The Value of Experiences
There is a perspective which suggests all of creation is here for That, consciousness, to know itself in more detail. How can you know something if there’s nothing? Creation is expressed to bring out the …
Category: Purpose
Cosmic Variation
I’ve spoken a little lately about the Cosmic Body. How all physical bodies are actually one body, expressing itself in a myriad of ways. One example I can use here is this form. I mentioned …
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 …
The Role of Kundalini
The ongoing exploration and discussion of ways of modelling the diverse experiences of awakening had a new round recently, based on the article Kundalini: Up, Down, or ? by Peter Holleran. It’s a fascinating overview …
Nothing Seen yet it Remains
“Although the seen has disappeared for one whose purpose is accomplished, still it is not destroyed because it is common to others.” Yoga Sutra 2v22 In Unity, the seer and seen merge, leaving only the …
Chasing Experiences
One of the hazards of the spiritual journey is chasing experiences: looking for flash or the return of something good experienced before. Thus you see people using techniques to push kundalini, taking hallucinogenic drugs, or …
Skills vs Consciousness
There is a distinction between level of skill and level of consciousness worth exploring. This is an important distinction. It’s one thing for spiritual awakening to unfold. It’s another for us to make skilled use …
The Energy Bodies (Koshas)
I first began talking about the energy bodies here in 2009. When I came back to the topic in more detail about a year ago, a definition error crept in I should have caught. Firstly, …
Seer, Sage, or Shanti
There’s a pernicious idea people often have that the awake are supposed to teach. That enlightenment somehow gives you a teaching mission. I’ve seen a number of such people start teaching, then fade away. Or …
Where is the Soul?
Over the years, I’ve heard many descriptions of where in the body the soul resides. By soul, I mean the spark of our being. Some talk about it as kundalini, coiled in the root chakra …
The Dalai Lama on the Meaning of Life
Today I saw an article on Slate about the Dalai Lama’s visit to New Mexico in April, 1991. Near the end of the article, a waitress asks him “What is the meaning of life?” “In …
6 Stages of Becoming
You may wonder how there can be so many ways of describing the structure of the world. Which one is the “right” one? But as Albert Einstein so beautifully noted, everything is relative to the …