Music is much more than just entertainment: it is a way for people to connect with each other

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
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Someone was telling me about a recent comedy (!) about someone aware of their own oncoming dementia, who says at one point:

How cruel is this? You just build up a life full of memories that you then can’t remember.

The problem of consciousness

HPOC X HPOM X ADVTA

When we meditate on the nature of the mind, one of the natural beneficial side effects is that we come to experience directly how our mind is creating our reality. Our mind is primary and it is also unceasing – one moment leading to next, throughout this life and in life after life. This is radically different to the view we are usually presented with in modern society. The commonplace understanding is based on a materialist outlook that matter is the primary building block of reality and that consciousness is simply a completely inexplicable arising out of these material components that literally nobody can explain — hence “the problem of consciousness.” And yet it has become the predominant view to the point that when somebody talks about formless awareness, past and future lives, and so forth, this is seen as embarrassing. Not something we would bring up in polite company unless we immediately want to be written off as a little bit of a, you know, fringe character: “Excuse my friend, they’re really quite nice, but …”

However, this is the main view or outlook of thousands of years of spiritual practitioners, not just in Buddhism but in all spiritual traditions, all of which assert a continuity of consciousness. If you want to look at it, there is so much evidence out there – investigations into out of body experiences, near death experiences, people who remember their past lives, child prodigies, mind over matter, etc. There’s no other explanation. Not to mention that we can investigate the teachings and experiences shared by all the great Yogis and Yoginis of the past, who see in their own direct experience that consciousness continues is formless and continues from life to life

There are some people who, straight away, make you feel at ease. For whatever indescribable reason, they are the ones who let you be yourself. They make you feel cared about. It’s something about their nature – a gesture or a word - that makes you feel… home.
In many ways, this is a kind of love. It’s when a person looks at you with honest, open kindness. It’s when they want the best for you, on your terms, and not theirs. You just feel they're on your side.

This approach to others is known as “maitrī” in Buddhist philosophy, and it’s one of the four essential virtues for an enlightened mind.

A lot of our interactions with people come loaded with an agenda. Sometimes, it’s transactional – as in, “I’ll give you this, you give me that”. At other times, it’s egoistic – “what can I get from this?” and “how does this make me look?” 
Maitrī is the opposite of these.

Maitrī is translated as “loving-kindness”. It’s when you interact with someone as a person worthy of care. In the Buddhist Pali Canon, maitrī is compared to the love of a parent for their child. It is the unconditional, no-strings-attached, desire for someone to do well. It’s to simply smile, nod, and want the other person to be happy.

At a very basic level, maitrī is seen in civility. You don’t *need* to say thank you to someone or ask how they are, but when you do so, you acknowledge them as someone who matters - as someone who has worth.
But at it’s most enlightened, maitrī is when you instinctively, naturally want others to be “happy minded”. You take joy in another's joy and you make every effort to make sure their life is a good one. 
You believe they deserve to be happy.

Maitrī is not so much “compassion” or an ethical *action* but more a disposition towards people. It’s the opposite of bitterness and sulkiness, spite and competitiveness. 
Maitrī is the Dalai Lama smiling at you, because he wishes you well. It’s the wave across a street, just to say hi. It’s treating every interaction with warmth and friendliness.

Maitrī is good for you. If we believe Buddhism more broadly, it might just bring you peace. In not so many words: be kind to others. Wish them well and want them happy.

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TIGER EATING GRASS

0500 FILIAL WHATSAPP VIDEO CALL

BOVEE-

"Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave."

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The Mirror of Dharma, boils down to:

We should know that at present we have reached the human world for just a brief moment from our former lives, and we have the opportunity to attain the supreme happiness of enlightenment through practicing Dharma. This is our extraordinary good fortune.

GURUMANTRA

The disciples attain Brahman by the Grace of Sadguru . One should always meditate on Gurumantra, and ever repeat the Sadguru's name . The purpose of Spiritual Knowledge and  Practice (Sadhana) the Sadhaka should have devotion to one Sadguru only. Those Sadhakas who are new to the spiritual path should definitely take advantage of the constant company and guidance of the Sadguru. Not properly guided by the Sadguru, the Sadhakas are apt to go astray when Dispassion (Vairagya) wanes and Spiritual Devotional Practice becomes dull . Giving up entirely thoughts of the worldly objectives things and giving his exclusive attention on the teaching of Sadguru one attains the Supreme Bliss easily . Therefore, by every possible effort  Sadhaka must worship his Sadguru .

---Sadguru Shri Avadhootanand Maharaj .

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And we have the opportunity to watch a lot of movies and go traveling and maybe meet some nice people.” Or … “we have the opportunity to attain the supreme happiness of enlightenment.” Why is this important? Because we have actually experienced, as explained by Buddha, countless lifetimes in all the different realms of samsara without this opportunity. What is unique about this current lifetime is that the causes and conditions have come together for us to realize our full spiritual potential. We can listen to, contemplate, and meditate on Buddha’s teachings – receiving an explanation for why things happen, why we have the identity and personality we have, where we have been and where we are going, and so on. We learn what we can do with this unbelievably rare lifetime, which includes not only our own permanent liberation from suffering but also the supreme happiness of enlightenment. This puts us in a position to liberate others — we can help our family and friends, and their family and friends, and their family and friends, until one day we are helping all living beings. We have this opportunity provided we use this life to escape from our ignorance and transform our minds.

Quote, Baba’s Teachings from the Holy Scriptures

“Kriya Yoga regulates the positive negative fluctuations in the nervous system by magnetizing the spine. This opens the ‘sushuma’ channel, which produces tremendous calm. The spinal column becomes an open channel for divine sound, light, and vibration.”

Paramahamsa Hariharananda

Beloved Gurudeva,

By thy divine techniques in Kriya Yoga - with deepest love - desire for God; my spinal canal remains open. Thy magnetism of Pure white light radiates up my spine, the ‘sushuma’ channel. My body becomes a field of white light - Saturated in God! Thy Supreme Almighty Lord! I’m feeling calmness, and enjoying thy blissful presence of God Consciousness, Cosmic consciousness, Supreme Almighty Lord. 

Om Amén 

Jyoti Maa

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Instead of thinking that we have landed in an inherently sucky situation: “This sucks and I need to get away from it,” we know the solution, which is to transform our mind by applying Dharma. In so doing we turn situations that look like they’re inherently terrible into opportunities to attain permanent freedom and happiness. We can seize the day, which means taking advantage of every day by recognizing we can attain liberation and enlightenment “through practicing Dharma.”

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When I was a nipper, there was an advert in the UK for “Centre Parcs” – the kind of family-friendly, woodland resort where you get to go swimming but have to pay extra for towels. It featured a mellifluous Scottish accent reading the first lines from the poem “Leisure”, by W. H. Davies. It begins:

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare,
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep or cows."

Young as I was, with only a few cares exaggerated by teenage-seriousness, it struck a chord. It spoke of stillness and calm. 
We live in an age of busyness and business, where "alone" means lonely, and staring means creepy. It's an age where filters and portrait mode "improve"  the natural world.

Yet awe, wonder, and the simple enjoyment of things seen are essential to who we are. As the Stoic, Marcus Aurelius puts it, we need to, "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."

There's perspective to be found in nature. When we sit, cocooned, in our home as the rain thunders down, it's easier to appreciate how small we are. When we see a tiny ant heft a leaf ten times it's size, the struggle and strength of it plucks at some common sympathy. When we pause to look up at the stars, we can appreciate the majesty and magnificence of the universe - a universe in which we play a role. 

Stoics were finely attuned to the order of things. They trusted to the universe and recognised their part in the whole. In some ways, Stoics find their Chinese counter part in Daoism - where all heaven and earth moves to the tune of the Dao. 

The simple pleasure that comes first from simply enjoying the natural world can deepen into a profound aesthetic-mystical experience. 
Many will know what Aurelius means, as they look up at the stars. They lure you in with how pretty and shiny they are, but the longer you look, there's a shift in your being. There's a peace - an "at oneness" with things.

So, as Davies and Aurelius both tell us: take time to stand and stare. Put aside your phone, your worries, and your plans, and lose yourself in your senses. 

Dwell on the beauty in life and look up at the stars.

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Rock Music May Be a Surgeon’s Best Assistant, Study Shows

If I was a surgeon I would like a quiet operating theatre as I also concentrate when there is silence. Other people find silence distracting and can only concentrate when there is some background noise.

According to a German study [1], surgical trainee’s speed and accuracy rises when heavy metal/rock music (AC/DC's Highway to Hell) is blaring from speakers in theatres.

"All this happened, more or less"

Name the smallest breed of dog

Chihuahua

How many people depend on forest products thus leading to mass deforestation?

1.6bn

That’s the key — we have to apply these teachings to our life. This opportunity is our “extraordinary good fortune” and it is worth remembering it when we get up in the morning, before the boring worried thoughts switch on and we cannot switch them off again. Right now, in this life, everything has come together to give me the optimum conditions for achieving permanent liberation from suffering and the supreme happiness of enlightenment. Instead of first thoughts being, “Oh no, I am dreading today,” we can as soon as possible take a moment to drop into our heart, clear the mental decks, relate to our potential and opportunity, and feel really happy.

mistletoe berries

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Most animals in the world are invertebrates. If most invertebrates are sentient, then we can conclude that most of the suffering of animals in the wild is endured by invertebrates. To add to this, most of the animals used by humans in harmful ways are invertebrates.

invertebrate sentience is a very important issue. However, it is currently not possible to know for certain which of these animals are sentient, because that would require knowing the way in which consciousness occurs. If we understood how consciousness arises, we could identify which structures are capable of making consciousness possible. But we are still very far from having such knowledge, and it seems likely that we won’t know for at least a few decades.

Phylum: Mollusca, Class: Gastropoda

Examples

Snails and slugs

Centralization

Typically contain 5 pairs of ganglia, including the cerebral ganglia, which are structurally and functionally differentiated and receive and send signals across the body.

Important structures

Cerebral ganglia (in head). Procerebrum (in cerebral ganglia), which may contain the learning mechanism.

5 paired ganglia throughout body (typically).

Comparative physiology

These nervous systems are similar to those of bivalves, although a bit bigger and with ganglia serving as a brain.

Other relevant information

These animals may have nervous systems with approximately 104 to 105 neurons.23 The nervous systems of opisthobranchs may contain about 5,000 neurons.24 The cerebral ganglia of the land slug Aplysia californica may contain approximately 2,400 neurons.25

In snails, a pair of cerebral ganglia constitute the brain. Typically, gastropods contain 5 distinct ganglia. These are connected longitudinally by nerve cords and laterally by commissures. A study found the cerebral ganglion of a snail to be functionally and structurally differentiated. It receives convergent sensory inputs from a variety of anterior sensory organs and the posterior body wall. Its outputs include motor commands to muscles and premotor commands towards executory centers in other ganglia. The procerebrum is a differentiated region of the cerebral ganglion and is speculated to contain a learning mechanism.26

sentience

Sentience is the capacity to be affected positively or negatively. It is the capacity to have experiences. It is not the mere capacity to perceive stimuli or react to some action, as in the case of a machine that performs certain functions when we press a button. Sentience, or the ability to feel, is something different, namely the ability to receive and react to such stimuli consciously, by experiencing them from the inside.

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices." ~ Voltaire

Book : "Questions sur les Miracles". Publication by Voltaire, 1765.

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Being sentient means being consciousA conscious being is a subject of experience, meaning an entity that can experience what happens to itself. An organism can only be a subject of experience if organized in such a way that they have the capacity for consciousness, and if there are structures such as a nervous system that function to actually give rise to consciousness.
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DTR CRSS- DSADA- DEPRESSED SCHIZO ALCOHLIC DRG ADDICTED

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