In Yoke

The wine of life is oozing drop by drop, The leaves of life are falling one by one.   – Omar Khayyam Easwaran muses: Like leaves, we come into this life, are here for a few days, and then are gone. Nobody remembers us, and nobody misses us. As long as we believe that we are separate, we inevitably have to die. Our immortality is in the whole, which never dies. In living just for personal profit and pleasure, no matter under what philosophical name we may call it, our real personality withers away. It cannot be otherwise. When you become aware that you are not a leaf but the tree , something amazing happens in your life: you are able to act spontaneously, almost effortlessly, for the good of all. This is the proof of your awareness that you are the tree: everywhere it will motivate you, everywhere you will see what contribution you can make. You won’t have to deliberate the pros and cons. You won’t need a computer to provide you with a plan of action. You will kn...

The more I sit with the wisdom of the ages, and study the mystics, the more congruence I begin to sense. One philosophical congruence is the concept of the power of NOW—as Eckhart Tolle has popularized. Approximately 500 years before Christ’s advent in the Middle East, the life of Siddhartha Gautama emanated in Nepal and Northern India. His noble eightfold path and his words and teachings still ring true. Many of the concepts of his teachings are not at all incompatible with the capacity we are given through life in Christ. The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. -The Compassionate Buddha Eknath Easwaran comments: “When the mind is at rest, we are lifted out of time into the eternal present. The body, of course, is still subject to the passage of time. But in a sense, the flickering of the mind is our internal clock. When the mind...

As pure water poured into pure water becomes the very same, so does the Self of the illumined man or woman verily become one with the Godhead.  ~Katha Upanishad Easwaran notes that for some reason, it is very difficult for us to accept our divine nature. “This has always puzzled me. We pay money for books about how destructive we are. We stand in line to see movies that emphasize our capacity for making trouble.” Then, when Jesus comes to tell us that the kingdom of heaven is within us, we say, "There must be some mistake." It is to convince us that our real Self is always pure and eternal that men and women of God keep arising among us. More than anything, we need to hear their good news that the source of all joy and security is right within. In the Hindu scriptures there is a precise term for our real nature: the Atman. All it means is "the Self" - not the little self, the changing personality with which most of us identify, but the higher Self, our re...

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. -Saint Francis of Assisi When we ask to be made instruments of peace, what we are really asking for is the boundless determination to empty ourselves of every state of mind that disrupts relationships- anger, resentment, jealousy, greed, self-will in any form. Our first priority is to reform ourselves; without that, how can we expect to help other people reform themselves? It is the living example of a man or woman giving all they have to making love a reality that moves our hearts to follow. We do not need a bumper sticker that says,"You are following an instrument of the Lord." Our everyday actions speak for themselves. ~ Easwaran The picture above is of the "baby" our Essential Self, beginning to grow, with the help of the Spirit, who is embodied like a Mother. I really love this image. When EE says "our first priority is to reform ourselves", it seems to me that it is ou...

"Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein"... or, in the NIV : "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Luke 18:17 Truly, everything about living our lives as followers of Christ, is a function of the grace he gives us through His Spirit, to live in His Kingdom. In addition, I have found great benefit from learning the values of self study and self observation in order to become more and more transformed into His image, from a renowned British Psychiatrist, Dr. Maurice Nicoll . He is the foremost translator of "The Work" of self transformation, as espoused by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky , in the context of the tradition of Christ followership . Following is a sequence of thoughts about self observation that he gave in a talk and was subsequently transcribed, in 1944. --to begin self observation, and self study, it is necessary to d...

The great mystics of all religions agree that in the very depths of the unconscious, in every one of us, there is a Living Presence that is not touched by time, place, or circumstance. Life has only one purpose, they add, and that is to discover that Presence. The men and women who have done this-Francis of Assisi, for example, Mahatma Gandhi, Teresa of Avila, the Compassionate Buddha--are proof of the words of Jesus The Christ, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." ~ Easwaran But every one of them would be quick to tell you that no one can enter the realm of that Kingdom and discover the One who lives there, who has not brought the movements of the mind under control. And, they do not pretend that our own efforts to tame the mind will suffice in themselves. Grace , they remind us, is all important. Thomas a Kempis prays, "that I may be able to fulfill they words, and to work out my own salvation." The Hallmark of the man or woman of God is gratitude: endle...

“One of the great statements called mahavakyas in Sanskrit that has reverberated down the centuries for thousands of years is tat tvam asi . There is a precision about this formula, as I call it, which is not philosophy nor is it metaphysics. “ Tat literally means ‘That’ – the infinite, immortal, immutable spirit that is at the core of human consciousness. It’s called by a precise scientific name, atman , the Self , which is closer to me than this body, which, as the Sufis say, is nearer to me than my jugular vein, which is dearer to me than my very life. Tat is the supreme reality from which words turn back frightened, which thoughts cannot reach. “The second word is tvam , ‘you.’ It is addressed to everyone without exception. “And the third word, asi , means ‘ you are .’ Whether you believe it or not, it does not matter. Whether you accept it or not, it does not matter. That is what you are.” ~ Eknath Easwaran This truth as expressed in Sanskrit, which is much more specific ...

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 s...

If we had to seek for virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is within us, it suffices to avoid bad thoughts and to keep our souls turned towards the Lord. -Philokalia From my teacher: To remake ourselves, we don't have to bring goodness,love, fearlessness, and the like from without and force them into our hearts somehow. They are already present in us, deep in our consciousness. If we work to remove the impediments that have built up over many years of conditioning, to dislodge the old resentments and fears and selfish desires, our life will become like a fountain of living waters, as it was meant to be. An old fountain may be clogged so that not much water can get through. But with a lot of cleaning, you can get the water to start playing again. Then grass and flowers will grow around it, and birds will come there to have their bath. Just so, love can flow from us as from a living fountain, and those we live and work with will come to us to be r...