One Reality

  Into the bosom of the one great sea Flow streams that come from hills on every side Their names are various as their springs, And thus in every land do men bow down To one great God, though known by many names. - A South Indian folksong. (The Folks Songs of Southern India By Gover 1871 p. 165) Prayer "Let my every word be a prayer to Thee, Every movement of my hands a ritual gesture to Thee, Every step I take a circumambulation of Thy image, Every morsel I eat a rite of sacrifice to Thee, Every time I lay down a prostration at Thy feet; Every act of personal pleasure and all else that I do, Let it all be a form of worshiping Thee." - Verse 27 of Shri Aadi Shankara's Saundaryalahari Sacred River: O Mother Ganga, may your water, abundant blessing of this world, treasure of Lord Shiva, playful Lord of all the earth, essence of the scripture and embodied goodness of the gods, May your water, sublime wine of immortality, Soothe our troubled souls.

                                                             

Kabir

I know of a place not ruled by flatness

Or constant risings and depressions,

and those alive are not afraid to die.

There wild flowers come up through the leafy floor,

and the fragrance of "I am he" floats on the wind.

There the love bee stays deep inside the flower

and cares for no other thing

                                                

Marcus Aurelius

“Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.”

                                

                                                          

Robert Adams

“When you concern yourself with your body, when you concern yourself with worldly conditions, when you try to improve something, all you’re doing is admitting that you are a fool. In truth, this is all nonsense. Everything is nonsense.

Therefore, why not be happy?

Why think about conditions, situations? Just be happy.

Do not try to analyze what happiness is. Do not even try to be happy. Just be happy. How do you become happy?

By not thinking.

If you have to think about it, it is not happiness.

The worst thing you can ever do is to try to change your condition, to be dissatisfied with the way things are. Things are the way they’re supposed to be. Do not try to think about it or to analyze it. Things are exactly the way they’re supposed to be.

When you think about this you spoil it. There are no mistakes.

No one is right, and no one is wrong.”

                                   

Sebastian Pole

 

Evelyn Underhill Mysticism

 

Here it is that we approach that attitude of the self, that point of view, which is loosely and generally called mystical.

Here, instead of those broad blind alleys which philosophy showed us, a certain type of mind has always discerned three straight and narrow ways going out towards the Absolute.

In religion, in pain, and in beauty—and not only in these, but in many other apparently useless peculiarities of the empirical world and of the perceiving consciousness—these persons insist that they recognize at least the fringe of the real.

                                     

 

Hermann Hesse

 We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the Spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for in our innermost soul we know ourselves to be One with all being.

Hermann Hesse

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages.

—

Swami Brahmanada

                                   

You are a miracle of light

 

108 Sayings of Meher Baba

Selected by Kendra Crossen Burroughs

[1]

“The universe is the outcome of imagination. Then why try to acquire knowledge of the imaginative universe instead of plumbing the depths of your real Self?”

[Meher Baba Journal, June 1941]

[2]

“Merely to say ‘I want to see God’ or ‘I want to realize God’ is similar to an ant saying ‘I want to become an elephant!’ Mere words have nothing in them. The heart must thirst to seek God.”

[Lord Meher 11:4097]

[3]

“Just a glance from me can give you all you need — can turn your vision inward. You will be sitting here without any outward change, but you will become `what you really are.´ You have to wait for that moment. That moment is near, and for that you have to love me wholeheartedly, otherwise you will miss it. If I knock at your door and you are asleep, I will go away. In Avataric periods, one does not necessarily have to make the inward journey by stages. If you have the Grace of the Avatar, He just takes you from where you are to where you should be, where God wants you to be.

[Quoted in Dr. H. P. Bharucha, Meher Baba's Last Sahavas (1969)]

[4]

"My work is different. It is not my work to travel continuously and hold darshan programs simply to allow people to bow down at my feet. It is not my work to give long discourses, to perform miracles, or to attract crowds to me. I do not come for this. I come for all; I come to awaken all!”

[Lord Meher 20:6648]

[5]

“Anything beyond your capacity will necessarily change your capacity, because so long as everything is within your limits, you don't know what is beyond them. And everything concerning God and God-realisation is beyond limit. So in this way great suffering and being plagued with terrible problems are beneficial.”

                                      

Ramana Maharishi from Who am I

When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the sense-organs, the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in the Heart, the names and forms disappear. Not letting the mind go out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called ‘inwardness’ (antarmukha). Letting the mind go out of the Heart is known as ‘externalisation’ (bahirmukha). Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the ‘I’ which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity ‘I’. If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the nature of Siva.