Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4373, Sunday September 18, 2011
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom
that is in it and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits
down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot
stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit
down on a cold one anymore.
- Mark Twain, posted to Distillation
A coarse sieve catches little. A fine mesh catches more. If you
want the subtle, be refined, But prepare to deal with the coarse.
The irony of spiritual living is that you become more sensitive
and more subtle. Therefore, you become intolerant of the coarse.
There is not much choice in this. If you want to catch the subtle
things in life, then you must become refined your- self. But the
coarser things will then accumulate all the more quickly. A
coarse sieve in a rushing stream will hold back only debris and
large rocks. A fine mesh will catch smaller things, but it will
also retain the large.
Some people attempt to cope with this by becoming multilayered.
They set up a series of screens to their personali- ties, from
the coarse to the subtle so that they can deal with all that life
has to offer. This is quite laudable from an ordinary point of
view, but from the point of view of Tao, it is a great deal of
bother.
What do we do? If we remain coarse, then only the coarse comes to
us. If we become subtle, then we gain the refined but are plagued
with the coarse as well. If we become multi- layered, then we
create a complexity that isolates us from Tao.
The solution lies in floating on the current of Tao, uniting with
it. That way we no longer seek to hold or to reject.
- Deng Ming-Dao, posted to The_Now2
Lost in the wilderness between
true awareness and the senses,
I suddenly woke inside myself
like a lotus opening
in waterweeds.
- Lalla, from Naked Song: Versions by Coleman Barks.
posted to AlongTheWay
believe me
i wasn't always like this
lacking common sense
or looking insane
like you
i used to be clever
in my days
never like this
totally enraptured
totally gone
like sharp shooters
i used to be
a hunter of hearts
not like today
with my own heart
drowning in its blood
nonstop asking and
searching for answers
that was then
but now
so deeply enchanted
so deeply enthralled
always pushing
to be ahead and above
since i was not yet hunted down
by this
ever-increasing love
- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 1506, translation by Nader Khalili
from Rumi, Fountain of Fire, posted to Sunlight
All of This for Nothing
Was I always so
luscious? Did I gleam and
ripple, without adornment, like
the sparkling sea?
Every cell in my body
dancing! Shining
from the inside with
a light that comes from
nowhere.
Pinned to the moment
like a butterfly, no longer anywhere
else to go. Candle flickering inside
my heart, breath of my child
breathing me. Heart
thickly laden with invisible fruit, joy
beaming from my eyes.
Something broke inside, something laid down,
exhausted from the struggle, and
died. Whatever I gave
myself to then has flowered
inside and
taken over, turning
my home into night sky.
I cannot tell
you, where I have gone,
where I am going. As the darkness
took me, the road disappeared
behind, and ahead,
nothing.
Only walking through now and always
now. All of this
for nothing! With the entire universe
lovemaking
inside me, I have stopped
asking anyone
for anything.
- Jeannie Zandi, from the Stillness Speaks website