Brian D. Stephens
The divine is present throughout creation. It is the formless intelligence that guides and sustains creation. Enlightened teachers have different names for the divine such as the Paramatman or the Self. And they describe the divine in various ways such as light, stillness, and love… Read more
According to many enlightened teachers there are three planes of reality: mental, energetic, and physical. The vast majority of people on the planet perceive only the physical plane of reality. The true spiritual journey begins when a person learns to perceive the energetic plane of reality. You can feel energetic forms through your energetic body. And you might even see energetic forms with your physical eyes… Read more
Reading Ramana Maharshi’s teachings each day has attuned my system to his enlightened presence. It is a deep and profound stillness. The grace of Ramana Maharshi is present in all of his teachings. By reading them you will be drawn into the deeper reality… Read more
While lying in bed, I rested in a state between being awake and asleep. An image appeared in my awareness that I have never seen before. It was a silver ball made of water. The water flowed down the ball in ripples that looked like tiny waves. The image was so real that I tried to open my eyes in order to get a better look at it. But when my eyes opened the image vanished. Until this evening, I didn’t know what the image represented… Read more
Perhaps the biggest impediment to spiritual progress is your ideas about God. You may hold your spiritual beliefs to be true. Yet they are nothing more than ideas in the mind. They are only mental representations of reality, not reality itself. There is a deeper truth that cannot be accessed through the mind. It is experienced directly beyond the limitations of thought. Ideas can at best lead you to the experience. And at worst they keep you from the experience… Read more
It is common to find a list of enlightened people on someone’s website. But most people have not advanced far enough along the spiritual path to ascertain another person’s spiritual state. The best they can do is guess. They assume that just because a lot of people believe someone is enlightened that it must be true. This list is different, it contains real spiritual masters… Read more
There is a great deal of misinformation about spirituality, and it is easy to make a mistake in choosing a spiritual teacher. By relying upon the local pastor, priest, or rabbi to lead you on the spiritual path you are indoctrinated into a particular belief system. But you do not learn how to make true spiritual progress by moving their awareness beyond the ego and connecting with the deeper reality. Beyond the confines of religious institutions is a world without any rules. It is common for charlatans to lie about their spiritual state in order to attract naïve seekers looking for assistance… Read more
One of the more popular spiritual memes is that more people than ever before are on the spiritual path. What does Meher Baba, the most recent incarnation of the world savior, have to say on the subject? There are 8.4 million yogis who perceive the energetic planes and another 8.4 million who are aware of the mental planes. So the total number of people on the spiritual path is 16.8 million. There are currently 8.7 billion people on the planet. That means the number of yogis make up only one-fifth of one percent of the world’s population… Read more
It is of upmost importance that you chose the right spiritual teacher. A spiritually advanced teacher can teach you how to align with the deeper reality. A teacher who is not advanced can delay your progress. Unfortunately, may people choose poorly and fail to reach their spiritual potential… Read more
My favorite spiritual practices are to focus on the Paramatman light or an enlightened teacher. Of late, another spiritual practice has arisen spontaneously. I step back and observe myself interacting with the world. The way I perceive the world changes. I am freed from the ego’s influence and the mind stills. The external world loses its sense of reality. It is more like a play… Read more
Of late, I am more cognizant of how much of the day is spent focused on unimportant things. The mind moves from one meaningless thought to the next. And only when I stop to read an enlightened teaching is my attention fully focused on the divine. I must do a better job of attuning to the deeper reality throughout the day… Read more
I have found that reading an enlightened teaching changes my internal reality and the way I interact with the world. The grace of an enlightened teacher draws my awareness within, toward the Self and away from the illusion of separate objects. For some reason, the teachings of Meher Baba and Ramana Maharshi are the most helpful in drawing my intention deeply within. Three in particular are the most powerful: Guru Vachaka Kovai, God Speaks, and In God’s Hand… Read more
Read spiritual quotes from Meher Baba, the most recent incarnation of the world savior whose profound spiritual teachings took place in silence… Read more
Meher Baba was the most recent incarnation of the world savior. Meher Baba and his teachings helped me to find my true spiritual path. His grace will uplift you and draw you closer to the divine… Read more
There are small cliffs that overlook the ocean in San Diego, California. On some nights a man will stand on the grass and create soap bubbles that are carried along the sidewalk by the ocean breeze. The bubble man brings a lot of joy to people. The children who are walking along the ocean with their parents stop and play with the bubbles, chasing and popping them. The bubbles remind me of the book God Speaks by Meher Baba. He uses the analogy of bubbles on the ocean to describe what happens to a soul when it appears in creation… Read more
After Mother Meera darshans today, I shut my eyes for a while and had two visions of the ocean at sunset. Spiritual visions are nice, yet they can also be a distraction. Meher Baba taught about the dangers of a seeker getting lost in the energetic planes. Some become so engrossed in visions that they do not focus on the deeper reality and their spiritual progress stalls… Read more