Quotes of Wisdom and Beauty...
A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles
without any effort on your part.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
"Listen:
out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing
there is a field.
I will meet you there."
Rumi
Whatever it takes to break your heart open and wake you up, that is grace.
from Perfect Brilliant Stillness, p. 290; David Carse
He who is endued with wisdom casts off here both good deeds and bad deeds. Wherefore apply thyself to devotion. In regard to actions devotion is a power.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2; Verse 50
Sri Sankaracharya's comment:
The man that has evenness of mind casts off in this world both merit and sin through attaining mental purity and knowledge. Wherefore apply yourself to devotion with equanimity. For devotion is a power, - devotion being the equanimity of mind in success and failure on the part of him who is engaged in the performance of his duties, his mind resting on the Isvara all the while. It is indeed a power, because works which are of a binding nature lose that nature when done with evenness of mind. Wherefore be equanimous.
from Bhagavad Gita with commentary of Sri Sankaracharya
The wise man, unlike the worldly man, does not see inner stillness, distraction, or fault in himself, even when living like a worldly man. 18.18
Nothing is done by him who is free from being and non-being, who is contented, desireless, and wise, even if in the world's eyes he does act. 18.19
from Ashtavakra Gita, John Richards translation
Life is real only then, when "I am".
Like what "it" does not like.
Remember yourself always and everywhere.
G. I. Gurdjieff
Simplicity of Service
Clink the three links below for profound yet beautiful fables/teaching stories from very divergent backgrounds...
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
© BytesofWisdom.net 2010 - all rights reserved.
This Lord is to be worshipped by one's own consciousness, not by material substances - by waving of lamps, lighting incense, offering flowers or even food or sandalpaste. He is attained without the least effort; he is worshipped by self-realisation alone. This is the supreme meditation, this is the supreme worship: the continuous and unbroken awareness of the indwelling presence, inner light or consciousness. While doing what one is doing - seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing or talking - one should realise one's essential nature as pure consciousness. Thus does one attain liberation.
From The Supreme Yoga - Yoga Vasistha; translation by Swami Venkatesananda
Questioner: I have not understood well the role of the inner self in spiritual endeavour. Who makes the effort? Is it the outer self, or the inner?
Maharaj: You have invented words like effort, inner, outer, self, etc. and seek to impose them on reality. Things just happen to be as they are, but we want to build them into a pattern, laid down by the structure of our language. So strong is this habit, that we tend to deny reality to what cannot be verbalized. We just refuse to see that words are mere symbols, related by convention and habit to repeated experiences.
Q: What is the value of spiritual books?
M: They help in dispelling ignorance. They are useful in the beginning, but become a hindrance in the end. One must know when to discard them.
Q: What is the link between atma and sattva, between the self and the universal harmony?
M: As between the sun and its rays. Harmony and beauty, understanding and affection are all expressions of reality. It is reality in action, the impact of spirit on matter. Tamas obscures, rajas distorts, sattva harmonizes. With the maturing of the sattva all desires and fears come to an end. The real being is reflected in the mind undistorted. Matter is redeemed, spirit - revealed. The two are seen as one, but the imperfect mind saw them as two. Perfection of the mind is the human task, for matter and spirit meet in the mind.
Q: I feel like a man before a door. I know the door is open but it is guarded by the dogs of desire and fear. What am I to do?
M: Obey the teacher and brave the dogs. Behave as if they were not there. Again, obedience is the golden rule. Freedom is won by obedience. To escape from prison one must unquestioningly obey instructions sent by those who work for one's release.
Q: The words of the Guru, when merely heard, have little power. One must have faith to obey them. What creates such faith?
M: When time comes, faith comes. Everything comes in time. The Guru is already to share, but there are no takers.
Q: Yes, Sri Ramana Maharshi used to say: Gurus there are many, but where are the disciples?
M: Well, in the course of time everything happens. All will come through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.
Q: I am very much afraid of taking intellectual understanding for realization. I may talk of truth without knowing it, and may know it without a single word said.
I understand these conversations are going to be published. What will be their effect on the reader?
M: In the attentive and thoughtful reader they will ripen and bring out flowers and fruits. Words based on truth, if fully tested, have their own power.
...from I Am That - Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. 1973.
Chapter 75; In Peace and Silence You Grow
...pages 376-377.
