Sunday, March 10, 2024

Andrew Harvey ~ The Direct Path

 


 

 ~The Paradox of the Journey~

All major mystical traditions have recognized that there is a paradox at the heart of the journey of return to Origin.

Put simply, this is that we are already what we seek, and that what we are looking for on the Path with such an intensity of striving and passion and discipline is already within and around us at all moments. The journey and all its different ordeals are all emanations of the One Spirit that is manifesting everything in all dimensions; every rung of the ladder we climb toward final awareness is made of the divine stuff of awareness itself.

Divine Consciousness is at once creating and manifesting all things and acting in and as all things in various states of self-disguise throughout all the different levels and dimensions of the universe.

The great Hindu mystic Kabir put this paradox with characteristic simplicity when he said:

Look at you, you madman,
Screaming you are thirsty
And are dying in a desert
When all around you there
is nothing but water!

And the Sufi poet Rumi reminds us:

You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!

 


 

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

J. Krishnamurti - Have you not noticed ?

 

"Have you not noticed
that love is silence?
It may be while holding the hand of another
or looking lovingly at a child,
or taking in the beauty of an evening.
Love has no past or future, and so it is
with this extraordinary state of silence."


Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Djalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî - The True Kaaba

 

 

Circle the Kaaba of the heart
if you possess a heart.
The heart is the true Kaaba,
the other is just a stone.

God enjoined the ritual
of circling the formal Kaaba
as a way for you to find a heart.

But if your feet walk
around the Kaaba a thousand times,
and yet you injure a heart,
do you expect to be accepted?

Give everything away, but gain a heart,
and its light will stay with you
even as far as the dark night of the grave.

Bring a thousand bags of gold coins to God,
and He will only tell you:
“Bring the heart if you come to Us.

“As silver and gold have no value Here,
it is the heart that We demand, if you desire Me.”

In the realms of the Throne, the Tablet, and the
Pen, that which seems worthless, the heart in ruins,
is the most precious thing.

Don’t debase it—even though distressed,
the heart is most precious in distress.

The ruined heart attracts God’s attention.
How happy is the soul that practices caring for it.

Comforting the wretched heart
in its time of need and pain
is more valuable to the Creator
than performing the outer pilgrimage.

The ruined hearts are God’s stores of treasure;
great treasures are buried in these ruins.

Tie the belt of service
and become a servant of hearts,
and the way to the Mystery may open up within you.

If you yearn for holy felicity,
shed your arrogance
and become a seeker of hearts.

When the goodwill of hearts is with you,
fountains of wisdom will begin to flow
from within your own being.

The water of life will cascade
from your speech like a river;
your Christlike breath
will become a remedy for disease.

For a single Heart all the worlds came into being;
listen to the lips that recite
the subtle point of Except for thee
I would not have created the worlds.

How else would the universe exist!
This universe of rust and dirt, of planets and stars.

Silence! A description of the heart
is impossible with words,

even if every cell of your body had a tongue. 

 


 

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Yunus Emre - A taste of Love

 

 

 Whatever I say, You are the subject.
Wherever I go, every impulse is toward You.
🍃
It’s true, those who don’t love You are soul-less dolls,
but the living need a Beloved like You.
🍃
You’ve veiled Yourself from the whole universe.
At a single sight of You it would perish.
🍃
Giants and elves, humans, angelic powers,
all beings are in love with You.
🍃
The seraphim and maidens of paradise crowd around You
and can’t bear to leave Your presence.
🍃
From your hand poison is a delicious drink.
My soul is healed by anything You do.
🍃
When I eat something sweet without You, it’s bitter.
You are the soul’s taste, what else could I want?
🍃
If my soul  suffered a hundred wounds,
my joy would not decrease.
This love washes everything clean.
🍃
Yunus is just one atom of it. This planet, this whole universe is born from a taste of love
🍃

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Translated from Turkish
by Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan
Original Title of the poem:
Ne söz keleci der isem dilim seni söyleyecek

 


 

Friday, February 2, 2024

Naimy Mikhail--The Book Of Mirdad


 

 You live that you may learn to love. You love is that you may learn to live. No other reason is required of Man.

And what is to love but for the lover to absorb forever the beloved so that the twain be one?

And whom, or what, is one to love? Is one to choose a certain leaf upon the Tree of Life and pour upon it all one’s heart? What of the branch that bears the leaf? What of the stem that holds the branch? What of the bark that shields the stem? What of the roots that feed the bark, the stem, the branches and the leaves? What of the soil embosoming the roots? What of the sun, and sea, and air that fertilize the soil?

If one small leaf upon a the tree be worthy of your love how much more so the tree in its enterity? The love that singles out a fraction of the whole foredooms itself to grief.

You say, 'But there be leaves upon a single tree. Some are healthy, some are sick; some are beautiful, some are ugly; some are giants, some are dwarfs. How can we help but pick and choose?'
I say to you. Out of the paleness of the sick process the freshness of the healthy. I further say to you that ugliness is Beauty's palette, paint and brush: and that the dwarf would not have been a dwarf had he not given of his stature to the giant.

You are the tree of Life. Beware of fractionating yourselves. Set not a fruit against a fruit, a leaf against a leaf, a bough against a bough; nor set the stem against the roots; nor set the tree against the mother- soil. That is precisely what you do when you love one part more than the rest, or to the exclusion of the rest.

You are the Tree of Life. Your roots are everywhere. Your boughs and leaves are everywhere. Your fruits are in every mouth. Whatever be the fruits upon that tree; whatever be its boughs and leaves; whatever be the roots; they are your fruits; they are your leaves and boughs; they are your roots. If you would have the tree bear sweet and fragrant fruit, if you would have it ever strong and green, see to the sap wherewith you feed the roots.

Love is the Sap of Life. While Hatred is the pus of Death. But Love, like blood, must circulate unhindered in the veins. Repress the blood, and it becomes a menace and a plague. And what is Hate but Love repressed, or Love withheld, therefore becoming such a deadly poison both to the feeder and the fed; both to the hater and to that he hates. A yellow leaf upon your tree of life is but a Love-weaned leaf, Blame not the yellow leaf. A withered bough is but a Love-starved bough. Blame not the withered bough. A putrid fruit is but a Hatred-suckled fruit. Blame not the putrid fruit. But rather blame your blind and stingy heart that would dole out the sap of life to few and would deny it to many, thereby denying it to itself.

No love is possible except by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self. Therefore is God all Love, because he loves himself.

So long as you are pained by Love, you have not found your real self, nor have you found the golden key of Love. Because you love an ephemeral self, your love is ephemeral.

For in loving anything, or anyone, you love in truth but yourselves. Likewise in hating anything, or anyone, you hate in truth but yourselves. For that which you hate is bound up inseparably with that which you love, like the face and the reverse side of the same coin. If you would be honest with yourselves, then must you love what you hate and what hates you before you love what you love and what loves you.

Love is not a virtue. Love is a necessity; more so than bread and water; more so than light and air.

 Let no one pride himself on loving. But rather breathe in Love and breathe it out just as unconsciously and freely as you breathe in the air and breathe it out.

For Love needs no one to exalt it. Love will exalt the heart that it finds worthy of itself.

Seek no rewards for Love. Love is reward sufficient unto Love, as Hate is punishment sufficient unto Hate.

Nor keep any accounts with Love. For Love accounts to no one but itself.
 
Love neither lends nor borrows; Love neither buys nor sells; but when it gives, it gives its all; and when it takes, it takes its all. Its very taking is a giving. Its very giving is a taking. Therefore is it the same to-day, to-morrow and forevermore.

 


 

PDF

HERE 





Friday, January 26, 2024

Nancy Neithercut - Life simply happens

 

pic Sharon Kingston

 

 life simply happens
Utterly spontaneously
All by itself
There are no things nor non things
It does not arise from some really big thing
No source nor god
Nor does it arise from emptiness or nothingness...
Simultaneously arising and self-erasing
Looking and feeling like anything at all
awakening
endarkening
how beautifully the dream spins itself
raveling and unravelling
blooming and wilting
sound and silence
color and light
and dark


clearly, clearly
without any one to know
thought paints echoes
of a flowing dreamscape
that has no edges
nor center
nor outside
from which to view it
or change it
or pour endless love letters
into the sea of dreams


ripples endlessly flowing
caused by no stone
nor wind
even your beautiful reflection
has no face
even this beauty
this awe
this heartbreakingly wondrous
unknowing
spin into this fairytale
of love


this dream of a dream within a dream
sourceless reflections twirl
above and below
into and through each other
seemingly drawing lines
with space and time


between here and there
there is no distance
when all measurement is made up
there is no before or after
when separate moments are imaginary
there is no outline of sky
nor inline of tree
nor any thing that can be captured
as there is no hand to grasp the flowing
that neither moves
or stays still
no one who sings
nor is silent


we are but
an echoes dream
there is no sound
no dream...
no words...
yet all these words
paint the dream

 


 

https://nancyneithercut.substack.com/ 

 

 

 

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Ibn 'Arabi - There is no other

 

 

I am calling to you from afar,

Calling to you since the very beginning of days,

Calling to you across millennia

For aeons of time.

Calling, calling…Since always.

It is part of your being, my voice.

But it comes to you faintly

and you only hear it sometimes.

‘I don’t know’, you may say,

but somewhere you know.

‘I can’t hear’, you say, “What is it and where?”

But somewhere you hear, and deep down,

you know.

For I am that in you,

which has always been.

I am that in you,

which will never end.

Even if you say, “Who is calling?”

Even if you think, “Who is that?”

Where will you run? just tell me.

Can you run away from yourself?

For I am the only one for you

There is no other

Your promise, your reward I am alone,

Your punishment, your longing and your goal.