How to Find Your Inner Teacher

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…

From the Hands of Many to the Hands of a Few  At the beginning of human existence, back when we were on a level playing field with all other animals, our instinct for survival was extremely heightened and developed. This instinct was as necessary as any other sense. And because it was employed on a nearly constant basis, it was a dependably reliable means of acquiring information. The survival instinct was used in much the same way any pack or…

In the beginning, starting around middle school and often continuing through our early twenties, a mysterious sadness begins rising in our consciousness, usually arriving in tandem with a low-level anxiety. Until we figure out the cause, we do our best to live with this feeling of, “Oh no, I’m getting pulled under.”??  Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyone to help us identify what this melancholy feeling is really about. Even at this early age, life can start to feel…

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…

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…

Q: There is an ongoing debate as to whether spiritual seekers need teachers to reach enlightenment, or whether they can find the way on their own. What do you think? I’ll give the short answer first and then go into a more full explanation. The answer is no, you can’t reach enlightenment without a teacher. Absolutely all people who have reached full permanent enlightenment had a teacher of some kind. Whether that teacher was a stranger they met on the…

Walking with Awareness in Nature vs a Walking Meditation There are several types of walking meditations and all of them offer valuable benefits. The more common ones instruct you to focus on the breath, and/or repeat a mantra and/or be aware of each step as you pick up your foot and put it down, or to pay attention to the present moment, etc. What they all share is some kind of focused attention to help you practice staying fully present…

Q: If somebody asked you, what’s one change I can make right now that will change my life the fastest, what can I do? What would you say? At the top of the list of changes that can impact your life immediately is to have no contact with media of any kind. Outside of work, use no technology. That means no TV. No Internet. No computers, tablets, or cell phones. No emails. No texts. Put a stop to all of…

Q: Why is there suffering? And why do nondualists say it’s all in our heads? Let’s consider the second part of your question first. Putting it as simply as I can, the nondualist perspective is that what we call reality is nothing more than a reflection. No different than the watching of a film. You can watch the film on the screen, and get so absorbed, that you’ll have emotional and physiological responses, but the movie isn’t real. So, therefore,…

Q: When I was in the dentist chair, to get away from the discomfort, I tried to put myself up to the ceiling and detach. I imagined myself looking down at my body so I would feel less distressed. This didn’t work all that well. Had you practiced and been successful at doing that before? Q: No, not really. If you’ve never left your body before, it’s not likely you would be able to leave your body in a moment…

Q: In my reading lately, it seems that most Eastern philosophies and religions keep pushing the point that everything is suffering. Do you agree? I need to get you guys to start reading other books besides Buddhism, and Hinduism! Trying to translate the Eastern nondual view for the Western mind creates so many challenges, including the need for an entirely different vocabulary, and framework for seeing the world. Even though I’m going to be accused of speaking out of both…

Q: Why didn’t you tell me up front that this spiritual path is hard?  Would it have changed your mind?  Q:  No.  True. So, why waste energy when your mind was already made up?  Q:  I would have known more about what to expect—I would have been better prepared.  Life and actions prepare—not anticipation, worry, or fear. Life is both easy and hard no matter what path you take. Determination and heart are what make the difference. So, wholeheartedly embrace…

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?…

Q: What are the key elements of a spiritual practice? This is a very large subject, but as meditation is often pointed out as a key element of any spiritual practice, let’s start there. Various meditations are used for various practices and outcomes. And, there can be levels to these meditations. But, as with all spiritual practices that move us toward oneness/awareness, the truth is that any meditation practiced diligently can get the job done. But even within some spiritual…

Q: I sold my company five years ago and have built a net worth of ~$10 million, but compared to my friends I feel like a loser and still keep trying hard at startups that stress me out and make me miserable. What should I do?

The monetary number is not the issue–10 million, 10 billion. That’s just a way of counting coups. It’s how you’re comparing yourself to your peers in a way that makes you feel lacking and/or …

Where Do You Dwell?

I remember one chilly evening spent on a mountain top in India with a 119-year-old master. We’d become very fond of each other over our many visits. This particular night, we were gazing out from the top of Mt Abu looking over the vast plains of Rajasthan below and I was lamenting that he had it easier on his mountaintop. He only had one job as a guru and that was to live a spiritual life…

The energy released by this explosion could be equivalent to millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time. (Photo: Nasa)

Q: How is, or is recent sunspot and solar flare activity affecting humans?

Recent solar activity (the earth is experiencing an intense solar storm this week) has been blasting the atmosphere with ionized particles. The equivalent of throwing pebbles into the pond causing concentric waves to radiate out. And because so many pebbles are thrown in at once, the concentric circles cause interference with each other, resulting in disruptive patterns. The point is, it’s hard now for us to hold thoughts. Or to…

Q: Do most people think in words rather than in images?

True. Most people are trained to have nonstop thoughts, which are words strung together. The beginning of releasing thoughts is to begin to start learning to see in images.

Images don’t trigger thoughts in the same way. This may seem counterintuitive because images are more likely to create and evoke emotions. A picture is worth 1000 words.

In fact, the longer you work to see in images rather than…

Q: In reading Master of Self-Realization by Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj, I find that his answer to everything is that we are experiencing an illusion. We need to let go and just stop caring about whatever it is. That’s all there is to it. But for me, it’s not helpful to be told to just let go. What am I missing?

This is one of the reasons why Eastern spirituality can be tricky for Westerners. The Advaita Vedanta teachings do…

Answer key is here »

Q: Sometimes we search for so long we reach a point where we don’t even know what it was we were searching. But there is this longing that remains. What now?  What’s needed is a moment of recognition. Something clicks that makes us feel alive and excited.  That’s one of the things that happen when we find an external teacher. We have that sensation of hope that here’s somebody who could take me further down the path. You may not…

The mistake that people make with all spiritual practices is they walk into this room full of tools, and all these tools can help you to break through the illusion of duality, into that spiritual awareness connection, into the All-That-Is.  But what most people do is they try a tool for a brief period. They don’t get the quick results they’re looking for. They drop the tool. They go back and pick up another tool. “Let me try this one.”…

A few thousand years ago, back when the Buddha was alive—that was a very different world. There weren’t the distractions that there are today. Living back in that time, you were already much closer to being able to be in the now, because there was very little to distract from the now.  There are different challenges now. The principles are what they are, and they still work. But the effort that’s required now is much greater. So it requires a…

The current world energy could be summed up as a “Do Not Enter” sign with its red outer circle and horizontal bar. But if you look with a shifted perspective, you can also see that the bar can also be viewed as a handle that can be used to push the door open. Presently, many people are experiencing a kind of holding, where they don’t know how to proceed or believe they cannot proceed because they take at face value…

Can it work that there are certain numbers of people in a community or around the world, who if they think good thoughts, they can overcome the destructive thoughts?  On one plane, yes. But on the physical plane, destructive energy is a very dense energy that overtakes most things in its path.  An angry person has a much greater chance of making other people around them angry than a happy person has of making people around them happy. Negative energy…

In pursuing a spiritual path, what do I need to do to have an awakening experience? I tried going to church but didn’t have the experience I was hoping for. The way many people go about “pursuing” an awakening experience can actually backfire because they set up the experience as a goal. “My goal is to have an awakening experience.” It becomes the craving for the sensation, rather than understanding what an awakening experience is.  That’s the difference between setting…

What are the main points that need to be made in finding your inner teacher?  Being connected to the source is a birthright that has been taken from us by cultural conditioning.  Remembering is easy. Decide to remember.   Pay attention as though your life depends on it. By paying attention, you will begin noticing much more and you will remember, “Oh, this is this connection. I feel as though I am communicating with what I am paying attention to.” There is a flow back and forth of beingness…

I keep having this feeling that I’m ready to make a big change. But at the same time feeling that I’m not really ready. That’s the “Getting ready to get ready” stage. Yeah, and what’s that about? Because everybody is going to want to know how do I get ready as quickly as possible? It’s a pacing step that’s necessary because when you have those kinds of massive jumps that are life-changing (I call them jumps to hyperspace), you can’t…

What role do dreams play in our lives?  They are the safety valve for the subconscious. They release stored pent-up emotions, memories, hurts, worries. And they can provide creative solutions. They can reveal multiple dimensions. But primarily it is a way for the body to decompress from the day’s activities. A chance for healing. A kind of reset.  Not as an erasing, more like filing in the proper cabinet so that it can coexist peacefully rather than be strewn about…

For someone to be able to make use of the inner teacher, do they have to have a certain degree of confidence in knowing that what they’re getting is from the inner teacher? What builds that confidence is validation over time—it requires duration plus positive experience with the inner teacher. It’s like anything else, you’re building a muscle. But this is a very different kind of muscle because it’s invisible and the results are, to a degree, intangible. It’s not like lifting weights where…

Q: So, you’re saying to stop trying to game the system. Play it straight up. Here and now. That will make for a pretty big change after a lifetime of trying to see up ahead, around corners. And where has that gotten you? Q: That’s what fear and worry do though. When you feel that you have to watch out for everyone else and yourself–that’s a lot of responsibility. That’s a lot of moving parts. That’s a lot of things that…

Do we, as humans, have free will?  As humans, no.  Then why is it that we feel like we need to make decisions?  Because humans are the smallest part of consciousness. The unmanifest creates the human, which becomes the manifest. Once it has been manifested, the journey has been set for the duration.  Did the universe create everything at once?  No, the unmanifest created the universe. In the creation of the universe, everything was set for the duration.  You are putting the starting point later. When something is manifest, the starting point is over and the duration…

Do all people have the experience of trying to remember the connection of awareness that they’ve forgotten something, but they don’t remember what it is they’ve forgotten? All people on a spiritual path do. The way they experience it is as a kind of deep-set loneliness that can live well below consciousness. Somebody may not be thinking every day, “Gosh, I’m so lonely” but there’s a feeling of being disconnected from everything that’s common to a lot of people.  So…

Start with First Things First Q: How should people go about achieving their dreams? Most people are inclined to put the cart before the horse. It’s valuable to have dreams, but most people don’t know why they have the dreams they have. Many have them because they’ve fallen into them and don’t know what other dreams to have. Yes, through dreaming, people create their own reality and lives. But so many of these dreams get shaped at times in our…

Q: Does everyone have an intuitive ability? Yes. Everyone is born with an active intuitive awareness, otherwise known as the instinct for survival. Because this is essentially an unused sense, which is typically not valued or is feared, most parents teach it out of their children at a very early age. Q: Are you saying that intuition is nothing more than a glorified survival instinct? Intuition is a refined version, yes. Before the modern age when humans were on an…

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 illusion, then you…

Don’t we all wish we’d learned how to meditate when we were young? All adult meditators would agree. And yet how many meditating parents still haven’t found the time or the way to start with their young children. The secret to success: Keep it Short. Keep it Simple. Keep it Fun. Following is a simple and easy way to get started. But first, a few tips. Keep the language and imagery simple. Stay away from loaded words. Keep the meditation…

I recently got asked, “Why do I keep seeing repeating numbers? Does it have a spiritual meaning?” In this case, this person was seeing the same time on the clock every day at 1:11, 3:33, and 4:44 day and night. I have to laugh, because—case in point—when I went to check her text for her numbers series, this was on my phone home screen. This is a well-documented synchronicity phenomenon that I’ll explain in a moment. It’s just that some…

There are three key components to finding the inner teacher. It is truly this simple. Stop. Look. Listen. The stopping is stopping the craziness of modern life. Stopping habits that keep you trapped in behaviors that you know are nothing but time wasters. Stop using your phones as a pacifier. Stop running around looking externally for the outer world to fulfill you in any lasting way. Stop hectic lifestyles. Part of the stopping includes beginning the process of meditation, which…

This conversation came out of discussing The Inner Life of Trees and Finding the Mother Tree. Q: I’ve been thinking about trees and their ability to communicate with each other and to help each other and I was wondering if their consciousness is greater than ours? What they have kept in their evolutionary process is a groupthink, a oneness that humans have lost. We used to have it and that was where there used to be telepathic communication and the…

From the time we take on language, our ability to see things clearly for what they are, as they are in real-time, is impacted by perception and memory. Both have been culturally influenced, so cannot be fully relied on to reveal any great truths. You must look past your story; the story of who you’ve been told you are by parents, teachers, clergy, friends, culture. You must look past the memories because memories are inherently inaccurate. They are stored perceptions…

Q: I’m feeling stuck in old patterns. A: Work to try to shake yourself out of the habits that are preventing you from changing, from getting to where you want to go. For example, don’t start the day at the computer. Start it outside going for a walk, or exercising, or reading. Q: I know, I’ve made my energy and my life very small. But it feels manageable. Making it bigger feels like just adding more to the to-do list….

We are born in a state of oneness—still aware of our pure connection with a greater knowing, a greater beingness and the all-that-is. But as soon as we are taught language, we begin being taught how to forget. How is that possible? Let’s use the word “tree,” which is a language symbol for the image symbol for the thing itself. We’ve instantly been twice removed from pure reality. Much gets lost in the translation. Each time we are indoctrinated into…

Q: How do we make ourselves better able to embrace change and uncertainty? You have a major opportunity right now. This national uncertainty we’re facing will continue intensely for quite a while before it levels out. Knowing that this is not going to go away quickly will prevent you from rushing back to the status quo. Most of this has to do with varying levels of acceptance: acceptance of certain emotional states, external world conditions, and so on. Once we…