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TRANSCRIPT
LIAH: Aloha and welcome to Mind, Body, Spirit Radio and happy Thanksgiving. I'm your host Liah Howard and today our special guest is Rev. Kedar St John. He is an internationaly-recognized spiritual counselor, holistic health practitioner, techno shaman, musician and teacher of inspired philosophy and most importantly he is the founder of the Temple of Peace right here on Maui. He has spent the last 30 years engaged in philanthropic work on four continents and was responsible for co-creating two very successful cultural centers in South Africa and Fiji. Today we are going to be talking about thankfulness. Thank you so much for being here Rev. Kedar.
KEDAR: Thank you, thank you.
LIAH: I always like to start the show with a message from the angelic kingdom because I work in unison with them. This is from Maredith Young's Angelic Messenger book. The card that I pulled for the show today for Thanksgiving is "Courage." The present challenge is persevering even when the work you've begun seems to falter. You have drawn this card to fortify your resolve and to let you know that you are on the right inner path whether or not the outward signs in your life suggest success. Humanity's challenge has always been and will continue to be the search for union with the divine. While this may sound lofty and difficult every person eventually seeks inner peace and confirmation of a spiritual dimension no matter the words that they choose. It is too difficult to live in Earth School without an awakened spirit. When you place your belief in other people and in your outer mind's ability to guide your life you give your effort, belief, and energy to the building of your own physical resources. These come and go as quickly as the currents of the ocean that rearrange the sandy shores of the beach. You may go through many experiences over and over with the same types of people with the same attitudes and beliefs unaware that to break the cycle is to put attention on your spiritual resources. The full measure of your effectiveness, love, and endurance through challenge and struggle is found through awakening your spirit. Your spirit is manifested love. It holds your intention for meaningful service, your capacity to overcome adversity, and your ability to see beauty, compassion, and joy where there may seem to be none. You become a creator, a divine initiator, when you know your own awakened spirit. Wow, that is a GREAT message for our show today Rev. Kedar. So, tell us a little about yourself and how you came to have this Temple of Peace and what's that all about.
KEDAR: Well, it began a long time ago when I was a young boy 14 years of age. I came across the Hari Krisna devotees. There was an advertisement in the paper of Swami Prabhupad who had opened the Hari Krisna temple in Aukland, New Zealand. I imagined in my mind as a 14-year-old this temple on top of hills and flags and it was very mystical to me. I did not know what mystical was but I was spontaneously attracted to it. Eventually one of my school friends said hey, have you seen the Hari Krisna temple? I said no where is it? So he told me where it was and we got on our bikes after school and we rode over to the Hari Krisna temple and sure enough there it was. A lady came out in a beautiful sari. She had these sweets in her hand called "simply wonderfuls." She saw us as a couple of really cute kids and offered us sweets. She took us into the temple. From that moment on it was like I somehow or other fell in love with the spiritual path of India and the Vedas. For several years until I finished school I found myself after school going to the temple which didn't look like I had imagined. It was just a normal house. I found myself studying the Vedas and listening to the past times of Krisna and Buddha and the various avatars.
LIAH: So that started you on your path of devotion. Now before that you had been raised Christian, right?
KEDAR: Yes, my dad was Catholic and my mum was protestant. They weren't really that spiritual but they made sure that they sent us to the Salvation Army Sunday School where the Salvation Army, the "Salies," their big thing was they'd go down the main street playing with their band and singing. So, singing spiritual songs I guess you could say before that there was a sense of that's where I belonged, that was part of my spiritual practice to sing the glories of God.
LIAH: So singing is a form of devotion.
KEDAR: Absolutely. Especially in the Vedic traditions called Bakti Yoga, love and devotion. So when we sing from our heart, love and devotion to the divine, and we invoke the divine, the divine presence within us.
LIAH: So you have a noticeable accent.
KEDAR: It's because I'm a Kiwi.
LIAH: Heh-heh-heh, a Kiwi.
KEDAR: A New Zealander.
LIAH: Ah-hah. So how did you get here, what path did you take?
KEDAR: It was a long path. I actually at the age of 18 years of age told my parents that I was leaving to travel to India to find out the roots of this Krisna movement that I had become so fond of and the chanting. So I ended up in India as an artist, I was a graphic designer, I had been trained as a graphic designer, I joined the art department of the Krisna movement and found myself studying Indian paintings, Kongra paintings from the Jagunagh Puri and the various classical styles of painting. Then somebody who was a scout for the art department in Paris saw me and said that we would love for you to come to Paris and work with us. So I went to Paris, I went to Belgium, went to London, and then they sent me to South Africa to open a center down there with some people, back to London, back to South Africa, and then I came to America to work in the art department in Los Angeles.
LIAH: But you are no longer affiliated with that particular...
KEDAR: Well, I was a monk you could say probably for about ten years from the early 70's to the early 80's. In the 80's I was in Nepal. In 1980 I was living in India and we had traveled up. The master had died and as often is the case with movements when the master passes then everything kind of goes into a little bit of chaos. So I really wanted to just check out what else was out there. So I started studying Tibetan Buddhism and shamanism and Sufi practice, mystic Christianity, the Essenes, I started studying the Red Road, Native American Indian and Hawaiian.
LIAH: So this answers the question. Because when I went to the Temple of Peace I saw lots of divinities represented. There wasn't just one. There were many many different little alters and places of sacredness.
KEDAR: Well yes, and this is because you could say that in a sense that the divinities I see them as flowers in a sense that I'm decorating my heart, the alter of my heart. And in a sense you could say that all of the divinities that you saw there at the Temple of Peace on the same alter wall are the decoration or are a pathway, a road map of the path of spirituality that has been there for me. Now I realize that it's all one. I realize that we actually are all united. That all the expressions of the divinity are coming from the same source. One Sun in the sky has many many names in different cultures call that Sun Krisna, Buddha, Jesus, Allah, Mother, Mary, Tara, there are so many names for the divinity. Essentially there is only one Mother Father God if you would, divine feminine principal, divine masculain principle, and they dwell within us, as us, through us. This is what I have come to understand.
LIAH: And so your vision for the Temple of Peace, what was your vision when you thought about what you wanted to create because you had this vision years ago that came to you and when you thought about what you wanted to create here on Maui and offer?
KEDAR: Well, the way it came to me was I was sitting in the Himalayas and meditating and one day a vision of this temple of peace came to me. In those days in India it was called the Shunti Mundere. Shunti meaning peace and mundere meaning temple. And so I wrote a song about this vision and started singing it.
LIAH: Can we here it?
KEDAR: Eh-hem [clears his throat]...Well...okay...
LIAH: [giggles] Have a sip of water. I love songs, as long as I don't have to sing them.
KEDAR: I don't have my guitar with me.
LIAH: Well, just ad lib.
KEDAR: Okay.
LIAH: So here is the vision, the song that came to you.
KEDAR: The vision goes like this, [singing] On a mystic hill above the world of pain and misery the Lord revealed a vision of lustrous majesty. A temple of surpassing grace ascending to the sky with many domes of sparkling gold around which peace doves fly. A temple of peace, a temple of peace. Around the temple stood a park wherein stood many trees each filled with fagrent flowers and love-intoxicated bees. Within the temple lived a flame that burned eternally. It testified to our desires to set our spirits free. A temple of peace, a temple of peace. The pilgrams came from every land that magic park to see where everyone's a brother and sister and not just for a fee. On a mystic hill above the world the sages called Mount Chi the Lord revealed a vision and all the souls could see. A temple of peace, a temple of peace.
LIAH: Mmmmmm...Well I have been to the Temple of Peace in Haiku. It's right on Haiku Road, is it 575?
KEDAR: 575 Haiku Road, that's correct.
LIAH: It doesn't have the golden domes as far as I could see.
KEDAR: It does have one golden dome.
LIAH: It does?!
KEDAR: Yes, absolutely.
LIAH: Really?
KEDAR: Yes.
LIAH: It's yellow and there's beautiful prayer banners outside and you walk inside and it feels so peaceful. Honestly, it really does have that vibration of peacefulness. There's a beautiful alter in the back of the room. You can tell that it is a place for people to come together and share in their heart. I found the service to be very heart oriented there was lots of singing and connection and sharing. So it wasn't like a regular church service in the sense that it's not that you were standing up on a pulpit. You're actually in a circle with everyone else and sharing and facilitating it but also being a part of the whole circle. It was wonderful. I want to give out Rev. Kedar's information. If you'd like to get more information about the Temple of Peace again it's located at 575 Haiku Road in Haiku that's just before you get to The Studio Maui up there. His phone number is 808-575-5220. Now there's a few events I want to let you know about. The Sunday morning service is at 11:15 AM. Gather with musical remembrance, practice, and celebration of our divine connection here now alive and awake in a changing world. The Temple of Peace spiritual center whose doors are open to all who are inspired to seek genuine spirituality, personal change, and loving service to humanity. On Tuesday night at 7:PM there is a Kirtan. This is east Indian singing, yoga chanting, and a vegitarian potluck feast. And, every Thursday night you know this movie that I have been telling you all to see, The Secret, they play it every Thursday night 7:30 PM. Please go. It would be great to see it with friends. It's a wonderful movie to see with other people and to share. We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back. You are listening to Mind, Body, Spirit inspirational talk radio.
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LIAH: Welcome back we are speaking with Rev. Kedar St John who is an internationally recognized spiritual counselor, holistic health practitioner, techno shaman, musician, and teacher of inspired philosophy. I am so happy that you are here and sharing your message. You know you really do, I can tell you're thankful. What are you thankful about this Thanksgiving day?
KEDAR: There are so many things that I am thankful for. I get to live in my dream.
LIAH: AH!
KEDAR: The Temple of Peace manifested itself and that's been my dream for 20 years. I've been singing about it. I have gone, I have have created visions of plans and vision boards and created executive summaries and thought it was this amazing big big place that cause when I saw it in the Himilayas it was this grandiose place very similar to the Grand Waikapu. I actually even envisioned it being there and even tried to get the Grand Waikapu. And, you know, what happened is God works in so many different ways sometimes we don't necessarily get what we want but we always get what we need.
LIAH: Mmmmm...
KEDAR: What happened was I was offered this amazing place in North Carolina after doing a wonderful ceremony with Native American Indian elders and it was a 5,000 square foot temple with a 5,000 square foot eating hall and 200 rooms on a hundred acre estate. These people offered it to me and they said, "Kedar, here's your temple." And, I looked at this place in Boone, North Carolina, and I said, you know Lord, I so thank you, thank you so much for hearing my vision. Yes, we had the first amazing "Many Peoples One Voice" native wisdom prayer gathering here and it was a total success and there is a temple of peace and its got domes and it has everything. But Lord, didn't I say something about it being in Maui?
LIAH: [laughs]
KEDAR: And so I said thank you Lord, thank you so much, I am grateful, I am so grateful. And...
LIAH: So we can put amendments to our prayers.
KEDAR: Yes, you can. The Lord hears what you have to say. He's looking into you, through you, he knows what you really want. And I said, Lord, okay, thanks for giving me this, and, really Lord, what I really really want is just a little temple on the side of Haleakala. And sure enough within two months the temple showed up.
LIAH: And it's actually more than just a temple. I was thinking of it sort of as a church, a place that people would go and meditate and pray and get renewed spiritually. But there's other aspects to this temple, it's a healing sancturary.
KEDAR: It is a healing sancturary. Both myself and my wife Shelley are in...
LIAH: Okay, now that's another story because you were a monk, remember? [giggles]
KEDAR: Right.
LIAH: Now you're a householder.
KEDAR: I'm a householder, yes. Monks can get married, especially in the Temple of Peace. We actually encourage our monks to be great friends with ladies and we want that because it is about family. We are really a family church, or temple. I don't really like to use the word church. We are really a temple. And yes, we have a healing sanctuary where we work with people body, mind, and spirit. We truly believe in the full chakra experience from the ground up, all the way from the bottom to the top. We have a wonderful cleansing program that we're doing right now that is just awesome. I just went through it myself. It felt like I was initiated in an Essene temple. My mind cleared, my spirit was uplifted, I felt like my life had changed, and that is really what one of the things that we're all about is a healing sanctuary. We are also creating a dining club called, "Healthy, Wealthy and Wise" that will have vegitarian and vegan, Indian food, and I know that is something that everyone loves is the Indian food.
LIAH: Not everybody.
KEDAR: Not everybody, but you know, we'll have...
LIAH: [giggling] I'm one of those who doesn't like spicy food.
KEDAR: Not spicy...
LIAH: Oh it's always spicy...
KEDAR: ...but really tastey, sumptuous. There are a lot of things that go on at the Temple. We've just leased this land behind us and we are creating a permaculture garden and we would like to create a labyrinth walk, a pilgramage walk behind the Temple so that when people come it's a full experience, they get to be in nature at the Temple.
LIAH: Oh, I just took my class, I teach channelling, and took them on a labyrinth field trip. There are so many labyrinths on the island now. It's wonderful. We can always use another labyrinth.
KEDAR: That's right.
LIAH: And you also sponsor and host special events. I understand that you are having an event there on December 1st, a special event with Mirabai Devi.
KEDAR: Yes, Mirabai Devi came to us in March of this year. She was actually the first speaker or spiritual person to come along to want to work with us.
LIAH: [giggling] Oh come on now we're all spiritual, she just had the title.
KEDAR: What I mean to say is that she came along and a friend of ours said that you gotta see this lady. She is really special. And so she has the great good fortune of being the very first official program that we had in March of this year. She's coming back November 1st...
LIAH: December...
KEDAR: December 1st, excuse me. She'll be at The Studio Maui and she'll be giving darshan and there'll be kirtan. She's what we call an ecstatic.
LIAH: Okay now, for those who really don't know those words like darshan...
KEDAR: Darshan means to be in the living presence. She emulates the divine goddess energy. She just emulates the goddess, the mother. People come up to her for a hug, she's one of the hugging ladies and they find themselves in her arms, next to her heart, she's just stroking them and tears are pouring out of their eyes and she gives what's called shaktipat where she will touch the person in this ecstatic state she touches them on their head and they seem to fall back in ecstacy. It was totally amazing. I have never seen anything like it. I was VERY impressed and certainly had the same experience with her myself.
LIAH: If you'd like you could go to the website www.Temple-of-Peace.org and there is a short video clip that you can see her actually doing darshan. You can see the looks on people's faces, there's a narative, they are talking and describing what is happening how people are sort of putting their burdens, all the baggage that they are carrying, emotional pain and suffering, and putting it aside and receiving this amazing dispensation of love.
KEDAR: Yes, darshan is something which has been happening in India for thousands of years and when one I guess becomes an ecstatic or grows into, steps into their ecstatic nature they emulate any number of divinities. To me it was everybody. It was at home and all the lights were on. It was great.
LIAH: And, what is kirtan? You also mentioned kirtan.
KEDAR: Kirtan is chanting, devotional chanting call and response. There are so many famous kirtan leaders like Krisna Das, Jai Utal, Wa Devi, actually this Friday on the 1st the kirtan will be led by Naraja Secord and she is just a fabulous singer she sings with such heart. So as the darshan is going on everybody's singing call and response and it just builds this amazing energy.
LIAH: And that's done in another language.
KEDAR: In Sanskrit, yes. Sanskrit is called Deva Nagari. Deva meaning the gods and nagari meaning language. So it's an aural tradition very similar to Hawaiian language is an aural tradition. You don't have to understand the language of the mantra to be affected by the chanting very similar to Hawaiian when you hear the ole chanters, they're chanting, you don't know what they're saying but sometimes you just, the hairs stand up, you get the chicken skin and it's just amazing. Sanskrit is like that, you don't have to understand the language of the mantra to be affected by it. It actually has a transforming effect.
LIAH: From what I understand, it takes it from the mind into the heart.
KEDAR: That's right.
LIAH: And that's what I've experienced during any kind of kirtan or chanting and it goes beyond the mind and there's this energy of, of transcendence really, and connection, unity with all the other beings that are singing. It's very uplifting, very healing, it'd be a great thing to do. And, let's talk a little bit more now, Thanksgiving is a very special day and let us have you do our special Thanksgiving prayer before we take our next break. That would be such a gift that you've put together for us. This is Rev. Kedar St John and he has the Temple of Peace in Haiku, www.Temple-of-Peace.org and his number is 808-575-5220. Open your heart, open your mind to receive this blessing. You called it a treatment.
KEDAR: Yes.
LIAH: Why?
KEDAR: Well, treatment is something that was given to us by a very famous kiwi might I say...
LIAH: New Zealander. [giggles]
KEDAR: New Zealander. Ernest Holmes who gave us the Science of Mind in the 20's. So, religious science, he, ah, just a fabulous character, and he realized that he came, God spoke to him and God said to him that it was not like a, it's not an obsequious requesting or asking from God but really an affirmative statement of being in the presence and feeling it. That takes it to a whole nother level and when I learned that from one of my dear mentor teachers, Rev. Diane Winter, she showed me how to do the treatments. That stayed with me for many many years now as my preferred form of prayer.
LIAH: So here is our Thanksgiving prayer, treatment, blessing...
KEDAR: We cleanse the windows of our minds that they may become mirrors reflecting inspiration from the most high. We do this not with strenuous effort but through quiet contemplation, through gently reaching and affirming an inward recognition of good. Today we talk and we walk in the pathway of inspiration. We know exactly what to do in every situation. There is an inspiration within us which governs every act, every thought, with certainty, with conviction, and in peace. Let us rejoice for the families who have gathered this Thanksgiving to express their thanks and to celebrate the bounty of their lives. Let us join together in support of those whose families are far away. Let us hold each other in gentle reverence this holiday of thanksgiving. We take this moment to gratefully acknowledge the bounty before us. We have had life new born amoung us this year that will carry our legacy into the future. We have had death among us this year that has given us tears of sorrow and fond memories of yesterdays to remember. We have had illnesses, accidents, and surgeries among us this year that have reminded us of the fragileness of our lives. We have had marriages, reunions, reconciliations, and we have had and still have our beloved Maui ohana, our community, our beautiful island home in the emerald blue ocean where we come together in love, harmony, and beauty. For all these things we give thanks this day. Knowing that the key that unlocks the treasures of the kingdom of good is in our hands we unlock the doorway of our consciousness and gently open it that the divine presence may flood our whole being with light, illuminate our beings with its radiant flow and direct our footsteps into the pathways of peace and joy. We give thanks for this wonderful inspiration and we let it be so in thankfulness this day of thanksgiving and so it is. Amen.
LIAH: Mmmmm, and so it is. We are going to take a short break. We will be right back.
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LIAH: Welcome back. You're listening to Mind, Body, Spirit inspirational talk radio. Happy Thanksgiving. We just had a beautiful prayer and blessing from Rev. Kedar St John who is the founding minister at the Temple of Peace in Haiku at 575 Haiku Road. We were just receiving a prayer and blessing about thankfulness. Now what kind of words of inspiration would you have for someone who was going through a particularly hard time right now and they're not feeling like they have a lot to be grateful right now or they're not especially feeling thankful?
KEDAR: Well, I think it's important to be grateful for small things like something as simple as, for some people, "I am so grateful, I am so happy and grateful now that I woke up. I am so happy and grateful now that I'm breathing." If we start with the breathing we go back to the breath and we think in terms of who is breathing, what is breathing. We go back to the breath and we say God is breathing us. That breath of life is breathing us. There is a closeness. There is an intimacy there. To remember to be grateful, to be so happy and grateful, this, the idea of happiness, when we say that we are happy, I am, I am, the I am presence, the divine in me. I am so happy. When we call in this happiness, this happy feeling, even though we may not be feeling happy when we say that and we put some emotion into it, I'm so happy. That's a magnet in the universe and gratefulness, when we say we're grateful for anything, I'm grateful to have a glass of water, I'm grateful I woke up, I'm grateful that I have a pillow to lay my head on. When we start giving thanks for the small things in our lives even though we may be at the bottom of the pot so-to-speak, it builds energy. It's all about energy. And the universe doesn't really know whether you're making believe or not. You know there was a, somebody just told me a fascinating piece from some researchers at Stanford University where they actually got the most depressed people that they could possibly find who were on all of the most serious anti-depressants and they had them for 30 minutes look at themselves and smile, just smile for 30 minutes at themselves for three months once a day. At the end of the three month study, this was hundreds of people, not one of them went back to using their anti-depressants, they all got off of them, and they all walked off with their lives.
LIAH: Wow.
KEDAR: This is amazing.
LIAH: That is amazing.
KEDAR: So, you know, the mind doesn't know the difference...
LIAH: [laughing] You don't think I'd pay well for that study...
KEDAR: I would hope so. Smiling? You know, so here's another piece. You know, look, you can fake a smile but if you're looking at yourself smiling in the mirror, even if you're faking it, you fake it until you make it and the mind doesn't know the difference. It goes, "Oh, she must be happy." OR, "He must be happy look at him he's smiling." It worked. So, gratefulness for the small things.
LIAH: That is beautiful. You know it reminds me, I was reading this book this morning it's called, "108 Ways to Say I Love You" and it's by Meenakshi Angel Honig and there's this one paragaraph I want to read because it's so tied into what you just said. It says, "Imagine how you would feel if all of a sudden you just lost everything, your familly, your friends, your home, your food and water, your telephone, your clothes, your photos, your television, your computer, CD's, books, DVD's, all your possessions, your health, your vision, your hearing, your sense of smell, your sense of touch and taste, your limbs, your intelligence, the sacred teachings and lessons that you have learned, etc. Just take a moment to really feel how you would feel. Now, imagine how you would feel if suddenly and magically you got it all back! How would you feel? Relieved? Happy? Ecstatic? Grateful? Okay, feel that way right now. Now, bring that happiness and gratitude to all of your interactions." That's page 51 and I just think that is so beautiful and that is what you are saying that we can create that feeling even if it is not happening right there where we can see it, that we can make it happen.
KEDAR: That's right. It's our intention.
LIAH: And also, the Temple of Peace, I want to go back there, I get excited about it because when I went there I felt a sense of community, I felt a, just a loving presence of acceptance, you could come dressed any way you like, you even said at the beginning, "You can come late and you can leave early." [laughs]
KEDAR: Well we would like to start on time.
LIAH: You can still start on time. But I thought that was just very honoring of people's needs and what's going on with them.
KEDAR: Yea well part of the thing is that I said you know look, you can never be late for the Temple of Peace because there is no judgement here. We're not going to judge you because you walk in late. We're not going to judge you if you lay on the floor. There is no judgement. This is a place, a sanctuary, where we're ministering to each other. We're bringing out the best in each other. We're beautifully creating this gem, this multi-faceted gem where we're all the choir, where we're all on stage, we're all the minister. I just happen to be sitting in a space kind of directing the energy, directing the traffic. You know, I'm not attached to me being, you know, the Right Reverend Kedar doing his thing, you know I'm, I'm just singing, I'm having a good time. And what happens is that there's another element they call it the fifth element. You know you saw the movie The Fifth Element what was the fifth element? It was love. When love comes into it then the hearts are joined in unison and a fifth element, literally a whole nuther dimension, takes over. We never know where we're going when we start but we always know that we've arrived at the end when we get there.
LIAH: And I could really feel the love in that room. And there were a couple of aspects of the service that I enjoyed. Well of course the music, there is a lot of music. And also you had a little healing section. And you had a little part where people would share if there was a miracle. Now I don't know if this is similar each week or if it kind of changes but the week that I happened to go and visit that's what happened and it was really beautiful.
KEDAR: Well yes, we, we ask, especially when it's small and intimate, it becomes easy to, to ask anybody who would like to speak in the miracle, and miracles can be great or small. I mean we had one the other day that was so amazing. Somebody's son was on the Hana highway, two brothers following each other, big one of those 4-by-4 trucks behind one of them hit the other truck [Liah gasps], went off the road, there was a young man's hand was pinned underneath the wheel of the truck, his brother got out of the car that was, he was following in the car behind him, got out and with super human strength literally lifted the tire off of his brother's arm. And there was no damage, there was no nerve damage, there was nothing, the mom was just, this is a miracle.
LIAH: That is a miracle, the power of love.
KEDAR: The power of love.
LIAH: We have to take a short break. I want to give you Rev. Kedar St John's information. If you'd like to go to his website it's www.Temple-of-Peace.org and 808-575-5220 and the Temple of Peace has services every Sunday morning at 11:15 AM and every Tuesday night there's 7:PM a kirtan with a vegitarian potluck and then Thursday night 7:30 PM they show the movie The Secret which can't be missed you absolutely must see it. Then there is a special event coming up on December 1st with Mirabai Devi that will be at The Studio Maui and then there will be a retreat at the Temple of Peace the 2nd and 3rd. Hope you can make it. We'll be right back.
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LIAH: Welcome back and happy Thanksgiving. I am here at the studio with Rev. Kedar St John an internationally recognized spiritual counselor, holistic health practitioner, techno shaman, musician and teacher of inspired philosophy, and founder of the Temple of Peace. Rev. Kedar, what is peace?
KEDAR: That's a big question.
LIAH: [giggles] And yes we just have a few minutes but if you were to put it into one sentence?
KEDAR: Well, one of the things that I am aware of about peace is that I actually do not know what peace is. I don't claim to know what peace is. Because I don't think that you can really define it. What, is it peace as opposed to war as Demartini says? It's not my intention with the Temple of Peace. No, peace is feeling really, I guess, comfortable in somebody else's presence. Being in the presence of another and feeling at ease and in harmony. Being in the presence of yourself and feeling at home. This is something to be cultivated. I don't claim to know what peace is. I simply say that I am creating this facility, this, this zone that you come into where we might discover what peace might be.
LIAH: Now I went to your website and I looked at that video with Mirabai Devi who will be coming here and one of the final things she said was inner peace is simply falling in love with the self and she looked very peaceful. I mean she looked like the sign of total contentment and joy and endless energy and bliss. She looked like she knows what that is. And she said that it's really realizing the self and remembering who you are, that it's, it's actually the journey itself is the experience rather than the destination or the goal.
KEDAR: Right, exactly.
LIAH: So here you've been journeying for many many years you had a spiritual awakening quite young and its many many years later and you are now developing and building your dream. What is your vision for the Temple of Peace.
KEDAR: My vision is that we create an organic community, the community comes together because there's a spiritual foundation. So many of us have tried to create communities here on Maui. Some of them are successful, some of them not. And what I've found in my observation was that there was really often-times the community would fall apart at a really, at a critical point. It would fall apart because of personal differences, or egos, or business, or what have you. And so I am looking to create an organic community where the people show up because their in love with what they do, they're passionate about what they do, they love the idea that we are here together to support each other as God's dream team creating...
LIAH: I like that, God's dream team.
KEDAR: ...creating an environment where it just oozes with peace. You just feel it like what you said when you walked into the Temple you felt it. So we don't claim, make any claims, we make no claims. God is Great Spirit, uhane, beloved, whatever you might call it, is in charge here.
LIAH: You could also call her Goddess.
KEDAR: Goddess, we are very much into the Goddess I might say, yes. Kind of being a guy we somehow or another us guys tend to talk about Him and I often talk about Her and sometimes we have conversations about Him and Her. So, we just, you know, there's so many ways to describe the divine.
LIAH: Well, Thanksgiving is often-times the day when people get together with their family and with their closest friends and they share in food taking in, you know, healthy food, nourishment, and love from one another. And, it sounds like you're in the process of creating this sense of family because it sounds like more than community. I get the feeling that you want it to be more feeling like a family.
KEDAR: Yes, that's how it, you know, when I was a young kid traveling around the world as a monk I could go any place on the planet and somebody would pick me up in a car. They would bring me back to the beautiful temple, they would feed me, they would clothe me, they would, they would just nourish me in every way and I felt the love in the family. When our master was on the planet, so I guess that you could say that I am following in his footsteps to create a universal family. A place where everybody feels that they're welcome. That there's no sectarianism, there's no sort of trips, and isms, and favorites, and dogmas, you know, my karma ran over your dogma. You know, so, this place is, we say that we are an open affiliation of like-minded beings who know when to show up. That's about you showing up. Showing up for yourself, showing up for your community, being in service, seeing who needs service. Looking after God's children and nourishing them, holding them to your heart, seeing them as the living power of God. What I always say to people at the end of my services, I say I want to bow to you all and I say this to all of you out there. I want to bow to you all because you are all the living power of God in human form, perfectly expressed, individualized as each one of you and to be in your mighty presence. I am most grateful.
LIAH: And there's a word in Sanskrit, namaste.
KEDAR: Namaste.
LIAH: And people put their hands together over their heart and bow the head.
KEDAR: Which is I honor namaste, means, literally I honor the spirit, the enduring spirit, that lives within you.
LIAH: Well, just to wrap it up. You know I had a guest on last week who had a very painful life and came to a deep sense of spirituality through the pain which is often I think how people come to a path of peace. You came to it through a different path, more from devotion.
KEDAR: Curiosity.
LIAH: Curiosity and devotion so there's lots of different ways to get to this place of peace and letting peace be more and more important in our lives and as peace gets more important in each of our personal lives it will get more important and more profound on this planet and that's really what we're here for, to help this whole world. I'm going to thank you for being our guest today and just want to give you Rev. Kedar's information again, 808-575-5220, www.Temple-of-Peace.org. Thanks so much for listening have a beautiful Thanksgiving day and just an absolutely blessed week. My name is Liah Howard and you have been listening to Mind, Body, Spirit inspirational talk radio.
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