Aligned along the sacred core of your body, seven energy centers known as chakras spin like sacred jewels, forming a bridge of connection between Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter, mind and body.

Herein lies the architecture of the soul.

This ancient map of the chakra system presents a viable key to wholeness and a guide for both personal and planetary awakening.

As we align the inner worlds of earth, water, fire, air, sound, light, and consciousness, we simultaneously align with these sacred elements in the outer world.

Herein find tools to open, engage, activate, and align your chakras and your innermost being with the larger mystery of life.

Explore our books, workshops, home learning courses, videos, and more.

Join our community and become a member of Sacred Centers.

In this long-awaited book by acclaimed chakra expert Anodea Judith, you will learn how to use yogas principles and practices to awaken the subtle body of energy and connect with your highest source. Using seven vital keys to unlock your inner temple, you will be guided through practices that open and activate each chakra through postures, bioenergetic exercises, breathing practices, mantras, guided meditation, and yoga philosophy. Learn how to activate your chakras through yoga. With 232 full-color photographs, step-by-step alignment instructions, chakra-based posture sequences, pranayama (breathing) techniques, mantras, yoga philosophy, and more, this book is a must-have resource for anyone who teaches or wants to learn about yoga and moving the subtle energy.

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Sacred Centers - Tools for Conscious Evolution

Join Us for Meditation

Please join us for meditation Sundays at 10 AM!

SAVE THE DATE! VENERABLE THUBTEN CHONYI WILL VISIT IN APRIL!

Lama Ahbay Rinpoche

How to Deal with Anger and Hatred

FREE PUBLIC TALK

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 6 PM

Siebels House

1601 Richland Street

(corner of Pickens and Richland)

Columbia, SC 29201

Ahbay Rinpoche (Lama Ahbay Tulku Jigme Thupten Tendar Rinpoche) has beenrecognized by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of Lama Lobsang Tenzin, and hastaught widely in Europe and the United States.

FREE PUBLIC TALKPLEASE JOIN US

Lama Ahbay Rinpoche teaches Mondays and Thursdays at 6:30 PM at the Dharma Center

Please join us to hear teaching from Ahbay Rinpoche on Mondays and Thursdays until May 25, starting this Thursday, Apr. 8. Teaching will be offered at the Dharma Center at 6 PM on those days. He will also be with us for meditation on Sundays at 10 AM. We hope you can join us!

Ahbay Rinpoche returns to Columbia April 1-May 25, 2017

Lama Ahbay Rinpochewill return to teach in Columbia April 1-May 25, 2017. Hewill offer regular teachingson various topics

and meet with individuals for spiritual advice.He will offer teachings on on Monday and Thursday nights. The teachings on both nights will be at 6:30 PM at the Dharma Center. He will also teach on meditation on Sunday mornings at 10, and may perform pujas and other practices then, as well. He is available for individual meetings--contact us at scdharma@gmail.com to schedule appointments. Please join us!We hope everyone has an opportunity to meet this remarkableteacher!

Please join us for meditation!

Please join us for meditation at 10 AM each Sunday! If you'd like an introduction to meditation, contact us at scdharma@gmail.com and we can schedule a time to meet with you before or after meditation.

Geshe Dakpa Topgyal teaching in Columbia this weekend (Aug. 26, 27, 28)Geshe Dakpa Topgyal from Charleston will be teaching at the Dharma Center this weekend. Everyone is encouraged to attend.

Here's the schedule

Friday, Aug. 26 7-8 PM

Saturday, Aug. 27 10-12 AM

Sunday, Aug. 28 10-12 AM

Please note that Geshela asks that people arrive on time and not leave early.

Tibetan classes at the Dharma Center!

Please join us for Tibetan classes at the SCDG Dharma Center, the third Sunday of each month, at 11 AM!

These classes will be for absolute beginners, who would like to understand and pronounce the words in recitations and prayers correctly, but students who know a little Tibetan will also benefit. Eric Winter and John Tasevski, who have proficiency in classical Tibetan, will teach the classes.

The class will begin Sunday, Aug. 21, and will be offered on the third Sunday of each month, so dates this fall will be Sept. 18, Oct. 16, Nov. 20, and Dec. 18. The classes will begin after meditation, at 11 AM at the Dharma Center.

On other Sundays at that time, we'll continue the discussion ofThe Path to Enlightenmentby His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Please let us know if you'd like to participate but don't have the book. We can order additional used copies, or you can buy your own online (the ISBN of the edition we use is978-1559390323).

Please let us know if you need more information about either of these!

Join us for meditation Sundays at 10 AM!

Please join us for meditation each Sunday at 10 AM at the Dharma Center! For more information, email scdharma@gmail.com or call 803-467-7759.

Ahbay Rinpoche Returns to India

After a wonderful three-month visit, Ahbay Rinpoche has returned to India. He will travel in India and attend the Kalachakra offered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Bodh Gaya, India, in January. Rinpoche La will also travel in Europe, and we hope will soon return to South Carolina for another visit, if possible.

Here are Rinpoche La and the students attending his last teaching before leaving in July, 2016:

A Peaceful Mind: A Public Talk by Ahbay Rinpoche June 1

A talk on the Buddhist path tomental and spiritual peace will be given by Ahbay Rinpoche at 6 PM on Wednesday, June 1, 2016, in the Seibels House at 1601Pickens St, Columbia, SC 29201 (at the corner of Pickens and Richland Street.The free talk is sponsored by the South Carolina Dharma Group.

The talk will focus on achieving peace by working to eliminate the negativemind of anger and hatred.AhbayRinpoche (Lama Ahbay Tulku Jigme Thupten Tendar Rinpoche) has been recognizedby the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of Lama Lobsang Tenzin, and has taughtwidely in Europe and the United States.

Lama Ahbay Rinpoche Returns to Columbia!

Lama Ahbay Rinpoche has returned to Columbia for a three-month stay! He is with us April 13-July 4, 2016, and will offer regular teachings and meet with individuals for spiritual advice.He will offer teachings on on Monday and Wednesday nights on various topics. The teachings on both nights will be at 7 PM at the Dharma Center. He will also teach on meditation on Sunday mornings at 10, and may perform pujas and other practices then, as well. He is available for individual meetings--contact us at scdharma@gmail.com to schedule appointments. Please join us!We hope everyone has an opportunity to meet this remarkableteacher!

Sand Mandala in Columbia

Visit from Lama Ahbay Rinpoche, July 24-31, 2015

Ahbay's hand on a participant's hand

Ahbay Rinpoche preparing the offerings

Offering bowls at the puja

Lined up for blessings

One person being blessed

Saga Dawa 2015

Members of the South Carolina Dharma Group celebrated

Saga Dawa, the remembrance of Shakyamuni Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and passing into Parinivana. We said prayers and mantras, and released crickets (who would otherwise have been used for bait), reminding us of compassion and liberation.

Aid for Earthquake Victims in Nepal

Many of the victims of the earthquake in Nepal are Buddhists, some in our lineage, and some may even be relatives of a member of CTS, our sister organization in Charleston. We hear that there are many problems with relief money sent to Nepal going only to the cities, while people in the small villages receive nothing.

The Nepalese family in Charleston has connected us with a new fund set up to send aid directly to the villages that so far have had no relief from the government. (A helicopter that was flying up to the mountain to rescue critically injured villagers was taken by the government to rescue rich mountain climbers on Mt. Everest).

If you would like to send aid that will go directly to help the villages in the mountains, please:

1. Send checks made out to Jampa Gompo

2. Mail them to:

Charleston Tibetan Society

ATTN: Karma G. Sherpa

12 Parkwood Avenue

Charleston, SC 29403

Unfortunately this fund is too new to be a 501c3, so there cant be a tax write-off, but all money will go directly to the villages in Nepal.

Meditate with us at our new location!

The South Carolina Dharma Group has a new location in the Earlewood neighborhood of Columbia, in a building on Florence street just behind the house at 3003 Columbia Street (please come to the building on Florence, not to the house). Please join us for meditation there each Sunday at 10 AM. For more detailed directions, write us at scdharma@gmail.com or call 803-467-7759.

Talk on "Meditation and Neuroplasticity"

by Dr. Dieter Borrmann

(student of Geshe Topgyal andNeurologist at the Gemeinschaftspraxis frNeurologie, Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie in Emmerich, Germany.)

We were fortunate to have a talk on the effects of meditation on the brain by Dr. Dieter Borrman in April, 2015, co-sponsored by the USC Department of Religion.

Dr. DieterBorrmann is a Neurologist at the Gemeinschaftspraxis fr Neurologie,Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie in Emmerich, Germany. He is a student of Buddhism under Geshe Dakpa Topgyal at TheCharleston Tibetan Society, Charleston, SC. and under Geshe Pema Samten at theTibetisches Zentrum e.V., Hamburg, Germany, where he is morethan halfway into a seven year systematic course of study in Tibetan Buddhism. With the Universitt Bonn he has contributed to the research on"Meditation and White Matter". His fascinating book about meditationfrom the perspective of a neurologist, both in personal experience and inmedical practice, will soon be translated and published in English.

StupaCompleted

A stupa honoringthe memory of the late Geshe Ngawang Phuntsok, former resident teacher of theSouth Carolina Dharma Group, has been completed and was consecrated in a formalceremony in April 2014 in Bomdila, which lies in the mountains of northeastern India.

The stupa not only honors the memory of Geshe Phuntsok but also servesfor the long-term spiritual benefit of visitors to Bomdila and residents of theregion. Stupas represent the enlightened mind of buddhas and exhibit thespiritual road map to enlightenment. The stupa will exist as a source of meritfor generations of numerous devoted people who can make offerings at andcircumambulations around the sacred monument.

Erection ofthe stupa was made possible through the generous donations of Dr. Jamie Felbergand membersof the Asanga Institute of Montrose, Colorado.

Teachings from Ven. Chonyi

Ven. Thubten Chonyi, of Sravasti Abbey in Washington State, visited SCDG for teachings Dec. 31-Jan. 5. Below are pictures from the visit.

w Book by Spiritual Director Published

The South Carolina Dharma Group, in conjunction with Dr. Jamie Felberg, the Asanga Institute of Montrose, Colorado, and the Charleston Tibetan Society, has established a scholarship fund in memory of Geshe Ngawang Phuntsok. Geshe Phuntsok was the South Carolina Dharma Groups resident teacher in 2002 and 2003 and was the Asanga Institutes resident teacher from 2007 to 2012.

As devoted dharma students of Geshe Phuntsok, and following the moral suggestion of Geshe Dakpa Topgyal, SCDGs spiritual director, the members of SCDG, CTS, the Asanga Institute, and Dr. Jamie Felberg, donated to the scholarship fund to make Geshe Phuntsoks dream reality. We made contributions out of heartfelt respect for our teacher and out of the wish that Geshe Phuntsoks dream be realized.

A second moral imperative, as pointed out by Geshe Topgyal, is to build a stupa in memory of Geshe Phuntsok in his home village, Bomdila, in northeastern India where he was born and where his parents currently reside. We are uncertain if we can succeedthat will depend on collecting funds the needed to build the stupa.

The purpose of the stupa will not just be to honor the memory of Geshe Phuntsok, but also to serve for the long-term spiritual benefit of as many sentient beings as possible. The stupa would exist as a sacred source of merit for generations of numerous devoted people who may make offerings at the stupa and circumambulations around the monument.

Dr. Jamie Felberg has made a commitment to help make the stupa a reality, but any individual who would like to donate can donate online or by mailing a check to the South Carolina Dharma Group, PO Box 50357, Columbia, SC 29250. Contact us for more information at scdharma@gmail.com.

Your contributions help support our programming, such as teachings by accredited teachers in the Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhist lineage, retreats and meditation lessons.

You can securely make a donation online by clicking the button below.You do not need a PayPal account to donate online. Look for the "Continue" link by the bank card icons on the PayPal donation page.

You may also donate bymailing us a check (SCDG, PO Box 50357, Columbia, SC 29250) or by leaving cash or a check at the Dharma Center.

The South Carolina Dharma Group is a federally-recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and contributions are taxdeductibleto the extent allowed by law.

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scdharma

The bermensch (German for "Beyond-Man", "Superman", "Overman", "Superhuman", "Hyperman", "Hyperhuman"; German pronunciation: [ybmn]) is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the bermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. It is a work of philosophical allegory, with a structural similarity to the Gathas of Zoroaster/Zarathustra.

The first translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra into English was published in 1896. In that translation, by Alexander Tille, bermensch was translated as "Beyond-Man". In the Thomas Common translation, published in 1909, however, bermensch was rendered as "Superman". Common was anticipated in this by George Bernard Shaw, who had done the same in his 1903 stage play Man and Superman. Walter Kaufmann lambasted this translation in the 1950s for two reasons: first, its near or total failure to capture the nuance of the German word ber (while the Latin prefix super- means above or beyond, the English use of the prefix or its use as an adjective has altered the meaning); and second, a rationale which Fredric Wertham railed against even more vehemently in Seduction of the Innocent, for promoting identification by children with the comic-book character Superman (whom Wertham described as "un-American and fascist"). The preference of Kaufmann and others is to translate bermensch as "overman". Scholars continue to employ both terms, some simply opting to reproduce the German word.[1][2]

The German prefix ber can have connotations of superiority, transcendence, excessiveness, or intensity, depending on the words to which it is attached.[3]Mensch refers to a member of the human species, rather than to a male specifically. The adjective bermenschlich means super-human, in the sense of beyond human strength or out of proportion to humanity.[4]

Nietzsche introduces the concept of the bermensch in contrast to his understanding of the other-worldliness of Christianity: Zarathustra proclaims the bermensch to be the meaning of the earth and admonishes his audience to ignore those who promise other-worldly hopes in order to draw them away from the earth.[5][6] The turn away from the earth is prompted, he says, by a dissatisfaction with lifea dissatisfaction that causes one to create another world in which those who made one unhappy in this life are tormented. The bermensch is not driven into other worlds away from this one.

Zarathustra declares that the Christian escape from this world also required the invention of an eternal soul which would be separate from the body and survive the body's death. Part of other-worldliness, then, was the abnegation and mortification of the body, or asceticism. Zarathustra further links the bermensch to the body and to interpreting the soul as simply an aspect of the body.

Zarathustra ties the bermensch to the death of God. While this God was the ultimate expression of other-worldly values and the instincts that gave birth to those values, belief in that God nevertheless did give meaning to life for a time. 'God is dead' means that the idea of God can no longer provide values. With the sole source of values no longer capable of providing those values, there is a real chance of nihilism prevailing.

Zarathustra presents the bermensch as the creator of new values. In this way, it appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. If the bermensch acts to create new values within the moral vacuum of nihilism, there is nothing that this creative act would not justify. Alternatively, in the absence of this creation, there are no grounds upon which to criticize or justify any action, including the particular values created and the means by which they are promulgated.

In order to avoid a relapse into Platonic idealism or asceticism, the creation of these new values cannot be motivated by the same instincts that gave birth to those tables of values. Instead, they must be motivated by a love of this world and of life. Whereas Nietzsche diagnosed the Christian value system as a reaction against life and hence destructive in a sense, the new values which the bermensch will be responsible for will be life-affirming and creative (see Nietzschean affirmation).

Zarathustra first announces the bermensch as a goal humanity can set for itself. All human life would be given meaning by how it advanced a new generation of human beings. The aspiration of a woman would be to give birth to an bermensch, for example; her relationships with men would be judged by this standard.[7]

Zarathustra contrasts the bermensch with the last man of egalitarian modernity, an alternative goal which humanity might set for itself. The last man appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the bermensch impossible.

According to Rdiger Safranski, some commentators associate the bermensch with a program of eugenics.[8] This is most pronounced when considered in the aspect of a goal that humanity sets for itself. The reduction of all psychology to physiology implies, to some, that human beings can be bred for cultural traits. This interpretation of Nietzsche's doctrine focuses more on the future of humanity than on a single cataclysmic individual. There is no consensus regarding how this aspect of the bermensch relates to the creation of new values.

For Rdiger Safranski, the bermensch represents a higher biological type reached through artificial selection and at the same time is also an ideal for anyone who is creative and strong enough to master the whole spectrum of human potential, good and "evil", to become an "artist-tyrant". In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche vehemently denied any idealistic, democratic or humanitarian interpretation of the bermensch: "The word bermensch [designates] a type of supreme achievement, as opposed to 'modern' men, 'good' men, Christians, and other nihilists ... When I whispered into the ears of some people that they were better off looking for a Cesare Borgia than a Parsifal, they did not believe their ears."[9] Safranski argues that the combination of ruthless warrior pride and artistic brilliance that defined the Italian Renaissance embodied the sense of the bermensch for Nietzsche. According to Safranski, Nietzsche intended the ultra-aristocratic figure of the bermensch to serve as a Machiavellian bogeyman of the modern Western middle class and its pseudo-Christian egalitarian value system.[10]

The bermensch shares a place of prominence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra with another of Nietzsche's key concepts: the eternal recurrence of the same. Several interpretations for this fact have been offered.

Laurence Lampert suggests that the eternal recurrence replaces the bermensch as the object of serious aspiration.[11] This is in part due to the fact that even the bermensch can appear like an other-worldly hope. The bermensch lies in the future no historical figures have ever been bermenschen and so still represents a sort of eschatological redemption in some future time.

Stanley Rosen, on the other hand, suggests that the doctrine of eternal return is an esoteric ruse meant to save the concept of the bermensch from the charge of Idealism.[12] Rather than positing an as-yet unexperienced perfection, Nietzsche would be the prophet of something that has occurred a countless number of times in the past.

Others maintain that willing the eternal recurrence of the same is a necessary step if the bermensch is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. Therefore, it could seem that the bermensch, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognizing it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism.

Still others suggest that one must have the strength of the bermensch in order to will the eternal recurrence of the same; that is, only the bermensch will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made.

The term bermensch was utilized frequently by Hitler and the Nazi regime to describe their idea of a biologically superior Aryan or Germanic master race;[13] a form of Nietzsche's bermensch became a philosophical foundation for the National Socialist ideas. Their conception of the bermensch, however, was racial in nature.[14][15] The Nazi notion of the master race also spawned the idea of "inferior humans" (Untermenschen) which could be dominated and enslaved; this term does not originate with Nietzsche. Nietzsche himself was critical of both antisemitism and German nationalism. In his final years, Nietzsche began to believe that he was in fact Polish, not German, and was quoted as saying, "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood".[16] In defiance of these doctrines, he claimed that he and Germany were great only because of "Polish blood in their veins",[17] and that he would be "having all anti-semites shot" as an answer to his stance on anti-semitism. Although the term has been associated with the Nazis, Nietzsche was dead long before Hitler's reign. It was Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche who actually first played a part in manipulating her brother's words to accommodate the worldview of herself and her husband, Bernhard Frster, a prominent German nationalist and antisemite.[18] In order to support his beliefs he set up the Deutscher Volksverein (German People's League) in 1881 with Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg.[19]

The thought of Nietzsche had an important influence in anarchist authors (see Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche). Spencer Sunshine writes that "There were many things that drew anarchists to Nietzsche: his hatred of the state; his disgust for the mindless social behavior of 'herds'; his anti-Christianity; his distrust of the effect of both the market and the State on cultural production; his desire for an 'overman' that is, for a new human who was to be neither master nor slave; his praise of the ecstatic and creative self, with the artist as his prototype, who could say, 'Yes' to the self-creation of a new world on the basis of nothing; and his forwarding of the 'transvaluation of values' as source of change, as opposed to a Marxist conception of class struggle and the dialectic of a linear history."[20] The influential American anarchist Emma Goldman in her famous collection of essays Anarchism and Other Essays in the preface passionately defends both Nietzsche and Max Stirner from attacks within anarchism when she says "The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer's ideas or personality. Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a hater of the weak because he believed in the bermensch. It does not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this vision of the bermensch also called for a state of society which will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves."[21]

Sunshine says that the "Spanish anarchists also mixed their class politics with Nietzschean inspiration." Murray Bookchin, in The Spanish Anarchists, describes prominent CNTFAI member Salvador Segu as "an admirer of Nietzschean individualism, of the superhombre to whom 'all is permitted'." Bookchin, in his 1973 introduction to Sam Dolgoff's The Anarchist Collectives, even describes the reconstruction of society by the workers as a Nietzschean project. Bookchin says that "workers must see themselves as human beings, not as class beings; as creative personalities, not as 'proletarians,' as self-affirming individuals, not as 'masses'. . .(the) economic component must be humanized precisely by bringing an 'affinity of friendship' to the work process, by diminishing the role of onerous work in the lives of producers, indeed by a total 'transvaluation of values' (to use Nietzsche's phrase) as it applies to production and consumption as well as social and personal life."[20]

Notes

Bibliography

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bermensch - Wikipedia

The Ordained Ministerial Counselor training applies the principles of A Course in Miracles to spiritual ministry. Being an Ordained Ministerial Counselor (OMC) prepares you to fulfill your purpose of serving in this time of the Great Awakening. Upon completion of the Ministerial Curriculum you are qualified to offer Accessing Inner Wisdom Spiritual Counseling as well as to facilitate Pathways of Light Spiritual College courses and 8-week programs.

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This course will provide practice in becoming aware of the trance formations that make us act like robots, controlled by unconscious, habitual ego belief systems. You will learn to retrain your mind to develop new mental habits while releasing those old mental programs that are limiting and painful.

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This course seemed simple on the surface; that was deceptive! It was so much more than I expected. I value hugely what it brought up for me. It has led to better relationships with my loved ones and greater inner peace.

This is a very powerful, invaluable course. It helped me learn to identify false self-image beliefs and transform these false beliefs to truth with the help of Spirit.

I felt that through the readings and visualizations, I made a greater shift to the Light within. My self-image improved. I feel more open to love, joy and peace. I really felt that this was a major shift for me.

I learned to look at how I think about myself and change that image with the help of Inner Guidance.

This course allowed me to stop, and become aware of the gaps and differences between what I have manifested into my life and relationships to date, and what I consciously desire to focus on. I gained valuable insights into how and why I set up limiting relationship patterns..

This course helped me realize at still another, deeper level that I make the trance scripts and I can let them go with the help of Holy Spirit. I also enjoyed the experience of deep peace and feeling connected with my Source in the meditations..

This course brought me clarity and a sense of peace about where I am in my life. I was able to focus more clearly on differentiating between ego and my Higher Self, especially in relation to my own issues of worthiness.

As you open to understanding your true purpose, you enter a new time a time of looking at the concepts you are holding about yourself and others and letting them be replaced by the awareness of your unlimited True Self.

Understand how the veils of forgetfulness can be lifted to give you a new sense of life purpose. Learn how to change your beliefs about time. Learn to access long-held thought patterns you picked up as a child, and heal these limited thoughts with the help of the Light within you. Find out why it is important to quiet your mind and listen to your Self, and how you can better serve your true identity as Spirit in this life.

Receive insight on new choices, new ideas, and learn how you can extend the qualities of your true Self in your life. Take an inward journey to a Haven of Greater Awareness to connect and identify with qualities of Spirit, such as universal Love, and feeling deep inner peace. Transcend time and communicate with your unlimited Self. Imagine seeing life differently in the years ahead as you dissolve blocks to the greater awareness of Love's Presence. Practice seeing yourself knowing and expressing your true life purpose.

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Wow. It was such a joyful, elevating experience. The meditations were deep and transforming. It was an enlightening experience, more than I expected.

The exercises were created in such a way that they directly got to important life issues. I felt like I shook hands with myself and my unconscious self. I learned to create a bridge for conscious dialogue with Higher Self.

For the first time in my life I found myself going very deeply into guided meditations. I always brought back some important new information, some new awareness. I was impressed with the gentle and nurturing approach. Growth doesn't have to hurt.

I would recommend this highly as a powerful class for opening to the Higher Self.

I love all the extra benefits of these courses how they are synchronistic with events in my life. I also love the little jewels in each course sentences that are profound. I increased my sense of peace.

It made me aware of my issues and my solutions. I gained insight into the changes I need to make to get back to my True Self. The experience was relaxing, rejuvenating, profound and very enjoyable. The materials are simple, direct and precise.

I have the knowledge and the ability to change my present experiences by changing my thoughts and beliefs about the past, and to have a future of Love, peace and joy. It helped me a lot with meditation. The CDs and the course brought the wisdom I needed to access my Inner Truth.

This course helped remind me why I am in this world and assisted me in remembering/discovering how to return to the reason: My purpose. It has come at an extremely difficult time in life, thus proving extremely beneficial.

I believe that the course opened areas of forgiveness for me to a greater degree than ever before. It allowed me to review and release situations in my life which I still held judgments about. I am aware to a greater extent that my Higher Self is always there to help and comfort me.

In this course you will look at core aspects of your personality which are holding on to ideas that do not come from your true Self. Some of the ways these aspects express themselves include self-righteousness, suffering, victimhood and projecting guilt and blame onto others. If you still find yourself sabotaging your innate happiness, this course will give you practice in identifying and healing those self-defeating aspects. You will learn how to quiet your mind to let your true Self lovingly transform your mind your thoughts and feelings to higher levels of awareness.

As you learn to quiet your mind and listen, you awaken to the real you to your true Self. As you gradually welcome awakening to your inner Spirit, your experience changes to allow in more joy, love and the knowing that you are safe in God. Your true Self is your true nature, the essence of what you are. You will learn to allow in the awareness of your true Self more fully and receive helpful insight. Your true Self is your inner Teacher and will help you transform your thinking to see the outer world differently to live a happier and more purposeful life.

As your thinking increasingly comes from your true Self, you become more gentle with yourself and others. You are able to see past the fearful thinking and resulting behavior in yourself and others, to see the true reality of Love that lies behind all fear. You are able to make choices and decisions from a place of Wisdom and peace.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 111 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 111.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 111 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 111 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 111 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 111 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 111 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 111 Self-Study in Binder.

It really helped me look at areas in my life that I wasn't facing. The meditation CDs are wonderful and I enjoy listening to them more than once or twice. This course reinforced my values and beliefs in my spirituality.

By becoming aware of the limiting aspects in my personality, I can more clearly choose to hear my Inner Guidance. Receiving the guiding vision of my True Self was very moving and powerful.

This course reinforces the work I am doing with A Course in Miracles. The CDs facilitated getting in touch with my True Self and receiving a vision of the next evolutionary step of my "practice."

This course helped me clear away the blocks that prevented me from discovering my true Higher Self and has freed me to proceed with my personal growth. It has a helpful, building block approach of recognition, healing, cleansing and awareness. The excellent recorded meditations were so helpful in guiding me through inner explorations.

This course is more far-reaching in its scope than I anticipated. It facilitated a change that is an ongoing process. My experience can only be described as miraculous. I stand a changed person on the inside, thereby creating a changed perception on the outside. I gained a deep sense of union with myself and an absolute conviction that I am never alone.

By doing one of the exercises and applying the insights to my daily life, I came to a clearer understanding that I was projecting my limiting personality characteristics onto those whom I seemed to get upset with or angry at. With this realization, it became easier to see myself in those people, whom I used to blame for their 'bad' behaviors. I was them and they were me! Seeing oneness with those who seem to upset or hurt me has been a big challenge for me. But this experience helps me move in the right direction.

All the exercises brought me to deeper and deeper levels of my being. The meditations were profound and moving. I was able to see things so clearly.

The meditation CD helped lead me to the Holy Spirit (inner guidance) naturally, to a profound depth of inner insight, with peace and Love.

There were many ah-ha's, such as: All need for "specialness" is a belief in scarcity a belief that there's not enough goodness or universal abundance to go around.

I realized that my abundance is so incredible that I couldn't even really imagine how great it is. And the Holy Spirit is there to guide my creativity. Each session was so right on. It amazed me how effective they were.

This course will help you feel more confident about trusting your Inner Guidance, spiritual intuition and your ability to know what is right for you. Trust opens the door to living a purposeful life, following Spirit. Trust helps you experience the quiet peace that comes with letting go of fearful thinking. When you trust that your Source is working for you and with you, you relax and allow It to lead you.

Learn how to let go of the doubt that cuts you off from experiencing trust in areas of:

Learn what pushes your buttons, causing you to lose your trust, and how to get back to trusting your true Self as your source of Guidance. Trusting your inner Teacher changes how you see everyone and everything. This trust allows you to see the world from a new perspective of oneness. As you place your trust in your true Self, you see through the false veils of ego thoughts of conflict, limitation and lack. You are unlimited Love and Light. The more you can trust in the Christ within, the more it will be reflected in your life.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 114 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 114.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 114 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 114 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 114 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 114 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 114 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 114 Self-Study in Binder.

I increased my awareness, commitment and TRUST in Spirit, learning to see that Spirit does the work and I just need to be mindfully connected in a place of peace, allowing it to take place.

I learned so much about myself. This has been the best course for me yet. I learned to locate the things that trigger mistrust for me and how to trust Spirit more.

I was reluctant to take a correspondence course, preferring the group sharing environment. I was very pleased with the opportunities and insights I received by doing individual and guided facilitated study. I would now recommend correspondence as a very valuable experience, and I would correspond again in the future.

Trust has been an issue with me in the past. I believe that by doing this course, I attained a new level. The experiential work allowed me to feel trust in a way that is wondrous and new. It is the experiential meditative exercises which made this course come alive for me.

The meditations are profound. I play the meditation CDs over and over, and each time I hear them differently. So I have an actual "physical way" to realize the layers that exist and work with myself at each level.

I gained a renewed trust in Self, extending that trust to everything and everyone. I became aware of areas I want to let go of and areas I want to focus on to make stronger in my life.

It helped me realize how powerful my thoughts are and how important it is to monitor my thoughts. I was able to release some doubt I had in communicating with my Higher Self.

It helped me let go of doubt and fearful beliefs of separation, and to trust my inner powerful Light and true Self. I can trust in Love to heal all things.

I learned to trust my inner Self, listen to It, and relish the beauty It gives me. Simply amazing!

Within everyone is a desire to return to Love, our Source. In our search for Love, we may look to someone outside of ourselves to give it to us. In this stage we are not aware of the Love within. We don't recognize our inner worth, our Light, our own perfection. As long as we continue to look outside ourselves to fill this sense of emptiness, we will feel unfulfilled.

When you realize that you have not found Love by looking for it from others, you are ready to go into a new stage of your life. You are ready to walk into an expanded awareness of Love. You are ready to consistently express your true unconditional loving nature. You are ready to wake up to What you are. In this course you will practice healing and releasing your barriers to Love. With the support of others, you will experience the depth of unconditional Love which lies within you. You will learn how to tap into this reservoir and bring Love to situations in your life which need healing.

You will learn to let go and let Love take over, seeing the world from a new perspective. You recognize that Love is giving, not getting. As Love extends from you, the sense of scarcity and lack gently falls away. Extending the Love that you are is your top priority. It is what you are here to learn and teach. You will focus on opening up to that Love and letting It shine through. Love is the healer. It will change your life.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 115 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 115.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 115 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 115 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 115 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 115 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 115 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 115 Self-Study in Binder.

It helped me remember that love is everywhere and that I can share love without fear or anxiety. The processes were uplifting and inspiring. I feel peaceful all over again.

This course helped me remember that everyone, including myself, perceives the world based on our fears, feelings of lack and inadequacy, etc.... That we can only allow in the amount of love that we feel we desire. This allows me to see situations in a manner that is more serene for myself and others. This is a course I will definitely repeat for myself.

It was a very love-filled experience. I absolutely loved the material and exercises. It had a nice balance of meditation, processing and reading material.

This course helped me feel more comfortable in expressing the positive things I feel about other people. It also provided an unusual opportunity to receive positive comments about myself in a comfortable, safe environment, which helped lower my defenses.

I realized that I have looked for love outside of myself and do not see myself as a vessel of love. The experience of having the group tell me that I am worthy and deserving of love was profound. I truly value this experience.

The sharing with my inner child experience helped me recognize that I am love and loving.

My inner child received a healing and incorporated some new, healthy qualities. I now have a greater desire to love others. It helped me move through resistance to receiving love. It also helped me realize the value of extending love at all times.

Order Downloadable Step 2 (5 e-courses, free shipping) $556 ($50 discount)Order Step 2 (5 courses in binders) $556 + shipping ($50 discount)

This course gives an overview of the important ideas and lessons presented by A Course In Miracles. You will to learn to tell the difference between ego thoughts and the thoughts of your true Identity. You will learn to choose peace instead of conflict, Heaven instead of hell.

Learn a process that helps you see past the physical form to the Light in everyone. It helps you forgive the people in your life whom you find difficult to love. Take an inventory of your patterns of right-minded and wrong-minded thinking and practice shifting your thoughts toward right-minded thinking with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your mind. Focus on the true Self in others and experience how that focus helps you recognize the true Self in you. Learn how to transform upset feelings into a healed perception with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's teaching is a lesson in remembering. Let us join together in our remembering. It takes just a little willingness.

This course also includes a 3-CD set (MP3's with the downloadable e-course) of Gary Renard explaining ACIM in a full day workshop.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 203 Downloadable: US$126.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 203.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 203 in a Binder: US$126.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 203 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 203 Downloadable: US$71.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 203 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 203 in a Binder: US$71.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 203 Self-Study in Binder.

Before this course, I didn't know anything about A Course in Miracles even though I had tried to do some reading on it. Now I feel like I have a very good overview of ACIM. It was very enlightening for me. I have more clarity about the ego and forgiveness.

This course brought healing on many levels. I experienced a deep healing with the Forgiveness meditation. I have been working with ACIM for over 10 years, yet this course brought greater understanding and clarity with it.

The Forgiveness and Recognizing Illusion & Reality meditations were especially meaningful for me. I want to work with them more.

All the meditations were valuable. I was particularly moved by the exercise in which we practiced seeing the Light in each other. It was a deeply beautiful class that called upon me to see the Truth in all situations.

My experience has been one of relaxing and opening to the concepts a deep peace an open pathway. This has been very different from the way I first entered the Course.

This course helped me experience insight into myself and my belief system. I now realize that the only thing that needs to be healed is my belief in separation from God. Once this is healed, all seeming lack in my life will disappear.

You don't have to experience life as a serious, stressful, day-to-day grind. In this course, you will identify the mental habits you may have developed which create tension, guilt and self-doubt. See how inappropriate expectations cloud your ability to experience unconditional love.

Learn how you are unconsciously telling others how to treat you, to fit your unconscious expectations. Discover ways you may still be following the unconscious expectations of others or trying to live up to unhealthy models of perfection. See how learned childhood responses become unconscious knee-jerk reactions. Learn how to release these reactions for a happier life. Realize that you are not your programming. Consciously choose how you want to feel and how you want to think. Connect with your Inner Source of direction. Learn to be in peace and be happy.

This course will help you allow more constructive inner scripts which empower you. You will learn to perceive yourself and the world in a way that brings happy experiences of unconditional love, no matter what is happening around you.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course113 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 113.

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A Course in Miracles Minister Training

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It seems like a very abstract idea to think of being awake as something completely different than being conscious, but they actually are two very separate functions.

Just opening our eyes when it is time to get up each day gives us the impression we are mindful of what we see and how we feel, even if we may need a cup of morning coffee first to feel that way.

Then at night as we lay down to try to sleep, we may momentarily feel ourselves begin to lose our conscious state and we equate this with not being awake anymore. So, is there really any difference between the two?

When trying to define the idea of wakefulness and consciousness, the problem of subjectivity when it comes to things that each of us experiences and how we experience themarises.

If we were to look up the meaning of consciousness in any dictionary, the word included in its meaning that sets it apart from wakefulness is quality. So, consciousness can be said to have an added element of this within the scope of our experiences.

You can say that to be conscious is to function in a state of being enveloped in the content of life that surrounds you and makes you more than just awake but aware as well.

One of the most well-known experts in the study of the idea of consciousness is William James. He puts forth the idea that any state of our consciousness must have an element of analysis to it in order for it to be defined in those terms.

So, he believed that a conscious state was one that was a series of perceptions coupled with our thoughts and emotional responses to what we are experiencing and how we can control it and monitor it all at the same time.

So, as we monitor our surroundings, we are focusing our attention on specific things and using our critical thinking skills such as identifying a problem, assessing how to solve it, and then making a decision about how we will act on it.

This can only happen if it is coupled with an element of conscious control of our thoughts and ways in which we react to things around us.

This differs from just being awake, which is more of a scientific functioning of our brain. Being awake can simply mean that you are taking in some form of stimulus from the environment that you find yourself in or even your own internal thoughts.

According to Medical Daily, this is why there is some question about whether individuals who are considered unconscious while they are in a coma state can still take in external stimuli and actually are in some form of wakefulness but cannot physically respond to it.

For many years, individuals have performed experiments on themselves to try to understand consciousness and wakefulness. You can also try to do this on your own to give you a better understanding of the two concepts.

Pick an evening that you are able to go to bed fairly early but are also able to fall asleepquickly and wake up early enough in the morning that it will not be light out yet.

Make sure that before you go to bed, you close your blinds so that when you awaken the room will be completely dark.

Then, as you awaken in the morning, make sure to make a mental point of remembering the exact second that you felt conscious. Make up a triggerphrase like up now or even the word conscious and say it as you make this mental note.

Ask yourself in that moment: Am I completely aware of my surroundings or am I still a bit hazy from sleeping? If the answer is that you feel like you are completely awake, then the odds are, you awakened earlier but your brain was not conscious for a period of minutes until that moment you said the trigger word.

If your answer is that you still feel hazy, then you have probably experienced being awake and conscious all at the same time just as you said your trigger word.

If you experiment with this a half a dozen times, you will likely begin to feel that consciousness and wakefulness are happening simultaneously,and gradually your awake state will seem to occur before you actually became conscious.

This proves that, to be conscious, there must be an element of content (the trigger word in this case) added to the state of being awake. Think of waking up to the alarm on your phone; you hear it, and simultaneously are forced to be conscious by the sheer act of reaching and shutting it off.

If you try this, report your findings. I will keep a log of everyones results and report them in a blog in the near future.

You can also consider a brain supplement, which is not necessarily a bad thing to try, especially if you are tired constantly and dont seem to be able to find the time to practice some physical and mental exercises that will help you fully engage instead of just being awake.

Maybe you find that your job is so boring that by the middle of the day you cant help but begin to disengage in the activities you are performing and you are starting to feel like your co-workers are noticing.

Are there things you can do to combat restless nights that put you in a state of wakefulness in the middle of the night and conscious of every sound and every minute ticking away on the clock, only to go through a day of torturing yourself with trying to stay awake? Yes.

This is no way to function on a daily basis. There are a few things you can do to try and alleviate the problem.

Weve previously written on how to stay completely conscious and engaged at work.

Try any of those tips, or consider anover-the-counter supplement that will help you to not only stay awake and focused but remain conscious of your surroundings and effective in your activity.

Either way, you are taking the necessary steps toward achievinga way of life that allows you to be consciously involved in your most important moments.

Your life path number can tell you A LOT about you.

With the ancient science of Numerology you can find out accurate and revealing information just from your name and birth date.

Get your free numerology reading and learn more about how you can use numerology in your life to find out more about your path and journey. Get Your free reading.

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Awake vs. Conscious: How They Differ & Why it Matters ...

We are glad you discovered us! It is our hope that our studio will offer everyone an opportunity to find a path of health and wellbeing in life. We offer two styles of hot yoga, accessible for yogis at all levels, designed to make you sweat! Our classes will challenge you, inspire you and leave you feeling that anything is possible. We offer over 40 classes a week, 7 days a week, at times convenient to you.

Our community is passionate about yoga and your health and wellness and is dedicated to giving you an amazing studio experience. After class, we invite you to enjoy our spacious locker rooms, with amenities like shampoo, conditioner, body wash and hairdryers - so you can continue on with your day. We have Greenville's largest selection of yoga and athletic wear with new items arriving each week. And we offer a lending library, sharing our favorite books on health and nutrition.

Our original location is located adjacent to Whole Foods Market and there is no better place to practice yoga and shop healthy! We are very excited to announce our second studio will open in the West End area of downtown Greenville in early 2018. Two studios means twice the number of your favorite hot and warm yoga classes! We can't wait to unveil Southern Om West End to our community!

It is our business to ensure you have the best yoga experience possible. We are glad you're here.

Namaste.Pace & Sarah Beattie

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Home | Southern Om Hot Yoga | Greenville, SC 29607

This is a simple yet powerful meditation available to anyone who can invest 12 minutes of their day. This is an effortless meditation.

The purpose of this free guided meditation is to help an individual get in touch with the source of his existence and create life according to his own wish and vision. Daily practice brings health, dynamism, peace and wellbeing. It is a powerful tool to cope with the hectic pace of modern life.

This free guided meditation is simple, and easy to practice in the comfort of your own home. It has the potential to transform the life of anyone who is willing to invest just a few minutes a day!

Meditation is not something that you do; meditation is something that you become. Meditation is not an act; it is a certain quality that you grow into. Why is there a need to become meditative, first of all?

When you were born, you were so small. And now, you have grown your body. Obviously, the body is something that you gathered; it is an accumulation. Similarly, the mind is also an accumulation. The body is an accumulation of food; the mind is an accumulation of impressions. Whatever you accumulate can be yours, but it can never be you, because the very fact that you accumulate means you gather something from somewhere else. Let us say you gathered a 150-pound body; if you are determined, in a few days, you could make it 140 pounds. Where did these 10 pounds of body go? You would not go looking for them, because they are an accumulation.

Once you get identified with things that you have gathered from the outside, your perception has completely gone haywire; you cannot perceive life the way it is. The moment you experience the body as myself, and the moment you experience the impressions that you have in your mind as myself, you cannot perceive life the way it is. You can only perceive life the way it is necessary for your survival. For a human being, survival is very important, but it is not enough. For any other creature on this planet, when the stomach is full, life is settled. But for a human being, life does not end with the survival process. Actually, for a human being, life begins only after survival is fulfilled.

Meditation means giving you an experience, an inner state, where what is you and what is yours is separate. It brings an absolute clarity of perception; you see life just the way it is. Right now, your ability to go through this world is only to the extent that you clearly see it. For example, for thousands of years, people went on arguing about whether the planet is round or flat. Leave all the textbooks that you have read aside, take a walk and see in your experience, is this planet round or flat? In your experience, it is still flat. This argument could have continued forever, but man started flying. We went up and looked down and it was very clear that the planet was round. We even went to the moon and looked down, and it was 100 percent clear. Only when we removed ourselves from this earth and looked down was there no more argument about it. Otherwise, we would still be arguing.

The same is true for your own body and mind; unless there is a little distance, you dont see it the way it is, because you are in it. Meditation is a simple process that gives you a little distance from your own mind and your own body. You have probably heard of the word Buddha. Bu means buddhi, or the intellect. Dha means dada, or one who is above. One who is above his intellect is a Buddha. A Buddha has clear perception of the nature of his mind. One who is in the intellect is a nonstop suffering human being.

Look at this sincerely. Whatever you experience as moments of happiness and peacefulness are just those moments where you are able to leave anxiety, tension and stress behind. But if you turn back, they will be sitting right there, because once you are in your intellect, stress, anxiety and tension are very normal. But if you are above the intellect, it is the end of suffering. Being a Buddha means there is no question of suffering, because suffering has either come through your body or through your mind. Do you know any other kind of suffering other than physical and mental suffering? Once there is a distance from your physical body and your mental structure that is the end of suffering.

Meditation is the first and the last freedom, because it gives you a gallery view of your own body and your own mind. There can be no suffering once this distance is established. Sadhguru

Here are some simple meditation tips to help you meditate with ease:

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Free Guided Meditation - Isha Foundation USA

Activation is something most of us have experienced at some point on our path. It happens when we allow ourselves to come under the influence of someone who has more access to the infinite reality of True Being than we do. When such a person also has the mysterious ability to activate our own innate awakened awareness they can reveal deeper dimensions of our own True Self to us.

In the great wisdom traditions, this activation was often referred to as transmission or initiation and it has always been considered an essential component of any path to awakening.

Although many of us have experienced our enlightened nature being activated by a more awakened human being, what we may not realize is that to truly become grounded in enlightened consciousness, most of us need regular reactivation until our own true nature becomes so apparent to us that we no longer lose touch with it in the midst of the challenges of daily life. For some of us, this reactivation needs to occur repeatedly over several years. For others, it may require decades to achieve stability.

This is why, in the great traditions of the past, the earnest disciple would often decide to leave the world behind to live in a monastery or ashram in the company of a spiritual master. This gave them the precious opportunity for the repeated activation that is so crucial to sustain an embodied awakening.

Activation continuously awakens our heart, mind and soul. And this, especially when coupled with regular meditation rooted in the Pillars of Profound Spiritual Practice, gives us the courage and strength to deeply embrace reality as it is and transcend our unconscious habits of existential struggle and resistance.

In the light of activation we realize, again and again, that we are already awake. We were awake before we were born, and we will continue to be awake after we die. Suddenly our energy and attention are liberated into a mystery beyond comprehension.

When we stop struggling with the way things are our consciousness soars into uncontainable freedom.

Most of us know deep down that we benefit in tangible and life-changing ways from spiritual activation. But, unfortunately, our cultures emphasis on independence and individualism often leads us to minimize the very real interdependencies that exist, including our potential to be positively and unalterably influenced by another human being.

Additionally, in modern life, most of us have few opportunities for the profound and regular reactivation we truly need to stabilize our awakening.

The monthly retreats in this program give you the opportunity to experience the repeated reactivation that you need to live a life of freedom and illumination. Craig and Jeff have both done decades of intensive spiritual practice that has given them each a solid grounding in the mystery of being.

Activation will occur during these events in two distinct but interrelated ways.

The first is through precise instruction and guidance leading you directly into an experience of awakened mind. By carefully directing your practice and responding to your questions, Jeff and Craig will guide your attention past false assumptions, limiting beliefs and unconscious habits into the subtle and direct recognition of your own true nature.

The second way activation will take place in this program is through a mysterious transmission of deep inner faith and conviction in the reality of our true nature. This subtle transmission of the truth of wholeness can occur in dialogue and in silence, but however it occurs, it is always unmistakable in its illuminating power and immediacy.

The activation that will occur on these retreats will not be limited to what Craig and Jeff bring into the field, but will include contributions from each of us. Many of the participants on this program will bring decades of spiritual practice and experience with them and together we will create a powerful activating field of awakened awareness.

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Opening to the Infinite - Opening to the Infinite

The Napa Self-Help is combined with the Family Law Facilitator's Office to provide assistance completing forms related to Dissolutions, Paternity, Child Custody & Visitation, Child & Spousal Support, and other matters as time permits. Our staffis available daily to answer questions regarding procedures, identify appropriate procedures, assist you in preparation and distribution of court forms, and help guide you through the legal process. Please keep in mind, however, that our services are limited to procedural information only:

The Self-Help Center is available to assist you from start-to-finish with your divorce, legal separation or nullity case. From providing an overview of the legal system to helping you prepare your forms, we will help you at each stage of the process.

We understand that nothing is more important than our children. The Self-Help Center can help you prepare the necessary forms to refer your matter to mediation where licensed professionals can help parties develop a parenting plan. If you are able to reach an agreement on your own, we are here to assist help put your agreements into writing for approval by the court.

The Self-Help Center can calculate child support and temporary spousal support payments using the state guideline calculator and Dissomaster program. The Center is available to help you prepare the necessary forms to obtain an initial support order or modify an existing order.

Should you find yourself in need, we are available to prepare the necessary forms to obtain a restraining order to protect yourself from harm. We will schedule your matter for court, prepare all the court paperwork, and provide instruction regarding the process from start to finish. In addition, we can refer you to other organizations that may be able to provide further support or assistance.

If you are an unmarried parent, the Self-Help Center is here to help you establish paternity, define custody and visitation rights, and determine the appropriate amount of support. Our staff will collect your information, prepare the forms and provide instructions on your next steps to finish the legal process.

The Self-Help Center also helps with Guardianships of the Person, Landlord/Tenant matters, and other matters as time permits. Unfortunately, we cannot help everyone. For instance, our office does not process small claims requests, conservatorship matters, real estate transactions, contract actions or personal injury claims. However, we will do our best to refer to additional resources that may be available.

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Self Help | Napa County Superior Court

Self-Help(1859)Samuel Smiles

Self-Helpwas published the same year as Darwin'sOrigin of the Speciesand John Stuart Mill'sOn Liberty.While Darwin drew a picture of how closer adaptation to environment refines life, and Mill sketched a society based on liberal values, Smiles gave the world a work that still inspires in its scenes of individuals who have fashioned a life from pure will.Self-Helpmay not have the scholarly or philosophical depth of the other two, but is seminal to the self-help genre and its ethos of personal responsibility.

In many Victorian homesSelf-Helphad a status second only to the Bible, and though now considered a classic display of 'Victorian values' (industry, thrift, progress etc.), the old-fashioned turns of phrase and unquestioning morality represent the cover by which we should not judge the book. It is a work within a broader literary tradition that includes Benjamin Franklin'sAutobiographyand the novels ofHoratio Alger, one in which human beings advance despite the odds.

The self-help ethic comes alive through biography. Smiles knew this, and he packed his book with remarkable people, many now forgotten. He mentions:

Hard work and genius

Smiles believed that, since it was about human nature, Self-Help would remain valid. Yet to accept that, you would have to believe that perseverance and unremitting work are still primary elements to success - are they?

The myth of the artist is a person of wild genius who produces masterpieces in creative bursts, yet the common denominator in Smiles 'lives of the artists' is their singular industry and never-say-die application to the task, almost equal to their artistic talent. In showing that many of the methods they pioneered were the result of years of trial and error, he explodes the belief that the most famous artists have the most 'talent'. In fact, talent is not thinly spread, but whatisrare is the willingness to put in the back-breaking labour to fulfil an artistic vision. Michelangelo would not have done the Sistine Chapel ceiling if he had not been willing to lie on his back on boards for months on end. It took Titian seven years to produce hisLast Supperfor Charles V, yet the viewer might assume it was created in a 'burst of genius'.

Smiles notes the motto of both the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds and sculptor David Wilkie: 'Work! Work! Work!'. Bach reflected: 'I was industrious; whoever is equally sedulous, will be equally successful.' History has the tendency to turn unwavering commitment and hard graft into grand words like genius, when its subjects knew otherwise.

Smiles wrote:

It is not eminent talent that is required to ensure success in any pursuit, so much as purpose - not merely the power to achieve, but the will to labour energetically and perseveringly.

Smiles tells us about George-Louis Buffon (1707-88), who wrote the famous 44-volumeHistoire Naturelle,which took stock of all that was known of natural history in his era, and which foreshadowed the theory of evolution. The massive self-discipline needed to complete such a project led Buffon to conclude that'genius is patience'. Smiles goes on to quote De Maistre who said: 'To know how to wait is the great secret of success', and notes Isaac Newton's understanding of what produced genius: constant thought about the solution of a problem.

Patience, ordering of the mind, and absorption in the task at hand, are the key elements he cites in all our great advances, and government funding or education cannot supply them. They are created talents.

Character

These days the phrase 'character-building' is usually uttered with a laugh to someone contemplating a cold shower or doing a 10-day trek across the Himalayas. As Smiles warned even back in the 1850s, education, wealth, or noble family do not come close to replacing character. Today we live in the so-called knowledge society in which the highest value is taken to be creative deployment of data and information, but he asserted that 'Character is power, more than knowledge is power.'Self-Helpmay be a simple book for a simpler time, but its dogged reiteration of the need to cultivate personal qualities which bring freedom of mind reveals a timeless truth: that character is something formed in spite of the great forces of instinct and cultural conditioning. Smiles includes a statement by Sir Humphry Davy: 'What I am I have made myself: I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.' Davy's admission speaks of courage - not as part of exciting tales of derring-do - but of small daily decisions which reaffirm independence. It is the primary ingredient of Stephen Covey's'highly effective people'.

But where will character get me? How will it make my living? In the 19th century, business was not seen as it tends to be now, the arena for the brightest, most creative minds, yet Smiles was able to see that it would become so. He wasted no time in stripping business to its core element: integrity of word and deed. Since trust is the glue that holds free societies together, it follows that lasting success will be attracted to those who can be trusted. As Max Weber famously argued, this attribute had been so rare that early Protestant merchants, in their utter dependability, scooped up fortunes.

Nothing dulls the mind and destroys character as much as drugs, and Smiles did not miss a chance to praise that most esteemed quality, temperance. How we laugh in the old movies when the preacher rails against this 'road to ruin'. It is the fevered fear of alcohol that amuses, because we are 'sensible' about it. Yet who will admit its less dramatic consequences that add up over a lifetime: the things you don't get done the next day because of the night before, the drinking 'to be social' that does little more than cover an acceptance of mediocrity. Smiles thought of Sir Walter Scott, who said, 'of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness'.

Final comments

In Samuel Smiles' lifetime, the British Empire covered roughly a quarter of the planet. Like any empire, it spawned its fair share of misery amongst those forced into keeping the whole show going. Its good qualities - social reform, some enlightened political principles, sheer energy and inventiveness - were held together by a larger belief in 'progress'.

One effect of Mill'sOn Libertywas to make us see such values in relative terms. Yet Smiles reminds us possibly the most important single line that Mill penned, 'The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.' If the progress ideal makes a comeback in the 21st century, it is less likely to be the property of governments than the faith of individuals. While Mill's principle of political liberty is the basic condition for personal progress, it is the ethos ofSelf-Helpthat can actually make us do something with our freedom. Interestingly, Smiles was in his earlier life a rabid political reformer, but gave this up when he realised the more pressing type of reform was personal.

Self-Helpis monumentally sexist, there being a total lack of women in the biographies. Its small defence is that it was worked up from talks given to working men, who at that time would probably not have stomached female role models. With some more stories of women in the book, it would be less obscure today perhaps, but any reader who can laugh off or forgive Smiles' oversight will be well rewarded. ThisTitanicof the self-help literature deserves to rise again.

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Self-Help | Samuel Smiles | Summary & Review | Tom Butler ...