Getting To the Heart of Religion

                                                   Getting To the Heart of Religion

  -One should never take anyone at face value.It is what lies deep within a persons heart that makes up the fabric of their soul-

I recently got into one of those gut wrenching dreaded conversations with a close relative of mine who mentioned that they would appreciate it if I mentioned Jesus more in my work.

Now religion and politics are usually two topics I generally steer way from. Why? Because left to their own vices, those two have proven to start more wars, kill, conquer and divide more people than anything else I’ve ever witnessed before. Plus with overly religious people constantly telling me that I’m serving the devil for simply speaking my mind and my own truth, going into one of these theological conversations more often that not leaves everyone frustrated if we go in blaming and name calling like a bunch of five year olds.

We’ve all seen how entire people and their nations have been wiped out in the name of religion and even when we go back to the birth of Christianity, we find that millions of people were forced to convert or be killed; Let’s be honest, Christianity didn’t start off on loving grounds or even with basic compassionate humanitarian rights in mind.

So how can something that started off so with so many sinister intentions, pain, tears and bloodshed lead to enlightenment?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Christianity and it has especially helped me slow down as a young teen who was acting out from abuse I had experienced during my early childhood; But one thing I could never understand and I’ve asked many Christians preachers about is: “Why is the Christian God such an angry God?”. If he is all powerful why does he need to damn someone to hell to prove his point? Why is he a jealous God? And how could being a jealous God be a good thing? Wouldn’t sending a soul to Hell for eternity be counteractive? I mean how could spending an eternity in Hell actually help change the energetic vibration of a soul? Wouldn’t that soul be even more damaged and enraged? And how could Christianity be God’s only way of communicating with us?

Does that mean that everyone else is wrong and does that mean that if you were born in some small town in India where no one has even heard about Jesus, that we would all be doomed to go to Hell too? It is my knowing and belief that we are all connected directly to God and I believe that having a relationship with God, is a spiritual and sacred experience which is too often commercialized. When we close ourselves off from being able to simply hear others out and really open our minds to try to understand their point of view, we really miss out on juicy invaluable information that could have lead us to even deeper levels of Love or God.

I  mean how can anyone person judge a book by it’s cover until you know the contents of it’s soul?

Reflecting back on my upbringing, excursions with my mother to the Synagogue and the Mosque were frequent occurrences, we would even study Buddhism and read the Tao daily. We sincerely loved learning about these ancient wisdoms through their text and were Thankful that someone had actually taken the time to personally write them down! Coming up with the freedom to practice and study what harmonized within my soul rather than focusing and following what people on the outside told me I should or shouldn’t follow encouraged me to use my mind subjectively.

However there was one particular person who really helped me open up my heart at a young age and not jump on the damnation train was my late grandfather. Soon before he passed away we had a meaningful heart-to-heart moment which I will never forget. After giving me one of his signature sloppy granddad kisses on the cheek which everyone in my family frequently had a conversation about, this man, who was a devote Muslim, looked into my eyes and said :

"Grandbaby, I don’t care about what religion you follow, you could follow any religion, change religions as much as you want, I really don’t care because I know your heart”.

Those words coming from him meant so much to me. He was a man who put his community first, gave selflessly of his time to teens who came from dysfunctional homes, helped other families children go to university and sat studiously for hours mentoring kids who never had a father figure. Yet according to many religious Christians the fact that he didn’t follow the bible, meant he went to Hell. Maybe it was the fact that he was so different as a younger man, this same man had been outraged when he found out my mother was pregnant by someone from another race and I saw it in his eyes that he had lived to regret how limited beliefs had separated so many well meaning hearts.

Nevertheless, despite making mistakes, that day he turned to me and for the first time ever put Love before religion.

My grandfather made his peace before passing and if there is anything that I’ve learned from living in the line of being different is that nothing should separate us so much that we stop seeing each other from our hearts perspective.

What would the world be like if we didn’t have religion dividing us? I would really enjoy hearing from you!

If you get really energetically stimulated from expanding your mind and all of it’s horizons on theological talks, then please stop by and visit the wonderful Crystals S. Lewis’s blog at: http://crystalstmarielewis.com/ . She is expert who has majored in theological debates and I can’t tell you enough how much I enjoy her blog on matters of religion!

Another blog I found really interesting on spirituality is by a man named Scott Bruno, He is an international American who has traveled and lived abroad for years. I had so much fun visiting his blog and learning about his point of views. You can find out more about Scott Bruno for yourself: http://www.scottbruno.com/spirituality.htm

Give Meaning to Life

By Sharice Harris

-There is only one way to live life and that is to live life completely and absolutely in Love-

One autumn day while everyone was busy being busy, I decided to hide in a corner and read a short story I will never forget: ‘The Girl Who Loved Too Much’.

The fictional tale was about a young girl who fell head over heels in Love with life and everything it had to offer. She fell in Love with the blue sky, she fell in love with the birds, she fell in Love with the clouds and the bright warm sun, she fell in Love with the brooks, streams and rolling meadows. She loved so much that everyone and everything was beckoned and drawn to her infectious Love for life.

However the girl began to notice that each time she loved more, everyone and everything began to inch closer and closer. As she loved the trees, they came closer, as she loved the brook, it came closer, the clouds, the sun and the sky all came closer as she gave her Love away, even nearby animals and people who saw the girl’s Love came closer. Before long everything and everyone had come so close that the young girl no longer had room to breathe.

I never forgot that story throughout my years and on a few occasions, I found myself reflecting heavily back on that story, Why did I Love that story so much? And why did Loving so hard seem to be a reoccurring theme for my life?

Sure, I was successful at giving my Love to others but sometimes it seemed like the people I knew seemed to have a special secret reserve on theirs. I saw them wanting to give Love and wondered what were they waiting for?

At times it seemed as though many of the people I met or let into my home, wanted so badly to give Love but yet seemed so frightened to do so, it seemed that they feared that if they gave Love away, they might lose it or get lost in it somehow.

But how can one be lost in Love? And when did we start fearing Love?

5 Life Long Lessons I’ve Learned About Love

1.) Opening Your Heart and showing Love to others is not a sign of weakness. It takes a really strong and stable-minded soul to courageously give Love.

2.)The best way to Love others is to Love yourself fully and the best way to Love yourself fully is to accept and respect your journey, irrespective to what anybody may think, say or feels about it. At the end it’s yours and you can spread as much Love as you want to. Have you ever met a person who complained about being Loved too much?


3.)If you feel hurt or drained from giving your Love to another then that person is not reciprocating Love back to you. The hidden reservoir of immeasurable Love that each of us have within us has the capability to give Love unconditionally without ‘running out’ or ‘trying to hard’.

4.)Love and yes expressing Love is your birthright and it is up to all of us to remember that we are temporary tenants in this life, given a fairly short amount time, Love is the least we can give back to life for all that it has given us.

5.)Love’s the Highest Honor and Dignity any soul can obtain and it’s the most valuable thing you can actually take with you when you leave your physical body. The greatest form of self-mastery is living a life in Love!

Giving Love for no reason in my personal experience is, has and always will be the very secret to that keeps our world turning.

Who’s Running Who?

Who’s Running Who?

“Whenever I climb I am followed by a Dog called ‘Ego’ -Friedrich Nietzche


Learning how-to love and accept ourselves at any given time is a never ending course in self-mastery. With the ever looming super-ego spouting out more than 3000 adverts filled with subconscious messages of what our life ‘should’ look like each day, finding our authentic thoughts and expressing our unique voice can often be an overwhelming, chaotic and for many an arduous task. The term ‘ego’ is literally derived from Latin and translated into English means ‘I’. So if ego means ‘I’, why do so many spiritual teachers want us to get rid of ourselves?

Have we turned into a self-abusive culture who has now turned on ourself? Many popular spiritual movements blame the ‘ego’ for nearly everything negative that occurs in our world but what most people rarely talk about is the fact that our ‘ego’ or ‘our physical self’ has the capability and the power to make those detrimental changes we spiritually yearn to see manifested into the physical form. By blaming the ‘ego’ for all of our problems, we are essentially doing nothing more than giving up responsibility by becoming victims of our own reality and creating an inner duality which can only be mended by accepting those aspects we like and do not like about ourselves.

The main problem seems to be that the ‘ego’ or again ‘self’ always gets a bad rap but the ego only has as much power as you give it. You could easily choose to operate from your soul as well as your heart.

- The ego only has as much power as you give it.-

So how do you sort through the heaps of mind garbage to find out what’s yours an what’s not? Well, the answer may be a lot easier than you may have previously thought, yet it is the hardest thing for most of us to do. Take responsibility of your mind. Three Simple Ways to Quiet Your Ego If you are a person who loves to live life to the fullest, you may fall into the awful habit of leaving your mind on overdrive. Do you constantly find yourself thinking of things you have to do in the future? Or reflecting back on what someone else did or said to wrong you in the past? If so you are loosing out on experiencing the present moment.

Below are a list of three life rules that I use whenever I notice that I living on ego overdrive.

1.)Go Back to Nature. The ego loves to make plans but hates spontanaiety. One way to take back your power is to spontaneously get into action by going for a walk or cycling in a natural setting. Sponataneous trips into nature allow your ego the rest it deserves after planning an plotting all day. A healthy ego can be very helpful when you see something that needs defiant change and take action to make that positive difference but if you don’t get into the habit of turning off your motor, you ego like any other engine can and will burn out.

2.) Meditation and/or Hypnosis. If it were up to the ego we would be busy trying to get a million things done a day. The problem with ‘trying’ to do everything is that we rarely get any one thing mindfully done. Active and daily meditative practices allow our mind a peaceful break from the busy traffic flow of the 70,000 thoughts our brain produces daily. Learning how-to calm our mind is a wonderful way to fully experience the present moment. Regular meditative practices not only give your mind a peaceful break but they also lead you to the deeper realization that we are all soul’s having a physical experience.


3.)Give.The third way most effective way to exercise your ego in a healthy manner is to give! Find a creative outlet to exercise opening up your heart and feeling more from your soul! There are so many children worldwide who would relish in having loving and positive mentoring, seniors who feed off the warmth of another caring soul and even your next door neighbor might need someone to relate to. You don’t have to look far to see that the people who need you to be balanced the most are usually right next to you.

When you open your heart to compassion your ego is automatically silenced and you fill a void which no material object can ever replace. Integrating these peaceful, compassionate loving and practical routines into your day will energize your spirit and reaffirm what really matters most to you on your journey through life.