Uradiance

Follow the thread of joy out of the mind's labyrinth. Follow Ariadne's thread. When the mind turns sour, it finds fault with everyone. At each twist and turn of thought, mind becomes more skeptical, more critical, until finally devoured by the minotaur of cynicism. We are so easily lost in negative thinking, especially in this internet age. We can follow the labyrinthine links t o entire websites of negation, dedicated to trashing any subject or any public figure we choose. No one is spared: Presidents, Gurus, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, even Mr. Rogers! Let's not forget that popular opinion, which is negative mind, has always been obsessed with three things: money, sex, and fear of the dark. Thus the people even turned on Jesus, accusing him of conspiring with tax collectors, illicit affairs with "fallen" women, and demonic possession. Yet in every mind, there is a trace of beauty, a thread of joy, the call of...

When my action is a re-action to someone else's action, that is bondage. When my action arises from my heart, simply because it is who I am, that is freedom.  I do what I do. You do what you do. Life is very simple. But if I do because of what you do, and you do because of what I do, life is very complicated. This is the difference between spirituality and politics. A mother's milk flows not from a sense of duty, but the mystery of love. The thrush does not sing to make me happy, yet it does... Act in freedom, and you cannot help but be of service.

Instead of saying, 'I am uncertain,' why not say, 'I am an ocean of possibility'? Instead of saying, 'I am confused,' why not say, 'I am open and I welcome it all'?

Don't let the world rob you of your inner beauty. You are here to give peace, not to lose it to robbers. What is the secret to protecting your peace? Always remember, you do not reflect the world, the world reflects you. As you Are, so is the world you perceive. Allowing outer circumstance to overshadow your inward light is the beginning of tragedy.   The most radical act is to rest in the heart. In the Bhagavad Gita, in the midst of life's battle, Krishna says to the warrior Arjuna, "Yogastah karu-karmani: Perform action with your heart established in the Yoga of peace." No one can measure the value of another's work. Noble deeds may exhaust great quantities of activism, yet be erased in a short time by other events. But a quiet shoemaker wi th a radiant heart, sitting alone in his shop and stitching on a boot sole, may thread heaven and earth together, and save the planet. Through the warp and woof of this unfathomable karmic web, the movement ...

I have never seen a white person. I have never seen a black person. I see one human race, and only one tribe, earth-colored, in an infinite variety of tones - olive, ochre, russet, burnt rose, umber and mahogany. Under this full moon of Guru Purnima, may we all reflect one Radiance, and walk barefoot in the wet grass at midnight, un-naming the stars.

As we approach Guru Purnima, I am moved to share my love for the Guru Shakti, the power of the Guru Within. It is a mysterious relationship, as expressed by the ancient poet of Israel: "Depth calleth unto depth" (Psalm 42). A relationship of depth with depth in a realm without boundaries. A real Master is neither a teacher nor a lawgiver. A Master simply radiates. A Master draws you to the Light, until you discover that the Light is you. The outward Master simply ignites a relationship with the Master inside you. Here is the irony: in the Guru's grace, you experience how free you really are, and that is precisely when you bow down. It is a bow of gratitude. To the observer outside this relationship, the bow may look like dependency. But from within the relationship, it is a bow of absolute freedom. The more you are grateful, the more you are free. Non-dualists insist that the true Self transcends Master and Disciple. They do not under...

The problem is never the way the world is: the problem is our story about it. Immersed in the heart, we need no story at all. But if there must be a story, here's the one I like to tell... Every particle of the earth is beautiful. The entire creation is precisely as it needs to be in this moment, to provide each of us with precisely the task we need to perform right now, in order to learn the lesson required by our soul. There is no reason not to do this moment's task in complete happiness, even if the task is feeling pain or grieving loss.   To embrace this momentary task completely, without expectation, without comparison to any other moment, is surrender. This is the only real freedom, and this freedom is perfect joy.

  The present moment is boundless. Yesterday is a tiny speck. If I do not see the boundless beauty of the Earth, it's not the Earth's fault or the Creator's fault. It's because there's a speck in my eye. There is one simple truth that humans seem incapable of facing, yet it is the first truth, the complete truth: the past is over now.

You follow the Ray back to the Source. The Ray becomes more densely radiant and lazer-like the nearer you come to the origin of Light. Finally, in a flash of blinding brilliance, you transcend Light itself and discover Sourcelessness - the divine bewilderment of the knowledge that there is no origin at all, only a spacious unbounded resting as awareness, awareness that has forever finished outward or inward searching for anything. One can only imagine how, in that moment, tea will taste.

    Hibiscus on my porch. Hug your outrage. Useful energy bound in toxic blame, caged in skull and ribs. Before we send it out, stalking into the world as word or action, we can hug our outrage. Let it blossom into another form of energy. The seed of anger, planted in the loam of the Self, becomes a flower of giving.

"Leave it to God. Surrender unreservedly. One of two things must be done. Either surrender because you admit your inability and require a higher power to help you, or investigate the cause of misery by going to the source and merging into the Self. Either way you will be free. God never forsakes one who has surrendered.... "You say you offer your body, soul and all possessions to God. Were they yours to offer? At best, you can only say, 'I falsely imaged till now that all these which are Yours were mine. Now I realize they are Yours.' This realization that there is nothing but God, or the Self, and that 'I' and 'mine' don't exist, is Jnana. Thus there is no difference between Bhakti (devotional surrender) and Jnana (non-dualist realization). Bkakti is Jnana Mata, the Mother of Jnana...." "Leave everything entirely to Him. His is the burden, you have no loner any cares. All your cares are His. Such is surrender. This is Bhakti. Or, e...

   There is no need to worship the Guru once you have been introduced to your Self. The Guru, the Avatar, the Goddess, the Savior, are just petals on your blossoming Heart, brothers and sisters in your Family.

Be positive down to the core of your heart, positive right through the marrow of your silence. Then when it all falls apart, you won't even notice, because you'll live in what is already arising to take its place. This is a real choice.   Our choice to be positive is most effective when we operate at the cellular level, through the breath, and at the atomic level, through meditation, rather than on the macro level of mere "positive thinking" and "affirmation." So before we begin any other work, however noble, we can meditate, energizing every cell and atom with radiant life-giving vibration, Meditation is radical action.   "Radical" comes from the latin, "radix," meaning "root." Meditation is the most radical act because it nourishes the root of all other action, deep in the ground of Silence, where sub-atomic particles are formed out of the void.

Time is imaginary, a mirage in eternal stillness. Past and future arise and dissolve in a space that is always now, always clear, self-luminous and tranquil. What ever appears, changes, and dissolves cannot be calle d real and is not you. The space alone is real where it appears, changes and dissolves. This space is pure awareness.  The space of awareness is so vast that it contains even your birth, your death. Untroubled by the need to be a self, its nature is effortless compassion. How can problems exist when phenomena have no substance?  Ever returning to the one solution, rest as awareness. Trust in spaciousness. Don't seek, just find.

       Vincent Van Gogh, 'Green Vineyard.'  Have a soft sweet Sunday. Perceive how the edges of things dissolve. The smallest leaf is infinite today. Politics will not solve our political problems. That is pretty obvious by now. The solution to a problem is never on the level of the problem, but on the level of the cause, which is an entirely different dimension. The causal dimension of political and economic problems is the personal awareness of the individual citizen. When a large enough number of Americans choose a simpler life, not out of political ideology, but out of personal delight in the sacrament of the present moment, the wealth of the ordinary, then the political problems of our civilization will dissolve spontaneously, because Americans will no longer need to exploit the world's poor for the burden of unnecessary riches, or devastate the earth to sate our appetite. To occupy the present moment, and delight in the small and the be...

The sign of humility, as well as genius, is the willingness to embrace our opposite. One of the greatest interviews I have ever heard: the meeting of spirituality and politics, left and right.

Can you tell the difference between the weeds and the flowers in my back yard? The weeds are blossoming along with hydrangia, tiger lilies, and salvia. Rumi wrote: " Don't sit with a sad person, Only sit with those who are sweet and kind-hearted. When you've entered a beautiful garden Why spend your time with the weeds ?   Stay with the jasmine and the jonquil. " I reply: Sit with sadness. Sit among shadows and weeds. Sit with the abandoned kitten so that you become sunlight,  you become the rose,  you become milk.

        Adi Shankara and his disciples: the Holy Tradition Any vision or state that comes and goes, however exalted, is not the Self. What becomes lost in taste, smell, sight, hearing, or touch, is not the Self. Anything "more" beautiful, anything "most" beautiful, is not the Self. For whatever may be compared is not the Self. What is known as an object of experience is not the Self. What is grasped as a concept, belief, or image in memory, is not the Self. What is imagined is not the Self. What is felt as emotion, mood, or even ecstasy, is not the Self. What goes to sleep when the body sleeps, what dreams when the mind dreams, is not the Self. What says, "I slept, but now I am awake," is not the Self. For the Self never sleeps. The sign of the Self is boundless Radiance, shining from inside out. It outshines every perception of the external world. Its splendor remains when the body sleeps. It watches dreams unfold, yet is not part of...