What I teach is Practical Spirituality. We use our life, our daily life, as the practice pad to grow our spiritual integrity. Growing our spiritual integrity means walking the talk. The talk are the spiritual values that we say we hold dear; wisdom, compassion, kindness, tolerance, understanding, presence, gratitude, grace. Practical Spirituality is a term that refers to the fact that we have all the tools we need right here, right inside of us. We don’t need crystals to imprana us. We don’t need mantras to charge us. We’ve got the charge. Practical spirituality involves four main steps, four main tools. All of which we have inside of us. All of which we have the ability to choose to use. The five tools are observation, awareness, choice, consistency and Discipline. Those are the tools that anyone who wants to practice practical spirituality, needs. It’s helpful to be on a path ...
How do we use the stories in our life in order to grow as spiritual people? How do we not get stuck in the stories and how do we use them in order to move forward? We are a society, a group of people of human consciousness that loves stories. I’ve spoken about this before. This particular message from spirit is meant to help us to have, to respect, to use our stories for the purpose in which they’ve been given. I believe that the events, the experiences, the challenges we have in life that become our stories are given to us as an opportunity to practice the many faces of love; kindness, compassion, patience, wisdom, gratitude, grace, and tolerance. These are just some of the many facets of love that we are asked to practice, to bring to the forefront when a situation arises that ultimately creates a story. ...
I’m inspired every day by people in many ways. I don’t need to go to a workshop to learn how to be inspired. I simply keep my awareness in my front pocket. Inspiration is all around me. I’m inspired by young people who are filled with ideas and the joy of creating and then act on the belief that they can accomplish exactly what they visualize. I’m inspired by visionaries who want to effect change with their art. They can see the project that is big, big, big! Then they have the courage, the skill, the talent, the commitment, the heart to bring it to completion. I’m inspired by slam poets who perform in a style that is perfect for the words that they write. I am inspired by people who walk in the integrity of what they say they believe, no excuses, 24/7. I am inspired by people who ...
I’d love to share with you some thoughts on observation. The purpose of making your life your practice is to live your spirituality, to bring your spiritual values into your daily way of being. Knowing which values you’ll keep close to you as you move through the day is hugely important. Being able to honestly assess where you are with those values, being able to know whether or not you’re truly living them or just giving them lip service is key. In order to be vigilant, to continue to live in your states of kindness, patience, your energy your inheritance of love, you’ll need to enlist the tool of observation. Let me be clear for you. This isn’t about watching others. Watching yourself is what I’m talking about. That’s always our work. In the world of spiritual practice, it is always about us. It’s our progress, our honesty, our ability ...
Just move. These two words are very, very juicy. Often in our life we come up against circumstances that we try to shift, to change, to make better. I am reminded of a story that the teacher, Gangaji tells that her teacher told her. It’s about a man in India. India is a very, very busy place. This man went to his teacher with a great problem. He told his teacher, “I cannot meditate.” In India and for him meditation was like water, it was like air. He said to his teacher, “I cannot meditate because I live above a machine shop.” In India and for this man, the machine shop ran 24 hours a day. He told his teacher, “It is too noisy. The noise goes on. There is never a break. I cannot meditate. I have tried over and over and over. I come to you to tell ...
Physical closeness, hugging someone, loving someone, making love , holding hands, touching someone’s arm, these are experiences that we need in our everydaylife. Many people, many people who are single, widowed, who live alone, older people, younger people, everybody needs the feeling of touch. Everyone wants to be touched. As human beings, touching is connecting. It’s sharing love. It’s connecting on an energetic level. It’s connecting on a physical level. We can’t undervalue the experience and the need for touch. Yet many people go through their life not extending themselves to others and not receiving the kind of physical communication they need. I wanted to create this post to share with you and to invite you to remember that the act of touch is not only an exchange of energy, but it’s an exchange of love. Many people go through life and they feel fearful, they feel it’s inappropriate to ...
My work as a teacher is to help people make their life their practice. Simply put, this means we use our everyday life as our practice pad to work in the energies, the spiritual values that we say we hold dear. Compassion, patience, tolerance, wisdom, understanding. These are a few of the values we work with every single day. What I’ve noticed is that often we try to make very big changes in our life when really all we need to do are make small changes, one step at a time. When people set out to change their behavior, whether they seek to “watch their thoughts as they have them or “observe their feelings” as they happen, they are looking to make a really big shift. That’s not a simple or automatic process. What often happens is that we seek big changes and on an unconscious level we get overwhelmed, ...
The power of one. The power of oneness. In history, in present time, we hear stories of people. People with simple lives who made a difference, who stepped up, who spoke their truth. Through speaking their truth, they not only created an event. They created a movement. Marin Luther King, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Mother Meara. You know these names. You know these people. What defined them from anyone else was the simple fact that they not only had a truth, but they took the action to speak their truth. When they did, their truth resonated with thousands and millions of people. Why? Because we all resonate with the same energy. We all have within us the energy of that which created us. It’s in all of us. When we hear truth we know it and we respond. What enabled these seemingly simple people to create movements, not only within us, ...
The word grace is one of my very favorite words. The definition of grace, because there are many definitions of grace, the definition that resonates for me is lack of judgment. Lack of judgment. When you hold someone in grace, you hold them in a place where there is no judgment. Everything is as it should be. They are as they should be. What they are is just enough. Holding someone in grace. Holding yourself in grace. Holding yourself without judgment. How many of us can do that? Can you? Can you hold yourself in grace? Do you hold yourself in grace? Tell us about that. Where are you on your own grace list? Share with us here your thoughts about grace in regards to this definition, not holding judgment. No judgment needed. Share with us where you are on your own grace list. We want to know. ...
“It is not your beliefs, it is your behavior that counts. It is not your faith, but your function that counts. It is not your conviction, but your character that counts.” These are words by Swami Sarvagatananda. They resonate quite loudly with me. It is not your beliefs, it’s your behavior that counts. What is he telling us? It seems to me it’s not your thoughts, it’s what you do with them. It’s not your intentions, it’s the attention you put on them. It’s not your faith, but your function. People call themselves Christians, they call themselves Jews, they call themselves Muslims. Sometimes their behavior, their function is anything but what their faith calls for. It is not your conviction, but your character that counts. You may have grand ideas, but how you walk in the world, does it reflect your ideas, your beliefs?? Many of the people that come ...