Why Sankara recoiled
If you regularly read my blogs, you probably have an interest in spirituality and its supposed end-point, enlightenment. But what do you imagine enlightenment to be like: a state of permanent...
The sins of the father
Everything is energy. The table in front of you is energy (it just seems to be solid because of the bandwidth at which your senses and brain operate), and so is your anger, upsets and...
Loving war
The historian and writer Gitta Sereny died last week, and something in her obituary caught my eye. Her motivation in visiting most of the world’s war zones was “the search for what it is...
What we reveal when we say ‘should’
Last week I looked at a few common causes of anger. This week I’d like to explore one of the most intriguing of them all, and it reveals something miraculous about you. Some of us get...
The end of anger
I used to have a bad temper. I’d get angry about a whole lot of things, including inanimate objects that didn’t bend to my immediate will. The ‘red mist’ would come down and...
Why don’t we ‘get’ it?
I’ve been re-reading Talks with Ramana Maharshi the last few days (strange how books suddenly demand to be taken from the shelf). It’s a book I’ve owned for more than 30 years; it...
You are what you think; yes, and…
You are what you think. It’s an ancient saying that describes the way our thoughts have the power to shape us and our world. If we think we’re worthless, for example, that’s how...
The process of depression
They say the world splits between those who’ve read Lord of the Rings and those who haven’t. For me, there’s another split: you’re either a systems or a process person. A...
Why you don’t remember your first few years
What’s your earliest memory? Probably it will be of an event that happened when you around the age of three, and then it will be more of a sensation – such as warmth or sunlight – than...
The most extraordinary thing about you
I read the most extraordinary thing about you the other day. According to biologist Rupert Sheldrake (The Science Delusion, Coronet, 2012), every cell in the human brain is renewed every four...
Where do ‘you’ end and your cancer begin?
The other day I met up with an old friend, who was naturally very anxious about his wife having chemotherapy for her cancer. He described the cancer as an ‘alien force’ that was growing...
If we change, can we change the world?
If we change, can we change the world? And have you noticed that everyone climbs Everest these days? Surprisingly, these two questions are linked, and the second provides the key to the...