Uradiance

Never ask, "What difference have I made?" The world was transformed the moment you were born, forever changed just by your being here and holding the planet in the palm of awareness, the warmth of your chest before you gently laid it down in the nest of darkness again. What did you whisper to the forest? What did you breathe to stir the sea and cause the earth to grow such star-drenched rainbow wings? Photo: first depiction of a human hand, 40,000 year old cave painting in Indonesia

O my weary soul, listen! The pearl you seek is buried in the mud of seeking. Bliss is the pulse of your own existence, before you give it a Sanskrit name. As soon as you turn the grace of this breath, the vibration of this silence, into a technique, it is lost for another thousand years. Why is every one else your 'life coach' but you? Can you turn off the new age news, shut down your computer, go app-less for an hour, and gaze into the only webnar that can ever teach you wi sdom: the tiny blue forget-me-not that grows by the bird bath, where you forgot to mow the weeds? When will you realize that this clutter of 'spiritual teachers,' online meditations, enlightenment workshops, and yoga cures are just more of the dis-ease: information overload? Have a little courage: grok the source of all dharmas, sadhanas, chants and mantras, asanas, pranayams and darshans in the luminous clarity of your own Eye. Stop looking and melt. Melt into the Beau...

O Student of Astonishment, you are not your intellect, you are not your memory, you are not your will. These are but three veils on a paper lantern. You shine beyond within. Truth is not a concept. Truth is not an answer. Truth is the Seed whose hollow is unbounded. No thought will lead you there, only a surrender in your chest. Don't be a star, be night itself. Darkness mothers everything bright. Be that womb. The dignity of your mind is not the accumulation of knowledge, but the sparkling of emptiness. Instead of being certain, be a window. Polish your intellect like crystal with the soft cloth of this inhalation, this exhalation, until you can see through the transparency that once was clouded by concepts. The sun of your heart appear s in the awakened sky. O Student of Beauty, nothing is attained by seeking. If you want to find what you were looking for, g et lost in the wild garden of amazement. In heaven you were filled with a terrible longing. On earth your long...

"Love thy neighbor as thy Self" is Judeo-Christian Advaita. Jesus tells us to love even our enemies. His social ethic is rooted in uncompromising non-duality. We do not love our enemy because our enemy is akin to our Self, but because our enemy is our Self. In Jesus' parable of the last judgment, the Lord says, "In so much as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto Me." This vision too is born of Advaita. What "Me" appears in the judgment at the end of time? A man with a beard and sandals walking the dusty paths of first century Galilee? Of course not. Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus identifies not with his biological parents or tribe, but with the eternal I Am. I Am is the Christ-Self in each of us. And when we meet one another as the radiant I Am, judgment is over. It is the end of time. What Jesus means by the parable is: "In so far as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto ...

There is only one space, which contains this and all other worlds - the stillness after exhalation, before the inhalation arises. There is only one dimension, which includes all other dimensions - awakened emptiness. And there is only one possibility, the infinitesimal seed of creation, enfolding all possible universes in the bindhu at the center of your chest. It is an ever-dissolving diamond on the tip of a lightning bolt containing the echo of the cataclysm that has already destroyed the cosmos, yet holds the memory of all that ever was in soundless bewilderment. The cosmic womb is the wild abundance of Uncertainty, but we fear it. To assuage our terror, we fixate on a belief-system: astrology, the science of yoga, the seven chakras, a strict vegan diet, the eight-fold path, fundamentalist theology, or the perfectly regulated socialist state, which are all precisely the same phenomenon: the mind attempting to staunch its flow in an illusion of certainty. Afra...

'Keep noble silence.' This was Buddha's teaching. Is there a difference between ordinary silence and noble silence? Ordinary silence is mindless. Noble silence is mindful. Alert as the listening doe between a taste of dandelions and a munch of violets. Yet relaxed as an otter on its back in a wave. Ordinary silence is the absence of noise. Noble silence is the fullness of Being. It is pure awareness, free from the chatter of conceptual thought. Jesus asked, "Who of you by taking thought can add one inch to your stature?" Peace comes through Being, not through argument. When thought melts away, past and future dissolve into Presence. Mind sinks into the groundless, journeys deep into the virgin forest of the heart. There, in noble silence, one sees all causes entangled in causelessness. One sees golden emptiness pervading all creatures. One sees sparkling stillness in all action. A silent heart irradiates the world with compassion.

A thing is ordinary. But its Being is miraculous. Even though Being is no-thing and no-mind, nothing is more substantial. When your mind is empty of all concepts, you perceives the diamond radiance of your own pure Being, the Self who is free from subject or object. This is perfect contentment. Possession of things without the fragrance of their Being, is poverty. But the Being of things is boundless wealth. Now the richness of Being overflows from every point in the vacuum of space. If people tasted the Being in things, they would be forever satisfied without clinging to the things, and no more wars would arise. How could anyone practice exploitation or greed when the mind is saturated with the fullness of Being?   Everythi ng that you encounter is impermanent, like a wisp of dissolving mist. But when you encounter the Being of a thing, you touch eternity with all the cells of your flesh. If your heart merges with the Being of a gnat or a pebble, you know ...

Essentially, am I not who I was when I was 18 years old? Lord have mercy on me. Truly, am I not who I was when I was 12? God be with me on my journey. If truth be told, am I not just who I was when I was 7? God bless me. Come, let's be honest. Am I not who I was when I was 2? Praise God. Drop the inmost veil. I Am who I Am before I was born. Now be still and know that I Am God.

It is no coincidence that the Abrahamic faiths of the so-called 'holy land' are more violent and aggressive than any other religions on earth, because they offer their followers no access to a Mother Goddess. Christianity will not become whole or bring true peace through the archetype of Jesus alone, but must surely expand its vision of Mary - not just as Mother of God and Lady of Sorrows, but as the Magdalene, who holds an alabaster jar of sweet ointment, and an egg filled with fire.