the mystical experience of spiritual enlightenment. photo:shan sheehan

Its a ridiculous idea that I, or anyone, could possibly convey what enlightenment really is. The most accurate relationship to the matter would demand that I just shut up. Although that leaves you with nothing, thats

Many misconceptions and myths have been built up over time and we need to shake these off of the word enlightenment. You know that were not talking about a seventeenth century movement, a modern outlook, or being informed of something. Our focus is more akin to a Zen usage, referring to whats thought of as a spiritual awakening of some sort. But even here, people are often misled to believe that becoming enlightened means transforming from an ordinary caterpillar of a human into the butterfly of a transcendent soul, or some such.

Whatever methods may purport to achieve such an endwhether its to be highly disciplined and monk-like, sit endlessly in contemplation, or learn to surrender to a higher powerat some point were supposed to be rewarded with a dramatic change in state, experiencing something blissfully transcendent. The good news about this view is that it encourages personal participation, as opposed to merely asking one to believe in religious, spiritual, or even scientific assertions. The bad news is that its fundamentally a false view. A change in state is irrelevant to the truth. Freeing the term enlightenment from the baggage of rumor and myth is useful if our goal is to know whats true about it. When considering what enlightenment really is, its important to get beyond the word and hearsay, and to realize that this Consciousness is prior to any idea, image, term, or belief.

Consider that at some point in human history, even after someone had already become deeply and directly conscious, there was no enlightenment. In other words, no one was seeking spiritual enlightenment; they were seeking the Truth. If the legend of Gautama Buddha is to be trusted, even he wasnt searching for something called enlightenment. He was trying to become free, to completely understand and transcend life and death. This is a different focus.

In the work of trying to personally understand what self, life, and reality are all about, enlightenment is a term used to indicate a direct-consciousness of the Absolute truth, whatever is absolutely true regarding what is. In the case of you, which is the primary subject for spiritual enlightenment, it is your true nature, what you really are, the absolute reality of your existence.

the only way to truly know spiritual enlightenment is to experience it firsthand. photo: victor bezrukov

Even disregarding how its used in other domains, the term enlightenment can be confusing. Although spiritual enlightenment is always about whats True, there are various degrees of consciousness to be had, and the term refers to all direct-consciousness, whether shallow or deep, about self or reality. While it always refers to being directly conscious of the true nature of something, its not always referring to the same subject matter or the same level or depth of consciousness.

Vernon Howard

Although defining or explaining spiritual enlightenment isnt possible with any kind of accuracy, that doesnt mean that it is ambiguous or that it is something open for debate, about which each individual should draw their own conclusionslike what kind of diet is best for them, or whether or not to believe in god. Such intellectual pursuits are a completely different matter from direct-consciousness. By definition, a direct encounter cant be found in anything heard or imagined. It also cant be found within opinion or conclusion, thought or feeling. These are all activities that relate indirectly to things. Being conscious of whats absolutely true is not something to decide about within ones world of opinions. Even though all this may be challenging to sort out, spiritual enlightenment is exactly and only what it is.

Why is it so difficult to understand the domain of enlightenment? Because comprehension comes from the mind, and the mind best grasps only what can be categorized and objectified. In other words, the way our minds work is to take meaningless indirect input and carve it up into distinct and separate aspects, and then give meaning to these distinctions as they relate to us and to every other distinction.

The word object originally referred to an item presented to the senses. What we perceive both physically and mentally is the object of perception. When we think about something that is not an actual object, we still use objectification as a mental reference, either as image, metaphor, or representation. Its the way we create and relate to whatever is imagined, perceived, or thought. When you imagine something, for example, you create an image or mental object in your mind. Since image is a function of sight, you must mentally form an object to view. In similar ways, this object-relating is involved in how we create thought, memory, emotion, and so on.

Our whole mind is framed upon object relations. For example, we speak of an emotion as if its a particular and separate thing located inside the body, and even somehow imposed upon us, it was like sticking a knife in my heart, or when we hear that someone is a political lightweight, or that a conversation was a heavy discussion. Time itself is not an object, but notice how we think of the past as a place where things happened, and the future as the next objective reality we will enter. The depth and reality of this mental framework go far beyond my simplistic examples and in ways that are difficult to describe or notice. Even with further explanation, its likely that much will be overlooked, but the reality of this matter will arise again and again. Im suggesting that this objectified framework for thinking is the foundation for our entire perceived world, which makes it well worth considering on your own.

In any case, because of this natural limitation of mind, we are challenged when tackling thought outside this framework, and further, are incapable of grasping what cant be grasped by the mind. Direct-consciousness or spiritual enlightenment is of that kind. It cannot be understood short of having it, because it does not fit into any framework whatsoever.

Because the Absolute cant be grasped by the mind, its impossible to imagine what spiritual enlightenment is. Trying to conceive of something inconceivable is doomed to failure. Since the mind functions by making distinctionsbasically knowing everything as if separate objectsand relating these distinctions to each other, this creates what we call experience and so what we perceive as reality. That being the case, the mind is ill-equipped for the job of being conscious of absolutes. An absolute lacks objective or even subjective distinctions. The Absolute truth isnt separate from anything. It is everything, but not any thing, nor is it several things or even all things. The absolute nature of Being is the source of reality and reality itself.

See? That just doesnt communicate anything useful, does it? There is no use in talking too much about direct-consciousness since it will of necessity sound like gobbledygook. Just consider that it is not anything you think or imagine. Enlightenment is not a change of state, an experience, a conclusion, or a philosophy. Its not even an insight or realization. It is not a function of the mind or perception, which is all we have access to. It is only you. It is the thing itself. That is why we call it direct. But as Ive said, even direct is too far.

to experience spiritual enlightenment is to transcend the mind.

Using the word direct implies immediate and without buffer, but even that implies a separation, as though some action needs to be taken to be direct. This is not the case with spiritual enlightenment because you are already there, so to speak. There is no action, there is no perception, there is no separationno matter how infinitely small or close. There is NO separation, NO process. It IS you. It IS reality. It IS the nature of existence. It is NOT a perception of these. It is NOT an experience of any kind, subjective or objective.

You can see then that if your mind struggles to identify and so know the object (physical or ethereal) that is your true nature, it can never happen. We must consciously be in the very same place and reality that is the thing-itself. So if we use a term like direct experience, it is only for lack of any more accurate means of conveying whats meant. Thats to be expected, however, since no term or idea can be accurate. Spiritual enlightenment is not something experienced, and although direct is the modifierindicating something different about this use of the word experienceit will inevitably be misunderstood.

Nothing in our culture or language can adequately represent thisConsciousness. One reason is that almost no one ever has such deep direct-consciousness and so there is very little that is widely sharedwhich is necessary for something to be culturally acceptable and known by people in general. Yet even if it were represented and we had ways to speak about it that were more closely aligned with whats true, these would still only be representations and not the real deal. More than any other aspect of human existence, enlightenment can only be grasped directly. Short of that, it cannot be understood.

Lets try to clear up what I mean by experience since its crucial to this discussion. Your experience, in this moment and every moment, is all that you know and perceive. It is everything you are aware of in any wayyour internal state, mental activities, what you perceive as your environment, everything you feel or sense, intuit, imagine, remember, think, believe, and even the influence of the content of your unconscious mind. It is the whole world for you; it is what you experience as you and reality, others, and everything else.

Think of it this way: There is nothing in your awareness that is outside of your experience. If you think there is, then you arent grasping what Im calling experience. People with a spiritual bent or imagination often seem to hold that they can experience something outside of what Im referring to as experience. If youre doing that, stop it.

Experience is created by mind; and the predominant, although not exclusive, contributor to this knowing of our reality is perception. Perception is not a direct encounter of what isit is always indirect, different than, and separate from whatever is perceived. Spiritual enlightenment requires a direct-consciousness of the truth, not an indirect perception or experience. Our consciousness is stuck within this indirect perceptive-experience. Its as if we are looking out from rather than being conscious of the very place we exist.

The perceived reality in which we live is very difficult to get free of because its nature isnt recognized. Our perceived-experience is a bit like being in a dream. Within the dream, no matter where you look or what you do, there is nothing outside the dream world that constitutes your entire experience. Grasping that its a dream will suddenly end the search because it becomes clear there is nothing within the dream that you could possibly use to free you of it. This is because the perceived dream reality itself is not real. Once you wake up from the dream, that entire perceived reality falls away. The problem with this analogy, however, is that when you wake up, you are immediately in a very similar reality. Its basically the same kind of perceptive-experience, with the added distinction of being the real one, allowing you to make a distinction between the dream world and the real world, grasping that the dream world isnt real. But youre still stuck in perception and experience, and the context of object-reality.

It is this object context that creates the most significant difference between these two worlds. Because of this context, we see that in the dream world there are no lasting consequences, while in the real world there are. This difference makes it almost impossible to deny the reality of our real world. The thing is, nothing needs to be denied. Its the true nature or absolute reality that were considering. Whatever is true about the world is already true. Our problem in grasping that, however, is a lot like searching within a domain that can never provide the answer. In that way, this analogy of the dream worldwhere there is no way out of that experience without grasping the true nature of itis apt.

Enlightenment is not an aspect of experience or mind on any level or in any way. This is not to say that ones mind goes unaffected when having an enlightenment experience. It is affected, and always in a positive way. There is increased freedom from previously binding aspects of mindnot every aspect, and usually not most, but some. This may be why, in some circles, it has come to be called a spiritual enlightenment experience. But any changes in ones experience or mind are not the enlightenment itself. This often goes unnoticed, even by people having some direct-consciousness.

Accompanying a spiritual enlightenment is often a temporary euphoria, the length of which depends on the depth of the consciousness. This doesnt mean that having an insight or realization and being euphoric about it constitutes an enlightenment. The only essential aspect of spiritual enlightenment is an increase in consciousness, and specifically becoming directly conscious of the true nature of some aspect of existence. From this consciousness, the mind will create some form of knowing whats true in the matter. It will be as accurate as the mind can be, but it will not be the consciousness itself. You may have a genuine insight or realization but, without this clear consciousness that is the same as the thing itself, you have not had an enlightenment.

When you have a genuine spiritual enlightenment, you become conscious that your nature is nothing. You have no quality, no aspect, and you exist in no location, so there is no objective aspect for the mind to grasp. The true nature is absolute, and so paradox is an aspect of this consciousness, making it incomprehensible to the mind.

Although much of this cant be understood prior to having an enlightenment or twowhich I highly recommend for everyonethe idea at least provides a possibility to which you can relate in some way. Yet I cant overemphasize that this is not something to believe. If you believe what I said about being nothing, etc., then you are believing in the wrong thing. No matter what you think or believe about this, it is not the truth.

Having an experience about which you might say there is nothing or you experienced emptiness or some such, is NOT an enlightenment. It is a perceptive-experience, and any experience is a function of mind. People who work hard to contemplate these matters can and do come up with many altered states, realizations, conclusions, and experiences, many of which might be described in similar terms. But these are not direct-consciousness. Spiritual enlightenment is a consciousness of the true nature of you, not an experience of any kind. These statements about enlightenment are made only to provide a springboard from which to leap, and to shake up the fixed mind-set about something that is literally inconceivable. Please hear them in that context.

The Consciousness that is enlightenment is grasping the Absolute truth about the nature of existence (fill in the blank as to the existence of what). It turns out that there is absolutely nothing here, but this isnt an absence of anything, nor separate from what is, because it is existenceits not an aspect or quality or perception. There is no objective reference for understanding this. What I just said will be confusing because, of necessity, you will search experience, mind, perception, thought, and feeling in order to translate whats said, and no matter what you come up with, it wont be what I meant. The Absolute truth does not and will never lend itself to something that can be thought, felt, sensed, intuited, or perceived in any waynot even in an unusual or special way.

Creating the possibility of dropping some aspect of the person you are opens the space to do so, but it doesnt do it for you. Recognizing, for example, that youre not your anger, or even one who needs to use anger as a tool to manage his needs, does not eliminate anger from your automatic impulses. It does, however, create the opportunity for you to see anger for what it is and stop using it, or begin to use it in a very different and conscious way.

This is true for any aspect of yourself, such as the idea that you are superior or worthless, wanting to control others, your fear of rejection, your habit of interrupting, your urge to smoke, the need to be right, being pretentious, or any other characteristic within your self-experience. But youll instinctively hang on to anything that is seen as you, so how is it possible to let go of it?

In order to let go of or eliminate any characteristic feeling-impulse or behavior, it must be recognized as not-you and not needed. The operative word here is recognized. Whether it is in fact not you does little unless you experience it as such. Once something is experienced clearly as not-you, the mental-emotional impulse that creates the characteristic in question can then be released from the lexicon of aspects identified as you or as a tool of yours.

Depending on the depth of your experiential consciousness, this may be as easy as simply dropping it, or you may find yourself undergoing a process of long-term hard work. No matter how it goes, the first requisite to free yourself of anything is that you recognize it is not you. Very powerful and embedded human assumptions make this difficult.

Spiritual enlightenment allows one to grasp that the self is unreal and that your true nature is inconceivable and not formed at all. This provides a platform upon which to truly transform. At this first level of direct-consciousness it is likely not to be all that deep or clear, but this distinction will eventually evolve as you become even more conscious. With this consciousness you create the possibility of more readily letting go of any aspect of your self-experience, since, with some attentiveness and work, you can see it as not-you.

In that case, it seems less like destroying something called you and is instead freeing yourself from limitations that you are not. If you hold that something is you, you cant let go of it because its you. If its experienced as not-you, then obviously you can let go of it. See how this works?

Dont confuse disliking something about yourself for seeing it as not-you. Rejection of some self-aspect isnt the same as grasping that it isnt you. The very fact that you feel compelled to reject it already acknowledges that you experience it as yourself and want that to be otherwise.

Wanting, liking, disliking, denying, ignoring, believing, and so on are not the same as the distinction of you and not-you. You can apply all these reactions to anything perceived. What makes something you is that you identify it as you. Multiple aspects exist in what you call yourself, both positive and negative. With enlightenment, you become conscious of what is really true about your nature and existencewhat you actually areand realize that you are not what you previously experienced as yourself.

But make no mistake, spiritual enlightenment is not a panacea. Simply having an enlightenment experience, or several, doesnt change you without your participation. As Ive said, enlightenment isnt the end, as people often think. Its the beginning.

Whatever occurs within the mind is never a consciousness of ones true nature. Mind is about brain and mental activity, concept and perspective, perception and experience. Your true nature is about the actual or fundamental existence of the being that you are. You are your true nature; you generate and perceive the content of mind. Consciousness isnt mind, but mind is a form of consciousness.

Becoming conscious of your true nature doesnt necessarily change the mind. Consciousness, mind, and brain arent all references to the same thing. For clarification, we could hold the brain as a tool, and mind as using the tool. Sort of like a piano is the tool and music is what arises from playing it. Music isnt the piano, and the piano isnt music, but they are related. Consciousness, in this analogy, is like the player-listener, which is neither music nor piano, but the creator of both.

Im just trying to make some distinctions here so that you have a better way to understand what Im saying. In this depiction, spiritual enlightenment is becoming conscious that you are the player-listener (sort of), and not the tool being played, or the resultant content of the playing. Dont take all this too seriously; it is just a way to provide you with an inaccurate understanding of what I mean by saying spiritual enlightenment doesnt necessarily change the mind. Grasping that your nature is neither an object (the brain) nor the activity of experiencing and understanding (the mind) doesnt change the object or activity. Only changing those changes those.

Of course, realizing that you are the player-listener when you formerly experienced yourself as music or piano would be quite an awakening. This would likely change the way the music comes out, or what is played, but much would remain the same. After all, the keys and notes are still the same ones, and most of the music has already been written. Furthermore, since so much of the brain mind has been ingrained as automatic and repeated patterns of reaction and activity that have been deemed necessary for self-survival, this forceful activity is likely to continue. It is the activity of life, and this proceeds as if of its own accord.

We need to take care not to divide up these distinctions too sharply for fear of falling into the trap of oversimplifying the matter by object-ifying everything. Unfortunately, such objectification is supported by the very use of an analogy. In fact, the analogy only works because it does just that. It divides the references into distinct and known objects that are more easily understood. This is its purpose and strength, but also its weakness. It demonstrates the assertion I made about how mind works to grasp things. This is unavoidable.

But, as can be seen within this piano analogy, there is an even greater danger of misunderstanding. Please dont hear player-listener as the observer or witness or awareness. These are already the accepted forms of self-as-consciousness and they are not what Im talking about. To make this mistake would be a significant setback. Remember, although Consciousness is not mind, mind is a form of Consciousness, so in our piano analogy, you would actually be all of it and none of it at the same time. But you will be ignorant of this fact if you are identified as any of the elements experienced, rather than the Absolute Consciousness that is you. This is why we need to take care to reach beyond the presentation of any analogy or model to seek out the truth.

Changing anything about oneself takes a personal commitment. Yet theres a cultural reason why people confuse spiritual enlightenment with transformation. Because contemplation is the accepted road to spiritual enlightenment, it appears that its a task of searching for something. This something might be held as grand, life altering, and the greatest thing since sliced breadotherwise why would anyone work so hard to pursue it? I suspect people imagine that anything with such a reputation would transform them merely upon its encounter. This is false. As Ive said, consciousness of the truth doesnt change anythingthe truth is already that way.

Becoming conscious of who and what you really are is invaluable for transformation, but this awakening alone doesnt accomplish it for you. For the most part, any personal changes that occur must be done consciously and deliberately, or else little about the self is changed. Without intervention, the automatic programmed self-mind will still tend to dominate your experience, and so, shy of profoundly deep or complete spiritual enlightenment, some ignorance or lack of consciousness will remain. Because of this, spiritual enlightenment degrades into a form of knowing but not being. This knowing is correct as a reference, but inaccurate if its considered to be the thing-itself, or the true nature of being.

Enlightenment only occurs suddenly, since it is outside of time or process. When someone has what is called an enlightenment experience, it is a sudden glimpse of the true nature of something, usually oneself. Although such consciousness is absolute and true, it is rarely universal. It isnt becoming conscious of everything, so to speak. This is obvious to anyone whos had a first enlightenment and is confused by the fact that there still remains much unknown and the self remains pretty much intact. Remember, after realizing his true nature, one of my students said, Its now obvious that I am not this mind or this self, so why do I continue to be trapped within both mind and self? This is a good question, and requires some attention.

As Ive said, becoming conscious of whats true isnt about changing anything. Most of the attachments and identifications that comprise the self-experience usually remain intact. The consciousness of your true nature doesnt necessarily provide any depth of consciousness about the workings of the self-mind. With such direct-consciousness, however, experience, self, and mind will be viewed from a different perspectivesort of like seeing them from the outside for the first time, and with the understanding of not being any of them, thus providing the possibility of not identifying with them. This creates a new relationship to all that, but it doesnt change all that.

As ones consciousness increasingly deepens, the confusion, or remaining ignorance, regarding consciousness and mind begins to clarify over time. Still, this is only likely to occur if the self and mind are studied and observed through the lens of this consciousness. Such clarity is usually a gradual process, since it occurs within the normal activities of being human and within human understanding. Although spiritual enlightenment is sudden and outside of mind, understanding is usually slow, as the mind is steadily recreated to include a new function capable of paradoxical thought. We might call that developing wisdom.

Even with this depth of consciousness and understanding, there usually remains in the mind a separation of self and being, of consciousness and perceived reality. Eventually, there should be no such separation. The entire matter of absolute existence can have nothing left out or left unconscious. Existence and non-existence cant be seen as separate or different. Enlightenment is absolute existence and must include the direct-consciousness of the self, the mind, reality, and all that is, or it isnt complete.

Eventually, when Absolute Consciousness is grasped to be the same as existence, a natural transformation must occur since, at that point, being human wouldnt be separate from the Absolute. This would change the whole foundation of experienceit would both exist and not exist, and these would be the same. This maybe an ultimate goal for some, but not for many, and is exceptionally rare. The truth is almost no one is going to achieve it. Upon his own complete spiritual enlightenment, Gautama Buddha himself didnt think people could possibly grasp it, and he was only convinced to teach because of the slim possibility that someone might. Yet this shouldnt stop anyone from pursing it, accomplishing whatever depth of consciousness can be had and freedom attained.

Albert Einstein

Most people who pursue spiritual enlightenment dont actually want the complete and Absolute truth. Perhaps they want to directly experience their own true nature and have that as an accomplishment. This is fine, and a good outcome for most. From here, transformation can be undertaken in earnest and with a much better foundation. Some sort of transformation was probably their real goal in the first place. Of course, just as in the case of spiritual enlightenment, they will find that their fantasies were wrong about transformation too; but that is how it always begins.

Although it cant be stated any more clearly, people just dont believe that spiritual enlightenment is not something perceived in any way. Since perception is how we know or experience reality, we dont imagine any other real possibility, and certainly not something weird called direct-consciousness. How can you relate to a statement such as: Absolute Consciousness does not exist in the domain of experience, and yet is not elsewhere? The response to such an assertion is to imagine that it is a very special form of experience, or a unique domain of perception. No. This is simply what can be thought when trying to conceptualize the matter. Of course, it is mistaken. It may be impossible to communicate, but it really cant be said much better than this:

The Heart Sutra

Another option would be to say that objective reality is Nothing or does not exist; and Nothing is objective reality. Here, form is everything that is or exists. Nothing is an absolute and is the true nature of form. Since its a translation as well as a reference, we can reword this description a bit without changing the meaning but perhaps clarifying the message:

That didnt help much, did it? Im sorry that its not easier to get. The above communication represents a very deep level of consciousness. This depth of realization goes beyond self and into the heart of the real nature of reality. Even those whove had their first few spiritual enlightenments dont really grasp the truth of whats being said. Although it sounds neat, doesnt it?

Enlightenment is not an experience or something experienced. It is not a perception or something perceived. It is not an object or even a subject. It isnt what you may define or figure out. It is not an idea or conclusion. It isnt a state of mind of any kind, nor a really big and wonderful world of magical phenomena. All of these things may happen, but none of them are spiritual enlightenment, no matter how hard you may assert that they are.

Enlightenment simply reveals to your consciousness that there is absolutely nothing here, and it is you, and it is reality, and it is everything. Since the mind cant hold such an absolute consciousness, this will degrade into a form of knowing that can be related to; and even those whove had such consciousness often take this knowing for the consciousness itself. They are mistaken.

If youve had a kensho (first glimpse) or two, all this may make some sense to you, although youve likely found such acknowledgments absent from the enlightenment discourse. Hearing my assertions, however, you can probably relate to them in some way. Some of what Im saying (and will continue to say throughout this book) is directed to those whove had at least one spiritual enlightenment experience. Regarding such experiences, there is precious little communication available, and most of it is kept on a very cryptic level. I understand why this is sotrying to explain these matters, one has to be willing to come off as a pontificating fool. Although my attempted communications will run into more serious challenges than that and may be misunderstood, know that Im trying to speak to you as seriously and candidly as possible.

If you havent had your first enlightenment experiences yet, much of whats said here wont make any sense, but you should hear the story and possibility anywayit plants a seedand its useful to hear that it doesnt automatically transform you, since transformation exists in the domain of process. Therefore you can begin transformation without spiritual enlightenment. Of course, enlightenment can help a great deal but much can be done without any enlightenment whatsoever. If transformation is your goal, you would be ill-advised to wait for complete spiritual enlightenment.

This article on spiritual enlightenment is excerpted with permission from Chapter 3What Is and Isnt Enlightenment of Pursuing Consciousness: The Book of Enlightenment and Transformation by Peter Ralston.

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Spiritual Enlightenment: What It Is and How to Experience It

Firstly, Spiritual Enlightenment has many meanings. The word enlightenment means the full comprehension of a situation. If we consider this definition, enlightenment should be defined as the full comprehension of the spiritual world and our spiritual side. Spiritual Enlightenment is also called Spiritual Awakeningor Spiritual Growth. This spiritual experience passes overreaches religion, thought and our mind. It gives us a level of knowledge about the spiritual world.

It is the complete understanding of life, ourselves, nature, the worlds we live in, everything. There are many people trying to reach enlightenment. The truth is that only those who are searching and learning spiritual ways to get the enlightenment will be lucky to find it. There are many methods to get Spiritually Enlightened. These are spiritual practices and works. Some of these are: meditation, prayer, chanting, yoga, martial arts, fasting, dancing, sensory depravation, near death experience, spontaneous enlightenment and many more.

Meditation is one of the most powerful spiritual practices. It comes in many types, you can try them and choose the best for you. Meditation is a method of calming your mind and bringing your attention to your inner self, your inner world. It will help you clear your mind and thoughts. It teaches you how to focus on your inside instead of the outside, material world.

Prayer is another powerful Spiritual Enlightenment method. But I am talking about listening for God, not praying for help. Nowadays praying is not what it is supposed to be. People pray for help, only when they are in need of a miracle. These prayers will not teach us spirituality. The real prayers are when we contemplate and silence our minds. Waiting for God and its presence. We are listening to our peaceful mind. We are calm and full of gratitude. This kind of prayer can get us to enlightenment.

Chanting is the singing of words and sounds that help ourselves to align our inner spiritual energy with God. Therefore, chanting as an enlightenment method is often used in different cultures (African, Hawaiian, Native American). It can appear in different forms as Gregorian chant, Quran readings, Buddhist chants, Vedic chants, mantras and many more. These chants will calm our mind. They also change our bodys vibration. This vibration can help our spirit to grow.

Yoga is a method that connects us with the divine. The positions and meditation and breathing techniques that it includes can help us calm our mind. It will help us focus on our inner self. It will help us to unite our spirit with the divine and reach the Spiritual Enlightenment.

In conclusion, there are many more Spiritual Enlightenment. They are waiting for you to discover them. Practice a spiritual work, not only for the enlightenment, but for your inner peace. It will help you keep yourself in balance. It will keep you and all your levels healthy including your mind, body, spirit, emotions.

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5 Things You Should Know About Spiritual Enlightenment ...

Buddhist monks, Hindu yogis, modern spiritual teachers, and Burning Man enthusiasts may all use the termspiritual enlightenmentbut are they speaking about the same thing?

In this article I will explore what enlightenment is, both the traditional definition as well as the modern changes to it. There is no consensus around this topic, and its an area of intense metaphysical debate. My purpose here is to eliminate some misconceptions, and to discuss what are the optimal attitudes to develop in relation to this lofty goal.

Why is this important? Because the right attitude will empower you to live a deep and fulfilling life, while the wrong attitude will make you feel frustrated, inferior, or indifferent.

The traditional concept of enlightenment comes from the spiritual traditions of India notably the various schools of Yoga, Vedanta and Buddhism and denotes the highest state of spiritual attainment. The end of the path.

Some of the synonymous for enlightenment, given by different schools of thought, are:

All these traditions have several points of disagreement when it comes to defining the metaphysical nature of enlightenment. However, at their root they all seem to agree on at least three points:

As you can see, the bar is high.

There are similarities between this concept and what is called Salvation or the Kingdom of God in Christian Mysticism, and union with God in Sufism, but exploring those parallels is beyond the scope of this article.

According to the Bhagavad Gita, only one in a billion people knows the Truth, that is, is Enlightened. Yet, nowadays there are many people who judge themselves to be enlightened.

For 99% of those people, one of the following is true:

There will always be people in category a, and Im not so worried about that. The ego is a master of deceit, and it can hide itself in spirituality too.

I also have no problem with category b, although I find it potentially confusing and misleading to name certain stages of the way as enlightenmentwhen they dont actually meet the traditional standards defined for this state (as per Hindu and Buddhist references).

There are levels of experience. There are no levels of Realization. Ramana Maharshi (paraphrased)

There are many milestones on the way, after which deep and permanent transformations happen, and a lot of the possibility of future suffering simply drops away. I speak of this from having observed several teachers, and also from my own personal experience.

These milestones are better called awakening. And there are many stages of spiritual awakening before final enlightenment/liberation. It is a process.

Moving on, the real problem is people in category c. They are distorting the essential meaning of enlightenment. Perhaps they confuse certain awakenings along the way with full liberation, judging themselves to be enlightened.

In order to make that work for themselves, they need to redefine enlightenment in softer terms, so that it matches their level. And then, because there is obviously a lot of work still ahead for them, they either say that enlightenment is a step in the journey and not the end of it or they pretend that all which is still lacking is not that important (like most neo-advatins).

I dont mean to say that everyone that claims to be enlightened is being deceitful, nor does it mean that they are not effective spiritual teachers. But, if they do not meet the traditional requirements, it seems to me they are either lacking humility or self-awareness. Or else they should use another word to describe their experience/state.

Looking on the bright side, however, even such watering down of enlightenment is beneficial for some people, since it makes it feel more achievable. With that comes increased motivation and dedication to spiritual practice.

Still, one can get that benefit without distorting the initial teaching. Ill explore how towards the end of this post.

Many of the traditions mentioned above agree that enlightenment is already here and now, and that it is our true nature or the true nature of reality. It is not that we have to achieve it or become it, but rather we need to remove the obstacles to its expression.

Some teachings regard liberation as a goal, something to be consciously and methodically worked towards. They emphasize the need to transform and purify the mind (or even transcend it altogether) through practices such as meditation, spiritual study, ethics, devotion, etc. We can call this the gradual approach.

Other traditions prefer to emphasize thealready present aspect of enlightenment, and then center the teachings more around inquiring into yourtrue nature and simply living in the present with non-attachment. We can call this the sudden approach.

In my own spiritual journey, I have practiced for several years under both of these frameworks. There are subtle differences in the type of language they use, the practices they recommend, and the people they attract.

Below is a list ofpros and cons based on my own experience and observation.

Gradual Approach (example: Theravada Buddhism, Raja Yoga, etc.)

Sudden Approach (Zen, Dzogchen, Advaita, etc.)

These approaches are both traditional, true and tested, and I respect them greatly. It is common to see seekers moving from one to another in different stages of their journey.

A combination of practices seems more desirable. Or at least being aware of the traps of your particular approach.

The seeker in a gradual path can also cultivate the feeling that everything is perfect here and now, and that the true nature is always accessible. Conversely, the seeker on a sudden path can cultivate the practices and mental qualities of the slow approach, and contemplate the truth of sudden enlightenment, gradual cultivation.

Full enlightenment is possible, and is not only for monks. However, it is extremely rare. I believe that at any time in the world there are probably less than a hundred people in that peak of achievement.

When this truth becomes clear about how elusive and rare full enlightenment realluy is, many people feel discouraged, frustrated, or demotivated. The amount of effort involved is so great, and the time requirements are so considerable, that many just conclude that enlightenment is not for me; I could never practice like those masters.

For most people, seeking it obsessively is actually a source of suffering.

All of these issues happen when we take enlightenment as a hard goal, and cling to it. And these problems all disappear the moment we make a small tweak in our mindset.

What is this tweak? To look at enlightenment as a direction, rather than a goal. Here, my martial arts background comes to rescue:

A goal is not always meant to be reached.

It often serves simply as something to aim at.

Bruce Lee

This attitude also prevents the following problems: (a) feeling that you are not good enough, or worthy; (b) feeling frustrated with the slowness of your progress or the size of the road ahead; (c) wanting to give up; (d) watering down the original concept of enlightenment.

Once you regard it as a direction, you are much softer about it. You are able to better enjoy the path itself, without anxiety, and to grow towards liberation in a more organic way. It also becomes less likely that your spiritual search will negatively interfere with other aspects of your life.

In many traditions, the teachings are quite binary: you are either ignorant, or enlightened. However, since enlightenment is so rare and elevated, this way of seeing things can often be unhelpful.

There are like a thousand important milestones that can happen before full enlightenment, and many of these are truly life-changing. Acknowledging these mini-awakenings can help keep the seeker motivated and on track.

The advanced Yogis, monks and masters that we may compare ourselves to are in the peak of their path. They are like the Olympic athletes of meditation. Many of us are only serious amateurs, aficionados, or semi-professionals. Very few people will practice like those masters. But everyone (you included) can practice a little, and with time enjoy a much happier, more peaceful, and more meaningful life.

Of course, we can and ought to look up to those who completely embody the state of liberation, for the purpose of being inspired to walk in that direction. But this ceases to be helpful once it turns into a self-degrading or demotivating comparison.

If the spiritual search is likened to the search for wealth, then the enlightened ones are the deca-billionaires. It takes a tremendous amount of effort combined withfavorable conditions to arrive at that point.

But how many of us want to go that high?

While very few people are ready to put in the effort and sacrifice to build that amount of wealth, most people can benefit from putting in some effort and arriving at a point of financial freedom. For the great majority of seekers, going from financial struggle to a million dollars in the bank is good enough. Which takes me to my next point.

The spiritual path exists so we can free ourselves from suffering. So we can find true peace, unity, wisdom, meaning. So we can live a deep life, a life of truth.

So let us learn to follow this path and grow in it in a gentle waywithout violence towards ourselves (or others), for it defeats the purpose.

Let us learn to enjoy the path itself. Then there will be no sacrifice. No struggle. Only the natural expansion of consciousness.

If you force a child to grow up quicklyand abandon all her toys, this will not be effective. Even if she grows up quicker than usual, she will resent this growth, and hold secret attachments to the toys that were given up prematurely.

If instead you simply facilitate her growth, a moment comes when the child feels like giving up those toys of her own accord. This is organic growth painless, natural, and timely.

This type of growth is hindered when we try to compare ourselves to others on the spiritual path, pretend to be ahead of where we actually are, or cling hard to the ultimate goal. So let us avoid that trap and focus on the journey right now, where we actually are, one step at a time.

Withtime, as our practice deepens, there will be a sense of joy, peace, and freedom that comes from your spiritual practice that is unlike anything you can experience elsewhere. When that starts to happen then whether it still takes you 5 months, 5 decades, or 5 lifetimes to achieve enlightenment, it wont matter much. You are happy and well, in your unique place in the universe, and nothing else matters.

The first signs of progress on the path of Yoga are perfect health, physical lightness, a luminous face, a beautiful voice, and freedom from craving. Swetasvatara Upanishad

Not bad, Id say.

For my side of things, I dont practice 16 hours a day like monks do, nor do I follow the teachings perfectly. I meditate two to three hours per day, and try to follow the principles and practices during the day to the best of my ability.And I can tell you, from personal experience, that the fruits of the first steps in the path of Liberation are more valuable than anything the world can ever offer you!

Keeping this in mind, and Enlightenment as a north (rather than an obsessive goal), I keep on the path happily, knowing Im doing the best thing I could do with my life. Whether enlightenment exists or not, whether it is possible for me or not, whether it takes ten years or 10,000 yearsseeking it seems to lead to a good life.

In a way, enlightenment and spiritual service are the goal and purpose of all my efforts. But from a more pragmatic perspective, I simply practice because I practice.

I practice because it is the best way to live.

Let us spiritual seekers take enlightenment seriously, without changing the original meaning of this statelest we diverge into sidetracks that only take us half-way up.

Let us take enlightenment as a direction, a Northand not a hard goal to cling on to. If enlightenment happens, thats great. If not, let us walk with the conviction that even the first true steps in the path of liberation already bring more life benefits and superpowers than anything we can find in this world. Simply practicing the spiritual techniques can change your life for the better (here is how it changed mine).

Spirituality, in the end, is about finding the best way to live. Passionately explore your spiritual path; but also enjoy it.

When I started writing this article, I had a lot to say, and no idea how it would end. There are blood, sweat, and tears behind each of the lessons expressed in this post. My heart was pushing me to share this with all fellow seekers out there, and now my mind has finally caught up with these learnings and gave them form.

May this be beneficial for your journey.

Read the original here:

Spiritual Enlightenment - Truths & Paths | Live and Dare

Spiritual enlightenment is the fundamental goal of most spiritual practices that you undertake. Enlightenment marks the culminating point of your practice you feel unity of soul with everything, all the mental and physical engagements are left aside. Spiritual enlightenment is the possession of highly evolved souls. Spiritual masters from all over over the world experience spiritual enlightenment, and help others on their own paths.

Spiritual enlightenment is often categorized into levels for practical purposes. The highest stage of spiritual enlightenment marks the attainment of unity with God or being one with everything. But can still there are certain levels through which the individual needs to evolve. In a similar way that man has evolved from more primitive animals, the human conciousiness or soul also evolves. For our practical purpose, put them in stages and analyze the state of being in each stage:

At the very first level of enlightenment, the individual starts experiencing reality as it is. It means that your mind ceases to interfere with what you are experiencing. We are engaged in continuous talk, gossip, analyzing the environment around us, planning about future, or worrying about the past. When you are in a state of spiritual enlightenment you are completely in the present moment. You stop judging and labeling the world. Your mind is calm, quite and still. You are very awake, and aware of the current moment right now.

At the second stage of enlightenment, you feel apart of yourself in everything around you. You feel a connection with every object and individual in the world. The borders between yourself and the world around you dissipate. Your soul begins to merge with Supreme Soul. You feel that you are not individual anymore and not separate from anything. You feel that you are in everything and everything is just a part of the Supreme Soul from where you also have emerged. Many people describe this feelings of completeness and love.

The third stage of enlightenment, you no longer feel connected to everything but realize you are everything. You the experience the oneness of Creator Source and are not separate from anything in the universe. This stage of enlightenment is a direct experience of oneness.

Spiritual enlightenment is the fruit that sets you free, as you lose all wants and wishes to receive the fruits of your actions. You feel the bliss of completeness and true love. At first it gives you the feeling that you need Light. At the next stage, you feel that you are merging in Light. And in the final stage you and the Light are one.

source: http://www.spiritualnow.com/articles/19/1/What-is-Spiritual-Enlightenment/Page1.html

Gregg Prescott, M.S.Editor, In5D.com

It is important to remember that when it comes to spiritual enlightenment, you cannot enlighten anyone else for this is a sole (and soul) journey. You can always help others along their path or even light the candle that piques their curiosity, but the only one you can truly enlighten is yourself. When it comes to enlightening others, all you can do is to plant the seed and hope the garden is watered with knowledge.

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The 3 Stages Of Spiritual Enlightenment : In5D

A definition of spiritual enlightenment or spiritual awakening is hard to pin down. This is, in part, because "spiritual enlightenment" and "spiritual awakening" have been used in so many ways to describe so many things, similar to the way in which "love" is used to describe everything from a preference for ice cream to a merging with everything. And it is also because spiritual enlightenment and spiritual awakening are such rich and complex experiences that they are innately hard to define.

Some definitions are very specific and narrow. One such definition for spiritual enlightenment is the complete dissolution of one's identity as a separate self with no trace of the egoic mind remaining. This sets the bar very high and means that very few people qualify as enlightened.

The opposite approach is to say that everyone is enlightened, that there is only awake consciousness. In this view, it's only a question of whether this natural awakeness has been recognized or not. Of course, when a word describes everything or everyone, it loses some of its usefulness. If everyone is enlightened, then why even talk about it?

Perhaps there's a definition that includes both of these perspectives, which recognizes that consciousness is always awake and enlightened, but the amount of awakeness, or aware consciousness, that is present in any moment can vary. This definition acknowledges that there's a difference in the amount of awakeness, or enlightened consciousness, that different people experience or that one person experiences at different times but still suggests that the potential for full awareness or becoming enlightened is the same for everybody. If every apparent individual consciousness is infinite in its potential, then each can also be infinite both in its capacity to expand or awaken and in its capacity to contract or identify with a narrow or limited experience.

If all consciousness is made of the same essential awareness and light, and if everyone has an equal potential for enlightenment, then all expressions of consciousness are equally valid and valuable. Everyone truly is a Buddha or enlightened being, at least in potential. So defining enlightenment in many ways now makes sense, depending on what is being pointed to. One may use the word enlightenment to point to the state of self-realization beyond the ego or to point to the innate potential for this realization in all of us.

As for differentiating between the words enlightenment and awakening, "enlightenment" implies a more finished and constant state of realization, while "awakening" has more of the active quality of a verb and therefore suggests a movement or shift in consciousness. An awakening may be defined as a sudden increase in the overall amount of consciousness an individual is experiencing. There can be small awakenings and bigger awakenings. Not only does consciousness have unlimited potential for the amount of awakeness, but it also has an unlimited potential to shift in any way, at any moment. Consciousness can and sometimes does shift from contracted states of fear, anger, or hurt to expanded states of peace and joy in an instant. Unfortunately, it can also shift in the other direction. Consciousness has no fixed state.

As it is being defined here, a spiritual awakening is a sudden expansion or shift in consciousness, especially a more dramatic one (we don't usually refer to a minor realization as a spiritual awakening). Enlightenment, on the other hand can be used to mark a particular level of realization or awakeness, even if the exact definition varies depending on who is using the word, as it does with every word.

What really matters is what your awareness is doing right now. How is your consciousness appearing or shifting in this moment? Are you realizing more of your experience and Essence right now? Or are you contracting and limiting your awareness with thoughts and identification? Is any shifting happening from reading these words?

Enlightenment or awakening is a profound mystery, and the best definition may be found in the actual experience of your own shifts in consciousness. Just as it's more nourishing to eat an apple than read about one, so it can be more rewarding to explore the movements of your own awareness than to try to understand these things mentally. While definitions of such things can be helpful, it can also be beneficial to not have too many concepts, which could interfere with your actual experience. It's a good thing that language isn't so fixed or defined when it comes to spiritual unfoldment. Maybe the best definition of enlightenment is no definition. Then there is only what is found in your own direct experience of awareness.

(The above is from the free ebook: That Is That: Essays About True Nature available here.)

What are the causes of spiritual awakening or enlightenment?

Consider the miracle of a flower. What is it that causes a plant to flower? Does sunshine cause a plant to flower? Does lots of water? Or is it good soil? Maybe all of these together? Or is there really something more subtle in the nature of the flower itself that causes it to flower? Is it something in the DNA of the plant? Does that mean the whole process of evolution over eons of time is involved? What other factors might cause the flowering? Does gravity play a part? The season and the temperature? The quality of the light? (Some plants will not flower under glass or artificial light.) What about animals that eat the fruit and spread the plant? Or the birds or bees that pollinate the flower? Do they cause the subsequent flowering of the newly established plants? Are there even subtler influences? What about presence and love? The intention and attention of a gardener? And is the existence of the world of form itself necessary for a plant to flower? And what about consciousness? Is there an ultimate force that directs the creation and unfolding of all expressions of form that is behind the appearance of a rose or a daisy?

What if it is a combination of all of the things mentioned? And also what if they have to all be in the right proportion? Is that proportion different for every species of plant? Some plants need lots of water or light to flower. Others will die with too much water or light. There is a unique formula that is involved with the appearance of the simplest apple blossom and the most complex orchid.

When you consider all of these influences and even more that were not mentioned or can't even be known or imagined, then it truly is a miracle when a flower happens. It is impossible to say what causes it to happen with any certainty or completeness. Yet, it's an act of incredible grace whenever all of these diverse, subtle, and gross influences come together in just the right way for an iris or a bird of paradise to open its unique petals to the sky. Ultimately, if you trace all the factors back to all their causes, you find that everything that exists is somehow intimately connected to the cactus flower or dandelion in your front yard. We need a vague and powerful word like "grace" to name this amazing interplay of forces and intelligence. Obviously, to reduce it to a formula doesn't come close to capturing or describing the vast richness of variables and forces at play. There is no formula complex enough to capture the whole mystery of a magnolia blossom...

Spiritual awakening is a kind of flowering of consciousness. When consciousness expands and opens into a new expression, we call that a spiritual awakening. And while there are as many kinds of awakenings as there are flowers, they are all equally mysterious. What is it that causes a child to start to awaken to the nature of words and language? What causes the awakening of sexuality in a teenager? How does one suddenly know they are falling in love? Or even more profoundly, how does one explain the birth of unconditional or divine love?

Finally, what are the causes of the most profound spiritual awakenings, where consciousness suddenly recognizes its ultimate true nature? Why does that type of flowering appear in one consciousness today and another one tomorrow? If the formula for a simple petunia is a vastly complex interplay of earthly, human, and even cosmic forces, then imagine how complex the formula is for the unfolding of a human consciousness into full spiritual enlightenment as one's true nature. The good news is that we cannot and do not need to know the totality of the formula involved to grow some petunias, and we cannot and do not need to know the formula for spiritual enlightenment. Yet, we can be curious about all of the factors involved and even play with them to see what effects, if any, they may have in our individual experience of consciousness unfolding.

Sometimes the mysteriousness and unpredictability of the whole process of awakening leads us to shrug our shoulders and say it is all up to grace or to God. And, of course, that is true; and yet, does that mean there's no place in this unfolding for our own actions? Is there a place for spiritual practice? What about meditation, self-inquiry, or study of spiritual texts? And how about devotional practices or the transmission of presence from being with a great teacher or master? We can easily become disillusioned with any or all of these activities because the results they produce are so unpredictable and varied, and it can seem simpler to avoid the question of their role altogether. Ask any gardener if it works every time to water and weed and fertilize a plant? Or does a plant sometimes fail to flower no matter how well it is cared for? But does that mean you never water or fertilize your plants?

At other times we can be overly convinced that our practice or inquiry will lead to the desired results, often because it seemed to work at least once for us, or for someone we know. The only problem with spiritual practices is that they occasionally work! Then we think that we have the formula and that every time we sit down to meditate or ask, "Who am I?" we will have that same experience of expansion or awakening again. That is like thinking you will always have a bumper crop of marigolds every time you plant them.

There is a middle way between denying the importance or role of spiritual practice and having unrealistic expectations that self-inquiry, meditation, or devotional practice is going to, by itself, cause an awakening. We can experiment and play with these processes, just as a gardener will experiment with different fertilizers or watering patterns to see what happens. It ultimately is all up to grace, and yet, what if grace works through us as well as on us? What if spiritual practice is as much a part of the mystery of existence as anything else?

Maybe we can hold the question of what role inquiry, devotion, effort, surrender, transmission, meditation, gratitude, intention, silencing the mind, study of spiritual books, involvement with a teacher or master, ripeness of the student, karma, grace, and luck play in our enlightenment with an openness and curiosity, instead of a need to define their roles once and for all. The flowering of consciousness in your own existence is as unique as every flower, and ultimately we are all here to discover how it is going to happen uniquely this time around. What is your consciousness like right now? How open is the flower of your awareness? Is it still budding or has it blossomed? Just as every flower fades and another comes along, what about now? And now? What happens this time when you meditate? What happens now when you inquire "Who am I?" How does it feel right now to open your heart with gratitude even if nothing much is happening? What impact does reading this article or any other piece of writing have on you? Every stage of a plant's existence is valuable and even necessary for its flowering. Your experience is always adding to the richness of the unfolding of consciousness in this moment. May you enjoy the garden of your true nature, including when spiritual awakenings are blooming, and when spiritual enlightenment seems far away.

(From the free ebook: That Is That: Essays About True Nature.)

About Nirmala: Advaita spiritual teacher, Nirmala has been offering satsang and spiritual mentoring in the U.S. and internationally since 1998. Nirmala offers a unique vision and a gentle, compassionate approach, which adds to the rich tradition of inquiry into our true nature. He is the author of several books, including Nothing Personal: Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self and Living from the Heart. In his books and mentoring sessions, Nirmala points to the wisdom within each of us, and fosters the individuals own potential for spiritual awakening and enlightenment. Free ebook downloads of several of Nirmalas books are available here.

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What Is Spiritual Enlightenment or Spiritual Awakening?

The National Trust will observe this year's Divali celebrations witha look at the history of Divali and an overview of some of the well-known temples in Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr Radica Mahase, Senior Lecturer at COSTAATT, will do a presentation on the History of Divali from the time it was introduced by Indian Indentured Labourers to contemporary celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago.

This can be viewed on the National Trust Youtube channel on Friday, November 13.

Dr. Visham Bhimull, founder of Caribbean Hindustani, will also share an interesting history of Hindustani language and Divali.

This presentation will take the form of a pre-recorded video immediately followed by a virtual meeting with Dr. Bhimull for further remarks and questions on Thursday, November 12. .The Trust is also sharing the history behind the presence of some of the many temples that have come to form an integral part of the cultural, religious and built landscape that uniquely defines Trinidad and Tobago. here are the temples you can read more about on the Trust's website:Temple in the Sea, Exchange Village Shiv Mandir (Mud Mandir), Moose Bhagat Temple and Reform Village Shiva Mandir.

The public can look forward to opportunities to visit these when the Trust resumes tours.

The Reform Shiva Mandir

Temple In The Sea

Off the coast at Waterloo, this temple is regarded as a sacred pilgrimage destination for worshippers. Originally built in 1947 on land, Siewdass Sadhus first construction had to be removed as it was in McMillan Park, which was private land belonging to Tate and Lyle Limited. He was even charged and arrested after legal proceedings surrounding the construction of this structure. Nonetheless, determined to have the temple built, he turned to the sea and spent over 25 years toting material on his bicycle, from land to waters of the Gulf of Paria. His hard work is testimony to the strength of the human spirit. It is an essential ingredient when one considers that Divali is all about spiritual enlightenment. Our interpretation is that he was unwavering in his beliefs, which saw him through to the end of this project, allowing or members of his community to have a safe place of worship, to practice and carry on their beliefs. This temple is on a man-made island and is connected to the mainland by a pedestrian causeway. Images and murtis of Hindu deities are displayed in an exquisite manner. The temple was rebuilt in 1995 under a committee of which Randal Rampersad was Chairman.

Exchange Village Shiv Mandir (Mud Mandir)

This temple was built of mud and cow dung at the hands of indentured labourers who resided in the barracks adjoining the estate. Located in Couva, this is one of the oldest standing temples in T&T. The walls of this structure are termite resistant and feature large, raised-relief sculptures portraying several deities, making it unique to Caribbean vernacular architecture. The sole alteration to the original structure is the addition of an aluminum roof was installed in 1985. This Mandir is now a protected monument as it was listed as a property of interest in 2019.

Moose Bhagat Hindu Temple

Located in Tableland, it is believed to be the second oldest temple built in the Western hemisphere. Manhant Moose Bhagat Dass was allotted land along the Naparima/Mayaro Road after his indentureship. While clearing the land, his blade struck a rock and blood flowed from it. In a dream that night Lord Shiva appeared to him, instructed that a temple be constructed on the site of the bleeding rock- as this was actually Shivas resting place and therefore a sacred place. Work began in 1902 and was completed in 1904, with this temple being done in honour of Shiva. The stone that inspires this holy building resides with the temple.

Reform Village Shiva Mandir

Located in Gasparillo, this gem on Railway Road is an original historical building that was completed in 1945 but opened in 1946 on the night of Maha Shivratri (Great Night of Lord Shiva). The entire temple was constructed by hand, using sand and stone materials collected in buckets from the Guaracara River. The walls were hand plastered, featuring representations of Ganesh, Vishnu and Parvati. Without the use of modern tools and being compelled by faith to build their own place of worship, the Hindu forbearers, put in commendable work in creating this sacred site. In 2019 this Mandir became a listed property of interest protected under the National Trust Act.

The public is invited to visit the National Trust's Facebook page to share experiences on how they are celebrating Divali this year.

Continued here:

National Trust observes Divali with educational presentations - Loop News Trinidad and Tobago

Opinion: for many, health of the spirit is every bit as important as physical and mental health

Covid-19 has come to us at a time when the old bastions of the western world seem very fragile. The land of the Free and the home of the brave seems to offer only fear, rage and division. Talk of walls and hard borders and broken treaties sweep away good will and compromise.

As public health systems throughout the world creak at the seams, health concerns beyond the purely physical are gaining ground. Experts increasingly refer to the mental health fallout from shrinking social circles, job instability, income insecurity, limited opportunities, fragmentation, isolation andloneliness.

It is interesting in the midst of this to hear author Mike McCormack talk of the 'spiritual health issues' that arise when we come up against the seemingly insurmountable. In many traditions, health of the spirit is every bit as important as physical and mental health. They are all mutually supportive, the boundaries between them blurred. Holistic approaches to medicine and nursing regard spiritual care as a life-enhancing factor and a coping resource, which helps patients to deal with adversity.

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From RT Radio 1's Leap of Faith,the spiritual inspirations from running 3,100 miles, the challenges for those observing Ramadan during the pandemic and we hear what is keeping Pope Francis busy in his period of isolation.

Various studies demonstrate that a persons immunity can increase significantly in response to spiritual care practices. In the Covid-19 context, South African health science researchers have been vocal on this issue, writing that "during this transition from the physical clinical setting to the virtual one, the importance of spiritual care should not be lost or forgotten because it forms part of the holistic approach to deal with the bodymindspirit aspect of the population".In the United States, palliative care experts have issued an urgent call for spiritual care specialists to address spiritual suffering...caused by this pandemic.

But talk of spiritual issues can be tricky. Most of us are private about our spiritual lives and wekeep them to ourselves. On the other hand, the inner life has as much to do with spirit as with mind. Coping with change, uncertainty and loss, like any truly human activity, emerges from inside. It comes from ones inwardness. As we live andinteract, we project something of our spiritual health onto those we engage with, and how we relate to them. The entanglements we experience are often the convolutions of our inner lives.

Viewed from this angle, Covid-19 holds a mirror to the spirit.If we are willing to look in that mirror and not run from what we see, we have a chance to gain self-knowledge and knowing ourselves is crucial in times of complexity and challenge. "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom". says Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, and this wisdom is the centre of true power in the face of adversity.

Perhaps this is the gift of Covid: the imperative to allow the spirit the space to breathe, the time to listen to the less obvious side of ourselves

Quaker educator Parker Palmer writes that charting the inner landscape requires the taking of three paths intellectual, emotional, spiritual. By spiritual, he means the diverse ways we answer the hearts longing to be connected with the largeness of life. Although grounded in the inner terrain, it constantly leads to the outer worlds of community and otherness. The inward quest becomes a journey for outward relationship.

The path of the spirit requires that we know the threads of our own stories, the desires of our hearts and what truly gives us joy. At home in our deepest selves, we become more at home with each other and with the world around us. This is the road less travelled, more difficult but ultimately more resilient to the forces that converge and threaten to overwhelm.

As a nation of dreamers and storytellers, we have traditionally gathered to talk, listen andknow that we belong. Without the space to do this, the spirit can feel lost, abandoned, caged. Perhaps this is the gift of Covid: the imperative to allow the spirit the space to breathe, the time to listen to the less obvious side of our selves.

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From RT Radio 1, Sister Colette fromthe Poor Clares in Galway on their number one bestselling bookCalm the Soul: A Book of Simple Wisdom & Prayers

Our Celtic ancestors had a great respect for the mystery and depth of the soul and human spirit and thatinstinct is still powerful among us. Look atCalm the Soul: A Book of Simple Wisdom and Prayer, a 2013 bestsellingbook by the Poor Clares, an enclosed order of nuns, which draws from the rhythm of their monastic lives and suggests simple practices to help nourish the soul, find calm, and achieve a sense of well-being in today's world.

This year, Eckart Tolles The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, an international bestseller for the past 20years, is enjoying a considerable resurgence of interest. The moment you realise, writes Tolle, "that all the things that truly matter beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace arise from beyond the mind", you begin to awaken.

Living in a Covid world is living with complexity, uncertainty and loss. It demands that we dig deep in order to craft a response. The spiritual side of human nature asks us to pay attention to our own interior lives, as much as to others around us and the world we live in, as part of that response.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RT

See more here:

Is there a spiritual side to dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic? - RTE.ie

THE Wanted's Tom Parker and his wife Kelsey have unveiled their newborn son Bodhi to the world.

Tom, 32, is battling a terminal brain tumour after being diagnosed withstage 4 glioblastoma and the couple described their new son as "light at the end of our tunnel".

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It was so nice. I cried my eyes out, Tom described about the moment he first got to hold Bodhi.

Kelsey, 30, gave birth to their second baby in October, but have kept mum about his arrival until now.

The couple opened up about their tough year and how they chose the name Bodhi because "it goes perfectly with our situation right now".

Bodhi is a younger brother to 16-month-old Aurelia and is already proving to be a lot different to his older sister.

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"He is the perfect baby especially compared to having Aurelia first. I barely even know Ive got him, Kelsey told Ok!

Tom added: Hes so chilled. Hes so different to Aurelia she was always very active.

The unique Sanksrit means enlightenment and ties into the Buddhist belief of spiritual awakening and freedom from the cycle of life.

"So it just goes perfectly with our situation right now. Hes the light at the end of our tunnel," Kelsey explained.

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"Tom didnt want the name. I said, Tom, I dont care what you say were having Bodhi and thats it.

Kelsey had a unique labour after her waters broke while the pair were enjoying an episode of Towie.

Bodhis labour started during Towie At 10pm my waters broke and then nothing happened," she said.

"I rang my mum and she said, 'Get some sleep, then ring me'. I rang her at 7am and said, 'Nothings happened'.

8

"I rang the midwife, they came and checked me because I really wanted a home birth, but there was no sign of the baby."

Even though the labour took a while, once Bodhi decided to enter the world it all happened very fast.

When I gave birth it all happened quite quickly my birth time was 30 minutes.

The hospital allowed Tom to stay with his wife throughout the labor despite Covid restrictions, with Kelsey saying, "the NHS was absolutely amazing."

8

"He was there the whole time. They even allowed him to stay over the night," she said.

Kelsey admitted that Tom is the more emotional of the pair, but she could not contain her tears at seeing her husband overcome with emotion.

Toms emotional anyway, and Im the harder one." she said.

"But I was so overwhelmed when he was born, because it happened so quickly. When the babys on you, youre like, I cant believe it! We were all crying.

8

The couple had hoped to keep Bodhi's birth under wraps until their interview with Ok! but Tom's former The Wanted bandmate pal Max George let slip last month.

Although Tom had not addressed his newborn's birth publicly at the time, Max told ITV's Lorraine: "I spoke to him yesterday.He's doing good, he's doing great.

"Kelsey gave birth to their second child last weekso he is a fighter. Tom will be alright.

8

"If you're watching I love you all."

Tom previously revealed he thought he had "man flu" before being delivered the devastating news about his inoperable brain tumour.

Tom's wife last week shared a snap of themkissing on a day out with their 15-month-old daughterahead of welcoming their second child.

Kelsey wrote: "We really are still so overwhelmed by all your positive messages, love and support.

"Positivity is the way to fight this. Today we had a family day before our family of 3 become a family of 4!!! Let's go - Parkers against the world."

8

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Tom has already begun his six weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment since his shocking diagnosis.

After telling fans about his brain tumour battle, Tom said: "We truly are overwhelmed with everyones love, support and positivity.

"We have had so many people reach out with positive stories and its been incredible."

Singer and TV star Tom has taken part in Celebrity MasterChef, The Jump and The Real Full Monty since The Wanted went on hiatus in 2014.

Here is the original post:

The Wanteds Tom Parker and wife Kelsey say newborn son is light at the end of our tunnel after brain cance - The Sun

It has become normal to think of the Islamist attacks in Europe as attacks on a secular way of life. The beheading of the teacher in Paris, the murders in Notre-Dame in Nice and the shootings in Vienna are presented as a struggle between radical Islamism and a particular kind of enlightened secularism born of the French Revolution. Thats the way Emmanuel Macron sees it; thats the way most educated atheists across Europe see it. But what they forget is that Enlightenment ethics the ideas of tolerance and fairness have their foundation in Christianity. And the best response to violent Islamism isnt humanism, but the idea of a loving, merciful Christian God.

As Jonathan Miller says, secularism simply doesnt have the spiritual and moral resources to tackle a comprehensive social, political, economic and religious ideology like Islamism. To begin with, libert, egalit and fraternit, the values of French secularism, are not self-explanatory or self-evident. For most of human history, most people have not been free or equal. Brotherhood is, around the world, most often seen as tribal, limited to ones kinship or ethnic group. In Islam its the brotherhood of fellow believers that counts.

Freedom, liberty and the brotherhood of all men, precious not only in France but throughout the western world, flow from Christianity. Its Christianitys insistence on a personal relationship with God and an internalising of his moral demand on us that led to the primacy of the person and of conscience in western thought this is Larry Siedentops insight in his Inventing the Individual.

Christian freedom of conscience results in the value of free speech; to say what is in our minds and hearts within reason. Equality, as a value, arises from the Judaeo-Christian teaching that all human beings have a common origin and equal dignity because they have been made in the divine image. It was just this view that led to the Dominican bishop Bartolom de Las Casass brave struggle against the enslavement of the indigenous populations of Latin America, a struggle which gave birth to the language of human rights in Europe. The Christian idea of natural human dignity provided the slogan Am I not a man and a brother? for the largely Evangelical-led campaign against the slave trade and then against slavery itself. The radical Enlightenment, on the other hand, ended in the massacres of Robespierres Reign of Terror.

Throughout the ages, there have been Muslims, like the Sufis, who have, along with Christians, emphasised the importance of love. Others have held that there should be no compulsion in enforcing Islam on the unwilling. This is emphatically not the agenda of the man who murdered Samuel Paty. For an Islamist, the aim of jihad is to reduce freedom and equality. Speech, education, dress, diet and opinion are all controlled by the guardians of Islamist orthodoxy.

So there is a standoff here: the West believes its values to be the product of reason alone rather than the result of cumulative tradition and custom. Islamists, on the other hand, hold that their beliefs and values come from divine revelation, which is immutable. Where do we go from here?

The West needs to recover its nerve and to acknowledge that its values are not freestanding but arise from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The situation in France and in Austria is a wake-up call for the West. We must re-examine the basis of our life together and remember our past, in order to have a future.

Read the original:

The best response to Islamism is Christianity - Spectator.co.uk

08.11.2020

Special month, special healing, and special love to spread and heal with.

As we embark on another day of healing the self, be reassured that you are completely healed in the golden river of light and platinum lakes. The reservoir of immense wealth, which is full of spiritual love and light is illuminating a new consciousness for progress and prosperity. Stand alone for a while, reflect on the importance of the light in your life, light a candle (if possible) and use this moment to thank all the associations that took you to the frontiers of grace guiding your spiritual consciousness. Send out this light to your life and to your loved ones today. Know that your reservoir of loving kindness is being replenished with new energies of enlightenment and liberation. Use today to augment your act of renunciation and feel free. Healing hugs of complete fame. Love from the centre of knowledge.Renooji

See more here:

Astrology 2020: Message of the Day (November 8) - Newsroompost

Melanie Bortz created a huge chalk mandala on West 1st Street in Kill Devil Hills. [Screenshot from Kill Devil Hills police video]

In a stressful week marked by election and pandemic uncertainty, an Outer Banks artists work is providing a beautiful, but perishable, distraction.

Melanie Bortz worked 11 hours over two days to create a large and intricate chalk mandala in a cul-de-sac on West 1st Street in Kill Devil Hills. Bortz doesnt have an official measurement yet, but she said its only her second sidewalk-chalk mandala the first she created for the OBX Marathon, and it was about half that size.

Bortz, with help from her three daughters, worked on the street art from around 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Monday into Tuesday, then 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday. She picked the place because she figured it would get less vehicle traffic. And the timing was based on a pretty good weather forecast.

That it came on Election Day was a bonus.

I know people are really struggling with everything that has been happening this year so I wanted to change the energy focus from negativity to positivity, Bortz said. That was the main goal and I think it worked.

Bortz, who worked as a nurse for 10 years, left the field last year to dive fully into her artwork. She isnt necessarily a chalk artist, but she has created many mandalas, which in Sanskrit means circle. Mandalas are spiritual artworks in Buddhist, Hindu and other cultures, symbolizing paths to enlightenment and healing.

Bortz has also been teaching about the process of mandalas for about a year at Ascension Studio OBX.

More here:

Huge chalk art project brings positivity to street on the Outer Banks - OBXToday.com

COVERSTORY

Episode 2

If the present age social, political and cultural make-up of Europe can be most directly attributed to any particular era in history, its the Age of Enlightenment. This roughly 18 Century time period also known as the Age of Reason is what shaped Europe as we know it today. After the long and reformative process of the Renaissance, Europe awaited another phase of turmoil and agony called the Reformation after which it was both ready and eager to change or in fact explode and then rebuild itself into a desired model of its ideals, a profound example of which can be found in the French Revolution.

The Reformation

Around the same time as the Renaissance period when new ideas were sprouting in the European society, a major religious rift drastically changed the united Christendom and the fate of Christianity forever. This was the time when the now familiar segregation between Catholics and Protestants took place. The Reformation Movement started when several learned men across the continent started pointing out and advocating against the Church and its corrupt practices.

The biggest and perhaps the most well-known hero of the Reformation is Martin Luther. Luther rejected many corrupt practices of the Catholic Church; sowing the seeds of the split in the largest religion of the world was a rather interesting one. The Church had a custom of selling indulgences. These indulgences were written documents or certificates which could be bought from the priests in order to gain forgiveness. The practice was common and even kings were bound to get themselves pardoned in exchange for money if they had committed any offences, according to the Church. Martin Luther, who was a monk and teacher at the University of Wittenberg, Germany. found this practice very misleading and spiritually incorrect. Through his personal education and understanding, he came to the conclusion that ones relationship with God depends on ones faith: faith in peoples heart and thus forgiveness couldnt be granted through a piece of paper. Luther believed that the religious lives of the Christians should be dictated by the scripture rather than by priestly authority.

When asked by the Pope to recant, Luther said: Unless I am convicted of error by the testimony of Scripture I cannot and will not retract . Here, I stand, God help me! On October 31, 1517 Luther published his ideas and views in the form of 95 points, historically known as 95 theses which became the guideline for the Protestant faith in Europe. The document became extremely popular thanks to the newly developed technology of the printing press. Protestant leaders were labelled as heretics and burned and executed, and their followers were openly persecuted. The word Protestant came from the act of protesting against the Church, hence the name.

England, under King Henry VIII, was the first kingdom to openly defy the Roman Catholic Church and declare itself protestant. Considering how deeply the Church was rooted in the socio-political structure of the European society, the changes brought by the Reformation were more political than religious or social. Soon afterwards, several kingdoms, one after another, converted to Protestantism, while a few like Spain, Portugal and Italy remained Catholic. The continent was ravaged with religiously motivated war and conflict as different sects took up arms against each other. Europe became a bunch of quarrelling states, a continent ready to tear itself apart. In fact, the time that followed is regarded by some as the bloodiest century in the history of Europe. It is an irony how more people were killed in the name of the religion of love than any other cause in history.

The Enlightenment

The Renaissance was an age of arts and new ideas. What it did was enrich the minds of intellectuals and philosophers, equip their minds with the elements necessary to translate it into actual change in society. The revolution and social transformation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a direct result of the Renaissance.

The overall attitude of the Age of Reason can be highlighted in one question: Why are the things the way they are? Society experienced a drastic change in mindset; there was a newfound urge to question everything, including the legitimacy of the absolute monarchs who claimed that their right to rule was a divinely ordained phenomenon. The most significant work that paved the way for the Enlightenment was The Encyclopedie. In the mid-18 Century, the French philosopher Denis Diderot invited many of his countrys leading intellectuals, literary men, scientists, scholars and philosophers for a rather remarkable project. The goal was to assemble all the knowledge scattered in the Earth into a huge Classified Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Trades, for which Diderot was editor-in-chief and a contributor. The first volumes appeared in 1751, and full work was completed 21 years later, comprising 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of illustrations. The Encyclopedie made huge quantity of relatively modern knowledge from every field of education easily accessible to the masses. The content of The Encyclopedie was a revolution in itself.

There was massive focus on reason and it paid a lot of attention to the practical sciences like trades and crafts that had a direct effect on the society. The articles reflected an overall air of rationality, the importance of observation and experimentation in science and the search for a way of organizing states and governments around natural law and justice. Surprisingly, there was no separate section for religion or theology which had been the major component of education and learning in Europe for more than a millennium. The subjects of God and the divine, the supernatural and the spiritual matters were discussed in other sections of sciences, history and philosophy, with little attention and focus. The whole work and its up-to-date and revolutionary ideas were a challenge to both the Catholic Church and the French monarchy, which relied on tradition and ignorance for their absolute authority. The works multidisciplinary articles distilled ideas and theories of Frances key Enlightenment thinkers including the legendary Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu. They argued about the universal truths and laws, set down by the doctrines of the church. For them, the evidence of the senses of a person and the use of reason was more important than blind faith. A Frenchman, Immanual Kant, when asked what enlightenment is, replied: Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!

One of the greatest writers and social activists of the Enlightenment was Francois-Marie Arouet, publically known as Voltaire. In fact, his influence can be imagined from the fact that sometimes the entire 18 Century is regarded as the Age of Voltaire. Though born and educated in France, Voltaire moved to London to publish his initial works which were refused to be published by the rigid French monarchy. He was a prolific writer, and an outspoken activist which often resulted in short spells of prison for him. The most popular of Voltaires ideas in todays world is the notion of individual freedom and liberalism. Actually, the obsession of todays western society with the idea of individualism and freedom can be attributed, to some extent, to this man. He was an advocate of religious tolerance and multiculturalism. A well-known quote by Voltaire is: I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Through his wit Voltaire conveyed his ideas across the common people and they were often perceived quite well.

In his remarkable novel Candide (1759), Voltaire suggests that the earthquake that had caused massive destruction in Lisbon four years earlier was due to natural phenomenon instead of Gods wrath over the wrongdoings of mankind, and perhaps we did not live in the best of all possible worlds. This was a new and revolutionary idea because since forever the Church had made people believe that the world that we live in and everything that occurs in it including the social hierarchy, the royalty of the royals, the nobles nobility and tyranny of the peasants was according to a perfect and divine social order. The power of Voltaires work can also be imagined from the fact that even today, the world views some things as depicted through Voltaires pen. When he was residing in England, Voltaire came across the work of Newton, and was particularly mesmerized by his theory of gravitation. At the same time Newton was quite poorly known in France and the rest of the world and Voltaire knew just how to make his message popular among the masses. Hence came the story of the apple falling on Newtons head. Voltaire heard the story from Newtons niece and decided to stick with it; thankfully he skipped the mathematical details of gravitation.

Link:

The birth of modern Europe - The News International

Prior to hisspiritual awakening, NLE Choppa was running around in the streets, rapping violent lyrics and living a fast lifestyle. In a short year, he's charged everything surrounding his lifestyle, seeking a more sustainable life.

The 18-year-old rapper has a vegetable garden in his backyard now and he's been doing tons of reading to educate himself on a "new world forming". While his ideas sometimes sound like those of a rambling conspiracy theorist, he's definitely on the path to enlightenment, which is nice to bear witness to.

In a new video interview with The Shade Room, which was filmed in the midst of his spiritual journey, NLE Choppa spoke about an array of topics surrounding his career, including women.

The interviewer asked him about his relationships, wondering how old his limit is when it comes to the ladies. Apparently, Choppa doesn't have much of a care, responding that, when he was just 16-years-old, he was dating a 46-year-old woman.

He realizes that the 30-year age gap is pretty extreme, but he doesn't seem regretful of it.

"She was bad, though!" exclaimed NLE Choppa. "I could have been her son's son! I don't wanna show you no pictures but if I was to show you a picture, you'd think she was 22. No surgery, no nothing. Just natural Black beauty. Black don't crack."

If this were the other way around, people would be trying to find the woman's identity. Do you think this is too large of an age gap?

Original post:

NLE Choppa Dated A 46-Year-Old Woman When He Was 16 - HotNewHipHop

No, the headline is not because Joe Biden was declared as the next President of the United States on Saturday; it is because Joe Biden needs to restore tranquility, decency, and a spirit for caring about one another back into the American people. Joes going to need Gods help and His grace to do that.

Actually, that prophecy if thats not too strong a word was delivered almost 25 years ago when Billy Graham was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. America has gone a long way down the wrong road. We must turn around and go back and change roads. If ever we needed God's help, it is now!"

Ive always been a big believer in the wisdom, If God brings you to it, God will get you through it, and when Biden became our president yesterday, regardless how it all happened to come about, folks like me pray hell turn out to be a dandy.

On Nov.

For instance, on Election Day he explained why America has no king:

* * *

A DEMOCRACY IS WHERE THE CITIZENS ARE KING

(NOTE: This is an excerpt from an article, Who is King in America? Not to Vote is to Abdicate the Throne! The Lord hold accountable! This article appears on The American Minute with Bill Federer on americanminute.com) November 3, 2020)

W.D. Ross wrote in Aristotle (London, Methuen, 1937, p. 247): "Aristotle's ... citizen is not content to have a say in the choosing of his rulers; every citizen is actually to rule ... not merely in the sense of being a member of the executive, but in the sense ... of helping to make the laws of his state."

The word "demos" means "people" and "cracy" means "to rule." A "democracy" is where the citizens are king - ruling directly. The word "democracy," in the broad sense, generally refers to people being involved in ruling, but as a specific political system, "democracy" only ever worked on a small, city-wide basis, where everyone could be present at every meeting.

Larger than a city, it broke down, as not every citizen could be there every day. A "republic" is where the citizens are king, ruling indirectly, through their representatives. Republics could grow larger, as citizens could take care of their families and farms, and send representatives in their place to go to the market every day to talk politics.

Americans pledge allegiance to the flag "and to the republic for which it stands." We are basically pledging allegiance to us being in charge of ourselves. Webster's 1828 Dictionary defined "REPUBLIC" as: "A state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by THE PEOPLE."

When someone protests the flag, they are effectively saying, "I don't want to be king anymore - I protest this system where the people rule themselves."

A "constitutional" republic is where a constitution lays out the rules of how to elect representatives, what their functions are, and what are the limitations of their power.

The experiment of an American republic began at a time when most of the world was ruled by kings, sultans, emperors, czars, and chieftains.

Nearly a century before Europe's "Age of Enlightenment," Pilgrims and Puritans fled from the King of England to settle New England.

In 1636, a Congregational minister, Rev. Thomas Hooker, and his church, fled again from Puritan Massachusetts to found Hartford, Connecticut. His church members asked him to preach a sermon on how they should set up their government.

Rev. Hooker preached a sermon, May 31, 1638, explaining:

"Deuteronomy 1:13 'CHOOSE YOU wise men and understanding and known among your tribes and I will make them heads over you captains over thousands, captains over hundreds, fifties, tens ...'"

Rev. Hooker continued:

"The choice of public magistrates belongs unto THE PEOPLE by Gods own allowance ... The privilege of election ... belongs to THE PEOPLE ... according to the blessed will and law of God ... They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates it is in their power also to set the bounds and limits of the power and places unto which they call them ...

The foundation of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of THE PEOPLE."

* * *

So, you see, the American PEOPLE just chose Joe Biden as our new leader. My loyalty is neither Republican nor Democrat -- It is to the American people. I am assured the world will not come to some fiery end with our new president and have found in my 71 years weve gotten along pretty well no matter who is in charge. I believe Mr. Trump accomplished a great deal and, with our political structure being what it is, I hope Mr. Biden will be equally a success.

The best way to look ahead comes from Wednesdays American Minute on the man who became Americas Preacher, Billy Graham. The fabled crusader preached to live audiences of over in person 210 million people in more than 185 countries during his lifetime, leading an estimated 3.2 million souls to Christ. All told, with television and other outlets, his voice was held by over 3 billion (with a b) people. Graham died Feb. 31, 2018, after being placed on Gallups list of Most Admired Men and Women in America for a record 61 times

* * *

GOD TELLS US TO SEEK THE PEACE

(NOTE: This article, titled, America has gone a long way down the wrong road. We must turn around ... If ever we needed God's help, it is now!" appeared on the americanminute.com site on Nov. 4, 2020.)

Born November in 1918, Billy Graham wanted to be a baseball player, but in 1934, after attending a revival at age 16, his life changed. Billy Graham became an evangelist in the 1940s.

He proclaimed: "All are sinners and stand under the judgment of God ... Christ came to make forgiveness and salvation possible. What did He do? He died on the cross as the complete sacrifice for our sins. He took upon Himself the judgment that we deserve ...

But like any gift, it becomes ours only when we take it ... I may say that I believe a bridge will hold my weight. But I really believe it only when I commit myself to it and walk across it.

Saving faith involves an act of commitment and trust, in which I commit my life to Jesus Christ and trust Him alone as my Savior and Lord."

He added: "Yes, it costs to follow Christ. But it also costs not to follow Christ."

Billy Graham personally addressed crowds of over 210 million people in 185 countries, which is more than any other person in history.

Through his radio and television programs, he reached over 2.5 billion with the Gospel. He repudiated racial segregation and insisted on racial integration at all his crusades. At his New York City revival in 1957, he invited Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to preach.

Graham wrote in his autobiography: "One night civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom I was pleased to count a friend, gave an eloquent opening prayer at the service; he also came at my invitation to one of our Team retreats during the Crusade to help us understand the racial situation in America more fully."

Becoming friends, Billy Graham shared a conversation with Rev. King:

"His father, who was called Big Mike, called him Little Mike. He asked me to call him just plain Mike." Rev. King credited Billy Graham with reducing racial tension, as Graham even canceled a 1965 tour of Europe to preach crusades in Alabama, allowing the Gospel to bring healing between the races.

Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote:

"Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the Civil Rights Movement would not have been as successful as it has been."

Billy Graham stated:

"Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe. Christianity is not a white man's religion, and don't let anybody ever tell you that it's white or black. Christ belongs to all people; He belongs to the whole world."

Graham wrote:

"My study of the Bible, leading me eventually to the conclusion that not only was racial inequality wrong, but Christians especially should demonstrate love toward all peoples."

President Bill Clinton addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, February 4, 1993: "The first time I ever saw Billy Graham ... he came in the 1950's, in the heat of all our racial trouble, to Arkansas to have a crusade. And the white citizens council tried to get him, because of the tensions of the moment, to agree to segregate his crusade ... He said, 'If I have to do that, I'm not coming.'

And I remember, said Clinton, I got a Sunday school teacher in my church - and I was about 11 years old - to take me 50 miles to Little Rock so I could hear a man preach who was trying to live by what he said. And then I remember, for a good while thereafter, trying to send a little bit of my allowance to the Billy Graham crusade because of the impression he made on me."

On January 20, 1997, Rev. Billy Graham delivered the invocation just prior to the Second Inauguration of President Bill Clinton, stating:

"Oh, Lord, help us to be reconciled first to you and secondly to each other. May Dr. Martin Luther King's dream finally come true for all of us. Help us to learn our courtesy to our fellow countrymen, that comes from the one who taught us that 'whatever you want me to do to you, do also to them."

Billy Graham had an unprecedented access and influence on every U.S. President from 1950 to his death in 2018:

President Truman;

President Eisenhower;

President Kennedy;

President Johnson;

President Nixon;

President Ford;

President Carter;

President Reagan;

President George H.W. Bush;

President Clinton;

President George W. Bush;

President Obama; and

President Trump.

In 1986, Chaplain of the U.S. Senate Richard Halverson stated: "When Billy Graham comes to the Capitol, suddenly, the Senate and Congress are unimportant. To me, it's a miracle. Wherever Billy is, there is the gospel of Christ."

He was friends with Queen Elizabeth II, Pope John Paul II, and innumerable leaders around the world. He lauded Pope John Paul II's 11th papal encyclical, titled "Evangelium Vitae" (Gospel of Life), issued April of 1995, as: "A forceful and thoughtful defense of the sacredness of human life in the face of the modern world's reckless march toward violence and needless death."

At a news conference, March 21, 1956, President Eisenhower stated: "This is what I see in Billy Graham - A man who clearly understands that any advance in the world has got to be accompanied by a clear realization that man is, after all, a spiritual being."

John F. Kennedy told the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, March 1, 1962: "We bear great responsibilities and great burdens not only to ourselves in this country but to so many around the world ... I commend ... Reverend Billy Graham, who has served this cause about which I speak so well here and around the world.

He has, I think, said Kennedy, transmitted this most important quality of our common commitments to faith in a way which makes all of us particularly proud."

Ronald Reagan introduced Billy Graham at a California rally, stating: Why is a representative of government here? To welcome with humble pride a man whose mission in life has been to remind us that in all our seeking ... the answer to each problem is to be found in the simple words of Jesus of Nazareth, who urged us to love one another."

Graham stated: "In a world that might say one vote doesnt matter it does matter because each person is of infinite worth and value to God Your vote is a declaration of importance as a person and a citizen."

In answering a question about voting, Billy Graham stated, July 28, 2016: "The Bible says we should do everything we possibly can to be good citizens and work for the betterment of our society, and one of the ways we can do this is by voting. God tells us to 'seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you' (Jeremiah 29:7).

Rightly or wrongly, you say youre disillusioned by what you see in politics today. But how will it be changed? Let me tell you how it wont be changed: It wont be changed if concerned people refuse to vote!

... It also wont be changed if good people refuse to run for office, or if no one votes for them. In other words, staying away from the voting booth may only perpetuate the problems you see. Although this election has passed, dont let another one go by without your intelligent involvement ... Christians in the first century didnt have the privilege of voting; Caesar was a dictator, not elected by popular vote.

But those early believers were commanded to do the one thing they could do to make the world a better place, Dr. Graham explained, They were told to pray. The Apostle Paul wrote, 'I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all peoplefor kings and all those in authority' (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

Our world will never be perfectnot until Christ returns. But in the meantime, God wants to use us to overcome sin and establish a more just world for His glory."

Rev. Graham added: "Bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote."

Upon receiving the Congressional Gold Medal, May 2, 1996, Billy Graham continued his message, "The Hope for America": "After World War II ... we had the opportunity to rule the world ... Something has happened since those days and there is much about America that is no longer good ... the list is almost endless ... We have confused liberty with license - and we are paying the awful price. We are a society poised on the brink of self-destruction ..."

Rev. Graham continued: "What is the problem? The real problem is within ourselves ... I believe the fundamental crisis of our time is a crisis of the spirit. We have lost sight of the moral and spiritual principles on which this nation was established - principles drawn largely from the Judeo-Christian tradition as found in the Bible ...

What must be done? Let me briefly suggest three things: First, we must repent. In the depths of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln called for special days of public repentance and prayer. Our need for repentance is no less today ..."

He explained further: What does repentance mean?

Repentance means to change our thinking and our way of living. It means to turn from our sins and to commit ourselves to God and His will. Over 2,700 years ago the Old Testament prophet Isaiah declared, 'Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the evil man his thoughts.

Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon' (Isaiah 55: 6-7, NIV) ..."

Graham continued: "Second, we must commit our lives to God, and to the moral and spiritual truths that have made this nation great. Think how different our nation would be if we sought to follow the simple and yet profound injunctions of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. But we must respond to God, Who is offering us forgiveness, mercy, supernatural help, and the power to change ..."

Rev. Graham concluded: "Third, our commitment must be translated into action - in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in our society. Jesus taught there are only two roads in life. One in the broad road that is easy and well-traveled, but which leads to destruction ... The other, He said, is the narrow road of truth and faith that at times is hard and lonely, but which leads to life and salvation ...

What are YOU going to do? ...

As I look out across this distinguished group gathered here, I see more than a few men and women who have what it takes, under God, to lead our country forward 'through the night'"

After the terrorist attacks of 911, Billy Graham prayed with national leaders, stating: "We are more united than ever before. I think this was exemplified in a very moving way when the members of our Congress stood shoulder to shoulder the other day and sang God Bless America.

Rev. Billy Graham gave a sober warning on October 27, 2015:

"In the event of a national catastrophe, much confusion, terror, and consternation would reign ... Suppose persecution were to come to the church in America, as it has come in other countries. The immunity to persecution that Christians in our country have experienced in the past two or three centuries is unusual.

Christ strongly warned Christians that to follow Him would not be popular, and that in most circumstances it would mean cross-bearing and persecution. The Bible says that all who 'desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution' (2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus said that as the time of His return draws nigh, 'They will seize you and persecute you' (Luke 21:12).

We have no scriptural foundation for believing that we can forever escape being persecuted for Christ's sake. The normal condition for Christians is that we should suffer persecution. Are you willing to face persecution and death for Christ's sake?"

He continued: "Since we have experienced little religious persecution in this country, it is likely that under pressure many would deny Christ. Those who shout the loudest about their faith may surrender soonest.

Many who boast of being courageous would be cowardly. Many who say, 'Though all others deny Christ, yet I will never deny Him,' would be the first to warm their hands at the campfires of the enemy. Jesus, in speaking of the last times, warned, 'Then they will hand you over to be persecuted and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake' (Matthew 24:9). The Scripture says, 'because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold' (Matthew 24:12).

The apostle Paul, referring to the coming evil day, said, 'Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done all, to stand' (Ephesians 6:13) ..."

He explained further: "Even though most Americans see the storm clouds gathering on the horizon, by and large we are making few preparations to meet God. This is a time for repentance and faith. It is a time for soul-searching, to see if our anchor holds.

Have you been to the cross where Christ shed His blood for your sins? Have you had the past forgiven? Have you come by faith, confessing that you are a sinner and receiving Christ as your Savior?

I tell you that this cross is the only place of refuge in the midst of the storm of judgment that is fast approaching. Make sure of your relationship with God ..."

Billy Graham concluded: "We must fortify ourselves by meditating upon the person of Christ ... Christ must be vitally real to us if we are to prove loyal to Him in the hours of crisis. Today our nation ranks as the greatest power on the face of the earth. But if we put our trust in armed might instead of Almighty God, the coming conflict could conceivably go against us.

History and the Bible indicate that mechanical and material might are insufficient in times of great crisis ... We need the inner strength that comes from a personal, vital relationship with God's Son, Jesus Christ. The wheels of God's judgment can be heard by discerning souls across the length and breadth of nations.

Things are happening fast! The need for a return to God has never been more urgent.

The words of Isaiah are appropriate for us today: 'Seek the Lord while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.'"

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