Learn more about Moshiach Consciousness with Rabbi Max

and soul. Without the body, there would be no sanctuary for God to dwell in.

You have to remember that this vehicle is very vulnerable, and can be afflicted by a variety of illnesses and diseases. The way we eat, how we eat and why we eat can cause the greatest harm (or good) to the body. Proper eating is a theme that occupies much of Kabbalistic literature. Even the word “Kosher,” in the Bible means to eat what benefits your body. The Biblical prohibition against eating pork and certain other types of food was designed to protect the body from disease.

By eating healthy – and by this I mean anything in moderation and care – we can promote wholeness. It takes more energy for the body to digest food than almost anything else it does. If you are an excessive eater, you are not only slowing down your metabolism, but also inhibiting your spirit perception. You are also inhibiting your spirit perception if you don’t eat enough food – moderation is key!

A spiritual person in general, watches what goes into his/her body and realizes that too much of a good thing is not so good after all. When we overburden the digestive system we are looking for trouble. How many of you eat while standing up, or rush through a meal? Where are you rushing too? Is something burning?

What you put into your body affects your future, and your future not only affects your friends and family, but your relationship to the Creator as well. You should pay attention to what you put in your body, and also pay attention to your state of mind while you are doing so. Most of the time we gossip when we eat. Each time we do that we take in some poison. Little by little that poison emerges as some form of sickness.

So be careful what you talk about over a meal. Better yet, try not to talk at all and concentrate on the sheer joy of eating. You don’t have to be a student of Kabbalah to know that regular physical exercise, breathing exercises, restful sleep, and relaxation are all very important for the health of the body and spirit. A body that is fed food that honors life, that is well rested, and that is giving enough exercise is one that will respond with good health and well being.

It is also best to eat in meditative silence once in a while, even though it’s a tough thing to do in our culture of constant stimulation and communications. Such silence can actually be an active, feeling and tender form of communication. In Kabbalah we often say, “Those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know.”

Of course it’s your choice whether you wish to engage in this practice or not. But you should at least be aware that digestion is vastly improved when you are quietly concentrating on the taste and texture of the meal before you.

One of the greatest wrongs we commit against our body is discussing mundane matters – or even reading or watching TV – while we eat. These are all distractions that separate us from the sacredness of this moment.

Start slowly, dedicate two meals a week to silent meditation or a conversation that focuses on some spiritual matter (such as the joy of life), and you will see a big change in the way you feel, look and act.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when food arrives at your table, you are now receiving G-d’s blessings. He/She somehow made this food possible. At this moment it’s up to you to sanctify it. Contemplate the food that you are eating. Meditate on The One who created it. Pray over it before you eat. these are all gestures of gratitude and should be dine before and after eating.

By doing all that, you are also promoting harmony within yourself – a balance of body, mind and soul. Contemplation and or prayer establishes a grateful attitude and this positive frame of mind can lead to better digestion and improved health.

One day at a time–this is enough. Don’t look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength. Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried because only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them.

So what is hope?

Hope is the belief that a positive outcome lies ahead. Hope is a way of thinking, feeling and acting that may help you find ways to live with difficult situations. Hope is trusting that something bigger than you is out there, loving you and giving comfort through hard times. Hope is grief’s best music. Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. When the world says, “Give up,” Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.” Hope is a universal language.

When you are low with nowhere to go remember this, when you open your eyes, your heart, your spirit, yourself, there you will find the stranger called hope

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human enough hope to make you happy.

Both in our thoughts and our life, it’s the ups and downs that get our attention. We most likely remember both the darkest and the highest of times –but not the times we were waiting for the bus to arrive. Our mental climate is like a Jacuzzi of bubbling chatter in which we hang out, until there is something either painful (some emotional pang of the past) or glorious (the big epiphany of the day) that wakes us up from the lukewarm water.

Let’s face it; we find middle ground boring. Neutral is a no-no. We associate it with mediocrity and dullness. Yet, think about it. The biggest chunk in our minds and lives are made up out of this neutrality, the unknown faces we pass daily, the humming of our refrigerator in the background, the uneventful stuff. By numbing to neutrality, we miss out on the majority of our life.

The Buddhist traditions got this. Anyone who has ever done more than 15 minutes of meditation knows that being bored is kind of inevitable. This is not just an unhappy side effect. By getting bored we discover the gigantic part of our life that we plug out from. That we overlooked because it wasn’t dramatic or interesting enough. Yet as Sakyong Mipham encourages us in his poem ‘Midnight and open warmth’:

Let us not be overcome by the notion of normality

That has bound our sense of freedom.

Conquer the moment.

Conquer the boredom of feeling space.

This last line has stayed with me on many occasions. Being somewhat of a drama queen myself, it’s easy for me to get addicted to action, praise and blame, speed and flashlights. Filling space, avoiding boredom, means missing the freedom that space holds. And it’s exactly in this freedom, this space where the one and only real, magical conversation can take place; not with life as you want it to be, but with life as it is.

There is no such thing as being bored. As the poet David Whyte says “boredom is an absolute failure of the imagination.” And I agree with him. It’s our ability to see things as they are –which is ALWAYS different, more layered and mysterious than we thought- that determines whether we buy into the illusion of boredom.

I’ll leave you this weekend with the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:

“The real miracle is not to fly or walk on fire. The real miracle is to walk on the Earth, and you can perform that miracle at any time.”

Geertje Couwenbergh (1983) is a freelance writer, cultural anthropologist and yoga-loving Buddhist practitioner. Find out more on www.PotentialBuddha.com

Recently I’ve been dealing with change; much of which is significant. The end of an old relationship, the beginning of new ones, my living situation, changing significant aspects of my career.  Often in my past, I’ve become overwhelmed with this amount of change. The feeling of wanting – a safe place to stand – would arise. I would feel desperate to find that safe place where I could rest my head in order to calm my fears.

For some reason, although much uncertainty exists currently, I am finding that these said insecurities are not transforming into the paralyzing fear they once did. Somehow, instead, I am able to maintain a calm mind, allowing me to make new, proactive choices.

This of course, is due to my ability to surrender to the nature of impermanence. Something that even a year ago, I wasn’t nearly as skilled at doing.

There is essentially nothing that remains the same in life. The only thing we can always count on is change. And any time we -think- we have found stable ground, we find that sooner or later, the ground begins to fall beneath our feet. Our relationships are guaranteed to change or end, as do our jobs, and our physical bodies. So it makes sense, that if change is the one constant in life, that we find a way to make peace with it. Embrace it. Surrender. This of course, is easier said than done. I do my best to remind myself that it’s okay to feel whatever discomfort I’m feeling in these times. My meditation practice is imperative. The spaciousness that arises in this state, offers me calmness and clarity, and sometimes, that’s enough. I breathe in and breathe out.

In the end, I notice myself seeking a – safe place to stand – less and less. Knowing that all external security is fleeting, I prefer to seek peace by surrendering to the impermanence of things, rather than the so-called “solid ground”, which of course, it’s only solid for so long.

And once we no longer require the ground to create our false sense of security, it is then, that we begin to feel that we can effortlessly float through the challenges that arise in life. And oh, how lovely a feeling that is.

Bio

Tamara Levitt is the founder of Begin Within Productions http://www.beginwithinproductions.com. She creates multi-media properties (including books, television/film projects and ancillary) to entertain, educate and empower individuals. She has additionally developed the website http://beginwithin.ca. Here she shares resources, blogs, original music and videos designed to inspire and assist others in navigating the world of today.

For the past 15 years, her dedication to her own personal development, through study, contemplation, meditation and integration has been paramount. She has actively explored a wide variety of spiritual practices, traditions, and healing modalities. She has attended experiential workshops, seminars, empowerments, and retreats all designed to develop ones spiritual and personal growth. Tamara can be hired for speaking engagements and works as an empowerment facilitator.

Tamara’s websites are http://beginwithin.ca
and  http://www.beginwithinproductions.com
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Of course you’ve heard of the ancient Biblical myths about people who lived for hundreds of years, some people try to argue that somehow people couldn’t tell the “time” or their “years” were different.

But what if for just a moment, we entertained these myths as important information about the true nature and potential of any human being?

What if we were originally designed to live forever? What if it’s stress, anxiety, fear  & lack of proper nutrition  that stops our genes from replicating effectively, shuts down our “infinity genes”  and therefore stops us from living forever?

What if we have been mentally, emotionally and socially programming ourselves to get old and ultimately to  die merely because that’s what is “normal” and expected?

As a divine co-creator of your own universe, if you’re intenteding on creating your own Personal Utopia, it’s your mental, emotional and whole focus that ultimately becomes your reality .

So for a moment,  I’d like to move your focus and attention on ‘living forever’.

Forever might mean a 1000 years or it might mean just a lot longer than you could imagine yourself living.

What is also important to point out is that our bodies are far more intelligent than our conscious minds, but our bodies also listen to our conscious mind for instructions on how to live in our immediate environment.

If you tell yourself that ‘life’s too short’ or ‘I’m too busy or in a rush’ or generally have a adrenalin driven fast-pace life in the fast-lane attitude then I reckon that you’re actually speeding up your internal ageing process.

If however, in contrast you say to yourself, ‘live slow’, ‘take it easy’, ‘i’m going to live for a very long time’ or ‘I’ve got all the time in the world’, or ‘ i’m going to live till i’m 1000 years’ or ‘peace and tranquillity flow through my veins’ or ‘i love every one of those 70 trillion cells in my body’, then you’re probably going to have a lot less stress and generally live longer.

If you generally live with an attitude which really honestly believes that you will live for a very, very long time, and that’s it’s perfectly natural etc… then your body listens to what you truly believe in your heart and reacts accordingly on both a genetic and physiological level.

So if you want to live forever focus on living forever, just “fighting ageing”.

Fighting takes up such a lot of energy and Ageing tells our bodies to focus on ageing – exactly the opposite of living forever!

If we focus on living long, living healthy, living fit, living life, loving life and ideas that generate feelings and beliefs of longevity then we will definitely increase our natural life expectancy – guaranteed!

*terms & conditions apply.

Exercise 1. The Simple Life Audit

Grab a piece of paper, notebook, PDA and rate your happiness and satisfaction in the following categories from 1 to 10, where 1 is seriously unhappy and 10 is ecstatic. What number would describe how content you are with these areas of your life? Health & Fitness, Career, Relationship, Home, Friends and Social Life, Meaning and Purpose, Creativity Family, Leisure, Finances.
What you’ll probably find is that in some areas of your life you are quite satisfied and in other not happy at all. But if you want to live more successful in all areas of your life; finically, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, then some things have to practically change.
Those areas which scored lowest are the ones that need the most improvement and fast! How are you going to change those things in your life? Those things that you haven’t changed or done anything about in years?
How are you going to readjust and create that feeling of success in areas of our lives that you’ve previously given little or no attention to, and honestly don’t feel like a success? And why if it’s so plainly obvious that those areas of your life needed change, why haven’t you succeeded at improving it, or achieving your goals already?
The reason is, that we’re all creatures of habit, most of us like things to be familiar and stay the same, even if that means they aren’t always good for us. Part of the problem is that we often strongly identify our lifestyle habits with our personality and that we secretly addicted to who we believe we are, and don’t really want to change.
On some level, many of us actually enjoy moaning and complaining about our lives, more than we think might enjoy the challenge of making our lives significantly better. Change means risking who we are, for who we might become.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we always justify everything we do; most of the time we believe that we’re always right. Change is difficult and often uncomfortable, not because changing our lifestyle is painful, but rather because it means doing something, that no one likes to do, and that is; admitting that we might be wrong or have gone wrong somewhere along the path.

Exercise 2. The Simple But Difficult Questions

Start to be really honest with yourself, spend some time looking within, and begin to ask yourself the really important and difficult questions about your life.
Do I really want to be happy? Do I want to live successfully as a complete human being? Do I really want to live my life to the full?
If you’re finding this line of thought difficult, try this out for size:
What would you do if you were told that you only had twelve months to live?
What would your priorities be? How would you want to live your life differently? How would you want to be remembered? Who would you want to become? Would you still do your job? Would you still be polite to people who really annoy? Would you care what people thought?
Or would you find out what your real priorities and life goals are?
Hopefully after all this introspection there are two things you know;
1.    That you want to be happy and live successfully
2.    That you’ve got some idea about who and where you want to be in the not too distant future.
But when you are moving forwards towards a more positive future we often need to jump, to leap from the place we are to where we want to be, and you can do this easily by having a plan.

Exercise 3. The Simple Five Year Plan

The idea behind a life-plan is to help you find out where it is you want to be heading in your life, but more importantly, it can help you take simple and practical steps towards making your dreams come true.
Where would you like to be, in five years time? Can you imagine yourself, being significantly healthier and wealthier? Can you see yourself becoming a generally happier, calmer and more relaxed individual? Or can you sense the excitement of being even more successful in all areas of your life?

It doesn’t have to be a very detail plan, just a sketch, an outline, I find it works best if you plan backwards.

Year 5 -
Year 4 -
Year 3 -
Year 2 -
Year 1 -

Now you can begin to run towards your future – even though this plan may change, at least you’ve now got a much clearer idea and vision of where you are going.

Exercise 4. Feel The Future Now

There is one really important component to realising your goals and living successfully and that is that it’s got to start doing it now. Not just because if you don’t start to make even a small change in your lifestyle now, you probably never will. And not just because, if you don’t start now, you’ll always be putting off tomorrow until tomorrow, and when tomorrow comes, there’s always another tomorrow.
But if you want these dreams to come true (and they really can) then to start to live as if they are already true now, start to feel the benefits of that that future success now.

But is it?

As human beings, we tend to look outwards – to the world, to other people and situations – in our search for happiness and our own version of personal utopia. We are so wrapped up in this physical reality that we have forgotten the fundamental truths that do, in fact, make our personal utopia (heaven on earth) not only possible, but our natural state of being. It is our birth-right. Each and every one of us.

Our outer world reflects the inner so the more we can remember at all times our true nature – that we are divine sparks of consciousness, here to have a human experience and to make that experience as joyful, love-filled and beautiful as possible for ourselves and everyone we connect with – then we have found the key to creating heaven on earth.

This is not to say, of course, that once we realise (or remember) this we will all be walking around with sickly-sweet smiles on our faces being all saint-like in a candy-floss world. Things will not suddenly be perfect. “Bad” things will still happen…and thank goodness! It is through the challenges and the struggles that we are given our most powerful opportunities to live our personal utopias out loud.

When we can still feel our connection to the divine consciousness, when we still feel its presence infusing our lives even in the bad times; when we remain in a state of grace and gratitude no matter what, then we know we are blessed and we can handle anything.

Now that, to me, is the true meaning of personal utopia.

What do you think?

By that evening, Sam had succeeded in gathering a full sack of coins from the purse, but there was no bread left in the house, because he would not spend a single coin to buy food for himself. “I will gather another sack of money, and only then throw the purse into the river and begin to spend the coins.” That day Sam asked a neighbor for bread and on the following day he went out to beg for bread in the streets, because, as he said, “It won’t do me any harm if I fill another sack with coins before I spend the money and throw the wonderful purse into the river.” And so he continued to beg for bread and to gather coins until the end of his days, never spending anything because he did not want to part with his wonderful purse. Sam died a very rich man and his home was filled with sacks of coins – but he died still a poor beggar.

Sam did not realize that in order to truly change his life, he needed more than just money and material possessions. He failed to realize that what he really needed was a different outlook, a change of direction. Even when his wishes/prayers were answered, he was “stuck” in a rut and couldn’t see beyond his negative feelings of fear, greed, the self perception that he was nothing but a poor beggar.

Often, like Sam, we don’t realize our potential and strengths. We wish to have this, and hope to become that. Then, when our prayers are answered, we forget to enjoy what we have. As a result, we keep it all to ourselves and forget to share with world.

It’s easy to get caught up in negativity and self loathing, sometimes it may even give us comfort. But consider this; instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing. The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible. The difference between can and cannot are only three letters. Three letters that determine your life’s direction. Share your inner light without fear and or doubt. Light is good from whatever lamp it shines.

(Click here for video) Free Soul

1. Cut yourself off from mainstream media outlets. Radio, TV, Newspapers, Magazines and Online versions.
2. Grow your own food.
3. Make your own clothes from wool, shoes from leather? etc…
4. Produce your own energy, solar, wind, ground source etc…
5. Collect your own water, rain water, river or stream?
6. Don’t send your children to school.
7. Pay off all your debts, including mortgage.
8. Own enough land to grown your own food & clothing (Sheep/?).
9. Connect with others willing to trade and barter.
10. Permanently loose your mobile/cell phone.
11. Close your bank accounts.
12. Ride a bike or other alternative transport?

Problems:
1. Council Tax
2. Home Insurance