What is Ignorance?
Back on the End of Suffering, I quoted the Yoga Sutra on ignorance. 2v5: Ignorance is perceiving the non-eternal as eternal, the impure as pure, suffering as happiness, and the non-Self as the Self. The …
Category: Principles
Fullness or Emptiness
In the literature, you hear descriptions by sages of the emptiness of existence or the fullness of being. These seem contradictory but actually describe the same thing, typically at different stages of depth and clarity. …
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 …
What is a Dimension?
Dimension is a word often used in modern spiritual terminology to mean another place or level of existence. As in “angels live in another dimension.” However, that’s not a correct use of the word. It’s …
A Perfect Teacher
A discussion came up about a controversial teacher recently. I’ve written about teachers before. It’s worth making a few more comments on the subject. One thing you may run into is the Indian habit of …
The Stages of Witnessing
There’s a point I’ve touched on here before but it’s worth mentioning again. There are a number of nuances in the Gradations of Awakening that can vary from person to person. One of them is …
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 …
Brahmacharya & Sex
Brahmacharya is one of the Yamas of Yoga and key to many conceptions of spiritual practice. It is commonly translated to mean celibacy. Celibacy is thus deemed necessary for real spiritual progress. However, while a …
Yoga to Purify the Mind
Ah – one more article for the series. When we clear up the noise in the lower the koshas (the mental and emotional “bodies”), then the subtler ones and all their advantages come on line: …
On Angels and Other Subtle Beings – Part 2 of 2
<< Part 1 Light Beings Light beings function in hierarchies and live specific roles for much longer lives. There are workers, supervisors, managers, and royalty (the divine at the highest levels). They don’t experience this …
On Angels and Other Subtle Beings – Part 1 of 2
A recent discussion in a spiritual forum made it clear there is a lot of noise about subtle beings out there, even among people who are teaching this stuff. If we don’t know how to …
Yoga Articles
Recently, I’ve been reviewing the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, as translated by Dr. Thomas Egenes. (see the Books tab) For your convenience, here are links to the articles. True Yoga The Enlightenment of Yoga The …