Who are you really? And what are you seeking? Are you happy? Your answers to these existential questions may have left you dissatisfied. And the pontifications of pundits may have also left you cold. A few years ago I addressed a rather large audience in Koln, Germany. It was a TED style talk and I […]
Stop Bargaining with God
Most of what passes for prayer is negotiation. We come to God the way we come to a difficult supplier: with a list. A better job. A bigger house. More money. Children who behave. A spouse who cooperates. A diagnosis reversed, a deal closed, a problem made to disappear. We are, without quite admitting it, […]
Don’t Try to Teach a Pig to Whistle!
When a person stumbles upon something that changes his life, his very first impulse is to seize everyone he loves by the collar and make them see it too. I know this impulse well from decades of teaching my course, Creativity and Personal Mastery. Let me tell you about a friend of mine. He had, […]
Stop Trying to Fix Yourself
A devout Tamil Brahmin once came to Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi in real torment. He loved to eat meat – – which, in his community and his own strict tradition, was forbidden, shameful, unthinkable. He had struggled against the craving for years. He had scolded himself, denied himself, promised himself and failed himself, over and over, […]
Fierce Grace: What we can’t see when we’re in the middle of it
The teachings of Ram Dass – the teacher born Richard Alpert – had a great influence on me. He suffered a stroke late in his life that left him paralyzed on one side and dependent on others for the simplest things. And at first he raged against it. Here was a man who had spent […]
There Is No Fifty-Fifty
One of the people I coach was once among the ten best chess players in the world. He was telling me about a game in which, at a certain point, his position was simply lost. Not nearly lost – lost. Any strong player glancing at the board would have shaken his head and begun thinking […]
I Hope We Passed the Audition!
There will be a last time, and you will not notice it. I found a blue cap the other day. It was woolen, small, faded now in the way that wool fades — not dramatically, just quietly giving up its color over years. My father wore it. He felt the cold terribly, especially on his […]
You Can Have Everything You Want!
There are lots of self-help gurus who exhort you to have a positive mindset and assure you that you can be whatever you dream of and get whatever you want. Many sell expensive programs that purport to show you exactly how you go about doing this. They teach you how to visualize success and use […]
Why Nothing You Buy, See, or Achieve Is Ever Enough
You have probably never thought about your life this way, but I invite you to pause for a moment and consider what I am about to tell you. Watch a small child in a shop beside a harried parent. “I want this. I want this. I want this.” The child tugs and pleads and will […]
Why Did the Coffee Spill?
Theo Brinks took my course – Creativity and Personal Mastery – many years ago. During this period he had an ‘awakening’ experience which changed the trajectory of his life. He has been on his own journey since then and is deeply aligned with the ideas I share with you. His output is prolific and you can view […]