Who (be quiet) Are You?

From the Heart to the Heart...

[noornalini]

Completely giving up identification with the body alone is exhalation [rechaka];  merging within through the enquiry 'Who am I'; alone is inhalation [puraka]; abiding as the one reality 'I am that'; alone is retention [kumbhaka]. This is the real pranayama.

Sri Ramana Maharshi, Be as You Are (via noornalini)

[noornalini]

[noornalini]

The whole world is a looking glass for you. And what you see is what you get. So what do you see? This is why it is so often. I am merely a mirror for you. When you see me, you're seeing yourself. The question is, therefore, "What are you seeing, what kind of self are you seeing?" If you're seeing something ugly, something negative, you have to work on yourself. Do not try to change other people. Do not try to change your circumstances. If you get rid of one set of circumstances, another one of the same nature will pop up later. You can't get rid of yourself until you change yourself. You have to work on yourself all the time,  and above all, you've got to have patience. Patience is the key, especially when you're practicing this path. You must have a lot of patience. Do not ask when. Live each moment as it comes, in beauty and joy. One day you will be awakened and you will be surprised and you will laugh hysterically, but patience is the key.

Robert Adams - Transcript 8 - The Three Vehicles - 2nd September 1990

[noornalini]

I will weep and weep for you, O Mind; The world hath caught you in its spell. Though you cling to them with the anchor of steel, Not even the shadow of the things you love Will go with you when you are dead. Why then have you forgotten your own true Self?

Lalleshwari

[noornalini]

Looking for God is like seeking a path in a field of snow; if there is no path and you are looking for one, walk across it, and there is your path.

Thomas Merton

[noornalini]

The Meaning of the Broken Thread

Once upon a time, there was a Sufi mystic. Like many mystics, he did not hold any formal position or title. He lived completely in the world, and the only way you knew anything was special about him was the sense of sweetness that seemed to cling to everything he touched. During the day, he functioned as a shopkeeper, carefully sweeping and stacking and dusting the majestic tapestries, which he sold to support his family. There was a gentle buzz about the shop, a calm flow of traffic that never seemed to cease, from early in the morning when the shopkeeper's wife unlocked the door and switched the sign to read open, until the evening hours, when the last rays of the sun settled across the dusty streets. Gradually, the people who came to visit the shop began to linger, to breathe in the fragrance of the mystic, and upon their request, he began to teach. One of his students asked one day if he could begin to spend the afternoons as his assistant. He had no need of pay; he wanted to learn, and the mystic simply smiled, and so it began.

The boy was very polite, and so when he saw his master doing a very peculiar thing one afternoon after a new shipment arrived, he stared only for a moment and did not ask a question. Two days later, when he saw his master doing the same very odd thing, again he politely turned his eyes aside. And so again the third and the fourth and the fifth time. But finally, his curiosity could be contained no more.

"Master," he said, addressing his teacher. The mystic turned and gazed with soft, deep eyes. "Master. Why is it that every time you get a shipment of new tapestries, you grab a pin and loosen a thread in the center of each? I've seen you do this five times. I know how you love the tapestries, how you teach to always care for what we have here on earth." He turned his palms up. "Why?" The Mystic's soft eyes did not change their expression. "That is the secret," he said. The boy's face grew red and flushed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." His teacher continued. "The secret of the love. In the broken thread, the place of the flaw, is where you find your way to God."

[Image:  Mosaic on the ceiling of poet Hafiz's tomb in Shiraz, Iran]

[noornalini]

A common misconception is The belief that thinking Is the creation of thought. Rather, it is The reception of thought from A source which has no name And from a place that cannot be found. Since one can’t decide to think Nor can one decide Thought’s contents, Why does one Claim their ownership? Is every sound Wu Hsin’s because He can hear them?

Wu Hsin

[noornalini]

But when you begin to see yourself as nothing, when you begin to realize your thoughts do not matter, things that are happening in your life do not really matter because things will always work themselves out, for you live in a universe that loves you. You live in a universe of pure joy. You can only see this when you stop identifying with things. When you no longer take concern over what you should eat, what you should wear, where you should go then something strange happens. The power that knows the way. That grows the mangoes on the mango trees, the papayas, apples, pears, grows wheat. The power that gives you sunshine. Enough sunshine to maintain and sustain this whole universe in order to be life here. When you surrender to this power it will take care of you. This is something you all have to understand. There is a power that loves us. You may call this God, divine intelligence, makes no differ- ence what you call it but it's a power that loves you and will take care of you and will enlighten you and delight you. But your job is to surrender to it totally, absolutely. To let go of your personal ambitions, to let go of trying to become something, to let go of all the earthly things so-to-speak. It is only then when this power that knows the way will come to your aid and lift you up in the stream of blessedness that you won't know what hit you. You'll be blissed out.

Robert Adams (November 25, 1992)

[noornalini]

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.

So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.

– Aldous Huxley, from "Island"

Photo by Alex Greenshpun

[noornalini]

As long as you keep seeking you will keep on seeking. There will be no end to it. You have to put an end to it yourself.You have to sort of say to yourself, "What I have been seeking has been seeking me."

Robert Adams

[noornalini]

The best thing you can do is not react to anything, but to act from your heart with love, compassion, peace, and let the chips fall where they may.

Robert Adams

[motherofhermes]

Only if one knows the truth of Love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled knot of life be untied. Sri Ramana Maharshi

[noornalini]

‘Love is our being, desire is our rising’. Love wants oneness, desire wants manyness. The movement of love is towards oneness, and of desire is towards manyness. Love is ever self-contented, desire is ever discontented. The fulfilment and perfect state of love is self-love (svatma-bhakti), which is the experience of absolute oneness, but desire can never be fulfilled. Therefore all yogas or sadhanas aim towards oneness (which is sometimes called ‘union’ with God or the reality), and one-pointedness of mind is their vehicle. Sadhana is a growth from desire to love, and self-love is the driving force behind this growth.

Sadhu Om

[ashramof1-deactivated20201019]

Let the hands and legs do the job. You are not the hands or legs. You are the unmoving one.

Ramana Maharshi (via ashramof1)

[motherofhermes]

Every position that you find yourself in, every situation that you find yourself in, with whomever you find yourself with, wherever you may be in this world, is your right place at this moment. Bless it. Love it.

Robert Adams (via motherofhermes)

[know-the-self]

The thought: “I am the doer”  is the bite of a poisonous snake.  To know: “I do nothing” is the wisdom of faith.  Be happy.

Ashtavakra Gita (via know-the-self)

[noornalini]

The practitioner who has the greatest yearning devotion receives the greatest blessing. Even though rain falls evenly over the land, it is only where perfect seeds are properly cultivated and ready to sprout that a plant grows.

H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche