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#1912 - Sunday, September 5, 2004 - Editor: Gloria Lee
In Meditations with Meister Eckhart, by Matthew Fox, Bear & Company,
Meister
Eckhart (1260 - 1329) says that:
"God is not found in the soul by adding anything,
but by a process of subtraction."
"How should you love God?
I will tell you.
Love God as God is -
This means: love God as God is
A not-God,
A not-mind,
A not-person,
A not-image.
More than this, Love God as God is
A pure, clear One
Who is separate from all twoness."
~
Desire is
wide, immeasurably so. But nothing that knowledge
can grasp or desire can want, is God. Where knowledge and
desire end, there is darkness, and there God
shines.
Be silent therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by
chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish
to
be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also
you
should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is
beyond
all understanding. A master says: If I had a God that I could
understand, I would not regard him as God. If you understand
anything
about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something
of
him, you fall into ignorance...
Silence
"There is a silence
within; a silence that descends from without; a silence that
stills existence; and a silence that engulfs the entire universe.
There is a silence of the self and its faculties of will,
thought, memory, emotions. There is a silence in which there is
nothing, a silence in which there is something; and finally,
there is the silence of no-self and the silence of God. -
Bernadette Roberts"
from Silence by Bob Fergeson
September 2004 The TAT Forum
www.tatfoundation.org/forum.htm
posted by Josie Kane
on HarshaSatsangh - RamanaGuru
Realization
Sri Ramana used to say
that either one has to inquire
steadfastly about the arising of the aham vritti (the
"I" thought--the feeling awareness of I AM) or
surrender entirely to the Guru that is one's own Self,
the very Heart of one's existence. In either approach,
the pure ego, the sense of identity, the "I" ness
merges in the Heart and the Self.
Bhagavan often made the point that although the
spiritual effort is critical, one cannot go beyond a
certain point with effort alone, and that Grace is
needed. When asked, how could one obtain Grace, Sri
Ramana would say that Grace is ever-existent and
always there. One only needed to be aware of It. That
is why Ramana Maharshi often brought attention to the
nature of awareness and it's source, the Heart. This
can be grasped at many different levels depending on
the spiritual maturity of the aspirant. The fact that
Self is Always Realized and that the Grace is always
there can be meditated upon.
So one makes the sincere effort, and then Grace takes
over, some Power, the Power of the Self---that takes
the mind and merges it in the Heart.
The Heart is the magnet. The words of the Guru are
Grace because they make the student alert and aware.
When meditation is ripe, and all the effort that is
possible has been made, through Grace, mind and Shakti
are drawn to the Heart, and the Heart swallows up
everything. That is the Supreme Silence beyond time
and space.
Sri Ramana used to say that there is no seeing it.
There is only being It!
Love to all
Harsha
on HarshaSatsangh - RamanaGuru
A poem for Labor Day from AlphaWorld
"A Worker Reads
History"
Bertolt Brecht, 1947
Who built the seven
gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the
legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?
Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?
So many particulars.
So many questions.
Al Larus (top photo) http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/September_sky.htm
A Green History addresses the influence of the environment on human history over the past 10,000 years, starting with the expansion of hunting and gathering groups, and the transition to settled agriculture. Ponting describes how exhaustion of the resources to which they had access doomed many human societies.
Ponting begins with the history of human settlement on Easter Island. This history serves as a cautionary example of the inability of a human society to stop destroying its natural resources even when it is obvious that continued resource destruction will doom future generations to life on a barren island with no possibility of escape. Our global society is now embarked on an incomparably massive resource extraction. Will we transcend the barriers that previous societies did not? Ponting does not propose solutions. He provides a wealth of illuminating and extremely sobering historical detail.
"The Easter Islanders, aware that they were almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, must surely have realised that their very existence depended on the limited resources of a small island. After all it was small enough for them to walk round the entire island in a day or so and see for themselves what was happening to the forests. Yet they were unable to devise a system that allowed them to find the right balance with their environment. Instead vital resources were steadily consumed until finally none were left. Indeed, at the very time when the limitations of the island must have become starkly apparent, the competition between the clans for the available timber seems to have intensified as more and more statues were carved and moved across the island in an attempt to secure prestige and status. The fact that so many were left unfinished or stranded near the quarry suggests that no account was taken of how few trees were left on the island."