On Tradition

People believe what serves them, or what’s convenient, or what they’ve been programmed to believe for social, emotional or psychological reasons. Religion establishes an authority beyond man—although all too often men (known as kings, priests, etc.) act as arbiters of the Divine. Man accepts the tenets of his fathers based on the weight of tradition through time. Which reminds me of the story about the young girl who questions her mother regarding the practice of cutting off both ends of a roast before cooking. The mother tells the daughter she learned to do so from her mother. When the child goes to the grandmother, she is told the same thing again, and proceeds to the great-grandmother who is fortunately still living. Upon inquiring of the great-grandmother she is told: “I cut off both ends of the roast because it was too large to fit in my roasting pan.”

Free Will?

Consciousness has produced this play. Consciousness has written the script. Consciousness is playing all the characters. And Consciousness is witnessing the play. It's a one-man show.
Master ‘A’


The play is His, the rôle is His gift, the lines are written by Him. He directs, He decides the dress and decoration, the gesture and tone, the entrance and exit. You have to act well the part and receive His approval when the curtain falls. Earn by your efficiency and enthusiasm the right to play higher and higher rôles - that is the meaning and purpose of Life.
Master ‘B’





If ‘I’ have no volition or control over what happens, then acceptance of WHAT IS, is the only possibility for contentment.


What must happen, will happen. What may not happen, won’t. I will continue to wake up in the morning and experience whatever is in store for me that day, knowing that the impulses are That, the thoughts proceed from That, the encounters are arranged by That, the reactions provided by That, the needs supplied by That, the changes wrought by That, the Life sustained by That until it’s not—and when and if there is meant to be the cessation of identification with the personal ‘self’ in this particular organism, it will happen by the Grace of That.

On Giving, II

True giving is selfless. If it doesn’t delight the one receiving, or fulfill a need, it is not giving but something else, something meant to purchase gratitude or obligation, or satisfy one’s sense of righteousness.


Imposing one’s own ideas about what the recipient should have, is simply fulfilling one’s own needs and does nothing at all for the other—like the wealthy maiden aunt who gives her relatives a painting that’s not to their taste at all. The aunt is thanked, and the painting sits in the attic or basement until she comes to visit, when it is prominently displayed. I’m sure we all have endless examples. What’s the point?


If there’s real caring, truly wanting to give, a genuine desire to fulfill a need or please the recipient, then time and energy is expended discovering what it is that will serve or delight the other. What can they use, what will bring them joy? Inquire and discover. Perhaps flowers, or consumables, which will not remain to take up space and collect dust, are preferred. Giving without fulfilling the need or desire of the recipient is actually not giving, but imposing a burden and no gift at all.

On Love

Every Heart wants to feel Love

Love is the reason we pursue the innumerable false gods of our time—the gods that have hitch-hiked in on the coattails of ‘civilization.’ The gods we have been brainwashed to believe will answer our prayers:

The god of image, whom we believe will bless us with Love if we look the way his propaganda has convinced us we must look; the god of wealth, who has persuaded us our coffers must be swollen and overflowing to afford his blessing of Love; and the god of status, who has fooled us into accepting that without him we are not worthy of Love.

And Love? Love arises of its own accord—unexpectedly, uncontrollably, like the scent of lilacs wafting by on a breeze in spring. We cannot obtain it on demand regardless of our outer beauty or our wealth, and unlike designer chocolates, we cannot order it over the Internet. It is also beyond all name and fame —the most arrogant celebrity cannot write it into her contract. It cannot be earned, bribed or manipulated; even to the most deserving, it comes simply as a Gift.

The Cellphone: An Instrument of the...

The thought occurred like the proverbial light bulb in a comic panel, thanks to a line in Jon Cleary’s “The Easy Sin.” In 2001, his protagonist Scobie Malone, a homicide detective in Sydney, reflects as he walks down a street filled with cellphone-using pedestrians: “Nobody, it seemed, could remain unconnected to someone, anyone, for longer than five minutes.”

I had noticed this phenomenon as well, in the London of mid-2002 upon emerging in the West after almost four years spent mostly in a small village in India.

Although I didn’t feel culture-shocked going in either direction, I had to admit to being astonished at this particular trend. What was the need driving this obsession to be continuously plugged-in in this way?

I casually dismissed it as a sign of the times: new technology, new product, hype-to-the-hilt and everybody’s gotta have it—a keeping-up-with-the-Jonesing for the latest toy, using it simply because one can—and marked it down as 21st century hyperkinetic Attention Deficit Disorder acting out

But at the moment of reading “Nobody…could remain unconnected to someone, anyone…” (emphasis mine) the realization burst into my mind like a shooting star: what might appear to be a lack of the ability to be, or to be present, or to be quiescent—all of which may still be true—might even more fundamentally be the expression of a deep-seated need to be connected, to feel as if we are related in a meaningful way—not just by the accident of birth and blood, or proximity—but a fundamental and significant connection as important as Life Itself. That this phenomenon, which I had so superficially condemned as a lack of Awareness, might actually be a sign and symptom of a unifying facet of the evolutionary process which is inexorably revealing the fact of our Oneness—and perhaps even a precursor of the inevitable telepathic ability that will arise as Consciousness evolves further .

Look at it: the need to feel connected must primarily arise from our initial separation: the cutting of the cord. That moment of physical detachment creates a need in us for re-union that leads to the frantic coupling generally culminating in marriage which we believe will provide the ultimate wholeness, but which usually just results in further frustration and dissatisfaction. Then the maddening search for completeness begins again, leading through a quagmire of worldly obsessions.

Now in the 21st Century, the sense of isolation has developed exponentially, as we have increasingly acquired the wherewithal to entertain ourselves without need for physical proximity: radio, television, video/games, computers, and email—everything can be contained in a single room if necessary and we don’t ever have to leave our home.

And even more, in a niggling, subconscious way, we feel profoundly alienated in a world that tells us we have to live life in the most superficial way—a way that is essentially contrary to our deepest Nature. Our deepest Nature, which is already connected, is not at all concerned with how we look, what we possess, or the accoutrements of ‘being cool.’ Indeed, our deepest Nature would laugh indulgently at a need to ‘be cool’ the way an adult would laugh at a child playing grown-up.

Our deepest Nature knows that we are connected in the ultimate way—that each apparent individual is part of a singular Consciousness in the same way that individual cells are part of a single organism—and has been attempting to get our attention and awaken us to this fact: We are One. One spiritual essence permeates All That Is, and we are a part of That.

Just imagine everyone in the world on a conference call at the same time. On a subtle level, this is the reality: we are all plugged in to Universal Mind—which is the ‘brain’ of our organism, the place ideas come from, and why we can experience a discomfort that is not personal but transmitted by another ‘cell’ or group of cells that is suffering.

In fact, cancer and AIDS in individuals are symptoms of the disorder affecting human life on the planet as a whole: in the same way that cancerous cells destroy healthy ones, some of us are destroying each other; and Auto-immune Deficiency is self-explanatory.

Could it be more obvious that we need to create harmony in our selves and in our world?

We are One and not only that, we are the same in the most elementary ways:

So the next time you pull out your cellphone just to connect, stop and make the connection within. Take a breath, feel your heart beating, experience the essence of Life Itself moving in you and sustaining you. Realize that that same Life is moving in and sustaining all of us, and in the most subtle and profound of ways we are more than connected: We are One.

The Anticipation of Death

The anticipation of Death,
like the anticipation of Birth,
is meant to be
a celebration of Life,
not a mourning.
To rejoice with the departing one,
on the Life that was lived,
the Love that was shared.
A celebration of a task completed,
a journey taken, lessons learned.
When we appreciate and celebrate Life every day,
there are no regrets
at the end of the road,
nothing left undone
that was desired by the Heart.
We leave gladly, full -
as at the end of a day
shared with friends.

*

The Harvest Prayer

(Anonymous 17th Century Sermon)


Please be gentle with yourself and others
We are all children of chance

And none can say why some fields blossom
While others lay brown beneath the harvest sun

Take hope that your season will come
Share the joy of those whose season is at hand

Care for those around you
Look past your differences

Their dreams are no less than yours
Their choices in life no more easily made

And give,
Give in any way you can
Give in every way you can
Give whatever you possess
Give from your heart

To give is to love
To withhold is to wither

Care less for the size of your harvest
Than for how it is shared

And your life will have meaning
And your heart will have peace



(This came to me in San Miguel D’Allende, 2003)