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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3835, Sunday, March 14, 2010, Editor: Mark
At the root of everything is the feeling "I am." The
state of mind: "there is a world" is secondary, for to
be I do not need the world, the world needs me.
- Nisargadata Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
This moment
This LOVE
comes to rest in me,
many beings in one being
In one wheat-grain
a thousand sheaf stacks.
Inside the needle's eye
a turning night of stars.
This moment -
This LOVE.
- Rumi, posted to Distillation
Saladin's Begging Bowl
Of these two thousand "I" and "We" people,
which am I?
Don't try to keep me from asking!
Listen, when I'm this out of control!
But don't put anything breakable in my way!
There is an original inside me.
What's here is a mirror for that, for you.
If you are joyful, I am.
If you grieve, or if you're bitter, or graceful,
I take on those qualities.
Like the shadow of a cypress tree in the meadow,
like the shadow of a rose, I live
close to the rose.
If I separated myself from you,
I would turn entirely thorn.
Every second, I drink another cup of my own blood-wine.
Every instant, I break an empty cup against your door.
I reach out, wanting you to tear me open.
Saladin's generosity lights a candle in my chest.
Who am I then?
His empty begging bowl.
- Rumi, version by Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi,
posted to Sunlight
In its true sense spirituality is not a plaything or a pastime.
It has nothing to do with enhancing you or your status in the
dream state. Nor is it about gurus in long flowing robes, secret
oral teachings, ancient traditions, or holy books that people
claim were written by God. It's about here and now and you, and
whether you are asleep within the dream state or awake within the
awakened state.
It is the nature of all dreams that the characters therein are so
busy being - well, dream characters - that the bigger reality of
what lies outside the dream state eludes them. But then again,
dream characters don't wake up from the dreams they are a part
of; the dreamer does. If spirituality is to be meaningful it must
address what lies beyond the dream state that most of us create
in our minds and humanity lives in day-to-day, for unless we
awaken from our personal and collective dreams we will continue
to live in a state of unconsciousness on the surface of a life of
infinite potential.
Only that which is real and true has the power to liberate us
from the mechanical and magnetic draw of the dream state. For
ultimately it is ignorance (the belief in things that are untrue)
that imprisons us within a trance state, which is induced by
taking the conditioned stream of thinking within one's mind to be
true. If we are to awaken from the mind's hypnotic embrace, we
must question all of our beliefs and assumptions down to the very
source of our being until that which is true, real, and
everlasting reveals itself.
Truth is that which lies beyond the grasp of the dreaming mind.
It is not something that can be captured and stated like a fact
can. Truth is a timeless reality and therefore sacred in the true
sense of the word. Please do not think of truth in mystical terms
or even in spiritual terms. Truth refers to the whole of
existence and beyond. Truth exists as much in your teacup as it
does in your temples and churches. Truth is as present in
shopping for your groceries as it is in chanting to God. To think
of truth only in spiritual or religious terms is to miss the
whole of it, for in doing so you create the boundaries and
divisions that are the very antithesis of truth.
Truth is an immeasurable reality not at all separate from your
own being. For in the revelation of truth, all beings rest within
your being. Put more simply, if you cannot find it now underfoot,
I'm afraid that you have missed it entirely.
- Adyashanti
the dance of emptiness
goes on and on
colors, shapes and forms
arrayed in courtly splendor
on the dance floor of infinity
the patterns of the dance
will hypnotize if watched too closely
while the entire view
ends all trances
and frees the dreaming mind
now join the dance
its irresistable ebb and flow
swallows your pride
in the pure joy
of moving stillness.
- Nirmala, from Gifts with No Giver: a love affair with truth,
With dewdrops dripping,
I wish somehow I could wash
this perishing world
- Basho