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He’s Back! So What?

Sunbeams

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Albert Camus

The Marvelous Adventure Of Cabeza De Vaca

In the days that followed, in my first desolate confrontation with slaughter, I saw a far-off light, heard a far-off strain of music. Such words serve as well as any: for what words can describe a happening in the shadows of the soul?

Sunbeams

You cannot have both civilization and truth.

Iris Murdoch

Born Too Young: Diary Of A Pilgrimage

(Part Two)

So Jeanne is either with someone and not writing, or writing to Barcelona Poste Restante, as I directed her. I think she has slept with someone by now and probably still is in love with me — that’s my guess. (“I’m lucky with women,” I tell myself.)

Heaven On Earth

A Conversation Between A Political Radical And A Spiritual Seeker

Radical: You talk about yoga, and meditation, and prayer, and the search for ultimate truth. But what is your spirituality in practice? Spiritual Seeker: You’re so angry. What kind of change will you create if you’re dominated by these feelings? Will the world you build be so different from the one we have now?

Sunbeams

Everywhere people ask, “What can I actually do?” The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can each of us work to put our own inner house in order.

E.F. Schumacher

Born Too Young: Diary Of A Pilgrimage

(Part One)

First I want to see Baba, and offer myself to the Lord. I’m not saying he’s the Lord — although part of this journey is to find out — but whether he is the Lord or no, or whether anyone is the Lord or no, or whether there is a Lord, I want to present myself to the Lord, and the place to do it is where Baba is. Why? Because I’ve been dancing around his picture for eleven years and he’s come to represent the Mystery.

Suffering As Grace

An Interview With Ram Dass

From the Buddhist point of view, we have five hindrances: lust and greed; hatred and ill will; sloth and torpor; agitation; and doubt. That’s who we are, so why is one surprised if there’s suffering? But when you look at it from the spiritual point of view, you see that suffering is grace, a gift given in order to awaken you.

The Apple

Late at night I heard a scream. Ivan was shaking me violently. “Father’s dying!” he shrieked. It was pitch-black in the room. I sprang out of bed, and both of us ran to our parents’ bedroom. “Where’s Mother?”