One of my favorite things to do is to imagine a divine hand upon my head blessing me in my life and letting me know that I am cared for and loved. I do this especially when I feel insecure or stressed. Once while in the emergency room with a badly broken leg and ankle, I closed my eyes and just imagined this other-worldly hand upon my head reminding me that everything would work out alright.

There’s an odd thing that happens to most near-death­-experiencers . . . they come back from dying and they’re no longer frightened of it. Maybe the definition of Death has changed for them. It has for me! It changed because there was nothing painful, waiting for me, I didn’t even realize I had died.

Having taught meditation for over thirty years to thousands of people, I can really say that it is the sin­gle most important thing you can ever learn in order to expedite and enrich your spiritual life. Everything you learn in school, by analysis or by study, will be expo­nentially deepened because you meditate.

It was one of the Greek philosophers who first said everything was made of atoms. Now we say atoms are made of positive and negative charges of electricity — pure energy. No one has seen them, but out of that which we do not see emerges that which we do see. The biggest thing in the universe is just made up out of the littlest things.

The ink is still drying on the Pope’s Encyclical Letter “Laudato Si’” or “On Care for Our Common Home,” and scholars, critics and pundits will analyze and assess it for years to come.

 Many years after my tragedies were over and done with, and after I was happy beyond my dreams, the idea came to me to make mosaic artwork. A mosaic artist can take bits and pieces of trash and treasure and create something beautiful.

When you return from death or near-death, a new commandment courses throughout your veins and in rhythm with your heartbeat . . . love one another. Experiencers of every stripe, tongue, culture, religion, and mindset find themselves beginning to behave in a manner as if life itself is all about love.

There are many arguments for the existence of God – Anselm’s ontological argument, the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument and the “immediate experience of God” argument. But if you don’t already believe, these arguments won’t convince you. They are post-hoc constructions to shore up existing beliefs.

Only at the end of Pope Francis' recent encyclical, Laudato Si, do we find what is perhaps his most significant theological statement about the created world. For in #243, Francis endorses the idea of the salvation, not just of humanity, but of all creatures. He writes:

From a spiritual perspective there is no such thing as disappointment. What we call disappointment, Spirit sees as opportunities for learning. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, and disappointment feels unequivocally real.

Mindfulness as a psychological aid is very much in fashion. Recent reports on the latest finding suggested that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is as effective as anti-depressants in preventing the relapse of recurrent depression.

If we look at human history, we find it replete with animals, in legend and lore. Beginning with the oldest cave paintings, and continuing into the print and electronic media of current times, animals are deeply embedded in our stories because they inform our ways of understanding the world. Since humanity’s beginnings, they have helped us to survive and thrive...

It is said that every tiny bit of restoration of wholeness within ourselves directly contributes to the restoration and awakening of all beings and of the whole world. The impulse of every movement toward healing, every moment of mind­fulness, every act of kindness we generate within ourselves, is directly shared or transmitted...

The problem that many people have is their misconception of what leads to happiness. They usually point to their successful career, family, and material possessions as evidence of their happiness. But as you’ve probably realized by now, all these things are impermanent and bring only temporary pleasure.

Finding and connecting with your spiritual core is both intensely personal to your beliefs, needs, and outlook as well as deeply necessary for strength and replenishment. Find time every day to stop, detach yourself momentarily from the hectic pace of ticking things off of to-do lists, and take part in a relaxing or meditative activity.

At some point in our lives, we all may have to inhabit that peculiar bubble of time where we’re called upon to witness the passage of a life. It’s possibly the most difficult, but most essential, thing we have to do—showing up for an event we dread and knowing how to conduct ourselves through this unmistakably sacred time.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted through a clear majority of its presbyteries (local governing bodies) to define marriage as being between two persons. The vote will also permit sessions – the ruling bodies of particular congregations – to host same-sex weddings and for the clergy of the church to perform such ceremonies.

Vitality is natural to us. Vitality is an aspect of our life faculty. The word vitality stems from its root, “vital,” its two meanings applicable to our life faculty. Vital means “essential” or “necessary.” Vital also means “having energy” and “the ability to thrive.”

Regular science does not acknowledge the existence of a fifth dimension. In the hardcore factual world of science, there are only three dimensions of space: up/down, left/right, and forward/back. There is a fourth temporal dimension—that of time. However, things in the scientific world are changing.

Could it be that our present assumptions about God are inaccurate, and that in some cases even the exact opposite is actually correct? Would that change our view of the world? Has being right all these centuries done much good? Could questioning whether we may have been wrong do much harm?

There is nothing in Islam that makes it dangerous or threatening to a modern Western way of life. However, those looking to incite violence and hatred are always capable of finding textual references in almost anything to fuel their prejudices. We must combat this by fostering a culture of learning and an acceptance of diverse experiences and opinions.

Most people today cannot relate to mysticism at all, not even when it is described as an inner spiritual instinct. For this reason, I prefer to call those who do pause and reflect, listen, and connect spiritually (and keep as their main focus at all times that special inner Divinity innate to us all) modern mystics.

Let's look at some of the obstacles to our spiritual growth. Let me ask you this: have you ever been stuck in traffic and thought to yourself, “If it weren't for all these other cars on the road, I would get to work (or home) much faster”? Well, spiritual development is similar to that.