Last week, I wrote about how we all must uncover what we believe is the “way to be” in order to free ourselves from that idea of “goodness”. We may know intellectually that our “way to be” is wrong—even that it is destructive—yet on an emotional level we are still sure it is good. But the truth is, the “way …
Guru Purnima 2016….
Baba gave me everything—by taking everything away. For that I am so grateful. He shone the truth so brightly that it forced ignorance to run away and die. Wrong knowledge was the food he devoured daily. Our job was not to resist his taking away every delusion we held so dear. And sometimes he grabbed something away from us that …
The Delusion of Ownership as Love….
Ownership is called love. Therefore, objectifying is love. Therefore, love is essentially pornographic. Therefore, power is love. Love is therefore the pleasure of possession and control. To own and feel the pleasure of ownership is to love. To be owned is to be loved. Therefore, the beloved’s obligation is to be always willing to be an object, to have no …
Liberation….
Liberation is utterly different from what most people imagine it to be. Baba always made clear that liberation is not for the individual. He always stressed that the individual cannot be liberated, and that the only way to liberation is to give up our attachment to and wrong identification with any separate identity. I specifically went to Baba because that …
Honoring Baba on His Birthday….
O Rohini, give up seeking attention. You are dust under the feet of your Guru, Swami Muktananda. You are so lucky to be the dust at the Guru’s feet. How many lifetimes did you work to finally get here? Baba, you show me how and where to go; you illumine the way and guide me to you. I bow to …
Becoming Human….
Are you a sinner? No. Is your proxy a sinner? Yes. Being truly normal is being truly human. We are made in God’s image, and we should act it. Stop thinking of God as a selfish being. We believe that, since we are made in God’s image and we are selfish, then God is, too. But to act as God …
Guest Blog by Ian Ralby: The Choice To Practice….
At the conclusion of the course on “A Spiritual Survival Kit” (see here), I asked for the chance to guest blog in order to share some reflections. Having grown up with my mother as both my mom and my teacher, I have witnessed her teaching and her students’ development from a fairly unique vantage point. I vividly remember when she …
Shakti and Wisdom….
Everybody loves energy. It is everywhere, and manifests in countless ways. Without energy, there is no life. In my tradition, the term for energy is shakti; the shakti is God’s power of manifestation. Spiritual energy is latent, asleep, in each of us. And the term for that spiritual energy is kundalinī-shakti. In order to return home to who we really …
Imagination Isn’t Practice….
Sit in the room and be realized. Do not offend anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. Then leave and resume your ordinary habits. Is this what you think sādhana is? Around Baba, there were people who did just sit around and then go home. Their discomfort came from their fellow ashramites, so their interactions and relationships looked very much like the …
My Apparently Useless Gift….
When I owned my school of Tai Chi Chuan in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I had a lot of energy. People would feel it and even I would be overwhelmed by it, yet I had no wisdom. People thought I was something more than I was because they were entranced with the energy and identified me with it. The energy knew things; …