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…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
What Two Women Think
A roshi is a person who has actualized that perfect freedom which is the potentiality for all human beings. He exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. The flow of his consciousness is…
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…
When Life Starts to Improve
Leo Tolstoy, Spiritual Writings, edited by Charles E. Moore Prophetic witness consists of human deeds of justice and kindness that attend to the unjust sources of human hurt and misery. It calls attention to the…
A Year of Reading Marcel Proust (& Sri Ramakrishna)
Cami Kasmerchak just gave me the idea of a reading group (like the one we did in 2021 of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov) of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Who’s been wanting to…
Glenn Greenwald and the Gospels
Today I received by email a Substack article by Glenn Greenwald, which is worth reading: Values and Character v. Political Identity: Some Personal Reflections–“The Brazilian firefighter, union leader, evangelical and ex-Congressman Cabo Daciolo was once…
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…
And What If No One Is Looking on and Applauding?
William D Miller, A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement After reading and discussing The Brothers Karamazov with 12 friends in 2021, I finally read William Miller’s 1973 history of…
Dipa Ma Gives Advice to Her Students
“If you can just manage five minutes a day, then do that. It is important to do whatever you can, no matter how little.” “If you are a householder, you have enough time. Very…