The One Thing That Is Important
Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980. I’ve been imagining coming up with a class in which we’d explore Chris Isherwood, Ram Dass, and especially The Gospel of Sri…
Category: India
Encouragement
You will have to go on discriminating and make a sustained effort to convince your mind of the fact that japa, meditation, and all other spiritual exercises, have for purpose your awakening. On this pilgrimage…
Yoga Sutras Exchanges with Yael
Concentration, meditation, and pure contemplation focused on a single object constitute perfect discipline. 3.4—Barbara Stoler Miller, translation of Yoga Sutras Notes/Connections 1.Ekāgratā, noun, Sanskrit. One-pointedness, doing only one thing at a time, concentrating upon a…
“Concentration Is Consecration”
Yulia and I are meeting weekly to discuss Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I found the following insightfulg passages from Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood’s translation. 1.2 Yoga is the control of thought-waves in the mind. 1.13 …
Today’s Gratitude
A yogini-friend asked me to study Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras with her. And so we shall…
The Art of Living: Munindra/1
The following reflections by Bengali Buddhist Anagarika Munindra come from the inspiring book by Mirka Knaster, Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra. Mostly you’re living in the world of thoughts. 11 I…
Making Everyone Happy
Melita Maschmann, Encountering Bliss: My Journey through India with Ānandamayī MāDelhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002 It is as difficult to escape the grace of a Guru, as the revenge of a tiger.Indian proverb Last…
A Small Part in the Cosmic Play
Mukunda: In the Iyrics to that song “Awaiting on You All,” from the All Things Must Pass album, you come right out front and tell people that they can be free from living in the…
Dark, Mysterious, Radiant
Bithika Mukerji, Life and Teachings of Sri Ma Anandamayi: A Bird on the WingSri Satguru Publications, 1997 This is a work similar in aim to The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, but about 1/5th the length. …
Merton’s Journal
Calcutta is shocking because it is all of a sudden a totally different kind of madness, the reverse of that other madness, the mad rationality of affluence and overpopulation. America seems to make sense,…