Meditation and prayer can improve your physical, intellectual, and emotional well-being and may even slow the brain's aging process, according to a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Writing in his new book, "How God Changes Your Brain," Andrew Newberg, reports the results of brain scans that he and his team conducted on more than 100 meditating or praying people.
Newberg, director of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind, says his research shows that the physical and emotional benefits of spiritual observances "dramatically accrue over years of practice, but even recent converts exhibit healthier brains," according to the San Francisco Chronicle's David Ian Miller.
In one of Newberg's studies his team did brain scans on people who had never meditated before and went on to teach them simple meditative methods, Miller writes. After a mere eight weeks of just 12 minutes a day of meditation, there was a considerable improvement in memory scores and a measurable decrease in anxiety and anger.
Newberg told Miller, "A lot of the new research that we've been doing shows that when people engage in religious or spiritual activities and practices, or they have religious experiences, by and large they tend to have a positive impact on a person's mental health and wellbeing. That helps them accomplish their goals, to set a path for themselves, and therefore helps them survive. At the same time, religion and spiritual pursuits help us change and grow over time by giving us a model for transforming ourselves. Ultimately, they're our way of asking ourselves to follow the ideals of what we think a good human being should be".
Newberg's study echoes a 1999 study, "Scientific Research of Prayer: Can the Power of Prayer Be Proven?" by researcher Debra Williams.
Williams looked at more than 4,000 participants over the age of 65. She learned that those who pray and attend religious services on a weekly basis, especially those between the ages of 65 and 74, had lower blood pressure than their counterparts who did not pray or attend religious services, according to Jet magazine.
Moreover, they found that the more religious a person, particularly those who prayed or studied the Bible weekly, the lower the blood pressure. These people, the study showed were 40 percent less likely to have high diastolic pressure or diastolic hypertension than those who did not attend religious services, pray, or study the Bible.
Among the rash of tips about online social media, this piece by Carolyn Duffy Marsan of Network World is outstanding, and clearly the best in my book. She knows what she's talking about, and provides a wealth of links to back-up her examples.
1. Identify a business problem you are trying to solve.
Don't deploy social media tools just to appear cool.
"You really want to focus on the business problem you are trying to solve and the communities you need to engage to help you solve that problem," advises Lena Trudeau, program area director for the National Academy of Public Administration.
The Defense Information Systems Agency, for example, is using a commercial mash-up tool from JackBe to allow military commanders to create real-time feeds using information from many disparate sources, says DISA CTO Dave Mihelcic. The Web 2.0 software solves a real-world problem for military commanders. "If senior leaders and decision-makers can get a common visual depiction of a situation, it will be easier for them to synchronize their decisions," Mihelcic explains.
2. Get buy-in from management.
Involve all of the key stakeholders: the people who have the information and those who control its distribution.
The General Services Administration's top management "has been very supportive" of the agency's social media efforts, says B. Leilani Martinez, bilingual content manager with GSA's www.gobiernousa.gov. "That has helped us a lot. Across government, the reaction from top management has been quite inconsistent. Certain government agencies block employees from using some of these tools. For me, I was on Facebook every day from work and on Twitter. GSA allowed us to think outside the box and to experiment."
Doreen Kleinschmidt offers Svaroopa® Yoga Classes, Yoga Therapy...and more. All offerings lead to a powerful release of tightness in the body and the mind...
Svaroopa® Yoga's "Core Opening"
By Doreen Kleinschmidt
"Core Opening" is a term coined by Rama Berch who created Svaroopa Yoga. Core opening is a concept and a consequence of the practice of Svaroopa Yoga. Svaroopa Yoga is defined by two immensely distinguishing characteristics.
First, deep inner immersion — every Svaroopa yoga class offers shavasana (yoga's relaxation pose) at the beginning and shavasana at the end — shavasana is the pose which offers the greatest relaxation. Second, poses are done in sequence to reliably release the deep muscles of the spine – beginning, most importantly at the tailbone and continuing through the sacrum, waist and ribcage. Rama's approach doing poses this way derived from her technology of the tailbone and the paradigm of release. This way of doing hatha yoga is dramatically different. It is said that Svaroopa Yoga is physical and more than physical.
Svaroopa yoga relies on a number of primary principles that all serve in opening the spine. It is this opening of the core which actually leads students to experience the benefit of yoga in their lives by activating their own power of transformation, and it is an opportunity to understand the body in new and wonderful ways. Students learn "it all begins at the tailbone" — that the release of tightness first and foremost at the tailbone initiates a process that carries up through the whole spine. We all know the consequences of tight tailbone muscles — back and neck aches, TMJ, sore shoulders, tight hamstrings, and the inclination to worry, just to name a few.
Support equals release. We use propping in the poses which along with other elements, actually elicits the reliable release of muscle and the opening into poses. When a yoga practice is done like this,there is true alignment in every asana.
Bones are for support. We learn to lean on our bones and use them for the support they are meant to provide.
A tight muscle is a weak muscle and a weak muscle is a tight muscle. We learn that every tight muscle is a weak muscle. These weak, tight muscles constrict blood flow (along with the proper nutrition and oxygen) as well as diminishing the flushing of toxins.
Perhaps the most important thing we learn is how to experience our inherent bliss. When Rama took Svaroopa's name from the yoga sutras. she turned to "tada drashtuh sva-rupé vasthananm." This means the moment the mind becomes quiet "the seer sees himself in his own true nature." In other words, the moment the mind becomes quiet, we can then experience the inherent bliss of our own inner self.
So the core opening releases tight muscles and, even more interestingly, tight minds. The core opening also leads to a true core strengthening. By unraveling deep internal tightness, tissues replenish, joints align, breathing and digestion improve, all organs, nerves and glands are nourished, and the relaxation response kicks in. Svaroopa yoga inspires a cascade of openings that detoxify and restore the body. Along with the physical openings comes a feeling of pervading peace.
Try this test when you go to bed some night. Reach down and press your thigh. Is it soft, supple and yielding to the touch or is it like a brick? Muscles at rest should be soft, not stuck in the engaged state. Our muscles are our soft tissue. When a muscle isn't being used for work, it should feel soft. Often, we may not discern our tightness. The body is very forgiving, very accommodating. It won't let us walk around tilted to one side, twisted, or bobbing up and down. Rather, if it has a tightness on the left buttock, for example, it might counterbalance that tightness with a complementary tightness on the right shoulder. This is a way for the body to maintain symmetry. However, arising out of tightness, this symmetry is an illusion, it is tightness bouncing off tightness. And to add to the illusion, tightness over time asserts "numbness" from the tourniquet effect the tightness imposes in muscle tissue.
Very often, traditional methods of working with the body and strengthening the body may, in reality, be layering tightness over tightness.
They say that yoga makes you flexible and healthy, keeps you young and connects you with your inner true happiness — this is a happiness not contingent upon outside circumstances. With yoga, you like yourself better and others are more attracted to you. You become more aware of your own vastness, spaciousness and bliss. You become more Open.
Your Body — Your Vehicle
By Doreen Kleinschmidt, CSYT
Our bodies deserve at least the same care as our cars. We acquire our bodies immediately upon birth and keep them our whole lives and drop them off when we are done with them. With our cars, we make sure we do everything we can to keep them safe and smoothly running. We consult our manuals to find the guidelines for successful car ownership and then follow the suggestions.
Now don't you wish someone would give you the manual for care and maintenance of your human body and its parts? Svaroopa Yoga offers just that, a "manual" for how to keep us in good running condition and how to get and keep what Svaroopa calls "core openings." Svaroopa Yoga was stylized by Rama Berch of California some thirty years ago and is rapidly becoming one of the major styles of hatha yoga in practice today.
This style is earmarked by a very different approach to the practice of hatha yoga. All poses lead to the release of tension in the tightest muscles of the spine, beginning at the tailbone and continuing through the whole spine. This produces the deep essential openings which facilitate our doing the poses and provides a deeper experience of ourselves. We get a better body/mind both "outside and inside." We hear a lot about "outside and inside" in our Svaroopa class, as Svaroopa is a perfect bridge from outer distraction to internal continuity.
Tightness + Time = certain negative effects. First of all, the spine is the main conduit for all the body systems. Tightness in the muscles misaligns the spine. The misalignment, in turn, influences every organ, nerve and gland. We all know muscle tightness in our neck and shoulders, back, hips and hamstrings. Tightness isn't a simple singular state. Syndromes arise from tightness, sciatica, tendonitis, carpal tunnel, scoliosis, sinusitis, to name a few. More seriously, impaired function of primary life support organs like the liver, kidneys and gall bladder may occur along with altered function of organ systems. Worse than that, sustained inflammation can cause heart disease and cancer. So tightness can be simplistic or tightness can be extreme.
Good posture isn't just a matter of standing upright. Muscles are not designed to hold us up. That is the job of our bones. Structural integrity depends on proper alignment and muscles that flow through both contraction and relaxation. The tighter we are, the more we move away from our original ease. We become amnesiacs in a sense, we forget what is it was like when we were at ease. Through our dedicated practice we regain what was lost, we "come to our senses," so to speak. We find a true restoration of body, and a true peace of mind. Our vehicles run well, run happy.
Stress + Bodies + Minds are complex but the Svaroopa solution is simple. Keep your vehicle humming, do Svaroopa yoga! Your body will thank you and you will love the ride!
"...there is really nothing new about the fact that press releases are generally not focused on providing legitimate news but rather are infused with meaningless promotional hype that few people care about.
"...far too many … in fact, most … press releases are full of gobbledygook, jargon, and overworked hype-laden junk words."
Focus quotation:
"...an enlightened man of wisdom should primarily speak with words as mild as milk, that the children of men may be nurtured and edified thereby and may attain the ultimate goal of human existence which is the station of true understanding and nobility." --Bahá'u'lláh, ToB 173
The new online Gobbledygook Grader - recently announced by HubSpot, David Meerman Scott and Dow Jones - effectively drives home the point that far too many … in fact, most … press releases are full of gobbledygook, jargon, and overworked hype-laden junk words.
Check it out … it's free, and could be sobering news for people who write press releases. But I think the Grader is more of a gimmick that misses the real issue, the real problem.
Aside from the fact that now we have yet another online grader tool, there is really nothing new about the fact that press releases are generally not focused on providing legitimate news but rather are infused with meaningless promotional hype that few people care about. Press releases are today less about giving the media something to write about and more about promoting something.
That's why most news organizations use special spam filters - like SpamSieve - to catch and remove press releases to email trash. Even though PR people and organizations crank out hundreds of thousands of releases, the reality is that few of the releases are ever seen by the media.
But, if - God forbid - your intention is to generate a real news story, here's now - write a brief story synopsis in plain language (free of all the goggledygook and hype), include it in an email to the right reporter (not a bunch of reporters but one really good one), and wonders will happen - you just might land great media coverage. That's how media coverage happens today … not through press releases but providing the right journalist with a plain language summary of a story at the right time. It's such a cool approach, it's … sexy.
Koo, a student from New Hampshire, says he found the class eye-opening — literally. He says it trained him to look at things he was seeing more carefully, without initially making assumptions and interpreting what he saw.
Linda Friedlaender (kneeling) leads medical students in a discussion about what they can deduce from one of the paintings at the Yale Center for British Art, where she is curator of education.
New Haven, Conn. — Kevin Koo and other medical students filed into the Yale Center for British Art recently to spend the afternoon looking at paintings.
While future physicians with heavy course loads at the Yale School of Medicine usually don't have the time to ponder art, these students were visiting the museum for a required class — one that could someday save a patient's life.
All first-year students at the School of Medicine are required to take the innovative class, which was developed by Yale medical school faculty member Dr. Irwin Braverman and Linda Friedlaender, curator of education at the Yale Center for British Art, which houses the world's largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom.
Dr. Irwin Braverman of the Yale School of Medicine joins with curator Linda Friedlaender of the Yale Center for British Art to discuss how their innovative course for medical students helps prepare them to be better doctors.
The visual tutorial, now marking its 10th anniversary, draws together disciplines that are usually worlds apart — art and medicine — in order to hone the observational skills of future physicians.
Braverman and other experts believe that, in an age when physicians rely heavily on high-tech imaging and tests, the art of detailed, careful observation is getting short shrift. But detecting small details can make all the difference in coming up with accurate diagnoses, believes the Yale faculty member.
Braverman began trying to find a way to increase observational skills of medical school students at around the same time that Friedlaender became frustrated with the continued misdiagnosis of a close friend. They happened to meet at a gathering and began laying the groundwork for the class, which makes the most of the museum's collection by asking medical students to "diagnose" individuals portrayed in its artworks.
The course has proven so successful that more than 20 other medical schools have imitated the program.
"We know that this works," said Braverman, professor of dermatology. In fact, Braverman and colleagues published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association based on the experiences of the first groups of students who received the training. The results showed a nearly 10% improvement in students' ability to detect important details.
Koo, a student from New Hampshire, says he found the class eye-opening — literally. He says it trained him to look at things he was seeing more carefully, without initially making assumptions and interpreting what he saw.
On a recent afternoon at Yale, the students noted what they saw in detailed Victorian paintings in the museum and then applied their enhanced observational skills to photographs of patients with skin and other ailments they could encounter as doctors.
For the class, sheets of paper had been placed over the titles of the paintings and the accompanying texts so the students had to start their observations from scratch — the way Braverman wants his students eventually to look at their patients. The students discovered that the images often were not what they appeared to be.
"This painting is of a young man reclining on a bed in a dark room in the morning," Koo said as he began to tell professor Braverman what he saw. The student managed to pick out several clues — smoke rising from a just-extinguished candle, for example, morning light streaming into the attic room, and writings torn to shreds.
As fellow students chimed in with their observations, and Braverman drew out detail upon detail, Koo began to see things more precisely, until the young man's contorted position on the bed, his pallid face and an empty vial on the floor made it clear to him that the painting depicted a suicide. "I believe that he's dead," Koo finally said of the subject of the painting.
He was right. "The Death of Chatterton," an 1856 work by Henry Wallis, depicts Thomas Chatterton, who poisoned himself in despair in 1770 after his forgeries of 15th-century poems were unmasked.
"It made me notice things that my eyes had just not seen," Koo said of the class. "In going through it in my own mind and with my peers I was able to develop a fuller story, and that enabled me to put the pieces together in a way that was closer to the reality."
The group of students that curator Friedlaender tutored in the museum carefully noted the details in a 1770s painting called "The Gore Family," by Johann Joseph Zoffany.
Sounok Sen, a student originally from Maryland, deftly described the details he picked out in the painting. "That was fantastic," Friedlaender told him.
The painting depicts an engagement party. But the nature of the event — and which of the several individuals in the work were the man and woman about to be married — didn't become apparent to the students until Friedlaender drew out their detailed observations.
A student from Nigeria, Oluwatosin Onibokun, wasn't sure at the outset of the class that her observational skills could improve by looking at the paintings. By the end, after she had painstakingly considered details in the photographs of patients that Braverman passed around a table for examination, she had no doubt of the museum tutorial's benefit.
"I paid more attention to colors, shapes and sizes of skin blotches, lesions and other conditions," she said. Her observational skills had already improved. "It was great," she said of the class.
Lane English, a museum docent, spoke to the medical students, offering her own very personal support for what Braverman and Friedlaender are doing to train doctors. Several years ago English suffered what appeared to be a blockage — the result of a stroke — behind her left eye that caused temporary blindness. Her sight partially returned, but she was directed to Yale-New Haven Hospital for examination, and doctors initially could not figure out what was wrong. Braverman invited English to tell her story to his students at the end of the museum class.
"All of a sudden," she told the students, "one of them said, 'Oh my God, look at her lip.'" That physician noticed a spot that was a telltale sign of a hereditary condition known as HHT, which causes blood vessel malformations in the lungs that rob the body of oxygen. HHT can be fatal if not detected and treated. Tests confirmed the suspected diagnosis, and Dr. Robert I. White, an expert in the detection and treatment of HHT, was able to correct the condition without surgery by an image-guided procedure to close off abnormal blood vessels, noted English.
The students were transfixed as English described her ordeal. As Braverman and Friedlaender had hoped, English became the embodiment of how keen observational skills can impact the lives of patients, their families and the doctors who diagnose them.
Because of English's eye problem, the doctors initially were thinking of stroke, Braverman told the students. The correct diagnosis of HHT came about because someone was looking at English with much more attention to small detail.
Recently, my husband and I were on a long road trip using the cheapest rental car we could find. As a result of our thriftiness, we had a car with only radio access (no ipod connection), which made for some meaningful one-on-one conversation. After a good thirty minutes of talking about work and our to-do-lists and so on, we started to get more creative.
I asked him, "What are the things you enjoy doing the most?"
He replied, "Are you serious? You know what things I enjoy doing!"
"Well… sure, I know some of them… maybe even most of them… but maybe there are things that will be new to me."
My husband, always willing to play along, proceeded to highlight a list of things he enjoys doing, some of which I definitely knew and a few things that were new to me.
Then he proceeded to ask me the same question. I started to list the things I really enjoy doing, and a very strange thing happened. Halfway through my list, I began to tear up and eventually cry a bit. I realized that most of the things on my list were things I WANTED to do, but not things I was actually DOING. Woah, man!
My husband and I proceeded to break down my list and realized that most of the things I enjoy doing are creative in nature (i.e. reading for pleasure, dancing to happy music, listening to inspiring music, and the list goes on and on). Why wasn't I doing any of it?
Initially I blamed it on a lack of time, but eventually we decided that if you really want to do an activity, you tend to make some time for it. Skip past further novice psychoanalysis, and we realized it all boiled down to guilt. I felt guilty spending an hour curled up with a good book or taking the time to listen to an inspiring song rather than using that same hour to do something more "productive" like responding to work e-mail after hours or doing an extra load of laundry.
The Baha'i writings speak highly of engaging in the arts such as music. In one passage, Shoghi Effendi tells us the following:
It is the music which assists us to affect the human spirit; it is an important means which helps us to communicate with the soul.
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 80)
Among certain nations of the East, music was considered reprehensible, but in this new age the Manifest Light hath, in His holy Tablets, specifically proclaimed that music, sung or played, is spiritual food for soul and heart.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 112)
I started thinking that maybe my soul decided to start that conversation to let me know that it's starved for some creative food. Although it's still not second nature, I have allotted myself twenty minutes a day since our road trip to engage in non "productive" activities. I'm starting to think that these twenty minutes might end up being the most productive minutes I have.
It is usually thought of as inculcating virtues such as love, justice and tolerance through stories, examples and discussion in "Moral Education" or "Character-building" classes. This is a good method, and is often the best arrangement possible in many schools. But conceived in this manner moral education remains only a special subject of study, often divorced from practical daily realities rather than illuminating them. A deeper understanding of human virtues however thinks of them not just as ideals to be taught, but as expressions of the inner forces that operate at the reality of every human being, gems of inestimable value that proper education can reveal and enable the community to benefit from. That is spiritual qualities are the basic foundation, and adorn the true essence of man; and knowledge is the cause of human progress. Such inner qualities are dynamic, positive forces for change seeking full expression. In this light, moral education is the process of drawing out these powerful inner forces in various contexts and for the good of all.
Such moral education is at the center of any model of integrated education, and the orbiting academic disciplines reinforce and complement the center, using spiritual principles to organize the content of the academic study. The proper form of organizing such knowledge and curriculum is based on organic, not mechanical, metaphors. That is, the relationship between subjects is not one of logical connection, or linear attachment, such as A is necessary to understand B, but one of resonant fit. In such a fit there exists a harmony of subjects in the curriculum pointing not outwardly toward a remote horizon, called employment, for example, but inwardly toward a center which is the student. (1)
Said in another way, the real subjects of moral education are the students themselves, and not math, science, art and language, which become from this perspective means for the student to understanding him or herself and the world. Hence whether a student is studying physics, literature, or physical education, that study should lead him to understand human nature and the world more deeply. Thus, moral education is not separated from other forms or names or styles of education by well-defined borders. That is, moral education is not another fenced in field of study, but a magnetic center of interest and a focus of intellectual relationships.
Besides this individual and intellectual aspect, the other, outer and intimately related purpose of moral education is a social one, namely, service to humanity and contributing to the advance of civilization. The importance of service will be seen only if the social purpose of moral education is understood and appropriate instructional methodologies that emphasize the ethical content of learning are used. But much of the effectiveness of such instruction depends upon the students will to learn and be educated. If they don't see their purposes as developing nobility of character and behavior and advancing civilization they will not consent to be educated in moral ways, nor make the effort to do so.
The Moral Faculty
What separates human beings from other forms of life is the power of understanding . The organ of intelligence most important for moral intelligence, though, is the human heart, by which I mean, of course, not the pump in the middle of the chest but the sensitive organ constituting the center of being. It is in the human heart that the chief powers and capacities for moral advance reside, because the heart is where values and truths are weighed and evaluated.
The educational systems of today have not developed this faculty, regardless of the technical wonders we enjoy, because the best educated of these systems don't recognize their responsibility to develop and act morally. One of the sorry results of this underdevelopment of the heart is a precipitous decline in moral standards and behavior, and the concomitant rise of violence, despair, cruelty and death, because the moral compass of every culture has broken and society is drifting aimlessly and dangerously on a sea of relativity. The foundation of any curriculum of education, then, must be close and continued study of those universal spiritual principles that define what it means to be truly human. And the fundamental aim of moral education is to nurture and train the heart's intelligence, for in this is the foundation of character and true self-knowledge.
Acquiring excellence of character is prior to academic excellence. Schools for academic studies must at the same time be training centers in behavior and conduct, and they must favor character and conduct above the sciences and arts. Good behavior and high moral character must come first, for unless the character be trained, acquiring knowledge will only prove injurious. Knowledge is praiseworthy when it is coupled with ethical conduct and virtuous character; otherwise it is a deadly poison, a frightful danger.
Values into Virtues
I will call these inner moral potentials, such as love, human values, for they are what is of most value to human life. The expression of these qualities, such as loving one's parents, I will call virtues, for a virtue is not a disembodied concept, but a consistent pattern of behavior, the proper expression of the value in the services performed for others or for the common good. Concepts of proper behavior and attitude are more properly called spiritual principles, which tell us the full and proper expression of the moral potential: for example, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
A spiritual principle, then, is either an articulate statement or a demonstration of a value that harmonizes with a moral potenial within the human reality. Spiritual principles work as a kind of objective correlative to the inner qualities or values, by identifying, drawing out and training the inner moral potential as mathematics, for example, draws out and trains a certain potential for logical reasoning with measurable quantities. But spiritual principles not only present a perspective which harmonizes with that which is immanent in human nature, they also induce an attitude, a dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures. They create a moral context for solving problems, meeting challenges and evaluating novelty.
Spiritual principles are found in all great traditions, of whatever culture. They are universals of behavior and thought. These are the virtues parents try to inculcate in their children; that schools teach their students, that are reflected in great art, and lived by noble poeple.
The process of character development, of turning moral potential into actuality, is one of bringing out the inner, latent values through the inculcation of spiritual principles and demonstrating them properly in outer behavior. A value becomes a virtue as opposed to a moral ideal only when knowledge of spiritual principles enters into and helps to construct, regulate and transform social relationships.
Some spiritual principles are obviously associated with our emotional life, such as love, tenderness, and loyalty. Some are connected with volition, like perseverance, self-sacrifice, and patience. Some are intellectual, such as tolerance, detachment and seeking after knowledge. But moral education cannot consist solely of learning spiritual principles as objects of study, as part of the intellectual content of learning, any more than the principles of physics can be taught and understood in isolation from interaction with the physical world, or vocabulary taught independently from language use. Moral education can best be taught within a context of social interaction, because this is its main arena of application.
While it is clear that spiritual principles cannot be abstracted from the social context in which they must find expression, neither should they be separated from the intellectual disciplines. Spiritual principles must create the context, or containing forms, of knowledge in moral education, the conditions which enable all intellectual learning to take place, the root the feeds the tree of mind. In today's integrating world, the fundamental spiritual principle of moral education must be the principle of the oneness of humankind; the belief that human beings are essentially the same everywhere and at every time, but that social conditions vary so that different qualities may be brought out, trained and find proper expression in society.
If this principle alone were to be the guiding ideal and purpose of education, with associated principles organizing the specific subjects of the formal curriculum of learning, I believe such education would, if effectively implemented, go a long way toward reducing the unreality of most current moral education where the formal study of values or virtues is only another and often mis-fitted part of the curriculum. I say mis-fitted because in most schools moral values and principles of peace, harmony and prosperity for all must compete with history classes which unconsciously value conflict because they study war as the main preoccupation of human beings, and with social studies classes which unwittingly value violence, prejudice or vengeance because they study the various means of exploitation and revolt. They must also compete with natural science classes which conceive nature as a dead object and material progress as a legitimate form of greed, with economics instruction which promotes materialism because it only emphasizes increasing material productivity, and with civics classes that inculcate nationalistic attitudes instead of universal ones. Spiritual principles are overwhelmed in this situation and study of them in such an anti-environment can have only marginal effect on human behavior.
Using spiritual principles to organize information and learning will be to change subjects so that they will be taught in ways that complement each other as the inner values and outer virtues themselves do, creating a nurturing intellectual environment that will generate spiritual knowledge, will unify human understanding , promote moral aspiration, and mature the intelligence. Different cultural traditions, for example, will be taught in lessons that show the essential unity of all human civilization, thus quenching the fires of prejudice. Arts, or the symbolic dimension organizing perceptions of reality, will ennoble human vision, not just reflect current, fragmented vision. Natural science teaching can be structured around the necessity of preserving the natural world, of perceiving its exquisite beauty and understanding its structure as an analog of human beings. Social science can be built upon the idea of world citizenship, with all the rights, duties and responsibilities that the word citizen implies. History may be taught so that students see civilization-building as an ever-advancing process to which all peoples have made important contributions. Vocational training should emphasize the value of service to the common good, and physical education is an excellent arena in which to nurture values of cooperation, teamwork, and unity by working toward group goals and including everyone irrespective of ability, and to instill a sense of sportsmanship by applauding all noble effort regardless of winning or losing. To find such principles we have only to look at the teachings of any or all of the world's great spiritual luminaries, for they have all taught the one moral code.
Methodologies
Now, some words about instructional methodology. Instructional methodologies must reflect the way human beings learn. Experience shows that, whatever the curriculum, students learn best when they are engaged in real experiences yielding authentic results that have utility, worth and purpose for a greater good, and potential for reward. Modern learning theory has proved that human beings construct meaning collaboratively, that human reason needs communication and community to develop, for human beings think best in communion; that is, learning occurs best in meaningful social and intellectual contexts. From these statements we can see that participative methods of learning form the matrix of the learning world in moral education.
We all know of the studies proving that people retain significantly different mounts of information according to the methods of instruction they receive. Simple lectures rank very low, participatory methods--meaning the highest. The main reason for this is the increased activity of the learners, their bringing more of themselves into the learning process so they understand their own processes of learning by applying knowledge in trial and error situations. They learn how to learn.
Consultation, the sharing of opinions in a common search for truth is a means of self-reflection leading to the development of new capacities for perception. In consultation several lines of thought (the individual participants) merge and combine to give a complete picture of any problem, because a comprehensive unit of thought surrounds the subject. But besides social and intellectual contexts there are, too, proper attitudes that individuals must bring into the consultative endeavor that make up the real context of meaning, and create an environment where truth may appear and flourish. Here again, spiritual principles play a powerful role; inculcating principles of respect for others, detachment from one's own opinion. courtesy, seeking truth objectively, will create a proper moral and social environment where the truth may be allowed to emerge and implemented. Moral training should enable students to harmonize conflicting forces in themselves and their environment, and through service to others to build new, more inclusive social relations that reflect a sense of community.
Any method of instruction should have as its object leading the child to discover for him or herself the connections between these different contexts. Let us teach students to approach learning strategically, allow them to learn techniques, such as consultation, that demand that they be active and that provide feedback in the utility of that action and instruction in why, when and where such activities should be applied. Such a problem-solving, constructivist approach helps build the mental structures of comprehension.
Conclusion
I realize that the above is in no way empirically convincing. As just described, moral education is, at this point, more an attitude toward the world and knowledge, than a dogma of content. It is a way of viewing the character of the world and of knowledge and how individuals experience this world through this knowledge. This paper has been more concerned with establishing perspectives than with adding to our store of empirical knowledge. But quantitative results start with qualitatively new ideas that cannot be confirmed by existing facts and ideas, but which must, themselves, generate that confirming evidence.
Moral education is the bringing out of innate qualities into progressive forms of understanding and behaviour, that is, building inner human realities into outer forms. Spiritual principles unify the subjects of study, both internally within each subject and across subjects, and they are the shaping power behind the integration and development of the person because the cognitive, affective and volitional aspects of the human being grow out of connecting these with essential parts of the human spirit. The result of this education is virtues and the virtuous human being. Hence such learning helps to integrate the school, and to develop the inner person and advance society, for learning that finds its end in service is civic.
Notes
1.An example of such curriculum can be found in the documents of International Educational Initiatives.
The insights he shares apply to so many areas of life!
Excerpt:
"Stop marketing and promoting, start listening - We are living and working in a new world influenced by vast choices online, a world of diminished influence for traditional advertising, marketing and promotion. This is the hardest thing for many organizations to grasp - that we must let go of old ways, and listen to the people who matter most to our organizations - customers, clients, buyers, stakeholders, the media - and get into conversations with them. There's an old belief that the best kind of promotion is when a third-party person says something nice about you … and it's never been truer than today. Listening and conversations lead to those who matter most to your organization telling others nice things about you. They become an army of ambassadors who build the best kind of awareness."
Among upcoming appearances, it is my pleasure to speak at the Bronze Quill Awards of the Houston IABC on April 30. Here is a piece the Houston IABC chapter requested to post on their blog:
It used to be that we just had to keep track of journalists as they moved around their industry. Today, we have more formidable challenges to tackle as communicators. Not only are we witnessing seismic changes happening with the mainstream media but we, as communications professionals, face changing styles in how we communicate, on behalf of our organizations, our clients and ourselves.
Every week, if not everyday, we hear of more newspapers failing or struggling to stay alive. Newsrooms are cutting staffs, cutting sections, cutting pages. Papers are trying to find a silver bullet to attract more readers and larger revenue streams online. They are not having much luck so far.
Faced with the reality of changing needs of traditional journalists, a broadcast media that has become more entertainment than news, and today's fast-developing online world of social media, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, how do we attract attention and communicate accurately, effectively and clearly?
Here are six suggestions for organizational leadership in today's competitive world:
Advocate change - Learn the styles, trends and new protocols of today's mainstream and online media as it shifts and jockeys to find a niche. Champion change in your own organization. Old habits die hard at many organizations, slowing them from learning new styles and embracing new techniques. While it might be an old habit and more comfortable, for example, to send out a press release, that kind of outreach has become less effective in today's competitive world.
Embrace storytelling - Learn how to tell what your organization has to say in an appealing story. Storytelling is the singular most powerful technique for any organization or business to attract attention and trigger word of mouth buzz that will ultimately enhance leadership positioning. The media, whether mainstream or online, is always looking for a good story.
Think plain language - The communications clarity of business and organizations is too often polluted by obfuscated language of industry short-hand or over-worked business school jargon. As a communicator, translate opaque into plain and clear language that everyone will understand.
Reach out to few to achieve more - Develop working relationships with those individuals - whether journalists, bloggers, analysts or others - who are opinion-leaders in your industry or business sector. Chances are the list of authentic influencers is astonishingly short. Become a valued and trusted resource aside from promoting your own organization. The payoff will be exponential because of enhanced credibility, and the fact that the top thought-leaders in your industry will begin turning to you and your organization to learn more. With regard to the media, the days of blasting out press releases to thousands of people are fast coming to an end for the simple reason that a release sent to everyone is the antithesis of what any journalist wants or needs for a story.
Stop marketing and promoting, start listening - We are living and working in a new world influenced by vast choices online, a world of diminished influence for traditional advertising, marketing and promotion. This is the hardest thing for many organizations to grasp - that we must let go of old ways, and listen to the people who matter most to our organizations - customers, clients, buyers, stakeholders, the media - and get into conversations with them. There's an old belief that the best kind of promotion is when a third-party person says something nice about you … and it's never been truer than today. Listening and conversations lead to those who matter most to your organization telling others nice things about you. They become an army of ambassadors who build the best kind of awareness.
Become the credible voice and face of your organization and industry - Look around at today's most respected organizations. In many cases, the top executives have high visibility, and are recognized as leaders - Tony Hsieh of Zappos, John Chambers of Cisco, Richard Branson of Virgin, Steve Jobs of Apple. They define and differentiate the image, integrity and reputation of their organizations through their own consistent openness and transparency as industry leaders, often leaving less outward CEOs to stand in the shadows.
It is not that difficult to achieve organizational leadership to capitalize on all the changes around us. It begins with the discipline of letting go of old habits that often no longer work, and recognizing that if we do not get more savvy as communicators, we might wake up some day to find that our competitors have.
Gazing on nature improves your focus! From Scientific American. Source is here. Another related article can be read here, which deals with the spiritual dimension of the physical world.
How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood
Brain research can help us craft spaces that relax, inspire, awaken, comfort and heal
Architects have long intuited that the places we inhabit can affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Now behavioral scientists are giving their hunches an empirical basis.
Scientists are unearthing tantalizing clues about how to design spaces that promote creativity, keep students focused and alert, and lead to relaxation and social intimacy. The results inform architectural and design decisions such as the height of ceilings, the view from windows, the shape of furniture, and the type and intensity of lighting.
Such efforts are leading to cutting-edge projects such as residences for seniors with dementia in which the building itself is part of the treatment.
Brain research can help us craft spaces that relax, inspire, awaken, comfort and heal
By Emily Anthes
In the 1950s prizewinning biologist and doctor Jonas Salk was working on a cure for polio in a dark basement laboratory in Pittsburgh. Progress was slow, so to clear his head, Salk traveled to Assisi, Italy, where he spent time in a 13th-century monastery, ambling amid its columns and cloistered courtyards. Suddenly, Salk found himself awash in new insights, including the one that would lead to his successful polio vaccine. Salk was convinced he had drawn his inspiration from the contemplative setting. He came to believe so strongly in architecture's ability to influence the mind that he teamed up with renowned architect Louis Kahn to build the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., as a scientific facility that would stimulate breakthroughs and encourage creativity.
Architects have long intuited that the places we inhabit can affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. But now, half a century after Salk's inspiring excursion, behavioral scien-tists are giving these hunches an empirical basis. They are unearthing tantalizing clues about how to design spaces that promote creativity, keep students focused and alert, and lead to relaxation and social intimacy. Institutions such as the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in San Diego are encouraging interdisciplinary research into how a planned environment influences the mind, and some architecture schools are now offering classes in introductory neuroscience.
Such efforts are already informing design, leading to cutting-edge projects, such as residences for seniors with dementia in which the building itself is part of the treatment. Similarly, the Kingsdale School in London was redesigned, with the help of psychologists, to promote social cohesion; the new structure also includes elements that foster alertness and creativity. What is more, researchers are just getting started. "All this is in its infancy," says architect David Allison, who heads the Architecture + Health program at Clemson University. "But the emerging neuroscience research might give us even better insights into how the built environment impacts our health and well-being, how we perform in environments and how we feel in environments."
Higher Thought Formal investigations into how humans interact with the built environment began in the 1950s, when several research groups analyzed how the design of hospitals, particularly psychiatric facilities, influenced patient behaviors and outcomes. In the 1960s and 1970s the field that became known as environmental psychology blossomed.
"There was a social conscience growing in architecture around that time," says John Zeisel, a Columbia University–trained sociologist who, as president of Hearthstone Alzheimer Care, specializes in the design of facilities for people who have dementia. Architects began to ask themselves, Ziesel adds, "'What is there about people that we need to find out about in order to build buildings that respond to people's needs?' " The growth of the brain sciences in the late 20th century gave the field a new arsenal of technologies, tools and theories. Researchers began to consider "how can we utilize the rigorous methods of neuroscience and a deeper understanding of the brain to inform how we design," says Eve Edelstein, a visiting neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor at the New School of Architecture and Design, also in San Diego.
Now research has emerged that could help illuminate Salk's observation that aspects of the physical environment can influence creativity. In 2007 Joan Meyers-Levy, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota, reported that the height of a room's ceiling affects how people think. She randomly assigned 100 people to a room with either an eight- or 10-foot ceiling and asked participants to group sports from a 10-item list into categories of their own choice. The people who completed the task in the room with taller ceilings came up with more abstract categories, such as "challenging" sports or sports they would like to play, than did those in rooms with shorter ceilings, who offered more concrete groupings, such as the number of participants on a team. "Ceiling height affects the way you process information," Meyers-Levy says. "You're focusing on the specific details in the lower-ceiling condition."
Because her earlier work had indicated that elevated ceilings make people feel physically less constrained, the investigator posits that higher ceilings encourage people to think more freely, which may lead them to make more abstract connections. The sense of confinement prompted by low ceilings, on the other hand, may inspire a more detailed, statistical outlook—which might be preferable under some circumstances. "It very much depends on what kind of task you're doing," Meyers-Levy explains. "If you're in the operating room, maybe a low ceiling is better. You want the surgeon getting the details right." Similarly, paying bills might be most efficiently accomplished in a room with low ceilings, whereas producing great works of art might be more likely in a studio with loftier ones. How high the ceiling actually is, Meyers-Levy points out, is less important than how high it feels. "We think you can get these effects just by manipulating the perception of space," she says, by using light-colored paint, for instance, or mirrors to make the room look more spacious.
Natural Focus In addition to ceiling height, the view afforded by a building may influence intellect—in particular, an occupant's ability to concentrate. Although gazing out a window suggests distraction, it turns out that views of natural settings, such as a garden, field or forest, actually improve focus. A study published in 2000 by environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, now at Cornell University, and her colleagues followed seven- to 12-year-old children before and after a family move. Wells and her team evaluated the panoramas from windows in each old and new home. They found that kids who experienced the greatest increase in greenness as a result of the move also made the most gains on a standard test of attention. (The scientists controlled for differences in housing quality, which turned out not to be associated with attention.) Another experiment demonstrated that college students with views of nature from their dorm rooms scored higher on measures of mental focus than did those who overlooked entirely man-made structures.
Green play space may be especially beneficial for students with attention disorders. Landscape architect and researcher William Sullivan of the University of Illinois and his colleagues studied 96 children with attention deficit disorder (ADD). The scientists asked parents to describe their children's ability to concentrate—say, on homework or spoken directions—after the kids engaged in activities such as fishing, soccer and playing video games in which they were exposed to varying amounts of greenery. "The parents reported that their children's ADD symptoms were least severe after they'd been in or observing green spaces," says Sullivan, whose results were published in 2001.
Such findings may be the result of a restorative effect on the mind of gazing on natural scenes, according to an idea developed by psychologists Stephen Kaplan and Rachel Kaplan, both at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. By this theory, the tasks of the modern world can engender mental fatigue, whereas looking out at a natural setting is relatively effortless and can give the mind a much needed rest. "A number of studies have shown that when people look at nature views, whether they're real or projected on a screen, their ability to focus improves," Stephen Kaplan says.
Nature views may be more rejuvenating than urban scenes are, Sullivan adds, because humans have an innate tendency to respond positively toward nature—an explanation dubbed the biophilia hypothesis. "We evolved in an environment that predisposes us to function most effectively in green spaces," he says. In a December 2008 paper in Psychological Science, Stephen Kaplan also proposes that urban settings are too stimulating and that attending to them—with their traffic and crowds—requires more cognitive work than gazing at a grove of trees does.
Using nature to boost attention ought to pay off academically, and it seems to, according to a study that will be published in spring 2009 and that was led by C. Kenneth Tanner, head of the School Design & Planning Laboratory at the University of Georgia. In their analysis of more than 10,000 fifth-grade students in 71 Georgia elementary schools, Tanner and his colleagues found that students in classrooms with unrestricted views of at least 50 feet outside the window, including gardens, mountains and other natural elements, had higher scores on tests of vocabulary, language arts and math than did students without such expansive vistas or whose classrooms primarily overlooked roads, parking lots and other urban fixtures.
Seeing the Light In addition to greenery, the natural world has something else to offer building occupants: light. Daylight synchronizes our sleep-wake cycle, or circadian rhythm, enabling us to stay alert during the day and to sleep at night. Nevertheless, many institutional buildings are not designed to let in as much natural light as our mind and body need.
A lack of light can be a particular problem for schoolchildren. "You take a child who probably didn't get enough rest, dump them off in front of a school where there's very little natural light, and guess what? They have jet lag," Tanner says. A 1992 study followed Swedish schoolchildren in four different classrooms for a year. The research showed that the kids in classrooms with the least daylight had disrupted levels of cortisol, a hormone that is regulated by the body's circadian rhythms.
Adequate sunlight has also been shown to improve student outcomes. In 1999 the Heschong Mahone Group, a consulting group based in California that specializes in building energy-efficient structures, collected scores on standardized tests of math and reading for more than 21,000 elementary school students in three school districts in three states: California, Washington and Colorado. Using photographs, architectural plans and in-person visits, the researchers rated the amount of daylight available in each of more than 2,000 classrooms on a scale of 0 to 5. In one school district—Capistrano, Calif.—students in the sunniest classrooms advanced 26 percent faster in reading and 20 percent faster in math in one year than did those with the least daylight in their classrooms. In the other two districts, ample light boosted scores between 7 and 18 percent.
Retirement homes can also be too dark to keep circadian clocks ticking away normally. In a study published in 2008 neuroscientist Rixt F. Riemersma-van der Lek of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and her colleagues randomly selected six of 12 assisted-living facilities in Holland to have supplemental lighting installed, bringing the luminosity to approximately 1,000 lux; the other six provided dimmer lighting of around 300 lux. On tests taken at six-month intervals over three and a half years, the residents of the more brightly lit buildings showed 5 percent less cognitive decline than occupants of the six darker buildings did. (The additional lighting also reduced symptoms of depression by 19 percent.) Other studies show that circadian rhythms keep the brain functioning optimally by calibrating hormone levels and metabolic rate, for example. Elderly people—especially those with dementia—often have circadian disruptions. Providing bright daytime light, the researchers believe, could have helped restore their proper rhythms and thus have improved overall brain function.
The wavelength of light is also crucial. Our circadian systems are primarily regulated by short-wavelength blue light; the photoreceptors that feed back to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a part of the hypothalamus that regulates our daily rhythms, relay the most nerve impulses to the brain when they detect blue light. This short-wavelength light—present in sunlight—lets the brain and body know it is daytime. (In contrast, our rods and cones, which are responsible for vision, fire maximally when exposed to green or yellow-green light.)
Researchers recommend using blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and full-spectrum fluorescent lights in buildings during the day; both have enough blue light to trigger the circadian system and keep occupants awake and alert. After dark, buildings could switch to lamps and fixtures with longer-wavelength bulbs, which are less likely to emit light detected by the circadian system and interfere with sleep at night. "If you can give people a lighting scheme where they can differentiate between day and night, that would be an important architectural decision," says Mariana Figueiro, program director of the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
A Room to Relax Although bright light might boost cognition, recent work suggests it counteracts relaxation and openness—effects that might be more important than alertness in some settings. In a 2006 study counselors interviewed 80 university students individually in either a dim or a brightly lit counseling room. The students then completed a questionnaire about their reactions to the interview. The students questioned in the dim room felt more relaxed, viewed the counselor more positively and shared more information about themselves than those counseled in the brighter room did. The findings suggest that dim light helps people to loosen up. If that is true generally, keeping the light low during dinner or at parties could foster relaxation and intimacy.
A room's contents can be similarly soothing—or the opposite. Neuroscientist Moshe Bar of Harvard Medical School and Maital Neta, then his research assistant, showed subjects photographs of various versions of neutral objects, such as sofas and watches. The examples of each item were identical except that some had curved or rounded edges, whereas others had sharp, squared-off perimeters. When asked to make snap judgments about these objects, subjects significantly preferred those with curves. Bar speculates that this preference exists because we associate sharp angles with danger. (The brain may sense a greater hazard, for instance, from a cave in which jagged rocks protrude from the walls than from one in which rounded rocks do the same.) "Maybe sharp contours are coded in our brains as potential threats," he says.
Bar provided some support for this theory in a 2007 study in which subjects again viewed a series of neutral objects—this time while their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The neuroscientist found that the amygdala, which is involved in fear processing and emotional arousal, was more active when people were looking at objects with sharp angles. "The underpinnings are really deep in our brain," Bar explains. "Very basic visual properties convey to us some higher-level information such as 'Red alert!' or 'Relax, it's all smooth; there's no threat in the area.' " He acknowledges that an object's contour is not the only element that informs our aesthetic preferences, and his research is still in its early stages. But all other things being equal, filling a living room or waiting room with furniture that has rounded or curved edges could help visitors unwind.
Furniture choices can also influence human interaction. Some of the earliest environmental psychology research focused on seating plans in residential health care facilities; scientists discovered that the common practice of placing chairs along the walls of resident day rooms or lounges actually prevented socializing. A better plan to encourage interaction, researchers found, is organizing furniture in small groupings throughout the room. A 1999 study by psychologists at the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg in Germany and Uppsala University in Sweden examined seating in a different setting. Over eight weeks and more than 50 lessons, the researchers rotated a class of fourth-grade students between two seating arrangements: rows of desks and a semicircle of desks around the teacher. The semicircle configuration increased student participation, boosting the number of questions pupils asked. Other studies suggest that putting desks in rows encourages students to work independently and improves classroom behavior.
Carpeting can also grease the social wheels. In hospitals, carpet increases the amount of time patients' friends and families spend visiting, according to a 2000 study led by health care design expert Debra Harris, now president and CEO of RAD Consultants in Austin. Such social support may ultimately speed healing. Of course, carpeting is much harder to clean than traditional hospital flooring—and may present a health hazard in some settings—so it may not be appropriate for places such as an emergency room, where there is high patient turnover and plenty of mess. But rooms, buildings or wards that are home to long-term patients, such as assisted-living facilities, may benefit from carpets.
So far scientists have focused mainly on public buildings, such as hospitals, schools and stores. Thus, a homeowner interested in boosting his or her mind through design must do some extrapolating. "We have a very limited number of studies, so we're almost looking at the problem through a straw," Clemson's Allison says. "Now we need to find more general patterns. How do you take answers to very specific questions and make broad, generalized use of them? That's what we're all struggling with."
The struggle should pay off, experts believe, because when designers fabricate buildings with the mind in mind, the occupants benefit. Well-designed special care units for Alzheimer's patients reduced anxiety, aggression, social withdrawal, depression and psychosis, according to a 2003 study by Zeisel and his colleagues. And school design can account for between 10 and 15 percent of variation in elementary school students' scores on a standardized test of reading and math skills, suggests a 2001 report by investigators at the University of Georgia.
"Because of advances in neuroscience, we can begin measuring the effects of the environment at a finer level of detail than we have before," U.C.S.D.'s Edelstein says. "We can understand the environment better, we can understand our responses better, and we can correlate them to the outcomes. I just get chills when I think about it."
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Building Around the Mind".
A friend was telling me today about a conference she has just attended that brought together a large group of public relations people with a smaller group of working journalists. The discussion had centered, as it often does at such sessions, on what journalists really need in today's demanding media world, and the merits of press releases.
The journalists unanimously said that news releases are useless. In fact, news releases - which are shared with everyone under the sun through blast email services - are the antithesis of what the media wants. Reporters - whether mainstream or online - are paid to find and report fresh and imaginative stories … stories that haven't appeared elsewhere.
The group of journalists told the PR people that all they really need is a brief, concisely written email that outlines a story, and no follow-up phone calls to check whether they got the email. The latter - the follow-up phone call - generally reveals an insecure PR rookie. What the media does not need is for PR people to aggressively pursue them with press releases - which rarely contains any elements of stories, anyway. Just give reporters a story idea, and let them run with it. That's their job.
I know that most news releases today have morphed into something else that's not really intended for the media but rather as self-serving promotion for organization, glowing announcements of generally trivial nature to make the suits in the corner offices happy. But the morphing has polluted the media waters, and here's why - many PR agencies today are shoveling out news releases to the media in a style that has not changed much for decades, except that today's digital delivery methods have replaced envelopes, stamps and fax machines. It no longer works.
"THE CHILDREN OF MEN ARE ALL BROTHERS, and the prerequisites of brotherhood are manifold. Among them is that one should wish for one’s brother that which one wisheth for oneself..." -- Bahá’u’lláh, The Tabernacle of Unity
I have a degree in the Arabic language, as well as CELTA (English teaching) certification. I teach English in Ho Chi Minh City (previously Oslo) and have been a Baha'i since 1990. Contact form: http://is.gd/5nYHY (or post a comment on the blog).
For contact, please use the form found here. I will be glad to make your acquaintance! - Alex. Photo of compass is from http://stock.xchng, and of Bahá'í Temple Copyright Bahá'í International Community (click photos to view source).
"Core Opening" is a term coined by Rama Berch who created Svaroopa Yoga. Core opening is a concept and a consequence of the practice of Svaroopa Yoga. Svaroopa Yoga is defined by two immensely distinguishing characteristics. 
Our bodies deserve at least the same care as our cars. We acquire our bodies immediately upon birth and keep them our whole lives and drop them off when we are done with them. With our cars, we make sure we do everything we can to keep them safe and smoothly running. We consult our manuals to find the guidelines for successful car ownership and then follow the suggestions.
The new online 
Recently, my husband and I were on a long road trip using the cheapest rental car we could find. As a result of our thriftiness, we had a car with only radio access (no ipod connection), which made for some meaningful one-on-one conversation. After a good thirty minutes of talking about work and our to-do-lists and so on, we started to get more creative.
Among upcoming appearances, it is my pleasure to speak at the 
A friend was telling me today about a conference she has just attended that brought together a large group of public relations people with a smaller group of working journalists. The discussion had centered, as it often does at such sessions, on what journalists really need in today's demanding media world, and the merits of press releases.
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