Experience and maya

We live in the world of experience, don’t we? Our daily life is almost entirely experiential. The information that is collected by our senses and our responses to these, the thoughts / imaginations we have and the emotions that follow, these are the building blocks of our experience. It seems that our entire lives are lived in these experiences.

Experience is not what happens, but the responses to these external events that take place in our minds. It can be said that we carry our world with us, in our minds. Take an example of two people traveling in a train. One is looking around, taking in his surroundings through his senses and a flow of thoughts then stream through his mind. That is his personal experience and that is his world. Another is sitting next to him, but is reading a newspaper, totally engrossed in it. For him, his surroundings are a blur, but his mind is actively involved in absorbing the news, imagining the events, understanding the implications, digesting the information. His personal experience is totally different and he lives in a different world than the one his neighbour inhabits even though they are physically seated next to each other.

All of us live in our own world which shifts and changes according to inputs to our minds and our responses to them. Even our personal responses to the same input would be different and would be based on past experience and memory. If we are all living in our own worlds, is there any such thing as a single, common world? If so, how can that be assessed? Is it even possible to access it? I think not. If no such world exists, what world are we living in? The only world there is exists in our minds. And that one constantly shifts and changes, has no permanence. Then the question arises: is this world even real? After all it exists only in our minds and is mercurial, dies down when we go to sleep, spring up when we wake up. Vanishes completely when we die. Surely there must be a world beyond the world of experience. If it exists, how to access it?

By realising that the world we carry around in our heads is not the real thing. That the mind is a master illusionist, tricking us into believing things that catches its whim and fancy, by constantly serving up a stream of thoughts that keeps our attention so engaged that we do not have the opportunity to look any deeper and find its deception. By strong intention and steady practice of mindful awareness, we’ll be able to see glimpses of a different kind of reality, one that does not rely on an inconstant mind. By going beyond the mind into a state of stillness a whole new world opens up, seamless, constant, eternal, full of love and bliss. It is our birthright to be in this world always, this is our natural habitat, our natural state of being. This is what we are born for, this is the purpose of our life. Not to seek wealth, fame, security and all those temporary crutches, but to seek and find, or rather, to cast away the veil of illusion and to dwell in the bliss of the Self.

Music that moves

A moving, powerful, beautifully rendered Thatvam by Dr.Balamurali Krishna

Thathvam by Dr.Balamurali Krishna

And a brilliant alapana -

Kunthalavarali Alapana by Dr.Balamurali Krishna

An evening with a legend

I am just back from a music recital by Dr.Balamurali Krishna and it’s only slowly sinking in that I had really been in the presence of a legend. Dr. Balamurali has long been one of my most favourite classical singers and I had not even dreamt that I would one day go for a live recital of his and then stand just a few feet away from him.

Sitting there in the darkened auditorium listening to the legend sing was an indescribable experience. Most of the time our emotions are the body’s responses to thoughts but there are some things that impinge on our senses and go straight to the heart, bypassing the mind completely. Music is one such. I sat there enthralled, my heart melted and quivering, and I felt that I had reached the feet of the Lord. Dr. Balamurali is a human, but surely it must be the divine in him singing and the divine in me responding.

The compere informed us that Dr. Balamurali can sing in many languages and can play many instruments. He was a child prodigy and gave his first public performance at the age of six and his first full-fledged performance age at the age of eight at the Thyagaraja music festival. He then went on to give more than 25000 performances, compose ragas, make great innovations in Carnatic music, compose and direct music for films and act in films singing his own songs.

I found it interesting that he only sang songs in praise of the Lord. And I thought how apt! After all God is the only truth there is. And love. But then the two are the same. Why sing of pain and suffering? After all they are illusionary and passing. And so as the notes climb and fall and the music flows out of him so effortlessly, I know I am in the presence of the divine. Where else would such purity, such wealth of spirit, such genius come from?

After the singing he took a break and came back to the stage and signed autographs and posed with people even though he’s almost eighty and had just given a long recital. There were no airs about him, no pompousness, no show of superiority. He posed obligingly with whoever came close and smiled warmly at all as though he was just one of us, not a living legend. There was an elderly lady who couldn’t climb the steps to the stage, so he very kindly got off his chair and sat on the stage so that he could be on the same level with her. Only the truly great can be this humble.

I went and stood close to the stage and took some photographs. I wanted to touch his feet but I was so overwhelmed by his greatness that I couldn’t bring myself to do even that. I was content just standing a few feet away and being in his presence. Driving back home, I was so overcome with emotion, I wept tears of joy. It was an undreamt dream come true. To be in the presence of a genius, to get a glimpse of divinity, to be transported and transformed by greatness. Surely it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Dear God

I am writing this to you even though I know you are everywhere. In the paper and pencil when I write, in the computer where it will be posted, in all the screens where this letter will be displayed. You are in all these places and everywhere else, so why write.? Because I like writing to you. :)

You were right when you told Arjuna that he must think of you always. Whenever I think of you, all my sadness, misery, tensions, even happiness vanish. I am filled with the most exquisite peace, bliss and love. The world flickers and becomes indistinct and then there is only this vast silence where there is no desire, no thought, no emotion, just ineffable bliss.

When I think of you all my thoughts, words and deeds are right ones. There is no question that it will be otherwise. I wish to remain in this always. I do not understand the reason why I came into this world because its illusions make me forget my true nature. I’m sure my soul that is you, had a good enough reason. But now that I am in it, I would like you to show me how to remain aware of my divine self always. How to remember always that I am you when the world intervenes and tells me otherwise. That is all I ask of you, dear God.

There are a lot of things I would like to talk about. Maybe some other time. I’m sure you don’t mind waiting. After all you are beyond time.

Love
from love to love for all is love

Abundance

It is indeed a blessing to realise that we are whole and complete in ourselves. That there is a whole universe within us. That we lack in nothing. That we are luminosity itself. We are love. But sometimes it so happens that we lose touch with our inner light, our inner source of love. And craving for it we go outside, among things and people, looking for that spark to light up the apparent darkness, to fill up the imagined emptiness. But no matter how much love we receive from outside, or the amount of food we fill our insides with, or the tons of money we spend on ourselves, unless we reconnect with our own inner light, we are going to wallow in darkness and craving and misery.

The whole consumer / fast food industry thrives on this imagined inner darkness. People consume because it the only way they know to fill the inner void. They try to fill it up with things, or casual affairs, or alcohol, mindless TV watching, mindless activity, endless empty conversation and so on. Of course, with no success. When all it requires is a journey inward to find the source of abundance and love. That which no one can take away from us except our own mistaken belief that we are poor and unloved.

Look! Look closely!

--------- this one is dedicated to you Ushasam ----------

Look at a leaf. Any leaf. Small, big, round, spiked, shiny, matte... Look at how it just sits there at the end of a branch, nodding slightly at the wind. Feel its aliveness. Feel its vibrancy. See how it quietly, without any sound, gently giving and receiving, in quiet symbiosis. It does not think about its own greatness. It does not think how much it is giving to the world, how much worth it has or does not have. No, not even fruits think that. Look beyond, its shape, its colour, its texture. Look beyond its physicality. Drop your mind and look beyond the apparent. Even though it has a boundary and is attached to a stem, feel it open to the universe, a part of it and one with it. Feel its silence. Feel its joy. Feel it’s Beingness.

Look at yourself. Body, thoughts, emotions. Where are these felt and experienced? In the mind. It is the mind that registers the existence of the body, that knows itself to be thinking, the thoughts of which give rise to reactions in the body that are felt as emotions. But look at the mind itself, always moving, always changing, never constant. Can anything as inconstant as that be true? Happiness, misery, moods come and go, even your own self-image changes according to the nature of your thoughts. Can anything eternal come from the mind? Look beyond the mind. There is something that never changes, that was not young when you were a baby, is not an adult, will not be old when the body grows old. Is constant, unmoving yet vibrant. Is not confined to the body. Is beneath and beyond your every thought and feeling. Is eternal. Is unbound. Is free. Feel the silence. Feel the Beingness. Feel the bliss.

What opens us to someone else?

(article from the Dominion Post dated 24th Sept ‘09)

by Neil Rosenthal

Let’s say you were looking to love someone – or to love someone more fully. What would you do to achieve that goal? Pamper her with jewellery? Compliment him? Romance her more? Spend more time together? Bring her flowers? Seduce him?

Well, not exactly. Not that those behaviours wouldn’t be appreciated, but rather they are only partial answers to the question of what it takes for us to be more loving. The real answer is that we require the five As: attention, acceptance/approval, appreciation, affection and allowing. Those behaviours taken together opens us up and make us feel safe, secure, loved, valued and cherished.

Attention. Attunement. Noticing what someone is doing, how they’re doing, how they’re feeling, what they sound like, what they need and want. When we feel someone’s genuine and friendly attention, we feel more deeply known for who we are, and it creates greater degrees of connection, trust and safety. Attention is about bringing someone into our focus, so we no longer see that person with as much blurred vision. To desire attention is to desire a listener who focuses on you with kindness and respect, who takes you seriously and who values how you feel.

Acceptance / Approval. When you feel accepted, you feel worthy. Trusted. Approved of as you are. Supported. The more secure you feel regarding how accepted you are, the more you will be able to open up and love more freely. So how do we accept traits and behaviours in our partner (and in ourselves) which are self-destructive, self-centred, morally wrong, foolish and risky? The answer lies in seeing beyond someone’s weaknesses to his or her inner being, where we can see his/her inner beauty and potential. It is only then that we can speak against a behaviour without speaking against the person.

Appreciation. To feel greater levels of self-confidence and self-worth, we need to feel recognised, appreciated, respected and valued for what we are, what we give, what we do and how we are unique and special. We thrive when we are encouraged, and appreciation is encouragement. It also fosters greater closeness.

Affection. Touch is essential for opening up and remaining intimate. From holding hands to making love, expressing ourselves physically helps us stay connected and secure in each other’s presence. But affection can be more than physical. It is also about feeling and communicating that you genuinely like someone else, and like being in his / her presence. You are also being affectionate when you are kind, considerate, playful, romantic, compassionate, thoughtful and empathetic.

Allowing. In a relationship, when I am allowed to be my authentic self, to express my deepest needs and longings, to trust in my own judgement, to go after creating my life’s goals and ambitions and to explore my own unique path and interests, you are allowing me the ability to create my best self. My best self is the self I would be if I weren’t devoting so much of my time and energy to meeting everyone else’s needs, expectations and demands. So if you want me, you cannot be controlling of me, or put so many nasty demands on me that I wind up losing myself in order to take care of you.

The five As are eloquently articulated and described by David Richo in his book How to be an adult in Relationships (Shambala). They are the essential ingredients of love, respect, security and support. All of them make us more loving both when we give and when we receive them.

Neil Rosenthal is a marriage and family therapist specialising in intimate relationships.

Just in passing

I remember a train journey I once undertook from Kerala to Mumbai where for the most part I did nothing but tree-gazing. I was in the ladies compartment with other ladies for company but travelling alone and just sitting at the window looking at the trees outside. Which were densely packed and verdant in Kerala but grew sparser as we travelled through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. I remember I got through the whole journey without feeling the need to lie down except at night when it was dark outside and the trees invisible, and with no mental tedium that is usually associated with such long journeys. It was somehow more fascinating than talking to my co-passengers, engaging in small-talk and exchanging pleasantries. It was during that journey that I realised that trees have a character of their own, no matter how deformed, broken or dwarfed they might be. They in their wooden silence communicated far more than humans do in their animated talk. Maybe it’s because trees can’t be anything else but themselves. While humans beings are role-playing most of the time. It must have been a truly memorable journey because that’s the only one that stands out in my memory all these years and so many other train journeys later.

Two ways to look at a tree

Let’s say we are engaged in the joyful occupation of looking at a tree. I’ve noticed that there are at least two ways in which we can look at a tree.

The first way would be to look at the tree critically. As soon as we begin, the minds starts a running commentary comprising of statements, observations and questions. Something like – “The tree looks so beautiful / green / bare / wilted. I wonder how old it is. But I can find out only by cutting it down and counting the rings. But it certainly looks old. I wonder if there are any birds’ nests in it. What kinds of birds would be nesting in it? Does it produce flowers? Or fruits? How does one tell if a tree’s fruit is edible and not poisonous? Maybe in the old days people tried eating all the fruits and when they found it tasty and no one died, they pronounced it edible.” And on and on. At the end of half an hour, our brain would have worked out a number of things about the tree and worked itself up trying to get a cerebral understanding of the tree.

The other way would be to simply watch the tree. If any thoughts come up to watch those as well. Eventually the thoughts would all die down and there would be only the tree in all its Beingness. After a while the barriers that separate you and the tree might begin to dissolve and you may begin to feel that your being is one with that of the tree’s. It wouldn’t even matter that you are one kind of living being and the tree is another. And that you communicate using different means. Because you would have reached a state where it can be said that you are in communion with the tree, that the tree and you are one. After that there could be a realisation that you and the tree are both pure consciousness of which you and the tree are manifestations. That can be said to be a state of pure love. This state, of course, can be reached with anything, whether living or non-living.

Unfortunately, most of us live in a world where we don’t get a chance to look within ourselves, let alone watch a tree. We mostly only look at CVs, bank balances, health test reports, other people's successes, and of course the mirror. Our lives are almost entirely lived in the external, in the world. Outside events and experiences determine all our joys and miseries. We fail to notice that there is an inner world that is vastly more powerful, more magnificent, more blissful and which encompasses the whole universe, not just the world of the senses. That the joy present in this world is totally independent of the outside world and can be accessed anytime, regardless of the circumstances.

Sometimes we need to watch a tree / a cloud / raindrops / sunset / cats. Or just observe silence.

Footnote : Most societies, even the most materially prosperous ones, are still living in ‘survival’ mode. The poorer ones are just trying to survive in the physical plane, ie trying to keep body and soul together. But once this need has been met we construct more and more elaborate models to keep what we have acquired and acquire more and more. Then it has more to do with the ‘survival’ of the status quo. And as more success is achieved the subtle shift in the status quo ensures that more prosperous societies struggle and stress out as much as poorer societies do, trying to keep themselves in the ‘income bracket’ / comfort zone and to move further up. Thereby condemning themselves to perpetually being in ‘survival’ mode.

Dignity of labour

On the first day as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, just in the middle one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, "Mr.Lincoln, you must not forget that your father used to make shoes for our family." And the whole Senate laughed, they thought they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln.

But Lincoln, and that type of people are made of an entirely different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man and said, "Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here ... because the way he made shoes, nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes, he poured his whole soul in it. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself, if you have any complaint, I can make another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, no one has ever complained about my father's shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father."

The whole Senate was struk dumb. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He had made shoe-making an art, a creativity. And he was proud because his father did the job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard.

It does not matter what you do. It matters how you do it - of your own accord, with your own vision, with your own love. Then whatever you touch becomes gold.

I am That

That which throbs in my every heartbeat,

that which lies awake while I sleep,

that which rests in the gap between my thoughts,

that which negates me, destroys my ego,

that which transforms me into nothingness and everythingness,

I am That, I am That, I am the Brahmah.

Soulmates

Soulmates come into our life to teach us lessons.

When the teaching is done they leave.

That is inevitable.

Wisdom lies in letting them go.

Joy lies in being grateful that they came into our lives.

P.S. The laws of the soul are implacable and wise.

Haiku

Sometimes it is enough

to just be there

and just be yourself.

My need, a wound,

bleeds into the night,

bleeds me of joy.

Long dark night of rain,

long night of the soul,

brilliant, glorious morning.

Attention

Anything you nurture and pay attention to flourishes,
anything you neglect dies,
this is a law of nature.

P.S. this also applies to relationships.

Feelings and Emotions

---- a lovely poem by the Vietnamese poet Xuan Dieu ----

To be a poet is to hum with winds,
to ride the moon and dream, to roam with clouds,
to have one’s soul involved in myriad ties
and share one’s heart among a hundred loves.

Here is home where all the world may lodge,
a vase that gathers minds of every hue,
a garden birds will sow with every seed,
where honey flowers jostle poison fruits.

His eyes, two wells, contain the skies above;
his ears erect no barrier , stop no sound:
he can perceive each whisper out of space
and of the blue can catch the faintest hint.

With hand on breast, he feels the tide of blood
and tears for all men’s hearts within one heart.
He penetrate the murmur of a brook,
birdcalls, the howl of storms, a sunbeam’s cheer.

Born wingless, he takes off and roams the sky;
walking on earth, he visits heaven’s heights.
His minute can enfold a thousand years;
he sees all nature in one blade of grass.

I am just a little pin- a million things
are all a million magnets drawing me.
Night scents, entrancing, rise with the full moon-
why blame the poet for his throes of love?

- Xuan Dieu

Astonishing the Gods

----- excerpt from Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri -----

And as he breathed deeply the changing colours of the air, he noticed that the glow that was his guide seemed to be floating.

"What is the first law of this place?" he asked his floating guide.

"The first law of our city", the guide said, with that almost ironic smile in the voice. "is that what you think is what becomes real."

He pondered this as he walked past fountains and alongside the fields of dancing colours that he had already passed before.

"Does that mean if I think I have passed the same place twice it too becomes real?"

"Yes."

"But what if I pass it twice before I think it?"

"That means you are not aware of it the first time. Anything you are not aware of you have to experience again."

"Why?"

"Because if you aren't aware of it, you didn't pass it. You didn't experience it."

"But what if I am aware of the second time?"

"Then you experienced it once. The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time."

"Why is this so?"

"It is one of the foundations of our civilisation. At the beginning of our history there was great suffering. Our sages learnt that we tend to repeat our suffering if we have not learnt fully all that can be learnt from it. And so we had to experience our suffering completely while it happened so it would be so deeply lodged in our memory and in our desire for a higher life that we would never want to experience the suffering again, in any form. Hence the law. Anyone wo sleeps through their experiences would have to undergo them for as many times as it takes to wake them up and make them feel the uniqueness or the horror of their experiences for the first time. This law is the basis of our civilisation, a permanent sense of wonder at the stillness of time."

"Is time still?"

"Does time move?"

"Yes."

"Where to?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen it move?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"On a sundial."

"That is a measurement of a motion. Time itself is invisible. It is not a river. While you are in time all time is still. As in a painting."

"But day turns into night."

"Yes."

"So times moves."

"No. The planet moves. Time is still."

"I don't understand."

"That's because you move your mind too much."

"What then is the second law of this place?"

"When you need to know it you will find out."

"You are a difficult guide."

"Wait till you meet the others."

With this remark the guide fell silent again.

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

Strength Song

------ Powerful yet tender, another gem by Attila Jozsef -------

I toss spring over my shoulder
and feed it to my heart
I bear the yoke of my defiant age.
I groan but my knees refuse to bend.
I hoard the flaming dragon of my rages,
the tongue that wrings the page’s sorrows
Pyramid worlds crumble under my feet,
I stagger the heavens. The sun crowns my head.
Worlds of pain drain from my clenched fist
Nothing, but nothing brings me to my knees
but my mother’s grave overgrown with weeds

-Attila Jozsef

I wait for You

--- an amazing poem by the poet Attila Jozsef -----

I wait for you
There’s dew on the rough grass
Sprawling branches wait for you
With open arms

I am cold. The leaves are wet
And shiver at night.

Should you come, they would quiet.
And there would be great silence.
We would listen only to our hearts,
Feel only the sweetness of our lips.
Nothing else would matter

Our skins would burn
Red and infinite
And our souls melt
Into the dawn’s scented altar

-Attila Jozsef

The incredible lightness of being ...

The incredible lightness of being
without fear.

The incredible lightness of being
without desire.

The incredible lightness of being
my true self.

The incredible lightness of being
in God.

Beguilement

Between my body’s great desire to live
and my soul’s implacable will to be free,
I am caught, like a moth enthralled by the flame,
circles it in hypnotised flight.

Weighed down by the world and its ways,
my soul ever ready to take flight, waits.
While remembered glimpses of freedom
beguile, tantalise, but out of reach…

Whales

----- the latest from Tia's creative pen -----

Whales are creatures that live in the sea
They have feelings and moods
Just like you and just like me

They are beautiful animals
that should not be left out
they have tails and wonders with a water spout

So you see that these whales are important to me
in the ocean they live from Antarctica to Greece
we should just let them live in peace.

The flaming moth

My soul afire
at Your touch,
all else turned to ashes
at Your feet.

This flaming moth
this luminous soul,
resplendently caught
in the flame of Your candle.

Freed of bondage
light with bliss.
Only You and I
and ecstasy.

Emergence...

It took me three decades to finally realise that the purpose of my life is NOT to bear children or raise a family. To realise that I don’t have to be a mother to feel complete. That I don’t even need a home and hearth to be at home. It took me this long to find out that the only reason why I was born is to find myself. And what a perilous thing that seems, so fraught with adventure, danger, fear and failure. And yet when I look back, I see that I have come a long way from being a lost, confused, misguided youth to being a woman who is finally beginning to see glimpses of her true worth, to see that her womanliness is intact even without kids, her soul is divine under all circumstances, even when she is down in the dust. I have come to realise that I don’t need a man, a career, relationships, looks, wealth, roots, country or even the identity of a name to feel complete. I am finally beginning to see the wisdom of the words that ‘all treasures lie within’. So now I have finally dropped my search for them without.

At first it seemed strange because when you take away all external things there is nothing left. Our mind is so occupied with the externals, with the superficial things that we seek our happiness in. The lack of which causes pain, the presence of which gives happiness, but which is so temporary that it is foolish to base one’s happiness on something so inconstant. But when you drop your dependence on the mind, drop the mind itself, then a vast silence comes into being which instead of being desolate, is alive and pulsating. In which dwells peace that passes understanding, bliss that is out of the world and whose very nature is love.

I have realised that all the experiences I’ve gone through in life have been there for my learning, even the horrible ones. The ones I have railed against and shaken my fist at God against. That at that time felt like I was being made to swallow the bitterest, foulest medicine ever made. They were His form of tough love. It was as if He was saying to me, ‘Why are you all curled up and sitting in a bud? Bloom, my child, bloom to be the magnificent blossom you were meant to be.’ When someone trusts you so much you cannot let them down, can you? I guess the ugly chrysalis has to emerge to be a beautiful butterfly one day.

We are like waves in the huge ocean of existence, we rise briefly and fall back again into the source. The mistake we make is to think ourselves separate from the ocean, to lose our sense of connection with the whole. The knowledge of oneness is our only anchor, without it we toss anchorless, drifting aimlessly, buffeted by the storms of circumstance, bruised and broken on the rocks of misfortune.

So now I’m in a state of peace, a state of grace and this grace is hard-won. It did not come easily. It came after defeating persistent demons, crossing tumultuous rivers and braving devastating storms. It’s like the well-earned peace that comes after a particularly destructive storm, when all is swept away and the only thing standing is yourself. And you realise that that’s all you need to build again.

I have come to realise that my magnum opus is the book of my life. The masterpiece that is me is not in the making, it has already been created, already written. Harmonious, complete, joyful, in tune with the universe. After all, God writes only bestsellers :) I only have to read it and savour it, everyday, every moment.

Haiku

Seeking nothing for itself
but finding itself everywhere
my soul rolls in ecstasy.

The caged bird

Though wings have I
yet I cannot fly
the sky is just a dream.

~~~

The soul held captive
by the bars of the mind
yet knowing itself free.

Gabriela Mistral

Some beautiful poems by Gabriela Mistral, great Chilean Poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

ROCKING

Holy Oceans rocks its millions
of waves in the sun.
Listening to loving seas
I rock my little one

Wandering in the night the wind
rocks the wheat.
Listening to the loving winds
I rock my sweet.

The Father rocks his thousand worlds
Silent, mild.
Feeling his hand in the darkness
I rock my child.


THE SAD MOTHER

Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest.

Sleep, sleep, and in the night
may your whispers be softer
than a leaf of grass,
or the silken fleece of lambs.

May my flesh slumber in you,
my worry, my trembling.
In you, may my eyes close
and my heart sleep.


I AM NOT ALONE

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!


LITTLE FEET

Children’s little feet,
blue with cold how can you be
seen and not protected
dear Lord!!

Little feet bruised
by every stone
abused by the snow,
the mud:

Blind eyes don’t see that
where you pass
You leave a living flower
of light,

that where you set
your bleeding sole
the sweet herb grows
more sweet.

Since you walk
the straight streets,
be heroic, as you are
complete

Children’s little feet,
jewels of suffering,
how can those who pass you
not see!!


GIVE ME YOUR HAND

Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,
a single flower is all we'll be.

Keeping time in the dance together,
you'll be singing the song with me.
Grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we'll be.

I'm called Hope and you're called Rose:
but losing our names we'll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we'll be.

Haiku

My soul unfolds
in widening circles
of love.

seeking ......

Most people think that the purpose in life is to find happiness
and they search for love, wealth, peace ...
But little do they know that if one finds the Self,
one would have found everything ....

One

Peel away these layers of ignorance, oh Lord,
so that my soul shall stand revealed.

Then I shall offer it to You, oh Lord,
with inexpressible gratitude and joy.

Then there shall be no division, oh Lord,
then we shall forever be One.

I already Am

There is no growth
I already Am.
There is only a revealment
of who I already Am.

the Self

If you love the Self,
you will have loved the world.

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