The more we move toward nonduality, the more Love we will have; the more diverse we are, the less Love, compassion, and empathy. When we live in our notion of diversity, we may believe in our uniqueness and not feel our unity with others. We have spoken before of unidualism vs nonduality. “All is good” or “all is bad” is …
Love Is Not Goodness….
I am disheartened these days watching the world steam ahead toward hate. And though we may acknowledge the character traits of reflection, honesty, care, and discernment, which come from purity and clarity, there seems to be ever-increasing inertia—heedless indifference—along with the painful traits of agitation, violence, fear, and turning further away from the Heart. In the face of this upheaval, …
Love and Democracy….
The only thing I really teach and talk about is Love. I may go to Love from this angle or that angle, but the truth is I only am talking about Love. One could say my profession is that of an internal sanitation engineer: I remove garbage, facilitate the removal of garbage, and encourage everyone to take out their garbage …
The Guru Manifests Personally for Us….
Not everyone wants a personal relationship with the Guru. I did. I loved Baba personally and as the Guru, and I still do. Most people want the Guru without any personal relationship. When people see a Guru in human form, instead of being excited by the wonder of this manifestation and his accessibility, they diminish the Guru. This is like …
Love or Its Counterfeit….
Love is so much better than power. When we Love, we are at the Source, expressing the Source. Nothing is watered down, nothing is minimized, everything is. Real Love is the essential nature of everything; it is the untainted manifestation of God. Power is shrunken and twisted Love. When we pursue power, we believe we have strength with authority. We …
Discerning Evil….
We all must mourn the loss of innocence—of the delusion that everyone cares about others’ best interests—and accept the existence of evil in the world. In an Absolute sense, everything arises from Love. Dante understood this; in his Commedia, evil is simply twisted Love. But though evil, like everything else, arises from Love, it rejects its origin and deludes itself …
Shrinking the Monster….
When we encounter someone who is evil, we usually react with fear. We do not understand them and want to run away. They are monsters to us, and we feel powerless. If we want to shrink these monsters, we must begin the process of uncovering how they came to be as they are. These monsters are human beings who committed …
Lessons from My Mother….
I could have learned to be just like my mother. Though as a child I did not want to be like her, we unconsciously pick up the qualities of our first caregivers and live them out even in our repulsions—and our repulsions can bind us even more than our attractions. If not for Baba I may have ended up as …
The Life of Anastasia….
It’s customary to deliver a eulogy when someone dies. Though the word generally means “praise”, in the most literal sense it translates from the Greek as “good word”. Sharing my understanding of my mother’s life and the part she played in her little corner of the world stage is itself a “good word”, so I will offer this blog and …
Living Humility….
Everyone agrees that humility is a virtue. But no one really wants it. We all either redefine and belittle it as a kind of lightweight modesty or deride it as belonging to losers. True humility, though, requires great courage, because it consists in surrendering our separateness completely to God. In your life, if God is the doer, then you are …