Category: Spiritualibus

Life, love, and the divine
Is my lineage of teachers
Yes, it’s possible to be free
Of personalty ties as such
Though exchange is helpful
If not even necessary for all
To make steps in unfoldment
But then comes measurement
That does become more or less
And questionable what is real
Or personally just perceived
Wishes give one past focus
And future realizations too
Thou all that matters now
Is life, love, and the divine
Personalities, characters
Beings of various kinds
Humans claim to know
And observe ourselves
Every day and moment
Learning another lesson
From each other I hope
Life and love for sure
Ultimately the divine
Give it faces for ease
For a stretch of the way
Manifest to better relate
And again let go completely
As life, love, and the divine.

“Querencia” — the place where one’s strength is drawn from

Is a path helpful and liberating for you?

Criteria “according to which one could judge whether a path, a practice was helpful and liberating or not. At that time, as today, there are numerous gurus who claim to have the truly liberating, the only, or at least the fastest way. [Someone like a] Buddha suggests that one should not believe what is taught simply because it comes from an ancient tradition or because the person teaching seems to be an authority or because their speech sounds poignant and convincing.

“Rather, one should proceed in the same way as when testing gold: it must be scratched, rubbed, and tested with acid and fire. What ultimately withstands all these tests can be regarded as genuine. This means that we ourselves must seriously and thoroughly examine what is right for us by applying what we have heard and finding out whether it is wholesome and leads to blessings and well-being. This is an invitation to self-responsibility and requires interest, courage, independence, self-confidence, and great honesty, especially towards oneself. Of course, it requires more from us than listening to a few teachings or attending a few meditation evenings. We have to really tackle the practice and apply it consistently over a prolonged period of time. Then we will know for ourselves whether it can take us where we want to go.”

Buddhas tausend Gesichter, Fred von Allmen, pp. 39-40

Life, love, and the divine reach heaven

Ganesha caught fire
Given enough space
To be and to look at
Noticed just in time
But one leg burned
Gave enough room
For the small turtle
Become snowed in
Too steep this hill
Requiring to tow
So first remember
An attaching hook
Not in the middle
Adding challenge
As pulled around
In slippery snow
Approached limits
Of what’s possible
With cooperation
It could succeed
Back on the road
Among red tails
Chirping merely
One leading ahead
Others all around
Down the slope
To everyday life
From a retreat
Closer to heaven
A gentle introduction
For beginners here now
Of what’s done all life
Late without lineage
But still with frames
Wishing for realization
Framing attitudes of soul
Language learned as such
Contracting and expanding
Like breathing in and out
What or who’s perceiving
Thinking, feeling, naming
But why label things at all
When it’s just pure being
All unlimited and free
Just let it be what it is
The experience’s open
For learning kindness
No need for labeling
Limiting in any way
As loving acceptance
Keeps open all doors
Always another lesson
At times bump heads
Or really need a tow
Continue present now
Embraced by the divine
Relishing life and love
Here it all is what it is!

“Ever forward into the open” — blue destination

Life as a story…

[Questioning exchange after hearing a detailed rendition of incredible past events…]

“But for the purposes of our investigation, we would like to know what really happened?”
“What really happened?”
“Yes.”
“So you want another story?”
“Uhh . . . no. We would like to know what really happened.”
“Doesn’t the telling of something always become a story?”
“Uhh . . . perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of ‘invention’ in it. We don’t want any invention. We want the ‘straight facts’, as you say in English.”
“Isn’t telling about something — using words, English or Japanese — already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?”
“Uhh . . .”
“The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?”

— Life of Pi, Yann Martel, p. 302

Ganesha caught fire to melt snow or be towed

True freedom
Why qualify?
Is there such
A big thing as
False freedom
Like any illusion
Right and wrong
Or just whatever
One makes of it
Twists ‘nd turns
Until it may fit
For one or all
One’s illusion
All is freedom
To take some
Honest effort
For tuning in
Gradually
Ever more
In time here
In space now
Consciousness
So being soul
In the human
Body ‘nd mind
Welcome thus
To this species
On our planet
Free to love!

“Pebbles in the pond” — a touch of a raga

A brief for the defense — wood and fire

“Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything…”

“We think the fire eats the wood. We are wrong. The wood reaches out to the flame. The fire licks at what the wood harbors, and the wood gives itself away to that intimacy, the manner in which we and the world meet each new day.”

— from Refusing Heaven: Poems and Collected Poems by Jack Gilbert, Goodreads.com

Biting or chewing through obstacles to true freedom

Finish your own puzzle
It is individually yours
Or you may have to go
Rip it apart and do it over
Hopefully with all the pieces
Or else find some fallen down
When some whirlwind blew
And deep emotions reset
That may be destructive
To what needs to go
Or gracefully gentle
In moments of rage
When energies clash
Doors open and close
First is best to focus on
No point on ones closed
But opening ones for sure
Where the energies flow
And big steps are made
Forward in unfoldment
Left behind for good
Openings long past
Closed and healed
Wounds and scars
Of loving hearts.

“Tears of joy” — generations mantra with a waking toddler’s song

A lesson from Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi was boarding a train. Just as he was going inside, one of his shoes slipped off and got caught on the track. He tried to retrieve it but could not. People standing near watched him. When he was unable to pull the shoe from the track, he took off the other shoe as well and threw it on the track right at the spot where the first one was stuck.

The astonished passengers asked, “Why are you throwing the other shoe onto the track?” Gandhi replied, “The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track will now have a pair he can use.”

Lessons from Gandhi by Rajinder Singh — The Pinoneer, Sunday Magazine, 6 October 2013

Looking out from within, to finish your own puzzle

Be excited and inspired
Or don’t do whatever at all
This is a basic requirement
And appears hard to meet
Without any compromise
For things in this world
Always have two sides
Or possibly even more
All to balance individually
Separate need from desire
Opinions and apparent views
From the realities that are
All intertwined — so tight
Forming rugs to stand on
And ideally soar away on
Or may weigh one down
When attached any way
Detached one may float
Better yet leave behind
In such great moments
Explore spirit’s freedom
Coming with realizations
Beyond making divisions
For unity brings together
Everyone as one with love
In the light and sound let go.

“Perfect imperfection” — one step closer

Quotes by Gurdjieff can inspire and excite

“Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.”

“In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him… Accept nothing you cannot verify for yourself.”

— George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, as cited on the webite Quotes by Gurdjieff (English version)

What does it take to be inspired and excited?