I have presented the following as 'a symphony of voices' -
INTRODUCTION
Throughout the ages, pioneers have been challenging the accepted belief systems of the populace, and producing major evolutionary leaps: "The Earth is the centre of the Universe" gave way to the understanding that the earth revolves around the sun. "The Earth is flat" fell away when Columbus did not fall over the edge. The Wright Brothers also flew us into another reality as have countless others. I will be postulating in the words to follow that the belief system "death is inevitable" will have a similar fate.
Life is about living with passion and vitality. Creatively following our dreams with fun, joy, love and lots of laughter. If your life can be described in these terms there is no way you would want to become physically incapacitated by age and then die.
The scenario of "ageing" as we have known it, illness and death are being challenged from many different directions - medical science, quantum physics, alternative medicine and spirituality to name a few.
I have been living and researching the possibility of Radical Healthy life extension with the ultimate possibility of physical Immortality since 1992. Let me share with you the insights I have gained over that time. I encourage you to look within, listen to your own inner voice and see whether its softly singing the same melody of life. The notes may vary but the theme of Life, Life and more Life is the same.
Let's now explore this realm of LIFE.
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WHY DO I FEEL THAT RADICAL HEALTHY LIFE EXTESION IS POSSIBLE?
To answer this question I will begin from the viewpoint of medical science. Medical science is largely based on Newtonian Physics and sees the body as solid matter. We have seen major advances in medical science particularly over the last 100 plus years. In Australia, the average age of death in the late 1800's was 40 - the average age of death now is around 80. We have seen a doubling of life expectancy over that time. A doubling of life expectancy was achieved even though the populace believed "death was inevitable"! A major factor for the increased life expectancy was the decrease in childhood death rate due largely to medical science. Large amounts of time, energy and resources are now being channelled into geriatric medicine which will probably achieve even more profound results. A very conservative estimate of average life span 100 years from now, based on what we've seen in the last 100 years, is a further doubling to 160.
There have been two wonderful books written in the last few years which chronicle the advances in medical research which are leading to, not just increased longevity, but Physical Immortality - they are: "The Last Mortal Generation" by Damien Broderick and "Immortality" by Ben Bova.
Damien Broderick commences his book by saying, "Some time during the 21st Century, ordinary humans like you and me - or our children or grandchildren - will be offered new medical treatments that will lead, eventually, to physical immortality. Science and technology, to be more precise, will provide the option of indefinitely extended youthfulness. That will be the start of an epoch when old age is unknown and nobody ever again will need to die ...".
Ben Bova begins his book with equally powerful comments - "The first immortal human beings are probably living among us today. You might be one of them. There are men and woman alive today who may well be able to live for centuries, perhaps
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even extend their life spans indefinitely. For them, death will not be inevitable. As the American Immunologist William R Clark put it, "Death is not inextricably intertwined with the definition of life". Just because human beings have always died does not mean that they always will die".
The areas of medical research discussed in Broderick and Bova's books include Gene Therapy, Regeneration/Cloning and Nanotechnology.
Damien Broderick reports on a biological discovery instantly dubbed a "cellular fountain of youth". In 1998 researchers Woodring Wright and Jerry Shay of the University of Texas, South Western Medical Centre at Dallas, and their colleagues at Geron Corporation - "Had found a way to extend the mortal life span of typical human cells cultured in the lab, using an enzyme, telomerase, usually restricted to only a few of the bodies tissues (to be more exact, the cells were given an artificial gene construct coding for a part of the telomerase enzyme)".
"A full six months after that epoch making announcement, Wright told me that the treated cells continue to divide long after they normally would have perished from old age. The untreated control cells had reached senescence (in effect standard fatal old age for such cells) at about 65 divisions. By July 1998, the treated cells, by contrast, had reached 180 - 200 divisions and were still alive. "Thus" Wright added, "one could say they have now doubled - tripled their lifespan". These, remember, are normal, healthy human cells. What's more, they show no signs of malignant transformation into tumerous cancers, usually the price paid by body cells that keep dividing beyond the usual shut down point. In January 1999, cells were still healthy, at some 300 divisions!"
Ben Bova tells us of successful research in the area of tissue regeneration - "at the 1997 meeting of the American Heart Association, two research teams revealed that they had used gene therapy to coax the body to grow fresh arteries as natural bypasses for clogged blood vessels. Scientists from St Elizabeth
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Medical Centre in Boston reported that they had injected 20 patients with a laboratory produced version of the human gene that makes a protein, vascular endothelial growth factor, which spurs the growth of blood vessels in human fetuses. 16 of the 20 patients, who suffered from severely clogged arteries in their legs, grew new arteries that carry blood around the clogged vessels. The constant pain that had afflicted them has been relieved and they have been spared the need for leg amputations. Several of the patients have even started to grow toe nails again. The second team, from Brigham Women's Hospital in Boston, is using similar gene therapy to make coronary by-pass surgery work better ... a pair of Harvard researchers announced that they had grown replacement organs - including hearts, kidneys and bladders - for lab rats, rabbits and sheep. They used the animals own cells as the starting material, grew the new organs in the laboratory, and then implanted them surgically into the animals ... and it won't stop there. If new organs can be grown in the laboratory, why can't you grow new organs or limbs in your own body? ..."
Bova also reports on Nanotechnology - "Nano is the scientific/technical prefix for a billionth. It comes from the Latin word for dwarf. Nanotechnology deals with machines that are measured in nanometres, billionths of a metre (a nanometre is not quite a quarter/millionth of an inch) Drexler's envisioned nanomachines are about the size of viruses. The basic idea behind nanotechnology is that if you could build machines the size of viruses, they would be able to work with individual atoms and molecules ... we would enter an era molecular engineering in Drexler's phrase, nanomachines are molecular manipulators ... now picture nanomachines at work inside your body, breaking down plaque on your artery walls, tearing apart invading microbes ... rebuilding worn or diseased tissues wherever they are found, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. ... but Drexler's vision is more than a dream. Research on nanotechnology is underway at Universities and laboratories in Britain, Japan and elsewhere, as well as MIT, Stanford, Cornell, The University of Michigan, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs, SRI International and other research institutions in the United States".
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Fascinating new treatments and research - both books contain page after page of exciting possibilities. Also, remember that the time between a creative theory and a physical reality is reducing. Technology is advancing rapidly. Yesterday's magic becomes today's science and tomorrow's reality.
As I stated before, western medicine is based mainly on Newtonian physics with the body being seen as solid matter. I spent 20 years studying and practising western medicine. From that purely solid matter perspective, I know that your body is a miracle. The orchestration of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry required just to move your little finger is awe inspiring. You are a miracle becoming more miraculous the more we learn about the body. If you don't feel this way about your body get hold of a basic physiology and biochemistry book or do a course. Learn about the miracle that is you. When you realise how miraculous your body already is, Radical Healthy Life Extension / Physical Immortality will seem logical. For a body that creates miracles with every breath, nothing is impossible. Give thanks for your body on a daily basis - your life will be enhanced immeasurably.
Now let's start shifting your viewpoint from Newtonian - solid matter - physics towards Einsteinian - quantum, energy - physics. Deepak Chopra in his book "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind" gives us a view of our body at the atomic level - still solid matter but close to the border between matter and energy. " ... your body must live on the wings of change. At this moment, you are exhaling atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, that just an instant before were locked up in solid matter; your stomach, liver, heart, lungs and brain are vanishing into thin air, being replaced as quickly and endlessly as they are being broken down. The skin replaces itself once a month, the stomach lining every five days, the liver every six weeks and the skeleton every three months. To the naked eye, these organs look the same from moment to moment, but they are always in flux. By the end of this year, 98% of the atoms in your body will have been exchanged for new ones".
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And you thought the body you woke up with this morning was the same one as yesterday morning - and I'm not talking about your sleeping partner! "The only constant in life is change" - true at all levels of reality, just more obvious as we edge towards the quantum reality.
Just before we leave the solid matter reality - most experts say that we use less than 10% of our brain capacity, have you ever wondered what the other 90% is for???
The second viewpoint from which I will explore the possibility of Radical healthy life extension is quantum physics. The level at which matter becomes energy.
In "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind", Deepak Chopra describes this level - "Your body appears to be composed of solid matter that can be broken down into molecules and atoms, but quantum physics tells
us that every atom is more than 99.9999% empty space, and the sub-atomic particles moving at lightening speed through this space are actually bundles of vibrating energy. These vibrations aren't random and meaningless, however, they carry information ... the essential stuff of the Universe, including your body, is non-stuff, but it isn't ordinary non-stuff, it's thinking non-stuff".
I prefer to call it intelligent energy. So the body has moved from a solid object to a fluid river of energy. With this understanding, to me the body has become similar to a flow of potter's clay, to be moulded at will by the potter. Who's the potter - your spiritual self, your mental self, your emotional self - perhaps all of the above?
And remember the energy is intelligent - is this intelligence your spiritual self waiting to be moulded by your mental, emotional selves or perhaps wishing to be allowed to be manifest into material reality without obstruction? You will have your own thoughts - however we have established our so called solid, material reality is very ephemeral (can you imagine 99.9999% empty space) and fluid.
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The knowledge of physical matter, including your body, as intelligent energy - ephemeral and fluid - helps us to understand the abilities of spiritual adepts. Some of these adepts are reported to be able to walk through "solid" walls - as it's actually 99.9999% empty space, maybe it's not that difficult.
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Martial arts adepts who can snap a slab of concrete as easily as a match stick - 99.9999% space.
Deepak Chopra tell s us "India, China, Japan and to a lesser extent the Christian west have given birth to sages who realised their essential nature as a flow of intelligence. By preserving that flow and nurturing it year after year, they overcame entropy from a deeper level of nature. In India, the flow of intelligence is called prana (usually translated as life force), which can be increased and decreased at will, moved here and there, and manipulated to keep the physical body orderly and young".
More about spiritual adepts when we get to that section.
Scientists say the quantum realm is full of quirkiness and uncertainty. One such quirk is that the vibrating energy/particle exists as a probability wave and depends on being observed to find it's space/time position - the observer is an important part of the equation - what does this mean to our every day reality? How much power do you have to shape your reality - a quote I once read springs to mind "The Universe rearranges itself to suit your version of reality".
At the quantum level everything is possible!
The next viewpoint that has helped me to feel the possibility Radical Healthy Life Extension is alternative medicine. This area is growing rapidly - new ways of achieving and maintaining health are being developed all the time. Many branches of alternative medicine are based on vibrational energy similar to
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Einsteinian quantum physics. Many eastern countries and indigenous cultures knew of this reality long before western science. The ancient Rishis in India knew of sub-atomic particles many years before the birth of Christ. The chakra system from India, the acupuncture meridian system from China, colour therapy from the Egyptians and others, flower essences used by the native American and Australian aboriginal people are all examples of vibrational energy medicine. These therapies seem to be manipulating energy at a quantum level.
Breathing techniques, such as Re-birthing, are also achieving significant healing. Leonard Orr, who created Re-birthing, is an Immortalist who came to this understanding through his own healing process during the mid 1960's. Sondra Ray, initially a student of Leonard Orr, has written a great book on Physical Immortality called "How to be Chic, Fabulous and Live Forever" - she says of Re-birthing that "Re-birthing is one of the main tools we use to purify ourselves. It is a simple breathing process that should be done only with highly trained Re-birthers who understand how the birth trauma and the death urge are related in a person's consciousness. Breathing in a connected, smooth, rhythmic, circular way in the presence of another Immortalist makes all the difference in the world. Your cells get happy. They become alive. Tremendous energy comes in, old death programming gets pushed out. ... Re-birthing, although it appears subtle is an extremely powerful and sacred process and should be done correctly. It should always be taught along with the concept of Physical Immortality ...".
Many healer's and self help writers are working with the spirit - mind - emotions - body connection to great effect. Louise Hay in her book "You Can Heal Your Life" suggests that belief systems which are not life affirming; blocked and distorted emotional expression and lack of connection to spiritual essence cause the majority of illnesses. Her books which include life affirming statements have improved the health and lives of countless people around the world.
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The health of your body connected to thoughts, words and emotions. All within your power to effect! All within your power to create Life, Life and more Life!
I will now consider Radical Healthy Life Extension from the spiritual perspective. It pervades spiritual /religious traditions as Physical Immortality. The philosophy of Physical Immortality is one of living from an open, loving heart; being focused in the now, creating much joy, abundance and freedom. Throughout spiritual literature advanced Immortals are reported to be able to dematerialise and rematerialise their bodies at will, teleport from place to place and manifest whatever material requirement they have from "thin air". They have perfected Liberty and can move from dimension to dimension taking their physical body with them. The Immortalist writer Annalee Skarin said that "Death was the dingy back door entrance to the heavenly realms".
Most of the major religions, if one delves deeply enough, contain evidence of a physically immortal impulse. The Judaic - Christian religion claims the following advanced Immortals - Enoch, Elijah, Melchizedek, Moses, Jesus, Mary and John the Disciple. Robert Coon's excellent book "Physical Immortality: History, Theory and Techniques" gives us further insights - "Enoch is considered the oldest physically immortal being in our western tradition. His bodily translation is mentioned in Genesis and in Hebrews in the New Testament ... after becoming familiar with Immortalist concepts - study the gospel of John in the New Testament, concise statements about Physical Immortality leap forth from almost every chapter. Consider these lines from chapter 8: Know the truth and the truth will set you free! I tell to you the Truth, if a man keeps my teachings, he will never see death. I find it most peculiar that those who insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible manage to explain away all of the innumerable references to bodily Immortality as meaning something other than what is plainly there! ... Elijah is the most prominent Immortal in Jewish Esoteric traditions, there are many reports of him materialising in the flesh to devout Hassidic Rabi's in Eastern Europe. All Master's of Cabala claim to have mastered their art from face - to - face meetings with Elijah. True Cabala is
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always an oral tradition passed from Immortal to student ... In contemporary Christian Esoteric thought, there is a strong tradition which says that there is an inner church descending from John which preserves the truth of Physical Immortality. When this inner church re-unites with the outer lineage descending from Peter and Paul, then Christ's true teachings on Everlasting Life will be understood and welcomed by the world!".
The Mormon religion speaks of the 3 Nephi Immortals. In the Book of Mormon Nephi - Chapter 28 - there is a story of Jesus asking the 12 Disciples he had in the America's what they would like from him before he leaves. Three of them want Physical Immortality, Jesus says "Therefore, more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death". The story goes on to say of the three Nephi that - "they were cast into the prison by them who did not belong to the church. And the prisons could not hold them, for they were rent in twain ... and thrice they were cast into a furnace and received no harm. And twice they were cast into a den of wild beasts; and behold they did play with the beasts as a child with a suckling lamb, and received no harm ...".
The Taoist Religion, founded by the Immortal Lao Tzu, claims many Immortals. According to Robert Coon the T'u shu chi ch'eng, a general encyclopaedia published in 1726, contains the biographies of over 1000 Immortals.
The Japanese Shinto prophet Munetada has these teachings about Physical Immortality - "When the heart of the Divine and the heart of man are One, this is Eternal Life, then there is no such thing as death. If you foster a spirit that regards both good and evil as blessings, then the body spontaneously becomes healthy. In Truth the Way is easy. He who spends his day in thankfulness grows neither old nor weary. He knows only Joy and Happiness. Oh the Joy of those who take the teaching of the Way of the Gods; for them there is neither youth nor age. If the heart is open, then there is no such thing as pain. Thus one will find only happiness and thankfulness in all things".
Many other areas of spiritual wisdom are explored in Robert Coon's book "Physical Immortality; History, Theory and Techniques". I will conclude this section with a word from Robert - "Immortal's make no apologies for being absolutely in love with Life! .... Immortal philosophy and experience unites the Creator and the Creation into One, Divine Whole. The body is experienced as the most sacred temple of truth which is destined never to be destroyed. All matter is sacred, alive and Divine. The Divine is absolutely attached to Life! ... "
Now you have seen why I feel Radical Healthy Life Extension/ Physical Immortality is possible - lets move on to the next question.
WHY WOULD YOU WANT RADICAL HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION OR PHYSICALLY IMMORTALITY?
THE VISION
At this point, I would like you to take a few minutes to visualise or imagine for yourself what it would be like to be Radically Healthy /Physically Immortal. Close your eyes and see yourself vibrantly healthy and Physically Immortal. At least 60% of the people in your community are also Physically Immortal. What does it feel like? What changes do you sense within the community?
When we do this exercise in my seminars, people report feeling a deep peace and joy. They are free from fear and tension, they can relax completely.
The peace envisioned is not dull, boring peace but dynamic peace - full of excitement, creativity and fun!
What I see for the individual is a move away from struggle into flow and ease. Connecting fully with their own truth, direction and creativity.
Allowing themselves to be fully in their joy and
supporting others to do the same. Loving themselves and others unconditionally - ongoing health requires all of this to occur.
What do I envision for the community? More time to play - be creative, play sport, sing, dance, be entertained. This trend has already begun in Western Countries over the last 40 years. Ben Bova makes this comment - "Will an ageing - but still vigourous - population create demands for new jobs? In states where large numbers of retirees live today, the entertainment, travel and sports industries are booming. Florida and Arizona, for example, boast more golf courses than hospitals. An ageing population does not automatically mean an economic slowdown. Instead it means a different mix of business opportunities. And jobs".
Can you imagine the money that could be redirected if people stop getting sick and incapacitated. To give you an idea here's Ben Bova again with some figures from America - "The Alliance For Ageing Research has estimated that if people over 65 could remain healthy and active the nation would save some 5 Billion Dollars per month in government and private spending for health care for the elderly".
Moving into a space of loving ourselves and others unconditionally will mean less money spent on defence weapons. When I was marching for peace in the early 1980's, it was estimated that the amount of money being spent on nuclear arms was 1 million dollars per minute. This money could be redirected to help educate and feed people in developing countries, the world would be transformed.
Herb Bowie in his book "Why Die - A Beginner's Guide to Living Forever" commences his book with his vision for "Immortality in the 21st Century" - here's some passages - "2021 - Population Growth Stabilises - People who had been worried about over population by now realised that their fears had been misplaced. Although birth rates remained high in the diminishing number of relatively poor countries, they continued to decline in the richer countries and especially among the lifers. These declining birth rates more than made up for the decrease in death rates. It was not that these longer lived
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people lost any interest in children - on the contrary, they seemed to enjoy them more than ever. At the same time, the Immortality groups offered a new social structure that allowed fewer children to be enjoyed by more people and allowed them to be shared across traditional family boundaries .... The declining birth rates also seemed to be caused by other more subtle factors ... Also, as people's lives lengthened, and the prospect of living even longer became more real, they seemed less driven to achieve Immortality through their offspring. Finally, the adult lifers were more child like themselves, and seemed to rely less on the presence of children for that quality of joy so often associated with childhood ... 2027: Work Lives Change Dramatically - Widespread changes had taken place in people's working lives. Fears of a huge population of retired senior citizens utterly depleting their various pensions and retirement funds had proven ironically unfounded. Research, in fact, had confirmed many people's suspicions that retirement was inherently incompatible with radical life extension ... 2048: Global Environment Improves ... These technological advances were some of the factors contributing to a gradual turn around of the environmental decline that had plagued the world since the beginning of the industrial revolution. A more immediate cause though was the increased motivation of the voting population to do something about these problems. The simple truth was that asking people to save the earth for future generations had never worked very well. Now that people were concerned with saving it for themselves, they focused on the issues at hand with insistence ... the United Nations in this year announced that, for the first time since they began tracking the relevant statistics, the earth's environment had actually improved over the past year. The hard work was not over, but the world had turned the corner ...... 2062: A New World Order - Scientists had firmly established that emotions of human suppression, prejudice and hostility were life threatening for the subjects as well as the object of these feelings. This realisation had gradually replaced strong feelings of racism, nationalism and separatism with an expanding acceptance of all human beings as fellow citizens of the world ... it was in this year that all the countries of the world turned their national defence systems over to the control of the United Nations, to be used for peace keeping missions only ..."
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Will we be building a heaven on earth with this Vision? I feel we will.
Ben Bova says - "In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ exhorts the multitude, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5.48) Might we dare to interpret this as a command to become the best we can, not only morally but physically, mentally, emotionally? Might not Christ be telling us that we are expected to build heaven here on earth, to reach for perfection, here and now?
Might not heaven be a place and a time that we build for ourselves, the way an eager, intelligent child builds a sand castle on the beach under the watchful eye of his protective father?"
Robert Coon in his book "The Science of Everlasting Life" says - "During this Millenium, heaven on earth shall be created. Death shall be abolished from the human race ... The millenium is the culmination and result of all spiritual endeavours from every culture and time ... how long will it take for Paradise to be established within this millennium? As soon as now - or as long as 2000 years? The rapidity with which pain, suffering and death are abolished, and universal, joyous Immortality established is directly dependant on how fast and effectively the Science and Art of Everlasting Life is communicated to all Beings!"
The vision is powerful - if it excites you, you will want to move onto the next section of techniques for life enhancement!
HOW DO I CREATE LIFE, LIFE AND MORE JOYOUS LIFE?
To answer this question, I will present life affirming ideas and techniques in the four categories: Spiritual, Mental, Emotional and Physical. There is, of course, no separation between these levels - when we use techniques to energise ourselves at one level, it creates effects at all levels.
SPIRITUAL LEVEL
With Radical Healthy Life Extension / Physical Immortality philosophy we are moving from the Spiritual Law of Karma to the Law of Grace.
Law of Karma >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Law of Grace
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Forgiveness/Gratitude
Praise
Love
The Law of Karma - "As we sow so shall we reap", "An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth". This law of cause and effect has created much hatred, resentment and retribution which has led to pain, suffering and death. By using the energies of forgiveness/gratitude, praise and love we transcend the Karmic Law and move into a State of Grace.
We are cosmic script writers - with Karma we create murder mysteries, war and horror movies, soap opera's and emotional dramas of the highest order. With Grace - romantic comedies, enchantment movies, travel adventures and musicals become popular. Review your own cosmic script, maybe it needs a rewrite!
Praise, Love and Gratitude are very powerful qualities to embrace. They will move you from Karma to Grace. Praise the Divine in all things. Robert Coon in his book "The Science of Everlasting Life" says - "Praise is a fiery energy that purifies. Cultivate an enthusiastic spiritual fire within and bathe and anoint all creation with this cleansing flame. Praise glorifies the Creation and reveals the Immortal presence of the Creator".
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Unconditional love of self and all others allows freedom of expression. Once we love every aspect of ourselves unconditionally we automatically love others unconditionally.
Gratitude is very powerful for moving from Karma to Grace. Robert Coon in his book "Voyage to Avalon" has this to say - "As you explore the subterranean recesses of the heart, let the lamp of joyous gratitude light thy way ... often you experience the same Karmic event time after time until you react with gratitude - only then do you make the evolutionary jump to new dimensions of life. The Law of Grace is far more powerful than the Law of Karma .... ".
Gratitude multiplies blessings. Start using gratitude for the good things in your life, see your focus change and the blessings in your life increase. Gratitude allows you to see the cup half full, not half empty.
For the situations that are causing difficulty, use the "Gratitude Bubble",
- 1) Spend a couple of minutes being grateful from the heart for your blessings.
- 2) Visualise the difficult situation or person, bring it into your heart if possible.
- 3) Say or think "Thank you for this situation. I now choose to let this go".
When you commence the "Gratitude Bubble" exercise you will probably not be able to have genuine gratitude radiating from your heart about the difficulty. However, all you need is a willingness to be grateful - the more you do it, the more the understanding will come and you will start to feel true gratitude. The situation will resolve.
Forgiveness is a stepping stone to gratitude. When we become aware that every event in our lives is giving us valuable lessons and insights, we realise there is nothing to forgive. We learn to take responsibility for drawing certain events to ourselves. We,
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also, realise that we can learn through JOY and no longer need to learn through pain and suffering.
MENTAL LEVEL
The most important first step at the mental level is to "BELIEVE RADICAL HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION /PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY IS POSSIBLE!". This opens the way for you to draw information and people to you to assist you in your quest for more life. The old adage "If you believe you can't - you won't, if you believe you can - you will" is very appropriate here. The people who believed that humanity would never create a successful "flying machine" did not invent one!
Another important area to challenge at the mental level is ‘Ageing'. I believe what we call ‘ageing' is actually a chronic dis-ease that we have accepted. Because we believed "death was inevitable" we created a way of fading out of life slowly - "ageing". If we liken our life force to a fully open stream of water - we turned the tap off slowly. It's time to challenge this chronic dis-ease - do not accept anything as a symptom of ‘ageing', see a health professional (at this stage alternative practitioners are usually more helpful in this area, although integrated medicine is becomng more available) if you can't sort out the imbalance yourself. When I was working as a medical doctor, I had people who had only been in this incarnation 26 years say to me that whatever was ailing them "must be their age"!
From his book "Ageless Body Timeless Mind" here is what Deepak Chopra says - "Because the mind influences every cell in the body, human ageing is fluid and changeable, it can speed up, slow down, stop for a time, and even reverse itself. Hundreds of research findings from the last three decades have verified that ageing is much more dependant on the individual than was ever dreamed of in the past ... to challenge ageing at it's core, this entire world view must be challenged first, for nothing holds more power, over the body than beliefs of the mind."
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He goes on to say many pages later " .... We need to overturn the beliefs supported by fear. In place of the belief that your body decays with time, nurture the belief that your body is new at every moment. In place of the belief that your body is a mindless machine, nurture the belief that your body is infused with the deep intelligence of life, whose sole purpose is to sustain you. These new beliefs are not just nicer to live with they are true - we experience the joy of life through our bodies, so it is only natural to believe that our bodies are not set against us but want what we want."
Sondra Ray in "How to be Chic, Fabulous and Live Forever" has this to say about the belief in death and ageing - " ... who would want to live forever in a body that was old, decrepit, and full of pain? Nobody .... But do you know that your body is full of pain, or has any pain, because you are hanging onto the death urge in the first place? Trying to live while holding onto the thought that death is inevitable is like driving a car forward with the gears in reverse and/or with the brakes on. Eventually it just will not work. The body cannot resolve that conflict in the mind. It is getting mixed instructions. Since all pain is the effort involved in clinging to a negative thought, and since the worst anti-life negative thought is death (the opposite of life), then you can begin to see how death thoughts and old age thoughts lead to pain ..."
A study was done in 1976, by psychologist Ellen Langer and her team at Harvard, which demonstrates the power of the mind to reverse ageing. Deepak Chopra describes this study in "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind" - "The subjects, all 75 or older and in good health, were asked to meet for a weeks retreat at a country resort. They were informed in advance that they would be given a battery of physical and mental exams, but in addition one unusual stipulation was placed upon them; they were not allowed to bring any newspapers, magazines, books or family photos dated later than 1959. The purpose of this odd request became clear when they arrived - the resort had been set up to duplicate life as it was 20 years earlier. Instead of magazines from 1979, the reading tables held issues of Life and Saturday Evening Post from 1959. The only music played was 20 years old, and in keeping with this flashback, the men were
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asked to behave entirely as if the year were 1959. All talk had to refer to events and people of that year. Every detail of their week in the country was geared to make each subject feel, look, talk and behave as he had in his mid 50's.
During this period, Langer's team made extensive measurements of the subjects biological age. Gerontologists have not been able to fix the precise markers that define biological age, as I noted earlier, but a general profile was compiled for each man using measurements of physical strength, posture, perception, cognition and short term memory along with thresholds of hearing, sight and taste.
The Harvard team wanted to change the context in which these men saw themselves. The premise of their experiment was that seeing oneself as old or young directly influences the ageing process itself. To shift their context back to 1959 the researchers had their subjects wear ID photo's taken 20 years before - the group learned to identify one another through these pictures rather than present appearance, they were instructed to talk exclusively in the present tense of 1959 ("I wonder if President Eisenhower will go with Nixon next election"); their wives and children were referred to as if they were also 20 years younger; although all the men were retired, they talked about their careers as if they were still in full swing.
The results of this playacting were remarkable. Compared to a control group that went on retreat but continued to live in the world of 1979, the make believe group improved in memory and manual dexterity. They were more active and self sufficient about such things as taking their own food at meals and cleaning up their rooms, behaving much more like 55 year olds than 75 year olds (many had become dependant on younger family members to perform everyday tasks for them).
Perhaps the most remarkable change had to do with aspects of ageing that were considered irreversible. Impartial judges who were asked to study before and after pictures of the men detected that their faces looked visibly younger by an average of three years. Measurements of finger length, which tends to
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shorten with age, indicated that their fingers had lengthened, stiffened joints were more flexible and posture had started to straighten as it had in younger years. The control group also showed some improvements (Langer explained this by the fact that going on a trip and being treated specially made them feel younger too). But the control group actually declined in certain markers such as manual dexterity and finger length. Intelligence is considered fixed in adults, yet over half of the experimental group showed increased intelligence over the five days of their return to 1959, while a quarter of the control group declined in IQ test scores.
Professor Langer's study was a landmark in proving that the so called irreversible signs of ageing could be reversed using psychological intervention."
What a stunning experiment! Those results were obtained in five days! Pause for a few moments and let the meaning of this sink in. These men "youthed" significantly in five days. Become aware of your thoughts, words and actions - they all create results in your reality. Are they contributing to vitality and life or sickness, ageing and death? Positive, life affirming statements commonly known as affirmations, repeated over and over reprograms the subconscious. Louise Hay's "You Can Heal Your Life" contains many wonderful affirmations. Start dismantling your social conditioning today, reprogram your subconscious and watch the miracles begin!
EMOTIONAL LEVEL
My feeling is that for Radical Healthy Life Extension/ Physical Immortality the heart needs to become more fully open and unconditionally loving. All the emotions that are not love need to be re-assessed. That is, the emotions based on fear - hate, anger, resentment, jealousy and so on. Because most of these emotions were judged "socially unacceptable" we have tended to suppress and store these feelings. We learn to respect these feelings, understand them, re-assess them and let them go. Many life enhancing modalities will assist you with this. I found Aura Soma therapy a very powerful tool for my emotional allowing, understanding and balance. It is a colour therapy which also uses the energies of essential oils, herbs and crystals. A wonderful and
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very beautiful medium. I have also had some powerful bodywork sessions..
Music, toning and singing are exciting and joyous ways to explore your emotions. The sound of music has always been very close to my heart!
Breathing techniques are also useful. Robert Coon teaches some interesting ones. Rebirthing, as mentioned in the section on alternative medicine, is a powerful healing tool using the breath.
Sondra Ray from her book "Loving Relationships" has this reminder-"When you finally give up an (old destructive) pattern---
You might feel sad
You might feel lonely
You might feel confused and uncertain
You might feel lost
You might even miss that negative mental mass
You might feel it is like a "little death"
This will pass
Don't fill that void with another problem.
Fill it with LOVE".
An important area to create an unconditionally loving bridge, is the yin/yang. Previously we have been living with the subconscious 'belief' that these are polarised opposites - one 'right' and the other 'wrong' - depending on which 'pole' one chose to 'inhabit'. Yin qualities such as beng, creativity, right brain, feminine qualities etc were deemed 'more right' by some, whilst doing, logic, left brain, masculine qualities were deemed 'more right' by others.
The shift to unconditional love, harmony, co -operation and mutual respect - a beautiful dance of the yin/yang - creates many life affirming miracles
PHYSICAL LEVEL
The first suggested nutritional requirement for an' immortalist' is to become a vegetarian. Immortals consider all life sacred,so a move away from requiring the death of animals is the first step.
The possible progression is as follows:--
Vegetarian > Vegan > Raw food Vegan >
Fruitarian .
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Advanced immortals are believed to be breatharian i.e. all energy and nutrition is derived from divine prana or life force.
If we remember from quantum physics that everything is composed of intelligent energy - the breatharian is utilising this intelligent energy as a source of nutrition. Therese Neumann was a Catholic saint who did not eat for around 26 years - she was breatharian but not immortal. India claims many yogis who do not need to eat or drink. In Autobiography Of A Yogi , the author Paramahansa Yogananda , speaks of his visit with Therese Neumann and other breatharian yogis.
In scientific studies ,"eating less" i.e. much reduced calorie intake, has been proven to significantly increase the life span of laboratory animals.
Exercise is important. Children call exercise play --- adults need to cultivate this same feeling. Move your body with joy. Body honouring systems such as Tai Chi , yoga and intuitive dance are worth exploring. Weight bearing exercises and walking have been proven scientifically to be of benefit.
Peter Kelder's book Ancient Secrets of The Fountain of Youth has a series of five Tibetan Rites (exercises) which are quite enjoyable to perform.Many people have reported great benefit from these.
Your sexuality/sensuality is an integral part of your being. You may find the exploration of Tantra useful
Your physical body is as sacred and worthy of respect as your spirit - you are a miracle at every level of your being. Treat yourself - body,mind,heart,spirit - all ONE - with the utmost love and respect.
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CONCLUSION
The philosophy of Radical healty life extension /Physical Immortality improves your quality of life NOW. All we have is the present moment. Anything that improves our level of vitality, health and fun in the now moment, I believe is worthy of consideration. Robert Coon predicts that by 2065 the Health Department will be recommending the philosophy of Physical Immortality - it may be sooner than that. Try out this philosophy for a few hundred years! See how it feels. For me it feels so good after 16 years, I can only imagine what a few hundred would feel like!
Belinda Carlisle in her song "Heaven is a place on Earth", says ---" In this world we're just beginning to understand the MIRACLE OF LIVING ......
Ooh heaven is a place on earth."
The earth is singing a new song --- the possibilities are endless.
Dr Janni Lloyd's contact - vivaever@bigpond.com
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November 2009 
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