Principles &
Practices
Principle 1
As Whole Human Beings, we can self-transform to a state of Self Awareness, awakening to the ever present Observer.
“I am the eye by which the universe beholds itself
and knows itself divine.”
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Practices: Cultivating our entire human constitution
Mind: Cultivating Continuity of Consciousness
Body: Attending to body sensations for the sake of protecting the body’s safety and promoting its health and fitness
Heart: Cultivating Joy, while allowing ourselves to authentically experience and release our emotions as we consciously respond from the deep heart to the wider world around us
Self: Cultivating presence in the moment with Self awareness, Self direction, and Self guidance
With increasing faith in our ever-refining intuition, heeding the voice of conscience
Principle 2
Doing our dharma enhances everyone’s karma.
“We have come into the world for a particular task, and that is our purpose.”
- Rumi
Practices:
• Seeking to understand and fulfill our life’s calling so as to contribute to the whole
• Considering how everything in the universe happens cyclically, interconnected with everything else
• Seeking to discern the web of interconnected causes and purposes
• Taking our proper responsibility for the causes we initiate - both individually and collectively
• Continuously self-correcting and re-directing our lives, setting better causes into motion
• Seeing ourselves in others, casting no blame, claiming no victimhood
• Recalling that everything happens for a reason in the onward evolution of the universe
Principle 3
Moving forward on our soul’s path requires Lifelong Learning.
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm
learning how to sail my ship.”
- Louisa May Alcott
Principle 4
We protect and strengthen Individual Agency by exercising it.
“Consider who you are: to begin with, you are a human being, that is, one who has no quality more sovereign than moral choice.”
- Epictetus
Principle 5
What we do on inner levels makes even more of a difference than what we do externally.
“Individuals owe it to their neighbours and their descendants, as well as to themselves, to purify their mental emanations.”
- HERMES
Principle 6
Reverence for life elevates ourselves and all sentient beings
“Children of light, as ye go forth into the world, seek to render gentle service to all that lives.”
- Theosophy School chant
Principle 7
We uplift ourselves by honoring the Sacred Teachers who uplift Humanity.
“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion upon the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to
bless people now.”
- Teresa of Avila
Practices:
• Always seeing ourselves as lifelong learners, never as finished projects
• Incorporating our spiritual, intellectual and physical learning into our daily lives, putting ideals and theory to the test through practice
• Availing ourselves of the teachings, meditations, educational classes, workshops, series, trainings, conversations, retreats, lectures, seminars, etc., such as offered by:
- Still & Moving Center Almanac
- Still & Moving Meditation Fellowship
- Still & Moving Community Center
- Academy of Mindful Movement
- Puana Lomilomi Academy
• Acknowledging that even deeper or broader teachings on humanity, the divine, and the workings of the cosmos might assist in our lifelong learning, from sources such as:
- Aquarian Almanac
- Institute of World Culture in Santa Barbara
- The Gupta Vidya Circle
- www.theosophytrust.org
- Maitreya Academy of Wisdom Teachings
Practices:
• Meditation - still and moving - as a discipline for attaining agency.
• Cultivating conscious reflection and deliberation on higher ideals and the common good
• Transforming selfish desire into willing the good of the whole
• Mindful movement (per the Academy of Mindful Movement’s standards)
• Vigilant caution in breathing practices to retain agency and mental clarity
• Avoiding any mind altering practices - including hypnotism, even for health purposes - that reduce individual human agency by putting individuals into an altered, passive, out-of-body, or trance-like state of mind
• Avoiding psychic practices as potentially invasive and/or dangerous
• Being opposed to brain-washing modes of indoctrination, not allowing cults to openly or surreptitiously use our space, nor ever succumbing to such practices ourselves
• Prohibiting in all Fellowship interactions the use of manipulation or intimidation, which usurp the individual’s sovereign right to free thought and choice
• Maintaining alcohol and substance free space
• Collectively and individually maintaining the cheerful, calm, organized, encouraging, empowering, and loving atmosphere conducive to individual agency
Practices:
• Meditation on noble, ethical truths and their exemplars
• Self-study to purify our motives as well as to examine how our thought, speech, and action is impacting others
• Maintaining integrity between word and deed
• Requiring honesty within ourselves as the precursor to authenticity with others
• Keeping clean thoughts and hope-filled imaginings to protect ourselves and those around us
• Cultivating psychic hygiene by radiating goodwill to all
• Sincerely apologizing and forgiving at a heart level
Practices:
• Rejoicing in Nature’s wonder and beauty
• Caretaking and protecting Earth and its creatures.
• Health practices and care for the sacred human body
• Honoring the sanctity of all human bodies and their sacred purposes
• NonViolence to all, including ourselves, as precious children of light
• Maintaining vegetarian facilities while honoring each individual’s personal dietary needs and choices elsewhere
• Seeing ourselves as interdependent with Nature and all beings, visible and invisible
Practices:
• Offering spiritual teaching, sitting meditation practices, prayer, chants and other inspirational events free of charge to the greater community
• Offering movement and health practices and education under our roof at cost, allowing the providers to make their living
• Seeking to include all who want to avail themselves of our paid activities
• Giving service to our community
• Hosting charitable events and benefits
• Supporting and sharing with those less fortunate in any way
• Emulating all true spiritual teachers who freely gift humanity with their insight and wisdom