We are delighted with your interest in Luther Village. Planned as a residential community for active people 55 years of age and older, Luther Village was designed to allow individuals to live graciously with maximum independence along with available services throughout their retirement years.

Luther Village was established in residential Arlington Heights in 1990 by the Shaw Company. It has the distinction of being the first full-equity ownership retirement community in the Midwest. Residents of Luther Village own shares in The Luther Village Owners Corporation and enjoy the financial advantages that go along with owning shares in a co-op. Another benefit to residents of Luther Village is the comfort and convenience of having a highly respected and well recognized health care provider on the same campus, The Lutheran Home. Residents of Luther Village have first priority access to The Lutheran Home for re-hab and their health care needs.

The community is designed to provide active seniors with services and amenities that increase their independence and freedom. A la carte services are available for laundry, housekeeping and handyman services. There are also a wide range of services and social activities that are available to each resident, including snow removal, landscaping, fitness center with an indoor pool, classes, entertainment, off-campus trips and so much more. Visit our Choice of Services page for a complete list.

The campus offers 55 acres of mature landscaping with walking paths surrounding lovely ponds. There is also a fishing pier, raised-bed gardens, and a cozy Summer House for entertaining and special outdoor activities.

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Luther Village | In the heart of Arlington Heights

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With the approaching new year, it is important to take a step back and make sure we are prepared personally for what lies ahead in by making a 2018 to-do-list.

Are you on the right path to achieve personal as well as professional success this coming year? Here are a few things that you should do before 2018 or by the end of January. Read more

How is fear holding you back?

When I ask this question at my seminars or in my consulting work, common answers I get are lack of funding, I dont have the education, my background, or even Im not sure of the next step to take.What Ive discovered, however, is that while all of these may be factors that can impact success, they are not the deciding or underlying factor. Read more

The fear of rejection and failure is the single greatest obstacle to success in adult life. Taken to its extreme, we become totally preoccupied with not making a mistake, with seeking approval for security above all other considerations. Read more

The subconscious mind something that has a huge effect on every action, but is constantly overlooked.

Instead, the focus is often on our conscious mind, which contains the critical thought function of our brains. The subconscious is the powerful layer underneath. It encompasses the awareness of all things the conscious mind cannot recognize.

Read more

Strong relationships with others are vital components of a healthy and happy life. Those that are able to build connections with other people tend to lead longer and richer lives.

Those that cannot maintain relationships are more likely to experience loneliness or depression. The effects of both are detrimental to the health of both the mind and body. If you experience difficulty connecting with others, there is a way to build stronger relationships. Whether that be at work or in your personal life, the formula is the same.

Read more

Simply put, successful people are goal-setters. Goal-setting applies to every area of our lives. We set goals for our careers, relationships, families, finances, etc. Our ultimate goals, however, set the course for our lives. The ultimate goals define the direction that we go in.

Unfortunately, some people never achieve their ultimate goals in life. They limit their self-confidence and they limit themselves.

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Every single person has the ability to achieve success. Unfortunately, there are success myths out there that define what success should look like.

The truth is, success looks different for each person. Whether it be in life, relationships, career or all of the above, what does it look like for you?

I have identified the 5 most common success myths that may be limiting you from living your dream life.

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What scares you? Learning how to overcome fears of failure can be challenging for everyone.

Fortunately, all fears are learned. No one is born with fears. Fears can therefore, be unlearned by practicing self-discipline repeatedly with regard to fear until it goes away.

The most common fears that we experience, which often sabotage all hope for success, are the fear of failure, poverty, and loss of money. Read more

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Personal Success | Brian Tracy's Self Improvement ...

Noticias de Sri Nabadwip Dham al 13 de Diciembre del 2017

Bajo la gua de Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj he preparado este reporte para los sinceros devotos alrededor del mundo que estn ansiosos de noticias sobre la situacin de nuestro Math en Sri Nabadwip Dham.Versin en espaol

Dear Devotees and Friends, under the guidance of Srila Acharya Maharaj I have prepared this brief report on the current situation in Sri Nabadwip Dham. Read Report

World-renowned Bhakti Yoga instructors, Srila B.P. Janardan Maharaj and Vishakha Devi Dasi, will be at Wave Street Studios for a discussion on Bhakti, devotion, and its relation to Yoga and food.

We would be honored to have your kind association at our Ishta Goshti this Monday evening in Soquel.

Srila Ashram Maharaj is in Kolkata now and I have spoken to him several times and under his guidance have prepared this brief report on the current situation. Read English version

Please join us in celebrating the appearance of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Maths President Sevaite Acharya, Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj on Thursday, September 21st, 2017 at 11 am in Santa Cruz and 6 pm in San Jose.

Srila Ashram Maharaj se encuentra ahora en Kolkata y bajo su gua he preparado este breve reporte acerca de la presente situacin.Versin en espaol

Cultivating gratitude in all aspects of our lives leads to improved health, relationships, success in our endeavors, and overall fulfillment. But how do we feel it when things are difficult? Is it possible to feel grateful for the unexpected, for adversity, for the dualities of gain and loss, pleasure and pain, success and failure? With practice and an adjustment of our outlook, we can proceed on this dynamic path of Bhakti Yoga that enables us to appreciate everything we encounter in life, with a positive and progressive outlook, as coming for our ultimate benefit.

We are honored to present Sripad Bhakti Kamal Tyagi Maharaj and Hari Dayal Das at Divinitree Yoga Studio Saturday April 22 for Sound and Soul Surrender. Come tune to a higher frequency.

Kids camp is quickly approaching from June 24-25th (participating devotees may plan to arrive and set-up camp Friday if they choose) and we are looking forward to having all your association here at the Ashram.

Sripad Bhakti Kamal Tyagi Maharaj is back in the USA for a spring-summer traveling sankirtan tour. Here is the schedule as of April 20, 2017 for California, Tijuana, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, and Florida. Sripad Tyagi Maharaj is a very inspiring preacher of Krishna Consciousness. If you have the chance, we hope you will try to get to one of these events.

At the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Govardhan, when they started plowing the gardens with a big tractor, suddenly a very large Giriraj Shila came out of the land! Read the Article

Come enjoy Indias cultural heritage in support of our dear Srila Gurudevs Vaishnava Seva Society this Saturday, March 25th at 3 pm in Los Altos, CA.

Dear respected Vaishnavas, worldwide devotees and friends, It is with great sadness that we are announcing the passing away of our dear friend and senior Vaishnava, Yudhamanyu Prabhu Seva Vikram. Janardan Maharaj will speak tomorrow at the Sunday program (February 26) in Soquel in remembrance of Yudhmanyu Prabhu Seva Vikram. Please come and join us in honor of our very dear friend.

Happy New Year. Im so excited to start this yearwith a Vyasapuja celebration for ourdear guardian and acharya Srila Bhakti Pavan Janardan Maharaj.Your sweet presence will enhance the devotional atmosphere. I hope you will come on Tuesday, January 31st beginning at 6 pm in Santa Cruz.

We are happy to announce a new project for the Ashram. We will be reprinting the songbooks in time for Sri Gaur Purnima and our goal is to raise $1,000 for this cause. Please join us and sponsor a new songbook.

The following is an interview with Hasyapriya Prabhu, who just spent three weeks in India visiting some of our centers there

Dear Friend of the Ashram,

OnThursday, December 15th at 6pm please join us in either Santa Cruz or San Jose for a beautiful celebration of the Divine Appearance Day of our beloved Srila Gurudev,Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajakacharyya-varyya Astottara-sataSri Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj.

We had a most beautiful and auspicious three day celebration in Chongqing, China for Srila Param Guru Maharajs, Srila Sridhar Maharaj, Vyasa puja! I was completely melted by the sweetness and the earnestness of our devotees there. Under Sripad Yudhamanyu Prabhu Seva Vikrams guidance, they have created a space for sincere seekers to come and present their questions, honor prasadam and have good association!

Please join us Monday, October 24th, at 6 pm for the Divine Appearance of Srila Guru Maharaj, Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajakacharya varya Astottara sata Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. View invitation

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Man is now living in his most critical moment and it is a crisis of immense dimensions. Either he will die or a new man will be rebornIt is going to be a death and resurrection. Unless human consciousness changes totally man cannot survive. As he is right now he is already outdated. During this period there will be every kind of destruction on Earth including natural catastrophes and man manufactured auto-suicidal efforts. In other words there will be floods which have never been known since the time of Noah, along with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and everything else that is possible through nature. The Earth cannot tolerate this type of mankind any longer. There will be wars which are bound to end in nuclear explosions, hence no ordinary Noahs ark is going to save humanity. The Holocaust is not going to be confined to certain places, it is going to be global so no escape will be possible. You can only escape within and thats what I teach. I do not teach worship of God or any other ritual but only a scientific way of coming to your innermost core. (OSHO (1983))

The mother of all travails is unavoidable. There will be famines, plagues, and global disasters, whether seers have used the gift of true providence to forewarn us of signs of the end times, or have conditioned us to make the end times happen. A tribulation is coming, whether it is the end of the world or the birth pangs of a new age. The year 2012 will come and soon be forgotten in as we advance deeper into a century of revolution and upheaval. The 2010s will pass into the Roaring 2020s that will see unprecedented stress brought to bear on human civilization and Earths ecology. There will be wars, global warming and unrest. By the 2020s there will be billions of young people expecting a better future, but they will be disenfranchised by their own excessive numbers. They will see the job market and the worlds resources collapse. The basics for happiness in life will be denied them. They will not enjoy a good education, or a roof over their head. They will be denied food, water and hope. The young will be prime targets for the harangues and hate mongering of not one but dozens of messianic Hitlers preaching an apocalyptic solution.

If only they could catch a ride on a Rapture cloud if there were one. The more practical person might dig a survivalists ditch and wait out the tribulation to come, but escape may not be possible when the whole world is going to feel the pain of this multifaceted travail. If food runs out during a protracted global famine, the survivalists will be the first doomsday moles rooted out of their holes by the desperate who are rooting out the last of the hoarded supplies.

No one will escape.

You may choose to abandon the rising, flooding coastlines of California for a religiously pure and safe area like the desert town of Sedona, Arizona; but rather than drown from rising oceans, you may desiccate when the potable water in that New Age Mecca runs out.

The coming decades of the early 21st century could see all of us writhing under an Internet of historys first global emergency. No region, no nation and no person on Earth will be exempt from the effects of another persons misuse or overuse of the planet. The next 30 years will endure floods not seen in recorded history if not directly from weather, then from rising coastlines.

Prophets foresee earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and even many scientists predict natural disasters of a scope and magnitude never before encountered. It will be as if the earth were rebelling against a humanity that chooses to remain retarded while it waits for the saviors to fix them.

Nostradamus and other seers have predicted a plague of 70 wars across the world, triggered by the breakdown of water and food resources caused by rampant overpopulation. Many of these wars will end in nuclear explosions and the unleashing of biological and chemical-weapon plagues.

Attempts to escape may not only be futile but also result in a missed opportunity. A major theme promoted by more renegade redeemers those mystics who do not toe the mainstream anti-life and pro-afterlife line of the Second Coming Syndrome is that you cannot escape from yourself. No matter how high the Rapture carries you into the clouds, no matter how many Himalayan mountains you pull over your head to escape the disasters, the problem comes along for the ride.

You are the problem.

And you could be the answer.

The answer to averting the tribulations to come may arise out of each individual understanding and transcending the problem he or she has become.

Individual salvation requires something else entirely, a totally new vector. Whole some continue to wait for rescue in the form of a new ark of a New Jerusalem to mother-ship them out of harms way, there are visions that act like irritating flies dancing on the nose of such deliverance dreams, disturbing their reverie. These visions buzz with images of a travail from which theres no escape. They say that the coming disasters will force all people to stand face to face with a heartbreaking and dream-breaking reality: No saints or saviors are coming to save us from ourselves.

We will have to become our own saviors.

One of the renegade mystics, Osho, believes the next Noahs ark needed to save humanity is a Noahs Ark of Consciousness. It is not a UFO mothership of nebulous construction built for one to wait out the seven years of tribulation behind a comets tail. It isnt a cave city for survivalists. It is a hideaway so secret that youd never guess how close it nudges against where you live even at this moment. It hides right behind the source of your existence.

This safe haven is a place that spiritual survivalists retreat to.

It is the ark of consciousness within each of us.

The pathway to this ark can be found by remaining silent and centered exactly in the middle of the cyclone of the coming times.

MEDITATION: Therapy for Madhouse Earth

While watching the changing world outside and the movement of thoughts and emotions within, I become more aware of a presence that doesnt change. It is impossible to define in words what this is, but I do know that it is always the same presence; that when it comes, it is everywhere and nowhere at once; that nothing Im thinking or feeling can connect with it; that it is so still it doesnt exist and so subtle that at times it is too alive to bear.

I remember first encountering this presence as a child. Then I lost touch with it. The losing was a gradual process called growing up. I experienced it as walling up. Gradually Pink Floyds bricks piled up around me, blocking out the limitless view of the innocent and unnamable wonder that a child feels by just being alive. I was taught to hold on to thoughts and possess emotional expectations; in short, I was given recipes for accepted adult behavior. I painfully learned to live in a world where beauty and the art of being alive are pushed lower and lower on lifes laundry list; I was taught to survive in a culture where cars, money, face-saving at all costs, and manipulation of others are the primary values. I had come into the world as a cosmos and it looked like I would leave the world as a spent commodity.

When it got too much, I got pushed to the edge of a nervous breakthrough. There were only two alternatives: rediscover what I had lost, or lose myself.

How can I tell you about this journey inward to find my self again, without tarnishing it with judgments, dialectics, words?

If I ever greet you beyond the veil of these words, we might find a way to share this mystery called meditation. I will not speak of it, I will sing it to you, dance it; we will hug meditation, we will silent meditation. Our sutras will be giggles. Id rather not use words, but this is the Kali Yuga after all an age that uses the least adequate media to express the deepest truths.

With that said, lets stumble ahead in the darkness of print:

I do not yet know who I am but meditation allows me to often see how I am.

Through understanding the hows of my happiness-sadness-love-and-hate, I observe their rough-and-tumble within me with greater distance. Meditation helps me to watch the movement of my thoughts and emotions. I become more a spectator than a participant in stress, pain, and denial. Through meditation I have been able to uncover the root cause of all my misery: The fear of change, and lurking behind that, the ultimate fear the fear of death. Meditation has helped me observe the mechanics of misery and fear.

Theres a Sufi metaphor about identification. Misery doesnt come to us, we unconsciously seek it out and hold on to it, like flinging our arms around a pillar. As we squeeze tighter we yell, Oh, if I only could be rid of this misery and pain!

This misunderstanding is our choice. As American mystic Adi Da Samraj once remarked, we do misery, we do expectation.

Hell is not a place. We do it.

We do predictability.

We make prophecy work because we are so damned predictable. Caught in the cycles of time and unconsciousness, we have repeated again and again the behaviors that make it easy for the seers to prophesy us unto doomsday.

The crossroads in time where we find ourselves now demands a spiritual rebellion that can prevent us from doing an apocalypse of doom in all dimensions. The first decades of this new century require that a significant number of people get some distance from themselves to see how they tick.

There is a need for a global awareness of how, from the moment we emerge from the womb, we are programmed from birth onwards to imprint concepts that are totally divorced from our deepest natural understanding of life. Only when there are enough people ready to rebel against this ancient circle of programmed misery and predictability can it be broken.

The spiritual rebels will certainly be in the minority. Most of us are bound to avoid encountering the raw revelation that we actually love our misery and hold its pillar fast to our breasts while we wish and wail for a new age. In the coming decade, billions will discover that misery and fear is all they know. But unlike most people, the spiritual rebels will break out of their prison of conditioning and become the new humanity arising out of the rubble of the old.

The spiritual rebels will not pander to the death cults of current religious thought; they will live this life so fully that heaven will exist inside them, not somewhere in the afterworld. They will escape from their jail-keeper called God. And they will slip from the bonds of national identification to become citizens of the world.

Meditation is the method to uncover all the illusions that keep humanity in bondage. It is the only hope this planet has to avoid the collision course so many seers down the centuries have predicted for us. Every misunderstanding and distortion of truth that has blindly dragged us to the brink of the precipice will have to be jettisoned, if we are not to plunge over the edge at the end of this decade.

This is why the emergence of the new breed, Homo novus the true strangers among us, is viewed with suspicion and fear. The priests or the politicians cannot control these people. They do not pray for happiness, they are happiness. In the midst of a suicidal world, their way of life exposes the death wish society must encounter and transcend if it is to survive.

The spiritual rebels are the soul and spirit of the new Golden Age. And meditation is their new science.

My own journey into meditation and spiritual rebellion began from a nasty experience I had as a seven year old, when I moved to a new school in a new neighborhood.

I was in love with the little girl sitting next to me in my second-grade class. When she was moved to another spot in the classroom, I was brokenhearted. The teacher, like many adults I knew then (and now), liked to hide her fears behind a faade of power. She looked as big as her fear, and when she demanded to know what was the matter with me, I didnt speak in words but in pain, and sobbed into my hands. My expression of naked feeling elicited from kids and teacher alike an immediate wave of hostility and derision. For weeks after that event, I was treated with disgust and fear as some kind of thing.

During an atomic air raid drill for World War III so common in the years following the Cuban Missile Crisis I accidentally bumped into the largest kid in the class while groping in the dark classroom for my place to duck and cover myself.

His immediate reaction was to slug me in the stomach.

Crying, doubled over in agony, I asked him why he hit me. Still a kid and not yet completely formed into the proper masked and label-loving adult, he was struck by the blow of my existential question.

I dont know! he blinked, bewildered. Its what dad told me to do. When youre hit, hit back.

That was my first hard lesson in programming.

It got worse. When he and a gang of kids would chase me off the playground every recess with tetherballs and stones, I had to run my little ass into a nearby storm drain trench. As I huddled there, I was forced to face the reality that people were neither sane nor loving; they only pretended to be. The children would forget about me and wander back to the swings and sandboxes, but I could never forget this heartbreaking truth, heartbreaking because it set me apart from people. It made me aware that I am alone.

But no bitter experience is without its sweetness. Crouching in the trench, chin buried in the pungent grass, with tearful, wide eyes gazing at dancing clouds in a silent sky, I also became aware that Nature did not could not reject me. It was more than a friend, it was a beloved. As I became aware of my aloneness, Nature accepted it. Was it.

After that I could not see fear in Nature, only innocence. There is no judgment in Natures stases and catastrophes. It is unnatural man, divided against the Self, who judges them. There is life, death, violence and peace flowing from animals, earth and plants. They dont judge or feel divisions like we do. The rosebush doesnt compare itself to the lotus and commit suicide. In fact, no animal except man commits suicide or indiscriminately slaughters its own kind. We compare, and throw our minds and hearts into the turmoil of division. This division becomes projected onto all of our relationships with other human beings and with the Earth. As we become more and more split off from our fellow humans and from the planet, we create all the conditions that draw us closer to death personal and global.

The insights of my personal apocalypse made it hard for me to buy into all the ways people suppress the natural within and destroy the ecology of Earth with their fearful greed. A new and tender consciousness arose that at the time had no words. Looking back on it years later, I realized it was then I made the commitment that has forever sabotaged my efforts to embrace life as it is socially presented and commonly accepted. That is why I never succeeded in opera or fit with anyones projections and expectations.

I somehow understood in my child-mind that a truly natural, spiritual person would be as silent as that sky, as playful as those eddying clouds, as rich with the fragrance of wisdom as the grass cushioning my chin. A natural human being, like the grass, could not dictate or push his or her fragrance on others but would simply be unable to contain it.

In the intensity of that terrible moment of rejection, Nature showed me how to sniff out an authentic member of the genus Homo novus. These flowers in humanitys manure field would possess the silence of Nature and an equanimity in the face of Natures two polar complementaries destruction and creation. I would instinctively recognize these members of the new human race by their laughter and celebration uncaused, by the gleam of a second and consciously recognized childhood sparking in their eyes. I would know them if their silent gaze and presence were not disturbed by fame or infamy, riches or poverty, life or death. They would remain inwardly blissful, unaffected by lifes vagaries or any attempts by those outside of their silence to abuse and disturb them. The Homo novus would be happy in a palace or in the dirtiest holding cell. And if sadness on rare occasions came to their doors, they would watch it rather than indulge it, until sadness moved on.

I have spent the last sixteen years traveling around the world in search of such men and women. I have found them. They are my criterion for saying you and I are unnatural. They have also showed me in their unique ways that meditation, the science of self-observation, is the only medicine that can cure the insanity we have become and give us back a future.

I do not ask or expect you to believe me. In fact, there is no point in either believing or debunking what Im saying without a sincere and intimate investigation on your own.

I am satisfied with the ongoing process of my own apocalypse. I have met a few members of the genus Homo novus and their fragrance is meditation.

The words meditation and medicine have the same ancient root. One heals the body, the other the soul. If we look from a more occidental angle, the words meditation and mechanic also have the same roots. If you can watch your entire mental-emotional engine without getting caught in its grinding gears, if you can see it as the dispassionate and watchful mechanic, you will then find ways to fix your engine. It will start working for you rather than disturb your ride through life.

I can thank the apocalypse of meditation for pushing me out of an operatic career. Nine months before I had my nervous breakthrough, I became interested in meditation as a way to relieve stress and refresh my body-mind. But I soon found out that meditation was more than a mere exercise in positive thinking or an exercise in creative visualizations to find new and improved love and abundant money and health. Taking twenty minutes a day to watch my breath turned my outward focus in. This turning in did more than slow the heartbeat and ward off high blood pressure of the upwardly mobile professional I had become. It reminded me of childhoods timeless time when trees fall and nobody is there to hear, when flowers grow with nobody there to see, and feelings flow with nobody there to feel. Through watching the simple witnessing of lifes infinite movements I unearthed the pleasure in paradox.

I rediscovered moments when life became poetry again.

When roots of silence sink where I sit so still soaking earth softly. And deep silence dives in skies caught cavorting behind closed eyes.

Meditation started washing my looking with eternitys twinkle. After a few months of practicing simple Zen exercises of watching the breath, I couldnt understand why something so pleasurable and revitalizing wasnt universally practiced. Then a moment came when the new awareness reached deeper into my unconscious and threw a shattering light on my illusions.

It can happen at any moment. Especially if you watch your breath, if you are still, waiting. Something trips the existential switch and the screen of your personal id soap operas blinks out. A void fills the void, wiggling through a brief crack in the noise of the mind. It is the apocalypse of truth breaking the sliding bolt that locks away all the lies from ones sight. It is a thief in the night, stealth-like and silent, a wave, invisible, undermining ones cliff of solid ego.

In one unguarded moment I became transparent. And though the guard of moments the personality instantly returned, I could not completely forget the voids abiding and spacious sky of silence.

For me, this was and is the threshold of meditation. It is as much a death as a delight. Meditations techniques of self-observation showed me my thoughts were no more mine to possess than a wind racing through empty dreams.

At meditations first penetration, I became aware that this John Hogue was a fiction written by many hands none of them my own. A name, a religion, a country, and finally a personality had been applied like bricks, imprisoning the authentic being my mother and father had brought into the world.

Early on, the label bricks were of soft and pliable mud, easy for a child to break free of, but between the ages of seven and fourteen, the bricks turned into unyielding stone. I had become my own memorial statue while still living.

The child seized these brick labels as greedily as he seized the tit. What else could he do? That child needed the grown-ups, and the grown-ups felt they needed to condition him for the coming life of lies and limitations. The child of silence became a gullible youth who listened to societys learned hypocrites the priests of impossible horizons who, save for the noise of their roaring, have never encountered the things they taught: gods, heavens, and hells.

The youth became imprisoned in adulthoods emotional and psychic castle. At the age of twenty-one, meditations taste of disidentification made John aware that his buddha had atrophied. The Enlightened One reduced to enlightened once. Fear had become his bedmate, denial, the sheets.

Like medicines, meditation can be bitter. Initially, it can give you worse pain than the disease itself. Cancer patients would like to escape the only therapies that might possibly save them, but if they chooses to fight for life, painful chemotherapy or radiation will be risked.

After abandoning an operatic career, I began taking risks. I again started asking all those questions children ask and adults avoid. Essential questions: Why am I unhappy? Why do I fear? Who am I?

At first I tried the usual New Age assortment of meditations that heightened psychic powers. After four years of this, I could see auras, read minds, etc. Still, the essential facticity of my being was hidden. While astral traveling I had many fascinating experiences, but they didnt make me any more aware of who was zipping in and out of the astral realms. Who was seeing auras? Who indeed was opening his chakras? Who was reading minds? Who was this mystery that sometimes accurately saw the future?

Whether I am looking at a cup of coffee or seeing my past and future lives, how can any of these experiences be me?

Who, after all, is the watcher?

Frustration led me away from the psychic seeker-sucking game to an exploration of many Eastern techniques of classical meditation such as Yoga and Vipassana which is Buddhas technique of sitting watching the suchness of thoughts and emotions. I also had direct experiences with some new and radical seeds of Eastern meditation set to sprout in the West sometime in the next century.

Over the last decade, I have encountered what in my opinion were many charlatans and also a handful of authentic masters. An account of these spiritual examinations, meditation therapies and teachers would be too vast to describe here. A detailed account will be forthcoming in future books.

Here, on this web page, I can only touch on some of the radically new ideas about meditation that have been introduced in the latter half of this century. For instance, if you fly to the town of Poona, India, just 100 kilometers from the labyrinth city of Mumbai (Bombay), you will encounter the most striking examples of this. Nestled in the town that gave Tantra one of its greatest ancient centers, the birthplace of one of Indias most significant twentieth-century mystics, Meher Baba, is the Ashram (spiritual campus) that used to be known as Osho Commune International and currently goes by the name Osho Meditation Resort.

There you will find the disciples of the late Osho carrying on their masters vision of providing a Club Meditation for the creation of the new humanity. It is a sixty-eight-acre resort of luscious gardens, black granite and marble buildings and pyramids, a strange contrast to the surrounding squalor of a bustling Third World city.

It has undergone many alterations since I first entered its gates back in 1980, when it was known as the Poona Ashram of the notorious sex guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I had gone there two years prior to my longer stay at the Rajneeshee Ranch in Oregon. While the later experiment allowed me the opportunity to sample social experiments in future living, the Poona Ashram offered me a taste of life at the frontiers of the Human Potential Movement.

In Nostradamus and the Millennium (1987), the first volume of my Nostradamus prophecy trilogy (the second and third volumes are Nostradamus, The New Revelations [1994] and Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies [1997]), I examined predictions of Nostradamus regarding the loose fellowship of therapists and meditation movements of the last fifty years known as the Human Potential Movement. Nostradamus pegged this movement as the source of tomorrows spiritual rebellion. I was determined to find out what it was all about. Frankly, when I did, it shocked me. Up until I became acquainted with these new therapy movements, I never knew that screaming, pillow beating, or openly exploring my sexuality in a therapy group could be the beginning of treading an authentic spiritual path. When I first heard about the ashram, I was told they practiced the most cathartic meditation technique in the movement. At first it was called Chaotic Meditation; then the name was changed to Dynamic Meditation. I was about to find out what it was, firsthand.

Osho is famous in meditation circles for his controversial claim that we moderns, particularly the Westernized variety, are the most restless and neurotic human who have ever existed. With enough forceful discipline, we may be able to keep our body still, but we cannot still our minds. Vipassana, Yoga, and all the rest of the 112 techniques from the East are made for simpler people of more innocent and less complex times.

Before sitting in silence can happen, the accumulation of stress, anger, and repression packed away behind modern peoples happy-face masks has to be creatively and safely expressed. Osho claimed to have a meditation technique that, if practiced all over the world every morning, could be used as a release valve for all the pent-up collective angers that periodically erupt in a binge of global slaughter what Ive coined as the will to catharsis.

The meditation has five sections and is done to especially composed music by the New Age composer Deuter as conceived by Osho. During the first part, of ten minutes duration, you breathe rapidly, chaotically and deeply through the nose. This is supposed to build up the energy that can help you release the flame of pent-up repressions.

Then, at the sound of a gong, the music changes into waves of sonic wildness. For the second ten minutes you are to undergo catharsis, release emotions, anger, gibberish, fear, rage, madness whatever comes up. You are to dance it, shake it, scream it, sing it, but you are absolutely not allowed to hurt others in the hall.

The third gong brings on a ten-minute hop of heaven-hell. You stop releasing emotions [or stop undergoing catharsis] and reach your arms straight over your head and jump to the pulsing synthesizers and drums. Every time your feet hit the ground you yell Hoo! with all youve got, as if it meant life or death. This is a variation of a Sufi technique designed to bring your energies up out of your sex center and take them through the rest of your body.

At the last hop and Hoo! the pre-recorded voice of Osho yelling Stop! cuts the music like splitting a thunderbolt. You then freeze in place like a statue for fifteen minutes and watch within.

Finally, there is fifteen minutes of dancing and celebrating.

The first three sections are consciously constructed to completely exhaust you. In this way, Oshos techniques are similar to those of George Gurdjieff and the meditation schools of central Asia who believe that man had deeper and deeper layers of energy second winds, if you will that first have to be expended before real meditation can happen. The more total your exhaustion, the deeper the plunge within your being.

Many mystics, past and present, say that only when one reaches a crisis can an authentic spiritual journey begin. A state of extreme urgency is a must. Totality is the ultimate credential. Only when the inner search becomes a life-and-death issue can the tension be brought to the breaking point and send you into an altered state of deep relaxation.

Dynamic Meditation uses the first three sections to prepare you for the state of dispassionate witnessing that is the final preparation for meditation. The rapid breathing brings up the repressed tensions; the catharsis stage then activates a good spiritual vomit; the hopping nearly exhausts you, bringing the body to the limit of its endurance, and then you can fall into an altered state a meditators version of a runners high, so to speak.

My understanding of meditation techniques is that they relax you into witnessing. These techniques themselves, however, are not true meditation, nor are all those so-called spiritual experiences one has through being still and silent. Meditation is not an experience. Meditation is not a thing one does to get something, but it does seem that some preparation for meditation is needed. The silent witnessing of meditation only blossoms from the waiting, the allowing, the parking of the body-mind, the deep relaxation without a goal or expectations, because to have goals and expectations is to be tense.

Back in 1980 when Dynamic Meditation was first described to me, it was enough to stir a volcano of rage and fear underneath my spiritual faade. The night before doing my first Dynamic Mediation was one of the darkest in my life. I experienced the essence behind the terrible words of St. Johns prophecy about people trying to pull the mountains over themselves to escape facing the revelation of truth. That night moments passed like the peeling of skin. I tossed and turned, then ran to the bathroom and saw the puffy face and slit eyes of a man stunned by his own terror.

I never felt so stuck. I could not go back and I did not want to go forward into the unknown that a cathartic meditation would reveal. I writhed about in the damp fishing net of my bed covers in a tropical-fever night, cursing myself, Osho, meditation, and all the mystics that disturb peoples sleep.

I could sense that if I went too far with this meditation experiment I would reach a point when I could no longer return to that deep sleep. I tell you, reader: since my experience of that night I see a terrible revelation about everyone we dont want to wake up. We dont want happiness, we dont want real freedom because to attain it we must confront all that is false in us, chaining us down. To be a meditator is to be mother to the birth of our own inner child. The master or the meditation technique is the midwife. They can help, they can hold your hand, they can indicate what you have to do, but the pain of giving birth to yourself is encountered alone. No one else feels the contractions of your womb like you do.

When 6 a.m. came, I somehow managed to drag myself out under the wide, wall-less dome of the meditation hall. There I mingled with several hundred groggy meditators. We blew our noses and blindfolded ourselves, digging bare feet into the cold cement floor. All braced themselves for the first gong, which would strip the predawn air of its silence with Deuters apocalyptic muzak.

At the sound of the gong, the knotted rubber band of my pent-up terrors released its prop and off went my model-plane personality into the predawn darkness.

By the end of the third stage of dynamic, if I had any ambition for nirvana left, the hopping and hooing was squeezing it to the relaxing point. When the recorded blast of STOP! cut the sweaty air, I froze-fell to the cold floor. For fifteen minutes, I became a stillness floating on the waves of a gasping-for-breath too tired to think, too cleaned by catharsis to be afraid.

What can I say to you about this heap of John Hogue lying on the cement floor? What words can convey the down-down-down, deeper-deeper-deeper he had become for those eternal minutes?

Clear, because nothing obstructs.Soundless, because it has no end of depth.No bottom for the sounding,No surface for the sounder.IT looking without eyes and dying

without death.A cloud of darkness, I gave my self in rains,Letting fall showers of sorrow,Until a burning sky of joy remains.

The delicate notes of the flute heralding the final stage of Dynamic Meditation brought the first awareness of that inner sky to me. Drained limbs made an effort to move, twitching like a fresh corpse. The music caressed more movements out of my still pool of exhaustion until I was able to lift my heavy, blindfolded head. At that moment, I was drowned in an explosion of white light as bracing as a cold mountain stream. The light took me up in its embrace. Where one exhausted man lay a moment before, there appeared a dancing fool.

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Noahs Ark Of Consciousness - HogueProphecy.com

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Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

There are many ways to embrace vegan living. Yet one thing all vegans have in common isa plant-based diet avoiding all animal foods such as meat (including fish, shellfish and insects), dairy, eggs and honey - as well as products like leather and any tested on animals.

Although the vegan diet was defined early on in The Vegan Society's beginnings in 1944, it was as late as 1949 before Leslie J Cross pointed out that the society lacked a definition of veganism. He suggested [t]he principle of the emancipation of animals from exploitation by man. This is later clarified as to seek an end to the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection, and by all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man.

When The Vegan Society became a registered charity in 1979, the Memorandum and Articles of Association updated the definition of veganism as:

"A philosophy and way of living which seeks to excludeas far as is possible and practicableall forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

To read more on the history of veganism, see here.

A great deal - you'll soon find a whole new world of exciting foods and flavours opening up to you. A vegan diet is richly diverse and comprises all kinds of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, beans and pulses - all of which can be prepared in endless combinations that will ensure you're never bored. From curry to cake, pasties to pizzas, all your favourite things can be suitable for a vegan diet if they're made with plant-based ingredients. Check out our vegan recipes for ideas.

Vegans avoid exploiting animals for any purpose, with compassion being a key reason many choose a vegan lifestyle. From accessories and clothing to makeup and bathroom items, animal products and products tested on animals are found in more places than you might expect. Fortunately nowadays there are affordable and easily-sourced alternatives to just about everything. With over 22,000 products and services registered with our Vegan Trademark alone, living a vegan lifestyle has never been easier. Browse online today.

Currently all medicine in the UK must be tested on animals before it is deemed safe for human use, but please note: The Vegan Society DOES NOT recommend you avoid medication prescribed to you by your doctor - a dead vegan is no good to anyone! What you can do is ask your GP or pharmacist to provide you, if possible, with medication that does not contain animal products such as gelatine or lactose. For more information visit the website http://www.medicines.org.uk, which contains information on medicines prescribed in the UK, including ingredients lists.

If you're a medical charity supporter you may wish to check whether your chosen charity performs tests on animals. There are many charities that don't currently conduct animal tests and many vegans prefer donating to charities that actively seek alternative methods of testing.

Vegans choose not to support animal exploitation in any form and so avoid visiting zoos or aquariums, or taking part in dog or horse racing. A great alternative is visiting and supporting animal sanctuaries that provide safe and loving homes for rescued animals.

Want to find out more about the vegan lifestyle? Sign up to the free Vegan Pledge today. There are hundreds of thousands of vegans across the globe - with you, we're that much stronger.

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Definition of veganism | The Vegan Society

Yoga is not just a form of exercise as people know it but it is much more than that. Yoga can not only make your body and mind fit but can also help you progress spiritually. In fact, you can achieve salvation i.e. freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth through Yoga. Generally by the term Yoga, people mean the asanas only. Actually, these asanas are called as Yogasana. In fact, the word Yoga comprises of Yoga, meditation, Pranayama, Yama, and Niyama collectively.

What is Yoga?

Yoga is the union of spirit, mind, and body. The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit word yeung, which means to join. A yoke as used on oxen is closely related, but also the same root gives us join, junction, junta, adjust, joust, and juxapose to name a few.

Yoga exercises consists of a set of exercises (Asanas) which put main emphasis on stretching and strengthening.

History of Yoga:

It is believed that history of yoga dates back to 2500 B.C. i.e. nearly 5000 years. Actually, it seems that Yoga existed before that also. About 5000 years ago, Yogi Patanjali documented it in a systematic manner. During excavation of Indus Valley Civilization sites, several seals had been found depicting figures resembling to Yoga and meditation asanas. You would find many Hindu deities such as Shiva, Kartikeya, etc. depicted as in deep meditation. Buddha is always shown in sculptures and images as doing meditation.

Types of Yoga:

Hatha Yoga: This is the most popular variety of yoga and one that has been commonly taught for years. So what is yoga for them? For them it is perfecting the mind by way of perfecting the body.

With this technique, many asanas or postures, breathing techniques and meditations are used.

Ashtanga Yoga: This yoga is another popular type. They are much faster than the other schools. For them yoga can be considered as a type of aerobic yoga for they instill quick and smooth transitions between poses.

Kundalini Yoga: This school is focused on awakening and focusing what is known as Kundalini energy. Kundalini energy is most easily compared to life energy that lies dormant in our body. It is commonly represented by a coiled snake.

Mantra Yoga: This type of yoga is focused on calming the mind and body through the usage of words and sounds. The well known Om chant is commonly heard in this school.

Tantra Yoga: This type of school is well known by way of its focus on sexual spirituality.

They also focus on Kundalini energy, although their intent for awakening it is much different from the Kundalini practice.

Bikram Yoga: These types of yoga are also known as the hot yoga for this is done in a very warm room. These types of yoga are excellent tools for increasing flexibility because the heat helps tissue to stretch.

Christian Yoga: Christian yoga is a spiritual practice of Christians most common in Eastern and Western Countries.

Naked Yoga: This type of yoga is done without clothes as some people are not comfortable with clothes while doing Yoga.

Power Yoga: Power Yoga is a western version of Hindu yoga. It emphasizes on movements rather than on stretching.

Iyengar Yoga: Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar has masterminded the techniques in yoga, which are collectively known as Iyengar Yoga.

Benefits of Yoga:

The reason why most people do yoga is that it makes them feel better and in shape. The different poses and postures make their body healthy. Yoga for most is the best way to relax and unwind. If you want to keep your body in shape, this might be the best exercise for you.

Yoga is extremely beneficial in many diseases. Doctors all over the world prescribe Yoga as a remedial assistance in many diseases. There had been researches which proved that yoga helps you to control anxiety, reduces asthma, depression, arthritis, blood pressure, back pain, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, epilepsy, diabetes, headaches, stress and many more.

Yoga has a lot of benefits and advantages. All in a days work, it can reduce tension and stress. If you do yoga, your self esteem will be higher. It is important to gain more confidence inside and out so that you can face people with no worries.

Yoga is good for the body in increasing your muscle tone, strength, stamina and flexibility. If you are too fat and conscious about your body figure, yoga can help you lower your fat and keep your body in shape. Yoga exercises can burn excess fat and give you the desired figure that you want.

If you need time to relax and forget your responsibilities, yoga will be good to improve your concentration and enhance your creativity. Yoga helps you to think more positively away from all anxieties. If you have a fresh mind, you can think of good things and apply it easily.

Your body needs to relax once in a while. Sometimes, work can leave us wasted and exhausted. During the heavy days, we may not find time to unwind because work is still on our tail. Yoga can help you create a sense of calmness and well being.

Yoga exercise helps you improve a good circulation. Your organs and veins need to be exercised for it to function properly. Yoga can help stimulate your immune system and keep diseases away from you. If you have a good immune system, you can be sure that you are free from sickness.

Some people do yoga to be enlightened. They believe that yoga will help them bring up their spirit and keep them relieved. Yoga works differently for people be it spiritual, emotional, psychological, mental and physical.

People think that yoga is only for spiritual people but that belief is wrong. Even if you are not that religious, you can do yoga. You will see and feel the difference at the same time find out how it works for you.

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Yoga | Hinduism Facts | Facts about Hindu Religion

Located in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Be Yoga Studios offers three separate studios. In one studio we will offer hot yoga classes, non-heated classes in another, and barre and aerial yoga in the third studio. The hot studio will be heated to right around 90 degrees, allowing your muscles to release faster. It also aids in the detoxification of your body by promoting sweating. In faster paced classes the heat increases the heart rate and makes your body work harder, so youre getting an intense workout, too. The heat is also believed to improve breathing, focus the mind and help the body relax. However, if you believe the heat just isnt for you, we do offer classes in a non-heated studio as well. The studio is newly built with state of the art heating and cooling systems, floors specifically designed for yoga to aid in traction and provide cushioning, and a soothing and inviting atmosphere we are sure youll enjoy. We offer a variety of yoga classes ranging from Restorative and Gentle Yoga toSlow Flow and VitalityVinyasa Flow I & II. Weve also added Aerial Yoga, Barre and Pilates to our schedule. Take a look at our schedule and class descriptions to to finda class thats right for you. It is our goal to have you leave feeling aware but relaxed and renewed with a sense of clarity able to look at things with a broader perspective and a brighter outlook. Be Open, Be Mindful, Be Strong, BE YOGA!

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