BEFORE MY SUMMER, 2008, visit to Rancho La Puerto with Swami Veda Bharati, I was more than a little nervous about committing to a week of study and meditation. Fortunately, I sat on the bus ride to the ranch next to Praful Saklani, a busy New York executive and avid meditator who spent [...]
Sutra 49 From The Radiance Sutras, A New Version Of The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra CHOCOLATE. A PERFECTLY RIPE peach. Wine. A warm cinnamon roll. Cold lemonade on a hot day. Hallelujah, there is a meditation technique for savoring your favorite treat. Wow, that means there’s a chocolate meditation. If you can meditate on Om, then [...]
What we call our environment is made up in part of other beings – both people and animals. Tantric meditations from ancient texts such as the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra invite us to pay deep attention to all of these relationships and inter-relationships, and dare us to become capable of greater intimacy. We are called [...]
Poems of Love Enduring Love Love comes in many guises, poems, verse and song. Lover knows beloved’s soul is never known… And that paradise is found by sharing the anguish and compassion in their inner homes. Struggling Flowers Rose desperately struggling to become an orchid, painfully attempts the unachievable… Not recognizing its exquisiteness [...]
Meditation Is A Sport. What? I know; I can hear your mind saying, “That’s ridiculous, meditation isn’t a sport!” But if you look at the overall characteristics of the practice of meditation and compare it to sports and athletics, I’ll bet you can see some striking similiarities. Practice makes perfect. The first time that any [...]
Swami Veda Bharati gave the opening address at the International Association of Yoga Therapists conference in March, 2008. In his talk, he stated that the most important yoga therapy text is the Charaka Samhita. The Charaka Samhita is a Sanskrit tome generally believed to have been compiled two thousand years ago and is a work [...]
Interview: Robert Thurman Robert Thurman was named by Time as one of the 25 most influential Americans. A 45-year colleague of the Dalai Lama, Thurman was the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk. He cofounded the Tibet House with Richard Gere and is professor at Columbia University. Professor Thurman is an articulate writer and [...]
Max Simon and the Self-Centered Tour How do you inspire one million young people to meditate? Make it sexy. Make it cool. Tall order? Maybe. But such is the clear intention of Max Simon, founder of the selfcentered tour and son of Julia Simon, Transcendental Meditation teacher and Vedic astrologer, and Dr. David Simon, co-founder [...]
In Memorium: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917 - 2008) The first time I met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was in Malibu, on the beach. It was a typical summer day in Southern California. Not much was happening. There was a south swell. From time to time a sun worshiper atop a towel would flip over, [...]
Sutra 18 From The Commentary On The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra IN A SONG, IN THE SPACE of a few minutes, we can let go, lose ourselves and then return, refreshed, with a deeper sense of self. In music, we ride our passions into the vibrating core of energy from which they arise. On the [...]