Uradiance

Ever since Aristotle defined 'ethics' as 'habits,' Western morality has been backwards. Aristotle said that we become kind by acting kind, we become loving by acting loving, we become just by acting just, because kindness, love, and justice turn into habits. But Spirit is who we already are before we act; and love, justice, wisdom, mercy are the inherent attributes of pure Consciousness before a single thought arises. Furthermore, everyone knows that, if we attempt to act kindly without being kind, we are just acting: our behavior is artificial. When, on the other hand, we directly experience our transcendental divine Self through meditation, we awaken those divine qualities in our innate a priori awareness. Then we ARE kindness, we ARE love, we ARE justice, prior to acting them out. But Aristotle believed the self was a blank slate. He literally called it the tabla erasa on which we inscribe our character by acting out ethical habits. He taught such ...

When we practice affirmations for 'abundance,' we often make 3 mistakes. First, we concentrate. Concentration is a subtle form of strain, belying uncertainty. Second, we focus on our lack, not on abundance. Even when we think we are thinking about abundance, our very affirmation comes from an anxiety about lack. The subconscious is always more powerful than the conscious. So which seed are we actually planting? The thought at the surface level of awareness, or the subconscious anxiety? Third, when we conceive of abundance, we think of personal rather than shared abundance. 'My abundance' is still a thought of lack. It lacks generosity of heart. It lacks expansion. Don't focus, rest. Don't rest as lack, rest as abundance. Don't rest as personal abundance, rest as shared abundance. Now rest so deeply, so confidently, so joyfully, that you let go of your very intention, and there is only silence... Letting go of the intention in d...

" In the sunlight of awareness, everything becomes sacred." ~Thich Naht Hanh Information is overrated. It is far more important to find out Who is being informed. In fact, we often use information as an escape from awareness. In the age of digital media we are addicted to "knowing," entranced by an endless hypnotic stream of information. Yet most of the time, we're not looking for information at all: we're looking for connection. And we connect through the silent magnetic field of the heart, not through information stored in our brains. Let us become sane again. Let us engage in the sacred practice of Unknowing. Unknowing is a return to Presence. Right now, can you step out of the information in your head and become a naked Being available to sunlight, wind, pebbles and stars? Can you awaken to the green frog hiding under a fern, the person at your side, the breath of the moon? How much education is required to hear a robin, or be ov...

Embrace bewilderment: be wild. There is a forest of entangled miracles at the center of your heart. There Jesus calls his disciples, "Come away by yourselves into a wild place and rest awhile" (Mark 6:31).   He wants to recharge their energy with untamed innocence. In the Old Testament, God calls Israel back to the wilderness: "I remember the unfailing devotion of your youth, the love of your bridal days, when you followed me into the wilderness, through a land unsown." (Jeremiah 1) "True comprehension is bewilderment," wrote the young Martin Luther, when he was learning from Rhineland mystics like Meister Eckhart and Johann Tauler. Later, when Luther turned politician, he lost his inner powers, renounced mystical innocence, took up dogma, and joined the patriarchy. Tauler wrote that God is "a simple hidden wilderness beyond being," and "a wilderness incomprehensibly wild... where multiplicity is lost in unity" ...

"Love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain." ~Frieda Kahlo Leap into the stream of annihilation. The past does not exist. The future does not exist. There is no present moment, no resting place, no state of being or point of reference called now . Now is not a noun but a verb, a verb that signifies perpetual dissolving. How long will you cling to illusory images of time , fleeting sensations of a solid world ? These images exist only in the mind. These sensations are a shimmering mirage of emptiness, fluctuations in a vacuum, to be witnessed and enjoyed, but never possessed. Why not relinquish every attempt to grasp a permanent object, a permanent mind, a permanent me ? Simply dive into the stream of death, which is the stream of beauty, which is the stream of birth. This never-ending flow of dissolution seems terrifying, does it not? That is because you are standing outside it. You are standing on the shore. Those who have the courage to leap ...

The sound of the Omkara mantra contains all possible alphabets, and all the harmonics of sacred geometry expressing the physics of creation. But 'Aum' must be de-mystified. Just listen to your body hum... When Jesus said, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,' he was referring to the beginning and end of the alphabet, contained in the resonance of 'Aah' and 'Ouu.' These are not only the interior sounds of Aum, but the two-syllables in the Tetragramaton, most sacred name of the Lord in Biblical tradition. Of course, 'Ah' and 'Ouu' are also the sweet and by no means esoteric sounds of your own breathing... In Aum, 'Ah' and 'Ouu' end in a dimension-less point of vibrant silence, the hum of infinite possibility. Mmmmm... This point is called 'Ayin soph' in Hebrew, 'Bindhu' in Sanskrit. Writing Aum in Sanskrit, the Bindhu is simply a dot over the whole figure. In that soundless hum...

At this very moment, the surface of your oceanic mind is a foam of thoughts, images, memories, each lasting but an instant. Yet beneath this bubbling mind-stuff is the sea of Silence - self-luminous, still, eternally awake in its own nature, which is perfect peace. Lacking nothing, your depth is full. Full of what? Radiant emptiness. And when you express any form of this fullness, that least expression is the complete whole, the ocean in a drop. For only fullness can come from fullness, pressed out and overflowing, each particle a hologram. Yet because the essence and substratum of each form is emptiness, whatever you express is lighter than air, scintillating and playful, with no weight, no need to last more than the instant of its birth. There is nothing to call "mine," nothing to cling to, because you are perpetually ripe and sweet inside. You have always already fructified. You act not to attain a goal, possess a property, or fulfill a need, but simpl...

The nature of the Divine is such that no one who actually experiences the reality would entertain any sort of belief. Prayer arises only in separation from that Radiance. Actual taste of the Infinite annihilates language and consumes thought in the fire of naked awareness. Without any theology whatsoever, one simply sings, not in words but in kirtan, fiery syllables of ecstasy: Om, Ah, Hum, Ma, Hrim, Shrim, Ram, Alla'hu! Mantric sound vibrates and organizes darkness into light, prior to thought. Creation is not meaning but energy. What does a flower "mean"? What does a mountain "mean"? What does pain "mean"? The taste of honey on your tongue? The ever-expanding bliss of pure consciousness? Real meditation frees the mind from the tyranny of concepts. The ecstatic one stops philosophizing and just starts humming. At the birth of time, this is all God did, and look what happened: She created the universe.

Listen to the wild silence of your open heart or you'll miss the Spring. Today, just for an hour, let's give each other permission not to be outraged. Permission not to react, but to respond. Permission not to trigger each others anger, but to polish one another with forgiveness. A gracious light is always pouring from the heart. Indignation often blinds it. The world can survive for an hour without indignation, but it can't survive without your light. Photo by Kristy Thompson Collage of my verse by Rashani Réa