In my heart I am one.
What is creation,
Or dissolution?
What is seeking,
And the end of seeking?
Who is the seeker?
What has he found?
-Ashtavakra Gita 20:7
Gill Eardley - Allspirit Inspiration
When all the false
self-identifications are thrown away,
what remains is all-embracing love.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Morning
Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.
Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.
The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.
The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind
gesture.
Then laps the bowl clean.
Then wants to go out into the world
where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the
lawn,
then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.
I watch her a little while, thinking:
what more could I do with wild words?
I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.
I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.
Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems. © Beacon Press
photo of Jazz, by Gloria Lee
Along the Way
Whoever works for God, his work
will be
done by itself.
- Neem Karoli Baba
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
When a man is busy
in earnest,
he is unconscious
of his pain.
I mention this
insensibility to pain
so you may know
how much the body
resembles a
garment.
Go, seek the one
who wears it;
don't kiss a piece
of cloth.
- Rumi
It is better to see God in everything than to try and figure
it out.
-Neem Karoli Baba
from "The Wisdom of the
Hindu Gurus,"
Warwick Wakefield - HarshaSatsangh
This afternoon I went to a little cafe-bookshop near the beach. It was just on sunset and all the white-painted buildings were glowing in the soft golden light. I'll post a picture some time.
I bought a card, (this one) and sat down to drink my coffee. Nearby there was a woman feeding two babies who were sitting in a kind of double-barrelled stroller. Their shoes had come off and they were playing with their toes, the way babies do.
I walked over to their table and asked the mum if I could say hullo to them. She was very happy so I looked at the closest, and made a kind of gurgling sound and the baby engaged with me totally. She smiled, then looked away, and then looked back again, and kept on looking back and smiling and waving her arms.
The babies were twins, not identical twins, but both girls, and they were seven months old. Their mother was a sweet young woman, so in love with her baby daughters and so happy that I had seen with my heart what beautiful souls they are. And she was delighted that her daughter was relaxed and confident and happy, not at all shy, and showering me with smiles. She, the young mother, kept making little surprised sounds,"Oh!" and "Look!", and we kept exchanging glances and smiles and happiness. Oh the happiness! It was a circle of happiness as golden as the evening sun. I kept thinking, "This is simply Grace; nothing one could do would bring such happiness as an entitlement; this is the overflowing generosity of the Divine."
Much love
Warwick
Yarden - Million Paths
Ken Wilber - Ramana, The Sage of the Century
I am often
asked,"If you were stranded on a desert island and had
only one book, what would it be?" The book you are
now holding in
your hands -Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi- is one of the two
or three
I always mention. And the TALKS tops the list in this regard:
they
are the living voice of the greatest sage of this century
and, arguably, the greatest spiritual realization of this or
any time.
One of the many astonishing things about these TALKS is how
remarkably unwavering is the tone and style, the voice itself
- not in
the sense that it is fixed and rigid, but rather that it
speaks with
a full-blown maturity from the first word to the last. It is
as if -
no, it is certainly the case that - Ramana's realization came
to him
fully formed - or perhaps we should say, fully formless - and
therefore
it needed no further growth. He simply speaks from and as the
absolute, the Self, the purest Emptiness that is the goal and
ground
of the entire manifest world, and is not other to that world.
Ramana,
echoing Shankara, used to say:
The world is illusory;
Brahaman alone is real;
Brahaman is the world.
This profound realization is what separates Ramana's genuine
enlightenment from today's many pretenders to the throne -
deep
ecology, ecofeminism, Gaia revivals, Goddess worship,
ecopsychology,
systems theory, web-of-life notions - none of which have
grasped
the first two lines, and therefore, contrary to their sweet
pronouncements, do not really understand the third. And it
is exactly for all of those who are thus in love merely with
the
manifest world - from capitalists to socialists, from green
polluters
to green peacers, from egocentrics to ecocentrists - that
Ramana's
message needs so desperately to be heard.
from: The Sage of the Century, in - ONE TASTE by Ken Wilber
We first
have to find the way of freedom from involvement before
we
can introduce freedom in involvement.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
BUZZ
While working in the garden
I hear a buzz
like a giant angry bee buzzing my ear
I look quickly but don't see a thing
Then I see Sheila is looking too
We both look in every direction
It's so loud it must be close
Until we both look up & see
A large crow with something
red in its beak
followed by two brewer's blackbirds
It's the blackbirds that are making the buzz
The red thing is a baby chick
The crow has raided their nest
They disappear over our neighbor's shed
to the south
but later I hear the buzz again
& see the crow landing in a tree to the east
The blackbirds are harassing it still
like two angry shadows
The red chick is gone now
The crow would like to get on with its life
but the blackbirds won't let go
The crow takes refuge in our apple tree
It looks like it's panting
The blackbirds are silent but still pursuing
When the crow has rested it takes off
& one of the blackbirds hits it hard
knocking it nearly out of the sky
Almost hitting a cat that is hunting back there
Almost as if the shot were planned
The crow recovers before it hits the ground
& flies west with its furious shadows in tow
The cat has stopped prowling
It flinches & ducks
& follows the birds with its eyes
You never know what might
fall out of the sky
In my life I've played each of these roles
I've been the bloody chick
the marauding crow
the buzzing parents
even the astounded cat
To those I hurt I apologize
I didn't realize
To those who ate me
I hope I tasted good
Steve Toth
Relaxation
Is total peace.
When you relax completely, there is total silence. No thought enters the mind, no problems arise from the body, no memories grip the spirit. This overwhelming sense of tranquility is really all meditation is about. The neutral stillness of the mind renews the tired soul, and this is regeneration.
Even if you don't follow a formal meditation program, it is good to sit quietly for a little while every day. This form of rest should be as regular as sleeping each day. If you can sit still and just relax completely, you are actually meditating. All the various forms of complicated techniques and visualizations exist because people can't bring themselves to this very simple state of relaxation. Their minds are constantly racing, their bodies are out of balance, and the worries of the day weigh heavily upon them. They cannot let go, so they need a formal routine to follow. But if you can simply sit down and empty yourself, you will experience a wonderful silence and a deep, satisfying sense of peace.
One should try to
return to a relaxed state on a regular and periodic
basis. The simple reason for relaxation is that it
renews us, purifies us, and leaves us with a profound feeling
of serenity. It is not a ritual. It is not a
religious obligation. It is a wonderful state away from
problems. In it, we are poised in our natural state.
http://www.duckdaotsu.org/5/relaxation.html
365 Tao
Deng Ming-Dao
Daily Meditations
Water
Songs
Nan Rae
http://www.nanrae.com