How to use this Page

while listening to Ganesh Baba on my iPod...

For several days I've been working on a project that took all my attention for most of every day. There was a day a few days ago when I sat down to meditate at 8:11, but meditation wouldn't come.

Meditation isn't something you do; meditation comes. Christian Pilastre

My head was full of facts (nice facts about chocolate, but facts nonetheless) and my body full of adrenalin. I was late starting, so I skipped the stretching and wiggling part of my routine and the rapid exhale cleansing breaths and went straight into long, slow deep breaths. Over and over my mind was drawn back to the same mental pathways I had been using all day. Once on those comfortable tracks, other thoughts of similar vibration flooded in.

Recognizing and accepting that my head needed extra time to empty, I patiently returned to breathing consciously and refocusing on the third eye and listening to the OM again again. It was well after the 11 minutes passed before I was able to move beyond the day's issues. I missed the pleasure of knowing and feeling that I was part of a worldwide phenomenon. There was a time when I'd have been hard on myself for missing the opportunity, but over the years I've learned not to judge myself - or others - so harshly. We're all evolving at our own pace.

I probably sat for 20 minutes before I unwound sufficiently to be relaxed and receptive, which is the key to real meditation.

Then the vision of a world built on love returned. At first I saw people and animals interacting in a landscape of lovely soft hills, like the ones in South Wales. Around each person, each animal, and each feature of their surroundings was a swirling cloud of changing colors. The colors moved in and out of the center of whatever they are massed around, concentrating at the center, dissipating at the edges. As they shifted, they interacted with and affected the colors of nearby swirls.

For several nights now I've been taking part in the New Reality Transmission worldwide event in which thousands, maybe tens of thousands, maybe millions of people are meditating on a world built on love for eleven minutes, at 11:11 (EST), for eleven days, beginning, of course, on 11/11.

Each evening I settle into a quiet place where I can sit comfortably with my back straight - or, as Baba would say, my antenna aligned. As I get settled I wiggle a little to loosen up, and exhale rapidly a number of times to clear my lungs, sometimes using my arms like chicken wings to help pump out the air. Then, relaxing more and more deeply, I take about ten of the longest, slowest breaths I am capable of taking, the out-breath roughly twice as long as the in-breath.

I use mantras with my breath practice. Ever since I learned it from Baba, a simple OM on the in-breath, OM on the out-breath, has been the core of my practice. Sometimes I sing the word to myself as I breath, going up and down the scale, or to some melody, but more often I just listen to my inner sound.

The syllable OM represents the primal vibration, the sound of the Big Bang behind space and time. Our ears cannot possibly hear it - but our bodies do sing, some more loudly, some very softly. The body's song is not respected in today's world; we call it "tinnitus." I call it my personal OM and I find listening to it immensely peaceful.
I revert to OMing in one form or another between periods of trying other mantras that have come to me from here and there over the years.

Currently, I am using abundance on the in-breath, surrender on the out-breath. I don't use the word, I feel the idea; it's vibrational.

When I am begin the slow, rhythmic breathing that I try to maintain through rest of the meditation, I think about a new world built on love, a world where the currency is love instead of money.

Each evening the thoughts that come to me when I set that stage are becoming clearer. I've been taking a few notes after each meditation. Over the next few days, I'll try to find the time to put some of those understandings here too.

It doesn't matter how close to perfection you are now; it matters that you are headed in the right direction.


I attribute this comforting quotation to Ganesh Baba, but, to be honest, I don't know who said it. Baba's soft, comforting side was one I knew well, but it's not the side he shows in his writing and it emerges only rarely in the recordings I've listened to. What he does say about perfection is almost always about the importance of striving for it.

The statement arrived in my consciousness one morning some months ago as I stretched my leg and back in the mahamudra. Baba was watching from his picture on the altar.


Deeply engaged in the practice, I was attending to my body's subtle and not-so-subtle responses as I inched closer and closer to closing the circuit when the thought came.


Yogic and tantric lineages use the term mahamudra -"high" "gesture"- for practices they consider most central to their teaching. I've been practicing the Kriya mahamudra for more than thirty years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Over the years it's improved, but my 60-year-old body, while built very well for carrying babies both inside and out, was never not perfectly aligned; and my mind, which leans toward being in charge and being right, is not inclined to focus on weakness.

For many years, I always felt not-good-enough about the physical aspect of my practice - however much time or effort I put in seemed not-enough. Only relatively recently have I begun to able to override the constant vague feeling of guilt by giving my full attention to the practice itself, a big step.

When the new thought arrived, my last underlying feelings of inadequacy faded away.

We are all imperfect; there's no more point in dwelling on our weaknesses than there is in dwelling on our strengths. It's ego both ways.

Baba tells us that conscious evolution is about using humanity's specific gift of free will to strive for an ideal state in body, mind and spirit. Accepting what is as it is, the feminine side of the practice, is as much part of the ideal as inching forward, the masculine side is.

"It doesn't matter how far from perfection you are; it matters that you are facing the right direction now."

Check it out: The Crazy Wisdom of Ganesh Baba: Psychedelic Sadhana

(photo by Michele Cruzel)

I just sent off the "final" copy of the manuscript I've been working on for the last thirty years.

Well, not exactly. Not constantly. Actually, it sat under my altar for more years than it did on my desk, but for the last few, it's been my main work. It feels pretty strange not to have it hanging over me, but the immense sense of relief I was expecting hasn't shown up yet, maybe because I know how much more work there will be between now and the printing.

All the same, it's gone.

Yesterday I realized that I'd forgotten the last piece, a list of aphorisms. In the typewritten 1960's manuscript I've mostly been working from, they're "tenets to live by." Most of them sound like they come directly from Baba's teacher, Tripura, who wrote the original Bengali text that Baba translated and modernized. There's very little of Baba's voice there — although he's made some of sayings much longer in tiny scrunched-up longhand much of which I didn't have the patience to decipher. So much of the work on this book was doing that - I used a magnifying glass mostly, but occasionally I scanned parts and blew them up using Photoshop. Some of it was real detective work, making careful comparisons to letters in other words. Luckily, Baba had beautiful handwriting; I could depend on it being pretty consistent.

Anyhow, when I realized that I'd never typed up the tenets to live by, I did, and then I listened to Ira Landgarten's Rochester Raps tapes, watched the video of Baba and Timothy Leary, and watched every one of Deniz's Youtube videos. I pulled out my whole collection of written materials, both by and about Baba, and looked through them more of less randomly. Finally I wrote to a bunch of Baba-friends and asked what they remembered.

Here is the result. (The first few pages of it, at least. There are lots of gems!)

Ganeshian Aphorisms

Once a psychedelic, always a psychedelic.

The next revolution will be a spiritual one.

It is our first job, perhaps the only important one, to maintain our body-mind machine – this space capsule – in its optimal operating order – O3.

Have no ambition, above all pretend nothing, but be at each instant the utmost that you can be.

Be an erect animal, not a bent-backed animal.

Don't screw up the pitch.

Keep your back straight, breathe deeply, relax, and all will follow.

There's a reason your head is above your heart. Keep it there.

As for your place in the universal manifestation, the Supreme above will fix it for you.

Take your feelings to the court of reason.

Transcending ‘time’ is real transcendence.

Sit up straight and breathe, dammit.

Sense enjoyment, though immediately pleasurable, is ultimately painful. Striving for spiritualization, though immediately irksome, is ultimately satisfying.

Carry your column as a column.

Guru can teach you how to swim but you have to swim to get across; no Gods or Gurus can do that for you.

Even an atomic holocaust can be a festival of life. Death is not the terminal of life; it’s the grand exit.

The soul is not confined to a capsule. It is ever-existent into infinity.

To individual evolution, I invite the aspirants of the world.

Simple living and high thinking should be the ideal of the spiritual striver.

Just as brass and copper ware have to be regularly rubbed to keep them clean and bright, so has the mind to be rubbed with Sadhana to keep it fresh and clear.

Just as in a dream, the objects appear real and prove imaginary on waking up, so shall this world appear dreamlike when we awake to the full blaze of spiritual enlightenment. After death also, the world will fizzle out like a dream.

We are responsible for the results of our own actions.

Butter is incipient in the milk, but cannot be had without churning. Similarly, the Self is incipient in our being, but cannot be realized without striving or Sadhana.

Go on doing your due duties in the world, while remaining devoted to the Divine within.

Do not try to impose your feelings on others by demolishing theirs. Who indeed knows what is the inner experience of another?

Ganesh Baba once wrote,

"�Survival of the weakest’ is the basic trend of evolution in the human phase. It requires a unique synthesis of production and distribution in the four phases of our being, namely, physical, biological, psychological and spiritual. Synthetic evolution, survival, survival in all phases, is total survival, and not a partial process, as in the biological Darwinian phase. Now we are passing the Jungian, and preparing for the advanced analogue of the Buddha phase.”

He's saying that in order to survive, humanity must grow out of "survival of the strongest" into the "survival of the weakest", a shift to the heart.

The shift must happen in all four phases of our existence, the physical, biological, psychological and spiritual, in the way they interact, a unique coming together of nature and spirit.

Darwinian evolution is only a small arc in the great cycle of creation/evolution. Synthetic evolution goes beyond the Darwinian phase, through the Jungian, or psychological phase, and into a new spiritual phase.

Each age has its avatar or figure who embodies the age. Baba speaks of the avatar (or avatars) of the next age as being more like the Buddha than like the Christ, avatar of the passing age, more receptive than active.

And, indeed, the presence that is growing in so many of us now is more receptive than active.

The Tolle teachings are transmitting the wisdom of the new consciousness to anyone receptive.

And Ganesh Baba's teachings prepare the receptacle: posture, prana, practice, presence.

while listening to Ganesh Baba on my iPod...

Some notes and thoughts

“We must become more familiar with the essence and structure of consciousness, because it is out of consciousness we come and to consciousness we return.” Ganesh Baba, “The Rochester Raps,” recorded by Ira Landgarten, 1981.

The cosmos is created out of consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, visible to our limited senses as a fractal world created from rainbows and scales:




"The eight broad categories all operate within the human psyche, but the physical body operates only in the first three dimensions: matter, energy and space. The fourth dimension, time, we can barely conceive; it is like a baby moving around in the womb trying to understand the outside world."

Errors in understanding the subtle worlds come when the mind claims greater wisdom than it has, and sees exactly the opposite of what is. Because as soon as the individual mind, the ego, enters into consciousness, consciousness flips and becomes its opposite: Mercury, in flight between worlds.

The möbius twist.

Thoughts take on a life of their own whenever they get the chance. Potential archetypes arise with every word we say, with every intention, with every mood, with every thought we have (conceive, give birth to, create), whether conscious or unconscious. Some are conceived in the unconscious and take on the dark aspect of things not understood, and others are born in the light of consciousness and bring wisdom and understanding.

We fear what we don't understand and project our fear outward onto others and into the future.

"Jung knew. The darkness is coming into the light now, willy-nilly."

The quality of the consciousness, receptive or resistant, high or low, subtle or dense, with which each of us receives and responds to the darkness coming to light now will determine our experience. Yet the only way to get to the next level is through synthesis.

These are times of highest synthesis, of enormous potential —

of the possibility of coming together without baggage,

of receiving and giving without judgment,

of being present, instead of just in time.

Baba says the darkness will rise in all four fields of our existence, the physical, biological, psychological and spiritual. There is no stopping it.

It will manifest differently in each of our lives, though some groups will share their experiences.

But once we recognize the light in disguise in what appears to be darkness, we will be through the twist.

From New Zealand’s lively children’s book community, today we feature two great resources. At Bookrapt, brainchild of the Bay of Plenty Children’s Literature Association, you’ll find a great list of resources for writers and aspiring writers: competitions, publishers, advice, awards, literary organizations, industry news and more. If you’re feeling rejected (or just have those northern hemisphere winter blues), check out their list of prominent writers and the number of rejections each received getting a book deal. It’s sure to bring a little sunshine into any writer’s or aspiring writer’s life!

And Storylines, the Kiwi IBBY site, is such rich territory that the rest of this post is littered with links. The annual Storylines Festival in June connects children and families with writers and illustrators. Four literary-related prizes are awared annually. The national Mahy Award in March and the Gilderdale Award in October recognize outstanding contributions to children’s literature. The Gaelyn Gordon Award is for a much-loved book that hasn’t yet won a major award. Support for developing and unpublished writers come in the Tom Fitzgibbon Award for a chapter book and the Joy Cowley Award for a picture book.

Storylines also recommends lists of books (not all New Zealand-published) for children. Their annual Notable Books List this year is of books for and about children with disabilities.

Having a multicultural background can be a kind of disability for kids. Thus PaperTigers focuses on children’s books in English that, through their multicultural perspectives, are liberating and informative for children of all cultures. But kids with disabilities, whether otherwise multicultural or not, often feel like they’re from another country, if not planet. It’s natural, say the people at Bookbird, to link “the representation of disabled people with multiculturalism and the issue of bias-free books.”

Today’s tour of resources for children’s books about disabilities begins in New Zealand, where the wonderful website Storylines has an extensive annotated list of books for and about children with disabilities, from blindness to paralysis to Asperger’s.

An annotated list of children’s books about special needs is here, and here’s an excellent Amazon list of best children’s books on disabilities. An old (2001) but comprehensive list of books, organized by disability and followed by a list of publishers, with contact info and links, comes from the U.S.-based National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities. The American Library Association presents the Schneider Awards, honoring authors or illustrators for a book that “embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.” Click here for current winners.

PaperTigers has more personal perspectives: Suzanne Gervay discusses her book, Butterflies (scroll down here for a mini-review), about a girl growing up with severe burns. Author Ann Bowler talks about her own learning disability. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian, about a kid with multiple disabilities who’s negotiating multiple cultures as well, is reviewed here.

In Australia, I had the opportunity to meet a phenomenal woman who helps children who can’t speak to communicate in other ways. While not for kids, Rosemary Crossley’s book Speechless, about her work with children, offers insight and inspiration for us all, whatever our culture or disability.