Letters
This section includes texts on various subjects to do with spirituality that I have written. Most were originally either letters to devotees, or written for discussion at meetings that I could not be present at. The majority have been translated from Spanish. For ease of browsing, I have added titles and subtitles into the contents and texts.
Letter 1: Trimurti and Incarnation of Vishnu: One Power, Shakti, in three aspects: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Incarnation of Vishnu
Letter 2:Various: Necessity of spiritual initiation, Achievement of peace, Sincerity, The value of a saint, When samadhi is entered, The meaning of Bhagavan, No pressure to formally accept someone as guru, Previous divine incarnations and Hare Krishna, Meditation for beginners
Letter 3: The difficulty of recognising an avatar: The roles of the avatar and the devotees, Avatars are not understood in their lifetime, Devotees of avatars become great souls
Letter 4: Obtaining the Perfume of Life
Letter 5: The Significance of the Guru: What the guru does, The guru is an incarnation of Ishwara, Second meaning of incarnation of Ishwara, Guru and God in One
Letter 6: On thoughts: Slaves of our minds, Invited and uninvited thoughts, Masters of mind, Becoming master of one’s mind
Letter 7: A Vedantic tale on the illusion of bondage
Letter 8: Why I remained with IVS: Recognising wisdom, Recognising pure hearts, Recognising bliss, Keeping an open mind, Suggestion in bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, Not feeling anything does not mean nothing is there, Perseverance and the process, Observing others, The problem is our own minds, not other peoples’, Seeing ego in others when it is not there, The answer will come from the heart, but we must recognise the evidence, Faith that Bhagavan is God, Shaping the mind for samadhi, Realisation through contemplation and worship
Letter 9: Is IVS a sect? Qualifications and testing of the aspirant, Bhagavan requires no qualifications and testing of the aspirant, The guru suffers our karma, “The pain in a prophet's heart is his crucifixion”, IVS and (my) definition of ‘sect’, Bhagavan is an avatar, IVS is an organisation, The vehicle of the day
Letter 10: Various: Why should we have our minds on Bhagavan? Where is God? The opening up of my mind, Penetrating the unmanifest mind
Letter 11: Various: Manifest strength and will, and the grace of God will come, A deep longing to know the truth must be developed, On chanting
Letter 12: Various: The nature of realised knowledge, Measuring spiritual development, The power of Hare Krishna
Letter 13: Three levels of knowledge: Knowledge from having heard of fire, Knowledge from having seen fire, Knowledge from having been burnt by fire, Knowledge from having been burnt in the fire of samadhi
Letter 14: On the poem 'Reality' by Rabia al-Basri
Letter 15: Let the sleeping soul remember... On vairagya
Letter 16: The wish-fulfilling jewel: Peeling away the layers of the mind, Cutting the root of desires, The essence of bliss
Letter 17: Aphorisms: The extraction of revelations, Aphorisms
Letter 18: On prayer: Two stages of prayer, Dualism as a tool for prayer, Praying for Bhagavan, Developing the impressions for the chosen ideal, Different ishtas are different concretisations of the same non-dual Truth