Ah, yes. The to-do list. I have one. Actually, I have multiple to-do lists. I’m a Gemini, so I always need more than one of everything. I’ve written somewhere about my to-don’t list, which is nothing more than all the things I am no longer doing/signing up for. For some reason, I cannot find that…so…
Actress Patricia Routledge, a British treasure of screen and stage, with an extraordinary range, has died. Best known for playing the social-climbing battleaxe Hyacinth Bucket in classic TV sitcom Keeping Up Appearances (“an absolute monster and I enjoyed playing her enormously.”) she also starred in Alan Bennett’s TV monologues, and in BBC One’s amateur sleuth…
The Dark Night of the Soul and the Path to Awakening The dark night of the soul isn’t just words for me. It was a dark period of my life that stripped me of everything I thought I knew. If you’ve been through it, you know it is not poetic or romantic. It is a…
Why Spiritual Awakening Feels Lonely at Times There are moments on this spiritual path that feel like being cast adrift. The old way of being that once felt normal has fallen away. Conversations that once excited you now taste flat. Friends who were once companions feel far away. You’re here, but you are not quite…
From Clarity to Chaos and Back Again: Breaking Free from the Spiritual Pendulum The spiritual path is not a straight line. It rises in moments of clarity, falls into confusion, rises again with new insight, then sinks once more into suffering. Some days, you feel boundless, as if awakening is just within reach. Other days,…
“I am not the body.” These words, spoken by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and other Advita texts are repeated in spiritual circles. People say them like a sacred chant. But words, even the wisest ones, can become empty if we rush past their meaning. What did he truly mean? And what are we missing when we…
This reflection began one morning while I was traveling on the train in Melbourne, somewhere between two nameless stations. As the train hummed beneath me, the carriage was full and silent, as if everyone had agreed to disappear into their own thoughts. I sat there unnoticed, watching life play itself out in fragments. A train…
The Advaita and Buddhist Traps of Binary Thinking Binary thinking splits the world into opposites—true or false, real or unreal, self or no-self. We try to choose between them, but in doing so, we miss the truth: reality is beyond opposites. On the spiritual path, binary thinking tricks us, pretending to offer clarity while keeping…
The journey of spiritual awakening is a winding road with many twists and turns along the way. While there are some common patterns and spiritual awakening stages that many people experience, everyone’s path is unique and unfolds differently. As someone who has walked this path for decades, I can say that the spiritual awakening stages…
Satsang has been a profound part of my spiritual journey, and I can’t overstate the impact it has had on my personal spiritual growth and transformation. The word “satsang” itself has such a beautiful resonance – derived from the Sanskrit terms “sat” (truth) and “sang” (company or association), it means “being in the company of…
