86 billion. That’s the number of cells your brain has. Without a doubt, the gooey mass between your ears is controlling your body like nothing else.

It only makes sense to spend most of our time taking care of it. But we don’t. In fact, most don’t even think the brain needs care. Experts have determined that our modern lifestyle is chipping away at our neural pathways, making us slower, dumber, and less creative.

There are hundreds of reasons why that’s the case. To fix that, we need to be aware of the bad habits that we’ve picked up. To…

Mindfulness has spread across the world. It’s made its way into mainstream society. Everyone from the housemaids to the Silicon Valley CEOs is into it.

But there’s one thing that makes me utterly sad about our predicament.

While mindfulness has spread like wildfire, there’s one essential ingredient that is lacking — Love.

Let me explain.

I recently came across tons of articles talking about the ‘Dark Side of Mindfulness’. As I went on reading, there were two key points I noticed:

First, the people talking about the ‘Dark Side’ were themselves not regular practitioners. …

“It’s almost as if science said, “Give me one free miracle, and from there the entire thing will proceed with a seamless, causal explanation.”’ The one free miracle was the sudden appearance of all the matter and energy in the universe, with all the laws that govern it.”

― Rupert Sheldrake

According to what we call science today, the Universe appeared out of nowhere. Everything fell perfectly into its place — the matter, the energies, and all the laws that govern them.

While only a few of us take time to question this hypothesis, it’s worth contemplating. …

No matter how many get-rich-quick blogs you read on making money on Medium, there’s only one thing that can guarantee success.

Oh wait, nothing guarantees success here. But the only thing that can increase your chances of success is this:

Write as often as you can and as good as you can

Content creators around the globe love to debate about what’s more important — quality or quantity? I say both.

And as a writer, my job is to balance them.

Here’s something to consider: quality increases with quantity up to a certain limit, when it starts to decrease.

So…

Your whole life depends not upon food, air, or water. It depends, first and foremost on prana. It has different names in different philosophies like “qi” or simply “life-force.”

You can’t see it, touch it, or taste it. But you can feel it flowing through your body. Many meditators and yogis feel this prana flowing up and down the spine during meditation.

Although it seems mystical and even untrue, it’s the essence of all that is. …

The Soulful Monday Newsletter shares 3 unusual ideas each week to change your outlook on life and ponder upon them deeply. Each mindful thought can be integrated into your life immediately.

I sent this newsletter first to my subscribers about two weeks ago. If you like it and want to receive it in your inbox (plus many more goodies), subscribe here!

Here are three unusual ideas that you should ponder upon and start your week on the right foot!

#1

Once a farmer’s horse ran away.

His neighbors said “How unlucky!”

“Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” said the farmer.

When…

The Samkhya philosophy, which is the theoretical foundation of Yoga, divides the whole reality into two categories — the knower (Purusha) and the known (Prakriti).

Purusha is the Self. It’s the subject of every experience — the one who is aware. It is never the object. Prakriti on the other hand is the sum of everything that we call the objective universe.

It not only includes objects in the material plane but also those on psychological and even subtler planes. In short, there’s nothing to know outside of Prakriti.

Unmanifest Prakriti (before creation manifests) is the reservoir of unlimited creative…

Mantras are highly effective tools given to us by saints and sages to concentrate the mind and free us from our illusory worries. Mantras help the chanter not only by focusing his mind on the words, but also enriching his soul with their spiritual vibrations.

A brief look at the genesis of mantras tells us that they were not written by a poet or a philosopher. They were revealed to saints, not in words, but in the form of vibration. These saints then converted those vibrations into words, thus giving the chanter an ability to experience the uplifting vibration itself.

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