What is an article about creating the perfect diet plan doing on a site called A Workout Routine in the middle of a guide to creating the most effective weight training program?

I mean, this is obviously a site geared specifically towards workout related topics, so why the hell am I writing about diet stuff?

Well, Ill tell you why.

If your diet plan isnt what it needs to be, your workout routine will fail completely no matter how perfect it is.

That is not an exaggeration. You could be using the single greatest workout program ever created and it will get you absolutely nowhere if you arent eating in a way that supports your goals.

What Im trying to say is, your diet plan is equally as important as your workout routine (if not more so) in terms of getting the results you want to get.

So, what you need to do now is create the diet plan that will work best for you.

As you can imagine, fully explaining how to do that would require its own insanely comprehensive guide.

Until I get around to doing that, heres the ultimate mini-guide to how to create your perfect diet plan.

The most common recommendations for your daily calorie intake are:

Now let me explain what the hell that actually means.

Every person has a certain number of calories that they need to eat each day in order to maintain their current weight. This is whats known as your calorie maintenance level.

There are a bunch of complicated ways to estimate what your maintenance level is, but the quickest and simplest way is to just multiply your current body weight (in pounds) by 14 and 18.

Somewhere in between those 2 amounts will usually be your daily calorie maintenance level.

If youre more active and/or think you have a fast metabolism, then you should probably use the higher end of that range. If youre less active and/or think you have a slow metabolism, then you should probably use the lower end of that range.

If youre unsure, just pick a number in the middle. Well make sure its perfectly accurate later on. Dont worry.

Next, pick your goal

In order to lose fat, you must consume LESS calories per day than your maintenance level amount. Doing so creates a caloric deficit, and this forces your body to start burning your stored body fat for energy.

Meaning, a caloric deficit is a fat loss requirement.

As I mentioned before, the most often recommended caloric deficit is about 20% below your maintenance level. So, lets do some basic first grade level math.

For example, if your estimated calorie maintenance level is 2500 calories per day, youd figure out that 20% of 2500 is 500 (2500 x .20 = 500). Then youd just subtract that 500 from 2500 and get 2000.

In this example, this person would need to eat 2000 calories per day to lose fat.

In order to build muscle, you must consume MORE calories per day than your maintenance level. Doing so creates a caloric surplus, and this provides your body with the calories it needs to actually create new muscle tissue.

Meaning, a caloric surplus is a muscle building requirement.

As I mentioned before, the ideal caloric surplus for most guys is about 250 calories above your maintenance level, and around half that for girls. So, lets do some basic first grade level math.

For example, a man with an estimated calorie maintenance level of 2500 calories per day would add 250 or so calories to it and get about 2750.

In this example, this person would need to eat about 2750 calories per day to build muscle at an ideal rate.

Since our calorie intake is based on an estimate, its possible it can be a little off. Luckily, theres a very simple way to double check it.

Weigh yourself once per week first thing in the morning before you eat or drink anything (or weigh in daily and take the weekly average). Then, just monitor what your weight does from week to week.

Basically, just consistently weigh yourself each week and make sure your weight is moving in the right direction at the optimal rate that I just described.

If is it, perfect! Keep eating that amount of calories each day.

If it isnt, then just adjust your calorie intake in 250 calorie increments until it is. Simple as that.

The most common recommendation for the daily protein intake of healthy adults who are weight training regularly is:

Between 0.8 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight. An even 1 gram of protein per pound is probably the most common recommendation of all.

So, for example, if you weigh 175lbs, youd shoot for about 175 grams of protein per day (or a little more if you prefer it).

High protein foods include chicken, fish, turkey, lean meats, eggs/egg whites, milk, protein supplements and to a lesser extent nuts and beans as well.

The most common recommendation for your daily fat intake is:

Fat should account for between 20-30% of your total calorie intake, with an even 25% probably being most common.

For that to make sense, you need to know that 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories.

So, for example, if your ideal calorie intake is 2000 calories per day, youd first figure out that 25% of 2000 is 500. Then, youd divide 500 by 9 and figure out that youd need to eat about 55 grams of fat per day in this example.

Foods high in the healthy fats that should account for the majority of your fat intake include fish, fish oil supplements, nuts (peanuts, almonds, walnuts, etc.), seeds, and olive oil.

The most common recommendation for your daily carb intake is:

However many calories are left after a sufficient protein and fat intake have been factored in those calories should come from carbs.

Dont worry, its not as confusing as it sounds.

Basically, figure out how many calories your protein and fat intake will account for, and then subtract them from your ideal total calorie intake. However many calories youre left with to reach that ideal total those calories will all come from carbs.

Confused? Its alright, Ill show you an example in a second.

The majority of your carb intake should come from foods like fruits and vegetables, rice (brown, white, whatever), sweet potatoes, white potatoes (they are not evil), and various beans and whole wheat/whole grain products (unless of course you have issues digesting grains).

Now let me show you a step by step example of how to put it all together.

Lets pretend we have a guy who weighs 175lbs and has the primary goal of building muscle. Lets also pretend his calorie maintenance level is 2250 calories (just a completely made up example number).

Heres how hed create his diet plan

And thats it. The most important parts of this example diet plan are done.

This example person figured out they will eat:

Once again, these are all just completely made up amounts to show an example of how to set up your diet plan. Thats how youd do it.

And yes, even though the person in the example above had the primary goal of building muscle, the diet would have been set up the exact same way if they had the primary goal of losing fat instead. The only difference is that they would have created a caloric deficit instead of a surplus in step 1.

The process of putting it all together would remain exactly the same.

Now, you may be wondering about certain other aspects of your diet besides your calorie, protein, fat and carb intake.

The thing is you shouldnt.

In all honesty, nothing else is that important. Everything described above is what will account for 99% of your diets effectiveness. Everything else is just a minor detail.

All that truly matters diet-wise is ensuring that you eat the right amount of calories each day along with an optimal amount of protein, fat and carbs that ideally come from mostly higher quality sources.

After that, its all a matter of doing whatever will best allow you to make that happen. What I mean is

Thats all that matters. Everything else is either extremely insignificant or just a stupid myth that is scientifically proven to not matter at all (like how you must eat 6 smaller meals per day its bullshit).

Whatever is best for you, your life, your schedule and your preferences thats what you should do.

Well, in addition to what I just explained, theres really only a couple of additional tips worth caring about:

And thats it.

Thats the ultimate mini-guide to creating the diet plan that will best support your workout routine and overall goal.

(UPDATE #1: Ive now written the diet mega-guide. Its here: The Best Diet Plan)

(UPDATE #2: Ive also put together a new 9-step diet guide that you can download as a pretty PDF file and view on your computer, phone or tablet whenever you want. Its 100% free. Just click here and tell me where to send it.)

Well, at this point weve already covered every major aspect of how to create the workout routine and diet plan that will work best for you. All thats left to do now is put it all together properly and put it into action correctly. To ensure that you do that, lets start here

Sample Workout Routines Example Weight Training Workouts

(This article is part of a completely free guide to creating the best workout routine possible for your exact goal. It starts here:The Ultimate Weight Training Workout Routine)

View post:
How To Create The Perfect Diet Plan For Your Workout Goal

A huge benefit that makes a keto diet very appealing to a lot of people is that they can lose fat without having to workout at all.

Who wouldnt love this in their life? You lose the weight you want while not having to change your lifestyle much at all. All youre really changing is your eating habits and everything else can stay the same way.

What about those of you that want to workout and exercise?

Is this even realistic on a ketogenic diet?

The short answer is yes, its very much possible to workout on keto without experiencing a loss of physical performance.

Now, lets get into the longer answer.

Most people understand that eating carbs will provide your body the energy it needs to push through a workout.

This is true, but when youre on a keto diet, your carb intake is definitely restricted.

How can your body make it through a workout when it doesnt have the proper fuel it needs when youre on a carb restricted diet?

Having this concern is understandable. The good news is that even if you want to be extremely active, you dont need to have those extra carbs to have successful workouts. Your body is going to find a way to use what it already has as a source of its energy, namely the fat on your body.

You should have grasped the concept by now that a keto diet allows you to have very few carbs, however, the body does need some amount of carbs during certain types of exercise.

Dont get me wrong, your carb intake will still be very restricted but youll be allowed more carbs than the keto user that isnt very active. This is because your body will need the carbs as an initial energy boost. Your body is still going to burn through the carbs quickly so that little extra carb consumption will not have much of an impact on your keto progress.

If youve been on a keto diet for at least a few weeks, you should be in an extended state of ketosis. This means that your body is finally at the point where it should be burning fat instead of sugar.

Typically, when youre exercising, your body is going to burn the sugar it has before anything else. When youre in ketosis, your body is going to run through that excess sugar very quickly. This means that your body has to turn to its fat stores for energy.

The ketones your body will be producing while in ketosis will give your body the energy it needs to make it through any workout you do.

If you are just beginning a keto diet, then working out right away may be difficult. Your body is in a transition phase and will probably feel groggy or weak. After entering ketosis, you should notice that your energy levels are changing and you feel a bit more normalcy when you exercise.

Most people that are highly active will have a faster metabolism than those that arent as active. This usually means that the active people are going to eat a lot more food than the less active people. Your body is burning through its resources faster so you need to replenish what youve lost.

A lot of the times when people dont see weight loss, its because they are feeling the need to eat, especially after rigorous activity. Yes, its important to refuel your body, but at the same time, you need to make sure youre putting the right amount in your body. This is where a lot of people face problems.

People will put in the work at the gym, but once they finish their workout they eat too much because they feel like they need to stuff their face. They dont have anything guiding them other than their stomachs.

On a keto diet, you are going to be counting your macros based on your activity level. This is going to help you stay on track with your fat loss goals. A positive about the keto diet is that even though your metabolism will be fast, you arent going to feel the need to eat as much as you usually would after a workout. You will have an appetite that will keep you from eating like youre at a buffet.

Ketogenic diets are designed to help you lose fat. This, in turn, is going to cause your weight to drop significantly as well.

Working out is going to help you lose weight and in most cases, working out consistently while eating the right foods will help you lose fat.

When you combine the two, exercise and eating the right foods, your fat loss will be accelerated. You will see the number on the scale drop at a slightly faster rate than you would if you were to not work out at all.

Again, its important to emphasize that exercise is not required for fat loss on a keto diet, but it can definitely help speed up the process.

There are some myths out there that say if you workout while on a keto diet, your performance during the workout will suffer greatly. This is 100% false.

Yes, there is going to be a very brief period of time where your performance will suffer a little bit. This usually tends to happen during the initial stages of a ketogenic diet where your body is going from being a sugar burner to a fat burner.

Tests have been done on athletes that measure their performance before and after starting a keto diet. When the tests were concluded, it was found that the performance of the athletes was about the same as when the tests were initially done.

Its important to note that these athletes lost weight, fat, and were able to keep their muscle mass about the same. This is the goal for most people working out and when theyre able to do it while reaping all the benefits of a keto diet, its all worth it.

If you are wanting to workout and do a keto diet, go for it. Dont let any myths about how it might negatively affect you deter you from being active.

You just have to follow your macros for the diet to be completely successful with working out. The diet is more important than working out. It will be tempting to eat certain things that arent keto friendly because youll feel as though you need it, but in the end, those foods are only going to hurt you and your keto progress.

Remember, your goal is to lose fat and working out can definitely help you with that, but when combined with a keto diet, the match could be one that was made in heaven.

Read the original:
Ketogenic Diet 101: Working Out While on a Keto Diet

Most of us think of self-care as something that’s expensive and takes a lot of time, but it really shouldn’t be that way. Instead of looking at self-care as indulgence, we should think of self-care as meeting our basic needs. When you simplify it this way, it’s easier to create a routine so it becomes part of your daily life, not a deviation from it. Even if you invest a little in comforts and tools for everyday self-care, it’s easy to stay within your budget with cost-conscious shopping.

Put Your Physical Needs First

The reason we have a concept of self-care in the first place is that we’re so accustomed to doing things for others that we often put our own needs last. Psychology Today explains how failing to make our own needs a priority is damaging to ourselves and those around us. At a very basic level, practicing self-care starts with meeting our physical needs, including eating well, drinking plenty of water, and getting enough rest.

If you have a hard time getting quality sleep at night, take a good look at your bedroom and see how you can switch things up to make it a more relaxing space. You can usually find good deals on cozy bedding, comfortable pillows, a supportive mattress, and sleep gadgets at popular stores like Target. Plus, you can save even more money by using Target coupons and promo codes when you shop.

Schedule It

Along with our physical needs, we need self-care in all aspects of our lives, including social, mental, spiritual, and emotional self-care. If this sounds like a lot to make time for, the best strategy is to work self-care activities into your regular schedule. To do this, Life Goal Mag recommends keeping a simple routine and staying flexible.

One example is to keep a flexible schedule for physical activity. Exercise meets your physical needs, but it’s also good for your mental health, and it can even be social. Whatever activity you enjoy, set a regular time for it. At the same time, give yourself tools to adapt when your schedule gets thrown off. So, if you normally go to a certain exercise class but have to miss it on occasion, consider investing in affordable gear like free weights so you can work out at home on those days.

Try a New Hobby

The idea of trying something new may seem like an extra strain on your time (rather than an everyday necessity), but finding a new hobby may just be the self-care strategy you’re missing. This is because many of us get caught up in our everyday habits without even realizing how much time we waste on things that don’t make us happy. One prime example is the amount of time we spend on social media. Thankfully, taking a social media break is absolutely free!

Picking up a hobby is an excellent way to replace those unhealthy habits and meet basic self-care needs. For example, doing something with your hands, like creating art, knitting, or gardening, can be incredibly relaxing. The trick to starting a hobby affordably is to always shop smart for supplies, whether that means going to discount stores or using online coupons.

Another cost-conscious idea is to make a hobby of doing DIY projects, like this DIY herbal eye pillow from Medium. Making something useful is a perfect way to care for your mental health because the end product gives you such a sense of accomplishment. You get even more benefit from making something that aids relaxation, like the eye pillow. Plus, you can usually purchase supplies for less money than buying brand new products.

All of these strategies are geared toward being intentional about how you spend your time. Your time is valuable, and the way you choose to spend it on a regular basis is what self-care is really all about. Making these strategies part of your everyday life is affordable, simple, and essential for your well being.

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Sri Aurobindo (1872 1950) was an early Indian revolutionary, who later left politics to pursue his spiritual sadhana. Sri Aurobindo founded an ashram in Pondicherry, where he became a prominent spiritual philosopher, poet and Spiritual Master. His greatest work was the epic poem Savitri.

Aurobindo Ghose was born in India on 15th August 1872. At a young age, he was

Upon graduating he decided to return to India where he took up a position as a teacher. It was also on returning to India that Aurobindo recounts his first most significant spiritual experience. He relates on how returning to Indian soil he was inundated with a profound peace. This experience came unsought but at the same time, he continued to become more deeply connected with the Indian independence movement. Aurobindo was one of the first Indian leaders to openly call for complete Indian independence; at the time, the Indian Congress wanted only a partial independence. In 1908 Aurobindo was implicated in the Alipore bomb plot in which two people died. As a consequence, Aurobindo was jailed whilst awaiting trial.

In prison, Aurobindo underwent a profound and life-changing spiritual experience. He began to meditate very deeply and inwardly received spiritual instruction from Swami Vivekananda and Sri Krishna. From the depths of the British prison, Aurobindo saw that Brahmin or God pervaded the entire world. There was nothing that was separated from the existence of God. Even in the worst criminal, Aurobindo saw at heart God or Vasudev.

During his spiritual transformation, Sri Aurobindo received an inner command to give up politics and devote his life to spirituality and the descent of a new spiritual consciousness. He also received an inner guarantee that he would be fully acquitted in his forthcoming trial. Due to the tireless efforts of C.R.Das, Aurobindo was acquitted and was free to leave. However, the British were still very suspicious, and so Aurobindo decided to move to the French province of Pondicherry where he began to practise meditation and spiritual disciplines. In Pondicherry, he also began to attract a small group of spiritual seekers who wished to follow Sri Aurobindo as a Guru. A couple of years later, a French mystic by the name of Mirra Richards (b. Alfassa) came to visit Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo saw in her a kindred spirit. Later he would say himself and the Mother (Mirra Richards) were one soul in two bodies. After the Mother settled in the ashram in 1920, the organisation of the Ashram was left in her hands whilst Sri Aurobindo increasingly retreated to give him more time for meditation and writing.

Sri Aurobindo was a prolific writer writing some of the most detailed and comprehensive discourses on spiritual evolution. Sri Aurobindo said that his inspiration to write came from his inner pilot, from a higher source. Sri Aurobindo wrote extensively, in particular, he spent many hours patiently replying to the questions and problems of his disciples. Even on the smallest detail, Sri Aurobindo would reply with great care, attention and often good humour. It is interesting to note that Sri Aurobindo often refused to write for prestigious newspapers and journals, he frequently turned down requests to return to leadership of the Indian independence movement. Sri Aurobindo was also a Seer Poet of the highest order. His epic Savitri is a testimony to his own spiritual sadhana. For over 20 years he continually refined and amended this mantric poetic output. It became one of the most powerful testimonies of his spiritual consciousness.

A burning Love from white spiritual fountsAnnulled the sorrow of the ignorant depths;Suffering was lost in her immortal smile.A Life from beyond grew conqueror here of death;To err no more was natural to mind;Wrong could not come where all was light and love.

From: The adoration of the Divine Mother, Savitri

After moving to Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo rarely made any public announcements. However, on rare occasions, he did break his silence.

In 1939, Sri Aurobindo publically states his support for the British war effort against Hitlers Nazi Germany. This was a surprise given his opposition to British rule in India, but Aurobindo frequently warned of the stark dangers of Hitlers Germany.

Hitlerism is the greatest menace that the world has ever met if Hitler wins, do they think India has any chance of being free? It is a well-known fact that Hitler has an eye on India. He is openly talking of world-empire (May 17, 1940)

In 1942, when the British made an offer of Dominion status to India in 1942 in return for full co-operation during the war, Aurobindo wrote to Gandhi, advising him to accept. But, Gandhi and Congress rejected his advice. Aurobindo wrote to Sir Stafford Cripps

As one who has been a nationalist leader and worker for Indias independence, though now my activity is no longer in the political but in the spiritual field, I wish to express my appreciation of all you have done to bring about this offer. I welcome it as an opportunity given to India to determine for herself, and organise in all liberty of choice, her freedom and unity, and take an effective place among the worlds free nations. I hope that it will be accepted, and right use made of it, putting aside all discords and divisions. I offer my public adhesion, in case it can be of any help in your work. (source)

Apart from these rare forays in public comment, Sri Aurobindo concentrated on his inner work and writings. In November 1938, Sri Aurobindo broke his leg and retreated, even more, seeing only a small number of close disciples. However, he kept his written correspondence with them. Aurobindo felt his real calling was to bring down a spiritual consciousness. He expressed his spiritual philosophy

The one aim of [my] yoga is an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinize human nature.

Sri Aurobindo once wrote that it is impossible to write a biography of a spiritual Master because so much of their life happens on the inner plane and not outer plane.

India achieved her independence on August 15, 1947. Sri Aurobindo remarked on this event.

August 15, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age, but we can also make it by our own life and acts as a free nation, an important date in a new age opening to the whole world for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity. August 15 is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast difference. I take this coincidence not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the divine force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed on this day, he says, I can watch almost all the world movements which I hope to see fulfilled in my lifetime; though then they looked like impracticable dreams arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements, free India may well play a large part and take a leading position.

On 5 December 1950, at the age of 78, Sri Aurobindo left his physical body. He had recently said that he could continue his spiritual work from the souls world.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. Biography of Sri Aurobindo, Oxford, UK http://www.biographyonline.net. Published3rd August 2009. Last updated 19 February 2018.

Sri Aurobindos Yogaat Amazon

Related pages

Famous Indians A list of Indian men and women throughout the ages. Categories include politicians, scientists, sports people, spiritual figures and cultural figures. Includes Mahatma Gandhi, Akbar, Swami Vivekananda and Indira Gandhi.

Spiritual figures Famous saints, mystics and religious figures. Including Jesus Christ, The Buddha, Lord Krishna, St Teresa of Avila.

Indian Independence Movement A list of Indian men and women who played a key role in the Indian Independence Movement.

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Sri Aurobindo Biography | Biography Online

During the final week of Barbaras life we were planning a special retreat with her at Hummingbird, a community founded on the principles and practices of co-creation and conscious evolution. She enthusiastically invited her students to join her at a place that she loved dearly to take the next evolutionary step together.

Now, as we Carry the Torch Forward, we invite all who have been inspired and impacted by Barbaras brilliance, passion, and dedication to gather in honor and celebration of the legacy of The Mother of Conscious Evolution.

August 29th September 2nd, 2019

In the pristine landscape of towering pines, meandering creek, and the majestic Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, we will co-create a resonant field that will raise our consciousness to a higher frequency and allow each of us to dive deeply into the silence and power of our beings. We will tap into the mysterious field of all possibilities to discover how the impulse of evolution is guiding us in the fulfillment of our personal and collective journeys. Our time together will include a series of experiential processes, guided inquiries and discussions, solo time in nature, silence and ceremony.

As change agents and social pioneers, we will be stepping into a sanctuary that continues to cultivate a frequency of deep resonance and healing. It is here that we will take our next evolutionary step toward the birth of a Universal Humanity.

There are many of us scattered around the face of the Earth with a mysterious sense of the future, and a profound attraction for the evolution of ourselves and our world. We are a future-oriented family of humanity who have a sense that we are going through a birth to the next stage of our evolution. Barbara Marx Hubbard

Victory is Assured to All Those Whose Consciousness is Shifting.

It is the direction of evolution. It is the Intention of Creation, the drive of the

Life Force the Implicate Order unfolding. Everyone is called to their posts,

for the hour of your birth is at hand. You can have absolute faith

in the results of what you are now undertaking.

Code 52, taken from 52 Codes for Conscious Self Evolution

by Barbara Marx Hubbard, co-created with Carolyn Anderson.

Schedule

The program will begin with dinner on Thursday, August 29th and will conclude with lunch on Monday, September 2nd. Please contact before making plane reservations, so we can share recommendations to support your ease of travel.

Price

The full cost of this gathering is $895, including all meals, indoor accommodations, and program. Early Bird Special:$825 if paid in fullby July 1.

If you camp, the full cost is $770. Early Bird Special:$720 if paid in fullby July 1.

A limited number of partial scholarships are available.

Payment

A non-refundable deposit of $100 will hold your reservation until Friday, August 9, when full payment is due. Space is limited to 30 participants, so reserve early to hold your place! Register now.

Contact

For additional information: or carolyn@livingcocreation.com.

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Barbara Marx Hubbard - sanfordlcca.wixsite.com

At a time when national politics seems to have reached its nadir, and the country is adrift on an uncharted course, one man is hammering out an unusual ideology of his own. Amidst the chaos of unstable governments and power breakdowns, warring politicians and embattled industrialists, one Indian is establishing a curious empire that seems to grow and grow.

Everything works in his little hotbed of activity, and he is busy piecing together fragments of a somewhat bizarre jigsaw that will one day, he claims, change the destiny of mankind. Flung far out in a town on the Malabar coast, he is slowly achieving a unique star status, capable of hogging headlines, arousing public opinion, provoking reaction.

Eighty miles inland from Bombay, the tranquil resort of Pune, once the home of aging British colonels, retired civil servants and a stylish assortment of sybarites from Bombay in search of a salubrious climate, has struck fame anew from an odd quarter. Some of the peace and quiet-has been shattered, with the permissive new peep-show the city is now said to promise. Not since an Indian guru with piercing hypnotic eyes moved in with his foreign gang has the town been the same again.

Flooded with saffron-swathed sannyasins cuddling in shady by-lanes that once knew no trespassers, Pune now rolls off the tongue with the spurious tang of sin. Is he a charlatan, hypnotist or a sex maniac? Travellers wonder as they step aboard the Deccan Queen at Bombay's Victoria Terminus each evening, their eyes taking in the spectacle of blonde - and usually bra-less - beauties on their way to prostrate themselves at the feet of this mesmeric godman.

Most Indians might travel to Pune in salacious silence these days, but it is doubtful if they return having rid themselves of their repression. Most westerners may get there carrying their souls on their sleeves, and come back to shout from the housetops their song of spiritual salvation.

Household Word: Provided they get beyond the ornately carved wooden-and-brass doors of the Rajneesh Ashram, both kinds of visitors have a point. For the man, who at 48, has adopted the title of Bhagwan (God) advocates sex and spirituality in equal measure. Excess in one, says Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh, may only expedite success in the other. And for hitting upon one such foolproof formula for salvation, elaborated and embroidered with a thousand meditation philosophies, he has become a unique religious export, a one-man spiritual industry, and a perpetual source of moral controversy.

He is a tough salesman, and with the aid of some neatly developed gimmicks, which he calls "devices", has created a spiritual supermarket, and he is a sell-out. Set apart from India's bewildering gaggle of gurus and godmen there has not been a religious commodity so publicised, since the Beatles and Mia Farrow abandoned the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for pastures new.

Manufacturing Industry: But Rajneesh goes several steps further in the art and industry of empire-building. Not only has he converted actors Terence Stamp and Vinod Khanna to his unique brand of sannyas, but an estimated 3.000 aspirants, the bulk of them soul-searching westerners, cross the portals of his ashram every month. Roughly a dozen a day are converted as sannyasins- that is, they convert to wearing coloured robes and wooden-bead malas with his photograph and adopt a name of his choosing.

According to the Ashram some 100,000 people world-wide have officially taken to sannyas a la Rajneesh in the last few years, since he moved to settle in Pune in late 1974. And a permanent settlement of 350 sannyasins have renounced their lives abroad - only one-sixth of his following is Indian - to come and work in the nucleus of his ashram. They produced everything from a range of unscented Body Dharma toiletries to a lavish variety of Rajneesh literature in the form of books, magazines, newsletters and tape-recordings of his lectures.

Dozens of press releases issue forth from the Rajneesh press office each week. Flaky pastries and plum tarts emanate from gleaming kitchens to beat every confectionery in town. Amateur jewellers and carpenters pore over crafting fine inlay furniture and silverware. Blonde seamstresses sit at electric sewing machines to turn out high fashion dresses in Rajneesh colours. Trained therapy leaders take a boggling variety of meditation and therapy courses with names such as Sufi Dancing and Dynamic Meditation.

Smelling Routine: Rajneesh himself is scarcely to be seen. As his business grows, he becomes more difficult to approach individually. Shutting himself up in closely-guarded rooms for most of the day he makes only two public appearances: one for his two-hour discourse in the morning and a smaller private darshan in the evening during which he ordains new disciples.

And each morning, approximately 500 visitors, dressed in shades of orange, freshly bathed with ashram soap and shampoo, move single file, to be "sniffed" before they can confront their guru. The "sniffing" process has become something of a Rajneesh trademark.

Each visitor before attending a Rajneesh discourse is vigorously smelt around the neck, behind the ears and in the hair by two women, for any strong smell of perfume that might aggravate Rajneesh's allergy. Being asthmatic, say his chief disciples, such precautions are necessary. "Otherwise he would have to be put in a glass cage." explain members of his conscientious press office, as smelly visitors are briskly sifted from clean-smelling ones and moved to the back of the hall.

Discourse: A little after eight the sound of a Mercedes driving up a gravel path signals the arrival of the master. A hush falls among the gathered audience robed in varying shades of saffron, their hands folded in greeting. Squatting silently, albeit painfully, on a hard cement floor, row upon row of tangled white legs cross and re-cross in discomfort to sit through a two-hour discourse. "Life," begins the master, "is three-dimensional.

He alone has the privilege of a chair, a smart, high-backed executive's armchair placed high on a raised marble platform. He also has the privilege of wearing white, a long, high-necked, long-sleeved polyester tunic that stands out in marked contrast to the hysterical colour schemes followed by his disciples.

Perpetually by his side, either carrying a cushion, or imprinted in photographic blow-ups plastered on every inch of the ashram's wall, is the fine-featured Frenchwoman. Ma Yoga Vivek, who is one of the two people in the ashram - both women - who has access to him all the time. Ma Vivek has been with him for seven years. She looks after "his body." But like him, she is never directly accessible.

Then peppered with the sayings of Pythagoras and Jean-Paul Sartre, Lao Tzu and P.D. Ouspensky, Buddha and Socrates, the discourse rambles on: a point here, a point there, vapid spiritual jargon, homespun homilies jumbled in a brew spiced with trendy four-letter words and jokes culled from randy, railway-station joke books.

His even monotone pipes on - the accent slipping every now and then in dreadful mispronunciations - but not all the lavatory humour and heavyweight quotes in the world alleviate the tedium of his discourses. Yet the effect is strangely hypnotic, induced by the general atmosphere rather than his long-winded loquacity. The audience is filled with elation, as the purring of a Mercedes engine signals their master's departure to his residence less than 200 yards away.

Overwhelmed: The Mercedes, painted a pale orange-gold, is worth over Rs 10 lakh. A mere trifle admits one doting disciple, wouldn't it be lovely to see him in a white Rolls-Royce? "Bullshit," says actor Vinod Khanna, now Swami Vinod Bharati, when asked if the rumour of his having paid for one of the most expensive cars in India is true, "but I wish I could have." Khanna, 33, has been a Rajneesh disciple for the past three-and-a-half years.

He was introduced to him, like many other followers, through his books. "I had always had this need for a leader. The moment I saw him I knew this was the man I was looking for," explains Khanna, now in the process of completing his film assignments before joining Rajneesh permanently. "Everything about him: his face, his voice, his thoughts changed me." Asked what his family thought about his conversion, Khanna said: "My wife still thinks I've been hypnotised."

A majority of Rajneesh's disciples explain being overwhelmed in a similar manner. Says Swami Divyananda, 32, formerly Michael Glynn, a graphic designer who worked in Canada: "My whole face seemed to explode in a twitch when I came face to face with him. I first met him in Bombay six years ago, more or less by mistake. Then I went back to the West for two years in between but it became really hard to communicate: I was standing at a subway station in Montreal one day and I happened to look into the eyes of a group of young kids standing nearby: I saw they were quite dead. I had to come back to him."

Says Ma Yoga Pratima, an attractive 26-year-old Australian who now runs the brilliant publishing programme: "Perhaps it was the bourgeois Australian mentality that sickened me. But it was a continual feeling of despair and deadness that got me in the end." She discovered "Bhagwan" a few years ago while living in a house in Finsbury Park in London which was run as a commune for growth therapy groups. When she returned to Australia for four months "it was like being in a horror movie."

"This is," she says definitely, her blue eyes flashing, "the only place I have felt at home in. I belong here. This is my family." So intense is her attachment that since she came to stay her Catholic father has taken sannyas and her Quaker mother is about to follow.

At the centre of the environment he breeds is the magnetism of Rajneesh himself. Some of his disciples who have come to stay speak of their premonition of him before ever meeting him. Others openly admit to being under his spell. Says Paris photographer Tana Kaleya, now called Ma Deva Tanmayo, whose book of photographs of naked men Les Hommes (including Rudolf Nureyev, Helmut Berger and Terence Stamp in various stages of undress) made her famous some years ago, and who is now working on a book on Rajneesh and his ashram: "I have not been much interested in men since I did my last book. But this man - though I haven't seen him in the nude - provokes love in me. It's not a question of liking - he enchants me. This man is sheer poetry."

For most others, however, Rajneesh means little other than volume upon volume of prose. Voluble spiritualist that he is, every pearl of wisdom that drops from his mouth is duly recorded. No fewer than three dozen stenographers, editors and translators laboriously make transcripts of each morning's discourse so that, Rajneesh is perhaps the only guru in the world who inadvertently dictates, a 400-page book every 10 days.

The Rajneesh Foundation, set up as a charitable trust, has made a phenomenal success of its publishing programme, with over 220 volumes published in Hindi and English since early 1975 alone. With each page virtually designed individually, then laid out with photographs and specially bound in silk, each Rajneesh text is sold at a three-fold profit, with a growing demand for more.

Ma Yoga Laxmi, the 46-year-old Gujarati woman, who as managing trustee of the Foundation, is the woman responsible for Rajneesh's rising fortunes, admits that in business terms the publishing programme has been the ashram's biggest success. She is a small, dark, sprightly woman seated on a bright yellow swivel chair, so disproportionately large that she has a special wooden platform for her feet.

She speaks in the third person singular and her long association with westerners has resulted in her conversation being punctuated with Americanisms such as "Bullshit" and "Hey you." "We don't like poverty here," she says, "and everything must be done skilfully and beautifully. We now publish about 45 titles a year and that not only helps the money circulate but brings in more and more people."

"Bhagwan is into every worldly game," says Swami Krishna Prem, a canny Canadian, who gave up his successful career in advertising and sales promotion to join Rajneesh in 1973. A bearded, unkempt-looking man, he talks with the swift glibness of a hard-selling travelling salesman. As the chief of the ashram's press office, Krishna Prem is doing for Rajneesh's renown what Ma Laxmi has done for his financial resources. "Bhagwan wants one thing, and that is that he should be known in every part of the world during his lifetime. But he's not into making money. That is only a spin-off for what is actually going on. One should go on housetops to acclaim him because there won't be another chance like it in years."

Publicity: What does, indeed, go on at the Rajneesh Ashram is a question that is latently connected with widespread visions of wild sex orgies and other exercises in mystical titillation. Many of these theories have circulated because of Rajneesh's unabashed openness on the subject of sex. To the uninitiated, the sight of sundry sannyasins locked in long, lingering embrace, eyes rapturously closed, noses nuzzling necks, hands exploring bodies, can at first appear unnerving and suggestive. But hardcore sex is harder to find. If it happens, then it is behind firmly closed doors.

Promiscuous-looking colour photographs of half-stripped sannyasins which attracted wide publicity when they first appeared in the German magazine Stern, are dismissed by an ashramite as not being authentic. "It's nobody's business what people do in private," he says defensively. A somewhat coy notice pasted on the walls of the public toilet - together with dreamy-eyed photographs of Rajneesh - reminds visitors that nudity is objectionable in a public place.

"Sure," agrees Swami Krishna Prem, "the sex thing has caused the biggest misunderstanding. Bhagwan believes that sex, like other aspects of life, is a prison, a biological prison. And the only way to get out of it is to do it and do it and do it till you see the futility of it."

Disparaging: Another disciple explains his master's idea helpfully: "Genital sex is something that peaks your energy. Orgasm is beautiful. Look at Bhagwan: he's in orgasm all the time, you can see it in his eyes, he's reeling from the effect." Since Rajneesh's basic tenet is the release of all energy in a consummation of a final spiritual energy, the act of refraining, consciously rejecting, amounts to repression, an approach that he abhors in other spiritualists, especially Indian ones.

Whatever his design for his followers his own ego peaks sharply and often. He is frequently disparaging about other godmen: Sri Aurobindo, according to him, was an erudite spiritualist but not, like him and Christ and Mahavira and the Buddha, an enlightened master. Sri Satya Sai Baba is put out as "that magic man from Bangalore." And the only other Indian he is prepared to acknowledge as a master is J. Krishnamurti. But there is a qualification. "The difference between Krishnamurti and myself is," he once explained, "that if both of us were sitting on a roof, it is I who would possess the ladder."

His egoism manifests itself amply in the "devices" he employs to disseminate his own cult. He can on occasions be uncharitable, blankly dismissing, and particularly unpenitent about personal remarks made about politicians among others. He can also express his irritation easily. The only question he answered for India Today was during his discourse when he replies queries submitted in writing a day earlier.

The question was: What is the difference between you and other godmen? Predictably he took exception to the word "godman." He began by saying: "I am not a godman. I am simply God as you are, as trees are, as birds are, as rocks are. I don't belong to any category. 'Godmen' is a category invented by journalists. I simply don't belong to any category ..." and continued the answer for nearly 45 minutes during which he attacked "life-negating and hypocritical pseudo god men" and held forth on his own philosophy of life.

Orange Onslaught: His own followers have considerable faith in his provocations. "Of course, we wear orange for shock value. It is nothing but gimmickry. He calls himself Bhagwan for the same reason. Just as his being called Bhagwan bothers most Indians, so does our wearing orange in London or New York appall most people."

Pune citizens find it hard to cope with the orange onslaught. Clashes between residents and ashramites are frequent, and they receive wide publicity due as much to the ashram's efforts as that of the media. On June 26, a 21-year-old foreign disciple called Ma Deva Homa was set upon at night by two men and raped outside the ashram. The press office at the ashram claims that "no less than 20 young foreign women have been assaulted or molested by local hooligans in the past month alone........and not less than 25 of our disciples' huts have been looted and thefts committed, with no action taken by the police."

Earlier this year, a 15-year-old American disciple of Rajneesh was asked for a Rs 1,000-bribe and allegedly assaulted by an inspector of the Foreigners Registration Branch of the Pune CID when she asked for a visa extension. A series of such incidents, including instances of Rajneesh followers being refused visas in Indian missions abroad and foreign film teams being rejected permission to film the ashram, have led to the ashram unleashing a bitter attack against Morarji Desai, "whose Government discriminates against the disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. thereby exposing them to exploitation and corruption."

Tension: Morarji Desai himself, according to the ashram, is responsible for creating these obstacles because of his personal dislike of Rajneesh. The story told in the ashram concerns a chance meeting between Rajneesh and Morarjibhai many years ago. Left together in a room, Rajneesh was under the impression that Morarjibhai had stayed on to speak to him. Morarji thought it was the other way round and took it as a deliberate slight which has continued to irk him. Lately, Rajneesh's dislike of Morarji has verged on the vitriolic.

The ashram's propaganda network being infinitely superior to the Government of India's, their version of the unholy war gets around faster. Lately, the Charity Commissioner of Pune, R.P. Ranadive, in a ludicrously-worded notification has instituted an inquiry under the Bombay Public Trusts Act. His objections? That ashram disciples do not follow traffic rules; that "public streets are used as lavatory for natural calls which gives bad smell and resulted in nuisance near the locality near about the ashram"; that "disciples purposely indulge in teasing ladies from the neighbouring localities in spite of the fact that they are aware that hugging and kissing is not approved by the Indians"; and that disciples are smuggling and dealing in opium and charas.

The "hugging and kissing" business is mainly what most Pune residents find objectionable. Says the city's mayor Ramchandra P. Wadke, who has - being an athiest, he likes to point out - never entered the ashram: "I have only passed that road a few times. I am afraid they do not behave properly. Ladies and gents sitting on the parapet and smoking is not a common sight in Pune. I am afraid, this is not gentlemanly behaviour." In addition to shaking the genteel morality of the city, citizens of Koregaon Park complain frequently about the noise "created by all the song and dance." Noisome or not, song and dance is serious business in the ashram and, more important, it is serious money.

Each morning after the discourse is over, a 37-year-old blonde, brassy Californian called Ma Prem Aneeta takes the hall over for her class in Sufi dancing. Standing with the mike in the centre she croons instructions to a swinging group: "Let go, let go," "Learn to play with each other, learn to touch." Then with the aid of a pair of bongo drums and a guitar she instructs her pupils in nursery-school-type dance steps to impromptu lyrics such as: "Wake up, wake up/Now's your chance/ To come alive/And sing and dance." To which the refrain is: "How much longer can you ignore/Bhagwan knocking on your door."

Sufi dancing is but one of the over 50 therapy groups in constant operation at the ashram. Not all of them are as puerile. From Gestalt to Encounter, Acupuncture to Tai Chi, Golfing to Tantra, traditional eastern meditation practices and western psychological therapies are offered in courses that last from two to 15 days. Group therapy, an offshoot of Jungian psychological analysis, first became established in the '60s in America as the work of a team of "holistic" psychologists. Now it has become both a fashionable and expensive business.

Therapy: With the conversion of several educated foreign practitioners of therapy groups to Rajneesh's sannyas, it has become immensely profitable for the ashram to offer courses to westerners in search of themselves. But Rajneesh takes sufficient precautions. Indians are not encouraged to take up therapy courses. "Eastern psychology is introvert; it is ingoing. The Indian needs to be in a state of total, utter aloneness. He needs meditation techniques like Vipassana where he can forget the whole outside world. Western psychology is extrovert and outgoing. If a westerner comes and I put him directly into Vipassana meditation he is at a loss "

With over a thousand foreigners taking courses each month, the Rajneesh Foundation has now established the Rajneesh International Meditation University, which offers degree programmes in subjects as varied as parapsychology to occultism and applied crafts.

Financial Success: Courses alone cost anything from Rs 50 to Rs 65 a day, and the money continues to pour in. Just over five years ago, says Ma Laxmi, before he moved to Pune, Rajneesh set up the ashram with Rs 7,000 in loans. In 1977-78 the Rajneesh Foundation income was Rs 58.74 lakh, with donations amounting to Rs 47.54 lakh, most of them in foreign currencies. Expenditure. on the other hand, was Rs 8.29 lakh leaving a surplus of Rs 43.10 lakh.

When she met him in the early '60s at a political meeting she was 34 years old, the daughter of a prosperous cloth merchant family in Bombay. "He walked in and I didn't know what hit me. I just sat stunned. This is the man for me, I thought. That was my first and last love affair: like Radha, like Meera I too was bewitched."

Rajneesh - then called Acharya Rajneesh - was then a man less complex, and certainly more accessible. Having quit his lecturership at Saugar University in Madhya Pradesh where he taught philosophy earlier, and decided that he was going to put his spirituality into practice (he is said to have become enlightened, Buddha-like, one night at the age of 21) he was travelling and organising small meditation groups.

Laxmi began to follow him from camp to camp. Then in 1970, during a dynamic meditation course in Nargol on the border of Gujarat, she went through a dramatic transformation. "A great laughter started within me, I was hysterical. It was a joke, everything was a joke. Who am I? I was asking but could not stop laughing."

Growth: The experience changed her life. On that day Rajneesh ordained her Ma Yoga Laxmi and decided that in future all his followers will adopt names of his choosing, and that he alone, would be entitled to give sannyas. A small society called the Jeevan Jagriti Kendra was set up by Rajneesh in a flat in Bombay. Slowly the Indians began to disappear as more and more foreigners joined his meditation camps.

"Initially, it was the freaks who came, young westerners experimenting with counterculture," says Krishna Prem. The money no doubt began to come in at the same time. One day apparently Rajneesh asked Laxmi to look for a house in Pune. Travelling there she found the perfect place: in late 1974 Jeevan Jagriti Kendra was dissolved and the Rajneesh Foundation established at Koregaon Park. Now the Foundation is negotiating for a 1,300-acre property near Saswad, 20 miles out of Pune.

"Only the other day," says Laxmi with the pride of a mother whose child has accomplished a feat, "he began to criticise Buddha. Bhagwan doesn't create controversy, he is controversy."

Weird: His small darshans in the evenings were once simple ceremonies in which he ordained new disciples. Now they get curiouser every day. Strobe lights have appeared. The ashram is plunged into darkness, as a group of musicians work up their instruments to a frenzied crescendo. Held close by 12 writhing women in saffron, the disciple seeking transfer of spiritual energy, is hypnotised by Rajneesh pressing his fingers on his forehead. Outside it's lights-out time, with a thousand-strong crowd dancing in the darkness of the main hall.

As the fever rises people strip to their underclothes. Sweating, gyrating, swinging to the rising rhythm pouring from the speakers, the release of energy is timed with the energy darshan inside. Again and again, as each disciple seeking energy transfer goes up, the 12 mediums flail their arms and thrust their bodies in supreme passion. A young disciple begins to slobber in the dark.

A woman holding her stomach in the audience cries out in ecstasy. The whole performance is designed as an esoteric ritual, a mystical purge, a special-effects pyschodrama. Depending on a disciple's state of mind, it could be hallucinatory, euphoric or even spiritually enervating. But a faked theatricality sticks around the sequence like congealed grease.

Success-oriented: And as with most gurus, it is not easy to separate Rajneesh's fakery from his reality. Like most performers, he is a bit of both. Like all cult heroes in search of a mass audience, he is both charlatan and instructor. And his ashram can be about as elevating as a cave in the mountains, as harmless as a night at a discotheque or as disturbing as a spell in an asylum. The truth probably lies in between and is perhaps more mundane.

Rajneesh might simply be an ambitious man, like any other, seeking his fortune. And his success, dependent on his normal human potential and those of his orange people, lies in merely utilising it to its optimum, just as in any other success-oriented human being. And the phenomenal success of his ashram is no different from the success of a well-managed business house that employs the rather original synthesis of shrewd Gujarati money-sense with smooth Madison Avenue public relationing.

In which case Rajneesh could with equanimity swap jobs with the head of an expanding multinational corporation. The Rajneesh Ashram could well become the IBM of religion. Or even its Coca-Cola, if it keeps on the right side of the Indian Government, and manages to retain its magic potion. That might, after all, be the real thing.

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Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh: Is he a charlatan, hypnotist or a ...

"A unique opportunity to get exposure for your brand, generate leads and drive onsite revenue."NBC4 New York is once again teaming with the 4X Super Bowl Champs, The New York Giants, for the 6th annual NBC4/T47 Health & Fitness Expo! Over 40,000 NYC metro area consumers are expected to flock to this family-friendly weekend event held at the famed MetLife Stadium. Expo attendees will be entertained, informed and can take advantage of a range of free health tests and screenings. In addition, attendees will have the very special opportunity to meet Giants players and participate in events held on the field. NBC4 will begin an aggressive, market-wide on-air and online attendance promotion 6 weeks in advance of the expo, helping to drive qualified attendees to the event.

Everything was great

Make sure that your waiver to participate in the event is signed in advance.

Your webite could have used some attention. It was very hard to navigate the pre-registraion and it would have been nice to see a list of the different events and times

Health, eating well tips, yoga & exercises along with too many activities to name. Can't wait til next year!

The Nbc4 New York Giants Health & Fitness Expo will exhibit the products and services that will include goods, items, health related products and services associated with the sector.

Hotel Lucerne

Grand Hyatt New York

Crowne Plaza Englewood

Leon Hotel

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NY Expo (Jun 2020), NBC 4 & T47 Health & Fitness Expo ...

Spiritual Development

Spiritual development is the process of becoming fit for a higher level in the spirit world.There arethree areas of spiritual learning: skills, beliefs, and evolution.

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Spiritualists believe that a person incarnates in order to learn.Christianity, or more correctly, the words of Jesus, teach that what youare here to learn is: to love God and other people. Buddhism, teachesthat to be able to love you must become unselfish or in other wordslessen the grip your ego holds over your thoughts and deeds. Buddhismgives practical techniques (meditation and mindfulness) that can helpyou to become unselfish.

Therefore, humility is the sign of a highly evolved soul. One shouldlook for this characteristic when seeking a spiritual teacher.

For humans living on earth, spiritual evolution is the most important aspect of spiritual development. This is because in the afterlife you will have spiritual skills. In fact, spiritual skills will be the only skills you will have at that point. Also, in the afterlife, you will have the right beliefs because you will be able to see for yourself what the afterlife is like. However, unless you use your time on earth correctly and learn to love and to eliminate selfishness, you will not have that ability when you move into the afterlife.

While the great religions of the world teach that developing love forothers is the primary objective of spiritual development, it is notenough to say this without some instruction on how to develop love. Ourbiological nature puts up many obstacles against love. People hear thebeautiful words of the great teachers and then find that it isimpossible to live according to their beliefs. This damages peoplepsychologically and brings disrepute to preachers and followers alike.

Therefore it is important for humankind to have an explanation of how todevelop love. Love arises spontaneously when hatred and anger and otherforms of selfish and negative thought are absent.

The way to eliminate selfishness through meditation can be found in thepage on meditation. If you practicemeditation daily, then gradually over the years, without straining to beperfect, you will become less and less self centered and a natural lovefor others will arise within you. The chapter on Short Topicshas more On The Purpose of Life.

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For more information on spiritual beliefs see the page on The Principles of Spiritualism.

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A person's beliefs have a strong influence on his ability to developspiritual skills. If he is skeptical and continually attributesanomalous experiences to coincidence and "natural explanations", he willweaken his abilities through negative reinforcement. This will alsodiscourage spirit guides that may be trying to help him. Each person isborn having spiritual skills, but our societal attitudes result, in thisway, in most people losing awareness of their natural abilities as theymature. Therefore it is necessary to undo the effects of living in anunbelieving society.

To develop spiritual skills, a person must be accepting of the phenomenaand must continually look for spiritual influence in his life in theform of coincidences, hunches, and other unusual phenomena. In this wayhe will increase his awareness of spiritual influence in his life andnotice more and more the activity of his spiritual skills. Thispositive feedback will lead to improvement and enhancement of hisspiritual skills. Therefore it is necessary to err on the side ofcredulity rather than skepticism.

There is the risk of incorrectly attributing coincidence to spiritualinfluence, however this risk must be borne. One must always maintain anawareness of this risk and never take rash or unwise actions based onsupposed spiritual influence and never allow belief in infallibility totake hold.

The regular practice of meditation and relaxationis also helpful in the development of spiritual skills. These practicescalm the mind and allow one to notice subtle thoughts, impressions,and sensations that may be associated with spiritual phenomena.

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What Is Spiritual Development - Spiritual Development

Written by Adelina Chelniciuc on September 27, 2017. Posted in Articles, Personal performance

Within organizations, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are known to provide multiple advantages, which can be divided into six main categories:

Now translate all these advantages into your personal life. Can you imagine having access to the data you are interested in? Or making informed decisions in multiple areas of your life? What about having better control, taking corrective actions when needed and boosting personal performance?

As complicated as it might sound at first, the idea of using KPIs to measure your personal productivity is very simple and effective, once properly understood.

As Ive mentioned in a previous article, the first step towards an integrated and controlled personal improvement process is goal setting. Once you established your objectives, setting KPIs can help you focus on those goals and support the process.

There are four main areas that you can focus on when measuring your way to improvement and success. These are everyday aspects which, if properly measured and controlled, can meaningfully improve your personal results, namely Budget Management, Home Economics, Personal Development and Well-Being.

Below we offer some examples of KPIs for these areas, which can be therefore adapted and used according to each persons measurement and improvement needs.

a) Fitness

b) Health

c) Nutrition

d) Relationships

e) Work-life balance

When measuring personal performance, even if you do not use tools such as a scorecard, a strategy map or a portfolio of initiatives, you still need standardization, to a certain extent. In order to get the most value out of your measurement system, some basic rules can be useful, namely:

1. Simply setting personal KPIs will not be useful, unless they are strongly connected to your objectives.

For example, when setting Lose weight as an objective, you might be interested in measuring both # Weight and # Minutes of vigorous physical activity per day. On the same principle, in order to make sure you achieve the objective Improve English skills, you can monitor KPIs such as # Grammar exercises per day or # English books read.

2. Setting targets for these KPIs will provide you with a reference point against which your personal performance is measured. Both short term and long term targets can be set, in order to motivate you to take actions.

3. Initiatives should be taken in order to achieve your targets.

Lets take, for example, the case of the objective Lose weight. If when monitoring the KPI # Time spent walking per day, which has a target of 30 minutes, your result is barely 10 minutes of walking per day, some initiatives could be Stop using the elevator or Walk towards work 2 times a week (if possible).More details about personal targets and initiatives will be provided in a future article.

Besides these simple rules, keeping track of your KPIs in writing offers you a better visualization of your results, along with a sense of responsibility.

After deciding what you want to achieve by setting clear goals, measuring your personal performance with KPIs is the next step towards improving both your everyday and your long-term productivity. By choosing the right KPIs and keeping a positive attitude towards the entire process, it becomes not only useful, but also highly motivational and even entertaining.

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Tags: KPI, Personal KPIs

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Performance Magazine | Personal Key Performance Indicators ...

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