“Universal Love is both conscious and loving at the same time. When you experience universal love you understand the action of love. A loving action is a gentle action when gentleness is needed, a firm action when firmness is needed, a compassionate action when compassion is needed, yielding when yielding is needed. Whatever is needed [...]

You are born. You die. In the middle some stuff happens. We have trouble with the middle stuff but really it’s simple once we see that it’s all awareness. Our basic state is awareness. Everything else pops up as points [...]

In response to why we don’t do the things which are good for us, Marc asked, reasonably, how do we even know what’s good for us? What a wonderful question!
What is it that you really want?
The conventional wisdom
The lifestyle which our conditioning and society pushes on us is not conducive to awakening. It’s a product [...]

When I recognized I was in a “spiritual depression”, I decided I would just let it be. Instead of running after the conventional self-help solutions, what if I just allowed, and continued to rest in awareness, and continued to release?
What if I just allowed and watched?
What might I learn?

What I learned from allowing
Love: Loving ourselves [...]

Last week I wrote about the “Dark Night of the Soul”, a common experience of confusion and “spiritual depression” during the awakening process. Brenda suggested a much more appropriate title, and here it is!
The dark night is about transformation.
When we are seeking higher consciousness, we are seeking to end the tyranny of the ego so [...]

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
I used this quotation from cool-dude Dalai Lama about two years ago in an essay about unrequited love. It’s in one my books I think.  The quotation stuck with me because when I first saw it, I was in pain, from a [...]

At the beach in the summer, a glorious hot morning, the sunshine on my shoulders reminds me the universe is benign and warm. The soft crunch of hot sand oozing up through my toes reminds me of the connectedness of everything, bringing me right down to mother earth. Everyone at the beach is always happy, [...]

What’s the purpose of your life?
When our basic needs are met, this is the question that comes up. We want to find purpose or passion.
Why?
Nadia of HappyLotus recently wrote, with usual excellence, about an interview with Jeff Klein, who has written a book called “Work for Good” and in it he uses a quotation [...]

Awakening humbles me.
A strange thing about awakening is frequently we feel we are very conscious, but then life throws something at us and we react in the same conditioned way we always did. It’s a humbling experience, and that’s the point of it.
A year ago I had severe and debilitating anxiety. It was bad enough [...]

What is Flow? How do we get into a state of flow at will?
Have you watched an athlete play and been amazed at the ease and grace with which he moves? It seems so easy, natural, efficient, and just right. There is no hesitation in action. There doesn’t seem to be anyone deciding anything; action [...]