The Secret of Action

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Spring Issue

Action is held to be one of the traditional paths which lead to freedom, as are also meditation and knowledge, but you may need greater courage to start on either of the inner paths than you will to embark on the outer path of action. Action seems all too easy at first, especially to those…

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Dance Away Your Limitations

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Spring Issue

The Skanda Purana is one of the great epic poems in the Vedic tradition. It includes the following story about the asura (demon) Bhasma, and hints at how to lead the mind from limitations to eternal freedom. This version formed part of a presentation given by the Warden of Shanti Sadan. The mind’s powers of…

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The Perceptual World of the Individual

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Spring Issue

In one of Bishop Berkeley’s dialogues, two philosophers are looking at a distant castle, only a tiny speck on the horizon. They agree that they can both see it, but are unable to make out its doors, windows and battlements. From where they are, it looks like a small round tower pointing upwards on the…

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Meditation—Keeping the Mind on Track

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Spring Issue

A talk by the Warden of Shanti Sadan leading into a meditation session Those who meditate are well aware of the challenge posed by distraction, when our thoughts stray from the practice and turn to other things felt to be more interesting or pressing. This is not a conscious turning on our part; it just…

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Our Inner Philosopher

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Spring Issue

Reflections on The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius Boethius was a scholarly and respected Roman citizen who lived from about 475 to 525 AD. At that time, the Roman Empire was in decline, no longer able to control its far-flung provinces, and vulnerable to attacks from Gothic or Hun tribes, either combining forces or pursuing…

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Finding Joy

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Winter Issue

Ultimate joy depends on self-realisation, but the Self to be realised is not a phase of the body or mind, but rather the central pivot which makes all experience possible. At this level of centrality and depth, thought is transcended, and what subsists is the illumined sameness, referred to in the Gospel of St John…

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