Common Ground Interspiritual Fellowship of Astoria

12/11/2023

Here is an uplifting and inspiring interview on the topic, and book, Awe by Dacher Keltner. "Awe has the opposite effect in the body as stress." All spiritual paths are seeking to connect us with a sense of awe. Very inspiring conversation!

Welcome! Let us know where you are watching from. To support, please visit: https://www.tarabrach.com/donationThis offering is supported by your generosity.P...

10/29/2023

Friends, please watch this interview by Tara Brach on the situation in the Middle East and how to hold it within your spiritual practice. There is a very hopeful and caring message to receive through this conversation.

Welcome! Let us know where you are watching from. The meditation and talk start at 7:30 pm ET. To support, please visit: https://www.tarabrach.com/donationTh...

04/14/2023

Authentically You
Friends,
The excerpt this week is from the Science of Mind magazine entitled "The Nascent State: Authentically You" by Rev. Dr. Jesse Jennings.
"Being authentically yourself means being yourself by your own guiding lights and not retreating into conformity to what's expected of you ... by anybody else. It means listening to your feelings, making your own choices, blazing your own trail .... Authenticity is an ideal, similar to happiness and satisfaction. These are great states to aspire to, and yet they ebb and flow rather than arrive and stay. In human relationships, a person's authenticity has to work with others' senses of self...."

  Being authentically yourself means being yourself by your own guiding lights and not retreating into conformity to what's expected of you (or implied or assumed to be expected of you) by anybody else. It means listening to your feelings, making your own choices, blazing your own trail and so fort...

04/07/2023

Friends,
The excerpt this week is from the Buddhist Lion’s Roar article entitled "How to Find a Better Balance" by Christiane Wolf|.
"Equanimity protects us from emotional overreaction and allows us to rest in a bigger perspective. 'Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.' With this sentence the writer Max Ehrmann began “Desiderata.” My mother appreciated this poem so much that she hung a framed copy across from the toilet in our bathroom, and for years I found myself reflecting on it several times a day in a contemplative position. Was this the origin of my quest for equanimity?"

  Equanimity protects us from emotional overreaction and allows us to rest in a bigger perspective. “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.” With this sentence the German-American writer Max Ehrmann began “Desiderata.” My mother appreciated...

04/01/2023

Don't Be Afraid of Your Tears

Friends,
The excerpt this week comes from Maria Shriver's 3/04/2023 Sunday Paper.
"Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.” —Charlotte Brontë
I love the above quote because it ... takes something that many people associate with weakness and reframes it into an act of being alive. So many of us are afraid to cry. We’re afraid to open the floodgates of our emotions. We sometimes even go to extraordinary lengths not to feel or cry.... I definitely was one of those people..."

“Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.” —Charlotte Brontë

03/18/2023

How Not to Burn Out
Friends,
The excerpt this week is by Keisha Bush January 18, 2023.
"Sustainable activism begins with not calling yourself an activist. Too many self-identified activists are running themselves into the ground. Yet we’re unlikely to make truly impactful change if we’re burnt out. So, how do we—individually and collectively—continue to move the needle of equity and inclusion while also caring for ourselves? Sustainable activism begins with the radical process of..."

03/11/2023

Heart Minded
Friends,
The excerpt this week is edited from the Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge interview with Sarah Blondin. Blondin is known for her online guided meditations that invite us to come back home to our hearts and to embrace the fullness of our experience. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Sarah about her new book, Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love, and how we can each take up residence in the intelligence and strength of our hearts.

  Tami Simon: Now I want to talk about what you call being heart minded, and you use this word “softening.” I noticed that word has a powerful impact on me. And I wonder if you can go into it a bit when you say it, the impact it has on you and what exactly are we softening?   Sarah Blondin: We...

02/17/2023

What Is Awakening?
Friends,
The excerpt this week comes from an interview with Sri Mooji by Jannecke Oinaes of Wisdom from North .... Mooji was born in Jamaica and ... in 1987 he met a Christian mystic. It changed his life.... and brought him into direct experience with the divine and within a short time he experienced a shift in consciousness.
"[Questioner] ...I'm very excited about speaking to you today, because after doing 300 interviews for 4 years, I still don't have a clue about what awakening is and I've never experienced it myself. ... Can you speak a little bit about what an awakening is?...."

02/04/2023

You Have Influence
Friends,
The excerpt for this week is from Nick Ortner's 01/7/2023 email on "You Have Influence."
"There’s a lot going on in the world. And there’s a lot that needs to change… a lot of transformations to create and healing to be done. And sometimes, that can feel downright overwhelming. I get it. You’re not alone if you feel overwhelmed by it all - if you see so much to do, to change, to improve, to act on – that you can’t even imagine making a dent in all of it. You are not alone if it sometimes feels like too much ..."

There’s a lot going on in the world. And there’s a lot that needs to change… a lot of transformations to create and healing to be done. And sometimes, that can feel downright overwhelming.  I get it. You’re not alone if you feel overwhelmed by it all - if you see so much to do, to change, t...

01/27/2023

The Myth of Normal
Friends,
The excerpt this week is from the Sounds True, Insights at the Edge interview with Dr. Gabor Mate, "A Personal View of Healing into Wholeness in a Toxic Culture."
"Tami Simon: To start out, your new book, The Myth of Normal, first of all, it’s 500 pages and I have to say a very worthy investment of time and energy. Now, explain the title, The Myth of Normal, for people who are hearing this title for the first time.
Gabor Mate: Well, the process of gestating this book, has been going on for a long time. I just needed to bring it all together, to say it all... to take a wide-view lens of our society, of our culture, of our individual self and all the interconnections. We tend to assume that what is normal is also healthy and natural. And at least in the medical sense that’s true, what is normal in terms of blood pressure or temperature. Now, in society, ... the argument I’m making is that in today’s culture, what we consider to be normal is neither healthy or natural...."

  Tami Simon: To start out, your new book, The Myth of Normal, first of all, it’s 500 pages and I have to say a very worthy investment of time and energy. Now, explain the title, The Myth of Normal, for people who are hearing this title for the first time. Gabor Mate: Well, I must say, the proce...

01/13/2023

Working with Chaos
Friends,
The excerpt for this week is excerpted from “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.” by Pema Chodron, reprinted by Shambhala Publications as "Three Methods for Working with Chaos" in the 11/18/2022 issue of Lion's Roar.
"You may have noticed that there is frequently an irritating, if not depressing, discrepancy between our good intentions and how we act when we are confronted with the nitty-gritty details of real life situations. It’s not a matter of the right choice or the wrong choice, but simply that we are often presented with a dilemma about bringing together the inspiration of the teachings with what they mean to us on the spot...."

You may have noticed that there is frequently an irritating, if not depressing, discrepancy between our  good intentions and how we act when we are confronted with the nitty-gritty details of real life situations. It’s not a matter of the right choice or the wrong choice, but simply that we are o...