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Nondual Highlights #2203 - Friday, July 16, 2005 - Editor: Gloria Lee
All posts are from MillionPaths http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MillionPaths/
Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better
than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of
attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.
-Bhagavad Gita 12:12
Excerpted from The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran,
copyright 1985
Whichever path one follows, the thing is to follow it,
not to argue about it. A Christian priest once told
Bhagavan that he considered the goal of mystic union
envisaged by Christians to be different from the Hindu
goal of Moksha* and superior to it, and Bhagavan replied,
"All right, attain that first and then see whether you
still find any difference or anything to criticize".
That was always his reply - to turn the critic from
theory to practice. Argument did not interest him,
only understanding and sincere effort.
* moksha - liberation
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
For Those with Little Dust
Selected Writings of Arthur Osborne
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Way
Author Unknown
Discovered in 1739
(excerpt)
Do people who study the Way actually gain these benefits and pleasures? If they do, then why do people of the world all get irritated when they see people who study the Way, considering them eccentrics or phonies? The Tao Te Ching says, "When superior people hear of the Way, they travel it diligently. When mediocre people hear of the way, they seem aware, yet are as if oblivious. When lesser people hear of the Way, they laugh at it out loud. What they don't laugh at couldn't be the Way."
Principle
The Way is one and only one. On the celestial level it is
called destiny; on the human level it is called essential nature.
On the phenomenal level it is called principle.
This principle circulates throughout the world, appearing in daily activities. Every event and every thing has a natural principle, which cannot be dispensed with. Thus there is a principle whereby things are as they are; it cannot be altered, only followed.
Superior people observe things in terms of principle- right or wrong, good or bad, they deal with them accordingly. This is called selflessness. Selflessness results in objectivity; objectivity results in clarity. Clarity results in dealing with events accurately and comprehending the nature of things.
If you view things through your ego, then love and hatred arise uncontrollably, and you cannot avoid indulging feelings. When you indulge feelings, then you are being subjective. When you are subjective, you are ignorant. When you are ignorant, you are mixed up and confused; you are only aware of yourself, not of principle.
_________
Product of the Ming Dynasty, author unknown, 1739
— Excerpted from "Taoist Meditation - Methods for Cultivating a Healthy Mind and Body" Trans by Thomas Cleary
to read entire article: http://www.dailyzen.com/zen/zen_reading0507.asp
NO MIND - I AM THE SELF is back in print!
http://davidgodman.org/books/nomind.shtml
The subtitle, 'The Lives and Teachings of Lakshmana Swamy and Mathru Sri Sarada' explains the subject matter. Lakshmana Swamy realised the Self in Ramana Maharshi's presence in 1949. Mathru Sri Sarada realised the Self in Lakshmana Swamy's presence in 1978. The book contains fascinating details from both their lives, along with teaching instructions that were given out to devotees in the early 1980s.
New on David Godman's site
Bhagavan, Manikkavachagar and theTiruvachakam
Manikkavachagar was a distinguished Tamil poet-saint who lived around the ninth century AD. His most famous work, the Tiruvachakam, is one of the most loved and most widely read works in Tamil literature. In a series of long poems Manikkavachagar sings of his ecstatic love for Siva and describes the various emotional traumas he went through while pursuing this passionate obsession with the divine.
The Tiruvachakam was one of Ramana Maharshi’s
favourite devotional works. In this article we have retold
Manikkavachagar’s life, mostly through Bhagavan’s own
words, and we have made new translations of all the Tiruvachakam
poems that Bhagavan loved or frequently referred to.
http://davidgodman.org/rteach/tiruvachakam.shtml
Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam
Preface
In the early 1980s some devotees of Sri Bhagavan asked Sri Sadhu Om to explain the import of Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam (‘The Five Gems to Sri Arunachala’, one of the Five Hymns composed by Sri Bhagavan), and they recorded on a cassette tape the spontaneous explanations that he gave them in Tamil. Later, at the request of Michael James, Sri Sadhu Om explained those recorded explanations in English. As he was doing so, Michael questioned him further, and noted down all that he explained. After completing a rough draft of his notes, Michael asked Sri Sadhu Om to check them, and this lead to further discussions and more detailed explanations. Finally, after Sri Sadhu Om had approved the rough draft with all his explanations added, Michael wrote a fair copy.
This fair copy remained as a handwritten manuscript for nearly twenty years, until Sri M. Sahadevan arranged to have it copied. It was then published, without the word-for-word meanings of the Sanskrit and Tamil verses, in five installments in The Mountain Path between the Advent 2003 and the Advent 2004 issues.
The present version, which contains the full commentary along with the word-for-word meanings of the Sanskrit and Tamil verses, was first published on this website in January 2005, and is now being republished with several corrections and alterations.
June 2005
