Subtle awareness evokes a soul-aligned joy: knowing your friend or partner well so that mere glance says “All is well, I’ve got your back.”; feeling how symphonic pauses and rhythms can create suspense; allowing aromas and oils to nourish skin and soothe emotion. Great spiritual masters encourage subtle understanding and experience and for hundreds of years, during daily puja (worship and prayers to make connection with Divine), the five senses are honoured. This daily worship becomes a multisensory and ever refined […]
We all experience fear and anxiety. A feeling of being afraid is an assembled experience that assesses threat. While fear is more immediate (being fearful of barbed wire or a coiled snake), anxiety is often associated with worry in the middle of the night or fretting about the future (when no immediate threat is present). We often associate anxiety with an earlier hurt or trauma, yet the threats of old often have little relevance to the current moment. As such, […]
The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. – Albert Einstein The greatest challenge of modern life, within a war collectively waged, is not environmental degradation, global warming or poverty. It is addiction to thought. Consider how much mental and physical energetic drain is siphoned daily due to thoughts. Thoughts of insecurity, judgment, worry, fear, anger and, yes, hatred. When thoughts go awry and into patterned entrenchment, […]
Spiritual maturity will not be charted on a spreadsheet nor have percentages tallied in its favour. Yet tangible symptoms of spiritual maturity do lend themselves to a well-lived life. Here are ten signs of spiritual maturity to help you savour the moment and inspire you to learn more. You are selective about how to spend your time. What is time well spent? You seek mutually nourishing relationship. Also, rather than attending an event and being drained through obligation, you now […]
Many spiritual paths focus on transcendence of individual self in order to experience a greater self, spirit or source energy. For those abused during childhood, however, sense of self and inner voice were never developed. Inner voice was often berated and no individual spiritual platform from which to spring was established. To become spiritually mature and empowered, process is important: First, we establish authentic sense of self and inner voice through emotional and intellectual differentiation from family of origin; then, […]
Attend the May Day breakfast, serve lil’ smokies and you’re good with God for the year. That’s my childhood interpretation. Sundays were something to be endured and church time and real life were very separate. Now as an adult spiritualist, I see a continuum: Life is spirituality and spirituality is life. With this mature understanding, I gravitate toward empowered practice that supports skilful contribution to our world. Through authentic practice, we remember–and an adept spiritual teacher readily acknowledges–that the teacher […]
Are all the beautiful people in yoga class getting it–except you? Do you zone out and give your power away to a teacher? To help dismantle spiritual disassociation, we’ve developed a Spiritual Authenticity Test. No need to fast in advance or repeat a mantra 108 times: Simply get on with it and answer these simple questions. Question One. When a teacher leads meditation, are you: immersed in elaborate past life visions that include ornate draperies, corsets and plenty of “miladies” setting a […]
Spirituality is being content – as you. It’s simple. Yet, in this intriguing play of soul hide-and-seek, it takes practice. Here are five qualities to call upon, abilities you already have, that will help you be more content and equally empowered as you leave trendy spiritual dogma in the dust. 1. Ditch a Zone Out for the Zoom Out Zoning out (disassociation or spiritual bypassing) takes you farther and farther away from your personal power. While zooming out enhances your personal […]
Spiritual bypassing is a mesmerizing diversion commonly found among those who embrace the path of transformation. It is disassociation, disconnected feeling and thought, linked to any technique, methodology or practice that seduces us into a promise of transcendence, attainment or enlightenment. A built-in trigger is an underlying assumption, conscious or unconscious, that we are not worthy enough, as we are, to fully embrace our spiritual nature. We must be “other,” in order to capture inner peace. Spiritual bypassing feels as […]
I first gravitated to Eastern thought after I obliterated a relationship with a man I dearly loved. Love gave me anxiety. Lots of it. And I acted it out, thanks to yet-to-be-revealed Complex PTSD. When I discovered an intoxicating mixture of mantra chanting, bendy yoga, incense and exotic Indian food, amid a comfortable assemblance of life in an idyllic university town, I was hooked. Yoga and the path of transformation would forevermore be my perfect pursuit of perfection in an […]