Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#1460 Friday, June 13, 2003 ~ Editor: Gloria Lee
"Nevermind" photo by Al Larus
To see is to
forget the name of the thing one sees.
~ Paul Valery ~ from Morning Zen
___________________________________________
Jan Sultan (reposted on SufiMystic)
Krishnamurti's secret
....from the writings of Dr Jim Dreaver, Author of The
Ultimate
Cure: the Healing Energy Within You:
It was at a Krishnamurti talk under the oaks in Ojai some
twenty years ago that he revealed the "secret" of
living
to the several thousand of us who were there listening to
him. He even used the word "secret," and that he spoke
of
it at all was unusual, because he rarely talked about
himself.
Partway through the dialogue, he suddenly paused, leaned
forward and said, almost conspiratorially. "So you want
to know what my secret is?"
We all sat up, even more alert than we had been, if that
was possible. Almost as though we were one body. We
leaned forward, our mouths and ears opened in hushed
anticipation. Did we want to know his secret? Heck, yes!
That's why we were all there, wasn't it? That's why we
came to Ojai every spring: to listen to K. in the hope
that we would "get it," that we could figure out what
his
secret was.
He paused. And then he said in a soft, almost shy voice,
"You see, I don't mind what happens."
I don't mind what happens. The great man's words
reverberated silently in my mind. They shook me to the
core.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Zen Oleary ~ SufiMystic
Secrets
Secrets lurk in the brush,
vanish behind tropical leaves,
sweep away their footprints,
and hide like prey
in open spaces and light,
Secrets flower in
the soft earth of childhood,
born from mind whispers,
those feelings that
we're somehow different,
or not good enough,
that there's a darkness
born in us, only in us,
that we're changelings,
and the secrets tell us,
in that bottom well of mind
where feelings tumble
like stones being polished,
that if we betray them, if we tell,
awful things will come in the night,
unspeakable events will happen,
so we hide our secrets in mind boxes,
step carefully around them,
build barricades to protect them,
step out into the world
with a cracked smile to greet the day,
and play at being who we think we are,
we can't know, of course,
as we stumble our way through
dim inner trails pierced with
shafts of brilliant sun
and rumbles of thunder,
can't know that we're not cursed,
not alone, not different,
some of us stumble briefly,
others for years,
until love bursts in,
shatters the barricades,
slays the dragon of our own making,
until I becomes we,
and our eyes meet and dance
in these wildflower fields,
now sunlit and free.
) Zen Oleary
June 12, 2003
photo by Al Larus
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ J
Joe Riley ~ Panhala
WISE MEN KEEP TALKING ABOUT
Time is the shop
Where everyone works hard
To build enough love
To break the
Shackle.
Wise men keep talking about
Wanting to meet Her.
Women sometimes pronounce the
word God
A little differently:
They can use more feeling and skill
With the heart-lute.
All the world's movements,
Apparent chaos, and suffering I now know happen
In the Splendid Unison:
Our tambourines are striking
The same thigh.
Hafiz stands
At a juncture in this poem.
There are a thousand new wheels I could craft
On a wagon
And place you in -
Lead you to a glimpse of the culture
And seasons in another dimension.
Yet again God
Will have to drop you back at the shop
Where you still have work
With
Love.
("The Gift" -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
Web version
Web archive of Panhala
postings
To subscribe to Panhala,
send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Dark Clouds" photo by Al Larus
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Practicing Spirituality in
Nature
Day 4
June 12, 2003
LISTEN CAREFULLY
A woman once described a friend of hers as being such a keen
listener
that even the trees leaned toward her, as if they were speaking
their
innermost secrets into her listening ears. Over the years I've
envisioned that woman's silence, a hearing full and open enough
that the
world told her its stories. The green leaves turned toward her,
whispering tales of soft breezes and the murmurs of leaf against
leaf.
When I was a girl, I listened to the sounds of the corn plants. A
breeze
would begin in a remote corner of the field and move slowly
toward the
closest edge, whispering. . . .
At night, in the cornfields, when there is no more mask of
daylight, you
hear the plants talking among themselves. The wind passes
through. It's
all there, the languages, the voices in the wind, dove, corn,
stones.
The language of life won't be silenced. . . .
Do you remember the friend that the leaves talked to? We need to
be that
friend. Listen. The ears of the corn are singing. They are
telling their
stories and singing their songs. We knew that would be true.
-- Linda Hogan in “Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the
Living World”
To Practice This Today: Choose a spot in nature where you will
not be
disturbed. Then tune in to the sounds around you. What voices are
whispering in the wind? Be the kind of listener the trees and
plants
would lean toward.
Read a review of “Dwellings”:
http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/bookreview/item_5971.html
* * * * * * *
If you have missed any of these emails, you can find them here:
Days 1 - 10:
http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/blank/item_5950.html
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Allison ~ SufiMystic
''In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.' -- Albert Clarke
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Viorica Weissman MillionPaths
Ramana Maharshi:
It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize it? The real is as it is, ever. How to realize it? All that is required is this. We have realized the unreal i.e., regarded as real what is unreal. We have to give up this attitude. That is all that is required for us to attain jnana. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before.
The illustration given in the books is this. We dig a well and create a huge pit. The akasa (space) in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the akasa there. The akasa was there, then, and is also there now. Similarly, we have simply to throw out all the age long samskaras (innate tendencies) which are inside us. When all of them have been given up the Self will shine alone. Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real state. If we can attain it or be in it, it is all right. But one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate meditation. All the age long vasanas (impressions) carry the mind outwards and turn it to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inward. For that effort is necessary, for most people. Of course, everybody, every book says 'Be quiet or still'. But it is not easy. That is why all this effort is necessary. Even if you find one who has at once achieved the mouna (silence) or supreme state indicated, you may take it that the effort necessary has already been completed in a previous life. Such effortless and choiceless awareness is reached only after deliberate meditation.
You may go on reading any number of books on Vedanta. They can only tell you 'Realize the Self'. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find if for yourself.
The whole of Vedanta is contained in the two Biblical statements 'I am that I am' and 'Be still and know that I am God'.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Kheyala ~ NDS V
Vicki,
I remember pressing a pillow against my father's middle when he
coughed because his cancer-ridden body couldn't heal the large
incision the surgery made and we feared his guts were going to
come
tumbling out.
Even in spite of the vivid and somewhat gruesome memories like
that
one, which are inevitable when one has the occasion and the
privilege to be intimately present with a beloved one as their
body
is approaching the doorway of death, I still look back on that
time
as being acutely sacred and holy, where the immeasurable Silence
was
palpable and I am grateful to this day for having been a witness
to
the unfolding. That experience changed my perspective on
death and
dying forever.
I am certain you will feel the same way, Vicki, and even more so,
because you are SO far more aware than I was when I helped care
for
my dying father.
If you look for the Holiness there, even in the midst of the
grit,
*even in the midst of the grit*, you will surely find It.
I am totally with you both.
Love,
K
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Light on Water" photo by Al larus
Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit
A Question Of Balance
The Moody Blues
The Balance
After he had journeyed,
And his feet were sore,
And he was tired,
He came upon an orange grove
And he rested.
And he lay in the cool,
And while he rested, he took unto himself an orange and tasted
it,
And it was good.
And he felt the earth to his spine,
And he asked, and he saw the tree above him, and the stars,
And the veins in the leaf
And the light, and the balance,
And he saw magnificent perfection,
Whereon he thought of himself in balance,
And he knew he was.
Just open your eyes,
And realise, the way it's always been.
Just open your mind
And you will find
The way it's always been.
Just open your heart,
And that's a start.
And he thought of those he angered,
For he was not a violent man,
And he thought of those he hurt,
For he was not a cruel man
And he thought of those he frightened
For he was not an evil man,
And he understood.
He understood himself.
Upon this he saw that when he was of anger or knew hurt or felt
fear,
It was because he was not understanding,
And he learned compassion.
And with his eye of compassion
He saw his enemies like unto himself,
And he learned love.
Then, he was answered.
Just open your eyes,
And realise, the way it's always been.
Just open your mind
And you will find
The way it's always been.
Just open your heart,
And that's a start.