Monday, August 31, 2009

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Earth Festival - The Center at Westwoods - Sat, Sept 12, 2009


Earth Festival

The Center at Westwoods

Saturday, September 12, 2009

590 Gay Street, Westwood, MA

1-6PM

(Rain or Shine)


· Buddhist Chanting (Optional) 1:00 to 1:45
To be held in the Meditation Hall
· Introductions 2:00 to 2:10
· Silent Path Meditation Walk 2:10 to 3:00
With drum and bell
· Circle up/Introductions/Toning 3:00 to 3:15
At the Labyrinth
· Musical Entertainment by Freeana 3:15 to 3:45
· Pot Luck (bring your favorite dish) 3:45 to 4:15
· Drum Circle hosted by David Curry 4:15 to 6:15+
To be held at the Rock Wall Sanctuary


Bring Chairs! - and drums, etc., if you have them.


RVSP by Sept 5th to: dshea2003@earthlink.net

Map

http://spiritinnaturepathways2009.shutterfly.com/

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

In the final analysis

  • People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
  • If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
  • If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
  • If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
  • What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
  • If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
  • The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
  • Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

---
- Written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Exercise, week starting Monday, Aug 24, 2009

The group began discussion, prior to reading Chapter 13, "Love", of In Search for God

The exercise is from
page 132 of Experiments... .:

Select and write down one stimulus to which you often react in an automatic and inharmonious way. Then decide on one interrupting behavior (a "mudra"). Make an agreement with yourself that for at least a week you will use your mudra anytime the chosen stimulus happens in your daily life. Keep a record of how you respond after completing the mudra.

(For example, imagine that every time someone speaks to you rudely you automatically respond in a defensive and angry way. You might make an agreement with yourself that, whenever the stimulus of rudeness occurs in your life, you will slowly open and close your hand twice before you respond. After completing the interrupting behavior, you may decide to act in an angry way or in a loving way. What has happened is that you now have more of a choice to show love because the automatic, selfish pattern has been made only one of several alternatives.)

Friday, August 21, 2009

Andrew Collins to Discuss New Find in Egypt

Listen on www.coasttocoastam.com
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, August 22-23 from 1-2 am Eastern time


Andrew Collins will be featured on Coast-to-Coast radio to discuss the ancient passageways and underground caves discovered beneath the pyramids at Giza on Saturday Night/Sunday Morning August 22-23 from 1-2 am Eastern time (10-11pm Pacific time). You can listen to the show at www.coasttocoastam.com.

Explorer and author Andrew Collins, funded by Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. Archeological Research Fund, has found and begun exploration of a subterranean network of underground chambers and hallways beneath the Giza plateau. Collins hopes that his discovery will eventually lead to finding a passageway to Edgar Cayce’s famous Hall of Records, which is believed to be off the right front paw of the Sphinx, in which ancient Atlantean records are waiting to be rediscovered as humanity approaches a new age.

It began in 2002 when the British Museum needed to relocate its library and archives of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. During the move, memoirs of Henry Salt, British Consul General in Egypt from 1816 until his death in 1827, were found, again. Some extracts were published in the early 1800s, but it was only when the British Museum reproduced the complete work in The Sphinx Revealed, A Forgotten Record of Pioneering Excavations that Salt’s amazing exploration of catacombs under the Giza Plateau were fully understood. Salt, in the company of Giovanni Caviglia, with whom he worked, conducted these underground explorations in 1816-17. Although these passages are of natural origin (meaning caves), there are hints that parts of this subterranean network are manmade, with underground chambers and hallways beneath the Giza plateau. One possible entrance to the catacombs—a rock-cut tomb in the plateau’s northern cliff-face, west of the Great Pyramid—was investigated by Col. Howard Vyse and John Shae Perring in 1837.

Explorer and author Andrew Collins found the entrance and managed to enter the massive caves and journey for a distance before breathing became difficult. After procuring the proper equipment, his team re-entered the caves. Collins tells the story of his discovery in a new book due out this fall titled Beneath the Pyramids and published by 4th Dimension Press (an imprint of A.R.E. Press).The book is a personal journey of exploration and discovery that is breathtaking to read from start to finish, lavishly illustrated with full color photos, and available for pre-order at ARECatalog.com.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Susan Gale, author of "Psychic Children" speaks in Plymouth, MA today

August 20, 2009
136 Standish Avenue, Plymouth, MA
4:30 pm - ??


Susan Gale will be at the home of Shirley Harvey, speaking to whomever would like to visit with them. Some of you will remember Susan's visit to the Spiritualist Church in Quincy, a year or so ago, when her second book was published. She is the co-author (with Peggy Day) of "Psychic Children" and "Soulful Parenting". Susan founded, and operates a school for psychic children with her business partner, Steve, near Worcester. It's called "A Place of Light", and is described here, in a paragraph from their E-newsletter:

A Place of Light is a safe haven for those who are intuitive or want to learn more about becoming intuitive. Our newsletter covers many topics in regards to this and also the upcoming events and services provided by A Place of Light. If you think you are an Indigo or Crystal, if you think you know someone who is, then we can help you gain a deeper understanding of your gifts as well as control.

Susan has been featured on various TV programs, and earlier this month, she spoke at Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. headquarters in Virginia Beach.

Shirley and Susan would love to meet any of our A.R.E. group, or friends from Angels by the Sea who will stop by.

Drinks & snacks provided.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Exercise, week starting Monday, Aug 17, 2009

The group read through page 128 of Experiments... .

The exercise is from the same page:

In your relationship with others live with an attitude that the body, mind, and soul are one. Especially work to apply the understanding that the way in which you treat the body (yours or someone else's) is the way you are treating the soul.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

It is never a question of belief


"It is never a question of belief; the only scientific attitude one can take on any subject is whether it is true. The law of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be fairly chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of human belief. - Sri Yukteswar

The part you may have missed about meditation

The part you may have missed about meditation is that when correctly done, the obstructions being released in a particular session are gone. Gone. So there is nothing left to process or analyze, only the inner silence and light coming through from inside where there was blockage before. So let's be clear about those mechanics. That is effective yoga, a neurological cleansing where the effects of past actions are released, not on the basis of meaning, but neurologically dissolved from the inside by the pure bliss consciousness inherent within us which we access in meditation. It is not a matter of belief or analysis. It is a mechanical process. It will work for anyone who does the procedure, even for someone who is a skeptic.

[...In...] western psychology, [...] thoughts and feelings coming to surface awareness are analyzed on the level of meaning -- psychoanalysis. This has some value, but is far removed from yogic methods that go much deeper where analytical processes do not exist in the mind. Western psychology is like analyzing the waves coming up on the surface of the ocean, while yoga (deep meditation especially) is like cleaning the ocean from the bottom up, at levels where analysis is not possible. Only the procedure of cleaning is there. Obstructions are energy, thinking is energy. Yoga deals with these at their root by going beyond the energy to pure bliss consciousness. Meaning is a less fundamental form of neurological energy, found near the surface of the mind. Meaning is the tail on the dog of thought energy, so to speak, and we all know that using the tail to wag the dog is not very effective. We can still use it if it helps us feel better in some way. If we are flexible, we will meditate daily also, which will be like having our cake and eating it too. It is not wise to try and do both methods at the same time, as neither will be served.

Anyway, yoga is not only about cleaning up the psychology. That is a byproduct. Yoga is about enlightenment, a direct pathway to the level of attainment of Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Rumi, etc.

Compared to yogic methods, western psychology is still embryonic in that respect. Keep in mind that psychoanalysis has been around for a little over a century, while yoga has been around for something like fifty centuries. Not that "time in the business" alone qualifies something as being more advanced, but it is a pretty good indicator. The experiences of modern practitioners support the conclusions of the long history of yoga. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

From the standpoint of yoga, revealing "great truth" is not primarily about intellectual understanding or the resolution of emotional difficulties. It is about becoming the truth itself. This is done through systematic purification on every level in the vehicle of experience, the human nervous system. It is the divinity of the human being we are opening up here, using time-tested methods.

Logic indicates that western psychology can learn a lot from studying the methods of yoga in an open-minded way. Carl Jung realized this late in his career.

Advanced Yoga Practices

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Exercise, week starting Monday, Aug 10, 2009

The group read through page 124 of Experiments...

Exercise [from page 124]:

Try living each day for itself. Make necessary decisions for the future, but eliminate all unneeded worry or concern for things you anticipate may happen. Trust that you will be even more capable of doing the right thing when the event actually occurs. Where it is appropriate, say to yourself, "I don't have to decide on that right now," and then move your attention back to what is happening around you at that moment. If possible, spend some time in nature as part of this experiment, looking for examples of how nature does things unhurriedly and one at a time. Keep a record of specific instances in which you were able to know more fully the oneness of all time by living in the present.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

A great party!

Many thanks, Patty, for the great party you put together on Saturday. A great time was had by all!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

I should starve to death.

"Swamiji, I am puzzled. Following your instruction, suppose I never asked for food, and nobody gives me any. I should starve to death."

"Die then!" This alarming counsel split the air. "Die if you must Mukunda! Never admit that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has bestowed appetite, will certainly see that His devotee is sustained! Do not imagine that rice maintains you, or that money or men support you! Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life-breath? They are His indirect instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single Cause!"

Autobiography of a Yogi

Friday, August 7, 2009

The moment of death is a tremendous opportunity

The moment of death is a tremendous opportunity, if we understand clearly what is happening and have prepared well for it in life. For at the actual moment of death, the thinking ego-mind dies into the essence, and in this truth, enlightenment takes place. If we familiarize ourselves with the true nature of mind through practice while we are alive, we become more prepared for when it reveals itself spontaneously at the moment of death. Recognition then follows as naturally as a child running into its mother’s lap. Remaining in that state, we are liberated.

- Sogyal Rinpoche

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Father, Son, Holy Ghost

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."-John 1:1. "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son."-John 5:22. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."-John 1:18. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."-John 14:12. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you."-John 14:26.

These Biblical words refer to the threefold nature of God as Father, Son, Holy Ghost (Sat , Tat , Aum in the Hindu scriptures). God the Father is the Absolute, Unmanifested, existing beyond vibratory creation. God the Son is the Christ Consciousness (Brahma or Kutastha Chaitanya ) existing within vibratory creation; this Christ Consciousness is the "only begotten" or sole reflection of the Uncreated Infinite. Its outward manifestation or "witness" is Aum or Holy Ghost, the divine, creative, invisible power which structures all creation through vibration. Aum the blissful Comforter is heard in meditation and reveals to the devotee the ultimate Truth.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Potluck Picnic at Patty's

Potluck Picnic at Patty's
When: Sat, August 8, 12pm – 5pm
Where: 696 Summer Street,
Abington, MA (map)
(
White House, White Barn
Pull in the driveway and park on the left.)

Fun, friends, food, flowers! Come, bring your wonderful self and a potluck dish to share. This is our annual A.R.E. potluck picnic at Patty’s beautiful yard, pool, and garden sanctuary. All study group members, A.R.E. members, and their family and friends are invited! Come chat, meet long-time friends and new friends, swim, and enjoy some good eats. (Rain date: Sunday, 8/9. For additional details, call Patty McCarthy at 1-781-878-1974.)

Exercise, week starting Monday, Aug 3, 2009

The group read up to page 121 of Experiments....

Exercise:
from page 119 or Experiments:

Examine your life and choose one way in which you are using energy which is not in accord with your ideals. This can be an emotional, attitudinal or active way of using energy. Write down what you select. Then demonstrate in your faily life your understanding of the inherent oneness of all force by transforming that energy to a more loving or constructive form. Record your experiences.

Example: Feeling frustrated and angry with other drivers who are discourteous.
Transformation: Changing your expression of the one energy by sending out to those people a prayer instead of thoughts of anger.

Sunday, August 2, 2009