How does one square the circle of devotion to deities in nonduality? It’s a mystery. And I mean that in a technical sense. It’s an apparent truth that the mind can’t fathom or explain. But what’s a spiritual rationalist to do with this kind of essentially faith-based view? Loosely speaking there are at least two…
In the course of our lives sometimes we find that we don’t really want what’s happening, we wouldn’t necessarily choose it for ourselves. But we’re called to it, it’s happening and so we have to make our peace with it. In order to stay sane and non-distressed we have to give our assent to the…
I’ve always been interested on the creative process itself as much as artistic outcomes. It’s the magic of something from nothing. The mystery of that. The spark of inspiration that calls us to follow where it leads – one trusting step after another. The unpacking and unfolding the tender seed of an idea. In this…
Conscience is a strange thing, it’s intuitive, it’s felt. When we’re in tune with it it’s bliss even though its dictates might be difficult to follow. But when we’re not listening it nags and emits a sense of unease. It’s like a Geiger counter that makes odd erratic noises until it picks up the signal,…
We are opaque to ourselves. We don’t know why we do the things we do, what our deep motivations are. We just act first and explain or excuse later. It’s how it works, how we work; act first, the mind accounts for it later. Which makes sense as we were pre-verbal as living organisms for…
Among other things, spiritual awakening is the trigger for radical release, the popped cork that frees up the suppressed energetics held in place by the egoic self. So post-awakening there can often be — but not always — a strong and sometimes lengthy release of embodied trauma. Many people experience this to varying degrees, but…
Do I have an overarching thesis? Yes. It’s that our nature is Divine consciousness and our forgetfulness of that reality makes us suffer. Now ‘Divine’ is a very particular word and I use it in the sense that it pertains to the supreme being, the absolute, ultimate intelligence, the source of all. And ‘forgetfulness’ is…
It’s worth remembering that when we deal with the Devil he honours his side of the bargain and we do actually get what we wanted, or so the stories tell. We want to be rich and powerful; done. We want to be a great blues guitarist; done. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t deliver, it’s…
The tagline on my website used to say, ‘exploring present-moment awareness’ which sounds okay on the face of it, but the truth is I’m not exploring at all; I’m observing, witnessing. I’m not going anywhere or doing anything, I’m not plumbing any depths, I’m not even responding to anything; I’m just here, watching ‘the world’…
While faith has a political dimension Partisan politics is deeply divisive The faithful of whatever stripe Should cleanse their hearts of such division Individually we must include the ‘other’ Warts and all If our hearts are filled with self-righteousness And moral certainty Of the kind that condemns the other That abandons the other As fallen…