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#2056 - Monday, February 14, 2005 - Editor: Gloria
Paramahamsa Upanishad
Narada enquired of the Lord of Love:
"What is the state of the illumined man? "
The Lord replied :"Hard to reach is the state
Of the illumined man. Only a few
Attain it. But even one is enough.
For he is the pure Self of the scriptures;
He is truly great because he serves me,
And I reveal myself through him always."
He has renounced all selfish attachments
And observes no rites and ceremonies.
He has only minimum possessions,
And lives his life for the welfare of all.
He has no staff nor tuft nor sacred thread.
He faces heat and cold , pleasure and pain,
Honor and dishonor with equal calm.
He is not affected by calumny,
Pride, jealousy, status, joy, or sorrow ,
Greed, anger, or infatuation,
Excitement, egoism, or other goads;
For he knows he is neither body nor mind.
Free from the sway of doubt and false knowledge
He lives united with the Lord of Love,
Who is ever serene, immutable,
Indivisible, the source of all joy
And wisdom. The Lord is his true home,
His pilgim's tuft of hair , his sacred thread;
For he has entered the unitive state.
Having renounced every selfish desire,
He has found his rest in the Lord of Love.
Wisdom is the staff that supports him now.
Those who take a mendicant's staff while they
Are still at the mercy of their senses
Cannot escape enormous suffering.
The illumined man knows this truth of life.
For him the universe is his garment
And the Lord not separate from himself.
He offers no ancestral oblations;
He praises nobody, blames nobody,
Is never dependent on anyone.
He has no need to repeat the mantram,
No more need to practice meditation.
The world of change and changeless Reality
Are one to him, for he sees all in God.
The aspirant who is seeking the Lord
Must free himself from selfish attachments
To people, money, and possessions.
When his mind sheds every selfish desire,
He becomes free from the duality
Of pleasure and pain and rules his senses.
No more is he capable of ill will;
No more is he subject to elation,
For his senses come to rest in the Self.
Entering into the unitive state,
He attains the goal of evolution.
Truly he attains the goal of evolution.
OM
Shanti Shanti Shanti
tr: Eknath Easwaran
posted to MillionPaths by Viorica
Weissman
Instead of making others
right or wrong, or bottling
up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way,
a very powerful middle way. We could see it as sitting
on the razor's edge, not falling off to the right or the left.
This middle way involves not hanging on to our version
so tightly. It involves keeping our hearts and minds
open long enough to entertain the idea that when we
make things wrong, we do it out of a desire to obtain
some kind of ground or security. Equally, when we make
things right, we are still trying to obtain some kind
of
ground or security. Could our minds and our hearts be
big enough just to hang out in that space where we're
not entirely certain about who's right and who's wrong?
Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room
with another person, not know what to say, not make
that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear,
feel
other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice
this way, because we'll find ourselves continually rushing
around to try to feel secure again -- to make ourselves
or them either right or wrong. But true communication
can happen only in that open space.
'When Things Fall Apart -
Heart Advice for Difficult Times'
by Pema Chodron
posted to Allspirit
Inspiration by Gill Eardley
"Meditation is like making a friend who gives us good
advice about
how to live our life, how to handle our mind, how to see
ourselves as
intrinsically awake. It has already begun to untangle our
bewilderment. We've seen the power of meditation to restore
our
sanity, to restore our well-being. Aspiration is a deep
desire to go
further."
~~Sakyong Mipham
From the book: "Turning The Mind Into An Ally,"
published by
Riverhead Books
posted to Daily Dharma by W. Kelly
"We all came into this world gifted with
innocence, but gradually, as we became more intelligent, we lost
our innocence. We were born with silence and as we grew up, we
lost the silence and were filled with words.
We lived in our hearts and as time passed, we moved into our
heads. Now the reversal of this journey is enlightenment. It is
the journey from the head back to the heart, from words back to
silence; getting back to our innocence in spite of our
intelligence. Although very simple, this is a great
achievement."
~Eckhart Tolle
From the book, "The Power Of Now," published by New
World Library.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1577311523/angelinc
Blessings to all. May peace and peace
and peace be everywhere. posted
to Daily Dharma by DharmaG
Not thinking about
anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting,
or lying down, everything you do is zen. To know that the mind is
empty is to see the Buddha...Using the mind to look for reality
is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness.
Freeing oneself from words is liberation.
-Bodhidharma
I want to say nonduality is like a coin, because there are two
sides
to it. But I also want to speak of a taste to nonduality.
Nonduality
has the taste of "being". Instead of a coin, let's say
nonduality is
like a wafer that has the taste of being.
One side is about doing, practicing, attending, and transforming.
It
is about experiences. Nisargadatta Maharaj speaks of it:
"Hold onto
the sense of 'I am' to the exclusion of everything else. When
thus the
mind becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and
vibrates with new knowledge. It all comes spontaneously, you need
only hold on to the 'I am'."
The other side is the Absolute: Wei Wu Wei says: "The
'Truth' is the
absolute absence of any kind of truth." The Avadhuta Gita is
inscribed
on this side of the wafer: "Verily, there is no offshoot,
essence, or
absence of essence. Neither is there the movable nor the
immovable,
sameness, nor variety. The Self is devoid of reason and unreason.
Why
dost thou, who art the identity in all, grieve in thy
heart?"
Compare these two sides of the wafer. One side of nonduality is
about
action and experiences one could have, and the other is about a
quality of nothingness and no experience. Therefore, there is
duality
to nonduality.
posted to nondualnow by Jerry Katz