In her latest book Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground, Mirabai Starr seeks to demystify mysticism and invites us to make it a part of our everyday spiritual lives. Which may have you wondering: What is a mystic? Mirabai defines it in a number of tantalizing ways: A mystic is someone who skips over the intermediaries (ordained clergy, prescribed prayers, rigid belief systems) and goes straight to God. To be an ordinary mystic is to lead with love, to... Read more
Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength. ~Corrie Ten Boom How often do you find yourself worrying about something? Daily? Well, if you just answered yes, know that you’re not alone. A recent Gallup Poll showed that 55% of Americans feel stressed or worried on any given day. And as the quote at the top of the page illustrates, worrying is not a good thing. It can keep us from being fully present... Read more
Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you? ~Fanny Brice From the outside looking in, James Martin was living the good life. He was 29 years old and had a solid job working for a Fortune 500 company. He had a fancy apartment, plenty of friends, wore stylish suits to work and had begun to... Read more
Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. ~Carl Jung I was reminded of the quote above while reading John Phillip Newell’s latest book, The Great Search: Turning to Earth & Soul in the Quest for Healing & Home. Newell, a former clergy member whose area of expertise is ancient Celtic wisdom, similarly calls on all of us to “reawaken” to the sacredness found within us... Read more
What happens after we die? The best clues may come from those who have been right on the precipice of death, who have entered a mysterious realm unlike anything here on earth, only to return to the living. What they have gone through, and the stories they have to tell, are known as near-death experiences or NDEs. Doctor Bruce Greyson has been called the world’s leading expert on near-death experiences and in After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal... Read more
Are you familiar with Christ Consciousness? In essence, it’s the same thing as higher consciousness, or a state of mystical experience in which the separation between the ego and the Divine is transcended. You sense that God is within you and all around you. And come to discover that everything is one. In The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe, Franciscan priest and Christian mystic Richard Rohr takes a deep dive... Read more
What’s longtime action movie star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger doing in a spirituality column? Let me explain. For the past year or two, I’ve been receiving the daily Arnold’s Pump Club newsletter written by him and a couple of cohorts. You might think it’s all about weightlifting. It’s not. In fact, I find it’s often spiritual in nature. To me, spirituality is about connecting with something greater than our selves—which Arnold tries to help his readers do on... Read more
We often hear tales of the wise old man, dispensing knowledge to those who seek it. What we don’t hear often enough of is the wisdom of our female elders. By chance, I recently came across two books written by women in their mid- to late-70s. Each offers valuable lessons and guidance, especially for those of us in our third or fourth quarter of life. In The Privilege of Aging: Savoring the Fullness of Life, Kamla K. Kapur who is... Read more
I once read a story about a scientific researcher who was studying a group of Tibetan monks who meditated for hours each day. He began strapping electrodes to the heads of the monks to measure their brain waves—which the monks found uproariously funny. The researcher asked, “Why are you all laughing?” One monk sheepishly replied, “because the mind is not up here” (pointing to his head), “the mind is in here” (pointing to his heart). I was reminded of this... Read more
What happens when we die? Is it lights out, game over? Or is there more to it, something hinted at by those who have had a near-death experience (NDE) and appear to catch a glimpse of an afterlife? These are some of the questions Sebastian Junger addresses in his new book My Time of Dying: How I Came Face-to-Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. You may know Junger as the author of several books including The Perfect Storm and... Read more
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