I lost my brother Paul on October 3rd, 2016 to a drug overdose. The decisions he made throughout his life could have taken him nowhere else. Like me, he had opportunities to change, but he refused. Like me, things would get better for a time, but he would sabotage his own happiness to continue down a path that he would …
Maya and the Five Kanchukas….
In the cosmology of Kashmir Shaivism, God (Shiva) manifests the world out of Himself in a series of 36 principles, or tattvas. The first five tattvas are called pure; it is not until the sixth tattva that forgetfulness of our true nature becomes apparent. The sixth tattva is Maya tattva. Maya conceals God’s true identity. The word “maya” comes from …
are you talkin to me….
o man wake up the sages say i am awake i say go in go in the sages say i am in i think i am i say the sages turn their heads away unkind they are i say wake up wake up they say again can’t they see i am awake i say the truth is concealed the sages …
Purification….
When is a cold just a cold? And when is a cold something greater, purification? It is true that sometimes a cold is just a cold. Right now I am in the middle of something more than just a cold. How do I know? On the physical plane we pretty much know where the virus came from. No mystery, no …
Able to Learn….
When my sons were young, I would ask, “Did you work to the best of your ability? Did you give it your all? Left nothing on the field?” Everyone’s 100% is different, and it also varies from time to time. When we work to our highest level at a given moment, we can feel a satisfaction that we accomplished our …
Spiritual Illiteracy….
If we can read something like this blog, we are what most people would call literate. When we look at literacy, we usually think of reading, language, letters, and being able to make sense of the words those letters form. Most of us went to school, and one of the reasons for that was to learn how to read. Illiterate …
Conversion….
Our cars should not decide where we are going. Our vehicles should not be making our decisions. Our fallen existence is a turning outward from God, the Self of All. After the initial asmita in which the intellect assumes the role of the subject—though it will always be just the moon that thinks it is the sun—we continue moving outward …
Diving into Sādhana….
Some people approach sādhana with a dualistic map. Some people approach with a nondualistic map. What is important is right effort—approaching with right effort. God created us and this world in Love; our misery is because of our wrong understanding. Our wrong identification with vehicles like our bodies, mind, emotions, thoughts. The more we differentiate in our identification, the further …
Sādhana Is Not Magic….
Sādhana is magical; it is not magic. This cannot be emphasized enough. In the course of spiritual practice, extraordinary experiences can be everyday events. I have seen this in my own life as well as others’. In my time with Baba, his śakti imbued everything, making everything miraculous. But there was and is no magic in this. What people want …
The Self Is Not the Point, Part One….
In the Yoga Sūtras, ignorance means taking the non-Self to be the Self. Once we have done that, we lose our Subject in object. From there, we are attracted to certain things and repulsed by others based on the object we are now identified with. And finally, we cling to the life of that object, believing it to be who …