Top 20 Most Inspiring Talks Ever

Posted on by
6

TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) has established itself as one of the most visited and exciting intellectual think-tanks on the Web. It’s a feast of really knowledgeable people, strutting their stuff, in short presentations. For those of us on the go, it’s a perfect format: no 1-hour marathons. Just short, brilliant and inspiring!

This is one of my favorites, though not on the list: Paul Stamets talk about 6 ways mushrooms can save the world. He also explains how fungi first invented the Internet!

Paul Stamets speaks at TED

Do leave me a comment and let me know which ones you enjoyed!

The Renegade Guru

Lack of iodine can lower IQ 15 points or more.

Posted on by
3

Talk about food for the mind and brain!

You may remember an insulting word: cretin. We called people we considered stupid that but, as kids, we never knew why it was bad to be a cretin.

It’s actually not just an insult but a real medical term; or was. A cretin was a child who grew up severely mentally retarded due to lack of iodine in the diet. There are various theories for the origin of the word, including Cretanism (Crete was one place notorious for cretinism, before the real cause was found).

Nowadays, health workers don’t use the term cretin, because it’s insulting. Instead we call it congenital hypothyroidism. But the cause is still too little iodine in the diet.

I’m telling you all this to fix in your mind the fact that mental function is disastrously impaired, in the absence of adequate dietary iodine. Beware! Continue reading →

Degrees of Consciousness from Dead to Divine

Posted on by
Reply

One of my recurring “structures of thought” is the SCALE of values.

The definition of a scale is an incremental series of steps—like a spectrum.

The key to a scale is that each step along the way is not so different from the ones on either side. But as change continually progresses, there is eventually a major shift in values. One end of the spectrum is very different from where you started; often, in fact, the complete opposite or reverse.

My scales are trying to be comprehensive and cover ALL related values, even opposites. So a scale of “truth”, for example, would include lies or falsehoods at the opposite end. These are reverse values but quite clearly related to each other. As with a dichotomy, one defines the other. So “truth” is defined partly as the opposite of “lies” and vice versa, of course.

But not all scales are opposites. You met my “Ladder Of Emotions”, for example. The top and bottom are not really opposites: bliss is not the reverse of despair and numbness. These are qualitatively different steps. But there is still PROGRESS from one level to the next and a person will still pass through all intermediate stages, no matter how fast [I need to expand on that, some day].

Recently, a whole new scale popped into y head, which I think you’ll find interesting. It’s a Scale of Awakening, from dead to divine, and all degrees of consciousness between.

You can read more here

Love Yourself

Posted on by
Reply

You want to change bad habits, right? They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit or break an old one (it was Maxwell Maltz MD, actually, in his book Psychocybernetics).

I drafted a tiny little tool you could use, a habit changer chart, to help you in changing any habit towards something better. Just download it, print it out and fill it in!

You tick off a box each day you succeed (and a cross if you failed, but let’s not go there, eh?) Just name your vice in the top panel, stick it to the fridge door, and off you go!

download the habit changer chart here

(right click and choose “save as…” etc.

Rehabilitating a lost love

Posted on by
2

 

 

 

The guru says:

There are few secrets more craved by the mass of people than the knowledge of how to heal a broken heart, or at least how to diminish the intense hurt of losing one’s love. The most painful episodes in our lives are those when we are suffering this crushing burden and cannot seem to find relief or respite from the distress. We use grief, rage, hatred, revenge, irrational hysteria and a whole host of negative emotions to try to get us through this time. Wouldn’t it be nicer to translate the whole experience into something worthy, something comforting and reassuring? The pain of loss is diminished if we could only take our love forward in our hearts and not be hurt by it. 

What follows is something radical to help in these times of distress. Psychotherapy, grieving and abreaction are all very well in time, when the unpleasant event is in the past. But while it is present and burning us, we need something very different.

The question is:  why not simply state clearly in your mind “this is a good experience. Something has dropped out of my life and i am ready to move forward without loss, prejudice or negativity”?

The answer is, as we all know, that it just wouldn’t stick! Your mind would reject this proposition as unsound, if not downright ridiculous!

But that’s all we want to achieve. So the $64,000 question is: “What if there is a way to condition your mind to accept the idea in such a manner that it would welcome it, warm to it, believe it and use it to dictate your subsequent feelings and actions?” Now that would be something special. In fact the whole world and your view of it would change. Because there is nothing intrinsic in the universe itself that feels as you do. The world of reality cares not a jot that your lover no longer communicates with you. Only your mind tells you that that event is something disastrous and painful; change that belief and there is no longer a problem.

You would feel happier, obviously. But you would be free to rejoice in the relationship that just ended, instead of moping around and regretting it.

Love will once again find a place! Continue reading →

Where did we come from? – 2

Posted on by
Reply

This post I promised to take a crack at defining spirit; I mean a REAL, scientifically-oriented definition, not woolly mumbo-jumbo or guru-babble.

Actually, it isn’t so hard if you go about it the right way. Basically, spirit is non-material, I think we can all agree on that. So what does it mean to be non-material?

It means:

  • no matter
  • no energy
  • no location in space
  • no time
  • no wavelength

We have to add this last, because even wavelength implies a Hertzian field. That’s the equivalent of energy and mass.

But so far, this doesn’t imply consciousness.

What we have to do is add awareness (awareness of awareness), which implies perception and cognitive function.

So consciousness is something that doesn’t exist, by normal physics definitions, yet has the ability to perceive, think and be aware. Not just that but be aware of being aware.

How could such a thing come about? I have no idea, honest!