Just be and enjoy being
Celebration of Universal Light Committed to our Mission:
"Uniting the World in Love"
through meditation and prayer, Sunday services, classes, workshops, retreats, fellowship, community outreach, and other opportunities for growth.
Rev. Mary Kay Ducey Minister and Spiritual Director
In December, we honour the experience of Universal Light – the enlightenment of the Buddha, the miracle of Hanukkah, the birth of the Christ, and other celebrations of the emergence from darkness to light. It is our belief that there is an inner light of Truth within each one of us. As we partake of these celebrations, we honour our own inner divinity revealed.
Meditation: 10:15am Sunday Service: 11:00am
Please join us on the eve of Christmas, to experience an amazing sacred service celebrating this Universal Light.
Just east of Granville in the Masonic Centre
December 24th at 7:00pm
Spirit Academy for Children : 11:00am th 1495 W. 8 Avenue, Vancouver
th
1495 W. 8 Avenue, Vancouver
Check out our website for ways we honour the Universal Light during the month of December through celebration and community outreach. www.cslvancouver.com 604-321- 1225
I NSPIRATION FOR THE Y EAR A HEAD…
Inner Reflections Eng ag e m e n t Ca l e n da r 20 07 A Gift of Beauty and Inspiration Over 50 breathtakingly beautiful photos match insightful, uplifting thoughts from Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, making this calendar a gift that brings daily delight. A visual feast for yourself and anyone who appreciates spiritual beauty! Spiralbound 55 color photos $15.50 Also available in Spanish
“A work of art.... Delights the eye and uplifts the spirit.” —Nature and Health
www.IRcalendar.org
$15.50 at bookstores or our website
Enjoy listening? Helping others?
Get paid to do the work you love! Pursue a career in Counselling. THE VANCOUVER COLLEGE OF COUNSELLOR TRAINING OFFERS: Free Information Sessions - every Wednesday (11am)
• Smaller Class sizes • Hands on intensive training • Instruction from experienced professionals working in the counselling field. • Internship & supervision • Distance Education
• Diploma of Professional Counselling 52-week program • Diploma of Counselling Practice • Family Support Worker Certificate 24-week program • Addictions Worker Certificate - 24 week program • Specialized Certificates & Individual Courses
Call 604-683-2442 or 1-800-667-3272 www.vcct.ca info@vcct.ca 14 .
.
DECEMBER 2006
THE POWER OF NOW
D
•
ECKHART TOLLE
oes the past take up a great deal of your attention? Do you freS P I R I T UA L I T Y quently talk and think about it, either positively or negatively? Then you is waiting in line at the post office, in are not only reinforcing a false sense a traffic jam, at the airport, or waitof self, but you are also helping to ing for someone to arrive, to finish accelerate your body’s aging process work and so on. “Large-scale waiting” by creating an accumulation of past is waiting for the next vacation, for in your psyche. Verify this for yourself a better job, for the children to grow by observing those around you who up, for a truly meaningful relationhave a strong tendency to hold on to ship, for success, to make money, to the past. be important or to become enlightDie to the past every moment. You ened. It is not uncommon for people don’t need it. Only refer to it when it is to spend their whole life waiting to absolutely relevant to the present. Feel start living. the power of this moment and the fullWaiting is a state of mind. Basically, ness of Being. Feel your presence. it means that you want the future; you Are you worried? Do you have don’t want the present. You don’t want many “what if ” thoughts? You are what you’ve got; you want what you identified with your mind, which is haven’t got. There is nothing wrong projecting itself into an imaginary with striving to improve your life future situation and creating fear. situation. You can improve your life There is no way situation, but you that you can cope cannot improve with such a situyour life. Life is ation, because it You can improve your life primary. Life is doesn’t exist. It’s situation, but you cannot your deepest inner a mental phanBeing. It is already tom. You can stop improve your life. Life is whole, complete, this life-corroding primary. Life is your deep- perfect. Your life insanity simply by situation consists acknowledging the est inner Being. It is already of your circumpresent moment. stances and your whole, complete, perfect. Become aware experiences. of your breathFor example, ing. Feel the air many people flowing in and out of your body. Feel are waiting for prosperity. It cannot your inner energy field. All that you come in the future. When you honever have to cope with in real life – as our, acknowledge and fully accept opposed to imaginary mind projec- your present reality – where you are, tions – is this moment. Ask yourself who you are and what you are doing which “problem” you have right now, right now – you are grateful for what not next year, tomorrow or five min- you have, grateful for what is, grateutes from now. What is wrong with ful for Being. Gratitude for the presthis moment? You can always cope ent moment and the fullness of life with the Now, but you can never now is true prosperity. In time, that cope with the future, nor do you prosperity manifests for you in varihave to. The answer, the strength, the ous ways. right action or the resource will be So give up waiting as a state of there when you need it, not before, mind. When you catch yourself slipnot after. ping into waiting, snap out of it. “One day I’ll make it.” Is your goal Come into the present moment. Just taking up so much of your attention be, and enjoy being. If you are presthat you reduce the present moment ent, there is never any need for you to a means to an end? Is it taking the to wait for anything. So next time joy out of your doing? Are you wait- somebody says, “Sorry to have kept ing to start living? If you develop you waiting,” you can reply, “That’s such a mind pattern, no matter what all right, I wasn’t waiting. I was just you achieve or get, the present will standing here enjoying myself, in joy never be good enough; the future will in my self.” always seem better. A perfect recipe for permanent dissatisfaction and Adapted from The Power of Now, non-fulfillment, don’t you agree? copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle. Are you a habitual “waiter”? How Reprinted with permission of New much of your life do you spend wait- World Library, Novato, CA, 800-972ing? What I call “small-scale waiting” 6657 (ext. 52).
