The soul speaking with nature October 19, 2009

TANAS
(Tana:  The soul speaking with nature.)

Little dandelions, what are you doing here?
–We reflect on earth the stars in the heavens.

Little pool, why is your water so muddy?
–Because of my narrow mind and depthless heart.

Coal, what makes you so black?
–I am the evil of the ages accumulated in the heart of the earth.
What is your penalty?
–I must pass through a trial by fire.
What becomes of you in the end?
–I turn into a diamond.

Earth, to the clouds:–Why did you come back after once you had deserted me?
–The heavens would not have us before we had reconciled ourselves with you.

FRIENDSHIP – why it is the ultimate form of any relationship August 6, 2009

image by axinia

Friendship is a word which we all use in our everyday language, and yet it could take one’s whole life only to realize its
meaning. However learned a person may be, however pious, spiritual, or experienced, if he has not learned that nature and
character of friendship he has not learned anything. This is the first and the last thing we have to learn. We so often use this
word lightly, calling every acquaintance a friend, or professing to be somebody’s friend; but the more we realize the meaning of
it, the less we are able to claim friendship. For everything in life we are tested, examined, and tried, but to pass this examination
of friendship is the most difficult thing in the world.

What is the reason for this? Why is it so difficult to be a friend? One would think that it was the easiest thing there is! The
reason is that there is something in ourselves which is always against our being friendly. It is the the ego.

As long as this ego is standing and lives, a man cannot claim to be anybody’s friend. And when he is not somebody
else’s friend he is not even his own friend, for one learns friendship by being a friend to another. A selfish man may seem to be
a friend to himself but, it is on the surface, not in reality. He has not yet learned how to be a friend to another, so he cannot be
a friend to himself. In our pursuit of truth we want to learn a great many things: the nature of life, the secret of life, the character
of life; and to understand the meaning of friendship seems so easy and simple that we never trouble to think about it, nor about
the responsibility of being a friend.

It is a simple lesson, and it is a lesson that we have to learn; today when nations are against nations and races against races,
when communities are against communities, and one religion against another, it is now that friendship is so much needed.
Besides, friendship is the first lesson of spirituality that one can learn. One may think that friendship, a personal friendship,
means nothing; that one does not become spiritual through a personal friendship. But one does.

How spirituality awakens in a human being July 31, 2009

Spirituality is like the water hidden in the depth of the earth: hidden in the heart of man, this water which is spirituality must be, so to speak, dug out. This digging is done when one takes pains in awakening ones sympathy towards others, in harmonizing with others and in understanding others.  -says my beloved Sufi saint Hazrat Inayath Khan (1882-1927).

I find it a beautiful explanation of how the spirituality is generally born in a human being. The next step is when one starts seeking the Spirit everywhere – in oneself, in others, in nature. One starts seeking for the very depth, for the very essence and beauty of everything and… one day finds it!

LOVE; axinia

(image by me)

The field of life July 9, 2009

Kabir, the great poet of India says, ‘Life is a field and you are born to cultivate it. And if you know how to cultivate this field you can produce anything you like. All the need of your life can I be produced in this field. All that your soul yearns after and all you need is to be got from the field, if you know how to cultivate it and how to reap the fruit.’

But if this opportunity is only studied in order to make the best of life by taking all that one can take and by being more comfortable, that is not satisfying.

We must enrich ourselves with thought, with that happiness which is spiritual happiness, with that peace which belongs to our soul, with that liberty, that freedom, for which our soul longs; and attain to that higher knowledge which breaks all the fetters of life and raises our consciousness to look at life from a different point of view.

Self-control July 3, 2009

In everyday life it is most necessary to have control over speech and action, for one may automatically give way to a word, prompted by an inner impulse; afterwards one finds that one should not have said it, or perhaps one should have said it differently. It is the same with action. One feels, ‘I should not have done so’, after having done something; or one thinks, ‘I should have done differently’; but once it is done it is too late to do it otherwise. In human nature there is an inner urge to express oneself; and that urge pushes a word out of one, so to speak, before one has really thought of it; and all this shows lack of control over oneself.

It is also a sign of nervousness. Very often a person tries to answer somebody who has not yet finished speaking; before a sentence is completed the answer is given. Such an answer given to an incomplete idea is often wrong. What generally happens in such cases is that one takes all that comes from outside in life too much to heart, and allows these outer things and influences to penetrate one more deeply than they should. In this way one becomes sensitive, and out of this arises nervousness.

The nature of impressions we get from things is nothig else but vibrations June 19, 2009

I came across this text of my favorite saint Hazrat Inayat Khan and was stunned how accurate he was describing something what the practitioners of Sahaja meditation know from their daily experiences – but he was describing it before 1927!

Isn’t it great that something that has been known and accessible only to the few in the earlier times, now is easily available to everyone?!..

Enjoy the saint’s experiences:

“There are many ancient places where one finds stones engraved, woods carved with some artistic designs. Sometimes there are letters engraved on the rock of a mountain, on a stone; letters which today no one can read. Yet one endowed with the gift of intuition can read them from the vibrations, from the atmosphere, from the feeling that comes from them. Outwardly, they are engravings, inwardly they are a continual record, a talking record which is always expressing what is written upon it. No traveller with intuitive faculties open will deny the fact that in the lands of ancient traditions he will have seen numberless places which, so to speak, sing aloud the legend of their past.

    One sees the same in the atmosphere of the trees in the forests, in the gardens, which also express the past – the impressions that have been given to them by those who sat under them. Often people have superstitions about a tree being haunted, and this one finds much more in the East. Actually a vibration has been created, consciously or unconsciously, by someone who has lived there, who has taken shelter under the tree and pondered upon a certain thought, upon a certain feeling which the tree has taken up, and which the tree is expressing. Perhaps the person has forgotten about it, but the tree is still repeating the thought that has been given to it; for the tree can express the voice that was put into it more clearly than a rock.

(image of Brahmapuri, by me)

    In tropical countries where in ancient times people used to travel on foot through the forests and woods, and take shelter under a certain tree, all that they thought and felt has been taken up by the tree. Those with intuitive faculties open have heard it more clearly than if they had heard it from a living person.

    One finds the same thing among animals, the pet animals which live and partake thought and feeling through their contact with man. There especially exists a superstition about horses. Those who know horses are very particular in buying one which has good vibrations, apart from considering its health and breed. Often a horse of a very good breed and perfectly sound may prove to be unlucky. The reason is that the disappointment of someone who has been riding upon this horse has been left there, recorded upon the heart of the horse. Perhaps the condition of the person has changed, but that which the horse has kept is still continuing.

HUMAN EVOLUTION June 3, 2009

It is not only the human race that has evolved as time has passed, age after age, but an individual also evolves in his lifetime. In
other words, humanity evolves gradually during a world’s lifetime, while an individual, if he evolves at all, does so during his
life. It is possible that the human race may take an opposite course; instead of evolving it may go back, and so it is with
individuals too.

But a person who is really evolving will not go back. If he did go back some steps he would feel uneasy and
discontented, and he would go forward again. Perhaps he will go back a hundred times, but then a hundred times he will go
forward again, for a person who has once experienced the joy and happiness of evolution will not be content with going back;
feeling the discomfort of it he will go on.

No doubt the rhythm of every person’s evolution is different. One can read in the Vadan that one soul creeps, another soul
walks, another soul runs, and another soul flies; and yet they live on the same earth, under the same sun, and they are all called
human beings. How strange it is that at the present time a new spirit has awakened in humanity, and one does not recognize the
evolution of personality any loner!

What one does distinguish is the nationality; whatever country one enters the first thing they ask for is one’s passport. It does not matter what evolution one has, and it does not matter what one’s soul is experiencing; aslong as one has a passport which distinguishes one as the subject of this or that country, that is the important thing. And very often people make a great virtue of saying, “I am as good as you.” But imagine the insolence of it! The better one is the less one considers oneself to be. The one who is really better could not say, “I am as good as you.’ This means that the consciousness of the present-day man is inferior; he says, “I am as good as you,’ because unconsciously he feels inferior in his mind.

The ego is like a rose May 28, 2009

 (image by me)

The ego is like the rose and also like the thorns which surround the rose. It takes the place of the thorns when it is not
cultivated, and it becomes a rose when it is refined.

When the ego remains in the condition of a thorn, more thorns come; and more and more, till it increases its thorns to such an
extent that everyone who touches that person is dissatisfied. We all have friends to whom we should be most grateful if they
would keep away from us. We love them, we like them, but we would be very glad if they would keep away. What is it? It is
the thorns that hurt.

In what way do these thorns manifest? They manifest in the form of words, of actions, of desires, in the form of manner. Why
does one feel annoyed with certain people in life, even before they have uttered one word? Because the thorn is pricking.
Perhaps that person will say, ‘But I have not said anything, I have not done anything,’ but he does not know that he has thorns;
there are perhaps so many that even before he utters one word, before he moves, his presence pricks us. It is a natural
outcome of the ego. Either the ego develops thorns, or it develops into a rose; and when it develops into a rose, then everyone
is attracted to it because of its beautiful petals, its delicacy, its fragrance, its color, its softness, its structure. Everything about it
is attractive, appealing, and healing.

For every soul there are four stages to pass through in order to come to the culmination of the ego, which means to reach the
stage of the rose.

The first stage is that a person is rough, thoughtless and inconsiderate. He is interested in what he wants and
in what he likes; as such he is naturally blind to the needs and wants of others.