The popular saying, “Sleep over your problems” is not a cliché. Latest research shows that sleeping over a problem is the best thing to do when you are ridden with doubts. This theory has a sound scientific basis. When you are faced with hard choices and the problem is so overwhelming that it defies every logic or calculations, just go to bed and let your gut instinct become active. A modicum of research evidence suggests that unguarded cerebral activity may do a better job than the conscious raking of brain, to find a solution for your problem.

There are basically two modes of thought: Conscious and Unconscious. In conscious thoughts we contemplate a particular issue or question, mentally list all the relevant information, weigh up all the pros and cons, and then come to a rational decision.   Read more...

Todai is anothr day in our "fast moeving" world. Todai most pieple woked up and desided to do a lot and to therepie realize themselvez.

Why?   Read more...

It's always very interesting to read and hear all the pieces written and spoken about 'peace'. The vast majority seem to speak either of peace in opposition to war or violence (and therefore still caught in the dualistic way of thought), or as having to be 'imposed' by whatever means possible on violence (which is an act of violence itself!).

Is peace perhaps beyond all of this, beyond opposites, beyond imposition, indeed beyond any word or description? Might it be the ground, or source, in which everything is allowed to be, just as it is, without any thinking required? Reality always seems 'peaceful' enough in itself, but then becomes violent when our thinking about it starts to run riot and separates us from reality. Belief in our thoughts as reality, rather than recognizing them as a tiny part of it, remains unexamined, like a crime which nobody has approached to solve. With deep investigation of these beliefs, entrenched in humanity for millennia, the truth is revealed and reality is allowed to be, and Life flows without interruption, in peace! Then there is no imposition of any sort: things (including people) are allowed to be, yet action flows clearly from this peace, when there is recognition of the wholeness of Life, without division, without the separation of 'what is' and 'what should be'. Without the wish/need to impose anything on anybody/anything, where is the need for violence? Violence may still happen, but action can take place fearlessly and effortlessly to bring it to a peaceful end. How can peace be brought about by the violence of imposition, which is as much dictatorship as any we have previously chosen to call by that name? When Life is allowed to live itself totally and unconditionally, then there may be the arising of and living in a peace beyond all concepts, beyond all thoughts.   Read more...

All We Need Is… Peace
Posted on July 14, 2008 by Marcus
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.   Read more...

‘A sense of wonder, so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years - is the best gift one could bestow on oneself.’ ~ Rachel Carson

What snuffs out our sense of wonder? What kills that inner child in us?

A night at seaside revealed to me, splendors of ‘the ordinary joys’.   Read more...

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the headline caught my eye at once: Give Peace a Prance. Don’t you just love those clever wordplays? I do.

But then I thought about what it would mean to walk in peace, walk as peace, walk for peace, walk by peace, walk over peace, under peace, through peace. Pick your preposition. Any one will do.   Read more...

Poverty, scarcity, minority, lack of... there are all kinds of ways to emphasize the not being enough of something. And most of the times, that is considered as a problem; There shouldn’t be poverty of this something. And this something has even more variations. If we look at world issues you can see poverty of food, money, fresh water, resources, love, understanding. All of them are big issues and millions of smart and not so smart people have been thinking about solutions to get rid of this poverty of whatsoever.

Problem is, most of the people who are thinking about solutions do not experience the poverty themselves. They are not the victim, and even worse, they consider the person is impoverished as the victim. I could and would like to say a million things about that, but at least, they are talking about it, while there are even more people who are not thinking about that at all. They have given up, are cynical, resigned and bored to death because "it will never work, go away, make a difference or solve anything."   Read more...

During my two years in South Africa I lived with a host family in a rural village. My host family was the best part of my Peace Corps experience. Despite our disparate backgrounds, we connected on a soul level, on that human level that exists beyond the innocent interference of culture or even language. This intimacy revealed itself at any variety of moments, but a shared look of amusement or perplexity or grief is all it took. Connecting in this way was incredibly exhilarating; it proved the existence of a realm where our usual tools to describe reality no longer have relevance. All those adjectives that could distinguish my host family and me became utterly meaningless: black, white, South African, American, poor, rich...and simply fell away in place of a more accurate adjective: human.

In South Africa I learned how to speak frankly about race and racial tension. I learned how to provide practical insights on American culture to counter the glamour and violence of popular American TV shows, movies, and music. But poverty was tricky. I never considered my host family to be living in poverty, but I know that some of my possessions and actions probably labeled me as “rich”. I had a digital camera and I traveled to Cape Town on vacation. An animal lover, I spent money on cat food not only for my pet but also for the other stray felines who had found their way to me.   Read more...

The issue
A household is considered food secure when the family doesn’t live in hunger or fear of starvation, so food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. Poor households often have a consistently difficult time affording quality food and typically end up with poor diets characterized by lots of starch and refined sugar. And as one expert put it, “…it's fair to assume, these people are not loading up on brown rice and quinoa [an organic grain]. So, we're talking about empty calories that predispose people to becoming overweight and definitely increase the risk for heart disease and diabetes.”   Read more...

What comes to mind when one hears the word poverty?

Scarcity, shortage, paucity, deficiency, dearth are words that are in the Thesaurus. Yet, the word confuses me in the way it is commonly used.

I live in Sri Lanka, a developing country with GDP of about US $1,000 per capita. In western terms, this is a poor nation. I became a resident of Sri Lanka in 1988 having lived in Canada for 15 years. Economically, Sri Lankans have less material wealth than an average person in the west. In happiness, I am not sure.   Read more...

October 14th is a significant anniversary. On this date, the Peace Corps was proposed by then-Senator John F. Kennedy. On Tuesday, the Peace Corps will be 48 years old. In its time, the Peace Corps has sent nearly 200,000 volunteers around the world to fulfill its three-point mission:

• To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers
• To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served
• To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans

Poverty is such a pregnant term. Probably the first image that comes to mind is physical. We can so easily visualize people alive, but virtually skeletons. Sadly, thousands today are burdened with malnutrition and the anguish of not knowing where their next meal will come from. In the mind’s eye it is easy to envisage beggars, shantytowns, inner city slums, and refugee camps. Associated with those come images of crime, violence, and danger. In fact, who anywhere can say they live in safety?

But there are other less apparent dimensions of poverty, too. Emotional, for example. How many people live in the abyss of emotional starvation? How many cover up their echoing hollowness with excessive drug use, selfish sex, constant stimulus, violence, or greedy relationships? How many live in the grip of existential loneliness and despair?   Read more...

Poverty in Africa is predominantly rural. More than 70% of the continent’s poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for food an livelihood, yet in recent years, many rural areas have suffered from a decline in the capacity of agriculture to provide livelihood for their inhabitants and development assistance to agriculture is decreasing. In sub Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live in extreme poverty.

In many African economies, the rural situation is characterized by continuing stagnation, poor production, low income and increasing vulnerability of poor people. Lack of access to markets is a problem for many small scale enterprises in Africa. The rural population is often isolated beyond reach of safety nets. They are vulnerable to diseases like HIV/AIDS which has put an unbearable strain on poor rural households where labour is the primary income earning asset. In addition, health care services are often inadequate or non-existent.   Read more...

Glenn Kibble my Thermodynamics lecturer at the Seneca College Mechanical Engineering course in Ontario back in 1980 said there are three “T”s in life. Thermodynamics, Tennis and the other “T” he got away with as it was an all male class.

At that time I was mostly interested in the unmentionable “T”, yet I took the fundamental nature of the thermodynamic laws to the existence of our physical universe for granted as true. However, as I live a life of inquiry, study human nature and spirituality I am beginning to question the laws of thermodynamics as final scientific truths.   Read more...

The current financial market troubles have led me to look more closely at our economic ideas and rules. Capitalism is based on so called growth, which means the economy is stuck if you don't grow or if it grows too slow. In a certain way it makes sense: if you sell more you can enjoy more material things, which generates more spending and therefore more money for others as well. That way a huge amount of people benefit from those 100 USD that you spend. Even if you just put it in the bank it contributes to society because the banks can't stand the temptation of writing a loan to the first person who wants to buy anything ... even an overvalued house.

Here's the problem with investments: If the market for cars will grow 10% next year as the economy is going well (this is not now by the way) and every car maker wants to own those 10%. For that they need to invest heavily in marketing, production, etc. So as everybody is investing to grow faster than all the others, the market has to grow 20% to justify the total investment made by the sector ... so big surprise ... many are going to loose money. That's capitalism: everybody borrows money in the wave of positivity and greed and then ... what a surprise, the growth wasn't sustainable!   Read more...

Muriel Lester, tireless peaceworker, wrote, “The job of the peacemaker is to stop war, to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches, to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those who have not yet found God, to create joy and beauty wherever you go, and to find God in everything and in everyone.”

Only that?   Read more...

Quality time together
Many couples already spend considerable time apart because of career demands and other responsibilities, but the need for quality time together often increased dramatically when preparing for a wedding. What was once free time is now spent picking out invitations and meeting with vendors, so they are looking for ways to stay connected. Having a scheduled workout appointment with a personal trainer is a way to guarantee that they’ll have at least a bit of bonding time every week.   Read more...

Whenever I read the articles sent into www.odemagazine.com, I am always struck by several things. The first, of course, is the hopefulness. Also there is creativity and imagination. The focus is not on greed or grabbing, but rather on openness, generosity, and trust. Plus the diversity of expressions, projects, and happenings are very titillating. And like icing on the cake, there is often a touch of humor and fun, too. Just the fact that so many souls from so many backgrounds and outlooks contribute is very exciting indeed.

The prism of perspectives, creativity, and hope-filled endeavors are magnificent, but there is a deeper dimension, too. And that is an underlying theme or pattern that holds them all together. That unifying principle might be compared to a white light that bursts forth into a spectrum of many colors, or the reverse, where the many return to their common source, the light. From the Buddhist perspective it could be seen as the integral relationship between emptiness and form.   Read more...

The streets are relatively safe to ride, but any group larger than three has its own dynamic. At that point there are only two ways you can turn. Up or down.

Evening falls. W rides his board on a concrete slab through the park. Three lamp posts down the path two girls stand like amateur hookers. Some primitive force crawls up his spine and sends his attention through the bushes where he sees three young predators lurking in the dark. Make no mistake - this is no time to be a hero. W remembers one of the few lesson that stuck by him from high school - there is no free lunch unless you are the lunch.   Read more...