Eckhart Tolle - The Now

You are here to enable the divine of the universe to unfold.
The present moment holds the key to liberation.
To the mind, the present moment hardly exists.
It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, and
constantly projects itself into the future.

Humans have been in the grip of pain for eons,
ever since they fell from the state of grace,
entered the realm of time and mind,
and lost awareness of being.

Make the now the primary focus of your life.

The egocentric needs are endless...to be identified
with your mind is to be trapped in time: it creates an
endless preoccupation with past and future and unwillingness
to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be.

The now is the only point that can take you beyond the
limited confines of the mind.
It is your only point of access into the timeless and
formless realm of being.
When you reconnect with being, you no longer
participate in the egocentric drama.

Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the now.
Nothing will ever happen in the future, it will happen in the now.
There is never a time when your life is not " this moment".

 

 

http://www.eckharttolle.com/ 

Mevlana Rumi - Radiance

If ten lamps are in one place,
each differs in form from another;
yet you can't distinguish whose radiance is whose
when you focus on the light.

In the field of spirit there is no division;
no individuals exist.
Sweet is the oneness of the Friend with His friends.

Catch hold of spirit.
Help this headstrong self disintegrate;
that beneath it you may discover unity,
like a buried treasure.

 

 

 From: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance
365 Selections from Rumi's Mathnawi
Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski

 

Hafiz - And For No Reason

And
For no reason
I start skipping like a child.

And
For no reason
I turn into a leaf
That is carried so high
I kiss the sun's mouth
And dissolve.

And
For no reason
A thousand birds
Choose my head for a conference table,
Start passing their
Cups of wine
And their wild songbooks all around.

And
For every reason in existence
I begin to eternally,
To eternally laugh and love!

When I turn into a leaf
And start dancing,
I run to kiss our beautiful Friend
And I dissolve in the Truth
That I Am.

translation   Ladinsky

Mevlana Celaludin Rumi - Who Am I?

         

What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognize myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.
I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heavens.
I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.
I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsín;
I am not of the kingdom of Irãqain, nor of the country of Khorãsãn.
I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell;
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwãn.
My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless;
‘Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.
I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.
He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;
I know none other except ‘Yã Hú’ and ‘Yã man Hú.’
I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken;
I have no business save carouse and revelry.
If once in my life I spent a moment without thee,
From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.
If once in this world I win a moment with thee,
I will trample on both worlds, I will dance in triumph for ever.
O Shamsi Tabríz, I am so drunken in this world,
That except of drunkenness and revelry I have no tale to tell.

Dorothy S. Hunt - The Altar of this Moment

Art by http://chryssalis.deviantart.com/

The Altar of this Moment

Place everything you can perceive—
Everything you can
see, hear, smell,taste, or touch,
Upon the altar of this moment
and give thanks.
It is over so soon—
This expression,
This single moment of your precious life,
This one heart
pounding itself open
with fear or wild joy,
This one breath rising
in the cold winter air
smoothly and gently
or coughing and sputtering,
Bow, while you can, before
This one taste
Of afternoon tea
Warming its way to your belly,
Or the fragrant orange
exploding its sweet juice
in your grateful mouth.

You have to love
The antics of your mind,
Imagining life should only be sweet.
The bitter makes the sweet; and life is both.
It is whole, like you,
Before you think yourself to pieces.
Place this moment’s pain and confusion on the altar, too,
And give special thanks for such grace
That wakes you up from sleeping through your life.
Pain is greatly under-rated as a pointer to Unknowing,
yet greatly over-rated when taken as identity.

In this one moment,
Your eyes meet mine and there is
a single looking.
What is peering from behind our masks?
Can it touch itself across the room?
Place your palms together;
Touch your holy skin.
In another moment it will shed itself.
What will you be then?
What were you before you had two hands?
What are you now?
You cannot capture That
and place It on the altar of this moment.
It is the altar,
And this moment’s infinite expressions,
And the Seeing,
And its own devotion to itself.
You are That.

http://www.dorothyhunt.org/

Art by  http://roadioarts.deviantart.com/

Jiddu Krishnamurti - I Am All

I am the blue firmament and the black cloud,
I am the waterfall and the sound thereof,
I am the graven image and the stone by the wayside,
I am the rose and the falling petals thereof,
I am the flower of the field and the sacred lotus,
I am the sanctified waters and the still pool,
I am the tree that towereth among the mountains
And the blade of grass in the peaceful lane,
I am the tender spring leaf and the evergreen foliage.

I am the barbarian and the sage,
I am the impious and the pious,
I am the ungodly and the godly,
I am the harlot and the virgin,
I am the liberated and the man of time,
I am the the indestructible and the destructible,
I am the renunciation and the proud possessor.
I am all
few know me.

I am neither This nor That,
I am neither detached nor attached,
I am neither heaven nor hell -- few know me --
I am neither philosophies nor creeds,
I am neither the Guru nor the disciple.
O friend,
I contain all.

I am clear as the mountain stream,
Simple as the new spring leaf.

Happy are they
That meet with me.

Jean Klein - Non State

“But at other times when you say I exist, you are heading towards the perception of a non-state, which is neither of the body nor of the mind. This non-state is being, it is indeterminable, cannot be located mentally or physically. It is neither a thought nor a feeling. This non-state is identical to that of your surroundings. You are of the very same essence. In this non-state there are no surroundings. If there is another, that is, if there are surroundings, there is an I, and vice-versa.
“Our surroundings are not contained by name and form. You are neither the body nor the mind, these are limits you identify with through a lack of clear-sightedness. When you are attentive to a tree or flower, the perception, shape, name and concept are not the only things present. There is also the All-presence that you share with them and that you are both part of. The very name and form spring forth from this eternal background, the All-presence. This is instantaneous awareness that cannot be reached by thought.”

.

“All disciplines are fixations: discipline excludes everything, except the one thing that one wishes to concentrate upon. Thus one establishes a dictatorship over oneself and all understanding is jeopardized. What is absolutely necessary is attention without strain. When I observe myself, I am really forced to admit that every day I am the prisoner of a thousand unsatisfied desires, or desires whose satisfaction brings me no permanent bliss. So it seems to me that instead of endless running from one desire to another, it would be better to stop and examine the true nature of desire. If this investigation is successful you will penetrate the nature of the true aim of all desire. What any desire really aims at, is a state of non desire. This non desire is a state in which we demand absolutely nothing. Thus it is a state of extreme abundance, of fullness. This fullness is revealed as being bliss and peace. You now know that you are really seeking nothing else but fullness and absolute peace. Now that you have understood the inner nature of your ultimate goal, you perceive that the ultimate goal is, in fact, not a goal, that is to say an end towards which you strive, but that the ultimate state can only be the consequence of relaxing and letting go. Liberation is not to be obtained by collecting and accumulating, but by being rooted in a state of being which is truly ours and in which we live constantly without knowing it. Even if we wished to, we could not live for a single moment outside of this state.”

Jean Klein