Spirituality and States: Getting Beyond the Good Stuff

Jay Michaelson

For most spiritual folks, state change is what it's all about.  Spiritual states have the power to open the mind, nourish the heart, and change the world.  They are, I think, the most important force for social and environmental sustainability on the planet.  And they can be lots of fun, too. (more)

Fetishizing the Trigger

Jay Michaelson

In America, we're used to hippies being for peace and love not just rhetorically, but politically as well. But in Israel, many "fundamentalists" are actually part of the "peace and love" hippie crowd. These people are pulling a trigger and experiencing the Divine. (more)

The Jhanas: Meditative Absorptions

Jay Michaelson

The jhanas are states of heightened concentration that have been cultivated by Hindus and Buddhists for three thousand years. They are altered states, full of bliss and, I would say, holiness.  Here I describe my experiences of the jhanic states and their significance for spiritual practitioners. (more)

Free Will: The Last Gasp of the Unenlightened Mind

Jay Michaelson

Some believe that without free will, we are mere biological instruments, with no soul.  But from a nondual perspective, this argument is theologically backward. The autonomous soul isn't the gateway to God; it's the gateway to delusion.  This is the yetzer hara, the selfish, separating and, occasionally, evil inclination that sees the self as the center of the universe.  (more)

The Body of Being

Jay Michaelson

The sages of Kabbalah often start with what we would deem the conclusion, if the proofs were satisfactory: that God exists, and is Infinite. They ask, if God is infinite, then what is your body, your heart, and your mind, but God itself? What are joy and terror, other than the skin of the Infinite? (more)

Transformation of Consciousness as Messianic Age: A Kabbalistic View

Jay Michaelson

Imagine a world in which everyone understood that all of us are God. According to one interpretation of prophecy, the messianic age is already unfolding, and the gradual emergence and dissemination of nonduality is among its signal phenomena. (more)

The Blues, Prayer, and Unrequited Love

Jay Michaelson

Sometimes, prayer language rings hollow and empty. Sometimes, I prefer dance music to blues. But as Leonard Cohen said, "there is a crack in everything, that's where the light comes in." (more)

Sick Enough for Spirituality

Jay Michaelson

Religion can be fairly straightforward; it brings us together and marks important occasions. But what about those of us who make spirituality the center of our lives? Are we sick and scarred? (more)

The Gifts of Boredom

Jay Michaelson

When you make a spiritual practice of boredom, you are creating new neural pathways that allow you to relate to unpleasant stimuli in new ways. The point is to use boredom as a gateway to pure awareness. (more)

Stop Seeking: Paradoxes of the Spiritual Path

Jay Michaelson

The point of the spiritual search is to stop seeking. But not in the way it seems.

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You Are God in Drag: Eleven Notes from Before and After Retreat

Jay Michaelson

Are peak experiences real? How do we know anything is true? Certain things are logically provable, but many other kinds of truths are not. Secret mystical teachings are not esoteric; they are experiential. (more)

Fresh Baked Bread

Jay Michaelson

In the Christian story of the Last Supper, Jesus distributes the flesh of God, initiating the first communion. To a Catholic, the significance of the scene is its mythic and theological context. But to a Buddhist, it's about fresh baked bread. (more)

Religion and Insanity

Jay Michaelson

Who's more nuts: the Orthodox Jew who believes that God wrote a grammatically bizarre and narratively confusing text – or the businessman who spends most of his waking hours chasing money and possessions? Which is more nuts: the retreat center or Wal-Mart? Is it all just a matter of taste which insanity you choose to embrace? (more)

Polytheism and Nonduality

Jay Michaelson

Why would precisely those spiritual traditions which emphasize that "all is one" – Hinduism is the great example – multiply into infinity the faces and manifestations of God, gods, and goddesses? It may be that polytheism and polymorphism are more accurate, not less, than traditional monotheism.  (more)

Ayahuasca and Kabbalah

Jay Michaelson

Since Aldous Huxley published "The Doors of Perception," most spiritual practitioners have assumed that the point is: All is One. But as more spiritual seekers pursue non-unitive paths – including drinking ayahuasca and smoking DMT – I have a hunch that it is about to change. (more)