How does silence sound? If there is silence there is no sound. There’s nothing to hear. While this may be true of physical silence, when it comes to the mind silence is not quite what it seems. Perhaps, like me, you have noticed when the thinking mind is quiet—when you are deep in meditation, for […]
Continue readingEffortless Being
Behind all our endeavors lies the desire to feel good—to be happy, feel content, relaxed, and at ease. No one wants to be in pain or to suffer unnecessarily. This is our true bottom line. We may think we are seeking some external goal, but we are seeking it in the hope that, in one […]
Continue readingThe Dolphin’s Way
Why do we find dolphins so alluring? For some it is their playfulness, the joy that comes from being in their presence, their intelligence, the love we sense, they way they’ve been known to protect humans or alert them to danger, or their general lack of aggression. Why do we admire these qualities? They are […]
Continue readingSavoring the Moment
Pause. Just pause. Nothing else. And notice your experience. Notice what is there. In this moment. There will probably be various perceptions—sights, sounds, smells. Bodily sensations of one kind or another. Perhaps some feelings or a general mood. And most likely, along with these, some thoughts. Maybe some strong ones dominating your attention. Or some […]
Continue readingStephen Hawking
We always knew when Stephen was coming to dinner. It was 1966, my first year studying mathematics at Cambridge, and I happened to be in the same college as Stephen – Gonville and Caius, College. One of the prescribed parts of college life was dining together. We all sat on long tables in the Great […]
Continue readingMy First Computer
I built my first computer when I was sixteen, in my dad’s garage—and literally out of bits of wire. As a budding mathematician in the early 1960s I was fascinated with the new field of computing and the basic processes behind their operation. Deep down most of what a computer does is add binary numbers […]
Continue readingGet Real Ray
A Critique of Ray Kurzweil’s Predictions Ray Kurzweil recently announced his year-by-year predictions of the future. Here are just a few samples (full list here): 2020 – Personal computers reach a computing power comparable to the human brain. 2025 – The emergence of mass-market human implants. 2031 – 3D printed human organs used in hospitals […]
Continue readingSat Chit Ananda
Sat-chit-ananda is a common theme in many Indian teachings, and is usually translated as truth-consciousness-bliss, or something along similar lines. It is often interpreted as some experience or state of consciousness to be attained. And a lot of spiritual literature reinforces this, leading people to look for, or hope for, some exceptional new experience. But […]
Continue readingOur Blind Spot on the Future
We can all see how the pace of life is speeding up. Technological breakthroughs spread through society in years rather than centuries. Calculations that would have taken decades are now made in minutes. Communication that used to take months happens in seconds. And we feel it in our own lives. Remember when you used to […]
Continue readingSynchronicity and the ‘Support of Nature’
Back in the sixties I spent time studying Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his ashram in Rishikesh, India. When he was assessing how we were each progressing in our practice, he was often not so interested in our experiences within meditation itself—whether we were noticing subtle levels of thinking, discovering the true self, […]
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