------------diane
Friday, October 3, 2008
A Story About Lotus Tea
------------diane
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Rumi poem
Rumi is a 13th century Persian Sufi mystic, born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan. The general theme of his thoughts, like that of the other mystic and Sufi poets of the Persian literature, is essentially about the concept of Tawheed (unity) and union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut and fallen aloof, and his longing and desire for reunity. - Text from Wikipedia
The following poem is one of my favorites:
Since You Are I, You Who Are Myself
Once a man came and knocked at the door of his friend.
“Who are you?” asked his friend. “It is I,” he replied.
The friend said, “Go away! This isn’t the time to enter!
There’s no place at a table like mine for the one
Who’s not been cooked in the fire of true gnosis?
Apart from the fire of absence and separation
What’ll cook the raw or free the uncooked from fraud?
The poor man went away and for a whole year of travel and absence
He was burnt utterly by the flames of separation.
His heart burned until it was consumed; he came again
To the door of his friend and knocked at the door
With a hundred signs of the utmost fear and reverence,
Terrified a wrong word should escape his lips.
From within, his friend called out, “Who’s at the door?”
He replied, “It is you who are at the door, O charmer of hearts!”
“Since you are I,” the friend said, “O you who are myself,
Enter; there’s no place in my house for two I’s.
~ RUMI
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Hummingbirds
Since April of this year, I've enjoyed the company of some tiny friends in my garden, the little hummingbirds. So cheerfully chatting, flitting about from flower to flower and stopping for a drink of sugar water from my feeders, they've added such life to my backyard.
It's autumn now. For the last two days, I've not seen them. One by one, the tiny creatures quietly left on their long journeys south for the winter. How did I not know they were preparing to leave? Did they try to tell me good-bye and I missed it? The feeders are hanging in still silence and only my past visions of the little creatures remain.
Goodbye my little friends. I pray for you a safe journey...............'til we meet again.
Winged Jewel
With wings spun of silver and hearts of gold,These tiny creatures our hearts behold.With angelic features and colors so bright,Make even the heaviest heart seem light.The magical way they flit through the sky,They appear, then vanish in the blink of an eye.They're sending a message for us to retrieve,Anything's possible for those who believe!
Written by: Christopher Griffiths
Ruby-throats winter in Central America from Mexico to Panama. At the northern extreme, a few rufous hummers winter in southern and coastal California and along the Gulf coast from southeastern Texas to Florida. Most winter in Mexico.
Q. Do hummingbirds migrate by day or night?
By day, except in one situation: when ruby-throated hummingbirds light out over the Gulf of Mexico, they are over water when night falls and must keep on going until the reach the other side.
Q. When do hummers leave their wintering grounds?
They time their return to the breeding grounds according to location. Birds that live in the southern part of the US begin their return migration as early as February. Birds that live further north in the East, or in the inland mountains in the West, time their return to coincide with the flowering of their food plants or sapsucker migration.
-----diane
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A New Sacred Morning
It has passed over mountain ranges and the waters of the seven seas. It has shone upon laborers in the fields, into the windows of homes, and shops, and factories.
It has beheld proud cities with gleaming towers, and also the hovels of the poor.
It has been witness to both good and evil, the works of honest men and women and the conspiracy of knaves.
It has seen marching armies, bomb-blasted villages and "the destruction that wasteth at noon-day."
Now, unsullied from its tireless journey, it comes to us, messenger of the morning. Harbinger of a new day.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Tao
Before creation a presence existed,
Self-contained, complete,
formless, voiceless, mateless,
changeless,
Which yet pervaded itself with
unending motherhood.
Though there can be no name
for it.
I have called it the "way of life."
Perhaps I should have called it
"the fullness of life,"
Since fullness implies widening
into space,
Implies still further widening
into space,
Implies still further widening,
Implies widening until the circle
is whole.
In this sense
The way of life is fulfilled.
Heaven is fulfilled.
Earth is fulfilled.
And a fit person also is fulfilled.
There are the four amplitudes of
the universe
And a fit person is one of them.
People rounding the way of
earth,
Earth rounding the way of
heaven.
Heaven rounding the way of life
Till the circle is full.
-Lao-Tse
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
THIS CLAY JUG by Kabir
Sacred Hoop
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Gratitude
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Do No Harm
What does "Do No Harm" mean to you? It's a phrase that conjures up many different ideas depending upon your individual conditioning of your life. For many people, it simply means don't cause harm to anyone. For me, I include that meaning, but I take it a bit further. Perhaps it is because I had the fortunate experience of having a mother who was aware of the preciousness of all life, not just human life, and she shared that with me in many ways. She saw all life as sacred because she nearly died of TB when she was quite young, in her early twenties. She watched some of her close friends die of the disease, yet miraculously she was spared.
I was shown by my mother how to love and care for a simple, tiny flower, a baby fir tree just starting to grow, and a helpless injured bird. We took care of kittens, dogs, birds, turtles, and any creature that came our way. She showed me that the discovery of a beautiful stone was more precious than money, a feather left by a bird was a treasured gift, that even the smallest of insects feel pain and have the right to live, and our beautiful earth itself was a sacred spinning jewel.
Many people and children today aren't as fortunate to have had someone in their lives show them the sacredness of all live. The "Do No Harm" movement is needed to remind us to be aware of our responsibility to be kind, to promote kindness, and to teach young children kindness toward all living beings and our precious earth.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Resonating/Vibrating Human Beings
Do you ever wonder why you can feel emotionally close toward a certain person and not another? Even in a large extended family you may only feel a closeness to certain people and not to others in the same family. Think back when you were a child or a young adult and you loved someone deeply and then become separated by distance and many years, yet you'll often feel that same connectedness to him or her after much time has passed and be able to reconnect again quite easily. How is that so? We humans exist in a state of vibrational frequency unique to each person. We have the sensory skills to feel the vibrations of others, positive and negative. Almost everyone has had the experience of being in the same room with someone who is full of depressed thoughts or angry hidden emotions. The atmosphere emits a negative energy field that can be felt by anyone entering the room.
People who emit a similar frequency are attracted to each other and a friendship can easily be formed. You cannot resonate with someone else who has a fundamentally incompatible vibrational frequency. Dr. Emoto, a Japanese researcher and author of "The Hidden Messages From Water" says that "when two people resonate and fall in love, they rise to their highest level of capability. If a person with a capability of 10 who has only been using 5 parts of that capacity falls in love with someone with a level of 12, then he or she will naturally make use of the level -10 capability and show an increase in frequency. Love has the effect of raising our frequency level and making us shine."
When we think about what makes up our bodies, we know we are formed of atoms, nothing more. The magic is what is inside of each atom. The center is a nucleus with electrons rotating about at different numbers and shapes, creating a unique and particular set of vibrational frequencies. Within each atom is 99.9999% space. Whether we are talking about a human body, any type of life, or any object in existence, this is true. We only perceive these things to be solid mass, when we are all actually sort of a vibrating, rotating wave. Not solid at all!
Organic matter that forms human beings generates a frequency that can be represented by sound at approximately 42 octaves above middle C (the note near the center of a piano keyboard) as reported by Warren Hamerman in the scientific journal 21st Century Science and Technology's March 1989 issue. The middle C frequency is approximately 262 Hz. Forty-two octaves higher has a sound frequency of 570 trillion Hz. Since Hz means vibrations per second, this means human beings vibrate 570 trillion times a second!
Humans are the only animals with the capacity to resonate with all other creatures and objects found in nature. We hold a universe within us filled with frequencies of a cosmic proportion.
So what is it about love that causes us to raise our frequency level? The great spiritual masters Jesus, Buddha, and others are said to have a very high frequency level. When we experience or know this love, we come to acknowledge our sacred universe, recognizing our oneness of everything that exists, within us and outside of us. We find our own "I Am"-ness, we are then aligned with the universal love that transcends all things, all life, and manifests itself in us and in everything.
"God is in everything. He sleeps in stones, breathes in plants, dreams in animals and awakes in mankind."
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sacred Water
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Being Present
Living for Now versus Living in the Now
Our memories of the past are experiences in the present. So are our thoughts about the future.
This is why the wise ones have repeatedly urged us to be more in the present; to be here, now.
This attitude definitely has its value. It may help us take life as it comes, and not get so caught up in unnecessary fears and concerns. It allows us to enjoy more of what life has to offer.
But it does not necessarily lead to a fuller awareness of the present moment. One may still be as caught up in thoughts as before, even if they be thoughts of today rather than yesterday or tomorrow.
Whereas most of our thoughts are about the past or the future, our sensory experience is always "now". Thus many spiritual teachers advocate placing the attention on bodily sensations—points of contact with the physical world, the heartbeat, or the breath. The actual feelings in the body are in the present moment.
Then when the mind wanders off into some thought about the past or future—as it surely will—gently return the attention to physical sensations, and so back to the present.
There is no longer the need to keep the attention to sensory experience. One is present to whatever is—including the arising and passing of thoughts about the past or future.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Every Pair of Eyes
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Who are You?
I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and I said: "Who are You?"
Every Creature
(Meister Eckhart, 13th C)
Friday, June 27, 2008
Calm Your Thoughts
There are many, many web sites you can Google on to find info and help on meditation. Here's a link to view some simple videos on the matter: http://www.how-to-meditate.org/videos/ It's nothing more than noticing your breath, being aware of your breath as you breathe in and then out, and being aware of thoughts that arise in your mind during the process. When thoughts come floating in, just calmly notice them, then let them go like a soft cloud floating by.
Why meditate? Because we all absorb wordly noise, thoughts, and emotions daily. Most of it is clutter in the mind that can create negative energy in the body. So, relax..........let's meditate. It's soooooooooo EASY!
A LESSON IN MEDITATION
A very simple way of meditating is concentrating on your breath. The breath is like a bridge between your body and mind. When you concentrate on your breath for a while, your body becomes relaxed and your mind becomes peaceful.
Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight.
Place your hands in your lap with the left hand on the bottom.
Keep your eyes half-closed or closed.
Concentrate on the tip of your nose. Notice your breath going in and out.
Full lotus is the best sitting posture. Begin by sitting in half-lotus, then work your way up to full lotus.
Full-lotus- Sit on the edge of a cushion. Place your left ankle on your right thigh. Then lift your right ankle onto your left thigh.
Half-lotus- Lift your left ankle onto your right thigh.
------diane
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wisdom
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Impermanence
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Wasp and the Baby Bird, a true Sufi story
going down, the wasp dropped the grain into the opened beak of the bird. Sidi went close to the nest and took this bird in his hand only to find that this bird had no legs and it was blind.Sidi told afterwards that the whole chain of events was a great surprise to him and left a significant impact in his heart.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Everything's Sacred
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Joy of Now
The following is from "The Power of Now"
On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of your life appears to consists of thousands of moments where different things happen. Yet if you look more deeply, is there not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not “this moment?”
This one moment — Now — the only thing you can never escape from, the one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens, no matter how much your life changes, one thing is certain: it's always Now.
Since there is no escape from the Now, why not welcome it, become friendly with it?
* * *
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Being Separated from Awareness
I'll put it simply: the key is not resisting.
When we turn loose of the resisting by simply going into the quiet stillness, a centered place residing inside all of us, we can let all thoughts cease, all emotions, and just Be. We enter the precious Stillness. There we experience Being, or God. The ego part of who we are ceases to exist and the oneness of the real "you", the Consciousness, resides and is always there.
************************************************************************************************************
Monday, April 7, 2008
"Stand Still" poem
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Pointing the Way
Not everyone who reads his books will be ready to receive his message. For those who are already beginning to awaken even just a little, you will find his teachings from his books/audios, videos to be a treasure.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Thousand Red Birds---a poem about faith
We clutch our tiny bits of faith in tight fists shoved firmly in our pockets.
– Phil Porter
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Some Info About Me
- Diane
- Abilene, Texas, United States
- One day life no longer made any sense. I began enquiring, "Who am I", What am I", and "What's the purpose of this life?"