Spiritually Speaking

A few years ago, I attended a business workshop where the topic was about the importance of happiness for creating success and achieving happiness through gratitude.

Recently, I had lunch with a friend who I haven’t seen for a while. After the usual catching up our conversation turned to world politics.

In the coverage of the recent rescue of a group of boys and their soccer coach from a cave in Thailand, one theme that keeps coming up is “luck”.

Today is Bastille Day. The date commemorates the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution with the storming of the infamous Paris prison, the Bastille on July 14, 1789.

According to scriptural record, on the night before the crucifixion a violent showdown erupted between Jesus’s disciples and those who’d come to arrest him.

Refugees, immigrants, nationalism… The new realities are pressing hard against our social structures and systems, needing to forge new patterns and meeting resistance.

The refugee crisis occasionally manages to grab our attention, not quite keeping pace with breaking news, although the world’s refugees are now an estimated 22.5 million.

We are living through a very complicated and anxiety producing time. We are constantly needing to discern what is real versus what is fabricated; what are objective facts and what is the product of propaganda.

If you are in a foxhole with little chance of getting out unscathed you may well offer a desperate prayer for help. There are a lot of foxholes of health and wealth and family. Desperate petitions may be the only kind of prayer we ever try.

In my previous article, I wrote about the three states in which you can be – the waking state, the dreaming state, and the non-dreaming deep sleep (total unawareness) state, as described in the Hindu scripture Mandukya Upanishad , which goes on to sa