Seclusion

"Living in forests far away from other people is not true seclusion. True seclusion is to be free from the power of likes and dislikes. It is also to be free from the mental attitude that one must be special because one is treading the path. Those who remove themselves to far forests often feel superior to others. They think that because they are solitary they are being guided in a special way and that those who live an ordinary life can never have that experience. But that is conceit and is not help others. The true recluse is one who is available to others, helping them with affectionate speech and personal example."

~Prajnaparamita

He awakens my slumbering soul

You ask then how I knew He was present,
when His ways can in no way be traced?
He is life and power, and as soon as He
enters in, He awakens my slumbering soul;
He stirs and soothes and pierces my
heart, for before it was hard as stone,
and diseased.
- Bernard of Clairvaux

Inner Discipline

"As long as there is a lack of inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life."

~The Dalai Lama

The Creative Dimension of God

"Eros, or the creative dimension of God, is that burning intelligence and driving impulse that is ever leaning forward, reaching toward the emergence of that which has not yet become manifest."

~Andrew Cohen

It seems that we are called to become "living embodiments of those values that create the conditions for that unselfconscious creativity at the very edge of the possible."

Start with the person nearest you

Never worry about numbers. Help one
person at a time, and always
start with the person nearest you.

- Mother Teresa

"I struggled hard but did not reap the fruits of my labors. Then I gazed into myself and found that my ego and my heart were unified. When the ego and the heart are united, a portion of all that shines upon the heart is seized by the self. Thus I came to know the cause of my dilemma; that the light illuminating my heart was being seized by my ego."

~Al-Nuri, in "Islamic Sufism"

The Path

Walking this path...
I reach back, touching the hands of those walking
around the world,
weaving our love to hold that which is no more,
to that unknown
where all life ends and begins again...
Asking for compassion,
humility,
sustenance,
love,
healing,
recognizing our face in other,
being present with this step,
and the next...
holding our light,
gently...
so others may find their way home.

~Lea Goode-Harris

Love and Emptiness

As we progress in meditation, emptiness becomes more apparent. Emptiness means that there is no inherent existence. Emptiness and egolessness are very similar in that way. Emptiness is empty of our assumptions, and it is full of compassion. We realize that assumptions are the basis of most of our experiences, and we discover that the mind and the world are actually empty of those assumptions. Discovering our selfless nature is freedom.
Sometimes we understand emptiness to mean that nothing exists, which is nihilism. A more accurate perspective is that without emptiness we cannot have form, and without form we cannot have emptiness. They are inseparable. Exchanging self for other, we realize the self is empty. Then we realize that other is empty, too. That is how true giving and taking can happen. Exchanging oneself for other is the point where relative and absolute truth meet. The whole notion of self and others starts dissolving. If there's somebody sending, who's receiving?
....we begin to see egolessness-we can't find any inherent thing. Compassion seems endless and boundless, but where does compassion come from? Where does insight come from? Where is the mind? Actually we have the capacity to know, but we can't completely understand unless we practice meditation. Mind is empty and luminous: that is its nature. The Mahayana teachings say that with the right view, we can utilize certain aspects of our emotions in order to bring out this natural wisdom. As we develop love and compassion through practice, glimmers of wisdom begin to shine through.

Shaping What Is To Come

"Just look at the troubles of the church. Look at the hideous forms of Islamic and Christian and Jewish fundamentalism--it's like we're witnessing the decay of these religions right in front of us while this new thing is being born. It's like Yeat's line from 'The Second Coming': 'What rough beast, its hour come round at last/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?' It's this worldview that's slowly emerging, this rough beast. But it's unfinished. And folks, we've all got to go out there and contribute to it. I mean, either we do it, or we don't and we sink back into the next cataclysm. Because it ain't predetermined. It'a all up to us. And we know that deep down. We know it's up to us."

Michael Murphy, "The Fundamental Urge of the Universe"

Deep, unbroken silence

There are seasons when to be still demands
immeasurably higher strength than to act.
Composure is often the highest result of
power. To the vilest and most deadly charges
Jesus responded with deep, unbroken silence,
such as excited the wonder of the judge and
the spectators. To the grossest insults, the
most violent ill-treatment and mockery that
might well bring indignation into the feeblest
heart, He responded with voiceless complacent
calmness. Those who are unjustly accused, and
causelessly ill-treated, know what tremendous
strength is necessary to keep silence to God.
- Margaret Bottome

The New Year-2011

We have entered a new year full of both promise, and now, peril after the events in Tucson, Arizona. Clearly our society is under stress and the fissures are there for all to see. In light of this, I am reminded by Rumi to step outside the "fear-thinking" of the present moment into some other mode of knowing and seeing.

Outside there is the freezing desert night and the blast of wind.
But there is this other night inside growing warm and kindling.
Though the outer landscapes may be covered with thorny crusts,
we have this soft garden here inside.
The continents may be blasted, cities and little towns,
everything becoming a scorched, blackened ball,
and the news we hear be full of grief and concern for the future.
But the real news is here inside
and it is that, this is no news at all
for some other world is forming.

The Other Voice

As dawn breaks
in this microcosm of the day,
I stop to listen at the pause
of breath and sound
to what instruction from the heart
that can be heard or read
that will direct the courses taken
in the stream of time...
This rapid flow that
sweeps us forward on
the moving crest of life's
events--
that pushes us toward
the great unknowns
is not the only power that holds
our fate.
This other voice awakens us
to take some new direction
or make some simple change of thought
or deed, that moves the
macrocosmic wheels of heaven
and earth unseen.

Freedom and Necessity

[In conversations over the holidays, the question of determinism and free will came up in a number of settings. In our Metaphysical studies, Nicoll's answer is quite compelling.]

The intelligible substance, if it is drawn near to God, has power over itself.... If it falls away, it chooses the corporeal world and in that way becomes subject to Necessity which rules the Kosmos (Stobei, Hermetica, VIII).

"What is to be understood by the intelligible substance drawing near to God? Does it not simply mean an ascent of this ladder of degrees of consciousness within us? 'The idea of God is the idea of our spiritual natures enlarged to infinity' (Wm. E. Channing). To put 'God' inside us is itself a reversal, for our material conception of God is as something outside in the sensible world. But God is closer 'than the neck-vein' because understanding is not outside us; and to understand differently, in a new way, is always close to us, because this ladder of consciousness is within us. Outside is the world of experience, inside are degrees of understanding; and if the intelligible substance draws near another understanding of things it draws near to 'God', i.e. to an enlargement of consciousness. It all depends upon what we make most important. As Plato said, there are three things--soul, body, and money, and all three have their place (Rep. IX).

It is remarkable how we put 'God' outside us--how we cannot get away from a three-dimensional view of things. 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it.' Yet do we ever see the matter in this way? Do we comprehend that 'God' is understanding, and that the worse our understanding the more tyrannical and 'outside' does 'God' seem to us, and the more slavery we are in?

Man gains freedom only through the use of his highest faculties. Materialism makes him more and more a slave to the forces of the phenomenal world. It is easier for us to take things as they appear--nay, even feel that we can deal with everything by means of our logic, and even 'conquer' nature. The point is, however, that such an outlook does not call into activity the unawakened higher degrees of understanding. Therefore it means that we remain handicapped, although it looks as if our attitude were extremely practical. The crux of the matter lies just in that there are no further degrees of understanding in us, that we are products of a mechanical selection, without surplus, then we must insist upon a purely rational or logical approach to life, since we have this degree of understanding naturally. If we believe otherwise, then we must take our reason or logic only as one partial and very necessary approach to life, but not inclusive of other forms of understanding. The Hermetic fragment, while showing that a materialistic standpoint goes ultimately against our own interest, indicates a principle of freedom and also a the source of our slavery. The more man is turned toward the corporeal world and argues from the sensible alone, the more will he fall under the power of necessity, i.e. the more enslaved he becomes by outward things.' (203-205)

Einstein on metaphysics

"A human being is a part of the whole we call the universe-
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings
as something separated from the rest-
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting
us to our personal desires and to affection for
a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by
widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in all its beauty."

~Albert Einstein

(Apologies for the gender limitations)

Into the desired haven

How often do we look upon God as our
last and feeblest resource! We go to
Him because we have nowhere else to go.
And then we learn that the storms of
life have driven us, not upon the rocks,
but into the desired haven.
- George MacDonald (1824-1905),
"Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood