Spiritual renaissance: an individual and a collective experience

INTERFAITH

The Reason We Need Interfaith

Spiritual Renaissance ...

An Individual and a Collective Experience

"When you toss a stone into a still pool, the water ripples out in a series of widening circles.

Conjure this image in your mind’s eye. Ask yourself how one ripple affects another, and where does the energy of the ripples go? Why are you able to create images in your mind, seemingly out of nothing?

What enables us to see pictures that exist only in response to our beckoning is an inherent capacity for genius. It is a divine, and universal, urge to create described in classical and Holy works for centuries. The skill to ask the right questions - the hows and wheres and whys - sets us on the path of Self mastery.

With this stream of consciousness you open your mind to interconnectedness. Interconnectedness is reflective of both the need and the fulfillment of the self and the other, the individual and the all, the microcosm and the macrocosm. The energies available to us are quite fitting as we prepare to close one century, one millennium, and open another."

Thus begins Spiritual Renaissance: Elevating Your Consciousness for the Common Good. I have been writing this book since 1993, thinking and rethinking, meditating and teaching, experiencing and learning. Sometimes it seemed arduous, as though not really worth the effort. I knew I had something to say, insights that could aid others to profoundly transform their lives. But I wasn't quite sure what that something was.

Attending the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, affirmed the need for the interfaith message envisioned by us. Because we study the world's Holy scriptures we approach them with reasoning and discernment. This enables us to see the continuity and accord of scriptures. The Universal Language of Mind is the missing piece for the kind of agreement that can end enmity between brothers, war in the name of the Creator, be it called God or Allah. Interfaith is an underpinning of this work.

By continuing to nurture the idea of Spiritual Renaissance, I moved beyond my own limitations of goals set and missed, doubts of the need for these ideas, and thoughts of abandoning the concept or at least changing it. It was an amazing transformation in itself, writing this book.

What I eventually found was the workings of the mind manifested for the human race. By investigating the European Renaissance, I saw the destiny of us all. A microcosm in the macrocosm. The European Renaissance set into motion the "science" of today, that creation of man invented to help move us from the state of believing to a state of knowing. And science has shaken up those beliefs, from the spherical form of the Earth to living in space, from The Plague to cloning, from rule by force or birth to self government, mankind has certainly changed the face of the planet.

"Being a student and teacher of human potential has led me to visionary conclusions about the inherent nature in human beings, individually and collectively. Understanding the structure of consciousness lends great insight into the whys that puzzle most.

I believe the Italian Renaissance was a prophetic glimpse of what is to come.

I believe the present is the time of fulfillment of that prophecy.

The Italian Renaissance paved the way for genius to express itself in all avenues valued by Mankind - logical-mathematical, verbal-linguisitic, artistic discipline, scientific curiosity, social-governmental, intrapersonal-educational. Over the past five hundred years, individuals around the planet have manifested the prophecy. The list is impressive: Isacc Newton, Marie Curie, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Buckminster Fuller, Amadeus Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald, F. M. Alexander, Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandella, Mahatma Gandhi, Queen Elizabeth I, Albert Schweitzer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mother Teresa, Rudolph Steiner, Maria Montessori. Though not all contemporaries, they had much in common. Most outstanding: the willingness to elevate their consciousness to the common good. The whole has been increased because these ones are part of it. We are better because they existed.
Now begins the time of moving beyond isolated manifestations of genius. No more will countries claim a single genius in one area of endeavor then wait centuries for another to arise.

Within recent centuries we have seen increasing manifestations of simultaneous genius; da Vinci and Michelangelo, William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Edison and Nicola Tessla. Now is the time to cultivate personal excellence, to come away from the entrapment of materialistic thinking and turn our minds to the essence of life where meaning resides. Firmly seated within this consciousness, this interconnectedness, we can hope to answer any question, to resolve any problem.

We will embody a renaissance of the spirit the like of which Mankind has yet to witness. The reality of interconnectedness can spread like a wave through each human being, cleansing mind and body and uplifting the spirit.

The ever-expanding circle in the pool is the principle of Interconnectedness. Life, existence, is the pool. Evolution is the widening circles emanating from the center, the beginning. The stone is what can be.

The question is: Who will toss the stone?"•

-from Spiritual Renaissance

Now it is time for mankind to change his own face, to transform his identity from a physical being existing only in a material world to a spiritual being existing in many worlds simultaneously. Jesus knew the Truth. So did Gautama, and Zarathustra, and Mohammed, and Lao Tze, and Confucius, and countless other singular individuals existing around the world throughout history. Now it is time for us to prepare to embrace the Truth also. That is what will bring about Spiritual Renaissance.

I understand this cosmic idea of a renaissance of spirit with greater depth and clarity every day. I have certainly experienced it in writing this book. I trust it will convey that transformation as well. It is a blend of thoughts that span more than a decade and more topical insights on life as we enter the third millennium. I hope you will reorganize the way you see yourself and the world when you read Spiritual Renaissance. For in this way you will bring its message home. You will know Spiritual Renaissance is both an individual and a collective experience. Perhaps you will elevate your consciousness to be the Leonardo da Vinci or Mohandas Gandhi or Margaret Mead of this time period.

We stand on the threshold of a Spiritual Renaissance the like of which mankind has yet to experience. This renaissance has been millennia in the making.

The European Renaissance with its glimpse of mind-expanding thought and capability was but a foreshadow of what is to come. As its greatest master, Leonardo Da Vinci, said, “The desire to know is natural to good men.” The coming Spiritual Renaissance is the fruition of his insight.

Spiritual Renaissance is the movement in consciousness where knowing supersedes believing.

Where intuition is called upon in partnership with reasoning.

Where genius is promoted and mystical experience nurtured.

Where the consciousness of Mankind advances by choice, not by reaction.

Where the individual comes to realize his sole purpose for existence upon this plane, now or at any other time, is to become compatible to his Maker.

Then, at long last, the Buddha Consciousness, the Cosmic Consciousness, the Christ Consciousness will spread across the face of the Earth in a sea of Enlightened faces.

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