Category Archives: Principles

The Right Time for Right Action

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feather

Things happen when it’s time. Not time for you but time for the whole. Time for challenges to unfold, time for benefits, time for birth, time for awakening, time for peace. When it’s time, the circumstances and people show up to help catalyze events. We can do our best to feel into this process and cooperate. Or we can resist and fall into a drama and suffer. For example, people can search for years for the right teacher to awaken. Then they show up when it’s time. The form they arise in may vary from our expectations though. On the … Continue Reading… →

Nature’s Support

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I’ve worked with the concept of “nature’s support” since the 70’s and have come to perceive the mechanics. I’ve written on the topic before, but sometimes more obscurely. The subject came up on Choice and Surrender and it became clear I needed to say more. When you put your attention on something or act towards it, is this movement supported or not? Do you get smooth and easy results or obstacles? Where are results happening? In the direction intended or over to one side? Nature in this case refers to the world – the environment and others. How is what … Continue Reading… →

The Third Element

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As the process of Divinity has unfolded, it’s become clear there is a third element in play. Alertness and Liveliness have been discussed as the core elements of Divinity that give rise to consciousness and thus all experience and form. But just as the dynamics of consciousness unfold the process of experience itself, so too does Divinity reveal a third element. The best word I could come up with is intelligence. In consciousness, this is the devata value, that which structures form and phenomena, and the sense of unfolding experience we call time. In the second stage of Divinity it … Continue Reading… →

The Source of Grace

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There is a curious paradox in spiritual practice. On the one hand, awakening and progress in consciousness happens through grace, through the hand of the Divine. Awakening isn’t an experience or something a person does or has – it’s an awakening from the person. There is nothing we can do directly to make it happen. And yet, we are not separate from the Divine. The Divine moves though us to prepare the way and organize circumstances that allow grace to happen. This shows up as the opportunity for good practices, teachers, books, and so forth. As the renowned sage Vasishtha … Continue Reading… →

The Great Shadows

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While I’ve explored karma in several other posts, I thought it would be useful to take it another step into application. As the saying goes, we come into this life with a suitcase of karma to work through. There will be lots of little bits plus a few big ones. We might call the biggies life lessons or life challenges. They’ll show up in certain areas of our life and not in others. For example, we may have reasonable health and good work but relationship challenges and issues with money. These things seem to be ongoing or show up repeatedly. … Continue Reading… →

Remaining Shadows

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I found a quote near the end of Kavitha Chinnaiyan‘s book Shakti Rising à propos, considering the discussion over on The Challenges of Teaching. This closely relates to the development of Sattva. “If we have the good fortune of interacting with wise and skilled teachers who have both a strong, compassionate, ethical foundation as well as non-dual insight, we notice that they seem to know what is best for everyone involved, from a universal perspective that is unconditionally loving and impartial. Although it is tempting to assign their abilities to non-dual insight alone, this is usually not the case. Opening … Continue Reading… →

What is Destruction?

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We tend to see change as a loss, partly because the ego likes to feel in control. It’s also disturbing tamas, our inertia. And yet, the cycle of growth requires change: balance, disintegration, growth, integration, and repeat. Without disintegration, there is no growth, no transformation. Life is inherently change. Our very life depends on the transformation of food, water, and breath. And if we look around us we see that change is the order of the day. In fact, the world around us is being recreated in every moment. The only reason it doesn’t completely change every time is because … Continue Reading… →

The Dasha Mahavidya

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The Dasha Mahavidya

I touched on the Mahavidya in The Mahavidya Interview but needed more research to do a proper job. As I mentioned there, the Dasha Mahavidya (10 great knowledge) are from Tantra and are embodied by 10 goddesses. While the gods are embodiments of laws of nature, the goddesses are embodiments of the powers (Shakti) that drive them and all of creation. The first cannot function without the power of the second. These goddesses tend to be portrayed with a destructive or dark emphasis, like in the Wikipedia article on the topic. There also is an emphasis on their names, forms, … Continue Reading… →

The Mahavidya Interview

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Rick Archer recently interviewed Kavitha Chinnaiyan, M.D. on Buddha at the Gas Pump. The conversation revolved primarily around her first book, Shakti Rising: Embracing Shadow and Light on the Goddess Path to Wholeness The interview opened with a short discussion on Direct vs Progressive, the topic of last fall’s SAND panel I was on. I found Kavitha’s approach sensible. Not sure why she was using a Buddhist term, but it seems a popular framing these days. The 10 Mahavidya (great knowledge) are from Tantra and embodied by 10 goddesses. Key to understand is that the gods are embodiments of features … Continue Reading… →

The Force

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In the Star Wars films there is a fictional force that “binds everything together and maintains balance.” “The act of living generates a force field, an energy. That energy surrounds us; when we die, that energy joins with all the other energy. There is a giant mass of energy in the universe that has a good side and a bad side. We are part of the Force because we generate the power that makes the Force live. When we die, we become part of that Force, so we never really die; we continue as part of the Force.” – George … Continue Reading… →

Our Drivers

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Becoming self-aware and learning to recognize where we have work to do can be a difficult process. But the difficulty is only in the complexity and the discomfort of seeing our shadows. It also requires a degree of letting go of control and protective stories. The complexity arises partly because we’re built in layers so there’s layers to what moves us. And partly because many dynamics are layered in themselves. For example, we have unresolved trauma from a nasty experience in our childhood. We didn’t have good skills for healing so we learned to suppress it instead. When experiences remind … Continue Reading… →

Practical Doing

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There is a tendency in spiritual circles to blame things on karma. “It didn’t work out because of my karma.” Or “My karma made this a bad experience.” But this understanding is poor. Karma means action. While action has consequences, we can’t blame everything on that. For example, we can’t expect waiting for something to happen will cause action to take place. If we want results, we have to act. As a friend recently commented, until you’ve done everything you can, you can’t blame lack of results on karma. It’s in God’s hands only after you’ve done all you can. … Continue Reading… →