Meditation (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra)

    We've heard of it, thought about doing it, but then easily forgot it.  Meditation has been around for ages, healing, revealing, and satisfying all that come across it.  Why do we allow this simple, yet vital practice slip away from our everyday life?  Why not begin to embrace this age-old remedy for reducing stress, healing the body, and adding tranquility to our lives?  Chopra, in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, says, "From my experience with studies on people using meditation, it has been established that long-term meditators can have a biological age between 5 and 12 years younger than their chronological age."  Wow!  Meditation is so powerful.
     In recent findings, research has found that this subjective experience of silence, fullness, and eternity creates a definite shift toward a more efficient functioning of the body, states Chopra.  "Hundreds of individual findings show lowered respiration, reduced oxygen consumption, and decreased metabolic rate."  The most significant conculsion is that the hormonal imbalance associated with stress (which speeds up the aging process) is reversed explains Chopra. 
     To experience your own shift in time with meditation look at a clock with a second hand on it, close your eyes and focus on your breath.  Allow your thoughts to move in and out of your mind and continue to focus on your breath.  After several minutes have passed, open your eyes and look at the second hand of the clock.  Chopra suggests that you may see the second hand stand still for 1-3 seconds  or you may see it pause before resuming it's circular motion around the clock.  Either way it is a way to perceive time in a different manner.  One in which, possibly, time doesn't stops, for even a moment.

Getting rid of worry! (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra)

     I learned a long time ago that when we feel guilt we are living in the past and when we are worried we are living in the future.  The present time cannot exist when we are feeling guilty or worried.  Chopra says in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, "When your attention is in the past or the future, you are in the field of time, creating aging."  He continues, by asking, "At this instant, where are the past and future?"  His answer is, "Nowhere."  The present moment is the only moment that exists.  If you are still not convinced think of it this way, the past and the future are only mental projections.  That's it.  In other words, we are missing the present moment, the only real moment. 
     When I worry about the future it impinges on my present.  Plus, what good does worrying do anyway?  When I worry it's usually the worst possible outcome, when in reality the worst usually does not happen.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  I think it's a way of protecting ourselves by preparing for the worst so we can handle it if it happens.  I think this is nuts.  Why prepare yourself for the worst when you can prepare yourself for the best?  Then, if it is something really bad, know that God will not give you more than you can handle and that you will have all the tools you need for whatever situation comes your way.  Now, that's refreshing.  Good bye worry...Hello today!

Explaining Time (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra)

     Time exists for us because we need to explain change.  We are ever evolving human beings.  Everyday we are learning and growing and thus changing.  In order to explain change we perceive it as time.  Chopra says, "...the perception of change creates our experience of time." in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.  Mainly, reality for us is what we physically see and change helps us to perceive time.  Chopra is suggesting that time only exists for this need to quantify time.  So, if we didn't have this perception then time is really not a one-way street only moving forward.  Where in quantum space, "...multidimensional strings and loops carry time in all directions and even bring it to a halt."
     Can you imagine a life where you don't have to worry about time?  I used to worry about having enough time to write this blog.  What I've learned is that if I trust that it will happen then it does.  I don't need to worry.  If I skip a day, that's ok too.  I prefer not stressing over having enough time or that there isn't enough time much more than stressing about time when that doesn't add anything to my life except stress and worry.  Ha!

More Peace in Your Daily Life (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra)

     Our body and mind are connected.  We have control over our bodies with our minds on many different levels, including, our psychological and physical states.  Our bodies are not mindless machines but they are "...infused with the deep intelligence of life, whose sole purpose is to sustain you." states Chopra in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.  Futhermore, we are connected to all, there is no separateness.  When we think in these terms war cannot exist.  Chopra explains that, "In harmony there is no violence." 
     In my opinion, when I think in terms of connectedness to all, I feel more love toward all.  When I see myself as one with friends, family and strangers, I can begin to have compassion for their way of doing things that are different from mine.  Knowing that we are going through different yet similar experiences I can understand that they are living their life just like I am living mine.  How can I be angry or upset with anyone for doing the same thing that I'm doing?  They just have a different interpretation and perception than I do.  I may not understand because I haven't been through what someone else has gone through but I can be compassionate for the human experience shared amongst all.  In this way, I can be more compassionate to all that I am connected with, which just happens to be all that surrounds me.

Are we ageless? (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra)

     It's odd, yet true.  Our biology is affected by what we think and feel.  "We possess the only nervous system that is aware of the phenomenon of aging." states Deepak Chopra in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.  Furthermore, our immune system is affected when depressed and in contrast, falling in love can boost it.  The connectedness of our mind and body is a direct link.  I know when I have been stressed I have gotten a cold or when I'm taking care of myself, I feel good physically and mentally.  Chopra explains that the way we think and feel has an effect on how we age.  We do have the option of how we perceive time and life.  Chopra says, "I want to convince you that you are much more than your limited body, ego, and personality...At its deepest level, your body is ageless, your mind timeless."
     This seems to make sense to me on some deeper level.  Why do some people age so quickly, while others do not?  How can you sense when someone has an old soul or is young at heart?  I think time is our perception of life but I'm not convinced yet that we are ageless.

The Land Where No One is Old (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra)

     Chopra challenges us to go on a journey where "...the rules of everyday existence do not apply."  These rules include the belief, "...that to grow old, become frail, and die is the ultimate destiny of all." He wants us to suspend these belief while we read this book and become open to a new reality, "...where youthful vigor, renewal, creativity, joy, fulfillment, and time-lessness are the common experience of everyday life, where old age, senility, infirmity, and death do not exist and are not even entertained as a possibility."
     I'm looking forward to this journey  Chopra.  Aging, getting old, and "the end" can seem scary because it is uncertain.  But isn't that what this whole life is about?  Exploring, learning, finding out new things every single day.  New challenges and lessons throughout all of life to keep it interesting.  I take your challenge, Chopra and will be open to the idea that aging is a belief that man made up.

Aging is reversible (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Deepak Chopra)

     In Ageless Body, Timeless Mind Deepak Chopra claims that aging is reversible and that time is relevant to how we perceive it.    Deepak says, "I'm convinced that if you do the exercises in this book, you will dramatically slow down and even reverse the aging process."  Now that's exciting!

Deepak summarizes the main principles in his book.

1. Aging is reversible  
2. Aging, or entropy, is accelerated by the accumulation of toxins in the body.  
3. Physical exercise, including weight training, has a direct effect on the bio-markers of aging and will reverse the aging process.  
4. Proper nutrition and nutritional supplements, including antioxidants, are a very useful adjunct in slowing down the aging process.  
5. Meditation lowers biological age.  
6. Love is the most powerful and potent medicine.  It heals but it also renews.

     He believes that your experience with time depicts the time you have.  For example, if you feel like you are "running out of time," your biological clock will speed up.  In contrast, if you feel "you have all the time in the world," your biological clock will slow down explains Deepak Chopra.  Time is how you live it.  What is time like for you?  For me, it goes by quickly during the work week and slowly on the weekend.  I'm busy during both times but I feel like I do so many different things on the weekend that it surprises me that I can do so much in two days.  Maybe that's why it feels longer...my perception.