The Path

If anybody asks you what the Path is about.…
It's about generosity.
It's about morality.
It's about concentration.
It's about gaining insight through
focused self-observation.
It's about the cultivation of subjective states
of compassion and love based on insight.
And it's about translating that compassion
and love into actions in the real world.

Shinzen Young

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/galleries/index.html?in_image_id=302559&in_gallery_id=9139&in_page_id=1055

Behind us all is one spirit and one life; how then can we be happy if
our neighbor is not also happy?

Selfishness may begin with the thought, 'As long as my country is
benefited, that benefits me;' and then it will narrow down to, 'If my
family is benefited, if we become wealthy and have desirable things,
that is sufficient for the present!' And then it narrows down again,
'For my father, or mother, or wife or children,' until it ends in,
'Nothing matters as long as I am happy myself.' Man has now become cold,
ignorant, and blind to the law that life depends on the happiness of
those with whom we live. The whole of life is one. In all these
different names and manifestations life is one. The true thought is, 'If
my wife is not happy, if my children, my neighbors, my servants are not
happy, how can I ever be happy?

The Prophets and Masters have warned mankind against the intoxication of
self-interest and egoism. The world, the nation, the family can be
pictured as one single body and when one part of the body has pain
although the other part has no pain, the person feels sick. Therefore
you can never be happy unless you see your brother and your neighbor
happy also. But very few people think this way; very few see it from the
true point of view. ... For man must have a perfect ideal to which he
directs his activities. When the ideal is imperfect, the progress is
imperfect also. ... The work of the spiritual man is to forget his false
self and so to realize the true self which is God, and this true self
not only in him, but in his neighbor also.

~~~ "Supplementary Papers, Brotherhood II", by Hazrat Inayat Khan
(unpublished)

Cosmic Consciousness.
I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self
And Time and Space my spirit's seeing are.
I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,
I am the wind's speed and the blazing star.
All Nature is the nursling of my care,
I am its struggle and the eternal rest;
The world's joy thrilling runs through me, I bear
The sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.
I have learned a close identity with all,
Yet am by nothing bound that I become;
Carrying in me the universe's call
I mount to my imperishable home.
I pass beyond Time and life on measureless wings,
Yet still am one with born and unborn things.
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From Jeff Foster's book: "Life Without a Centre"

Already Awake - Dialogues with Nathan Gill'

Pure Consciousness.
All that is seen is self alone.
All that is heard is self alone.
All that is smelled, or tasted, touched,
or spoken of, or thought, or felt,
is nothing else but self alone.
In each sensation, each perception,
every thought and every feeling,
self is that which only knows:
unmixed with any kind of act.
It sees, without an act of seeing
visualizing something else.
It hears without an act of hearing
listening to something else.
It senses odour as mere smell:
as nothing else but consciousness,
not as the object of an act.
It tastes, but all it tastes is flavour:
nothing else but consciousness,
not any object of an act.
It touches all, but in this touching
stays unmoved and does not act.
It does not go from this to that,
but just remains exactly what
it always is: pure consciousness.
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From the book: "Awakening to the Dream"

You, you only, exist.
You, you only, exist.
We pass away, till at last,
our passing is so immense
that you arise: beautiful moment,
in all your suddenness,
arising in love, or enchanted
in the contraction of work.
To you I belong, however time may
wear me away. From you to you
I go commanded. In between
the garland is hanging in chance; but if you
take it up and up and up: look:
all becomes festival!
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No one has seen God and lived. To see God we must be non-existent.
Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

There is a [Hadith] which says: Mutu kubla anta mutu, which means, 'Die before death.' A poet says, 'Only he attains to the peace of the Lord who loses himself.' God said to Moses, 'No man shall see me and live.' To see God we must be non-existent.
What does all this mean? It means that when we see our being with open eyes, we see that there are two aspects to our being: the false and the true. The false life is that of the body and mind, which only exists as long as the life is within. In the absence of that life the body cannot go on. We mistake the true life for the false, and the false for the true.
As life unfolds itself to man the first lesson it teaches is humility; the first thing that comes to man's vision is his own limitedness. The vaster God appears to him, the smaller he finds himself. This goes on and on until the moment comes when he loses himself in the vision of God. In terms of the Sufis this is called fana, and it is this process that was taught by Christ under the name of self-denial. Often man interprets this teaching wrongly and considers renunciation as self-denial. He thinks that the teaching is to renounce all that is in the world. But although that is a way and an important step which leads to true self-denial, the self-denial meant is the losing oneself in God.

The first lesson of the mystic is, "Thou art, and not I." It is not only complete surrender to God, it is self-effacement. And what does the symbol of the cross explain? That "Thou art, not me, my hands are not for me, my feet are not for me, my head is not for me, they are all Thine." The saying of the [Hadith], "Die before death," does not mean suicide, it means the death of the "I", the separate self.

NEW YEAR'S BLESSING

Here we stand

at the threshold of the new year which we call 2007

we acknowledge the ancient wisdom of ‘as above, so below’; as within, so without.

We call on the powers of the planets, the gods and goddesses of our inner and outer world.

We ask that we may transform according to that which is needed.

We ask that we may be a blessing to ourselves and others.

We call on the powers of the the movement from fire to earth that our home, our planet may heal and transform that life may flourish.

To Mars we offer our vitality and strength and the ability to know when to act;

To Jupiter we offer our enthusiasm for the teachings on the journey that, sooner or later, make us truly wise;

To Saturn we offer our willingness to do the work that we are called to do.

To Neptune we offer our dream of a better world for all living things.

To the Sun we offer our hearts desire.

To Mercury we offer our intention to know when to speak and when to remain silent.

To Uranus we pledge to do our best in times of swirling chaos even when it doesn’t swirl in our immediate vicinity.

To Pluto we accept that there is a season for everything; we acknowledge that true freedom is only possible when we surrender to that which IS even as we fervently offer our intentions for what could be.

Last and most intimate, we offer our selves to Our Mother the Earth and Her Mother the Moon.

To them we show our love and care by giving what we can, when we can to all those whose needs we can and cannot meet; including ourselves.

We offer our willingness to do that which sustains life for ourselves and our home – the planet on which we live.

May all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful, may all beings be free from suffering.

with permission from my friend
JULIE SIMMONS,
www.juliesimmons.ca

Copyright by Julie Simmons 2006

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"Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the
most desperate, admirable, and noble kind of love."

-Delmore Schwartz


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