7 Secrets To An Awakened Life

Many blessings and welcome to the seven secrets to an awakened life and a powerful enjoyable meditation practice.

So what we're going to be talking about in this session is how we can arrange our lives,

Design our lives in such a way that we can experience more of the beautiful feelings of joy,

Of peace,

Of bliss,

Of deep contentment and satisfaction and to avoid as much of the stressful,

Negative,

Anxious,

Dark feelings that can arise on a spiritual path and just life in general.

And we often get asked the question,

When crazy things happen and when stressful situations arise,

What can I do to feel better?

And one of the things we've realized is that,

That's too late.

It's too late at the point where we want to shift our state because what actually is necessary for us to have a wonderful life and to deal with challenges is to have the preparation,

The preparation.

It's a bit like with the immune system.

If someone has a robust immune system because of a healthy lifestyle and healthy diet and then they come across an illness,

They will overcome the illness much,

Much better than someone who has not been looking after their health very well and has a very weak immune system.

So in the same way,

We're kind of creating a spiritual immune system.

So we're going to give you the seven secrets to strengthen that spiritual immune system and to have a beautiful life.

And then when you sit down for meditation,

To really have a deep,

Rich,

Wonderful experience very easily.

So the first thing is understanding the holistic and interconnected nature of our lives.

This is something that isn't spoken about very much and is extremely important to understand right at the beginning,

That when you do something in one area of your life,

For example,

Your relationships or your,

What you eat,

Your health,

It affects other areas of your life.

So someone might sit down for meditation and their mind is racing about a relationship or they're thinking about,

You know,

The pain in their body or they're thinking about something in their work.

And they might want to not think about those things and focus on meditation,

But those things are coming in the mind because they need to be looked at.

And we can't ignore this because everything we do bleeds into,

Blends into everything else we do.

So you might have noticed if you watch something on your screen,

On your device,

TV,

Internet,

Cell phones,

And it might upset you,

Concern you,

And then you sit down for meditation and it goes around and around in the mind.

A lot of people don't realize that everything we do affects everything else.

So when we really get our head around this,

We start to think instead of just,

How can I feel better now?

We think,

What can I do to arrange and design my life in such a way that everything gets better,

Everything gets better.

So this is an absolutely essential first thing to understand.

And when we can see from this very holistic perspective,

We're able to recognize sometimes that domino effect.

If one area of our life is really out of balance,

It's affecting all the other areas of life.

And of course,

I'm sure our meditation practice.

And so when we're struggling at any time with our meditation practice,

It's very important not just to isolate that as something separate from the rest of your life,

But to look at,

Well,

What else is going on right now?

You know,

What's going on in my work life?

What's going on in my relationships and my well being?

Are there things that are pulling my attention necessarily so that I can correct them,

Realign?

And meditation is also a tool to bring light,

To bring light to every area of our lives.

And so it's not going to be just always necessarily beyond the world silent.

But sometimes our meditation practice is also showing us where we need to bring more light and attention to all the other areas of our life.

So a little tip is that when you're meditating and your mind is racing in different directions,

Instead of feeling bad about it and thinking it should be different,

It's actually very useful to get a pen and paper out and just to write down all these sorts of things that you're thinking about so that you can know that it's going to be taken care of.

It actually helps quiet the mind,

The mind starts to relax.

When you write things down and you say,

You know what mind,

Thank you for reminding me of all these unresolved things,

I'm writing them down,

I'm writing them down,

They're on the paper and I'll deal with them,

I'm going to pay attention to them later on.

And then you can focus on your meditation because you know that you're going to take care of them.

So they're actually doing you service.

So instead of thinking the mind is an enemy,

It's actually trying to help us or trying to show us things.

So the first thing,

The first secret is to understand how everything's interconnected and holistic.

And so in order to have an awakened life,

It's important for us to look at these different areas.

And we're going to be sharing more about these different areas in these other secrets.

So the next thing is to understand levels of consciousness,

Everything in our life,

Even our own selves,

The people,

The places,

The things we do,

The things we listen to.

Each energy has a certain quality of consciousness,

A certain level of consciousness.

And we want to surround ourselves and immerse ourselves in things and studies and connections and experiences that are at a high level of consciousness because this is very healing for our mind.

This is very uplifting and supportive of our meditation practice.

And this is something we can apply to every area of our life,

From different foods,

Having a higher quality of energy than other foods,

To of course,

Different relationships,

Certain souls are at a higher level of consciousness that lifts us up versus a lower level that will drain us.

Certain places,

Certain environments have a very sacred,

Beautiful quality of energy,

Such as some spiritual or religious places of spiritual connection might have a very high energy field.

And so we want to immerse ourselves in higher consciousness.

So once you understand this,

Then you start to look at the life in a very different way.

You're looking through a filter that every single thing,

People,

Places,

Objects,

Books,

Music,

Different teachers,

Different content that you might look at on your phone,

Social media,

Every single thing,

Literally different countries have a different level of consciousness and the higher the level of consciousness,

The more we are raised up,

We're pulled up.

And the lower the consciousness,

The more we actually suffer,

We are pulled down.

And you probably noticed this in your own life that you might spend time with somebody who is a high vibration and you feel really inspired,

Really happy after being with them,

You've got a lift and other people you spend time with them and you feel you want to get away as quickly as you can and it's a real,

A real drain and you dread if you see the person walking on,

You know,

You might walk the other way and try and avoid them.

So it's all levels of consciousness.

Same thing with music,

Some music you might listen to and you're like,

Please turn that off,

Please turn that off.

Another music you listen to and you feel uplifted and enriched.

Same thing with spiritual books,

Some books you read may raise you up,

Other books pull you down.

In our coaching,

You know,

We've often come across people who ask us about things and they're really spinning up,

Spinning out about a video they watched on YouTube,

Some spiritual teacher said something and they're really in a distressed state about something they heard.

And it turns out most of the time that basically they're exposed to low level vibration information.

It's not true,

It's non-integrous and so when you start believing that kind of stuff,

It pulls you down.

So a lot of the time we actually spend helping people detox some of the ideas and beliefs that they've picked up from,

From the media,

From YouTube,

From different books.

So when we realize this then we,

We start to think,

Well,

What are the high consciousness things?

What can I do to surround myself with high vibe things,

High vibe music,

High vibe people,

High vibe reading materials and you start to be able to get into the high consciousness.

And then you start to be pulled upwards naturally and then when you sit down for meditation you're already in a good space to begin with.

So we'll talk more about,

About this another time but this is just good to,

To be aware of overall that everything in the world has a different level of consciousness.

And just a few quick pointers to just help move you in the right direction.

Things like classical music,

Classical music tends to calibrate at higher levels of consciousness.

So even something as simple as playing beautiful music is uplifting,

Right?

We're going to talk about food and drink,

What we put in our bodies,

Relationships.

We're going to get into this and some of the other topics we're about to go into but keep that in mind.

And if something,

Even if on the outside appearance it appears very good,

It's from some spiritual teacher,

It's in some spiritual path and it all seems very well but you notice that you don't feel good after.

Maybe you feel drained or you feel a bit confused or something feels a bit off.

It's just good to have this overall awareness that not everything's always as it seems.

And it's very important that we develop that discernment to be able to tell what is truly healthy and beneficial for me and what is harmful.

And just to add to that,

Sometimes you might feel good after something immediately but after a little while later you start feeling really drained.

So you have to think long term about this because many seductive things seem nice,

They feel nice and then they lead to the crash down the road.

Like a lot of different health fads for example,

Initially someone might feel good about it and it starts feeling nice but as time goes on it causes major health problems.

So we have to understand the holistic nature of life and look at the big picture when we think about this.

So just tuning into it levels of consciousness,

Levels of consciousness,

There's different vibrations to everything and if you are on a quest on a mission to surround yourself with high vibe things then you will even if it takes a little bit of time to figure it out.

So the next secret to an awakened and sacred life and powerful meditation is your environment.

Your environment which means your home,

Your living area,

The places that you spend time in and of course also your meditation spot.

A lot of people they don't have anywhere to meditate so that immediately is a problem because if you don't know where to sit and if it's not conducive then it's very difficult.

Like if your only place to sit for meditation is in a in a busy area where people are wondering about all the time interrupting you that's going to be quite stressful you know.

So first and foremost when it comes to a meditation practice is to create an environment where you can sit comfortably,

Happily and privately.

So meaning that you're not going to have people just randomly barging in and asking you questions and demanding you do things because when we know that we have space then we can focus.

When we're kind of on edge am I going to get interrupted at any moment it's a bit difficult to feel completely relaxed and so environment has many many many different facets and we're just going through these things you know in essence but we're going to talk more about this in detail later but giving you a few giving you a few pointers you can use now.

So with our environment you know a few really important things to keep in mind because our environment will affect the quality of our practice and meditation.

You know I'm sure you've experienced this before maybe at times you've been to some sort of sacred place a beautiful place where there's a wonderful setup for meditation hopefully maybe you even have that in your own home and you can just sit down and sink right into that deep space and on the contrary on the contrary maybe you've been to an environment that is very cluttered very noisy and you may find it more challenging.

So one very important word I think to remember is uncluttered,

Uncluttered essential for our entire home not just our meditation space to be uncluttered and conscious because there's I've heard this several times from different paths that if our environment is cluttered it's symbolic of the clutter we're allowing to exist in our mind and so interestingly enough by changing the external it will support the internal as well it will by uncluttering your home you start to look at your mind as well and let go and unclutter and you know create more clarity.

So uncluttered conscious and some other qualities are beautiful.

How can you create an environment of beauty maybe adding some plants,

Flowers,

The colors,

More light.

How can you make it beautiful?

How can you create an environment like Michael shared where you can have quiet where you can have silence and so these are just a few things to keep in mind uncluttered conscious beautiful light quiet peaceful.

So it's really important to pay attention to this it makes a huge difference in your life so it's really important to pay attention to this it makes a huge huge huge difference it's hard to explain how much difference it makes until you actually do it and one thing I'll mention you know because I've talked to lots of people about this in our in our work different clients helping them clear out their space and one of the things that I've noticed is that oftentimes people have objects or artwork that they've been given by other people like it might I'll give you one example one of my clients had a piece of artwork that was from her husband's father who was a famous painter and it was a very expensive famous painting and he died and gave you know he was part of the will and they've had it in one of their main rooms and she didn't never like the painting and he actually didn't like it either but it was very kind of prestigious painting and it just was sitting there for years and years and years causing them stress all the time and you know I brought awareness to all these things and she decided to actually get rid of it and I spoke to her husband and he agreed he didn't really like it either he just felt obliged to have it and they removed it and they put it in the basement or I'm not sure what they did with it but they got it out of their space replaced it with something they did like and they immediately felt huge relief huge relief huge shift just with that one change so when it comes to your environment every single object has a level of consciousness so you can look around your your area and you can think what is the level of consciousness is this high vibration things because especially artwork if the artwork you look at raises you up you know elevates you inspires you then that's really good news because even if you're not looking at it directly you're being influenced by its presence by wandering about every time you go in the room same thing with furniture same thing with books same thing with with every single different element of your life we've recently been working on a deck we have a nice deck with roses and flowers and it's fountains and it's absolutely wonderful out there and I can sit out there have meditation and it's just heavenly it's absolutely heavenly you know we live in Sedona in the desert so it's a bit dry here so got lots of water element and you know misting and it makes a huge difference there's a major difference between that area and somewhere else so changing your environment really changes your your state of consciousness very very quickly and another thing I'll just mention about this is that over the years you know I've been an aspiring minimalist aspiring minimalist so we've done loads and loads of space clearings getting rid of stuff and you know cutting cutting it back to the to the bare bones and there's a huge benefit to that but I always felt something was a bit off with minimalism something just felt a bit wrong about it on on a deeper level and what I've realized in more recent years is that instead of going just to minimalism we need to go from cluttered to minimal and then from minimal to magical magical so magical means that you have the bare bones minimal as as the basis because there's no point having random objects you don't need random things you don't need but once you've got to that that point where you've got it down to the basics then you can add in magical things you know little special little things not too many of them because then it starts getting cluttered so you've got to be careful but you know plants you know certain textured things beautiful artwork you know we have lots of flags Tibetan flags and we have you know we have lots of flags Tibetan flags and different flags on the trees and you know things like that they add a certain magic we have like a hummingbird feeder here and we have the hummingbirds so you can you know magic can mean different things to different people but a certain elegance a certain wonder a certain vibrance so when you are wandering around your house you feel inspired you feel in a higher consciousness and anything that brings you down just get rid of it give it away it doesn't matter if if it's expensive it doesn't matter if someone you know gave it to you if it brings your vibration down it's a huge disservice to have it around so just give yourself permission to give it away I remember one time buying some clothes that I thought I would like and you know I realized after getting them that they didn't bring them rejoin they weren't going to help so I just gave them to charity and I couldn't send them back so it doesn't matter even if you've just bought something and even if it's expensive the holding on to things that have a low vibration that don't help you isn't helping you isn't helping anyone else but the the good news is that when you give them to someone else or give them to a thrift store someone else is going to a thrift store some other person will come across it and it might bring them huge amounts of joy so it's a it's a great service to to let go and also these thrift stores goodwill on all these places they often employ homeless people or alcoholics or people in need and it helps them get their lives back together so giving your stuff you don't need to those places is actually really a good a good service yeah so give this some thought how you can make your environment as supportive as possible for your meditation practice for going deep you know we want to set things up why do for example like buddhist monks they live in a monastery a lot of them and it's because of the environment right they want to dedicate their life to a certain form of meditation and so they they live together they create an environment the monastery and usually they're well i won't say usually i think all of the time most likely they're very beautiful uncluttered silent peaceful right because our environment has a significant effect so keep this in mind and then the next element that can also have a significant effect on our meditation practice is the food and the drink that we take in if you've heard these terms and they're from Sanskrit originally believe Sanskrit sato rajo and tamo this refers to qualities of energy sato being the purest quality of energy rajo being a bit irritated aggravated a little bit energy tamo pradhan tamo being very dull very weak inert negative often and we can apply these qualities of energy to different foods and different drinks and as you can imagine with the food and the drink we take in it's going to have an effect on one on our body but also on our mind because we're taking in this other substance that has this quality of energy and putting it into our body where i the soul live so i'm going to experience that to one extent or another and there are multiple layers of this on one hand is the actual food itself so food that is closest to nature nature its natural state like fruits vegetables you know grains some nuts and seeds things like that this is it's pure it's clean right it comes from nature and it's a natural state but it's pure it's clean right it comes from nature it's you know untampered with too much so it has a quite a clean quality of energy we get into rajasic rajo foods can be less pure like aggravants irritants like caffeine right and chocolate and and lots of spice things that can kind of give a little irritation to the mind and then tamo would be foods that are very dead you know they don't have any life force in them of course all of the packaged and processed foods and and all of that so we want to pay attention to the the food itself of course foods that come direct directly from nature are going to be the purest they're growing from the ground on the trees and then also what is the quality of energy that i am making that food with or i know sometimes people are eating foods from restaurants or other people make it what is the state of consciousness they're making the food in because those vibrations are also going into the food and then going into my body and affecting my mind so when we sit for meditation or we start feeling strange in our lives a lot of it is these things we're talking about the foods the consciousness that we have around our environment and we have to tune into it honestly and and also be open to experiment you know it's very useful to have an attitude of experimentation of fun and games try things out why not try it out see what happens if you eat differently for a week or a month what's going to happen you know i've tried different things like i've drunk coffee most of my life and i stopped recently and then i drank some last week and i i felt really weird you know when you stop drinking it if you've if you've not had it for a while it's pretty strong stuff you know you get used to it i remember when i first started meditation i stopped all stimulants completely because previous that i was doing drugs and drinking alcohol and everything i stopped everything and all i had was herbal tea and you know vegetarian food and then one day someone made this chocolate cake and had coffee as i came in the kitchen and i was chocolates cake and coffee on the table and i was like all right why not you know so i had you know cake and coffee and i felt like i was on heavy drugs i remember it was really really strong i was like oh my god this is it was really intense and you know and that but before that i was doing all sorts of very strong drugs anyway so you kind of build up a tolerance but we need to think about different foods that we eat what effect are they having on our being and they all have an effect every single food is in a sense a drug because they have chemicals in them they have new nutrients minerals and it's difficult to know unless you experiment you can't tell unless you try so you have to ask yourself are you willing to have a go try things out and life is fun life is more fun when we try different things actually so you can tune into it if you think okay what is a satvic diet if you type in google satvic diet there's lots and lots of articles about it s a t t v i c or sato s a t o so this has been you know in consciousness for a long time aravada talks about these different things so there's a lot of information about it we have to just tune into it and try it out like everything we're talking about if you change your environment move things around get rid of things get new things what how do you feel if you try your diet changing your diet what happens we're not trying to make this right or wrong this is about our personal joy and our and i've been experimenting with these things between us for about 35 years like daily experiments with different things weekly different things and we've come to learn many many things from that experimentation and a lot of stuff you know we wouldn't have have thought was a good idea until you try it out a lot of things seem like a good idea and they don't work and other things actually turn out to be fantastic and they go against what we're used to so we can just be open be light be you know fun have a fun and games easy sort of feeling about it so the diet we have what are we actually eating what are the substances how are we making our food is it made in a relaxed joyful space or a stress space or a stress space how are we eating our food and the other thing is when are we eating the time of day exactly and this is something we've also experimented with and we recommend experimenting with it to see really what actually works best for you um so if you do have an early morning meditation practice and the early morning is a very beautiful quiet time for meditation you know before the sun comes up um if you have an early morning meditation practice of course you want to think about when is when are the best time to have your meals so if you do it's good to have something light in the evening so that you can wake up really fresh so we've experimented for a while and we find that swapping like normally people have the lightest thing in the morning or a lot of people just don't even eat breakfast so they have coffee or you know or maybe they just have some fruit and then maybe they have something heavier and then for a lot of people dinner is their heaviest meal for us and what's most supportive of our meditation practice and our work we find is actually opposite so eat our most grounding meal in the beginning of the day and then you know maybe and of course lunch as well and then but at night have it be lighter so that you're able to sleep really well i think sleep is very important for meditation so whatever we can do to optimize sleep go to sleep have something light create in a peaceful environment you can sleep really well rest your mind so that then you can wake up and have a beautiful meditation practice we did an interview not so long ago with a lovely soul from india and he's been waking up very early most of his life in india sometimes it's more of a practice and he also is a yogi who practices and he's up to three four am in the morning powerful meditation practice and he also says make sure light meal in the evening and i'm sure he eats well in the morning he's a doctor and has a very busy day so we need to fuel ourselves ourselves for the activities we need the fuel for that's what michael and i realize we don't need the fuel so much just to go to sleep like traditional is everyone has their heaviest meal at night but we need the fuel during the day and lightness in the evening so we sleep and meditate well so you know try it out try different things out we've tried so many different diets and different systems and different times a day and what what we realized we were laughing about this today is that for a long time you know we've been getting up you know around four o'clock and then not having breakfast till around eight or even nine and and then having lunch you know around one o'clock so in other words if we would if you apply that to someone who was to wake up at eight o'clock in the morning it would be like someone wakes up at eight then they don't eat anything until about 12 o'clock and they just have a very small you know bowl of fruit or something and then they have lunch at 5 p.

M and i just we were thinking hang on a minute that's that's just ridiculous to to be doing that really so what we've what we do is we get up early i normally have some tea tea and honey and then and then we have a juice about an hour later fresh juice and then we have a you know roast so like some potatoes and salad or something like that you know um roast potatoes and um baked potatoes excuse me rl's correcting me here not to roast potatoes baked potatoes so baked potatoes and some squash or something like that you know just some grounding vegetables with some some herbs and some ginger you know something a little bit um easy to digest so these just giving you some ideas so you you can tune it into this for yourself and then in the evening if we eat less in the evening then what happens is our body can digest gives a bit of space and the other thing is very important is when you wake up in the morning your body basically says give me some food so it wants to get up it's it's supporting us to get out of bed if we eat a huge meal and then go to sleep our body says no let's just relax i don't need to do anything now all right so it makes a big big big difference that evening meal so try it out you know we're just giving you some suggestions it's worth being open to see how you feel when you try different things so the fifth thing in our spiritual life our awakened life and meditation is of course relationships the effect of other people in the dharmapada in the buddhist scripture it says that if you can't find good company then it's best to walk alone because the company of of being immature leads you into darkness and so this is just you know in a nice way of understanding that the boat of truth is going to be sunk with bad company you know we don't like talking about this very much but it's very important because people have a huge effect on our life huge effect on our life more i would say than anything else and that's why if someone is surrounded by people who eat really well and and exercise and they're really fit that person is probably going to end up eating well and exercising and being fit if the same person is surrounded by people who are not eating well who are overweight who never exercise who have a house full of junk food and tasty things it's very difficult for them to not go along with it and eat some of that stuff really really really hard i was talking to um someone we worked with recently who said she lives with different types of people who eat different things and they bring all these tasty stuff into the house all the time and she goes oh look at those you know and of course she wants to have something because they look at them they especially donuts and bagels and like oh so if you're surrounded with things from other people but also other people's opinion other people's timetable so of course we can't just get rid of everyone in our life or anything like that and it's not always a good idea to do that but we we need to think where do we have control over our relationships and how can we how can we align our life in such a way that we're surrounded with good company absolutely this is very significant i'm just going to add something on the tail end of that last note as well we're talking about food and health exercise is also very very important i think for our meditation practice we need to make sure we're moving every day i remember a beautiful soul once said that he exercises so that he can deeply rest so we need to move the body enough so that when we sit for meditation we're not all fidgeting all over the place restless right make sure you're getting out walking whatever works for your yoga pilates if you go running whatever but dancing move your body okay so relationships we are affected by the company we keep um i remember a book do you remember the book about the five people closest to you yeah there's a book that talks about you are the average the average because you're so influenced by the closest five people in your life and so we need to be very aware of who are these souls who are affecting me it's not necessarily conscious it's unconscious we're unconsciously affected by those around us their thoughts their words their actions their energy all of it and i'm sure you've noticed this in your life you know maybe you've given it some thought maybe you haven't but it is a very significant factor in our well-being in our level of consciousness our state of consciousness in and even in the quality of our meditation practice very significant and at first when you start looking at this it can be challenging because you think oh but how can i let go of this relationship or how can i change this and usually we start off that way and we we make all these excuses i can't i can't i can't i can't but when we look at it deeper we realize it isn't i can't it's i won't we're not willing actually and we're attached so we need to look at our attachments and our willingness and really value our lives to such an extent that we are willing to do whatever is necessary to support ourselves in our dharma our highest path and our highest truth that's right and we have to be aware that a lot of our relationships are kind of haphazard they're random in many ways they're not in the scheme of things everything has meaning but at the same time as we grow up you know we meet people at school we only meet the people at school who happen to be in our school don't we we don't meet other people who live in a different country because they're not there and then we go and do this we go and do that so a lot of things people just show up you know and there's lots and lots of people we have to remember this there's over seven billion people that's an enormous number of people we can't possibly have a relationship with almost any percentage of all the people in the world but what it also means is there's all these other people who you don't know so we should take the time and the the love for ourselves to just tune into this and think is it a high vibe relationship is it bringing me up or is it causing sorrow and i can tell you from my own experience that i've often made excuses oh you know so and so so nice i need i want to help them i need to help them and then it turns out that the only real solution is to actually end the relationship that there's no real other way of going about it and it would have been better if i just got that taken care of much much much much much much much earlier so again with everything we're sharing it's up to you you you're the one who lives your life you're the one who has the experience you have and you're the one who experiences the result of being in different people's company and i remember hearing recently about the the coronavirus when when there's been the lockdown where people are stuck in their house with the various people they live with the the most disturbed people are the ones who are stuck in a abusive relationship and they can't leave that that's a devastating experience so you know that's one of the worst things that can happen is you're stuck in it so this is something to be very aware of and be honest about and of course the best company and the aim of our meditation practice the type of meditation that michael and i teach this raj yoga union with the divine is the company of god the one the divine the highest the beloved the ocean of love that being is the highest energy highest consciousness in all of existence so when we're talking about the divine we're talking about the one that's the highest energy highest consciousness in all of existence so when we have this meditation practice of linking our attention with that one that company is the most benevolent purifying powerful effect on our consciousness of all and so we want to increase that and really increase our relationships and so the next piece is content what what are we consuming in the books that we read the articles the things we watch videos television um social media i mean this of our relationships what are we allowing into our minds you know what type of information are we letting in and we can't we can't be innocent and think that it doesn't have an effect it absolutely has an effect all of it every bit of it has an effect on our consciousness and we might not notice it right away but over time you know we're checking this new site or we're taking this and suddenly we find ourselves in a bad mood or we're sitting in our meditation practice and we feel anxious we feel agitated you know so oftentimes we have to also trace it back to what am i taking in we live in this information age and there's so much content so much information and we need to bring our awareness to what we're allowing into our minds and know that it is going to have an effect that's right so everything has a level of consciousness like we mentioned before so every news company has a different level of consciousness a lot of the news nowadays is non-integrous fake news so it's it's either highly bias vindictive nasty misinformation most of it is sadly the vast majority of news is very very toxic and designed to cause harm to somebody or and it harms us by by reading about it you know very very very dark time for the news and of course social media what's that doing to our brain when someone is scrolling through instagram facebook or whatever else it is twitter the the speed of that scrolling and the amount of information is far too much for our rational mind and our discernment discernment our discerning power to really deal with and what it means is that we are being exposed to massive amounts of negativity at an extremely fast rate because if you scroll quickly quickly quickly through a bunch of things consciously we didn't read any of it because it's too fast unconsciously if you were to be hypnotized you could get someone who who's a trained hypnotist to help you go back and you would be able to see in detail and read every single thing you scrolled through quickly that that's how it works if you were to slow it down so it all goes in and so most people don't realize this they don't realize this david hawkins who we who we appreciate because he came up with a map of consciousness levels of consciousness he says that vloggerism and social media has disabled the capacity to discern truth from falsehood in 40 percent of the population so it means that the result of this bombardment of information is that now 40 percent or more of the people cannot discern what is true and what isn't i think it's probably more this was back in 2004 he said this before facebook and everything probably more like 60 70 now so it's it's actually destroyed our capacity to discern truth from falsehood if we get involved with it if you get out of it if you step away from it then you get that discernment can be can return and i'm sure everyone here is more mindful about these sort of things so it's well worth if we want to have a good life want to feel happy to think about what are we consuming is it actually high vibration is it conscious and is it having a positive effect and if it isn't then it's a good idea to ease it out and will feel much much much much better many people if they take a digital detox and they just turn everything off within a few days they feel their joy is returned their happiness is returned this their peace is returned and all their anxiety and stress has faded away so this is this topic of content is a major topic because our modern world is defined by content you know it's probably the great activity of most human beings at this time is consuming various sorts of content consumerism so is it lifting us up or not most of it unfortunately is not lifting us up so it's up to us to have the love have the love in our hearts for ourselves to choose to put in front of our mind and our eyes only the most beautiful things and so this last piece also ties into content and it's something that's emerged in our lives in past few decades or so is the internet and this also has a very significant effect of course what this also has a very significant effect of course what we just talked about the content on the internet and even just the the content on the internet is a problem and even the energy field of the internet itself is a problem in the sense that since a lot of what's on the internet is actually untrue below integrity what was the percentage that's something like um i would say it's about 85 90 somewhere around there 85 90 percent non-integrous information so the level of consciousness of the field that is the internet that we engage with when we open our computer or look on our phone it's not that much of a positive influence there are some very beneficial and beautiful things we can do service we can do ways we can help people good things we can read good things we can share there are some but it's the minority i'd say compared to the vast ocean of negativity and negative influence and so there's this there's the content that's the problem there's the energy field that is the internet that can be quite harmful and then the addictive quality of the internet social media gmail amazon you know all the big the big websites are designed to be addictive to pull our minds to come back to check to be notified to to get over involved with them to the extent that we lose can lose ourselves and definitely definitely very much harm our meditation practice if not eradicate and destroy our meditation practice yeah the internet is probably the single most powerful effect negative effect on most people and and part of the reason is that it takes up so much time that someone might say i want to do more meditation i want to do these other things and it just never happens because the once you turn the stuff on and it just goes on and on and on and what most people don't realize is that the internet and cell phones apple facebook amazon google the people designing the interfaces how it looks how it works they've employed casino designers i'm not sure you if you realize this or not but the casino designers the people who want us to go to the casino stay in the casino not look at the time spend as much money as possible those same architects who design casinos for consumption and addiction though they are the ones who are being consulted to create addictive technology so the way it's designed isn't designed for our benefit it's designed for our engagement for our attention for our addiction so it's you know we have to bring these things up because you might want to have lots of meditation and feel great but if that phone is there all the time and you check check check check check and bing bing bing bing bing then it becomes almost impossible to concentrate and meditation requires first and foremost concentration concentration power and so if we really love our ourselves our lives and we want to concentrate we want to have meditation then it's a sign of love to remove things that are a hindrance to our meditation so what are and i do we mention this quite a lot in our different courses is we we put our internet box that we have a wi-fi box like everyone else and it has a plug so we unplug it and we put the plug in a plastic box watertight plastic box and we also put the cell phone in the plastic box we actually only have one cell phone between both of us we don't have a separate cell phone we put the cell phone and the plug in a box so that's the whole internet the whole world of internet and then we walk down to the edge of the garden which takes about a minute or two minutes to walk we have a fairly big piece of land here and put it underneath a bush i found this little bush that's just perfect in the shade and by the time i've walked back to the house i immediately feel like my mind is clearer i can focus i'm not stressed out about things and i can do meditation i can take care of of the different things in the house that need doing i can work without distraction so it's a completely different experience of life when that thing is in the garden but once it comes back to the house gets turned on then all of a sudden the whole world of the internet gets reactivated and and of course there's benefit i'm not saying there's no benefit we have an internet business we're uploading this this audio and sharing through the internet all these different things come through the internet but to do it in a very conscious way and even though we run an internet business we really only need the internet for approximately one hour a day if maybe even less so if we can run an internet business on one hour a day then it's definitely possible for people who don't have an internet business to claim back their life and their time so these seven aspects of life are essential to bring consciousness to attention to in connection to our meditation practice because as we've just discussed each and every one of these areas of life can and will affect our practice and often need cleansing purifying updating upgrading so that we can align ourselves with our highest expression in our lives and it's a great service to all of life for you to be able to align yourself with your highest dharma and show up in your greatest light that will have the greatest effect on everyone around you and the entire world when your level of consciousness your alignment is the greatest that it can be that is the greatest that you can be and that is the greatest service that you can do and will then inspire you as well to do further service and serve and help and create and share in the way that you're meant to so give what we've talked about today some thought our environment all these elements affect our meditation practice we want to have a holistic perspective that's the first thing we talked about a holistic perspective we want to recognize levels of consciousness everything has a level of consciousness we want to create an environment that is uncluttered that is conscious that is light that is beautiful we want to take into our bodies the foods and the drinks that will be most supportive to a calm and peaceful mind so what type of food and drink when we have that food and drink how it's prepared and then of course we also need to make sure we're moving our body exercise is also very important to be able to sit and go deep in our practice our relationships very significant sometimes this is the most touchy subject we have a lot of attachments oftentimes in our relationships and they can have a significant effect good company lifts you up bad company can drown you so really assessing that and then the content that we're taking in often unnecessarily if we're honest what type of content are we taking in i've heard people tell me about like tv shows they've watched horrific horrific so violent to take that into your mind before you go to sleep i mean you know it's we've really been talking about it a lot and then internet and technology same sort of thing what are we exposing ourselves to and are we allowing ourselves to get pulled into this addiction trap because it is one you know we know of our the youth today the younger people my my golly you know the level of addiction is so important and so it's really important to take that into your mind before you go to sleep you know the level of addiction to these apps to these platforms because the casino designers you know are designing it in such a way so and if you have kids we if you want to be a good example for your kids you have to lead by example and show them how to not be addicted to the phone right so all of these things we've talked about today are significant areas of life to look at to be able to go deep in your meditation practice your awareness of who you are beyond your body and personality be able to have this subtle most powerful divine connection to a higher power power all of this to experience those things we need to harmonize and bring light to every area of our life playing back that life in that time so these seven aspects of life are essential to bring consciousness to attention to in connection to our meditation practice because as we've just discussed each and every one of these areas of life can and will affect our practice and often need cleansing purifying updating upgrading so that we can align ourselves with our highest expression in our lives and it's a great service to all of life for you to be able to align yourself with your highest dharma and show up in your greatest light that will have the greatest effect on everyone around you and the entire world when your level of consciousness your alignment is the greatest that it can be that is the greatest service that you can do and will then inspire you as well to do further service and serve and help and create and share in the way that you're meant to so give what we've talked about today some thought our environment all these elements affect our meditation practice we want to have a holistic perspective that's the first thing we talked about a holistic perspective we want to recognize levels of consciousness everything has a level of consciousness we want to create an environment that is uncluttered that is conscious that is light that is beautiful we want to take into our bodies the foods and the drinks and the foods and the drinks that will be most supportive to a calm and peaceful mind so what type of food and drink when we have the that food and drink how it's prepared and then of course we also need to make sure we're moving our body exercise is also very important to be able to sit and go deep in our practice our relationships very significant sometimes this is the most touchy subject we have a lot of attachments oftentimes in our relationships and they can have a significant effect good company lifts you up bad company can drown you so really assessing that and then the content that we're taking in often unnecessarily if we're honest what type of content are we taking in i've heard people tell me about like tv shows they've watched horrific horrific so violent to take that into your mind before you go to sleep i mean you know it's we've really got to look at that and then internet and technology same sort of thing what are we exposing ourselves to and are we allowing ourselves to get pulled into this addiction trap because it is one you know we know of our the youth today the younger people my my golly you know the level of addiction to these apps to these platforms because the casino designer is the one that's getting excited because the casino designers you know are designing it in such a way so and if you have kids we if you want to be a good example for your kids you have to lead by example and show them how to not be addicted to the phone right so all of these things we've talked about today are significant areas of life to look at to be able to go deep practice,

Your awareness of who you are beyond your body and personality,

Be able to have this subtle,

Most powerful divine connection to a higher power.

All of this,

To experience those things,

We need to harmonize and bring light to every area of our life.

So thank you for your beautiful presence.

These are very beautiful things we've been sharing with you.

It's taken us many,

Many years to discover how powerful different areas of our life are and how everything affects everything else.

So we recommend that you just tune into these different levels of life,

The levels of consciousness of the things in your life,

The people in your life,

What you're watching,

Listening to,

And just try stuff out.

It's one of those things that unless you try it out you just don't know the difference.

You could be into a magical,

Magical surprise when you start shifting things around.

So a lot of the stress that we have in life,

A lot of the worries,

A lot of the fears,

A lot of the negative feelings,

They're just different areas of our life that need to be tweaked a little bit.

And when you do,

You notice that the joy that you already have,

That bubbling joy starts to bubble up nicely and you start to feel profoundly better.

That's right.

So see where you can bring greater light,

Greater consciousness into every area of your life.

And we can guarantee that by doing so your meditation practice will improve as well.

The more our entire life is conscious,

Aligned,

And in harmony,

The better we're going to feel.

So we hope these insights have been helpful to you.

Of course,

We could share so much more on each one,

But we did our best to really give you the jewels,

The greatest things we found that make the biggest difference.

And we wish you every blessing as you harmonize and bring greater light to your life and of course to your meditation practice.

Have a beautiful day,

Beautiful week.

We look forward to sharing more about these things with you soon.

Much love and namaste.

Many blessings.