"Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?" - Stephen Hawking Am I living a life or am I a life being lived? Am I or am I not? And if I am not then why is there still this sense of being? You don't have to spend much time looking at [...]

"There is only one time when it is essential to awaken. That time is now." - The Buddha Have you noticed that 'you' really never age? That there is a timeless quality to you? In periods of silence it can be so obvious. The body ages, but I do not. The 'me' to which I [...]

"I am the miracle." - Buddha Do you wander through the typical day hurting or happy? Were you raised in a supportive, loving, stable family environment? Or was your parenting malignant, indifferent, nonexistent? Was the environment of your childhood safe, intellectually stimulating, devoid of material want? Or did you navigate a hostile, dangerous, uneducated world [...]

"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." - F. Scott Fitzgerald It's easy to blame the loneliness of the spiritual path on the reluctance (or refusal) of others to join in the journey. But it's more than that. It's lonely in part because it's so damned difficult [...]

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius When author David Foster Wallace gave his now-famous 2005 commencement address to Kenyon College, he suggested that "the real value of an education has nothing to [...]

Some of my earliest memories are of my brother and I clambering high up into trees - clinging to the uppermost branches and letting the wind and our weight carry us to and fro, the busy-buzzing world below altogether unaware of our presence. Even to the mind of a child the trees exemplified strength, stability - [...]

"Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one's Self is to be blissful always." - Ramana Maharshi Waiting one morning for my car to be serviced, I work from the local coffee shop. [...]

"All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer One of the things you should expect if you genuinely begin to embrace nonduality is the growing habit of questioning everything. I mean everything.  Little blips of truth start to [...]

To the human mind it is easier to pay homage to (or await the return of) a dead mystic than pay heed to one who may actually walk amongst us. This is the first in what will be an occasional series on more contemporary mystics. We start with my favorite, a collection of talks given [...]

"To expound and propagate concepts is simple. To drop all concepts is difficult and rare." - Nisargadatta Maharaj Some of the 'smartest' people I know, the ones with all the acronyms and letters after their names and the framed, institutional placards on their walls, are the souls who suffer the most. Suffering does that. The [...]