Annemarie Kidder - "Mystics" (Etty Hillesum)

from Etty Hillesum: Essential Writings, editor Annemarie Kidder:

 “Mystics are people who begin their quest for wisdom or for God
not in the world of externals but in the microcosm of their own soul.
There they allow themselves to be fully present
to the experiences of a deep-felt joy or sorrow, of beauty or suffering,
of gain or loss, so that these opposing poles might in time
reconcile and grow and ripen into a harmonious whole.
Once this inner harmony has grown from within
and wells up as a peace that defies all rational explanation,
mystics can carry this inner harmony into the world,
thus becoming catalysts in the transformation of the world.”

 amazon

Also:

 Etty Hillesum:
An interrupted life & Letters from Westerbork

PDF HERE

 

 

Steve Taylor - The Presence

picture H.Koppdelaney

No matter how disconnected you’ve become
no matter how much you’ve mistreated your body
and how much you’ve abused your soul,
the presence is always close to you
waiting with infinite patience
for the right moment to reveal herself again.

No matter how long you’ve ignored the presence,
even if you’ve neglected her – and yourself – so long
that you can hardly remember what she looks or feels like,
she won’t carry any grudges against you;
she won’t hide from you, or punish you.
And there’ll be one unexpected moment
when she steps forward suddenly and embraces you
with unconditional love, and welcomes you back.

One day, you’ll be walking dejectedly,
and she’ll appear at your side
like an invisible cloud that immerses you
and fills you with alert aliveness
and you’ll look up and see a transfigured sky
opened up to endless dimensions, filled with sentient space
and sunlight that glows with benevolence
and around you, trees that are as conscious as you
whispering wisdom to each other
and a landscape that shimmers gloriously
with the ageless timeless freshness of presence.

And straight away you’ll relax
and be filled with reassurance
knowing that you were never as lost as you thought;
at home again, as if you’d never left the presence,
and knowing that you never really did
and that you never can. 

facebook

http://www.stevenmtaylor.com/

 

 

 

Douglas Harding - This True Nature of Mine

art Jane Adams

 What, then, is this alleged True Nature of mine, this
wonderful discovery of the wise which promises to settle
everything?  I'd better have some idea right away of this
Identity I'm looking for, otherwise I'm unlikely to find
either its presence or its absence.  In briefest summary,
what I'm advised to seek is no thing at all, but unlimited,
unconditioned, unmoving, timeless (repeat timeless), simple,
silent, and - above and below all - self-evident and
intensely alive to itself as all this.  It is the unknowable
of which Aristotle said that nothing is so knowable.  It is
the bottomless abyss of mystery-beneath-mystery which is at
once my refuge and my Self.  Among its metaphors and synonyms
are Nothingness, Clarity, Transparency, the Clear Light,
Empty Space, the Void which is trackless and stainless and
speckless, bare Capacity, the Unborn and Undying...none of
which do more than help me recognize it when I stumble upon it.

                          Douglas Harding, an excerpt from
                          The Little Book of Life and Death

PDF

 http://www.headless.org/douglas-harding.htm

 

Ajit Sripad Rao Nalkur - Presence

art  Rassouli

 The mighty pen is a poet's ultimate security.
He need hold on to nothing but a pen,

And even if he loses it and the waves wash it away
He yet stands upon the shifting sands of time.,
Gazing upon the Beloved just above the horizon,
Looking back at him, surveying with her all- surrounding heart
The landscape of his thoughts and emotions,
Bathing him with the ocean of her soul,
Eyes fixed firmly on the resulting silence
Of his mind merging with hers,. his heart,
Soul and body flowing towards hers,
The earth simply a playground of their love ...
Speechless, theirs is a language only they understand
Without effort, without the need to hold on to anything,
Intense the clasp of this cosmic union,
Electric the fusion of two forms in the formless.,
Beauty absolute the spark falling to earth,
Blanketing the stars by night and the blue skies by day.
An otherworldly vision of the Two-in-One
As the soul of all that is, the Love bringing
Heaven to the earth in a constant flow of grace,
Is this presence, unseen and seen, of nature's true face.

http://ajitsripadraonalkur.com/ 

facebook