As the great mystic Saint John of the Cross said, “In order to come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not.” I love this quote. It’s entirely paradoxical. It is what I spoke about earlier in what my teacher referred to as “the backward step”: coming to knowledge not through knowing, but through not knowing.

I invite you to set some time aside—perhaps a half an hour—to allow yourself simply to feel whatever is there: to let any sensation, feeling, or emotion come up without trying to avoid or “solve” it. Simply let whatever is there arise.

This natural and expansive state is really just another word for “spirit.” Though this word is quite loaded and used in a variety of ways, it in essence points to the vast expanse of consciousness that is possible for all of us. What is spirit, after all? It’s not something you can see. It’s nothing you can grasp. It’s nothing you can really touch.

One of the primary qualities of this space of unknowing is that it is aware; there’s a completely natural awareness or consciousness flooding the whole of experience. Awareness simply means that there is a pure perception of whatever you’re experiencing.

Spiritual people often listen to the teachings of the great awakened ones and try to apply them, but they often miss the key element, and that is: We’re addicted to being ourselves.

When we argue with what was, the only person who is going to suffer is us. It doesn’t matter why we’re arguing. It doesn’t matter how justified our resistance is. When we begin to look deeply at what our mind is doing, we’ll see that our conclusions and justifications for our own suffering are what allow the suffering to continue. It took me a

Beyond even any teaching, though, the aspect of spiritual life that is the most profound is the element of grace. Grace is something that comes to us when we somehow find ourselves completely available, when we become openhearted and open-minded, and are willing to entertain the possibility that we may not know what we think we know. In this gap of

There’s a wonderful quote from the Gospel of Thomas in which Jesus says, “Blessed is he who existed before being born.” Jesus is pointing here to being itself; he is acknowledging that essence of who and what we are before our minds created an image of ourselves as something separate and distinct from all of life.

Although we would love to have everyone wake up and be happy, part of the heartbreak is accepting this moment, this world, just as it is.