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#2534 - Monday, July 24, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee

The hardest person to wake up is the
one who thinks he's already awake.
--Mahatma Ghandi

The Distracted Centipede - a Yoga Experience
by Mina Semyon


*Love thy neighbour as thyself.*

'Love is letting the other be, but with concern and affection.'
R.D. Laing

All a sane man can ever care about is giving love.
Hafiz

What really makes a difference to me is whether you listen to
me with an open heart, acknowledging that fundamentally we
are in the same boat; that we feel empathy for each other and
that we can meet in our aloneness and companionship. Then
we might find joy in our hearts. We are companions on the way,
spiritual friends who are not trying to outsmart one another by
our wit, intellect, and 'power clothes' or prove, 'I am right and
you are wrong'.

If we can admit our vulnerability we can have a good laugh
at our predicament, how precarious our existence and what
a joke that we are trying to hide it from ourselves and each
other, rather than getting on with whatever it is we are doing,
simply, from the heart. Our wits would become sharper and
what a celebration there would be if all of us humans, can you
imagine, would just drop hanging on to our puny identities, and
have a song and dance.

'This is what I understand by 'love thy neighbour as thyself' ...
to wish other people what you wish for yourself ... the gift of
effortless being, in harmony with the laws of life, and with love
in our hearts.

*Ease comes from not having to pretend at all.*


you can read more here:

http://www.trafford.com/robots/04-0754.html
posted to Allspirit

photo by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/islands/13.htm



In the fields of observation
chance favors only the prepared mind.

- Louis Pasteur

"And I saw a man on 126th Street
broom in hand
sweeping eight feet of the street
Meticulously he removed garbage and dirt
from a tiny area
in the midst of a huge expanse
of garbage and dirt

And I saw a man on 126th Street
sorrow sat on his back
sweeping eight feet of the street
Wear and tear showed on his arms
in a city
where only crazy folk
Find something to hope in

And I saw a man on 126th Street
broom in hand
There are many ways to offer prayer
With a broom in the hand
is one I had hitherto
not seen before"

--Dorothee Soelle, Essential Writings

see also: http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=15663

Ben Hassine to Awakened Awareness

To look at everything, trying to see what is behind
it, to see it in its right light, requires divine illumination,
a spiritual outlook on life. And this outlook is attained
by the increase of compassion. The more compassion
one has in one's heart, the more the world will begin to
look different.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Along the Way

photo by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/islands/13.htm

Feline Dharma

In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap. I took the cat and tossed it out the door. Ten seconds later it was back on my lap. We got into a sort of dance, this cat and I. I would toss it out, and it would come back. I tossed it out because I was trying to meditate, to get enlightened. But the cat kept returning. I was getting more and more irritated, more and more annoyed with the persistence of the cat. Finally, after about a half-hour of this coming in and tossing out, I had to surrender. There was nothing else to do. There was no way to block off the door. I sat there, the cat came back in, and it got on my lap. But I did not do anything. I just let go. Thirty seconds later the cat got up and walked out. So you see, our teachers come in many forms.


-- Joseph Goldstein in Transforming the Mind, Healing the World

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