I never saw such eyes as he had: soft, velvety, bleeding with impersonal love. When you passed Videha in the walkway, he was not like the rest of us, happily anxious to connect with a friendly face. No, Videha kept his eyes to himself.When I lived in India for a year, one of the disciplines I practiced was Sufi whirling, the powerful method of remembrance of God danced by the whirling dervishes. Through it, I learned
After living in LA on-and-off for thirty years, I’ve fallen in love with the Hollywood Bowl. Many nights this summer if you trek way up to the cheap seats, you’ll find me sitting with any number of friends drinking a little wine, eating a little snack, and luxuriating in world-class music for a buck. At least once during the program, I’ll consider how I’m the luckiest person in the world to be lounging in perfect LA weather, admiring the silhouette of the hills against the sky, and enjoying
You’re enjoying the perfect stroll along the beach: the crunch of sand between your toes, the lapping waves, the glorious sun on your face. You notice the wind caressing your hair -- suddenly you hear cries for help! – the agony of a fellow being beginning to drown. Your impulse is to heroically swim out, drag the person to shore, provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and thereby save their life.Have you heard about this? That’s the exact thing you must not do. Unless
The thing that makes the holidays the most difficult is the widespread idea that they shouldn’t be. We’ve been seduced for years by pictures of smiling families passing the turkey and opening their flawlessly wrapped presents. Everyone is easy to get along with and everyone is perfectly happy.Nothing could be further from the truth for most people. We are far more complicated creatures than that. All families have their areas of dysfunction which are less likely to politely stay
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Crown, 1999) is a book that I often recommend for people who are wishing to improve their relationships, married or otherwise. The author, Dr. John Gottman, actually hooked couples up to electrodes and watched what happened to their blood pressures and heart rates while they talked to each other. He found that he could predict with 91% accuracy whether their relationship was
What makes one person feel loved is not always the same thing that makes another person feel loved. According to Gary Chapman in The Five Love Languages (Northfield Publishing, Chicago: 1995) there are five basic ways a person can communicate loving feelings to someone else, and that way is often not the same as someone we love. We are essentially speaking different languages. No matter how much we may
I first started thinking about oxygen back when I started a running program (it was a milestone birthday and I realized, “damn, I’ve got to get in shape!”). I’d been walking about an hour a day for years after hearing that exercise was the most effective treatment for depression. Walking had helped, but when I began running, my mood spiked up in a way that made me realize
Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? I think about it a lot when I try to explain to people what Transpersonal Psychology is, or what it is that a transpersonal therapist does that is different from traditional counseling.Maslow theorized that there is an order that human needs must be met: for example, if you’re still lacking food and shelter, it’s going to be hard to think about optimizing your creativity. You will need to concentrate on finding food first. Likewise, if you’re feeling
When I lived in India for a year, meditating daily, surrounded by other seekers, and enjoying the relaxed ashram life, I entered a state of happiness I thought would never end. Finally, it seemed I had achieved what I had been reading about for years. It was ecstatic, every single day. I even planned
The allure of a permanent state of happiness – imagining the possibility is an essential part of being human. We dream that if we do the right things or have it all, we’ll achieve the pain-free, permanently happy life that we imagine celebrities or the super rich have. Advertising promotes the fantasy that happiness can be purchased as possessions, leisure, status, and lifestyle, all of which may contribute to happiness, certainly, but there are no guarantees.Notice that as soon as you download a new song from iTunes,