Swedenborgian Community Interfaith Podcast

When I think of Easter I think of celebrations of life with vibrant colors and the diversity of community expressions of joy – and even for those of us not Christian or perhaps still wondering about religion, spirituality, and God, I think there’s a profound message of awakening and resurrection in the Easter story. Christ himself hadn’t set out to “start a religion” but to return us to our natural state in unity with love and God (known by many names and many stories), inviting us to a type of resurrection of spirit, society, and life. Even as we count Christ dead in modern culture due to the ignorance and horrors sometimes offered by those who take his name, I think we’ll find he’s not down for the count.

Our spiritual teachers have a very important job to do and when they are fruitful in helping us awaken to Spirit and Love we can’t help but rejoice, this is because intrinsic to the Spirit of God (known by many names) is joy. We recently saw a joyful and historic teaching moment when one of the world’s foremost spiritual teachers, Pope Francis, along with various Catholic bishops met with indigenous people from Canada over the course of a few days. During this visit, the indigenous peoples shared their stories and the lasting impact that residential schools and other colonizing efforts have had on them and their friends and family. The trip ended in a heartfelt speech and apology from the Pope, affirming the indigenous peoples’ experiences and expressing how much he’s learned in those few days, vowing to be a partner in decolonization and with indigenous peoples. In this example, we see that even the Pope has a learning journey and that often our best teachers are the most overlooked, as the humble and oppres

A meditation to unveil our true natures

It says in the scriptures that God gives light to everyone and is the true light. This clearly metaphorical phrase, although perhaps also literal, seems to point to a number of things that we call light: truth, wisdom, understanding, spiritual insight, perception – which all come back to the most fundamental light of all, the light of consciousness itself, without which none of these could be perceived. Despite being so prominent in the Christian scriptures, delving into this line of thinking and further inquiry seems to often take a backburner to more surface understandings of Christ, which can keep God at a distance from us while also limiting our understanding of the shining unity at the core of most religions. Even more pluralistic approaches can miss this important point, that God is the pure light of consciousness itself – at no distance from our seat of perception – and that coming to better know this Alpha and Omega of our lives can awaken us to all to our birthrights as children of God, not stepchild

The 18th-century sage, Emanuel Swedenborg, has greatly influenced many impactful, peerless thinkers and influential progressive radicals (from Immanuel Kant and Helen Keller to Emerson, Blake, and William James), but he himself is little known to modern history. And although there are countless biographies of the ground-breaking scientist-turned-mystic, there is one important aspect of his history that I think could use a little more exploration and emulation, his spiritual awakening. His deep meditative approach to his quest for the seat of the soul resembles the types of inner inquiry that many ancient and modern sages invite in order to awaken from spiritual slumber, into what a Swedenborgian may coin “angelic flow,” or “Christ-consciousness,” or just plainly, Buddha.Read more: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org/blog/secretLearn more on our website: https://swedenborgiancommunity.orgGive: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org/my-gift

War is on our doorsteps more often than we admit, as it’s a small world and it is always at war. But a type of war often churns in our minds as well, springing from a similar cause: ignorance of our true nature and our oneness as the Self. Vladimir Putin’s atrocious war on Ukraine scrapes the barrel of degradation and even toys with catastrophic nuclear destruction, and yet shares in the root cause of a false idea of self – one that seeks to defend from, attack, control, relish in, judge, fear, and subjugate all things that touch its fancy, as this is the nature of this inverted wisdom itself. Yes, our minds jump from one ignorant type of modality to the next as there is a time for all these things when we stay centered in non-centeredness. Often these things feel out of our control – types of impulsive, habitual drives leading some of us even to murder – and many of these traits can be written off as normal as it is the common modality of our unawakened minds. But, in a way, this offers a solution in and of

A Meditation to Relieve Stress and Anxiety: Awaken Within

Today we pray for Ukraine, hopefully, no matter our tradition and country. We pray for peace, healing, safety, wholeness, sanity, an end to wars and needless violence (in Ukraine and otherwise). But prayer sometimes leaves us asking, what is it fundamentally? Is it an inner monologue toward God, an effort to manifest something? Of course, prayer is often what we make it. Scripturally, prayer tends to be described as an effort to unburden our issues before God and find connection with Divinity, as well as seeking reconciliation, healing, unity, resolution, and peace – even for our enemies. In many religions, there’s a shared approach to prayer that includes both personal beseeching as well as various other types of meditative approaches that may include mantras (like with the Lord’s Prayer or many Hindu prayers) or praise and thanksgiving. Whether it’s beseeching, praise, mantric, or more silent prayers, these are designed to help us let go of our issues and our mind’s wanderings and open toward the transcende

A meditation for inner and outer peace.

Coming into harmony with the universe and our Higher Power sounds aspirational and nice, but I think many people believe it’s beyond human capability or, at least, their own. Sometimes when we assess our mental or spiritual situation it may seem disheartening due to our lingering issues, or we may feel that there’s too much chaos going on to ever tap into a true beingness at harmony with the play of the natural realm and God. The trick, though, seems to be realizing that the part of us that says it’s impossible and feels at odds with things isn’t us and really isn’t even a friend, it’s a voice that we feel is intimate but it’s also an illusory manifestation of us not understanding our true selves. Instead, we must turn to Beingness itself within to learn our true nature and give up our attachment to listening to that false teacher we’ve come to call “me.”

The world strives to convince us of the necessity of how we often do things: with an anxious headiness and a desperate grasping, saying that one day all our striving and yearning might get us what we need to feel at ease and fulfilled. But this cause and effect doesn’t add up, as Jesus said, God’s yoke is light and easy. In actuality we are already fulfilled where we sit, no other cause is needed. Jesus served and serves as an embodiment of Divinity, the very thing that we are all called to by birthright, asking us to turn away from our distortive thinking. Unfortunately, with our adopted sense of division and false selfhood, we grasp at our minds’ illusions and yearnings, not realizing we are much greater than our picture of ourselves – meant to be aware of our oneness with the Father, with Jesus, with the Buddha, with each other, and they with us.

Why we should let go of our false ideas of self, according to Emanuel Swedenborg's book Divine Providence and our host, Cory. We continue our exploration of this fantastic book, which you can download on our website SwedenborgianCommunity.org.

As we start to awaken to the Divinity at our core, it’s typical that we begin by realizing there are greater truths out there than we may have thought, and come to centre on a specific set of spiritual truths that are helping to wake us up, deepen our walk, and that have spoken to us in a way that may make more sense to us than others we’ve heard about. According to the 18th-century scientist-turned-sage, Emanuel Swedenborg, these spiritual-natural truths are represented by John the Baptist in the well-known biblical story – calling us to let go of our sins and be baptized, promising that there are greater truths, a greater connection to Jesus, to come. Indeed, Swedenborg believed that all the Biblical stories (or any truly scriptural story, for that matter) represent more universal things than we often give them credit for and are not limited to describing one religious walk, he supported these claims by exploring all the ways our scriptures keep saying just that!

A meditation for inner peace and reconnecting with our Self.

The key reason we treat these feelings and thoughts as vastly important is because we have (and are often encouraged to have) a false idea of ourselves and what’s important. Worry and fear arise when we feel a threat to our existence, something we inevitably feel all the time when we identify with our idea of our reputation, our fleeting sense of glory, our inevitably passing bodies, our thoughts and intellect, as well as all the other false derivations and morphing images we have about ourselves and what’s important. The sages tell us that these false ideas of self and our yearning for the things that feed them, disconnect us with our true selves, fogging up our inner life because we centre on the passing mist instead of the sun of consciousness within.

The angel in our reading said, “Do not be afraid, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” but who exactly is this reading referring to when it says “all”? Often, the Christmas story’s impact is understood to be limited to “Christians.” But perhaps this understanding is missing the point entirely – that God’s Advent in history and continuing Advent in each of our lives is meant to uplift everyone, a phenomenon that’s always present, working to empower hope, peace, love, and ultimately, our joy. Moreover, this statement starts by enjoining us to release fear, pointing to God’s call to let go of our false ideas of self and turn to the reality of God’s Advent within us, no matter our tradition.

This guided meditation is designed to encourage a reconnection with our inner connection to peace, clarity, and transcendence - to wake us up to the present moment and our intrinsic connection to Divinity as the core of our awareness.

I find it interesting, or perhaps devastating, that so many groups within traditions that espouse a loving God turn toward an interpretation of it that damns or condemns all others. Whether it be large veins of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, or others, we all have a tendency to identify with our judgmental, dismissive, and controlling mind and let that guide our religiosity (or atheism) and life at times. When we start to let this go the shared centre between many of our traditions, the importance of being oriented toward loving compassion, is easily revealed. This week’s Christian Advent theme is exactly this topic, and today we explore how love is intrinsic to our very consciousness and how God is love and the light of consciousness itself, repeatedly asking us to come into our similarly loving and non-divisive nature.

We all hope. We hope for this desire or that, for this justice or that award. And we hope we are safe in any situation. The hopes that we have can paint a picture of what we are about in our lives, what our gods are. Unfortunately, most hopes undermine our sense of peace and compassion as they are centered on fleeting things: our bodies, our reputations, our lust, our memory, and on. Indeed, the scriptures of many traditions share in the idea that our shared hope should be on the increase of love, peace, and wisdom itself, since, as we come to hope for these things, they naturally become more apparent within us and then, our hope transforms into the confidence and trust inherent in these eternal attributes.

Both the U.S.’s Veterans’ Day and Canada’s Remembrance Day celebrate and/or mourn the veterans in our midst and those that have passed. What it means to be a soldier is different for many people, and I’m honoured to have had a number of veterans in my family share their various experiences and wisdom over the years. Both my grandfathers, my aunt, two of my uncles, and my brother, all have had both inspiring and critical things to say about the armed forces, and all have seemed to believe that serving their country helped to craft them into who they are. No matter our politics, this week we ought to honour the sacrifices and efforts made by our soldiers of all stripes, as well as honour the peace that most of these strive and yearn for as we seek to dispel the violence that so often takes their lives.Read more here: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org/blog/remembrance