hagigat.org

Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

There are lots of good reasons to conserve energy. If we use less gas, oil and electricity we are going to cut costs, plus the pollution connected with extracting and taking advantage of fossil fuels will decrease especially with the use of Biomass Energy. Reducing greenhouse gas production may help to reverse global warming. In a nutshell – an alternative has both personal and societal benefits.
Many people are worried with making their cash last longer and energy conservation will help by minimizing our energy costs. Homeowners can do many things to cut down on their energy needs. Perhaps a very important thing they might do to would be to install greater insulation to maintain warm and cool air.

Heating and air conditioning are the biggest energy consumers of the average household. Much of the heat and cool air escapes as a result of poorly insulated roofs, walls, doors, and windows. In fact in a huge number of cases heating and cooling is liable for around 50% of your energy costs. Improving insulation will result in greater conservation of energy and lesser energy costs. Small changes in this area may lead to dramatic lowering of your monthly payment to your utility company.
Using alternative energy sources along the lines of solar panels or Alternative Energy Wind can help reduce the amount of energy needed from traditional sources. The electricity created by these devices might be fed back in to the local power grid if it is not immediately used by the household. This cuts down on the power bill even further (the power meter runs backwards) while supplying clean power to your community.

Traditional bulbs are inefficient because much of the energy they use up is transformed into heat. Replacing all your incandescent bulbs with compact florescent bulbs will give you the same level at light with less energy consumption. Despite the fact that the cost of these bulbs is more than traditional bulbs, they last up to 20 times longer, producing significant overall savings.
Using an Energy Alternative isn’t just for homes, vehicles can be obtained with more high efficiency engines plus some can operate on alternate power sources like hydrogen or electricity.
Conservation of energy is one thing that everyone is able to help with. By being careful in how we use our resources we’re building a society for our children and grandkids.

In today’s struggling economy, millions of people are affected by the rising energy costs. On top of that we are learning more and more about the dangers and toxicity of fossil fuels that are keeping us dependent on foreign resources. So why not save the money that we are pouring into these poisonous fuels and help reduce our dependency on these outside resources and take advantage of some of the clean and renewable forms of energy that our planet has to offer us?

There are several renewable forms of energy that are being studied and experimented with in an effort to supply clean energy to the world. Some of these are more user friendly than others but as an individual consumer, you do have a couple of excellent choices.

Probably the most used form of natural energy that any consumer can take advantage of is solar power. Solar power has many applications and is becoming easier and easier to use each year as technology improves. Thousands of people are already using solar panels to supply electricity to their homes. You can hire a company to install them for you or you can save yourself thousands of dollars and build your DIY solar panels. There are obviously some advantages and disadvantages to both and both should be thoroughly researched before being decided on. You should know though that if you decide to hire a company to do it for you there are government grants and also incentive programs that can drastically reduce this price.

If you have a swimming pool you can use solar power to heat your pool. There are both inground solar pool covers as well as covers for above ground pools. They can come in three different colors and even a liquid pool cover is available as are solar rings. All have been proven affective at drastically reducing water loss through evaporation (which is how heat is lost also) and cutting back on chemical usage. Your pool water will be 10 – 15 degrees warmer with the use of a solar cover and you will save quite a bit of money while you’re at it.

If you like the idea of helping the environment by taking advantage of the sun, you will also be interested in outdoor solar lighting for your porch, deck, yard and walkways, solar battery chargers, solar fountains and bird baths.

Helping the environment while saving money has never been easier than it is today. It’s a great time to go green!

In Tibet and in certain Indian schools it was customary for students to attend burial grounds and practice their meditation techniques there among the corpses on this inevitable aspect of life. This may seem very grim to us in our neat and tidy culture, where there seems to be almost a conspiracy to deny that death is part of life, but the purpose should be crystal clear – namely to put us in touch with our deepest fear. We perhaps feel something of this if we attend a funeral, which has the effect of reminding us of our own passing. Our usual reaction is to leave as soon as possible for the place of death always makes us feel uncomfortable.

In avoiding our fears and feelings we deny ourselves the possibility of transforming them. When the fear of death has been faced a great liberation becomes possible. Never again will we feel fear and panic at the thought of passing for we have already faced what the experience means for us. Such a task is not easy for our fears are very deep rooted and are tied up with our sense of identity and being.

Understanding how to meditate upon death as both a personal and impersonal reality is a regular aspect of several systems of spiritual training. Do not be afraid to meditate on your own death. There is much to be learned about life in this. There is much to be gained in being free from old fears. We continually evade the lessons that death has to teach. Its lessons are straightforward and powerful. Life is to be treasured and experienced consciously; people are to be valued and loved for one day they will depart.

Meditation unlike intellectual thinking has the power to put us in touch with ourselves- It actively unites our consciousness and creates a sense of personal wholeness which is so often lacking. This sense of completeness becomes a firm foundation which we may build upon. As our sense of self-identity changes we are able to encompass new horizons. Roshi Philip Kapleau, the director of the Zen centre at Rochester, New York, points out that although concern with the self is valid at an early stage in spiritual training it is no more than a night’s lodging on the way to true self-realization.