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Spiritual Teachers

Gratitude meditation – thanking our teachers

I’ve written about gratitude before, but I think the topic merits a revisit. For one thing: in our culture we’re taught, by psychologists, to face up to the negative things our parents and teachers did to us as we grew up. Facing up to our emotions, including the negative, is a good thing no doubt. [...]

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Sticking to one spiritual path, vs New Age shopping…

Spiritual teachers have traditionally advised people to stick to whatever spiritual tradition it is they grew up in. In Zen Buddhism this is true to the point where one teacher who became the head of a tradition not his own was seen as not quite at his ease. (source) It’s true of course: switching traditions [...]

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Jiddu Krishnamurti as a man of his time

Let met start this by saying that as I’ve had more experience meditating, I have gained in respect for Jiddu Krishnamurti, because he describes the experience so well. However, it’s not thanks to Krishnamurti that I did start meditating, nor is he any help in doing so. And that is precisely the limit to his [...]

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Can you feel the quality of a spiritual teacher?

I got a book for review recently that I put down within a few minutes because it made me all jittery. A few days ago we had a spiritual teacher do a lecture at our local theosophical lodge, and he turned the room quiet. We didn’t even have questions to last the full time set [...]

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Spiritual teachings best fresh?

I dreamt of fruit going bad last night, so I wonder… are spiritual teachings best ‘consumed’ fresh? What do you all think… are classic spiritual books for instance of the same value as say the fresh teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Eckhart Tolle and the Dalai Lama? Comment Zen: I’m not asking for dream analysis [...]

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Michael Mirdad interview

As promised, here’s some questions I had for Michael Mirdad, author of ‘You’re Not Going Crazy…You’re Just Waking Up! The Five Stages of Soul Transformation Process’, and his answers. 1. You say that nearly every process of learning is ultimately about understanding and experiencing greater levels of unconditional love (p. 14). What do you mean [...]

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When yoga increases stress: about the teacher

Yoga is generally sold online and off as a great stress reliever. I can vouch for that: with the right teacher, yoga can be very healthy emotionally. I’ve often come away from a yoga class with a great big smile on my face that was certainly not there before. However, last week when I was [...]

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Osel Hita Torres – aka Lama Osel goes on to make movies

This is a true story that someone emailed me because it reminded them of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s story. That is: someone raised to be a teacher, steps outside the tradition that he was brought up in to do something totally different. Lama Osel was born to Spanish parents, but brought up as the reincarnation of Thubten [...]

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Limits to quantum mechanics and spiritual freedom

I’ve been reading Creative Evolution: A Physicist’s Resolution Between Darwinism and Intelligent Design, by Amit Goswami. I’m impressed, the chemist in me (I was taught some quantum physics in college) doesn’t find fault. Nor does the biologist or the philosopher (I took biology and philosophy of religion classes in college too). But I do have [...]

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Jiddu Krishnamurti and theosophy (and occultism)

In response to a question by Gino… Jiddu Krishnamurti is best known for having left the Theosophical Society early in his career. What’s less well known, though described in the biography by Pupul Jayakar is that at the end of his life, in private conversation, he talked about his life in a way that confirms [...]

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