Before we begin

Lets go back

Lets start again

from where things have a beginning

in a story. . .

 

 

There are two versions to many of the stories and poems below

The first version is text only

The second version includes voice and music.

 

(Use the (audio) buttons to LISTEN)

You can use the search box above to find any word or topic on this site

 

 

Stories

In the Jewish tradition, a person who tells stories about stories in the Bible is called a darshanim and his story is called a midrash. I saw myself as a darsanim since the first time I heard the word and I intend my stories to be a midrash.The great tradition of religion and spirituality is my Bible. I spin like a wheel around it's hub. These are some of the stories that I remember. . .

Give people a fact or an idea and you enlighten their minds. Give them a story and you awaken their soul.                           -Hasidic saying

Throw in some music and you can dance. . .

 

Beware of Storytellers | (audio)
  Why We Tell Stories (audio)
 

Harper's Ferry(audio)
 

Taj Mahal | (audio)
   
 

Train Out of Cicero | (audio)
 

Set me as a Seal upon thy Heart (audio)
 

Hanuman Story for RamDass (audio)
 

De Felly Frog | (audio)
 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights (audio)

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights (Movie)
 

Three Non-Existent Princes (audio)

The Mad Elephant | (audio)
 

The Seed and the Soil
 

The Cure of the Mustard Seed | (audio)
 

King Hussein
 

Tragedy Fate Nemesis
 

Wish Fulfilling Tree | (audio)
 

Let Me Tell You a Story

 

The Sadhus
 

Character and Fate | (audio)
  God Willing | (audio)

 

23 Psalm
 
 
  The Nadi Readers - India 2004 | (pics)
 
The Bear, The Rabbit and The Man (audio)
 


Going to Town(audio)

Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby(audio)

The Water of Life (audio)

A Thorn, a Gold Coin and The Law of Karma

Shit Happens

Who Bears the Burdens of Life-a short story of Ramana Maharshi  (audio)
 
Poetry


Babushka (audio)

Quadraplegic Love (audio)

 

Mango Butt and Veda Head | (audio)

Like the Worm (audio)

I have Lost Myself (audio)

Breathe Easier (audio)

A Small Little Puddle

Tall Trees (audio)

Those Calves (audio)
What I Call My Heart (audio)
A Poets Hope is in Dying| (audio)

Sometimes You Need a Miracle(audio)

What Kind of Praise
The River of Drowning

Pourin Like A River(audio)

Reading Rumi

Slaves of Each Other

Gravity's Easy Way (audio)

The Love of a Woman (audio)

Something Left Out (audio)

What it is I am Practicing For (audio)

My Appetite (audio)

The Law of Karma and The Rainbow Grocery Reggae (audio)

Job's Friends (audio)

Big Doggy an Da Wabo (audio)

Lonely Traveler (audio)

When I Was No Longer

Cleaning House

Now That You Have Left (audio)

Prayers

Gestures of Giving

Lost Face (audio)

 

 

This conditional world passes

This ‘everything’ always dies

Even this can be tacitly merely observed

By always prior standing as mere witness here.

 

Therefore fall awake in me!

No “thing” continues

Everything thing in this world changes

moment by moment

These conditional forms all die

Then Gone.

 

 

I stand in the “Place”

Where these forms here are not.

This stand Is

My Divine and inherently egoless State-

A “Place” the ego fears to go,

for fear its death there ceases all.

 

Give the ego gone to Me

Find out my Self-of-Radiance

Which is All-Love-As-Bliss

Let the ego be Un-Happened-

now

 

Where are you?

Do you not watch this “world”?

Do you not see it passing

before your eyes,

before your heart?

Then

That is the end of it.

 

 

-Adi Da Samraj

 

 

One finger pointing up and one finger pointing down

"There is neither one God nor many Gods.

There is Only God:

-Adida Samraj

That is what I am miming in this picture. 

(Standing by a roadside sign in Northern India)

I    am

on a road that follows the Ganges

into the Himalayan Mountains

about 15 miles up river

from Rishikesh

 

I have just bathed in the beautiful, clear sacred river

and sat in the 

thunderously silent and ancient cave

used by the Rishi Vasishta 

*

I have moved to Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, South India as of April 2011

I will continue to study and write and will be working on 

a book on Ghee as well as several other topics of interest.

You can read my BLOG here


 

It could be said that most of India does not exist

in the world of science and technology,

it exists in the world of 'God'

a world in which the Mystery of all life

is still felt to be breathing.

India is a land of colorful paradoxes

of Divine ideas and representations,

of temples, saints and sadhus,

sacred rivers and holy mountains

and even road signs devoted to the Supreme.

 

I  have only 'ideas and stories' about what is going on

or who or what 'God' is

The journey where I have placed my feet seems blessed

and the mystery in which we live

grows deeper

 


*

" All doubt, despair, and fear become insignificant

once the intention of life becomes love,

rather than dependence on love."

-Adi Da Samraj

 

Vasishta Gufa (cave)

 

 

Here are some stories

and ideas

about

'What Is'

or what has been called-

Vidya or knowledge:

 

Since ancient times, mankind has sought for knowledge.
But, all 'knowledge' is not the same.
My teacher,
Adida, spoke of what is meant by knowledge:

 

"I find people’s losses and sorrows to be heartbreaking and terrible,
an immense burden.
And, I am inevitably sympathetic and bless people in their trouble.
However, you must understand; That is the nature of this place.
It is not utopia. It is not paradise.
It is a place of death, of endings, of suffering.
Brief amusements.
It is not enough.

One day, it will be your death.
All will pass. Everything will pass.
Everything will be lost. Everything will change.
Every conceivable separation will occur.
You must know the place you are in
and live according to that knowledge."

-AdiDa

 

To see this talk of Adida-

Click HERE

 


 

 

All of these stories are what I have
heard and experienced about that 'knowledge'
They are a 'Consideration' of life

 

*

It cannot be stolen by thieves

Nor taken away by kings

 

It cannot be divided among brothers

It is not a load on your shoulders

 

If spent . . . It always increases

 

The wealth of knowledge

Is the most superior wealth of all

 

- Vidyaprashna

 

 

 

*


Videos

*

Articles

*

Biography

or

The Blind Man and the Elephant

 

WOODWORKING PHOTOS

 

 
   
e-mail Peter