So, with New Years just a few days away, perhaps some of you are outlining your resolutions for the New Year. Most of us forecast what we need in our lives, put an action plan into place and try our best to stick with it throughout the year. Ah yeah. That resolution usually lasts until February!

 

So this year, why not try something new? How about instead of making resolutions, you contemplate the following 2 questions: 

Are you on a spiritual path (not a dogmatic path)?

And, if you are on a spiritual path….Why are you?

 

Dogma does not engender spirituality, although they can be merged. Ritual does not define spirituality either. Any “religion” that is self-serving, or only serving a select group, is not spiritually based.  Jesus, a Jew, loved all…not just those who followed Judaism or Christianity. He was patient, kind and compassionate to all men, women and children regardless of their affinity.  

 

The second question is my main focus of this Blog article. Why did you begin a spiritual quest? My teacher Jeffrey Yuen, once spoke of how in ancient China; many people who entered monasteries and covenants did so because they had a really crappy life (my words not his). Their lives where outlined by sadness, rejection and abandonment. They entered the retreat so hoping that they would come out with some newfound healing and abatement of their suffering through divinity. Obviously with that perspective, in time, one can become “mad at God” if the cessation of suffering is not fulfilled.

 

Many people do the same in modern times. Are you seeking becoming spiritual because of your weakness and in turn bringing your weakness to a spiritual life? Or, are you a seeker because you want to bring your strengths to the spiritual world?

 

Most seekers doing so out of their weakness and think of a return vs. what they can contribute. In order to be a contributor to the spiritual path, one must come to terms with the humanness of their perceived fallacies and shortcomings or at least come to know them through cultivation.

 

Instead of choosing to come to know the holiness and divine within themselves, the novice perpetually looks external for their salvation and answers. They are not comfortable with themselves and/or their affliction (we all have some affliction - no-one is exempt).

 

One should seek a spiritual life because it has something to teach you. The Intern works to understand themselves through cultivation through non-biased eyes. As you come to understand and know yourself and your true nature, you thereby come to know God.

 

If you are interested in becoming an Intern, please see the website www.formlesstaoism.com

Inflammation is linked to every known disease and disorder
of the body, although we know very little about how the whole inflammation
process starts, which  cells are
involved, and what activates the inflammatory process and what keeps it in that
state. 

Theories of where does
inflammation start have been postulated from dendritic cells, to Eosinophils,
to B-Cell development to CD4 and CD8 Effector cells and then which systems
mediate and keep the inflammation process going including immunoglobins,  prostaglandins, Chemokines ...<< MORE >>

In September, I will be speaking publicly for the first time in my life about what happened when I was pronounced dead in a hospital and stayed that way for over 14 minutes. Being “dead “ that long is not to common, from what I understand, and it allowed me “time” to see and understand things that very few humans ever could understand. This happened at a very young, impressionable age. I recounted these experiences to physicians and psychiatrists many times over the years ...<< MORE >>

Dr.
Cibik will be speaking on Effective Communication skills for patients and
health care professionals on September 12^th, 2009, from 9am to 1pm. The
cost is $99.00. Dr. Cibik will be demonstrating various voice projection techniques
(Qi projection) for effective communication as well as word choice and timing
skills. ...<< MORE >>

I have not Blogged in a while…..to be honest I have not felt like writing. My mother passed away on February 25^th, or transitioned into her true divine self, as I like to think of it. A place where there is no more pain and suffering of the flesh, but equally the loss of the ability to feel and hold the warmth of her form. This defines a crossroads of understanding of what it means to live – and what it means to survive another’s passing.

I looked on the internet for camaraderie for dealing with the death of your mother in mid-life….but most of the limited advice I found was for women only. That is not fitting the bill here. I discovered that there is nothing on the Internet for middle-aged guys who lose their mother - who just happen to be the only child, which is odd, I thought. I am here to tell you that it is hard….with no brothers or sisters for support to commiserate with – you really do feel  alone in the world. I am not a weak person by any stretch of the imagination, but I suppose this is something that people just do not feel comfortable talking about. (So here I am talking about it) Like so many things, we just ignore it; stuff it down inside and move on with life. Although, I can move on with life, that does not mean that I do not feel the abyss that has been placed in my life. Perhaps for men, admitting so would appear to be less than macho - this means of course that you are concerned about how others perceive you and allow that to drive your persona.

So, I began to watch and listen to other people tell the story of what happens in their life when a parent dies. In thinking about their commentaries, society briefly sympathizes with the survivor(s) of a lost parent, but it is as if the mid-age survivor should snap back after a week or two and be completely normal. This expected mask of delusion placed by societies expectations, I surmise, is because you are older, busier and supposedly have more emotional tools available at your command.

I have found that the grieving process really does not hit until several months later and that may only be the beginning. So, it is a process to say the least. This process requires a completely different set of tools that you can never prepare for through either experience or reading. You learn as you go along. Every loss of someone you love is different, so how can you prepare?

Well, I have my mother to thank for many gifts. Personally, I am now aware of her Shen, or spirit, that flows through my veins even more than ever before. A blessing that allows me to truly feel her moment-by-moment in all that I am, and all that I do.

The Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, says this, “If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” 

On reflecting of her transition, I remembered the many gifts she gave me. My mother always had the gift to sense and feel another’s pain or discomfort and always had a way – through word or action –that allowed her to comfort another – even if that was the animal that she had just rescued. 

Another was her tolerance of allowing me to find my own path. In reading Thomas Merton, I discovered a quote that describes her perfectly, albeit she never read Merton that I know of: “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

I love you mom, and as your Shen flows through my veins, I will celebrate your gifts everyday though my words and my actions. Be at peace.  

One of the most painful things I have ever encountered was a kidney stone. I sympathize with anyone who has chronic problems with them and have some possible insights to prevention and treatment for those of you who are suffering.

Almost 80% of kidney stones are comprised of calcium oxalate crystals. Uric Acid stones can form also when the pH is too low and high oxalate rich foods are consumed such as nuts, chocolate, soybeans and their products, rhubarb and spinach. One of the main causes I have found is the high consumption of cola drinks without equal amounts of water. If the uric acid concentration is high, sometimes the stones will form in combination with Gout.

In rats fed a low vitamin-E diet, who later developed kidney stones, the effect could be reversed by vitamin –E supplementation. Foods naturally rich in vitamin E are: Almonds (also good for your lungs) avocados, olives, asparagus and wheat germ.

Vitamin E is one of 13 vitamins essential to body metabolism, cell growth and function. There are 2 divisions of vitamins E: Tocopherols and Tocotreinols that each has four divisions. All we need to worry about is that in nature tocotreinols and tocopherols occur together. That is precociously how they should be taken, with almost all vitamin E sales going to only one half of the equation - tocopherols. Additionally, the Japanese has recently studied tocotreinols as a cancer preventative.

New research points to common sense as well – more is not necessarily better. Keep your intake of vitamin E to foods first and then to low dose supplements.

My philosohy has always been to teach people how to eat first, rather than place them ever so quickly on supplements. Like all supplements, learning to balance them with diet and movement is the key to better health.

 

 

In the last 20 years of coaching, training, healing and mentoring people I have come to realize that many of us do not feel our Soul Seeds. What are Soul Seeds?  Soul Seeds are the very seeds given to you upon your conception that you first must discover. These seeds allow you to grow into a truly enlightened being of compassion and servitude that manifest into happiness and bliss so that we may truly enjoy our vacation here on earth. All of us have several soul seeds that correspond to our 7 missions in life. These seeds are as unique as we are.

 

How do you discover your soul seeds?

First, you must get quiet. The soul does not yell above the chatter of your mind.  The soul is a quiet sacred place that whispers its secrets to those who breathe softly, forever listening rather than talking. Some call this meditation. Some call this heaven. Some call this a place of where love is born. It doesn’t matter what semantics are attached. In order to discover you soul seeds you must first learn to be quiet so that the truth (Gandhi said that God was truth) can whisper in your ear. Some might call this the Holy Spirit, the very energy that flows in man allowing him to do wondrous things for others – in other words to serve. Have you been practicing being quiet? Or do mayhem and the crises de jour run your life?

 

Souls seeds also need watering. What waters souls seeds?  Actions water the seeds. Water is always flowing, sometimes falling high from mountaintops to sea level, sometimes rising up to kiss the sky in the form of evaporation, but always descending back to earth where it can do the most good and illicit the most change. In Chinese Medicine we look at water as Chaos. Chaos is not mayhem, but the opportunity for all things to manifest. All possibilities and all miracles can happen in an instant. That is what Chaos is.

What actions are you putting forth to water your seeds this year?

 

Seeds also need fertile soil. The soil is your mind. What do you recycle in your mind?  Kindness? Optimism? Compassion? What do you read to cultivate new ideas, growth, and peace? How do you process the shit that lands at our feet daily? Do you welcome it or curse it? The daily shit can become wonderful fertilizer in the form of teachings and lessons. All of this gets recycled into the very thing that allows you to serve yourself and others better. Fertile soil also needs aerated to be effective. You must mix and stir the fertilizer into the other soil so that the nutrients become evenly spread and not too concentrated (which can burn the seeds) but integrated into something greater than the individual parts.  This is where you analytical mind comes into play, taking life’s prior teachings and lessons and integrating them into this new fertilizer, thereby allowing new possibilities and growth to occur.

 

All good stewards of the land need help now and then. I have dedicated my life to helping people discover their Soul Seeds. Perhaps we can farm the seeds together this year?

 

Copyright Inner Strength, Inc. and Ted J. Cibik All rights reserved under state and federal laws.

Copyright control of this article, the title and ALL content remains with Inner strenth, Inc. at ALL times. Content may not be copied, altered, edited, disseminated, or reproduced in any way.

 

 

I have been thinking about all the great teachers through time:  Jesus, Buddha, Rumi, Confucius, Mohammad, Meniscus, Merton…the list goes on. Some like Jesus almost seem superhuman – a superhero if you will from stories and writings. But yet Catholicism teaches that he was a man. In reading Morton Kelsey’s Healing and Christianity, the author makes several great references to Jesus working with Qi (not stated that way in the book – my inference), but nonetheless Jesus was, along with many Christian mystics, a great energy worker. Father Kelsey, an Episcopal priest, and professor emeritus of Notre Dame University, makes a strong connection to Jesus and his healings to shamanism – Which are the roots of QiGong.

 

Myth and legends surround all of our great teachers and we elevate them with great reverence, stories and characteristics - sometimes so much so that we cannot truly identify with them in our normal daily life.

 

Recently, I attended a talk by a well known martial artist and Taoist. He was speaking about how to find a good teacher, the characteristics to look for, the personality etc. Then, this gentleman said something that shocked me when speaking of QiGong. He stated that a true QiGong master never gets sick! On the same line of thinking, many believe that Jesus never got sick because he never sinned. I am not comparing QiGong masters to Jesus, but the notion that one gets sick because one is impure is a common one.

 

Moreover, in the new age community, if someone does get cancer or gets a terminal illness, then they are a false-prophet because they “attracted“ that into their life. Whose mortal body does not eventually die?

 

I am going to out on a limb here and just say that sometimes it is what you learn from being sick (lessons) that is the important thing  - not whether you get sick or not (outcomes). I speak more of this in my latest book, Armageddon of the Mind www.armageddonofthemind.com

One can learn many things from being ill – from the spectrum of emotions that coincide with illness to the actual physical pain, to the many methods where illness can strengthen your spirit and your mind.

How does anyone know what suffering is if they themselves never suffered? How do you truly understand loss  –if you never have had loss? How can you know what trials and tribulations really are if you have none? How can you relate to being human – if you are above being human?           More importantly …how can you teach others?

 

Jesus aside, any person that claims that they never get ill due to their practice, belief or supplement that they take…is living a life of delusion. This life of delusion has developed into a pathology of its own – which further leads a person off their center or balance in life. This delusional practice engorges the ego and consumes the grace that one has attained in his/her practice.

 

Most of the honest healers and teachers that I know, admit their being human, getting ill and using their specialty of practice, to assist them in healing faster and with less suffering.  The aspiring student often becomes so fixated on outcomes, rather than the process or journey itself. The veteran teachers stay in their center, and many times continue to work assisting others to heal while they process what they need to in order to come back to health. In this truth, is part of what allows them to stay in center…being mindful and present of what their physical body has encountered and needs, in order to balance itself out. Perhaps that is something as simple as sleep or more complicated such as working through their own loss of a loved one, either way the truly enlightened person understands that there is time and a season for everything – even illness and dying.

 

Perhaps the transition from illness to health or from health to illness is the true blessing. Thoreau writes, “All change is a miracle to contemplate.” It is through the gift of suffering that we can appreciate the lack thereof. Jesus and Buddha both speak of their suffering and through their generous example – we can transcend ours.

Copyright Inner Strenth, Inc. and Ted J. Cibik. All rights reserved under state and federal laws. Copyright control of this article, the title and ALL content remains with Inner strenth, Inc. at ALL times. Content may not be copied, altered, edited, disseminated, or reproduced in any way.

 

In Armageddon of the Mind, I propose methods for tapping into that exact frontier of heaven - while embodied here on earth. It is a way to open your mind to a new paradigm of thinking, feeling and experiencing God.

...<< MORE >>

Well
it is that time of year again. I am sure that all of you are thinking the same
thing….the time of the Kidneys in Classical Chinese medicine! Many people
become acutely aware and worried this time of year because the immune system
becomes severely challenged; especially for asthma, COPD, Emphysema, common
colds, flus and even panic attacks ….. all do increase this time of year.

In
a recent article in CHEST it states: “Health-care utilization for children with
asthma changes with the seasons, peaking in the fall. Using data from the
United Healthcare database, researchers from the University ...<< MORE >>