August | 2012 | Religion4All

Blissful Happiness Ensues

August 30, 2012 at 6:15 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

Allowing other people, or events, to negatively affect our own actions is one of the greatest day-to-day challenges we face. If you already have an open hearted, centered relationship with God these circumstances are merely bumps in the road … they can still be dangerous, however, if we are not careful to reestablish that connection each and every time.

For those who are struggling to understand and achieve a place of centeredness … life can be quite literally a minefield. Every step could lead to a potential explosion. Each day is spent reeling and hurtling from one concussive explosion to another. In such a place, every day is frightening … and the idea of being centered, or openhearted, is as foreign and ridiculous as a human being flapping their arms and flying off into the horizon.

I implore those of you feel that you are trapped in such a scenario to consider the idea that finding peace is not quite that ludicrous … it is possible.

For myself, I employ a simple grounding technique to filter outside energies. I pick up other people’s energy all day, every day … so I am literally doing this exercise many times a day. It has become rote for me … so habitual that I don’t notice it sometimes. I envision a series of roots extending into the earth. Whatever energy is not mine, but rather is the energy of some intruding force, I send that energy down into the Earth, and then I open myself to be filled with the pristine energy of the Earth in return … an exchange.

Once this has been completed, I focus on opening my heart again, and allow that loving energy to flow out of me. When you are caught up in a state of reacting to the negative energies around you, you are living with your heart closed. You can feel it if you pay attention … let’s say, for instance, you are blissfully daydreaming of something wonderful. For that brief moment … you are happy. Then something happens … someone confronts you, a car cuts in front of you, etc. … when that happens, just take notice of the way you reacted. Your heart was WIDE open, and then suddenly the door to your heart was defensively slammed shut!

The ultimate goal is to get to the point where we never close our hearts … for anything. When we do though, and it happens to the best of us, I find that the grounding exercise I described above helps me to find a place of being centered so that I can open my heart. That is where Love is … and where Love is … blissful happiness ensues.

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This post was written after meditating upon my prior post, “Why are people so afraid“. Pic from peevish mama.

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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.

Why are people so afraid?

August 30, 2012 at 9:37 am · 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

My words to meditate upon today … on cutting through the bonds of outer attachments that constantly affect us, and maintaining that sense of peace that comes from an open-hearted connection with God – which comes from within.

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“We humans have always sought to increase our personal energy in the only manner we have known, by seeking to psychologically steal it from the others–an unconscious competition that underlies all human conflict in the world.”

– James Redfield, “The Celestine Prophecy”

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Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.”

– Swami Vivekananda

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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.

What the flower within me would look like

August 29, 2012 at 7:01 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

It is impossible to discern what it is that God has in store for us, which is why so few actually attempt to walk such a path. It seems SO much safer (and more rational to our limited minds) to plan everything out, and plot our course accordingly.

The primary problem is that we don’t really know what will actually make us happy. We think we know, but such deductions are invariably influenced by our own insecurities, our past experiences both good and bad, and whatever upbringing we have been personally saddled with. So we plot our course and devote every ounce of energy to the journey of making it happen … making our dreams come true. When we get there, however, we find that there is something within still wanting … that aching, hollow void begging to be filled.

The second problem, which is even more daunting than the first problem, is that we have no clue what the future will hold … NONE. So not only do we not know what the future will hold, we don’t really know what will actually make us happy even if we could somehow fathom the great mysteries of the future.

When you think about it, it starts to seem fairly ludicrous that anyone would think that they could figure out the path to their own happiness. Yet that is what we do; all of us for at least parts of our lives, and many of us for ALL of our lives.

So what does it mean to allow God to guide us on our own personalized path to happiness??

First, you have to learn how to stop all the busyness; to quiet your mind … and then listen. When you’ve gotten to a place where this feels quite natural … it means you are ready to start walking that path.

Secondly, you have to be willing to trust; to follow the promptings that might not make sense to you at the time … but that your intuition KNOWS to be Divine. These promptings could be about inner work that needs to be done, or outer actions that you feel prompted to enact.

Most importantly, everything you do MUST be based in Love. If it is not, then it is a prompting from something other than God.

A year ago, if you would’ve asked me what would make me happy, I could have given you a list of what that happiness would require. Six months ago you could have asked me the same question and I would’ve given you another list … a very different list, but one that I felt equally sure of.

Today … I don’t have a list anymore. Virtually none of the things on those two lists have happened … and yet God has fulfilled me more completely than I could ever have imagined! I couldn’t even have written a list for the things within me that are now being fulfilled … I was but a bud, without a clue what the flower within me would look like.

Sheer Bliss, overwhelming Love, and pure Joy … radiating out into the Universe. That is the path that God would put you on … if you only take the time to learn how to listen.

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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 Poor, The Rich, and the Wise

August 29, 2012 at 9:58 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Abundance, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Deepak Chopra, find yourself, Finding Fortune, following God's guidance, God, Inner Joy, Love, Manifesting what is within, nothing but love, Outwardly manifested, Swami Rama, Tranquility, truly find love, Trusting God

My words to meditate upon today:

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“The poor long for riches, the rich long for heaven, but the wise long for a state of tranquility.”

– Swami Rama

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“In our imaginations we believe that love is apart from us.
Actually there is nothing but love, once we are ready to accept it.
When you truly find love, you find yourself.”

– Deepak Chopra

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“All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands–but if we strive to overtake it, it perpetually eludes us.”

Ananda Coomaraswamy

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pic from ContemporaryEarthArt

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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.

Above my reach

August 28, 2012 at 1:26 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

My words to meditate upon today:

I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation, which herein,
Haply had ends above my reach to know.
– Milton

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pic by Andrew Zeutzius
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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.

;

A Gracious Receiver

August 26, 2012 at 4:37 pm · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Giving and Receiving Love, God, Gratitude, humbling ourselves, Humility, Love, Nietzsche, Open heart, Receive Graciously, Rumi, Sarah Ban Breathnach

My words to meditate upon today:

“Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving, mercy?”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

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“If you wish for light, be ready to receive light.”

– Rumi

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“Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

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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.

A Constant Conduit

August 25, 2012 at 2:52 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

How many of us have people in our lives who somehow seem to have this stifling effect on us? Simply being in their presence causes us to shut our hearts down. Sometimes this is due to unforgiven wrongs from the past … often times though we are simply picking up on something in their character that is either incompatible with our own current state, OR something is being reflected back to us that we don’t like about ourselves.

When we choose to close down though, we cease to be channeling and communicating the Love that we are meant to bring into this world. It is easy to keep our hearts open in the presence of those we love … so an obvious conclusion is to surround ourselves with those we love, and avoid the people we don’t. The problem is you are creating restrictions on when you will choose to be open. God loves everyone … not just the people you choose to love.

We must stay open to God at all times … not merely when it feels good or is convenient.

An interesting challenge to take on is to actually zero in on someone you would normally avoid … and focus on maintaining an open-hearted connection to them while having a conversation. Communicate with them while consciously keeping your heart open … no matter what they say, or how they act. As you do this more and more, you begin to realize that you don’t have to shut yourself down for ANYBODY. You don’t have to become their best friend … just don’t give them that power over you; of making you shut down for them.

When you reach a place where you are always open … with every person, and in every situation? THEN is when you will truly be able to be a constant conduit for Love … therein fulfilling your Divine purpose for living.

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Pic from zengardner

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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.

;

From the Abundance of the Heart

August 25, 2012 at 9:50 am · 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

My words to meditate upon today; on the topic of communicating Love from an open heart and following the timing and guidance therein:

“The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.”

– Johann van Goethe

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“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”

– The Bible; Luke 6:45

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“With a truly tragic delusion,” Carl Jung noted, “these theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing.”

– Carl Jung

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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 (3)

Prison of a Shell

August 24, 2012 at 10:55 am · 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

We carry around with us these giant structures … each of us comes with our own conceptual carapace of beliefs, habits, and histories. Not all of these things are positive either. For instance, if you begin a deception you then continue to carry that deception with you … eventually it affects every aspect of your life. This construct you have created starts to become a bothersome burden, but you continue to haul it around, and even add to it, just so that you won’t have to have had all that energy gone wasted … just so that you won’t have to CHANGE.

There comes a time though where we must decide whether we are going to live our lives in resignation, beaten down by the weight of what we have amassed, or whether we will let go of this burden … allow it to fall away, and shatter into a thousand shards of what it all really was … NOTHING.

When you have been Awakened, there really are only two choices:

a) Remain Awakened and be committed to that; no matter what the cost (which means your constructs must be shattered, no matter how painful it may be to experience).

– or –

b) Switch off that light of Enlightenment and resign yourself to true misery … the misery of knowing what life is all about, and that you have chosen to turn your back on it.

That’s it … there are no other options … it comes down to those two, distinct choices. You choose the former, and enjoy an open-hearted connection with your Creator that will see you through every difficulty and trial … or you choose the latter, and hope that those awful trials will pass you by because you are hiding in the shadows instead of living out in the Light.

It means, of course, that you may have to leave behind everything you have and everyone you know (potentially). It doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be such a drastic outcome, but the potential is there and we must acknowledge such possibilities. You can quite literally possess NOTHING and yet have everything, simply because you are Open and connected to God … or you can horde everything you’ve amassed and remain imprisoned by your gigantic, hollow prison of a shell.

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This post is the result of a meditation on my prior post, “The Breaking of the Shell“.

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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 Breaking of the Shell

August 24, 2012 at 7:43 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Acceptance, Divine Path, Dodinsky, don't resist, embrace change, flow naturally, Forgiving is discovering, God's will, Kahlil Gibran, Lao Tzu, let reality be, Letting Go, natural changes, Pain, passages of life, path of peace, spontaneous changes, Trusting God, understanding

My words to meditate upon today:

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

– Kahlil Gibran

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“Forgiving is discovering the shining path of peace that at first you thought others took away when they betrayed you.”

– Dodinsky

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“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

– Lao Tzu

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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.

Effects from a broken heart

August 23, 2012 at 7:02 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

Our pasts can affect us in such interestingly intense ways! For instance, about a decade ago I had my heart broken for the first time. It was by FAR the most painful event I have experienced as an adult … I went through worse as a child and teenager, but as an adult … this was the worst! I could easily see how people kill themselves out of having a broken heart … it took me by such surprise, and it HURT … SO … MUCH!

That heartbreak really formed who I became for almost the next ten years. Every decision I made was somehow about avoiding such pain … I wanted to be safe! Well, trying to be an international performer is not really the “safest” of professions to pursue when you are trying to avoid rejection out of fear. My life became consumed with fear … everywhere I turned. If only the people who play these games could see and realize how drastically they affect the lives of the people they hurt.

That ONE event that I had allowed to shut me down … to make me close my heart? It just kept getting more and more magnified, until I felt like I was being suffocated!

This is the result of allowing something, ANYTHING, to make you close your heart … to shut off that trusting connection with God. You think that you can make yourself more safe in doing so … but things just keep getting worse, and worse, and WORSE.

Sometimes we have to face those greatest fears … and live through them; making ourselves stay OPEN through it all … in order to gain freedom from these self-made prisons. It would have been better to never have closed oneself in the first place … but it’s hard to do if you have never been “switched on” (as in my post for meditation today, “Turn On The Light“).

I LOVED that part of one of the quotes in that post:

“If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years – we turn on the light and it is illuminated.”

Once you’ve done it; once you’ve been awakened, or turned on the light, or opened your heart, or whatever anyone wants to call it … which is NOT limited to any one religion, or non-religion … then you can go through the same experiences that used to absolutely CRIPPLE you … and be okay. That doesn’t mean it feels good … your life may be extremely painful and difficult for a good period of time. If you keep your heart open though, and stay connected to God … no matter what you go through, it will work its way through much more quickly … and you will eventually receive the healing you need.

If you close your heart though … that healing will never come … period … and it will affect every decision you make for the rest of your life.

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– pic from officialpsds.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.

PRISON

August 23, 2012 at 5:27 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

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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.

Turn On The Light

August 23, 2012 at 7:09 am · 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

My words to meditate upon today:

“It doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years – we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.”

– Sharon Salzberg

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“What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree.”

– Sigmund Freud

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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.

Allow yourself to experience ALL feelings

August 21, 2012 at 10:34 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

Living like a robot, dealing with rage, being open to love flowing through you … certainly a LOT of things to meditate upon and digest over the past few days. The first, and MOST important aspect, is getting to a point of having an open-hearted connection with God … being “awake”. When you achieve this, the task is then to maintain such an openness … being open in the face of ALL things is very difficult.

As we go through life, we experience EXTREME emotions … love, jealousy, bitterness, bliss, rage, joy, and many more. The challenge is to experience these emotions, but to never allow them to shut you down … to close your heart. The wonderful feelings can close your heart because you desperately want to hold on to them … and spend your life trying to make them a permanent fixture in your life. When they go away, you then become fixated and depressed because they are gone. The negative emotions become things that you fixate on in a different way … you try to overcome them. As you strive to overcome these things you also become fixated … except this time you are trying to define yourself as the opposite of what you hate. When you become the opposite of something … you are not grounded, or in the middle … you are at an extreme. Peace, Joy, and Happiness will never be achieved in such a place.

Having an open heart really means that you allow yourself to experience ALL feelings … without holding onto them, or shoving them away. If you feel rage, you accept it … you let its fire RAGE … and then you let it go. The same is true for any, and all, emotions that we come across in life. Don’t fight them … don’t try to shut them down … simply allow them to be, and then let them go. Give each emotional space to God … allow that feeling to be and then to go; allow that internal space to be filled with Love … instead of clutching, grasping, clinging to each and every thing you feel.

When you love someone … express it, embrace it, lavish that person with love wholeheartedly. When that love changes, for whatever reason, our challenge is to let that love go. It is NOT easy. For anyone … we go through a grieving process … grieving encompasses MANY emotions. Don’t shut any of them down … allow yourself to cry, permit the anger that makes you shout in rage, stay in bed when you are depressed … but THEN LET IT GO! Allow ALL of these feelings to happen … just keep your heart open through ALL of these feelings … invite and allow God to be a part of them. If you keep your heart open and connected to God? Healing will come with time … if you shut your heart down and hold on to those negative feelings? You will remain stuck in that place for years, even decades, until you allow such a blockage to be removed so that your energy can flow free again.

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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.

Love is the flower of life

August 21, 2012 at 3:32 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

My words to meditate on today … on having an open heart, in ALL situations, and allowing Love to flow through:

“Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.”

– David Herbert Lawrence

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“We take a risk when we open our hearts because the truth is, if we open our hearts, we will get hurt. You can’t open your heart and not have some hurt because you’re in a human experience. Even if it’s the love of your life and you have many wonderful, deepening, growing, powerful years together, it’s a human experience, and that person will pass over. Love takes courage. Be courageous.”

– Mary Manin Morrissey

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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.

Imagine Dragons – “I’m on top of the world”

August 20, 2012 at 7:32 pm · Filed under Creativity, Entertainment, Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Music, Musician, Philosophy, Singer, Songs, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: Addiction, Allah, Art, Astrology, Baptist, Belief, Buddhism, Catholic, Chakra, Chi, Christianity, Church, Energy, Fundamentalist, Gnostic, God, healing, Holy Spirit, I'm on top of the world, Imagine Dragons, 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 was introduced to this song by a friend of my niece … and I have to say I LOVE it! 🙂 It is SO nice to be able to feel this way (even in the midst of trouble) … we truly are capable of this place, even when we are in the midst of trials. When your focus is LOVE, and finding God’s will for your life … suddenly all of the things that caused you so many problems before … become insignificant. Lovely. 🙂

I’m on top of the world

by: Imagine Dragons

If you love somebody
Better tell them while they’re here ’cause
They may just run away from you

You’ll never know what went well
Then again it just depends on
How long of time is left for you

I’ve had the highest mountains
I’ve had the deepest rivers
You can have it all but not til you prove it

Now take it in but don’t look down

‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take it with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.

I’ve tried to cut these corners
Try to take the easy way out
I kept on falling short of something

I coulda gave up then but
Then again I couldn’t have ’cause
I’ve traveled all this way for something

Now take it in but don’t look down

And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now.

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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

Man lives like a robot

August 20, 2012 at 10:39 am · Filed under Faith, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Meditation, Philosophy, Quotations, Quotes, Religion, Spirituality, Zen and tagged: asleep spiritually, like a robot, metaphysical, Osho, really feel awake

“The most fundamental religious truth is that man is asleep — not physically, but metaphysically; not apparently, but deep down. Man lives in a deep slumber. He works, he moves, he thinks, he imagines, he dreams, but the sleep continues as a basic substratum to his life. Rare are the moments when you feel really awake, very rare; they can be counted on the fingers. If in seventy years’ life you had only seven moments of awakening, that, too, will be too much. Man lives like a robot: mechanically efficient, but with no awareness. Hence the whole problem! There are so many problems man has to face, but they are all by-products of his sleep.”
– Osho
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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 (3)

Rat in a Cage

August 20, 2012 at 7:29 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 quotes to meditate upon today … on the topic of rage; how to deal with it and still maintain an open-hearted connection with God:

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

– Buddha

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“Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.
Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on”

– Homer; “The Iliad”

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“Despite all my rage
I am still just a rat in the cage.”

– Billy Corgan; lead singer of Smashing Pumpkins

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– pic from Polyvore

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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.

Clarity Comes in the Afterglow

August 18, 2012 at 6:05 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

There is a curious replenishing that occurs within when we see something through to the finish. You can see this in the world all around us: sports, careers, hobbies, etc. When you finally reach that pinnacle you can stop and look back at what you have accomplished … and be grateful. The same thing happens for us spiritually as well; if we take the time to actually sit, meditate, and listen to God … and then to begin the spiritual undertaking we feel guided toward, and see it through to the end.

Often times the biggest breakthroughs we can have in our lives come AFTER we’ve seen something through to the end. We tend to want these discoveries to happen while we are working so desperately hard … we want to see the results. This seldom happens. Usually we finish something, relax into the new place where we have arrived, and then somehow everything seems to CLICK … that “a-ha” moment! Suddenly everything we were trying to force our Selves to understand and embody … just happens within us, and we feel a wonderful sense of renewal.

I have been experiencing this over the past few days. Truthfully, this past week has been an incredibly difficult and emotionally stressful week … but all of that came about as a result of seeing something through to the finish; something that I felt guided by God to start, and this week to finally bring to a place of completion. It has brought about a lot of changes, and if I were to write them down on paper it would all seem daunting and stressful. Truthfully though, the hardest part was in making myself DO them … willing myself to follow God’s guidance, even if it seemed frightening. The repercussions that have come afterward are almost afterthoughts … I feel such a wonderful sense of peace in knowing that I am on the Path that I am supposed to be on.

Clarity comes in the afterglow of Divine consummation.

The trials that I currently am going through I know to be things that I am intended to experience and learn from … because I know I am on that Divinely guided Path. That transforms them from anxiety causing events, into lessons that I can embrace … such a different outlook and perspective from what I spent most of my life doing!

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– pic by Larry Roby. This post was a result of meditating on my prior post, “Replenishing Renewal“.

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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.