Monthly Message

New Mind New Body New Life: Rewrite your Destiny
by
Brian Afton
YogaBetsy Discourse Number 24

 Yoga helps us to gain control of our lives. This is complicated by the fact that we have a false and prejudiced view of the world and two minds, a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. We ordinarily think of ourselves as having chosen to do something but, while we may consciously decide to do something, it is always the subconscious which actually does it. Even such a simple thing as opening a door is an incredibly complicated activity which the most advanced robots of the current era struggle mightily with. In the human body this requires the coordination of hundreds of muscles, keeping the body balanced and upright, the flow of blood, the metabolism and the operation of trillions of cells and, moreover, it is done so well we are not even consciously aware of it most of the time.

 The great power of the conscious mind is that it is creative. It is entirely capable of originating things and developing new and better ways of doing things. Its limitation is that it is simply too slow to deal with many of the complex challenges we face daily. Instead, our subconscious which can perform a million calculations while we are doing one, uses programs, habits and reflexes which are executed automatically with blazing speed, and little or no conscious awareness on our part.

 The subconscious basically takes instructions from your conscious mind and executes them. This effectively results in it building your thoughts into your body and your life! Everything we do and say, everything which happens to us affects and changes our bodies and minds in some way. With repetition our thoughts become habits and, in a very real sense, we are the sum of our habits. The importance of this must not be underestimated. A habit is executed automatically. We do not even think about it and consequently habits can come to supplant our free will; they can become a conclusion, a belief, or an answer before a question has even been asked.

 In fact, most people are not conscious at all about 95% of the time. They are simply recycling the same thought patterns and behaviors over and over again without realizing it. So the big question becomes: Do we actually want the habits we created? Are we making real decisions or are they all being determined by subconscious programs we don't even remember?

 To understand this situation we must go back to our beginning. The newborn child does not have the kind of consciousness you have. Until the age of about 2 the child's brainwaves are mostly in the range of 0-5 Hz or what are called Delta waves. If you were in that state you would be asleep but the child is not, nor is it conscious in the sense that you are either. It has few memories, it has little or no knowledge and consequently no context for reflection in the sense you would think of yet.

 From the age of about 2 to 6 the child's brainwaves move mostly into the range of Theta waves which run from about 4 to 8 HZ. If you were in that state you would be in a hypnotic trance, but the child is in a realm between imagination and reality and a condition of super learning. At this age the child can learn 3 languages at the same time. This works because the child's two brain lobes are synchronized and they are in a condition which enables them to virtually download everything directly into their minds. Unfortunately, the child has no ability to validate the information and programs being downloaded into them. We might hope that this could be repaired later but, by the time a child is 6 years old its personality and the manner in which it engages the world have already been largely fixed, and the adult will be disinclined to change, if they think about it at all. Moreover, additional programs will be added over the years, both by us and by others without our ever realizing it

 Your subconscious is fast, and persistent, but your conscious mind is extremely powerful too. Contrary to what you have always been told, it can even control your involuntary body functions such as heartbeat. However, it can only control one of them at a time because our objective consciousness can only focus on one thing at a time. Nevertheless, it is a great power and one which may be used to change things we have all been taught were unchangeable, not only in the mind but in your body.

 Since early childhood most of us have been taught that our genes determine who we are and what we must become and that the traits that we express were the luck of the genetic draw. However, more recent science has demonstrated that this point of view has been greatly overstated.

 Genes are a blueprint for making proteins but, they are not self actuating. The genes are activated by epigenetic switches which are controlled by the environment the organism finds itself in and, this includes your mental world. Consequently two individuals having the exact same genes may not develop the same diseases or problems at all. Additionally, all of our tissues are regenerated throughout our lives by our own stem cells. Each day billions of our cells die and must be replaced. We have within ourselves the innate ability to regenerate and repair damaged organs such as our hearts and brain cells. Even when you are badly hurt or have made bad lifestyle decisions, you can recover.

 In the 1960's experiments were done by Dr. Bruce Lipton, a tenured professor at the University of Wisconsin, which demonstrated this fact conclusively. Dr Lipton, who was instructing Medical Doctors at the time, took cloned stem cells and divided them into three groups. Depending upon the environment they were placed in, they produced either bone, muscle or fat cells. And, since the cells were genetically identical it became clear that it was the environment which was determining the outcome. Genes are not self actuating. They are covered by a protein sheath which must be removed in order for them to be read and the information in them used. It is the epigentic switches which do this and, as it turns out, one gene sequence can produce over thirty thousand different proteins depending on the environment the gene finds itself in.

 Nor should it be supposed that this process is entirely chemical in nature either. Modern medicine is almost entirely stuck in the realm of Newtonian Physics which assumed that the universe was basically a physical machine. Its response to everything is a chemical pill or surgery. However, the advent of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics has clearly demonstrated that the universe is not a physical machine and in this context it is the energy field which determines the fate of the particle. Likewise, humans are profoundly affected by the energy fields and thoughts which surround them and some scientists now believe that the energy fields are 100 times more powerful than simple chemistry.

 In fact, we are exposed to both chemical and energy fields from the beginning in the womb of our mothers. This was natures way of giving the fetus a head start at dealing with the environment it was going to be born into. Would it face conditions of plenty, or would food be scarce? Would the environment be supportive or was it going to be violent? These conditions require different kinds of bodies, different mentalities, and the necessary information is passed directly from the mother to the fetus which responds accordingly. Many experts believe that not only are our physical traits determined at this point but that about half of our personalities are fixed before we are even born.

 However, this does not mean that things have to stay that way. Environments change and we are profoundly affected by the thought and energy fields which surround us, including not only our own thoughts, but those of the company we keep and the traditions and religions we embrace. The ancient yogis always knew that our thoughts were things and that they would ultimately be built into us. In Yoga, Samskaras and Vasanas are our thoughts and actions and the grooves they leave in our minds.

 We each carry subconscious programs built into us by our parents, our society and some we have added ourselves. Many of these are useful but, if we are using our parent's programs in a world greatly changed since they were young, there is going to be trouble. This programming can be changed but you have to know how. Your subconscious acts like a machine and does not reason in the way that you do consciously, so trying to deal with it as if it were another person is not likely to succeed.

 There are several ways to go about reinventing ourselves, but much success in breaking bad programming has been had in recent years using methods such as EFT, or emotional freedom therapy. These methods are described extensively in such books as “Instant Emotional Healing” and the many videos available on EFT on Youtube.com. These techniques involve what is called polarity balancing and tapping the bodies energy medians at various acupuncture or marma points in conjunction with repeating certain affirmative statements and using an even if statement admitting to our doubts.

 EFT sounds silly to most people because they do not understand their body's energy system. However it has been demonstrated to be extremely effective as testified to by Medical Doctors in treating pain and other maladies which have plagued their patients for years, moreover, it often does this in a few minutes and has successfully treated conditions that have defied surgery and drugs.

 This success is often attributed to the placebo effect but an investigation of that phenomenon is very revealing. Many medical authorities now admit that at least 33 percent of all healings are due to the placebo effect and many think it may be as high as 66 percent. This has not gotten the attention it should have because there is no money in pursuing that line of research. However, it does not take much imagination to figure out what is going on, and the reason for it has always been embedded in the deeper teachings of Yoga.

 The placebo effect is a manifestation of the bodies innate ability to heal itself and is profoundly related to and effected by the individuals belief system and more specifically it has to do with the energy fields that person is immersed in and attuned with. Or as Swami Rama has said all of the body may be in the mind, but not all of the mind is in the body. You are not your body. Your consciousness is using it as a vehicle to manifest in this world and dimension. So, it makes sense to learn how to operate it and this is one of the primary functions of yoga. At this time most illness like heart disease and cancer have been proven to have their roots in bad lifestyle choices. This includes diet, exercise and where you are keeping your mind. There are, unfortunately, many special interest groups in this world determined to keep your mind filled with false ideas and your body saturated with toxic foods.

 You cannot ingest poison and expect to flourish. Unfortunately there is no shortage of bad advice concerning what we should be eating and this is complicated by the fact that we have different body types, are of different ages and are living in different situations. However, the diet which would seem to make the most sense is the one we ate as hunter gathers in prehistory. That is the diet which was tested by evolution for millions of years. If it wasn't found in the ancient forest you probably shouldn't be eating it and you may be sure it did not consist of Twinkies, 24 ouncers, pizza, wheat, bread, including whole grain, and the junk foods most people are scarfing down today.

 Also the false thoughts and the negative programs people are ingesting today are deadly as well. Nevertheless, you can break this cycle and also reach into that part of your mind which is not in the body and attune with a higher energy field. Within you is the means of reaching beyond time and space and embracing a great power you never learned about in school.

 In the words of Thomas Paine: We have it within our power to begin the world over again. 

 


Lecture References for further reading and viewing.

(Books)
Biology of Belief Bruce Lipton PHd                                                            www.Bruce Lipton.com
Effortless Healing Dr Joseph Mercola                                                          www.Mercola.com
Instant Emotional Healing Peter Lambrou PHd G. George Pratt PHd
Change Your Brain Change Your Life Dr Daniel Amen (Brain Health)
Trust Us We're Experts..Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber (How industry manipulates Science, Opinion)

Youtube.com (video)
Bruce Lipton Epigenetics (7 min)
Bruce Lipton You Are What You Eat (6 min)
Wayne Dyer Bruce Lipton Pt 1 (7-1/2 Min) (you can heal yourself)
Wayne Dyer Bruce Lipton Pt 2 (8 Min) (you can heal yourself)
EFT Tapping Point Introduction 2011World Summit (4 min)
Bruce Lipton The Science and Theory Behind EFT Tapping (34 Min)
Ted Robinson How To Do EFT Shortcut Quickly (9 Min)
Dr Mercola Speaks About EFT (17 min)
Bruce Lipton Biology of Belief (1-1/2 Hours)
Bruce Lipton 7 Ways to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind (1 Hr 10 Min)
Rob Williams Psychology of Change (1 Hr 13 Min)

© Copyright 2016 Brian Afton 109 South 6th St Olean, NY 14760

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