Attar - Mystic Silence

Mystic Silence

From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer “Thou” and “I” exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love. 

 

 

 

 

  HERE is "the Conference of the Birds"by Farid Ud Din Attar 

 

Ramprasad Sen - A Serious Grievance

I have a serious grievance to settle
with the Mother of the Universe.
Even while apparently awake,
with you as my all-protecting Mother,
the house of mind and body
is ransacked by robbers,
my countless egocentric impulses.
Every day I resolve to repeat your name
as the most powerful defense,
but forget my good intention
just as the intruders arrive.

I have caught on to the playfulness,
0 Mother, by which you elude my willful grasp.
You bestow no power of inward prayer upon this child,
so you receive no consistent devotion from me.
I no longer regard this as my fault.
Only what you give me can I return to you
as the sweet offering of divine remembrance.
Fame and infamy, good and bad tastes of life,
all phenomena are your graceful play.
Yet as you dance in ecstasy,
we are thrown into quandary.
0 Goddess, lead us on your wisdom way.

This poet dares to sing her secret:
“Mother Mahamaya places a twist in every mind,
making it perceive the ashes of egocentricity
as an abundance of candy,
which it tastes with constant disappointment
and shocked surprise.
Awaken now and be free.”

Art by Joseph Yeh

Chuck Surface - Longing

What is it that you want?
Is it “knowledge” that you are “That”?
Or “knowledge” that there is only Emptiness,
As the Buddhists say?

Or do you long for Experience,
Direct Experience,
Not just in transient “spiritual” moments,
But always, with every breath, every heartbeat?

Knowledge is of use
Only if it evokes Experience,
Like wood stored against winter's cold,
Unburned, it will not warm you.

Only the Heart ignites knowledge.
And only that Fire consumes the contraction,
Across the Whole of the Being…
Of “i”.

Filling the Experience of Being,
With Fullness, Completion...
And Bliss.

Whether Consciousness is the Formless Ground of Being,
Or an endless flow of Causality arising in Emptiness
Is of no consequence, whatsoever,
Unless such knowledge evokes Experience.

You can hear all the words in the world,
And the ember of your Heart will not ignite.
You can see every “teacher du jour”,
And the wellspring of your Heart will not overflow.

You can do 10,000 prostrations,
One million “Om Mane Padme Hum's,”
And receive countless empowerments,
And the Sun of your Heart will not Shine.

Without Love's Unbearable Longing,
Teachings are the sound of dry bones crumbling,
The most powerful teachers are no more than mannequins,
And the highest “highs” become only memories.

Only Longing, deep and vast,
Will illumine the mind's understanding,
And reap Holiness,
From the arid fields of knowledge.

This is a matter of The Heart,
Not an academic endeavor to be figured out; “gotten”.
One does not “learn” the meaning of the word…
Ananda

www.chucksurface.com

Jeff Foster - The Masterpiece of You

by Mushy-Pea

Begin where you are, for where you are is the best – and only – place to begin.

The present moment is the canvas on which the rest of your life will be painted. Don't pine for an old canvas, or wait for a new one. Don't regret or fight the canvas of Now. Begin your painting on the canvas that is given, the one right in front of you, the only canvas there ever is.

Everything that has ever happened in your life – the agony and the ecstasy, the failures and the disappointments, the joys and the losses – has led up to this perfect moment, this perfect beginning, this perfectly present canvas, and this mysterious painting, forever completing itself, capturing you exactly as you are, in all your divine imperfection.

http://www.deepestacceptance.com/

Mark Strand - Keeping Things Whole

pic by JanneO

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole. 

The Work of Byron Katie

 PDF 

“No one can give you freedom but you.
This little book will show you how.”
—Byron Katie

excerpt:

Meeting Your Thoughts with
Understanding.

A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It is not
our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts,
that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means
believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a
thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.

Most people think that they are what their thoughts
tell them they are. One day I noticed that I wasn’t
breathing—I was being breathed. Then I also noticed,
to my amazement, that I wasn’t thinking—that I was
actually being thought and that thinking isn’t personal.
Do you wake up in the morning and say to yourself, “I
think I won’t think today”? It’s too late: You’re already
thinking! Thoughts just appear. They come out of nothing
and go back to nothing, like clouds moving across the
empty sky. They come to pass, not to stay. There is no
harm in them until we attach to them as if they were true.

No one has ever been able to control his thinking,
although people may tell the story of how they have.

I don’t let go of my thoughts—I meet them with
understanding. Then they let go of me.

Thoughts are like the breeze or the leaves on the trees
or the raindrops falling. They appear like that, and
through inquiry we can make friends with them. Would
you argue with a raindrop? Raindrops aren’t personal,
and neither are thoughts. Once a painful concept is met
with understanding, the next time it appears you may
find it interesting. What used to be the nightmare is
now just interesting. The next time it appears, you may
find it funny. The next time, you may not even notice it.
This is the power of loving what is.

Byron Katie's site

Adyashanti - Truth Is

Truth is only discovered in the moment.
There is no truth that can be carried over
to the next moment, the next day, the next year.
Memory never contains truth, only what is past, dead, gone.

Truth comes into the non-seeking mind fresh and alive.
It is not something you can carry with you, accumulate, or hold onto.

Truth leaps into view when the mind is quiet, not asserting itself.
You cannot contain or domesticate truth, for if you do, it dies instantly.

Truth prowls the unknown waiting for a gap in the mind’s activity.
When that gap is there, the truth leaps out of the unknown into the known.

Instantly you comprehend it and sense its sacredness.
The timeless has broken through like a flash of lightning
and illuminated the moment with its presence.

Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament.
Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself
and illumines the human heart from the inside out.

 http://www.adyashanti.org/index.php?file=home