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iamdiane, I hope it was clear that when I posted the Woody Allen line, it was meant in humor, as of course he delivered it. There's another line of his (quoted on TZF's Gazebo page) that I like: "It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens". That's got a ...

The last week or so, I have been reading again from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health . As all here are undoubtedly aware, she is the founder of Christian Science . Her writings and accomplishments would be impressive enough under any circumstances, but they are particularly so considering that s...

Bhakti, thanks for posting those wonderful lines from The Cloud of Unknowing . Undoubtedly, everyone here is fully aware of the powerful principle resident in this practice, but if this is a new idea to anyone here, I urge you to try it, even just for a month. The key is (1) to pick a word or short ...

Here's another wonderful line from Nisargadatta sent to us by mjoel53: All paths lead to unreality. Too cool! He found it at Shining Through the Mind , a nice website out of Australia. Speaking of quotations, a couple of days ago I came across this great line, attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt -- No o...

This evening, watching a movie on television (the 1952 version of Daphne du Maurier’s classic “My Cousin Rachel”), I noticed the disclaimer that preceded the broadcast, about the movie’s having been “edited to fit the television screen” and so on. Following that thought, and considering That I Am's ...

Here’s something we learned this evening watching “Joan of Arcadia” on television. (It’s one of our favorite TV programs.) In Persia (now Iran), a country justifiably famous for its fine rugs, rug makers intentionally include an error in every rug they weave, in recognition that Perfection exists on...

Anna asks whether an incarnation of the Divine can be perfect. That raises the question, is it possible for God to create something, anything, that is not Perfect? Including you and me. Is it not inevitable that the entirety of God’s Perfection must be bestowed upon everyone and everything God Creat...

It occurs to me that part of what may be at work here is the tendency to distinguish between “me” and “my life” or “me” and “my work”, as if they were two different things, as if there were a “me” who is living “my life” or performing “my work”. Actually, “me” and “my life” (or “my work”) are one an...

I agree, Neo and Bhakti. Clearly, the ability to deceive is egoic. Who else would want to deceive -- to deceive others, to deceive ourselves? And the same must be true of the tendency to confusion. After all, the ego is confused by definition. Can you picture Nisargadatta being confused? Or Gautama ...

The current issue of Discover magazine has an interesting article “What Do Animals Think?” about Temple Grandin, a professor at Colorado State University, who has discovered that autistic persons (she is one) and animals view the world, and react to it, in a manner that is significantly different fr...

Nice point, nicely stated. Evelyn Underhill, in her magnificent classic "Mysticism" which is unfortunately out of print, addresses the same phenomenon as described by the Christian mystics. The quotation which That I Am posted is from the book "Enlightenment: Journey into Awakening&qu...

In the death of John Paul II, the world has lost a good friend. Of course, I don’t agree with his every decision, every position, every pronouncement. But John Paul II was a formidable positive force, and he will be missed. John Paul II apologized for the excesses of the Crusades; he apologized for ...

The book to which Anna refers in the previous post is The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence by Lee Sannella (please see here).

For some years along my own spiritual path, I have wrestled with the concept of free will. Having been raised in a Christian faith, I was familiar with the Genesis story suggesting that the Creator endowed humankind with free will, and that it was our poorly considered exercise of that feature which...

If you have read Open Forum’s “Welcome” message , then you already know about “The Sand Box”, and you do not need to read this message. But if you did not read the Welcome message, then please read this. The Zoo Fence’s Open Forum includes one feature, called “The Sand Box”, that was originally visi...