For many, free speech is the freedom to say what we want to say. “I can say what I want. This is a free country.” “Everyone has the right to free speech.” What is free speech really? Here in America, we pride ourselves on free speech; it is enshrined in the First Amendment. Of course, there are reasonable restrictions, as …
Living Sādhana….
You can’t think your sādhana. And yet that is exactly what so many people do. They think good thoughts and believe that is sādhana. They wear “pure” clothes and eat “pure” food and act “purely”. They “believe” they are doing everything to succeed in sādhana. They are in fact going about it all wrong because they are approaching practice as …
Seamless….
What you see is what you get. When we are clear, what you see is what you get. There is nothing to hide and nothing to reveal. We are. We no longer hide from ourselves or others. Usually we present our best foot when meeting with people socially, professionally or even in the privacy of our families. This means that …
Belonging….
We are in this together. Who is in it? All of us. Who? All. In order for me to be special I have to be separate. In Truth, I have to be together. When we separate, we believe there are places we do not belong. When we unite, We belong everywhere. “I am uncomfortable here because of them.” “I am …
Conscious Non-resistance….
As a teenager in Boston, I participated in civil rights marches. These marches were silent and orderly, with large numbers of people coming together. Later, at Washington University, there had been protests, but these were more about venting anger than reaching resolution. After being present for some of those demonstrations, I realized what was going on and withdrew. Eventually, there …
Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!….
We are all feeling the effects of a globally rough year. So much pain and misery through illness, natural disasters, war and conflict. As we approach the holidays, we need to look to how these observances began. The world was no more peaceful then than it is now, but God shone through the chaos of those times with great Love. …
Dealing with Conflict….
Conflict Harmony Engagement Complacency/ inertia/passivity Whether we live in community or alone, we all face conflict. It comes in countless different shapes, sizes and styles. And since the world is here to help each of us remove ignorance, we each have conflict in forms designed specifically for our benefit. The root of our word “conflict” is the Latin …
From the Many to the One….
A few years ago in a coffee shop at Cambridge, UK, I had a discussion on the nature of Reality with an Anglican priest. He had earned his doctorate from Oxford and appeared open to thinking outside Christianity. However, he believed that the individual always remains separate from God. For him, union with God was not an option; believing in …
So Thankful Practice Is Easy….
This spiritual practice is not easy. Going the most direct way up a steep mountain is not easy. How could it be that easy? We are returning Home to who we truly are. I have come far enough to know that there is nowhere else I want to be. With each painful and then liberating dissolution of attachment, I become …
Settling into Unsettled….
From the standpoint of relative reality, everything is unsettled. Even when good things occur, everything is unsettled. The world definitely is unsettled. And the news media and entertainment industry stake everything on keeping everyone unsettled. When there is a crisis, it rises to our attention, then settles down. The truth is, the crisis has not settled; we have grown bored …