Wisdom Versus Knowledge – The Difference Between the Mind and the Brain

April 7. 2016 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="Wisdom Versus Knowledge – The Difference Between the Mind and the Brain" url="https://creationcenter.org/wisdom-versus-knowledge-the-difference-between-the-mind-and-the-brain/"]

To understand wisdom versus knowledge and the difference between the mind and the brain, I’d love to share some blended teachings I’ve received over the years.  In indigenous cultures and mystical traditions all over the world they look at the brain and the mind in many different and faceted ways.  Today I’d like to bring into your awareness a few of these teachings that I find to be of great benefit.  For this article, I’m going to morph these sacred teachings into two parts so as not to get overwhelmed by the thousands of different ways we can view these.  Let’s start with the brain.   The brain thinks only from the data you’ve received in this life nothing new and we’re not talking about cellular memory just data.  It dissects and segments out all of the data you've received into a logical and somewhat limited viewpoint (your personality) in order to understand the information.  Your mind is the creative, outside of the box, beyond personal experience connected to the very center of creation itself.  This is pure intellect and...

What To Think During Meditation – Do We Need To Master Our Mental Chatter?

March 10. 2016 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="What To Think During Meditation – Do We Need To Master Our Mental Chatter?" url="https://creationcenter.org/what-to-think-during-meditation-do-we-need-to-master-our-mental-chatter/"]

Mental chatter in meditation is something most people feel they have to stop, however, there is an easy way to master this with remarkable results.  Let’s look at this from a different point of view.  Many often wonder what to think during meditation to stop the chatter.  It's not about stopping the mental chatter, it’s about moving outside of your thoughts going through their motions.  It’s like noticing what your brain is thinking and not being personally involved in it.  The quality of your thoughts are important for inner happiness, but to think you cannot meditate with any thoughts is a set up for failure.  It’s like saying you can’t meditate unless it is completely quiet around you.  Yet can you not hear yourself breathing or the pulsation of your blood being pumped through your ears?  If this were the case, only the deaf could meditate.  Your brain is a gift, it's doing its job coming up with new wonderful ways of playing and experiencing life.  Where it can cause a disturbance in your meditation is when you are not...

Meeting the World with Empowered Innocence

February 25. 2016 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="Meeting the World with Empowered Innocence" url="https://creationcenter.org/meeting-the-world-with-empowered-innocence/"]

As adults, how we introduce ourselves is more about what we do in the world and less about who we truly are. As kids, it was your name and then a myriad of questions to find connection: “What’s your favorite game? Do you like to ride bikes? My favorite color is a rainbow, what’s yours?” These questions were based more on what you liked and what you liked to do, so that we could do it together. Through this onslaught of fast paced excited questioning, it often lead to super-charged joyous connection blowing the mere happy by yourself right out of the water. As for me, the squeals of delight and sound of group laughter were the highlight of my days as a kid. Now, as an adult, it’s the blissful connection to my Soul that excites me, followed by the squeals of delight and sounds of group laughter. This way of being offers me the balance of being a fully empowered adult with a childlike heart of innocence. For me it is the amazing gift of being powerful, playful,...

Unlearning – The Way to Dig Out a Lifetime of Opposing Beliefs

February 11. 2016 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="Unlearning – The Way to Dig Out a Lifetime of Opposing Beliefs" url="https://creationcenter.org/unlearning-the-way-to-dig-out-a-lifetime-of-opposing-beliefs/"]

People will sum you up in a heartbeat.  They will look at your physical appearance and make judgments.  They’ll ask what your value is by questioning, “So, what do you do for a living?” They’ll check out what car you drive or the house you live in.  From our current social training and conditioning this all makes a big impression on who you are and what you’re worth. For some reason (probably because my Mom was a hippie, thank you Mom!), I didn’t fully get the depth of this social conditioning until my husband and I did a massive remodel of our home and we started having our daughter’s friends come over.  Seeing how they and their parents would react to the girls and I before they saw our home, compared to afterwards, was eye opening and made me feel really uncomfortable.  I am a very down to earth type of person and our home basically became a mini-mansion, by far the largest house in our lovely middle class neighborhood.  My husband relished in it.  You could see he loved...

When a Laugh Really Isn’t Funny

January 28. 2016 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="When a Laugh Really Isn’t Funny" url="https://creationcenter.org/when-a-laugh-really-isnt-funny/"]

I love a good laugh and being able to laugh at oneself is of utmost importance in getting through this whole life process without taking yourself too seriously.  There is however a major difference in laughing at yourself and using self-deprecating humor.  I have found that a lot of young people pick up this behavior as a way to maneuver through school and often they  wind up carrying it into adulthood causing great harm to themselves.  So sure, everyone is laughing at your jokes, however, you are using your words against you.  Though the adulation of making others laugh may feel great, inside you feel small and insignificant, and you end up programming your brain that you are those  things. This is some of the worst programming we can do on ourselves.  It usually starts with someone poking fun at us, then even stronger than that, full blown bullying starts with: look at so and so they’re ugly, stupid, fat, have nasty acne, and the list goes on and on.  If the bullying is really bad our defense mechanism may...

Creating the Healing Gift of Full Presence through Deep Listening

January 20. 2016 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="Creating the Healing Gift of Full Presence through Deep Listening" url="https://creationcenter.org/creating-the-healing-gift-of-full-presence-through-deep-listening/"]

People have always had challenges, pains, and sufferings. The most powerful way to heal that trauma is by coming together with one another and being fully present with each other through listening deeply. Deep listening is a practice that has been the cornerstone of indigenous healers for centuries, myself included. It is not only practiced when we work with those who have come for healing, but also when we move in nature. This is where it shifts from having a conversation heart to heart with another, to heart to nature, where the trees, plants and deva’s speak with us from that state of open awareness, the depth of deep listening. My best reference; a deep contemplation in a relaxed state. This space of being in nature creates deep peace. This sacred way of being is taught to us when we are young. This is not the way most Westerners have been trained. Because of this when we start to process our pain we stop it mid-track. We feel unsafe, judged, or not heard, and because of this we shut down,...

What If… – An Alternative to the New Year’s Resolution

December 31. 2015 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="What If… – An Alternative to the New Year’s Resolution" url="https://creationcenter.org/what-if-an-alternative-to-the-new-years-resolution/"]

We are at the beginning of a whole new year which usually includes New Year’s resolutions. Instead of taking a confined, contracted approach that leads to disappointment, as excitement fades away into another failed resolution, what if we were to engage our way of being as a question? A question that we inquisitively delve into answering, in a relaxed and open state, that helps us move beyond the limited enclosure of a resolution. Imagine a new way of asking ourselves brilliant, simple questions that inspires us to be our best, free from creating stress and the habit of self-sabotaging resolutions that seem to set us up for failure? What if this year, we love ourselves so much, that we melt into our best being ever by simply being curious? By asking ourselves a simple question and just playing throughout the day with it, as we felt like it, with different perspectives and possibilities, allowing the energy of the question to move within us, and do what it does? For the next four days, we will be offering What If You......

December 23. 2015 | by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="The Benefits of the Vajra Guru Mantra" url="https://creationcenter.org/the-benefits-of-the-vajra-guru-mantra/"]

  The Syllable by Syllable Commentary Explaining the Benefits and Advantages of the Vajra Guru Mantra By the great tertön Karma Lingpa (14th century)     The Vajra Guru Mantra is the mantra associated with Guru Rinpoche, also known as Padmasambhava. This is a draft translation of a treasure text which explains the Vajra Guru Mantra. It was originally concealed during the time of Padmasambhava in Tibet and later rediscovered by Karma Lingpa (14th century) who brought it forth from its place of concealment and copied it down on reams of gold. It is simply known as "The Syllable by Syllable Commentary Explaining the Benefits of the Vajra Guru Mantra. "It begins with an invocation and then goes into a dialogue between Yeshe Tsogyal, the spiritual consort of Padmasambhava, and Padmasambhava himself. And so, Yeshe Tsogyal begins: I, the woman Yeshe Tsogyal, having offered to you the inner and outer mandala on a vast scale, have the following request. Oh great teacher, Pema Jungne, you have been extremely kind to us, the Tibetan people, leaving for us a legacy that...

Diving Into the Center of the Wheel of Life – A Closer Look for Deeper Understanding and Powerful Healing

| by Brook Still | A-Ha! Moments, Featured Articles[ssba title="Diving Into the Center of the Wheel of Life – A Closer Look for Deeper Understanding and Powerful Healing" url="https://creationcenter.org/diving-into-the-center-of-the-wheel-of-life-a-closer-look-for-deeper-understanding-and-powerful-healing/"]

The picture here is of a Tibetan thangka called the Wheel of Life also known as the Wheel of Deluded Existence. Not only is it a beautiful piece of art, like all thangkas, it is a teaching drawn with rich symbolism to awaken the spiritual seeker. The way our minds work, is that we are captivated and learn best through story telling. So though this may seem like a beautiful piece of artwork, and it is indeed that, it is also one of the most powerful visual stories on how to move out of suffering and become liberated on this planet. Today I’d like to go into the center of this glorious painting and dive a little deeper with you to unlock some of its magic. I first learned these teachings years ago with a spiritual master by the name of Derek O’Neill and it still is a source of great wisdom as it unfolds more and more each year for me. The complete thangka shows us where our challenges start, in the center of the wheel and moves outward...