Joan Borysenko - Pocketful of Miracles: Prayer, Meditations, and Affirmations to Nurture Your Spirit Every Day of the Year

Pocketful of Miracles is a guide to remembering the loving Source from which we come. Each one of us has moments of remembering, when we find ourselves present to the beauty of a sunset, the smile of a baby or the light in the eyes of a stranger. At those moments we feel most at home in our skin; confident, happy, grateful, loving and connected to the seamless web of life. We are present in our essential nature, what you may think of as the Higher or Spiritual Self. At other times that connection fades and we adopt a more limited perspective. Fear of loss, abandonment and the withdrawal of love form a shell around our hearts and obscure the light of the Higher Self which is always present, always calling us to remember who we really are.

In spite of the inner drive to wake up to our essential nature, there is another force of mind working to keep us asleepthe ego. As a psychologist, I think of this aspect of personality as the conditioned self. It arises in response to the conditions of life that threaten to separate us from love. As we grow up, we don a variety of masks that we show to the world in an attempt to be lovable, or at least powerful. The masks help us feel safe. Paradoxically, they are informed by fear and keep us separate from the only true source of lovethe Divine Mind. In spiritual systems, the fear-based conditioned self is called the ego. This is different from ego as it is used in psychological parlance to denote a healthy, independent sense of self.

The miracle that this book refers to is the shift in perspective out of the fear-based nature of the ego into the timeless love and wisdom of the Higher Self.* This miracle is the basis of what writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley called the Perennial Philosophythe esoteric, or hidden, core of all religions. The Perennial Philosophy consists of four fundamental doctrines:

• The world of relative reality in which we live is the manifestation of a Divine Mind without which nothing would exist.
• Access to the Divine Mind is not a matter of knowledge or doctrine, but a direct experience of the numinous.
• Each one of us has a dual nature: the ego and the Higher Self. The Higher Self is the Divine Spark within. The ego is the provocateur that leads us to discover that Higher Self.
• The purpose of human life is to discover our union with the Divine Mind, not by transcending this life, but by becoming fully alive here and now, through the giving and receiving of love.

Pocketful of Miracles is a collection of daily practices, drawn from all the worlds great spiritual traditions, that are meant to bring the reader into a direct experience of the Divine. The peace, wisdom, creativity and love that make up the essential nature of the Higher Self can then shine forth as a blessing to all. Peace on earth begins with peace in our own souls. It is with this objective, to bring forth peace and compassion upon the earth, that Pocketful of Miracles is written.

The time pressures of modern life are such that few of us can engage in long periods of daily prayer and meditation. Although our hearts may call us to a contemplative life, the need to earn a living may pull us in the opposite direction. It may also be that we are so confused by the number of spiritual practices available that we dont know where to start, or that its just plain difficult to maintain enthusiasm for spiritual practice by ourselves. Even if we have a spiritual practice, at times it becomes dry and lifeless. We need inspiration to bring it to a deeper level. It is my hope that Pocketful of Miracles will provide the inspiration and framework for a spiritual practice that fits easily into most schedules. The daily lessons can generally be completed in ten minutes or less, although at times you might want to spend longer.

The Dalai Lama once heard that America was a kind of spiritual supermarket. When the term caught his imagination, and he began to refer to our great spiritual supermarket in lectures, someone took him aside and explained that the term was actually derogatory. His holiness disagreed. He asked whether shopping at a supermarket wasnt infinitely more advantageous than frequenting a small corner store where only a few stale tubes of toothpaste could be found.

Indeed, were living in unprecedented times in which the esoteric or hidden spiritual wisdom of many cultures has come into mass consciousness. In the mid 1940s, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi manuscripts were discovered, casting new light on early Christian/late Jewish thought, and providing a number of gospels to augment those in the New Testament. The terrible holocaust that the Chinese perpetrated on Tibet in the 1950s has likewise resulted in the broad distribution of previously little-known Tibetan Buddhist texts and practices. And a new awareness of and respect for Native American culture has accompanied mounting concern over ecological damage to the earth.

In addition to the surfacing of ancient wisdom, medical technology has inadvertently created a large group of modern-day mystics people who have reported near-death experiences after being snatched back from the gates of the unknown. Their message is the same as mystics from both the East and the Westthat the purpose of life is in learning how to give and receive love. Their philosophy becomes one of peace and lovingkindness, which is the measure of success in any religion or philosophy.

Pocketful of Miracles is a little bit like a spiritual supermarket in that it draws on the richness of all the worlds spiritual traditionsfrom Judaism to Gnosticism, from the Cherokee wisdom fires to the life of Jesus, from Bahai to Islam, from Buddhism to Vedanta, from