"Relationship vs. Relating — Bringing Our Togetherness Back to Life" by Jeannie Zandi
By showing us who we are and how to live surrendered to what is, nondual wisdom can greatly minimize the suffering that is our common human affliction in a separation-based society. This awareness as a psychotherapist throws a new light on the issues that a client brings to the session room. Even the least “spiritual” client, who may not be interested in esoteric talk of one’s true nature as consciousness, is interested in suffering less, especially in the relationships that matter most. Here, I will explore the difference between the concept of relationship, which is born of conditioning and can only perpetuate the isolation and distress we feel inside of identification with a “me,” and the actual experience of moment-to-moment relating, which is our birthright and an expression of our natural state.
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"Richard Wilhelm: Bringing East to West" - Biography" by Carl Jung
Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching and the Secret of the Golden Flower was one of the major influences in this cultural shift; both of these works had an introduction by Carl Jung.
From The School of Wisdom:
Richard Wilhelm is the Marco Polo of the inner world of China. He, more than any other, is responsible for opening up to the West the vast spiritual heritage of China and thus all of Asia. He translated the great philosophical works from Chinese into German, where they have in turn been translated into the other major languages of the world, including English. To this day, among the dozens of translations of the I Ching now available, his 1923 translation stands head and shoulders above the rest. He introduced the I Ching, and Chinese philosophy, to the School of Wisdom when it first opened in 1920. These ideas have been a integral part of its program ever since. Richard Wilhelm, and the ancient Chinese Sages he came to know so well, are key Ancestors of the School of Wisdom.
“Turning the World right side up: The Feminine Remedy" by Marilyn Nyborg
The concept of the Sacred Feminine begins with the obvious but neglected truth that everything on Earth is born of the Feminine. The Feminine Principle of life is characterized by qualities that have been identified culturally as the domain of women, but in truth are an aspect of wholeness, in humanity and in life.
These qualities of the Feminine Principle are typically described as interconnection, unconditional love, nurturing, heart, inclusion, cooperation, receptivity, being, allowing, relatedness, intuition, oneness, and compassion. These qualities of wholeness have been at risk, being undervalued and nearly lost, under centuries of culture characterized by the unbalanced masculine love of power.
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“The Dance of Yin & Yang: Cultivating Feminine Flow and Masculine Presence" by - Cultivating Feminine Flow and Masculine Presence
The ancient paths of meditation and yoga are about wholeness, awakening, and embracing all that life has to offer. Every situation, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is an opportunity to become more aware of who we are, what we respond to, and how we experience life. Everything we experience can be seen as an opportunity to open and expand our consciousness, and to integrate the seemingly opposing aspects of our self. We can embrace opposites, seeing them not as contradictions but as the dynamic polarities of our aliveness, our whole selves. We can recognize that every person, whether man or woman, has both masculine (Yang) and feminine (Yin) qualities. These qualities arise from the lifeforce energy that manifests uniquely in each of us.
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"Bishop John Shelby Spong On: The Resurrection"
The Christian Faith was born in the experience that we have come to call Easter. It was this Easter experience that invested Jesus with a sense of ultimacy. It caused his followers to regard his teaching as worthy of being preserved. It was the reason that Saint Paul could write, “if Christ has not been raised then your faith is in vain.” Clearly without Easter there would be no Christianity. That assertion hardly seems debatable. At this point I discover that I am at one with the most literal fundamentalists.
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"Awakening to Delusion" by Joseph Bobrow Roshi
Why do we suffer?
Why do we cause others to suffer?
What can we do about it?
Why do we suffer? From a Buddhist perspective, it is due to greed, hatred and delusion, the three poisons. These create suffering, these are our suffering. But we need to add a word to the Buddhist formula: unbridled. It is unbridled greed, hatred, and delusion that amp up suffering exponentially. The secret sauce in this toxic mix is self-deception. The road to hell is paved with…
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"Utterly Humbled by Mystery" by Fr. Richard Rohr
I believe in mystery and multiplicity. To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don’t think so. My very belief and experience of a loving and endlessly creative God has led me to trust in both.
I’ve had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world. This life journey has led me to love mystery and not feel the need to change it or make it un-mysterious. This has put me at odds with many other believers I know who seem to need explanations for everything.
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“Richard Rohr and the Alternative Orthodoxy” - The RobCast - Rob Bell Episode 86 |
ALTERNATIVE ORTHODOXY
Methodology: Scripture as validated by experience, and experience as validated by tradition, are good scales for one’s spiritual worldview.
Foundation: If God is Trinity and Jesus is the face of God, then it is a benevolent universe. God is not someone to be afraid of, but is the Ground of Being and on our side.
Frame: There is only one Reality. Any distinction between natural and supernatural, sacred and profane is a bogus one.
Ecumenism: Everything belongs and no one needs to be scapegoated or excluded. Evil and illusion only need to be named and exposed truthfully, and they die in exposure to the light.
Transformation: The separate self is the problem, whereas most religion and most people make the “shadow self” the problem. This leads to denial, pretending, and projecting instead of real transformation into the Divine.
Process: The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines.
Goal: Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion.
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"Saved From God? Alternatives to Penal Substitution Atonement Theory" - Matthew Distefano
In so many words, this is the Gospel according to Western Christianity. Over the details we may quibble, but we are often told that Jesus died in order to save sinners from the wrath of God. In other words, he was a substitutionary sacrifice—he died in our place—to appease the Father’s justice, honor, and wrath. The story of how we get to such a place where we need such a sacrifice basically goes like this:
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"At-One-Ment, Not Atonement" by Fr. Richard Rohr
The common reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”—either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God (proposed by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109). Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) agreed with neither of these understandings.
Duns Scotus was not guided by the Temple language of debt, atonement, or blood sacrifice (understandably used by the Gospel writers and by Paul). He was inspired by the cosmic hymns in the first chapters of Colossians and Ephesians and the Prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-18) and gave a theological and philosophical base to St. Francis’ deep intuitions of God’s love. While the Church has not rejected the Franciscan position, it has been a minority view.
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"Fear and Anger" by Jack Kornfield
Aversion, anger, and hatred are states of mind that strike against experience, pushing it away, rejecting what is presented in the moment. They do not come from without. This insight is a reversal of the ordinary way we perceive life. “Usually,” says Ajahn Chah, “we believe outer problems attack us.” Things are wrong and people misbehave, causing our hatred and suffering to arise. But however painful our experiences may be, they are just painful experiences until we add the response of aversion or hatred. Only then does suffering arise. If we react with hatred and aversion, these qualities become habitual. Like a distorted autoimmune response, our misguided reaction of hatred does not protect us; rather, it becomes the cause of our continued unhappiness.
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“The Spiritual Purpose of Loneliness" During Ascension” by Kelly Ashley
Ah loneliness. There may be a multitude of varying signs or symptoms that anyone could have during awakening – and no two would ever be the same – but one symptom that I see universally throughout my clients is loneliness. Ironically, we are united in that. I went through it too, and for the most part, I spent my awakening cursing that loneliness, reflecting on the complexity of my experience and wondering how anyone could ever possibly understand what I was going through. I thought somehow I was flawed. I thought that I was entirely alone, and I had no idea that so many others were going through the exact same thing. It wasn’t until long after the intensity of my awakening had calmed that I began to see how this loneliness had served me. I began to recognize that the loneliness that I had experienced actually had a purpose, and it had benefited me in numerous ways (however, that doesn’t mean you have to suffer it, but more on that later).
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“Atonement” by Richard Rohr
Two generations ago, the landmark theologian in our tradition (Nazarene), H. Orton Wiley, wrote that the penal substitution theory of the atonement was inconsistent with Wesleyan (Nazarene) theological commitments, and therefore could not be our atonement theory. Franciscan priest and thinker Richard Rohr is also concerned that penal substitution has led western Christianity down very negative pathways. He writes,
“For the sake of simplicity and brevity here, let me say that the common Christian reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”— either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God the Father [proposed by Anselm of Canterbury [1033– 1109] and has often been called “the most unfortunately successful piece of theology ever written”.
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"Compassion and the Individual" Tenzin Gyatso: The Fourteenth Dalai Lama
The purpose of life
ONE GREAT QUESTION underlies our experience, whether we think about it consciously or not: What is the purpose of life? I have considered this question and would like to share my thoughts in the hope that they may be of direct, practical benefit to those who read them.
I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. I don't know whether the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars and planets, has a deeper meaning or not, but at the very least, it is clear that we humans who live on this earth face the task of making a happy life for ourselves. Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.
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"Love and Honesty: What We Hide and Why We Lie" by Sarah May Bates
Why sometimes people aren’t honest with us and sometimes we’re not honest with ourselves.
This one’s written for a person who contacted me who’s newly single and dating quite a bit. He has a few different partners and has had a lot of difficulty saying he is doing so because it goes against everything he wants in the moment.
I want to talk about honesty and dishonesty and how it comes into play in relationships. So if you’re the type of person who dates and doesn’t tell the other person where you’re really at – or if you’re super jealous and suspicious about your partner and it drives you mad, this is for you.
Just to be clear – this is not about the trivial niceness lies that don’t come up often – like telling someone you love the pie they made, or saying you have to cancel plans because of work when it’s really because you don’t feel like going out. This is about emotional honesty – the habits and ways of being that seem small, but actually create who you are and how you form bonds with others. Because the simple act of being honest can change your life in awesome earth-shattering ways.
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"The Cost and Benefits of Emotional Honesty" by Linda and Charlie Bloom
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -Thomas Paine
"Most of us feel that others will not tolerate emotional honesty. We would rather defend our dishonesty on the grounds that it might hurt others; and having rationalized our phoniness into nobility, we settle for superficial relationships." from Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? by John Powell.
One of the main factors that sets great relationships apart from merely good ones is the depth of emotional intimacy. There are, of course other factors that contribute but authenticity, vulnerability and deep emotional connectedness are right up there at the top of the list. When two people commit themselves to the process of deep diving (into the soul or the psyche) they become, in the words of our friend Sam Keen, "psychonauts", who unlike astronauts who explore the outer reaches of space, choose rather to explore the inner reaches of the heart and mind. Both types of exploration require courage, curiosity, motivation, and a spirit of adventure.
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“Heaven on Earth” by Jeannie Zandi
As the Holy creates the world in each moment, the ground level of its expression is the field of vibration. Everything that you can see, everything that is, is made of vibration. Step back from thought, step back from seeing things as objects, and let yourself notice the hum, the vibration, the sensation of existing, of being. Without definition, without evaluation. It is impossible to be wrong. You just are.
It’s a given. It’s the gift of life. It’s the gift of existence. When we stay very close to this ground of being, this simple ground of presence and sensation, the Holy can create through us of its own accord rather than through our preconceived concepts.
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"The Surrender to Transformation" by Rev. Emily Wright-Magoo
Come into this space, where today we consider the surprise, the surrender, the gift… that is part of the process of transformation.
Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God. – Swiss philosopher and poet Henri-Frederic Ariel
STORY
Once upon a time, a stream, from its course in far-off mountains, passing through every kind of countryside, at last reached the sands of the desert.
Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to flow across the sand, yet as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared.
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"Anthony de Mello" by Joan Chittister
Anthony DeMello, the Jesuit spiritual teacher and psychotherapist, died suddenly of a heart attack on June 2nd in 1987 at the age of 56. In memory of his life, printed below is a piece Sister Joan wrote about him for an article entitled "The Spiritual Art of Three Modern Masters" that appeared in the U.S.Catholic magazine in June, 1994. The other two masters were Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.
I never met the man and I never made one of his retreats. I never read anything he wrote and I never studied his curriculum vitae. I've never talked to anyone who talked to him and I've never heard one of his tapes. But few people have had a greater impact on my life. DeMello was not a designer of spiritual systems. He was not a lawgiver. He was not a cheerleader for a collection of esoteric spiritual exercises. No, Anthony DeMello was a teller of ancient stories whose stories rearranged the human landscape. It is in the stories that he told that I met Anthony DeMello and knew at once that he was unforgettable.
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“The God of Many Tongues” by Sister Joan Chittister
Each great spiritual tradition, in its own way, suggests a model of what it means to be a holy person. Each of them shines a light on the human ideal. Each of them talks about what it takes to grow, to endure, to develop, to live a spiritual life in a world calculatingly material and sometimes maddeningly unclear.
Every major spiritual tradition—Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam—brings a special gift to the art of living the spiritual life. Each of them refracts the light of its own spiritual wisdom texts in particularly sharp and distinct ways. Each of them strikes a different tone in giving the great truths of life that form a chord, a symphony of truth.
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