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For the last few months, our meditation group, which has been meeting together on Sundays for the last 13 years, has been reading through the Gospel of Thomas, following our 40-minute meditation. Initially, we were reading five verses at a time, but we found that the verses were so deep, and often challenging, that now…

I looked for myself and found only God. I looked for God and found only myself. -One of my favorite Sufi sayings On January 1st, I did a special two-hour New Year’s meditation with my wife Pam and a friend. We wanted to center ourselves, acknowledge this new year and cycle of time and also,…

Recently, I have been experiencing a period of deep sadness. It is different from the crippling depressions I have experienced in the past, when it felt like I was trying to walk and think surrounded by mud; my body, mind, and emotions so weighted down that I could hardly move, think, or feel. What I…

Ken Wilber has said in talks that if you want to check the depth of your spiritual realization, go home for the holidays and see how you do. This always evokes nervous laughter from the audience, and I know from my own experience, that it is quite easy to feel at Second Tier during an…

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb. ~ Sir Winston Churchill…

Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” This is a quotation from one of the “lost gospels.” This quotation comes from the Gospel of Thomas that was…

In previous posts, I’ve discussed how to include ethics and morality in your inner meditative work. But inner moral awareness necessitates outer moral behavior. For our ethics to be Integral, they must include ethical action in all 4 quadrants from our highest current level of development. An Integral Life Practice without ethics is foundationally weak. To choose…

One way to get at one’s shadow motives is to simply look deeply into any emotions, thoughts, or feelings that arise in meditation—or any other time. As we continue to let awareness penetrate the objects of consciousness as they arise, they will reveal themselves to us ever more deeply, until they too are empty or…

Here’s another practice to help with your ethical line. I’ve been working with and adapting the 3-2-1 method developed by Ken Wilber for making sure one is covering all the fundamental perspectives (I, We, and It; or 1st-person, 2nd-person, and 3rd-person) in one’s meditative practice. When an issue or emotion arises (and will they ever!) I visualize…

“Being a cynic is so contemptibly easy… you don’t have to invest anything in your work. No effort, no pride, no compassion, no sense of excellence, nothing.”– Molly Ivins I’ve been struggling with the idea of adding Ethics as a fifth line of our Integral Recovery Practice. Not because I don’t think Integral Ethics is…