To free the mind from all conditioning, you must see the totality of it without thought. This is not a conundrum; experiment with it and you will see. Do you ever see anything without thought? Have you ever listened, looked, without bringing in this whole process of reaction? You will say that it is impossible [...]

As awakening deepens, I notice I have a number of favorite tools. They really are all the same—they all come down to noticing. But it can help to come at this from various angles. The tool I rely on the most is releasing. Because more often than not what is between me and Truth is [...]

The truth that we are not what we take ourselves to be is glaringly and painfully obvious. The ego has no answer to this simple truth, but it does a have a typically effective solution: it just obliterates the question from our consciousness. This is why most of us go through life without facing up [...]

Lisa of Mommy Mystic does a fabulous interview with Karen Miller. Karen suggests that the ego’s deft ability to fool ourselves is a good reason to seek out a teacher.  A good teacher can keep us honest. It’s an excellent point. But many of us do not resonate with spiritual traditions or gurus. There is [...]

2010 will continue the evolution you have been feeling for some time now. You may be tired from the climb of recent years. The seeking, and frustration, and the times when you think you’ve risen above some spiritual threshold only to be humbled back down, and the times of three steps forward and two back—all [...]

“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 of view in awareness. The only essential question is:  Is there enough joy and lightness [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]