“We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
~ Hafiz, from ‘We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners’, ‘The Gift’, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
(Photo: ‘Take to the Sky’ by Alex Greenshpun)
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Amazing series of photos taken by the very talented Mahesh Balasubramanian. Please visit his facebook page and website for many more excellent works.
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These were taken during the Mahashivratri festival in India, a few days ago.
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all which isn’t singing is mere talking
and all talking’s talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)
gush to it as deity or devil
—toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles
name it cruel fair or blessed evil—
it is you(ne i)nobody else
drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing
—you are deafened every mother’s son—
all is merely talk which isn’t singing
and all talking’s to oneself alone
but the very song of(as mountains
feel and lovers)singing is silence
~e.e. Cummings
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
‘Daughter of the Wind’ by Alex Greenshpun
“These flowers are like the pleasures of the world.” ~W. Shakespeare
![“I am not telling you to grapple with the thoughts. There will be no end if you do it that way. Here lies the secret: there is the ‘I’, the source of all thoughts, and we have to catch it and see from where it arises. This is absolutely necessary. As a dog traces his master by following the track of his smell, you have to follow the inner development of the ‘I’ to reach its source, which is the [true] soul.”
~Sri Ramana Maharshi
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/674126d5e5c5bb9580ef761d5b153982/tumblr_migl33G8OQ1qdoln8o1_1280.jpg)
“I am not telling you to grapple with the thoughts. There will be no end if you do it that way. Here lies the secret: there is the ‘I’, the source of all thoughts, and we have to catch it and see from where it arises. This is absolutely necessary. As a dog traces his master by following the track of his smell, you have to follow the inner development of the ‘I’ to reach its source, which is the [true] soul.”
~Sri Ramana Maharshi
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
(Photo: ‘Rain’s Ephemeral Crown’ by Alex Greenshpun)
—- —- —-
sentences
by no means mention
what’s really
on your mind
nothing is
on my mind
don’t mention
it
—-
whatever you have
to say
will get itself
said
don’t worry
who worries?
that’s all i’m
telling
you:
don’t
—-
you go out
to the edge
of the universe,
it’ll still be
on your
mind
nothing
is
it’ll still
be there
—-
you don’t have to
try to remember
it
the fact is, you
can’t forget
forget what?
the nothing.
whatever it
is
-Robert Lax, from the journal A, p. 36
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
Be Still, it is the wind that sings
I am a pipe the wind blows through,
Be still, it is the wind that sings.
The course of my life and the things that I do
And the seeming false and the seeming true
Are the tune of the wind that neither knows
Good and ill, nor joys and woes.
But the ultimate awe is deeper yet
Than song or pipe or storm;
For pipe and tune are the formless wind
That seemed for a while to take form.
And words are good to escape from words
And strife to escape from strife,
But silence drinks in all the waves
Of song and death and life
~Arthur Osborne
I like to wash,
the dust of this world
In the droplets of dew.
~Matsuo Basho
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
Swami Ramanagiri was born into an aristocratic Swedish family in June 1921. Though he was related to the king of Sweden, it was the ‘royal’ yoga of Patanjali that finally claimed him. In his youth he came across Swami Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga and found he had an immediate affinity with the subject matter, so much so that he began to develop yogic siddhis soon after beginning the practices.
In early 1949 he came to Tiruvannamalai to meet Bhagavan for the first time. Though he had a natural inclination for raja yoga, having practised it for years, Swami Ramanagiri felt an immediate attraction to atma-vichara, the path of Sri Ramana. Since this was a departure from the practical teachings he had been taught by his diksha guru, Swami Ramanagiri felt that he should consult him about this change of direction. The diksha guru let him know that Bhagavan was his true Guru, and he encouraged him to follow the teachings he was being given at Ramanasramam. Swami Ramanagiri did self-enquiry intensively for forty days in Bhagavan’s presence and was rewarded, on Sivaratri day 1949, with a direct experience of the Self. When asked later about what had happened on that momentous day, he would usually say, ‘On that day I became a fool’. For the rest of his life he referred to himself in the third person as ‘this fool’.
Adyashanti (via ashramof1)
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