Detach for Contentment

Written on August 4, 2008 by Tom Stine / 10 Comments »

credit: Loz Flowers

Today’s post is by Evan Hadkins at wellbeingandhealth.net.

I’m a blogger. I’d like to make my income from blogging and a membership course that I plan to open in early October. None of which is happening at the moment. Making my income this way exists only in my imagination, only as a desire. Which brings me smack bang up against the nature of desire and our imaginations.

Imagination can be a drawback - we can pretty much always imagine things being better than they are. Which is a pretty certain recipe for discontent and frustration. And yet building and creating anything means bringing something from nothing: and imagination is vital. Which leads us back to desire. To move something into the world of form means using our imagination (and much else too).

We imagine something that meets our desire. Anything from a sandwich to meet our hunger, to a major public building to meet the desire for beauty, to a membership course to meet others’ desire for greater contentment and my desire to make my income doing what I love. Our imagination is often fueled by desire. This too sounds like a recipe for discontent and frustration. Wanting what we don’t have - surely this is the problem? Surely this will lead to only frustration and discontent?

I think the answer to these questions is one that can be infuriating: yes and no. Knowing we want a sandwich and eating one doesn’t disturb our contentment. Each stage of this process can feel good. From the arousal of appetite, to knowing what we want, to going about getting it and how it feels inside us: all this can feel right. All this in a sense can be experienced as contentment. Or it could be a process of discontent - perhaps we haven’t been paying attention and we are suddenly ravenous and sick with hunger, unclear about what would be good to eat, bolting the food instead of chewing it, and it feeling not so good in our stomach. The whole process can be one of discontent.

It seems to me that it is not desire and imagination themselves that are our problem: it is our attachment to them. If I don’t have the food I want available I can spend lots of time cursing and getting annoyed. And I can stay this way for a long time. This is the attachment. If I can let go this attachment I may have more options - having a bit of something now while I go buy what I want, or finding that what I have will do for now. (I’m not saying that the swearing and cursing is a problem: if it helps us get back to contentment and focus on what we want I think that is OK too.)

This is a simple physical example. But I think it applies to pretty much any desire we have. Whether the desire is emotional (for example, to express our sadness or regret), intellectual (perhaps to understand what makes for a successful blog), spiritual (such as having a sense that we are both ourselves and the universe at once) or social (like a satisfying connection with other people). Whatever the dimension of our life I think it is the attachment to the desire that is the problem. In each case the desire may lead to a satisfying or frustrating course of action. And the only difference is our attachment to the desire.

Let me earth this is a bit in my own situation. Would I like to be owning my income from blogging already? Sure I would. Would I like it to be happening faster than it is? You bet. And at this point I have a choice. Get caught up in my impatience or do what I can. The difference is attachment.

If I get caught up in my attachment I lose the joy of the process. My attachment to wanting to make money doing what I love means that I am no longer loving what I do. All of a sudden I’m not doing what I love but resenting how slowly my blog is developing. My attachment destroys what it is attached to.

credit: manuelaoprea

Instead I can be content and active. When I’m content I don’t spend all my time just lying around. Doing things in tune with who I am are a postive joy. Even working hard at them. Contentment can be a very active state of being. But this requires us knowing what our desires are and appreciating the role of our imagination in meeting our desires. (I think our fantasies of just lying around and doing nothing mean that we have been pushing ourselves - usually because we are attached to some ideal of who we should be.)

It seems to me that, in this world of form, our desires can let us know what we need. It seems to me that our imaginations can help us make this world of form a better place for all of us. Our desires and imagination are good servants but attachment to them makes them into bad masters.

This is my approach to desire and imagination at the moment. I’d like to hear your experience in the comments.

Thanks to Tom for his hospitality in letting me do this guest post. It’s stretched me to write about this - put me to the edges of what I can say. I hope it’s beneficial to you.

Evan Hadkins is a blogger who lives in Hobart, Australia.  He writes about wellbeing and health with a special focus on psychology and self-development. You can enjoy his writing at wellbeingandhealth.net.

Sedona Method Retreat Day 3

Written on June 24, 2008 by Tom Stine / 5 Comments »

While talking with one of my roommates this morning, the following words came quite spontaneously out of my mouth:

The whole point of spirituality is to clear out the garbage that keeps you from knowing the truth of what you are so that beingness, which is what you are and synonymous with love, can express itself fully in the world through you.

He liked it so much that it seemed a bit obvious to share it with you. I’m quite certain there is more that could be said on the subject, but the above works well for me right now. It seems to be the real bottom line to all of the things we do that we call spirituality. And that pretty much sums up day 3 at the retreat. Until next time…. Namaste.

credit: andrew_j_w

Miracles and the Law of Attraction

Written on June 9, 2008 by Tom Stine / 55 Comments »

credit: sara~

Leo over at Zen Habits wrote a post yesterday on the Law of Attraction, basically giving it a big thumbs down. Leo took a very interesting position: a very rational, western scientific perspective on accomplishing things in life.

My first response was to smile and laugh. I mean, for a site called Zen Habits, you would think there would be a little, well, Zen in his response. But no matter. I left a longish comment for him, kind of an off-the-cuff assortment of thoughts and ideas. Here it is:

“Very cool post. Interesting, too, coming as it does on a site called ZEN Habits. No, Zen doesn’t really have much to do with the Law of Attraction, so let’s not get sidetracked there. But let’s do consider that the ultimate foundation of Zen is Buddhism, and the Buddha had some pretty wild things to say about the world, our experience of it, it’s reality, etc.

“I won’t get into the details, but suffice it to say that if you delve into any school of Eastern thought, you will find ideas that are completely at odds with our typical, rationalistic world view. The world we look upon, so convinced of its utter reality, maybe isn’t as real as we think. So much that we believe in ultimately becomes so much ‘mumbo-jumbo.’ ”

“Look at the history of science itself. It is littered with the train wrecks of once ‘unassailable’ givens, things that were so incredibly obvious that you had to be a fool to question them.

credit: Mariano Kamp

“So, can I really think something into existence? Why not. Sure, I can’t prove I can, but then again, we can’t ‘prove’ much of science. That’s why scientists are usually pretty honest by calling things ‘theories’ and ‘hypotheses.’ Very few laws in science, but even those only rest on the simple fact that they’ve always occurred every time they are repeated.

“I guess my bottom line for you, Leo, is a simple question: do you believe in magic? Do you believe in miracles? Do you think that we really have a reasonable handle on what is true and what isn’t? While I’m not fan of the LOA and its devotees, I am a fan of miracles. I’m a fan of being incredibly surprised by the mystery of life that works in some really remarkable ways.

“Lastly, let me leave you with a fantastic statement by one of the most talented writers of the 20th century, Arthur C. Clarke:

“ ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’

“Think about it. Maybe we just haven’t worked out the technology of ‘magic.’ ”

And that was the end of my comment. Leo was really getting into the comments, so he responded quite quickly:

@Tom Stine, who wrote:

“I guess my bottom line for you, Leo, is a simple question: do you believe in magic? Do you believe in miracles? Do you think that we really have a reasonable handle on what is true and what isn’t?”‘

I certainly do believe in magic and miracles! It is almost impossible to be a parent, for example, and not believe in miracles. It’s hard to do a run at 5 a.m., and watch the sun turn a new day into a miracle, and not believe in magic. It’s hard to go through life, with your eyes and heart wide open, and not believe in magic and miracles.

However, I don’t think that means they are supernatural, meaning that they are outside the realm of science. I think science is just another way of looking at the same things. Is a child a miracle? Yes, I believe so … but a child can also be explained by science.

Is it a miracle when you overcome amazing odds, using the power of positive thinking, to achieve something incredible, as many people have? Absolutely! And yet, that doesn’t mean that science can’t explain it.

The problem comes, in my mind, when we take these miracles and come up with explanations for them that are totally unprovable, that have no real basis in reality, for no good reason, as is often done.

After reading Leo’s comments, I decided to post another comment in response. And I did. And guess what? Leo deleted it! I’ve never had the experience of being bounced before. How cool is that? I’m a radical fit for the delete key. I know the comment got left because a friend informed me that he read it via email (he was receiving follow-ups). Well, I saved the comment before I posted, so I have the comment in its entirety. You can judge how “evil” I was:

[Please note: after I posted this article, Leo wrote to say that he had not deleted my comment, but he couldn’t find it, either. Obviously he had a technical snafu, not surprising, given the volume of comments he gets and inevitable glitches, etc. It was quite nice of him to leave a comment below. He’s quite the stand-up guy, and I was a bit surprised that he would delete my comment in the first place. C’est la vie!]

“Leo, you made some good points. However, your reply left me thinking that you don’t really believe in miracles, the miraculous kind. You know, the person dying of cancer who does some spiritual ‘mumbo-jumbo’ for a few months and is completely healed, leaving her doctors stunned. The medical community calls it ’spontaneous remission’ but that’s a fancy word for ‘we have no idea what happened.’ That’s what the average person calls ‘a miracle.’

credit: Dom H UK

“As for me, give me water-into-wine, levitation (the Maharishi kind), spontaneous healing, blind men seeing, all the cool stuff you read about in Yogananda and other works. That’s my kind of miracle.

“Honestly, I don’t think that ’science’ is all it’s cracked up to be. Too many people have too much ‘faith’ in science. The scientific method has its limits. How do you study a phenomenon that might be beyond the mind, such as miracles? What do you use to study it? All science has at its disposal is the human mind. Miracles, the real kind, may be beyond the capabilities of science to explain.

“None of that means that they are supernatural or outside of reality in some way. I’m just questioning the capacity of the human mind to comprehend the totality of nature, the completeness of reality.

“Whether one wants to admit it or not, science is a belief system. The belief at the core goes something like ‘if we study something long enough using the ’scientific method’ then we will understand it.’ You can’t really prove that one wrong, can you? But it may in fact be wrong.

“And this is the type of thing that drives a decent number of physicists (you know, the quantum mechanics guys) to sound more Buddhist than a Buddhist.

“Again, the LOA may be right, may be wrong. But I suspect that most people, myself included, are more turned off by the salesmen for it and the Secret than anything else. They are a bit hard to swallow. And, for most people , the LOA just seems too hokie and simplistic to be believable. And it just might be wrong. And then again….

“Just some more thoughts for you Leo. Namaste.”

I invite you all to head over to Zen Habits and check out the post. It makes for fun reading. Well, actually, the best reading is in the comments. Some really good ones are there. A whole host of people showed-up to join in. Enjoy!

Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings

Written on June 6, 2008 by Tom Stine / 31 Comments »

credit: R23W

I recently re-discovered a fantastic book edited by Marcus Borg entitled Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings. Borg, a prominent Jesus scholar and member of the Jesus Seminar, has written a number of books over the years that have done much to bring awareness to the ideas and methods of modern Jesus scholarship. If you read any of his works, or others of the Jesus Seminar, you will quickly discover that Jesus may not be the same guy they speak about in church each Sunday (especially here in the Bible Belt).

My intent for this article is less to do a book review and more to share some of the sayings that Marcus Borg highlights as parallel between Jesus and the Buddha. But before I do, let me highlight something remarkable that Borg has to say about these two religious figures, something I have never heard stated quite so perfectly:

Jesus and the Buddha were teachers of a world-subverting wisdom that undermined and challenged conventional ways of seeing and being in their time and in every time. Their subversive wisdom was also an alternative wisdom: they taught a way or path of transformation. Thus both were teachers of the way less traveled.

Marvelous, don’t you think? Two religious giants, whose modern day followers might cringe at the the suggestion of them sharing much in common, being equated as teachers of wisdom (which can be read as enlightenment) by a modern Jesus scholar. How cool is that?!

So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite parallel sayings. Enjoy:

Jesus: If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.
Buddha: If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words.

Jesus: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You, hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
Buddha: The faults of others are easier to see than one’s own; the faults of others are easily seen, for they are sifted like chaff, but one’s own faults are hard to see. This is like the cheat who hides his dice and shows the dice of his opponent, calling attention to the other’s shortcomings, continually thinking of accusing him.

Jesus: Your father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Buddha: The great cloud rains down on all whether their nature is superior or inferior. The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low.

Jesus: He said to them, “When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “No, not a thing.”
Buddha: Then the Lord addressed the monks, saying: “I am freed from all snares. And you, monks, you are freed from all snares.”

Jesus: The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Buddha: If by giving up limited pleasures one sees far-reaching happiness, the wise one leaves aside limited pleasures, looking to far-reaching happiness.

Jesus: Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.
Buddha: With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one is liberated through not clinging.

The above six parallels should give you a taste of how similar these two teachings can be. What is amazing to me, though, is how, well, Buddhist, Jesus sounds. Remarkable. I was not brought-up in Christianity, but still, I was surprised at the flavor of enlightenment in so many of the words and stories of Jesus. If I hadn’t read the Gospels many times before, I could easily assume that these sayings were penned by a Buddhist or Taoist monk. All roads really do lead to the top of the same mountain, don’t they? No wonder Christian mysticism has produced so many awakened ones throughout the centuries.

If you are interested, you can get Jesus and Buddha at Amazon.com. Namaste.

credit: Phillie Casablanca

What am I?

Written on May 30, 2008 by Tom Stine / 16 Comments »

credit: Alaskan Dude

What am I? To my mind, that is the question that all spiritual seekers need to answer. Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest sages of the twentieth century, emphasized over and over again that answering this question was, in effect, the only point to spirituality. “Find out who you are!” he would say.

So, before I write an article on this question and my experience of it, I’m curious to hear from you first. If you stop for a moment, and ask this question of yourself, what answer do you get? Do you get an answer? What is your experience when you ask this question? If Ramana is right, then finding out who you are may in fact be the most important thing you’ve ever done.

Leave your responses in the comments. Namaste.

Returning Home

Written on April 26, 2008 by Tom Stine / 4 Comments »

Welcome home! I came back to Missouri to the warm embrace of my amazing son. It was a pleasure to be around him for a few hours (he’s at his mom’s house until Monday). I felt a tenderness for him that, while I have felt before, feels deeper and richer now. More expansive and loving. I have always adored my kid, but now, so much sweeter.

I will be slowly coming “down off the mountaintop” of my retreat with Adyashanti over the next few days. I tried last night, after the end of the retreat, to write a few words and respond to some comments here, but I had a difficult time. The Silence this time was very intense, and while I’ve been talking easily with people, I almost need the give and take of dialog to keep me going. When I stare at a blank screen, well, I don’t really mind that it is blank!

In a few days I will post a report on the retreat. Adya was not only healthy for this retreat, but he was in rare form. He was funnier, more engaging, more alive and vibrant than the last retreat, and I’ve never heard a crowd laugh as much on any recording I’ve heard of his (and I have over 150 hours of his recorded talks). When the recordings of this retreat go on sale late in the summer, I strongly suggest you buy a copy. You will love it.

Glad to be home, though. As Adya is fond of saying, the real retreat begins when the retreat ends. It’s called “my life.”

Heading to an Adyashanti Retreat

Written on April 20, 2008 by Tom Stine / 4 Comments »

Greetings everyone!

Beginning this evening (Sunday), I’m doing a 5 day silent retreat with Adyashanti and 300 other people near Monterey, CA. So, I will be out of touch for 5 days. I will fire-up my MacBook on Friday evening and start getting back into things. I plan to do another write-up of my retreat experience.

I have a couple of posts prepared, so you will get a little something over the next week.

Until Friday, be well!….. Tom

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11 Things I’ve Learned About Spirituality

Written on April 18, 2008 by Tom Stine / 44 Comments »

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HAROLD PHOTOGRAPHX

Last week, I wrote an article listing 6 “mistakes” I had made on the spiritual journey. Being of reasonable intelligence (no comments, please!), it dawned on me that maybe I could do a follow-up article on what I’ve learned from spirituality. Admittedly, I learned from all my seeming mistakes, but this article will look at my learnings from a slightly more positive angle.

Warning: I’m going to take some shots at some deeply held spiritual ideas and beliefs. I can’t possibly explain some of what I’ve learned without them. Some of what you find under the heading of spirituality just doesn’t make much sense to me, or simply doesn’t seem to work. So, you’ve been warned. That said, in no particular order, here are 11 things that I’ve learned:

1. The entire spiritual journey is a journey to discover what you are. Who knew? Just because the enlightened ones for thousands of years have been telling us this one doesn’t mean I should have been listening, right? Over and over again I’ve head the message, but until the past few years I failed to pay any attention. “Find out first what you are.” That’s it. All the rest is a side dish.
2. I am not who I thought I was. For 43 years, I thought I was Tom Stine. Well, make that 41 years, because for the first 2 years I didn’t really think I was anyone. Around the age of 2 or so we start to believe we are Tom or Tina or Bob or Alice. But a funny thing happens when you actually start to do spiritual inquiry. You ask the question, “What am I?” You look within. And you inevitably arrive at some variation on “I don’t know.” Haven’t you been, in one form or another, haunted by that realization your whole life? Wasn’t that part of the utter agony of being a teenager, not knowing the answer to “What am I?” As I started to work with “What am I?” I found myself confronted by the obvious fact that when I look within I found nothing. And after a while, I started to accept that maybe this nothing I kept finding was in some way what I am. And then I experienced a great discovery: nothing isn’t just nothing. As one master said, “It’s the fullest nothing you’ll ever bump against.” And there it is: I’m not Tom, really. I’m much more than that. And you are much more than your persona, too.
   The entire spiritual journey is a journey to discover what you are. Who knew?
3. The Truth is outside of the mind and cannot be found in the mind. That was a tough one to learn, but in the end, everyone has to learn it. You can never find out the truth by searching for it in your mind. The mind is contained in the truth. And the truth, the great spiritual truth that everyone is seeking, is that you are the everything, consciousness, Presence, the Void, God.
4. Thoughts might be useful at times, but most are not to be believed. Unfortunately, the vast majority of what I believe is not only false in terms of ultimate truth, but isn’t even true in a relative sense. I had to be honest: how many thousands of times had I believed a thought that passes through my head only to discover I was incredibly wrong? Pretty much every thought you have about why someone did or said something to you has been a complete disaster. “Mary yelled at me because she isn’t a nice person,” goes the thought, which ignores the 100 times Mary has been kind and generous. Sound familiar? Come on, be honest, your thinking is a disaster! 2+2=4? Useful at times. The rest? Garbage! The great cosmic joke. The less I believe my thoughts, the happier I am and the better life is.
5. Spiritual ideas and thoughts are useful but not the truth. This follows from the point above. We can discuss and debate spirituality until the cows come home but doing so won’t produce any truth. We have to experience the living splendor of the ideas and words. Until they come alive within you, they are symbols of symbols of Reality. When I got out of my head and down into my heart and gut, when the words started coming alive within me from hours of sitting and opening and letting go of my beliefs, then spirituality started to live and breath in me. That’s where it’s at. This relates to the point I was making in my previous article, What Is Spirituality? Really. Check it out.
6. Channeling. *sigh* I can’t do channeling any more. I tried valiantly, even going so far as to pretend that A Course in Miracles isn’t really a channeled book. But it is. Why don’t I care for channeling, you ask? Because channeling requires a lot of faith and willingness to believe in it. I don’t want to have to believe in any aspect of spirituality any more. Direct experience or nothing, thank you very much. Look at it this way: channeling requires that you have faith in the truthfulness of the channel. There’s no way to prove or disprove that the channel really is letting a 10,000 year old Lemurian come through them. The only choice, the way I see it, is to accept that the channeling is real, and that’s before you even get to the ideas the channel is stating. Too many evaluations for me. Moreover, some channels seem just a little too unstable for my taste. Apparently the channeled material hasn’t done them a whole lot of good. So, I prefer to take my spirituality straight-up, not through an intermediary. Please don’t misunderstand, none of what I’m saying means that channeled material is all garbage. Far from it. Some of it rings quite true. But I don’t really see it as necessary. If it works for you, fine, but again, I prefer my own direct experience. I don’t want to have to sort out the messenger as well as the message.

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7. Jesus, I love you, but did you really exist? By the same standards, I can’t accept Jesus or the Buddha as necessarily real, historical people. All we have are a bunch of stories written by their disciples and followers, and most of what is written wasn’t even written by eyewitnesses. Any historian worth his salt would cry foul at this point. Ah, but then there is faith, you say. You have to believe. Well, yes, but again, I like direct experience. I’ve benefited greatly from reading the words attributed to the Buddha and Jesus, but it is only as they have come alive within me that they have any real meaning or reality. This awakening within me has led me to believe that Jesus and the Buddha quite likely were historical figures, but I know it is merely a belief, nothing more. And just because my mind likes it and finds it fascinating doesn’t make it so.
8. There’s a lot of wild wacky stuff that is called “spirituality”. I’m sure to step on a few toes with this one, but, c’est la vie! Would you believe at the start of my spiritual journey, 18 years ago, I tried living on sprouts, nuts and dried fruit, in the winter, in hopes of enlightening myself? Yep, sure did. And all I managed to do was “lighten” myself by about 40 pounds! At least I got to eat like a hog when I finally realized that I was being, well, plain stupid. I could go on with plenty of other examples from my life and others, but you get the idea. Given that most spiritual growth occurs from living a fairly normal life with periods of meditation, contemplation or prayer thrown in then, well, eating sprouts or sticking crystals in various body cavities seems a little silly. But hey, it could be kinda fun!
9. Past lives have very little to do with right now, and right now is where it is at. I’ve been to a few psychics, some quite good. I’ve been told I was general in Napoleon’s army (I love France and speaking French), a prostitute (I guess because I like sex?) and a priest (no idea why this one). And in the end, knowing these things has been completely useless to me. As a matter of fact, all explanations in this vain have not helped me in the slightest on the spiritual journey. They are fun to play with, sure, but they haven’t contributed to my growth. I like what Adyashanti said in response to a question about past lives: “As near as I can tell, it seems like most people who remember past lives were at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified. There must have been few million people milling around.” If you do past lives, great, more power to you. But knowing a past life is really no more useful than knowing any other memory when it comes to the real “goal” of spirituality: awakening to the truth of what we are.

credit: David Paul Ohmer
10. Spiritual people are wonderful, beautiful, delightful people. I love spiritual people. I love accountants and doctors and lawyers, too (yes, even lawyers!). But I get a thorough kick out of the energy and aliveness that spiritual folks have. And not just Eastern or New Agey spiritual people. I love walking into a cathedral in Paris and feeling the energy that has been poured into it by millions of devoted, fervent prayers over the course of centuries. I love walking into just about any old church, for that matter. Even though some crazy stuff gets said in them, the spirit of the practitioners is wonderful to me. I’ve met some wonderful Baptists, Catholics, Buddhists, you name it.
11. Life is too much fun to take anything in spirituality too seriously, including all the above! I used to be so incredibly serious about this whole spirituality thing. I was dedicated, I was intense. Still am a little. But most of that has faded. Everything has gotten too funny to take too seriously. Far more fun to enjoy life. Not like a hedonist, but just enjoy the flow. I still sit a lot because I enjoy a good meditation. But it is lighter these days. And getting lighter and lighter the more I sit.

That should be enough for today. I could write 50 more, and expand on many of the above, though. I think once each month I will try to toss out a little list of things that I’ve learned on the spiritual journey.

Don’t miss the next list: subscribe to TomStine.com today. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Writing About Spirituality: The What’s and Who’s

Written on April 16, 2008 by Tom Stine / 6 Comments »

credit: Montrasio International

In my last video post, I answered the question Why I Write About Spirituality. I really enjoyed answering that question, and it got me thinking about the subject more and more. Spirituality is a big topic, so I started asking myself a bunch of what questions, such as “What subjects in spirituality do I enjoy most?” and others. The more I played around with these questions, the more my thinking started shifting and jumping around, doing a little dance about the writing I do and what I am writing about.

For a while, I’ve had a strong notion of what it is that I am writing about, but for some reason I’ve had a hard time putting it into words. I think I can now. I hope from this post you will get a clearer sense of what this site is all about in the same way that I did.

What subjects in spirituality do you enjoy most?

Two subjects really work for me: (1) awakening and (2) practical spirituality. Awakening seems to me the ultimate aim of all spirituality. It is the end, in a sense, of the spiritual journey, even though in another sense it is just a beginning. But completely opening to what we are is the only true goal.

That said, I love what I call practical spirituality because spirituality has proven to be the most reliable and successful means for me to create lasting and positive change in my worldly life. We are, after all, human beings as well as spiritual beings, and the human must be reckoned with. Awakening, to be sure, is the best resolution to all life’s problems. But there is a lot of great stuff in the world of spirituality to help us along. That’s why I love the Sedona Method so much.

And most importantly, for me all of spirituality should be practical. It is so easy to talk, talk, talk about things of the spirit. But what do we do with it all? Just sit in a cafe and chatter with our spiritual friends about all the cool ideas that Eckhart Tolle and Oprah are talking about? I think not. Far better to listen to Eckhart or whomever and then do what they suggest. By being practical about our spirituality, we actually move closer to the ultimate goal: awakening to the truth.

What is your primary purpose for writing and for this website?

Sharing my experiences and teaching others. That’s it in a nutshell. I want this website to become a source of spiritual growth for others. I want my experiences to help you to go where I’ve gone and where I’m going. Because, in the end, we go together, you and I. Yes, again, very practical.

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Who is your audience?

I’ve had visitors that are from every “level” of spiritual experience. I guess in one sense I’m writing for truth seekers. And I’m writing for people that want a little inspiration about and insight into the spiritual journey and who are looking for a little help and support along the way. But mainly, I’m writing for that large mass of spiritual folks who desire to get moving, who want to learn and grow and experience all that spirituality has to offer. That’s my audience.

What are your primary spiritual influences? Which teachers have you followed?

Here is a list of who and what has influenced me on the spiritual path, in no particular order:

• Adyashanti Yes, I really like Adya and his teachings. Very helpful.
• The Sedona Method.
• Joel Goldsmith. I loved reading his book The Infinite Way years ago. Good stuff.
• A Course in Miracles. I was a serious Course student for 10 years.
• Nisargadatta Maharaj. His book, I Am That, is one of the best books I have ever read.
• Ramana Maharshi. The book Talks With Ramana Maharshi is a continuing source of enlightenment.
• Sri Sadhu Om. He was a disciple of Ramana Maharshi, and his books are a great explanation of Ramana’s teachings.
• Jesus of Nazarath. I have been strongly influenced by his teachings, especially as found in the Gospel of Thomas. I have benefited, too, from the Jesus scholarship I have read.
• Buddhism. I have been a closet Buddhist of sorts over the years. Someday, I’m going to “study” Buddhism, mainly to gain a greater familiarity with the Buddha’s teachings.

What’s next?

In the coming weeks and months, I plan to spend a lot of time writing for you. I’m going to start writing more articles on different aspects of practical spirituality, such as the recent post I did on Spirituality and Money. I want to write more on other areas such as relationships, offer suggestions for meditation, and give tips on how to move down the spiritual path.

To catch all the latest articles, tips, suggestions and thoughts flowing out of my computer to yours, how about subscribing to TomStine.com.

6 “Mistakes” I’ve Made on the Spiritual Path

Written on April 12, 2008 by Tom Stine / 48 Comments »

Yes, I know, there are no mistakes on the spiritual journey. There can’t be, if you think about it. The spiritual journey is, to a certain extent, a process of learning. And don’t we almost always learn best from what we often see as our mistakes? But then, if we learn from them, if we grow from them, how could they really be mistakes?

As you venture down the spiritual path, you really start seeing your life as a long curriculum in a giant classroom called Life. No mistakes. Just your individual assignments. I have had my “lessons” to learn, my conditioning to undo.

That said, here are 6 things that I would have previously called mistakes. For me, they weren’t. But maybe you will see something in them that will help you as you journey down the path.

1. You cannot choose love too often. So many times along the path, I’ve been given the opportunity to choose love or fear. Many, many times I chose fear. I pushed people and things away to avoid loving them. I suffered, to be sure, and Life graciously came back and offered the lesson again and again. I’m very glad it did. Choose love.

credit: HaPe_Gera

2. You can’t sit too much. I loved meditating when I first started, but I loved reading about and talking about spirituality more. And reading and talking about spirituality, while they can be helpful, just doesn’t cut the mustard. Spirituality must be lived, it must be experienced. Sitting with yourself, finding out what you really are is so incredibly important and transformative.
3. Not enough time spent in nature. For centuries, spiritual masters have made references to nature, to time spent in nature, as a part of their journey. There is something about the trees, the rocks, the plants, the sky, the sun that calls to us. Being in nature is a powerful aid to our spiritual growth. Taking a walk in the pines will do more for you than a library full of books.
4. Being arrogant about my beliefs. I was a jerk in the early days of my journey. I was cocky, overly confident, and thought I knew it all. What a joke! The real truth of the matter is that I knew so little. By being so cocky, I rejected a lot of interesting and potentially helpful spiritual teachings along the way. I had to learn humility, almost by force. I’m truly grateful I did, because now I see so clearly how all the things I thought I knew were an obstacle of sorts to knowing the only thing that mattered: who I truly am.
5. Believing that feelings are reliable guides to behavior and truth. I’ve made lots of choices in life based upon how I feel, which is not a great idea, I’ve come to see. Feelings are just feelings. They are simply sensations in our bodies in response to our thoughts. They have something to teach us, for certain, but they aren’t the truth. For instance, every time you’ve experienced anxiety, you are afraid of something that is only in your mind. But you aren’t in eminent danger, and you aren’t going to die. Thus, anxiety is a poor guide for action. The only thing to do with feelings is to experience them and then let them go. Feelings want to be felt. Let the energy flow. As Hale Dwoskin of the Sedona Method likes to say: “Feelings are not true, they are not you, and you can let them go.”
6. Rejecting spiritual teachings before giving them a chance. This goes along with number 4 above. For instance, I hated The Secret when I first saw it. I was very agitated after watching it because I had a strong reaction to some of the “personalities” in it. They seemed so arrogant and, well, like used car salesmen. And so I rejected all the ideas in The Secret. Of course, I was being as arrogant as they seemed to be. There are good ideas in The Secret, and had I listened to some of them, I might have found a way to learn some lessons that I took over a year to learn the hard way.

I’ve found over the years that one of the best ways to learn and grow is from hearing other people’s stories, their successes and mistakes along the spiritual path. I would love to hear of your “mistakes” in the comments.

One mistake I won’t make: I won’t forget to ask you to subscribe to TomStine.com.