The Challenge of Illness - John O'Donohue

We never value or even see some things in our lives until we
are just about to lose them.  This is particularly true of health.
When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world that
we never notice how well we are.  Illness comes and challenges
everything about us.  It unmasks all pretense.
When you are really ill, you cannot mask it.

Illness also tests the inner fiber and luminosity of the soul. 

Illness focuses us onto our "inner landscape", into resting
deeply in the inner silence of the Soul.  It is a remedial silence
that allows us to endure, to move through, but not necessarily
getting rid of the illness.  We can't have an agenda - only the 
deep acceptance of the companion - and learn to navigate it.

John O'Donohue
From - Eternal Echoes

~

Photo of Soft Sunset taken by my brother :)

 

Aligning with What Is - Eckhart Tolle on Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke and traveled almost continuously all
over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey 
through words - which are content - that which is beyond words,
beyond content.  At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he
surprised his audience by saying, "Do you want to know my secret?"
Everyone became very alert.  Many people in the audience had
 been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still
failed to grasp the essence of his teaching.  Finally, after all these
years, the master would give them the key to understanding.
"This is my secret," he said.  "I don't mind what happens."  He
did not elaborate, and so I suspect most of his audience were
even more perplexed than before.  The implications of this
simple statement, however, are profound.

When I don't mind what happens, what does that imply?  It 
implies that internally I am in alignment with what happens.
"What happens" of course, refers to the suchness of this moment,
which already is as it is.  It refers to content, the form that this
moment - the only moment there ever is - takes.  To be in
alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of
inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label
 it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be.  Does this mean you
 can no longer take action to bring about change in your life?  On
 the contrary.  When the basis for your actions is inner alignment
 with the present moment, your actions become empowered by
 the intelligence of Life itself.

Eckhart Tolle on J. Krishnamurti

From Simon Bartholome

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

The Comma - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

All afternoon, each time
I think I should hurry,
I pull out a comma,

such humble punctuation,
and I invite it into the moment,
and the comma does

what it always does, which
is to invite a pause, a small pause,
of course, but a pause long enough

to breathe, to notice what else
is happening, a slight
suggestion that right here

is a perfect place to rest,

yes, how funny I never noticed
before the comma itself

looks as if it's bowing, nodding

its small dark head to what is,

encouraging us to find

a brief silence and then,

thus refreshed, go on.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from All the Honey

Art by Mori Yuzan
(color digitally inverted)

with thanks to The Beauty We Love
for post and picture :)

 

Destiny - Markham & Maharshi

There's a destiny which makes us brothers;
none goes his way alone.
All that we send into the lives of others
comes back into our own.

Edwin Markham
1852-1940

My mother wrote this on the first page of my little
autograph book when I was 7 or 8 years old... :)

~

Whatever is destined
not to happen
will not happen;
try as you may.

Whatever is destined to happen
will happen; do what you may
to prevent it.

This is certain.

The best course of action, therefore,
is to remain silent.

Ramana Maharshi

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The Place of Rest - Frank Ostaseski

We often think of rest as something that will come to us
when everything else in our lives is complete: at the end of
the day, when we go on holiday, or get through our to-do
lists.  We imagine that we can only find rest by changing our
circumstances.  [But] we can find a place of rest within us,
without having to alter the conditions of our lives.

This place of rest is always available to us.  We need only 
turn toward it.  It is experienced when we bring full attention,
without distraction, to this moment, to this activity.  After
some time of doing this, we can come to know this
spaciousness as a regular part of our lives.  It manifests
as an aspect of us that is never sick, is not born, and does
not die...

When we are caught in a time driven mentality or tumbling
unconsciously from one moment to the next, we become a
prisoner of our thoughts.  We get trapped in a jail of our own
construction. We want to spin plates, juggle balls, and live
two dreams at once.  We end up being addicted to busy.  We
confuse rest with non-productivity, and laziness.  We race 
from one activity to the next.  Yet we do it all in a continuous
 state of partial attention, imagining we are accomplishing
more, when in reality we are living less.

Rest is found when we are present instead of letting our
minds wander through the hallways of fear, worry and
anxiousness.  Rest comes when we become more by doing
less, when we don't allow the urgent crowd out the important.
It is the result of a decluttering of the mind and decoupling
from fixed views.

If we drop beneath the surface of our minds, we encounter
a vast, serene calmness.  We don't need to be swept away
by the surface currents.  We can find a natural place of rest...

Surface mind reacts.  When you travel into the calm depths,
the place of rest, you can act from a place of wisdom and
compassion, allowing whatever needs to happen, happen...
We surrender our strategies and resistance and open to
what is unfolding...

We come to rest in the depth of our Essential Nature.

Frank Ostaseski
From: The Five Invitations

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Sandbox of Life - Joan Ruvinsky

 "Embodied liberation" means fully experiencing life as it
passes through us: Celebrations, catastrophes and all the
boring bits in between.  "This"- the Unspeakable - is
wholly present throughout the ups and downs, joys and
tribulations, work life, love life, whether monk or householder.

Thoughts do not have to cease, likes and dislikes do not
have to disappear, dress code, name and personality do not
have to change.  There is no particular image to which the one
who is "liberated' need conform.  Cultural trappings are not
necessary.  The West has often been impressed by the outward
image or appearance  of the co-called "enlightened being",
but had often judged its homegrown saints by false criteria.
Jeans and sneakers are fine.  Orange robes are fine. A business
suit is fine.  Who is to judge?  Who is to compare?  Even
saints eat ice cream.

The behavior of someone who is "liberated" in this lifetime 
is often unpredictable.  Consciousness, of her own inherent
spontaneity, manifests variously.  Personality characteristics
such as joy, warmth, compassion, and sympathy are not
necessarily foolproof markers of "enlightenment."

This bliss/joy of Consciousness is simply resting in what is.
It may not be obvious to an onlooker, as it is at a vibrational
level far above the ordinary perception through the five senses.
This bliss/joy abides regardless of what we are doing or
thinking...  It is unconditioned and ever-present.

We can play all we want in the sandbox [of life], but we
always know where home is.  Even at play, we are at home.

Joan Ruvinsky
From: The Recognition of Our Own Heart

~

Personal Note:  In my new found sense of  playful "freedom"
I do not feel "liberated" from anything, in the traditional
sense of the word, nor was it a goal that I was trying to 
achieve.  It just happened spontaneously, uncontrived, when
I started tapping into my Child-like Nature, aka our Natural State,
 - internally feeling "liberated" from the inner struggle
 to "figure it all out" - this "spiritual" thing that I've been
 doing for the past 37 years or more...

There is a new sense of "freedom" to just be myself in this new
found playful attitude with life; accepting myself as I am, 
as I express my Natural Nature; tapping into the "magic" or
"mystical" side of life through playfulness - spontaneously
navigating my way through life as it is...

~

The bliss/joy of our Natural State allows us to feel "liberated."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Life is a playground.....
We must play, retiring at night
empty-handed and tired...

Ari Hanarvar

From: Rumi's Gifts

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering