Alain Joly - Of Dimitry’s Prayer

 

‘A Quiet Monastery’ – Isaac Levitan, 1890 – Wikimedia

“Open, O doors and bolts of my heart,
that Christ the King of Glory may enter!”
~ Dimitry of Rostov

Read this excellent post by Alain Joly

HERE

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī - The Ashes of Union

 

 

 O Soul,
You are the Phoenix
rising up from the ashes of Union.
Why don’t you fly?—
No one knows you on the ground.

You are the heart’s sweetness
And by some magical power
your form ravishes a thousand hearts.

For a time you took form in the body.
For a time you passed beyond the heavens
and the bonds of both worlds.

Why can’t the spirit find you?—
You are its wings and its feathers.

Why can’t the eye see you?—
You are the source of its sight.

What will happen to your copper soul
when the Alchemist arrives?—
Will it not become gold?

What will become of your little seed
when the Springtime arrives?—
Will it not become a towering tree?

What will happen to brushwood
when it falls into fire?—
Will it not change into sparks and rise to heaven?

Reason and intellect
Are like the dim light of distant stars.
You are the bright Sun
that shines through every veil.

The world is nothing but snow and ice.
You are the burning heat of Summer.
O King, no trace of this world remains
the moment you arrive!

Who can sit by your side?
Everyone would vanish with one glance of yours.

O blessed eyes!
I have seen something beyond imagination,
unreachable by fortune or human effort—
I have seen the perfect face
of Shams-e Tabriz.

 

 

 

In the arms of the Beloved 

 

Baraka Blue - Dervish

 

Dervish

Right hand to the heavens
Left hand to the earth
White garment the spirit
Black cloak is the dirt

Gravestone for a turban
Ascending up from its perch
The kiss of death from the master
Bowing for the rebirth

A rose tied in its coffin
Slow a petal unfurls
The planets down to the atoms
All orbit in turns

All things are in cycles
Each being returns
Love, the fruit of the spirit
The body, food for the worms

Invoking every rotation
And find what the master affirms
You are just here to remember
There is nothing to learn

Mankind in his glory
A clot that was brought to term
The righteous and the the deniers
All emerged from a sperm

They continue the whirling
Present at every stage
The breath was blown into Adam
The secret flows in your veins

The reed that receives the breath
The Perfect Man is the ney
The higher that one ascends
The more he becomes a slave

Each turn is “make me a vessel
...your mercy enters this plane”
For you have not become a dervish
Until your will is all beings are saved

Illusion of separation
When it dies then you have attained
Then there is no self to speak of
Like the ocean meeting the rain

When a drop falls to its surface
What drop is there that remains?
Those who pass in this matter
Say not that they have been slain

The martyrs yearn for this station
All descriptions in vain
Green birds in the garden
Chirping the greatest name

The fuqara are the wealthy
The sultans they are the slaves
Dust on the path of the Prophet
We raise our hands and we pray

Ya Hazrat Mawlana
Our Master, show us the way

Right hand to the heaven
Left hand to the earth
White garment the spirit
Black cloak is the dirt. 

 

http://www.barakablue.com/
 

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī - Sweet fragrance of Shams

 

 

 

 I need a lover and a friend
All friendships you transcend
And impotent I remain

You are Noah and the Ark
You are the light and the dark
Behind the veil I remain

You are passion and are rage
You are the bird and the cage
Lost in flight I remain

You are the wine and the cup
You are the ocean and the drop
While afloat I remain

I said, "O Soul of the world
My desperation has taken hold!"

"I am thy essence," without scold,
"Value me much more than gold."

You are the bait and the trap
You are the path and the map
While in search I remain

You are poison and the sweet
You are defeated and defeat
Sword in hand I remain

You are the wood and the saw
You are cooked, and are raw
While in a pot I remain

You are sunshine and the fog
You are water and the jug
While thirsty I remain

Sweet fragrance of Shams is
The joy and pride of Tabriz
Perfume trader I remain.

 

 

Monica Dayakar - A Candle In The Wind...

 

There are a lot of weird ideas about this...

Awakening... enlightenment... the shift in perception...

A natural fall out... thinking that everything will change after the shift...

That enlightenment means that they will no longer be human...

Even sages are sublimely human...

I heard someone say...

" We do not become selfless doormats..." !!

And yet... yet...

Including this one...

It is...
Till it isn't...

That's simply another idea...
Of better... bigger...
Sounds real nice...
Selfless doormats is it, too...!!
Those that are... simply are...

I know I was...

Till I wasn't...

LOL...

Tried really hard not to be...

A scurried attempt at now being this shiny, brave new thing...

It didn't work...
Oh...

Tears...

And thereby hangs another tale...

Any attempt at replacing one idea about yourself with another...
Well...
Is the belief in the mentally fabricated self...

And apart from it...

There isn't one...

Circling within the dream...
She learnt to pirouette perfectly...

What is not included in the gambit of "being human"...

Yes...

It's all the dream...

Ideas upon ideas...
All made up...

Seeking ideas of perfection... of what this should look like...

Tears...

Or not look like...

Across the board...
Humanity...
The best and worst life has to offer...

A few days ago...
Anger rose in me...
Of an intensity, that would put rage to shame...

I was shocked to the core of my being...!!
That I was even capable of it...

And whence had I abhorred it so... in another...
Lay in me too...

I just kept mumbling to my self...
"It's just unacceptable... just unacceptable..."
And kept shaking my head from side to side...

The core of my being ripped to shreds...

And I wept tears of blood... that would inundate an ocean...

I guess... no one's exempt...
Shift or no shift...

And when all was lost...
And no ground beneath the feet...
Heck and no feet...
And no brownie points for Being...

A pretender under many guises...
I AM the biggest con-act in town...

Dressed as a cop...
Trying to catch a thief...

A lot is lost in translation when we can't see each other's hearts...

And love guided her footsteps...
To places she'd never been...

To the dark corners of her heart...
Where she'd hid...

Face to face with herself...
In all shades of blue and pink...

A rainbow exploded...
And she disappeared in a wink...

And she flung her clothes to the wind...
Running naked like a mad woman...

No description fit...

And she laughed and cried...
A new born babe...

It ends where it began...
It was ever so...

And all notions of emptiness and fullness...
Cried in the dark...

As she wept and laughed...
A candle in the wind...

So love me tender...
Love me sweet...

~~Monica Dayakar
~~13/01/2016

 

 

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Byron Katie - No such thing as enlightenment

 

“If you understand that the world isn’t separated into self and other, you’ll see very clearly that there is no such thing as enlightenment. There can’t be. After all, who is there to be enlightened? You would have to be someone before you could experience enlightenment. There would have to be a self to get free. But (imaginary) selves don’t get free. It’s true that when you wake up from this trance, you’re free of all suffering. But saying it that way still points to a “someone”, a being who is supposedly “awakened.” It’s only when you see the Buddha as a separate self that you can form the concept that he’s enlightened. All these spiritual concepts are just creations of mind.”

“The thoughts are what allow the I to believe that it has an identity. When you see that, you see that there’s no you to be enlightened. You stop believing in yourself as an identity, and you become equal to everything.”

“Nothing has ever happened but a thought.”

“It’s all a projection of mind. To imagine that there is anything outside the mind is pure delusion.”

“Whatever people say or do, how can you be upset with them when you know that they’re projections of your own mind? When the mind realizes this, there’s nothing to project itself as. Even the mind is its own theory. There’s no one to be upset. There’s only mind playing in the apparent world of itself. The Buddha-mind can never be stuck in the nonexistent past or future. So it’s impossible that it would ever experience anything but the joy that comes out of that understanding. The fact is that you’ve never reacted to someone else. You project meaning onto nothing, and you react to the meaning you yourself have projected. Loneliness comes from an honest place—you’re the only one here. There are no humans. You’re it. When you question your thoughts, you come to realize that. It’s the end of the world—the joyful end of a world that never existed in the first place.” 

 

https://thework.com/
 

Aldous Huxley - Lightly

 

"It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly.
Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days…
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…
So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling…"

 

 

Aldous Huxley - Island