Waking Times

Meme - The benefits of meditation are many, and we are learning new ones everyday. In general, meditation lowers stress and anxiety levels and decreases risk of depression. It improves our ability to concentrate, helps stabilize our moods, and improves sleep. Meditation results in better lives and sharper minds.

Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness

I wrote the following for the 132nd issue of The Culture of Awareness Weekly Newsletter, which I offer for $11.11 a month. Income from the newsletter helps my family and I get by, and the option to subscribe via PayPal can be found at the bottom of this post.

This week, we’ll talk about the little things we can do to heal the earth. A lot of big things obviously need done to restore our world to its once pristine condition, and we’ll make those big changes when everyone can come together, but until then, we can ask ourselves what small acts we can do to make things better for mother nature.

By making small changes, we can facilitate the much larger changes that need made before the earth can be a fully restored, healed world that provides its people with all the resources we need without us exploiting it or personally profiting from its resources.

It is true. You are to follow your own heart. You are your own drummer. This is not to say that you are to necessarily follow all of your immediate impulses. You may want another ice cream sundae. This does not mean you have to say Yes to another ice cream sundae.

You may want with all your heart to have a new car. This doesn’t necessarily mean you are to buy one just now. Sometimes it isn’t a choice, or a good choice for you. It is not a bad thing when you cannot afford something. Not having the money helps you to discern and make decisions.

It is good for you to follow your dreams. Of course, all dreams aren’t about spending money. In the relative world, everything depends.

Common sense also has its place. Nor can it be said that common sense is to rule. Whose common sense is it? Yours or someone else’s? Results are not always the test. What you see as good results or unfortunate results may not tell the tale. Eventually, someone would have discovered the sought-after New World. If Christopher Columbus had initially listened to the advice of the world, it wouldn’t have been Christopher Columbus who discovered America.

It is not always so easy to know where your heart is leading you or whether it is truly your heart at all. Many a man and woman have fallen in love. Their hearts were certainly happy, and yet how many of these happy hearts married great happiness?

Pao L. Chang, Guest
Waking Times

Since the emergence of epigenomics, which is the study of how epigenetic modifications affect the genetic material of cells or the entire organism, geneticists have discovered that the human genome is a lot more complex than they have ever imagined. For example, DNA sequencing technologies that are currently available to mainstream geneticists can only decode roughly 21,000 known genes that are involved in protein synthesis in the human body. This only decodes a very small percentage of the human genome.

The 21,000 known genes that are involved in protein synthesis make up nearly 1.5 percent of the human body’s DNA. This means that roughly 98.5 percent of the human DNA structure, which is often referred to as “junk DNA”, is yet to be decoded. However, certain advanced DNA sequencing technologies that aren’t available to mainstream geneticists have decoded the human genome beyond the 21,000 known genes.