A mantra is defined as a sacred word (or phrase) used as an object of concentration and embodying some aspect of spiritual power. To which, your next logical response may be "Who cares?" I contend that we all need to believe in something bigger than ourselves to grow as people, and your goals will grow as you do as a person. Spirituality may be rooted in religious beliefs, and can also be similarly empowering when rooted in personal beliefs.

I believe that every woman has greatness in her heart and needs only to cultivate the internal belief to allow it to flow from within herself. Ordinary people can routinely do seemingly extraordinary things solely through tapping into that inner spiritual power to propel themselves toward their intended goal.

The power of a mantra has a deeply personal meaning to me, and I'll share the story with you about one of my favorite mantras. After raising my children, I struggled to define who I was and break free of the box into which I'd placed myself. Along this journey of self-discovery, I was fortunate to meet a few amazing athletes and mentors. One of these mentors was Blake Norwood. I'd been challenged by Blake to run a 100 mile ultra-marathon – and he happened to be the Race Director of such a race. The notion that I could ever accomplish such a feat was ridiculous to me, but Blake had belief in me that I could not see in myself. One of Blake's favorite mantras (and now mine) is "If It Is To Be It Is Up To Me." That mantra ran through my head nearly thirty hours as I reached deep within myself to complete that race – not once, but twice over the past years. The year after my second finish, Blake unexpectedly passed away, so that mantra now has even more importance to me any time I need to remind myself to find the belief to do something I find daunting. If someone like Blake could hold such belief in my ability to overcome all obstacles, then I can surely find that belief in myself.

That mantra is a tribute to a very special person, and these words are always close to my heart, reminding me that we are all capable of more than we might imagine.

As I share this message with you, I feel that it is one about which I am most passionate. And every day I hope that I am doing the right things to share that message and belief with other women that they might discover something great within themselves. And, although I often doubt myself, wonder if I am doing the right things, and wonder if it will resonate with other women, I say to myself, "If It Is To Be, It Is Up to Me!"

What is your mantra and what untapped power will you use it to reveal?

So you're starting with a meditation practice: congratulations!

You have taken the first step to a life more calm, more serene, and certainly more enjoyable. You may even be about to change your life in ways you are not completely aware yet.

However, there are some myths surrounding meditation that could be standing in a way of making meditation your daily practice.

Although mediation has entered the mainstream years ago, there are still some myths and misconceptions many harbor. People are still mystified with meditation. Don't let their misinterpretations stop you from having one of the potentially most life-changing, uplifting and empowering experiences one can have in his life.

Some people think that if you can't meditate like Buddha, why bother. Meditation is an exercise for the mind: it doesn't matter if you are not physically able to sit in a lotus position. If you're not comfortable sitting on the floor with your legs crossed, don't. You can sit in your chair, lie in your bed, or you can meditate walking: it doesn't matter.

People who meditate are not in a cult. Meditation is not a religion! Meditation is not a religious practice, though one can make it so. Practiced by millions of people around the world of different religious affiliations – or of no religious belief at all – meditation in no way violates any religious principles.

Meditation is not hard! Meditation is the most natural thing to do; It's so easy even children can learn it. As a matter of fact, some small children learn to do it by themselves, unknowingly. If something requires you to struggle, then it can't be meditation.

Some people think that they have been unsuccessful with meditating because they just can't stop their thoughts. How do people come to that conclusion, is a source of everlasting mystery to me. You are not required to somehow completely stop your thoughts in meditation: you don't have to, neither you could do it no matter how hard you try. They will always be there, passing like the clouds in the sky. Observe the thought that appears, then let it go. There is a meditation in itself!

Meditation is not a New Age fad. It's an ancient practice, it has proven itself over and over for thousand of years, and it has been studied extensively and found to have many benefits.

Meditation is not just relaxation. Meditation produces changes in your mind and body that just napping in front of a TV can't.

You don't have to spend hours meditating. Any amount of meditation can be beneficial, even if you can manage just five minutes a day it is better than nothing. Meditation is a learned skill, and the more you practice the better you get at it.

Besides, you don't have to spend years in meditation practice to reap some benefits. Oftentimes, you will start feeling better after just one session.

Introduction: Barry Lynn

Barry Lynn once confessed, though not, I suspect, with heavy heart, that "the Reverend Jerry Falwell does not like me." That was about as caustic and mean-spirited as Barry can manage but, oh my, how incisive, informative and entertaining he can be defending and advancing church / state separation. Make no mistake – this book is timely, for such a defensive is vital at this time in the nation's history. "God and Government" demonstrates as well as any of the landmark books by Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens, if in a nice and velver glove way, that secularists are in a serious battle against a home grown Right Wing ISIS of the mind religionists whose passions extend well beyond denying evolution, science, climate change, women / gay and unbeliever liberties and the human right to be free from religion. They want what they have longer and falsely claimed we were created by the founders of this country to be – a Christian nation.

Were it not for Barry Lynn and others like, if not quite the equal of, we might be such a society already.

Mr. Lynn has for decades been the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). I've listened to him in person on several delightful and inspirational occasions. (I refer to him with the Reverend deliberately – I don't care to utilize the "Reverend" prefix he has earned and never abused. I try to avoid fuse of all religious titles, including "Father, Your Excellence, Your Holiness, Your Eminence "and so on. If Mr. Lynn desired it, however, I'd make an exception in his case, and for other heroic figures with clergy credentials. I'm still a little flexible. For now, I prefer The Most Right Honorable and Highly Esteemed Sir Barry Lynn.)

Like millions of others, I've enjoyed Mr. Lynn's articles and countless media interviews and appearances before Congressional committees. (His description of an encounter before a committee chaired by the god-addled Republican Congressman from Texas, Louis B. Gohmert, is hilarious.)

Mr. Lynn is a lawyer and minister in the United Church of Christ. The latter background is, no doubt, a big boost for his effectiveness with Christians and others who still have some respect for religion, despite the superstitions that attend faith and the grotesque policies and deviant behaviors exhibited by many religious figures.

Real Wellness and Religion

Liberty is a key dimension of REAL wellness: separation of church and state helps preserve our secular democracy. This is more important than ever now when the Protestant Religious Right and the Roman Catholic hierarchy seek a Christian nation agenda. While I believe most Christian leaders favor an American theocracy, this goal is rarely expressed publicly. Of course, to a regrettable extent, America is already something of a theocracy, given "In God We Trust" on our money, in courtrooms, in the Pledge of Allegiance, with enormous tax exemptions for religions and on and on. If there were a god that controlled everything, as most Americans seem to think, I'd thank him, her or it for Barry Lynn, who among other stalwarts for secularism works tirelessly and effectively to keep American UNunited in church and state and, so far, succeeding, barely.

Why Religion and REAL Wellness Are Incompatible

Reason, the "R" in REAL wellness, and religion represent two distinct ways of thinking. One trusts in revelation (ie, assertions about such); the other in critical thinking, evidence and an objective search for understanding reality. Religion does not blend well with democracy, freedom, human rights, joy, happiness, wellness orgasms or other states that secularists seeking well-being of the mind and body associate with quality of life pathways. Religion is antagonistic to reason. Religious authorities insist that the faithful submit their wills to a higher power (whose wishes only they can interpret). They demand belief in religious dogmas, adherence to rituals and respect for all of these things from the rest of society that has and seeks no part of any of it. They make a virtue of "faith" ("believing what you know ain't so," as Mark Twain put it) which, by definition, means lacking evidence or other rational bases. Religions have no use for such life-affirming, reason-based democratic principles as expressed in the "Affirmations of Humanism" as well as in the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

While there is no connection with the "A" (athleticism or exercise and nutrition), the "E" (exuberance) and "L" (liberty or personal freedoms) dimensions are equally incompatible with the toxicity of religion. Thus, it seems entirely legitimate and reasonable if not imperative for REAL wellness enthusiasts to address religion in the context of describing the nature and dynamics of living a health, happy and meaningful life guided by reason and freedom that facilitates exuberance.

Thus, Barry Lynn's "God and Government" could be and in my view is a REAL wellness worthy publication. One needs not be a history professor to know that religions have not displayed much enthusiasm for or tolerance of qualities associated any one of these three dimensions.

Barry Lynn's "God and Government"

Mr. Lynn's latest work, published by Prometheus Books, contains ten chapters that represent a mix of his columns, testimony and speeches over the course of two and a half decades. The book contains extensive notes (references) and an index. Hundreds of the author's encounters with Religious Right theocracy-promoting activists are described with wit and humor. Among my favorite sections are those dealing with these critical church / state issues:

• School prayer and prayer everywhere else.
• Taxpayer-subsidized vouchers for religious schools.
• Creeping religious beliefs into the public sector (eg, preventing end-of-life choices, promoting censorship and so on).
• The imposition of religious beliefs by legislators into policy policies and laws.
• Opposition to science in a broad sense and evolution in particular.
• Attempts to proselytize by including religious content into public educational curricula.
• Religion in the military, the court system and local governments.
• Tax preferences for clergy; subsidies for chaplains, etc.
• Criminal clerics.
• Encounters with "nice" and "strange" famous people while fighting the battle of church and state.
• Descriptions of historic events that shaped the current standoff so far preventing the loss of our right to freedom "from" religion.

Five Stars

I fully agree and endorse what comedian Lewis Black, author Frank Schaeffer ("Crazy for God"), Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal and filmmaker Jill Soloway wrote in blurbs for "God and Government," respectively:

• "No one is more on top of the challenges facing the first amendment than Barry Lynn … with intelligence, wisdom, humanity and a devilish wit, Lynn makes the issues come alive."

• "This book is literally a defense of freedom against the theocratic illness."

• "Barry Lynn knows all the tricks, twists and turns of those who want to turn the clock back several centuries."

• "Barry Lynn has the extraordinary ability to demonstrate how religious fundamentalism poisons almost every public policy debate that matters."

To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen's tribute to Robert Green Ingersoll, Barry Lynn's "God and Government" demonstrates "what he has done for equality, education, progress, free ideas and free lives, against the superstition and bigotry of religious dogma. We need men like him today more than ever. His writing still inspires us and challenges the 'better angels' of our nature, when people open their hearts and minds to his simple, honest humanity. Thank goodness he (is) here. "

The environment is seen as having a religious dimension that extends beyond its physical outlook in Africa. Many African societies revere the earth and its resources and treat it as sacrosanct. This may issue from their deep sense of appreciation for the numerous services rendered by the environment and its resources in their everyday life activities. To the African, a higher spirit is always responsible for any good deed that is extended to him/her. Therefore, when s/he freely gets assistance to cater for his/her greatest needs of life such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and recreation among others, s/he attaches spiritual value to its suppliers which are the environment and its resources.

The Africans do not worship the environment as they would worship the highest spirit who is at the apex of their belief systems, the Supreme Deity. However, they treat the environment and its resources with deep awe and respect. It is believed among many societies in Africa that everything in the environment, the water bodies, trees, animals, stones, rocks, mountains and the many others have spirits or souls residing in them. They believe that it is the Supreme Deity that has given these natural things in the environment as habitats for some spirit beings s/he sent as messengers to assist the human family in their dire situations. This belief is often referred to as Animism. In terms of great storms, the forests serve as wind holders to protect them from the anger of the storms. The leaves, stem, barks, and roots provide them with medicine to cure their ailments while the fruits offer them food. After the performance of rituals and appeasing the spirits believed to be dwelling in the trees, some of them are fell and used for architectural and other utilitarian products. To the indigenous African, the products and services offered him/her by the plants, rivers and other things in the environment are the handiworks of the spirit residing in them. Therefore, it would be improper, or even an act of disrespect and lack of appreciation to wantonly destroy these wonderful resources that have served them and pivoted their life existence.

Out of great appreciation, they treat the earth and its natural resources with the greatest care and gentility. The rivers and water bodies are not defiled in any way whether by bathing in them, tainting its purity with menstruation blood, drowning someone dead in it, urinating or defecating in them or even using poisonous chemicals to fish in them. The water bodies are seen as having spirits residing in them and these spirits will be incensed and vouch their anger on culprits of these environmental malfeasances. This indirectly maintains the purity of the river bodies and the sustainable supply of its anthropogenic and ecological services. The rich abundance of biodiversity and their conservation in most regions in Africa is as a result of the religiosity view of the environment by the indigenous African.

What is the way forward with this sacrosanct view of the environment? Due to the influx of Western religion and education as well as globalization, many Africans who are influenced by these external factors, especially the youth, have dulled the high sense of spiritual values for the environment. This is adversely affecting the sustainability and conservation of the natural resources in the environment. However, in local communities where this religiosity view of the environment is still high, the biodiversity resources are still intact and in their pristine state. This is largely as a result of the stringent sanctioning measures imposed by the traditional councils in the local communities comprising of the ruling chief and his cabinet of elders. Therefore, the environmental agencies and ministries in Africa must allow the traditional councils to operate in full capacities to enforce these cultural beliefs that protect the environment. They can do this by setting a legislation to beef up their powers to sanction culprits who engage in environmentally degrading activities that are seen as defying the sanctity and purity of the environment. Also, assistance in terms of logistics to preserve and propagate this belief in animism must be provided to aid in the maintenance of the buoyancy of the environment and its essential resources.

The concept of the Witch in Western culture has gone through a rather interesting evolution, morphing from 'wise one' to 'bride of Satan,' and then to a watered down neo-pagan cult figure. The neo-pagan view can safely be ignored, I think, since it is not a real belief but more of a stance – in pre-Christian times 'witches,' though not known by that name, occupied an important place in their communities , as healers, counselors, midwives, and interpreters of nature; like doctors and scientists do today. In pre-Christian Europe, witches were held in high esteem.

It would be best to clarify the word Witch since it is in a very real sense a modern invention – meaning within the last thousand years. Witch is a mutilated word taken from the words 'wicca' and 'wicce,' which may have meant 'wise one.' These 'wise ones' were more than likely associated with what we would nowadays call magic; they were seen as individuals unusually gifted with the ability to communicate with the spirit world, also as healers and wise counselors. It is interesting to note that 'wicca' and 'wicce' are masculine and feminine, meaning that a witch could be from either gender.

With the coming of Christianity, several Middle Eastern ideas were introduced into the concept of the Witch. One of these was that of magic. It should be noted, however, that most ancient beliefs are loaded with practices that we would today call magical; nonetheless, the concept of magic has a specific origin. Magic comes from Magi, which in the ancient Persian religion denoted the followers of Zoroaster, who were said to be capable of reading the stars and of influencing fate because of this. Thus a foreign religious belief was integrated onto the concept of the Witch. Atop of this, several Babylonian ideas – sorcery, necromancy – were thrown into the mix. Further, because of the dualistic nature of Christian belief, knowledge and power can only come from two sources: God or the Devil. Since to be from God – the magic that comes from God – required very specific rituals and incantations, Witchcraft – magic from other religions, with its own rituals and incantations – had to be from the Devil.

The projection of demonic powers unto the practitioners of ancient European religions led to the modern conception of the Witch – though, of course, there is a psychological dynamic at work in all of this, since it is a quirk of the human mind to project intentionality onto everything. When disaster strikes, people always look for someone to blame, and the easiest people to blame have always been the powerless – which is kind of ironic considering how much supernatural power is then projected onto them.

Once the concept of the Witch had been denigrated, it could only be seen as something malevolent, and the particular prejudices of a belief system showed itself in the selection of who those malevolent ones would be.

The concept of the Witch in its malevolent incarnation is almost exclusively the product of Christianity. It is also, however, the one that has become the most influential, due to the extension of Western culture. Now, usually, when we think of Witches, we think of a malevolent entity allied with the powers of evil. That this was not always the case may be a historical verity; however, it is also conceivable that the Witch, as such, is a purely monotheistic concept that, while it did evolve from earlier pagan beliefs, developed as a hybrid concept in Christian soil.

The Witch, a practitioner of arcane magic and malevolent, as we understand her required a complete paradigm shift in the way people thought and related to nature. Not only was it necessary to separate the magic of God from that of the Devil, it was also necessary to remove the concept of magic from the sphere of God altogether. The manifestation of divine power, although indistinguishable from magic, could no longer be seen as magical since magic had come to be associated with foreign, rival religions, and thus had to be considered false under the new paradigm. More, since from the Christian perspective the world, nature, is false in itself, since the Christian believer expects to be rescued from this world and taken immaterially into a divine realm, everything associated with the earth, with nature, was suspect.

In short, the evolution of the Witch went from a simple term for wisdom to, under the boot of a new worldview, a repository for all that is evil and foul – with a curious and very revealing misogynistic strain.

For my part, I've always been interested in what people believe, and why they do. All beliefs, it seems to me, begin with a foundation of ideas, so that in order to understand a worldview we must first understand what those ideas are. For the Christian – especially the primitive Christian – the most fundamental, dominant ideas are those of spiritual warfare and of the dualistic nature of existence. For the Christian there are only two possibilities: either with God or with the Devil. Therefore, all practitioners of pagan religions were automatically deemed Devil worshipers. In this sense it can be said that the concept of the Witch is a purely Christian invention.

Through an advanced understanding of different worldviews, you can lead the way in this time of increasing globalization and diversity. Each worldview carries with it a specific and definable mental model of how the world works – and how it should be. The Western worldview schools us to look at everything rationally. When faced with a problem, our first instinct is to take it apart and devise the best solution. Working on the assumption that the world is well ordered and rational, there’s not much wrong with this strategy.

But the Western rational worldview is only one worldview. Philosophers and sociologists have identified at least four different worldviews: Western, Eastern, Existentialist, and Religious.

The Western Worldview favors the rational and the power of free will. It stresses individual initiative, getting things done, and tackling challenges on our own. This worldview is not comfortable with uncertainty and irrationality. This explains, perhaps, the appeal to Westerners of tidy plot lines that translate so well to television. It’s comforting to see sixty-minute solutions, easy outs, and resolvable dilemmas. This worldview unfortunately does not encourage us to open our eyes too wide, and does nothing to prepare us for the complex chaos of reality.

Contrast that to the Eastern worldview, which focuses on what is unknowable. It holds that intuition and insight can help us tap into deeper areas of spiritual meaning. It assumes that the unconscious mind has access to deeper and more meaningful insights than those available through rational thinking, and that this non-conscious awareness can be improved through training. In the Eastern worldview, people act under the influence of unseen spiritual forces, and their lives are suffused with this unseen spiritual world. People with this worldview have a deep psychological need for meditation, for quieting the rational mind, for a personal experience of the unknowable. They are also wary of easy solutions to complicated problems.

A third worldview is the Existentialist which teaches that all human experiences are unexplainable and that the only true way to exist to learn to make the most of these experiences, as regards both the family and the world in which we live. This worldview holds that the highest goal is to be authentic to one’s own beliefs, to act on those beliefs, and to create a life built on being true to those beliefs. Existentialist thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard or Jean-Paul Sartre view human beings as forced to deal with circumstances way outside their control – and having no choice but to find meaning by discovering what’s truly important to each individual. One aspect of this worldview is the idea that what is important to me is not affected by what is important to you. Each must find their path to individual truth.

The fourth worldview, the Religious, holds that knowledge is conferred through faith, and that a kind of mystical power is vested in God or a system of gods. People who follow this philosophy are drawn to prayer and religious experience, and use their beliefs and religious traditions to influence their decisions~People who follow this philosophy are drawn to prayer and religious experience, and use their beliefs and religious traditions to influence their decisions~People living according to this philosophy allow their decisions to be influenced by beliefs and religious traditions, and are drawn to prayer and religious experience}. This worldview confers great power on religious leaders who interpret events in the external world as the manifestation of God’s intent and try to impose their interpretations through religious training and teaching.

All four of these worldviews mingle together in today’s organizations. At one of our client companies, for example, teams of software developers from the U.S., Europe and Asia routinely work together on projects. The four worldviews are present in the team. Communication is the team leader’s forte, but even he falls victim to frustration as the deadlines approach and people start to react differently. “We had one guy praying, another yelling obscenities to the sub-contractors, and another merely chuckling away at the ridiculousness of the situation” he said.

To be an effective leader, you need to find ways to gently manage the contradictions between these worldviews. A broad sense of humor goes a long way. But it’s also important to establish a framework of core values that can provide people a focus and serve as a bridge between different worldviews. Leaders must lead people in hard conversations about the difference between their values and the organization’s core values (the first quantum leap). They must be prepared to teach others how deeply, frustratingly complex the world is. How you decide to navigate and lead through this disparity of convictions is a test of how capable you are of engagement, communication and the building of a high-performing organization.

Many people today find the old religious ideas about sin highly annoying. They might say ‘How dare you mention sin to me when religious people are doing the same things. Anyway, we don’t need that bigoted stuff anymore. We are now a tolerant and pluralist society. If there is a God, he is the first to understand human weakness.’ So, if sin really has gone for good, we had better be sure we’re not fooling ourselves.

• WORLD IN TROUBLE

If sin really has vanished down the drain of spent and useless ideas, one question to face is why is there so much trouble, heart-ache, fear, hatred and violence? If the world has become a better place for dumping all the narrow and judgemental religious beliefs, why do we still not like what we see? Are we content just to try to make it all normal, and not worry any more about such things? For a start, if you try to normalise everything that you intensely dislike, that will not solve anything. For where will you decide to draw the line – will it just be subjective; particular dress styles or holiday locations, or the things which deeply offend you, like child sex abuse, rape, murder, domestic violence, and serious drunkenness and anti-social behaviour?

All these sorts of offensive behaviours point in one direction – they are in breach of the law of God. Yes, we are personal, moral beings with a conscience; a sense of right and wrong, even if much of that has become distorted without a true moral compass.

• MORAL LAW STANDS

So, has sin really gone for good? No, not at all! Some people have the idea that Jesus’ death has cancelled the moral code of the Ten Commandments, and so, as we are now able to receive the forgiveness of sins and get right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, the Commandments are done and finished, and we have no further need for them.

As the Apostle Paul seems to teach this, it may help to consider where he is explaining about Jewish and Gentile believers being one ‘by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances’ (Ephesians 2:15). So, have the requirements of the law now been abolished, so that Christians are free to live as if there was no moral law?

Let’s be clear, any view that teaches that the moral law has been abolished by Jesus’ death is flying in the face of the clear teaching of Scripture. The moral law in its teaching on love for God (see Deuteronomy 6:5), obedience, faithfulness and true righteousness, is a revelation of the eternal, unchanging character of God.

• UNDESERVED GRACE FOR MORAL REBELS

So we see, when the Apostle reminds the Christians at Ephesus how God had saved them by his undeserved favour, because when it first came to them, they were ‘dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked’ (Eph. 2:1).

Do you see – they were trespassers of God’s law; condemned before God, and had no place to stand in his presence. All they could do was to cry for mercy and flee to Christ for safe refuge. Now, clearly, if Jesus’s death had abolished the law of God, the Apostle would have no need to mention how they had been trespassers. Remember, the Christians in Ephesus had all become believers in Christ a good number of years after Jesus’ resurrection. But, if God’s moral law had been abolished, they would no longer have been sinners, since ‘sin is lawlessness’ (1 John 3:4). And if they were no longer sinners, they would not have been in urgent need of salvation. Abolish the moral law, and you abolish sin. That is a fatal error. If you think Jesus’ death abolished the moral law, then you fall for the fatal error that you no longer need to be saved from sin, when that is precisely why Jesus came into the world – ‘to save sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15)!

• A WALK IN THE SPIRIT – FULFILLS THE LAW!

So, what then was abolished in ‘the law of commandments expressed in ordinances’ (Eph. 2:15)?

Clearly, the many detailed civil and priestly or ceremonial instruction and commands, which were wonderfully fulfilled in Christ. All the detailed instructions about the sacrifices and the appointment of priests and their duties were certainly abolished by Christ.

But clearly, the moral law still stands, because after the Apostle explained how the old civil and ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ, he goes on to quote and apply the commandment ‘Honour your father and your mother’ (Eph. 6:2). The teaching of that command in now spiritually understood and put into practice as young Christians walk in the Spirit, who is the Holy Spirit.

In summary, sin has not gone away and either you have trusted in Christ, who died to bear the just penalty of sin, which reconciles you to God and gives the strength to combat and overcome sin, or else you are still spiritually dead in sin and urgently need the Saviour.

So, despite what secular ideas there are, sin has most certainly not gone for good. One day, it will be banished completely. Until then ‘God… now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead’ (Acts 17:30-31).

In 1932 the Emissaries of Divine Light, a religious community with new age spiritual ideals, came into existence. Beginning with just one man, the group has spread around the world to encompass members of many different backgrounds. Their beliefs center around the concept that all people need to connect with their spiritual core and awaken from what they refer to as spiritual amnesia. These and additional teachings have attracted a variety of folks to become Emissaries themselves. Emissaries of Divine Light has always been a rather small yet extremely supportive community since it got its start in the 1930’s.

Spiritual meetings and conferences are put on by the Emissaries of Divine Light in spirituality centers and communities all throughout the world. People who want to find out more about what the religious community is all about can make arrangements to visit these conferences. According to the group, a visit to a spirituality center is an opportunity for a person to get in touch with their inner divinity. This can lead to impressive personal changes; Emissary ranches and meeting centers are designed to permit purposeful work and tranquility during this time of spiritual awakening.

Lloyd Arthur Meeker established the religious society known as Emissaries of Divine Light in 1932 when he had a profound religious awakening. After this experience, he began writing and teaching his religious beliefs and travelling in order to spread them throughout the United States. He also started referring himself as Uranda instead of his original given name. In 1945 he settled down in Loveland, Colorado and made the Sunrise Ranch, which turned into the headquarters for the growing organization.

After Lloyd Arthur Meeker, also called Uranda, died in 1954, Martin Cecil, also known as Martin Exeter, became the leader of the group. The leadership of the Emissaries was changed in 1988 when Martin Exeter died and a group of trustees began leading the group. While Emissary communities around the world each manage their own groups, the Spiritual Director of the board of trustees in David Karchere.

Since the religious group Emissaries of Divine Light first came into existence in 1932, many people have developed opinions about their activities. Accusations have been launched against the Emissaries by some ex-members as well. However, it is important to consider all sides of the discussion about the Emissaries of Divine Light and respect people’s personal beliefs and feelings.

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), in layman's terms, was a gifted poet whose verses inspired the Indian Muslims, awakened them from bondage and motivated them to strive for liberty. In fact, Iqbal was a very different man from the Freedom Movement leader our history has conjured up with its imaginative understanding of the great thinker's ideas and beliefs.

Iqbal was a liberal Muslim with a scientific comprehension of old school religious – specifically Qur'anic – ideas; in other words, he was a reasoning philosopher whose mission was to create a version of Islam – yet again, Qur'an mainly – compatible with modern scientific research. He was a diligent student of German philosophy and had deeply recognized the traits which could make any faith lie frail and submissive before intellectual progress of the human race. As wisely recognized, Iqbal adored his creed, and his honest intentions were to protect "Mohammedanism" from the upcoming onslaught of science in Asia.

How did Iqbal find a way to equally compare Islam and science? How did he defend the legends narrated in Qur'an the like of which are ridiculed in Bible? Well, there exist among Muslim certain groups of pure liberal origins. These factions reject any possibility of miraculous phenomena meddling in human affairs. You may call them the famed (or notorious, I can't decide) Hadith-Rejectors or the Qur'anists. One of Iqbal's contemporaries, Ghulam Ahmad Pervez (1903-85) – a close associate of Pakistan's founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah – was the leader of one of such movements called Tulu-e-Islam (Rise of Islam). But we're going a bit farther in history than we ought to. The man whom Iqbal succeeds in what a simple believer would call bizarre beliefs, was none other than the celebrated Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the intellectual father of All India Muslim League.

Sir Syed (1817-1898), as he's mentioned throughout all standard Pakistani text books, was a freethinker, if one allows me to categorize such remarkable a personality according to modern taxonomy. It you're a Pakistani by birth, it's impossible you have never heard of his services to the Indian Muslim community. Stories are told how he held back politically-impoverished Muslims from joining the Hindu-dominant Congress rather preached the importance of English education for the creation of a more civilized Muslim generation. His Aligarh institutions were criticized by the mullahs, just like his marvelous ideas regarding Qur'an, but eventually people had to surrender before the surge of reason and had to confess that they badly needed to adopt Western standards if they desired to save the Muslims from evaporating before the heat of science.

But how did Sir Syed manage to spark such fierce controversies in India? Answer's quite simple and Pakistani students are taught about the entire melodrama in their high schools. Sir Syed had gone crazy over exegesis of Qur'an. For example, Muslims believe in existence of spirits called the genies or the jinn. Sir Syed disbelieved in genies and interpreted metaphorically the verses of Qur'an mentioning Prophet Muhammad's (bless him and his posterity) encounters with these spirits. He refused to believe in seven heavens. Again, it was some allegorical mystery for him. He also intervened in several jurisprudential problems and differed from the mainstream fiqht.

The job Sir Syed wished to perform was to purify Qur'an from israiliyat or the biblical accounts Muslims had begun using to explain certain Qur'anic stories. His concerns were appreciable. For instance, some Muslims still believe that Adam was banished from heavens because he approached the Forbidden Tree however this is the biblical interpretation of the Fall story. Qur'an has explicitly mentioned Adam's migration to earth after his approach being forgiven by the Almighty. Another example is the story that Jacob fooled his father to become a prophet when Isaac had intended his blessings for his beloved Esau. There are accounts of Abraham lying three times and passing Sarah as his sister in Egypt. And how one can forget the Deluge? Nowhere in Qur'an it is stated that the Flood was universal. Qur'an speaks of it as a punishment for Noah's nation; it never takes the entire human population into consideration. So, Sir Syed was writing against these Bible-based distortions of Qur'an's intellectual messages and mythical (pseudo-historical) interpretation of its moral stories.

But the problem was many of these false legends attributed to God's Word claim origins from the hadiths or the sayings Muhammad was reported to had uttered. Sir Syed was never lacking in his love and trust for Allah's final apostle. No matter how scientific you get, Muhammad is still the infallible intellectual protagonist you can proudly represent before a westernized world as the perfect example for mankind to follow. So, Sir Syed selected the one option he stumbled upon ie rejection of such hadiths. He totally denied submitting before this kind of tafsir or exegesis of Qur'an and used science to understand the Book of the Lord. There were no miracles in this world, as per Sir Syed's analysis. God runs this universe according to His principles which we call the laws of physics. Science is what God created so we couldn't dare speak against science, was Sir Syed's version of Islam.

Thus, one can understand that the accounts of Adam and Eve, the Creationism, the Forbidden Tree, the Original Sin and the Fall of Man were legends in the eyes of Sir Syed. Iqbal, when studied these stories, followed suite.

Iqbal had a PhD in philosophy from the Munich University for his treatise on Persian metaphysics. There's even a street in Heidelberg (Germany) named after him. Iqbal was once invited by the Italian fascist dictator Mussolini for a brief interview. This respect the Poet of the East commanded in the West was not only because of his poetry (for example, his Secrets of the Self) but mainly due to his philosophical outlooks. The ideas he's discussed in his verses may be more in number but of lesser magnitude than the ones he communicated to the public via his discourses. These lectures have been compiled as a book known as Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. The chapter hereby being explained is the Conception of God and the Meaning of Prayer.

According to Iqbal, there exists a general "Qur'anic method of complete or partial transformation of legends in order to besoul them with new ideas". For evidence, he provides with the example of the Fall story and compares its biblical and Qur'anic versions.

"But the clue to a better understanding of our difficulty is given in the legend relating to what is called the Fall of Man. In this legend the Qur'an partly retains the ancient symbols, but the legend is materially transformed with a view to put an entirely fresh meaning into it. " Observe how Iqbal repeatedly calls the account of Adam a legend. "The Qur'anic method of complete or partial transformation of legends in order to besoul them with new ideas, and thus to adapt them to the advancing spirit of time, is an important point which has nearly always been overlooked both by Muslim and non- Muslim students of Islam. The object of the Qur'an in dealing with these legends is seldom historical; it nearly always aims at giving them a universal moral or philosophical import. " This is the most important part where Iqbal denies any historical value of the Fall story. "And it achieves this object by omitting the names of persons and localities which tend to limit the meaning of a legend by giving it the color of a specific historical event, and also by deleting details which appear to belong to a different order of feeling. This is not an uncommon method of dealing with legends. It is common in non-religious literature. An instance in point is the legend of Faust, to which the touch of Goethe's genius has given a wholly new meaning. "

"It is, indeed, impossible to demarcate the stages of its growth, and to set out clearly the various human motives which must have worked in its slow transformation." This sentence certainly implies that the story of Fall got distorted with time and people inserted their own typical ideas in it in to explain the mystery of our species' origin.

"But confining ourselves to the Semitic form of the myth …" The choice of words to describe the Fall story clearly displays Iqbal's incredulity and his doubts over Creationism.

"… it is highly probable that it arose out of the primitive man's desire to explain to himself the infinite misery of his plight in an uncongenial environment …" Iqbal's direct attempt here is to discredit the biblical outlook of the Fall account where Adam is sent on earth as a punishment for the Original Sin and the entire human population is subjected to misery because of their ancestor's alleged crime. The poet here has accurately unmasked the human elements responsible for creating the whole legend of the Original Sin which Qur'an has so justly denied. As Iqbal understands, Qur'an defends Adam and Eve when both are charged with the offense, unlike Pentateuch where the woman has been accused of making her man disobey the Lord. Similarly, Qur'an mentions God's forgiveness before Adam's Fall. Thus, in Qur'anic version of this story, human migration to earth did not occur due to God's wrath rather because of God's "big plan" for His beloved creatures.

But the story of Genesis today's Jews and Christians adhere to represents humans in a very miserable light when it says:

To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'" Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. "

(Genesis 3: 16-19)

Compare the biblical account with the Qur'anic one.

But Satan caused them to slip out of it and removed them from that [condition] in which they had been. And We said, "Go down, [all of you], as enemies to one another, and you will have upon the earth a place of settlement and provision for a time." Then Adam received from his Lord [some] words, and He accepted his repentance. Indeed, it is He who is the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful. We said, "Go down from it, all of you. And when guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance – there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve.

(Qur'an 2: 36-38)

"Having no control over the forces of Nature, a pessimistic view of life was perfectly natural to him." Here again Iqbal refers to the biblical legend where man accuse his foremost ancestor Adam for sinning against God and bringing misfortune over his descendants.

"Thus, in an old Babylonian inscription, we find the serpent (phallic symbol), the tree, and the woman offering an apple (symbol of virginity) to the man." Iqbal has undoubtedly studied the Babylonian (more precisely, Sumerian) origins of all Semitic religions. The story of Fall is not unique with Bible or Qur'an, neither is the account of Flood. Both legends are traceable as far as 2,000 BC. Any student of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations can narrate the characteristic features of the myths of Gilgamesh. Similarly, as Iqbal speaks, the story of Fall existed long before rabbis wrote down the Law. Iqbal accuses Bible of retelling an allegoric story in pure historical terms, thereby ruining its moral lessons and misleading the believers in assuming the Fall to be an actual historic event. He appreciates Qur'an of preserving Fall's philosophical display.

"The way in which the Qur'an handles this legend becomes clear when we compare it with the narration of the Book of Genesis. The remarkable points of difference between the Qur'anic and the Biblical narrations suggest unmistakably the purpose of the Qur'anic narration. " The purpose of Qur'anic narration is to analyze the story of Fall philosophically. Iqbal once more denies any historical value of the Fall account – he has called it a myth or a legend multiple times – and insists that the characters of Adam and Eve were never meant to be created as mankind's biological ancestors. For Iqbal, Qur'an considers Adam to be precursor to human civilization.

"The Qur'an omits the serpent and the rib-story altogether." The former omission was designed to "free the story from its phallic setting". As any religious researcher is aware, the phallus is one of the most ancient deities in mankind's history. From India to Egypt, the male and female genitalia were worshiped as means of reproduction which they certainly still are. It was just like worshiping sun because it the largest source of heat and light for us earthlings or worshiping fire because it keeps wild beasts away from a human gathering. That's how ancient religions developed. But, in Iqbal's view, God didn't reveal His final words in order to repeat such ancient myths. That's why Qur'an has omitted all references to the serpent and the rib-story. One can argue that the serpent of Bible and the Satan of Qur'an are the same beings or Qur'an also mentions Eve's birth from Adam. O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate (Q. 4: 1).

Here one may attempt to elaborate Iqbal's vision of Qur'anic metaphors. Bible narrates the story of a serpent actually entering Adam's physical paradise and spoiling his future. Qur'an represents Satan as an entity that seeks to spark evil in the hearts of man. The Qur'anic "serpent" is a more spiritual being. Similarly, Qur'an never states that Eve was created from Adam's rib. The verse quoted above can be interpreted in many different ways. According to one theory, God created Eve from Adam's leftover clay,

"The latter omission is meant to suggest that the purpose of the Qur'anic narration is not historical, as in the case of the Old Testament, which gives us an account of the origin of the first human pair by way of a prelude to the history of Israel. " Iqbal has now clarified his viewpoint that Qur'anic Adam was not the biological ancestor of human beings rather.

"Indeed, in the verses which deal with the origin of man as a living being, the Qur'an uses the words Bashar or Insan, not Adam, which it reserves for man in his capacity of God's vicegerent on earth." In other words, man existed before Adam. Adam was the awakening of modern humans when they discovered the necessities of culture and the benefits of civilization. This statement of Iqbal is quite true in light of the Theory of Evolution and the failure of biblical missionaries to equally stand by their religious frenzies and the scientific revelations of the past five hundred years.

If we review the Evolution, we learn that man distinguished itself from the chimps some seven million years ago. It was the time when the genus homo parted its away from the genus pan. The genus homo was the prelude to the story of Adam. many species emerged and got extincted with the passage of time. There were Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Homo naledi, the Heidelberg people etc. The hobbits were the last to die before Homo sapiens. It was ten thousand years ago that Homo sapiens rose victorious in the battle of Natural Selection and won the tournament of the "survival of the fittest". The man who came up with world's first civilization was Iqbal's Adam. He sees Adam and Eve not as two specific persons but as a particular era in human history in which people began to realize they were much more than simple animals; they realized they were God's vicegerents of the planet earth!

Just look at the story of the Fall once more and you can see the unspoken factors Iqbal desired to put with his lecture. Adam's creation was contested by the angels. That could be a sign towards Natural Selection. Adam overpowered angels with his knowledge. Iqbal calls this the occult or the hidden secrets man learned before outsmarting other biological beings on earth. Adam approached the Forbidden Tree when he wasn't supposed to do that. Iqbal calls it man's first free choice. Man started to make his own complex decisions. So Iqbal has found multiple metaphors in the Qur'anic narration of the Fall.

"The word Adam is retained and used more as a concept than as the name of a concrete human individual." Voila! No words can describe the vision of Iqbal better than this sentence. Adam was, Iqbal notes, more than a concept than an actual historic human being. Iqbal's Adam was a genre in human history.

"The Old Testament curses the earth for Adam's act of disobedience …" As we have seen in the verses quoted above. Iqbal further says: "Nor does the Qur'an regard the earth as a torture-hall where an elementally wicked humanity is imprisoned for an original act of sin."

"Nor is there any reason to suppose that the word Jannat (garden) as used here means the supersensual paradise from which man is supposed to have fallen on this earth. According to the Qur'an, man is not a stranger on this earth. "And We have caused you to grow from the earth", says the Qur'an. " In other words, Iqbal has accepted the truth of the Evolution. Adam fell from the heavens above but Iqbal believes that the jannat referred to in Qur'an is not the paradise where the well-doers shall go on the Day of Resurrection. He also denies that Adam was anywhere out of earth when he approached the Forbidden Tree. Thus, Iqbal's jannat was somewhere on our planet. His Adam had been inhabiting the world long before the Fall. The entire episode of the Fall occurred right here on earth because, as Iqbal believes, the story of Adam is a mere reflection upon the awakening of a civilized human population.

Qur'an says that human has grown from the earth. What other example of the Evolution mentioned in the Holy Writ can there be? That's how Iqbal's words are impressing me right now. Read this sentence again: "According to the Qur'an, man is not a stranger on this earth."

"The Jannat, mentioned in the legend, cannot mean the eternal abode of the righteous." The jannat from where Adam came from exists right before our own eyes.

"In the Jannat mentioned in the legend, however, the very first event that took place was man's sin of disobedience followed by his expulsion." Qur'an explicitly states that there will be nothing improper in the heavens where the believers are meant to reside forever. The jannat where Adam could sin against God can't be the jannat mentioned in Qur'an as mankind's eternal abode. The concept Iqbal has communicated is not a novel one. There are certain Muslim scholars who believe that Adam didn't live in the actual jannat or the Adam mentioned in Qur'an is someone else than the father of all humans.

"In the second episode of the legend the garden is described as a place" where there is neither hunger, nor thirst, neither heat nor nakedness. "I am, therefore, inclined to think that the Jannat in the Qur'anic narration is the conception of a primitive state in which man is practically unrelated to his environment and consequently does not feel the sting of human wants the birth of which alone marks the beginning of human culture. " hence, the epitome of our analysis or rather Iqbal's analysis. According to Iqbal, Qur'an narrates the story of mankind's transition from the state of ignorance to that of knowledge. The primitive state of early humans has been denoted as a garden because mankind was ignorant of its rightful place in the cosmic structure. Adam symbolizes the moment man realized the importance of civilization. In short, the Fall of Man, in Qur'anic terms, is the rise of man in evolutionary biology.

"Thus we see that the Qur'anic legend of the Fall has nothing to do with the first appearance of man on this planet. Its purpose is rather to indicate man's rise from a primitive state of instinctive appetite to the conscious possession of a free self , capable of doubt and disobedience. " Whereas Torah's account of the Fall has everything to do with the first appearance of man on this planet. However, as Iqbal has declared, Qur'an mentions the existence of humans long before Adam and Eve. The pre-Adam man was an animal, capable only of surviving and reproducing like all other biological entities. Adam is the moment when man began to reason. He became capable of observation and deduction. He began to understand his problems and look for their solutions. Analysis and deduction became his new tools of survival. Thus, Adam was the first modern human on earth.

Epilogue:

Now, these are all the point we can deduce from this lecture of Iqbal:

• Humans inhabited earth before the appearance of Adam and Eve. Qur'an never states that Adam and Eve were the first human beings ever created.

• Adam and Eve were not two individuals rather the pair is a representation of human civilization. The Fall of Adam symbolizes the awakening of human consciousness.

• The Garden of Eden exists right here on earth and is a different place than the heavens where the good souls will reside.

This article is not a criticism of Iqbal rather some of the ideas he discusses are praiseworthy. His example closely resembles Sir Syed whom all Pakistanis remember with reverence but whose religious beliefs are rejected and condemned. Iqbal's personality held many diversities. He was a Sunni Muslims yet his adoration of Ali (d. 661), the first cousin of Prophet Muhammad (bless him and his posterity), and Fatimah (d. 632), the beloved daughter of Allah's Apostle, is a Shia trait in nature. He supported democracy but was a great admirer of Nikolai Lenin. He is supposed to be the originator of the idea of ​​Pakistan but his patriotic poems about a United Hindustan are still popular in India.

In short, Iqbal was a wonderful man and, just like all wonderful men, he had his faults to balance his virtues.

Spiritual freedom is the energy of the heart. No matter where you live, the circumstances of your life or if you practice a religion or not, you have the freedom to tap into the energy of your heart. The energy of the heart is the Spirit that gives you life. Each one of us, all humans on this planet, can tap into the energy of their heart. As each individual taps into their heart’s energy and allows this energy to guide their thoughts, words, and deeds, together we will evolve into One Heart and One Spirit. Learning and experiencing heart energy is vital to the evolution of our human race and the healing of the planet. Celebrating spiritual freedom is the first step.

The beliefs of a religion can appeal to our intellect and the spirit of the religion can appeal to our heart. Religion is what gives shape and form to a particular belief system. Religion provides Holy Books, teachings, rituals, and guidelines for followers to use. Following a religion can give a sense of security by having a system of beliefs while providing connection to a community. For some, it is a necessity to belong to a religion – having beliefs gives structure to their lives. And, there is a Spirit at the heart of every religion that frequently is forgotten and lost in the practice of the religion. You can be a member of a religious community and tap into the true Spirit of that religion, thus celebrating Spiritual freedom.

Some find it challenging to feel the spiritual essence of their religion so they abandon their religion in order to experience their heart energy. Those who say they are “Spiritual, not religious” typically are saying they believe in the Spirit of life without adhering to the structure of a religious belief. Spirituality has become a “buzz” word to mean that you’re not religious. With the concept One Heart and One Spirit, it makes no difference whether you follow a specific religion. Remember, Oneness is one, without division. With or without a religion, you can tap into the energy of your heart. Bringing the head and the heart together in Oneness is dynamic. Once this is achieved, you can join the collective movement of conscious living.

Heart energy is the same for everyone. Heart energy is loving, kind and compassionate. Every one of us has a desire to love and to be loved. When your heart energy leads you, you are less judgmental about life’s circumstances and others’ actions. Heart energy gives you inner wisdom to guide your actions. When you have a sense of security from within, you see more similarities than differences, and connections with others are made heart to heart.

Celebrating Spiritual Freedom is important for every one of us. Once we master this ability, where we place our focus expands. If each person who reads this article will take a moment to celebrate spiritual freedom by tapping into his or her heart energy, the global consciousness of One Heart, One Spirit will expand. And that is a freedom to celebrate!

Celebrating Spiritual Freedom Exercise

Sit comfortable. Allow your breath to find it’s own pace. As your breath slows, your thoughts will slow. Place your awareness at the center of your chest, closest to your heart energy. With each exhale, feel the release of tension and the awareness of your heart energy grow stronger. In each inhale feel the energy of your heart moving. Perhaps you actually see it as a swirling circle or spiral of energy. Where you place your attention expands. See the expansion of your heart energy growing larger than your heart space and extending out into your life. As you sit in this energy, bring to your mind the sense of spiritual freedom. Sit it the celebration of this feeling for a few moments. If there is a situation in your life that is restricted or confined, bless it with the energy of your heart. You are free to feel and apply this energy to whatever may be going on in your life. Take a few moments to sit in the presence of your heart energy. Celebrate the freedom it offers you.

Take time daily to practice this spiritual freedom exercise. It takes but a few minutes- and makes such a positive shift in how you view your day.