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Nondual Highlights Issue #2525, Thursday, July 13, 2006

A thousand half-loves must be forsaken


Lovers in their brief delight
gamble both worlds away,
a century's worth of work
for one chance to surrender.

Many slow growth-stages build
to quick bursts of blossom.

A thousand half-loves
must be forsaken to take
one whole heart home.

- Rumi, version by Coleman Barks, Birdsong, posted to AlongTheWay

This is now.
Now is, all there is.

Don't wait for Then.
Strike the spark, light the fire.

Sit at the Beloved's table.
Feast with gusto, drink your fill.

Then dance
The way branches of jasmine and
cypress dance in a spring wind.

The green earth is your cloth.
Tailor your robe with dignity and grace.

- Rumi, posted to Mystic_Spirit

This is It


This is It, however improbable it may seem.

Why? Because there is no one apart from consciousness ie Consciousness
is all there is. This is seen by no one as the apparent seer is only
an appearance in consciousness. The apparent self object is only
appearance.

In essence we are what is not appearing, in form we are the
appearance. Either way, This is It, all is appearance in consciousness including
the apparent self. Nothing appears without consciousness.

This has always been It, and always is It. The story that it's
something somewhere else is also It.

apparently,
Gary

- Gary Merrill, posted to NonDualNetwork

The Glitter of This Fantasy


Now comes the final merging,
Now comes everlasting beauty.
Now comes abundant grace,
Now comes boundless purity.

The infinite treasure is shining,
The mighty ocean is roaring,
The morning of grace has come -
Morning? - No!
This is the eternal Light of God!

Who occupies this beautiful form?
Who is the ruler and the prince?
Who is the wise man? -
Nothing but a veil.

The wine of love removes these veils.
Drink with your head and your eyes -
Both your eyes,
and both your heads!

Your head of clay is from the earth,
Your pure awareness is from heaven.
O how vast is that treasure
which lies beneath the clay!
Every head you see depends on it!

Behind every atom of this world
hides an infinite universe.

O Saaqi, free us from the facade of this world.
Bring wine - barrels full!
Our eyes see too straight -
straight past the truth!

The Light of Truth shines from Tabriz.
It is beyond the beyond
yet it is here,
shining through every particle of this world.

- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 464, version by Jonathan Star, Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved, posted to Sunlight

A Zero-Circle


Be helpless and dumbfounded,
unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come
from grace to gather us up.

We are too dulleyed to see the beauty.
If we say "Yes we can," we'll be lying.

If we say "No, we don't see it,"
that "No" will behead us
and shut tight our window into spirit.

So let us not be sure of anything,
beside ourselves, and only that, so
miraculous beings come running to help.

Crazed, lying in a zero-circle, mute,
we will be saying finally,
with tremendous eloquence, "Lead us."

When we've totally surrendered to that beauty,
we'll become a mighty kindness.

- Rumi, Mathnawi IV, 3748-3754, version by Coleman Barks, Say I am You

"Angel With Lotus" 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