Posts in the “personal” category

I really like the following quotes about keeping your mind on God all the time, from the book, The Gospel of Shri Anandamayi Ma.”

In particular, one thing I like about her approach as compared to something like Zen is that she spells out exactly how one should practice, so there is no guesswork about how to keep your mind during the day. (Zen people tend to tell you something once, and then leave you on your own.)

Anandamayi Ma quotes on service

Here are some of her quotes from the first one-third of her book that I really like:

“While performing a service, think that whatever you are doing is for God only. You are not serving a man or a creature, but God himself.”

It’s cool to see that Virginia Schick (Ginny) is/was such a great teacher, in Colorado. And an artist. She was very nice in high school, while I was more of a jerk myself.

(I wasn’t a jerk intentionally. In retrospect it all had a lot to do with my family situation, and wanting to get out of Illinois as fast as possible. I also did not communicate well with anyone, and I regret that as well.)

A funny thing is that I lived in the Boulder, Broomfield, and Longmont, Colorado area for almost 15 years myself.

Across the street was a beautiful, old church. I wanted to see what it looked like inside, so I crossed the street, but as I approached the church there was a commotion to my left, so I walked over to see what was happening.

Some people needed some assistance, and I thought it would be an easy TK thing to do, so I started to help them. But it was much, much harder to do than I expected, so I started to put all of my effort into it. I couldn’t do what I wanted, but instead of giving up, I kept pushing harder and harder. As I did this, the song, Sanctify Yourself, by Simple Minds, began playing.

As I tried harder, a man’s voice began talking in my left ear. He was whispering some of the lyrics from this song, and the harder I tried, the louder he spoke. I kept trying harder and harder until I eventually became like Eleven in the last episode of Stranger Things, putting my entire being into the effort. In the end, there was no “me,” only the desire to help:

A unique feature of this story is that I didn’t know what the word sanctify meant until I woke up and looked it up...

I don’t put too many photos of myself out here, but this is me escaping from the hospital one day, after the ninth time I went unconscious, if I remember right.

I’ve been seeing a therapist for the last several years. With all that I’ve been going through, it’s been nice to have someone to talk to.

When I got to her office last night there was nobody else there, so we just sat in the lobby and started talking. But after a while some other people came in, so we had to move.

When we got up to move I used telekinesis to move some of the chairs and our things. “How .. how .. how are you doing that?”, she stammered.

“Well, I guess I think about the objects, and then I guess it’s a bit like a tractor beam, and well, I move them to where I want them.” Nobody had ever asked me that before, so my answer wasn’t very well thought out.

Anyway, she said I’m doing fine, but she took a couple of pills herself.

#dream

I don’t normally share pictures of homemade food here, but this one was pretty good. After watching the movie Spanglish recently I made a sandwich from focaccia bread, butter, Egg Beaters eggs, sharp cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and a little seasoning. I could probably eat this meal every day for a few days. :)

February 11, 2019:

Sometimes dreams seem to exist to teach us things. Last night there was a very long dream sequence in which a deceased relative was a raging alcoholic. At one point I had to help him off the floor, and when I touched him I instantly saw many of the things he had seen, and felt what he was feeling. It was like 100% empathy, if that’s the right word for it. I immediately felt, “Wow, if I had been through these things I might be in the same shape myself,” so rather than feeling pity for him I felt empathy. I got him up into a chair and said, “Talk to me.” He tried to brush me off, but when I told him what I had seen and felt he began weeping and I hugged him for a while.

As the dream went on it was filled with people I like, people I don’t like, and others that I just don’t understand. So I touched them all and went through the same thing with each person, knowing everything about their lives to this point, always with the result of feeling empathy for them rather than other emotions like anger or pity or sorrow. There were concerns about cheating spouses/partners, issues with adoptions, parents, friends, body image, and much more.

I just ran across this photo of my shadow. I accidentally took this picture while walking on a cold day in Santa Fe earlier this year.

“Awareness admits no obstructions. It can be boundless even when we are confined.”

~ A Tibetan monk in Bloomington, Indiana (Arjia Rinpoche)

“And all becomes clear. Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don’t worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well. I understand now, that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so. Moments like this, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as I feel my own, and I know that separation is an illusion. My life extends far beyond the limitations of me.”

~ Cloud Atlas

In a lucid dream last night, someone was showing me how to do a pose I know as “dunda pranam”, where you prostrate yourself to someone else, such as God. So I did this, and when I did, someone who I thought was Maharaji (Neem Karoli Baba) placed their hands on my head, and held my head for some time. I could feel their hands move a little as they held it for a while, and said a few things I couldn’t understand.

~ Diary entry, January 13, 2024

“And it’s a gentle way — if we can see ourselves as better connected (interconnected with everything) — still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole.

And I can’t always get into that state of mind, but when I’m in that state of mind, it brings some ... not happiness, but some sense of place and purpose.

I don’t want to get preachy with any of this stuff, but to me, I’m not a religious person, but maybe a humanitarian, humanist, interested in spiritual matters.

I think we’re part of a bigger picture, and I think the future has echoes in the present day, and sometimes when we’re being open and listening, we can pick those up. For example, I know that when I’m doing the right thing, all sorts of coincidences start happening, things start falling into place.

I think everyone has access to all sorts of stuff that isn’t immediately clear in our mind. And there are echoes of the past and the future that we can pick up on.”

~ Peter Gabriel, from this video

Maybe someday I’ll learn to paint, but until then, I’ll keep creating images like this one, made from Silas in The Da Vinci Code.

“Is that a dagger or a crucifix I see?” ~ Blood of Eden, by Peter Gabriel

“Is that a dagger or a crucifix I see you hold so tightly in your hand?”

~ Blood of Eden, Peter Gabriel

“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”

~ Ram Dass

Ram Dass FAQ: What is the best Ram Dass book to start with?

Unlike other websites that give you A.I.-generated answers, here’s my answer, and as you can see from the images below, I truly have read all of the Ram Dass books I mention.

My answer: The best Ram Dass book to start with is ...

I wrote this in my earlier blog post, What Are The Best Books By Ram Dass, but I believe the best Ram Dass book to start with is Polishing The Mirror.

I think this book is the best summary of all his work. It’s a relatively short book, it’s clearly written, and summarizes much of what you’ll read in his other books. I started reading this when I was in the hospital, and as bad as I was feeling at the time, it just blew me away. I like to underline and highlight text, and I felt like I could highlight most of the book.

The young actress who plays Cristina in the movie Spanglish (Shelbie Bruce) is very funny during the scene where she acts as an interpreter for her mother while arguing with Adam Sandler.

“All suffering is due to the false notion, ‘I am the body.’”

~ Ramana Maharshi

As a brief note today, here is a short list of spiritual teachers I am aware of who have expressed the idea “I am not the body.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj made this the most obvious to me by writing a book titled, “I Am Not The Body,” but when you think about it, many spiritual teachers have said the exact same thing in different ways.

With the usual caveat that you should always check with your doctor before trying different medical things, the following article describes a solution that seems to help me be more awake in the mornings.

I’m old, I was born with a rare blood disease, and I also have sleep apnea, so waking up in the morning is a hard, hard thing to do. Even after I manage to get out of bed and my eyes are open, it feels like it’s several hours every morning before I’m truly awake.