20 posts in the archive
Most spiritual traditions say you are bound and must become free. Kashmir Shaivism says something more radical: you were never bound. You are Shiva playing the game of forgetting. Liberation is not achievement — it is recognition.
We hold on — to people, to outcomes, to versions of ourselves that no longer serve us. The Bhagavad Gita calls this the root of all suffering. Surrender is not weakness. It is the most courageous act possible.
Every breath is a small death and resurrection. The yogis knew this — and built an entire science around the conscious use of breath to transform body, mind, and consciousness.
There is a part of you that has never been anxious, never been angry, never been lost. It is the part that notices all these states. The yogis called it the Sakshi — the witness.
The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates said this at his own trial, knowing it would cost him his life. What kind of examination did he mean?
The river you stepped into yesterday is not the river you step into today. Heraclitus said this in Greece. The Buddha said the same in India. They were pointing at the same fire.
Maya is not the teaching that the world is unreal. It is the teaching that the world is not what it appears to be — and that our misperception is the root of all suffering.
Not this, not this. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad offers what may be the most honest description of ultimate reality ever formulated — by refusing to describe it at all.
Most people think yoga is the poses. Patanjali, who codified the science of yoga two thousand years ago, listed the poses third out of eight limbs. The first two are about how you treat others.