common themes across all religions This blog post is part of a series on common themes across all religions. “Some would deny any legitimate use of the word God because it has been misused so much. Certainly it is the most burdened of all human words. Precisely for that reason…

The COVID-19 crisis has forced us to hit the pause button on our regular lives. In the process, we have been given the rare and unexpected gift of time free from the compulsive activities that drive so many of us. There is no roadmap to navigate this new normal. We…

Wednesday November 23 is Fibonacci Day, celebrating the natural wonder and mystery that is the Fibonacci sequence: a sequence of numbers that appear very frequently and unexpectedly across mathematics and in many natural patterns such as the number of petals on flowers, the configurations of tree branches, and much more…

Wednesday November 16 is International Tolerance Day. Tolerance is an important virtue for the peaceful coexistence of our species but historically one of the barriers to it has been the coercion — sometimes through violence — of people to convert to a different religion. The act of seeking out new…

Tuesday November 8 is Guru Nanak Jayanti, celebrating the birth of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, who introduced a new form of religious revelation to the world. Revelatory experiences can be potent and transformative. Religions gently nudge all followers to prepare themselves to be like receptive vessels…

Tuesday November 1 is All Saint’s Day, celebrating the many Saints in Christianity who are believed to have had special connections with God, surrendering to the grace of God to fulfill holy missions on Earth. How is it that, so often, you work really hard but instead of achieving success…

Monday October 24 is Diwali, a festival that Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists observe to celebrate the triumph of light over darkness and knowledge over illusion. There is a wonderful parable often cited in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist texts, about a bunch of blind men trying to learn about…

Thursday October 13 was National Train Your Brain Day, an opportunity for us to turn within and work on improving our brain, the instrument which defines who we are and how we experience the world. At some point it is likely that everyone will ask the question — why am…

Saturday October 8 is when the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday is celebrated by Muslims. All religions have a founding prophet who acts as the first leader of the faith. But once they are gone, new leaders must take their place. Although we tend to treat prophets as special individuals — even…