Hafez-e Chirazi - A great favor

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,

Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear
He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

~ From The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
www.peacefulrivers.homestead.com

from The Ashtavakra Gita - Stillness

Stillness

All things arise,

Suffer change,
And pass away.

This is their nature.

When you know this,
Nothing perturbs you,
Nothing hurts you.

You become still.

It is easy.

God made all things.

There is only God.

When you know this,
Desire melts away.

Clinging to nothing,
You become still.

Sooner or later,

 Fortune or misfortune
May befall you.

When you know this,
You desire nothing,
You grieve for nothing.

Subduing the senses,
You are happy.

Whatever you do

Brings joy or sorrow,
Life or death.

When you know this,
You may act freely,
Without attachment.

For what is there to accomplish?

All sorrow comes from fear.

From nothing else.

When you know this,
You become free of it,
And desire melts away.

You become happy
And still.

"I am not the body,

Nor is the body mine.
I am awareness itself"

When you know this,
You have no thought
For what you have done
Or left undone.

You become one,
Perfect and indivisible.

"I am in all things,

From Brahma to a blade of grass."

When you know this,
You have no thought
For success or failure
Or the mind's inconstancy.

You are pure.
You are still.

The world with all its wonders

 Is nothing.

When you know this,
Desire melts away.

For you are awareness itself.

When you know in your heart
That there is nothing,
You are still.

translation by Thomas Byrom

Gina Lake - RADIANCE Experiencing Divine Presence (excerpt)

YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE

Who are you, really? Are you so-and-so with a certain past and a certain body and personality and certain roles talents, weaknesses, dreams, fears, and beliefs? You may define yourself to others in these ways, but that is not who you really are. Who you really are can only be discovered through deeper questioning and exploration and through a more subtle experiencing of that which is beyond all ideas about yourself. It can only be discovered when the mind is quiet and no longer telling you who you are. When all the ideas about yourself are stilled, then what remains is who you really are: Consciousness,
Awareness, Stillness, Presence, Peace, Love, the Divine. You are that which is Nameless and yet has been given a thousand names.

To those of you who are not so sure about who you really are, you are not alone.Even those who have realized this are not always certain. The realization of who you arecomes and goes to some extent depending on what you pay attention to. Even those who have realized the truth, that there is only one Being in all of existence, can temporarily forget who they really are when they become lost in believing their thoughts. The mind is very compelling, and giving your attention to it, will bring you back to the experience of yourself as separate from the rest of creation.

Nevertheless, you are not who you think you are. Thinking gives you the illusion of being someone, but you are not some-one but rather Oneness itself, the Divine masquerading as an individual. This masquerade is for the purpose of exploring this physical reality and for having the unique experiences you are having as some-one. The Divine is enjoying the experiences it is having through all of creation, even experiences you would consider unenjoyable. What the Divine enjoys is experience—any experience.It created you just for that, or rather you created you just for that.

You may think you are not enjoying an experience, but if you touch deeply into yourself, you will discover enjoyment in even the most unpleasant experiences. The joy from these experiences comes simply from the ability to have them, the ability to be alive and experience them. The Divine is enjoying life and celebrating in every moment through every creation, regardless of what is being experienced. Therefore, it is possible for you to find joy in any experience as well when you align yourself with the divine Self in you, or Essence, instead of the personal self, or the you that you think you are.

This you is very difficult to please. It can be having a very nice experience and still not be happy. The you is programmed for unhappiness because it is programmed to seek that which can never bring true happiness. It goes after more and better and different from whatever is actually present, and that creates ceaseless searching and dissatisfaction with whatever is found. This is a very unhappy predicament, and yet this is the human condition.

This is why humans suffer, but you are not actually human, so it isn't necessary for you to suffer this way. Once you discover your true nature, it is possible for suffering to end, or at least be greatly diminished. The Divine doesn't suffer in its experience of life, and you don't have to either. You can experience the joy the Divine has in life in any moment if you turn your attention to the moment (where the Divine, as Essence, resides), but you have to want to and you have to make that choice. This is the greatest obstacle to happiness of all. Many experience the Truth that lies in the moment and turn away from itagain and again because there is nothing in it for the egoic mind, which is the mind that is driven by the ego, or illusory personal self—the you that you think you are. The egoic mind is the familiar voice in your head, the ongoing mental commentary that accompanies whatever you do.

This you thinks of itself constantly. It is constantly forming thoughts about itself, which is how it creates itself. It describes itself to itself and to others, and that gives the you a sense of actually existing, when in fact, it exis ts only as a description. This description—this you— is made up of a jumble of ideas that are not even consistent, since they change from moment to moment, day to day. This you believes one thing one day and another thing the next. It likes something one day and the opposite the next. It sees itself one way one day and another way the next. And yet it seems so solid, so real, that this you is willing to argue with others over what it thinks, what it believes, and how it sees things. Where do all of these ideas come from?

They are just there. Stop a moment and look. The ideas that arise in your mind that define this you arise from nowhere and disappear into nowhere, only to be replaced by other ideas. They have no more reality or truth in terms of defining you than the last set of ideas or the next set of ideas. Ideas come and go, and they are as meaningless and random as what happens when you flip from station to station on the radio. It is just that certain ideas come and go more frequently on your particular radio station than on someone else's, but that doesn't make them any more real, true, or capable of defining who you are.

 

The book 

Gina Lake 's web site