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Nondual Highlights
Issue #2220, Wednesday, August 3,
2005
The
Master must have known
that his words were frequently
beyond his disciples' comprehension.
He spoke them nonetheless
in the knowledge that a day would surely come
when they would take root and blossom
in the hearts that heard him
One day he said:
"Time always seems so long when you wait -
for a vacation, an examination,
for something yearned for
or dreaded in the future.
"But to those who dare to surrender to the
experience of the present moment -
with no thought about the experience,
no desire that it return or be avoided -
time is transformed
into the radiance of Eternity."
- Anthony de Mello, S.J., posted to The_Now2
To let go in the deepest recesses of the heart, to release all
struggle and wanting, leads us to that knowing which is timeless.
As one teacher has said:
"After I opened beyond any sense of myself, I could feel
"my pain" change to "the pain," the pain of
the world. I saw how the universe moves and the planet is on fire
- that much pain - and yet it all could be held, and it didn't
touch anything. It rested in the midst of an immense peace."
In the gate of sorrow we free ourselves from illusions and
grasping, from a false separation from all life, and hold it all.
We can rest in the great heart of Buddha, in the heart of the One
Who Knows.
- Jack Kornfeld, from After the Ecstasy, The
Laundry, posted to DailyDharma
O, how often have knowledge and wit
become as deadly to the wayfarer as any demon or bandit!
Most of those destined for Paradise are simple-minded,
so that they escape from the mischief of philosophy.
Strip yourself of useless learning and vanity,
so that every moment Divine mercy may descend upon you.
Cleverness is the opposite of humbleness and supplication:
give up cleverness and take simplicity as your companion.
Know that cleverness is a trap for victory and ambition:
why should the pure devotee wish to be clever?
The clever are content with an ingenious device;
the simple have left all artifice
to be at rest with the Artificer,
because at breakfast time a mother will have gathered
the little child's hands and feet in repose upon her breast.
- Rumi, Mathnawi VI:2369-2375,
version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi:
Jewels of Remembrance, posted to Sunlight
In A Handful of God
Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.
When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience
That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
In a handful of ocean water
You could not count all the finely tuned
Musicians
Who are acting stoned
For very intelligent and sane reasons
And of course are becoming extremely sweet
And wild.
In a handful of the sky and earth,
In a handful of God,
We cannot count
All the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there
Behind the mysterious veil.
True art reveals there is no void
Or darkness.
There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic
In this luminous, brimming
Playful world.
- Hafiz, from The Subject Tonight is Love -
versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky, posted
to AvaitaToZen
I keep weeping for you, my soul,
good sir, gently trying to let you
see the nature of what you love.
Not even the shadow
of an iron anchor
will last from here.
Remember the truth
that you are.
- Lalla, from Naked Song,
versions by Coleman Barks, posted to AlongTheWay
The 'Self' though never stirring
is swifter than thought ...
The Senses never reach it
yet it walks with them ...
Though standing still
it overtakes those who run...
It stirs, and it stirs not It is far, and likewise near ...
It is inside of all this
and it is outside of all this ...
And he who beholds
all beings in the 'Self'...
and the 'Self' in all beings ...
he will never turn away from it ...
When to a man who 'understands'
the 'Self' is 'all things' ...
The 'Self' encircles all
bright, incorporeal, scatheless,
without muscles, pure,
All seeing, all wise, omnipresent
self-existent ...
disposing all things rightly
for endless years ...
Thus we have heard from the wise
.. who taught us this ...
- Samhita Upanishad 4-10, posted to Poetic_Mysticism