Worn-out garments

Worn-out garments are shed by the body, worn-out bodies are shed by the dweller within the body, new bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments. Not wounded by weapons, not burned by fire, not dried by the wind, not wetted by water, such is the one.

Not dried, not wetted, not burned, not wounded, innermost essence, everywhere, always, being of beings, changeless, eternal, for ever and ever.

~Bhagavad-Gita 2:22

Prayer of Abandonment

Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all Your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,

For you are my Father.

~charles de foucauld

Whoever travels

Whoever travels without a guide needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.

~Rumi

Jerusalem Is Walking in This World

This is great happiness.
The air is silk.
There is milk in the looks
That come from strangers.
I could not be happier
If I were bread and
you could eat me.
Joy is dangerous.
It fills me with secrets.
"Yes" hisses in my veins.
The pains I take to hide myself
Are sheer as glass.
Surely this will pass,
The wind like kisses,
The music in the soup,
The group of trees,
Laughing as I say their names.

It is all hosanna
It is all prayer.

Jerusalem is walking in this world.
Jerusalem is walking in this world.

~Julia Cameron

Do not chase after what is passed

Do not chase after what is passed, do not worry over what is yet to come. The past is already thrown away, the future has not arrived. Simply grasp wholeheartedly what is here and now and without wavering, without yielding, look into it directly and realize it. Do today what should be done today, simply and mindfully. Nobody knows if death will come tomorrow and there is no escaping this invincible adversary. Achieve in this instant what must be achieved.

~The Middle Way (Journey of the Buddhist Society)

You do not have to be good

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the praries and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

The fiery light

I, the fiery light of divine wisdom,
I ignite the beauty of the plains,
I sparkle the waters.
I burn the sun and the moon and the stars,
With wisdom I order all rightly.
I adorn the earth.
I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I am the rain coming from the dew
That causes the grasses to laugh
With the joy of life.
I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work.
I am the yearning for good.

~Hildegard of Bingen

Invoking the God

Invoked or not invoked, the god will be present.

~Oracle at Delphi

I lie alone

I lie alone
remembering changes
how sudden crystals grew
from water falling
in a cup in a rock
suprising forms
acids in a cup in a rock
receiving lightning
a cup in a rock receiving lightning
I am here
I lie alone
no one completes me
after lightning
I bide my time
I hold my forms beyond surprising islands
I lie alone
remembering changes
how grinding ice came down
the slide of earth
rub of rivers
knuckles of trees cracking rocks
receiving ice surprising
cracking rocks receiving ice
a tree of rivers sprang inside me
I am here
I lie alone
no one completes me
after water
I bide my time
I hold my face beyond surprising rains

~W.E.R La Farge

O Hidden Life

O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom;
O Hidden Light shining in every creature;
O Hidden Love embracing all in Oneness;
May each who feels himself as one with Thee,
Know he is also one with every other.

~Annie Besant

I go amoung the trees

I go amoung the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
Around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
Where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
And the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

~Wendell Berry

You do not have to struggle

(this is a Sandhill Crane hatching)

You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides him from you.

~Paramahansa Yogananda

In the morning

In the morning, the one who does not understand will consider what he will do, while the one who understands will consider what the one will do with him.

~Ibn 'ata 'illah

The Golden God

The Golden God, the Self, the immortal Swan
leaves the small nest of the body, goes where He wants.

He moves through the realm of dreams; makes numberless forms;
delights in sex; eats, drinks, laughs with His friends;
frightens Himself with scenes of heart-chilling terror.

But He is not attached to anything that He sees;
and after He has wandered in the realms of dream and awakeness,
has tasted pleasures and experienced good and evil,
He returns to the blissful state from which He began.

As a fish swims forward to one riverbank then the other,
Self alternates between awakeness and dreaming.

As an eagle, weary from long flight, folds its wings,
gliding down to its nest, Self hurries to the realm
of dreamless sleep, free of desires, fear, pain.

As a man in sexual union with his beloved
is unaware of anything outside or inside,
so a man in union with Self knows nothing, wants nothing,
has found his heart's fulfillment and is free of sorrow.

Father disappears, mother disappears, murderer,
rich man, beggar disappear, world disappears,
good and evil disappear; he has passed beyond sorrow.

~The Upanishads

Here is a Zen story

A master once described the journey to enlightenment as "like filling a sieve with water". When a woman questioned this master on his meaning, he gave her a sieve and a cup and they went to the sea, where he asked her to fill the sieve with water. She poured a cupful of water into the sieve. It was instantly gone.

"Spiritual practice is the same," the master explained, "if we stand on the rock of 'I', and try to ladle the divine realization in. That's not the way to fill the sieve with water nor the self with divine life."

He took the sieve and threw it into the sea, where it sank. "Now it's full of water, and will remain so. That's spiritual practice. It is not ladling little cupfuls into the individuality, but becoming totally immersed in the sea of divine life."

Today

Today the peace of God envelops me,
And I forget all things except His Love.

~A Course in Miracles

The image is a solar eclipse
as seen from the moon.
(click on it to enlarge it)