The Energy Bodies (Koshas)
I first began talking about the energy bodies here in 2009. When I came back to the topic in more detail about a year ago, a definition error crept in I should have caught. Firstly, …
Stages of Development and EEG
The journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences did a special edition on meditation research. In one article, Dr. Travis summaries various studies on experiences of pure consciousness. Initially this is experienced during …
Sacred Cows
If you enjoyed the film What the Bleep, one of it’s makers, Betsy Chasse, has recently published a book called Tipping Sacred Cows. In this case, the Sacred Cows are our personal stories about the …
Forfeiting Creative Being
“They pass over themselves and all that is created, God and the Godhead, and they say that God is nothing and that they are nothing as well. Nothing is neither blissful nor damned, neither working …
Dear Prudence
When Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made the press, almost invariably they’d mention the Beatles and that period in 1968 when they joined him in India. It was a productive time for them, resulting in the double …
Seer, Sage, or Shanti
There’s a pernicious idea people often have that the awake are supposed to teach. That enlightenment somehow gives you a teaching mission. I’ve seen a number of such people start teaching, then fade away. Or …
Where is the Soul?
Over the years, I’ve heard many descriptions of where in the body the soul resides. By soul, I mean the spark of our being. Some talk about it as kundalini, coiled in the root chakra …
Masculine and Feminine
Periodically, I’ve written here on subjects like conscious relationship and the difference between ego-relating and heart-relating. I’ve also talked about how relationships can show up as a way to work out our energetic resistance, mirroring …
The Dalai Lama on the Meaning of Life
Today I saw an article on Slate about the Dalai Lama’s visit to New Mexico in April, 1991. Near the end of the article, a waitress asks him “What is the meaning of life?” “In …
Karma and the Gunas
In the Gunas in Awakening, I talked about how inertia is transformed into clarity with fire, tamas into sattva via rajas. In this article, I’m going to talk more about karma. Karma means action, movement, …
Our Universe
In several of the worlds philosophies, the universe exists in grand arcs of time. The Great Year, the Ages of Greece, the Yugas of India, the astrological Ages… astronomically marked cycles of light and dark …
The Gunas in Awakening
Firstly, it’s useful to note what the gunas are. In Indian philosophy, all of the created world is said to arise from the interplay of 3 primary “forces” or qualities of Prakriti, nature. Elementally, these …