U.G. Krishnamurti - Natural state

photo by H.Kopp-delaney

 "The natural state is not the state of a self-realized God-realized man, it is not a thing to be achieved or attained, it is not a thing to be willed into existence; it is there -- it is the living state. This state is just the functional activity of life. By 'life' I do not mean something abstract; it is the life of the senses, functioning naturally without the interference of thought. Thought is an interloper, which thrusts itself into the affairs of the senses. It has a profit motive: thought directs the activity of the senses to get something out of them, and uses them to give continuity to itself.

This state is a state of not knowing; you really don't know what you are looking at. I may look at the clock on the wall for half an hour -- still I do not read the time. I don't know it is a clock. All there is inside is wonderment: "What is this that I am looking at?" Not that the question actually phrases itself like that in words: the whole of my being is like a single, big question mark. It is a state of wonder, of wondering, because I just do not know what I am looking at. The knowledge about it -- all that I have learned -- is held in the background unless there is a demand. It is in the 'declutched state'. If you ask the time, I will say "It's a quarter past three" or whatever -- it comes quickly like an arrow -- then I am back in the state of not knowing, of wonder.

You can never understand the tremendous peace that is always there within you, that is your natural state. Your trying to create a peaceful state of mind is in fact creating disturbance within you. You can only talk of peace, create a state of mind and say to yourself that you are very peaceful -- but that is not peace; that is violence. So there is no use in practicing peace, there is no reason to practice silence. Real silence is explosive; it is not the dead state of mind that spiritual seekers think. "Oh, I am at peace with myself! There is silence, a tremendous silence! I experience silence!" -- that doesn't mean anything at all. This is volcanic in its nature: it's bubbling all the time -- the energy, the life -- that is its quality. You may ask how I know. I don't know. Life is aware of itself, if we can put it that way -- it is conscious of itself."

Some excerpts from U.G. Krishnamurti's book - "The Mystique Of Enlightenment"

 

 Thanks to Eve Reece

Dorothy Hunt - Sacred Calling

 

How does the Sacred call to you? Through a deep longing? Through loving? Through the birth of an infant or the death of a beloved friend? Through the silence of a forest or the magnificence of waves crashing at sea? Through a teacher or a teaching? A guru or a God? A scripture or a spiritual tradition? Through art, poetry, music? Playing with your dog, sitting with your cat? Through a meditation practice or a practice of service? Or does the Sacred calling come when you are most desperate, most vulnerable, unable to know what to do, where to go, how to address the pain you are suffering or the suffering you see all around you? Does it call you to your knees when you don’t know where else to turn?

What if the sacred is actually calling us every moment? Come; see! See what you are, what this moment is. Come back Home. Return—again and again and again! See whether there is really any separation anywhere.

Many of us think that a sacred calling is a calling to “do,” but my sense is that the sacred calls us to “be,” calls us to surrender to Being, and in the “being” the doing happens spontaneously. It is Being, rather than a self, that is always becoming. Whether we resonate with the idea of a Supreme Being, or simply Being Itself, surrender is a humbling act of acknowledging that the human mind cannot fathom the Mystery of the universe, cannot “know” its Source as an object, and in innumerable ways each day, does not even know how to accept the moment it finds itself experiencing. The mind does not know how to surrender. Yet over time, and with Grace, it may discover its own limitations in the face of the Unknown and let go of its illusion of control, its illusion of separation, its illusion of a self. It may become so emptied of its false identity, that Truth simply moves itself without anyone to know how or why or when.

It seems to me that the Unnamable is here having a human experience, and yet in the deepest place in our hearts, we may sense that this expression called “human” Being is called by the Sacred to experience the sacred as what we are, what life is. It appears the One enjoys this dance with Itself. In this dance, we are invited to find out what is here when all we have believed about ourselves–the ways we have identified with thought, feeling, body, memory, image—falls away, or is stripped away, or simply melts in its encounter with the Sacred. When all the forms of thought, memory, feeling, etc. have disappeared, what is left?

Being a human expression of life does not mean we have no perception of choice, or of moving toward or away from our experience of the sacred, toward or away from what is most true within. Rather than a calling to be something, perhaps the Sacred is calling to us to be, to see, to respond from what is most sacred within us. Perhaps the Sacred calling calls us to come out of hiding–hiding our true self, hiding our true radiance, hiding the Light that is here shining the moment we let go of the illusion of a separate “self.” Ramana asks, Are there really two selves?

How does the Sacred call to you? What does it beckon you to discover, to sense, to be? Perhaps the Sacred calling is not your life’s work, but discovering who/what is actually living life–your life, to be precise! You may discover there is no moment where we can actually divide life into sacred and secular, holy and unholy. Dream, dreamer and dreamed may disappear into What has no name, no attributes and yet continually calls from itself to itself within our own experience to be, to see, to love.

If you would like to share how the Sacred calls to you, or to describe one moment that seems to exemplify such a calling, we would love to hear from you.

 

 

https://www.dorothyhunt.org/ 

As PDF Here

 

 

 

 

Hafiz - Door of the Tavern (narrated)

 

 Through the intoxication of love, Sufis learn to let go of their ego and open their heart to the truth that binds all creation. In reaching for the essential nature of this divine love, the Sufi poets evade fixed ideas, embrace paradox and turn to intricate metaphor and allegory that ring more truthful that the everyday reality that blinds us to the ineffable experience of love and the divine.

 

 

 Thank God the door of the Tavern is open
and I am needy at His door.

The vats are all boiling and crying out of drunkeness.
Only the wine of truth can be found there.
Not that of falsehood.

From Him comes drunkeness, pride and aloofness.
From us comes helplessness, self-effacement and neediness.

The secret, which I’ve never told anyone, and will never share with anyone,
I shall reveal to the friend – my only confidant.

The tale of the twist and wave of my Beloved’s curl cannot be abridged.
It is indeed a long story.

I have stopped looking at the entire world
Since I have gazed upon your beautiful face.

Whoever comes to the district of your Kaba
Will begin praying immediately upon beholding the qiblah of your eyebrows.

Oh, people of the assembly! If you are interested in the burning of Haze’s heart,
Ask the candle as it burns and thaws away.

source

 

Jack Kerouac - Listen closely…

 

 The eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this,
and has been going on, and will go on and on.
This is because the world is nothing but a dream
and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity
pays no attention to it.”

 

 

 

 

Catherine Doherty - Silence

 

 “Don’t think that those who enter the silence of God are “silent”. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth! 

Silence is a thunder! 

You will be able to hear it everywhere. 

Your nights and days will be filled with it. …

Many confuse silence with solitude. 

Solitude is being alone with God, waiting for God. 

But silence is an immense sea into which you enter and never leave. 

And once you have plunged into this silence, you will always be silent.”

https://www.catherinedoherty.org/

Wei Wu Wei - Prajna and the sage

 

  All the sage is - is prajna;
All the sage was, before he became a sage, was prajna,
 Split into subject and object.

However, there is no prajna,
And there is no sage.
There is not either the one or the other,
Either both, or neither:
Just a luminous absence.

But light is a concept of divided mind,
And absence is absence of presence.
Whatever they are not, whatever they are,
Cannot be known by whatever they are
Or by whatever they are not,
For there is no knower to know anything,
Nor any thing to be known. 

 

 

 

 

source text 

 

 

Kabir - Abode Of The Beloved

 

 

 

 Sakhiya Wah Ghar Sabse Nyara,
Jaha Puran Purush Humara
Jaha Nahi Sukh Dukh
Sanch Jhuth Nahi
Pap Na Pun Pasara
Nahin Din Reyn Chand Nahi Suraj,
Bina Jyoti Ujyara

Nahin Tahan Gyan Dhyan
Nahin Jap Tap
Ved Kiteb Na Bani
Karni Dharni Rehni Gehni,
Yeh Sub Jahan Hirani

Ghar Nahin Aghar Na Bahar Bhitar,
Pind Brahmand Kachu Nahin
Panch Tatva Gun Tin Nahin Tahan,
Sakhi Shabd Na Tahin

Mul Na Phul Beli Nahin Bija,
Bina Braksh Phal Sohe,
Oham Soham Ardh Urdh Nahin,
Swasa Lekhan Kou Hai

Jahan Purush Tahwan Kachu Nahin,
Kahe Kabir Hum Jana
Humri Sain Lakhe Jo Koi,
Pawe Pad Nirvana


English Translation

Oh Companion That Abode Is Unmatched,
Where My Complete Beloved Is.

In that Place There Is No Happiness or Unhappiness,
No Truth or Untruth
Neither Sin Nor Virtue.
There Is No Day or Night, No Moon or Sun,
There Is Radiance Without Light.

There Is No Knowledge or Meditation
No Repetition of Mantra or Austerities,
Neither Speech Coming From Vedas or Books.
Doing, Not-Doing, Holding, Leaving
All These Are All Lost Too In This Place.

No Home, No Homeless, Neither Outside or Inside,
Micro and Macrocosm Are Non-Existent.
Five Elemental Constituents and the Trinity Are Both Not There
Witnessing Un-struck Shabad Sound is Also Not There.

No Root or Flower, Neither Branch or Seed,
Without a Tree Fruits are Adorning,
Primordial Om Sound, Breath-Synchronized Soham,
This and That - All Are Absent, The Breath Too Unknown

Where the Beloved Is There is Utterly Nothing
Says Kabir I Have Come To Realize.
Whoever Sees My Indicative Sign
Will Accomplish the Goal of Liberation.

 

 

 

source text