• Work out the shared intention of your organization with your team, write it down and put it on display

• Be open to allowing your staff to contribute to the ideas or work in areas outside their responsibility

• Be willing to offer a guiding hand when necessary

• Don’t forget to make the enterprise fun

• Offer your ear, not the stick, when somebody gets it wrong

• Encourage the organization to operate collectively as a team, not as a military-style hierarchy

• Consider taking in committed volunteers, who believe in your work and your goals.

If you are an employee

• Describe the possible alternatives to your boss, and ask if you and your co-workers can venture outside of your own areas of responsibility

• Don’t be afraid to offer your ideas and opinions on how to improve the entire company

• Write down some ideas and send them to the boss

• Meet with the rest of the team, and brainstorm as to how to improve your working atmosphere and environment

• Be willing to take risks and try your hand at something new, particularly something you have dreamed of doing.

Do you have any other suggestions?  How have you tried to bring more compassion - and co-operation - into your work place?

• What changes have you made to your life as a result of these scientific findings?
• What do you do to integrate spirituality into your day-to-day existence?
• What have been the challenges?
• What can you teach your fellow Living The Field readers, based on your experiences?

What would be your answer to the question, “How should I live?”

Please share your ideas and experiences below.

The same is true of the people on the street where we live. My neighbors, all kind and generous people, have only come together to fight a common cause: a mobile phone company that attempted to put up a batch of cell towers in our part of town.  Without that link, our friendship remains superficial, with my family regarded as the block’s lovable but decidedly misguided oddballs.

So it felt like a revelation last week when I attended a meeting of Transformational Leaders Council, a group started by Jack Canfield to bring together thought leaders in human transformation.  The group includes some household names in the personal development movement but also many newcomers to the field, and the content of the weekend’s events are highly spiritual, designed to help each member evolve.

From the moment I walked into the hotel, I noticed how supportive and interested the various members were in each person’s work.  Although I was a novitiate, I was greeted like a long-lost friend with each of my new acquaintances expressing great knowledge of and interest in my life’s work.

There was nothing of the usual gossip and casual cruelty of most human interaction; we talked about and applauded each other’s endeavours, and when I spoke among this group of seasoned pros, I have never had such an attentive audience. Within days, I had met and had some intimate exchange with virtually all the 140 attendees, much of which included conversation about deeply spiritual issues. For once, the conversation set me alight and I was attending with every pore.  We spoke a common shorthand, without the need for explanation or justification.

The only time that I have experienced such a group of likeminded souls was when I was pregnant with my first daughter and I met weekly with my antenatal group – all women interested in natural birth.   There we also created a mutually supportive organization and also spoke each other’s language.

On the final day at the TLC meeting, we were asked to discuss something we were grateful for about the weekend.  Although I could recount countless examples of individual random acts of kindness, it was to the entire group itself that I offered my gratitude.   They had given me what may be the most essential unit in the human condition: a tribe.

I was reminded of Roseto, a small town in Pennsylvania, where an entire Italian community had transplanted itself.  Rich lived beside poor without jealousy, but the most remarkable aspect of Roseto was its defiance of the usual medical statistics.  Although the inhabitants smoked and ate junk food, the town’s heart attack rate was far below the national average.  Roseto had created a close-knit clan, and that connection overroad any environmental insult.

I have been experimenting with group intention at our workshops, and we find that this connection- the strong and likeminded community -  the most powerful antidote to the challenge of living.  May you find your tribe.

A number of new organizations, such as the Oneness Foundation, purport to teach people a special meditative and psychological process that will speed up this process, specifically by rewiring the brain.

But is there any evidence that a simple mental discipline is powerful enough to to eliminate mankind’s fundamental sense of separation, and to replace it with a sense of enlightened awareness of universal connection?

Dr. Andrew Newberg, professor of nuclear medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Why God Won’t Go Away, has carried out studies of the brain activity of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners during meditation.  Using special scanning technology, he has discovered that during deep meditation, the brain’s prefrontal lobes show an increase in blood flow and neural activity, while the upper rear part of the brain, or parietal area, registers a sudden drop of brain activity.

Newberg terms that portion of the brain the ‘Orientation Association Area (OAA)’, because it gives us our ability to orient ourselves in space and time and also provides us with our sense of separateness from the rest of the universe. When this portion of the brain is ‘turned off’, the person’s sense of physical limits and personal boundaries disappear.

The brain cannot even locate the body in physical reality and so perceives a sense of blissful interconnection, a state Newberg refers to as ‘Absolute Unitary Being’.

With the intense focus of meditation, the prefrontal cortex, or the Attention Association Area (AAA) – an area most scientists believe is involved in higher consciousness - is strongly activated, with a dominance of the left frontal lobe, which usually occurs during spiritual integration.

In a number of studies of students at the Oneness Foundation recently found a 50 per cent increase in brainwave activity among students, with a vast increase of Gamma wave activity (25-42Hz) in the frontal lobes. Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin observed this kind of rapid brain wave activity in monks carrying out compassionate meditation. Gamma band, the highest rate of brain-wave frequencies, is employed by the brain when it is working its hardest: at a state of rapt attention, when sifting through working memory, during deep levels of learning, in the midst of great flashes of insight – and I teach these techniques in my Intention Experiment program Powering Up.

As Davidson discovered, when the brain operates at these extremely fast frequencies, the phases of brain waves (their times of peaking and troughing) all over the brain begin to operate in synchrony. This type of synchronization is considered crucial for achieving heightened awareness.

The gamma state is even believed to cause changes in the brain’s synapses – the junctions over which electrical impulses leap to send a message to a neuron, muscle or gland - and to induce a state of oneness.  Newberg and others consider gamma states a signature of enlightenment.

Most of the new techniques like deeksha need more science to support their claims of instant enlightenment.  But some of the preliminary findings show that a highly focused mind at a state of peak attention is a fast-track way to get there.

I have seen the power of such a mission statement firsthand. Not long ago, I paid a visit to Clarus Transphase Scientific in Marin County, California. This innovative company claims to have discovered a way to harness certain optimal energy frequencies found in nature through what they call ‘sympathetic resonance technology’ (SR). Through this vibrational feedback mechanism, the technology claims to be able to ‘amplify and increase the efficiency of electronic, chemical and organic systems”.

Clarus has made use of this technology in its Q-Link pendant, a quantum resonance device and personal energy-system enhancer. The Q-Link claims to ‘tune’ individuals, so that they have more energy and a harmonized wellbeing. There is growing anecdotal and scientific evidence of its success.

The company is now examining ways to adapt the SRT technology to improve many facets of living, including improving crop yields, and applying it to water and other technologies.

A sacred contract

I write about them not to tout their product but to hold them up as an example of a company that considers their mission statement a sacred contract between themselves and the public.

As you walk thought the door to their offices, the eye is drawn to a small table prominently placed in the center of the hallway.

Propped up on the table in a handsome frame and rendered in a large and decorative typeface, is Clarus’ mission statement.

Unlike most corporations whose vision never reaches much beyond the objective of reaching their financial targets or satisfying the shareholders, Clarus believes the company’s highest purpose is to improve the health and welfare of humanity.

That loft ideal is placed on an ‘altar’, surrounded by a few meaningful spiritual objects such as flowers, candles and a small Buddha.

Dozens of times every day, each employee passes the mission statement, and is reminded of his company’s true purpose and his role in achieving it.

Clarus’ president and CEO Robert O. Williams, who formulated the mission statement, believes that by giving the statement pride of place, the actions within the company are more likely to proceed from that higher purpose.

Although all businesses must make a profit to survive, by taking the time to work out the true purpose of the company you work for and aligning it with your own higher intentions, you will have a stronger commitment to your work.

It goes without saying that if your work doesn’t have a positive mission in the world (e.g., it produces junk food), perhaps it is time to seek other employment.

If you place it where you can see it everyday, it wil remind you always to aim high — and also who you really are.

What is your company’s true mission?

To work out your company’s higher purpose, ask everyone in your business to answer these questions:

• Whom or what do you think your company can best serve?
• Who or what most benefits, and why?
• How could it improve or enhance the quality of life for the greatest number of people?
• What is its impact on the environment?
• What is its long-term plan in helping humanity or other living things?
• Does it harm or disadvantage anyone or anything?

What is your company’s mission statement?

The 150-foot diameter image, found near Barbury Castle, an Iron Age fort, represented the first 10 digits of pi (3.141592654, for all of you who don’t remember high school or GCSE math) – the mathematical constant used to calculate the measurement of a circle. Pi equals the circle’s circumference divided by its diameter. You work out the circumference of a circle by multiplying the diameter by pi.

This is all the more remarkable because pi (or π., as it is represented in Greek) is one of of nature’s most amazing natural numbers. Pi fascinated mathematicians since the early Greeks, and it was Archimedes who was the first to investigate it rigorously.

Nature’s miracle

It’s an irrational number, which means that the decimals go on infinitely, but also do not repeat. And despite teams of math whizzes analyzing pi up to trillions of decimals using super computers, no pattern in the sequence of digits has ever been found. All our mathematical equations of a circle’s area represent only a close approximation of the truth.

Pi is considered as fundamental to an understanding our world as the Fibonacci, or Golden Mean (called Phi), a numerical pattern found in all of nature, whether the numerical way in which breeding animals reproduce, or the structure of plants. Leaves, seeds and petals are all placed at 0.618034 per 360-degree turn.

This kind of sequencing is even found in music. Mozart, who took a keen interest in mathematics, famously created a dramatic changes at Golden Mean moments: 61.8 per cent through a composition. Beethoven repeated the opening bars of his Fifth Symphony 61.8 per cent through the work. Similar patterns are found in the music of many cultures, most notably Indonesian music.

This is only the latest of sophisticated mathematical patterns found in crop circles. One of the most famous formations depicted the image of a complex set of fractals known as The Julia Set, in a field near Stonehenge, 12 years ago.

Gerald Hawkins, a British mathematician and archaeo-astronomer, has discovered designs in crop circles corresponding to previously unrecognized musical ratios, unknown in conventional geometry.

So why math —and how?

Colin Andrews, an electrical engineer and the world’s leading authority on crop circles, argues that crop circles result from the earth’s electromagnetic energy, after conducting extensive electromagnetic surveys of circle circles and discovered spikes of the earth’s electromagnetic fields of 120 per cent.

Biophysicist William Devengood has found that the stems of the plants in crop circles have consistently elongated stems, consistent with microwave radiation.

And a Boston team of investigators says that it is some unknown ‘quantum energy’, after finding anomalous changes in the soil – consistent with increases of temperatures of 600-800 degrees — even though the plants themselves, which are would be incinerated at such a heat, are left untouched. Other scientists such as Russian physicist Dr. Konstantin Korotkov, finds vast changes in the light emissions of humans when they stand inside crop circles.

A message from mother earth?

The fact that the latest crop circle design shows one of the fundamental ratios in nature suggests that crop circles are a physical and numerical representation of some natural order of which we are a part. We respond to crop circles, like nature or music, because they remind us that we are all connected. All of heaven is contained in this simple design – to remind us, in these dark times, of who we are.

Your thoughts, please, on crop circles.

• What is causing them?
• And why are they mostly found in southwest England, near the Neolithic sites of Averbury and Silbury Hill?
• How are we supposed to respond to them? As Colin Andrews says, “These perfect geometries may contain very important information; it’s up to us to discover why they are formed and what positive attributes they have for mankind.”

Mrs Devbai Patel, the 56-year-old mother of four, from Neasden, north London, had sustained severe injuries to her brain, stomach and arm after a truck mounted the sidewalk near her home, and smashed into her before it hit a veterinary clinic. The driver had been killed instantly, and Devbai was left unconscious.

Many weeks later, she remained in a coma, and nothing worked to rouse her. Doctors had reduced her medication. Her husband and children frequently visited and were encouraged to speak to her.

“We tried everything but still she did not respond,” Devbai’s husband Kunverji said.

As a last resort, the medical team suggested the family bring in her 23-month old granddaugher Leela, with whom the Devbai had a special attachment.

The little girl was so shocked to see her grandma looking so ill that she she let out a shriek of horror. At the sound of her beloved granddaughter, Devbai immediately opened her eyes.

As soon as she woke up she began to rapidly heal.

Devbai’s husband called it a ‘miracle’. But is it? This little item has so many implications. Devbai’s brain wasn’t recording any evidence of consciousness. Nevertheless, she ‘knew’ her granddaughter was there and immediately responded. Furthermore, it offers evidence of the psychic knot between loved ones. Devbai and Leela’s connection was so profound that the child’s upset was immediately registered in the grandmother.

I collect coma stories, and all seem to suggest that a coma victim is completely aware of everything that is going on, even when the brain is not recording any evidence of consciousness.

I’ve previously written about another coma ‘miracle’, Zach Dunlap.

Zach too was considered a ‘miracle’ case of a man who returned from the dead.

Both accident victims show evidence that they were fully conscious during their comas. Zach reported that he was aware of everything going on around him, despite the fact that a brain scan had recorded no activity or blood flow. Zach even heard doctors pronounce him dead.

Nevertheless, Zach’s brain – the central mechanism of consciousness, according to our current biological paradigm — was out of order.

So who or what was doing the thinking?

And where precisely does it occur? Frontier scientists like neuroscientist Karl Pribram are convinced that all higher cognitive thinking does not go on inside the brain, and evidence like this supports it. What we consider our individual ‘thoughts’ appear to operate on a different plain outside of our brain – and possibly outside our bodies. And what kind of connection – like Leela’s and Devbai’s – exists beyond the physical?

Reggie suggested we set up a group called ‘Connecting with animals’. “A shaman once told me to listen very carefully to my whippet, Ollie. I do now and it is remarkable,” he wrote. “We have a beautifully responsive relationship that is now so natural. She is continually my teacher about the finer things in life and what matters most.”

I agree that we can learn a great deal from animals. Animals ‘live The Field’ far more than we do. Although we like to think of ourselves as the most well developed of all species on the planet, most animals have abilities that far surpass us in almost every regard.

Most of us are aware of the special talents of different animals—that they can remember better than us (in the case of squirrels and nuts), navigate better than us (in the case of birds) or hear or smell better than us (in the case of dogs).

But most remarkable of all is the ability of animals to predict events.

Among the most remarkable examples is the ability of dogs to predict epileptic fits. Cases abound of dogs predicting seizures in their owners. Many are trained to be seizure-response dogs to help their owners get to a safe place before a seizure has begun. These dogs have been taught to lie down on top of their owner or fetch his medicine, once a seizure has begun.

British vet Andrew Edney has made a study of dogs of all breeds who’ve become seizure-alert, according to their owners. Of the 21 who responded to Edney’s survey, all claimed that their dogs developed this talent without training. In all cases, the dogs would show:

• concern, apprehension or fear
• attention-getting behaviour, usually barking or whining
• making frantic contact with the owner either by jumping up, or licking his hands or face
• standing by their owner, encouraging him to lie down or shepherding him to safety.

During the seizure, the dogs either stayed with their owners, often licking them, or rushed to get help. According to Edney’s study, the dogs had a remarkable track record. One even could distinguish a ‘fake’ seizure from a real one.

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who has made one of the largest studies of this phenomenon, has even had reports of dogs—and even cats—who have learned to monitor blood-sugar levels in diabetic owners.

In one instance, a dog named Max lived with a severe diabetic. If her blood-sugar levels plummeted in the middle of the night, Max would shake her husband until he woke up to give her the medication.

Perhaps the most remarkable cases are those where a pet has helped to diagnose cancer or an emergency like appendicitis. In 1989, The Lancet published a report of a Border Collie–Doberman mixed dog that kept licking and sniffing at a mole on his owner’s leg, and even attempted to bite it off when its owner wore shorts.

The native American view of illness and healing, as with everything else in their world, rests upon the notion of relationship. They view their lives, as well as their states of health, as subjective and participatory, as part of other processes—past, present and future. A physical symptom is simply a metaphor for a spiritual illness—a manifestation of imbalance. An individual who is ill is fundamentally out of balance with the natural universal order.

Illness could be caused by events that happened to an ancestor, or to other members of their communities or tribes, or even across the generations. It may have something to do with the individual’s own relationship to cosmic energies. According to the Navajo, the source of disease encompasses a loss of identity and connection, even the playing out of an ancestor’s difficulties. In many instances, the problem is one that an elder had, which is then conferred on the son or daughter and needs to be addressed in the next generation by the entire surviving family.

Consequently, an individual can only heal a physical ailment by healing his entire spiritual relationship with the universe. Correcting this imbalance and reconnecting to one’s natural environment eliminates individual physical symptoms and restores the spirit. The Navajos traditionally call it sa’ah naagháí bik’eh hózh or, as one academic paper referred to it, ‘the whole universe is my cathedral’.

Becoming well is therefore not simply a process of ending symptoms, but an alchemical process that transforms past difficulties into a better future. To achieve this extraordinary transformation requires the entire community, all working together.

Although we may not be able to carry out Navajo ceremonies or sings, we may be able to learn much from their idea of illness as an identity crisis and symptoms as having a metaphysical cause.

• When you are ill, examine what is not working in your spiritual life and in your relationship to the universe.
• Write down what you like least and what you would like to change. Are you doing the work you love and were born to do? Are you happy and connected in your relationships? Are you in connection with your power and that of your universe? Are you happily situated?
• When did you become ill? What was happening in your life at the time or leading up to it?
• Consider whether you have a spiritual problem that is cross-generational or historical. Are you still suffering from hurts or setbacks suffered by your parents? If they lost money, do you have terrible fears about money that may be manifesting as back pain, for instance?
• Spend some days making your list. Add and subtract from it until you are satisfied that it is a fair representation of yourself in relation to the universe at this time. Observe whether the things you are not happy about have any metaphorical manifestation in your body.

Halberg also discovered that living things keep in time to many other periodic rhythms; half-weekly, weekly, monthly and yearly cycles govern virtually every biological function.

The human pulse and blood pressure, body temperature and blood clotting, circulation of lymphocytes, hormonal cycles and other functions of the human body all appear to ebb and flow according to some basic, recurring timetable.

Initially scientists believed that the master switch for these biological rhythms was located in certain cells of the brain or adrenal glands. But in his eighties, Halberg made his final breakthrough discovery: The synchronizer within every living thing is not internal but resides in the planets – particularly the sun and solar activity.

In a sense, the sun is our metronome. These rhythms are a ready-made feature of organisms, not simply something learned or acquired – an inherent property of life.

Because of this, we have biorhythms for everything in our lives – times when it is better to do one activity than another. For instance, having a glass of wine at lunchtime makes you more woozy than in the evening because your liver is three times better at detoxifying the alcohol in the evening than at midday.

Here are the best times to carry out activities in your day:

7 am: The optimum time to have sex, when the body produces a surge in hormones and adrenaline. Testosterone levels rise during sleep and reach a peak in men after a night’s sleep.

8:30-9: The best time to eat, since blood pressure and your metabolic rates are at their highest. Hence, the old adage to ‘eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper’. A huge meal will put on less weight in the morning than later in the day.

9:30-11:30 am: The optimum time for test taking, when your short-term memory and brain power are at their sharpest.

2 pm: The perfect time for a nap. The worst time to drive or operate equipment, as it is most likely time for an accident.

2:30-3: The best time for recall or reminiscing; long-term memory peaks.

4-6 pm: The best time to exercise – your muscles are at their warmest of the day, your reaction time, hand-eye coordination reach their optimum.

6-8 pm: The best time for mindfulness meditation, when sensory ability is at its most acute, and also problem solving, as the blood flowing to your brain peaks.

7-9 pm: The best time to share with friends and loved ones, as cortisol – the stress hormone – and blood pressure drops.

10-11 pm: The best time to sleep, when production of melatonin, the hormone inducing sleep, surges, and heart rate, body temperature begin to wind down.