Tag: Love
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Valentine’s Day
Today is Valentine’s Day. For many people this means it is a day of flowers, chocolates and greetings cards slushy, humorous or both. We may think this is a recent invention like Fathers’ Day, but that’s far from true. Valentine’s Day dates back many centuries and has its origins in 3rd Century Rome. St Valentine…
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Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing
I was asked to give a talk on love for Valentine’s Day. I accepted. Shouldn’t be too hard, I thought. After all, everyone wants to love and be loved, don’t they? I soon wished I hadn’t. Like Prince Charles I couldn’t even decide – what is love? I trawled the internet. I found the views…
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Buddhism, Animals and the Environment
I was first attracted to Buddhism because it seemed to me to be more eco-friendly than other traditions. It seemed more enlightened than Christianity, Islam and Judaism! But recent investigations have made me wonder if this is really true as we shall see. In ancient times when the world’s major religions were created they had…
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Yeshua’s Greatest Hits
20 The Transfiguration Yeshua takes three of his disciples up a mountain to pray. Suddenly, his face changes, his body is transformed and his clothes become dazzling white light. The prophets Moses and Elijah appear and engage him in conversation. A cloud overshadows them, and a voice says, ‘This is my son, my chosen, listen…
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5 reasons to forgive
Practise forgiveness Judging, blaming, bearing grudges and forgiveness are closely related. Before you need to forgive you must have judged, blamed and felt a measure of fear. Otherwise there would be nothing to forgive. It is not for you to decide whether the recipient deserves to be forgiven is not. Forgiveness is not about condoning…
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Universal Intelligence – however you conceive it – loves all its children equally
Not long ago a local Councillor from Northern Ireland stated his belief on UK national radio that Hurricane Katrina was God’s retribution against gay people in New Orleans (apparently a gay festival would have taken place in the city two days later had the hurricane not happened) and added that the Tsunami in December 2004…
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Self-love
Is it wrong to love yourself? Some people think so. They think of people who love themselves as being rather unpleasant, selfish and conceited. But loving yourself is not the same as being in love with yourself. This is usually a form of bravado indulged in by individuals who think too little of themselves and…
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Love your enemies
A great teacher taught that we should love our enemies and bless those who persecute us. What did he mean by this? Problems with others usually occur because our own thinking is in error. With no enmity in our thinking, we have no enemies! That’s why Abraham Lincoln observed, ‘Am I not destroying my enemies…
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Love your enemies
A great teacher once said, ‘Love your enemies,’ baffling not only his audience but also hundreds of millions ever since. How can it be in our own interests to love our enemies? What did he mean by this? Problems with others usually occur because our own thinking is in error. With no enmity in our…
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The Higher and Lower Selves
Our inner experience often feels like a tug of war as various streams of thought battle for attention. Some thoughts come from the needs of the body and emotions. They make up the part of the mind referred to as the ego or ‘Lower Self’. In contrast, we also have thoughts which come from the…