The main reason behind all the world’s problems is selfishness. Living an unselfish life means that we perform our actions for the sake of others, not for our own personal gain. Yogis are not alone in recognizing the importance of service. The motto of the Lions Club is “We Serve,” and the motto of the Rotarians is “Service above Self.” When we use these mottos, what self are we referring to? Even to serve above the self, one should know the self.MORE
We can consider Dhritarāśhtra, the blind king, to be manas, the lower mind. And Sanjaya, his minister, our conscience. The king is blind, but he is not deaf. He does want to hear Sanjaya’s input. It’s always a good sign, though maybe rare, when the lower mind asks the conscience to speak up. However, the problem is that upon receiving the input, it is not unusual for our blind ruler to either ignore the input or distort it. MORE
As the annual Navaratri celebration of the Divine Mother comes to an end, please enjoy this inspiration from spiritual teacher and author Sally Kempton. In this video, she discusses the three ‘faces’ of spirit and what it means to see the universe as Shakti. The program includes a powerful series of meditations on Goddess Lalita, as well as important teachings on deity practice itself.
Patanjali called the things that cause us to suffer kleshas, or obstructions. He named five of them. The first, avidya, is that we do not fully know who we are. Avidya is often translated as ignorance. The ignorance it refers to is that, while we might know a lot about many topics, we do not fully know who we truly are. It is this incompleteness of knowing that allows four other kleshas to arise: a false narrative about who think we are (asmita); our likes and dislikes (raga and dvesha); and clinging to life (abhinivesha). MORE
There are many stories in the Zen tradition that offer a perspective on sleep, such as the enlightenment of Ananda, where he stayed awake for several days on end trying to attain Great Liberation. He finally decides to give up on attaining enlightenment and get some rest. However, the moment his head hit the pillow he attains awakening. Even this story, however, seems to encourage not sleeping in a very literal way. Indian tradition, both Buddhist and Hindu, is replete with stories of home-leavers... MORE
Lissa Coffey has teamed up with award-winning composer/producer David Vito Gregoli to create "Song Divine: The Bhagavad Gita ROCK OPERA." Each chapter of the Gita is a song and is for all those who want to memorize the words of the Gita by singing along to the "Song Divine." This short video, sets up the story of the Gita. After you watch, experience the whole "Song Divine" chapter by chapter, which is available here.
