It's a discovery unique to the earnest spiritual seeker: one day it is discovered that a longtime source of angst or illness is no longer as acute or has simply vanished. For a time I may not even recognize the change, may still feel anxious or lost or melancholy; may still struggle with a chronic [...]

Searching for peace, happiness, truth, God, meaning, I spent years exploring a variety of religious, spiritual, metaphysical, and alternative teachings. One by one, however, each failed me due to their various inventor-inspired rites, rituals, teachers, and related orthodoxies. Note here the inventor wasn't the mystic behind those religions. To the contrary, anyone who studies the [...]

Because we spend our lives driven by thought, it can be terribly difficult for even the tiniest snippet of Truth to edge its way into our consciousness. Without such Truths, the inner journey lacks legs. I've always suspected this is in part what Thoreau meant by 'the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation.' [...]

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 [...]

It's one of the world's oldest pieces of advice, if you can call it that: know thyself. Yet despite its longevity and embrace by virtually every philosophical and spiritual heavyweight of the past 2,500 years, few of us across time and place have made it a focus in our efforts to improve our lives, reduce [...]

Self-inquiry is a mainstay of many Eastern philosophical and spiritual traditions that places an emphasis on the student's persistent investigation into who, exactly, he or she is. In a sense, it is the ultimate self-inventory. As with meditation, the practice of self-inquiry is considered an important and effective approach to quieting the mind and allowing [...]

Today a few words on the mysterious, spiritual guidance we receive when we most need it are actually open to it. Carl Jung labeled this phenomenon synchronicity, and though there is no scientific evidence for it, countless numbers of us from around the world swear by such moments. Call it woman's intuition, a gut instinct, [...]

Today a few words on the mysterious, spiritual guidance we receive when we most need it and are actually open to it. Carl Jung labeled this phenomenon synchronicity, and though there is no scientific evidence for it, countless numbers of us have experienced such moments. Call it intuition, gut instinct, ESP or coincidence, all of [...]

The journey inward, if earnestly pursued, begins to reveal a hideous truth: that I, and all others, are one and the same thing. There, just at the edge of my perception, I begin to see that aside from the window dressing each of us calls 'my life,' there is nothing. All of the characters and [...]

In the beginning was the word. And ever since there have been so many words. Our world drowns in words. So too does our inner world. Words, words, words. How many spoken, shared, loved, fought over? More words than atoms in the universe maybe? And in the end, what do all those words signify? Nothing. [...]