ARE WE POSSESSED? August 8, 2012

C. G. Jung, the great doctor of the soul and one of the most inspired psychologists of the twentieth century, had incredible insight into what is currently playing out, both individually and collectively, in our modern-day world. He writes, “If, for a moment, we look at mankind as one individual, we see that it is like a man carried away by unconscious powers.” We are a species carried away — “possessed” by — and acting out, the unconscious. Jung elaborates, “Possession, though old-fashioned, has by no means become obsolete; only the name has changed. Formerly they spoke of ‘evil spirits,’ now we call them ‘neurosis’ or ‘unconscious complexes.’”

To condescendingly think that we, as modern-day, rational people, are too sophisticated to believe in something as primitive as demons is to have fallen under the spell of the very evil spirits we are imagining are nonexistent. What the ancients call demons are a psychic phenomena which compel us to act out behaviors contrary to our best intentions. To quote Jung, “…the psychic conditions which breed demons are as actively at work as ever. The demons have not really disappeared but have merely taken on another form: they have become unconscious psychic forces.”

“Possession,” according to Jung is “a primordial psychic phenomenon” that “denotes a peculiar state of mind characterized by the fact that certain psychic contents, the so-called complexes, take over the control of the total personality in place of the ego, at least temporarily, to such a degree that the free will of the ego is suspended.”

Another realization from my motherhood experience March 4, 2012

My sweet daughter is almost one year old now. So far I have been fully enjoying the motherhood experience and learning a lot from that.

I have realized certain things and have posted about some here, here and here. Today, rounding up this year, happy to share one more insight.

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Watching my daughter grow, I can see clearly that despite her taking physically after her father and temperament-wise after her mother, she possesses her own already developed personality. I wonder how people who have children can really belive they come totally “new” into this world?! Nothing doing, more than ever I am convinced now that one soul is getting born again and again, reincarnation is not a mere theory.

One amazing thing about my baby is her conscious vegetarianism.

I should admit I am a convinced non-vegetarian myself. I tried to reject meat many years back but this did much harm to my health so I realized that at least for myself this would not work. And I never regret that, enjoying some chicken or even beef now and then. When I got pregnant, after the second month (normally when the soul is believed to enter the embryo’s body) I suddenly stopped eating meat and fish. I could not swallow a piece!  Well I thought, this is definitely not me 🙂 Thus the embryo grew as a pure vegetarian, being perfectly fit. When the time came for the baby to start taking other food additionally to milk, I was advised to try giving all kinds of food, also chicken and fish. And – imagine! – she rejects completely! Quite a conscious choice, I would say, because otherwise she is a good eater.

Now tell me what is the reason behind this? I cannot see any other except that this soul has come not only with a certain character, but with a set of habits and ideas as well, and probably a even a certain mission.

I am  sure my experience and realization about it is not unique. Please share yours!

thanks 🙂

LOVE, axinia

The top 10 of my strenghts January 3, 2012

It’s time for introspection. Let’s see what we have here. I suggest introspecting on strengths, not on weaknesses. Here is my list. 

1. I am forgiving. Or better to put I have no issue of forgiving because I never feel offended. This such a relaxing point for my brain: I do not hang on any person or situation.

2. I am giving and sharing.  Presents, attention, time…just love doing it!

3. I love people, this means I love to meet, to take care, to enjoy, to support, I took sincere interest in their lives.

4. I live in the present. I enjoy whatever I am doing at the moment. And I do it with dedication, keeping my full attention on the action. This brings great results. Seldom do I think of the past or future, this is not interesting for me.

5. I am self-disciplined. I am very determined as far as my tasks are concerned. At the same time I never set up any goals and never think of what I want to achieve in the future. Whatever comes my way I just follow and fulfill.

6. I manage things fast and in high quality, trying to fix every task as soon as it arrives. I know that procrastination is a tricky thing and once delayed something, it is hard to get on track with it.

When a voice gets tuned by the spirit… December 29, 2011

Enjoy the highlights of one amazing Christmas concert in Vienna last week.

Item Nr. 1 is my sister Tatiana Samylova singing Belcanto aria.

A way out of depression February 4, 2011

image by axinia

Depression, the greatest soul plague of modern humans… I wonder is it really a modern phenomenon or it is just better documented nowadays that in earlier centuries?

What defines depression? It is the act of depressing and the condition of being depressed. Depression is characterized by lack of activity, self-worth, dejection, sad feelings, gloom and inadequacy. When the people are in depression, then their life becomes negative. People in depression often face hopelessness, passivity, indecisiveness, suicidal intentions, loss of appetite, weight loss, sleeping disorders.

Here are some statistics on depression:

• Main reasons of depression in men are separation after marriage, widowed, divorce
• In US nearly 7 million women are clinically depressed
• One in seven men will develop depression within 6 months of becoming unemployed
• Mostly 15 percent of women suffering from severe depression will commit suicide
• Nearly 10 percent of women experience postpartum depression after birth of a child
• 2003 National Comorbidity Study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health 16% of the population that is nearly 35 million Americans suffer from severe depression
• in Austria: every 5th person is clinically depressed and under medication

I guess the statistics on other countries will be not much different. By simply observing that one can get depressed!

Although I am not an expert on this subject,  I would like to share one unique experience I had about being depressed. May be it will help someone out.

To force or not to force? January 28, 2011

 

 

 

image by axinia

 

A recent article on “Chinese upbringing methods” made a splash in the web, even on the Russian Internet. If you haven’t come across it, please check the article here, I allow myself to repost it. Please read to the end! And see my comments below.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV and hours of music practice create happy kids? An excerpt from Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

 A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

I’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I’m also using the term “Western parents” loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

All the same, even when Western parents think they’re being strict, they usually don’t come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough.

Stunning evidence of vibrational awareness November 29, 2010

image by axinia

We humans can normally identify our peers on some outer signs (nationality by face features and colour,  social background by manners and clothing, etc.). I for instance, can pick up a Russian in any crowd by some features like the (pale) face colour, features and expression, even some body language can give a hint.

Thus we always need to see or to hear a person in order to characterize his/her origin or occupation. In the same way the performance of a person can be also rather false (somebody trying to “play a role”, to pretend to  be somebody, especially in a social context). That’s the typical case with politicians when they do their job “well”.

Having vibrational awareness, its easy to find out “who is who” despite all the shine and charm, and even if a person thousands of miles away. Vibrations give us a chance to feel the true nature of a person despite all outside features.

Yesterday we had a stunning case to illustrate this fact. My husband and me, we were going by subway. A young man was sitting opposite to us. Sunnenly he asked us in English:

 “May I ask you a question?” – normally people don’t talk to strangers in a Viennese subway :).

We said yes.

The birthday of an angel: a fascinating life story! November 18, 2010

In this life I am extremely lucky with my close relatives and friends – they all are amazingly beautiful human beings and at some point I can’t keep myself from paying them my tribute (see my earlier posts on my mother, father, husband, best friend).

Today is my beloved sister’s birthday and I would love to use this opportunity to tell you the story of her life.

You may ask me what is so remarkable in the life of a young woman? Has she suffered a lot, got into “stories”, changes 10 husbands, got from poor to rich and then back like in a bad novel? No, no. From the narrative point of view – nothing, there are stories of people who are much more captivating than any novel. It’s not the case here. The fascination of Tatiana’s story for me is in its evidence for a living transformation which is possible through the light of the Spirit.

As a child Tatiana was a rather mediocre girl with no special talents and qualities, sometimes greedy, sometimes even mean. In this photo of her as a child you can see that she was not that open and even somehow mistrustful…Really not an angel.

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Being an ordinary girl, she was not interested in anything special, and not at all in spirituality.

However having a seeker like me in the family, it was  probably logcal for her to get attracted to spiritual seeking and when one day I came and told her: “Tanya, I think I HAVE FOUND IT!” she immediately wanted to join me. That’s the way we came to the fascinating Sahaja Yoga practice 15 years back. We were young and had lots of fun about doing meditation and discovering new opportunities, new sensations, new awareness and gradually the new life dimension.

 By this time she went for musical studies and had rather a boring voice and no evidence for it improvement. All of a sudden Tatiana’s voice opened up and she started singing like never before!After several months of Sahaja mediation practise her voice has dramatically improved. Even her teachers were wondering what happened… And that was just a beginning!

Only a few people really want money September 18, 2010

My boss is a talented private banker and an excellent psychologist. I learned a lot by observing his talks with job candidates in the beginning of my Human Resources Carriere. And since the idea of his business is to make money, my major task has been to find people who REALLY want to earn money. Interestingly, it turned to be a hard task!

The best two questions to ask a candidate is “Do you love money?” and ” What do you need money for?”. The first reaction always is: “yes, sure, who doesn’t?!?” and when I start asking how this love for money actually manifests in his/her life….a person suddenly realises that actually “no…not really”.

It is a paradox? I think no. In fact, most of the people just want a sufficient life standard and nothing more. A dream of becoming rich is obviously a brain-washed one: how many of us are really ready to DO something to become rich? Not many. Because it mostly means too much work, too much stress, to many other conditions which we believe we do not have… The truth is, it is not needed.

A basic income guarantee – a dream or a future reality? August 18, 2010

The idea of a basic income guarantee is getting popular. In case you have not heard about it yet, a basic income guarantee (or basic income) is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. In contrast to income redistribution between nations themselves, the phrase basic income defines payments to individuals rather than households, groups, or nations, in order to provide for individual basic human needs. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional.

In Germany they speak about 500 or even 1000 € monthly unconditional income for everyone.

 What are the arguments?

One of the arguments for a basic income was articulated by the French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz:

The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet-unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact…

From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work…

Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: ‘the micro-chip revolution’. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis.