Inspiring Words
When you fully explore the unconscious you will find The Source. Because God is the unconscious and the conscious in everything, by going there, you will return home and become one with the Divine.
—Leslie Temple-Thurston
An Excerpt from Living With Enlightenment—A Journey of Love
By Brad Laughlin
In the old paradigm the teacher was venerated, and the students projected their power and authority onto the teacher, abdicating their own responsibility. The relationship was characterized by a superior-inferior dynamic in which the teacher assumed the role of the powerful, all-knowing authority, while the students were required to be obedient, passive and sponge-like. The path of learning was rigid, linear and formulaic. It trapped us in a limited paradigm, encouraging conformity and a disempowered, myopic worldview. Because of this imbalanced dynamic, the word teacher has taken on negative connotations, and some have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by rejecting the need for any teacher at all. This is an unfortunate and short-sighted reaction because it is the nature of, rather than the notion of, teaching that needs changing.
In the new paradigm the teacher-student relationship is more balanced, reciprocal and egalitarian in nature. It is more about sharing information, encouraging students’ leadership and empowering their personal authority. Teachers and students walk the path together, acknowledging that we are all learning and growing. The journey is dynamic, fluid and circular. It is a process of becoming rather than a destination or a goal. While teachers have a certain level of subject mastery enabling them to speak with authority, they are not perfect and don’t have all the answers. At times it is okay for everyone to be together in the unknown, in uncertainty and in formlessness. This fosters humility and wisdom in the teacher and empowerment in the students. As soon as the teachings become dogmatic, rigid or predictable, they lose their value.
In the new paradigm there is no rulebook. The rigid rules have changed into flexible principles that keep responding to a changing reality in search of a dynamic balance. Teachers can point the way and offer tools, guidance and inspiration, but students think for themselves, listen to their hearts and follow their own inner truth. In this new form of the relationship, we are all moving towards the knowledge of who we truly are—our own authentic Self.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
We have reached the moment in time when as many women as possible need to be made aware of the way in which they compete with other women. This phenomenon is hugely present in almost every woman in the Western world, just as it is with men. Competitiveness in women is usually fairly covert, disguised, taken for granted. Competition is so second nature that even the woman herself is unconscious of the fact that she is doing it! Yet, if a woman is sensitive and has good inter-personal skills and cares about her relationships with others, she can usually feel the tonality of that particular energy—and respond to it, especially if someone draws her attention to it and makes her aware of it. This indicates that many women are ready to shift this issue now. Read or download the complete article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
Article first published in Odyssey Magazine, 2003
On the journey of awakening, there is always another doorway in front of us. And spirit’s invitation to us to step through it, is always assured. These are doorways of perception. They form an endless succession of opportunities to expand into other levels of consciousness. They also represent a quickening of our vibration—essentially, an ascension. If we are receptive enough to see them, and surrendered enough to pass through, we will find ourselves, amazingly, growing into more of ourselves. Read or download the complete article.
By Leslie Temple-Thurston
Right now is “A Moment”—although any moment will do, even tomorrow and all tomorrows.
This present moment and all moments of the Eternal present, is a “now” moment in which you can “stop the world” –and feel the Oneness of your own being as part of the Oneness of life. Decide to stop thinking for a moment, take some deep breaths and enter your soul consciousness—allowing yourself to feel the interconnectedness of all of life. Read or download the complete article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
I was in Israel with my partner Brad, in 1995. After visiting Nazareth and feeling the deep peace in the land in that area, we found ourselves on the mount of the Beatitudes. Looking out over the beauty of the Sea of Galilee, we were reflecting on what Jesus had said about peacemaking, so long ago, here on this mountain. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” We could not help but be poignantly aware of the fragility of the peace process in this world and the tremendous work required on so many different levels before we, humankind, can celebrate being together on our beautiful planet earth. Read or download the complete article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
Giving is a privilege. It is a privilege for both the giver and the receiver. Both are honored and ennobled by the action of giving. Giving is a rare and precious energy resource, the energy of connecting. When we show kindness and generosity towards one another, we connect deeply and are enriched by the connection. The giver and receiver are bonded together in a state of delight and unity. Read the full article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
In 1994 South Africans chose to live in equality in their physical world. While we all know that this was a momentous thing for a country divided by racial strife and extreme inequality, few individuals realized that by voting for equality they were voting for a major step forward in their spiritual growth. Equality is inherently a quality of spirit and heart—a rare flower indeed in this competitive, power-oriented world.
Equality is a state that manifests in individuals who have grown beyond the lust for power and the drive to satisfy their inner, deprived child through greed, domination and manipulation. At its inception, equality is an extremely powerful aspiration in a population seeking to renew itself, such as South Africa. Since equality had not existed here before, it could not be immediately manifested in 1994. Its birthing will take time, through the choices of individuals in their day-to-day actions. Read or download the complete article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
“Love is the force with the power to dissolve our erroneous sense of feeling separate from God and from other people. And it is love that heals the aberrant and discordant behaviors arising from our mistaken identity with the separate, egoic self. Taking up the exploration of consciousness with the intention to create integrative transformation is, more than anything, a return to love. Love is an important component of spiritual awakening and of the unified state; it becomes one of our teachers as we seek union with the Divine. We must learn the lessons love teaches us; otherwise we will never find the unified state. Read the full article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
The power of “letting go” is the engine that drives our transformation. On the pathway toward enlightenment we will find ourselves called again and again to surrender more of our old selves. Our old personality and its programming of limitation is not able to hold the vast eternality of the enlightened state. It must be surrendered.
While the state of enlightenment is already in place for each one of us, just beyond the boundaries of our everyday awareness, the way that the worldly personality is structured keeps it veiled it from our perception. Thus our ability to surrender the veils or boundaries of our old self is our way to escape from the old self and expand into the ever-present, but hidden, state of our eternal Self. Read or download the complete article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
Change is fast becoming the defining characteristic of our current times. As the transformational energies entering collective, global consciousness accelerate, we are, as a species, having to learn to become comfortable and fluid with rapid change. Not an easy thing for Homo Sapiens, who traditionally becomes very uneasy and resistant when cycles of change come around. Rapid change leads to our perception of a speeding up of time. Read or download the complete article.
by Leslie Temple-Thurston
Since we are so caught up within the notion of time, it is especially important at the moment to realize the possibility of balancing this out by spending periods in timelessness. Our lives are very overextended as we whirl and spin through time, sometimes experiencing endless turbulence and confusion. I encourage everyone to practice opening to timelessness. This is done in meditation. Meditation slows down breathing, the heart rate, metabolism, and thought. This slowing of the body and mind actually slows down time. Although we experience time as a linear perception, which we believe really exists, time is not real at all. Read or download the complete article.