On the material plane, we create bonds and attachments to things that we need in our life. Attachments are all right if they are not our complete support system. When we hold on tightly to our attachments, we invest our heart and soul and our identity in them. We can be attached to many things like our loved ones, our pets, our car, our lifestyle, our homeand our career. The ego can get very possessive of things that support our sense of importance.

            If you take an intensive retreat, you can get an idea of what your life would be away from attachments. Attachments make us feel secure, yet they are always in danger of being taken from us at any time. In every life there comes a time when we experience a loss of a loved one. We can lose our nice things if our financial situation changes. We will all come face to face with the ultimate experience of having to let go of our attachments when we face death.

Forgiveness is the key to inner peace. While we are aware of this fact, we ironically continue to suffer with the act of forgiveness both towards others and ourselves. What is it about the life experience that seems so deeply real that we cannot let go of, and forgive? Have we become so deeply rooted in this temporary journey called life to see beyond the trials and tribulations that cause us to resent?

To err is human, to forgive divine.

~Alexander Pope

Seed thoughts for this chapter

Forgiveness becomes our teacher at some point in our lives, and if we live long enough, we will experience many things to forgive. Christ was a great teacher who practiced and spoke about forgiveness. Much of the world then was lost in darkness, practicing an eye-for-an-eye retribution. So when Christ suggested loving our enemies and turning the other cheek, he was offering a revolutionary teaching for humanity. Even now, 2,000 years later, we find forgiveness one of the hardest lessons to learn.

We are all part of God ‘s Creation, alive here in this moment in time, to experience life on Earth and learn a little more with each birth.From the Creator, we are given the gift to create. There are infinite ways to be creative.

    What a miracle this is.A vision, a dream, a muse that carries the breath of inspiration for us to use in so mays. For creativity is limitless, and is always waiting to be called upon.

Yet, harnessing and controlling creativity can be a tricky thing. Sometimes it seems like it just isn’t there when you want it. There are many workshops and wonderful books that can help direct you in ways to create an environment for creativity. To me, it seems it does help to have a format to follow. You can have a method that makes it easy to put on your “getting creative attitude on.”

Cindy Paulos brings us an amazingly powerful meditation to heal through the beauty of nature. Her message is clear, and healing through the act of giving thanks has never been so well stated. When we give thanks, and connect with the natural forces of this great Universe, a new understanding begins, and our old patterns of our daily frustration, quite literally, begin to melt away. The power of nature, and the gift of giving thanks for who we are can leave us vibrant, aware, and truly balanced.

As we happily extend our inner peace issue into July, Cindy Paulos brings yet another beautifully guided meditation for world peace. One of the continuous messages throughout this inner peace issue is that of the importance of the morning meditation. We invite you to make this beautifully delivered world peace meditation a part of your morning ritual this month. Help create world peace by balancing your inner world before you begin each day of your life. You will come to find that this really works.

Kicking off our Inner Peace issue this month, Cindy Paulos delivers an inspiration and healing meditation for Inner Peace. Brilliantly spoken in a way that only Cindy can, inspiring us to recall the meaning of our true existence. Please enjoy this meditation today and be sure to leave your comments with Cindy directly below.

We all are given many opportunities to experience Death in our lives. My Father died the day after Christmas when I was just 12 years old. I remember my Mother calling out. So I ran upstairs to see my Father lying there, not looking like my Father. I touched him, and he was cool. I told my Mother to hold a mirror under his nose to see if he was breathing. He wasn’t and I said, “He’s dead.” We had a large family and my sisters were downstairs.

            I left the room and went outside, and ran down the many stairs of our big house that was designed by my father to look like the Castle in Prague he grew up in. When I got to the street, I ran for a ways, as fast as I could, to get away from the house and death. Then I heard a Voice that said, “What are you running from?” I stopped dead in my tracks, and realized there was nowhere to run, to and walked back to the house to watch what was happening as the drama unfolded. I wasn’t really scared; for I knew that my father wasn’t really there anymore, he had left. All that was there was a dead body. And that was not him anymore.

Music has always spoken to my soul.  The power of creation holds frequencies, and energy vibrations radiate forth love. That love is carried forth in many ways by music. I believe that music and inspirational words can help to heal you.

               There have been many people who have studied the power of music to heal throughout time. From the early quotes from the bible, to the classic ET scenes when UFO’s came and communicated to us through sound. For music is a universal language that all can understand. Perhaps that is why there are so many satellites searching for sounds that communicate throughout the cosmos. Truly the stars have their own songs and we can listen to them.

                The use of music as a healing method has been used throughout all time. You will find many instances of music in the bible, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord”

                Ephesians 5:19  

On any spiritual path, we come to a point when we discover how important service is. There is this still, small, voice that whispers within all of us, asking us to share and give back what we can. There are millions of ways to share our gifts with others.  Some choose to give a tithe, some start non-profits, some go to third world countries to work with those in need.

            The path of service is based on an understanding of the true heart of compassion. We all are in truth one. When we really grasp that, we see when we give to others, we are giving to ourselves.

            When I was in my teens I had an experience with God that changed my life.  I reached a place and a great unconditional love that is alive within all of creation. When you experience the love and light of God, it is so powerful that all you can do is wish to serve and give back some of that love you receive. God's love and light tends to change everything.

As a student at Beverly Hills High, I wrote a paper entitled Religionvs.Science which brought up some points about how our connection with God plays out in our lives, asking what empirical evidence would science need in order to prove the religious concept of creation, and exploring the mystical and inspirational aspects of faith based religion. My teacher asked me if I was proselytizing some new religion. LOL! 

Actually, the paper was bringing up an age-old question.  For a long time, religion and science have been at odds overcreation, faith and many other important points about life.There has been quite a bit of evolution of science and technology since then; many more people have also discovered their own inner connection to God since then.

Do you LOVE Valentine’s Day?

 
The answer might be determined by whether you are in a relationship with a loving partner who you know will bring you special treats on February 14th.
 
The celebration of Valentine’s Day has a long history that goes back to the Roman Celebration of Lupercalia on Feb. 15^th, which happens to be my birthday. The Romans celebrated Lupercalia by drawing the name of a woman who would be given to a man for a year. This was not kosher to the Catholic’s taste. LOL! So Pope Gelasius changed the lottery to have both young men and young women draw the names of saints to honor for a year.
 
The St. Valentine’s Day celebration then became a day honoring Valentinus. Several martyrdom stories were invented, adding some more power to February 14. A popular account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing the weddings of soldiers who were forbidden to marry, and for ministering to Christians(who were persecuted by the Roman Empire). According to legend during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius, and before his execution he wrote her a letter, signed "Your Valentine", as a farewell.

All of my life I have wanted to go to Tibet.

Just the name Tibet. conjured up mystic images of wise monks offering their secrets of enlightenment to me. I had read so many books about Tibet and it’s long hard history and could only imagine the spiritual energy that existed there on the rooftop of the world. I have also seen His Holiness the Dali Lama speak at least eight times. I consider him to be on the highest teachers on this planet.

I have watched at least five films about Tibet. Some were documentaries and some were tales of this strange land with Lamas and Masters who had achieved states of consciousness I longed to know.

So when the opportunity to go there with a small group from Maui in 1997 I was determined to go. The group was organized by Documentary  filmmaker Tom Vendetti and some of his friends, including  Lama Tenzin, and Paul Horn 1997 .

Lama Tenzin was the teacher at the Maui Dharma Center. He had family in Tibet and wanted to try to see them again. He had patiently been teaching the new age residents of Maui the teachings he had from most respected teachers in Tibet.

This month Cindy Paulos shares with us a beautiful piece of spiritual inspiration. Its a truly moving video dedicated to the late Paul Horn. Please enjoy and share this feature from Spiritualists International Magazine.

 “I was directed by spirit to release a book and cd of messages that have come to me over the years. I have discovered it is always wise to listen to these inner nudges. So after a couple of years of work I gathered together over 300 messages I had written that relate to how life continues on, even after we have dropped our physical form.

The first part of the project is out as a CD called, Angel Blessings, and Benefiting Hospice. I worked with over 45 award winning musicians and distinguished spoken word artists in creating a release that has 40 tracks of spoken word selections from the soon to be released book. 

What is your relationship with God?

To answer that question you would also need to ask yourself

What God is to you

What is your relationship with yourself?

And what is your relationship with others?

For me God is the source of all. For all of life is animated with a single source from creation. Every atom that we are is alive because of that energy.

And since God is alive in everyone and everything we realize that we have that resource in us to connect to the God within us.

Take a moment to ponder the power that is right there within us to tap into.

We have access to an unlimited supply of light and love. So it is natural to wish to use this light and this love to feed our heart and soul. To merge with it to become one with it.

I have found it is a blissful way to start everyday to be bathed in this pure energy that we can tap into through by connecting to our soul as we look within the silence.

So every morning before dawn I get up and go into meditation. There are always teachings or a message I find there. So I write down whatever message comes to me after meditation.