Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore

It has been a long time since I have posted my last message here. But I will continue to keep the Blog up and, from time to time post some thoughts or as today something I have worked on for some time. It is one of my favorite poems from Rabindranath Tagore. I have combined the spoken text with the Piano Concerto N° 5 from Beethoven. The image is a wallpaper image I downloaded from http://www.mrwallpaper.com. I have put subtitles to give the watcher an easy and joyful experience. I hope you like it.

Currently I am studying Vedanta scriptures, the Upanishads and more precisely the Advaita Vedanta. Reading does not bring enlightenment as we are already enlightened. It is through awareness and by giving attention to the experience of perception rather than to the object that is perceived that we will discover oneness, love… But these ancient texts, the Vedas, are of tremendous beauty if your heart is open. The Vedanta, or Upanishads, are the latest text of the Vedas. Vedanta is composed by the two words Veda and Anta. Anta means “the end”. Vedanta can be translated as the End of the Vedas. The Vedas are the most ancient texts known by mankind composed more than 5000 years ago by several sages over a period of time. The four Vedas talk a lot about rituals and ethics, the worldly religious knowledge, and as soon as self inquiry and self introspection comes into play we speak about the Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta speaks about non-duality and the most famous sage was Shankara, who commented and developed the Advaita Vedanta philosophy further. There is a lot more to say about these texts but the mere knowledge about them is not helpful. They are the finger that points to the moon. Some spend their lives analysing the finger, chewing and sucking on it and intellectualizing everything and the others simply look to where the finger is pointing… the moon.

Metta,

Shanti

The Mystic Emotion

Albert Einstein

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties – this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.

— Albert Einstein

(photo: Yousuf Karsh)

To realize our true Self, and unify with the One is not the end of the journey!

A STILLNESS absolute, incommunicable,
Meets the sheer self-discovery of the soul;
A wall of stillness shuts it from the world,
A gulf of stillness swallows up the sense
And makes unreal all that mind has known,
All that the laboring senses still would weave
Prolonging an imaged unreality.
Self’s vast spiritual silence occupies Space;
Only the Inconceivable is left,
Only the Nameless without space and time:
Abolished is the burdening need of life:
Thought falls from us, we cease from joy and grief;
The ego is dead; we are freed from being and care,
We have done with birth and death and work and fate.
O soul, it is too early to rejoice!
Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self,
Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss;
But where hast thou thrown Self’s mission and Self’s power?
On what dead bank on the Eternal’s road?
One was within thee who was self and world,
What hast thou done for his purpose in the stars?
Escape brings not the victory and the crown!
Something thou cam’st to do from the Unknown,
But nothing is finished and the world goes on
Because only half God’s cosmic work is done.
Only the everlasting No has neared
And stared into thy eyes and killed thy heart:
But where is the Lover’s everlasting Yes,
And immortality in the secret heart,
The voice that chants to the creator Fire,
The symboled OM, the great assenting Word,
The bridge between the rapture and the calm,
The passion and the beauty of the Bride,
The chamber where the glorious enemies kiss,
The smile that saves, the golden peak of things?
This too is Truth at the mystic fount of Life.

— Sri Aurobindo – Savitri

Wisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything

Nisargadatta Maharaj made this beautiful statement: “Wisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything. Between the two my life flows.” As the vast ocean of Being, you are no thing in particular. You are not a ‘me’ or a ‘you’. What you are is the vast open space in which everything happens, and the recognition of that brings clarity and wisdom. But clarity and wisdom are not complete without their reflection, love. And love comes from the recognition that, as open space, as the ocean, what you are deeply accepts all of the waves that appear – all of the sights and sounds and smells and sensations appearing now. I find that many spiritual seekers get stuck in the “nothing” aspect of realisation, and are left with only an intellectual understanding of awakening, which does not bring total freedom. The true end of suffering comes from the recognition of this total intimacy with life itself – in other words, the deep acceptance of “everything” appearing in experience. In this deep acceptance, mind and heart are one. Nothing is everything – they were never two. Mental clarity and certainty give way to deep acceptance of this moment. And there, the war ends.

— Jeff Foster

To find Truth at every Moment

I look deep into my heart,
to the core where wisdom arises.
Wisdom comes from the Unnamable
 
and unifies heaven and earth.
 
The Unnamable is always with you,
shining from the depths of your heart.
Her peace will keep you untroubled
even in the greatest pain.
 
When you find her present within you,
you find truth at every moment.
 
She will guard you from all wrongdoing;
She will guide your feet on her path.
She will temper your youth with patience;
She will crown your old age with fulfillment.
 
And dying, you will leave your body
as effortlessly as a sigh.

— Psalm 121 – Stephen Mitchell – A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew
(found in the non-duality highlights)

Take care of yourself

Take care of yourself.
Let the world take care of itself.
See your Self.
If you are the body there is the gross world also.
If you are the spirit all is spirit alone.

— Sri Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Verses on the Faith of Mind

The Great Way is not difficult
for those not attached to preferences.
When neither love nor hate arises,
all is clear and undisguised.
Separate by the smallest amount, however,
and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.

If you wish to know the truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the fundamental nature of things is not recognized
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect as vast space is perfect,
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

Indeed, it is due to our grasping and rejecting
that we do not know the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in ideas or feelings of emptiness.
Be serene and at one with things
and erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve quietude,
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain attached to one extreme or another
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the Single Way
cannot be free in either activity or quietude, in assertion or denial.

Deny the reality of things
and you miss their reality;
assert the emptiness of things
and you miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it
the further you wander from the truth.
So cease attachment to talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the essence,
but to pursue appearances or “enlightenment” is to miss the source.
To awaken even for a moment
is to go beyond appearance and emptiness.

Changes that seem to occur in the empty world
we make real only because of our ignorance.

Do not seek for the truth;
Only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in a dualistic state;
avoid such easy habits carefully.
If you attach even to a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities arise from the One,
do not be attached even to ideas of this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
there is no objection to anything in the world;
and when there is no objection to anything,
things cease to be— in the old way.
When no discriminating attachment arises,
the old mind ceases to exist.
Let go of things as separate existences
and mind too vanishes.
Likewise when the thinking subject vanishes
so too do the objects created by mind.

The arising of other gives rise to self;
giving rise to self generates others.
Know these seeming two as facets
of the One Fundamental Reality.
In this Emptiness, these two are really one—
and each contains all phenomena.
If not comparing, nor attached to “refined” and “vulgar”—
you will not fall into judgment and opinion.

The Great Way is embracing and spacious—
to live in it is neither easy nor difficult.
Those who rely on limited views are fearful and irresolute:
The faster they hurry, the slower they go.
To have a narrow mind,
and to be attached to getting enlightenment
is to lose one’s center and go astray.
When one is free from attachment,
all things are as they are,
and there is neither coming nor going.

When in harmony with the nature of things, your own fundamental nature,
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
However, when mind is in bondage, the truth is hidden,
and everything is murky and unclear,
and the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from attachment to distinctions and separations?

If you wish to move in the One Way,
do not dislike the worlds of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to embrace them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise person attaches to no goals
but the foolish person fetters himself or herself.
There is one Dharma, without differentiation.
Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the discriminating mind
is the greatest of mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment, attachment to liking and disliking ceases.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams, phantoms, hallucinations—
it is foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong; finally abandon all such thoughts at once.

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.
To realize the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen without differentiation,
the One Self-essence is everywhere revealed.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state of just this One.

When movement stops, there is no movement—
and when no movement, there is no stopping.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate state
no law or description applies.

For the Realized mind at one with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and the Truth is confirmed in you.
With a single stroke you are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to you and you hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no need to exert the mind.
Here, thinking, feeling, understanding, and imagination
are of no value.
In this world “as it really is”
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To know this Reality directly
is possible only through practicing non-duality.
When you live this non-separation,
all things manifest the One, and nothing is excluded.
Whoever comes to enlightenment, no matter when or where,
Realizes personally this fundamental Source.

This Dharma-truth has nothing to do with big or small, with time and space.
Here a single thought is as ten thousand years.
Not here, not there—
but everywhere always right before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small: no difference,
for definitions are irrelevant
and no boundaries can be discerned.
So likewise with “existence” and “non-existence.”

Don’t waste your time in arguments and discussion
attempting to grasp the ungraspable.

Each thing reveals the One,
the One manifests as all things.
To live in this Realization
is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection.
To put your trust in the Heart-Mind is to live without separation,
and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.

Words! Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is no yesterday,
no tomorrow
no today.

—  Seng-ts’an – Verses on the Faith of Mind (transl. Richard B. Clarke)

Seven Pearls

Neither I am me,
nor you are you,
nor you are me.
Also, I am me,
you are you
and you are me.
We have become one
in such a way,
That I am confused whether
I am you,
or you are me.

The Lovers
will drink wine night and day.
They will drink until they can
tear away the veils of intellect and
melt away the layers of shame and modesty.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don’t even exist.
Become this,
fall in Love,
and you will not be separated again.

Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.

Tonight
is the night.
It is the creation of that land of eternity.
It is not an ordinary night,
It is a wedding of those who seek unity.
Tonight, the bride and groom
speak in one tongue.
Tonight, the bridal chamber
is looking particularly bright.

Go ahead: ask me!
Ask me about Love,
and I will tell you the essence of madness.
Ask me of an intellect gone mad,
and I will show you a soul departed for good.
Ask me of a hundred calamities,
of a hundred life transformations.
Ask me of a hundred deserts engulfed in fire.
Ask me of a hundred oceans red with blood.

I am an atom;
you are like the countenance of the Sun for me.
I am a patient of Love
you are like medicine for me.
Without wings, without feathers,
I fly about looking for you.
I have become a rose petal
and you are like the wind for me.
Take me for a ride.

By day I praised you
and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you
and never knew it.
I always thought that
I was me–but no,
I was you
and never knew it.

— Jalalud’din Rumi – Seven Pearls – Hush Don’t Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (transl. by Shahram Shiva)

— Song: Seven Pearls – Rumi: Lovedrunk – Shahram Shiva

 

The Last Will

A man on his deathbed left instructions
for dividing up his goods among his three sons.
He has devoted his entire spirit to those sons.
They stood like cypress trees around him,
quiet and strong.

He told the town judge,
“Whichever of my sons is laziest,
give him all the inheritance.”

Then he died, and the judge turned to the three,
“Each of you must give some account of your laziness,
so I can understand just how you are lazy.”

Mystics are experts in laziness. They rely on it,
because they continuously see God working all around them.
The harvest keeps coming in, yet they
never even did the plowing!

“Come on. Say something about the ways you are lazy.”

Every spoken word is a covering for the inner self.
A little curtain-flick no wider than a slice
of roast meat can reveal hundreds of exploding suns.
Even if what is being said is trivial and wrong,
the listener hears the source. One breeze comes
from across a garden. Another from across the ash-heap.
Think how different the voices of the fox
and the lion, and what they tell you!
Hearing someone is lifting the lid off the cooking pot.
You learn what’s for supper. Though some people
can know just by the smell, a sweet stew
from a sour soup cooked with vinegar.

A man taps a clay pot before he buys it
to know by the sound if it has a crack.

The eldest of the three brothers told the judge,
“I can know a man by his voice,
and if he won’t speak,
I wait three days, and then I know him intuitively.”

The second brother, “I know him when he speaks,
and if he won’t talk, I strike up a conversation.”

“But what if he knows that trick?” asked the judge.

Which reminds me of the mother who tells her child,
“When you’re walking through the graveyard at night
and you see a bogeyman, run at it,
and it will go away.”

“But what,” replies the child, “if the bogeyman’s
mother has told it to do the same thing?
Bogeymen have mothers too.”

The second brother had no answer.

The judge then asked the youngest brother,
“What if a man cannot be made to say anything?
How do you learn his hidden nature?”

“I sit in front of him in silence,
and set up a ladder made of patience,
and if in his presence a language from beyond joy
and beyond grief begins to pour from my chest,
I know that his soul is as deep and bright
as the star Canopus rising over Yemen.
And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm
of words sweeping down, I know him from what I say,
and how I say it, because there’s a window open
between us, mixing the night air of our beings.”

The youngest was, obviously,
the laziest. He won.

— Jalalud’din Rumi – Mathnawi, VI, 4876-4916 (transl. Coleman Barks)

What is the function of restraint in spiritual practice?

Morality as taught by way of rules is extremely powerful and valuable in the development of practice. It must be remembered that it, like all the techniques in meditation, is merely a tool to enable one to eventually get to that place of unselfishness where morality and wisdom flow naturally. In the West, there’s a myth that freedom means free expression–that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one serves the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one’s freedom. It is in this context that we must understand moral precepts and moral rules.
Normally, we spend our time simply reacting to stimuli in ways in which we have been conditioned. Often this conditioning is quite strong and brings about situations in which we act out our selfishness in ways that hurt or infringe upon those around us. By observing moral precepts we begin to set limits on how much we will follow our conditioned reactions and our desires. We stop identifying so strongly with them and say: “Wait, I’m going to stop a minute and simply watch the nature of this process,” rather than blindly follow all the desires and impulses that come. It is this stopping, observing, and not being caught in the web of reaction that will lead us to freedom.

— Jack Kornfield – Living Buddhist Masters – p. 302