The paths we walk are different, but the destination is the same. There are many more commonalities than differences. This is one truth the ego likes to befog. Obscured by confusion, doubt, and a desire to be unique, the ego tells us the path we have chosen and are walking is the One True Path. This is patently false. People from many religions, traditions, and belief systems are coming together with the common aim of loving peace.

When we choose to focus on the similarities, in full recognition that we are indeed One, it becomes possible to love and accept differing viewpoints. If love is the goal, <em>the only goal</em>, we can come together in this goal, seeking, discovering, and practicing a shared loving intent.

The ego enjoys creating distractions to block our view of the truth. To allow any distraction that is not based on love is unloving. Granted, this can... Read More »

Who are you to tell me I’m not worthy? You may be taller, but I’m tall enough. You may be more fit, but I am fit enough. Your car may be faster or more shiny, your house might be larger and more clean, your smile might be bigger, you might have a better job, a clearer conscience, a dozen more close friends. I might not measure up to you in many ways.

I might be distraught, discouraged, confused. I might be sad, lonely, and lost. I might feel inadequate, small, unloved. My scars might be visible, or hidden beneath a strong front. My difficulties might seem trivial to you. My reasons might elude you.

You’ll never know, unless you decide to look deeper. You’ll never see my value for you’re just... Read More »

I’m feeling on the edge of insanity, slipping, slipping, exploring. Too many pressures from too many fronts and too few moments of success. I’ve written whole books on how to live in a state of enlightenment yet I feel I still have little clue how to do it in a sustained manner and with anything approaching consistent peace and fulfillment.

The old affirmations provide little comfort. Am I insane in a sane world or the reverse? Every trial takes a chunk from my weary soul; I’m... Read More »

At the core of my anger is the constant insistence from others that I fit into the world’s mold. Most people have no capability to see a guy like me for who I am because I don’t fit their view of how people think, feel, and behave. You trample my heart for I refuse to protect myself. I look for the good in people, knowing it’s there somewhere, and am consistently disappointed as people refuse to think and act to their potential.

And please don’t tell me it’s all about needing to love myself more. I love myself completely. That’s not my issue. That’s your issue if that’s what’s occurred to you.

And don’t suggest I need to set better boundaries for boundaries are, by their very definition, based on fear, and I refuse... Read More »

I would like to watch myself at six years old. I don't want to be six years old—I’m happy in my sometimes graceful, sometimes trialsome and tempering aging. I am where I am supposed to be in life.

But to spend a day, renewed in the wonders, to see my thoughts, to feel my feelings—not fully, not intimately, but from the outside—might renew a bit of that childhood wonder that seems to grow progressively more scarce as the decades insistently tick by.

The joy of rocking on a wooden rocking horse,... Read More »

I’m in a bad mood again today. People annoy me. They say the same things over and over and over again.

I want to live in a cabin in the wilderness.

There are far too many distractions in today’s society. And far too much overhead.

And the result? Almost no one takes the time to look for beauty, for value, and for importance. Our attention is captured only by the loud, the obnoxious, the ten steps to a better you, or the twelve most embarrassing fails, or the new website that will CHANGE LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

It’s not all bullshit, but most of it is. We’ve lost the ability to think for ourselves, to discriminate; it’s far easier to share and retweet than to choose our own thoughts.

And yes, I know my sweeping... Read More »

Twenty years ago we had no Google, no Bing, very few cell phones, and the world wide web was but a compelling theory. There were no text messages; there was no Facebook, no Twitter, and no electric cars.

To watch a movie, we’d drive to BlockBuster to rent it on VHS. We had no concept of Homeland Security; the NSA still limited their spying on foreign communications. Federal spending was $1.5 trillion. Now it’s $3 trillion. We’ve cut federal employees, marginally, but more than doubled spending on federal contractors.

We didn’t know the term home invasion and we didn’t name winter storms. Is it any wonder the ferocity and tenacity of both have increased? The war on drugs was an abject failure. The war on terror is too.

We’ve always been somewhat... Read More »

You might think it’s irresponsible to be happy. You might believe the world is too traumatic and that it would be insensitive to let your happiness show. You might think that bliss is for fairy tales and that ecstasy is fleeting. You might think you’re too damaged, too weary, to be happy. You might feel discouraged, small, ignored, unimportant.

Or… you might choose to look deep within; you might believe that there’s plenty of good in... Read More »

A waking, an allowing, an embracing of spirit. A spiritual awakening is a new birth, a renaissance, of the undeniable existence of our one connected spirit, connected to a living universe, connected to a God of flux, connected to billions of other conscious souls, alive and in flux, all merging with increasing awareness, all perfect in the dazzling light of this very instant.

A spiritual awakening is not a denial of ego, nor emotion, nor instinct, but a cooperation of all the various facets which make us individually and indivisibly human, a cooperation of apparent physicality with divine bliss, a simplification of time not into the categories of past, future, and present, but a single moment that encompasses the reality of timelessness. There is no length of... Read More »

Publishing my first book was tough. At the time it seemed a gargantuan task. Writing the final in a series of seven poems, divinely inspired, suggesting a path to awakening, a path of enlightenment, required me to grow beyond the person I was to the person I felt I was destined to be.

But writing book number eleven might be even more difficult. Dashed expectations, bruised hopes. I had dreamed of only one thing, above all others, to become a successful full-time writer. Ten books and ten years later and I’m still not there. I’ve sold perhaps 200 books, given away over 2,000. Lots of people have read my poetry, my blog posts, and my inspirational books. I’ve heard many times how I’ve touched people with my words. That’s somewhat heartening. But financially, from a business perspective, my writing career has been a total failure.... Read More »