“When the eyes and ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the Scriptures.”
– Kabir –
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In the autumn of 2006 I took up temporary residence in a small town in the mountains of New Mexico. Still wrestling with some fairly acute inner demons, I yearned for extended stretches of silence and remote, solitary nature walks. My routine was simple: each morning I'd read a few pages of randomly chosen spiritual >>>>
It's a discovery unique to the earnest spiritual seeker: one day it is discovered that a longtime source of angst or illness is no longer as acute or has simply vanished. For a time I may not even recognize the change, may still feel anxious or lost or melancholy; may still struggle with a chronic >>>>
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 >>>>
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 >>>>
This site is for individuals eager - even desperate - to toss off the yoke of the old life, the old ways of thinking about and doing things. Maybe you're tired of being anxious and unhappy or lonely and listless. Doesn't really matter why. You just need to bring an open mind and a hunger >>>>
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.' >>>>
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. >>>>
Cleaning out my home office, I stumbled across the journal of my ex-wife, who died several years ago due to the ravages of alcoholism. I spent a few minutes scanning the handful of pages she'd written out, hoping I'd at last uncover some clues into the mysterious suffering that had for so long plagued her. >>>>
When David Carse experienced a complete spiritual awakening, a critical component of that experience as the complete recognition that he did not exist, had never existed; that 'there was nobody home.' Carse saw what the sages and seers have been pointing to across the millennia: the individual self if an illusion, a dream character. This >>>>
During my teens I'd stumbled across, and become fascinated with, the idea of a Native American-inspired vision quest. Coming from a controlling and demeaning childhood, the idea of venturing into the wilds in search of a guiding vision sounded exhilarating. Suddenly unencumbered of a job and relationships and buoyed by the idea that the something >>>>
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 cash gratuity is forthcoming. "Hey Lama," Spackler recalls saying to the holy man. "How about a little something, you know, >>>>
A great deal of my early life was characterized by the kinds of suffering to which only a powerless child can be condemned. The details of that suffering are irrelevant for three reasons: There are as many forms of suffering as there are humans to endure it. Suffering is relative - we live in an >>>>
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The French polymath, Blaise Pascal, said all of humankind's problems were tied to one behavioral >>>>
Ask the typical individual to describe meditation and they'll likely picture robed monks seated lotus-style >>>>
Genuine, lasting happiness is an internal state of being. Finding it outside oneself is >>>>
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Founded in 1971 by Robert A. Monroe, the Monroe Institute is widely recognized as a >>>>
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