I find it fascinating that almost everyone knows that it is wholly inappropriate to be judgmental, critical, dismissive of others, and negative. Yet how often I find people harbor and easily tolerate those toxic attitudes to those nearest and dearest to them: namely themselves!

The world is simply what it is, but our minds can run wild with expectations and assumptions. Having a million dollars is great, but if the person with a million dollars had three million last year, he feels broke. If he had only ten thousand last year, he feels wealthy and has a spring in his step. So is having a million dollars good or not?

What is true freedom? The unexamined answer is: “having the ability to do what you want.” But is that really freedom?

If you are reading this it is quite likely you have a strong desire to be the best person possible. But the way to get from here to there is not to be a fixed thing right now, but to learn and grow.

One of my favorite phrases from the music I sing and listen to is:

Some people think to harvest happiness
By weeding troubles… easing every stress
The trouble is that troubles never end
Get rid of one… and you find its friend

What a great message and a wealth of wisdom in those words. Trying to clean the beach by picking up each grain of sand one at a time and polishing it is… well… perhaps a touch on the futile side.

It’s funny how the laws of physics have their corresponding spiritual laws. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” states Newton’s third law of thermodynamics. Sounds a lot like karma! This got me thinking…

I was recently chanting, "I am determined no more to want to play,” at a spiritual gathering and thought, “Boy, if a new person is here, they might not get what that means.” Then I thought, “Hey wait a minute! Do I get what that means?” As I thought about it, I realized my next email to my East West friends was formulating… :-)

We’ve all had hits of intuition that felt like true guidance, but the question most often asked of me when that topic comes up is, “How can you tell whether it is true guidance, or just my own unconscious desires bubbling up?”

There are a couple of stories I’d like to share with a similar theme: that we are not as much in charge as we think! The part of our lives that is our responsibility should receive 100% of our focus, of course, but there is more going on beneath the surface than we are aware of…

I have been a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda my entire adult life, yet even given that lifelong dedication, some questions feel more present and powerful to me than previously. “What are we doing here?” is one such question.

Everyone is familiar with the notion of “affirming.” It is good and important for us to set our minds with a clear intention in the direction towards whatever goals we have. But my recent thought is that this needs to be done carefully…

I had a most interesting experience last week…

Why do we say something and immediately wish we hadn’t? We must know better, or we wouldn’t immediately regret it. My best understanding is that we live in our likes and dislikes; our personal preferences. We like to think that we are communicating with someone, but sometimes we're just expressing our own desires or frustrations.

I have been thinking a lot about “listening” this past week. We all know how important this skill is for friendships. It’s no fun to hang out with people who never pay attention to what you are saying. But how do we treat Spirit and the world around us as a friend?

I have read a number of articles about “balance” recently. Surely it is better to be balanced than imbalanced! But there is an implication in that concept that I am not sure is as helpful to us as it might be, or at least may not be addressing the more important issue.

I was with my spiritual teacher in Italy. It was an unusual delight for my wife and me to have alone time with him, and we had gone into town for a cappuccino and some errands. As we sat in the bar (that’s what they call coffee shops in Italy, mind you!), a bedraggled man appoached us…

A few people have come into the store recently asking questions like, “So what is the spiritual path, really?” “What does it mean to be ‘on a path’?” A friend thought this would make a good letter. I hope this is so, and felt to take a shot at answering briefly…

Yogananda said, “In this world, we are all a little bit crazy, and we don’t know it, because crazy people of the same kind mix with the same kind of crazy people. When people differently crazy come together, then they find out about their own craziness.”

There has been tension in our society that you can easily feel. What can we do? For myself, I try to focus on the fact that there are always two things going on in any situation: 1) the external circumstances, and 2) my reaction to those circumstances.