For enlightenment to happen the perceiver must turn right around and wake up to the fact that he is face to face with his own nature -that HE IS IT. The spiritual seeker ultimately finds that he was already at the destination, that he himself IS what he had been seeking and he was in fact already home.
~Ramesh S. Balsekar, A Net of Jewels
Light Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage.
… Little by little, You will turn into stars.
Little by little, You will turn into
The whole sweet, amorous Universe.
Love will surely burst you wide open
Into an unfettered, booming new galaxy.
You will become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pure Love That flows
From a conscious, One-pointed, Infinite Light.
Even then, my dear, The Beloved will have fulfilled
Just a fraction, Just a fraction!
Of a promise He wrote upon your heart.
For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain
You hold the title to.
O look again within yourself,
For I know you were once the elegant host
To all the marvels in creation.
When your soul begins
To ever bloom and laugh
And spin in Eternal Ecstasy-
O little by little, You will turn into God.
Hafiz (Translated by Daniel Ladinsky)
(Source: angall413, via bhavikchitalia)
Awake awhile.
It does not have to be
Forever,
Right now.
One step upon the Sky’s soft skirt
Would be enough.
Hafiz,
Awake awhile.
Just one True moment of Love
Will last for days.
Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics
For Knowing Him,
For they are all just frozen spring buds
Far,
So far from Summer’s Divine Gold.
Awake, my dear.
Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of Light
And let it breathe.
Say,
“Love,
Give me back my wings.
Lift me,
Lift me nearer.”
Say to the sun and moon,
Say to our dear Friend,
“I will take You up now, Beloved,
On that wonderful Dance You promised.”
~ Hafiz ~
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
Faith is in you whenever you look
At a dewdrop or a floating leaf
And know that they are because they have to be.
Even if you close your eyes and dream up things
The world will remain as it has always been
And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river.
~Czeslaw Milosz
(Photo by me -“Faith” by Alex (Nalini) G)
Such a sun emerged from within me
I was turned inside out in the heavens.
I said to him: O knower of mysteries,
tell me when I’ll reach my Beloved.
He said to me: You ignorant fool!
Does anyone ever ‘reach’? Never! Never!
You may play your games forever
but in the end you’re tired and outplayed.
The world’s atoms are all drunk with love
drowned between negation and affirmation.
In the place where the sun casts its light
there’s neither life nor death for the atoms.
What’s your final word then, ‘Attar?
Who knows this mystery and these allusions?
~Farid al-Din Attar, from ‘Fifty Poems of Attar’ by Kenneth Avery and Ali Alizadeh
(Photo: by Konstantin Yanistov)
Be aware that whatever happens, happens to you, by you, through you, that you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive and you will not be afraid. Unafraid, you will not be unhappy, nor will you seek happiness.
In the mirror of your mind all kinds of pictures appear and disappear. Knowing that they are entirely your own creations, watch them silently come and go, be alert, but not perturbed. This attitude of silent observation is the very foundation of Yoga. You see the picture, but you are not the picture.
~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That, Chapter 90 (Many thanks to Sat Sangha Salon)
(Photo by Zsolt Zsigmond)
(Photo by Rüdiger Nehmzow)
sunlight burns
shadow cools
there is no difference
earth is still
grass is moving
there is no difference
wind rustles
sky is silent
there is no difference
spider drifts by on a silken web
and I remain
there is no difference
~Nirmala, Gifts With No Giver
(Photo by Rimantas Bikulčius)
The flute of the Infinite is played without ceasing, and its
sound is love:
When love renounces all limits, it reaches truth.
How widely the fragrance spreads! It has no end, nothing stands
in its way.
The form of this melody is bright like a million suns:
incomparably sounds the veena, the veena of the notes of truth.
~Kabir (trans. by R. Tagore)
(Photo by Viktor Periakin)
“The truth is that the more ourselves we are, the less self is in us.”
~Meister Eckhart, (from The Transcendent Imperative)
(Photo by Andris Eglitis)
Mirror Pond on Mount Taibo in Shanxi
The water and my mind have both settled down
Into perfect stillness.
Sun and moon shine bright in it.
At night I see in the surface
The enormous face of my old familiar moon.
I don’t think you’ve ever met the source of this reflection.
All shrillness fades into the sound of silence.
But now and then a puff of mist floats across the mirror.
It confuses me a little
But not enough to make me forget to forget my cares.
~Master Xu-Yun (虛雲大師, 1840-1959)
(Photo by vadlen)
![Colors blind the eye.Sounds deafen the ear.Flavors numb the taste.Thoughts weaken the mind.Desires wither the heart.
The Master observes the worldbut trusts his inner vision.He allows things to come and go.His heart is open as the sky.
~Laozi, Dao De Jing 12, trans. by Stephen Mitchell
[I love this, even though the translation from the classical Chinese is quite inaccurate in a literal sense, it feels more than “right”…]
(Photo by Andris Eglitis)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lict2v0VjV1qdoln8o1_1280.jpg)
Colors blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavors numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.
The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.
~Laozi, Dao De Jing 12, trans. by Stephen Mitchell
[I love this, even though the translation from the classical Chinese is quite inaccurate in a literal sense, it feels more than “right”…]
(Photo by Andris Eglitis)
Joshu was asked,
“When a man comes to you with nothing,
what would you say to him ?”
Joshu replied, “Throw it away!”
(Photo by Andris Eglitis)
The Secret Sits
We dance around in a ring and suppose.
But the secret sits in the middle and knows.
~Robert Frost, from ‘A Witness Tree’, 1942
(Photo by Natalya Ova)
5
