‘Daughter of the Wind’ by Alex Greenshpun
“These flowers are like the pleasures of the world.” ~W. Shakespeare
3![“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)
One doesn’t take to sadhana out of miseries, but on account of happiness. Only a happy person can become a good yogi. Nor does one take to sannyasa because one has lost something, but because one has gained something.
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’.
In the end it’s all very simple.
Either we give ourselves to Silence or we don’t.
Adyashanti (via ashramof1)
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
William Stafford
Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
~Ryokan
(Photo by Alex Greenshpun)
Everything that you feel, hear, touch, smell and taste is maya.
Everything is maya, the grand illusion.
Most of us really do not understand what maya really is.
My trying to explain maya is maya.
Everything that your eyes behold,
that you believe is so important, is maya.
Everything that you hear,
Everything that you read,
Everything that you try to do to better yourself,
It’s all maya.
The water in the mirage, that is maya,
something that appears to be real,
but upon your investigation you find it’s not.
The whole world is like that.
The whole universe is like that.
Do not be fooled again.
Do not take anything seriously.
Turn within, do not react.
The turmoil, the chaos that appears to be in this world,
is not the truth. It is not Reality.
It is something that comes and goes.
This too shall pass.
But your center is God, Consciousness,
Absolute Reality, Brahman.
Those are all synonymous.
That is the Peace that exists.
Everything is maya, the grand illusion.
Most of us really do not understand what maya really is.
My trying to explain maya is maya.
Everything that your eyes behold,
that you believe is so important, is maya.
Everything that you hear,
Everything that you read,
Everything that you try to do to better yourself,
It’s all maya.
something that appears to be real,
but upon your investigation you find it’s not.
The whole world is like that.
The whole universe is like that.
Do not be fooled again.
Do not take anything seriously.
Turn within, do not react.
is not the truth. It is not Reality.
It is something that comes and goes.
This too shall pass.
But your center is God, Consciousness,
Absolute Reality, Brahman.
Those are all synonymous.
That is the Peace that exists.
Robert Adams (Thank you very much for sharing Tobiji!)
One Instant is eternity;
eternity is the now.
When you see through this one instant,
you see through the one who sees.
Wu Men
(Translated by Stephen Mitchell, from The Enlightened Heart)
O Rama, two aspects of the “heart” are spoken of here: one is acceptable and the other is to be ignored. The heart that is part of this physical body and is located in one part of the body may be ignored!
The heart which is acceptable is of the nature of pure consciousness. It is both inside and outside and it is neither inside nor outside. This is the principal heart and in it is reflected everything which is in the universe, and it is the treasure-house of all wealth.
Consciousness alone is the heart of all beings, not the piece of flesh which people call the heart!
~Yoga Vasistha
(Photo: alexgreenshpun.com)
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
