Let there be light!

What a wonderful thought - I can't help but feel captivated by this statement….! Oooh la la!

"The temple may have been dark for a thousand years, the Hindu mystics say, but once the lamp is lit, every corner will be ablaze with light." - Eknath Easwaran

PS: I guess one also needs to do all that is required to protect the light – like prevent the wind of negative thinking from blowing away the flame.

Thought for the Day - EE

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Reason is like an officer when the King appears.

The officer then loses his power and hides himself.

Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.

 - Jalaluddin Rumi

Thinking, however useful it may be at times, is not the highest human faculty; it is only a stage in development. If, for example, in the throes of evolution we had stopped with instinct, saying, "This is the highest possible mode of knowing," our human future would have been stunted: I would not be seated here writing these words, nor would you be reading them.

Like instinct, reason is only a way station. When friends and I go to Berkeley to see a play, we sometimes stop halfway along to stretch our legs. But we don't get so involved in stretching legs that we forget to go on to the theater. Thought is a useful but temporary stopping station; it should not be considered a permanent solution to the problems of living.  Just as we were able to rise above instinct and to develop reason, the mystics say we must one day pass beyond discursive thinking and enter into a higher mode of knowing.

The Buddha said that we cannot solve the problems of the mind with the mind. We cannot solve our problems by thinking about them, analyzing them, talking about them. In meditation, we often simply leave personal problems behind -- we move out of the neighborhood where they live.

-----

>From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997) http://www.nilgiri.org/Html/Thoughts/today.html

-----------------------------------------

Makes one think, eh? But wait a second, isn’t that - Think - what we are not supposed to overdo!  :)

Meditation - A Source of Wisdom

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran

----------------------------------------------

 

Everyone sees the Unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it.

Whoever has polished it more sees more -- more Unseen forms become manifest to him.  - Jalaluddin Rumi

 

As your meditation deepens, there will still be occasions when you get upset, but you will be able to watch what goes on in the lab of your mind.  It's like getting into a glass-bottomed boat, where you venture out onto the ocean and watch all the deep-sea creatures lurking beneath the surface: resentment sharks, stingrays of greed, scurrying schools of fear. You slowly gain a certain amount of detachment from your mind, by which you can observe what is going on, collect data, and then set things right.

 

Some of the chronic problems that millions of people suffer from today might be solved by gaining a little detachment from their minds and emotions, so they can stand back a little when the mind is agitated and see the ways in which it makes mountains out of molehills. Many problems simply are not real; they start to seem real only when we dwell on them. The thorniest problems to solve are those that are not real; yet most of us go on giving them our best efforts.

 

-----

>From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997)

Thought for the Day

This one's extremely inspiring! Wow!

 

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran

----------------------------------------------

 

If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.

 - Thomas a Kempis

 

The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation. The Lord has left us love notes scattered extravagantly across creation. Hidden in the eye of the tiger, the wet muzzle of a calf, the delicacy of the violet, and the perfect curve of the elephant's tusk is a very personal, priceless message.

 

Watch the lamb in awkward play, butting against its mother's side. See the spider putting the final shimmering touches on an architectural wonder.  And absorb a truth that is wordless. The grace of a deer, the soaring freedom of a sparrow hawk in flight, the utter self-possession of an elephant crashing through the woods - in every one of these there is something of ourselves.

 

From the great whales to the tiniest of tree frogs in the Amazon basin, unity embraces us all. Lose sight of this unity, allow these creatures to be exploited or destroyed, and we are diminished too.

 

-----

>From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997)

http://www.nilgiri.org/Html/Thoughts/today.html

Eknath Easwaran...

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------

October 18

He that loveth, flieth, runneth, and rejoiceth. He is free, and
cannot be held in. He giveth all for all, and hath all in all,
because he resteth in one highest above all things, from whom
all that is good flows and proceeds. - Thomas a Kempis

This spring I watched six baby swallows learn how to fly. They
were huddled on the telephone wires observing their mother, who
came flying slowly by in front of them, doing the easier turns
and showing them the basics of flying. There was no need for
these baby swallows to read books or attend lectures on how to
fly. They have an inborn instinct for it. Learning to fly may not
be easy, but this is what birds are born to do.

The Lord sees us sitting on a perch made of pleasure, profit,
power, or prestige, quaking with every variation in our bank
account and every critical comment that comes our way; and he
asks us if we would not rather forget our failings, weaknesses,
and insecurities and become united with him.

This is what we are born to do: to leave our perch of selfish
interests and soar aloft. To soar to union with God means to give
all our love to the Lord, so that all the faculties and resources
which have been hidden in us can come into our lives to the great
benefit of those around us.

------------------------------------------------------
>From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997)
http://www.nilgiri.org/Html/Thoughts/today.html

It hits me hard...

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------

September 26

A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing that he says, thinks or does is without consequences. - Norman Cousins


The Hindu and Buddhist scriptures give us this same truth in what is called the law of karma, which is the psychological equivalent to the physical law that every action has a reaction equal and opposite to it. The Buddha says we can fly higher than the heavens or hide in the bowels of the earth, but we will not be able to escape the consequences of our actions. Though we drive to another city or fly to another country, though we change our job or our name, our mistakes will pursue us wherever we go.

Paradoxically, the only way we can begin to escape from the consequences of our actions is to stop running from them and to face them with fortitude. In this sense, every difficult situation is a precious opportunity. When we find ourselves in some situation where we always make the same mistake, if we can manage not to make that mistake, the chain can be broken. Often, if we face it squarely, that situation will not come up again.

------------------------

Which reminds me of something I saw yesterday - a dog chasing another dog in what looked like a "this-is-my-territory" fight. The dog that was running away suddenly seemed to get a brainwave and simply turned around and bared his teeth at the other and came out a victor as the other backed off. Mmm!? Any such success stories that you wanna report :)?

I gotta learn!!!!!!

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------

September 12

Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth; every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little death. - Arthur Schopenhauer


My grandmother, my spiritual teacher, used to tell me that the pain we associate with the great change called death arises from our innumerable selfish attachments. One day she illustrated this in a simple way by asking me to sit in a chair and hold tight to the arms. Then she tried to pull me out of the chair. She tugged and pulled at me, and I held on tight.

It was painful. She was a strong person, and even though I held on with all my strength, she pulled me out. Then she told me to sit down again, but this time not to hold on anywhere just to get up and come to her when she called. With ease I got out of the chair and went to her. This, she told me, is how to overcome the fear and pain of death. When we hold onto things -- houses, cars, books, guitars, our antique silver teapot -- we get attached and tied down.

-------------------------------

I need to learn...esp. when it comes to books....I seem to be obsessed with them and will not even allow members of the insectopedia/reptilia family to trespass into the area in which my book shelf is located...let alone homo sapiens

Nice stuff from Eknath!

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------


Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in their senses at will. - Bhagavad Gita


The Gita says a free person can draw in his senses just as a tortoise draws in its legs. What a marvelous simile! Just imagine a tortoise being approached by a group of school children with sticks in their hands. He sees the children coming, and the command is given to the limbs, "Retire!"

Immediately, the head, the tail, and the four legs withdraw into the shell. The children come; they beat out a rhythm on the shell with their sticks. They toss the tortoise in the air, but they can't harm him. After the children leave and all is quiet, the tortoise ventures to stick his neck out, then his tail and legs. He continues his journey, unconcerned. He goes where he likes.

If we want to live in freedom, Krishna says, we must train our senses. We learn when to welcome an experience, and when to withdraw for our own safety. We become masters of our lives. Then we will be like the giant tortoise I saw at the zoo - wandering freely while all the other animals were in cages. A notice on his back read: "I am free. Don't report me to the management."

---------------------------
:-) Lots to learn from all the living beings that we co-exist with!

Too much of enthusiasm/excitement is also bad...

Sound piece of advice...

*********************************************

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------

Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive. -- Milarepa


Some people are fortunate enough to have a great wealth of vitality. But when we are feeling especially full of energy, we may be likely to take up too many activities at the same time.
We make big plans, but then a great deal of our enthusiasm simply drains away in excitement. When we start to put our plans into action, we find we have run out of steam.

The culprit here is the excitement itself. It is the nature of excitement that it cannot last. It has to die down, and when it does, the same project we began with such enthusiasm looks utterly boring. It is full of dull, drab details that we had not foreseen. And we give up. The project has not changed; our energy that fueled it is depleted.

To achieve our highest potential in life, we must cultivate the capacity to carry through. Activity is not achievement. It is not enough to rush about beginning a lot of things and keeping busy. A well-spent life is one that rounds out what it has begun. The life of a great artist or scientist is usually shaped by a single desire, carried through to the very end.

Direct your life to the overriding spiritual goal and lesser activities will take their proper place.

Life, Pleasure, Pain

From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Gita does not say that we should not go after pleasure.

When I first heard this from my grandmother, I really took to the Gita immediately; but I wasn't expecting what she said next:
"The Gita doesn't say not to go after pleasure; it says that when you go after pleasure you are also going after pain." It is not possible for most of us to accept this. We are always cherishing the distant hope that while no other human being has ever succeeded in isolating pleasure, we are going to perform this miraculous operation and then live in a state of pleasure always. To enter a state of abiding joy we must sometimes say no to pleasure while accepting pain with a smile.

Just as we should not pursue pleasure, we should not pursue pain, either. Pleasure and pain form a single duality of experience. We must learn to remain calm in both, not clinging to either.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

My thoughts: We talk about it being important to remember that people will do anything to derive pleasure and even more to avoid pain whenever we go through programmes on Change Management etc. Consider this - If it is true that almost every 'normal' human has been sucked into this earthly life of pleasure and pain, how difficult is it going to be to come out of this rut and be a detached and stand-alone 'system'? And well, I can't help thinking that life may be boring if one were to stay unaffected. I’ll also be my own alter-ego and say that it's a trade off between whether one is willing to be swayed by a wild & exciting swing called life - scream at every high, bleed at every fall, and sit silently when the swing is still - or just experience the process minus the screams, falls, and silence. This thread of thought reminds me of Howard Roark (The central character in The FountainHead) who simply enjoyed life (read architecture) while managing to stay unaffected by what happened around him – even if it was about lost opportunities and a cruel and bitter society that was always plotting against him. Howard is what one could perhaps call a ‘truly’ happy man who was at peace with himself and the world despite its vagaries. I’ve been grinding the same flour for quite some time now. But like one of my colleagues once said “repeated deliberation is what will clear the fog and help one understand the truth!”

Just what I need for lunch today

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------
The disunited mind is far from wise; how can it meditate?
How be at peace? When you know no peace, how can you know joy?
-- Bhagavad Gita

Today's mania for speed strikes right at the root of our capacity for an even mind. How often we find ourselves locked into behavior and situations that force us to hurry, hurry, hurry! By now, most of us are aware that compulsive speed -- "hurry sickness" -- can be a direct threat to our physical health. But hurry has another alarming repercussion: it cripples patience. When we lack patience, even a few moments' delay, a trivial disappointment, an unexpected obstacle, makes us explode in anger. We are not hostile people; we are just in such a hurry that keeping
the mind calm is impossible. Without peace of mind, how can we enjoy anything, from a movie to good health? When we go slower, we are more patient, and when we are more patient, we are capable of enjoying life more. All these benefits can come from just learning to slow down.
-----
>From Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By" (Nilgiri Press, 1997)
http://www.nilgiri.org/Html/Thoughts/today.html

The trip to my Village!

The trip that changed a few things for me: (philosophy)

I was off to my home town for a function last week. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it before I left, for I wanted to finish off a few things in office; did not want to break my routine and lastly, I did not really think I would have an exciting time in my village. But things turned out to be so different. Life does treat us to pleasant surprises. The pleasant surprises that I encountered were to do with nostalgia and learning.

I reached my village (Ponnamaravathy) at around 7 AM in the morning and was chased by a dog on my way home to start with. (What is it about me? Is it my face? :)) I wonder what he was doing running around at 7 AM instead of claiming his 40 winks. Went home to some of my near and dear relatives. Met two amazing people. One - my mom's cousin that I know very well and the second - a person I met for the first time – a construction worker who was helping us with the household chores during the function. They taught me a lot. Not in the lecturing sense but with their deeds and character. ‘Hear’ this out. You’ll be amazed.

The first person – my mom’s cousin - VM – is probably in her late 30s or maybe early 40s. VM is perhaps one of the most beautiful ladies in my extended family. She was married to her cousin (dad’s sister’s son) at a young age even though she would have had a very promising career had she studied further and gone on to work. He was a handsome doctor. They made such a pretty pair and were the talk of the town. Life does come up with the most unexpected of things; doesn’t it? True to its reputation, the googly that life threw into this particular situation was like this - It was only after the marriage that the bride and bride’s family realized that the doctor was a drug-addict. To say that he made life extremely difficult for VM would be an understatement. Anyways, he would disappear for years together and then make a sudden reappearance to her utter bewilderment and confusion. To add to the intensity of the situation, VM is the only child to her parents and was born after a lot of prayers and a number of years. She doesn’t have any children as well. So, she’s a loner with her old parents. VM’s parents did a lot to get their daughter’s hubby out of his habits and the word goes that they’d succeeded as well. But the current situation is that he’s been missing for 6 years now. We don’t even know if he is ……. But VM continues to live with the belief that he is alive and might chose to return someday. But I am giving you this story only because it will help you understand what I am coming to. The heartiest of laughs in the whole crowd of people that was there in the function was VM’s. :-) Not only the heartiest, but also the most frequent. One of my aunts has a brilliant sense of humor and VM and I were laughing our intestines out on every joke that she cracked. But I couldn’t beat VM’s laugh! The rest of the folks who probably crib their heads off even if they don’t get to see their daily TV serial could only muster a smile at times. Oh, the irony! Does this tell you what joy is? It told me. To my mind, the happiest person is one who can laugh her heart out. - Definitely not the one with all the so-called pleasures and luxuries of life but the inability to laugh/smile and admire nature. And guess what? VM goes to meditation classes. But her laugh has been there ever since I remember, as a school going kid, long before she went to meditation classes. Suffering does make a person better. Better in terms of character and better in terms of helping her/him understand the value of life and enjoy it.

Talking about meditation, there was this man sitting behind me in the bus I took from my village to Trichy on my way back. And what he was telling his friend was interesting. Shows you what’s happening to people in the villages as well. He was telling his friend that he was an extremely shy character and ever since he started attending meditation classes, he has become a frank person with very little inhibitions! He has started speaking his mind. That was interesting. I have reasons to believe that he is probably a teacher at the village school.

Before I go back to talk about this second amazing person that I met, let me recount two other things that captured my heart. The bus I took went through many tiny villages on its way to Trichy. On two occasions during the trip, my eyes encountered amazing visual treats. One was that of a lush green field above which there was a flock of pure white birds (geese?) flying home in a beautiful formation. This was when the day was bright. Another was when it got darker post 6 PM. A flock of dark coloured birds flying across a dark field and tall coconut trees against an orange and grey sky! How I wish I had captured these on camera!!

The second person that I want to talk about is unbelievable. She is a construction worker and goes by the name Nagu. Probably in her early 30s. Single. No known relatives. I have no idea about her childhood days. I have no idea if she lived with her parents or was all alone. Within a few minutes after I reached my home town, I noticed my mom and my aunt speak to her in a very kind and loving manner. It was clear to me that there was something about her that my folks liked. I did not have to wait for long. I heard her story from both my mom as well as my aunt before the end of the day. Nagu is an extremely quiet person. She is slightly hard of hearing. She rarely talks unless she wants more clarifications on the task that she has been assigned. She does anything that is asked of her any number of times without even reacting to it with the slightest of irritation which is most of us are wont to do. She works tirelessly. She would even wake up at 2 AM if she were asked to help out without so much as a murmur. She eats very little and just twice a day and doesn’t ask for anything in particular. She desires almost nothing including money. She works but doesn’t ask for the money. If she is given money, she takes it. Else, she just continues to work as if she was born to do nothing but work. She would very quietly go and sit near my aunt’s feet when she did not have anything to do. There’s a lot more to this lady but I just could not find that out since my trip was a short one. I know only what I observed and what was told by my folks. What an amazing lady! What a peaceful life! I hope to meet her again. Hey, and read this stuff that I got in my Thought for the Day mail a couple of days ago – how very closely related to this lady’s character this bit of philosophy is!

********************************************************
A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------
February 11

To be a Sufi is to cease from taking trouble; and there is no greater trouble for thee than thine own self, for when thou art occupied with thyself, thou remainest away from God. - Abu Sa'id


Do you want to be free? Most of us are held hostage in life by our likes and dislikes. We are bound hand and foot by countless little preferences in food, clothing, decor, entertainment -- the list goes on and on.

For example, the person with rigid tastes in food is likely to have rigid tastes elsewhere as well. He will probably enjoy only one kind of music, she will appreciate only one style of art, and when it comes to people, he has very definite allergies. In any case, he is conditioned to be happy only so long as he gets everything the way he likes it. Otherwise -- which may be ninety-nine percent of the time -- he is unhappy over something.

The way we respond to small matters reflects the way we will respond to the larger matters of life. So, if we can begin to release ourselves from our little likes and dislikes, we will find that we are gaining the capacity to weather emotional storms. Then we can try to face whatever comes calmly

***********************************************************

OK, a little more about my beautiful village before I wind up. I went down memory lane and it all felt so very nostalgic. I visited the good old house where my grandparents lived (they don’t make them like that anymore. Yes, I clicked a few snaps of the house), went to some of the temples that we (grandparents, aunts, cousins) used to frequent when I was a kid – what a feeling that was! As kids, my cousins and I used to wait for the yummy prasadam (Food made in the temple and served to God before being distributed to the local devotees) to arrive home from the main village temple – Puliyodharai (Tamarind Rice) and Sakkara Saadham (Jaggery Rice). I saw those two lotus-filled ponds in the centre of the village. The one with a temple in the backdrop is a marvel. Also visited the small Ganesha temple right in front of the pond. The old tamarind tree next to the temple. The small and quiet Murugan temple with a flock of screeching parrots on its trees very near my house. The village bus stand had undergone a complete transformation since I last saw it 6 years ago. The Big Ben like clock though is still there. There are more shops, more vehicles, more houses, and more pukka roads…

One another thing that caught my eye was a mobile operator’s transmission/reception tower right next to my grandparents’ good old house. As I stood poised to click a snap of the narrow pathway to my grandparents’ house from the road, a thin dog came and stood in front of me and let his tongue out as if to tell me that he couldn’t understand what in the world I was doing standing there on that hot day and anyways, whatever it was, I could think about it only after giving him some water. Life is beautiful. My village lures me. It teases me into abandoning the city. It is interesting how one begins to relish and value things more when they can’t be taken for granted.
When did you last go to your village?

Reflection-Momentum-Doing the Opposite

Running away to come back with a bang! (Ya, Ya, I need not tell you...should I?....that it is a paradox)

BTW, I also got to know that Zen is all about paradoxes! Which reminds me that I should be catching up with that book - Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance!

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------

January 18

Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest
acts. This is the secret of success. - Swami Sivananda


One of the practical reasons for meditating is to tap its power
to solve problems that come up throughout the day. It is very
much like getting momentum in a track event. While watching the
Olympics on television for the first time, I was surprised to see
how far back some the athletes went to get a running start. In
the pole vault one chap walked up to the bar, then turned around
and strode so far back that I thought he had decided to go
home. If you didn't know about the pole vault you might think,
"What's the matter with this fellow? Instead of competing, he's
running away." He's not running away; he's going back to get the
momentum he needs for a really big jump. That is the purpose of
meditation, too. Instead of getting out of bed and plunging
directly into life's maelstrom unprepared, you sit down for a
half hour in meditation to get a good start. Then when you go
out into the world, you have a good reserve of energy and
security on which to draw.

As You Think So You Reap!

A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
----------------------------------------------

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
- The Buddha

The Buddha is saying that we made the circumstances we find ourselves in today. We got ourselves into them by all the deep-seated ways of thinking that led us into the actions,
plans, behavior, and situations whose sum total is our lives. But our destiny is in our own hands. Since we are formed by our thoughts, it follows that what we shall be tomorrow is shaped by what we think today. Happily, we can choose the way we think. We can choose our feelings, aspirations, desires, and the way we view our world and ourselves. Mastery of the mind opens avenues of hope. We can begin to reshape our life and character, rebuild relationships, thrive in the stress of daily living, become the kind of person we want to be.

The Paradox of Life

This is a thought-for-the-day from the Eknath Easwaran group. It goes with my fascination for paradoxes. 'Ought-to-be-Blogged' stuff in my perception. How difficult this is to adopt, though!
***********************************************************

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages. - Swami Brahmananda

To a great extent our modern life is built on instant gratification: we are conditioned to go after what pleases us now, without even questioning what the long-term results might be. Spiritual disciplines like meditation are just the opposite. They are permanently beneficial, though at the outset they may be rather unpleasant. In fact, for some time they may be downright bitter.

I once asked my grandmother, "Why shouldn't we go after pleasant things, Granny? It's only human. And what's wrong with wanting to stay away from unpleasant things?" She didn't argue with me. She just told me to eat an amla fruit.

It was easier said than done. The fruit was so sour that I wanted to spit it out, but she stopped me. "Don't give up. Keep chewing." Out of love for her, I did, and the sourness left. The fruit began to taste sweeter and sweeter. "Granny, this is delicious," I said.

"But you didn't like it at the outset. You wanted to spit it out." That is how it is with spiritual disciplines.

Catching up with some Blogs

I've just started catching up with some of my favourite Blogs...It's been a week or so since I went into them...Feel the need to link you to some nice stuff...

Reading Raj's Blog - http://perspicuous.typepad.com/niranjani/
and found this on his Blog - http://www.nilgiri.org/
It's a nice website from Eknath Easwaran and there is this particular section wherein you will find enormous food for inspirational thought; go take a look! - It has passages from all over the world, covering all religions and philosophies. http://www.nilgiri.org/nilgiri.cfm?pageid=3000

I managed to read a few of them now (got to catch up with work as well! The company ain't paying me for just reading good stuff!). Need to go back some time soon to read it all! Eknath also has a Thought for the Day that you can subscribe to!

The other Blog that I caught up with was Passion Catalyst - http://curtrosengren.typepad.com/occupationaladventure/. I loved the recent posts that talk about sustained passion and trouble being an opportunity in disguise.... He finishes off the second Blog that I refer to by saying "So the next time you find yourself feeling thwarted, ask yourself what opportunities are being presented to you. Try following them, and see where they lead. You might just be surprised. "