Divine poetry and thoughts

[Jewell]

You sit here for days saying, this is strange business.
You're the strange business...

You go from village to village on your horse asking everyone,
'Has anyone seen my horse?'.

Rumi

[Jewell]

Grief can be the garden of compassion.
If you keep your heart open through everything,
your pain can become your greatest ally
in your life's search for love and wisdom.

Rumi

[Jewell]

No longer will the sun be your light by day,
and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you;
for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor,
and the days of your sorrow will be over.

Isaiah 60:19,20

[Jewell]

The Vedas with their six limbs and the knowledge of all sciences may be on one's lips;
one may possess the poetic gift and may compose fine prose and poetry;
yet if one's mind be not centred upon the lotus feet of the Guru,
what is the use, what is the use, what is the use?

Guru Ashtakam verse 3
Adi Shankaracharya

[Jewell]

It is by the Guru's Grace that your mind is engaged in search for Truth
and it is by his Grace that you will find it.
It works unwaringly towards your ultimate good.
And it is for all.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Jewell]

In reality, the disciple is not different from the Guru.
He is the same dimensionless centre of perception and love in action.
It is only his imagination and self-identification with the imagined,
that encloses him and converts him into a person.
The Guru is concerned little with the person. His attention is on the inner watcher.
It is the task of the watcher to understand and thereby eliminate the person.
While there is Grace on one side, there must be dedication to the task on the other.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Jewell]

The grace of the Guru works in different ways. In scriptures, the working of grace is compared to the ways in which fish, tortoises and birds cause their eggs to hatch. The ancients believed that the mere look of the fish was sufficient to bring life to its eggs. The tortoise, they believed, stayed at some distance from its eggs and by the power of its presence and by its intense concentration on them, caused its eggs to hatch. The third category, the birds, need to have physical contact with their eggs. Sitting on them, they incubate them by the warmth of their body. In this analogy, it is the fish which is the most powerful. By their mere look, their eggs hatch.

This is how Sri Bhagavan's grace worked. He did not need to initiate or transmit grace by touching devotees, nor did he even seem to need to concentrate on them. A single look was often enough to transform whomever his gaze fell upon. All those who have experienced that look of grace can testify to the tremendous impact it had on them. That silent look transmitted his highest teaching.

from Kunjuswami?s remniscences with Bhagavan as retold in The Power of the Presence

[Jewell]

Divine Grace is a manifestation of the cosmic free will in operation. It can alter the course of events in a mysterious manner through its own unknown laws, which are superior to all natural laws, and can modify the latter by interaction. It is the most powerful force in the universe. It descends and acts only when it is invoked by total self-surrender. It acts from within, because God resides in the Heart of all beings. Its whisper can be heard only in a mind purified by self-surrender and prayer. Rationalists laugh at it, and atheists scorn it, but it exists. It is a descent of God into the soul's zone of awareness.

It is a visitation of force unexpected and unpredictable. It is a voice spoken out of cosmic silence - It is 'Cosmic Will which can perform authentic miracles under its own laws'. In truth, God and the Guru are not different. Just as the prey which has fallen into the jaws of a tiger has no escape, so those who have come within the ambit of the Guru's gracious look will be saved by the Guru and will not get lost; yet, each one should by his own effort pursue the path shown by God or Guru and gain release.

From the book, Divine Grace Through Total Self-Surrender by D.C. Desai,
 Ramana Maharshi read out the following quotations by Paul Brunton

[Jewell]

A guru is not a giver of doctrines. He is a giver of methods - of methods which can help you to come out of your sleep. That is why a guru is always a disturber of your dreams, and it is difficult to live with a guru.

A guru is always in danger from his disciples. Any moment they can kill him because he is going to disturb; that is what his work is. He cannot help you to be yourself as you are because you are false.

He has to destroy your false identity. It is painful. That is why, unless there is a very deep love, the work is impossible. A very deep intimacy is needed; otherwise hate will be there. So a guru cannot allow you to be near him unless you have surrendered; otherwise you are going to be an enemy.

Krishnamurti goes on saying there is no teacher - and he is right. This is the ultimate truth. When you have awakened, you are the teacher and there is no other teacher. But this is the ultimate truth, and before this happens the teacher is because the disciple is. The disciple creates the teacher; it is the disciple's need.

So remember this: if you meet a wrong teacher, you deserve a wrong teacher; that is why you meet a wrong teacher. A wrong disciple cannot meet a right teacher. You create your teacher, your master. A small teacher or a great teacher depends on you; you will meet the person you deserve.

Only with your total surrender can a guru work.
Surrender means you leave your expectations, you allow the guru to be as he is and you allow him to do whatsoever he wants to do. Even if pain results, you are ready for it. Even if he leads you towards death you are ready for it, because ultimately he will lead you to a deep death. Only after it is rebirth possible. Resurrection is possible only when your old identity has been crucified.

Osho

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A great yogi, a spiritual teacher, a religious leader, a writer, an orator and, above all,
the most selfless worker for humanity - that was Swami Vivekananda.
I had the honor of living with this great Swami in India , in England , and in America .
 I lived and traveled with him day after day and night after night
and watched his character for nearly twenty years,
and I stand here to assure you that I have not found another like him in these three continents.
As a man, his character was pure and spotless;
as a philosopher, he was the greatest of all Eastern and Western philosophers.
In him I found the ideal of Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga;
he was like the living example of Vedanta in all its different branches.

Swami Abhedananda (Oct 2nd, 1866 - Sep 8th, 1939)

[Jewell]

Blessed are those who have seen Sri Ramakrishna.
All of you, too, will get his vision. When you have come here, you are very near to him.
Nobody has been able to understand him who came on earth as Sri Ramakrishna.
Even his own nearest devotees have no real clue to it.
Only some have a little inkling of it.
All will understand in time.

Swami Vivekananda

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The Maharshi is a king of yogis.
The splendour of his Realisation radiates like a sun.
He lifts you far above the world.

Suzanne Alexandra

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I was just happy to be sitting in the same room as him. I sat there in absolute silence with him for over an hour and it was one of the most wonderful experiences I ever had with him. I felt an intense rock-solid silence descend on me that became deeper and deeper as the minutes passed. There was just a glow of awareness that filled me so completely, thoughts were utterly impossible. You don't realise what a monstrous imposition the mind is until you have lived without it, completely happily, completely silently, and completely effortlessly for a short period of time. For most of this time I was looking in the direction of Maharaj. Sometimes he would turn a page and glance in our direction, and when he did he still seemed to be irritated that we hadn't left. I was smiling inwardly at his annoyance because it wasn't touching me in any way. I had no self-consciousness, no embarrassment, no feeling of being an imposition. I was just resting contentedly in my own being.

David Godman
from Remembering Nisargadatta Maharaj
http://davidgodman.org/interviews/nis2.shtml

[Jewell]

The Guru, the benefactor of true, direct knowledge,
who truly shines as the Self that possesses unlimited splendour,
is the primal silence that puts to flight the perverse arguments
that arise through the persistent stain of infatuation with the world.

The Guru is the being-consciousness that shines, abiding as all in all.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Jewell]

Don't become disheartened by thinking,
'When shall I obtain the bliss of yoga, the state of the Self?'
because the true state of Self-knowledge is always the same,
shining timelessly without spatial coordinates such as near and far.

Guru Vachaka Kovai 781
Muruganar