The FREEDOM Blog

Many people talk of spiritual realization - seek it, treasure it, even speak as if they have 'achieved' it, but often it is not REAL-ization, but rather a form of spiritual MENTAL-ization or INTELLECTUAL-ization. The key facet of REALization is the word REAL. It is a concrete recognition, not simply a mental or intellectual understanding. Now, I am not demeaning a mental or intellectual understanding of spirituality or Truth, but only wish to make the distinction clear. Let me give a couple of my common examples. First, nearly anyone who has ever had a child knows that there is a HUGE difference between thinking about having a child and actually conceiving and giving birth to one. When you look down at your own child, lying there, alive, virtually helpless, and squiggling, you know...YOU KNOW... that your life will NEVER again be the same! Or, going to India. Many people know far more about India than I do. They can name every sacred site, teacher, language spoken, etc. They ca

The other day it came to my attention, when a friend cried out, "I have Power!" that this is part of the fundamental problem, particularly when it comes to some of the new age and alternative thinking. It is the basic distinction of Having versus Being: like I 'have' prosperity' rather than I 'am' properity; or I 'have' enlightenment, rather than I 'am' enlightenment. (Also note the distinction 0f I am enlightenMENT versus I am EnlightenED.) The I "Have" creates a duality that is less subtle even than I Am. I AM is a doorway; I HAVE is a very definite 'me' and 'not me'. Let's get into grammar for a moment. In Sanskrit (and a number of other languages) there is actually not a verb for 'to have'. You can 'be with' something, like 'I am with this car' or 'this car is being with me' or even 'it is my car,' but not I have this car. (I know, subtle distinction.) But it does s

Aja: So imagine for a moment, that you have heard about this great place, Puddletown, and it sounds like a really great place, where everyone is happy and peaceful, and blissful, and there's no problems there. Puddletown is the place to be.  It's filled with people and everything is wonderful. So what's the first thing you do? What would you do? Student: Be skeptical. Aja: Be skeptical? Good! What else would you do? Student: Find out what they're eating. Aja: Find out what they're eating?  Okay. Well, that wasn't exactly where I was going, but along those lines. But yes, you'd start studying it, researching it, finding out what you could about it. Now, as you did that you'd start finding out a lot about Puddletown and you would start to believe in this place called Puddletown. You'd even know their diet. You'd probably start eating like a Puddletonian. Then you start trying to figure out how to get there. But the problem is that the informati

Everyone knows what a diode is. Well, actually, I have no idea what a diode is - some electrically thing. But forget that. You are a DIOD. So what is a DIOD? Let me explain: Part 1. There are two basic ways of looking at the universe, Existence, All of THIS: one is that it is a totally mechanical spontaneous arising, of elements that randomly came together much like the pieces of a watch that just happened to fall together into Watchness, or the thousand monkeys on typewriters ultimately coming up with Shakespeare, OR There is intelligence behind all of this, a God/Dess, Isness, a great Singularity of Intelligence, Cosmic Beingness, Wisdom, Creator, Creatress, Creatrix, Network, Hoo Haa, Divine Wow, Big Bangaroonie, that Expressed, Imagined, created, manifested the 100 trillion stars and 100 trillion cells of you and everything else perfectly, OUT OF HIM/HER/IT-SELF. Now, we're not saying that the first group is dummies, but....duh! Which makes more sense? Which feels right? Which