In the campy 1980 comedy, Caddyshack, disheveled groundskeeper Carl Spackler (played by a brilliant Bill Murray) relates a story about caddying for the Dalai Lama. As Spackler tells it, the game ends and no traditional cash gratuity is forthcoming. "Hey Lama," Spackler recalls saying to the holy man. "How about a little something, you know, [...]

Read enough stories on the topic of spiritual awakening and you'll discover a common vein running through all of them: the eradication of the one doing the seeking. Spiritual awakening, writes David Carse, is letting go of "this constant propping up of the belief in yourself as a separate individual self, and in so doing [...]

The material world is not what we perceive it to be. This is the age-old message of the mystics, sages, and seers. But it's also become a central discovery of modern science. Assuming we're open-minded and humble enough to accept this bizarre idea, our lives can be improved for the better. Albert Einstein, who spent [...]

Over the course of a given day, you likely will experience tens of thousands of thoughts. It should go without saying that it is these thoughts that make up your sense of reality and your role in it. But here's the thing: the vast majority of your thoughts are not only repetitious, they're negative. We're [...]

Genuine, lasting happiness is an internal state of being. Finding it outside oneself is a fool's errand (and, unfortunately, what a majority of humans practice). This was the verdict of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose observations of people's struggles during and after World War II led him to a lifelong study of what, exactly, happiness is [...]

You may not be thinking about enhanced alpha and beta oscillations in your brain when walking or petting your dog, but that's precisely what's happening and it's good for you. In fact, recent research has found that spending time with a dog delivers notable decreases in feelings of fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Participants in the [...]

Flow is an ecstatic state of being first studied and later codified by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. His pioneering work has since been corroborated by neuroscientists, who have discovered that brains in a state of flow power down the prefrontal cortex, which establishes the sense of self and the memories that go with it. In other [...]