Go to Where Your Spirit is Invited to Open Up

Tomorrow starts a new series, on Relationships, Love and Sex – with Valentine’s Day coming up, this is the perfect topic.

But before we begin the new series, today, as a brief interlude between the new series and the one that just ended on Longevity, we have an article guest written by poet and essayist Susan Jefts, entitled Go to Where Your Spirit is Invited to Open Up.

Susan, whose work has appeared on the Low Density Lifestyle website before, most recently with her article that featured her poems, The Poetic Nature of Life, is a poet who lives in Saratoga Springs, NY. She runs writing groups in therapeutic and community settings using poetry as a tool for exploring life issues and healing.

Susan teaches writing and advises students for Empire State College and has had her poetry published in several journals and books regionally and throughout the country, including Big City Lit, Parnassus Literary Journal, The Hudson River Anthology and Metroland, among others.

Her website is www.saratogapoetryroom.com.

There’s nothing more central to living a Low Density Lifestyle than having a sense of inner peace. This article is about finding that sense of peace in the silence and stillness of winter.

Here now is Susan’s article, Go to Where Your Spirit is Invited to Open Up:

Sometimes it’s in the most unlikely months and times of year that our spirits are invited to open up the widest. For instance, I think winter can in many ways be a time of discovery. Of being taken unexpectedly, much like a good poem, to new places both inner and outer.

Like many people, I have mixed feelings about winter. But I believe that certain experiences of this season can carry us, if we let them, into both the magical landscapes around us and the deeper regions of our hearts.

It is true that there is indescribable beauty to be found on a snow-covered lake while small clouds dance with sunlight on the summits high above you. Everything literally glistens, and the silence is impossible to describe. I can only think of it as the kind that one finds while moving into deep meditation. Only you get to keep your eyes open.

I am thinking of a particular place in the high peaks area of the Adirondacks, one that has been with me since I skied there with friends on a sunny thirty-degree day in early January. Although, really it has been with me since I first hiked there one summer almost twenty years ago. But this was the first time I had been there in winter.

After the 3 1/2 mile ski on an old road through the woods, we arrived at the long narrow lake, its icy cliffs and steep mountains hugging the shoreline. I had never been out on the lake and knew this was a big part of why I’d come. To ski down that long frozen waterway, to experience the intense beauty of this setting from deep inside it rather than from the shore, where you can only look longingly down its length.

I’ve always been drawn to exploring lakes, but certain ones hold a unique allure, and this was one of them. It had to do, I think, with the particular arrangement of water, cliffs and mountains. And the presence of several high peaks looming above, invoking a strong feeling of awe and wonderment. But it has to do with something else, too, that I’ve been trying for years to name.

I set off skiing down the lake below its hovering cliffs with no audible sound but my own breath-ing and the swish of my skis. My friends had chosen to stay behind on the shore to eat their lunch, and while I had been delighting in our camaraderie and sharing that day, I didn’t mind set-ting off for a while on my own. Every few feet was a new experience for the senses: a cliff of ice reflecting the blue gray hues of the clouds, a small rush of cold air in the shadows, a feeling of inner expansiveness as I rounded a bend allowing me to see further down the lake.

This place had for a long time beckoned me with a force and beauty I couldn’t quite comprehend. I had read stories about others’ adventures down this lake and onto the next, the two separated by only a few hundred yards. And from there to who knows where. More lakes, mountains and passageways.

There are energies, I feel, that are unique to places like this. Some are from the glacially formed lake, some from the jagged mountains, some from the transient clouds changing the weather from one minute to the next. The longer I stayed, the more I felt the confluence of these energies within me.

There is an honesty in places like this that becomes almost palpable. It’s in the landscape and it starts to be in you too. You are alone and you are quiet. You feel an immensity that is undeniable. It presses down upon you, or lifts you up; perhaps you’re not sure which. I’ve often felt that mountains have spirits, and much more influence in our lives than we are aware.

I recently read a reviewer’s description of an actor in an off-Broadway play who said his performance was so complete that it had a tendency to highlight the deficiencies of the actors around him. Although I wouldn’t choose to think of people or nature in terms of deficiencies, perhaps a bit of an analogy can be made. In a place of such natural resplendence, one affect can be that our lives are reflected back to us. We can see where we feel replete and impassioned, and where we don’t. Sometimes I think I come to such places in part to learn this: to feel what is going on in my life, or not going on.

At times I’ve come away from such places with only what I arrived with and maybe a renewed appreciation for nature, and sometimes that’s been enough. But lately, like this time, I’ve come away with something more. A feeling of inner expansiveness and far reaching beauty, and a greater sense of what I’m capable of in ability and in compassion. Of harnessing possibility and passion and putting it to meaningful use.

I have felt this at times from other experiences, like meditation and yoga, but something about this was different; it was as sensuous as it was spiritual, like a great sky and lake had opened up inside of me.

And a few weeks later, they are still with me.

Winter truly can be an opening into new regions of ourselves. It might happen through an outdoor adventure as it did for me, or a more subtle experience. There are opportunities in the depths of the cold and darkness, or the brilliance of a glittering day. My experience would not have been the same in July. The energy of winter is unique and deeply spiritual.

What I learned from that day is this: Go to where your spirit feels invited to open up, wherever that might be.

Top Ten Ways to Start Living a Low Density Lifestyle Now

In yesterday’s article I explained What the Heck a Low Density Lifestyle Is.

When you read the article, you should be able to wrap your mind around the concept pretty quickly, and I think you’ll agree with me that it makes a lot of sense.

Tomorrow I will begin the first series of the year, and it will be on Longevity. As you probably know, once I begin a series, I spend a few weeks looking at the theme of the series at an in-depth level. So in a couple of weeks, you’ll know more about Longevity than you ever thought you did.

But before I begin the series on Longevity, let’s examine the top ten ways you can start living a Low Density Lifestyle right now.

Yes, right now. Not tomorrow. Now. So let’s begin…

1) Open your mind. When you talk to someone, do you have a knee-jerk negative reaction to what they say? Open your mind to the possibilities that are out there, because it could cause you to change your thinking and expand the way you see the world. When you are closed minded, you shut off 99% of the world.

2) Listen to others. Don’t just be the one talking…listen to what others have to say – you will learn a lot that way.

3) Watch your expectations. It’s easy to expect others to do what you think they should do, or what you think is the proper way for them to behave and act. But everyone is different, and you should never impose your beliefs and standards on others. If you think someone is acting improperly, be aware if your perception is clouded by the way you expect them to act.

4. Beware the Curse of Knowledge. Don’t act like an expert, even if you know everything about the subject at hand. This ties in with the first point, to open your mind. The Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” You may know a lot about a subject, and may be the go-to person on the subject, but at the same time, it’s best to be humble about your knowledge, because there is never an end to what can be added onto the subject. For instance, the Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman once said, “I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there.” And if anyone had the right to claim firm knowledge on a subject matter, it was Richard Feynman.

5. Laugh. A lot. We all have a tendency to take ourselves too seriously. When you laugh you start feeling lighter of body, mind and spirit. You can just feel yourself open up.

6. Move. As often as possible. Especially in ways that accentuate flow. Try this: when you’re home, turn some music on that has a good beat to it, and start moving to it. In whatever way feels right. It doesn’t matter if you have two left feet, just visualize you’re channeling your inner Fred Astaire. Or inner Michael Jackson. Or better yet, inner you.

7. Dream. Dream big. Or even dream small. But just dream. John Lennon once said, “The dreamer lives forever.” And Mick Jagger, in Ruby Tuesday, said, “Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.” We all have great dreaming capabilities, but it gets suppressed. You can dream at night during sleep, or during the day, in what gets misnamed daydreaming. It’s not daydreaming you’re doing when your mind wanders during the day. Instead you’re doing what we all have as an innate quality: seeing ourselves in a greater capacity, seeing ourselves in the life we were meant to live.

8. Think abundantly. It’s easy to think from a scarcity perspective, in which you see a world in which it’s every person for themselves, and you have to get yours before someone takes it from you. But what if you perceived a world in which it was ok to share and be generous and be compassionate with others? Remember the popular best-seller called “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” by Robert Fulghum? That was the gist of the book, that what we all learned in kindergarten – to share, to play, to have fun, to enjoy each others company – are really the true lessons of life.

9. Live and practice a healthy lifestyle. Eat a whole foods oriented diet. Breathe deeply and relax. See a health provider who helps you to cultivate and enhance wellness. Don’t take drugs, or take as bare minimum as possible, and see them as a temporary bridge that you take only until your health is much better. Instead of drugs, take herbs and supplements.

10. Sign up for the free email course on this site. See the sign-up box on the upper right, below the video, or you can put your name in the pop-up box that shows up when you first come on the site. The course will help reinforce everything written about in the above list. And keep coming back to the site to read the articles. There are new articles on this site four days a week – Tuesday through Friday – on different aspects of living a Low Density Lifestyle. The different aspects are covered in a series format, and each series is written about for a few weeks. You’ll be glad you did.

Tai Chi – The Power of Chi

I’ve talked about yoga for the last few days, as yoga is a movement approach that can help enhance the flow state, and as such can allow you to enter into Low Density Lifestyle mode.

Another movement form that is a true and abiding Low Density Lifestyle movement approach is Tai Chi.

Why is that? Because Tai chi is first and foremost about cultivating and enhancing the flow state, both in your practice of Tai chi and in everyday life.

And if that isn’t a Low Density Lifestyle approach to movement and to life, then I don’t know what is.

So let’s look at Tai chi and what it is.

Tai chi, or as it is more formally known, Tai chi chuan, is sometimes referred to as moving meditation or meditation in motion. It is an internal Chinese martial art often practiced for health reasons. Tai chi is typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: its hard and soft martial art technique, demonstration competitions, and as a longevity practice.

When you practice tai chi, you move your body slowly, gently, with awareness, and with deep breathing.

Some of tai chi chuan’s training forms are well known to Westerners as the slow motion routines that groups of people practice together every morning in parks around the world, particularly in China.

Today, tai chi has spread worldwide. Most modern styles of tai chi trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu/Hao, Wu and Sun.

As the legend goes, tai chi’s origin is credited to Chang San-Feng, a Taoist monk. The monk developed a series of 13 exercises that mimic the movements of animals. Meditation and the concept of internal force were emphasized by the monk.

Tai chi adopted the concepts yin and yang (opposing forces within your body) and qi (vital energy or life force). Tai chi aims to support a balance of yin and yang, ultimately aiding the flow of qi.

There are various movements in tai chi – and each flows into the next. Posture, movement, concentration, and breathing are essential elements of tai chi.

The longer you do tai chi, the more capable you become of achieving the flow state in your movements, not just in tai chi but in everyday life.

There is a saying in Chinese philosophy that it takes 10 years to become a beginner. The same can be said of tai chi – that it takes 10 years to become a beginner, to really embed the flow state in everything you do.

This way of thinking is antithetical to the West, where we expect to develop mastery in a weekend.

But that’s not to say that tai chi doesn’t have benefits for the person who has not been practicing for 10 years. Studies have shown that tai chi has many health benefits, and that most of them are felt in the early days of doing tai chi.

It is known to improve:

* physical condition
* muscle strength
* coordination
* flexibility
* balance
* pain level and stiffness
* sleep
* general well-being

Furthermore, specific research has stated that tai chi can help with numerous health problems.

Researchers have found that intensive tai chi practice shows favorable effects on the promotion of balance control, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness and reduced the risk of falls in both healthy elderly patients, and those recovering from chronic stroke, heart failure, high blood pressure, heart attacks, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.

Tai chi can also be good for weight loss, as its gentle, low impact movements burn more calories than surfing and nearly as many as downhill skiing.

Other studies have shown that:
1) tai chi has reduced levels of LDLs 20–26 milligrams when practiced for 12–14 weeks.
2) tai chi showed the ability to greatly reduce pain and improve overall physical and mental health in people over 60 with severe osteoarthritis of the knee.
3) a pilot study, which has not been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, has found preliminary evidence that tai chi and related qigong may reduce the severity of diabetes.
4) tai chi boosts and strengthens the immune system.
5) tai chi can help with stress management and improve mental health – it has an effect on noradrenaline and cortisol production with an effect on mood and heart rate.
6) tai chi reduces the symptoms of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

So if you’re looking to get into the flow and feel more peaceful, calm, balanced and centered; if you’re looking to cultivate better health; and if you’re looking to live a Low Density Lifestyle, then tai chi may be for you.

One other thing: tai chi is considered the most powerful of all the martial arts because it teaches how to use your chi, your body’s energy system, in forceful ways. The catch to that is that you have to have practiced tai chi a long, long time to develop that power.

To show what I mean, below is a video of Master Shr, a Chinese master of tai chi. The video comes from the television program The Mystery of Chi, which appeared as a segment of a program Bill Moyers did called Healing and the Mind.

You may not believe what you see in the video, but believe me, this is real: this is the power of chi.

Yoga: The Divine Union

In yesterday’s article I gave you 10 outstanding yoga videos, all of which were excellent.

Some of the videos were historical in nature and traced back to the roots of modern yoga, showing some of the modern masters of this ancient art. There was a video from 1938 of Krishnamacharya, the grandfather of modern yoga. And there were two others video with his disciples, BKS Iyengar, founder of Iyengar Yoga, and Sri K. Pattahbi Jois, founder of Ashtanga Yoga.

The aim of yoga is to help the practitioner enter into the flow state, and as such it is a movement approach that definitely can be a strong aid in helping to live a Low Density Lifestyle.

I thought it would be nice today to look at the ancient roots of yoga, in order to help give a context for understanding the wisdom of this traditional modality, whose aim is to create a divine union between body, mind and soul.

Yoga (Sanskrit, Pāli: योग yóga) refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India. The word is associated with meditative practices in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

In Hinduism, it also refers to one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, and to the goal toward which that school directs its practices. In Jainism it refers to the sum total of all activities—mental, verbal and physical.

Major branches of yoga in Hindu philosophy include Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Hatha Yoga. Raja Yoga, compiled in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and known simply as yoga in the context of Hindu philosophy, is part of the Samkhya tradition.

Many other Hindu texts discuss aspects of yoga, including Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Shiva Samhita and various Tantras.

The Bhagavad Gita (’Song of the Lord’), uses the term yoga extensively in a variety of ways. In addition to an entire chapter (ch. 6) dedicated to traditional yoga practice, including meditation, it introduces three prominent types of yoga:

* Karma yoga: The yoga of action
* Bhakti yoga: The yoga of devotion
* Jnana yoga: The yoga of knowledge.

The Sanskrit word yoga has many meanings, and is derived from the Sanskrit root “yuj,” meaning “to control,” “to yoke” or “to unite.” Translations include “joining,” “uniting,” “union,” “conjunction,” and “means.”

Outside India, the term yoga is typically associated with Hatha Yoga and its asanas (postures) or as a form of exercise. Someone who practices yoga or follows the yoga philosophy is called a yogi or yogini.

It was the Indian sage Patanjali, who lived in the second century BCE, who is widely regarded as the founder of the formal Yoga philosophy. Patanjali’s yoga is known as Raja yoga, which is a system for control of the mind. Patanjali defines the word “yoga” in his writings, specifically the second sutra of what became known as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Hundreds of years later, yoga’s evolution continued with the development of Hatha Yoga by Yogi Swatmarama, in 15th century India.

Hatha Yoga differs substantially from the Raja Yoga of Patanjali in that it focuses on shatkarma, the purification of the physical body as leading to the purification of the mind and prana, or vital energy.

Compared to the seated asana, or sitting meditation posture, of Patanjali’s Raja yoga, it marks the development of asanas into the full body “postures” now in popular usage. Hatha Yoga in its many modern variations is the style that many people associate with the word “Yoga” today.

The goal of yoga ranges from improving health to achieving Moksha. Within Jainism and the monist schools of Advaita Vedanta and Shaivism, the goal of yoga takes the form of Moksha, which is liberation from all worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and death (Samsara), at which point there is a realization of identity with the Supreme Brahman.

In the Mahabharata, the goal of yoga is variously described as entering the world of Brahma, as Brahman, or as perceiving the Brahman or Atman that pervades all things. For the bhakti schools of Vaishnavism, bhakti or service to Svayam bhagavan itself may be the ultimate goal of the yoga process, where the goal is to enjoy an eternal relationship with Vishnu.

Yoga also helps your body maintain a stable relationship with itself while going into a calm, neutral state of peace.

So whether you see yoga as a form of exercise that allows you to move in a more flowing way, or as a way to achieve a higher state of consciousness and a sense of liberation, either way, by practicing this ancient art, you will find yourself on the path of living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Movement: A Key to a Healthy, Happy Life: Part 2

Yesterday and today are introductory articles to this series on Movement and Exercise – the theme of this entire series on movement is that movement is an essential key to healthy and happy living, and to living a Low Density Lifestyle.

I discussed in yesterday’s article on movement and exercise, part 1, how  movement of and by itself is important, and that the best approach was one that focused on a number of things: the body, the mind, the energy system, the breath and stillness.

I concluded the article by saying that whether you’re seeking spiritual harmony, soulful pleasures, or just want to sweat, training the body is as important as training the mind and spirit—you can’t have one without the other, and they are deeply interconnected.

Now, that is not to say that you have to have abs of steel to attain good health and a Low Density Lifestyle; instead what is important is an approach to movement that focuses on flexibility and strength, and touches on the components that help to make us FREE (FREE=Flow/Relax/Effortless Effort): the body, the mind, the energy system, the breath and stillness.

You may wonder why stillness is mentioned when it is movement I am talking about. Stillness gives the body a chance to rest and regenerate, and for the internal computer that runs our body and mind to reset the hardware and software within us.

You can’t just push, push, push all the time—we do too much of that. Taking the time to be still and to relax helps the body get into the effortless effort mode, and when we are in that mode we are more capable of feeling the pulse of the universe vibrating deep within our soul.

We also can’t ignore the importance of the breath, and when we practice stillness we become more cognizant of the breath and our breathing patterns. Breath is essential to all the processes that occur in the body; in Eastern traditions breath is essential because it is known that being in tune with your breath connects you to your deepest inner knowing.

The breath also signals both the beginning and end of life. If you have ever been present at the passing of a life, you would have witnessed that the final sign of transition is a deep and freeing gasp. In contrast, if you have ever had the pleasure of being witness to a new life about to begin its journey, you would have seen that the first sign of life is the cry of a newborn baby as they claim their place in the world.

Author Tarthand Tulku in his book Tibetan Meditation notes that we have both an outer and inner breath: the outer breath is our physical respiration, while the inner breath silently moves through the body and is smooth and full of feeling, and as it circulates throughout, has powerful effects on our energy centers.

If all you ever do is push, push, push all the time with your movement approach, and for that matter in your everyday doings, and never practice stillness and awareness of breath, your body will just become tighter and more rigid.

That is not the way to be if you want to live up to your peak abilities and enjoy the bounty of life. There is a certain lightness of spirit and soul that is desired in order to live a more zestful life, and so your movement philosophy should make sure that is what is represented in your approach.

That’s not to say that at times you won’t sweat and strain and feel sore all over, but you should also make the time to do something kinesthetic that has a different orientation: one that encompasses stillness, quiet and awareness of breath, so that you can feed and nourish the soul.

There also are many times when your movements are just natural extensions of life. Gardening, walking, hiking, biking, baking, playing with your friends or kids, and many other things that are part of the everyday aspects of life are all important ingredients to a healthy life because they are part of the ebb and flow of the cycles of nature and the changing seasons.

Thomas Jefferson understood this very thing when he once said, “walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.”

And the Zen proverb “chop wood, carry water” is a reminder that in the daily routines of life, we can find harmony, increased awareness, stillness and flexibility of body and mind – all of which are essential to living a healthy, happy and fulfilled life that will help point you towards living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Why Are So Many People Unhappy?

This is such an amazing age, and we have so much to be grateful for.

Technology has come so far so fast that we now have things available to us that 50 years ago would have seemed like the pipedream of a science fiction writer.

Because of that, shouldn’t we be walking around in a state of ecstatic happiness?

And shouldn’t this entire series that I’ve been writing on Happiness be second nature to everyone reading it?

Yet, most people are thoroughly unhappy. They take for granted everything we have available to us, and show no sense of gratitude or humility for it.

In the above video, comedian Louis CK, appearing on Conan O’Brien’s show a few months ago, put everything in perspective with his rant, “Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy.” He hit the nail on the head.

Indeed, if we live our lives in awe and reverence, and appreciate the amazing quality of life, there is no way that we could ever be unhappy.

These are the days of miracle and wonder, as Paul Simon sang in his song, The Boy in the Bubble:

These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all o-yeah,
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky,
These are the days of miracle and wonder.

Granted, the technological changes in the last 20 – 30 years have made life move at a faster pace. But that of and by itself shouldn’t create unhappiness.

All we need to do to deal with it is to center ourselves, stay calm, and just be more self-aware. In other words, if we live a Low Density Lifestyle, there would be no problem whatsoever.

Happiness would then be automatic.

And then we could say that everything is amazing and everybody is happy.

Bhutan: The Happiest Country in the World

I’ve been writing about Happiness for the last week, and discussing that happiness is something a Low Density Lifestyle can lead to.

Last week I discussed what happiness is, and I looked at the relationship between money and happiness.

Today I want to discuss the mountain country of Bhutan, which without a doubt is the happiest nation on the planet.

Bhutan, situated in the Himalayan mountains between India and China, doesn’t win this distinction because of the fact that they are a Buddhist nation.

Instead, they have achieved this honor because happiness is part of their economic and political system.

You see, where other countries measure their success by their Gross National Product, Bhutan measures their success by their Gross National Happiness.

Under the Bhutan Constitution, government programs – from agriculture to transportation to foreign trade — must be judged not by the economic benefits they may offer but by the happiness – the Gross National Happiness – they produce.

According to Prime Minister Jigme Thinley of Bhutan, the cause of the economic recession embracing the world right now is due to, “Greed, insatiable human greed.

“You see what a complete dedication to economic development ends up in,” he said, referring to the global economic crisis. “Industrialized societies have decided now that Gross National Product is a broken promise.”

“Happiness has usually been considered a utopian issue,” the Prime Minister states. “Individual’s quest for happiness and inner and outer freedom is the most precious endeavor, and society’s ideal of governance and polity should promote this endeavor.”

The goal of a Gross National Happiness is not happiness itself, the Prime Minister says, as happiness is a concept that each person must define for himself. Instead, the Bhutanese government aims to create the conditions for “the pursuit of Gross National Happiness, as happiness takes precedence over economic prosperity in our national development process.”

Karma Tshiteem is the secretary of the Gross National Happiness Commission, and his job is to quantify and measure the happiness quotient of the country.

To that end, the Bhutanese government produced an intricate model of well-being that features the four pillars, the nine domains and the 72 indicators of happiness.

Specifically, the government has determined that the four pillars of a happy society involve the economy, culture, the environment and good governance. It breaks these into nine domains: psychological well-being, ecology, health, education, culture, living standards, time use, community vitality and good governance, each with its own weighted and unweighted Gross National Happiness index.

All of this is to be analyzed using the 72 indicators. Under the domain of psychological well-being, for example, indicators include the frequencies of prayer and meditation and of feelings of selfishness, jealousy, calm, compassion, generosity and frustration as well as suicidal thoughts.

Granted, things are slower and much more easy going in Bhutan, so it’s no coincidence that they place a premium on quality of life.
700,000 people live in the kingdom, a country with one airport and two commercial planes, where the east can only be reached from the west after four days’ travel on mountain roads.

Cigarettes are banned and television was introduced just 10 years ago; traditional clothing and architecture are enforced by law and the capital city has no stoplight and just one traffic officer on duty.

But they prefer it that way. And they are interested in spreading their way of life to the rest of the world.

Imagine that. Imagine if the rest of the world measured their success by their Gross National Happiness.

Then my friends, we’d all be living in a Low Density Lifestyle world.

The Dalai Lama on the Power of Truth

“My religion is kindness,” The Dalai Lama has said. For the last two articles, I’ve been writing about The Dalai Lama’s religion, the religion of kindness, compassion and unconditional love.

There was the article about the mom and her laughing joyous babies, and then the article about the close friends – the deer and the kitten – and also Christian the lion.

Today, I will show you a six-part film with The Dalai Lama on the Power of Truth, which is tied in very well with the religion of kindness, unconditional love, and compassion.

This film explores The Dalai Lama’s attitudes towards not only war and non-violence but also the need for education, dialogue, respect for others and “a warm heart with human intelligence”. The story outline is The Dalai Lama as he travels to give talks and lectures on the three topics, which he considers his main concerns:

1. The promotion of good human values

2. Understanding between religions

3. The Tibetan situation.

Let others know about this article by posting it on Twitter! It’s easy – just click on the “tweet it” button below.

The Nobility of Silence

In yesterday’s article, I told you of the importance of being connected to the spiritual dimension, and how that was an important aspect of living a Low Density Lifestyle.

When we are connected to that spiritual essence, we feel lighter of body, mind and soul, and when you feel lighter, you feel healthier, happier, and more in the flow. In other words, you are living a Low Density Lifestyle.

That spiritual force is something that can only be felt and experienced when we allow ourselves to be quiet and still, which allows us to hear the pulse of the universe.

Today, I would like to share with you words of wisdom from others, people who have touched that sacred aspect of life and have been able to articulate it well.

These words can help you at any time: when you are feeling happy and joyous, or at times when you are caught up in the High Density Lifestyle and need stress relief and a dose of healthy living.

These are words to carry in your heart at all times.

“We need time to dream, time to remember, and time to reach the infinite. Time to be.”
Gladys Taber (1899-1980)

“Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind…. Sink deep in to the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world.”
From “A Course in Miracles”

“Let my doing nothing when I have nothing to do, become untroubled in its depth of peace, like the evening in the seashore when the water is silent.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

“The need for temporary solitude is so intense it amounts to an impediment, a malady, chronic and incurable like recurring malaria…. Like a remittent fever it is nothing you can banish. Outwardly we look okay, but inwardly we are desperate; gasping and frantic for something as integral to ourselves as the color of our eyes.”
Mirabel Osler

“When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others, too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others…. Only when one is connected to one’s own core, is one connected to others….. And for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be re-found through silence.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001)

“Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.”
Marian Wright Edelman (1939- )

“We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and the movies should fail, there is still the radio or television to fill up the void…. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side…. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001)

“Once, after a particularly claustrophobic, stressful and over-populated time when there hadn’t been air or space to escape to, suddenly, for a few days, I was alone. It was like emigrating to another planet ( in fact I was at home ). Who was this person I was living with, this strange, this reasonable, serene foreigner in the house: a becalmed woman who spent her time inwardly humming?”
Mirabel Osler

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is a society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but nature more.”
Lord Byron (1788-1824)

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.”
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last. That is what is strange – that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and discover what is happening or what has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone….”
May Sarton (1912-1995)

“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty, unfamiliar and perilous….”
Thomas Mann (1875-1955)

“You do not need to leave your room… Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
Frank Kafka (1883-1924)

“The cure for all the illness of life is stored in the inner depth of life itself, the access to which becomes possible when we are alone. This solitude is a world in itself, full of wonders and resources unthought of. It is absurdly near; yet so unapproachably distant.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

“There is a silence into which the world cannot intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost.”
From “A Course in Miracles”

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Stress: Life in the Fast Lane

For the next few days I will talk about stress and relaxation. Stress is both a symptom and by-product of living a High Density Lifestyle, while being relaxed and calm is something easy to do when you’re living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Relaxation is one of the ingredients in the acronym FREE, which if you remember, stands for Flow/Relaxation/Effortless Effort. Living FREE means living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Life in the Fast Lane

When you are living life in the fast lane, you are putting your body under a lot of stress. There is only so long the body is capable of operating at a maxed out level—you can only burn your candle at both ends for so long, and then the inner flame starts to be extinguished.

Stress is all-pervasive in our modern fast-paced culture. I will return to this category time and time again, and I will also return to the category of relaxation many times over. Why, you may ask? Because it can’t be talked about enough. Stress puts you smack in the middle of living a High Density Lifestyle, and the longer you live that way, the worse things become.

So let’s look a little more in-depth at what stress is.

A Brief History of Stress

The term stress was coined by scientist Hans Selye in the 1930s based on his careful observation of physiological responses in laboratory animals. Selye later broadened his findings to include the human response mechanism to a perceived threat, or “stressor.”

Selye found that when he exposed various lab animals to unpleasant or harmful stimuli, there were three general stages of reaction. He called these the General Adaptation Syndrome, or GAS. The three stages were Alarm, Resistance and Exhaustion.

By the end of the third stage of GAS, Selye found the animals depleted of their body’s most important resources: their adrenal glands were fatigued, their autonomic nervous system was misfiring and their immune systems were burnt out.

Furthermore, it was found that this type of reaction played havoc on the feedback loop that constitutes the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the system that controls reactions to stress and regulates many body processes, including digestion, the immune system, mood and emotions, sexuality, and energy storage and expenditure.

Not everyone reacts to stressors in such a detrimental fashion, and there are times when stress can have positive attributes (Selye called stress that enhanced function eustress). But most people don’t cope well to stressors because they are on system overload, bombarded by stimuli and overwhelmed by life’s demands. Living in this manner is truly a major impediment to a Low Density Lifestyle.

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