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The Zohar is one of the book studied in Kabbalah and the Zohar is 700 years old. But other books and practices in Kabbalah are older. The other texts of Kabblah are "Bahir" , "Sefer Yetzirah" , Shaarei Teshuvah and Tomar Devorah. Some of These texts and other practices such as meditation have been around well before the "book of radiance - zohar", as Kakkarot mentioned. Gemartia (numerology) is also very old. However, the Zohar is a pretty important book in the study of Kabbalah, one of the main ones. Sorry if I have confused you with the dates.

That sounds exactly like the 49 days of self-elevation and self-evaluation in the Kabbalistic biblical writtings. There 49 days are then followed by one day of prophetic relevation, and all these are reached by meditation (hitbodedut - self confinement, mainly in the Sinai desert actually). These come from the 7 vertical levels of the Tree of Live (Kabbalah), where one consider each possible combinations of pairs (7x7=49). Including the last day of prophetic visions, it is also sometimes called the 50 gates of understanding.

This sounds like a light transe. Transe can have different degrees of intensity/deepth. When you are absorbed and concentrating on a given activity, whether a physical or intelectual activity, it is also a state of transe, however very light. I guess you are getting there, take your time. There are other books on transes, books on meditation and of course books on OBE that describe the different stages. There is a book of Bruce on the web that has the information you are looking for about transe. Just check the astral pulse site for it. It is available in PDF format I think.

Good luck!

Hi Carnac,

There are, I am sure, more than one way to view them in Kabbalah.

One obvious one is that Hod and Netzach have to be reached in life as a way of living and understanding life itself. A little bit as one person can become Sage or a righteous by learning and understanding that kindness and helping others is more important that selfishness, etc... So that is one way of attaining these levels, it is through attaining a just balance. These two levels are 2 of the 10 levels of the tree of life. These 10 levels are sometimes more viewed like the "fruits" of the tree of life and as such they are not especially one on top of the other (this is one of the trees of the Garden of Eden in the Creation...). Hod and Netzach are actually at the same level but one on the right and one on the left side of the tree. The same is true for the level of 'justice/laws' and 'compassion/love', where for example to raise a child one has to impose some laws/rules/orders  at home, but when the child breaks the "rules" (e.g. not playing with matches), the child cannot just be punished like that, that is where love comes. There must be a just balance of (one one side - say) laws and on the other side Love. So in that same sens one has to reached a ballance between  Majesty (Hod) and Endurance (Netash). One way you view it is through fasting (Endurance) and (say) meditation (Majesty).

In meditation (and not especially Kabbalistic meditation), one increases his/her awareness/consciousness to be self aware of all what is happening in his/her own mind/body. This self-awareness becomes so intense that even when dreaming the meditator will start to be aware, and therefore will start to have lucid dreams all the time. The next level of that is prophecy (here I am talking about the far east meditation). In Kabbalah it is about the same. One has to look at all the prophets, Sages, Shamans, MEssayahs such as Moses, Abraham, Mohammed, Jesus, ... as people who meditated (and the desert or the mountain - and the Nature in general - are very good to practice meditation) and reached higher level of awareness. The same for the prophets in the Bible. For example Daniel was known to eat only veggies and drink only water. In some of his propheties he wrote that for a month he would fast and only drink and that is how he would induce visions. It is the fasting and the meditation combined. He body would certainly be so weak that it would not bother him at all for the meditation practice. Of course in the Bible they view this are being "pure".

There are people (some Rabbis) who do practice meditation and study Kabbalah and talk about "meeting God" in the meditation process.

The main point is that many New Age persons (including Madonna!) go and study Kabbalah with a person who learned only some of the "magical" parts of it. Kabbalah is supposed to be studied by the more advanced students of the Bible (Torah) and has to be understood in that background. There is a similar pattern in (far East) meditation where one has to practice "kindness", etc... and if one put Kabbalah on one side and Far East Meditation on the other side, then the religious part of Kabbalah corresponds to that part in the practice of meditation where the meditator has to "loose his sens of ego" (including many thing such as "being selfish"....) and this brings both the meditator and the Kabbalist to care for others and help them to reach the right way to spirituality.

All that to say that this should be the way one has to try to go when one wishes to follow Meditation and/or Kabbalah or any other spiritual way.

Hey Steppenwolf, is that a self-propelled howitzer on your avatar picture ??

I am vegetarian. No meat, no fish, no sea food. And more recently no eggs and no cow milk. I started drinking soy milk. However, I am still in cheeze, though I might shift very soon to something else. I try to eat cheeze that has no "animal renette" and from cows that have been treated humanely. My concern is not my health but the awfull way the animals are treated, no so much the slaughter as the conditions in which they lived for their short life before being "executed".

What to eat?
Sure Tofu and Soy products.
ALso Nuts of all kind are very good.
Veggies of course.
Lentils, whole food such as whole wheat bread, pasta, rice,...
Mushrooms are very good with nuts.
Many fruits...
Salads...
Olives, Humus, Tehina, Fetah Cheeze (mediteranean food)..
Many herbs/spices, herbal theas,...
Soy proteins to make "shakes" (e.g. soy milk + soy protein powder + banana in the blender) ...
Cereals + milk (soy milk or rice milk).
Rice + beans gives you also full protein (also with lentils).
SPinash and lentils have the Iron you need (parsley too).

MIam, miam, I think I am hungry....

BTW: in thibet and India they are all vegetarians.. also Daniel in the Bible was vegetarian,...

Why eat a cow? Why eat chicken? Why eat dogs (in Asia)? Why eat Gorilla and monkeys (in Africa and Asia), why to eat the fresh brain of Monkeys (Asia)? To get another epidemy? why all that when we can manage without it.

The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to it
(native american proverb)

The time will come when men will look upon the murder of animals as
they look upon the murder of men
(Leonardo da Vinci)

For as long as space endures
And for as long as sentient beings remain,
May I also abide
To relieve the suffering of living beings.
(A prayer by Shantideva that His Holiness The Daila Lama recites every day)

I do feel that spiritual progress does demand that at some stage
we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction
of our bodily wants
(Mahatma Gandhi)

Poem from the Native American...

All as it was in this place timeless.
All as it was between the human soul and the earth.

For there is not difference between
The life of a man and the life
Of all growing things.

WHo is to say if a man
Shall not be a tree instead?
We pray to all of nature and do it no harm.

These are our brothers
All men and all animals and all trees.

Some part of ourselves
Is in earth and sky and everywhere.

It shall continue
As long as nature follows its own purpose.
It shall continue
As long as we know what we are doing here.

What brings premonitions is a higher conscious ness that can be achiebved for example from meditation or OBE as some have suggested. A higher consciousness makes you realised that you are dreaming and brings also more lucid dreams. So we are all on the track it seems. It starts with intuition, continue with dreams, with lucid dreams, with OBE and eventually with full visions of the future (hopeuflly).... soon we'll all be prophets.... []

Shaman - the dreamer [|)]

In the evening sky Venus is on the west on the side of the sun (while this one is under the horizon), while Jup9iter is on the East. They are both very bright and u due to atmospheric effects there could be some chromatic aberation - I means color changing like r effects. Sorry I have a wrong key board and each time I type a mistake I cannot use th e back space key to correct. Nor t sure what is wrong.

Please, have a look at the sky every night and see if you see again the star you saw, it is most probably jupiter on the east, nothing to be alarmed. I am a veteran amateur in astronomy and an astrophysicist by profgession, so you can believe my wrod (word), unless you belive that sic scientists are so skeptical... if I was I would not be here on this forum.

HOwever, I had 2 lucid dreams with the stars. Each time in a dream I see the night sky I realise that it is a dream.. cool ! In one of them I could clearly see Orion.

Any OBE or lucid dream with stars?

Hello Dancer,

I understand you will already look at the link I gave you.

Let me explain what I tried and worked for me and hopefully also for others and for you in particular.

- We dream every 90 minutes in the night, and usually we sleep 4 or 5 such cycles. We remember the dreams that we have after the 4th or 5th cycles. Usually the 5th is much better, since it is in the morning after almost 8h of sleep. The more and the better you sleep, you will have more chance to remember your dreams (usually).
- It is best not to wake up from an alarm clock, noises, or any other 'external' source. When you wake up stay in your bed and don't move, don't even open your eyes. When you realise you are waking up just continue to try and feel that sensation of sleep/dream. If you open your eyes and start thinking about what you have to do the same day (going to school, university, work, etc...) then you will forgot immediately your dreams. So take a few moments to wake up and remember your dreams. Sure a journal next to your bed will help too to keep track.
- before going to bed you can auto-suggest yourself by repeating that you want to remember you dreams and that they are important to you.
- I also drink herb theas in the afternoon and before going to sleep to help me relax and calm down. On the market you can find Chamomille thea, St John Wort Thea,.. they are usually sold as "calm", "relax", "good night sleep" theas... Also Valerian roots is good. However, Valerian is a real sedative and will induce sleep. It is also addictive, so you should not drink it on a regular basis.
- Rosemay and Mugwort (Artemsia Vulgaris) are two herbs that help increase the memory. One can make a "sleep pillow" with them (put some dried rosemary and mugwort in a little pillow case under your head or under your pillow). I personnaly drink rosemary thea as much as I have the opportunity (once a day, preferably in  the late afternoon). Some people have suggested to drink Mugwort thea, however there are some books that claim that Mugwort is poisonous (all the family of plants called Artemisia are poisonous except Taragon/Estragon and Russian Artemisia) and should not be eaten or drunk in thea. I am sure on this forum that some people would try it just because of that expecting to induce some side effect such as OBE or other thing that can happen when someone is poisoned. I would avoid that. I would avoid to drink or eat anything poisonous and that's what I would recommand you, not to try.
- Meditation can increase your power of concentration, awareness, consciousness and therefore you might be able to remember more of your dreams and even to have lucid dreams if you meditate often. But you need to be a veteran of meditation for that, that won't happen to a beginner like me.

I hope this will help.

Cheers,
Shaman - the dreamer ... [|)]

Hi Deva,

It is correct that a first form of precognition is a very strong intuition that appears to be correct. I had such intutuions concerning the death of some people in my family. The next thing above intuition is actually your dreams. As I understand, and following some of your postings, you have been able to have more vivid dreams and to remember them. Pay attention to all your dreams and keep a dream journal in order not to forget them. Dreams can be premonitory, sometimes with symbolism, sometimes directly. You can dream of some people that you never dreamed of before and that might have some important signification. I dreamed of an uncle who lived far away. I did not have any info about him and I never dreamed of him before. It is at that same time that he got ill. He died a little later. In the dream I knew that if I saw him it had a special meaning. I had other dreams more direct. I would suggest to pay attention to all you dreams. I try to sleep 8h, because then I can remember with great details the dreams of the morning. The next step would be to practice meditation (or other techniques of transe, exctasy) to trigger visions, either visions that are unvolontary or visions that are focused on a particular subject that you wish to elucidate. But that's already a much higher level that I haven't been able to control. Anyhow, keep us posted of your dreams.

Shaman - The dreamer

Well what it described on that site with the light house is actually (see my previous posting Feb 12) the state of full absorption. So it is complete meditation.

Please have look at a gook such as:

Meditation for dummies by Stephan Bodian (Bogian?) not so much for dummies actually. And check full absorption.

THe meditative mind by Daniel Goleman deals with that two.

These are two Dr. in psychology who travelled to the far east and have a long practice of meditation and meditation therapy. Please, have a look at these books if you can, I am sure you will find what you are looking for.

Yes Paul,

You are completely right. Zohar is just a part of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is the hidden part, the mystical part of Judaism. It is composed and based not only on the Zohar, but also on the Gemaria (which works with numbers, as each letter, and consequently each word, has a numerical value, one can find dates and other things playing with these numbers). Meditation is also part of the Kabbalah, but it is passed only from teachers to students, and it is not written, it is an oral practice/tradition. The meditation is very close to the ones that use Mantra, here the mantra is really a prayer or the name of God (one of the many names of God in Judaism).

Waw! 10 days and only 6 persons have looked up at that message. Sure none knows Daniel Goleman or has read his book. Anyhow, for the ones who might be interested I'll just elaborate a little bit as to what can be found in that book.

First of all there is a detailed explanation about the different phases of meditation in general, viewed from a psychologist (Dr. D. Goleman) but also from the point of view of someone who practiced meditation and travelled in Asia for a long period (Again D. Goleman).

The basic steps given in that book are actually enough to follow for someone interested to start a good practice of meditation, though it is not enough if one wants go further than that.

There is a long debate about all the different meditation practices in different religions, such as either to reach the "oneness", "no-thing-ness", "God", "mindfulness", etc...using actually different techniques of concentration: breathing, object of meditation, mentra, prayer,... in short: the different ways to follow in different religions/societies, and the different level of transe reached.
Budhism, Induism, Kabbalah (Judaism), Suffism (Muslim), ... are all overviewed. They are all put at the same level.

The main point is that in order to meditate one has to be able to distant him/herself from many things in order to avoid distraction. And on the other side as one reach a higher and higher level of meditation, one becomes less selfish and lose the sens of "ego-centrism" (or just his/her ego). This create an attitude of a person who is ready to help others, understand others, a person who is moderate, modest and first care for others before than caring for him/herself. It is  seen in many relitions as the "righteous", "holy", "wise",... the practice of meditation ultimately is believed  to help reach a state where one can see into the future (premonitions, prophecies, etc.. - like the prophets in the Bible), one can heal (like the shaman, the medecine man, ...), can travel in the astral (again the Shaman, but also Daniel in his lucid dreams, etc..). But also the most advanced meditators are able to enter a deep transe, lower their metabolism, their haert beat very low and their breathing too. Their body temperature drops accordingly and the meditator could in theory stay in that transe for as long as he wishes (though usually not more than a week). For a lay person the meditator looks like he is dead as the heart beat and breathing become barely noticable.

In the (main) second part of the book he addresses the point of view of the psychologist and he sees the relation between psychological facts and the practice of meditation. He sees meditation as a tool for (psychologists) therapists to help patients where the conventional psychological therapeutic techniques have failed. He encourages everyone to practice meditation to relieve stress, improve the quality of life and basically to be able to live the present in full awareness (full absorption).

Simply a book to read for all those interested in meditation in general.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone (I), after Harry has sent a python snake onto his cousin, he answered to his Uncle:

Harry: - "It was like magic"

Uncle Vernon: - "There is not such thing as Magic!"

Magic is something that you cannot explain with logic, science or rationality. So the unexplained is magic in that sens. There are also Magicians who know to do tricks, this is magic if you do not know the tricks, otherwise it is just "leger-de-main", sleight of hand.

Hello Doctor,

There are many stages in meditation. Let us assumed that you are familiar with the relaxation stages, and you (say) lay down relaxed on your bed. Then for a little while you can practice contemplation to realease some of the natural stress, thoughts, etc.. The comtemplation is also explained in the book of Bruce, where you actually let your thoughts take you where they want.

The next step is when you start concentrating, focusing your awareness onto the object of concentration. For example you might have chosen your breathing as the object of your concentration. As you bring your awareness to your nostrils you feel and are aware of the air coming in and air going out. Naturally there will occur moments of distractions either from the outside (noise in the house, street, etc..) or from the inside (itchy leg, need to swallow, thoughts coming in, passing by, etc..). You will then gently bring back your attention to the object of concentration. This will happen more than once that distraction will occur.

Now it is during this period when you are being distracted and when you try to focus your awareness onto the object of concentration that visions occur. Visions can be terrible at times, with horrible beasts, etc... Budhists have actually visions of Buddha himself. There are the visions you want to work on, they will appear when you lose your awareness from the object of concentration, as your mind start to wander all by itself.

In meditation, one actually continues beyond the visions, one try to shift his/her awareness away from the visions (ignoring them - of course that's not what you want to do) to reach full absorption. Full absorption is when you awareness is suddently locked onto the object of concentration. The meditator becomes one with the object of concentration, there is a feeling of hapiness, bliss, physically and mentally that take over the meditator. There are many levels from there, but that's the basic one. Vision appears before that, as I mentioned above.

Good book on meditation (by psychologists) do explain a lot on the visions, maybe that's what you want to look for.

Moontingle,

what you described while performing ski sounds exactly like the state of "full absorption" which is reached in meditation. One feels bliss, love, ect.. and one live the experience as if one was the experience. This state can be obtained while meditating with your eyes closed on an object of meditation or while performing an activity. In your case you were able to reach that state while skiing. This is exactly what fallnangel77 described too. It is the aim of every meditation practice, no matter what you call it. So maybe you will be able to have more of these "episods" of love by practicing deep meditation. What is good is that at moments we do have these absorptions coming without effort.

I did Shotokan for over 6 years, and one of our masters was teaching TaiChi. I must say that most of the movements of TaiChi remind me of many stances/movements in Shotokan where your body direct your energy (focus, power, concentration, oneness) basically from the ground all they to the kick, punch or whatever is performed onto your opponent. The headmaster at that time was the late Shihani Ed Hamiles

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1070/wcskkai.htm

Not sure if this might interestt you. What do you mean by dbz? Some of the differences with Kung Fu is the distance to your opponent, the "ma" which is much shorter in Kung Fu than in Shotokan. The other difference is that Kung Fu is taking many of its tactics and practice by imitating animals (bear claw, bird beak, ...), while Shotokan is adapted for and by the human body to maximize the energy of impact. The aim in Shotokan is to be the most powerfull, fast in the shortest time and to finish the battle within basically one move only.

The "power of meditation" is very strong. Meditation that is done over years can completely change the meditator. What the gravity reminds me is actually the feeling of free fall, it is that feeling that I reached for to get the vibrations. Gravity also makes you feel as if you "sink" into your mattress, that is very good to relax. I haven't tried the other ones, but there are many sensations that can acompany meditation, such as floating, which here reminds me of the buoyancy you mentioned. I believe meditation is very good in general and the object of the meditation will have a different effect on different people. I have only started with meditation, though I have practiced different method of relaxation, concentration and even absorption.

I do not know who is crazy. The title of the posting is "je suis folle" which means in French "I am crazy (female)". However, poster is a male, not a female. So I am asking him whether he is really "folle" or "fou", where "folle" is female and "fou" is male. So you should ask Stell Hawk what He means by "je suis folle".... I am just trying to uderstand...

You can go to Barnes and Nobles or to your local (public) library. There are some very good books that address meditation in General and in every culture and religions. Meditation for Dummies, by Stephan Bogan (I am not sure of the last name) is excellent, and actually not for dummies at all! It gives you many ways of meditating. You can lay down if you are not tired, then you will not fall asleep (but if you don't sleep enough for sure you will hear yourself snoring, a sign that you fell asleep). The easiest and simplest and most common is to concentrate on your breath. When you inhale you focus your attention (awareness) to your nostril (you can say in your mind "in" to help you), and when you exhale you do the same and try to feel the air going out of your nostrils (you can reapeat "out" in your mind). At that same time of course you have to relax completely. Your mind will wander a little bit to other things (itchy leg, hungry?, car in the street, the TV is on, ... you think about something else, etc...) then bring your attention back to your breathing. This can happen a lot. At some stage you might even start to have visions, hear sounds, .. that's ok. You have to ignore these too and continue to concentrate on your breathing. At one point your attention, focuse, awareness will lock onto the object of meditation. At this stage you will start to be disconnect to the rest of the world and be aware only of the object of meditation: you have reach full absorption.

Other methods consist of not concentrating on any object in particular, just to "look" at things (thoughts, sounds from the outside, your own body, ...) with a sens of detachment, without giving them importance. Other methods consist to pay attention to the "gaps" between everything that comes up to your mind/awareness. Others techniques have mantras. Mantras are phrases or just words that one repeats such as (Thibet) "Om Mani Padme Hum" (or just "Om", which means "hello" - "hello jewel in the Lotus") or in Kabbalah "Ribono shel Olam" (Master of the Universe), etc... In theory the subject of meditation (Budhism) is chosen particularly for a meditator (it's a long story).

There are as many ways of meditating as there are people...! So, I would just recommand you that book that I just mentioned. It is simple and straightforward.

Steel,

es-tu vraiment folle, ou bien fou? Parce qu'il faudra que tu decides?

The one I like the most is: "The earth does not belong to us, we belong to it".

All the religions have actually in their core (though not anybody can reach the core) meditation: Sufism in Islam, Kabbalah in Judaism, etc... The Native Americans had their "medecine men" who were Shamans (similar to the shamans found in Asia, Europe, - Russia,.etc..) who meditated to reach an altered state of consciousness (transe) to access the astral, etc... In the religions like Judaism and Muslim one reaches to access the "oneness" or God. In budhism, Indouism, etc... one reaches for the "oneness" or "mindfulness" (no-thing-ness) without calling them God. Meditation can be carried out silently (sitting quietly, doing nothing, Zen...), or with prayer and phrases/mantras, such as Om Mani Padme Hum in Thibet, or Rebono Shel Olam in Kabbalah/Judaism, etc... or through dancing/smoking,... ==> shamans of the Americas.  

Many of the people who "started" a religion were in some remote place (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, in desert-like places, without much food for days, weeks, years even; like monks in Thibet), very similar to the places in (e.g.) New Mexico or Arizona, where the Native Americans are now a majority. During the night it is the starry sky that becomes the object of the meditation, it is where one can find God in Kabbalah, or the mythology, etc...

So in short, the Natvie Americans have kept the essence of their shamanism/meditation, while the others have added a lot to it. All the laws (in christianity, judaism,..) are laws to make oneself better and feel better about himself (originally) which are needed in order to be able to meditate. In Asia these are not set up as laws but as a set of "positive" and "negative" sides of the person, where one has to reach for only the positive ones to reach the highest level of the meditation (oneness, nothingness). It seems that the Native American have "sayings", "proverbs" instead of laws, such as the one I quoted "the land does not belong to us, we belong to it". These are viewed as realities as one meditates on life for example.

During concentration, a person tries to bring her/his focus to the object of the concentration/meditation, usually the breath. Naturally the attention is distracted by all kind of things either from the outside world or from the inside world of the person (such as thoughts, itchy, hungry, ...). The person then tries and bring back his/her focus onto the breath, and so on. This state of concentration is also acompanied by a feeling of rapture. At a moment during this concentration/meditation process visions(=hallucinations) will occur. However, as the person brings her/his attention back to the breath (or other object of concentration - e.g. the rope in Bruce book), the visions will go away. The visions appear when there is a discontinuity in the attention, when there is a gap in the attention, and the visions fill that gap. It is a process similar to the one we go through when we fall asleep, before we sleep, when we are still awake, we can start to have visions. The same when we wake up in the morning, after the dream, before we get up, we can have these visions. This is called the hypnagonic (hypnagogic?) state. So this is completely normal, nothing to worry about. From that state one can start lucide dreaming or can even astral project onto the vision.

Hey Atalanta,

If you are in psychology, there is a very good book written by a psychologist: The meditative Mind, the varieties of meditative experience, Daniel Goleman. This book addresses the different ways of meditation (budhist, India, and religions Christian, Jewish, Muslim - Kabbalah, Sufism, ...etc..) from the point of view of psychology. The first chapters explain the meditation in general that leads to the altered states of consciousness (transes). There are some intersting issues that can be related to AP/OBE, such as the stage at which visions start to form in the mind of the meditator. However, the aim of the meditator is to go passed the visions to what they call oneness or no-thing-ness. Eventually it shows how meditation does heal people suffering from psychological problems/illness, while modern psychology is unable to cure these people!

Anyway, I thought that as a psychologist you might like that book.

btw, back to your original posting, PhD in Physics (Astrophysics).
At this stage I do not see a way to "balance" science and metaphysics, at this stage I am only looking for solid evidence, proofs. The explanation would be of course that the laws of physics are not complete and that there is much to discover yet and that the paranormal (in the cases where there are actual proofs) might point to the fact that there is much to this world than what we can sens we our five senses and technology.

I've tried passion flower, you can easily find that as a herbal tea. SOmetimes it comes mixed with chamomille and others. It is good to relax. Of course one has to experiment and try different herb theas for a period of a week or so to see if there is any difference. In the family of the mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris) one can try the tarragon (french tarragon, or estragon) another specy of Artemisia. It is a relaxing herb in theas and has been used as a culinary herb in cooking. It is true that mugwort is the one mentioned in many places to help astral travel, you have to burn it or as an incens. But I could not find that one easily. All the other ones can be found in places where you buy flowers, seeds, soil, etc... in Home Depot, even Target, etc... It is easy to grow from seeds, but it takes months to have a plant big enough to make a thea... Especially when they recommand to take several cups of thea in the evening to feel the effect of the herb.

I think definitely Rosemary as a herb thea or as a culinary herb help the memory (of dreams). I am still experimenting on myself all these herbs and others to see. It seems to work, but they are not very strong.