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#2667 - Sunday, December 10, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee


The Nondual Highlights        

"We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

--Joni Mitchell    

On Garden Mystics, Mazie Lane has taken up winter gardening by
cultivating orchids. This is both easier and more affordable than it
used to be, with internet sources for ordering diectly from growers.
The beautiful photos with orchid names and the quotes in green are
supplied by Mazie. What does all this have to do with nonduality?
If you have to ask, one of the best answers was given by Keats:

    'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

 
"The flower is a leaf mad with love." --Goethe    

The orchid below, Epicattleya Kyoguchi 'Fumi' is just such as that which Goethe reflected upon.   

   

"The color green represents tranquility, hope, and freshness." --Master Lin Yin    

The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
"Having realized that I am one with, and yet beyond the world, I
became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I
should be free, I found myself free, unexpectedly, without the least
effort."
posted on A Net of Jewels

      "When I place a flower on my night table and sketch it faithfully, it seems to me that, little by little, I comprehend the secret of creation." --Shiki    

One of the upcoming performers in the Paradise Chorale of Kinship: Blc. Chia Lin 'Shin Shy' AM/AOS x Slc. Mahalo Jack 'Haiku' ...  

   

About the culture and care of the orchids - the humidity is kept pretty high by my using a neat little thing that mists and humidifies while sending out a colorful array of lights that keep changing from beneath the water. I also use trays of water for evaporation/humidification for the orchids. I mist them everyday also. Considering that they're living in a hostile environment, culturally speaking ala the average home usually being bone-dry because of the heating systems in use during the cold winter months, it's absolutely mandatory (for their assured health and vigor) that they simply must have the humidity levels raised by artificial means. I recently counted the orchids in our collection and we are now growing lovingly, and sharing contentedly, our home with one hundred and twenty-eight of the beautiful, precious beings. These are just some of our orchid friends now residing with us in Paradise (one made more so into a virtual Paradise by their very presence in our lives.    

"Our primary inspiration is nature - specifically the sensations of luminosity." --Donald Kaufman    

Here's Luminosity waiting in the Heart wings of this human theater, for sure! Blc. George King 'Serendipity' AM/AOS x Slc. Mad Max 'Maui Coral' ...  

     

"Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape who dost in every country change Thy shape." --Abraham Cowley    

The Beautiful Brassia Eternal Wind 'Summer's Dream' ...    

   

"All disciplines are fixations: discipline excludes everything, except 
the one thing that one wishes to concentrate upon. Thus one 
establishes a dictatorship over oneself and all understanding is 
jeopardized. What is absolutely necessary is attention without 
strain. When I observe myself, I am really forced to admit that 
every day I am the prisoner of a thousand unsatisfied desires, or 
desires whose satisfaction brings me no permanent bliss. So it 
seems to me that instead of endless running from one desire to 
another, it would be better to stop and examine the true nature of 
desire. If this investigation is successful you will penetrate the 
nature of the true aim of all desire. What any desire really aims at, is
a state of non desire. This non desire is a state in which we demand
absolutely nothing. Thus it is a state of extreme abundance, of fullness.

This fullness is revealed as being bliss and peace. You now
know that you are really seeking nothing else but fullness and 
absolute peace.
Now that you have understood the inner nature of your ultimate
goal, you perceive that the ultimate goal is, in fact, not a goal, that is
to say an end towards which you strive, but that the ultimate state
can only be the consequence of relaxing and letting go. Liberation is
not to be obtained by collecting and accumulating, but by being
rooted in a state of being which is truly ours and in which we live
constantly without knowing it. Even if we wished to, we could not
live for a single moment outside of this state."
 

--Jean Klein 
posted by Ben Hassine

   

Here's a particularly excellent photo showing what the flower will look like:

   

One of the Cattleyas that's in sheath right now is going to have huge purple, nine inch blossoms that have an intense, spicy scent.    

"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something ... To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, all in one." --John Ruskin    

It is through mindful observation of what is actually there that the
delusion that makes us perceive what is impermanent and transient
as permanent and lasting is gradually dispelled. Liberation consists
in experiencing and understanding fully and clearly that everything
is impermanent and seeing that there is quite literally nothing to
worry about.
--Amadeus Sole-Leris, Tranquility & Insight

    A great Beauty ... a perfect Heart Muse ~ Blc. Exotic Apricot x Pot. Exotic Dream:

 

Here's another night-scented orchid, another sumptuous green but this one with a frilly lip. It's called  Brassavola. digbyana 'Arcadian Alba'  

Rhy gigantea 'Burgundy Wine' x self

    "Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute." --William Shakespeare    

These verses are dedicated to Mazie, whose light indeed shines bright.

[XVII] The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright:

By Kabir
(1440 - 1518)

Translated by Rabindranath Tagore

The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright:
The melody of love swells forth, and the rhythm of love's detachment beats the time.
Day and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; and Kabir says
"My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky."

Do you know how the moments perform their adoration?
Waving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and night,
There are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:
There the sound of the unseen bells is heard.
Kabir says: "There adoration never ceases; there the Lord of the Universe sitteth on His throne."
The whole world does its works and commits its errors: but few are the lovers who know the Beloved.
The devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart the double currents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the streams of Ganges and Jumna;
In his heart the sacred water flows day and night; and thus the round of births and deaths is brought to an end.

Behold what wonderful rest is in the Supreme Spirit! and he enjoys it, who makes himself meet for it.
Held by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to and fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song.
See what a lotus blooms there without water! and Kabir says
"My heart's bee drinks its nectar."
What a wonderful lotus it is, that blooms at the heart of the spinning wheel of the universe! Only a few pure souls know of its true delight.
Music is all around it, and there the heart partakes of the joy of the Infinite Sea.
Kabir says: "Dive thou into that Ocean of sweetness: thus let all errors of life and of death flee away."

Behold how the thirst of the five senses is quenched there! and the three forms of misery are no more!
Kabir says: "It is the sport of the Unattainable One: look within, and behold how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine in you."
There falls the rhythmic beat of life and death:
Rapture wells forth, and all space is radiant with light.
There the Unstruck Music is sounded; it is the music of the love of the three worlds.
There millions of lamps of sun and of moon are burning;
There the drum beats, and the lover swings in play.
There love-songs resound, and light rains in showers; and the worshipper is entranced in the taste of the heavenly nectar.
Look upon life and death; there is no separation between them,
The right hand and the left hand are one and the same.
Kabir says: "There the wise man is speechless; for this truth may never be found in Vedas or in books."

I have had my Seat on the Self-poised One,
I have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable,
I have found the Key of the Mystery,
I have reached the Root of Union.
Travelling by no track, I have come to the Sorrowless Land: very easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me.
They have sung of Him as infinite and unattainable: but I in my meditations have seen Him without sight.
That is indeed the sorrowless land, and none know the path that leads there:
Only he who is on that path has surely transcended all sorrow.
Wonderful is that land of rest, to which no merit can win;
It is the wise who has seen it, it is the wise who has sung of it.
This is the Ultimate Word: but can any express its marvelous savour?
He who has savoured it once, he knows what joy it can give.
Kabir says: "Knowing it, the ignorant man becomes wise, and the wise man becomes speechless and silent,
The worshipper is utterly inebriated,
His wisdom and his detachment are made perfect;
He drinks from the cup of the inbreathings and the outbreathings of love."

There the whole sky is filled with sound, and there that music is made without fingers and without strings;
There the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.
Kabir says: "If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life, you will find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss."

What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour! and the worshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the hours: he lives in the life of Brahma.
I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
Kabir says: "Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have all errors of life and of death left him."

There the sky is filled with music:
There it rains nectar:
There the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
What a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!
There no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the sun;
In the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day and night are felt to be one.
Joy for ever, no sorrow,--no struggle!
There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;
No place for error is there.
Kabir says: "There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!"

I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped from the error of this world.
The inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite and the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this All!
This Light of Thine fulfills the universe: the lamp of love that burns on the salver of knowledge.
Kabir says: "There error cannot enter, and the conflict of life and death is felt no more."

 

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