self – Robert Rabbin

Posts Tagged ‘self’

16
May
2016

Meditation: An Un-common Perspective

categories: Authentic Living, Spirituality & Religion

Meditation is commonly thought to be a practice or method, rooted in some mystical-spiritual-religious tradition or philosophy with the purpose of disabusing us of delusional notions about the nature of self and reality.

Meditation is likewise defined as a path to enlightenment or self-realization—a set of steadying training wheels that helps us to ride the bike of our innate essence — to pedal our way towards the inherent clarity, wisdom, and compassion of our true nature.

Meditation thus implies a means of becoming, an action or process that leads from here to there, a catalyst that produces an effect not already in evidence. Even if one believes that meditation is the expression of our inner being, the intimation of becoming is still there, the implication that we must do something special to become or demonstrate what we are. (more…)

09
Feb
2016

I know how to heal the world. I’ve known for 40 years.

categories: Social Transformation, Society & Culture, Spirituality & Religion

I know how to heal the world. I’ve known for 40 years. It’s simple but I don’t know if we’ll do it. I don’t know if it’s possible since it seems we prefer being sick, wounded, hungry and angry. I’m not giving up though.

Here’s a bit of backstory.

Forty years ago, I was living in an ashram in India. One morning around 5:30, I walked out of the kitchen where I had been cleaning and cutting fruits and vegetables for the communal lunch. The sun was just rising above mountain ridge across the valley. Entering the main courtyard, I decided to sit for a while on a concrete planter that enclosed several coconut trees. I fell very silent.

We might normally associate silence with not talking, or the absence of noise or the atmosphere in a forest. It’s all these but it’s also more. Silence is a syrup—a very delicate syrup—that mysteriously yet palpably flows through all living things everywhere, through all of existence. It’s a quantum level sap that gives life to all things everywhere. We might call it prana (breath) or shakti (primordial life force). (more…)

12
Dec
2015

Conversations: Robert Rabbin & Gabor Harsanyi

categories: Interviews, Silence, Spirituality & Religion

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…)

26
May
2015

Asking Permission to Leave

categories: Authentic Living, Silence, Spirituality & Religion

This is the story of how a single, simple sentence changed my life.

In 1969, I lived in a wood shack near the village of Trinidad, about thirty miles north of Arcata, California. I was supposed to be studying Eastern philosophy at Humboldt State College but spent hardly any time in class. Instead, I sampled a variety of hallucinogens, sat zazen and practiced Aikido, followed the saga of Carlos Castaneda, and read haiku poetry — tiny bridges of words that are connected to the immense emptiness behind conventional thinking and meaning. During this time, I encountered the world of silence and in that silence I first experienced that the physical world perceived by the senses was a mere tissue hiding something vast.

Rugged living

It was in search of that vastness that I traveled to India. In 1973, I set off with a friend whom I had met the year before in Israel. Eric and I had decided to go overland from Europe. We set off from Paris, hitchhiking to Brindisi, Italy, intending to take the ferry to Greece, and then trains and buses through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and into India. (more…)

22
Aug
2014

Calling all Radical Sages

categories: Social Transformation, Spirituality & Religion

I know people who are active in what is called the “non-duality” movement.

Some host non-duality meet-ups, where only awareness is discussed. Nothing psychological or emotional, nothing to do with current events in the world. Just awareness.

Like Tupperware or sex toy parties, but without the Tupperware or sex toys.

No, I’m not going to dis them or the non-duality movement. After all, some of my work has even been labeled non-dual, a label I take off as fast as I can. (Yes, you can feel a “but” coming, so here it is.)

(more…)

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