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Browse every published article connected to John Gilmore, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to John Gilmore, or search within this exact expert archive.
There is a popular movement today with the coming of a so called “New Age,” to partake of spirituality, instead of just religion. Many of the ideas from Eastern religions stress enlightenment, and dissolution of the power of the ego. In these religions the concept of the isolated self is ...
There is a simple form of meditation, vipassana, which means to see things as they really are. It is a very ancient form of Indian meditation that involves sitting in a comfortable position with the legs crossed, or in a chair, if necessary, with one's back straight and spine erect. The most important thing in meditation is not to sit in a lotus position or half lotus position. If you cannot sit with your legs crossed in the popular positions just sit in a position with your spine erect to facilitate the correct breathing and the correct flow of energy.
Practical Spirituality--Surviving Prostrate Cancer There’s nothing like discovering that you have cancer, especially if no one in your family ever had it. Cancer is a very dangerous disease, as anyone knows. It is only dangerous on the physical lever, but probably even more devastating on the ...
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
n The rainy season is almost over and I am happy that it is. Every-so-often, however, a rain-storm will come to remind us that it´s not quite finished. During the morning it is very warm now, but it is very cool at night—more cool tha I have experienced here. Many people who have ...
Throughout the ages there have been men and women who have labored to better the world. Some of them worked through communities and institutions while some of them worked at what some people call “the grass roots level,” to raise a group of people wanted to help provide for the needs of the ...
September is coming. My life will be changing greatly in September as I seek employment and have less time to do the things which I love like writing, studying, meditating, and passing on words of inspiration. Yet again, I feel that things are happening as they should.
There are several ways to deal with the “normal” hurt and pain that we experience living our lives in the world. This pain, of course, varies from one living situation to the next. In some countries life is just about unbearable. There isn’t enough food or water. There are corrupt government systems where people are being systematically murdered and tortured. When we look at those places we can at least take comfort in the fact that it isn’t happening in our lives, if that is the case, but that is often not good enough. Suffering is very subjective.
Robert Thurman once said that the possibility of becoming a buddha was not in the realm of imagination for most westerners. The idea that one could be connected to everything, have unlimited awareness, and live in perfect joy in this society is so incomprehensible that people cannot move, seriously, toward the attainment of enlightenment.
I had a friend who loved to play basketball. Unfortunately, he started playing later in life so didn’t have that many skills. He encountered someone who had been playing ball for more than 20 years on various basketball teams from High School to college, and even at the semi-pro level before ...
Every fear that we have embedded in our psychological shadows has been used for the last ten years to dis-empower us. All of the large institutions who get air time on the TV, Radio, and in the Newspapers, seem to push the same messages: you can be good if you get all of these material things; you are not good enough; you are better than some race, class, gender, ethnic group, or other nation. All of these things reinforce the idea that we have to gain worth by performing or being better than some other group. Or there is not enough and we have to fight in order to survive.
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
It is summer again. A struggle is taking place between those who want so support the downtrodden and help uplift the whole society, and those who want to grab everything for themselves and people who are like them while destroying all others. I think that this has been the primary battle on Earth since the beginning of the age of the human being. There have been forces that wanted to bless people and make those who were blessed be a blessing to everyone in which they came in contact vs.
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
There seems to be a gap between what leaders want and what the people want that is supported by false religion and pseudoscience (another form of religion that uses scientific jargon). This gap has existed for a long time, but has been growing since the Age of Enlightenment. During that time, and throughout history, religions began as counter cultural agents in the society created to better the life of the individual by getting him or her to realize they were more than a small group of people struggling to survive.
There´s nothing like a beautiful summer day. We are in the midst of summer, here in Costa Rica. It is much warmer in this part of the Central Valley. Some would even accurately say that it is hot—very hot and dry. Even so, I think that it is much better here right now, when it comes to ...
Some people go around the world in order to do something known as Karmic Yoga. Karmic Yoga, like all Yoga, is a way to connect with one´s inner divine self and with God. Through Karmic Yoga one is actually working in the world in a sacred manner to be the embodiment of love, like the One that ...
There was a Unitarian Christian minister and professor who once said that everyone believes in some type of God, whether they think of God as a big person in the sky, a power, or whatever. He said that when you found what they fought for, argued about, and died for, you had their God. In his ...
I was cruising through YouTube last night when I cam upon a song by Chic called Good Times. During the Disco Era when I used to dance to that song under flashing , surrounded by hundreds of people like a great tribe I heard the words but never really paid attention. As I listened to the song last night I remembered how it felt to be moving with so many people lost to the rhythm of the dance. During those times I was one with the universe. I was one with the people around me and my dance partner; I was one with the music and the flashing lights; I was definitely connected with everything.
The secret of a beautiful life is knowing who you really are. Most our lives we work at gathering thoughts about ourselves, ideas about the world, and as much knowledge as possible. We add them together, stir them up and create what we call the self--the acting me in the world. We then work to support that idea of the me by pushing out everything that is not me. We begin to push out thoughts and ideas that interfere with the idea of me so often that this happens automatically. This closes us off from new ideas, thoughts, and the potential for us to expand and become greater.
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
The world looks like it is falling apart, but you can have peace within yourself regardless. For centuries and at various times in the past the world has been falling apart. The only fear and suffering about the dissolving of the world, however, is experienced in the ego. If we think that we ...
Everyone has to start somewhere and not everything will go the way they plan. The most necessary element for success is that a person not discouraged by the initial failures. Most people who have claimed to have “made it” in life will also be the first to admit that they had many failures along the way. With every failure comes the chance to learn something new for another opportunity.
I sit here during a full moon listening to the sounds of the crickets and thinking how lucky I am to not be in a war torn war with poverty and starvation right outside the door. Things are not perfect, but they could be worse. That is a case, I think, that everyone can make no matter what their circumstance. Things could always be worse. And so we find ourselves in the midst of pain and discomfort on one side and bliss and happiness on the other drifting back and forth. People often wonder how to remain on the side of bliss and happiness. There is only one way.
I had a friend who held up an object and asked me to concentrate on the object and try to move it. I looked at it, furrowed my brows, and took a beep breath focusing all of my energy on it. He asked, "Why do you have to do that to concentrate? Why not just stay relaxed. Everybody seems to think they need to tense up when they concentrate." I don't know why he did that, but the lesson is something that I have held onto for more than 20 years.
It is almost winter again. December is the last month of the year when most of the Season of Lights Festivals are celebrated. These festivals celebrate the fact that the light only begins to return to its full strength again when the seasons are darkest, the night is the longest, and the winter is the coldest. We do rituals and remembrances to remember that this doesn't only happen in nature, but in our personal lives.
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
When I was younger I thought that making money was all that counted. I was making my way through college and graduate school with plans to begin to save, invest, become a millionaire by 30 and then live the life. This never happened. On the way I had a motorcycle accident that almost killed me. This sent me on a spiritual search for many years.
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
During these transitional moments it is important for each person to prepare him or her self to live in a shifting world. Many people will not be able to adjust. To adjust does not only mean changing one's actions or behavior; that is easy, but it doesn't really last.
I started my spiritual journey at 17. I really didn't call it that, I was just looking for comfort in a world I couldn't understand. I couldn't afford to go to a Yoga studio. In fact, there was no such thing where I lived, or in much of the country. Still, my hunger for knowledge, which I would now call awakening, drove me forward and I eventually found what I needed to complete my journey.
It's easy to have doubts about almost everything nowadays. When we look at the morale of the world in which we live, the economy, the finances, and the functionality of governments we see a picture—a very clear picture, of a bombed out city. How can you stay positive in such a world? There are several ways to do so, but most of them are not helpful. I will discuss five ways below. Four of them correspond with what Shunyamurti, the founder of Sat Yoga Institute of Costa Rica, would call the zombie box. The zombie box consists of for walls governed by sensationalism.
A low self image is hard to get rid of in a culture where we that nature is something to be afraid of and that being satisfied with stop us from becoming anything great in life. We are told that nature is accursed and something that we must strive to defeat most of our lives. As a result of this we don't understand the gifts that nature offers and how we can learn from nature. One of its major teachings is the equality of everything, in the real sense.
The new possibilities in our lives today, especially in the West, are amazing. It is possible for us to recreate ourselves and our environments by using the many of the accessible books and videos, and the information on the internet. We can explore information that has been kept secret for years. Meditation techniques, Tai-Chi, Yoga, Chi-Gong and Chi-Gong meditation is available to anyone who would like to explore it and do the exercises. Many people, however, don't take advantage of the new technology.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think of the coming day and coming days in general, and I think that I must have been born on the wrong planet. But then I slowly realize that I am just where I am supposed to be. When I realize that all of my fears, worries, and regrets seem to just vanish. I realize that there is not much that I can do to change the world. In order to make great changes the majority of the people must be willing to say yes. They must be willing to exhibit the behaviors that will make things better and put aside their differences and to so.
I went to a small motel, rented a room there, and did the personal retreat described by the mystic Hafiz. Hafiz said that you could learn more about yourself and the world than anyone could ever teach you by just sitting in a chair alone in your room for three days and nights.
Sometimes the weather gets rough up there. What do I mean by “up there(?),” you may ask. I mean up there--high in the sky when you dare to spread your wings and learn the secret of flying. Sometimes I feel that life is only to teach us how to, “transcend the human condition of the common man,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson would say, so that we can truly fly “on earth as it is in heaven.”
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
These are interesting times. The world is changing rapidly nowadays, or at least we are learning about the changes much faster than previous generations. The main difference between those generations and ours is our familiarity with new technology. We read faster; we learn earlier; we ...
In almost every city in the world there is a building dedicated to a religion or philosophy that promises to free the human soul from the gates of hell. Hell can be considered anything from miserable way of living, to purgatory where the soul is tried, or to a place where souls go to burn ...
Today there is a powerful spirituality movement. When I say spirituality I am not speaking of religion; I am speaking of something different--a connection with the Divine. This connection is what many mystics call “union with God.” Sometimes this happens through a religious path, but not ...
These are interesting times. The world is changing rapidly nowadays, or at least we are learning about the changes much faster than previous generations. The main difference between those generations and ours is our familiarity with new technology. We read faster; we learn earlier; we ...
Another beautiful day on this great blue Earth, and more importantly, in the heart of the Beloved, as the mystic Rumi and Hafiz would probably say. When we really think about it...when we think about life and reality, it is easy for us to realize that we are actually living, moving and ...
I have started to write poetry in the style of Rumi and Hafiz. These poems are poems that speak of the mystical connection with the all pervading power in the heavens and earth that some call God, some Goddess, some love, some Whatever. The name doesn’t really matter, when we think about it. ...
The founder of Dovestar Institute of Massage and Body Work, Kamala, developed a theory that explains the workings of the universe know as the Four Forces. These four forces explain the way people interact with each other, God, and the universe. I will be discussing the Four Forces in this ...
In creation centered spirituality, Matthew Fox (founder of Wisdom University in Oakland, CA) outlines four paths of spirituality. These four paths are: The positive path; the negative path, the creative path and the transformative path. These are different names then the ones used by Fox, ...
The beginning of knowledge is asking why, The beginning of wisdom in understanding how—Kendall Roninnn Much of our life consists of working. Most of us spend at least forty hours a week working for someone else. Many of us spend more time than that either working for ourselves or perhaps ...