Musing on Mantras Ever since I heard of mantras, I was always curious to the large number of repetitions required to unlock and use mantras. Was this just a test of our competence? Were we supposed to decipher the secret formula that in fact took only a dozen repetitions, rather than wasting time on some…

Mind “Stuff” An obvious remark: We are in full control of the contents of our mind. I like to think of the mind like a garden. We can weed out the undesired thoughts, habits and imagery. We can plant seeds that bloom into empowering, enlightening, and even entertaining foliage. We can attentively water that which…

Principle of Disproportionate Results When I was very young, I professed my interest in occult subjects to a friend who did not believe in such things. I was hoping that he would at least open his mind to new possibilities through my communication with him. Instead, he tried to teach me a character lesson: He…

The Great Escape Our job is not easy… First, we need to escape the personality programming. I like to think of this process as “svarupa sadhana” (or the spiritual practice of building character) where we forge our own personality and determine our own character, rather than living content in the place society-karma-accident put us. This…

History of “Tantric” Study Two decades ago, I found some tantras. I studied them. After some digging, I realized that they were at best useless translations from a world long gone. The context for their application was missing, and there was no evidence that anyone had achieved anything from their practice. A decade ago, I…

Japa With Morning Birds This morning I was doing japa but my mind was not steady. Thoughts relative to the upcoming day were coming up. There were even a few new ideas that I wanted to jot down for fear of losing them. Needless to say, I was half-here-half-there, fumbling through my observance. Suddenly a…

Chinnamasta Devi & Her Secrets India is an extraordinary country. On the one hand you have a rural people governed by pre-historic village councils where inter-caste marriages can be punished by brutal “honor” killings. On the other hand, you have Chinnamasta Devi severing Her own head and delighting in Her own blood while another God…

Renouncing “Spiritual” Lessons There is a narrative in the spiritualist and occult world which suggests that we as Spirit Beings experience the sorrows of life in order to learn lessons. Some argue that the lesson is of Karma, and that we are only experiencing the fruits of past actions. Learning that lesson, we can more…

Lineages of Illusions Our paradigms are illusions. They may be accurate and useful, like our concept for gravitation, or they may be completely misguided, like the notion that women’s bodies will become infertile if they read too much. (That’s actually something people used to believe.) Whatever illusions you come across, experience and discrimination will help…

The Objective Take a moment and perceive yourself. Try to visualize all of yourself in a given instant in time and space, like a still frame in a movie. A snapshot in time. That you in that moment is a thing… Everything it does, it feels, it thinks, it believes, all its actions and intents;…