Face Yoga - A Natural Approach To Getting Rid Of Wrinkles

Tired of all those lines and wrinkles that are part and parcel of the aging process? Not willing to have your face sliced and diced, or injected with toxins like Botox that will freeze your face in place, and make you look like one of the Stepford Wives or worse yet, Pinocchio minus the nose? Then 'Face Yoga' might just be the thing for you. The following 2 videos from howdini.com give you some facial yoga exercises to help with those pesky wrinkles.

If nothing else, they're a hoot to watch.

For more Face Yoga facial exercises, click here.

Martin Luther King, Jr's Words Of Wisdom- Building A Creative Temple

Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Cut down in his prime. But his speeches and sermons will live on forever.

Everyone is familiar with his wonderful "I Have A Dream" speech, but some lesser known ones, with a spiritual bent rather than political bent, are just as impressive and inspiring. So, I share this one from his "Building A Creative Temple".

Whenever you set out to build a creative temple, whatever it may be, you must face the fact that there is a tension at the heart of the universe between good and evil. Hinduism refers to this as a struggle between illusion and reality. Platonic philosophy used to refer to it as a tension between body and soul. Zoroastrianism, a religion of old, used to refer to it as a tension between the god of light and the god of darkness. Traditional Judaism and Christianity refer to it as a tension between God and Satan. Whatever you call it, there is a struggle in the universe between good and evil.

Now not only is that struggle structured out somewhere in the external forces of the universe, it’s structured in our own lives. Psychologists have tried to grapple with it in their way, and so they say various things. Sigmund Freud used to say that this tension is a tension between what he called the id and the superego. Some of us feel that it’s a tension between God and man. And in every one of us this morning, there’s a war going on. It’s a civil war. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there’s something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It’s going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There’s a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us. [...] There’s a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.

In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives. In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right. Salvation isn’t reaching the destination of absolute morality, but it’s being in the process and on the right road.

And the question I want to raise this morning with you: is your heart right? If your heart isn’t right, fix it up today. Get somebody to be able to say about you, "He may not have reached the highest height, he may not have realized all of his dreams, but he tried." Isn’t that a wonderful thing for somebody to say about you? "He tried to be a good man. He tried to be a just man. He tried to be an honest man. His heart was in the right place." And I can hear a voice saying, crying out through the eternities, "I accept you. You are a recipient of my grace because it was in your heart. And it is so well that it was within thine heart."

I don’t know this morning about you, but I can make a testimony. You don’t need to go out this morning saying that Martin Luther King is a saint. Oh, no. I want you to know this morning that I’m a sinner like all of God’s children. But I want to be a good man. And I want to hear a voice saying to me one day, "I take you in and I bless you, because you try. It is well that it was within thine heart."

Happy 2011- Start Anew With A Clean Slate

I realize January 1st is just another ordinary day, but for some reason the fact that it's the beginning of a New Year, somehow signals change. It's a little like the feelings we get when the long, dog days of summer turn into the invigorating, crispness of autumn. We feel renewed and invigorated, ready to take on the world.

A New Year brings with it a clean, unwritten slate, ready to be written on. Not that we can't look at each day that we wake up as a chance to change our world- in fact we should-, but for some reason the New Year seems special in that way. It's a time to take stock of our lives and see what we want to hang on to, throw out with the old, or improve. I like to write down, not so much my resolutions for the year, but the things I want to manifest in all areas of my life, from the physical to the spiritual.

The last two years have been challenging on many levels, from the physical to the material, but I am about to list all the things that I want to improve, or change, or manifest in my life for the upcoming year. Writing those things down makes a difference. Don't worry about accomplishing them, just make the effort. And while you're at it, make a gratitude list. That is something we should do on a daily basis. You'll be surprised at how many blessings we actually have.

I wish you all a very blessed, happy and prosperous New Year. You have a new beginning, a clean slate- take advantage and make it the best ever.

It Is Better To Give Than Receive- Narayanan Krishnan One Of CNNs Top Ten Heroes Of 2010

In the Bible (Acts 20:35) it is said that "It is more blessed to give than to receive", but most any one with a spiritual nature knows this to be true. Most every religion encourages the act of giving, and although it's lovely to be on the receiving end of gifts, in whatever form those gifts might take, it's an even greater high to be able to give to others. The act of "giving" can take many different forms- from monetary donations and gifts of kind, to the gift of time. Some people practice this on an occasional basis, whereas others make it their life's work.

Take award-winning Indian chef Narayanan Krishnan who chucked his bright future after a short visit to his home town before returning to Europe:

"I saw a very old man eating his own human waste for food," Krishnan said. "It really hurt me so much. I was literally shocked for a second. After that, I started feeding that man and decided this is what I should do the rest of my lifetime."

Krishnan was visiting a temple in the south Indian city of Madurai in 2002 when he saw the man under a bridge. Haunted by the image, Krishnan quit his job within the week and returned home for good, convinced of his new destiny.

"That spark and that inspiration is a driving force still inside me as a flame -- to serve all the mentally ill destitutes and people who cannot take care of themselves," Krishnan said.

Shortly thereafter, he founded his Akshaya Trust foundation, and since 2003 has dedicated his life to feeding the predominately elderly and mentally ill poor within 125 miles of his home town. Truly selfless, Krishnan and his foundation survive on donations and a pittance of rent he gets from a home he was given by his grandfather. He does not pay himself, sleeps in the kitchen with a few other co-workers, and survives with help from his parents, who initially balked at his new career choice.

"They had a lot of pain because they had spent a lot on my education," he said. "I asked my mother, 'Please come with me, see what I am doing.' After coming back home, my mother said, 'You feed all those people, the rest of the lifetime I am there, I will feed you.' I'm living for Akshaya. My parents are taking care of me."

Krishan was nominated for- and won -one of CNN's Top Ten Heroes of 2010. And well deserved. If you feel like donating to his foundation you can donate via Paypal , or perhaps this will inspire you to donate to some organization that helps the poor in your home town.

What I admire most about Krishnan, however, is the fact that he is not only feeding the poor with food to sustain them, he is also providing them with love. Feeding Souls is as important as feeding mouths. I also love the fact that all donations go directly to helping the poor and not to administrative costs, including the huge salaries that some CEOs at charitable organizations often get. Bravo Krishan, may your organization grow and prosper.



Source: CNN

Giving Thanks On Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving isn't just a time to gorge on Turkey or Tofurkey along with all the various fixings that are part and parcel of the autumnal harvest celebration. Yes, it's wonderful to spend time with family and friends munching on all the yummy dishes we come to expect- the yams, the cranberry sauce and stuffing, the mashed potatoes, the pumpkin and apple pies. But we should also take stock of the blessings in our lives, be they few or abundant. There is always something to be grateful and thankful for, whether it's having a roof over our heads and food on the table, or a job, or good health, or the fact that we are alive.

I wish you all a bountiful and blessed Thanksgiving in the company and warmth of good friends and family.

Recipe For A Disastrous Life- What you cook up in your mind you create

RECIPE FOR A DISASTROUS LIFE

1 cup of Negativity

1 cup of Lack of Faith

3/4 cup of Fear

1/2 cup of Doubt

1/4 cup of Resentment

4 heaping teaspoons of Jealousy

A dash of Regret

In the Bible's 'Book Of Proverbs', Chapter 23, Verse 7, it was written "As A Man Thinketh In His Heart, So Is He". James Allen, back in 1902, wrote a short essay entitled "As A Man Thinketh" which was inspired by that biblical verse. Many other spiritually enlightened individuals have also spoken about how our thoughts create our reality. In other words, if we continuously allow all the negative emotions and thoughts that inevitably arise within our minds on a daily basis to sit there and fester, we will only attract negativity into our lives. There is no way we can prosper, on any level, with negativity clouding our hearts and minds; and there is absolutely no way GOD can work through our lives with that darkness hanging over us.

With our day to day challenges, and particularly in these hard economic times, it can be very difficult to maintain a positive attitude. When we lose our jobs and can't pay our bills, or we have health issues that seem insurmountable, it's of tantamount importance to ramp up the faith factor even more. As hard as it might be to think positively while struggling through the storm of life, we must force ourselves to change the negative thoughts that slam into our minds like a hurricane, into positive ones. But it won't help if we just simply pay lip service by changing a negative to a positive, we must truly believe what we are affirming. Affirmations, of course, are a start, but we must change our whole mindset from one of lack and limitation to one of prosperity. Of course, prosperity means different things to different people; for me, the most important things one can have are shelter, food on the table, the love of friends and family, and good health to enjoy life. The rest is icing on the cake.

We need to remove all negativity in our lives, which means eliminating- fear, doubt, lack of faith, resentment, jealousy, regret, judgement, worry, anger. These things act as major impediments to a fruitful, joyous life.

Thought in the mind hath made us. What we are
By thought we wrought and built. If a man's mind
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes
The wheel the ox behind . . . If one endure in purity
of thought joy follows him as his own shadow - sure.

To download Allen's e-booklet for free, click here. Or to read it on-line, click here.

Lala The Penguin Pet

This is one to make you smile.

On Unconditional Love- GoD and DoG by Wendy J. Francisco

Unconditional love. Not many of us know what that truly means. We often 'love' others with conditions. We expect them to love us in return and often punish them when they don't. Unconditional love is loving someone without conditions, pre-conditions or obligations, and is not something that comes easily to us humans. Two great examples of unconditional love are GOD and dogs, and Wendy J Francisco has penned a lovely little song about just that. She explains here how she came up with the idea for the song. Someone apparently claimed it was blasphemy to compare God with a dog, but that's really not her point, as she explains and as I understood it.

I think it's just a wonderful example of how important it is to be forgiving and unconditional.