Hypnotherapy and the Theory of the Mind

Hypnosis by definition is a state of nervous sleep in which the subconscious mind takes control over the conscious mind. We slip naturally into states of hypnosis when we sleep, daydream, or when our mind becomes so overloaded with information that we feel ourselves tuning out. Stress, anxiety, boredom, trauma can induce hypnotic states without the conscious awareness of the subject.

There are two schools of hypnosis, mainly the Eastern and Western schools. In the Eastern school, better known as Tantra, control is taken away from the client. The conscious mind is overpowered and the client’s responses are guided by the Tantric.

The Western technique of hypnosis formally developed by Dr. John Kappas allows the client to retain partial control of his conscious mind. The client gives permission to the therapist to enter his space and work with him. The hypnotherapist is a mind surgeon, gaining access to the subconscious mind by overloading the conscious mind with suggestions and information and forcing it to open the doors of the critical filter. The subconscious mind is 6000 times stronger than the conscious mind and positive suggestions implanted in the subconscious can help the client to overcome issues which may be challenging them.

Hpnotherapists help people to Heal. The word Heal comes from Hale which in turn means to make Whole. A certified hypnotherapist is trained to make Whole a person’s space without medication. A person’s space essentially refers to

Thought
↓ ↑
Emotion +ve/-ve
↓ ↑
Energy (Aura) +ve/-ve
↓ ↑
Body ( Brain )

The mind consisting of Thoughts, Emotions, and Energy works on the Body through the Brain. Mind is the software and the Brain is the Hardware which drives us. In simple terms we can say that the Body is the Car, the Mind is the Driver, and the Soul is the Fuel which powers us. A hypnotherapist works on all levels of a person’s space, using techniques to balance the energy field, change negative emotions into positive by helping the client to identify and vent out painful feelings, and most importantly and most effectively improve the thought process of the client by superimposing +ve files over the –ve files in the subconscious.

Thoughts are the most powerful activators of all the functions of the mind. They generate feelings which are E – motions or energy in motion, which in turn impacts our energy field or aura. Free flowing energy flows through the meridians in the body with ease and we feel a sense of physical well being and because our energy field is positively charged we invite others into our space with joy and happiness. When our thought processes are impaired, it affect us psychologically ( emotionally) and the motion of the energy in our bodies is disturbed. Our energy meridians get blocked and we begin to experience Dis – ease which manifests itself in the body as various disorders like headaches, arthritis, cancer, or other mild or even life threatening diseases. Schizophrenia, migraine, arterial blockage, diabetes, allergy, Parkinson’s , substance abuse are all related to emotional states generated by impaired thought processes and can be worked on through hypnotherapy.

The same theory holds true for our ease or dis- ease in our interactions with other living beings. All of us live in our own microcosm comprised by our mind, body and soul. Then we have others who live in our macrocosm. These are our family, friends, neighbors, colleagues and all the people and things with whom we interact during the course of our lives. Everything that happens to us inside our microcosm ripples out into our macrocosm. In other words, What is Inside is Reflected outside. The only requirement is to Change Ourselves because any change we make in our microcosm will reflect in our macrocosm.

We never react to people based on the Now, but on experiences they trigger in files in our subconscious mind. This is why we find ourselves reaching out to some people even if they have entered our space very recently and withdrawing or retracting from people who are family and whom our rules tell us to respect and venerate. What is important for us to understand is that people whom we perceive as our enemies are really Teachers who have come into our space to give us a lesson.

As we Heal, and our subconscious mind begins to correlate its reactions with the experiences which were stored in its files from this or past lives, then our frequency begins to change. Our awareness of the Truth begins to widen and the people in our macrocosm will move with us or move out based on the choices they make about their willingness to tune into our frequency. Our auric field will strengthen and we will begin to attract people who are vibrating with the same energy that we are.

As an alternative healing process, hypnotherapy is one of the most powerful mediums of healing because it works directly at the level of thought and thus impacts all the systems of which we are comprised. Allopathy and homeopathy deal with the physical body ; acupuncture, acupressure, and Reiki etc impact the energy meridians ; psychiatrists analyze the client’s emotions and suggest alternatives emotional states to balance the client’s space. A hypnotherapist on the other hand is merely a neutral mirror, allowing the client to see all of himself – his thoughts, emotions, energy field, and physical body and allowing him/ her to reach deep into his subconscious mind to find his own answers to his issues. The therapist empowers the client to become Whole without any medication, merely by using the tremendous power of the client’s subconscious mind to generate its own healing.

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Osho - Laughter is the very essence of religion

Osho - Laughter is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religious, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness.

Yes, there is a difference between when you laugh and when a religious man laughs. The difference is that you laugh always about others -- the religious man laughs at himself, or at the whole ridiculousness of man's being.

Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. And the serious person becomes handicapped: he creates barriers. He cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot celebrate. The very dimension of celebration disappears from his life. He becomes desert-like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not.

The whole play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it. Only laughter can be the real prayer, it is gratitude. If seriousness is lost, nothing is lost -- in fact, one becomes more healthy and whole. But if laughter is lost, everything is lost. Suddenly you lose the festivity of your being; you become colorless, monotonous, in a way dead. Then your energy is not streaming any more.

It is as if a man is just trying to live on a cookery book and has forgotten to cook food; just goes on studying books about food and how to prepare it and how not to prepare it, and argues this way and that -- and is all the time hungry, all the time dying, and has forgotten completely that one cannot live on books.

That's what has happened: people are living on Bibles, Korans, Dhammapadas, Gitas -- they have completely forgotten that religion has to be lived. It is something that has to be digested. It is something that has to circulate in your blood, become your bones, your very marrow. You cannot just think about it. Thinking is the most superficial part of your being. You have to absorb it!

Inside you you have everything, and you are searching everywhere. What else should a joke be? You are a king and acting like a beggar in the streets; not only acting, not only deceiving others, but deceiving yourself that you are a beggar. You have the source of all knowledge and are asking questions; you have the knowing self and think that you are ignorant; you have the deathless within you and are afraid and fearful of death and disease.

When one becomes enlightened, laughter is almost a natural by-product; spontaneously it comes -- for the simple reason that we have been searching and searching for lives for something which was already there inside. Our whole effort was ridiculous! Our whole effort was absurd. One laughs at the great cosmic joke. One laughs at the sense of humor that God must have or the existence: that we have it with us already and we are searching for it. One laughs at one's own ridiculous efforts, long long journeys, pilgrimages, for something which was never lost in the first place.

There is nothing more valuable than laughter. Laughter brings you closest to prayer. In fact only laughter is left in you when you are total. In everything else you remain partial, even in lovemaking you remain partial. But when you have a really heartfelt belly laugh, all the parts of your being -- the physiological, the psychological, the spiritual -- they all vibrate in one single tune, they all vibrate in harmony.

Hence, laughter relaxes. And relaxation is spiritual. Laughter brings you to the earth, brings you down from your stupid ideas of being holier-than-thou. Laughter brings you to reality as it is. The world is a play of God, a cosmic joke. And unless you understand it as a cosmic joke you will never be able to understand the ultimate mystery.

Everybody takes himself and others seriously. That's the way of the ego to exist. Start being a little more playful and you will see ego evaporating. Take life non seriously, as a joke -- yes, as a cosmic joke. Laugh a little more. Laughter is far more significant than prayer. Prayer may not destroy your ego; on the contrary, it may make it holy, pious, but laughter certainly destroys your ego. When you are really in a state of laughter, have you observed? -- the ego disappears for a moment. You are again a child, giggling. Again you have forgotten that you are special. You are no longer serious, for a moment you have removed your fixation with yourself.

Watch when you laugh: where is the ego? Suddenly you have melted, suddenly you are liquid, no more solid, but flowing. You are not old, experienced, knowledgeable. All buddhas have laughed when they awaken. Their laughter is like a lion's roar. They laugh, not at you, they laugh at the whole cosmic joke. This moment, this time we have is a celebration of our godliness, so let us laugh and merge our energies with the total, for that is the true religion

When death comes calling - Circumstanes outweigh reason

Y. Rajeshwar Reddy was the architect of a stupendous victory for the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, and elected Chief Minister of the state. He was feted by national and regional leaders and yet at the peak of a successful political career he died tragically and a nation mourned. Reams have been printed about his phenomenal political acumen and leadership qualities and the great blow his loss has been for the ruling party at the Centre.

However, Reddy was not alone on that ill fated helicopter flight. He was accompanied by his political advisor and chief security advisor, men who we can assume to have been rational and well informed. The pilot and the co- pilot were experienced and well trained and fully aware of the terrain and weather conditions through which they would have to fly. Yet this combined team of wise and professional men met with a fatal helicopter accident on the morning of Sept 02, 2009 and their bodies and the wreckage of the helicopter were not discovered till the early hours of Sept 03, 2009.

Many justifications were given for the search mission’s inability to locate the ill fated aircraft. Officials repeatedly claimed that the activities of the IAF helicopters were hampered by bad weather and dense forests. Search parties on foot were in constant fear of Naxalite guerillas in the jungles. Adivasi tribes could be deployed for help but their loyalties were questionable. Logical reasoning says that these were the very same factors which were present when the Chief Minister and his entourage took off. Why were they not deterred by these considerations? There was no election rally to attend, no war zone to reconnoiter, nothing which would mean the difference between life and death. Even then, a flight plan was laid out, adhered to against all commonsense and resulted in incalculable loss and misery.

The Bell 430 helicopter is purportedly an all weather, all terrain machine and can be flown in the most adverse of conditions. In this age of man vs. machine, the machine repeatedly scores over human ability. Pilots become secondary in the comparison between the capability of the machine and the experience and advice of the man in command of the machine. Intense pressure is exerted on the pilot to complete the flight even against his better judgment. Reddy’s chopper continued on its ill fated mission despite weather warnings, duration of the flight and heavy load it was carrying. When death calls, reason is outweighed by extraneous circumstances.

Flying has become commonplace and routine for all our political leaders and the wondrous capabilities of rotary wing aircrafts are being marketed by manufacturers and charter agencies alike. What most people fail to realize is that helicopters may be small, maneuverable, able to land anywhere even on a rooftop, yet they are extremely complex, and delicate machines. On a routine flight, with natural conditions being favourable, a pilot can engage auto pilot and the machine will ease the load of the men manning it. The difficulty arises when the terrain is rough and unfamiliar, the weather conditions are hazardous and visibility is poor. This is the time when the skill and aptitude of the pilot is sorely tested and when his judgement to continue or abort a mission becomes paramount.This is the foremost lesson one must learn from the repeated tragedies which have taken the lives of some of our outstanding politicians like Speaker Balayogi, Madhavrao Scindia and Rajeshwar Reddy.

Mr. Reddy’s flight plan was for a two and a half hour cross country trip which necessitated the pilots to carry their full load of fuel, leaving only a 15 min. margin for any unexpected delays or diversions. There were five people on board the aircraft which together with the weight of the fuel exceeded the ideal weight the helicopter should have been carrying. Adverse weather conditions were encountered within minutes of take off and should have forced the pilot to turn back and abandon the flight. However, another extraneous consideration may have come subconsciously into play. In a number of companies, flying pay is linked to the number of hours that a pilot logs every month. His expertise, competence and market value is judged by the number of landing and takeoffs he has undertaken. In a hugely competitive market, pilots are tempted to undertake even hazardous flights to notch up flying hours and to prove their capability.

Helicopters are unable to climb high above cloud level and faced with zero visibility in the midst of clouds, pilots naturally tend to fly low and hug the terrain to retain their bearings. A peculiar phenomenon of disorientation occurs when the instruments suddenly disengage and the pilot has to rely on all his experience and training to retain command over the machine he is flying. Refresher training for helicopter pilots is mandatory every six months in the U.S. and the DGCA in India has recommended that pilots should have their skills updated regularly but very few employers here adhere to this simple, basic rule because of the expense involved.

I have been married to a helicopter pilot for the last 31 years and every flight is a challenge for him and his family. I have lost many friends in fatal accidents which could have been averted if more thought could have been given to the man rather than only the machine, to reason rather than emotion, to the ability to accept that the captain of the craft is wholly and solely responsible not only for the aircraft he has signed his name to fly but for all the passengers and the co-pilot seated next to him. No sane man willingly undertakes a suicidal mission and all the underlying factors which resulted in a tragedy of this magnitude must be investigated and redressed.
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Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance

As he hung on the cross, Jesus is reported to have exhorted God to forgive his tormentors for they did not know what they were doing.

In a film on the life of Meera , the condemned Rajput princess absolves her prosecutors of the sin of her murder because they are ignorant of her reality.

Today, the very fact that a debate and discussion has been initiated on the topic of clairvoyance and all its attendant offshoots like hypnosis, alternative or pranic healing and parapsychology shows that we have moved into a golden age in the ongoing evolution of man. I think we are finally ready to acknowledge that there is more to man than just the mind and body and that he is in fact a trinity comprising mind, body and spirit. We are ready finally to admit that there is much in the realm of the spirit which we haven’t been able to rationalize or measure with our mind’s intelligence but whose effects we have seen and felt at a much deeper level of our consciousness.

No one in the East especially in India can deny that science, education, wealth, status and social recognition are no prerequisites in the search for everlasting truths or spiritual evolution. Meera, a princess born and wed into untold wealth and prestige leaves her home and family and pays homage to Sant Raidas, a low caste tanner, for raising her consciousness to a higher level. Kabir, Surdas, Sai Baba, Jesus were all ordinary men yet extraordinary in their insights and with an amazing ability to heal those who came to them with trust and faith. Gautam Buddha as Prince Siddharth had all that a man can desire in his wordly life, yet it was only after his renunciation of all attachments and deep meditation that he was transformed into the godhead whom the world reveres.

Science may not have answers for the world of the spirit but it exists as a form of energy much higher than that of the energy of the mind. I believe that while some people may have retained their links with a higher consciousness by birth, there are others who have striven hard to evolve to that level through meditation, ritual cleansing of the mind and body, extensive spriritual study and practice.

In the course of these last few years, I have come across astrologers who use numerical calculations, palm top computers and other modern gadgets to give credence to their ability to leap across time to predict the future. I have met people who are so sensitive that they sense the aura of the people who walk into a room and can tell them things that will transpire with them. At the same time I have also been privileged to interact with intelligent, and gifted doctors who practice what our scientific community would refer to as alternative medicine but which seems to me to be a more natural way of healing as it comprises regulating the energy flow of the body and removing obstructions in the energy field around the patient. For effective treatment one has to lay bare one’s heart and mind and body to the healer and I think therein lies the answer to man’s resistance to these phenomenon.

Society has entrapped us with so many taboos and restrictions that the thought of exposing our conscience and soul before another is a difficult and frightening thought. Furthermore once we acknowledges that there are some people who are gifted and sensitive and have some unique ability then we also have to accept that many of us haven’t reached the same levels of super consciousness and this hurts our ego and sense of self importance. It is easier to denigrate something that we do not understand rather than admitting that we have failed to reach the same state.

However, the very fact that we are acknowledging that there is something unexplained and yet felt which has been experienced by many of us is a form of giving it credence. Maybe scientists will one day find answers to many of these manifestations and then we can say that man has truly evolved and that will be the advent of the Satyug which Indian philosophy tells us about.

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New York, Lagaa Chunari mein Daag, Chak de - Landmarks of 21st century cinema

Bimal Roy's birth centenary on 12 July, 2009 is an appropriate time to attempt a critical review of the last decade of Hindi cinema.

Films designed with the deepest emotion and motivation can change the world’s perception about us; it can even change the world. They have to strike an invisible chord with the audience. This feeling is incomparable and the journey endless. It lives beyond the film for the maker and the audience. ( Muzaffar Ali, filmaker, designer)

Fountainhead Revisited

Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead was published in 1943 and went on to become one of the classics of the modern generation. It influenced scores of young minds with its glorification of the individuality and greatness of man. Roark, the protagonist of the book is commissioned to build a Temple of the Human spirit and the instructions he is given are clear and concise.

“We want to capture – in stone, as others capture in music – not some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. And what is the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit towards the highest, noblest, the best. The human spirit as the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great life – giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit…”

However, as Dominique, Roark’s alter ego, prowls the streets of Manhattan, the author describes her state of mind by writing, “She had always hated the streets of a city. She saw the faces streaming past her, the faces made alike by fear – fear as a common denominator, fear of themselves, fear of all and of one another, fear making them ready to pounce upon whatever was held sacred by any single one they met. She could not define the nature or reason of that fear”.

It seems paradoxical that the exalted human spirit, the great life-giving force of the universe, is riddled by fear and prejudice, incapable of recognizing the essential humanity of all living things, ready to vent his bottled up energies in anger and frustration. This description hardly seems to conjure a vision of the greatness of man.

So what has stunted man’s growth and perverted his sensibilities. Dominique cannot define the reason for the underlying fear she senses in the streets of the city but through Roark we find some answers to the dilemma and dejection faced by men in the modern world.

On a cold winter night, Roark heads home, tired and dejected by his inability to alter the sensibilities of a society he professes to abhor. He walks alone and friendless and the author writes that “he could feel the cold, whistling pressure strike his cheeks. It was the only evidence of the flow rippling the air. Nothing moved in the stone corridor about him. There was not a tree to stir, no curtains, no awnings; only naked masses of stone, glass, asphalt, and sharp corners”.

Cement, glass, steel and plastic do not grow, decay or change color. They are mute and indestructible and neither absorb nor dissipate energy. Man is trapped in an environment which is unchanging in appearance; he is dwarfed by giant structures which tower over him and proclaim his insignificance. There are no living things surrounding him in the concrete jungle he inhabits and he finds no peace and rest for his senses or his soul. The city becomes a battleground in which the individual is continuously fighting for his survival, his financial independence, his individuality and recognition.

Fifty years ago, Braithwaite in his celebrated autobiographical novel, says that he met an old man in a park who shared the following insight with him,” Those tall buildings are more than monuments to the industry, thought and effort which have made this a great city; they also occasionally serve as springboards to eternity for misfits who cannot cope with the city and their own loneliness in it… A great city is a battlefield. You need to be a fighter to live in it, not exist, mark you, live”. The juxtaposition of the setting of this enlightening bit of advice and the ‘ tall buildings’ which are under consideration are the paradox which give lie to the proclamation of man as the ‘ great life giving force of the universe’.

A park conjures a vision of natural beauty, a scene of varied colors, life forms, growth and decay, and a place where man’s spirit experiences elevation not destruction. The flora and fauna, the peace and tranquility of the open air spaces, the unhurried and relaxed faces all around soothe the spirit and dissipate the accumulated negative energies which burden the soul. In the midst of nature man is neither threatened by his vulnerability or his incompetence nor is he deluded into believing in an exalted sense of his own grandeur. He is made aware of a force more powerful than him who has shaped a world of monumental beauty which existed eons before man ever walked on the planet and which will endure even if man succeeds in removing the last traces of his own presence from the earth.

This is why I believe that Ayn Rand’s philosophy is undesirable. Roark and Dominique, her main protagonists, are delineated as exalted creatures, blessed by an intelligence and a sensibility which is not shared by the millions of lesser mortals inhabiting their world. Then why are both of them so tortured, so unable to smile and experience blissful contentment? Why is there no peace for them in their work, their love or their contemptuous discarding of the rules of an outdated social framework?

They are ‘creators’ both of them, one an architect and the other an accepted critic of architectural works. They believe they are giving shape to a modern world designed according to their expectations and vision, a world of soaring concrete columns, glass panes and structural elegance unembellished by any artistic touches, any acknowledgement of a creative spirit drawing from natural beauty. The statue which Roark would place in his Temple to the Human spirit would be a nude figure of a woman in a state of exultation at perceiving her lover, not a representation which might draw man to contemplate an ideal higher than him. Yet neither character is accepted by society and both suffer excruciatingly for their tortured beliefs.

Life is very short and the human spirit is very frail. It needs continuous replenishment and nourishment to survive and evolve. Its food is love, a nurturing and caring heart, and the ability to move from the outward (the ego) to the very center of its being, the source and the wellspring of all its life giving energy. The human child is the most fragile among other animals. It will die immediately without someone to nurture it for an extended period of time. However, this fragility itself is the highest expression of consciousness, as the flower is fragile unlike a stone. Consciousness in man is not an awareness of his individual greatness but an ability to evolve beyond the confines and consequences of the material world and live intensely and joyously – to strive to LIVE not be REMEMBERED.

Marriage - Pathway to Divinity

Tonya writes to Zhivago as she prepares to depart from Moscow, fully aware that she will never see her husband again, and knowing well that he is in a relationship with another woman. She laments that Zhivago misunderstood her and her feelings for him and I quote the words Boris Pasternak used to express her anguish.



"I have a feeling that you misjudge me, that you take an unkind view of me, that you see me as a distorting mirror. As for me, I love you. If you only knew how much I love you! I love all that is unusual in you, the good with the bad, and all the ordinary traits of your character, whose extraordinary combination is so dear to me, your face ennobled by your thoughts, which otherwise might not seem handsome, your great gifts and intelligence, which, as it were, have taken the place of the will that is lacking. All this is dear to me, and I know no man who is better than you".


Tonya loved Zhivago selflessly and in her eyes his faults were also transmuted into achievements. The tragedy lay in Zhivago's inability to understand her feelings and appreciate her capacity for helping him to grow in stature and responsibility.


A man and a woman in a relationship can grow together in bliss, joy and contentment or they can destroy themselves by their thoughtlessness and carelessness. The success or failure of the partnership depends on both individuals and it is meaningless to debate the practicality of the institution of marriage. If we could all be saints like Meera, or Buddha or Mahavira we would not need families, spouses, children, or lovers to help us to reach the core of our being and tap the wellspring of positive energies within us. We would be overflowing with love and the divine would be manifest to us everywhere.



Until we reach that state of godliness, we need someone who can penetrate to our very centres, who will move past the barriers we create around us to protect ourselves from the world, who will accept us for what we are and rather than becoming a distorting mirror will reflect our goodness back to us. A husband and wife relationship can be the deepest source of reaching the Divine and thereby achieving spiritual evolution. This is where man differs from animals and where marriage differs from the mating game.



Animals perform their stated roles governed by their instinct for preservation, propogation and protection. Man is blessed with consciousness and awareness and his instincts are far superior to those of animals. A relationship which is based on the need to procreate, to satisfy physical cravings and the need to manipulate and exploit another in order to demonstrate one's own superiority is superficial and of a very low order in the evolutionary scale. When the basis of a man - woman partnership is a desire to help each other evolve mentally and spiritually, and to explore the innermost depths of the partner's being and together strive to reach fulfillment, then the union reaches the highest peaks.

A truly committed relationship is one in which both partners grow together and yet delight in their individuality. This translates into a new phenomenon everytime they combine their energies together. Pearl Buck, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 described this beautifully and I quote her words here.

" A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love".

Often people complain that men and women look for change and that marriage can be stifling, as one is forced to interact with one partner only. Human beings are not things which remain static over time. They are continuously reinventing themselves and changing physically,mentally and spiritually. When two people nurture each other, stand by each other during times of trial and tribulation, share moments of ecstasy and agony, their bonds transcend the physical and forge links which are immutable. Casual relationships, constant changes of partners,and the inability to commit oneself to each other are symptoms of psychological imbalances rather than a law of nature.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery has expressed this idea simply and concisely in his book The Little Prince.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose ,the rose that belongs to me,looked just like you. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered".

A real marriage is a union based on the concept of love as a commitment from the heart, a silent communion eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. The longer it takes to flower, the deeper it grows. It is an ongoing phenomenon in which the partners are continuously trying to get reacquainted because the more you go into the depths of your husband/ wife, the better you understand yourself. Awareness is divinity, the separation of reality from fiction, and the true longing of the soul. Thus marriage becomes a sacred rite allowing man to trascend his human limitations and strive to reach the Formless.