When Nobody Was Looking

When Nobody Was Looking

It happened after store hours last month in Wayne, New Jersey. Four football players - three black and one white - came into a Buddy's Small Lots and started shopping. Then it dawned on them that there was no clerk. With such easy pickings, surveillance cameras rather than human eyes tell what they did.

They found the items they were searching for and started for the door. But they weren't making a run for it. Quite the contrary! They stopped at the checkout counter, calculated the total of their items, and pulled out $5.80 from their pockets - the total for the items, plus tax. Still with no one in sight, one of them turned to a prominent surveillance camera over the cash register, waved the money at the camera, and laid it on the counter.        

"We were down there for ten minutes, looking for someone," one later reported. "We thought everybody was in the back on break." Then the four young men left the store and headed for football practice at William Paterson University.

The episode was soon reported on News 12 New Jersey, and the video of their after-hours honesty went viral. Then the story was picked up by several news outlets. 

You see, the store was supposed to be closed and locked. But the door lock apparently malfunctioned. Consistent with store policy, lights had been left on inside for the sake of security. So four guys looking to purchase something had walked through an unlocked door into a lighted store building. They assumed it was open for business - and could have tried to take advantage of the situation.

By the way, before heading to practice, they went next door and reported to an all-night pharmacy that Buddy's appeared abandoned, although the door was unlocked and open. The police were called and the "burglary" was investigated. But the store's surveillance camera had caught a case of honesty instead!

When the young men were identified, Buddy's operations manager called their coach and asked to meet them. "We thought we were definitely in trouble!" said one. He wondered if they had committed a crime by going into a building that was supposed to be closed for business. The caller, Marci Lederman, just wanted to compliment and thank the four - and give them some gift certificates.

In a time of steroids in sports, murder by bored athletes, and on-the-field brawls, a story about character and integrity should make us feel good. So thanks to Jelani Bruce, Anthony Biondi, Thomas James, and Kell'E Gallimore for reminding us that honesty really is the best policy. The only right policy.

Your reputation is merely what others think of you; your character is what you do when you think nobody is looking.

Rubel Shelly

Rubel Shelly is a Preacher and Professor of Religion and Philosophy located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In addition to church and academic responsibilities, he has worked actively with such community projects as Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, From Nashville With Love, Metro (Nashville) Public Schools, Faith Family Medical Clinic, and Operation Andrew Ministries.

How to Own a New Ferrari and Be As Smart As Einstein, Just By Calmly Sitting On Your Couch

By Martynas Jocius, Source: MindTrip Magazine

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, 
and I'm not sure about the former." — Albert Einstein

After a hard day of work, I was sitting on my couch with my eyes closed. I decided to meditate, even though I had no clue what would happen. After just fifteen minutes, my mind started to quiet and relax. It was an amazing feeling! I felt as if my heavy and tired body started to lose hold on gravity, and just like dandelion fluff had started to float above a sunlit meadow in a gentle summer breeze. And that was just the beginning.

After a few more minutes, I was absolutely free, relaxed, and the fierce, blazing fire of thoughts in my mind became a low simmer. My body disappeared, and with it the couch I sat on, my room, and my whole house. Everything vanished. Of course, I still knew that I was sitting in a real room – but my mind simply didn't construct it that way anymore. My body was in bliss, and I enjoyed increased energy, because when the mind relaxes it stops many of the thought processes that otherwise burn through our energy. (95 percent of the time, our mind is just running in a hamster wheel of worries, with no purpose except to expend energy and make us exhausted.)

After I passed through just 20 devoted minutes of meditation, I felt like a new man. But I didn't just feel that way – I was. Relaxed, calm, aware of the environment and myself, and ready to move mountains. My face was shaped by a sincere smile. My body embraced the effects of meditation, even though my mind, like a dull computer full of software, still couldn't fully grasp what has just happened. I stood and went to do my work. The effects lasted all day – I felt enormously energetic and fresh-minded.

How did Albert Einstein do what he did?

Albert Einstein meditated a few times a day. As he famously said, it was the way to get answers even before you asked the questions.

Mozart meditated by walking in silence – that's how the greatest melodies and symphonies came to his mind, music that is still adored by millions of people today.

The famous physicist Aage Bohr, while meditating, saw atom construction as a planetary system, and in 1975 got a Nobel Prize for it.

I am not trying to directly compare myself with these wonderful people, but it's impossible not to notice that during the past few years, I have written hundreds of pages of business ideas and other concepts that flew into my mind while I was meditating.

How about you? Would you like to experience that?

It is now widely recognized that meditation, at the very least, boosts efficiency, creativity and communications skills. The benefits are obvious but the question could arise: isn't it boring, and is it worth it?

It's not boring, and it definitely is worth it! Because:

Meditation is a very simple and pleasant thing to do, with widespread benefits. There are simply no reasons not to do it. Countless successful people meditate, and as they say – it is meditation that shapes their successes and joys in life.

Meditation enhances your intellect so much that you get ten times more unique and creative ideas. Your thoughts are as deep as the oceans, and your mind is perfectly calm and euphoric.

That sounds great, doesn't it? All the people who practice meditation say the same thing. But what specifically can sitting in silence do? How does it work?

Ancient Indian Vedas were full of knowledge, and explained that our consciousness is made from both mind and intellect (it's worth noticing that nowadays scientists are making the same conclusions). The function of the mind is to desire and feel, and thus enable us to experience the outer world with our body, and to enjoy it. On the other hand, intellect is for creation, consideration, and perception.

When and if you let your mind act as it desires and when it desires, without the control of the intellect – then the intellect will be forgotten. It will be overshadowed by emotions and overthrown by thousands of thoughts. The mind in its essence is a very egoistical thing – it is always concentrated on fulfilling the desires it has, and thus you have perpetual thoughts that keep circling in your head, and dozens of various emotions at the same time. When we get tired of our minds and want to rest in silence, it won't let us, and will resist by sending thousands of thoughts, and thus draining our nervous systems. The mind can be an amazing servant, but as a ruler, it is the worst you can have – tyrant.

The intellect is completely different. It is wide and infinite. It is the source of love and creation. Intellect is infinitely wise and moderate. Your intellect is calmly biding its time and confidently smiling – it already knows everything. That's why you already are an amazing being, full of wisdom, goodness, and light. And to experience it you need just one thing – to calm your mind.

Can you feel and understand how strongly you are restricted by your desires, fears, and perpetual thoughts and worries? And even more so how the mind restricts your perception of the world to just five senses (hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching), hiding the true magnificence of the world?

Yogis call it personal illusion and collective illusion. It is worth considering.

We all, as humans, have pretty much the same minds – we are the same species, after all. And our minds model our world almost identically. This is called the collective illusion. We can all see the same blossom of a rose, the same red colour, and the same shape. We can describe it in the same way. And is this reality? Of course. Yes. You, and I, and six billion people can agree on that. And thus it is an absolute fact. But is it really the truth?

Actually, it is not. It's just how Homo sapiens' brains are modelling the environment in order to survive. Other living beings may perceive a rose differently. In fact – the rose doesn't exist. There is not red, sweetly-scented blossom. It is just a piece of the unimaginable complexity of the whole. A piece of the whole of indescribable beauty and intellect in which we dwell, of whose part we are.

And here comes the individual illusion. We create it unconsciously when we walk through life. Our mind creates millions of neuro-associations, which determine the difference in our perceptions of the same objects (neuro-associations are connections between objects and emotions in our mind, i.e. Sigur Ros music = pleasure; exam in university = trouble). This means that different people will perceive the same blossom of a rose differently. Not only the rose, but also the chocolate bar, Fujiyama Mountain, a brand new Ferrari, and everything else in the world.

The mind is a very complex computer in which the programs frequently fight each other. That is why our energy channels are leaking. Every day we lose energy over the chaos of our minds, and thus we can't experience bright, strong, and even euphoric states – which are usually called enlightenment.

Meditation was invented to prevent these leaks of energy, and to win back our naturally inherited power and joy.

The great sitting on the couch secret

Meditation is calm sitting without any thoughts. It opens the dams of our energy rivers. It enables us to free our infinite intellects and to think as Einstein did. Or maybe even 10 times better.

The worldwide Transcendental Meditation Organization devoted whole decades to work with scientists, who adjusted their reliable methods and translated them into simple language for us to understand, in order to explain how meditation affects our bodies and minds. About two thousand official experiments were conducted, and numerous volumes were written about how meditation affects the metabolism, blood pressure, the brain, and other vital organs functions. Not only were the scientists shocked by these conclusions, but the whole of Western society was amazed as well. Because of these clearly positive results of meditation, more and more scientists, doctors, businesspeople, athletes, actors, and many others now practice meditation. More and more people understand that the simple act of meditation can lift one's life to a whole new level.

This is how meditation reached me. In 2010, I began to practice transcendental meditation (I don't practice it anymore). At first, I was amazed by my new experiences and new ways of perceiving the world. Later, I noticed that I can more easily control my emotions, and even in stressful and critical situations, I can bring myself to a state of total relaxation. The challenges of my business became easy to solve, and my daily worries are no longer as scary as they were. Ideas just flowed into my head, and I can't even begin to describe the bunch of phenomenal emotions I have now experienced.

There are a lot of ways to meditate. All of the ways works in similar manners and will offer the same positive results (though experiences and timeframes differ). Meditation works like window cleaners for the window of the mind. It lets us see all the small details of the world around that were not recognizable before – the pebbles in the road, humans, nature, and events.

How do you do it?

All you need to do in order to strengthen your intellect is to sit calmly and to think about nothing, or to occupy your mind with one mantra (a special word or sentence). Thinking about nothing is not as easy as it seems, because the mind and all its chaotic thoughts are used to mastering the parade, but with time you'll learn to harness your mind, and you'll discover the creative side of yourself. On that day, you'll see that your world has been turned upside down, and the secrets of it have been revealed. And then you'll be amazed at how wonderful everything is, and how much you can accomplish.

Here are some briefs of meditations techniques that are popular in the West. Maybe you'll be eager to try one of them.

1. Buddhist meditation. There are hundreds of different schools of Buddhism, and through thousands of years they have developed a variety of different meditation techniques. But in essence they are all very similar: you should sit in calm and silence, and concentrate all your attention into breathing, or into some other kind of object (i.e. the fire of a candle, or blossom of a rose). You can attract your attention to the surrounding environment with your eyes closed. This meditation is practiced every day. The length should be comfortable for you, but it is suggested that you practice 20 minutes in the morning, and in the evening.

Some famous Buddhist meditation practitioners are: Steve Jobs, Steven Seagal, Richard Gere, Tina Turner, the Dalai Lama, and more.

2. Transcendental meditation. This meditation was developed and spread by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917-2008). He started his spiritual movement in 1958. His meditation is derived from Vedas, and was given to him by his spiritual teacher and leader Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (1871-1953) when Maharishi lived in his ashram. The transcendental meditation (or TM) organization has oriented this technique the access of Western people, and thus it has a Western name.

During this meditation, you repeat a special mantra (a word or phrase in Sanskrit), which is given to you during your training. TM has no religion attached and is notable for its very scientific base. It is the most researched and commonly used meditation form in the world. No one can ignore TM after looking through thick books of research full of formulas and medical analysis.

TM is widely used in the world by such people as: Paul McCartney, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Lynch, Moby, and more.

3. Japa meditation. This is a purely Vedic form of meditation. It is also commonly known as sacred names repetition, because during the meditation you repeat mantras made from various sacred names in Sanskrit. This technique is safe and can be used independently because, like Buddhist meditation, it starts slowly and is strengthened according your own capabilities. Usually this technique is performed with counting beads (Japa chaplet) for keeping track of how many times you have repeated the mantra, a very practical and mathematical method that allows you to be more stable and consistent in your meditation. It is recommended to start with one Japa cycle a day, and to increase this number as time passes.

This meditation was introduced in the West by the well-known ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who arrived in New York from India in 1966 with a suitcase full of books. He astonished many by his perfect character, habits, and inner light.

Japa meditation practitioners are as famous as: Dr. Wayne Dyer, Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Gilbert, Timothy Leary, John Levy, George Harrison, and more.

Meditation is the only known way to most effectively and almost without any effort clean your mind from the dirt that has come to us through our environment, but through our dull and hamster-wheeled thinking. Meditation lets your intellect blossom, so you can live an authentic live: rejoicing everyday as naturally as kids, but hundreds of times stronger because we can accomplish even more.

Don't believe what others say, and go your own way!

I really like the Vedic approach, which states that you don't need to believe in anything blindly. If you read or hear something – just try it for yourself. If it works, then believe it and use it. Recommend it. Let's be pragmatic.

What about the Ferrari? The brand new red Ferrari?

Strong intellect is the only way to create any kind of well being. And thus if you want to create more, to organize more, to earn more, and to buy a symbol of power – meditation is the only known way to do it easily and quickly. Did you know that even millionaires recommend that you meditate?

But in the end, the Ferrari is just a symbol. Not everyone needs this fancy metal box. There are people who prefer to appreciate a perfectly trained and healthy body, and a developed consciousness with which they can travel across the globe radiating calm, love, and compassion.

That is what the real "Ferrari" is, to me. And it costs not $230,000, but infinite, undefinable amounts… or just some practice with meditation. The delight of travelling with your own conscious mind is immeasurable.

Are you ready to experience it?

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

The Most Powerful Words in the Universe

By Jason Mangrum, 
Co-Author of Uberman! Almost Super Human

Spiritual masters say that enlightenment can happen in an instant or like the blooming of a lotus flower. The same can be said of realizations, and learning.

As you read a book on any subject you will have moments that you stop reading just long enough to say "Ah ha!" or "Wow, that's how that works" or "that's why that happens!"

When you first look at a new math equation and it makes no sense, then later after you learn the process, you can look at the same equation again and you not only understand it you can solve it.

The point I am trying to make is this: There is a point where something is gained from any knowledge. First you are ignorant, and then you inquire, next you realize, now you have the power of that knowledge and can apply it to your world.

People will sell you courses and charge you thousands of dollars to beat around the bush and flush out the truth I am about to tell you.

I have used this method that consists of only 2 words to create anything I want usually within 24 hours if not instantly.

I have told these words to very few close friends, accompanied with the warning "Be careful what you wish for…"

There is only one guideline when using these key words and I will get to that immediately after I tell you what these words are.

All you have to do is know what you want to make this work. 

I Command!

Then put it in this sentence: I Command – (Then just state whatever you want)

I know it sounds too simple. Your disbelief in this might actually aid in its power. 

You remain detached from the outcome because it just sounds too easy "This couldn't possibly work, I've tried everything" – your mind will say.

Good. What can it hurt to seriously give this a try?

"I Command" all day, everyday and I have come to realize the power I have over the outcome of my life. So have those I have told these words to through their own experiences with it.

Of course your mind may just dismiss the acquisition of your desires as coincidental. But does it really matter? After all you got what you wanted and never worried about how.

If you honestly begin to use this take into consideration that this command once made is not concerned about the how it will happen. The power will just take the shortest possible path to accomplishment.

All things great and small are possible when you use the words "I Command", but whatever they are be prepared. Of course you can always change what you want if you realize it's not what you thought it would be. It is never too late in this world and nothing is final.

The only thing constant in this world is change. You can either be conscious of your creating or dragged along oblivious to it.

There is only one rule.

One limitation and this is important if you truly want to apply this knowledge. "You cannot command something for or concerning someone else."

Such as: "I command so-and-so to fall in love with me" instead use- "I command my true love to make himself known to me"

That's it. These words are yet to fail and you can command anything within the realm of your imagination – nothing is impossible. All you have to do is command, and then look for the command to be fulfilled.

Now with everything I have noticed there is an evolution that happens after the "I Command" has proven itself to you. More and more all you have to do is clearly know what you want. Soon the verbal commands aren't even necessary. I hope you have read something here that helps you. If you apply it be prepared to get what you want. Just be ready for the change.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad