Spirituality That Works

I was recently talking with someone about Death Is But a Dream, a book by hospice physician Dr. Christopher Kerr, who has spent years researching the experiences of people approaching death.

What’s striking about his research is how differently dying often is from what most of us imagine. Many of us assume that people at the end of their lives will be filled with regrets about what they did or didn’t do, and all the things they wish they’d … Read More

What Happens When Spiritual Inquiry Moves from Why to How to Who?

I recently listened to a short talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda called What Is the Purpose of Life if I Am “That”? (You can listen to the Youtube talk here»)

The question he was speaking to is one of those questions that can keep a spiritually inclined person occupied for years:

If I am already Brahman, already the Absolute, why am I here going through all of this? Why … Read More

Q: Is there a spiritual unified theory of everything?

The challenge with the question you are trying to resolve is that there is no language to adequately explain this. There is no representation that can work because all representations are bounded. You are looking for a theory of everything that explains your enlightenment experience in a way that lines it up with your waking experience.

You wish to understand what weaves it all together. “What allows it all to exist? … Read More

Q: Can you explain the influence language has on our perception of reality as spiritual beings? 

When we’re born it’s with total awareness. The full connection to the All–That-Is is still intact. When you look into a newborn’s eyes, you can see the ancientness of the soul. Because that infant is still completely connected.

Then, in order for us to live within the families and cultures into which we’re born, we need a unifying, shared reality. A new program gets … Read More

Q: Every time I try to meditate, I wind up falling asleep. Should I be trying to do something to force myself to stay awake?

Meditation is a practice that can involve both relaxation and focused attention. It’s not uncommon to feel drowsy or even fall asleep during the relaxation phase of meditation, especially if you’re tired and/or haven’t been sleeping well. In fact, some meditation techniques, such as Yoga Nidra and Guided Imagery, are specifically designed to promote relaxation … Read More

Most people think of karma as a spiritual principle of cause and effect/punishment and reward. This view holds that the sum of a person’s previous and current actions determines their fate in the future. For example, if someone committed bad deeds in a previous life, they would be punished for those past misdeeds in this life. If you are a good person in this life, you would be rewarded in your next life.

From a non-punitive view, karma is what … Read More

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t … Read More

In order to survive, we all build a shell to live in. For some, the shell is the athlete, the brain, the attractive one, the funny one, the kind-nice one, the in-control-get-things-done one. There are many shells. But that’s all it is; a shell game.  

But you won’t know this until you lift the shell up to see that there’s nothing underneath it. You don’t live in the shell, the shell is not you. When you are freed from that … Read More