JKquote : Awareness , outer->inner

Out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced . . .

If you sit on the bank of a river after a storm, you see the stream going by, carrying a great deal of debris. Similarly, you have to watch the movement of yourself -
following every thought,
every feeling,
every intention,
every motive - just watch it.

That watching is also listening; it is being aware with your eyes, with your ears, with your insight, of all the values that human beings have created, and by which you are conditioned, and it is only this state of total awareness that will end all seeking.

Please do listen to this. Most of us think that awareness is a mysterious something to be practiced, and that we should get together day after day to talk about awareness. Now, you don't come to awareness that way at all !!

But if you are aware of outward things -
the curve of a road,
the shape of a tree,
the color of another's dress,
the outline of the mountains against a blue sky,
the delicacy of a flower,
the pain on the face of a passerby,
the ignorance, the envy,
the jealousy of others,
the beauty of the earth - then, seeing all these outward things without condemnation, without choice, you can ride on the tide of inner awareness.

Then you will become aware of your own reactions, of your own pettiness, of your own jealousies. From the outward awareness you come to the inward, but if you are not aware of the outer you cannot possibly come to the inner.

When there is inward awareness of every activity of your mind and your body, when you are aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, both secret and open, conscious and unconscious, then out of this awareness there comes a clarity that is not induced, not put together by the mind.

And without that clarity you may do what you will, you may search the heavens and the earth and the deeps, but you will never find out what is true.

(cosmix) Choices are values ! Author Read Montague

As our car moves over the Vashi bridge the landscape architect talks about the role played by first impressions in choice and creativity. Her imagination was stirred by an author named Read Montague. His first name sounds like a verb, she thought when she first saw the American neuroscientist’s book at a bookstall in downtown Mumbai.

The title Why Choose This Book? was as intriguing. Montague, who is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, was tracking that slipperiest of beasts called choice. “The sneaky secret about choice is that it’s not about choice at all — it’s about value,” said the neuroscientist who directs an imaging lab at the Baylor College of Medicine. So could he ‘explain’ why someone roots for a Dark Venus such as Serena Williams while another pines for a blonde goddess called Maria Sharapova?

The act of choosing one action (or actor) over another follows directly from the way the brain values both the external world and the internal world — our thoughts, Montague elaborated. We need valuation because life is short and Time or Art are long! From such humble beginnings, life discovered subtle mechanisms of efficient valuation and embedded them in the human brain, he adds.

“The same mechanisms also constrain our choices and anchor them to our biological needs. Yet they also confer on us the freedom to choose, even to the point of denying our instincts for survival. What other species can and will die for an idea — even an idea read about in a book?” he asks rhetorically.

Dr Montague’s epiphany (as reported by his artistic fan) draws forth a quote in Punjabi from the restaurateur sitting in the back seat of the car. Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh gave him the lyric composed by the Sufi Shaikh Ghulam Farid at the restaurant: “When someone calls Laila the love of Majnu’s life, dark, Majnu says, the caller does not have the discerning eye (teri ankh na vekhanwali),” the hotelier declaims. “The Vedas are white and so is the Quran, he goes on. (But) it’s the inky black that puts words of wisdom on white parchment. The Sufi Master too has eyes for Him who is beyond dark and light.”
The moral? “Don’t be swayed by superficialities.” As self-help guru Wayne Dyer says in his Power of Intention, if you’re unable to see and honour that same perfection in others, it’s impossible to know your own perfection. See yourself in all of humanity.

Amazon review for his book, link HERE !

(Cosmic)East Versus West - Salvation

The awesome onus of being just us

Come to think of it, Judaeo-Christianity, the classical Greco-Roman religious worldview and Islam can actually make life easier. For, though we may be prone to failings — we’re not irredeemable. There’s light at the end of the tunnel in the way of salvation if we seek it using the righteous path. Meaning, while we may be like deep cover counter-intelligence agents injected into hostile terrain, we’re not on our own because there’s always a handler we can turn to for guidance and who, if we’re really about to make a mess of our mission (and don’t mind seeking help), can extricate us out of seemingly impossible situations. In short, we’re not alone. Robert Frost summed it up pretty succinctly when he wrote: “We dance around a ring and suppose but the secret sits in the middle and knows.” Most eastern religions on the other hand, including mystical sects of the above mentioned creeds, are a different ball game altogether. To declare, as they do, that the godhood is inside us — that indeed, it is us — puts such a savage spin on individual responsibility that it makes a mockery of redemption. How can a person possibly justify any unethical thought, word or deed any more, for instance, if the judge, jury and jailor is the perpetrator himself or herself? And as if that was not enough, it’s also posited that the majority of us are ignorant of the fact our godhood resides in us. Now the burden of responsibility has to be borne without even the enlightened knowledge of its sanction. How tough is that? It’s like the Copernican revolution in reverse. Imagine being suddenly informed one day that we’re not a minor planet orbiting an ordinary star in the remote arm of an average galaxy among billions of other galaxies but that we are, instead, the centre of the universe. That, in fact, we are the universe. That there is no maker of ourselves but we, no other out there but us, no time but now, no space but here, no life but this where we’re told we’ve deliberately lost ourselves in a game of make-believe hide and seek so that some may find themselves from time to time in order to continue the game or relinquish it forever and guide others to do the same because the world has no beginning or end but, rather, simply is and always will be and, in short, we — or to be more correct — I, am alone, may not make life any easier or easily rewarding but, ultimately, it turns out to be much more so.

Eckhart Tolle Quotes on Gaia.com

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(cosmic uplinx) Blind misleading the unsighted...

A common complaint a lot of us have is we just don’t understand why sometimes other people don’t understand us.

We think we have enough good reason, justification and rationale for the things we do and the words we speak and, yet, we still find that either our motives have been misunderstood or our intentions ill-construed. “I’m not like that at all,” we say. “Why do my friends, family or colleagues think so then? Can they not make out what I’m doing or saying here? Why do they get the wrong impression all the time? Can’t they see who I am or, at least, where I’m coming from?”

A Zen master would often tell his disciples the story of a blind man who had gone to visit a friend. Night had fallen by the time he had to leave, so he asked if he could borrow a lantern. The friend was amused and asked how that would help him to see any better. The blind man replied that while it would not improve his own vision, it would help others coming down the same path to see better and avoid bumping into him.

That seemed to make sense and the friend gave him a bamboo lantern with a candle inside. However, a little later, walking down the path he bumped straight into a man coming from the opposite direction. “What’s the matter, are you blind?” he snapped at him. “Can’t you see the lantern I’m holding?” The other man replied: “No, not if you don’t light the candle inside it.”

Now, there are three people involved in the story: the man who bumped into the blind man, the blind man, and his friend. And, of course, there’s the unlit lantern. Of these, the bumper and the lantern are completely blameless for obvious reasons even though they are involved and are absolutely integral to the events that subsequently unfolded. That leaves the blind man and the friend. Who’s at fault here?

It could be argued that the friend was perhaps being a little mean-spirited by not lighting the candle inside the lantern but, going by his original amusement, he still really saw little sense in doing so, especially since — as it’s also obvious — the blind man didn’t make sure it was lit before he set out. That finally leaves only one person who could not be seen for what he was as he walked along the path. It was his responsibility alone to make sure the candle was lit so that he could be accurately visible. Instead, all he actually did was end up calling the other person blind.

(JK) Conflict , the hidden battle

Conflict can exist only so long as there is reaction to that environment which produces the "I", the self. The majority of people are unconscious of this conflict - the conflict between one's self, which is but the result of the environment, and the environment itself; very few are conscious of this continuous battle. One becomes conscious of that conflict, that disharmony, that struggle between the false creation of the environment, which is the "I", and the environment itself, only through suffering.

(souljourney) Loneliness

Loneliness

It is the very nature of any soul to exist together with at least another, and then still others. When one stands psychologically without another there is constant longing, quiet desperation or even pathology.

Our natural human state is one of connection and intimacy with our world and the people in it. Isolation and disconnection are contrary to our nature. Bonding with others is the basis for inner soul connections.

When we isolate ourselves intentionally or through circumstances and experience loneliness two things happen:

1. We alienate ourselves from our essence, who we are, the soul within.

2. Our body begins to reduce its production of a very important lymphocyte, which is called a natural killer cell, that scours the body and eliminates cancer and virus-infected cells.

Isolation is stressful for both men and women. Men who are widowed have a significant increase in illness and death for up to two years after the death of their spouse. Psychologists call isolation for women ego-dystonic, which means it is foreign to their natural way of being, which is strongly relational.

The complete opposite of loneliness is a committed relationship. Commitment therefore also produces the opposite symptoms – strengthened immune system, better health, quality relationships in general, and more joy.

In the final analysis, we feel lonely not because we don’t have a partner but because we are not at home or comfortable with ourselves. Loneliness results from lack of adequate relationship with the soul within ourselves, and the consequent lack of opportunity to express soul love through external relationships. This fact suggests that in order to have a committed relationship there must first of all be a commitment to the soul life within ourselves. Often the lack of inner connection is substituted in an outer relationship, but when that relationship no longer exists then the emptiness of disconnection from self comes to the surface.

Love of others and commitment to others begins with the ancient dictum: Know thyself. The word self is equivalent to Spirit. We cannot directly know Spirit, but we can know the Self through the presence of Spirit in our soul. Spirit is the life of any being. To know Spirit means then to know ourselves and others as our very life. It is being fully present without reference to anything else.

Exercises:

1. Evaluate your relationships. How committed are you?

2. How present are you when you are with others?

3. How vulnerable and intimate are you willing to be in close relationships?

4. What do you do to deepen your relationship with your Self?