A friend asked today if I believe that some people can see auras. Although I can’t see them, yes I do. Here’s why. This is a true story. When I was a child my father barely survived a heart attack. From that day on I lived with the expectation that at any moment he might […]
Author: Freddie
My experiment in the New York City subway
The subject of external aids (videos, satsangs, music, chanting, books, etc.) came up in a comment yesterday. These things can be very helpful by reminding us, inspiring us, and transmission. Incidentally, if you’ve never been in a large hall, especially a large wooden hall, where hundreds of people are chanting, try to arrange it at […]
A childhood with Ramana
These two videos with Kitty Osborne, who spent her childhood in Ramana’s ashram, are extraordinary. I thought I knew a lot about Ramana from reading a bazillion books about him but wow, was I missing some major parts of the picture. I cried the whole time I watched these, but there is plenty of food […]
Einstein on Consciousness
From an article by Galen Strawson, a philosopher of conciousness: Herbert Feigl remembers a conversation with Einstein in Princeton in 1954 in which he asked Einstein whether he thought that “the qualities of immediate experience” would be left out in an ideally perfect representation of the universe — given that they are not accounted for […]
Is this manonasha?
Is this manonasha? Is it a different kind of manonasha from what we see in the Tony Parsons video? Is it preliminary to manonasha? Something else entirely? The part that surprised me the most was that the “ego” doesn’t disappear at all. It doesn’t die, because it never lived. Rather, my false belief that a […]
Does philosophy help?
Riccardo asked me on Realization.org’s Discord (it was later shut down due to lack of interest): Did you find that understanding the philosophy of self-realization was of help to Realizing? Short answer: I don’t think it’s a significant help. There are traditions that claim that intellectual understanding is a huge help, even a sufficient factor […]
Manonasha
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 […]
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 […]