AMODA'S BLOG

THE VOICE OF WOMAN

I’ve never been a feminist. I’ve never been angry at men, nor felt the need to shout about my rights as a woman, nor wanted to prove myself to be in a “man’s world”. And I don’t particularly subscribe to the “Me Too” movement. And neither have I been a goddess. I don’t see myself…

LOVE IS A MOVEMENT

Love is a movement that rises up out of the stillness of being. It has no agenda of pleasure or comfort-seeking, nor of pain aversion. Neither does it have an agenda of what the outcome of this movement should look like. Love simply moves, because movement is its nature. Love is the movement of innate…

THERE IS A FIELD BEYOND THE SOCIAL MATRIX … I’LL MEET YOU THERE

There is a field … out beyond social convention, beyond social chit-chat, beyond social niceties. I’ll meet you there. There is a field … beyond the dream of separation, beyond the matrix of the world, beyond the need to appease an imaginary aloneness. I’ll meet you there. It’s an open space, a timeless space, in…

LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Awakening has nothing to do with the achievement of a special state of consciousness. It has everything to do with presence and openness. When you live as presence and openness – in all ways and always – you are the light of the world. You haven’t achieved a special state of consciousness or become saintly…

SPIRITUALITY WON’T SAVE YOU

This spiritual thing needs to be unpacked. This thing about transcending the world, being immune to the world’s suffering, turning away from the world to go inside and contemplate your navel, achieving a higher state of consciousness in which nothing touches you. All this .. it’s no longer relevant today. For a start, you can’t…

THE ART OF LISTENING

Friend, listen deeply. There is an art to this listening. The art is in the falling. Usually, listening takes place from a position: the position of self. In this case, it’s not really listening: it’s more like projecting. The self projects itself onto the screen of perception and so it hears only a distortion of…

THE INFINITY OF OPENNESS

I talk a lot about openness. My whole teaching is about openness. My whole life is about openness. Openness is our essential nature. It’s what was here before the story of your life got created. And it’s what remains when the story of you ends. It’s the canvas upon which your experience appears .. and…

AWAKENING IS THE FLOWER, FIRST GET DOWN INTO THE DIRT

Before awakening can truly flower, first get down into the dirt. Get into all those nooks and crannies where the light of awareness has not yet entered. Dare to enter the shadowlands, where feelings that were once too much too bear – feelings that were stuffed away because you were scared of being overwhelmed, feelings…

NO LONGER A PROBLEM

I used to be a problem. To myself. And to others. Filled with self-loathing I shrunk from the world, unable to offer anything from my heart, unwilling to be seen. At first, self-harm and self-hate. I tried to get rid of myself because I was not worthy of life. Later on, self-help and self-improvement. I…

UNTAMABLE HEART

At our recent retreat in upstate New York, someone asked what was meant by the wild heart. This is what I said (or words close to this) … The wild heart is your untamable nature, that part of you which is free because it cannot be captured by anything you think or feel or do….

THE WISDOM OF SURRENDER

You tell me you want peace. Peace in your life, peace in your mind, peace in your heart. You tell me you don’t want to feel this tight knot of resistance in your belly when things don’t go your way, when life becomes stormy, when you feel you’re falling apart. You tell me you want…

REMEMBER, YOU ARE HELD

My friend, remember. Remember you are held. When your heart is aching and there’s no cure for this pain, you are held. When life no longer makes sense and you drift aimlessly like a leaf in the wind, you are held. When thoughts are seen to be untrustworthy and you fear you’re going insane, you…