A Fleeting Life

By on February 15, 2012 in quotes, sri-chinmoy

A fleeting life is all we have. So why do we boast, why do we disproportionately exaggerate our earthly, mortal and brittle achievements? The physical in us, no matter how strong, fails us when the Prince of Gloom appears. When death appears, the physical deserts us no matter how strong it is, the vital deserts us no matter how enthusiastic it is, the mind deserts us no matter how brilliant it is, the heart deserts us no matter how kind and pure it is.

A fleeting life is all we have. Why then do we listen to the dictates of the physical world, the temptation- world? Why? Why? Why do we not listen to the dictates of the all-illumining and all-fulfilling soul? Why? Why? Why do we dine each night, all night long, with ignorance-sea? Why do we sport with darkness-dragon every day, all day long? Why? Why? Why do we not love God even conditionally, if it is impossible for us to love God unconditionally? Why? Why?

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Quotes on Faith

By on February 14, 2012 in quotes

faith

Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.

~Rabindranath Tagore

Faith is a passionate intuition.

~William Wordsworth

“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!

- Emily Dickinson

Reason is our soul’s left hand, Faith her right.

~ John Donne

“What you call Faith I call the Soul’s foreknowledge of the Highest Truth”

Sri Chinmoy. (Excerpt from Rainbow-Flowers)

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

  ~Blaise Pascal

Faith can move mountains, but don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel.

~Author Unknown

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The Morning-Glories – Basho

By on February 13, 2012 in poetry

I am one
Who eats his breakfast,
Gazing at the morning-glories

- Basho

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Quotes on the Present Moment

By on February 11, 2012 in spirituality

present-moment

I love the present moment,
Now,
More than I love
Anything.

Sri Chinmoy, Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 26, Agni Press, 2002.
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Confused by Thoughts

By on February 9, 2012 in poetry

confused-ideas

” Confused by thoughts,
we experience duality in life.
Unencumbered by ideas,
the enlightened see the one Reality.”

- Hui – Neng

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VOYAGE – Chidananda Burke

By on February 9, 2012 in poetry

In open casket dark and gleaming

richly draped in mourning velvet,

I turn into the setting sun,

my final journey now begun.

So calmly swift this polished boat,

so calm and bright the golden sea;

and just ahead, the bright horizon;

and just beyond, the splendor free.

Forgotten all those clumsy dreams

rising up in dark of mind;

earthly beauty left behind.

Now I touch, I drink the sun!

This I, once thick with form and flesh,

slowly rising

through dense atmospheres of life,

now pulses with light –

a glowing awareness

without center or source,

a luminous stillness

in the calm luminous stillness,

the endless course.

                                                      - CHIDANANDA BURKE
 

Photo by Kedar

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I Think a While of Love – Henry D. Thoreau

By on February 6, 2012 in poetry

I think a while of Love, and while I think,
Love is to me a world,
Sole meat and sweetest drink,
And close connecting link
Tween heaven and earth.

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15 Laws of Life by Swami Vivekananda

By on February 3, 2012 in spirituality, swami_vivekananda

sky-ocean

1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love’s sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.

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Shankaracharya Gets Illumination from a Butcher

By on February 1, 2012 in stories

In India, there is a popular story of how the great scholar, Vedentin and Sage Shankaracharya gained illumination from a lesson where he learned to see God in every person. Sri Chinmoy writes of this illumining tale.

shiva

Lord Shiva

“…India’s Shankaracharya is by far the greatest Vedantin that our Mother-Earth has ever produced. At the dawn of his spiritual journey, before he had attained to the Consciousness of the Absolute Brahman, a certain feeling of differentiation plagued his mind. Hard was it for him to believe that everything in the universe was Brahman. One day as Shankara was returning home after having completed his bath in the Ganges, he chanced to meet a butcher—an untouchable. The butcher, who was carrying a load of meat, accidentally touched Shankara in passing. Shankara flew into a rage. His eyes blazed like two balls of fire. His piercing glance was about to turn the butcher into a heap of ashes. The poor butcher, trembling from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, said, “Venerable Sir, please tell me the reason of your anger. I am at your service. I am at your command.” Shankara blurted out, “How dare you touch my body which has just been sanctified in the holiest river? Am I to remind you that you are a butcher?” “Venerable Sir,” replied the butcher, “who has touched whom? The Self is not the body. You are not the body. Neither am I. You are the Self. So am I.” The Knowledge of the One Absolute dawned on poor Shankara. People nowadays in India claim that the butcher was no other than Lord Shiva who wanted Shankara to practise what he was preaching. But, according to many, Shankara himself was an incarnation of Lord Shiva…”

Excerpt from : Seventy Three Years Ago Sri Chinmoy, My Ivy League Leaves, Agni Press, 1972.

Today in India, this story in different forms is sometimes re-enacted in Theyyam worship. – A wide ranging type of ritual worship where often the lower castes are given prominent roles in the performance.

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The Nature of Love

By on January 29, 2012 in inspiration, sri-chinmoy

crocus

“The very nature of human love is to stick only to one person and to reject everyone else: accept and reject, accept and reject. But in divine love, which is unlimited and infinite, the question of acceptance and rejection does not arise at all. In divine love there is no possession – only a feeling of oneness.”

- Sri Chinmoy 1

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  1. What is Love? ↩
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Hilda Charlton – a tribute

By on January 26, 2012 in spirituality, tribute

(Hilda Charlton was a spiritual teacher who taught meditation in New York City from 1965 to 1988. In her teachings Hilda stressed the importance of a life of giving and forgiving, unconditional love and remembrance of God. She Hilda Charltonuplifted the lives of thousands of people who sought her spiritual guidance. She was born in London and moved to United States along with her parents and two elder brothers when she was four years old. As a young student she learnt classical ballet dancing and from the age of eighteen for the next two decades she performed and taught dancing in the San Francisco area. But right from her childhood her real quest was spiritual. From 1947 to 1950, Hilda toured India and Ceylon as a dancer. After that she lived in India and Ceylon for fifteen more years, pursuing her studies of Eastern mysticism and meditation under the guidance of many great spiritual masters.

This story of Hilda is based on her autobiography, ‘Hell bent for Heaven’. All phrases and sentences in quotes are Hilda’s own words unless otherwise mentioned.)

Hilda was direct, simple and filled with life1. The then president of Gold Mountain Entertainment, Danny Goldberg said of Hilda, “When Hilda talked about saints, she began with a gushing enthusiasm I would normally associate with a teenage girl contemplating her latest heartthrob. Almost imperceptibly her tone altered from one of girlishness to a solemnity manifesting the holiness of the saints’ lives to the jocular familiarity of a next door neighbour. Only gradually, subtly, and with the utmost concentration did it dawn on me that she herself was one of them.”

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