Guarding the door was the beginning. It led me to guarding the Heart. Baba knew what I wanted, so he used my worldly skills. They turned out to be the perfect metaphor for the practice I was looking for. Throughout my life I had always felt directed to the next level. Dance led me in to Tai Chi Chuan, and …
Recent Questions….
People have all kinds of ideas about what spiritual practice is and isn’t, and even when they get an explanation they interpret what they hear or read in all sorts of ways, most of which are off the mark. In this blog post, I will be answering some questions that have recently arisen. If you read carefully, you might find …
Walking Bliss….
Lokānanda samādhi sukkam. The Bliss of the world is the Bliss of samādhi. Sahajsamādhi: walking Bliss. This is why I went to Swami Muktananda. Baba had imbibed and lived this understanding, and I wanted to learn and imbibe it from him. Prior to meeting Baba, I had known very powerful energy experiences. I had seen lights and colors, heard sounds, …
Baba’s Work….
One of the greatest misconceptions about spiritual practice is that it is selfish. Unfortunately, the world is full of pseudo-spiritual “paths” that really are nothing but self-indulgence. Real practice is the opposite. When we actually do it, the world changes on a deep and subtle level. It’s hard to fathom this. Few people want to grasp that by turning inward …
Crumbs….
For many years I have used the story of Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs as an example of how we go Home. For us, the breadcrumbs are still there. We can follow them back to who we really are. The last few weeks my work has been focusing on the self-hate we all have. We have seen that our …
Respecting Lineage….
If we want to learn, we have to surrender to instruction. This holds true in any area, but never more so than in spiritual practice. When we submit to instruction, we have to willingly diminish our autonomy. By giving up our say, we climb out of the kiddie pool of shrunken ideas and plunge into the ocean of true knowledge. …
Surrender….
According to Indian philosophy the world is made up of the three gunas or constituent principles. They are different vibrations. These three principles are tamas, rajas and sattva. They combine in infinite permutations to form the manifested universe. When we put these three in complete balance and still them, we are said to have completed our sādhana. Combinations of the …
The Guru Models….
All my years with Baba taught me how to live. Baba was a great model for life. When I say this I do not mean that he showed me I should wear orange robes if it is not my dharma. I do not mean that he showed me that I should live in an ashram if it is not my …
The Guru’s Grace….
The five-fold action of God is as follows: Create, Sustain, Destroy, Conceal, Reveal. As human beings and therefore shrunken manifestations of God, we perform these five activities in a diminished form, believing we are powerful. We obviously create, sustain, destroy, and delude/conceal. Revelation or grace is harder for us, as individuals, to see or perform. Our “grace” is the grace …
Perfect….
All my years with Baba taught me to be true to my Self. The way to get there is to accept where we are now. And now. And now. That means giving up judgment, now. So many people say, “I am perfect just the way I am.” Yes, you are correct. You are perfect as a mean, kind, honest, insincere …