Let’s get this out on the table. There are people who received tremendous gifts from Baba, but once the “sex scandal” came out they left. These people say they cannot come to grips with what he did. What did he do? That is the question. Did he have sex? Apparently not: no one I know of has said he did …
The False Idol of Self-esteem….
Being strong-willed is not being willful, and freedom is not getting to do whatever you want. Our first lessons in these realities come from our first caregivers. These people demonstrate and reflect for us how to live. They both model and teach. Good leadership is like good parenting. Both embody and encourage behavior that is healthy for everyone involved. This …
The Buck Stops Here….
There is a hidden joke in the title of this blog. I approach the protection of my garden in very much the way Baba taught me to handle security in the Ganeshpuri Ashram. In Ganeshpuri there were walls with broken glass on the top. Intruders came in through the drainpipes or the front gates. After we put screens over the …
Accepting Our Own Evil….
From the standpoint of worldly existence, my vocation looks rather difficult to understand and even boring. My job is to guide people Home. My vocation is to be Home. Home is the Heart, where we meet God. In order to go there, we have to leave all our attachments behind. Among other things, we have to go through all our …
The Meaning of Stewardship….
In church, I used to hear the word “stewardship” thrown around: “We need to be good stewards”. For most people, that did and does mean “give money”. The real sense of stewardship is to take responsibility for the care of something. So if we are stewards of something, then it is our job to make sure all is right with …
When Are We Responsible?….
What would happen if God decided He wanted to no longer be responsible? What would happen if God decided He wanted to be selfish instead of Selfish? Who would He be? He would be us. That is how we got here; did you forget? For God to not be responsible He has to limit Himself and pretend nothing He does …
Grace Personified….
When I went to Baba I knew he had what I wanted. I did not want to be the person in the back of the Hall soaking in the shakti and learning nothing in the bliss of it all. I wanted all that Baba had to offer. I knew what I was looking for and knew he had it; I …
Right Effort and Grace Await Each of Us….
The Guru is not a person. My Guru, Muktananda, became and embodied the Guru. So he was and is the Guru. There was nothing of Muktananda that was not the Guru. His vehicles were enlivened by the Guru. Muktananda, like any great being, had surrendered and become the Guru. So what he wanted was not personal. His wants were the …
The Business of All Businesses….
St Bernard called this work we do here “the business of all businesses”. And it is. I am in the business of going to God; going home to God. That is my business, my profession. If you are looking for winter clothes, you came to the wrong store. If you are looking for a mommy, you came to the wrong …
The Gardener….
Every tradition uses the gardener as an analogy for spiritual work. The garden is a place where everything grows within a prescribed area. We are gardens where everything grows, both beautiful and ugly things. And many times in a garden a beautiful plant begins to be seen as a weed because it has been allowed to grow to the detriment …