The healing power of prayer.

Dr. Larry Dossey, the chief of staff of Medical City Dallas Hospital. While practicing in Dallas, Dr. Dossey came across patients who were miraculously cured of life-threatening illnesses without medical explanations. His New York Times best-seller Healing Words was published in 1993 and examined the role of religious practice and prayer in health—presenting evidence and published data to prove the healing power of prayer. Dr. Dossey's works were once thought of as radical in the traditional medical community, but now are used as textbooks in nearly 80 medical schools. Dr. Dossey's latest book is The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things.

In short his first book says research has proved that:
1- There is a strong evidence to the healing power to someone praying for another, which we call "DU'A" whether to heal, to prosper, to be happy etc.
2- Prayer works just as good from the other side of the world as it does at the bedside...
3- The strength of the effect was not by number but by genuine authenticity and love. Meaning you don't get 10 stronger effect for 10 people praying for you, but the depth and quality of the prayer and love itself from one person has the major effect. (ie love for the person together with depth, sincerity and presence of mind in prayer)
4- Let the prayer be more in the form of "May the best outcome prevail"
5- Prayer can effect and harm the other in the form of negative, as well as positive prayers, and be careful, since prayers tend to have what is called "the boomerang effect" where the harm returns to praying person.

Happiness - 2 (By Matthieu Ricard)

1. The narrow world of the self is like a glass of water into which a handful of salt is thrown - the water becomes undrinkable. If, on the other hand, we breach the barriers of the self and the mind becomes a vast lake, that same handful of salt will have no effect on its taste. When the self ceases to be the most important thing in the world, we find it easier to focus our concern on others. The sight of their suffering bolsters our courage and resolve to work on their behalf, instead of crippling us with our own emotional distress.
2. Most of the time it is not outward events, but our own mind and negative emotions that make us unable to maintain our inner stability and drag us down.
3. This knot in our chest was tied not by our unfaithful husband, our object of desire, our dishonest colleague, or our unjust accuser, but by our own mind. It is the result of mental constructs that, as they accumulate and solidify, give the illusion of being external and real. What provides the raw material for that knot and allows it to form within us is an exacerbated sense of self-importance. Anything that does not respond to the self's demands becomes a disturbance, a threat, or an insult. The past is painful, we are unable to enjoy the present, and we tremble before the projection of our future anguish.
4. it is by transforming our minds that we can transform our worlds.
5. The disturbing emotions tend to distort our perception of reality and to prevent us from seeing it as it really is. Attachment idealizes its object, hatred demonizes it!! These emotions make us believe that beauty or ugliness is inherent in people and in things, even though it is the mind that decides if they are "attractive" or "repulsive". This misapprehension opens a gap between the way things appear and the way they actually "Are".
6. it is essential to be mindful of the movement of thoughts in our minds, to identify the types of mental activity that lead to well being and hence encourage them, and discourage those that lead to suffering, even when the latter give us brief instances of pleasure!

The remedies for "disturbing emotions" will be highlighted in the next e-mail.

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"Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when it is given."

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"Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when it is given."

Happiness - 1

In a few messages I'd like to share with you my highlights of a book i read recently: "Happiness" by Mathieu Ricard.

• We take for permanent that which is ephemeral and for happiness that which is but a source of suffering:the desire for wealth, for power, for fame, and for nagging pleasures.
• Living on a pendulum between hope and doubt, excitement and boredom, desire and weariness, it's easy to fritter away our lives, bit by bit, without even noticing, running all over the place and getting nowhere. Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things."
• Happiness is a skill, a manner of being, but skills must be learned.
• Pleasure is exhausted by usage, like a candle consuming itself. Savoring a delicious meal is a source of genuine pleasure, but we are indifferent to it once we've had our fill and would get sick of it if we continued eating.
• Pleasure is the happiness of the madmen, while happiness is the pleasure of sages.
• A poet Robert Burns describes pleasure:
  But pleasures are like poppies spread,
  You seize the flower, its bloom is shed,
  Or like the snow falls in the river,
  A moment white - then melts forever.
• Remaining painfully obsessed with a situation or the memory of a departed loved one, to the point of being paralyzed by grief for months or years, is evidence not of affection, but of an attachment that does no good to others or to oneself.
• If we let ourselves be over whelmed by our personal problems, no matter how tragic, we only increase our difficulties and become a burden on those around us.If our mind becomes accustomed to dwelling solely on the pain that events or people inflict on it, one day the most trivial incident will cause it infinite sorrow. As intensity of the feeling grows with practice, everything that happens to us will eventually come to distress us, and peace will find no place within us.
• If there is a cure, what good is discontent? If there is no cure, what goos is discontent?!!