The immanent world is not maya; not even the ego is maya. The real maya is the separateness. Feeling and thinking that we are really separate from the whole is the illusion. Amit Goswami, Ph.D., The Self-Aware Universe   The Sanskrit term maya is usually translated as ‘illusion,’ and is used to describe our world and everythingContinue reading

This feeling of “I and mine” causes the whole misery. With the sense of possession comes selfishness, and selfishness brings on misery. Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness makes us attached to something, and immediately we are made slaves. Each wave in the [mind] that says “I and mine” immediately puts a chainContinue reading

What I am saying is that there is nothing to fear. To live with this understanding is what is called holistic living. It is to live with the understanding that the entire universe is pervaded by that blissful Supreme Being and we are a part of that! This is not a fantasy that needs to beContinue reading

…others said the first music made with a string was the ping of a hunter’s bow, the sound so disturbing to the quiet he was trying to keep while tracking his prey, and so surprisingly sweet, that the hunter put down the bow, unable to use it to kill another living thing. Sarah Sentilles, Draw YourContinue reading

It is difficult to find happiness in oneself but it is impossible to find it anywhere else. Arthur Schopenhauer   Being a meditator, living a ‘spiritual’ life, does not give us freedom from the pain of life. It’s not about making a mood of ‘everything’s fine,’ when everything isn’t fine. Sometimes life hurts. People die,Continue reading

The difference between treating and healing is that in the former, the context remains the same, whereas in the latter, the clinical response is elicited by a change of context so as to bring about an absolute removal of the cause of the condition rather than mere recovery from its symptoms. It’s one thing toContinue reading

Jeff, people look at me, they see an old man. They don’t see my two tours in Vietnam, fighting for their freedom to sit down and eat in here. They don’t see my 40 years sober. They don’t see my wife and my 14 year-old girl killed by a drunk driver two days ago. TheyContinue reading

There is one important requisite to find the truth, whichever path you may follow. And that is the urgent, earnest desire to find the truth.                                    Sri M   The truth is found first within ourselves, and then, from that place within, we can begin to find it in the world. We can be told thisContinue reading

Your Lord is within you,  Like fragrance in the flowers.  Why, like a musk deer  Are you searching for musk  in the grass  again and again? Kabir   In the Himalayas there is a small deer, commonly called the musk deer. The male of the species has a small gland under its tail. During theContinue reading