THE EXPERIENCE

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Ceremonies

The Service

This ceremony is carried out at the request of a group of people.
Everyone is standing.
The Assistant invites the participants to be seated.
The Officiant and the Assistant remain standing.

Officiant: My mind is restless.

Participants: My mind is restless.

Officiant: My heart is troubled.

Participants: My heart is troubled.

Officiant: My body is tense.

Participants: My body is tense.

Officiant: I relax my body, my heart, and my mind.

Participants: I relax my body, my heart, and my mind.

The Officiant and the Assistant sit down and let a few minutes pass.

Then the Assistant stands, reads a Principle or a passage from The Inner Look suited to the circumstances, invites the participants to meditate on it, and sits down.

After a few minutes, the Officiant stands and slowly reads the following, pausing after each sentence.

Officiant: Completely relax your body and quiet your mind...
Then imagine a transparent and luminous sphere that descends toward you until it comes to rest in your heart...

Notice that the sphere begins to transform into an expanding sensation within your chest...

The sensation of the sphere expands from your heart toward the outside of your body, at the same time that you deepen your breathing...

You will feel new sensations in your hands and the rest of your body…

You will perceive increasing undulations. Positive emotions and memories will arise. …

Allow the passage of the Force to take place freely. This Force gives energy to your body and your mind…

Let the Force manifest within you...

Try to see its light within your eyes, and do not stop it from acting by itself…

Feel the Force and its inner light. Let it manifest freely…

After a time the Assistant stands up beside the Officiant.

Assistant: With this Force that we have received, let us concentrate our minds on the fulfillment of what we truly need...

The Assistant invites everyone to stand and carry out the Asking. After letting some time pass, the Officiant concludes:

Officiant: Peace, Force, and Joy!

Participants: For you also, Peace, Force, and Joy!


Laying on of Hands

This ceremony is carried out at the request of one or more persons.
Everyone is standing.
The Assistant invites the participants to be seated.
The Officiant and the Assistant remain standing.

Officiant: My mind is restless.

Participants: My mind is restless.

Officiant: My heart is troubled.

Participants: My heart is troubled.

Officiant: My body is tense.

Participants: My body is tense.

Officiant: I relax my body, my heart, and my mind.

Participants: I relax my body, my heart, and my mind.

The Officiant and the Assistant sit down and let some time pass.
The Officiant stands.

Officiant: If you wish to receive the Force, you should understand that at the moment of the laying on of hands you will begin to experience new sensations. You will perceive increasing undulations. Positive emotions and memories will arise. When this occurs, allow the passage of the Force to take place freely…
Let the Force manifest within you, and do not stop it from acting by itself…

Feel the Force and its inner light. Let the Force manifest freely…
After some time for reflection, the Officiant and the Assistant stand.

Assistant: Those who wish to receive the Force may stand.
For a large number of participants, the Assistant invites them to remain standing at their seats; for smaller numbers, participants are invited to form a circle around the Officiant. After a brief time, the Officiant begins the Laying on of Hands. If necessary, the Assistant may aid the circulation of the participants, at times accompanying some to their seats. Following the Laying on of Hands, some time is given for participants to assimilate the experience.

Assistant: With this Force that we have received, let us concentrate our minds on the fulfillment of what we truly need…

The Assistant invites participants to stand and carry out this Asking.

After letting some time pass the Officiant concludes:

Officiant: Peace, Force, and Joy!

Participants: For you also, Peace, Force, and Joy!


Well-Being

This ceremony is carried out at the request of a group of people.
The Participants are seated.
The Officiant and Assistant are standing.

Assistant: We are gathered here to turn our thoughts to those dear to us. Some of them are facing difficulties in their emotional lives, some in their relationships with others, some with their health. To them we direct our thoughts and our best desires.

Officiant: We have faith that our call for well-being will reach them. Let us think of those dear to us; let us feel the presence of those dear to us, let us experience contact with them.

Assistant: Let us take some time to meditate on the difficulties that they are facing…

A few minutes are given so that participants may meditate.
Officiant: Now we would like these people to feel our best hopes for them. A wave of relief and well-being will reach them…

Assistant: Let us take a short time to mentally locate the situation of well-being that we wish for our loved ones...
A few minutes are given for participants to concentrate their minds on this.

Officiant: We will conclude this ceremony by allowing the opportunity, for those who wish it, to feel the presence of those loved ones who, although they are not here in our time nor in our space, are connected to us in this experience of love, peace, and warm joy…

A short time is given for this.

Officiant: This has been good for others, comforting for us, and inspiring for our lives… Greetings to everyone immersed in this current of well-being, which has been strengthened by the best wishes of all those present…


Protection

This ceremony may be carried out for an individual or a group.
Everyone is standing.
The Officiant and the Assistant are facing the children, who are surrounded by the other participants.

Officiant: The purpose of this ceremony is to give children participation in our community.

Since ancient times, children have been the focus of ceremonies such as those of naming and baptism. These ceremonies have recognized a change of status, a change in a human being’s stage of life.

There are today and have long been civil formalities that record the date and place of birth and other information. However, the spiritual transcendence that accompanies a ceremony of this kind has nothing to do with the cold formalities of official documents. Rather, it flows from the joy of parents, family, and friends when children are publicly introduced to the community.

This is a ceremony through which the status of children changes as they become participants in a community that makes a commitment to be responsible for them should unfortunate events leave them unprotected.

This ceremony requests protection for this child/these children, and the community welcomes him/her/them as new son(s) and daughter(s).

Following a brief pause, the Officiant addresses those present in a warm tone.

Officiant: We ask protection for this child (these children).

Assistant: We welcome him/her (them) with joy, and commit ourselves to give him/her (them) protection.

Officiant: We extend our best wishes... Peace and joy for all!
The Officiant gently lays a hand on the head, and a kiss on the forehead, of each child.


Marriage

This ceremony is carried out for one or more couples.
Everyone is standing.
The Officiant and the Assistant face the couple(s).

Assistant: Since ancient times marriage has been a ceremony that marks a change of situation for people. When we end or begin a new stage in life it is often accompanied by a corresponding ritual. Our personal and social lives are marked by rituals that, to a greater or lesser degree, we accept as customary. We greet one another in the morning differently than we do at night; we shake hands upon meeting people; we celebrate birthdays, graduations, and new jobs. Our sporting events are accompanied by rituals, and our religious, political, and civic ceremonies place us in the appropriate attitude for each occasion.

Marriage is an important change in a person’s situation, and one for which all nations require certain legal formalities. That is, the marital relationship places the spouses in a new situation with respect to the community and the State. But when a couple establishes the bond of marriage, they do so thinking of a new way of life. They do so with profound feelings and not merely as a formality.

Consequently, in this ceremony marking a change of situation, the partners have the intention to establish a new and hopefully lasting union with one another. They have the desire to give and to receive the best from each other. And perhaps they also intend to carry this relationship further, by adopting or by bringing children into the world.

Seeing marriage in this way, we may acknowledge the importance of the legal formalities of this union, but in the spiritual and emotional sense, we say that only the couple endows this ceremony with meaning. In other words, this ceremony brings two human beings to the situation of undertaking a new life, and through this ceremony the partners establish this profound union in accordance with their own feelings.

We do not marry them; they marry one another before our community.

Officiant: In order for this ceremony to be true and your own, we ask (addressing one partner): What is this marriage for you?

Participant: (when addressed by the Officiant answers aloud).
Officiant (addressing the other partner): What is this marriage for you?

Participant: (when addressed by the Officiant answers aloud).

Officiant: Then this marriage will be in accordance with your expressed desires and your most profound intentions. (Greets the couple(s) affectionately).


Assistance

This is a ceremony of great affection, requiring the person performing it to give the best of himself or herself.
The ceremony may be repeated at the request of the person receiving it or those caring for him or her.
The Officiant is alone with the person who is dying.

Regardless of the apparent state of lucidity or unconsciousness of the dying person, the Officiant comes close and speaks slowly in a voice that is soft and clear.

Officiant: The memories of your life are the judgment of your actions. You can, in a short time, recall much of what is best in you. Remember then, but without fear, and purify your memory. Gently remember, and calm your mind...

The Officiant remains silent for a few minutes, then resumes reading in a voice of the same tone and intensity.

Reject startling fears and disheartenment...
Reject the desire to flee toward low and dark regions...
Reject the attachment to memories...
Remain in internal liberty, indifferent toward the dream of the landscape...
Resolve to begin the ascent…

The pure Light dawns in the summits of the great mountain chains, and the waters-of-a-thousand-colors flow amid unrecognizable melodies toward crystalline plateaus and prairies...

Do not fear the pressure of the Light that pushes against you with increasing strength the closer you draw to its center. Absorb it as though it were a liquid or a wind for certainly, in it is life...

When you find the hidden city in the great mountain chain, you must know the entrance and you will know it in the moment your life is transformed. Its enormous walls are written in figures, are written in colors, are "sensed." In this city are kept the done and the yet-to-be-done…

The Officiant leaves a brief silence, and then resumes reading in a voice of the same tone and intensity.

Now you are reconciled...
You are purified…
Prepare to enter the most beautiful City of Light, a city never seen by the eye, whose song has never been heard by human ears...
Come, prepare to enter the most beautiful Light…


Death

Officiant: Life has ceased in this body. We must now make an effort to separate in our minds the image of this body from the image of the person we remember...

This body does not hear us. This body is not the person we remember...

May those of you who do not feel the presence here of another life, separate from the body, consider that although death has paralyzed this body, the actions he/she carried out will continue to act, and their influence will never end. This chain of actions that was set in motion in life cannot be stopped by death.
How profound it is to meditate on this truth, even though we may not completely comprehend the transformation of one action into another!
…...

On the other hand, may those of you who feel the presence of another separate life, consider that death has only paralyzed this body, that the mind has once again triumphantly freed itself, opening its way toward the Light...

Whatever our views, let us not weep for this body. Rather, let us meditate on the root of our beliefs, and a gentle and silent joy will arrive to us…

Peace in the heart, light in the understanding!


Recognition

Recognition is a ceremony of inclusion in our community, inclusion through common experiences, shared ideals, attitudes, and common procedures.

The ceremony is carried out at the request of a group of people. It is done following The Service.

Those who will participate should have the text beforehand.

The Officiant and Assistant stand.

Assistant: This ceremony has been requested by people who wish to actively include themselves in our community. Through this Ceremony they express a personal and social commitment to better their own lives and to better the lives of those around them.

The Assistant invites those who wish to give testimony to stand.

Officiant: The pain and suffering that human beings experience recedes when good knowledge advances, not knowledge at the service of selfishness and oppression.

Good knowledge leads to justice.
Good knowledge leads to reconciliation.
Good knowledge also leads us to decipher the sacred in the depths of our consciousness
.
Assistant and those giving testimony read:

We consider the human being to be the highest value above money, the State, religion, the models, and social systems.

We promote liberty of thought.

We promote equal rights and equal opportunities for all human beings.

We recognize and applaud diversity in customs and cultures.
We oppose all discrimination.

We consecrate just resistance against all forms of violence: physical, economic, racial, religious, sexual, psychological, and moral.

Officiant: In the same way that no one has the right to discriminate against others for their religion or their non-religiousness, we affirm our right to proclaim our spirituality and our belief in immortality and the sacred.

Our spirituality is not the spirituality of superstition, it is not the spirituality of intolerance, it is not the spirituality of dogma, it is not the spirituality of religious violence. It is the spirituality that has awakened from its deep sleep to nurture the best aspirations of the human being.

Assistant and those giving testimony read:

We want to give coherence to our lives, to make coincide what we think, what we feel, and what we do.

We want to surpass bad consciousness by acknowledging our failures.

We aspire to forgive, to reconcile, and to persuade.

We make a growing commitment to follow the rule that reminds us to treat others as we want to be treated.

Officiant: Let us begin a new life.
Let us search within ourselves for signs of the sacred, and let us carry our message to others.

Assistant and those giving testimony read:

Today we begin to renew our lives. Let us begin by seeking mental peace and the Force that gives us joy and conviction. Afterwards, we will go to those closest to us and share with them everything great and good that has happened to us.

Officiant: Peace, Force, and Joy for everyone.

Assistant and all those present:

For you also, Peace, Force, and Joy.