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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

icw cream is good for the soul

I found this in Gary Craig's EFT newsletter.


Cross My Heart

Last week I took my children to a restaurant. My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads he said, "God is good. God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And liberty and justice for all! Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby I heard a woman remark, "That's what's wrong with this country. Kids today don't even know how to pray. Asking God for ice-cream! Why, I never!"

Hearing this, my son burst into tears and asked me, "Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?"

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table. He winked at my son and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer."

Really?" my son asked.
"Cross my heart." Then in theatrical whisper he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes."


Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal. My son stared at his for a moment and then did something I will remember the rest of my life. He picked up his sundae and without a word walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, "Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes and my soul is good already."


This story courtesy of http://www.homeholidaysfamilyandfun.com

(I would have liked to hear about the woman's reaction, too.)

Saturday, November 26, 2005

If you don't think reality is an illusion, read this:

The Holographic Universe

Michael Talbot

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.

Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.

To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film.

When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose.

Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration.

Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side.

As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them.

When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment.

According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality.

Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.

The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky.

Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order.

At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.

What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be -- every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from bluĆ¼ whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".

Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.

Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.

Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through ome gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.

Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.

The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through he senses into the inner world of our perceptions.

An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.

Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.

Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.

Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.

It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.

Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "osmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.

But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?

Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram.

This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature.

Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm.

In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level.

It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology. In particular, Grof feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness.

(There's more here)

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Goodbye, dear pup

Our bitch had two pups about nine weeks ago. Today one of them went to another home - some folks we vaguely know who live up the hill a way.

I'd grown to love these little creatures. I was sad to say good bye to this little, vibrant, trusting piece of doggy life. Even though I don't want to keep them - we have already too many dogs.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Everything Produces in Kind

This article arrived in my mail box this morning. It's worth reading.

"Everything Produces in Kind

Today we would like to notice a very simple, universal yet hardly noticed principle of life. Noticing this will dramatically improve your life in all areas and situations - relationships, health, career, business, politics, sports - all areas of your life. Sometimes the simplest of things are the most powerful yet least understood. Let us look at one such simplicity. Here it is:

Everything produces in kind.

An orange seed produces orange trees, which produce oranges. This you can count on.

A frog gives birth to frogs. This you can count on.

Water evaporates into steam. This you can count on.

So what can you not count on? The impossible. You cannot count on the impossible. The impossible is this:

You cannot count on an orange seed growing into a banana plant, for that is impossible.

You cannot count on a frog giving birth to a gorilla, for that is impossible.

You cannot count on water evaporating into steel, for that is impossible.

In other words, everything produces in kind, and trying to go against this is impossible and at best a pure waste of energy resulting in pain and no result. Try it if you don't believe it.

Here is a bigger insight into this: Everything gives rise to that which is like it, only in a different form. So the orange seed, tree and fruit are one and the same thing, only appearing in different form. The frog, egg and tadpole are one and the same thing, only appearing in different form. The water, steam, clouds, ocean, and ice are one and the same thing, only appearing in different form. Now to expand: If you did not know what a frog was or a tadpole and saw them both at the same time, you would think they are two different creatures completely! If you have never seen water or ice and saw them both at the same time, you would think they are two different materials!

Ok, fair enough. It is easy to see how this is so with the physical world around you, but what does that have to do with your life and life affairs?

Simple. Everything gives rise to that which is like it, only in a different form. Sometimes, if you are not aware of the big picture, your mind may get tricked into thinking there is no relationship between things that are obviously related. And this is what happens all the time. It is the norm rather than the exception. Watch.

We all know that our lives arise out of our thoughts. You are reading this now because, by a chain of choices you have previously made, including the choice to read to this point, you have thought of reading such material before. In other words, if it was not in your mental interest or field of attention, you would never have read this article you are reading now. Sometimes in your life you have seen a clear connection between your thoughts and the world arising around you. at most other times you have not seen this connection and thought even that you were a victim of circumstances. Now is the time to see that, truly, everything gives rise to its own kind. And this is how you do that:

Your thoughts give rise to like thoughts, words and actions. If you think a thought A, it will and must, under all circumstances, result in an experience in your world that is exactly like thought A, only appearing in different form. In practice, this means that you worry about things because you worry about things. It means that the very act of worrying, which by definition is the consistent and excessive thinking of the worst case scenario, is that which gives rise to conditions that make you worry even more.

Again, every thought you have gives rise to experiences and results of its own kind. This is sealed and unbreakable. To simplify, w happy thought results in happy conditions and experiences, and a destructive thought results in its own kind, and these can never be interchanged.

To simplify even further, worry results in conditions to worry about, and anxiety results in conditions to be anxious about. That is how your world arises out of yourself.

Now, we need your attention here for the next statements. So please pay full attention now. There is no point to worrying about anything. You worry because you think that worrying is doing something about it and hence by worrying you believe that you will help prevent disaster. You worry because you believe it works for you. And when the events you were worried about finally come about, you feel justified, that you were correct in worrying about them because, look, here they are now! The truth is, the worrisome conditions came because you worried about them. Everything gives rise to its own kind. You worry, and sooner or later you are faced with the circumstances you worried about, or something similar in context and essence but different in form and appearance.

Worry, or any negative thought, will under all circumstances give rise to negative external outcomes. Never, under any circumstances, will it give rise to positive outcomes because by definition worry is the envisioning of the worst case scenario. Remember, the connections between the causing thought and the resultant effect may not be obvious to you, but be assured that even if separated by space, form and time, a thought always gives rise to a matching result.

It is interesting to note that Jesus is quoted in the New Testament as having said "be anxious over nothing". Worry is useless, because at best it can only disrupt the desired positive outcome, and at worst bring about a negative outcome. There is not a single instance where worry can work positively. So why bother do it any more?

Now let us look at the grand daddy of this universal law that guarantees that everything produces of its own kind. Where is it most clearly given to us? In just about all the worlds major religions, no matter where they come from or how they started, they say one thing: you were created in the image and likeness of the Original Creator. The Creator, by extension of Itself, creates that which is like It in essence, though not necessarily in form. Form changes all the time, but essence is eternal. The only reason you do not experience yourself with the magnificence you would imaging the Creator possessing is because (and again this law comes in) you have put forth and held a thought that your not that which you are, and hence you experience that as well. And that is why all spiritual streams emphasize on going within, waking up, remembering, recognizing your unity with Oneness. And this is how deep this law goes, that like produces in kind. Whatever thought you hold in mind, whatever belief, you will experience it in your reality, even when it is contrary to truth, in which case you would be experiencing illusion, but you will, under all circumstances, experience that which is like the thought held.

Where else have you seen this law talked about? You have seen it in more places than you may remember. Here are some examples: birds of a feather flock together, you reap what you sow, you shall know them by their fruits, karma, what goes around comes around, do unto your brother... You know the rest.

Now back to your life. Life can be dramatically simplified if you just always remember this simple law. You need not fight against anything, cause fighting against results in conflict, for resistance is born of conflict and thus births conflict. If you find there is something in your life you do not like, simply choose another. If you don't like having little money, simply stop worrying about money, stop thinking of situations where you may lack money, stop speaking and thinking from the position of poverty. A poor thought gives rise to poverty, a rich thought gives rise to wealth. It is very simple. And this applies to all areas of life, even in relationships and health.

Let us look at what works and what doesn't:

Flowing from a mental and emotional position of abundance results in wealth, but struggling and working hard from a mental and emotional position of lack results in tiredness and little wealth, no matter how long you do it for.

Flowing from a mental and emotional position of peace results in peace, but protesting and fighting against war from a mental and emotional position of conflict results in conflict and polarity, no matter how long you do it for. Don't believe this? Well, ask yourself this: If everyone in the world fought against a cause they believed to be worth fighting for, all 6 billion people each with a justifiable cause to fight against, what would happen? Now, what if all 6 billion people held peace in their mind, regardless of what everyone else does, what would happen then? Impractical, you say? You haven't tried it yet. I guarantee you that holding your own peace is the most effective way to peace. No matter how big this planet gets, it still comes down to what each person does, and hence the sovereignty and power of an individual is guaranteed high and capable. Every invention, revolution or leap started with one person, spreading to more. But that is another topic all together. For now, remember this simple law and live by it, and your life will simplify and multiply under a new clear direction. If you wish to know more, see http://www.imagesofone.com. Remember, everything gives rise to its own kind, so direct your thoughts deliberately, and under all circumstances, be anxious over nothing.



Article written by David Cameron, CEO ImagesOfOne.com, author of Raising Humans and A Happy Pocket Full of Money, and developer of the Prova LifeGoals Effortless Achiever+ and Prova LifeMap Numerology software. These and titles such as Think and Grow Rich, As A Man Thinketh, and more are available for download and free trial at http://www.ImagesOfOne.com.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Which of you is lying?

Look at this, you girls: (From N.Y. Times , quoted by Maureen Dowd)

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

Dorothy Parker

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