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Nondual Highlights
Issue #2344 Saturday, December 17,
2005, Editor: Mark
I searched for my Self
until I grew weary,
but no one, I know now,
reaches the hidden knowledge
by means of effort.
Then, absorbed in `Thou art This,'
I found the place of Wine.
There all the jars are filled,
but no one is left to drink.
- Lal Ded, from the book, Women in Praise of
the Sacred,, posted to DailyDharma
If you would know
where the river begins,
ask it.
But,
be prepared
to listen
very carefully.
- Mace Mealer, posted to AdvaitaToZen
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
- Mary Oliver
Are you looking for me?
Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine
rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but
vegetables
. When you really look for me, you will see me
instantly --
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.
- Kabir
If you thus reject everything, what remains is the Self alone.
That is real love. One who knows the secret of that love finds
the world itself full of universal love.
- Ramana Maharshi from Be As You Are - The
Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi