Phishing

AVOID FALLING FOR PHISH

Never click on a link in a suspicious e-mail or instant message, particularly one asking for personal information. If you do business with the purported sender, open your browser and type the company’s usual Web address yourself.

Look carefully at Web addresses for subtle errors, such as “Annazon.com.” Learn to parse Web addresses for other clues to the site’s legitimacy.

If unsure of a Web site, perform a Google search for the company. The address of the suspicious site is unlikely to appear in the top results, whereas the real company Web site will.

See consumer tips and resources from the Anti-Phishing Working Group at:

http://apwg.org/advice

Play Anti-Phishing Phil at:

http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil

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Meditation Technique

Learn a Simple Meditation Technique

Make yourself comfortable, sitting upright, with a straight spine. With your eyes closed, look at the point midway between the eyebrows on your forehead.

Inhale slowly, counting to eight. Hold the breath for the same eight counts while concentrating your attention at the point between the eyebrows. Now exhale slowly to the same count of eight. Repeat three to six times.

After inhaling and exhaling completely, as the next breath comes in, mentally say Hong (rhymes with song). Then, as you exhale, mentally say Sau (rhymes with saw). Hong-Sau means "I am He" or "I am Spirit". Make no attempt to control your breathing, just let its flow be completely natural. Try to feel that your breath itself is silently making the sounds of Hong and Sau. Initially try to feel the breath at the point where it enters the nostrils.

Be as attentive as possible. If you have difficulty feeling the breath, you can concentrate for awhile on the breathing process itself, feeling your diaphragm and chest expanding and contracting.

Gradually as you become more calm, try to feel the breath higher and higher in the nose. Be sure that your gaze is kept steady at the point between the eyebrows throughout your practice. Don't allow your eyes to follow the movement of the breath. If you find that your mind has wandered, simply bring it back to an awareness of the breath and the mantra.

As you become calmer, be more aware of the breath itself, higher and higher in the nose. Be sure to keep your gaze steady at the point between the eyebrows throughout your practice. Don't allow your eyes to follow the movement of the breath. If you find that your mind has wandered, simply bring it back to an awareness of the breath and the mantra.

By concentration on the breath, the breath actually diminishes; its gradual refinement leads naturally to an interiorized meditative state.

Practice this technique as long as you feel to. As a boy, Paramhansa Yogananda used to practice it for hours at a time, withdrawing ever more deeply into the spine until he found himself without breath altogether. He had ascended into soul-consciousness . . . and a higher reality took over…

Some Tips to Help Your Meditation

Controlling Your Breath. At no time during the practice of this technique should you make any effort to control the breath. Let it flow naturally. Gradually, you may notice that the pauses between the inhalation and exhalation are becoming longer. Enjoy these pauses, for they are a glimpse of the deep peace state of advanced meditation. As you grow very calm you may notice that the breath is becoming so shallow (or the pauses so prolonged) that it hardly seems necessary to breathe at all.

How Long to Practice. The amount of time you practice is entirely up to you, but end your practice of the technique by taking a deep breath, and exhaling 3 times. Then, keeping your mind focused and your energy completely internalized, try to feel peace, love and joy within your self. Sit for at least 5 minutes enjoying the deeply relaxed state you are in.

Where to Meditate. If possible, set aside an area that is used only to meditate. This will create a meditative mood. A small room or closet is ideal as long as it can be well ventilated. Your area can be kept very simple-all you really need is a chair or small cushion to sit on.

Posture for Meditation. There are many ways of sitting that are equally good. You can sit either in a straight-backed chair or on the floor in any of several poses. Two things, however, are essential: Your spine must be straight, and you must be able to relax completely.

Eye Position. Focus your attention at the point between the eyebrows. This area, called "the spiritual eye", is a center of great spiritual energy. Your eyes should be closed and held steady, and looking slightly upwards, as if looking at a point about an arm's length away and level with the top of your head.

----- With due apologies and full credits to Ananda! And HIM !

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Most Popular Categories on the Internet

Following data is presented by sharethis dot com. As you can see, sites about "Entertainment" and “Science and Technology” are very popular on that network. Their sharing platform is even popular internationally - 11% of sites using ShareThis publish their content in foreign languages.

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Optical Illusion

Motion Magic

The Brain Looks Forward

Optical illusions may fool the brain because it is trying to predict the future.

The brain takes nearly one tenth of a second to consciously register a scene. But the scenery changes far more quickly than that when we move. How does our brain cope? By constantly predicting the future, posits Mark Changizi, now at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. This ability explains many visual illusions—look here, for example, as you move this page toward and away from you. The extra motion results from your brain estimating where the ellipses will be in several milliseconds, Changizi says. He and his colleagues explain this illusion and 50 others in April’s Cognitive Science.

—Lucas Laursen
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Cell Phones effect Sleep

Using a mobile phone just before bed may cause insomnia

Many of us enjoy an occasional bedtime chat with a loved one who is far away. But as more and more people trade in their landlines for mobile phones, they may find that these latenight conversations are no longer a good idea. According to recent studies, cell phone signals can alter brain waves—and the consequences will keep you up at night.

Neuroscientist Rodney Croft and his colleagues at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia strapped a Nokia 6110 cell phone to the heads of 120 men and women and then monitored their brain waves. When the research ers switched on the phone without the subjects’ knowledge, they saw a sudden power boost in the volunteers’ alpha brain waves. Alpha waves normally surge as the mind shuts out the external world and spins internal thoughts. Croft believes the heightened alpha waves reflect the mind concentrating to overcome the electrical interference in brain circuits caused by the pulsed microwave radiation from cell phones.

In a different study, sleep researchers at Loughborough University in England found that after a 30-minute exposure to cell phone signals in talk mode, people took nearly twice as long to fall asleep as they did when the phone had been off or in standby mode. The scientists think the effect probably reflects the time it takes the brain to relax after being agitated by the phone’s electrical field.

James Horne, one of the study’s authors, cautions that the effects are harmless and less disruptive to sleep than half a cup of coffee. Still, he wonders, “With different doses, durations or other devices, would there be greater effects?”

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