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Nondual Highlights Issue #2421, Wednesday, March 15, 200, Editor: Mark
God is truth, and truth is God.
- Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Many intellectual people, with their various ideas, differ from
one another in their opinions and in their way of looking at
things, in their speculations, but do the prophets differ from
one another? No, they cannot differ. The reason is that it is the
various minds which differ, not the souls. The one who lives in
his mind, is conscious of his mind; the one who lives in his soul
is conscious of the soul. ... When a person is living in his
mind, he is living through the darkness of the night. The moment
he rises above his mind and awakens in the light of the soul he
becomes spiritual. And if a thousand spiritual people speak, they
will say the same thing, perhaps in different words but with only
one meaning, for they have one and the same vision. This is why
spiritual realization is called the truth. There are many facts
but only one truth. The facts can be put into words but not the
truth, for God is truth, the soul is truth, the real self of man
is truth.
We generally confuse truth with fact, and we often use the word
fact for truth. When we look at it from the mystic's point of
view we find that words are too intricate ever to explain what is
truth. ... Truth is that which cannot be pointed out, because all
things that can be compared have their opposite, but neither God
nor truth has an opposite. Names are to point out forms, and
words are to distinguish one thing from another, while
definitions come from the pairs of opposites or at least from
differences. That which is all-pervading and is in all things and
beings, that which every word explains and yet no word can
explain, is God and is truth.
The seeker after truth goes out into the world and he finds
innumerable different sects and religions. He does not know where
to start. Then he desires to find out what is hidden under these
sects, these different religions, and he begins to seek the
object which he wishes to gain through wisdom. Wisdom is a veil
over truth, even wisdom cannot be called truth. God alone is
truth, and it is truth that is God. And truth can neither be
studied nor taught nor learned; it is to be touched, it is to be
realized; and it can be realized by the unfoldment of the heart.
Truth is one, God is one, life is one. To me there is no such
thing as two. Two is only one plus one.
- posted to SufiMystic
It happens to almost everybody. The more knowledgeable you
become, the less wonder is felt. And parents, schools,
universities, society, they all go on forcing you to become
knowledgeable. Their whole effort is to give you knowledge. Your
inner space becomes so full of knowledge that wonder disappears,
wonder has no space left to abide in you.
A child has the yes of wonder. He feels awe, he is mystified by
each and everything, small things surprise him. Hence his
bubbling joy, because his life is a constant discovery.
You become knowledgeable, the society wants you to become
knowledgeable. Knowledge is very very needed, knowledge has much
utility. And wonder is dangerous, because a person who wonders is
bound to become either a philosopher or a poet or a mystic, and
all these three kinds are useless for the society.
Society needs machines, skillful machines. By giving you more and
more knowledge, making you full of knowledge, society turns you
into an automaton, into a robot. And the more you think you know,
the more wonder becomes impossible - because when you know, how
can you wonder?
A small child can wonder why the trees are green. But how can you
wonder? You know it is because of chlorophyll - although you
don't know much, because another question can be raised as to why
chlorophyll makes trees green, and you will have to shrug your
shoulders. You have simply pushed the question back a little.
The more you know, the less you wonder. But the moment wonder
dies in you, religion dies in you, because religion consists of
wonder and awe. Knowledge demystifies life and existence, and
religion exists only when life is a mystery. Hence you will have
to learn wonder again.
In fact a right kind of education will never do this. It will
give you knowledge, but it will not destroy your wonder; that
will be the right kind of education. It will give you knowledge,
but it will keep you alert that no knowledge can destroy wonder.
In fact, on the contrary, knowledge can make you more wondering.
The small child cannot wonder about chlorophyll. If you are
rightly educated, you can wonder about the greenery of the trees,
you can also wonder about chlorophyll.
Albert Einstein's last words were, "I have been thinking the
whole of my life that I would demystify the universe. But what
has happened is just the contrary. The deeper I went into
existence, the more the mystery deepened. I am dying full of
wonder, I am dying in wonder."
But this is rare; this is the quality of a genius. The genius is
one who does not allow the society to reduce him to a robot:
that's my definition of a genius. Everybody is born as a genius,
but people start compromising very soon. And when they
compromise, their talents disappear, their intelligence dies.
- Osho, from Unio Mystica Vol 2,
posted to AdvaitaToZen
Someone says, "I can't help feeding my family.
I have to work so hard to earn a living."
He can do without God, but not without food;
he can do without Religion,
but not without idols.
Where is one who'll say,
"If I eat bread without awareness of God,
I will choke."
- Rumi, from Mathnawi II: 3071-3079;
version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi:
Daylight, posted to Sunlight
The state of craving for anything blocks all
deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen
to a mind which knows exactly what it wants.
For nothing the mind can visualize and want is
of much value.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
, from I Am That, posted
to AlongTheWay
Why should we two ever want to part?
Just as the leaf of the water rhubarb lives floating
on the water,
We live as the Great one and the little one.
As the owl opens his eyes all night to the moon, we
live as
The Great one and the little one.
This love between us goes back to the first humans; it
cannot be annihilated.
Here is Kabir's idea: as the river gives itself into
the ocean,
What is inside me moves inside you.
- Kabir, posted to DailyDharma
The whole creation speaks of
the Divine ...
to him who knows
how to 'hear'
within his heart.
- posted to Poetic_Mysticism