Exploring Sacred Activism – Newsletter & Online Course

Dear Friend,
Here is what António Guterres, the Secretary General of the U.N., said at a meeting last September:


Our world is blighted by war,
Battered by climate change,
Scarred by hate,
And shamed by poverty, hunger and inequality.
.

My last newsletter came out just as the war with Ukraine was starting, and now it is nearly a year later and the atrocities continue to reign down on that country. What is it with the evil of this man Putin? What can we do…?

Soulful Activism

Today I am going to talk to you about Activism, about Sacred Activism, about Actively making the world a better place while maintaining Respect for all Life on Earth.

In the light of this great evil in the north and other very unpleasant things going on in our world today, I think that being an Activist for a more just world or for a transformed world is among the most important things that any of us can be doing with our lives at this moment.

I say this because far too many of those people who are supposed to be making a better world for us – namely our politicians, CEOs, generals, holy men, bankers and scientists – are all too often deeply entangled in the very problems they are seeking to solve.

This means that we, as individuals, are challenged to take ever more responsibility for what goes on in the world. Even though we all have busy lives and obligations to our families, if something is really important, we can still find small ways to Actively make a difference, and if millions of us get busy, big things can be achieved!

Yes, my friend, we can be Activist film-makers, poets, artists, scientists, musicians, actors. We can take stands for human rights; we can go on protest marches. We can ‘out’ those who don’t walk their talk. There are thousands of different ways we can express our outrage at the state of our planet, and our desire to create a better world for ourselves. It is all about how open our hearts are to the pain in the world, where our capabilities lie, and what we are willing to commit to.

For me, the Sacred or Soulful Activist is concerned with doing their best to create a world where more people can feel free, a world which works for everyone, a world where the rich don’t get richer and the poor don’t get poorer, where world leaders are no longer hypnotised by the comforts of status, pleasure, wealth and power, and, instead of being primarily concerned with what benefits them and their clan and how they can hang on to power, they begin to work for the good of all.

The Activist is therefore trying to create a world where more integrity reigns, and where the various nations are moved to co-operate together and where we are able to celebrate our many differences and where no one is looked down on because of their sexual proclivities, their skin colour, class or nationality.


Exploring the Path of Sacred Activism
A Thirteen-Session Online Course

Every Tuesday evening from May 2nd – July 25th, 2023
Time: 19:30 CEST

Having written two books on Sacred Activism, I have designed a three month (one evening a week) training course on this topic which begins in May and goes on through June and July. All the details are on my website under the heading Spiritual Activism Work, where you can also Download a pdf File of all the course information.

Consider making a commitment, perhaps to do something you’ve never done before! Join me for these Tuesday evening sessions this Spring and Summer. I have purposefully made it affordable, and a large portion of the earnings will go to a relief fund for Ukraine.

If you should like to go over a session, or should miss one, recordings will become available to course participants within a day or two after each session.

You can sign up for this course on Eventbrite.

If the idea appeals to you, please forward this email to those on your mailing list or to people who you feel might also be interested.


May this year be a prosperous one for all of us. If I have a prayer, it is this:

Let the forces of goodness, love, honesty and kindness have power over those of maliciousness, greed and darkness. May we move into a world where the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power.

Love,
Serge

 

 

Gateways to the Soul - Inner Work for the Outer World by Serge Beddinton-BehrensAwakening the Universal Heart; A Guide for Spiritual Activists

 

Serge Beddington Behrens
M.A. (Oxon), Ph.D., K.O.M.L.
Soul Guide & Transpersonal Psychotherapist

 

From Serge’s February 2023 Spiritual Activism Newsletter

 

Shining a Light in the Darkness – Webinar – 7 June 2022

Spiritual Awakening in a Disordered World

Dear Friends,
Here is my latest offering with my wise friend Steve. We both think this topic is very important as never has our world been in a more precarious and chaotic state. We both believe in the Chinese translation of the word crisis which is to regard it as a ‘dangerous opportunity’. We see many dangerous opportunities surrounding us all!

Serge with Steve Taylor

We are living in a time of political turmoil and ecological crisis. What are the challenges of spiritual awakening in this context? Steve and Serge will discuss how spiritual awakening can help heal the world, and how crisis can be the spur for collective awakening.

Please join us for our webinar on 7 June, 2022!
Click here for further details and registration

Essay: Looking to the Future

This essay looks at:
a) the state of the world today
b) what I see happening on the planet over the next eighty years and
c) the new society that I see rising, phoenix like, out of the ashes.

It is a hopeful essay but suggests that to get to the light, humanity may need to go through some more dark times…

Looking to the Future
OK, it is time now to look forward and say a few words about what I think might possibly lie ahead for humanity in the future. As I feel very much part of the whole, I regard this issue as an integral part of my memoir. Indeed, I am increasingly realising that the more I can own my human-collective self – realise I am not separate from but deeply part of humanity as a whole – the more fully me I become!
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Finding Your Place When Moving Abroad

SA Finding your place when moving abroad

Question: I have recently arrived in Mallorca to live with my wife and young daughter and we can’t quite settle in. I don’t know why this is. We also haven’t really made any close friends, yet we live in a part of the island with plenty of British ex-pats. Could you give me any advice about what most people do when they come to live here as we may be doing something wrong.

We need to start with why you decided to move abroad and live in Mallorca, as people come for many different reasons. To have some sun. To avoid the rat race. Because you’ve fallen in love with someone on the island. To retire. Because you don’t like England any more. To avoid terrorists blowing you up (if you live in London). For your health. To embrace a more relaxed lifestyle. Because you have found a job there. My list could continue…

Continue reading

Living a Spiritual Life

SA Living a Spiritual Life

I had someone write this email to me, asking:

“Serge, I really want to live a deeper spiritual life. Can you give me any advice?”

This was my reply:

It depends what you mean by a spiritual life which for a lot of people means one of austerity, and being adept at difficult yogic postures! This is not my understanding. Just being able to stand on your head for two hours does very little good in the world and by no means guarantees you are a decent human being, which for me is what being spiritual is all about. Yes, yogic practices or other spiritual practices help refine us and certainly if we wish to be more spiritual we will probably need some practices to do, meditation being my favourite one, but remember that a practice in itself is not spiritual. What is spiritual is the potential in us that a practice may help bring about. Continue reading

Spiritual Maturity

One of the things we need to remember is that we all have multiple intelligences and that different aspects of ourselves exist at different levels. Thus, we may be pretty evolved in one or two areas,  whereas in other arenas of our lives, we  may be less adept and  in some areas pretty hopeless.

Let us look, for example, at six aspects of life: our cognitive (intellectual) skills, our interpersonal skills (how adept we are at relating with others), our ‘street cred’ (how practical we are at handling the everyday nitty gritty challenges in life),  our emotional, moral and spiritual intelligence. Some of us may be highly skilled at a cognitive level (two Ph.D’s in astrophysics) but have absolutely no interpersonal or emotional skills. Someone might be very emotionally and cognitively skilled but have absolutely no moral sense, i.e., we are a total shit, and  we use our intelligence primarily to dupe and  manipulate others. (I can think of a couple of CEOs of large companies who fit into this category.)

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Does Evil Exist and If So What Should We Do About It?

Question: ‘Serge, do you believe in the reality of evil? Do you think it exists? if so, what should we do about it?

Serge: I do believe in evil, yes, and certainly feel that if we are to have a better world  that we should  understand  it and, if we feel strong enough,  confront it and not bury our heads, ostrich-like, and pretend it is not there. You know that old saying about evil being allowed when good people do nothing.  Well, it’s true! However, if we are to ‘do anything’ about evil, we need to recognise its many different faces. The way I see it is that there are two kinds of evil: obvious evil and non-obvious evil. Obvious evil is, well, obvious.  It is about Hitler, Robert Mugabe, Darfur, Stalin, Genocide, Auschwitz, murder, torture, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Etc. Continue reading

Exploring Eighteen Fundamental Principles to Living the Spiritual Life

The Spirituality that I embrace, centers around recognizing the importance of the following eighteen points. If interested, it is important you read them carefully to see if what I offer, corresponds to what you feel you need. Here are my points:

Eighteen principles of Spirituality
  1. There are many paths to God and each of us, according to our culture and soul inclination, needs to find a way that works for us.
  2. We may discover our Spirituality without necessarily being a member of any particular Religion.
  3. Divinity is both transcendent and immanent, and thus exists both beyond all things, while at the same time is present within all things. Continue reading

Can We be Political and Spiritual?

Can We be Political and Spiritual?Question: I have often heard Spiritual gurus say that we should not get attached to the drama of world politics, that we should individually aim for evolutionary change but that politics can draw us into unhelpful dramas. Could you advise on whether you agree with this stance, especially with reference to the sweeping evolutionary changes in the Middle East at this time?

Serge: This used to be typical ‘guru advice’ half a century ago, i.e., focus on your own development and let the world ‘out there’ look after itself. Change yourself and the world will change. Spirituality and politics shouldn’t mix. Well, times today have changed. With most of us, I don’t believe we can be effectively ‘spiritual’ without also involving ourselves in some way with the betterment of our society, and what this means is that a lot of the time we can’t avoid being political, which I define very broadly as being willing to live as our stance for the kind of world we want to see emerge.

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How Should We Relate to Having Animals as Pets in an Ideal Spiritual Society?

Question.. Should we, as spiritual people, keep and encourage the keeping of pets? I guess my point is that I can’t bear to keep fish or birds as I believe they should be free to swim and fly where they want, but I don’t feel that way about domestic animals like cats, dogs and rabbits. Yet should we even have these animals as pets if we were designing the ideal society? So, how should we relate to having animals as pets in an ideal spiritual society? Continue reading