Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category
Thank you to Sarah Marinos of body+soul at the Courier-Mail, for writing an article recently on the health benefits of thinking and acting younger – “Why being young at heart works“. Amongst the myriad of ads by the pharmaceutical companies, this article was unexpectedly thought-provoking and brought to my attention the work of Dr Ellen Langer, Harvard University psychologist and scientific investigator who conducted a landmark experiment 30 years ago where she had seniors live in a secluded monastery as though it were 1959. The results were surprising. After a week of living as though they were younger men, the pensioners were more flexible, had better hearing and memory and felt stronger. And they also looked younger.
This experiment was the forerunner of the British ABC’s TV program, the Young Ones that I recommended in a previous blog post, “Could it be that we all have the power to think ourselves young again?”
Langer has studied the way our mind influences our body and appearance and is the person who coined the word ‘mindfulness’. “When people are taught to be mindful in a fashion very different from meditation, they become more creative, healthier, and happier”, she wrote.
In Langer’s book, counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, she reminds readers that many definitive-sounding medical diagnoses are in fact best guesses. In a sense, this is a book about the limits of empirical knowledge. But as Langer sees it, the ambiguity that inevitably accompanies medical research can be profoundly liberating. If we can’t be sure that a diagnosis — or a widely accepted truism such as “memory loss is inevitable with age” — is true, we’re less likely to apply a self-limiting label to ourselves.
So what does this mean for you and me? Are these experiments miracles or is there a law in place?
I put the question another way. What if society’s current standards and expectations were the aberration and health and eternal life the reality?
The consistent findings from these experiments point to a law or science in place. I understand it to be a divine Science. Towards the end of the 19th Century the author of the first and complete book about the laws of reality, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Because of human ignorance of the divine Principle, Love, the Father of all is represented as a corporeal creator; hence men recognize themselves as merely physical, and are ignorant of man as God’s image or reflection and of man’s eternal incorporeal existence.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)
Christian Science makes it clear that mankind’s misunderstanding of the reality of being, of what God is and of what man really is, handicaps our life experience thus far.
This article by Kay Stroud was orginially published on her blog site. Kay is a health writer focussing on the leading edge of consciousness, spirituality and health. Contact her to learn more about it, including Christian Science, via www.health4thinkers.com.
Mary Baker Eddy’s groundbreaking book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, was first published over 135 years ago. For more than a century, this book has met humanity’s increasing demand for a more spiritual understanding of health, a better basis for lasting relationships, and a greater sense of security and peace. Around the globe, people are finding answers in Science and Health, and their lives are being enriched, transformed, and healed by its message of practical spirituality. The value they place in this book is seen in the outpouring of love and gratitude that impels them to share Science and Health with others.
Science and Health is Mary Baker Eddy’s primary work and the definitive textbook on Christian Science. It explains the scientific laws behind the teachings and healings of Christ Jesus. From the first chapter, “Prayer,” to her exegeses of Genesis and Revelation, the author invites readers to deeply consider the allness of God, the perfection of man as God’s spiritual creation, and how an understanding of these facts brings healing—just as it did in biblical times. For over 135 years, readers have testified that reading and studying this book has given them a spiritual sense of the Bible and their permanent relationship to God, and has also resulted in physical healing and spiritual uplift.
Since the first publication of Science and Health in 1875, its readers have testified that reading and studying this book has not only given them a spiritual sense of the Bible and a clearer recognition of their permanent relationship to God, but has also resulted in physical, mental, and emotional healing. Letters from readers that testify to healing from simply reading the book can be found in the last chapter of Science and Health. Available in multiple editions and formats, as well as in 17 languages and English Braille, the book is dedicated to thinkers and “honest seekers for Truth” (Science and Health, p. xii).
Published testimonials in Christian Science publications illustrate the life-changing power of the book’s ideas. These include emotional, physical, and mental healings. Testimonies of healing can be found at christianscience.com and in magazines such as The Christian Science Journal and Christian Science Sentinel available at Christian Science Reading Rooms worldwide.
Science and Health is available on line from christianscience.com and in Canberra from the Christian Science Reading Room and Bookshop on the corner of Macquarie & Bligh Streets, Barton, and from local libraries.
Recently, thousands of people attended the Mind Body Spirit Festival in Brisbane. I made my way there through the gloomy weather on Sunday, to find a really ‘happening’ event, a lot like the Health Harmony and Soul Expo held on the Gold Coast earlier in the year.
There were a surprising number of Millennials and Gen Ys amongst the Baby Boomers and Gen Xs in attendance, as ready to explore the ideas of philosophy and religion, as they were to try out the organic tea or get their ‘reading’.
I got the impression that there was general agreement between those on stands and within their vibrant audience that health is about very much more than treating a body.
Quite a few I spoke to had pondered the mental nature of health, had heard about the medical research into the effects of spiritual and religious sentiments such as forgiveness and gratitude.
Dozens were eager to add their contribution to the ‘gratitude tree’ by writing down what they were grateful for … and pinning it on the murraya bush in the Christian Science Reading Room stand.
Don’t get me wrong. The majority of these people harboured a healthy scepticism of anything nonsensical or obviously geared to a purely money-making concern.
The astounding thing is that these were your average Aussie ‘blokes’ and ‘sheilas’. Just like the lady I met today. While her job was in real estate, she confided when I mentioned that I was a health blogger, that she’d investigated kinesiology and other alternative therapies and knew how important her thoughts were to her wellbeing.
It’s not surprising to learn that two-thirds of Australians use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and many of these recognise the interconnectedness of our thoughts with our health.
Suddenly results from thought-based treatments such as placebos, epigenetics, psychotherapy and meditation are big news.
A medico who turned from Western medical treatments when they failed to help her, took matters into her own hands. Through her research, Dr Lissa Rankin discovered that traditional health care was missing a couple of crucial insights:
taking responsibility for your own wellbeing is essential; and that we need to care for the whole package – our mind, heart and soul.
Rankin’s book, Mind Over Medicine, advances understanding of the great conundrum of the past 150 years – how our mind, bodies and spirit interconnect.
She found that thoughts, feelings and beliefs can alter the body’s physiology, discerned that loneliness, pessimism, depression, fear and anxiety damage the body, while intimate relationships, gratitude, meditation and creativity turn on the body’s self-healing processes.
Theologian, author, and founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy wrote and taught about the mental nature of disease way back in the 19th century.
She proved that a Mind-based (or God-based) view of health and life leads to cures in both mind and body.
Eddy described some of the states of thought that might generate disease in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which endorses what many people like Rankin recognise as harmful to health today.
She wrote, “Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his destroyers.”
For me, it’s imperative to recognise my spiritual identity, which Jesus exemplified and explained so well, and can be nurtured and discovered through daily prayer and meditation. I find that this also keeps the body healthy, as well as repairing and healing.
It looks like many are now ‘on the same page’, sharing the profound knowledge that happiness and health are dependent on a healthy mind, body and spirit.
This article by Kay Stroud, a health blogger who is interested in the mind-body connection, was originally published on her blog, Spotlight on Spirituality and Health. It was also published on these media websites: Toowoomba Chronicle, Wanganui Chronicle, The Aucklander, Grafton Daily Examiner, Coffs Coast Advocate, Bay of Plenty Times.
In this technological world there is much discussion about whether there actually is a god, and if there is, is He – or She – of any relevance to us today? To me this kind of discussion indicates not intellectual rigour, but simply a misapprehension of the nature of God. God is not remote nor is God confined to a particular denomination. God is Love. And Love is universal; accessible to all, even atheists! Every time we witness an act of love – of affection, of kindness, of generosity, of forgiveness, of loyalty, of compassion … a warm smile, we are witnessing God in action. When we express these qualities we are ourselves expressing God. Nothing can be nearer than Love expressed.
Christian Science also teaches me that another synonym for God is Principle. Principle is expressed in honesty, in high standards of speech and action, in law abiding behaviour, in honour, in steadfastness to truth. Again when we see these qualities expressed in ourselves and others we are seeing God in action.
Current practice may seek to remove religion from politics, but we would argue that it is impossible to separate God from government. For what use would a government be if it did not love its community? What use would a government be that did not act according to the highest standards of principle?
It is our prayer that we as a community might witness more of the qualities of God – Love, Principle, Truth, intelligence – expressed by those chosen to represent us in government. Then regardless of sect or creed or denomination we are all truly under God’s government.
This blog item was originally given as a brief speech, by Deborah Packer, First Reader (2010-2013) of the Christian Science Church in Canberra as part of the Interfaith service held to mark the beginning of the ACT Legislative Assembly’s sitting year.
Thank you to Sarah Marinos of body+soul at the Courier-Mail, for writing an article recently on the health benefits of thinking and acting younger – “Why being young at heart works“. Amongst the myriad of ads by the pharmaceutical companies, this article was unexpectedly thought-provoking and brought to my attention the work of Dr Ellen Langer, Harvard University psychologist and scientific investigator who conducted a landmark experiment 30 years ago where she had seniors live in a secluded monastery as though it were 1959. The results were surprising. After a week of living as though they were younger men, the pensioners were more flexible, had better hearing and memory and felt stronger. And they also looked younger.
Christian Science Canberra 