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ISBN: Print 978-1-64739-815-6 | eBook 978-1-64739-490-5
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TO ALL OF MY BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND COUSINS, THEIR FAMILIES, THEIR CHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDRENS CHILDREN.
CONTENTS
We live in a time when ancient prophecies are finally being fulfilled. Every surviving faith tradition has one story or another of its great teachers and prophets gazing into the future and seeing a day when all people around the worldfrom all cultures, tribes, and traditions would come together in the spirit of peace. Today is that day.
As the world becomes smaller and smaller through technological advances, humans are realizing how similar they really are. That similarity includes our faith. We have found that, more often than not, when it comes down to it, each faith tradition centers on nearly identical core principles of unity, compassion, personal responsibility, forgiveness, eternity, and infinite possibilitiesor miracles.
People of every nation, tribe, and language have awakened to the realization we are really one people, living on a very small planet in a very large universe. Spiritual evolution is taking placenot through renunciation of our old faith traditions, but through a metaphysical reconciliation. It is not that God or the universe has changed. We have.
Modern Spirituality is a guide to understanding and navigating this change. It is intended to be a completely new, practical expression of the universal spiritual concepts found in all major world faith traditions. Presented through the lens of modern psychological and scientific understanding, Modern Spirituality addresses the most pressing spiritual challenges of our generation and provides proven techniques to equip us to lead more meaningful, fulfilling lives by tuning in to our higher natures .
The lower nature is our physical nature, which was born and will one day die. The lower nature, sometimes called the natural man or the animal nature, responds to materialistic urges and automatic biological cravings. The higher nature is our spiritual, or divine, nature, which was never born and will never die and operates on an almost completely opposite set of characteristics from our lower nature. Whereas those who continue to operate from the default lower nature are held back from spiritual evolution by their free will and circumstances, those who engage with the wisdom of higher nature experience a spiritual rebirth and become purified, more advanced, more powerful, and more peaceful.
Spiritual faith traditions have collected extraordinary wisdom over the ages about how to discipline our lower naturetechniques that allow us to renounce its characteristics and cultivate inner awareness of our higher nature.
The goal of this book is to draw from those traditions and beyond to help you access your higher nature. In doing so, it will help you find your purpose, provide spiritual support for any difficulty or hardship you may encounter, and empower and enable you to heal. This book is a gift for anyone called to spirituality and who feels connected to that global sense of spirituality. Anyone at any phase of their spiritual process and from any religious background (or no religious background) can learn and benefit from the journey presented here.
Modern Spirituality assumes seven core principles, drawn from an analysis of all major world traditions, which will be explored and applied through different topics and exercises. These core principles are:
. You are a child of God, the creative source of the universe, born into a world designed for your growth, learning, and happiness.
. Body, mind, spirit, society, and nature are inextricably linked.
. You are extremely powerful and all your power is accessible only in the present moment.
. The mind and spirit operate according to metaphysical laws, which can be learned and applied.
. The body and emotions operate according to physical laws, which can be learned and applied.
. Humanity has a dual nature: physical, considered the lower nature, and spiritual, considered the higher nature.
. The path of spiritual development is the ongoing study and intentional applied practice of these things through a threefold approach of application of spiritual principles, personal spiritual exercise, and community spiritual exercise.
This book is intended to be a practical guide, not a theological treatise. In the context of this book, all of these words and concepts God , your heart , your soul , the universe , your higher self are generally different ways of referring to the same infinite higher power. I invite you to engage with whatever word or concept you need to tap into your spiritual nature and to be flexible, as I use them relatively interchangeably.
