Conversations with the Mirror

How do I have to be in order for the world to be whole again?

Your mind asks this question. Drop your mind and just be.

Is that not selfish? Seeking a personal peace and bliss while the whole world goes insane?

The world's insanity is a reflection of your own insanity. Become truly sane and the world will be sane.

So I do nothing?

In any case , YOU always do nothing. You cannot even take a breath without the universe providing you air with just the right amount of oxygen. Just BE - totally and completely. All actions will flow as they are meant to flow.

I'm tired of hearing your mystic mush. You want me to just sit here doing nothing while children starve and millions of human beings suffer and the whole earth is being destroyed by greed and madness?

Whatever your body must do will be done...the perfect action will emerge effortlessly when you are centred in being. The greatest service you can ever perform for the planet and all living beings on it is to FIRST find your own true identity with the ONE that underlies everything.

Can I, just one human being, really make a difference to anything?

If you see yourself as the drop you will always remain the drop. If you let go of your "drophood" and dissolve in the ocean, you will become the ocean. Please hurry up and do this: only the ocean can get all the drops together in one mighty and perfect whole. And, more importantly, if you become the ocean you will finally stop asking me all these stupid questions!

The Heart

The Heart is not the physical organ that pumps blood.
Nor is it the Heart-chakra of Kundalini yoga.
The Heart is another dimension : the hidden cave of the Self.
It is that secret place where the ego-mind complex dissolves in deep sleep and arises from on waking.
If you dive deep within your innermost being and consciously enter this Heart, the ego-mind complex dissolves totally and forever in it.
Then the true Self shines forth in all its awesome radiance.
Hurry there!
Do it now, while you still live in this body.
And experience infinite compassion, eternal bliss and absolute freedom!

Experience

I was carried away by a magic wind to a mysterious land at the end of the Universe.
There I saw a giant tree bearing shining fruits.
I was hungry, so I plucked a fruit and ate it.
It was delicious beyond all description..pure ambrosia!
Now I am back on Earth and trying to describe the experience of tasting this fruit.
Nothing I do or say can give you a taste of that. You have to bite into its golden succulence yourself.
Experience is the only proof, the only knowing.
How can one know that which is beyond intellect, beyond language, beyond sensation or emotion?
How can mind describe the Source from which mind springs?
Can the formless, timeless, nameless ONE be captured in Space or Time?
Listen , my friend, the only way is to jump into the abyss, drown in the ocean, be consumed like a moth in that flame.
Bite deep into the Golden Fruit!
Then you can join me in my dumbness and celebrate as I do.
In total and perfect Silence.

Atma Shatakam of Sri Shankara

The Atma Shatakam or Nirvana Shatakam is a haunting and beautiful bhajan written by Sri Adi Shankaracharya. The essence of Advaita philosophy is in this bhajan.
Chidananda rupam, Shivoham, Shivoham!

I am not mind, nor intellect, nor ego,

nor the reflections of inner self (chitta).

I am not the five senses. I am beyond that.

I am not the ether, nor the earth,

nor the fire, nor the wind (the five elements).

I am  that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva,

love and pure consciousness.


Neither can I be termed as energy (prana),

nor five types of breath (vayus),

nor the seven material essences,

nor the five coverings (pancha-kosha).

Neither am I the five instruments of elimination,

procreation, motion, grasping, or speaking.

I am that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva,

love and pure consciousness.


I have no hatred or dislike, nor affiliation or liking,

nor greed, nor delusion, nor pride or haughtiness,

nor feelings of envy or jealousy.

I have no duty (dharma), nor any money,

nor any desire (kama), nor even liberation (moksha).

I am  that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva,

love and pure consciousness.


I have neither merit (virtue), nor demerit (vice).

I do not commit sins or good deeds,

nor have happiness or sorrow, pain or pleasure.

I do not need mantras, holy places,

scriptures (Vedas), rituals or sacrifices (yagnas).

I am none of the triad of

the observer or the experience of observing

or the object being observed or experienced.

I am  that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva,

love and pure consciousness.


I do not have fear of death, as I do not have death.

I have no separation from my true self, no doubt about my existence,

nor have I discrimination on the basis of birth.

I have no father or mother,nor did I have a birth.

I am not the relative, nor the friend,

nor the guru, nor the disciple.

I am  that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva,

love and pure consciousness.


I am all pervasive.

I am without any attributes and without any form.

I have neither attachment to the world, nor to liberation (mukti).

I have no wishes for anything because I am everything,

everywhere,

every time,

always in equilibrium.

I am  that eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva,

love and pure consciousness.

Dark Light

Darkness and Light , like playful lovers, play hide and seek eternally.

So you read all the books - the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, the songs of Kabir and the gems of Rumi's brilliance.

 So you can wax eloquent on physics and metaphysics with equal applomb.

So what?

Have you felt what it is to dissolve like a dewdrop in an ocean of Love?

Have you dived deep into the nothingness of the Heart-lotus?

Have you become the silence where all the questions cease?

Have you melted like wax in the heat of surrender?

It just is.

No one knows the inner splendour of the falling rain being born again in endless cycles on the hot breath of the sun.
Which drop are you? Which cloud is your mother? Which river gave birth to you in your last life?
Senseless questions are symptoms of the fever of intellect.
Wordmongers craft their metaphors with an eye on the latest fashion and a hunger for the bazaar.
Wisdom bordellos flourish in the spiritual Las Vegas.
Surely this whoredom of the spirit is far greater a blackness than honest lust!
Crystal chains are strong as diamonds and not easy to break.. clinging to enlightenments and mistaken mastery, the fake prophets beget a horrific karma for their souls.
Headless heroes sink like stones in forgotten oceans, their myths dissolving like statues of salt.
The world turns, the sun shines, the stars light up the night, the wind blows, trees grow and flowers bloom and fall, with no fanfare or fuss. Any honest eye can see.
It just is.

Moments of Stillness.

"Each day we are faced with challenges, and each time we have an opportunity to bring compassion and wisdom to the forefront rather than responding from monkey mind. It is like a true kind of human transmutation to find a deeper and kinder response, to be able to pause and give our heart instead of our habits to another." Daily Zen.

A moment of stillness is a simple magic charm that can transform your life.
 All you have to do is learn how to be still, breathe slow and deep and easy and shift your attention to the background of your mind.
 The background is the empty blue sky. The foreground is a whirlpool of thoughts and emotions, like clouds blown by the storm-winds.
You are upset or angry or sad - pause for a moment.
 Focus on your breath....let it slow down, become lighter.
Shift your attention to the background.
Be the Blue Sky...do not attempt to react to the clouds of thoughts and feelings in any way, just observe them without judgement or reaction or identification, like watching a movie without being sucked in emotionally.
As you learn to be a detached witness of your own inner feelings and thoughts, you will find that miraculous changes will occur, effortlessly.
 Problems may dissolve altogether or mutate into solutions or just become insignificant.
 Patience and strength and courage will automatically flow in from the Universe to re-charge your batteries.
Try it. Practice it. And see how the magic unfolds.
Moments of stillness, consciously and deliberately chosen, will bring about the  metamorphosis of enlightenment that is your true nature and your birth-right.
Once you learn how to be the Blue Sky, you inherit the freedom of infinity and eternity.
Right here and right now.