A Sensitivity to Things

A visit to the barber in Turkey: flaming swabs, cut-throat razors and a little too much gel. “Please sir, you sit down.” My new best friend motions to something resembling a cabinet covered with a bed-sheet, and impersonating a couch. “Yes, you sit there.” I am in a Turkish laundromat, without a single washing appliance [...]

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) by Mike Nichols CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman): Listen, not for nothing, but do you know the story about the Zen master and the little boy? Representative Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks): Oh is this something from Nitsa the Greek witch of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania?1 Gust: Yeah as a matter of [...]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://widgets.nbc.com/o/4727a250e66f9723/47a81ada79dd6ba1" width="384" height="316" wmode="transparent I normally try to be inspiring on this site. I write about topics like ‘meditation,’ ‘meditation and me,’ and sometimes ‘meditation and the rest of the world.’ I guess I like meditation—I've been doing it for near fifteen years now—and I assume that it likes me. But as a chap [...]

Today in New Zealand, the 22nd of January, it is Sir Edmund Hillary’s funeral, the final laying to rest of a national icon, and the only New Zealander to be immortalised on the face of a bank note while still alive. He was also the first person in 1953 to scale the face of Mt [...]

In the Indian spiritual tradition, mahasamadhi is the state of leaving one’s body consciously—a willful, self-caused death that is not really a death, but a permanent union with the limitless consciousness realised while inside the body. One can only enter mahasamadhi it is said, if the non-dual state of nirvikalpa samadhi has been attained, a [...]

Sumangali Morhall of Sumangali.org recently wrote a fine play in rhyming verse, The Seeker-Writer, based on a short story of the same name by meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy—“a humorous story with a spiritual lesson behind it” as she describes it. Despite my being a few days late in responding—not to mention several months late in [...]

A video and news story from ABC on the passing of Sri Chinmoy on Thursday, 11th October, 2007. Download link Oct 12, 2007 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Spiritual guru Sri Chinmoy, a peace activist who inspired his followers to feats of extreme physical endurance, has died at the age of 76 at his home in New [...]

A tribute to meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy, who passed from this world on October 11th, 2007, aged 76. I couldn’t sleep on Thursday night. I suppose you could give reason its name—a strange mixture of tiredness, utter wide-eyed awareness, keeping body and mind awake. Some would it insomnia. But oneness is the term I prefer. [...]

Already at work, early morning here in New Zealand and trying to do a spot of writing before the day proper begins, I had half an eye on the World Cup Rugby, a live game being played between Scotland and Romania—I, the world’s most lukewarm rugby fan snatching a few seconds here and there, eyes [...]

Your self-transcendence-marathon Has shattered the summitless pride Of your ruthless life-devouring dragon. Sri Chinmoy Excerpt from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 23 Wish me luck, because I’m running a marathon tomorrow. I may need it. It’s been three years since I last ran a marathon, and the pain of that race has dulled just a little. [...]