Category: Spirituality

By Dr. Stewart Bitkoff
Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of God
- Koran
Recently, there has been much discussion about building a mosque near ground zero; many people feel that its location dishonors and insults the memory of those who died in the 911 tragedy. Yet, people forget that innocent Muslims died in this event, Americans fought a [...]

By Susan Scharfman
Will you teach your children what we teach our children, that the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. Earth does not belong to man; Man belongs to the earth.
––Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe (et al) of the Pacific Northwest
If old Chief Seattle was [...]

by Gangaji
I was talking to someone recently about the bounty of his life.  He said, “It couldn’t have been imagined.”  What a true statement.  True bounty cannot be imagined.  In fact, the only obstacle to true bounty is trying to imagine what it might be.  Then we fixate on that imagining and don’t even notice [...]

“By understanding that death is neither an enemy nor an ending and that there is no judgment anywhere in the universe, we can release our fear-based notions of punishment rather than correction, judgment rather than support, and an eternity of idleness rather than limitless opportunity for growth.”
These are the words of author Terri Daniel, from [...]

By Keith Varnum
When I was only 22, I found myself thrust into the job of
managing a bustling natural food store in Boston.
I hadn’t ask for the promotion. I enjoyed my previous job of
produce manger. Fruits and vegetables are easier to mange than
people! And before that job, I was very content unloading
delivery trucks all day. It [...]

By Dr. Stewart Bitkoff
One of the many things the western spiritual seeker has to face is that within the context of our culture there is limited discussion and awareness concerning the outcome of spiritual learning.  Also, western spiritual travelers may have romantic ideas about what they will look like after they have reached ‘spiritual completion,’ [...]

By Marlene Buffa
When asked if she would continue to perform even after retirement, Beverly Sills was reported to have responded, “No.  I’ve done that already.”
So many times we complacently stay within the boundaries of our comfort zones.  Predictable outcomes spring from predictable behaviors, and set the tone for the remainder of our life.  Job seekers [...]

by Gary Zukav
The benefits of spiritual partnership are the highest goals that you can reach for, such as freedom from fear, and also the most grounded, pragmatic, and useful tools that you can develop, such as how to use power struggles to grow spiritually. All the benefits of spiritual partnership are interconnected, and each leads [...]

By Marlene Buffa
More and more my gardening skills lack enthusiasm.  The other day, with grass freshly long from a deep periodic irrigation, I decided to mow the back yard.  A few weeks ago, I brought the mower in to the repair shop for regular maintenance and the last time I used it, it started up [...]

by Dr. Christina Grant
My friend John asked me to write about the universe. I mentioned this to another friend, a fellow writer, and she said, “Oh my God. That is such a huge topic.” She thought my friend asked me to talk about the whole universe. Actually, he meant for me to discuss what I [...]

By Marlene Buffa
I recently visited a meeting on a topic of interest primarily to men.  Out of 30 attendees, only four women attended.  When a female acquaintance joined me at my table, she noted the few women at the meeting and said she thought the odds were good she’d find a man to connect with [...]

by Susan Scharfman
We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses, and it ain’t names. And it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars … everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that ‘something’ has to do with human beings.
—The Stage Manager from Act 3 of Thornton Wilder’s “Our [...]