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Beautiful Chorus is lead by Alexandra Love (of Solillaquists of Sound and Chakra Khan), and it’s core members are Patty, Mila, Anisha, Veronica, Yuki and Olivia, with alternates around the world who join us when they can!

Ashana sings the Kundalini invocation mantra Ong Namo while playing many crystal alchemy singing bowls at Sat Nam Fest West 2014.

For a few minutes during filming the Global Sadhana “The Illuminated Path” videos, Ashana played the crystal singing bowls for us so we could relax. Under the powerful gaze of Mt. Shasta, Ramdesh Kaur began to meditate quietly to hold space. It was all captured on film…

Marianne of First Congregational Church, UCC, Ocala, Florida created the Study Guide for her church discussion group and has made it available to our readers as a free download.

Musician Xavier Rudd felt compelled to play the didgeridoo (yidaki) as a child. It took him decades to truly understand the meaning of the 60,000-year-old instrument in his art and his life. We talked music and magic with Rudd at Ironworks Studio in Vancouver’s Railtown district on October 23, 2015.

There are many misconceptions about meditation that Tibetan Buddhist master Mingyur Rinpoche wants to set straight. The biggest one? You don’t have to quiet your mind for an extended period of time in order to reap the benefits.

You have the ability to engage in the practice anytime, anywhere. The key is focusing on what’s happening inside your head. Instead of trying to block your thoughts and emotions as you’re meditating, Rinpoche said that you should lean into what he calls your “monkey mind,” or the constant chattering in your head.

As in any art form, as we release judgment, silence our mind, breathe deep into the process, and find bliss in each step; we realize that we are boundlessly assisted in our authentic and heart-centered expression. We step out of the way. We realize that the Art is not born of us, but through us, and in this understanding we are humbled, yet profoundly empowered. Each creation is an offering: a positive reflection of ourselves and humanity, a celebration of evolving consciousness, an opportunity for healing and deepening, a vision of a bright future and Now.

I can hear my friends now: “Matthew! You’re beginning an article with a Calvin quote?!” Why, yes, yes I am. And here’s why: because, regardless of the many things I disagree with Calvin over, it’s a great quote. Indeed, without knowing ourselves we can’t expect to know God and without knowing God we can’t truly know ourselves. The sad thing is, so many of us don’t act as if this is true. We talk about God in terms of his loftiness, like a king on his almighty white throne. God is omni-everything. And perhaps God is, but that is not my point here. My point is that we then turn around and, in spite of humans being made in God’s image, talk about ourselves as things like “filthy rags,” for instance. We treat others as such too. We do things like insist, with cold faces, how those we don’t like are going to burn in hell for their iniquities. Then we send them there through war and conquest and terror. Assuredly then, I’m afraid we have missed the mark when it comes to knowing God and Self. The proof is in the pudding, unless of course God is a maniacal tyrant just like we human beings tend to be.

If I were to condense a definition of mindfulness into a single word, agape would be the one.

Every time I teach a five-week mindfulness course for students and staff at USC, I introduce the class with a simple definition of the state we are trying to reach in the practice: a loving awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges in the present moment, while letting go of judgments about them.

This groundbreaking and moving book gathers responses from leaders of diverse spiritual and religious traditions ranging from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity, as well as those who do not claim one or any particular walk of faith. Contributors include Brother David Steindl-Rast, Matthew Fox, James O’Dea, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Tessa Bielecki, Lama Surya Das, Hank Wesselman, Father Bede Griffiths, Byron Katie, Joan Halifax, Normandi Ellis, Andrew Harvey, Dan Millman, Kristena Prater, Nicki Scully, Mirabai Starr, and more.

“All flows ’round the One who knows all flows ’round the One who knows all flows….” I began to know the One who knew what I was knowing. I sensed the flow that went ’round the quiet Center of all experience. That Center was my center, and was at the center of every person who passed me on the trail, every bird that raced in a burst of color through the air, every tree I passed as I walked. At the center of every atom of every molecule of every tree. As I walked in contemplative union with God, I chanted: “All flows ’round the One who knows….”

A compilation of events around the world, conducted by Isha Foundation on June 21, International Yoga Day. From Sydney to Beirut, from the US to China, and even 35,000 ft up in the air on SpiceJet flights, Isha Foundation volunteers conducted sessions of short, powerful Upa-Yoga practices, specially designed by Sadhguru for Yoga Day.

“Without contemplation people just don’t really grow because they’re so addicted to their way of thinking. That’s the universal addiction. Your way of thinking is what you’re addicted to…I am, too. And without contemplation I wouldn’t have known how to loosen my grip on my way of thinking.”

Many saints of the Church’s history appear to have had contempt for their own bodies. The mortifications to which they subjected their flesh are incomprehensibly grotesque to Christians today. It is hard to reconstruct the cultural milieu in which these mortifications had meaning and purpose. There is a lingering disdain of the body still evident in most branches of the faith, and it is problematic. For too long we have viewed our faith as just a head-trip. We Christians need to take better care of the rest of ourselves, and to embody our spirituality more fully.

Spiritual awareness often begins at the point where our inner thoughts reflectively seek meaning in the external world of our drama. This search empowers the transformation of unconscious perception into awakened vision. Such clarity creates the understanding that we are always, consciously or unconsciously, choosing and co-creating our existence.

Xavier Rudd and The United Nations perform @ LEAF Spring 2015. Since the very beginning, Xavier Rudd’s ability to connect with people has been his most powerful gift. The more he has toured the world, the more hearts he has touched and the more of the world he has put back into his music.

We’re all a product of nature — the unfolding of creation
Kept humble as we grapple to seek a divine explanation

Reading Between the Lines is a lectionary based life-centered biblical resource designed for small group youth and adult education in church and home, for individual study or as an aid to preachers. One of the texts from the Revised Common Lectionary is chosen each Sunday. The exploration begins with encountering the story found in the biblical text. The focus then shifts to how this story is happening in the world around us. Finally the questions turn toward how the story is an event in the lives of the people in the group. The journey through the text seeks life-giving questions that wait to be lived.