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I realize there is a Divine Presence at the center of my being.
I let this recognition flow through my entire consciousness
and flow down into the very depths of my being.
—Ernest Holmes

An Act of Love:

Renewing Your Daily Spiritual Practice

February — a month dedicated to Black History, to a season of nonviolence, to love in all its many forms. What better time to look at and perhaps refine our daily spiritual practices as an act of self-love.

In the February 2022 Science of Mind magazine, writer Mary Davis offers readers steps for injecting new life and new enthusiasm into daily spiritual practices. "Our daily spiritual practice gives us an opportunity to start the day practicing our highest imaginings,” she writes. “By carving out sacred time each morning, a new space opens for grace and deep beauty, for inner peace and unconditional love, for faith and even hope, for gratitude and everyday wonder.”

She suggests these ways to create or rejuvenate your own daily practices:

• Wake with gratitude and an affirmative prayer.
• Read a few pages of a sacred text or devotional pages, like the Daily Guides.
• Meditate.
• Pray.
• Express your gratitude by writing down what you are grateful for.
• Embrace physical movement and the wonders of nature.

Whatever form your daily spiritual practice takes, you might consider the words of the mystic Rumi: “A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that can ever be given you.”

Join a Meditation Coalition

We see it everywhere. Meditation and mindfulness are the focus of online groups, spiritual centers and retreats. In schools and churches, community centers and offices, people are hungry for meditation practices to better their lives. In many locations, meditation centers or coalitions actively seek to create the balance and space for those who seek to expand their own practices.

To assist both newcomers and experienced meditators, for example, the Meditation Coalition in Los Angeles offers classes, retreats and special events — online and in person — including a daily morning meditation, meditations around resiliency practices and events focused on equity and personhood.

The Meditation Coalition is a group of teachers, facilitators and students dedicated to providing access to meditation and Buddhist teachings for all who are interested. The organization commits itself to the communities it represents and to ethical behavior, social justice and compassionate action.

Each meditation center or coalition creates its own guidelines and practices. In Los Angeles, the Meditation Coalition joins with other groups or individuals to fulfill the desire to practice meditation and compassionate action.

“We are aligned with the common cause of liberation from suffering for all beings,” the organization's website explains. “We will act in alliance with others for combined action,” bringing the powerful work of meditation to bear on the individual and the collective.”

Meditation on Being Yourself

By Dr. Ernest Holmes

I am now waiting on the Spirit within me. I believe I am intimately associated with this Spirit. I believe I am so close to It that It can reach out through me and govern my life in harmony and in peace. …

Believing that I am an individual in God and a divine person in my own right, I expect new ideas, new thoughts, new ways of doing things to stimulate my imagination to action. I invite new circumstances and situations into my experience, and I wait on the Divine Presence within me to make Itself known, to reveal Itself to every person I meet and every situation I contact, to bring life, joy and happiness to everyone.