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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4188, Saturday, March 12, 2011
XXIV
I saw a great light come down over London,
And buildings and cars and people were still
They were held wherever they were under the sky's
Clear humming radiance as it descended -
Everywhere, in shops, behind desks and on trains
Everything stopped as the stillness came down
And touched the crown of our heads
As our eyes closed, and the sky filled us
And our minds became the sky -
And everyone, regardless of crime class or creed
Was touched; as slowly we began to stir
Out of this penetrated light-filled sleep
Dizzily as the hand completed its dialling,
And the train lurched forward
And I saw faces looking at one another questioning,
I saw people meeting eye to eye and standing
Half amazed by each other's presence
I saw their mouths silently shaping the word why
Why didn't we know this? and yet knowing
They already knew, and without words
We all stood searching for the gesture
That would say it -
As the lights went green, and we drove on.
- Jay Ramsay, posted to The_Now2
Life is, by nature, constant flow and interaction of numberless
elements. Nothing ever stays the same, even from one moment to
the next. Everything is on its way to becoming something else,
and therefore, nothing can be held onto. If you see this clearly,
if you consider and examine this deeply and fully, then letting
go is the only thing left to do. How can you hold on? What is
there to hold onto?
So the art of spiritual surrender is really the art of not
knowing. Then it doesn't make any difference at all whether you
are walking down the street or eating lunch or responding to your
email or making love or sitting alone on your couch. This is the
first and last time you will ever be doing this. If you truly
understand that, it changes everything.
- Scott Morrison, posted to DailyDharma
One of the signs of God-realization is joy. There is absolutely
no hesitancy in such a person, who is like an ocean in joyous
waves. But deep beneath the surface, there is profound silence
and peace.
- Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, from Great Swan: Meetings with
Ramakrishna, by Lex Hixon, posted to AlongTheWay
You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be
vibrantly alive in repose.
Indira Gandhi, posted to Distillation
Both Worlds
There is God's wine, and this
other. Don't mix them. There
are naked pilgrims who wear only
sunlight. Don't give them clothes!
There are lovers content with
hoping. I'm not one of them.
Give a cup of pure fire to your
closest friend, healing salve
to the wounded. To Shams-i
Tabriz, offer up both worlds.
- Rumi, Ghazal 917, version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit
Ergin, from The Glance, posted to Sunlight
In the End: The Beginning
There is something in the end there is no avoiding
That is more present than breath, than self, than distraction
More present than this moment? Yes, even that -
Even than all those birds perched high in the Tree of Heaven
That broke into all your wondering - even than
That huge exotic shrine at the centre of your heart,
Your voice, your whole face turned inward...
Or mine now - as I cut it back, back
From my thoughts: to my being; then my breath
And then, not even that
And across the gulf of silence from before
Names, images - before whiteness was even born -
And now, at the heart of emptiness
Where there is no I, nor breathing even
Or only this suspended pause
`There is only Love that made us, only Love'
And you in the vast silence like an ocean without water,
Like rain before rain -
like an unbroken mirror
You in the Womb of Love.
- Jay Ramsay, posted to The_Now2