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Nondual Highlights Issue #2474, Wednesday, May 17, 2006, Editor: Mark
THE DIVINE DISCONTENT
For all of us there comes a time when we finally get down to
brass tacks, living and being the Spiritual Life. Usually,
adversity of some sort, health, business, grief, loneliness or
boredom, drives us to this decision. Oftentimes it is fear of one
kind or another. Perhaps we simply yield to the prodding of
others, or to the urge of an intangible feeling within--the
"divine discontent"; but whatever the reasons for our
action, one fact is certain: the decision that brings it about is
very personal. It is an alone experience that takes place within.
You know this is a fact.
All have discovered that, from the moment we act on the decision
to discover Reality, we begin to find it. The moment we sincerely
begin a determination of the Absolute, it continues of its own
accord until Reality is disclosed! The acted-upon decision to
determine fact from fiction is somewhat like pushing a canoe into
a river where it is quickly caught up in the silent and
effortless flow to a happy and Infinite awakening. It is like
putting seed in fertile ground. . "Mr. Samuel, be specific!
Exactly what action is required? Church activity? Prayer?
Healing? Self-immolation?" . Here is the answer: our first
action is the effortless turning within to the Self to listen to
the Heart. This is it. This is all!
Is this a disappointing oversimplification? Did your erudite
nature expect a profound revelation, a metaphysical pronouncement
of reason and logic to shake the intellect? So you, like so many,
expect Reality to come forth only from blinding flashes of Light
and ecstatic Illumination? . Here is the unadorned Truth,
stripped of the ego's covering of abstruseness and
intellectualism. Truth is simple. It is always simple. The Truth
is easy and uncomplicated. It is tender and effortlessly
available. Its location is not limited to the great libraries,
nor to universities, temples and cathedrals. Truth, and the
honest statements about it, are simplicity itself. It is found
with the heart, with the Self, here and now.
For years we have gone outside to teachers, leaders, and holy
books, when the entire universe of Truth has been within us all
the while. Its confirmation is found nowhere else. Where? Within
the Heart! Here! Now! REALITY IS EASILY COMPREHENDED inevitably,
Intellectual mankind complicates everything and makes a mystery
of truth. In intellectual circles the idea is prevalent that
Reality is relative at best and can never really be known; that
all we can do is get closer to it--and that, say the ministers,
philosophers, theologians, and educators, takes years of study,
prayer, self-immolation, self-denial, suffering, toil and perhaps
a death or two thrown in for good measure. Malarkey!
Reality is real, not relative, and it can be discovered without
labor! Instead of effort, it is the tenderest labor of love; it
is happiness beyond belief; it is reward that hasn't even been
dreamt of! . Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I
will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. For
this proof, the first action is simply, quietly to turn within to
one's Self, there to listen to the Heart, where Truth is and
where the answers are!
THE ANSWER IS HERE One's own Heart is here, consequently the
Truth is here. It is comforting to desist from the rat race for a
moment and acknowledge that Truth is at hand. Truth is the
solution to all that seems untrue, hence unreal. How wonderful to
realize, no matter what the apparent problem, that one is never
any farther from the Happiness, Peace and Tranquillity he may
think he needs than himself. "Himself" is right here,
this very now, closer than breathing. . My sanctuary shall be in
the midst of them forever-more; Neither shall they say, Lo here!
or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
- Excerpt from A Guide To Awareness And
Tranquillity, by William Samuel
The body is like a letter:
look into it and see whether it's worthy to be read by the King.
Go into a corner, open the letter, and read what is in it,
see whether its words are suitable for royalty.
If it isn't suitable, tear it to pieces,
write another letter, and remedy the fault.
But don't think it's easy to open the letter of the body;
otherwise everyone would readily discover the secret of the
heart.
How difficult it is to open that letter!
It's only for the strong, not for those playing games.
- Rumi, from the Mathnawi,
IV:1564-1568, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi:
Jewels of Remembrance, posted to Sunlight
In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his
Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and
works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana;
it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness,
Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is opened to her,
pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana
possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the effort of
the Sadhaka becomes necessary.
The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration,
rejection and surrender,
(1) an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing
- the mind's will, the hearts seeking, the assent of the vital
being, the will to open and make plastic the physical
consciousness and nature;
(2) rejection of the movements of lower nature
- rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits,
constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a
silent mind, - rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands,
cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance,
lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to Truth, so that the true
power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and
consecrated vital being, - rejection of the physical nature's
stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness,
laziness, unwillingness to change, so that the true stability of
Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing
always more divine;
(3) surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane
of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine Shakti.
In proportion as the surrender and self-consecration progress the
Sadhaka becomes conscious of the Divine Shakti doing the Sadhana,
pouring into him more and more of herself, founding in him the
freedom and perfection of the Divine Nature. The more this
conscious process replaces his own effort, the more rapid and
true becomes his progress.
But it cannot completely replace the necessity of personal effort
until the surrender and consecration are pure and complete from
top to bottom.
Note that a tamasic surrender refusing to fulfill the conditions
and calling on the God to do everything and save one all the
trouble and struggle is a deception and does not lead to freedom
and perfection.
- Sri Aurobindo, In SABCL, volume 25, "The Mother and
Letters on the Mother"
Some folks begin with inquiry and some have
the nature for devotion, but in the end all have it all in
surrendering to That.
- Ramana Maharshi, posted to SufiMystic
When I gave birth, I had the experience of feeling that I was the
All, and the All was me, and that we were in this ecstatic dance
together. I was the created and the creator at the same time, the
dreamer and the dreamed, the breather and the breathed. There was
no question about "where" my spirituality was; it was
not in the sky, it was in the body. It took every ounce of
"great pure effort" -- a buddhist teaching of what it
takes to achieve enlightenment -- to show up for the process that
was moving through me.
If I chose to spend time complaining, the birthing energy
reflected that. It was immediate cause and effect. It was not
that I had to deny pain, but I was supremely challenged to frame
it in a way that would allow safe passage for my baby. I was
asked by the Goddess to surrender completely to the experience,
and let it take over. When I felt the energy of birthing
kundalini as painful, my midwives compassionately guided me to
interpret it in a different way, where I could integrate it as
something that would take great courage and strength, but that I
had it in me to open to it and take it in.
My midwives were mothers too, and had been through the
experience. They knew what they were talking about. This made a
big difference in how I could create a safe passage for my child.
To have compassionate mirrors telling me I could do this made it
possible for me to do it. I trusted them. I had to learn to feel
the energy of creation as intense rather than painful, and trust
that my body was capable of handling this intensity.
In giving birth, I also learned about the nature of surrender.
Many spiritual teachings tell us that surrendering is essential
to spiritual well-being. We need to learn that we are not the
center of the universe, and to be open to outcome. When a woman
gives conscious birth, she experiences this teaching directly. I
did not know if I was going to live or die, nor did I know if my
baby would live or die. Entering the unknown in full surrender,
the mother is in a deeply spiritual relationship with the All.
excerpt from an essay entitled "Birthing As Shamanic
Experience," by Leslie McIntyre
THE Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed.
O servant! put false pride away, and seek for Him within you.
A million suns are ablaze with light,
The sea of blue spreads in the sky,
The fever of life is stilled, and all stains are washed away;
when I sit in the midst of that world.
Hark to the unstruck bells and drums! Take your delight in love!
Rains pour down without water, and the rivers are streams of
light.
One Love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who
know it fully:
They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason, that
reason which is the cause of separation-
The House of Reason is very far away!
How blessed is Kabīr, that amidst this great joy he sings within
his own vessel.
It is the music of the meeting of soul with soul;
It is the music of the forgetting of sorrows;
It is the music that transcends all coming in and all going
forth.
- Kabir
"Nightmares" by Helena Nelson-Reed, by kind permission
More of Helena's wonderful art can be seen at: http://www.fine-art-studios.com/intro.html