Blog

Finding Calm in a Troubled World: Mystic and Buddhist Paths

As we start a new year, many of us are anxious about the state of the world. With news of wars, conflict, environmental challenges, and political chaos, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. In these moments, turning to spiritual perspectives can offer guidance. Two approaches — the Mystic’s path of “presence,” through which love, clarity, and right action flows naturally and the Buddhist path of “contemplation,” through which the sense of interconnection and ethical action unfold — offer practical ways to respond to uncertainty with calm, clarity, and compassion.The Mystic Diagnosis and Approach💛 Diagnosis: As a Mystic, I understand that when my actions are driven by fear, defensiveness, anger, and reactivity, they arise because my “ego” identifies with thought. Habitual self-talk becomes a small, looping story that causes me to see reality through a narrowed lens. This leaves me feeling perpetually threatened, fearful, and in

What a Mystic Really Is

The word “mystic” often brings to mind romanticized images shaped by myths and movies: someone renouncing all possessions, sitting in meditation all day, eating almost nothing, rejecting pleasure, dressed in flowing robes, always “somewhere else” mentally.But in reality, mystics throughout history and across traditions have often been farmers, poets (like Rumi), parents, and community leaders — deeply engaged with society, speaking of justice, compassion, and human dignity. Many are also joyful, humorous, and very ordinary in their daily lives.The heart of mysticism isn’t about escaping life — it’s about seeing life more deeply. It’s about discovering the sacred in the everyday: in tending a garden, listening to a friend, or even conducting scientific research.Mystics remind us that the extraordinary is woven into the ordinary. At first this is known as an idea, then practiced, until — through grace — it becomes our

Life Isn’t Here to Make Us Happy. It’s Here to Wake Us Up

We often assume that life’s purpose is happiness — feeling good, having things go our way, staying healthy. But the kind of happiness the mind chases is fragile. It depends on certain conditions, and when those conditions change, happiness fades, and suffering begins.From a deeper perspective, life isn’t failing us when things get hard. It’s doing its “real work.”Difficult moments don’t arrive to punish us. They arrive to show us where we are still identified with fear, the need to control outcomes, and the stories the mind tells to protect a false sense of self that feels threatened, lacking, or in danger.Life wakes us up by pressing on those places. Not always gently. But honestly.This is very close to the language Jesus uses.When Jesus speaks of “temptation,” he is not talking mainly about moral failure. He is pointing to moments when we are pulled out of Presence — out of connection with our essence, with ot

Why I’m reflecting on Jesus This Christmas

At Christmas, I find myself returning not only to the beauty of the story, but to the question it quietly asks: “What does divine love actually look like when it enters human life?” The birth of Jesus is often wrapped in sentiment, but beneath the tenderness is a radical claim — that God’s love takes flesh and lives among us, not as an idea, but as a life. That question feels especially alive right now, in a world strained by division, injustice, and political uncertainty.Jesus continues to inspire me not only through his teachings, but through his unique revelation of what God is like — love, forgiveness, mercy. While these qualities can arise directly from my own connection with God through what I call Universal Consciousness, it still matters that Jesus embodied them.Here’s the deeper reason.Mystical experience achieved by impartial witnessing (presence) can open naturally into love and compassion and give us insights into actions, but J

When AI Meets the Soul: Why Spiritual Insights Don’t Need Ownership

When AI Meets the Soul: Why Spiritual Insights Don’t Need OwnershipWriters today are increasingly confronted with this question: What happens to originality in the age of AI? With tools capable of composing essays, generating reflections, and even mimicking literary style, it’s natural to feel a sense of vulnerability over intellectual property. Many worry that their spiritual insights — especially those cultivated through meditation, reflection, or contemplative practice — could be reproduced, repurposed, or claimed by artificial intelligence.Yet, for those who write from a spiritual perspective, the conversation about ownership takes on a surprising twist. Spiritual insights are fundamentally different from conventional content: they are not “owned” in the same way a business article or novel is. They flow through the writer from a larger Source, and trying to claim exclusivity often misses the essence of the work. In this light, AI need not be a t

A Gift of Connection

As a reminder, my book Connecting with the One Consciousness is still free to download on Amazon through tomorrow, November 18.An image of the book cover of Connecting with the One Consciousness by Sheida White.I invite you to download the e-book if you haven’t already and/or share its link with someone who might find comfort or inspiration in its pages. 🌿Download for free: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHXK8V85No Kindle device needed — just download the e-book from Amazon (it will show $0.00) and read via read.amazon.com or via the free Kindle app on your phone, tablet, or computer.

Anniversary Gift — From My Heart to Yours

Anniversary Gift — From My Heart to YoursImage featuring the cover of my book, Connecting with the One Consciousness.This month marks the anniversary of the launch of my spiritual book, Connecting with the One Consciousness. In celebration, you can download the e-book free on Amazon between November 14 and November 18.No Kindle device needed — just download the book from Amazon (it will show $0.00) and read via http://www.read.amazon.com or via the free Kindle app on your phone, tablet, or computer.Please share this email or the link with someone who might resonate with its message of hope and connection. 🌿Download for free: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1634895657

The Observer and the Game

There’s a mysterious state of awareness where we are both fully in life and quietly watching it unfold. We’re playing the game — grieving, striving, reacting — while also witnessing the play from a still place within. This “split awareness” is not detachment; it’s wisdom.Who is the witness?The witness is the silent, yet alert essence within us that observes all thoughts, emotions, and actions without judgment or attachment. It is not the ego or the mind, but the innermost essence that lies behind them — what I’ve variously called awareness, wisdom, presence, universal consciousness, or divine intelligence.In this state of witnessing, we move beyond the illusion of separation and connect with the One Consciousness, the Source that animates all life in the universe — revealing the love and harmony inherent in all existence.The witness expresses that love and harmony naturally and automatically. Without the divine aware

The sacred wellspring of love

The struggle between “hate” and “compassion” is an enduring theme of our human condition in this bipolar world. There never was and never will be a time when we all are equally happy so long as these opposites exist.There will always be those who hate others, and there will always be those who choose the opposite — people who are moved to compassion without self-righteous feelings of pride in their good-heartedness.The goal is NOT to rid the world of suffering or evil inherent in our planet, but to choose how we respond when those things happen.Getting in touch with our true essence — the perennial wellspring for love — will help cultivate self-compassion in our darkest moments.Self-compassion arising from connection with our true essence will serve as a healer. Not only that, it will — without any effort on our part — help uproot the hate caused by distinctions of religion, race, politics, nationality, and the rest.L

Our Inescapable Network of Mutuality

“We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”Martin Luther KingThe “inescapable network of mutuality tied into a single garment of destiny” that King is referring to is precisely our true essence — a One Consciousness.Separateness from this “network of mutuality” is what our ego, the antagonist, is trying to do by fostering a sense of superiority — the key underlying factor in today’s political division, violence across the globe, and climate change.When amplified by charismatic individuals or through mainstream and social media, the ego creates group identity — marked by willingness to ignore facts that challenge the group’s narrative — propelling the “us versus them” belief, or worse, “us versus the enemy” rhetoric.”We may contain the ego by learning to recognize it, u

Share by: