“Spiritual Awakening as Service to the World”
a four-week webinar by
Dr. Don Weiner, PhD, retired psychologist, UU and Sufi teacher
Tuesdays 5-6pm Pacific Time, 8-9pm Eastern Time
(Note: this is an hour earlier than our typical Tuesday gatherings)
February 5, 12, 19, 26, 2019
https://zoom.us/j/952722999
This series is open to everyone for no cost nor obligation so please feel free to share!
The third principle of Unitarian Universalism is “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” The first source of our living tradition that UU congregations affirm and promote is “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” While many UU congregations are actively involved in fulfilling other UU principles, including “justice, equity and compassion in human relations” and “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all,” much less emphasis has been placed on ways to help members deepen their spirituality.
Some may wonder what spiritual awakening has to do with changing conditions in the world. Hazrat Inayat Khan (who brought Sufism to the West in the early 1900’s) stated:
“Every attempt made today to better the condition of humanity through politics, education, social reconstruction, and many other ways, all these, however excellently planned, can only be fulfilled if this something which was missing is added to them. But in the absence of this, all the efforts of many, many years will prove to be futile. For this something which is missing is the most essential of all. The world cannot remain a world without rainfall. The world cannot progress without a spiritual stimulus, a spiritual awakening.”
Spiritual awakening means radically changing one’s perspective and relationship to the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Contemporary science has proven what mystics have said for thousands of years – that everything is interconnected. So long as we are confined to a dualistic vantage point, then breakthroughs needed to solve problems which have persisted for millennia will not be possible, however well-meaning our intentions. Awakening does not require any particular belief system or methodology, but various spiritual traditions have developed techniques for awakening that can be utilized independent of the system from which they arose. There are ways to realize expanded states of consciousness while remaining firmly grounded in the world. There are stages of transformation on anyone’s spiritual journey, and understanding these stages is essential to navigate on one’s own unique path.
In this series, we will explore stages of transformation, shifts in consciousness, relational unity (in distinction to dualistic consciousness and merged transcendent consciousness in which personal identity is dissolved), tools for awakening, scientific research on subtle energy and its ability to alter basic properties of “ordinary reality,” and possibilities that can be realized through our collective awakening and uniting of intentions. Awakening does not happen on auto-pilot. Come discover with us. I hope some of you will be able to participate.
New Years blessings,
Don Weiner
Will this be available to listen to at another time and or date?
What is the time for central standard time?
Sue, I think we are going to try to record it and make it available. The time for Central would be 7pm.
That would be much appreciated by those of us wanting to listen in Europe – thank you!
Please copy this program for later access! We have schedule conflicts for Tuesday’s at 7PM Central, and we agree that this topic is vital to our human unification and individual transformation. Please let us know of options. Thank you.
We plan to record it and make it available.
Thank you! Where would we look for that afterwards?
We will post it on this blog, and perhaps elsewhere on this website.
Just wondering if the replay was posted yet? Not finding it on site and wanted to make sure I caught it before the next class. Thank you so much for this offering! I look forward to learning from you!
We’re in the process of getting it posted. It should be available soon.
Hello, thank you for this offering. I wasn’t able to make it home for this meeting…how will I be notified of where to go to retrieve the replay?
And to be notified of the next one? Shall I register?
Blessings….
Diane, we’ll post the video here on this website. There is no registration or notifications for the webinar. For this webinar they are on the next three Tuesdays at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the first class. I would invite you to post any questions or comments here so I can consider them in preparing for the next class. Also, please don’t be shy about interacting during the classes. Your responses help me to customize the content to make it the most relevant to your desires and needs.
I have three books I have written which are available on Amazon. Here are the titles and direct links to them:
GPS for the Spiritual Journey
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N8JS7JH
The Gabrielite Work: Broadband Spirituality for the 21st Century (co-authored with my wife Diane)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N8L21L9
Upgrading the Operating System of the Soul – A Manual of Quantum Sufism
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1413442889
All three are available as e-books, and the last is also available in paperback.
The video recording of “part 1” from February 5, 2019, has now been posted on this blog post, and in the new video section of our website.
Dr. Weiner, thank you so much for this wonderful series. I’ve certainly enjoyed parts 1 and 2 so far, and look forward to the rest of the series. Your comments on Awakening were particularly fascinating. The concept that our day-to-day consciousness is gradually transformed through awakening our consciousness on higher levels is very helpful… something that I have thought a lot about, but would not have been able to articulate as you did. I experience these small changes in my own life, and I have come to believe that real spirituality is the manifestation of something …more, in ourselves, in this physical world. Maybe a smile, a helping hand, a moment of insight when things are not going well… Thank you!
In my second talk in this four-part series, I discussed several research studies on subtle energy and consciousness. If you want more information on this research, I am including several links.
Here are several links to William Tiller’s books and research on subtle energy:
https://www.tillerinstitute.com/
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=William+A.+Tiller+Ph.D.&search-alias=books&field-author=William+A.+Tiller+Ph.D.&sort=relevancerank
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2120306459_William_A_Tiller?fbclid=IwAR2d_RJ1FNB-OEOi8LJVNpzU_qQB2BxdzOkoxNX31AjvdQ-BJG7oKw8iIxI
https://www.tillerresearch.org/pdf/White%20Paper%20XXIV.pdf?fbclid=IwAR212Bc9yA4DNiPjhLb2UK0UVAXMQdirjVnxQBwNoS_vphdSQmoa2hm2jVM
Here’s a link to the research on random number generators:
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
Here’s a link to the study with chickens and robots:
https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/9/jse_09_2_peoch.pdf
You can see part 2 of this series at this link:
https://zoom.us/recording/share/6ro6JEvrcPHhO-VCNHoM9L2JsfRGMaThtw6e4DQoGV2wIumekTziMw
The picture changes and the light becomes dimmer after about 12 minutes because my computer froze up at that time during the presentation and I had to switch to my cell phone. The audio remains good throughout, however. Thanks to Bryce Hammond for editing out gap during the time between the computer freezing and my connecting through zoom on my cell phone.
I really in joyed and am grateful for this 4th session of the series! Plan to share it with as many people as I know whom may have interest! It really spoke to the importance and value of “awakening” and creating sacred “relational unity” space with others beyond beliefs, words, ideologies which are often obstacles for us to relate from with our deep essential essence of humanity to experience “unitive harmonic connection.” I appreciated the introduction to methods for getting beyond cognitive barriers to encourage authentic connection within our selves and others. May you journey well!
Thanks so much to you, David, and Bryce for giving me the opportunity to present this series. I hope it will serve as a catalyst for those who watch it to deepen their own unique spiritual journeys, and thus help to further the collective evolution of everything.
Thanks for your sessions Don. Like Doug, I found the fourth session particularly resonant. More important to me than subtle interactions are the gross interactions that happen throughout my day. I like your comments about awareness and resonance and the creation of a new richer experience through interpersonal interaction. One of my favorite writings on this subject is from John Welwood, linked below.
http://www.johnwelwood.com/articles/DoubleVision.pdf
An excellent paper. His thoughts closely reflect the way I view evolutionary spirituality and relational unity.