READ: The Spirit of Christmas by John Cali
December 21, 2011 by John Cali
Filed under •-Feature, Christianity, Conceptions of God, Deities, spirits, and mythic beings, Oneness In Action, Spirituality
I don’t pay much attention to the mainstream news, though I do browse through it quickly now and then, just so I have some idea of what’s going on in the world. Though there’s a lot more going on in the world than what the news media publish, which is mostly “bad” news. There’s more good news than bad. But we rarely see it in the headlines.
I’m fascinated by the so-called “War on Christmas.” It seems to me our world is obsessed with war. We have the usual wars going on, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, etc. etc. Then we also have the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, and so on. There are wars all over the place. And now we have a war on Christmas. Read more
READ: A God of Hatred?
October 31, 2011 by John Cali
Filed under •-Feature, Christianity, Conceptions of God, Peace, Spirituality
John Cali, Channel for Spirit
Spirit recently said something to me that I thought was as profound as it was brief:
“Religion divides. Spirituality unites.”
Two prominent news stories in the United States today are the upcoming presidential election and the death of Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs. Both events are being used and misused as platforms for those with a religious or political agenda.
The presidential campaign has already grown tainted and nasty by the attacks on presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion.
Steve Jobs’ death has become fodder for the well known Westboro Baptist Church. The church has said it will protest at Jobs’ funeral because, in their words, he “gave God no glory and taught sin.”
I grew up in a tiny town where my family, as Roman Catholics, were part of a small minority. On top of that, they were Sicilian immigrants. So I grew up in an atmosphere of religious and ethnic bigotry. Despite that, I had a happy childhood, but I was keenly aware of the discrimination we experienced.
I’m no longer Roman Catholic, or even Christian. But I respect the teachings of Jesus, and other great spiritual leaders such as Buddha. As someone once remarked, Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Buddha a Buddhist.
In my opinion, the greatest teaching of Jesus was his command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The divine energy, by whatever name you call it, is a God of love, not a God of hatred. And yet so many today are promoting hatred in God’s name.
Here’s Spirit.
Spirit
You have heard it said God is love. It’s become almost a cliche. Yet it is true. You’ve also heard it said love makes the world go round. That also is true, in a more literal sense than perhaps most of you realize.
We have said many times God is all that is. That also is literally true.
That divine energy — whether you call it God, Goddess, or whatever — is the fabric and the essence of everything that exists. Even so-called inanimate things — rocks, mountains, etc. And certainly all the things you define as “living” — plants, animals, birds, fish. And, of course, human beings.
God and love are interwoven through every particle of everything that has ever existed or will ever exist. God truly is omnipresent across all space and time.
Following this line of reasoning, you — each and every one of you — are God. You are divine. And you have all the power that goes with being divine.
However, you are free to use or misuse that power. What you are seeing in those events John mentioned — the US presidential campaign and Steve Jobs’ death — is a blatant misuse and abuse of that power you all possess.
We define love as the choice to see the divinity in all beings, all that is. When you do not see that divinity, when you refuse to recognize it, you enable what you call hatred.
Yet hatred is not a “thing.” It is only the absence of love. In one sense hate is good, because it shows you where love is not. It creates a vacuum only love, only God can fill.
So those who advocate hatred in God’s name are living a contradiction that cannot long stand. They are exercising their power in ways that only alienate them from others. And, more critically, alienate them from themselves, from the God within.
Only the God within — the God of love — can heal your wounds. The God of hatred cannot endure. It is already losing its hold on your planet. You are moving into a truly new age, an age of expanding awareness, an age of an all-embracing consciousness.
The God of love will live. The God of hatred will die.
Where Spirituality and Religion Do and Don’t Meet
September 19, 2011 by Ed and Deb Shapiro
Filed under •-Feature, Buddhism, Christianity, Conceptions of God, Ego, Enlightenment, Forgiveness, Health & Well-being, Insights, Intuition, Love, Meditation, Personal Growth, Prayer, Spiritual Guidance, Spirituality
There is no true religion or spirituality without kindness and love. Swami Brahmananda
Ed was raised in the Jewish faith (as he says, Jewish on his parents side!), Deb was raised a Quaker. We both began spiritually seeking at the same time in the late 1960′s. Ed was in his twenties living in New York City, hanging out at Studio 54 and other discos; meanwhile Deb was an art student living in London. And when Ed was in India being ordained as a Swami — a monk in the Yoga tradition — Deb was being ordained as a Buddhist. We both became teachers in our respective traditions, but by the time we met in the 1980s we had each left being part of a traditional order and were on our own, having decided to explore what it is to live a spiritual life in the midst of a materialistic world. We were like foreigners, finding our way in a world that was not so inclined or sympathetic towards spiritual life.
Essentially, religion is designed to be our spiritual source of comfort and advice, a structure to provide moral guidelines, a caring community, and help for those in need. And in many ways it is. But religion is also the cause of violence, wars, discrimination, bigotry, pain and suffering, all of which are a long way from kindness, compassion, comfort and spiritual reassurance.
Religious morality is also used to justify political reasoning and supremacy. In the U.S., the 1st amendment draws a clear separation between church and state, between religion and politics. Yet every presidential candidate is judged by his or her religious beliefs, as seen in the attempt to prove that President Obama is a Muslim, more so because his name is Barack Hussein Obama, which generates fear.
Prospective Republican candidates use their Christian beliefs as a form of qualification and go to great lengths to show that a good Christian is a Republican, thereby implying that Democrats are not. We remember watching Bill Moyer (during George W. Bush’s era) interviewing a Kansas couple being evicted from their home due to spiraling mortgage costs. As the movers were carrying out their furniture around them, Moyer looked puzzled and asked why they had voted Republican. They replied: “Because we are Christians!”
We often hear somewhat extreme candidates constantly pushing their religious beliefs into the political arena with outrageous statements like: the hurricane and earthquake happened as God is punishing us, whether it’s because of gay marriage, abortion, or any number of reasons that support their ideology.
This is taking religion into realms that are not religious. When religion is used to validate killing because there is a difference of opinion, then it has gone beyond having a moral compass to imposing belief and power over another. We see this with the killing of abortion clinic staff, all in the name of saving a fetus, despite the pregnancy being caused by rape or incest, or threatening the mother’s life. Yet how many who are trying to stop abortion are also willing to adopt an unwanted baby?
At the same time, spirituality is a loaded word, often misunderstood, as its practices include meditation, contemplation, and direct communication with universal consciousness. Pope John Paul condemned meditation and yoga as immoral, deluding, and even sinful. Yet spirituality is simply the discovery of our authentic self without any trimmings or labels, which gives us a rich source of values and a deeper meaning to life, whatever our religion.
In the seeking of such meaning, religion and spirituality come together. Spirituality highlights qualities such as caring, kindness, compassion, tolerance, service, and community, and, in its truest sense, so does religion. But where religion is defined by its tradition and teachings, spirituality is defined by what is real in our own experience, arising from an inner search within ourselves, the finding of our own truth.
Where religion tends to breed separation: my religion verses your religion, my god is the only real god, my ethics are better than yours, etc., spirituality sees all people as equal: we are not an “ism” or a label, we are spiritual beings whose purpose is to awaken to our true nature.
Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist, Jesus wasn’t a Christian; the great ones did not create a religion, they just said to look within. They recognized the truth that is always here, always present, but so easily forgotten. We are not able to see this because of a mind that is veiled by ignorance, hatred and greed: the ‘me-centeredness’ that rules and deludes.
When we were with the Dalai Lama at his residence in India we asked him what we could do to help humankind to awaken to caring and kindness. He said how people of different religions should come together in peace and respect and talk openly, honoring each others differences and similarities. This is a great example of religion and spirituality coming together.
