In Yoke

"You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains." -Jalaluddin Rumi This Sufi mystic of the 11th century is onto something. This is the contentment that comes from none other than the Holy Spirit. "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." Drink up!

Today, even modern industrial societies are not always able to provide food and shelter for all of their people. These are very real and important needs. But there are other needs that sometimes are not so easily identified. Even when the most pressing requirements for food or clothing or shelter have been satisfied, that is not enough for the human being. There remains a hunger for something more. We want to be somebody. We want to feel secure. We want to love. Without any better way to satisfy these inner needs, we end up depending on possessions and profit – not just for our physical well-being but as a substitute for the dignity, fulfillment, and security we want so much. Only by living for something that lasts, something real – rather than for passing pleasure and profit – can we achieve the lasting fulfillment, the limitless capacity to love, that is our birthright. So, love.

When you allow whatever arises to come into your mind, you see that all of it is impermanent. In that seeing, there is a letting go, and past the letting go is silence. A silent mind allows you to see impermanence even more clearly, which leads to more letting go, and in turn deeper penetration into silence. These two things feed each other, what I'm calling wisdom and what I'm calling silence. Each deepens the other. It is true that on the threshold of silence we often experience fear. It is the ego that is afraid. In the panoramic attention required for choice-less awareness, the ego is not allowed to occupy center stage, where it thinks it belongs, and it begins to wonder what life will be like in silence, where it won't be present at all. This fear resembles the fear of death, because entering into silence is a temporary death for the ego. Naturally, it is afraid. When this fear comes up, you shouldn't regard it as an obstacle or hindrance; it is just one more aspec...

I think the apostle Paul, one of the key shapers of our traditions---western Christianity, was in fact a 'mystic'--and this is some of his thinking that I believe underscores this fact. He definitely was tapped into the eternal life source...the Spirit of Christ. Paul was a contemplative, folks. ... from I Corinthians 2:6-16 *We speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a m...

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” "You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.” "You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.” "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.” "You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.” "You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” "You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God...

In all of Christian scripture, with the possible exception of the prayer taught by Jesus, this prayer speaks to the true calling of disciples of Christ. The meaning of walking with Him is contained in this very key prayer passage. It is the best meditation passage I know of. The Prayer of Saint Francis Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life. Attributed to Francis Bernadone, perhaps the most universally loved of Christian saints, who was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1181 or 1182. At the age of twenty-two, after a sudden illness th...

It is no little wisdom for you to keep yourself in silence and in good peace when evil words are spoken to you, and to turn your heart to God and not to be troubled with the judgment of others. -Thomas a Kempis Most of us appreciate praise, but it is disastrous to become dependent on it. If we are going to allow our security to be bolstered up by the praise, appreciation, and applause of others, we are done for. I have heard about a well-known movie star who goes to sleep at night with a tape of recorded applause playing. This is going to make him more and more insecure. Why should we get agitated if someone ignores us? There are,after all, advantages to being ignored. We can go anywhere in freedom. Nobody recognizes us - how good it is! In life,there are occasions when we are ignored and sometimes forgotten. That is the time for us to remind ourselves, "Why do I need anybody's attention?" This attitude can be cultivated skillfully. Even those of us who are the most sensi...

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself insofar as you are a created being and let God be God in you. -Meister Eckhart In those moments when we forget ourselves - not thinking,"Am I happy?" but completely oblivious to our little ego -we spend a brief but beautiful holiday in heaven. The joy we experience in these moments of self-forgetting is our true nature, our native state. To regain it, we have simply to empty ourselves of what hides this joy: that is, to stop dwelling on ourselves. To the extent that we are not full of ourselves, God can fill us. "If you go out of yourself,"says Johannes Tauler, "without doubt he shall go in, and there will be much or little of his entering in according to how much or little you go out." --Eswaran

"Learn self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it. As soon as you apply yourself to contemplation, you will at once feel your senses gather themselves together: they seem like bees which return to the hive and there shut themselves up to work at the making of honey." -Saint Teresa of Avila Complete concentration is complete relaxation. The ability to work on a job with total concentration, and then put it out of your mind when necessary, is a skill which can be cultivated. Through practice, we can learn to drop whatever we are doing and turn our attention to a more urgent need. When you are absorbed in a favorite book and a friend or your partner interrupts you, set the book aside and give your complete attention to what he or she is saying. If part of your mind is on the conversation and part on what you have been reading, there will be division and tension in the mind. When we practice this one-pointedne...

I’m advocating listening prayer—conversations with God in which we both talk and hear. My growing zeal for this is based on the simple fact that without two-way communication, a truly personal relationship with God is out of the question. After all, how can I have a deep, meaningful relationship with anyone—including God—if I am the only one talking? Yet for many of us struggling believers, hearing God—Spirit to spirit and not only through Scripture—seems subjective and risky. And caution is warranted, because obviously it is possible to hear wrongly. I am wary. My fear of trusting the wrong voice keeps me from even hoping to hear from God. But eventually, my “cautious” position means that my only alternative was to “lean on my own understanding.” Clearly, there is great danger in that! Meanwhile, Jn. 10:27 assures that I could know the Shepherd’s voice and distinguish it from other voices (see also vv. 3-5,14-16). But that’s not all. Because my walk with God really is a relationship, ...

A seeker once asked Bayazid: "Who is the true Prince?" "The man who cannot choose," said Bayazid: "the man for whom God's choice is the only possible choice." -Bayazid al-Bistami The Lord is extending the gift of immortality to each of us, but we do not reach out to take it because we are holding a few pennies in our hands. I don't know if you have seen infants in this dilemma; it happens at a particular stage of development, when they have learned to grasp but not quite mastered letting go. They have a rattle in one hand; you offer them a toothbrush, and for a while they just look back and forth at the toothbrush, then the rattle, then the toothbrush again. You can almost see the grey matter working: "I want that toothbrush, but how can I take it? My hand is already full." Similarly, all of us look at the Lord's gift for a long while, asking "What is this? How do I know it's real? Give it to me first; then I'll let the p...

The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation. >>>>>>Anthony deMello

When we get tense, it is easiest to vent our frustration by making cracks at our children, our wife, or our husband- it is a simple matter of geographic proximity. When we attack other people, when we become a source of trouble to others, it is not because we want to add to their trouble; we have just become an object of trouble to ourselves. When we are agitated, when we are ready to burst out in anger against others, the immediate solution is to go for a long walk repeating the mantram. In the ultimate analysis, our resentments and hostilities are not against others. They are against our own alienation from our native state, which is cosmic consciousness/Christ-consciousness. All the time we are being nudged by some latent force within us, trying to remind us what our native state is. Eswaran