The Lizard Brain is really the limbic system in the human brain. Lizards only have limbic systems and not much else, in terms of brain functions. The limbic system controls the six “Fs”:

1. Fight
2. Flight
3. Feeding
4. Fear
5. Freezing up
6. Fornication

All of these functions are important for our survival. But when they go overboard and get out of balance, that is when the problems arise.

Sometimes its necessary to fight to preserve our lives and sometimes it’s important to just get away from abuse. But if we spend our lives running away or getting into altercations, we are out of balance.

It is also so important to eat. But if we are out of balance with that, the result is poor health, obesity, eating disorders, and lack of energy.

Fear is probably the most destructive element of the lizard brain. If even slightly out of balance it can lead to neuroses, obsessive disorders, personality disorders, and other disruptive mental behaviors.

The lizard brain’s propensity to freeze up has certain protective features, on a primitive level, but can be deadly when we need to make a presentation in front of a group or need to explain ourselves clearly in emotional situations. It is related to fear. Fear comes first, then freezing up. Both don’t serve a worthwhile purpose in humans.

Fornication (or indiscriminate sexual activity) can be a legitimate survival strategy for reptiles. In the human species the results are not as wholesome when unwanted and uncared for children are the aftermath, sexually transmitted diseases, and lifestyle degradations.

The lizard brain doesn’t care about the consequences of our actions. It is based on impulse alone. It is not based on planning, goal setting, concern for the common good, or any other moral concept. It wants what it wants now. It wants to survive at any cost. If it means fornicating wildly to ensure survival, it will compel us to do it. If it wants to feed and others are in the way, it will make sure it gets its share of the kill and push others aside. If it wants us to be at war and fight, run away and escape, or freeze in fear, it will drive us to do all of these things.
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Happily, humans are equipped with much more than the limbic system and its red zones. And the more we know about this subject the better our ability to avoid its unfortunate pitfalls.

Silence is a great luxury today. And yet it is within silence that we finally see the some of the secrets of the universe that give life its meaning.
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So many people fear silence. They don’t want to be alone with their thoughts. That is not the silence I am talking about. I mean silence away from your thoughts. I don’t mean sitting there twiddling your thumbs while you worry from one subject to another and back again. I mean complete, utter silence beyond and above thought.

This takes training and intention, just like working out in the gym. If you let your mind run all over the place, it will be troublesome and flabby. But if you train it, it will, like an obedient pet, retire to the corner of the room and rest while you explore more important areas: Namely your soul, your spirit, and your unity with all that is, in perfect peace.

You can find silence in the midst of turmoil, such as in a prison setting where you don’t have control over your acoustic environment or in a crowd. But if you can find a place where it is truly quiet, it is a great blessing. I usually rise very early in the morning to experience this kind of true silence. The sadhus I encountered in India also followed this practice. It is very worthwhile when all the sounds and machinery of modern life are still. Just look up at the stars and feel the eternal silence and peace of what is eternal and real.

Every child has a pure soul. Moreover, every adult has a pure soul as well. The soul is that part of us that is eternal. It has nothing to do with value judgements of good or evil and it cannot perform any actions. It just is. Insofar as we can contact this part of us, we find peace. If we are distracted by our thoughts and other outer attention-grabbing devices, we are not at true peace. But this has nothing to do with the soul.

The soul is purity and perfection itself, for it is in union with the harmony of the Universe. Again, it has nothing to do with cultural ideas of right or wrong, good or bad, but its milieu is eternal peace. What the mind compels us to do once we have entered a body cannot affect the soul, which always remains perfect and spotless.

But once we enter this body and become conditioned by all kinds of forces, including the mind’s hard-wired ego drives, we may think we are killing our souls. No. We are obscuring our souls. Our souls can never be killed. It is always there and we are covering it over with a lot of tape. Some people use masking tape, some duct tape, some super 88 electrical tape. But it is all a substance that obscures the soul.
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Sometimes we see people with black auras. That still does not relate to the purity of their souls. It relates to the karma they have accrued through harmful and deadly actions based on deliberate cruelty. Their souls remain pure and when they find their way to their souls one day, their harmful actions will cease.

Seneca was one of the first stoic philosophers who came before Marcus Aurelius, an even more famous stoic. Seneca came from Spain, though he was raised in Rome and Roman schools of philosophy. His ending is more dramatic than other stoic philosophers such as Epictetus and Zeno. The emperor Nero forced him to commit suicide over some unfounded accusation. But Nero was like that, irrational and violent.

Seneca was the opposite of violent and irrational. He made some very famous statements that are still part of everyday speech. For example, many people don’t know that he said: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
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This is an important statement because back in his times, people believed that things happened because the capricious gods wanted to play with humans. Humans were like puppets in the hands of Fate. Now Seneca is saying that we make a contribution to our own success and outcome of our lives. Work hard every day towards your goals, even during the down times. If you do this, when opportunity comes your way, you can grab it and sail away towards success in whatever undertaking you desire.

But if you sit back and say everything is useless because it is all out of your control anyway, you will not live a fulfilled life. You will be stuck in the doldrums and be left with unhappiness and loss of hope. Just in this one little statement, Seneca gives people the power to guide their own lives according to their dreams. They can display talents and abilities, create art and beauty, and are even capable of peace on earth. But if we lie back and think that someone or something else is going to do it for us, we will end up in misery.

Self-help books since Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” have been saying the same thing in different ways. We are the ones who control our thoughts. Our inner climate is reflected in our outer climate. He said, “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” So many people have been saying this since Seneca: If we let our negatively-biased minds control our lives, we will suffer. And that is the importance of Seneca.

I wouldn’t say it is the best philosophy of all time, but it certainly is a great and practical philosophy. So many philosophies are abstract and difficult for people to grasp or be interested in. But stoicism gives us tools for dealing with the ups and downs of everyday life in way that is easy to understand.

The basic ideas behind stoicism are:

• Virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge
  
  
• The wise live in harmony with the Divine Reason that governs nature and don’t try to change things that are beyond their power to affect.
  
  
• The wise are indifferent to the ups and downs of life and don’t get bent out of shape over pleasure or pain.
  
  

Marcus Aurelius was a noted stoic philosopher more than 2,000 years ago. Here are some of his statements:

• “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” He is saying that happiness does not rely on external things. Happiness is an inside job.
  
  
• “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” He means, don’t try to control or change things that you have no control over. Instead, change your thinking about it to be at peace.
  
  
• “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” This is extremely helpful for people who are easily hurt by the comments and opinions of others. He is saying, don’t take anything personally. It’s their opinion and is not based on anything true, just what is going on in their conditioned minds.
  
  
• “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” He is a pioneer in positive thinking here. If you must think, focus your thoughts on the good in your life.
  
  
• “Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.” So many people fear death and know they cannot control it when it is their time to go. He is saying, if you can’t control it, go with it. Don’t fight it and live your life in peace while you have it.
  
  
• “He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.” All the laws of the universe also operate within us, as we are part of it. So if you are in a uproar, you are out of sync with the universe, where harmony prevails.
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These ideas are all easy to put to use in our lives. We cannot argue with them. Fighting and struggling with life, digging our heels in and kicking and screaming does not change anything for the better. Accept what you have, be grateful, and create the life of peace and happiness for yourself.

Meditation is very simple, though people can make a big deal of it. They feel they need to surround themselves with candles, incense, beautiful music, silken clothes, and be in a completely quiet setting. Only then do they feel they can calm their minds, which is the purpose of meditation, and get in contact with their inner being that is beyond the ceaseless chattering of the mind.
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But we don’t have to make such a big deal out of meditation. We can meditate in the middle of a loud fireworks display or in a prison cell. Meditation does not require any external conditions. And we don’t need to sit in the lotus position, stand on one leg for hours, or do any other ritual to achieve the results that pure, clean meditation brings. Riding a bike, surfing, running, washing the dishes, cleaning the toilet, all these activities and more can be done in a state of meditation.
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For meditation means we are not all over the place with our mind racing between the past and the future. It is being quiet in the now, no matter what is happening around us. Other than that, there are conditions. It’s nice to have a quiet sanctuary where we can retreat and go within, undistracted by the world around us. But even there, a car alarm can go off outside, a phone can ring, someone can be shouting or playing loud music. None of these distractions, though, compare to the ceaseless churning of the mind. Just getting away from it all doesn’t stop that—an inner effort i

Young souls exist in every walk of life. It’s fun to pick out cartoon characters and film stars that embody the qualities of the young soul. Young souls have not experienced as many incarnations as old souls and therefore they express a lighter quality than the older souls who have been knocking around on the physical plane for many lifetimes.

Mickey Mouse is a young soul, while Donald Duck is an old soul. Mickey has the optimism that is characteristic of a soul that has not been witness to many adversities in other lives. Donald Duck, on the other hand, has that curmudgeonly character that can be an expression of an old soul who has seen and done it all.

Brad Pitt is a young soul, with that look in his eye of many beautiful empty rooms that have yet to be populated by experience. Angelina Joli, on the other hand, is an old soul, who looks right through you and bores into the core of your being with one glance of her penetrating eyes. She is not lightweight and you feel that, regardless of your personal opinions about her life choices.

Kim Kardashian is young soul, looking to complete herself and create a perfect image within the context of this culture. Her marriages and weddings portray the light touch of the younger souls who do not feel or think deeply. Her sister Kourtney is an old soul, whose observations about life have a wider outlook, often including global suffering and the bigger picture. And also, characteristic of the older soul, she can have a sadly realistic outlook because of past life experiences and knowledge.

Many examples exist in music too. Adele is an old soul. Often there is a tinge of suffering detectable when we meet an old soul that they convey through their words and sounds. Michael Jackson was a young soul. Perhaps that is why he felt most comfortable around children. Elton John is an old soul, John Lennon, and Janis Joplin. All of them had the qualities of old souls. Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, and Madonna are all young souls. Can you tell why?