Some spiritual teachers criticize others and some are tolerant and accepting. Everything in the realms of space and time is subject to distinction, to diversity and variety. This is the condition of the relative world -- an enormous spread of uniqueness. Not one human identical to any other, not one tree exactly the same as another, not even a single sand grain that is not unique and individual.

Spiritual teachers will not -- do not -- come out with the same methods and teachings for spiritual life. There is always diversity. This diversity does not have to be compared and contrasted with another in a competition of appraisal and judgment. The ways may not even be equally valid. However, they may all be helpful and acceptable to others.

The mind of pure intention and love conveys you along a road, a path to lighten your suffering, to increase your wisdom and your emptiness. Lessen, lessen, lessen -- the true way is the way of loss.

Much has been made of this business of transcending samsara, of combating the ego, of working with fear and desire. For some this is an incremental progressive path of sustaining loss in the material world and therefore "gain" in spiritual realms -- over time.

But for others the transformation is instantaneous. How is it possible that something that takes so long can be granted instantaneously in another case?

It depends on the thickness, the density of delusion. There is another place, a place of purity, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, and contentment. It may contrast acutely with your present state. You may not be able to see, experience, or even believe in it while you are in your present state, bound by delusion. Yet for others, this has never not been the case. For the Truth is a constant. Therefore there is, in the strict sense, no journey to it at all. No progressive practice or incremental growth or development applies to something that exists and is closer to you than your very self.

Reality surrounds you. In the source-less field of Truth happiness and contentment, the urge toward devotional and non-conditional compassion and awareness, pervades the experience-less domain of the Divine.

Stop now! As you lessen thoughts, feelings, worries, planning, and awareness of the physical and energetic bodies, allow your consciousness to extend in all directions to the very outer reaches of time and space. Allow yourself to take in and merge together with all that ever was, is, and will be... beyond space, beyond time, beyond the feeling of being a self even. You are it: you are the totality.

BLOG entry #28