Saturday, July 25, 2015

Robert Adams - Silence



The highest teaching in the world is Silence.
There is nothing higher than this.
A devotee who sits with a sage purifies his mind
just by being with the sage.
No words exchanged, no words said.
Silence is the Ultimate Reality.
Everything exists in this world through Silence.
True silence really means going deep within yourself
to that place where nothing is happening,
where you transcend time and space.
You go into a brand new dimension of nothingness.
That is where all the power is.
That's your real home.
That's where you really belong where there is no good and bad,
no one trying to achieve anything.
Just being - pure being.
The only freedom you will ever have
is when you go deep into the Silence 
and you transcend, transmute the universe, 
your body and your affairs.





Hafiz - The sword drop from men's hands

Fu re d’Egitto ma non dell’India (Alessandro Magno).


 I have come into this world to see this:

the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh to wound
and it is the Beloved's.

I have come into this world to see this:

all creatures hold hands as we pass through
this miraculous existence we share on the way
to an even greater being of soul,
a being of just ecstatic light,
forever entwined and at play with Him.

I have come into this world to hear this:

every song the earth has sung
since it was conceived in the Divine's womb
and began spinning from His wish,
every song by wing and fin and hoof,
every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child,
every song of stream and rock,
every song of tool and lyre and flute,
every song of gold and emerald and fire,
every song the heart should cry
with magnificent dignity to know itself as God:
for all other knowledge will leave us
again in want and aching -
only imbibing the glorious Sun will complete us.

I have come into this world to experience this:

men so true to love they would rather die
before speaking an unkind word,
men so true their lives are His covenant -
the promise of hope.

I have come into this world to see this:

the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of their arc of rage
because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh we can wound.


 from Love Poems from God:
Twelve Sacred voices from East and West
edited by Daniel Ladinsky



Friday, July 24, 2015

Carl G. Jung - My soul...




"My soul... Where are you?..
Do you hear me?..
I Speak.. I call you.. Are you there?
I have Returned.
I am here again.
I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet,
and I have come to you.
I am with you..
After long years, of long wondering,
I have come to you, again.

Should I tell you, everything I have seen?
Experienced? or drank in?
or do you not want to hear,
about the noise of life and the world.

But one thing you must know,
the one thing I have learned,
is that one must live his life..
This life is the way,
the long sought after way,
to the unfathomable which we call divine.

There is no other way.
All other ways, are false paths.
So I found the right way,
to let it let me to you, to my soul.

I've returned, tempted and purified.
Do you still know me?
How long, the separation lasted.
Everything has come so different.

And how did I find you?
How strange my journey was.
What words should I use to tell you,
on what twisted path a good star has guided me to you.

Give me your hand,
My almost forgotten soul.
How long, the joy, at seeing you again.
You long disappointed soul.
Life has let me back to you.
Let us thank the life I have lived,
for all the happy, and all the sad hours,
For every joy, for every sadness.

My soul, my journey,
should continue with you..
I will wonder with you,
and ascend to my solitude.."

from "Red book"



 

Ribhu Gita - Conquest of thought


 

 "If we think for a moment
that there is such a thing as thought,
consciousness itself will appear as thought.
That itself will appear as the world,
and jivas, and as the Supreme.
There will be misery arising out of it.
Therefore, beloved,
conquer thought easily by the certitude
that there is no such thing as thought
and all is Consciousness,
and like this attain bliss."

"Conquest of thought alone is the great success.
Conquest of thought alone is the great achievement.
Conquest of thought alone is the great yoga.
Conquest of thought alone is the great knowledge.
Conquest of thought alone is the great purification.
Conquest of thought alone is the great liberation.
Conquest of thought alone is the removal of sorrow.
Conquest of thought alone is the greatest happiness.

But conquest of thought is, itself,
the renunciation of thought,
(and) the renunciation of thought

is Consciousness." 
 


PDF

Fred LaMotte - Invitation to the wedding



On your lips the name of Krishna
means that emptiness
has kissed the color blue.

Yet they are one, not two.
The cloudless sky is only
an invitation to the wedding.

Inside the vacuum of space
is a bridal chamber,
a vortex of melodies,

a hollow flute,
a rainbow of silence
to flavor your breath.

Let your eyes gaze into themselves
and cultivate a garden
in your chest,

a golden rose
proportionate
to your desire.

The sword of the sun is sheathed
in the new moon,
brilliance hidden completely

in darkness.
Those who move beyond this world
of name and form

come back with light in their faces.
This is the true giving
of the rich to the poor.









 


Thursday, July 23, 2015

Nisargadatta Maharaj - The world is Love in action



What can truth or reality gain by all our practice?



"Nothing whatsoever, of course. But it is in the nature of truth or love, cosmic consciousness, whatever you want to call it, to express itself, to affirm itself, to overcome difficulties. Once you've understood that the world is love in action, consciousness or love in action, you will look at it quite differently. But first your attitude to suffering must change. Suffering is primarily a call for attention, which itself is a movement of love. More than happiness, love wants growth, the widening and deepening of awareness and consciousness and being. Whatever prevents that becomes a cause of pain, and love does not shirk from pain."


source text  here

Farid ud-Din Attar - No form but His




The pilgrim sees no form but His and knows
That He subsists beneath all passing shows
The pilgrim comes from Him whom he can see,
Lives in Him, with Him, and beyond all three.
Be lost in Unity's inclusive span,
Or you are human but not yet a man.
Whoever lives, the wicked and the blessed,
Contains a hidden sun within his breast
Its light must dawn though dogged by long delay;
The clouds that veil it must be torn away
Whoever reaches to his hidden sun
Surpasses good and bad and knows the One.
The good and bad are here while you are here;
Surpass yourself and they will disappear.




Tuesday, July 21, 2015




Wei Wu Wei - Inconceivable


Positive' is not positive without 'negative', and 'negative' is not negative without 'positive'. Therefore they can only be two halves of one whole, two conceptual aspects of one whole which as a whole cannot be conceived - precisely because it is this which seeks to conceive.

'Being' cannot be without 'non-being', and 'non-being' cannot not be without 'being'. Therefore they can only be two aspects of one whole which as such cannot be conceived - in which there is neither being nor non-being as objective existences.

'Appearance' (form) cannot appear without 'void' (voidness of appearance), and 'void' cannot be voidness of appearance without 'appearance'. Therefore they must be two conceptual aspects of what is objectively inconceivable - as which their identity is absolute in non-objectivity.

'Subject' has no conceptual existence apart from 'object', nor 'object' apart from 'subject'. They, too, are twin spinning aspects of the inconceivable in which they are inevitably reunited in mutual negation.

Where there is neither positive nor negative, being nor non-being, appearance nor void, subject nor object, there must be identity. But identity cannot perceive itself, and that is what we are. That is why only he who does not know can speak, and why he who knows cannot speak - for what-he-is cannot be an object of what-he-is, and so cannot be conceived or described.

Positive and negative, being and non-being, appearance and void, subject and object, can be conceived by us because, as 'us', mind is divided into subject-conceiving and object-conceived but, re-identified with what they are, we are their total objective absence - which is thought of as pure undivided mind.

'Space' is a static three-dimensional concept, of which 'time' is the active counterpart, whose functioning constitutes a further dimension of measurement. Space cannot be conceived without time (duration), nor time without space (extension). Two conceptual aspects of a unity which is inconceivable; given the name of 'space-time', their identity is absolute in non-conceptuality. Unaccompanied by them, phenomena cannot be extended in appearance, and only with space-time as their noumenal source can phenomena be assumed to be.

'Phenomena' cannot be such without 'noumenon', nor 'noumenon' without 'phenomena'. Therefore conceptually they also are two aspects of non-conceptuality. Phenomena, being no things in themselves (devoid of self-nature) yet are everything, and noumenon, being the source of everything, yet is no thing. Everything, then, is both, and neither is any thing: eternally separate as concepts, they are forever inseparable unconceived, and that identity is the essential understanding.

That is what the universe is in so far as its nature can be suggested in words. The universe is inconceivable, because what it is, is what we are, and what we are is what the universe is - and that is total absence cognitionally which, uncognised, necessarily subsists as total presence.



 

Monday, July 20, 2015

Rumi - Love showed me the way!





I've traveled around
raced through every city
while i knew all along
no place could be found
like the city of love

if I could have known
to value what i owned
I would not have suffered
like a fool
the life of a vagabond

I've heard many tunes
all over the globe
all empty
as a kettledrum
except the music of love

it was the sound of
that hollow drum
that made me fall
from the heavens
to this mortal life

I used to soar
among souls
like a heart's flight
winglessly roaming and
celestially happy

I used to drink
like a flower that drinks
without lips or throat
of the wine that overflows
with laughter and joy

suddenly
I was summoned by love
to prepare for a journey
to the temple of
suffering

I cried desperately
I begged and pleaded
and shredded my clothes
not to be sent
to this world

just the way I fear now
going away
to the other world
I was frightened then
to make my descent

Love asked me to go
with no fear to be alone
promising to be close
everywhere I go
closer than my veins

Love threw its spell
its magic and allure
using coyness and charm
I was totally sold and
bought everything with joy

who am I to resist
love's many tricks
and not to fall
while the whole world
takes love's bait

Love showed me
a path but then
lost me on the way
if I could have resisted
I would have found my way

I can show you my friend
surely how you can get there
but here and now
my pen has broken down
before telling you how


Ghazal (Ode) 1509
Translation by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Burning Gate Press, Los Angeles, 1994.