— Koi Fresco

“Understand that you are not offended. Nothing that happens offends you, it offends your ego. Not the transcendental you. Not the universal you. It offends the ego; which wants itself to be known, to be right, and wants to be mad at certain aspects of life.”

                                                     

                     

I Am a Child by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I am now 74 years old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My Guru told me; that child, which is you even now, is your real self. Go back to that state of pure being, where the "I am" is still in its purity before it got contaminated with "this I am" or "that I am." Your burden is of false self-identifications—abandon them all. My Guru told me—"Trust me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done." I did believe him and soon realized how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: "I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond." I simply followed his instruction, which was to focus the mind on pure being "I am," and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the "I am" in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep allembracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared—myself, my Guru, the life lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

🌷 

Kilroy J. Oldster

Every day is
an opportunity
to stand in awe
when witnessing
the overpowering
presence of nature,
an apt time to pay
reverence for the
inestimable beauty

of life.

                                                                 

 

~The Gospel of Thomas

“The Living Master said to his initiates: “What your own eyes cannot see, your human ears do not hear, your physical hands cannot touch, and what is inconceivable to the human mind – that I will give to you!” 

                                                                        

Anita Moorjani

The universe is contained within us, and what we experience externally is only a reflection.



Transform your world by transforming your internal state. Start by learning to let go of negative self judgment, and replace it with positive and loving thoughts about yourself. Be kind to yourself, and watch your external world change.


                                          

Mipham from his commentary on the Madhyamakalankara

“It stands to reason that if one realizes the absence of the personal self, all emotional afflictions, which have ego-clinging as their root, will be arrested. For it is certain that when it is perceived that there is no personal self, attachment, hatred, pride, and so forth—all of which arise therefrom—cannot occur…”

                                                                                 

 

~ John O'Donohue, To Bless The Space Between Us

“…a new window opens, in dense darkness a path starts to glimmer, and into a broken heart healing falls like morning dew. It is ironic that so often we continue to live like paupers though our inheritance of spirit is so vast. The quiet eternal that dwells in our souls is silent and subtle; in the activity of blessing it emerges to embrace and nurture us. Let us begin to learn how to bless one another. Whenever you give a blessing, a blessing returns to enfold you.”

Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

Man has gone out to explore other worlds without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.

                                                               

- Mary Elizabeth Frye

“ Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die. ”

Edgar Cayce

Michael Kewley

With wisdom, everything is seen as clouds passing through an empty sky, some pleasant, some unpleasant, some attractive and some unattractive, but all having the same universal quality of impermanence (Anicca).
There is nothing to hold on to and nothing to understand.
There is only this moment, and in this moment the whole of our life exists.
—

                                                                  

Awakening the Cobra: The Birth of Tantra

Article by Meloney Hudson, Ipsalu Tantra teacher

Several millennia ago, spiritual adepts in the East, recognizing the dynamic energies of the universe and human body, identified sexual energy as a vehicle for enlightenment. Those of us raised in the puritanical Western churches probably see any kind of sexual ritual as the antithesis of religious enlightenment, but practitioners of the cult called Tantra that arose in Asia around 1,400 years ago discovered, refined, and disseminated practices with sexual energy as a path of spirituality through ecstasy.

The word Tantra comes from two Sanskrit words, “tanoti”, meaning “to expand,” and “trayati”, or “liberation.”1 Through the practices of Tantra, one’s awareness of the soul would expand, causing liberation from the confines of physical limitations. A path based on energy, Tantra is a practice in which sexual energy is generated and harnessed for purification of the energetic body. By merging feminine and masculine energies, either within one’s own body or by merging souls with a beloved partner of opposite energies (such as masculine and feminine), a pathway can be created through which energetic communion with the Higher Power could occur. Enlightenment and bliss are the rewards.

                                                                                

Sri Ramana Maharshi : Talk 503

If you surrender yourself to the Higher Power all is well. That Power sees your affairs through. Only so long as you think that you are the worker you are obliged to reap the fruits of your actions. If on the other hand, you surrender yourself and recognise your individual self as only a tool of the Higher Power, that Power will take over your affairs along with the fruits of actions. You are no longer affected by them and the work goes on unhampered.
Whether you recognise the Power or not the scheme of things does not alter. Only there is a change of outlook.

                                                             

~ Papaji

Just be quiet. This quiet does not involve talking or not talking. It does not involve any doing whatsoever. Just let the mind fall into silence. This is enough. 

PART SUN AND MOON by Suzy Kassem

“Everybody has a little bit of the sun and moon in them. Everybody has a little bit of man, woman, and animal in them. Darks and lights in them. Everyone is part of a connected cosmic system. Part earth and sea, wind and fire, with some salt and dust swimming in them. We have a universe within ourselves that mimics the universe outside. None of us are just black or white, or never wrong and always right. No one. No one exists without polarities. Everybody has good and bad forces working with them, against them, and within them.

                                                                                 

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness. All the objects of consciousness form the universe. What is beyond both, supporting both is the Supreme State, a state of utter stillness and silence. Whoever goes there disappears. It is unreachable by words or mind. You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality; but these are names given by the mind. It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state beyond being and not being.

The Secret

The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and flow for You. The birds sing for You. The sun rises and it sets for You. The stars come out for You. Every beautiful thing you see, every wondrous thing you experience, is all there, for You. Take a look around. None of it can exist, without You. No matter who you thought you were, now you the Truth of Who You Really Are. You are the master of the Universe. You are the heir to the kingdom. You are the perfection of Life.


                                                                      

                                                                                            

— Mooji

As far as the search for truth is concerned, 98% of our thinking is rubbish. The remaining 2% is garbage. Throw it all out and be empty. Truth cannot be caught by intellect alone - grace is needed.

                                                                                       

    

– Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Illusion immediately becomes more workable when we acknowledge it as simply an illusion. The Western habit is to work against the grain and to try and organize the illusory into something solid and structured … In the stressful attempt to nail down the illusory nature of things, our chance to be at ease, spacious, awake, and free, which already exists within ourselves, gets lost.

                                                                           

- Sri Chinmoy, God-Life: is it a far cry?

Is the Presence of the Supreme in our minds and in our bodies the same thing as the soul?

The Presence of the Supreme is anywhere in the body, the vital and the mind. But it is the soul that is always conscious of the Presence of the Supreme. From time to time we are conscious of God’s Presence in the heart, but in the mind we very rarely feel it and even if we do, we doubt it. In the vital, even if we get some inner strength from God, we try to use it in a wrong way. We try to destroy the world in an aggressive manner. In the physical, we are so dull and inert that we do not feel the Presence of the Supreme. But when we go deep within, we see that His Presence is always in the physical, in the vital and in the mind. God’s Presence pervades our existence, but one part of our existence is more illumined than the rest, and that is the soul. The soul, being fully illumined and in constant touch with the Highest, feels the Presence of the Supreme all the time. If we make considerable progress in the spiritual life, our heart, like the soul, will become consciously and constantly aware of the Supreme’s Presence. Then gradually this awareness will dawn in the mind, the vital and the body

                                                                                     

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Consider…

The world in which you live,
who else knows about it?…
Within the prison of your world
appears a man/woman who tells you
that the world of painful contradictions,
which you have created,
is neither continuous nor permanent
and is based on a misapprehension.
He pleads with you to get out of it.
You got into it by forgetting what you are,
and you will get out of it by knowing
yourself as you are…
There is no reality in it.

It cannot last…

— Rumi

Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.

                                                       

Eckhart Tolle

The mind exists in a state of “not enough” and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily. Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its hunger is not being satisfied. If you can stay bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless, you bring awareness to the feeling and there is suddenly some space and stillness around it. A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not. You discover that a “bored person” is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “yours”, not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you. “I am bored.” Who knows this? “I am angry, sad, afraid.” Who knows this? You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

The soul is a true reflection of the Spirit, and is therefore pure.

When the soul becomes identified with the body, it converts itself into the ego.

In a worldly person, the ego is the guiding principle of all thoughts, feelings, and aspirations.

One must learn to differentiate between material desires and soul desires.

The pure soul loves the wisdom and bliss experienced in the union with the absolute, omnipresent, omniscient One.

The ego loves name, fame, pride, greed, body-attachment, and all perishable qualities.

When the ego succeeds in persuading the mind to like the perishable comforts of the body, the mind becomes spiritually blind and no longer prefers the imperishable joys of the soul resting in omnipresence.

                                                                    

~ Srimad Bhagavatam

"You are the One for all living beings,
You are the master of the life force,
of the body, of the soul and the senses.

You are the Time, the Supreme Lord Vishnu, the Imperishable Controller.

You as the Greatest One who are both the cosmic creation and the subtle reality,

You consisting of passion, goodness and slowness, are the Original Personality, Overseer and the Knower of the restless mind in all fields of action."

                                        

OshO Innocence is the base of all spirituality.

If one is like a child, many things happen, because one is open, vulnerable, soft, sensitive, and one is innocent.

Innocence is the base of all spirituality. The moment you think you know, you are no more a child. You are closed. Knowledge kills and poisons. Innocence opens you and makes you alive. That’s why Jesus goes on saying ’If you are like children, only then –and only then –will you be able to enter into the kingdom of God’.

A child has nothing to do with age. Childhood is a state. You can be old and yet a child. You can be a child and yet old. Childhood is a certain attitude deep inside you, of your being ready to learn; that from wherever and whatsoever source life comes, you will be ready to receive; that in your heart there is a deep welcome; that you are not afraid; that you are not yet crippled by knowledge, information; that you are still in a flow and not frozen.

So if one is like a child –and I can see that you are –then many things become possible. God is closest when you are in a state of childhood. Then by and by we lose Him. So when one comes to know God it is a rediscovery, not a discovery. You had known Him in your childhood and again you recognise Him. When you become a child again you recognise Him. That’s the rebirth. You are reborn; again you start from ABC.

To remain a child means to be in meditation continuously. Otherwise the mind tends to become old. It accumulates, it hoards, it is a miser. The mind suffers from constipation, so whatsoever comes on its way it hoards it immediately. It does not allow it to go. This moment something happens, and you collect it in your mind. The next moment something else happens and you collect that too. In this way a collection goes on being piled up and you start becoming old.

If one is like a child, many things happen, because one is open, vulnerable, soft, sensitive, and one is innocent.

Innocence is the base of all spirituality. The moment you think you know, you are no more a child. You are closed. Knowledge kills and poisons. Innocence opens you and makes you alive. That’s why Jesus goes on saying ’If you are like children, only then –and only then –will you be able to enter into the kingdom of God’.

A child has nothing to do with age. Childhood is a state. You can be old and yet a child. You can be a child and yet old. Childhood is a certain attitude deep inside you, of your being ready to learn; that from wherever and whatsoever source life comes, you will be ready to receive; that in your heart there is a deep welcome; that you are not afraid; that you are not yet crippled by knowledge, information; that you are still in a flow and not frozen.

So if one is like a child –and I can see that you are –then many things become possible. God is closest when you are in a state of childhood. Then by and by we lose Him. So when one comes to know God it is a rediscovery, not a discovery. You had known Him in your childhood and again you recognise Him. When you become a child again you recognise Him. That’s the rebirth. You are reborn; again you start from ABC.

To remain a child means to be in meditation continuously. Otherwise the mind tends to become old. It accumulates, it hoards, it is a miser. The mind suffers from constipation, so whatsoever comes on its way it hoards it immediately. It does not allow it to go. This moment something happens, and you collect it in your mind. The next moment something else happens and you collect that too. In this way a collection goes on being piled up and you start becoming old.The art of remaining a child forever is to never collect. When the moment is gone, leave it. Don’t collect the past and then you are never old. You are born every second again and again and again. It is a constant rebirth... a riverlike flow of rebirth. You are renewed, resurrected. Die to the past every moment so it is no more a hangup and is not a burden on your head and on your heart, so that it does not hang like a rock around your neck. Go on dying to the past so you become more and more available to the present. Childhood is a state of consciousness, of purity, of uncorruption, of uncontamination.

💙