibly slowing the aging process. Many phytonutrients, such as turmeric and salvia, also have anti-inflammatory properties. It is thought that the absence or deficiency of phytonutrients in processed foods may contribute to the increased risk of coronary artery disease, diabetes, and cancer.

What foods contain phytonutrients?

Increasing your consumption of fruits and veggies is the best way to get more phytonutrients into your diet. Virtually all non-processed fruits and vegetables have phytonutrient properties. More well-known examples include lycopene in tomatoes (currently being investigated for prostate cancer), beta-carotene in carrots, isoflavones in soy, and the tannic acid in blueberries. The list is endless. It's not as important to get caught up in which nutrient is in what - the research is just starting to come in, so the best thing to do is to incorporate a few of your favorites in your diet and switch it around a bit. Variety matters, since different fruits and vegetables have differing properties. Have fun trying new foods, and learn to eat what intuitively appeals to you - you might find that your body really needs one nutrient which will cause a craving for a certain food.

There are many resources out there to learn more. One of my favorites is http://www.phytolife.com/ - they have great recipes, articles, and healthy lifestyle tips. Happy eating!

Is Action More Important Than Thought?

In trying to create change in your life, how important is thought versus action? There is a common misconception out that the only way one can create change is through ACTION. "No pain, no gain" they tell us. "Money doesn't grow on trees." We've all grown up in a society where action reigns supreme, and hard work and sacrifice are applauded. But have you ever noticed how many people there are out there working very, very hard, and yet success still eludes them? And there are other people that just seem to get lucky, or get all the breaks?

If the formula was as simple as hard work = success, there would be a lot more successful people out there, don't you agree? But then, people argue, "oh he just got lucky" or "she just timed it right, that's all." But what influences your luck? What inspires you to the right timing? Your life is more than just a series of random coincidences over which hard work is your only way to fight back and have a sense of control. Taking fruitful, effective action (and working hard when you need to) is definitely important.

But what's more important is that your energy is lined up. If you are not already feeling successful, if you have a lot of resistance in terms of negativity, hesitation, anxiety, etc., then you are holding yourself back. If your energy is not in alignment with what you want, and you have not created a great deal of positive momentum through your vibration (the energy vibe you are giving off to the universe), I've got news for you: you can work 24 hours a day on your business and you will still not be the next Bill Gates. Or the next Oprah. Or the next [insert who you admire here].

The thing that all very successful people have going for them is that they have consciously or unconsciously combined a strong, specific desire with very little resistance. So then the actions they do take seem to work in a big way. Things build on themselves automatically. They get lucky and get the right breaks. The right people seem to show up in their life magically. And they will all tell you that it wasn't back-breaking work that got them there; they simply had a dream and followed through in a way that felt natural to them.

The goal here is to get in the flow of the Energy. Imagine a strong current carrying you downstream. Cultivating positive, focused thoughts, having a sustained, positive expectation, and then relaxing into a space of non-resistance allows you to go with your Energy stream (everyone has one). Taking uninspired action just for the sake of acting, and trying to win by pushing against what you don't want, is like taking a tiny pair of oars and paddling upstream against a very strong current. You may make some progress, but eventually you will get tired and give up.

Don't let the stream beat up on you. Drop your oars and just turn downstream; let the current carry you. And don't forget to enjoy the ride down the river!

Are you focused on the problem or the solution?

A lot of people, when faced with a problem in their life, whether its a work-related or personal, think incessantly about the problem. Some of this is involuntary because it's easy (and lazy) to dwell on what is. "Well this is my reality" they say. "Of course I'm going to think about it." What's even worse, they sometimes hyperfocus on the problem, hoping that this focus on what's wrong will help them to find a solution. These people don't really understand how energy works.

What you give your attention to, you add energy to, and it continues to expand in your life.

By focusing on the problem, you are simply adding to the status quo of what is, and you are making it harder for yourself to create the change you seek. Focusing on the problem will not lead to a solution, since the problem is a different energy vibration than the vibration of the solution. When you are focused on the problem, the solution cannot find you. The people you need to meet, the insight that you are hoping will come to you, the circumstances that might favor you, etc. cannot align with you. The universe will continue to bring you more of what you are vibrating, which is "I have this problem." The universe then says "Yes, you do." The universe (or the field of infinite intelligence) always agrees with you.

Now, you do want to think about your problem to the extent that you define it clearly. After all, if you don't know what's wrong, you can't very well go about fixing it. But once you've clearly defined the problem and figured out what's wrong, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT, and begin to think about the way you want things to be.

Stop beating the drum of what you don't want. You have to begin telling yourself a new story, even if it seems artificial at first. As you slowly begin to ignore your "reality" (which was at one time nothing more than your thoughts) and you begin to think and feel new thoughts, your reality will begin to conform to your new vibration. Do whatever you need to do to feel good; don't worry about whether it is "real" yet or not. Use techniques described earlier like meditation, visualization, and filtering out what's good about your life as your excuse to feel good. These are some of the best ways to raise your vibration. Then relax into that space of well-being, and think about what a solution would feel like.

The goal is to align with the universal intelligence that is always available to you. When you feel positive emotion, are solution-oriented, and direct your thoughts and feelings towards what you want to create, you align with your greater self and gain power. As you close the gap between You and you, sometimes you will find that solutions arise and problems resolve- spontaneously.

What I'm Reading Now

The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles

Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.

So I love the premise of this book, which attempts to define what Lipton calls the "New Biology." Basically, Lipton proposes a hypothesis that what we think about forms positive and negative energy patterns that affect cells in the body in a very real way. Lipton uses his own research as well as that of other top experts to show how cells really receive information. It's a good mix of cell biology, quantum physics, and neuroscience for the "sciencey" evidence-based people out there who like data. Of course, your intuition (positive thinking and less stress = better health) should tell you the same thing. But this book makes good inroads to all the skeptics out there (if you haven't figured it out by now, yes people, meditation really does work).

Bottom line : We are not just a product of our DNA. Instead, DNA itself is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including environmental, emotional, and mental signals that are literally shaping the way your cells behave.

It seems that we really are what we think.