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Yearly Archives: 2010
I’ve “decided” to take a sabbatical from teaching. My sabbatical begins today, and it seems to me that it will probably last at least the next 3 months, quite likely 5 or 6. I can’t say for certain how long I’ll be on sabbatical, but I’m looking forward to this time away.
Why take a sabbatical? Well, if the truth be known, I feel no movement toward teaching at this time. If we are sensitive to the flow of our lives, we can simply follow that flow wherever it leads us. By following that, we know precisely what to do.
While on sabbatical, I will continue to write the Shortcuts on the Spiritual Journey. If you are a subscriber, you will continue to receive those every week. That will be… Read the rest →
I invite you to head over to takuin.com and read What Do You Believe? by my friend Takuin Minamoto. It is an extremely well done picture of what awakening looks like from the inside. Enjoy. Namaste.
Tagged with: belief, spiritual awakening
When Bill Clinton ran for President against the incumbent George Bush (the elder Bush, not W) in 1992, the US economy wasn’t doing so hot. One of Clinton’s advisers made a rather apt observation about the main message that Bill and the campaign should stick to, one that would undoubtedly prove to be the key to Clinton’s election over a rather popular George Bush. The message: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
In a sense, one of my “advisers” recently reminded me of something that I had either forgotten or failed to learn fully. While I can’t honestly say that I, Tom Stine, have a purpose for doing the spiritual teaching that I do, it is readily apparent… Read the rest →
Tagged with: spiritual awakening, teaching
Below is an excerpt from the first online satsang broadcast live on June 20, 2010. In it, I speak about the meaning of the word satsang and its relationship to truth.
“The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into brief existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a dream character, of course, unless it’s your goal to wake up, in which case the dream character must be ruthlessly annihilated. If your desire is to experience transcendental bliss or supreme love or altered states of consciousness or awakened kundalini, or to quality for heaven, or to liberate all sentient beings, or simply to become the best dang person you can be, then rejoice!, you’re in the right place: the dream state, the dualistic universe. However, if… Read the rest →
Tagged with: enlightenment, Jed McKenna
I feel like some sort of strange math problem, in which there is a constant dividing, subtracting, square rooting, you name it, and the answer keeps getting closer and closer to some limit. And the limit is somewhere between 1 and 0. Or maybe the problem simply ends up with no solution. Yes, that’s about right. No solution.
Namaste.
Tagged with: infinite
Buddhism has a problem, an unfortunate one, but such is life. And that problem is: there is no way to know for certain what the Buddha said. It is a problem with any spiritual teaching more than a thousand years old, or any history for that matter. It has to do with written texts and oral transmission.
The first written Buddhist texts are in the Pali language and are based upon 400 years of oral tradition. That means that whatever the Buddha said 2500 years ago was repeated generation after generation, from one man to the next, for four centuries. Even if the monks who recited the Dharma for 400 years didn’t add a single thing to the words… Read the rest →
A big theme in spirituality: we’re all one! No matter what the flavor of spiritual discussion, you’ll bump into something about oneness. And you know, if you are going to believe in something, you might as well believe in oneness. It’s a pretty good concept, as concepts go.
But if we are all one, then who are you? I mean that literally. If there is just The One, as in One Spirit or One Consciousness, no second, no sense of two-ness (that’s what nonduality means, by the way), then is there any sense in which I can talk about a “you” that is not me?
I do see other bodies walking around the world. I talk to other bodies.… Read the rest →
Tagged with: oneness
My friend Takuin Minamoto recently answered this question on his blog, and I was thrilled by his response. Takuin defined enlightenment as follows:
Enlightenment is limitless expansion within a limited field.
I love this definition because Takuin masterfully dropped all the centuries of spiritual baggage attached to this one simple word and took it directly to the heart of the matter. As he further explained, the limited field he is referring to is the world we find ourselves living in, the experiences that pass through our awareness moment to moment. It is a limited field, isn’t it? While it arises… Read the rest →
Tagged with: enlightenment
A reader sent me the following email:
What I’m wondering is in the phrase, “…after enlightment, chop wood, carry water”. The thing is, I’ve lost my zest for my career which I must recapture in order to find work (was laid-off) and to pay my mortgage. In the absolute, I understand there’s no one here. In the relative, I need to find the energy, but I’m no longer interested in the Game–the whole illusion thing. What to do?
I love this question and the entire subject it represents. It gets right to the heart of the seeming paradox between awakening/enlightenment and the world we find ourselves in. What to do about this paradox?
Awakening to the truth of what we are, that there is no separate self,… Read the rest →
Tagged with: enlightenment, half-awake, Nisargadatta Maharaj
What does it mean to be infinite? The answer seems obvious, straight out of high school math: infinite means without limits. We could even say something like “it goes on forever.” Okay, that’s infinite.
But does that have any meaning for us? Spirit, God, the Divine, Consciousness, these are often called “the infinite.” If any of these words have some relationship to what we really are, then that would make what I am and what you are infinite.
But still, the question is begging to be answered: does this have any meaning for us? I would say yes, it certainly does. In a very real sense, I am infinite. And anything that seems to be finite, or not-infinite, would… Read the rest →
Tagged with: infinite
I haven’t posted a Puppetji video in a while. I love Puppetji. While the message is always funny, the “truth” spoken is quite good. Watch Puppetji. His “Socksangs” are excellent. Namaste.
Tagged with: Puppetji
Head over to TalkingPurpose.com and watch the video interview I recently did with Michelle Vandepas. I’ve done a few other interviews with Michelle, and they are fun for me and hopefully interesting for you. We discussed awakening and enlightenment and a host of other topics. Watch and enjoy! Namaste.
Tagged with: interview, spiritual awakening
Previously I’ve written about the lack of real control that we have in our lives (see No Control, No Control, No Control and Who Is in Control? and many others). To properly discuss control, however, requires a bit more to be said on the subject than I’ve said in the past. In this article I’m going to attempt to provide some clarity on a somewhat confusing topic.
I think control is confusing and also quite problematic for most people because of the essential issue confronting everyone (and by everyone I mean everyone, not just spiritual seekers). That essential issue is the answer to the question, “What are you?” That’s the key to the… Read the rest →
Tagged with: control, law of attraction, The Secret
I have a good friend who often debates with me the seemingly separate experiences of “emptiness” and “everything” that arise as a part of awakening. I often take the emptiness side of the debate, as the awakening I experienced was very much one of emptiness as all sense of what I am, a “me,” a self, an “I” as an individual completely vanished. I spent a delightful 24 hours with not one shred of identity. “I” was as empty as can be.
My friend, on the other hand, got the “everything” part first. You see, awakening seems to have two aspects to it, if we can call them that, an emptiness… Read the rest →
Tagged with: emptiness, Nisargadatta Maharaj, quantum physics
There is a wonderful video about the life and teaching of Nisargadatta Maharaj entitled “Awaken to the Eternal.” You can buy it on DVD, but it is a bit pricey. However, someone has posted it on YouTube. The video is very watchable and quite amazing. Watch it. Enjoy it. Learn from one of the greatest teachers ever.
The first of six parts is below. You can head over to YouTube for the remaining 5 videos. Enjoy!
Tagged with: Nisargadatta Maharaj
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