Sublime

Devipuram—“The Goddess’s Abode”—the temple complex that Guruji had spent more than three decades building up from almost nothing in the rural wilds of eastern India.

I especially enjoyed the work of Sir John Woodroffe (1865–1936), a.k.a. “Arthur Avalon,” who—while prominently serving as Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court in British India—spent his private hours explaining, defending and ultimately practicing in the then widely reviled Hindu religious schools of Shaiva and Shakta Tantrism.

associated with a specific religious tradition, the religion of Śiva-Śakti, also known as Shaivism, the dominant religion of India throughout the medieval period.

I had many teachers, but the most central were two of the wisest Theravada teachers of the past century: one in Thailand, Ajahn Chah, and one in Burma, Mahasi Sayadaw.

Make a solemn resolution to meditate every morning and before going to bed at night: “First, last, and always, O Spirit, I will keep my engagement with Thee in meditation. You have blessed me to come in contact with this great truth of Self-Realization and its Masters, that through this gateway I may find Thee. Bless me to be steadfast until I find

Those who seek to hold their followers by instilling fear in them are not true teachers. We should always be actuated by wisdom, never by fear.

Cliff arrived at Devipuram toting a small, pyramidal Sri Meru he had ordered by mail from Devipuram five years earlier.16 One day he brought the Meru to Guruji for his blessing. Handing it back afterward, Guruji told him, “This is for your healing.”