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Nondual Highlights Issue #2586, Saturday, September 16, 2006
Gladiator...
We each play
the role of gladiator,
at one time
or another...
each of us,
in our own
personal arenas,
that we have erected
with our own effort,
and,
that we,
ourselves,
have populated
with both spectators
and
challenging opponents,
of our own choosing...
- In Love and Compassion... ARIAL, posted to Mystic_Spirit
If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks
of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true,
"Thinking makes it so." 1.11
Your real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless
consciousness, the all-pervading witness -- unattached to
anything, desireless and at peace. It is from illusion that you
seem to be involved in samsara. 1.12
Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness, free from any
dualism, giving up the mistaken idea that you are just a
derivative consciousness or anything external or internal. 1.13
You have long been trapped in the snare of identification with
the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that "I am
awareness," and be happy, my son - (dg: and my
daughter.)1.14
- from the Ashtavakra Sutra, posted to DailyDharma
The lion of destiny is dragging our souls,
preoccupied with the business of the world,
into the jungles of death.
People fear poverty,
plunged as they are up to their necks in briny water.
If they feared the Creator of poverty,
treasures would reveal themselves.
Through fear of affliction,
they sink into the very essence of affliction:
in their quest for life in the world,
they have lost it.
- Rumi, Mathnawi III:2204-2207, version by Camille and
Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance, posted to
Sunlight
About the Oneness
With nothing wanting,
nothing superfluous:
It is indeed due to making choices
That 'its suchness' is lost sight of.
Pursue not 'outer' entanglements
Dwell not in an inner void ...
When the mind rests serene
in the Oneness of things
Dualism vanishes by itself.
When you strive to gain quiescence
by stopping motion,
The 'quiescence' thus gained
is ever in motion ...
As long as you tarry in 'dualism'
How can you realize the 'Oneness?'
- Chien-chih Seng-ts'an, posted to Mystic_Spirit
When we were heading for southern Arabia, a barefooted and
bareheaded dervish joined our caravan at Kufa (in the north). I
saw that he was penniless, but he strode along purposefully,
reciting as he walked:
Neither do I burden a camel Nor do I carry a camel's burden;
Neither do I rule, nor am I ruled. Neither have I anxieties about
the Past, the Present or the Future. Fully I breathe, fully I
live life.
A certain merchant mounted on a camel, advised him to turn back.
Otherwise, he said, the dervish would certainly die of hardship
and lack of nouishment. Ignoring this advice, the derivsh marched
on. When we reached Beni Hamud oasis the merchant died. The
dervish standing by the bier exclaimed:
I did not die of my hardships; But you, on your camel, have died.
- Saadi of Shariz as collected by Idries Shah. posted to
SufiMystic
If a response is required in a situation, focus within and feel
the inner body. You will immediately become still and present as
you withdraw consciousness from the mind, and the answer or
action will come up from this deeper level.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, posted to AlongTheWay