Weekly Pause & Ponder

“The real religion of humankind can be said to be spirituality itself, because mystical spirituality is the origin of all the world religions. If this is so, and I believe it is, we might also say that interspirituality – the sharing of ultimate experiences across traditions – is the religion of the third millennium. Interspirituality is the foundation that can prepare the way for a planet-wide enlightened culture, and a continuing community among the religions that is substantial, vital and creative. Interspirituality is not about eliminating the world’s rich diversity of religious expression. It is not about rejecting these traditions’ individuality for a homogeneous super-spirituality. It is not an attempt to create a new form of spiritual culture. Rather, it is an attempt to make available to everyone all the forms the spiritual journey assumes.”

The Mystic Heart:Discovering A Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions by Wayne Teasdale, p. 26.

Weekly Pause & Ponder

“As with any creative endeavor, originality in thinking, in being, requires a heightened state of alertness, a bridging of the poles, a show of fearlessness and willingness to forfeit the known for the unknown, the learned for the experienced. It requires a trust deeper than the sea, for what it asks for is a letting go, an unmooring from the safe harbor of certainty for a journey into the mists of mystery and possibility.  ...we are here to advance the evolution of thought, of human sensibility, of our own personal potential to be more than anyone ever said we could be.  ...to inspire thought leaders who are willing to be visible, vocal agents of evolutionary thinking for global good.  ...And from that place, with that awareness, we will step into our power to create businesses, organizations, and institutions that thrive because they serve the common good. The solutions to the crises of our time do not lie dormant in one individual. They live like seeds in every one of us. It is not a savior who will rescue us from the plight and perils we face, but a communion of saints who go by our names....”

The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader, by Jan Phillips, pp XI-XIII. 

Weekly Pause & Ponder

"...does this wonderful human brain-body explain human consciousness? Does it explain our sense of ourselves as actively engaging the world, or reflecting on ourselves, or especially reflecting on the fact that we are conscious? With human consciousness we come to a situation we have not faced in any of the other levels of the cosmic organization. We experience our own consciousness subjectively, as subjects, from the inside. All the other levels of organization we had observed from the outside, objectively, seeing them as objects of our cognition. But in the case of our consciousness, we do something more than and quite different from knowing it as an object for our cognition. We know it by being it."

God’s Ecstasy: The Creation of a Self-Creating World, by Beatrice Bruteau, pp.152-53.

Weekly Pause & Ponder

Love energy marks the history of the universe. It is present from the Big Bang onward, though indistinguishable from molecular forces. It amplifies itself by way of union because it “is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mysterious of the cosmic forces . . . The physical structure of the universe is love.” It draws together and unites; in uniting it differentiates. Love is the core energy of evolution and its goal.  

...Love-energy is intrinsically relational and as core energy undergirds relationality in the universe. Beings do not act toward a self-sufficient end in which relationship may or may not be important; rather, union is the end toward which each being directs itself.

The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, by Ilia Delio, pp.44-45.

Weekly Pause & Ponder

The consciousness we possess as human beings, contrary to being a special endowment with which we seek to lord it over the rest of creation, needs to be freshly understood as an integral dimension of the ‘intelligence’ that permeates all life in the universe. The greater intelligence is the superior form, not ours. We belong to a reality greater than ourselves, an envelope of consciousness informing our awareness, intuition and imagination – in what is essentially an intelligent universe. All our thoughts, dreams and aspirations arise from this cosmic wellspring within which we live and grow, and are empowered to realise our full potential as planetary, cosmic creatures. Anything short of this global engagement leaves us unfulfilled, frustrated and ultimately alienated from God and humanity.

Reclaiming Spirituality, by Diarmuid O’Murchu, p. 99.