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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4209, Saturday, April 2, 2011
Life is a misery for the man absorbed in himself.
Bowl of Saki, April 3, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The more living the heart, the more sensitive it is; but that
which causes sensitiveness is the love-element in the heart, and
love is God. The person whose heart is not sensitive is without
feeling; his heart is not living, it is dead. In that case the
divine Spirit is buried in his heart. A person who is always
concerned with his own feelings is so absorbed in himself that he
has no time to think of another. His whole attention is taken up
with his own feelings. He pities himself, he worries about his
own pain, and is never open to sympathize with others. He who
takes notice of the feelings of another person with whom he comes
in contact, practices the first essential moral of Sufism.
A person who, alone, has seen something beautiful, who has heard
something harmonious, who has tasted something delicious, who has
smelt something fragrant, may have enjoyed it, but not
completely. The complete joy is in sharing one's joy with others.
For the selfish one who enjoys himself and does not care for
others, whether he enjoys things of the earth or things of
heaven, his enjoyment is not complete.
When a person is absorbed in himself, he has no time for
character-building, because he has no time to think of others:
then there is no other. But when he forgets himself, he has time
to look here and there, to collect what is good and beautiful,
and to add it naturally to his character. So the character is
built. One need not make an effort to build it, one has only to
forget oneself.
Every step in evolution makes life more valuable. The more
evolved you are, the more priceless is every moment; it becomes
an opportunity for you to do good to others, to serve others, to
give love to others, to be gentle to others, to give your
sympathy to souls who are longing and hungering for it. Life is
miserable when a person is absorbed in himself; as soon as he
forgets himself he is happy. The more he thinks of himself, his
own affairs, work and interests, the less he knows the meaning of
life. When a person looks at another he cannot at the same time
look at himself. Illness, disappointments and hardships matter
very little when one can look at them from a higher standpoint.
- posted to SufiMystic
Effortless compassion arises when you rest within the nature of
mind. How? When you see your own true nature, it is very
blissful, great joy. Then you understand from personal experience
that such sublime happiness actually exists, yet limitless
sentient beings have not seen this. Whoever has not experienced
this nature suffers greatly.
... Effortless compassion does not require an object of
compassion. In order for such compassion to arise, you must first
experience the nature of mind - how thoughts and afflictions
dissolve into the unmoving space of timeless awareness without
rejecting or accepting.
This is a very happy nature. Seeing this, naturally,
effortlessly, compassion arises for all those who have not been
able to see this before. If one has not seen the naturally
blissful nature of mind, one is bound to suffer. I bow to the
great treasure of unconditioned love, Chenrezig!
- Garchen Rinpoche, posted to DailyDharma
Wisdom lies in never forgetting the self as the ever-present
source of both the experiencer and his experience.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
The greatest help or service you can do to the world is the
imparting of knowledge of the Self. Spiritual help is the highest
help you can render to mankind. The root cause of human
sufferings is ignorance. If you can remove this ignorance in man,
then only can he be eternally happy. That sage who tries to
remove the ignorance is the highest benefactor in the world.
- Swami Sivananda, from Karma Yoga, posted to AlongTheWay
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched,
you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have
any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You
begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as
well as how much space.
- Pema Chodron
People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if
things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad
and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea
of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need
to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in
the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop
armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the
form of your life, to give you everything you need to open
further.
- Pema Chodron