Saturday, October 22, 2016

Rumi - I have come to shine


 

I HAVE COME TO SHINE 
(Rumi poem translated by Shahram Shiva)
I have come
to take you by your hand,
and bring you to myself.

I have come
to shine your way
as you walk this path.

I will make you guiltless,
I will make you fearless,
then I will place you in the
brightest point in the universe.

I have come like a breeze of spring
to your field of flowers,
so I can hold you by my side,
and embrace you tight.

I have come
to take you by your hand,
and bring you to myself.

I have come
to shine your way
as you walk this path.

Like the cry of lovers,
I will help you reach the
roof of heavens.

From the dust of the earth to a human being,
there are a thousand steps.
I have been with you through these steps,
I have held your hand and walked by your side.

And I will be with you
as you move beyond this human form
and soar to the highest heavens.

Lyrics from LOVE EVOLVE CD
© Copyright Shahram Shiv
a
http://www.loveevolve.com/ 

Wu Hsin - Instruction on What-Is





My child,
Put an end to your dissatisfaction
With what is merely apparent,
With what seems to be.

You squander so much energy by
Trying to change what seems to be,
To mold and manipulate what seems to be into
Some better what seems to be,
Some new what seems to be,
Some improved what seems to be, into
What you believe what seems to be ought to be.

Know this:
Imagining doesn't end when dreaming ends.
The arrival of sensations doesn't end imagining.
Rather, it produces enhanced imagining,
Something more vivid, more seemingly real.
But what seems to be is not What-Is.
Being is momentary,
Always spatiotemporal,
Whereas What-Is is changeless,
All-pervading.

Now listen to Wu Hsin.
These words, like wind-driven rain on rock, will
Wear away all your beliefs,
All your misconceived notions and ideas.

What is What-Is?
It is the Never Not So,
The Always Already The Case,
The Highest Principle,
The Absolute,
The Most Natural,
The Nearest,
The Everlasting,
The Evershining,
The Inescapable,
The True,
The Uncaused Cause,
The Unrecognizable,
The Imperishable,
The Immaterial Raw Material,
The Center Without Circumference,
The Unspeakable Transcendental Disposition,
The Native Condition,
The Leftover, that which remains when
Everything has been removed.
It is to where fire returns,
Once it's been extinguished.
It is That Fullness Overflowing with Emptiness,
To which nothing can attach,
Which neither comes nor goes,
Which sires the outer, the inner and all duality,
Which can be neither found nor lost, and
Which all descriptions fail to describe.
It can be said to be
The Silence immanent in the voice or
The All, yet nothing in particular or
The Shapeless immanent in the formed or
The Spotless immanent in the spots or
The Real immanent in the imagined or
The Limitless immanent in the limited or
The Universal immanent in the particular or
The Everywhere, without location,
Not even the Beyond or
The Unmanifest, parent to manifestation or
Oneness, no other or
The Depth out of which individuation arises or
The Pure Existence immanent in being or
The Continuous immanent in the discontinuous or
Love immanent in any separate beloved or
The Unconditioned immanent in all conditional representations or
The Unmoving, out of which all flows or
The Unobstructed immanent in the obstructed or
The Invisible immanent in the visible or
The Most Fundamental, neither secondary nor tertiary or
The Unchanging immanent in the changeful or
Luminosity immanent in all things illuminated or
The Infinite immanent in any finite expression or
The Permanent immanent in any phenomenon or
The Immeasurable immanent in the measureable or
The Most Prior, antecedent to everything, even beingness,
It being that which makes Being possible and beings possible.
The Intemporal, out of which time emerges or
The Eternal Ever Is, inexperiencable or
The Beginningless, sourcing all beginnings or
The Stateless immanent in states or
The Background, never the foreground or
The Nameless, that which Wu Hsin has herein sought to name.

Give these words your profound consideration.
Don't just file them away in memory.
Rather, swim through them,
Bathe in them,
Immerse yourself.

Eyes-wide-open sight is available in every moment.
Discrimination between What-Is and the seeming is sufficient.
Intuit this, my child, and trust.
Once the tree is set afire,
The outcome is inevitable.
The flame, if unimpeded, will consume it.


Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Rupert Spira on Devotion



Question: Is there a place for bhakti or devotion in this [Advaita] approach?

Rupert: To be truly devoted means to give our whole self to the object of our devotion at all times. Therefore, the only object worthy or even available for such devotion or love must be something that is always present, for we cannot give ourselves completely to something that is intermittent.

There are no true objects of devotion because all objects are intermittent. Only Consciousness is ever-present and therefore, only Consciousness merits true devotion. And what could give Consciousness this devotion? Obviously an intermittent object such as a body or a mind cannot render devotion to something that is present when it is not. Therefore only Consciousness is able to impart this devotion to itself.

So, it is only Consciousness that can be truly loved and it is only Consciousness that can truly love. However, Consciousness does not love and is not loved. It is love.

So, the highest form of love or devotion is simply to abide as Consciousness, knowingly.

Any other sort of devotion would be the devotion of any imagined entity towards an imagined object.

However, the imagined entity that looks for a direction in which to turn and for something to turn towards, does not realise that the ‘attention’ it is ‘using’ for this purpose is already the Consciousness that it seeks. It is like a current of water searching the ocean for water.

Every object or direction which appears as a possible recipient of the mind’s devotion is an object that it has created within itself and cannot therefore be the true object of its devotion. Any object is simply more mind.

As the mind searches for a direction in which to turn, it is, without knowing it to begin with, tracing itself back to its source.

Finally, having explored all directions, it comes to a dead end. It comes to the knowledge that there is no known direction in which it can turn nor is there an object worthy of true devotion. In short, the mind cannot know what devotion is.

With this understanding the mind falls silent, which means it dissolves and what is revealed is devotion.

Devotion is what we are, not something we do.
* * *
The investigation within the mind for the true object of devotion is sometimes known as self-enquiry or higher reasoning. It is a concession to the mind that thinks it has the capacity to direct its attention at will towards an object.

However, this is not a process of the mind going towards its source, although it may appear to be so to begin with. It is rather, the dissolution of the apparent mind in its source.

[Note: Only something that is not the source could dissolve in its source, so the idea of the dissolution of the mind in its source is part and parcel of the mind’s belief that it is something other than its source. In other words, the idea of a source from which something emerges is a dualitic idea which itself ‘dissolves’ upon understanding that there is no independent entity, mind or object.]

How could a mind go towards Consciousness? In what direction would it go?

It is rather the source itself, Consciousness, that gradually reclaims the mind.

In taking the shape of mind, Consciousness seems to become something other than itself. It seems to become separate, other and outside. At the end of every perception, Consciousness folds the mind back up within Itself and, as a result, ceases to seemingly veil itself with its own creativity.

However, even that formulation is not quite right: the mind has no other substance other than Consciousness so there is nothing there to be dissolved.

When an image that seems to veil the [TV] screen fades, leaving only the screen in view, did the image really dissolve?

The image was only made of screen. However, by seeming to become something other than itself (the landscape on the screen) the screen seemed to become hidden by taking the shape of the landscape and the subsequent fading of the image seemed to reveal the screen.

Likewise, the mind is an appearance within Consciousness, made only of Consciousness, but has the capacity to seem to veil the Consciousness out of which it is made.

In self-enquiry or higher reasoning the mind fades like the image on the screen, leaving only the background of Consciousness in plain view.

It is not the mind that undertakes this process, any more than it is the image in the landscape that is responsible for its own dissolution. The mind does nothing. The mind is not an independent entity with the capacity to do or not to do anything.

In fact, it was always only Consciousness that was in plain view, simultaneously the background and the foreground.






Monday, October 17, 2016

Naomi Stone - O Beloved! You are my Everything..



 
O Beloved! You are the flowering of All Beauty
the depth of every sea and the crest of every wave..
You are the Light of the sun and moon and every star..
the Breath of every breath..
the Heart of every heart..the Soul of every soul
You are the secret whispering in the dancing wind..
You are the divine embrace that sweeps me into the
magnificent flowing Spirit that lives eternally..
the life-giving essence that sweetens the air
with the fragrance of every flower…
the scent of life..the glow of every lover…
the innocence of every child..
the purity of deep surrendering…
You are the peace of every being..
You are the dream..the hope..the truth..the vision
of imagination..the manifestation of life itself..
You are the integrity and warmth of Friendship…
the tears of tenderness…the dance of creation…
You are the sacrament of every moment…
the Presence that moves my days..and nights..
the glory of every morning..
the mystery creating all possibility..
You are the God of every religion..
the expression of faith that sustains me..
the bewildering sweetness of every kiss..
the arms open to every embrace..the pulsing rhythm
empowering the growth of the universe..
the deep uncreated space beyond time..
You are the creative power of all existence..
the majesty of every mountain..the music of every song…
you are the graceful lift of every wing..
the wonder that incites all growth..
the uniqueness of every face..of every shape and form..
the pure silence and rising birth of all renewal..
the belovedness of every longing..
If I were to write all that you are..I would
write to the end of time and begin again
in every beginning…
You are the highest..deepest…and most
glorious Love I will ever experience..
You are the most exalting feeling..
the lightning and laughter
and the highest Joy..
O Beloved..I was born to sing to You..
to love You..to share the gift of You..
You are the Love of every life..
O my Beloved..my Beloved..
You are my Everything….
 
 
 

Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics



"The conception of physical things and phenomena as transient manifestations of an underlying fundamental entity is not only a basic element of quantum field theory, but also a basic element of the Eastern world view. Like Einstein, the Eastern mystics consider this underlying entity as the only reality: all its phenomenal manifestations are seen as transitory and illusory. This reality of the Eastern mystic cannot be identified with the quantum field of the physicist because it is seen as the essence of 'all' phenomena in this world and consequently is beyond all concepts and ideas. The quantum field, on the other hand, is a well defined concept which only accounts for some of the physical phenomena. Nevertheless, the intuition behind the physicist's interpretation of the sub-atomic world, in terms of the quantum field, is closely paralleled by that of the Eastern mystic who interprets his or her experience of the world in terms of an ultimate underlying reality. Subsequent to the emergence of the field concept, physicists have attempted to unify the various fields into a single fundamental field which would incorporate all physical phenomena. Einstein, in particular, spent the last years of his life searching for such a unified field. The Brahman of the Hindus, like the Dharmakaya of the Buddhists and the Tao of the Taoists, can be seen, perhaps, as the ultimate unified field from which spring not only the phenomena studied in physics, but all other phenomena as well. . . . .In the Eastern view, the reality underlying all phenomena is beyond all forms and defies all description and specification. It is therefore said to be formless, empty or void, but this emptiness is not to be taken for mere nothingness. It is, on the contrary, the essence of all forms and the source of all life. Thus the Upanishads say:

Brahman is life. Brahman is Joy. Brahman is the Void . . Joy, verily, that is the same as the Void.
The Void, verily, that is the same as Joy. (Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.1)

The Eastern sages make it clear that they do not mean ordinary emptiness, when they talk about Brahman, Sunyata or Tao, but . . a Void which has infinite creative potential. . . . Like the quantum field, it gives birth to an infinite variety of forms, which it sustains and eventually reabsorbs."

~ Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics, 211-212)
PDF HERE