Why is there a Dark Side?
It’s good to consider – why does a world expressed by the Divine have evil? The answer is all about balance. In the Vedic perspective, there are 3 forces in creation: creation, maintenance, and destruction. …
Category: Philosophy
Karma Mimamsa
Traditional Indian philosophy has 6 branches or approaches, known as the upangas or darshanas. Often they’re seen as competing philosophical systems when if fact they largely each describe the reality of a different stage of …
The Divine
When we come to the divine for the first time, it’s often through form. This can be a very profound experience. It may trigger major heart opening, insight, devotion, and/or deep humility. Yet it may …
Models of Development
Over the years, I’ve seen many models of spiritual development. Most of them follow a subjective process that one or a few people experienced that doesn’t reflect how it will unfold for many others. Fundamentally …
Who Am I?
This comes out of an on-line discussion on the Falling Away of Self interview. Someone asks if Rick was referring to the individual soul. Rick responds “It seems to persist from life to life, some …
The Matrix
Awakening can be said to happen through the non-Self being “devoured” by Brahman or through the descent of the divine. It is not something we control or manage. Rather it comes as grace. We can …
True Victory
Recently, a friend sent me a quote from Swami Brahmananda Sarawati, a famous Shankaracharya from the Shankara lineage. He was the teacher of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and some other well-known teachers. I was not able …
The Mahavakya – Updated
When I previously wrote an article on the Mahavakya (great sayings), I used an old understanding, informed by a 70’s talk by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (before he was differentiating the Brahman stage) and common English …
The Three Jewels
In the west, individuality is king. Forging our own path, beating the competition, and success. However, this approach does not serve us as well on a spiritual path. There, we surrender individuality to discover our …
Ways of Knowledge
A comment On Truth lead me to some thoughts on knowledge. The first form of knowledge we have is stories we’re told as children and the feedback we get from others. Those turn into our …
The Sovereign Secret
Chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita is known as the Sovereign (Royal, Raja) Knowledge and Sovereign Mystery (Secret). What is this “secret”? Unless one recognizes divinity behind all things, we remain deluded about who we …
Our Fragmentation
Fragmentation is continually being brought about by the almost universal habit of taking the content of our thought for a description of the world as it is… Since our thought is pervaded by differences and …