Do we know how cherished we are?

Marianne Williamson, one of the great figures of the American spiritual scene, has published a superb book of brief daily reflections, A YEAR OF MIRACLES. I would like to quote in its entirety one that I ponder practically every morning at the start of my day: Nothing...

Making A Difference

Armel Nibasumba was but a year old when he and his family fled from their home in Burundi before it was burnt down by a mob.  Most of the world’s attention was focused on the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda of ethnic Tutsis by the majority Hutus, but the same tensions...

No enemies, no hatred

One of the most famous prisoners of opinion in the world today is China’s most well-known political dissident, Liu Xiaobo, who has already served nearly half his 11 year sentence. He holds no animosity towards his Communist jailors or the party that imprisoned him. At...

Compassion heals

In a fascinating book which just appeared in French, ‘Meditation Saved Me’, the Tibetan monk Phakyab Rinpoche explains how he healed himself of a serious case of gangrene of the foot and tuberculosis of the bones through the power of meditation. His...

Who or what is “God”?

Many years ago, I was living in Senegal, W Africa. I lived on a beach between two shanty towns. I was on very friendly terms with the son of the imam of one of the two shanty towns, and one Sunday afternoon I decided I would go to the imam’s home and ask him how Islam...