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#3930 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights
The Joy and Pain of Close Relationships
You do not learn non-attachment by disengaging and avoiding the intensity of relationships, their joy and their pain. It is easy to disguise as non-attachment what is not non-attachment at all, but your fear of attachment. When you really care about someone and you are willing to commit to that friendship, then you have fertile ground to learn about both attachment and non-attachment. That is what makes the marriage relationship so rich.
- Judy Lief
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Cry Out in Your Weakness
A dragon was pulling a bear into its terrible mouth.
A courageous man went and rescued the bear.
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save
anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself,
they run toward the screaming.
And they can't be bought off.
If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard
your helplessness."
Where lowland is,
that's where water goes. All medicine wants
is pain to cure.
And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet.
Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton
of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.
Push the hair out of your eyes.
Blow the phlegm from your nose,
and from your brain.
Let the wind breeze through.
Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever.
Take the cure for impotence,
that your manhood may shoot forth,
and a hundred new beings come of your coming.
Tear the binding from around the foot
of your soul, and let it race around the track
in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed
so tight on your neck. Accept your new good luck.
Give your weakness
to one who helps.
Crying out loud and weeping are great resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.
Just a little beginning-whimper,
and she's there.
God created the child, that is your wanting,
so that it might cry out, so that milk might come.
Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.
The hard rain and wind
are ways the cloud has
to take care of us.
Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.
Ignore those that make you fearful
and sad, that degrade you
back toward disease and death.
-Rumi
An old Farmer lived on a farm in the
mountains with his young grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up
early sitting at the kitchen table reading his Bhagavat Geeta.
His Grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to imitate him
in every way he could. One day the grandson asked, "Grandpa!
I try to read the Bhagavat Geeta just like you but I don't
understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I
close the book. " What good does reading the Bhagavat Geeta
do?"
The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and
replied, "Take this coal basket down to the river and bring
me back a basket of water."The boy did as he was told, but
all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The
grandfather laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little
faster next time," and sent him back to the river with the
basket to try again.
This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty
before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather
that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to
get a bucket instead. The old man said, "I don't want a
bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying
hard enough," and he went out the door to watch the boy try
again.
At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to
show his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the
water would leak out before he got back to the house.
The boy again dipped the basket into river and ran hard, but when
he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of
breath, he said, "See Grandpa, its useless!"
"So you think it is useless?" The old man said,
"Look at the basket."
The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that
the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty
old coal basket and was now clean, inside and out.
"Son, that's what happens when you read the Bhagavat Geeta.
You might not understand or remember everything, but when you
read it, you will be changed, inside and out. That is the work of
Guru or Krishna in our lives."