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.