John Gray

New Vision, New World

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"Everything we are aware of is in our own consciousness, right? There may be objective reality, but how do we know it? The nature and quality of our consciousness determines how the world looks to us... 'We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.'"

Eclipse

Courtesy of David Barnes

by John Gray
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Today is the first Sunday of 2020.  May this be a year of clear vision.

Light seeds germinate in the heart and then are recognized by the mind. Aha! An idea, an inspiration is born. Many people like to take credit for their intuitive insights and good ideas, as though creativity originates in the human mind.  However, one of the brighter minds of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, is said to have said, “When the solution is simple God is answering.” That may have been his way of acknowledging that something transcendent is at work in the process of creativity; I don’t know, and Albert isn’t around to ask. We’ll have to ask ourselves. 

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Sanford Baran

The Music Behind the Music

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"With ears wide open to spirit we’ll venture forth into realms of musical experience that are transcendent, divine and that truly touch the soul."

VOCES8 Choral Ensemble

by Sanford Baran

The following meditation is meant to be listened to, not read. I created it as a podcast, an audio essay comprised of music interspersed with some spoken words. I invite you to listen and touch the power and magic of spirit as it emerges in musical form.

Listen to the podcast   (It runs about 45 minutes)

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Volker Brendel

Some Thoughts on Practical Spirituality

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by Volker Brendel

We would do well focusing on the characteristics of Life, the characteristics of God, and expressing those. But how do we determine these characteristics? Who can tell us about them? The answer is obvious: we didn’t create ourselves; Life created us, and Life, or God, created us in the image and likeness of itself. And, therefore the characteristics of God, of Life, are immediately accessible to us. The key is that we need to express them to know them. In fact, there is no one else to tell us. Why is that so? Because Life creates in the image and likeness of Life, and one of the obvious characteristics of Life with respect to human beings is that Life doesn’t impose. Love does not impose. Here we are, with the facilities of feeling:  touching awe, sensing the wonder of the universe and experiencing the wonders of thinking, of speaking, of expressing ourselves. In these experiences, we discover what the wise life choices to be made are, and new insights come to us each step along the way.
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Bill Isaacs

True Climate Change

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"What does one do about climate change? In a nutshell one first changes one’s own atmosphere, the climate within which you live, the quality of the field in which you function."

by Bill Isaacs
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Try this thought experiment: Imagine you are in a great building. You look up to see a vast ceiling that seems to reach to the stars. Corridors spread out in every direction. Light streams in. There’s a rich, warm and recognizable atmosphere in this place. It is immense. To call this a building is somehow strange, because it is unlike any other you have ever seen, but the term is also somehow apt. You realize you’re in the halls of a great court, the court of a great King. You know where you are.

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Joyce Krantz, Larry Krantz

The Breath of Life

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"Divine memory carries with it wisdom and an understanding that surpasses any human philosophy."

by Joyce Krantz and Larry Krantz
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Joyce Krantz: The act of breathing comes to mind as we gather today—an in-breath of spirit has drawn us all together in this moment to provide a focus for the nature and purpose of Being. And the outbreath of spirit expands the truth moving through our consciousness for blessing to the whole.

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John Gray

Heritage Seeds

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"Lift up your heads... and the king of glory shall come in."

California poppies near the home of the author

by John Gray
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There is a great amount of revered poetry in the literature of human cultures and languages the world around. Poetry is defined in my dictionary as “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.” That definition is longer than some poems!  I think of a poem as imagery and meaning expressed through spare, carefully chosen words which touch the heart. I admire the work of anyone, past or present, skilled in this language art. We might think, for examples, of famed poets such as Shakespeare and Rumi, Homer and Milton, Poe, Walt Whitman, Lao Tzu, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, and Pablo Neruda, and their profound, insightful, and lasting inspirational works. To me, however, nothing new or old surpasses the poetry found in the King James Version of the Bible.

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Sanford Baran

Attention to What Matters

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"How vital that we make room in consciousness to think about the things that are actually worthwhile, that are generative, creative and contribute positively to the well-being of the whole."

Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

by Sanford Baran
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We are living in extraordinarily distracting times. For many there is an almost non-stop experience of interruption that can easily hijack one’s ability to focus and to think. Increasingly we are bombarded by emails, texts, smart phone notifications, social media feeds; not to mention a never-ending stream of sensational news headlines tailor-made to capture our attention.  Is it any wonder that there is so little room in consciousness to think about the things that are actually worthwhile?

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Volker Brendel

The Tone of Life

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"We have moved into a phase in our collective destiny in which it is our individual honest experience that is of utmost value."

The Awe of the Galaxy
by Volker Brendel
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We have just launched the Tone of Life website (www.toneoflife.org). This took considerable effort, both technically and in producing the content. It was not the easiest of births, because of the nature of what we are trying to do and convey. I suppose if you have a business, let’s say you are a car dealer, and you need to set up a website, it is pretty straightforward to determine what should be on the site. You tell your potential customers what brands of cars will be available, what types (new or used or both), what models, your opening hours, maybe some characteristics of your approach to business, and so forth; all fairly straightforward, and there are many examples to follow.

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Bill Isaacs

The Experience of Light

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"There is a fundamental transition occurring now, a shift from mind to experience… Central to this is the realization that we are each part of the rich circuitry of the cosmic whole, participants in an unprecedented restorative process, with an active role to play."

Peaches
by Bill Isaacs
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We are continuously surrounded by abundance. I had the pleasure this morning of picking some peaches off the trees in our yard. So far, we have collected hundreds, and there are many more. It has taken years for the fruit to come. We had nothing for a long while and then got a very modest crop a few years ago. Suddenly now the trees are full of fruit. I put them in some bowls on our kitchen table. They were luminous. How amazing it is to see and taste something so sweet and fresh and full of life. We have spent years pruning and staking and fertilizing these trees, looking after them, caring for them. There are several other kinds of trees in our yard. Some of them became pest infected and didn’t make it, and some have never born fruit. It has taken a great deal of care to get this far.

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Larry Krantz

Back to the Garden

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"A plan to restore humanity to divine understanding has been underway for thousands of years, a return to a garden-like state of wonder and perfection. Now it is in our hands to awaken and lead the way back to this magical state."

Japanese-Garden-Washington-Park-Portland-Oregon

Japanese Garden Washington Park - Portland Oregon

by Larry Krantz
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As you know from the news and from your own lives, we live in challenging times. We hear of trade wars and gang wars, of mass shootings and uncertainty. Disturbances come at us frequently, but behind the surface turbulence is a heavenly design. That is our grounding, spiritually speaking. Each day the sun rises and shines, even when hidden by clouds, and at night the stars come out. Life is meant to be joyous and full of wonder, our actions sacred and deeply meaningful. When we align ourselves with the stable spirit behind the turmoil, we know that all is well, eternally so, even when circumstances are difficult.

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