Cool Website:

Soul Pancake was created by Rainn Wilson for the purpose of exploring, sharing and discussing creativity, philosophy and spirituality. Quite simply fantastic.

Here is a great art video from the Soul Pancake website:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Music: Prem

Prem is a Sanskrit word for 'the way God loves you'. It is also the title to a CD by Snatam Kaur Khalsa.

Snatam Kaur is a Sikh who began her study of music and spiritual practice at an early age. Schooled in kirtan, meditation, and Gurmukhi (Sanskrit-based language of Sikh scriptures of Northern India), she began to develop the devotion and skills that have grown and blossomed into her compelling and profound talent.

She has a voice that invokes a sense of reverence and the sacred. It is simply impossible to listen to this album and not be deeply touched. I was gifted this album and everyone who I've played it for has been deeply touched, almost all to the point of tears at it's pure beauty and Grace. My Mother loved it so much, she specifically asked that this be played at her too soon to come funeral.

On Myspace

Buy it or Other Albums and Music Samples


Rehansabai - Smrath Guru Sir Hath Dhareyo

Books: Secrets of Water

Masaru Emoto is a Japanese author known for his work on the effects of energy/ intent on water. He photographed water via microscope at the exact moment it began to froze. His results began to show that water was affected not only by the levels of environmental contaminates and pollution, but also the energy around it. His work evolved to exposing the water prior to freezing/ photographing to various types of music where songs which were of an uplifting nature either musically or via lyrics produced images that were fully formed and beautiful ice crystals and water exposed to 'Heavy Metal' produced crystals that were misshapen and chaotic in appearance.


"Gratitude"

His books, The Secret of Water and The Hidden Messages of Water, show how his results with water from worldwide sources photographed after being exposed to thoughts/ emotions/ energy directed towards it as well as when various words in a variety of languages were taped to the outside of the container.

His work was discussed in the film, What the Bleep do We Know.

Of Interest: Swedenborg

Emmanuel Swedenborg (Swedberg 2/8/1688 - 3/29/1772) was a Swedish scientist and prolific writer turned mystic. He had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist, having mastered every known science of the time (and creating a few new ones). At the age of fifty-six, after failing to discover when in the body the soul resided, he turned his search inwards and thereby began his journey into mysticism in which he experienced profoundly revealing dreams and visions. During one of his extended meditations, which sometimes would last for days, he experienced a spiritual awakening wherein the thin veil between dimensions was removed so that he coud learn the truths of human existence and the work of souls here on earth. He was guided by various Angels and ArchAngels through the various realms of existence, including heaven and hell where he was allowed to communicate with Angels, Demons and other spirits. Some of the things he claims to have experienced are that there are Jews, Muslims and people of pre-Christianianity times in Heaven; the fundamental issue that love of self or of the world drives one towards Hell, and love of God and fellow men towards Heaven.

For the remaining 28 years of his life, he wrote and published 18 theological works, of which the best known was Heaven and Hell (1758), and several unpublished theological works.

Swedenborg's theological writings have elicited a range of responses. Toward the end of Swedenborg's life, small reading groups formed in England and Sweden to study the truth they saw in his teachings and several writers were influenced by him, including William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Baudelaire, Balzac, WB Yeats and Carl Jung. Many people during Swedenborg's time considered his writings, which were published anonymously to be absolute rubbish and in 1768 a heresy trial was initiated in Sweden in 1768 against Swedenborg's writings and two men who promoted these ideas.

By the early 1800's, the first Swedenborgian Church had been built in America. In addition to his legendary sowing of seeds in the Midwestern wilderness, Johnny Appleseed carried with him all of the Swedenborgian publications he could procure and distributed them wherever the opportunity was presented. Hellen Keller was also a follower.

The Swedenborgian movement is still active today (Peter Gyllenhaal father to Jake and Maggie, was raised within it), though mostly through the Retreat and Renewal Centers and maintaining the Emmanuel Swedenborg Library.

Personal Evolution

What causes you to evolve? Is there some secret potion, some incantation, or some hidden text deeply encoded in a book? Perhaps the answer is on a mountaintop. Maybe it is emanating from another person or is coming from a departed spirit. Some of these things may be great spiritual gifts to assist us on our path, but, there is something else; something that comes up after you come down off the mountain, leave the seminar or master and close the book.

What evolves you is simple. It’s choice, your own choice to be around those who vibrate in truth, and those who reflect your spirit back to you. It’s the choice to live a life that is intentional and purposeful. It’s the courageous choice to do your own inner work. Einstein, Sheldrake, Hawkins and so many others have proven this technical truth of spirituality - like energy draws like energy. Every step you take toward enlightenment now, especially in this age, exponentially empowers you with greater energy to create faster and deeper than ever.

Each choice evolves into the next step, the next, and the next. This seems to make one basic question clearer and more important. What choice in each situation or circumstance will evolve you? The moment you ask it, the circumstance and the situation have become irrelevant. Only the choice matters.

On Gratitude

In the vein of Mondays blog on being a force of positivity in the world, here is a nice video on the powerful effects of Gratitude on ourselves, others and our world.

"A Good Day" Benedictine Monk Brother David Steindl-Rast

The Dream Toddles Along

In honor of the holiday today and the historic events of tomorrow, here are a few of the many uplifting quotes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

There are many ways in which we can uplift humanity. Certainly, I see my own vocation of bodyworker as as such. Not only that my touch can comfort, soothe and support my clients well-being, but also in the sense that I have the opportunity to come from a place of Loving and service in my interactions with clients and co-workers. To me this applies to any job, regardless of what the nuts-and-bolts of the work. It isn't so much what we do, as where inside of ourselves that we do it from. Essentially, where in our consciousness we are coming from.

Obviously, we all work to get a paycheck so we can pay our bills, but this needn't be why we are there or what we are doing. So a coffee shop Barrista has a choice, they could give you your coffee so that after repeating the chore again and again for innumerable people they will be handed a paycheck at the end of 2 weeks OR they can give you a smile and warmth as they go about the various actions of their workday and share their Spirit with everyone around them and in 2 weeks they still receive a paycheck. In the first instance, the duties of dealing with customers becomes the requirement that must be met to receive their pay, and in the second the 'tasks' of their work become minor details to greater importance of serving the world by coming from a place of kindness and joy.

So whether a person rings you up at the register, fixes your car or manages a database, we can all uplift humanity just by choosing that as our intention. Dr King says that life's most persistent and urgent question is "What are you doing for others?" Sometimes, the most deeply reaching act you can do in service to another being is to give them a genuine smile or simply be compassionate and kind to them when they are in a bad mood and not being as polite as they could be. To choose the challenge of being light and joy, regardless of tasks, situation or circumstance.

At any given moment, we have the opportunity to choose whether we will uplift, what will you choose today?

On Love

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

A Course In Miracles

Spiritual Nourishment

"As one matures in spiritual life, one becomes more comfortable with paradox, more appreciative
of life's ambiguities, its many levels and inherent conflicts.

One develops a sense of life's irony, metaphor, and humor, and a capacity to embrace the whole,
with its beauty and outrageousness, in the graciousness of the heart"

                     Path with a Heart - Jack Kornfield


I try to remind myself of this when the universe seems to me having a laugh at my expense. And
tell myself that I am "Spiritually Mature" and in on the joke.