Nisargadatta Maharaj ~ Non-distinction

 

art Rob Rey

 

 Non-distinction speaks in silence.
Words carry distinctions.
The unmanifested (nirguna) has no name,
all names refer to the manifested (saguna).
It is useless to struggle with words to express what is beyond words.
Consciousness (chidananda) is spirit (purusha), consciousness is matter (prakriti).
Imperfect spirit is matter, perfect matter is spirit.
In the beginning as in the end, all is one.
All division is in the mind (chitta); there is none in reality (chit).
Movement and rest are states of mind and cannot be without their opposites.
By itself nothing moves, nothing rests.
It is a grievous mistake to attribute to mental constructs absolute existence.
Nothing exists by itself.
Beyond the mind there is no such thing as experience.
Experience is a dual state.
You cannot talk of reality as an experience.
Once this is understood, you will no longer look
for being and becoming as separate and opposite.
In reality they are one and inseparable, like roots and branches of the same tree.
Both can exist only in the light of consciousness,
which again, arises in the wake of the sense 'I am'.
This is the primary fact.
If you miss it, you miss all.

 

 

Eric Baret ~ Rapt listening

 

Bathe deeply in that ocean of sound
which is even now vibrating within you,
resonating softly,
permeating the space of the heart.
The ear that is tuned by rapt listening
learns to hear the song of creation.
First like a hand bell,
then subtler like a flute,
then subtler still as a stringed instrument,
eventually as the buzz of a bee.
Entering this current of sound, the Listening One
forgets the external world, and becomes
absorbed into internal sound,
and then absorbed in vastness
like the song of the stars as they shine.

~ The Radiance Sutra — vijnana bhairava tantra –part XV

 

 

https://www.bhairava.ws/ 

 

 

Gina Puorro ~ I wonder

 

art Roy Awbery

 

 There is no place in my body
no nerve in my system
no string in my heart
no corner of my mind
that knows how to make sense of war.

I’m thinking about a mother giving birth
to the sound of planes ripping the sky open
the pain contracting through her body
the fear flowing from breast to mouth
the shock waves that spark from one nervous system to the other
because a man chose to feed hungry ghosts with blood.

I wonder how the land feels
when it did not consent to bombs on its soil
and if it can find any way
to make something generative
from the kind of death that calls men of a certain age
to be soldiers in a battle they never wanted.

I wonder how the wind feels
about carrying both screams and prayers
on the same breeze
and if either will ever truly be heard
or find a safe place to land.

I wonder what it must feel like
to have to pack up your whole life
and run from the ancestral lands
where your grandmother’s grandmother prayed
and try to find home
in any place where sunflowers don’t have roots.

I don’t understand any of it
but I know what it feels like in my body
and I feel the way so many of us are collapsing
into the pain of knowing how haunted we all are
and the ways we keep hurting each other
and not knowing what to do
but maybe we can all just slow down a little.
Just enough so we can stay with the trouble
stay in our bodies
stay connected to each other
be gentle with ourselves
keep our hearts open
expand and contract
through grief and rage
through tenderness and care
through falling apart and mending
again and again.

I am the mother
I am the child
I am the soldier
I am the land
I am the wind
I am the the prayers of grandmothers
carried on the breeze
and they remind me
that this is not so far away
and we are not so far apart.

 

 

https://ginapuorro.com/

 

Mystic Meandering ~ Prayers for a broken world...

 

art Cameron Gray

 

 I feel deeply for a world in pain...
I know others of you do too...
A world bound by insanity and ignorance,
hatred and greed;
holding onto racist ideologies,
beliefs of empires of the past,
tattered by time and flamed by delusion.
Volatile violence erupting from darkened minds;
the new "prophets" of a civilization in denial
- uncivil -
burdening others with their detritus; like
robots blindly playing their part in the universal
tick-tock - already dead - lost to false beliefs -
blinded by their own nightmare,
wanting to inflict their pain on others...
Children killing children...
Survivors traumatized for life...

And we - the collective "we" - carry on-
business as usual...

Nothing changes...
And yet - Everything changes...

Life is a solemn journey for many...


Prayers for a broken world...


Mystic Meandering
May 15, 2022
revised May 24, 2022

 

 

https://mysticmeandering.blogspot.com/ 

Ḥāfeẓ Shīrāzī ~ What the Hell

 

The
Real love
I always keep a secret.
All my words
Are sung outside Her window,
For when She lets me in
I take a thousand oaths of silence.
But,
Then She says,
O, then God says,
“What the hell, Hafiz,
Why not give the whole world
My address.”

 

 

Gary Freeland ~ In our end is our beginning

 

 

 In the bulb…there is a flower,
In the seed………an apple tree,
In cocoons….a hidden promise,
Butterflies will soon be free.

In the cold and snow of winter,
There’s a spring that waits to be,
From the past will comes the future;
What it holds a mystery,

In our end is our beginning;
In our time, infinity.
In our doubt, there is believing,
In our life eternity.

There’s a song in every silence,
Seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness,
Bringing hope to you and me.

In our death, a resurrection,
at last a victory
Unrevealed until its season,
something yet un-know
Which God alone can see!"

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQYWsBaXXTs 

 

 

Ḥāfeẓ Shīrāzī ~ The cupbearer

 

 Cupbearer, it is morning, fill my cup with wine.
Make haste, the heavenly sphere knows no delay.
Before this transient world is ruined and destroyed,
ruin me with a beaker of rose-tinted wine.
The sun of the wine dawns in the east of the goblet.
Pursue life’s pleasure, abandon dreams,
and the day when the wheel makes pitchers of my clay,
take care to fill my skull with wine!
We are not men for piety, penance and preaching
but rather give us a sermon in praise of a cup of clear wine.
Wine-worship is a noble task, O Hafiz;
rise and advance firmly to your noble task.

 

 English version by Bernard Lewis

 

 The meanings attributed to wine in Persian poetry can be traced to their connection with the Sufi mystics. In Sufi literature, wine symbolized a union with divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience with God.