When it comes to healing energy, as the healer Mary Baker Eddy once said, “What blesses one, blesses all.” This means that when we send out healing energy to others, it is also a blessing to us too. It is like love. The more love we give, the more we receive. It is one of the Laws of the Universe. We don’t have to be stingy with healing energy. Being in the flow of it feels as wonderful as love itself.
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I have often healed myself and am in the process of doing so now. I remember how I used to heal myself when I was a child. I would send loving energy to to spot that was hurt and the cells of my body responded. Once, when I was 11, I was kicked by a horse that tossed me off its saddle. I consciously healed the pain and was able to dance in a play that night.

When we get ourselves into the state of peace with an underlying passion to find a way to channel the healing energy of the Universe, it works. I didn’t know how it worked, exactly, when I was a child. But I knew it worked because I got results.
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Today someone texted me that he was feeling horrible with the flu. I immediately told him I was sending healing vibrations his way. He felt the comfort right away. In the process, I felt such joy and uplift, my own inner body was singing with happiness and health.

Some Buddhists do worship the Buddha out of respect, some out of love, others out of a primitive desire for the Buddha to give them something they want. But the Buddha, like all enlightened beings, was not interested in being worshipped.

He said, “Be a light unto yourself.” He did not see salvation as lying outside ourselves. His mission was to assist us in finding that inner light. Not seeking it in a statue, or in repetitious incantations, or other rituals. To often the focus is on the right way of performing all these rituals and the spirit of reverence behind them is lost.
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Many beautiful and serene statues of Buddha exist to remind us of his great contribution towards lessening our suffering. And it might feel good to adorn these statues with garlands and other gifts. Those gestures are symbols of humble gratitude for what the Buddha has brought to the world. But to actually worship him goes against his teachings. He is pointing to a way of living, not a bribery system of exchanges, where if worshippers makes sacrifices they expect something in return.

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Every day we think and rethink the same thoughts, most of which are based on fear and its attendant stress. No wonder so many people feel exhausted. According to Michigan State University’s Stress Less with Mindfulness program, a person has 80,000 thoughts a day. 90% of these thoughts are the same ones we have had before, and 80 percent of these are negative.

If you’re tired physically, it’s hard to think clearly but being plagued by the same negative thoughts is even more depleting. And so it becomes a vicious circle. Our negative thoughts, if they create anything at all and are not just a rehashing of old stuff, create more fear. They are extremely draining in this way. How can we wake up fresh in the morning to face a new day when the same miserable thoughts start automatically repeating themselves?

These thoughts deplete the body by producing chemicals and hormones that weaken the physiology. Worrisome thoughts about our survival, the state of the world, how people behaved towards us, how we behaved back, swirl around automatically unless we find a way to rise above them. This is where spiritual techniques come to the rescue.
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Getting in touch with our Soul rather than constantly being churned by the mind is the way out of all of this. It is refreshing to watch the thoughts and not be emotionally affected by their ups and downs. Peaceful contemplation or meditation is one of the many methods to control the tsunami of negativity and fear. As we experience ourselves as the Eternal Observer, we can weed out the thoughts that don’t support us and cultivate the ones that do. In this way we can change the ratio of negative to positive thought patterns.

The word “is” is too strong in the statement that “all life is suffering.” This may be a mistranslation. I prefer the statement: “All life contains suffering.” And I would go even further to say, “All human life contains suffering.”

Fish and ants do not show any signs of suffering in terms of emotional pain and introspective agony—especially if one of their own gets snagged by a predator. Nor do the hawks flying around in the cold rain for prey complain about the hostile conditions. The rabbit may scream when the hawk snatches it, but is is suffering or is it a survival mechanism to cause the hawk to drop it?

Only humans suffer the way the Buddha describes it. He learned about suffering when he left the artificial heaven of his father’s palace and saw that every household had someone in it who had died. He saw illness. He saw decrepit old age. These are things his father was trying to shield him from. But he saw clearly that no one escapes from this suffering.

So he set about to find a way to relieve this uniquely human condition. The human mind despairs, contemplates its mistakes, plots revenge, holds anger, feels interminable grief—unless. Unless we find the way out. He tells us that the source of all this suffering is our attachment and desire for something else than what we are now going through or what we now have. He tells us give up this desire for something else and face what is.
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Then he gives us the Noble Eightfold Path as a recipe for a clean, wholesome, spiritually connected life in the here and now. He is honest about the existence of suffering, unlike some religions that claim that our pain is only an illusion. And he is very practical about how to go about alleviating it for ourselves and others. But to say that “all life is suffering,” is incorrect and I doubt that he really said it that way.

Even if we know that our physical reality is not really the way we see and experience it, we still need moral values for interacting with one another. We are all sharing this illusory reality but we are trained to feel and interpret it by our parents for the benefit of ourselves and others. They want us to get along with each other in our families. They also want us to treat each other fairly, kindly, with understanding, and justice even outside our families.

Just because we now know that our shared reality is nothing but empty space, particles and waves, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have feelings. Our feelings help us navigate through our lives and even to survive. They help us thrive because we can empathize with each other we can also cooperate with each other. We have a better chance of surviving when we band together in harmony than if we are ripping each other off and being quarrelsome, selfish, and violent.
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Regardless of the underlying structure of our physical reality, we still need to experience love, acceptance, and harmony. These results can only come from considering other people, animals, and all life on this planet. And considering the effects of our actions on others is the basis of morality.

Low level mundane, happiness does not last. It is only momentary. It can quickly turn into sadness and disappointment.

The famous comedian Jackie Gleason once told a story about growing up very poor and always wanting a billiards table. When he became wealthy later in life, he finally bought a beautiful one. He was thrilled for about two days and little by little, it just became another piece of furniture. It didn’t bring the happiness and now it was one more thing to clean and take care for.

Or, you eat a scrumptious sweet dessert. It brings happiness for the moment. Then it might bring guilt for the additional empty calories and disease-causing sugar. You might even criticize yourself for being weak and succumbing to temptation. Or someone can take the delightful treat away from you and now you feel deprived and actually hate them. Or you might feel bloated and sluggish after your blood sugar plummets and all you have is a few crumbs.

But higher, spiritual happiness is something that is in the background of any and all experiences no matter what. Even when the most horrible, painful things are happening. On the surface you may feel anger, upset, or any number of unpleasant emotions. But underneath it all is a deep calm. You are a knowing observer, watching the procession of physical existence.

To Ivan Denisovich, a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag, even the cockroaches in his cell became his friends and visitors. He saw them as amazing manifestations of the One Eternal Intelligence behind everything we perceive or can contemplate. They were life forms, just as he was and he greeted them as co-prisoners in the Physical realm.
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The deep, underlying happiness that comes from the Spiritual point of view is continuous. But it isn’t wildly frolicking around tossing rose petals and shrieking with laughter. It is a quiet, observant space. The fleeting happiness that comes from mundane stuff is up and down, always changing, morphing from happiness to sadness and back again. It is a rough roller coaster ride.

It’s actually very simple. Call them to you. Most people don’t believe it’s that simple. But. . .

. . . you must be ready to recognize their signs. They may speak to you in a whisper or come to you in a dream. You may feel them as a disembodied presence. They can bring an object to you that will help you with your decision. They can show signs, literally, such as street signs or words on the side of a truck or in a book. But you must take the first step and call them to you.

Most people think you have to set up amazing altars or perform complicated rituals. But it’s not necessary. Maybe you want to set the mood for yourself with candles and a serene safe place. Or maybe you want to go into a church. Kneeling is a good way to approach angels because it shows receptivity and humility.

Really though, you don’t need to set the mood. Sometimes you will need to call your angels in the midst of danger or chaos. There’s no time to get fancy and decorative. Just call your angels within your heart and allow yourself to feel their presence.
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Also, don’t look at your watch and start making demands; “It’s been five minutes and I haven’t gotten a sign yet!” The angels come to you in their good time, when it is the right time according to their higher wisdom. And that may not be when you think it is the right time. We cannot force them. Out of their love for us, they never let us down, but we must be open to their signs.

​There hasn’t been a sincere voice within the New Age spiritual community to call itself on the carpet when it has gone astray. Maybe it’s because New Age people do not want to portray themselves as negative, sending forth negative vibes, paying attention to the negative, or attracting the negative in any way. So I do not hear any voices saying let’s examine how things have been going:

There’s been an overemphasis on manifesting goodies and material stuff coming from a skewed view of the Law of Attraction. Much of the New Age movement has become like the primitive religions of old. People desperately want a lot of things. They want a male child. They want to be healed. They want riches. This is all good. The problem comes when people use New Age Movement’s principles as another form of idolatry. These principles become automatic formulas to get what they want in their little day to day life, avoid unpleasant emotions, and not have to pay the price for their choices. In this sense, it has missed the mark of its founders’ intentions.
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The basis of the New Age Movement is that there is an underlying spiritual reality that infuses everything in the Universe. This life is one of many. We don’t have to act in desperation as if it is our first and last. Not believing and trusting this, people want to hack into life’s secrets by grabbing onto any belief system that calms their fears and also promises to bring them stuff they like. The New Age movement provides systems that show how our thoughts influence our health, those around us, and how peaceful and happy we are in our lives. It goes much deeper than merely manifesting a bunch of good stuff that we are keen on having at the time.

​It is just the opposite. Personality and development are an overlay of consciousness. The same is true for language, which influences idea structure. Consciousness precedes all of these things.

It comes before all of the following:

• Personality—an amalgamation of preferences and quirks based on the culture we were taught since we were infants, past lives, our unique experiences, and body types.
• Development—different people and animals develop at different rates but they all must have consciousness to enable themselves develop. Without consciousness, living beings cannot seek food to sustain themselves and they will die.
• Language—also a product of our culture that shapes how we see the world. Some languages don’t have words for more than the number “10,” for example. They just call it, “many, many” because they don’t need to know or communicate more.
• Idea structure—Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. They are held in consciousness, which completes the idea. Consciousness holds the idea.

Consciousness must be there first. It is the underlying fabric or container upon which everything else makes its impression. It is a manifestation of the deep, underlying Intelligence of the Universe. It does not depend on the human brain, our emotions, or what the cultures we were born into say is true.

“. . .there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought. Thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. . . . All things that truly matter—beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace—arise from beyond the mind.”

I love this statement because, as civilized beings, we depend so much on our rational minds. At least we think they are rational, until we make mistakes, forget things, and look at the history of the human race and its sanctioned insanities.

Yes, the mind is a great tool and it comes up with all kinds of solutions to practical problems. But the mind offers no comfort during a sleepless night or when we are delving into past mistakes and future fears. Yet we think we are all this mind. That these non-stop thoughts are who we are and what we are. They take us on a white-water raft ride, through swirling whirlpools and craggy rocks over the precipice of a cascade, into our doom.

But if we access the intelligence beyond this maelstrom of churning thoughts, we finally find a connection to deep serenity and peace. The mind can carry on all it wants, we are watching its antics but not getting swept away by them. But first we must put this part of our minds into its place, through accessing the present moment. If we are constantly swirling around with past and future thoughts, that field of peace is blocked to us.
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One of Eckart Tolle’s missions is to show the clear path out of this thing that we think is us. He offers many practices to clear the way. And then, all that brings joy and happiness are there for us, just as they have always been.