1. religion and spirituality

The New Spirituality, The Stream and You
Our world is creating a new spirituality, one which has roots in the 20th century, but which is taking
shape only now. Many current traditions embody aspects of this approach, but few embody the whole
of it. This paper is dedicated to supporting its evolution.
We need a New Spirituality, because we, humanity, tend to be fragmented, self-destructive, hurtful to
one another and in pain. The New Spirituality could revolutionize all that by transforming the way we
relate to ourselves, one another and the Divine. The
New Spirituality emphasizes healing and supports
wellbeing for us as individuals and as a collective. When The New Spirituality emphasizes
we are more well and whole, we are then more able to
healing and supports wellbeing
live a life based on Oneness consciousness, where we
for us as individuals and as a
change our relationship to one another from
collective.
competition and self-protection to caring, inclusion and
mutual support. We are then more able to extend our
Oneness consciousness to include the Divine, so that we are no longer caught in the duality between
“God” and humanity; rather we are able to embrace ourselves as integral parts of the Divine in the
process of evolution, flawed, changing and moving together toward an unknown destination.
This paper briefly explores the three main components of The New Spirituality, namely that it:
1. Prepares Us for Spiritual Transformation through Mind-Body-Spirit Healing
2. Awakens Us to Our Oneness and Teaches Us How to Live in Oneness Consciousness Every Day
3. Unites Us with the Divine in the Process of Evolution
The paper’s second part will briefly describe The Stream Center for The New Spirituality and how it is
embodying its essence. Finally, it will ask how you might feel a part of this new spirituality and how you
can participate.
The New Spirituality Prepares Us for Spiritual Transformation through Mind-Body-Spirit Healing
Unlike many traditional religions and spiritual systems, The New Spirituality embraces the integration of
body, mind and spirit, rather than the domination of either the mental or spiritual plane. In fact, The
New Spirituality rejects any imbalance and instead encourages us to achieve the greatest wellbeing
possible for ourselves on all three levels. This, of course, includes wellbeing on the physical plane, which
requires us to overcome destructive and habitual ways we treat our bodies and to embrace supportive
behaviors, such as right-eating, rest and proper exercise.
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The New Spirituality understands that we are integrated beings, body, mind and spirit. It rejects the idea
that we can be well if we are dominated by stress, locked into negative patterns by old traumas and
aren’t properly nurtured emotionally, physically, spiritually, including the right work and social
interactions. Recognizing the need for wellbeing, The New Spirituality focuses on healing. It encourages
compassionate self-awareness of our conditioned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, and it brings us
awareness of the impact we have on ourselves and one another. It focuses on understanding the source
of our negative patterns, rather than shame or denial; healing, rather than punishment; regeneration
and wholeness, rather than striving for external goals.
The New Spirituality ultimately leads us to shift spiritually
into Oneness consciousness, but it prepares us for that
Oneness must be more than
transformation by encouraging psychological, emotional,
simply proclaimed or
physical, energetic and spiritual healing. Spiritual precepts
experienced in moments of
are not enough. We need to be capable of living them.
Traumatized people are not able to easily shift into love
ecstasy. It must be lived.
and Oneness, and so spiritual precepts often cause us to
feel even more shame and less wellbeing, because we feel
that we are failing in our spirituality. People who have healed their traumas and negative patterns, on
the other hand, have the wholeness and well-being to be more relaxed, less self-protective and more
able to respond rather than to react, more able to consider the highest good of all, as our spirituality
teaches us.
The New Spirituality Awakens Us to Our Oneness and Teaches Us How to Live in Oneness
Consciousness Every Day
Similar to many traditional spiritual systems, The New Spirituality recognizes Oneness as its fundamental
spiritual principle, but Oneness must be more than simply proclaimed or experienced in moments of
ecstasy. It must be lived. The New Spirituality awakens us to our Oneness and shows us how to live in
Oneness consciousness in our daily lives through practices, such as co-creation and mutual support.
Oneness consciousness allows us to see the unity in all things, the thread that binds us all together.
Through Oneness, for example, we can honor the many names and faces of the Divine, whether it be
called higher consciousness, a Higher Power, the Great Spirit, the Source, the universal intelligence or
anything else. Through Oneness, we can also understand the motives and feelings of those with whom
we do not agree on a multitude of personal and social issues.
Oneness must be taught, and we need a lot of wellbeing to live it. Our thinking is permeated by ego
consciousness, and we need programs, practices and teachings that promote Oneness in a practical way.
But Oneness consciousness cannot be learned in a vacuum filled just with abstract thinking. Our ability
to live it depends not only on new thoughts and practices, but on our personal and collective healing
and wellbeing. The ego tends to perceive through the lens of fear and separation, which makes us more
likely to behave aggressively or defensively. As we continually maintain and increase our wellbeing and
relaxation through healing as individuals and as a society, we are then much more able to think clearly
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and respond appropriately. A well and relaxed person is less likely to be dominated by the fears and
coping mechanisms the ego developed instinctively and through social conditioning, mechanisms we
formulated long before we knew we had a choice.
And Oneness consciousness does not stop there. The healer and the healed are One; the Master and the
Student are One. I and We are One. In this context, it becomes self-evident that each of us needs to be
in service to the whole of which we are a part. Every day we are in co-creation with the rest of the
universe, and we need to play our part. Service is a part of healing and learning, and healing and
learning are a part of service. They are all One.
The New Spirituality Unites Us with the Divine in the Process of Evolution
Once we have accepted Oneness consciousness, it becomes
clear that there can be no duality between us, humanity, and
anything else, and that must include the Divine. (In this
section, I’ll use the word “God” for all the names of higher
consciousness. Please substitute any other word, if it is more
helpful for your understanding.) So the Divine must be
evolving. If we are truly One and we are changing, which we
are, God must be changing, too.
Most spiritual systems posit God as perfect, static and somehow above us. We are then left with shame
about ourselves, who are not perfect, and the perennial nagging question, “How could God have created
a world with all this suffering?” Traditional answers include the notions that we are somehow bad or
evil, or that suffering is an illusion, or that God is perfect and so are we.
The New Spirituality posits a radically different relationship to the Divine. It starts with the assumption
of Oneness with God. God is intrinsic to us, and we are intrinsic to God. We see that our universe is
evolving, and so are we. So common sense tells us that if we and God are One and we and the universe
are evolving, we must have an evolving God. For there to be evolution, there have to be flaws. In fact, if
everything were “perfect,” there would be no need to evolve, and so flaws are part and parcel of the
mechanism of evolution itself. So the universe needs flaws to promote evolution, and so do we. Now we
can accept that we are flawed without shame.
At the same time, The New Spirituality teaches us to accept and take responsibility for our flaws (which
is the function of healing, which we covered in an earlier point), because it is through dealing with our
flaws that we evolve. For example, it is through the pain of our dysfunctions that we become aware of
our habitual attitudes and behaviors. With enough support, over time, we can change. If we are integral
to God, that means that God itself is going through this evolutionary process with us, and so if we are
flawed, we are meant to be this way, because, in fact, we are part of a flawed, imperfect God in the
process of evolution.
This ends duality in our spiritual thinking, and it also ends the shame and blame that are part and parcel
of so many spiritual traditions.
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The New Spirituality recognizes Oneness on the spiritual plane, transcending the dualistic vision of the
human and the Divine. It also teaches us to feel God as integral to us and us as integral to God, and we
sense this Oneness with God on the levels of body, mind and spirit, cognitively, emotionally and
energetically.
The New Spirituality sees the Universe as evolving, but
where is that evolution heading? It seems that we are
moving toward a higher level of integration with one
another and the Divine. That certainly is suggested by
our moving toward Oneness consciousness. But in
order to achieve greater integration between the
human and the Divine, we have to start where we are;
that is, with the feeling of separation which is implicit
in prayer for example (Dear God, Please do this or that
for me.) But The New Spirituality can teach us to
achieve greater intimacy with God, a relationship
based on mutual honesty and mutual support. And in
time, we can be helped to experience the actual
Oneness of us and God.
The New Spirituality teaches us
how to connect to the will of the
God that expresses through us
as individuals and as a collective,
and it trains us to seek personal
and collective guidance from the
God that is integral to us and yet
which represents a perspective
higher than our minds and egos.
The New Spirituality does not teach that we individually are God. God exists at a level of integration
beyond the ego self. But it does teach that we can find our connection to the Divine within ourselves,
because it is the essence of who we are. And it also teaches that God also finds him/herself within us
and needs to experience his/her connection with us in order to fully exist and to manifest.
My will is our will is God’s will. The New Spirituality teaches us how to connect to the will of the God
that expresses through us as individuals and as a collective, and it trains us to seek personal and
collective guidance from the God that is integral to us and yet which represents a perspective higher
than our minds and egos. This is not manifestation consciousness, as it is generally understood, where
we connect to God to manifest our ego’s desires. It is the opposite: We become agents of God
manifesting the Divine plan, so that we may act in a way that is for the highest good of all, including us.
And then, ultimately, The New Spirituality helps us become so attuned to Divine guidance that the
separation no longer exists between the Master and the student, the human and the Divine. And we are
the God that is manifesting through us, and God is the us that is being manifested. And that is true
wholeness, self-love and sacred union with ourselves, each other and the universe. And that is where we
are going.
The Stream Center for The New Spirituality
The Stream is an organization that totally embraces The New Spirituality, and you might like to know
something about us and how we might be connected to one another.
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A Little History
The Stream was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles, California, to help develop
The New Spirituality, even though our founder, Beth Green, was not
conscious of that fact. Just by following the Divine guidance coming
through Beth, every program that The Stream has offered since our
inception has embodied the three basic components of The New
Spirituality as outlined above. We have always embraced mind-body-spirit
integration, combining counseling with new thinking and healthy living on
the spiritual and physical planes, including intuitively guided food plans,
the use of movement and chi energy, and attention to addictive behaviors.
We have always offered spiritual teachings around Oneness, the evolving
God and the collective consciousness, teachings that are accessible, practical and sufficiently supported
by The Stream community so they can be lived, teachings offered through videos and the five books,
fiction and non-fiction, written by Beth. In fact one of her books, LIVING WITH REALITY, is a manual to live
Oneness consciousness, including teachings, practices and tools that work, and another of her books,
SACRED U NION: THE HEALING OF GOD, offers the radical notion of an imperfect and evolving God and not
only provides an analysis of the fragmentation of God’s consciousness, it expresses the process whereby
we and God return to the Oneness with ourselves and one another. In addition, The Stream has always
offered individual counseling and profoundly impactful group processes, using intuitively-guided
modalities including cognitive reframing, deep releases and the use of Divine energies, work that has
prepared people to integrate those spiritual teachings. We have addressed every area of our lives, from
the connection between sex and spirituality, to business consulting, to parenting, treating each as part
of the whole of our own evolution and the evolution of society. And we have always focused on
transforming the collective, understanding that we are One and cannot be free as individuals in a world
that is still enchained by pain, alienation and violence.
Where We Are Today
Today we are physically located in North County San Diego, California and Southern Oregon, but through
the internet, we are able to connect with people around the world. Our founder, Beth Green, is an
internationally-known spiritual teacher and intuitive counselor, recognized for her capacity to develop
programs and modalities that help people transform in profound and permanent ways as individuals
and in collectives. She is also an original spiritual thinker, author and composer, able to communicate
concepts, tools and techniques that support the evolution of The New Spirituality. Her five books help us
shift our relationship to ourselves, one another and the Divine, and they are seminal works for The New
Spirituality. Her writings are also found in New Age magazines, as well as the Huffington Post, and her
videos appear on YouTube, so that they may reach people around the world. Beth was selected by
Nobel Prize nominee Prof. Ervin Laszlo to be one of only 14 spiritual teachers to appear in his
compilation of essays called THE NEW SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY READER. Beth is also the co-founder of
Consciousness Boot Camp and the Center for Healing & Higher Consciousness. Go to our website,
http://bethgreen.org, to learn more about her, her books, music and writings.
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We, The Stream, are a nonprofit educational corporation that has a foundation of programs, teachings
and healing modalities that can support you, whether you are seeking the wellbeing for yourself and
your loved ones, training and/or service opportunities that express the essence of The New Spirituality.
Our programs are accessible in person, but we also have participants from around the world who
participate live via the internet. Contact us if you would like to know how.
And You?
Our world needs a New Spirituality, which shows us how to heal ourselves, live in Oneness and radically
shift our relationship to the Divine so that we can feel our Oneness, be guided by higher consciousness
and join together to co-create a better world.
Do you feel the call of this New Spirituality? How do you fit? Can The Stream Center for The New
Spirituality be an asset for you?
If you feel that you, too, are a part of The New Spirituality, you might have a home at The Stream, a
home for a day, a year or a lifetime. Check out our offerings. We have books, internet videos, music,
Healing Arts Theater, esoteric teachings, live programs, individual counseling, groups, programs for
transformation and trainings for people interested in being of greater service to our world.
Come to The Stream Center for The New Spirituality for yourself, which impacts all the people you
touch. Come to The Stream to learn how to more effectively help others on a lay or professional basis.
Come to The Stream if you feel called to become a New Spirituality Practitioner yourself, enhanced in
your ability to provide more healing and spiritual support to our world. Our offerings span healing
services for you, free supports for body, mind and spirit, group processes, profound yet simple teachings
and effective tools and practices. They also include intensive training that could enable you to become a
counselor, through our Intuitive Hypnotherapy Training & Certification program, or a practitioner in The
New Spirituality, through which you can more effectively minister to the needs of others by having the
comprehensive tools of counseling, spiritual teaching and connection to Divine guidance. As a
practitioner you could offer effective support to your family and loved ones, as well as the people you
work with every day, or you may feel called to become a professional practitioner with a private
practice. You may even feel called to start a Stream New Spirituality center yourself.
For details on our offerings, check out http://bethgreen.org, where you will learn about our many
programs and services and through which you can keep current about what we are doing. Join our
mailing list to be kept abreast of new programs, new books and blogs by Beth, and information about
accessing our free supports and developments in The New Spirituality. Or please consider joining us as a
core member of The Stream, working with us and the Divine to help change ourselves and our world.
For any questions, please call Stream Spiritual Director Helen Hillix-Di Santo, 760, 941-8215.
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