Uradiance

Being a Person is the flower of evolution. The sap is formless and impersonal, but not the flower. The flower is a Personality. A stone may be impersonal, but the nervous system of a human or a dolphin is personal. It is a triumph of cosmic engineering. Our physiology is so evolved in its molecular complexity that it sustains the radiance of a personal self-awareness. Yet this Person has no edges: she interpenetrates the forests, the oceans, the sunbeams, the stars. We enter the unbounded ocean of the cosmos through a laughing sighing stream of Personality. The personal beautifies the boundless. Being a wave does not limit the ocean, because at its base each wave is nothing but the ocean, and each wave embodies all waves. I am I and You are You. Yet we are waves of the One. There is no contradiction here. No one tastes like you. No one releases the fragrance of your pain, the spice of your tears, or trembles with the texture of your love. The whole universe celebrates...

"God hugs you; you are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.... Good People, most royal greening verdancy, rooted in the sun, you shine with radiant light.... Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly." ~St. Hildegard of Bi ngen, 11th C. "All buddhas are wind and rain, water and fire... The immeasurable and boundless dharma-wheel turns even within a single particle..." ~Dogen, founder of Soto Zen "All through the physical world runs that unknown content which must surely be the stuff of our consciousness." ~Sir Arthur Eddington, founder of Quantum Theory This is the Feast of the Incarnation. All matter is holy.

One of the great tragedies of Western civilization was reducing the Biblical text to its literal/historical meaning, and abandoning the ancient language of mystical symbolism. The mystics breathed in the Bible's word as mantra, each phrase a gateway to silent meditation. This method of reading, called "Lectio Divina" or "divine reading," revealed the mythos of the scripture, the archetypal spiritual meaning, which is far more real and relevant than any historical record. Clinging to literal history strengthens our ego's attachment to outmoded social structures, old stories full of conflict, and property claims on tribal lands. But reading scripture as a language of mystical symbols has a completely different effect: the promised land is the present moment, the temple is the heart, the Holy Spirit in our own breath. May our divine innocence teach us how to hear the Word. May the light of Christ-Consciousness be born in the Virgin silence of our soul. T...

Once there was a still forest pool. She gazed up at the sky and said to herself, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to travel with the clouds high above this world?" So she evaporated into water vapor and became a cloud. The cloud said, "Wouldn't it be stimulating to take form and have a sparkling body, to dance and zing so fast, to glitter in the sunlight on a twig!" So the cloud condensed into a raindrop and she began to fall. "I'm falling!" she cried. "I will crash on a leaf and splatter! Wouldn't it be lovely to be snow, to be a perfect crystal, light as air, fluttering silently in the breeze!" So the raindrop became a snowflake and gently settled on the mountainside. The snowflake sighed, "I'm stuck here, frozen in crystal silence. There isn't a green leaf or blue flower anywhere. Wouldn't it be exciting to melt into a mountain stream, and tumble down through alpine meadows!" So the snowflake ...

For decades I've bitten my tongue about the fees charged for the Transcendental Meditation course. I  assumed that my understanding was not mature enough to get the real picture. But finally, after 45 years, I have decided to speak out. Especially since I am able to discriminate between the Master and the movement. Maharishi himself suggested this when a small group of us were sitting at his feet back in 1970. He was so non-judgmental and sweet in pointing out that the karma of the Master and the karma of the movement are distinct, we had no idea he was warning us about those who would some day lead a world-wide organization in his name... Would any of us confuse the person and work of Jesus with the Church of the Middle Ages that practiced such unspeakable corruption in his name? Likewise, let us not confuse the grace and wisdom of Mahesh Yogi with the TM movement that barnacled itself to his side, encrusted in a hierarchy of technocrats, pseudo-scientists, and even "R...

The more we think, the less we are aware . The more we are aware , the less we need to think. A mind perpetually thinking is dull, yet we define it as brilliant. A mind purely aware and empty of thoughts is brilliant. But we define it as simple. God is quite simple-minded. In the native state of human freedom, thinking is not necessary: there is only the radiance of awareness. Humanity relates to God directly through breath. "And God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul." Then, greedy for the "knowledge of good and evil," the will begins to think. The intellect fragments into duality: better, worse; heaven, earth; spiritual, carnal. We eat from the tree of opposites: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The "Fall of Man" is our descent from awareness into thinking. All religions that depend on theology, beliefs and doctrines, grow from the Tree of Knowledge. But the religion that requires no belief, but simply breathes with aw...

"Life, like a many-colored dome of glass, stains the white radiance of eternity." ~Percy Shelly   "Thine own consciousness, shining, void, inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is itself the Immutable White Light of Buddha Amitābha." ~Tibetan Book of the Dead Shelley claimed to be an atheist, though he is one of my favorite spiritual poets. Buddhism is often described as an agnostic religion: a religion that does not depend on dogma or belief. Agnosticism is a path to God proceeding through doubt. An agnostic's question may be a deeper prayer than a believer's certainty. There are remarkable similarities between the agnostic's path and the path of negation found in Indian and Christian mysticism. Vedanta calls this path, Neti Neti, "not this, not that." Christian mystics call it the Via Negativa, "the negative way ." For example, Meister Eckhart declares, "O God, quit me of God!" ...

    Mandala by Hildegard of Bingen, 11th C. I am made of Air, Air is my healin g. Breathing fresh and deep and slow, from my feet rooted in the soil to the soft spot in my crown, my breath connects the earth and stars. "Thank you, Air, I love You." I am made of Water, Water is my healin g. Drinking fresh and deep and slow, tasting the rain in my food, singing the mountain brook in my loins, sensing the ocean's surge in every cell of my flesh, I speak to the Waters, "Thank you, Water, I love You." I am made of Earth, Earth is my healin g. Seated on a mossy forest stone, feeling my weight as grace, every ounce of me holy and hugged by the Mother, I surrender to gravity. "Thank you, Earth, I love You." I am made of Fire, Fire is my healin g. Standing in the Solstice sun, eyes closed, I see a sacred sparkling in the silent darkness. Drawing seven breaths of radiance through my forehead to my heart, I breathe light into my bl...

"Commune with your own heart and be still." ~Psalm 4. I love this verse. Why do preachers and Sunday school teachers never mention it? I guess they'd go out of business if they did. No heavenly vision, no transcendence, no esoteric worsh ip or devotion to the master can compare to the stillness, the peace that blossoms in the heart, when you just rest as who you are. To repose as your Self in this moment is the only portal to transformation... Commune with your own heart and be still. Do not make a mystery of this. The source that draws you home is who you are. How could it be otherwise? Let the one who remembers, whisper to the sun, "Awake!" All living creatures hear that music, just a little, a rippling of the stillness, here, in the chest, a warmth where breath begins.

Neither Moses, Jesus nor Muhammad would recognize the Germanic word "God." They called the deity by the same Semitic name, All'ah. Allah is El' in Hebrew. Jesus used the beautiful name, "Al'ava," Divine Papa. From the very first verse of the Bible, the Hebrew text heightens the ambiguity of the Divine by using the name Elohim rather than El'. Elohim is the plural. The firs t verse does not say that God created the heavens and the earth, but Gods. What are we to make of this ambiguity? Is it not the ambiguity of consciousness itself? A separate Lord God did not create the earth in distant ages past. It is We who continue to create the earth now, or destroy it. We are the Elohim. We are all Gods. Lest this sound blasphemous, please read the scripture. Psalm 82:6 declares, "Ye are all gods," a verse repeated by Jesus in John 10:34. yes, we are each others creators, each others saviors. I belong to you. Does "privacy...

"Bright." "Yup." "Is it the solstice?" "No, full moon." "What's the difference?" "None really. It's a human thing." "Why do they make such a big deal about this stuff?" "Dunno." "Is it because they don't have tails?" "Dunno."

"Namaste" we say when we greet each other. "I honor that of God in you." Most people assume this means to honor some golden spark of transcendental beauty hidden behind the outer form. But I think "Namaste" means something more radical, disturbing, and wonderful. It means that even the outer form is pervaded by divine Shakti. We honor God-energy in every face, each wrinkle and tear, grimace and wound, right down to the phlegm, the urine, the cancer in the bone, the devouring worm... the homeless child born in a garage at the back of the motel.

Slow down, walk softly. When we spend a little while walking softly, going nowhere, each footstep makes the earth more sacred, and we enter a new dimension, the dimension of the Ordinary, where miracles are possible. Picture: Old New Castle, DE, where my lovely wife grew up, by Dennis Strong

What is formless, dimensionless, transparent, lighter than space itself, yet more solid than a diamond and more brilliant than 10 thousand suns? What contains, in a dissolving point that is finer than a photon, all the information, all the forms, and all the actions that could ever exist on all possible worlds, like a dream before it is dreamed, in a mind that has not fallen asleep?

On Robben Island he said what he missed the most was hearing childrens' laughter... Friend, remember this beyond all politics when you need healing. ____________ Photo: Former prisoner 46664 revisits the place  of his imprisonment and spiritual transformation.

The Moon is always still and radiant. Though her lovely reflection is sometimes whole, sometimes broken, in these waters, she has no need to keep repeating, "I am not the pond, I am not the pond." She just gazes.

Join my workshop, it's happening now, and it's free! Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad, all took this weekend intensive: that's how they got certified! You've been on the waiting list thousands of years, but initiation only takes the blink of an eye. In fact, just reading this invitation is enough: Even though you haven't begun, you've mastered the practice.  Hear the secret that was never hidden: how to use three talismans that you received at birth, your inhalation, your exhalation, and your heartbeat. OK, that's it, you're authorized to teach! Now go out and get some disciples. Instruct them how to bow and gaze at each other. It's all remembered in a flash of emptiness. Accept the truth, you are unfathomable. I'm just reminding you about your ancient wonder, the gentle light that melts the edges around all creatures, then solidifies into a blinding sun, then burns a widening ring of voidness from the center of your heart, out...

How silent, crystal pure and still the Self! How wondrous, wild, chaotic and ephemeral the world projected as a veil, a mirage, a playful reflection of the Self in a mirror of emptiness! Where is the conflict? Where is the need to choose between Oneness within and duality without? That ever-dissolving world-aura clothes this naked changeless Radiance in shimmering garments. It is a charming paradox to be danced, not a problem to be solved. The Self is basso continuo in a Gregorian hymn, chanting tone beneath melodic variation. We meditate to ground our music in the under Om, then joyfully dance with a chorus of voices. And because This already pervades That , there is no compulsion to impose One on the Many. As the prior condition, before one breath is taken, unity back-lights and illuminates diversity. The Om that oscillates into every other note is the unstruck sound, the mother of harmony. Therefor nothing needs to be united. Nothing needs to be harmonized. Where is th...

Sometimes Hatha Yoga feels more like a performance, an effort frozen in form. We might kindle new life into Hatha Yoga by letting it dissolve back into the art of its origin: just lying on the ground, effortlessly breathing. As we did when we were babies, self-discover the miracle of embodiment. Allow breath to melt matter into streams. Let bone and flesh undulate in subtlest micro-movements. Bathe each exquisite pearl of body in a wave of awareness. Be leaves in warm breeze. Observe sensations arise and dissolve in dance of unfolding presence. No right way, no wrong way. Stillness gently spirals outward from our center. Graceful silence in-spires hips, ribs, neckbones, crown. No "asana" to be attained. No posture to be held. No "technique" downloaded from memory. Living asana means effortless movement arising in the heart, unfolding through the spine, expanding and contracting with the breath. Living Yoga means that mind is not separate from the primal Sh...

This old body has its aches and pains, but even they have blossoms like pea weeds among poppy billows. All in all, it's worthwhile having bones to give light a foundation, having ligaments to give the stars a place where they can fall and lodge their smaller selves; it's not so bad, this blood mire of swollen umber like a peach with edible fuzz. I can caress your belly, I can run my finger down to the fur, smell hay just after rain and watch the willow-armed valley with its creek whispers invite the mist into her shaded bed. All in all, it is good to have a body. It is not a burden. There is nothing illusory about it. Even an old one, especially an old one, makes prayer possible: not in petition for some wider space, but in thanksgiving for the place where I am.

        Orion Nebula, Hubble 2006 Why seek the Formless? Just don't cling to forms. Peel the onion, layer upon layer without a core, without a center. Beyond all these layers, atoms dancing in the void. Yet every atom also an onion. Selah. Behind every political or economic reality, the meaningless play of atoms dancing in the void. Behind every scientific reality, the meaningless play of atoms dancing in the void. Behind every material form, the meaningless play of atoms dancing in the void. All forms, just layers of hollowness: that was Buddha's teaching, and that is the revelation of contemporary physics. Then why take it all so seriously? Why reject or grasp anything when there is no essence, no soul of Creation? The heart is just its layered-ness. If you say, "I believe in God," you have fallen out of the dance. If you say, "I am an atheist," you have fallen out of the dance. This dance is charming and playful precisely because it is free ...

The universe does not rejoice in the impersonal, but in the communion. The you in me bows to the me in you, and we melt into who we are; this is called "laughing eyes." Why did God become flesh, walking down dusty village roads, touching, blessing the children? So that we might say, "Thank you for being born, Jesus. " Why do we return to the fur? So that we might say, "Thank you for being born, little golden poodle." And when there are no words for wonder, why does the Self-luminous choose to gaze and hug? Don't underestimate the glory of otherness; thank you, whoever you are, for being born into this voluptuous mud! A neo-advaitist said to me, "You need no guru because you are already perfect." So I went there and became vast, proud, boundless, lonely and dry. But still, some primal yearning of the heart for the heart tugged at the stars, and I heard the moon weeping for the sun... and besides, his workshops were more e...

The word "God" does not offend me. The word "Should" offends me. "Should" is the idol of authority, created by a mind that cannot taste divine freedom. It is not in the experience of the Divine, but in the absence of the Divine as direct experience, that "Should" arises.

Spirituality is abandoning the compulsion to do any of the things you were ever taught you needed to do to become "spiritual"; then simply resting in the heart, literally in the heart, laying each breath down as an offering, needing to be no one but who you are this moment, because your Self is the golden sun who illuminates the entire cosmos. This dissolution into Light is so mundane, so ordinary, you don't even name it "spirituality," or "enlightenment," or "God," because you are the Self of every sentient creature, from a lady bug to a blade of grass to a roaring lion to the galaxy whirling in boundless silence.

Be Brave, Don't know!

So I threw my customized '67 wood-paneled toboggan into reverse and started back up the hill. It was getting real icy now under the purpling 5 o'clock sky. Sure enough, she was sitting all alone on that cold white crystal blanket, sniffling. She wore a pink one-piece Gimbels snow-suit with bright red Buster Brown boots, and she wiped her eyes with Sky King and Penny mittens. Her Flexible Flyer had flipped on its side, her Howdy Doody lunchbox spilling Mary Janes and Necco Wafers into the glittering snow. "Just my ticket," I thought. Shifting the wad of Bazooka bubble gum into my left cheek, and swishing back the coon tail on my Davey Crockett cap, I said, "Climb in, Sweetheart, I'm taking you down the hill for some hot Ovaltine." She hunkered her knees around my rib cage, snug as a bug in my toboggan, and we swooshed down fast. Soon we were in my kitchen, the windows steamy, the hot water radiators clanking up a cozy storm. My Mom made us drink...

My cancer is yours. Your breath is mine.  We eat from one bowl and drink from one stream, because we choose the same planet.  Remarkable isn't it, how so many citizens imagine they inhabit separate biospheres, guests in private rooms of a luxury hotel, while the rest of us clean their toilets and take out the trash?  Independence is the deepest illusion. There are no islands of private choice, private property, or private health. We belong to each another. All health is public. Whatever I do to soil, river, cloud, whatever I burn in fire, enters your physiology. Whatever you eat becomes my land and food. Jesus said what we all must come to say, "Take this and eat it, for this is my body." Individuality and freedom of choice are dissolving threads, interwoven in the Sri Chakra, the Great Mother's earthweb. If there is such a thing as "privacy," it has no edges. No one is healthy or unhealthy by their own choice. No one is immune to the...

 A projector sends a beam of light through lifeless plastic images on a film, and they seem to be alive. So we project our own Consciousness through the lifeless stories of the past, and play them over and over again, imagining that the story is "sacred." But the life we derive from any ancient story or "sacred" text is the light of our own Presence, misidentified with the hollow image it illuminates. The light comes from the Self, not from the story. The life is always present, the past is dead.

At every moment, I am surrounded by very very small but infinitely beautiful things. It is not some ancient mystery of "Sin," nor some metaphysical descent into "ignorance," that causes my fall from the grace of true seeing: it is simply this argumentative fault-finding mind, ever insistent on being "right," that prevents my beholding miracles through the eye of my heart. This is why masters of both Yoga and Christian prayer advise, "Let your mind descend into the heart by means of breathing."

In the beginning, there was no difference between this Earth and Paradise. All of us were Elohim, just ordinary Gods. We lived in pure light. Then we composed bodies out of the light so that we might touch and dance. For all eternity we touched and danced in the light. Was this an inward uncreated Light, or the light of creation? Again, a meaningless distinction... But at some point in eternity, one of the Light Bearers conceived of "something better." He started whining, "Is this all there is? We can improve things around here." The notion of "something better" spread quickly until there were two groups of Gods, the Angels of the Ordinary and the Whiners for Perfection. The Council of Elohim met to discuss what to do. I need to remind you that the word used for "God" in your Bible is Elohim, the plural, which means "Gods;" not El, the singular. There is no "God," there are just we Gods. So we Gods met in council and de...

  4 AM, awareness tastes and sees the night, mind disappears. How many of us are there ever, really? Only Perception, frost forming on blades of grass in the starry hollow of your forehead, drum of silence, chest dissolving with mysterious compassion, the moon flame curled in delicious blackness. I reach out to You with this breath. I touch You with this breath. Lovers must untangle, not darkness and light. We are a star and its eternal ocean, the void, that Yearning where inhalation begins - here, my love, between the eyes; and that Union where it pours into the heart's cup - here, my love, the pain that keeps us on earth. What overflows is dripping into groundlessness. Stay awake all night with me, planting untold secrets in the garden of your body! Painting, Chagall, Moonlit Lovers

Earth is the realm where opposites dance. We are here to realize truth by embracing polarity. It is in the deepest darkness that the moon is most radiant. Because there is pain, there is pleasure. Because there is happiness, there is sorrow. Because there are thick clouds, there is clear sky. The Buddha said, "Because this is, that is." Padikka-Samupaddha, the central doctrine of Buddhism, is not just interdependence, but interdependence of opposites. To claim that one who knows bliss cannot feel sorrow, is false spirituality. To claim that, as long as others are in pain, I am not entitled to be happy, is delusion. If you insist that by adding your own sorrow to the world's sorrow you will alleviate it, then by all means choose unhappiness. But know that your unhappiness is a choice. And so is your happiness. Voltaire wrote, "I choose to be happy because it is good for my health." Yet when we cling to the notion that we must be happy, we create more su...

There is no time, only this trembling Presence, ever-expanding and silencing the murmur of memory, the anxiety of the future. Awareness of Presence dissolves time, because time only exists as thought, and thought cannot endure wonder. Since no time exists but the incomprehensible moment, there is no beginning, no end, no creation, no final judgment. Therefor 98% of the world's scripture is worthless speculation, old stories and fruitless prophecies, concerning a past and future that do not existence. Such writings, even when we adorn them in gold leaf, bind them in sacred scrolls, and place them on an alter, have no more value than last week's newspapers. The only religious writings of any value are words that point our attention to Now. Forget all scripture and doctrine except what awakens your Presence.

When you're doing what you love, you never ask, "What's the time?" You never look at your watch and say, "Honey, it's time to go." That is a lie and you know it. It's never time to go when you're being You. Time only happens on clocks and cell phones; it's just an excuse to leave the places you never wanted to go. You're always too late or too early when you don't know what you love. Just because some 12th Century monk decided to ring a bell every hour, you don't have to keep nervously glancing at your I-Phone, or get trapped in you day-timer. How can you be late when you're already here, where bliss led you slowly to the center of the galaxy by a string of heartbeats? Seconds, hours and days dissolve in this big empty zero of Presence. Those electric digits and dots on your clock all melt into the stars accelerating through the cobalt distance, smothered in oceans of downy silence. Just repose right here in the m...

No one is to blame. Let me not protect my heart from its own beaten Beauty by blaming you. Let me not absolve myself from my part in this world, by blaming others. May I breathe both Pain and Beauty into my chest. May I breathe in the suffering of the Philippines, the Congo, Afghanistan and Syria. I unbuckle the breast-plate of anger and drop the shield of political judgment. I do not blame capitalism for the terrible power of the Storm. I do not blame Republicans or Democrats for the mystery of human suffering. I do not blame Obama or Cheney, Christianity or Islam, for the world's apparent injustices. I do not blame the rich. I do not blame the poor. I do not blame God. Who can I blame? I see so clearly now that blame is just the way I deflect my anger and fear. But when I release all blame, I have no choice but to inhale the world's terror. And only then can I widen my embrace to feel its Beauty. Yes, the Sorrow is profound, but the Beauty is breat...

Dear missionary who left your pamphlet in my door knocker today, telling me that I will go to hell if I don't take Jesus as my personal savior: I am sorry I wasn't here to greet you, to smile at you with love, to look deeply int o your eyes and tell you this: "My breath is the Holy Spirit. My body is the Church. Jesus already lives in my heart - along with Krishna, Buddha, Goddess Saraswati, and approximately 296,000,000 other gods. The only scripture I need is the letter "O!" inscribed on my breastbone, a big fat empty circle that begins every prayer to any God you choose, a Zero of divine astonishment. Have a good day. I have to go. My soup is boiling."

Have you noticed? When we accomplish a task and feel that "I" have accomplished this, the work is dry. It lacks juice, life-energy, and freshness. "My" work is a repetition of the past, a re-modeling of what I already knew and did before. But when we do sometime that truly feels fresh, and people say, "Wow! That is amazing!" - no matter how much energy we expended, we feel like the work was a gif t. It happened through us, not from us. We don't feel comfortable taking credit and saying, "I did that." In fact, we find the work as wonderful as others do. The human mind does not create. The mind is a repository of old patterns and memories, useful for storage. The New is never the Knew. Fresh energy comes from a wellspring deeper than thought, ancient yet ever reborn from the silent womb of Shakti, the power of the Mother. Creativity is a gift of Grace. Do our schools and colleges educate students to tap the well of creativ...

I was falling slowly, gracefully into groundlessness. The Guru was my parachute. Then I unbuckled and slipped out. I dropped headlong into groundlessness, but my body was a stone causing friction in the sky, a meteor burning with separateness. So I slipped out. Then I was plummeting into groundlessness beyond the speed of sound, but the concept of 'I' was a comet in the vacuum, shining with reflected light. So I unbuckled the light and slipped out. Now my velocity, beyond the speed of light, has become a stillness. The groundless reposes in the groundless. Everything is falling into Me.

 "The eye is the light of the body. If your eye be single,  your whole body will be filled with light." ~Luke 11:34 What if your heart were a rose window in the Notre Dame of your body, tinted with morning or evening light, and you were the glazier? Would you choose for its center that violet Lady dawdling the child on her knee? That golden Master stretching out his hand to touch and heal the poor? Or a formless emerald flowering, wings of the dragonfly, amethyst and ruby? And now your most blessed choice of all: which way the rays of light will fall... Does brilliance filter down from stars through a world of troubled shadows, pouring heaven into our unilluminated thirst? Or does that glory spring from Within, flared by very looking? Friend, consider this: we bathe one another in a single dazzling eye of love, muted through a kind of gracious glass; each of us rose-centered, translucent, a cathedral of promise upon the dark world's purpling intimations ...

I have proven in the laboratory of bewilderment that every proton, forged in the cauldron of a star, is actually molded out of my own consciousness. Now let the naked mud wrestling match between Plato and Aristotle begin!

Every morning, the illiterate peasant woman visited the burial shrine of a great saint. There she surrendered her heart. And for the rest of each day and night she remained in that state of perfect surrender, caring for her children and husband, sweeping the dust from people's doorways, offering every deed of her humble work into the fire that burned in her heart. Surrendering all karma as devotional sacrific e, she became enlightened. Others saw her as a poor working woman, but in her own perception, each action she performed was suspended in the radiant stillness of the Divine, like a stream of ghee poured into a sea of gold. Eventually the whole countryside recognized her saintliness, though she paid no attention to the world's opinion. Bathing each deed in the light of God, she exhausted herself with humble work. Her days were monuments of spiritual beauty... until the shocking discovery. A group of village Brahmins came to break the terrible news. Som...

"Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it in ourselves. It is a daily practice." ~Thich Nhat Hanh We can acquire the wealth and power of the State, yet live in bondage. But if we acquire knowledge of the Self, we can be liberated even in a prison cell. Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, Mandela, King, Thoreau, Jeremiah, Paul the Apostle, all attained the vision of perfect freedom while incarcerated. True freedom lies in boundless awareness, not in the presence or absence of material limits that arise and dissolve in the mist of this uncertain world.

Ten thousand voices murmuring inside you, declaiming, insisting, some angry, some full of tears, all falling silent at the Christ-whisper: "Come rest in Me. I Am the mereness of your Being. I Am the Abundance that overflows when simply existing is enough. I Am your Christ-Self, more You than who you think you are. I am your long-patient lover, the Am who waits for I in the bridal chamber of the heart. Come, drink of my long-aged Wine. Recline at the feast of who you really are. "The canopy I built for this wedding is the sky. The galaxies are chandeliers, hung low to glitter like a diamond tiara for you. Stars pour my light into your cup, singing, "Just as you are, just as you are!" Haven't you understood their language? Light comes from inside . Now is the time to shatter your cup. Let me pour this transforming sweetness on your head, your brow, your lips, your chest. My ecstasy is that you are anointed as I am anointed, in the same stream, po...

"There were three Mary's who traveled with Jesus..." ~Gnostic Gospel of Philip In relation to Christ-Consciousness, every human soul is a Mary. The three Mary's of the Gospel represent three stages in our relationship with Divine Consciousness. First, we nurture the infant Light within, like Mary the Mother of Jesus. We must tenderly care for the Light lest it be snuffed out by the cynicism and hopelessness of the world.  Maturing in our  relationship with the Inner Light, we discover that the Christ is our personal Friend. Like Mary of Bethany, our soul is God's companion on the way. Hand in hand, we walk with God.  Finally, friendship blossoms into divine yearning. The soul is now a Magdalene, transmuting all her energies and passions into Love. The Light within us, as Lover, invites us to union in the Bridal Chamber of the heart.  " In his Breath, we experience a new embrace; we are no longer in duality, but in unity.... All will...

"In the beginning..." If we understand these words, we do not say anything after them, certainly not anything in the past tense, such as "God created heaven and earth." The beginning never ended and has no duration. The beginning ever is, and none of us is even one moment old.

Life is not a pity party. Life is not an entitlement. No one owes me. If I am able-bodied and able-minded, no law, moral or civil, obligates anybody else to take care of me. I must learn to generate my own light, my own energy, my own happiness. But I don't like hearing this. If I am on the left, I would rather hear that my problems are caused by the rich, by the military industrial complex, by Christians, or by "corporations" (even though the vast majority of corporations consist of one to ten people trying to start a small business.) And if I am on the right, my problems are caused by too much government, by immigrants, by Muslims, by gay people getting married. Each side blames its opposite, and this blame only fuels the polarity. No one wants to hear the truth: my world does not change until I change from within. I need to handle my own pain, fear, and unhappiness... Which is why the most radical political act is to teach people how to meditate. Teach...