Telios

"Whenever I explain what evolution is, I say simply this: Evolution is a cosmic process that is going somewhere in and through time. And we are all part of that process. This simple fact is potentially life-transforming, but it's also hard to grasp at a deep level. The process that created us is moving. We tend to see the world around us as static. But it's not. It's going somewhere. We're going somewhere. Awakening to this truth about all of manifestation changes the way we see the world around us and place in it. The biggest and most important part of this awakening is that we discover our power to affect where the process that created us is going. We realize the ultimate reason for our own existence: to be a spiritual hero, to boldly take responsibility for the future of the process itself."

~Andrew Cohen

a patchwork

"how can people care

when they've barely touched lives?

ahh...but how can they not?

do the strands of connection

weaken because we haven't met?

or do they shine in all their

glory because of that?

you are out there somewhere

in the midst of your struggles,

your pain,

and your beauty-

and i am with you."

~terri st. cloud

Belief and understanding

Question: Do you believe there is a God?

....those that experience it need no words, and for those that cannot, words will do no good. Why talk about it? Describing light to blind man will not help the blind man. It is frustrating to put it into words--like trying to put the dance of a butterfly into words. You can only describe the beauty you see. People who wish to see it will see it. Trying to convert others is a violent act and denies the beauty of the dance.

~Balbir Mathur, Director, Trees for Life.

Love them more impersonally

Instead of allowing yourself to be so unhappy,
just let your love grow as God wants it to grow.
Seek goodness in others. Love more persons more
--love them more impersonally, more unselfishly,
without thought of return. The return, never fear,
will take care of itself.
... Henry Drummond (1851-1897)

"Even to be attached to enlightenment is to go astray."

When we stop being a seeker and become a finder, we no longer have any doubt about who we really are and why we are here on earth. In our own direct awakening to Spirit's true face, existential doubt dies a sudden and irrevocable death, liberating an infectious confidence that is rooted deep within our souls. A true finder may or may not continue to engage in spiritual practice, but if he or she does, it is motivated only by the desire to continue to evolve for the sake of the evolutionary process itself. Indeed, in evolutionary spirituality, making the noble effort to catalyze our own individual and collective higher development is recognized to be the very raison d'etre of human beings at the leading edge. And we can only begin to do this when we have given up seeking forever. Then and only then will we stop reaching for a spiritual epiphany to convince us of something. We instead make the effort to evolve because we are in love with life and are committed to unlocking its highest potentials through our own development. Those potentials will only come to the fore when we are no longer trying to become enlightened but have let go of any other option than to be the expression of the highest we have seen and experienced, in all our imperfection, right now. That's what it means to be a finder.

~Andrew Cohen

The Mystical Experience

"As I see it, the purpose of mystical experience is to convince us, at a soul level, that our true nature is Spirit-to convince us so deeply that we are liberated from existential doubt. Why? So we will finally be available to participate, consciously and wholeheartedly, in the greatest gift we've been given..which is the life we are already living right now."

~Andrew Cohen

My life is surrendered

If my life is surrendered to God, all is well.
Let me not grab it back, as though it were in
peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!
- Elisabeth Elliot

Profound peace

Let us not be content to pray morning and evening,
but let us live in prayer all day long. Let this
prayer, this life of love, which means death to self,
spread out from our seasons of prayer, as from a
centre, over all that we have to do. All should
become prayer, that is, a loving consciousness of
God's presence, whether it be social intercourse or
business. Such a course as this will ensure you a
profound peace.
- Francois Fenelon

The need to love a perfect object

Humans still retain within themselves the need to
love a perfect object that will never disappoint
them and to be loved totally and unconditionally.
These needs can be met only in a relationship
with God Himself. Otherwise, we go on demanding
unattainable absolutes from human beings.
- Tom Marshall

Living Fully

Living fully is having an ongoing transcendent experience.

It is not studying and analyzing the experience.
It is not wanting more of the experience.
It is not buying the right clothing to remind you of the experience.
It is not telling the world that you are the experience.

It is being with the experience.
It is asking, "How does this experience inform my life?"
It is asking, "How does this experience help me to serve others?"
It is doing the work of love without being seen.

~Lee Lipsenthal

Praying (or meditating?)

Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.

~Henri J. M. Nouwen

The Battlefield

Your soul is often a battlefield upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite.

~Kahlil Gibran