DEFINITION of 'Self-Help'

A self-help alert is a notification, issued by a trading exchange such as the NYSE or NASDAQ, that a glitch has occurred on one of the exchanges and that the exchange should be temporarily bypassed to permit the regular flow of orders.

A self-help order, for example, could be issued by the NASDAQ if the NYSE had experienced a problem and needed to halt trading on any or all of its stocks. The alert would be canceled when the NYSE resolved its problems.

A variety of issues may lead to a self-help alert being issued. Most commonly, these alerts center on technical issues that prevent a trading exchange from operating correctly. The self-help alerts allow other trading entities to bypass the system that has been identified in the alert, and ensures that general trading can continue while the issues affecting the exchange are being resolved.

Should Trading Exchange X experience an issue that prevents transactions from being properly completed, Trading Exchange Y can institute a self-help alert. As part of the process, Trading Exchange Y can now elect to use the self-help exception. The self-help exception allows them, and any other impacted entity, to continue operating by bypassing the known issue. This means that any other entity affected by the issue does not have to invoke its own self-help alert. Instead, the original alert issued from Trading Exchange Y applies to all other entities of the same nature. This allows the exception option to be available to any other impacted trading exchange. This workaround remains in place until Trading Exchange X is able to restore normal function, at which point the alert will be canceled and trading can continue as normal.

Automated trading is a computerized system that conducts trades through the use of its software. It allows trading without the need for a person, such as a broker, to initiate and complete the transaction, also known as an order. Due to the nature of the automation, all automated trading entities should have standard policies and procedures in place to manage the impact of a declared self-help alert. Often, a self-help alert necessitates intervention by an appropriate person or employee of the automated trading service. As alerts can change quickly, they must be monitored in real-time so that any software algorithms can be adjusted to allow trading to continue.

Go here to see the original:
Self-Help - Investopedia

By Dr. Mercola

While the controversy over whether organically grown food is healthier lingers, scientific research continues to demonstrate the health benefits to both humans and the environment of growing and consuming organic foods.

Food grown in healthier soil, with natural fertilizers and no harmful chemicals, is quite simply more nutritious and less dangerous to your health.

Detractors of organic farming rest on a meta-analysis published in 2012 by Stanford University, which found similar nutrients in both organically growth produce and those laden with pesticides and insecticides.1

That same study did admit organic foods were not burdened with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pesticide residue, but stated these were the only benefits.

More recent analyses of organic foods also found similar levels of nutrients between organic and pesticide-treated crops,2 with lower pesticide residue on organic foods.3 However, the more recent studies also found lower levels of cadmium,4 a known carcinogen, and higher levels of antioxidants.5

Organic fruits and vegetables may contain as much as 18 percent to 69 percent more antioxidants than pesticide-treated produce. As antioxidants play a critical role in the prevention of diseases and illnesses, these higher levels of nutrients, in combination with a lower toxicity level, make organically grown foods a superior choice.

One of the strongest selling points for eating organic foods had been to reduce your exposure to pesticides and insecticides. Now, a recent study demonstrates that organic foods hold more benefits to your future health and the health of your children.

The study conducted by the European Parliamentary Research Service reviewed existing research and made several determinations.6

From their analysis they concluded that eating organic foods reduces pesticide exposure, improves the nutritional value of the food, lessens disease risk and improves early childhood development.7

They also found those who ate organic foods tended to have healthier dietary patterns than those who ate foods treated with chemicals.

In other studies, researchers found epidemiological data demonstrating the negative effects of pesticide exposure on the cognitive development of children and determined these effects would be minimized eating organic foods, especially during pregnancy and during early infancy.

Another important finding, also supported by previous studies,8 was organic foods had lower cadmium content than conventional crops.9 There is no safe level of cadmium, as it is a known carcinogen and produces a number of negative effects on human health.

Your highest rate of exposure is from plant-based foods grown in contaminated soil or using certain fertilizers. Other sources include smoking and exposure to nickel-cadmium batteries.10

Once absorbed, your body efficiently retains cadmium, which can build up over your lifetime unless you take steps to remove it.11,12 Being deficient in calcium, iron, protein and/or zinc may worsen cadmium uptake and toxicity.

Antagonists that can help detoxify cadmium include calcium, zinc, copper, vitamin D and C, iron, manganese and protein.13

Cadmium is very toxic to your kidneys, may trigger bone demineralization and increases your risk of dying from lung cancer. It can also affect your blood pressure, prostate health and testosterone levels.14

Organically raised animals also reduce your exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria as the organic practice of preventing animal disease restricts the use of antibiotics in production. Minimizing your exposure to these bacteria may minimize your risk of illness and may have significant public health benefits.

Researchers have determined the levels of polyphenols in organically grown crops is significantly higher than those sprayed with pesticides.15 These higher concentrations of phenolic acids, flavones, stilbenes, flavonols and anthocyanins were estimated to be between 19 percent and 51 percent higher in one study.

These plant-based antioxidant compounds have been linked to the reduction in a number of different diseases, including cardiovascular disease,16,17 neurodegenerative conditions,18 cancers19,20 and slowing the aging process.21

Antioxidants are a class of molecule that are capable of inhibiting the oxidation of free radicals that cause damage in your body.

Some antioxidants can be produced by your body, but some are not and, as you age, your ability to produce those antioxidants declines. Antioxidants are crucial to your health and can be acquired through eating real foods. They are nature's way of defending your body against an attack by reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Your body naturally circulates a variety of nutrients, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenes and lipoic acid, to control the destructive chain reactions associated with ROS. Antioxidants are micronutrients that help your body resist the damage of pollutants and free radicals produced during metabolism.

Oxidative stress occurs when there are more free radicals and ROS in your body than antioxidant defenses, and leads to accelerated tissue and organ damage. Oxidative stress may also shorten the length of your telomeres, which researchers believe can be used as a measure of biological aging.

Antioxidants are present in higher quantities in fruits and vegetables that are organically grown and those eaten closer to the time they were harvested. This is why eating the majority of your fruits and vegetables raw, organically grown and locally harvested increases the number of nutrients from which you benefit.

Researchers have also linked eating foods organically grown to even more health benefits, including a reduction in obesity and type 2 diabetes, two of the more common health concerns facing people today.22

More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese,23 one of the risk factors for type 2 diabetes that affects over 9 percent of the American population.24

Research has also linked an increase in allergic reactions to foods coated with pesticides in people who have not otherwise experienced food allergies.25 Exposure to specific weed-killing chemicals are associated with higher sensitivity to foods.26

Dichlorophenols, chemicals used for pesticides and to chlorinate tap water, may also be to blame for the rising number of children suffering from allergies.27

Demand for organic foods is rapidly expanding. This demand is not limited to real foods, but also prepackaged and processed foods. In 2014, people around the world spent $72 billion on organic products.28

The largest organic market located in the U.S. recorded an 11.5 percent increase in 2015. Some make the decision to buy organic based on a concern for the environment, while others are focused on their personal long-term health benefits.

This continued growth provides incentive for U.S. farmers to enter the market. Organic foods are sold through direct-to-consumer sales, conventional groceries and natural health food stores.

Produce accounted for 43 percent of organic food sales in 201229 with 93 percent of all sales taking place through conventional and natural food stores.

Although organic foods are more accessible, there continues to be challenges in the supply chain. Organic food sales may have enjoyed greater growth had the supply been available.30

Securing a supply chain that supports demand includes ensuring more organic acreage and helping farmers transition from conventional produce farming to organic.

As more consumers become interested in eating a healthier diet and more willing to pay for higher-quality foods, smaller markets are carving out a niche in the marketplace.

It is anticipated that the growth of the organic food market will reach $1 trillion in 2017.31 This increase in sales is helping successfully launch small companies providing products to meet consumer demand.

Angel investors and venture capitalists are also taking advantage, investing more than $2 billion in 2015.32 Despite the growth in organic sales, the number of certified organic farms in the U.S. are finding it challenging to keep pace with the demand. As fewer than 1 percent of American farms were certified organic in 2012, the availability for growth in this field is wide open.33

Foreign suppliers provided $134 million in organic soybeans in 2014, prompting U.S. Congress to expand their support for organic farming and double their funds for the Organic Certification Cost Share Program.34

A recent report found 17 of the top 20 grocer retailers are not meeting the increased consumer demand for organic, pesticide-free foods.35 The same report also revealed food retailers don't publish a publicly available policy to reduce or eliminate pesticides that impact the growth of pollinators, the largest group of which are bees.

For food to carry the certified "organic" label, it must meet several federal guidelines.36 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) defines organic as:37

" [P]roduced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones.

Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation.

Before a product can be labeled 'organic,' a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too."

Without certification, products are not allowed to display the USDA organic seal.38 However, a certified organic product may contain a mix of conventionally grown and organic ingredients depending upon the labeling.39 This mix of pesticide-laden ingredients with organically grown ones may negate many of the benefits of eating organic foods. The easiest answer is to avoid processed fare, and cook from scratch, so you know exactly what you're eating.

One of the benefits to the environment from organic farming and the reduction in pesticide use is the impact on the bee population, pollinators necessary to the growth of crops and plants. Tiffany Finck-Haynes, from Friends of the Earth, and lead author of the paper studying top retailers and organic foods, commented:40

"Without bees and other pollinators, our supermarket shelves would be pretty bare and empty. And they're an indicator species, so they're really telling us that their decline is most likely resulting in a larger decline that we're seeing for the rest of the species in our ecosystem."

This video demonstrates sustainable agriculture techniques used on the Allison Farm in Illinois. Another benefit to the environment is soil biodiversity, or the species, genes and entire communities of life that exists within the soil. If you think these tiny creatures aren't important to your health, the nutrient value of the food grown in the soil and to your children's future health, think again. Here are a few fun facts about soil:41

A meta-analysis of over 250 studies found that organic farming increased species richness in the soil by 30 percent, and this number has been consistent over the past 30 years of study.42 In fields that were intensely farmed, organic farming had a greater effect on the biodiversity of the land. This analysis of research confirmed that organic farming has a positive effect on biodiversity compared to conventional farming.

The rest is here:

More Reasons Why You Need to Eat Organic - Mercola.com

Diet and exercise is a program for students interested in earning concurrent bachelors and masters degrees focused on diet and exercise. Students are admitted to the university as pre-diet and exercise students and must apply for graduate admission at the beginning of the junior year and be accepted into the program. The program is designed so you can earn both a bachelors and masters degree in five to six years.The program is administered jointly between the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and the Department of Kinesiology.

As public interest in health and disease prevention grows, students in diet and exercise major find themselves with a wide variety of job opportunities in cardiac rehabilitation, school nutrition, corporate health, public health, clinics, preventative medicine, sport enhancement, and sport nutrition. This fast-track program allows students to graduate with both a bachelors and masters degree in just five years:

AccreditationThis accelerated academic program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics, the accrediting agency for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and prepares students for admission to accredited dietetics internships/supervised practice programs. Upon successful completion of the experience program, graduates are eligible to take the national exam to become a registered dietitian (RD)/registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and work in a wide range of dietitian positions. Additionally, the program meets American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) requirements for students to pursue certification at the level of exercise physiologist. Graduates have expertise in exercise physiology and can apply for wellness positions as nutrition and physical fitness experts.

Scholarships and financial aidFood Science and Human Nutrition and Kinesiology students in the College of Human Sciences need only to complete one onlineapplicationto automatically apply for all department-level and college-level scholarships. Students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (AGLS) can also apply for AGLS scholarships.

Food Science and Human Nutrition scholarship information

Kinesiology scholarships information scholarship information

Learning communitiesMeet students in your program through the FSHN learning communities.

Clubs and organizationsConnect with people who share similar interests in FSHN and across the ISU campus.

Professional associations/organizationsStudents are also encouraged to become student members of professional associations/organizations and network with professionals within the career field.

Possible careers with a degree in diet and exercise include:

Read about additional extensive career opportunities and salary information for Registered Dietitians. Graduates of the program are eligible to apply for admission to accredited dietetics internships/supervised practice programs. Upon successful completion of the experience program, graduates are eligible to take the national examination administered by the Commission on Dietetic Registration to become a registered dietitian (RD)/registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) and to practice in the field of dietetics. Read more about becoming a dietitian.

Career ServicesPrepare for your next job with Career Services, where staff and peers help you with job searches, interview preparation, and resume/cover letter editing. As a student in both the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Human Sciences, both career services offices are open to you.

Read more:
Diet and exercise | Department of Food Science and Human ...

A Brief explanation is required about this book and might be summed up by another critique from amazon:

Sri Aurobindos sentences are built of triple dependent clauses (without commas, hes an Oxford grad)

Sri Aurobindos sentences are built of triple dependent clauses (without commas, hes an Oxford grad),but if you stay with him, follow the thread, youre a different person by the time you reach the period. He is pure genius. A gift from the Gods. His long sentences are a kind of meditation really; their gentle coaxing detail draws the inflated reactionary mind down to a still point.

In that vain it must be stated that this is one of the most intellectually difficult books to read and incredibly difficult to narrate because of the sentence structure and the inability to find a rhythm for the work. We have recorded approximately 1/3 of the 900 page book ( 17 hours ) and unless there is significant demand for the rest we will not complete the work for fear of not doing justice to the work. I believe this is one of those books that must be read, slowly, to attain the message. We added the incomplete audio to the site to give readers a taste of Sri Aurobindos erudition.

We apologize for the mispronunciation of any words or sentences, the fault was ours and not the authors. We submit the work with the hope it will be taken in the spirit in which it was intended, and we apologize if we fell short.

We recorded 31 chapters with a total recording length of 17hrs

The Life Divine

Sri Aurobindo

Book One

Omnipresent Reality and the UniverseChapter IThe Human Aspiration 3Chapter IIThe Two Negations1. The Materialist Denial 8Chapter IIIThe Two Negations2. The Refusal of the Ascetic 20Chapter IVReality Omnipresent 29Chapter VThe Destiny of the Individual 38Chapter VIMan in the Universe 47Chapter VIIThe Ego and the Dualities 56Chapter VIIIThe Methods of Vedantic Knowledge 66Chapter IXThe Pure Existent 78Chapter XConscious Force 87Chapter XIDelight of Existence: The Problem 98Chapter XIIDelight of Existence: The Solution 108Chapter XIIIThe Divine Maya 120Chapter XIVThe Supermind as Creator 130Chapter XVThe Supreme Truth-Consciousness 141Chapter XVIThe Triple Status of Supermind 152Chapter XVIIThe Divine Soul 161Chapter XVIIIMind and Supermind 170Chapter XIXLife 185Chapter XXDeath, Desire and Incapacity 200Chapter XXIThe Ascent of Life 210Chapter XXIIThe Problem of Life 220Chapter XXIIIThe Double Soul in Man 231Chapter XXIVMatter 245Chapter XXVThe Knot of Matter 254Chapter XXVIThe Ascending Series of Substance 266Chapter XXVIIThe Sevenfold Chord of Being 276Chapter XXVIIISupermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya 285Book TwoThe Knowledge and the IgnoranceThe Spiritual EvolutionPart IThe Infinite Consciousness and the IgnoranceChapter IIndeterminates, Cosmic Determinations andthe Indeterminable 309Chapter IIBrahman, Purusha, IshwaraMaya, Prakriti, Shakti 336Chapter IIIThe Eternal and the Individual 380

Chapter IThe Human AspirationShe follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond,she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that arecoming,Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakeningsomeone who was dead. . . . What is her scope whenshe harmonises with the dawns that shone out before andthose that now must shine? She desires the ancient morningsand fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination sheenters into communion with the rest that are to come.Kutsa AngirasaRig Veda.1Threefold are those supreme births of this divine force that isin the world, they are true, they are desirable; he moves therewide-overt within the Infinite and shines pure, luminous andfulfilling. . . . That which is immortal in mortals and possessedof the truth, is a god and established inwardly as an energyworking out in our divine powers. . . . Become high-uplifted,O Strength, pierce all veils, manifest in us the things of theGodhead. VamadevaRig Veda.2THE EARLIEST preoccupation of man in his awakenedthoughts and, as it seems, his inevitable and ultimatepreoccupation,for it survives the longest periods ofscepticism and returns after every banishment,is also thehighest which his thought can envisage. It manifests itself inthe divination of Godhead, the impulse towards perfection, thesearch after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss, the sense of a secretimmortality. The ancient dawns of human knowledge haveleft us their witness to this constant aspiration; today we seea humanity satiated but not satisfied by victorious analysis ofthe externalities of Nature preparing to return to its primevallongings. The earliest formula ofWisdom promises to be its last,God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.These persistent ideals of the race are at once the contradictionof its normal experience and the affirmation of higherand deeper experiences which are abnormal to humanity andonly to be attained, in their organised entirety, by a revolutionaryindividual effort or an evolutionary general progression. Toknow, possess and be the divine being in an animal and egoisticconsciousness, to convert our twilit or obscure physical mentalityinto the plenary supramental illumination, to build peaceand a self-existent bliss where there is only a stress of transitorysatisfactions besieged by physical pain and emotional suffering,to establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itselfas a group of mechanical necessities, to discover and realisethe immortal life in a body subjected to death and constantmutation,this is offered to us as the manifestation of God inMatter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution. Tothe ordinary material intellect which takes its present organisationof consciousness for the limit of its possibilities, the directcontradiction of the unrealised ideals with the realised fact isa final argument against their validity. But if we take a moredeliberate view of the worlds workings, that direct oppositionappears rather as part of Natures profoundest method and theseal of her completest sanction.For all problems of existence are essentially problems ofharmony. They arise from the perception of an unsolved discordand the instinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity. To restcontent with an unsolved discord is possible for the practical andmore animal part of man, but impossible for his fully awakenedmind, and usually even his practical parts only escape fromthe general necessity either by shutting out the problem or byaccepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise. Foressentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, life and matter in theirown sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its perceptions.The greater the apparent disorder of the materials offeredor the apparent disparateness, even to irreconcilable opposition,of the elements that have to be utilised, the stronger is the spur,and it drives towards a more subtle and puissant order thancan normally be the result of a less difficult endeavour. Theaccordance of active Life with a material of form in which thecondition of activity itself seems to be inertia, is one problem ofopposites that Nature has solved and seeks always to solve betterwith greater complexities; for its perfect solution would be thematerial immortality of a fully organised mind-supporting animalbody. The accordance of conscious mind and conscious willwith a form and a life in themselves not overtly self-consciousand capable at best of a mechanical or subconscious will isanother problem of opposites in which she has produced astonishingresults and aims always at higher marvels; for there herultimate miracle would be an animal consciousness no longerseeking but possessed of Truth and Light, with the practicalomnipotence which would result from the possession of a directand perfected knowledge. Not only, then, is the upward impulseof man towards the accordance of yet higher opposites rationalin itself, but it is the only logical completion of a rule and aneffort that seem to be a fundamental method of Nature and thevery sense of her universal strivings.We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolutionof Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely statesthe phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be noreason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mindout of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution thatLife is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because inessenceMatter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Consciousness.And then there seems to be little objection to a fartherstep in the series and the admission that mental consciousnessmay itself be only a form and a veil of higher states which arebeyond Mind. In that case, the unconquerable impulse of mantowards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality presents itselfin its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulseby which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond Mind, and appearsto be as natural, true and just as the impulse towards Lifewhich she has planted in certain forms of Matter or the impulsetowardsMind which she has planted in certain forms of Life. Asthere, so here, the impulse exists more or less obscurely in herdifferent vessels with an ever-ascending series in the power of itswill-to-be; as there, so here, it is gradually evolving and boundfully to evolve the necessary organs and faculties. As the impulsetowards Mind ranges from the more sensitive reactions of Lifein the metal and the plant up to its full organisation in man, so inman himself there is the same ascending series, the preparation,if nothing more, of a higher and divine life. The animal is a livinglaboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Manhimself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whomand with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work outthe superman, the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifestGod? For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Natureof that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overtrealisation of that which she secretly is.We cannot, then, bid herpause at a given stage of her evolution, nor have we the right tocondemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous orwith the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intentionshe may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it betrue that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature issecret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself andthe realisation of God within and without are the highest andmost legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.Thus the eternal paradox and eternal truth of a divine lifein an animal body, an immortal aspiration or reality inhabitinga mortal tenement, a single and universal consciousness representingitself in limited minds and divided egos, a transcendent,indefinable, timeless and spaceless Being who alone renders timeand space and cosmos possible, and in all these the higher truthrealisable by the lower term, justify themselves to the deliberatereason as well as to the persistent instinct or intuition ofmankind. Attempts are sometimes made to have done finallywith questionings which have so often been declared insolubleby logical thought and to persuade men to limit their mentalactivities to the practical and immediate problems of theirmaterial existence in the universe; but such evasions are neverpermanent in their effect. Mankind returns from them with amore vehement impulse of inquiry or a more violent hunger foran immediate solution. By that hunger mysticism profits andnew religions arise to replace the old that have been destroyedor stripped of significance by a scepticism which itself couldnot satisfy because, although its business was inquiry, it wasunwilling sufficiently to inquire. The attempt to deny or stifle atruth because it is yet obscure in its outward workings and toooften represented by obscurantist superstition or a crude faith,is itself a kind of obscurantism. The will to escape from a cosmicnecessity because it is arduous, difficult to justify by immediatetangible results, slow in regulating its operations, must turn outeventually to have been no acceptance of the truth of Nature buta revolt against the secret, mightier will of the great Mother. It isbetter and more rational to accept what she will not allow us as arace to reject and lift it from the sphere of blind instinct, obscureintuition and random aspiration into the light of reason and aninstructed and consciously self-guiding will. And if there is anyhigher light of illumined intuition or self-revealing truth whichis now in man either obstructed and inoperative or works withintermittent glancings as if from behind a veil or with occasionaldisplays as of the northern lights in our material skies, then therealso we need not fear to aspire. For it is likely that such is thenext higher state of consciousness of which Mind is only a formand veil, and through the splendours of that light may lie thepath of our progressive self-enlargement into whatever higheststate is humanitys ultimate resting-place.

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The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo ( Audio Book )

9,927 words

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 here.

Partings II Watts and The Church Today: Real Presence or Real Estate?

Watts was quite successful in his attempt to express the religio perennis in the language of Christian theology; not just in my opinion today, but among his Episcopal peers at the time (one bishop even called it the most important book on religion in this century[1]), yet within four years he resigned his position, left the Church and embarked on his more characteristic career as an alt-academic and, eventually, something of a counter-cultural guru. What happened?

According to his letter of resignation, it was what he later called the Churchs dogmatic imperialism:

During the past years I have continued my studies of the spiritual teachings of the Orient, alongside with Catholic theology, and, though I have sometimes doubted it, I am now fully persuaded that the Churchs claim to be the best of all ways to God is not only a mistake, but also a symptom of anxiety. Obviously, one who has found a great truth is eager to share it with others. But to insist often in ignorance of other revelations that ones own is supreme argues a certain inferiority complex characteristic of all imperialisms. Me thinks thou doth protest too much. This claim of supremacy is, for me, the chiefest sign of how deeply the Church is committed to this self-strangulation, this anxiety for certainty, and I cannot support the proselytism in which it issues.

In an interview in LIFE magazine in 1961 Watts said that he left the church not because it doesnt practice what it preaches, but because it preaches.

In 1964 in Beyond Theology he concluded:

My previous discussions did not take proper account of that whole aspect of Christianity which is uncompromising, ornery, militant, rigorous, imperious, and invincibly self-righteous.

Of course, forcing his hand would have been concern over his somewhat irregular lifestyle, which would ultimately include divorcing his first wife, Eleanor (who was, at the time, having an affair with the choirmaster), and marrying a former student. A bit tame compared to a Weinstein, but not really the done thing for an Episcopalian chaplain in the 1940s.

One cant help but wonder if Watts would have found a more comfortable pew in todays Church, especially the Episcopal branch. Surely the relentless liberalization of the last 75 years has enabled the Church to catch up with Watts?

Surprisingly, the answer is: no, not at all. Or perhaps not surprisingly; for the liberalizing in question has mostly in the political sense.

True, a church that positively welcomes gay and transgendered clergy would find Watts serial monogamy charmingly old fashioned; or perhaps dangerously cisgendered and triggering?

But more importantly, Watts as clergyman or congregant would find the contemporary Church even more boring and pointless than before, for liturgies, both Catholic and Protestant, have been rationalized and popularized more than ever, making contemplative prayer all but impossible, and the Social Gospel, the Good News in the Protestant, adolescent form of changing the world in the light of rigid principles of justice (all men are equal here and now, not in the Spirit), has not faded away in the growing light of the Spirit, but instead metastasized and taken over.

However much Watts might agree with those politics in his autobiography he mentions the tedium of having to kowtow to the conservative businessmen who make up (then) the most important congregants Watts was interested in the Spiritual, not such surface fripperies. As he insisted in his new Preface, itself now almost 50 years old, all this is a

[M]ere matter of changing the externals of having rock bands instead of organs and Kyrie eleison set to jazz, [or] even of turning churches into social service centers with the idea that this would be practicing Christianity seven days a week instead of just talking it on Sundays. Indeed, one may well hope that monarchical Christianity will not be practiced, even on Sundays, since the dutiful spirit in which it dispenses charity breeds resentment in the giver and the receiver alike, for when the one gives with reluctance the other receives with guilt.

Speaking of social service centers (today, most likely to be Mary and Joseph were illegals- style immigrant service centers), Watts goes on to frame the issue in blunt, Trumpian terms of real estate:

The practical problem is, what are we going to do on Sunday mornings? How are ministers to continue their work? What is to be the use of church buildings, funds, and administrative machinery? Naturally, institutional Christianity will, in its present form, continue to supply the demand which remains for a monarchical [civil] religion. But a considerable number of ministers and even congregations not to mention millions of reasonably intelligent young people realize that churches must put up or shut up, and that the chief business of religious facilities and assemblies is to provide a social milieu for religious experience. Ministers and their congregations must instead consider what need there may be for churches as temples for contemplation and meditation, stripped of the courthouse furniture of stalls, pews, pulpits, lecterns and other equipment for throwing the Book at captive audiences. They must consider also the need for retreat houses and religious communities, and for guidance and instruction in the many forms of spiritual discipline which are conducive to mystical vision [non-dual knowing]. (pp. xx xi).

Ironic, since the Episcopal Church has indeed taken the path of forcing change down the throats of those conservative vestrymen, and taken over the very buildings themselves a quirk of the Episcopal Church is that the national body owns the buildings, the churches control their own endowments and other investments but hardly to promote contemplation:

Convention attendees were told that they had spent $18 million this year suing their own local congregations those which have protested the denominations policies by trying to secede. The New York hierarchy has consistently won in court asserting that the local members signed over their buildings decades ago. As a result, some of the largest Episcopal congregations in the United States have been forced to vacate their buildings and meet elsewhere. So now, convention delegates were told, the denomination is the proud owner of scores of empty buildings nationwide and liable for their upkeep in a depressed real estate market where empty church buildings are less than prime property. Its the classic dog in a manger. The denomination has managed to keep the buildings for which it has little use. However, they made their point refusing to allow the congregations which built the facilities to have any benefit after generations of sacrifice, donations and volunteerism.

One former Episcopal priest wrote me, The irony is that after all their property suits to get control of empty buildings, they now are losing their main property.

One might hope that at least some of these buildings could be turned over to or acquired by some new Peter Gatien, who could turn them into pagan dance clubs, which at least would be more in line with Watts program.[2]

Ironies abound, of course. Watts makes the interesting point that while he has no doubts at all that Jesus really existed,[3] the refusal to crack the shell of scripture to obtain the nut of spirit has led, especially among Protestants, to obsessions with Biblical literalness and inerrancy. Today, of course, the very existence of Jesus is a hot topic,[4] but ironically the last man standing among the candidates for the stripped-down, 100% real Jesus tends to be the wandering Jewish teacher or political zealot; the Spirit seems to have been found in the supposed political shell, not even the scriptural shell.

Indeed, the Episcopal Churchs new leader a black man, since after Obama all leaders will have to be black has proudly made his motto We are the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement, a pretty explicit statement of a proud retreat to the most adolescent stage of the Western Spirit, rather than an advance to the fully mature life of the Holy Spirit.[5]

Of course, the Episcopal Church has always been mostly the WASP elite at prayer (answering Watts question, what are we going to do on Sunday mornings?) so its hardly surprising that it serves mainly as a vehicle for SJW virtue signaling in the Present Year; thus:

In America last week a church in Virginia took down two plaques of men who had worshipped there, one of George Washington, the other of Robert E. Lee. The plaques distracted our worshippers, said the cowardly rector.

Rather than openness to other religions, its the phony openness of multiculturalism and unlimited immigration, in the service of global conformity.[6]

Watts seems to have underestimated the ability of the adolescent Protestant conscience to sustain itself in its infinite regress of idealistic guilt. Like a collapsing neutron star, it needs more and more fuel, and it now gets it from endless spasms of masochistic White guilt. As we now know, SJWs always double down.

Anti-Whiteness has replaced Christianity as the religion of post-1960s White America. Original sin has been replaced with racism and white privilege. Jesus Christ has been replaced with Martin Luther King. Satan has been replaced with Adolph Hitler. Anti-whiteness is not rational, it is an irrational and superstitious religion.

The entire facade of anti-Whiteness is based on the idea that its moral, the religious notion that people of European ancestry are uniquely evil and born with original sin. In order to atone for this original sin, White people must marry someone of another race, promote mass immigration into White countries and only White countries, make public apologies and displays of subservience for other races, and demean and disparage white people, white history, and white culture while at the same time loudly proclaiming such things dont exist.[7]

No matter how bohemian his lifestyle, no matter how welcoming to other religions, spiritually Watts was profoundly conservative or rather, archeofuturistic. A bohemian Tory?

In any event, Watts was aware of the difference between biblical symbols intended to promote the awareness of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and secular notions of purported social improvement.

Individual morality cannot just be mapped onto social morality or politics. Discussing the Old Testament image of a vengeful God, Watts observes that

God has no need to punish in the vengeful sense because he has no need to protect himself. He is not weak and vulnerable like human society. [211]

Delivered from the vicious circle of bad self-consciousness, the infinite regression of chasing oneself around and around, it is possible for man to move forward. But in moving forward his principle of action will no more be a moral code; it will be the indwelling Holy Spirit. [211]

Mature Christian morality will lose the adolescents itch to change the world overnight, which has long characterized Western Christianity in its schemes[8] for spiritual and material reforms. [214]

This will help free our idea of the Christian life from the false heroics of adolescence, that running around in search of great moral deeds to do, which is so often no more than hypocritical interference with the lives of others. [224}

It is not charitable to the poor to try all at once to abolish poverty, with the exception, indeed of really abject poverty. Most of the wholesale and impersonal charity we practice today is mere patronization of the poor, motivated by pity and fear of their estate and not by respect and honor. [220]

In short,

The work of the Church is to share a sense of union with God by all the means at its disposal, symbolic or otherwise. The Christian morality of love, as distinct from the secular morality of justice, has meaning and value only in relation to this background. Apart from it, it disrupts the natural order of society, which based as it is on fear and collective self-interest, is to be preferred to Christian and supernatural virtues running amok in separation form their source. [221-22; italics in original]

Some people still understand this:

Christian belief contests all politics, its visions of human flourishing and the ethical claims it makes of people being so demanding that no political leader or political programme can fully satisfy them.[9]

Again, as the dog returns to his vomit, the Christian returns to his infinite regress.

Excursus: Neville and Watts The Same Man?

Alan Watts is the Norman Vincent Peale of Zen.[10]

Right about the time Watts was writing Behold the Spirit and serving as a paradox priest, as he titles the relevant chapter in his autobiography, Neville Goddard was in the initial stages of a very successful career as a metaphysical lecturer, author, and broadcaster.[11]

These are essentially the roles Watts took on after leaving the priesthood, and Ive called attention before to the remarkable resemblances between Watts and Neville (he always went by name alone). [12] Revisiting Watts gives us a chance to review and expand on those similarities.

Both men occupied adjacent slices of the space/time continuum, and although Neville Lancelot Goddard was born in 1905 and Alan Wilson Watts in 1915, both died within months of each other (October 1, 1972, aged 67; 16 November 1973, aged 58, respectively). Both men had long before emigrated to the USA from parts of the British Empire (Neville from Barbados) to seek their fortune, mostly in California. Although Watts fitfully attended good schools he described himself in his autobiography with Shaws line about being half-miseducated;[13] Neville seems to have skipped schools altogether.[14]

On a somewhat more relevant note, both men were tall, handsome, spoke with those authoritative British accents (Nevilles with an island lilt to it); charismatic, in short. I call this more relevant because this was an essential element to their careers: both men became great successes on the modern lecture circuits, utilizing the cutting-edge technologies of radio, TV, LP recordings, even airplanes (to appear at venues from coast to coast). And, although Neville was fading a bit as Watts was getting into stride,[15] both men have had a remarkable resurrection on the internet,[16] where Nevilles books and lectures are freely available,[17] and both men are all over YouTube.

But what did they lecture on, surely that is the relevant point here? Again, the similarities are remarkable.

Both men had been attached to oddball gurus Watts first with the rascal guru Dimitrije Mitrinovic,[18] then with the iconoclastic Krishnamurti;[19] Neville with a black, Ethiopian rabbi named Abdullah[20] but the ironic lesson they took from both was: ignore gurus and do it yourself![21]

As for the content of their teaching, Watts concerns here and later in Beyond Theology can perhaps be expressed in the title of Nevilles 1944 book: Feeling is the Secret.

Writing in 1949, Neville summed up what he modestly calls his simple formula for changing the future:

People have a habit of slighting the importance of simple things; but this simple formula for changing the future was discovered after years of searching and experimenting. The first step in changing the future is desire that is: define your objectiveknow definitely what you want.

Secondly: construct an event which you believe you would encounter following the fulfillment of your desirean event which implies fulfillment of your desiresomething that will have the action of self predominant.

Thirdly: immobilize the physical body and induce a condition akin to sleeplie on a bed or relax in a chair and imagine that you are sleepy; then, with eyelids closed and your attention focused on the action you intend to experiencein imaginationmentally feel yourself right into the proposed actionimagining all the while that you are actually performing the action here and now. You must always participate in the imaginary action, not merely stand back and look on, but you must feel that you are actually performing the action so that the imaginary sensation is real to you.

It is important always to remember that the proposed action must be one which follows the fulfillment of your desire; and, also, you must feel yourself into the action until it has all the vividness and distinctness of reality.[22]

We can see two things here: first, the demand for experimental verification, not dogma; the same post-Protestant, post-adolescent demand Watts identifies as still necessary for the new mysticism to be acceptable to modern man.

The second, the importance of desire, or more generally, feeling, or aesthetic perception. As I noted above, in Partings I, Watts insists that our feeling is as valuable as our thinking, and that if we think otherwise it is only because we have, in fact, neglected to develop our feelings as we have our intellect. As it is, our outdated and in any event inadequate symbols of God, Christ, etc. make it impossible for modern man or someone from a traditional culture as aesthetically developed as the Chinese or Hindu to take the Christian message seriously.[23]

As weve seen this is the nub of Perrys disagreement over Watts iconoclastic approach to symbols,[24] but pace Perry, it is soundly based in Tradition. Nevilles method seems definitely related to the discussion of the dry and wet paths discussed in the journals that Evola edited in the 30s, UR and KRUR, in which one must first create a mental image, and then bathe it in love and devotion, until it is realized on the material plane.[25]

Another technical detail is in order. In order for any image to act in the way I am talking about, it must be loved. It must be assumed in a great, inner calm and then warmed up, almost nourished, with sweetness, without bringing the will or any effort into play, and much less without expectations. The Hermeticists called this agent sweet fire, fire that does not burn, and even fire of the lamp since it really has an enlightening effect on the images.[26]

As Neville explains the general conception behind the method:

Sensation precedes manifestation and is the foundation upon which all manifestation rests. There is an unbroken connection between your feelings and your visible world.

All creation occurs in the domain of the subconscious.

The subconscious transcends reason and is independent of induction. It contemplates a feeling as a fact existing within itself and on this assumption proceeds to give expression to it.

Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling. No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt be it good, bad or indifferent it must be expressed. Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious. [27]

As Neville unpacks his simple method, more parallels to Watts appear. As weve seen, the central insight Watts propounds in his mystical Christianity is that the Incarnation, God becoming Man, is a timeless event, always and already, so that rather than being pursued which implies it hasnt happened yet, and thus creates a Zeno-like infinite regress it must simply be assumed as the ground note of our existence.

And so Neville emphasizes:

To impress the subconscious with the desirable state, you must assume the feeling that would be yours had you already realized your wish. In defining your objective, you must be concerned only with the objective itself. The manner of expression or the difficulties involved are not to be considered by you. To think feelingly on any state impresses it on the subconscious. Therefore, if you dwell on difficulties, barriers or delay, the subconscious, by its very non-selective nature, accepts the feeling of difficulties and obstacles as your request and proceeds to produce them in your outer world.

You are already that which you want to be, and your refusal to believe this is the only reason you do not see it.[28]

Watts says that trying to achieve union presupposes its lack right now, thus stultifying the effort; Neville says that asking/praying for some change of circumstance assumes and therefore concretizes the present situation of lack.[29]

We might also note a subtle implication: ordinary political action, especially of the SJW type, falls under that same ban

The world cannot change until you change your conception of it. As within, so without.

Nations, as well as people, are only what you believe them to be. No matter what the problem is, no matter where it is, no matter whom it concerns, you have no one to change but yourself, and you have neither opponent nor helper in bringing about the change within yourself. You have nothing to do but convince yourself of the truth of that which you desire to see manifested.[30]

which certainly comports with what weve seen of Watts disinterest in the Social Gospel aspects of Christianity.

Whats interesting here is that while Neville never, like Watts, attempted to take on a formal role in mainstream religion, he also never abandoned Christianity or rather, the Bible.

Neville once said that if he was stranded on an island and was allowed one book, he would choose, The Bible, without hesitation. If he could squeeze in more, he would add Charles Fillmores Metaphysical Dictionary of Bible names [sic][31], William Blake, ( Why stand we here trembling around, Calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?) and Nicolls Commentaries.[32] These were the books he recommended at his lectures.[33]

How was Neville able to express his teachings entirely within the world of the Bible, while Watts found himself forced to increasingly make use of Eastern teachings? Perhaps because, although Watts, as weve seen, rejected the uniqueness of Christ, he still assumed the Bible, especially the New Testament, to be basically historical, while for Neville, the Bible, like all scriptures, is a psychological document, not a historical one: it is mans own psychological drama, taking place within his own skull (Golgotha).

Today those to whom this great treasure has been entrusted, namely, the priesthoods of the world, have forgotten that the Bibles are psychological dramas representing the consciousness of man. In their blind forgetfulness they now teach their followers to worship its characters as men and women who actually lived in time and space.[34]

This point is closely connected with the previous emphasis on experience, experiment, and testing, rather than dogmatic wrangling:

[The resurrected Christ] offers his knowledge of Scripture based on his own experience, for that of others based on speculation. Accept his offer. And it will keep you from losing your way among the tangled speculations that pass for religious truth. [35]

And, of course, it puts the kibosh on drawing any political instructions from what is intended to be an entirely psychological document.

Although Watts firmly believed in some kind of historical core to the New Testament,[36] and in Behold the Spirit even provides some kind of Chestertonian-Thomist metaphysical argument for historicity (a timeless event must be communicated in time to creatures like us[37]), while Neville just as firmly denied that the whole Bible was anything but an entirely psychological document, Watts surely would have had sympathy with Nevilles idea that the more you understand it historically the less you think to apply it to yourself instead of the story of You, it becomes a story about those people out there and back there. As Watts says about Protestants, they cracked the shell but devoted all their time to studying the fragments and trying to put them back together in improved ways (including, pre-eminently, by the search for the historical Jesus.), rather than consuming the kernel.[38]

Writing in 1947 the same year as Behold the Spirit! Israel Regardie (formerly Aleister Crowleys private secretary), noted that Neville would seem to have some difficulty dealing with the more legalistic portions of the Old Testament.[39] Yet Protestants routinely interpret such passages, or the risqu parts, such as the Song of Songs, in more or less forced analogies to Christ or the Church. And why not? As Neville says,

[The writers of the Gospels do not] hesitat[e] to interpret the Old Testament according to their own supernatural experiences. [40]

Indeed, many suggest today that the writers of the Gospels composed those pseudo-historical narratives entirely from their re-interpretations of the Old Testament.[41] Either from being self-educated, or from the secret teachings of Abdullah, Nevilles psychological interpretation of the Bible is actually consistent with what was the early 20th century scholarly consensus, which is now, like Neville himself, being resurrected via the Internet; while Watts academic seminary training has rooted him in the mid-century historicist consensus.[42]

But it must be emphasized that this is not clever hermeneutical sleight of hand or interpretive strait-jacket. In fact, while the laws, battles and genealogies Regardie refers to may indeed require a good deal of re-working, on an everyday basis Neville relies on a handful of familiar passages where he simply takes at face value texts that the usual clergyman strains[43] to explain:

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11:24

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

He calleth things that were not seen as though they were and things that were not seen become seen. Romans, 4:17

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? John 10:34

I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I John, 10:30

Before Abraham was, I am. John, 8:58

The Kingdom of Heaven is within Luke 17:21

While giving overall a positive, even enthusiastic account of Neville, Regardie has makes a few negative points, at least one of which is also relevant here. While never questioning Nevilles own success, or his sincerity, Regardie doubts that Neville has fully realized the difficulty his audiences would have with his simple method.

The method, as weve seen, requires entering a state akin to sleep, a state of profound relaxation, on the very edge of sleep, but with the imagination still under conscious control; today, we might call this lucid dreaming. Regardie suggests that Neville underestimates the ability of his audience to achieve this kind of deep relaxation, due to his own previous training as a professional dancer on Broadway.

[T]he fundamental psychological factor in Nevilles teaching, [and] the fundamental fact about Neville himself is a very simple fact: Neville is a dancer. [44]

This has been a frequent criticism of Watts throughout his career: that he counsels an easy, fake, non-practicing kind of practice. As weve seen, Watts takes the Incarnation, the union of God and Man (or Atman and Brahman, in Hindu terms) as a given fact, which cannot be gotten by any method (prayer, sacraments, penance, meditation, austerities, whatever); in fact, the use of such methods presupposes and reinforces the presumption of a lack of union, leading to an infinite regress of futility. Such methods are as useless as painting legs on a snake, and to the extent that they trap us in a hall of mirrors, they are futile, unless, indeed, one suddenly wakes up and drops the pretense of needing to re-unite with that which we have never been severed from; the only subsequent use of such methods as prayer or meditation is simply to express or celebrate that union. At times Watts even adopts Nevilles talk of sleep and relaxation:

Egoism is like trying to swim without relying on the water; your whole body becomes tense, and you sink like a stone. Swimming requires a certain relaxation, a certain giving of yourself to the water, and similarly spiritual life demands a relaxation of the soul to god If it is hard to relax the superficial tensions of jumpy nerves and insomnia, it is impossible to relax by any contrivance of our own a tension which grips the very core of our being. (p.70)

Obviously, this can seem like an excuse for inaction, a kind of more or less hypocritical perfectionism, along the lines of Well, if something is worth doing, it must be done well although here, and throughout his career, Watts does a pretty good job of relating it to the darker extremes of Protestant self-doubt.[45]

The rest is here:
Re-Kindling Alan Watts, Part Two | Counter-Currents Publishing

9,403 words

Part 1 of 2

Alan W. WattsBehold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical ReligionNew York: Pantheon, 1947; reissued with a new Preface, 1971Kindle, 2016

For God is not niggardly in his self-revelation; he exposes himself right before our eyes. Alan Watts

What was needed was not some new religious cult but some simple way of accessing religious or mystical experience, of the sort that must have been known to the monks and cathedral-builders of the Middle Ages. Colin Wilson[1]

Praise be to Amazon! Thanks to their Kindle technology, Ive been able to relocate here to Central Europe (a certain city beginning with Buda and ending with Pest) and bring most of my library with me!

Contrary to the fears of the Luddites, new technologies do not at least, not always destroy or occlude the products of a previous technological stage; in fact, as McLuhan pointed out, the content of a new medium is the old medium.

Thus printing did not replace manuscripts but made them accessible (thereby eliminating the need for universities, as McLuhan also pointed out). Greedy record companies, desperate for content, issued collections of 78s on LPs (and later, LPs on CD); thus did Harry Smiths Anthology of American Folk Music, 3 double LP sets, rescue dozens of pre-War artists from obscurity, and sparked the folk music revival.

Speaking only for myself, I can say that the development of the epub technology, specifically Amazons Kindle, has not only made whole libraries available for free or minimal cost (including mountains of un-PC Old Right, New Right, etc. materials hitherto moldering in barns, warehouses and filing cabinets), but has also made even books much easier to read, and thus more read.[2]

Case in point: Alan Watts, and the book under review.

After discovering the works of Alan Watts in the early 70s, in the form of Sunday morning radio broadcasts,[3] I proceeded to compulsively acquire and read his books, from the earliest The Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work, and Art in the Far East (1936, at the age of 21) to his most recent, the posthumous collection Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal (1973) and Tao: The Watercourse Way (1975), a collaboration with calligrapher Chungliang Al Huang who also finished the text after Watts death in 1973. Eventually, I even acquired some obscure incunabula, such as his hand-written The Art of Contemplation: A Facsimile Manuscript with Doodle (1972), and even a reprint of his translation of the 1944 Theologia Mystica: Being the Treatise of Saint Dionysius, Pseudo-Areopagite, on Mystical Theology, Together with the First and Fifth Epistles.[4]

Among those works was, of course, Behold the Spirit (1947), which had also been recently reprinted with a new, rather diffident, Preface from Watts. Like the similar preface to his later, Traditionalist work, The Supreme Identity: An Essay on Oriental Metaphysic and the Christian Religion (1950), it gave Watts current views, while almost seeming to discourage anyone from reading the main text.[5]

That was fine with me; I was happy enough to read his latest thoughts, and keep the book proudly displayed with the others.[6] And so it remained, until the kindle went on sale for $1.99, and I decided to free up some space and maybe finally take a look-see.

That rascal guru! That wily old shaman! He hid the best stuff in plain view!

Incredibly, I wager that most all of what would become his most characteristic themes, memes and crochets can be found here:

Union with Reality/God/Brahman etc. is and must be a present reality because it is timeless;

Therefore, any attempt to get or become it must fail, as such an attempt is based on the false assumption of its present lack; all such traditional methods (meditation, prayer, sacraments, etc.) must be understood rather as expressions of joy and gratitude for what is;

In fact, the frenzied pursuit of anything especially life itself is the surest way to lose it.

Nature/Reality/the Universe cannot be analyzed from some position of supposed separation and superiority; the attempt to do so results in a model of reality as a meaningless machine or collection of disconnected bits, a distortion and even outright illusion, no matter how much scientists and others perversely insist on it being the way things really are.

To avoid spiritual and perhaps historical catastrophe, Western Man must abandon the false alternatives of rugged materialism and prissy spiritualism and develop a thoroughgoing spiritual materialism.[7]

And so on; but expressed in the language of Christian theology specifically, the central principle of the Christian mythos, the mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh[8] and in the manner of 1940s-era Christian lay observers and popular theologians, a bit like C. S. Lewis or Fulton Sheen, but with a considerable amount of the formidable intellect and range of reference of an Etienne Gilson or Jacques Maritain.

Watts writes as a Thomist,[9] but one whos read at least Coomaraswamy, if not Guenon (but certainly not Evola[10]), although the book makes no references to Traditionalism and Traditionalists as such (unlike his next book, The Supreme Identity), and the text is the stronger, more compelling, and less dated, for that reason.

According to Wikipedia, where the book has its own mini-article,

This book is the most extensive example of his early effort to find a non-dualistic interpretation of Anglican theology in terms of The Perennial Philosophy as expounded in Aldous Huxleys contemporary work of that name and later made popular in the talks of Joseph Campbell. Its importance lies partly in its exposition of Watts earliest attempt to reconcile traditional Anglican theology with a mystical, Buddhist based approach, but also as a personal expression of the mystical experience.

Incredibly, this was apparently written as a masters thesis (M. Div., Seabury Theological); which becomes even more amazing when you remember that this is the only earned degree Watts every acquired, even beforehand.[11] Thats right, Watts never acquired a B.A., and pretty much never attended a college or university;[12] his ability to simply enter a theological seminary and master its contents within a few months might, with some modesty, be a tribute to the value of a British public school education as well as native ability.[13]

Impressive enough as a demonstration of academic pseudomorphism, and providing a bit of nostalgia for those of us who lived through similar environments, it does show the corresponding vices. In particular, one notes the tendency academic, but itself a function of the Scholasticism that formed the modern academy to spell everything out, hunt down every last detail and implication, and delight in restating positions in one new way after another. One is certainly glad that the post-academic Watts pruned back this sort of thing considerably.[14]

The New Right reader who lacks such a background may nevertheless be able to get a grip or find a foothold here, and may even be at an advantage, as Watts starts off rather boldly by dabbling in the idea of world ages a la Spengler or Joachim of Flores (the origin of the Third Whatever meme) or the (unknown and unmentioned) Yockey; a fairly brave choice, at a time when all things German were identified with Prussian martinets if not outright Nazis, and indicative of Watts surprising (to some) Rightist sympathies[15] (of which more anon).

In his 1971 Preface Watts downplays his talk of world ages in the opening chapter, saying he no longer believes in historical timetables and New Ages, but the New Right reader may well find his discussion of Spengler of some interest today. Just as Yockey tried to re-tool Spenglers Caesarism into a revival of Imperium rather than a dead end, so Watts modifies Spenglers idea of the Second Religiosity.[16]

Due to what Watts calls an exceedingly superficial philosophy and a certain emotional immaturity, Spengler

Sees that the Second Religiousness employs the Springtime or infancy forms of religion, but does not seem to realize that they are understood in a new, interior and spiritually creative sense.

Where Spengler can only see regression to decadent or infantilized forms of a cultures original spirituality, a period of mush-minded mysticism, Watts observes that it is in such decadent periods that the profoundest spirituality of the human race appears (such Plotinus or Augustine).[17] Thus, for Watts, the Third Age is one of maturity and wisdom, not sclerosis and senility; and he points out that Christianity itself is a product of the Second Religiousness of Judaism, giving a mystical and interior interpretation to the primitive religion of the law and the sacrificial worship of the Temple.[18]

In the stage of infancy, the churchs moral teaching is of necessity authoritarian and legalistic.[19] In adolescence, intensely earnest and self-consciously heroic, following after extremely lofty ideals. In maturity, we return somewhat to earth, and find the source of morality neither in external authority, nor in remote ideals, but in the consciousness of God himself in the heart.[20]

Before unpacking the Third Age, and that new, interior and spiritually creative sense, lets try to understand what Watts is doing here. First, it is necessary to grasp what he is not doing. He isnt trying to prune away from Catholic Christianity[21] some supposedly man-made or pagan accretions, in order to arrive at a primitive gospel message, presumably all about Jesus, and thus both intensely personal and unique among world religions (No man comes to the Father). Nor is he trying to interest secular adults, or the kids, in a revamped Christianity more in tune with science or hip musical genres.

Watts has no problems with pagan elements (see next book, Easter Its Story and Meaning[22]) Christianity has always welcomed wisdom wherever it may be found, and these are its strongest, most vital periods nor any interest in proving the uniqueness of Christianity (what is the interest in a reanimated corpse? he asks).

The best approach might be to look at his subtitle and ask why, or how, is mysticism necessary? I would suggest it is necessary in two senses: it is a logically or psychologically necessary next step; and it is what is needed for religion to survive today.

Everyone knows (in 1947) the Church is dead or dying. There are plenty of remedies promoted, but they are all inadequate, because they are ad hoc, purely human solutions that take for granted that the Church is just another man-made institution that needs ongoing maintenance, like a bridge or subway. But if the Church is understood as part of a God-controlled design of history it must be understood to be undergoing a necessary, organic development along with and promoting the development of human consciousness.

In other words, as consciousness develops, so does religion.

Watts developmental model Father, Son, Holy Spirit is basically mapped onto Western[23] Church history: Roman Catholic, Protestant and what? To see the needed, necessary next step lets first unpack the first two stages.

Roman Catholicism is the religion of mans childhood,[24] where the soul is satisfied with mere symbols, the assurance given by authorities that something happened somewhere that will make everything alright, if one just believes hard enough.

Protestantism[25] is the religion of adolescence: rebellious, rejecting authority, requiring that things be written down (sola scriptura) and exhaustively explained (daily four hour sermons), like other honest business transactions (a religion of shopkeepers); and above all demanding the inner meaning of doctrine and dogma, not mere passive acceptance.

Protestantism goes along with modern science, and while both have provided us with much of values (hospitals, clean water, etc.),[26] the downside has been considerable.[27]The method of scientific analysis (as the word would indeed seem to imply) leaves us with a world made up of random bits, producing nihilism once you dissect the frog, its not a frog anymore while the obsessive examination of conscience produces an infinite regress or vicious circle of guilt and pride, leading to existential despair. [28]

Here we see what will be two of Watts favorite memes, the gyrating stupidity (as he calls it in Beyond Theology) of modern materialism, and the double bind dilemma of trying to be good, trying to achieve enlightenment, trying to answer the Zen koan, etc., which can only be solved if dissolved by being pursued to exhaustion like Sambos tigers and the subsequent giving up the futile struggle and just letting things be.[29]

But before exhausting ourselves as well, lets take a break, with a little something I call Excursus on Cradle Catholics.

Excursus: Cradle Catholics

And stay away from Anglo-Catholics; they are all Sodomites with atrocious accents.

- Brideshead Revisited

Despite Watts repeated warnings that designating states of consciousness as pertaining to childhood or adolescence carries no intent to denigrate them[30] children are not failed adults some, particularly Catholics themselves, may find it insulting or perhaps just inaccurate to locate Roman Catholicism in the childhood category.

It is interesting to note that some confirmation of this picture from a source contemporaneous with Watts and his book, and from the same Catholic (again, in Watts sense of Roman Catholic Anglican) milieu: Evelyn Waughs Brideshead Revisited.[31] In particular, the main characters seem to embody Watts notion of the Catholic state of mind.[32]

Take young Sebastian, here being interrogated by his new friend, Charles, exemplifying the mutual incomprehension of the Catholic child and Protestant adolescent:

But my dear Sebastian, you cant seriously believe it all.

Cant I?

I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.

Oh yes, I believe that. Its a lovely idea.

But you cant believe things because theyre a lovely idea.

But I do. Thats how I believe.

Well, I said, if you can believe all that and you dont want to be good, wheres the difficulty about your religion?

If you cant see, you cant

Well, where?

Oh, dont be a bore, Charles. I want to read about a woman in Hull whos been using an instrument. [85]

Sebastian clearly has imbibed his religious ideas (if one can call them that) from his mother, Lady Marchmain:

I [Charles again] said something about a camel and the eye of a needle and she rose happily to the point.

But of course, she said, its very unexpected for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but the gospel is simply a catalogue of unexpected things. Its not to be expected that an ox and an ass should worship at the crib. Animals are always doing the oddest things in the lives of the saints. Its all part of the poetry, the Alice-in-Wonderland side, of religion. [123]

No surprise she entertains the family with evening readings of Chesterton.[33]

By contrast, the eldest son, Bridey (the Earl of Brideshead; no Christian name ever provided), manifests childhood in the nerd register unworldly, self-absorbed, impolite and impolitic, yet so obsessed with dogma and ritual that the family feared he might become a priest. As Anthony Blanche tells us:

Theres Brideshead whos something archaic, out of a cave thats been sealed for centuries. He has the face as though an Aztec sculptor had attempted a portrait of Sebastian; hes a learned bigot, a ceremonious barbarian, a snow-bound lama. . . . Well, anything you like.

This combination of the primitive and the learned perfectly instantiates what Watts describes as the Catholic attempt to emulate Protestant moral seriousness, resulting in the dreary Puritanism of the Irish or French Catholics. Indeed, it is Bridey who carelessly (in both senses) triggers off the moral climax of the novel when he smugly points out his new wife cant possibly share a roof with his adulterous sister Julia:

You must understand that Beryl is a woman of strict Catholic principle fortified by the prejudices of the middle class. I couldnt possibly bring her here. It is a matter of indifference whether you choose to live in sin with Rex or Charles or both I have always avoided inquiry into the details of your menage but in no case would Beryl consent to be your guest. [272]

Brideys having always avoided inquiry into the details is a remnant of the moral laxity (from the Protestant viewpoint) of the traditional Catholic; his fathers mistress, Cara, is an Italian who voices the more relaxed attitudes of the South:

I know of these romantic friendships of the English and the Germans. They are not Latin. I think they are very good if they do not go on too long.

It is a kind of love that comes to children before they know its meaning. In England it comes when you are almost men; I think I like that. It is better to have that kind of love for another boy than for a girl. Alex [Lord Brideshead] you see had it for a girl, for his wife. [100]

And this brings us back to a celebrated passage at the start of the novel, as Charles describes his first summer with Sebastian, sounding both notes of childhood and moral laxity:

Descent or ascent? It seems to me that I grew younger daily with each adult habit that I acquired. I had lived a lonely childhood and a boyhood straitened by war and overshadowed by bereavement; to the hard bachelordom of English adolescence, the premature dignity and authority of the school system, I had added a sad and grim strain of my own. Now, that summer term with Sebastian, it seemed as though I was being given a brief spell of what I had never known, a happy childhood, and though its toys were silk shirts and liqueurs and cigars and its naughtiness high in the catalogue of grave sins, there was something of nursery freshness about us that fell little short of the joy of innocence. [46]

Implicit here and in Caras comments is the idea of an indulgence toward childhood romances that are expected to transition into a respectable adulthood, as illustrated by Charles passage from Sebastian to his sister Julia.[34] Even this might be seen as analogous to Watts model of consciousness maturing through several levels, each worthy in itself; what must be avoided is becoming stuck or even attempting to regress:

Sebastian is in love with his own childhood. That will make him very unhappy. His teddy-bear, his nanny and he is nineteen years old. [100]

The Catholic with his rosary, the Protestant with his rigid moral code; these are expired and unacceptable models for a truly modern mind. Rather than regressing to former modes, religion must rediscover the Spirit again, now at a higher level, thanks to the long pilgrimage through adolescence. Perhaps Waugh is making that point too, as Charles revisits Brideshead (the house, not the Earl) years later, having put aside both Sebastian and Julia:

There was one part of the house I had not yet visited, and I went there now. The chapel showed no ill-effects of its long neglect; the art-nouveau paint was as fresh and bright as ever; the art-nouveau lamp burned once more before the altar. I said a prayer, an ancient, newly-learned form of words, and left, turning towards the camp; and as I walked back, and the cook-house bugle sounded ahead of me, I thought:

The builders did not know the uses to which their work would descend; they made a new house with the stones of the old castle; year by year, generation after generation, they enriched and extended it; year by year the great harvest of timber in the park grew to ripeness; until, in sudden frost, came the age of Hooper [i.e., secular materialism]; the place was desolate and the work all brought to nothing; Quomodo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

And yet, I thought, that is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.

Something quite remote from anything the builders intended, has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time; a small red flame a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.

***[35]

As a result of his more developed consciousness, modern man demands the meaning of the doctrine, not more or more sophisticated doctrine; and certainly not a return to tradition. Modern man needs not dogma but what dogma means; the thing itself. This is the maturing of mans spiritual consciousness, a development to be encouraged as being the whole point of the enterprise, not a deviation to be fought against and turned aside.[36]

The task of Protestantism was to break the shell, though because the Protestants did not fully realize this and did not know about the fruit inside, the job has been inexpertly and irreverently done.

They have hammered away with gusto; they have cracked the entire surface; they have taken whole chunks of the shell right off, and, having thrown some of them away, have taken the rest into a corner and there tried to piece them together in a different form. But the fruit has not interested them. Protestantism has simply broken up the system of symbolism, reduced it and re-formed it, and, in these later times, has practically discarded the whole thing. The time has come for us to attend to the long-neglected fruit. (p. 41)

For Protestantism, misdirected though it has been, was nevertheless a necessary movement, needed in order that the shell of dogma, passively accepted by the Roman Catholic, be cracked, and the kernel obtained and brought to fruition within ourselves. [37]

Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:24)

Hence, the periodic, now (as then) on the upswing interest in various mystical teachings, foreign and domestic; a legitimate but misconceived quest; Watts agrees with Spengler in discounting what today we would call New Age spirituality as immature, unhistorical, and often implicitly if not explicitly Gnostic and hence retrograde.

Would that these seekers knew that the Catholic Christianity has its own, vastly more sophisticated spiritual techniques; but how can they find out, when even the Church itself, in the person of its ministers, doesnt know anymore?

To remedy this, Watts turns to the late stages of other cultures including our own late Classical period, whose mature wisdom gave birth to early Christianity to try to suggest the inner meaning of the Christian mythos, the actual experience of the Holy Spirit.

In the great ages of Christian thought theology has always been able to embrace and absorb alien systems much to its own enrichment. In fact, every great advance in Christian theology has involved the absorption of an alien philosophy. It is not too much to predict that the next great step in Christian theology will be due, in part, to the absorption of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and, perhaps, Mohammedan Sufiism, all of which are profoundly mystical religions. (p.53)

For purposes of this review essay, Ive tried to distill the logical outline of the book, but I have to say that apart from a superficial structure of chapters and topics, and local arguments on particular points, it doesnt really have an overall vector that marches the reader from Point A to Point B until the reader is forced to accept some predetermined conclusions; but rather drift from moment to moment, in which various themes, points of view and images are introduced and revisited as seems necessary; which, as well see, is appropriate to a number of those themes, such as the importance of living in the moment, and the freedom of man to accept Gods offer of union or not.[38]

In any event, as Ive said, the real fascination here is how early, and how well, Watts was able to formulate most of what would become his signature tropes or memes in the language of traditional Catholic Christianity.

But I certainly dont mean to suggest there is anything boring or repetitive here. Even at this early point in his career, Watts seems to be incapable of writing a dull page, or even paragraph.[39] As already suggested, the interest here is in how easily Watts expresses, in purely Christian language, most of the memes he would propagate during his career as a New Age or even hippie lecturer.

His use of the nondualist school of the Hindu Vedanta to explain how the Christian God is a superior conception to any pantheistic deity, by being able to create real, other beings while still remaining indivisible, makes most of those smug claims about what we can learn from the Hindus look rather jejune; this is the best kind of Traditionalism, using the deepest insights of one culture (to return to Spenglers language) to illuminate the equal depths of another.

Throughout, Watts moves with ease from the Christian dogma of the Incarnation union with God which is freely and already given to the futility of methods union with God something which we not only cannot fail to achieve but cannot even try to achieve, and, indeed, we cannot even refuse it if we wanted to (Hell being the sufferings of those who obstinately chose to refuse) to his more general and more familiar point that life can only be lived as what Coomaraswamy called the perpetual uncalculated life in the present rather than something we plan to get, someday, if we follow the right recipe.[40]

At times Watts manages to both clarify the traditional language of Christian mysticism and express his own views more clearly than he would again:

The consciousness of union with God thus realized is mystical, that is, veiled, rather than beatific; it is not an absolutely direct and full consciousness, but resembles to some extent the consciousness which we have of our own selves. For while we cannot perceive out own egos directly, we know that we exist and this knowledge is present as an undertone in all other knowledge. Similarly, the mystical knowledge of God is a knowledge of God in the act of this presence and union with us, but is not immediate vision and apprehension of the divine essence. Presumably this is only possible when actual death has removed the ego from standing in its own light. (p.100 and footnote 12)[41]

Indeed, even death cant escape Watts expanding vision of the ever-present union:

Abandoning all concepts and conventional feelings about Reality, letting go of all devices and methods for realizing union with god, we approach the Now just as it is.

Looked at from an intellectual and emotional point of view, the Eternal Now certainly seems dry and empty. From this standpoint, entering into it seems a kind of death, and the surrender of cherished intellectual and emotional consolations is indeed a sharing in the death of the cross, from which the whole power of the Resurrection flows.

More here:
Re-Kindling Alan Watts, Part One | Counter-Currents Publishing

This guide provides over a dozen self awareness activities and exercises to increase emotional intelligence and strengthen your self-leadership abilities.

______________

In Ancient Greece, at the front courtyard at Delphi, the former shrine to the oracle Pythia, there was an inscription:

It translates to know thyself, a famous aphorism often attributed to Socrates or Plato.

What does it mean to know oneself?

At first glance, we might discount this phrase as rhetoric.Sure, I know myself, you might lament.I know who I am.On closer examination, however, we cant be so certain.

Do we knowwhywe behave the way we do?What drives our decisions? How do we really feel about ourselves and the people in our lives?How do we really feel about ourselves and the people in our lives?

As Ralph Ellison said, When I discover who I am, Ill be free.

While awareness is knowing whats happening around you, self-awareness is knowing what youre experiencing.

Self-awarenessis the ability to know what we are doing as we do itandunderstand why we are doing it.

Consciousness is another word for self-awareness. Psychologist Anthony Stevens explains inPrivate Myths:

Consciousness enables individuals to monitor what is going on, to be aware of the nature and quality of events as they occur, and to perceive their meaning.

If we are not consciousness, we are unconscious. When we are unconscious, we lack self-awareness.

A large body of research shows the extraordinary range of unconscious biases and blind spots humans have.

Behavioral Economist Daniel Kahneman, author of the bestsellerThinking, Fast and Slow, shows that despite our confidence in our self-knowledge, we are usually wrong.

As it turns out, we arent as self-aware as we might think.

Self-awareness is the foundation for emotional intelligence,self-leadership, and mature adulthood.

With it, we can grow and develop. Without it, we are like a leaf riding a wind current.

Self-awareness is a skill. In any skill, learning goes throughfour primary stages. The first stage isunconscious incompetence. When we start something new, we arent aware of how poor we are at it.

Try to play a melody on an instrument youve never played before, and youll know how unconscious incompetence feels.

It is because of the discomfort this incompetence brings that we often avoid learning new things. Learning self-awareness requires the same discomfort.

As such, most people go through life without developing self-awareness.

Yet, self-awareness is a foundational skill essential to anyone interested in authenticpersonal development.

The key to developing self-awareness is the same as with building any skill: you need to the right methods combined with consistent practice.

Thankfully, there are many self-awareness activities and exercises designed to increase our sensitivity to whats going on inside us.

When most people talk about knowing thyself, they are referring to their mind.

Our cultural bias since the Age of Enlightenment (the 1700s) has been for toward reason, logic, and cognition.

But thats only part of the story.

We can section the brain into three parts: neocortex, limbic system, and basal ganglia.

The neocortex is the thinking or learning brain. It controls language, thought, and reasoning.

Much of the information in the neocortex isconscious, meaning we can draw on it at will.

The limbic system is the emotional center. It stores value judgments we make and memories of behaviors that produce positive and negative experiences.

Information from the limbic system is largelysubconscious. That is, this information is just below the surface of our awareness.

The basal ganglia is at the root of the brain. This is our instinctual center. Information travels from our gut to this primitive region without going through the other brain regions.

Information from the basal ganglia is mostlyunconscious. We generally cant access this information.

Brain Region.

NeocortexLimbic SystemBasal Ganglia

Function.

ThoughtsEmotionsInstincts

Process

MostlyConsciousSubconsciousUnconscious

To build self-awareness, we must strengthen our conscious connection toall threebrain regions.

Different self awarenessactivities strengthen connections in various brain regions.

See also:How to Decalcify Your Pineal Gland (Its an important step in building greater self-awareness)

And:A Beginners Guide to Using Nootropics to Access Your Brains Potential

Most attempts to develop self-awareness fail because they only target the neocortex (thoughts, beliefs, biases).

Our goal is to become more conscious of whats driving our behavior.

To accomplish this, we need to increase our sensitivity to our emotions and instinctsthe information we rarely access with our conscious mind.

Then, we can explore our thoughts, beliefs, and biases with greater results.

Before we do any self awareness activities, we mustfind our center.

Centering must always be the first step because it increases our attention.

Attention is essential for learning, understanding and developing in any area.

For a powerful and simple practice you can use each day to access your Center quickly and consistently, see out my program, The Mastery Method: Activate Your Higher Potential. (You can listen to afree sample on the page.)

Of the many types of meditation, mindfulness has become the most popular in the West largely because of theresearchconducted on how this form of meditation affects the brain. (See the work of neuroscientistRichard Davidsonand psychologistJon Kabat-Zinn.)

Mindfulness is a form of observational meditation where meditators place their awareness on a focal point. This point can be the breath (the process of breathing) or our thoughts, but it can also be on any information coming in through our five senses.

Developing thisobserving selfis the key to developing self-awareness.

The reason we arelargely unconscious to our behavior is that our egos actautonomously. We have no one monitoring our thoughts, feelings, actions, and behavior from moment to moment.

Through observational meditation, we create a space between the doer of actions, the thinker of thoughts, and the feeler of feelings.

Theobserving selfcan then monitor our thoughts, feelings, and actions with objectivity.

Its important to understand that we dont have this observing self unless we develop it. Without this inner observer, we cant develop self-awareness.

Abraham Maslow writes inToward a Psychology of Being:

Humans no longer have instincts in the animal sense, powerful, unmistakable inner voices which tell them unequivocally what to do, when, where, how and with whom. Authentic selfhood can be defined in part as being able to hear these impulse-voices within oneself, that is, to know what one really wants or doesnt want, what one is fit for and what one is not fit for, etc.

Reconnecting with our body/instincts is an integral part of developing self-awareness.

For anyone interested in developing self-awareness, I recommend exploring Tai Chi, Qigong, or Yoga.

The aim of these practices is to strengthen a body-mind connection.

Two particular self-awareness activities I recommend are:

These activities dont require a lot of time to get started, and you will develop greater awareness of your body right away.

Also, see my program, The Mastery Method.

Your personality is a collection of patterns. These patterns include thoughts, beliefs, worldviews, feelings, tendencies, and behaviors.

Our experiences and environment condition these patterns into us.

Most of these patterns lie below the surface of our awareness. By getting to know our personality, we bring these patterns into consciousness increasing our self-awareness.

Self-awareness activities for your personality include:

All of these activities and processes help you get to know your personality, improve intrapersonal intelligence, and build self-awareness.

According to John Whitmore, a pioneer in the coaching industry and author ofCoaching for Performance,

Building awareness, responsibility, and self-belief is the goal of a coach.

A primary way a coach helps their clients build awareness is by givingeffective feedback.

If youpractice shadow work, one thing many people notice is how much easier it is to observe other peoples shortcomings than your own.

In corporate environments, many organizations use 360-degree feedbacks, an assessment tool for providing employees with performance feedback from their supervisor and up to eight peers.

If you donthave a coach, you can ask a trusted friend questions like:

You can only ask these questions to a trusted confidante and from a place of openness.

Self-awareness is a skill that helps us monitor our behavior and to better understand our motives and ourselves.

Like any other skill, we can develop self-awareness with the right methods combined with consistent practice.

The stronger our observing self becomes, the more space we have between us and our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Most people fail to develop self-awareness because they dont get rooted in their bodies first.

We need to integrate the various regions of our brain that guide our instincts, feelings, and thoughts to increase our self-awareness.

By practicing a range of self-awareness activities and exercises, we can address our body, emotions, and thoughts. This integrated approach is the key to cultivating true self-awareness.

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)by Chade-Meng Tan

Paperback|Kindle|Audio

Chade-Meng Tan was one of the first engineers at Google. Years later, he helped launch the Search Inside Yourself Institute, a leadership program within Google. The program is a synthesis of the work of psychologists Jon Kabat-Zinn and Daniel Goleman, neuroscientist Richard Davidson, and others.

At its core,Search Inside Yourselfis a mind training program in emotional intelligence, the critical factor in outperforming leadership. Not only is this book an accessible, practical introduction to emotional intelligence with clear practices and methods, its also an excellent summary of dozens of other great personal development books rolled into one.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQby Daniel Goleman

Paperback | Kindle| Audio

The reason Golemans book is still relevant over 20 years after becoming a bestseller is that no matter how many times were told that there are different kinds of intelligence, most people still equate intelligence with IQ and cognition.

But 20 years of research, especially in the business sector, has revealed that its emotional intelligence, not cognitive intelligence, that defines high performance and lasting success in business and life.

5 Transformative Methods to ACTIVATE Your Pineal Gland and Tap Into Your Superhuman Potential

Cultivate Self-Leadership to Master Your Behavior and Realize Your Leadership Potential

How to Decalcify Your Pineal Gland (And Why Its Really Important for Higher Mental Performance)

Read the rest here:
15 Self Awareness Activities and Exercises for Emotional ...

George Bernard Shaw Quotes and Quotations

My opportunities were still there, nay, they multiplied tenfold; but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail, and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.

The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

All professions are a conspiracy against the country.

Self-denial is not a virtue, it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

She had lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well hammered yourself.

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

It is easy - terribly easy - to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that, to break a man's spirit is devil's work.

In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

You can lose a man like that by your own death, but not by his.

I am only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller.

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do.

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

My only policy is to profess evil and do good.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

Martyrdom - the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone, the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.

I was taught when I was young that if people would only love one another, all would be well with the world. This seemed simple and very nice; but I found when I tried to put it in practice not only that other people were seldom lovable, but that I was not very lovable myself.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of Hell.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

You don't learn to hold your own by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well hammered yourself.

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worthwhile.

Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.

One man who has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

Morality is not respectability.

From Mozart I learnt to say important things in a conversational way.

Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness, for it is ever imposed in the interests of the Children.

The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parents' first duty.

The philosopher is Nature's pilot - and there you have our difference; to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.

He knows nothing; he thinks he knows everything - that clearly points to a political career.

Modern poverty is not the poverty that was blest in the Sermon on the Mount.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattery.

A great devotee of the gospel of getting on.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.

Reformers have the idea that change can be achieved by brute sanity.

Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but you must get at a man through his own religion, not through yours.

Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.

I believe in the discipline of silence and could talk for hours about it.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman, he may pronounce as he pleases.

He who can does. He who can't, teaches.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

I work as my father drank.

When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.

Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Happiness and beauty are by-products. Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

This is true joy of life-being used for a purpose that is recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... instead of being a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.

Most people do not pray; they only beg.

Self-control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman.

A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them how they would like to life in a stationary one, and do without change.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

If you go to heaven without being naturally qualified for it, you will not enjoy it there.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

This is true joy of life-the being used for a purpose that is recognized by yourself as a right one, instead of being a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

This is true joy of life-being used for a purpose that is recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... instead of being a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.

See more here:
George Bernard Shaw - Famous Quotes and Authors

Specialties

Personal Performance Training & Rehabilitation specializes in adapting exercise, physical therapy, and massage therapy services to each individual client to help each person achieve optimal health and fitness.We offer individual exercise programs, small group exercise programs, personal training, physical therapy, and both therapeutic and relaxation massage therapy. Additionaly, our Founder, Doug Kleber, offers naturopathic medicine services.

Established in 1994.

Personal Performance is founded on the principal of providing clients education and training on whole body wellness through alternative methods of nutrition, fitness training and injury rehabilitation. Established in 1994 we have been providing superior training and rehabilitation techniques that produce consistent, progressive results. Our commitment is to provide progressive personalized service and instruction that treats the whole person and achieves optimal wellness.

Doug Kleber received his B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois. He is a Registered Kinesiotherapist and Certified Massage Therapist. Doug is a former All-American football player, collegiate baseball player and Pro NFL player. Doug's focus in working with athletes is on more than building strength; his treatments and training plans ensure that injured players are not only ready to get back into the game, but that they do so with sufficient strength and recovery to prevent future injury.

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Personal Performance - Trainers - 1804 N Lincoln Ave ...

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