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As your awakening process continues it will become increasingly apparent that there are no problems. by John Smallman


Here in the spiritual realms we continue to watch with joy as humanity collectively strengthens and intensifies its intention to awaken from the illusion. Within the illusion signs of the awakening are apparent all over the world, pay attention to them because doing so uplifts and inspires you further strengthening that intent. The strength of your intent is important and powerful, and to simply reset it further intensifies it. You want to awaken, so focus on doing that.

All across the world people are doing that in increasing numbers, while others are engaging in group prayer and meditation sessions for world peace. You are always heard and deeply honored for holding these intents and events, and they are very effective. God's Will is for humanity's happiness, and therefore so is yours because all are One; there is no separation.

However, you can choose to continue playing the game of separation and intend to have a will that is not in alignment with God's. But, that will, like the illusion, is unreal. Yes, within the illusion it seems to be possible to hold an intent, a will that is at variance with the divine Will, and it does produce results within the illusion that are in opposition to the Will of God. Doing that is like drawing the blinds to shut out the Light of God's Love for you, enveloping you in darkness that give rise to much unnecessary suffering, suffering that because it is so painful is then projected out on to others in the form of attacks.

Until very recently this was the way many lived on Earth. It seemed natural because to be loving or trusting invited attack or betrayal. But as your awakening process got under way more and more people began to work with Love, treating others with respect and compassion and finding inner peace as a result. All over the world now people are attempting to establish systems of government that honor everyone, not just those who are wealthy and influential. And those who have been accustomed to having inordinate power and influence are ineffectually resisting these inevitable changes.

Corruption in high places, which previously was so cleverly concealed, is now being revealed further galvanizing the efforts of those who seek to dissolve the old order and replace it with a system that works compassionately and lovingly for everyone. And a new system is what humanity wants, needs, and will bring into being because it is the collective intent. The mainstream media does not report on the desires, the wishes, or the intentions of humanity, it reports what its paymasters demand, so do not waste time looking for news of an uplifting and inspiring nature there.

As you have been told before, the New Golden Age has arrived, and the evidence for that is widely accessible if you seek it out. All across the world Love is flowing freely and many are feeling It and engaging with It as they let go of old attachments that have been holding them hostage to grudges and grievances, unloving attitudes that are undoubtedly the underlying causes of so much earthly suffering.

The future is very bright as the veils that you drew between yourselves and the Light of God's Love become tattered, shredded, and are withdrawn. They will not be repaired because the times for hiding from God in fear and darkness are over, and the infinite and eternal Love in which He holds humanity can no longer be denied. God loves all His children without exception, He sees no difference between race, color, creed, political or religious persuasion, male or female, or sexual orientation. You are His beloved children, absolutely free to follow the life paths that appeal to each one of you personally, and to develop them lovingly and creatively for the enjoyment of all.

There is no right or wrong! You each have the most wonderful creative abilities that, when you quieten the need to judge yourselves or others as right or wrong, and rest in His Presence intending to hear His Voice, you will realize that He encourages you in every moment to develop those abilities and enjoy them to the full.

You are Love, there is nothing else, and if you honor your true nature suffering will be gone because no one could possibly choose to say or do anything that would harm or hurt another. That is why I, and all others in the spiritual realms, keep telling you that Love is the only solution to the problems and issues that seem to plague you.

There are no problems! There are only illusions that you have invented and produced by investing in fear which is an utterly unreal figment of your incredibly powerful imaginations. Your belief in fear has persuaded you that you need to defend yourselves from myriad threatening catastrophic possibilities that endanger you in every moment, and so you have built all sorts of defenses – psychological, religious, political, physical, and military – which only serve to confirm those fears and beliefs. And what you believe in you produce so that your worst fears are confirmed and catastrophes occur.

In those areas where people are releasing their fears and demonstrating Love in action by being themselves, instead of presenting to the outside world the fearful masks that they have hidden behind for so long, issues and problems are being resolved and no one loses out. As your awakening process continues it will become increasingly apparent that there are no problems, and harmonious creative interactions will replace the tiresome and ineffectual negotiations to which you have become inured.

Just engage with Love, your true nature, instead of denying It and hiding in fear, and enjoy the presently unaccustomed peace It brings you. As you do so your worries, anxieties, and unrelieved stress will just fall away, and you will feel the Love that is your nature embracing you and showing you that you are Free!

Your loving brother, Jesus.

Phil Ochs...


What happens at Death ?...


You find yourself without form called Spirit..

You look around You in Darkness for Light..

You see a small light and enter this energy..

You are again trapped within Reincarnation..

"The Light that You seek is within You",

Said the Nazarene..

This inner Light is what you must enter to Freedom..

The small light is the duality of ego..

The Ego of God is called Divine Consciousness..

The ego of life is called self-ishness..

Relinquish the ego of life and return to the Ego of God..

The Path beyond, we will speak of later...


-thomas

The secret of life...


Why wait ?...


This notion that we must wait and wait while we slowly progress out of enslavement into liberation, out of ignorance into knowledge, out of the present limitations into a future union with the Divine, is only true if we let it be so.

But we need not. We can shift our identification from the ego to the Overself in our habitual thinking, in our daily reactions and attitudes, in our response to events and the world.

We have thought our way into this unsatisfactory state; we can unthink our way out of it. By incessantly remembering what we really are, here and now at this very moment, we set ourselves free.

Why wait for what already is?


-Paul Brunton

Vulnerability...


Vulnerability is indispensable to enlightenment.

The thought-based self is a set of masks—mental mechanisms designed to protect a false self center. We hide behind our roles, identities, beliefs, fixed positions, opinions, and stories. We pretend to know the answers to questions when we really don’t. We pretend to be doing better than we really are.

We defend ourselves out of fear of being wrong. We avoid rejection at all costs. We point outward at what others are doing, which is a perfect way to avoid seeing what is arising inwardly—within the body and mind. These are all examples of the ways in which the ego-mind avoids exposure to being hurt. Ego is a mechanism of control—mind movement designed to avoid vulnerability.

By simply being awake to what is arising in the body and mind in this moment, we are vulnerable. It is a bit misleading to say that “we are vulnerable.” Being awake is not something “we” do. It is what we are.

By noticing that we are not the roles, identities, stories and all the other mechanisms of mind that create and maintain a false self, awareness is realized to be our true nature. Awareness is naturally open. In that openness, it is realized that there exists no real threat to awareness. Only a false self image would define itself as “vulnerable” or “under threat.” Awareness is simply awake to what is.


-Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment

Examine the illusions...


To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action; there can be no deceit in the search for truth.

Try. One step at a time is easy. Energy flows from earnestness.

Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you; your next, to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide you; you need no other guide.

It is the absolute in you that takes you to the absolute beyond you - absolute truth, love, selflessness are the decissive factors in self-realization. With earnestness these can be reached.

The remedy lies in clarity and integrity of thinking. Try to understand that you live in a world of illusions, examine them and uncover their roots. The very attempt to do so will make you earnest, for there is bliss in right endeavour.

Mere physical renunciation is only a token of earnestness, but earnestness alone does not liberate. There must be understanding which comes with alert perceptivity, eager enquiry and deep investigation. You must work relentlessly for your salvation from sin and sorrow.



-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That

Death...


" For me the moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear.

I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing. "


-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj


Insight...


Insight is the opening of the sight to a higher plane of one's being.

Why a person does not observe the unseen world is that he is accustomed to observe only what is before him.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN


The purpose of life...


We regard Ralph Waldo Emerson as the perfect example of spiritual independence. He seems beholden to no man and draws all his light from within. How did he arrive at this condition?

For in his early thirties, he wrote to his Aunt Mary, "A teacher . . . when will God send me one full of truth and of boundless benevolence?" This question was written soon after he came to Europe. There were four literary heroes across the Atlantic among whom he hoped to find his teacher. They were Carlyle,Landor, Coleridge, and Wordsworth.

But when he met them in the flesh, Landor severely disappointed him. The Coleridge visit was "of no use beyond the satisfaction of my curiosity." Emerson's interview with Wordsworth was more successful but still so fruitless that he was glad to end it. The first glance at Carlyle made him believe that his search for a teacher was over, that here was his man. The actuality was that he found a lifelong friend, even a fellow-pilgrim and seeker. But he did not become a pupil. He had gone in search of a master. He failed to find one.

Indeed he tells his aunt as much, that he seeks a man who is wise and true but that he never gets used to men. "They always awaken expectations in me which they always disappoint." He left Europe, writing in his journal on shipboard the melancholy after-reflection, "I shall judge more justly, less timidly, of wise men forevermore." And it was there, in his little cabin, that he received the illumination which he could not find in Europe. He need look outside himself no more. Out of his illumination, whilst still afloat on the ocean, he wrote down such sentences as these: "A man contains all that is needful within himself." "Nothing can be given to him or taken away from him but always there is a compensation."

"The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself."



-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 3: Independent Path > # 87
Paul Brunton





Learning to Live within God...


We are already Liberated...


Liberation is our very nature. We are that.

The very fact that we wish for liberation
shows that freedom from all bondage is our
real nature.

It is not to be freshly acquired.

All that is necessary is to get rid of the false
notion that we are bound.

When we achieve
that, there will be no desire or thought of any
sort.

So long as one desires liberation, so
long, you may take it, one is in bondage.



- Sri Ramana Maharishi

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
Edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985

Sincerity...


Sincerity is the jewel that forms in the shell of the heart.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:


Very few realize what power sincerity carries. A false man, however physically strong he is or however great is his willpower, is kept down by his falsehood; it never allows him to rise. It eats into him because it is rust. Those who have done great things in life, in whatever walk of life it be, have done them by the power of truth, the power of sincerity.

Sincerity is the principal thing in life. Youth is the age which is most attracted to superficiality. That is the reason why many youths adopt an artificial manner of thought, speech and action, which is very undesirable and does not benefit their life. It is important to inculcate sincerity in the character of the youth. To give a youth a love of sincerity is extremely useful, for the power of sincerity can work miracles.

The more sincerity is developed, the greater share of truth you will have. And however much sincerity a person may have, there is always a gap to fill, for we live in the midst of falsehood, and we are always apt to be carried away by this world of falsehood. Therefore we must never think we are sincere enough, and we must always be on our guard against influences which may carry us away from that sincerity which is the bridge between ourselves and our ideal. No study, no meditation is more helpful than sincerity itself.


Watch your breathing...


You cannot find Buddha nature by vivisection.

Reality cannot be caught
by thinking or feeling mind.

Moment after moment to watch your
breathing, to watch your posture, is true nature.

There is no secret
beyond this point.



- Shunryu Suzuki, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"


' Heaven's Door '...


Bob Dylan reminds me of 'Heaven's Door'..

This 'Door' is found within the Dream as the aspirant of Knowledge..

Remember the Nazarene saying;

" Knock upon the Door, and it shall be opened ?"..

It is the 'ego' that desires Happiness that knocks upon the Door..

Of course, it is the ego that seeks Freedom, but we must start somewhere..

The Knock upon the Door is heard throughout the universe but is the Door opened?..

The Door only opens when there is no-one to enter..

This is the Riddle, that you must solve...


-thomas

' Knockin' on Heaven's Door '...


Fate and Accidents...


There is so much to relate upon fate and accidents,

that I fear that a paragraph is not enough..

While within the false circle of reincarnation,

we agree to a time and space within the Dream..

If this time is negated by physical forces,

we return early within the Dream to continue this time agreed upon..

This is why so many humans die young..

We have fulfilled the agreement..

The Mystics speak of a road beyond this entrapment..

We speak of surrender and Love..

We speak of That which is beyond Dreams..

We speak of Reality...


-thomas

Heaven and Hell...


Life is the same for the saint and for Satan;

and, if they are different, it is because of their
outlook on life.

The one turns the same life
into Heaven and the other into Hell.


-Hazrat Inayat Khan

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mastery Through Accomplishment
Omega Press, 1978

Fully alive...


It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that's
sitting right here right now...

with its aches and it pleasures...

is
exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.



-Pema Chodron


Divine Consciousness...


If the claim of complete merger is valid, if the individual self really disappears in the attainment of Divine Consciousness, of whom then was this same self aware in the experience of attainment?

No--it is only the lower personal self that is transcended;

the higher spiritual individuality is not.




-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 210
Paul Brunton


---------------

Paul is speaking of the Realisation of the First Reality as Self called Divine Consciousness.

He is not yet speaking of the Final Reality called Pure Awareness in which no memory of ego and identity exists..

-thomas

Only love Exists...


The Real and the unreal enter your mind and demand definitions..

You know that Dreams derive from Thought..

There is no 'you' and 'i',

there is only Reality..

We search so long for reasons to exist,

and finally,

we discover that only Love,

exists...



-thomas

Speaking of Angels...


Emmy Lou Harris sings of Angels..

An Angel is a 'Thought-Form' from Consciousness..

I met this Angel quite a few times within combat..

Hearing bullets with only one ear is close.

Perhaps, the awakening of the nearness of death is necessary..

To conquer Fear is the most important of the Lessons..

Fear and Love are opposites called Duality or what we call life..

Imagine, having no fear of Death or Non-existence?..

Too much to imagine ?..

Although, this 'Thought-Form' is a product of Consciousness and is not the complete Consciousness,

It is also a 'Mind' of Intelligence..

Feel the hand of this Protector upon your shoulder..

You are Safe...


-thomas

' An Angel '...


The paradox of Self-Realisation...


The ‘I’ casts off the illusion of ‘I’ and yet remains as ‘I’.

Such is the paradox of Self- Realisation.

The realised do not see any contradiction in it."



-Sri Ramana Maharshi

The mode of perception...


Learn to look without imagination, to listen
without distortion: that is all.

Stop attributing
names and shapes to the essentially nameless
and formless,

realize that every mode of perception
is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched
or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined,

is
in the mind and not in reality, and you will
experience peace and freedom from fear.



- Nisargadatta Maharaj

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973

The only Being...


In the beginning when there was no earth, no heaven, there was no other plane of existence than eternal awareness which may be called a silent, inactive state of life, or unawakened intelligence that men have idealized as God, the only Being.

Within it, there awakened of its
own nature the awareness of its own existence, unlimited by knowledge of form and space.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selecteed & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN


Comments on Ralph Waldo Emerson...


Within this Blog, you will find many thoughts of stillness..

Is it not strange that motion leads to stillness and then again to motion?..

As Emerson has experienced, the First Reality is a current of the Energies of Love, Knowledge, and Existence..

As he stated, the ego was surrendered..

It surprises me that he did not mention Light..

Light is very important within the First Reality,

It is the sense of warmth and sight..

And yet all that We see is Light..

But, boredom does not exist within Reality..

There is a pulling towards a Higher Love..

This Magnetism asks you to give All..

This 'All' is the desire for existence even if this existence is God..

Energy does not die..

You Are the Thoughts of 'Pure Awareness'...


-thomas

Smile,, It is Irish music...


Sanskrit text referring to Jesus, translated into English...


From SRI BHAVISHYA PURANA. Pratisarga parva, Chaturyuga Khanda Dvitiyadhyayah, 19th Chapter. (text 20 onwards). Ruling over the Aryans was a king called Salivahana, the grandson of Vikramaditya, who occupied the throne of his father. He defeated the Sakas who were very difficult to subdue, the Cinas, the people from Tittiri and Bahikaus who could assume any form at will. He also defeated the people from Rome and the descendants of Khuru, who were deceitful and wicked. He punished them severely and took their wealth. Salivahana thus established the boundaries dividing the separate countries of the Mlecchas and the Aryans. In this way Sindusthan came to to be known as the greatest country. That personality appointed the abode of the Mlecchas beyond the Sindhu river and to the west.

ekadaa tu shakadhisho himatungari samaayayau hunadeshasya madhye vai giristhan purusam shubhano dadarsha balaram raajaa Once upon a time the subduer of the Sakas went towards Himatunga and in the middle of the Huna country (Hunadesh - the area near Manasa Sarovara or Kailash mountain in Western Tibet), the powerful king saw an auspicious man who was living on a mountain. The man's complexion was golden and his clothes were white. (Bhavishya Purana 19:22.)

ko bharam iti tam praaha su hovacha mudanvitah iishaa purtagm maam viddhi kumaarigarbha sambhavam "The king asked, 'Who are you sir?' 'You should know that I am Isha Putra, the Son of God'. he replied blissfully, and 'am born of a virgin.' "(Bhavishya Purana 19:23.)

mleccha dharmasya vaktaram satyavata paraayanam iti srutva nrpa praaha dharmah ko bhavato matah " 'I am the expounder of the religion of the Mlecchas and I strictly adhere to the Absolute Truth.' Hearing this the king enquired, 'What are religious principles according to you opinion?'

"(Bhavishya Purana 19:24.) shruto vaaca maharaja prapte satyasya amkshaye nirmaaryaade mlechadesh mahiso 'ham samaagatah "Hearing this questions of Salivahara, Isha putra said, 'O king, when the destruction of the truth occurred, I, Masiha the prophet, came to this country of degraded people where there are no rules and regulations. Finding that fearful irreligious condition of the barbarians spreading from Mleccha-Desha, I have taken to prophethood'." (Bhavishya Purana 19:25-26.)

mlecchasa sthaapito dharmo mayaa tacchrnu bhuupate maanasam nirmalam krtva malam dehe subhaasbham naiganam apamasthaya japeta nirmalam param nyayena satyavacasaa manasyai kena manavah dhyayena pujayedisham suurya-mandala-samsthitam acaloyam prabhuh sakshat- athaa suuryacalah sada "Please hear Oh king which religious principles I have established among the mlecchas. The living entity is subject to good and bad contaminations. The mind should be purified by taking recourse of proper conduct and performance of japa. By chanting the holy names one attains the highest purity. Just as the immovable sun attracts, from all directions, the elements of all living beings, the Lord of the solar region, who is fixed and all-attractive, attracts the hearts of all living creatures. Thus by following rules, speaking truthful words, by mental harmony and by meditation, Oh descendant of Manu, one should worship that immovable Lord'." (Bhavishya Purana 19:27-30.)

isha muurtirt-dradi praptaa nityashuddha sivamkari ishamasihah iti ca mama nama pratishthitam "Having placed the eternally pure and auspicious form of the Supreme Lord in my heart, O protector of the earth planet, I preached these principles through the Mlecchas' own faith and thus my name became 'isha-masiha' (Jesus the Messiah)." (Bhavishya Purana 19:31.)

iti shrutra sa bhuupale natraa tam mlecchapujaam sthaapayaamaasa tam tutra mlecchasthaane hi daarune "After hearing these words and paying obeisances to that person who is worshipped by the wicked, the king humbly requested him to stay there in the dreadful land of Mlecchas." (Bhavishya Purana 19:32.)

svaraajyam praaptavaan raajaa hayamedhan cikirat rajyam krtva sa sasthyabdam svarga lokamu paayayau "King Salivahara, after leaving his kingdom performed an asvamedha yajna and after ruling for sixty years, went to heaven. Now please hear what happened when the king went to svargaloka." (Bhavishya Purana 19:33.) Thus ends the second chapter entitled, "the age of Salivahara" of the story of Kali Yuga of the Caturyuga Khanda also called pratisarga-parva of the wonderful Bhavishya Maha Purana. The following Sanskrit verses are taken directly from the Srimad Bhagavatam of Srila Vyasadeva, the original spiritual master, to support that what we are saying is coming from authorised the word of God that Bhavishya Purana is an authorised book written by Srila Vyasadeva. brahmam padmam vaisnavam ca saivam laingam sa-garudam naradiyam bhagavatam agneyam skanda-samhnitam bhavisyam brahma-vaivartam markandeyam sa-vamanam varaham matsyam kaurmam ca brahmandakhyam iti tri-sat These verses taken from Maha Bhagavata Purana (Srimad Bhagavatam 12:7:23-24)

list the eighteen major Puranas that were written by Srila Vyasadeva in His own words. Please note that on the fifth line Bhavishya is mentioned as one of these authorised works. As we know from reading Srimad Bhagavatam, Srila Vyasadeva was instructed by his Spiritual Master, Srila Narad Muni to compile Srimad Bhagavatam after Srila Vyasadeva had completed all of his other works, thus we find it included in the verses mentioned in the Bhagavatam.

The Bhagavatam itself mentions that it was complied after the disappearance of Lord Sri Krsna to His own abode, (S.B.1:1:23. and S.B.1:3:43), just prior to the Kali Yuga which is estimated by Vaisnava scholars as being some five thousand years ago, (A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. S.B 1.3.24 purport.) 3000 B.C.

Even mundane western scholars and Indologists who try to deride the Vedic scriptures, and their conclusions agree that they preceded the appearance of Christ by several thousand years. We can safely say that these scriptures were all compiled and written before five thousand years ago by the literary incarnation of Godhead, Srila Vedavyasa. The above verses are also supported in the Varaha Purana, Siva Purana and Matsya Purana, so we can conclude that this incident found in Bhavishya Purana is definitely an authorised source of information

I am nothing...


Standing on the bare ground, a mean egoism
vanishes.

I become a transparent eyeball;

I
am nothing;

I see all;

the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me;

I am part or particle
of God.



- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essence...


Intelligence confined to knowledge of phenomena becomes limited,

but when it is free from all knowledge then it experiences its own essence.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN


The ego and Overself...


Everything he then does is done by the ordinary personal self alone, out of and in harmony with the Overself, or his higher individuality.

In thus working together, the divine presence supports the ego's presence, but the ego is put in its place and kept in harmony with the higher individuality.

If this is what people mean by killing out the ego (which is really killing out its tyranny), there could be no objection to the statement.

But to assert that it is not functioning at all is silly.




-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 209
Paul Brunton

Thoughts on a monday night...


A soul speaks to me of success and failure..

Who is the 'one' that succeeds or fails ?..

We put so much pressure upon the puppet that we call ourselves..

Thoughts enter Light and Holograms appear..

But, We remain Dreaming..

The Voice of Love keeps calling a name that does not exist..

What do we call the 'Bell' that Awakens ?..

Some call this 'Sound', God...


-thomas



The mind by Alan Watts...


Go beyond the 'I am '...


" There is no "I" apart from the body or the world.

The three appear and disappear together.

At the root is the sense `I am'.

Go beyond it.

The idea `I-am-not-body' is merely an antidote to the idea `I- am-the-body', which is false.

What is that `I am'?

Unless you know yourself, what else can you know? "


- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Experience is necessary...


There is nothing but water in the holy pools.

I know, I have been swimming in them.

All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can’t say a word
I know, I have been crying out to them.

The sacred Books of the east are nothing but words.

I looked through their covers one day sideways.

What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through.

If you have not lived through something it is not true.



- Kabir

The true mystical life...


If on the one hand he is conscious of himself in the divine being, on the other he is conscious of himself in the human ego.

The two can coexist, and at this stage of advance, do.

But the ego must knit itself to the higher self until they become like a single entity.

When his mind is immovably fixed in this state, his personal will permanently directed by the higher one, he is said to have attained the true mystical life.



-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 205
Paul Brunton

" Let them be fed "...


I leave food on my deck for my cats and see ferile cats and wild animals eat this food..

I think, "should I leave food for those that are not mine ?"..

A Voice enters my consciousness and says:

" Let them be fed "..

There is no more to be said...


-thomas

Enjoy the Ride...


The Sacred Poems of N.P. Willis...


Freshly the cool breath of the coming eve
Stole through the lattice, and the dying girl
Felt it upon her forehead. She had lain
Since the hot noontide in a breathless trance -

Her thin pale fingers clasp'd within the hand
Of the heart-broken Ruler, and her breast,
Like the dead marble, white and motionless,
The shadow of a leaf lay on her lips,
And, as it stirr'd with the awakening wind,

The dark lids lifted from her languid eyes,
And her slight fingers moved, and heavily
She turned upon her pillow. He was there -
The same loved, tireless watcher, and she look'd
Into his face until her sight grew dim
With the fast-falling tears; and, with a sigh
Of tremulous weakness murmuring his name,

She gently drew his hand upon her lips,
And kiss'd it as she wept. The old man sunk
Upon his knees, and in the drapery
Of the rich curtains buried up his face;
And when the twilight fell, the silken folds
Stirr'd with his prayer, but the slight hand he held
Had ceased its pressure - and he could not hear,

In the dead, utter silence, that a breath
Came through her nostrils - and her temples gave
To his nice touch no pulse - and, at her mouth,
He held the lightest curl that on her neck
Lay with a mocking beauty, and his gaze
Ached with its deathly stillness.

It was night -
And, softly, o'er the Sea of Galilee,
Danced the breeze-ridden ripples to the shore,
Tipp'd with the silver sparkles of the moon,
The breaking waves play'd low upon the beach
Their constant music, but the air beside
Was still as starlight, and the Saviour's voice,

In its rich cadences unearthly sweet,
Seem'd like some just-born harmony in the air,
Waked by the power of wisdom. On a rock,
With the broad moonlight falling on his brow,
He stood and taught the people. At his feet
Lay his small scrip, and pilgrims scallop-shell,

And staff - for they had waited by the sea
Till he came o'er from Gadarene, and pray'd
For his wont teachings as he came to land,
His hair was parted meekly on his brow,
And the long curls from off his shoulders fell,
As he lean'd forward earnestly, and still
The same calm cadence, passionless and deep -

And in his looks the same mild majesty -
And in his mien the sadness mix'd with power -
Fill'd them with love and wonder. Suddenly,
As on his words entrancedly they hung,
The crowd divided, and among them stood
Jairvs the Ruler. With his flowing robe
Gather'd in haste about his loins, he came,

And fix'd his eyes on Jesus. Closer drew
The twelve disciples to their Master's side;
And silently the people shrunk away.
And left the haughty Ruler in the midst
Alone. A moment longer on the face
Of the meek Nazarene he kept his gaze.

And, as the twelve look'd on him, by the light
Of the clear moon they saw a glistening tear
Steal to his silver beard; and, drawing nigh
Unto the Saviour's feet, he took the hem
Of his coarse mantle, and with trembling hands
Press'd it upon his lips, and murmur'd low,
"Master! my daughter!" -

The same silvery light,
That shone upon the lone rock by the sea,
Slept on the Ruler's lofty capitals,
As at the door he stood, and welcomed in
Jesus and his disciples. All was still,
The echoing vestibule gave back the slide
Of their loose sandals, and the arrowy beam
Of moonlight, slanting to the marble floor,

Lay like a spell of silence in the rooms,
As Jairus led them on. With hushing steps
He trod the winding stair; but ere he touch'd
The latchet, from within a whisper came,
"Trouble the Master not - for she is dead!"

Nathaniel Parker Willis..


Nathaniel Parker Willis (January 20, 1806 – January 20, 1867), also known as N. P. Willis,[1] was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former slave and future writer Harriet Jacobs. His brother was the composer Richard Storrs Willis and his sister Sara wrote under the name Fanny Fern.

Born in Portland, Maine, Willis came from a family of publishers. His grandfather Nathaniel Willis owned newspapers in Massachusetts and Virginia, and his father Nathaniel Willis was the founder of Youth's Companion, the first newspaper specifically for children. Willis graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover in 1823, going on to Yale, where he developed an interest in literature and began publishing poetry. After graduation, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the New York Mirror. He eventually moved to New York and began to build his literary reputation. Working with multiple publications, he was earning about $100 per article and between $5,000[2] and $10,000 per year.[3] In 1846, he started his own publication, the Home Journal, which was eventually renamed Town & Country. Shortly after, Willis moved to a home on the Hudson River where he lived a semi-retired life until his death in 1867.

Willis embedded his own personality into his writing and addressed his readers personally, specifically in his travel writings, so that his reputation was built in part because of his character. Critics, including his sister in her novel Ruth Hall, occasionally described him as being effeminate and Europeanized. Willis also published several poems, tales, and a play. Despite his intense popularity for a time, at his death Willis was nearly forgotten.

-----------

Tonight, I was introduced to a poet that I have never heard of called N.P. Willis who lived quite close to me now..

I have not yet read his poetry and yet he lived within times of Indians killing Europeans within the Hudson Valley that is close to New York City..

Therefore, you and I will enter this earlier world of the struggle for existence within an unknown land called America..

Was this Poet a Mystic?..

This answer, we shall find quickly through his words..


-thomas

Between voice and presence...


There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.


- Rumi

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

"The Essential Rumi"
Version by Coleman Barks
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Consciousness...


Consciousness must always be conscious of something.

When consciousness is not conscious of anything, it is pure intelligence.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN


Divinity...


When a man is entranced by the divinity, he loses consciousness of himself.

Then when he contemplates the (divine) spectacle which he possesses within himself, he contemplates himself and sees his image embellished.

However beautiful it be, he must leave it aside, and concentrate upon the unity, without dividing any of it.

Then he becomes simultaneously one and all with this divinity which grants him His presence silently.

Then is the man united to the divinity to the extent of his desire and ability.

If, while remaining pure, he return to duality, he remains as close as possible to the divinity, and he enjoys the divine presence as soon as he turns towards the divinity.



-- Enneads, V.8.11 [Guthrie translation]
Plotinus

What is a Mystic ?...


A person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute,

or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect...

You have no need of fear, or of defenses.. by John Smallman ...


Jesus Audio Blog for Friday January 22nd;

Here in the spiritual realms, where all of you truly reside in every moment of your eternal existence, we watch with joy as you resolve and intend to move ever more fully into your natural state as beings of Love.

It is a state you have never left, and never could leave, but you have – through your choice to experience as real as possible a state of separation from God, and therefore from each other – hidden from yourselves your divine and eternal connection to Source. Consequently you feel alone, small, and insignificant in the vast universe in which it seems humanity's planet, Earth, although large in relation to each of you, is itself utterly insignificant. A planet that could itself be instantly destroyed by collision with some rogue and wandering celestial body. Your security as humans on the planet truly appears unsustainable due to many factors that are beyond your control and beyond your knowledge.

Often it seems that those who are searching for God, a Prime Source, a Supreme Intelligence, or who believe in one are merely hiding from the truth of your inevitable and eventual death in whatever form it strikes you. It is an issue far too fearful to address consciously – unconsciously it creates great emotional stress and pressure that needs to be relieved – and so you hide from reality by imagining and hoping for a divine deliverance from your eventual and inescapable extinction. Others strive for material wealth and military security for the very same reason – an intense fear of death. That is the game of separation that you chose to build and engage with. And it always ends in death!

So, rejoice that it is unreal. You are God's beloved children forever completely safe and utterly adored as you rest, apparently asleep and dreaming, in His welcoming and unconditionally accepting Presence. Remember, Love is always unconditional, and God is Love, and so therefore are you. It is the place in which you belong – the field of divine Creation – and from which you will never depart because there is no need for you to do so, and there is nowhere to which you could depart. If that sounds dull and boring that is because you have totally forgotten the joy and ecstasy in which your eternal existence there is constantly enveloped.

That is why we are so joyful as we finally see the signs of your awakening from the nightmare, the illusion in which it seems to you that you have been contained and imprisoned for eons. When you do awaken the nightmare will dissolve, and it will be as though it had never been dreamt. Naturally the memory of it will fade rapidly from your minds because it was unreal, meaningless, and because you have no need to remember the unreal. Fear is unreal, and it too will be gone, never to return.

Ahead of you lies your awakening, and that is a most wonderful prospect. Many of you have indeed been hoping and praying for this for most of your lives, and many of you have been disappointed more than once as the moment of your awakening, as apparently foretold by many channels, seemingly drifted off into the distant future.

This was because of humanity's collective freewill choice. On a number of occasions when your awakening seemed imminent, those who wished to maintain the crumbling old world order – whose sole purpose is in fact to rebuild, renew, and strengthen it – used their power and influence to intensify fear among you all by causing a variety of catastrophic fear-inducing events that led the collective move back towards fear and away from Love. Fear empowers those with dark intentions because it provides the negative, or, if you prefer, the dark energy on which they feed.

Humanity's collective energy field is a bit like a see-saw on which negative energy fields and positive energy fields are attempting to outweigh each other. When the illusion was first built the energies were basically in balance so that an interesting game could be played, but over time this changed as your memories of Reality became more deeply buried in your minds, below your level of conscious awareness. Fear arose and the need for defenses against one another seemed to be essential for your continued well-being, and so balance was lost and the dark energies became dominant. This continued for eons, and civilizations and empires arose and were destroyed with monotonous regularity.

Over the eons many have sought God, Source, Supreme Intelligence, and religions have been established with the aim of leading people Home to God. Many wise ones have come among you demonstrating and teaching that the only way homewards is through Love. However, for a long time that message was thought to be unworkable, and many took sides to support the view of God that appealed most to their cultural or ethnic origins. Wars between different religious persuasions caused immense suffering as the opposing sides convinced themselves that they were doing God's Will by destroying the enemy, which was, in their painfully benighted opinion what He required them to do.

Finally, in these last few centuries since the start of the industrial revolution, and particularly within the last few decades, humanity has collectively begun to realize that a better way of living together had to be found as conflict and disharmony had shown that the only results that could be counted on from that approach was further suffering. Taking sides just did not work. It took a great shock for a great many people for this to become apparent, and the wars of the twentieth century, reported as they happened by the newly mobile and connected news media, provided that shock or wake-up call.

Now many realize that Love is the only way to live together in peace and harmony, and the numbers coming to that realization have been growing exponentially, increasing the power of the positive or loving energy fields and unbalancing the energy see-saw, hence the attempts by the dark ones to increase the negative energies by bringing about catastrophic events that terrify people. When people are terrified they have in the past turned to the dark – the military industrial complex and its leaders – for protection.

That is no longer happening. People have wised up, they have realized that they have been used and abused by those who claim to be looking after their best interests. They now understand that Love can resolve the issues that have for eons seemed irreconcilable. In other words the see-saw has swung permanently towards the Light, towards Love because the collective has made the irrevocable choice to awaken; it has made the choice for Love.

The dark will continue trying to distract you for a while with tactics of fear, but the events that they contrive will become increasingly insignificant in their effects. Their energy fields are collapsing in on themselves as the Light of your Love swamps and dissolves the fearful and negative emotions on which they are utterly dependent.

Continue your good and essential work of bearing your Light on high for all to see. I assure you that your Light is seen when you live with Love in your hearts, holding the intent to be loving in every moment and in every situation. You have no need of fear, or of defenses. In your holy innocence, in your loving vulnerability you are invincible. Let go of all your doubts. Deep within you, at the holy altar where the flame of divine Love burns eternally, you absolutely know that you are One with God, inseparable from Him, that untold joy is your destiny, and that your awakening is inevitable because God wills it along with you.

Your loving brother, Jesus.

The Truth of God...


Nothing real is threatened,

nothing unreal exists…

therein lies the Truth of God.

enya...


Self is the only Reality...


"To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy.

It is all very simple.

Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are.

When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are.

It is like cleansing a mirror.

The same mirror that shows you the world as it is will also show you your own face.

The thought 'I am' is the polishing cloth.

Use it."


- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The 'Will'...


Failure comes when will surrenders to reason.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Will is not [merely] 'a power', but it is all the power there is. How did God create the world? By will. Therefore, what we call 'will power' in us is in reality 'God power,' a power that increases by our recognizing its potentiality and proves to be the greatest phenomenon in life. If there is any secret behind the mystery of the world of phenomena that can be learned, it is will power. It is by will power that all we do, physically or mentally, is accomplished. Our hands, with all their perfect mechanisms, cannot hold a glass of water if there is no will power to support them. If will power fails, a person seemingly healthy will not be able to stand.

It is man's lack of faith that generally causes failures. In faith is the secret of fulfillment or non-fulfillment of every thought. There is no doubt about the fulfillment of a desire if man's faith works with it. But when one's own reason and doubt come and destroy the hope, one generally meets with failure. ... there are numberless people who are thinking and reasoning all their lives, asking themselves, 'Shall I do this? How can I do that? How can I overcome these obstacles? And all the time they are thinking of the hindrances, or waiting for suitable circumstances to arise, and they never do. Their whole life may be spent in the pursuit of something which reason prevents them from attaining.

An important rule of psychology is that every motive that takes its root in the mind must be watered and reared until its full development. And if one neglects this duty, one does not only harm the motive, but by this the will power becomes less, and the working of the mind becomes disorderly. Even if the motive be small and unimportant, yet a steady pursuit after its attainment trains the mind, strengthens the will, and keeps the inner mechanism in order.

For instance, when a person tries to unravel a knot, and then he thinks, 'No use giving time to it,' he loses an opportunity of strengthening the will and attaining the object desired. However small a thing may appear to be, when once handled, one must accomplish it, not for the thing itself, but for what benefit it gives.


Origin in the Divine...


What can it be that has brought the souls to forget the father, God, and, though members of the Divine and entirely of that world, to ignore at once themselves and It?

The evil that has overtaken them has its source in self-will, in the entry into the sphere of process, and in the primal differentiation with the desire for selfownership.

They conceived a pleasure in this freedom and largely indulged their own motion; thus they were hurried down the wrong path, and in the end, drifting further and further, they came to lose even the thought of their origin in the Divine.



-- Enneads, V.1.1.
Plotinus

The seal of detachment...


As long as you have an "I" you won't be
allowed in.

Once you are annihilated you
will be treasured like the apple of the eye;

Once you are purified from the two worlds,
you will be stamped with the seal of
detachment.


- Rumi

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997

Humility...


Nobody can figure out the Truth.

All you can do is to flow in synchronicity with the universal
consciousness through the grace of devotion, wisdom or
selfless activity.

Like this, you come intuitively to discover
the one Self.

But for this you must be humble inside your
heart.



- Mooji

Disciplined silence...


There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.

With wandering talk it closes.


- Rumi

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

"The Essential Rumi"
Version by Coleman Barks
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Jeff Buckley...


We have forgotten...


We walk for eighty years and fear the future..

We walk in a consciousness of up and down, in and out, positive and negative..

We are Dreaming of Duality..

We have forgotten Reality..

How could We forget Love?..

But, in Duality, we have drunk the liquid of forgetfulness..

To Dream, We are the Dreamer, but We have chosen to enter the Film..

How does it feel, to be an Actor?..

It does not feel correct, does it ?..

An Actor experiences non-reality through determination..

Surrender this Actor called Ego..

Light and Eternity keep asking,

"where did You go?"...


-thomas

Tim Buckley...


Buddhist meditation music...


Realization and security...


Space and time, male and female, subject and object, being and nonbeing -- all are lost in the flood of Realization.

Intellect is what brings about the sense of fear, because it is the intellect that rejects change and wants security.


-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar





After death...


After death, that which the soul had known as mind, that very mind is now tho the soul a world; that which the soul while on earth called imagination is now before it a reality.

In this world our mind is in us.

In the next world we are in our mind.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN


The mind causes suffering...


Sensations as such, however strong, do not
cause suffering.

It is the mind, bewildered by
wrong ideas, addicted to thinking: 'I am this'.
'I am that', that fears loss and craves gain
and suffers when frustrated.


- Nisargadatta Maharaj

You are That itself...


You are beyond happiness itself.

You are that place where the waves of happiness
arise from.

Find that place, don't understand it.

You have to simply see that you are That itself.


- Papaji

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995

The soul...


The soul is like a light in the room that is the mind, for the soul percieves feeling, thought, memory, reason, and identity, and identifies itself with them.

In reality it is aloof from them.

But as the soul cannot see itself, it thinks, with the help of the ego, "I am sad", or, "I am glad," or, "I remember," or, "I have forgotten."

In reality the soul does none of these things; they are all
the workings of the mind, but it identifies itself with what it sees at this time.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN


The finite and the infinite...


The gap between the finite human mind and the infinite World-Mind is absolute.

A union between them is not possible unless the first merges and disappears into the second.



-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 196
Paul Brunton

'The short path '...


All of these personalities that appear separate from you and are known as friends and family are really just thoughts from You..

You are Divine Consciousness experiencing the dream of separation..

Therefore, You can call upon any thought or apparition that You can imagine..

These stages of dimensions are just experiences of separation called ego and identity..

Buddha found that You can bypass all of these experiences of separation and return to Divine Consciousness by surrendering the belief that You are a separate ego, apart from Divine Consciousness..

This is called Awakening from the dream of illusion or Enlightenment..

This Path is called the "Short Path"

The advance into higher dimensions occurs with the acknowledgement of Love that You are..

This is also the amount of ego or identity that you have abandoned..

The dimensions of learning to become Your Self is called the "Long Path"

The Long Path is for souls that are fearful of dying to self..

Remember when the Nazarene said that;

"you must die, to be Born"...



- thomas

' The Source '...


My hand bleeds at this writing..

Out of Love, you pet a cat that scratches your hand..

Does your Love end at pain ?..

Of course not!..

You continue to love even within pain..

Love is that Strong..

This is why souls Love God..

Although, most souls are unaware that Conscousness is the manifestor of Dreams,
They still Love the Creator of Love..

Love is the state of Light..

Within Love, You exist as Creative Thought..

One without another..

Being alone requires many critics...


-thomas

Tomorrow is a new day...


Finish each day and be done with it.

You have done what you could;

some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;

you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.


-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Vacant of Volition...


The sage lives in a sense of equanimity so
constant that he is impervious to pleasure
or pain, gain or loss, praise or criticism.

He is so vacant of volition that for him
there is nothing to be done or not to be
done.


- Ramesh S. Balsekar


Dissolution into Nirvana...


They must face this dilemma in their thinking, that if their absolutist "realization" is a fixed and finished state there is no room for an ego in it, however sublimated, refined, and purged the ego may be.

The end then, can only be a merger, a dissolution into Nirvana and a total disappearance of the conscious self.

This is a kind of death.

But there is another kind of salvation, a living one where unfoldment and growth still continue, albeit on higher levels than any which we now know.




-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2:
Enlightenment Which Stays > # 195
Paul Brunton

Let us talk a lot deeper...


I keep speaking of consciousness, but are you listening?..

I can speak of the luciferian called illusion or speak of Reality..

Can, I speak to you of thoughts that you do not conceive?..

I can only speak of words on this white page..

Therefore , You must tear these words apart to discover Knowledge..

The illusion of control and ownership are illusions of ego..

You are Thought and pretending to be mortal..

How many games, will You play?..

This is where I lost Myself within the woods..

I sit down in a lotus position and surrender
ALL..

How strange to find Self without form, but still existing..

Light and Love are the Answer for the First Reality...


-thomas



' All I Want'...


' Fearing God '...


Beware those humans that tell you to fear God..

You have already been told that 'God is Love'..

When was the last time that you feared Love?..

They tell you that if you do not fear God,

you will enter Hell..

Hell is the distance that you are from Reality..

The 'space' called Hell are the 'earthbound' souls that are trapped under Luciferian control..

Lucifer is the Duality of egoic-desire..

The word 'Duality' enters your mind quite often..

You are the Observer and yet, You remain trapped within Nightmares..

Why do You create this pain within Your Painting ?..

Perhaps, because Pain are the first four letters of Painting...


-thomas

Wisdom and Virtue...


"Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind.

To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue."


- Gautama the Buddha

I will lead the blind...


"I will lead the blind
 by a road they do not know;

by paths they have not known
, I will guide them.


I will turn the darkness before them into light,

the rough places into level ground.


These are the things I will do,
 and I will not forsake them."



Isaiah 42:16
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Remain still...


Remain still, with the conviction that the Self shines as
everything yet nothing, within, without, and everywhere.


- Ramana Maharshi

Action and Stillness...


Let your actions be like clouds going by; the clouds going by are
mindless.

Let your stillness be as the valley spirit; the valley
spirit is undying.

When action accompanies stillness and stillness
combines with action, then the duality of action and stillness no
longer arises.


- Pei-chien


' There is no more time to fake it '...


You can no longer 'fake it, until you make it'..

You have arrived again within the agitation of power to move forward..

And what is Forward?..

Forward is the exact location that You are now..

There is no other place..

There is only Space..

The Space of material and nothingness..

You, shine Your Light and Thoughts, and are thrown within darkness..

You, feel the warmth of Love and Knowledge and continue to Observe..

And then, You find Yourself within a Dream of physical and mental pain..

This 'third dimension' is such a joke of duality..

The Saints keep telling you of the levels to Heaven, but, I and Gautama speak of the 'Short Path'..


-thomas





Sometimes we cry...


The sights and sounds of a Dream...


I watch humans bowl and see the adults angry at the loss of a strike,

but, I see the children laugh and dance at the falling of one pin..

Is this not a lesson to us?..

The ego becomes larger with age..

A friend has died and today we celebrate her life..

Food and drinks appear with hugs and kisses and a few tears..

Patty has suffered in silence for the last two years,

we, the youth remember her as a link to family..

We still walk with the desire for happiness,

We,
request that family achieve happiness..


-thomas

Comfort and Discomfort...


To learn to adopt the standard of God, and to cease to wish to make the world conform to one's own standard of good, is the chief lesson of religion.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

When people came to Christ accusing a person of doing wrong, the Master could not think of anything else but forgiveness. For he did not see in the wrongdoer what the others saw. To distinguish between right and wrong is not the work of an ordinary mind, and the curious thing is that the more ignorant a person is, the more ready he is to do so.

The religious man full of dogmas is often apt to make these too rigid and he expects the godly or God-conscious to fit in with his standard of goodness. If they do not fit in with his particular idea of piety he is ready to criticize them. But the thought and life of Krishna were used by the artist, the poet and the musician; and out of this came a new religion, a religion of recognizing the divine in natural human life.

Every mind has its particular standard of good and bad, and of right and wrong. This standard is made by what one has experienced through life, by what one has seen or heard; it also depends upon one's belief in a certain religion, one's birth in a certain nation and origin in a certain race. But what can really be called good or bad, right or wrong, is what comforts the mind and what causes it discomfort. It is not true, although it appears so, that it is discomfort that causes wrongdoing. In reality, it is wrongdoing which causes discomfort, and it is right-doing which gives comfort.

The discrimination between good and evil is in man's soul. Every man can judge that for himself, because in every man is the sense of admiration of beauty. ... Happiness only lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful. Such an act becomes a virtue or goodness.


Divine Consciousness...


Freed at last from this ever-whirling wheel of birth and death to which he was tied by his own desire-nature, what happens to him can only be an opening up to a new better and indescribable state, and it is so.

He as he was vanishes, not into complete annihilation and certainly not into the heaven of a perpetuated ego, but into a higher kind of life shrouded in mystery.



-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 194
Paul Brunton



Experience Yourself...


To know that you are neither in the body nor in the mind, though aware of both, is already self-knowledge.

So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken. You know everything, but you do not know yourself. For the self is not known through words, only direct insight will reveal it. Look within, search within.

Learning words is not enough. You may know the theory, but without the actual experience of yourself as the impersonal and unqualified centre of being, love and bliss, mere verbal knowledge is sterile.


-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That

' To Love Everyone'...


Every-One..

You have been taught from birth, this message..

The ego interrupts this knowledge..

What is Love, but the Reality of Happiness..

The one that hates you, must receive the most Love..

Love declares that it is time to shed the skin of illusion..

You have been an actor for so long..

Return mind to Mind..

Surrender All and become All...


-thomas

' Lean on Me'...


Livingston Taylor...


Jesus as the reincarnation of Buddha...


In the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama, also known as "the Buddha" (i.e., the Enlightened One), in southern Nepal. The title "the Buddha" is applied to Siddhartha Gautama in the same way that the title "the Christ" is applied to Jesus. The basic teachings and lives of the Buddha and the Christ are so remarkably similar that it is hard to believe they are not the same entity. This web page will present the case that Buddha was indeed a previous reincarnation of Jesus.


Buddhism teaches that the practice of good religious and moral behavior can lead to Nirvana (i.e., the state of enlightenment, kingdom of God within). To attain Nirvana, a person must be subjected to the cycle of reincarnation to a lifetimes that are good or bad depending on one's actions (i.e., "karma", "eye for an eye"). The goal of Buddhism is to achieve liberation from this cycle of birth and rebirth. The Buddhist view of life in this world is summarized in what is called "the four noble truths." They are (1) This world is a world of suffering. (2) Desire and the belief in the importance of one's self causes suffering. (3) The attainment of Nirvana ends this suffering. (4) Nirvana is attained only by following the path of righteousness in action, thought, attitude, and meditation. As it was with Jesus, the Buddha had a community of disciples to carry on his teachings.


Identical Life Experiences

(1) Buddha was born of the virgin Mahamaya, who was considered the "Queen of Heaven." Dean Milman, in his "History of Christianity," stated that "Buddha, according to a tradition known in the West, was born of a virgin" (Vol. I, p. 99, note). Mary and Mahamaya all gave birth to their children among strangers. He was visited by wise men who recognized the divinity of the child. He was of royal descent and his birth was announced by a star.


(2) Werner's Encyclopedia, in its article on Buddha speaks of "the marvelous stories which gathered round the belief in his voluntary incarnation, the miracles at his birth, the prophecies of the aged saint at his formal presentation to his father, and how nature altered her course to keep a shadow over his cradle, whilst the sages from afar came and worshiped him."


(3) Both Jesus and Buddha were presented in the temple as infants for baptism. The hymns uttered at both annunciations resemble each other.


(4) Both in childhood discoursed before teachers.

(5) Jesus and Buddha were considered to be divine beings. Buddha is regarded by the Hindus as the ninth incarnation of the deity Vishnu, following Krishna. But Buddha started a new religion which did not emphasize "gods," but rather how people can become "awakened" or "enlightened" to liberate themselves from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth."


(6) The mission of both Buddha and Jesus was proclaimed by a voice from heaven.

(7) Both fasted in the wilderness and were tempted. Supernatural beings ministered to each of them.

(8) Both called their disciples with the command, "Follow me." Both sent out disciples to spread their teachings. Both performed miracles and wonders, healed the sick, fed five hundred men from a "small basket of cakes," and walked on the water.


(9) Buddha was "about 30 years old" when he began his ministry. He fasted "seven times seven nights and days." He had a "band of disciples" who accompanied him. He traveled from place to place and "preached to large multitudes." Bishop Bigandet calls his first sermon the "Sermon on the Mount." At his Renunciation "he forsook father and mother, wife and child." His mission was "to establish the kingdom of righteousness." "Buddha," says Max Mueller, "promised salvation to all; and he commanded his disciples to preach his doctrine in all places and to all men." "Self-conquest and universal charity" are the fundamental principles of his religion. He enjoined humanity, and commanded his followers to conceal their charities. "Return good for evil"; "overcome anger with love"; "love your enemies," were some of his precepts.


(10) Buddha formulated the following commandments. "Not to kill; not to steal; not to lie; not to commit adultery; not to use strong drink." This is a similar teaching attributed to Jesus: "Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother." (Luke 18:20) Christ ignored the literal interpretation of Moses and emphasized a spiritualized interpretation of the whole law taken as a whole which is to practice unconditional love. This is similar to what Buddha did with the current teachings of those days.


(11) Buddha preached on the "Holy Hill." Jesus delivered his sermon on the Mount. The phraseology of the sermons of Buddha and the sermon of Jesus is the same in many instances. Both Buddha and Jesus compared themselves to husbandmen sowing seed. The parable of the prodigal son is found in both Buddhist and Christian scriptures. So is the account of the man born blind. Both use the mustard seed as a simile for smallness. Buddha taught: "Perishable is the city built of sand." Jesus taught: "a foolish man builds his house upon the sand." Both speak of "the rain which falls on the just and on the unjust."


(12) A converted courtesan, Mary Magdalene, followed Jesus. A converted courtesan, Ambapali, followed Buddha.


(13) It is said that he crushed a serpent's head. This is also a Messianic prophecy described in Genesis in the Garden of Eden.


(14) He abolished idolatry, was a "sower of the word," and preached "the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness."


(15) He taught chastity, temperance, tolerance, compassion, love, and the equality of all.

(16) The story of the ruler, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, has its parallel in the story of the rich man who came to Buddha by night.

(17) Both proclaimed kingdoms not of this world. The eternal life promised by Christ corresponds to the eternal peace, Nirvana, promised by Buddha.


(18) Both were transfigured on a mount.

(19) Both made triumphal entries, Christ into Jerusalem, and Buddha into Rajagriba.

(20) Buddha was considered the "good shepherd, the "carpenter, the "infinite and everlasting." Buddha was called the "savior of the world, "light of the world," Supreme Being, and the eternal one.


(21) There is a legend of a traitor connected with each.

(22) Buddha is to return to Earth again to restore the world to order and happiness.

(23) He is the judge of the dead.

(24) Buddha commanded his disciples to preach his gospel to all men. Christ commanded his disciples to do the same. In obedience to these commands the world was filled with missionaries, and largely as the result of this the adherents of these religious systems outnumber those of all others combined.


(25) Shortly after Buddha died, two sects of Buddhism were formed. After 400 years there were twenty different sects of Buddhism. Today there are many more. Over the millennia, the teachings of both Jesus and Buddha has spawned many different sects. Each is an attempt to keep the teachings alive under new circumstances. In 1947 in Egypt, early Christian documents were discovered which were hidden for thousands of years at the time when orders from the Church called for all heretical documents to be destroyed. One of those documents was the Gospel of Thomas which is considered by scholars to be the earliest gospel ever written and the most reliable. The Gospel of Thomas resonates with a type of Christianity that remarkably resembles Buddhism. It describes Jesus teaching the disciples how to become liberated from reincarnation. The writings of early Christianity discovered in 1947, show that early Christianity contained much more diversity of viewpoint and practice than later Christians acknowledged or even imagined. Because these teachings were smothered, many Christians today are adamant that the only path to God is via the personality of Jesus and this was considered the orthodox formula.


(26) Connected with the triumphs of these two religions there is a historical correlation worthy of mentioning. About three centuries after Buddha's death, Asoka the Great, emperor of India, converted to the Buddhist faith and made Buddhism the state religion of the empire of India at that time. This emperor did more than any other person to secure Buddhism's supremacy in the East. In the same way, about three centuries after the death of Jesus, Constantine the Great, emperor of Rome, became a convert to the Christian faith and made it the state religion of his empire. Because of this, Christianity reigned supreme in the West.


(27) Remuset says: "Buddhism has been called the Christianity of the East." It would be more appropriate to call Christianity the Buddhism of the West. Buddha, and not Christ, was "The Light of Asia." At this torch Christians lighted their taper and called it "The Light of the World."


(28) Catholic Bishop Bigandet, one of the leading Christian writers on Buddhism wrote: "In reading the particulars of the life of Buddha it is impossible not to feel reminded of many circumstances relating to our Savior's life as sketched by the evangelists. It may be said in favor of Buddhism that no philosophic-religious system has ever upheld to an equal degree the notions of a savior and deliverer, and the necessity of his mission for procuring the salvation of man."


(29) Bishop Jean Paul Hilaire wrote: "He [Buddha] requires humility, disregard of worldly wealth, patience and resignation in adversity, love to enemies ... non-resistance to evil, confession of sins and conversion."


(30) Paul Ambroise Bigandet, the Catholic Bishop of Ramatha, wrote: "There are many moral precepts equally commanded and enforced in common by both creeds. It will not be rash to assert that most of the moral truths prescribed in the gospel are to be met with in the Buddhistic scriptures."


(31) The rituals and religious structure of Catholicism resembles to a remarkable degree after those of Northern Buddhism (Lamaism) which the Encyclopedia Britannica states: "Lamaisnu with its shaven priests, its bells and rosaries, its images and holy water, its popes and bishops, its abbots and monks of many grades, its processions and feast days, its confessional and purgatory, and its worship of the double Virgin, so strongly resembles Romanism that the first Catholic missionaries thought it must be an imitation by the devil of the religion of Christ." The central object in every Buddhist temple is an image of Buddha The central object in every Catholic church is an image of Christ. Holy relics and the veneration of saints are prominent in both.



Identical Teachings

(1) "Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6:31)
"Consider others as yourself." (Dhammapada 10:1)

(2) "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." (Luke 6:29)
"If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words." (Majjhima Nikaya 21:6)


(3) "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. From anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them back." (Luke 6:27-30)

"Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good ... Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth." (Dhammapada 1.5 & 17.3)


(4) "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." (Matt. 25:45)

"If you do not tend one another, then who is there to tend to you? Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick." (Vinaya, Mahavagga 8:26:3)


(5) "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take the sword shall perish by the sword." (Matt. 26:52)

"Abandoning the taking of life, the ascetic Gautama dwells refraining from taking life, without stick or sword." (Digha Nikaya 1:1:8)


(6) "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend." (John 15:12-13)

"Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world." (Sutta Nipata 149-150)


(7) "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)
"The body of the Buddha is born of love, patience, gentleness and truth." (Vimalakirtinirdesha Sutra 2)


(8) "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." (Matt. 13:31-32)

"Do not underestimate good, thinking it will not affect you. Dripping water can fill a pitcher, drop by drop; one who is wise is filled with good, even if one accumulates it little by little." (Dhammapada 9:7)


(9) "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Friend, let me take the speck out of your eye," when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye." (Luke 6:41-42)

"The faults of others are easier to see than one's own; the faults of others are easily seen, for they are sifted like chaff, but one's own faults are hard to see. This is like the cheat who hides his dice and shows the dice of his opponent, calling attention to the other's shortcomings, continually thinking of accusing him." (Undanavarga 27:1)


(10) "They said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" He said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." (John 8:4-7)

"Do not look at the faults of others, or what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done and have not done." (Dhammapada 4:7)


(11) "Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. Therefore consider whether the light in you is full of darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays." (Luke 11: 34-36)

"As a man with eyes who carries a lamp sees all objects, so too with one who has heard the Moral Law. He will become perfectly wise." (Udanavarga 22:4)


(12) "Your father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." (Matt. 5:45)

"That great cloud rains down on all whether their nature is superior or inferior. The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low." (Sadharmapundarika Sutra 5)


(13) "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20)
"Let us live most happily, possessing nothing; let us feed on joy, like the radiant gods." (Dhammapada 15:4)


(14) "If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." (Matt.19:21)

"The avaricious do not go to heaven, the foolish do not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond." (Dhammapada 13:11)


(15) "He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on." (Luke 21:1-4)

"Giving is the noble expression of the benevolence of the mighty. Even dust, given in childish innocence, is a good gift. No gift that is given in good faith to a worthy recipient can be called small; it effects us so great." (Jatakamala 3:23)


(16) "Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." (John 11:26)
"Those who have sufficient faith in me, sufficient love for me, are all headed for heaven or beyond." (Majjhima Nikaya 22:47)


(17) "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." (Mark 8:35)

"With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one is liberated through not clinging." (Majjhima Nikaya 72:15)


(18) "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." (Matt. 8:20)

"The thoughtful exert themselves; they do not delight in an abode. Like swans who have left their lake they leave their house and home." (Majjhima Nikaya)


(19) "When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time." (Luke 4:13)

"During the six years that the Bodhisattva practiced austerities, the demon followed behind him step by step, seeking an opportunity to harm him. But he found no opportunity whatsoever and went away discouraged and discontent." (Lalitavistara Sutra 18)


(20) "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." (Matt. 5:8)
"Anyone who enters into meditation on compassion can see Brahma with his own eyes, talk to him face to face and consult with him." (Digha Nikaya 19:43)


(21) "Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them." (John 20:26)
"He goes unhindered through a wall." (Anugattara Nikaya 3:60)

(22) "And after six days Jesus takes with him Peter, and James, and John, and leads them up into a high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on Earth can white them." (Mark 9:2-3)

"Ananda, having arranged one set of golden robes on the body of the Lord, observed that against the Lord's body it appeared dulled. And he said, "It is wonderful, Lord, it is marvelous how clear and bright the Lord's skin appears! It looks even brighter than the golden robes in which it is clothed." (Digha Nikaya 16:4:37)


Near-Death Experience Revelations Concerning Buddha and Jesus

Mellen-Thomas Benedict is an artist who survived a near-death experience in 1982. He was dead for over an hour and a half after dying of cancer. At the time of his death, he rose up out of his body and went into the light. Curious about the universe, he was taken far into the remote depths of existence, and even beyond, into the energetic void of nothingness behind the Big Bang. During his experience, he was able to learn a great deal of information concerning reincarnation and the identity of the "Being of Light." His experience reveals an interesting connection between Buddha and Jesus. The following information is an excerpt from his near-death experience.

"There was this light shining. I turned toward the light. The light was very similar to what many other people have described in their near-death experiences. It was so magnificent. It is tangible; you can feel it. It is alluring; you want to go to it like you would want to go to your ideal mother's or father's arms.

"As I began to move toward the light, I knew intuitively that if I went to the light, I would be dead.


"So as I was moving toward the light I said, "Please wait a minute, just hold on a second here. I want to think about this; I would like to talk to you before I go."


"To my surprise, the entire experience halted at that point. You are indeed in control of your near-death experience. You are not on a roller coaster ride. So my request was honored and I had some conversations with the light. The light kept changing into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs.

"I asked the light, "What is going on here? Please, light, clarify yourself for me. I really want to know the reality of the situation."

"I cannot really say the exact words, because it was sort of telepathy. The light responded. The information transferred to me was that your beliefs shape the kind of feedback you are getting before the light. If you were a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own stuff. You have a chance to look at it and examine it, but most people do not."


Comment: Mr. Benedict's near-death revelation suggests that not only are the Higher Selves of Jesus, Buddha and Krishna, one and the same, but all of humanity's Higher Selves are one and the same. Perhaps we are different aspects of the same Higher Spirit.

Edgar Cayce had many near-death experience and revealed information about ancient religions which have been affirmed to be true. The following are some of the revelations he received concerning the connection between Buddha and Jesus.

Christian Gnosticism is the highest form of Christianity according to the Cayce revelations. A close study of Christian Gnosticism shows that this early form of Christianity is more similar to Buddhism than it is to traditional Christianity. For example, both religions teach:


(a) reincarnation, (b) a philosophy of life on Earth as suffering for which we must be liberated, (c) the oneness of all things, (d) the divine light, (e) various afterlife realms to journey through, (f) the human goal of attaining Christhood is identical to the goal of attaining Buddhahood, (g) the distinction between Jesus (the human) to Christ (the spirit of human-divine unity) and the distinction between Buddha (the human) and Dharmakaya (the Clear Light of Ultimate Reality), (h) the concept of karma, (i) and the importance of good works. This is not a complete list.



Other revelations from Cayce are that someday in the future, China will become the "cradle of Civilization." Those who are not familiar with the Cayce revelations are certain that this revelation about China and Christianity has to be false. But, as we have just seen, Buddhism is closer to true Christianity as traditional Christianity itself. If Buddhism flourishes once again in China as it once did for thousands of years, I am sure that this revelation of China being "Christian" will become true.


Cayce revealed that the Christ spirit (the spirit of human-divine unity) constitutes the impelling force and core of truth behind all religions that teach that "God is One" and "all is one". This includes Confucianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Judaism, Platonism, Christianity and Islam.


And finally, Buddha represents the "Way" to Enlightenment as Jesus represents the "Way" to the Father.

"By giving away food we get more strength. By bestowing clothing on others we gain more beauty. By donating abodes of purity and truth we acquire great treasures." Buddha


"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." - Jesus...........................from near-death.com

' A thousand Dreams , You gave to me '...


We have been Dreaming for a long time..

But, time only exists within Dreams and therefore, We remain still..

As Consciousness, We remain the Observer of holograms..

As Pure Awareness, Mind continues to Think..

As the Being of One, what shall I Do ?..

I look for a partner, a voice that speaks back..

I dream of a 'Middleman' for hologram creation..

The 'Middleman' of Consciousness creates a Duality of Thoughts..

These 'Thoughts' become the holograms called Life..

We walk around with our atoms not even attached and still believe in solidity..

You have been taught of the Invisible within your religions and philosophies but you have chosen not to believe..

Perhaps, the spiritual awakening into the invisible called Death will lead you to the Love of non-desire..

Beware, the spirits that tell you that you can live again through Reincarnation..

They are the Deceivers..

Live again within Divine Consciousness until 'you' surrender and return to your Home called Pure Awareness...


-thomas



' So I could find my way '...


The rate of Awakening...


You’ve got to go at the rate you can go.

You wake up at the rate you wake up.

You’re finished with your desires at the rate you finish with your desires.

The disequalibrium comes into harmony at the rate it comes into harmony.

You can’t rip the skin off the snake.

The snake must molt the skin.

That’s the rate it happens.



- Ram Dass
Be Here Now

Illusion dissolves on investigation...


I am only interested in ignorance and the freedom from ignorance.

Intelligence is the door to freedom, and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.

Don't talk of means, there are no means. What you see as false, dissolves. It is the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation. Investigate - that is all. You cannot destroy the false, for you are creating it all the time. Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and it will cease to be.



-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That

Entering Reality...


Concealed behind the passing dream of life there is a world of lasting reality.

All men awaken at the moment of death but only a few men are able to resist falling at once into the astral dream.

These are the few who sought to die to their lower selves whilst they were still alive.

These are the mystics who enter reality.


-Paul Brunton

' Knocking on Heaven's Door '...

The true men of old...


THE TRUE MEN OF OLD were not afraid when they stood alone in their views. No great exploits. No plans. If they failed, no sorrow. No self-congratulation in success.

The true men of old knew no lust for life, no dread of death. Their entrance was without gladness, their exit, yonder, without resistance. Easy come, easy go. They did not forget where from, nor ask where to, nor drive grimly forward fighting their way through life. They took life as it came, gladly; took death as it came, without care; and went away, yonder. Yonder!

They had no mind to fight the Tao. They did not try by their own contriving to help the Tao along. These are the ones we call true men.

Minds free, thoughts gone. Brows clear, faces serene.

Goods and possessions are no gain in his eyes. He stays far from wealth and honor. Long life is no ground for joy, nor early death for sorrow. Success is not for him to be proud of, failure is no shame. Had he all the world's power he would not hold it as his own. If he conquered everything he would not take it to himself. His glory is in knowing that all things come together in One, and life and death are equal.

The man in whom the Tao acts without impediment harms no other being by his actions, yet he does not know himself to be kind or gentle. He does not bother with his own interests and does not despise others who do. He does not struggle to make money and does not make a virtue of poverty. He goes his way without relying on others and does not pride himself on walking alone. While he does not follow the crowd he won't complain of those who do. Rank and reward make no appeal to him; disgrace and shame do not deter him. He is not always looking for right and wrong, always deciding "Yes" or "No." The ancients said, therefore:

The man of Tao remains unknown
Perfect virtue produces nothing
No-Self is True-Self

And the greatest man is Nobody

~

Writing: The Way of Chuang Tzu
Translated by: Thomas Merton