Traditionally spirituality has been defined as a process of personal transformation in accordance with religious ideals. Since the 19th century spirituality is often separated from religion, and has become more oriented on subjective experience and psychological growth. It may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience, but without a singThere is no single, widely-agreed definition of spirituality.[note 1]Surveys of the definition of the term, as used in scholarly research, show a broad range of definitions, with a very limited similitude.

According to Waaijman, the traditional meaning of spirituality is a process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape of man, the image of God. To accomplish this, the re-formation is oriented at a mold, which represents the original shape: inJudaismtheTorah, inChristianityChrist, inBuddhismBuddha, in theIslamMuhammad."[note 2]

In modern times the emphasis is on subjective experience.It may denote almost any kind of meaningful activity[note 3]orblissful experience.It still denotes a process oftransformation, but in a context separate from organized religious institutions, termed "spiritual but not religious".Houtman and Aupers suggest that modern spirituality is a blend of humanistic psychology, mystical and esoteric traditions and eastern religions.

Waaijman points out that "spirituality" is only one term of a range of words which denote the praxis of spirituality.Some other terms are "Hasidism, contemplation, kabbala, asceticism, mysticism, perfection, devotion and piety".le, widely-agreed definition.

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Scientific spirituality | Science Of Spirituality Blog on ...

Vero Beach, FL (PRWEB) October 01, 2014

Has science now proven that God exists? Douglas Ell, author of the new book Counting To God, will speak about this and other big questions related to science and faith in two lectures at Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach.

Times: Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 6:00 pm Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 6:00 pm

Location: Trinity Episcopal Church 2365 Pine Avenue Vero Beach, FL 32960

Both talks are open to the general public and there is no charge.

In Counting To God, Ell applies the lens of mathematical analysis to a series of scientific discoveries, drawing startling conclusions about the relation between scientific and religious truths.

The Treasure Coast resident and former atheist brings a unique vantage point to the subject matter: He is a prominent national attorney who earned a double major in physics and math from MIT, and a masters degree in theoretical mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Ell said Ive spent more than 30 years reconciling science and God, because I needed scientific evidence to believe in God. He has lectured to both scientists and church groups.

I highly recommend this thoughtful exploration of the relation between science and spirituality, said Professor Peter Fisher, Head of the MIT Physics Department about Ells book.

Counting to God is now available at the Vero Beach Book Center, 2145 Indian River Blvd., in Vero Beach, and also through various online retailers.

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Does Science Now Point to God? Local Author to Discuss Discoveries in Cosmology, Biology, Evolutionary Theory

Feature Article of Thursday, 2 October 2014

Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis

The level of assumptive reasoning propping up our body of arguments boils down to a simple factual reality: A sitting president who has legal knowledge of being prosecuted or impeached upon serving his tenure and sentenced to prison if found guilty by a competent court could not make light of his public conduct. Apparently as it is we are not saying this on the authority of the layered mechanics of interpretation, though, given our lack of formal jurisdiction over matters of constitutional niceties. We thereby plead ignorance of the taxing temperament of constitutional annotation. However, it is the dilemmatic repercussions of the Indemnity Clause for holding occupants of the highest seat in the land accountable for egregious public misconducts detrimental to national security and economic stability that grates on our quizzical conscience. Thus the Indemnity Clause cripples an important aspect of moral philosophy upon which the sucklings tiny lips, which we shall call equality before the law, feeds. Apropos, must we always put the complex problem of constitutional inequities squarely at the feet of leadership?

Not necessarily.

Leadership is extension of families, marriages, communities, nation-states, continents, or such. And the community in question has a moral responsibility to ensure the behavior of every member of its constitution conforms, either through unspoken signals or through constitutional instruments, to the moral and ethical values of group dynamics. This tacitly or constitutionally agreed-upon concordance must uphold the virtues of mutual respectability and mans innate impulse for individual, or collective, survival. Moreover, if the Indemnity Clause enjoys unflinching constitutional imprimatur and if it fits the rugged articulation of moral self-defense in protection of a few, who is there to say the Freedom of Information Bill (FOI) cannot similarly benefit from the institutional benevolence of constitutional accommodation? Unfortunately neither the NPP nor the NDC has demonstrated any commendable height of leadership on this critical matter. The same goes for lack of leadership on the epidemic of Ebola. As it were the political and moral cost of leadership failure to society is enormous, if incalculable, indeed.

Let us try to see the bigger picture. We have the opinion that Ghanas National Reconciliation Commission, an institution patterned after South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission, did a good job to prevent the specter of mutual revenge taking hold of public psychology in the lead-up to the Forth Republic. But Soyinka has categorically faulted South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission for letting go of men and women who committed crimes against humanity by merely testifying before the Commission and showing remorse. He believes the kind gesture extended to respondents has the tendency to breed impunity in the new South Africa (See his book The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness). However, regarding Ghanas, we argue that it will be morally sacrilegious or sensitively hypocritical on the part of any individual to ascribe the aggregate happenings that eventually led to the formation of Ghanas Commission to individual personalities, since the June 4, 1979 Revolution had the full backing of popular sovereignty.

However, we cannot underestimate the force of Soyinkas moral arguments in light of the culture of impunity that has evolved in Ghana. It should interest us to know that this contention may or may not have anything to do with the violence that accompanied the Revolution, given the indebtedness of the latter to the putschism that topped Kwame Nkrumah and to those between. We could stretch the argument to say that Ghanas National Reconciliation Commission, like South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was raised on a strong moral foundation of humanism, which Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu otherwise labeled Ubuntu. Besides, American-trained intellectuals like Dr. Vincent Kwabena Damuah (later Osofo Okomfo Damuah), founder of the Afrikania Mission, joined the ranks of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), bringing along their humanistic baggage. What did the Revolution achieve in the long run? That is for history and posterity to answer!

The question is: Can humanism co-exist with the corrupt practices of religion and politics? This is not an idle or soluble question. Undoubtedly, the question is philosophically tied to the social marriage between leadership priorities and the prerogatives of community dynamics in the knowledge that leadership failure cannot be easily decoupled from the imposed prerogatives of community dynamics. The moral disconnect between the two, leadership priorities and prerogatives of community dynamics, feeds the embers of mutual repulsion and mutual suspicions. Overall, this is not healthy for Ghanas internal stability and temperamental organization. It also does not reflect well on the integrity of society when a sitting president, a corrupt one at that, is legally mandated to terminate the services of subordinate public officials who run afoul of public trust and constitutional expectations, whilst his train of malfeasances enjoys full protection under the motoric dictatorship of constitutionalism. We make this bold assertion in the light of the constitutional implications of the Indemnity Clause.

Indeed equality before the law is an essential concept. On the other hand, the concept requires the prodding of practical affirmation, not theoretical groping, to establish a moral presence of institutional attestation. It constitutes an exemplar of moral irony when Ghanaian courts impose steep penalties on petty criminals while professional white-color criminals receive lenient pats on their chubby cheeks from milking the state to the tune of millions of dollars. Social gullibility and institutional weakness are partly to blame for the moral problematic of leadership elitism. In fact, the hostile stench of institutional weakness and social gullibility, coupled with the raving spirit and letter of constitutional dictatorship, are responsible for the elitist distance setting ruler and the ruled apart, ruler against the ruled, and so on. The open cracks lodged in elitist distance, an exclusive club for white-color criminals, mostly politicians, are fertile grounds for growing the social seeds of corruption.

Nevertheless, the immortal story of corruption and social inequity is an exceedingly tall, obese, and labyrinthine one. Humanism is thus up against a formidable foe. It still beats the prying imagination of conscientious men and women to see Ghanaian politicians, like their counterparts elsewhere, endlessly engaged in the intoxicating sins of white-color criminality despite the enormous perquisites that accrue from their political responsibilities. Thus, taming the malignancy of corruption will require conscious moments of continuous radical opposition. We employ the word taming in close congress with the moral fight against corruption because corruption, we acknowledge, is ineradicable. It is suppressible at best. Let us face facts. Thus, the kind of fight that must be mounted against the height of entrenchment to which corruption has attained in Ghanaian society could not be simply explained away through cosmetic apologetics. Humanism and public opinion have a difficult task ahead of them.

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Ghanas Many Problems: The Promise of Humanism 2

Countless poems, songs, novels, television programs, and movies share a perspective on what love is but many, if not most, miss the mark. Today people are looking to smart phones to define love even recording each others pulses on phones equipped with heart-rate monitors as a way of showing how much they love each other.

But basing love on these measurements isnt where we find the answer to what love is, because love isnt something that is physically seen. It is not a measurable entity. We cant reach out and touch love or take loves temperature. This is because love is a quality a quality that, in its truest sense, comes from the highest power there is namely, God.

The Bible points to this, saying that God is love (I John: 4:16). The Bible infers that Love, or God, is infinite, and this is why we could never measure Love, or measure the amount of love that emanates from God. We could never use a limited metric, such as a tape measure or smart phone, to calculate infinity. Similarly, we cannot physically see Love or God because the material senses cannot see omnipotent Spirit. The physical senses are limited tools, which cannot grasp infinity. In order to see love we must use another sense.

The founder of this newspaper, Mary Baker Eddy, called this other sense spiritual sense, which is something everyone has. It is through our innate spiritual sense that we can understand things that are spiritual. Things of the Spirit love, principle, truth, and so on are good and eternal. They are true qualities of God. As the Bible explains in Genesis, God is good and made everything, including man, good. It was through this enlightened sense, through the inspired Word of the Bible, and through her lifes demonstration of healing, that Mrs. Eddy was able to discover how Christianity brings healing and she named this discovery Christian Science. Through this spiritual lens she was able to see that [t]he Christianly scientific real is the sensuous unreal (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 353).

Understanding this statement with our spiritual sense means that what is actually substantial, permanent, and real is Spirit a reality only barely recognized by what we see with material sense. A merely material sense of ourselves and everything around us fails to perceive our spiritual nature, which is natively good, harmonious, lovable, and loving. Spiritually understanding God, Love, and man as his image and likeness is what enabled Mrs. Eddy to heal, and her message continues to help countless others to heal today.

The Bible records many experiences of people calling on the power of Love to heal. In fact, the best healer of all, Jesus Christ, not only taught us to love one another, he actually commanded that we do it (see John 13:34). By loving, Jesus was, through spiritual sense, seeing man as the reflection of God all perfection. Mrs. Eddy describes Jesus ability to heal this way: Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw Gods own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick (Science and Health, pp. 476-477).

The less our thought is absorbed in a sensual view of ourselves and others, and the more we see others as Jesus saw man, the more we are able to find a permanent peace and joy that brings us into harmony with the description of man outlined in Chapter 1 of Genesiswhere man is described as being created in Gods image and likeness, the likeness of Spirit or divine good. Casting off sensuousness enables us to perceive Spirit and what each of us truly is as Spirits likeness. Seeing with spiritual sense brings our experience into harmony with eternal good, and this is where we find healing. To the degree that we turn away from physical sense, we make way for infinite Love, which is caring for its entire creation. This understanding of Love brings joy to our relationships, because it brings a love that is lasting and true.

According to Mrs. Eddy, Jesus was unselfish. His spirituality separated him from sensuousness, and caused the selfish materialist to hate him; but it was this spirituality which enabled Jesus to heal the sick, cast out evil, and raise the dead (Science and Health, p. 51).

As we understand the permanent joy of Spirit, we not only find the answer to the question What is love? but we are able to heal ourselves and others. We learn more about what love is by loving one another and find a higher sense of life.

In the words of First John: No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us (I John 4:12).

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Seeing love and healing

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Become Bruce Lee | Subliminal Meditation | Binaural Beats
Become Bruce Lee. HD stereo headphones for best results. Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/jamzdmindexpansion Binaural Beat Brainwave Frequency : 12hz (Alpha) NP3 http://bit.ly/Neuro-Pro...

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Become Bruce Lee | Subliminal Meditation | Binaural Beats - Video

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Day 27 - Meditation spot
Today I take you to one of my favourite meditation spots and share one of my favourite mind management techniques - mindfulness meditation. Plus there #39;s a great offer for Julian #39;s Beginner #39;s...

By: Brilliant Living HQ

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Day 27 - Meditation spot - Video

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September 28, 2014 - 11:11 celebration meditation
who we are, what we think and why we do what we do: what #39;s your body language?" by Rev. Linda McDermott, Senior Associate Pastor, in the eleven:eleven nontraditional worship service in Wesley...

By: FUMC Fort Worth

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September 28, 2014 - 11:11 celebration meditation - Video

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Sun Sept 28, 2014 "Affirmation, Mantra Meditation" with Dr. Edward Viljoen - 2nd service

By: Spiritual Living Center Atlanta

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Sun Sept 28, 2014 "Affirmation, Mantra & Meditation" with Dr. Edward Viljoen - 2nd service - Video

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Dzogchen Meditation Community Learning Center Lesson 2: the Mind and the Time-Machine
One of the founding features that makes the mind one of the most fascinating form of machine that the human brain has is the ability to remember and feel the moment at a given time within the...

By: Ocean Tantric Lama

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Dzogchen Meditation Community Learning Center Lesson 2: the Mind and the Time-Machine - Video

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Welcome to Basara (Guided Meditation)
Basara is another world filled with dangerous creatures and beautiful landscapes. This guided meditation will guide you through entering Basara and give you the tools you need to traverse...

By: nickabenson

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Welcome to Basara (Guided Meditation) - Video