"Weave no more with soot and slime of your thought,
Like the spider, the web of rotten warp
While you are silent, His speech is your speech
While you weave not, He is the weaver"
[Moulana Rumi]
As is the fire within the womb, so is Maya outside.
The fire of Maya and that of the womb is similar;
the Creator has staged this play.
According to His Will, the child is born,
and the family is very pleased.
Love for the Lord wears off,
and the child becomes attached to desires;
the script of Maya runs its course.
This is Maya, by which the Lord is forgotten;
emotional attachment and love of duality well up.
Says Nanak, by God's Grace,
those who enshrine love for God find Him,
in the midst of Maya
(sggs Page 921).
What is the use of the glory of Maya?
It disappears in no time at all. ||1||
This is a dream, but the sleeper does not know it.
In his unconscious state, he clings to it. ||1||Pause||
The poor fool is enticed by the great attachments of the world.
Gazing upon them, watching them, he must still arise and depart. ||2||
The Royal Court of His Darbaar is the highest of the high.
He creates and destroys countless beings. ||3||
There has never been any other, and there shall never be.
O Nanak, meditate on the One God. ||4||10||16||
Liberation from Maya dose not constitute disappearance of material energy or world. It is the change in one's vision. It is the ceasing of the conditioned mind's imagining. Thus, transcending Maya simply means living in the material world but not of it. It is liberation from ignorance: false ego-sense, bondage, or limitedness. As the lotus flower remains untouched by water and mud it grows in, similarly, the liberated man remains untouched or unaffected in the midst of Maya...
Read a heart touching story ...The story of a women who over the time discovers that
the world is organic. It doesn't need to be fixed; it needs to be healed. And the tinctures are love and compassion and selflessness. Becoming a loving, compassionate, and selfless person is not a prelude to making the world a better place. It is the cure itself.
You can read the full story at following link:
http://www.aish.com/spirituality/odysseys/My_Guru3_Dr._Jacobs.asp
I quote below a beautiful prayer by Mother Teresa which sums up this message of love ..
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Lord, may I not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
Because it is in giving that we receive,
in pardoning that we are pardoned.
Amen !
By dominating consciousness, intentions, motivations, thinking, attitudes, evaluations, judgements and behavior, the activities of anger and passion create the illusion of a self which is being served by such activity. In other words, our awareness is mesmerized, or a state of hypnosis is induced in consciousness, by the activities of anger and passion. As a result, awareness identifies with them as being possessions of, and acting on behalf of, consciousness.
Intention must become a servant of God. Everything which is done must be done for the love of God. Intention must be purified so nothing remains but the aspiration to please God.
The heart must be trained to collaborate with, and give expression to, spiritual aspiration. The heart's association with the aspirations of the false self or ego must be discontinued.
However, as spiritual aspiration goes through various transformations, our essential capacity becomes sensitive and receptive to the modalities of experiencing and realizing Divinity which are consonant with the condition of our aspiration. Consequently, the way God responds to us is merely a reflection of the way we relate to Divinity.
Beauty Tips by Audrey Hepburn
For attractive lips,
Speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes,
Seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure,
Share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair,
Let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise,
Walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Never throw out anybody.
Remember: if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find One at the end of your arm. As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
“All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope”
Today I read this seemingly simple and obvious quotation somewhere .. and the only thing i felt was "How true!!" ... something most of us are guilty of...
We judge others by their action while we judge ourselves by our intent...
Prosperity is a gem you find in contentment ...and we in our ignorance, keep searching for it in abundance ....
Couple of days ago my husband and I watched the old Harrison Ford movie .."Air Force One" . One of the dialogues in the movie that caught my attention was..
"Peace isn't merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice"
The reason this sentence caught my attention was because I sometimes feel that I tend to agree to people and situations just to keep peace or to avoid conflict.
Wikipedia quotes..
"Conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people"
I think keyword here is 'perceived' , most of the times it is the perceived opposition of needs in the materialistic world that gives rise to conflict between people , and problem is that when there is conflict we tend to counter it with conflict.
I have read somewhere that what we need to do is not to avoid conflict but to create harmony in conflict . In martial art if someone twists your wrist and if you resist it, you may break your wrist.
But if you go with the flow rather than go against the flow, you are in a state of harmony. As you go with the flow then you counter-attack your opponent in the flow. This is creating harmony in conflict.
I dont know where I read it and dont have the URL, but I have read the following quote somewhere and have saved it in the past . While writing about conflict somehow remembered it..because I think this is the right way to create harmony ...create peace ...inside and outside...
In the art of archery, "losing the arrow" is the most important aspect... Archery is only a preparation for the final "let go" of the arrow. Similarly, in life it is the "let go" of the ego which is most important.
Allah (S.W.T) says in the holy quran, in Sura Baqarah, ayat 186,
"Wa idha sa alaka ibadi anni, fa inni qareeb. Ujeebu da’watad daa’ee idha da aaani, fal yastajeebu lee, wal yu’minu bee, la allahum yarshudoon."
This translates as: " And when my servant asks you concerning me, then surely I am very near; I answer the du’a of the caller when he/she calls me; so they should answer my call too, and believe in me, so that they may be guided aright."
Du’a in Arabic means call, request, supplication or prayer. Du’a builds up a collective discipline that can be used to set up the ideal society based upon love, peace, justice and freedom.
People often complain that their dua’s are not answered. Allah promises us in the Qur’an to answer us if we call, as is shown in the ayat that I read before you from Sura Baqarah.
Allah (S.W.T.) also says, in Sura al-Mu’min ayaat 60 : "Call to Me, I will answer you."
Then why do we sometimes feel that we are not getting an answer?
The following things prevent dua’s being accepted.
Firstly, sins. In one dua, we say to Allah, "Allahummaghfir liyadh dhunoo ballatee tah bisud du’a"
"O Allah, forgive me the sins which hold back supplication" Every sin is a barrier between us and Allah and certain types of sins prevent our duas being answered.
Secondly, that what we are asking for, is not good. In another Du’a we say to Allah:
"Fa in abta anni atabtu bijahli alayk. Wa la allalladhi abta a anni huwa khayrulli li ilmika bi aaqibatil umoor."
"Then if there was a delay in Your answer, I would blame You, due to my ignorance, and perhaps the delay was best for me, for You know the outcome of all affairs"
This verse talks about how disappointed we get when our prayers are not answered, but Allah knows best whether or not what we asked for was good for us.
Lastly, our dua’s might not be answered because we do not pray with total sincerity or because we lack trust in him.
Du’a must be accompanied with action. Imam ALI (as) has said: "One who merely does du’a and fails to act is like one who wishes to shoot an arrow with a string-less bow."
There was once a pious family whose town was flooded. The council sent a truck to rescue them, but they refused help saying that they had prayed to Allah and HE would save them. As the flooding increased, they move to the second floor of the house. The council sent a boat this time. Again they refused help, saying that Allah would save them.
The floods rose even further, and now they were on the roof of the house. The council sent a helicopter but they refused with the same answer. Eventually, they drowned and it is said that they complained to Allah saying they had relied on Him to save them.
The answer came down ~ "I sent you a truck, a boat and a helicopter. What more did you want ?"
Every du’a that is said receives one of the following three things:
Either an answer to the prayer.
Or the du’a will bring a blessing for the reciter.
Or the du’a will ward off a difficulty or calamity.
Thus we should never feel that if Allah does not answer our prayer there is no use of du’a. We may be getting one of the other benefits without realising it.
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart ... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
-- Carl Jung
The great Rumi... On Surrender...
Very little grows on jagged rock.
Be ground...
Be crumbled..
so wildflowers
will come up
where you are...
Try something different...
-from Illuminated Rumi, p. 121
I was lost
in a vast jungle..
thorns and cactii..
of my own needs
pricking my feet..
bitter fruits of
materialism..
growing on each shrub ..
until i realized
his divine presence..
but i am still lost
in a vast jungle..
it might glitter with
the colorful rainbows
of his thoughts..
it might also be
fragrant with the
blooming flowers
of his mercy...
but i am still lost..
in a jungle of my own
thoughts and words...
bless me O'Almighty
so that i learn to
stop looking for you
in any jungles....
help me find your
divine presence
in the home
of my heart....