The other day, I put on some socks. Lo and behold, it was uncomfortable to walk because there was a pebble in one of the socks. I sat down, took off the sock, shook out the pebble and went about my day. We all have things in our lives that make us uncomfortable. This should come […]
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There once was a teenage boy who was quite the rapscallion. He was in trouble at school, with the local authorities, and seemingly immune from social niceties. He came from a good family, and his parents tried everything to get him on the straight and narrow. They had him speak with his school principal,
In the epic myth, Ramayana, Hanuman is presented as being the intermediary between the world of humanity and that of divinity, a Christ figure. His mother was a monkey, his father was the god of wind. As such, he is part mammal and part divine spirit, just like us. The genius of portraying such a
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The contemporary Zen Master, John Daido Lori, has said that for an aspirant to progress on the spiritual path he or she will need Great Faith, Great Doubt, and Great Determination. I capitalize these qualities in an effort to represent the magnitude of the spiritual undertaking. We are not referring to faith, doubt, or determination
The king called the yogi to his court and asked for a blessing. The yogi said, “What have I to do with blessings? I teach people how to end their own suffering so they can bless themselves. Regardless, since you asked, here is my blessing: May your father die, then may you die, and then
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No one is happy all the time. It’s impossible. Earth school can be tough. Cut yourself some slack, and avoid the stress and frustration of laboring for an unrealistic goal that is unattainable. What is possible, however, is to be happy a considerable amount of your life. Here are some suggestions. I hope you find
I suppose this is as good a place as any for a public confession. My disclosure is that for too many years I misunderstood the goal of yoga practice and paraded my accomplishments in sadhana as having some value. I could sit in the lotus pose until my knees went numb, I could go without
Two yogis had the habit of sneaking to the back of the ashram to smoke cigarettes. They started to feel lousy about it, so they decided they would speak to the guru. Later, they got together to compare their conversations. The first yogi announced, “Bad news. The guru has instructed me to stop smoking.” The
From the unreal, lead us to the real. From darkness, lead us to light. From death, lead us to immortality. Above is an ancient prayer from the yogic tradition that is fascinating to me for several reasons. First, it states that our current level of consciousness is unreal, dark, and morbid. Second, it suggests there
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The ashram was having a problem with mice, so the guru brought home a good cat. The cat did a fine job on the mice but she became attached to the guru and would follow him everywhere, even when he was performing his morning meditations. In order to keep the cat from disrupting his meditations,
