For Gurupurnima, Rohini reads three of her poems before reflecting on her Guru, Swami Muktananda, and on the importance of the Guru as person and as principle.
Against the Grain
Drawing on Jnaneshwar’s commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita as well as two of her poems, Rohini explains how important it is to Love the world as it is and avoid the two temptations of trying to make everything positive as we understand “positive” or, at the other extreme, devaluing everything in the manifested world as temporary and not worth caring about. Both those illusions are attempts to avoid honest discomfort, and are devoid of Love.
Solving the Problem
Rohini clarifies the real problem at the root of our individual, social, and global predicament, and explains how to solve it, beginning with our own practice.
Autumn Spanda: Painting Time-lapse
Timelapse of one of my recent paintings, ‘Autumn Spanda.’ Oil on canvas.
Who’s in Charge of Your Meditation?
Rohini explains how what we do in the world, we do when we turn inward in meditation. If we try to control or “run” our meditation, we are not meditating. In meditation, we have to surrender as we go inward, and not attach ourselves to anything we experience along the way.
Approaching Life
Rohini explains how what we bring to the table is how we approach our lives. We approach spiritual practice the way we approach the rest of what we do. People often try to make spiritual practice into drudgery, and then use euphemisms to let themselves off the hook for being unconscious. If we practice as we should, it will bring …
Narratives Never End Well
Starting from her poem “Ode to the Washbear,” Rohini explains how the shrunken self is nothing more than a narrative, and its efforts to fit experience, and other people, into that narrative are always limiting and destructive. Spiritual practice requires us to identify, disentangle from, and dismantle our narratives.
Delegating Upward, Part Two
Rohini continues her discussion of “delegating upward” by explaining how willful this behavior can be, especially when the “delegators” thrive on conflict and seek to feel powerful by frustrating others. When we are truly serving, “we” disappear and the focus is the work itself.
Delegating Upward, Part One
Rohini explains how, in a variety of settings, people can selfishly toggle between “delegating upward”–passing their tasks to their superiors–and going rogue without appropriate checks. By placing their dramas and perceived needs above the work itself and its larger purpose, they undermine what they pretend to support.
The Subtlety of Real Learning Part Two
Rohini continues her explanation of the nature of real learning. Drawing on readings and her own experiences, she examines the dangers of abstraction and false equivalencies, and clarifies the nature of true mastery on a subtle level.