Paradise is Here and Now

 

“Except by the Lord’s Grace, which begins to function when one surrenders oneself completely at His feet with sincere devotion, the Self cannot be cognised merely by the skill of the mind. So subtle is the Reality. Heart, the source, is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all. It is never a  form, it is the light of Truth. The death of the mind drowned in Self-Consciousness is the eternal Silence. The real ‘I’ is the supreme Heart-Space, the great ocean of bliss.” Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi, Guru Vachaka Kovai

Enough talk, enough words – throw all the books away!

Drop all your concepts and theories.

God is too subtle to be grasped by your intellect,

Yet  responds instantly to the heart-cry of loving surrender.

Unwavering, one-pointed devotion leads infallibly into the divine embrace that is infinite love and joy.

Stop searching for happiness in all the wrong places.

Everything you seek is already within you.

You are the only shadow that is blocking the Light;

Remove yourself for a second and see the glory that is your true, natural being!

Just rest in the Heart and perfection is  effortlessly revealed.

All doubt and fear, all sorrow and suffering will disappear like mist before the sun:

In that thought-free silence, only blissful peace exists.

So, be truly still – and enter paradise!

Right here, right now.

“Whatever it be that lights devotion in man’s heart and knits him closest unto God, that is the best thing for him here in time. Thou needst not seek Him here or there, He is no further off than at the door of thy heart; there He lingers, awaiting whoever is ready to open and let Him in. Thou needst not call to Him afar, He waits much more impatiently than thou for thee to open to Him. He longs for thee a thousandfold more urgently than thou for Him: one point, the opening and the entering.”   Meister Eckhart

Celebrate Light!

 

“What a mystery is Light!
Awareness in form, burning fog and mist and darkness away,

Transforming all it touches into radiance.

See the Light within. 

Let it shine into all the dark, hidden corners of your being.

This is enough.” From Lightsongs – the book.

There is a light that is brighter than the sun and all the stars.

It is the source of all light and life, bestowing wisdom and joy and peace.

It shines forever in the innermost Heart of every living being.

It is your greatest treasure, your true Self.

Some call it Brahman or Shiva or Tao or God.

In truth, no names or words can describe its divine mystery.

It cannot be seen – to know it, you must be it.

If you are prepared for total transformation, the ultimate metamorphosis, you can be it.

To be it, you must surrender unconditionally and disappear into it.

When there is no “ you” left, the singing and the dancing begins.

This is the secret festival, the eternal celebration.

This is the flame that never dims.

So light your lamps with devotion and joy.

Happy Diwali!

The Koan of Being Human

 

“Once there was a way to get back homewards.
 Once there was a way to get back home.
Sleepy darling, do not cry and I will sing you a lullaby.
Boy, you’re going to carry that weight , carry that weight a long time!”
The Beatles

Oh you children of Adam, what are you becoming?

Who can define or understand you, your madness, your genius, your implacable contradictions? So puny, yet, so powerful, so beautiful and yet, so ugly, so insignificant, and yet, so dangerous; angel or demon, sinner or saint, who are you really??

Are you diligently struggling to work through  the mountains of karma you inherited? Or are you too busy sowing the seeds of your own extinction?

Are you stardust, are you golden? Or are you a blight of locusts destroying all before you? 

Your creator  became you and  got lost  in his own illusion; now he turns inside-out in endless aplomb, surprising himself with himself. And you, where are you in all this noise? 

Who, or what,  exactly, is a human being?

Unruly, uncontrollable, you have proved yourself both  creative and destructive, so divine and, at the same time, so monstrous,  capable of both the greatest achievements and the most terrible crimes.

Have you evolved at all in fifty thousand years? Or are you secretly playing a complex game, riding a souped-up roller coaster of recurring lifetimes to see it all, feel it all, do it all?

End it all?

A thousand years from now, a hundred thousand years from now, will you still flaunt your genes on some distant planet in a galaxy far, far away? Or will the only remaining traces of you be some faintly human dust?

O child of man, who do you truly chose to be?

“ I live fearlessly from day to day until day no longer dawns for me.” Zen Master Ryokan.

Your Secret Brother

 
(Artwork of Lord Yama  by Suresh Pydikondala)


“ Do not fear emptiness, do not fear death.
Every night, in sleep, you die blissfully for eight hours,
Gratefully embracing oblivion to recharge your tired being.
Who, inside you, experiences the peace and rejuvenation of deep sleep?
Unfettered by the body, the spirit enters the great Void and fills itself with fresh vitality.
Death’s like that – only, it’s a slightly longer period of recharging.
Death is freedom and that sense of coming home.” from Lightsongs, the book.

“Our culture does not believe in endings and therefore chooses to deny death. As any farmer knows, life is rooted in, and dependent on, death.” Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise

An invisible God perches upon your left shoulder and whispers sometimes in your ear.
He is your most faithful companion and greatest friend.
He is the background that gives your life context, the ending that gives it meaning, the gift that sets you free.
He is your secret brother and his name is Death.
If you would live a fuller, richer and deeper life, learn to embrace and accept him.

The wisest cultures in the world have accepted death as a natural and integral part of life.
At every moment, millions of cells in the body are dying and being replaced by new cells. Recognising the inevitability of suffering, old age and death, human beings seek for meaning, if any, in this human existence. This is how Prince Siddartha became the Buddha, how all the great spiritual practices began.

Death is a priceless treasure, a sacred mystery, a gateway to infinity.
To die consciously is to die wisely and well. This takes preparation and practice.
All the great mystic traditions have viewed death as a path to transformation and transcendence: to die before the body dies has always been the key to enlightenment.
What exactly does this mean?

The person that you think you are, the ego-self, is just a story made up of all your memories, your emotions, your conditioning- it is a result of your unconscious identification with the body-mind complex. This persona is an illusion that does not really exist; however, so powerful is its hold on you that it hides your true being from you. Caught in the hypnotic stranglehold of this false identification, all your interactions with reality are distorted by a clouded filter, a dense fog; so, you fail to experience the  precious, magical wonder of your own everyday life!

Burst the bubble of this ego-identification and awaken to the sacred experience of pure being-awareness in the present moment. This is how you will discover heaven on earth and, at last, be one with your own true nature: infinite, eternal, immortal. 

( Artwork of Lord Shiva by Vrindavan Das)

This is the gift that death can bring to you, if you are brave enough to accept it.

If you can die before your body dies, you can truly be free.