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,…

Seeing and Being Seen

Suddenly I realized that [Maharaji]  knew everything that was going on in my head, all the time, and that he still loved me. Because who we are is behind all that. —Ram Dass   [Sri…

With Unswerving Steadfastness

Swami Prabhavananda, The Eternal Companion: Brahmananda—His Life and Teachings   A while back, through reading the spiritual works of Christopher Isherwood, I became acquainted with his guru, Swami Prabhavananda, who was a devotee of Brahmananda,…

Radiant Bliss

1. Recently ten of us became acquainted with Japanese-American Mayumi Oda in the Writing Our Own History class.  Here autobiography had just been published, Sarasvati’s Gift. As an artist Oda had a breakthrough when she…

Darshan

The Power of a Photograph In the last couple of years I’ve read whatever books I could get my hands on Whose subject is Sri Anandamayi Ma (Her parents gave her the name Nirmala Sundari…