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Saturday October 30, 2004 8:57
SSTST 37,225
Obstacles are not needed
To make progress,
But if they come,
We must immediately try
To surmount them.
Sri Chinmoy
Friday October 29, 2004 8:37
9067. Start Your Inner Race
Just start your inner race
Without waiting to see
Who else is ready to run with you.
When others see you have reached your goal,
They will also be inspired to run.
Sri Chinmoy
Thursday October 28, 2004 8:46
Daybreak
by Galway Kinnell
On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfishes
were creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it as slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and, as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity, they sank down
into the mud, faded down
into it and lay still, and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak.
From: 'The Soul is Here for its Own Joy'
Edited by Robert Bly
Wednesday October 27, 2004 17:24
True Clarity
Clarity is looking from the state before confusion arises, Before
opinions or compulsion arise. Paradoxically, clarity is being able to
watch confusion, opinions, or compulsions, from the state before any
of them arise.
The blue sky is independent of the billowing clouds, and this prior,
clear mind, this Blue Sky Mind, doesn?t get confused, even when clouds
of confusion are present. Even if our logical mind has a problem with
this, we still have to Return in order to understand.
Clarity. We just return over and over to this calm, unpressured Blue
Sky Mind. We begin to see that it?s always there even when apparently
obscured by passing clouds. That?s the way no matter what our practice
might be.
-Maverick
Sutras
Tuesday October 26, 2004 8:22
Would you bow?
If the Friend rose inside you, would you
bow? Would you wonder where that one
came from and how? If you say, "I will
bow," that's important, if you answer.
"But can I be sure?" it will keep the
meeting from happening, as busy people
rush there and back here murmuring, *Now
I know; no I don't know now.* Have you
seen a camel with its eyes covered turn
and walk one way, then turn another?
Be silent and revolve with no will.
don't raise your hand to ask anything.
Holy one, sitting in the body's well
like Joseph, a rope is there in front
of you. Lift your hand to that! A
blind man has bought you for eighteen
counterfeit coins. Empty metal cups
bang together, and the full moon slides
out of hiding. Make one sound, please!
You are the precious hyacinth that the
sickle will spare, not the wheat plant
Adam ate. I remind you with these poems
to dress in the flower of God's qualities,
not your torn robe of self-accusation.
Rumi
'The Glance' Coleman Barks
Monday October 25, 2004 18:34
Suzanne
by Leonard Cohen
Suzanne takes you down to
her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body
with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body
with his mind.
Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body
with her mind.
Thursday October 21, 2004 6:05 PM
Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.
Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.
Retreat was out of hope,--
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity's white flag before,
And God at every gate.
Emily Dickinson
Tuesday October 19, 2004 17:31
The West Wind
Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches
of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,
hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning,
feel like?
Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over
the dark acorn of your heart!
No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!
Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!
To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!
To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!
To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened
in the night
To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.
Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe
I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!
A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.
Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?
And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.
That was then, which hasn't ended yet.
Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.
Mary Oliver
Monday October 18, 2004 0:04
A Clear Midnight
Walt Whitman
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
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Sunday October 10, 2004 23:22
This is another classic work.
A Golden Compass
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear Image
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King's beggars -
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved's cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues -
The ones you can trust for true guidance -
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz,
Look at the Perfect One
At the Circle's Center:
He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,
To show this dear world
That Everything,
Everything in Existence
Does point to God.
'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' by Daniel Ladinsky
Saturday October 9, 2004 21:55
Mount St. Helens. Click on the image for the webcam.
Saturday October 9, 2004 20:21
Spirit
Man gets tired
Spirit don’t
Man surrenders
Spirit won’t
Man crawls
Spirit flies
Spirit lives
When man dies
Man seems
Spirit is
Man dreams
The spirit lives
Man is tethered
Spirit free
What spirit Is
Man can be
The Waterboys
Saturday October 9, 2004 18:10
Sri Chinmoy offered the following prayer at the end of
the 2-mile Self-Transcendence Race on October 9, 2004
(unofficial version #1):
My soul is sailing
In God's Pride-Boat.
My heart is sailing
In God's Compassion-Boat.
My life is sailing
In God's Forgiveness-Boat.
I am sailing
In God's Dream-Boat.
To listen to Sri Chinmoy offer this prayer
please use the following shortcut to
Radio
Sri Chinmoy:
and click on the green button on the right hand side.
Friday October 8, 2004 5:18 PM
What You Loved
Gabriela Mistral
Life of my life, what you loved I sing.
If you're near, if you're listening,
think of me now in the evening:
shadow in shadows, hear me sing.
Life of my life, I can't be still.
What is a story we never tell?
How can you find me unless I call?
Life of my life, I haven't changed,
not turned aside and not estranged.
Come to me as the shadows grow long,
come, life of my life, if you know the song
you used to know, if you know my name.
I and the song are still the same.
Beyond time or place I keep the faith.
Follow a path or follow no path,
never fearing the night, the wind,
call to me, come to me, now at the end,
walk with me, life of my life, my friend.
Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
Thursday October 7, 2004 5:22 PM
Wonder,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.
Ibn Arabi
Thursday October 7, 2004 0:48
Each new day beckons you
To walk on the road
Of self-transcendence
Sri Chinmoy
Friday October 1, 2004 6:51
To Music
Rainer Maria Rilke
Music. The breathing of statues. Perhaps:
The silence of pictures.You, language where all
languages end. You, time
standing straight up out of the direction
of hearts passing on.
Feeling, for whom? O the transformation
of feeling into what?- into audible landscape.
Music: you stranger. Passion which
has outgrown us. Our inner most being,
transcending, driven out of us,-
holiest of departures:
inner worlds now
the most practiced of distances, as
the other side of thin air:
pure,
immense
no longer habitable.
(Munich, January 11-12, 1918)
new translations by Cliff Crego
http://picture-poems.com/rilke/
This page was last updated:
April 10, 2005 13:49
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