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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4053, Saturday, October 23, 2010, Editor: Mark
Courage
It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.
Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love
, and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.
- Anne Sexton, from The Awful Rowing Toward God, posted to
The_Now2
There are many ideas that intoxicate man; many feelings act upon
the soul as
wine; but there is no stronger wine than selflessness.
Very often people think that sorrow or pain is the sign of
spirituality. Yes, in
many cases sorrow or pain becomes a process that leads to
attaining spirituality
quickly, but for that one need not
afflict oneself with sorrow or pain, for life has enough sorrow
or pain.
As fire can cook food or burn it, so also does pain affect the
human heart.
- from the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, selected &
arranged by Hazrat Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, posted to allspirit
The role of destiny unfolds itself and actualizes the inevitable.
You cannot change the course of events, but you can change your
attitude and what really matters is the attitude and not the bare
event.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
Which of them is the fairest?
A beloved said to her lover,
"O youth, you've visited many cities,
which of them is the fairest?"
He replied, "The city where my sweetheart is."
Wherever the carpet is spread for our King,
there is the spacious plain,
even though it be as narrow as the eye of a needle.
Wherever a Joseph radiant as the moon may be,
Paradise is there, even though it be the bottom of a well.
- Rumi, Mathnawi III: 3808-3811, version by Camille and
Kabir Helminski,from Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance, posted
to Sunlight
This is how a human being can change:
There's a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.
SUDDENLY, he wakes up...
Call it grace, whatever,
something wakes him,
and he's no longer a worm.
He's the eintire vineyard,
And the orchard too,
The fruit, the trunks, a
Growing wisdom and joy
That doesn't need to devour.
- Rumi, from The Illuminated Rumi, posted to DailyDharma