Lunar Eclipse. Thursday, September 7. The lunar eclipse begins
at 16:42 universal time,
The eclipse is visible to those in Africa, Asia, Australia and
Eastern Europe, who must be most cautious.
Solar Eclipse. Friday, September 22. The solar eclipse begins at
9:48 am universal time, This eclipse will be visible to those in South America and Africa,
who should be most cautious. While eclipses are thought to be a bad time for most activities,
they are thought to be especially auspicious times to meditate or
do japa (repetition of the names of God). So if possible, mark
these days on your calendar for meditation and japa.

Mantras to chant are to LORD GANESH, CHANDRA + SURYA, 108 repetitions of each and also
RAHU and KETU, as they are the ones causing the eclipses.

A pure life is the term used to express the effort of man to keep his spiritual being untainted by the false values of the worldly life. It is the constant search for the original self, the desire to reach it, and the means employed to recover it, which alone can truly be called purity of life. ... When this purity is reached man lives in virtue. Virtue is not a thing which he expresses or experiences from time to time; his life itself is virtue. Every moment that God is absent from the consciousness is considered by the sage to be a sin; for at that moment the purity of the heart is poisoned. It is lack of life which is sin: and it is purity of life which is virtue. It is of this purity that Jesus Christ spoke when he said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.'

by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life's light is love; and when the heart is empty of love, a man is living and yet not living; from a spiritual point of view he is dead. When the heart is asleep, he is as though dead in this life, for one can only love through the heart. But love does not mean give and take. That is only a trade; it's selfishness. To give sixpence and receive a shilling is not love. Love is when one loves for the sake of love, when one cannot help but love, cannot do anything but love.

Most people will say, 'The other does not understand me.' But why must there be this lack of understanding? What causes it? It is lack of sympathy. No words can ever make a person understand. It is the heart alone which can convey its full meaning to the other heart, for there are subtle waves of sympathy, there are delicate perceptions of feelings such as gratefulness, admiration, kindness, which cannot be put into words. Words are too inadequate to explain the finer feelings. It is the heart quality which can express itself fully, and again it is the heart quality which can understand fully. Would it therefore be an exaggeration to say that as long as the heart is not awakened a man is as though dead? It is after the awakening of the heart that a man begins to live.

Sympathy is an awakening of the love element, which comes on seeing another in the same situation in which one has been at some time in one's life. A person who has never experienced pain cannot sympathize with those suffering pain... Sympathy is something more than love and affection, for it is the knowledge of a certain suffering which moves the living heart to sympathy.

That person is living whose heart is living, and that heart is living which has wakened to sympathy. The heart void of sympathy is worse than a rock, for the rock is useful, but the heart void of sympathy produces antipathy. ... There are many attributes found in the human heart which are called divine, but among them there is no greater and better attribute than sympathy, by which man shows in human form God manifested.

"I am superior to you only in one point," Narcissus tells Goldmund in
Hermann Hesse's novel Narcissus and Goldmund. "I'm awake, whereas you
are only half awake, or completely asleep sometimes. I call a man awake
who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable force,
drives, and weaknesses, and knows how to deal with them."

I was not here nor there.
But simply was what is Here.
And in this 'Here,'
Was I like the fingers of God.
I, Who is not 'I',
Was the grassy hollows and hills
Of rolling emerald.
As a tree,
my branches curved and sang
In twisting movements
Surreal and soft
I saw!
We are that which we Are!
All I see in Earth, is singing ~ Love!
Extending as it sings ~ Love!
Green and growing,
Giving, breathing
Love!
I Am This!
You are This!
And so We are not 'You'
nor 'Me',
but We.
My lips, smile ~ Love
My eyes, see ~ Love!
My heart expands
To know this Love!
It is who you Are, with Me.
We are joined, and stilled
In the movement,
In the Oneness
of 'We Are.'
_________________________________________

The soul feels suffocated when the doors of the heart are closed.

Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

There is a door to man's heart; it is either closed or open. When he holds a thing and says, 'This is mine,' he closes the door to his heart; but when he shares his goods with others and says, 'This is yours as well as mine,' this opens his heart. We must learn consideration for others; it does not matter whether they are rich or poor. We may have only one slice of bread, but when there is another sitting by our side we share that slice with him. By doing this, even if our bodily appetite remains unsatisfied, our heart is filled with joy to think that we shared our happiness with another. It is this spirit which is necessary just now to change the condition of the world, not political and commercial disputes. We must be awakened to the main truth, that the happiness and peace of each can only be the happiness and peace of all.

People pursue spirituality with their brain: that is where they are mistaken. Spirituality is attained through the heart. What do I mean by the heart? Is it the nervous center in the midst of the breast, the small piece of flesh that doctors call the heart? No, the definition of the heart is that it is the depth of the mind, the mind being the surface of the heart. That in us which feels is the heart, that which thinks is the mind. It is the same thing which thinks and feels, but the direction is different: feeling comes from the depth, thought from the surface. ... The Sufis have therefore considered the development of the heart quality as a spiritual culture, and have called it the culture of the heart. It consists of the tuning of the heart.

Tuning means changing the pitch of the vibrations. Tuning the heart means changing the vibrations, bringing them to a certain pitch which is the natural one where you feel the joy and ecstasy of life, which enables you to give pleasure to others even by your presence because you are tuned. When an instrument is properly tuned you need not play music on it; just by striking it you will feel a great magnetism coming from it. If an instrument well-tuned can have that magnetism, how much greater should be the magnetism of hearts that are tuned. Rumi says, 'Whether you have loved a human being or whether you have loved God, if you have loved enough you will be brought in the end into the presence of the supreme Love itself'.

Knowledge and Ignorance
If absolute Knowledge required the aid
Of some other kind of knowledge to know Itself,
It would be nothing but ignorance.
Of course, light is not darkness;
But, to itself, is it even light?
If there is a pot, a pot is perceived,
And if the pot is broken, its brokenness is perceived;
If there is no pot at all,
Is not its absence perceived as well?
It can be seen, therefore,
That he who perceives that there is nothing
Does not himself become nothing.
The Self has this same unique kind of existence,
Beyond both existence and non-existence.
The ultimate Reality
Is neither an object to Itself
Nor is It an object to anyone else.
Should it then be regarded as non-existent?
In a tank the water may be so clear
That it appears non-existent;
Though one who looks into the tank may not see it,
Still it is there.
Similarly,
The ultimate Reality exists in Itself,
And is beyond the conceptions
Of existence or non-existence.
__________________________________________________
~ Jnanadeva ~
From his: Amritanubhava

"The Guest House"

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

by Jelaluddin Rumi,
translated by Coleman Barks in his book *Essential Rumi*
http://tinyurl.com/nl8g9