Appreciate your inner riches.

History of the New Age Movement

History of the New Age movement:
New Age teachings became popular during the 1970's as a reaction against what some perceived as the failure of Christianity and the failure of Secular Humanism to provide spiritual and ethical guidance for the future. Its roots are traceable to many sources: Astrology, Channeling, Hinduism, Gnostic traditions, , Spiritualism, Taoism, Theosophy, Wicca and other Neo-pagan traditions, etc. The movement started in England in the 1960's where many of these elements were well established. Small groups, such as the Findhorn Community in Inverness and the Wrekin Trust formed. The movement quickly became international. Early New Age mileposts in North America were a "New Age Seminar" run by the Association for Research and Enlightenment, and the establishment of the East-West Journal in 1971. Actress Shirley MacLaine is perhaps their most famous current figure.

During the 1980's and 90's, the movement came under criticism from a variety of groups. Channeling was ridiculed; seminar and group leaders were criticized for the fortunes that they made from New Agers. Their uncritical belief in the "scientific" properties of crystals was exposed as groundless. But the movement has become established and become a stable, major force in North American religion during the past generation. As the millennium comes to a close, the New Age is expected to expand, promoted by the social backlash against logic and science

Let's be friends

Horoscope

VIRGO - The PerfectionistDominant in relationships.. Conservative. Always wants the last word. Argumentative. Worries. Very smart. Dislikes noise and chaos. Eager. Hardworking. Loyal. Beautiful. Easy to talk to. Hard to please. Harsh. Practical and very fussy. Often shy. Pessimistic.

SCORPIO - The Intense One Very energetic. Intelligent. Can be jealous and/or possessive. Hardworking. Great kisser. Can become obsessive or secretive. Holds grudges. Attractive. Determined. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Romantic. Can be self-centered at times. Passionate and Emotional.

LIBRA - The Harmonizer Nice to everyone they meet. Can't make up their mind. Have own unique appeal. Creative, energetic, and very social. Hates to be alone. Peaceful, generous. Very loving and beautiful. Flirtatious. Give in too easily. Procrastinators. Very gullible.

ARIES - The Daredevil Energetic. Adventurous and spontaneous. Confident and enthusiastic. Fun. Loves a challenge... EXTREMELY impatient. Sometimes selfish. Short fuse. (Easily angered.) Lively, passionate, and sharp wit. Outgoing. Lose interest quickly - easily bored. Egotistical. Courageous and assertive. Tends to be physical and athletic.

AQUARIUS - The Sweetheart Optimistic and honest. Sweet personality. Very independent. Inventive and intelligent. Friendly and loyal. Can seem unemotional. Can be a bit rebellious. Very stubborn, but original and unique Attractive on the inside and out. Eccentric personality.

GEMINI - The Chatterbox Smart and witty. Outgoing, very chatty. Lively, energetic. Adaptable but needs to express themselves. Argumentative and outspoken. Likes change. Versatile. Busy, sometimes nervous and tense. Gossips. May seem superficial or inconsistent, but is only changeable. Beautiful physically and mentally.

LEO - The Boss Very organized. Need order in their lives - like being in control. Like boundaries. Tend to take over everything. Bossy. Like to help others. Social and outgoing. Extroverted. Generous, warm-hearted. Sensitive. Creative energy. Full of themselves. Loving. D oing the right thing is important to Leos. Attractive.

CANCER - The Protector Moody, emotional. May be shy. Very loving and caring. Pretty/handsome. Excellent partners for life. Protective. Inventive and imaginative. Cautious. Touchy-feely kind of person. Needs love from others. Easily hurt, but sympathetic.

PISCES - The Dreamer Generous, kind, and thoughtful. Very creative and imaginative. May become secretive and vague. Sensitive. Don't like details Dreamy and unrealistic. Sympathetic and loving. Kind. Unselfish. Good kisser. Beautiful.

CAPRICORN - The Go-Getter Patient and wise. Practical and rigid. Ambitious. Tends to be good-looking. Humorous and funny. Can be a bit shy and reserved. Often pessimists. Capricorns tend to act before they think and can be unfriendly y at times. Hold grudges. Like competition. Get what they want.

TAURUS - The Enduring One Charming but aggressive. Can come off as boring, but they are not. Hard workers. Warm-hearted. Strong, has endurance. Solid beings who are stable and secure in their ways. Not looking for shortcuts. Take pride in their beauty. Patient and reliable. Make great friends and give good advice. Loving and kind. Loves hard - passionate. Express themselves emotionally. Prone to ferocious temper-tantrums. Determined. Indulge themselves often. Very generous.

SAGITTARIUS - The Happy-Go-Lucky One Good-natured optimist. Doesn't want to grow up (Peter Pan Syndrome). Indulges self. Boastful. Likes luxuries and gambling. Social and outgoing. Doesn't like responsibilities. Often fantasizes. Impatient. Fun to be around. Having lots of friends. Flirtatious. Doesn't like rules. Sometimes hypocritical. Dislikes being confined - tight spaces or even tight clothes. Doesn't like being doubted. Beautiful inside and out.

Have a Great Day

Here are some men and women who mocked God

Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil):

During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got 500,000 votes from his party, not even God would remove him from Presidency.

Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before being made President, then he died.

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Cazuza (Bio-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and poet):

During A show in Canecio (Rio de Janeiro), while smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said:'God, that's for you..'

He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible manner.

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The man who built the Titanic

After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe the Titanic would be.

With an ironic tone he said: 'Not even God can sink it'

The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic

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Bon Scott (Singer)

The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang:

'Don't stop me; I'm going down all the way, down the highway to hell'.

On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found dead, he had been choked by his own vomit.

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In Campinas , Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went to pick up a friend.....

The mother accompanied her to the car and was so worried about the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the daughter holding her hand, who was already seated in the car:

'My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You.' She responded: 'Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause Inside Here.....It's Already Full '

Hours later, news came by that they had been involved in a fatal accident, everyone had died, the car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact.

The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken.

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Karma is

Definition of Karma
What is Karma?

Karma is the Sanskrit word for action. It is equivalent to Newton’s law of ‘every action must have a reaction’. When we think, speak or act we initiate a force that will react accordingly. This returning force maybe modified, changed or suspended, but most people will not be able eradicate it. This law of cause and effect is not punishment, but is wholly for the sake of education or learning. A person may not escape the consequences of his actions, but he will suffer only if he himself has made the conditions ripe for his suffering. If he were to continue acting in such a way that the retribution cannot come about, because the conditions are not appropriate, then he may postpone the fruition of his karma. If he can suspend it until he is in the spirit world, then he may work at this particular karma in this intermission between death and next life. Or he may wait until another life in which he is more developed so that he can gleaned the educational value of this retribution. Conversely, his life could be so derelict that the blessings due to him cannot fructify until a later date or a subsequent life. All these fall into the category of suspension of karma to a more propitious period or life.


Why are we born at all?

In this section we will discuss the purpose of karma and why it is loaded with moral content. We have to start from the very beginning. After being through stages of mineral, vegetable, animal and birds we have been resting in the comfortable lap of the Source (Godhead or Absolute) for aeons. Then we decided to re-circulate as the last sentient beings, namely humans on planet earth. So in the Big Bang many of us would be released from the source at the same time. Innumerable showers of souls have taken place since the first arrival of man on earth. All souls in each dispersal would become soul mates. We have free will from the very first incarnation, and consequently we earned karma. The accumulation of good and bad karma dictates that we have to face them in each life, and resolve them as best we can. Our main aim is to learn through experience to become better souls. It is through the process of purification until we become perfect. In this way we may finally return to the Source or Absolute so that God (which is all-inclusive) may be a better one. It is so obvious that this cannot be done in one incarnation, because the karma accumulated is far too much. As we carry on in ignorance we tend to deem ourselves as separate individuals, and thus, we begin our journey of delusion. Thence onwards, we not only need more than one incarnation, but hundreds or thousands of them to clear the backlog. In order to reach the goal of being solely filled with love and compassion, we require a moral and guiding Law of Karma. So that at the end of our journeys our purity would be regained. With free will, we begin to make mistakes in our very first incarnation, thus incurring karma. Beneficial karma is also earned if we do things for the benefit of others. In other words a bank account of good and bad karma, (positive and negative balance) is opened in our very first incarnation. From here onwards, we will die and reborn many times with our soul mates and others. Every incarnation is endowed with forgetfulness of past events; otherwise it is impossible to go forward in our journeys. Without this total amnesia, we cannot perform with the knowledge that our dear ones were our past enemies. It is only in the intermissions between death and life that we realise that we have reared a family of enemies, who turned out to be very good and loving in this last incarnation. It is in the spirit world that we are able to practice forgiveness to our family members in retrospect. So even our adversaries can promote our spiritual progress.

How is Karma caused?

Of all the sentient beings we humans are the only ones that possess self-consciousness. That means we begin to ask questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I go from here? Then we begin to realise right from wrong because of the establishment of the self and selfishness. We can only become selfish because we have free will. If everything were fated, then we would have been robots without responsibility. This is the rub. With karma as the guiding law, we must be totally responsible for our actions. That means we have to suffer the consequences of our thoughts, speech and actions, whether they are wholesome or unwholesome. Self-conscious humans are now able to have concepts with which we can plan our future on the material side of things. Planning means intention. And it is intention that counts for most in karma production. If one’s intention were salutary then the karma produced would be good even though the result is negative. If the intention were evil or selfish, then the karma produced would be bad even if the result is beneficial.

Karma usually takes place for no apparent reason, for the cause might have originated from previous lives. We cannot remember the connection. Of course in this fast moving world, karma is coming back to us very quickly. For instance, a young man who, started to accumulate his millions through wheeling and dealing with unsavoury methods, became a multimillionaire by the time he reached fifty years old. But the present currency turmoil taking place in his region devastated him completely in six months. This is his karma returning like a boomerang. He ends up a bankrupt and may even go to jail for his illegal pursuits. Of course, if his karma is carried over to the next life, he will deem it as bad luck during that life because he cannot see the connection.

The next thing to consider is desire and attachment. Ill will, selfishness and pride are also karma productive. Buddha said that craving is the cause of suffering. He elaborated that craving leads to desire, clinging and attachment. All these karma-productive traits not only end up in suffering but to rebirth, which is much worse. When we merely enjoy one of the sensual objects, and there is no attachment involved, karma is not produced. However, after enjoying the object, an attachment or clinging ensues this is fraught with karma. That means we can enjoy but not yearn for it afterwards. Yearning, clinging and attachments are all seeds of karma-production. One can desire or crave for physical things as well as mental-emotional objects. Concepts are equally dangerous.

Desire and craving for sensual objects: Out of the 6 sense objects, sex is the most alluring. Being the force behind the reproductive system, it must be made strong and powerful for the humans to perpetuate the human race. If there is no pleasure in sex, the human race will die out in no time. The next object is food and wine. These cravings are accepted by our social customs, and therefore if anyone were to indulge in either, it is quite in order. However, together with drugs and cigarette, these are consumed to addictive proportions. These objects per se do not produce karma. One may become obese, alcoholic, or a drug addict, but on its own it does not produce karma. It is the craving and the attachment that is karma-productive.

Emotional reaction and thoughts: the emotional reactions to the 6 sense objects as above at the first contact are: pleasure, displeasure or neutral. With pleasure, clinging and attachment will arise as emotional memories. These in turn will lead to constant yearning and longing, and these would lead to karma production. Similarly with displeasure, the aversion and resentment will also be karma productive. In other words, these emotional reactions would consolidate as emotional memories. When the latter are fixated as negative and positive thoughts with emotional desire and aversion they would generate karma even though nothing is done about it. Similarly, with only thoughts and concepts, these will also produce karma when these intentions are prelude to speech or action. So thoughts, speech and action will generate negative karma if the intention is to consolidate the self. Conversely, it will generate good karma, if thoughts, speech and action are for the sake of others. If these ‘actions’ are merely passing phases, then hardly any karma will be produced. However, if these ‘actions’ are fixated and the attachments are strong, then karma will surely ensue

Can Karma be suspended, modified or eliminated?

There must be a time and place to repay our debt. In modern society, when we borrow a large sum of money to buy a house, we usually ask for a period of time before we can completely pay the entire dept. We have a choice here as to the length of time we need to pay off the debt. As humans we have freedom of choice. Normally, in a housing loan we can pay back by instalments. In karma, although we may do the same, we prefer to gather strength in the intervening centuries and perhaps clear some of them in the spirit world. However, the major portion of the karma has to be paid back finally in one life. In the intervening period, we would have developed spiritually, and consequently we are able to face our karma with greater wisdom and strength. In addition, we would also like to choose the time for its appearance because the conditions are more appropriate.

Can karma be modified or changed?

The answer is a definite "Yes". Firstly, we must recognise that we have injured the other person. Then we ask for forgiveness from that person. At the same time we must also forgive ourselves and the person in order to lay the pathway for the karma to be modified. Paripassu we ourselves must U-turn or grow spiritually. How do we do that? We must purify ourselves of our foibles. Then we must now extend service to others to such an extent that it becomes our goal in life. Lastly, we should either pray or meditate to increase our vibrations. With all these practices we are able to postpone the retribution from appearing now to a more propitious time. In the same token, we should be able to modify our karma to a much more palatable form. In the Buddhist sense, we make sure that the conditions are not ripe for the present and hopefully after many decades or centuries of development we will be stronger to face the karma when it does appear.

Can karma be eliminated?

Again the answer is "yes" but it is almost an impossibility for most of us. One has to realise the Self or the soul first. That means we have to reach a spiritual height of Christ Consciousness. Christ Consciousness is not the exclusive property of the followers of Jesus Christ. It is the same as Bodhicitta in the Buddhist parlance. It is Self-Realisation or Moksha of the Hindhus. This is the stage when our consciousness has reached the ultimate state, which is beyond the Causal Realm, a divine state. In this state we have transcended all states of consciousness below and we are in the same plane as the Absolute in Cosmic Consciousness. In this plane, all karma is annulled without exception. How many of us can be enlightened in this life? The paucity of these enlightened saints in one generation makes this method of elimination of karma like an impossible dream.

Where is Karma stored?

Every individual has at least 7 major chakras and 7 auric bodies. In the Buddhist teachings, the storing of karma is dependent on whether the action is intentional or unintentional. If it is intentional, then repercussions accruing from these actions will arise depending on the conditions ensuing. The repercussions may be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. The recipient will then suffer or enjoy the result accordingly. However, if it is unintentional, the recipient may not suffer or enjoy the consequences.

or instance, a wound inflicted by someone else in the previous life will only reappear as a birthmark in the present life without any physical handicap. Generally speaking, actions whereby there is attachment to the results will be stored in the astral body. In actions where there is no attachment to the results karma is stored in the causal body. The causal body is never shed no matter how developed we are, and it follows us life after life. It is in this body that the Akashic records are kept. This is the body that stores our past karma and our samskaras. Our G-plan (life plan) is also seen here. All these can be detected around our head and shoulders. When one has developed to the ultimate consciousness (enlightened) one would be residing in a realm beyond the causal realm, and all karma is then annulled.

The Eradication of Karma
This has been lightly touched upon earlier. We will now enumerate the steps we can take to achieve this. It will have to take many lifetimes, but the fact that we realise that we have to walk this path is itself very salutary. The disciplines involved are (1) Purification. (2) Service (3) Meditation or prayer.

Purification: In this category, we basically have to work hard at letting go of (a) craving, desire and attachment. (b) Ill will, which includes anger, hatred, jealousy, envy and other negative emotions. (c) Pride (d) Selfishness.

Service: In this category, we have to service the mineral, vegetable, animal kingdoms and humans. In humans, we have to help our immediate families, distant relatives and friends and fellow colleagues and underlings,

Meditation or prayer: In this category, it is better to meditate. In meditation we expedite the process of letting go. The main goal of meditation is to empty one’s mind, and it is during these periods of emptiness that we can reach the causal realm temporarily only to come to earth again when we stop meditating.Summarising, one does not need to resolve every karma earned. In order to eradicate all our karma, we merely have to be enlightened!

By Dr. Tan Kheng Khoo

Reference: Cerminara, Gina. Many Mansions. Neville Spearman.LtdHiroshi Motoyama.
arma and Reincarnation. Judy Piatkus (Publishers)

TIME GETS BETTER WITH AGE

TIME GETS BETTER WITH AGE
To learn from Life

I've learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sings "Silent Night".
Age 5

I've learned that our dog doesn't want to eat my broccoli either.
Age 7

I've learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back.
Age 9

I've learned that just when I get my room the way I like it,Mom makes me clean it up again.
Age 12

I've learned that if you want to cheer yourself up, you should try cheering someone else up.
Age 14

I've learned that although it's hard to admit it, I'm secretly glad my parents are strict with me.
Age 15

I've learned that silent company is often more healing than words of advice.
Age 24

I've learned that brushing my child's hair is one of life's great pleasures.
Age 26

I've learned that wherever I go, the world's worst driver shave followed me there.
Age 29

I've learned that if someone says something unkind about me,I must live so that no one will believe it.
Age 30

I've learned that there are people who love you dearly butjust don't know how to show it.
Age 42

I've learned that you can make some one's day by simply sending them a little note.Age 44

I've learned that the greater a person's sense of guilt, thegreater his or her need to cast blame on others.
Age 46

I've learned that children and grandparents are natural allies.
Age 47

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seemstoday, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
Age 48

I've learned that singing "Amazing Grace" can lift my spiritsfor hours.
Age 49

I've learned that motel mattresses are better on the side away from the phone.Age 50

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
Age 51

I've learned that keeping a vegetable garden is worth amedicine cabinet full of pills.
Age 52

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you miss them terribly after they die.
Age 53

I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
Age 58

I've learned that if you want to do something positive foryour children, work to improve your marriage.
Age 61

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
Age 62

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catchersmitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
Age 64

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you.But if you focus on your family, the needs of others, your work, meeting new people, and doing the very best you can,happiness will find you.
Age 65

I've learned that whenever I decide something with kindness,I usually make the right decision.
Age 66

I've learned that everyone can use a prayer.
Age 72

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
Age 82

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touchsomeone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
Age 90

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Age 92
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"Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about"

Angel