When the eyes and ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the Scriptures.
– Kabir –
When the eyes and ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the Scriptures.
When the eyes and ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the Scriptures.
– Kabir –
Most Recent Posts
My Dark Night of the Soul
I woke, as I often do, hours before dawn. This time, however, something felt different. An initial sense of inner expansion quickly took a turn and in just seconds I was filled first with a sense of dread, then panic, then outright terror. "The soul feels itself perishing … as if it were being swallowed up in darkness." - St. John of the[...]
A Meeting With the Ineffable
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[...]
Knock Knock
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."[...]
The Elk, the Pilot, the Lakota Guide and the Vision Quest
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[...]
Stop the World, I Want to Get Off
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 Pentagon job, my father announced he'd be gone for an extended stretch of time due to growing concerns a nuclear war with the then-Soviet Union was brewing. As[...]
“Behind the multiplicity of forms there is a single reality.”
– Aldous Huxley –
“Pehind the multiplicity of forms there is a single reality.”
– Aldous Huxley –
Recent Posts
Advaita Vedanta: End Point of the Spiritual Journey
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, and related orthodoxies. Note here the inventor wasn't the mystic behind those religions. To the contrary, anyone who studies the sages and saints, mystics and masters will clearly[...]
Materiality vs Spirituality: Which is Actually Real?
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 world.' Yet what most of our species thinks of as the real world - the one they're busy sensing and stressing over - is anything but. Ask some[...]
What’s Up With the Whole Beware of the Doug Thing?
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 it worked. Until it didn't. I suppose because a stretch of my childhood was particularly rough, my brand of suffering may have been more intense than most. Which[...]
Finding the Light of Truth in the Sea of Mind
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. I've always suspected this is in part what Thoreau meant by 'the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation.' We are drowning in thought, yet thirsting for[...]
Meta-Analysis Shows High-Dose Psilocybin Effective Treating Depression
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 episodes. Researchers found that patients fared better with psilocybin - the active ingredient in 'magic mushrooms' - than with placebos. Bet they also cautioned that flaws in the[...]
“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 –
