What is Your Spiritual Quotient?

It is the secret weapon that will help you cope with the hassles of life. Here is an example of how spiritual intelligence works for Jennie.


Her ex had done it again. After missing their 10-year-old daughters dance recital, he showed up the following day with a bouquet of roses. "My first impulse was to tear into him," admits my friend Jennie.


Then some phrases popped into her mind: "He loves her. She needs him. Let it be." Taking a deep breath, she listened to this inner voice and said, "Natalie is going to love the flowers." And for at least one brief, shining moment, there was a little more peace on earth.


What happened? Without consciously realizing why or how, Jennie had reached beyond reason to a deeper level of understanding, a newly recognized way of knowing that psychologists have dubbed "spiritual intelligence." Our spiritual intelligence quotient, or SQ, helps us understand ourselves, and live fuller, happier lives.


Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to sense, understand and tap in to the highest part of ourselves, of others and of the world around us. This source of inner serenity may be our best defense against the hassles that barrage us every day.




------ Ladies’ Home Journal (Author unknown)

( My notes: I used to think IQ and EQ are the only ways to determine whether a person is smart or not , and I know now that they give way to spiritual intelligence which is the ultimate intelligence for our human beings , because SQ can add value and meaning to our existence. So, what is my SQ ? It couldn't be that low!)

I Could Sing of Your Love Forever

(My notes: This is one of my favorite songs. It reminds of a bigger picture of love most people cannot easily see in our daily lives; that is agape love. I can always dance with joy in this divine love. There is so much peace and courage in this song.)

Be What You Desire

By Jamie

You know that feeling of resistance and friction that sometimes (or often!) makes its way into our experience?

It's when something in our experience -- a circumstance, an issue -- is not as we wish it would be. We resist it, we try to change it, we feel the friction. Ultimately, we may feel frustration when what we're trying to change outside of us resists our efforts to change it! Usually, it arises again and again, in stubborn cycles.

This is definitely not a strictly conceptual or intellectual issue for me. Like many people in Western Culture, I was trained to look outside of myself for the things I wanted to experience or feel in my life. Ultimately, I've learned that this 'outside in' approach is a perpetually losing proposition.

So what's a person to do -- you want something in your experience, something outside of you, to be something other than it is, and not only does it not miraculously morph into what you truly desire, it actually seems to become even more of what you don't want to experience!

There are two sayings that we hear a lot -- so often that we might not see them for the tremendous wisdom that they offer to us:

1. What we resist persists or becomes more potent (martial artists know this very well).

2. We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

When we're in resistance, we're in a very strong focus on what we do not want, or what feels 'wrong' to us. This creates a tension and constriction which stems the flow of inspiration and Higher Guidance. What we resist persists or even grows.

The real metamorphosis, the real change, comes not from trying to manipulate or change what's around us so that it conforms to our desires. It comes from ceasing the resistance, allowing what is, and then going within, and transforming or transmuting what's within us. This is not just our co-creative power; ultimately, it's exactly what our Highest Self is all about.

The psychotherapist-visionary Carl Jung said that what remains unconscious within us gets reflected by our experience that happens around us. Our experience is our mirror; the situation, Life, is our guru. When we're separated from our Highest Self, our Highest Guidance and all that is, we feel that things happen TO us.

When we connect with our Highest Guidance with the intention of expressing our Highest and most authentic Selves, we come home to the realization that our experience mirrors or reflects to us our inner ecology, our inner landscape or state of being. Everything around us is speaking to us, like the Angels who whisper over each blade of grass, 'Grow, grow…' (the Talmud).

Through the practices of conscious thought, mindfulness, and energy work, we begin like archaeologists of the soul and energy field to go within and release the old thought and energetic patterns that run like programs in and through us. We transmute and transform them. And we liberate the authentic Self, our authentic Divine nature, so that it can shine, express, and draw to us a different quality of experience. We change our experience by changing it first within us, energetically and vibrationally.

This is what it means to be the change we wish to see. This is what's meant by 'the power of the Word (vibration).'

So if we want more abundance but are focusing our thought, words, and energy on lack and scarcity (even as we might be diligently saying affirmations), we transform the thought and energy patterns within us. We find the abundance within us so that it might be freed to express in our experience.

If we want a different quality of experience to express in our relationships, we go within, find that quality, release what obstructs it or is addicted to dramas, and we free it to express in our relationship.

And so on, in our work, in our friendships, in our community, in our financial affairs. We stop resisting what is -- and thus stop giving it power -- and we accept the opportunity to be the Alchemists in our own lives by transforming things at the energetic and inner levels.

Yes, there are things that happen in the world that are part of greater patterns, and ultimately what happens on the collective is simply a reflection of what's happening within a majority of people. It's the predominant 'inner state' being reflected by what happens around us. Yet we also have an enormous power within us that shapes our perceptions and what we co-create in our experience.

As Gandhi said, "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - but in being able to remake ourselves."

(Jamie is the founder and 'keeper of the flame' of Ivy Sea, the author of Big Vision, Small Business ---Berrett-Koehler Publishers, and a catalyst of clarity, wisdom and inspiration for her readers, clients, and others. This article is retrieved at www.ivysea.com)

Attitude Is Everything !

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

George Bernard Shaw

Osho's "Ten Commandments"

In 1970, Osho was asked about his "Ten Commandments". In his letter of reply, Osho noted that it was a difficult matter, because he was against any kind of commandment, but "just for fun" agreed to set out the following:

“

Never obey anyone's command unless it is coming from within you also. There is no God other than life itself. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere. Love is prayer. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment. Life is now and here. Live wakefully. Do not swim – float. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.

”

He underlined numbers 3, 7, 9 and 10. The ideas expressed in these Commandments have remained a constant leitmotif in his movement.

----- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My notes: I don't agree with him fully, but I happened to see this video which is a portrait of a woman during a storm. Her mood is kind of " Osho". Don't you think so?

Tibetan Singing Bowl

By Diane Mandle

"If we accept that sound is vibration and we know that vibration touches every part of our physical being, then we understand that sound is heard not only through our ears but through every cell in our bodies. One reason sound heals on a physical level is because it so deeply touches and transforms us on the emotional and spiritual planes. Sound can redress imbalances on every level of physiologic functioning and can play a positive role in the treatment of virtually any medical disorder."

Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, director of Medical Oncology and Integrative Medicine,
the Cornell Cancer Prevention Center in New York

In the words of the great Tibetan master/Bodhisattva Gwalwa Karmapa, the Singing Bowls of Tibet emit the "Sound of the Void", the sound of the universe manifesting. They are a symbol of the ’unknowable’ and as an alloy, date back to the Buddha, Shakyamni (560-480 B.C.). Their origins and detailed histories are shrouded in the distant past and are surely a gift from the shamanistic ’Bon’ religion which precedes Buddhism in Tibet by centuries. For centuries they have been utilized for healing and consciousness transformation. We are now discovering the science behind this powerful ancient modality which is so effective for healing today. Modern medicine can now measure and thus confirm the practice of sound as a means to heal.

There is a trinity of Tibetan spiritual sound objects used for healing—the Singing Bowls, the Ganta and the Tingshas.

-- The Bowls emit a quieting, centering energy

-- The Ganta (bell) a motivating and unifying influence and the Tingshas stimulate energy fields

--The ancient bowls actually come from various Himalayan regions including Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan and are made from a consecrated seven metal alloy. Prayers and mantras were chanted to them during their creation so they carry that sacred energy

Used within meditations and physical healings the bowls’ characteristic blend of harmonic resonances are used as a vibrational tool to induce stress reduction, chakra balancing, energy synchronization and spontaneous healing. They effectively alter consciousness into a peaceful and expansive meditative state. Participants report a fundamental shift in their view of phenomenon space, accentuated clarity of mind and body, enhanced creativity and a sense of peace and well-being.

On a biological level these instruments affect a great deal of physical change but Tibetan bowl healing has far-reaching implications that occur on emotional, spiritual, and physical levels. It is a regenerative process married to a spiritual awakening that can have profound consequences on illness, disease, and all aspects of our lives. In fact, mainstream medical teaching facilities like Duke University and the University of North Carolina have added programs that link body, mind, and spirit to the treatment of cancer. Cancer prevention centers are utilizing sound as a vital part of the healing process for patients with astounding results.

Dr. Mitchell Gaynor has been using sound, including Tibetan bowls, crystal bowls and chanting in work with cancer patients for many years. The medical director of the Deepak Chopra center in California, Dr. David Simon, found that the sound from Tibetan bowls as well as chanting are chemically metabolized into ’endogenous opiates’, that act on the body as internal painkillers and healing agents.

How do the vibrations from the singing bowls help in the healing process disease?

It can be said that illness is a manifestation of dis-harmony within the body—an imbalance in the cells or a given organ and that healing can be achieved by restoring the normal vibratory frequencies of the diseased, out-of-harmony parts of the body. Since all matter is energy vibrating at different rates, by altering the rate of vibration we can change the structure of matter. Sound from the bowls entrain the brain to move into the deeper Alpha and Theta brain wave frequencies that induce deep meditative and peaceful states, clarity of mind, and intuition. When placed directly on the body the sound vibrations are transmitted into our blood, organs, tissues, and cellular memory through the 80% water in our system. The sound vibrations impact our nervous system, engaging our relaxation reflex and inhibiting the stress or pain response. It reduces brain wave activity, slows the respiratory and heart rate creating ’Cardio-Respiratory Synchronicity’—the perfect condition to release blocked energy and bring the body back into alignment.

Dr. Gaynor mentions in an article in Shamans Drum magazine that the reason sound (and chanting) are still used in shamanistic cultures is that the sound induces trance states of consciousness conducive to healing. The ancient Himalayan bowls are made from a consecrated seven-metal alloy which, when skillfully stimulated, produces five individual and simultaneous tones, each at its own consistent frequency, which vibrationally dance with each other. The raw materials were collected, smelted and purified, cast, reheated and hammered into shape and tone. Mantras or sacred chants were sung and infused intent into the bowls. Their sound synchronizes sentient brain waves and creates a therapeutic effect upon the mind/body realization.

Singing bowls, produce the primordial sound of ’AUM’: The fundamental utterance of energy metamorphosing into matter. They alter space, mind and time; awakening cellular memory and healing the energy body. The act of listening to their captivating overtones effectively stops one's internal dialog, the ’Monkey Mind’. The individual is transported into a space of tranquility and balance where the ’Universal Chord’, found within each self, is touched, joined with, and understood. The Universal Chord, if you will, is the primordial substance from which our whole reality is made and from which our universe originated. Although the vibrational energy of the bowls can be directed to a specific area for healing purposes, they work more on a fundamental level.

These instruments are used within meditations and physical vibrational healing techniques. Their harmonic resonance is used to:

--Reduce stress and pain

--Balance energy

--Create vitality synchronization and spontaneous healing

-- Effectively alter consciousness into a peaceful and expansive meditative state (trance induction)

-- Meditate

Himalayan bowls are also teachers. They carry the Buddhist voidness teachings that purport that nothing exists independently of anything else. Each note from these sacred instruments contains all other notes and herein lies their magic. Although possessing a variety of harmonics, the fundamental vibration of each bowl is rooted in the Sanskrit mantra OM. This primordial sound is the perfection of the universe. The ensuing sympathetic resonance between brain and bowls reawakens the intrinsic blissful self in us.

Our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors will either engage with or sabotage the healing potential as well. Positive thinking can strengthen your immune system and change your life. The combination of the sound vibration of the bowls with positive visualization and affirmations will greatly enhance the healing experience.

Thus, sound is a type of energy medicine that creates the sacred space in which people can heal from stress disorders, pain, depression, the emotional roller coaster and more. It also creates the perfect state for deep meditation, creative thinking and intuitive messages. The healing process is initiated by entraining our brainwaves and creating sympathetic resonance with the perfect vibrations of the bowls.



Diane Mandle is certified in Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing through the State of California and Sacred Sound Workshops. Based in Southern California, she maintains a private practice offering an integrated system for healing which includes Sound and Polarity Therapy, Toning, and Visualization. Diane conducts educational presentations, keynotes and concerts nationwide on healing using the Himalayan bowls. She can be reached at 760.944.3441 or info@soundenergyhealing.com.

My Notes: I Just got a new singing bowl from " Heaven Art" . I have made up my mind to practise meditation and yoga for personal harmony in this new year. I know I have to lay off writing for my blog for some time now.

OM NOT A BIG DEAL HUM

Posted by Chris Young on 06.12.06

Patience, from a Buddhist perspective, means not getting angry. Ultimately, the way to not get angry is to really connect with the realization that everything is in its right place. That means that when something is going on that is troublesome, you can see it in terms of its interdependency with everything else - its natural position in the scheme of things - it is in its right place. Patience is enhanced with three types of understanding: The understanding that there is suffering, the understanding of the truth of Dharma, and the understanding that accepts difficult people. The understanding that there is suffering clears away the wrong view of escaping difficulties. With this understanding, if difficulties come your mind won’t get caught up in wishing that everything was smooth all the time. That’s actually the source of a lot of suffering, especially for us ’spiritual practitioners’. Personally, I got into Buddhism because I figured if I could get enlightened then I wouldn’t have to go to work any more. I would be free from that type of situation where anything is required. Everything is struggling on some level - basically we are surviving. We are struggling to survive. What is the sound of struggle? Listen to your own heart beat. Maybe it would like to take a rest - maybe your heart feels tired. But as soon as it rests its responsibility becomes clear. Bump. Bump. Bump. Even after Shakyamuni became enlightened he still had to eat. He would take breaks from teaching because his back hurt. But we don’t want to accept trouble. We ache and cry whenever it comes - we want to never have problems. This causes extra problems! Do you see that? Actually, the most painful suffering comes from ideas that grow out of mere suffering. When I had my hernia operation I was very depressed. I felt broken. I had a cut on my groin and I wanted to be put away in a mental hospital or something. My mind went crazy and that’s because I hated the idea of being so sick. I had no patience. I wouldn’t accept my suffering. So that’s the first type of acceptance - accepting suffering.

Then there is accepting the truth of dharma. Notice that dharma here has a small ‘d’. Small ‘d’ dharma means everything is changing. Everything that is a thing is called dharma in Sanskrit. This means that it has come together and it will change. Everything that you have now, even your body, will decay. That’s true! Maybe it seems morbid to think about that, that your mind is sitting on a decaying pile of temporary pleasures and pains, but there is something valuable in being realistic. When we ignore these things we will eventually have to face them and then we will become angry, we will lose our patience - many people die in a furious state because they feel gypped. Like they did everything right and now here they are, falling to pieces. It’s as if they didn’t believe that it would happen to them - maybe they feel like they had a special deal. Very few people accept that everything is impermanent and changing. Things are decaying right now. It is not the case that everything is very solid and then, just at the end, it falls apart. Everything that exists will go away. This is true. Accepting this leads to patience when things change.

Then the third type of acceptance is . . . . .. .

I don’t remember right now.

Oh, yes I do. It is accepting difficult people - both people outside of you and yourself. Actually, you are the most difficult person to yourself. Maybe you call yourself bad names in your head because you screwed up in this and that situation. This is also a lack of patience, a lack of acceptance that people are difficult.

See, patience leads to happy states, anger leads to suffering. That is true. When you are patient, anger cannot arise - the mind can not be angry and patient at the same time. By not experiencing anger your body won’t experience all kinds of very heavy duty bad chemicals - it won’t oxidize as quickly - you will have a smile instead of a frown. You can enjoy patience. In fact if you are not enjoying it, then it is not quite there. Maybe you are just begrudgingly tolerating something - waiting anxiously for the moment when it is over - acting like a good boy or girl.

Rinpoche told this story about a meditator coming out of retreat. He didn’t tell it exactly like I am going to - but that’s okay, its just a story.

This yogi had been meditating a long time and had gotten some genuine spiritual experience. He decided it was time for him to go back into the town down the hill for a visit. As he was walking he came across a very rude man. The man said all kinds of nasty things, it seemed he didn’t like meditators. “How can you be so selfish” “Your body stinks and you look awful” “You are a coward running from society.” He said stuff like that - things that meditators get crap for all the time. The yogi just listened patiently - his expression didn’t change. After some time the rude man became a bit distraught. Its hard to go on with insults if you don’t get any response. Finally he said, ‘What is wrong with you!? I am insulting you here, don’t you have any honor, why won’t you fight back? Normal people would get so angry.’

The yogi said, “I have a question for you. If you give someone a present and they don’t want it - if they can’t use it and so they don’t accept it, who, then does the present belong to?”

The rude man said, ‘well, the person who is trying to give it away’

The yogi said, ‘well, I don’t need your angry words, so you get to keep them, they belong to you.’

So dealing with difficult people is like this. Rinpoche says it is as simple as just not taking what others think personally. That goes really deep, actually.

Someone raised their hand at this point (remember, this all comes from a teaching) and asked, “Rinpoche, is there some sort of mantra a person can say to help to deal with someone who is acting like that, who is being so rude?”

Rinpoche thought for a moment - just a moment, and then he said, ‘yes there is a mantra - “OM NOT A BIG DEAL HUM”. Everyone laughed very hard. I bet everyone in the room laughed. Then he said, “I’m kind of kidding but really not.” He went on to explain that mantra does not have to be in Sanskrit. He said the purpose of mantra is to invoke memory of something meaningful (I think there are other purposes as well), so mantra can be in English. So that’s a really good mantra, he said.

Okay, so I hope you are all having a wonderful day and that you will all learn to deepen your patience through acceptance of the truths of struggle, impermanence, and difficult people.

From: http://authenticpersonality.lucaserve.com

Energetic Stillness

This is an article about the power of patience from www.dailyom.com. I would like to express my special gratitude to the author Madisyn Taylor for his or her wonderful writing and reflection which I enjoy reading so much. This article is surely beneficial for our spiritual journey.

"We typically think of patience as a quality that we employ on an as needed basis. We are in a hurry at the grocery store, but the line is long, so we take a breath and practice patience. Similarly, if we are interacting with someone who is slower than we are-a child or an elderly person-we try to slow ourselves down and be patient with that person. But another way to think about patience is as an all-pervasive force at our disposal, something we can practice continually in relation to the bigger picture.

Patience means being centered in our bodies. When you are in a hurry, you can almost feel that your energy is dislocated, as if it's reaching forward out of your body trying to get to your desired goal. It's a very unbalancing feeling, and causes us to make mistakes and be clumsy in the world. We may go through an entire day feeling this way and never realize that impatience is at the root of the situation. We may also go through our whole lives this way, never quite fully inhabiting the moment. When we become overly goal-oriented or future-oriented, consciously practicing patience is just the thing to return us to our bodies and our immediate lives. We can begin by taking time each day just to be still, observing our thoughts and desires without acting on them or following them. We simply let them arise and disappear as we remain seated and centered.

More than just an attribute to be cultivated, patience is an energetic experience. While it may seem mild or tepid as a concept, the actual experience of patience is quite powerful. When you are patient, when you resist reaching out to grab the first thing you think you want, when you are able to sit still and simply observe without reacting, you begin to see the world more fully and clearly. You become capable of acting more consciously. You become more attuned to the openings and closings and more able to see when to move forward and when to be still. And most importantly, you discover the deep, quiet power of the experience of patience."

The Hardest Part is People

(Picture from LauraJackson.com)



The hardest part is people.
So Lord, help me face them without rancor or disappointment,
help me see the pain behind their actions rather than the malice;
the suffering rather than the rage.

And in myself, as I struggle with the vice of my own desire—
give me strength to quiet my heart, to quicken
my empathy, to act in gratitude rather than need.

Remind me that the peace I find in the slow track of seasons
or an uncurling fern frond, is married to the despair I feel
in the face of nuclear war, remind me that each small bird
shares atoms with anthrax, with tetanus, with acid rain,
that each time I close my heart to another I add to the darkness;
help me always follow kindness.

Let this be my prayer.
-----Karen Holden

"The Power of Now"

Extracts from The Power of Now . . I have little use for the past and rarely think about it; however, I would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual teacher and how ‘The Power of Now’ came into existence. Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life. Awakening One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. ‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’ I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world. Bliss For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had. Understanding I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn't understand it at all. It wasn't until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy. But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody. Sharing Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: ‘I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?’ And I would say: ‘You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.’ That answer later grew into my book, ‘The Power of Now’. From "The Power of Now", copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle.