Uradiance

There is an unmapped wilderness in your heart that the intellect can never find. The intellect only wants to remain in boundaries, definitions, civilized properties deeded and owned: mine and yours. But to enter the heart is to get lost in the intimacy of the Unknown. Follow Lao'tzu there, not by looking for the Master's path, but by plunging into your own green undergrowth, where there is no path at all. Leave the empire where you never were, and come to the forest where you already are. God has no name. She is the wild green spirit of the heart.

Deep pain in my heart tonight. America needs a new concept of justice, one that does not entail getting back, getting even, or getting revenge. Let justice be consumed in compassion. Every person, black or white, Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, is equally and incomparably precious in the eyes of the Divine. Because our souls, in fact, are made of the very light through which God sees.

Desire is never fulfilled, because as soon as fulfillment comes, the mind is already off on another desire. Better to surrender awareness to the place in the heart where desire is fulfilled before it arises. This is Sahaj Samadhi. And better yet, to be filled with overflowing gratitude at the sheer diamond radiance of Existence itself, no matter what arises or dissolves within it.

"Give up all other dharmas, all other paths, and simply surrender to Me..." ~Bhagavad Gita, 18:66 Just assume that everyone is more spiritual than you, everyone has a purer, more vegan GMO-free diet, everyone is one-up on you in political correctness, with a far more impeccable resume of service projects to the needy...Then fall on the earth in surrender, totally relaxed in the knowledge that you are irredeemably hopeless, more lowly than a blade of grass, and be the happiest of creatures! For God has no choice but to cradle you in Her breast. In Kali Yuga, surrender is the pathless way. All other paths are like climbing a stairway of flames.

Jesus was and is a human soul of supreme beauty, who with his consort and feminine energy, Mary Magdalene, reflected the celestial relationship of Krishna and Radha, the eternal lovers who play as Two within the Unity of Absolute Being. The generation of all the energy in creation comes from their lila, their love play. And when we meet the Beloved in the nuptial garden between two breaths, deep in our own heart, we recapitulate this timeless play of Radha Krishna, Christ and Mary, illuminating the earth and raising its vibration. This is the work of divine love.

The next time you hold a glass of water, before you drink the water, speak gently to the water in friendship. Walk through the door of each water molecule. Let the breath of your prayer pass through every atom of water into the Water Spirit. The Spirit of Water will hear your prayer and feel your sincerity. 'Thank you, Water. Please return to me. Forgive me. I love you.' Photo: Christina Coffman praying for rain in the North West, where over 300 major fires are ravaging Washington State.

I thought we'd gotten over this. I still hear people dismiss meditation as "thinking about nothing," or "trying to make the mind a blank." "Thinking about nothing" is not the condition of No-Thought, which is transcendental awareness, the dynamic radiance of the Void, whence every particle in the universe arises. "Making the mind a blank" is fruitless, because a blank mind is still the mind. Real meditation means going beyond the mind, and diving deep into the sparkling source of energy which creates both mind and body. Thinking of nothing and making the mind a blank only produce dullness and inertia. But the sign of meditation is an invigorated body, a purified nervous system, a heart bathed in bliss consciousness. Transcending the mind is not negating the mind, but refreshing the mind at its source. After the stillness of meditation, intellect returns to activity clear, refreshed, and serene. I offer th...

As you fall asleep tonight, take a break from saving the world. With your radiant mind, kiss your eyelids gently shut, then follow your breath to the glow that flowers beneath your breastbone. Rest your mind on the pillow of your heart. Now feel the Lord of Creation enfolding your body in the petals of an emerald lotus. Sink into the hum of silence at the center, a quietness deeper inside you than your own name. Drown in the green depths of the heart's space, and know that this primal repose in your Self is the seed of all other affections. Your love is one and the same as God's love for you. Don't think for one moment that this is imagination. All else is imagination.

Don't expect life from a flower  that is not rooted in the ground. Don't expect truth from a mind  that is not rooted in silence.

The central event of our age is the discovery that we can transcend the mind. The knowledge gained by transcending the mind is infinitely greater than anything the mind could know, even though this knowledge contains no object, no image no thought. This "knowledge" is not the known, but the knower. It is the luminosity of consciousness its Self. It is the only peace, the only freedom. Through the practice of regular meditation, the radiant and boundless transparency of this knowledge can become the ground of our daily experience. This knowledge, of course, is recor ded in t he ancient Upanishads. But it was the domai n of the rare mystic , immersed in his ascetic religiou s lifestyle . Today, a critical mass of humanity is realizing this direct experience of transcendental conscio us, bey on d the mind, yet deeper within the Self : the spac iousness that is here before a single thought arises. When great numbers of people touch this awareness, the world will b e ...

We imagine ourselves divided by race, religion, party, class, and tribe. These divisions are mental constructs, not biological facts. If we are to survive, we need to more deeply honor the elements we actually share in common: the air we breathe, the aquifer we drink, the soil that grows our food, the sunlight that graces us with energy. Every human being is made of soil, water, wind and fire. This Sunday morning, I walk barefoot in the dew, with a silent mind and a heart full of gratitude. Earth matters: This is my worship, and my politics. Published in The Olympian, editorials, 8/16/15

  We love the mountaintop journey, because up there we breathe a boundless clarity, a radiant blue, which hints of something we secretly long to find inside us... The great adventure is coming back down, to experience here in the valley that all-pervading sky at the heart of every muddy atom, and in each cell of our terrestrial flesh: a sparkling emptiness for which the mountain sky was mere metaphor.                      Photo: Humbled by Mt. Rainier.

The Guru is not just one man in a white robe, a beard, and sandals. The Guru is a lineage that spills the all- pervading grace of Shakti, the Holy Spirit, down the centuries through embodied channels, where it can flow in a more concentrated form, and pour into your heart at the moment of initiation. That stream of grace ignites the Guru-Tattva, the Inner Teacher, in each of us. Then it is up to us to tend that fire, honor her in our hearts, and let her burn us up, until She illuminates every cell of our body. "Devotion to the Master" is devotion to this fire, this power in the heart. And part of devotion is our responsibility to share the beautiful Shakti fire with others, in love for all humanity. After 47 years of practice, this is still my favorite film, because I know that every word is so innocent and true. But it must be said that this meditation isn't really a "practice": it is surrender to an effortless dive into the sparkling silence at ...

The essence of the Dharma, the Sanatana Dharma, and the Gospel is simply this: before the slightest wave of action arises in me, there is an ocean of Gracealready here. The ocean precedes the wave. Even before "I" emerge from "Am,"divine Being has already bestowed perfect abundance, knowledge and joy. This Being is nearer than my breath, more intimate than my soul. Subtract every action, every form, every thought, yet infinite fullness remains. I need no-thing to be complete. Only awareness. Action that is truly creative, and truly free, arises from This.

The energy of orgasmic Presence pervades every atom in the universe. Each photon, each electron, even the gravity waves at the heart of the quark in a star-forged proton, are permeated by a Presence whose energy is infinite. What prevents us from experiencing this ananda, this bliss of Presence, is our mind's anxious habit of inventing time, the illusion of a past and future. Through meditation, we allow these mental images of past and future to dissolve. Then we can see the simple miracle that mystics of all the great traditions saw: "God is creating the entire cosmos fully and totally in this present now, a now which always and without end is itself new." (Meister Eckhart, 12th C.) The peace and sanity of the world depend on whether humanity will take this gentle step, and make this radical shift, into Presence.

I am falling asleep to the thousand-petaled sound of Spring peepers in the wetlands, one of nature's many elemental mantras, given to us for shape-shifting into heavenly realms within the earth's body. If we wou ld listen more to her healing music, gaze into her greenest eyes, touch with our bare feet her living flesh, we would return to the Sacred Garden in a moment, wherever we are. What commands the fiddlehead fern to unfold, unfolds me. With every breath, I drink the milk of the ancient Mother. When I am awake, I arrive with each footstep in the Kingdom of the Goddess. All night long She gazes into my heart, and though my body sleeps, I love.

I've been seeing photo after photo of American hunters posing with dead lions, rhinos, giraffes, including Donald Trump's son posing with an elephant he just murdered. I was going to post one of these pictures to talk about, but I can't honor such images of ignorance. What I need to say is: only the most pathetic and insecure men prove their manhood by murdering beautiful wild animals. Their "sport" disgusts and saddens me beyond grief, especially because it is the same menta lity that generates our weapons industry, and U.S.  foreign policy toward indigenous people in the First World. My grief takes me to a place in the heart, not a place of bitterness, but a place of justice, where I can begin to sense truth from the perspective of Gaia, begin to see through the eyes of her gentle winged and swimming friends, her four-legged and green-leafed friends. Mother Gaia is kind. Don't worry. With a deft series of earth quakes, tsunamis ...

You've got to be the whole thing, not just the best part of it. Many great Zen masters had deep problems with addiction. Many great artists were cruel, especially to women. Some of the most ecstatic saints suffered bouts of abysmal depression. And some of your favorite "spiritual authors" drank themselves to death. And as for sex among holy celibates, well... I'm not saying, be cynical about spiritual teachers. I'm saying, let them be human, and let yourself be human. You've got to be  the whole thing. The same goes for dogs. Which brings up the problem of Willy. Willy's the cutest and most spiritual dog in the whole world. But that doesn't keep him from SNEAKING DOWNSTAIRS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND EATING THE FUCKING CAT FOOD. Does it, Willy? And then BARFING ON THE RUG.