Reaching the Theta State

For more reading on brain waves  you can look Here

Going into theta the long way. I forget to tell you to sit with your feet flat on the floor if you are trying this for the first few times.

 

Ok here is  reaching Theta in a shorter way through your  Pineal Gland...  If you need a visual of where that is in your brain  its right in the very center... It looks like this

 

The next and  quickest way is  by using "The Tibetan Eye Roll"

 Good luck always remember to  be gentle with yourself.  If you are having a difficult time... relax and  pray for help.

Fasting for those who can't

 Pregnant? Nursing?  Diabetic or hypoglycemic? Sick?  But its fast Sunday and you want to fast and have the blessings that come with it. So what do you do?  Lets take a look at why God has us fast.  In chapter 25 of the Gospel Principles manual it says  "Fasting helps us gain strength of character. When we fast properly, we will learn to control our appetites and passions. We are a little stronger by having proved to ourselves that we have self-control. If we teach our children to fast, they will develop the spiritual strength to overcome greater temptations later in their lives."

I have come to learn for myself that Fasting is all about over coming the Natural Man and feeding  the spirit.   Fasting is about denying your ego and your negative mind. When you fast your  negative mind will  start to get irrational "We are going to die if we dont eat!" it will say. "IF I just eat a little bit I can still call it fasting." "I ate bread for the sacrament sooooo  I can eat this slice of bread and its not really breaking my fast."  You will have whining, and kicking, and screaming from your negative mind telling you to eat or you will die a horrible grueling death of 24 hour starvation.  If you are truly fasting you will have some of these thoughts but if you push through you will see that in about 20-23 hours of a true fast the urge to eat and the compulsive rationalizing to eat are gone and you feel  at peace.   

Lets look at the  phases of fasting and what it does to the brain/body really  quick or you can skip down to  how to modify a fast.

Stage one is eating the last meal before you fast from food and drink. So lets say it is Saturday night at 5 and you eat a nice light dinner and drink plenty of water.  At this time your insulin levels increase because of the food you just ate. You  have a uptake of glucose and any excess glucose is stored in the liver.

You get ready for bed, sleep nice, and wake up in the post - absorptive phase. This happens 6-24 hours after beginning your fast.  In this phase your insulin levels start to decrees.

 So if we stay on our  time table this happens at about 11am-3pm Sunday. Your insulin levels are very low and your body is constantly reminding you that you are hungry and thirsty. If you do not give into your body's  urges to eat and drink, your body will start to  breakdown the stores of glycogen in the liver releasing it as glucose. Your glycogen stores last for roughly 24 hours.

Near the end of this stage you will start to feel less of an urge or compulsion to eat as your body consumes the stored glycogen. This sensation of being satisfied could happen  as early as 20 hrs from the time you started your fast.

At roughly 23-24 hrs from your fast you reach a new phase where new glucose from amino acids  is manufactured in the liver in a process called “gluconeogenesis”. Literally, this is translated as “making new glucose”. Your glucose levels will  fall a bit but stay within the normal range.

The cycle is complete  at  5 on Sunday when you are sitting down to a nice light meal and drink plenty of water.

The CYCLE.

Being fed and life is great! 

I m kind of hungry. 

I NEED it!  I need food NOW!- - breaking point

Im at peace and I feel I can wait a few more hours.

Then breaking your fast and feeling fed  again.

How to modify a fast

I have been pregnant or nursing for the last 8 years  and have wanted to fast.  After studying  what fasting was doing to my body and what fasting was doing for me mentally and physically I started to fast on Fast Sunday. Now even  with a 4 month nursing baby who likes to eat every 2 hrs - I fast nearly every Sunday.  The key is to  follow the cycle  that fasting from food and water provide.  Pick something that you feel  like you would have a hard time living without... some examples are internet, meat,  your phone, chocolate, electricity, grains, your mirror, saying your favorite expression. The point is to make it something HARD to go without and then follow the cycle. 

Fasting should be hard- a sacrifice- a way to exercise self-control. If it isn't hard... it isn't truly fasting.   As of right now I fast from the internet every Sunday and from food I need to chew. After a few months my body will make  enough milk for 24 hrs on my last fasting meal and water and I will skip  the small smoothy. So Pick something uncomfortable, something that will give you  constant reminders that you are fasting from it, like fasting from food does.  Then complete the cycle.

It is important to  note that depending on what you chose to fast from your cycle may take longer than  24 hrs.  If I fasted from something like meat or sugar it may be several days before I get to  " I HAVE TO HAVE THIS NOW" or the breaking point part of the cycle. This is where you justify anything to have what you are fasting from.  If you decide to fast from electricity you may reach this breaking point in 8- 30 hrs.  Remember not to break your fast until you have  moved past this stage and are feeling at peace or satisfied, and a have a willingness to wait until the prescribed time to end the fast has arrived. The point is to give your self an opportunity to put off the natural man and deny the body and its impulses and take that time to focus on the purpose of your fast regardless of what you are abstaining from.

One other thing to consider is a prolonged fast.  When I do a prolonged fast I pick a time frame usually 10-40 days and stick with it long enough to  repeat this cycle a few times. When I do a prolonged fast I fast from sugar, or meat, or I do a diet of grains and green. Eating only green things, primarily vegetables, with an emphasis on leafy greens for calcium, seaweed for minerals, and avocado for healthy fats; with a few fruits (green apples, green grapes, kiwi, or pears) and pistachios to enrich the diet and keep the blood sugars balanced. This diet allows the blood to become more alkaline, decreases cortisone and other stress factors in the tissues, adds moisture to the colon and purifies the liver, pancreas, and intestines. If it is not a grain or not the color Green I dont  eat it. This allows me to eat, and eat well I might add, but still gives me practice being the master of my body and practice denying myself the things my body might want or think it needs.  Another prolonged fast diet is called the Kitchari Diet and lots of Kundalin Yogi's do it for 30 days.

 A part often over looked when making fasting modifications is the fast offering. Continue to pay your fast offerings as if you were fasting from food- be generous with your offerings.  This  is also part of the law of the fast. Abstaining and giving are key to fasting. Just because you are not doing a true food and water fast does not mean you are exempt from the fast offering.

Mastering the  fast helps us master our selves. It makes it easier to exhibit self-control in other areas of our lives. Its an important commandment to keep.

As you find ways to  put off the natural man, exercise power over your body, and  let your spirit be in control you will be  blessed.  Fasting is a great way to do this.

However you do it, whatever you eat or don't eat, or do or don't do for your fast, remember to fast with prayer and purpose. Remember the cycle and move all the way through it, and not just give in as soon as you are at the breaking point. Its getting past that point and into the feelings of peace and acceptance where the true power of the fast comes in to play.

Sat Nam

 Put off the Natural man and come of conquer!

Of Devils and Angels

"If our eyes were open to see the spirit world around us, . . . we would not be so unguarded and careless and so indifferent whether we had the spirit and power of God with us or not but we would be continually watchful and prayerful to our Heavenly Father for His Holy Spirit and His holy angels to be around about us to strengthen us to overcome every evil influence." - George Q. Cannon (Gospel Truths, 1:82)
I did energy work for someone I  am close to and know to be a  great person. After I had cast out many devils and demons and a few dissembled spirits this person said... "Thanks for the energy work but I dont think I am as bad as you think I am. "  I tried to explain that the amount of devils does not equate to how good or bad you are. But they are a part of this existence and plague us all. We can choose to  let them stay near and afflict us or we can choose to send them away.

"Every person who desires and strives to be a Saint is closely watched by fallen spirits that came here when Lucifer fell, and by the spirits of wicked persons who have been here in tabernacles and departed from them. . . . Those spirits are never idle, they are watching every person who wishes to do right and are continually prompting them to do wrong." - Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses 7:239)

Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 1958: “Through supernatural means, by the power of the Holy Ghost, devout persons are permitted to have visions and to see within the veil. They are enabled to see spiritual personages and to view scenes hidden from ordinary sight. These visions are gifts of the Spirit. (Seventh Article of Faith.) They come by faith and vanish away when faith dies out. (1 Sam. 3:1; Isa. 29:9-14.) Thus they stand as an evidence of the divinity of the Lord’s work in any age. If the Lord is giving visions and revelation to a people, such group constitutes the people of God. If visions and revelations are not being received by any church or people, then that group is not the Lord’s people. By this test the identity of the true Church is known. (Moro. 7:30-38.) … Visions serve the Lord’s purposes in preparing men for salvation. By them knowledge is revealed (2 Ne. 4:23), conversions are made (Alma 19: 16), the gospel message is spread abroad, the church organization is perfected (D. & C. 107:93), and righteousness is increased in the hearts of men. And visions are to increase and abound in the last days, for the Lord has promised to pour out his ‘spirit upon all flesh,’ so that ‘old men shall dream dreams,’ and ‘young men shall see visions.’ (Joel 2:28-32.)” (Mormon Doctrine [Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, Inc., 1958], pp. 745, 747.)

Once you start a daily meditation practice and do kundalini yoga you will see that your senses are open to more.  It is not  uncommon to see spirits both good and bad around you and others.  Just as Satan had no power over Moses  and he sent him a way by commanding him in the name of of the Savior to leave, we also have power to call upon our savior and deliverer and command them to leave.

If you find that you feel like its  an exceptionally hard day and you are tempted on every hand. Or if you find yourself  thinking degrading thoughts or thoughts that are not your own, chances are you are

being influenced by these  evil beings.  They are around us and it is their job and pleasure to create pain and to make temptation harder to resist. No one is immune. Some times members get confused by thinking that since they are repentant or have just been to the temple, or they are a good person  that  these "bad guys" will not be  with them.  Unless you have sent them away they are there to cause as much damage as they can. You are not immune because  you are a good person- a child- a priesthood  holder- a yogi - or energy worker.  They are here and they are real.

Here is a side point that I feel is worth addressing...
The Lord said,“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”(Matthew 5:16) President Davis O. McKay talks about radiating this light. There is another responsibility correlated and even co-existent with … agency, which is too infrequently emphasized, and that is the effect not only of a person’s actions, but also of his thoughts. Man radiates what he is, and that radiation affects to a greater or lesser degree every person who comes within that radiation” (“Free Agency … the Gift Divine,” Improvement Era, February 1962, 87). 

So IF we are close to the spirit and living as God would want us to we shine with a bright white aura. We radiate to others through our aura and even if they cant see it they can sense that a person is good. Satan can not know our thoughts. So how does he and his  followers know if they are being successful in tempting us to think bad things or not if they cant hear our thoughts?  Easy, they can see our aura. As soon as we start  giving into temptation our auras dim and diminish. The more we listen the more we make choices that remove us from "the light" the more dark we become.   Now back to the  meat of it.

  God has not left us powerless against them. We  have prayer and scripture study and other things that raise our vibration making it difficult to be tempted by their influence. These things bring a heightened awareness to the environment around us and we can if we chose to send them  away by calling on the name of Christ and  commanding them to depart.   We can also call on others from the normally unseen world to help.  We are  not only surrounded by devils but  also  angles. They are members  from our heavenly and earthly family who  are there to help us and  aid us. They are eager to help us and  bless us.

"President George Q. Cannon said this about how God has prepared you and me and our children for the tests we will face: “There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God, and that He has actually given His angels—invisible beings of power and might—charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping.” What President Cannon taught is true. You will need that assurance, as I have needed it and depended on it."-  Henery B Eyring  (To My Grandchildren, general conference  Oct 2013)

So in short. Its a war- you are the prize - you have those fighting constantly for you and against you.  Pray for those  who  fight with you and for you and  Cast away those who would influence you to do evil, for they are subject to you.  Surround yourself with  all that is good. One can not expect evil to stay away if one lets it in  though music, media, filthily and offensive words, and hot tempers. 
Be clean in  all that you are and do, and send evil on its way.
Sat Nam
  A really good read on the subject  HERE