Uradiance

People perform good deeds in order to get good feelings, or to avoid bad ones, like guilt. So it is all for the sake of the Self. There's nothing wrong with this. Just accept it for what it is, and don't pretend. Occasionally, in the spontaneity of the present moment, one finds a need, and true loving-kindness arises. There is no intention to perform an act of "charity," no plan to engage in a "service project"; simply the spontaneous arising of compassionate action. This is actual love, "agape." There is no do-er. It is the action described by Jesus when he says, "Giving alms to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." It is the action described by Buddha in the Sutras: "When a Bodhisattva performs an act of charity, he has no intention to be charitable, and no concept of 'charity.'" In such a do-er-less act of love, you will serve another creature with infinite care and devotio...

A healing stillness enfolds the deepest pain, the deepest anxiety, very softly. This gentle encompassing is not a product of the mind, a belief, or a technique. It is the fruit of surrender. The New Testament calls this breath of presence the "Comforter." We may call the Comforter "He" or "She," since She is infinitely nearer than "it." The Comforter is always already inside us. We don't need to invoke Her. We may not immediately feel the Comforter in the midst of turmoil, because She is even more intimate than our pain. We may not see the Comforter, because She is the seer. If we cannot find the Comforter, it is because we are looking in the wrong place. To look any further than the one who is looking, is looking too far. The Comforter is your very awareness, when crystal clear. You may feel clouds of anxiety, but you are not the clouds. You are the space where they arise and dissolve. The nature of tha...

If someone starts talking about 'higher states' or 'enlightenment experiences,' feel sorry for them. Their 'spiritual path' is likely rooted in discontent, in a flight from the ordinary. They may never find the magic they seek, because only in the ordinary do miracles of wonder happen. Only in the ordinary does Grace flow, fall, and settle into incarnation. Every Autumn leaf is a sacrament of the ordinary, and just to breathe is worship. Throughout the Catholic liturgical year, there are high feasts and saint's days, but the greater part of the year is calle d the 'Ordinary of the Seasons,' or simply 'Ordinary Time.' Many chants and praises in the Latin heritage celebrate the Ordinary. The liturgical color for the Ordinary is green.... Ordinary Time is the time when we perceive miracles. The veil between the worlds thins down to sudden mushrooms, dewy webs, silken threads of nature's quietest breath. Let us ...

Seeing the world without seeing the seer, is bondage. Seeing the seer is meditation. Seeing the seer while seeing the world, is liberation. This is the essence of Yoga.

"Tyger Tyger, burning bright   in the forests of the night;   What immortal hand or eye   could frame thy fearful symmetry?"   ~William Blake ANGER is very useful as energy in the present moment. But trapped in the mind as a story about the past or an intention for the future, anger is toxic. If we de-link the anger from mental images of past and future, feeling it directly in the body, we are energized for creativity. We are so much more powerful when we use anger to be creative, rather than critical.

When do we finally accept that our fear, anger, and anxiety about the world serve no positive purpose, neither uplifting nor healing a single being? We are not here for fear, anger, and anxiety. We are here for Beauty. If Beauty stills and stuns our mind, even for a moment, that Beauty must irradiate every atom in creation. Spend a few moments in Beauty every day. She is all around you: in the fur of a cat, in the last garden rose, in the eye of a child, in the fading light o f an evening cloud. Yet these are just reflections of the actual Beauty that vibrates in the core of your heart. Here inside you is the silent pulse of transcendental Beauty, lending its tincture to all that is beautiful: the un-created divine Radiance through whose Beauty we recognize the shadow of beauty in creatures. If not for your own sake, then for the sake of the earth, take a moment to taste and see some small beauty. And from that external image, sink to the source of Beauty i...

Religious beliefs are ruining the earth, and robbing our most essential civil liberties. Now the invitation is offered to give up believing in God, so that we might experience God. The mind that is emptied of every belief descends into the heart, to taste the boundless luminosity of divine love. Love depends no more on a belief than the clarity of the sky depends on a cloud. Took this picture of the clouds over my village on a late summer walk. Some clouds sweet, some heavy, all dissolve. Sky remains...

It is more important to be myself than to be spiritual. Those who are very spiritual, but make war on themselves, cause great stress in the world. If I am against myself in order to become a better person, dividing myself into a 'higher' and 'lower' self to do interior combat, I may call it 'self discipline,' I may be a good Christian soldier, a good Jihadist, a good Yogi, a good Pacifist, a good political activist - but I will inevitably project my inner conflict onto others. The world is not healed by my improvement, it is healed by my embrace. Be a wounded lion in the forest, licking and healing your furry gashes. Honor your flesh. Be not a soul and a body, but a whole field of self-nourishing energy. The Comforter enfolds you as You. The forest heals you, and you heal the forest.

W hen I am unhappy , it is easier to dissolve the I than the unhappiness. When I dissolve, the cloud of the world has nothing to cling to. I evaporate into clear space. In this sky, who cares if clouds come and go? Who cares if whole lifetimes, whole worlds come and go? Ashtavakra says, " Layam vraja : dissolve now!" How then do I dissolve? Begin by accepting that these clouds of unhappiness aren't really mine . They belong to the world. So often I imagine that my unhappiness is a private angst: but it is the world's sorrow that I feel, a great darkness around me that is not truly my own property. When anxiety brings me to my knees, it is a moment of grace. Why? Because mind gives up and sinks into the heart. There, in that deep well, I drop all my worries, because I drop the I. Then there is surrender to a Presence that is always right here, in the midst of doubt or fear. This depth, this very space of nothing at all, becomes alive with spar...

The night behind your eyes is illuminated with countless stars, whether you sleep, or dream, or wake. The breathless wonder of this vast inner sky exists before time, has no boundary, never begins and never ends. The radiant emptiness of perfect bliss is available before you even have the thought of "I." In fact, this thought of "I" is the only illusion overshadowing the Truth, just as the reflection of a fiery red rose overshadows the unfathomable clarity of the mirror in which you be hold it. The bounteous joy of your essence is so immediate, so free from thought, all that stands between you and this Grace is the search for it. Drop the search. One could quote the Psalm and say, "Be still, and know that I AM God." But even this implies that there is something to do, something to know, something to find. You already ARE the stillness, you ARE the source of knowing, you ARE the "AM" from whom both "I" and...

                                   "Beauty is a light in the heart." ~Kalil Gibran In Kali Yuga, the most demented souls incarnate to work out their karma through violence, while the most enlightened souls incarnate to reach liberation through surrender. In no age is the negativity so great. In no age is the outpouring of Grace so overwhelming. In the age of Kali, our attempts at economic, judicial or cultural reform feel futile. The chaos is too extreme. "Progress" in Kali Yuga is not measured by the degree of political change, but by the depths of the heart's surrender. This does not mean that we don't work for change. It means that we do the work that is ours with a heart free from fear and attachment to outcome. This age plunges us into disharmony, caused by the extreme polarization of opposites. Yet it is p...