Thursday November 17th, 6.30pm
Lecture and demonstration:‘The Healing power of Sacred Music and Sound’
Experience the therapeutic power of music. Discover the spiritual dimension and yogic power of sound to enhance the well being of body,mind and spirit. Ron Ragel is an internationally recognised musician, mind yoga therapist and wholistic counsellor with over twenty years experience in helping countless number of people find healing and growth as they negotiate the many challenges encountered in life. A director of Medicine Music an organization dedicated to the healing power of music and sound, Ron will demonstrate how to identify blockages, reduce stress and strengthen the nervous system. He will show how certain forms of music can enhance emotional well being optimising energy flow in the body and demonstrate how to experience new ways to listen to music whilst changing your brain’s physiology. (CD’s and workbooks will be available for sale)
Adyar conversations @adyar Bookshop, Australia’s leading metaphysical store, Mezzanine level, 99 Bathurst st, (2 min walk from Town Hall station)
ph. 92678509. This is a Free Event.
Special workshop on The Alchemy of Sacred. Ron and Vicki (India jiva) will present a detailed explanation on the science of sound, the relationship between sound and the chakras; the therapeutic power of music that changes brain physiology and enhances emotional well-being, enriching one’s life. This will be followed by a Kirtan session, a form of meditation that involves devotional singing. The Satsang environment provides a supportive environment for people to look within in a world dominated by one’s attention always being ‘out there’.
Venue : Illawong community centre, Illawong . Time 3.00 to 5.00pm. Places filling up fast enq 0419 236266
The successful integration of reason, logic, and science with spiritual, personal and humanistic concerns is demonstrated by the success of the rapidly growing segment of the population in the US known as “cultural creatives”. It was a term coined by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson a sociologist and a psychologist. The overall philosophy of the movement transcends traditional political positions and incorporates integrity,and optimism with emphasis on personal and spiritual growth as well as responsibility in social and environmental matters.
Today the movement has spread the world over and it started in America. Not surprisingly the movement is made up largely from writers, artists, musicians, alternate life stylers, health care providers and leading edge thinkers.
Whilst I always leave America richer for the experience I have some thought’s I like to share. (I leave sunday 17th,July carmeggedon permitting). I have had many conversations with Americans whose angst seems to be more focussed on the US faltering at home and abroad rather than China’s success for example. But it seems to me the American populace has to decide whether to side with wisdom and their own abundant creativity or focus on the many absurdities that abound in the country contributing to fulfilling the dire prediction of Socrates that is – that all democracies fail due to giving equal voice and votes to people with no integrity and are ignorant. Historians point out that the average duration of a democracy is usually only 2 to 300 years.
The common conception is that capital means wealth or money in the bank. This thinking fails to recognise that the true source of capital is the creativity of the mind from which the accumulation of money is only the consequence. America has inspired the world with it’s creative genius. It is this that is the “capital” out of which wealth has come about along with millions of jobs and the rise in prosperity. It not only lifted it’s own people but carried the rest of the world with it. Everyone is free to create the next new idea or great invention. Creative minds birthed the majority of great industries and inventions that support the economy.
An enormous side benefit that has come out of this has been the emergence of another great American institution, that of philanthropy. These amazing people have returned to the world great and immeasuarable benefits of their generosity.
My wife Vicki and I have had the great honour of been invited to America to celebrate and honour such a life and to play our music at a most inspiring event. We return to Australia with great faith in the American dream. Long live America.
Greeetings from Cerritos Ca 90703 formerly known as Dairy Valley because of the sheer number of dairy farms in yester year. It today has according to govt stats the highest retail spenders in California second only to Beverly Hills. Enjoys a lovely Mediterranean climate. Am currently and for the last few days enjoying great Sri Lankan hospitality with family/friends who are super hosts feasting on curries, rice, dosais and more.
An interesting theory about genius by Friedrich Nietzsche. “Don’t talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted,” wrote Nietzsche. “They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’ through … [the] diligent seriousness of a craftsman.”
April 6, 2011 by Editor
Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have shown that meditation produces a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness.
Fifteen healthy volunteers (who had never meditated) attended four 20-minute classes to learn a meditation technique known as “focused attention.” This is a form of mindfulness meditation where people are taught to attend to the breath and let go of distracting thoughts and emotions.
Both before and after meditation training, study participants’ brain activity was examined using arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI) to capture longer duration brain processes. During these scans, a pain-inducing heat device was placed on each participant’s right leg. This device heated a small area of their skin to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that most people find painful, over a 5-minute period.
Scans taken after meditation training showed that the pain ratings for every participant were reduced.
At the same time, meditation significantly reduced brain activity in the primary somatosensory cortex, an area that is crucially involved in creating the feeling of where and how intense a painful stimulus is.
The research also showed that meditation increased brain activity in areas including the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and the orbito-frontal cortex, which shape how the brain builds an experience of pain from nerve signals from the body. The more these areas were activated by meditation, the more that pain was reduced.
The decreases ranged from 11 to 93 percent, which is a greater reduction in pain than with morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, says researcher Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D.
Zeidan and colleagues believe that meditation has great potential for clinical use because so little training was required to produce such dramatic pain-relieving effects. “This study shows that meditation produces real effects in the brain and can provide an effective way for people to substantially reduce their pain without medications,” he said.
Their work appears April 6 in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Meditation effects on left frontal lobe found
July 8, 2011 by Editor
A small number (11) subjects given meditation training over five weeks increased activity in the left frontal region of the brain, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Stout have found. Other research has found that this pattern of brain activity is associated with positive moods.
At the beginning of the study, each participant had an EEG. They were told: “Relax with your eyes closed, and focus on the flow of your breath at the tip of your nose; if a random thought arises, acknowledge the thought and then simply let it go by gently bringing your attention back to the flow of your breath.”
Eleven people were then invited to take part in meditation training, while a control group of another 10 were told they would be trained later. The 11 were offered two half-hour sessions a week, and encouraged to practice as much as they could between sessions, but there wasn’t any particular requirement for how much they should practice.
After five weeks, the researchers did an EEG again on the 11 persons who did the meditation training. Each had done, on average, about seven hours of training and practice.
Ref.: Jane Anderson, et al., Frontal EEG Asymmetry Associated with Positive Emotion is Produced by Very Brief Meditation Training, Psychological Science, 2011; in press
The US holds the world title for most obesity, at 30% of the population. Mexico is second at 24% and the UK is third at 23% and despite spending squillions more than anyone on health care, the US ranks 50th in life expectancy and 46th in infant mortality.
After a super weekend and a great gig in Montecito, Santa Barbara we are in Burbank and honored and priveleged to wake up to a beautiful summer morning on this Independence day a patriotic holiday for all Americans. A day the country gives thanks for the freedom and liberty they enjoy today. A day perhaps to reflect on some self evident truths – “that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
Tonight Vicki and I will cook up a storm for our friends and hosts as we watch the traditional fireworks as they light up the night time skies in Burbank.
Recent Comments