A friend shared that she had a willful six-year-old son. He almost always wanted things exactly his way. One morning he was quite anxious for the day to get started, but when he awoke he realized it was still the middle of the night. Not to let such a small impediment stop him, he went to the top of the stairs and yelled for the whole world to hear, “I want it to be day!!” Suffice it to say, the rotation of the earth did not accelerate to meet his demand.
Thousands of speakers and events have been hosted by East West over the past 50+ years. For most of that time, we were one of the few places to meet and hear remarkable spiritual and consciousness leaders. But as the world changes, so must we. Online attendance to our events has dropped substantially. The time has come for us to accept that events are no longer a useful part of our service to you. Much of what was once hard to find is now wonderfully easy to find online; the variety and choices are immense…
Each of us protects little aspects of ourselves because of our false belief that it is our little personality that needs protection. I often notice that even amongst deep devotees—those who have truly committed their lives to change and growth—there is an overwhelming desire to shrink and defend rather than to let go and grow. When a flaw is pointed out the immediate natural response is, “That’s not me!” One often becomes annoyed or withdrawn.
It has often been said that humility is a mark of spirituality, and this is so. But “humility” needs to be well understood, I think, to really grasp what that means. Interestingly, Yogananda defined “humility” as “self-honesty.” If we have any conscious awareness, we want to be better than we are. I am sure that is true for everyone reading this. But in our quest, it is quite natural to envision ourselves as perhaps better than we are in fact—or worse!
I was doing my stress management training program in Colorado for a government agency. A woman came up to me at the end, and shared that one of her stressors was not enough time to get her work done. Hardly unique, but I felt to probe a bit for more details. She was a manager there and found she spent so much time helping staff she fell behind on her own work. My first impression was how sweet she must be. But, as sometimes happens for me, a few alarm bells went off and an intuition came. Something seemed “off.”…
We all want to do what’s right. We all (hopefully!) accept that our own sight is limited by our past experiences and our current fears and desires – the twins that cloud judgment and intuition. I have personally made it a life-long practice to do my best to constantly ask for guidance. There are many images of Spirit, and each speaks to us individually, but the process is the same…
Western religion has a notion of hell. I believe it is broadly misunderstood, though – like most broadly accepted ideas – there is a grain of truth in it. I’d like to explore the notion this week and uncover what is actually true. We unfortunately tend to create our own hells. That is NOT to say that every strongly unpleasant thing that happens to us is some disastrous error on our part…
Renunciation is a word that tends to leave people feeling that denial is involved. That, of course, is somewhat unattractive, so renunciation tends to be quite unpopular! But true renunciation is of the heart. It is not about denial; it is about understanding that nothing on the outside will ever truly fill the hole in our heart…
It is good that “yoga” is now an incredibly common word in the West. But “yoga” is often used to refer to exclusively to yoga postures. In fact, postures are just a very small part of Raja Yoga, which is the complete path to merging with Spirit. After all, the word “yoga” is merely the sanskrit word for “union.”…
I imagine most readers have at least heard of the Bhagavad Gita. It is part of a huge epic—The Mahabharata—in which cousins fight over a kingdom. (Boy, talk about a common theme throughout history!)
The chief warrior for the noble king and his brothers (the Pandavas) is named Arjuna, and he is the greatest archer in the world. His chariot driver is The Lord Krishna. At the last minute, as the first battle is about to commence, Arjuna says to Krishna, “I cannot do this. I cannot kill my own family members. My strength and will are sapped. My bow falls from my hands.”
My uncle was a full professor in the Engineering department at Columbia University in NY, and later became Dean. He was obviously a smart fellow, but he also had a natural philosophical bent. He and I would often wind up chatting at large family events. One time at such an event, he sought me out quite actively and pulled me aside. He said, "I just read something really crazy, so of course immediately thought of you!” Thanks for that—I think. A bit of background before diving into why my uncle sought out his crazy nephew…
You are walking down the street and fall into a hole. You are not pleased (to put it mildly) and with great effort you climb out. A week later… same street, same hole, and in you go. This time it takes you a little less time to get out. A week later… guess what?… same street, same hole. You sort of notice it, but fall in again and climb out. Later on as you are there again, you notice the hole and avoid it. Clever! My goodness, we can be slow!
When I was 17 I had what was supposed to be a fatal brain tumor. They did not have PET scans and CAT scans in those days, so the diagnosis took quite a while, as I had none of the normal symptoms that one would expect (in my entire life I have never had a headache, for example — not even then). By the time it was clear what the problem was, I had to be rushed into surgery. Fortunately, I had an emergency appointment set up with a top-level neurosurgeon…
I was at the front desk when I heard a woman on her cell phone near our gorgeous fountain. She was a bit loud, but I felt to let it go for a little bit. When it became clear this was to be an extended call, I approached her. I pressed my palms together in a pranam and said, "I am so sorry, but maybe you can take this call right outside? We try to keep a quiet environment for others so they can enjoy the store.” She simply walked to another part of the store and continued her call. I gave it another minute or two and started walking over towards her—she saw me—and she hung up.
