Tag: Love

• January 27, 2026

  Do Thought 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…
• January 22, 2026

  You Must Cultivate Power

  One of the chief problems with contemporary spirituality is that it doesn’t cultivate power–inner power or spiritual power or “thought power” or shakti. Without power, there can’t be the inward turn nor can there be an expression of that power in the form of love. I need power in order to give, to serve, and,…
• January 21, 2026

  Can ‘My’ Thoughts Color Your Experience?

  In his marvelous book Thought Power, Swami Sivananda argues that “thought moves,” “thought is a force”–indeed, is a “vital, living force.” This claim is by no means obvious. For many of us, a thought seems almost like a pastime. It’s fun to think about geopolitics, but what effect, apart from entertainment, does such a thought…
• January 20, 2026

  Positive Overcomes Negative

  In Thought Power, Swami Sivananda lays out the “law of thought.” I’ll have more to say about this astonishing work in the future, but for today I’d like to briefly touch upon something that is undeniably yet also wondrously true: positive thought prevails over negative thought. This, if true, is an argument for God. For…
• January 15, 2026

  And What Are You Willing To Give To The Path?

  Not long after my eldest sister died in 2014, my wife Alexandra wrote to a Zen teacher living in Kyoto to ask about various religious paths. Notably, she and I had crafted that email in such a way that it included criteria whose goal was to help her to determine what could be a suitable…