Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day-
and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light-changing leaf
and fine root-hairs; standing still though wind
and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
freedoms, and ways, who share with us their milk,
self-complete, brave, and aware
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
holding or releasing; streaming through
all our bodies salty seas
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
bears and snakes sleep -he who wakes us-
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to the Great Sky
who holds billions of stars and goes yet beyond that-
beyond all powers and thoughts, and yet is within us-
Grandfather Space. The Mind is his wife.
So be it.
The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others.
The great sea stirs me.
THe great sea sets me adrift,
it sways me like the weed
on a river-stone.
The sky's height stirs me.
The strong wind blows through my mind.
It carries me with it,
so I shake with joy.
Then he was told:
Remember what you have seen,
because everything forgotten
returns to the circling winds.
I am the boundless ocean.
This way and that,
The wind, blowing where it will,
Drives the ship of the world.
But I am not shaken.
I am the unbounded deep
In whom the waves of all the worlds
Naturally rise and fall.
But I do not rise or fall.
I am the infinite deep
In whoom all the worlds
Appear to rise.
Beyond all form,
Forever still.
Even so am I.
Here I am, seated, with all my words,
like a basket of green fruit, intact.
The fragments
of a thousand destroyed ancient gods
seek and draw near eachother in my blood. They long
to rebuild their statue.
From their shattered mouths
a song strives to rise to my mouth,
a scent of burned resins, some gesture
of a mysterious wrought stone...
I look not at the submerged temples,
but at the trees that above the ruins
move thier vast shadow, with acid teeth bite
the wind as it passes....
But I know: behind
my body another body crouches,
and round about me many breaths
furtively cross
like nocturnal beasts in the jungle...
But I know only a few words
in the lapidary language
under which they buried my ancestor alive.
I have tired to put down such miracles as can be evoked from common earth. BUt men see differently. Ican at best report only from my own wilderness. The important thing is that each man possess such a wilderness and that he consider what marvels are to be observed there.
The mulla, Nasrudin, bought a donkey. Someone told him that he would have to give it a certain amount of food every day. He considered this to be too much food. He would experiment, he decided, to get the donkey used to less food. Every day, therefore, he reduced its rations. Eventually, when the donkey was reduced to almost no food at all, it fell over and died.
"Pity," said the Mulla, "If I had had a little more time before it died I could have got it accustomed to living on nothing at all."
One night, a blind man was carrying a large vase over his shoulder with one arm and holding out a torch with the other hand. A passerby noticed this and cried out, "Ignorance! Day and night are but the same to you, so why do you carry a torch before you?" The blind old man replied, "The light is for blind people like you, to keep you corm accidentally bumping into me and breaking my vase."
Nasrudin's wife ran to his room when she heard a tremendous thump. "Nothing to worry about," said Nasrudin, "It was only my cloak which fell to the ground." The wife asked, "What, and made a noise like that?" Mulla replied, "Yes, I was inside it at the time."
One day Mulla found that his donkey was missing and began to cry. Suddenly he stopped crying and began to laugh and sing. He ran about the village rejoicing in his good fortune. A villager asked him why he was so happy about losing a donkey. Mulla replied, "At least I wasn't riding when it disappeared. If I had been riding it, I would also have vanished!"
A Tribal Attorney on an Indian reservation asked the Chief to show him around. Two horses were saddled and the Chief and the Attorney started out into the country. Soon they came to a cave where the Chief dismounted from his horse, went to the cave entrance and yelled, "Wooo, Wooo". The Chief stood for a moment cocking his head and listening for a reply. When no sound came out of the cave, the Chief mounted up and rode on with the Attorney. In a short time, the two came to a tunnel entrance and the Chief again got off his horse, went to the entrance of the tunnel and yelled, "Wooo, Wooo". When no response came from the tunnel, the Chief again mounted and rode on through the reservation with the Attorney. After approximately a half hour the pair came to still another cave and the Chief did the same thing as before. Still no answer came from the cave and the Chief mounted again and rode on.
As it was getting late, the Chief told the Attorney that if he would ride his horse straight over the hill, he would come out in the parking lot where his car had been left but that the Chief wanted to continue riding for awhile. The Attorney, curious to know why the Chief was yelling into the cave, questioned the Chief about his behavior. He was told by the Chief that there was an old legend about a beautiful girl who lived in one of the caves on the reservation and that the Chief hoped to be the first person to find her.
The Attorney left the Chief and rode back towards his car. On the way back to his car, he passed a tunnel. "Ah!" said the Attorney to himself, "I'll give this cave a try." The Attorney dismounted and went to the mouth of the tunnel and yelled, "Wooo, Wooo". The Attorney stood listening for a few moments and heard from the tunnel a faint sound of "Wooo, Wooo". "Wow, this is my lucky day!" said the Attorney, and he ran into the cave. The next day the headlines of the tribal paper read, "Tribal Attorney Run Over By Train".
A Jewish rustic , whose soul was heavy with sin, decided to visit a rabbi in a neighboring town to ask for his intercession with God. When he returned home from this visit the rabbi of his own town asked him reproachfully: "Isn't one rabbi enough for you? Must you have two?"
"You know how it is, Rabbi," answered the farmer. "Two horses can pull a wagon out of the mud better than one!"
any people put great emphasis on rites and rituals. Because of this, some people think the religion is the thing of past. It is waste of time. Religion is rigid and orthodox. Religion represents narrow-mindedness. Science has progressed beyond religion.
Some people are worshipping. Some are reciting mantra. Some are moving beads on a mala (rosary). Some are singing religious songs. Some are visiting religious places like Palitana. Some are asking for rewards from god. Some want to improve their fate. Some are praying to go to heaven.
Many activities like these are practiced on the name of religion. Is this really the religion? Answer is no if this is nothing more to it. Answer is Yes if there is more to it.
When some Druids see half a glass of whiskey, they think, "It is half-full." Others glumly conclude, "It's half-empty." But Reformed Druids grab the glass, shoot it down, slam the cup and say, "Huh, hey,... what?"
Three men made their way to the circle of a Sufi, seeking admission to
his teachings.
One of them almost at once detached himself, angered by the
erratic behavior of the master.
The second was told by another disciple (on the master's
instructions) that the sage was a fraud. He withdrew very soon
afterwards.
The Third was allowed to talk, but was offered no teaching for so
long that he lost interest and left the circle.
When they had all gone away, the teacher instructed his circle
thus:
'The first man was an illustration of the principle: " Do not judge
fundamental things by sight." The second was an illustration of the
injunction: "Do not judge things of deep importance by hearing." The
third was an example of the dictum: "Never judge by speech, or the lack
of it."
Asked by a disciple why the applicants could not have been
instructed in this matter, the sage retorted: 'I am here to give higher
knowledge; not to teach what people pretend that they already know at
their mothers' knees.'
> Behold! Our Mother Earth is lying here.
Behold! She gives of her fruitfulness.
Truly, her power she gives us.
Give thanks to Mother Earth who lies here.
Behold on Mother Earth the growing fields!
Behold the promise of her fruitfulness!
Truly, her power she gives us.
Give thanks to Mother Earth who lies here.
Behold on Mother Earth the spreading trees!
Behold the promise of her fruitfulness!
Truly, her power she gives us.
Give thanks to Mother Earth who lies here.
Behold on Mother Earth the running streams!
We see the promise of her fruitfulness.
Truly, her power she gives us.
Our thanks to Mother Earth who lies here.
mother of the mountains
father of the skies
guide me in my travels
be with me when I die
brother of the forests
sisters of the streams
protect me in my travels
be with me in my dreams
To expect a man to retain everything that he has ever read is like expecting him to carry about in his body everything he has ever eaten.
The marvelous thing for me about God is that the God concept is something that works for people regardless of what stage of spiritual development or inner knowing they are at. The simplest person with very little capabilities or intelligence can have a concept of God and can the person who is as enlightened as we can imagine. The God concept is as multilevel as you can imagine. This is not the rule of other notions in our world.
God is a very personal thing- which does not mean He is a person. It means that each person has the opportunity to devise his own notion of what is God to him. That's sacred. None of us has the right to take that away from anyone else -which is to say that if we do, we are transgressing on something pretty heavy
Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the word
C-Dm G F C/- Em Am D G-/ C F - C Am D/ G C F G C (FC)
Sweet the rain's new fall sunlit from heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's re-creation of the new day.
Once upon a time, Buddha relates, a certain king of Benares, desiring to divert himself, gathered together a number of beggars blind from birth and offered a prize to the one who should give the best account of an elephant.
The first beggar who examined the elephant chanced to lay hold of a leg, and reported that an elephant was a tree-trunk; the second, laying hold of the tail, declared an elephant was like a rope; another, who seized an ear, insisted than an elephant was like a palm-leaf; and so on. The beggars fell to quarreling with one another, and the king was greatly amused.
Ordinary teachers who have grasped this or that aspect of truth quarrel with one another, while only a Buddha knows the whole.
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love
Where there is injury your pardon, Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in you
D---/--A-/----/- DA D-
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness ever joy
(Bridge)
O master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul
G-D-/A-D-/G-D-/E-A-
Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal life
Tzu-Lu asked how one should serve ghosts and spirits. The Master said, How can there be any proper service of spirits until living men have been properly served?
Tzu-lu then ventured upon a question about the dead [whether they are conscious]. The Master said, Until a man knows about the living, how can he know about the dead?