Soul's Code

For those that like Ekhart Tolle, but can’t make it to his world tour, or get a private session with the teacher, we recommend Gangaji. She’s a little more poetic and a touch more circumlocutory. Find out if her style works for you by watching these free videos. There’s a bunch of them.

“Know thyself” is much easier to say than to do. Pursuing a knowledge of self is the fundamental basis of all psychology. It also forms the basis of many spiritual pursuits. Yet so many are unwilling to pursue this path.

As John Gardner writes in “Self-Renewal:”

“Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. We can keep ourselves so busy, fill our lives with so many diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves with so many people and cover so much ground that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within. More often than not we don’t want to know ourselves, don’t want to depend on ourselves, don’t want to live with ourselves. By middle life most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.”

It’s just easier NOT to walk the path toward self-understanding. Sometimes we turn away from the path because we encounter things we don’t like or are unwilling to accept. Consider the findings of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. You’ll remember him as the author of the famous Stanford Prison Study, which segregated students into “inmates” and “guards” and watched how the two groups

Notes from around the Internet about the physics and metaphysics of the ABC series, LOST episode, “Through the looking glass”

BY SOUL’S CODE — You never know how good something is until you’ve lost it. For lost viewers, we’ll be without the show until February 2008, writes Entertainment Weekly. The end of the third season represents the mid-point of the show, which will run for another three seasons before its end.

J. Wood has a brilliant analysis of the episode, citing it as an an inversion point. “The narrative itself twists inside-out, with the locus still on the island yet the flashes happening in the opposite direction. Like the White Queen of Carroll’s text explains, we’re seeing the future and its impact on the present,” he writes.

Up until this point we see how the past has influenced the present. Each person has a back-story that has brought him or her to the Island and affects their decisions.

But now we see the influence the future has on the present. The episode is chock full of trippy flash forwards, showing life after the rescue. And for some, it’s not all that hot. But they may not have been “forwards” so much, explains J. Wood. “A physicist named Minkowski realized that by considering time as a component of space, Einstein’s special theory of relativity . . .

Here’s a neat online widget for determining what type of psychological profile you fit.

Survey says that this writer is a “Considerate Thinker.” Apparently that’s the product of my aversion to eating at new restaurants. The colors of the DNA chart represent my trust in others and low creativity…. If you’re the type that like to take tests, this one will run about 15 minutes and you’ll have fun “emptying buckets” and charting yourself on various axises.

It’s easy to feel bad when everyone around you seems to be feeling good. When we observe happiness or success, the subconscious asks: “Why don’t I have that?” It’s the catalyst for a waterfall of self-doubt that can easily drag down your mood if you let it.

Consider this post by blogger/pundit Michael Arrington. Arrington has made a new career of chronicling the development of Internet startups in Silicon Valley. “Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks,” he writes. His beef?

Vlogger Lucymisser tries something new. The Japanese student vlogs au-naturale as an experiment to improve her grades. The inspiration arose after she discovered revealing research: being naked makes you more relaxed, improves your focus and is a bulwark against depression. Hers is a “serious experiment” and not a sexploitation excercise, according to Miss L. We wish her good luck on her Kanji test, and assure you that the video is totally safe for work as it is shot from the shoulders up.

Something definitely happens when you take off your clothes. For some, it’s a form of release, others a protest. It can be an abandoment of artifice or a return to a state of nature prior to original sin. Yet its a practice fewer Millennials are turning to, writes OmniNerd and others.

Yet a spiritual undercurrent does seem to flow under the discussions of those who do practice nudism, naturalism, or even exhibition.

This nudist instructional/advocational video from the hippy-dippy moment of the 1960s asks, “What better way could there be to obtain a healthy body and a healthy mind at

Thanks be to Mom. Peace, love and gratitude for the carcinogens?

Sunday is Mother’s Day. Give thanks and praise for the one who birthed you. Thanks to Anglo-Libyan for the image.

Sofie Leon writes about Mother’s Day as a call for peace. She recalls the Mother’s Day Proclamation, a document written by Julia Ward Howe. Howe writes: From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” It’s particularly salient with so many sons and husbands in Iraq.

Tgaw offers this great mother’s day cartoon on her site. It’s boosted her traffic in the last week as people search

Abusive boyfriends, how relationships go bad, checklists for a potential girlfriend

Girl in a Word has decided to dump her boyfriend after he nearly threatened physical abuse, she writes. She says she’s glad she didn’t marry the guy, who is manipulative, she says.

Living Tantra writes a nice piece on how relationships go bad: “As if you were on a speeding train, you have zoomed from the Happy Town of Idealizing to the Not-So-Happy Town of Demonizing. You have entirely skipped over the City of Realizing.” This comes from projecting onto your beloved, she writes. Definitely worth reading for anybody who thinks he or she is in love.

Worldtravelings has this great picture of two lovers.

TLA writes about the backlash he got for following the advice of The Secret and listing exactly what he wanted in a woman. We’ve been railing against The Secret for some time now.

Kimberly has an application for potential boyfriends up on her blog.

The Lookout compares a good relationship to good sex. The author’s idea would warm a libertarian’s heart. He or she writes:

“The miracle of sex is that men and women take pleasure in actions that the other desires independently. The act of stimulating a sexual partner is sometimes much more exciting than the stimulation that they provide you, directly, and not simply because you enjoy that pleasure vicariously. And the same thing is true for all relationships, I think. The best chemistry in a relationship is when we take independent pleasure in doing things that our partners in that relationship enjoy.“

Simone Hudson posts this picture.

Aaron Rowe of Wired.com writes about scientists who are trying to create a cocaine that gives you the same high, but doesn’t have the nasty side-effect of death associated with an overdose.

The blogger behind Know a New Freedom writes about switching addictions from food to other, more dangerous substances. The author is a recovering addict and has good advice on where to go for help.

John Grohol blogs about withdrawl from SSRI anti-depressants, advocating that doctors and drug companies list out all the potential side effects and then ask for the “informed consent” of patients. He doesn’t tackle the subject of whether a clinically depressed person can adequately evaluate the decision at the time of starting the drug.

Check out the Soul’s Code slideshow, Addiction: 9 Causes and Cures. As well, here is what post-modern mystics have to say on the subject. And here’s what we had to say about HBO’s doccumentary, Addiction.

RAGE Media writes about pornography addiction and . . .

BY SOUL’S CODE — Rowing is a grueling sport. The 2000 meter races generally last about six minutes but your body goes to anerobic respiration, and produces painful lactic acid in your muscles, within the first 90 seconds.

Preparing your mind can be as an important as training your muscles. You have to stay strong for the entire race, no matter how tired your body tells you it is. It requires you to accept pain without letting it cause you to suffer.