my article

In my previous article, The mind’s role in investigating ‘I’ , I replied to some of the comments on my earlier article, How to attend to ‘I’? , and in this article I will discuss some of the other issues raised in the comments on that article. In some of the later comments on that article, mention is made about the difficulty some people have in ‘finding I’ in order to attend to it, which suggests that what I tried to explain in that article was not sufficiently clear. What I tried to explain there was that the idea ‘I cannot find I’ or ‘I have difficulty experiencing I’ implies that there are two ‘I’s, one of which cannot find or experience the other one, whereas in fact there is only one ‘I’, which we each experience clearly, and which there is therefore no need for us to find. Sri Ramana used to say that trying to find ‘I’ as if we do not already experience it is like someone searching to find their glasses when in fact they are already wearing them. Whatever else we may experience,...

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In a comment that he wrote on my previous article, How to attend to ‘I’? , Jacques Franck referred to a sentence in which I wrote, “Therefore our aim is to experience ‘I’ alone, in complete isolation from all other things, and in order to experience it thus, we need to try to be aware only of ‘I’ and thereby to ignore everything else”, and commented: ‘It sounds simple and complicated at the same time [...] Because when I try to do this, I have the feeling that my mind is trying to do this. So is it normal that in first place the mind is a little involved or much involved [...]?’ Yes, since our mind or ego is what we now experience as ‘I’, the ‘I’ that investigates itself is only our mind. One obvious reason for this is that our real self (what we actually are, or in other words, ‘I’ as it actually is, rather than as the mind that it now seems to be) always experiences itself as it actually is, so there is no need for it to investigate itself. The mind seems to be ‘I’ when I do not exp...

    Douglas James Mahr wrote in  Voyage to the New World (1985) that the book "is the product of three entities . . . J. Z. Knight is a woman who channels a personality who calls himself Ramtha, The Enlightened One; Ramtha is a unique entity who exists in the unseen world while interacting with the seen world; and Douglas James Mahr is an author who has observed J.Z. Knight's and Ramtha's interaction with thousands of people since 1981." Voyage to the New World is a compilation of passages from Ramtha's discourses supplemented with eyewitness interviews.  Mahr reported: " At the time of this publication, Ramtha has delivered approximately one hundred Dialogues.  These communications comprise a collection of approximately six hundred cassette tapes, about nine hundred hours . . ."   Presented as "An Adventure Into Unlimitedness," the book includes one of Ramtha's descriptions about himself.  A litany of phrases signifying God and Chris...

As you know if you've been following this blog for a while, obesity risk has a strong genetic component .  Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) attempt to identify the specific locations of genetic differences (single-nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs) that are associated with a particular trait.  In the case of obesity, GWAS studies have had limited success in identifying obesity-associated genes.  However, one cluster of SNPs consistently show up at the top of the list in these studies: those that are near the gene FTO. As with many of the genes in our genome, different people carry different versions of FTO.  People with two copies of the "fat" version of the FTO SNPs average about 7 pounds (3 kg) heavier than people with two copies of the "thin" version, and they also tend to eat more calories ( 1 , 2 ).   Despite being the most consistent hit in these genetic studies, FTO has remained a mystery.  As with most obesity-associated genes, it's expressed in...

  back cover photograph As remembered by JZ Knight, this commentary of Ramtha—an entity who speaks through her body for interims of time—is found in JZ Knight's autobiography A State of Mind, My Story (1987). "Beloved woman, I was a Lemurian who was part of the pilgrimage that went into that which is termed Atlantis." "I was that which is termed a warrior." (In response to the question "Did you kill people?") "Indeed, I was a barbarian." "I knew not what God be when I was a barbarian." "For mine was a destitute people who were termed slaves and soulless.  I was the conqueror who freed my people from tyranny.  Indeed, I became the greatest of all warriors.  For great was my ignorance and hatred, and feared I nothing."  (page 288) "I was continually on what you term a march." (In response to the question "And how many warriors were there in your army?") "Multitudes." "Indeed, I plundered a...

A friend wrote to me recently saying that he had been practising meditation for many years, and that since he heard of Sri Ramana he had become fascinated by him and had read as much as he could about his teachings, but that he could not understand how to concentrate on and experience ‘I’. The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him: When you write, ‘I am having some trouble experiencing the I’, that seems to imply that there are two ‘I’s. The first ‘I’ (the ‘I’ in ‘I am having some trouble’) is clearly experienced by you, because if it were not you would not be aware that it is having some trouble, so why should this ‘I’ that you clearly experience take the trouble to experience some other ‘I’, which you think you are not able to experience? The fact is that we all experience ‘I’ or ‘I am’, and the ‘I’ that we experience is the one and only ‘I’ that we can ever experience. Moreover, ‘I’ is our most fundamental experience, and is the basis for everything else that we experie...

  This is cover art from editions of the book  A Beginner's Guide to Creating Reality .     An individual's understanding of life and 'God' must be based on one's own experiences.  Among the annals of unexplained phenomena, the transcendental communication offered by visitors from the ascended realm helps one to see beyond illusionary superstitions and dogmas to better comprehend the nature of one's true home in the Mind and Being of 'God.'  The entity known as 'Ramtha' is representative of cases involving so-called 'ascended masters' who offer perspectives concerning this momentous reality. After going into a hypnotic trance, Edgar Cayce spoke about diverse aspects of life that included the ancient civilizations Atlantis and Lemuria or Mu.  The personality who speaks for interims through JZ Knight is Ramtha, who has said that he lived 35,000 years ago on the continent of Lemuria and was part of the pilgrimage that went into that which ...