Shabistari - Free Will

FREE-WILL

You say,
"I myself have Free-will,
For my body is the horse and my soul the rider,
The reins of the body are in the hands of the
soul, the entire direction is given to me."

Oh ! foolish one, these are falsehoods and delusions
That come from an illusory existence.

As your essence is nothingness,
How can you have Free-will ?
Seeing that your being is one with not-being,
Whence comes this Free-will of yours ?

Imagination distributes actions
As in a play or a farce,
For when your actions were planned,
Before your existence,
You were created for a certain purpose,
By the desire of the Truth.
Therefore is man predestined, before his existence,
To certain appointed work.
. . . (Oh, wondrous ways of Thine, without how or why I)

The honour of man consists of slavery,
In having no share of Free-will.

 Of himself man has nothing,
Yet of good and evil God asks him,
Man has no choice, he is under control.
Oh ! poor soul, he seems free, yet is a slave.

Give yourself up to the Truth,
For you are helpless in his grasp ;
Freedom from self you will find in the All,
And, O Dervish ! in the Truth you will find riches

from:

PDF Here

Rupert Spira - Let go...

Whatever is not present right now is not worthy of the name ‘love’ and is likewise not worthy of our desire. Forget it. Whatever is not present now, even if it is one day found will, by definition, one day disappear.

Why go for something temporary? It can never fulfil you. Let go of everything that can be let go of – and anything that appears and disappears can be let go of – including all your, my and everyone else’s ideas about love.

In fact, as soon as we look for what is present, it is gone! We cannot focus on or even think about what is truly present. We can only think about an object, about the past, about the future. In other words, we can only think of a thought.

Thought can never know or find the one thing that it almost constantly seeks. It can only dissolve in it. Thinking dies as it turns towards love, like a moth in a flame.

Ironically, the one thing that is sought in all intimate relationships is this death of the sense of oneself as a separate entity. The longing for love in intimacy is the longing for this death, and if one shares this love with an apparent other in an intimate relationship, that apparent other will shine as a beacon of love and light in one’s life. However, that is not necessary. This light and love are shining in all experience.

The true object of all desire is only this death.

Let the mind dissolve in the understanding that it simply cannot go to the place of love and yet, like a fish in the ocean searching for water, it is already swimming in it.

Let everything pass by. Remember William Blake: “He who binds himself to a joy does the winged life destroy.”

The ‘winged life’ is love itself. It is apparently destroyed by our looking for it as an object, by ‘binding’ ourself to an object, which means to the past or the future.

Let go, let go, let go. Let your tears be the river into which everything you know is offered up, all your longing, everything.

Someone once asked Mother Meera if it was okay to offer everything to God or whether only positive things should be offered and she replied, “A child offers its mother a snail, a stick or a stone; the mother doesn’t care what is offered; she is just happy to have been remembered.”

Offer everything. The love you seek is all that will remain behind.

‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵༺♥༻  ‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵

(Taken from 'Presence, Vol. 2, The Intimacy of All Experience', published by Non-Duality Press, 2011)
Rupert Spira

Rupert site

Ramana Maharshi - Drops from the Ocean (V.Ganesan)

PDF Here

Dōgen Zenji - Dewdrop

Learn the backward step 
that turns your light inward 
to illuminate your self. 
Body and mind of themselves 
will drop away, 
and your original face will be manifest.

Coming, going, the waterbirds
don't leave a trace,
don't follow a path.

Midnight.
No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. 
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. 
Although its light is wide and great, 
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. 
The whole moon and the entire sky 
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. 
‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵༺♥༻ ‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵ 

Do not follow the ideas of others
but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.
Your body and mind will become clear
and you will realize the unity of all things.

Dogen (1200-1253) was orphaned at an early age and became a Zen monk at thirteen. After seven years of study, he traveled to China to unravel his "Great Doubt" and gain a better understanding of Buddhism. He achieved enlightenment under T'ien-t'ung Ju-ching. He returned to Japan, founded the Soto school of Zen and wrote Shobo Genzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) a collections of essays.

Nirmala - Awakening

Eventually, we went on to India and ended up in Rishikesh at an ashram called Phool Chatti in the jungle on the banks of the Ganges. There we spent our days in satsang with Neelam and our nights singing devotional songs.

Whenever I wasn't in satsang, I sat by the river, especially late at night after everyone had gone to sleep. I would sit about ten feet from the edge of the Ganges along this stretch of ten-foot tall rapids. The river was an incredible roaring presence of rushing white water.

One night as I was sitting there under the full moon, I recognized that the rock I was leaning on was me-"Oh yeah, this is me; this rock is inside of me." Once I realized that about that rock, I saw the same was true of all the rocks in the huge field of boulders along the river's edge. Then since the rocks were so obviously "me," the river was obviously "me" too, not just this stretch of the river, but the entire Ganges from one end of India to the other. Very quickly, I saw that not just the river, but the whole continent was "me." It struck me as obvious that it was all inside "me"-and then it was the whole world, and the whole solar system, the entire galaxy and universe. This kept going until the mind couldn't keep up. There was no longer any possibility of my mind containing all of this endless space, and yet it was all "me" in the same way that one of my limbs was "me."

Then there was a wonderful moment when "me" included not only infinity in terms of space, but "popped" to also include all time. It was obviously who I had always been, and it included all the past and all the future. Then I laughed and laughed and rolled around in the gravel because it was suddenly so silly that I had imagined myself to have suffered. I had always been so free that I was even free to have this illusion of not being free. That's how complete the Freedom is. So I just laughed and laughed.

I sometimes call this experience a non-awakening because what I realized in that moment is that all there is and ever has been is Awakeness.

There's no need for awakening in Awakeness itself. All of life is just the play of this that has always been fully awake.

I would like to emphasize again that the specifics of this experience aren't important. This Awakeness/Consciousness doesn't even make a snowflake the same way twice, so it is reasonable to assume that it wouldn't have an awakening experience the same way twice. What is important is the transformation of perspective that the experience allows. The shift in perspective to knowing that you are already free doesn't depend on having any particular experience.

Since that time, there has been a simple desire to share the perspective of Freedom. I began doing this in informal conversations with friends and then through giving satsang after being invited to.

Original story here

Lao Tzu - Tao

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

source Here

Art: http://www.gaelle-boissonnard.com/

Miriam Louisa - A letter from home

[I can never leave - not for one heartbeat -
but I can write letters from home and this is one]

dear friend

are you looking for a sanctuary?
a place that’s private and quiet?
that’s rent-free, and can’t be bought or sold?

(you will never be evicted for any reason
whatsoever!)

that you don’t have to share – even with your family
or lovers – because you can’t?
that requires no maintenance?
that needs no insurance because it can’t be damaged?
that’s as large or small as you wish?
that you can take everywhere you go –
even when you have no fixed earthly abode
and you find yourself “homeless”?

that’s as solid as rock, yet lighter than a baby’s breath?
that has views onto both the temporal and the timeless?
that has a warm hearth glowing, and a welcome mat
with your name on it, at the door?

would you believe me when I say
it is wherever YOU are, no matter what your experience?

it’s wrong to say it’s close,
it isn’t even near

it’s simply right here, when thinking disappears

with warmest love

~ emelle

 emelle = ml = miriam louisa

 

http://thisunlitlight.com/

Rumi - Let them sleep

Those who don't feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don't want to change, 

let them sleep. 

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I you want to improve your mind that way, 

sleep on. 

I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away. 

If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you, 

and sleep.

Ode 314

art by Andrew Wyeth