Quote of the Week

"There are two primary methods available to us for establishing an inner dialogue with God.  They are prayer and meditation.  Prayer can be defined as 'talking to God.'  Meditation can be defined as 'listening to God.'  It is a simple but profound distinction."

John E. Welshons.  When Prayers Aren't Answered.  Novato, CA:  New World Library, 2007, p. 7.

"An important key to success (in medical school) can be summed up in the directive "Adhere closely to your true, or authentic, self and it will lead you in the right direction." Adhering to your true self means being real, permitting yourself to experience genuine feelings, and acting according to your fundamental character and principles.  However, life challenges individuality and causes stress through routines, rigorous training, and control by superiors. It can easily disconnect you from your true self and thus from its inherent wisdom -- wisdom that is a great asset in life."

Jeremy Siegel, M.D., The Mindful Medical Student:  A Psychiatrist's Guide to Staying Who You Are While Becoming Who You Want to Be."  Hanover, New Hampshire:  Dartmouth College Press, 2009, p 8.  

"We all have natural reactions to color. A clear blue sky can lift our spirits. A bouquet of sunflowers can make us feel optimistic. The green grass of a meadow can make us feel relaxed and rejuvenated. A bright red car can make us feel adventurous, while a white room can leave us feeling unsettled. Our culturally learned associations and our individualized physiological and psychological makeup produce our emotional responses to color. Color, one of the most powerful elements in our environment, affects us in many ways. Color is often the first thing we see when we walk into a room, and changing an area's color can affect its ambiance and 'personality.' But can color affect our health?"  Check out: http://www.allegralearning.com/color-and-healing-whats-the-connection.html

"IN THE NAME of the most merciful GOD.  Praise be to GOD, the LORD of all creatures; the most merciful, the king of the day of judgment.  Thee do we worship, and of thee do we beg assistance.  Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom thou hast been gracious; not of thse against whom thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray."

The Qur'an, Preface, in God's Breath:  Sacred Scriptures of the World. Eds: John Miller & Aaron Kenedi.  New York:  Marlowe & Company, 2000, p 399.

"By volunteering to work with those who are ill, suffering, or dying -- as either professional or lay caregivers -- we can come to know ourselves better, olearn to speak the truth with kindness, and uncover our own wholeness, or 'holiness.' Most importantly, we must be willing to be open, realizing that the more we learn, the more there is yet to learn.  Whenever we enter the world of the suffering, we thus have a unique opportunity to discover the 'unfinished aspects' of ourselves and, by so doing, begin to heal our lives and grow."

Christine Longaker, Facing Death and Finding Hope:  A Guide to the Emotional and Spiritual Care of the Dying.  New York:  Doubleday,1997, p xvi.

"Four decades of empirical research suggest that mindfulness practices have numerous positive effects such as enhancing health, increasing spiritual and psychological well-being, and lowering stress. . . Through cultivation of mindfulness, we are better able to respond with greater awareness instead of automatically reacting to stress. As our mindfulness builds and becomes more integrated into our moment-by-moment experience we have greater freedom of how to respond, how to choose to live and be in this world. Building a new relationship with our experiences is necessary to finding peace."

Hooria Jazaieri and Shana L. Shapiro, "Managing Stress Mindfully," in Contemplative Practices in Action: Spirituality, Meditation, and Health, Thomas G. Plante, Ed.  Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010, p 31.

"As a scientist, I distrusted my own expxerience, and set out on a personal journey to discover whether the energizing feeling of hope can in fact contribute to recovery.  I found that there is an authentic biology of hope. . . Researchers are learning that a change in mind-set has the power to alter neurochemistry.  Belief and expectation -- the key elements of hope - can block pain by releasing the brain's endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphone.  In some cases, hope can also have important effects on fundamental physiological processes like respiration, circulation and motor function.  During the course of an illness, hope can be imagined as a domino effect, a chain reaction in which each link makes improvement more likely.  It changes us profoundly in spirit and in body.  Every day I look for hope, for my patients, for my loved ones, and for myself."

Jerome Groopman, M.D.  The Anatomy of Hope:  How People Prevail in the Face of Illness.   New York:  Random House, 2005, p. xvi.

"Over the past two decades a transition has been occuring in the healthcare industry; people are starting to express an interest in healing again.  Of course, when we are discuss healing we are referring to it with its old English derivative, "the make whole," acknowledging that healing cannot occur without recognizing it as a spiritual process.  Because of this renewed interest, attitudes toward spirituality in the workplace appear to be changing . . . a transition to a deeper calling is becoming apparent.  Research suggests that patients desire and feel more comfortable with physicians who are not only open to their own humanity, but who also are willing to allow patietns to discuss their spiritual proclivities."

Eileen E. Morrison.  Cricial Issues for the 21st Century.  2nd Edition.  Sudbury, MA:  Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2009, p 322.

"Life gave me the talent to play the piano and to inspire happiness in people through music; and I am just as grateful that it gave me a love of music.  Music makes us humans rich.  It is the revelation of the divine.  It takes us to paradise."

Introduction by Alice Herz-Sommer, in Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki, Alice's Piano: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2007, page ix.

"The stories we tell ourselves will 'work their way down' transforming our personalities -- first our autobiographical narratives (our life stories), then our personal goals, values and priorities.  Knowing this, we can choose to tell stories that are to our benefit."

Stephen Joseph, PhD, What Doesn't Kill Us:  The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth.  New York:  Basic Books, 2011, p 134.

 "Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain  We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowing make our way to the top.  At the peak we have transcended all pain"

Pema Chodron,  Comfortable with Uncertainty.  Shambhala Press, 2008, p 1

"The expansion of the universe is fine-tuned to one part in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillon, trillion.  If it were changed by one part in either direction -- a little faster, a little slower-- we could not have a universe that would be capable of supporting life. . . I think of the wry smile that might be on the lips of God . . . I believe He . . . delights when we discover His fingerprints in the vastness of the universe, in the dusty relics of palentology and in the complexity of the cell."

Stephen Meyer, PhD, quoted by Squire Rushnell in Divine Alignment:  How God Wink Moments Guide Your Journey.  New York: Howard Books, A Division of Simon & Chuster, Inc., 2012, p 232-3.

"Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand new hours to live.  What a precious gift!  We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy and happiness to ourselves and others. Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see.  The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don't have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky.  We don['t ahve to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child.  Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy."

Tich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step:  The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.  New York:  Bantam Books, 1991, p 5.

"Far removed from the throngs of city-dwellers who move against a backdrop of concrete, glass, and steel, my lonely walks on winding cow paths evoke a central truth:  my spiritual well-being rests on the quality of my relationship with the Creator and His creation. . . The Creator is not remote and esoteric, but is available daily, hourly, and second by second; awareness of Him, evoked in inner stillness, can be as private and as essential as breathing."

Visakha, Harmony and the Bhagavad-gita.  Badger, CA: Torchlight Publishing, 2011, p 44.

"Every time I touched the brain stem, it bled.  My assistant kept suctioning up the blood to keep the site clear.  I asked myself, What do I do now?  I prayed silently and fervently, God help me know what to do."

Ben Carson, M.D., Gifted Hands:  The Ben Carson Story.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan Publishing. 1990, p 195.

"In nearly any textbook on child development or psychology, there is nothing on Childhood spirituality... These researchers generally conclude children do not and cannot have a spiritual life prior to the development of formal reasoning, usually sometime in adolesence... Bt spirituality lies beyond the rational and beyond thoughts about God.  Without an image of ourselves as divine and of our children as spiritual, we may have trouble seeing the divinity of our children, and, ultimately, in ourselves as adults."

Tobin Hart, PhD,  The Secret Spiritual World of Children.  Maui, HI: Inner Ocean publishing, 2003, p 4.

"A mystic is not a special kind of human being; rather, every human is a special kind of mystic.  I might just as well rise to this challenge and become that unique, irreplaceable mystic that only I can become.... If I fail to experience God in my own unique way, that experience will forever remain in the shadow land of possibility.  But if I do, I will know life by the divine life within me."

Brother David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in the Fullness.  New York: Paulist Press, 1994, p. 86.

"The vast majority of us pray, and we believe our prayers are answered.  We aren't holding our breath in anticipation of the results of the next double-blind laboratory study on prayer.  We feel that we already have evidence for prayer in our lives, and our lives are the most important laboratory of all."

Larry Dossey, M.D., Prayer is Good Medicine:  How to reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer.  New York, NY: Harper-Collins Publishers, 1996, p. 12.

"He (God) is the Divine Lover perpetually wed to every soul, never forsaking any soul though it forsake Him in its adulterous roaming in delusions.  God as the Perfect Lover pursuies each soul through incarnations until it returns to Him.  Of all the love that has ever been promised, pure love, love that is eternal, is found at last in God.  He is all the love of all the lovers that ever loved.  When the soul meets Him, it knows He is the One it was waiting to meet."

Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ, Vol. II, Self Realization Fellowship, 2004. p. 1209.

"Viktor Frankl wrote that 'man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.'  Spirituality helps give meaning to suffering and helps people find hope in the midst of despair.  In the midst of suffering, a skillful, caring, and compassionate health care professional can be an important anchor in which the patient can find solace and strength to move through distress in peace and acceptance." 

Christina M. Puchalski, MD and Betty Ferrell, RN, PhD, Making Health Care Whole:  Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care.  West Conshohocken, PA:  Templeton Press, 2010, p 3-4.

"The God of the Future would have to fill many roles and transcend many interpretations of historical religious tests.  But as I have always argued, if God is truly infinite, then God must have infinite manifestations. Each person can only see a very limited version of whatever God or the universe might be. . . if we bring together all our descriptions of human nature, reality, spirituality, and the universe, we might achieve a fuller understanding of what God is."

Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain:  Breakthrough Findings froma  Leading Neuroscientist.   New York:  Ballatine Books, 2009, p 129.

"When I was going through cancer treatment, people often asked what they could do for me.  Even some of those closest to me were surprised when I said, 'Pray for me every night at 9:00 p.m. eastern standard time.'... During Chemotherapy, 9 o'clock at night was a particularly difficult and lonely time for me. . . As I prayed, I knew that I was helping myself to heal, both physically and emotionally.  I've read the studies, and I know that the evidence of the positive health effects of spiritual practice is quite convincing. . .  What I can say with conviction is that for whatever reason, tapping into your own spiritual reservoir -- as it feels comfortable for you -- can help you to Super Heal."

Julie K. Silver, M.D. Super Healing:  The Clinically Proven Plan to Maximize Recovery from Illness or Injury.  NYC, NY: Rodale Publishing, 2007, p 186-7.    

"There are signs that the gap between (religion and medicine) may be closing.  Research has shown that medical patients have religious and spiritual needs intimately related to their physicial health that can influence their medical decisions and can often be important for coping with illness. Psychoneuroimmunology and psychosomatic medicine are shedding light on the physiological mechanisms by which psychological, social, and behavioral factors can affect physicial health.  These mechanisms provide us with rational and highly plausible explanations for how and why religion may impact physicial as well as mental health -- quite apart from supernatural influences that are beyond scientific investigation."

Harold G Koenig, Dana E King, Verna B. Carson, Handbook of religion and health,  2nd Edition, New York:  Oxford University Press, 2012, p 605.

“It is no longer of primary concern to show that my religion is the fulfillment of yours, that my notion of the Divine is superior to yours, that my “Savior” is bigger than yours, or even that my solution to the problem at hand is more effective than yours.  What matters most is that people be actually helped, fed, educated and given medicine, that violence and war be avoided, and that the environment be saved and protected.” 

Paul F. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010, p 140.

"In the Qur'an, God is referred to as As-Shafi, the Restorer of Health (Qur'an 41:44).  Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, stated that for every illness, God created a cure (Al-Jawziyyah 1999, 25)."  

Salih Yucel, Prayer and Healing in Islam. New Jersey: Tughra Books, 2010, p 3.  

"A religious phenomenon will only be recognized as such if it is grasped at its own level, that is to say, if it is studied as something religious.  To try to grasp the essence of such a phenomenon by means of physiology, psychology, sociology, economics, linguistics, art or any other study is false; it misses the one unique and irreducible element in it -- the element of the sacred." 

Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion.  Lincoln, Nebraska:  University of Nebraska Press, 1996, p. xvi.

"Every human being, according to Eliade, has the innate capacity to apprehend the revelatory presence of the sacred.  Hence, we are all homo religiosus."  

 John Clifford Holt, Introduction to, Patterns in Comparative Religion by Mircea Eliade.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, p. xiii-xiv.

"Prayer, ritual, meditation, and music have the power to heal, and yet we don't use them seriously and widely in medical practice because they lie outside the paradigm, the myth, and the accepted story of modern medicine ."

Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul in Medicine: Healing Guidance for Patients, Families, and the People Who Care for Them.  New York:  Hay House, Inc., 2010, p. xxi.

"Healing contradicts currently popular and well-accepted scientific paradigms.  The natual laws which apply to the material world perceived by our senses are accurate and helpful in understanding and manipulating that domain, but are not appropriate for other dimensions of perception and interaction with non-material aspects of the world."  

Daniel J. Benor, M.D. Spiritual Healing: Scientific Validation of A Healing Revolution.  Southfield, MI: Vision Publications. 2003, p. 453.