Weeks ago I reviewed “Stepping into the Magic” by Gill Edwards. I bought the book as early as 2002. I seriously studied the book in 2003 and in 2014. In 2016 I have far better insights.

Sadly for me, I discovered from Facebook that Gill Edwards died in 2011 from cancer. I am puzzled that for all her serious work on consciousness she, like Wayne Dyer, had cancer. But I learned that they both left their bodies peacefully.

From Gill Edwards I learned:

“I believe that our first responsibility is to make our lives work. By finding inner peace, for example, we are contributing towards global peace…”

“World peace begins with inner peace. Once we have found inner peace, we might choose to approach the issue of world peace from a higher perspective and therefore have a greater impact.”

“Inner and outer constantly mirror each other. They are two sides of the same coin.”

“This only sounds crazy if we forget that everything is onscious energy, and that we create our own reality.”

I wish I knew this when I was younger!

Ms Boorstein wrote: “It’s incredibly easy to become confused. The mind become overwhelmed – by a challenge or its impulsive response to a challenge and becomes confused, misreads what’s happening, and frightens itself.

“Mindfulness doesn’t erase confusion as much as it notices it and dissolves, or at least  reduces the fear about it. As fear lessens, misperceptions begin to correct themselves. And opportunities for correction… are always available.”

I like the radical and rational Rabbi Balfour Brickner. I also like the congenial, Buddhist practised-minded Sylvia Boorstein.
She wrote: I think what most excited me (and many other westerners) about Buddhism was that it offers a succinct explanation for suffering. It recognizes that pain is a given in lfe, but still offers the possibility of the end of suffering (by ending the extra pain of struggling with situations beyond our control.

In my life my living model for the non-struggle pathway are my own husband, Dr Jean Netario Cruz and Tato Malay.

“The end of suffering, I learned was something I could bring about through my own practice. IT DEPENDED ON ME. And, I didn’t have to believe it was true, or say I believed it was true, or make any declaration of faith at all.”

“The Buddha’s elegant and succinct teaching about the possibility of the end of suffering – not the end of pain, but the end of suffering- I was captivated, and I was thrilled and I was reassured. The idea that it was possible, in the middle of this very life, fully engaged in life, to live contentedly and compassionately was completely compelling.”

Between what I learned from the Rabbi  about prayer and the above statements of Sylvia Boorstein I can now enjoy LIFE without being fearful I am not doing enough to appease an ANGRY God (of the Old Testament!)!!!!!

At this point in my spiritual journey I am guided by Rabbi Brickner:

“If I am for myself, what am I? A well-reasoned faith is independently formed but not solipsistic. It does not isolate a person from humanity; it does not allow an individual to turn away from the needs of others. A well-reasoned faith does not pretend that all human beings are good or kind or honest.”

I being an ISTJ need to guard against solipticism!

“The politics of God, as unfashionable as it has always been, has never gone out of fashion. The remembered giants of religion – men such as Martin Luther , Sir Thomas More, Walter Rauschenbusch, John Haynes Holmes, Rabbi Stephen Wise and Martin Luther King, Jr – are remembered and admired precisely because of their willingness to speak their religious truth to those in political power so as to effect social change. They made a virtue out of seeking to implement for society the ethical demands of the prophets of Israel.”

“These men shared one common commitment: They preached and worked for a finer public morality without advocating some specific religion for all.”

“Herein lies the world of difference between them and many of our contemporary evangelists. Those clergy who pursued the elimination of social evil used the logic of their fith to influence , not to coerce or CONVERT.”