Written on February 2, 2010 by Tom Stine
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.
Written on June 3, 2008 by Tom Stine
It has taken me a few days longer than I expected to finish a video post as my response to the question “What am I?” I hope it was worth the wait. Unlike prior videos I’ve done, this one is short, to the point, and of much better quality. I’m having fun with some new lighting and video editing software. I hope you enjoy the video. As always, be sure to leave your responses in the comments.
Written on April 9, 2008 by Tom Stine
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Written on April 2, 2008 by Tom Stine
With this video, I wanted to discuss a topic that seems to be important to a lot of spiritually oriented folks, namely money. I know I’ve had my share of issues with it, my clients seem to have issues with it, and, well, so does Wall Street, Main Street, Elm Street and every other “street” in the world. No matter where you turn, money is a hot topic.
But is there anything wrong with mixing spirituality and money? After lots of looking at this issue from various angles, I must say that the answer has to be no. Money is just money. It is a medium of exchange, a way for you and me to exchange our labors for what we need. It keeps me from having to grow wheat, pump oil and raise cattle just to eat and drive a car. Simple, effective system.
So why all the fuss? Well, for centuries, various churches and spiritual systems have given money a bad rap. The image of the poor priest and the Buddhist monk come to mind. Moreover, we all know a number of people with some serious money hang-ups, both in terms of poverty and in terms of greed. The image of Ebenezer Scrooge is one we all know. Or Donald Trump. Or a whole host of wealthy people we could name.
It seems to me that all of this distaste for money by spirituality probably has more to do with our attachment to money and wealth than anything else. There’s that word attachment, which seems to come up frequently in spiritual discussions. We grasp, we grab, we try to hold onto things, and we end-up suffering as a consequence. And that certainly is true with regard to money.
In my next video post, I will get into the discussion of spirituality and money more deeply. I hope to make as series of video posts on the topic.
So how do you feel about spirituality and money? Leave some comments and discuss.
Written on February 24, 2008 by Tom Stine
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Written on February 3, 2008 by Tom Stine
Adyashanti is a wonderful spiritual teacher from near San Jose, California. He is “an awakening guy” as he likes to say, and his teacher is focused exclusively on spiritual awakening. For my money, he is the real deal.
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.
