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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3267, Saturday, August 23, 2008, Editor: Mark



The first lesson to learn is to resign oneself to
the little difficulties in life, not to hit out at every-
thing one comes up against. If one were able
to manage this one would not need to cultivate
great power; even one's presence would be
healing. Such a person is more precious than
the branch of the rose, for that has many thorns
but only a few flowers.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan, posted to AlongTheWay




You do bad deeds and hope to get back good
Though bad deserves bad only in return.
God is merciful and kind, but even so,
If you plant barley, wheat won?t grow.
- Rumi, Quatrain #1798, from Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi, translated by Zara Houshmand.




By our thoughts we have prepared for ourselves the happiness or unhappiness we experience.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Fighting with another makes war, but struggling with one's self brings peace.

All our possessions, all that we collect in life, all these things which we shall have to leave one day are transitory; but that which we have created in our thought, in our mind, that lives. A person thinks, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' At this time he has no money, no knowledge, no capability; but a thought came, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' Then he thinks of something else. Perhaps years pass, but that thought has been working constantly through a thousand minds, and a thousand sources prepare for him that which he once desired. If we could look back to all we have thought of at different times, we would find that the line of fate or destiny, Kismet as it is called in the East, is formed by our thougt. Thoughts have prepared for us that happiness or unhappiness which we experience. The whole of mysticism is founded on this.

Joy, sorrow, love, all depend on our thought, on the activity of our mind. If we are depressed, if we are in despair, it is still the work of our mind; our mind has prepared that for us. If we are joyful and happy, and all things are pleasant, that also has been prepared for us by our mind. It is only when our mind works without control that unhappiness, sorrow, trouble, pain, or whatever we experience comes without our intention. No one could wish to create hell for himself; all would create heaven for themselves if they could; and yet how many allow their minds to create these things for them, regardless of their own intention.

'The present is the reflection of the past, and the future is the re- echo of the present.' Destiny is not what is already made. Destiny is what we are making. Very often fatalists think that we are in the hands of destiny, driven in whatever irection in life destiny wills; but in point of fact we are the masters of our destiny, especially from the moment we begin to realize this fact.

Man is responsible for his success and failure, for his rise and fall. And it is man who brings these about either knowingly or unknowingly.

- posted to SufiMystic




The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is that which alone is, and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term.

That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it.

- Ramana Maharshi




The person is what I appear to be to other persons. To myself, I am the infinite expanse of consciousness in which innumerable persons emerge and disappear in endless succession.

The person, the "I am this body, this mind, this chain of memories, this bundle of desires and fears" disappears, but something you may call identity remains. It enables me to become a person when required.

Nothing troubles me. I offer no resistance to trouble - therefore it does not stay with me. On your side there is so much trouble. On mine there is no trouble at all. Come to my side.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That

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