Hi, and thanks for checking us out! Here are some answers to the main questions you may have about us and the Golden Gate Center for Spiritual Living.
IS THIS THE PLACE I’M LOOKING FOR?
If you’re looking for a place where spirituality isn’t limited to required beliefs, memorized prayers and rituals repeated by rote, and leaving your brain at the door, you might like us.
Most of us are nontraditional in our beliefs. We come from all kinds of spiritual paths and none at all. We honor the world’s sacred texts and are interested in ancient wisdom teachings as well as current science. We tend to have a sense of humor and can be a little quirky sometimes.
HERE’S SOME OF WHAT WE BELIEVE:
We believe all life of every kind is sacred, and that the resources of our planet can and should be handled with respect and protected with love for future generations.
We believe every person deserves fairness, justice, safety, well-being, equal rights and fulfillment in life.
We believe there’s a creative power in each of us that we can become aware of and cooperate with to improve our lives and the overall quality of life in the world.
We believe there is life-giving nourishment for the soul in beauty and creativity through the arts of every kind.
We believe that everything is connected and is created by an infinite, omnipresent Presence of love, wholeness and unity–the Mystery, Higher Power, Great Spirit, God/Goddess–whatever you choose to call it.
To say it more directly, we believe that all things and people are made from and of this Mystery, and that all is One. No exceptions.
If some or all of this resonates with you, GGCSL might be a good fit as your spiritual home.
WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO GET TO KNOW PEOPLE AT GGCSL?
Usually people get to know each other when they participate on a team, join a book study circle, or take a class together. Being part of a small group helps people learn about each other and discover what they share in common.
Taking a New Member class (even if you aren’t sure you want to be a member) is one way to begin.
There’s no requirement to join after taking the class. Just email Administrator@ggcsl.org and ask to be added to the email list so you’ll receive weekly updates about what’s coming up.
WHERE DO THE CENTERS FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING COME FROM?
GGCSL is a member of Centers for Spiritual Living, with its Home Office in Golden, Colorado. Centers for Spiritual Living was founded in the 1920s in Los Angeles, California by Ernest Holmes.
Holmes spent a lot of his adult life exploring religion, philosophy and science. He was looking for the overlap of those three: the place where they were saying the same things, instead of contradicting each other. Holmes believed the overlap was the most likely place to find Truth. As he began to share what he’d learned about this overlap more and more people came to hear him speak, and then to study with him. Students convinced him that what he was teaching was spiritual truth. Before long churches that taught his Science of Mind philosophy of spiritual living began to spring up everywhere in California, spreading out from there.