Friday 27 August 2010

Religion Divides, Love Unites

Religion Divides, Love Unites: By Dr. Harsh K. Luthar

Posted by: Harsha • Jul 19th, 2010
http://luthar.com/religion-divides-love-unites/

Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Christianity, and other religions and spiritual traditions use different words and concepts to describe the ultimate nature of Reality. Sometimes, the scholars and preachers from these faiths argue with each other over who is right and who is wrong. There are even strong disagreements within the same religion and spiritual tradition about the nature of God or Salvation or Heaven, etc.

Even within Hinduism and the Shiva-Shakti traditions, there are great debates about the nature of the highest state. These differences in description of the highest reality and knowledge are only in the words that come through the conditional mind and not in the experience and understanding of great Sages.

My teacher Chitrabhanu-ji used to say that in Buddhism when they say that the ultimate state is empty it does not mean that it is “nothingness”. It means that it is No-thing-ness.

This is the experience of the Self-Realized sages. The highest state is empty of all things, concepts, images. It is the end of imagination and all experiences find their resting place in the Self. It is noteworthy that while most orthodox and traditional scholars of Hinduism reject Buddhism, Sri Ramana spoke favorably of Buddha.

There are no good words to fully indicate the ultimate state. The Self, which the ancient sages said is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss) is the very nature of Fullness. This underlying unity is recognized when the mind with its fascination with concepts, things, and experiences has subsided.

Even the notion of no-self and self or Self are concepts only. In order to communicate, words have to be used to indicate the experience and nature of Reality that sits in the center of our Heart, our existence. What ever term one uses to describe THAT, It is what It Is.

When Moses asked God about his nature, God could only say, “I Am That I Am”. What else could God say? The nature of God cannot be comprehended by the mind. The mind has to surrender and dissolve itself into the Lord of the Heart for the Reality to reveal It Self.

So, religions use different names to describe the ultimate state. We can call it the Absolute, God, God Consciousness, or the Self, or the no-self or Shunya, etc. What difference can it make? If we understand this deeply through experience of God in our Heart, and see that it is the same God in every Heart, then we stop fighting and arguing over religion and spirituality.

Bhagavan Ramana used to say, “Ahimsa Param Dharma”. It means essentially that kindness, compassion, nonviolence, and love is the supreme religion. Love is the highest state. As Bhagavan has said, “Love is the actual form of God.”

.

Longing for Peace.

My life is a river,

In it I flow,

I attempt to define IT, but how, I do not know.

It's not wide, it's not narrow,

Nor deep, nor shallow.

It expands out to I know not where.

And it pushes me around without a care.

When will the knocks, bumps and vicissitudes stop?

When will I reach the mouth,
that kisses the ocean,
and dissolve?

When will I reach this great ocean of truth and finally find an end? ...

to this longing ...

for peace.

.

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Avalanche in Darfur

I was in an african town. My dream told me I was in Darfur somewhere.

The town seemed to be under vigilance. Perhaps the town was under some kind of martial law and that there was a kerfew.

I was in a closed in area, and I could see at one end of the compound / yard that there were people coming through at one point and leaving again via another exit. I was told that they were sentinals, however they didn't appear to be dressed in any particular uniform but it seemed believable.

I decided that I would risk leaving the compound. I had to get out. I waited for the next sentinal to come in and straight after they came in I left out of the entry they came through. I thought that by leaving straight after one that had just come in it would give me more time before the next one came through and hence give me more chance of leaving without encountering one of them.

I was outside now. Looking out into the dark village. There was an element of fear in the atmosphere. I think I saw a young boy with a gun. I stayed fixed on myself.

A boy came up to me and grabbed me by the arm and started leading me somewhere as he spoke to me in what seemed like very fast french. I did not understand what he was telling me but it seemed that he was telling me that it was unsafe to be out on the streets alone. He took me into a building where it seemed he needed to see someone. He spoke with a boy that was younger than him about something and then took me to a large cystern where I could pee. I guess he knew that I needed to pee.

As I started peeing. I was finding it difficult to stay balanced. I couldn't understand why. To make it more difficult I felt another person by my side also peeing in the same cystern. When I finished peeing I realised that we were on the back of some large lorry. Some kind of portable toilet? I looked at the french boy who'd accompanied me there and wondered why he'd put me on a truck that's moving somewhere without trying to explain to me where it's going and what's going on. I felt it was not right to trust him so I jumped off the truck as it was moving and ran off.

I was kind of worried now. I did not know where my compound was now, but I figured we hadn't travelled far so it should be reasonably close. I was still worried however that I would not recognise much of the roads and buildings to be able to find my way back.

I found some building and guess it felt right to enter, so I did. There I heard english being spoken. I actually heard Lio's voice. There was a group of about 4-5 people sitting around a small table. I looked hard to see Lio, but I didn't see him there. I realised that the voice was coming from a little radio that they were playing. It sounded so much like Lio's voice. I spoke to some of the people there just explaining basically why my attention was on them, due to the voice being so similar to that of my friend.

I went outside, perhaps there was light coming, because I could distinguish dark clouds now above and I could see that there was a big storm coming. I saw massive raindrops coming down. I wondered about whether this would be enough of a storm to cause a mudslide or something disastrous like this.

I looked off into snow capped mountains in the distance and I could see that the storm was already taking it's effect. I saw the snow off the sides of the mountains cracking off in large chunks and sliding down. An avalanche. I saw the avalanche come down, closer into the village and it started taking out huts, completely covering some of them and pushing some along further down. People chasing after their belongs and also running away. It was only the first run and there was more coming.

I alerted everyone inside that there was an avalanche happening. They all went inside the building in fear that it would arrive and that being deeper inside the building it would be safer. I could not decide what to do. Whether to go inside the building with them, or to perhaps go around the back of the building and wait it out there. I decided the latter and I waited there.


End.

---

Strange because there is no snow in Darfur.

Interestingly though it says in Wikipedia:
Remote sensing has detected the imprint of a vast underground lake under Darfur. The potential water deposits are estimated at 19,110 square miles (49,500 km2). The lake, during epochs when the region was more humid, would have contained about 607 square miles (1,570 km2) of water. It may have dried up thousands of years ago.

.

Friday 6 August 2010

My Addictions

Just as my intentions are important,

I also need to look at my addictions and how they might be obstacles to my intentions.

I have an addiction, I feel, actually I feel that I have many.

They are all becoming so much more apparent to me lately.

What does this mean?

How do I slow things down? Stay cool? Without some addiction to help me through it?

Can I do this on my own?

Where do I find the strength I need to overcome these addictive behaviours?

.

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Intentions

What if one day our hearts were to suddenly awaken?

How would we then view what we consider to be our needs?

How would our new needs drive us and open us up to another way of seeing the world?

Would this open us up to the importance of our intentions for any choice we make in our lives?

I wonder.

.