Many times we'll feel that we have 'received' something -- a prompting, a nudge, an idea. However, we're not sure if it's inspired by God's wisdom, or if it's coming from our own personal thoughts. How do we tell the difference? From the discussions I've had with people, there seem to be a vast number of discernment techniques. Some people, for example, feel a "happy glow" around one choice, and...

God has managed the amazing feat of being worshiped and invisible at the same time. Millions of people would describe him as a white-bearded father figure sitting on a throne in the sky, but none could claim to be an eyewitness...

Scriptures common to Christian, Muslim, and Jew specify that both the male and female are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). We have not really absorbed that truth until we become able to name the Holy One in ways that can also appropriately name ourselves: God-She, Mother, Great Woman, as well as God-He, Father, and Lord.

Do you feel different from other people, as if you were dropped off on this planet and wonder when someone's coming to take you home? If you have a passion and talent for healing, teaching, or helping others, yet you yourself have substance-abuse problems, weight issues, relationship challenges, and the like, then you may be an Earth Angel. If you're highly sensitive...

by Margaret Coberly. One important and obvious realization that can come to light when thinking about death is that death is inevitable. Through the process of further reflection, a greater awareness of death occurs and eventually a calm presence in the face of death can be developed.

by Eric Harrison. Don't be surprised if your doctor says to you, "Have you considered meditation?" He's not some alternative quack. The doctors are on firm ground when they recommend meditation. They are backed up by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientific studies going back decades.

Sometimes God comes along and gives us a real jolt.  And once in a while those "jolts" come in the form of experiences that could only be explained as . . . well, as inexplicable. When this occurs we are left to ponder, what has happened here? What's going on? ...

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...

Someone asked me in a recent lecture, his face hard set with doubt, 'Are you really enlightened?' He pressed on, again with an expression of someone reluctantly mining for the truth: 'What was it that you were enlightened to?' Laughing, I answered him, 'I was enlightened to the fact that there is nothing to be enlightened about.'

All religion, whether Western or Eastern, forms a bridge between the absolute and the relative, between the apparently real, and the truly real, between what we perceive as secular and what we know as holy. Most Western traditions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, see the absolute as transcendent, beyond, and other. Most Eastern traditions, on the other hand, envision it as immanent, within, and...

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 but spiritual seeking that is undisciplined and aimless will not...

Modern society spends considerable effort on disinfecting the experience of dying. This inclination to hide and exclude death from everyday social activity is supported by the transfer of the place of death from home to the hospital.

I didn't ever remember hearing about Universal Laws, yet, strangely I understood what they were saying even as it came out of their mouths. These were the guides for the universe created especially for us and I had to know more. I knew this was the truth as I had never experienced it.

To enter the silence of absolute samadhi is to shake off what we call the habitual way of consciousness -- in an old phrase, 'topsy-turvy delusive thought.' By doing so we purify body and mind. Then, going out (or coming back) into the world of actual life and of the ordinary activity of consciousness, we enjoy...

Is there anything more pure, more full of wonder and hope for the future, than the prayer of a child? For a child's heart, when it forms a prayer of thanks or praise or petition, has none of the self-consciousness and ambivalence of adulthood; it is a laser beam of light and love -- focused, clear, and burning with urgency.

"The world is moving too fast," lamented the successful middle-aged stock broker. He was having trouble sleeping and getting a migraine headache almost daily. From the Ayurvedic point-of-view this poor man's life was being ruled by movement without rhythm. He needed to remember what he was really made of and return to his true nature.

I like the word faith: faith in God, in yourself, in your family. It's such an important thing to believe in something these days. I credit my faith with why I've been so blessed with such a trouble-free life.