Author: J Douglas Bottorff

Doug is minister of Independent Unity, author of 8 books, musician and photography enthusiast. He lives with his wife and cat in western Colorado.

The Heart of the Matter

YouTube: The Heart of the Matter

When a challenge disturbs me—sparking anger, fear, resentment, or resistance—I try to pause long enough to ask two productive questions:

  • Who is this “me” that is responding in this way?
  • What obligates me to maintain and reinforce this version of myself?

I admit that this kind of spiritually grounded response is not usually my first reaction. My human self often wants to send the problem packing and get on with the day. Yet these moments are invitations. They reveal not the truth of who I am, but the part of my self-image that feels threatened.

It is rarely useful to attempt to answer the first question in the heat of reaction. In that moment, the temptation is to blame the appearance and try to remove it. A better approach is to take the response into a quiet, private place and observe the one within me who is doing the reacting.

This “me” feels threatened because it sees itself as separate from the fullness of its spiritual resources. The corrective step is not necessarily to eliminate the outer problem, but to release the identity that feels endangered by it. The goal is simple and freeing: the appearance may still be present, but I no longer have to be ruled by it.

This leads naturally to the second question: Am I obligated to keep defending this limited version of myself? The answer is no. I am free to rise above that level of response.

This practice does not avoid action. I may still need to seek clarification, offer an apology, set a boundary, or take a practical next step. But I can do so from a larger, steadier place within myself rather than from fear or resentment.

If an issue is pressing upon you now, ask these two questions thoughtfully and honestly. You may discover that the path forward clears—not because everything outside has changed, but because something within has become freer.

Out of This World

YouTube: Out of This World

“My kingdom is not of this world.” – Jesus

When Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world,” it is easy to hear him speaking of a future realm purified of evil and reserved for the worthy. Yet the more compelling reading is that he was pointing to an immediate interior reality: a kingdom not produced by external conditions, political power, or material appearances, but discovered through spiritual perception.

From the mystic’s point of view, “the world” need not mean the physical universe itself. It may refer instead to the sense-based way of seeing that confines reality to what can be measured, possessed, defended, or controlled. The kingdom Jesus describes belongs to another order of awareness, one grasped inwardly and intuitively.

Some scholars understand Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet who expected God’s kingdom to arrive dramatically within history. That view deserves consideration, but it does not exhaust the evidence. Other sayings suggest a kingdom already present, hidden not by distance in time, but by the limits of ordinary perception.

Jesus says, “There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28). He also tells his hearers, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed… for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:20–21). These sayings resist reducing the kingdom to a remote spectacle; they point instead to a reality already available to awakened sight.

His statement before Pilate sharpens the point: “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight… But now my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). A kingdom that does not require force, territory, or defense cannot be understood primarily as an earthly regime. It belongs to the hidden dimension from which life is illumined and transformed.

This spiritual dimension has always been present. It is not created by doctrine, postponed by history, or unlocked by external crisis. It is recognized through the spiritually intuitive eye. In this sense, Jesus need not be viewed as a failed prophet of an imminent apocalypse, but as a mystic attempting to describe a depth of reality many still overlook.

I do not believe Jesus saw himself as a future cosmic ruler returning to judge the living and the dead. He was one who pointed courageously to the indwelling presence of God, a presence capable of turning ordinary struggle into wholeness. If his kingdom was “not of this world,” it was not absent from life; it was the unseen ground by which life becomes radiant.

Sunshine in My Soul

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“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall …” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Rainy Day

When we try to live a spiritually guided life in a world full of uncertainty, disappointments, and daily pressures, Longfellow’s image feels especially true. Anyone who has flown above a blanket of clouds and suddenly seen the blazing sun knows an important truth: the clouds never diminish the sun. They only block our view of it. In the same way, the light of the soul is never lost, even when our vision is obscured by discouragement or fear.

If we imagine the soul as the sun and our passing moods as cloud cover, a powerful picture emerges. We often assume that gloomy feelings define us, or that they reveal something permanent about our lives. Yet moods, like weather, are changeable. They arrive, they shift, and eventually they pass. The deeper self beneath them remains untouched—steady, radiant, and whole.

Just as many conditions shape the weather, many influences shape our emotional lives. Fatigue, loss, stress, memories, and the demands of ordinary living can gather like storm clouds within us. From a spiritual perspective, however, our native condition is not darkness but light, not turmoil but peace. What we call a “good day” may simply be a day when the inner sky is clear. What we call a “bad day” may be one when the clouds hang low and heavy. But neither kind of day changes the reality of the sun above.

This is why moments of inner stillness matter so deeply. Meditation, prayer, quiet reflection, or even a few mindful breaths can lift us above the immediate weather of the mind. We may not eliminate every cloud, but we can remember that clouds are temporary. They move. They thin. They break. And beyond them, the light remains exactly where it has always been. Stillness helps us realign with that light and trust it again.

As long as we live in this changing world, we will experience changing moods. That is part of being human. Yet we do not have to surrender our identity to every shadow that passes over us. We can pause, become still, and remember what is most true. The soul does not flicker with every circumstance. It shines. And when we turn inward with faith and patience, we discover again the enduring promise hidden within every difficult day: there is sunshine in my soul.

The Choice Factor

YouTube: The Choice Factor

Last week I suggested that we enroll in this earthly school, with all its many challenges, by choice. I also pointed out that we human beings are the only creatures capable of imagining ourselves as spiritually incomplete. This translates into a reasonable explanation of why we often find ourselves struggling with life’s challenging conditions. The reasoning goes something like this: Of all the choices I could make, why would I choose a condition like this? If we accept that our soul is incomplete and we are here to complete it, the logical response is that there is something in this challenge that our soul needs to learn.

A man I knew was the passenger in a small plane that crashed. Though he survived, his physical recovery required months of hard work. In one of our conversations, he made a statement that went something like this: My soul must have really needed a major wake-up call to bring on something this big.

Did this man choose a plane crash as a necessary component of his soul’s required curriculum? I hope not. Last week I characterized Earth as the University of Environmental Adaptation. This man’s soul did not choose the plane crash. The choice factor played into his decision to make the difficult journey to recover. He could have just as easily made the choice to give up, to let go of his damaged body altogether.

In other words, it’s not what happens, but our response to what happens that makes the difference.

Are we saying, then, that the purpose of Earth as the University of Environmental Adaptation is to solve problems? Yes, but only one: How does a spiritual being live successfully in a material environment? The environment can and does offer a variety of challenges. Recovery from physical damage, an unfavorable diagnosis, divorce, depression, low self-esteem, a feeling of spiritual emptiness, or just the basic fact of maintaining an aging body. Whatever the challenge, the choice is ours to either rise to the occasion, or not. If we choose to meet the challenge, then we will adapt by learning to draw upon our soul’s limitless resources of life, love, power, and intelligence to make the best of this material environment that our soul currently inhabits.   

Is Earth a School?

YouTube: Is Earth a School?

J Douglas Bottorff

Is Earth a school? The consensus among modern spiritual teachers is yes, Earth is a school and we’re here to learn specific spiritual lessons, overcome challenges, and evolve, operating under the idea that life experiences happen for our growth, not to us. This view assumes the soul is evolving and the challenges our earthly experience offer prompt new growth at the spiritual level.

If we accept that, because the soul is already complete, and that soul evolution is not a viable factor, is there another way we can think of Earth as a school? Yes, there is. But the lessons Earth offers have nothing to do with soul development. They have more to do with environmental adaptation. How does an unlimited, infinite being adapt to and live successfully in a material environment?

Because we want this earthly life to make sense, we want to have a purpose that explains all the ups and downs we experience. Assuming everything that happens to us is an opportunity to advance the soul is a way of bringing meaning to an otherwise confusing turn of events. We may conclude that, at the soul level, the universe is trying to teach us something.

But here’s the catch. The soul is not a separate entity being instructed by the universe. The soul is an integral component of the universe. The universe does not need to learn how to be a better universe. The soul does not need to learn how to be a better soul. The soul needs to learn how to live successfully within the confines of a restrictive body and environment.

Think of it this way. You want to learn to scuba dive so you take classes. The purpose of this schooling is not to make you a better person. It’s purpose is to make you a good diver. Likewise, the purpose of this earth school is not to make you a better soul. It’s purpose is to teach you, a spiritual being, how to live successfully in a material environment.

I do not believe we were sent here because our soul had things it needed to learn. I believe we came here for the same reason a person would sign up for diving lessons. We wanted the experience of “diving” into this material dimension.

Earth to the soul is like a body of water is to a diver. The diver learns his or her equipment so they may explore the body of water. We learn how to navigate this earthly experience, not for the purpose of soul advancement, but because we want the challenge. Our success or failure in this body has no bearing on the condition of the soul. Perhaps if we grasp the freedom this gives, we’ll respond with greater joy to the challenges life throws at us.

Capture the Moment

YouTube: Capture the Moment

The phrase, capture the moment, is often associated with photography. When the shutter snaps, a fraction of a second is instantly frozen to be viewed and relived for years. If it weren’t for the camera, that fraction of a second would be gone forever.

How many fractions of seconds have passed that we’ve forgotten? In one of my songs I wrote, “The moment is eternal, but it slips away so fast, we rarely seize it.”

From a spiritual point of view, it should not be our objective to build an impeccable memory capable of retaining every moment. Our objective is to be present, as free of the past and anticipated future as possible. Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said, “You cannot step twice into the same river.” The problem is not memory or anticipation of the future. Problems arise when we pollute the river with negative emotions from the past or anticipated fears of the future.

Many people live as prisoners of what has already happened or what might happen tomorrow. Regrets replay endlessly in the mind. Old wounds are reopened again and again. At the same time, imagined futures create anxiety that steals the peace of today. While the body exists in the present moment, the mind drifts somewhere else. In doing so, we miss the simple beauty directly in front of us.

Life is not experienced yesterday or tomorrow. It is experienced now. The laughter of a child, the sound of rain on a rooftop, the warmth of sunlight, or the quiet stillness of an early morning are all sacred moments waiting to be noticed. Most of life’s treasures are not hidden in dramatic events but in ordinary experiences we are too distracted to see.

To capture the moment spiritually is not to hold onto it, but to fully enter it while it is here. It is learning to listen deeply, love fully, and notice the holiness woven into everyday life. The present moment is the only place where peace can truly be found. Yesterday exists only as memory, and tomorrow exists only as imagination. But this moment—this breath, this heartbeat, this unfolding instant—is where life is actually taking place.

Is God Real?

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The following is a recent comment from a member of our Face Book audience.

“When you add god to the conversation, you’ve abandoned reality for superstition.”

To make such a broad statement indicates the commentator assumes we all mean the same thing when we add “God” to the conversation. What is notable is that such an attitude illustrates the same close-minded mentality that it claims to reject. The following statement from Emerson can apply to both the religiously indoctrinated and the atheist alike:

“You may sometimes talk with the gravest and best citizen, and the moment the topic of religion is broached, he runs into a childish superstition.”

If the word “God” automatically triggers superstition, then it is obvious that the notion of reality beyond the senses has not yet been explored. For such a person—a materialist—God might still be associated with that ruler-touting nun enforcing her classroom version of the inquisition. You value your knuckles? Then think as you’re told.   

The scientific and academic communities are nearly as reluctant to challenge accepted theories as their religious counterparts. Does the brain produce consciousness, or does consciousness transmit through the brain? This heated debate is but one example of the ongoing tug of war that has less to do with scientific or religious convictions than with human nature. When careers are built, textbooks are written, and funding is secured based on accepted lines of thought, the scientist is just as reluctant to abandon their sacred theory as the religious apologist. This is why a renowned scientist, Max Planck, has been paraphrased saying that science advances one funeral at a time.     

I agree with the commentator that much of our inherited religious belief system is based on superstition. This fact, however, does not change the nature of reality itself. For those of us engaged in the heart-felt spiritual quest, we find that much of our work lies in separating the truth from fiction—both religious and scientific.

Is God real? The scriptural commandment, or invitation, is to love the Lord your God. Our spiritual goal is to look past the God that has been handed to us and come to know God firsthand.   

Our Mother Earth

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It is commonly acknowledged in metaphysical literature that the souls of our earthly parents did not give birth to our true essence. Souls don’t give birth to souls. Our earthly mother, however, did give birth to the body in which we arrived. But this body is made up of chemical compounds given to us by our more universal parent—Mother Earth. Astronomer Carl Sagan went a step further by saying, “We are made of star-stuff.”

And yet if we collected the proper amounts of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other chemical elements and mixed them together, we would not have a human being. We would have the pile of components that are needed to make up this earthly vehicle. What we would lack is the animating force, the life, love, power, and intelligence that stirs these compounds into a living being.

So, we celebrate our earthly mothers as the door through which we entered the material domain. We celebrate our Mother Earth as the provider of the raw materials that make up our earthly interface. We celebrate God as the creative life force that stands behind it all.

But perhaps celebration alone is not enough. If Earth is truly our mother at the most fundamental level, then our relationship with her must move beyond appreciation into reverence. We cannot claim spiritual awareness while ignoring the condition of the very body from which our physical form is drawn. To harm the Earth is, in a very real sense, to harm ourselves.

This awareness invites a quiet shift in consciousness. We begin to see the ground beneath our feet not as something we walk upon, but as something we arise from. The air we breathe becomes more than atmosphere—it is a continuous exchange of life. The water we drink is not separate from us; it is an essential part of our physical body.

In this light, spirituality is no longer confined to thought or belief. It becomes embodied, relational, a lived recognition that we are participants in a vast, sacred system of life.

To honor our universal Mother Earth, then, is to live with care, with gratitude, and with an awakened sense of belonging. For in remembering where our body comes from, we may also begin to remember who we truly are.

The God Problem

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Even after letting go of the image of God as an old man in the sky, we may still struggle to relate to God as an ever-present, creative life force working for our highest good. Revisiting inherited beliefs about our spiritual Source can deepen and clarify our prayer life.

For example, affirming God as life, love, power, and intelligence aligns me with the truth of these ideas:

  • The life of God is the very essence of my being, stirring as the enthusiasm I need to accomplish all that is mine to do.
  • As love, the creative life force draws to me what serves my highest good and dissolves that which does not.
  • I am empowered to move forward in faith, strengthened to hold fast to the truth that all things are working together for good.  
  • The intelligence that is God lights my way—clarifying the choices and decisions before me.

This is not the work of a distant being acting on our behalf. Emerson points to a different relationship between God and humanity when he writes, “Every man is the inlet and may become the outlet of all there is in God.” The image is of a natural flow—like a spring-fed pool with a spillway—constantly renewed. In that sense, the life, love, power, and intelligence we need are always moving through us. When a need arises, what is required to meet it is already present. In prayer, we align with this flow and affirm that the highest good is unfolding in and through us now.

Many believe that God can—and one day will—eliminate suffering at the human level. Yet suffering and discord are likely to continue until individuals recognize themselves as the inlet and potential outlet of all that is in God. This awareness cannot be achieved collectively; it is an inner awakening that each person must come to for themselves. This is why we do not look to the sky for help—the help we seek is within. As we affirm guidance from God, we are inspired with new ideas, given the right words, and shown the best course of action. In this way, we become instruments of divine action: God in expression.

The Courage to Disappoint

YouTube: The Courage to Disappoint: Breaking the Approval Addiction

Many of us may agree with the scriptural idea that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. Yet living from that belief can feel difficult. What makes sense intellectually does not always translate into daily experience, and we may sense a gap between the potential we affirm in principle and the reality we live day to day.

That gap is one reason it helps to distinguish between the soul and the self-image. The soul—your true Self—is an expression of God. The way you see yourself (your self-image), however, is shaped by many secondary, body-centered influences such as family, culture, gender, education, and social standing. Spiritual education is the process of closing the distance between this conditioned self-image and our true ground of being: the soul.

One common self-image is the “people-pleaser”—a pattern marked by an intense need for approval and validation. It often shows up as:

  • Difficulty expressing personal needs and desires
  • Overthinking and worrying about what others think
  • Minimizing achievements and brushing aside compliments

From a spiritual point of view, the goal is not to make the self-image more pleasing or acceptable to others. As Jesus observed, it does little good to gain the world at the cost of losing sight of the soul (Matthew 16:26). In other words: what do you gain by winning others’ approval if you lose self-acceptance in the process?

This is not an invitation to trade low self-esteem for an “in-your-face,” bulldozing personality. Rather, the most substantial catalyst for positive change is soul-level self-discovery. The need to please others is often the result of trying to live a meaningful life while making that life contingent on others’ approval.

When Jesus taught, “Seek first the kingdom, and all else will be added,” he was pointing to the importance of being true to yourself. Notice when you drift from that aim, and gently return to the truth of who and what you are. You may not please everyone—but you can become a steady presence and a genuine pleasure to yourself.