Check out The New Spirituality. - Beth Green & TheInnerRevolution
Transcription
Check out The New Spirituality. - Beth Green & TheInnerRevolution
The New Spirituality, The Stream and You Our world is creating a new spirituality, one which has roots in the 20th century, but which is taking shape only now. Many current traditions embody aspects of this approach, but few embody the whole of it. This paper is dedicated to supporting its evolution. We need a New Spirituality, because we, humanity, tend to be fragmented, self-destructive, hurtful to one another and in pain. The New Spirituality could revolutionize all that by transforming the way we relate to ourselves, one another and the Divine. The New Spirituality emphasizes healing and supports wellbeing for us as individuals and as a collective. When The New Spirituality emphasizes we are more well and whole, we are then more able to healing and supports wellbeing live a life based on Oneness consciousness, where we for us as individuals and as a change our relationship to one another from collective. competition and self-protection to caring, inclusion and mutual support. We are then more able to extend our Oneness consciousness to include the Divine, so that we are no longer caught in the duality between “God” and humanity; rather we are able to embrace ourselves as integral parts of the Divine in the process of evolution, flawed, changing and moving together toward an unknown destination. This paper briefly explores the three main components of The New Spirituality, namely that it: 1. Prepares Us for Spiritual Transformation through Mind-Body-Spirit Healing 2. Awakens Us to Our Oneness and Teaches Us How to Live in Oneness Consciousness Every Day 3. Unites Us with the Divine in the Process of Evolution The paper’s second part will briefly describe The Stream Center for The New Spirituality and how it is embodying its essence. Finally, it will ask how you might feel a part of this new spirituality and how you can participate. The New Spirituality Prepares Us for Spiritual Transformation through Mind-Body-Spirit Healing Unlike many traditional religions and spiritual systems, The New Spirituality embraces the integration of body, mind and spirit, rather than the domination of either the mental or spiritual plane. In fact, The New Spirituality rejects any imbalance and instead encourages us to achieve the greatest wellbeing possible for ourselves on all three levels. This, of course, includes wellbeing on the physical plane, which requires us to overcome destructive and habitual ways we treat our bodies and to embrace supportive behaviors, such as right-eating, rest and proper exercise. 1 The New Spirituality understands that we are integrated beings, body, mind and spirit. It rejects the idea that we can be well if we are dominated by stress, locked into negative patterns by old traumas and aren’t properly nurtured emotionally, physically, spiritually, including the right work and social interactions. Recognizing the need for wellbeing, The New Spirituality focuses on healing. It encourages compassionate self-awareness of our conditioned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, and it brings us awareness of the impact we have on ourselves and one another. It focuses on understanding the source of our negative patterns, rather than shame or denial; healing, rather than punishment; regeneration and wholeness, rather than striving for external goals. The New Spirituality ultimately leads us to shift spiritually into Oneness consciousness, but it prepares us for that Oneness must be more than transformation by encouraging psychological, emotional, simply proclaimed or physical, energetic and spiritual healing. Spiritual precepts experienced in moments of are not enough. We need to be capable of living them. Traumatized people are not able to easily shift into love ecstasy. It must be lived. and Oneness, and so spiritual precepts often cause us to feel even more shame and less wellbeing, because we feel that we are failing in our spirituality. People who have healed their traumas and negative patterns, on the other hand, have the wholeness and well-being to be more relaxed, less self-protective and more able to respond rather than to react, more able to consider the highest good of all, as our spirituality teaches us. The New Spirituality Awakens Us to Our Oneness and Teaches Us How to Live in Oneness Consciousness Every Day Similar to many traditional spiritual systems, The New Spirituality recognizes Oneness as its fundamental spiritual principle, but Oneness must be more than simply proclaimed or experienced in moments of ecstasy. It must be lived. The New Spirituality awakens us to our Oneness and shows us how to live in Oneness consciousness in our daily lives through practices, such as co-creation and mutual support. Oneness consciousness allows us to see the unity in all things, the thread that binds us all together. Through Oneness, for example, we can honor the many names and faces of the Divine, whether it be called higher consciousness, a Higher Power, the Great Spirit, the Source, the universal intelligence or anything else. Through Oneness, we can also understand the motives and feelings of those with whom we do not agree on a multitude of personal and social issues. Oneness must be taught, and we need a lot of wellbeing to live it. Our thinking is permeated by ego consciousness, and we need programs, practices and teachings that promote Oneness in a practical way. But Oneness consciousness cannot be learned in a vacuum filled just with abstract thinking. Our ability to live it depends not only on new thoughts and practices, but on our personal and collective healing and wellbeing. The ego tends to perceive through the lens of fear and separation, which makes us more likely to behave aggressively or defensively. As we continually maintain and increase our wellbeing and relaxation through healing as individuals and as a society, we are then much more able to think clearly 2 and respond appropriately. A well and relaxed person is less likely to be dominated by the fears and coping mechanisms the ego developed instinctively and through social conditioning, mechanisms we formulated long before we knew we had a choice. And Oneness consciousness does not stop there. The healer and the healed are One; the Master and the Student are One. I and We are One. In this context, it becomes self-evident that each of us needs to be in service to the whole of which we are a part. Every day we are in co-creation with the rest of the universe, and we need to play our part. Service is a part of healing and learning, and healing and learning are a part of service. They are all One. The New Spirituality Unites Us with the Divine in the Process of Evolution Once we have accepted Oneness consciousness, it becomes clear that there can be no duality between us, humanity, and anything else, and that must include the Divine. (In this section, I’ll use the word “God” for all the names of higher consciousness. Please substitute any other word, if it is more helpful for your understanding.) So the Divine must be evolving. If we are truly One and we are changing, which we are, God must be changing, too. Most spiritual systems posit God as perfect, static and somehow above us. We are then left with shame about ourselves, who are not perfect, and the perennial nagging question, “How could God have created a world with all this suffering?” Traditional answers include the notions that we are somehow bad or evil, or that suffering is an illusion, or that God is perfect and so are we. The New Spirituality posits a radically different relationship to the Divine. It starts with the assumption of Oneness with God. God is intrinsic to us, and we are intrinsic to God. We see that our universe is evolving, and so are we. So common sense tells us that if we and God are One and we and the universe are evolving, we must have an evolving God. For there to be evolution, there have to be flaws. In fact, if everything were “perfect,” there would be no need to evolve, and so flaws are part and parcel of the mechanism of evolution itself. So the universe needs flaws to promote evolution, and so do we. Now we can accept that we are flawed without shame. At the same time, The New Spirituality teaches us to accept and take responsibility for our flaws (which is the function of healing, which we covered in an earlier point), because it is through dealing with our flaws that we evolve. For example, it is through the pain of our dysfunctions that we become aware of our habitual attitudes and behaviors. With enough support, over time, we can change. If we are integral to God, that means that God itself is going through this evolutionary process with us, and so if we are flawed, we are meant to be this way, because, in fact, we are part of a flawed, imperfect God in the process of evolution. This ends duality in our spiritual thinking, and it also ends the shame and blame that are part and parcel of so many spiritual traditions. 3 The New Spirituality recognizes Oneness on the spiritual plane, transcending the dualistic vision of the human and the Divine. It also teaches us to feel God as integral to us and us as integral to God, and we sense this Oneness with God on the levels of body, mind and spirit, cognitively, emotionally and energetically. The New Spirituality sees the Universe as evolving, but where is that evolution heading? It seems that we are moving toward a higher level of integration with one another and the Divine. That certainly is suggested by our moving toward Oneness consciousness. But in order to achieve greater integration between the human and the Divine, we have to start where we are; that is, with the feeling of separation which is implicit in prayer for example (Dear God, Please do this or that for me.) But The New Spirituality can teach us to achieve greater intimacy with God, a relationship based on mutual honesty and mutual support. And in time, we can be helped to experience the actual Oneness of us and God. The New Spirituality teaches us how to connect to the will of the God that expresses through us as individuals and as a collective, and it trains us to seek personal and collective guidance from the God that is integral to us and yet which represents a perspective higher than our minds and egos. The New Spirituality does not teach that we individually are God. God exists at a level of integration beyond the ego self. But it does teach that we can find our connection to the Divine within ourselves, because it is the essence of who we are. And it also teaches that God also finds him/herself within us and needs to experience his/her connection with us in order to fully exist and to manifest. My will is our will is God’s will. The New Spirituality teaches us how to connect to the will of the God that expresses through us as individuals and as a collective, and it trains us to seek personal and collective guidance from the God that is integral to us and yet which represents a perspective higher than our minds and egos. This is not manifestation consciousness, as it is generally understood, where we connect to God to manifest our ego’s desires. It is the opposite: We become agents of God manifesting the Divine plan, so that we may act in a way that is for the highest good of all, including us. And then, ultimately, The New Spirituality helps us become so attuned to Divine guidance that the separation no longer exists between the Master and the student, the human and the Divine. And we are the God that is manifesting through us, and God is the us that is being manifested. And that is true wholeness, self-love and sacred union with ourselves, each other and the universe. And that is where we are going. The Stream Center for The New Spirituality The Stream is an organization that totally embraces The New Spirituality, and you might like to know something about us and how we might be connected to one another. 4 A Little History The Stream was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles, California, to help develop The New Spirituality, even though our founder, Beth Green, was not conscious of that fact. Just by following the Divine guidance coming through Beth, every program that The Stream has offered since our inception has embodied the three basic components of The New Spirituality as outlined above. We have always embraced mind-body-spirit integration, combining counseling with new thinking and healthy living on the spiritual and physical planes, including intuitively guided food plans, the use of movement and chi energy, and attention to addictive behaviors. We have always offered spiritual teachings around Oneness, the evolving God and the collective consciousness, teachings that are accessible, practical and sufficiently supported by The Stream community so they can be lived, teachings offered through videos and the five books, fiction and non-fiction, written by Beth. In fact one of her books, LIVING WITH REALITY, is a manual to live Oneness consciousness, including teachings, practices and tools that work, and another of her books, SACRED U NION: THE HEALING OF GOD, offers the radical notion of an imperfect and evolving God and not only provides an analysis of the fragmentation of God’s consciousness, it expresses the process whereby we and God return to the Oneness with ourselves and one another. In addition, The Stream has always offered individual counseling and profoundly impactful group processes, using intuitively-guided modalities including cognitive reframing, deep releases and the use of Divine energies, work that has prepared people to integrate those spiritual teachings. We have addressed every area of our lives, from the connection between sex and spirituality, to business consulting, to parenting, treating each as part of the whole of our own evolution and the evolution of society. And we have always focused on transforming the collective, understanding that we are One and cannot be free as individuals in a world that is still enchained by pain, alienation and violence. Where We Are Today Today we are physically located in North County San Diego, California and Southern Oregon, but through the internet, we are able to connect with people around the world. Our founder, Beth Green, is an internationally-known spiritual teacher and intuitive counselor, recognized for her capacity to develop programs and modalities that help people transform in profound and permanent ways as individuals and in collectives. She is also an original spiritual thinker, author and composer, able to communicate concepts, tools and techniques that support the evolution of The New Spirituality. Her five books help us shift our relationship to ourselves, one another and the Divine, and they are seminal works for The New Spirituality. Her writings are also found in New Age magazines, as well as the Huffington Post, and her videos appear on YouTube, so that they may reach people around the world. Beth was selected by Nobel Prize nominee Prof. Ervin Laszlo to be one of only 14 spiritual teachers to appear in his compilation of essays called THE NEW SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY READER. Beth is also the co-founder of Consciousness Boot Camp and the Center for Healing & Higher Consciousness. Go to our website, http://bethgreen.org, to learn more about her, her books, music and writings. 5 We, The Stream, are a nonprofit educational corporation that has a foundation of programs, teachings and healing modalities that can support you, whether you are seeking the wellbeing for yourself and your loved ones, training and/or service opportunities that express the essence of The New Spirituality. Our programs are accessible in person, but we also have participants from around the world who participate live via the internet. Contact us if you would like to know how. And You? Our world needs a New Spirituality, which shows us how to heal ourselves, live in Oneness and radically shift our relationship to the Divine so that we can feel our Oneness, be guided by higher consciousness and join together to co-create a better world. Do you feel the call of this New Spirituality? How do you fit? Can The Stream Center for The New Spirituality be an asset for you? If you feel that you, too, are a part of The New Spirituality, you might have a home at The Stream, a home for a day, a year or a lifetime. Check out our offerings. We have books, internet videos, music, Healing Arts Theater, esoteric teachings, live programs, individual counseling, groups, programs for transformation and trainings for people interested in being of greater service to our world. Come to The Stream Center for The New Spirituality for yourself, which impacts all the people you touch. Come to The Stream to learn how to more effectively help others on a lay or professional basis. Come to The Stream if you feel called to become a New Spirituality Practitioner yourself, enhanced in your ability to provide more healing and spiritual support to our world. Our offerings span healing services for you, free supports for body, mind and spirit, group processes, profound yet simple teachings and effective tools and practices. They also include intensive training that could enable you to become a counselor, through our Intuitive Hypnotherapy Training & Certification program, or a practitioner in The New Spirituality, through which you can more effectively minister to the needs of others by having the comprehensive tools of counseling, spiritual teaching and connection to Divine guidance. As a practitioner you could offer effective support to your family and loved ones, as well as the people you work with every day, or you may feel called to become a professional practitioner with a private practice. You may even feel called to start a Stream New Spirituality center yourself. For details on our offerings, check out http://bethgreen.org, where you will learn about our many programs and services and through which you can keep current about what we are doing. Join our mailing list to be kept abreast of new programs, new books and blogs by Beth, and information about accessing our free supports and developments in The New Spirituality. Or please consider joining us as a core member of The Stream, working with us and the Divine to help change ourselves and our world. For any questions, please call Stream Spiritual Director Helen Hillix-Di Santo, 760, 941-8215. 6