In this meditative spiritual memoir, Judith Valente, celebrated PBS religion journalist and celebrated poet, invites readers along on her transformative pilgrimages to Mount St. Scholastica monastery in Atchison, Kansas. The Benedictine sisters who invited Valente presented her with a view of monastic life and wisdom that brought spiritual healing to her fast-paced life–and promises to do the same for her readers.
The first time Judith Valente arrived at Mount St. Scholastica monastery, she came prepared to teach a course on poetry and the soul. Instead, she found herself the student, taking lessons from the Benedictine sisters in the healing nature of silence, how to cultivate habits of mindful living, and the freeing reality that conversion is a lifelong process.
With the heart of a poet and the eye of a journalist, she tells how her many visits and interviews with the Benedictine sisters forced her to confront aspects of her own life that needed healing–a journey that will invite readers to healing of their own. A beautiful and heartfelt work that crosses The Cloister Walk with Tuesdays with Morrie, Atchison Blue will resonate with readers of Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Mary Gordon, and Anne Lamott.
Judith Valente covers the religion beat for PBS-TV’s national program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Her reports have also appeared on The News Hour on PBS and on Chicago Public Radio and National Public Radio. She has worked as a news producer for WTTW/Chicago and is a former staff writer of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, where in 1992, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in in the feature writing category. She has won nine broadcast awards and was twice nominated for an Emmy.
Valente is a speaker, retreat leader, and the author of two collections of poetry. In 2004, she won the Aldrich Poetry Prize, which was judged by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver. She is co-editor of the anthology Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul. She has been a frequent guest on WTTW’s weekly program 30 Good Minutes to talk about monastic wisdom for the modern world. She recently became a Benedictine Oblate. Valente and her husband Judge Charles Reynard live in Chicago and Normal, IL.
Karen Armstrong begins this spellbinding story of her spiritual journey with her departure in 1969 from the Roman Catholic convent she had entered seven years before — hoping, but ultimately failing, to find God. She knew almost nothing of the changed world to which she was returning, and she was tormented by panic attacks and inexplicable seizures.
Armstrong’s struggle against despair was further fueled by a string of discouragements — failed spirituality, doctorate, and jobs; fruitless dealings with psychiatrists. Finally, in 1976, she was diagnosed with epilepsy, given proper treatment, and released from her “private hell.” She then began the writing career that would become her true calling, and as she focused on the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, her own inner story began to emerge. Without realizing it, she had embarked on a spiritual quest, and through it she would eventually experience moments of transcendence — the profound fulfillment that she had not found in long hours of prayer as a young nun.
Powerfully engaging, often heartbreaking, but lit with bursts of humor, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary history of self.
This is an excerpt from Karen Armstrong’s presentation on The Spiral Staircase from the Jesus Seminar (Westar Institute) Spring Meeting in 2004. For more information or to purchase the complete video, visit our website at http://www.westarinstitute.org or check out http://www.amazon.com.
Oprah sits down with Karen Armstrong—a former Roman Catholic nun and a world-renowned religious scholar—to discuss her memoir The Spiral Staircase. Karen reveals deep personal struggles that ultimately became steppingstones in her spiritual journey.
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About Dawn of the Akashic Age
A preview of the post-mechanistic, holistic world in 2020 and 2030 as well as a map of the obstacles we must overcome to get there
• Reveals how the youngest generation is seeding the shift in consciousness
• Explains how society will be reorganized into grassroots networks like those revealed by quantum physics and experienced through social media
• With contributions from futurist John L. Petersen, ex-CEO of Sanyo Tomoya Nonaka, media activist Duane Elgin, and other visionaries
The world is changing. The transition from the mechanistic worldview to one that recognizes the interconnectedness of all life is upon us. It is the dawning of the Akashic Age. The Akashic field that connects the universe is now recognized by cutting-edge science. What we know about communication, energy, and consciousness is rapidly evolving in tandem with the new quantum worldview. Many adults are consciously evolving to meet the transitional challenges at hand, while today’s youth have arrived already hard-wired with the new consciousness. Rising from the ashes of the old systems, this Phoenix generation of radical change agents is seeding our evolution and spiritual transformation, a process that will continue over the next few decades.
Authors Ervin Laszlo and Kingsley Dennis look at the chief engine of the coming changes–the growing global understanding of nonlocality–and the development of practical applications for it. They examine how the new values and new consciousness taking hold will reorganize society from top-down hierarchies into grassroots networks like those revealed through quantum physics’ understanding of energy and information waves and experienced daily by millions through social media.
With contributions from visionary thinkers such as futurist John L. Petersen, ex-CEO of Sanyo Tomoya Nonaka, media activist Duane Elgin, systems scientist Alexander Laszlo, and spiritual economist Charles Eisenstein, this book explores the future of education, spirituality, the media, economics, food, and planetary citizenship as well as the expansion of consciousness necessary to reach that future.
About the Author(s) of Dawn of the Akashic Age Ervin Laszlo is chancellor of Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University and the founder and president of the Club of Budapest. The author of 89 books, he lives in Pisa, Italy.
Kingsley L. Dennis, Ph.D., is a sociologist, writer, and a cofounder of WorldShift International. The author of several books, including New Consciousness for a New World, he spends his time between Andalusia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
Jean Houston discusses her optimism for a future of personal and social transformation. She offers a personal account of the events that lead her to establish the Foundation for Mind Research and become a leading proponent of the Human Potential Movement, and engages in a wide-ranging discussion of the approach to mystery. She talks with David Rome, Senior Fellow at the Garrison Institute.
The present work describes a simple and effective means by which to let go of the obstacles to Enlightenment and become free of negativity. During the many decades of the authors clinical psychiatric practice, the primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to relieve human suffering in all its many forms. The letting go technique (surrender) was found to be of great practical benefit and is described in this book.
Sir David Ramon Hawkins M.D., Ph.D.
Obituary Hawkins, Sir David Ramon M.D., Ph.D. affectionately called “Doc,” died peacefully at home in Sedona, Arizona, on September 19, 2012, at the age of 85. He was born on June 3, 1927, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is survived by his wife Susan J. Hawkins of Sedona, step-daughter Sarah J. Humphrey (Josh Spradling), and step-granddaughter Evren L. Spradling of Peoria, Arizona.
Dr. Hawkins was renowned as a physician, author, lecturer, and researcher of consciousness. After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, he graduated from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1953. For the next 25 years, he lived in New York, where he directed the largest psychiatric practice in the state. In 1973, he co-authored Orthomolecular Psychiatry with Nobel Laureate chemist Linus Pauling. Dr. Hawkins spent his last three decades in Arizona. In 1983, he established the Institute for Spiritual Research, a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness research.
In 1995, at the age of 68, he published the book, Power vs. Force, translated into 25 languages, with over a million copies sold. Just before his passing, he completed his twelfth book, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. His numerous awards include The Huxley Award for the “Inestimable Contribution to the Alleviation of Human Suffering,” Who’s Who in the World, and a nomination for the prestigious Templeton Prize that honors progress in Science and Religion. In recognition of his contributions to humanity, Dr. Hawkins was knighted in 1996 by the Sovereign Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.
In 2000, he was bestowed the title, “Tae Ryoung Sun Kak Tosa” (Teacher of Enlightenment), in Seoul, Korea. He was a member of the VFW, American Legion, Elks Lodge, Mensa International, the first U.S. Zen Institute, St. Andrews Episcopal Church, and he was the first president of the Country and Western Dance Club in Sedona. Internationally, Dr. Hawkins was the founder of Devotional Nonduality, a spiritual pathway that teaches unconditional love and Self-Realization. In lieu of flowers or gifts, tax-exempt donations may be made to the Institute for Spiritual Research. http://www.veritaspub.com.
Published in The Arizona Republic on September 30, 2012
“Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.” ~Soren Kierkegaard
The majority of our knowledge about breathing techniques and meditation comes from the ancient eastern philosophies. There is no doubt that the control and expansion of our breathing’s capabilities can train our physical vehicles to reach higher levels of enlightenment and balanced health.
With the assistance of our breathing, we can alter the chemistry of our bodies, enhance our perception, mental clarity and grounding.
The positive effects of a more conscious breathing are countless. Some medical sources affirm that as much as 70% of the toxins we ingest daily can be liberated with a good respiration process. Most people nowadays have a very limited and restriction manner of breathing, and therefore limiting the intake of divine energy- Prana.
It is a fairly common occurrence to “catch your breath” when being told about something unpleasant. But when we withhold our respiration or we limit our breathing, we limit our ability to feel unpleasant things. Restricting our respiration, we also suppress the potential feelings and they are automatically stored either on our unconscious mind or in our ethereal body. The maintenance of these repressed feelings requires an incredible amount of energy, and they end up creating serious tension in the body parts they are stored.
Ancient sources affirm that our air is the primary carrier of Prana or divine vital energy. As these little particles or spheres of Light enter our bodies, their respective frequencies are amplified, the vibratory patterns of emotions are increased and a general feeling of wellbeing is created.
To breathe profoundly and in cadence, with the assistance, or not, of affirmations and imageries; constitutes in itself a valuable process for accessing the kingdoms of our subconscious mind, where mental, emotional and psychic traumas are stored. Once this gate is opened, we are able to freely access our Higher Self and receive its infusion of guidance, wisdom and support. This is an important step on the path of living fully, abundantly and joyfully.
As we work seriously on our breathing patterns, we purge unwanted stagnated blockages, we detox from unbalanced energies, or thought forms, and we clear the channels of communication with our subconscious mind, the inner realms of spirit, opening up the unlimited possibilities to the identification of our Lower Selves with our Divine I AM Presence.
Spiritual Exercise
Members of the University can access the eBook, Infinity Breathing, in the Spiritual Exercises section of the Online Resource Center.
Waking the Global Heart articulates a guiding vision for the transformational passage of our time. Positing that we are an adolescent culture in search of our future humanity, our maturation into the next era of human civilization will occur through an initiatory process that is at once both personal and collective. The agents of our initiation are the very by-products of our culture––from population expansion and environmental degradation to scientific breakthroughs and the blossoming of the World Wide Web. Such rites of passage force a shift in identity and awaken a fundamental change in values. A new identity must emerge that is based on planetary stewardship and global community, rather than ego-based individualism.
This requires the enchantment of a new myth––a fundamental awakening to an inspirational vision. Lasting transformation cannot be generated by fear, guilt, or control, but must be motivated from the heart. This comprises a shift from our current values based on the love of power to those motivated by the power of love. What awakens the heart is the soul of the world itself and the very real possibility of a wondrous future.
The primary focus of the current era, oriented to power, aggression, and personal ego must change. The old story of warring empires struggling for power must give way to a new myth of interdependent reciprocity. An era of the heart, based on values of integration, compassion, human rights, and environmental sustainability, is essential if we are to survive into the future. This shift takes us from opposition to synthesis, competition to cooperation, separation to integration, markets to networks, and most importantly: from power to love.
Waking the Global Heart chronicles the story of this passage. It takes the reader through an examination of three basic questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? The answers take us on a tour through 30,000 years of the human story, examining the mythic themes that guided past eras. Each era is compared to stages of individual psychological development from birth to adolescence, and correlates these stages of collective evolution to the levels of consciousness related to the chakra system and to masculine and feminine archetypal dynamics.
The book then describes the elements of a new organizing principle based on self-organizing networks, values of compassion and cooperation, synthesis of divorced polarities, and the awakening of both transcendent and immanent forms of spirituality. Through a fundamental shift from seeing our world as an object to embracing it as a complex and divine subject, we can fall back in love with the world once again, and join together in balance and respect with the original partner in our evolutionary journey. By this act we can send the message through the global brain that it is time to awaken the global heart.
Anodea Judith, Ph. D.
Long concerned with the future of humanity, and passionate about awakening our collective potential, Anodea Judith has dedicated her life to healing the wounds in our personal and collective psyches, by addressing the archetypal splits in our guiding mythologies. With the recognition that our world is teetering on a dangerous precipice, Dr. Judith decided to step back from bandaging the wounds that paraded through her private practice as a therapist, and instead take a stand against the beliefs and assumptions that were causing those wounds. With a proclivity for perceiving patterns, honed by two decades in the therapist chair, she now takes her lifetime study of history, psychology, mythology, and religion, to illuminate a guiding vision for humanity’s future.
Anodea Judith holds a doctorate in Health and Human Services, with a speciality in Mind-Body healing, and a Master’s in Clinical Psychology. Her best-selling books on the chakra system, marrying Eastern and Western disciplines, have been considered groundbreaking in the field of Transpersonal Psychology and used as definitive texts in the U.S. and abroad. With under 1 million books in print, and translations in 15 languages, her books have won her the reputation of solid scholarship and international renown as a dynamic speaker and workshop leader.
Waking the Global Heart- book trailer
Winner of the 2007 Nautilus Book Award
-Best Book of the Year for Social Change
Winner of the 2007 Independent Publisher Award (IP)
-Silver Medal for Mind, Body & Spirit
Will we survive into the next age? If so, what will it look like and what will it take for us to get there? For the first time since the planet cooled, five billion years ago, humanity is capable of influencing—-for better or worse—-the trajectory of evolution. This requires a tremendous responsibility and maturity of the heart, and in this revolutionary book, best-selling author Anodea Judith charts the challenges and opportunities of our time.
Only through a rite of passage will humanity shift from the love of power to the power of love. This initiation will uproot and transform every aspect of human civilization. It will demand of humankind a new myth, one that insists on cooperation rather than competition, co-creation rather than procreation, networks rather than markets, and sustainability rather than exploitation. Waking the Global Heart is a handbook for this initiation, taking us on a journey through the twists and turns of our collective history to emerge with a guiding vision for our next awakening. Anodea Judith, Ph. D.
Anodea Judith, Ph.D., is a prophet for our time. Her books include Wheels of Life and Eastern Body, Western Mind, with 500,000 books in print in 12 languages, as well as several audio products, and an award-winning video. A former therapist, she now teaches workshops nationally and internationally on cultural evolution, human psychology, spirituality, and healing.
Anodea Judith – Template for Transformation
Join author Anodea Judith in this one-minute video as she describes humanity’s shift from the love of power to the power of love as a new organizing principle, combining personal and collective transformation using the map of the chakra system .
PANEL: The Three Simultaneously True Levels of Nondual Reality; Don’t Mistake Understanding for Realization, Don’t Mistake Realization for Liberation.
The Three Simultaneously True Levels of Nondual Reality
Most humans view their situation in a conventional, non-mystical way, treating whatever happens as concretely real, and to be judged as “good” and “bad,” etc. By contrast, a growing number of non-dual teachers and students espouse the viewpoint that whatever happens is “the perfect manifestation of Divine Will,” or that “nothing is really happening or ever happened.” Yet our situation is not so one-dimensional as these positions would hold, and an expansive, truly liberated way of talking about Reality will involve more dimensions. A three-fold model of nondual Reality will be discussed which many have found quite helpful in accounting for all levels of our experience.
Don’t Mistake Understanding for Realization, Don’t Mistake Realization for Liberation
Reports of spiritual awakenings, once rare, have become commonplace. Modern seekers often find an intuitive understanding of the ultimate non-dual reality or the illusory nature of the world to be so liberating that they conclude they have reached the goal, and that seeking should be renounced. Ancient traditions caution that such an understanding may be merely a preliminary stage of development. Moreover, an experiential realization, beyond the merely conceptual, may feel so complete that one might conclude that “This is it”. Some insist that once the non-dual nature of the Self is realized, one has arrived, and it is meaningless to speak of further degrees of growth or levels of realization. Others hold that Self-realization is an important milestone, but that spiritual development never ends. Can we reconcile the injunction to live in the present moment with the understanding that there is much development yet to undergo? Are there criteria by which Enlightenment can be measured or certified?
From Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv. Recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, 10/28/2012, San Rafael, California.
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Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal’s new book Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation is garnering superlative reviews from diverse quarters. Filmmaker David Lynch calls it, “The best ever book on Transcendental Meditation: accessible and substantive, engaging and scientific, practical and profound. A very enjoyable read that can change your life, for good.” Cardiac surgeon and media personality Mehmet Oz calls Transcendence “a profoundly important book … incredibly valuable.” Rosenthal’s broad ranging book will appeal both to newcomers, who want to know the basics about this ancient technique, and to seasoned meditators, wishing to broaden their knowledge and deepen their understanding about it.
By presenting a mix of fascinating stories, high-caliber research and his own clinical experience, Rosenthal illustrates the value of TM in promoting cardiac health, reducing anxiety and depression, and helping people recover from drug and alcohol abuse. He devotes chapters to the benefits of TM for helping children in inner-city schools, as well as for rehabilitating people who are often left behind, such as prisoners and homeless men and women. But Rosenthal emphasizes that TM can help even highly successful people to live fuller and richer lives. He illustrates this in interviews with celebrities such as Paul McCarthy, Ringo Starr, Martin Scorsese, Russell Brand and Laura Dern, all of whom have practiced TM. Rosenthal’s central point is that because TM changes the brain, it can help a vast array of different people to live longer and better lives, and achieve lifelong success.
table of contents Part I: Transcendence
Introduction: My Journey Back
A Return to the Self:
Aspects of Meditation
The Mind Within the Mind:
What Is Transcendence?
Part II: Healing
Decompression:
Managing Toxic Stress
Part III: Transformation
Turning Off the Brain’s Alarm System:
Treating Anxiety and Anger
The Schoolboy Who Pulled His Hair Out:
Attention, Priorities, and Effectiveness
Helping the Spikes and Valleys:
Meditation and Moods
Silencing the Bubble Machine:
Addiction and Recovery
An Island of Safety in a Sea of Trouble:
Transformation in Schools
Learning to Love Yourself:
The Long Road Back from Prison
Self-actualization—Your Personal Best
Part IV: Harmony
Harmony: Coherence at Many Levels
Appendix: Answers to Questions About Transcendental Meditation: An Expert’s Perspective
Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal is a world-renowned psychiatrist whose research in describing seasonal affective disorder (SAD), pioneering the use of light therapy and books have helped millions of people. His latest book Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation (Tarcher-Penguin, 2011) explores the value of this ancient technique for healing and transformation in our modern world. Dr. Norman Rosenthal’s New York Times Best Seller “Transcendence”
Dr. Norman Rosenthal released his New York Times best seller “Transcendence.”
Dr. Norman Rosenthal: Transcendental Meditation & PTSD
Dr. Norman Rosenthal is internationally known for his medical expertise on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and worldly renowned for his pioneering work on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and for developing light therapy treatments for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Dr. Norman Rosenthal has seen the video with David George and his experience as a veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and it never ceases to amaze him. David George’s trauma and experience of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has continued and is an inner experience even though the event has past.
What we have here is a huge medical problem and a huge human tragedy.
David George was one of five people whom was studied in a pilot study of Transcendental Meditation (TM) with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As awful as David’s story was, it was no exception. Yet, four of the five people had the same level of transformation from the process of learning and practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM).
Norman Rosenthal shows slides and statistics of the pilot study that was done on Transcendental Meditation (TM) and its effects on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Dr. Norman Rosenthal expresses that aside from the results of these studies researchers have collectively seen hundreds of people with PTSD (combat and non-combat related) tremendously helped by Transcendental Meditation. It is really impressive to see with your own eyes (the statics in this video).
Norman Rosenthal concludes to say, “We really need to act immediately, without delay to bring this simple but amazingly powerful technique to these people who are suffering so much.”
What if you could virtually sit soul to soul with a mystic sage?
“Awaken, Soul to Soul” is an unprecedented, transformational film that offers a one on one, direct experience in real time with some of today’s leading sages, luminaries and healers including Don Miguel Ruiz, Barbara Marx Hubbard, John Major Jenkins, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Robert Thurman and more.
“Awaken, Soul to Soul” illuminates the true esoteric meaning of 2012 and reveals why our current planetary and personal crises serve as an impetus to liberate ourselves from fear and separation back to love and oneness.
More than just another “spiritual” documentary, Awaken, Soul to Soul is an evolutionary interactive tool for activating and expanding consciousness.
Sitting with the Sages of “Awaken, Soul to Soul” is like entering an ancient mystery school; you receive their wisdom and silent knowledge; soul to soul, beyond words.
“Awaken, Soul to Soul” offers a rare opportunity to remember the bliss of our divine essence.
Join us on this profound and intimate passage of awakening.
Judith Valente covers the religion beat for PBS-TV’s national program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Her reports have also appeared on The News Hour on PBS and on Chicago Public Radio and National Public Radio. She has worked as a news producer for WTTW/Chicago and is a former staff writer of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, where in 1992, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in in the feature writing category. She has won nine broadcast awards and was twice nominated for an Emmy.
Karen Armstrong begins this spellbinding story of her spiritual journey with her departure in 1969 from the Roman Catholic convent she had entered seven years before — hoping, but ultimately failing, to find God. She knew almost nothing of the changed world to which she was returning, and she was tormented by panic attacks and inexplicable seizures.
About Dawn of the Akashic Age
The present work describes a simple and effective means by which to let go of the obstacles to Enlightenment and become free of negativity. During the many decades of the authors clinical psychiatric practice, the primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to relieve human suffering in all its many forms. The letting go technique (surrender) was found to be of great practical benefit and is described in this book.
Sir David Ramon Hawkins M.D., Ph.D.
The majority of our knowledge about breathing techniques and meditation comes from the ancient eastern philosophies. There is no doubt that the control and expansion of our breathing’s capabilities can train our physical vehicles to reach higher levels of enlightenment and balanced health.
