Learn self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it. As soon as you apply yourself to contemplation, you will at once feel your senses gather themselves together: they seem like bees which return to the hive and there shut themselves up to work at the making of honey.
Saint Teresa of Avila
Do not mourn the worldly loss; ask for your soul to be saved. Many delighted in what you hold dear. In the end it left them and became mere wind. Escape from its love before it escapes you.
Rumi.
Daoism is an ancient Chinese nature spirituality–a non-religion, till its decay in later generations. A non-religion of ease, paradox, and energy flow.
You cannot pray to the Dao for favors–it is a subtle force that pervades all things and is unaware of its own greatness.
You cannot beat up or marginalize the Other, because they offend your smelly little nationalism or religious chauvinism. Daoism in its origins has no identity badges that allow you to do that.
–Raj Ayyar
‘When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good, other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.’
–Daodejing, 2.
If you want to shrink something,
you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given.’
–Daodejing, 36.
Taken from Tao Te Ching, tr. Stephen Mitchell.
The self-existent Lord pierced the senses to turn outward. Thus we look to the world outside and see not the Self within us.
Katho Upanishad
Well worth a repost: a wisdom nugget from that maestro of Sufi Islam, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi:
‘In Baghdad, dreaming of Cairo’: a Rumi parable.
A man who had no money, who had inherited everything and squandered it all, kept crying out: ‘Dear God, help!’
Finally, in a dream, he heard a voice: ‘Your wealth is in Cairo. Go there to such and such spot, and dig.’
So, the man left on his epic journey from Baghdad to Cairo, and his back grew warm with courage.
But, Cairo is a large city and he could not find the spot. Wandering around at night, he was seized by the night patrol.
‘Wait!’ said the man. ‘I can explain–I am not a criminal and I am new to Cairo.’ He narrated the dream.
The night patrol said: ‘I know you are not a criminal. You are a good man but kind of a fool. I have had that dream before! I was told that there was a treasure buried on such and such street and at this house in Baghdad. But, I didn’t do what the dream asked me to do. And look at you, all fatigued and wandering!’ He named the man’s street and house.
Thanking the cop, he returned to his Baghdad home and dug around–sure enough a huge treasure buried under his own house.
He said: ‘What I was longing for was in my own house in Baghdad.
But, I had to travel that long way to know it.’
—Jalaluddin Rumi: The Essential Rumi tr. Coleman Barks (abridged and edited by Raj Ayyar).
Comment: There is a Jewish Hasidic parable retold by Martin Buber, that is structurally identical with this Rumi post. In it, a rabbi from a Polish village who is flat broke goes to a bridge in Cracow and gets advice from a Captain of the Guards. He rushes back and finds a huge treasure buried beneath his stove. The Rumi story is also very similar to the one about Mulla Nasrudin searching for his house keys in the gutter outside. All the great spiritual traditions of the world teach us that the ‘Kingdom’, the treasure of joy and love, is within, not without. The man who ‘inherited everything and squandered it all’, invites comparison with the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke.
—Raj Ayyar
It is all the same to him. Man or woman, Good fortune or bad, Happiness or sorrow. It makes no difference. He is serene.
– Ashtavakra Gita 17:15
Thought is the brain of the cells and units of Life Force present in every particle of bodily tissue. Hence, a disease thought upsets the entire government of the Life Force in the cells, whereas the thought of health corrects any disorder in the cellular system.
It must be remembered that I am speaking of the concentrated Divine Thought which can heal and not of the fanciful thought of imaginary people. In order to move Divine Thought, the ordinary man must know the relation of thought, Life Force, and body without denying the existence of the body thought. The body is the frozen thought and frozen energy of God. Nevertheless, man cannot realize this until he knows that thought is frozen into energy and energy is frozen into the body of man
– Paramhansa Yogananda
A wise man works modestly toward the hereafter while a foolish man follows his low desires yet expects blessings from Allah.
– Hadith The Prophet Muhammad
Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still I’d like to express my thanks;
I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
Irving Berlin
A devotee who can call on God while living a householder’s life is a hero indeed. God thinks: “They are blessed indeed who pray to Me in the midst of their worldly duties. They are trying to find Me, overcoming a great obstacle, pushing away, as it were, a huge block of stone weighing a ton. Such a one is a real hero.”
Sri Ramakrishna
