It’s not about certainty. Losing things, changing how and what you believe, is all part of it. It was the plan all along.

Having the experiences and the sensations but not identifying with them is at the core of Ram Dass’s message. He teaches that instead of saying, “I’m depressed,” you could say, “There is depression.” Like, I’m over here, looking at it. Wow. That’s a heavy one. I don’t know if people get out of depressions like that one. But he asks, “Is the part of

This is the Big Show! This isn’t a simulation! This isn’t a waiting room for later. This is it! Clearly you could be an atheist and still have a deep respect for human life and values. In fact, your respect may be more sincere, since you’re not doing it for the eternal reward you’ve been promised after you die. You’re not being bribed to love your

There’s a funny feeling you get when a drug is irrevocably in your stomach and you don’t know what to expect. It’s kind of like waiting for your dad to pick you up from school, but you don’t know if he’s going to be happy, mad, silly, or insane.

I was finally able to put down all that something and replace it with a clean, simple, elegant nothing. I was really excited about nothing. And not just any nothing, but that satisfying, final nothing that comes after the question, “What do you think happens when we die?” That nothing. Oh, sweet Lord, that’s a great nothing. That’s the nothing you

“Awareness is peace. It’s peace.” I’m a pretty great person as long as every single one of my needs is being met, but this idea shifted my understanding of prayer from that of a wish list of requests for God to a technique that allows me to sit back into my soul—the part of me that’s less involved in getting my way but quieter, more grateful, and

I could finally put down those heavy bags. Up until that point, every single person I met outside church was just another person going to hell, and all that quiet condemnation took a lot of energy. Now that energy was freed up to relax and start trying to actually appreciate people—especially people of different faiths—for who they were without

There were other people at the gardens that day who seemed to be tuned into this secret, but most of the people I saw were going around like I always had, observing nature like scientists conducting a study. The garden was something to collect, or analyze, or capture. I’ve seen this kind of tree before, I’ll file that under “seen it.” This kind I

“God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all categories of human thought, including being and nonbeing.”