Karma Post-Enlightenment
Karma is a curious bird. It means action, what we’d call energy in physics. Yet most people think about it more in terms of our baggage – the karmic consequences that are active in our …
Category: Philosophy
Signs and Omens
Many of the worlds traditions include some way to read “omens”. But much of that has degraded into superstition and a sense of victim-hood. There are lots of books floating around listing meanings of events, …
Awakening is not the End
In a forum, someone posted a teacher’s description of confusing experience with being and the actual shift from a me-sense to Self, otherwise known as Self Realization. However, the quote was full of absolute references …
Dear Prudence returns
A few months back, I posted an interview with Dr. Prudence (Farrow) Bruns, the Dear Prudence of the famous Beatles song from India and sister of Mia Farrow. This month, they released her talk from …
Philosophy or Experience?
This came up in a non-spiritual forum and I thought it worth sharing here. I would suggest there’s a big difference between taking on a philosophical position that we’re all one and actually living it. …
The 16 Kalas
One model of the stages of life development or evolution is the 16 Kala model. I’ve heard teachers make reference to it but have never found a complete and reliable source. The below is a …
An Intellectual Approach to Consciousness
Yesterday, I posted an article on David Chalmers talk at TED on the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Waiting in my browser was an interview with Bernardo Kastrup. Turns out Chalmers was one of the influences …
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Modern science has been struggling for some time with consciousness. It is subjective vs science’s objective approach. And yet it is intimate to our experience. Not to mention that consciousness keeps showing up as a …
Theft
In our culture, we take a dim view of theft. Stealing from another is unjust but because many also identify with their possessions as an aspect of themselves, they feel violated and fearful as a …
Possession
It’s a revealing thing that we refer to our belongings as “possessions”. (even “belongings” is revealing) The meaning is what we possess but in many ways, it is they who possess us. The stuff we …
Ahimsa – Non-Violence
Ahimsa is one of the 5 Yamas or observances, the first limb of Yoga. It means non-injury or non-violence. Other Yamas include non-theft and truthfulness, so they’re sometimes confused with ethics. For example, I was …
Brahma and Brahman
One thing that long puzzled me in Sanskrit terminology is the similarity between the words Brahma and Brahman. Some use the words almost interchangeably yet their definitions are quite distinct. Brahma is the creator in …