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Peaceful Personal
And Social Daily Living
Is Founded On These Core Principles
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Philosophical inquiry
throughout the ages has pondered the answers to key questions: "why are we here, what are we to do, and how do we do it." The
Mangrove Seed proclamation regarding human existence is founded
upon these principles:
- Creative individual
expression, unfettered by guilt and shame, is the primary
purpose of
physical human existence.
- The authentic pathway to creative
individual expression requires a balanced S(s)elf realization that simultaneously respects both the person and all other persons.
- Inner peace flows from a balanced S(s)elf expression of both the rational and intuitive minds and is maintained
by outer peaceful living.
- Social groupings
function to proactively support this expressive S(s)elf
realization of their members.
- Ethical interpersonal
relationships among all human S(s)elves can facilitate
the manifestation of S(s)elf expressive potential.
- Continuation of
universal harmony, human and otherwise, enhances total
planetary peaceful living and is anchored by the imperative
to "do no harm."
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The
Mangrove Seed Institute Educational Approach Advocates a
Personal Re-Connection
With An Inner Power Of S(s)elf Caring
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The quintessential educational
goal of the Mangrove Seed is to facilitate your psycho-spiritual
journey home to a daily, in the present moment, re-connection
with an inner power of S(s)elf acceptance and caring.
The Mangrove Seed offers a Learning
Program that is holistic, experiential, and balanced. The
fulcrum point of the “head”
and “heart” journey to daily peaceful living is
a conscious and continual surrender of the rational mind's
attachment to psychological past (resentments) and future (fears).
This is accomplished through a balanced re-connection with
both the rational AND intuitive minds -- the authentic S(s)elf.
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I am the self that dwells
in the heart
of every mortal creature.
I am the beginning, the life span, and
the end of all.
I am the divine seed of all lives.
In this world nothing animate or inanimate
exists without me.
Bhagavad Gita
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THE
PREDICAMENT
Our Lives Are Motivationally
Dominated By Fear
Created By The Rational Mind
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We Learn To Fear Our External World
A person learns from interaction with their outer environment
that others do not always perceive their complete
innate self-worth. In point of fact, because
all humans are not totally UNconditionally loved from infancy
through adolescence, each of us succumbs to various "dysfunctional
habits" in daily life in order to recapture that "lost-in-childhood" fertilizer
of self love.
We eventually form a learned belief system that we are "less
than innately perfect." This faulty perspective of our
inner self creates a psychological fear of one's outer environment. The
bond of initial trust for personal survival --physical, emotional,
social, mental, spiritual, and financial--between a person
and its outer world becomes broken and replaced by mistrust.
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Fear Has Become The Primary Cause Of Non-Peaceful
Living
Expectations in daily living that are based
on fear at any level of our human survival --physical, emotional,
social, mental, spiritual, and financial--can foster dysfunctional
competitive behaviors. We consciously and unconsciously compete
rather than cooperate to individually obtain that key scarce
resource called UNconditional self caring. A person looks outside
rather than inside for the approval of S(s)elf worth.
Addictive coping responses often result, with the attempted
control of outcomes in life as the primary symptom of our personal "dis-ease." We
struggle unsuccessfully to find outer peace because we have
lost our inner peace.
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Fear Manifests As The Addiction To Personal Control
The rational mind constantly attempts to
control outcomes in life situations as a mechanism to create
the inner illusion of certainty and predictability necessary
for human survival.
This compulsive need for certainty typically results in human
suffering that may take the form of anxiety, worry, disappointment,
frustration, anger, and rage.
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A Balanced Integration Of Fear With Trust Can
Produce Inner Peace
The Mangrove Seed program for inner and
outer peace offers a path, process, and practice to reduce motivational
behavior based on fear.
When fear, created by the rational mind, is properly balanced
with trust, created by the intuitive mind, a compassionate,
cooperative, and peaceful relationship can blossom both within
the individual and its outer environment.
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THE
REMEDY
Learning To Trust Our Innate S(s)elf Worth By Balancing The
Rational Mind With The Intuitive MInd
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We Are Born With Complete Self Worth
The key to recovering a balanced S(s)elf
is to believe that all persons are born with innate self worth;
and that a person is complete and whole in potentiality, and
totally worthy of existence at the moment of birth.
The newborn as a seed of life contains all potentiality within
it that is needed for personal development and survival. However,
over time, our cultural bias --religious, social, political,
and economic conditioning--has destroyed this basic truth.
The principle of complete innate self worth is the pivotal
cornerstone of the entire Mangrove Seed program of peaceful
living. Indeed, it is through the innocent eyes of a child
that the adult can achieve inner and outer peace--"heaven
on earth."
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The Power For Personal Change Is Within Every
Individual
The power for personal change resides exclusively
within the individual. However, cultural programming has formed
our belief systems to direct us to look outside the individual
for "salvation," "truth," and guidance
for peaceful living.
We need to change this focus. The inner
power derived from BOTH a re-programmed rational mind and continual
access to the intuitive mind can offer each person a direction
to live peacefully--a direction that is determined by authentic
S(s)elf expression of innate S(s)elf worth.
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Personal Accountability Is Critical For The Maintenance
Of Inner Peace
The continuous assumption of personal accountability
for all consequences of thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors is
mandatory for personal growth and peaceful living.
Full recovery of a balanced S(s)elf can only be realized when
one understands that all outcomes in life, to some extent,
bear the imprint of personal interaction with one's outer environment.
This dynamic interactive relationship, whether conscious and/or
unconscious, reactive and/or proactive, can be enhanced by
a balanced inner S(s)elf.
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Psychological Integration Is The Prerequisite
For Peaceful Living
Emotionally balanced, psychological "wholeness," is
the sine qua non of a fully balanced S(s)elf and the
essential qualilty required for total peaceful living. This
state of being is demonstrated in everyday interactions with
one's outer environment and through the maintenance of caring
and compassionate human relationships.
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Spiritual Practice Offers A Complementary And
Supportive Role For Emotional Balance And Peaceful Living
Spiritual practice can assist the development of emotional
balance; but, it is not a substitute for, nor an escape from
the "emotional healing" required for psychological
integration. Emotional balance occurs through a conscious resolution
of developmental issues from one's psychological past.
Authentic spirituality per se can authentically manifest
in daily living after a person has created an integrated
psychological identity. Eventually, a conscious choice can
be made to relinquish the pursuit of integration in favor of "disintegration" of
the created personality. Simply stated, a person must be somebody
before becoming nobody.
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Conscious Release Of Attachment To Psychological
Past And Future Can Facilitate The Habit Of S(s)elf
Acceptance
Freedom from the addiction to control outcomes
derives from conscious and continual mental choices that release
emotional attachments to lingering psychological resentments
from the past. An added result is that fear -- a projection
of resentment into a future "time frame"--can be minimized
and/or removed from one's belief system.
In addition, a more clarifed perception of inner self worth
is dependent upon this cognitve modification of old motivational
beliefs created by the fear-based rational mind. Learning to
fully accept your authentic S(s)elf, warts and all, is a healthy
basis for releasing the complulsive need to control.
Eventually, a personal non-judgemental acceptance of life situations,
as they unfold in the present moment, will form a new belief
system based more on trust. And then, from a space of inner S(s)elf
acceptance will grow a peaceful outer acceptance of other S(s)elves.
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Accepting And Giving GENUINE Caring
Is The Ultimate Catalyst For Peaceful Living
The ultimate reason for the success
of the Mangrove Seed learning program for peaceful living
is its focus on the most basic human need: GENUINE
caring. The quintessential learning goal of the Mangrove
Seed is to facilitate the psycho-spiritual journey to consciously
connect with an inner power of S(s)elf love.
If a person can truly accept GENUINE caring on a daily
basis, and give away that same caring to other humans,
and to all physical forms in the universe, then that person
will live in a space of peaceful calm and joyful interaction
with its outer environment.
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You
are sinless forever, wholly unafraid,
because you were created out of love.
Nor have you ever left your source.
This was given you as knowledge
which you cannot lose.
Course in Miracles
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The
Experiential Group Process Facilitates An
Integrated Mind And Heart Awareness
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The experiential learning
process of the Mangrove Seed that facilitates the recovery of a balanced
S(s)elf is based on the giving and receiving of unconditional psychological
love in a supportive, dynamic small group environment. The confidential
sharing process allows a safe, non-judgmental space in which we can
open our hearts and move through our fears.
This process allows us to
- Be consciously aware of our
fears and those of others
- Be fully responsible for accepting
ourselves and others just as we are in the present moment; and,
- Be
trusting of our inner S(s)elf for clarity and compassion in the
caring of our S(s)elf and other S(s)elves
Staying in our hearts,
if they are open, is where we can learn how to avoid reacting to
our psychological resentments and fears. When our hearts are closed,
we escape into our heads. We defend our mentally perceived threats
to survival by trying to control our inner and outer environments.
Avoidance of healing our past emotional pain often results in attitudes
and behaviors that project blame and guilt upon others. We thus escape
from our responsibility to accept and love all aspects of ourselves,
especially the parts of us that feel unloved and unlovable.
By consciously staying in our hearts in every moment of daily life,
we allow internal healing through our compassionate acceptance of
our wounded ness. Heart sharing from a space of unconditional love
allows us to be with our inner fears and to move through them.
If we want to open our hearts, we must be willing to build a
consciousness of S(s)elf trust. We must learn to connect with
our innate self worth. From this connection with the Source of
our wholeness, we can learn to live without fear.
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There
is a core spirit
to which each of us should return.
Returning is a process
of simplification that throws off the unnecessary problems
of socialization
One gradually peels
back the layers
and makes one's way back
to the unsullied, pure inner person
Deng
Ming-Dao
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The Mangrove Seed
Institute uses a variety of experiential exercises in the learning program
meetings to facilitate an inner re-connection with authentic S(s)elf.
For example, traditional journaling techniques such as the Progoff
Method, visual creations such as scrapbooking, genealogical searches,
conversations with relatives, former teachers and role models, and
physically re-visiting past places of residence, work and play are
some techniques used for re-balancing.
The recollection of past life experiences facilitates the inner healing
process and provides a foundation for psychological wholeness. The
purpose of these exercises is to re-member that the source of strength
and power for peaceful daily living is a balanced S(s)elf, not the
fear and resentment based rational self.
All
heart-mind connections that are shared
in the group conversations and retreats
remain respectfully confidential.
EDUCATIONAL
OVERVIEW
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
EXPERIENTIAL PROCESS
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When
we trust our balanced S(s)elf,
we can slowly learn to trust others.
They also have an authentic S(s)elf with which we can connect–-Namaste!
We
cannot be in harmony and peace with others
if we do not flow FIRST
from our own inner peace.
dan kapica |
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