INSPIRING WORDS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES (Past and Present)

In this section we offer some gems of insight mainly from advaita/nonduality writers and teachers past and present. 

Wisdom tells me I am nothing.

Love tells me I am everything.

Between the two my life flows.

(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

 

A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the universe", a
part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
(Albert Einstein)
 

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

(Rabindranath Tagore - from 'The Crescent Moon')

 

The man in whom Tao acts without impediment
Harms no other beings by his actions,
Yet he does not know himself to be "kind," to be "gentle."
The man in whom Tao acts without impediment
Does not bother with his own interests
And he does not despise others who do.
He does not struggle to make money, and he does not make a virtue of poverty.
He goes his way without relying on others
And does not pride himself on walking alone.
While he will not follow the crowd, he won't complain of those who do.
Rank and reward make no appeal to him.
Disgrace and shame do not deter him.
He is not always looking for right and wrong, always deciding "yes" or "no."
The ancients said, therefore:
The man of Tao remains unknown
Perfect virtue produces nothing
"No-self" is "true-self"
And the greatest man in nobody.

(Chuang Tzu - translated by Thomas Merton)

 

There are waves in the ocean. Each wave has a certain form - a length, a breadth and a height - and is moving in a particular direction. But are they separate from the ocean? The wave might feel that it is separate from the ocean, but is it ever separate?

(Poonjaji - 'Papaji: Interviews')

 

When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
 

Spoken words are pointers to the essence that we are. Spoken words are pointers and seeds, which bring you one day to understanding. In the understanding there are glimpses of this reality, and one day the understanding also vanishes in being the understanding. It is only in a very clear mind, where you see the perspective with great clarity, that there are these glimpses. But you must live with your silence, it is only through silence that these seeds unfold. It is a very high art to live with silence and not touch it, not manipulate it with the already known, with memory. (Jean Klein - 'Transmission of the Flame')

 

Don't pretend to be what you are not. Don't refuse to be what you are.

(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

 

We all have a deep longing and a deep fear of the discovery of what we are, and the mind devises any way it can to avoid this discovery. The most effective way it avoids awakening is to seek it. (Tony Parsons - 'As It Is')

 

You are the endless sea

In whom all the worlds like waves

Naturally rise and fall.

You have nothing to win,

Nothing to lose.

(from the 'Ashtavakra Gita' - translated by Thomas Byrom)

 

A true spiritual life is the realization of the endless totality of Being as discovered in the heart of emptiness. Every moment of every day is a vehicle for that realization.

(Gangaji - 'You Are That')

 

If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities - in the expert's mind there are few. (Shunryu Suzuki)

 

Silence is our natural state. It is the background of everything. No concentration is necessary to be it. As long as we are involved in perception we live in time, that is, we live only on the horizontal plane. But silence is timeless. It is at the centre where time and the timeless meet, where the horizontal and the vertical come together. This point is the heart.

(Jean Klein - 'The Ease Of Being')

 

Our entire life seems to be nothing but a wasted effort to control our natural responses and reactions to events and change them to suit what we think are our preferred requirements. Yet, the controller himself is nothing more than a concept created by thought, by memory,
by the past. The question of how to live one's life is really misconceived. As an apparent entity man does not live his life but is BEING LIVED like a puppet on strings. All his attempts to "live his life" are nothing more than reactions to impulses engendered by psycho-physical
conditions over which he has no control. All his supposed acts of volition are merely the fantasy of an artificial "me" notion which believes it is leading its own life of its own "free will." (Ramesh Balsekar - 'Net Of Jewels')

 

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments. -- Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled! -- Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

(Shelley: from 'Adonais')

 

Around us, life bursts forth with miracles - a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colours, shapes and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.

(Thich Nhat Hanh - from 'The Sun My Heart')

 

When you become more sensitive to the body you have the impression that the inhalation-exhalation is no longer localised. It is all around you. It is important to see how we live mainly in our heads. Think with your whole body, feel with your whole body. In the whole feeling, the global sensation, you go into your room and touch your whole room. You go outside and touch the clouds, the trees, the water. You do not live in isolation. In your radiation you are in communion with all things. In this expansion there's no place for the ego because the ego is a contraction. Love is expansion, a feeling of spaciousness.

(Jean Klein)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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