In the beginning you run

Question: Guruji, whenever I see You, I start running after You. Is this devotion or lack of self respect?

Guruji: In the beginning you run, it is ok. But then you should learn to stop and look within. Dive deep within yourself. Then I will run after you and the whole world will run after you.

~ The Art of Living Blog: A teaching from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar



Portrait by Nitin Rai

From before

When you look around with eyes closed

what do you see?

When you feel more is near, somehow,
someone...

Presence.  Flow.

No words. No names. From before.

Nothing that can be more new to me,

But together, we are so very old.

Someday it will happen to me

When will I find my Beloved? When will my Beloved find me?

From War and Peace 1966

Completely alone

There is no "do." Except to breathe.

When all is pulled away, everything, a previously unknown "place."

Just be, just feel. Don't push, or pull.

Don't reach out to others, that always throws me way off. Be smart about it. Don't throw myself onto that fire, the one that burns me without be burnt. Endless pain.

Why do I go there? Stop.

Being completely alone is better.

Hold the mind

Don't think about it. Feel it.

Sometimes I think my sadhana is worthless, my Guru is contemptuous.

Sometimes a beautiful play of loving bliss is lifting through my being; there when I reach for it.

(Sometimes I feel my Guru right behind me, her hand on my shoulder. I have that prickly feeling you have when an unseen someone is in the room).

Hold the mind still. Who cares what this means to my mind. For God's sake, don't let the mind get its hands on it!

I have practiced for years. Hold the mind still when self-pity arises, negative thoughts, fear and making stories. Stop these thoughts on a dime. Holding my mind when good feelings arise is the new challenge.

Hold still. Hold, my mind. Still. Just feel it.

Life doesn't need any help.