I am happy to share an ongoing series of informal conversations between myself and Gabor Harsanyi, moderated and produced by Nurit Oren. Some of the themes and topics in these conversations include: Silence, meditation, spirituality, nonduality, mind, gurus, embodiment, god, awakening, self-realization, self-inquiry, bliss, ecstasy, pleasure, sex, functionality, spiritual practice, and many more. If you would like to hear us speak on a particular topic or have a question, please send an email to: info@nuritoren.com (more…)
Archive of ‘Silence’ category
My Response to Cancer
This is the text I read at the storytelling show produced by Spark Off Rose, in Los Angeles, on April 13, 2015. The audio recording of this can be heard here.
I don’t know what you were doing in November 2011, but I was in Bali, teaching a weeklong retreat based on my eighth book, The 5 Principles of Authentic Living. For six months prior to Bali, I had suffered from muscle spasms in my back that would buckle my knees, drop me to the floor, and blind me with pain. I could scarcely walk, but I had committed to teaching in Bali, so I loaded up on painkillers and flew from L. A. to the retreat site. When it was over, I was finished: exhausted, weak, sick, and in pain.
I knew I couldn’t make it back to L. A. Instead, I went to the much closer Australia, where I had recently lived for six years. I went downhill fast. Lying down, I couldn’t lift my legs; I could barely wiggle my toes. On December 24th, yes, Christmas eve, I was admitted to the ER of a local hospital. I didn’t know that I was entering a school that would soon transform everything I had ever known or been. (more…)
Reframing Cancer & Chemotherapy
(written in March 2012)
The notion flooded into me just moments ago, with great clarity, urgency, and force. With my chemotherapy 
sessions beginning tomorrow, I “heard” that I was to rename and reframe both the chemo and my cancer.
From this moment on, I will no longer use the word “cancer,” nor will I use the word “chemotherapy.” I have renamed them Shiva and Shakti, respectively.
Thus, “non-small cell lung cancer with EFGR mutation” becomes SHIVA, and Alimta Chemotherapy becomes SHAKTI.
Shiva, meaning “auspicious one” is the aspect of the Supreme Being that continuously dissolves to recreate in the cyclic process of creation, preservation, dissolution and recreation of the universe. Shiva is the destroyer of evil or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Though he is one with great power, he lives a life of a sage at Mount Kailash. Shiva is seen as the Supreme God and has five important works: creator, preserver, destroyer, concealer, and revealer (to bless).
Shakti, meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. Shakti is the personification of divine feminine creative power, sometimes referred to as “The Great Divine Mother” in Hinduism. Not only is the Shakti responsible for creation, it is also the agent of all change. Shakti is cosmic existence as well as liberation, its most significant form being the Kundalini Shakti, a mysterious psychospiritual force. Shakti exists in a state of svatantrya, being interdependent with the entire universe. (more…)
Silence. Presence. Silence.
categories: Silence, Spirituality & Religion
when we are quiet and still
as when we sit in the sand looking out to sea
and beyond
to where the eyes can’t follow
a Silent presence can be felt
it seems to be from within but it is equally without
this Silence is the soul of existence and it permeates all things everywhere
Silence cannot be known by the mind as an object
as we know an orange or shovel
because Silence is the power by which the mind functions
it is the source from which the mind comes
Silence itself is formless and nameless
remain still until this presence
this Silence
takes you
and do not take yourself back
(This is an excerpt from Sound Bites from Silence — available through the Bookstore.)
What Makes a Well-Lived Life?
Melbourne, Australia. December 20th, 2009.
That’s where and when I began a month-long solitary retreat. Something I could only name as “irresistible force” was pulling me inward and away from the outside world of my work and social calendar. I disconnected from everyone and everything. I disappeared from the world. I began what was to become a profound journey of reflection, release, and renewal.
One day, my eyes closed. Shortly after, they opened, but I was no longer in my home in Melbourne; I was sitting on the banks of the Ganges river in the ancient city of Varanasi. I was at one of the several burning ghats, stone steps where hundreds of cremations occur every day, with bodies placed on wooden pyres, set alight with ghee, while priests chant sacred mantras. There I was, in some astral form, sitting quietly, taking it in.
