Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKLrLCYrkfg

Psychic and Spiritual Development: The Mystic Science of Raja Yoga - Class 7
Over the next several weeks we will examine the Psychic and Spiritual Development techniques as specified by the ancient mystic science of Raja Yoga. This ancient form of Raja yoga is known...

By: Mystic Knowledge

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Psychic and Spiritual Development: The Mystic Science of Raja Yoga - Class 7 - Video

By Margot Peppers

Published: 14:00 EST, 2 June 2014 | Updated: 14:00 EST, 2 June 2014

A woman who turned to yoga to cope with her divorce is hoping to help others going through similar experiences with her new yoga classes.

New Yorker Lisa Kirchner, 47, was living in Qatar with her husband when they decided to get a divorce in 2006. Since the local gym had limited 'women-only' hours, she resorted to taking Ashtanga yoga classes - with surprisingly successful results.

'I started a yoga practice and I began to get massively better,' Ms Kirchner told DNA Info. 'I was getting relief after the divorce in a way that I hadn't felt in a long time - and I never expected it.'

Moving forward: New Yorker Lisa Kirchner, 47, has launched a series of classes called Yoga for Getting Over It, with special poses to help people overcome traumatic events like a divorce or a job loss

Now, she has launched a $50 two-hour class called Yoga for Getting Over It, with the hope of teaching others how to move forward with special yoga positions.

The first class took place at the Mind and Body Studio at Chelsea Piers on Saturday, and she plans to teach more nationwide in the near future.

Not only does the workout provide respite from the stress and angst that come with emotional events, but Ms Kirchners claims that certain yoga poses can even target particular issues.

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Yoga classes designed to help people 'get over' emotional trauma

Yoga Journal's 2012 "Yoga in America" study estimated that 20.4 million Americans practice yoga. Of those, 82 percent are women and 63 percent fall between the ages of 18 and 44.

In the past decade, it's been amazing to watch the yoga community in Charleston grow and evolve, offering an array of studios, styles and instructors.

I've watched it both as a journalist and a sporadic practitioner. My one-foot-in, one-foot-out gives me, I think, a bit of an interesting perspective.

I see both the good and the sometimes offensive parts of the local yoga scene.

So I was struck by a blog post shared by a Facebook acquaintance of mine who leans toward acro yoga. Its response caught my attention about a month ago and made me ponder how much it applied to our local community.

The post "Why I left yoga" by blogger "Earth Energy Reader," generated a range of reactions by local yogis, from longtime instructors to beginners.

In a nutshell, the blogger talked about how he joined the "yoga bandwagon" eight years ago.

"I fell in love with how yoga made my body feel after a particularly tough workout," he says. "I, too, fell into the pseudo-spiritual aspects of the practice."

"And, finally I, too, got burned out by the practice, disillusioned and, at times, even disgusted at the people who I thought should be setting an example to the rest of us but turns out that they are even more messed up than you realize and the yoga was just an effective cloak to hide their true nature and personalities."

He became disenchanted with the business of yoga, such as workshops and retreats, and with the fact that most people practicing it were generally affluent whites. The blogger describes himself as "brown" and of Indian heritage.

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Is local yoga too affluent, white and cliquish?

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Broga class makes yoga more accessible for men | GALLERY

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

2-Jun-2014

Contact: Hollis Heavenrich-Jones hollisheavenrich-jones@acaai.org 847-427-1200 American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (May 29, 2014) Yoga has long been promoted as a method for improving physical and mental well-being. And although yoga is often suggested to asthma sufferers to help alleviate symptoms, a new study found little evidence that yoga will improve symptoms.

Researchers of the report, which is published in the June issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), examined 14 previously published studies to determine the effectiveness of yoga in the treatment of asthma.

"Many people practice yoga for its health benefits, including asthma sufferers," said Holger Cramer, PhD, lead author of the study. "We reviewed the available data to see if it made a difference and found only weak evidence that it does. Yoga can't be considered a routine intervention for patients with asthma at this time. But it can be considered an alternative to breathing exercises for asthma patients interested in complementary interventions."

In the review, 824 adults were part of 14 studies examined for evidence that yoga improves control, symptoms, quality of life and lung function in patients with asthma. Participants in the studies were from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Because only one trial included children, the effects of yoga on children couldn't be evaluated.

"Many asthma sufferers look to complementary therapies, such as yoga, to help relieve their symptoms," said allergist Michael Foggs, MD, ACAAI president. "If yoga helps them to feel better and breathe better, patients should by all means practice it. At the same time, we don't advise that yoga be recommended to asthma sufferers as a treatment."

According to ACAAI, prevention is always the best strategy in controlling asthma symptoms. Asthma sufferers should work with their board-certified allergist to determine situations that prompt attacks and avoid these situations whenever possible. Asthma triggers can include exposure to allergens, respiratory infections and cold weather. If asthma attacks are severe, unpredictable or flare up more than twice a week, then asthma treatment with a long-term control medication is recommended. Long-term medications are preventive, taken daily and can achieve and maintain control of asthma symptoms. For people with allergic asthma, immunotherapy (allergy shots) may offer relief from symptoms prompted by allergens that act as triggers and cannot be avoided.

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No harm in yoga: But not much help for asthma sufferers

raiders of the lost maslow by Laurence Simon (isfullofcrap) Flickr.com

Abraham Maslow must be turning in his grave. In a recent paper, a group of evolutionary psychologists has set out to replace his famous humanistic theory of motivation with something a lot less human.

You have probably heard of the Hierarchy of Needs. It looks like a pyramid, and its one of the most popular images to come out of modern psychology.

But recently, a group of evolutionary psychologists has sought to overhaul the model. Or as they put it, to renovate the pyramid.

The result is a perfect illustration of the fundamental division within psychology itself.

The Hierarchy of Needs was the brainchild of American psychologistAbraham Maslow (1908-1970).[If you're not familiar with it, check out my summary article: The Hierarchy of Human Needs: Maslows Model ofMotivation.]

Its basically a pyramid-shaped model showing thathuman beings are propelled into action by different motivating factors at different times.

There are sixdifferent levels of motivation (needs), with physical survival and safety needs at the bottom, then rising up through layers of social needs (affiliation, personal esteem), then on to the higher needs known as self-actualization and self-transcendence. Unfulfilled lower needs take precedence over higher needs. The lowest levels predominate in our earlier years, the higher levels only come into focus in our mature years.

Most people seem to find the model intuitively satisfying. It makes a kind of sense.

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Pyramid scam? - Evolutionary psychologists take on the ...

Craig Hamilton is a pioneer in the emerging field of evolutionary spirituality. In his inspired writings, talks, and teachings, he calls us to awaken beyond the confines of the separate ego and dedicate our lives to the further evolution of consciousness itself.

As the founder and guiding force behind Integral Enlightenment, Craig offers spiritual guidance and teachings to a growing international community of thousands of students in 30 countries around the world. Through his online Academy for Evolutionaries, he teaches a series of experiential telecourses guiding participants through a process of spiritual awakening into an "evolutionary relationship to life."

Craig is a founding member of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute, a member of Deepak Chopra's Evolutionary Leaders Forum, and was a participant in the Synthesis Dialogues, a 35-person interdisciplinary think tank presided over by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His celebrated conversations with other luminaries are regularly heard by New Dimensions Radios seven million listeners, and form the basis of two acclaimed webinar series, The Great Integral Awakening: Pioneering A New Spiritual Path, and "Awakening the Impulse to Evolve: The Birth of Evolutionary Spirituality. A contributor to Shift magazine and co-author of IONS 2008 Shift Report, he is also co-writer of the forthcoming documentary film THE SHIFT. Craig lives with his wife, Claire, in San Rafael, California.

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Craig Hamilton - Evolving Wisdom - Faculty

One of the primary messages out of public health agencies and nutrition gurus from Walter Willett to Michael Pollan is to eat more plants. And, indeed, in many studies, vegetarian* diets are associated with better cardiovascular health, lower BMI, and better health behaviors (less likely to smoke, drink, and participate in shady Rock and Roll activities).

*In most of these studies, vegetarian does not mean vegan, but usually includes the addition of dairy and eggs, and in some cases, also fish and chicken. Many of these studies use the metric of what people self-identify as, rather than what people actually eat. And the large ones are cross-sectional observational studies, which don't give us causation.

I tweeted the paper yesterday, proving that there's nothing a paleo-leaning audience loves more than a study inconsistent with the notion that vegetarian diets are the elixir of eternal health and happiness, at least for humans.

There was also a little twitter skirmish of vegetarian protest. "Correlation doesn't mean causation" one told me. (Yes indeedy! That's why I used the word 'correlates'). Another accused me of being misleading #shame:

I'm happy to let each of you in the twitterverse determine how misleading I am. It would be too cumbersome to define each verb each and every time I use them in 140 characters. Let me qualify that I'm sure there are happy and healthy vegetarians out there, and all my best to continued health and happiness; be sure to get your B12 from somewhere!

Anyway, the researchers did a decent job of getting a nice cross section of people in Austria from all levels of health and socioeconomic classes. Then they pulled out all 343 "vegetarians" (which were vegans, lacto-ovo vegetarians, and lacto-ovo-pescatarians) and matched them with folks from three other self-identified groups that we shall call the virtuous carnivores (lots of fruits and veggies+ meat), the carnivores who eat less meat, and the shameless meat-eaters. Then the researchers measured (or asked about) a lot of health factors using trained interviewers. Body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, how many times a person visited the doctor, whether they got their preventative health care, and what sort of medical conditions and health complains they had.

After a lot of number-crunching, the results were as follows: Self-identified vegetarians had poorer mental health (defined as depression and anxiety), poorer overall health, and poorer quality of life. The other finding was that BMI correlated linearly with the consumption of animal fat (with the shameless carnivores having the highest BMI, the vegetarians the lowest).

What can we learn from this study? Are vegetarians are more likely to be neurotic sick people looking for dietary cures for what ails them, thus come out of the study looking more skinny, unhappy, and unsatisfied? Or are vegetarian diets nutritionally bereft leading to health problems, mental health problems in particular? We will never be able to get that answer from a study of this design.

The Mediterranean diet, as always, has more consistent data for positive benefits for mental and physical health. I tend to think that the diet with a bit of variety and the least processed food will be the healthiest and simplest to explain.

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Evolutionary Psychiatry

A Christian Critique of the Power Of Positive Thinking and the "Supreme Secret" of Napolean Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, Earl Nightingale, and others adapted from a book by Allan Turner ( http://www.allanturner.com/ )

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." -- Napoleon Hill

According to Norman Vincent Peale, author of popular books expounding the philosophy of "Positive Thinking" and "Positive Imaging," which, according to Peale, is "Positive Thinking" taken one step further:

There is a powerful and mysterious force in human nature...a kind of mental engineering....a powerful new-old idea....The concept is a form of mental activity called imaging....

It consists of vividly picturing, in your conscious mind, a desired goal or objective, and holding that image until it sinks into your unconscious mind, where it releases great untapped energies....

When the imaging concept is applied steadily and systematically, it solves problems, strengthens personalities, improves health, and greatly enhances the chances for success in any kind of endeavor.

The idea of imaging has been around for a long time and it has been implicit in all the speaking and writing I have done in the past. [1]

What Peale called a "powerful and mysterious force," Napolean Hill, the granddaddy of PMA (Positive Mental Attitude), called the "Supreme Secret" (i.e. "Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve"). [2] As a matter of fact, in another book he co-authored with W. Clement Stone, Hill said:

This is a universal law....that we translate into physical reality the thoughts and attitudes we hold in our minds, no matter what they are. [3]

Of course, if Napolean Hill is correct about us achieving anything we can conceive (and I don't for a moment think he is), then we must, indeed, be Gods (cf. Genesis 3:5).

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and the "Supreme Secret" of Napolean Hill

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[Pre-order now on Amazon!] You've learned the principles in Napoleon Hill's classic Think and Grow Richnow give them ST...

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