Nothing is personal. So, why does man take everything personally? Feeling either favored or abandoned, chosen or a victim! In taking things personally, this human persona assumes that he’s somehow under attack, and he rather be under attack than ignored; he’d rather be hated than forgotten. He assumes there are forces that are out there … More Nothing is Perceived but the Perceiver
Widen your perspective and see that the soul’s journey is always an upward trajectory, that suffering is both transient and necessary if beauty and transcendence is the goal. From within this new perspective, gratitude is not more a chore but rather an obvious and spontaneous response to the path. Love all that is, for all is serving your fine end. … More The Attitude of Gratitude
There’s an old beggar in our town; he goes around with a bowl knocking at doors begging for food to ease his hunger. Not everyone treats him well; some yell at him and kick him, and a few feed him for a day or two but no more; but he keeps knocking at those same … More The Forgotten Wealth: A Tale of Hunger, Memory, and Misplaced Identity
The idea of possessing spiritual qualities implies a fallacy: the fallacy that you exist, and that you are capable of possessing anything. In fact, the very idea of independent existence is the source of all suffering and the subsequent desire to become spiritual. All this is God’s land, i.e. the land of Pure Presence, so let go of all that spiritual bullshit and try to mind your own business, which simply means: recognize that you are already present and it’s all alright. … More Stop Trying to be Spiritual: Stop Trying, and There it is
What you call hell is you taking this all too seriously, and heaven is your full presence in the play; they are not realities but your perspective on what is! So, drop all this metaphysics; instead, make merry and enjoy the play. … More When God Plays
To express and realize the desire of the heart, one must call the beloved into presence with one’s all being. All organs, subtle and gross, must call on the beloved: the heart by prayer, the tongue by speaking the truth, the eyes by seeing beauty, the ears by active listening, and the body by selfless service. When all of a man’s being calls on the same thing, that’s well-being and harmony; when there’s divergence and each organ wants something different, that’s disease. … More Of Fratricide, Love, & Prayer: Pleas of a Restless Heart
The elder, breaking his vow of silence after 146 years, said to Alexei, “you’ve come to my room and prayed at my feet more than the other monks in this monastery. Now, I shall speak to you, the son of Cain! It’s not your prayers that compelled me to speak; what compelled me to break silence is that which compelled you to ceaselessly pray; it’s rising wave in all of us, felt in the core of our Being, that compels the collective impulse. I, too, speak because this wave is reaching a threshold in our time.” … More The Children of Cain
The highlight of my day is sitting in the balcony in the morning hours when the sun shines from in between the surrounding buildings, drinking my hot coffee and smoking a cigarette. Here in the winters of Florence, Italy, my balcony is positioned so that it sees the sun only for 45 minutes in the … More Readiness is All: On The Power of Faith
Sinn, in German is to have meaning, to deploy intelligence forward and outward. Perhaps it’s the same thing: to sin is to sinn, to suppress one’s primordial and divine stupidity for the sake of a loaf of meaning; it’s to beat the innocent stupidity in the head by the hammer of intelligence and wisdom so that life finds some arbitrary and transient meaning. Man can’t tolerate meaninglessness and indeterminate being, that is, sheer stupidity. To bring things into form, into intelligible conceptions and limitations, this man elevates intelligence over and above stupidity and takes the fall and the subsequent suffering. … More I Can’t Stand Musicals & More
Truth shines in the heart. Spiritual practices make the heart receptive to natural light, as opposed to artificial, i.e. lunar light. This is only a matter of spiritual/intellectual reorientation of the soul. Thus, spiritual practices in fact reorient the Intellect toward its origin. … More Spiritual Practice & Reorienting the Soul
NOEMAYA 