It will pass

We will always see the divine in the form we have been taught all our lives in our places of study and worship or in our literature and art.  
If that should happen, then we should know that we are not experiencing the divine. 

The human mind is so powerful that it easily fools even us ourselves. When we desperately long for something, our mind is easily capable of conjuring it up for us. 

Our minds are very powerful, therefore it projects whatever we desperately seek. We feel we are conscious but in reality we hallucinate.

It is not necessary for us to seek the truth, like insects we can be born and like insects we can die. However if we wish to be truly happy and liberated, then to the core of our being we must travel.

Answers we will not find outside of ourselves, but only within.  
To travel inwards we must get rid of all that is superfluous to our being. 
What are these superfluous elements?

Its important note that anything that comes and goes is not us. 
Our possessions, attachments, desires, and anger, they are things that will come and go. We believe that they are us, but they are not. They are mere acquisitions. These are the things that will not permit us to journey within ourselves.

Then there is the ego, the 'I'.  
As long as the 'I' exists it inhibits us from discovering the truth. When we let go of the ego 
As the Guru explains, the truth is realised not by seeking but by letting go. Because we do not enter the divine, but make ourselves open to let the divine emerge from within us. 

Letting go will occur when we realise that all existence is an illusion or what the ancients call "Maya'. This realisation can come to us when we achieve great success, great failure, great anguish, sorrow, or exhilaration which leads us to meditation.

Meditating because we are merely seeking or because we are bored will produce what the student discovered, that it too will pass and we are back right we started from. 

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Regaining Paradise

Regaining Paradise

Paradise is not a physical place somewhere. Its a state of being. The good news is, we do not have to die to go to paradise. The best news is, all of us can live there, and now.

In paradise, nationality, religion, colour, race, gender, are irrelevant. Nor is our bank balance, wealth, social status of any consequence. Ego, hatred, lust, etc. all the things that define who we are but in the end corrode humans are not even a factor.

There is one very large group of people that live in paradise, they are called 'Children'. 

The ultimate state sought by all true seekers of spirituality is to reach this stage of being innocent, carefree, just like little children. The child is innocent because of purity and ignorance. The evolved adult is not ignorant but becomes innocent by an enlightened consciousness. They transcend human social failings to become unitary creatures, the always pure individual soul connected with the  The Divine, experienced as Creation which most of us call God by a multitude of names. 

We adults are so busy making a living and merely existing, that we forget that life is to be lived. By the time most of realise the folly of our actions or inactions its too late. 

There is a lot that children can teach us. Show us how to be carefree and happy.  

Today 14th November has been declared as 'Children's Day'. In fact everyday should be Children's day, if we wish to be happy and make others happy. 

She lives on

My mother Swaran Kaur ji passed on in life last year.  It seems that mothers may leave us physically but never leave us spiritually.

After the funeral and the departure all the friends and relatives, I walked alone through the rooms of her house. Even with the Mistress gone the home seemed to exude an energy, as if she was still there. I rationalised that, when disturbed or excited the human mind can conjure up anything the heart desires. So I let the feeling pass. 

Mom had cultivated and nurtured many plants in her home and on the terrace. Well I was the only one there so I took care of the many plants.  

 After a few days I took the plants to my own home. It was then, when my terrace garden came alive that I realised that the very same energy I had sensed at her home were also present in these very plants. 

Spiritual by Eduardo Rodríguez Calzado

I suddenly experienced that Mother lives on in our lives. Her love and energy had permeated into our lives, and influences my thoughts, words and deeds, and now through these plants.  The energy and love she poured into me and many others was the same that these plants had also received. The flowers, the herbs and the aroma fills not only my senses but also my being.

Everything we think, feel, say or do has consequences, because it is manifested in this universe. 

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just its form gets transformed. 

If we are lucky we find our life mostly spent in the company of people with energy that makes us better, stronger, and yet more spiritual. 

I know not what happens to people when they pass on and I am comfortable with that. All I know is mother left a lovely trail within me to journey on. What more can one ask from the divine?

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I rarely attend social events, birthday or anniversary parties, etc. but when I do, I never present a bouquet of flowers, for they will wither and die in a couple of days. I  like to present my hosts with something with meaning and life. A small potted plant is perfect. Something that will grow, and enrich their lives.

I saw my Lord

I saw my Lord with the eye of the heart.
I asked, ‘Who are You?’
He replied, ‘You’.

~ Mansur Al Hallaj

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If one studies history of divine souls, one will always find find that those who preached love, compassion, universal brotherhood, respect for life, etc. you will find that they were inevitably persecuted by the government and the dominant religious authorities of the times.

Jesus Christ, The Sikh Gurus, are well known examples but much less is known about the  Sufi saint Mansur al-Hallaj. The people followed them in large numbers turning away from the priests and preachers of the times, towards these divine souls and masters. Following them  because they stirred their souls and enlightened them. 

However arrogant leaders of religious and political institutions can not accept nor forgive anyone who enlightens the masses. So they always try to destroy these great beings. 

But what difference do earthly matters of life and death make to the soul that is divine, and transcended this material world? They may destroy the body but not the soul, nor can they silence the words and the teachings.

One can also observe this, from the life of  Mansur al-Hallaj  (858 - 922).  He was a Persian  mystic, revolutionary writer and a major teacher and influence in the Sufi tradition.  

He spent long periods in meditation and was imprisoned by many who disapproved of his claim to be true only to the one God rather than to protocols of social and religious custom. 

Mansur was finally incarcerated for 9 years. Rather than getting destroyed, he rejoiced and used the time to meditate, realising that he and God were but one. When he emerged from his cell he kept uttering the the words,  "An Al-Ḥaq" (I am the Truth)

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He achieved the highest level of spiritual evolution when he proclaimed, that there was no separation  between him and God. This kind of statements are considered revolutionary and very dangerous by the clerics and the state for it negates their power over the spiritual individual. 

What would happen if the masses followed Mansur?
He was repeatedly asked to publicly recant, but he steadfastly refused. Unwilling to change his statements, he was finally sentenced to death. Mansur was not only to be killed but to be so destroyed that it must frighten others not to deviate from norms laid out by religious leaders.

Thousands of people witnessed his execution on the banks of the Tigris River. He remained defiant, and uncowed even as he was led to the scaffold. He was first punched in the face by his executioner, then lashed until unconscious, and then decapitated Witnesses reported that Al-Hallaj's last words under torture were "All that matters for the ecstatic is that the Unique should reduce him to Unity," after which he recited the Koranic verse 42:18. His body was doused in oil and set alight, and his ashes were then scattered into the river.

Mansur  Al-Hallaj taught people to find God inside their own souls. He preached without the traditional Sufi cloak and used language familiar to the local population.

Among other Sufis, Mansur was an anomaly. Many Sufi masters felt that it was inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet Mansur openly did so in his writings and through his teachings. 

Mansur al-Hallaj claimed, "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God."