March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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Give yourself the gift of laughter, song, and love. Touch your life with your own magnificence. You are the ocean. Life itself. You are everything that you were meant to be. Touch your own soul; become whole once more.
Everything is the way it is. Let yourself see it as it is. Free yourself from the delusions of despair.
You cannot save the world from it’s nightmares, but you can save yourself; and in doing this, you will salvage the world; for it will see your clear light and hear your clear call.
What if you don’t have everything you need right now? Who you are is pure gold. You are the incarnation of abundance. It is right here where you are. Each part of your body is sacred, a miracle of life. And your mind is the greatest thing ever known among all living forms in the history of creation.
When you walk, you grace the earth itself with your presence. Who are you is the gift of life itself. How many more sunrises will it take before you allow yourself to celebrate the miracle of you?
You have lots to give and lots to share.
All lack, limitation, negativity, scarcity are the delusions you entertain to hide your own glory from yourself. And as you suffer through these things, you bring them into physical actuality. Free your energy, your mind, your life from these parasites of thought.
Instead, use your power and get everything you want when you want it. How? By learning how to love, by learning how to sing, by learning how to be yourself fully and completely, without inhibition.
Release yourself from the burden of what might have been. Allow the future to be as it will. Everything you want is here right now. What can be a greater blessing than life itself. To be, just to be, is glory itself. Take this moment to contemplate your own unique expression. Take the next one to celebrate it forever.
Yes, just be. Just be whoever you are. Just be yourself. And celebrate! For the rest of your days.
Not a moment can be grasped and held; not a step can be retraced. As you dance through your dramas of life, remember only this singular truth: you are the magnificence of all life.
Everything that exists filters itself through your senses. Can you celebrate the delicious moment? Or will it pass away as you evoke the hell of your sorrows and damn the cheerful lightness of the air all around you?
Give yourself the gift, before another moment has slipped away.
What is the gift?
The gift is you, my friend; just YOU. For never ever again in all of time and space will there ever be another even remotely like you.
May you be well and happy.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul
March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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The thesis of this discourse is this: love is the answer to happiness.
Love, the most powerful force in creation, is also the most misunderstood.
It is misunderstood because of the context with which it arises: that of relationship. All relationships imply love, either an offering of it or a withdrawal of it. Thus, our understanding of love is conditioned by varying degrees of attachment and aversion. And because of this, there is an element of self-protection that is projected outwardly and becomes control.
Thus, our understanding of love is completely contaminated by all the associations that arise from it.
So what we have then is conditional love; love that is allowed if certain conditions are met.
In truth, none of this is really love, just as a delicious meal, sprinkled with some mud cannot be said to be appetizing any longer.
Love, real love, is acceptance. That is all it is. Simply accepting what is. From that acceptance flows giving and caring, nurturing and compassion.
When you see a beautiful flower wet with dew, you feel an out-flowing force from your heart. This emotion is love. It is a complete acceptance of the flower. You may call it beauty or appreciation, but it is really love.
A mother, seeing her child sleeping peacefully, feels love. This is a pure acceptance of the being of the other. Of course, when the child is awake, shouting, crying, and arguing, expressing it’s being in a radical way, breaking some social convention of one sort or another, the mother’s love is still there, but now it is mixed up with other emotions, anger, confusion, embarrassment. Thus, control is now exerted. A tension visits the relationship and the love that is implied in it is clouded over, at the heart of which are various degrees of non-acceptance.
When the love is uninterrupted, as in the still flower or the sleeping child, it is pure. It is spontaneous. When conditions are imposed, the love becomes something else, not quite definable, but definitely not as spontaneous, pure, and free.
What made Mother Teresa a lover of life? She accepted what was before her. Poverty, disease, and distressing situations. Her love then moved her to give, and the giving was to provide relief to the other.
Love that has conditions, that exerts control to bring the other into alignment with one’s belief systems is not real love. There may be elements of love in it, but it is tarnished with some desire for egoic gain. The other must love back. The other must be appreciative. The other must return something to us.
Philosophers, poets, and spiritual people have long believed that love is the central force that holds the universe together. The physical union of love creates children. The emotional union of love creates families and nations. The intellectual union of love creates ideas, discoveries, and inventions. Philosophically, one can even say that the union of subatomic elements in relationship to each other or of planetary bodies in relationship to each other is part of that harmonious, blending, accepting energy that we call love.
Love does not necessarily mean approval. One cannot truly love something despicable. But love does mean acceptance. And once there is acceptance, there is understanding and insight, and if change is necessary for well-being, it is done with wisdom, not reactive emotion.
If human beings were committed to studying love and applying it, the entire planet would change rapidly, and instead of our continued creation of chaos, harmony and cooperation would occur. All sorts of wonderful prospering circumstances for the well-being of all life would emerge.
But as a species, we associate contention with intelligence and survival, and as long as we prefer exclusion to inclusion, we will continue to wreck our own lives and the world in general with our confused thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
When we begin an inquiry into love, then the journey to right living can be said to begin. What is right living? That which provides well-being for self and other. When well-being is high, there is a feeling of safety and acceptance, which creates happiness, a sense that all is well, good, and true and that we need not guard against sorrow.
The summum bonum of all life is happiness. It is the ultimate motive, the end of all striving. Yet this happiness does not come uninvited. It feels invited when love is present.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul
March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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It seems that there is a contradiction between the psychology of transcendence and the spiritual idea of transcendence.
Psychologists believe that through the proper application of intelligence and self-cognition one can have a full and enjoyable life, with wealth, health, and a great relationship, as well as a sense of communal belonging and contribution.
Those in spiritual groups, in particular of an eastern orientation, believe that one has to get rid of the lustful ego that craves only fleeting things and to unify with divine consciousness.
The most popular compromise to resolve this seeming paradox is that you have to build up the self and let it go. In Vedic philosophy this is expressed as becoming a householder in the first stages of life then retiring to pursue transcendence.
Yet most believe, because of cognitive dissonance, that they should choose one view or the other.
Thus, there are those who believe that they should be worldly and experience the world as it appears to be.
Then there are those who believe that they should reject the world and dedicate themselves to getting out of the misery of the cycle of birth and death.
Here is another way of understanding this paradox.
The self is a transcendent consciousness. It is not limited to a particular body or a particular lifetime. Because it is not anything in particular, the “I” is not an “it.” This is why Buddhists say there is “no-self.”
Similarly, the world itself is entirely illusory. I don’t mean this metaphorically or even psychologically. At the subatomic level, again there is no substance. There are just probability patterns that literally flit in and out of existence! For example, an electron can appear under an observing instrument then disappear, then reappear again. There literally is no stuff! This is why the Vedantists say that the world is Maya, or illusory.
Yet to all purposes, on the macroscopic level, both an intelligent being and an intelligible world appear to exist.
On this level, personal growth and advancement is necessary, not because it means anything on a cosmic scale, but because there is literally nothing else to do with this adventure of life. You can either resist evolution and suffer all kinds of lack or you can embrace evolution and the refining of mind and enjoy fulfillment of resources and experiences.
Thus, when you look at things from the view of levels of perception, all contradictions disappear, just as the contradiction of day and night disappears when you understand that the sun and earth are in a cosmic dance.
It is possible to be engaged in the world and to actually enjoy it and at the same time to enjoy meditation and contemplation to experience the inner sky of blissful freedom. It is by no means an easy path, but after a while, they will support each other. Material success and harmonious relationships will give you the opportunity to retreat to your inner work. Similarly your inner work will contribute to your increase of abundance and maintaining a loving relationship with others.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul
March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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Imagine what would happen if you made a decision not to be unhappy anymore.
Yes, that’s right. Give it up. Quit being unhappy. Sure there are plenty of reasons to be unhappy–the unpaid bills, the ache in your shoulders, and your difficult parents, spouse, children, friends, and so on.
In fact, if you really focus on it, the earth has always been a miserable place and if you read the newspapers it appears to be falling apart at the seams even faster than ever before.
There are plenty of reasons to be unhappy. The sensory evidence just keeps piling up.
On the other hand, there is only one reason to be happy. You’re alive!
Do you understand what a miracle and wonder that happens to be? No one on this entire planet, ever, has been you. Only you are you. You have a total exclusive on this total immersion movie called life.
Expand this idea a little. The entire universe exists for you only. It only exists through your eyes. If you were to completely blink out of existence, it really would not matter much whether the universe still existed or not because there would be no you to appreciate it.
This means that the only reason the sun shines is so that it can settle on your skin, that rain falls only to make the earth green and beautiful for you, and that mountains and rivers and oceans exist in case you might see them.
True, for everyone else, it exists only for them, too. But what of it? It does not detract from your own exclusive experience.
Only you breathe for you, see for you, hear for you, talk for you. Just think for a moment of the sensory pleasure of being alive. All of this grandeur–just for YOU! Focus on your breath for a moment, and notice how delicious is that experience. You did nothing to deserve that breath or the air around you, yet here it is, offering itself freely to you.
Unhappiness is such a waste of life. It seems to me now that unhappiness is just a bad habit, an expression of ingratitude.
Every day life is blessing you with awareness and all everyone appears to do is grumble, grumble, grumble. Things will never be perfect. Life is short. If you don’t enjoy it now, chances are it won’t get any better tomorrow. Besides, it’s not going to last long anyway.
Life is about love, laughter, and happiness. That’s all. Not a complicated concept.
If people lack things, it is because their bad attitude brings them scarcity.
Imagine, for a moment, if instead of crumbling under every adversity, and drowning in uncertainty, you were to remain mindful. Imagine if you had a taste for the adventure that is your life. Imagine if you stopped taking everything so very seriously.
In the cosmic scheme of things, decades pass in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, the show will be over. All your suffering will cease. But before that happens, you still have a chance to grab some happiness.
Who knows, your happiness might even be contagious, and instead of spreading your irritation at the imperfection of all created things, you can just as easily start blessing others with the sunshine of your presence.
If you focus on unhappy events, either in your past or in the world at large, you will only dig yourself deeper into misery. Yet, with just a little effort, you can notice the bird that hops on a branch and think that this little scene was enacted just for you.
Nobody is going to start taking pleasure in life for you. It really is up to you to start connecting with the joy of your own existence and to the magical promise of your own gifts of love, laughter, and song.
It means much to be happy. Even for a day. And it is only today, every day.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul
March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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The only way to live a happy, prosperous, successful and fulfilling life is to learn to express the love that is within you. When you meet yourself, others, and the life that you express with love, then you will change everything for the better.
Who you are is an incarnation of love because what you seek, above all else, is to be well, safe, and happy; and that is what love provides, an assurance and promise of well-being.
The absence of love, the varying degrees of hatred, create conditions of distress that destroy the cells of the body and ruin the structure of a life, causing only illness, aging, stress, and destruction.
The human condition as we know it, in all its distressing dilemmas, is made possible only because of this denial of love.
Apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, and pride which lead to poverty, illness, and loneliness all arise out of a denial of the love that is your very nature.
Love does not have to be invented. It is fully manifested in a new born. However, with social conditioning, it gets covered up quickly, as the little person is consistently denied assurances of well-being. Criticism, punishment, expressions of coercion, cause love to hide, become distorted, and retreat from full expression.
Even when avatars come to teach love, pointing out that your real nature is only love, they are met with various levels of resistance. Those who oppose them have a lust for power because they mistakenly believe that only force creates favorable conditions.
Yet if you look at the history of this world, you will always see that force only destroys, both the enforcer and the enforced. It does not replace what love does; it does not assure well-being.
All the disasters in our own lives and the world as a whole is a result of this substitution of force for love. We force ourselves, we force others, and we create institutions that assure the expression of force.
Yet force does not create safety, and enforced compliance does not create a better world.
Ironically, it is very simple to change everything to start working for you. In all cases where you want to apply force, apply love.
Within a week, your life will be much better. Within a year, you will not even be able to recognize your life.
As you learn to be more loving, you will not only affect your own life, but the lives of all those whom you touch. They will, then, pass on your blessing to others.
You will literally be changing the world; not by doing anything special, but just by being more yourself, the self that is naturally kind, loving, and nurturing.
A return to love is the answer to discover the life that you really want to live.
Love, like sunshine, can light up all the dark places in your life and heal the wounds of the world.
We are all in this life together, all hoping for some miracle that will right wrongs and make the crooked places straight; but the power that we seek to do good is our own lovingness. All we have to do to change everything for the better is gradually build up our courage to express it.
The great wisdom of life will not be discovered by your mind but by your heart. You, in your own divine splendor, are the light of the world, the promise of hope, and the assurance of better things for all beings everywhere.
If you ask for the happiness, prosperity, success, and fulfillment of the world, this is what will come back to visit you in your quiet hours. At every moment you have the choice to turn the mundane into the magical.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul
March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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Revenge, the desire to hurt others who have hurt us, only bears bitter fruit. It hurts those whom we have inflicted our wrath upon. And it hurts us, because no single act in the universe goes unrewarded. From that singular act, our own consciousness is wounded by the expression of our animalism.
Nations pride themselves on the swiftness of their retribution but inevitably collapse in on themselves because the seeds of discontent that they sow, hurts all of life. Rome, the greatest civilization that the world had ever known, built on the finest arts and sciences known to the ancient world, the epitome of legal and architectural order, collapsed from within, destroyed by its own impulse to use its mighty force to strike out and subdue.
Today our world is dying because of this impulse to strike out.
We are destroying each other at an alarming rate, both individually and collectively.
And even the earth itself, is collapsing at a faster rate than we can repair. Scientists now estimate that by the year 2050, we will have exhausted the earth of all its natural resources.
The science that we celebrate, the genius of our efforts, are wasted on destructive uses. Instead of using the power of the nucleus to build great civilizations we are busy using it to stockade bombs.
Billions of dollars that could be used to heal the broken places on our planet are used to send people to horrific deaths.
When we seek to hurt life, we hurt ourselves, for we are life.
Revenge it is said is a dish best served cold; but whether it is served with cold deliberation or hot reaction, it is a dish in whose very preparation we imbue a poison that will return to destroy us.
The greatest illusion is this: that we can hurt and not be hurt, that we can wound another and remain unscathed. When we inflict harm upon another, we inflict harm upon ourselves. What goes around comes around. A rudimentary study of history will prove this.
When we love, we reach out to align with life, to nurture and make others better, and in that act, we redeem ourselves from our own past follies.
This love is a precious act. It is our extension of spiritual power in the world. It is a moment of sympathy and support that we have for life. When you bend down and help a child tie its shoelaces, you are tying up all the knots of the world. When you listen in silence and understand another’s intention, you are spreading the meme of empathy through all of time and space, for thoughts are cosmic waves that do not know any barriers.
As we extend love to others, it comes back to us.
Yet we cannot love others unless we love ourselves as well.
We cannot live without making mistakes of judgment and do things that we will later regret, because we are na
March 27, 2008
Buddhism
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You are awesome. You are the light of the world. And in this brief essay, I will prove it to you.
Your body is a superb machine whose functional details keep scientists in a state of awe and wonder. They estimate that your body has enough power to run a whole city for a week.
Your mind is a computer that has billions of interconnected neurons. You may have enough raw brain power to run a galaxy.
Yet there is something even more amazing about you. You are self-aware, the creator of yourself, and your own creation. You are more than a person, much more. You are a consciousness whose only limit is your own self-belief and imagination.
And, whether you admit it or not, you are here on this planet to do something great with all this raw power and potentiality. You are a creator and you are in a place where creation is necessary. In fact, your internal guidance system, your emotions, will tell you whether you are on track or off track. If you are happy, you are doing something creative and feel fulfilled. If you are unhappy, you are conforming to a reality that does not bring out the best in you.
On the surface of things, it may seem that you have little free-will and are limited in both creativity and imagination. It may also seem that you are pressed in and coerced to do things by stronger forces. And it may also seem that you are different from others, living in a separate objective world of your own.
Yet the study of quantum mechanics shows that at a fundamental level everything is only energy and that this idea of separation is really some kind of hallucination we all share in common because our senses are not subtle enough to observe the fluid interconnection between all things.
Furthermore, a radical subjectivity informs your entire experience of life. That is, you can never not be yourself, and even when you name something as objective, it is a statement that arises from your own subjectivity.
Finally, you are nothing but your own expression of choices, which you bring into existence through creativity and imagination.
This life that you live is the clay that you shape. You are the geometer, organizer, and designer of your life.
As Dr. Joe Vitale said in the movie, The Secret, “You are the Michelangelo of your own life. The David you are sculpting is YOU.”
What you think and feel on a moment by moment basis influences all of life because everything about you has some kind of influence.
This is a big concept.
Here is how to understand it.
Think of a row of dominoes leaning up against other dominoes, when there is a change in movement in one, it affects all the other dominoes.
Here is another way to understand it.
Scientists estimate that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can affect the air currents in a way that gradually magnifies over a distance until it causes weather changes
Of course, all this is very, very subtle. You will never know whether your bad mood affects an international crisis in a war-prone area or whether your good mood creates an act of kindness in a city far away from you.
It has been said that the vibrations of someone with deep wisdom can affect all of humanity. This is easier to understand. After all the history of ideas shows that all that is necessary to influence billions of people throughout time is the ideas of a few people.
What all this means is that beneath the apparent separation between human beings, we are all one; and beneath the apparent lack of power we display, we hide a mighty power.
What you say, think, and do matters. Not only to you, but to everyone. Sometimes it is obvious how your influence spreads. But most often it is subtle, very subtle, hardly noticeable to you, like the flapping of the wings of a butterfly.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul
March 26, 2008
Buddhism
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What you focus on determines your reality because your mind becomes active in acquiring and bringing into your reality the things that you focus on.
You bring into your experience what you focus on.
If you focus on lack, limitation, negativity, and scarcity, then that is what you bring into your experience.
If you focus on abundance, expansion, positive things, and plenty, then that is what you bring into your experience.
A moment of introspection will make this obvious.
Why, then, if it is that easy to switch our reality, from one of suffering to one of joyful experience, do we persist in injuring ourselves?
It is because we are not in charge of our minds. Rather our minds are in charge of us. We, a conscious being, are dominated by our conditioning.
This is why the practice of meditation is important.
Every time we meditate, we dissolve more and more conditioning. We get off autopilot and take over the path our ship is cruising on.
As we let go of more and more of our reflexive thinking, we start to take charge of our own minds, and our reality, slowly, creakingly, turns around for us.
Of course, this is not easy.
Yet, it’s not much fun living a scattered and chaotic life either.
Until our awareness comes to the surface, we can’t really expect to improve our health, boost our finances, or be able to calm the storms of a relationship. Our dreams are always one step ahead of us, lost in the mist of “someday I will…”
The path is simple. Learn a method of meditation and practice it.
The path is also difficult. You have to learn and you have to practice.
The reward, however, is immense. Increased self-awareness, increased control of your mind, and increased appreciation and meaning of your own self and life.
In many religious traditions, we are often said to be asleep.
What exactly does this mean?
It means that we are almost wholly unconscious. We think and act in ways that are not in our best interests.
A conscious person is an aware person and awareness is something that comes when we release the subconscious programs that run our lives.
A brief review of yesterday will show you how your notion of self-control and inner mastery is pretty much an illusion.
If meditation is not your thing, then try contemplation, sitting in silence, quietly reflecting on who you are and what it is that is important to you.
A daily routine where you work on raising your awareness will do you a world of good. It will, in fact, change your world, placing you in one more favorable to your interests.
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His F.R.E.E book tells you how. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html
March 26, 2008
Buddhism
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It was a quiet night by the Ganges as the young man sat on the steps and watched the sun set over the holy waters.
Despite the beauty of the scene, he did not appreciate it.
The lilting cadence of the bathers chatting loudly seemed far away, and even their playful splashing of each other did not amuse him.
Someone started chanting a bhajan about Krishna and the gopis and others soon joined him until their happy voices slapped on the shores of the river and made the mosquitoes pause in midair.
This only irritated the young man more. He was worried about his job how little it paid and how he was going to pay for the rent for his 250 rupee room.
He was also lonely and wanted to get married, but what good family would accept someone who spent most of his time serving in a tea stall.
A holy man came and sat by him. He was only wearing sacred ash from head to toe.
“You seem troubled, young man,” said the man, almost jovially.
Soon they began talking and the young man poured out his heart. He learned that the holy man, who spoke very well, had once been a college professor at the University of Allahabad. Then, one day, after he had given a lecture on the philosophy of renunciation he had decided to pursue what he most desired, the quest for enlightenment.
After many years, one night, as he was stroking a stray cat and the two had been sitting for hours under a banyan tree, he understood his true nature and an immense peace filled his life and miracles happened to him spontaneously from then on.
The young man listened impatiently, feeling increasingly irritated.
Finally, in exasperation, the young man said, “I don’t understand how you can be either enlightened or happy. You have even less than I. You don’t even have any clothes and you don’t even know where your next meal is going to come from.”
Suddenly serious, the sadhu said:
“It’s tempting to believe that your problems are real and that your life is hard and that things are simply not going your way.
“After all, isn’t that what everybody else thinks, too?
“It’s a great temptation to believe in yourself as a limited being.
“And everyone will back you up. The newspapers will. The TV will. Your neighbors will.
“How long are you going to let this painful delusion continue?
“You’ve read the great books. You’ve heard the avatars. You’ve walked on the path yourself. You know.
“You know that you’re pure energy.
“You also know that your reach is infinite. You can be, have, and do anything that you choose. You have the power. Right now its turned back on itself and being used to create limitations for yourself.
“Your imaging power is how you express your infinite power.
“All ideas of limitations are an illusion fostered by the mind.
“And you can’t fall back on science either to confirm your limitation.
“Because what physicists say is that there is nothing but energy everywhere and that matter only seems solid but isn’t really. It’s just that the atoms clump together and the electrons spin so fast that even I look like a real thing.
“Of course, it’s fine to keep seeing yourself as “just human” but it’s not going to last for very long. Sooner or later, you’ll drop your body and be faced with your energy form. I just think it’s easier to admit it now and see how you can go around expressing your spiritual power while you’re still in this dimension.”
“Yes,” said the young man, “I think I understand.”
“What do you understand?” challenged the sadhu.
“I understand that I can be, have, and do anything that I choose because I have the power. The only reason that I don’t recognize it is because I misuse it to limit myself to the extreme.”
“Yes,” said the holy man, pleased. “The world for you is only the images you hold in your mind; change your images and you change the world for you.”
“One thing I don’t understand, though,” said the young man. “Why did you give up everything a fine education, an excellent job, and a devoted family? Why? Was it worth such a heavy price for enlightenment?”
“Yes, because it led up to that moment under the banyan tree with the cat that I mentioned earlier.”
“What is this enlightenment? What happened?”
“I caught a glimpse of the infinite.”
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul