Mary Queen of Angels by Doreen Virtue

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Mary, Queen of Angels is a nondenominational book that follows in the successful vein of two of Doreen Virtue’s previous works, The Healing Miracles of Archangel Raphael and The Miracles of Archangel Michael.

Within these pages, Doreen brings forth a collection of true stories from people who have experienced dramatic healings by, and visitations from, Mary. Doreen ties these stories together by category-with comments and narrative for those who wish to deepen their own connection to Mary and the angels.

Mary, Queen of Angels is for people of all faiths and beliefs. It is filled with prayers for various life situations, fascinating discussions about the history of Mary, and details about geographic locations where there have been sightings of her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Doreen Virtue holds B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in counseling psychology; and is a lifelong clairvoyant who works with the angelic realm. Doreen is the author of Healing with the Angels, How to Hear Your Angels, Messages from Your Angels, Archangels & Ascended Masters, Solomon’s Angels, and the Archangel Oracle Cards, among other works. Her products are available in most languages worldwide.

Doreen has appeared on Oprah, CNN, The View, and other television and radio programs; and writes regular columns for Woman’s World, New Age Retailer, and Spirit & Destiny magazines. For more information on Doreen and the workshops she presents, please visit www.AngelTherapy.com.

Mary Queen of Angels by Doreen Virtue

Mary, Queen of Angels is a nondenominational book that follows in the successful vein of two of Doreen Virtue’s previous works, The Healing Miracles of Archangel Raphael and The Miracles of Archangel Michael. Within these pages, Doreen brings forth a collection of true stories from people who have experienced dramatic healings by, and visitations from, Mary. Doreen ties these stories together by category-with comments and narrative for those who wish to deepen their own connection to Mary and the angels.

Mary, Queen of Angels is for people of all faiths and beliefs. It is filled with prayers for various life situations, fascinating discussions about the history of Mary, and details about geographic locations where there have been sightings of her.

Mary Queen of Angels by Doreen Virtue (Stories)

Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Prayer of the Heart in Christian & Sufi Mysticism guides the reader through the stages of mystical prayer. Mystical prayer is a way to create a living relationship with the Divine within the heart. Drawing on Christian and Sufi sources such as St. Teresa of Avila, Attar, St. John of the Cross, and Rumi, as well as from his own experience, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee describes how prayer is first born of need, but then takes one deep within the heart, into the stages of Union and Ecstasy. Through mystical prayer, one is drawn beyond any words into the interior silence of real communion with God. Here, in the silence within the heart, a meeting and merging takes place that carries us beyond our self into the mystery of divine presence, into the secret nature of love’s oneness.

Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism explores the inner listening of the heart, and the secret of ‘pray without ceasing’ in which we discover how prayer becomes alive within the heart. Finally there is a chapter on the need at this time to pray for the Earth. How can we pray for the well-being of the Earth? How can we include the Earth in our prayers and our heart?

This little book is an offering of the heart that brings together the Christian and Sufi mystical traditions in the oneness of love to which they belong. It will benefit any practitioner of prayer, anyone who is drawn to discover a relationship with God within their heart.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault
Introduction
1. Prayer and Listening
2. Stages of Prayer
3. The Jesus Prayer and the Dhikr
4. The Circle of Love
5. The Heart Prays
6. Prayer for the Earth
7. Personal Prayer

“In our prayers and devotions, we need to reconnect with the sacred substance in creation. We need to place the earth within our hearts, and nourish it with our love, and offer it in remembrance of God.”

Excerpts from chapter 6 in “Prayer of the Heart in Christian & Sufi Mysticism”, a new book by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.

We are living in a time of ecological devastation, the catastrophic effect of our materialistic culture on the ecosystem. Our rivers are toxic, the rainforests slashed and burned, vast tracts of land made a wasteland due to our insatiable desires for oil, gas, and minerals. We have raped and pillaged and polluted the earth, pushing it into the dangerous state of imbalance we call climate change. Creation itself is now calling to us, sending us signs of its imbalance, and the soul of the world, the anima mundi, which the ancients understood as the spiritual presence of the earth, is crying out. We can see these signs in all the recent floods and droughts, feel it in the poisoning of the land from pesticides and other contaminants. Those whose hearts are open may hear it too, in the cry of the world soul, of the spiritual being of our mother the earth. It is a cry of need and despair: human beings, who were supposed to be the guardians of the planet, who long ago were taught the sacred names of creation,(95)have forgotten their responsibility and instead have systematically and heedlessly desecrated and destroyed the earth on a global scale.

— ch. 6. Prayer for the Earth, p. 71

The Neuroscience of Prayer by Uffe Schjødt

It’s a Brain Puzzle:

When we look at prayer through the lens of neuroscience, we can make an interesting observation: Talking to God is not really different from talking to one’s friends and neighbors.

Praying is in many ways a fascinating phenomenon. To the believer it is a direct method for communicating with God, an ever-present source of comfort in school, at work, while walking, running, or driving. To some praying is a communication with the ultimate power, something that inspires awe, feelings of unconditional love, and, indeed, a sensed presence of God.

To scientists however, praying is fascinating for different reasons. Praying is a puzzling human phenomenon, especially from the perspective of brain science. The brain did not evolve to communicate with invisible supernatural beings. Rather, the brain evolved to cope with challenges in the natural environment, to survive predation and develop tools, and to understand social groups and to interact with other humans. Though complex and highly distributed, these skills seem to recruit specific systems in the brain that point to an evolved set of cognitive functions that enable us to do what we do.

So what happens when believers attempt to communicate with their God?

If the brain did not evolve a system for conversing with highly abstract invisible entities, what brain systems activate when it does?

In a recent study our team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain responded to praying in Christian believers. Surprisingly, considering God’s postulated invisibility, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, we found that conversing with God was not associated with regions that process abstract concepts. Rather, we found a marked pattern of activity in four regions that typically activate when humans relate to other humans. Neurologically, this finding suggests that strong believers process God as a concrete person – in spite of the theologically complex and highly abstract nature of the Christian God. Interestingly, we did not find this pattern in believers who did not use praying regularly. Perhaps the religious brain can learn to treat gods as real persons through regular practice and strong beliefs.

Importantly and somewhat contrary to the widespread assumption that communicating with God constitutes a unique experience reserved for believers, our findings suggest that praying to God is comparable to ‘normal’ interpersonal interaction, at least in terms of brain function. Praying, it seems, is subserved by the basic processing of our biologically evolved dispositions like other complex cultural phenomena, in this case the evolved human capacity for social cognition.

One might ask if these findings, then, are evidence that God is just an illusion, an imagined friend that always listens in times of distress? Or may they in fact be proof that God affects us even at the level of brain function? Atheists and believers alike take considerable interest in this kind of research. Fortunately, as a scientist my interest lies solely in the physical world and speculations about the spiritual dimension lie well beyond scientific scrutiny.

As Arhus University in Denmark, Uffe Schjødt researches the neurology of social and cultural phenomena. He is the author of several studies that examine the biological and evolutionary foundations of charisma and religion.

Praying for the Earth ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Prayer is a way to be with the divine — from the prayer born from need, where we use words to express our needs, to the deeper prayer that takes us beyond any words into the oneness and silence within the heart. This video is about the simplicity of the “Prayer of the Heart”:

PRAYER – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Prayer is the simplest and most natural way to communicate with the divine. Prayer is the heart speaking. There are the prescribed prayers, the rituals of inner communion. But there are also our personal prayers, our way of being with the sacred that is our deepest nature and that of the world around us. In whatever way we are drawn to pray, there is a pressing need at this time to include the earth in our prayers.

We are living in a time of ecological devastation, in which our materialistic culture has had a catastrophic effect on the ecosystem. Our rivers are toxic, the rainforests slashed and burned, vast tracts of land made a wasteland due to our insatiable desires for oil, gas and minerals. We have raped and pillaged and polluted the earth until it is in a dangerous state of imbalance we call climate change. If we dare to listen, creation itself is now calling to us, sending us signs of its imbalance.

We can see these signs in the increasing floods and droughts, feel it in a land that has been poisoned with pesticides, and those whose hearts are open may hear the cry of the world soul, of the spiritual being of our mother the earth. It is a cry of need and despair, that humanity who was supposed to be the guardian of the planet has forgotten its responsibility and instead desecrates and destroys the earth on a global scale.

The earth needs our prayers more than we know. It needs us to acknowledge its sacred nature, that it is not just something to use and dispose. Many of us know the effectiveness of prayers for others, how healing and help is given, even in the most unexpected ways. There are many ways to pray for the earth.

It can be helpful first to acknowledge that it is not “unfeeling matter” but a living being that has given us life. And then we can sense its suffering: the physical suffering we see in the dying species and polluted waters, the deeper suffering of our collective disregard for its sacred nature. Would we like to be treated just as a physical object to be used and abused? Would we like our sacred nature, our soul, to be denied?

For centuries it was understood that the world was a living being with a soul, and that we are a part of this being. Once we remember this in our minds and in our hearts, once we hear the cry of our suffering, dying world, our prayers will flow more easily and naturally. We will be drawn to pray in our own way. There is the simple prayer of placing the world as a living being within our hearts when we inwardly offer our self to the divine.

We remember the sorrow and suffering of the world in our hearts and ask that the world be remembered, that divine love and mercy flow where it is needed. That even though we continue to treat the world so badly, divine grace will help us and help the world — help to bring the earth back into balance. We need to remember that the power of the divine is more than that of all the global corporations that continue to make the world a wasteland, even more than the global forces of consumerism that demand the life-blood of the planet. We pray that the divine of which we are all a part can redeem and heal this beautiful and suffering world.

Sometimes it is easier to pray when we feel the earth in our hands, when we work in the garden tending our flowers or vegetables. Or when we cook, preparing the vegetables that the earth has given us, mixing in the herbs and spices that give us pleasure. Or making love, as we share our body and bliss with our lover, we may feel the tenderness and power of creation, how a single spark can give birth. Then our lovemaking can be an offering to life itself, a fully-felt remembrance of the ecstasy of creation.

The divine oneness of life is within and all around us. Sometimes walking alone in nature we can feel its heartbeat and its wonder, and our steps become steps of remembrance. The simple practice of “walking in a sacred manner,” in which with every step we take we feel the connection with the sacred earth, is one way to reconnect with the living spirit of the earth.

There are so many ways to pray for and with creation, to listen within and include the earth in our spiritual practice. Watching the simple wonder of a dawn can be a prayer in itself. Or when we hear the chorus of birds in the morning we may sense that deeper joy of life and awake to its divine nature. At night the stars can remind us of what is infinite and eternal within us and within the world. Whatever way we are drawn to wonder or pray, what matters is always the attitude we bring to this intimate exchange, whether our prayers are heartfelt rather than just a mental repetition.

It is always through the heart that our prayers are heard, even if we first make the connection in our feet or hands. Do we really feel the suffering of the earth, sense its need? Do we feel this connection with creation, how we are a part of this beautiful and suffering being? Then our prayers are alive, a living stream that flows from our heart. Then every step, every touch, will be a prayer for the earth, a remembrance of what is sacred. We are a part of the earth calling to its creator, crying in its time of need.

The video is an extract from a set of talks on prayer, given by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee June 2011, Omega Institute.

Prayer for Peace ~ Peter Russell

Each of us would rather experience peace than suffering. One reason we do not experience as much peace as we would like is the result of how we see things, the interpretations we put on our experience. If we see things through the eyes of fear and anxiety, caught in judgement or frustration, wishing things were different, clinging to some idea of what we want to happen, then we create discontent and discomfort – the root of so much suffering.

Yet this is the way our everyday self, the ego mind, tends to see things. It grasps onto what it thinks will make us happy, rejecting what it thinks will bring us pain. It may, from time to time, bring us temporary happiness, but it seldom finds real peace in what it sees.

If we are not at peace, then it just may be that it is our way of seeing that is the culprit. We may not realize that we have become stuck in our perception. We may not realize there is another way of looking at things. But deep down we know. Our innate wisdom, the quiet inner voice of the unconditioned self, knows. We have only to open to it, with an attitude of innocent curiosity, and ask: Could there perhaps be an other way of seeing this?

In doing so we are praying to our inner self for guidance. We are praying for peace. But we are not praying to be given peace. We are praying to be shown the way to peace.

Praying for the Earth ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Prayer is a way to be with the divine — from the prayer born from need, where we use words to express our needs, to the deeper prayer that takes us beyond any words into the oneness and silence within the heart. This video is about the simplicity of the “Prayer of the Heart”:
PRAYER – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Prayer is a way to be with the Divine—from the prayer born from need, where we tell God our needs, to the deeper prayer which takes us beyond any words into the oneness and silence within the heart. This video is about the simplicity of the Prayer of the Heart.

Audio excerpt taken from “Prayer”: talks given by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, June 2011 at the Omega Institute. To listen to complete talks please visit: goldensufi.org/​audio.html#Omega_2011

Prayer is the simplest and most natural way to communicate with the divine. Prayer is the heart speaking. There are the prescribed prayers, the rituals of inner communion. But there are also our personal prayers, our way of being with the sacred that is our deepest nature and that of the world around us. In whatever way we are drawn to pray, there is a pressing need at this time to include the earth in our prayers.

We are living in a time of ecological devastation, in which our materialistic culture has had a catastrophic effect on the ecosystem. Our rivers are toxic, the rainforests slashed and burned, vast tracts of land made a wasteland due to our insatiable desires for oil, gas and minerals. We have raped and pillaged and polluted the earth until it is in a dangerous state of imbalance we call climate change. If we dare to listen, creation itself is now calling to us, sending us signs of its imbalance. We can see these signs in the increasing floods and droughts, feel it in a land that has been poisoned with pesticides, and those whose hearts are open may hear the cry of the world soul, of the spiritual being of our mother the earth. It is a cry of need and despair, that humanity who was supposed to be the guardian of the planet has forgotten its responsibility and instead desecrates and destroys the earth on a global scale.

The earth needs our prayers more than we know. It needs us to acknowledge its sacred nature, that it is not just something to use and dispose. Many of us know the effectiveness of prayers for others, how healing and help is given, even in the most unexpected ways. There are many ways to pray for the earth. It can be helpful first to acknowledge that it is not “unfeeling matter” but a living being that has given us life. And then we can sense its suffering: the physical suffering we see in the dying species and polluted waters, the deeper suffering of our collective disregard for its sacred nature. Would we like to be treated just as a physical object to be used and abused? Would we like our sacred nature, our soul, to be denied?

For centuries it was understood that the world was a living being with a soul, and that we are a part of this being. Once we remember this in our minds and in our hearts, once we hear the cry of our suffering, dying world, our prayers will flow more easily and naturally. We will be drawn to pray in our own way. There is the simple prayer of placing the world as a living being within our hearts when we inwardly offer our self to the divine. We remember the sorrow and suffering of the world in our hearts and ask that the world be remembered, that divine love and mercy flow where it is needed. That even though we continue to treat the world so badly, divine grace will help us and help the world — help to bring the earth back into balance. We need to remember that the power of the divine is more than that of all the global corporations that continue to make the world a wasteland, even more than the global forces of consumerism that demand the life-blood of the planet. We pray that the divine of which we are all a part can redeem and heal this beautiful and suffering world.

Sometimes it is easier to pray when we feel the earth in our hands, when we work in the garden tending our flowers or vegetables. Or when we cook, preparing the vegetables that the earth has given us, mixing in the herbs and spices that give us pleasure. Or making love, as we share our body and bliss with our lover, we may feel the tenderness and power of creation, how a single spark can give birth. Then our lovemaking can be an offering to life itself, a fully-felt remembrance of the ecstasy of creation.

The divine oneness of life is within and all around us. Sometimes walking alone in nature we can feel its heartbeat and its wonder, and our steps become steps of remembrance. The simple practice of “walking in a sacred manner,” in which with every step we take we feel the connection with the sacred earth, is one way to reconnect with the living spirit of the earth.

There are so many ways to pray for and with creation, to listen within and include the earth in our spiritual practice. Watching the simple wonder of a dawn can be a prayer in itself. Or when we hear the chorus of birds in the morning we may sense that deeper joy of life and awake to its divine nature. At night the stars can remind us of what is infinite and eternal within us and within the world. Whatever way we are drawn to wonder or pray, what matters is always the attitude we bring to this intimate exchange, whether our prayers are heartfelt rather than just a mental repetition.

It is always through the heart that our prayers are heard, even if we first make the connection in our feet or hands. Do we really feel the suffering of the earth, sense its need? Do we feel this connection with creation, how we are a part of this beautiful and suffering being? Then our prayers are alive, a living stream that flows from our heart. Then every step, every touch, will be a prayer for the earth, a remembrance of what is sacred. We are a part of the earth calling to its creator, crying in its time of need.

The video is an extract from a set of talks on prayer, given by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee June 2011, Omega Institute.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D., is a Sufi teacher and author of a number of books, including “The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul.” In recent years the focus of his writing and teaching has been on spiritual responsibility in our present time of transition and the emerging global consciousness of oneness, and the subject of spiritual ecology. He is the founder of the Golden Sufi Center. His most recent book is “Fragments of a Love Story, Reflections on the Life of a Mystic.”