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The Stoic Handbook: A Practical Guide for Modern Life

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Alexander Zenon

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“Cellular biologist Glen Rein, Ph.D., conceived of a series of experiments to test healers’ ability to affect biological systems. [...] In Dr. Rein’s experiment, he first studied a group of ten individuals who were well practiced in using techniques that Heart-Math teaches to build heart-focused coherence. They applied the techniques to produce strong, elevated feelings such as love and appreciation, then for two minutes, they held vials containing DNA samples suspended in deionized water. When those samples were analyzed, no statistically significant changes had occurred. A second group of trained participants did the same thing, but instead of just creating positive emotions (a feeling) of love and appreciation, they simultaneously held an intention (a thought) to either wind or unwind the strands of DNA. This group produced statistically significant changes in the conformation (shape) of the DNA samples. In some cases the DNA was wound or unwound as much as 25 percent! A third group of trained subjects held a clear intent to change the DNA, but they were instructed not to enter into a positive emotional state. In other words, they were only using thought (intention) to affect matter. The result? No changes to the DNA samples. [...] Only when subjects held both heightened emotions and clear objectives in alignment were they able to produce the intended effect. An intentional thought needs an energizer, a catalyst—and that energy is an elevated emotion.”

Power Of ThoughtsPower Of The MindSpiritual ExperiencePower Of IntentionSpiritual ExperiencesSpiritual Experiment
Book:Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One
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“Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way…Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, ‘there is joy is self-forgetfulness.’ So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others; ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.”

JoySufferingNatureGratitudeDisabilitySelf Forgetfulness
Book:The Open Door
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“All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities: (1) bringing one’s activities into harmony with conscience, or (2) hiding from oneself the indications of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before. Some do the first, others the second. To attain the first there is but one means: moral enlightenment — the increase of light in oneself and attention to what it shows. To attain the second — to hide from oneself the indications of conscience—there are two means: one external and the other internal. The external means consists in occupations that divert one’s attention from the indications given by conscience; the internal method consists in darkening conscience itself. As a man has two ways of avoiding seeing an object that is before him: either by diverting his sight to other more striking objects, or by obstructing the sight of his own eyes—just so a man can hide from himself the indications of conscience in two ways: either by the external method of diverting his attention to various occupations, cares, amusements, or games; or by the internal method of obstructing the organ of attention itself. For people of dull, limited moral feeling, the external diversions are often quite sufficient to enable them not to perceive the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their lives. But for morally sensitive people those means are often insufficient. The external means do not quite divert attention from the consciousness of discord between one’s life and the demands of conscience. This consciousness hampers one’s life; and in order to be able to go on living as before, people have recourse to the reliable, internal method, which is that of darkening conscience itself by poisoning the brain with stupefying substances. One is not living as conscience demands, yet lacks the strength to reshape one’s life in accord with its demands. The diversions which might distract attention from the consciousness of this discord are insufficient, or have become stale, and so—in order to be able to live on, disregarding the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their life—people (by poisoning it temporarily) stop the activity of the organ through which conscience manifests itself, as a man by covering his eyes hides from himself what he does not wish to see.”

SufferingConscienceAddictionIntoxicationSelf ForgetfulnessSpiritual DiseaseThe Unlived Life
Book:Why do men stupefy themselves?: And other writings
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“There is a Greek proverb: ‘Each is furthest from himself’. It is open to many interpretations, but this is what it means to me: because we look out from within ourselves at the world around us, we tend, in a rather fundamental sense, to overlook ourselves. We are the dark centre, or the invisible origin, of the world with which we interact. At the heart of our concern with ourselves is a taking-for-granted, which prevents us from noticing at the deepest level that we exist. ‘I need this’, ‘I want that’, ‘I must do the other’ distracts us from the fact that ‘I’, the one who needs, wants, must do, is ourself; or that there is one who needs, wants, must do, and that one is I. In unremitting pursuit of our direct and indirect self-interests, and our responsibilities, we look away from the self that is interested and bears responsibility. It is presupposed but unvoiced.”

Self KnowledgeSelf Forgetfulness
Book:I Am: A Philosophical Inquiry into First-Person Being
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