On Appearances
The world is an appearance, Maya. Some would say it’s an illusion. Or it’s the divine play, Lila. Or it never happened in the first place. Or it’s the flow of divine nectar. These are …
Category: Mind
On Samadhi
Samadhi is a Sanskrit term from the Vedic tradition that describes pure consciousness or pure being. Turiya (the fourth) or transcendental consciousness are other terms used. Samadhi comes from the roots: sama = evenness and …
Death of a Yogi
Recently I was reading a commentary on Chapter 8 of the Bhagavad Gita (Song of God). The chapter is called The Yoga of the Imperishable Absolute. One topic was the nature of death for a …
Healthy Discrimination
It is very common to have an initial infatuation with a new teaching (relationship, etc), then come to see the warts. We’re all human. At that point, we have a choice. We can toss the …
Styles of Enlightenment
As readers of this blog know, I explore various ways of looking at how enlightenment or spiritual awakening is lived. Here, I don’t mean how the changes are experienced but rather the styles of embodying …
Skipping Stages
Working on the Stages book, I added a section on people who seem to skip stages. Here is part of that, edited for context. Sometimes people can seem to skip past some of the stages. …
The Cause – Apparent vs Actual
Recently, I listened to a talk on jyotish (Vedic astrology). They spoke of the way Jain’s view karma. Jainism is an Indian faith based on non-violence and transmigration of souls in an eternal universe. While …
Self Validation
Our sense of being separate arises historically with a loss of a sense of the divine. We respond in fear by grasping at what is still known. This grasping creates a sense of separate identity …
Making Sense
There are times in life’s journey where the world can leave us thinking Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!! This can happen at several points on the enlightenment journey as well. Even seeing the world cosmically, it doesn’t …
Eternal Divinity
One of the challenges of progress on a spiritual path is the falling away of what has unfolded. In other words, our apparent gains can be lost again. Several times. Yet surrender remains a key …
I Am and I Do
When we first meet someone, our gender, race, and age range are usually obvious. To that we add 2 pieces of information – our name and our occupation. For many people, these bits of information …
The End of Karma
One idea you run into periodically is that karma has an end. That the enlightenment process causes you to stop producing new karma, roasts the seeds of your backlog, and then you wind down the …