If you think meditation is just for religious people or crazy-eyed sadhus in loincloths, you could be missing out on one of the most powerful practices available to humanity. Meditation reduces stress and aids healing, clears and focuses the mind, and makes you happy. You don’t have to be spiritual or religious to meditate, but… Continue reading How to Meditate: A Guide to the Ultimate Healing Practice
A mystic is someone who seeks to know God This may or may not involve religion or conventional definitions of ‘God’. Mystics transgress boundaries and colour outside the lines. They are notoriously difficult to pin down and get a straight answer from. For this reason, mystics are often misunderstood and even feared. At the very… Continue reading What is a Mystic?
This image is a sliver of a well-known wood engraving by an unknown artist. I’ve used it as a banner for my website in the past, so thought I would look into its history and find out more about who created it. The image is often attributed to Camille Flammarion because it first appeared in his… Continue reading The Flammarion Engraving: Escaping the Crystal Sphere
Out of the Darkness by Steve Taylor is an inspiring collection of stories about people who have undergone the ultimate transformation – spiritual rebirth. This often occurs after intense trauma or turmoil, and Taylor expertly reveals what can happen if an individual is willing to surrender at the point of greatest darkness. Most of the… Continue reading Out of the Darkness: Book Review
The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi grew from a series of lectures given by Andrew Harvey at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1993. The lectures celebrated Rumi’s work as mystic, poet and prophet. Before giving the lectures, Harvey had a dream where he asked an old man in a mosque how he… Continue reading The Way of Passion: Book Review
Moksha is a Sanskrit word meaning liberation or release from illusion. It is freedom from the cycle of birth and death, or samsara. Moksha is achieved through the identification of your true Self or the true nature of reality, and can be gained through many different practices or paths, such as devotion or service to… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Moksha
Maya is a Pali and Sanskrit word meaning illusion or delusion. It is used most commonly to refer to the illusory appearance of the phenomenal world, but it also means the power through which the universe becomes manifest. Maya is the world of duality and relativity, the world of the conditioned and separate self. As… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Maya
Hinduism is the main religion in India and is the oldest major religion in the world, ranking third in popularity behind Christianity and Islam. The word Hindu comes from the Sanskrit Sindhu, the historical name for the Indus River in what is now Pakistan, and was first mentioned in the Rigveda. Hinduism is seen as a… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Hinduism
Addled: Adventures of a Reluctant Mystic is my forthcoming novel about a modern mystic called Zoe Popper. It follows the ups and downs of awakening, and explores the difficulties of the spiritual path in a post-modern world. Addled is a love story for our cynical times, and includes everything from music and cookery to cleaning,… Continue reading Adventures of a Reluctant Mystic
Satori is the Japanese term used in Zen Buddhism to refer to awakening and the realisation of the true nature of the self, or Buddha nature. It is sometimes also called Kensho, where ken means ‘seeing’ and sho means ‘nature’ or ‘essence’. Kensho is generally understood to be your first experience of realisation and is often a tiny glimpse of Buddha… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Satori
Buddha nature is your true nature. This may be hard to believe at times, but even a tiny glimpse of reality during awakening will reveal the truth of it. Enlightenment reveals the true nature of all beings as Buddha nature. It’s also called Buddha-dhātu, which means ‘Buddha Element’ or ‘Buddha Principle.’ This is the seed… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Buddha Nature
The cover announces that Lucid Living is a book you can read in an hour that will turn your world inside out. It’s a bold claim and I can’t say it worked for me. But then, I’d already been turned inside out before reading it so Freke was preaching to the choir. Lucid Living is… Continue reading Lucid Living: Book Review
Jessica Davidson 