Uradiance

Spirituality does not exist in general, but in particular. It is precision awareness. This wild orange anemone, this sunbeam falling into precisely this raindrop. To love "humanity" is a lie. Never generic, compassion embraces only this homeless mother, this wounded veteran, this fleeting breath... Consciousness does not awaken as a movement, a party, or a tribe, only as a unique individual. To generalize about human beings is the root of violence. There are no "white people" or "people of color," no "socialism" or "capitalism," no "Muslim" or "Christian ," no "masculine" or "feminine." As soon as I revert to the abstraction, I murder millions.   Don't serve "the poor;" serve every person you encounter. Don't free "the oppressed," free the oppresser too. Don't hate the 1% and love the 99. Love is 100% or nothing. And only this particular person can...

Grace is an impulse from beyond the structures of our own effort. Only grace can bring deep meditation. Whether our effort is mental, emotional, or physical - jnana , bhakti , or hatha yoga - the state of deep meditation never results from self-will. Any command we give ourselves to relax the body, concentrate the mind, or produce a feeling of peace, will fail. Why? Because relaxation, concentration, and peace are effects, not causes. In the stillness of true meditation is infinite rest, where body, breath, feeling and mind repose in the field of transcendental silence, merging back into a single field of energy. Any effort or instruction we could possibly give ourselves, whether to "concentrate" or to "relax" or to "love," can only disturb that ground-state of silence, never draw us into it. For every self-instruction is an action that disturbs stillness.  This is the paradox: we want to meditate, but real meditation never comes through ...

When is anger useful and when is it destructive? I have found that when I put anger into action as 'anger,' it is a disaster. But when I take the time to do the inner work of transforming energy, anger is the loam that nourishes seeds of creativity. First, de-link the energy of anger from the mind by un-naming it, 'anger.' Then just feel its energy, as energy, in the body. Breathe through that energy and follow its pulsating sensations from the forehead to the throat, to the chest. Don't attempt to change it, just observe the sensations in the embrace of awareness. I discover that anger, as anger, cannot thrive in the clear air of awareness. In that spaciousness, anger spontaneously unwinds its pent-up grief and lonliness, melting into useful energy, sparkling energy, delightful energy. I discover that what I called 'anger' was just a knot of empathy, too fearful to express itself. When I follow anger inward to its source, it is love. Now I am ready to take ...

My favorite tree, flower, fruit. I was climbing this tree in the garden of Eden when Adam's first wife, Lilith, picked an apple and ate it without guilt, without any "should" or "should not" in her mind. She immediately turned into a serpent with scarlet moth wings and started dancing on her tail. She became my guardian angel. I was an ape. Still am, mostly.

All through our religious history, we've been told to give up the things of this world, to renounce our desires and attachments. "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God..." But you don't have to give up desire. Just meet the one who desires. You don't have to renounce your attachments, just get acquainted with the one who is attached. The radiance of your own pure awareness is more blissful than any experience your awareness could cling to. With the fragrance of the Self, desire for the petals of the non-Self falls away naturally. Contentment arises through the agency of no other. Contentment has no content, but is consciousness alone. This attrition of desire and attachment happens gradually over 7000 lifetimes, but the process is accelerated a thousand-fold by the practice of Transcendental Deep Meditation. Through the Master's grace, meditation grants unalloyed experience of ...

A candle cannot light itself. But once lit, it lights other candles that come near. Enlight- enment is communicative, a community energized through satsang: not just truth, but truth shared. This is the difference between non-duality and solipsism. It is our work, not my work. It is not the work of aloneness but the work of love. Love doesn't just melt me into the one; love melts us into the one. And the One becomes every drop. Your dreams affect my dream, mine yours. Your awakening affects my awakening, mine yours. We awaken each other, or dream each other. The honey is not brewed by a single bee.

Of all music, it is Irish melody that opens up my chest, not only with simple joy, but simple sadness. When I hear Irish music, I abandon the preference for light over darkness. My heart knows both Winter and Spring. Always, there are two seasons at the core of my healing. Irish music tells me my tears are the dew that moistens the soil. Irish music tells me that each raindrop kissing the earth is a shattered globe, holding a mote of heartache. What use is a star that does not fall into a seed? Every blossom is a bleeding wound. Enlightenment is not the end of grieving, but the stillness that contains it, allowing pain to be wi thout edges. I am the sound of the ocean in a shell, rounding my luminous pearl from a grain of stone.

Attend to the blessing. This is your work today.   Through these eyes, ears and nostrils, blessing flows inward from the dew spark on a thistle, throbbing fragrance of hyacinth, long-awaited April thrush. And through these eyes, ears, nostrils, blessing flows outward, the consecrated ointment of perception. Both tides, subject and object, are the bubbling incandescence of an instant, dissolving in one sea of Self-Delight. You need not wait for the blessing. The blessing does not come from any master, or angel, or heaven above. Breathe blessing now. It wells up like a tear from within you, enclosing the universe in a drop of dew. You Are the blessing! The blessing was always already here, in the beginning, before the Word, when the world arose from the clear blue sky of your own awareness.   Din of Spring peepers in the wetland, pouring from the uncreated silence of your listening. Green tendrils of water lily, sprouting from the darkest ground...

Transcend thinking to sharpen the intellect. Go beyond sensation to refresh the senses. Pass through the atomic structure of the body, into the dimensionless vacuum, to nourish every particle of flesh. Water the seed hidden in dark loam, and leave the blossoming to sun and sky. This is the dynamic secret of meditation. "Gateh, gateh, para gateh, parasam gateh, bodhi svaha! "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond: hail the Go-er!"

When we say, I Am, does the verb need a subject? Does Am need I? To this question, one answers: ‘Yes, because an observer is required.’ Another replies: ‘No! You don't need an observer. The identification of pure consciousness with mind creates an I, and this I is confounded with consciousness. When the identification ceases, then there is pure consciousness but no I. Everything - objects, thoughts, feelings - remain as they are, but there is no I to claim these phenomena for itself. Then there is witnessing without a witness. For example, we say, "It is raining." But what “it” does the raining? There is no “it” that rains. Just raining.’ Both answers are correct. Existence celebrates existence by observing its Self, delighting in its Self. Thus existence produces an I as its agency of Self-Delight. This glorious dance of Self-observation is not a problem or a cause of ignorance. One dances as Two through the agency of a momentary I, and I am mere...

   There is a Light in the mind that the mind cannot know, shining before knowledge. Can I taste this Light, which satisfies every kind of thirst - for wine, for caresses, for God? Have I met this Light, who is the one Companion in all relationships? Have I wedded this Light, who awaits me in my heart, more intimate than me to myself?  Have I gazed into the countenance of Christ, Krishna, Mother Divine, and seen that these are the rays of my innermost face? I spent lifetimes searching for a soul mate , moving from lover to lover, guru to guru - which is the same quest - looking for the right person . Yet the right person dwelled in the core of my own chest, patiently abiding until the homecoming, longing for my longing to remember its source. In a thousand hints a day I denied my Beloved's whisper. Yet every leaf and raindrop spoke to me, "Dissolve your search in bewilderment! Embrace Me through whatever you perceive this moment, an apple bud whose seams are burs...

  "Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is  no greater obstacle to God than time..." ~Meister Eckhart I'm pretty sure I won't be getting an Apple iWatch in this lifetime: I gave up wrist watches years ago. I'm going to wait until it actually does something new, like show an icon of a door, which when you touch it or whisper a secret bija into the mandala watch face, becomes a portal to the center of the galaxy sucking you in, transporting your whole body to a golden beach by a shimmering emerald sea under the sapphire sky on Brahma Loka, where Guru Dev is sipping soma mai tai cocktails with little parasols sticking out of the ice. Now that is a watch I would wind up and wear on my wrist!

The unexpected holds infinitely more potential for the miraculous than the expected. I leave wild fallow acres of unplanned time in my schedule, Sabbath time, time for a butterfly to alight on a blossoming weed.

I confess that I have dropped out of all organizations, religious or secular, that preach the dogmas of the Left. This feels as wonderful as liberation from the dogmas of the Right. Freedom is the fresh air between thoughts. For me, the only political movement is the radical revolution of this breath. As far as I can tell, the Left is a secular form of fundamentalism as dogmatic as the Right. Both Left and Right are so identified with an ger, they wouldn't know who they are without it.  Each side comforts itself by blaming the usual suspects, their favorite scape-goats, for all the problems of a world too complex for the mind to grasp. The Right blames government regulation; "foreign" religions (especially Islam); and the poor, particularly poor people of color. Equally simplistic, the Left blames successful business entrepreneurs (evil capitalists); American foreign policy (which seems to cause all the violence on earth); and "white privilege,...

When thinking kills Silence, we have already  planted the seed of war. When thinking dissolves  into the Listener , we have already planted  the seed of peace. And when the mind ceases all resistance, chaos is stillness.

Our deepest dream is that someone else will take care of us. Waking is scary and marvelous. Then giving begins. The camellia blossoms in Winter. She is a wise flower. Either cry for milk, or become the breast. Be the Mother of your own heart. In the end, only you can take care of you.