You Have Been Chosen! — Not Buddha

I have heard:

A king went into his garden and found wilted and dying trees, shrubs and flowers. The oak said it was dying because it could not be tall like the pine. Turning to the pine, he found it drooping because it was unable to bear grapes like the vine. And the vine was dying because it could not blossom like the rose. He found heartsease blooming and as fresh as ever. Upon inquiry, he received this reply:

“I took it for granted that when you planted me you wanted heartsease. If you had desired an oak, a vine or a rose, you would have planted them. So I thought, since you had put me here, I should do the best I can to be what you want. I can be nothing but what I am, and I am trying to be that to the best of my ability.”

The heartsease is saying what Buddha has said. You are here because this existence needs you as you are. Otherwise somebody else would have been here! — the existence would not have helped you to be here, would not have created you. You are fulfilling something very essential, something very fundamental, AS YOU ARE.

And your so-called mahatmas go on teaching you, “Become a Buddha, become a Christ, become a Krishna.” Nobody tells you just to be yourself. Why should you become a Buddha? If God wanted a Buddha he could have produced as many Buddhas as he wanted. He produced only one Buddha, and that was enough. And he was satisfied to his heart’s desire, utterly satisfied. Since then he has not produced another Buddha or another Christ. He has created you instead. Just think of the respect that the universe has given to you. You have been chosen! — not Buddha, not Christ, not Krishna.

You will be needed more, that’s why. YOU fit more now. Their work is done, they contributed their fragrance to existence. Now you have to contribute YOUR fragrance.
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4 Powers That May Be Hiding Behind Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety has been widely regarded as a very negative condition that tends to ruin people’s everyday simple pleasures and renders them incapable of facing new challenges. In short, anxiety is commonly associated with being a purely negative thing.

But what if this ‘curse’ comes with certain gifts that others don’t possess?

Scientists have been exploring the effects of anxiety for decades and they have found that besides the commonly shunned-upon negative effects, anxiety indeed does come with a set of powers too.

Anxiety comes with, among other things, a sense of heightened perception. It’s indeed this kind of perception that makes anxiety what it is, but in this ability of perceiving things lie 4 powers that other people don’t often possess.

1. Life-saving instinct

Anxiety has been traced back to a much older period of human evolution than you may think. It has its evolutionary roots and it served as a means to protect our ancestors from dangers that would lead to premature death (just like fear).

This survival mechanism used to help people stay alert and be able to detect dangers before they would happen. However, today anxiety has remained and is seen as a response to non-existent dangers. Yet, what if this response is still relevant and useful in certain vital cases?

French scientists have discovered that people with anxiety possess a unique life-saving sixth sense. They have found that some regions in these people’s brains possess the ability to detect threats in just 200 milliseconds!

This rapid detection ability allows people with anxiety to react appropriately in cases of social threats in the environment and thus possesses the potential to save one’s life!

2. Increased IQ

What if anxiety comes hand to hand with a higher IQ? Well researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Centre in New York confirm that it does. In the study, people with a General Anxiety Disorder were tested for IQ and the researchers found that anxiety correlates positively with intelligence.

It’s no wonder really, knowing that people with anxiety constantly over-analyze their environment. This means that their brains process information constantly, and for such thing one does need a higher IQ.

3. Increased empathic ability

People with anxiety are constantly obsessed with how other people feel. What if this ‘obsession’ is not so much of an obsession, but rather a heightened empathic ability?

Psychologists at the Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel say that it’s true.

According to the research, high socially anxious people “exhibited elevated empathy tendencies.” They discovered that these people not only possess an increased sense of empathy, but that that they could tell of people’s emotions with a high level of accuracy.

Perhaps this is why people with social anxiety prefer avoiding other people. Empathy can be a curse as much as it’s a gift if left uncontrolled.

But whatever the reason for their avoiding people, know that a socially anxious person can read your emotions like no other person.

4. Sensing other people’s energy

While this one has not been scientifically tested or measured like the previous ones, the likeliness of this ability is very high and plausible. People with social anxiety aren’t always affected by it when around people.

In fact, certain people can trigger this anxiety, while others don’t. Thus, it’s highly appropriate to assume that people with social anxiety are able to sense the vibrations from people and feel very uncomfortable by those who emit low-frequency vibes.

So, while there are many things people with anxiety need to cope with, one thing is for certain: anxiety comes with a set of gifts that others don’t usually possess.

Perhaps anxiety is not so much a disorder, but rather a different state of mind that people are not used to?

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Thinking Outside the Boxes in Our Heads

“I like to experience the Universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified. The tree outside is life… The whole of nature is life… The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can’t grasp them. There is a pattern in creation.”      ~Albert Einstein
 
As Einstein expressed in equations, Whitman in poetry and Van Gogh in art, our Universe exists as a unified field or whole. Creative energy swirling as atoms, giving rise to molecules, forming galaxies, stars, planets, mountains, rivers and the bodies of all living beings. If this is so, why do we not “see” the world this way, experience our lives for the miracle it is?

The modern technologically “advanced” world that surrounds us today is an outgrowth of our society’s ways of thinking– what has been called Aristotelian logic, dualistic thinking or compartmentalization. For many centuries most modern cultures have taught their people to think about the Universe in terms of distinct categories and divisions.

As a result we have the complex systems and institutions that surround us- governments, corporations, schools, entertainment industries, economic systems, legal systems, prison systems. All of these based on methods of identifying, measuring, controlling and manipulating “things” – discrete objects and units.

Many of the problems humans have created- from poverty, war and racism to global warming & environmental destruction- have their roots in these dualistic ways of thinking. As Alan Watts (and others) have pointed out, most of the “units” we observe around us (humans, trees, birds, forests, rivers) have existed for millions of years in the natural world, while others are very recent creations – products of “civilized” imaginations.

Money and property, for example- the idea of wealth accumulation and “ownership” are conceptions that our ancestors dreamed up fairly recently. Same for the concept of linear historical time, rather than seasonal cyclical time. Most of the social structures and institutions that surround us- school buildings, financial systems, corporate headquarters, military bases and such – move to the mechanistic beat of this structural matrix of time and money.

The architects of modern civilizations dreamed these institutions up and placed them in our world. Consequently, generations of humans have been raised within them, much as ants build colonies and bees create hives to hatch their young.

Unfortunately, just as blinders limit the range of a horse’s vision, the conceptual boxes and physical walls of civilized people tend to screen out deeper understandings about the effects of our actions and our connection to nonhuman worlds.

In order for the human species to move forward successfully our ways of thinking and behaving need to be more aligned with the ways and patterns of Nature. As Einstein put it, “Humanity is going to require a substantially new way of thinking if it is going to survive.”

In reality, the whole Universe pulses with complex interconnections and a mysterious beauty far beyond our imaginations. There’s a deeper truth that our limited conceptions ignores- that the Universe is not something that exists outside of us. You and I are creative living expressions of ALL that is.

We are born of atoms forged in the heart of long gone stars, energized now by the photons of our local sun. Kept alive by the nutrients and air of our Mother World. We are Life manifesting as people, mountains, rivers and trees.

Seeing this deeper truth and experiencing our connection to the Universe is the beginning of wisdom. Sharing that wisdom with others- and using it as the foundation for redesigning the human systems that we build together- is how our world can be re-created and transformed.

~Christopher Chase

“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

“You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” ~Eckhart Tolle

“I seem, like everything else, to be a center, a sort of vortex, at which the whole energy of the universe realizes itself.. Each one of us, not only human beings but every leaf, every weed, exists in the way it does, only because everything else around it does. The individual and the universe are inseparable.” ~Alan Watts

“Love the earth and sun and the animals.
Despise riches, give alms to every one that asks.
Stand up for the stupid and crazy.
Devote your income and labor to others.
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God. 
Have patience and indulgence toward the people.
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons
and with the young and with the mothers of families.
Read these leaves in the open air
every season of every year of your life.
Re-examine all you have been told
at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem
and have the richest fluency
not only in its words but in
the silent lines of its lips and face
and between the lashes of your eyes and
in every motion and joint of your body.”
― Walt Whitman~

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The Dragonfly Story

Once, in a little pond, in the muddy water under the lily pads, there lived a little water beetle in a community of water beetles. They lived a simple and comfortable life in the pond with few disturbances and interruptions.

Once in a while, sadness would come to the community when one of their fellow beetles would climb the stem of a lily pad and would never be seen again. They knew when this happened; their friend was dead, gone forever.

Then, one day, one little water beetle felt an irresistible urge to climb up that stem. However, he was determined that he would not leave forever. He would come back and tell his friends what he had found at the top.

When he reached the top and climbed out of the water onto the surface of the lily pad, he was so tired, and the sun felt so warm, that he decided he must take a nap. As he slept, his body changed and when he woke up, he had turned into a beautiful blue-tailed dragonfly with broad wings and a slender body designed for flying.

So, fly he did! And, as he soared he saw the beauty of a whole new world and a far superior way of life to what he had never known existed.

Then he remembered his beetle friends and how they were thinking by now he was dead. He wanted to go back to tell them, and explain to them that he was now more alive than he had ever been before. His life had been fulfilled rather than ended.

But, his new body would not go down into the water. He could not get back to tell his friends the good news. Then he understood that their time would come, when they, too, would know what he now knew.

So, he raised his wings and flew off into his joyous new life!
If you believe in MIRACLES…
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7 Bad Habits Which Stop You from Being Happy

There are some habits people usually have that prevent them from being happy and living a more fulfilling life.

Sometimes we go through life with pretty much everything we would like to have but something feels wrong and we can’t quite figure out what it is.

We can blame it on external factors, but sometimes, and just sometimes, it’s not caused by external factors. It may be resulting from some of the bad habits we have.

Since the list of all possible bad habits is huge, let us have a look at just some of them that should be eliminated if you want to make being happy your priority.

1. Perfectionism

Striving for perfection is actually commendable in many cases. It shows that you are willing to go that extra mile to make everything be on point. It means that your work will be flawless and will have the least mistakes possible. The thing is people who don’t accept any standards short of pinpoint perfection will find being happy quite hard. It makes a person bitter if they fail to hit the targets they expected to hit and it may even affect a person themselves, leading to low self-esteem.

You need to accept that you can’t always be perfect, and some levels of perfection are even beyond human capability. Know that there is a thing called ‘Good Enough’ and reduce the pressure you pile on yourself. This gives you room to surprise yourself and even helps you to receive satisfaction from your results, which makes you happy.

2. Comparing Yourself To Others

This behavior right here is very damaging and destructive to a person. Comparing yourself to others is pretty much psychological suicide. You compare what you have or what you can do. You look at what others have achieved and forget that you also have your own achievements and strengths.

You need to cut that out and the only comparison you should make is comparing yourself to yourself. Challenge yourself. Look at where you started and see if you have made any progress. Compare current results to previous results and see where you are headed. You also need to be kinder to others and you will slowly find that you’re kind to yourself. We often treat other people the way we see ourselves. If you focus on the positive things and aspects about other people, you will definitely see the positive things about you and you will manage to appreciate yourself.

3. Over complicating Life

To put it simply, life can be hard, and there’s a lot that is not right in life that generally makes it complicated. That we can’t dispute. It brings about stress, anger, hurt and unhappiness. The thing, however, is this: we are the ones who create most of this confusion in our lives. We have accepted that life is complex and we have come up with our own solutions in a bid to cope and as it turns out, we make things worse for ourselves.

Since we can’t control what happens during the day, the best thing to do is to focus on, say, three very important agendas we want to address that day and let the rest of it play out as it will. This helps you to avoid splitting your focus over ten mini-agendas and ending up doing very little, not to mention being grumpy at the end of the day.

It helps a lot if you ask people questions or tell them what you feel instead of making all sorts of assumptions in your head that probably aren’t true. It helps you to create bonds with people and to avoid actual conflicts and misunderstandings.

4. Too Much Focus On The Past And The Future

There are people who focus a lot on their past failures, painful memories, fights, conflicts and so on. Others can’t stop thinking about how they want their future to be, what could possibly go wrong with their projects, their financial status, they worry about what can happen if they do not meet their targets and goals. This kind of thinking brings nothing but stress, fear and certainly will prevent you from being happy.

You need to understand that the past can’t be unwritten and that there is nothing much you can do about your future until you get there. You should learn from your past mistakes as you plan for the days to come. Also, do not dwell too much on past success. It can be as damaging as dwelling on past failure. The whole point here is to live in the moment as it will help you to be more productive in the present.

5. Dwelling On The Negative Details Of Life

If you are the kind of person who will manage to find fault, no matter how good something is, then congratulations, you are on your way to unhappiness. This behavior not only affects you but also affects those around you. It can dampen the mood for everyone around you and you will take them all down with you. I doubt they will like you much after that.

You need to understand that not everything can work out to perfection. You need to accept that things may go wrong here and there, but that’s what makes success sweet: overcoming those obstacles that came up along the way. Accept situations as they are and spare yourself the mental torture. You can also focus on being constructive. When something goes wrong, focus on finding a solution.

6. Thinking That It’s About You

There are those who always think that everything is about them and the world revolves around them. This makes them limit their lives in such way that they don’t try anything new because they fear what people will say about them. It makes them less open to trying new things and ultimately, hinders their growth too.

You need to realize that people don’t care much about what you’re doing. They also have their lives to worry about and some of them also worry about how others perceive them. The point is not to give people too much power in your mind. In fact, what you should focus on during times like these is not you but others. Listen to other people and help them solve their issues and problems. This will help you to take the focus away from yourself and release some of the pressure that had piled up on you.

7. Toxic People And Voices

If you spend your time around toxic people, it will definitely prevent you from being happy. These are people who keep complaining and live in negativity. They are the kind of people who will not encourage you. Instead, they will drag you down with them.

The first thing here is to figure out what company you should keep and what company you should avoid. Find people who will help you see the positive side of things, regardless of how bad things get. Listen to music, read books, watch movies and shows that make you laugh, do something to lighten up your mood and you will be able to see life clearly and in a new way.

Conclusion

Well, I promised you seven habits and here they are. Some of these habits may be news to some people, others knew that they had them but had no solutions. You probably know a person with some of these habits and you can try to help them to get through the rough patch. Whatever or whoever it is, allow nothing to stop you from being happy. Be happy and you will be productive.

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3 things you can do to grow spiritually

Growing in God doesn't happen automatically. Many beloved brothers and sisters think that since they've been in church for a long time, perhaps even from childhood, they've already grown mature. Age is not an accurate guide: we can be a Christian for many years and yet still remain a baby in the faith.

The writer to the Hebrews says it precisely, saying:

"For though by now you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and have come to need milk rather than solid food." (Hebrews 5:12)
We could be just like that: a people who should be mature already, but we aren't. According to ESV.org, the writer was addressing a people who became "less attentive to Christian instruction" and have "ceased regular attendance at their meetings" despite their faithfulness to Christ in the past (see Hebrews 5:11-14, 10:25, 10:32-34).

This implies that even faithful Christians can fail to progress in their growth in the faith. Anybody can remain a baby Christian, but not all grow to be mature Christians – and this owing to their own choices.
Do you want to grow in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? I want to help you. I am not perfectly mature yet either, but I am excited to grow with each day, and would like to invite you to journey with me into growth in Christ.

Here are some things we can do to help ourselves grow in the Lord Jesus Christ.

1) Diligently seek to know the truth through God's Word
In Acts 17 we find a group of Berean Christians, who were a people lauded for their daily habit of searching the Word of God for truth that would confirm what the apostles preached.

"The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, daily examining the Scriptures, to find out if these things were so." (Acts 17:10-11)

2) Be molded by the Word of God
The Word of God is more than just a message of salvation to all who are sinners; it's also a guidebook that will help the saved be transformed into the likeness of Christ. We need to let ourselves be molded by the Word of God so we may be "complete" just like Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

"All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

3) Follow the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit that God put inside us causes us to grow and bear fruit. It is Him who makes us want to pursue Christ, and empowers us to produce His fruits in our lives. When we follow His lead, we allow Him to mold us and make us grow in the faith.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control; against such there is no law. Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Galatians 5:22-25)
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Here's how witnessing violence harms children’s mental health

Children are being increasingly exposed to violence. What’s the impact? ieat31415/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Caroline was having a hard time getting her daughter to go to school. The night before, her daughter saw the news about a terrorist bombing that had occurred that day where several children and adults were killed and schools were immediately closed.
Her daughter had a difficult time sleeping and was refusing to eat her breakfast. When Caroline asked her daughter what was wrong, she replied in a hushed tone,

“I’m scared mommy. If I go to school, will somebody come in and shoot me? I don’t want to die.”

Though Caroline was reacting to news here in the United States, she could just as easily have been reacting to the recent bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England – and its coverage in the media. Both underscore children’s constant exposure to troubling events and depictions of violence throughout the world.

As researchers and clinicians who have studied the problem of violence over the past three decades, we have witnessed a steady increase in levels of children’s exposure to violence and its damaging effect on their mental health.

How does this exposure to violence affect children and adolescents – especially their mental health? And how should we handle the increased fear and insecurity that results from such events?

Exposure to violence

Today, children use many different forms of media and at unprecedented levels – 92 percent of teens go online daily and 24 percent are online constantly. As a result, children get exposed to violence through multiple media. So, even when violence happens in another part of the world, children are exposed to the event and its consequences immediately, intensely and repeatedly as a result of media exposure.

And there is increasing evidence that exposure to violence in everyday life has a significant impact on children’s mental health.

But then, children today are growing up in a world where fear and insecurity rule over confidence and safety. This is not just driven by media but also by what they experience in the real world.
So, in addition to terrorist acts, children could witness or be victims of violence in many other ways. For example, when we surveyed high school students, between 13 and 45 percent reported they had been beaten up at school. Between 23 and 82 percent said they had witnessed someone else being beaten up at school in the past year.

We have also seen how school shootings with multiple victims have increased in prevalence in the past five years.

Here is what happens to children

Children who report high levels of exposure to violence (either as witness or victim) report the highest levels of depression, anger and anxiety.

Our study with children in grades three to eight who witnessed someone being hit, slapped, or punched found that 12 percent of these children reported levels of anxiety that could require treatment.

Similarly, six months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a survey of over 8,000 New York City students in grades four through 12 showed that nearly 30 percent of children reported symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Exposure to violence can have consequences for younger children and adolescents. Samantha Dunne, CC BY-NC-SA

Exposure to violence could have other long-term impacts as well: children could get desensitized to violence and its effects. Studies have shown how children can get desensitized to violence: that is, children can come to believe that violence is an acceptable way to solve problems and that it is without consequence. They could also come to believe that violence could happen anywhere and to anyone at any time.

Further, such children are also at a risk of perpetrating violence against others.
Our studies have shown that children who witness or are victimized by violence are more aggressive toward others. These children also show problematic levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms.

We have consistently found relationships between violence exposure and trauma symptoms, whether we surveyed children in schools, youth in the community or juveniles who were receiving treatment as a result of diversion from the prison system.

Adolescents exposed to high levels of violence reported higher levels of anger and depression. They also reported higher rates of wanting to hurt or kill themselves compared to adolescents in lower violence exposure groups.

Media exposure

More recent studies have confirmed that high exposure to television violence for children and adolescents is also associated with higher levels of aggression and violent behavior. Exposure to violence shown through media is consistently associated with problem behaviors, such as increases in aggression and anxiety. Children could also end up with lower empathy and compassion for others.
Some children exposed to various forms of media violence (not just television violence but violence on the Internet, in movies and in video games) can come to view the world as a mean, scary place where they are not safe and they can do little to protect themselves from harm. This is a particular problem for very young children such as those under the age of six who have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy.

Children are being exposed to violence through the various media. Brad Flickinger, CC BY

Exposure to violence could harm the emotional and mental development of young children and adolescents. Children at that age aren’t able to effectively process what they are seeing and hearing. This may be due in part to the fact that chronic exposure to violence can affect parts of their brain.
For adolescents, the front part of their brains is the last to develop and mature. This part of the brain is called the prefrontal cortex, and it is responsible for processing information, impulse control and reasoning. Adolescents exposed to violent video games experience a decrease in activity in their prefrontal cortex, leaving them more vulnerable to having difficulty with problem-solving and controlling their emotions.

What can parents do?

Parents have an important role to play. Knowing where their children are, what they are doing and with whom are some of the best ways to help support children. That improves their ability to cope with what is going on in the world around them.

The same is true for adolescents as well. It is sometimes assumed that as children reach adolescence, they need less support and monitoring as they spend more time with their peers and make increased demands to be more independent.

That is not the case.

Adolescents have more access to social media, to drugs and alcohol, and to transportation. Coupled with this is the growing evidence that the problem-solving and impulse control parts of their brains are not yet fully developed.

Parents are often the first to recognize their children are struggling with mental health and behavioral issues. And they could be the best providers of mental health first aid whenever and however their children need them.

The immediacy, intensity and imagery of the coverage of the concert bombing in Manchester may be very disturbing to both youth and adults. It is important that we continue to discuss this with our children and help them express their emotions and viewpoints, while assuring them that these extreme acts of violence, while deeply disturbing, are the exception and not the rule.
Editor’s note: The above was written in response to children in the United States witnessing coverage of school shootings. It has been updated to reflect the May 22 attack in Manchester.
Daniel J. Flannery, Professor and Director of the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education, Case Western Reserve University and Mark I. Singer, Professor of Family and Child Welfare, Case Western Reserve University
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Socrates Was One Of The Smartest People Who Ever Lived.

Here Are 24 Out Of His Most Important Quotes That Everyone Needs To Read

Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.

Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. Plato's Socrates also made important and lasting contributions to the field of epistemology, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains a strong foundation for much western philosophy that followed.

Let us remember his wisdom by reading 24 famous quotes of his:

1) “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” 

2) “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

3) “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

4) “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”

5) “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

6) “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”

7) “By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

8) “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”

9) “If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”

10) “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

11) “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”

12) “To find yourself, think for yourself.”

13) “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

14) “Know thyself.”

15) “Let him who would move the world first move himself.”

16) “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

17) “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

18) “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”

19) “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”

20) “understanding a question is half an answer”

21) “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us”

22) “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”

23) “To be is to do”

24) “The mind is everything; what you think you become”

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Burger King Admits To Selling Burgers With THIS Type Of Meat!

Where does the meat in a Whopper come from?

It seems like a silly question. Everyone knows it’s beef.

Actually, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

Back in 2013, Burger King UK came under allegations of orchestrating a huge cover-up to hide what goes into their burgers.

For two weeks, they denied being involved in any such thing. And then, one day, they finally admitted they indeed had been hiding something.

What was it?

Horse meat.

The problem was traced back to Burger King UK’s meat supplier, Silvercrest. While Silvercrest touted themselves as providers of 100% genuine beef products, in reality those products contained as much as 60% horse meat.

Burger King knew about this but did their best to keep the situation under wraps for public relations reasons. That begs the question…

Can consumers really trust Burger King?

If Burger King is willing to go to extreme lengths to hide horse meat (which people do willingly eat, by the way) what else is hiding in their products?

Are you really willing to trust such a dishonest company?

As Anthony Gucciardi over at Natural Society puts it, the horse meat scandal shows that Burger King either does not care about keeping their consumers in the loop or genuinely has no idea what their products contain.

Both of those scenarios are pretty horrible. But if that’s not enough to keep you out of Burger King for good, keep on reading.

Horse meat is far from the worst thing that has ever been found in Burger King products.
In reality, there are a whole host of downright toxic chemicals the company uses to create its synthetic ‘food.’ Let’s take a look at three.

1. Electronic Cigarette Filler
Propylene glycol is used in Burger King’s chicken nuggets to add sweetness. The chemical is also found in electronic cigarette filler – you know, the stuff you’re implored not to drink.

Europe consistently bans products that contain too much of it but the FDA shows little concern, despite evidence proving it can be quite dangerous.

2. Foamed Plastic
Azodicarbonamide is one of the active ingredients used to create foamed plastic and yoga mats. It’s also found in Burger King’s buns, muffins, croutons and French toast sticks.

In Singapore, using the azodicarbonamide in food can result in a 15-year prison sentence as well as a $450,000 fine. Not in America, though. Here you can sell it for profit.

3. Maltodextrin
On the surface, it’s easy to shrug off maltrodextrin as harmless because it comes from corn. But it’s actually a heavily processed compound that, after much tampering, winds up looking like a white powder.
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You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But…

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.” ~The Rolling Stones
  

Right now, millions of people suffer on our planet because what we want distracts us from what we actually need. The Rolling Stones made this observation decades ago, yet still we struggle.

 

For example, you may want to be admired by others, to gain a high status job, make a lot of money, have a successful career and buy a big house.

 

Unfortunately, such dreams could make you miserable. What we need for happiness is work that feeds our souls, that helps us to improve skills and grow, that provides us with a living but also makes us happier and wiser human beings.

 

Here’s another example. Because of the competitive “rat race” mentality of modern life, many people look forward to their “free time” as a chance to escape. They get caught up in political dramas, watch too much television or pornography, surf the internet, get drunk, play video games, get high with drugs or gamble.

 

Sadly, these “escape” experiences are addictive traps. These methods never work because to be truly happy humans need to connect with the world in meaningful (rather than meaningless) ways. We need to do enjoyable and playful things with others, to express our talents, practice arts or sports, collaborate on creative projects, develop our skills and human potential.

 

To be happy and free we need to be aware of bad influences. Your dog or cat knows more about happiness then the talking heads of large corporations, Madison avenue and Wall Street.  The mainstream media is a propaganda machine spinning fake stories and false dreams created by skillful marketing wizards who try to convince us to live in fear of certain “others,” crave what we don’t need and consume worthless things.

  They feed our desires, fears and anxiety, trying to convince us to ingest unhealthy thoughts and materials that do us more harm then good. They try to tempt us to eat chocolate, donuts, french fries, steak and ice cream. To put food in our bodies that provide a brief moment of pleasure, yet lead to obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, cancer, sickness and early death.

What human beings need is to care for our minds and bodies, to eat healthy, to treat our psychological and physical well-being with love, wisdom and care. To teach our children to avoid foods (and ideas) that were manufactured to taste or feel “good” for a moment but in truth do harm to our bodies and spirits.

Much of what the modern world tries to sell us is fake. Not just fake news, but also fake goals, fake dreams, fake foods, fake enemies and fake views.

 

Because of televised and internet media, millions (perhaps billions) of humans are drowning in dissatisfaction, wanting the perfect body, perfect home, perfect partner, perfect job, perfect sex life. This is what corporations and mass marketers (as well as some friends and family) tell us will bring happiness. But it won’t, because materialism is a big lie.

We don’t need more things to be happy. As the Roman philosopher Seneca put it, “the greatest wealth is a poverty of desires.”

What your soul needs is deeper connectedness and peace, freedom from fear and anxiety, loving relationships, creative activities, meaningful projects, time alone with Nature, a sense of spiritual or emotional connection to life, humanity and the Universe.

This wisdom is shared by many spiritual traditions. It’s taught by Taoism & Zen, and lived moment to moment by many animals. To be truly happy on this planet humans need to understand the difference between the fake narratives our consumer society feeds us, (about who we are and what to desire), and what we need as creative, social and spiritual beings.

Happiness arises naturally when we feed our souls rather than our egos. To become wiser and happier we need to understand the difference between what Buddhists refer to as samsara (false views) and nirvana (reality). Only then can we gain freedom from society’s endless marketing of fake goals, meaningless things and harmful products that keep billions of humans trapped in suffering, wanting and confusion.

To be happy as a species, I think we need to master for ourselves (and model for our children) how to not let fake wants get in the way of real needs.
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Royal Migration

The annual monarch butterfly journey

(Family Features) Every year, monarch butterflies embark on a 3,000-mile migration across North America. This feat of endurance lasts eight months, spans three countries and captivates people worldwide.
These graceful pollinators rely on milkweed for feeding and reproduction, but over the last decade, a reduction of milkweed habitats has occurred along the butterflies’ flight path. The decline of any species can be a threat to natural diversity.
When the weather starts to warm each year, monarchs make their way north from Mexico to begin breeding. Upon arriving in Texas, the butterflies begin to lay eggs on milkweed. Milkweed is the sole food source for monarch larvae, more commonly known as caterpillars. As milkweed plantings have diminished, so has the monarch population.

Environmentalists and butterfly lovers have taken notice of the monarchs’ dwindling numbers. BASF, a company that serves farmers and agricultural customers, launched Living Acres in 2015. Living Acres is a research initiative designed to help farmers establish milkweed beds in non-cropland areas.
“The goal is to raise awareness about the important role milkweed plays in the monarch life cycle,” said Laura Vance, biology team lead, BASF. “We also want to make milkweed planting easier by researching the most efficient ways to raise it and then offer that knowledge to growers nationwide.”

Farmers and landowners can play an important role in helping increase monarch populations simply by starting a milkweed garden. With employee-tended monarch gardens, BASF is also sustaining butterflies at its manufacturing sites. The gardens are tended to ensure the milkweed is healthy and ready for the arrival of monarchs.

As summer approaches, caterpillars begin their metamorphoses, hatching and transforming into vivid orange and black butterflies.

“If you have milkweed planted somewhere in your yard, be sure to keep an eye out for those mesmerizing monarchs,” Vance said. “You just never know when one might flutter by.”
Once mature, the monarchs continue their journey northward, passing over cool valleys and prairieland. Monarchs look for resting places in open plains, often settling in beds of milkweed. Prime milkweed habitats include areas alongside cornfields, gardens, playgrounds and rural roadsides.

Some of the most popular flight paths include the Corn Belt and Interstate 35, a corridor that runs from Texas to Minnesota. Legislators implemented a federal plan to create habitable space along highways for monarchs by planting milkweed in ditches. This initiative offers food and shelter for weary butterflies and provides nursery sites for monarch eggs.
Monarchs then begin winging their way south to the oyamel fir forests of Mexico. They spend their winters there, crowded together on the tree branches for warmth, which can appear to transform the trees into blazing orange clouds. When warm weather returns the following year, monarchs resume their migration northward and continue the cycle of breeding the next monarch generation.
Establishing your own milkweed habitat is a great way to get involved and make an impact on the continued reign of the monarch butterfly. For planting tips, visit Living Acres at Facebook.com/BASFLivingAcres.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
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BASF

To Live Longer, Study Suggests Getting Your Protein From Plants, Not Meat

But the news isn't all bad for meat lovers.

How much protein you eat—and where that protein comes from—may affect your lifespan, suggests research published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. The new analysis, conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital, found that people who ate a lot of animal protein had a higher-than-average risk of dying over the next few decades, especially if they favored processed red meat over fish or poultry. Those who ate more plant-based protein, on the other hand, had a lower-than-average risk of death.

The new research included data from two prior long-term studies, which collectively had more than 170,000 total participants. The people in these studies were tracked for 26 to 30 years and also asked to answer questions about their health and eating habits every few years. On average, they received about 14% of their daily calories from animal protein, and 4% from plant-based protein. During this time, more than 36,000 of them died.

After adjusting the results for lifestyle and other risk factors, the researchers found that those who ate the most animal protein—defined as any type of meat, eggs, or dairy—had a slightly increased risk of death. People who ate less animal protein and consumed more protein from plant-based sources—breads, cereals, pastas, beans, nuts, and legumes—were the least likely to die during the study.

The news isn’t all bad for meat lovers, though. The increased risk of death only applied to people who had at least one "unhealthy lifestyle" factor, such as being a heavy drinker, a smoker, or overweight or obese, or getting very little exercise. For participants who led overall healthy lifestyles, the link disappeared.

The study authors suspect that, in addition to lifestyle factors, the specific types of meat consumed also played a role.

"While we expected we might find the associations to be weaker in the healthy lifestyle group, we did not expect them to completely disappear," said Mingyang Song, MD, a research fellow in the Massachusetts General Hospital Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit and Division of Gastroenterology, in a press release. "But when we looked deeper into the data, we found that—at similar levels of animal protein intake—those in the unhealthy lifestyle group consumed more red meats, eggs, and high-fat dairy, while the healthy lifestyle group consumed more fish and poultry.”

Indeed, when they broke down the study results into specific types of animal protein, they found that the link between animal protein and increased risk of death applied primarily to people who ate lots of processed and unprocessed red meats (including beef and pork), and not to fish or poultry.

While this was by far the largest study to compare the effects of different types of protein, its findings aren’t particularly surprising. Experts have long recommended plant-based proteins, poultry, and fish over red meat, which tends to be high in saturated fat and cholesterol. Health contributing nutrition editor Cynthia Sass, RD, notes that people who eat less meat tend to weigh less and have lower rates of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. And you don’t have to be a full-on vegetarian to adopt some veggie-friendly habits, she explained in a post on Health.com last year. Eating more protein-packed pulses (think beans, peas, and lentils) can also make a difference.

In that sense, this new study adds more weight to what Sass and other nutrition experts have been saying for years.

“Our findings suggest that people should consider eating more plant proteins than animal proteins,” said Dr. Song, “and when they do choose among sources of animal protein, fish and chicken are probably better choices."

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15 Timeless Life Lessons From Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great.  Aristotle studied practically every subject available in his time and made significant contributions to many of them, including mathematics, logic, physics, politics, and biology.  Even though Aristotle was born around 384 B.C., his words of wisdom are still impacting many lives today 2,337 years after his death.

image credits: www.quotesigma.com

Below are 15 of his most famous quotes that are as relevant today as they were in his time.

1. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

2. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

3. “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

4. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

5. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

6. “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”

7. “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”

8. “The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.”

9. “There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.”

10.  “What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.”

11. “We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.”

12. “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”

13. “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

14. “To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.”

15. “Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”

If you thought these quotes from Aristotle are amazing, you should also check out some quotes from Socrates and Plato.  The world can still learn a lot from these incredibly wise men!

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