Month: May 2018
Ashtavakra – 1 – Instruction on Self-Realization
Loading Likes...
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
1.10
1.11
1.12
1.13
1.14
1.15
1.16
1.17
1.18
1.19
1.20
Janaka said:
1.1
Master,
how is Knowledge to be achieved, detachment acquired,
liberation attained?
Ashtavakra said:
1.2
To be free,
shun the experiences of the senses
like poison.
Turn your attention to
forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, simplicity, truth.
1.3
You are not earth, water, fire or air. Nor are you empty space. Liberation is to know yourself
as Awareness alone—
the Witness of these.
1.4
Abide in Awareness
with no illusion of person.
You will be instantly free and at peace.
1.5
You have no caste or duties.
You are invisible, unattached, formless. You are the Witness of all things.
Be happy.
1.6
Right and wrong, pleasure and pain, exist in mind only.
They are not your concern.
You neither do nor enjoy.
You are free.
1.7
You are the Solitary Witness
of All That Is,
forever free.
Your only bondage is not seeing This.
1.8
The thought: “I am the doer”
is the bite of a poisonous snake. To know: “I do nothing”
is the wisdom of faith.
Be happy.
1.9
A single understanding:
“I am the One Awareness,” consumes all suffering
in the fire of an instant.
Be happy.
1.10
You are unbounded Awareness— Bliss, Supreme Bliss–
in which the universe appears
like the mirage of a snake in a rope.
Be happy.
1.11
It is true what they say:
“You are what you think.”
If you think you are bound you are bound. If you think you are free you are free.
1.12
You are Self—the Solitary Witness. You are perfect, all-pervading, One. You are free, desireless, forever still.The universe is but a seeming in You.
1.13
Meditate on this: “I am Awareness alone–Unity itself.” Give up the idea that you are separate, a person,
that there is within and without.
1.14
You have long been bound thinking:
“I am a person.”
Let the knowledge: “I am Awareness alone” be the sword that frees you.
1.15
You are now and forever
free, luminous, transparent, still. The practice of meditation keeps one in bondage.
1.16
You are pure Consciousness— the substance of the universe. The universe exists within you. Don’t be small-minded.
1.17
You are unconditioned, changeless, formless. You are solid, unfathomable, cool.
Desire nothing.
You are Consciousness.
1.18
That which has form is not real. Only the formless is permanent. Once this is known,
you will not return to illusion.
1.19
Just as a mirror exists
both within and without
the image reflected,
the Supreme Self exists
both within and without the body.
1.20
Just as the same space exists both within and without a jar, the timeless, all-pervasive One exists as Totality.
Embrace me
Loading Likes...
I am the baby and sitter
I am everything you despised
I am your Goddess and God
Embrace me
Embrace me
For I am you
I am your father and mother
sister and brother
I am the baby and sitter
the order and litter
the sweet and bitter
I am everything you despised
the person you chastised
I am your Goddess and God
I am perfect and flawed
Embrace me
Love me!
For I am You
The blocked road
Loading Likes...
I wish I knew what you wanted.
You block the road and won’t give me rest.
You pull my lead-rope one way, then the other.
You act cold, my darling!
Do you hear what I say?
Will this night of talking ever end?
Why am I still embarrassed and timid about you?
You are thousands.
You are one.
Quiet, but most articulate.
Your name is Spring.
Your name is wine.
Your name is the nausea that comes from wine!
You are my doubting and the lightpoints in my eyes.
You are every image, and yet I’m homesick for you.
Can I get there?
Where the deer pounces on the lion,
where the one I’m after’s after me?
This drum and these words keep pounding!
Let them both smash through their coverings
into silence.
As seasons ripple through me
Loading Likes...
All is quiet grace
as seasons ripple through me
abiding in this placeless place
the world no longer moves me
I have traveled beyond time
Trancended space, to meet thee
For what can be named, Beloved
Has lost its grip upon me
Oceans drowned themselves
in the vastness that cannot define me
Playfully throwing tsunami waves,
Just to meet and touch me
But then I met You and drowned myself, my love
I lost all, I thought attained
And in your loving, compassionate eyes, I saw
nothing was ever lost
nothing was ever gained
Ashtavakra – 2 – Joy of Self-Realization
Loading Likes...
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
2.14
2.15
2.16
2.17
2.18
2.19
2.20
2.21
2.22
2.23
2.24
2.25
Janaka said:
2.1
I am now spotless and at peace– Awareness beyond Consciousness. All this time I have been duped by illusion.
2.2
By this light alone
the body and the universe appear. I am Everything
or Nothing.
2.3
Seeing there is no
universe or body,
by grace the Self is revealed.
2.4
As waves, foam and bubbles
are not different from water,
so the universe emanating from Self is not different from Self. 2.5
Look closely at cloth, you see only threads. Look closely at creation, you see only Self.
2.6
As sweetness
pervades sugarcane juice,
I am the essence of creation.
2.7
Not seeing Self, the world is materialized. Seeing Self, the world is vanished.
A rope is not a snake,
but can appear to be.
2.8
I am not other than Light. The universe manifests at my glance.
2.9
The mirage of universe appears in me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope,
as water appears on a desert horizon.
2.10
As a pot returns to clay,
a wave to water,
a bracelet to gold,
so will the universe return to Me.
2.11
I am wonderful indeed–
beyond adoration.
I cannot decay nor ever die,
though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.
2.12
I am wonderful indeed– beyond adoration.
Even with a body I am One. I neither come nor go.
I am everywhere at once.
2.13
I am wonderful indeed– beyond adoration.
I am astounded at my powers. The universe appears within me but I do not touch it.
2.14
I am wonderful indeed–
beyond adoration.
I am everything thought or spoken, and have nothing.
2.15
In Reality,
knowledge, the knower, and the knowable do not exist.
I am the transparent Self
in which through ignorance
they appear.
2.16
Looking at One and seeing many
is the cause of all misery.
The only cure is to realize
what is seen is not there.
I am One—aware, blissful, immaculate.
2.17
I am unbounded Awareness.
Only in imagination do I have limits. Reflecting on this,
I abide in the Absolute.
2.18
I am neither free nor bound. The illusion of such things has fallen into disbelief. Though I contain creation, it has no substance.
2.19
Having seen for certain
that this universe and body
is without form or substance,
I am revealed as Awareness alone. Imagination has no place here.
2.20
The body exists only in imagination, as do heaven and hell,
bondage, freedom, fear.
Are these my concern?
I, who am pure Awareness?
2.21
I see no differences or separation. Even the multitudes appear
as a single formless desert.
To what should I cling?
2.22
I am not the body.
I do not have a body.
I am Awareness, not a person. My thirst for life bound me
to a seeming of life.
2.23
In the limitless ocean of Myself
the winds of the mind
roil the myriad waves of the world.
2.24
But when the wind subsides
in the limitless ocean
the ark of personhood is swallowed up, along with the universe it carries.
2.25
And how wonderful it is!
In the limitless ocean of Myself, waves of beings
arise, collide, play for a time, then disappear–as is their nature.
Ashtavakra – 3 – Test of Self-Realization
Loading Likes...
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
Strange that knowing lust
3.8
who yearns for freedom,
3.9
3.10
3.11
3.12
3.13
3.14
Ashtavakra said
3.1
Having realized yourself as One, being serene and indestructible, why do you desire wealth.
3.2
Just as imagining silver in mother-of-pearl, causes greed to arise,
so does ignorance of Self
cause desire for illusion.
3.3
Having realized yourself as That
in which the waves of the world rise and fall, why do you run around in turmoil?
3.4
Having realized yourself as pure Awareness, as beautiful beyond description,
how can you remain a slave to lust?
3.5
It is strange
that in a sage who has realized
Self in All and All in Self
this sense of ownership should continue.
3.6
Strange that one abiding in the Absolute, intent on freedom,
should be vulnerable to lust
and weakened by amorous pastimes.
3.7
Strange that knowing lust
as an enemy of knowledge,
one so weak and nearing death should still crave sensual pleasure.
3.8
Strange that one who is unattached
to the things of this world and the next,
who can discriminate between the transient and the timeless,
who yearns for freedom,
should yet fear the dissolution of the body?
3.9
Whether acclaimed or tormented the serene sage abides in the Self. He is neither gratified nor angered.
3.10
A great soul
witnesses his body’s actions
as if they were another’s.
How can praise or blame disturb him?
3.11
Realizing the universe is illusion, having lost all curiosity,
how can one of steady mind fear death?
3.12
With whom can we compare
the great soul
who, content knowing Self,
remains desireless in disappointment?
3.13
Why should a person of steady mind, who sees the nothingness of objects, prefer one thing to another?
3.14
He who is unattached,
untouched by opposites,
free of desire,
experiences neither pleasure nor pain as events pass through
The most beautiful music
Loading Likes...
I live in music
I live in the tune of birds
But nothing
As I lay my head
I live in music
The language that makes my heart sing
I live in the tune of birds
The rhythm of the sea
The sounds of the night
And the humming of a bee
But nothing
Soothes me more, my love
Like the sound
Of your heart,
Beautifully beating
As I lay my head
On your chest
Hafez – Ghazal 3
Loading Likes...
That beautiful Shirazi Turk,
took control and my heart stole,
I’ll give Samarkand & Bukhara,
for her Hindu beauty mole.
O wine-bearer bring me wine,
such wine not found in Heavens
By running brooks,
in flowery fields, spend your days and stroll.
Alas, these sweet gypsy clowns,
these agitators of our town
Took the patience of my heart,
like looting Turks take their toll.
Such unfinished love as ours,
the Beloved has no need,
For the Perfect Beauty,
frills and adornments play no rolde
I came to know Joseph’s goodness,
that daily would increase
Even the chaste Mistress succumbed
to the love she would extol.
Whether profane or even cursed,
I’ll reply only in praise
Sweetness of tongue and the lips,
even bitterness would enthrall.
Heed the advice of the wise,
make your most endeared goal,
The fortunate blessed youth,
listen to the old wise soul.
Tell tales of song and wine,
seek not secrets of the world,
None has found and no-one will,
knowledge leaves this riddle whole.
You composed poems and sang, Hafiz,
you spent your days well
Venus wedded to your songs,
in the firmaments’ inverted bowl.
source:
Ashtavakra – 4 – Glorification of Self-Realization
Loading Likes...
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6