A man at a crossroads stumbled upon a mind-body technique called the Sedona Method. It spawned leading spiritual teachers — and made him one, too

GUEST COLUMN: NIRMALA — In 1997, I was busy attending naturopathic medical school and, I thought, happily married. And then out of the blue my wife told me she was leaving me for another man.

The intensity and types of feelings that surfaced in response were unexpected.

I was aware of feeling equal and opposite feelings: amidst an overwhelming and paralyzing fear was an extreme excitement over all the new possibilities created by the space that had opened up in my life.

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Inspired by female mystics, Pamela Wilson and Neelam, a medical student drops out, has a peak experience in India, and becomes “Nirmala”

(Read the first part of this two-part series)

GUEST COLUMN: NIRMALA — After being in the presence of Pamela and Neelam, I just couldn’t let this desire for Freedom go. I had the sense that there was surgery going on in my chest, like it had been ripped open.

Despite the fact that I absolutely knew there was nothing I could do about it, now that I had admitted I wanted this freedom more than anything, I could never turn back to my old life.

So, I gave my share in our house to my wife and quit medical school.

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A guided, deep meditation from Pamela Wilson, one of today’s leading spiritual teachers

A companion piece to Pamela Wilson’s adjoining column, Age of Sorrow, Age of Wakefulness, this meditation invites you deeply into restorative rest and gratitude for every granule of your being. Invite someone close to you to close their eyes, and try reading it to them sotto voce.

SPECIAL TO SOUL’S CODE: PAMELA WILSON — Sit quietly and look inside, feel the sensations in your chest. Continue Reading »

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“Just because CNN is selling economic fear across the board doesn’t mean you have to buy it.”

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — From the Eastern perspective there will never be one single pill, diet, exercise or lifestyle that will cure what ails all people.

Each of our lives fulls of thoughts and episodes and sensations reflect an intensely-experienced microcosm. Each being has a unique fingerprint —  let it be said, soul’s code — and wants to be understood, examined and healed uniquely, not through the lens of mass judgement.

What is experientially, emotionally and perceptually toxic to one person could be liberating to another. There is not one accepted standard that will equally measure every nuance of every person’s life. The “average person” does not exist in Eastern philosophy.

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“I had thyroid cancer, and a reiki therapy session that changed my life. Call it a peak experience, call it a spirit guide . . . I’m healed and happy”

ANONYMOUS — Throughout my life, I’ve received many messages from the Spirit World and, as a child, had a spontaneous out-of-body experience. But there is one specific spiritual event in my adulthood that has profoundly changed my life.

Many years ago, I had cancer, which started in my thyroid and quickly spread to my esophagus and vocal cords. I had two surgeries and nine months of radiation, followed by another year of recovery for me to regain my full strength.

To this day, I have a scar across my throat that looks like a smile. But I  have grown to love that scar because, to me, it represents life.

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The collapse of financial institutions are like a Harvard Business School case study: our collective hubris falling away

SPECIAL TO SOUL’S CODE: KATIE DAVIS author of Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment — Through spiritual awakening, we realize that virtually nothing is as it seems. Previously, we believed that we were a tiny fraction of individuality that was limited to an, “I am the body,” idea.

In mis-identification with the false “I,” which is the ego or mind-made self, it seemed like we were separate bodies that lived in a world of other separate people and things.

That individuated ego only knows separation, so it can only perceive separation and its lack. This delusion is the source of all suffering, and what we call the misery of the world. Continue Reading »

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Sexually spiritual: A workout slinks out of the strip clubs and into the mainstream

BY CYNDI INGLE — Can you wrap your mind (as well as your body) around a workout that helps women feel comfortable about their sexuality, encourages female bonding and may even include slipping into a pair of stiletto heels? Oh yes, and it also includes a pole. When a friend suggested that I give a pole dancing class a try, I initially balked. To my chagrin, I’ve never even been inside a strip club, and from faithfully watching The Sopranos I knew that I didn’t have the correct equipment (ie. mega implants and non-existent hips) to look at home wrapped around a pole.

I had heard rumblings that pole dancing was becoming a popular workout, but the Internet photos that I’d seen of women (civilians, not pros) spread-eagled and hanging upside down did little to whet my appetite. With my friend’s urging, I decided to be less judgemental and find out exactly what I was afraid of. Could getting more “in touch” with my sensual side be such a bad thing? Would I be opening up a veritable Pandora’s Box, or would I just be getting my workout on? Continue Reading »

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“As a psychotherapist and Episcopal priest, I have counseled hundreds of couples. What I’ve learned: There is no such thing as relationship problems.”

BY DAVID RICKEY — Most of us, when we fall in love, think we have arrived at a true and ultimate “answer” to all of our personal pains and aspirations.

Sooner or later, we find something quite the opposite: Hard work.

I have counselled couples for three decades, both as a psychologist and an Episcopal priest. I have received confessions, and administered absolutions. And officiated marriages.

This is not exactly out of the manual, but the truth is, relationships were never intended to be happy Continue Reading »

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Why do the depressed fail at relationships? Communication breakdown. A Stanford psychologist identifies 4 telltale signs

SOUL’S CODE —  A smattering of reports have linked suicides to people who are losing their homes, or reeling from steep losses in financial markets.

For most of us, depression won’t be a life-threatening issue — but it will threaten the fabric of our marriages and relationships.

The latest research shows that fully one-fifth of all of us in the U.S. will suffer clincial depression at some point in our lives. As the Great American Recession . . . Continue Reading »

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Michael Jackson and Princess Diana were confidantes. They each had a sudden death that put us in a state of shock. Why Michael’s is larger in the collective consciousness

Diana, Princess of Wales, had one of the most famous funerals in living memory — and the memory of the ‘Peoples’ Princess’ was celebrated in saturation TV coverage of her public vigils.

But the public outpouring for Michael Jackson has grown much larger and widespread than that for his friend, Diana, even though he was far more controversial than she. Within minutes of the Reagan UCLA Medical Center’s DOA announcement, networks called Jackson’s death “the story of the year.”

Here are 7 reasons why Jackson’s June 25, 2009 death will become a larger event in the global village’s collective consciousness than Diana’s 1997 tragic demise in Paris:

1. Michael Jackson became known when he was 11 years old; Diana, age 20. Jackson touched a much wider swath of humanity for a far longer period of time. Continue Reading »

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After Charlie’s Angels, she embraced the divine

GUEST COLUMN: DR. JEANINE AUSTIN — Farrah Fawcett was a huge beauty icon for all of us who came of age in the ’70s. I didn’t know any 13-year-old girls that didn’t, in some way, try to copy the Farrah feathered hair style. In earnest, I took a photo of Farrah to my hairstylist who offered to create a variation of the Farrah hairstyle for me. I was completely deflated at the thought that my hair could not be made to resemble Farrah’s exactly.

I felt burdened by the injustice of it. I didn’t have blond hair, thick hair or wavy hair, which made my morning efforts with the curling iron laborious. I admit that I stayed home from school on several occasions simply because I couldn’t get the Farrah feathered hair down.

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Tags: angry

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Scientology leader accused of slapping subordinates

David Miscavige, Church of Scientology chairman, has been accused of  hitting staff members on several occasions. Said one alleged witness, “It was random and whimsical. It could be the look on your face. Or not answering a question quickly. But it always was a punishment.” Soul’s Code finds this a curious use of the word “whimsical,” but hopes that such whimsy, if true, will come to an end, soon. It can only contribute to our collective pain body.

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A motorcycle accident; a ruptured disk; Lyme disease: How a female mystic healed herself

AN ADVANCED EXCERPT FROM RASHANI RÉA’S NEW BOOK, Beyond Brokenness

Suffering is by no means a prerequisite for anything. It’s a part of life. We suffer until we understand the root cause of pain. This is simply how the mystery moved through my life and how I have come to perceive it with gratitude and wonder. Your experiences will be different from mine. In truth, we are neither suffering nor free of suffering.

After my son’s birth, he developed severe asthma and eczema — and I was drawn into the world of natural healing, which I studied in-depth. I was particularly drawn to homeopathy and naturopathy, shamanism, sound healing, and dreams. Continue Reading »

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A priest and psychotherapist shares how he and his friends have dealt with recession, job loss and financial poverty

BY DAVID RICKEY — The loss of a job — the proverbial “Pink Slip” — can be a major challenge on several levels. Material survival, physical well-being, emotional balance, and, ultimately, sense of meaning are all threatened by this single event.

Here’s a “prescription” for dealing with this threat.

First, breathe . . .

Then, as you keep breathing deeply, let the fears and emotions gently come forth. With each fear, as it arises, ask yourself: “Is that really true?”

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A scientific approach to life after death?

Religion News reports on a Dallas Morning News interview with neuroscientist David Eagleman, author of Sum: Forty Tales of from the Afterlife. Not your typical scientific doubter, Eagleman plays up the possibility of life on the other side saying, “I think it’s so important that we celebrate our ignorance on this — any real scientist will tell you by what an enormous margin the mystery outstrips what we actually know.” To which we say, “Amen.” Listen to Eagleman on NPR.

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Marriage and family therapists are advancing a new way to disarm people when they lose their cool: the Aikido of Communication

SOUL’S CODE —  Like a scene out of the Michael Douglas movie, Falling Down, a just-divorced aerospace worker in California’s “Inland Empire,” dressed up as a Santa on Christmas Eve 2008 and shot nine people at his in-laws’ holiday party.

The  day after Christmas, 2008 in Philadelphia, 29-year-old James Joseph Cialella Jr. shot a father in a movie theatre after arguing with the latter and his son while watching the Brad Pitt-Cate Blanchett vehicle, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

It’s not a total coincidence that the shootings in Covina and Philly took place on either side of Christmas Day. Continue Reading »

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Katie Davis is a female mystic, fellow traveler of Eckhart Tolle’s and teacher of the kind of love that makes relationships last

GUEST COLUMN: KATIE DAVIS author of Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment — All love is one Love and when we fall in love with one another, it is said that we are experiencing the divine. Rumi, a thirteenth-century Sufi poet, defines love as a mystical moment, when two spiritually-connected individuals meet.

We call it love at first sight.

In this meeting of eyes, Rumi romantically writes, we not only experience the union of two loving souls but also the Love that is the crux of the universe.

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These aren’t “The Rules” that Oprah loves. DAVID RICHO’s arise out of Buddhism, a Catholic priesthood and depth psychology

SOUL’S CODE —  Shrunken stock portfolios, canceled checks, and an unemployment rate in the double-digits indicate that couples who are distressed in their relationships today will stick together tomorrow.

Stick it out, rather than walk out is a distinctly anti-Me Generation response to fear and unmet wants — the opposite of the Baby Boomer ethic of autonomy and desire-fulfillment.

The polar-opposite is our parents’ and grandparents’ code for survival — a Survivor-response to love and relationships forged in the scarcity of The Depression’s and WWII. Continue Reading »

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Holocaust Museum shooter James W. Von Brunn is a case study in the mechanisms of the reptile brain

DAVID RICKEY — Hate crimes are nothing new. They have been around ever since the homo sapien emerged from its evolutionary forebears.  Animals have an instinctive “fight or flight” response built into their brain structure.

Human beings, as they evolved, didn’t lose it; they just built on top of this “reptilian brain.” The new layer was the “cerebral cortex,” which allowed us to reflect on experiences and develop ideas rather than just act out instinctual responses. And therein lies the problem. Hate is the just the attitudinal equivalent of  “Fight or Flight”. Continue Reading »

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The current economic crisis is a collective ‘dark night of the soul’  — and a creative destruction of the ego’s fear and trembling

GUEST COLUMN: SMADAR DE LANGE — In 1843, the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard published a book called Fear and Trembling, a title borrowed from a line in Philippians 2:12, “. . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian mystic of the following century, argued that the main motivation of the ego is fear-based. Working with fear is at the essence of a spiritual practice, because only when we face our existential fear, can we be set free. Continue Reading »

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