Many people have read my story of being given the Guru stone in my book Walking Home with Baba. For those who have not, I will give a short summary and continue from there. Over my years with Baba, he gave me various semiprecious stones. There were several citrines; they are lovely but only resemble the Guru stone, which in …
I Am No Fun….
I am no fun. Throughout my life I have heard this. I have even believed it and felt bad. Being identified as a no-fun person means the activities and interests I enjoy are no fun. Some of those activities and interests included dancing at age six and becoming both dedicated and disciplined from the time I was eight. Neighborhood bicycling, …
Our Birthright Is the Witness….
Baba always had me witness, watch. I, however, always wanted to be part of the action. And the truth is I was; my acting took the form of witnessing. As a child I always preferred to participate, as in camp where I always wanted to be the camper, never the counselor who stood around and watched. As a dancer I …
Clues….
When I was around 24 I had a dream that was so powerful, I knew it was real while I was having it. When I woke I knew I had no soul. My experience was that there was nothing inside me. There was no ground of being. Nothingness, emptiness. I was sure there was nothing there, I was a façade …
Exceptionally Mediocre….
While away on a campaign, Zhuge Liang, the great Chinese strategist, became fatally ill. He wrote letters of advice to his nephew and son before he died. To his nephew, Zhuge Liang wrote: “Aspirations should remain lofty and far-sighted. Look to the precedents of the wise. Detach from emotions and desires; get rid of any fixations. Elevate subtle feelings to …
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; …
Seamless….
What you see is what you get. When we are clear, what you see is what you get. There is nothing to hide and nothing to reveal. We are. We no longer hide from ourselves or others. Usually we present our best foot when meeting with people socially, professionally or even in the privacy of our families. This means that …
Conscious Non-resistance….
As a teenager in Boston, I participated in civil rights marches. These marches were silent and orderly, with large numbers of people coming together. Later, at Washington University, there had been protests, but these were more about venting anger than reaching resolution. After being present for some of those demonstrations, I realized what was going on and withdrew. Eventually, there …