Uradiance

The universe is a Great Medicine Wheel, a Dharma Wheel of work and sacrifice. To turn it, we have to give as well as take, and we must empower givers. If one simply takes what is given for free, without the opportunity to give back - through work, seva, and sacrifice - then the mouth may eat but the soul will die.

I can never solve my problems, because the root problem is the perennial discomfort of the I. Nor does it help to simply drop my problems, because no matter how many problems I drop, the weight of I still remains. But while it is difficult to drop my problems, it is easy to drop me. The ancient Rishi Ashtavkra summed up books of spiritual instruction in two words: Layam vraja, "Dissolve now!' ( The Ashtavakra Gita ) Through the grace of the Master comes initiation into meditation. Through meditation, "I" gracefully dissolve. Then there is a dance of celebration. And in celebration, problems solve themselves. It is a most beautiful path, because it is pathless. Jai Guru Dev.

When I wake up just before dawn, I don't listen to the birds. I listen to the silence between the birds, the stillness overflowing with what makes them sing. Returning to that sweet dark nectar at the source of every breath makes me sing too. If we don't sing, the sun won't rise.

There is no need for argument. 'Right' and 'wrong' have both been swallowed up by the heart. Your very breath will guide you now. Just bathe the world in the ocean of love that rises and falls in your chest. This is your majestic calling.

If I lay all the outrage of the world on one side of the scale, and a single lightning bug lands on the other, Wonder would still outweigh Injustice. The world is not divided into "good" and "evil." Chaos and beauty are not two. Therefor I will never bring healing to the world as an intellect who stands in judgment over against it, dividing "right" from "wrong." Any world I could possibly know is a wholeness that includes the knower. The solution to every conflict is Presence. I heal the world when I own it as my Self. All of it: not just the unfolding of its gentlest flower, but the bursting flame of its most terrible tragedy. The moment I embrace the whole, a silence is born that encircles the opposites. A stillness surrounds every battle. That stillness, in the heat of the conflict, is compassion. Then I see that every event is a dissolving breath, an invitation to astonishment.  May you sleep like an empty wi...

Yoga is not a posture or an exercise. Yoga is dissolving into the sun, melting into the radiance of who you really are. All these mental torments and anxieties depart the moment you become thankful for this breath. To be infinitely grateful for a single inhalation is true Yoga.

Dear Dad, Wherever you are now, thank you for this visit in 1984, on the porch in our first house in Germantown, Philadelphia, when our baby Abby was born. I remember how wonderful I felt in your presence that day, sharing finally the mysterious grace and helplessness of fatherhood. Pop Pop, you were awesome and cantankerous, infuriating and loveable. Even though you were a white American male, you were a good man, and I have decided not to blame you for all the sins of the world. Your most wonderful quality was this: you stopped trying to figure me out. You gave me permission to be whoever I might become. In your presence, I never had to be you. I could make mistakes. Where you are right now, I have no idea. But I bow down in gratitude. Thank you for me. Thank you for my children. Thank you for my ancestors. Thank you for the seed of Life, the vector of time, the momentum of eternal becoming. Thank you for your rough care. Thank you for your wondrous ...

I live in a land of peace and beauty. When I need to be reminded of this, I just turn off the internet, step outside in my bare feet, and look at these flowers in my back yard. The golden ones are just weeds. But they too have their blossoms. Tonight, I'm sure that elves and elemental spirits will ring-dance here, while in the black sky above, still tinged with turquoise at 10 PM, Venus will dance with Jupiter, sipping from the cup of the New Moon. It is Mid-Summer's Eve. Tomorrow is the Solstice, the longest brightest day. It's also Father's Day, when people will bathe me in love I did nothing to deserve. I will accept it. Tomorrow, June 21, is also the International Day of Yoga, when we can celebrate our wholeness as one human family. Let every barefoot step you take upon the green earth be a prayer. Om shantih, shantih, shantih. Photo: my back yard, taken by my daughter, Abby

This is the only commandment: don't 'other' anyone. The most painful yet most healing embrace: there is no other. The murderer is not other, the racist is not other, the oppressor is not other, the rich not other than me. The immigrant is not other, the stranger is not other, the poor and homeless not other than me. The Christian is not other, the Muslim is not other, the wholly Other not other than me. Earth is not other, new moon is not other, sun is not other, night not other, Beloved not other than me. Take courage, dear heart, see others as waves of your Self, reflections in the mirror of your own pure consciousness. Love the other as yourself, because the other is your Self. Take courage, dear heart, see those who are hardest to love as rejected shadows, cast by the Light you refuse to embrace as your own divine Radiance. What is the difference if we say, "Om shantih, shantih, shantih," or, "There is no other, no other, no o...

We are one earth family, the human branch of an extended family that inhabits billions of galaxies. We were born for ennobling challenge, not petty conflict. Conflict arises only because we forfeit our cosmic birthright, and identify with boundaries of tribe, race, nation and religion, which are merely projections of the little ego and its mental constructs. In fact, humans are spiritually empowered as individuals, not groups. Each one of us is a diamond microcosm of divine w holeness. The vibrations that  emanate from our heart pervade the entire universe. Love is our very nature.  Why not shed this withered skin, and emerge as a rainbow of star song? International Day of Yoga, June 21: LINK  

Through healing breath and meditation, cleanse the heart of bitterness, cynicism and judgment. Discover the divine beauty that is the true nature of your own awareness.   When you radiate beauty from your very Self, you see beauty all  around you, and serve that beauty in others. As you Are, so the world  appears. This is the real meaning of Yoga. International Day of Yoga, June 21, proclaimed by the United Nations: LINK

"I do not cease swimming in the sea of love, rising with the wave, then descending. Now the wave sustains me, then I sink beneath it. Love bears me away where there is no longer any shore." ~Al Halaj In the actual world, conflict does not exist. Creation is a perfect ocean of energy, dissolving and recreating its forms in waves that flow within the motionless whole, un-caused and absolutely one. Where is the conflict? Thought superimposes duality onto the One in order to nourish the hungry mind, which sustains itself on conflict. The mind insists on being "right." Being "right" is the addiction, the rush, of the mind. But to be "right," the mind needs a "wrong" against which it can argue. Thus the mind needs conflict to feel alive. To be free of conflict would destroy our mind, our belief system. For the mind, the end of conflict is "the end of the world." Mind symbolizes this "end time" through apoca...

~What spiritual practice can anyone enjoy, anywhere at any time,  without depending on a religion, a teacher, or a belief?   Place mind in breath, and breath in heart, surrendering every effort  to know anything other than the Presence of this moment. ~If the answer is so simple, then why is there so much stress and violence  in the world? Stress and violence are not caused by 'evil ones,' but by people who can't  enjoy themselves. They can't enjoy Being because they are busy striving  to be more than they are, better than they are, other than they are. Such people are very idealistic. Have you noticed that those with the  highest ideals and deepest beliefs cause war and oppression? We make  war on others when we are at war with our own hearts.  If we cannot accept ourselves with unconditional love, we strive to be  someone more than we are, someone greater than ourselves. This very striving causes stress in the who...

You can't practice compassion, because compassion is not a technique.  Compassion either arises or it doesn't. You can't conjure it up. In fact,  compassion more likely arises when you're not trying to be compassionate. This is why Jesus said, "When you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." And according to the Sutras, Buddha  said, "When the Bodhisattva performs compassionate service, there is no  concept of 'compassionate service.'" People who pride themselves on being social activists sometimes complain  of "compassion fatigue." But our burn-out never results from too much  compassion. It results from too much trying, too much effort to mimic  what we imagine compassionate people must do. The greater spiritual practice is just to let the moment Be, without attempting  to become anyone more noble, anyone more selfless, anyone other than we are.  If we act spontaneous...

We don't need more activism. We need more awareness. Awareness doesn't have to shout, protest, march in the street, or engage in violent confrontation. Awareness chooses the right word, spoken quietly at the right moment, to penetrate the darkness and open the heart. Awareness acts so gently yet decisively that things seem to happen by themselves. Awareness inspires an innocent breath of change that sets off a chain reaction of creative acts. Hardly anyone notices the one who spoke that Word or breathed that Breath, but the world was turned in a new direction. The true "activist" acts without acting, through silent awareness, remaining in the field of the anonymous, whence creation arises. This is the essential teaching of the greatest masters, whether of the East or the West. Laot'zu taught "wei wu wei": doing through non-doing. Far from being a passive approach, this teaching spawned the martial arts, which is highly effective act...

Human life is a simple but momentous choice: whether to be in conflict or beauty. Our awareness cannot be in conflict and beauty at the same time, for beauty is wholeness, conflict is duality. Mature awareness dwells in beauty, embracing opposites in the glow of paradox. But Awareness that cannot endure the pain and beauty of paradox, sees only division, duality: things must be "right" or "wrong." Beauty enfolds conflict in something more vast, a space of healing and forgiveness.  There is no beauty in conflict, but in what embraces the conflict. I am a damned fool. I choose beauty. I choose to see through the eye of the heart. I agree with Dostoyevs ky's idiot, Prince Myshkin: "Beauty will save the world." (Photo by my beautiful daughter, dahlias on her her patio)