Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Meditation

Meditation describes a state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. It usually involves turning the attention inward to a single point of reference.
The word meditation comes from the Latin meditation, which originally indicated every type of physical or intellectual exercise, then later evolved into the more specific meaning "contemplation."
The use of Meditation for healing is not new. Meditative techniques are the product of diverse cultures and peoples around the world. It has been rooted in the traditions of the world's great religions. In fact, practically all religious groups practice meditation in one form or another. The value of Meditation to alleviate suffering and promote healing has been known and practiced for thousands of years.
Meditation is not necessarily a religious practice, but because of its spiritual element it forms an integral part of most religions. And even though the basic objective of most meditation styles remain the same and are performed in a state of inner and outer stillness, they all vary according to the specific religious framework within which they are placed. Preparation, posture, length of period of meditation, particular verbal or visual elements—all contribute to the various forms of meditation.

The entire process of meditation usually entails the three stages of concentration, meditation and enlightenment or absorption. The individual preparing to meditate usually starts off by harnessing his awareness, such as focusing his mind onto a certain object. Once attention gets engaged, concentration turns into meditation. And through continuous meditation, the mediator merges with the object of concentration, which might either be the present moment or the Divine Entity.

Meditation is a safe and simple way to balance a person's physical, emotional, and mental states. It is simple; but can benefit everybody. Meditation is an intensely personal and spiritual experience. The desired purpose of each meditation technique is to channel our awareness into a more positive direction by totally transforming one's state of mind. To meditate is to turn inwards, to concentrate on the inner self. Meditation which is self-realization or self-awareness is nothing but the knowledge of the "pure being"—the Self. Apart from this there are many useful and inspiring effects of meditation such as reduction in stress and anxiety, increased motivation and confidence, improved mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, increased focus, concentration, memory and learning, better restful sleep.

Humanity is increasingly turning towards various meditative techniques in order to cope with the increasing stress of modern-day lifestyles. Unable to locate stability in the outside world, people have directed their gaze inwards in a bid to attain peace of mind. Modern psychotherapists have begun to discover various therapeutic benefits of meditation practices. The state of relaxation and the altered state of consciousness —both induced by meditation—are especially effective in psychotherapy. New research proves that Meditation reduces stress, blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety...increases mental abilities, focus, concentration, longevity... and creates the consciousness to be in control of one's life.

But more than anything else, meditation is being used as a personal growth device these days—for a peaceful mind and inculcating a more positive attitude towards life at large.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Eternal Love And Unity Of All Humankind

At the deepest level, there is but one religion. Science and faith together constitute the dual knowledge system that propels the evolution of civilisation. Each is an “effulgence of the Sun of Truth”. Successive dispensations of a loving and purposeful Creator have brought the earth’s inhabitants to the threshold of their collective coming-of-age as a single people. The oneness and unity of humanity is of foremost importance. That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. Know the reality of eternal love. There are four kinds of love. The first is the love that flows from God to man: it consists of the inexhaustible graces, the Divine effulgence and heavenly illumination. Through this love the world of being receives life. Through this love man is endowed with physical existence, until, through the breath of the Holy Spirit - this same love - he receives eternal life and becomes the image of the Living God. This love is the origin of all love in the world of creation. The second is the love that flows from man to God. This is faith, attraction to the Divine, enkindlement, progress, entrance into the Kingdom of God, receiving the Bounties of God, illumination with the lights of the Kingdom. This love is the origin of all philanthropy; this love causes the hearts of men to reflect the rays of the Sun of Reality. The third is the love of God towards the Self or Identity of God. This is the transfiguration of His Beauty, the reflection of Himself in the mirror of His Creation. This is the reality of love, or ancient love; in other words, eternal love. Through one ray of this love all other love exists. The fourth is the love of man for man. The love which exists between the hearts of believers is prompted by the ideal of the unity of spirits. This love is attained through the knowledge of God, so that men see the Divine Love reflected in the heart. Each sees in the other the beauty of God reflected in the soul, and finding this point of similarity, they are attracted to one another in love. This love will make all men the waves of one sea, this love will make them all the stars of one heaven and the fruits of one tree. This love will bring the realisation of true accord, the foundation of real unity. Love that is subject to transmutation is not eternal love; this is merely fascination. It is subject to change. Today, you will see two souls apparently in close friendship; tomorrow all this may be changed. Yesterday, they were ready to die for one another, today they shun one another’s society. This is not love; it is yielding of hearts to the accidents of life. When that which has caused this “love” to exist passes, the love passes also; this is not in reality love. All love originate from God. These rays are from the Sun of Reality; these are the Breathings of the Holy Spirits; these are the Signs of the Reality. “This is the Day whereon the Ocean of God’s mercy hath been manifested unto men, the Day in which the Day Star of His loving-kindness hath shed its radiance upon them, the Day in which the clouds of His bountiful favour have overshadowed the whole of mankind. Now is the time to cheer and refresh the down-cast through the invigorating breeze of love and fellowship, and the living waters of friendliness and charity”. (Today is the anniversary of the Birth of the Bab, the Prophet-Herald of the Baha’i Faith.)

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Deleting Personal Information from Your PC

I have an old Windows XP Pro laptop which I want to give to an acquaintance. How could I go about safely deleting my data and all other localizations while leaving the OS intact and the system immediately usable? Unfortunately I don't have the XP installation discs (I acquired the system from a used computer store) so I can't just wipe the hard drive and reinstall XP from scratch.There's no 100 percent foolproof, super-reliable way to do what you're proposing without wiping the hard drive, but since you're giving the computer to a friend, I think we can get you close. Here's what I recommend you do, step by step. (All of the tools mentioned here are free.)Run anti-spyware applications, including Ad-Aware and Spyware Doctor (both free; get Spyware Doctor in the Google Pack, just unselect the other options), in their most secure modes. This will help delete any personally identifiable tracking cookies.Uninstall everything you can. Getting rid of applications (especially third-party web browsers like Firefox) is a good first step (just use the Add or Remove Programs control panel), as uninstalling will often take with them personalization information. It will also make it easier to delete data files, which we'll get to in a moment. Don't remove anything critical for system operation, like the touchpad driver.Delete data files. Hopefully most of your data is in the My Documents folder, but scour the hard drive, especially the C:\ root directory and the C:\Documents and Settings directory for wayward files. Next search through the C:\Program Files directory and delete any remnants of programs that you uninstalled in step 2. Just delete the whole folder. This is the most important step, so spend time on it.Delete Internet Explorer user data. Microsoft offers a series of tutorials on how to delete cookie files no matter which browser you have. Assuming you're running IE7, though, you'll want to purge all user information (especially stored passwords) using the Tools > Delete Browsing History function. Just click Delete All to scrub it away. Though not a problem with modern browsers, you should also run an index.dat hidden file remover as discussed in this post, just in case.Run CCleaner. This will scrub the registry for you, removing as much personal data as possible along the way.Delete all user accounts except one. Do this in the User Accounts control panel.Look in the Start Menu for the "My Recent Documents" folder. Clear this folder by following the instructions on this page.Empty the trash.Wipe free space. Use BCWipe (see screenshot) to scrub out all the free space in the drive. This way, files you deleted won't be able to be recovered.You're finally done!This is indeed a pretty involved process and, as discussed, there's no guarantee it will get every single shred of personal data off your system. It'll get most of it, but probably not everything, so it's a good idea to make sure you can't hunt down an XP installation disc or a system restore disc before doing this all by hand. You could also try installing an Ubuntu Linux operating system instead, which would leave the computer perfectly operable, just not with Windows.