Essays

Stories, reflections, and lessons gathered from a lifetime of practice, pilgrimage, and unexpected encounters.

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When the Teaching Disappears

Reflections on nondual Right Knowledge, pedagogy, and recognition.
There comes a point in every serious inquiry when the map has served its purpose.
Especially recommended for new readers.

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Conditioned and Unconditioned Knowledge

There are two kinds of knowledge. One is built from observation, inference, and measurement — knowledge that is always about something, always mediated, always bounded by its own methods. The other is prior to all of that. It cannot be acquired because it is never absent.

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Four Lives, One Thread

I have lived, by most reckonings, four very different lives: musician, spiritual disciple, software engineer, and independent sādhu. I am now, in some sense, all four simultaneously — which is perhaps why the work I am doing with SpecStudio feels less like a new direction than an arrival.

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The Toothache and the Witness

A few weeks ago, during a period of intensive meditation practice in South Asia, I developed a severe toothache. The pain was real — the kind that occupies the whole skull, that makes concentration on anything else feel like trying to read in a burning building.

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The Nature of God in Advaita Vedānta

Advaita Vedānta neither denies God nor deifies the individual. It reveals the true relationship between the individual, the universe, and the Lord.

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Proper Pronunciation of the Prāṇava

There is a small but consequential dispute buried in how most of us were taught to chant Oṃ: does the syllable close on the lips, or does it dissolve through the nose? The difference sounds trivial until you try both and notice how different the two endings feel in the body — one stops at the mouth, the other keeps moving.

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The Great Work is Done

The Great Work is complete. What do we mean by that? Well, the story goes back to 1984, when I got Śaktipāṭ from Śakti Herself, spontaneously, after many weeks of intense meditation. But without any desire for any particular outcome, She just gave it.

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Music to Silence and Back

A few days ago, I found myself listening once again to Snarky Puppy. Their music is astonishing: the ensemble playing is effortless, the rhythmic precision breathtaking, and the joy they take in making music is contagious. As I listened, however, a question quietly arose: What does all of this ultimately lead to?

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