The modern empowerment culture tells you to love your body. But nobody explains why, beyond the functional purpose of raising our society’s perennially low self-esteem. On the other hand, many traditional spiritual teachings carry the implicit connotation that the body is a burden, that whatever you experience through the body is unenlightened and ephemeral. The truth goes much beyond either. The truth is that your body is your portal of connection between consciousness and matter.…
“I feel like I’ve grown so much internally and spiritually, but my external environment stays the same. Why? Don’t they say ‘As within, so without’?” “I have so much potential. But I don’t feel I’m realizing my potential. What am I not doing right?” These are some of the questions I get asked regularly, about the relationship between spiritual growth and worldly attainment. It’s one thing to talk about “potentials” as a general term, it’s…
A caterpillar walks into a therapist’s office. “I’m depressed,” he says to the therapist. “Because you know what the problem of my life is? No wings. I have no fucking wings, man! Can you fix that? How can I get me some butterfly wings?” If the caterpillar were your friend, as the wise person you are, you’d probably try to talk some sense into it. You’d probably say, “Sweetheart, you don’t become a butterfly by…