Thursday, January 23, 2014

True Hearing by Meister Eckhart

Sermons (Meister Eckhart) by Meister Eckhart
True Hearing


ECCLESIASTICUS xxiv. 30.—"Whoso heareth Me shall not be confounded."
THE everlasting and paternal wisdom saith, "Whoso heareth Me is not ashamed." If he is ashamed of anything he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh in Me sineth not. Whoso confesseth Me and feareth Me, shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and be at unity with himself. Three things hinder us from hearing the everlasting Word. The first is fleshliness, the second is distraction, the third is the illusion of time. If a man could get free of these, he would dwell in eternity, and in the spirit, and in solitude, and in the desert, and there would hear the everlasting Word. Our Lord saith, "No man can hear My word nor my teaching without renouncing himself." All that the Eternal Father teaches and reveals is His being, His nature, and His Godhead, which He manifests to us in His Son, and teaches us that we are also His Son.

All that God worketh and teacheth, He worketh in His Son. All His work is directed to this end that we also may be His Son. When God sees that we are indeed His son, He yearns after us, and in the depth of His Divine Being waves of longing break forth, to reveal to us the abyss of His Godhead, and the fullness of His essence; He hastens to identify Himself with us. Herein He hath joy and gladness in full measure. God loveth men not less than He loveth Himself. If thou really lovest thyself, thou lovest all men as thyself; as long as thou lovest any one less than thyself, thou dost not really love thyself. That man is right who loves all men as himself.

Some folk say: "I love my friends, who do me kindness, more than other people." Such love is imperfect and incomplete; it is like having your sails only half-tilled with wind. When I love anyone as much as myself, I would just as soon that joy or sorrow, death or life were mine, as well as his. That would be the dictate of right reason.
St Paul felt such love when he said, "I would that I were cut off from God for my friends' sake." Now to be cut off from God is equivalent to suffering the pains of hell. Some ask whether St Paul was on the way to perfection or was perfect. I answer, he was perfect, or he would have spoken otherwise.

I wish further to elucidate this saying of St Paul that he was willing to be cut off from God. The highest act of renunciation for man is for God's sake to give up God, and that is what St Paul was willing to do; to give up all the blessings that he might receive from God. When for God's sake he gave up God, God still remained with him, since God's essence is Himself, not any impression or reception of Himself. He who does so is a true man to whom no grief may happen, any more than it happens to the Divine Being. There is a somewhat in the soul that is, as it were, a blood-relative of God. It is one, it has nothing in common with nothing, nor is it like nothingness, nothing. All that is created is nothing, all far from and foreign to the soul. Could I but find myself one instant in that sphere of pure existence, I should regard myself as little as a worm.
A question arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished by the fact that they protect and serve us. No, they are certainly not; for the work of the angels is the will of God, and the will of God is the work of the angels; their service to us does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God.

The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God's will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.

The man who abides in God's love must be dead to himself and all created things, and regard himself as a mere unit among a thousand million. Such a man must renounce himself and all the world. Supposing a man possessed all the world, and gave it back to God intact just as he received it, God would give him back, all the world and everlasting life to boot. And supposing there were another man who had nothing but a good will, and he thought in his heart, "Lord, were all this world mine, and two worlds more beside it, I would give them and myself also back to Thee as I received them from thee"; to that man God would give back as much as he had given away. And supposing a man had renounced himself for twenty years, if he took himself back for a moment, that man's renunciation would be as nothing. The man who has truly renounced himself and does not once cast a glance on what he has renounced, and thus remains immovable and unalterable, that man alone has really renounced self. May God and the Eternal Wisdom grant us to remain equally immovable and unalterable with Himself. Amen.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Viveka-Chudamani on Dispassion Vairagya




Selections From Viveka-Chudamani on Vairagya/Dispassion
Swami Sivananda Saraswati


1. The man who, having with difficulties acquired a human birth  and knowledge of the scriptures, and does note try for liberation because of delusion is commiting suicide, for he destroys himself by clinging to unreal objects.


2. What greater fool is there than a man who, having obtained a rare human birth neglects to attain the goal of his life?


3. Vairagya is the desire to abandon all the transitory enjoyments from the physical body up to Brahma, the creator, having already known their defects and shortcomings from observation, hearing, etc.

4. Those fools who are tied to the sense objects by the thick cord of attachment, so very difficult to be broken, are forcibly carried along by the messenger, their own karma, to heaven, earth and hell.

5. The deer, elephant, moth, fish and black bee—these five meet with their death, being bound to one or other of the five senses, viz., sound, etc., through attachment. What then of man who is bound by all the senses jointly.

6. In point of virulence sense-objects are more fatal than even the poison of a cobra. Poison kills one who drinks it, but sensuous objects can kill one who even looks at them through the eyes.

7. He who is free from the terrible bondage of hankering after the sense objects, so very difficult to get rid of, is alone fit for liberation—no one else, even though he is well versed in the six systems of philosophy.

8. Those seekers after liberation who are endowed with only an apparent dispassion (vairagya) and are endeavoring to cross the ocean of samsara or conditioned existence, are seized by the shark of hankering, being caught by the neck and forcibly dragged into the middle and drowned.

9. He who has slain the shark of desire with the sword of supreme or mature dispassion, crosses the ocean of samsara without obstacles.

10. Know that death rapidly overtakes that stupid man who treads along the dreadful path of sensual pleasure. But whoever treads the right path under the instruction of a guru who looks after his spiritual welfare, as also his own reasoning, attains his end–know this to be true.

11. If thou hast really an yearning for liberation abandon sense-objects from a good distance as it they were poison and always develop carefully the nectar-like virtues of contentment, compassion, forgiveness, sincerity, tranquillity and self control.

12. Whoever passionately attends to the feeding of his own body which is an object for jackals, fishes and vultures to enjoy, and ignores what should always be attempted, viz., liberation from the bondage of ignorance without beginning, commits suicide thereby.

13. Whoever seeks to realize the self by nourishing his body is like one who crosses a river by catching hold of a crocodile, thinking it to be a log of wood..

14. For one desirous of liberation the infatuation over things like the body is dire death. He who is free from such infatuation is alone fit for liberation.

15. Conquer the infatuation over the objects like the body, wife, children, and so on. Having conquered it the sages attain that supreme state of Vishnu.

16. This gross body is to be condemned for it is made up of skin, flesh, blood, arteries, veins, fat, marrow and bones and is filled with filth.

17. The physical body has got various restrictions regarding caste and order of life. It is subject to various diseases. It is worshipped and honoured sometimes. It is censured and insulted at other times.

I Know the Way You Can Get When you have not had a drink of Love- Hafiz

I Know the Way You Can Get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.
O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love’s
Hands.
That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.
That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For I am a sweet old vagabond
3 With an infinite leaking barrel of Light and Laughter and Truth
That the Beloved has tied to my back.
Dear ones, indeed,
Please bring your heart near me,
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!
All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!
(from I Heard God Laughing—Renderings of Hafiz / translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Three methods on the PATH

Three methods on the PATH

Number one is self surrender,
where we surrender completely to God
or to a holy teacher or being
or to your devine nature or true Self
or to the service of others


Number two is mindfulness,
Becoming the witness.
Watching yourself continuously.
Watching your thoughts,
watching your actions.
Sitting in meditation and
watching what goes on in your mind.
Not trying to change anything
or correct anything.
Accepting everything


And number three is Self-Inquiry.
Asking yourself,
To whom does this suffering come?
It comes to me.
Well what is 'me'?
I am me.
Who am I?
From where did the I come from?
And seeing the "I" merge to its source.
Remain in the joy of deep silence