From the Ashtavakra Gita, a famous classic Advaitin text: When there is no “me,” that is liberation, and when there is “me” there is bondage. Consider this carefully, and neither hold on to anything nor reject anything. 8.4 From Jetzt TV, a German video website. I love this video. Check out Tony’s adorable laugh at […]
Author: Freddie
When Julia got stuck behind her head
An experiment with the location of "me" and an example of the use of a siddhi.
This article describes my girlfriend Julia’s experience a few years ago with a technique taught by a spiritual teacher and author named Aadi who previously called himself Anadi and Aziz Kristof. Julia has read this article, made changes, and given me permission to publish it. The story also involves the use of a siddhi. Caveat: […]
Modes of waking consciousness
Seventeen or eighteen years ago I made the most surprising and most important discovery of my life. I noticed for the first time that I had always been unconscious. During all the years I had been alive, during almost every waking minute, I had been lost in thought. When I say “unconscious” I don’t mean, […]
The energy channel in the front of my body
There are many books and websites about structures in the energy body. Most of them repeat traditional ideas. For example, some of them describe seven main chakras, the sushumna, etc. — ideas from Indian Tantra. Others talk about meridians, collaterals, etc. — ideas from Chinese Daoism. Over the years I’ve experienced lots of energy phenomena […]
I tried to grow tomatoes this summer
but planted them too late so looks like frost will kill them before we get any fruit.
I haven’t published anything here in a long time. A reader of this blog sent me an email recently, encouraging me to write. Because of his interest, I wrote a long email back to him explaining why I’ve stopped writing and saying a few other things besides. It occurs to me that other readers may […]
Bernadette Roberts’s assessment of Anadi
The headline on this post is a little misleading because Bernadette Roberts wasn’t talking specifically about Anadi when she wrote the paragraphs below, but I think they apply to him quite well. In case you don’t know, Anadi is a spiritual teacher who used to call himself Aziz Kristof and whose birth name is Krzysztof […]
Provisional definitions of ‘know’ and ‘consciousness’
To explain things clearly, fundamental words must be carefully defined.
I’m toying with the idea of writing a book about enlightenment. To help sort out my ideas, from time to time I may write chunks of that potential book on this blog. One of the ways we can clarify ideas is by choosing technical terms and defining them carefully. The word “know” I’ll give “know” […]
Saul Bellow
What kind of wise man flunks kindergarten?
I recently got back in touch with an old friend from graduate school for the first time in 40 years. We’re in our late sixties now. Our conversation reminded me of the following event which I would like to tell you about. We were students at the University of Chicago in a department called the […]
Does anyone know who this lady is?
The woman in the center of this photo has intrigued me for years. It’s not just her face. Look how relaxed her hands are. The photo was taken in 1948 or 1949 at Sri Ramana Maharshi’s ashram by Eliot Elisofon for Life Magazine. She is sitting front and center in a crowd of people. Most […]
Walking Upanishads
A friend of mine just sent me an email that reminds me of a comment that somebody once made about Ramana Maharshi: I think our Bhagavan has attained Self-realisation. Such beings are walking Upanishads.* My friend wrote: I don’t say that my (there’s really no ‘my’ I just see hands typing and thoughts being expressed) […]