Fillers, Short Articles & Poetry

The Need For Rememberance - From Joel Goldsmith

If truth is not actively maintained in consciousness, life becomes one of futility, a waiting for something to happen. The hoped-for and long-awaited spiritual awakening, which many people desire, but towards attainment of which they make no effort, does not happen except perhaps once in a hundred years, or possibly to one out of a million persons - and even then, as we know from the history of many to whom it has happened, it is of no value, because it came unexpectedly without understanding and without any idea or knowledge of how to recapture it ......

The degree in which truth is kept active in consciousness determines not only the degree of our ultimate spiritual illumination, but the time of it. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month or next year; but that moment we determine by whether or not truth is kept active in our consciousness for an hour on Sunday, an hour every day, two or three minutes out of every hour in the day, or ultimately with almost every breath we breathe. It is possible to 'pray without ceasing' if we know the inspired passages of Scripture and those of mystical or metaphysical writings, if we are willing to remember to apply them, and, above all, if we are able to overcome the inertia of the human mind.

(Our Spiritual Resources, pp. 104-106, Allen & Unwin.)

Brief Eternity - By A devotee

Suddenly I was not. Seeing remained,
Not any one who saw. Thoughts still appeared.
No one to think. And all this was not new,
No change of state, for I not only was not
But never had been; only through some spell-
Ignorance - suffering - sin - what name you will*—
Imagined that I was.

Or just as well
It could be said that suddenly I was,
For Being, Self, whatever name you give,
Just was, and I was That, no other self.

It is a simple thing - no mystery.
The wisdom of the Sages all comes down
To simple being.

Again this state was lost.
Sisyphus-like, the heavy stone rolled down.
Again was need to tear my love from others
Alone through the night, with much toil to strive
To the lost homeland, to the Self I am.

Though a world appear, yet will 1 not cling to it;
Though thoughts arise, yet will I cherish them not.
More deep the mischief of the impostor me
That sees himself and them-or thinks he sees,
He who complains he has not yet achieved.
Who is it that achieves? Or who aspires?
What is there to achieve, when being is
And nothing else beside, no second self?
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* Ignorance in the Hindu interpretation, suffering in the Buddhist, original sin in the Christian.

The Futility of Argument - Verses 196 to 803 of the Paramatthaka Sutta - Translated by Frank Allen

The person who is prejudiced in favour of one particular philosophical system is prejudiced against other systems. Such a person disputes and does not overcome the habit of disputing.

He seizes upon anything that seems 'good', that looks 'good', sounds 'good', on particular actions that appear to him to be ' good', upon anything he thinks is 'good' - and in so doing he labels other things 'bad'.

Experts are agreed that the man who labels things 'bad' is thereby making it impossible for himself to see them as they really are. Therefore the disciplined one should not colour what he sees and hears nor pin his faith on virtue and achievement.

He should not found or favour any organised system of philosophy either by word or deed. He should not consider himself 'better' or 'worse' than another, nor 'equal'.

Being without prejudices and favour, uninfluenced by convention, he does not associate himself with any formal religion or sect; he is not bound by any set rules.

For him there is no need to strive to become this or that, in this world or the next. And he has ceased to study the philosophies for he no longer requires the solace that philosophy offers.

As regards things seen and heard he remains unswayed by prejudice: such a Brahmin is not to be misled.

He accepts nothing, prefers nothing, takes to no particular philosophy. Not on account of his virtues and achievements does the (true) Brahmin fare to the Further Shore, never more to return.

The Blind Seer - Lines from the Ramana Deva Malai (Tamil) of Muruganar

Like the sun which, never resting,
Seeks and seeks but finds no trace
Of darkness,
So our Master cannot see
Our foe, delusion;
Cannot see,
So blind is he.

Satori - By F. O.

Some years after Bhagavan left the body his Jayanti (birth anniversary) was being celebrated on a roof terrace in Calcutta in the cool of the evening. Among the devotees present was a teenage girl on whose face, as she sat in meditation, an expression of radiant serenity was seen. Later she put her experience in words, so far as is possible. The following is what she wrote.

I am not the mind nor the body - found myself in the heart; that me that lives after death. There was breathtaking joy in the feeling 'I am', the greatest possible earthly joy, the full enjoyment of existence. No way to describe it - the difference between this joy and complete happiness of the mind is greater than between the blackest misery and the fullest elation of the mind. Gradually - rapidly - my body seemed to be expanding from the heart. It engulfed the whole universe. It didn't feel any more. The only real thing was God (Bhagavan, Arunachala). I couldn't identify myself as any speck in that vastness - nor other people - there was only God, nothing but God. The word 'I' had no meaning any more; it meant the whole universe - everything is God, the only Reality.

The Dark Night - by A. Rao

In the soul's dark night
I knew the taste of tears unshed,
The hopeless seeming fight,
Pain for my daily bread.

The hammer blows of God
Sculptured from the living flesh,
As from a lifeless clod,
The new man made a fresh.

The only one escape
Was such my mind could not come by,
Could not even shape -
To curse God and die.

Yet through it all I knew
The mind flagellant and a fake,
Clinging to the untrue.
Self-tortured for desire's sake.

The fake, the evil ghost, the impostor me,
The camel straining at the needle's eye,
Craving and he who craves, must cease to be -
Simply give up and, be content to die.
Since there's no other way, better cut quick,
Slay and have done, than make an endless tale,
Flogging then coddling, caring for when sick.
Then sentencing to hunger when he's hale.

Ruthless Compassion! Most compassionate
When most unmoved by anguish of the cry
Of that false self who stands within the gate
That shutters out the radiance of the sky.

The Tearing of the Mask - By Harindranath Chattopadhyaya

There comes a time - but do not ask
When - since I know not .... This I know and this
Only-that unto each one comes nemesis,
A sparkling night naked with an excess
Of splendour troubling hearts with loneliness;
The jet-black diamond hour which tears the mask
Nature hath wrought with cunning,
Most intricate of masks, both you and me,
Self-evaders who keep running
After brief thrills of time from dusk till morning,
From morn to dusk-tide, scorning
The tactiturn rapture of Eternity....
That instant of unmasking is divine
And hence, a seal of everlastingness,
Torture-packed instant on which angels press
Their heavenly weight so man's dividing line
Between himself and him be cancelled quite,
Unmasking in sheer process of the Light
Demanding sacrificial torture. Lo!
The butcher dooms the animal at one blow,
Marking an act of mercy - while, though odd
It might appear, the hammer-strokes of God
Are never-ending since, when they began
To strike at the nailed mask unnailing each
With sheerest smashing, until the nails spin
Scattering around and whirling beyond reach
Of that same mask or even the face which wore it:
I had a mask once - Love, you came and tore it
To shreds, sweet heaven's representative!
That I might cease to perish, start to live
A new life-lease lent to me by such grief
As hath a deep contempt for beauty that is brief

Pattinathu Swami - By K. R. R. Sastry

He was a merchant prince living in Kaveripattinam in the 15th Century. His ships sailed to foreign lands. Suddenly he realized that "No wealth will follow you on your last journey" and gave it all up, setting forth as a wandering mendicant from the shrine of Tiruvottiyur.

Like our Maharshi, he taught the hard way of detachment. The world with its treasures has only a phenomenal reality and must be spurned in order to realize Paramatma, which alone is Real.

One of his Tamil poems runs:

When the last coma sets in, when the eyes shrink
And the senses fail,
When the body becomes as though unreal,
My last prayer to Thee,
Lord of Tiruvottiyur, is this
May I wear Thy holy ashes,
With hands outstretched above,
May I call Thy holy Name, Oh Siva!

And this one is his plea for Realization:

Not running here and there,
Nor working on vain pursuits,
Unprejudiced,
Seeking the company of the holy,
Putting aside anger,
Clinging fast to virtue,
May I receive from Thee the Everlasting Wealth,
Oh Lord of Chidambaram!

Stillness - By N. R. Krishnamurti

In stillness the mind-body-world complex dissolves. The ego has to be created, maintained and then dissolved. And yet there is no ego to be dissolved. It does not exist. Neither do its shadows mind, body, world. This is the ultimate truth revealed by the enquiry 'Who am I?' Who would kick a shadow? It is said that the light and heat of Atma playing on the desert of Maya generates the mirage of the mind-body-world complex.

Who is it that asks 'Who am I?' Ask this and the ego is nowhere at all. All that is is pure Being-Awareness-Bliss 'I AM I AM' without beginning or end; and this forever IS this Arunachala-Ramana-Siva-Santham, the One without a second. Thought is no more, even enquiry has exhausted itself and one is still and abides as one is, the core of existence, the Heart.

Om Tat Sat.

You Must Cling Too - By A. Devaraja Mudaliar

In India we compare the aspirant who strives to the child of the monkey that clings to its mother as she jumps from tree to tree and the devotee who relies completely on the grace of the Guru to that of the cat that is quite helpless and is therefore picked up by its mother and carried in her mouth. Alluding to this, I said once that I was like the kitten and had cast the whole responsibility on Bhagavan. He laughed but would not agree. He said "Both are necessary; I will hold you but you must cling too."

Awakening - (From a record kept by Ethel Merston)

One day, as we were sitting quietly in the hall, Bhagavan silent, a fine old man at the back, blind, half paralysed and seemingly half mad, suddenly jumped up, his face radiant, laughed loudly and bowed to Bhagavan first and then to all of us repeatedly. He looked so happy and Bhagavan smiled, so radiantly at him, with such love in his eyes, that I wept with emotion. Later the old man told us that at that moment he had got Realization of the Self, for which he had been searching for the last fifty years. His face was so simple and childlike.

He to whom the Eternal Word speaketh is set free from a multitude of opinions.

- The Imitation of Christ

All the various doctrines and paths originating at different times and in different countries lead ultimately to the same Supreme Truth, like the many different paths leading travellers from different places to the same city. It is ignorance of the Absolute Truth and misunderstanding of the different doctrines that causes their followers to quarrel in bitter animosity with one another. They consider their own particular dogmas and paths to be the best, as every traveller may think though wrongly, his own to be the only or the best path.

- Yoga Vasishta.

He who sees all beings in the same Self and the same Self in all beings does not hate anybody. When a man knows that all beings are ultimately the Self and realizes this unity in experience there remains no delusion or grief for him.

- Isha Upanishad.

I, Lalla, wandered far in search of Siva, the omnipresent Lord. After much wandering, I found Him at last within myself, abiding in His own home.

- Lalla, a Kashmiri woman saint.

Many are the means of crossing the ocean of reincarnation of which the pure words of the Vedas speak; but Tulasi says 'Real peace of heart 'cannot be attained without giving up the notions of 'I' and 'mine'.

- Tulasidas.

Being under the spell of Thy Maya, none knows that Thou art the soul. Thou art the heart of all beings. Blind to this truth, they search for Thee outside themselves. Thou art the sole Truth; all else is illusory. The wise know this and meditate on Thee in their hearts.

- Shankara

That method by which a man makes spiritual progress is the best for him. He should not change it for another which may not seem right to him or please him or be useful to him.

- Yoga Vasishta.