• by Valerie Joy King •
Recently I got the subject of “Practicing Contentment” as the topic I was to cover during my meditation talk. It caused me to contemplate deeply: What is contentment? How should we practice it? and why would you want to practice contentment?
Contentment has me thinking of a big mama cow sitting in the middle of a lush, green field chewing her cud with not a care in the world. Or it’s a baby who’s just finished nursing and they’re sleeping, with that blissful little smile on their face—utterly content. But as we grow older, contentment begins to have deeper meaning.
Contentment is a translation of a Sanskrit word “santosha,” and it may not have exactly the same meaning. Santosha comes from two different words: “sam,” meaning absolute, and “tosha,” meaning acceptance. To me this doesn’t mean absolute acceptance of some outer circumstance; it’s absolute contentment and peace within you. People may think of contentment as a sort of apathy, or “Oh, whatever. I’m not going to do anything.” But that’s not the spiritual meaning of it.
Meditating on it, I realized that if I see something in the outer world—a circumstance, relationship or something that needs work—I don’t just leave it be. It means I find and connect with that place inside of true peace and then deal with it in a way that is going to be helpful, and really move that situation forward and improve it.
A chance to practice came during a recent council meeting at a nearby city, where some people were very angry and upset, while misunderstanding a current situation. In the midst of the complaining and negative comments, I realized I had to practice gratitude, compassion, and connect with the bliss consciousness deep inside my spirit. Then I could listen to others and be able to see the good that these people were trying to do, even if it was misguided.
The city mayor wanted a positive outcome, and was looking at both sides. He happened to be a man, probably about 70, with white hair and beard. He was so kind and compassionate, I thought he appeared like Santa Claus. And what happened because of his energy was that everyone felt pretty good at the end, even though they didn’t get what they wanted. That was a really nice experience of understanding what contentment means—not that we simply accept the circumstances, but we feel at peace and move on from there.
How can you practice contentment from the inside out, and the outside in? We can grab a hold of the reins of our mind and senses through being conscious of our actions, our feelings and our thoughts. We can hold them, and work through them. Even if we’re feeling frustration, anxiety, worry, fear, or anger, we can work through that without having to throw it out on somebody else, making the whole situation worse. We have compassion for ourselves and others, by taking responsibility for ourselves. “Here I am. I may not be in control of the circumstances, but I’m always in control of how I respond and resolve a situation within myself.”
As long as we’re breathing in and out, we’re going to be riding on this sea of life, which is like riding a wave. Some of them are bigger than others; some of them knock us over. Some of them are fun to ride. So, it’s up to us to make the effort each day to find that place of peace. It’s funny that it takes effort to find that peace, but it does because there’s so much swirling around us all the time, so many circumstances. You have to make the effort.
• by Diane Hope • My Journey into Organic Gardening • I didn’t expect to find myself in the garden. I thought I was looking for something practical—healthy food, maybe a hobby to clear my mind. But what I found in the soil was something much deeper. I found a reconnection with life, a slower rhythm, and an unexpected doorway into Spirit.
It started simply enough. A few pots on a balcony, some basil and tomatoes. I read about organic gardening—how it avoids synthetic fertilizers and pesticides; how it builds the soil rather than depleting it. At first, I was focused on the technical side: composting, companion planting, making DIY sprays with garlic and soap to deter aphids. It felt like a puzzle, and I liked solving it.
But somewhere in the routine of watering, weeding, and waiting, something shifted. I stopped rushing. I started listening. Each morning, I would visit the garden with a cup of tea. The same patch of earth, the same plants—but every day, something was different. A new bud. A visiting bee. The subtle movement of vines seeking the sun.
Organic gardening isn’t just about what you don’t use. It’s about how you relate to the land. It demands attention, presence, and respect. You can’t force a seed to sprout. You can’t command the weather. You learn patience. You learn humility. You learn that you’re not in control, and somehow, that becomes comforting.
The deeper I got, the more I realized this was a spiritual practice. Not in the religious sense, but in the way it turned me back to the sacredness of life. There’s a kind of prayer in pulling weeds—if you approach it with intention. There’s meditation in turning compost, watching decay turn into life. I began to feel that everything in the garden is a cycle: death feeding life, letting go and making room for growth. It mirrored my inner world.
I used to think spirituality had to be found in stillness, in silence. But I’ve found just as much peace in the rhythm of digging, sowing, and tending. The garden doesn’t ask for perfection—it just asks that you show up, pay attention, and care. The earth is forgiving. It invites you to try again.
There’s also a deep trust in organic gardening. You trust the earth will provide what the plant needs. You trust the beneficial bugs will balance out the pests. You trust that even in failure—when the squash gets mildew or the tomatoes split—you’ve still gained something. Knowledge. Insight. Presence.
Now, I don’t just garden to grow food; I garden to remember who I am. To ground myself in something real and tangible. To feel awe again—for the miracle of a seed becoming a sprout, for the mystery of roots that know where to go.
Organic gardening has taught me that Spirit isn’t something separate from the physical world—it’s infused in it. In every leaf, every worm, every breath of wind. When I’m in the garden, I feel it. I belong to the earth, and the earth belongs to something larger.
And that, for me, is sacred practice and scared prayer.
•. by Dawn King. •. We can count our blessings if we reside in a country whose citizens celebrate personal freedom of expression, including the pursuit of one’s personal dreams. However, we may find that the feeling of happiness this freedom should bring eludes us. We are each living in the aura of our own thoughts, attitudes, and emotions. Recent and past personal experiences may color these. Where does happiness live?
Recently, I found myself a bit down from the mostly negative world news coming my way. Likewise, I found myself thinking repeatedly that I was failing miserably in all areas of life. I’ll spare you from why this appeared to me to be the case. Even having these kinds of negative thoughts about myself didn’t fit with my idea of success, or certainly of happiness. Knowing my repeated thoughts would be self-fulfilling, I prayed for a way out of this destructive mental loop.
The answer came in the sweet instant I LET GO of thinking, of expectations, and opened my consciousness to the NOW, the present moment. Breath filled my lungs; love and joy filled my being. With no expectations, I could feel the perfection of life within and around me. Mine became a sense of wellbeing.
“This is a perfect moment,” replaced negativity. Now, as often as I can remember throughout my day, I stop my busyness and think: “This is a perfect moment.” I stop and inhale the perfection of the NOW. My consciousness immediately expands to realize the wonder and blessing of life. How calm, and calming it is simply to BE. This is my salvation. And each NOW moment is freedom from fear, stress, and feelings of failure.
The same practice helps me deal with trying to plan the future. In James Kelleher’s July Jyotish Newsletter he writes: Uncertainty isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually the natural state of the mind when it’s centered in pure consciousness. It can heighten intuition and bring a pleasant sense of wonder, the beginner’s mind.
Pure consciousness is not grasping or achieving. It is not concerned with the past or future; it is simply now. While editing articles by Norman Paulsen, founder of Sunburst, I’ve come to realize his favorite word is “now,” and he uses it frequently. How interesting that “now” is at the heart of the word “know.” To know God, and to know lasting freedom, we must live in the NOW.
• by Diane Hope • In the heart of spiritual longing, we often feel that the Divine is distant—far beyond the reach of our daily struggles and worldly burdens. Yet Paramahansa Yogananda, a spiritual master who brought the teachings of yoga and meditation to the West, offers us a powerful reframe: “You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides Him from you.”
This quote pierces the illusion that the Divine lies in some remote heaven, only accessible through monumental effort or religious rituals. Yogananda gently reminds us that God—or divine consciousness, truth, peace, or however we name the Infinite—is already here. The separation is not real. It is self-created. What is this veil he speaks of? It’s made of the mental and emotional clutter we accumulate: attachments, ego-driven desires, fears, regrets, and distractions. It’s the inner noise of constant thought, the restlessness of our modern lives, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we need to be whole.
Struggling to “reach God” implies the Divine is somewhere else. But Yogananda says it’s not about chasing—it’s about removing. The spiritual path, then, becomes less of a ladder to climb and more of a curtain to pull aside. This isn’t always easy. The “struggle” Yogananda refers to isn’t against God—it’s against our own inertia, illusions, and resistance to stillness. The path is inward. It may involve meditation, prayer, self-inquiry, or even just moments of quiet honesty with oneself.
But the promise is beautiful: we’re not chasing a mystery—we’re revealing a truth that has always been with us. In practice, this means we stop looking outward for fulfillment and instead start paying attention to the quiet whisper within. We pause. We reflect. We breathe. And slowly, the veil begins to thin.
Try asking yourself: What mental habits or beliefs are keeping me from feeling connected today? What might I gently let go of, even for a moment, to glimpse what lies beneath?
Yogananda’s message is not just for monks or mystics. It’s a universal call to wake up. The Divine isn’t absent—it’s obscured. Our task is not to search endlessly in the distance, but to come home to what is already ours, hidden only by the veils we’ve woven.
The struggle is real—but it is also worth it. Because behind the veil is the peace we’ve always longed for. The true feeling of unconditional love.
by Jake Collier – In my youth, my parents taught me to always say grace before dinner and a prayer before going to sleep. They always used the same prayers and this seemed strange to me.
When we moved to a different town and attended a new church, the minister spoke from his heart more than any minister I had witnessed before. I soon became good friends with his son. When I was invited for dinner the minister said grace from his heart, and every grace was a different prayer. He was truly conversing with God. I soon discovered that every Saturday he would journey up into the mountains by himself to prepare his Sunday sermon.
What is prayer? Prayer is a conversation with God. Prayer develops a relationship with our Creator; it invites universal consciousness into us. We can express our love, our frustrations, and project what we would like to see in the future.
When Moses had his experience of seeing God as a burning bush, he asked the Light, “What shall I call you?” The answer came, “I Am That I Am,” meaning: “I Am” the past—everything from the first ignition of light to this moment; “That”—the present and all its vastness, the space between our thoughts; “I Am” the future—everything going forward, all projections, God’s divine intelligence moving out from the smallest of all places to the vast expansiveness of creation. I Am That I Am is all-inclusive, all-knowing.
A daily practice with a tool of meditation peels away the layers of life’s illusions and burns up our karmas. It slows our thoughts so we can have a conversation with I Am That I Am. It answers our many questions and stirs deep feelings of devotion within us. We begin to see and hear with our inner senses that cosmic intelligence moving through space and time, communicating with us, loving us, granting us peace and understanding.
The more we practice meditation, praying deeply to the Divine, sharing our inner thoughts, feelings, and projections, I Am That I Am begins to envelop us with love and life force. We cannot help but share it with others. We begin to understand our true life’s purpose here.
• by Dawn King • One of my favorite books in childhood was The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley. The 1930 edition’s cover is shown in part above. It was a wonderfully imaginative tale of escape from a dreary existence into a delightful world of water. Since I wanted to grow up to become a mermaid this suited me.
In a recent blog I wrote: We are each inhabiting a physical body that is 60 – 70% liquid. This body has its own electromagnetic structure that is sensitive to solar storms and other influences—the Moon’s tidal influence for instance.
Oceanographic Magazine says:
“Our bodies have been shaped and formed by water; we have an ocean inside us. Like the Earth, we are 70% saltwater. In 1897 French physician Rene Quinton discovered a 98% match between our blood plasma and sea water…. Like our mammalian cousins, dolphins and seals, we too have evolutionary aquatic markers.
Take for example our brains. Simply looking at water changes our brain wave frequency, putting us in a more meditative state. Consider our nervous and endocrine systems. Cold water stimulates the vagus nerve, calming our fight or flight response, lowering cortisol and releasing feel-good hormones.”
Wow! No wonder we like to go to the beach or lake, or maybe to walk in the rain. And no wonder the element of water is associated with our emotions.
Perhaps you are familiar with Dr. Masaru Emoto who wrote a book called The Hidden Messages in Water. His experiments with water were an illustration of how our thoughts affect our surroundings. A review states:
“He found that water from clear springs and water exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns, while polluted water and water exposed to negative thoughts forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. Emoto believes that since people are 70 percent water, and the Earth is 70 percent water, we can heal our planet and ourselves by consciously expressing love and goodwill.”
Reflecting on that statement reinforces my concern that my self-talk, my thoughts, affect my physical body in more ways than I realized. I’m programming the water molecules in my body by thinking positive or negative. Of course, keeping my body’s water content “unpolluted” by ingesting healthy liquids and solids would also be helpful.
So…be mindful of how you are programming your body’s cells. And always remember the symptoms of dehydration, which we can experience at any time of the year. Some of them are:
Early signs: Headache, thirst, dry mouth, dark urine
More severe symptoms: Dizziness, confusion, rapid heartbeat, reduced urination.
Yes, we are each encouraged to drink 8 glasses (64 ounces +/-) of water each day for optimum health. According to an early study, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%. Even our bones are 31% water. So let’s keep our miraculous bodies healthy by staying hydrated, and thinking all the positive, loving, and peaceful thoughts with which we’d like to fill the world.
