It is every intelligent man's experience ... wrong-doing recoils on the doer sooner or later. Why is this so?
Because the Self is one in all.
When seeing others you are only seeing yourself in their shapes.
'Love they neighbor as thyself' means that you should love him because he is your Self.
–Ramana Maharshi
S. S. Cohen, 15th August, 1948
There is the body.
Inside the body appears to be an observer, and outside a world under observation.
The observer and his observation as well as the world observed appear and disappear together. Beyond it all, there is void.
This void is one for all.
–Nisargadatta Maharaj
The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed,
will set off a revolution.
—Paul Cezanne
Love with no object.
There is a way of loving not attached to what is loved.Observe how water is with the ground, always moving toward the ocean, though the ground tries to hold water’s foot and not let it go.This is how we are with wine and beautiful food, wealth and power, or just a dry piece of bread: we want and we get drunk with wanting, then the headache and bitterness afterward.Those prove that the attachment took hold and held you back. Now you proudly refuse help. “My love is pure. I have an intuitive union with God. I don’t need anyone to show me how to be free!”This is not the case. A love with no object is a true love.
All else, shadow without substance.
Have you seen someone fall in love with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. Leave partial loves and find one that’s whole.Where is someone who can do that? They’re so rare, those hearts that carry the blessing and lavish it over everything.Hold out your beggar’s robe and accept their generosity. Anything not coming from that will damage the cloth, like a sharp stone tearing your sincerity.Keep that intact, and use clarity; call it reason or discernment, you have within you a deciding force that knows what to receive, what to turn from.–RumiMathnawi III: 2248-80Coleman Barks version
You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body acting;
the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.
–Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
.
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.–Werner Heisenberg
WRITER: But tell me before you go. What was the worst thing about being down there?
AGNES: Just existing. Knowing my sight was blurred by my eyes, my hearing dulled by my ears, and bright thought trapped in the grey maze of a brain. Have you seen a brain?
WRITER: And you're telling me that's what's wrong with us? How else can we be?
–August Strindberg
A Dream Play, Caryl Churchill adaptation
.Epigraph - Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment –Robert Wright
They are always kissing,
they can't control themselves.It is not possible that any
creature can have greater instinctsand perceptions than themature human mind.
God ripened me.So I see it is true:all objects in existence arewildly in love!
–Meister Eckhart
The storm puts its lips to the house
and blows to make a sound.
I sleep restlessly, turn over, with closed
eyes read the book of the storm.
But the child's eyes grow huge in the dark
and the storm whimpers for the child.
Both love to see the swinging lamp.
Both are halfway toward speech.
Storms have childlike hands and wings.
The caravan bolts off toward Lapland
and the house senses the constellation of nails
holding its wall together.
The night is quiet above our floor
(where all the died-away footsteps
are lying like sunken leaves in a pond)
but outside the night is wild!
A more serious storm is moving over us all.
It puts its lips to our soul
and blows to make a sound. We're afraid
the storm will blow everything inside us away.
–Tomas Tranströmer
Robert Bly translation
There is some kiss we want with our whole lives,the touch of spirit on the body.Ocean water begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine,
Breathe into me,
Close the language-door and open the love-window.
The moon won't use the door, only the window.
–Rumi
.
It is I who must begin.
Once I begin, once I try --
here and now,
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
-- to live in harmony
with the "voice of Being," as I
understand it within myself
-- as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.
Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.
–Vaclav Havel
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
–Gary Snyder
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Someone put
You on a slave block
And the unreal bought
You. Now I keep coming to your owner
Saying
"This one is mine."
You often overhear us talking
And this can make your heart leap
With excitement.
Don't worry,
I will not let sadness
Possess you.
I will gladly borrow all the gold
I need
To get you
Back.
–Hafiz
It’s that dream that we carry with us
that something wonderful will happen,
that it has to happen,
that time will open,
that the heart will open,
that doors will open,
that the mountains will open,
that wells will leap up,
that the dream will open,
that one morning we’ll slip in
to a harbor that we've never known.
–Olav H. Hauge
Robert Bly version
.
For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your
Beautiful eyes.
—Hafiz
If anyone asks youhow the perfect satisfactionof all our longingwill look, lift your faceand say,Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulnessof the night sky, climb up on the roofand dance and say,Like this?
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,or what "God's fragrance" means,lean your head toward him or her.Keep your face there close,Like this.
When someone quotes the old adageabout clouds gradually uncovering the moon,slowly loosen knot by knot the stringsof your robe,Like this?
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,don't try to explain the miracle.Kiss me on the lips,Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it meansto "die for love," pointhere.
If someone asks how tall I am, frownand measure with your fingers the spacebetween the creases on your forehead.This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.When someone doesn't believe that,walk back into my house.Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.Stare into this deepening blue,While the breeze says a secret.Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,light the candle in his hand.Like this.
How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?Huuuu.
How did Jacob's sight return?Huuuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,he'll put just his head around the edgeof the door to surprise us.Like this.
–Rumi
Coleman Barks version
I am so afraid of people's words.They describe so distinctly everything:And this they call dog and that they call house,here the start and there the end.
I worry about their mockery with words,they know everything, what will be, what was;
no mountain is still miraculous;
and their house and yard lead right up to God.
I want to warn and object: Let the things be!
I enjoy listening to the sound they are making.
But you always touch: and they hush and stand still.
This is how you kill.
–Rainer Maria Rilke
Annemarie S. Kidder translation
The moment you start talking you create a verbal universe, a universe of words, ideas, concepts and abstractions, interwoven and inter-dependent, most wonderfully generating, supporting and explaining each other and yet all without essence or substance, mere creations of the mind.
Words create words, reality is silent.
–Nisargadatta
silence.is
a
looking
bird:the
turn
ing;edge,of
life
(inquiry before snow
–E. E. Cummings
When I pronounce the word Future,the first syllable already belongs to the past.When I pronounce the word Silence,I destroy it.When I pronounce the word Nothing,I make something no non-being can hold.
–Wislawa Szymborska
.
My heart, sit only with those
who know and understand you.
Sit only under a tree
that is full of blossoms.
In the bazaar of herbs and potions
don't wander aimlessly,
find the shop with a potion that is sweet.
If you don't have a measure
people will rob you in no time.
You will take counterfeit coins
thinking they are real.
Don't fill your bowl with food from
every boiling pot you see.
Not every joke is humorous, so don't search
for meaning where there isn't one.
Not every eye can see,
not every sea is full of pearls.
My heart, sing the song of longing,
like nightingale.
The sound of your voice casts a spell
on every stone, on every thorn.
First, lay down your head,
then one by one
let go of all distractions.
Embrace the light and let it guide you
beyond the winds of desire.
There you will find a spring and
nourished by its sweet waters
like a tree you will bear fruit forever.
–Rumi
Just remember,
You are the only faithful student you have.
All the others leave eventually.
Have you been making yourself shallow
with making others eminent?
Just remember, when you're in union,
you don't have to fear
that you'll be drained.
The command comes to speak,
and you feel the ocean
moving through you.
Then comes, Be silent,
as when the rain stops,
and the trees in the orchard
begin to draw moisture
up into themselves.
–Rumi
Mathnawi, V, 3195-3219)
Coleman Barks version
When the beetle sees, it is I that am looking,
When the nightingale sings, it is I that am singing,
When the lion roars, it is I that am roaring.
But when I look for myself, I can see nothing --
for no thing is there to be seen.
Síle cannot see me either, for when she tries to see me it is
I who am looking: she can do nothing -- for only I can do anything.
The beetle can say that also, and Síle, for we are not three,
nor two, nor one.
I am the sea too, and the stars, the wind and the rain,
I am everything that has form -- for form is my seeing of it.
I am every sound -- for sound is my hearing of it,
I am all flavours, each perfume, whatever can be touched,
For that which is perceptible is my perceiving of it,
And all sentience is mine. They have no other existence, and neither have I --
for what they are I am, and what I am they are.
What the universe is I am, and what I am the universe is.
And there is no other at all, nor any one whatsover.
—Wei Wu Wei
Open Secret
... the most fundamental scientific ‘fact’ is not the existence of a universe of things in space and time but awareness of such a universe.
Awareness is not a ‘thing’ that can evolve from or arise out of an unaware or insentient universe of things. On the contrary all things in the universe emerge and take shape out of a universal awareness.
—Peter Wilberg
The Awareness Principle
