Toni Packer - Awareness cannot be taught

Awareness cannot be taught. Awareness simply throws light on what is, without any separation whatsoever. Activity does not destroy it and sitting does not create it.

It is there, uncreated, freely functioning in wisdom and love, when self-centered conditioning is clearly revealed, in the light of understanding.

When the changing states of body-mind are simply left to themselves without any choice or judgment, a new quietness emerges by itself.

This new mind that is no-mind is free of duality—there is no doer in it and nothing to be done.

Nisargadatta Maharaj - Nothing ever goes wrong

Suffering is exclusively the result of attachment or resistance,

it is a sign of lacking readiness to go on, to flow with life.
In my world, nothing ever goes wrong.
It is your restlessness that causes chaos.
Love is will, the will to share your happiness with all. 

Being happy, making others happy, this is the rhythm of love.
If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and pain and watch
them.
Externalization is the first step to liberation.
The real does not die, the unreal never lived.
Set your mind right and all will be right.
When you know that the world is one, that humanity is one,
you will act accordingly.
But first of all you must attend to the way you feel, think and live. 

Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order in the world.
Nothing is done by me, everything just happens.
I do not expect, I do not plan, I just watch events happening,
knowing them to be unreal.
Everybody dies as he lives. I am not afraid of death,
because I am not afraid of life.
I live a happy and shall die a happy death. Misery is to be born, not to die.
You do not have any problems, only your body has problems...In your world,
nothing stays, in mine nothing changes.

 

 

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti on Meditation

Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like the blind man in a world of bright color, shadows and moving light. It is not an intellectual affair, but when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality; it is really, then, limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently, but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything.
Meditation is the movement of love. It isn’t the love of the one or of the many. It is like water that anyone can drink out of any jar, whether golden or earthenware: it is inexhaustible. And a peculiar thing takes place which no drug or self-hypnosis can bring about: it is as though the mind enters into itself, beginning at the surface and penetrating ever more deeply, until depth and height have lost their meaning and every form of measurement ceases. In this state there is complete peace—not contentment which has come about through gratification—but a peace that has order, beauty and intensity. It can all be destroyed, as you can destroy a flower, and yet because of its very vulnerability it is indestructible. This meditation cannot be learned from another. You must begin without knowing anything about it, and move from innocence to innocence.
The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

 

PDF download HERE

Hafiz - Holy Incense Ash

Troubled?
Then stay with me, for I'm not.
Lonely?
A thousand naked amorous ones dwell in ancient caves
Beneath my eyelids.
Riches?
Here's a pick,
My whole body is an emerald that begs,
“Take me.”
Write all that worries you on a piece of parchment;
Offer it to God.
Even from the distance of a millennium
I can lean the flame in my heart
Into your life
And turn
All that frightens you
Into holy
Incense
Ash." 

Paramahansa Yogananda - Samadhi

Vanished the veils of light and shade,
Lifted every vapor of sorrow,
Sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy,
Gone the dim sensory mirage.
Love, hate, health, disease, life, death,
Perished these false shadows on the screen of duality.
Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, melancholic whirlpools,
Melting in the vast sea of bliss.
The storm of maya stilled
By magic wand of intuition deep.
The universe, forgotten dream, subconsciously lurks,
Ready to invade my newly wakened memory divine.
I live without the cosmic shadow,
But it is not, bereft of me;
As the sea exists without the waves,
But they breathe not without the sea.
Dreams, wakings, states of deep turiya sleep,
Present, past, future, no more for me,
But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere.
Planets, stars, stardust, earth,
Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms,
Creation's molding furnace,
Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods,
Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come,
Every blade of grass, myself, mankind,
Each particle of universal dust,
Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust,
I swallowed, transmuted all
Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being!
Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation
Blinding my tearful eyes,
Burst into immortal flames of bliss,
Consumed my tears, my frame, my all.
Thou art I, I am Thou,
Knowing, Knower, Known, as One!
Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever new peace!
Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss!
Not a mental chloroform
Or unconscious state without willful return,
Samadhi but extends my conscious realm
Beyond the limits of the mortal frame
To farthest boundary of eternity
Where I, the Cosmic Sea,
Watch the little ego floating in me.
The sparrow, each grain of sand, fall not without my sight.
All space like an iceberg floats within my mental sea.
Colossal Container, I, of all things made.
By deeper, longer, thirsty, guru-given meditation
Comes this celestial samadhi
Mobile murmurs of atoms are heard,
The dark earth, mountains, vales, lo! molten liquid!
Flowing seas change into vapors of nebulae!
Aum blows upon the vapors, opening wondrously their veils,
Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons,
Till, at last sound of the cosmic drum,
Vanish the grosser lights into eternal rays
Of all-pervading bliss.
From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt.
Ocean of mind, I drink all creation's waves.
Four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light,
Lift aright.
Myself, in everything, enters the Great Myself.
Gone forever, fitful, flickering shadows of mortal memory.
Spotless is my mental sky, below, ahead, and high above.
Eternity and I, one united ray.
A tiny bubble of laughter, I
Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself.

Jeff Foster - There is a way

“There is a way of giving up hope,
without giving up on possibility.

There is a way of being present
that does not deny the past.

There is a way of embracing without clinging,
loving without needing,
looking without ever needing to find.

There is a way of holding the moment
so closely, so tenderly, with such stillness,
that it lasts forever,
and is its own reward.”

 

http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/ 

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Miriam Louisa - Silence has found me

art Johann Heinrich Füssli, The Silence, oil on canvas, 1799-1801

silence has found me

its ruthless simplicity
has culled the clutter
from closets
I never knew existed
in the corridors of my brain

its unstoppable tide
has drowned the demon
that danced through my days,
demanding:
control, adjust, fix!

its throbbing roar
has muted the mutterings
of protest,
the pleas for reprieve,
from the screaming ‘me-me!’ myth

its yawning vastness
has swallowed whole
the impostor who once laid claim
to this luminous lifestream:
t i m e

its perfect love
has melted all that I took
to be me
in its crucible of fiery
Grace

and the receptors in these cells
heard the words
the whole world hungers
to hear:

you are loved!

how could it be otherwise
when separation from your essence
is impossible?

be silence

and Know

http://echoesfromemptiness.com/ 

Rumi ♡ - Love

To capture love whatever words I say;
make me ashamed when love arrives my way,

While explanation sometimes makes things clear;
true love through silence only one can hear:

The pen would smoothly write the things it knew;
but when it came to love it split in two,

A donkey stuck in mud is logic’s fate;
love’s true nature only love can demonstrate. 

Kabir Helminski - Rumi And The Way of the Spiritual Lover

 Have you ever reflected on the many forms that religious experience takes, the various archetypes of the spiritual life? I don't mean designations like bishop, rabbi, imam or swami, but more essential patternings that may run across traditions and cultures. There's the hierophant or high priest or priestess, the hermit, the shaman, the healer, the humble servant, the prophet, the ascetic, as well as some less complimentary types -- but let's not go there. And then there's the Way of the Lover, the person who is simply in love with God and, as a consequence, in love with people, with nature, with all of creation as an expression of God.

One extraordinary example of this archetype, is the great 13th Century Persian-speaking mystic Rumi, who is known mostly as a great poet, but who was also a monumental figure in the history of religious thought. His six-volume "Mathnawi" is a compendium of inspired reflection, entertaining and sometimes earthy stories, sublime flights of inspiration, metaphysical subtleties and occasionally vulgar jokes, all of which relentlessly, consistently and coherently reflect his perspective on reality. One way that perspective might be summed up is to say that Rumi saw everything in existence as continually revealing the Beauty, Generosity, Intelligence, Grace and Love of the Divine Being. Rumi was awestruck, gobsmacked, blissfully intoxicated with this love-drenched Oneness. Gradually, Rumi also regained a sobriety expansive enough to contain this ecstatic intoxication and in the course of his life left us a literary legacy that has earned him the title "the Shakespeare of mystics."

For Rumi, the Divine purpose behind all of creation is to reveal the true dimensions of Divine Love. A well-known saying in Islamic tradition which he often referred to is: "(The Divine says) I was a Hidden Treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the worlds visible and invisible so My treasure of generosity and loving-kindness would be known." Allah wanted to express His/Her Love and voila creation unfolded and continues to unfold through Love! It is our task to grow in appreciation, gratitude and consciousness of this Love. There's no greater reason to be alive.

For Rumi, to be a lover of God was not to make some inflated claim for oneself, but actually to admit one's vulnerability and even helplessness before this Love:

The Intellectual

The intellectual is always showing off;
the lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone,
even surrounded with people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
get's nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

("The Pocket Rumi" by Kabir and Camille Hleminski)
Love in some way transforms the lovers and makes them a blessing within creation. Love in its most basic expression is desire, or love of the loveable. We want to possess what we love. This can lead to possessiveness, jealousy and even violence. At another stage love is the wish to share with others in a reciprocal joy. But Rumi described the highest stage of love with these words: "There is no greater love than love with no object." When a human being matures or evolves to this level of love he or she simply radiates love because he or she is love.

Rumi reached this love through a relationship with Shams of Tabriz, an enigmatic, itinerant stranger who came into Rumi's life with all the power of a Divine Epiphany. Just as Melchizedek came to Abraham, Shams' spiritual power overwhelmed Rumi. And yet it was not a typical shaikh and student, or guru and disciple kind of relationship, nor a sexual relationship (their own words and predispositions make that clear) but a mutual adoration, an intimate mirroring in which they each recognized a reflection of the Divine in each other. This was a love that unfolded like a cosmic drama. Not everyone appreciated Shams as Rumi did and after only a few years Shams disappeared. He may have been murdered, or maybe he completed what he came to do and it was time to go. Rumi was never the same. He became a poet, an ecstatic and in the end he matured through that love. What is most significant is that Rumi and Shams modeled a form of spiritual relationship, a reciprocal love, a mirroring that is the fast-track to spiritual transformation. More on that another time, perhaps.

The people of Rumi's tradition do not see Rumi as superior to other great spiritual figures of humanity, but as someone who was able to make something that was implicit much more explicit. "What about Jesus?" you might ask. Ah, the beautiful Jesus! Jesus was not a picky moralist but another great lover. And Muhammad, too, who was utterly beloved by Rumi, demonstrated his loverhood in humility and tenderness. In the end, the Way of the Lover is not just another archetype among many but the complete fulfillment of all human possibilities. And in the end, as Rumi says, Only Love can explain itself.

Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.
A lover may be drawn to this love or that love,
but finally he is drawn to the Sovereign of Love.
However much we describe and explain love,
when we fall in love we are ashamed of our words.
Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear,
but love unexplained is clearer.

When the pen came to the subject of love, it broke.
When the discourse reached the topic of love,
the pen split and the paper tore.
If intellect tries to explain it,
it falls helpless as a donkey on a muddy trail;
only Love itself can explain love and lovers!
The proof of the sun is the sun itself.
If you wish to see it, don't turn away from it.

(Mathnawi I: 110-116 translated by Kabir & Camille Helminski from the forthcoming "A Rumi Daybook.")
That's quite an admission from Rumi who wrote more comprehensively about love than perhaps any other human. Perhaps the difficulty of explaining love adequately is that in order to explain something you need another something more subtle and comprehensive with which to explain it. Perhaps love is the final explanation of everything...

But the words I'd like to leave us with are very simple, and yet illustrate that it is this Cosmic Love which is in fact the Creative Power behind all of existence.

The heart is your student
for love is the only way we learn.
Night has no choice but to grab the feet of daylight.
It's as if I see Your Face everywhere I turn.
It's as if Love's radiant oil
never stops searching
for a lamp in which to burn.

The Threshold Society

Alan Watts on Ramana

You know Sri-Ramana-Maharshi, that great Hindu sage of modern times? People used to come to him and say ‘Master, who was I in my last incarnation?’ As if that mattered. And he would say ‘Who is asking the question?’

And he’d look at you and say, get right down to it, ‘You’re looking at me, you’re looking out, and you’re unaware of what’s behind your eyes. Go back in and find out who you are, where the question comes from, why you ask.‘
And if you’ve looked at a photograph of that man–I have a gorgeous photograph of him; I look by it every time I go out the front door. And I look at those eyes, and the humor in them; the lilting laugh that says ‘Oh come off it. Shiva, I recognize you. When you come to my door and say `I’m so-and-so,’ I say `Ha-ha, what a funny way God has come on today.”

~ Alan Watts

Mahmoud Shabestari - Look closely

pic Ted Gore

Every particle of the world is a mirror,
In each atom lies the blazing light
of a thousand suns.

Cleave the heart of a raindrop
a hundred pure oceans will flow forth.
Look closely at a grain of sand,
The seed of a thousand beings can be seen.

The foot of an ant is larger than an elephant;
In essence, a drop of water
Is no different than the Nile.

In the heart of a barley-corn
lies the fruit of a hundred harvests;
Within the pulp of a millet seed
an entire universe can be found.

In the wing of a fly, an ocean of wonder;
In the pupil of the eye, an endless heaven.

Though the inner chamber of the heart is small,
the Lord of both worlds
gladly makes his home there.

 

Alan Watts - Sudden vision

art Parablev

..."There's a sudden vision. Satori! Breaking! Wowee! And the doors of the mind are blown apart, and there sits the ordinary old man. It's just little you, you know? Lightning flashes, sparks shower. In one blink of your eyes, you've missed seeing. Why? Because here is the light. The light, the light, the light, every mystic in the world has 'seen the light.' That brilliant, blazing energy, brighter than a thousand suns, it is locked up in everything. Now imagine this, imagine you're seeing it. Like you see aureoles around buddhas. Like you see the beatific vision at the end of Dante's 'Paradiso.' Vivid, vivid light, so bright that it is like the clear light of the void in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It's beyond light, it's so bright. And you watch it receding from you. And on the edges, like a great star, there becomes a rim of red. And beyond that, a rim of orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. You see this great mandala appearing, this great sun, and beyond the violet, there's black. Black, like obsidian, not flat black, but transparent black, like lacquer. And again, blazing out of the black, as the yang comes from the yin, more light. Going, going, going. And along with this light, there comes sound. There is a sound so tremendous with the white light that you can't hear it, so piercing that it seems to annihilate the ears. But then along with the colors, the sound goes down the scale in harmonic intervals, down, down, down, down, until it gets to a deep thundering base which is so vibrant that it turns into something solid, and you begin to get the similar spectrum of textures. Now all this time, you've been watching a kind of thing radiating out. 'But,' it says, 'you know, this isn't all I can do,' and the rays start dancing like this, and the sound starts waving, too, as it comes out, and the textures start varying themselves, and they say, well, you've been looking at this this as I've been describing it so far in a flat dimension. Let's add a third dimension; it's going to come right at you now. And meanwhile, it says, we're not going to just do like this, we're going to do little curlicues. And it says, 'well, that's just the beginning!' Making squares and turns, and then suddenly you see in all the little details that become so intense, that all kinds of little subfigures are contained in what you originally thought were the main figures, and the sound starts going all different, amazing complexities of sound all over the place, and this thing's going, going, going, and you think you're going to go out of your mind, when suddenly it turns into... Why, us, sitting around here."