John Roger Barrie
We are honored to celebrate the release of my spiritual novel, Dialogues With the Lord of Time, which is being published this week. During the month of February, I’ll be posting various aspects about and featuring various excerpts from Dialogues. My novel will be published in all popular formats, and it will be available wherever books can be ordered. Please Read More »
Today is the annual commemoration (Jayanti) of Narendra Nath Datta’s birth. Narendra, better known as Swami Vivekananda, singlehandedly put Hinduism on the map in America. Vivekananda preached a universal, interfaith message, upholding respect for all peoples and religions. The Swami first declared his message during the World’s Parliament of Religions, which convened in September 1893 in Chicago. On Monday, we Read More »
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.” Thus, Ebenezer Scrooge, in Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, propounded the quintessential element of a genuine spiritual conversion experience: one’s course must change. If so, their former destiny will change. We can see Read More »
A recent headline grabbed our attention. A new study found the practice of mindfulness meditation was just as effective for reducing anxiety as taking medication. A research team at Georgetown University Medical Center conducted the study using two groups of participants over an eight-week period. Those who participated in the mindfulness-meditation program achieved a 20% reduction in anxiety-related symptoms, which Read More »
A new film version was released this year based on the classic children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, about a wooden puppet who is brought to life and aspires to become a real boy. This story provides a wealth of fodder for spiritual metaphor. Especially when Pinocchio is told he must be “brave, truthful, and unselfish” in order to transform Read More »
When it comes to one’s spiritual life, aspirants can easily get sidetracked. One of the biggest traps can be, oddly, reading spiritual books. Or, more precisely, pseudo-spiritual books. Pseudo-spiritual books are those that contain lots of abstract concepts and, for lack of a better word, gobbledygook. The Zen master Hui-Neng is rightly depicted as tearing up the scriptures. Not because Read More »
In Buddhism, a key term is skandha, which is translated as “aggregate.” This refers to the five components of one’s being: material form (i.e., one’s body), sensations, perceptions, mental activity, and consciousness. A similar concept exists in Hinduism, originating from the Sankhya philosophical school, which posits the principle of guna, which translates as “quality.” The world is composed of three Read More »
While we read New Testament accounts that bolster the mild-mannered image of Jesus as portrayed in Charles Wesley’s famous hymn, “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild,” there is another side of Jesus we cannot ignore. “Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division” (Luke 12:51), he said. Further, “I have come Read More »
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