In Yoke

Have thy heart in heaven and thy hands upon the earth. Ascend in piety and descend in charity. For this is the Nature of Light and the way of the children of it. -Thomas Vaughan When our hands are busy with a worthwhile task, and our mind is busy with the mantram, we won’t have much chance to brood on our problems. Cravings will not have a chance to grow. Self-centered desires need a lot of attention to thrive. They are like delicate houseplants, not very hardy. Unless their needs are met precisely, they cannot last long. If we do not water and fertilize them regularly – think about them, dream about them, plan and wish – they will wither and die. To get plants to thrive, it is considered helpful to talk to them in soothing, friendly tones. Destructive desires thrive on talk too; the more we talk about them, the stronger they get. So whenever you feel driven by a compulsive, destructive urge, don’t analyze it; don’t talk about it; don’t dwell on it. Turn your attention away...

A church is like a boat on the sea. Storms with lots of turbulence can happen when a leadership vacuum occurs.. the winds pick up...things start blowing around...whispers like--"this ship is listing" ,"I think I am gonna bail out", and unfortunately, some actually do jump off and start trying to swim on their own,looking for another boat...headstrong, impatient, doubting that His presence is any longer in this boat....while many of the "passengers" begin to fear, lose faith, and feed their sense of doubt...crying, "Master, we are going to drown!"...but are they, are we? ...soon the Master will rise from seemingly "being at rest" in the cabin of the boat --and say: "Peace, be still!" and then when His reign is restored and true peace returns he will ask us-- "Where is your faith?" Then we will remember that The Master can bring peace--at His Word. Jesus is the Master...He is in the boat. It is His word that truly ma...

“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 ...

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? I am a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of my head are easier by far to count than my feelings, the movements of my heart. -Saint Augustine Most of us never really see the people we live with. Our friend may be right before our eyes, but we do not see him. We see our idea of him, a little model we have made in our mind, and on that we pronounce our judgments. That is why, when we quarrel with someone, the worst thing we can do is to avoid him or her. We are trying to avoid an image in our own mind, which cannot be done. The mind takes some exaggerated impressions, memories, hopes, and insecurities, draws a quick caricature like one of those sidewalk cartoonists, and then turns up its nose. The person in question should retort, "That's not me;that's your caricature of me. If you don't like it, you don't like your own mind." To heal our relationships, we have to move closer to people we do not like, learn to ...

The true saint goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment. -Abu Sa'id There are some who like to imagine themselves as pilgrims moving among the deer on high forest paths, simply clad, sipping only pure headwaters, breathing only ethereal mountain air. To meditate, we needn't drop everything and undertake an ascent of the Himalayas or Mount Athos or Cold Mountain. It may not sound glamorous, but you can actually do better right where you are. Your situation may lack the grandeur of those austere and solitary peaks, but it could be a very fertile valley yielding marvelous fruit. We need people if we are to grow, and all our problems with them, properly seen, are opportunities for growth. Can you practice patience with a deer? Can you learn to forgive a redwood? Trying to live in harmony with those around you right now will bring out ...

The Spiritual Path of Jesus (Taken from the Journal of Contemplative Reflection, Vol. 2, Issue 2, September 1999) Something of great value has not only been hidden from us in modern Christianity, but has also been stolen away from us (and from the many who would find it if they could) by institutional guardians of the faith.  To use Jesus' sharp words about this thievery, "Woe to you, religious leaders, you pretenders. You lock the doors of the kingdom of heaven before all human beings. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you allow access to those who seek entrance" (Matt. 23:13). The spiritual path of Jesus was aimed at something far higher than the perpetuation of institutional religion or theological dogma. His work was about something revolutionary and transformative. It was about finding the way to that transformation. Those drawn to the spiritual path of Jesus throughout the centuries have intuitively known that this was so. It was not extraneous dogma or the inst...

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. -Mark Twain From Easwaran: Often, when a low mood is coming on, sometimes it is because the mind has started to brood upon itself. The things that formerly seemed exciting now elicit no response. In a sense,we have closed down. A friend can talk to us and we will not hear; we can go to a movie and may not even follow the plot.We are utterly absorbed in a hall of mirrors inside, in which we and everyone around us are pushed, pulled, and twisted into fantastic shapes. There are a number of effective ways of treating these dark moods where they start, within the mind. What helps is to do what your mind is crying out not to do: be with other people, work with them, make yourself take an active interest in what they are doing and saying. This turns attention away from yourself by directing it outward. Once you are more concerned with others, your melancholy is gone; you are alive again. Leslie and I have for the 30+ ...