by Lawrence Wilson, MD

ATTITUDES AND DEVELOPMENT

Certain attitudes seem to favor the type of mental and spiritual development that is advocated on this website. Other attitudes seem to block development, or at least slow it down. This article discusses these attitudes in some detail. You may not agree with them, and you may find them offensive. However, over time I think you will find the recommended attitudes and beliefs will prove to be helpful, and at times essential.

HELPFUL ATTITUDES FOR DEVELOPMENT

Openness to change and growth on many levels. This is probably the single most important attitude to have in order to move forward with mental development. In contrast, the most damaging attitude is thinking that one knows it all, or has achieved all that one can.

A willingness to exert effort. Development is a process that takes some effort. While it does not require severe deprivations or sacrifices, effort is needed. A very damaging attitude, and a common one, is that one can just dream or believe whatever one wishes and the process of development will occur. This latter attitude usually leads to sloppy eating, sloppy lifestyles and greatly slows development.

A feeling that one does not know everything. This may also be expressed as a certain level of humility and willingness to be led. For example, some rather ignorant, agnostic and one might say less intelligent people develop very well because they have little in their way to block learning. Many are simply hard-working, self-sacrificing, caring people who keep a positive attitude and are willing to learn.

The opposite attitude is one of arrogance, know-it-all and so on. This will block development greatly.

Caring for others. An attitude of gratitude and wanting to share and care for others in a genuine way is helpful, even if it is wearing on the person. Its opposite, an attitude of selfishness, greed and keeping things to oneself is not helpful for development, as a general rule. However, one must take care of oneself first. In other words, if one cares for others so much that one does not care adequately for oneself, this will block and stop development because one becomes depleted, exhausted and often resentful and angry. So the balance must be there.

Learning to live simply with low stress. Development requires lots of time, rest and a generally easy life. Some people seem to learn early on how to live simply, limiting their wants and needs. The opposite attitude of “wanting it all”, running yourself too hard, not resting enough, and so on interferes with development a lot and often stops it altogether.

Letting go of the ego is always helpful. Egotistical attitudes such as arrogance, know-it-all, closed mindedness, meanness, competitiveness beyond a healthy competition in business, for example, are not helpful.

A spiritual arrogance is particularly harmful, since, in fact, this type of development is extremely complex. It is far more complicated than one can even imagine. Thinking one understands spiritual matters therefore usually gets in the way. Development has to do with the opening of the seven major chakras or energy centers of the physical body. This is discussed in a separate article entitled The Chakras. It also entails the development of the seven subtle human bodies with names such as the etheric body (the main one at this time), and others such as the whole body, mental body, spirit body and others.

Self love. This is very important for development. It is a strong enough ego so that one will tolerate some ambiguity and confusion, yet one will not become arrogant and selfish. In contrast, too much guilt, shame, or hopelessness are not helpful at all for development.

OTHER IMPORTANT ATTITUDES FOR DEVELOPMENT

Many other attitudes may help promote mental development. These include such things as openness to guidance, openness to compassion for oneself, and willingness to let go of all of one’s past, if needed, in order to heal the physical and other bodies and allow them to grow and develop.

Others include a certain courage to move ahead into the unknown, a certain type of fearlessness, and a certain relaxed quality that allows one to move ahead without too much fear or drama. Healing reactions that will occur provide enough drama for most people.

Other important personal qualities include a healthy sense of discipline to keep one focused on the path ahead, and a willingness, particularly, to take the time to rest more, eat very well, and do the procedures such as saunas and coffee enemas. These are essential, in fact.

Another, more subtle factor in development is a willingness to learn new things each day. It may seem surprising, but learning anew is very difficult for most people. Many people have fixed ideas about the truth of things, and when these are challenged, many people feel quite uncomfortable. In part this is due to conditioning from schooling. However, it is also a psychological fact with many people who build their lives and identities upon certain foundations that they feel they must maintain.

Another very important attitude has to do with contentment. People who are restless and must travel a lot, must be with new people a lot, need their friends, must speak on the phone daily with family and friends, and so on, will have a much harder time.

Travel. Frequent travel interferes with development in most cases. It is far more difficult to rest adequately, eat well, take saunas and coffee enemas, and to study and relax when traveling.

Air travel, in particular, is quite toxic. One is exposed to quite a bit of toxic radiation at the airports and due to high-altitude travel. One must also breathe less than pure air for hours on planes, and often one is exposed to many germs on planes as well. Some aircraft are also sprayed with pesticides and toxic cleaning agents on a regular basis.

Hotel rooms are often sprayed with pesticides or may not be as clean as they could be. Restaurant food is variable, and one may have more difficulty finding healthy food, though most restaurants today offer eggs, fresh meats and fresh cooked vegetables. As a result, members of the “jet set” generally do not develop well at all. If you must travel for business or other reasons, please recognize the problems, bring your own food and water as much as possible, and take extra precautions to rest enough and relax.

Another helpful attitude is a spiritual focus for one’s life. This might be working as a healer, reading the bible every day, going to church regularly, or even a true love of nature and spending time in nature every single day by taking a walk in the woods, for example. This is subtle, but quite powerful. It probably helps by separating a person from “lower chakra” concerns which include money, power, sex, and even some kinds of fraternal or romantic love that become obsessions for millions of people. Having a spiritual focus has to do with giving to others, particularly to strangers, self-sacrifice, and letting go of selfish considerations that rule so many people’s lives.

Even having a business that is not seemingly spiritual is helpful. On the other hand, taking welfare and spending one’s days at the pub, the coffee shop, or the bars and the parks, is not nearly as helpful. This may have to do with self-reliance, one of the attitudes that is also helpful for development. This is one reason that welfare states seem to do less well with development in most cases.

RELIGION AND DEVELOPMENT

Organized religions are generally helpful for development, in my experience. For this reason, I believe they will remain for many centuries on the planet. This does not mean they won’t change, but they do help millions of people develop to a small degree, at least. They do this in many ways. Among them, however, is to foster a lot of the attitudes that are discussed in this article. Also, they should help people live more peaceful, orderly, healthful lives.

Among the organized religions, the best, in my experience so far, is Christianity. It is not clear to me why this is so, but it seems to work well, and this is quite a consistent finding. Judaism is not as good as Christianity, but not bad.

Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are not as good as the ones above. One reason for the problem with the Eastern religions might be that they often suggest vegetarian diets, which we find are absolutely harmful for development. This may have to do with the low zinc content of most vegetarian food, or perhaps deficiencies of sulfur amino acids in vegetarian and raw foods. Islam is more authoritarian and more confused, in my view, although I know some will totally disagree.

Sadly, new age thinking and new age religions such as Unity, Unitarianism, Science of Mind, and Ethical Culture are not as helpful in almost all cases. While I am not sure why, I believe the reasons are that these religions make things “too easy” for people. Little discipline and sacrifice are required. Few doctrines are taught and those that are taught are quite mild, by comparison with traditional religions. This is just an educated guess as to why people in these groups do not seem to develop as well.

Also, these religions do not emphasize a higher being or authority as much. Intead, they often use affirmations that encourage a person to “think their way to success”. This is not the same as letting go and letting God, for instance. The latter approach seems to favor development much more.

POLITICS, NATIONALITY AND ATTITUDES

Political attitudes that appear helpful include a desire for freedom, a positive outlook, and what are called free market, laissez faire capitalistic attitudes that encourage freedom, hard work, entrepreneurship, making money, and following your dreams – and allowing others to do so as well, with minimal government interference or regulation.

Attitudes that are generally harmful for development include believing in a powerful central government, socialistic and communistic thinking, and believing in racial divides, class warfare, “group rights” such as gay rights or women’s rights, and doctrines such as affirmative action and hate crimes. These all tend to divide people, tend to make excuses for some people, tend to be based on sloppy thinking in most cases, and appear to get in the way of mental development which must be perfectly logical.

Nations and their development. Mental development is a totally individual matter, so it does not matter what nation a person lives in. However, it is interesting to observe which nations are developing fastest, in general.

America leads the world in this way, and is definitely ahead of other nations that are more socialistic such as those of Europe and Asia.

The next best nations appear to be Australia and New Zealand. Next appears to be areas such as Germany, Ireland, and parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Georgia. Romania, Hungary, Poland and other Eastern European nations are also gaining some momentum, although poverty also slows their development to some degree. For development to occur, one must usually have enough good food and water, and at least a little free time to contemplate and for recreation.

Southern Europe is not developing quite as well. Perhaps this has to do with diet or other factors. People in southern areas of the world seem to develop slower.

DRUG AND DEVELOPMENT

All recreational drug and alcohol use hinders development. So does the attitude that drugs are okay, whether they be medical drugs or recreational drugs.

Problems with all drugs include:

1. Toxicity. Regardless of what “studies” show, all mind-altering substances are highly toxic to the brain or they would not have the effects that they have. Smoking anything, of course, is totally toxic to the lungs, throat, and bronchial tubes. A client recently reported she has seizures each time she uses marijuana. This would only happen if the substance is quite toxic to the brain.

2. Drugs take one away from one’s center. This is obvious to anyone who has tried cannabis, or any other toxic substance. Often this is the reason why people enjoy the use of the substance.

3. Drugs often deaden very delicate nerve centers in the brain. This is why they appear to stop or interfere with development in an important way. Drugs may do this by interfering with the nutrition of the brain, or by more subtle means. Regardless of how it works, it is always damaging.
Please do not make this mistake and believe that some drugs, notably marijuana or a little alcohol for social drinking, is okay. They are not okay if one wishes to develop quickly and easily. In most cases, we find we must remove all residues of all drugs taken in the past for development to proceed well. Fortunately, sauna therapy with a near infrared light sauna, along with coffee enemas, are most helpful for this purpose.

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