Things are most enjoyable when they are purposeless.
When we give them purpose, they become a duty.
i sew my life
I sew my life with threads of gold
the gods above will stare in awe!
and wonder at this splendor.
With every deed, we build our life. With every thought, we create our reality. Who else is there? So create a reality so glorious that even the gods will envy – we all have that potential.
Grief and heart openings
Today, I’m going to share something rather personal. Recently, my mother lost her twin sister, to whom she was extremely close. It was an unexpected death, and therefore even more devastating. I tried to console her the best I could, as my vision of death is not so final, but for her, that made little difference. My mother is a scientist, and has little inclination towards the ‘spiritual’. Understandably, she only believes in what she sees. She struggled with grief for several months.
Recently, she said to me: “You know, even though everything here reminds me of her, I feel a deep peace in my heart”.
Soul, or consciousness, blossoms like a flower, in its own time. Such ‘openings’ occur without us having to do anything. Some may call them ‘graces’.
We cannot rush spiritual awakening any more than we can rush the blooming of a flower or a fruit. It’s a natural process. We can speed up the ripening of a fruit with artificial hormones, but something would still be lost on the way, and the final product would just not have the necessary maturity to uphold itself.
So the spiritual process requires patience, nurturing and wisdom. Undoubtedly, we all go towards the unfolding of our highest potentiality: unconditional love and peace.
in footprints
every life we walk in footprints
of past lives gone
every moment we play an echo
of yesterday’s song.
self-made prison
be careful of those
who build a life
around their thoughts
and fiercely guard
their own self-made
prison.
I love the company of those who always challenge my views. Once we settle for one philosophy or model, our growth is sealed. Here is a wonderful parable about the experience of truth:
“A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable”. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said “This being is like a thick snake”. For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, “is a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear”
The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people’s limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.
— Werner Heisenberg
within me
within me, I hold immortality
within me, I hold mortality
looking at the sky above I embrace infinity
looking at the ground, I see my limits
I am the end, and the beginning
I am all that can behold.
today i may laugh with life
today I may laugh with life
tomorrow I may lay with death.
I’m friends with both
and cannot decide
for whom to wear the better dress.
As long as we identify with just our body, death will loom dark and horrifying. And indeed, the body will one day perish. Spiritual practice lets us into the knowing that we are much more than the physical body and we begin to experience ourselves as fluid, unconfined consciousness. This is more of a remembrance, as consciousness is already complete and self-illumined. Who is it that forgot? The busy mind.
Beyond pleasure or pain
In our world, everything is relative to something else – such is the world of dualism: we recognize light by knowing darkness, we know kindness by experiencing cruelty, happiness by knowing sorrow, health by knowing illness, and so on. Taoism makes a point of not having preferences of any one state over the other, as one state can only be known by experiencing the opposite. We always run after those experiences that make us feel good, but how would we know what pleasure is if we didn’t also feel discomfort?
Ultimately, all these states come and go. When good fortune comes our way, we should let it be. When sorrow comes, we should let it be. We suffer more in trying to avoid the pain of sorrow, than by just allowing it to be. Remember, “This too shall pass”.
One benefit of meditation is to train the mind to not be attached and cling to any condition, pleasant or unpleasant. Eventually, it finds rest in a space beyond duality. When we can be comfortable with both pleasure and pain, suffering ceases, and true understanding and enjoyment of life begins.
I am all things and all things are me
“My bones are mountains.
My tears, rushing rivers.
The earth’s crust is my skin.
Trees adorn my head.
The sun, moon, and stars Are in my eyes.
The ether of the Universe is my breath.
Separateness is an illusion.
I am all things and all things are me.”
– Anya Phenix
yourSelf
The idea that anything exists outside your Self, is the most terrible illusion.
