I have been thinking a lot about “listening” this past week. We all know how important this skill is for friendships. It’s no fun to hang out with people who never pay attention to what you are saying. But how do we treat Spirit and the world around us as a friend?

I have read a number of articles about “balance” recently. Surely it is better to be balanced than imbalanced! But there is an implication in that concept that I am not sure is as helpful to us as it might be, or at least may not be addressing the more important issue.

I was with my spiritual teacher in Italy. It was an unusual delight for my wife and me to have alone time with him, and we had gone into town for a cappuccino and some errands. As we sat in the bar (that’s what they call coffee shops in Italy, mind you!), a bedraggled man appoached us…

A few people have come into the store recently asking questions like, “So what is the spiritual path, really?” “What does it mean to be ‘on a path’?” A friend thought this would make a good letter. I hope this is so, and felt to take a shot at answering briefly…

Yogananda said, “In this world, we are all a little bit crazy, and we don’t know it, because crazy people of the same kind mix with the same kind of crazy people. When people differently crazy come together, then they find out about their own craziness.”

There has been tension in our society that you can easily feel. What can we do? For myself, I try to focus on the fact that there are always two things going on in any situation: 1) the external circumstances, and 2) my reaction to those circumstances.