Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2398 - Monday, February 20, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
All of the selections in this issue were posted by Mazie Lane,
most to Nonduality Salon. Mazie is a generous contributor to many
lists, one whose loving spirit shines brightly wherever she goes.
Thank you, Mazie.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"... the soul sees, knows, feels, and comprehends God as
invisible
light, incomprehensible and unknown good. Comprehending, seeing,
knowing, and feeling God, the soul, according to its capacity,
expands in him and becomes filled with him through love... The
soul,
then, experiences and possesses God's sweetness more from what it
does not comprehend than from what it comprehends, more from what
it
does not see than from what it sees, more from what it does not
feel
than from what it feels, more finally, from what it does not know
than from what it knows."
~ Angela Foligno
As I Am,
Mzie
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough,
is true security to be found."
"The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity.
Godlike he
blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas
the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last
analysis
completely expressible in words."
"The loneliness you get by the sea is personal and alive. It
doesn't
subdue you and make you feel abject. It's stimulating
loneliness."
"The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere."
"The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not
in demanding
or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship
lies neither in
looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but
living
in the present and accepting it as it is now."
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The seeker said to himself, "If I'd known
the real meaning of this being with God,
how should I have gone searching for Him?
But that knowledge depended on this journeying:
that knowing can't be gained by thinking, no
matter how precise."
~ Rumi
Speak Kindly To Yourself
“What is this self inside us, this silent observer,
severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize us,
and urge us on to futile activity,
and in the end, judge us still more severely,
for the errors into which his own reproaches drove us?”
~ T. S. Eliot
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Enlightenment absorbs this universe of qualities.
When that merging occurs, there is nothing
but God. This is the only doctrine.
There is no word for it, no mind
to understand it with, no categories
of transcendence or non-transcendence,
no vow of silence, no mystical attitude.
There is no Shiva and no Shakti
in enlightenment, and if there is something
that remains, that whatever-it-is
is the only teaching."
~Lalla
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Humility is very, very important. Everybody wants to win a
point,
win an argument, win a fight, and yet if you have humility, it
never
comes into your mind to win or get even .....
...... Say somebody slaps you. The first thing our ego
will tell us is to beat them up, slap them back, shoot them, kill
them, get even with them. But if we're wise, we'll understand the
reason we were slapped on the face ......
Therefore, anything that has ever happened to you in any area of
your
life, no matter how it looks, you are in your right place. No one
is
picking on you, no one is trying to do anything to you. No one is
trying to hurt you. If you cooperate and do not react and do not
retaliate, and send out a message of love and peace, then you
will
transcend that .....
But if you retaliate and you try to win the battle, you may
appear to be winning
the battle this instant, you may appear to be getting somewhere,
but
the fruits of your actions must return sooner or later.
Therefore,
you are playing games with yourself and you'll never get
anywhere;
you'll keep repeating the situation again and again and again,
with
different people, you may move to a different state, be involved
in
different situations, but you will find the same problems.
Therefore, whatever seems wrong in your life, whatever seems
terrible, do not look at the problem in itself as a problem. Rise
above it, realize no one is to blame for it, you have no enemies,
no
one is trying to hurt you. This is humility.
You're not a coward, you're not a wimp. You have risen above that
kind of thinking. That kind of thinking does not exist.
That's why the story of Ramana Maharshi, when he went for a walk
in the jungle one day, and he inadvertantly stepped into a wasps'
nest,
and the wasps started stinging him, he didn't even pull his leg
out,
but he spoke to the wasps and said:
"I deserve this, I invaded the house where you live
and I deserve what you are doing to my leg, and if you want, you
can
attack the other leg."
When he got back to the ashram from his walk,
he was bitten all through the leg and had to put ointment on it.
But
he wasn't fazed one bit. He had a perpetual smile on his face,
with
the realization "All is well."
Now look at your lives. Think of the things that bother you every
day, that annoy you every day, the things that make you angry,
that
make you upset, that make you want to retaliate. Get rid of
this."
~ Silence of the Heart: Dialogues With Robert Adams, published by
Acropolis Books. (I removed the karma reference portions of the
dialogue,
leaving the rest of the piece intact)
As I Am,
Mzie
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When you see yourself
and someone else
as one being,
when you know the most joyful day
and the most terrible night
as one moment, then
awareness is alone
with it Lord."
~Lalla
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An example of self-love and acceptance in action could be
something
like this: Let's say I've identified that I am afraid. I could
say, 'I
am a brave and courageous person,' but that's not going to do any
good.
Or I could say, 'It's ok to be afraid,' and begin to focus on
what this
fear is...."
"Am I afraid all of the time? No. Well, when am I afraid?
What exactly
am I afraid of? If I'm trying to hide the fear, repress it, not
let
myself know that I have it, it can become a weapon for self-hate
because
instead of being someone who is afraid of a specific thing, I get
labelled by self-hate as a frightened, fearful, whiny, needy,
cowardly
person. But if I'm just afraid of 'something,' and that's okay,
that
nonjudgement is an open doorway that I can go through. The
acceptance
brings me back to myself. I can be still with the fear as it's
happening, experience it for what it is, and allow it to be
healed
within that acceptance."
~ Cheri Huber, Zen teacher, fom the book, "There Is Nothing
Wrong With You: Regardless Of What You Were Taught To Believe, A
Compassionate Process For Learning To Accept Yourself Exactly As
You Are," published by Keep It Simple Books.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How To Outwit a Mosquito
"My early months with Sri Yukteswar culminated in a useful
lesson—
"How to Outwit a Mosquito." At home my family always
used protective
curtains at night. I was dismayed to discover that in the
Serampore hermitage
this prudent custom was honored in the breach. Yet the insects
were in full residency; I was bitten from head to foot. My guru
took pity on me.
"Buy yourself a curtain, and also one for me." He
laughed and added,
"If you buy only one, for yourself, all mosquitoes will
concentrate on me!"
I was more than thankful to comply. Every night that I spent in
Serampore,
my guru would ask me to arrange the bedtime curtains.
The mosquitoes one evening were especially virulent. But Master
failed
to issue his usual instructions. I listened nervously to the
anticipatory hum
of the insects. Getting into bed, I threw a propitiatory prayer
in their general direction. A half hour later, I coughed
pretentiously to attract my guru's
attention. I thought I would go mad with the bites and especially
the singing
drone as the mosquitoes celebrated bloodthirsty rites.
No responsive stir from Master; I approached him cautiously. He
was not
breathing. This was my first observation of him in the yogic
trance; it filled
me with fright.
"His heart must have failed!" I placed a mirror under
his nose; no breath-vapor appeared. To make doubly certain, for
minutes I closed his mouth and nostrils
with my fingers. His body was cold and motionless. In a daze, I
turned toward the door to summon help.
"So! A budding experimentalist! My poor nose!" Master's
voice was shaky
with laughter.
"Why don't you go to bed? Is the whole world
going to change for you? Change yourself: be rid of
the mosquito consciousness."
Meekly I returned to my bed. Not one insect ventured near.
I realized that my guru had previously agreed to the curtains
only to please me; he had no fear of mosquitoes. His yogic
power was such that he either could will them not to bite,
or could escape to an inner invulnerability.
The instructive mosquitoes served for another early
lesson at the ashram. It was the gentle hour of dusk.
My guru was matchlessly interpreting the ancient texts.
At his feet, I was in perfect peace. A rude mosquito
entered the idyl and competed for my attention. As it
dug a poisonous hypodermic needle into my thigh, I
automatically raised an avenging hand.
Reprieve from impending execution! An opportune memory came
to me of one of Patanjali's yoga aphorisms—that on ahimsa
(harmlessness).
"Why didn't you finish the job?"
"Master! Do you advocate taking life?"
"No; but the deathblow already had been struck in your
mind."
"I don't understand."
"Patanjali's meaning was the removal of desire to
kill."
Sri Yukteswar had found my mental processes an open book.
"This world is inconveniently arranged for a literal
practice
of ahimsa. Man may be compelled to exterminate harmful creatures.
He is not under similar compulsion to feel anger or animosity.
All forms of life have equal right to the air of maya.
The saint who uncovers the secret of creation will be
in harmony with its countless bewildering expressions.
All men may approach that understanding who curb the
inner passion for destruction."
~ Paramahansa Yogananda, "Autobiography of a Yogi"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Your pride in yourself and your wanting,
these steal your energy along the road.
If you can kill these robbers
and become the servant of everyone,
you'll meet the Lord in meditation
and see what you used to protect
as just a pile of ashes."
~ Lalla
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Witness: Stay at the Flame's Core
"The manifest world moves by, held in the witness, stars
reflecting in the nightcreek. There is a natural motion
to the way of love, as well as the passionate stillpoints.
The mystery of the witness is that there's no experience
involved, nor anything one does or feels,
just the background
of a quiet, interstellar absence."
~ Rumi, from "The Soul of Rumi"