The Sturdy, Stable Thing

My friend Jyothi sent a message yesterday. She was very excited about an experience that had just happened to her. Earlier in the day, in the morning, she had meditated with voluntary effort. Then later in the afternoon she fell into involuntary meditation. This pattern of intentional meditation in the morning and natural meditation in […]

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Susie

I was living at my girlfriend’s apartment in the late 1990s when I got seriously interested in meditation. She had two cats, a male and a female. The female, who I’ll call Susie, was about fourteen years old, black, and very fat. She followed me everywhere in the apartment. When I sat at the desk […]

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A Profound Radiant Stillness

K2Love wrote in a comment: I haven’t found happiness while practicing being conscious either, but I assume it is because I am not really conscious and that I am mostly lost-in-thoughts during my daily routine. And, even when I am conscious to be aware of my consciousness, I am still in the realm of thoughts […]

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Sadhana 5

Sadhana is an activity that people do in order to become enlightened. Examples: meditation, japa (chanting mantras), Self-enquiry. People sometimes think that sadhana is a step-by-step activity that we learn from a book or guru. They think there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. They think the guru is a sort of […]

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Three simple answers

Alec wrote: I know there are no simple answers to the most difficult questions of life. I’m not so sure about that. How about: Look at things from the other person’s point of view. Be conscious. Yearn to know yourself.

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How to Stay Conscious 3

Alec wrote in a commment: I keep reading How to Stay Conscious 1 and some other articles of yours over and over as they have helped me to remain conscious. I am however not able abide in that state for more than a few minutes at a time. I thanked Alec for telling me that […]

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Ramana Maharshi 2

There are many books of Ramana’s dialogs; some report his words more faithfully than others. According to David Godman, the great scholar of Ramana’s life and works, Maharshi’s Gospel is among the more reliable ones. In Chapter III of that book we find the following dialog: Devotee: There are times when persons and things take […]

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Annamalai Swami 1

Annamalai Swami once said: In the same way, mind is just a self-inflicted area of darkness in which the light of the Self has been deliberately shut out. When you see this remark, which is quoted in the wonderful book Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, you have two choices. 1. You can think, “That’s poetry. I’m […]

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It is Always Now

Somebody wrote to me a few months ago about placing his attention on the Now. He thought this was very difficult but he had worked out a method for doing it, and he was optimistic that in the near future he would finally succeed in grasping the elusive Now. His method was based on his […]

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Is the Aware State a New Concept?

K2Love left this comment a day or two ago at the bottom of my article How to Stop Thoughts: I can’t thank you enough for writing and posting this clear and detailed article! I started to meditate several months ago and I had been looking for some tangible suggestions — not philosophies or quotes or […]

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