“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Juliet says to Romeo as she implores him to renounce his family name so they can be together. After all, Romeo would still be himself …
The Reality of Transformation
The inconvenient truth about transformation is that most often it involves hard, diligent work, over time, but if you are willing to do the work real, dramatic, and deep change is completely possible to achieve. …
Meditation as a Spiritual Path
Meditation is always a spiritual practice, but for some of us it is our spiritual path. As a teacher of meditation, I find it useful to understand when meditation is someone’s path and when it …
We Are Cosmic Beings
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.” ~ William James We have all heard about the importance of having a positive attitude when …
Connecting with the Source of Existence
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin In mystical traditions around the world you find a common theme. They all …
How to Experience Cosmic Consciousness
“Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident-prone.” The phrase above is often attributed to the spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti and what it implies is that spiritual enlightenment is not something you can …
Spiritual Life Matters
An essay about spiritual life probably needs to start with at least a brief description of what the author means about this rather ambiguous phrase. When I speak about spiritual life, I’m speaking about whatever …
Communication and the Reality of Relationship
There is a new world of possibility that we gain access to when we change how we understand relationships and communication. This shift in perspective illuminates the world differently so that we begin to see …
J Brown Interviews Jeff Carreira for his podcast ‘J. Brown Yoga Talks’
Jeff Carreira talks with J about the process of awakening into deeper awareness of our spiritual existence.
I, Kosmos – Chapter One
The following is the first chapter from my latest novel, I, Kosmos, published by Emergence Education. ~ The best place to start explaining the next weird chapter of my wonderful and often bizarre spiritual life …
What To Do When Your Mind Wanders in Meditation
QUESTION: What do we do when our minds wander during meditation? Should I keep bringing my attention back to the breath and reconnecting with what is happening now? ~ ANSWER: That can be a very …
Towards Democracy Introduction
The following introduction by Jeff Carreira is published in the recently released edition of Towards Democracy by Edward Carpenter, published by Emergence Education. ~ You have in your hand a spiritual gem, an extended cry …
Are You Finished or Are You Still Trying?
When we meditate we often find ourselves working hard and doing our very best to follow the simple instruction of sitting and consciously choosing to be content with everything the way it is. It is …
The Varieties of Spiritual Life
If you are reading this essay, I can only imagine that you feel drawn to live a spiritual life, and I would be willing to bet that you would agree with me when I say …
Alignment without Conformity
One of the most essential things to understand about deep spiritual work is that it cannot be accomplished through conformity. There is a point earlier on during your spiritual journey when it is necessary to …
How Do Spiritual Breakthroughs Happen?
Earlier this week I experienced a profound breakthrough into the reality of “involution and evolution” as it has been spoken about by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. I woke up on Tuesday morning in the …
The Mystical Artist and the Soul’s Journey
The point I have been making in this series of essays is that the process of spiritual awakening is at least partially an artistic and creative process. We are both discovering new dimensions of reality …
Initiating the Spiritual Magic of Betweenness
You could say that creative illumination is a kind of spiritual magic, a word that still carries the blemish given to it during the Middle Ages when the Christian church in Europe discredited it as …
The Gifts of a More Highly Developed Soul
In order to practice creative illumination we must liberate ourselves from the limitations of our materialistic conditioning. We’ve been taught that we live in an infinite expanse of three dimensional space. This vast ocean of …
The Individual and Collective Soul
In the first essay in this series I introduced the process of creative illumination and as I see it, this can best be understood as the soul’s journey to wholeness. I outlined the contours of …