Uradiance

What if we built monuments not only for our own dead, but for those we have killed? Walls full of names of Afghans, Iraqis, of North Vietnamese and Japanese and Germans, of Native Americans and African slaves? Wars will only cease when we mourn the 'enemy' dead as well as ours, because he is a mother's son, a daughter's father. Then war memorials will become peace memorials.

I can connect to the world through Love, or I can connect to the world through Judgment. One or the other, not both. This choice is the last judgment. The world doesn't need my judgments, and neither do I. But the world desperately needs my love, almost as much as I do.

"I have said, Ye are gods." Psalm 82:6 The deepest Vision Quest is not to go alone into the wilderness, but to gaze into the eyes of another human being. We are not particles but waves of one another. In the fabric of consciousness, our essences intertwine. One aspect of awareness is Shiva , the separate solitary Witness. Our spiritual literature emphasizes this aspect because almost all of it, Eastern and Western, was written by monks. In the new age, the complimentary aspect is equally vital, if not more so. She is called Shakti , or the Holy Spirit . She is too wild for wilderness, too frisky for solitude. Shakti is the luminous ambrosial Spirit-dew who weaves the tissue of our inter-connectedness. Fibers of Shakti thread through our hearts, knitting them like droplets on Indra's web. This web is the virtual Sangha of pre-existent and eternal human community. That is why in the New Testament, the Spirit is described  as a "Cloud of Witnesses": a colle...

If you experience profound transformation through a spiritual Master at this time in your life, honor the Master and stay devoted to the daily Sadhana into which the Master has initiated you. But don't assume that your Master is the only Master and his teaching is the only way. For this is the seed of fundamentalism & spiritual death. It has happened to some of the world's greatest religions. Know that your experience is part of a wave of transformation sweeping the planet, blessing all who open to it, and it flows into humanity through mutiple rivulets and channels. A profound human flowering is occurring in the grace of many spiritual Masters today. This flowering in you and in others is the second coming of Christ-Consciousness. If your path seems diminished by the realization that others are also flowering as you are, on other paths, then there is some weakness, some insecurity in your root and stem. Strengthen your root, so that the judgment that other Masters...

I am in love with the divine feminine soul who gazes out of each one of these marvelous faces painted by Bougeureau, a French artist who was wildly popular in his time, but utterly disdained by the avant garde (though Degas appreciated him). This film also reminds me how much I am in love with the divine feminine in the artist, and in you, and in myself.

Reasoning thus seems to take all the fun out of life: Despite the status of the vineyard, the bottle or the year, wine is just a fragrant delivery system for injecting alcohol into the bloodstream. Likewise, all food is just food. Despite the glamor of anticipation, fantasy and desire, sexual intercourse is finally just a biological phenomenon through which a species reproduces its kind. Despite the promise of wealth, the quality of Now is not affected by the quantity or cost of its content. Despite the excitement of the senses, experience of the body is not the Self. Despite the drama of like and dislike, the play of emotion is not the Self. Despite the pride of knowledge, the mind is not the Self. Reasoning thus, we discriminate between the transient and the eternal. We understand that there never actually was any fun out there in the world of things, sensations, or their residue of memory in the mind. The only fun is discovering what's deep inside us at the eternal ...

When I awoke this morning, I was already awake. There are ways to exist before existence. Had you been singing forever, and only now I listened? We arrive from vast spaces where we have never gone. All this in a robin's song, and the sun had not yet risen!

  To dwell in the present moment is not enough. The true Now dissolves in blissful annihilation. To protect myself from that golden chaos, I think. Thinking "spiritual thoughts" is the mind's escape from the glory of its destruction. The trick is to fall into this Radiance without forming a single concept about it. Where spirit and matter gush into each other, keep billions of doors open.

Just as there is sacred memory, there is sacred forgetting. Ask water to bless & heal, washing away time. Ask stones & crystals to remember, holding sacred memory. Ask fire for energy & transformation. Ask wind for what is new. If we ask water to hold on to the past, it becomes stagnant. If we ask stones for what is new, they shake violently. If we ask wind for transformation, we get the whirlwind. If we ask fire for blessing, we must be willing to burn. Original medicine is letting each element do its own work for bodily & planetary harmony. This is not a doctrine of 'truth,' just my personal alchemy for health. Find your own! See the elements of earth, water, wind & fire as living beings!

I am not allowed to be happy until I have ended every environmental catastrophe. I am not allowed to be happy until I have abolished war and global injustice. I am not allowed to be happy until I have eradicated world hunger, poverty & AIDS. I am not allowed to be happy until I spend a year on the Perfection Diet cleansing every toxin from my body. I am not allowed to be happy until I remove all the old fillings from my teeth so I am no longer haunted by the suspicion that some trace mineral is making me miserable. I am not allowed to be happy until I am free of pain. I am not allowed to be happy until I am perfectly pure and kind without a moment's anger. I am not allowed to be happy until I am Good, and behold, Very Good. I am not allowed, not allowed, not allowed... but tell me: Who is the Allower? .  .  .  .  .  .  . Happiness has no cause. Happiness need not be deserved or justified. Hap...

Christ is not to be believed in, not followed or obeyed, but felt to the bone, down to the marrow and through the atoms, as a vibration of love so intimate yet all-pervading, that it dissolves every distinction between spirit and matter, God and Man. We may call this stream of love by the name of Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Ishq, or Shakti. What is truly alive exists not through its definition but through its Presence. 'Ekam Sat vipra, bahuda vedantahi' says the Veda: 'Truth is One, the wise have called it by many names.' This Christ-love is not a theological abstraction, but an organic sensation, awakened by the grace of a living Master. Then the Holy Spirit breathes us, and becomes our own Holy Breath, now, in this world. Jai Shri Shri Guru Dev

O River Mother, May it Be. May it Be, Star Father. May it Be for Water and Wind. May it Be for Sunlight and Moonlight. For the Earth, the Winged and Creeping Ones, The Four Leggeds and Two Leggeds, Those with Words and those with Songs, For the river and its children, May it Be. May it be on Earth as in Heaven. May it be as it was in the Beginning When the Spirit said, 'Flow!' And pure Waters moved through holiness Up from empty darkness into light. May it be as in the Beginning When the Spirit said, 'Breathe!' And a mighty wind blew seeds from East to West, Many-colored wings beating in green shadows Or flashing in sunbeams, Gold and Purple Wings of Quetzalcoatl, Blue Seraphic wings, Christ's diamond wing over the jade forest. May it be as in the Beginning When the Spirit cried 'Sun!' and it was warm, The Spirit whispered 'Moon' and it was cool, And two lights opened their eyes, nurturing blossoms to bear The Brazil-nut, Acai...