Reclaiming Our Humanity

Every generation has its share of turbulence and chaos — personal storms, relational storms, life storms,” Mark Nepo writes in the September 2022 Science of Mind magazine. “And all traditions offer practices and resources to help us be strong enough and kind enough to meet the challenges of our day.”

Nepo adds that it is now our turn to rediscover these practices that will enable us to heal ourselves and our world. "All this is inner practice,” he writes. "All this is heart work.”

He adds, “And part of our heart work is to understand where we are broken. For to be whole, we need to know how we are partial and limited. To be well, we have to diagnose where we are ill. And so, we have to admit: there is a madness afoot, eating our society from the inside out. Its symptoms include a festering disdain for knowledge and a paranoia about anything unfamiliar.”

Nepo, a self-described lifelong student of all that is spiritual, believes that our souls can blossom by “staying devoted to the difficult and beautiful journey of being human.” Through this work, we can restore our kinship with each other and all living things.

“This is the blessing that comes from being educated by the heart: We are given more life. This is the blessing I wish for everyone: That as a fish grows stronger for having a healthy and muscular gill, you are given more life for having an expansive and well-tuned heart. By which we can find each other, one more time.”

New Documentary Celebrates

the Power of Gratitude

Attend a Virtual Screening on September 21, 2022

At a time when each day brings more grim news, we urgently need to cultivate our individual strength and health. We need to reconnect with and heal each other and the natural world. Research demonstrates that cultivating gratitude improves well-being, health and our sense of connection. Gratitude is an antidote to despair.

From the director of the acclaimed documentary "Fantastic Fungi" comes "Gratitude Revealed." Louie Schwartzberg ’s new film, 40 years in the making, is a rich visual tapestry, interweaving breathtaking images of the natural world with extraordinary stories of “ordinary” people. The documentary features luminaries Norman Lear, Jack Kornfield, Christine Carter, Deepak Chopra, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Lynne Twist, In-Q and Jason Silva.

Plan now to attend one of two virtual screenings on September 21, 2022, especially for North American and European audiences. Centers for Spiritual Living communities are invited to host screenings as fundraisers that will benefit CSL.

North America Screening: 7 p.m. ET (NYC), 4 p.m. PT (LA)

https://watch.eventive.org/gratitude/play/62f419536f3786004b7b1bed

European Screening: 6:30 p.m. GMT (London), 7:30 p.m. CET (Berlin)

https://watch.eventive.org/gratitude/play/62f4889295dec9005ab8751d

Meditation on the Answer to Your Desires

By Ernest Holmes

Let us take as the thought for our meditation today these words of Jesus: “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

Let us see if we can arrive at an attitude of complete acceptance. Let each of us think of some definite thing we wish to pray for. It doesn't matter what it is. Just place it definitely in your mind as an idea and say quietly to yourself:

I am handing this idea over to the Divine Intelligence, to the Power that knows how to do anything. And I am handing it over in complete acceptance of its answer. Gratefully, and with deep peace, with complete conviction, I am receiving this answer into my experience.

I know there is nothing in me that can doubt either the divine goodness or the operation of its law in my affairs. I believe everything necessary to the fulfillment of this definite desire is now in full operation, that all the circumstances in my life are tending to bring it about.

If there is anything I ought to do, I shall receive the impression to act, I shall receive guidance, and I shall be impelled to act intelligently. Therefore, I have a complete sense of ease and assurance. I look forward joyfully as I anticipate this good that is to come into my life.

I believe all who are now praying with me will receive the answer to their desires from the same source. My faith goes out to them, even as their faith reaches back to me. For I believe that out of the great good in which we all live there will surely come to each one of us an answer to each particular need.

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