by Wayne Teasdale.

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...

by Regina Sara Ryan.

'START FROM WHERE YOU ARE' is generally good advice in any undertaking. But, like many travelers on the highway, sometimes we don't even know that we don't know where we are and yet we are unwilling to admit it. Instead, lost as we may be, we keep driving, ashamed to ask...

by J.T. Garrett and Michael Garrett.

The highest form of respect for another person is respecting his or her natural right to be self-determining. This means not interfering with another person's ability to choose. Every experience holds a valuable lesson. Noninterference means caring in a respectful way. And it is the way of 'right relationship.'

by Prema Baba Swamiji (Dr. Donald Schnell).

"Is she going to make it?" I asked, throwing my arms around my grandfather's stooped shoulders, enfolding him in a tight embrace. My grandmother was dying of cancer. What does one ask in such a dismal situation? Oma and I had often talked about spiritual ideas. She firmly believed we all have souls...

by Hank Wesselman, Ph.D.

Among traditional peoples, when a woman expecting a child enters the last trimester of her pregnancy, the shamans of her community place her in a deep state of trance. The shamans then connect with the spirit of the child coming into life, and they speak to it: 'Who are you? Why are you coming into our village? What is your life purpose?'

by Sirona Knight.

The power of affirmation, prayer, and blessing has been used for thousands of years in both spiritual and folk rites, by priestesses and priests, and by people trying to bring health, harmony, and happiness into their lives. In earlier times at the gigantic stone temples that dot the English countryside...

by Astrid Fitzgerald.

We all know from experience that we cannot be a better person, a more loving individual, let alone a fully realized being, simply by intention alone. Spiritual seeking is a commendable activity in and of itself; it brings many rewards such as greater clarity, peace of mind, and serenity, and keeps us from mindless and destructive pursuits. But spiritual seeking that is undisciplined and aimless will not bring any improvements to our condition, nor will it be truly rewarding.

by Susan Kramer.

Healing can come after loss -- that I now know. And I also discovered that more than healing comes -- joy resurfaces, again. I feel an intimate connection with my beloved once again. And I know now, for sure, that time, place, dimension, and space do not have an effect on the presence of love...

by Margaret Wolff.

It was three days after I met with her that I realized Grandmother Twylah Hurd Nitsch is a small woman. Her fathomless eyes, her great good humor and the magnitude of the peace that effortlessly flows from her heart convey a physical presence that reaches far beyond her diminutive frame. She is warm beyond measure, mercurial and deeply connected to the Earth...

by Matthew Fox.

Compassion is the way we treat all there is in life -- ourselves, our bodies, our imaginations and dreams, our neighbors, our enemies, our air, our water, our earth, our animals, our death, our space, and our time. Compassion is treating all creation as holy and as divine... which is what it is.

by Andrew Harvey.

Why we are here? Who and what are we really?. The great mystical traditions are astonishingly united in their answers to these questions; they each claim, in different ways, that we are essentially sparks of Divine Consciousness, emanated by the Divine out of itself, and placed here in this dimension to travel back to conscious union with the Godhead.

by Prema Baba Swamiji.

What is enlightenment? How can I experience it? What books should I read? What is transcendence? What is this nirvana? What is enlightenment? Where does Self-inquiry lead? What is the purpose of religion?