Lao Tzu - Nothing to lose

"The sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the sage has nothing to lose."

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti - The song of the river

Byron Katie - The world beyond thought

When you’re shut down and frightened, the world seems hostile; when you love what is, everything in the world becomes the beloved. Inside and outside always match — they’re reflections of each other. The world is the mirror image of your mind.

Not believing your own thoughts, you’re free from the primal desire: the thought that reality should be different than it is. You realize the wordless, the unthinkable. You understand that any mystery is only what you yourself have created. In fact, there’s no mystery. Everything is as clear as day. It’s simple, because there really isn’t anything. There’s only the story appearing now. And not even that.

When you realize that you can only see the world as you believe it to be, you look from a new perspective. The world is an optical illusion. In the end, it’s just you, crazed and miserable, or you, delighted and at peace. Everything happens for you, not to you.

I have questioned my thoughts, and I’ve seen that it’s crazy to argue with what is. I don’t ever want anything to happen except what’s happening. For example, a man sticks a pistol into my stomach, pulls the hammer back, and says, “I’m going to kill you.” I am shocked that he is taking his thoughts so seriously. To someone identified as an I, the thought of killing causes guilt that leads to a life of suffering, so I ask him, as kindly as I can, not to do it. I don’t tell him that it’s his suffering I’m thinking of. He says that he has to do it, and I understand; I remember believing that I had to do things in my old life. I thank him for doing the best he can, and I notice that I’m fascinated. Is this how she dies? Is this how the story ends? And as joy continues to fill me, I find it miraculous that the story is still going on. You can never know the ending, even as it ends. I am very moved at the sight of sky, clouds, and moonlit trees. I love that I don’t miss one moment, one breath, of this amazing life. I wait. And wait. And in the end, he doesn’t pull the trigger. He doesn’t do that to himself.

What we call “bad” and what we call “good” both come from the same place. The Tao Te Ching says that the source of everything is called “darkness.” What a beautiful name (if we must have a name)! Darkness is our source. In the end, it embraces everything. Its nature is love, and in our confusion we name it terror and ugliness, the unacceptable, the unbearable. All our stress results from what we imagine is in that darkness. We imagine darkness as separate from ourselves, and we project something terrible onto it. But in reality, the darkness is always benevolent.

Darkness is the mind that doesn’t know a thing. This don’t-know mind is the center of the universe — it is the universe — there’s nothing outside it. And it’s the gateway to all understanding. Once the darkness is understood, you’re clear that nothing is separate from you. No name, no thought, can possibly be true in an ultimate sense. It’s all provisional; it’s all changing. The dark, the nameless, the unthinkable — that is what you can absolutely trust. It doesn’t change, and it’s benevolent. When you realize this, you just have to laugh. There’s nothing serious about life or death.

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Jiddu Krishnamurti - About peace

No leader is going to give us peace

To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states: greed, envy, ill-will, and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution, and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile: others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking, and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.

Rumi - Fihi Ma Fihi – Discourse 26

Someone sees in a dream that they are a ruler.
They are seated on a throne with servants,
chamberlains and princess standing by.
They say, “I am ruler, and there is no ruler but I.”
They say this in their sleep.
When they wake up and see no one in the house but themself,
they say, “I am, and there is no other than that I Am.”
To realize this, one must be fully awake.

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Bulleh Shah - My Beloved has come home - Mera Piya Ghar Aya

 

 

Banish the timekeeper, my beloved has come home, my precious one!
Again and again the time keeper strikes the gong,
Diminishing this night of our union.
Were he to look into my heart,
Himself, he would fling it away.
The unheard music plays majestically.
The singer accomplished in rhythm and measure.
Forgotten are my prayers
As the distiller gives me plentiful wine.
At the wondrous sight of his face,
All my sorrows vanished.
The night marches on. How can I extend it?
O build a wall against the day!

I have lost myself.
I can not remember when I was wedded.
It is not possible to hide,
This complete grace that is upon me.
Many magic spells were cast,
Magicians came, big and small.
Now that my beloved is home,
I will remain with him for a hundred thousand years.
Says Bullah Shah, in this beloved bed
I have crossed over to the other side.
Finally, my turn came,
Separation is no longer possible.
Banish the timekeeper, my beloved has
come home, my precious one.

 

Chuck Surface - Only The Heart May Enter

 I wandered in the "nondual" marketplace,
Among the countless awakened,
Who feel that all there is, is Consciousness,
And simply understanding this,
Is all that is required.

And while there is something to it,
On the face of things,
I found, upon lifting the facade,
An arid, cerebral affair,
Seeming to me, tragically misguided.

For though the mind lead me, truly,
To the Gates of Heaven,
There, having reached the end of its utility,
Having become blind, deaf, and mute,
It stepped aside, in Humility…

For only the Heart could enter there.

I fell, at that fatal juncture,
From Mind into Heart,
From concept into Feeling,
From understanding into Experience,
And Became…

What the Mind can only “think about”.

My "enquiry" was driven by Love,
Not an academic investigation,
Searching to reach a "conclusion",
Based on irrefutable logic,
Presented with unarguable certainty.

My desire was to Vanish… and Become.
To Vanish as the felt sense,
Of all I come to feel myself as being,
And Become, in "my" Vanishing,
That which I had Loved and Longed for.

What was it I Loved and Longed for?

At the time, only a vague "remembrance",
Of something... Wonderful,
But long forgotten in Ancient Memory,
A sense of myself, not as myself...
And yet... My Self.

A Feeling, not a concept,
A felt sense of, dare I say it...
Heaven, within, and Fulfillment,
In the most Unimaginable sense,
Of the Heart's Desire.

I "Felt" my way to my Essential Self,
Before ever "I" and the world appeared.
I "Felt" my way to Heaven,
Before manifestation ever was,
And the Suffering inherent in duality.

I came, through Mind, to that place,
Where I could not find myself,
But turning there, to the Heart,
Could Feel my Self... Alive,
As... Aliveness.

The thinking mind brought understanding,
Of the fact of my Formless Unlocatability,
But the Feeling Heart Experienced,
Beyond Understanding and Feeling,
What both Heart and Mind become…

What Is, before ever they were.

 

 

 
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Rumi - The Soul’s steam bath

"There is a happiness and a sadness
that are just figures on a bathhouse wall.
Move through the world naked,
noticing the pictures that live.
Inner joy and grief are different
from artful appearance.
Take off your phenomena-clothes
when you enter the soul’s steam bath:
no one comes in here with clothes on."

 

Misunderstandings about Rumi and Shams by Ibrahim Gamard

"You asked about the relationship between Hazrat-e Mevlana and Hz. Shamsu 'd-din of Tabriz.
First of all, it is necessary to understand that in Persian sufi poetry, the word "lover" [`âshiq] means being a lover of God. And in the paths of sufism that view the mystic seeker as the lover and God as the Beloved, it means a true dervish. Therefore, "the lovers" are the lovers of God. So in this sense Mevlana and Shams certainly were (spiritual) lovers.
In terms of traditional themes and imagery in Persian sufi poetry, it is very common for the beloved to be praised as having beautiful tresses of hair, eyes, cheeks, moles, eyebrows, etc. And when Mevlana used such images in his poems expressing his spiritual love for Shams, this can be mistakenly interpreted as some kind of "evidence" of homosexual love. However, this was a centuries-old convention in Persian poetry that was long adopted by sufis who understood the various imagery in praise of the beloved as symbols of mystical love." 

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Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat (excerpt)

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted – ‘Open the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.’

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter – and the Bird is on the Wing.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door where in I went.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand wrought to make it grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d –
‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’

Ah, fill the Cup – what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TOMORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TODAY be sweet!

But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

For in and out, above, about, below,
’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits – and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again –
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden – and for one in vain!

And when like her, oh Sáki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One – turn down an empty Glass!

Edward Fitzgerald (1809 – 1883)
Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1123)

 

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