God pours light into every cup, quenching darkness.
The proudly pious stuff their cups with parchment and critique the taste of ink while God pours light and the trees lift their limbs without worry of redemption, every blossom a chalice.
Hafiz, seduce those withered souls with words that wet their parched lips as light pours like rain into every empty cup set adrift on the Infinite Ocean.
The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other; as has been said: Everything breathes together
Listen. In the silence between your heartbeats bides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there? Leave that which is not, but appears to be. Seek that which is, but is not apparent.
The first verse of the Vedanta-sutras states: “athato brahma-jijnasa”, which means, “Now is the time to inquire about the Absolute Truth.” Why is it time? Because we are presently in the human form of life and should utilize it properly since only in the human form do we have the intelligence and facility to be able to understand spiritual reality. In animal forms, the living entities cannot understand such things because they do not have the brainpower. So we should not waste this human form of life by pursuing only the animalistic propensities, such as eating, sleeping, mating and defending. Therefore, the Vedanta-sutras begin by stating that now is the time for us to understand the Absolute Truth.
Happiness is permanent. It is always there. What comes and goes is unhappiness. If you identify with what comes and goes, you will be unhappy. If you identify with what is permanent and always there, you are happiness itself.
After the above-mentioned sutras, we now come to the Vedanta-sutras. When it comes to Vedanta, many commentaries on it revolve around the Brahman. The Brahman generally means the all-pervading, self-existent power. The word brahman is based on the root word brah, which means vastness, power or expansion. It also denotes the Supreme Being, as well as the atman, the living being, who, when freed from the body, becomes situated on the level of Brahman, or the spiritual nature. The concept of the Brahman was, for the most part, first elaborated in the Upanishads. Therein we begin to find descriptions from which our understanding of it grows. It is described as invisible, ungraspable, eternal, without qualities, and the imperishable source of all things. (Mundaka Upanishad 1.1.6-7)
It is explained that Shankara’s advaita doctrine was based on the famous passage in the Chandogya Upanishad (6.10.3), tat tvam asi, meaning “That thou art.” He taught that “thou and that” were not to be regarded as object and subject, but as identical, without difference (a-bheda), like the real self (atman). Thus, anything that was variable, like the body, mind, intellect, and ego are objects of knowledge and not the atman.
Anandamaya kosha is the most interior of the koshas, the first of the koshas surrounding the Atman, the eternal center of consciousness. Ananda means bliss. However, it is not bliss as a mere emotion experienced at the level of the sheath of mind. Ananda is a whole different order of reality from that of the mind. It is peace, joy, and love that is underneath, beyond the mind, independent of any reason or stimulus to cause a happy mental reaction. It is simply being, resting in bliss called ananda. Yet, even this bliss, however wonderful it is, is still a covering, a sheath, a lampshade covering the pure light of consciousness. It is the subtle most of the five koshas. In the silence of deep meditation, this too is let go of, so as to experience the center.
Atman - Self
Atman is the Self, the eternal center of consciousness, which was never born and never dies. In the metaphor of the lamp and the lampshades, Atman is the light itself, though to even describe it as that is incomplete and incorrect. The deepest light shines through the koshas, and takes on their colorings. Atman, the Self, has been best described as indescribable. The realization of that, in direct experience, is the goal of Yoga meditation, Advaita Vedanta, and Tantra practices.
There is a being wonderful, perfect; It existed before heaven and earth. How quiet it is! How spiritual it is! It stands alone and it does not change; It moves, but does not on that account suffer. All life comes from it, yet it does not demand to be Lord. I do not know its name, so I call it Tao, the Way, And I rejoice in its power.
“To realize Self is to realize the eternal freedom of the spirit. The first realization of the Self as something intensely silent and purely static is not the whole truth of it. There can also be a realization of the Self in its power. Establishing the mind in the Self means the conviction that the self alone is all, and that there is nothing other than it. As ones process deepens, the pervasive sense of coolness and calmness shows that the consciousness is reorienting itself at a deeper level of the being. Joy and happiness not dependent upon outward things begins to manifest. One becomes aware that he is acted through and totally dependent upon the Divine. This realization and accompanying release into peace and happiness is spoken of as liberation and carries with it the value of being released from jail. One begins to feel that the ordinary consciousness is something quite external and on the surface. It does not seem to be ones real self."
Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love
