Traditional and even progressive religions are being turned on their heads by an integralizing rapidly growing Personal Spirituality movement. But what is it? Why did occur now? Who is involved? Where is it going and --- should you be involved?

by Claudia Horwitz
Like many people, my life has been shaped by a quest. In the mythic tale of the hero's journey, we leave the world we know because we sense there is something lacking in our experience. And we hope that whatever we find will be radical and new and that it will have the potential to bring great changes to the world we left. There are wondrous precedents for this journey...

By Stuart Davis

Meditation and Creativity Three A.M. Though I’m lying in bed next to my zonked-out girlfriend with my eyes nearly closed, I’m wide awake. Or maybe I should say wide aware. This year, in addition to sitting meditation, I’ve started meditating in bed before and during sleep. I use simple practices focused on breathing in order to move my awareness to a place where I witness events (internal, external, physical, cerebral, et cetera) without identifying with them.

By: Chandra Alexandre

Why is it that as people become richer, they do not necessarily become happier? Or that the very things we think we need to do to make us happy are the main source of our unhappiness, with our strivings for happiness being, paradoxically, the main cause of the suffering we inflict on ourselves and others? The argument of many, like Lord Richard Layard, Professor at the London School of Economics, is that, despite growing prosperity, people are no happier than they were some 50 years ago. In fact, Layard believes that it is “our striving, mobile, consumerist society that is eroding the very things we most need to feel good about life: a secure job, a sense of family and community, good health, freedom and a positive attitude. And simply teaching young people to aim for individual self-advancement, which by and large is what schools do, is part of this.”

By: Byron Belitsos

Aristotle defined the virtues that lead to happiness. Buddha taught the way to happiness through an end of suffering. Jesus preached that happiness springs from faith in the goodness of God. And in the last decade, the academic movement for Positive Psychology has created an empirical science of happiness. The findings of today’s pioneering scientific researchers into happiness strongly echo the world’s wisdom traditions, as Professor Jonathan Haidt shows in The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Basic Books, 2006).

By: Sola Williams with Terra Williams (from the book Radical Spirit, edited by Stephen Dinan)

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you love. " Jallaludin Rumi

Rumi’s compelling call had been guiding my life for perhaps twenty years before I placed his words on the altar of my jewelry studio in Oakland, California. I had not heard of the poet-mystic back then, but there was a moment in my early childhood in Jamaica when I began to sense something going on "behind the scenes" in life.

Eco-spirituality is based in a fundamental belief in the sacredness of nature, Earth and the universe. Traditional eco-spirituality is as old as humanity and has been practiced by indigenous peoples since the begriming. Today's nondenominational ecospirituality as practiced on this website includes yet transcends traditional ecospirituality.

From the ecospiritual perspective, Ultimate Reality (God, Spirit, Buddha and/or the Divine,) is not just the source of creation it is very much also a part of creation; a part with which we can interact on a daily basis through our senses and from such experiences gain greater insight into the wonder of reality.

On a personal level, this inherent sacredness of nature generally leads to a spiritually motivated engagement in the current environmental crises of our planet (catastrophic  climate destabilization/Job One for Humanity,) and a dedication to the justice and long view of a sustainable prosperity for all.

By: Steve Beckow
The spiritual Phenomenon called the Divine Mother has always been deeply interesting to spiritual seekers. Known to sages and saints throughout history, it is the Divine Mother whom we in the West address as the Holy Spirit and Mother Nature. In India, Hindus address Her as Shakti, Maya, Kali, and Durga. She is also known as Wisdom, Aum, Amen, the Word of God. By whatever name we refer to Her, She is an actual Entity that exists and can be directly experienced. In this paper, I present a number of conjectures about Her identity based on the recorded experiences of these saints and sages.