QUESTION: What do we do when our minds wander during meditation? Should I keep bringing my attention back to the breath and reconnecting with what is happening now? ~ ANSWER: That can be a very …
Are You Finished or Are You Still Trying?
When we meditate we often find ourselves working hard and doing our very best to follow the simple instruction of sitting and consciously choosing to be content with everything the way it is. It is …
The Varieties of Spiritual Life
If you are reading this essay, I can only imagine that you feel drawn to live a spiritual life, and I would be willing to bet that you would agree with me when I say …
Awakening through the Breath
Breathing has long been seen as a point of connection with divinity. In fact, the word spirit is derived from the Latin word spiritus which refers to the breath of a god. In his gospel, …
The Birth of Love and Innocence
The story of Christmas is the story of a birth that occurred in the middle of a dark and silent night, and promised to bring peace and joy to the world. In that story I …
How Luminous Absorption Can Change the World
As I see it, the experience of luminous absorption reveals our True Self and the True Nature of existence at the same time. We’ve been taught that we live in a reality of three-dimensional space …
Unleashing our Potential for Spiritual Creativity
As a spiritual teacher, what I teach is constantly evolving. As I continue to explore, learn, and grow, what I teach reflects my current interests and discoveries. For the past few years I’ve been fascinated …
Practicing The Art of Creative Illumination
How do you meditate? Close your eyes and surrender. ~ Rumi For a long time I have talked and written about how the practice of meditation occurs in two distinct stages, but until now I …
Spiritual Attunement and Collective Awakening
In the enlightenment tradition of Hinduism, the notion of transmission or shakti pat often plays a prominent role. Within that tradition, a teacher or guru is often seen as possessing access to awakening energy that …
Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Freedom, and Spiritual Illumination
Part 1: The Art of Conscious Contentment I teach a form of meditation that I call The Art of Conscious Contentment and that practice offers a powerful path to spiritual awakening. In this essay, you’ll …
The Art of Meditating without Meditating: Breaking the Habit of Isolation
I feel that the meditation I teach is perfect for beginners even though it’s often seen as an advanced practice. The reason I believe it’s perfect for beginners is because it takes us straight to …
We are Cosmic Beings
Today I want to share something with you. It’s the kind of thing that is true of so many of us, and yet so few of us feel free to say it. I came into …
Living in Flow
Excerpted from: The Miracle of Self Realization: Reflections on the teachings of Ramana Maharshi by Jeff Carreira. ~ Ramana tells a story, in The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, about a boy who is fast …
Experiencing Transcendent Freedom in Meditation
As a meditation practitioner and teacher, I have experienced myself, and witnessed others experience, the miracle of radical liberation countless times. There are many forms of meditation designed for a variety of purposes. The form …
The Hazy Sunshine of an Illuminated Mind
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious …
The Healing Power of Deep Meditation
We are living through a crisis unprecedented in our lifetimes. As a dangerous virus moves mercilessly through our cities and towns we stay indoors and isolate to protect ourselves and each other. At the same …
Deep Meditation and The Passion of an Artist of Possibility
When your meditation becomes deep and steady what you find is that you flicker in and out of remembering that you are meditating. You will be meditating for a while, deliberately following the instructions, and then you will remember that you are meditating and realize that you had forgotten what you were doing for a few minutes.
What’s So Powerful about a Silent Retreat?
I recently returned from leading a 10-day silent meditation retreat in Sri Lanka. It was a powerful retreat for me as well as the others who were there. My experience is that silent retreats include …
Beyond the Myth of Awakening
The myth of awakening refers to any belief we hold about there being something called awakening that’s going to happen in the future. The way we go beyond the myth of awakening is by accepting …
The Immediacy Of Meditation
There is a magic to the practice of meditation that many practitioners never discover because we only find it when we eliminate time from the equation. You can call this the discovery of radical immediacy …