Each soul is potentially divine. "We are not human beings learning to be spiritual; we are spiritual beings learning to be human," said Jacqelyn Small. If this be so, why this forgetfulness about our divine potential?

What causes this amnesia? Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin has summed up the ultimate aim of Satan as: "The worst thing that the evil one can achieve is to make man forget that he is the son of a king."

(See also: Spiritual Growth, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Spiritual Growth: The Certainties of A Changing World

You can be at ease with the uncertainty of the world when you realise the certainty of the consciousness. Often people do just the opposite. They are certain about the world but uncertain about God. They rely on something that is not reliable, and they get upset. Uncertainty causes craving for stability. The most stable thing in the universe is our Self.

Read more here: » Spiritual Growth: The Certainties of A Changing World

When Jesus said: - The kingdom of God is within - what He meant was that heaven itself would be a disappointment to restless, worldly people.

If a person has no true joy in his heart, he will not find true joy outside though he be in heaven itself, and in the company of angels. Heaven must be experienced right here, right now, within ourselves if we are to experience it ever.

Read more here: » Spiritual Growth: Make Friends With Your Self

The act of self-forgiveness changes the energy and physical structures of your cells, and of your DNA. Guilt is a very powerful and deadening emotion. Guilt in itself can, as it were, close down the energy systems of your body, and thereby lessen, and in extreme cases, cut off the flow of Divine Energy and Love to the body entirely. Because each and every one of your cells has consciousness, they too can carry the essence and energy of guilt within them that makes their energy denser.

Read more here: » Forgiveness: Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness

Love is the primary, fundamental building block that everything is made of, and love is self-aware; it recognizes itself in everything, and loves itself in everything. In its primal, unified, unlimited, infinite state, it knows nothing other than unity, perfection, completion, wholeness.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: On Love, Separation, and Sacrifice

Suffering seems to be one of those fundamental human experiences that we all have in common, and is perhaps the one we would all gladly give up. We often feel oppressed and frustrated by suffering because we do not understand it. It can pierce the heart of our being and our identity, and shake every assumption we hold about ourselves and the world. It often seems to destroy our will-power and overthrow our commitments, to our dismay.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Understanding Suffering

Have there ever been times in your life when you needed some guidance?... some direction in life, or a bit of help making a major decision? Where did you turn? To a trusted friend? A family member? An astrologer or psychic? Maybe you found some helpful direction from these sources, or maybe not. Did you ever wish that there was a higher source of wisdom and guidance you could turn to? One that is free from human bias, whose wisdom is absolutely trustworthy? This higher source of guidance does, indeed exist, and is closer than you may imagine. It is always available to you.

Read more here: » Higher Guidance: Higher Guidance - It's closer than you may think

Our nature is to give and receive love. All other requirements are not essential to the basic experience of giving and receiving love. From this basic requirement or shall we say experience, come different expressions of love. During our life experience we learn through various methods and teachers how to express love in wide and varied ways. This is where interpretation and distortion creeps in.

Read more here: » Love: Nature of the Human Spirit - Love

In our New Age and self-help literature, another important realization about feelings has been emerging strongly over the last six or eight years. More and more, we hear of the connection between suppressed feelings and chronic poor health. Healing professionals are venturing the idea that in order to resolve health issues, we must resolve the emotional issues behind them. The awareness is growing that the unreleased and trapped negative emotional energy keeps building inside and eventually manifests in the physical.

In this article, John Ruskan describes how he originated his system for releasing feelings, how the system works, and what benefits may be realized.

Read more here: » Emotional Clearing: Healing thru Emotional Clearing

The insights we attain come through the heart. Perhaps the intellect can be a vehicle for enlightenment, but for me and millions of others, the pathway through the heart is the most healing and beautiful way to learn and grow. Relationships with friends and family are filled with learning opportunities. They come in many forms, and could be intellectually discussed for many hours, though there is only one true lesson to learn. We learn to give service unselfishly to our partners or friends and others who may knock on our doors.

Read more here: » Relationships: Relating To Others: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Spiritual Growth: Return to Godhead

Spiritual development is a systematic, methodic process that needs to be learnt and practised like any other skill. But very few understand spiritual growth as being systematic or methodic.

Most people randomly pick up books and practices without understanding their significance and place in the overall process. Consequently they remain where they are - or they could end up harming themselves.

Read more here: » Spiritual Growth: Return to Godhead

Drop All Conclusions About God Almighty

It takes enormous courage for a person to look beyond the conditioning of his belief systems and admit that he knows nothing about even the most basic aspects of his life.

Read more here: » Spiritual Growth: Drop All Conclusions About God Almighty

The following steps will help you make the shift from ineffective good intentions to being a powerful catalyst for positive change. With this approach you are very likely to see results, which is important because when we see that we've had an impact, we have more faith in our spiritual power. With faith, our power increases and our Area of Power expands.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Discovering Your Area of Power

Dark night of the soul, spiritual crisis, spiritual madness, spiritual emergency, divine madness, holy madness... these are various phrases that have been used to describe a unique experience - a profound test of faith and spiritual endurance - that seems to be a necessary part of walking the path home to God. You cannot find the Light unless you enter the darkness.

Read more here: » Dark Night Of The Soul: Spiritual Crisis - The Dark Night Of The Soul

 When speaking of relationships, we mean any person with whom you have frequent or continuing interactions. Throughout your life, your energy is connected with others through shared interactions. Length or duration of a relationship does not determine the strength of the energy bond. The strength or 'intensity' of an energy bond is determined by the amounts and types of energy you put into that bond. Due to this, some relationships may have ended long ago, but have a 'stronger intensity' than current or ongoing relationships.

Read more here: » Relationships: The Energy of Relationships

Desire

Desire is one of the great paradoxes of being human. We find desire both at the heart of our greatest joy and of our greatest suffering. Sometimes we are empowered and uplifted by our desires, and at other times we feel enslaved to them.

About Desire, The Ego, Attachment, Victimhood and Empowerment.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Desire

I was under the false impression for years that philosophers were old men who sat around in draped sheets talking about issues that had nothing to do with everyday life. Even though I had read many books on philosophy and had taught philosophy for years on the college level, I still had a false notion about being a philosopher and doing philosophy.

What is the good life? How should we live? What does it mean to be human? What is happiness? When is work good? Why am I here?

Good philosophy is wisdom applied to everyday life.

Read more here: » Philosophy: Applying Wisdom Through The Ages To Everyday Life

When I was growing up, I thought that "spirituality" was the same thing as "religion," which was something for which I had little respect. My early experiences with organized religion left me convinced that the church was a body of contradictions, from which you would never get a rational, straight answer. I was quite mystified that so many people would go to church every Sunday to engage in something that seemed so irrelevant.

Read more here: » What is Spirituality: Reflections on Spirituality

Whatever else you say about emotions and feelings, you have to admit that you just "wouldn't be your self" (little 's') without your own, familiar feelings. That's why we think we're going crazy or becoming "possessed" when unfamiliar or "out of character" emotions or reactions show up in our lives. However, there is another, more positive way to look at these disturbing occurrences. Remember that anything that feels like it isn't "you" must be a part of your shadow, and when parts of your shadow start to show up in your "self's" experience, this is HEALING.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Healing the Shadow and the Mirror of Relationship

Most of us on our healing path have become very familiar with the admonition to "love ourselves." We may be clear that our purpose is to bring more love into the world. Since how we perceive and relate to "the world" is always a mirror of how we perceive and relate to ourselves, our goal is really to bring more love into ourselves. It is important to understand that, in terms of cause and effect, the external world is a reflection (or an "effect") of our "internal world: (our self), which is the opposite of how we naturally perceive things to be.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Loving Ourselves