Hindu/Vedanta/Yoga Meditation Workshop/www.zgatl.org/hindu-mysticism.html
Quote of the Week 419 - Listend/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance
Quote of the Week 419 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance
Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live…
--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
Meditation (Click your selection, scroll down to view it)
- Audio Link: Interview - You Cannot Avoid Mystery; Eastern Meditation
- Audio Link: A Foundation for a Fruitful Meditation Practice: Science of Breath/Pranayama/Relaxation - Theory and Practice
- Audio Link: (Scroll to 11/04/18 entry) The Breath and Life Force; Guided Meditation - I Am an Empty Shell, Therefore I Am Full, etc.
- Meditation Basics - Expanded Version
- Meditation Basics - Condensed Version
- Mantra Meditation Basics
- Nada Meditation - Anahata/The Unstruck Sound
- Jewish Yoga Meditation
- Hebrew Mantras
- Hebrew Mantras, Part Two
- Hebrew Mantras, Part Three
- Hebrew Mantras - Adonai Hineni
- Healing Meditation: Ruach El Shaddai/Breath of Balance
- Meditating, Eating and Sleeping
- Shortcuts to Spiritual Development?
- Audio Link: Guided Meditation - I Am and Empty Shell, Therefore I Am Full; A Meditation on Emptiness and Dark Luminescence Based on the Opening Lines of Genesis
- Guided Meditation: The Stage
- Guided Meditation: I Am an Empty Shell, Therefore I Am Full; A Meditation on Emptiness and Dark Luminescence Based on the Opening Lines of Genesis
- Guided Meditation: The Rod, The Staff, and The Star
- Torah-Veda Meditation Class Site
- Interspiritual Contemplative Group
CURRENT TEACHING SESSIONS
Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Friday, February 12, 2021
Basic Spiritual Principles, Boiled Down
Basic Spiritual Principles, Boiled Down
1. BE
2. Be Aware
3. Be Aware of Awareness
4. Be Aware of your Origin
5. Be Kind
6. If you find yourself incapable of, or incomplete in Being any of the above, work at Becoming it.
7. In the spirit of the great spiritual masters of all times and places, everything else is commentary and guidance. Study. Especially study yourself to locate, become and BE the Self you already are, but may not be aware of in all of its paradoxical Fullness and Emptiness.
This will result in increasingly inspired and meaningful living.
And now for the elaborations:
1. BE. We all Are, so this is a gimme.
2. Be Aware. The Bill Clinton strategists had the political slogan, "It's the economy, stupid". Well, in the dimension of spiritual growth, paraphrasing Forest Gump's mama, "Awareness is as Awareness does." I is all about Awareness and expanding it, becoming fully aware. We all are partly aware - it comes with Being. It is not, or should not, be complicated, but we make it so, individually and collectively, as attested to by psychotherapists, philosophers, theologians, and others.
3. Be Aware of Awareness. Ditto.
4. Be Aware of your Origin. This is just anothother way of stating what the likes of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj advocate: enquire with great determination and persistence into the source and substance of "I". This also relates to the first fundamental prong upon which most religions are based: What is Divinity and one's relationship with the Divine, one's place in the Cosmic Scheme.
5. Be Kind. This relates fundamental prong upon which most religions are based: How one should relate with everything and all beings that appear to exist separate from oneself. Kindness is a simple, yet comprehensive guiding principle. It encompasses all positive values and virtues, including the Golden Rule, mindfulness, compassion, non-violence, etc.
6. If you find yourself incapable of, or incomplete in Being any of the above, work at Becoming it. This is the nature and essence of spiritual work and practice.
7. In the spirit of the great spiritual masters of all times and places, everything else is commentary and guidance. Study. Especially study yourself to locate, become and BE the Self you already are, but may not be aware of in all of its paradoxical Fullness and Emptiness. Discover/develp/expand a capacity of being able to embrace Paradox and Mystery, and reognize/get comfortable with the reality that you are not really in control.
Conclusion: "Find your inspiration and follow it" is another pet phrase to sum it up.
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Quote of the Week 419 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance
Quote of the Week 419 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance
Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy. Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is goo. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live...
--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah, translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Interview: You Cannot Avoid Mystery; Eastern Meditation - New Audio
I have added a new audio link to an interview with Zeitgeist founder Debonee Morgan:
You Cannot Avoid Mystery; Eastern Meditation
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Quote of the Week 418 - A Walk Through a Garden in Late Autumn
Quote of the Week 418 - A Walk Through a Garden in Late Autumn
I am walking through a garden. The time is late autumn. The hour is twilight. How colorful everything is. It is so beautiful my eyes are moist. Oh, this wonderful twilight hour, these precious moments of eternity…silently, I stand and listen…listen…it speaks to me:
“Welcome home, my son! Let me embrace you. Your hair is gray, your eyes are clear and bright. It is well now, you are back in the heart of your family. Sit down, have some fruit. The others will be here soon to press your hands and to kiss your lean cheeks. We all missed you so. You strayed here and there, but we never lost track of you and we hoped that you would find the road. Always, we longed for you, and you are here with us, and you smile. ‘Twasn’t so bad, was it? The road was long, the trails were steep and a bit lonely. But, that is all past now…you are home. Let me take a good look at you.”
--Mory Berman, Autumn Leaves; A Collection of Essays
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Quote of the Week 417 - The Answer
Quote of the Week 417 - The Answer
The answer to the Mysteries:
Doo dum dum dum
Da doo dum dum
--Leonard Cohen, “Tower of Song”, Live in London
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Quote of the Week 416 - Coping with the void
Quote of the Week 416 - Coping with the void
Everyone in our nation has a terrifying void inside that we attempt to fill with work, smartphones, and every other addiction. Some of us enter 12-step programs, where we become addicted to meetings, but the void persists.
We each keep our emptiness a shameful secret. It never occurs to us that everyone around us shares the exact same interior void.
--Sparrow, The Sun magazine, August 2020 issue
My comments:
Existentialism teaches to accept the void and deal with it.
Zen teaches to embrace, even celebrate the void, not try to fill it.
Sunday, August 2, 2020
Quote of the Week 415 - The most Brilliant Light
Quote of the Week 415 - The Most Brilliant Light
There is no light as brilliant as that which emerges out of the Dark.
--Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai