'In this world, there is nothing more purifying than
transcendental knowledge.

' (Bhagavad Gita 4.38)

"You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation ... and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.

~Hermann Hesse

When love's fire produces its flame, it illuminates like a torch the devotee's path in life, and all darkness vanishes.

The Urgency of Transformation

Your spiritual awakening is not only for yourself, it is a gift you give to humanity. For the first time ever in our history, humanity needs desperately to awaken. If this does not happen, we are at risk of losing the life we know, of becoming a race extinct.

The Earth is faced with a radical crisis of yet unknown proportions. Never before have we had the capacity to pollute our air, food and water. Never before have we been so heavily armed and angry that a single incident (of ego reactivity) can spawn an all-out decimation of our population, the human race and the great animal kingdom we share this planet with.

As with any radical crisis, we are faced with a monumental choice: we continue to live and behave along the old patterns -- the very patterns that brought us to this point of crisis – or we recognize that we have outgrown the old ways and we must rise above the familiar and evolve. In the crisis we face in the world today, both individually and collectively, the bottom line truth is this: we must evolve or die. It is that simple.

The true culprit for the many difficult and life-threatening problems we face in the world and in our lives is the dysfunction of the egoic mind that is unique to human beings. We may be more evolved than the animals with whom we share this planet, but our use of our higher brain function is not keeping pace. We are growing technologically much more quickly than we are spiritually. This presents a dangerous situation. This situation has been cooking for about a hundred years and is now a pressure cooker that can blow at any time.

Don't be fooled by the New Age and New Thought promises that we can visualize our way out of the crisis and create a new world with our thought and vision. Evolution is not this easy. The evolution that will save humanity is not about a new belief system, a new religion, a new mythology, nor in creative, ways of using the mind and its thought. The evolution that will save humanity will be the transcendence of thought altogether.

The transcendence of thought is nothing more than discovering and realizing a dimension within yourself that is beyond thought. It is the source of thought itself. It is the true higher mind. And we know this mind, we recognize and connect to it, by the simple act of Presence, Being, and settling into a heart-based consciousness.

Our evolution is a shift from identification with form and ideas (ego consciousness) to the increasing awareness of our own existential Being. This is the flowering of human consciousness, and it is happening now, for the first time in such large numbers of people. It is happening now because it is imperative.

Awakening is the most urgent need of humanity and it is the primary purpose in your life.

~ by Eckhart Tolle

"Never be depressed seeing the obstacles on your path. You have the
lamp of faith with you - light it."

~ Amma

Until each of us recognizes his or her innate wholeness and unity with the Soul, we will continue to live in the pain and suffering of duality. It is the goal of the Aquarian Age and the New Group of World Servers to plans the seeds of this process of soul-personality integration (also known as “individualization”) so that the Soul of Humanity may eventually externalize. The aim of esoteric, soul-centered astrology is to provide a very real tool to describe and support this evolutionary process at this critical and transitional time in human history.

-Allan Oken

Blessed full Moon; this is the day for us to acknowledge our teachers.

The Guru delivers the messages of truth from the Ancients to us in a very transparent way. The Guru does their best to present the message in a pure and unchanged manner.

They present information that liberates us from the illusion of material life. They are here to remind us that we are eternal souls having a spiritual experience.

The Sanskrit word 'guru' is made of two sounds. Gu translates as substance, the material body, the stuff that sticks to and obscures the Soul, or Atma. Ru interestingly enough means 'remove'. So the Guru strips away the goo of material life allowing our radiant Souls to shine forth.

AUM AMRITESHWARAYE SWAHA

Gods - we project them first in audacious images
which constricting fate destroys for us again.
but they are the Immortal
Wo in the end will hear us.

RILKE

Sonnet to Orpheus

Ayurveda Eye Care: For a Clear View


Kapha eyes are usually large and clear with thick lashes. Pitta eyes are sharp, penetrating and sensitive and are prone to itchiness or redness. Vata eyes are small, nervous and dry.

Daily Care:
· Ayurveda recommends rising before sunrise. After waking-up in the morning, fill your mouth with water, close the eyes and sprinkle cool water on them about 10-15 times. Do not use hot water on the eyes, or very cold water.
· Do not stare continuously, especially while looking at long distance objects. Blinking or giving rest to the eyes is good. Do not look at the objects in bright sunlight for a long time. Avoid reading, writing or working with eyes in improper light, or when the light is not sufficient. Take a break and give rest to the eyes if you feel heaviness or tiredness in the eyes.
· Staying up late in the night and sleeping after sunrise is harmful for the eyes. In case of staying up late, drink a cup of water after each half-hour.
· Try to maintain regular and clean bowel movements. Constipation weakens the eyesight. In addition, too much anxiety, mental stress, grief, anger and worry are harmful for the eyes.
· Regular eye exercises maintain excellent eyesight. See Eye kriya.
· Another simple way of protecting the eyes is through “palming.” Rub the palms of both hands for about 30 seconds, close the eyes and gently place the warm palms over the eyes.
· Using triphala eye drops, (see recipe on next page), can cleanse the eyes and may improve eye conditions such as glaucoma.

Triphala Eye Wash:
Ingredients:
1/4 tsp. triphala
8 ox water

Boil pure water and add the triphala powder. Simmer covered for 5 minutes. Strain the liquid through many layers of cheesecloth to filter out the triphala residue. Allow to cool and apply into the eyes, 5 drops per eye, with an eyedropper.

From the blossoming lotus of devotion, at the center of my being,
Rise up, O compassionate master, my only refuge!
I am plagued by past actions and turbulent emotions:
To protect me in my misfortune
Remain as the jewel-ornament on the crown of my head, the mandala of great bliss,
Arousing all my mindfulness and awareness, l pray!

There are really two journeys. There is the journey from the goal to the life in the world, and there is the journey from the life in the world to the goal. And both journeys are natural. As it is natural to go forth from the eternal goal, so it is natural to go from the changing life to the life which is unchangeable.

Which is the most desirable thing in life, to seek for the goal or to dwell in this changing life? The answer is that every person's desire is according to his evolution. That for which he is ready is desirable for him. Milk is a desirable food for the infant, other foods for the grown-up person. Every stage in life has its own appropriate and desirable things. The desire to attain to a goal must be there before reaching it; when he does not feel the desire, it is not necessary for a man to seek it.

In meditation, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible.
Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary, emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.

Our Imperfect Humanity

There are many ideas about what enlightenment, or self-realization, is. Many envision it as some kind of blessed state where there are no more problems, and you experience a constant state of inner bliss, joy, and a profound compassion for all humankind.

Others think only saints can be self-realized, and for it to happen you have to have transcended the desire realm, and be beyond the need for companionship, physical comfort, sex and any personal wants or preferences.

This is why we don’t really like using the term enlightenment. It's such a loaded word, weighed down by many far-fetched stories. We prefer to speak in terms of freedom, or self-realization.

What we teach is that the more you see (recognise What you really are), the freer you are, and the freer you are, the more you're simply present wherever you are -- present without any story.

The freer you are, the more you know yourself as pure consciousness or aware presence, expressing in this unique body, mind, and personality known as "you".

You still have a story, but now you know you're not your story. You still have an ego, an "I", a "me", but now you know you're not your ego. You honor the past, keep an eye on the future, but live right here, now. You feel a tremendous gratitude for the gift of being alive, you’re always, essentially, at peace, one with the flow of life.

We say essentially because no matter how free we are, we are still human, and subject to human flaws and foibles, like illness, disability, mistakes, errors in judgment, and even occasional residues of old egoic patterns. Part of being free, or self-realized, is accepting and being at peace with our imperfect humanity!

Above all, you feel moved to share your good fortune with others. You see that the world needs this, before anything else.

~ by Jim Dreaver

The times when you are suffering can be those when you are open, and where you are extremely vulnerable can be where your greatest strength really lies.

Say to yourself: “I am not going to run away from this suffering. I want to use it in the best and richest way I can, so that I can become more compassionate and more helpful to others.” Suffering, after all, can teach us about compassion. If you suffer, you will know how it is when others suffer. And if you are in a position to help others, it is through your suffering that you will find the understanding and compassion to do so.

The real spirit of renunciation is willingness; and willing renunciation comes when one has risen above the thing one renounces. The value of each thing in life -- wealth, power, position, possession -- is according to the evolution of man. There is a time in his life when toys are his treasures, and there is a time when he puts them aside; there is a time in his life when copper coins are everything to him, and there is another time when he can give away gold coins; there is a time in his life when he values a cottage, and there is a time when he gives up a palace. Things have no value; their value is as man makes it; and at every step in his evolution he changes their value.

There is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of
the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that
create the tide. ~Rachel Carson

Sometimes I tease people and ask: “What makes you so adamant that there’s no life after death? What proof do you have? What if you found there was a life after this one, having died denying its existence?”

Those of us who undertake a spiritual discipline—of meditation, for example—come to discover many things about our own minds that we did not know before. For as our minds open more and more to the extraordinary, vast, and hitherto unsuspected existence of the nature of mind, we begin to glimpse a completely different dimension, one in which all of our assumptions about our identity and reality, which we thought we knew so well, start to dissolve, and in which the possibility of lives other than this one becomes at least likely. We begin to understand that everything we are being told by the masters about life and death, and life after death, is real.

Every thing that lives
Lives not alone nor for itself.

~William Blake

"Life is a mystery. The more you understand it, the more mysterious it becomes. The more you know, the less you feel that you know. The more you become aware of the depth -- the infinite depth, the more it becomes almost impossible to say anything about it. Hence silence. The one who really knows remains in such awe, such infinite wonderment, that breathing almost stops. In presence with, and as, the mystery of life, one is lost ... or found ... completely."

~ Pete Sumner

The mind is a horse that leads you to the Sultan’s Palace…the door…but does not enter with you in it. So the mind can lead you the level of knowing the existence of God, but not to communicate with God and know the essence of God….that is another dimension.

-Ancient Sufi Saying

Falling into Life

Well, in the southern hemisphere, we're here again, in the dark of the year and approaching the winter solstice in a few short days.

As we move about in the outer world of things, forms and appearances, one thing we notice is that everything seems to be changing all the time -- everything we put together eventually comes apart -- everything that is born, dies -- everything that we get is eventually lost again. The leaves that grow on the trees in the spring, fall again in the autumn. Everything in this world of form seems to shift and change, including us. We are getting older.

Sometimes, if we have seen enough metaphorical leaves fall in our personal lives, we can begin to notice what is hiding behind the changing play of forms. It is often most visible to any one of us when the leaves that we were most attached to are in the midst of falling. The ever-changing nature of the world of form is a constant opportunity to notice what is amongst us and in us that doesn't change.

The world of changing forms is issuing an invitation to notice what doesn't change. When we look in the same way at ourselves it becomes an invitation to acknowledge that the personal form-bound mind-constructed version of who we are (that we have learned to call ourselves by as children) is not what we truly are. There is something in us that doesn't change when appearances or personalities change.

When we notice that our personal mind-created and form-bound identity is not who we are, we can begin to see the full beauty of the world of form and yet not be devastated by its changing nature. We can move through the world of form and its constantly changing conditions, thoughts, feelings and appearances, realizing that every bit of it is as sacred as the most holy temple or mountain-top. We bow to the world of form in awe and amazement.

This is the invitation of this time when the wondrous form world has died back to its minimum -- when the days are short and the nights are long and cold. At this time of year, there is a transparency about the forms of our lives. We are revealed to ourselves in our true raiment if we accept the invitation. We are life itself! We are the life rising in the baby lamb being born and the same life falling in the plants on the compost heap from last year's garden -- all at once.

All that has fallen away is still with us because we ARE what it all falls into.

~ by Alice Gardner

IF YOU DON'T BREAK YOUR ROPES WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE
DO YOU
THINK GHOSTS WILL DO IT AFTER?

-Kabir

Tulsidas, the Hindu poet, says that the essence of religion is kindness. Those who are inclined to do kindness in life must not discriminate among the people around them, between those to whom they must be kind and those to whom they need not be kind. However kind and good a person may be to those he likes, to those he wishes to be kind to, he cannot for this be called kind by nature; real kindness is that which gushes out from the heart to the worthy and to the unworthy. ... Man is the outcome of the development of the whole of creation; therefore the ego, which makes one selfish, is developed in him more than in any other creature. Selfishness keeps man blind through life, and he scarcely knows when he has caused harm to another. ... In this struggle of life, if a man can be considerate enough to keep his eyes open to all around him and see in what way he can be of help to them, he becomes rich; he inherits the kingdom of God.

The worlds are held together by the heat of the sun; each of us are atoms held in position by that eternal Sun we call God. Within us is the same central power we call the light, or the love of God; by it we hold together the human beings within our sphere, or, lacking it, we let them fall.

Patrul Rinpoche’s teacher was called Jikmé Gyalwe Nyugu. For many years, he had been doing a solitary retreat in a cave in the mountains. One day when he came outside, the sun was pouring down; he gazed out into the sky and saw a cloud moving in the direction of where his master, Jikmé Lingpa, lived. The thought rose in his mind: “Over there is where my master is,” and with that thought a tremendous feeling of longing and devotion surged up in him. It was so strong, so shattering, that he fainted.
When Jikmé Gyalwe Nyugu came to, the entire blessing of his master’s wisdom mind had been transmitted to him, and he had reached the highest stage of realization, what we call “the exhaustion of phenomenal reality.”

I wake up each morning with blessings and gratitude for the wonderful life I lead, and I make the choice to think happy thoughts no matter what others are doing. No, I don’t do this 100 percent of the time, but I am up to about 75 or 80 percent right now, and it’s made a big difference in how much I enjoy life and how much good just seems to flow into my everyday world.

The only moment you ever live in is this moment. It’s the only time you have any control over. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, which is why we call it the present.” My yoga teacher repeats this in every class she teaches. If you don’t choose to feel good in this moment, then how can you create future moments that are abundant and fun?

-Louise Hay

Helping others is a primary responsibility in life. Society has provided the opportunities for our success. Now it is time to give with love to others. Sign up for SEVA at AMMA retreat or any other charitable activity; www.amma.org

Trusting Life

A simple question: Do you trust life? All you need to answer is Yes or No.

In life, we never know what's coming next. As much as we want to know and plan our future, it will come as it is meant to come. So why fear? Why seek to control something we cannot control? The beauty of it is, we don't have to know what's going to be as we have a power within us that will create and attract whatever we may need in each moment.

Life is always 'in the right'. It doesn’t matter if we agree with it or not, it simply is. Life will decide if we shall meet again or not. Life will bring us together again if it's meant to be. Life will show us when it's time to go. Life will let us know what is next. Life will guide us in the right direction. Life will bring us everything we need at the right time. Life will help us when we truly need help.

Life is more than we can imagine or ever understand. And most importantly: life is not separate from us. We don't have a life, because we are this life.

Close your eyes and, with your hands on your chest, feel your heartbeat and breathing that has continued without fail since your birth. It's always been there and guess what, you're not controlling it! Have you ever realized this?

Without your hearbeat and breathing, there would be no life -- these simple miracles are here to teach you to stop trying to control your life and to let it simply happen. Let life happen to you. And trust that whatever happens, is right because it is happening.

Notice that there's something much greater within you than can be contained by your mind and body. This 'something,' which is really not a thing at all, cannot be controlled and the more you accept this, the more life will flow -- the more abundance and love you will experience.

And you will realize, that you are this love and abundance. You are life and your only responsibility is to trust this simple knowing of who you truly are.

~ by Jason Lee Mitchell

In the poet Tulsidas' Ramayana, the demon Vibhishana, brother to Ravana, has gone over to Rama's side. He is very worried when he sees that his brother Ravana is going to fight Rama from a chariot. Ravana has a great chariot, while Rama neither has a chariot, armour, or even shoes.

Tulsidas says Rama responds to Vibhishana's worries as follows:

"Listen, friend, the chariot which takes one to victory is quite another (than the physical chariot Ravana is riding). Valour and fortitude are the wheels of this chariot, while truthfulness and good conduct are its enduring banner and standard. Even so strength, discretion, self-control and benevolence are its four horses,that have been joined to the chariot with the cords of forgiveness, compassion and evenness of mind. Adoration of God is the expert driver; dispassion, the shield and contentment the sword. Again, charity is the axe; reason, the fierce lance and the highest wisdom, the relentless bow. A pure and steady mind is like a quiver; while quietude and the various form of abstinence (Yamas) and religious observances (Niyamas) are a sheaf of arrows. Homage to the Brahmanas and to one's own preceptors is an impenentrable coat of mail; there is no other equipment for victory as efficacious as this. My friend, he who owns such a chariot of piety shall have no enemy to conquer anywhere.

"Listen, O friend of resolute mind: the hero who happens to be in possession of such a strong chariot can conquer even that mighty and invincible foe, attachment to this world."

These words filled Vibhishana with joy.

In the Ramayana, Rama represents, good, Ravana represents selfishness and egoism. Rama's struggle with Ravana is every man's struggle with mastering the senses and getting his or her mind under control.

Perennial joy or passing pleasure?

This is the choice one always has to make.

The wise recognize these two, but not

The ignorant. The wise welcome what leads

To abiding joy, though painful at the time.

The ignorant run, goaded by their senses,

After what seems immediate pleasure.

- Katha Upanishad

Saturn is the planet of time. Time is the great container of all worldly experiences. Managing time, and dealing with the limitations time places on us as has a lot to do with our life and how much we get out of it. Saturn is the force that makes us aware of time and its patient progression. Once we enter the wheel of Time, we must face the complex of loss, endings and facing our limitations. Saturn teaches us to live simply and move beyond our attachment to a phony sense of security that comes from excessive materialism. When a person is excessively materialistic, Saturn's influence hurts them deeply. It is the nature of Saturn to shatter our illusions around fear and make us grow up. Saturn makes us mature. His influence exerts physical and psychological pressure that we cannot ignore. Based on this pressure we deepen our commitment to something, body, mind or soul

He is wise who treats an acquaintance as a friend, and he is foolish who treats a friend as an acquaintance, and he is impossible who treats friends and acquaintances as strangers; you cannot help him.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

may all beings rejoice in good health, awareness, spiritual riches and political freedom.
AUM BRIM BRIHASPATAYE NAMAH AUM
AUM GURU AUM!

After all, it is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once.

VOLTAIRE

“If we have lived before,” I’m often asked, “why don’t we remember it?” But why should the fact that we cannot remember our past lives mean that we have never lived before? After all, experiences—of our childhood, or of yesterday, or even of what we were thinking an hour ago—were vivid as they occurred, but the memory of them has almost totally eroded, as though they had never taken place. If we cannot remember what we were doing or thinking last Monday, how on earth do we imagine it would be easy, or normal, to remember what we were doing in a previous lifetime?