Worshipping the Fire

Respect once destroyed cannot be re-established

2010-01-04T23:55:00.000+02:00

Letters Of Helena Roerich I, 12 October 1932. Indeed, the broadened mentality obliges us to be twice as careful of our thoughts and actions, and first of all toward each other and the people who come into closest contact with us. Remember that thousands of eyes are watching us with great attention, and-let us not deceive ourselves-this attention arises chiefly out of the desire to find our weak spot for their destructive purposes.

It is most important that all the co-workers respect each other and do not belittle each other in front of employees and strangers. Little things, trifles like sharp words and cutting jokes, crooked smiles, etc., destroy the respect of other people. By no means should you allow strangers to lose their respect through hearing unkind insinuations. Respect once destroyed cannot be re-established; and it can be destroyed so easily by the most ordinary things, such as unfitting remarks. More than once has it been said, "Even in jest you should not belittle or criticize each other.

It is time to realize the harm that small flies can do. The sting of a small fly can poison the whole organism. You must remember that the enemy tries to enter not through the door but through the smallest crack." Quarreling with each other is not just a crack but a wide open door!

Be careful, for, eventually, you always attract what you wish for

2010-01-04T23:51:00.000+02:00

Everything you ask for you will one day receive. Yes, you will receive it, whether it's good or bad, because, according to the laws established by cosmic Intelligence, every request must be granted. These are laws of physics and chemistry: the law of correspondences, the law of affinity, the law of the echo.

And be careful, for, eventually, you always attract what you wish for. If you ask for burdens and end up being crushed beneath their weight, there will be no point, afterwards, in your blaming other people or the Lord. It is up to you to know the long-term consequences of your requests.

It's normal to wish for things, to want things, but you must also think seriously about how things may turn out, for then you will understand that once certain wishes have been realized you will be disappointed, unhappy or ill, so it would be wiser to abandon them. The first thing true disciples of initiatic Science must learn is that there are certain things they should desire and others, on the contrary, they should reject with all their might.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Ask God

2010-01-04T23:44:00.002+02:00

It is your duty to ask God. Words must be said, and words must correspond to the thought. The thought must be put into a true word. It is true enough that the divinity knows all, but he requires the true word be said. The mother may know that to maintain life the child requires food, but milk is given when the child asks for it.

-Sai Baba

Proper guidance

2010-01-04T23:29:00.000+02:00

When people do not have a guide, they wander around bumping into each other. They can't see the consequences of their actions. They perform good, bad and mixed actions and don't keep on the right track and therefore end up wandering around in circles. They don't listen to their mothers. They don't listen to their fathers. They don't listen to their spiritual guides. They don't listen to their local religious mentors. But they do listen to the hottest rock star, to their drug dealer and their gang leader. Some have to listen to their AIDS or cancer counselor and make plans for an early departure. So, they can listen. Yes, listening is still functional. Am I communicating? Are we communicating?

Unfortunately, many children are raised by their parents these days to not listen to anyone. "Don't ask me. Make up your own mind," they are told, "I just want you to be happy." Children are raised to be confused. They are raised to be loners in a complicated world. They are raised to be lower-consciousness people. And in many schools they are raised to become educated criminals. Let's get back to the basics of raising children properly, giving them proper guidance. It is the dharma of the parents to raise their children properly, as it is the duty of the satguru to see that they do it.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_327.shtml

God helps those who help themselves

2010-01-04T23:17:00.000+02:00

Attaining peace does not mean inactivity, the mere inert life of eating and squatting. You should not spend your time in eating and sleeping, comforting yourself that the Lord will come to your help, when the need arises. You must arise and work. God helps those who help themselves. Do the work that has fallen your lot, sincerely and efficiently.

Give up everything that is outside the service of the Lord. Follow the footsteps of great devotees. You can win through the Grace of the Lord the joy of peace, and the fullness and bliss of Immortality.

-Sai Baba

High-level bodhisattvas pray to meet disgusting, uncooperative people

2010-01-01T22:05:00.000+02:00

Actually, if we look around, people whom we don't like and people who harm us are in the minority. Let's say we're at work, at a social gathering, or at a Dharma center with thirty people. How many of them do we really dislike? We may have problems with a few people here and there, but we manage to stay in a room together, don't we? It's not like we despise them and they hate us.

The number of people we can't stand in this world is actually very small. These people are rare. To practice patience we need the people that we don't like. We can't practice patience with our friends or with people who are kind to us. Finding people that we don't like or who threaten us is not so easy. So, when we finally find them, they are a precious treasure! They are rare to find. When we meet them, we can think, "Fantastic, I get to practice patience now."

They say that high-level bodhisattvas pray to meet disgusting, uncooperative people because they want to practice patience. Of course, when you really want to meet obnoxious people, they don't show up! Why don't they turn up for high-level bodhisattvas? Because high-level bodhisattvas don't have any anger. We could be sitting in a room with many people whom we consider unbearable, but high-level bodhisattvas don't see them that way at all. To them, these people appear lovable.

Bodhisattvas have such a hard time finding detestable people, whereas we come across them so easily! So, when we find people whom we don't like, feel threatened by, or find despicable, we should recognize that there aren't so many of them around. Therefore, we should cherish them and take the opportunity to practice patience with them.

-Thubten Chodron

Destroying material desire

2010-01-01T21:45:00.000+02:00

To destroy this consciousness, one should dissociate himself from his own personality and in his imagination identify himself with others. He will find out that the resultant state of mind is the same in everyone-momentary pleasure followed by dissatisfaction and more desires. Ceasing to desire, he will discover that what he really wants is not ego-satisfaction,or whim satisfaction, but satisfaction of the Self or soul.

The soul, being unlimited,does not allow itself to be circumscribed by the ego's narrowness. The destruction of ego consciousness does not mean that we should live aimless lives, but that we should not limit ourselves by being identified with ego's attachments. We are not to throw away our possessions, or not to take care of the things we have, or cease trying to possess what we really need; but in the course of performing our duties, we should eliminate the bondage of attachment. Those who free themselves from ego's narrowness and the consciousness of ego's possessions hold dominion over earth adn heaven. A child of Spirit who is free from ego's material attachment may surely have everything that is in the universe as his rightful divine inheritance. All his desires are satisfied.

-Paramahansa Yogananda

God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita

Misuse of non-violence

2010-01-01T21:38:00.000+02:00

Humanity is making a grave mistake by misusing non-violence. Time and again I have said this to you.

Work which I want to accomplish is to remove the misuse of non-violence. People have become lifeless and their blood has become like water. You should be brave and courageous--afraid of nothing. You should not be afraid of being burned by fire or drowned by water. If you are brave and courageous, nothing will harm you, not even the atomic bomb. You must be fearless for yourself and for all humanity.

-Babaji

June 21, 1982

Correct your vision; the world will get corrected

2010-01-01T21:10:00.000+02:00

You wear coloured glasses and see everything through those glasses. Correct your vision; the world will get corrected. Reform yourselves; the world will get reformed.

You create the world of your choice. You see many, because you seek the many, not the One. Try to subsume the many in the One - yourselves and others, the family, the neighbourhood, the community, the state, the nation, the world. This is the Sadhana of Love, for Love is expansion. The individual has to be Universalised and expanded into the Vishwaswaroopa (the Cosmic Self).

-Sai Baba

Intolerance

2010-01-01T19:35:00.000+02:00

Brotherhood, 409. Tolerance is one of the conditions of observation. True observation is the basis of cognition. An intolerant man cannot form a just picture of things. He deprives himself of observation and loses perspicacity. What kind of cognition can be born from egoism which rejects reality?

There are many examples of great truths having been subjected to distortion, because of intolerance. It may be said that intolerance is ignorance, but this definition will be too mild. Intolerance is evil; there can be no good intolerance. It invariably contains falsehood, because it conceals the truth. Only those who definitely lack intelligence can light-mindedly fail to consider intolerance as something unworthy.

-Agni Yoga

Non-violence

2010-01-01T18:35:00.000+02:00

A snake in the village had bitten so many people that few dared go into the fields. Such was the Master's holiness that he was said to have tamed the snake and persuaded it to practice the discipline of nonviolence.

It did not take long for the villager to discover that the snake had become harmless. They took to hurling stones at it and dragging it about by its tail.

The badly battered snake crawled into the Master's house one night to complain. Said the Master, "Friend, you have stopped frightening people

- - that's bad!"

"But it was you who taught me to practice the discipline of nonviolence!"

"I told you to stop hurting -- not to stop hissing!"

-Anthony de Mello, SJ

The elixir of immortal life

2009-12-30T17:12:00.000+02:00

What are meditation, contemplation and prayer? Simply ways of nourishing ourselves. Thanks to them we taste a heavenly food, ambrosia, the food of immortality. It is an ethereal food, but it also corresponds to something on the physical plane. Alchemists have called it the elixir of immortal life. This elixir is dispersed throughout nature, and it is the sun that distributes it.

If we go to watch the sunrise in spring and summer, it is precisely in order to drink this quintessence of life that the sun distributes throughout the universe, particles of which are received by rocks, plants, animals and humans. All living beings capture these particles unconsciously, but humans can learn to capture them consciously in the fluidic matter of sunlight.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Thought

2009-12-30T16:55:00.000+02:00

"Why are you so wary of thought?" said the philosopher. "Thought is the one tool we have for organizing the world."

"True. But thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it."

To his disciples he later said, "A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality."

-Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Intensity of feeling in prayer

2009-12-30T16:43:00.000+02:00

Prayer can draw in grace by a spiritual attunement of one's being in the intensity of feeling, which is the motive power behind prayer. Feelings that rise from the deepest recesses of one's heart can produce immediate results, because of their proximity to reality.

- Swami Krishnananda

It is not the physical body that needs love

2009-12-30T16:42:00.000+02:00

What people call love cannot, in truth, find complete satisfaction on the physical plane. For it is not the physical body that needs love but the heart and, beyond that, the soul and the spirit. Those who stop at the physical body can only experience a few sensations, a few pleasant emotions, which often turn into jealousy, aggression and even hate. In love, as in many other domains, you must see the body not as the goal but purely as an instrument.

All couples who live together without making the effort to seek something beyond physical pleasure gradually turn their lives into a hell, for they end up seeing only each other's negative points. If they really try to make their love an exchange at the level of the soul and spirit, they will taste renewed happiness each day. Even when they have grown old, they will never stop rediscovering each other and enjoying each other's company. For it's not the envelope - the receptacle, the body - that one loves but what it contains: the spiritual principle, born of the one, inexhaustible Source.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Become like the flute in the Lord's hands

2009-12-25T20:07:00.000+02:00

You must become like the flute in the Lord's hands. Let the breath of the Lord pass through you, producing delightful music that melts the hearts of everyone. Surrender yourself to Him; become hollow, i.e., egoless; then He will Himself come and pick you up caressingly and apply you, the flute, to His lips and blow His sweet breath through you. Allow Him to play whatever song He likes.

-Sai Baba

The significance of the enemy determines the importance of the person

2009-12-25T19:59:00.000+02:00

Each one has his enemy. The significance of the enemy determines the importance of the person, just as a shadow depends on the size of the object. One should not concern oneself especially about the enemies, nor should one regard them with disdain. There exists no man without his shadow.

Akbar, called Great, regarded his enemies with care. His favorite councilor kept the list of enemies. Akbar often inquired, "Has not some worthy name appeared on the list? When I shall see a worthy name, I will send my greeting to the friend in disguise." Further spoke Akbar, "I rejoice that I could apply in life the sacred Teaching, that I could give people contentment, and that I was brought into light by the shade of great enemies." Thus spoke Akbar, knowing the value of enemies. Never was a Teaching elevated by its friends. If an enemy is a shadow, then slander is the trumpet call.

-Agni Yoga, Para. 270

Let them throw their curses

2009-12-25T19:54:00.000+02:00

Let them throw their curses.

If inside, I am connected
to what's true, my soul
stays quiet and clear.

Do you think Shiva worries
what people say!

If a few ashes fall on a mirror,
use them to polish it.

- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic

Outlook or in look? Out query or inquiry?

2009-12-25T19:45:00.000+02:00

Turn the key to right, it is un-locked. Turn to God and righteousness, the lock opens, the chain falls away. Turn it to the left, you become bound; the bolt falls in; the chain holds fast. It is just a question of the point of view - outlook or in look? out query or inquiry?

Some persons advise you to watch each step of the mind and note down all the false steps and evil intentions it encountered. No, that is a dangerous practice. Do not pay attention to its vagaries; strive for what you need and not for what you have to avoid. Count the false steps and you will be led to commit them again. Resolve to walk right and your steps will not falter or fail. Be like the tongue in midst of the teeth, carefully, confidentially, courageously going about its task, without getting bitten.

-Sai Baba

Source: Sai Veda (Sathya Sai Advises Inspires Vivifies Educates Dispels All doubts)

True creation

2009-12-25T19:16:00.002+02:00

The creative instinct is deeply rooted in all human beings. But if they have not developed the faculties that allow them to contact the higher worlds, their works will be mere copies, reproductions, not true creations. Just as when fathers and mothers reproduce their own weaknesses and deficiencies in their children and call it creation, when in reality it's just a reproduction!

True creation calls upon elements of a spiritual nature. Artists who wish to create must surpass themselves, excel themselves; in other words, they must rise to the heavenly regions through prayer, meditation and contemplation in order to capture elements for use in their work. Only on this condition will their works of art possess elements that will surpass the ordinary level of awareness and truly deserve the name of 'creation'.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

How to increase our love

2009-12-20T20:27:00.001+02:00

Love is a Being, a great Magnet, a great Energy Who out of His own substance created everything that exists. This is a fact which is not well-known, although many philosophers and disciples have hinted about it throughout the ages.

The more love you express, the closer you come to that great Creative Power in the Universe. As you increase your love, you become a co-worker of that Great Power. If you decrease your love, you become a contradictory force against that Being.

In the same sense, when you increase your love, you become capable of cooperating with the Plan and Purpose of that Great One. If you are lacking in love, you cannot fit yourself to the rhythm of the Plan and the Purpose.

God is love, and if everything is created by Him, it means that everything He created is love. When people hate each other, they cannot be in harmony with the Creator; they divide themselves. When love is divided, man suffers. All suffering, disturbances, sicknesses, cleavages, wars and revolutions in the world are the result of the lack of love.

Similarly, man is love in his essence. As he loves, his essence comes into existence. We are living as bodies, emotions, thoughts, but essentially we are love, hidden within our form. When we start to express love, our essence starts to manifest. As we love, we externalize ourselves.

This is the process of creativity, the process of externalizing yourself. Creativity, heroism, and all great actions in life come into being because of love in the process of manifestation. You become a great talent or genius in any field because your True Self is coming into existence. When you come into existence, you become a God in manifestation, a son of God in manifestation. You become like your Father. As your Father created the Universe and the galaxies, you create your own galaxies—poems, music, books, paintings, relationships, great activities, and organizations. All these are the result of the manifestation of your True Self.

Creativity is nothing else but a process of building a mirror and watching yourself in it. In creativity you build an outer image which exists within your inner being, and you bring that inner image out and look at it.

The more you love, the more you become yourself. And the more you become yourself, the more mastery you gain over your weaknesses. Everything that is ugly, limiting, disharmonious, or contradictory within you is not you. It is the not-self. As you become yourself through love, you conquer everything that is the notself. This is why we say that love leads to self-actualization.

Every beauty created in the Universe is the result of an act of love. If there is love in your home, there is beauty there. If there is love in your nation, then peace, creativity, achievement, and fulfillment are there in your nation.

Love does not mean sentimentalism or feelings.

Real love has three branches—intellect, compassion, and power.

The first branch of love is pure intellect, light. This is why a great disciple once said, “Whoever loves has light. Whoever hates has darkness in him.”

If you have real love, you understand people. You read their motives and intentions. If you have real love, nobody can deceive you. This is a very important idea. Whenever people manipulate you or cheat you, it means that you have a certain degree of lack of love in you.

Love is not “goody-goodyness.” Many people think that if you have love, everyone can use you, sexually, physically, emotionally, and mentally, and then throw you away like rubbish. This is not real love. Real love cannot be exploited. Love is not a surrender to the devil or to a self-destructive process.

Light means penetration and even Intuition. If you love someone, your love opens the door of his heart and tells you what is going on in its depths, no matter what the surface appears to be. Love, compassion, and power work together.

Compassion means unconditional care, understanding, and help. Compassion is not emotional sentimentalism; it is unconditional help. Whenever you help someone unconditionally, you do not help an individualized form, but you help the divinity or the Divine Presence within him.

Love and compassion are sources of power. Whoever has love and compassion has power. The power of the Great Ones originates from Their love and compassion.

No one can defeat you unless you have hatred, jealousy, greed, anger, separatism, or ugliness in your heart. These things create holes in your aura through which the dark forces can penetrate and defeat you. But if you have love, you have a shield around you. The Teaching says, “God is your shield.” God is love, and His love is a shield around you.

Our Teachers in the monastery told us many times that when a dangerous animal approached us in the forest we should “love, love, love him.…” We tried it and it worked; they actually ran away from us!

When you love, you create eight positive effects in your life:

1. Through love you heal your physical, emotional, and mental illnesses. When you start expressing love, you radiate that innermost radioactivity which cleans you physically, emotionally, and mentally, creating tremendous magnetism and joy within you. This is why we say that joy heals.

Whenever you have some weakness physically, emotionally, or mentally, go back and observe yourself and you will find that you yielded yourself to some wave of darkness—hatred, criticism, gossip, etc. When you do these things, you weaken yourself and germs can penetrate into you. We are even advised to love our body when we become sick.

The great Masters are called “Masters of Love and Wisdom.” Love is the essence of harmony. Increase the love in your life, and you will see that miraculously all illnesses and disharmonies will disappear from your life.

One day I wanted to create some music, but it was not coming out the way I wanted it to. Suddenly I said, “Let me think about love.” Then I forgave and blessed all those I really didn’t like. I created great love and forgiveness in my heart, and suddenly something clicked inside of me and I could create my music. Love integrated me and created harmony in me.

2. Love heals not only you, but your friends as well. You can try this experiment with your own friends: If you have a friend who is sad because his girlfriend left him, show him love, send him loving thoughts; and you will see how his grief disappears.

3. Love brings right human relations and goodwill. Hate someone and you will see how he increases his own ill will and plans to harm you.

One day I visited a home and the little boy there was acting so nastily—creating trouble, showing off, trying to get attention. I asked his mother, “Why is he like that?” His mother said, “He is always like that.” I went to him and said, “What a beautiful boy you are!” I shook his hand and played with him for 10-15 minutes.... Later I talked with his parents for two or three hours and that boy sat quietly at my feet without speaking a word!

If a person is acting in a nasty or obnoxious way, check his life and you will probably find that he has a lack of love in his life. Give love to that person, and you will see him creating right relations with you.

This is what we are lacking in our world life. We think we can solve our problems with guns, by demonstrating with force that we are a great nation. This may create a temporary solution, but then it creates reactions and greater problems that are even harder to solve. Why to spend all that money? Demonstrate love; find ways and means to express love. When you love people, they will surrender to you.

Napoleon once said that with all his armies he could not conquer a little part of Europe, but one naked man with twelve disciples could conquer the whole world. Christ’s power was love.

4. Love increases creativity. If your creativity is becoming more shallow or stuck on one level, love a little more and you will see that you are making a breakthrough in your creativity.

Once I knew a girl who was a beautiful singer. She came to me one day for advice because she felt there was something lacking in her singing. I told her, “Yes, something is lacking. You need love. You need to love somebody.” “Well, I have my boyfriend…,” she said.

“Not like that. You must have a love that will touch your heart and bring the real fire out.” A few months later she came and told me about a book she had found and how she loved the man who wrote it. (It was written by The Great Sage) I went to one of her rehearsals. She sang so beautifully.… I asked her how she did it and she said, “I was singing for Him, not for the audience.”

5. Through loving, you increase your intellectual light and your Intuition.

6. Through loving, you build communication with the Higher Worlds. When you start loving, your instruments become very sensitive to the creative waves that are flying around you in space. You don’t need a magnet to attract them because your magnet is your aura. If your aura is purified by love, you can attract these creative energies, ideas, visions, revelations, and inspirations.

7. In loving, you increase your sensitivity to higher spatial impressions from the Subtle Worlds. We are divided here. We live in the human level, but millions and billions of people are living in a different dimension, and we do not have contact with them. Love puts you in contact with them and makes it possible for you to start receiving guidance, light, help, and inspiration from them.

8. In loving, you eventually become a co-worker of the Great Ones. Once I was reading about a Master Who would not accept a certain disciple into His Ashram. “But why not?” the others asked Him. “He is so beautiful. He wrote many articles. He is a great leader. He has many scientific inventions.…” The Master refused to accept him because he was not increasing in love.

Knowledge in the hands of a person whose love is not increasing becomes a dangerous weapon. Without love, such a person will misuse everything he has, he is, and he knows.

When the love in your heart increases, you feel that the power of your observation also increases. You handle people in a way that they do not hurt themselves and their future, and, also, they do not create complications in your life.

Many people have sentimentality but not real love, and because of that, in the name of love, people manipulate each other and eventually complicate each others’ lives.

Love not only attracts friends but also repulses those who have darkness in their heart. The period of repulsion can be a period in which the dangerous elements of the repulsed ones can come under control. Love acts as an agent of purification. Love cannot grow in darkness.

How can we increase our love?

1. Learn not to speak evil about anyone. Gossip, malice, and slander are like poison in your aura. Whenever you do these things, they increases like microbes and cover your whole aura with their poison and contamination.

Do not speak ill about friends, even in jest. One day a girl came to see me because she was having some troubles with her husband and she could not find any cause for it. “Can I ask you something?” I said. “Do you sometimes criticize or talk ill about your husband, even for the sake of fun?” “Oh, yes, I do that a lot.” “That’s it. You are weakening your whole relationship. With your little words, you are putting one drop of poison into a barrel of pure water and contaminating the whole barrel of water.”

Whenever you speak ill against a friend, you will find there is a wall built between you and him. This wall must be eliminated if you want to increase your love.

2. If you hurt anyone, ask his forgiveness. Do not think that you are becoming smaller by asking for forgiveness. On the contrary, you are building your love. It does not matter whether the other person did something wrong, too. If you were wrong, ask for forgiveness. Actually, it does not matter who is wrong or right. If you know that you hurt someone, ask for his forgiveness. Forgiveness can change the whole atmosphere of your family, office, church, or group.

3. Meditate on the fact that people are different from each other, but God is one within them. Think about the oneness in all living forms. We are separate individuals, but within us, God is one.

4. Help those who are in need. This will create tremendous love within you. Once I was visiting a household and the fourteen-year-old son was struggling with his algebra. He had an exam the next morning, and he needed help. I sat and worked with him until three o’clock in the morning. I was the most happy man; I went home full of love—because the boy was now enlightened about his algebra problems.

5. Daily, monthly, and yearly share something with others.

6. Never carry the thought that you are better than others. This is the greatest human weakness and a feeling that really defeats you.

7. Rejoice for those who do something for humanity. This greatly increases your joy. Sometimes I see someone in the United Nations or Senate speaking so beautifully on television and I shout from my chair, “Good for you! That’s so beautiful!” It is so important to encourage people.

What if we would start printing in the headlines the beautiful things that people are doing to help others, instead of printing headlines about crimes and murders? We must go in the right direction—which is toward increasing love.

8. Do not kill, and do not make others kill. The commandment, “Do not kill,” was given to us 6000 years ago, and still we do not understand it. It was Buddha who added the second part, “And don’t make others kill,” when He saw people claiming they were not killing while they were making other people kill for them.

You cannot destroy what God built. If you kill somebody, that same person may eventually kill you in another life. This is the Law of Karma: whatever you sow you are going to reap. How can we make people listen to this advice?

9. The less you hurt people, the more love you have. When you hurt people, you really destroy the reservoirs of your love. Do not waste your love by hurting others.

10. Increase gratitude within you. This increases your love.

11. Do not condemn people but understand them.

12. Sometimes do the following exercise for two to three minutes: Visualize a closed, golden lotus behind your shoulder blades. Then visualize it opening with golden petals and a blue light manifesting.

When you increase your love, you increase your life. When you increase your life, you become more creative and more useful for the One Life.

The light of the One Life shines in the heart of every true disciple.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation, Volume II, Chapter 18

Love binds and wisdom unbinds

2009-12-20T00:02:00.004+02:00

Wisdom enlightens us; it allows us to distinguish between good and evil and so take the necessary steps to repel evil. But even our friends will not remain with us for long if we only ever call upon wisdom. Of course, wisdom attracts, because it shines and can be seen from far away, but it is cold, and people don't much like staying next to a cold light. That is why sages are often solitary beings, whereas those who are less wise but full of warmth are surrounded by friends.

So what should we do? Is it better to neglect wisdom in order to avoid being alone? No, of course not, for those who allow themselves to be guided only by love risk being at the beck and call of others and end up being devoured.

Love binds and wisdom unbinds. That is why we must learn to harmonize the two currents within ourselves: to know when it is better to manifest love and when wisdom.

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Misconceptions about safety and material security

2009-12-19T23:58:00.002+02:00

Supermundane I, 45. Urusvati has overcome all the earthly misconceptions about safety and material security. Neither exists in earthly conditions, yet this dark mirage seduces multitudes of people. They dream of building towers where they might be sheltered in complete safety. They dream of accumulating treasures that would provide security, forgetting that they can reach such a stronghold only beyond earthly conditions.

Do We wish to plunge humanity into despair? One must realize that it is only when one is beyond the range of all danger that invulnerability become possible. Only by acknowledging the vanity of earthly treasures are we able to receive our heritage of everlasting wealth. Let us not regard these Teachings as abstract moralizing. Only by looking at it from a purely scientific point of view can one be convinced that a true knowledge of earthly reality gives freedom of consciousness and perfectment to humanity.

-Agni Yoga

The Greatest Sacrifice

2009-12-19T23:52:00.000+02:00

The old woman approached Buddha staggering on her legs, and offered to him the pomegranate fruit. Buddha took it and immediately sounded the little drum. The Maharaja asked Buddha: "I offered so much wealth to you. You did not sound the drum. But you rattled it after receiving a small fruit. Is this a great sacrifice?"

Buddha replied: "Maharaja! In sacrifice, it is not quantity that counts, it is the quality of sacrifice that matters. It is natural for a Maharaja to offer gold. But what great sacrifice is made when a hungry old woman offers the pomegranate fruit to the Guru despite her hunger. She did not care even for her life and gave the fruit. What greater sacrifice can there be? It is not sacrifice to offer what is superfluous for you. True sacrifice means giving up that which is most dear to you, that which you value most."

Source : Sanathana Sarathi, July 1998

Why do so many remarkable people arouse terrible hostility?

2009-12-19T23:42:00.000+02:00

Why do so many remarkable people arouse terrible hostility? Because the dark forces they have expelled from their inner world return to attack them through other people who are disturbed by their qualities, virtues and force of character. By contrast, people who lead an ordinary life disturb no one, and everyone is happy with them.

But even though it's not easy to face external enemies, these are less dangerous than inner ones, and you have to use love, gentleness and patience with them. With inner enemies, on the other hand, you have to use firmness, authority and severity. Unfortunately, humans more often than not do the opposite: they show patience and indulgence towards their inner enemies, and towards their outer enemies they are extremely severe. So is it surprising if they're forever struggling with problems from which they cannot free themselves?

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov