C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

and Other S**t I Learned from a Lifetime of Training in Zen, Martial Arts, and Powerlifting Tom Platz's thighs were built through some of the most extreme, non-moderate training one can imagine!  And the results speak for theselves. Okay, so the title of this post is a little over-the-top.  It’s supposed to be.  But that also doesn’t make it any less true.  Whether you want to get in the best shape of your life, or win a powerlifting competition, or become a martial arts “expert,” or any dream that you have in life.  If you want to achieve any of those things, or anything else for that matter , then you must be determined to work extremely hard, moderation be damned. Modern “self-help” books recommend moderation as one of the ways to achieve your goals - especially in the West, where we think there is something “Eastern” to moderation, a balance of yin/yang or a balance of mind/body/Spirit.  But moderation is really NOT an Eastern “thing,” not any more at least than it is a Wester

     A writer on mysticism whose books have influenced me greatly is the modern day Vedanta master Swami Abhayananda.  His books "The Supreme Self" and "The Wisdom of Vedanta" are two of the clearest expositions on the philosophy of Vedanta that you will ever read.  A book of his that I read recently was "History of Mysticism."  It is exactly what its title implies: A history of mysticism down through the ages (with an always Vedantic slant, of course.)      Whether you agree (or not) with the conclusion that the Buddha was a Vedantic revisionist—as Abhayananda concludes—his brief summary of the Buddha's life and teachings is well worth the read.  The following is the section on "The Buddha" from the book  "History of Mysticism."  (If you want to read more from this yogic sage, visit his website at www.swami-abhyananda.com.) The Buddha In the 6th century B.C.E. the main center of Indian civilization was in the Ganges plain, or the