Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3605, Sunday, July 26, 2009, Editor: Mark
The richness of the moment comes when it's both full and empty at
the same time. The truth is, we live simultaneously in time and
timelessness.
Ram Dass, posted to The_Now2
Mockingbirds
This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning
whatever it was I said
I would be doing
I was standing
at the edge of the field
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors
I was leaning out;
I was listening
- Mary Oliver
.
Reality
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?
- Rabia
Even if You Lose all you have
Learn the meaning of that secret
That God revealed in the Koran:
Whether He makes you happy or unhappy,
Whether He makes you sad or gives you hope,
Even if you lose all you have
Or suffer extremely in the spirit,
Be patient: a hundred divine graces
Are coming from His hand to you.
He who endures patiently the pain
That is sent from God
Will, it is certain, obtain
The strength and truth of faith.
Marvelous news is sent to the patient;
They will win a great joy.
You must be able to perceive grace
Even when His divine anger lashes you,
And think of Him always with serenity,
And always, whatever happens, cling to Him
With all you heart and all your soul.
- Sultan Valad
The Soul That Does not Live in God is not Alive
Spring makes red and white flowers appear on the trees,
But the spring that is the origin of colors is colorless.
Understand what I have said, and give up all talk;
Run to the Origin without color and unite yourself to it.
Annihilate yourself before the One Existence
So that thousands of worlds leap out of you
And your pure existence flames out of itself
And goes on and on birthing different forms.
Of course, none of these forms will last.
Happy is the one who knows this mystery!
Happy is he who gives his life to know this!
He leaves this house for another far more radiant.
You cannot understand this mystery through reason;
The Way to Knowledge winds through suffering and torment.
If you do not feel pain, you do not look for healing.
The soul that does not live in God is not alive.
She seems like a soul, but does not deserve the name:
She has not been made alive by the Beloved.
The soul is given life by the four-elements
Like a lamp that burns through the night:
The light is from oil and wick, it is not eternal.
While the oil exists, the lamp burns, but then goes out.
The one made alive by God will never die.
He lives through God and not through gold or bread.
God is the Light, the Eternal Source of Lights.
The Light is causeless, as is His fiery radiance.
Like gold, God's value comes from His pure, perfect essence.
- Sultan Valad