This site rocks. Learn the origin and history of Death Panels and use it to Truth the unbelievers.This site rocks. Learn the origin and history of Death Panels and use it to Truth the... more
Many passengers know that leading a healthy lifestyle is not always as easy as making a resolution and sticking to it. Qatar Airways has taken steps to help passengers meet their goals with their onboard yoga guide and tips on how to stay relaxed and rejuvenated in flight.Many passengers know that leading a healthy lifestyle is not always as easy as making... more
I am so grateful for Deepak's quote on Success:
"To Efficiently and Effortlessly Co-Create with the Universe". WOW!I am so grateful for Deepak's quote on Success:
"To Efficiently and Effortlessly... more
Michael Jackson will be remembered, most likely, as a shattered icon, a pop genius who wound up a mutant of fame. That's not who I will remember, however. His mixture of mystery, isolation, indulgence, overwhelming global fame, and personal loneliness was intimately known to me. For twenty years I observed every aspect, and as easy as it was to love Michael -- and to want to protect him -- his sudden death yesterday seemed almost fated.
....
That person, whom I considered (at the risk of ridicule) very pure, still survived -- he was reading the poems of Rabindranath Tagore when we talked the last time, two weeks ago. Michael exemplified the paradox of many famous performers, being essentially shy, an introvert who would come to my house and spend most of the evening sitting by himself in a corner with his small children. I never saw less than a loving father when they were together (and wonder now, as anyone close to him would, what will happen to them in the aftermath).
Michael's reluctance to grow up was another part of the paradox. My children adored him, and in return he responded in a childlike way. He declared often, as former child stars do, that he was robbed of his childhood. Considering the monstrously exaggerated value our society places on celebrity, which was showered on Michael without stint, the public was callous to his very real personal pain. It became another tawdry piece of the tabloid Jacko, pictured as a weird changeling and as something far more sinister.
...
It was this time together that convinced me of the modus vivendi Michael had devised for himself: to counter the tidal wave of stress that accompanies mega-stardom, he built a private retreat in a fantasy world where pink clouds veiled inner anguish and Peter Pan was a hero, not a pathology.
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My memory of Michael Jackson will be as complex and confused as anyone's. His closest friends will close ranks and try to do everything in their power to insure that the good lives after him. Will we be successful in rescuing him after so many years of media distortion? No one can say. I only wanted to put some details on the record in his behalf. My son Gotham traveled with Michael as a roadie on his "Dangerous" tour when he was seventeen. Will it matter that Michael behaved with discipline and impeccable manners around my son? (It sends a shiver to recall something he told Gotham: "I don't want to go out like Marlon Brando. I want to go out like Elvis." Both icons were obsessions of this icon.)
... I couldn't help but write this brief remembrance in sadness. But when the shock subsides and a thousand public voices recount Michael's brilliant, joyous, embattled, enigmatic, bizarre trajectory, I hope the word "joyous" is the one that will rise from the ashes and shine as he once did.Michael Jackson will be remembered, most likely, as a shattered icon, a pop genius who... more
Dr. Deepak Chopra, President of the Alliance For a New Humanity, says that we've seen the death of an old order but not yet the birth of a new one. Chopra wrote a letter to Barack Obama advocating the creation of a peace based economy, a reduction in defense spending, and the dismantling of the military industrial complex. The money could be used to build housing for the poor, to fund research in conflict resolution, and developing wisdom based economies that help to restore the environment. The days of addressing our complex problems in a simple linear way are over, Chopra says. GRITtv spoke to Chopra at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC.Dr. Deepak Chopra, President of the Alliance For a New Humanity, says that we've seen... more
"Discovering archetypes is a highly personal experience. Vedic science, the ancient wisdom tradition of India, says that unless you can get in touch with that embryo of a god or goddess incubating inside you, unless you can let that embryo be fully born, then your life will always be mundane. But once that god to goddess expresses itself through you, then you will do grand and wondrous things.
These days, we tend to seek symbolic archetypes in celebrities, but we need to nurture a full expression of the archetypes in ourselves. They are part of what creates us. This is the stuff our dreams are made of. This is the stuff of mythology, of campfire stories, of legends. This is what inspires great movies.
Mythology is the wellspring of our civilization. One of the consequences of depriving people of mythology is that they join street gangs. Why? Because gangs have a leader, they have rituals, they have initiation rites–the stuff of mythology.
Mythological stories are the deepest wellspring of civilization and identity. Gangs and movies and soap operas and celebrities are seductive precisely because they strike this mythic chord. But they are second-class substitutes for mythology. Real archetypes are enacted by people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, anyone who reaches beyond daily life into the realm of the wondrous.
They are able to achieve greatness because they tapped into the collective unconscious, which gave them the ability to see several event lines simultaneously and predict the future based on choices in the moment. These events create a shift in cognitive and perceptual mechanisms. These are the powers that bloom as myth."
Adapted from The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press)."Discovering archetypes is a highly personal experience. Vedic science, the ancient... more
A Counter Balance to our Daily News: A new regular addition to myCurrent pages.
Deepak Chopra: "It is important to remember that anything you can do to expand your awareness will automatically counter evil. Be gentle when you are tempted to be harsh. Pay attention when you are tempted to turn a blind eye. Accept that the negativity you are feeling belongs to you when you are tempted to blame someone else.
Personal transformation on this level is the highest way to combat evil. The more conscious you become, the more you come into balance. Once balanced, you can choose to reject destruction; your awareness expands beyond the immediate hurt to see that evolution is eternal and therefore eternally possible.
We would all agree that anger gives rise to many evil acts, not anger per se, but anger that has become trapped. If your awareness is open and free, anger flows through it. This applies both to rage generated inside yourself when you feel victimized, and anger that comes from outside, in the form of an attack.
Both are meant to leave when their job is done. Anger’s work is to alert your defense systems. Aggression and defense are part of the survival repertoire of almost every species that must compete to mate, find food, and occupy territory. Festering, it feeds on itself and eventually breaks out in violence.
Every living system that goes out of balance attempts to right itself. Despite all the talk about human beings being innately violent, aren’t we also innately gentle? The evidence for both is equally strong."
Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001).A Counter Balance to our Daily News: A new regular addition to myCurrent pages.... more
The importance of comic books to our society was summed up by Deepak Chopra during the 2006 Comic-Con:
* “Comics engage both your left brain, because they are linguistically structured and there's language, and at the same time they engage your right brain because of the images. In fact, ... I’m sure ... brain waves would show coherence between the right and left brains, which is the prelude to creativity.
* “Art has a function because it not only reflects what’s happening in the collective psyche and collective consciousness, but it also in many ways mirrors of the evolution of our collective consciousness. If you track the evolution of these comics… from the 1930s right up to this moment, you’ll see that they actually mirror human evolution and particularly, the evolution of human consciousness.”
The Savage Sword Of Conan:
Considering that we have not stopped our governments from waging war, on the contrary, we are allowing them to start additional wars, I think it's probably a good time for us to try and engage our right and left brains at the same time.
The following panels are from page 29 and 30 of the August 1983 issue of The Savage Sword Of Conan #91 (click images to enlarge)
The importance of comic books to our society was summed up by Deepak Chopra during the... more
Nothing like a little Deepak to help us make sense of it all....
Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision...
CLICK THROUGH FOR THE REST... Nothing like a little Deepak to help us make sense of it all....
Sometimes... more
"Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind.""Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when... more
The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Hindu groups in India are seeking to ban Mike Myers new film, The Love Guru. In it, the shagadelic Austin Powers actor portrays a character called Guru Pitka, who is dubbed the "second best guru in India." Unfortunately not everyone is seeing the funny side of Myer's self-help industry satire, and pressure is apparently being put on India's Central Board of Film Certification and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to ban screenings of the film in the country.
Bhavna Shinde, a representative of the Mumbai-based Hindu organization Janjagruti Samiti, is quoted as saying that Indian censors should, "stop distributing or screening the movie till Paramount has made necessary changes ... so that it will not hurt the feelings of the worldwide spiritual and Hindu community." American-based religious leader, Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, has accused the film of "lampooning Hinduism."
Myer's Love Guru co-stars include Justin Timberlake, Jessica Alba, Daily Show funny man John Oliver (as Dick Pants), and Gandhi star Ben Kingsley (as Guru Tugginmypudha). Real life uber guru Deepak Chopra also has a cameo role, and is featured in the film's publicity campaign. Guru groupies can log on to FavoriteGuru.com to vote for the man they'd most like to follow. So far Myer's alter ego Guru Pitka is leading with 62% of the vote, compared to Chopra's 38%, making it more decisive than a Democratic primary (if you ignore West Virgina like the superdelegates are).
Before Myer's started filming The Love Guru, he spent some quality time with Chopra to get the right vibe. In 2006 the double act appeared on The Sundance Channel's series Iconoclasts, and spent the day together in preparation for a symposium on comedy and spirituality that evening.
Chopra explained the need for laughter in spirituality, saying that, "When your soul responds to the paradox of our existence, to the contradictions of our existence, to the fact that wherever there is joy there is suffering, when your soul recognizes this, it can do nothing except laugh."
Myers closed the show, by saying, "Everything that I've read suggests that enlightenment is lightening up." After recent events, he may want to revise that statement.
http://www.dailymantra.com The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Hindu groups in India are seeking to ban Mike... more
Love Guru Pitka introduces the Laws of Happiness from his forthcoming book If You're Happy and You Know It . . . Think Again in this Mini Sutra #1 video short.
Mariska HargitayLove Guru Pitka introduces the Laws of Happiness from his forthcoming book If You're... more
Deepak Chopra is perhaps the world’s most popular spiritual guru. He is certainly one of the planet's most prolific authors. But there’s a confusing array of books strewn about on the path to enlightenment. Chopra offers a handy shortcut to the spiritual road Buddha mapped out, selecting ten of the best guides to get you on the fast track to Nirvana.
“These are my favorite books because they explain the philosophy of Buddhism in a very easy and practical way,” says Chopra. “In addition, they clearly show that Buddha's message was no different from the universal message of great beings such as Jesus, Confucius, and Socrates. The essence of all these teachings that have their roots in the wisdom traditions is that at a deep level consciousness is inseparably one, that the world that we inhabit is a projection of our elective consciousness, that everything interdependently co-arises. Unlike other religious teachers, however, Buddha defers in that he does not advocate a belief system, an ideology or a dogma. Like a great physician he identifies the problem: the human condition. He then identifies causes of suffering and follows with the prescription. In my view the following books explain the four noble truths and the eightfold noble paths in the simplest and most practical way.”
Click on the link above for reading list...Deepak Chopra is perhaps the world’s most popular spiritual guru. He is certainly... more
by Malayna
An episode of The Sundance Channel's series Iconoclasts paired comedian Mike Myers with spiritual author Deepak Chopra. Actor Robert Redford, the visionary behind the Sundance Channel, explained the concept behind the series this way: "Iconoclasts can be a beautiful clashing - a collision of high profile types- that's stimulating and entertaining for audiences." Regarding this particular pairing he said, "Obviously there's admiration going both ways, and the connection between the two of them becomes straight out entertainment, because it's just different."
Myers and Deepak spent the day together in preparation for a symposium on comedy and spirituality that evening, held in a small theater in New York. "I don't think that a having a sense of spirituality and a sense of humor are mutually exclusive," Myers explains. "One of the things I love about Deepak is that he has a sense of humor about what he does."
Myers attributes his perspective to what he learned from his own "comedy guru," Del Close (who also worked with John Belushi, Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd), who connected comedy with the profound and profane. Myers explained it in this way, "Ha Ha and A-Ha are connected - they're related industries."
At the theater later that day, the discussion seemed surprisingly to circle around a central theme. "Lenny Bruce defined comedy as pain plus time; Bergson described comedy as the realization of one's own mortality," Myers begins. "The laughter is just an involuntary response of the recognition of your own mortality."
Chopra initially responded by explaining, "When your soul responds to the paradox of our existence, to the contradictions of our existence, to the fact that wherever there is joy there is suffering, when your soul recognizes this, it can do nothing except laugh." Later, Chopra returned to the theme of mortality. "We're all on death row and the only uncertainty is the method of execution and the length of reprieve." Myers followed this rather gloomy thought with a hearty "Goodnight!" Over the laughter Chopra continued, "Do you realize that I've been talking about the most morbid thing in existence...and you are laughing? Do you see that? Confronting our mortality makes us laugh."
Overall the pairing was refreshing, both because it elucidated how well-versed and educated Myers is, despite the silliness of his work; and how down-to-earth and light-hearted Chopra is, despite the seriousness of spirituality. Myers closed the show with the following quote: "Everything that I've read suggests that enlightenment is lightening up". We at the Daily Mantra wholeheartedly agree with that.
