Mystic Minds

I originally wrote the comment below as a reply to a member’s blog, but I got thinking that it would be a nice addition to my series on Angry Planet, so here it is: Everywhere I look these days, I read questions about what to DO to save the planet. Not everyone will agree, but [...]

In spite of many entries explaining what it really means to BE in the moment, I forgot to mention the obvious – the main reason why  learning to BE Awake and Aware and of our own energy in any given moment is essential for the one interested in genuine spirituality. We do not see for [...]

I neither wish to upset anyone nor ‘rock the boat’ but recently the Dalai Lama in was New York. Next week, His Holiness will be in Japan. Then from August to September, he will be delivering a flurry of teachings in India, Hungry and California and, so on, he will keep going. Cool, but why [...]

A propos of nothing, Ego is not *a rose by any other name.* Psychology has its own definition/understanding of the ego – something in our personality that needs to be killed, stamped out or shrunk, at the very least, by any means possible. Religion also has its specific understanding of the ego – one that equally [...]

Since the dawn of time, the human brain, the crucible of invention, has sought to facilitate if not entirely cancel out human involvement in many menial tasks. From the lighting of fire, to the transport of goods, to the washing of clothes, to the cooking of food, all the way to validating tickets, soldering and [...]

Deepwater Horizon: The ”top kill” approach, in which BP pumped tonnes of heavy mud and cement and assorted rubber and metal ”junk” into the well in a bid to seal it, failed despite initial claims of success. In the next procedure, the pipe through which the oil is escaping, called a riser, will be cut and covered. [...]

Gratitude for what *we* have is great, absolutely, but isn’t it true that, even on a good day, most of what we do and think is about Me and Mine vs Them and Theirs? Though we are but souls disguised as humans, the notion of our separateness from others permeates most of what we do and think. [...]

Unlike the caterpillar, we don’t metamorphose. Not unless we commit to an active path towards personal evolution – one that dictates a change, not through chants, crystals and visualization, but from rethinking thinking, rethinking what love is and doing our darnedest to generate it from the inside/out.

A few major obstacles stand between *us* and our *true selves*: ambition, pride, ruthlessness, greed, competitiveness – all characteristics that are culturally valued and fostered – as well as a visceral fear of losing *all*, thus losing all chance of ever being loved – are the ugly spin-offs against which the achievers in their respective [...]

Here’s me thinking that all religions look after the ritual part in Spiritual very nicely but – question: what  looks after the spirit part of …Spiritual?

Dalai Lama in NY– why pay some US$400 to hear him speak when what he says is no diff from what any spiritual/religious person would say? Don’t our *genuine* local parish priest, our local rabbi, or our local iman talk about tolerance, forgiveness and acceptance – and humility? Surely, he does not need them for [...]

Cont’d from How New Can *new* Ever Be? Back to ‘where we were’ – almost literally: nothing in our world is truly *new* and not one of us is unique because there have always been athletes and healers and artists and homeless people, just as there have always been grandparents, teachers and musicians, and inventors [...]

Leverkühnm, the syphilis-crazed, artist character in Thomas Mann’s novel, Doctor Faustus, ends up being visited by a very clever devil who, in effect, says something to the fact that though Leverkühnm can only see *him/it* because he is mad, does not mean that he/it does not really exist. Cool, and that made me think of Soul. [...]

Here is a nice tale related to wooden statues of Buddha. It’s about a Zen master who arrived, one stormy night, to a deserted temple. The rain had been coming down heavily all day long and it was very cold as well. The Zen master walked up to a wooden statue of the Buddha, paced in front [...]

About someone: “Totally incompetent and arrogant as well!” For sure, we did not get from this person what *we* wanted form them – or we didn’t get it in the way we wanted it. About someone:”Really lovely and so efficient!” For sure, we got from that person what *we* wanted from them – and the [...]

My soul is looking down the barrel of an ongoing cycle of incarnations, along with most of the souls currently incarnated which, for our souls, amounts to nothing less than an endless string of life spans spent in captivity, bag-over-head, with a disorientated sort of *feeling*, even though in the eternal spiritual realm, lifetimes are [...]