Living is Life's only Purpose

--- excerpt from 'I Am That' by Nisargadatta Maharaj ---

Questioner: What does it mean to fail in Yoga? Who is a failure in Yoga (yoga bhrashta)?

Maharaj: It is only a question of incompletion. He who could not complete his Yoga for some reason is called failed in Yoga. Such failure is only temporary, for there can be no defeat in Yoga. This battle is always won, for it is a battle between the true and the false. The false has no chance.

Q: Who fails? The person (vyakti) or the self (vyakta)?

M: The question is wrongly put. There is no question of failure, neither in the short run nor in the long. It is like travelling a long and arduous road in an unknown country. Of all the innumerable steps there is only the last which brings you to your destination. Yet you will not consider all previous steps as failures. Each brought you nearer to your goal, even when you had to turn back to by-pass an obstacle. In reality each step brings you to your goal, because to be always on the move, learning, discovering, unfolding, is your eternal destiny. Living is life's only purpose. The self does not identify itself with success or failure -- the very idea of becoming this or that is unthinkable. The self understands that success and failure are relative and related, that they are the very warp and weft of life. Learn from both and go beyond. If you have not learnt, repeat.

Q: What am I to learn?

M: To live without self-concern. For this you must know your own true being (swarupa) as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.

Q: What may be the reason that some people succeed and others fail in Yoga? Is it destiny or character, or just accident?

M: Nobody ever fails in Yoga. It is all a matter of the rate of progress. It is slow in the beginning and rapid in the end. When one is fully matured, realisation is explosive. It takes place spontaneously, or at the slightest hint. The quick is not better than the slow. Slow ripening and rapid flowering alternate. Both are natural and right. 
Yet, all this is so in the mind only. As I see it, there is really nothing of the kind. In the great mirror of consciousness images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material -- destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence -- vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: 'I-am-so-and-so' obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die.

Q: Just as a child cannot help growing, so does a man, compelled by nature, make progress. Why exert oneself? Where is the need of Yoga?

M: There is progress all the time. Everything contributes to progress. But this is the progress of ignorance. The circles of ignorance may be ever widening, yet it remains a bondage all the same. In due course a Guru appears to teach and inspire us to practise Yoga and a ripening takes place as a result of which the immemorial night of ignorance dissolves before the rising sun of wisdom. But in reality nothing happened. The sun is always there, there is no night to it; the mind blinded by the 'I am the body' idea spins out endlessly its thread of illusion.

Q: If all is a part of a natural process, where is the need of effort?

M: Even effort is a part of it. When ignorance becomes obstinate and hard and the character gets perverted, effort and the pain of it become inevitable. In complete obedience to nature there is no effort. The seed of spiritual life grows in silence and in darkness until its appointed hour.

Q: We come across some great people, who, in their old age, become childish, petty, quarrelsome and spiteful. How could they deteriorate so much?

M: They were not perfect Yogis, having their bodies under complete control. Or, they might not have cared to protect their bodies from the natural decay. One must not draw conclusions without understanding all the factors. Above all, one must not make judgements of inferiority or superiority. Youthfulness is more a matter of vitality (prana) than of wisdom (jnana) .

Q: One may get old, but why should one lose all alertness and discrimination?

M: Consciousness and unconsciousness, while in the body depend on the condition of the brain. But the self is beyond both, beyond the brain, beyond the mind. The fault of the instrument is no reflection on its user.

Q: I was told that a realised man will never do anything unseemly. He will always behave in an exemplary way.

M: Who sets the example? Why should a liberated man necessarily follow conventions? The moment he becomes predictable, he cannot be free. His freedom lies in his being free to fulfil the need of the moment, to obey the necessity of the situation. Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.

Q: Still there must be some way of making out who has realised and who has not. If one is indistinguishable from the other, of what use is he?

M: He who knows himself has no doubts about it. Nor does he care whether others recognise his state or not. Rare is the realised man who discloses his realisation and fortunate are those who have met him, for he does it for their abiding welfare.

Q: When one looks round, one is appalled by the volume of unnecessary suffering that is going on. People who should be helped are not getting help. Imagine a big hospital ward full of incurables, tossing and moaning. Were you given the authority to kill them all and end their torture, would you not do so?

M: I would leave it to them to decide.

Q: But if their destiny is to suffer? How can you interfere with destiny?

M: Their destiny is what happens. There is no thwarting of destiny. You mean to say everybody's life is totally determined at his birth? What a strange idea! Were it so, the power that determines would see to it that nobody should suffer.

Q: What about cause and effect?

M: Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole of the future.

Q: But past and future exist?

M: In the mind only. Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. The law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.

Q: Still, you are in favour of relieving suffering, even through destruction of the incurably diseased body.

M: Again, you look from outside while I look from within. I do not see a sufferer, I am the sufferer. I know him from within and do what is right spontaneously and effortlessly. I follow no rules nor lay down rules. I flow with life -- faithfully and irresistibly.

Q: Still you seem to be a very practical man in full control of your immediate surroundings.

M: What else do you expect me to be? A misfit?

Q: Yet you cannot help another much.

M: Surely, I can help. You too can help. Everybody can help. But the suffering is all the time recreated. Man alone can destroy in himself the roots of pain. Others can only help with the pain, but not with its cause, which is the abysmal stupidity of mankind.

Q: Will this stupidity ever come to an end?

M: In man -- of course. Any moment. In humanity -- as we know it -- after very many years. In creation -- never, for creation itself is rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering.

Q: We are told of the great avatars, the saviours of the world.

M: Did they save? They have come and gone -- and the world plods on. Of course, they did a lot and opened new dimensions in the human mind. But to talk of saving the world is an exaggeration.

Q: Is there no salvation for the world?

M: Which world do you want to save? The world of your own projection? Save it yourself. My world? Show me my world and I shall deal with it. I am not aware of any world separate from myself, which I am free to save or not to save. What business have you with saving the world, when all the world needs is to be saved from you? Get out of the picture and see whether there is anything left to save.

Q: You seem to stress the point that without you your world would not have existed and therefore the only thing you can do for it is to wind up the show. This is not a way out. Even if the world were of my own creation, this knowledge does not save it. It only explains it. The question remains: why did I create such a wretched world and what can I do to change it? You seem to say: forget it all and admire your own glory. Surely, you don't mean it. The description of a disease and its causes does not cure it. What we need is the right medicine.

M: The description and causation are the remedy for a disease caused by obtuseness and stupidity. Just like a deficiency disease is cured through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment. (viveka-vairagya).

Q: You cannot save the world by preaching counsels of perfection. People are as they are. Must they suffer?

M: As long as they are as they are, there is no escape from suffering. Remove the sense of separateness and there will be no conflict.

Q: A message in print may be paper and ink only. It is the text that matters. By analysing the world into elements and qualities we miss the most important -- its meaning. Your reduction of everything to dream disregards the difference between the dream of an insect and the dream of a poet. All is dream, granted. But not all are equal.

M: The dreams are not equal, but the dreamer is one. I am the insect. I am the poet -- in dream. But in reality I am neither. I am beyond all dreams. I am the light in which all dreams appear and disappear. I am both inside and outside the dream. Just as a man having headache knows the ache and also knows that he is not the ache, so do I know the dream, myself dreaming and myself not dreaming -- all at the same time. I am what I am before, during and after the dream. But what I see in dream, l am not.

Q: It is all a matter of imagination. One imagines that one is dreaming, another imagines one is not dreaming. Are not both the same?

M: The same and not the same. Not dreaming, as an interval between two dreams, is of course, a Part of dreaming. Not dreaming as a steady hold on, and timeless abidance in reality has nothing to do with dreaming. In that sense I never dream, nor ever shall.

Q: If both dream and escape from dream are imaginings, what is the way out?

M: There is no need of a way out! Don't you see that a way out is also a part of the dream? All you have to do is to see the dream as dream.

Q: If I start the practice of dismissing everything as a dream where will it lead me?

M: Wherever it leads you, it will be a dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realise that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done.

Q: Is dreaming caused by thinking?

M: Everything is a play of ideas. In the state free from ideation (nirvikalpa samadhi) nothing is perceived. The root idea is: 'I am'. It shatters the state of pure consciousness and is followed by the innumerable sensations and perceptions, feeling and ideas which in their totality constitute God and His world. The 'I am' remains as the witness, but it is by the will of God that everything happens.

Q: Why not by my will?

M: Again you have split yourself -- into God and witness. Both are one.

In retrospect ...

I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I had known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd been born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.

----- excerpt from Something More by Sarah Ban Breathnach -------------

Happiness, misery and the Atman

After every happiness comes misery. They may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature. Both are chains--one iron, one gold. Behind both is the Ātman, who is affected by neither happiness nor misery.

- Swami Vivekananda

Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 25, 1895. Complete Works, 7.11.

The Distant Footsteps

by Cesare Vallejo

My father is sleeping. His noble face
suggests a mild heart;
He is so sweet now....
If anything bitter is in him, I must be the bitterness.

There is a loneliness in the parlour; they are praying;
And there is no news of the children today.
My father wakes, he listens
for the flight into Egypt, the good-bye that dresses
wounds.
Now he is so near;
If anything distant is in him, I must be the distance.

And my mother walks past in the orchard,
savouring a taste without savour.
Now he is so gentle,
So much wing, so much farewell, so much love.

There is loneliness in the parlour with no sound,
no news, no greenness, no childhood.
And if something is broken this afternoon,
And if something descends or creaks,
It is two old roads, curving and white
Down them my heart is walking on foot.

Haiku

Water flowing, endless -
earth river sea
air rain earth ...

~~~

A flowing tune,
in the darkness,
a melody of light.

~~~

Moon, beaming,
house, resting,
soul, awake ...
~~~

Quotes on Solitude

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude - feelings which increase with the years.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Source: Ideas And Opinions, Page: 9 (The World As I See It)

On a long flight, after periods of crisis and many hours of fatigue, mind and body may become disunited until at times they seem completely different elements, as though the body were only a home with which the mind has been associated but by no means bound. Consciousness grows independent of the ordinary senses. You see without assistance from the eyes, over distances beyond the visual horizon. There are moments when existence appears independent even of the mind. The importance of physical desire and immediate surroundings is submerged in the apprehension of universal values.

For unmeasurable periods, I seem divorced from my body, as though I were an awareness spreading out through space, over the earth and into the heavens, unhampered by time or substance, free from the gravitation that binds to heavy human problems of the world. My body requires no attention. It's not hungry. It's neither warm or cold. It's resigned to being left undisturbed. Why have I troubled to bring it here? I might better have left it back at Long Island or St. Louis, while the weightless element that has lived within it flashes through the skies and views the planet. This essential consciousness needs no body for its travels. It needs no plane, no engine, no instruments, only the release from flesh which circumstances I've gone through make possible.

Then what am I - the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light.

While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.

Charles A. Lindbergh

Source: The Spirit of St. Louis

Something in us doesn't want to be civilized, linked too closely with Apollo and all his humanitarian accomplishments--medicine, music, ideas. It doesn't want any kind of union, but desperately tries to preserve its individuality and integrity. Something in us wants to be wooden, untalkative, and impenetrable. It wants to revert to dumb nature. Something in us doesn't want to be loved or desired. A tree's beauty is purely unintended and purposeless.

Daphne is wooden. She is that which doesn't want to be communicative, available, friendly, present, or articulate. Instinctively she flees from the most noble of attentions, the most humane of admirers. She would rather be like a tree than a person, an it rather than a thou. The Daphne spirit is so pure that it has no use for the sentimentality of relationship.

Modern psychological thinking doesn't appreciate the necessity presented in this myth. We consider it normal and healthy to be intimate with each other and communicate well. We interpret flight from intimacy as neurotic, abnormal, and practically immoral. But within this myth, flight from interpersonal contact is the norm. Resistance to humanitarian sensitivity is valid. Disappearing from the human scene somehow protects and preserves Daphne in a completely acceptable way.

Rather than judge each other and ourselves for our failure to be sociable, we might reconsider our biases and assumptions, even our sentimentality, about relationship. Perhaps some of our narcissism is a symptomatic attempt recover as strong unrelated sense of self. How can we reach out to another anyway, if we don't have strong devotion to our individuality?

Thomas Moore (1940 - )

Source: Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality, Page: 45


Source on the web

A Buddhist song

When shall I at last retire into solitude,
alone, without companions,
without joy and without sorrow,
with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream?
When, in my rags - without desires -
shall I retire contented into the mountains?
When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death,
shall I -
free, fearless and blissful - retire into the forest?
When?
When, oh when?'

Truth is a pathless land

Truth is a Pathless Land (Jiddu Speech for Dissolving "Order of Star" ) Transcript of the Jiddu Krishnamurti speech in 1929. Jiddu announces the dissolution of the spiritual organization — the Order of the Star — for which he had been groomed since boyhood to lead. WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain. You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it." I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. Interest, which is not born out of love of Truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to Truth. So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality. If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision. This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality. Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions year after year. One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection - on the contrary. As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self. Because I am free, unconditioned, whole-not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal - I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears-from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want any thing from anyone. You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers-a miracle-transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority. You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage. If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view. For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World-Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free-and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different-not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every Society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star become different? As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher- partially or wholly: wholly for those who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own half-truths. You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old - all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying. This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods - new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old - all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization? Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands throughout the world- members of the Order-have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say. So why have an organization? As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom . And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there. Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough. Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity. So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves. So why have an organization? You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things. So why have an organization? But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem to know-there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice. So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally

The Art of Poetry

by Jorge Luis Borges

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

- Jorge Luis Borges

An afternoon insight

Today I was listening to a Lata Mangeshkar CD and one of my favourite numbers was playing. The melody of the song, Lata’s smooth golden voice scaling the heights, laden with emotion, the lyrics and the bansuri-vaadan never fails to bring tears to my eyes and send me into raptures. ‘Agar tum ho sagar, main pyaasi nadi hoon’, how else can the Lord be described but as an infinite ocean and our longing like that of a thirsty river seeking to be one with the oceanic vastness. ‘Agar tum ho saawan, main jalti kali hoon’, when our minds burn with the fire of ignorance then the grace of the Lord like the monsoon, rains down and washes away the soot and the dirt.

Tumhein dekhti hoon ...


Great music has that alchemic effect on us. When the notes rise in perfect cadences, our mind drops and in the ensuing stillness, the music seems to rise and reverberate within us. We are aware only of oneness as barriers vanish. We become one with the music, one with all, one with the universe.

Nature had a similar effect. Lying on the grass under a tree, looking up at the sky through the lattice of leaves, the warm earth pulsating beneath ..... Or standing outside in the night looking up at the moon, the sky scattered with stars, the universe stretching out into infinity, we get a glimpse of our own magnificence, our mind-made barriers drop, our concepts vanish and we feel our own essence, our infinitude, our oneness with the whole.

Introduce a human being into this scene, may it be anyone, a spouse, parent, child, close friend and instantaneously the mind jumps up, puts up barriers of concepts. We step into our roles, our self-made cages, we become separate, we and the other. The mind starts humming out rules, codes, expectations, desires... In an instant, the world closes in, we become bodies with minds, oneness slips away, the glimpse of our soul is lost.

It takes diligence to remain in the world and still hold on to the knowledge that we are the soul. Anything that aids in dropping the mind should be pursued. Music. Being in nature. Any activity that requires focus and is done with love and at the same time gives immense joy. Watching a baby. Watching a flower. Ceasing from mindless, needless and endless activity. Solitude. Being in silence, not only verbal but stilling the mind too. Being in Being, being in the soul, in oneness, in bliss is the only treasure worth seeking.......

Effortlessness

It seems to me that the best way to live is effortlessly. Look at us, how much we strain and stress at living, while look at the grass, how effortlessly it shoots forth from the ground. Or the flower, it strains not to bloom from bud to blossom. Least of all we should put no effort into our spiritual quest. Without effort, with only the strength of pure intention, our illusions will vanish, our ignorance will turn into insight, and just like the blooming of a flower, the flower of our soul will emerge, effortlessly, unravelling its luminous petals.

Effort belongs to the realm of the mind, how can a mind that wrestles with itself uncover the soul. The soul is beyond mind. The soul can be realised only when the mind is put away, without effort, like one would calmly put away winter clothes when spring has arrived :) We do not fight off the clothes, do we?

In our quest only intention is needed, pure unwavering intention. And stillness. In silence, in the absence of the mind, the supreme soul reveals itself. It has no other choice :)))

I am not I

Poems by Nobel Laureate Juan Ramon Jimenez

I Took Off Petal After Petal

I took off petal after petal, as if you were a rose,
in order to see your soul,
and I didn’t see it.

However, everything around—
horizons of fields and oceans—
everything, even what was infinite,
was filled with a perfume,
immense and living.

Full Moon

The door is open.
the cricket is singing.
Are you going around naked
in the fields?

Like an immortal water,
going in and out of everything.
Are you going around naked
in the air?

The basil is not asleep.
the ant is busy.
Are you going around naked
in the house?

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see.
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.

(I like the above the best :)))

Song offerings ...

---- selected poems from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore -----

Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens.
Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone?

In the busy moments of the noontide work I am with the crowd, but on this dark lonely day it is only for thee that I hope.

If thou showest me not thy face, if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to pass these long, rainy hours.

I keep gazing on the far-away gloom of the sky,and my heart wanders wailing with the restless wind.

~~~~~
I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to your door in his company.

~~~~~~

If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience.

The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.

Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests, and thy melodies will br forth in flowers in all my forest groves.

~~~~~~~~~

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

Strength

--- extract from the Gospel of Strength by Swami Vivekanand ---

First step in getting strength is to uphold the Upanishads, and believe -
“I am the soul,”
“Me the sword cannot cut;
nor weapons pierce;
me the fire cannot burn;
me the air cannot dry;
I am the Omnipotent, I am the Omniscient.”
So repeat these blessed saving words and be strong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You must know what you are , what your real nature is. You must become conscious of that infinite nature within. Then your bondage will burst.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think all of you that you are the infinitely powerful Atman, and see what strength comes out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Knowledge is power,” says the proverb, does it not? It is through knowledge that power comes. Man has got to know that he is a man of infinite power and strength. Really he himself is by his own nature potent and omniscient. And this he must know. And the more he becomes conscious of his own Self, the more he manifests this power, and his bonds break and at last he becomes free.

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The soul was never born and will never die, and all these ideas that we are going to die and are afraid to die are mere superstitions. And all such ideas as we can do this or cannot do that are superstitions. We can do everything. The Vedanta teaches men to have faith in themselves first... Not believing the glory of our own soul is what the Vedanta calls atheism. To many this is, no doubt, a terrible idea; and most of us think that this ideal can never be reached; but the Vedanta insists that it can be realised by everyone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Always talk and hear and reason about this Atman. By continuing to practice in this way, you will find in time that the Lion (Brahman) will wake up in you too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The self within is always shining forth resplendent. Turning away from that people say, “I”, “I”, “I”, with their attention held up by this material body, this queer cage of flesh and bones. This is the root cause of all weakness.

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hear day and night that you are that Soul. Repeat it to yourselves day and night till it enters into your very veins, till it tingles in every drop of blood, till it is in your flesh and bone. Let the whole body be full of that one ideal, “I am the birthless, the deathless, the blissful, the omniscient, the omnipotent, ever-glorious Soul.” Think on it day and night; think on it till it becomes part and parcel of your life. Meditate upon it... All your actions will be magnified, transformed, deified, by the very power of the thought. If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill yourselves with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty and your glory.

- Swami Vivekanand

The hidden world

It's such a waste really, this whole business of living, so superfluous, so meaningless. This hankering after worldly things, for material pleasures, this running away from so-called pain. So completely are we hypnotised, so inextricable is our conditioning, so vicious is its grip on our psyche that we do not even think to look for anything else. For a different reality, for a more luminous possibility, for a truth so bright, for a self that is infinitely bigger than what we think it to be. For a vastness that contains everything, everything that we seek - love, peace, bliss. No, we do not seek these, we go only for the shiny glass pieces mistaking them for real gems while all the time it waits, in silence, in patience, for a shifting of our awareness. We get glimpses of this world, of this ineffable joy in brief, fleeting moments that we seek to grasp but pass too quickly. And so it waits, for us to shake off our hypnotic sleep and wake to reality, to truly live, to be truly ourselves…

Hope ...

Hope clings
as leaves
to the tips of trees -
bare-limbed
and shorn by autumn.

Hope floats,
buoys, uplifts
a heart
almost drowning,
gives it sails.

Hope flies
on the gossamer tip of
a dragonfly wing,
ethereal
yet enduring.

Hope rises
eternally,
every morning
as the sun,
even after the blackest night.

Hope triumphs
over despair
always,
every time.
It cannot be otherwise.

Hope flows
like a river
in search of the sea,
like a soul
in search of the source.

I am...

The Universe has
no purpose,
no direction,
no meaning,
it just IS...

It is our mind that seeks
purpose,
direction,
meaning,
where none exists...

If you ask a realised beggar,
"don't you want to be better off,
become something else?"
He would say,
"Why, what is wrong with me?
why change?
I already am.
Can't you see?
This being is immutable,
ageless,
can't be lost,
nor stolen,
not taken away.
I am Being.
I AM."

Do you know?

Do you realise that if you had all the wealth you ever wanted, all the love (from others) that you ever desired, all the pleasures, comforts, success, fame, glory that you could want - in spite of this apparent abundance - after a while you'll begin to feel the presence of a void, a deep longing. And you will rush to fill that void with more wealth, love, success, fame, but it will never be enough.

Have you stopped to consider why it is never enough?

Life

The following are selected verses from Emily Dickinson's collection titled 'Life'.

SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.

~~~~~~~~~~~

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

~~~~~~~~~

THE SOUL selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

~~~~~~

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody! 5
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

- Emily Dickinson

Ode Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;-

Turn whereso'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II

The rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,

The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

And all the earth is gay;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every beast keep holiday;-

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!

IV

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fullness of your bliss, I feel - I feel it all.

O evil day! if I were sullen

While Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:-

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

- But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind;

And, even with something of a mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' darling of pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

VIII

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,-

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the Day, a master o'er a slave,

A presence which is not to be put by;

To whom the grave

Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight

Of day or the warm light,

A place of thought where we in waiting lie;

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest -

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence; truths that wake,

To perish never:

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day,

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. - William Wordsworth

The only desire ...

There is only one desire worth having, the desire to merge with the Lord.
It is not a desire even, it’s more like heeding the call after ignoring it for ages,
like a flowing towards the Source,
like an awakening into a wondrous world, where joy and bliss abound.
All other desires lead to attachment and end in pain....

More wisdom ...

Sadguru says -

• The very experience of Life is only in the depth of your involvement. Have you noticed whatever you did with involvement has always been a joy?
  
  
• Enlightenment does not mean Everyone becomes one way. Enlightenment means Everyone becomes their Own way. That is the beauty of it!
  
  
• "God Loves you" is not significant. If you are in such a way that everybody cannot help but fall in love with you - now, that is Great!
  
  
• Compassion is not an attitude of kindness but an instrument of unprejudiced involvement. All inclusive passion is true compassion.
  
  
• The very source of creation is throbbing within you. You ignored it for a lifetime - can there be a worse crime?
  
  
• To abuse somebody who abuses you, You do not need any awareness But in order to remain quiet, YOU need enormous awareness.
  
  
• As long as you live, living as a complete human being is what you owe to yourself and to the people around You.
  
  
• Whether you plan to go to the mountain or to the moon, you can start your journey from the seat in which you are sitting right now.
  
  
• Awareness is aliveness. How aware you are, is how alive you are.
  
  
• Spirituality is not something you do. If you stop all your nonsense, you are spiritual. Spirituality is ultimate sense.
  
  
• When you are torn by the pain of ignorance.... then the Master arrives.
  
  
• When you don't know what to choose, just show total involvement in everything you have. Then life will choose and it is never wrong.
  
  
• Human life becomes beautiful not because we do the right things. human life becomes beautiful because we put our heart into what we are doing.
  
  
• Every activity you perform has to become .... simply an offering. Only when everything becomes just an offering then karma has no bondage.
  
  
• If you have found one person with whom you can trust your life, you are very fortunate. many people do not even find that one person.
  
  
• Basic problem with humanity is that everyone wants to be special. Only when you become ordinary like a tree, can a greater dimension of life open up to you.
  
  
• If tears of love, joy ecstasy have not washed your cheeks, you are yet to taste Life.

Wisdom

Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev says -

• Gratitude is not an Attitude. It is something that flows out of you when you are overwhelmed by what is being given to You.
  
  
• Being Alive is not a small thing, it is the greatest phenomenon, not just on the planet but in the whole of the cosmos.
  
  
• Unless you are free from the Process of your own Mind, unless you are free from the Process of your own Body, there is really no such thing as Freedom.
  
  
• Enlightenment need not always happen with a Bang, it can happen quietly, it can be like a flower blossoming.
  
  
• If you think, you are big... You become Small. If you KNOW you are nothing, you become Unlimited. That is the beauty of being a human being.
  
  
• If Desire is a conscious process, then there is no problem. But now that you have lost your awareness and it has become a compulsion, you are a slave to your desire.
  
  
• If you are left out of the mad compulsiveness of society, you must be really blessed. You are not Excluded, you are Included into Life.
  
  
• When unpleasant things happen in our Life, either we can become wise or wounded. This is a choice every human has.
  
  
• Do not try to be in this moment. If you are totally involved with what you are doing right now, you can only be in this moment.Where else can you be?
  
  
• Where there is just teaching, there is adoration, there is worship. Only where there is method, there will be transformation.
  
  
• Your one and only Problem and the very basis of your misery is that life is not happening the way you think it should happen.
  
  
• Once you have an inkling of the immensity of Life, once you see how small and insignificant you are, you become receptivity itself.
  
  
• Either it takes enormous Intelligence or it takes enormous Trust. These are the only two ways one can grow without struggle.
  
  
• If you get too enamoured with your own creation, then you miss the Creator's creation!

Peace

It's one of those moments when in a quiet moment, all of a sudden I feel completely happy and at peace. For no reason whatsoever. Everything burdensome just drops off and there is a feeling of lightness and joy. It happens sometimes, the mind after a prolonged period of turning and churning, and frothing at the mouth :) feels exhausted from its own exertions and lies down for a rest. It literally drops off and we are then in a place of no-mind. Our natural state. In which joy, love, peace, bliss all exist already.

So then why are we seeking for what we carry within us all the time? Why are we looking for reasons to be happy, for external means to be happy? Why do we say if such and such condition is fulfilled, then I shall be happy? When it is all there, all the time, already. Such foolishness. Such is the power of the mind, of illusions. Such is the tragedy of the human condition.

But there is hope. Because once in a while, the illusions drop off and we see things clearly as they really are. We see the shining truth. And we know that it is there even if it then gets hidden.

Fall into me

When life cracks wide open
and pain sits on the edges,
and you plunge in headlong free-fall,
come, fall into me.

Bloodied, bruised and broken,
while you look for footholds,
among the broken pieces,
come, fall into me.

When you clear away the pieces
and seek to start anew,
take my strength, my sinew,
and come, fall into me.

Drop your fear, your sorrow,
into the deep cave of my silence,
lose yourself in vastness,
come, fall into me.

Saturday soliloquy

There came a time sometime last week when I had what can be called a transformative moment, a major life-shift moment. I suddenly felt myself to be utterly and completely alone. All the things in my life that had up until then contributed to making my life meaningful suddenly seemed to either have deserted me or to be utterly meaningless. I must admit that in the face of this total aloneness I crumbled. I railed and ranted, I panicked and I resisted big-time until the resistance slowly gave way to acceptance. And now from that place of complete acceptance I realise that all those externalities, like career, possessions, money, body, mind, relationships, that one depends on in the normal course of life are unstable structures. They are liable to shift and sway and sometimes give way. And if I depend on them too much, then I’m setting myself up for continual and repeated disappointment and pain.

So what else is there? I find that once we put away the things of the material world, then a whole new world of the spirit opens up. In the material world there is always a feeling of lack, and in order to fill this up we keep seeking more and more. More money, more possessions, more knowledge, more sex, more relationships. But the world of the spirit is one of abundance. It is brimming over and over-flowing. And it is available to us at all times. It is our essential nature. We are abundant and over-full. But unfortunately, we identify so totally with with we HAVE in our lives instead of what we ARE. So when the externals fall away as they are always likely to do then we flounder and faint and then catch hold of other crutches. In the process we fail to realise that we as we are, in our essential nature, are whole and complete. We are limitless, flowing, boundless, we are one and we are all. We are the universe. And there is nothing lacking in the universe.

I am also at that point in life where I’m about to say goodbye to the known and launch into the unknown. All by myself. It is scary at times and thrilling at others. But strangely enough when I face my fears they go away :) I feel like a frontier explorer. This must be how Columbus felt when he sailed away looking for India. But then I don’t even have a destination. All I know is that I’m about to set sail. Once again looking at it from the material sense, it seems scary, but when i move into the realm of the spirit, all fears drop away and I feel a sense of adventure. It is more than just an adventure in the worldly sense, it is more than jumping off a cliff in a bungee jump or rocketing down some torrential river in a canoe. This is more of a spiritual adventure, at every turn I have to deal with the many heads of the ego-dragon. At every step I have to keep from falling into the mind-trap.

Speaking of which it seemed to me last week that I had lost my mind. Seriously lost it. I was thinking and saying and doing things which I would never have considered doing a few months ago. But after all the dust had finally settled around the crisis, I realised that quite the contrary had happened. I had not lost my mind, but my mind had taken over total control of me. It had unleashed the ego which had taken over my thoughtscape and my soul was just a dim memory. I had completely and entirely forgotten that I was a spiritual being with a human body and mind not a human being with a soul tucked away somewhere.

This is why I love crises. Boy! Does it teach me lessons ! :))))))