Today I want to share some thoughts on a few topics which at their core are related…..but isn’t everything in this universe of Oneness? First, I want to express my sadness of hearing of the passing late last year of Rev. Michael Dowd.  He was originally an evangelical preacher who evolved into someone who touted the spiritual importance of the process of evolution and an advocate for the melding of science and religion. He sought to change us to a more ecological approach to our treatment of this planet. His widow, Connie Barlow, recently sent out an email on Michael’s mailing list to in ..read more

I love getting questions here on the “bridge” as well as on my YouTube channel.  I always see valid questions as an opportunity to ponder the matter and go deeper with my thinking.   My desire is that my response may in some way be beneficial.  Here I want to share my response to a question I received in regards to one of my YouTube Videos about author William Walker Atkinson. The video was entitled “The Kybalion, William Walker Atkinson and New Thought”. I hope you find this exchange of interest. By the way, if you have a metaphysical question that you would like me to ta ..read more

“There will always be suffering. But we must not suffer over the suffering.” ~ Alan Watts   We have discussed that God, The All, The Thing Itself created the universe and imbedded Itself into Its creation. In addition, we have mentioned that God then allowed Its creation to forget its source as well as to have the ability of a free will so as to “choose” its actions. This “forgetting our source” maximizes our free will menu of choices. It allows The All to experience though its creation (that includes you and I) choices that might not be available otherwise. How so? There are two primary ..read more

“We are potentially perfect, but free will and self-choice cause us to appear imperfect.” ~ Ernest Holmes   Up to this point, we have painted a picture of our experiencing physical human life as individuals separate and apart from one another while certain desires push us towards remembering our ultimate truth that we are unified in a spiritual oneness.  The internal urge or need for meaning and transcendence push along an upward path towards our ultimate return to our source.  The experience of love also serves this goal. So, the question may arise at this point as to whether ..read more

“Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come to being.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin   We all know what love is, right?  After all, I suspect that most of us have felt the emotion of love, have “fallen in love”, listened to “love songs”, watched movies about people “in love” and the like. And, everything we think we know about love is true…..but love is also so much more. Here I want you to consider that what we feel as the emotion of love is actually a divine force imbedded in us that pushes and pulls us to connect with that w ..read more

“The word evolution carries with it in its intrinsic sense, in the idea at its root the necessity of a previous involution. We must, if a hidden spiritual being is the secret of all the action of Nature, give its full power to that latent value of the idea. We are bound then to suppose that all that evolves already existed involved, passive or otherwise active, but in either case concealed from us in the shell of material Nature. The Spirit which manifests itself here in a body, must be involved from the beginning in the whole of matter and in every knot, formation and particle of matter; lif ..read more

“Oh, friends, to mortals this Universe of Mentality is very real indeed — it is the only one we can ever know, though we rise from plane to plane, higher and higher in it. To know it otherwise, by actual experience, we must be THE ALL itself. It is true that the higher we rise in the scale — the nearer to “the mind of the Father” we reach — the more apparent becomes the illusory nature of finite things, but not until THE ALL finally withdraws us into itself does the vision actually vanish.” ~ William Walker Atkinson (writing in The Kybalion)   So, we have seen that we have needs that are ..read more

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ~  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin   Here I want you to see that you are more than your body and your physical self.  You also have a non-physical self. Now, I suspect that most of us already accept that we have some kind of physical reality since it is so “in our face” every day. Less prevalent is the acceptance of your non-physical reality. However, you may already believe that you have a “spirit” or a “soul” or some non-physical aspect to your being.  If so, that’s goo ..read more

“The ability to be human is rooted in our capacity for self-transcendence.” ~ Abraham Maslow   Earlier in this series, I spoke about our “need” for meaning.  Let’s return to that concept and expand on it just a bit.  Where I’m going is to open you to seeing that in certain aspects of your life you are driven based on your “humanness” and in other areas your urges come from somewhere beyond that place. But first, what are “needs”?  Why are “needs”?  Where do they come from?  Do they serve any purpose? On one level, this seems like a topic that needs no explan ..read more

“All things in life should be questioned” ~ Socrates   So here we are.  We are these human beings born into some inexplicable experience of life on earth. We realize we have consciousness and whatnot and at some point, we start seeking to give some kind of meaning to the whole crazy experience.  Along the way, we create a mental map or worldview that outlines what we think is true about this life.  And, although our personal mental map is somewhat open to change as we receive new information, for most folks after they reach a certain age, this map becomes basically static ..read more