Subhasita-jaya Sutta

On one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi at Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. There he addressed the monks, "Monks!"
"Yes, lord," the monks responded.
The Blessed One said, "Once in the past the devas and asuras were arrayed for battle. Then Vepacitti the asura-king said to Sakka the deva-king: 'Let there be victory through what is well spoken.'
"'Yes, Vepacitti, let there be victory through what is well spoken.'
"So the devas & asuras appointed a panel of judges, [thinking,] 'These will decide for us what is well spoken and poorly spoken.'
"Then Vepacitti the asura-king said to Sakka the deva-king, 'Say a verse, deva-king!'
"When this was said, Sakka the deva-king said to Vepacitti the asura-king, 'But you are the senior deity here, Vepacitti. You say a verse.'
"When this was said, Vepacitti recited this verse:
'Fools would flare up even more
if there were no constraints.
Thus an enlightened one
should restrain the fool
with a heavy stick.'
"When Vepacitti had said this verse, the asuras applauded but the devas were silent. So Vepacitti said to Sakka, 'Say a verse, deva-king!'
"When this was said, Sakka recited this verse:
'This, I think,
is the only constraint for a fool:
When, knowing the other's provoked,
you mindfully grow calm.'
"When Sakka had said this verse, the devas applauded but the asuras were silent. So Sakka said to Vepacitti, 'Say a verse, Vepacitti!'
"When this was said, Vepacitti recited this verse:
'Vasava, I see a fault
in this very forbearance:
When the fool thinks,
"He's forbearing
out of fear of me,"
the idiot pursues you even more —
as a cow, someone who runs away.'
"When Vepacitti had said this verse, the asuras applauded but the devas were silent. So Vepacitti said to Sakka, 'Say a verse, deva-king!'
"When this was said, Sakka recited this verse:
'It doesn't matter
whether he thinks,
"He's forbearing
out of fear of me."
One's own true good
is the foremost good.
Nothing better
than patience
is found.
Whoever, when strong,
is forbearing
to one who is weak:
that's the foremost patience.
The weak must constantly endure.
They call that strength
no strength at all:
whoever's strength
is the strength of a fool.
There's no reproach
for one who is strong,
guarding — guarded by — Dhamma.
You make things worse
when you flare up
at someone who's angry.
Whoever doesn't flare up
at someone who's angry
wins a battle
hard to win.
You live for the good of both
— your own, the other's —
when, knowing the other's provoked,
you mindfully grow calm.
When you work the cure of both
— your own, the other's —
those who think you a fool
know nothing of Dhamma.'
"When Sakka had said this verse, the devas applauded but the asuras were silent. Then the deva and asura panel of judges said, 'The verses said by Vepacitti the asura-king lie in the sphere of swords and weapons — thence arguments, quarrels, and strife. Whereas the verses said by Sakka the deva-king lies outside the sphere of swords  and weapons — thence no arguments, no quarrels, no strife. The victory through what is well spoken goes to Sakka the deva-king.'
"And that, monks, is how the victory through what was well spoken went to Sakka the deva-king."

Andhakar Sutta ( Darkness)

There is, monks, an inter-cosmic void, an unrestrained darkness, a pitch-black darkness, where even the light of the sun & moon — so mighty, so powerful — doesn't reach."
When this was said, one of the monks said to the Blessed One, "Wow, what a great darkness! What a really great darkness! Is there any darkness greater & more frightening than that?"
"There is, monk, a darkness greater & more frightening than that."
"And which darkness, lord, is greater & more frightening than that?"
"Any priests or contemplatives who do not know, as it actually is present, that 'This is stress'; who do not know, as it actually is present, that 'This is the origination of stress'... 'This is the cessation of stress'... 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress': They revel in (thought-) fabrications leading to birth; they revel in fabrications leading to aging; they revel in fabrications leading to death; they revel in fabrications leading to sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. Reveling in fabrications leading to birth... aging... death... sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair, they fabricate fabrications leading to birth... aging... death... sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. Fabricating fabrications leading to birth... aging... death... sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair, they drop into the darkness of birth. They drop into the darkness of aging... the darkness of death... darkness of sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. They are not totally released from birth, aging, death, sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs. They are not totally released, I tell you, from suffering & stress.

Buddha (Samyutta Nikaya)

Abhaya Sutta

"And who is the person who, subject to death, is not afraid or in terror of death?
"There is the case of the person who has abandoned passion, desire, fondness, thirst, fever, and craving for sensuality. Then he comes down with a serious disease. As he comes down with a serious disease, the thought does not occur to him, 'O, those beloved sensual pleasures will be taken from me, and I will be taken from them!' He does not grieve, is not tormented; does not weep, beat his breast, or grow delirious. This is a person who, subject to death, is not afraid or in terror of death.
"Furthermore, there is the case of the person who has abandoned passion, desire, fondness, thirst, fever, and craving for the body. Then he comes down with a serious disease. As he comes down with a serious disease, the thought does not occur to him, 'O, my beloved body will be taken from me, and I will be taken from my body!' He does not grieve, is not tormented; does not weep, beat his breast, or grow delirious. This, too, is a person who, subject to death, is not afraid or in terror of death.
"Furthermore, there is the case of the person who has done what is good, has done what is skillful, has given protection to those in fear, and has not done what is evil, savage, or cruel. Then he comes down with a serious disease. As he comes down with a serious disease, the thought occurs to him, 'I have done what is good, have done what is skillful, have given protection to those in fear, and I have not done what is evil, savage, or cruel. To the extent that there is a destination for those who have done what is good, what is skillful, have given protection to those in fear, and have not done what is evil, savage, or cruel, that's where I'm headed after death.' He does not grieve, is not tormented; does not weep, beat his breast, or grow delirious. This, too, is a person who, subject to death, is not afraid or in terror of death.
"Furthermore, there is the case of the person who has no doubt or perplexity, who has arrived at certainty with regard to the True Dhamma. Then he comes down with a serious disease. As he comes down with a serious disease, the thought occurs to him, 'I have no doubt or perplexity. I have arrived at certainty with regard to the True Dhamma.' He does not grieve, is not tormented; does not weep, beat his breast, or grow delirious. This, too, is a person who, subject to death, is not afraid or in terror of death.
"These, brahman, are four people who, subject to death, are not afraid or in terror of death."

Buddha

Appamada

Monks, I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of good thoughts if not yet arisen, or to cause the waning of evil thoughts if already arisen, as heedfulness. In him who is heedful, good thoughts not yet arisen, do arise, and evil thoughts, if arisen, do wane

The man who delights in mindfulness and regards heedlessness with dread, is not liable to fall away. He is in the vicinity of Nibbana.
— Dhammpad

"Appamado mahato atthaya sanvattati: " Mindfulness is conducive to great profit

Buddha

Mangal Sutta

Not consorting with fools,
consorting with the wise,
paying homage to those worthy of homage:
This is the highest protection.

Living in a civilized land,
having made merit in the past,
directing oneself rightly:
This is the highest protection.

Broad knowledge, skill,
well-mastered discipline,
well-spoken words:
This is the highest protection.

Support for one's parents,
assistance to one's wife and children,
consistency in one's work:
This is the highest protection.

Giving, living in rectitude,
assistance to one's relatives,
deeds that are blameless:
This is the highest protection.

Avoiding, abstaining from evil;
refraining from intoxicants,
being heedful of the qualities of the mind:
This is the highest protection.

Respect, humility,
contentment, gratitude,
hearing the Dhamma on timely occasions:
This is the highest protection.

Patience, compliance,
seeing contemplatives,
discussing the Dhamma on timely occasions:
This is the highest protection.

Austerity, celibacy,
seeing the Noble Truths,
realizing Unbinding:
This is the highest protection.

A mind that, when touched
by the ways of the world,
is unshaken, sorrowless, dustless, secure:
This is the highest protection.

Everywhere undefeated
when acting in this way,
people go everywhere in well-being:
This is their highest protection.

Buddha

If Though Speakest Not

If thou speakest not
I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it.
I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come,
the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky. Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests,
and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves

Rabindranath

My Greatest Need Is You

Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You —O Allah,
I can't live in this world
Without remembering You—
How can I endure the next world
Without seeing Your face?
I am a stranger in Your country
And lonely among Your worshippers:
This is the substance of my complaint.

तू ही मेरी सबसे बड़ी जरुरत है
मेरे दिल में तेरी आशा ही एक नायाब खजाना है
मेरी जिह्वा पर तेरा नाम मधुरतम शब्द है
मेरे सबसे अच्छे पल वे हैं जो हे अल्लाह,तेरे साथ बीतते हैं
तुझे याद किये बिना मैं इस लोक में जी नहीं सकती
कैसे मैं परलोक सहन करूंगी
तेरा चेहरा देखे बिना?
मैं तेरे देश में एक अजनबी हूँ
और तेरे भक्तों के बीच में अकेली:
यही मेरी शिकायत का सार है

राबिया

Hard Refusals

My desires are many and my cry is pitiful,
but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals;
and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great gifts
that thou gavest to me unasked - this sky and the light, this body and the life and the mind - saving me from perils of overmuch desire.
There are times when I languidly linger and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal;
but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak, uncertain desire.

Rabindranath

My song

My song has put off her adornments.
She has no pride of dress and decoration.
Ornaments would mar our union;
they would come between thee and me;
their jingling would drown thy whispers
My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight.
O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet.
Only let me make my life simple and straight,
like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.


Rabindranath

A prayer and resolution

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure,
knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.
I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts,
knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.
I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower,
knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.
And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions,
knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act

Rabindranath

Free love

By all means they try to hold me secure
who love me in this world.
But it is otherwise with thy love
which is greater than theirs,
and thou keepest me free.
Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me alone.
But day passes by after day and thou art not seen.
If I call not thee in my prayers,
if I keep not thee in my heart,
thy love for me still waits for my love.

Rabindranath

Fool

O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders!
O beggar, to come beg at thy own door!
Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all,
and never look behind in regret.
Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp
it touches with its breath.
It is unholy—-take not thy gifts through its unclean hands.
Accept only what is offered by sacred love.

Rabindranath

Dungeon

He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon.
I am ever busy building this wall all around;
and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day
I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall, and
I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name;
and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.

Rabindranath

Distant Time

I know not from what distant time
thou art ever coming nearer to meet me.
Thy sun and stars can never keep thee hidden from me for aye.
In many a morning and eve thy footsteps have been heard
and thy messenger has come within my heart and called me in secret.
I know not only why today my life is all astir,
and a feeling of tremulous joy is passing through my heart.
It is as if the time were come to wind up my work,
and I feel in the air a faint smell of thy sweet presence.

Rabindranath

The Sweet Spirit of Love

The advice of anyone is never useful for lovers; this (love) is not like a flood which somebody might restrain.
An intellectual can never know the savor (in) the head of the (mystic)"drunkard,"
(and) a sensible person can never know the "senseless" state
of (such a) heart.
If kings smell those wines which lovers drink during the meetings of hearts,
they would become fed-up with kingship.
For the sake of (his beloved) Sheereen,
(King) Khosraw says farewell to his kingdom,
(and) Farhâd pounds a mountain with a pick-ax* for her sake as well.
From love of (his beloved) Laylà, Majnûn flees the circle of intellectuals,
(and the lover) Wâmiq has laughed at the foolish pride of every arrogant one.
That life (is) frozen which has passed without that sweet spirit (of love).
(And) that (delicious) kernel is putrid which is unaware of this special cheese.
If the sky were not a lover and bewildered like us, it would become weary of
its whirling and say, "It's enough for me! How (much) longer?"
The world (is) like a reed-pipe, and He blows into every hole of it; every wail it has (is) certainly from those two lips like sugar.
See how He blows into every (piece of) clay (and) into every heart; He gives a need and He gives a love which raises up a lament about misfortune.
If you uproot the heart from God, tell (me) whom will you place it with?
Anyone who is able to tear (his) heart from Him for a moment is without a soul!
I'm stopping. Be nimble and go up on top of the roof at night.
Make a happy uproar in the city, O soul, with a loud voice!

RUMI

You are not that form

You stop at every form that you come to, saying, " I am this."
By God,you are not that (form).
(If) you are left alone by people for a single moment, you
remain (plunged) up to the throat in grief and anxiety.
How are you this (form)?
You are that Unique One, for
(in reality)you are fair and lovely and intoxicated with yourself.
You are your own bird, your own prey, and your own snare; you are
your own seat of honour, your own floor, and your own roof.
The substance is that which subsists in itself;
the accident is that
which has become a derivative of it (of the substance).
If you are born of Adam, sit like him and behold all his progeny
in yourself.
What is in the jar that is not (also) in the river?
What is in the house that is not (also) in the city?
This world is the jar, and the heart (spirit) is like the river;
this world is the chamber, and the heart is the
wonderful city

RUMI

Existence and Corruption

In this (realm of) existence and corruption, O master, existence
is the fraud and that corruption is the admonition.
Existence says, "Come, I am delectable," and its corruption says,"Go, I am nothing."
O thou that bitest thy lip (in admiration) at the beauty of spring,
look on the coldness and paleness of autumn.
In the daytime thou didst deem the countenance of the sun beauteous:
remember its death in the moment of setting.
Thou sawest the full-moon on this lovely firmament': observe also its
anguish (caused by the loss of visibility) during the interlunar
period.
A boy, on account of his beauty, became the lord of the people:
after the morrow he became doting and exposed to the scorn of
the people.
If the body of those in the fresh bloom of youth has made thee a prey,
after (it has come to) old age behold a body (bleached) like acotton plantation.
Many fingers that in handicraft (skill and dexterity)were the envy of master-craftsmen have at last become trembling.
The soul-like intoxicating narcissus-eye (of the beloved)-see
it dimmed at last and water trickling from it.
The lion (hero) who advances into the ranks of lions (valiant foes)-
at last he is conquered by a mouse.
The acute, far-seeing, artful genius-behold it at last imbecile as an
old ass.
The curly lock that sheds (a fragrance of) musk and takes away the
reason-at last it is like the ugly white tail of a donkey.
Observe its (the World's) existence, (how) at first (it is) pleasing
and joyous; and observe its shamefulness and corruption in the
end;
For it showed the snare plainly: it plucked out the fool's moustache in
thy presence.
Do not say, then, "The World deceived me by its imposture;
otherwise, my reason would have fled from its snare."
Come now, see (how) the golden collar and shoulder-belt have
become a shackle and gyve and chain.
Reckon every particle of the World (to be) like this: bring its
beginning and its end into consideration
The more any one regards the end (akhir) the more blessed he is;
the more any one regards the stable (akhur) the more banned he is.
Regard every one's face as the glorious moon: when the beginning has
been seen, see the end (also)
Lest thou become a man blind of one eye, like Iblis: he, like a person
docked (deprived of perfect sight), sees (the one) half and not(the other) half.

RUMI

Face to Face

Day after day, O lord of my life,
shall I stand before thee face to face.
With folded hands, O lord of all worlds,
shall I stand before thee face to face.

Under thy great sky in solitude and silence,
with humble heart shall I stand before thee face to face.
In this laborious world of thine,
tumultuous with toil and with struggle,
among hurrying crowds shall I stand before thee face to face.

And when my work shall be done in this world, O King of kings,
alone and speechless shall I stand before thee face to face.

Rabindranath

How Levin discovered truth

Working on till the peasants’ dinner hour, which was not long in coming, he went out of the barn with Fiodor and fell into talk with him, stopping beside a neat yellow sheaf of rye laid on the threshing floor for seed.
Fiodor came from a village at some distance from the one in which Levin had once allotted land to his co-operative association. Now it had been let to the innkeeper.
Levin talked to Fiodor about this land and asked whether Platon, a well-to-do peasant of good character belonging to the same village, would not take the land for the coming year.
“It’s a high rent; it wouldn’t pay Platon, Konstantin Dmitrich,” answered the peasant, picking the ears off his sweat-drenched shirt.
“But how does Kirillov make it pay?”
“Mitukha!” (So the peasant called the innkeeper in a tone of contempt.) “You may be sure he’ll make it pay, Konstantin Dmitrich! He’ll get his share, however he has to squeeze to get it! He’s no mercy on a peasant. But Uncle Fokanich” (so he called the old peasant Platon) — “do you suppose he’d flay the skin off a man? Where there’s debt, he’ll let anyone off. And he’ll suffer losses. He’s human, too.”
“But why will he let anyone off?”
“Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else, like Mitukha, thinking only of filling his belly; but Fokanich is a righteous old man. He lives for his soul. He does not forget God.”
“How does he think of God? How does he live for his soul?” Levin almost shouted.
“Why, to be sure, in truth, in God’s way. Folks are different. Take you, now — you wouldn’t wrong a man . . .”
“Yes, yes — good-by!” said Levin, breathless with excitement, and turning round he took his stick and walked quickly away toward home. At the peasant’s words that Fokanich lived for his soul, in truth, in God’s way, undefined but significant ideas seemed to burst forth, as though they had been locked up, and, all of them striving toward one goal, they thronged whirling through his head, blinding him with their light.Levin strode along the highroad, absorbed not so much in his thoughts (he could not yet disentangle them), as in his spiritual condition, unlike anything he had experienced before.
The words uttered by the peasant had acted on his soul like an electric shock, suddenly transforming and combining into a single whole the whole swarm of disjointed, impotent, separate thoughts that incessantly occupied his mind. These thoughts had unconsciously been in his mind even when he was talking about the land.
He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested this new thing, not yet knowing what it was.
“Not living for his own wants, but for God? For what God? And could one say anything more senseless than what he said? He said that one must not live for one’s own wants, that is, that one must not live for what we understand, what we are attracted by, what we desire — but must live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one can understand nor even define. What of it? Didn’t I understand those senseless words of Fiodor’s? And understanding them, did I doubt their truth? Did I think them stupid, obscure, inexact?
“No, I understood him, and exactly as he understands the words. I understood them more fully and clearly than I understand anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted nor can I doubt about them. And not only I, but everyone, the whole world, understands nothing fully but this, and about this only they have no doubt, and are always agreed.
“Fiodor says that Kirillov, the innkeeper, lives for his belly. That’s comprehensible and rational. All of us as rational beings can’t do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a sudden the same Fiodor says that one mustn’t live for one’s belly, but must live for truth, for God, and, at a hint, I understand him! And I and millions of men, men who lived ages ago and men living now — peasants, the poor in spirit and the sages, who have thought and written about it, in their obscure words saying the same thing — we are all agreed about this one thing: what we must live for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm, incontestable, clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by reason — it is outside it, and has no causes, and can have no effects.
“If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects — a reward — it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.
“And yet I know it, and we all know it.
“And I sought miracles, complained that I did not see a miracle which would convince me. And here is a miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it!
“What could be a greater miracle than that?
“Can I have found the solution of it all? Can my sufferings be over?” thought Levin, striding along the dusty road, not noticing the heat nor his weariness, and experiencing a sense of relief from prolonged suffering. This feeling was so delicious that it seemed to him incredible. He was breathless with emotion and incapable of going farther; he turned off the road into the forest and lay down in the shade of an aspen on the uncut grass. He took his hat off his hot head and lay propped on his elbow in the lush, feathery, woodland grass.
“Yes, I must make it clear to myself and understand,” he thought, looking intently at the untrampled grass before him, and following the movements of a green beetle, advancing along a blade of couch grass and lifting up in its progress a leaf of goatweed. “Everything from beginning?” he asked himself, bending aside the leaf of goatweed out of the beetle’s way and twisting another blade of grass above for the beetle to cross over to. “What is it makes me glad? What have I discovered?
“Of old I used to say that in my body, that in the body of this grass and of this beetle (there, she didn’t care for the grass, she’s opened her wings and flown away), there was going on a transformation of matter in accordance with physical, chemical, and physiological laws. And in all of us, as well as in the aspens and clouds and nebulae, there was a process of evolution. Evolution from what? Into what? — Eternal evolution and struggle . . . As though there could be any sort of tendency and struggle in the eternal! And I was astonished that in spite of utmost effort of thought in this direction I could not discover the meaning of life, the meaning of my impulses and yearnings. And the meaning of my impulses is so clear within me, that I was living according to them all the time, and I was astonished and rejoiced, when the peasant expressed it to me: to live for God, for my soul.
“I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master.”
And he briefly went through, mentally, the whole course of his ideas during the last two years, the beginning of which was the clear confronting of death at the sight of his dear brother hopelessly ill.
Then, for the first time, grasping that for every man, and himself too, there was nothing in store but suffering, death and eternal oblivion, he had made up his mind that life was impossible like that, and that he must either interpret life so that it would not present itself to him as the evil jest of some devil, or else shoot himself.
But he had not done either, but had gone on living, thinking, and feeling, and had even at that very time married, and had had many joys, and had been happy, when he was not thinking of the meaning of his life.
What did this mean? It meant that he had been living rightly, but thinking wrongly.
He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with his mother’s milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but studiously ignoring them.
Now it was clear to him that he could live only by virtue of the beliefs in which he had been brought up.
“What should I have been, and how should I have spent my life, if I had not had these beliefs, if I had not known that I must live for God and not for my own wants? I should have robbed and lied and killed. Nothing of what makes the chief happiness of my life would have existed for me.” And with the utmost stretch of imagination he could not conceive the brutal creature he would have been himself, if he had not known what he was living for.
“I looked for an answer to my question. And thought could not give an answer to my question — it is incommensurable with my question. The answer has been given me by life itself, in my knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. And that knowledge I did not arrive at in any way, it was given to me as to all men, given, because I could not have got it from anywhere.
“Where could I have got it? Could I have arrived through reason at knowing that I must love my neighbor and not oppress him? I was told that in my childhood, and I believed it gladly, for they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason. But loving one’s neighbor reason could never discover, because that is unreasonable.

Tolstoy in Anna Karenina

PURIFICATION

The question is substantially this: how far does purification dispel the two orders of passion — anger, desire and the like, with grief and its kin — and in what degree the disengagement from the body is possible.
Disengagement means simply that the soul withdraws to its own place.
It will hold itself above all passions and affections. Necessary pleasures and all the activity of the senses it will employ only for medicament and assuagement lest its work be impeded. Pain it may combat, but, failing the cure, it will bear meekly and ease it by refusing assent to it. All passionate action it will check: the suppression will be complete if that be possible, but at worst the Soul will never itself take fire but will keep the involuntary and uncontrolled outside its precincts and rare and weak at that. The Soul has nothing to dread, though no doubt the involuntary has some power here too: fear therefore must cease, except so far as it is purely monitory. What desire there may be can never be for the vile; even the food and drink necessary for restoration will lie outside of the Soul’s attention, and not less the sexual appetite: or if such desire there must be, it will turn upon the actual needs of the nature and be entirely under control; or if any uncontrolled motion takes place, it will reach no further than the imagination, be no more than a fleeting fancy.
The Soul itself will be inviolately free and will be working to set the irrational part of the nature above all attack, or if that may not be, then at least to preserve it from violent assault, so that any wound it takes may be slight and be healed at once by virtue of the Soul’s presence, just as a man living next door to a Sage would profit by the neighbourhood, either in becoming wise and good himself or, for sheer shame, never venturing any act which the nobler mind would disapprove.
There will be no battling in the Soul: the mere intervention of Reason is enough: the lower nature will stand in such awe of Reason that for any slightest movement it has made it will grieve, and censure its own weakness, in not having kept low and still in the presence of its lord.

Plotinus

Living Gold

Let us consider a soul, not one that has appropriated the unreasoned desires and impulses of the bodily life, or any other such emotion and experience, but one that has cast all this aside, and as far as possible has no commerce with the bodily. Such a soul demonstrates that all evil is accretion, alien, and that in the purged soul the noble things are immanent, wisdom and all else that is good, as its native store.
If this is the soul once it has returned to its self, how deny that it is the nature we have identified with all the divine and eternal? Wisdom and authentic virtue are divine, and could not be found in the chattel mean and mortal: what possesses these must be divine by its very capacity of the divine, the token of kinship and of identical substance.
Hence, too, any one of us that exhibits these qualities will differ but little as far as soul is concerned from the Supernals; he will be less than they only to the extent in which the soul is, in him, associated with body.
This is so true that, if every human being were at that stage, or if a great number lived by a soul of that degree, no one would be so incredulous as to doubt that the soul in man is immortal. It is because we see everywhere the spoiled souls of the great mass that it becomes difficult to recognize their divinity and immortality.
To know the nature of a thing we must observe it in its unalloyed state, since any addition obscures the reality. Clear, then look: or, rather, let a man first purify himself and then observe: he will not doubt his immortality when he sees himself thus entered into the pure, the Intellectual. For, what he sees is an Intellectual-Principle looking on nothing of sense, nothing of this mortality, but by its own eternity having intellection of the eternal: he will see all things in this Intellectual substance, himself having become an Intellectual Kosmos and all lightsome, illuminated by the truth streaming from The Good, which radiates truth upon all that stands within that realm of the divine.
Thus he will often feel the beauty of that word “Farewell: I am to you an immortal God,” for he has ascended to the Supreme, and is all one strain to enter into likeness with it.
If the purification puts the human into knowledge of the highest, then, too, the science latent within becomes manifest, the only authentic knowing. For it is not by running hither and thither outside of itself that the soul understands morality and right conduct: it learns them of its own nature, in its contact with itself, in its intellectual grasp of itself, seeing deeply impressed upon it the images of its primal state; what was one mass of rust from long neglect it has restored to purity.
Imagine living gold: it files away all that is earthy about it, all that kept it in self-ignorance preventing it from knowing itself as gold; seen now unalloyed it is at once filled with admiration of its worth and knows that it has no need of any other glory than its own, triumphant if only it be allowed to remain purely to itself.

Plotinus

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.
There is none to count thy minutes.
Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.
Thou knowest how to wait.
Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.
We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for a chance.
We are too poor to be late.
And thus it is that time goes by while I give it to every querulous man who claims it,
and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.
At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;
but I find that yet there is time.

Rabindranath Tagore

WAITING

The song I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
The time has not come true,
the words have not been rightly set;
only there is the agony of wishing in my heart…..

I have not seen his face,
nor have I listened to his voice;
only I have heard his gentle footsteps
from the road before my house…..

But the lamp has not been lit and
I cannot ask him into my house;
I live in the hope of meeting with him;
but this meeting is not yet.

Rabindranath Tagore

FLOWER

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not!
I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.
I may not find a place in thy garland,
but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it.
I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.
Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint,
use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

Tagore

To Thy Door

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room; I find her not.
My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained.
But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have to come to thy door.
I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.
I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish ---no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.
Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness.
Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe.

Rabindranath Tagore

Let Me Not Forget

If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life
then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight ---let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
As my days pass in the crowded market of this world and my hands grow full with the daily profits,
let me ever feel that I have gained nothing ---let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting,
when I spread my bed low in the dust,
let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me ---let me not forget a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound and the laughter there is loud,
let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house ---let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours

Rabindranath Tagore

GIVE ME STRENGTH

Give Me Strength

This is my prayer to thee, my lord---
strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart.
Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.
Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.
Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.
Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.
And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

Rabindranath Tagore

When the heart is hard and parched up,

When the heart is hard and parched up,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.
When tumultuous work raises its din
on all sides shutting me out from beyond,
come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.
When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,
break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.
When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust,
O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder


TAGORE

UNITE WITH LOVE

Your intelligence is split into a hundred busy tasks,
in thousands of desires, in large and small things.
You must unite these scattered parts with love and
become as sweet as Samarkand and Damascus.
Once you are unified, grain by grain, then you can be
stamped with the royal seal.

RUMI

YOU NEED PARABLE

The parable is like an intermediary in the discourse: an
intermediary is required for the apprehension of the vulgar.

Without an intermediary, how should any one go into the fire,
except (one like) the salamander? – for he is independent of the
connecting link.

You need the hot bath as an intermediary, so that you may refresh your constitution by (the heat of) the fire.

Since you cannot go into the fire, like Khalil (Abraham), the
hot bath has become your Apostle, and the water your guide.

Satiety is from God, but how should the unclean attain unto
satiety without the mediation of bread?

Beauty is from God, but the corporealist does not feel (the
charm of ) beauty without the veil (medium) of the garden.

When the bodily medium is removed, (then)
he (who is dis-embodied) perceives without (any) screen, like Moses, the light
of the Moon (shining) from (his own) bosom.


RUMI

POLISHER OF PURE REASON

"God gave you the polisher of (Pure) Reason, so that the pages of
the heart may become luminous by means of it.
O prayerless one, you have
bound up the polisher and have released the two hands of craving. If bonds are placed on craving (instead),
the hands of the polisher will be released. 
If a piece of iron was the mirror for the Invisible, all forms
would be sent into it.
(But) you made (the mirror of your heart) dark
and you gave rust to (your) nature:
this is the meaning of (the verse)
"they strive to spread corruption on earth" [Qur'ân, 5:36].
Until now,you have done it like this; now, don't do it .
You have made the water muddy;
don't make it more so.
Don't mix it up, so that this water may
become clear, and (so that)
you may see the moon and stars circling in it!"


RUMI

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving for the bounty is sweeter than the bounty (itself): how should he that is addicted to thanksgiving go towards

(direct his attention to) the bounty?
Thanksgiving is the soul of the bounty, and the bounty is as a
husk because thanksgiving brings you to the abode of the Beloved.
Bounty produces heedlessness, and thanksgiving alertness:
hunt after bounty with the snare of thanksgiving to the King.
The bounty of thanksgiving will make you contented and princely so
that you will bestow a hundred bounties on the poor.
You will eat your fill of the viands and dessert of God, so that
hunger and begging will depart from you.

RUMI

SEEING WITH PURE HEART

The man who lives in a city (many) years, as soon as his eye goes asleep,
Beholds another city full of good and evil, and his own city
comes not into this memory at all.
So that (he should say), "I have lived there (so many years);this new city is not mine: here I am (only) in pawn*."
Nay, he thinks that in sooth he has always lived in this very
city and has been born and bred in it*.
What wonder (then) if the spirit does not remember its
(ancient) abodes, which have been its dwelling-place and birth-place aforetime,
this world, like sleep, is covering it over as clouds cover the stars? -
Especially as it has trodden so many cities, and the dust has
not (yet) been swept from it perceptive faculty,
Nor has it made ardent efforts that its heart should become
pure and behold the past;
That its heart should put forth its head (peep forth) from the
aperture of the mystery and should see the beginning and the
end with open eye.


RUMI

GRIEF and PAIN and SORROWS

One night a certain man was crying "Allah!" till his lips
were growing sweet with the praise of Him.The Devil said,
"Prithee, O garrulous one, where is the (response)
`Here am I' to all this `Allah'?
Not a single response is coming from the Throne:
how long will you cry `Allah' with grim face?"
He became broken-hearted and laid down his head (to sleep):
in a dream he saw Khadir amidst the verdure.
He (Khadir) said, "Hark, you have held back from praising
God: how is it that you repent of having called unto Him?"
He said, "No `Here am I' is coming to me in response, hence
I fear that I may be (a reprobate who is) driven away from the Door."
He (Khadir) said, "(God saith), that `Allah' of thine is My`Here am I,'
and that supplication and grief and ardour of thine
is My messenger (to thee).
Thy shifts and attempts to find a means (of gaining access to Me) were (in reality)
My drawing (thee towards Me), and re-leased thy feet (from the bonds of worldliness).
Thy fear and love are the noose to catch My favour; beneath
every `O Lord' (of thine) is many a `Here am I' (from Me)."
Far from this prayer is the soul of the fool, because to him it
is not permitted to cry "O Lord."
On his mouth and heart are lock and bolt, to the end that he
may not moan unto God in the hour of bale.
He (God) gave to Pharaoh hundredfold possessions and riches,so that he claimed (Divine) might and majesty.
In his whole life that man of evil nature felt no (spiritual) headache, lest he should moan unto God.
God gave him all the empire of this world, (but) He did not
give him grief and pain and sorrows.
Grief is better than the empire of the world, so that you may
call unto God in secret.The call of the griefless is from frozen heart*, the call
of the grieving one is from rapture:
(`Tis) to withdraw the voice under the lips, to bear in mind
(one's) origin and beginning;
(`Tis) the voice become pure and sad, (crying)
"O God!"and "O Thou whose help is besought!" and "O Helper!"
(Even) the moan of a dog for His sake is not void of (Divine) attraction,
because every one who desires (Him) is a brigand'scaptive* –
As (for example) the dog of the Cave*,
which was freed from (eating) carrion and sat at the table of the (spiritual) emperors:
Until the Resurrection, before the Cave it is drinking in
gnostic wise without (any) pot the water of (Divine) mercy.
Oh, there is many a one in a dog's skin, who hath no name
(and fame), yet is not without that cup (of Divine knowledge) in secret.
Give thy life for this cup, O son:
how may victory be (won) without (spiritual) warfare and patience.?


RUMI

WORM

O thou who because of (addiction to) a single leaf has been
left without (enjoyment of) a (whole) orchard,
thou art like the worm which (desire for) a leaf has driven away from (deprived of) the vineyard.
When Grace awakened this worm,
this worm devoured the dragon of ignorance.
The worm became a vineyard full of fruit trees:
even so is the blessed man transformed."


RUMI

RUBY

At the hour of the morning-drink a beloved said to her lover
by way of trial, "O such-and-such son of such-and-such,
I wonder, do you love me or yourself more?
Tell the truth,O man of sorrows."

He replied, "I have become so naughted in thee that I am
full of thee from head to foot.
Of my existence there is nothing (left) in me but the name:
in my being there is naught but thee, O thou whose wishes are
gratified.
By that means I have become thus naughted, like vinegar, in
thee (who are) an ocean of honey."

As the stone that is entirely turned into pure ruby: it is filled
with the qualities of the sun.
That stony nature does not remain in it: back and front, it is
filled with sunniness.
Afterwards, if it loves  itself, that (self-love) is love of the sun,O youth;
And if it loves the sun with (all) its soul, `tis undoubtedly love
of itself.
Whether the pure ruby loves itself or whether it loves the sun,
There is really no difference in these two loves:
both sides(aspects) are naught but the radiance of the sunrise.
Until it (the stone) has become a ruby, it is an enemy to itself,
because it is not a single "I": two "I's" are there;
For the stone is dark and blind to the day (-light):
the dark is essentially opposed to light.
(If) it loves itself, it is an infidel, because it offers intense
resistance to the supreme Sun.
Therefore `tis not fitting that the stone should say "I," (for)
it is wholly darkness and in (the state of) death.

A Pharaoh said, "I am God" and was laid low;
a Mansur(Hallaj) said, "I am God" and was saved.
The former "I" is followed by God's curse and the latter"I" by God's mercy, O loving man;
For that one (Pharaoh) was a black stone, this one (Hallaj) a
cornelian; that one was an enemy to the Light, and this one
passionately enamoured (of it).

This "I," O presumptuous meddler, was "He" (God) in the inmost
consciousness, through oneness with the Light, not
through (belief in) the doctrine of incarnation.

Strive that thy stony nature may be diminished, so that thy
stone may become resplendent with the qualities of the ruby.

Show fortitude in (enduring) self-mortification and affliction;
continually behold everlasting life in dying to self.
(Then) thy stoniness will become less at every moment, the
nature of the ruby will be strengthened in thee.
The qualities of (self-) existence will depart from thy body,
the qualities of intoxication (ecstasy) will increase in thy head
(thy spiritual centre).
Become entirely hearing, like an ear, in order that thou mayst
gain an ear-ring of ruby.*

RUMI

LOVE

Love hath naught to do with the five (senses) and the six(directions): its goal is only (to experience) the attraction
exerted by the Beloved.
Afterwards, maybe, permission will come (from God): the secrets
that ought to be told will be told,
With an eloquence that is nearer (to the understanding).
The secret is partner with none but the knower of the secret;
in the sceptic's ear the secret is no secret (at all).
But (the command) to call (the people to God) comes down from the Maker:
what has he (the prophet or saint) to do with (their) acceptance or non-acceptance?
Noah continued to call (the people to God) for nine hundred years:
the unbelief of his folk was increasing from moment to moment.
Did he ever pull back the rein of speech? Did he ever creep into
the cave of silence?
He said (to himself), "Does a caravan ever turn back from a journey on account of the noise and clamour of dogs?
Or on a night of moonlight is the running of the full-moon in its course retarded by the dog's outcry?
The moon sheds light and the dog barks: every one proceeds according to his nature.
(The Divine) Destiny hath allotted to every one a certain service,suitable to his essential nature, (to be performed) in (the way of)probation.
Since the dog will not leave off his pestilent howling, I (who)am the moon, how should I abandon my course?"
Inasmuch as the vinegar increases acidity, therefore it is
necessary to increase the sugar.
Wrath is (like) vinegar, mercy like honey; and these twain are
the basis of every oxymel.
If the honey fail to withstand (be overpowered by) the vinegar,
the oxymel will be spoilt.
The people were pouring vinegar on him (Noah), and the Ocean(of Divine Bounty) was pouring more sugar for Noah.
His sugar was replenished from the Sea of Bounty, therefore
it was exceeding the vinegar of (all) the inhabitants of the world.


RUMI

Seeking

Whether one moves slowly or with speed,
the one who is a seeker will be a finder.
Always seek with your whole self,
the search is an excellent guide on the way.
Though you are lame and limping,
though your figure is bent and clumsy,
always creep towards the One.
Make the One your quest.
By speech and by silence and by fragrance,
catch the scent of the King everywhere.


Rumi

LOVE

The love of God is everywhere in nature; yet we see destruction and misery and inequalities all around us. It is a difference of focus. If we focus our mind upon all that is good and beautiful we shall see God's love in spite of all the ugliness that exists in nature and especially in human nature. In doing so we will spread a cover over it; and by collecting everything beautiful in us we will be able to give to whatever lacks beauty from the supply in our own heart. But if we focus our attention upon ugliness it will grow in us, and there will come a time when we shall not be able to see any good anywhere; everywhere we look we will only see cruelty, unkindness, wickedness, and ugliness.

One may ask if in focusing one's mind on beauty alone, one is not in danger of shutting one's eyes to the ugliness and suffering one might otherwise alleviate. The answer is that in order to help the poor one needs to be rich, and in order to take away evil from a person one needs to have so much more good. That goodness has to be earned as money is earned; and that earning means collecting goodness wherever we find it. What happens is that man becomes agitated by the abundance of goodness that he sees; being himself poor he cannot add to it, and then he is drawn towards evil. Although he may unconsciously develop in his own nature a craving for the goodness he sees, that does not help him in his agitation; his looking at evil only adds another wicked person to the whole.

The one whose eyes are focused on beauty in time will join the good; he is getting the same impressions but the result is different. Besides, by criticizing, by judging, by looking at wickedness with contempt, one does not help the one who needs it. The person who is ready to overlook, forgive, and patiently tolerate all those disadvantages that he may have to meet with, is the one who can help.

One should love for the sake of love, not for a return. When one serves, one should serve for the sake of serving, not for acknowledgment or appreciation in any shape or form. In the beginning such a person may perhaps seem a loser, but in the end he will be the gainer, for he has lived in the world while yet holding himself above the world; the world cannot touch him.

Inayat Khan

Problem of good and evil

When a pregnant woman is nearing her time, she is often taught how to relax into the pain of contractions. There is, in this process, an important and valuable lesson for all of us in dealing with painful situations in life. The lesson is simple in principle, but hard in practice. It is that relaxing into pain is far more effective than resisting pain.
Childbirth is a peculiarly appropriate situation for describing the benefits of living life by 'going with the flow', for it can be considered both literally and as a metaphor. A woman who is actually in labour and cannot but tense up at the pain of the contractions causes herself more pain over a longer period, for she retards the birth of her baby. Given this, one cannot help but wonder if it is not true quite generally that tensing against pain causes the pain itself to be worse. Certainly, many people have found that physical pain is worse if they are tense, and lessens if they can relax.
But the idea of childbirth can also form the basis of a metaphor for thinking about the 'pain' of tribulations in life. For tribulation always attends the coming-into-being of anything new, and it seems quite probable - does it not? - that 'tensing up' against the pains of tribulations is likely to 'delay the birth'. But what does 'tensing up against the pains of tribulations' mean?
It can mean both resisting change and electing to fight one's way through obstacles. In Taoism,  water is very frequently used as a metaphor. A river does not try to move the rocks out of its path, but flows round them in order to achieve its objective - the sea. But notice something: although initially the rock is not removed, over the course of time, it is worn away by the flow of water around it. The gentle action of water - the Taoist would say - eventually has the power to wear away even the hardest of rocks.
In this we see how it is that patience is a virtue. For gentle action patiently and continuously applied by the river leads eventually to the complete erosion of the rock. Patience, then, is a virtue not because of some moral nicety that says it is good to be patient, but because it is a quality which assists the attainment of objectives.
In Taoism, this thought is extended over all qualities, and, as a result, a whole worldview results. The Taoist worldview is one which accepts that progress along any way - whether that way be physical or spiritual - is bound to be met by obstacles. But, in Taoism, obstacles are accepted and the essence of its philosophy is that one should treat them as does the river its rocks - by flowing round them.
Here we have, then, a very powerful and subtle way through which we can approach the business of living.

Ray Walder