Robert K.C. Forman's Blog, page 3
September 9, 2011
What is this Beast, "Enlightenment?"
What is this experience that is so lionized as mokṣa, Eckhart's "birth of the son in the soul" (the geburt), nirvana, the "no self" and other evocations? It is "perfection." It is "absolute" and "eternal joy." It is the dawn of "the immovable." With it "all suffering ends" and it is, in the immortal words [...]
August 17, 2011
Politics in a Trance
Our politics is entranced! Our politicians devote themselves predominantly to whether the government should charge more taxes or less, offer more protection of social security or less. It's as if we are all in a trance, hypnotized into the thought that money and things are all that there is, all that counts. We need to [...]
What Long Term Meditation Feels Like
I think it could be productive for us to describe what our spiritual life feels like. Indeed I think it could be the beginning of some deep and rich soul-contact. Or at least I hope so. So here you go, from the book, p 18. I think this description works more by means of how [...]
August 16, 2011
Politics in the Wrong Direction
Our politics is sick! The problem isn't that the government should charge more taxes or less, offer more protection of social security or less. According to the fastest growing religious group in the US–the spiritual but not religious–the whole set of concerns we call politics is just downright muddle headed! Insofar as we are committed [...]
July 20, 2011
Promise, Possibility and the Real
"Enlightenment means lack of darkness, absence of darkness. And "absence of darkness" means no mistakes, no weakness, no shortcoming—success everywhere, fulfillment of desire everywhere." This is how Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described it, according to a recent account by Robert Roth. Didn't turn out quite that simple, did it? "When I was a young meditator, I [...]
June 16, 2011
The Illusions & Dillusions of Enlightenment
From the book: "Often when people tell of spiritual journeys, their own or their guru's, they either idealize or demonize the tale, making it either bigger or smaller than it was. For spirituality is a field of grand illusions, peopled seemingly by angels or demons…. "Men and women undertake its rigors in part because of [...]
June 14, 2011
What are the effects of the spiritual?
Except for quiet skin and whatever slight level of calm that brought, at the time I couldn't sense any effects. Mostly it was just odd. But as I'm thinking back to those days, I think it did have effects, and real ones… Except for quiet skin and whatever slight level of calm that brought, at [...]
Effects of the Spiritual
05.23.2011 2 Comments Except for quiet skin and whatever slight level of calm that brought, at the time I couldn't sense any effects. Mostly it was just odd. But as I'm thinking back to those days, I think it did have effects, and real ones… Except for quiet skin and whatever slight level of calm [...]
What Matters Most
Here's what I live by: In the end what matters most is How well did you live? How deeply did you love? How much did you give? And how well did you learn to let go? It's the letting go piece that I'm taken with. Each step of progress, a letting go. Letting go of [...]
