IT SEEMS TO ME THAT ALL THE MODERN GURUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS--and I mean this with respect--including ANDREW COHEN, DEEPAK CHOPRA, ECKHART TOLLE and others--like many others before them--all agree that each and every one of us is personally responsible for who we are, what perceive--that is, take in through the senses--with our minds. We are also responsible for what we choose to perceive and become attentively aware of. Of course we are also responsible for what we do with our perceptions.
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MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH A GURU WAS GOOD
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Keep in mind that I began reading about what it means to be a fully conscious human being and be able to rise above limiting circumstances since I was in high school in 1944-46. Reading a then popular magazine called POPULAR MECHANICS I saw an add about how to have a better mind and how to be a successful student and career. I persuaded a brother, who was 10 years my senior and had similar interests, to put up the money--he had a job in the mines--to buy a correspondence course called MENTALPHYSICS.

The system was developed by an Edwin John Dingle (1881-1972). He defined his system as a synthesis of all he had learned as a young man in his travels in the Orient, especially Tibet. Dingle began teaching informally in 1927 in New York City. His early classes grew into the Institute of Mentalphysics in 1934.

Mentalphysics is seen as a super yoga. Dingle taught his students a set of what are believed to be universal truths and a system of practice built around pranayama (breathing), diet (vegetarian), exercises, meditation, and a system of working with one's own particular body chemistry ...
http://www.answers.com/topic/mentalphysics

What we learned in this program inspired both of us. It gave me the confidence to rise above some very difficult circumstances, including poverty, and make the effort to get a university education and have a happy career, which I did.

From the course, my brother, who had little formal education--the one, BTW, who made most of my Christmas toys--and I learned: Human beings need not be puppets on the strings of some celestial puppet master (God) or victims of some fate set by the stars, the gods, nature or nurture. We also learned that we had to take personal responsibility for who we are and who will become, now and for all time.

My brother's career? While I was in university he went on to become a skilled welder. He worked in the iron ore mines on http://www.bellisland.net When they closed in 1966, he got a good job as a valued welder with the city of St. John's, for the rest of his life. He lived to be 78, and, surrounded by his family, died happily.

Last edited by Revlgking; 12/01/08 10:30 PM.

G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org