There are three steps in the spiritual growth– steps or stages. They can differ with each individual but there are always three. One is independence. That is an egoistic state: you want to be independent of all which is false, which is not possible because you are not independent, you cannot be. You are a […]
MASTER, PLEASE HELP ME. I cannot do that. I am not your enemy. I am not a do-gooder. I don’t “help,” because the help, the very desire to be helped, is a desire to continue as you are. You want some props, some supports. You want consolation, comfort. No, I am the last person to
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT DARKNESS? I have much to say about darkness, because nobody has taken notice of the mystery that darkness is. Much has been said about light, almost nothing about darkness. But darkness is a much deeper phenomenon than light is. Light comes and goes – darkness remains; it never
HOW CAN WE PREPARE OURSELVES FOR DEATH? DON’T accumulate anything whatever: power, money, prestige, virtue, knowledge, even the so-called spiritual experiences. Don’t accumulate. If you don’t accumulate you are ready to die any moment, because you have nothing to lose. The fear of death is not really fear of death; the fear of death comes
You ask me: what is right, what is wrong? I say to you to be AWAKE is right. To be ASLEEP is wrong. I don’t determine acts wrong and right as such. My focus is your being. My effort is that you are there, in your being. Then whatever you do is right. One Zen
Recently, I saw “The Railway Men: The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984” on Netflix and now seeing “Einstein and The Bomb.” The night of 2nd December 1984 saw one of the world’s worst industrial disasters at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. Methyl Isocyanate, a highly poisonous gas, leaked from the plant killing
It is only a question of when one decides to wake up. It is up to you whether you want to have a little more sleep — then turn over and pull the blanket up. But even while you are asleep inside the blanket, enjoying a beautiful morning, you are a buddha. It is up
Swami Krishna Chaitanya Das of ISKCON introduced me to H.H. Radhanath Swami and his book “The Journey Home“. Within this extraordinary memoir, Radhanath Swami weaves a colorful tapestry of adventure, mysticism, and love. Readers follow Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to
GREED is an effort to stuff yourself with something – it may be sex, it may be food, it may be money, it may be power. Greed is the fear of inner emptiness. One is afraid of being empty and one wants somehow to possess more and more things. One wants to go on stuffing
A WARRIOR CAME TO THE ZEN MASTER HAKUIN AND ASKED “IS THERE SUCH A THING AS HEAVEN AND HELL?” HAKUIN SAID “WHO ARE YOU?” THE WARRIOR REPLIED “I AM CHIEF SAMURAI TO THE EMPEROR.” HAKUIN SAID “YOU, A SAMURAI? WITH A FACE LIKE THAT, YOU LOOK MORE LIKE A BEGGAR.” AT THIS THE WARRIOR BECAME
