Spirituality That Works

To reach enlightenment, only two skills are required: No thought. No time.

First, let’s tackle no thought. To accomplish this, meditation must be regularly practiced. It’s fine for beginning meditators to have thoughts, but they must practice not being attached to those thoughts. They need to learn to watch the river of thoughts flow without judgment and without adding more thoughts. That’s the beginning of acquiring a peaceful mind, a non-reactive mind.

Over time, the raging river slows until it … Read More

[If you haven’t already read Part 1, I recommend that you start there. This is a continuation of that conversation.]

Q: You’ve outlined that to achieve permanent enlightenment requires a pretty extreme commitment. Realistically, how many people can just be focused on enlightenment? 

That’s why I don’t usually focus on enlightenment in my teaching. I focus on how to live the best spiritual life you can. I don’t judge those who “want to get spiritually high.” At least that’s a … Read More

Q: I was wondering why so few people reach enlightenment. It seems that most people who have individual enlightenment moments can’t hold onto them. They can’t make them a regular part of their lives. It’s like they get a high, they come back down, then they want to get high again. But they just can’t make it a lasting experience. Why is this?

Because the necessary preliminary groundwork hasn’t been laid. Someone like that might be top-heavy spiritually, but they … Read More

Q: What purpose does complaining serve? Is it ever useful or helpful?

For some people, it can be a form of attention-seeking. Of desiring empathy or understanding from others, “See how hard I have it? See all that I’m trying to do? See how much others aren’t doing?”

For others, it can be a form of boundary-setting. “Don’t ask me to do one more thing because look at all I’m already doing.”

In your life, it’s the release of pent-up … Read More

Q: I was reading a book about Out-of-Body (OOB) experiences. It took the author years of effort to become accomplished at taking these journeys. I’ve been interested in learning how to do this, but I haven’t been consistent. Part of the reason why is that I’m not sure that I care quite enough to do it. I also think there’s a little bit of fear of what might happen.

So much of why the whole subject of intuition scares a … Read More

Q: In addition to meditation, what are the other secrets to getting to a place of stillness and peace?

It is all the same. The process toward that end is all the same. It is learning how to stop time. When one can stop time, this is the meaning of being in the Now.

It is not a matter of saying OK, now I am in this moment of Now. That is not the Now.

The Now is a timeless … Read More

Q: What happens when you sustain a spiritual practice for a long time?

When you’ve sustained a spiritual practice for a long time, you begin experiencing this bedrock place of peace that you live from. Life events ebb and flow. And they can be scary and fun or easy or hard in all the ways that we define joy and suffering. But the bedrock doesn’t go away no matter what the experience is.

The joy can be intensified by the … Read More

Q: Why, when I’ve had enlightenment experiences, do they always start with a rush of great velocity, throwing me out into the universe?

Before there’s a breakthrough to the All-That-Is, in order to go beyond the mind to the All-That-Is, you must go beyond all that the mind knows.  

The mind experiences the universe as the edge of all that can be known. So we must go past the edge of the universe to experience the All-That-Is. Once that bubble … Read More