Tag Archives: Beliefs

Are modern day science n stress making us more sick or superstitious?

Nov 4,2016 / By
abc

True image or illusion?

Current US President Barack Obama has revealed in a recent interview that he always carries in his pocket a statuette of Lord Hanuman, small Buddha, silver poker chip etc. and seeks inspiration from same when he feels tired or discouraged. But, he has said that he is not that superstitious.

He is not alone; he has millions of followers!

How gifts and gadgets of science are making you more superstitious

You would find celebrities, artists, leaders, especially from political polity and gen. next more than ever before wearing rings containing specific stones, colorful bands or sacred threads on their wrists or lucky charms to attract good omens. Advancements in multimedia enable millions to watch them like never before and entice them to emulate such practices.

Scientific advancements have given advent to social media and social media have brought together not only colleagues, cultures, traditions, beliefs and rituals from every corner of our planet but also voices of faith healers and fortune tellers. Every other day, I get text message on my cell phone about forecast for my future and what I should do to make it lucky. One day while under duress, one is bound to fall prey to same.

All kinds of wearable devices are now available to monitor nearly all parameters of your body. Everything looks hunky-dory as long as these parameters are within prescribed limits. But what is if some of those go out of limits? You land on the lap of stress, superstition or god for quick fixes. Hardly anyone would run to doctors for every tit and bit; but if someone does it, he/she would create another set of psychological problems.

When you are stressed, you fall either sick or prey to superstitions

Stress has long list of its byproducts – insomnia, IBS, cardio disorder, lever dysfunction, diabetes… and now new research studies including one conducted by Ohio State University have added cancer, as it gets accentuated by stress.

In modern age, there are many more media available to invite stress, leading among which is social media and mobile phones. Social media is a great boon as well as a gruesome bane. It is a classic example of how plus and minus go hand in hand. Thirty years back, we were surviving very well without having even a line of remote communication at home; today we can’t sustain a minute without cell phone in hand.

No one notices, rather dislikes to notice silent stress of taking selfies, posting images supposedly better than previous day, racing to get more likes and repenting if buddies or beloved did not like it.

Untold story of how science has been misused by man

In its original form, science is secular and secures everyone; but depending upon how it is used or applied, it can create values and virtues or vices and viruses; it can develop faith or fear; surprisingly, its positive use promotes spiritualism and negative use prompts materialism.

Though the taste of man or masses is for positive, their recipe is for exactly opposite – negative. That is why scientific facts have been twisted by most people into their fractured faiths i.e. illusions or superstitions and turned on more far right and left wing ideas and ideologies leaving little space for the center or balanced ones. Discoveries of atom and subatomic particles should have consolidated our conviction that god is everywhere but we have pushed him elsewhere – deeper into isolation and places of worship. We have used these discoveries more for destruction than for construction, creating more stress on our system. We have misused stress to create more medicines and manipulated the fact that it is more a matter of mind control.

We hardly know who we are; but we want to jump into bandwagon of knowing who and where aliens are. We are unable to arrest decay of our world colony; but billions of dollars are being spent on race for colonizing Mars and Moons.

But, all is not lost yet, if we can still realize that it is a bad idea to misuse or overuse science, its gifts and gadgets and that it is a bane to drift away from core principles of nature and life!

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Your environments closely track your thoughts – how and why

Oct 7,2016 / By
its-posible-to-do-it-your-way

It’s possible to do it your way!

One fine morning, you meet your difficult boss and find him very decent, contrary to your previous experiences. On analysis, you discover that on this day somehow you had a good feeling for the boss. Another day, you decide to consciously keep positive feeling and meet the boss but you are shocked to find that he was damn difficult. You wonder why?

A deliberately developed positive feeling has, at its back, negative perception about the boss; that is why you had to intentionally create that positive feeling and hence it is actually negative in nature; so, you got negative result.

You would have often observed medicine prescribed by a doctor, on whom you have faith, works well; but same medicine for same ailment does not work on another patient, who does not have faith on same doctor.

Surf innumerable articles on power of positive thinking. These invariably talk of practical experiences of people that good thoughts bring good results. Good news come in bunches, so do bad news. If you get into trouble, more are staring at you unless you have turned around to take that trouble in a spirited manner. You do become what you believe.

Difficult to fathom but fact is your environments are shaped by your thoughts.

How your environments are shaped by your thoughts

Your thoughts instantly impact your body language and behavior, which in turn would influence the atmosphere you are locally in – if you are participating in a meeting or communicating to someone, your thoughts dictate what you talk or do. This is called as primary influence. The way your audience would respond and how you perceive it would trigger what is called as secondary influence. It is quite possible that primary influence is positive but secondary one is negative, if response of your audience evoked negative reaction in you.

It is very important that you make a correct judgement about types of your thoughts. There are active thoughts, which everyone can make out – being kind, candid, optimistic or pessimistic, stressed etc. But real challenge is to understand your passive thoughts that are at the back of your mind – beliefs, biases, suspicion or like, which are far greater in number. It is combination of active and passive thoughts, which determines whether you are positive, negative or mixed and influence your environments accordingly.

Why your environments are entangled with your thoughts

All points or particles in space of our universe are interconnected. Therefore, we see local reality and instant remote connections, regardless of distances. This is one of the tenets of quantum theory on which all modern advancements are based. Einstein could not come to terms with this weird reality and unsuccessfully struggled to demystify it in the latter part of his life. However, scientists have been finding increasing evidence of same without any clue on how it works.

Therefore, your mind, in other words its thoughts are connected with all points locally and remotely and hence able to influence the same.

So it is you, who possess the power to influence your environments and incoming events!

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Whom to listen and follow – your heart or head?

Feb 11,2016 / By

Follow head or heart? Source: http://www.flickr.com/

Your spontaneous response probably would be – I should follow my heart! This is what you have heard, read or been told time and again by your role models, mentors, teachers or gurus, well known authors or leaders!! But, can you exactly pin point – this is the voice or thought from my heart and that one is from my head? Everyone agrees that head speaks to you all the time; but does heart also do so or it speaks selectively?

Let us take examples of goons, gurus and gods. Do goons have heart as well as head? Off course they do! If you read real stories of goons or gangsters, they do have compassion, albeit for certain class of people – their dear ones or those for whose cause they have become trouble makers or cruel. So, when they show compassion, our conventional wisdom would say they are driven by their heart. But, what happens when they demonstrate cruelty or terror? It may be convenient for most of us to think that it’s because of their head! What happens to their heart at that time? Does it go sleeping; it does not prevent them to perpetrate pains to others? There seems to be a contradiction! Can heart or head switch off and on, depending upon one’s comfort or convenience?

Now, take example of gurus or even successful corporate leaders. A good guru or leader is supposed to be highly balanced and treat all of his followers or fellows on equal footing. He or she would reject any advance by his/her follower/s to come closer; otherwise, he/she runs the risk of falling from grace like it happened with Bill Clinton former US President, Tiger Woods famous golfer or David Petraeus former CIA Director in US. So, a successful guru or leader would never be drawn into emotions! Does that mean gurus or leaders don’t have heart? If no, then from where come their kind and congenial behavior? Yet; most believe that gurus and leaders work through only their heads; that is why they are dispassionate and even desert their comforts and families for their pursuits.

Now for god; in all religions, Gods have been projected to operate through their meta-physical powers or enlightened mind like Buddha. There is nothing like separate voices of their heads or hearts!

How do we differentiate what comes from heart and one from head?

What we tend to relate to heart!

Most consider following feelings and functions belong only to heart:

  1. Love
    We connect every form of love to our heart; but not respect!
  2. Kindness and compassion
    We believe an act of kindness can only come from heart. Only heart is capable of being compassionate; but being considerate, inconsiderate or impersonate is handiwork of our head.
  3. Empathy and sympathy
    Same as in point 2 above; supposed to ooze out of our heart!
  4. Passion and devotion
    We don’t believe that passion for a person or profession, devotion for god, nature, nation or duties can come from head; it is heart!
  5. Positive emotions
    All positive emotions as above and others like happiness, fun, fervor or excitement have been perceived by us as regime of heart!

So, coming from heart, everything is considered right! Heart can’t commit any crime or mistake!!

The rest goes to head!

That seems to be a blatant truth!!

  1. Rationale and reasoning
    Only our head has competence to rationalize and understand the realities – this is what all believe!
  2. Judgement and justice
    That is the job reserved for our head.
  3. Anticipation and analysis
    We believe these functions exclusively belong to our head!
  4. Knowledge and niches
    Our head or brain is the repository of our knowledge, specialties, talents, traits, information, intelligence and habits!
  5. Duties and discipline
    All ideas about our duties and discipline are comprehended by our head.
  6. Convictions
    All of our beliefs, faith and principles get developed and executed by our head.
  7. Negative emotions
    Our brain (head) also takes the brunt of every negative feelings and/or actions – reactions, obsession, anger, anxiety, greed, gaffe and more!

Does our heart function independent of our head?
Remember that we are not talking of our biological heart here! So, what do we mean when we say our heart talking and we listening? 

Factually speaking, we experience the functions of head and heart only through our mind. Then, how a line gets drawn between voices of heart and head?

If you carefully look at above points, you would soon discover that:

  • We relate all of our positive emotions to heart; but negative emotions to head!
  • We perceive that all “spontaneous but right” thoughts emanate from heart; however, “systematic but right” thoughts and “spontaneous or systematic but wrong” thoughts come from head! 
  • Our heart has only virtues; but head can have both virtues and vices!
  • Our heart operates randomly; but head works on rationale, reasoning or realities!
  • Our heart receives only compliments and credits; but head receives both credit and discredit!

Secret of how heart differs from head!

Whatever you want to call it – scientific, material or spiritual fact is both heart (emotional not biological) and head resides in one and same mind!

There is only one and singular situation, when your thoughts are very appealing to you; those are positive and right and that situation comes “When you are thinking purely in present time forgetting the past”. 

When you think in present but keeping reference to past memory however old or fresh (like a second before), then you can go either right or wrong! This is what all of us do all the time and that is actually our head speaking. But thinking is just present, when our mind merge with current moment, is what we have accidentally come to understand – “That’s my heart speaking”! 

So, it is correct to follow your heart. But, you now have a new perspective – what exactly it means when your heart speaks. It can speak as often as you try! Remember, it is very subtle but gives you superlative power for correct decision making and revolutionizing your life/career!

 

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Mind boggling effect of thoughts on our being, body and its built!

Aug 23,2015 / By

Reflection of good thoughts! Source: http://www.flickr.com/

A study by scientists of Swansea and Milan Universities of people in various age groups has concluded that those, who spent too much time on internet, are more susceptible to caching cold and flu. Internet addicted people suffer from stress, when they are disconnected with internet. Cycle of relief and stress that they go through leads to altered levels of cortisol – a hormone, which is responsible for impacting human body immune function. Previous research had shown that excessive use of internet leads to greater sleep deprivation, worse eating and drinking habits among users. Note that culprit may be internet; but real cause is addiction and/or stress, which is nothing but thoughts albeit negative!

In 1950’s, Henry K. Bleecher of Harvard University published his research finding that 30 to 40% of patients suffering from chronic ailments improved after taking a placebo! A placebo is like dummy tablet say sugar pill that has no therapeutic value, but patient sees it as part of treatment without recognizing that it is dummy but believing it would help. Since then lot of medical research has proved that placebo does work and leads to biological changes in body, which are actually triggered by psychological changes. It only establishes intimate relationship of brain with body; mind over matter!

How our brain controls body

Regardless of biological explanations how brain controls our body, bottom line of this control is our thoughts. Ironically, very little work has been done in physics or physiology on “How a thought gets developed in human mind”! It is our thought that sends command through nerves/ blood vessels to concerned part of body to control it in a specified manner.

See below short/long term physical effects of thoughts on our body:

  1. If you are generally optimistic (essentially positive thoughts), your eyes glow and face wears smile or serenity! In longer term, aging effect on your body is slower.
  2. If you are carefree and rarely tense, you would enjoy good health and immunity with body weight being normal. However, if you become careless/casual, you would run risk of becoming obese.
  3. If you a confident person (confidence comes by clear thoughts), you would raise your head, look straight and walk fast. Over time, you are less likely to suffer from cervical or spinal problems!
  4. If you are generally stern and angry faced, you would develop crow’s feet lines around eyes and wrinkles on forehead.
  5. If you are worrying or stressing type, you would be vulnerable to host of health issues – poor digestion system, IBS, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiac ailments or disturbed sleep leading to dark shadows under eyes and weak immune system!

Train your thoughts and tag your world along!

Everything that we experience comes through our thoughts in mind! It is only our thoughts, which give us feeling of life in ourselves and in others around us. Absence of thoughts is absence of life and in medical terms, one is brain dead. Our intentions, perceptions, ego, emotions, desires, needs, habits, tendencies, traits, biases, beliefs, fears or faiths are nothing but a set of thoughts. We tend to classify those differently, since our sensory response to each of them is different. Our world is roughly 50% physical comprising of matter and energy and 50% is virtual comprising of our thoughts!

Such is colossal effect of thoughts; but equally callous/casual is the approach of most people towards thoughts! Normal tendency is to think – oh, what is there? It is just a thought; it does not matter! Stark fact is our thoughts become our talks and tasks, after getting converted into words and wishes/wants!

Thoughts also create radical impact:

  • Thoughts help you dream and design your destiny! 
  • They shape your personality!
    Medical field generally talks of genes impacting your persona. But, genes only determine your tendencies and your thoughts can alter same. If genetic tendencies are favorable, impact of your thoughts would get accentuated; but if contradictory, those would impede impact and you would struggle more for a change!
  • Thoughts can influence upcoming events, until those become a reality! 

Now, how to train your thoughts!

My research has revealed that you can train your mind only for positive thoughts; but never for negative thoughts! Negative thoughts would always build automatically!!

Less positive you are, more negative would you be. When your negativity recedes, positivity rises! To train your thoughts:

  1. If you are happy and hopeful, you are ready to go to step no. 6 below.
  2. If your mind is laden with loads of thoughts, divert your mind and get busy with your work, until your mind becomes light.
  3. If you are confused or irritated and can’t find reason for same, believe that what is in your mind is rubbish. Simply discard it.
  4. If your mind is preoccupied with some problems, determine what needs your immediate attention and what can wait. List down the latter on a piece of paper; but attend what is immediate, leaving aside everything else.
  5. Finally, when you think you are focused, then is the time for next step.
  6. Practice to build your thoughts only on basis of your present observations or goals and knowledge but never emotions.
    Nothing else must be considered to build your thoughts.
  7. Our mind keeps wandering, which actually means random thoughts roaming in our mind. Lot of researchers and psychologists suggest that allow them to come and go; just observe. This is a right thing to do; but what is not right is to create pressure in mind to drive them away, since by doing so, you create opposing thoughts, which is wrong. Instead, believe random thoughts are redundant; hence give no importance. This is the best way to practice and push them away!
    Another significant revelation from my research – “Random thoughts or remembrance of even most loved or respected ones, including God, can’t stand you in good stead! It means a malady in mind – traces or tones of obsession or prejudice!!” So, practice to think or remember even God consciously!
  8. Drill in your mind nothing is more important than to focus of what you choose to do now!
  9. Secret of your positive thoughts is surfacing of your happiness! Practice to capture and consolidate those thoughts!!
  10. Make serious efforts to allow single thought at a time in your mind!

By training your thoughts as above, you would witness miraculous and mind-blowing changes in your being and body!

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Let easy access to every information not impair, but improve your intellectual abilities!

Feb 6,2015 / By

Information deluge! Source: http://www.flickr.com/

Intellectual abilities far outweigh your technical competence, educational qualifications, experience or general knowledge/information. If someone stands out of the crowd, it ought to do something with his/her intellectual abilities. Ability to analyze, rationalize, empathize, reason-out, lead, innovate, create, anticipate and foresight comes from your intellect!

Intellectual abilities have more to do with your EQ (emotional quotient) as compared to IQ. Everyone has these abilities; but the degree varies. Those with higher degree of intellect are tremendously successful in their career and personal life, enjoy terrific happiness and sense of accomplishments!

Intellectual abilities can be defined as your abilities to comprehend, contemplate and conclude using your consciousness and wisdom! These are all about mind and its response to a given situation!! This sounds like a simple statement; but it plays the most significant part in making you!!!

Let us discuss what the biggest threat is that can impair these abilities and what opportunities are there to improve the same.

Risks that we run in current era!

This is an era of information explosion. Colossal amount of information is being captured, collated, classified and presented every second. To access this information, internet and smart phones, apart from TV, Tablets and PCs/Laptops, have become integral part of nearly everyone’s life.

Research results and surveys show staggering use of on-line media. As per GlobalWebIndex, people across the world now spend an average of 10.7 hrs. daily on all forms of media, out of which 5.6 hrs. are spent on digital media! Weighted world average, as per survey conducted in Jan. 2014, for daily time spent on social media alone is 2.0 hrs., with Argentinians spending highest time of 4.3 hrs. and least time being spent by Japanese at 0.8 hr. Average American spends 2.3 hrs. per day, whereas Indians spend 2.4 hrs. on social media. Most of such time spent is for non-work related information exchange.

If you are an active user of social media, you would only know how much time you are tempted to spend on clicking likes, conveying greetings for birthdays, festivals, job or profile changes of your friends or followers! Most of times, people do it under compulsion or casually; but seldom consciously or purposefully!

Where does this relentless search and storage of information (in physical or mental files) lead to?

  1. Majority of times, surfing and search for information by most is random and hence, its end use is also random.
  2. When you don’t have a purpose of an activity, you would not know or bother about prudential limits of the same. This is when, you would stray into what is not sober and tend to get hooked to inadvertent or indecent information.
  3. Without a clear purpose, you can never focus on quality and hence you fall prey to quantity!
    So, you would engage yourself reading and collecting lot of information. This can only clutter and confuse your mind and kill your focus! It would be interesting to know that more than 80% of information that you read from print or soft media is irrelevant to you. So, imagine the time you spend first to read and then to mull over or discuss such information!
    It is good to remember that “good has limits; but bad has none”. Immaterial information is actually an ill!
  4. Irrelevant information makes you inefficient and incoherent!
  5. If you believe that what you do for fun, leisure or entertainment, including reading or viewing information, does not impact your character or class, think over again!
    What you do for fun actually has firm impact on your persona. So, be frugal with information flow or exchange!!
  6. Loads of information would lower your drive, patience, peace of mind and sound sleep.
  7. If one or more clicks can get you every information, multiple answers to every question you have, that too duly analyzed, then what is left for your brain to work on? How would you strengthen your analytical and computing abilities?
    2 things are sure to happen – (a) what comes easily also goes away easily. So you would have problem to retain such information in your mind (b) for lack of exercise, your brain would lose its power, like your muscles do in absence of good use! 

From above, it is very clear that easy, enormous and erratic information can severely impair your intellectual abilities.

How to convert risks into rewards!
You are blessed with superbly advanced information technology; do everything possible that it does not become a bane for you. Here is what you can do:

  1. Lower your engagement for the information, which is not relevant to you or to which you are inert or you react. Put more emphasis of such information from various media that makes you alert and active.
  2. Most efficient use of information that you gather is to align it with your short and long term goals.
  3. Practice to evaluate or investigate the information you possess as to what are contradictions, lack of clarity, presence of paradoxes and gray or unexplored areas in the same.
    Result of such evaluation would be your real opportunities to work on!
  4. Decipher from the information you have, up to what level the work has already been done. Going beyond that level, work and innovate would bring you experience and excellence, you would ever treasure and endear!
  5. Neven keep information or knowledge you possess as dormant. Roll it in following cycle:
    Information –> Investigate –> Innovate/ new ideas –> Inspiration –> Increasing intellectual abilities/Implementation/Strengthening your beliefs

So, why not take full advantage of IT enabled age to become fully Intellectually enabled?

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