Last week when we went to Bali, we visited a butterfly park one afternoon. Butterflies are extremely attractive because of their beauty. They have the quality of being seen and marveled at, but there are a whole lot of other insects who use the opposite quality, camouflage, as they make their way in the world. …
While most Hindus are celebrating Deepavalu, the festival of light, we arrive in Bali during the time of Ganugan, which is their own special day. Whether it be Deepavalu, Chinese New Year, Christmas, or Hari Raya, the thing that is common about most religious and cultural larger than life days is that people make a …
These are some of the things that I have found very helpful in the change process. 1. The process of change is never ending because the spiritual dimension to life is infinite. This means that there is always limitless potential to actualize. 2. The best kind of transformation occurs by submitting to what the Creator …
Well I am starting to actually learn a few new lessons about working with authority and it is paying off. I was thinking today that it is a like like running the hurdles. The best hurdlers have such smooth form that the hurdle motion is a real thing of beauty. They don’t fight the hurdles, …
Last night Debby and I hosted a meeting in our home with about 15 people on the topic of encouragement so I thought I would share a few thoughts about it especially the questions. The nice thing about organizing a meeting in your home and inviting people to it is that only the people who …
So here I am in my dream last night (early this morning) yelling at a young pre-adolescent girl for messing up some tables with a mixture of what seemed to be lipstick and paint. It seems like the activity is over and we are moving onto something else, but each time that the tables are …
Earlier this morning, when I went out for one of my normal midweek holiday runs toward KL’s Lake Gardens, an interesting question made its way into my head. The question was this. Is there a place you can go where all of the changes that you want to make in yourself already exist? What was …
When Baha’u’llah, the prophet founder of the Baha’i Faith, was teaching His Faith and revealing scriptures in the 19th century, the local Muslim clergy often became jealous of His might and power, which caused them to conjure up ways to discredit Him. One of the ways that the thought of was to challenge Him to …
Not too long ago I found myself in a bit of hellish feeling in the midst of paradise. So here I am sitting in a meeting talking about facilitating young people’s experiences, but right next to me is a person who seems a bit out of place. I can sense her discomfort, perhaps boredom. It …
As I wrote in the my last post, when people becomes abusive with power, they get so much into their animal selves that being in a relationship with them is really negative for both you and the abuser. The best thing to do is to leave the relationship until their justice in the environment. But …
In the days preceding the martyrdom of the Bab, the forerunner to Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, a man by the name of Manuchihr Khan, the governor of the province of Fars in Iran, accepted the Bab and His revelation. He had a powerful army and great influence in the country at that …
For the longest time I have been dealing with my own development by focusing my attention on two types of character origins. The first has to do with the issues that arise out of the issues that come from family because we all inherit strengths and weaknesses and it is the job of the current …
So here we are, Debby and I, in a local Chinese Restaurant located at Mile 6 outside of the city of Sandakan, in the Malaysian territory of Sabah on the island of Borneo. The couple we are with are from Indian ancestry, having grown up Malaysia, and realizing that when a person cannot take a …
Last night I had a dream that took me back to elementary school. The dream was pretty vague but it left me with one of the difficulties that I had growing up in that era which probably still exists in this era. The dream recalled memories of some students who were not extremely intelligent, had …
It seems to me that a large percentage of the current problems we are having in our world come from taking things that are meant to be deep and metaphorical in a literal and shallow way. We see it most often in fundamentalist religion’s ability to convince large numbers of people that scripture is meant …
“Aren’t a lot of dreams just meaningless firings of the brain?” This is a question that I have heard at least 100 times in dream meetings or private conversations. Whenever the question is asked, my first inclination is to ask the person how their own life is so meaningless, but it is a bit abrupt …
Someone asked the other day when I was doing a presentation on dreams to some young people if I thought that the books about dreams that tell you what each thing means are worth buying. I told her that it can be problematic because most books don’t teach you how to read a dream and …
What does it mean when someone appears in your dream? If you have read my postings in the past, you know that I believe strongly that dreams are given to us so that we can become more of our true selves by developing new qualities and processes. One thing most people have not thought about …
What should you do when you have a dream with animals? When there is a snake, a dog, a shark, an eagle, a deer, how do you regard these symbols? Dreams with animals in them are always about developing specific spiritual qualities like courage, playfulness, strength, humility, and joy. As soon as an animal appears …
Most of the cultures and religions in the world have classified spiritual energy into four categories which are the heart, mind, body, and spirit. Jesus said, for instance, that we should love God with all of our heart, mind, spirit, and strength. In dream language or mythological language such as in native stories the four …
“I was going down stairs to get some water. On the way down a statue of cats came alive and were staring at me. Down stairs there were two purple jaguars circling around me. Om my chair there was a sleeping lady with Ron from Harry Potter. wrapped around her arms and Ron said, “If …
I like to reserve Sunday mornings for my long runs so today I decided that it was time that I give myself a challenge by upping the distance to 21 k. I haven’t run 21k for awhile, but I have been gradually increasing my activity level in the last few weeks so when that happens, …
I realized not too long ago that I was really tired of being in conflict with leaders so today I made the decision that instead of focusing on them, that I would place my attention entirely on going for my own goals rather than fighting against theirs. As I am writing this right now it …
Transformation of an extremely stubborn energy into a positive one is nearly impossible unless it is understood that the negative energy fixed in the ego is learned very rapidly and holds on tenaciously. Of all the negative weapons that people use to stop growth the one that is the most effective killer of change is …
Last week, our 4th grandchild, Will Shoghi Heins-Hastings, made his transition from the world of the womb to the outside world. I wrote about this in the last posting. Being there at Will’s birth made an impression on me that I cannot put to words because there is nothing quite like holding a newborn. Right …
In my last post I mentioned seeing a newspaper article about JFK in the interview room of a newspaper in Sabah so I decided to look up a few quotes from JFK and post them here. Enjoy them. A child miseducated is a child lost. A man does what he must – in spite of …
If you go to almost any school in any place on the planet and ask teachers what virtues they would like to see their students have more of, they will inevitably say self-discipline, respect, and responsibility. If you ask a group of youth to identify areas in life where they are the weakest, they will …
I have to admit that when I started to feel the inner whispers that my being was calling forth the virtue of self discipline, it wasn’t something that I necessarily wanted to hear. After all, I mean let’s face it. Self discipline is not sexy like some other energies. When I pick self discipline out …
I am writing this post because I had an interesting phenomenon happen to me today as I was working. When I began thinking about being creative and spirited in my job, I kept getting a negative image in my brain of one of the administrators and what that person might say or do to …
Over the years Maria Montessori’s worked has received a certain amount criticism for the lack of inclusion of creative play and fantasy. If you are in a very strict Montessori program, even the personification of animals is deemed inappropriate. Well, yesterday I was working with a group of young children on the climbing wall at …
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a Baha'i and currently lives in Vancouver, BC. Read more...
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