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Sunday January 25, 2004 21:44
Fringe
You wreck my shop and my house and now my heart, but
how can I run from what gives me life?
I'm weary of personal worrying, in love
with the art of madness!
Tear open my shame and show the mystery.
How much longer do I have to fret with
self-restraint and fear?
Friends, this is how it is: we are fringe sewn inside
the lining of a robe.
Soon we'll be loosened, the binding
threads torn out.
The beloved is a lion.
We're the lame deer in his paws.
Consider what choices we have!
Acquiesce when the Friend says,
*Come into me. Let me show my face.
You saw it once in Pre-existence,
now you want to be quickened and quickened again.
* We have been secretly fed
from beyond space and time,
That's why we look for something more than this.
From: 'The Soul of Rumi' Coleman Barks
Saturday January 24, 2004 19:32
A shout out to my friends in the Seychelles. <ojo>
"Success is the unintended side effect resulting from the pursuit
of something larger than yourself"
Jack W. Thurston
Saturday January 24, 2004 18:01
"Intensify your thought and you set up attraction.
Concentrate on a job, and you attract all the things necessary to accomplish
it. You attract the things you give a great deal of thought to."
Henry Ford
The Mystery of Mysteries
Master Lu
There is no way to explain the mystery of mysteries in
words, for it is even beyond thought. It is very subtle,
ungraspable, extremely rarefied. From heaven up to the
infinite heaven there are perfected people, most
mysterious, by whom heaven is directed and earth
controlled. They understand people and things, the
hidden and the obvious, to the furthest possible extent.
They operate time without any fixed track, and are
invisibly in charge of the accounting of the ages. Sages
cannot recognize them as sages, spirits cannot recognize
them as spirits.
The mystery of mysteries is nonexistent, yet exists; it is
empty, yet substantial. It is not more in sages, not less
in the ignorant. Heaven is within it, yet even heaven does
not know it; earth receives its current, yet even earth
does not recognize it. It penetrates the depths of all
things, yet they go on unawares. Its presence is not
presence, its passing is not passing. How can this mystery
of mysteries be conceived of, how can it be imagined?
If you penetrate the essence, it is mystery upon mystery.
Quoted in 'The Spirit of Tao '
Translated and Edited by Thomas Cleary
Thursday January 22, 2004 22:47
The Song of Life
Seek not the perfume of a single heart
Nor dwell in its easeful comfort;
For therein abides
the dear of loneliness.
I wept,
For I saw
The loneliness of a single love.
In the dancing shadows
Lay a withered flower.
The worship of many in the one
Leads to sorrow.
But the love of the one in many
Is everlasting bliss.
J. Krishnamurti
From: 'The Song of Life'
Wednesday January 21, 2004 18:57
Aspiration is torture: so says my lethargic body.
Aspiration is pressure: so says my unruly, restless vital.
Aspiration is terror: so says my doubting and suspecting mind.
Aspiration is pleasure: so says my crying heart.
Aspiration is leisure: so says my loving soul.
And finally, my Lord Supreme says that aspiration is nothing short of
treasure. Out of His infinite Bounty,
He tells me that my aspiration is not only my treasure but also His
treasure.
Excerpt from:
A Seeker Is A Singer by Sri Chinmoy
One Tree
My body is his body
Who is close to my heart.
In our heart abides the dawn
Empty of darkness.
We are like one tree with two branches.
This was our goal;
Therefore, today we have become
The seekers of Infinity's beauty.
Sri Chinmoy
If God Invited You to a Party
If God
Invited you to a party
And said,
"Everyone
In the ballroom tonight
Will be my special
Guest,"
How would you then treat them
When you
Arrived?
Indeed, indeed!
And Hafiz knows
There is no one in this world
Who
Is not upon
His Jeweled Dance
Floor.
'The Gift' - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
Monday January 19, 2004 19:39
I HAVE COME INTO THIS WORLD TO SEE THIS
I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our Beloved's.
I have come into this world to see this: all creatures hold hands as
we pass through this miraculous existence we share on the way
to even a greater being of soul,
a being of just ecstatic light, forever entwined and at play with Him.
I have come into this world to hear this:
every song the earth has sung since it was conceived in
the Divine's womb and began spinning from His wish,
every song by wing and fin and hoof,
every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child,
every song of stream and rock,
every song of tool and lyre and flute,
every song of gold and emerald and fire,
every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity
to know itself as God:
for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching -
only imbibing the glorious Sun will complete us.
I have come into this world to experience this:
men so true to love
they would rather die before speaking
an unkind word,
men so true their lives are His covenant -
the promise of hope.
I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of their arc of rage
because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh
we can wound.
Hafiz
Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
Trans. by Daniel Ladinsky
Sunday January 18, 2004 20:45
The Prophet is a timeless book written in 1923 but relevant and just
as vocal today. From the begining the themes of loss, separation and
the journey home stir me deeply. The same themes are prevalent in the
conclusion of the Lord of the Rings, The Tolkien movie. Folklore, myth
and legend has grown from these archetypal forces that we manifest and
are resonant even in the very landscape in which we live. Full of compassion
and concern, these words align the mind with the wordless heart that
cries and dances deep within us.
Saturday January 17, 2004 19:13
From: The Prophet
This would I have you remember in remembering me: That which seems
most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of
your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you re member having
dreamt, that built your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could
you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no
other sound.
Kahlil Gibran
Friday January 16, 2004 21:14
''God bless American cheese'
Dusan Knezevic
Friday January 16, 2004 21:04
"The true contemplative is not less interested than others
in normal life, not less concerned with what goes on in the
world, but more interested, more concerned. The fact that
he or she is a contemplative makes them capable of a
greater interest and a deeper concern. The contemplative
has the inestimable gift of appreciating at their real
worth values that are permanent, authentically deep, human.
truly spiritual and even divine. Their mission is to be a
complete and whole person, with an instinctive and generous
need to further the same wholeness in others, and in all
humanity. They arrive at this, however, not by superior
gifts and talents, but by the simplicity and poverty which
are essential to their state because these alone keep one
traveling in the way that is spiritual, divine and beyond
understanding.
Thomas Merton
Thursday January 15, 2004 4:50 PM
The Way In
Whoever you are: some evening take a step
out of your house, which you know so well.
Enormous space is near, your house lies where it begins,
whoever you are.
Your eyes find it hard to tear themselves
from the sloping threshold, but with your eyes
slowly, slowly, lift one black tree
up, so it stands against the sky: skinny alone.
With that you have made the world. The world is immense
and like a word that is still growing in the silence.
In the same moment that your will grasps it,
your eyes, feeling its subtlety, will leave it. . . .
Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly
Wednesday January 14, 2004 17:56
I want to sing like birds sing,
not worrying who hears,
or what they think.
Last night,
A great teacher went from door to door
with a lamp. 'He who is not to be found
is the one I'm looking for.'
Beyond wanting, beyond place, inside form
That One. A flute says, I have no hope
for finding that.
But Love plays
and is the music played.
Let that musician
Rumi
From: www.petama
When a person comes into a certain room he feels a kind of atmosphere.
He goes to visit someone, he feels the atmosphere in the house, of the
people, of the family. He feels in his heart whether his friend’s
enterprise will be a success or a failure, distinctly or indistinctly.
He feels what is happening. That person feels the pleasure, the displeasure
of his fellowmen without having spoken; that person can understand if
there is a smile outwardly and a cry inside, he hears it; and that person
understands if there are tears outside and inside there is nothing.
You may ask: ‘Is that faculty to be cultivated, and if it is to
be cultivated, in what manner?’ I will answer: ‘Yes’.
A sympathetic person who has taken a spiritual path will naturally progress
and that faculty will develop. But what is most necessary before wanting
to develop that faculty is that one’s life has become true. It
is sincerity, trueness, good living, and a quieter thought, which prepare
man for the voice which is within. But with all this goodness every
person is not spiritually inclined, every person does not concentrate
his mind towards that ideal which is necessary; he will be still, so
to speak, blocked, not open to receive and hear the voice.
From Hazrat Inayat Khan:
a lecture held in Montreux, Hotel Splendide, Switzerland, on 23 Nov
1922
Tuesday January 13, 2004 23:50
Mont Brevent
O dweller in the valley, lift thine eyes
To where, above the drift of cloud, the stone
Endures in silence, and to God alone
Upturns its furrowed visage, and is wise.
There yet is being, far from all that dies,
And beauty where no mortal maketh moan,
Where larger planets swim the liquid zone,
And wider spaces stretch to calmer skies.
Only a little way above the plain
Is snow eternal. Round the mountain's knees
Hovers the fury of the wind and rain.
Look up, and teach thy noble heart to cease
From endless labour. There is perfect peace
Only a little way above thy pain.
~George Santayana
Monday January 12, 2004 21:20
The Wonderful Lawlessness
Late in winter
My heart is still a rose in bloom.
Late in summer
I still have snow covered peaks upon my back
Where we can all play and slide.
At night I need no candle or lamp,
For my soul has forever awakened
To there being just the reality
Of Light
And the wonderful Lawlessness of God.
Late in winter I need no heat,
For I have entered the Infinite Fire.
Come,
Build a sled,
Find a grand hill within my verse-
You and I and God
Should play there more often
Upon a peak such as Hafiz
That the Beloved has carved
So well.
Hafiz
'The Subject Tonight Is Love'
Daniel Ladinsky
Friday January 9, 2004 20:09
Not that I'm supporting the consumption of alcohol but...

© 2003-2004
Don Charles Lundell
Friday January 9, 2004 18:08
From: www.peripheral.org
Discussion between Master Ni and some students
The ancient developed ones understood that life can be
both conditioned and also accidental. It was not necessary
to define it one way or another. For example, a peach tree
gives peaches in the late spring. It can give good peaches in
a good season or in a good natural cycle, with correct warmth
and moisture, air and nutrition from the earth. But in the same
peach garden, some trees will do better than others. Some need
more care than others. Human life is just like that. Some do
better, and others do not do as well, but the human mind reacts
differently than a tree. A peach tree does not have a developed
sense of itself. It is not bothered by doing better or worse than
another tree, or by doing better at one time and worse at another
time. It follows nature, so it does not have anything like trouble
in the mind. Humans are different. They have feelings about
themselves. They watch others, and they can be jealous of others
who do better or feel dismayed if they cannot do as well. They
can also feel pride that they do better than another. But they
cannot objectively look at themselves as natural, which is a
condition starting pre-natally.
There is not much about your limitations that can be changed.
The thing to do is to live naturally and change what you can.
Some people, however, develop or follow religions instead of
realistically improving themselves and their lives. They steep
themselves in deep meditation or invent profound ideologies
which cover their failures and only serve to keep them from
taking responsibility for themselves. The achieved ones know
what the nature of life is, not only outside but also inside.
The most valuable thing is to follow the life-nature inside and
harmonize with the outside. This is the teaching and achievement
passed down by our spiritually developed forefathers. It is not
a psychological approach that transfers one's focus away from
the pressure of day-to-day living or the immediate environment.
It is the self-truth of taming one's own evil temper and ambitions
and turning them into a life of spiritual well being. Spirituality
cannot be separated from life itself. The subtle, essential sphere
of life is still associated with the general patterned life of eating,
sleeping, working, etc. Big and small grow equally under the light
of spiritual health. There is a great need for the spiritual
development of all people. The best thing you can do for the world
is to develop yourself spiritually.
Friday January 9, 2004 8:57 AM
Revelation
No more my heart shall sob or grieve.
My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light.
Above the toil of life my soul
Is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.
I have known the One and His secret Play,
And passed beyond the sea of Ignorance Dream.
In tune with Him, I sport and sing;
I own the golden Eye of the Supreme.
Drunk deep of Immortality,
I am the root and boughs of a teeming vast.
My Form I have known and realised.
The Supreme and I are one; all we outlast.
Sri Chinmoy
From: My Flute
Wednesday January 7, 2004 8:47
Mind
Mind is like a candle flame: unstable, flickering, constantly
changing, fanned by the violent winds of our thoughts and
emotions. The flame will only burn steadily when we can calm
the air around it; so we can only begin to glimpse and rest in
the nature of mind when we have stilled the turbulence of our
thoughts and emotions.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Tuesday January 6, 2004 8:33
“The man in waking state says that he did not know anything in
the state of deep sleep. Now he sees objects and knows that he exists
but in deep sleep there were no objects and no spectator. And yet the
same person who is speaking now existed in deep sleep also. What is
the difference between the two states? There are objects and the play
of the senses now, while in deep sleep there were not. A new entity,
the ego, has arisen. It acts through the senses, sees objects, confuses
itself with the body and claims to be the Self. In reality, what was
in deep sleep continues to be now also. The Self is changeless. It is
the ego which has come between. That which rises and sets is the ego.
That which remains changeless is the Self. (The teachings of Bhagavan
Sri Ramana Maharishi in his own words, Edited by Arthur Osborne)
Saturday January 3, 2004 13:15
A Zen Master once wrote: "The moon is not pleasing unless partly
clouded."
Friday January 2, 2004 21:05
The
Dreams of My Heart
The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,
Nothing stays with me long,
But I have had from a child
The deep solace of song;
If that should ever leave me,
Let me find death and stay
With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten
Like the rain of yesterday.
Sarah Teasdale
Thursday January 1, 2004 12:19 PM
80. Utopia
Let your community be small, with only a few people;
Keep tools in abundance, but do not depend upon them;
Appreciate your life and be content with your home;
Sail boats and ride horses, but don't go too far;
Keep weapons and armour, but do not employ them;
Let everyone read and write,
Eat well and make beautiful things.
Live peacefully and delight in your own society;
Dwell within cock-crow of your neighbours,
But maintain your independence from them.
The GNL Tao De Ching.
Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Peter A. Merel
This page was last updated:
April 10, 2005 14:24
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