Home Career Biography Sally's Art Work Sally on the Radio Agent: Michael Linden Greene
Greene and Associates: 310.550.9333
Photo Galleries Articles & Interviews Movie Credits Resource Links Reverend Kirkland Publicist: Bridge & Tunnel Communications
Dominic Friesen: 310.246.0943

The Less Known Side of Sally Kirkland
By Laren Bright


rev1_tn.jpg (2568 bytes)Anyone who knows Sally Kirkland’s work as an actress will understand that she is a master of her craft in large part because of her profound and genuine compassion for people. But what may be surprising to those who only know the actress side of Sally is that she also has a deep and dynamic experience of her spiritual nature, and has spent the majority of her life in serious spiritual study.

Sally’s compassion grew out of a difficult and challenging childhood that led, indirectly, to her spiritual studies in her mid-twenties. This was an episode that began a new life of in-depth spiritual exploration and devotion to the Spirit in all people.

It began with her discovery of a  book called Autobiography of a Yogi, the life story of Paramahansaswami_n.gif (11333 bytes) Yogananda, a great soul. This led Sally to the study of yoga through the Swami Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Institute, where she became a staff member and teacher. As she studied, she also began dedicated meditation, self-imposed dietary restrictions including fasting, extended periods of silence (mouna) and of celibacy (bramacharya), and voracious reading of a broad range of spiritual/ metaphysical/ religious teachings. She flirted with Buddhism and became a practicing Hindu.

Ultimately she found an organization that integrated her Episcopalian/ Catholic/Christian upbringing with her Eastern spiritual/mystical practices. It presented an unusual approach to spirituality, synthesizing the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of living, and it brought the experience of Spirit alive in a practical way that Sally could apply to her everyday life.

jrbw_n.gif (4670 bytes)The organization, called The Church of the Movement of Spiritual InnerAwareness (MSIA), also ordains people as ministers. Ordination in MSIA is a call to apply the techniques of touching into the person’s own inner wisdom to find the acts of service that Spirit would present to them. For Sally, with her intense caring and compassion, this was a natural. So, on December 4, 1975, Sally was ordained as a minister by MSIA’s founder, John-Roger.

Sally Leads MSIA Seminars on the 3rd Friday of each month in Los Angeles.

The location: The MSIA Headquarters
at Peace Awareness Labyrinth Gardens



3500 West Adams Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90018

Phone: 323.737.4055

The Seminar runs from 7:30-8:30 PM

For more info on MSIA please go to:
http://www.msia.org
http://www.msia.org

Ordination in MSIA connected Sally with a special spiritual energy that she was charged to use in ongoing service. This is a commission Sally has taken seriously from the moment she received it. She is an ardent proponent of her church and its spiritual leaders, John-Roger and John Morton, and a champion of all paths that lead people to the awareness of their natural state as spiritual beings exploring their own divinity. Along with  Hatha Yoga and Pranayama (deep breathing) whichSally was already teaching, she has, over the years, added  speaking on nutrition, service to others and meditation and spiritual exercises as part of her ministerial activity.

wed_n.gif (10407 bytes)In her "official" capacity as minister, Sally performs weddings and baby blessings, officiates at memorial services and funerals, and is available to present taped MSIA seminars featuring the teachings of John-Roger and John Morton upon request in West Hollywood. She actively involved in MSIA outreach activities with other MSIA ministers and she loves to introduce people to MSIA through introductory classes, the in-house publication the New Day Herald, MSIA’s home study course called Soul Awareness Discourses and MSIA classes available on the internet. (http://www.msia.org)

Sally used the experiences of overcoming her former serious health challenges to expand her ministry into health activism. She has put her body on the line for many causes, particularly in the field of alternative medicine. In connection with that, she has started her own foundation, Kirkland Institute for Implant Syndrome Survivors (KIISS), and is spokesperson for Humantics Foundation for Women. Both are organizations which support women who have suffered the horrendous side effects of silicone implant related diseases – as she herself experienced them until her explantation surgery in August, 1998.

To expand her personal, hands-on ministry, Sally has taken hospice training through Project Night Light, and received instruction in care for the dying. She has selflessly applied these to assist and minister to the elderly, and people suffering from AIDS, cancer, heart disease, and all terminal illnesses. She has also been an advocate for prisoners, especially young people, who have been incarcerated unjustly.

While building her acting career, Sally has established relationships withcuba_n.gif (10597 bytes) many of today’s brightest stars and the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry. She has called upon her friends to lend their support to a variety of high profile charities including the Red Cross and the Los Angeles Mission, where Sally has gone often to feed the homeless.

She also teamed up with Edward James Olmos and Joan Van Ark to do a series of telethons in support of the Carl Bean Hospice and other hospices. Through that effort she and her friends raised in excess of a million dollars. And she joined with fellow MSIA minister, Beach Boy Carl Wilson, and at the invitation of President George Bush went to the White House to assist on behalf of Star Serve, one of the organizations in Bush’s Thousand Points of Light program.

In addition to these efforts, she has energetically supported her own favorite charities. Among these are:

  • The Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA)

  • Peace Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy

  • The Heartfelt Foundation, (Sally regularly presented herself to do fundraisers and hands-on volunteer work at such places as hospices, hospitals, nursing homes, shelters for women and many other places where compassion, caring and the human touch can make a difference).

  • Insight Transformational Seminars (Sally has been in the past an Insight IV facilitator for 18 years, including 5 years in Santiago, Chile. In the past she has presented her transformational acting workshop for Insight in cities across the United States, in London, England, and Sidney and Brisbane, Australia.)

  • The Educare Foundation, (where she in the past taught her acting workshop to At Risk Kids through Educare's ACE Program.)

  • The Institute for Individual and World Peace (IIWP), (was a spokesperson and fundraiser.)

  • And several other organizations working toward the enrichment of life and the upliftment of the human spirit.

On another front. Sally continually uses her publicity appearances on TV, radio and press junkets to promote spirit and worthy causes that bring books2.gif (13315 bytes)awareness to the concept that service is the highest form of consciousness on the planet. She has had her own radio-internet show for 8 years – originally on KYPA and KBPA, now on healthylife.net. The show features those in the forefront in the fields of spiritual awareness, alternative health, and entertainment. Her show is often sponsored by the Institute for Individual and World Peace, MSIA, and Mandeville Press, the publisher of the books of John-Roger, including Forgiveness, the Key to the Kingdom, Spiritual Warrior; the Art of Spiritual Living, Psychic Self- Protection, and Inner Worlds of Meditation. She is currently exploring ways of expanding her radio coverage to larger markets through syndication and broadcasting via the internet (and she is definitely open to assistance in this endeavor!).

All in all, Sally has made it her business to bring the spirit of ministry to everything she does, and a part of her life to find ways to minister every day. She does not go into a building wearing a clerical collar or other trappings of clergy. She does find every opportunity to follow the ministry of her heart and to support those who are seeking to be more of service. Those who know Sally will testify that in these pursuits she has been eminently successful.

Laren Bright is an Emmy nominated award winning writer. He has known Sally Kirkland since the early 1970’s and has had the opportunity to observe Sally’s ministry through his own participation working with Ministerial Services In Action, an advisory and review board for MSIA ministers.

Sally's Loving Thoughts for Today

"Focus on individual peace...Not one soul will be lost."

"Send healing thoughts to all the children and their families fighting violence in schools."

"Loving often comes from forgiveness. Here is a way to experience forgiveness a greater way, "If you are judging yourself for something take a moment and say to yourself, I forgive myself for ______________ (whatever your judgement is.)" You might just be surprised at the results."

"Call in the Light wherever you go: Father Mother God, I ask just for your Light to surround, protect and fill me and my loved ones and all reaching out for your Light for the highest good of all concerned."

"Out of God comes all creation!"

"If this was the last day of your life, how would you live it? Hopefully with unconditional loving and gratitude. Life is what you make it."

"What is Grace? Grace is God! What is God but the divinity in all of us, no matter the race, creed, color religion, circumstance or lifestyle."

"Breathe in Father, breathe out God!"

"Let go of yesterday’s baggage. Enjoy rebirthing yourself in the moment with the innocence, enthusiasm, gentleness and trust of a newborn baby."

"Although it’s been said by many, in countless ways, this is still one of the most profound teachings: Be still, and know that I am God."

"It says in the Christian bible that God looked at what he created and declared that it was good. You and I are part of that creation."

Home Career Biography Sally's Art Work Sally on the Radio Agent: Michael Linden Greene
Greene and Associates: 310.550.9333
Photo Galleries Articles & Interviews Movie Credits Resource Links Reverend Kirkland To contact Sally, please call: 323.650.2215


Copyright © 1997-2010 by Sally Kirkland. All rights reserved.