Pages

Saturday, May 28, 2011

What are we waiting for?

Riding home in the train along the seashore in Wellington, I used to witness the most beautiful sunsets.

One day, in awe, I asked God, “How do you manage to paint a masterpiece everyday?”

He whispered softly, “You can too...”

Our life is that blank canvas, and God is eagerly waiting for us to produce our masterpiece. What are we waiting for?

Friday, May 27, 2011

a story short

A story short

His manner was casual,
his voice was deep,
“I have secrets”, said he,
“that you may keep”.

I bowed grateful
to this humble offer,
this was more trust
than most would proffer.

It started thus,
this simple thing,
little did I know,
what it would bring.

Moonbeams on oceans,
a touch of rain,
and luminous beings
to take away pain.

Long conversations
on just everything,
longer silences that
made the heart sing.

But words have this knack
of getting in the way,
beating reason down
and sweeping it away.

The heart stood dumb
on a silence vow.
It must have been fled,
this thing called love.

It ended thus,
this story short.
Oh! why do we meet,
so soon to part?

Each parting leaves
a mark so deep,
and secrets and secrets
that I must keep.

It remains to be seen
how this will flow.
Will a flower bloom,
or a thorn grow?


Thursday, May 26, 2011

This is love

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast."

~ Rumi

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Change

“… 
change is frightening and waiting for that feeling of safety to come along before one makes a move only results in more internal torment because the only way to acquire that feeling of security is to enter the whirlwind of change and come out the other end, feeling alive again."

Anatomy of the Spirt, Caroline Myss.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

What do you see?


Questioner: Still, you are different. Your mind seems to be always quiet and happy. And miracles happen around you.

Maharaj: I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle. As to my mind, there is no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens. It is quite obvious and within the experience of everybody. You just do not look carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see.

Questioner: What do you see?

Maharaj: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being -- we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

~ excerpt from 'I am That' by Nisargadutta Maharaj


Sunday, May 22, 2011

Only time

Ethereal Enya singing 'Only time' 

Watch the 'Only Time' video

Lovely, flowing song with stunning visuals ...

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Honesty

To be willing to look honestly at ourselves, our own behavior, intentions and motivations is to me the most courageous way of taking responsibility for our life and one of the most efficient ways to personal growth and inner freedom. As soon as we see and acknowledge what we do to ourselves and others, we can step out of it, out of the stories, let the light in, and return to inner peace.

~ Lisbeth Mahnkopf

True emergence

Usually when we feel love towards another and give expression to the feeling of love, our attention is usually focused on the other person. But if you will turn your attention on yourself, you will find a few interesting things. You will find that you are experiencing a feeling on expansion. Of being out of your usual limited self and beyond the constraints that you have set for yourself. You will find yourself experiencing greater freedom, more aliveness, great joy and immense lightness. Why is this so?

What is love but our natural state? Beneath our layers of personality, our fears, our socially conditioned masks, our protective barriers, what are we but pure loving beings? When you are in the presence of someone with whom you can shed all these extraneous burdensome stuff, then love cannot help but emerge. In that state, in our expression of our feelings to the other we say ‘I love you’ but if you quietly remove the ‘I’ and the ‘you’, only love remains and that is pretty much the true state of things.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Discontent


Occasionally, (thankfully not often) I am assailed by such strong feeling of discontent that the resulting discomfort is almost physical. A quiet voice (no doubt angelic) gently reminds me that Providence has been so kind as to shower me with so many blessing I must not be ungrateful and therefore unkind. But even though the logic is sound and the sentiment worthy, the discontent will not go away. It rages on in my breast with such ferocity that I am forced to focus all my attention on it. It may be argued that discontent is a positive emotion. Even though it has negative connotations and makes one feel miserable, just think, if it wasn’t for discontent, most major explorations and therefore discoveries and inventions would not have taken place. There is a joke that the English were so fed up with their food that they sailed forth to other lands in search of better-tasting food J And discovered (and to the natives dismay, conquered) other lands. 

So what is this discontent telling me? That there is something in my life / in my worldview that is in urgent need of changing. Bells are going off loud and clear announcing the need for urgent renovation. Something is stagnating and putrefying that needs to be set in flow once again. Discontent, in this case, seems to be the soul’s cry to be set loose from lack of growth and inaction.

Unfortunately, as I find out, it is not as easy as it sounds. Hearing the soul's call is one thing, but actually setting out to follow it is a different thing altogether. I guess, I'll have to live with this discontent until that happens. Churning and burning and giving me no rest ....

Monday, May 16, 2011

I just Am


I am already there.
I am already immersed in Divinity.
I already Am.
I am not this or that. Not daughter or wife or friend, or neighbour or employee.
I am not this name or that.
I am not bound by labels or roles.
I just Am.

It is mind-blowingly liberating to realise this ...

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Attachment

People need something or someone to fasten themselves
to in order to reassure themselves that they are real.

~ Ani Difranco

On Death


When I think of death I find that I am not frightened of it. Death that seems like a fullstop to most people, the end to life’s experiences, and staring terrified into the unknown, on the contrary seems like a continuation to me. If life is a big adventure, with challenges everyday, lessons to be learnt every moment, death seems like an even greater adventure. “Now you see as through the mirror dimly, then you shall see with greater clarity” - so promises the Bible and so I believe too. Now all our experiences are sensory ones, bound and limited by the senses. Even concepts and imaginations are limited because they are thought up my a limited mind, but once we are free of these, then a whole new world opens up, unbound and limitless. I am tired of seeing dimly, as though thick curtains, looking at a limited worldview. I wish to experience boundlessness. Therefore, for me, death is not an end, it  is a door, leading on to a bigger and greater reality, where we are reunited with our Higher Selves, experiencing Love and boundlessness. Truly, death is fascinating and most welcome.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

More gems


How would you feel if you had no fear? Feel like that. How would you behave toward other people if you realized their powerlessness to hurt you? Behave like that. How would your react to so-called misfortune if you saw its inability to bother you? React like that. How would you think toward yourself if you knew you were really all right? Think like that. ~ Vernon Howard
 ~~~~~~~
It's one thing to be touched and inspired by words of wisdom and power.
To be moved enough to put them into practice is an entirely different story.
The kind of story telling that allows you to be the author of your own life.

~ Hal Tipper
 ~~~~~~~
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

~ James Arthur Baldwin
 ~~~~~~~
We don’t need to wait for some golden moment before we can be free and something can be good. We don’t need to wait for something special to happen. When we try to accept things and allow them to be as they are right now and know that we can learn and grow from every experience, we already have set ourselves free.
~ Lisbeth Mahnkopf
 

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Ways of seeing

Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back. They're like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we're stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we are. ~ Pema Chodron
 
Our experience of life is conceived -- moment to moment -- by how it's perceived; this means that before there can be a change in what is seen, there must first come a change in the nature of the seer. ~ Guy Finley

The past is as powerless to darken the present moment
as is a shadow to reach up and drag down the form that casts it. ~ Guy Finley
 

Monday, May 09, 2011

Parrots, the universe and everything

Witty, hilarious, informative, and thoroughly entertaining :)

A must-watch talk by Douglas Adams on parrots, the universe and everything.

Watch this wonderful talk here

Sunday, May 08, 2011

Inner work

Having the willingness to invite our unconscious beliefs into awareness will make us free one step at a time. When we become aware of something we have believed, it leads to aha moments of insights, our energy pattern changes and so do our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We become more free and gain more space. To ourselves, to others, and to the next round inviting limiting beliefs to the surface.
~ Lisbeth Mahnkopf (life coach)

Right action


For some time now, I have been seized with restlessness and my mind keeps buzzing, “I must do something”. With my life. As if living was not sufficient, but there had to be some activity that proved I was alive and that life was worthwhile. I cast my mind about a lot looking for something to do and mind you, there are a lot of worthwhile things to do. Uplift the poor, save the downtrodden, save the planet, start an enterprise, start a new hobby, change jobs, change cities ..... the list is as long as the list of human activities, but somehow I was not able to zoom in to anything and this restlessness was bothering me too much.

So today I decided to get to the root of it. I observed it for a while, for a long, long while. And realised it was rising entirely in the mind. My thoughts were getting churned up by watching other people involved in social service or taking time out and performing commendable works and I had somehow compared myself to them and found my self wanting. This thought process was unconscious, but that was how the mind had worked.

So, I asked myself, is that what I really want to do. Activity for the sake of it, or activity that imitates others’ activity. With such dubious motivations any activity is bound to end in failure. Either it gets badly done, or started and never finished. I realised that the motivation has to be deeper than that, and has to come from a place that is beyond the mind, has to come from the source itself. It should be ‘I want to do this’ and arising out of clarity of purpose, not ‘I must do this’ for the sake of doing it / everyone is doing it / society tells us to do it / it has been done for centuries etc.

This motivation from the source, with clarity and intentness of purpose, I realised, will always result in right action, not the haphazard action that comes from the restless mind prompting one that ‘I must do something’. When love motivates one to do something, then there is no restlessness, no urgency, action just flows effortlessly. For then it is life giving unto life.

Saturday, May 07, 2011

Be grateful

Be grateful for what you have, for your life, for your experiences, for yourself and you don’t need to wait for anything specific to happen in order to bloom, because then you already are. Have a beautiful weekend.

~ Personal development, energy work, healing, coach Lisbeth Mahnkopf on FB