spirituality & fast food

Serge Gainsbourg et France Gall

Reverend Joshua Wenner shares:

A Cup of Happiness

click on the title of this post to find joy & happiness!

The Dash Movie

Do you have two minutes for this? You might feel better afterwards. Click on the title "The Dash Movie"!

Luxe & The Old Time Preacher Man

What would Lao Tse say ?

There are three treasures that I keep and cherish...
The first is love, the second simplicity, the third humility.
Those full of compassion may be generous.
Those who are humble may govern others.
Loa-tzu

Achievement in Action by Brian Tracy

Church de Luxe is here to serve!

Power Communicating

Brian Tracy describes in his Talk on Power Communicating that someone who asks you about yourself might indirectly be trying to flatter you yet remaining control over the direction of a conversation / interaction. It is all about control, isn't it? Be aware when you give a person that power, letting them live vicariously through you yet revealing little or nothing for you to learn.
Luxe & The Preacherman

Church de Luxe supports Karl Lagerfeld

Peter Max once said:
"If you are not in the media, you do not exist."
And we at Church de Luxe want to remind you (along with Karl Lagerfeld) to remain stylish yet visible to the rest of the world:

Gary Zukav on a "Meaningful Life"

Get in touch with your own sense of meaning.
Your sense of meaning in your life, or lack of it, tells you if you are walking the path that your soul wants to walk.
If your life is filled with meaning, you are.
If your life is devoid of meaning, you are not.
If you are somewhere in between, moving in the direction – start to do those things – that give you of a sense of gratitude and purpose.

Your life was meant to be filled with meaning. As you align your personality with your soul, it becomes so. That is an experience of authentic power.

http://www.beliefnet.com

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."--Eleanor Roosevelt

A "burning desire" versus disattachment

1.Have a mind that is open to everything
and attached to nothing!
2.You cannot give away (love, abundance..) what you do not have.
3.Treat yourself as if you already were what you'd like to become
4. Treasure your divinity
(read Emerson on self reliance)
5.Avoid all thoughts which weaken you

Winston Churchill was a lover

"Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence —
is the key to unlocking our potential."
— Winston Churchill: Was an author, lover, soldier, and ..uh ...the U.K. prime minister

Wayne Dyer - Living by Decreasing

"The fish in the water that is thirsty,
needs some serious professional counseling"
Kabir of India

Osho on Choice

YOUR ANSWERS QUESTIONED.... The Goose Called Awareness

		Woody Allen might say: " I often panic, and worry that I might go mad.
		“The basic thing to be understood is that you are not the mind — neither the bright one nor the dark one. If you get identified with the beautiful part, then it is impossible to disidentify yourself from the ugly part; they are two sides of the same coin. You can have it whole, or you can throw it away whole, but you cannot divide it. “The whole anxiety of man is that he wants to choose that which looks beautiful, bright; he wants to choose all the silver linings, leaving the dark cloud behind. But he does not know that silver linings cannot exist without the dark cloud. The dark cloud is the background, absolutely necessary for silver linings to show. “Choosing is anxiety. “Choosing is creating trouble for yourself. “Being choiceless means: the mind is there and it has a dark side and it has a bright side — so what? What has it to do with you? Why should you be worried about it? “The moment you are not choosing, all worry disappears. A great acceptance arises, that this is how the mind has to be, this is the nature of the mind — and it is not your problem, because you are not the mind. If you were the mind, there would have been no problem at all. Then who would choose and who would think of transcending? And who would try to accept and understand acceptance? “You are separate, totally separate. “You are only a witness and nothing else. “But you are being an observer who gets identified with anything that he finds pleasant — and forgets that the unpleasant is coming just behind it as a shadow. You are not troubled by the pleasant side — you rejoice in it. The trouble comes when the polar opposite asserts — then you are torn apart. “But you started the whole trouble. Falling from being just a witness, you became identified. The biblical story of the fall is just a fiction. But this is the real fall — the fall from being a witness into getting identified with something and losing your witnessing. “Just try once in a while: Let the mind be whatever it is. Remember, you are not it. And you are going to have a great surprise. As you are less identified, the mind starts becoming less powerful, because its power comes from your identification; it sucks your blood. But when you start standing aloof and away, the mind starts shrinking. “The day you are completely unidentified with the mind, even for a single moment, there is the revelation: mind simply dies; it is no longer there. Where it was so full, where it was so continuous — day in, day out, waking, sleeping, it was there — suddenly it is not there. You look all around and it is emptiness, it is nothingness. “And with the mind disappears the self. Then there is only a certain quality of awareness, with no ‘I’ in it. At the most you can call it something similar to ‘am-ness,’ but not ‘I-ness.’ To be even more exact, it is ‘is-ness’ because even in am-ness some shadow of the ‘I’ is still there. The moment you know its is-ness, it has become universal. “With the disappearance of the mind disappears the self. And so many things disappear which were so important to you, so troublesome to you. You were trying to solve them and they were becoming more and more complicated; everything was a problem, an anxiety, and there seemed to be no way out. “I remind you of the story The Goose is Out. It is concerned with the mind and your is-ness. “The master tells the disciple to meditate on a koan: A small goose is put into a bottle, fed and nourished. The goose goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and fills the whole bottle. Now it is too big; it cannot come out of the bottle’s mouth — the mouth is too small. And the koan is that you have to bring the goose out without destroying the bottle, without killing the goose. “Now it is mind-boggling. “What can you do? The goose is too big; you cannot take it out unless you break the bottle, but that is not allowed. Or you can bring it out by killing it; then you don’t care whether it comes out alive or dead. That is not allowed either. “Day in, day out, the disciple meditates, finds no way, thinks this way and that way — but in fact there is no way. Tired, utterly exhausted, a sudden revelation...suddenly he understands that the master cannot be interested in the bottle and the goose; they must represent something else. The bottle is the mind, you are the goose...and with witnessing, it is possible. Without being in the mind, you can become identified with it so much that you start feeling you are in it! “He runs to the master to say that the goose is out. And the master says, “You have understood it. Now keep it out. It has never been in.” “If you go on struggling with the goose and the bottle, there is no way for you to solve it. It is the realization that, “It must represent something else; otherwise the master cannot give it to me. And what can it be?” — because the whole function between the master and the disciple, the whole business is about the mind and awareness. “Awareness is the goose which is not in the bottle of the mind. But you are believing that it is in it and asking everyone how to get it out. And there are idiots who will help you, with techniques, to get out of it. I call them idiots because they have not understood the thing at all. “The goose is out, has never been in, so the question of bringing it out does not arise. “Mind is just a procession of thoughts passing in front of you on the screen of the brain. You are an observer. But you start getting identified with beautiful things — those are bribes. And once you get caught in the beautiful things you are also caught in the ugly things, because mind cannot exist without duality. “Awareness cannot exist with duality, and mind cannot exist without duality. “Awareness is non-dual, and mind is dual. So just watch. I don’t teach you any solutions. I teach you the solution: Just get back a little and watch. Create a distance between you and your mind. “Whether it is good, beautiful, delicious, something that you would like to enjoy closely, or it is ugly — remain as far away as possible. Look at it just the way you look at a film.... “Identification is the root cause of your misery. And every identification is identification with the mind. “Just step aside, let the mind pass. “And soon you will be able to see that there is no problem at all — the goose is out. You don’t have to break the bottle, you don’t have to kill the goose either.”
		Osho: Beyond Psychology, chapter 19

A letter from Jim Rohn

1. Where Do You Go for Your Intellectual Feast? by Jim Rohn (excerpted from Leading an Inspired Life)

Pity the man who has a favorite restaurant, but not a favorite author. He's picked out a favorite place to feed his body, but he doesn't have a favorite place to feed his mind!

Why would this be? Have you heard about the accelerated learning curve? From birth, up until the time we are about eighteen, our learning curve is dramatic, and our capacity to learn during this period is just staggering. We learn a tremendous amount very fast. We learn language, culture, history, science, mathematics... everything!

For some people, the accelerated learning process will continue on. But for most, it levels off when they get their first job. If there are no more exams to take, if there's no demand to get out paper and pencil, why read any more books? Of course, you will learn some things through experience. Just getting out there – sometimes doing it wrong and sometimes doing it right - you will learn.

Can you imagine what would happen if you kept up an accelerated learning curve all the rest of your life? Can you imagine what you could learn to do, the skills you could develop, the capacities you could have? Here's what I'm asking you to do: be that unusual person who keeps up his learning curve and develops an appetite for always trying to find good ideas.

One way to feed your mind and educate your philosophy is through the writings of influential people. Maybe you can't meet the person, but you can read his or her books. Churchill is gone, but we still have his books. Aristotle is gone, but we still have his ideas. Search libraries for books and programs. Search magazines. Search documentaries. They are full of opportunities for intellectual feasting.

In addition to reading and listening, you also need a chance to do some talking and sharing. I have some people in my life who help me with important life questions, who assist me in refining my own philosophy, weighing my values and pondering questions about success and lifestyle.

We all need association with people of substance to provide influence concerning major issues such as society, money, enterprise, family, government, love, friendship, culture, taste, opportunity, and community. Philosophy is mostly influenced by ideas, ideas are mostly influenced by education, and education is mostly influenced by the people with whom we associate.

One of the great fortunes of my life was to be around Mr. Shoaff those five years. During that time he shared with me at dinner, during airline flights, at business conferences, in private conversations and in groups. He gave me many ideas that enabled me to make small daily adjustments in my philosophy and activities. Those daily changes, some very slight, but very important, soon added up to weighty sums.

A big part of the lesson was having Mr. Schoff repeat the ideas over and over. You just can't hear the fundamentals of life philosophy too often. They are the greatest form of nutrition, the building blocks for a well-developed mind.

I'm asking that you feed your mind just as you do your body. Feed it with good ideas, wherever they can be found. Always be on the lookout for a good idea - a business idea, a product idea, a service idea, an idea for personal improvement. Every new idea will help to refine your philosophy. Your philosophy will guide your life, and your life will unfold with distinction and pleasure.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

Persistence

Carpe Diem in Hollywood

Embrace this day and make it special! This is the day the Source has made for you and you shall rejoice in it!
"Be a Beneficial Presence!" said Dr. Michael Bernhard Beckwith (or ...without)