Past Events,
quotes & links
November 13, 2022
Lawrence Kushner
in The Book of Words
Energy in the form of light is trapped in gross matter. Sparks of holiness are imprisoned in the stuff of creation. They yearn to be set free, reunited with their Source through human action. When we return something to its proper place, where it belongs, where it was meant to be; when we use something in a sacred way or for a holy purpose; when we treat another human being as a human being, the captive sparks are released and the cosmos is healed. This liberation of light is called the Repair of Creation.
The process occurs also within each individual. According to one legend, once their was a primordial person as big as the whole universe whose soul contained all souls....
This person is identical with the universe and, for this reason,each human being is at the same time both riddled with divine sparks and in desperate need of repair. Each person is the whole world. And every human action therefore plays a role in the final restitution. Whatever we do is related to this ultimate task: to return all things to their original place in God. Everything a person does affects the process.
Lawrence Kushner
in The Book of Words
Energy in the form of light is trapped in gross matter. Sparks of holiness are imprisoned in the stuff of creation. They yearn to be set free, reunited with their Source through human action. When we return something to its proper place, where it belongs, where it was meant to be; when we use something in a sacred way or for a holy purpose; when we treat another human being as a human being, the captive sparks are released and the cosmos is healed. This liberation of light is called the Repair of Creation.
The process occurs also within each individual. According to one legend, once their was a primordial person as big as the whole universe whose soul contained all souls....
This person is identical with the universe and, for this reason,each human being is at the same time both riddled with divine sparks and in desperate need of repair. Each person is the whole world. And every human action therefore plays a role in the final restitution. Whatever we do is related to this ultimate task: to return all things to their original place in God. Everything a person does affects the process.
September 25, 2022
Sri Annamalai
companion of Ramana Maharshi
Realizing the Self is the only useful and worthy activity in this life, so keep the body in good repair till that goal is achieved. Afterwards, the Self will take care of everything and you won't have to worry about anything any more. In fact, you won't be able to, because the mind that previously did the worrying, the choosing and the discriminating will no longer be there. In that state you won't need it and you won't miss it.
Don't be interested in the words that the mind is serving up for you. It is putting them there to tempt you into a stream of thoughts that will take you away from the Self. You have to ignore them all and focus on the light that is shining within you.
Self has no birth, no death, no sufferings and no problems.
Sri Annamalai
companion of Ramana Maharshi
Realizing the Self is the only useful and worthy activity in this life, so keep the body in good repair till that goal is achieved. Afterwards, the Self will take care of everything and you won't have to worry about anything any more. In fact, you won't be able to, because the mind that previously did the worrying, the choosing and the discriminating will no longer be there. In that state you won't need it and you won't miss it.
Don't be interested in the words that the mind is serving up for you. It is putting them there to tempt you into a stream of thoughts that will take you away from the Self. You have to ignore them all and focus on the light that is shining within you.
Self has no birth, no death, no sufferings and no problems.
July 24, 2022
Tao Te Ching v.54 - Lao Tzu
tr. Jonathan Star
When a person embodies Tao
his heart becomes true
When a family embodies Tao
it thrives
When a village embodies Tao
it is protected
When a country embodies Tao
it prospers
When the world embodies Tao
it reveals its perfection
Tao is everywhere
it has become everything
To truly see it, see it as it is
In a person, see it as a person
In a family, see it as a family
In a country, see it as a country
In the world, see it as the world
How have I come to know all this?
Tao has shown me-
Tao as all this!
Tao Te Ching v.54 - Lao Tzu
tr. Jonathan Star
When a person embodies Tao
his heart becomes true
When a family embodies Tao
it thrives
When a village embodies Tao
it is protected
When a country embodies Tao
it prospers
When the world embodies Tao
it reveals its perfection
Tao is everywhere
it has become everything
To truly see it, see it as it is
In a person, see it as a person
In a family, see it as a family
In a country, see it as a country
In the world, see it as the world
How have I come to know all this?
Tao has shown me-
Tao as all this!
May 22, 2022
words of Mooji (Jamaican spiritual teacher):
When you are free of your identity and your person, nothing more needs to be learned. It's like another power, a great presence, flowing through this body and it doesn't seem strange. The less there is of you, the more you are. What a paradox! You without you are the real You. You without your person are the face of God. Your life doesn't get more complex, more sophisticated, more learned. You are not becoming a great scholar. It is so simple, there is a presence, wisdom, love, unlimited. A peace, unbreakable, alive, without end. Not a person. And yet you feel it inside, "I don't do anything. I simply am."
words of Mooji (Jamaican spiritual teacher):
When you are free of your identity and your person, nothing more needs to be learned. It's like another power, a great presence, flowing through this body and it doesn't seem strange. The less there is of you, the more you are. What a paradox! You without you are the real You. You without your person are the face of God. Your life doesn't get more complex, more sophisticated, more learned. You are not becoming a great scholar. It is so simple, there is a presence, wisdom, love, unlimited. A peace, unbreakable, alive, without end. Not a person. And yet you feel it inside, "I don't do anything. I simply am."
March 27, 2022
Eckhart Tolle
from "The Power of Now" (p.28)
The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.
If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say "yes" to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life-- and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
Eckhart Tolle
from "The Power of Now" (p.28)
The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.
If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say "yes" to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life-- and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
March 13, 2022
James V. Goure
from "Leading a Life of Prayer"
The only security is that which is the ultimate of all of us, the Divine, in all of its attributes. This is Life. This is true living, when we are no longer attached, when we are no longer conditioned by our two-by-four body. We exist as Love. Not giving Love, but being Love. Giving Love is a limitation because that makes us think we are better than others. But when you are Love, you are Love in all that is. You are Love in the Creator. And that Love in the Creator is Beingness in every cell, in every aspect of the Creator and the Creation.
The ultimate goal of each of us is this Beingness and the increase of this Beingness in a way that creates only Good. This Beingness is nearly impossible to describe. It simply is! Everything has a desire to feel this IS-ness. Everything! It is the goal of all that is.
James V. Goure
from "Leading a Life of Prayer"
The only security is that which is the ultimate of all of us, the Divine, in all of its attributes. This is Life. This is true living, when we are no longer attached, when we are no longer conditioned by our two-by-four body. We exist as Love. Not giving Love, but being Love. Giving Love is a limitation because that makes us think we are better than others. But when you are Love, you are Love in all that is. You are Love in the Creator. And that Love in the Creator is Beingness in every cell, in every aspect of the Creator and the Creation.
The ultimate goal of each of us is this Beingness and the increase of this Beingness in a way that creates only Good. This Beingness is nearly impossible to describe. It simply is! Everything has a desire to feel this IS-ness. Everything! It is the goal of all that is.
Feb. 27, 2022
"Only Breath" by Rumi
(translated by Coleman Barks)
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or culture or nationality. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
"Only Breath" by Rumi
(translated by Coleman Barks)
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or culture or nationality. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
Feb. 13, 2022
words of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev:
"Gratitude is not an attitude. Gratitude is something that flows out of you when you are overwhelmed by what has been given to you... may you be overwhelmed by life, this tremendous phenomenon that is Creator and creation at once! One moment of absolute gratitude can transform your whole life."
"How people are is their choice. How I am is my choice. No matter what they do, no one can make me angry, happy or unhappy. These privileges I have kept to myself."
words of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev:
"Gratitude is not an attitude. Gratitude is something that flows out of you when you are overwhelmed by what has been given to you... may you be overwhelmed by life, this tremendous phenomenon that is Creator and creation at once! One moment of absolute gratitude can transform your whole life."
"How people are is their choice. How I am is my choice. No matter what they do, no one can make me angry, happy or unhappy. These privileges I have kept to myself."