Who am I? What do I believe? And can I name a few of my beliefs?
Let me name a few things I believe about myself. They’re in no particular order. 
Who am I? What do I believe? And can I name a few of my beliefs?
Let me name a few things I believe about myself. They’re in no particular order. 
I believe that I have become a “Spiritual Soldier of Fortune” and would travel anywhere my heart beckons me to learn, to pray, and to find answers about the Universe.
Am I among the “Chosen?” Will I be one of those who make the “cutoff” at the end when the proverbial bill finally gets to be paid?
When you touch that part of me that has never been touched, a dormant thing erupts.
I saw more of the Divine in a beggar on the road to Calvary last year than I did in the three religions occupying Jerusalem. The beggar’s blindness beamed into me, and I’ll never forget the look on his face as I offered him Israeli shekels, and he bowed to me in thanks.
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Thank God for Buddhism.
What’s that you say?
I can’t have one in, and of, the other?
Are you telling this red-blooded American veteran that I cannot follow the teachings of the Buddha and still believe in the God of Abraham? Continue reading
What do Israel and India have in common with Istanbul and Amsterdam? Other than all starting with a vowel?
It’s where this Philadelphia lad is heading from Nov. 6 through Nov 18, creating a pilgrimage that will touch base with five of the World’s largest religions: Christianity and Judaism, as well as the Muslim and Hindu faiths, ending at the land where the Buddha gained enlightenment.  Continue reading
I heard some familiar words spoken in a foreign language by two women and a man sitting at the table next to me, but what drew my attention was something that sounded like “Kabbalah.”
How many times have you heard this? How many times have you said it? “Give something back.” Not sure what that “something“ is, but you know you got it, and you got a “need” to share “it.”
They pinch me. At the bridge of the nose. Cause an irritation to my left ear. Make me feel less good-looking, less acceptable. (As if I really need to be more acceptable nowadays!)
“Make yourself a Rav, and buy for yourself a friend.”
— Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Perachya
Could never relate to the old “Church Lady” that seemed so righteous and God-fearing.
You know, the one that constantly quoted the Bible and swore everything you ever wanted to know about anything could be found in “The Good Book.”
Heard some Christian minister was planning to set fire to a Muslim Holy Book, the Quran, to mark the Anniversary of 9-11 this Saturday, September 11, 2010.
I felt like Alice falling in the hole after chasing a White Rabbit. But, falling “upwards” defying the laws of Gravity and Rational Sense.
Got Blanket Absolution yesterday. And, it felt so good, I became a 12-year-old again. Ready to face the world with a clear conscious and a pure heart.
A gentle “pull” manifested in my Life recently. I noticed it last night while driving and wanted no more than to live in each passing moment.
Hello! Anybody here? It sure is dark inside. Like a huge cavern with hardly any light.
Fell head over heels in love the past few weeks. Didn’t want to do it. Had always gotten “hurt” in relationships, knowing from the start they’d come to an end one day. Love seemed to change that way. To peter out. End not with a “bang,” but with a “whimper.”
Uncanny coincidences kept cropping up yesterday as I attended a gathering of one of those “Meet-Up” groups.
Got eerie, downright mystical-like, if you know what I mean.
Psalm 46:
9 — He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10 — Be still and know that I am God.
John 13. Verses 3-4 says:
“So during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.”
Don’t want Catholicism, Protestantism, or Judaism. Don’t force me to become a Hindu, a Muslim or even a Buddha. Let me form a “Me-ism,” a spirituality that takes a lot from all the above and blends it into what I feel inside when I’m alone and away from the “Shall Nots,” the 84,000 teachings, and a belief that the “hereafter” must be better than the present.
I wish all of our days could be filled with memories of the greatest moments of our lives. None of mine would go down in history or make it into Guinness Book of World Records.
But each is worth its weight in gold, a treasure of memories that anyone, even a prisoner serving a life-sentence behind bars, is free to recall anytime, anyplace.
What happened? I had nothing to drink . . . no alcohol . . . no drugs.
A judge destroyed the governor, while I survived an explosion before winning a civil rights case in court. This was all in a dream.
Your “Beloved,” is what you need. You yearn and long for Him, don’t you?
Always have, always will.
Some words, phrases, even entire messages look different through the lens of time. Take this feeling I expressed to a friend half-way around the world about the “yearning” I felt on reading Sufi poems for the first time. It moved me so much that I “penned” my own feelings of life-long “longing” to be with, what the Sufis call, “my Beloved” — the Higher Being that can take the shape of your Most Perfect Loved One, the Divine. Continue reading
I danced a Sufi “dervish whirling” at the Buddhist Center today.
A door to the possible mysteries of life opened slightly yesterday. My friend, Joy, introduced me to the Kabbalah.
I close my eyes and my Sufi teacher guides me.
Already kneeling while sweeping litter from the powder room floor where the cats spilled, I sat back on my haunches. A clean commode beckoned to me. Yeah, I felt a “calling“ from this white porcelain-based ancestor of the old “WC” (“water closet” to the Baby-Boomers who called it the “John” or simply the toilet).
I focus on my hands clasped together in front of my lower chest, with one good eye barely open and the other hidden behind a black eye-patch.
I am “whirling.” Circling on a carpeted floor at a Quaker Meeting Hall room going round and round. No dizziness this, my second time out. I project a feeling of Love and “nudge out‘” fears of falling and/or appearing awkward and uncoordinated. I am dancing with my “Beloved,” as a dervish man displaying his affection to the Oneness of the Universe, the Glory of the Spirit.
Heaven on Earth. What a beautiful idea.
Why must one wait for death to enjoy this state of eternity? Why not enter while one is still alive?