New Consciousness – More Well-being
Issue 1 - September/October 2010
by Karin Lang
Topic of the month
The importance of listening – become a good listener
There is an old saying, maybe you know it: „talking is silver, listening is gold“. For me silver seems to be kind of cold and gold seems to be warm and comforting ... The gold of listening and in becoming a good listener is not talking yourself and awareness. Awareness means that you are fully in the present moment (not regretting the past and not worrying about the future) and not think about what you are going to cook in the evening or where to buy tea and when making that phone call but instead that you concentrate on the person vis à vis.
a) Listen to others like your partner, child, client, colleague or friend ...
In the end it doesn't matter, who you are listening to. Remember, they all have their unique story or individual problem to tell. And by telling it, they already can let go of some of the unbalanced emotions. Note: even great joy is an unbalanced emotion because it brings you out of your natural equilibrium. So listen with awareness, open your heart that makes it easier for you to accept that others have a right to their own version of reality, and concentrate on the person who talks to you. Look between her/his eyes and if you feel like it, you may say „yes“ or „go on“ or something like it but most of all do not interrupt, unless it is really very, very important (you can make some short notes, but better keep in mind what you want to say). If the person opposite to you starts to cry or weep while telling his/her experience, let him/her cry, you might give him/her a hankie and say „it's okay, you are safe, let go“ ... Crying is very helpful in releasing stored and blocked emotions.
Especially we women tend to talk not primarily to get a solution but for talking it out of our heads and hearts. So, if our male partners start to understand this female behavior better, they do not feel forced to give us a solution for all our small daily challenges. Instead they just can relax and listen with awareness, giving us the feeling of being heard and accepted ...
b) Last but not least listen to yourself, your inner voice
The best adviser for cooping with all kind of challenges is our inner wisdom. To hear that little, quiet voice inside of us, we have to calm our mind – so we have to stop chatting non-stop to ourselves and listen instead to the voice of wisdom from inside. Or in other words – we should stop thinking and start perceiving … A very good training for our noisy mind to start listening to the wisdom of our inner voice is meditation. Read about the life changing topic of meditation in the next issue.
The balance your life corner
Healthy foods
Eat fruits and fruit juice alone – why?
Well, the title might astonish some of you but there are simple facts that most of us do not know about our body and foods especially fruits.
Fresh, ripe fruits are very healthy and give us an instant energy boost. They consist of vital enzymes, vitamins, minerals, easy to digest carbohydrates (simple fruit sugar), very little protein and lots of water. Therefore our body does not need all the acids and digestion fluids that are being collected in our stomach for pre-digestion of other foods. Our body digests fruits directly in the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine coming directly behind the stomach).
Fruits do not need a pre-digestion in the stomach, as they consist mainly of water and simple carbohydrates. Therefore, fruits like to pass our stomach without delay (approx. in 30 minutes), but this delay occurs when we eat other foods with fruits together. These other foods are being pre-digested in the stomach for 2 to 3 hours (or even longer if we have eaten protein combined with fat like in read meat). As the stomach only empties itself if everything has been pre-digested, the fruits that we had together with our meal have to wait for 2 to 4 hours in the stomach. As fruits consist of easy to digest carbohydrates (simple fruit sugar), they start to ferment in our stomach that is mostly acid in order to pre-digest protein. In addition to this, the fermenting is hindering the proper pre-digestion of all the other foods collected in our stomach resulting in build-up of toxic acid waste and intestinal gas. The fruits that would normally alkalize, nourish and cleanse our body thus become a source of acidosis, toxicity and indigestion ... well, what a mess!
To benefit from all the goodies in fruits, there is a very easy way to avoid this indigestion: eat fruits and fruit juice alone, meaning more than 30 minutes before your meal or 3 to 4 hours after your meal – it's as easy at this! The basic rule is: „eat fruit alone or leave it alone“.
You can support your body even more, by avoiding to mix sweet and sour fruits. As sweet fruits are extremely high in easy to digest carbohydrates (fruit sugar), they need a little longer for digestion than sour fruits. For example: bananas and dried fruits like dates and figs are a complete and healthy meal on its own, they are packed with lots of vitamins, minerals and lots of energizing fruits sugar. The best way is to eat one kind of fruits at a time or only mix sweet with sweet, sour with sour and neutral with neutral fruits.
You can read more about this and other interesting facts regarding a balanced nutrition of body and mind in my book „open your wings and fly ... ancient Ayurveda combined with modern research for a holistic life“.
In the next issue you can read about the differences between white flour and whole grain products and the effect both have on our body.
New ancient body-mind-work
The different paths and forms of yoga - part 1
As this is the 1st issue let's start with the basics. People often ask me „what does hatha or kundalini or raja yoga mean, where is the difference?“ I have to admit that all these different names are confusing and not easy to understand, at least it took me some years to get behind the meanings. Still today, there are different teachers and different explanations, so I will make a complicated matter easy to understand, now here comes my understanding …
Yoga means union with all creation. Its aim is to make us (our small ego-mind) aware of the true divine essence that we really are and to unite us (our divine essence) with the mighty intelligence of creation thus experiencing bliss while still alive in our material body. To experience bliss, first of all you have to unite yourself meaning your body, mind, and spirit by doing special exercises and behave in a balanced way. Over thousands of years this science of union was practiced especially in India. The complete yoga system consists of the following paths or forms, all having the goal to prepare the consciousness for enlightenment:
the physical path is called hatha yoga
it deals primarily with the physical body by emphasizing asanas (bodywork) and pranayamas (breath work) to prepare body and mind for meditation. Hatha yoga may be the best known form of yoga in the Western world and its main goal is to balance the energy flow throughout the body. As it emphasizes asanas and pranayama, people often think these two aspects are called hatha. But „ha-tha“ means sun-moon, it is the union of these opposites, it blends the sun-male-active energy (ha) with the moon-female-receptive energy (tha) ...
the active path called karma yoga
it comprises selfless work and service without wanting reward by which the mind is most quickly purified and transcended and the ego and its attachments to the material world is eliminated ...
the devotional path called bhakti yoga
it emphasizes self-control and religious observance, through prayer, chanting, repeating mantras (holy words), and meditation emotional energy is channeled into devotion, turning anger, hatred and jealousy into love for all creation, in the end emotional love is changed into pure divine love and bliss ... I consider mantra yoga (repeating (japa) universal holy words (mantra)) and laya yoga (devoted to god) to be another kind of bhakti yoga ...
the philosophical or wisdom path called jnana yoga
it emphasizes the intellectual approach to spiritual evolution and describes the material world as an illusion, or „maya“. A sharp mind and intellect is needed to study the ancient scriptures.
As far as I understand, about 200 b.c. (some sources say about 800 b.c.) the ancient Indian master Patanjali combined hatha, bhakti, karma and jnana yoga and all the ancient yoga wisdom in his scripture the „yoga sutras“, also known as the 8-folded path or astanga yoga, meaning step-by-step. Patanjali defined yoga as „the stopping of all thoughts“. The „yoga sutras“ have been recognized by all yoga schools. To make the mix-up complete astanga yoga is also called raja yoga, raja meaning royal or mastership over mind and senses. Astanga or raja yoga emphasizes mainly the mental control and prescribes a psychological approach to release the latent potential of our vast mental and psychic resources by eight steps:
1. yamas meaning social and ethical self-control like truth, non-violence not harming anyone by thought, word or action, control of sexual energy, non-stealing, non-greed
2. niyamas meaning personal self-observances like purity (balanced food), contentment, study, surrender of ego, balanced thinking
3. asanas meaning control of the physical body by focusing the mind on the body and doing gentle but powerful steady poses with relaxation (savasana) in between and at the end
4. pranayamas meaning control as well as increase of vital energy (prana) by breathing exercises to cleanse and energize body and mind, in order to prepare them for meditation, note: prana is the „link“ between body and consciousness …
5. pratyahara meaning control of the mind by correct use and withdrawal of the 5 senses from distraction and turning the mind upon itself (a kind of meditation that reduces stress)
6. dharana meaning concentration of the restless mind by focusing on one point of the body or on an object (a kind of meditation that reduces stress)
7. dhyana meaning higher level of meditation by keeping the awareness at one object for a long time (one hour or longer) thus becoming one with the object and understanding it
8. samadhi meaning profound meditation coming into the super-conscious state which leads to inner illumination, the ecstasy of the true knowledge of reality and bliss – samadhi is the goal of every yoga practice.
You can read part 2 in issue 2 – November and December 2010 …
easy-to-do exercises ...
The shoulder tap
This exercise releases tensions in the shoulder-neck-area thus enhancing better circulation of nutrients, oxygen and energy (prana) to your brain and eyes. It is relieving after long computer work or driving a car:
stand or sit with spine upright, arms hanging relaxed at the sides of your body
with your right hand tap your left shoulder-neck-area as strongly as you like for 2 minutes
take a deep breath and relax in between
then tap your right shoulder-neck-area with your left hand for 2 minutes
take another very deep breath and you are fit for life again ...
The „Did you know?“ corner
Water can read and hear – nonsense or fact? Part 1
The Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto found out that water actually can read and hear. This is no joke but another kind of reality between earth and sky ... To cut the matter short, he spoke different kind of words to the same glas of water, freezing it after-wards and looking at it under a microscope. It was then that he found this astonishing ability of water: the water crystals had changed, depending on the vibration of the word he had spoken to the water. For example: he spoke to the water the word LOVE – beautiful water crystals were formed, when he spoke the word HATRED – the same water formed chaotic crystals that seemed somehow unhealthy and totally unbalanced. The same reaction happened when he played music like Mozart (beautiful water crystals) or heavy metal (chaotic water crystals) to the same glas of water. He looked at water from clear lakes (beautiful water crystals) and from rivers loaded with waste and chemicals (chaotic water crystals).
He placed a white paper with the word love or hatred or similar behind the glas of water and he always got the same result: the more natural and in balance the water or word or vibration was, the more beautiful the structure of water crystals was. And the more unbalanced, toxic and destroyed the water was, the more chaotic and „sick“ the crystals looked.
You still do not believe this? Well, Dr. Emoto received the Nobel price for his discovery. You can easily check the impact of different words on yourself. Say aloud „hatred“ and experience how you feel, now say out „love“ and experience how you now feel. Words not only have different meanings but they are different vibrations, that is the reason why water can hear, interesting, isn't it? If you want to read this fascinating book: Water tells us precious things, printed 2001 by IHM, Tokyo
In the next issue you can read what impact this discovery has on the human body.
And finally an inspirational saying
H u g s
It's amazing what a hug can do.
A hug can cheer you when your blue.
A hug can say „I love you so“ or „I really hate to see you go“.
A hug is „Welcome back again“ and „Great to see you“.
A hug can soothe a small child's pain and bring a rainbow after rain.
The hug! There's just no doubt about it, we scarcely could survive without it.
A hug delights and warms and charms, it must be why God gave us arms.
Never worry about running out of them, the more you give, the more there are of them.
So stretch those arms without delay and give someone a hug today!!
Well, that's it for today folks,
have a wonderful time with
lots of Love ♥ Light ☼ and Laughter
cordially Yours Karin
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Imprint
Disclaimer
all advise and information given by Karin in this newsletter are informative and have been checked carefully. Karin may not be hold responsible for any harm done due to the use or mis-use of an advise given. Neither is Karin responsible for the contents of the readers inputs as these inputs reflect the readers opinions and experiences.
