religion
Why Is God Not Hearing Your Prayers?
Yesterday, my best friend called me. She has been my friend since second grade. Her family moved to our island from the main land during the summer before our second grade year. Like me, she was witty, funny, and full of energy, and we became really good friends. She became the sister I never had.
Unfortunately, although she had always been full of life and fun, she has also always been very stubborn when it came to certain ideas and her belief system. Her family, like mine, was very religious and I was so sure she would end up a nun some day, but she did not. Her heart found love and desires like the majority of us. She married much younger than me, in her late 20’s, and she is still with the same husband today who also is the father of her three beautiful, grown children. Continue reading
Grandpa’s Visitation Heightened My Spirituality
I remember it very distinctively. Almost 16 years ago, after his passing, I prayed to God that I may be able to make contact with my Grandpa. I needed to say goodbye and tell him I love him one last time. He had promised me before his passing that he would return to visit me. He kept his promise.
I decided to learn the Rosary while at a Catholic bookstore, shortly before his funeral. I was buying cross pendants for my grandma and other members of the family who wanted to wear a similar necklace my grandpa would be buried with it. I felt it would help those of us mourning to feel connected and closer to him. I think I bought ten of them. My brothers each took one, as well as my mother, and of course my grandma and a few of my cousins.
A nun at the store told me that day that if I learned the Rosary, I would be blessed. She gave me a bookmark which explained all the different blessings one is to receive if you learn and recite the Rosary every day. I decided I wanted to know how to pray the Rosary. Continue reading
Spiritual Practices To Promote Alignment
There are many types of spiritual practices that will bring alignment to your life. Spiritual practices are the methods by which we understand the inner world, and learn just how much impact our inner world has on the outer world.
Jesus said, “With faith the size of a mustard seed you could move a mountain.” Faith is a constant, and always brings forth the manifestation of our inner beliefs. Spiritual practice allows the practitioner to gain spiritual awareness, and by doing so shifts negative or useless beliefs into useful beliefs that can have a profound impact on the journey of life. Continue reading
Meet The Archangels
Divine messengers and emissaries, the Archangels are the foremost of the host of angels, and they help and guide us in our daily lives. Although they are established in many religious traditions, anyone may call upon them for assistance.
Most of the Archangels have names ending in “-el,” which means “of, or in God.” Though the spiritual traditions debate how many Archangels there are, the following are some of the most well-known to humanity.
Michael (Who is like God?) is the leader of the Archangels, often depicted as a warrior angel with a blazing sword. He can help in conquering our fears and anxieties, motivating us to do greater things, and seeking the truth. He’s also a powerful ally in breaking our addictions. Continue reading
Being The Goddess
Being the Goddess was not an easy task, and the young girl knew this from the very first time she opened her hazel eyes to the world.
Inside herself she felt it, from the inside out, that she was meant to do different things, that she was meant to bring something to others from her own experiences.
“What does it mean?” she would whisper to herself late at night.
She was amazed at the fact of it sometimes, and at other times afraid. “Let it go”, They said to her, “now is the time to be what you were called to be, without thinking about it so much”.
All little girls are the Goddess, and the young girl discovered this as she grew older. She pondered these thoughts many times. How could she bring a message to bear that she herself knew nothing about yet?
But as she grew older, and lived some of what life had to offer, she knew there was plenty of tale to tell, about what went on in the heart of the Goddess. Continue reading
The Divine Disconnect
The separation between man and his Divine origins is the genesis of all religions, cults and belief systems in our world, and it is also the primary driving force behind all science, art and philosophy.
Searching for metaphysical meaning and life purpose is a natural attribute of the human condition. Exploring the existence of God or Divine Consciousness beyond our current reality is an innate yearning we all have. No amount of scientific or technological advancement will ever extinguish this urge from human awareness. Whether we admit it to ourselves, or not, we all feel the need within to bridge our disconnection from the Divine.
We begin to separate from the Divine Self the moment we are born. At birth we have no sense of ‘self’, and we have no awareness of being separate from Spirit or Source, but in time we quickly begin to identify with our new physical environment and with the human Ego or Material Self that we choose to adopt, based on the feedback we receive from others. We gradually also adopt the social role assigned to us by our family, our peers and our community. Continue reading
The Rise Of A New Spirituality
In Beyond the Postmodern Mind, Huston Smith writes that “Rationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us”. Mankind will never give up its quest to find spiritual meaning and purpose in this world. This quest is what has been driving both science and religion for centuries.
The Buddha said, “The teacher appears when the student is ready.” The same principle applies to the human species as a collective. We have been exposed to new esoteric and scientific insights as we evolved – always when the time was right and the world was ready. Prominent religions all over the world were all founded on esoteric guidance and metaphysical wisdom delivered at various times throughout history by great teachers and prophetic messengers. But as time passed and these religions expanded, they were often contaminated by human bureaucracy, superstition, doctrine and dogma, which distorted the original teachings. Continue reading