The Refresh Orlando Heirs

Copyright 2006 Alanna Kaivalya

Many people ask me if I can recommend where they should study
yoga on their travels to the birthplace of this ancient Indian
philosophy. I humbly admit to them that I have never been to
India. My gurus are in New York–and they are American.

Most people are surprised at this admission. They question me
regarding this. After all, if I am a yogi, shouldn’t my guru be
an Indian man? Well, the gurus of my gurus are Indian men, but
in my case, I look into the soft brown eyes and pale skin of my
gurus when I bow before them.

It’s funny. yoga has taken such a hold in America, yet some
misconceptions are still etched in the practice. For example, we
think yoga is practiced in hot rooms just because it is hot in
India; we have this image in our minds of ancient yogis
practicing warrior two and sun salutations, and we think that in
order to be a true guru, your nationality matters.

In this day and age of yoga, its evolution has taken a major
turn, one towards the west. More westerners are doing yoga
today, at least the practice we define as yoga, than Indians.
There is a saying now that there is more yoga on the lower east
side of Manhattan than there is in all of India. Westerners have
taken yoga to the next level–a level of fitness, industry, and
fashion–yet many yogis still try to remain close to the roots
of yoga.

One of the ways that yogis strive to remain closely tied to the
true purpose of the practice is by tightening their grip on what
they think is most “classical,” the finding of a guru. This is,
in my opinion, the most important piece of yogic philosophical
principles. While the west has shaped yoga and turned it into an
amazing practice that many people need right now, the one thing
that hasn’t seemed to catch up with this tidal wave is the idea
of a guru.

Many practitioners think that it’s not important. In truth, some
think that guru is a bad word, and those who get over the stigma
of what a guru tends to represent think a practitioner has to go
to India to find one. This is simply not true. Yoga, as we know
it, is largely a western phenomenon, and it is western yogis who
have created it and helped it to evolve into the practice we
know today. It is they who have crafted the practical
application of yoga for modern day living, so why should we not
turn to them to learn all we can of their designs? Whether it is
Ashtanga, Iyengar, Kripalu, Jivamukti, Viniyoga, Power yoga, or
any of the other multitudinous options, all these practices have
very strong roots in the west and truly adroit western yogis at
their respective helms.

Yoga came into my life in a fairly traditional (American) way. I
started going to classes during college simply for health
reasons, which is the way most people enter into a yoga
practice. Something very strong took hold, and I’ve been an avid
practitioner since. A nagging desire sent me to study with
Sharon Gannon and David Life, and my whole world turned upside
down. In their presence, I learned what the term “guru” meant.
In short, I learned to surrender to another being who could show
me my true Light.

I know what you’re thinking, Wow, that’s some pretty esoteric,
frou frou talk for a western girl! Believe me, I would have
thought so myself before I stood in their presence, but
something in me shifted as I listened to them talk at my teacher
training. I felt that strong sense of individuality that
Americans prize so highly start to slip away. Suddenly, life
wasn’t all about me anymore, and for the first time, I didn’t
feel alone. To put it bluntly, loneliness is nasty. A study by
the National Institute of Aging says that, “People who feel
lonely have more health problems and a shorter life expectancy
than those who do not feel lonely.” Loneliness plagues
Americans; it causes stress, shortens our lives, and, in
general, makes us a despondent and sorrowful lot.

Well, I’ve found the cure for this common American disease
called loneliness, and it’s a guru. Yes, finding someone who
will ‘ru’ (remove) your ‘gu’ (darkness or muck) is a surefire
way to find peace and a release from the ills that plague you.
You see, we are all like tiny drops of the ocean wandering
around, and until we get back, we don’t have the great vast sea
of knowledge or bliss from which to draw. One of the quickest
ways to get back to the ocean is to find yourself a guru, a
person or group of people, who can teach you life’s greatest
lessons without your protest and without your ego saying, “I’m
going to do it my way.” Some people think that surrender to a
guru makes you bland and uninteresting, but by adding your drop
of the ocean back into the voluminous sea, you actually have
more to draw from and can become a much more rich and vibrant
individual.

You don’t have to travel to India; you don’t even have to be
Indian. You don’t even have to practice yoga very much to find a
guru. The great thing is about this tradition is that “when the
student is ready, the teacher will appear,” so, sit back, relax,
be receptive to all the lessons life brings to you, and get
ready to discover yoga’s untapped resource–the tremendous power
of surrender to a guru.

I’m lucky.

When I was fifteen, I was the sole survivor in one of those
horrific car accidents involving a bunch of teens, lots of
alcohol, and late-night fast driving. While the driver and other
passengers were killed instantly when our car hit a tree on a
drizzly summer night, I had the most powerful experience of my
life.

I felt myself being lifted lightly, and it seemed as though I
was actually caressed by a loving presence. I remember feeling
soothed, comforted, and cherished. I didn’t want it to end.

The next thing I remember is lying in a pile of wet leaves with
a bunch of flashlights in my face. I walked away without a
scratch.

The others were from a different town, and their families, high
school friends and teachers mourned their loss bitterly. When
they heard that there was a survivor, someone from out of town,
many of them felt angry that one of their friends couldn’t have
been the survivor instead of me. In their anguish, they called
to inform me of this sentiment. It was a lot for a 15-year-old
to handle.

Nobody knew about the accident at my high school. This was
before crisis teams were in place to deal with tragedies. There
were no counselors standing by in my case. I was filled with a
tremendous sense of guilt, and my beautiful experience was one I
never discussed. I couldn’t talk about feeling cherished when
others had died. It seemed disrespectful and arrogant.

Months later, one of the mothers of the victims called me. I
hadn’t had any contact with any of the families or friends, and
was mourning alone in silence, in exile, really, pretending that
everything was just fine. She wanted to invite me over for tea.
I declined. I was afraid of hurting her, overwhelmed by my
guilt, and petrified that she would lash out at me.

She persisted. I must have declined her invitations half a dozen
times in the next three months, making lame excuses and once
even pretending to be my sister, telling her I wasn’t home.

Fortunately, she kept at it, and when I finally did come over to
her house for tea, she wrapped me in a completely reassuring
hug.

She was my first meditation teacher. She recognized my pain, and
I am eternally grateful that she taught me skills to cope with
it. I truly believe she saved my life for the second time.

I used meditation as a tool. There was no association with any
particular religion. Despite the clear sense of a benign
presence during the accident, it just never occurred to me that
it was God. Others may have responded with a renewed religious
conviction. I opted for a simple there-must-be-a-reason view.

Years later, as a college student interested in psychology,
philosophy, and science, I was studying with a university
professor and meditation teacher in Sri Lanka. Ratne taught a
technique for mindfulness meditation that meshed perfectly with
my need for logic, order, and my view of the universe as
manifesting power in magnificent but unpredictable ways. He
taught meditation from a thinker’s perspective, validating the
notion that we are entrusted with the responsibility to use our
minds for both thinking and non-thinking.

Ratne died a few years ago, but his son, Deva, is carrying on
his tradition of mindfulness training in Sri Lanka. My friend
visited Deva recently and was immersed in discussions to build
an environmentally-friendly meditation center on a hilltop
there.

Deva’s mindfulness technique is growing in popularity with good
reason–it’s simple, and it is completely detached from any
specific religion.

This is not your father’s meditation. It’s Deva’s insightful
take on his dad’s approach. It’s thoroughly modern and
inclusive, based as much on our understanding of the brain as it
is on our professed need to find bliss.

I’ve been lucky to be exposed to this unique method. Through
good times and bad, meditation has given me perspective and a
sense of ease when I needed it most. I’ve lost two brothers to
suicide, one to AIDS, a stepfather and father-in-law to cancer
in the last few years. Meditation has been a life raft as well
as a surprising source of direction and joy.

Although I am quick to identify myself as a thinker, in the same
breath I’ll tell you I’m a meditator. They go hand in hand for
me. I consider it my favorite ego-attachment.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, you can use meditation to
strengthen yourself and your understanding of the universe. If
the age-old methods aren’t working for you, perhaps all you need
is an updated version, an upgrade to Meditation 2.0, if you
will.

You can skip the pricey bench or embroidered cushion. Don’t
bother with the candle. Keep the incense in the drawer. Contrary
to popular belief, no equipment is required.

All you need is your mind–and a supportive teacher. I hope you
are lucky enough to find yours.

I have been intrigued by psychics and what really goes on when you call one of these lines. So yesterday I called one up and was surprised if not a little shocked by what happened.
First let me say that I have an opened mind but im no sucker, in fact ive been on the net for 10 years and I know almost every scam that has been tried and only a very small amount have ever got me sucked in and having a psychic reading on the internet to me was just about as risky as it gets.
But the opportunity came up for me to write an article for the newspaper I worked for and I thought great lets see what this is all about, so here I go.

I logged on and typed in a site that many people I know use, its called www.psychicguild.com and is a large organization that basically sets the standards for internet psychic sites.
I thought I may as well start at what many people say is the best site when it comes to psychics.
I was quite surprised when the site first loaded because I was expecting to just see a few psychics and their contact numbers. Instead it was more like a spiritual life site with heaps of content on all areas of spirituality. I mean they had psychics of course but there is all sorts of information on wellbeing, health, motivation and its all free. They do charge for some astrology reports and of course psychic readings but everything else is free.

So I proceeded to the psychic area and was able to read all about each psychic, how they became psychic and what they specialize in. I didn’t realize there are so many other readings you can get besides psychic readings. Others like Tarot readings, crystal and clairvoyant readings to name a few.
I also checked out their policy information which was quite in depth. They offer a money back guarantee if you are not happy with your psychic reading, which I must say surprised me, so I rang their customer support line and they reassured me that if I was not happy with the call I could get a refund. They also had a 5 minute free offer that I could use so I rang that line and spoke to Jenny.
Well what a call, I asked her about my love life, job opportunities and of course when will I be rich and just to be sure I asked her what type of a person I was. Just for the record im single, I am not rich and im an average sort of guy and I am happy.

So away she went. She first started with my situation saying that although I thought I was happy,(by the way I didn’t tell her anything besides my name) i was making the most of an average life and let many opportunities for increased happiness pass me by. She went on to say that there are two people who think im worth going out on a date with but I give all the wrong signs. She continued to say that I had a great job but could do better and that there were many other opportunities in my life that I didn’t take notice of.
Well that was all fine but in my mind much to general, it could have applied to anyone and I told her, which she laughed about, a psychic with humor, now this was getting interesting. So she gave me more detail about these two prospective women in my life and not only described them but named them and went on to even tell me why they liked me. I don’t want to sound stupid because im not but on hearing that I nearly dropped the phone. She was spot on. I thought who the hell is this lady, I only rang for a joke and to write my newspaper column and now here I was having my life laid out on a table and being told of a life that I was letting pass me by.

Well ill save you my personal details but all in all I was quite amazed by the call. Since then I summoned up the courage to ask Sally in my office out and we have had a ball. ive since called Jenny back and came clean on why I called but that hasn’t removed my surprise that psychics are not making it up, not on this site anyway. They have a code of ethics and many of them are trained counselors.

So there you have it, I call up for a funny story and the jokes on me. Then again the call has now changed many things in my life for the better, so I suppose I have had the last laugh in the end.

You can call and get your own psychic reading by logging onto www.PsychicGuild.com.

PS. Make sure you try the free am I psychic test its very interesting.

About the Author

Mike is a journalist for several US newspapers and has been searching the internet to write about the growth in psychic sites

There is a nice fluid market for both new and after market
digital cameras on eBay. Digital Camera usage has grown
enormously over the past few years. Technology has reduced the
old film and developing almost to the archives. Quality cameras
ranging in price from well under $500 to over $2000 are
available. Professionals, amateur hobbyists and regular
households all seem to be acquiring cameras, often more than one
per household. The question becomes how can I acquire a digital
camera at the best possible price?

With a large volume of most models being traded everyday, this
is the ideal efficient market. One can study the dynamics of
this micro-market and determine some useful buying rules. With a
little more information than the rest of the marketplace, one
can almost certainly make some intelligent buying opportunities.
This article focuses on how to identify these gaps and often
purchase digital camera’s for 20-40% below retail.

This article should be read together with my longer piece and a
web site, which produces the information required to identify
buying nuggets. Find the links and URL’s to these two sites at
the bottom of this article. The niche site focuses specifically
and only on data from the digital camera market.

Most information on eBay focuses on the selling element, i.e.
how to sell your stuff. I have tended to specialize on the
buying end and trying to identify market opportunities and price
in-efficiencies to really capture excellent deals. To do this we
need to understand the dynamics of the eBay market place. Like
any other market it is supply demand driven, and like a large
flee-market if a buyer has knowledge of how many items are for
sale at what prices and how many other buyers are in the market,
then that buyer can capture the upper hand. Lets focus a little
more on supply.

The eBay supply dynamic is a little different in that supply of
an item must be seen at a point in time. In other words, because
auctions end at different times, one needs to grasp the number
of auctions ending in close proximity for the same item. This
gives you a feel for the supply of items or in our case cameras.
What makes this interesting is that today there could be a large
amount of auctions ending for a particular model, but next week
there could be very few. This is one element driving the price.

The demand side is slightly more complex and hidden from the
average eBay buyer. This is where that the web site I refer to
at the bottom has some useful data. Demand in eBay terms is
measured (by sellers) as a number of factors - how many people
view my auction, how many people ask questions, how many people
place me on their watch page, and how many people actually bid.
Obviously as we progress down this list the data become more
reliable as an indication of demand. Page views are not easy to
obtain, although some sellers place a publicly viewable counter
on their auction pages. Questions and watchers are available to
sellers, and the special web site mentioned below will expose
this information. Number of bids is available for all to see.

Now if we happened to produce a graph as the auction progresses
of the changes in the number of questions, watchers and bid’s
one can easily see how the demand is changing as time
progresses. Typically if questions are high and watchers are
high, but bids are low, this may indicate some confusion and a
possible buy opportunity. If watchers are very high and
climbing, but bids are low, this can point to a last minute
bidding war, and a stay out indicator.

Armed with this information and also a quick summary of other
similar auctions ending soon, plus a quick feel for the skill
set of the seller and the current highest bidder, once can see a
picture very different from the average eBay buyer. Soon the
trained eye will observe some nice buying opportunities. For the
professional or amateur photographer this will soon bring in a
number of digital camera buys that are quite a bit cheaper that
retail. For example it is quite possible to find gems at 20-40%
of retail prices. Lets face it, most digital camera’s perform
perfectly years after acquisition. Digital electronics seldom
degrade over time, so the aftermarket such as eBay is the idea
place to buy camera’s cheaply.

Resources; How to buy a digital camera Digital Camera
bargains

Article by Malcolm Silberman and Education Specialist trained by
eBay, for a more lengthily discussion of this topic visit
http://bargainsfrom.us/how-to-buy-digital-cameras-at-a-discount-b
oth-new-or-used and to see Camera auctions with this value added
data visit http://digital-camera.bargainsfrom.us email him at
digital-cameraATmacsilber.com

What is Spyware

If your computer runs slower than normal, or you are constantly bombarded with popup ads, then your system probably has spyware installed. Spyware is a software that runs on your computer, and can do many types of things. Spyware can come in the form of a tracking cookie that informs its creator of which websites that you visit, or it can be a software that gets installed that serves popup ads to your computer to try to get you to visit other websites. Spyware can also be a software that gets installed to keep track of your keystrokes, which is called a keylogger. A keylogger is able to monitor every keystroke on your keyboard, and yes, this does mean that it can get your password to log into your bank account or other critical data. No matter what the spyware’s purpose really is, the bottom line is that at the very least it will cause you countless hours of frustration and slow downs on your computer, but more than likely it’s purpose is to sucker you into purchasing things that you don’t need, or stealing financial data from you.

How Did I Get Spyware

Spyware can come to you by many different ways. It can come in the form of a tracking cookie simply by visiting a simple website. Most cookies are perfectly safe, and are not spyware. The most common way to receive spyware is by clicking on a popup ad that is telling you that you have spyware and that you must click their link to get rid of it. When you click this link, it can be maliciously installing spyware onto your computer. Another way to receive spyware is by visiting a site that installs an activeX control onto your machine automatically and without your knowledge. You can also pick up spyware and viruses if you download programs through Peer to Peer (P2P) software or file sharing networks if someone has altered those programs to be packaged with spyware. Another method that is becoming more common is that people are writing programs that say that they are for blocking popup ads or for blocking and removing spyware, and not known to you is that they are really installing more spyware. Popup blocker programs are a great tool, but just make sure that the software is from a reputable company. No matter where the spyware comes from, the most important thing is to be sure to get rid of it.

How Do I Remove Spyware

There are many different programs that you can buy that can detect and remove spyware. Norton Antivirus, PestPatrol, SpyCop, and SpySweeper are some of the best ones on the market. There are also some spyware removers that are free, but they are not up to date, and they will not get rid of all of your spyware. Some of the free spyware removers will even actually install more spyware on your computer.

Once you have the spyware remover software, run a complete scan on your system. The programs will be able to locate and delete most instances of spyware that is on your system. Sometimes the software will have parts of the program that are in use at the time of the scan, and they will require a reboot in order to remove the files from memory, and then another complete scan should be run to clean up any remaining files. You should also empty the recycle bin to delete any traces of the spyware that you may have deleted into the recycle bin so that the future scans will not pick up these files as well. If you are on a computer that has multiple profiles, you may have multiple “recycler” files in which you must remove files from.

What If The Spyware Won’t Go Away

Sometimes spyware is a little more difficult to get rid of. These types will require special attention. After a spyware scan, write down the names of all of the spyware that just will not go away. Go to a reputable site like PestPatrol or Symantec and look up the spyware to find the manual removal instructions. Sometimes the removal instructions will require you to boot your computer into safe mode so that only required system resources start up with the computer, which may enable you to remove the spyware programs that will not remove with a normal scan because those spyware files were in use during a normal boot up.

The manual removal instructions may also include other items like manual deletion of files, manual changing or deletion of registry keys, or un-registering system dll (dynamic link library) files.

How Do I Register or Un-Register A System DLL File

To un-register a dll file you need to click on the Start button. Then click Run. Type regsvr32 -u (ie: regsvr32 -u C:WINDOWSsystem32xceedzip.dll)

To register a dll file you need to click on the Start button. Then click Run. regsvr32 (ie: regsvr32 C:WINDOWSsystem32xceedzip.dll)

Finnishing Up

Once you finnish with the manual instructions you should reboot your computer, and run another complete system spyware scan. Once you have finally performed a complete system spyware scan and no spyware was found, then you will probably want to perform some preventative maintenance on your comptuer to help to restore your system to the full speeds that you had before the spyware intrusion.

How Can I Prevent Myself From Getting Spyware

Do not click on popup advertisements. Never download anything that you are not sure of. Do not click on links in an email that is not from a known trusted source. Perform regular spyware and virus scans on a weekly basis or whatever time frame works best for you. Warn other users of your computer of these same preventative measures, and your computer will provide you with years of fun and useful experiences.

Mike Mendenhall is the CEO of Simplified Office Solutions, Inc.
info@simplifiedofficesolutions.com
http://www.simplifiedofficesolutions.com/