standards of good and evil...
Happiness lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful.
Bowl of Saki, December 31, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
What is really good? The answer is, there is no such thing as good or evil.
There is beauty. That which is beautiful, we call good. That which is ugly
compared with the beautiful, we call evil: whether it is custom, idea, thought
or action. This shows that this whole phenomenon of the universe is the
phenomenon of beauty. Every soul has an inclination to admire beauty, to seek
for beauty, to love beauty, and to develop beauty. Even God loves beauty.
In all ages the various religions have given different standards of good and
evil, calling them virtue and sin. The virtue of one nation has been the sin of
another. The virtue of the latter is the sin of the former. Travel as we may
through the world, or read the histories and traditions of nations as we may, we
shall still find that what one calls evil, another calls good. That is why no
one can succeed in making a universal standard for good and evil. 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. But he
is not satisfied with what he does himself, he feels a discomfort, a disgust
with his own efforts. There are many people who continue some weakness or some
mistake, or who are intoxicated by some action which the world calls evil or
which they themselves call evil, yet go on doing it. But a day comes when they
also are disgusted. Then they wish for suicide. There is no more happiness for
them. Happiness only lies in thinking or doing that which one considers
beautiful. Such an act becomes a virtue or goodness. That goodness is beauty.
Man is always seeking for beauty, and yet he is unaware of the treasure of
beauty that is hidden in his own heart. He strives after it throughout his whole
life. It is as if he was in pursuit of the horizon: the further he proceeds, the
further the horizon seems to have moved away. For there are two aims: the one is
real, and the other false. That which is false is momentary, transitory, and
unreliable - wealth, power, fame, and position are all snatched from one hand by
the other. ... Man wants something in life upon which he can rely; and this
shows, whether he believes in a deity or not, that he is constantly seeking for
God. He seeks for Him not knowing that he is seeking for God. Nevertheless,
every soul is pursuing some reality, something to hold on to; trying to grasp
something which will prove dependable, a beauty that cannot change and that one
can always look upon as one's own, a beauty that one feels will last forever.
And where can one find it? Within one's own heart. And it is the art of finding
that beauty, of developing, improving, and spreading that beauty through life,
allowing it to manifest before the inner and outer view, which one calls the art
of the mystic.
Understanding Self...
The problem lies within the definitions of self and non-self..
The first Reality is to acknowldge that You are not the false self called ego
and that You are actually Divine Consciousness..
This is called Enlightenment and requires the surrender of egoic consciousness..
This is our natural state and contains no ego but does contain 'Personality'..
This 'Personality' is called God and is the source of manifestation..
This 'Personality' is Us..
The Final Reality is the state of Nothingness or what is called 'Pure
Awareness'..
This is the Void of non-ego and non-Personality..
This is the place that some are speaking of..
This place is rarely achieved by humans while in the manifestations..
It is easier to surrender the 'Personality' of Divine Consciousness while within
the state of 'Divine Consciousness'..
This is the "Crucifixion of Self"..
The Ending of Separation..
Complete Freedom of Non-existence..
namaste, thomas
my left and right hand...
Gautama and Yeshua surround this body..
A cone shaped Light appears around the manifestation..
Protection of the illusion is intended..
The illusion will continue until the mission is completed..
The mission speaks and says:
"I am only on a 'weekend pass'"..
The mission has a voice and energy..
The illusion speaks;
I am here also for a short time to give you a vehicle..
Consciousness stands up and says;
"I am here to watch over you both"...
namaste, thomas
the writing of thoughts...
Sometimes, when Spirit enters consciousness,
I write thoughts on a screen..
These thoughts are broken down into individual thoughts called words..
When others are touched by these words,
The mind feels joy..
The "Questioner" enters the room and speaks;
"Is this the false sense of egoic pleasure" ?..
The "Answerer" replies:
" No, the joy is too deep, to be of the ego"..
The "Questioner" says;
" Remember this joy, and You will forget the contorted pleasures of ego"...
namaste, thomas
single mental ground...
The student must for minutes deliberately recall himself from the external multitude of things to their single mental ground in himself.
He must remind himself that although he sees everything as an objective picture, this picture is inseparable from his own mind.
He has to transcend the world-idea within himself not by trying to blot it out but by thoroughly comprehending its mentalist character.
He must temporarily become an onlooker, detached in spirit but just as capable in action...
— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 211 Paul Brunton
You are...
You are my face:
no wonder I don't see You:
such closeness is a mystifying veil.
You are my reason:
it's no wonder I don't see You,
because of all this perplexity of thought.
You are nearer to me than my jugular vein.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
Vibrations...
you can call these frequencies or vibrations or any other name to signify movement..
all things manifested, including us, are these vibrations that form into atoms..
Thought causes these atoms of frequency to appear as objects..
This 'Thought' is called Consciousness..
We are this Consciousness that creates by Thought..
We also create the false belief that we are the manifestation that We have created..
This is called the 'ego' or false self..
This state of mind called ego creates the mental pain of Fear..
This is because it is a false belief and is absent of the Reality called Love..
Love is the state of non-fear..
Love is the nature of Reality that some call God..
Non-fear is the state of non-ego..
Non-ego is the state of God..
God is Love..
When You have awakened into the Truth that You are Love,
You will also Realize that You are God...
As Jesus said; " I and the Father, are One "...
namaste, thomas
What is Advaita or Nonduality?...
"So, Swami-ji, what would you say that Advaita is?" The eager young woman crossed her legs and sat expectantly, pencil poised above a pristine pad of paper.
"It simply means ‘not two' - the ultimate truth is nondual," replied the Sage, reclining in a large and comfortable-looking armchair and not sitting in an upright lotus position, as he ought to have been, for the sake of the photograph that she had just taken, if nothing else.
She continued to wait for further elucidation before beginning to write but it soon became apparent that the answer had been given. "But is it a religion? Do you believe in God, for example?"
"Ah, well, that would depend upon what you mean by those words, wouldn't it?" he responded, irritatingly. "If, by ‘religion', you mean does it have priests and churches and a band of followers who are prepared to kill non-believers, then the answer is no. If, on the other hand, you refer to the original, literal meaning of the word, namely to ‘bind again', to reunite the mistaken person that we think we are with the Self that we truly are, then yes, it is a religion. Similarly, if by ‘God' you mean a separate, supernatural being who created the universe and will reward us by sending us to heaven if we do what He wants, then the answer is no. If you use the term in the sense of the unmanifest, non-dual reality, then yes, I most certainly do believe in God."
The pencil raced across the paper, recording the answer for the benefit of the magazine's readers but, as the words clashed with previous ideas in her memory, the lack of a clear resolution of her questions was reflected by an increasing puzzlement in her expression.
He registered this with compassion and held out his hand towards her. "Give me a piece of paper from your pad." She looked up, mouth slightly open as she wondered why he could possibly want that. But she turned the pad over, carefully tore off the bottom sheet and placed it in his outstretched hand. He turned to the table at his right and deftly began to fold and refold the paper. After a few moments, he turned back and, before she had had time to see what he had done, he held the paper aloft and launched it into the air. It rose quickly and circled gracefully around the room before losing momentum and diving to meet a sudden end when its pointed nose hit a sauce bottle on the dining table. "Could you bring it back over here do you think?" he asked.
"So, what would you say that we have here?" he asked, as she handed it back to him.
"It's a paper aeroplane," she replied, with just a hint of questioning in her voice, since the answer was so obvious that she felt he must have some other purpose in mind.
"Really?" he responded and, in an instant, he screwed up the object and, with a practised, over-arm movement, threw it effortlessly in a wide arc, from which it landed just short of the waste paper basket in the corner of the room. "And now?" he asked.
"It's a screwed-up ball of paper", she said, without any doubt in her voice this time.
"Could you bring it back again, please", he continued. She did so, wondering if this was typical of such an interview, spending the session chasing about after bits of paper like a dog running after a stick. He took the ball and carefully unfolded it, spread it out on the table and smoothed his hand over it a few times before handing it back to her. "And now it is just a sheet of paper again," he said, "although I'm afraid it's a bit crumpled now!"
He looked at her, apparently anticipating some sign of understanding if not actual revelation but none was forthcoming. He looked around the room and, after a moment, he stood up, walked over to the window and removed a rose from a vase standing in the alcove. Returning to his seat, he held the rose out to her and asked, "What is this?"
She was feeling increasingly embarrassed as it was clear he was trying to explain something fundamental, which she was not understanding. Either that or he was mad or deliberately provoking her, neither of which seemed likely, since he remained calm and open and somehow intensely present. "It's a flower," she replied eventually.
He then deliberately took one of the petals between his right-hand thumb and fore-finger and plucked it. He looked at her and said, "And now?" She didn't reply, though it seemed that this time he didn't really expect an answer. He continued to remove the petals one by one until none remained, looking up at her after each action. Finally, he pulled the remaining parts of the flower head off the stem and dropped them onto the floor, leaving the bare stalk, which he held out to her. "Where is the flower now?" he asked. Receiving no reply, he bent down and picked up all of the petals, eventually displaying them in his open hand. "Is this a flower?" he asked.
She shook her head slowly. "It was a flower only when all of the petals and the other bits were all attached to the stem."
"Good!" he said, appreciatively. "Flower is the name that we give to that particular arrangement of all of the parts. Once we have separated it into its component parts, the flower ceases to exist. But was there ever an actual, separate thing called ‘flower'? All of the material that constituted the original form is still here in these parts in my hand.
"The paper aeroplane is an even simpler example. There never was an aeroplane was there? And I don't just mean that it was only a toy. There was only ever paper. To begin with, the paper was in the form of a flat sheet for writing on. Then, I folded it in various ways so that it took on an aerodynamic shape which could fly through the air slowly. The name that we give to that form is ‘aeroplane'. When I screwed it up, the ball-shape could be thrown more accurately. ‘Aeroplane' and ‘ball' were names relating to particular forms of the paper but at all times, all that ever actually existed was paper.
"Now, this sort of analysis applies to every ‘thing' that you care to think of. Look at that table over there and this chair on which you are sitting. What are they made of? You will probably say that they are wooden chairs?"
He looked at her questioningly and she nodded, knowing at the same time that he was going to contradict her. "Well, they are made of wood certainly, but that does not mean that they are wooden chairs! On the contrary, I would say that this, that you are sitting on, is actually chairy wood, and that object over there is tably wood. What do you say to that?"
"You mean that the thing that we call ‘chair' is just a name that we give to the wood when it is that particular shape and being used for that particular function?" she asked, with understanding beginning to dawn.
"Exactly! I couldn't have put it better myself. It is quite possible that I could have a bag full of pieces of wood that can be slotted together in different ways so that at one time I might assemble them into something to sit upon, another time into something to put food upon and so on. We give the various forms distinct names and we forget that they are ONLY names and forms and not distinct and separate things.
"Look - here's an apple," he said, picking one out of the bowl on the table and casually tossing it from one hand to the other before holding it up for her to examine. "It's round or to be more accurate, spherical; its reddish in colour and it has", he sniffed it, "a fruity smell. No doubt if I were to bite into it, I would find it juicy and sweet.
"Now all of these - round, red, fruity, juicy, sweet - are adjectives describing the noun ‘apple.' Or, to use more Advaitic terms, let me say that the ‘apple' is the ‘substantive' - the apparently real, separately existing thing - and all of the other words are ‘attributes' of the apple - merely incidental qualities of the thing itself. Are you with me so far?"
She nodded hesitantly but, after a little reflection, more positively.
"But suppose I had carried out this analysis with the rose that we looked at a moment ago. I could have said that it was red, delicate, fragrant, thorny and so on. And we would have noted that all of those were simply attributes and that the actual existent thing, the substantive, was the rose. But then we went on to see that the rose wasn't real at all. It was just an assemblage of petals and sepals and so on - I'm afraid I am not a botanist! In the same way, we could say that the apple consists of seeds and flesh and skin. We may not be able to put these things together into any form different from an apple but Nature can.
"If you ask a scientist what makes an apple an apple, he will probably tell you that is the particular configuration of nucleotides in the DNA or RNA of the cells. There are many different species of apple and each one will have a slight variation in the chromosomes and it is that which differentiates the species. If you want to explain to someone what the difference is between a Bramley and a Granny Smith, you will probably say something like ‘the Bramley is large and green, used mainly for cooking and is quite sharp tasting, while the Granny Smith is still green but normally much smaller and sweeter'. But these are all adjectives or attributes. What is actually different is the physical makeup of the cell nuclei.
"But, if we look at a chromosome or a strand of DNA, are we actually looking at a self-existent, separate thing? If you look very closely through an electron microscope, you find that DNA is made up of four basic units arranged in pairs in a long, spiral chain. And any one of these units is itself made up of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, again arranged in a very specific way. So even those are not separate ‘things-in-themselves'; they are names given to particular forms of other, more fundamental things.
"And so we arrive at atoms - even the ancient Greeks used to think that everything was made up of atoms. Are these the final ‘substantives' with all of the apparent things in the world being merely attributes? Well, unfortunately not. Science has known for a long time that atoms mainly consist of empty space with electrons spinning around a central nucleus of protons and neutrons. And science has known for somewhat less time that these particles, which were once thought to be fundamental, are themselves not solid, self-existent things but are either made up of still smaller particles or are in the form of waves, merely having probabilities of existence at many different points in space.
"Still more recently, science claimed that all of the different particles are themselves made out of different combinations of just a few particles called quarks and that those are the ultimately existing things. But they have not yet progressed far enough. The simple fact of the matter is that every ‘thing' is ultimately only an attribute, a name and form superimposed upon a more fundamental substantive. We make the mistake of thinking that there really is a table, when actually there is only wood. We make the mistake of thinking that there is really wood, when actually there is only cellulose and sugars and proteins. We make the mistake of thinking there is protein when this is only a particular combination of atoms. "Ultimately, everything in the universe is seen to be only name and form of a single substantive.
The journalist was transfixed; not exactly open-mouthed but her pencil had not moved for some time. Eventually, she asked in a small voice: "But then where do I fit into all of this?"
"Ah", he replied. "That again depends upon what you mean by the word ‘I'. Who you think you are - ‘Sarah' - is essentially no different from the table and chair. You are simply name and form, imposed upon the non-dual reality. Who you really are, however... well, that is quite different - you are that nondual reality. You see, in the final analysis, there are not two things; there is only nonduality. That is the truth; that is Advaita."
(by Dennis Waite)
'me' never existed...
In this moment – for you, right now –
there is a clear
light of awareness in which everything is appearing.
It is what you are.
You are that! It is free, totally
unobscured, full and complete.
Christ said, 'I am the
light of the world'.
You, as that awareness, can say
the same thing.
Separation from that is a total illusion.
It never happened, except in imagination.
It is based
on a 'me' that never existed.
It is just a wrong idea.
~ John Wheeler
Awakening to the Natural State
via Along The Way
what shall we speak about ?...
The age of Aquarius has entered..
Does this heal the damage of ego?..
Death is a daily conversation..
Natural and un-natural..
And yet, it is the destiny of all..
Fear enters our consciousness..
Fear speaks and says:
"I am only here to goad You on"..
Fear continues on;
"I only exist as long as You believe in separation"..
"Non-separation releases You from my grip", says the pain of ignorance..
Love enters the room and speaks:
"Unity is all that does exist"..
"Why do you argue about Reality ?"...
namaste, thomas
Ascension...
you should know by now that ascension into higher frequencies is just the ego becoming less ego..
It is not the end of the road..
this is the 'long path' of lower self..
the 'short path' is faster to enter..
once again, you must ask yourself;
" who is ascending"?..
does God need to ascend?..
who are 'You"?..
why do you need voices to tell you who You are?..
If they knew, they would not be separate from You..
The Light will appear,
But, It will have no name..
namaste, thomas
Merge...
"You are plurality transformed into Unity,
And Unity passing into plurality;
This mystery is understood when man
Leaves the part and merges with the Whole."
Shabistari
in Florence Lederer, Tr.
The Secret Rose Garden of Sa'd-ud-Din Mahmud Shabistari_
Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1999 reprint, p. 33
O Fakir...
"To Thee Thou hast drawn my love, O Fakir!
I was sleeping in my own chamber,
and Thou didst awaken me;
striking me with Thy voice, O Fakir!
I was drowning in the deeps of the ocean of this world,
and Thou didst save me:
upholding me with Thine arm, O Fakir!
Only one word and no second--
and Thou hast made me tear off all my bonds, O Fakir!
Kabir says, 'Thou hast united Thy heart to my heart, O Fakir!'"
Kabir
in Rabindranath Tagore (Translator)
_The Songs of Kabir_, X (1.121)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sok/sok011.htm
witness and observer...
To begin with, it is essential not to confuse the witness with the observer. The witness belongs to the soul and the observer belongs to the mind. The observer can emulate witnessing, acting as a detached intelligence by observing without getting involved; but the false sense of witnessing here is not based on our real presence — it merely reflects how the ego 'feels' itself as it attempts to remain disidentified. Such pseudo-witnessing is an experience entirely con-fined to the mind.
When awareness is unawakened and not present as the base-consciousness, the observer can only witness from his sense of me. The center of true witnessing is not me but I am. Pure awareness witnesses by virtue of being naturally distinct and uninvolved, not because it is disidentified. The true witness does not observe.
Awareness needs relative consciousness — mind and ego — in order to observe that which is first witnessed from the much deeper place of our essence. Observation is active, witnessing is passive. Observation is continuously recreated through the will of the mind, witnessing is a steady stream of unchanging consciousness. To be in the state of witnessing is to exist behind everything arising in the field of cognition — perceptions, thoughts and feelings — as an immobile background of unconditional presence.
Anadi
the book of enlightenment
p 106-7
samsara...
"Whatever we see, whatever we understand, is nothing but ignorance.
This is because when this understanding arises, it creates mind, and the mind becomes I am.
I am needs to understand something and act.
This activity from I am is misunderstanding, because consciousness cannot be understood, perceived, or conceived.
It has no other observer.
It is self-effulgent, omnipresent, omniscient.
Who could be the observer?"
"Understanding has objectified it, and it has become subjective self.
Being subject, it needs to create.
This creation is the result of ignorance.
In this ignorance, whatever you understand, conceive, or perceive if just ignorance."
"The creation vanishes in an instant, just as it arises.
I is the mind, and objects are the universe.
Utter 'I' and there is the universe - past, present, future - and endless repetition.
This is samsara."
Pooja..
"the land of lies"...
We find our 'selves' spinning on a star..
How have we locked our "Self" into the 'land of lies'?..
Truth and Non-truth battle daily in this game of duality..
Up and down, In and out, Hot and cold, Love and fear..
The other voices speak that, it is real..
The brain forms new bridges of neurons..
The 'Hologram" manifests..
Pain is our reward for playing the game..
Mind must surrender to 'Self' as Reality..
Reality hugs You with inseparable Love...
namaste, thomas
vasana...
you speak of vasanas..
I contemplate upon this notion and the questioner speaks to me;
"who do these vasanas belong to"?
I answer;
"to the illusion of self"..
The questioner replys;
"Then why do you concern yourself with illusions"?..
namaste, thomas
Shhh!...
“I” was never Free.
“Bondage” was the simple fact,
Of “my” existence.
But… how can there ever have been an “I”,
If there existed no object,
To which that name applied?
What, then, was this “I”
That could not be found,
And now has vanished?
An experience.
A cloud appearing,
Roiling for a time,
And then vanishing,
Leaving the Sky revealed.
An experience,
Of being an experiencer.
But… if there was no object-experiencer,
Then what was having the experience,
Of being an experiencer?
Shhh!
Stop now.
Stop.
Don’t name it.
Don’t make an “objectless object” of it,
A “formless form”.
Not Consciousness,
Not Brahman,
Not Self,
Not God.
Shhh!
Chuck Surface is a nondual poet living in Encinitas, California, with his puppy, Mahika.
forgotten...
You're from a country beyond this universe,
yet your best guess is
you're made of earth and ashes!
You engrave this physical image everywhere
as a sign that you've forgotten
where you're from!
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Coleman Barks
"Birdsong"
Maypop, 1993
Voices...
Voices once heard on the same path become silent as the path divides..
Old and friendly voices evaporate into fog..
The emptiness encloses past memories and times..
And yet sound is heard near you..
A crowd is seen ahead..
Voices, new with the fragrence of Love..
Examining a map of hope..
Travel on, pilgrim,
The warm cloud of Love is the best vehicle...
namaste, thomas
The Birth of Yeshua...
Jesus Christ in Rumi’s Poetry and Parables
By Dr. Rasoul Sorkhabi
http://www.interreligiousinsight.org/April2008/April08Sorkhabi.pdf
Dr. Rasoul Sorkhabi, is a professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and directs the Rumi Poetry Club (rumipoetryclub@earthlink.net).
Christians and Muslims have much in common, not only because we all are humans, not only because both Christianity and Islam originated in the Middle East and trace their ancestry back to Abraham, but also because Jesus Christ is a holy figure in Islam. This is rarely known to the Western public and is often overlooked by the mass media. It is thus saddening to see that some extremist and violent events of recent years and the mass media’s thirst for polarization and confrontation have portrayed an anti-Christian Islamic world against the Christian Western world. Such a polarization does not really exist in either Christianity or Islam; it is portrayed only to serve certain political and misguided doctrinal purposes. Perhaps a very useful portal of entry to understand the sacred position of Jesus Christ in Islam is Mawlānā (“Master”) Jalāluddin Rumi (1207-1273), the renowned Persian and Sufi poet of the thirteenth century and currently one of the most popular poets in North America and other English speaking countries. As a person born and raised in Iran (Rumi’s cultural land) I have been fascinated with Rumi’s poetry for nearly three decades, and am privileged to share with you some facets of Jesus Christ in Rumi’s book of poetic parables to which he himself gave the title of “Rhymed Couplets on Spiritual Matters” (Masnawi Ma’nawi).
Isā Masih, as he is called in Arabic, literally means “Jesus the Messiah”. Muslims believe in the “virgin birth” of Jesus Christ. According to the Qur’an (15: 29; 38: 72), the Divine (Allah) breathed his spirit into Adam when he created humanity. Sufis extend this quality to the virgin birth of Jesus through Mary (Mariyam in Arabic, which is also the title of the chapter 19 in the Qur’an) so that Jesus was born without an earthly father. This is consistent with the Islamic epithet of Jesus as the Divine Spirit (Ruh Allah) among the prophets (in a similar vein, Abraham is called Khalil Allah, the Loyal Friend of God, and Moses Kalim Allah, the Interlocutor and Conversant with God). The Divine Spirit or Holy Spirit as a medium between the Divine and the world of creation is called Ruh al-Qods in the Quran. Sufis particularly praise the purity and piety of Mary, and emphasize that the same Holy Spirit does wonders with every human who is devoted to the Divine.
In a long poem in the Masnawi (Book III, lines 3702-3790), Rumi revisits the virgin birth of Jesus. After referring to the story in the Qur’an (Mary, verses 17-18) where it is said that, in order to give birth to Jesus, the Holy Spirit was sent by God and appeared to Mary as a very good-looking man, and where Mary says, “I seek refuge in God”, Rumi then continues:
The Holy Spirit said to Mary:
Oh, the exemplar of charity!
Don’t fear me!
I am the trusty one sent by the
Divine.
Don’t hide yourself from me.
I am your dignity and honor!
Don’t hide yourself from me,
I am your comfort and confidant.
As the Holy Spirit uttered these
words
The rays of pure light sprang
from his lips
And shone upon the stars of the sky.
The Holy Spirit continued:
Oh Mary, how can you escape
from my presence to non-existence?
I am the king of non-existence
and I possess all of knowledge.
My very foundation and my seat
is non-existence.
What is present before you is only
an image of me.
Oh Mary! Look at me. I am an
image hard to come by
I am the crescent you see up in
the sky
I am the image within your heart.
When such image as this one
settles in your heart
Wherever you go, it is within you.
This is not the delusion a false
daylight
That appears and disappears
before the morning.
I am the genuine light at dawn
And the darkness of night never
gathers around my daylight.
A joyful Christ-mass to every entity of One...
The Prince of peace is within us..
The Christ is unending Light, Love, and Consciousness..
It is Real and It is Us...
namaste, thomas
The false ego...
The False Self;
The false self grows out of unconscious being. It is a fragmented amalgam of many selves tenuously bound together by a façade of normalcy. It is a divided house built upon an imaginary foundation, a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
The false self is the greatest barrier (all barriers are imagined, of course) to the realization of our true identity of universal being. The false self is essentially a psychological process occurring in the mind that organizes, translates, and makes sense (or in many cases nonsense) of all incoming data from the senses. When this psychological process mixes together with the self-reflexive movement of consciousness, it produces a sense of self. This sense of self then pervades consciousness as a sort of perfume that causes the mind to mistake what is actually a psychological process for being an actual separate entity called one’s self. This mistaken conclusion, that you are a distinct separate self, happens very early in life in a more or less automatic and unconscious way.
By identifying with a particular name that belongs to a particular body and mind, the self begins the process of creating a separate identity. Add in a complex jumble of ideas, beliefs, and opinions, along with some selective and often painful memories with which to create a past to identify with, as well as the raw emotional energy to hold it all together, and before you know it, you’ve got a very convincing—though divided—self.
Adyashanti
The Way of Liberation
http://www.adyashanti.org/wayofliberation/
One single desire...
There are many paths, and each man considers his own the best and wisest. Let
each one choose that which belongs to his own temperament.
Bowl of Saki, December 23, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The Sufi looks on all with tolerance, and knows that there is a path for
everyone. The path of the lover is for him, the path of the one seeking for
wealth is for him, the seeker after paradise is following his path, it is all a
journey. It is simply that there are four different routes by which the journey
is made. The Sufi sees the same goal at the end of each; the lover has to meet
the seeker after wealth, and both have to meet the one who has done his duty.
Therefore at the end of their journey there is a place where they can meet. What
does it matter if one does not go by a certain path? Let each choose the way
that belongs to his own temperament and tendency. Therefore the Sufi does not
worry. He gives no preference to one or the other. He sees the journey of life
being made along one or other of these roads. The saying of Buddha, 'Forgive
all', comes true. Forgiveness does not come by learning, it comes by
understanding that a person should be allowed to travel along that path which is
suited to his temperament. As long as he is journeying with open eyes, let him
journey.
The great thing is that one should journey with one single desire. There should
be the single desire: whether to love a beloved, to collect wealth, or to do
some good for the world of humanity, or to attain paradise. There should be the
desire to journey to the goal. So many do not know which is the goal or what it
is. One thinks wealth is the goal, another paradise, another the beloved. They
do not see that there is still a further goal. They are naturally prompted by
the desire to get to the goal, and yet they are not conscious of the further
goal
Socrates...
Quotes of Socrates;
"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
Socrates on death "To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?"
"An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all"
"Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be... those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes... those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober -- minded men."
"The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being."
"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."
Ram Tzu speaks...
Ram Tzu is a madman..
He rants and raves
Spits, shouts
Waves his arms and
Talks gibberish.
All to get the attention
Of phantoms.
The authorities take
A dim view
O such behavior-
Ask Jesus.
If Ram Tzu were clever
He would lay low.
No one likes
Their existence questioned-
It's disturbing.
If you don't like
Ram Tzu's ravings
Take heart,
His disciples will eventually
Render him palatable.
- Ram Tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
what Jesus runs away from...
JELALUDDIN RUMI
(1207-1273)
What Jesus runs away from
The son of Mary, Jesus, hurries up a slope
as though a wild animal were chasing him.
Someone following him asks, 'Where are you going?
No one is after you.’ Jesus keeps on,
saying nothing, across two more fields. 'Are you
the one who says words over a dead person,
so that he wakes up?’ I am. 'Did you not make
the clay birds fly?' Yes. 'Who then
could possibly cause you to run like this?'
Jesus slows his pace.
I say the Great Name over the deaf and the blind,
they are healed. Over a stony mountainside,
and it tears its mantle down to the navel.
Over non-existence, it comes into existence.
But when I speak lovingly for hours, for days,
with those who take human warmth
and mock it, when I say the Name to them, nothing
happens. They remain rock, or turn to sand,
where no plants can grow. Other diseases are ways
for mercy to enter, but this non-responding
breeds violence and coldness toward God.
I am fleeing from that.
As little by little air steals water, so praise
Is dried up and evaporates with foolish people
who refuse to change. Like cold stone you sit on,
a cynic steals body heat. He doesn't feel
the sun. Jesus wasn't running from actual people.
He was teaching in a new way.
simplicity...
Practice non-action.
Work without doing.
Taste the tasteless.
Magnify the small, increase the few.
Reward bitterness with care.
See simplicity in the complicated.
Achieve greatness in little things.
In the universe the difficult things
are done as if they are easy.
In the universe great acts
are made up of small deeds.
The sage does not attempt anything very big,
and thus achieves greatness.
Easy promises make for little trust.
Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.
Because the sage always confronts difficulties,
he never experiences them.
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
Ascension...
This story that has been played out for many years has always been about Ascension..
But, what is ascending?..
You are already 'That' which you are trying to ascend to..
Trying to become what You already are is a deception of duality..
This belief keeps you in duality..
You are already the Energy and Being of Love..
The only wall keeping you from knowing that You are Love(God) is called the false belief in separate ego..
So, instead of trying to get the ego to 'Ascend',
just live a life with a feeling of Unconditional Love to all creatures on earth, especially the creatures called human..
By doing this, You will not have to ascend to anyplace,
You will Awaken to the Reality that You and Love are really the same and are really all that does exist...
namaste, thomas
The Threefold Path...
It must be clearly understood that it is only the philosophical
quest, the path of the Bodhisattva, which we advocate here, which is
threefold.
The mystical quest is not.
It is simpler.
It requires only
a single qualification--meditation practice.
But it gives only a
single fruit--inner peace--whereas the threefold quest yields a
threefold fruit:
(1) peace,
(2) the intellectual ability to instruct
others,
(3) service.
If therefore philosophy calls for a greater
effort than mysticism, it compensates by its greater result.
And
whereas the mystical result is primarily an individual benefit, the
philosophical result is both an individual and social one.
— Perspectives > Chapter 1: Overview of the Quest > # 42
Paul Brunton
Desire for existence...
If you want a kingdom and get it,
you'll have no peace.
If you give it away,
still you won't be content.
Only a soul free of desire
can taste eternity.
Be living, yet dead!
Then knowing comes
to live in you.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
The fantasy of December 21...
Obviously, I was not loving enough to enter the fifth dimension..
I'm sure that I am speaking to very few people as you are now crystaline bodies
without need for food or drink..
Thankfully, the Andromedans forced Nibiru into a new orbit to prevent the earth
from polar shift..
Those evil cabal souls are still in 'Containment' and becoming more loving
souls..
One good thing about staying in the third dimension is that my 'nesera' checks
should be rolling in soon.....
Are we now finally ready to exit the fantasy and enter Reality?..
The only Reality is Love and the only method to Recognise that You are Love is
to dump the illusion of separate ego..
It's that simple and needs no spacemen or masters..
You are the only 'master' of your fate...
namaste, thomas
A joyfilled Christmas to All...
Although Yeshua was actually born in the Spring,
It is fitting that His birth is celebrated at the occasion of the shortest days of sunlight of the year..
As it is the 'Dark night of the soul' that brings us into the Inner Light of full Consciousness..
Let us take this solstice to remember a fully Conscious Mystic that died rather than deny that He and God were One..
This life was not about dying for anyone's sin,
It was to show you that sin is merely the false belief that You are separate from Love..
Feliz Navidad..
namaste, thomas
Ram Tzu speaks...
Ram Tzu knows this
The fear never leaves you.
It is part of you
As tied to your center as your breath.
Touch it,
Stroke it
Get to know it well.
As long as you are
It will be with you.
You scream
You shout
You rage
You want quit of it.
You push it away with all your strength.
But hear this
It thrives on all this exercise
You give it.
It gets stronger when
You give it something to push against.
Left alone it will wither and die.
But you know you can not leave it alone.
You must always fight the fear.
It is your nature to always fight.
Yet sometimes there is Grace
You disappear into it
And there is no longer a battle.
The warrior is gone.
- Ram Tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
the method...
"The method is directing attention upon attention or awareness.
When any arising is experienced, especially thoughts, moods, emotions, or feeling of personal self identity, one simply notices one’s present naked awareness.
By directing the attention back to awareness, the arising dissolves back into its origin and its essential nature, awareness.
In doing this, the arising releases its formative energy in its dissolution as a surge of further clarity of Clear Light, the power and potency of awareness that energized the arising in the first place.
Hence one’s Awareness presence is enhanced in the collapse of the formative arising.
Hence the Dzogchen comment that ‘the stronger the afflictive emotion upon dissolution, the stronger the enhancement to the clarity of presence’."
(Longchenpa quote from “A Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmission”. Padma Publications)
Cast away...
"Cast away your existence entirely,
for it is nothing but weeds and refuse.
Go, clear out your heart's chamber;
arrange it as the abiding-place of the Beloved.
When you go forth, He will come in,
and to you, with self discarded,
He will unveil His beauty."
Mahmud Shabistari
"The Beloved Guest"
from _The Secret Rose Garden_
Translated by Florence Lederer / Edited by David Fideler
Grands Rapids, MI: Phanes, 2002, p. 85
A smile in his lifetime...
Mokugen was never known to smile until his last day on earth. When his time came to pass away he said to his faithful ones: "You have studied under me for more than ten years. Show me your real interpretation of Zen. Whoever expresses this most clearly shall be my successor and receive my robe and bowl."
Everyone watched Mokugen's severe face, but no one answered.
Encho, a disciple who had been with his teacher for a long time, moved near the bedside. He pushed forward the medicine cup a few inches. That was his answer to the command.
The teacher's face became even more severe. "Is that all you understand?" he asked.
Encho reached out and moved the cup back again.
A beautiful smile broke over the features of Mokugen. "You rascal," he told Encho. "You worked with me ten years and have not yet seen my whole body. Take the robe and bowl. They belong to you."
Ashidakim.com
You are Light...
In this moment – for you, right now –
there is a clear
light of awareness in which everything is appearing.
It is what you are.
You are that!
It is free, totally
unobscured, full and complete.
Christ said, ‘I am the
light of the world’.
You, as that awareness, can say
the same thing.
Separation from that is a total illusion.
It never happened, except in imagination.
It is based
on a ‘me’ that never existed. It is just a wrong idea.
- John Wheeler
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Awakening to the Natural State
Non-duality
pain...
the mind cries,
"I feel pain"..
pain speaks and says that it is just a breeze of thought..
the mind watches the leaves dance..
stillness walks slowly within the space..
the wind is past,
just small branches to pick up now..
and Who is watching the worker ?..
namaste, thomas
Now...
"Widen your heart.
Believe me,
your few days are numbered;
make one fast
choice now!"
Astavakra Gita
Death...
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness
is only
the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean.
It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future,
and that there is an
urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it.
Yet just as there is no time but the present,
and no one except the all-and-everything,
there is never anything to be gained -
though the zest of the game is to pretend there is.
- Alan Watts
the person ceases...
When you believe yourself to be a person, you
see persons everywhere.
In reality there are
no persons, only threads of memories and habits.
At the moment of realization the person ceases.
Identity remains, but identity is not a person, it
is inherent in the reality itself.
The person has
no being in itself;
it is a reflection in the mind
of the witness,
the 'I am', which again is a mode
of being.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
the kingdom of God...
The sea of life is in constant motion, no one can stop its ever-moving waves.
The Master walks over the waves, the wise man swims in the water, but the
ignorant man is drowned in his effort to cross.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
It makes no difference to me if I am so praised that I am raised from earth to
heaven, nor if I am so blamed that I am thrown from the greatest heights to the
depths of the earth. Life to me is an ever-moving sea in which the waves of
favor and disfavor constantly rise and fall.
To attain peace, what one has to do is to seek that rhythm which is in the depth
of our being. It is just like the sea: the surface of the sea is ever moving;
the depth of the sea is still.
And so it is with our life. If our life is thrown
into the sea of activity, it is on the surface. We still live in the profound
depths, in that peace.
But the thing is to become conscious of that peace which
can be found within ourselves. It is this which can bring us the answer to all
our problems.
If not, when we want to solve one problem, there is another
difficult problem coming. There is no end to our problems. There is no end to
the difficulties of the outer life. And if we get excited over them, we shall
never be able to solve them.
Some think, 'We might wait. Perhaps the conditions
will become better. We shall see then what to do.' But when will the conditions
become better? They will become still worse!
Whether the conditions become
better or worse, the first thing is to seek the kingdom of God within ourselves,
in which there is our peace.
As soon as we have found that, we have found our
support, we have found our self.
And in spite of all the activity and movement
on the surface, we shall be able to keep that peace undisturbed if only we hold
it fast by becoming conscious of it.
"Only God I saw"...
“In the market, in the cloister – only God I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain only God I saw.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation; in favor and in fortune – only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation, in the religion of the Prophet only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance, qualities nor causes – only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in His fire; amidst the flames outflashing only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished, and lo, I was the All-living – only God I saw.”
– Baba Kuhi
Thought manifests...
The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops into habit.
And the habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings...
Gautama the Buddha
time and space...
Time is in the mind,
space is in the mind.
The law of cause and effect is also a way of
thinking.
In reality all is here and now and
all is one.
Multiplicity and diversity are in
the mind only.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
Grace...
Just as the sun can be seen only by its own light,
so truth can be discerned only by its own self-revelation in the mind.
That is, only by grace leading to insight.
There is no other way.
— Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 5: The Philosopher > # 201
Paul Brunton
Hidden...
The most secure place to hide a treasure
of gold is in some desolate, unnoticed place.
Why would anyone hide treasure in plain sight?
And so it is said, "Joy is hidden beneath sorrow."
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
After Enlightenment...
Yes, the ego as individuality, a separate identity remains.
But it becomes reborn, purified, humbled before the higher power,
no longer narrow in interests, no longer tyrannizing over the man, no longer selfish in the sense of the word.
For as an enlightened being it may remain, harmless to all beings, benevolent to all creatures,
respondent to a timeless consciousness enfolding its ordinary personality.
The smaller circle can continue to exist within the larger one until the liberation of death.
It is no longer the source of ignorance and evil; that ego is dissolved and obliterated.
The new being is simply separate in body, thought, feeling from others but not from the universal, mass being behind them.
There all are one.
— Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 217
... Paul Brunton
The Holy Rivers...
The Scriptures speak of the three Holy rivers
Within.
These are Existence, Consciousness
and Bliss.
Being beyond thought and effort
they cannot be objectified or subjectified.
They are so dear, so near, behind the retina
and before breath.
You need not see This,
you are it.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Who is hearing ?...
Who is hearing?
Your physical being doesn't hear,
Nor does the void.
Then what does?
Strive to find out.
Put aside your rational Intellect,
Give up all techniques.
Just get rid of the notion of self.
- Bassui
Few seek and fewer attain...
There’s one aspect of what’s happening today which we could easily overlook and that’s that very few seek enlightenment and fewer attain it. Yet today we see and hear that countless thousands are seeking it by desiring Ascension and, apparently, hundreds of thousands of early risers are attaining it.
Let’s listen to terrestrial sages discuss the matter. Sri Krishna said, in the Bhagavad Gita:
“Who cares to seek
For that perfect freedom?
One man, perhaps,
In many thousands.” (1)
Swami Brahmananda, one of Sri Ramakrishna’s small band of disciples and a companion of Sri Krishna’s tells us that “out of thousands, perchance one desires for God” (2) on one occasion and on another, “only one in a million sincerely longs for God, and few sustain that longing.” (3)
Few sustain the longing. In other words, they may feel a burst of desire to attain God on one day and then move to another desire the day after. Our lives are a constant and eternal cycle of desire in which the desire to realize God is only one among many competing wants.
The Upanishads depict our situation this way:
“To many it is not given to hear of the Self. Many, though they hear of it, do not understand it. Wonderful is he who speaks of it. Intelligent is he who learns of it. Blessed is he who, taught by a good teacher, is able to understand it.” (4)
Writing in the code that he was famous for, Lao Tzu (later incarnated as the ascended master Dhjwal Khul) said that:
“In all the world but few can know
Accomplishment apart from work,
Instruction when no words are used.” (5)
To accomplish “apart from work” implies remaining in the stillness associated with samadhi, a state which I actually have experienced for perhaps an hour in my lifetime. It was not permanent for me but a fleeting experience. Only with sahaja samadhi or Ascension does it become permanent.
And God is prior to words; again only in samadhi is God known. So Lao Tzu is saying “but few” know God and exist in the state that results.
Sri Krishna;
Krishna who had said that only “one man, perhaps, in many thousands yearns for God goes on to say:
“Then tell me how many
Of those who seek freedom
Shall know the total
Truth of my being?
Perhaps one only.” (6)
And later in the same work, Krishna tells us that:
“Fools pass blindly by the place of my dwelling
Here in the human form, and of my majesty
They know nothing at all,
Who am the Lord, their soul.” (7)
What Krishna calls “fools,” which we would call ordinary folk, haven’t the slightest suspicion that God lives in the heart and fail to seek Him/Her/It there.
This desire to acquaint us with our real situation was probably the reason why Jesus said: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” (8) Many are given God’s calling cards (revelations, visions, etc.), but only a very few purify themselves so that they’re fit to realize the Father.
He went on to add that “strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (9) By “life” here he means not eternal life per se, which we all have regardless of our desires, but liberation from the need to be reborn into physical life, which we’ll attain upon Ascension.
Sri Ramakrishna
In the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus is quoted as saying “I shall choose you, one from a thousand, and two from ten thousand.” (10) So again: very few.
Richard Rolle, a medieval sage, tells us that “this mystery is hidden from the many, and is revealed to the few, and those the most special. So the more sublime such a level is, the fewer – in this world – are those who find it.” (11) Sahaja samadhi, the level associated with Ascension, would have been to Rolle a very high level.
His near contemporary, the blessed Henry Suso, agreed: “Not many succeed.” (12) Nisargatta put a number to it: only “one in a million understands all this play of consciousness [and] transcends it.” (13)
Sri Ramakrishna also attached a number to the success rate: “Out of a hundred thousand kites, at best but one or two break free; and Thou dost laugh and clap Thy hands, O Mother, watching them!” (14)
He describes why so very few among householders have succeeded historically:
“A few [householders] succeed in [spiritual life] through the grace of God and as a result of their spiritual practice. But most people fail. Entering the world, they become more and more involved in it; they drown in worldliness and suffer the agonies of death. A few only … have succeeded, through the power of their austerity. … Therefore spiritual practice is extremely necessary; otherwise one cannot live rightly in the world.” (15)
So we may simply accept statements like thousands ascended early or many ascended masters are appearing in our midst but these are not at all usual occurrences and are themselves proof of what’s happening today.
Footnotes
(1) Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 70. [Hereafter BG.]
(2) Swami Brahmananda in Swami Prabhavananda, The Eternal Companion. Brahmananda. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1970; c1944 , 127.
(3) Ibid., 194.
(4) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 17.
(5) Lao Tzu, The Way of Life. The Tao Te Ching. trans. R.B. Blakney. New York, etc.: Avon, 1975, 96.
(6) Sri Krishna in BG, 70.
(7) Ibid., 81.
(8) Jesus in Matthew 22:14.
(9) Matthew 7:14.
(10) Jesus in Meyer, Marvin W., The Secret Teachings of Jesus. New York; Random House, 1986, 24.
(11) Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love. Trans. Clifton Wolters. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981; c1972., 51.
(12) Blessed Henry Suso in Frank Tobin, trans. Henry Suso. The Exemplar, with Two German Sermons. New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1989, 130.
(13) Nisargadatta Maharaj, Consciousness and the Absolute, The Final Talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Edited by Jean Dunn. (Talks recorded, 1981). 1994, 70.
(14) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 818.
(15) Ibid.,
Steve Beckow
Freedom...
What Is It to Become Free?
When you wake up, when you become established in the knowledge of what you deeply are, you've become free of illusion, the primary one being that you are what your mind says you are. You are free of seeking, since you've found yourself to be (already) where you've always wanted to be.
Living as a free being, you no longer experience yourself as the center of the universe. The important thing about whatever life holds isn't how it affects you, what you think or feel about it. The important thing is the plain fact of it. You are free of whatever has been challenging or unresolved. Nor is there the familiar vivid impression of your being a particular individual, in any significant sense, or of being separate or fundamentally different from other people—or from anything at all. Because your sense of identity has changed, your feelings can no longer be hurt, nor can you take offense. You're no longer subject to others' opinions of you (favorable or unfavorable). When you become free of the illusion that you are your ego-mind, there's no longer someone to maintain, protect, or enhance.
Even when something happens that affects your life directly, you don't experience it as having an impact on your deep nature. If you learn you have terminal cancer (which clearly has everything to do with your physical well-being), you don't slip into the belief that a tumor-riddled body is what you are.
You've become free of fear. If you're confronted with some-thing that requires action, you're able to move forward with that. If there's nothing to be done, you simply relax into whatis—even if it's difficult. As regards possible future challenges, since they are not presently real, you do not fear them.
When you live in freedom, your inner state is no longer determined by the situation you're in. You experience a steady sense of the real—the sensation of beingness—that isn't subject to fluctuation.
Even as your identity is no longer determined by what happens in life, or by what your mind tells you is true, you're thoroughly attuned to what-is. There's no impulse to resist anything, nor is there any need to assess what something means, to assume a response is necessary. Whatever is simply is; that's your primary orientation to life. No longer at the mercy of judgment and reactivity, you've ceased to live as though your beliefs are reality The familiar felt need to have an opinion about anything is gone.
Because an awake person experiences the newness of each moment, unencumbered by whatever has come before, there's an almost childlike delight in living, a perennial freshness of encounter, with even familiar things and people and experiences. The capacity for fun, for spontaneity, for carefree engagement with whatever life delivers is boundless. Beliefs, memories, conditioning, and language do not put themselves between awareness and whatever it's attending, which means there's no intervening "filter" to color the experience of the moment. The encounter is direct, unmediated by anything in the mind. The names for things and categories they're ordinarily placed in
(including good and bad) do not automatically spring to awareness, nor do inner commentaries typically accompany experience. A thing is just itself. You've become free of expectation, so that when something out of the ordinary takes place, some-thing sudden or even unprecedented, you take it in stride. This is because you don't go around carrying a background expectation that things will be a certain way (including the way they've always, somewhat predictably, been before).
There's an ongoing sense that things just happen. Gone is the familiar impression of there being a you (or a someone else) that's doing something. In part, this is because your sense of where "you" leave off and the rest of the world begins doesn't feel significant. Moreover, you don't experience yourself as separate from the living moment. What you do and what you are, in a given now, are a unity. In the experience of both time (doing) and space (location), the accustomed boundaries are not a part of perception. Ease attends all you do; this is part of the sense that everything just happens. Things seem to unfold with-out strain. There's a freedom from effort, even as you're able to apply yourself with focus and perhaps great force, if the situation calls for it.
In freedom, you do not seek security, because you don't live in the future, and you don't experience yourself as being at risk. "You" are all-that-is, and it's understood that within all that is, things simply are as they are. You're blessedly free of any discomfort with not knowing, with not being able to control, predict, or understand a thing. You're at ease in the presence of instability.
When you are free, you no longer experience attachment—to the roles you play, to possessions, to ideas, to the outcome of action, to the people you love. You are free of ferocious desire, of the driving "need" to get (and keep) what you want. Even so, you have a rich capacity to savor, to experience pleasure. You can still love, still enjoy, still (yes) want—prefer one thing over another—but getting it or not getting it will feel very much
the same, since (as always) whatever is is always primary, oblierating in a subtle (but potent) gesture of "is-ness" anything that might have been.
Love in the awake state is unencumbered by attachment and the fear it engenders. In normal life, where the ego holds sway, love often is tied up with need, with desire and the longing for fulfillment. In awakeness, where there's no need for ego gratification, love is free to flow without fear of loss, without grasping or the wish to change the other person. Without need or fear in the picture, you're able to love unconditionally. You don't need to be loved; you don't need to be needed. But when love is in the picture, it's wide-open, generous, without constraint.
Liberation means you are free of identification with all that has defined you in the past: your beliefs, roles, history. Some of these things will still function, in a superficial or practical way, but you no longer take your sense of self from them.
You've become free of the tyranny of the mind. It no longer runs you; rather, it serves at your pleasure. Its default condition is quiet. If you need to think about something (usually something practical), your mind is able to function with remarkable clarity, creativity, and efficiency. When you're finished needing to think, you are able to stop, leaving the mind to rest. You've become free of mind-caused stress, of anxiety.
The underlying "feeling" state is stillness, alertness, a subtle orientation of tenderness. If you're in the presence of suffering, you may feel it, perhaps even keenly (You can also readily decline to "go there," if you choose, simply by directing your attention elsewhere, or by declining to put it anywhere at all.) If something difficult comes to your own life—the loss of some-one you love, or physical discomfort—you surrender fully to the pain. You're not afraid of feeling the fullness of whatever is real here and now. You've become free of the habit of resistance.
Being free means freedom from time. You're free of the belief that something important can happen in time. Of the sense that
the future has the potential to make things better, or that there's something to be feared in the possibility of change or loss. You're free of ambition, of the idea that you need time in order to finally experience fulfillment, and free too of the constant feeling that you don't have enough time. You are free of hope, and free of the burden of the past, of all it has delivered you: the weight of memory, of conditioning, of patterns, of unresolved anguish. New life—unfolding life, as it comes moment to moment—is not felt to cling to you anymore, to be carried over (as residue in the form of emotion or thought) into whatever is next. As each moment happens, it is felt quickly to be gone, supplanted by the compelling reality of this moment, and now again this one. New conditioning does not take place.
Living in the present means you don't particularly look forward to things (as before, when looking-forward-to was a way to endure the imperfect present). This is not because you believe nothing fun or rewarding is in the future. It's because the future doesn't feel real.
Nothing is real but now. And now is enough. It's abundant....
Jan Frazier ..
Oblivion...
A bird in a secluded grove sings like a flute.
Willows sway gracefully with their golden threads.
The mountain valley grows the quieter as the clouds return.
A breeze brings along the fragrance of the apricot flowers.
For a whole day I have sat here encompassed by peace,
Till my mind is cleansed in and out of all cares and idle thoughts.
I wish to tell you how I feel, but words fail me.
If you come to this grove, we can compare notes.
Ch'an master Fa-yen (The Golden Age of Zen 238, 321 n.31)
The illusion dissolves...
All illusions dissolve.
This is the nature of illusions..
This body that we travel within is an illusion of thought..
The dissolving of the body is called time..
Time only exists within the illusion..
As I shave this illusion of personality each morning,
I stare at an old man..
How did this happen ?..
My mind still exists as a thirty year old man,
yet the mirror declares , that it is not a liar..
Time declares, that it cannot be beaten by thought..
But, Thought shouts back that it will live,
long after Time dissolves..
namaste, thomas
' you '...
This "you" of you
that "you" are, is already and energetically flowing through the very eyes of this mindbody
that you find yourself being so intimately involved with and flowing through right now.
You are going to have to be able to find it and then stop at
and as it, until you are deeply at rest in and as it
for consecutive moments together.
This is what has you being this "you" of you that "you" are -
nothing less.
unknown author
Ram Tzu speaks...
Ram Tzu knows this . . .
It’s not your fault.
How could it be?
A shadow is not responsible
For its movements.
A knife cannot
Be tried for murder.
You have been filled
With your self.
You believe what
You are meant to believe.
You go where
You are supposed to go.
Ram Tzu does not offer advice . . .
Who would he offer it to?
- Ram Tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
Yoga...
The inferior yoga exercises are preoccupied with the "I."
The higher ones seek to forget it.
This is one of the differences between them but it is an important one.
For the spirit of the first is personal, that of the second impersonal.
The thought of the "I" is indeed an obstacle in the way of enlightenment.
— Notebooks Category 4: Elementary Meditation > Chapter 1: Preparatory > # 207
Paul Brunton
' Let It Be "...
We have heard these three words from troubadours for many years..
What 'It' is to 'Be' ?..
'It' is the state of Love..
'It' is Reality..
'It' still seems as a division from 'you'..
'It' is 'us' when we are no longer 'us'..
'We' are 'It'..
'Beingness' is the time of 'Now'..
There is only 'Now'..
All other time is an illusion of this dimension..
You can only be happy in the time of 'Now'..
memories and hopes will only cause anxiety..
Stay in the mind of Now..
Now is all We really are..
Now is the state of love when the ego is eliminated by rejecting time..
rejecting time is rejecting egoic consciousness..
you have no 'time' for egoic activity..
' Let It Be '...........
namaste, thomas
Love...
I have loved Thee with two loves –
a selfish love and a love that is worthy of Thee.
As for the love which is selfish,
Therein I occupy myself with Thee,
to the exclusion of all others.
But in the love which is worthy of Thee,
Thou dost raise the veil that I may see Thee.
Yet is the praise not mine in this or that,
But the praise is to Thee in both that and this.
- Rabia al Basri
Truth Is...
Truth is only discovered in the moment.
There is no truth that can be carried over
to the next moment, the next day, the next year.
Memory never contains truth, only what is past, dead, gone.
Truth comes into the non-seeking mind fresh and alive.
It is not something you can carry with you, accumulate, or hold onto.
Truth leaps into view when the mind is quiet, not asserting itself.
You cannot contain or domesticate truth, for if you do, it dies instantly.
Truth prowls the unknown waiting for a gap in the mind's activity.
When that gap is there, the truth leaps out of the unknown into the known.
Instantly you comprehend it and sense its sacredness.
The timeless has broken through like a flash of lightning
and illuminated the moment with its presence.
Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament.
Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself
and illumines the human heart from the inside out.
- Adyashanti
' I must utter what comes to my lips'...
I must utter what comes to my lips.
Speaking the truth creates chaos.
Telling a lie saves one scarce.
I am afraid of both these.
Afraid I am both here and there.
I must utter what comes to my lips.
He who has this secret known.
He must peep into his own
Lives He in the shrine of peace
Where there are no ups and downs
I must utter what comes to my lips.
It is indeed a slippery park.
I take precautions in the dark
Die inside and see for yourself
Why this wild search afar?
I must utter what comes to my lips.
It is a matter of good form
A norm to which we all conform
It’s God in every soul you see
If he is in me why not in you?
I must utter what comes to my lips.
(Says Bulleh) the master is not far from me
Without him there none could be
That explains the suffering and pain
But mine is not the eye to see
I must say what comes to my lips.
Arieb Azhar
the true person...
The true person is
Not anyone in particular;
But like the deep blue color
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone,
Everywhere in the world.
Dogen Zenji
Self-realization...
We loosely talk of Self-realization,
for lack of a
better term.
But how can one realize or make
real that which alone is real?
All we need to do
is to give up our habit of regarding as real that
which is unreal.
All religious practices are meant
solely to help us do this.
When we stop regarding
the unreal as real,
then reality alone will remain,
and we will be that.
- Ramana Maharshi
" The bottom line "..
We often think..
Give me the 'bottom line'!..
In business, there is trickery..
There are lies and traps..
Hidden agendas of greed..
Is this also within ourselves?..
Is the ego active ?..
Is that which is seen before us,
also us ?..
Which of our thoughts created this manifestation ?..
How do I change this dream ?..
The answer is 'Intent'..
What do you intend to occur ?..
What is the lesson ?..
Is 'Duality' present ?..
Is Karma being created for the believer in separation ?..
Contemplation calls you...
namaste, thomas
Love...
Love is the universal order,
we are the atoms;
love is the ocean,
we are the drops.
Love has offered us a hundred proofs;
we are looking for reasons.
Through love, the heavens are ordered;
without love, suns and moons are eclipsed,
Through love what was bent is made straight;
without love, what was straight becomes bent.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
Know Thyself...
In my view, the Creator designed and built us like a Babushka doll. Inside the physical body is another body, and then another, and then another. And by the same token, more essential than the I as ego (“ego” in Latin means “I”), is another deeper I, and then another, and then another.
I believe that it was intended that we reach God by knowing successively higher forms of our “I” or Self.
Certainly the masters of enlightenment agree. Sri Yukteswar Giri said that “the highest aim of religion is … Self-knowledge.” (1) We speak of enlightenment as Self-Realization, the attainment of the Supreme Self.
Moreover, the masters universally say that one cannot know God until one knows one’s self. Ibn Arabi for instance: “To know God is not an easy matter, until one becomes a knower of one’s self.” (2)
Or Al-Ghazzali: “Knowledge of self is the key to knowledge of God, according to the saying: ‘He who knows himself knows God.’” (3)
Or Krishnamurti: “Without first knowing yourself, how can you know that which is true? Illusion is inevitable without self-knowledge.” (4)
In fact our deepest, truest Self is God. How could it be otherwise? If all is God, how could we ourselves not also be God? St. Catherine of Genoa went so far as to say: “My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God Himself.” (5)
Sri Rajneesh tells us to “begin with yourself. Do not ask whether God exists; ask whether you exist.” (6)
As incredible as it may sound, even the Divine Mother (Prakriti) may disappear, but the Self does not disappear (at least not yet), as Sri Ramana Maharshi reminds us.
“It is the experience of everyone that even in the states of deep sleep, fainting, etc., when the entire universe, moving and stationary, beginning with earth and ending with the unmanifested (Prakriti), disappear, he does not disappear.
“Therefore the state of pure being which is common to all and which is always experienced directly by everybody is one’s true nature.” (7)
To know our true nature, our true Self, it turns out, is the purpose of life. When we know ourself truly and deeply we know God, because the Self and God are one. When we know ourself deeply, we solve the puzzle of life and fulfill the purpose of life – that God should meet God.
“To attain enlightenment,” the Buddha reminds us, “without seeing your nature is impossible.” (8) And, upon knowing the true Self or our true nature, all that we could wish for is attained, as Sri Ramana reminds us: “When one’s true nature is known, then there is Being without beginning and end; It is unbroken Awareness-Bliss.” (9)
I think that, when Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” (10) he was pointing not to Jesus but to the Self, the I, or the “I am.” Certainly no one comes to the Father, or the Supreme Self, except by first knowing the individuated Self at progressively deeper levels.
All of Jesus’s parables of the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price, the great fish, and the mustard seed are about how knowledge of the Self becomes knowledge of the All-Self. Here is one parable:
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” (11)
Put in other words, what Jesus is describing is how the aspirant sees a discrete light – the Self – in a moment of awareness called “spiritual awakening” by Hindus and “stream-entering” by Buddhists. This is what is meant by finding the treasure in the field, the field being the body. This occurs when the kundalini reaches the fourth chakra.
If the aspirant then meditates on that light, giving up all desires but to realize it fully (“selling all he hath”), then eventually that light becomes the light of the All-Self transcending all creation (the aspirant has “bought the field”). This occurs when the kundalini passes the seventh chakra and returns again to the spiritual heart or Hridayam. It is called sahaja samadhi. It is a permanent heart opening and brings all gifts.
Vedantic masters say that “you must realize absolutely that the Atman [the Self] is Brahman [the All-Self].”(12) Here is that moment described in the Upanishads: “I am that Self! I am life immortal! I overcome the world — I who am endowed with golden effulgence! Those who know me achieve Reality.” (13)
And here is Jan Ruusbroec referring to that same process in the Christian tradition:
“In this darkness an incomprehensible light is born and shines forth; this is the Son of God in whom a person becomes able to see and contemplate eternal life.” (14)
“It is Christ [the Son, the Self, the Atman], the light of truth, who says, ‘See,’ and it is through him that we are able to see, for he is the light of the Father [the All-Self, Brahman], without which there is no light in heaven or on earth.” (15)
And where is this Self to be found? Within, which is why Jesus would say: “The kingdom of Heaven is within you.” (16) The searchlight of awareness is to be gradually turned within, deeper and deeper and deeper.
These processes are what is being referred to when one says that one must know the Self first before he can know God. Meditation directed inward is an intensive spiritual practice. The path of self-awareness might be seen as what the meditator does when he or she rises up off their cushion and re-enters everyday life. It is an everyday practice of self-observation, responsibility, and acceptance.
So therefore it’s not narcissism or egocentricity to want to know the Self. It isn’t a trivial activity to observe the self and its ways. It isn’t frivolous. God has set up the round of life so that we can and must know our selves; doing so fulfills the purpose of life. There can be nothing more momentous, mystical, and miraculous than absolutely knowing one’s Self.
It is not service to self to know the Self. It is the most profound contribution to life because all of life is arranged, designed, set up to lead to this culmination of knowing the one Self, at which time God meets God, satisfying the commandment at the basis of all life.
So “Know Thyself” is the soundest of advice and the most sacred of duties. The path of self-awareness is specifically designed to allow us to know ourselves in this mystical and yet most practical way.
Footnotes
(1) Sri Yukteswar Giri, The Holy Science. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1984, 6.
(2) Muhyidden Ibn Arabi, Kernel of the Kernel. trans. Ismail Hakki Bursevi. Sherborne: Beshara, n.d., 3.
(3) Al-Ghazzali, The Alchemy of Happiness. trans. Claud Field. Lahore: ASHRAF, 1971; c1964 19.
(4) J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living. First Series. Bombay, etc.: B.I. Publications, 1972; c1974, 1, 20.
(5) St Catherine of Genoa in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy. New York, etc.: Harper and Row, 1970; c1944, 11.
(6) Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I am the Gate. The Meaning of Initiation and Discipleship. New York, etc.: Harper Colophon, 1977; c1975, 80.
(7) Sri Ramana Maharshi, Spiritual Instruction of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Eighth Edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1974, Chapter 4, Question 18.
(8) Bodhidharma in Pine, Red, trans., The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. Port Townsend, WA, Empty Bowl, 1987, 9.
(9) Ramana Maharshi in Anon., Who Am I? The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Sarasota, FL: Ramana Publications, 1990, 24-5.
(10) John 14:6.
(11) Matthew 13:44
(12) Shankara in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947, 69.
(13) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 59.
(14) John Ruusbroec in James A. Wiseman, John Ruusbroec. The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works. New York, etc.: Paulist Press, 1985, 22.
(15) John Ruusbroec in JR, 74.
(16) John 8: 32
Steve Beckow
a spiritual person...
The wearing of a halo would not make him any happier;
he is not interested in being marked out as a "spiritual" person;
spirituality is not a separate special feature for him but something that ought to be the natural state of a human being.
Consequently he finds the thought of being singled out for this quality, or becoming conspicuous for it,
uninteresting to him.
— Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 3: The Sage > # 151
... Paul Brunton
nameless and formless...
Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person's affairs.
The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.
Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.
- Layman P'ang
Desire...
There is nothing to gain.
Abandon all imaginings and know yourself as you are.
Self-knowledge is detachment.
All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency.
When you know that you lack nothing, that all there is, is you and yours, desire
ceases.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Madness...
The world is full of mad people.
What is this madness?
Pursuing the trivial and transient
whilst
Overlooking the
Jewel of non-dual Bliss.
- Mooji
Fear...
My old friend fear,
you, who have kept my body alive and my mind in pain..
we have walked together for many lifetimes,
but, now we must part company..
Love will not allow fear to enter the party..
fear brings the gifts of division and mistrust..
Love only accepts gifts of Love..
goodbye old friend,
your gifts are not needed anymore...
namaste, thomas
Dissolving in God...
"As your mind dissolves in God",,
says Lalla from the fourteenth century..
To dissolve in God is to dissolve the egoic consciousness..
"you cannot serve two masters", as a young Rabbi once said..
you must choose egoic or spiritual consciousness..
the ego is of the illusion and dream..
how long will you keep dreaming ?..
Reality is already here..
rip the veil from your eyes..
dissolve into Love...
namaste, thomas
Come...
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving, it doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.
Rumi
Inscribed on Rumi's shrine in Konya, Turkey.
Destiny...
Steady faith is stronger than destiny.
Destiny
is the result of causes,
mostly accidental,
and
is therefore loosely woven.
Confidence and good
hope will overcome it easily.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Cold Mountain...
Spring water in the green creek is clear
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white
Silent knowledge -
the spirit is enlightened of itself
Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.
- Hanshan
The ultimate attainment...
The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.
From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
- Layman P'ang
Insanity...
WE MIGHT HAVE TO MEDICATE YOU;
Resist your temptation to lie
By speaking of separation from God.
Otherwise,
We might have to medicate
You.
In the ocean
A lot goes on beneath your eyes.
Listen,
They have clinics there too
For the insane
Who persist in saying things like
I am independent from the
Sea,
God is not always around
Gently
Pressing against
My body.
- Hafiz
Hinduism...
Hindu scriptures and Religious Texts:
Hinduism does not have a singular authoritative text the way that Islam has the Koran or that Christianity has the New Testament. While there are four major ancient texts that were revealed by the God Brahma, known as the Vedas, the text in those books is quite distant from modern Hinduism. Later religious texts have provided much of the philosphical basis for modern Hinduism.
The Vedas:
Meaning “knowledge” or “wisdom,” the Vedas tell stories of ancient gods and goddesses that most Hindus would not recognize today, and they prescribe methods of sacrifice which are performed only by a very small group of people, and even then maybe only on special occasions. They only just barely touch upon the concept of a soul and the possibility of an afterlife.
While the Vedas are still considered the ultimate authority, the texts that were composed thousands of years later, such as the Puranas and the Upanishads have a more direct relationship with the religious beliefs of modern Hindus. The Vedas overwhelmingly concern the importance of sacrifice and religious rituals, as well as sing the praises of the Gods. They deal less with man’s role in the world.
The Brahmanas:
The Brahmanas are a development upon the Vedas, as they contain commentaries and explanations on the rituals found in the Rig Veda. But the Brahmanas also delve into many topics not covered in the Vedas, and are some of the first writing on Gnostic Hinduism. They also lay the ground work for renunciation (abandoning the material world), which is then developed further in the Upanishads. The Brahmanas are written in prose.
The Upanishads:
The word Upanishad means “sit down near,” which possibly denotes the oral tradition of religious stories being told to a close circle of followers, or an individual learning at the feet of the master. Also referred to as Vedanta, meaning, The End of The Vedas, as they are thought to give a philosophical interpretation to the Vedas. The main focus of the Upanishads is to help explain the relationship between soul (atman) and God (Brahman), through parables. The Upanishads seem to have opened the door for more religious literacy and greater diversity of religious thought. Most of the Upanishads were composed around the time that Buddhism began to flourish in India, and one can see they influenced one another.
The Bhaghavad Gita:
The Song Of God is a section of the epic Mahabharata, probably composed at a different time and inserted later, that has become one of the most influential works in Hinduism. It tells the story of how Lord Krishna was the chariot driver for the mighty warrior Arjuna, who, before entering battle, began to feel remorse for the enemies he would slay the following day. Lord Krishna seizes upon this opportunity to teach Arjuna about the nature of the indestructible soul (atman) and its relationship to the Universal Soul (Brahman). Krishna also elaborates on the role of devotion, known as Bhakti, to a deity.
The Puranas:
Composed much later than the Upanishads, the Puranas are written in verse and provide a “historical” story of the Gods and Goddesses, as well as telling the characteristics of those deities, and spell out the pilgrimages for devotees. The Puranas cover a wide variety of topics, including some science and secular topics, along with the history of mankind and royal dynasties.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)