For over 60 years I belonged to forms of organized religion. These still play a useful role for some individuals who need to have verbal formulations of truths and liturgical and cultural forms that reassure and comfort. However, we live in a world where increasingly everything is challenged and each one is called to define…
By Tosha Silver, from her book Change Me Prayers Divine Beloved, Change Me into someone who can give with complete ease and abundance, knowing You are the unlimited Source of All. Let me be an easy open conduit for Your prosperity. Let me trust that all of my own needs are always met in amazing…
Where you come from doesn’t matter. Where you are going is not important either. Look inward, see what you have become and decide whether you like what you see or whether you want to change anything. Whether you were born in the Senegal deserts, within a poverty-stricken family in a small Italian village, or in…
As our guest blog for this month, we are sharing a Spiritual Teaching and Practice from Paul Ferrini’s online course Journey from Fear to Love. Ferrini is the author of over 40 books on love, healing and forgiveness. His unique blend of spirituality and psychology goes beyond self-help and recovery into the heart of…
To listen is possibly the most beautiful gift we can offer anyone. In a way it is to tell that person: “You are important to me, you are interesting, I am glad you are here. I am here for you; I am touched by who you are and what you are saying.” To listen is…
May I learn to discern the perfect plan behind all events of my life. May I see that every single thing that happens in my life is a gift from Providence to enable me to grow and flourish and expand. https://pierrepradervand.com/365-blessings-to-heal-myself-and-the-world/ Some stages in life seem particularly difficult. When we do not find solutions, when all seems to go awry,…
We live in a world of growing complexity not to mention complications. If I did not have a few good friends to help me, I could easily become a Neolithic caveman in the computer field. In almost every single area, especially e.g., health and medicine, we are faced with contradictory information, most of them claiming to…
In this life, in any given moment, in one way or another (and more or less as you imagined), you will receive what you asked for… Do not doubt it. As a result, learn how to monitor your requests because nothing that was designed or created here below can satisfy your soul except the Creator…
Blessing, in the meaning used on this site and in books* I have written on the practice of blessing, often results in healing. A perusal of the section on healing testimonies shows that numerous healings or resolutions of “impossible” situations have occurred through this practice: including a severe depression; very difficult relationships; being freed from…
By Madisyn Taylor Our Comment: In a recent blog (https://gentleartofblessing.org/an-infinitely-friendly-universe/) Pierre wrote of his deep conviction (shared by many thinkers and mystics) that the universe is governed by a loving, benevolent intelligence. Thus, all challenges we personally face in this human existence are teaching tools that force us to progress on our spiritual path especially if…
“The Infinite is the source of joy!” (Chandogya Upanishad 7.23) There is a mighty rushing river of deep Joy at the center of all life. Oh yes, there is also a roller-coaster ride of pleasure and pain at the surface of human experience. Yet transcending this is a Joy that is the very effervescence of…
by Paul Ferrini Father/Mother God: Help me to feel my oneness with you and my equality with my brothers and sisters. Help me to recognize my judgments and to look within for correction. Help me to give up shame and blame and to learn from my errors so that I do not repeat them. Help…
Kristi Nelson – Guest blogger – is executive director of A Network for Grateful Living, a global organization offering online and community-based educational programs and practices which inspire and guide a commitment to grateful living, and catalyze the transformative power of personal and societal responsibility. We often feel gratitude when we get or experience something we…
Excerpts from an article by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Unity holds the essential vision that we are one living, interconnected ecosystem—a living Earth that supports and nourishes all of its inhabitants. If we acknowledge and honor this simple reality, we can begin to participate in the vital work of healing our fractured and divisive world and embrace a…
Excerpts from the writings of Yogananda Happiness is not dependent on external circumstances; rather, it is to be found in the simpler joys of life, and most of all in the ever-new bliss of deep meditation…. Be happy by clinging to the simple, true, and lasting soul-joys. They come by deep thinking, introspection, spiritual inspiration,…
It is most regrettable that most politicians, even at the highest level, ignore the very basics of demography! For instance, the average number of births per women needed to keep a stationary population is just above two in our countries. However, the birth rate in the USA and Great Britain is 1.8 (down from 2.12…
(Fr Richard Rohr’s Meditation for Friday, October 12, 2018) Our note: if the word God does not resonate with you, change it to one of the many other names for deity – Cosmic Love, Great Spirit, Infinite, Divine, Allah, etc. etc. “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues,…
Whatever religion you were taught, however you were raised, whichever way you understood your teachers, you will grasp and understand this message. It not sufficient to believe this message, one also must live it. The essence of universal religion is peace and goodness encompassing love and kindness towards all creatures on earth. The time has…
“I believe it is impossible to live a happy life if one nourishes resentment for some harm done to oneself, or guilt or repressed anger for an error of omission or commission we caused. On the other hand, we become incapable of resentment when we have understood that everyone is at every moment at their…
Excerpts from The Dynamic Laws of Prayer, Caroline Ponder In the silence, when your conscious mind becomes quiet, then the subconscious phase of the mind, which is the seat of memory and feeling, is free to function, revealing fresh inspiration and new ideas … The silence is the workshop of God. The silence is the…
Enjoy these two short meditations by Eileen Caddy, co-founder of The Findhorn Community in Scotland, from Opening Doors Within Give thanks for everything you have, for everything you received, and for everything you are going to receive. In fact, never cease to give thanks for it is a positive attitude towards life, and the very…
In a variety of teachings, unconditional love is the heart and soul of the spiritual life and the ultimate aim of the spiritual path – and by love is meant love in action of course (be it meditation or feeding the hungry), not discourses about love. “We bless ourselves in our desire to have a…
Just in time for Thanksgiving, here is a blessing from Pierre’s new book https://pierrepradervand.com/365-blessings-to-heal-myself-and-the-world/ As my basic text on blessing states, blessing and gratitude are in a sense the two sides of the same coin. When you bless a situation or a person, you are also saying thank you to the universe for a given…
How many times do you give thanks in your life? Being grateful is not only a nice gesture, it actually creates positive changes in the neurological structure of your brain. This powerful practice can have a lasting stimulation of the feelings of joy and motivation and increase your capacity to express gratitude. Numerous studies have…
Spiritual development does not happen in stages. You are a spiritual being here and now. Don’t lock yourself in notions of plans, levels, stages. Don’t cherish what are only false limitations. You are the Self – be that. To think that you have to discover your own Self is silly. What is there to find?…
“PIerre, you must be losing your mind!” “Hey, man, you are going soft in the head!” “What, you expect me to not only put up with, or stop hating, but LOVE the present tenant of the White House?” No, in fact I don’t expect anything from anyone (when I am in a sane state of…
Close your eyes and feel the whole universe filled with sound. Feel as if every sound is moving toward you and you are the center. This feeling that you are the center will give you a very deep peace. The whole universe becomes the circumference and you are the center, and everything is moving toward…
from The Independent – May 10, 2018 “…we bless the human race in its ability to exercise wise stewardship in all areas of the environment.” Excerpt from https://pierrepradervand.com/365-blessings-to-heal-myself-and-the-world/ Costa Rica’s new president has announced a plan to ban fossil fuels and become the first fully decarbonized country in the world. Carlos Alvarado, a 38-year-old former…
by an Unknown Confederate soldier I asked for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was…
In her book The Healing Secrets of the Ages, Catherine Ponder writes: “Bless the world around you unselfishly with divine order. As you do so, you release the power of order into the atmosphere to do its perfect work. Look for, expect and give thanks for divine order, often. By doing so, you release…
“In the whirl and swirl of our modern world, I bless myself in my ability to step aside, stop, and enjoy the greatest gift of all: the infinite simplicity and riches of Your Presence…. “I bless my fellow humans that they may discover the healing peace of uncluttered lives, the healing simplicity of an existence…
Pierre Pradervand There are ways out of the trap of depression—ways that avoid the slippery road of becoming heavily dependent on drugs. I found such a way, and it taught me some of the most useful lessons I’ve learned in my life. In the 1980s, I started having extreme attacks of depression. They were accompanied by…
Guest blog by Sandy Wilder One reason so many of us struggle with making progress and experiencing freedom, is that we are so identified with our minds that we often confuse our mind with our identity. Your mind is one of your faculties, but it is not who you are. It does not have the…
“May I follow at all times my highest sense of what is right, whatever the cost and however lonely the path, or however loud the mockery of the Pharisees. “May I express the integrity that always speaks truth to power, as the old Quaker saying goes, when silence might better serve our interests, and which…
That so gifted, sensitive Irish writer John O’Donohue once wrote this moving statement: “Let there be gentleness in your gaze when you look within”. So many of us can sometimes be so tough with ourselves. Yet the incredible, divine, unconditionally loving Being which runs this amazing show called “the universe” of which we are in…
From Holy Rascals by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, with permission Walk into an ice cream shop and order a scoop of ice cream. The clerk will ask which flavor ice cream you prefer, but you don’t want a flavor, you want ice cream. The clerk is stymied. Of all the flavors on the menu, “ice cream”…
Guest blogger: Andrew Harvey Andrew Harvey is one of the great spiritual teachers of today who has inspired thousands all round the world to turn their spirituality into the real power behind their lives rather than icing on the cake. For instance, it is all too easy to make (create, utter, send out) a nice blessing…
A message written or spoken and sent from the heart but received with the mind, will likely be not understood, or completely misinterpreted. They don’t speak the same language. We don’t need more talking heads on the planet right now. We each have a divinely renewable resource that needs to be accessed. It is called…
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (our translation) “To die is to move into a more beautiful home. It is simply to abandon one’s physical body just as the butterfly slips out of its cocoon.” These are the words that Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross often used at her patients’ bedsides. “Most people think of their living conditions as difficult, their…
More and more in the literature and on internet one encounters stories of such “mystical” experiences. I put the word between quotes because there is no universally accepted definition of the term. For me, it means a state of exceptional clarity where the understanding is no longer so much on the level of the mind…
