by Dan Brul

In the beginning, we are told, was the word, but behind the word is an even greater power: the breath. Have you noticed that words are simply specific formations, shapes and movements of breath?

In the end days, it is said: all the secrets and mysteries will be revealed. Those end days must be approaching, because today, the breath itself seems to be revealing those secrets to us. It seems that the secret of life has been right under our nose all the time!

But it should come as no surprise, since almost every spiritual teacher throughout time has pointed to the breath in some way, and every contemporary healer makes use of the breath at some point.

Almost all the ancient languages use the same word for air, wind or breath, as they do for life, vital energy, or spirit; or the animating principle of life. This principle, this spirit of life, is called chi, ki, prana, or energy.

Go here to read the rest:
Spiritual Breathing | Breath Energy Training

A constant intriguing factor in the imagery of the Great Buddha is the group of three curving conch-like lines on his neck. In the varied world of Buddhist art this is one common characteristic that shines across all aesthetic traditions. Like other Buddhist motifs, it too is soaked in rich spiritual symbolism. It is said to represent Buddha's deep and resonant voice, through which he introduced his followers to the path of dharma.

The association of the conch shell with Buddha's melodious voice, sweet with the tenor of his uplifting message, has both an archetypal simplicity and universal appeal. It is a hard-hitting symbol which associates a primordial object (deemed sacred in all ancient traditions) with the actual physical body of the Buddha. Indeed, though much of Buddhist philosophy is esoteric, when it comes to aesthetics, Buddhist art is justly famous for giving a physical, easily recognizable representation to abstract philosophical truths.

Buddhism has evolved over the centuries a complex, yet discernable scheme of symbolism which has found adequate expression in Buddhist art. Undoubtedly, the most popular of such symbols is the group of eight, known in Sanskrit as 'Ashtamangala,' ashta meaning eight and mangala meaning auspicious. Each of these symbols is also individually associated with the physical form of the Buddha.

These eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism (Tib. bkra shis rtags brgyad) are:

1). A Conch Shell

2). A Lotus

3). A Wheel

4). A Parasol (Umbrella)

5). An Endless Knot

6). A Pair of Golden Fishes

View original post here:
The Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism - A Study in ...

Be the connection to the sacred. Hold space for life. Tend the fire at the heart of creation. Bless the waters. Clear the air and sing, dance, love the world into the new time! The word genie orgenius originally meant the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family (gens), or place (genius loci). In this training you learn to tap into this resource, to become the connection to the sacred, and guide your projects and circle of loved ones into the new time.

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. ~Albert Einstein

This Sacred ConnectionTraining is a newform of theMoon Priestess training, updated to the shifts and emergences happening around and in us. Thisprepares women nd menfor your role in our rapidly changing time. The concept is that duringa period of 3 months you dive into one element- fire, water, air, earth or ether- and that aspect of this work. It will be deep and intense training, and then you become certified to start workingin that area right away. As you work and share you go beyond your focus on me and myselfand your pathaccelerates. When you are ready, you can choose to widen your skills and development and starttraining with one of the other elements.

Fire: FireKeeper Training March 2015. Learn MORE>>

Ether: Sacred Space Training Sept 2015. Learn MORE>>

You are the fire of the Gods, the breath of the Wind, the hope of our children. The time is now, gift the world the greatest gift you can give: You

In the Mists of Avalon, author Marion Bradley has Morgaine le Fay say the following on what priestessing really is about:

Without her, destruction and chaos would prevail. And sobegan my initiation into the secrets of Avalon, a path that would lead me to become a priestess of the ancient religion. Gradually, I began to look upon the Great Mother as my own mother, and the mother of the earth itself.

But there was more to becoming a priestess than acquiring knowledge; there was also the task of acquiring power over every element, one by one.

A genius reminds us of the mystery at the core of creation- for she or he brings something original, of great value to the community, yet it clearly does not come from power, intelligence, physical wealth or another visible source.

Excerpt from:
Sacred Connection Training | KlaraAdalena.com | Awaken ...

Have you been yearning for a distinctly feminine spiritual path that is embodied, juicy and fulfilling... and actually leads to real awakening and profound impact in the world? Have you suspected that goddess worshipping lineages are working with sacred forces rather than symbols and metaphors forces that can liberate you into a wholly new way of being? Do you want to be part of healing the split between masculine and feminine that has plagued the last 5,000 years (or more)?

If you answered YES to any of the above questions, you are, whether you know it or not, already beginning to walk the path of the Evolutionary Goddess another name for the Divine Feminine force that is healing, uplifting and transforming our world.

This IS the time in which the old polarities are breaking down. Women are rising up in positions of power and influence AND reclaiming many dimensions of our being that have been suppressed. The feminine is rising in our lives and in our world including in men acting as the catalyst for healing, transformation and growth in our world.

This re-honoring of the Divine Feminine is equally important in our spiritual practices, which have been heavily tilted toward the masculine for thousands of years often to our detriment.

Too often, traditional visions of spirituality have denied the body, contributed to self-judgment and emphasized ego-slaying in lieu of nurturing a truly divine embodied life.

Weve been paralyzed by notions of sin, shame and self-judgment that actually had nothing to do with the Divine and more to do with unconscious masculine dominance.

Whether you explicitly believe these ideas or not, they have been part of the air we have all breathed and they affect us on a subconscious level, restraining us from tasting, touching and feeling the embodied, glorious divine humans that we actually are.

Thats why its time for a spiritual path that evokes, awakens and communes with the feminine forces of the universe always available to support you if only you can learn how to open to their power.

In Tantric lineages of the East, such a path has been kept alive but is almost always taught from the perspective of male teachers. Only now have these ancient transformational traditions been taught by all genders, thanks to powerful female teachers who bring a new dimension and depth to these practices.

In the West, mystics have long venerated Mother Mary, the Black Madonna or the Shekinah, building upon more ancient practices focused on Isis, Demeter and other Goddess figures that were the focal point for much of spiritual life before the Abrahamic faiths.

See the original post:
The Evolutionary Goddess with Sally Kempton and Andrew ...

Although the idea of spiritual evolution has no meaning yet for many people, those who have awakened to their own purpose will find the same truths whatever vocation or metier they pursue. Working with horses gives us the opportunity to remember that we are one part of a whole system of life, and that all beings are essentially one.

The holistic principle we follow when looking after our horses is a reflection of the wholeness we can discover in ourselves. The energetic resonance we generate when riding in engagement, which expresses the intention of sharing a gift with our horses, is the same resonance experienced within profound meditation.

Horses are like a mirror which reflects back to us our state of mind and our motivations. Contrary to some thinking however, we believe that horses are very much individuals in their own right, and they are pursuing their own spiritual evolution which is just as relevant as ours.

This is why we know that all difficulties encountered are not necessarily the 'fault' of the rider any more than the horse. Of course there is no fault as such, only limitations which can be addressed, and horses bring their own issues into the relationship as powerfully as we do.

In fact the resonance between horse and rider in terms of their individual limitations is fascinating. We have found that people will attract exactly those horses who can help them to let go of whatever keeps them from being in the present moment. The beauty of this is that the reflection goes both ways and that a person will also provide their horse with whatever kind of contact they need. Even what appears to us as ignorance and cruelty in people, or unsuitability and lack of potential in a horse, spiritual evolution is always in process.

It could be said that the difference between humans and horses is that it is our responsibility to find the solutions, because we have chosen to connect with the horse in this way. Part of our understanding of universal laws is that this choice that we make cannot contradict the horse's choice however, and that they choose their circumstances in the same way we do, as nothing in life is random. In this light it can be seen that as much as we are healing our horses, they are healing us, so maybe the point is that there is no leader, only companions in the journey of spiritual evolution. Moving towards this idea and loosening our concept of dominance and control is part of our self-acceptance.

Many people say that animals are always in the present, and certainly they don't encumber their minds with the same continuous procession of past and future-based thought that we do. They do have their own ways of distracting themselves however - especially when exposed to human contact - and part of the gift we can make to them is to help them rediscover the present moment along with us.

Although many people look to horses for help in their spiritual evolution, riding horses is often no more than an exploitation of their body and mind. Having turned away from this form of riding quite early on in our riding careers, we have spent many years since studying how horses react to the rider in motion. Most people have an idea of the correct seat looks like, but riding is not accomplished in halt, it is a dynamic interaction. We have formulated much of what we understand about correct posture from listening to the horse, both what their body tells us and their mind. There are many complications which obscure the quest for understanding, but having faith in the existence of a truth which will serve both horse and rider in their physical health and spiritual evolution has always worked for us. This faith has helped us to meet people with the same intentions as us who have taught us exactly what we needed to know, as well as having helped us to attract equipment or products which were perfect for our needs.

Every individual has their own strengths, and the secret is always in the balance. Balancing rationality with intuition, and theory with practice. When one of us is open-minded the other will often hold back and highlight the flaws they can see. We have never been shy to explore the boundaries of energy work. Concepts such as past lives and re-incarnation are perfectly normal for us. We believe in the power of crystals and homoeopathy, affirmations and angels. It is not necessary to have prejudices about certain forms of healing and not others because all healing is as simple as allowing energy to flow, and all of these techniques or ideas are only different ways of labeling energy processes to make them more accessible to our mind. Proving any of this scientifically is as meaningless as trying to bottle air, because conventional scientific measurement is limited to a very narrow one-dimensional range. The truth is that potential is unlimited. Anything and everything can exist, and we find what we are looking for - including proof - as we wish it to be.

How does the concept of potential fit in with truth though? If there is truth then surely there must be untruth and 'wrong' ways of doing things. The way it makes sense to us is that we are all essentially going in the right direction, because it is only possible to remember our true nature, or to continue to forget. In this way there are many deviations and hold-ups, but the same limitations will re-surface until we address them and let them go. When we address them we see that they were never real, they were only images projected by our fear.

Read more:
Spiritual Evolution: The Horses And Us - Happy Horse Training

Integral Enlightenment with Craig Hamilton

Discover the life-changing teaching of Integral Enlightenment with originator and teacher Craig Hamilton. Through a range of intensive, live-virtual courses, Craig imparts the basic meditative, contemplative and engaged life transformative practices of Integral Enlightenment. > Learn More

A free audio seminar hosted by Craig Hamilton, presenting dialogues with todays foremost evolutionary thinkers, philosophers, and cutting-edge spiritual teachers. > Learn More

Join Integral Enlightenment Founder Craig Hamilton for an in-depth look at the core shifts that have the power to propel us beyond the confines of the separate ego and into a life of wholehearted, liberated engagement with the evolutionary process. > Learn More

A live-virtual 9-week intensive introduction to the principles and practices of Integral Enlightenment, consisting of live teachings, question and answer sessions, group and individual exercises and take-away practices, supported by an exclusive online support community for all participants. > Learn More

For graduates of the 9-week course, the goal of this 9-month intensive course is to deeply cultivate and foster lasting change in the lives of all participants. Through deep inquiry and the applied practices of Integral Enlightenment, the full potential of both the individual and the collective is revealed, cultivated and affirmed.

An ongoing advanced graduate community providing a powerful, sustained structure to support authentic and lasting transformation. Graduates receive direct teaching, coaching and guidance and participate in shared inquiry, applied learning, mentorship, and yearly live community retreats.

Terry Patten presents his complete introduction to integral spiritual practice, in this online 8-session course. Consisting of audio and video, in-depth meditation instruction and contemplation exercises, physical practices and a dedicated online support community for all participants, I.S.P. is the worlds first and foremost online training in integral spiritual practice.

Hosted by pioneering teacher of integral spiritual practice, Terry Patten, this free audio seminar features over 30 of todays pre-eminent spiritual teachers, bridging many continents and cultures, in an extended exploration of the future of spiritual practice. > Learn More

Terry Patten presents his complete introduction to integral spiritual practice in this 8-week online course. Consisting of audio, video, written and fully illustrated materials, in-depth meditation instruction and contemplation exercises, physical practices and a dedicated online support community for all participants, I.S.P. is the worlds first and foremost online training in integral spiritual practice. > Learn More

See the original post:
Evolving Wisdom - Integral and Evolutionary Spirituality

Are you are ready to lift your life into a higher vibrational level? Do you want to be a co-creator of your life? Do you want to learn about your energetic health and how your emotions &feelings affect your energetic anatomy? Do you want to liberate yourself from knee-jerk emotional reactions & self-limiting beliefs and take control of your life & your feelings? Do you truly want to achieve spiritual maturity?

If you answered yes to these questions, this meetup is for you.

This meetup group was started to teach that human existence is part of ones spiritual evolution. It is for those, who not only embrace this, but are firmly committed to the path of self-evolvement through thoughts, words & actions in their daily lives. Ultimately as a result, you gain clarity to the meaning of your life, its challenges, and the type & quality of the relationships you have. This is not only invaluable to you but during this process of self-realization, it has the power to create a positive impact energetically to all those around you and on your environment. This is turn helps shift the social consciousness into a higher frequency.

Who Should Join?

This meetup is for open minded, non-judgmental, compassionate people who believe in the following:

- That we are spiritual beings having a human existence for evolution

- That life exists after death

- Reincarnation

- That we are all one

- A higher consciousness, divine force(s), Source, Creater or whatever term you prefer to use that created the universe(s) and continues on

See the rest here:
South Florida Spiritual Evolution (Boca Raton, FL) - Meetup

Download Evolution Is Religion--Not Science PDF

The writer has documented in two recent Impact articles1, 2 from admissions by evolutionists that the idea of particles-to-people evolution does not meet the criteria of a scientific theory. There are no evolutionary transitions that have ever been observed, either during human history or in the fossil record of the past; and the universal law of entropy seems to make it impossible on any significant scale.

Evolutionists claim that evolution is a scientific fact, but they almost always lose scientific debates with creationist scientists. Accordingly, most evolutionists now decline opportunities for scientific debates, preferring instead to make unilateral attacks on creationists.

Scientists should refuse formal debates because they do more harm than good, but scientists still need to counter the creationist message.3

The question is, just why do they need to counter the creationist message? Why are they so adamantly committed to anti-creationism?

The fact is that evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to. It is their desire at all costs to explain the origin of everything without a Creator. Evolutionism is thus intrinsically an atheistic religion. Some may prefer to call it humanism, and New Age evolutionists may place it in the context of some form of pantheism, but they all amount to the same thing. Whether atheism or humanism (or even pantheism), the purpose is to eliminate a personal God from any active role in the origin of the universe and all its components, including man.

The core of the humanistic philosophy is naturalismthe proposition that the natural world proceeds according to its own internal dynamics, without divine or supernatural control or guidance, and that we human beings are creations of that process. It is instructive to recall that the philosophers of the early humanistic movement debated as to which term more adequately described their position: humanism or naturalism. The two concepts are complementary and inseparable.4

Since both naturalism and humanism exclude God from science or any other active function in the creation or maintenance of life and the universe in general, it is very obvious that their position is nothing but atheism. And atheism, no less than theism, is a religion! Even doctrinaire-atheistic evolutionist Richard Dawkins admits that atheism cannot be proven to be true.

Of course we can't prove that there isn't a God.5

Therefore, they must believe it, and that makes it a religion. The atheistic nature of evolution is not only admitted, but insisted upon, by most of the leaders of evolutionary thought. Ernst Mayr, for example, says that:

See the article here:
Evolution Is Religion--Not Science | The Institute for ...

In anticipation of a summer touring the Great Plains, I took some time off from the blog to immerse myself in a surprisingly rich literature on the subject, which of course has nothing to do with religion. I will say, however, that anyone who has yet to discover this richness or is thinking about exploring the Plains should consider reading some of the books listed at the end of this post. Having just read each in succession, the immersive effect is pronounced and Im ready to go but the weather is not yet cooperating. While waiting, and in anticipation of the anthropology of religion course I will be teaching in the middle of the summer, its time to round back toward religion.

The good news is that in doing so, I wont run the risk of being brutally murdered. For the third time this year, a secular Bangladeshi blogger has been hacked to death by irate religionists. These three blasphemous bloggers were writing on subjects and topics similar to those that appear here, but were doing so knowing they would be targeted. Talk about courage.

Here in the United States, we fortunately do not have to confront this sort of thing, though we do have young earth Creationists who are relatively harmless. While I have never paid them much mind because arguing with them is futile, a geology professor thinks that the rocks disprove creationism. He apparently does not know that young earth Creationists have considered his argument and flatly rejected it. They are not interested in science and accept it only when it suits their psychological needs or religious purposes. But having said this, I was a bit shocked to encounter the following sentence in the professors piece:

Embracing young Earth creationism means you have to abandon faith in the story told by the rocks themselves.

This is an unfortunate choice of words. Why should we have faith in a story told by rocks? Rocks dont tell stories. Geologists provide us with theory and data based narratives about rocks. These stories are subject to challenge, revision, and reversal. This method has nothing to do with faith.

From rocks to the cosmos, which is timely for anyone who has recently seen Interstellar, a movie with some brilliant science marred by metaphysical speculations about trans-dimensional love tunnels. It was marred even further by Matthew McConaugheys overwrought acting, but that is another story. The main story here is the science based on Kip Thornes work and book, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einsteins Outrageous Legacy. Though I am only about halfway through and not sure I understand everything, it is great for bending the mind. The cosmos is stranger than fiction and perhaps even myth.

Finally, the cosmos and cosmological theories are the subject of this dense piece by Ross Andersen over at Aeon. Cosmology, it appears, is in crisis and may stay that way for quite some time, perhaps forever. While this may unsettle some, I find it invigorating. When it comes to large and perhaps intractable subjects like this, I always find it helpful to read a good history of the field, so thanks to Andersen for recommending Helge Kraghs Conceptions of Cosmos: From Myths to the Accelerating Universe: A History of Cosmology. Its next on my list.

And speaking of lists, here is the one I promised at the beginning of this post, for all lovers of the Great Plains:

Great Plains by Ian Frazier The Great Plains by Walter Prescott Webb Love Song to the Plains by Mari Sandoz Prehistoric Man on the Great Plains by Waldo Wedel The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal by Stephen R. Jones Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the Great Plains by William Ashworth Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains by Jack Brink

Did you like this? Share it:

Read the rest here:
Genealogy of Religion | Explorations in Evolution ...

An Exploration into Esoterica, Spiritual Science,

EDITORIAL

Feel responsible for every thought, feeling and action. Every moment that we experience in this way brings us forward a little. What would I be without other human beings? Helpless. Streets are paved by others. When I get up in the morning people have already worked for me. My karma is connected with that of other men. I may have been an accomplice to a murderer because I didn't improve him in a previous life. One man's gain is someone else's loss. Teachers taught me. People worked for me from the moment I was born. So do good for all mankind. By Rudolf Steiner Esoteric Lessons Part III: Berlin, 12-21-1904

...By its very progress, science will increasingly drive conceptions about the supersensible world out of the world of the senses. If human beings failed to take in any supersensible, spiritual concepts, this would eventually exclude them entirely from the spiritual world; they would be condemning themselves to becoming after death totally bound up with the physical earth alone, and with what the physical earth will one day become.

Since the physical earth will become a corpse in the future, human beings would thus be facing the frightful prospect of condemning themselves to inhabiting a corpse in the guise of its soul if they failed to decide that they must learn how to live in the spiritual world and take root there....

"Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double" pg 48-49 By Rudolf Steiner

Yesterday we got to the point in our esoteric training where we place our doppelganger outside us. It's verily not a pleasant feeling when we see all of what we previously had in us unconsciously objectively before us, which then accompanies us wherever we go. We heard that it's a Luciferic being, Samael, with his hosts who brings the doppelganger out of us. From this, one sees that Luciferic beings also do good things and not always bad ones. If we always carried our defects in us unconsciously, we could never become aware of the destructive, ruinous things that they do in our body and in the whole cosmic substance. As long as Samael hasn't brought our defects out from within us, as long as we don't see them objectively before us as our doppelganger, so long the Gods graciously keep us from seeing the ruinous, destructive force of jealousy, hate, envy and other passions and emotions that we stream out into our environment. A clairvoyant sees that these passions tear something down in our physical body and in the cosmos' substance, whereas the good stimulates upbuilding forces. So basically Samael is a blessing for development. He shows us our inner nature all the more accurately the more seriously we take our training in hand. We then see defects objectively which we hadn't paid any attention to previously.....

By Rudolf Steiner Esoteric Lesson: Hannover, 1-1-1912

The Temptation of St. Anthony By Mathias Gruenwald

Follow this link:
Esoterica, Spiritual Science, Anthroposophy and Human ...