Surrender

Some time ago my friend Rukmini and I was talking about the subject of ‘surrender’. She said in Sanskrit it is called ‘saranagati’ and a shining example is when the great monkey god Hanuman prostrates in front of Lord Ram and surrenders to him. I remember the recollection of this had moved her to tears.

Thereafter, I’ve often thought about this thing called surrender. What does it mean by surrendering to God. Most of us think of ‘God’ as an external entity who is greater than us, above and beyond us and to whose divine and implacable will we have to surrender our will. Bt doing so somehow takes all the power away from us and turns us into a weak puppet whose strings are held by this omnipotent God. But the Advaita concept of “aham brahmasmi’ or Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom of God is within us contradicts the concept of an external powerful God surrendering to whose iron will renders us impotent.

Recently, while reading some spiritual teachings I came upon a passage that said just ‘God is not some external being, God is the God-consciousness that exists in all of us’. The book said ‘Christ-consciousness’ but we can call it ‘Krishna-consciousness’ or ‘Buddha-consciousness’ or ‘Allah-consciousness’ (the words themselves don’t mean anything). When I meditated on this, it all became clear to me.

All of us have an egoic self, a false self that we have built over the years, by adding layer upon layer of personality, a shell we have woven around ourselves, a shell that exists only in our minds. Unfortunately, for most of the time we are identified with this false egoic self. We believe it to be our real self, so much so that we guard it, protect it and go to great lengths to keep it intact. But if we ever slip into a state of awareness, we will be able to see that this self is just a chimera, a fabrication, a totally made-up entity and if we remain in that awareness, we can see the falseness for what it is and it begins to fade or diminish in importance and leave the centre-stage.

At the same time we can become aware of a subtle presence, a deep silence, a gentle joyous presence, a deep wisdom, so full of love, energy and knowing. This is god or rather the god-consciousness within us. This is our true self. And saranagati occurs when our egoic self surrenders to our true self, the god within us. Because the egoic self has fallen away, all fears and doubts also fall away, together with hatred, envy, pain, desire, attachment, because all of these belong to the false self.

The image of Hanuman surrendering to Lord Ram is a powerful symbolism for our monkey-mind surrendering to our divine self. Total surrender to our own god-nature is indeed powerful, liberating and essential. That is the only way we can find ourselves and be our true self. This is the only way we can be free. Like Jesus said, ‘Seek ye the truth, for the truth shall set you free.’ The truth lies nowhere but within ourself.

Know yourself...

Know yourself as the spirit, for you are nothing but the spirit. Everything else is a story you have made up by yourself...

A fragment of a dream

A terse dream this was,
broken, anguished, blurred,
of which a fragment remains
in my memory, embedded.

A wayward bullet strikes
at lightening speed your chest,
passing through it spears,
calmly, through my breast.

Locked in a gaze we stand,
as love flows out the wounds.
Caught tight in death’s hand
as the dream softly fades.

On waking, for long I ponder;
did our souls our bodies flee
at the same moment, together?
Did they merge to become free?

Did pain set our insides afire?
Is sorrow the bullet that incinerates,
torching our ignorance, our desire,
and into freedom thus liberates?

Journeying, on trains .....

Have you noticed that life is like a train journey. When it begins you get into the train. You have all these co-passengers who are already sitting there and those who get in with you. Then as the train keeps moving, people get off, along the way other people get in. You get to know the people sitting around you, you are oblivious of the people in other compartments except when you catch brief glimpses of them at stations. And so it goes on, people get in and get off, some stay briefly, some stay for long periods, and with each you have a unique experience. You learn, you give and take, you laugh, fight, make up, part. Eventually you get off at some station. You are richer in experience, wiser. You have learnt a lot. If there is more experience to be had, more lessons to be learnt, you get into another train. And so it begins again. Another train, another journey. You keep doing this until perhaps you’ve learnt that you are the train, the journey, the stations, the co-passengers and everything else. Then there will be nothing more to be learnt, then no train can contain you, for you will have encompassed all and will find yourself in everything. This will not be the end of all journeys or the beginning of a new one because beginnings and endings belong to time and you will be beyond time. You will have realised that you are timeless, limitless and infinite.

Beginnings and endings

Have you noticed that every moment dies as soon as it is born? Have you noticed that life is a series of beginnings and endings? That everything that begins has to end someday? Everything, yes, EVERYTHING! Without exception. Things begin to die as soon as they spring up. Life is simultaneously a living and a dying. Then why do we cling? If everything is in transition, why do we get attached? I guess we don’t see the impermanence. We look at a flower and admire its beauty, drink in its delicateness, are touched by its fragility, moved by its sheer splendour. Yet at the back of our minds we are aware that this same flower will wilt by the next day and turn into a heap of brown shriveled petals in a few days. Maybe it’s this knowledge that makes us rejoice in its beauty for a brief, glorious, uplifting moment. Maybe we should look at every moment like that, see the transience of it, its temporariness, maybe then we can live life open-fisted, without holding on to anything. Maybe then we can rejoice in the fullness of every moment, participate in the beauty of it. And then let it go. Because a new moment has already arisen. It is said that in the spirit world there is no Time, everything happens in the Now. There is no memory, hence no past, there is no imagination, hence no future. There is only the now which is eternal. Maybe we should live as eternal spirit. Maybe then we can be free of attachment, of desire, of suffering. Maybe then we can be free as we were meant to be, or rather as we really are.

Ruminations

~ I am a powerful magnet
for love - because waves of love is what I am sending out
for abundance - because the Universe is in a state of abundance
for joy - because that is my real state.


~ Let’s float free in the magical, pulsating, swirling, interconnected matrix of energy. Let’s live borderless, unfettered, limitless (borders, fetters and limits exist only in the mind). Know in the depths of your being that you are infinite, free and divine.

(It would be good to affirm this on a daily basis, or even hourly :))


~ Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a racing mind. Thoughts stumble fast and furious into my mindscape and scamper around in circles. For hours. A quiet, sane voice reminds me softly that I must drop my mind and stop thinking, but I go on restlessly, tossing and turning under the covers until finally my mind drops off exhausted. Usually by this time, the sun’s just sending out its first rays and I drop off into a fitful doze. But something happens during this doze. Like the sun breaking through the mists of the night, dispensing the darkness and rising bright and resplendent, when I wake up, my mind is clear and sunny, all the demons of the night vanquished, my mind still and my heart at peace and my spirit shining clear and strong. Like they say, ‘the morning after the blackest night is the brightest’.

The rainbow tree

--- I got this as an email forward but I liked it so much I decided to post it here ---





As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will.

You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken.

You'll fight with your best friend.

You'll blame a new love for things an old one did.

You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love.

So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

Doorway to Now

A very powerful commentary about the impermanence of the past and the immortality of the Now.

Watch the video

God and Dog

Lovely little video!

Watch it here


:))))

Thought for the day

It is a most difficult thing to give up is the clinging to this universe; few ever attain to that. There are two ways to do that: one way is called neti neti ("not this, not this"), the other is called iti iti ("this, this"). The former is the negative, the latter is the positive way.

The negative way is the most difficult. It is only possible to people of the very highest, exceptional minds and gigantic wills who simply stand up and say, "No, I will not have this," and the mind and body obey their will, and they come out successful. But such people are rare.

The vast majority choose the positive way, the way through the world, making use of all the bondages themselves to break those very bondages. This is also a kind of giving up; only it is done slowly and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things and thus obtaining experience, and knowing the nature of things until the mind lets them all go at last and becomes unattached.

The former way of obtaining non-attachment is by reasoning, and the latter way is through work and experience. The first is the path of Jñāna Yoga, the second is that of Karma Yoga.

- Swami Vivekananda

Thought for the day

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

- Howard Truman (clergy, civil rights activist and mystic)

A prayer for jnyan

This world intrudes, oh Lord
on my joyous contemplation of you.
Our ecstatic love-making it interrupts,
our blissful union it desecrates.

Wipe it away, oh Lord
with one swipe of your mighty hand.
Obliterate, blot it out,
this quivering chimera of dust.

Or else, even better, oh Lord
take me forthright out of it,
this needy body, this wily mind
this maddening beckoning of desire.

Even so, I know, oh Lord
liberation lies in realising that;
rise I must, like a lotus, clean
above the tainting dust, and the dream.

The dawning of truth, oh Lord
I await, when you and I shall be one.
The world will lose its grip on me,
the soul as free as a soul should be.

Thought for the day

"Once mighty waters hurled themselves against rock. And from these two harsh strengths came this most gentle sand." - Anon

Can't say more :) What I will say will just be words. Let the wisdom speak to the wisdom of your soul.

Thought for the day

"Time changes all things: there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.

-Ferdinand de Saussure, linguist (1857-1913)"

The challenge

When I meditate or when I am in a meditative state of mind when not meditating I find that I become silence itself, fearless, unmoved, infinite. Like the calm inside the eye of a storm. It’s almost like I’m a different person. The real me emerges. When I move out of that silence, I become subject to desires, fears, wayward thoughts and emotions, like a leaf tossed about in the storm. The challenge, the moment-by-moment challenge is to stay in that silence, to stay faithful to my true self.

A Banquet of Concise Wisdom

from Vernon Howard

The Dynamic Power of Awareness

The most trivial act becomes dynamic when you attempt it with self-awareness. Whether you are washing the dishes, or painting a table, or simply walking from one room to another, try to be aware of yourself doing just that. Don’t just paint or walk, but be conscious of yourself painting or walking. This detaches you from the dream state in which most people live, it puts you in touch with your energetic centre self. Any action performed with self-awareness becomes inspired.


The Natural Life Is True

A cheery relaxation is man’s natural state, just as nature itself is relaxed. A waterfall is concerned only with being itself, not with doing something it considers waterfall-like. It does not force us to think about it; it does not demand our attention and energy; it does not lean on us for gifts; it asks nothing of us. It simply gives what it is, and lets go at that. And that is why we enjoy its magnificence.

The usual phrase is, “Be yourself.” We are not following this counsel if we are strained and unsure. These are the sour fruits of the carelessly adopted synthetic self.


How To Be One With Life

When a stream approaches a series of rocks, it has no preconceived plans for passing them. It does not see the rocks as opponents or as threats to its own existence. The very fluid nature of water tells it how to rightly meet everything in its path. Let this natural wisdom also be in you. Meet everything with a free and flexible mind which is not tied to past experiences. You will then meet all events without alarm, with quiet progress.


Be True To Yourself

Behave the way you really are, even if it ends a relationship! Never suppress yourself in an effort to influence, hold, or win someone. When we are unreal, so are our rewards. To say this in another way, never behave the way you think the other person wants you to behave, but in the manner you must. Nothing you really need to do or have ever requires a yielding to person or custom.


The Secret To True Happiness

Do not deny yourself the normally nice pleasantries of the world in the belief that they are anti-spiritual. People who do this merely repress themselves, which results in secret bitterness and neurosis. Participate freely in your business and social activities, but do not form attachments to them in an effort to find security.

Also, never try to be more spiritually advanced than you are. That is a painful trap. When you do this, change occurs. However, YOU don’t change anything, it just changes.

Buddha found this secret to true happiness. In the early years of his search he practiced severe self-denial, including fasting. On one occasion he so weakened himself that his friends could hardly pull him out of a raging river. Seeing the folly of exterior exercise, he turned in the right direction - inner insight.


Fascinating Facts About the Richer Life

One of the most persistent of errors is the belief that the spiritual life is separate from our daily life in the home or office. The truly spiritual mind sees no difference in the two. Differences in geography seem to make them different in psychology, but the wise mind sees them as one world. A businessman is doing spiritual work when he refuses to waste his energy in feeling disappointed. At the same time that Ralph Waldo Emerson was writing his victorious philosophies, he was also raising the best commercial apples in his home town of Concord, Massachusetts.


Don’t Be Afraid to Play Through Life

Don;t be afraid to play through life. Retire from heavy thoughts. Take everything with lighthearted wisdom. We are heavy because we think we must make an impression, gain something, be somebody. In spite of what society tells you, you need not be anybody at all in the eyes of men. The only genuine need you have is to be a real human being. Try to see this, try to feel it with all your heart. Then you will know what it means to make the world your plaything.


How Love Creates New Energy

Remember that all energy is a single, unified force. The energy which lifts your left hand is the same energy which makes a carrot grow. The power which whirls through space is the same power by which you observe the mood you are in today. This vast energy is ready to renew whoever makes himself ready of it. We make ourselves ready by refusing to take pleasure in negative emotions, by wanting to know more about life than what we see on the surface.

Love is the full, free and uninterrupted flow of life-energy through your psychic system. It is the river with no dams or whirlpools or broken banks or dividing islands. Love is oneness, wholeness, mental health. This free flow starts by first becoming aware of self-division, and then by dissolving it through spiritual insight.

Copyright SuperWisdom Foundation

The Warrior's Prayer

Beautiful video with soulful music and stirring words!

I especially like the words "In love, I unconditionally accept the evolution of others"

The Warrior's Prayer video

The gentle art of blessing

A lovely video with some beautiful visuals and warm, touching words ...

The gentle art of blessing

in retrospect

there was an avalanche
of feelings
of things that defied words
or labels
behind the facade.

if you would have knocked
just a bit
I would have let it cascade
but you didn’t
so I stood mute behind the door.

what stayed your hand
I wonder
what brewed in the silence
so heavy
how do I calm this avalanche now?

teaching kids to take charge

A truly inspiring, life-changing idea. Be the change.

Teaching kids to take charge