Tag: Inquiry
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Can ‘My’ Thoughts Hurt You?
What might be our standard picture of thought? And what, indeed, might be wrong with this picture? I see three basic propositions: In Thought Power, Sivananda (it can be surmised) takes all three propositions to be false. What would be his counters? If this new, albeit quite unorthodox picture of thinking is correct, then it…
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Do Thoughts Shape My Destiny?
What if we were to take very seriously the formative character of thinking? Could this be one way of understanding “thought power”? Thoughts, Sivananda states in Thought Power, beget habits (“grooves”); habits beget character; and character begets destiny (let’s say: the course of a life). Could he be on to something? Nobody denies that someone…
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Power Bypass
Due in large part to the emergence of ethical and sexual scandals following the arrival of the “new religions” in the West, “spiritual bypass” was a term coined in order to make sense of how certain spiritual practitioners (again, in the West) could use a spiritual path in order to “go around” their psychological issues…
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Dickens, A CEO, & Fear Of The Poorhouse
Charles Dickens, perhaps the most famous novelist in the Victorian era, made a great living during his lifetime and yet, all his life, was deeply fearful of returning to the workhouse. When he was 12, his father was put in debtors’ prison while he, separately, worked at a nearby factory, Warren’s Blacking Warehouse. It is…
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Vivarta Vada And Self-inquiry
You may have heard this line from Chandogya Upanishad: “May I be many, may I grow forth.” Hearing it, you may have fallen to wondering: “How did the many actually come from the One?” What if manifestation never really happened? In this connection, let’s consider just one doctrine: vivarta vada. This teaching draws upon the…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 