InnerSelf.com

by Jodi McDonald.

My stepfather, Claude, had been in ICU for several days already. He suddenly sat straight up in bed. I was shocked. Without a pause, Claude began one of the most amazing sermons I had ever heard. His voice was clear and strong. I frantically glanced around, hoping someone else would come into the room to...

by David Schock.

One morning I awoke and realized I had absolutely no plans for the day. The gallery was closed until the weekend, and I was open to anything. I checked in with stillness, trying yet again to hear the “Holy Spirit.” To my surprise, I heard a quiet, still voice within me quite clearly. It was like an inner dialogue...

by John Selby.

I often talk about my grandfather as my first spiritual teacher, and about the Indian master Krishnamurti, who lived half-time in my hometown and was a voice in my ear from early childhood on. But probably the deepest influence on my life was my grandmother, known to me as Granny. This quiet woman touched my heart very early at levels much deeper than words can communicate...

Q: Premaji, is there a diet that can assist me to advance on the spiritual path? I’m overweight and I use smoking and coffee to lose weight.  A: There is much confusion in this era about food choices. Diet experts are arguing over whether we should avoid...

The lore and love and specificity associated with Irish places grow directly from Ireland's residual paganism. But that paganism does not conflict with a devout Catholicism that embraces and absorbs it. The old ways were seamlessly bonded to the new, so that ancient rituals...

At one time in his life Benjamin Franklin decided to try to lead a life of moral perfection. He deeply believed that virtue was its own reward and that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity. These are the virtues that he decided to live up to in accordance with his own definitions of them...

Slot machines, as outrageous as it might seem, are a powerful vehicle to help you learn how to keep your heart open. Since the brain and, in fact, the entire body, is a package of electrochemical impulses, it shouldn't seem so farfetched that we can influence electronic devices.

I have believed all my life that there is a necessary interaction that occurs between a person and the Divine. This interaction does not come only to prophets, bodhisattvas, and other great spiritual masters, it comes also to us: ordinary people in our ordinary lives...

It was my nature at a very young age to be observant and contemplative. I observed the restrained and reverential behavior of people in church. I also observed, curiously, that many of these same sanctimonious people were often irreverent, insensitive, and sometimes cruel outside of church.

Without doubt, there is great value in spirituality that emphasizes and supports withdrawal from society. But in our time, with its special needs, we require a spirituality of intense involvement and radical engagement with the world. It is in the real world that awakening...

'GRAAANDMAAA, BUY ME A PAIR OF JORDACHE JEANS,' my voice would sing out in a whine. Back then, every season demanded new clothes: back to school clothes, summer clothes, spring clothes, birthday clothes.... Now I live on the holy banks of the Ganges, in Rishikesh, India.

A Taoist seeker was wandering about a mountain range in search of a true teacher. On one occasion he happened upon a small Taoist hermitage high atop a peak on Wu-T'ang Mountain, where a small number of venerable old immortals (priests) were living. Though he found these men extremely wise...