Ideas

OUR SEPARATE ONENESS
by Catherine Dale

Once upon a time, 7 years ago or so, I had an awakening. For a brief and shining moment, I did not feel separate from anything or anyone. Some may call it Oneness. Others might call it being at Peace with Oneself. It was sweet. It was so freeing. But, then, I had to turn in my "angel’s wings," because I hadn’t earned them yet – I’d only rented them, I guess. And, slowly but surely, “the high” of being at Peace was replaced by hyper-sensitivity. At first I thought it was just a manifestation of some anxiety disorder or mania. There had to be an explanation. How could I go from loving everyone and everything to feeling anger and annoyance, irritability and fear? More

How Can You Love What You Get Paid to Do?
by Catherine Dale

As talented and amazing as many of us are, the fact remains, you gotta pay the bills. The concept of doing what you love, following your heart, letting go - and letting God provide, is valid and positive. However, I've been giving this a fair bit of thought lately. It brought me back to thinking about my working and creative lives. More

"What is enlightenment like?"
Wisdom from Anthony de Mello

What is awakening like? It's like the tramp in London who was settling in for the night. He'd hardly been able to get a crust of bread to eat. Then he reaches this embankment on the river Thames. There was a slight drizzle, so he huddled in his old tattered cloak. He was about to go to sleep when suddenly a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce pulls up. Out of the car steps a beautiful young lady who says to him, "My poor man, are you planning on spending the night here on this embankment"?

And the tramp says, "Yes". She says, "I won't have it. You're coming to my house and you're going to spend a comfortable night and you're going to get a good dinner". She insists on his getting into the car. Well, they ride out of London and get to a place where she has a sprawling mansion with large grounds. They are ushered in by the butler, to whom she says, "James, please make sure he's put in the servants' quarters and treated well". Which is what James does. The young lady had undressed and was about to go to bed when she suddenly remembers her guest for the night.

So she slips something on and pads along the corridor to the servants' quarters. She sees a little chink of light from the room where the tramp was put up. She taps lightly at the door, opens it, and finds the man awake. She says, "What's the trouble, my good man, didn't you get a good meal"? He said, "Never had a better meal in my life, lady". "Are you warm enough"? He says, "Yes, lovely warm bed". Then she says, "Maybe you need a little company. Why don't you move over a bit". And she comes closer to him and he moves over and falls right into the Thames.

PATANJALI’S EIGHT LIMBS – A RECIPE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT? OR, A SIGN THAT YOU’RE ALREADY THERE?
by Catherine Dale

For most of us, yoga starts with the postures. At the studio where I studied, the classes were divided into levels – restorative, beginner, level 1, and so on. In my mind, the ultimate goal was to progress to the highest level. My approach was no different than the one I’d taken when I was in school. Once you’ve finished with grade 1, there’s grade 2......Someone who can do advanced balancing postures and head-stands must be better at yoga than those people who can only do standing asanas, right?
More

Samtosha - As Usual, A Simple Yogic Solution to a Complex Human Problem
by Catherine Dale

We human beings need to suffer. Why? Because, if we didn’t we’d have nothing to talk about. Honestly! Watch an average news broadcast. Ask yourself how many of those stories would be there if the people involved were completely happy. If they were totally at peace with themselves. Nadda. Ziltch. None. More

An excerpt from “Cold Turkey”
by Kurt Vonnegut

About my own history of foreign substance abuse… I've been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. But I'll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver's license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won't be any more of those. Cold turkey. Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like TV news, is it?

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.

Moving into Stillness
By Wendy Grant

The phrase 'moving into stillness', seems to say two things--that stillness is a place, somewhere we can get to and that we get there by action. Do we act into inaction, do into non-doing, use effort to let go? More

Sex, Immortality, and the Future of Women
An interview with Barbara Marx Hubbard
by Jessica Roemischer

Is sex evolving? Barbara Marx Hubbard, the grand dame of the "conscious evolution" movement, emphatically states, "Yes!" As an author, a futurist, and the president of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, Hubbard has been at the forefront of an emerging worldview positing that humans are at the threshold of a new phase in the evolutionary process. And this, as she reveals here, has great implications for our favorite pastime. More

A Spirituality that Transforms
by Ken Wilber

All too often, in the translation of the mystical traditions from the East (and elsewhere) into the American idiom, their profound depth is flattened out, their radical demand is diluted, and their potential for revolutionary transformation is squelched. More

Do Animals Have Souls?
By Ross Robertson

A mind-bending journey into the deeper dimensions of animal consciousness. More

Letting the Genie out of the Bottle
By Catherine Dale

"Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before." - (Joseph Campbell)
In the accounts of people who have attained higher levels of consciousness, there are descriptions of unbounded expansion - complete bliss. Funny thing about bliss, it's only as illusive as we make it. More

Yoga Injuries
By Bud Agnew

Hatha yoga literature states much about how to prevent injuries in a yoga class during asana practice. This is as it should be of course since it is much better to prevent injuries than to have to deal with them after the fact. However injuries and incidents occasionally do take place in the yoga room and there is very little discussion of these in the yoga literature. Consequently there is not much to guide yoga teachers on what steps to take should something unfortunate happen. Download pdf about 50 pages.

Everything changes
By Wendy Grant

As I start to write this it is snowing out--big fat white blobs of snowflakes changing the world outside from brown to white. So I thought why not use one of those snowflakes to represent how everything changes. In fact can you ever really get a grip on a snowflake? More

Yoda's Light-Saber was Actually an Umbrella
By Catherine Dale

"Just let a smile be your umbrella on a rainy, rainy day. And if your sweetie cries, just tell her that a smile will always pay. Whenever skies are grey don't worry or fret, A smile will bring you sunshine and you'll never get wet, So let a smile be your umbrella on a rainy, rainy day." More

Who am I?
By Catherine Dale

I love old movies. Do you remember, "Music Man?" You know, "Professor" Harold Hill? "76 trombones in the big parade?" "Marion the librarian?" A typical Hollywood love story - boy meets girl, boy annoys girl, girl spurns boy, boy and girl have plenty of friction, etc., etc. Like I said, I love old movies.
More

Experiencing vs. Thinking About
by Wendy Grant

When' experiencing' there is a naturalness, a timelessness, a flow and ease to the whole situation whether that is a movement, a conversation, transplanting tomatoes or making soup. Experiencing happens when I let go of the judgment, the planning, the expectation of results; when I 'forget' myself. More

Wanting Mind
by Wendy Grant

Wants that are selfish, wants that are unselfish, wants that feel like immediate needs, wants that are future aspirations--a diversity of wanting but all with an underlying common root. A discontent with what is, a discontent with the present moment. More