Liberating the Person
While awakening is about liberation, it is liberation FROM the person. It is loosing our identification with being an individual ‘me’ that things happen to. Both before the shift and for awhile afterwards, there can …
Category: Principles
Clarity and Release
Clarity and release are the 2 key aspects of spiritual growth. The first helps us move forward, the second clears the obstacles to that. Release brings clarity, clarity brings release. Traditionally, the “way” is divided …
Sannyasa
Shankara was a well know revivalist who brought Vedanta back to the fore and reestablished a monastic tradition in India. But then the pendulum continued to swing and it came to be understood that withdrawal …
Qualifying to Understand Vedanta
Vedanta means “End of the Veda” or the end of knowledge. It relates to the Unity through Brahman stages of development. As this places it several stages ahead of the average person, it is not …
What is Veda?
You may think of Veda as the records of an ancient culture of the Indus valley that spread east across the Ganges plain and the rest of modern India. You may think of the Veda …
Consciousness Unfolds
In a recent talk, Lorne Hoff mentioned the Purusha and Prakriti aspects of the dynamics of consciousness. Observer, process of observation, and observed show in both the masculine and feminine, in spirit and in nature. …
Call and Response
If you’ve ever been to a Kirtan, you’ve experienced call and response. They sing a Sanskrit phrase and you repeat it back. If this is unfamiliar, a kirtan is chanting in a group, done in …
The What and How of Subtle Perception
I thought it would be useful to clarify the nature of subtle perception. First, what we experience is created in layers as part of the process of experience itself. The very act of experience gives …
Asana Is
There were 5 yoga studios within a few minutes walk of my old place. Did any of them teach actual yoga? Nope. Most of them were about fitness rather than union. Fitness is a good …
Ignorance
Ignorance is a lack of clarity. It is not something, it is its absence. Just as darkness is the absence of light, so too is ignorance the absence of clarity. And just as a shadow …
Pranas and Chakras
I’ve talked before about the Purushas (body) or Koshas (shealth). Also the koshas and the chakras. But its worth looking at this yet another way. While the 5 primary pranas (life force or chi) function …
10 Reasons Why Gandhi Became A Hero
In the first year of this blog, I posted a summary of an article called Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World. It was one of the more popular early posts here because it …