Closer than Your Jugular Vein
“Look not for my reality in the realm of appearances or in the Void. Seek it in your own mind. There only it resides.–Kuan Yin, in John Blofeld, Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of…
Category: India
Be Grateful to Everything
In order to grow, you need sorrow; in order to become loving, you very often need distress, and turmoil is often required to release your deeper resources. Unless you have suffered yourself, it is not…
Instruments
“Priez pour que soit pur le travail accompli par votre intermédiaire car vous êtes Son instrument. Souvenez-vous de Lui dans toutes vos actions. Plus pure sera votre pensée, plus belle sera votre œuvre.” —L’enseignement de…
Come Gather ’round, Scholars, Whatever You Tweet…
M. had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. Up to this time his conception had been that one got knowledge from books and schools. Later on he gave up that false conception….
Sri Anandamayi Ma
In the last eleven yearsI’ve read whatever books I could get my hands onWhose subject is Sri Anandamayi Ma (Her parents gave her the nameNirmala SundariWhich means “One of Taintless Beauty”) Some say this Bengali…
The Will to Surmount Mountain-high Obstructions
Living at the Source: Yoga Teachings of Vivekananda, edited by Ann Myren & Dorothy Madison, Shambhala, 1993 Sri Ramakrishna had several impressive students. The most renowned of them was Swami Vivekananda. Although he died…
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…
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 …