Take a chef, whose calling may be to serve people by delighting their palette, awakening their spirit, and revitalizing their body; yet, if being a foodie is dismissed as purely material pleasure, then both chef and the people he or she serve are short changed from the full spiritual and material experience of nourishment.
Another example could be an accountant in a corporation. At first this may seem like a purely mechanical and material endeavor, but if you pay attention to the sense of peace that comes over the accountant when she or he organizes the balance sheets and their contribution is appreciated, you begin to see that any seemingly material career has a spiritually fulfilling and satisfying component.
The biggest misconception is that Spirituality exists separate from and exclusive of the Material aspects of life. Many “spiritual teachers” promote this misconception, leaving aspirants feeling either dissatisfied with their material experiences or ashamed that they still crave material affluence and gratification.
Another misconception is that spiritual teachers are a separate breed from the rest of us. This often leads to a passive attitude, where the teacher holds all the wisdom, and the rest of us hope to receive this wisdom by merely listening. Although spiritual teachers may be greatly inspiring, it does not advance the rest of us unless we apply and practice the knowledge ourselves. Using the Four Keys presented in this book is a practical and accessible method with which anyone can gain access to the same knowledge and wisdom that spiritual teachers possess.
Spirituality is everyone’s birthright, and is accessible and practical in regular daily circumstances. Anyone who practices the Four Keys to spiritual-material balance can gain access to formerly hidden knowledge and wisdom that will align them with their higher purpose and guide them to a more fulfilling, peace-filled and joyous life.
For people who are searching for meaning and purpose but don’t want to buy into the spiritual New Age culture, this book provides tools to a fulfilling and satisfying life, without having to give up their so called mainstream material lifestyle. The novice spiritual seeker will find in this book a simple and accessible roadmap to spiritual development. And for the longtime spiritual seeker this book offers an opportunity to resolve the inner conflict around material attachments and can deepen their intuitive abilities.
Some immediate and long-term benefits you can expect to experience when using the Four Keys are:
• Get out of a dispirited mood within minutes
• Shift from feeling alone to feeling that you are cared for and guided by
a loving Universe
• Enhance your impact on daily situations
• Develop your intuitive decision-making skills
• Gain practical tools for manifesting your true and authentic self
• Feel passionately engaged in expressing your unique divine purpose
• Find a greater sense of harmony, intimacy, and connection with people
• Lead an overall healthier physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual life.
Expansive Presence – The Key to Sacred Awareness
Attentive Listening – The Key to Inner Wisdom
Inspired Action – The Key to Manifesting
Faith-Filled Knowing – The Key to Ongoing Co-Creation
There is a common belief that if you write about spiritual matters, it implies that you have “figured it all out,” which means that you are immune to life’s many challenges. I wanted the message of the book to be that we all face challenges, but can overcome them with the right roadmap. Just like me, anyone can change their life for the better and find the promise of spiritual fulfillment in their own unique way.
My childhood was filled with emotional challenges, having grown up in an alcoholic family. I had undiagnosed learning challenges that were never addressed. I was lonely and felt overwhelmed by unresolved emotional issues and felt that my life at home and at school was out of control. At age eighteen my life changed dramatically. I was discovered by a modeling agent and spent the next decade working as a successful fashion model based in Paris, France. This sudden shift of fate offered me the important understanding that life could change for the better in an instant. Although this sudden shift of destiny may seem to be mere luck, anyone can intentionally change the course of their life by using the Four Keys presented in this book.
In addition, when I was a successful fashion model in Paris in my twenties, I struggled with how to remain spiritually fulfilled while living a very gratifying material life. When I left the fashion world in my late twenties to pursue a doctoral degree in education and spirituality, I found myself equally frustrated, not knowing how to integrate daily material living with my spiritual values and aspirations.
What I have discovered through decades of research and practice is that you don’t have to compromise one for the other. And so all of these experiences, both the suffering and the glamour, have contributed to the birthing of this book.
Spirituality is about your personal beliefs about the Sacred and the Divine, and your direct and subjective experience of this reality. Religion is a pre-organized and shared set of beliefs about the Sacred and the Divine with rules and guidelines about how to adhere to this set of beliefs. If you identify as being spiritual, you can create your own set of daily practices, and if you are religious it is recommended you follow preset practices. Because the Four Keys go right to the heart of sacred universal experiences they can be applied across diverse religious and spiritual practices. So you could use the Four Keys in order to develop your intuitive abilities, or in order to have powerful spiritual experiences on demand, while staying true to daily practices of your faith or religion.
You know the feeling: you’re flying in a plane, and suddenly there is turbulence and everything is shaking, with the plane bouncing up and down. It can be unpleasant and even scary! To get out of turbulent air, the pilots often climb to a higher altitude, where the atmosphere is calm, and then everything settles down again. Well, that is what spirituality is all about––rising to a higher altitude of emotional and mental stability where there is no turbulence and your being can sail over the disturbances of daily life with greater ease. When you act in the world from a higher spiritual altitude, the answers to challenges reflect your most noble intentions, providing creative, innovative, and compassionate solutions.
Our culture has fallen deeply into the Material-Spiritual split where we have chosen to pursue material possessions and ignore the spiritual values inherent in our material existence. People have an intrinsic longing to lead meaningful, purposeful lives, and contribute to making our world a better place. Neglecting this need has created a spiritual hunger in our culture, a great void needing to be filled. Current trends indicate a movement away from traditional religion towards more inclusive views of spirituality. A 2014 Guardian article reported that 20% of British people and 25% of Americans describe themselves as “spiritual, not religious,” indicating a clear need for establishing a balance between our spiritual longings and our material needs.
Most books on spirituality fall into the divisive trap of separating the spiritual from the material, and valuing the spiritual over the material. Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World challenges this common misperception and offers practical tools for integrating our inevitable material existence with our highest spiritual aspirations.
One of the main inspirations was a talk I attended about ten years ago by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. During the Q&A segment a young woman raised her hand and asked a question that I myself had been grappling with for several years: “We go to many workshops,” she said, “read books on spirituality, and are introduced to many spiritual teachings, but how do we apply all these in our daily living?” This book is a response to this question of how to integrate spiritual teachings into our daily material living.