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Knowledge can be seriously bad for your health

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Knowledge or facts
Too much information?

Knowledge is good. Of course it is. But knowing a great deal is not the same as being wise. Thanks to technology, we have a plethora of information at our fingertips. Social and news media keep churning out all manner of assertions that are sold as facts. Whether they are true or not is one thing. More of an issue is the strain on our consciousness of digesting all this information. As our bodies become ever more obese, our minds, too, are becoming overloaded. We have mental indigestion and this affects our wellbeing. Knowledge of this modern ilk is seriously bad news for health.

Real knowledge is fact-free

Real or pure knowledge is completely different. It is like a cosmic computer. We can only access it when the mind is still. The route to it is through the intuitive faculty of the mind. When the intuition is awake, knowledge comes as and when it is needed. We know how to act, what to say and when to remain silent. Love and compassion are natural bedfellows of this way of knowing, so we respond with warmth and, at times perhaps, with fire. This is Actual Intelligence, as opposed to Artificial Intelligence, and it comes from learning to practise stillness. A short fact-free diet could do us the world of good. Who knows?

Read The Art of Not Doing for more on this

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  4. Action: Why everything you do and say is more important than you think

Home: four reasons why love in the home is crucial to your health

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Home healthHome is where the heart is, but is our heart in the place we come back to after work, where we eat, sleep and spend many hours of our life? It should be a haven, but for many people it isn’t. For far too many, there isn’t even a place they can call home.

Home life can affect health – and society

It is absolutely crucial to the spiritual, mental and emotional well-being of the human race, as well as the physical health, that each and every home is filled with love. It doesn’t matter if we live on our own or in a household of many. If love is absent, the home is not happy – and happiness is a major factor for good health.

So why not choose better?

Although that is obvious, or should be, it may not be at the forefront of most people’s minds that the greater the love there is in a home, the healthier and happier it will be for everyone within it. This isn’t something we reserve for our nearest and dearest; it is love for the whole of one’s home environment. This is something real and quite easy to do.

A sacred space?

When there is love for where we live, there is a deep respect for it and for everyone who steps inside. Here should be a place of sanctity, a sacred space, and a refuge from the bustle of the outside world. We should feel blessed as soon as we enter it. We can bless the house, apartment or bedsit, also – not in the form of words necessarily but simply from a level of feeling that comes from the heart. This may be a mixture of appreciation and gratitude, and perhaps an intention of goodness.

Our home should be uplifting

By doing so we immediately uplift our surroundings. Everyone who enters the home receives a positive effect from the general energy of the place. Whether we live in a grand house with beautiful gardens or in an apartment or bedsit is immaterial. The important thing is to create a pleasant, supportive environment or build on the one that is already present.

Be peaceful and at ease

Within the home we should smile and go about our activity easily. If we do everything with haste or a misplaced sense of urgency, we cannot fill what we do with the wonderful heart-energy we all possess. Be peaceful and at ease instead, and see how different everywhere seems. It’s magic!

From Awakening Heart: The Blissful Path to Self Realisation

Related posts:

  1. Love: why cosmic glue stops us falling apart
  2. It’s not all bad news – love heals, both inside and out
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World peace is fragile – it’s no joke but we can all help

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World peace is on a knife edge. The Secretary General of NATO has described the current state of affairs as “the most dangerous point in a generation“. That’s alarming, but it certainly isn’t hopeless.

World leaders need a hand, and it’s down to you and me, kidworld peace children

When things are this volatile, we look to the world’s national leaders for solutions. Like children, we turn to mum and dad to sort out the mess we have made. But the leaders are human beings, too. They have weaknesses as well as strengths, as do we. Their positions of power and authority come not from some divine right but from the people who place them there, whether by election or by default. From that point alone, we all bear some responsibility for world peace. Looking more deeply, there is the question of collective consciousness, and that’s where we really can do something effective.

Consciousness is the key to world peace

In spite of all the time and energy national leaders put into their work, we’re still in trouble. Why? Because humanity’s consciousness as a whole is immature. We’re still in kindergarten. Living with the attitude “what’s in it for me and my friends?” will no longer hack it. Looking after number one does not create stability. A touch of selflessness and kindness, on the other hand, can cure a great deal.

A more altruistic society is essential

Governments know this but struggle because they reflect the consciousness of the country they represent. Altruism may be an ideal but it is impossible for a nation even to move in that direction if its millions of citizens have no taste for it. But we can choose to be kinder and more compassionate. We can choose to live ethically. Many do so already but it is an attitude that needs to become mainstream rather than a niche fashion. Then a more altruistic society becomes possible and world peace more than a pipe dream.

The importance of loving kindness in society is examined more deeply in the book Awakening Heart: The Blissful Path to Self Realisation

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Thank you for your response. ✨

 

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Mirror, mirror in my head – the biggest liar of them all?

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The magic mirror in the tale of Snow White knew a thing or two. “Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who is the fairest of them all?” is not a question that is asked in our house. Our mirrors are not magic at all. In fact, as far as possible, we avoid them unless absolutely necessary. They don’t hide anything. They just throw back a reflection of “how it is”. But what about our internal mirror?

mirror of consciousnessThe mirror of consciousness

It is virtually impossible to describe consciousness in words, so the old teachers often used analogies. Consciousness is like a mirror, they would say, because it simply reflects what appears to it. A more modern analogy is that of a cinema or television screen. The screen does nothing. It is just the medium on which images appear.

So where do hate, love, anger and kindness come from?

There is far more kindness in the world than there is cruelty. But the message we keep seeing and hearing is that the whole planet is a disaster zone. Instead of seeing things as they are, we are influenced by what other people tell us or have told us in the past.

Our mirror is tainted. Smudges and scratches on the glass distort what we see. Not only do we see a narrow, partial picture rather than the whole, we become excited or upset at what we think we see.

Placing a judgment on everything is pretty exhausting. No wonder so many people become depressed. We need to work on it.

Start polishingpolishing mirror

How do we clean the internal mirror, the one in our head? After all, if everything we see is wrong, surely it is just going to get worse?

Okay, it will take quite a while to have a highly polished reflector. But we can start the process right now. The immediate thing is not to add to the distortion and dirty marks that are already there. We simply interrupt the cycle of making judgments. (That may also necessitate changing our newspaper!) We stop shouting “hooray” or “yah boo” at everything we see or read about.

A mirror of peace

Eventually the liar will give up – because no-one’s listening. Accepting things as they are, and importantly not necessarily condoning them, we begin to develop a mirror of peace. And surely that can only be a good thing.

Thanks for reading this. If you liked it, you may enjoy my book The Art of Not Doing

Evening workshop 5th June 2017 in Staffordshire “Pacifying the Mind”. Details here.

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Pollution: why the real danger is in our own minds

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Pollution is always high on the agenda, and quite rightly so. The planet as we know it is in great danger. But the source of the pollution isn’t in the physical. It lies in the mind or the collective consciousness of humanity. As a race, we have allowed it to happen. We all know this but so far have failed to generate sufficient willpower to reverse it. The problem of pollution, and its solution, lies in the mind. That’s even closer to home than your own wheelie bin.

Like pollution, there is more to the mind than you think

If we ever try to examine the nature of our mind, we will probably find that there is no single thing we can actually identify as mind. Instead, there is a collection of interacting and interdependent faculties or components.

The mindstream

The most apparent and obvious aspect is the chattering of thoughts that we experience almost incessantly. One thought yields another and it is difficult to say when one thought ends and another begins. A pollution thoughts streambetter description might be that we have streams of thinking and a rather apt term used in some Eastern teachings is mindstream. As we shall see, this is susceptible to pollution.

We don’t change our minds – the mind is constantly changing

Our mindstreams are constantly changing, being influenced by the mindstreams of others. If we are influenced by something we read or hear, it is an effect of the mindstream of the writer or speaker. In turn, he or she will have been influenced. If we look deeply enough, we will find that there is no beginning and no end to these thought processes. At every stage, too, there is the possibility of pollution.

Choice and responsibility

Just as a stream of water collects minerals, debris and pollutants on its journey, our mindstreams also pick up thoughts, ideas and beliefs as we go through life. Unlike water, we have some choice in what we expose ourselves to, and how much.

The amount of information that is available these days is frightening. We need to be choosy and, the less rubbish in our minds, the better we will feel about ourselves and others. We will be less likely to pollute the mindstreams of others with our own detritus and, who knows, may even inspire with our positivity!

Adapted extract from the book The Art of Not Doing

Related posts:

  1. Action: Why everything you do and say is more important than you think
  2. Lies: why they are bad for your health
  3. Time: why keeping an eye on the clock shortens your life
  4. Knowledge can be seriously bad for your health