Flames Wow - What a shock of disbelief and sadness, to see images of the Notre Dame cathedral engulfed in flames. Now of course we know that any phenomenon that appears is destined—at some point—to disappear. But in all kinds of relative contexts, there’s genuine value in preserving/reproducing certain things—and (imo) the Notre Dame cathedral is one of these. In the Hindu triumvirate of …
Practice Notes
Light & Mirror
Krishna saw his own self — as the Infinite — In the throng of lovely gopis. They experienced in Krishna, O wonder, Their own self — but as the Absolute. And when, in play, he stole their veils, He wished to see himself in Truth's naked ray. Âtmâ and Mâyâ: light and mirror. God is Love and He loves His image. ~ Frithjof Schuon Playful Reflection In searching for an online version …
As If
Wave-Particle In a fascinating article—Does The Universe Exist If We're Not Looking?—that's based upon an interview with (the late) physicist John Wheeler, I learned something new about the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, which is that it originally was a thought experiment involving a pair of distant galaxies and an even-more-distant quasar. It was only later that a table-top version …
Practice Notes: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Drinking The Kool-Aid Perhaps you know the story (penned originally by Kahlil Gibran) of The Wise King, which here I'll paraphrase … A king respected for his strength and wisdom rules over a city, in whose heart rests a well of pure and crystalline water. One night a witch poisons the well-water. Upon drinking the poisoned water, all the inhabitants of the kingdom become insane. The king …
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Practice Notes: Hatchlings
A couple of hatchling-related metaphors that I've found useful .... 1. Inside Out & Outside In When a baby bird is ready to be born--i.e. mature enough to emerge from its egg--it begins to peck at the shell that currently surrounds it. Peck-peck-peck ... At the same time, the baby bird's mother--the fully grown bird--in the spirit of kindly assistance, also begins to peck at the eggshell …
Practice Notes: The Transitivity Train
Among the great sayings (mahavakyas) of the Upanishads—central to the teaching of Advaita Vedanta—we have this one from the Chandogya Upanishad, spoken in a second-person voice, something a teacher might say to a student as a pointing-out instruction: Tat tvam asi. The English translation of this saying is That thou art or Thou art That. And its basic assertion is that Thou—i.e. Atman, your …