The concept I have been pondering today:

“A powerful spiritual practice is consciously to allow the diminishment of ego when it happens without attempting to restore it.  I recommend that you experiment with this from time to time.  For example, when someone criticizes you, blames you, or calls you names, instead of immediately retaliating or defending yourself – do nothing.  Allow the self-image to remain diminished and become alert to what that feels like deep inside you.  For a few seconds, it may feel uncomfortable, as if you had shrunk in size.  Then you may sense an inner speciousness that feels intensely alive.  You haven’t been diminished at all.  In fact, you have expanded.  You may then come to an amazing realization: When you are seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute non-reaction, not just externally but also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming “less,” you become more.  When you no longer defend or attempt to strengthen the form of yourself, you step out of identification with form, with mental self-image.  Through becoming less (in the ego’s perception), you in fact undergo an expansion and make room for Being to come forward.  True power, who you are beyond form, can then shine through the apparently weakened form.  This is what Jesus means when he says, “Deny yourself” or “Turn the other cheek.”              

– Eckhart Tolle

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– pic from The REAL Center.

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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.

We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!

There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.

By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.

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

re-blogged from Non-Reaction – Eckhart Tolle.