The human condition is to forget that our originality or True Nature is Pure Free and Forever. We are born of that Divine Purity and Freedom, but as soon as our ego/mind/intellect starts to develop, the knowledge of our Divine Nature is lost. We are told from an early age that we are a girl or a boy, that we have a name, a family, a skin color and a nationality that define us. Growing up we accept different roles that society determines for us and so we become daughters, sons

Today’s quote is from Yog Vashishth, one of my favorite scriptures that Swami Shyam has brilliantly revived for those who want to know the Essence or Truth of Life itself. As described in many previous blogposts, the study of the mind allows us to become aware of its functioning and its limitations. One of the mind’s hardwired attributes is to be filled with information that churns through our head all day long. Depending on what is going on in our life, the mind will be fill

Just as a caterpillar doesn’t know it can fly until it experiences its own metamorphosis, most human beings are not sure of their Divinity. They doubt it, unless they are offered a moment of grace where life is experienced in an entirely different way from the habitual waking state reality. A distinct experience of a different dimension often helps us confirm what we may have hoped for or suspected for the bigger part of our lives: that there truly is more to us than what we

Through the mystery of Creation, when the eternally Pure and Free Space manifests as a human being, an individual mind gets formed. In this process of embodiment, the vision and knowledge of the Eternal Being get confined to a small fraction of the Pure Vision. The result is the human instrument of perception that we call the mind. In order to function in the world, the mind is given a set of helpers in the form of the senses. They all have different functions, but they can o

A persistent and pervasive myth keeps countless people from pursuing their own Meditation practice; namely the belief that one needs to empt

The eternal Self, our Source, is unchanging and ever-present. The same is true for Grace, which is the very nature of the Self. In fact, we could say that Self, Source and Grace are synonymous, for all three words are attempts to describe the indescribable, infinite Space of Divinity. Grace is not something we need to deserve or seek, it is who we are in essence. We may have accepted our body and mind as our identity, just like a wave has accepted the sense that it is separat

Sound is innocent. In and of itself, sound is neutral and it has no meaning. Whatever its quality or level of intensity - if there isn't someone listening, taking it in and giving it meaning - sound is innocuous. It takes the presence of a witness hearing the sound, giving it meaning or having an opinion about it, for the sound to become "something". As an example, a dog can bark its heart out all night; if I am not next door getting irritated because the noise keeps me awake

As human beings we think of ourselves as "I"; a body and mind that functions within this world into which we wake up every morning. The Sages and Saints however have been telling us throughout the ages that we are much more than that! Even though we feel certain about the physical reality of our bodies and the world that surrounds us, it is helpful to remember that their perception is deficient due to the limited ability of our senses. We tend to forget that our main sense or

Just as love is much vaster than the sense of attraction or infatuation we experience as humans beings, compassion is much vaster than the sympathy, commiseration or care we may feel towards our fellow human and animal friends. True compassion is unchanging and unconditional in nature. It is a state of being rather than a feeling - and it is one of the characteristics of the all-permeating Self. The fullness of compassion lives hidden in our innermost core as the knowledge of

The Vedic scriptures say that the sense of separation from our Divine Self, is the cause of all human difficulty and suffering. In most cultures we are told from an early age that Divinity exist "out there" and that as human beings we are inherently separate from it. Divinity or the Self is described as the unattainable state of eternal bliss that we might get a glimpse of at the end of a long road of practices and renunciation, if we are lucky and deserving. This leaves many

The waking state consciousness, the so-called normal human state is filled with thoughts, ideas, concepts, conclusions, expectations and judgments that flow through our mind all day long. We don't invite the thoughts and we have no control over the their flow. This movement in the mind is constantly changing, coming and going. At times we experience this stream of thoughts as our inner voices that tell us we are right or wrong, happy or unhappy, successful or not. If our atte

Everyday human experience is also referred to as waking state consciousness. In this state, the mind and the content of its thoughts are experienced as me; a person who is functioning in the world and whose thoughts are real and true. If these thoughts are repeatedly judgmental, telling me that I am not good enough - that I am too much of this and not enough of that - then what the thoughts say becomes my reality. If, for example, the mind produces thoughts every day that tel

The quote of the Sage says that we find the unchanging Self where the senses and ego are not. Then where is it to be found? In our everyday waking state awareness, there is never a moment where the senses or the sense of I/ego are not alive and active. The senses are collecting experiences and the thinking mechanism is producing thoughts in the mind from the moment we wake up in the morning, until we fall into deep sleep at night. As long this process is active, the sense of