About Tom Stine


For over 2 decades, several questions have been foremost in my mind: What is this life about? What is the nature of reality? What is truth? How do we live and thrive in this world? For many years these questions puzzled me, but being the inquisitive type, with a restless mind always seeking to find the answers to whatever confronted me, I kept searching and searching. Like many people, I kept groping around the edges of Truth, having occasional glimpses but nothing really definitive.

But the Universe is relentless. If its first attempts at getting you to see don’t work, it starts pulling out the heavy artillery and blasting away at your illusions. That’s what happened to me. My seemingly wonderful life turned to crap, seemingly overnight. The Universe was playing rough, offering me a bit a “fierce grace” as Adyashanti likes to say. And it worked! I finally quit groping around the edges and instead leaped into the fire. I began questioning my illusions and starting to see something more.

Much has changed over the years for me, and after those first glimpses of reality, life has taken on a new and more interesting form. I am now dedicated to sharing what I have seen with all those who, like me, are impelled from within to know, truly know, what life and reality are all about. We call this impulse “spirit” or “the Universe” or “God”, but in the end, we discover it is what we truly are. It is Life. It is the One seeking to awaken to Itself. And we are That.

This website is the beginnings of my teachings. For now, you will find mostly writings on topics of interest to many spiritual seekers who are interested in spiritual awakening and spiritual enlightenment. In the future, look for audio and video recordings of talks I will give, as well as books and courses to help you on your journey.

In addition, I do occasional one-on-one sessions with individuals who are wanting help with their spiritual lives. Please feel free to contact me for further information.

Blessings to all. Namaste.


Creative Commons License credit: Mike Raybourne

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Guru Quotes

But beauty, real beauty, ends where intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of a face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.

Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.

Q: Since all is pre-ordained, is our self-realization also pre-ordained? Or are we free there at least?

A: Destiny refers only to name and shape. Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise, it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.

So the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary…. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet – because it is the purpose of humanity. Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence.


Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, Self or Atman. According to the teachings of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

The disappearance of this fundamental question [How do I know the state of an enlightened one?], on discovering that it had no answer, was a physiological phenomenon, a sudden ‘explosion’ inside, blasting, as it were, every cell, every nerve and every gland in my body. And with that ‘explosion’, the illusion that there is continuity of thought, that there is a center, an ‘I’ linking up the thoughts, was not there anymore.


Twittering...

  • RT @driedshitbuddha: I've been all over, met plenty of people. Never found an "ego" anywhere. Yet everybody talks about it. 2 weeks ago
  • To Hell with rules! There are no rules! 2 weeks ago
  • You are not a spiritual being having a worldly experience. You are Life, being-ness, the world, the experience, everything. :-) 2 weeks ago
  • The second the words are written are spoken, you've entered the dream state. You may do it consciously, but still... the words are not it! 3 weeks ago
  • New article at :: Why Are We Here? - Puppetji 3 weeks ago
  • Social media. Social networking. Life talking to itself. It's fun but a bit bizarrre. Isn't talking to yourself a sign of insanity? LOL 2010-02-05
  • Glass half full or half empty? 99% of time 99% of humans are glass half empty. And really the glass is always completely FULL! 2010-02-03
  • New article at :: Interview by Michelle Vandepas at Talking Purpose 2010-02-01
  • For the techno geek who is trying to awaken -- Ask yourself, "Who is it that wants an iPad?" 2010-01-27
  • New article at :: Levels of Control 2010-01-25
  • More updates...