Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked. –Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda, How to Know God: The…
“This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.”—Mrs. Porter, on Dr. Johnson, quoted in W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson I live with the most sensible person I’ve ever seen in…
Avoid gossip. Avoid their feuds. Concentrate on what is essential–contact with Swami, and prayer. Associate with people you can really help in one way or another, and not with those whose curiosity is always offering…
Hindus make a distinction between what are called upagurus and what are called satgurus. A satguru is what we’ve been talking about here as the guru; it’s the one who is the doorway. … Along…
Work on reducing your likes and dislikes, not only in personal relationships but in everything….Try this with jobs and responsibilities: the nagging little things you have to do but just don’t want to. It’s…
Miles Davis–why bother with any of it–Jazz, modern musicians, dope addicts, punks–Monk, crooks, killers, Bud Powell, Dizzy’s razor and Dizzy’s scorn & Al Sublette’s scorn–no. Give me the Bodhi men. Don’t even play the radio…
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. –Oscar Wilde, quoted in Christopher Isherwood, Ramakrishna and His Disciples
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…
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 …
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,…