Tag Archive | love

Ash Wednesday – Returning

Feb22

Even now, says the Lord,

Return to me with your whole heart.

Joel 2:12-18

A Lenten Invitation

I love the scripture passage above from the prophet Joel.  This is the first line of the first reading proclaimed during the Ash Wednesday mass….ushering in the annual observance of Lent.  I’m not sure there are any better words to describe what Lent can be for us – returning to God with our whole hearts!

Our Forgetfulness

We are a forgetful people.  In our choice to experience the human condition, we temporarily forgot our original state in Oneness with God.  We forgot the peace, the love and the joy that define our Origin in God and as such, we live in a state of fear.  This fear which arises out of our false perception of separation from God is what creates the suffering that we experience in the human condition.  Out of this fear, we behave in ways that are unloving, unkind, covetous, jealous, wrathful and unjust…and we suffer the consequences of these actions (not because God is punishing us, but because that is just the way things are).  In this state of fear, we often believe, “Life sucks and then you die,” or we project these fears onto God falsely believing that we have to earn our way back to “heaven” and that there is some magical formula (certain prayers, rituals, sacraments, acts of service, pentitential acts) that will get us back home.  The good news is that there is really only one things we need to do…..and that is to REMEMBER!

Returning and Remembering

I know this is easier said than done, but in order to reclaim our original nature as loving, peaceful, joyful creatures, all we need to do is to REMEMBER.  And the quickest way I have found to remember the love, the joy and the peace that we are is to turn to God.  Now, I don’t mean the head bowed in penitence turning to God….I mean the heart wide-opened, arms spread wide, joyful acceptance of the loving magnificence of God.  And, there are many tools to help facilitate this turning…..prayer, devotion, worship, meditation, contemplation, love making, being in nature, mindfulness, acts of service, singing and chant, listening to music, participating in creative endeavors.  All of these activities, when directed toward our returning to God, help us to Remember.  When we REMEMBER God as love…..then we also REMEMBER ourselves as love and we have accomplished what Joel invites us to do - return to God with our whole heart.

What Are You Waiting For?

While we can get to this business of remembering and returning anytime we wish, Lent is a great excuse for giving extra attention to this endeavor.  So, if you are interested in experiencing deeper peace, greater love and more joy in your life…..what are you waiting for?  If you don’t already have a spiritual practice….start one (See the new Tab on this Website – “Meditation tips” for help on getting started.) and if you have one already….do it more.

What activities are you already doing that give you peace, help you experience love or joy?

How are you being invited to utilize these activities as a spiritual practice with the intention of remembering your original nature as love, peace and joy?

How are you being invited to begin or deepen your existing spiritual practice?

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Let’s Talk About Love

Feb14

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!  Today is the day when our thoughts turn to love.  Let’s talk about love, shall we?

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

As much as all the hopeless romantics out there (me included) want to believe it, there is no handsome prince or knight in shining armour “out there” who is going to make us happy, content, complete.  Jerry MacGuire is a lie and everytime I see the clip with Renee Zellweger chanting, “You complete me,” I want to reach out and slap her upside the head.  All these fairytale ideas of love do for us (men and women included), is impose pressure on our would-be suitors to be perfect, and to fill the bottomless pit of need that most of us carry around for most of our life’s journeys.  Because there is no person on the planet that is perfect or who can fill that emptiness inside, all we get is the on-going cycle of disappointment and resentment that eventually leads to the death of our relationships.  We are all the victims and the losers in this culture of co-dependency that we have so enthusiastically cultivated.

Understanding Love

Part of our culture’s problem with love is that we have somehow come to believe that love is a commodity.  We believe that love is something we can “give” to another and something we can “get” from another.  We have been taught that love is something we have to earn (because of our inherent unworthiness) and that there is a constant threat that love will be taken away.  And then we did something really unfortunate, and that was to project our conditional understanding of love onto God.  Now God’s love has to be earned and God’s love can be taken away….and it most likely will be because we are inherently bad because of that little party in the Garden with the serpent, the naked man and woman and that darn piece of fruit.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

As I see it, there is one cause and one remedy to our messed up understanding of love.  The cause is that place inside of us that says we aren’t worthy of love.  More directly, it is that place inside of us where we have forgotten that LOVE is our original nature…LOVE is who and what we are….is does not have to be earned, neither can it be taken away….it just is.  When we remember that LOVE is who we are, then we are happy, content, whole and complete within ourselves and we stop looking for that magic someone who will make us feel “all better.”  The question, however, is how do we remember that LOVE is who and what we are?  For those raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, that journey sometimes begins by healing our images of God.  We have to undo the religious dogma that tells us that we have been banished from the Garden and that our life journey is now about earning back God’s fickle love.  We have to rediscover the God of Psalm 139 and the God of the story of the Prodigal Son – a God that loves us without condition….that welcomes us home with open arms, that accepts our unripeness and loves us for who we are.  As we come to know the love of God more fully, we can then begin the process of rediscovering the Love that we are that can only be found within.  And that Love, is found in sound spiritual practice – meditation, creative endeavors, body prayer, contemplation, reading and reflecting on scripture, mantra, chant, works of service and love.  As we cultivate a sound spiritual practice, we begin to connect with and rediscover the Love that we are ….the Love that lies deep within us in our hearts.  When we discover and cultivate this connection to the Love that dwells within…..then we KNOW the love that we are and we live that love freely and fully within the world.

How Love Transforms our Relationships

Now….here is where the magic really happens.  When we take the time to REMEMBER the LOVE that we Are….it changes how we approach our human call to partnership and intimacy.  Instead of looking outside of us for the person who will “complete” us, we draw to ourselves the person that ALSO remembers the love that they are.  Now we have two complete, content, happy individuals, who choose to come together to be the love that they are for one another and for the world.  We aren’t looking for that person to fill us.  Instead, we stand content side by side being the love that we are and being loving toward eachother because the love that we are flows naturally out of us.  No longer are we loving for the sake of manipulation….for approval or to get something back.  We love because it is who we are and all we can do.

Happy Valentine’s Day

So, this is my Valentine’s wish for all of us:

  • That we gift ourselves with the time and the tools to REMEMBER the LOVE that we are.
  • That we joyfully live that love in the world
  • And for those who are so-called, that they discover a healthy partnership rooted in the mutual love, honoring and respect that arises out of two individuals who have Remembered the Love that They Are…..

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

What Churches Refuse to Give us, Why and Where we Might Find it

Feb9

Today’s blog explores the topic of spiritual hunger and the tools that help to satisfy that hunger and why many, if not most, churches fail to give us what we really need.

Our Deepest Longing

In my nearly twenty years of ministry work, I have identified one desire that is common among every single person to whom I have ministered and I suspect is common among every single human being that walks this planet.  This desire is to KNOW they are LOVED.  No matter how confident we might seem to be, or successful, or popular or at peace…there is still a very deep longing to know that we are loved and that we are loved exactly for who and what we are….infinitely and without condition.  This longing to be loved is what drives us to seek fulfillment of this love in our life, our work, our relationships and our life experiences.  We begin by seeking for this love outside of us, but what I have discovered is that we can only find the fulfillment of that desire to be loved when we come to know the Love that we are within ourselves.

The Cause of the Longing for Love

While there are a bazillion books and self-help gurus who profess to know how to help us cultivate self-love, the truth is that the cause for this longing to know love is spiritual.  While books and counseling and inspirational seminars may help us heal some of the outside messages that told us we are not loved and may help us unlearn some of the negative self-talk we have developed as a result of these outside messages, the only place to realize the fulfillment of this longing for love is deep within ourselves in the connection with that which some might call “God.” Here’s where it gets messy.  “God” has become a dangerous word, polluted by religious institutions who out of their own unhealed wounds around love, have made God out to be this gastly beast who is judgmental, vengeful, fickle and whose love has to be earned and can be taken away.  What these institutions have forgotten is that God is the very nature of Love itself and that we are made out of that Love.  Because Love is our very nature and because we are the very expression of God as Love, love does not have to be earned, neither can it be taken away.  Love simply is…..and we are driven by a longing within to remember this truth.  Unfortunately there is no magic pill to remembering this love and there is no predictable timeframe.  The recollection of this love happens in a mysterious and magical way and is nothing short of Grace.   There are, however, things we can do to help facilitate this process and allow us to open to Grace….and that is called Spiritual Formation.

What the churches won’t give us

I am hopeful that there are churches out there who are exceptions to this rule.  But, by and large, Spiritual Formation – the tools for helping us remember the love that we are, is the thing that most churches refuse to give us.  Spiritual Formation is defined by tools that empower us to answer these three questions:

  • Who am I?
  • Whose am I?
  • What are my gifts and how am I being called to share them in the world

In a nutshell, sound spiritual formation empowers us to remember the love that we are and to find fulfilling ways to share that love in the world for the benefit of humankind.  You would think that churches would be enthusiastically sharing these tools with us, right?  Wrong.  And here is why:

  • Sound Spiritual Formation empowers us to remember that God is love.  Period.  If God is Love, then where is there room for dogma and doctrine that tells us what we need to do to earn our way into God’s love?  If God is Love, what happened in the Garden with the snake, the apple and the sinful couple?  If God is Love…then what is sin?  Got the picture?
  • Sound Spiritual Formation invites us to seek, explore, discover and challenge.  How many churches are open and supportive of their people seeking, exploring……challenging?
  • Sound Spiritual Formation invites us to KNOW the God within our heart…..and in coming to know God, we learn that there is only one Absolute truth and all other “truths” (especially religious truths) are up for discussion.

It’s getting pretty dangerous, wouldn’t you say?  So you can see why many churches are reluctant to share these tools with the uppity lay people in the pew.  Not to mention, MOST churches are not even aware of these tools because sometime during the Reformation (1500 something or other), these tools were gathered up and locked away in Catholic Monasteries where only monks and nuns had access to them.  Only recently have these tools become more readily available and accessible….but sadly, few of these resources have found their way into the hands of “the faithful.”

The Agape’ Project

Here is where I get involved.   In my ministry training, I had the great fortune of learning these tools and for the past almost twenty years, have made these tools part of my daily practice and shared them in my public ministry.  Now it is time for these tools to be available to EVERYONE!  These are the tools that I have already shared in both of my books, Authentic Freedom and Christouch.  And now, I share these tools through a little venture I call The Agape’ Project.  (agape’ is the Greek word that reflects our understanding of God as Love….infinite, unconditional and without regard to merit).  The Agape’ Project makes these tools available through a weekly newsletter that will include scripture readings as well as tools for sound spiritual formation.  This morning, I launched the pilot release of this product to a dozen brave souls who are willing to make a commitment to Remembering the Love that They Are through adherence to sound spiritual practice.  If you are interested in learning more about this project, click HERE.  The goal of the Agape’ Project is to empower people through tools of sound spiritual formation to Remember the Love that They Are and in doing so, to help make the world a better place!

Do you long to remember Love as your original nature?

Do you long to remember your connection to the deepest Source of that Love?

How are you being invited to seek, explore, discover, challenge?

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

You Are Loved

Jan23

In today’s blog I share with you the words that came to me during my yoga practice yesterday morning.  I believe these are words for all of us!

Worthiness and Love

Of late, I have been reflecting on worthiness – specifically worthiness of being loved.  This love is of course about our intimate human relationships, AND I know at the deepest core of my being, that this worthiness is ultimately about Divine Love and our ability to believe we are loved unconditionally, infinitely and beyond measure.  As in worthiness of human love, we might hear that God loves us, but do we actually believe it?  Most of the time and for most human beings, I would say the answer is “NO.”  And what I have learned is that until we not only hear this love, but believe in it….with our whole hearts and souls, we are without peace, joy, compassion, mercy and fulfillment.  In other words, it is in REMEMBERING the LOVE that WE ARE…..that we find peace, contentment and joy.

God Speaks

So I showed up for yoga class yesterday morning with these thoughts wrapped around my aura.  Before beginning class, our instructor usually invites us to state within ourselves an intention for our practice.  I didn’t have a specific intention for the morning, so I simply sat in silence, waiting.  Then, clear as a bell, I hear God speak.  And this is what God said to me, “You are my beloved daughter, and with you I am well pleased.”  Yeah, Yeah….I know this is scriptural….and that it comes from the scriptural narratives about Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John.  And…..I also believe these are not only God’s words for Jesus….but are God’s words for us as well.  And…..hearing these words yesterday made me wonder, “Is this the truth Jesus had to hear, know, embrace and embody before he could embark upon his own healing ministry?”  I think perhaps it is!  So I used these words as a mantra during my yoga practice and allowed myself to not only hear these words, but begin to believe them.   And in being present to these words, I felt peaceful, joyful, grounded and secure.

My Prayer for You

So, here is my prayer/invitation for you today – that you take these words, You Are my Beloved Daughter/Son, and with You I am Well Pleased – imagine that God is saying these words directly to and about you……and believe that God is addressing you in this way.  Then, let your heart be open to hearing, believing, embracing and embodying this truth…..BECAUSE…….YOU ARE LOVE…..YOU ARE LOVED…..YOU ARE WORTHY….And the quicker you know this….the quicker you will know peace, contentment, fulfillment and joy!

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

The Video That Changed My Life!

Jan19

In today’s blog, I share with you a tidbit of wisdom that I found by accident in a video….and this tidbit of wisdom, in one moment, has profoundly changed my life. 

Brene Brown http:://www.brenebrown.com

The Video

Before I even begin, here is a link to the video that in ONE SECOND profoundly changed my life:  http://www.mattmorris.com/general/motivational-monday-66/ .  This video is a talk given by Brene Brown, LMSW, research professor, author, motivational speaker and writer of the Ordinary Courage blog.  The video covers a range of topics, all centered on our need as humans for connection and what either allows or disallows us from getting this need met.  In a nutshell – worthiness.  This was the wisdom nugget that brought me to my knees and shattered all the illusions I had been carrying around within me about myself and my perception of the world.

I am Worthy of Love and Belonging

Through years of research, Brene has identified ONE quality that determines our ability as human beings to find and sustain healthy, intimate connections and to weather the challenges of the human condition.  The belief that she has identified is I am worthy of love and belonging. Those people who believe this, find, cultivate and sustain healthy, intimate connections, have a strong sense of inner courage and are able to weather the storms of the human condition.  Those who struggle, she found, do so because they do not believe that they are worthy of love and belonging.

Yada Yada Yada

So, what is Lauri Lumby, Spiritual Director, Author, Minister, Teacher, Healer, Mother, Friend doing spending time on this topic?  Of course I believe that I am worthy of love and belonging….right?  WRONG!!!!!    This was why Brene’s video brought me to my knees.  When she shared the results of her research, distilled into this tiny truth…..my heart broke open, I fell to the floor, and I started bawling.  I suddenly realized that no, I did not believe this truth.  I did not believe that I was worthy of love and I did not believe that I was worthy of belonging.  Then suddenly, with this tiny revelation, my entire life began to make sense – specifically, those aspects of my life with which I have struggled ….. things with which I have struggled for as far back as I could remember.

For Example

One thing I have learned is that there is a profound, yet subtle difference between knowing something and knowing something.  I have always known I was loved, worthy of love, worthy of belonging, worthy of a fruitful, happy, fulfilling life.  Turns out, however, that I only knew it.  I did not KNOW it.  As I listened to Brene’s talk, I realized that all of my struggles for healthy intimacy, a sense of belonging, for inner strength and courage, for inner contentment and for professional as well as financial success was rooted in the cold, hard fact that I thought I knew I was worthy of love, belonging, professional and financial success…..but I did not KNOW it.  Somewhere deep in my heart, I still felt undeserving of love, belonging, professional and financial success.  As such, I have struggled.  I have struggled so hard, in fact, that just yesterday, before viewing Brene’s video, I was relaying to a friend how damn tired I was from working so dang hard just to survive in the world and to eek out a meager existence for myself and my family.  Life, to me, has always felt like REALLY HARD work and now I believe that the reason it has felt like so much work is because I was in truth, working against myself.  I was working, working, working for fulfillment, healthy intimacy, belonging, professional and financial success while on some level, I didn’t really believe I was worthy of any of it.  So even if a tiny bit of success found its way into my life or I was shown a gesture of love or generosity, my response has always been a mixture of gratitude, with one hand up pushing it away because I did not really feel worthy.  I always thought this response was humility….not I know it was really me rejecting that which I didn’t believe I was worthy of receiving in the first place.  Holy Cow this was deep!

Now What?

So, now what do I do with this awareness?  In truth – nothing.  I felt my heart break open and I spilled tears of release and relief.  I believe that in that heart-rending moment, something in me was profoundly healed and transformed.  I now understand why my life has felt like such a struggle.  And now I really believe that I KNOW that I am worthy of love and belonging.  The rest will take care of itself.

Do you KNOW that you are worthy of love and belonging?

How might you be open to KNOWING this truth?

What in your life has been a struggle because you might not have known this truth?

How might your life begin to change if you were to KNOW this truth?

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Finding our Purpose and Sharing it

Nov24

The common search of the human experience is the search for meaning and purpose.  Why am I here?  What am I supposed to do?  We are driven through restlessness and discontent to seek the answers to these questions until we find them.  Once we find the answer to these questions, we have no choice but to share it.   So….here goes!

 

A Thorn in Your Side

For as long as I can consciously remember, I have been searching.  Troubled by the suffering of the human condition, and confused by the ways in which humans keep waging war, injustice, poverty, etc. I was compelled to ask the difficult questions and urged to want to do something about it.  This search has caused me to be a thorn in the side of parents, educators, religious authorities, employers, friends and even myself.   ”Why can’t you just put up and shut up,” seemed to be the collective response to all my seeking.  Alas, no matter how I tried to just be content with what is, I found I could not.  So, I kept seeking.  Along the way, I thought I had found my purpose – first to just make money in corporate America, then to lead people to God, then to reform the Catholic Church, then to write a best-selling spiritual self-help book.   Ha….none of these “purposes” proved to be quite right.  But I kept searching.  Then last week, I was hit between the eyes with a vision that showed me in the simplest words why I was put on this ball of mud in the first place.  And it could not be any simpler.

 

Finding Purpose

So, the words that were spoken to me in vision and in the silence of my heart:

“Lauri, you are here to help people remember the love that they are.”

Wow….it could not be any simpler than that!  These words encompass my greatest desire, my highest hopes for humanity and enfold and embrace all the work I have done in the past 46+ years on this planet.  This is all I have ever wanted….for each and every human being to know they are love and to act accordingly.  PERIOD!

 Sharing it

So, on this day that we set aside for giving Thanks…..here is my prayer for you.  My hope, my dream, my desire, my prayer for you is that you REMEMBER that you are love.  That you KNOW that you are love.  And that you know this love so profoundly that you have no choice but to live that out in the world….and in doing so, that you are reminding others of the love that they are.

 

The Truth We Used to Know

And here’s the funny thing about this wish.  Each and every one of us were born into the world KNOWING this truth.  We knew that we were love and could do nothing but reflect that love out into the world.  But then something happened.  Somehow that love got taught out of us – starting with the trauma of birth, then through unwitting parents who had forgotten their own love, then through teachers, other human beings, religious authorities, the world in general, we forgot this love.  But, no matter how bad our childhoods might have been, we never totally forgot this love….it shined like a sparkling star somewhere deep in our heart calling out to us, “Remember…Remember”.  This sparkling star is what sends us on this search in the first place – through restlessness and discontent, through questioning and seeking, we are compelled to find, reclaim and remember this love.  So, I am here to remind you….YOU ARE LOVE……you never stopped being love and nobody can take that love away from you….NO EVEN GOD!  So, if you don’t yet remember this love….KEEP SEEKING…..Ask the difficult questions, grieve the losses and disappointments, allow your broken heart to be healed, be loving toward yourself, treat yourself as you are love and sooner or later, you will start to remember….and when you do MIRACLES will start to happen!  I promise!

Happy Thanksgiving

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Love or Fear? The Choice is Yours

Nov4

Today’s blog is inspired by a series of events and experiences that I have observed and confirmed by the following article on the coming of “the Age of Aquarius”  http://www.3ho.org/ecommunity/2011/09/the-aquarian-shift-what-will-be-different-about-our-world-after-november-11-2011/.  Whether you believe in the idea of a galactic shift or not, we are each given, in every moment of every day the opportunity to choose our life. Do we choose love and truth or fear?  The choice is ours….and the time to choose is NOW!

Mystic Crystal Revelations

Every single spiritual master that has graced this fair planet (Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, The Buddha, The Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, St. Francis, Osho, Swami Rama, Yogananda, etc. etc. etc. ) attained the same understanding:  “All we need is love.”  Then they went out to share this truth with the world.  These teachers acknowledged THE common longing among human beings….and that is the longing to know love and to know peace.  Fear, they knew was the obstacle to knowing peace and love, and they shared with their students (and the rest of the world with them) specific tools for healing and releasing fear so that all could know the joyful contentment they had come to know within themselves.

And the Minds True Liberation

The key to knowing the love and the peace known by these spiritual masters is CHOICE!  And it is a matter of CHOICE.  Because of the nature of the human condition, peace and love are not likely to show up on their own.  Yes, we have fleeting glimpses of the love and the peace that we are, without ever picking up a spiritual text or engaging in a spiritual practice.  If, however, we want peace and love that will endure and if we want to more forward in our human journey in spite of the reality of fear, then we have to CHOOSE peace and love.  It is in choosing love over fear, truth over ego, peace over anxiety, joy over despair that we are liberated from the bondage of the human condition.  We find freedom when we choose love.  We find expansiveness when we know joy.  We find contentment when we cultivate peace.

Then Peace Will Guide the Planets and Love Will Steer the Stars

According to those that follow the science of astrology, November 11, 2011 marks the beginning of “The Age of Aquarius.”  Whether or not we believe in the “prophecies” about the significance of this planetary line up, one message is clear and it is clear for all of eternity……the time to choose is NOW.  If you want love, peace, joy, harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding, no more falsehood or derision…..CHOOSE IT!  Stop allowing fear to run your life.  Choose love.  Choose peace.  Choose joy.  And support that choice through sound spiritual practice.  And if you need additional support, read my book :)   Authentic Freedom – Claiming a Life of Contentment and Joy!

Hippie Prophets

The song, “The Age of Aquarius” by the Fifth Dimension is the very first song I ever remember hearing as a child and THE song that touched me in a deeply impactful and significant way.  When I first heard the song….I believed it.  I knew this was where we were being led as human beings and I knew that we would see the words of that song manifest in our lifetimes.  For whatever reason, this song has become the guiding principle of my life and I truly believe that the Divine was speaking to me in some way through this song.  So….without further ado:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0G8XJNz4bY  Let the Sunshine in!

What are the fears that stand as obstacles to your own inner peace?

How can you begin to choose love, peace, joy, instead of fear?

What spiritual practices or inspirational texts help you to stay grounded in peace and love?

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Hope Walks In

Nov2

Today’s blog asks the question, “Where do we find hope?”

Brothers and sisters:

Hope does not disappoint, 

because the love of God

has been poured out into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans: 5:5

Where is the Hope?

As any human being who is honest with themselves and the rest of the world will admit…..the human condition sucks!  We suffer disappointment, loss, death, disease, war, pestilence, hunger, homelessness, broken hearts and broken dreams.  In the face of all these challenges, we are tempted to believe, “Life sucks, and then you die.”  If this is true, why did we agree to this human experience in the first place and why do we stay here to endure sure suffering and pain?  In a word – HOPE! 

Planted in our Hearts

Whether we simply believe in the resilience of human nature or in the idea of a benevolent Creator/God…..there is something within us that keeps us going in spite of the sure suffering and pain of the human condition.  Paul, in his letter to the Romans, called that “something” HOPE.  Hope is the thing that keeps us moving in the midst of tragedy.  Hope is what keeps us alive in the face of death.  Hope is what keeps us believing in a better day, life, existence.  Hope, as Paul describes, is God’s love, planted in our heart, driving us, compelling us, fueling us, moving us.  Hope allows us to dream beyond the pain and imagine better things, better days, better dreams.  Hope opens our eyes to see beyond the veil of suffering to the hidden glory – the new life in the midst of death, the new possibilities beyond perceived failure, the new love beyond betrayal.  Hope allows us to see beyond the limitations of our human eyes to see with the eyes of the Divine.

Claiming Hope as Our Own

But where do we find this hope when we feel that all is lost?  The answer – WITHIN.  As Paul reminds, hope is found in our hearts in our intimate connection with that which we might call God.  And the way to get there?  (Have I beat this horse dead yet?)  PRAYER…  MEDITATION… SPIRITUAL PRACTICE…CREATIVE ENDEAVORS…LOVING CONNECTIONS WITH OTHERS…   To find the hope we think we have lost, we need only return to that which is closest to us….our inner selves, God, love.  So when you feel beat down by the human condition, when you feel disappointed, despairing, alone……GO WITHIN.  Pray.  Meditate.  Paint.  Draw.  Write.  Cook.  Practice Yoga. Sing. Dance.  Spend time with someone you love.  This is where you will rediscover that spark of hope that will keep you moving and help you see the light in the midst of the darkness.

What are the practices that have helped you rediscover hope?

How do you make it through the struggles of the human condition?

How do you know the God in your heart?

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Finding the Fulfillment of Love

Oct21

Today’s blog explores one spiritual practice that helps us to integrate the principles described in yesterday’s guest blog, and chapter six in my book, Authentic Freedom – Claiming Contentment and Joy. 

 

Seeking Love

As we were reminded in yesterday’s blog by guest blogger, Swami Nithyananda, if we are seeking love in our lives, the first thing we need to acknowledge is that love is NOT something we can get from another person.  Love is not a commodity to be bought, sold, earned or denied.  Love is our very nature and therefore can only be found within ourselves.  If we seek to have loving relationships with others, we have to start by knowing the love within ourselves…only then can we be unconditionally loving toward ourselves and toward another.  When we know the love that we are, we resonate with the energy of that love and reflect it out into the world.   In doing so, others are reminded of their own loving nature and may also decide to seek to know the love with themselves.

 

Coming to Know this Love

The journey to knowing the love that we are has many possible paths.  For me, I have found knowing God through scripture, meditation, prayer, ritual, worship, service, contemplation, writing, being in nature and working with amazing teachers (including my therapist, spiritual director, family, friends, etc. ) have all been helpful and supportive vehicles for coming to know this love.  There is one tool, however, that I have found to be most helpful (for me anyway) and that is the practice of Bhakti Yoga.

 

Devotion to the Beloved

Bhakti yoga is the spiritual practice of intense devotion to “The Beloved.”  While this practice has been officially named as such by the Hindu and Yogic traditions of India, the practice of devotion has also been a big part of the Hebrew and Christian traditions.  In this practice, meditation, prayer, chant, and worship are focused and directed toward the Divine imagined as our lover and beloved.  In the Yogic tradition, the Divine might be imagined as Krishna, Radha, Shiva, Shakti, etc.  In the Hebrew tradition, we may direct our attention toward Adonai, Elohim, the Shekinah, YHWH.  In the Christian tradition, devotion is directed toward Jesus.  The specific tool that I have found to be most helpful in this practice of devotion is sacred chant or Kirtan.

Hare Krishna/Hare Christos/Hare Adonai

In Bhakti yoga, one of the primary tools of devotion to the beloved is chant or Kirtan (chant done in a call and response format).  Chanting the names of the beloved is said to change our own vibration to more closely reflect the love of the Divine and to bring us into resonance with the love that is our truest nature.  In chanting the sacred names, we are healed, transformed, brought into harmony with the Divine in love, peace and joy.  The Hare Krishna chants, those to Rama, Radha, Sita, etc. all work toward this end.  The exciting thing is that in the Hindu and Yogic traditions, these names are universal…meaning that they all reflect aspects of THE ONE GOD and therefore transcend belief, dogma, doctrine or denomination.  I have embraced this practice, holding my personal guru (Jesus) in my mind while chanting these sacred names and have experienced great benefit from this practice.  I find that chanting the sacred names helps me to calm my monkey mind and to find the peaceful calm within that I had previously found to be elusive and nearly impossible to attain.  Additionally, I have found that I have come to know more deeply the love within that is more reflective of my truest nature.  I have found that life flows more freely and effortlessly.  I know more freedom and joy and my external relationships more closely reflect a deep and abiding love.

 

Getting Started

So, here is a little You Tube clip of George Harrison engaged in his own practice of Bhakti- devotion to the beloved….and a great way to get started on your own path to finding the fulfillment of love:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7eFQMakhDE

Lauri Lumby

Authentic Freedom Ministries

http://yourspiritualtruth.com

Real Love – Guest Blogger

Oct20

Today’s blog saw submitted by a devotee of the Indian swami, Nithyananda.  I loved the words of this blog and found them to completely resonate with what I had written in Authentic Freedom regarding love.  Thank you to Swami Nithyananda for spreading the message of peace, love and joy in the world and for providing tools through which we can find those qualities within ourselves.  Here is the post:

What is real love?

 

 Real love is something so deep, so energizing, that you will not know it unless you experience it. Love is an expression of energy, not something that is transacted. Tell me one thing: can you love people when you meet them for the first time?  (From the audience: No Swamiji! We don’t even know them, then how can we love them?)

 

Exactly! This is what you think. Let me tell you, with a little bit of intellectual understanding and meditation, you will realize that you can love anyone without a reason, causelessly! You can love the trees on the road, you can caress them and feel the energy flow from you. You can love people whom you pass by on the road without even knowing them. Love is actually your very being, not a distilled quality that you possess.

 

Nothing is as misconstrued as love is today. Today, love is more of a transaction. If someone says something nice to you, you love him; tomorrow if the same person falls short of it, you don’t love him that much or you probably hate him.

 

Even your lifelong friend, with whom you chat everyday on the computer, will seem suddenly not-so-close if he says something that goes against your approval. Where is your love at this time? It has suffered temporarily!

 

It is just games that you play; a game in which love and hate surface alternately and interchangeably. And this love-hate relationship is not love at all. Be very clear. It is simply your reaction to a person or a situation, that’s all. This is what we call love. This is not real love. It is subjective love, that’s all.

 

Real love knows no object. It is simply there whether there is an object or not. Real love is the subject itself. It does not know any object. You are the subject and you have become love, that’s all. Any object that comes in touch with it, feels it. Just like a river flows naturally and people enjoy it at the different places that they encounter it, real love exudes from a person and the people around him will be able to feel it.

 

There is absolutely no room for conditioning in real love. The energy in you should overflow and express itself as love. It is then that you can break through the highly knotted boundaries of relationships and express yourself beautifully, as a loving being!

 

In order to discover the quality of your being, that is love, two things can be done. The first thing: repeatedly listen to words like these so that they create a conviction in you about real love; so that a space is created in you for the process of transformation. Second thing: meditate so that the transformation can actually happen.

 

In practical life, when you go deeper and deeper into relationships, you will understand that all that you feel is not real love, but just some form of give and take. It is all just adjustment, some compromise, some duty-bound feelings, some fear, some guilt. It is all there in the name of love.

 

Meditation will take you beyond these mis-understandings of love. Meditation will work at the being level. That is why it is a shortcut! When you have to go through life and know it by yourself, it will take you a lifetime. But with meditation, a space opens inside you to experience these things clearly for yourself, whatever your age may be.

 

Just understand this one thing: when you are able to love without a reason, you will expand like anything. Your world will suddenly seem larger than life. It will be so ecstatic. You will become an energy source to yourself and to others. You will be so overflowing that the energy in you has to touch others. There is no other way. Others will be naturally drawn to you.  Buy the book: Read more: Discover True Love by Paramahamsa Nithyananda

 

Author Bio:  Paramahamsa Nithyananda is an Enlightened master from India and his teachings open up the tremendous possibilities for enlightened living.   So simple and pragmatic are Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s teachings that anyone, whether men, women or children, irrespective of their social, cultural or religious background, can use these teachings as practical manuals for enlightened living in their chosen path of life.  Nithyananda is currently ranked the No.1 spiritual guru on YouTube, and the author of over 200 books in 28 global languages.  

Social Networking Sites

Facebook Page: www.Facebook.com/eNithyananda

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ePNithyananda

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/paramahamsa

 

Author/Publisher: Sites

Author’s Website: http://www.nithyananda.org/founder/who-is-nithyananda

Author’s Blog: http://enithyananda.wordpress.com/

Publishers: www.eNPublishers.com

 

Buy Links: Amazon kindle|BARNES&NOBEL| |