Swedenborgian Community Interfaith Podcast

The scriptures speak often of the process needed to find salvation, nirvana, transcendence or whatever word that specific tradition uses to speak of finding fullness in our Divinely-sourced intrinsic awareness. Buddhist scriptures sometimes refer to butter and the churning needed to make it as an analogy for what is required to reach Buddhahood, saying that we must do the work with the power of our connectedness to Intrinsic Awareness. And our reading today from Job speaks of being tested and coming forth as gold, implying that our trials are our forging in God’s fire. Despite scripture’s insistence, we sometimes get repelled at the idea of having to work to find the heaven that’s within us, or that we must undergo trials, saying that salvation is entirely in God’s hands and may have more to do with getting the God right than anything that we have to do to find it within ourselves. However, we have but to look within to see that yes, we haven’t entirely uncovered the heaven that Jesus says is within us, and t

Emanuel Swedenborg’s key message from his spiritual visions and his mystical interpretation of scripture boil down to two key ideas, dispel evil and love Love. He believed that these concepts naturally increase our connection with Heaven and God, no matter our tradition, because they describe what God and the universe is and is all about. Further, he pointed to scripture as being a key source of information as to what evil is and what love is, coming to the conclusion that evil has many guises but comes from a selfish, divisive mindset and a need to control, and that love seeks to uplift others as itself in wisdom, peace, and health. The trick, sometimes, is finding out just how to personally “shun our evils” and what it means in our daily practice to truly love the Divine Love embodied diversely in everything around us.

We continue our exploration of Emanuel Swedenborg's book "Divine Providence," discovering the purpose of evil and answering the ultimate question, "What's the purpose of life?" Learn more on our website: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org

The eternity of life is something at the core of many traditions, although sometimes details are scarce. After having my own near-death experience, I was attracted to others’ accounts of the afterlife through similar near-death experiences, often abbreviated as “NDEs.” Surprisingly, I found thousands and thousands of these accounts online and catalogued in books (just Google them!), many with similar themes and details despite coming from people across the religious and non-religious spectrum. I was again amazed to find the writings of the 18th century mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, who not only described the universe and God(dess) in a way that spoke to my developing compassionate spirituality, but also his vast accounts of the afterlife, which described similar core details as found in the NDEs that started to be catalogued in the 1950’s (thanks to the author Raymond Moody). The best part of that discovery was the corroborating and fleshed out account that God is a God(dess) of love, who resides at the centr

We are love itself. This truth is spoken by many sages and mystics alike, and yet I feel that we often miss the practical import of these words. This idea calls on us to let go of our false ideas of self – limiting ourselves to this body and mind. Instead, knowing that we are one with everything, as well as one with the essence and substance of all energy and life itself: the heat of love and its light and form, awareness. And what may seem a heady concept at first, eventually boils down to the importance of meditative consciousness, to being there for each other and ourselves in compassionate care without the falsely learned concepts of separateness and limitations of self. This is why Christ says to love others as ourselves and to find “complete unity” in God(dess). Why Buddhist sages say that we must center on compassionate awareness, seeing beyond the transient nature of duality and form as we let go of our false selves. And why the 18th-century mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, called on us to centre on Love a

We explore parallels between Buddhism and Swedenborgian Christianity, an open and mystical tradition based on the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who DT Suzuki described as "the Buddha of the North."

Today we continue to be called to face the West’s and others’ tragic past of genocide, mass abuse, and horror – particularly as many of our Western cultures forced these tragedies onto Indigenous Peoples and minorities, including in Canada and the United States. The hundreds of Indigenous children found buried at residential schools in Canada recently are a stark reminder of this and a sharp blow to the heart of many Indigenous Peoples and Canadians. We often fail to realize how our current attitudes of apathy and dismissal continue the legacy of oppressive control, distorted socioeconomic structures, and destructive hate if only because we refuse to shine light from within ourselves onto these real, lasting issues – and so may we find compassion for others as ourselves today. Scriptures themselves can also have a tragic history rooted in genocide, as we read in the Jewish and Christian Bibles, and so, during these few days when we typically celebrate both Canada Day and the U.S. Independence Day, let’s not s

Despite some’s belief in the all-pervasiveness of original sin, scriptures throughout the world point to the fundamental health, love, and truth at the core of the human spirit and at the root of our minds – albeit, sometimes covered over with hurtful tendencies from ignorance and fear often rooted in generations past. The Christian and Hebrew Bibles themselves indicate that we are fundamentally connected to God’s loving truth within, that it forms us, and that she can transform our minds if we but actively reconnect with the inherent nature of our internal light from her (no matter our tradition). This Divine light of love and truth within is the only thing we every need, although we seek for it outside of us. It invites us to identify with and experience the light of loving truth at the core of everything as part of ourselves, opening our hearts to our collective unity in diversity and what we always truly are.

We continue our exploration of the 18th-century mystic Swedenborg's book "Divine Providence" and discover that he believes that God(dess) with the Spiritual Sun are the root of all things.

Thoughts are like the ripples on the surface of a river, just transient glimmers of awareness – hinting at the depths below. For whatever reasons, we have come to identify so much with our habitual ripples we miss the enormity of the river of life within – taking its vast depth, clarity, and peace to be a pit of emptiness as we fearfully try to color over it. When we turn more toward that river of life at our core by letting the ripples pass us by, dipping into the vastness of awareness with meditative and prayerful practice, we find that we become cleansed and renewed in its flowing holy water. In the book of Revelation, “the river of the water of life” is described as flowing from God into the centre of the heavenly city – I think inviting us as we read it to turn toward that river of the water of life flowing at our own heavenly centre, amidst the garden of all our gifts and expressions of life in their diversity.

We start our exploration into the 18th-century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg's book, Divine Providence - exploring how creation works and why there is evil.Download the book for on our website: SwedenborgianCommunity.org

The notion that we must die to ourselves “in order to live” is a striking one, uplifted by many Buddhist and Hindu Jnanis, as well as Christ. The idea might seem a bit negatively self-destructive at first, and yet many of us have probably noted that living primarily for our lower self is the truly destructive force in the world! The practical element of this wise request seems to be for us to watch our minds, letting go of desires and selfish thoughts as they come up, allowing our unity with God to shine through in the peace and intrinsic love within. This “brings us alive” and “wakes us up,” keeping us vigilant to the will of God(dess) and letting us finally know our true eternal selves – without the shackles and blinders of yearning, fear, false identities, and aversion.

It may seem a little self-indulgent to assume that we are one with the great “I AM” (as God calls herself in the Hebrew Bible), but in practice, I think the realization that we are one with the One can be quite the opposite – opening us up to compassion, clarity of awareness, and our deep connection with others. From a mystical viewpoint we are all one in God, all one in awareness and life itself, no matter our differences of tradition and culture. We can lean into this understanding of reality by taking the time to meditate or pray on this fundamental truth between all of us – that we are, that “I AM,” for a few moments letting go of all else. In this state, we can find renewal and uncover a peace that some might call, the Prince of Peace.

Swedenborgians share their opinions about the new movie Things Heard & Seen, as well as their take on its paranormal and Swedenborgian elements!

In general, our mothers envelop us in their love and wisdom as we grow, just as we’re sustained and developed within them as embryos. Similarly, we are said to be growing within God as we receive more of her Divine Love and Wisdom! This same Divinity is the source of all the greatness and care in our mothers. Indeed, the case can easily be made that our mothers tend to be the most potent and obvious image and likeness of God that we encounter in our earthly lives – except perhaps for the Divine Mother known by many names that we find within. Like a child in the womb, we are enveloped within God’s Divine light of awareness and we receive our own light from it, what the mystic Swedenborg describes as the spiritual sunshine of Divine Love and Wisdom and the source of our very being. Today let’s celebrate the reality of being held and developed in the wise and caring arms of God, known by many names, and rejoice in all the ways she shines – especially through our mothers and within ourselves.

The oneness of humanity is a theme hinted at or exclaimed by many traditions and ancient scriptures, and I think leaning into this awareness can serve as a healing salve for our minds and our world. However, why do so many traditions use different terms or explanations for how we are one, or ignore this often-scriptural concept entirely? What’s the fundamental similarity and is it similar enough to be called the same thing? And finally, is there something fundamental at the core of our beings that unites us even in, especially in, our diversity? Read more here: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org/blog/diversity

We explore the interfaith-Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg's answers to question like: what's the point of creation? And how does the spiritual realm connect with the physical universe's structure? And more!

The image of the bloody, fiery God from Revelation 19 can be a bit shocking at first. Why is the social justice and love wielding Christ so horrific in this vision, and why does it say, “He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself?” We find that although the Lord focuses on compassionate awareness and care, he doesn’t shy away from emphasizing the bloody and hurtful injustices in the world. And although the Biblical scriptures highlight that this is the glorified Jesus, it also doesn’t shy away from emphasizing that the Lord radically transcends any one tradition, name, gender, or creed – but can yield her spiritual-political sword in each of our hearts, no matter our spirituality.

Blessings in life abound, but it can be difficult to perceive them when we’re too caught up in self-awareness instead of selfless awareness. Selfless awareness is less “humbling one’s self” than it is realizing that our identifications with our perceived intelligence, our bodies, and our circumstances are a lie we’ve been telling ourselves. Instead, as some Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians believe, we should identify more with the eternally peaceful awareness that shines light into our minds as it observes our thoughts, pervades all sentient life, and underlies the energy within all matter. As we find that we are not our rambling minds, selfish ideas, and worries, we can start to truly see the blessing of every moment and settle into the blessedness of Goddess-given awareness.

The cross is an interesting branding symbol for most of Christianity – as it’s the instrument of the murder of God, according to the Christian scriptures. But whatever our faith and despite our feelings about the cross, the image of it can serve as a heavy metaphor for the weight that we each carry, with compassionate strength and patience enabled by God(dess). Christ himself asked us to continue to carry our crosses and follow him, pointing toward the spiritual health that can be found as we accept our histories and move steadily forward with our eyes on that warmth and the light of consciousness at the root of our souls, inviting us to loving care and the peaceful dawn of a new day.Read more here: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org/blog/cross