July | 2012 | Religion4All

In Spite Of Doubt

July 31, 2012 at 11:20 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

My words for meditation today:

“The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.”

-Rollo May
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“In life, many thoughts are born in the course of a moment, an hour, a day. Some are dreams, some visions. Often, we are unable to distinguish between them. To some, they are the same; however, not all dreams are visions. Much energy is lost in fanciful dreams that never bear fruit. But visions are messages from the Great Spirit, each for a different purpose in life. Consequently, one person’s vision may not be that of another. To have a vision, one must be prepared to receive it, and when it comes, to accept it. Thus when these inner urges become reality, only then can visions be fulfilled. The spiritual side of life knows everyone’s heart and who to trust. How could a vision ever be given to someone to harbor if that person could not be trusted to carry it out. The message is simple: commitment precedes vision.”

– High Eagle
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach

Imagining Pleasure That Surpasses

July 30, 2012 at 11:03 pm · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

Imagination is such an amazing thing. Just look at the world around you and marvel at how many things are the result of an imagination. When we are imagining things, we are truly being Godlike … the ultimate Creator. We can create such beautiful pleasurable worlds to live in, that sometimes we just don’t want to leave them!

We start to crave and cling to our imaginations. We also begin avoiding anything that will take away from our experience of those imaginations. Then, ultimately, when what we have imagined crumbles, or is taken from us, we shut ourselves down and go into a soulful hibernation.

So what is the answer?? We need to be nurturing of our imaginations, in order to create the things that we are destined to create in this lifetime … but how do we avoid getting crushed on that deep soulful level?

In my post for meditation today, “Variegated Mindfield“, Vincent van Gogh gives the instruction to not become a slave to your model. I began thinking about all of the various ways I have been enslaved to my dreams and imaginations … I admit, I found it puzzling to conceive of how not to be enslaved without constant work and attentive consideration to each thought.

Then it dawned on me, perhaps I was simply imagining the wrong things. If one imagines something that they cannot achieve or that is impossible … then invariably their spirit will get crushed.

I thought of God. It is my belief that God is capable of anything. So therefore it made sense to plug my imagination into my own intimate relationship with God … in doing so I can simply let go and allow God to manifest what I had imagined. I’m not talking about some get rich quick scheme though … God is not going to just give us whatever we want because, like little children, what we want is usually not good for us.

What God will give us in plenty is love and joy and happiness and peace and SO much more. I began imagining on that level. I imagined not ever having to fight to stay connected to God. I imagined other people’s judgments of me having no effect, because I am just that rooted in God love. I imagined being as gleefully happy as a little child, without concern for what tomorrow may bring … or even the next hour. I imagined becoming so completely one with God that the pleasure of that surpasses any orgasm, fantasy, experience, or high.

That sounds like a pretty awesome world to me!! All we have to do is keep imagining it and then allowing God to create it. We never become enslaved to our model … because we can just let go … no clinging, avoidance, or rejection required.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Variegated Mindfield

July 30, 2012 at 7:20 am · Filed under Christianity, Creativity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: charm, create your own universe, Creative, dreaming, Dreams, feeling, Frank Barron, Imagination, Inspiration, inspired, knowledge, new world, power, Søren Kierkegaard, Slave of your model, sorcery, transform your world, Van Gogh, will, Winston Churchill

Day One of a solo road trip from Southern California to Washington state … LOTS of meditative time :-). Today I will be meditating on these concepts:

“The sorcery and charm of imagination, and the power it gives to the individual to transform his world into a new world of order and delight, makes it one of the most treasured of all human capacities.”

– Frank Barron

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“You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist.”

– Winston Churchill

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“What feeling, knowledge or will man has depends in the last resort upon what imagination he has.”

– Søren Kierkegaard

~ AND finally~

“Do not quench you inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.”

– Vincent Van Gogh

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Pic from Getty Images

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

That which is pliable

July 29, 2012 at 10:37 pm · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

What if you could prevent the events that you don’t want to happen … and only make the things you want to have happen … happen??

Sounds great, right! Well, this concept is the CORE of what is wrong with modern day mindsets! Change is is much a part of life as birth, or death, or living … you simply cannot get away from it, or prevent it. When you try to do so … you are literally making your life a miserable place. YOU are the one causing your own pain.

So much of the suffering that we experience in our lives is truly caused by ourselves. We spend inordinate amounts of energy in trying to hold on to the things we want, as well as trying to prevent the things that we do NOT want. In doing so, we are attempting to prevent Change from happening … we are trying to dictate to the Universe what we think it should be.

The harder we try, the more exertion we expend with the intent of making Change be what we want it to be?? The more pain we experience.

It’s that simple.

If you let go of trying to dictate your will to the Universe … to God … then your level of personal pain will decrease accordingly. Change WILL happen, and there is nothing that you can do to prevent it … NOTHING. The best thing that you can do is acknowledge that change will happen, accept that change … and simply let go; allow the change to take place and allow yourself to adapt.

We want SO much to be in control though … just allowing something to be and adapting ourselves to it is equated to failure. We are trained, from a young age, that we should be able to impose our will on the world … to make things be what we want them to be.

Even if you are able to do this for a period of time? It won’t last … it can’t. It’s impossible. So then you are left with the fact that once it DOES change, your entire world is shaken, broken, or crumbled.

That which is rigid breaks under pressure … that which is pliable … takes that same pressure without any effort at all.

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This post was based of meditating on my prior post, “Constant Transformation“.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Constant Transformation

July 29, 2012 at 9:28 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Allow change, be the change, change, changing, embrace change, God, Grow, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Let Go, Love, Mahatma Gandhi, Michael Singer, Spiritual Journey, Transform, transforming

“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

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“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

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“The spiritual journey is one of constant transformation. In order to grow, you must give up the struggle to remain the same, and learn to embrace change at all times.”

– Michael Singer

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Comments (2)

Following Orders

July 28, 2012 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

LOVE … God’s Love. It truly is a dumbfounding, mind-boggling, overwhelm your senses Reality.

It’s not just the Love, however … it’s the timing of It that takes your breath away when you look back at the pockmarked terrain you have traversed … and somehow you made it through!

Around six months ago I felt God reveal something powerful to me in a time of meditation. What was revealed I was supposed to keep to myself, until such a time as I felt prompted to share it.

So I waited, and waited, and waited …
my oh-so-human nature chomping at my proverbial bit, sometimes agonizingly so … but still, I waited.

What’s more, what had been revealed to me involved several people! I thought, “There’s no WAY this is going to work out the way it was revealed to me!” Some of the people had seemed to disappear from my life!

But still, I waited … And just continued to focus on giving the unconditional love that God had told me to give … to all the parties involved. I wasn’t perfect at it, I messed up several times … but for the most part, I felt that I did what God asked me.

Suddenly this week I get the prompting, out of nowhere seemingly. I even did another meditation session just to make sure … and it was confirmed; this was … the time.

So I put it in motion. I shared what had been revealed to me, and followed through on everything exactly as God had shown me, six months ago.

The people involved reacted exactly as God showed me they would. I then focused on doing what God told me to do in response … deny my normal human reactions to their discomfort or even anger, and simply give unfiltered, unconditional love in return.

Does it seem stupid of me to be utterly amazed that everything … every single reaction … was exactly what God had revealed to me … except for the ultimate outcome which had been kept from me. I was simply supposed to do what I was instructed to do and trust that the outcome, whatever it was, would be God’s Will.

So I did … and the results thus far have taken my breath away. I could never have accomplished these things on my own … in any scenario.

All of this was accomplished by simply listening, waiting, and then following through when prompted. Way back when, I thought it would be a couple of weeks … but no, it was months. I almost had lost faith in what had been revealed … thinking it my own imagination at times.

Looking back … I am floored. God’s Love is TRULY all we need. Wow. In my post for meditation today, “Turn Into Love“, one of the quotes was as follows:

“Love is an undulating energy that moves through you, within you, and radiates out of you,
and changes everything.”

Uh … YEAH! 🙂
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Pic from Saints and Heroes.
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach

July 28, 2012 at 10:39 am · Filed under Spirituality

A beautiful quote.

Senior Samurai

‘A hundred flowers blossom in spring, the moon shines in autumn, there is a fresh breeze in summer, and there is snow in winter. If your mind isn’t occupied with trivial matters, every time is a good time.’

– Zen Priest Wuman

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Known is a drop, Unknown is an Ocean

July 28, 2012 at 10:28 am · Filed under Spirituality

Great advice for living in a state of spiritual connectedness!

10 Ways to Raise your Vibration…

1. Forgive yourself and others
Life is too short to hold on to regrets, grudges, miscommunications, or disappointments. Free yourself by forgiving and letting go of any negative energy you’re holding on to about yourself or others. The process of forgiving yourself and others will result in your feeling light and free; it will raise your vibration.

2. Practice gratitude and appreciation
Whatever you focus on grows. So, when you focus on every thing in your life you feel grateful for all and the wonderful people you appreciate, the universe hands you more to feel grateful about.

3. Live each day as though it were your last
Then you will be living in a state of light, love and unconditional contribution. What would you say to the people you care about.

4. Meditate or pray
You open up a direct link between yourself and the…

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Turn Into Love

July 28, 2012 at 7:59 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Bartholomew, changes everything, Deepak Chopra, Energy, experience love, God, Love, radiate energy, radiates out of you, spiritual goal, Turn into love

My words to meditate on today:

“You know that you have fully experienced love when you turn into love –
that is the spiritual goal of life.”

– Deepak Chopra

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“Love is an undulating energy that moves through you, within you, and radiates out of you,
and changes everything.”

– Bartholomew

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Picture from Traditional Botanical Medicine

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Never. I promise.

July 27, 2012 at 5:33 pm · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, African, Allah, America, Art, Asian, Astrology, Autism, Baptist, Belief, Black, Buddhism, Canada, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Color, depression, Disability, Energy, European, female, Fundamentalist, Gay, Gender, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Indian, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Latin, Love, Magic, male, Man, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pacific Islander, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Race, Religion, Samskara, Seniors, Sexuality, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Straight, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Transgender, Unitarian, White, Wicca, Woman, Wonder, Writing, Youth, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

A picture worth sharing!

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Pic credit: Hootsuite.com

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Be water, my friend

July 27, 2012 at 9:37 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: adjust, adjustment, Be Water, Bruce Lee, celebration, change, Clark Little, dance, emotional balance, Empty your mind, formless, God, inner work, Love, Meditate, Meditation, movement, Osho, shapeless, song, Water, without effort

My words to meditate upon today; concerning the ever changing adjustment and balance required in life:

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“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

– Bruce Lee

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“My whole teaching consists of two words, meditation and love. Meditate so that you can feel immense silence, and love so that your life can become a song, a dance, a celebration. You will have to move between the two, and if you can move easily, if you can move without any effort, you have learned the greatest thing in life.”

– Osho

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Picture credit: Clark Little

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Contentment: The Battle For Synchronicity

July 26, 2012 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

Emotional contentment can only come about when your your Inner World and your Outer World are in synchronicity with each other. You can meditate all you want. You can sign up for yoga classes, or Pilates. You can get massages, mani/pedis, plastic surgery … and on and on. These things are only temporary, topical treatments … contentment substitutes.

The first step to this process is finding contentment within. It may only be five minutes a day, to start … so you start with that and grow it from there. The easiest way to achieve this is through meditation or some form of prayer. Eventually, if you are diligent in achieving this state of contentment, you will find that you begin to be content wherever you are. This is where the battle for synchronicity takes place..

Whatever relationships you have that don’t fit with your new state of contentment … will immediately make themselves known. Either because of the routine that has been established, or because there is jealousy that you have somehow found contentment and left them behind … you didn’t share it with them. What they fail to realize is that contentment is up to each person to find … a person’s exact path to contentment is specific to them. The relationship either gets worked out through honest communication … or it must end … or you have to give up and go back to who you used to be. Contentment is addictive in its own right though … going back may not be an option!

Other aspects of your life will begin to wage war against you as well. If you have addiction problems, of any sort (food, alcohol, drugs, sex, emotional dependency, etc.), they will constantly clash with your newfound state of contentment. Each one requiring you to either sacrifice or … change.

This is not about religious dogma, or zealotry. We are all unique creations … as such, we each need to find what works for us in our own personal relationship with God. If we truly want to achieve contentment, then we must synchronize our outer world with our inner state of content.

This is no easy task. Do not get discouraged. It will not happen overnight … it takes time to change your ingrained habits. Just keep going back to that inner state of contentment … if you have the desire, and maintain your commitment to an open-hearted connection with God, in time you will achieve the synchronicity that is true contentment … in both your Inner and Outer Worlds.

Be strong … Peace and Love.
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

;

Comments (4)

As the moon follows the path of the stars

July 26, 2012 at 8:42 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: awaken, Be still, Buddha, company with wise, contentment, emotional contentment, Free from fear, Gautama Buddha, Joy, Look within, moon, stars, the awakened, the loving, The Way, trust

My words for meditation today … on emotional contentment:

“Health, contentment and trust
Are your greatest possessions,
And freedom your greatest joy.
Look within.
Be still.

Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of the way.
How joyful to look upon the awakened
And to keep company with the wise.
How long the road to the man
Who travels the road with the fool.

But whoever follows those who follow the way
Discovers his family, and is filled with joy.
Follow then the shining ones,
The wise, the awakened, the loving,
For they know how to work and forbear.
Follow them
As the moon follows the path of the stars.”

– Gautama Buddha

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Picture credit: T.A. Rector, I.P. Dell’Antonio

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Comments (2)

The Never-Ending Up/Down

July 25, 2012 at 8:55 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

Sometimes your life can get so crowded by untruth. Something that seems like such an insignificant detail like, “I stopped to have a beer on my way home.”, or “I ran into my ex today.” can cause havoc on a relationship when not said. We know the other person will disapprove, so we just omit the truth … or even make up something untrue. “It’s not hurting anyone.”, we rationalize.

The problem is … this becomes a way of life. We do it for one thing, and then another, and then another … each one seemingly insignificant in its own right. As a whole, however, they become suffocating … every time you are questioned about these events you become defensive. The other person is not stupid, and they can sense that something is wrong. They then start trying to figure out what it is that’s wrong.

The biggest problem in this scenario is that their imagination is usually far worse than the little, white lie you told. That’s where the fighting begins … what’s worse is that the fighting is not even about what the lie was about … it’s about what they are imagining. This also leads to the other person starting to do unhealthy things of their own … as payback for what they imagine you have done. This is a slippery slope that can get messy – REALLY fast. Lives and relationships get sabotaged and ruined … by a web of little, white lies.

Sometimes it is not so simple though. There are times in life where we go through such incredible changes in life … powerful forces beyond our control that cause us to literally change who we are as people. When the effect of these periods ends? You are left a completely different person … yet you are still in relationship with the same people you were beforehand. So you hide things from them, because you don’t want to hurt them … you love them. So it is not always as simple as “little, white lies”.

On a spiritual level this type of behavior is even worse, because every time you tell a lie, you are closing your heart. You cannot lie, and keep your heart open and connected to God … you may be a good enough actor to fake it, but that’s not the same thing. Tell enough of those lies and suddenly your heart becomes permanently closed … your connection to your Creator is shut down. Sure you can meditate, or pray, and reestablish the connection … but as soon as you’re presented with one of your omissions, you shut down again. Like Sisyphus pushing the boulder perpetually uphill … the boulder rolls down you have to go get it and bring it back up … and then it rolls down again … over and over and over.

It is impossible to stay connected to God and to accomplish what God wants to accomplish in your life when you are caught up in a web of deceit … no matter how small all those white lies might be.

So what is the solution?? Well, if you aren’t caught up in a web of deceit just yet … monitor things to make sure that you don’t! Focus on keeping your heart open, avoid things that will make you want to lie, and when you are presented with that uncomfortable moment that makes you want to … step back, and take the time to simply say that you need to talk about something … and be honest.

If you ARE stuck in the middle of a situation where you feel like you just can’t stop … where you keep making things up just to keep whatever the situation is … going. Stop … take stock of your situation … write down a list of all of the things that are involved, and how you need to be honest. Then … you have to actually be brave and take that STEP … you have to be honest with whoever it is that is involved. There may be major life-changing repercussions … but you will never be able to be where God wants you to be until you do this. Whether it is working through these issues with a devoted loved one … or moving on … it must be done.

Otherwise you will be stuck with pushing that boulder uphill … for the rest of your life.

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This post was a result of my meditation on my prior post, “Someday you’ll be a real boy (or girl)“.

Pic – Sisyphus, by Titian.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Someday you’ll be a real boy (or girl)

July 25, 2012 at 9:34 am · Filed under Bible Verse, Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: being honest, communication, Disney, Gandhi, honesty, integrity, John 8:32, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pinnocchio, tell the truth, thruthfulness, Truth

My words to meditate upon today … on the subject of integrity and honest communication:

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“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

– Nathaniel Hawthorne

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“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

– The Bible; John 8:32

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“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

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“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

– Mark Twain

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pic from Disney’s Pinnocchio.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

The Known Train

July 24, 2012 at 1:34 pm · Filed under Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, Islam, Jesus, Jewish, Judaism, Love, Magic, Meditation, Miracle, Mithraism, Mithras, Mormon, Muslim, Mysticism, Nature, Overcoming, Pagan, Pain, Poetry, Prana, Presbyterian, Prose, Protestant, Religion, Samskara, Shaman, Shamanism, Shiite, Sikh, Soul, Spirituality, Suffering, Sunni, Tarot, Unitarian, Wicca, Wonder, Writing, Zen, Zodiac, Zoroastrianism

I had a vision today, as I was meditating on my prior post (“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking“). I was on a train, travelling all around Europe. Some of my fondest memories of travelling through Europe and the UK have been aboard trains … taking in the countrysides dotted with church steeples, and flowers, and cattle. The unsettling part of my vision … was that I never got off the train!

I remember the very first time I traveled in Europe alone. I was 24 and going to be performing in Italy … but I didn’t know the language at all. There was this terrifying and wonderful sense of both anticipation and dread … what would I DO when I stepped off the train into a country where I couldn’t speak or understand the language? How would I get around, or find my hotel??

Life is often times like that, it seems. We have what we know … we understand the language of what our life is. To think of changing that to something completely foreign is terribly frightening.

That is what Faith is about … it’s about letting go of what we know and trusting our intuition, and the Divine guidance that is waiting for us to make that leap off the train of what we know … and onto the platform of what will be the greatest adventure of our lives. Do we want to just keep going ’round and around; always watching what is going on through the window of what you know (or think you know) but never being a part of it?

Sometimes God does ask us to wait … and then other times we are asked to act … and then other times to simply stay where we are for now. We have to take the time to get to know God well enough to be able to follow that Divine guidance. Faith is not blind … although sometimes it seems that way because we don’t always know what lies ahead. Faith is the overcoming of our fears and trepidations by acting on the belief that God will be there to sustain and support us … no matter what.

You could almost say that Faith … is Divinely inspired courage.

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Photo by MarkyBon

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking

July 24, 2012 at 10:02 am · Filed under Bible Verse, Christianity, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Bible, Bible verse, bird at night, blind faith, Faith, Gandhi, Hebrews 11:1, perseverence, Rabindranath Tagore, Reason, substance, things hoped for, trust, work, works

Today I will be meditating on the subject of Faith … here are my words, from various spiritual sources, to meditate on:

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“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

– The Bible; Hebrews 11:1

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“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.”

– Rabindranath Tagore

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“Faith must be enforced by reason … when faith becomes blind it dies.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

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Picture credit: Desktop Nexus

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

July 23, 2012 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Spirituality

In re-reading old posts … this one moved me again.

Religion4All

Three brothers prepared themselves to set out into the world. They had been given a mission by their father; they were to climb to the top of a distant mountain, and bring back the water from a sacred pond that would provide eternal salvation and happiness. Whichever of the brothers succeeded in this quest would be able to drink the water with Father and Mother, and spend eternity with them in happiness. The Father and Mother hoped that all three of their children would spend eternity with them. Each of them was given a gift to help them in their quest: their Father blessed them with the ability to make contact with him, to get guidance for how they should proceed on their journey. All they had to do was sit and quiet their mind in order to be able to hear his voice. Surely, with this ability, all three…

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