“Behind the multiplicity of forms there is a single reality.”
– Aldous Huxley –
“Behind the multiplicity of forms there is a single reality.”
– Aldous Huxley –
Why Beware of the Doug?
For years I ran a blog on ending suffering. Now I’m running a blog on discovering the truth about the one who appeared to be doing all that suffering. It’s pretty clear that guy is the problem – well, the belief in him being separate and alone. Ergo the whole ‘beware of the doug’ thing.’ In other words, the only way this works out is if / when Doug gets dumped for good.
Why Beware of the Doug?
For years I ran a blog on ending suffering. Now I’m running a blog on discovering the truth about the one who appeared to be doing all that suffering. It’s pretty clear that guy is the problem – well, the belief in him being separate and alone. Ergo the whole ‘beware of the doug’ thing.’ In other words, the only way this works out is if / when Doug gets dumped for good.
LATEST POSTS
I woke, as I almost always do, around 3am. This time, however, almost immediately came the sensation of my consciousness expanding within. Those who are familiar with the sensation know it's neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just a sense of inner expansion. Interesting, I thought, shades of the heroic dose of psilocybin I'd taken just 8 weeks earlier. Fairly quickly, however, fear started to well up within, almost as if it was filling that expansiveness, like water rising inside an empty[...]
Without warning the headphones go silent, replaced by a profound, absolute stillness. It is otherworldly. But then, all of this is and has been for hours now. Just as abruptly comes a brilliant white light that fills everything. There is nothing but light and, as with the stillness, it is complete. Nothing exists beyond this light. Together, the stillness, the light hint at an incomprehensibly vast intelligence. "At high doses, psilocybin occasions mystical-type experiences that are phenomenologically indistinguishable from classical[...]
What if we saw our suffering the way the mystics do - as an inner opening to something transcendent, as a whispered urging from God? The Sufi mystic, Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi, told his followers, "What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle." The Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi, reminded us that the purpose of suffering "is to bring you back to the Self." (In Advaita Vedanta, the Self is synonymous with God, the One, or Source, which is our natural[...]
In 2007 I was invited by a Lakota to undergo a guided vision quest in New Mexico's mountains. We carefully hunted the saplings that would serve as four-corners staffs, bundled and tied the prayer flags, and chose a spot in a meadow on the edge of a forest at roughly 9,000 feet in altitude. The day before the quest was to begin, my guide asked me to visit with a man who, decades earlier, had bombed Vietnamese villages during a[...]
I woke, as I almost always do, around 3am. This time, however, almost immediately came the sensation of my consciousness expanding within. Those who are familiar with the sensation know it's neither pleasant nor unpleasant,[...]
Without warning the headphones go silent, replaced by a profound, absolute stillness. It is otherworldly. But then, all of this is and has been for hours now. Just as abruptly comes a brilliant white light[...]
What if we saw our suffering the way the mystics do - as an inner opening to something transcendent, as a whispered urging from God? The Sufi mystic, Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi, told his followers, "What[...]
In 2007 I was invited by a Lakota to undergo a guided vision quest in New Mexico's mountains. We carefully hunted the saplings that would serve as four-corners staffs, bundled and tied the prayer flags,[...]
“Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe. It is everywhere.”
– Black Elk –
“Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe. It is everywhere.”
– Black Elk –
Because we spend our lives driven by thought, it can be terribly difficult for even the tiniest snippet of Truth to edge its way into our consciousness. Without such Truths, the inner journey lacks legs.[...]
A meta-analysis of studies on psilocybin show that high doses of the substance can alleviate symptoms of depression in people at levels comparable to the SSRI drug escitalopram, which is used to treat major depressive[...]
In the campy 1980 comedy, Caddyshack, disheveled groundskeeper Carl Spackler (played by a brilliant Bill Murray) relates a story about caddying for the Dalai Lama. As Spackler tells it, the game ends and no traditional[...]
It's not often that a scientist becomes a subject for his own research; even less common when said scientist describes his brain as 'breaking' during the experiment. But that's precisely how Dr. Nico Dosenbach, an[...]
Recent Posts
Not long after I turned 13, I found myself living with my father on the 11th floor of a Virginia apartment 20 minutes from downtown Washington, D.C. One morning, shortly before departing for his secretive[...]
Searching for peace, happiness, truth, God, meaning, I spent years exploring a variety of religious, spiritual, metaphysical, and alternative teachings. One by one, however, each failed me due to their various inventor-inspired rites, rituals, teachers,[...]
Spirituality is often dismissed as the domain of fantasists, the reasoning being that if one can't touch, smell, hear, taste, see or think it, it's of no tangible benefit to those occupied by the 'real[...]
Like most, I've experienced my share of suffering. Also like most, I turned to the usual suspects for help: psychoanalysis, drugs (legal and not-so-legal), sex, money, adventure, career, family, and so on. Some of[...]
