Jeff Foster - Cosmic Love

The greatest pain isn't
being 'misunderstood' by others,
it's not understanding yourself.

The greatest sorrow isn't
feeling 'unloved' by others,
it's forgetting that you are love itself,
and whole, and complete,
and you do not need 'others' to complete you.

Do not seek outside of yourself for peace,
yet do not reject the search either,
for even 'the one who seeks'
is deserving of
the greatest love.

When you feel half of a cosmic whole,
remember that you are the whole,
and not the half;
the seeker is the sought.

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Longchen Rabjam - Vajra-Homage

Vajra heart source

The head verse of each canto is a root verse; the subsequent prose is Longchenpa's commentary with illustrative verse quotes; and the prose in lower point type is the translator's commentary.

 

Homage to Glorious Samantabhadra, the All-Good!

To the matrix of primordial, spontaneous perfection,
to the original lord, the glory of samsara and nirvana,
and to the masters and magi, mystics and lamas,
we bow down with a thousand shimmering petals of lotus-faith.

I shall now elucidate The Treasury of Natural Perfection,
the quintessential truth, the final, definitive teaching,
distilled from the enigmatic heart-drop of direct experience,
the apogee of attainment that is existential pre-eminence.

The glorious Samantabhadra, manifestly and totally present in the fundamental ground of the here-and-now, abiding in the immutable vajra-space that is hyper-sameness, turns the wheel of unsurpassable, definitive revelation. The sublime fruition is the profound mystery of natural perfection. This is the indisputable and unchanging reality of pure gnostic mind and pure being revealed directly and effortlessly, ineluctably present in the moment. This treatise of secret instruction called The Treasury of Natural Perfection is a summation of the incontrovertible truths of natural perfection.

1. Vajra-Homage

To timeless buddhahood, basic total presence,
to unchanging spontaneity, the spacious vajra-heart,
to the nature of mind—natural perfection,
constantly, simply being, we bow down.

This verse of homage evokes the essential immutable spaciousness, the vajra-space, of this treatise. This spaciousness is the essence of self-sprung awareness, the ground of the spontaneity - the perfection and creativity - of pure and total presence. It is the unchanging field of reality, clear light as the nature of mind, the original face of natural perfection.

'Vajra' homage is rendered in and to that unchanging space without any attempt to alter anything, without focusing on anything, and without stirring from the disposition of pure being. Natural perfection is the self-sprung awareness that precludes any specific bias or partiality, rendering any training or endeavor redundant.

Ho! The atiyoga of natural perfection! Dzogchen Ati!
The Great Perfection, in its unbiased inclusivity,
actualizes the meaning of self-sprung awareness;
as the lion overawes all other beasts with his roar,
so the language of Great Perfection commands the gradual approaches;
speaking a tongue of its own, it engenders its own ultimate meaning.

The land of natural perfection is free of buddhas and sentient beings;
the ground of natural perfection is free of good and bad;
the path of natural perfection has no length;
the fruition of natural perfection can neither be avoided nor attained;
the body of natural perfection is neither existent nor nonexistent;
the speech of natural perfection is neither sacred nor profane;
and the mind of natural perfection has no substance nor attribute.
The space of natural perfection cannot be consumed nor voided;
the status of natural perfection is neither high nor low;
the praxis of natural perfection is neither developed nor neglected;
the potency of natural perfection is neither fulfilled nor frustrated;
the display of natural perfection is neither manifest nor latent;
the actuality of natural perfection is neither cultivated nor ignored;
and the gnosis of natural perfection is neither visible nor invisible.

The hidden awareness of natural perfection is everywhere,
its parameters beyond indication,
its actuality incommunicable;
the sovereign view of natural perfection is the here-and-now,
naturally present without speech or books,
irrespective of conceptual clarity or dullness,
but as spontaneous joyful creativity
its reality is nothing at all.

In the verse of homage, the first, second and third lines reveal the self-sprung natural essence while the fourth line shows familiarity with that unchanging space of reality. The fruition of natural perfection is distinguished from our ordinary disposition by nothing more than an indication about the existential ground (the starting point that is 'basic total presence' adduced in the first line of the vajra-homage). All experience, therefore, is revealed as perfect and complete in the gnosis of pure mind.

There is no imperfection anywhere:
perfect in one, perfect in two, perfect in all,
life is blissfully easy.

Unity is perfect as unitary pure mind,
duality is perfect as the mind's creation,
and multiplicity is abundant completion.

In the transmission of the perfection of unity
lies the pure buddha-dynamic;
the teaching on the perfection of duality
reveals everything as perfect projection;
and by virtue of the perfection of multiplicity
everything turns whole and splendid.

Abiding here, doing nothing,
embodied as man or god,
our dynamic is buddha-reality;
here sentient beings are cared for,
and without any exertion we live in ease.

So homage is given to the nature of mind itself, self-sprung awareness, the projective base of samsara and nirvana:

Homage to the sole nature of mind, the seed of all and everything,
to the mind that creates the sense of existence and release from it,
to the mind that fulfils all our desires like a wish-fulfilling gem!

The act of vajra-homage, a ritual verbal gesture, is recognition of the primordial perfection of the nature of mind. The language of the Great Perfection is the natural expression of gnosis, empty and joyful, that establishes its own nonreferential reality. Inducing self-sprung awareness, the totality of experience, its language evokes a timeless reality beyond linguistic - and also social and moral - conditioning.

The famous line 'perfect in one, perfect in two, perfect in all' could be rendered 'unity is perfect, duality is perfect, plurality is perfect' - everything is necessarily perfect. The 'perfection' of Dzogchen carries with it the notion of completion. The final verse of that quotation is an introduction to the notion of nonaction, that nothing at all need be done to attain natural perfection since everything is perfect as it is. Yet, transmission is required - one pure mind accomplishes all:

 

 

Source text  HERE

 

 Old Man Basking in the Sun
(Excerpts)
Longchenpa's Treasury of Natural Perfection

 

 

 

 

ᖇᑌᗰƗ ♡ - The king of all that is

I hear the murmur
Of the brook
In my empty heart,
Yet I glide in the water
As the fish.
I am the river bed
The ocean
Where the river ends.
I fly with the wind as the clouds,
Yet I am the cloudless sky.
I orbit the glorious one
As the earth around the sun
Yet behold,
For the sun and the stars,
Their light I bestow upon them
All glory to my bounteousness
Vast and open as the space,
The endless silence
Of the universe.
So remember me,
And bow with the cosmos
That prostrates itself
At my feet.
Beg with me,
Me, the dust under His foot,
For a glance from Him,
The Truth sublime,
The king of all that is,
In his shining Endlessness.

F.J. Alexander - (from) In the Hours of Meditation

art Ram Onkar

The Voice of the Guru, speaking in the
hours of meditation, sayeth,

Behold ! There is an inner as well as an outer world.
There is a world of soul as well as a world of form.
And, my son, if there are marvels and mysteries
and vastness and beauty and great glory in the outer world,
there are inestimable greatness and powers and incommunicable
blessedness and peace and unshakable  foundation of Reality
in the inner world as well.

O my son, the outer is only a semblance of this inner world.
And in this inner world thy true nature doth abide.
-Here thou livest in Eternity while the outer world is of time alone.
Here there is endless and unfathomable bliss,
while in the outer world sensation is accompanied by pain
as well as by pleasure.
Here, too, is pain, but O what blessedness of pain,
the ecstatic anguish of not having fully realised the Truth,
and such pain is the pathway to more copious blessedness.

"Come, draw thy nature within this inner world.
Come come upon the wings of ardent love for me.
Is there greater or closer union
than that between the Guru and disciple?
O my son O my son Silence is the nature of Love Inexpressibility.
And deep within the deepest folds of Silence there is God.
Abandon all outer concerns. Whithersoever I go, do thou come !
Whatsoever I become, do thou likewise become.
O for the Holiness of God !
Many are the shrines of the devotee s heart where thought,
like incense, rises unto God.
Spiritualise everything thou doest. See the Brahman,
the Divinity in form as well as in the Formless.
Than the Lord there is no greater good.

In the inmost recesses of the inner world,
into which one enters by the way of ardent love or ardent prayer,
there are universes upon universes of the Divinity in Revelation.
And God is always near. He is near not in a physical sense;
He is near in a spiritual sense
as the very Self within the self of thee.
He is the very Substance of thy soul.
He is the Knower of all thy thoughts
and of the most hidden and most silent aspirations of the heart.
Give thyself up. Love for the sake of love;
work for the work s own sake. Go into the chambers of the Silence;
come into the Presence of Reality.
The more thou goest inward the nearer dost thou come unto me.
For I am the Dweller within the Innermost.
I am the Magnet which draws out the revelation and the glory of thy soul.
I am Spirit ! I am Spirit, untouched by thought or form.
I am the Invulnerable and the Indestructible !
I am the Atman !
I am Paramatman !
Lo !
I am Brahman !
I am Brahman !"

amazon 

Timothy Conway - Awaken, O God-Self!

Awaken, O God-Self!

(A message from Awareness to Itself)

Once upon a Timeless Now, in the Infinity of No-Space,
You emanated, for no reason other than pure Delight,
a fabulous dream-like universe of objects, a world of apparent “things.”
Having conjured some very interesting forms,
You thought (ha!) it might be rather entertaining to jump into Your dream,
and to seem to lose Yourself in it as one of the limited forms
—in this case, the human being You chronically think of as “myself.”


At any time You can awaken from the dream of “me” to realize that
You are not the body-mind persona, but are, in truth,
the Divine Dreamer, the Supreme Source of all,
the Absolute “No-thing” of Luminous Pure Spirit from which all “things” arise.
Divine Being is Your Truth.
You are This.


How do You awaken? Just notice:
You are already Awareness, not a “me” or a “thing.”
All sense of being “inside” a body or a mind drops away.
You float free as unbounded “no-body” and “no-mind”—Pure Awareness,
prior to and beyond intentional consciousness,
transcending all forms, yet immanently within all.
Body-mind spontaneously functions and lovingly serves all beings
according to Tao, the Divine Will, the Natural Way.
You are content, at peace, abandoning selfish fascination
for the various dream-objects (consciousness disguised).
All binding likes and dislikes that could have fixated attention have dissolved.


“Be still, and know that I am God.”
You remain as this pure, open I,
not narrowly identifying with “I am this” or “I am that.”
You abide here & now as simple, unbounded Infinity.


You are always already Free,

Pure Divine Spirit, Boundless Intelligent Space,

Absolute Being-Awareness-Bliss-Grace,

the Fullness and Ecstasy of Love.

Enlightened-Spirituality.org
© Copyright 2006 by Timothy Conway, Ph.D.
Email: t.conway1@cox.net

source  Here

Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh - Come… come…

Interview with Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh from Sufipath on Vimeo.

Come… come…let’s you and I
abandon the city of vultures,
leave the region of “you” and “I”
and obtain a passport
to the traceless realm,
Where no clocks are made
and minutes are not sold,
Where the Khezr of good fortune
has stitched pre and post eternity together.
Where they do not point to numbers
and dust is not sold for gold,
Where breaths cannot be counted,
where eternity, from end to end, is just one breath,
Where you
will be I
and I
you..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh was the Master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order from 1953 until his death. He was also a psychiatrist and a successful writer in the fields of both psychiatry and Sufi mysticism.

http://www.nimatullahi.org/ 

Susannah Bec - Connected

art  Ross Bannister

.
.
.

My
body
a conduit
. . a temple . .

Gossamer threads
connect me
with light

with stardust
with stories

Twin serpents
coil and weave
around my
sturdy spine

caressing bone
creating sparks

My being is
tangled with
all that is

The exhaling
of the universe
etches me
with its
breath
.
.
.

http://joyfrequencies.blogspot.co.uk/

http://seeingundermyskin.blogspot.gr/ 

Kahlil Gibran - "Speak to us of Beauty."

And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty." Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us." And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us." The tired and the weary say, "beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow." But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions." At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east." And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, "we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset." In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills." And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair." All these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and your are the mirror.

Maren Springsteen - Sweet surrender

More than anything,

know no-thing.

Empty of any standpoint

all is already flowing

through and as you,

aware-ing

as the pathless path

you as the entire

loving field of gold

ruby red sparks

of fire

by the mere seeing

with your eyes

of purity.

Give it your all,

surrender with devotion

of your almighty

heart

to simply shine

on a starry night,

empty,

yet brimming

with light’s beauty,

Pleiadian illumination.

Sutta-nipata - The Ultimate

The Ultimate

If you have a set view
of the best spiritual path
in the world
and go round saying,
“This is the best
and everything else
is inferior,”
you’re stuck
in discrimination.

If you see some gain
for yourself
through the senses
or the ideas you use
in rites and rituals
and grasp hold of it
right there and then
you’ll jeer at
every other way.

The wise point out
that you’re bound
if you see your way
as best
and the rest as inferior.
Anyone who wants
to understand the way things
are
doesn’t rely
on his senses or ideas
or ritual practices.

Use neither knowledge
nor rite and ceremony
to invent some view.
Don’t consider yourself
as anybody’s equal or

their better or inferior.
No comparison at all.

You’ve abandoned the self!
Are free of grasping!
Depend not even on knowledge
and follow no learned group.
You hold no view
at all!

You yearn for no extreme:
being or non-being
in this world
or the next.
You’ve investigated
everything you’ve clung to
and need not cling to anything
again.

You formulate no theories
about the experience
of your senses.
No one can define you,
wise one,
free of ideas
and opinions.

The wise have
no set views,
no opinions
or preferences,
form no theories
about truth,
can’t be led
by ceremonial.
They have truly
gone beyond,
need not come back
from the free
and further shore.

Download PDF  HERE

Kabir - O Sadhu!

Kabir says: ‘O Sadhu! hear my deathless words.
If you want your own good, examine and consider them well.

You have estranged yourself from the Creator,
of whom you have sprung: you have bought death.
All doctrines and all teachings are sprung from Him,
from Him they grow: know this for certain, and have no fear.
Hear from me the tidings of this great truth!

Whose name do you sing, and on whom do you meditate?
O, come forth from this entanglement!
He dwells at the heart of all things,
so why take refuge in empty desolation?
If you place the Guru at a distance from you,
then it is but the distance that you honour:

If indeed the Master be far away,
then who is it else that is creating this world?
When you think that He is not here,
then you wander further and further away,
and seek Him in vain with tears.

Where He is far off, there He is unattainable:
where He is near, He is very bliss.

Kabir says: ‘Lest His servant should suffer pain
He pervades him through and through.’

Know yourself then, O Kabir; for He is in you from head to foot.
Sing with gladness, and keep your seat unmoved within your heart.


Saint Kabir, Songs of Kabir, LXXVIII

~~~~~~~~

Songs of Kabir  PDF

 

 

Sufi Mullah Nasrudin - Disguised as myself.

How are you? 

Perfect, thank you. I’m traveling incognito. 

Oh? As what are you disguised? 

I am disguised as myself. 

Don’t be silly. That’s no disguise. That’s what you are. 

On the contrary, it must be a very good disguise, 

for I see it has fooled you completely. 

Read great stories of Mullah Nasrudin  Here