Members onelife Posted September 27, 2014 Members Share Posted September 27, 2014 Just to throw in a bit about the education system - from a Canadian perspective. A couple of Yoga teacher friends of mine are also elementary school teachers. I've mentioned to them how valuable I believe teaching yoga in the schools would be for the children. In fact, I believe it would have an even more positive long term effect than teaching math. They both told me that they are not allowed, officially, to teach it but they do manage to get some breathing exercises and basic poses in but don't call it yoga. The focus of education seems to be on providing people with the skills required for making a living but not so much for making a life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 27, 2014 Members Share Posted September 27, 2014 Just to throw in a bit about the education system - from a Canadian perspective. A couple of Yoga teacher friends of mine are also elementary school teachers. I've mentioned to them how valuable I believe teaching yoga in the schools would be for the children. In fact, I believe it would have an even more positive long term effect than teaching math. They both told me that they are not allowed, officially, to teach it but they do manage to get some breathing exercises and basic poses in but don't call it yoga. The focus of education seems to be on providing people with the skills required for making a living but not so much for making a life. Is that because of education? Or this kind of idiocy? http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2012/december/christian-parents-protest-yoga-in-public-schools.html A lot of stuff that is not allowed in schools is due to litigation. Someone should these parents that "pajamas" is an Hindu word. Better keep your kids away from pajamas too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted September 28, 2014 Author Members Share Posted September 28, 2014 Is that because of education? Or this kind of idiocy? http://www.christianitytoday.com/gle...c-schools.html A lot of stuff that is not allowed in schools is due to litigation. Someone should these parents that "pajamas" is an Hindu word. Better keep your kids away from pajamas too. I was heavily into Yoga around 18 years ago… I used to practice it everyday for 90 minutes. Took private lessons, went to meditation classes, etc… and then a Christian friend heard about it. He pulled me aside all serious and concerned and told me Yoga was a cult and that I was being sucked into it. Long story short, you cannot change peoples limiting beliefs if they`re unwilling to even acknowledge that theres a chance they don`t know what they`re talking about. I think Yoga is the greatest thing for the body,mind, and spirit and it should be practiced in every school from the age of 4 through college. At that point it`ll just become part of your life. Just my $.02 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 29, 2014 Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 Those people with limiting beliefs are limiting everyone else's rights by suing the school districts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted September 29, 2014 Author Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 It appears that our senses have been hijacked by marketers vying for our attention and they are all turning up the stimulation in order to be 'competitive.' Unfortunately, keeping people numb and dissatisfied is a way to sell stuff to them and 'grow the economy'. Who's going to want to stand in line all night for an iPhone 6 if they are completely satisfied with an iPhone 4? What I believe is important is Loving Kindness but that is not good for business so it is going to take some effort to be able to stay focused on reality and what makes us feel alive. There are ways we can learn to deal with the distractions and, just like playing a musical instrument, we can get better at it with practice. Awareness of our awareness, if you will, is what I believe is the first step toward getting there. Awareness of awareness… that may be the missing piece to the puzzle. How easily we fall prey to marketers as you mention. There is so much competition for our $$$ that theres alway the next best thing coming out in cell phones or flat screen tvs. Its no longer enough that a phone makes good calls, takes good photos, videos, etc… it has to have another gadget. Now cell phones look like mini iPads because of all the gadgets. Its truly hilarious. You can`t put the damn thing in your pocket because its too big and besides, it`ll bend!!! I laugh and mourn anyone waiting on line for the next iPhone. Their desperation…. what do they think is missing from their lives that they need to waste it on some line? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted September 29, 2014 Author Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 Contentment is true wealth but a growing economy requires discontent on the part of the consumer. It's good business practice to "create a demand for our product" which is difficult to do if potential customers are content with what they already have. You should consider writing a thread on this topic alone. And your efficiency of words… wow, you`re saying a lot here. This is truly the cornerstone of sales: create discontent with the current status quo, then deliver the solution. Of course, its a never ending cycle of "solutions"…. which brings us to the society at large and what I was mentioning in my original post. We are so caught up with all the distractions in life and we fall into the trap of thinking... "My cell phone is old and useless." "I need those designer clothes because these are so not cool." "I need to drive that car because mine is outdated." On and on it goes and before you know it, you`re unhappy with everything in your life including your house, your wife, and your kids. The house is too small, the wife needs a boob job, the kids are ugly or not smart enough…. etc…. And its all because of a habit from thinking that you need the latest, greatest whatever.... It all comes down to focus/awareness. Where are you putting your attention? We`ve become zombies... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philboking Posted September 29, 2014 Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 Since someone broached the topic of Apple and iPhones, you might be interested in Apple's latest. It makes use of string theory to create a phone that uses no electrical power whatsoever... http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=216&doc_id=1324002 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goober(s) Posted September 29, 2014 Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 You should consider writing a thread on this topic alone. And your efficiency of words… wow, you`re saying a lot here. This is truly the cornerstone of sales: create discontent with the current status quo, then deliver the solution. Of course, its a never ending cycle of "solutions"…. which brings us to the society at large and what I was mentioning in my original post. We are so caught up with all the distractions in life and we fall into the trap of thinking... "My cell phone is old and useless." "I need those designer clothes because these are so not cool." "I need to drive that car because mine is outdated." On and on it goes and before you know it, you`re unhappy with everything in your life including your house, your wife, and your kids. The house is too small, the wife needs a boob job, the kids are ugly or not smart enough…. etc…. And its all because of a habit from thinking that you need the latest, greatest whatever.... It all comes down to focus/awareness. Where are you putting your attention? We`ve become zombies... pish posh! the rate of advancement in mobile technology is miraculous. improvements from one generation to the next are amazing, and the upgrade pays for itself in spades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 29, 2014 Members Share Posted September 29, 2014 I used to be into that Zen Yoga stuff back when I was first figuring things out. I read just about every book on Religion, Philosophy too.I later learned about Bio Feedback and found you can get the same results in a matter of minutes that would normally take an extremely well trained individual in one of the other methods hours to obtain. Its basically focusing on your breathing that gets you there. With that comes a calming of the heart rate and thoughts that influence the heart rate and breathing. Once you learn how to do it can be in a room full of noise and distraction and it makes absolutely no difference because you know how to block those things and reach the Beta and Alpha states very easily. It is amazing how a single thought can set off all kinds of alarms though. It can take 10~15 minutes to get to one of the deeper levels of relaxation and it only takes one thought and you rise back up to full tension levels in seconds. This is one reason why so many religions, Yoga and even self hypnosis techniques all use some form of Mantra to keep your mind focused as you relax instead of allowing random though disturb your ability to reach deeper peace within yourself. You also learn just how easy it is to go from compete relaxation to being fully tense. I doubt many people realize just how stressed they are during a given day. It is the cause of most of your major illnesses and if you don't use some method of relaxing you can be sure to have many of these illnesses become chronic at an early age. Many use other methods of doing this. Going fishing and being out in nature, Lying on a beach hearing the surf is another. You can even buy recording with natures sounds, sound water in a brook, wind chimes, and yes, even music can work. You just have to teach yourself to relax when you hear those sounds and not let them become another annoying distraction you need to block from your mind. All of it can be considered a form of self hypnosis. The trick is you do want to learn how to use it to your benefit and not let others use those techniques against you. There's a small step between self hypnosis and hypnosis from others. Anyone who has sat in a boring lecture and had the words stop making sense probably knows the effects a monotone voice can have. If that person lecturing knew how to talk to the subconscious when a person is in that twilight zone, that's where all the power of suggestion in possible with certain individuals. Falling in front of a TV with all its adds is likely a good source of getting people to buy products. How many times have you been wakened by some guy who had 50 cups of coffee blabbing away on TV like its 9 in the morning and you feel like you been run over by a truck? Something irritating in that commercial switches off the peace mode and kicks the wake mode on. It may be a noise, persons voice, speed of the words something that triggers you to wake up. Take note of it and you can work though those secret triggers that make you tense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 30, 2014 Members Share Posted September 30, 2014 Yoga also stretches your body out, allows blood to flow to parts that are constricted, is fantastic for your internal organs, and on and on. Much of its benefit is not all that mystical, but rather, extremely practical. And I would generally agree with onelife's assessment of a growing economy, and add that discontent with status quo does not necessarily need to be frivolous or money-grubbing (although it often can be). And finally, I love the electricity-less iPhones!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Nijyo Posted September 30, 2014 Members Share Posted September 30, 2014 I do believe Human Technology is dehumanizing peoples senses, killing their social skills and ways of interconnecting with others. Ride a bus, subway or fly in an airplane. No one is talking to one another, they just have their faces in the latest tech gadget. Soon, people will become strangers even to them selves. I don't want to bag on the rest of your experience, but this claim always bugs me. People haven't been gabbing away with each other in public transit for a very, very long time. It's got nothing to do with modern, portable tech. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 30, 2014 Members Share Posted September 30, 2014 The youngest generation always gets bagged on. This is how it has been throughout history. The youngest generation are always the reason that humankind will fall apart at the seams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted October 2, 2014 Members Share Posted October 2, 2014 I read Pirsig's book a long time ago when I was a young man. I owned a BMW motorcycle too.It's long gone. So is my focus. It's sort of like the gumbo trade. You.... Sorry, lost my train of thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted October 2, 2014 Members Share Posted October 2, 2014 As long as you're complaining about how hard it is to have quiet and sustained periods of mental concentration that you would like to have, I figure you're ok. It's when you don't have quiet or the ability to concentrate and you don't miss them, either...that's an issue. That said, the fundamental structures of the brain and nervous system haven't changed, so I think all we're talking about here are habits of pacing and velocity of change. I suspect the word "addiction" gets thrown around way too loosely. There are chemical changes with every mood and experience, and I would hesitate a long time before fully accepting the notion that we get "addicted" to some weird imbalance in our own brain chemistry simply by getting used to a faster pace of changing stimuli. There's a price to pay for everything, and behaviour that enables one capacity tends to also block or disable some other capacity. If people are getting into some extreme state these days via over-stimulation, it will out and the damage will be along more serious lines than how long they pay attention to songs on the radio. And there will be counter-trends at that point I would think. The human animal is amazingly adaptable and self-preserving. What I'm fumbling towards saying is that there's no reason to think that the pace of life as we personally experienced it during our formative years represented some perfect balance of stimulation and processing. Life was slower in my parent's age than mine. You've seen old movies...my lord, how pokey they can be. The battle scenes in the first Star Wars, viewed with my 1977 eyes, seemed blazingly fast and frenetic. Hard to believe, now. Fast mental processing of input and perception is a skill, not just a "tendency". I'm for moving forward from the place we have gotten ourselves into rather than recovering some lost, preferable past. Devices can do anything - speed us up or slow us down. We decide. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kurdy Posted October 3, 2014 Members Share Posted October 3, 2014 The youngest generation always gets bagged on. This is how it has been throughout history. The youngest generation are always the reason that humankind will fall apart at the seams. True. Never mind that the older generation are the ones in power and currently making all the big decisions, so if anyone is responsible for the way the world is today... Not that I believe any one group deserves blame. Just making a logical observation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted October 3, 2014 Author Members Share Posted October 3, 2014 I don't want to bag on the rest of your experience, but this claim always bugs me. People haven't been gabbing away with each other in public transit for a very, very long time. It's got nothing to do with modern, portable tech. The newspaper was a communication tool before there were televisions and 24/7 news channels. These people in the photo above are in the process of communication with the rest of the world. The newspaper and radio were the only means of communicating on a large scale. When these people got off the train and/or bus, their heads were not buried in another device, nor did they have headphones to completely shut out their environment. We now have 2-3 generations relying on our modern day tools to communicate and "socialize" and that for me is where the disconnect is. I was apple picking with my nieces the other day so we had to drive around 2 hours to get to the countryside. While in the car, it was an endless parade of recharging phones. When one was done with the outlet, another jumped on it, then another, and on and on it went. At one point, my oldest niece heard her phone chime and asked my wife to check the phone for her… she wanted to know what her friend was saying about one of her instagram photos. This all goes back to my initial post. Knowing that a friend of hers was paying attention to her gave her a little shot of dopamine and for a few seconds she had a bit of bliss. Those kids went through some serious withdrawal the other day. Instead of looking out the window and enjoying a view of mountains and trees that they normally don`t get to see because we live in the city, they desperately wanted to dig their heads into their iPhones and keep being fed a dose of dopamine one like/comment at a time. Really sad…. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted October 4, 2014 Members Share Posted October 4, 2014 I was apple picking with my nieces the other day so we had to drive around 2 hours to get to the countryside. While in the car, it was an endless parade of recharging phones. When one was done with the outlet, another jumped on it, then another, and on and on it went. At one point, my oldest niece heard her phone chime and asked my wife to check the phone for her… she wanted to know what her friend was saying about one of her instagram photos. I couldn't resist. I think you may have coined a new phrase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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