The Science Council defines science as “the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence. Scientific methodology includes the following: objective observation; measurement and data (possibly although not necessarily using mathematics as a tool); evidence; experiment and/or observation as benchmarks for testing hypotheses; induction; reasoning to establish general rules or conclusions drawn from facts or examples; repetition; critical analysis; verification and testing; critical exposure to scrutiny–peer review and assessment.”

Critics label the mystical sciences as “non-science based stuff that has no supporting evidence” since you won’t find it in peer reviewed scientific journals.

Our viewpoint that astrology, reincarnation, psychic work, and other metaphysical disciplines are just as valid as conventional science such as biology, is controversial, even though these fields of study involve all parts of the scientific method (besides peer review) outlined above.

Critics dismiss past lives, but Extensive Near Death Experience scientific research supports the theory of reincarnation.

The astrology my-science-is-science-and-yours-isn’t skeptics laugh at the idea of it, but time and time again, are only acquainted with modern Sun sign astrology, horoscopes, and other trivial forms of astrology. It’s not very scientific to claim to have invalidated a body of work without first examining that body of work. Complex patterns in ancient astrology and numerology allow for pattern recognition, the foundation of predictive astrology; these disciplines are less indistinct as sciences than cynics believe because they deliver exact patterns based on the energies associated with the location, time, and date of birth.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

–Albert Einstein

“One who scorns the power of intuition will never rise above the ranks of journeyman calculator.”

–Albert Einstein

“But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.”

–Nikola Tesla

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

–Albert Einstein

“Learning many things does not teach understanding.”

–Heraclitus

The mainstream scientific approach has serious defects. James Delingpole outlines the failure of peer review: “… Peer review is the benchmark by which most new scientific research tends to be judged. If that research is to be taken seriously by the scientific community then it must be accepted for publication by one of a fairly small number of academic or quasi-academic journals, such as Nature, Science and Scientific American. Peer review is not a perfect system. In the golden era of Twentieth century science it wasn’t even thought necessary: neither Watson & Crick nor Einstein were peer reviewed. But in today’s abstruse, fragmented world where the various branches of science have grown increasingly recondite and specialized, peer-review has become widely accepted as the least worst method by which quality science can be sifted from junk science… What we see happening is the deterioration of ‘peer review’ into something more akin to ‘pal review.'”

The crisis of modern science is horrific, evidenced by 157 peer reviews failing to catch a fake cancer study.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/03/27/open-access-journals.aspx?e_cid=20140327Z1_PRNL_art_1&utm_source=prmrnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20140327Z1&et_cid=DM41525&et_rid=466546771

“… Many studies have shown that peer review does not improve the quality of scientific papers. Scientists themselves know it doesn’t work. Yet the public still regards it as a sign of quality, and says, ‘This paper was peer-reviewed,’ or ‘this paper was not peer-reviewed,’ as if that meant something. It doesn’t. Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other. Its practitioners aren’t saints, they’re human beings, and they do what human beings do-lie, cheat, steal… sue, hide date, fake data, overstate their own importance, and denigrate opposing views unfairly. That’s human nature. It isn’t going to change.”

–Michael Crichton, “Next”

The glaring flaws in modern science are illustrated further by the accepted norm regarding the true history of civilization on planet Earth, despite evidence to the contrary; ancient history might be far different than what mainstream archeologists accept as truth.

http://www.ancientpages.com/2017/09/05/controversial-discovery-57-million-year-old-footprints-crete-re-write-history-human-evolution/

“What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”

― Isaac Newton

“Certainly there are things worth believing. I believe in the brotherhood of man and the uniqueness of the individual. But if you ask me to prove what I believe, I can’t. You know them to be true but you could spend a whole lifetime without being able to prove them. The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a leap-call it intuition or what you will-and comes out upon a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap”.

–Albert Einstein

Psychology is disregarded as a hard science because clear consensus on many areas within the field doesn’t exist, according to skeptics. So it may not be considered a “real” science, but surely it has credibility. Few objective people would deny the concepts of emotional repression or projection, for instance.

The heard mentality in the conventional science world silences many, but not all, as evidenced by the quote below.

“The reason they don’t pay attention to it (astrology) is that it would embarrass them in front of their colleagues. There’s no proven body of facts… that says human behavior does not contain elements that are related to planetary patterns at the time of birth. Instead, there’s a broad and arrogant understanding among social science professionals that folklore, like astrology, is for simpletons. Without doing any simple experiments to test some of the tenets of astrology, it has been completely ignored by psychologists in the last two centuries… Most of them are under the false impression that it is non-scientific and not a fit subject for their serious study. They are dead wrong. Whether or not the present-day practitioners of astrology are using scientific methods has no direct bearing on whether the body of knowledge they employ is true and valid.”

–Dr. Kary Banks Mullis, Nobel-Prize winning scientist

We encourage you to keep an open mind toward unconventional thought, such as the mystical sciences of astrology and numerology, along with psychic work and reincarnation because an open mind, with a healthy sense of discernment, is vital to making the most of your life.

Copyright ©

There is a popular philosophy among people who explore spirituality which is often discussed by Sylvia Brown and which appears in her written work that describes a spiritual contract we enter into when we begin our various incarnations. In that contract we agree to accept and experience everything which will happen to us in our lives.

This concept of a spiritual contract gets very complex because in one sense it suggests that all the events of our lives are pre-ordained. But a belief in predestination can sometimes be a crippling thing if we choose to disown our responsibility to make choices in our life based on a belief that everything is pre-ordained and therefore we are powerless to change anything.

The concept of fate or predestination seems to fly in the face of the concept of free will. How can we have both? Our free will is a fundamental belief regarding our existence, a tenet so vital and empowering that it seems impossible to reconcile it with the concept of destiny.

Without free will there would be no purpose for our lives, and while many people may feel that it is true that our lives have no purpose, the majority of people believe their lives do have a purpose even if they are uncertain about what their own specific purpose in life may be. So if we do have free will and our lives are purposeful, what happens to the concept of fate?

The concept of fate, destiny or predestination is predicated upon an immature understanding about the nature of reality. Our understanding of space-time and the universe we live in has evolved over time and it is important to understand that this understanding is still evolving. Time only appears to be a linear track moving from the past to the future. That appearance is a limitation of our perceptual and cognitive skills. As our understanding of reality matures we may begin to understand some of the deeper aspects of space-time and we may discover that our universe is not alone and that our universe actually exists as a member of an infinite set of universes described as parallel universes or alternate realities.

If we think of fate as the result of what has happened to us in the past, rather than as a pre-ordained condition that our lives will inevitably meet, then we may see that in an infinite number of alternate universes we have an infinite number of fates, all different from one another to some greater or lesser degree. The concept of a contract which details the events of our lives in each incarnation then seems unlikely because it would have to include an infinite set of events to encompass every possible outcome of our lives.

This does not mean that there is no contract; instead it suggests that the contract we make must be vastly simpler to encompass such enormous complexity. The contract remains the same as it was initially stated; we agree to accept and experience everything which will happen to us in our lives. Only the context in which we consider this contract has changed; we are no longer agreeing to any specific things which may happen in any given instance of one of our many lives, we are instead agreeing to accept and experience everything no matter what those experiences may be.

We can agree to this without qualms because that part of us which makes this agreement is eternal and can never be harmed. So we know that regardless of what happens in our various incarnations we will always exist in an inviolable state beyond reach of any harm that may befall us in any of our lives. Ultimately no harm can ever come to us and all of the actors, regardless of their roles in the dramas of each of our lives, are our friends and family in the larger sense of the spiritual world from which our incarnations are initiated.

Murder, maiming and rape are some extreme examples of the types of experiences which might be considered harmful to those who are considered the victims, however, these only do harm in a limited sense. The bodies and spirits we have in each incarnation are just a tiny infinitesimal part of our entire infinite being in the context of our lives in the spirit world. These terrible things only appear to be harmful in the limited context of this world and these different forms of harm appear to serve a purpose to provide a life lesson or balance our karma.

It is important to remember that the universe is infinite in scope and we ourselves reflect this infinite nature for we are, in each of our incarnations, also infinite. For every situation in which we find ourselves in conflict two or more resolutions occur so that each party in a conflict gets whatever they may need or want. The universe accommodates the resolutions of our conflicts by cloning itself; in one universe we get our way while in another universe the party we are in conflict with gets their way, in this manner no matter how many different ways a conflict may be resolved, all of the possible resolutions are realized, each in its own alternate reality or parallel universe. Pretty nifty eh?

Thanks to the infinite nature of reality all of the people who died in 911 are still carrying on their lives in alternate universes and are still living with their families and friends. Only an infinitesimal part of themselves accepted the role of a ‘victim’ and died in that event in this universe. It may seem hard on the families and friends of those who died here, but that is only true in the limited context of this universe. In alternate worlds they still have there loved one with them and their lives go on unmarred by the tragedy we have experienced in this world. The friends and family, like the ‘victims’ have agreed to accept and experience this tragedy, and they have agreed to it because in the context of their spiritual lives they know it is only a small thing of no consequence to themselves in the greater scheme of things. They have experienced this tragedy in one aspect of one incarnation, but with infinite aspects to each incarnation they continue to experience their lives in different contexts where the tragedy did not impact them personally and may even never have occurred at all.

Ultimately, no one is really a victim in the sense that everyone has agreed to accept all the experiences of their lives whatever those experiences may be. Legally in the laws limited to this world certain classes of felonies relate to particular classes of victims and many people choose to see themselves as victims of their circumstances rather than take responsibility for their situations to address whatever is wrong and to fix it. We may choose to see these people as victims in the context of this world but their spirits, like our own spirits are the architects of all of their experiences.

And herein is the crux of the matter as related to what we experience in this world. We are indeed the creators of all of our experiences. Nothing happens to us except those events which we ourselves cause or allow to be caused in our lives. We are in control of all of the events in our life and we may choose what we wish experience. So a person who has experienced something we may consider to be terrible has chosen that experience and brought it upon themselves. They may not be consciously aware of having made such a choice; their choice may have been a non-conscious choice made in a subconscious, unconscious or superconscious part of their minds. Quantum physics has demonstrated our minds have a direct influence upon the quantum events which are the bedrock foundation of our physical world. We are in control of all of our experiences and it behooves us to learn how to consciously direct the worldly manifestations of our desires free of any inner conflicts.

A person bemired by inner conflict is incapable of manifesting a satisfactory world for themselves. The consequences of this are that they will have many unsatisfactory, unpleasant or harmful experiences as their inner conflict warps their will in ways that fail to serve them as well as they might be served if their will were not interfered with by their inner turmoil. The only good thing that may come of these experiences is that each unsatisfactory experience, if reflected upon, can be linked back to some part inside of us where there is a conflict. By tracing back the cause and effect relationship between our inner turmoil and that turmoil’s outer manifestations in the world we can learn where within ourselves we need to heal in order to grow happier and healthier and manifest a world that is full of experiences in harmony with our best hopes and expectations.

By clearing ourselves of inner turmoil and establishing peace within our hearts and minds we become the conscious and conscientious masters of everything we experience.

It is up to us to learn this for ourselves. Many people may point the way for us but we are the only ones who can set forth upon our private spiritual journeys of self discovery and self empowerment, no one else can take our steps for us.

Until then, if we perceive ourselves as victims it behooves us to remember that we are the only ones who can victimize ourselves and that it is our own ignorance and failure to learn our life lessons which cause us to feel victimized. Ultimately, there are no victims.

“I’m afraid of Death,” said my adult niece.

I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did. Her fear brought the entire conversation to a halt because it was so strong that she couldn’t even talk about it.

Death is a natural process that we all experience in 3-D. It happens to everyone at that level of Consciousness.

So why do we fear it?

Programming – by religious organizations to control us, to keep us in the fear matrix of 3-D duality consciousness.

The so-called corona virus is being used to revv up our fears and send us spiraling into states of confusion, panic, terror, and horror. This prevents us from thinking clearly, from asking questions unwanted by the government and others who seek to control us.

The “lockdown” is touted as a way to prevent people from getting sick, but it really is being used to isolate us, to limit our physical contact, which we need to be healthy physically and emotionally.

The goal seem to be to keep us small, limited, afraid, and isolated, and to get us to inject our bodies with whatever the controllers choose to put into what they are calling a vaccine.

BUT, and this is a very big BUT, there is SPIRITUAL GOOD NEWS if you choose to focus on that opportunity.

What if this whole situation is designed to get people to TURN WITHIN. To step back from everything they held onto that keeps them limited and small, and to give them an opportunity to question everything that they thought was true and real about their lives.

While there is chaos, there is opportunity to for new growth to emerge, new choices to be made, new adventures to be experienced.

And the greatest adventure of all is not, as Star Trek would have you believe, to go “where no man [or woman] has gone before.”

The greatest adventure is to GO WITHIN and re-discover your Divinity, your True Self, and your infinite Divine nature.

This entire situation of lockdowns and masks, and fear-mongering messages (such as being told to “stay safe” 100 times a day) has the benefit, i.e., major Gold Nugget of giving you time and space to take a look at your life, to make new choices, to free you from your addiction to the material world, and to turn you back to your Soul, to your Divine Self.

If fear of death is keeping you small, you might read some books about NDE (Near Death Experiences). There are many good ones out there. They all demonstrate that what you believe is what you create.

Most people who have NDEs discover the Divine Truth of Infinite Love is readily available to them. They learn that they are the only one who is judging them. They often discover their Soul Purpose, and return to 3-D Consciousness with a strong desire to fulfill that purpose.

There are other ways to discover your Soul’s purpose. You don’t have to have an NDE to find out what it is. The important thing to remember is that your Soul does have a purpose for your life.

Remember, you have already been told that:

God is Love.

You were created from Love.

The Divine Self lives within you as You.

Infinite Love is the only Truth.

Everything else is illusion.

What will you choose? What kind of reality do you want to continue to experience?

One based on fear?

Or one based on Love?

One based on duality and conflict?

Or one based on unity and cooperation?

One based on limitation?

Or one based on expansion, which leads to great experiences of creativity, joy, and Love?

Spirituality, often misunderstood as a concept, is easily defined as – working to be a true and strict God related spiritual being or development of spiritual being. The highest spiritual achievement ever is one who has developed his/her true divine being to the point that his/her spirit is equal to the holy spirit of God.

Spirituality is the God related science of developing or freeing the God made innermost being – the core of all of us “made in the image of God.”

True God related spirituality is achieved by means of scientifically applying spiritual teachings and spiritual techniques that allow ego to vanish in the fire of divine love and ego oriented spirit better called intellect to be replaced by the Holy Spirit. Such true spiritual teachings can only be affected by a true connection to our innermost self. Since all humankind is God made; every human has at one time or another, the urge to develop their suppressed spirituality again. Spirituality is our true nature and spiritual development is the most direct way to solutions of love and peace in all creation. We know God is only love, because love creates, all else destroys. If Love creates and God so loved us he created the heaven and earth, therefore we know God only loves. Love can not co-exist with any other premise simultaneously, therefore God is only love.

The big bug-a-boo with being in human form vs in spiritual form (as God is) is that we have this construct called ‘ego’ to grabble with…the ego is essential to navigate the vicissitudes in life. Yet, the ego is what gets us into trouble. So we came from spiritual form and formed an ego to grabble with the human requirements in this place called ‘earth.’

All life on earth serves but the one and only purpose of developing our spirituality again to the point of being free of spiritual ignorance, free of selfish or destructive behavioral patterns, free to return to our eternal home in God. True spirituality always leads to freedom in God.

Anything else but God related development never should be called spiritual or spirituality. Many human developments lead in totally different directions – away from God! Worshiping idols for example, and depicting God as a punishing God, who is standing with a check sheet watching our every transgression and sending us to hell if the list is too long or egregious.

The intent for religion or churches is to support, promote or teach true spirituality among all. This has failed in many religions. The development of true God related spirituality is under direct supervision of God and free from any religion or church. While some churches may have spiritual groups which have true spiritual teachings – most have long ago started ego oriented abuse of teachings-such as God punishes sinners. Development of true spirituality is free of any church or religion – God has no religion – God is Holy Spirit!

The ultimate healing of spirit is done when becoming one with God as a result of proper spiritual development. That means true spirituality is achieved after oneness with God. This level of spiritual connection with God is generally attributed to Gurus or an Avatar. However, I believe that one can achieve this level of oneness with God even though one does not achieve the distinction of either Guru or Avatar. One achieves the distinction of Guru or Avatar because one chooses to be a teacher of spirituality…if one does not chose to be a teacher of spirituality does not mean they have not achieved the level of Guru or Avatar.

While there are a lot of warnings and admonishments regarding what to look for in a spiritual community

there is very little to rely on when you are contemplating moving on.

Most folk consider leaving after some kind of personal

blow up. They feel misunderstood or mistrust the

leadership of the group. In a heated discussion they

decide to quit. There usually isn’t a lot of thinking

about it, more of a emotional reaction. Their anger

or feeling of victimization usually soothes them for

quite a while after leaving as well as the stories

they sometimes tell of how horrific things were for

them. Most of these folk are new, less than 1 year in

the organization and its easy to fall back on the

cliche that ‘it just wasn’t right for them’.

But what about the seeker who has devoted a inordinate

amount of time to the group, let’s say over 5 years?

A personal blow up isn’t going to cause a dedicated

member to lose her cool and quit…At least not right

away. She knows disagreements come and go, as well as

people, but she’s committed to her path and the

Deities she serves.

What type of things should she consider? The retreat

that she’s organized faithfully for the past few

years? Or the land that the group purchased with a lot

of hard work and sweat where she planted a grove

dedicated to Diana? Should she continue to work on the

newsletter that only she knows how to layout? Or

should she stop doing the outreach programs to local

schools and media that she does every Samhain?

She is acutely aware of the part she plays in the

group and what she will miss as well as all of the

things connected to it.

What types of things could she look at to help the

decision and resulting transition to move as smoothly

as possible?

Here’s a several ideas and suggestions to think about

when dealing with the decision to leave a coven,

circle, temple, or other type of spiritual

organization.

These suggestions only work if the organization you

are involved with respects and trusts your judgement

of what is right for you. This may sound ludicrous

for some folk but a lot of organizations do not. If

you are involved in a organization that doesn’t

encourage you to review your journey with your

spiritual leaders, to sit down and be honest about

your thoughts of leaving and why, and doesn’t offer

you any support during the transition in a healthy

manner, these suggestions may not be useful to you as

a tool to use with the leadership but to work with in

a journal or a supportive friend or counselor.

1. Review your commitment to the organization. Before

you leave completely consider gently passing on taking

on new responsibilities. Perhaps you may find another

path of service to the organization as fulfilling as

the one you last held.

2. Take a sabbatical. Time away from a situation can

lend some clarity to it that being involved cannot.

3. Realize that you may have grown and changed in some

ways you aren’t completely aware of. For all of the

rhetoric of facing your shadow-self and the related

drama you may have simply reached a point in your life

where you are ready to pursue another path of personal

growth. If you are fortunate you may be able to

maintain your same spiritual family, but then again,

you may not.

4. If you are feeling that the group is stagnant,

consider organizing a new program with the support of

the group. You may feel as if the group isn’t

growing. After mapping out the work hours and

resources needed you may choose to consider a new

outreach project or program to pursue within the

group.

5. Consider that you could be in resistance to growing

in the particular way that this group is supporting

you to grow. Sometimes as much as we think we are

open minded and flexible our spiritual path can act as

a magnifying glass to show us areas where we are not

as we see ourselves to be. Instead of quitting be

still and realize that the situation you are in just

may be something you simply don’t want to deal with,

not a situation to run from. It may be a challenge to

be faced.

6. Review your goals and boundaries within the group.

It is possible that you have met your original goals

for joining, or perhaps you didn’t have any when you

joined. Now with new responsibilities and changes in

your life you don’t have the free time you had before

to attend every group function. Look at what your

goals are. What are you in the group to do? Why are

you in this particular group? If you don’t know it is

important that you find out. It is easy to feel

unfulfilled when you haven’t any clue what

fulfillment is to you or how to measure it.

7. Look at the role you play within the group. If you

are involved in committees that aren’t working choose

to relinquish that role when your term on the

committee is up. Don’t have a term? Start encouraging

the group to set them. Not just for yourself but for

everyone involved. Burnout can be dealt with and

avoided with some planning.

Working with these ideas may make the difference

between revitalizing a spiritual organization or

leaving it altogether.

For the past several years I have struggled with getting (and staying) fit. OK I admit it, the struggle has been longer than just a few years. As a kid, instead of playing nicely with the girls, I fought with the neighborhood boys. I attempted to join their fun and received new scars weekly in bloody games of soccer. I was always the last one picked to play on the kickball team and, as the catcher of my 5th grade softball team, I pummeled the pitcher in the head with a fast ball. Uncoordinated in team sports, I succeeded only at baton twirling which was fun but I barely broke a sweat. After failures in group sports I thought I’d try running so, a few years ago I attempted to train for a half marathon. I ended up limping home in tears and thought I’d never exercise again. (I couldn’t even MOVE after that, much less exercise!)

Over the years I’ve used walking as a way of getting out of the house, of ‘warming up’ for more vigorous exercise and just to hang out with friends. This year, walking has turned into much more for me. Walking allows me to integrate mind, body, and spirit in a way that I’ve not experienced before. Athletes speak of being “in the zone.” I see that I too am an athlete and that walking can be vigorous and can provide my body with the movement it craves. Walking has allowed me to reclaim fitness goals that I had given up on. I think I’ve finally found something that I can be good at and stick with long term!

“Movement in the body brings movement in the mind. It is a natural alchemy. So many of us seek this kind of movement in our lives, a fusion of being and doing.”- Carolyn Scott Kortge from her book, The Spirited Walker.

These days, our lives are set at an incredibly frantic pace. We have so much on our plates that we fear we’ll never get everything done, and we wonder when we’ll find time to do those things that bring us pleasure. Even when the world seems to be spinning out of control, walking can restore our sense of inner peace. Time seems to expand, giving us a chance to slow down, to relax, to appreciate ourselves and our lives.

Even when we are just going out for a walk, we are hardly ever just walking. We carry our mind around with us when we walk, so we are usually absorbed in our own thoughts. I have come to see that the sole work of walking has turned into soul work. I have even nicknamed some of my walks with particularly insightful friends “walk and talks” where we process life together and use walking as a metaphor for moving forward in life.

And then there’s walking alone which frees us up for some internal dialogue. I’ve learned to turn off the cell phone, take off the headphones and stop drowning out the natural world. When I allow myself to hear my own thoughts and resolve any internal conflicts, I am at peace in the sanctuary of my mind. Moving meditation, or spiritual walking is a wonderful way of grounding ourselves in our own presence.

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. If one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.” Soren Kierkegaard

Even if our job is wonderful, our family is healthy and our future seems bright, we can lose touch with the deepest part of ourselves unless we slow down enough to breathe deeply, to still our thoughts and to observe the natural world with a sense of wonder. Walking with awareness provides us with an opportunity to connect with the surrounding nature and our “inner nature”. Then we are able to tend to the trinity that we are made up of – mind, body and spirit. In creating a balance among all three, we enhance the quality of all areas of our life.

Use a long walk or hike to come home to yourself. If you don’t go within you’ll go without!

So often we walk hurriedly, rushing from place to place in a state of mindless detachment. Spiritual walking is a form of meditation in motion. Pick a route that will allow you to practice mindfulness by fully engaging your senses. Feel the hard pavement or soft grass beneath your feet, drink in the aroma of the honeysuckle as you pass by and make a mental note of what flowers are in bloom. Notice the feel of the wind against your face. The rhythm of walking helps us to quiet our minds and from time to time we may receive inspiration or gain insight into some troubled area of our lives.

Plan a walking retreat.

You can use walking as a sort of mini-retreat. I’m not talking about going away for a week or even a weekend, unless you want to, of course. I’m suggesting that you set aside a few hours, or even a full day for an exploration on foot – far from the demands of work, home, and family.

First, choose a date on your calendar and mark it as your “retreat day.” You want this day to be yours, for your personal walking adventure. Next, identify a place that you want to explore on foot. If you enjoy being out in nature, call your local parks and recreation department to request maps of your area. If you love looking at homes and gardens (one of my favorite kinds of walks), think of a neighborhood that you’d like to see up close. You want to spend your time walking, not driving so try to choose a location that’s not too far from home. If you never have to get in your car, that’s even better.

The hour-long neighborhood walk that I take ends in a long slope that leads to the street that I live on. I listen to my body tell me, “we can’t do this, we’ll never make it home.” I hear my own inner demons loud and clear and then I bid them farewell using positive self-talk. As I approach the top of the hill I recount what a wonderful walk it was and how strong I am becoming. I’m glad it’s over, yet I’m already looking forward to the next outing!

I am grateful for spiritual walking. For me, it is a new route to wellbeing, a merger of muscle and mind. Infusing my exercise routine with spirituality has turned a good walk into a God walk!

An Interview with Laurie Conrad by Diana Souza. Ithaca, New York.

Q Laurie, the first question I’d like to ask – I would like to know what you mean by the phrases “standing in my heart” and “I looked within and found him in the spiritual heart”. You wrote: “I was standing in my Heart. My Heart was all around me in the room, surrounding me. I could do little more than look around the room at all that was manifesting from my Heart, intrigued and wondering.”

A The passage you just read was about my experience with the sage Paul Brunton, almost thirty years ago. When I say “I looked within and found him in the spiritual heart”… There is the physical heart that beats and gives us life, and there is also a spiritual Heart where clairvoyants often go to find their images. You could say that it is where the soul, the individual soul has its mysterious connection to the Divine, to God.

So the divine images, the images that are given to the soul by the Divine, are first received by the soul in what I would call the spiritual Heart. I am not the only person to use that term — I didn’t come up with that vocabulary. The spiritual Heart is a mystical term.

When the clairvoyant or mystic is clairvoyantly seeing into other realms or tapping into the future, or seeing or going to other places on earth while in waking state consciousness or in dream state, they are often looking in the spiritual Heart to find these images. I believe that many, if not most people have these experiences while in dream state, they are just not aware of it. But clairvoyants can go there while in ordinary waking state consciousness to find these images of other realms or other places on earth or the future.

Q The average reader is going to wonder how your heart could be in the room all around you?

A Well, I think I wonder about that myself. It is part of that grand mystery of Life. I have had a similar experience with music, where I will suddenly be in my heart, standing in that mystical Heart, and the notes to my pieces will be all around me. So I suppose that I go to a similar place when I am interpreting Chopin or writing my music. I don’t know that we can really explain these things. When you meditate, if you meditate, I think it is easier to understand this. In fact, it might be very difficult to explain or describe it for people who do not meditate.

The spiritual Heart is generally believed to be located in the seat of the soul. In my experience, it is roughly where the physical heart is, and more in the center of my body. The soul itself is so beyond the limits and boundaries of our physical body, we cannot even begin to imagine the grandeur of the soul. So my personal self, along with my individual little mind – was sitting in that room with the great sage Paul Brunton. He was near the end of his life on earth and he was fully enlightened. A Christian would probably say that he had reached sainthood. In the Indian traditions, they would say that he was fully enlightened. In his presence, I did have this big mystical experience, where I experienced the contents of my heart all around me in the room – as though I were in a very deep, advanced meditation or contemplation.

I had only been meditating, I think, for a few months when I met him. So it was a very memorable and fortunate experience.

This human body that we are in, compared to the soul – and the physical brain compared to Consciousness Itself – are minuscule in comparison. So, I might have been allowed to experience my Heart around me, filling the whole room to teach me this. I might have been given the experience so that I could see and understand that we are all so much bigger than we believe ourselves to be, that the Soul is immense. There are other meanings to this occurrence as well, meanings that we would not have time for in this interview. It was a mystical experience. It’s not something we humans can easily find words for.

Q You also said that you first met the Dalai Lama in your dreams, before you even knew who he was. Later you met him in person. Tell us your impressions of the Dalai Lama. Anecdotes…

A Our Holiness, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Well, he is an extraordinary person. I have seen him and met with him in a group setting many times. One of the first things that struck me is his incredible sense of humor – and his tremendous joy. The next thing that I noticed was his extraordinary earnestness and seriousness whenever he speaks about prayer. He and his monks are constantly praying for the world. He is a very humble and holy man. And I love that juxtaposition of those two attributes of his personality, the humor and the holiness. He is said to be the incarnation of Compassion, and everything that he says and does revolves around the higher Compassion.

When he speaks about the higher Compassion, it is always combined with Wisdom – the Higher Wisdom which roughly corresponds to the Wisdom of the Catholics and other religions: that we are not the body, that the material world is not Ultimate Reality. This higher Compassion is not the ordinary, sentimental emotion most people call compassion; Paul Brunton would call that emotion, or the sentimentality of empathy, the lower octave of true Compassion. The Dalai Lama would say that true Compassion also includes this higher Wisdom. By applying Wisdom, we would have Compassion for every sentient being, every being on earth – just because they are in the body, and therefore, suffer. That is the true Compassion. This Compassion would also include the view that you stop people if they are behaving badly, because in their bad behavior they are hurting themselves and others. So, in this definition of Compassion, Wisdom stands in the background in a loving, detached way. The Witness position, let’s say, of Paul Brunton, when we are able to clearly see what is truly best for everyone in the situation. That is true Compassion.

On the whole, we humans come to the world mainly from our personal thoughts and lower emotions. The big Teachers, such as the Dalai Lama and the sages, the saints – they are all trying to get us to come from a higher position, the higher octave of all the personal emotions. Brunton speaks about this at length in his Notebooks, and the Dalai Lama also has written many volumes of books.

As for anecdotes, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Mainly I remember his laughter, his joy. Next the sacredness that he brings with him. The clarity of his mind. The first time I was in the same room with him, I clairaudiently heard a very low tone everywhere in the room, vibrating the entire room – perhaps it was the energy of his very being, or his mantra, his inner prayers. I had not heard that phenomenon before that day, nor since, not even while in his presence.

Q I remember a story you told about the Dalai Lama coming and clearing a space where he was going to speak, with a storm?

A Yes, that was in Boston, when he spoke at Harvard. A friend and I were staying at Mataji’s ashram for a few days. I believe Mataji took over for Ramakrishna. She had an ashram near Boston, and we had decided to stay there instead of at a hotel in Boston. We had come to hear the Dalai Lama when he spoke at Harvard.

I don’t know what year this was, but it was many years ago. It was one of the Dalai Lama’s first visits to this country. Mataji sent three of us ahead, to arrange a meeting between her and the Dalai Lama just before the lecture. She had never met him. So she sent us ahead to talk to his entourage, and arrange it. I always thought this unusual assignment was a ruse of some sort – Mataji was fully enlightened, she did not need to send three young human seekers to arrange this meeting with the Dalai Lama. She and the Dalai Lama were perfectly able to arrange it themselves, through non-verbal communication, mentally. As it turned out, the young woman driving us there had met Paul Brunton in dreams throughout her childhood – as I had visited with the Dalai Lama first in dreams as an adult. In those dreams, Brunton instructed her. She found out who he was years later, when she saw his photograph in a book. That was probably why Mataji sent us ahead together, so that my friend and I would meet this young woman and hear her story. Also that I would experience the storm, to one day tell the story in this interview. Mataji, like Paul Brunton, was perfectly able to see into the future.

In any case, the three of us all got into a little car, an old, very beaten down car that we hoped would get us there. And we did get there early enough to arrange a meeting between the extraordinary Mataji and the saintly Dalai Lama.

After we had finished speaking with his people, they readily agreed to the meeting, and we were very pleased and happy that our mission had been accomplished so easily. I decided to go outside by myself to wait for Mataji to arrive. It was a beautiful, calm, early fall day. The sun was shining and there I was, on the beautiful Harvard campus; I had never been there. Students were sitting under the trees studying, or strolling to or from their classes along the paths. I walked out of the lecture building door a little way and happily stood there, taking in the beauty of the scene. Suddenly, a huge storm came up; an intense and surprising, shocking wind. Students’ papers were flying everywhere, branches waving everywhere, the trees were almost bending. I tried to take shelter against a huge tree near the door, wind and leaves flying, students now scurrying along the paths, bent over against the storm, trying to retrieve their scattered papers. It was quite something. It felt like I had inadvertently stepped into a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine.

It probably lasted for about two or three minutes. Then the storm stopped just as quickly as it had arisen. I said to myself: “Good Heavens, what was that?”

Then I laughed. I realized that it was probably the Dalai Lama purifying the grounds of Harvard before he arrived. And that’s still my view. He’s a very powerful being, the Dalai Lama. He has tremendous power. Yet, in terms of his teachings, probably his biggest message to the world is kindness, to be kind to others. And if you have followed the messages from Our Lady, the Madonna, to the world – She has been appearing in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia for almost twenty years to six visionaries – She also says to lead a kind, simple life. She says that we should try to pattern our lives after St. Therese of Lisieux. And St. Therese of Lisieux never even left her convent! She had the simplest of lives. She had, at most, a little table in her convent cell and a bed. Maybe a chair. At one point she had a vase in her room, but she thought she might be getting too attached to it, so she asked them to remove it. She basically did her daily work and chores at the convent and was kind to the other nuns. And yet she became one of the greatest Catholic saints. In Medjugorje, Our Lady said basically: pick your path and lead a kind, simple life.

The Dalai Lama is now a celebrity, he is a very famous man. He has written books and lectured in many countries. He is world known. And he is still one of the most humble and simple of men. They say that he has one pair of shoes and two sets of his maroon robes. He remains completely untouched and unspoiled by the world. He considers himself a monk, yet he is both the temporal and spiritual leader of his country. But he lives like a simple monk. So, in that sense alone, I think he is an incredible and saintly man, and a role model for humanity.

Our interview couldn’t be long enough to really discuss the Dalai Lama. When I first saw him in person, I inwardly told Our Lady that I felt as though I had met Her Son. I felt as though I had seen Christ on earth, that I had listened to Him speak.

Q Modern psychiatric science probably wouldn’t be too friendly in their evaluation of mystical states and the saints and persons who experience them. Many modern psychiatrists might even call what you refer to as “inner vision” and “movies in my head” as delusional. How can these mystical, inner visions and movies be differentiated from a vivid imagination?

A That is a very astute question. And I think, in my case, probably the biggest “proof” that an experience isn’t just imagination or delusion is if I inwardly saw a place, and then I later saw that exact place in a book or magazine or in waking state consciousness. Or if I had a vision of the future, it then happened just as I had seen it unfold a few days or weeks later, which luckily it always did. If I clairvoyantly saw a lost animal in a particular spot, the animal was found there. When I clairaudiently heard Our Lady’s voice speaking to me, my little dog Guinivere heard it also – she was still standing on the street corner, looking for the person behind the voice even though I had already walked on half a block. Most of my experiences have been validated right here on the earth plane. So if I had an inner vision of somebody doing something or saying something or knowing that they were in trouble – I would find out later that yes, that had, in fact, happened exactly as I saw it. So I actually was very lucky in that way. Personally, I had a lot of validation. Otherwise, I probably would have wondered myself if my experiences were just imagination or hallucination.

This is an interesting and important topic. If you are having high mystical experiences, you are being thrown into another, higher consciousness. You are already probably more sensitive than most people. And if people tell you that you are crazy and they keep telling you that you are crazy, you might just begin to think that you are. But there are also people who are delusional. One easy way to determine the truth of their clairvoyance is to see if the predictions come true. The saints were never wrong.

In the Catholic Church, visions and clairvoyance will not make you a saint. And the Church is extremely careful about testing and evaluating such abilities. First, they look at the general behavior, virtue and rationality of the person. Many visions cannot be verified. Some of the saints have seen their guardian angel. How can that be verified? Is this person rational the rest of the time? Do they seem to have a hysterical nature? Do they see or predict things that can be proven wrong later? The Catholic Church observes that person carefully and analyzes their entire life on earth, which I think is very wise.

St. Teresa of Avila, in her books, her Autobiography and in The Interior Castle, speaks of these things. She says that ordinarily she is not an imaginative person. Therefore, it seems unlikely that her visions would be produced by her own mind, by her imagination. But she also says that when we have visions of any sort, we should categorically discount them, just to be on the safe side, just in case it is the imagination or Old Nick producing them. She also says that if it is a true experience, you will just know it. Part of that knowing is something intangible that cannot really be verbalized.

Part of it is the staying power of the mystical experience. It will stay with you for the rest of your life, word for word, image by image. That has always amazed me. But those who have had mystical experiences agree that this is true.

Just as at the birth of Christ, when the angel appeared to the shepherds, most of the children that Our Lady, the Madonna, has appeared to throughout history are shepherds. As in Medjugorje, in these current visions of Our Lady on earth. (She says they will be Her last appearances on earth.) The children in Medjugorje were on their way to take care of the sheep when Our Lady first appeared to them. In Fatima, the children were tending the sheep when the angel first appeared to them. And of course, Christ is called the Shepherd, and we are His flock. Throughout history, She has mainly appeared to children shepherds and shepherdesses. In one instance, the children were very uneducated, they could probably neither read nor write. They spoke a local, rural patois, and Our Lady gave them a very long, complicated message beautifully stated and using words they did not even know. The children repeated it verbatim afterward, without changing a syllable, even years later. This again shows the power of true mystical experiences, that they are indelibly imprinted on our consciousness. This is quite different from our ordinary experience.

Q How can we see the inner purpose of the fall of a sparrow? You had an accident that nearly ended your life. It has partially disabled you. And it even erased for a while your clairvoyant abilities. Yet you say you don’t believe in accidents. In view of the destruction and disability it brought into your life, if that accident was Divinely orchestrated, then what possible purpose could it have served to improve your life and consciousness?

A That is another deep question, and not that simple to answer.

Q The fall of a sparrow?

A Yes. That was from a quote from Christ Himself. He told His disciples that every hair on our head is numbered and that there is Providence in the fall of a sparrow. Now the scientists agree, they call it DNA, the little chart of our life in those strands.

Definitely, I think my car accident was Divinely orchestrated. If there was negative intent, which is also possible, certainly God allowed it. And in my belief framework, if He allowed it, it would be allowed for the purification of my soul – and/or for the souls of others, or for the sake of the world. Our life on earth, in my mind, is just a continual deepening.

A continual deepening of being and understanding. Certainly, I would also hope that it is a deepening of holiness; and there are certain experiences that we are given to help deepen wisdom and strength.

It has been more than fifteen years since the accident, and I certainly have had enough time to think about why it might have been allowed to happen. Personally, I might prefer that I either did not have to learn those lessons or that I was able to learn them a different way. But I am certainly not going to question the greater vision that God and the soul possess. Luckily, the small person, the person in the body, Laurie Conrad in this instance, was not in charge the day of the accident. Or any day. God and the soul are in charge. We can see the poverty of our own judgment even within our own lifetime on earth: things that we wanted so very badly when we were young now seem so undesirable, or even harmful. Has that ever happened to you? Well, I look back and just inwardly say: “Thank God you did not get what you wanted”. Because either it was not good for me or something much better came along. So, even within the time frame of our earthly existence, we can begin to have that overview of events and the value of events, even as they happen. How could we possibly second guess the wisdom of the soul and of God? You cannot. If I look within with total honesty – which is always the best way to reflect on events – as hard as it has been for myself and those around me, some of the biggest lessons of my spiritual life probably came as a result of this accident.

Well, I could say, I think, that when I was flat on my back all those months and years, it was the first time that I felt union with the Higher Love, the Love from the universe. That the universe, the total of the Hearts of all the creatures that populate the universe, really does hold this extraordinary Love for each and all of us. And yes, of course, it is the higher Love, the Divine Love from God expressing Itself through all the souls of all creatures – but it is also from all those combined souls and the universe itself. I was shown this in a vision of sorts, and I can still see it hung in my mind’s eye, like a little movie. A cosmic Love. It is the Divine Love from God, but then there is also a cosmic or universal love that I felt pouring into me and around me. It was as though every creature on earth wished me well, was sending me love and healing. And that, I think, in my vocabulary, would be a high mystical experience. To feel that universal Love from all creatures. And it is there for all of us, every moment of every day. We are just not conscious of it, aware of it. And I was conscious of it because I was knocked flat on my back for so long with a certain sort of injury. I have the feeling that anyone who is that seriously injured, or that seriously ill, is given that opportunity.

I remember reading, long ago, reports and stories that said people with polio, in iron lungs, sometimes experienced an incredible peace. I think it might be similar to what I experienced. In spite of the terrible difficulties and the horror of it, I also felt the deepest peace I had ever felt in my life. Granted, I knew how to meditate, I had been meditating for many years.

And I mainly meditated while I was lying there half conscious and feeling half alive. But, I think that even if I did not know how to meditate, I would have been thrown into that beautiful inner place anyway. And it was an extraordinary peace and love coming in, even at the same time that the vehicle, the body was dysfunctional and miswired. I had fairly severe head injuries. I could not understand what people were saying to me or really speak for almost a year. I had amnesia. As you know, I still can go into a semi-coma state if I overload myself with work or ideas, as I did this past week.

At that time, after the accident, the body, the vehicle was totally dysfunctional – but this other place was so vast and so deep, so filled with Love. And I don’t know if I would have ever experienced it without that accident.

I think another invaluable lesson or virtue I learned after my accident was the difference between humiliation and humility. In the monastery they ask for poverty, chastity and obedience, which is another way of saying humility. When I was first injured, it was very humiliating. Not for long, because the emotion was too difficult for me to bear. I had been an intelligent, capable, respected and independent person with a big career – and all that changed in an instant. Suddenly, I couldn’t do anything, not for myself or others. I couldn’t dress or feed myself. I couldn’t sit up. Doctors talked about me as though I was not there. I could not really speak or understand what people were saying. I could not even form words interiorly, which means I could not even pray. I had forgotten most of my own personal history and when I tried to walk I fell over. Six years later, I was still crossing the street following grade school children with little bright-colored back packs slung on their backs because I couldn’t tell where the cars were. I couldn’t play concerts for seven years.

And so I had to very quickly learn how to inwardly stand in another place, a place which I would call humility, being humble. And what I mean by that is being humble before God – because humiliation only comes when we compare ourselves to other human beings. Comparing ourselves to others can be neurotic, and it can be dangerous. Humiliation is more than counter-productive, it is ruinous.

But when you are truly humble, you are just simply kneeling before God. And when I just humbly knelt before God inwardly and said to myself: “Well, I am terribly injured and God wants this from me”, the Power of the Divine came through me, the Power of the universe came through me – and suddenly I felt stronger and more peaceful than I had ever felt.

In terms of healing others, after the accident, I now did not even need to receive healing requests consciously, in order for people to be entirely healed. Before the accident, I often had to work quite diligently and pray much to obtain miraculous healings for others. I think this new, more automatic healing for others began because this higher, divine Love, healing energy – whatever you want to call it –

Q Presence.

A The Divine Presence was now coming through me. I was just naturally radiating it, because I was so filled with it.

So there were tangible rewards. I was now feeling an incredibly deep peace and Love and strength – and others were being spontaneously and miraculously healed without my even working at it consciously. This is still true.

But this difference between humiliation and humility is, I think, very important for everyone. And we have to learn it, I think, if we truly want to stand before God. Or we could say, in order to stand in your higher self, stand with the soul, in a constant way. Not just the mystical glimpse here and there that you might be given in meditation.

In the modern era we might be forgiven for taking a backward glance at traditional spiritual practices and meditation and asking whether they have been effective in bringing people to personal liberation and spiritual enlightenment.

On the face of it, they seem to have failed spectacularly. How many people today are enlightened? How many are still trying? Shall we try some more modern practices? Some that are adapted to the contemporary milieu we find ourselves in and which may lead us further into contemplation and toward peace and tranquility… at the very least?

First, try the luminous acceptance exercise. Actively allow everything to be just as it is. Take a minute to engage with what-is. What-is means tuning into sounds and sights, smell and feelings, the touch of the air on your skin, your thoughts, emotions, bodily systems and organs, as they are happening right now in this moment. Perfectly accept, invite and approve it all – all of it! – exactly as it is. Just a few minutes of this exercise and you begin to feel the luminosity of perfect acceptance.

People will say to you that nothing is perfect and they may say to you that seeing this luminosity is illusory. I say always strive for the impossible and everything is already luminous. You just have to realign to perfection now long enough to bring it into your natural awareness.

Notice how negativity and depressed energy habitually dull your finer spiritual senses to the light. The luminosity was always there, ever-present. Now you have seen it, remain aware of it all the time.

Second, try the ego-erasing exercise. The ego is truly a fantasy, a fiction. No one has ever produced one for inspection. It remains as elusive as the Loch Ness monster or the God particle in quantum physics (!). Every day commit yourself to one thing that challenges your ego-self. Do it without reaction or emotional charge. You don’t have to be vindictive toward something which doesn’t really exist!

For example, do something you really don’t want to do, on purpose. Pick up some rubbish from the street in full view of passers-by. If you can think of nothing else, your fallback practice is bowing or prostrating yourself (you can do this in private), because it is very hard to take yourself seriously, let alone feel self-important or egocentric, when you are lying face-down on the floor.

Third, try the unity exercise. Your mind separates and divides… absolutely everything. This is not how things are. Actually everything is one single unity, a unified whole. This is the spiritual lesson 101. This is how you can qualify in it. Relax, relax your senses, relax your body, relax your mind. Now wherever you are, experience everything without division, distinction, discrimination of any kind, drop preferences, identification, opinion, bias, prejudice, marginalization, judgment or criticism.

Slowly the world about you will merge and the experience of unity will flood into you. This doesn’t have to take any time (please don’t fall for that one!). The real state of existence simply is. It’s simply present, only waiting for your awareness to meet it. Breathe, relax, witness… and you are here… you are present… you are all that you see… and all that you see is you.

Please practice these three exercises – the luminous acceptance exercise, the ego-erasing exercise and the unity exercise – and help take some of the mystification out of spirituality. It is your birthright to be spiritually enlightened.

One of the most important resources to turn to when mourning the death of a loved one is the spiritual core beliefs and traditions you have been exposed to. Many mourners have told me about using their spiritual practices to find meaning and eventual peace of mind in trying to integrate their losses into their suddenly different worlds.

In particular, spiritual beliefs help to bring comfort, and in many instances, a sense of relief and meaning to the loss of loved ones. Here are seven ways to plumb the depths of your beliefs to find peace and ultimately the motivation to begin the process of acceptance of the death.

1. Meditate on the belief that the people who come into your life to help at this time, the meaningful things you read, the unexpected things that just seem to come out of nowhere and give comfort, are the Universe, God, or a Higher Power knowing you are in need and remembering you. Look for ways that Your Higher power tries to connect with you. If you look, you will find. Many choose their Higher Power to be their therapist. Believe your Higher Power is with you, especially in time of need.

2. Love has long been considered a most powerful force for dealing with the fear and worry that are common responses when mourning. Love protects. God, the Universe and your Higher Power all work through love. That’s why our support networks are so useful. You will also feel better if, even as you are hurting, you show love for others through service. Create a routine of caring.

Focusing on how to love in separation–a critical spiritual task–will also keep your loved one alive in your heart as you begin the major task of accepting his/her loss. It will give you a spiritual boost. And, most important of all, love yourself without limits. Be good to yourself. Give yourself a gift every day.

3. Use traditions and rituals as vital supports in dealing with transitions. You can create new rituals for starting each day, remembering your loved one, or trying to establish a new habit or routine. Rituals stabilize and help us connect. Perhaps you may want to start a tradition of celebrating the deceased’s birthday or special anniversary.

4. Read what the various holy books say about the legitimacy of sorrow. Don’t deny the pain. Many divine figures grieved. Jesus grieved. Give yourself permission to grieve as long as you feel it is necessary. Embrace your grief and allow it to run its course. Be assured that your grief is not only normal; it is the only kind on the planet, because each relationship is one of a kind. And, don’t avoid legitimate suffering. It will cause even more suffering in the final analysis.

5. Many people believe in the doctrine of The Communion of Saints. It is essentially the belief that deceased loved ones who go to heaven can be prayed to and intercede to God for survivors on earth. I often tell mourners there is nothing wrong with talking to the deceased loved one, or praying for a sign that the loved one is in a better place. If you don’t get an answer right away, don’t feel your Higher Power hasn’t heard you. Be patient and persist. Believe that you will be heard and never abandoned.

6. If you believe in a spirit world, afterlife, or heaven then you can also dwell on the following possibilities. Possibility is what hope is all about.

A. Your loved one knows what you are going through.

B. Your loved one can help you now more than before.

C. You can ask for ideas on how to deal with a vexing problem.

D. The deceased loved one assumes there will always be a relationship with survivors.

E. Grieve with the conviction and remind yourself that you will be guided through your ordeal.

F. Some day their will be a reunion.

7. Pray for the wisdom to make the right choices. Coping well and good grief are all about wise choices. For example, when will you intentionally start new routines, when will you freely express what you are feeling, when will you take a break from your grief, when will you employ self-care on a regular basis, and when will you start loving in separation are all based on the power of choice. For months or years your choices will pave the way for integrating loss into life. Pray as you would talk to your best friend. Cry out for help. Ask for strength, but seek wisdom to choose.

We are mysterious beings who clearly have a spiritual yearning. Be open to how your everyday spirituality (kindness, active caring, compassion, we are all connected) can play a major role in bringing comfort and new meaning into your life at this time of great turmoil. Talk to others who have similar beliefs and allow your intuition to become part of your decision making process. You possess the ability to grow through your great loss and find inner peace.

Your physical health’s effect on your relationships with your spouse and friends: Conquering your physical health

From my perspective, the most important piece affecting our relationships with our loved ones is our physical health. Our physical health affects our mental health and our spiritual health. Our physical health is determined by our life style. This involves our daily diet and our daily activity or the lack there of. If we don’t have righteous thinking and discipline, our physical health will suffer dramatically. If we don’t live a healthy life style, then we are going to age quickly with poor health physically and mentally. We have to maintain a healthy body and mind in order to be happy and our happiness determines how well we relate to our loved ones.

Our body speaks to us 24/7, 365 days a year and the problem is that we don’t listen. If you feel an ache, feel sluggish, feel lack of energy and if you are a little heavier than you would like to be, don’t ignore what your body is saying to you. Get off your backside and do something about it. Our outlook in life is more positive and more God like when we are feeling good. As we become more negative about life because of our physical health, we become less God like.

Your mental health’s effects on your relationships with your spouse and friends: Conquering your mental health

It is a snowball effect in that our physical health affects our mental health, which in turns affects our spiritual health. All of this has an effect on our relationship with our loved ones. If we are feeling good about ourselves, then we are going to be more caring and compassionate with our spouses, family and friends. Aside from personal and employment issues, our mental state is closely related to our physical state. So, it benefits us to make every effort to stay healthy physically and mentally. Our physical and mental health will help us deal better with any stressful situation that may arise from our daily interactions. Keep in mind that time is not on your side because if you are procrastinating as to when you are going to start some form of exercise and make changes in your life style, you are kidding yourself. The longer you put off getting your body and mind in shape, the worse your situation is going to get. The healthier you are mentally, the healthier you will be in your daily interactions.

Your spiritual health’s effect on your relationships with your spouse and friends: Conquering your spiritual health

For the love of God, anyone who is reading this article, if you are active physically, mentally and spiritually, please continue to do so and if you are not active physically and mentally, do yourself a favor and become more active because you don’t want to die a slow death physically and mentally in your golden years. Do this for yourself and for your loved ones. The culmination of your physical and mental health is your spiritual health. This God-like state of mind is what allows you to live a wonderful life. A life that is full of love, caring and compassion is a spiritual life. This is what Jesus teaching was all about. It is the feeling of loving life, respecting life, treating everyone and every living being with reverence that makes us a spiritual being in the likeness of our creator. It makes no difference whether you attend a house of prayer on a weekly basis or not as long as you meditate/pray in your secret place (the kingdom within) and keep a constant relationship with God in your own way. Your spiritual health will determine the health of your relationship with your spouse, your children, your friends and your community.