A man is driving down a road and his car develops a flat tire. He doesn’t have a jack, so he is forced to walk to a nearby farmhouse in order to ask for help. The walk causes him to become grouchy and curse his fate. Why should he have to suffer this inconvenience? Why […]
A man goes to a spiritual teacher and is given a small statue of a form of God. He thinks the statue is pretty snazzy so he places it on the mantle in his living room. A few days later he notices how dusty the statue has gotten, so he cleans it off. While doing
A man goes to a spiritual teacher and is told, “God is inside every living being.” Thrilled with this new knowledge, the fellow walks home repeating to himself, “God is inside all beings, God is inside all beings, God is inside…” Suddenly startled from his reverie, he hears someone yelling, “Look out! A wild elephant
There once was a prince who, being the son of a wise and powerful king, was also wise and powerful. One fine day he went to the river to take his morning bath. He felt so good that he decided to swim clear across to the other shore. He took off his royal robes and
In this essay, I would like to outline five stages along the spiritual path. These are intended to serve as a contextual map which I hope can help the aspirant make sense of the major issues he will face in his spiritual growth. In writing this, I risk exacerbating a common problem — the tendency
Stages of Spiritual Development Read More »
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
When I was a teenager, I held my first job working for my father at his small auto parts store. Being exposed to the world of work and the occupations of different people somehow stirred me deeply. I became very appreciative that things do not appear out of thin air. Bridges, cars, offices, restaurants– these
Who Created The World? Read More »
Why do bad things happen to good people? To put it simply, they don’t. The reason for this is twofold. First, who is a good person and who is a bad person? In reality, each of us is such a mixed bag of personality traits and ego quirks that it is impossible to place our
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A learned professor wished to cross the river, so he engaged the services of a common ferryman. As the ferryman rowed his small craft, the professor asked his opinion on the government’s economic policy. The ferryman apologized to the professor, explaining that he was an uneducated man who had never learned the principals of economics.
Ambika and I were traveling with Shree Ma and Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Devi Mandir in Napa, Calif. Shree Ma is one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. She is a tiny Bengali woman who, when fully wet, hauls about 90 lbs. on a 5 ft. and not many inches
