Personal success is achievable for anyone who practices the four keys to success and I believe that you will change your life for the better. Everyone wants personal success and to learn the keys to success. Everyone wants to have a happy, healthy life, do meaningful work, and achieve financial independence. Everyone wants to make a difference in the world, to be significant, to have a positive impact on those around him or her. Everyone wants to do something wonderful with his or her life.

Over and over, I have found that the keys to success are a single piece of information, a single idea at the right time, in the right situation, and change your life. I have also learned that the great truths are simple.

Luckily for most of us, personal success is not a matter of background, intelligence, or native ability. Its not our family, friends, or contacts who enable us to do extraordinary things. Instead, the keys to success are our ability to get the very best out of ourselves under almost all conditions and circumstances. It is your ability to adapt and change your life.

You have within you, right now, deep reserves of potential and ability that, if properly harnessed and channeled, will enable you to accomplish extraordinary things with your life. Get my FREE report Roots of Resilience and develop your ability to overcome difficulties, adversities, obstacles and setbacks.

The great keys to success to change your life have always been the same.

This formula is your key to success and has worked for almost everyone who has ever tried it. It will require the very most you can give and the best qualities you can develop. In developing and following these keys to personal success, you will evolve and grow to become an extraordinary person.

You will not live long enough to figure it all out for yourself. And what a waste it would be to try, when you can learn from others who have gone before. Ben Franklin once said, Men can either buy their wisdom or they can borrow it from others. The great tragedy is that most men prefer to buy it, to pay full price in terms of time and treasure.

Your greatest goal in life and in personal success should be to acquire as many of them as possible and then use them to help you do the things you want to do and become the person you want to become.

You will change your life by achieving just one important goal, you create a pattern, a template for personal success in your subconscious mind. You will change your life and be automatically directed, and driven toward repeating that success in other things that you attempt.

By overcoming adversity and achieving one great goal in any area, you will program yourself for success in other areas as well. In other words, you learn to succeed by succeeding. The more you achieve, the more you can achieve. Each of the keys to success, especially the first one, builds your confidence and belief that you will be successful next time and achieve ultimate personal success.

More:
Personal Success 4 Life Changing Tips | Brian Tracy

Integral Enlightenment with Craig Hamilton

Discover the life-changing teaching of Integral Enlightenment with originator and teacher Craig Hamilton. Through a range of intensive, live-virtual courses, Craig imparts the basic meditative, contemplative and engaged life transformative practices of Integral Enlightenment. > Learn More

A free audio seminar hosted by Craig Hamilton, presenting dialogues with todays foremost evolutionary thinkers, philosophers, and cutting-edge spiritual teachers. > Learn More

Join Integral Enlightenment Founder Craig Hamilton for an in-depth look at the core shifts that have the power to propel us beyond the confines of the separate ego and into a life of wholehearted, liberated engagement with the evolutionary process. > Learn More

A live-virtual 9-week intensive introduction to the principles and practices of Integral Enlightenment, consisting of live teachings, question and answer sessions, group and individual exercises and take-away practices, supported by an exclusive online support community for all participants. > Learn More

For graduates of the 9-week course, the goal of this 9-month intensive course is to deeply cultivate and foster lasting change in the lives of all participants. Through deep inquiry and the applied practices of Integral Enlightenment, the full potential of both the individual and the collective is revealed, cultivated and affirmed.

An ongoing advanced graduate community providing a powerful, sustained structure to support authentic and lasting transformation. Graduates receive direct teaching, coaching and guidance and participate in shared inquiry, applied learning, mentorship, and yearly live community retreats.

Terry Patten presents his complete introduction to integral spiritual practice, in this online 8-session course. Consisting of audio and video, in-depth meditation instruction and contemplation exercises, physical practices and a dedicated online support community for all participants, I.S.P. is the worlds first and foremost online training in integral spiritual practice.

Hosted by pioneering teacher of integral spiritual practice, Terry Patten, this free audio seminar features over 30 of todays pre-eminent spiritual teachers, bridging many continents and cultures, in an extended exploration of the future of spiritual practice. > Learn More

Terry Patten presents his complete introduction to integral spiritual practice in this 8-week online course. Consisting of audio, video, written and fully illustrated materials, in-depth meditation instruction and contemplation exercises, physical practices and a dedicated online support community for all participants, I.S.P. is the worlds first and foremost online training in integral spiritual practice. > Learn More

See the original post:
Evolving Wisdom - Integral and Evolutionary Spirituality

Both graduates from four-year colleges and those who did not attend college believe that, on average, a bachelor's degree makes a difference of $20,000 in yearly earnings, according to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey on whether college is worth the cost. U.S. Census Bureau data shows these estimates are pretty accurate--the median earning gap between a high school grad and a college grad in 2010 was $19,500.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that college pays off, reporting that as the level of education increases, earnings increase and the unemployment rate decreases. Workers with high school diplomas earned 2010 median weekly wages of $626. Those with associate degrees earned 22 percent more; bachelor's degree holders netted 66 percent more; and workers with master's degrees earned more than twice as much as those with high school diplomas.

By 2018, research from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) predicts the U.S. will need 22 million new college degree holders to fill available jobs. The CEW predicts we will miss the mark by at least 3 million post-secondary degrees, associate or higher. Why? The percentage of Americans who have a post-secondary degree has remained relatively unchanged for the last 40 years, says the Lumina Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to positive post-secondary educational outcomes.

If education does pay off and the country desperately needs an educated workforce, what seems to be the problem? Cost, says the Pew survey; in the 18 to 34 age group, two-thirds of those not attending college identified having to support a family as the main reason, with 48 percent saying they can't afford to go to college.

Between 1985 and 2010, inflation in the U.S. increased by 107.05 percent while college tuition increased by 466.8 percent, according to Gordon H. Wadsworth, author of Cost Effective College. How are students paying for education? They take out student education loans--to the tune of nearly $1 trillion nationally, according to an MSNBC article in December 2010.

"Online education presents a financially viable solution to increasing access to post-secondary education" reports the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in 25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College. According to the report, online education can help improve post-secondary education in three main ways:

According to a 2009 report by The Sloan Consortium, "online enrollments have continued to grow at rates far in excess of the total higher education student population, with the most recent data demonstrating no signs of slowing." Look into the opportunities available to you through the online college education revolution.

Read the rest here:
Online Schools & Colleges - Online - Online-Education.net

Educational technology is the effective use of technological tools in learning. As a concept, it concerns an array of tools, such as media, machines and networking hardware, as well as considering underlying theoretical perspectives for their effective application.[1][2]

Educational technology is not restricted to high technology.[3] Nonetheless, electronic educational technology, also called e-learning, has become an important part of society today, comprising an extensive array of digitization approaches, components and delivery methods.[4] For example, m-learning emphasizes mobility, but is otherwise indistinguishable in principle from educational technology.[5]

Educational technology includes numerous types of media that deliver text, audio, images, animation, and streaming video, and includes technology applications and processes such as audio or video tape, satellite TV, CD-ROM, and computer-based learning, as well as local intranet/extranet and web-based learning. Information and communication systems, whether free-standing or based on either local networks or the Internet in networked learning, underlie many e-learning processes.[6]

Theoretical perspectives and scientific testing influence instructional design. The application of theories of human behavior to educational technology derives input from instructional theory, learning theory, educational psychology, media psychology and human performance technology.

Educational technology and e-learning can occur in or out of the classroom. It can be self-paced, asynchronous learning or may be instructor-led, synchronous learning. It is suited to distance learning and in conjunction with face-to-face teaching, which is termed blended learning. Educational technology is used by learners and educators in homes, schools (both K-12 and higher education), businesses, and other settings.

Richey defined educational technology as "the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources".[1] The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) denoted instructional technology as "the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning."[2][7][8] As such, educational technology refers to all valid and reliable applied education science, such as equipment, as well as processes and procedures, that are derived from scientific research, and in a given context may refer to theoretical, algorithmic or heuristic processes: it does not necessarily imply physical technology.

Educational technology refers to the use of both physical hardware and educational theoretics. It encompasses several domains, including learning theory, computer-based training, online learning, and, where mobile technologies are used, m-learning. Accordingly, there are several discrete aspects to describing the intellectual and technical development of educational technology:

Educational technology is an inclusive term for the tools and the theoretical foundations for supporting learning and teaching. Educational technology is not restricted to high technology.[3]

However, modern electronic educational technology is an important part of society today.[4] Educational technology encompasses e-learning, instructional technology, information and communication technology (ICT) in education, EdTech, learning technology, multimedia learning, technology-enhanced learning (TEL), computer-based instruction (CBI), computer managed instruction, computer-based training (CBT), computer-assisted instruction or computer-aided instruction (CAI),[9] internet-based training (IBT), flexible learning, web-based training (WBT), online education, digital educational collaboration, distributed learning, computer-mediated communication, cyber-learning, and multi-modal instruction, virtual education, personal learning environments, networked learning, virtual learning environments (VLE) (which are also called learning platforms), m-learning, and digital education.

Each of these numerous terms has had its advocates, who point up particular potential distinctions. However, these descriptive terms individually emphasize a particular digitization approach, component or delivery method.[5] For example, m-learning emphasizes mobility, but is otherwise indistinguishable in principle from educational technology. In practice, as technology has advanced, the particular "narrowly defined" aspect that was initially emphasized by name has blended into the general field of educational technology.[5] For example, "virtual learning" in a narrowly defined semantic sense implies entering the environmental simulation within a virtual world,[10][11] for example in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).[12][13] In practice, a "virtual education course" refers to any instructional course in which all, or at least a significant portion, is delivered by the Internet. "Virtual" is used in that broader way to describe a course that is not taught in a classroom face-to-face but through a substitute mode that can conceptually be associated "virtually" with classroom teaching, which means that people do not have to go to the physical classroom to learn. Accordingly, virtual education refers to a form of distance learning in which course content is delivered by various methods such as course management applications, multimedia resources, and videoconferencing.[14]

Follow this link:
Educational technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Westerners have been fascinated with Indian culture since the time of Alexander the Great, who tried to convince a yogi to become his spiritual counselor. In the 1960s, the Beatles contact with meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar sparked an early wave of modern popular interest that has yet to crest. These days, its not unusual to find people who want to spend their precious vacation time deepening their spiritual practiceand what better place to do so than at an ashram?

Visiting an ashram is more doable than it was in years past, and the ashram s themselves have worked to make the experience more attractive, offering workshops, seminars, and special events. Indeed, many of these temples of devotion and asceticism have taken on a whole new aura as travel destinations.

If youre considering an ashram stay, its worth noting that ashrams tend to have a distinctive rhythm and protocol. For one thing, while some have stricter rules than others, most still have mandatory daily schedules, often requiring you to rise before dawn. If you are fairly new to yoga, a day consisting of four compulsory yoga and meditation sessions could be overwhelming. Also, visitors are often asked to practice karma yoga (selfless service) by contributing to the upkeep of the facilityin the form of kitchen duties, gardening, cleaning, and other chores. In short, you should be comfortable with communal living to fully enjoy and benefit from the ashram experience.

A few tips: Most ashrams serve only vegetarian or vegan food; alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco are not permitted. Dont try sneaking in a bottle of Chiantiyoull be asked to leave if the contraband is discovered. Guests typically stay in dormitories with shared bathrooms. Modest dress is usually required at all times; shorts, short skirts, leggings, and sleeveless or sheer tops are not appropriate ashram attire. Instead, pack loose pants and a short-sleeved shirt for your practice.

The ashrams listed below are all in North America, and each has its own merits. To find the right one for you, be sure to visit each centers Web site and study its daily schedule before you go.

Mount Madonna Center Watsonville, California

The Mount Madonna Center is located on 355 acres of meadows and redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, with views of Monterey Bay. It is inspired by the teachings of Baba Hari Dass and sponsored by the Hanuman Fellowship, a community designed to nurture the creative arts and the health sciences within a context of personal and spiritual growth. The primary goal here is to attain peace. Community life is guided by the spiritual discipline of Ashtanga Yoga and karma yoga. The center hosts both personal and group retreats; weekend programs with visiting teachers are offered throughout the year. When not in yoga class, guests can hike, swim, relax in a hot tub, and play tennis, volleyball, and basketball. The on-site Kaya Kalpa Wellness Center provides massage, Ayurvedic treatments, facials, and acupuncture.

Lowdown: The center hosts nearly a hundred workshops, seminars, and intensives each year, attracting top teachers such as Jack Kornfield, Reb Anderson, Judith Lasater, and James Baraz.

More Information: mountmadonna.org

Continue reading here:
Visit Your First Ashram - Yoga Journal

Charles Darwin and other early evolutionists were fascinated by religious phenomena and how they might be explained from an evolutionary perspective. Nevertheless, evolutionary theory became restricted to the biological sciences and excluded from the study of many human-related subjects for most of the 20th century. Only now is the theory being used to explain all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life. The new field of evolutionary religious studies is part of this larger trend.

This website provides an introduction to the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. It includes the following features:

Please visit the EvoS web site for a more general introduction to evolution in relation to human affairs.

This website is funded by a TARP (Templeton Advanced Research Program) grant from the John Templeton Foundation, which is administred by the Metanexus Institute. It is directed by an evolutionist (David Sloan Wilson) and a religious scholar (William Scott Green), with the help of a diverse advisory board. Evolutionary theory includes a number of major hypotheses about religion that must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Our goal is for this website to reflect the full diversity of approaches within the field of evolutionary religious studies.

For questions and comments, contact the program director, David Sloan Wilson.

See more here:
evolutionary studies of religion - Binghamton University

BUDDHIST KARMA

"I am the owner of my karma . I inherit my karma. I am born of my karma. I am related to my karma. I live supported by my karma. Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit." The Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya V.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutta

The Sanskrit word Karma (or kamma in Pali) literally means action. In Buddhism however, karma mainly refers to one's intention or motivation while doing an action. The Buddha said:

It is volition that I call karma; for having willed, one acts by body, speech, and mind. AN 3:415, from In the Buddhas Words, p. 146.

(In the west, the word karma is often used for the results of karma; the Sanskrit words for the effects or results of karma are 'vipaka' or 'phala'. )

The shortest explanation of karma that I know is: 'you get what you give'. In other words; whatever you do intentionally to others, a similar thing will happen to yourself in the future. Causing suffering to others will cause suffering to ourselves, causing happiness to others will result in happiness for oneself.

Perhaps our biggest to understanding or even believing in karma may be time. The 're-actions' or results of our actions usually show up with a big time delay, and it becomes extremely hard to tell which action caused which result. Actions done in a previous life can create results in this life, but who can remember their past life, and who can tell exaclty which action caused which result? For ordinary humans, the mechanisms of karma can be intellectually understood to some extent, but never completely "seen".

The idea behind karma is not only found in Buddhism and Hinduism; it seems that the Bible certainly conveys the same essence. although here God is the medium that links actions to their results:

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows. (Gal. 6:7)

Read the original here:
Karma - View on Buddhism

What is Zen?

by Derek Lin

"Zen" is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character "chan," which is in turn the Chinese translation from the Indian Sanskrit term "dhyana," which means meditation.

Zen, like Tao, cannot be totally explained in words. Much of your grasp of Zen must necessarily depend on your own intuition. Bodhidharma (528 A.D.) had this to say about it:

Not dependent on the written word, Transmission apart from the scriptures; Directly pointing at ones heart, Seeing ones nature, becoming Buddha.

Given thats the case, the closest we can come to describing Zen in words may be as follows:

Paradox is a part of Zen and the teaching of Zen. A paradox nudges your mind into a direction other than the routine. It helps you disengage the rational mind and free up the intuition. It also points to a truth that cannot be rationally derived through the use of logic. Therefore:

It's easy for some to dismiss Zen as a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, devoid of real meaning. These would be the people who aren't yet ready to move up to this particular level of spiritual development. That's alright. Such things should not and indeed cannot be rushed. Michael Valentine Smith, the main character from Stranger in a Strange Land, would say that one must "wait for fullness" and that "waiting is."

Read the rest here:
What is Zen - Taoism .net

The German-born and Vancouver-residing 60-year-old "spiritual teacher" and author has captured the imaginations of a whole host of celebrities since the publication of his first book, The Power of Now, which has since been translated into 33 languages. When in June 2007 Paris Hilton walked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in California, where she served a short sentence for a driving offence, she was clutching one copy of the Bible and one copy of The Power of Now; the former X-Files actress Gillian Anderson chose The Power of Now as her other book (apart from the Bible) on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and Jeff Goldblum, the actor and fully paid-up member of LA spiritualistic nonsense, is a fan.

"I think he's truly exceptional," says Annie Lennox, another devotee, who also chose The Power of Now as her Desert Island Book. "But in saying that it's almost like I'm putting some kind of label on him, which could be misleading. Perhaps what I should say is that there are many people claiming to be teachers, coaches, guides and gurus, but he has some kind of special quality that I've never encountered before."

But Tolle's most influential celebrity supporter is Oprah Winfrey, whose endorsement of his latest book, A New Earth, on her book club, shifted copies faster than any other of her previous 60 book picks; 3.5 million copies were shipped from Amazon in the month after Tolle was selected.

It now tops bestseller lists across America with The Power of Now not far behind. In The New York Times, A New Earth is at number one in the mega-selling "Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous" section; The Power of Now is at number two.

But Oprah went further with Eckhart Tolle than she has ever gone with a previous author picked for her book club. She chose to present, with Tolle, a 10-week series of "webinars" online seminars with one chapter of the book (which she puts on the bedside table of all of her guest rooms) discussed each week. In the first webinar, transmitted on 3 March, Tolle led Winfrey and the millions of viewers who logged on in several different countries in silent meditation; viewers were then encouraged to submit questions to Tolle via Skype. By the third week, 11 million people were logging on.

"My favourite quote is in the first chapter," says Winfrey during one of these webinars. "Man made God in his own image. The eternal, the infinite and the unnameable reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as my God or your God."

Confused? Most of Christian America seems to be. On an episode of her chat show, Oprah mused that Jesus "cannot possibly be the only way to God". Accusations immediately flew that Winfrey, who grew up a member of the Baptist Church, had rejected Jesus in favour of the New Age "hocus-pocus" of Eckhart Tolle.

"So sad, so tragic," complained jesus-is-saviour.com. "Oprah has in effect denied the teachings of the Bible and of Jesus Christ by asking her viewing audience, 'How can there be only one way to heaven or to God?'" reflected christiannewswire.com.

Tolle's theories are certainly seen by many as profoundly non-Christian, even though Tolle often quotes from the Bible. His idea is that our true selves are the formless Consciousness, which is Being, which is God. We are all One, and thus we are all God.

Strong stuff. But it all begs the question: just who is Eckhart Tolle? And what, exactly, is he up to?

Read the original here:
Eckhart Tolle: This man could change your life - Profiles ...

Here is a basic introduction to Buddhism.

Buddhism is a religion based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived about 25 centuries ago in what is now Nepal and northern India. He came to be called "the Buddha," which means "awakened one," after he experienced a profound realization of the nature of life, death and existence. In English, the Buddha was said to be enlightened, although in Sanskrit it is bodhi, "awakened."

In the remaining years of his life, the Buddha traveled and taught. However, he didn't teach people what he had realized when he became enlightened. Instead, he taught people how to realize enlightenment for themselves. He taught that awakening comes through one's own direct experience, not through beliefs and dogmas.

In the centuries following the Buddha's life, Buddhism spread throughout Asia to become one of the dominant religions of the continent. Estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world today vary widely, in part because many Asians observe more than one religion, and in part because it is hard to know how many people are practicing Buddhism in Communist nations like China. The most common estimate is 350 million, which makes Buddhism the fourth largest of the world's religions.

Read More: The Life of the Buddha Read More: What's a Buddha?

Buddhism is so different from other religions that some people question whether it is a religion at all.

For example, the central focus of most religions is God, or gods. But Buddhism is non-theistic. The Buddha taught that believing in gods was not useful for those seeking to realize enlightenment.

Read More: Buddhism: Philosophy or Religion? Read More: Atheism and Devotion in Buddhism Read More:Are There Gods in Buddhism?

Most religions are defined by their beliefs. But in Buddhism, merely believing in doctrines is beside the point. The Buddha said that we should not accept doctrines just because we read them in scripture or are taught them by priests.

Instead of teaching doctrines to be memorized and believed, the Buddha taught how we can realize truth for ourselves. The focus of Buddhism is on practice rather than belief. The major outline of Buddhist practice is the Eightfold Path.

Go here to see the original:
Buddhism Basic Beliefs and Teachings - About