Soul’s Code

One of the most profound new spiritual teachers in Europe shares an excerpt from his newest book

BY TONY SAMARA — Meditation is not just a repetition of your characteristics that you put into practice in everyday motion and life. Meditation is being a revolutionary. It is being a rebel and breaking free from what is holding the space in this negative little world that we believe to be the truth. To be different takes a little bit of courage.

A healing act where your religion and your body may meet

BY RICK LEED —  Anyone who watches any television, or spends any time on the world-famous Internet researching health and wellness, has run across the phrase: colon cleanse. First of all, what exactly is a colon?

We all apparently have one. Anatomical translation: the section of your digestive system, according to Gray’s Anatomy, that lies below your small intestines.

Some of the better-selling products promise — and seem to deliver (pun unavoidable) — the elimination of built-up colon corrosion, reduction of toxins, an energy-boost  . . . and bonus, weight reduction and even a flatter stomach.

Foods we once thought were healthy alternatives are now off the menu — starting with your daily (whole-grain) bread.

We’ve joked about it at dinner parties. We’ve read all the same articles, talked to our doctors, and reached the same realization: You can’t eat anything anymore. Soul’s Code canvassed its community of experts about the latest research into conscious dining:

1. Soy, it sucks

The world’s most famous cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Robert Rey, is ultra body-conscious both inside and out. And Rey, a.k.a. Dr. 90210, is highly conscious about what he puts into his own body. Dr. Rey is the author of a 2.0 version of the Paleo diet.

Can our brains evolve fast enough to solve the problems that the un-evolved mind has created

BY DAVID RICKEY —Einstein said that the level of consciousness that created a particular problem cannot solve the said problem.

A hot new book by sociobiologist Rebecca Costa, The Watchman’s Rattle: Thinking our way out of extinction, illustrates Einstein’s point by documenting how our rate of social and technical change is out-stripping evolution.

Look at the economy: we have developed complex computer programs that can trade stocks in milliseconds. We have developed virtual ways of making money, and created a subculture of the super-rich.

Lessons learned from L.A., Johannesburg, Sao Paolo and other metros where road rage is a danger to your body — and soul

BY RICK LEED — When stuck in your car in painful, frustrating, unimaginable traffic, already late for an appointment, who hasn’t felt like a Looney Tunes cartoon character, with steam coming out of their ears, fists pounding the steering wheel, and eyes turning red and bulging out of their head?

Road rage is usually directed at someone else who has done something heinous — or at the least, rude, like cut you off, changed lanes unexpectedly, or flipped you the finger.  But the inward-focused rage and fury that has no specific personal target is so often worse, creating more stress, more anger, more intense negative energy:  ‘Why the hell isn’t this traffic moving?’

Islam means “submit.” I’ve used the code of my adopted faith to accept, and turn, public opinion

GUEST COLUMN: REBECCA JONES *— When I met my husband, then-roommate, he was living in the basement of our shared student apartment. We became friends simulating Star Wars battles with toy light sabers and fell for each other watching a Ghostbusters marathon. Sheltered from the world, we seemed to have more similarities than differences.

To be quite honest, it still sits strangely when I hear people say I married a “Muslim man.” I feel like I fell in love with a boy who happened to be Muslim. That was almost 10 years ago.

But just because I fell in love, didn’t mean I fell in love with his faith.

* Rebecca Jones is a pen name requested by the author to protect her family from any potential backlash.

CONFESSIONS: “When my little brother said I was like a T-shirt for women who shack up with abusers, I knew I had hit rock bottom”

ANONYMOUS — Sometimes I feel fondly — even grateful — for hitting what I consider rock bottom . . . so long as I never have to visit there again.

If there’s a contest between life’s ups and downs, ups are in. Some people pop pills to stay up.

Up is nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but I also believe that down is a place where you can do some foundation work for a personal renovation.

My downward journey started . . .

Meditation doesn’t require much time — you can do it while you’re thinking

DAVID RICKEY: I know it doesn’t come as a surprise to say that Meditation is important for spiritual growth. Ken Wilbur claims that it is the quickest way to advance spiritual evolution. But it might come as a surprise that I don’t meditate, at least not in any classic way. I could say “I don’t have the time.” But the truth is I have never had much discipline. So, I have a form of meditation that takes no real time and requires only a bit of discipline.

We’ve criticized Ray and the franchise that made him famous, The Secret. A Soul’s Code practitioner urges us to extend compassion to both the victims and the convicted guru

GUEST COLUMN: CARI LA GRANGE MURPHY — The topics of spiritual authenticity, accountability, compassion, and soul growth are all weighing on my heart, mind and spirit today after hearing the sad news of self-help guru James Arthur Ray’s conviction on June 22, 2011 in Arizona.

As I’ve matured and grown into a more self-aware human being, I am not one to quickly judge an individual and pound on them when they are down, for I am able to see the bigger picture and recognize that there are always soul lessons involved in any situation.

Observing things from this broader perspective doesn’t make the situation any less sad or horrific for both James Arthur Ray, or for the three individuals who died two falls ago in a make-shift sweat lodge in Sedona, AZ, but it does allow me to open my heart and have compassion for everyone involved.

Spiritual cinema: From the Rolling Stones to religious war, these 5 flicks are enlightened and entertaining.

1. 9th Company, the Russian side of “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Hulu.com, the website where you can play TV and movies for free, finally has a foreign flick worth watching. (Actually, make that any flick).

Hulu just posted 9th Company, “9 Рота” in the original Russian — the first time that a mass American audience has been exposed to the best movie we’ve ever seen from the post-Soviet Union (and in that spirit, it’s a co-production with Finland and the Ukraine).

Yes, the movie does has subtitles. But think of it as the Rus version of Platoon with the nitty-gritty psychological naturalism of Stanley Kubrick’s Natural Born Killers. But it’s actually based on a true story.