Beyond Happiness And Unhappiness

An Interview With Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle

If the shift in consciousness doesn’t happen very soon, then there’s not much chance that the planet will continue to survive. Or perhaps the planet might make it, but humans won’t. The planet may regenerate itself after a few hundred years, but humans will have disappeared. Imagine another hundred years of this consciousness, unchanged. Everything will just get magnified: more science, more technology, more weapons, more consumer goods, more of everything — a dreadful prospect.

The Greatest Obstacle To Enlightenment

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form.

Yahrzeit

And every year thereafter on the anniversary of Michael’s death, Hal places a call to me to talk about Michael. A commemoration, this. In Judaism, the anniversary of a loved one’s death — called yahrzeit — is carefully noted with rituals: visits to the cemetery, a consciousness through prayer, and, most notably, a candle lit which burns for the twenty-four-hour day, its light and shadow a reminder of loss and life’s continuity.

This Bastard Day

It is March 4, a Sunday, and the Northeastern United States is buttoning up for a gigantic snowstorm. Despite these dire weather predictions, in which I have little faith, I have journeyed to Pittsburgh with my wife and two young sons to visit Philip DeLucia, my oldest friend in the world, who is very ill.

American Standard

They pulled off the highway and followed the signs for the Thirteen Stars Motel. Besides proclaiming itself to be “American Owned,” the motel promised that its restaurant served “American Food” and that each room was held to “American Standards.” Alastair was thrilled. He’d never met a racist before, and now he was going to. Already he felt a mixture of fascination and compassion, as if he and his father were about to visit the zoo.

The Counter

It’s not as easy as it looks, standing all day in the murky light of the museum. My feet ache and swell with blood, my back hunches in protest. People shuffle by, but they don’t see us. That’s why the museum hires immigrants: we are invisible.

Among The Ashes

I take a trip to central Europe to see some of the concentration camps my survivor friends have told me about. I bring along a lot of film, some sturdy walking shoes, my husband, Eddie, and a heart that is poised for breaking.

Breeze In The Apple Orchard