Updates and what's new at enlightened-spirituality.org

In case you haven't checked our vast website for a while, or have been doing lots of perusing lately but just want some clarity on what has been put up most recently, here is an outline and timeline of what's been going on around here...

May 2023: -- I've been exceedingly busy compiling a few huge manuscripts for publication, also involved in moving from Peoria, AZ to Clarkdale in the west Verde Valley, Arizona's central highlands, 30 minutes from the house we bought for my wife Laura's daughter and grandchildren amid the red rock formations Sedona, AZ.

And now, for very sad news, an UPDATE NOTE: My beloved Laura, my best friend and loving spouse these past 28+ years, very peacefully transitioned into the Heart of the Divine Beloved on January 11, 2023, after two weeks on a ventilator due to complications from bilateral pneumonia diagnosed 3 weeks earlier. For more details on my "ageless beauty," one can read her obituary in the Santa Barbara Independent at https://www.independent.com/obits/2023/01/20/laura-conway/ . And I can joyously report that our angel Laura continues to vividly visit and clearly communicate in Spirit....

November 2017: -- As a gift to you, the reader, my old enormous book manuscripts, Women of Spirit: Saints, Teachers, Healers, Sisterhoods & Goddesses of East & West and the companion volume Women's Wisdom, never previously published, are uploaded as a FREE online BOOK, equivalent to about 1,200 pages of material. All chapter links including the Introduction are now live. To access this free book, simply click HERE or on the tab "Women of Spirit" located on the left-side set of menu choices at any page of our website. Note that, since we moved to Arizona in 2016, this is the first major addition to this website, while i continue to work on completing another massive writing project, the Liberating Zen Sourcebook encyclopedia.

June 15, 2015: --Facebook and Twitter buttons now can be found on almost all of the pages here. My web-server doesn't allow them atop the page except when I (rarely) use a certain page-building method, so the buttons reside at the bottom of most pages. Please click away on the buttons for the pages you like so they can be shared with a wider audience.

June-August, 2015: --I significantly revised and expanded the Ethical Eating page at our Engaged Spirituality section, in light of the profound abolitionist arguments made over the past 20 years by the leading animal rights philosopher, lawyer and ethicist, Gary Francione. I've been talking about this since the 1980s: our enslaving, torturing and murdering of billions of animals every year, especially for body- and planet-destroying "food," is surely our major injustice issue, and yet most humans are blind to this because of massive cultural and corporate brainwashing. Please get informed and transformed into a plant-based vegan lifestyle (see www.HowDoIGoVegan.com), and stop supporting the worst criminal atrocity in human history, which also happens to be the #1 factor behind disastrous climate change. A so-called "spirituality" not yet ethically grounded in real virtue and nonviolence dishonors the One Spirit animating all lives.

March 2, 2014: --A new section, Satsang Audios, is now up, with many months of my Tuesday night satsang talks (from Spring 2013 onward) freely available for listening as MP3 files, along with some of our devotional songs. A big "Thank you" to Thomas Razzeto for his spontaneous, tireless work to record, edit and upload them. He has many more recordings to be uploaded, so stay tuned.

--June 2012: I finally added a Google search box at the Home page and here below to help new and returning visitors much more easily find specific content at our entire website by topic or name. For instance, one can enter in the box below the particular word or phrase Jesus or Buddha or Lao-tzu or Sufism or Kabbalah or nonduality or engaged spirituality (or whatever) to get prioritized page returns from our Enlightened-Spirituality.org website featuring this particular name or topic.

I also recently added 1) a long article on the "Radical Wisdom and Empathy" teachings for helping professionals from India's renowned sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj (d.1981), linked at our main page on Maharaj in the Nondual Spirituality section (or easily find it with the search box using the boldfaced keywords above); 2) a webpage on the Sahaja/Natural Way early Buddhist tantra adept Saraha; 3) a long introduction to and many choice excerpts from Islam's foundational scripture, the Qur'an. All three of the latter webpages are linked at our Religion / Spirituality section. Last but not least, at the Nondual Spirituality section i've added a link to 4) a veritable book-length compilation (circa 120 pages as a printout) on the dramatic life, personality and nondual teachings of the illustrious God-Man, Meher Baba (1894-1969).

--2008 to 2012: it's been a wild, wacky, wonderful past several years, with major changes in the dream of earthly life. After a year-long struggle with lung cancer, in July 2008 my dear mother quite peacefully, fearlessly and joyously "let go the body" to rejoin my late father, sister and so many others for the next step in the cosmic adventure of souls coming HOME to the Divine Party of Love and awakening to their Real Identity as the One God-Self. I have since then been attending to the many demands of moving and settling into a new residence, remodeling and selling our former home, dealing with countless logistical and financial matters (e.g., managing a portfolio on socially-responsible investing principles after a certain major street-brokerage lost much of it in the Crash of 2008), and partnering with my wife Laura on myriad matters. And yes, being available for ongoing satsangs, teaching and counseling work, and answering a heavy amount of email correspondence from sincere aspirants worldwide who are deeply immersed in nondual spirituality. Predictably, all such activities have left very little time for further expanding this website or completing various major writing projects. John LeKay of Nonduality Magazine succeeded in getting me to complete in Spring 2010 a long, illustrated, written interview on numerous aspects of authentic spirituality. And Rick Archer of Batgap.com was kind to put up at YouTube his long interview on my background and on various issues pertinent to nondual spirituality; the link for that video interview is here.

--November 4, 2007: i finally uploaded to the Nondual Spirituality section about 80 pages of extensive wisdom teachings and a substantial 7-page biography with several great photographs of the eminent Bombay sage, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981), in whose Grace-full presence i enjoyed powerful openings in January, 1981, eight months before the Master physically expired. Note: over Nov. 14-19 i expanded this page on Nisargadatta to include more biographical text and commentary, a great early photo of the Maharaj, more reminiscences (by Neal Rosner, by Milo Clark, and by myself), and i linked the long selection of Maharaj's teachings from the books I Am That and Self-Knowledge & Self-Realization to separate webpages for much faster download times. This is now one of the most comprehensive and balanced set of webpages on Nisargadatta available on the Internet. I always wanted to create a multi-faceted little book on the Maharaj, and now, with the power of the Internet, you can read everything for free right here!

--November 22, 2007: i uploaded to the Nondual Spirituality section "The Three Levels of Nondual Reality," an extremely useful model to fully integrate and account for all three levels of our experience (mundane-conventional level; psychic soul level; Absolute Divine level) to help us all stay balanced and inclusive. (UPDATE 2011: at the bottom of this particular page is now a useful chart "mapping" out the 3 Levels.)

--October 16, 2007: i uploaded to both the Nondual Spirituality section and the Religion / Spirituality section (see the descriptive section tabs at the upper left portion of each webpage) an extensive profile of the life and teachings of the late-medieval Japanese Zen master Bankei Yotaku (1622-93). Bankei was widely beloved by tens of thousands of students from all walks of life, a straight-talking sage always pointing us back to an intuitive, simple recognition of our “Unborn” Infinite Buddha-nature. As with Nisargadatta, Bankei has also greatly inspired my own style of sharing wisdom since i first discovered him in the late 1970s.

--September 24, 2007: No, i've not fallen off the earth... Just been extremely busy with the writing of the huge India's Sages two-volume book project, in addition to a research and book-promotion tour in India and Sri Lanka this past summer, resuming classes and satsangs, responding to massive amounts of email, having time with family, and various other delightful demands and adventures of the wondrous life-dream. Over the coming weeks and months i promise to put up some more essays to this website. Thank you again to all those of you who have written or called to express your appreciation for the website. Love and peace to each and every being!

--July 13, 2007: There's now a one-page collection of "Useful phrases, sayings, & prayers in Islâm" at the Religion / Spirituality section, to supplement that 47-page pdf file on Islâm & Sûfîsm that's been up there for a while. This new item is especially useful for interacting with any Muslim and/or Sûfî acquaintances at home or while traveling in the Muslim world.

--June 8, 2007: Finally took a break from book-writing to upload a long webpage, "Questions & Answers on Nondual Spiritual Awakening," at the Nondual Spirituality section. This features my written exchanges with various email correspondents and also excerpts from a recently published essay ("Nondual Awakening: Its Source and Applications") providing "answers to 7 commonly asked questions" about spiritual awakening or enlightenment.

--April 2007: I notice from the internet traffic statistics on this website that two of the most often visited pages after the homepage are the "Spiritual Humor" page, and the autobiographical page on myself ("About Timothy"). It was mere afterthought that i even put up those two pages! I encourage all visitors arriving here not to settle for "entertainment" but to go deep into the heart of spiritual Reality, your true Reality, by availing yourselves of the many treasures brought to this website.

You might want to first read the basic short paper, "Our Real Nature" at the Nondual Spirituality section and the much longer "Questions & Answers on Nondual Spiritual Awakening" at that same section; the "Criteria for Authentic Spiritual Realization" page at the Healthy Spirituality section (scroll two-thirds down the page to see the highlighted link); the "Body-Mind-Soul-Spirit" and "Exploring Emotions..." essays at the Soul-Full Spirituality section; the Relational Spirituality page and the fuller Essay on Relationships linked therein; the crucially important socio-economic justice material at the Engaged Spirituality section (including teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Liberation Theology, and a long Sun magazine interview with me that includes an important explanatory model, "the 3 levels of reality"). Last but not least, please visit the Religion & Spirituality section and read the extensive compilations on teachings from the Buddha, Jesus, Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, Jnaneshvar, Milarepa, Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Sanai, Rumi, Moshe Cordovero, the Ba'al Shem Tov, and others. All these teachings will point you HOME to where the real treasure (your spiritual Identity) abides!

--February 2007 onward: Having uploaded over the last four months so much material to this website that, as one friend and colleague gratefully joked, it would take years to explore this site, I'm finally letting things rest here for awhile as I resume work to complete and bring into print the two big volumes on nondual spirituality, India's Sages. (All happens by Divine Grace.) From time to time i'll add some more things here, and will update you as to any additions. Now that "phase 1" of this website feels fairly complete, if you find helpful the array of information presented here, feel free to send along to any of your friends the link to this site.

--mid-to-late January 2007: On January 31, I created a "Testimonials" section, and also a link at the Soul-full Spirituality section to a substantial essay on exploring emotions, releasing energy, and transforming into Love, with insights and experiential processed pulled from a variety of spiritual and psychological traditions in which I've been immersed for over 30 years. On Jan. 18 another excerpt from the forthcoming book Healing Our World was uploaded to the Engaged Spirituality section on the spirituality and philosophy of Deep Ecology or Ecosophy (Earth Wisdom). The same Engaged Spirituality section on Jan. 12-13 had uploaded to it a crucially important piece on eating more ethically and intelligently to save ourselves, our children and our planet from a wide array of catastrophes caused by one single culprit: our insane food choices. On Jan. 25, I added an important seventh point to my critique of "neo-advaita" in the Nondual Spirituality section (and corrected a few glitches in that first part of the text). [In late March 2007 I added some correspondence with an advaita teacher, Nirmala, and some general observations about the teaching of advaita and neo-advaita.] In response to a few requests, I finally uploaded several photos to the "About Timothy" page, a useful visual reminder of the Buddha's teaching about change, impermanence, old age, decay and death!

Special Note: for anyone who might be disappointed or disturbed by the new Time magazine essay (Mind & Body Issue, Jan. 29, 2007) by Steven Pinker on his reductionist approach to explaining Consciousness as brain states, you might want to review the evidence (which rebuts his point of view) that i uploaded back in previous months on Consciousness, Remote Viewing and Miracles at the Science & Spirituality section, and the essays on the postmortem survival of the soul and evidence for reincarnation at the Soul-full Spirituality section.

--early January 2007: A detailed overview on the life of the Buddha and his teachings (an excerpt from my forthcoming book, India's Sages Source Book), along with a brief overview of the three main divisions of Buddhism, was uploaded at the Religion/Spirituality section on January 1. This same page was enriched on Jan. 4 and another page on Buddhism--a massive list of terms and texts--was put up on Jan. 5. Around the same time, also at Religion/Spirituality an elaborate overview of Hinduism--its mantras, prayers, terms, and insights from Vedanta and Yoga psychologies, along with some theology and mythology connected with Hindu imagery and a long bibliography. A profile of Tibet's most famous yogi-sage and singing saint, Milarepa, was uploaded on Jan. 7 to the Religion/Spirituality section. A candid assessment of neo- or pseudo-advaita and Papaji of Lucknow was included in the Nondual Spirituality section on Jan. 6. On Jan. 11, I added a short essay at Soul-full Spirituality outlining various ways of getting guidance on making difficult choices.

--Late December 2006: Essays on three eminent Christian mystics were uploaded at the Religion/Spirituality section, just in time for Christmas: Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and St. Francis of Assisi. A short overview on one of my most favorite sages of all time, Jnaneshvar (c.1275-1296) of India, was put up on Dec. 28 at both the Nondual Spirituality and Religion/Spirituality sections, along with excerpts from his amazing letter of "nondual friendship" to Changadeva, translated by my friend Swami Abhayananda. At Nondual Spirituality, on Dec. 28 I uploaded a few links to favorite websites pertaining to advaita-nonduality, and two letters (from early 2005) about Real Advaita and pseudo-advaita in the case of Ramesh Balsekar and also, on Dec. 28-29, several letters (mostly written in 2001) about the far more serious allegations concerning the alleged God-man, Sathya Sai Baba of India. On Dec 28 an excerpt on Shamanism and indigenous people, excerpted from my book Our Religions' Future, was uploaded to Religion/Spirituality. On Dec. 30-31 the new subdomain Meditation/Spirituality came online, with a few short essays on various aspects of meditation, including "Meditation Trends, Styles and Stages," "Christian Contemplative Meditation" and "Meditation, Mandalas and Mandalization." On Dec. 20 I also finally put up a vita on myself ("About Timothy") for those interested.

--Early December 2006: the rather huge overview document on Islam & Sufism (the skeleton for a book I will one day compile on great Sufis of past and present) was put up in PDF file--some 48 pages long if you print it at Religion/Spirituality. A few old papers I wrote for graduate school in the early 1980s were uploaded to Nondual Spirituality, including "This is all a dream," "Philosophy & Psychology East & West," and "Nondual Wisdom and Devotion," along with an excerpt from the work of my late friend, British mystic Douglas Harding (1909-2007) on discovering one's "headless" nature as Pure Awareness.

--November 2006: about two dozen more essays were put up, especially at the Religion/Spirituality area of the website, the largest and most expandable domain of our www.enlightened-spirituality.org. These include essays on Jalaluddin Rumi and some Sufi sages, the Taoist writings of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, etc. The Healing Abusive Subconscious Models of God essay and experiential excercise was uploaded to the Healthy Spirituality section. The huge collection of jokes and quips was also uploaded within the new Spiritual Humor section, along with a link to the Zen Humor page--you gotta love not just the wisely funny stories but also those hilarious Zen illustrations by Sengai, Hakuin and others!

--Late September through October 2006: the first several domains and a few dozen items were uploaded to this new website, which audaciously promised to become one of the most comprehensive sites on the Internet for spirituality in its many different facets. Many of you have been kind enough to say that the promise has been fulfilled.

Please stay tuned to further developments and THANK YOU for your support.

Love to you, and love to all beings, emanations of the One Divine Self, from Whom all blessings flow.

Timothy