Life was created for the expansion of bliss. This may be hard to believe because most of the time this is not your experience. Your nature is joy and it is the expression and expansion of your nature that is the reason you are here. Enjoying life is to be in alignment with your nature and your purpose.

It basically comes down to love or fear. Your nature is love and when you are connected and grounded in your authentic nature you are able to enjoy life. You can flow with the expansion of life. You can accept change as the cause for more evolution. You can allow life to bring you all that uniquely supports your expression. You can connect to others and live authentically. In love there is total acceptance and allowing and trust.

When we bring a full presence to prayer, it becomes a powerful pathway of homecoming. This talk explores how prayer heals the pain of separation, and offers practical guidance in what poet John O’Donohue calls “unearthing our ancient belonging.”

“What’s it like if you bow your head and whisper and call on something larger?”

Life launches with breath. Like a deep sea diver piercing the water’s surface, we emerge with an initial gulp of air. This yearning and receiving marks the start our human unfolding - our last exhalation, its final punctuation. Breathing is fundamental to our existence but usually goes unnoticed, lost in the hum of activity. Our fragile and miraculous lives begin and end with breath - every moment of the journey is stitched with this silvery thread.

Perhaps like most of us, I can overlook what is offered abundantly and value instead what is rare and fleeting. As a swimmer, I tried to maximize my lung capacity to go further and faster but it was cancer that taught me to go deeper. My lungs had filled with fluid, and tumors in my abdomen made every breath a chore. Wrestling for each inhalation, I felt the paradox of abundance and lack. There was more than enough air in the room but there was a scarcity of space in my lungs. I had to relax and focus on breathing out in order to create space to breathe in. I had to let go in order to receive.

The main limitations for any human being are that you experience the following limited beliefs:

I am my body

I am my thoughts

I am my feelings

I am my concepts and beliefs

I am this separate consciousness

The illusion that this is who you are veils and hides your authentic, essential Self and causes you to live in a limited state of dis-connection from your full intelligence and power. The ego, creates the experience of a separate “I”. Universal I becomes limited, separate I. You see everything as outside of yourself and you create false stories, you see things as separate from yourself and judge everything as good and bad. This separation cause you to feel fear, lack and limitation.

What have you put into your mind? What have you fed your mind for years? What vibrations have you filled your mind with? You can feel them now reflected in the state of your mind; at peace or at war, calm or agitated, a clear, calm lake or a monkey mind. It is what it is and so you must look at how to shift it into a mind that functions naturally, in a way that is always supporting your fullest expression and expanded state.

You have filled yourself with so many impressions, many that are vibrationally unsupportive and dense. The first step is to find a way to change your energy so that higher vibrational frequencies, more peaceful and aligned frequencies reflect within your mind.

You spend much of your life at war with life. You are in the habit of always wanting life to change, to be different from what it is and you spend so much time fixing it. You separate yourself from others through judgment and criticism and not allowing others to authentically be themselves. And you live an in-authentic life that requires that your mind work overtime being something that is not who you really are in order to win approval, acceptance and love.

Want Success? Meditation is Key.

Meditation is one of the key tools in manifesting your desires and achieving success. It quiets other voices, fears, emotions, and even relaxes your body so that you can focus on the voices, emotions, and thoughts that will lead to your success.

A lot of people think meditation is a very rigorous assignment. They think you have to learn how to go into an altered state. They quickly become overwhelmed and discouraged. Rather than having this negative mindset, I tell people to consider meditation like taking a visit to sit on God’s lap. You don’t have to do anything hard! To meditate is to allow yourself to go back to your spirit and rest.

If we went beyond thinking, feeling, and sensing right now, what would remain?

I invite you to try this exercise for a moment. Close the eyes, relax, and see if you notice the still, silent center within you.

Notice the balance and equipoise.

Notice the stillness.

Is it unrealistic or irresponsible to talk about paradise when sexual abuse, mass shootings, massive fires, and monster storms are occurring somewhere in the world on almost a daily basis? Does the existence of violence and hatred make peace on earth a lost cause? I don’t think so. Maybe this is exactly the time to look at the possibility of global harmony and balance. After all, paradise is not really external-world perfection as we have come to think of it. It arises instead from our own hearts, our own perceptions. In this week’s video blog, I talk about how paradise, and perfection, live within us at all times….

I’ve been asked many times whether this is the aquarian age and it’s all just beginning, or if this is armageddon and this is the end, and I have to admit I don’t know.

The way I’ve usually copped out in dealing with it is saying, “Whichever way it goes, my work is the same. My work is to quiet my mind and open my heart and relieve suffering wherever I find it.” That seems to be what my life is about, and it doesn’t matter which it is- it’s the beginning of everything or the end of everything – regardless, that’s still what I gotta do.

I prepare for death… and so from a spiritual point of view, from the point of view of our spiritual evolution, and depending on which way the karma is going to go for the humanity on earth – it’s grist for the mill.

I’m offering you an invitation. It’s simple but defies simple explanation. It’s both a journey and a singular destination. It is immediate and timeless. It’s now and forever.  It’s science and spirit, energy and matter, particle and wave. It’s a resounding symphony and a faint whisper. It’s a dive and an ascension.  Creative Mysticism is an approach to living rooted in wholeness, where intellect, intuition and imagination coexist in service to something greater than the individual.  This is the launch of a blog that meets at the intersection of contemplation and creation. It will explore how we can grow through challenging times by learning to see wholeness through the fractures, and create lives of meaning and beauty regardless of circumstance. 

Let’s begin by pretending. Like we did when we were kids. When imagination was as much a part of us as breath. When questions were doorways instead of walls. Let’s imagine that we’re here to remember who we really are.  Let’s exhale with wordless wonder or the giddy excitement of noticing the steady stream of miracles in our midst – the flight of a butterfly, the way rain splats into a puddle, how the puddle reflects the skyline, and the way the skyline pulls our gaze beyond the clouds and into the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos.  Let’s pretend we’re all waking up from a collective game of amnesia and are beginning to remember who we truly are.