10 Quotes From A Sioux Native American Chief That Will Make You Question Everything About "Modern Culture"

Article c/o Wisdom Pills                                                      Image: Kirby Sattler

Luther Standing Bear was an Oglala Lakota Sioux Chief who, among a few rare others such as Charles Eastman, Black Elk and Gertrude Bonnin occupied the rift between the way of life of the Indigenous people of the Great Plains before, and during, the arrival and subsequent spread of the European pioneers. Raised in the traditions of his people until the age of eleven, he was then educated at the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School of Pennsylvania, where he learned the English language and way of life. (Though a National Historical Landmark, Carlisle remains a place of controversy in Native circles.)

Like his above mentioned contemporaries, however, his native roots were deep, leaving him in the unique position of being a conduit between cultures. Though his movement through the white man’s world was not without “success” — he had numerous movie roles in Hollywood — his enduring legacy was the protection of the way of life of his people. By the time of his death he had published 4 books and had become a leader at the forefront of the progressive movement aimed at preserving Native American heritage and sovereignty, coming to be known as a strong voice in the education of the white man as to the Native American way of life. Here, then, are 10 quotes from the great Sioux Indian Chief known as Standing Bear that will be sure to disturb much of what you think you know about “modern” culture.

• Praise, flattery, exaggerated manners and fine, high-sounding words were no part of Lakota politeness. Excessive manners were put down as insincere, and the constant talker was considered rude and thoughtless. Conversation was never begun at once, or in a hurried manner.

• Children were taught that true politeness was to be defined in actions rather than in words. They were never allowed to pass between the fire and the older person or a visitor, to speak while others were speaking, or to make fun of a crippled or disfigured person. If a child thoughtlessly tried to do so, a parent, in a quiet voice, immediately set him right.

• Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regardful of the rule that ‘thought comes before speech.’…and in the midst of sorrow, sickness, death or misfortune of any kind, and in the presence of the notable and great, silence was the mark of respect… strict observance of this tenet of good behavior was the reason, no doubt, for his being given the false characterization by the white man of being a stoic. He has been judged to be dumb, stupid, indifferent, and unfeeling.

• We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth, as ‘wild’. Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and only to him was it ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals and ‘savage’ people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.

• Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.

• This concept of life and its relations was humanizing and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all.

• It was good for the skin to touch the earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth… the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him.

• Everything was possessed of personality, only differing from us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature learns, and that was to feel beauty. We never railed at the storms, the furious winds, and the biting frosts and snows. To do so intensified human futility, so whatever came we adjusted ourselves, by more effort and energy if necessary, but without complaint.

• …the old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. So he kept his children close to nature’s softening influence.

• Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity.

Find more great articles at www.transcendct.com

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Article c/o theageofenlightment.net

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Has A Secret Unpublished Layer On Top That Changes EVERYTHING!

Up until now, we knew about the 5 steps in the “Hierarchy of Needs”. But there is a 6th secret layer, on top of all the others, that was never published. It makes things so much clearer about our role in life! (and no, it’s not “Internet Connection”)

The first level are “Physical Needs” like air, water, food, warmth…  and if those are not met everything else falls off.

The second level is “Safety” meaning that, after we make sure we’ve acquired our basic needs, we seek security of our body, of resources, property, morality, family, health… after these are met we climb to the third level.

The third level is “Belonging”. We seek to belong, we crave for friendship, love, intimacy, sense of connection with others. After we establish belonging, the center point of our motivational drive climbs one level higher.

The fourth level is “Self Esteem”. We seek achievement in various areas of the community, we crave for confidence and respect. This is where most people get stuck, driven by their egoic nature, forever trying to satisfy their need for respect like filling up a black hole. The ones who manage to establish a solid structure of self esteem inside themselves, ascend to the next level.

The fifth level is “Self Actualization” and most people consider it to be the highest layer. After establishing a solid structure of basic needs, safety, belonging and self esteem, we seek to find ‘Who we really are?’. We dive deep into our self and hunt for our truth. We seek creativity, spontaneity, we have lack of prejudices and we accept the facts of the world as they are. We try to know ourselves, to master ourselves, to elevate ourselves.

For many years people believed that that’s it. That’s where the hierarchy ends. But they were wrong!

Abraham Maslow had another piece of this puzzle that he never made public. He passed away before publishing the complete “Hierarchy Of Needs” which had 6 levels.

Without further ado, the sixth step is “Self Transcendence”

Not an elevation of the self, but a subverting of it.

This takes us to different perspectives on human psychology itself. Achieving self actualization means resting comfortably inside the boundaries of human psychology, accomplishing what is knowable and testable, while self transcendence means pushing beyond them.

Whether through spiritual meditation, self denial, or more recently through technological means, challenging the definition of consciousness to expand into new areas of knowledge, beyond self knowledge, may be the ultimate stage of human development.

Transcending oneself is similar to what advanced meditators tend to describe. When they reach that ascended state they report being ‘everything and nothing at the same time’. This is one way to go with this.

Another, more technological path toward self transcendence is the singularity, an event in which human biology and computers become one. This is an opportunity to literally overcome our present physical limitations.

Overcoming the narrow confines of the self may be as simple as giving yourself over to others: their dreams, their goals, their passions. And by doing so, you become one with them.

Whichever way we choose, it seems that our journey doesn’t end with ‘knowing thyself’ but there is a lot more to embark toward.

After we discover our truth, we need to transcend with it. We are like a source for this unique essence. We pour our purpose into The Universe and we need to find ways to transcend without neglecting it.

However, what awaits us then, is as mysterious as The Universe and its vastness.

Find more great articles at www.transcendct.com

The Autumn Smoothie

What better way to glide easily into the next season than combining fruit from the tropics with the colors of fall?


The Turmeric Smoothie   

Used for over 2500 years in India, Turmeric has had a notable reputation in the culinary world for being the elite source of curcumin, an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-tumor, antibacterial, and antiviral agent. 

A relative of the ginger plant, this spice and medicinal herb, commonly used in many sweet and savory dishes, also helps flush out dietary carcinogens, boosts liver detox and treats depression.

Enjoy this delicious smoothie and the multiple benefits of turmeric.

Recipe:

-1 cup hemp or coconut milk
-1/2 cup frozen pineapple or mango chunks
-1 fresh banana
-1 tablespoon coconut oil
-1/2 teaspoon turmeric (can be increased to 1 tsp)
-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon ginger
-1 teaspoon chia seeds
-1 teaspoon maca (optional)
Process these ingredients in a blender until smooth

The Myth of "Normal"

There is no normal...let's learn how to live with our differences and support each other instead of judging

Dr. Gabor Maté on the Myth of “Normal” in Psychological Disorders. He explains how mental distress and pathology exists in a continuum and are largely a result of a materialist culture that rigidly “idealize individuality and ignores emotional needs,” prioritizing objects over people and well being.

http://crazywisefilm.com/

Exercise Is ADHD Medication

Article c/o theatlantic.com



Physical movement improves mental focus, memory, and cognitive flexibility; new research shows just how critical it is to academic performance.


Mental exercises to build (or rebuild) attention span have shown promise recently as adjuncts or alternatives to amphetamines in addressing symptoms common to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Building cognitive control, to be better able to focus on just one thing, or single-task, might involve regular practice with a specialized video game that reinforces "top-down" cognitive modulation, as was the case in a popular paper in Nature last year. Cool but still notional. More insipid but also more clearly critical to addressing what's being called the ADHD epidemic is plain old physical activity.

This morning the medical journal Pediatrics published research that found kids who took part in a regular physical activity program showed important enhancement of cognitive performance and brain function. The findings, according to University of Illinois professor Charles Hillman and colleagues, "demonstrate a causal effect of a physical program on executive control, and provide support for physical activity for improving childhood cognition and brain health." If it seems odd that this is something that still needs support, that's because it is odd, yes. Physical activity is clearly a high, high-yield investment for all kids, but especially those attentive or hyperactive. This brand of research is still published and written about as though it were a novel finding, in part because exercise programs for kids remain underfunded and underprioritized in many school curricula, even though exercise is clearly integral to maximizing the utility of time spent in class.

The improvements in this case came in executive control, which consists of inhibition (resisting distraction, maintaining focus), working memory, and cognitive flexibility (switching between tasks). The images above show the brain activity in the group of kids who did the program as opposed to the group that didn't. It's the kind of difference that's so dramatic it's a little unsettling. The study only lasted nine months, but when you're only seven years old, nine months is a long time to be sitting in class with a blue head.

It may potentially be advisable to consider possibly implementing more exercise opportunities for kids.

Earlier this month, another study found that a 12-week exercise program improved math and reading test scores in all kids, but especially in those with signs of ADHD. (Executive functioning is impaired in ADHD, and tied to performance in math and reading.) Lead researcher Alan Smith, chair of the department of kinesiology at Michigan State, went out on no limb at all in a press statement at the time, saying, "Early studies suggest that physical activity can have a positive effect on children who suffer from ADHD."

Last year a very similar study in the Journal of Attention Disorders found that just 26 minutes of daily physical activity for eight weeks significantly allayed ADHD symptoms in grade-school kids. The modest conclusion of the study was that "physical activity shows promise for addressing ADHD symptoms in young children." The researchers went on to write that this finding should be "carefully explored with further studies."

"If physical activity is established as an effective intervention for ADHD," they continued, "it will also be important to address possible complementary effects of physical activity and existing treatment strategies ..." Which is a kind of phenomenal degree of reservation compared to the haste with which millions of kids have been introduced to amphetamines and other stimulants to address said ADHD. The number of prescriptions increased from 34.8 to 48.4 million between 2007 and 2011 alone. The pharmaceutical market around the disorder has grown to several billion dollars in recent years while school exercise initiatives have enjoyed no such spoils of entrepreneurialism. But, you know, once there is more research, it may potentially be advisable to consider possibly implementing more exercise opportunities for kids.

Over all, the pandemic of physical inactivity, as Hillman and colleagues put it in their Pediatrics journal article today, is "a serious threat to global health" responsible for around 10 percent of premature deaths from noncommincable diseases. But it clearly manifests in ways more subtle than deaths, including scholastic performance, which we're continuously learning. I talked last week with Paul Nystedt, an associate professor of economics and finance at Jönköping University in Sweden, who just published a multi-country study that found that obese teenagers go on to earn 18 percent less money as adults than their peers, even if they are no longer obese. He believes that's most likely because of the adversity that obese kids experience from classmates and teachers, which leads to both cognitive and noncognitive disparities between obese and non-obese kids. Because obese children are more likely to come from low-income homes to begin with, that only perpetuates wealth gaps and stifles mobility. Nystedt and his coauthors conclude, "The rapid increase in childhood and adolescent obesity could have long-lasting effects on the economic growth and productivity of nations."

John Ratey, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, suggests that people think of exercise as medication for ADHD. Even very light physical activity improves mood and cognitive performance by triggering the brain to release dopamine and serotonin, similar to the way that stimulant medications like Adderall do. In a 2012 TED talk, Ratey argued that physical exercise "is really for our brains." He likened it to taking "a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin." As a rule, I say never trust anyone who has given a TED talk. But maybe in this case that's a constructive way to think about moving one's body. But not the inverse, where taking Ritalin counts as exercise.

Find more great articles at www.transcendct.com

Meditation Literally Rebuilds Your Brain’s Gray Matter In 8 Weeks

Article c/o simplecapacity.com


Harvard MRI Study Shows That Meditation Literally Rebuilds Your Brain’s Gray Matter In 8 Weeks

A study conducted by a Harvard affiliated team out of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) came across surprising conclusions regarding the tangible effects of meditation on human brain structure. An 8 week program of mindfulness meditation produced MRI scans for the first time showing clear evidence that meditation produces “massive changes” in brain gray matter.

Study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program (as well as a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology) stated that meditation practitioners aren’t just feeling better. They are literally undergoing changes in brain structure that create the associated sustained boosts in positive and relaxed feelings.

Fellow MGH researcher Sue McGreevey notes that previous studies by Lazar’s group found structural differences in the brains of meditation practitioners compared to those with no prior experience most notably in the thickening of the cerebral cortex; the area responsible for attention and emotional integration. These prior studies, however could not narrow down the structural differences to meditation specifically until now.

This most recent study found that an average of 27 minutes of a daily practice of mindfulness exercises stimulated a significant boost in gray matter density, specifically in the hippocampus; the area of the brain in which self-awareness, compassion, and introspection are associated. Furthermore, this boost of gray matter density in the hippocampus was also directly correlational to a decreased gray matter density in the amygdala; an area of the brain known to be instrumental in regulating anxiety and stress responses. In stark contrast, the control group did not have any changes occur in either region of the brain thus ruling out merely the passage of time as a factor of influence regarding the drastic change in gray matter density fluctuations.

MGH fellow out of Glessen University in Germany, Britta Hölzel, states that neuroscientists are finding far more plasticity in brain structure than anticipated and that most importantly we are now aware from a scientific point of view that we can play a very active role in altering our brain structure to improve our overall well-being and quality of life.

Find more great articles at www.transcendct.com

Today's Moments of Insight

Today’s Moments of Insight by Matt Kahn

In the beginning, a spiritual journey is a transition from living in various states of denial to discovering an insatiable love for truth. When living in denial, your focus is more concerned with anticipating fearful possibilities, while making choices to avert the very fearful things that only you may be imagining. Most of the time, even if something you fear becomes a reality -- the experience itself is never as scary, daunting, or hopeless as it was imagined to be.

When run by fear, your self-worth lives and dies by the outcomes you face or how others view you, while responding to life in a distrusting or defensive manner. In denial, you are unaware that each moment was created to assist you in opening up and evolving to your absolute potential. When this truth is denied or overlooked, happiness and fulfillment is imagined as fleeting moments in time when life goes your way.

In essence, denial means that you are choosing to see life in a way that denies you the right to consider a greater divine source within you that ensures the perfection and completion of your journey, no matter how different it seems from the way you want it to be. As a love of truth opens up within you, you begin to question, “Is my view of life the way it actually is or just my personal version of it?” Once everything can be seen as a subjective version of absolute potential, there is an inner sense of permission to consider other viewpoints with the courage to select a point of view that is less fearful and more supportive to the evolution of the whole.
 
While a love for truth creates an initial spark of inner spiritual exploration, it is certainly not the end-all-be-all of your adventure. It is actually just the beginning. When confusing the beginning of your journey with any imagined end point, you tend to rely on knowledge instead of love throughout your encounters. When this occurs, spiritual concepts become extensions of ego to defend against those who oppose your view or seem uninformed. This can even lead to the impulse of needing to constantly correct those, who in your perception of experience, are clearly out of touch with reality.

They may be as asleep as you sense them to be, but when relying on knowledge, you tend to be life’s exhausting rescuer that unknowingly attempts to rob them of their journey. You may even wonder, “How do I know the difference between being a rescuer and serving the evolution of someone’s journey?” The answer is astoundingly simple: when you are meant to pass along your knowledge to another, they will ask you a direct question.

If you are offering your knowledge before someone has personally asked you to be their bearer of higher wisdom, some form of projection or rescuing is occurring. If you see someone who can benefit from your knowledge, but hasn’t asked for it, maybe it can become a moment where you ask yourself: what are they here to teach me? What if I became the one who acted upon the very advice I’m waiting to dispense, instead of assuming my role in someone else’s journey?

When not relying so heavily on your library of knowledge, you become a living blessing of love. From this space, you are free to honor how each character in your play provides you opportunities to act upon your best advice as a way of making your love even more unconditional and potent in power.

When being rooted in love guides you beyond the love for truth, each fight against injustice, or judgment towards those who aren’t as knowledgeable as you, becomes a living prayer for the salvation of every heart. As this occurs, the unsavory actions of others can inspire a more powerful response of blessings and conscious action for the well-being of all.

Those who rely on their knowledge often imagine hypothetical circumstances to justify why loving what arises seems too passive in response. They are the ones who insist the people of this planet come together in greater conscious action, while being too consumed in righteousness to act upon the very suggestions they project. One who is rooted in love, feeds a hungry person in sight. One who relies on knowledge believes they are helping by trying to rally others into the very actions they have yet to choose.

This is why for some, loving what arises is the ultimate leap of faith one must take in order for attachments to knowledge to be living transmissions of heart-centered wisdom in action. In heart-centered consciousness, we don’t love instead of help. Instead, we help from a space of love by allowing love’s infinite wisdom to determine how our help is offered.

Relying on your knowledge also acts as a double-edged sword: when good things seem to happen, you may think you are being rewarded for what you know. Equally so, when you interpret your life circumstances as “bad”, “adverse”, or “wrong”, you may believe that if only you knew more than you do things would’ve been different.

At certain stages of your spiritual journey, you can be so knowledgeable, while still living in subtle realms of denial. When this occurs, there are reasons why your life happens that are superstitious, creative, and intriguing, while unrelated to the greater good of life’s eternal truth that only brings forth experiences to assist you in making more room for love to emerge.

This is why, further along the spiritual journey, a love for truth must transition into the truth of love, in order for the spiritually-hungry mind to merge into emotional oneness with the actions and integrity of an open loving heart. Once this merging occurs, truth is no longer something to know, keep straight, argue with others, attempt to defend, or in need of being remembered, but a fully-embodied expression of your highest self in form.

Inevitably, truth is not what you know, but how often you love. This is today’s moment of insight. truedivinenature.com

Find more great articles at www.transcendct.com