SPIRITUAL ESSENCE:

Focusing on the essence of spirituality from all times, places, cultures…and beyond. Serving and cultivating the innate, inherent spiritual nature contained within all: the religious, the non-religious, the spiritual but not religious, the atheist, the agnostic, the mystic; whatever one does or does not consider oneself. We are beings at many different levels with many different aspects: physical, energy/life force, mind, intellect, emotion; but at our deepest common core, we are all spiritual beings. We all yearn to love and be loved, to nurture and be nurtured, to express and serve and realize each of our unique destinies. We can all help each other along our individual journeys, united by our common needs and yearnings.


Quote of the Week #156 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance

Quote of the Week #156 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance


Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live…


--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Quote of the Week #31 - Transition


Mind is like a projector, projects the external world. From where has this external world, Vaishvanara, come? What happens to it? Does it last forever? When we see that everything is changing, we know that a time will come when they will no longer exist. All namas and rupas, names and forms, will dissolve sooner or later.

Some forms last for a few years, other forms may last for more years. Once they are dissolved, what happens to them? Even this form that is called the universe is going to change one day. What will happen? It will go to annihilation. But even in annihilation, the ancient Vedic scriptures, shrutis say, Surya chandramasodata yata purvam akalpayet. The sun, moon, stars, this whole universe will at some point go to its resting place, Brahman, the summum bonum of life; then ages later, the universe will again remanifest exactly the way it used to be. It’s a scientific law. If you have a mango seed, no matter how it is stored, when it germinates, it will bring forth only mango. In reality, nothing happens. This is all Brahman, a gross aspect of Brahman.


Those who have studied the Ishopanishad know that its mantras say that while departing, a soul, an individual soul, should learn to remember all that it has done, all the good things it has done, because those good deeds will not create sadness, depression, fear in the mind when going through the transition. So far you have been preparing yourself to be comfortable in the external world, to be in a world full of means, which is essential, but now, you are preparing yourself to go through the period of transition. Sooner or later we all have to go through that transition. Look at this strange thing, we all have to depart one day, yet we never believe that we will die. Do you know why? Why do you believe that you will not die? Because there is no death for eternity and you are a child of eternity. The soul never dies, which you know unconsciously. The best part of you never dies. That which changes, goes to death and decay, that alone dies. So why are you afraid of dying? From where does this fear come? This fear comes from ignorance. Scientifically, nothing dies. Death only means change. Death does not mean complete annihilation.

--Swami Rama, Om, the eternal witness; SECRETS OF THE MANDUKYA UPANISHAD, pages 119 and 126  

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Quote of the Week #30


I believe that every man represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health, talents. Yet we are all one. We are all saints and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anyone’s superior or judge. We have all been awakened with the Buddha, crucified with Christ, and we have all killed and robbed with Genghis Khan, Stalin, and Hitler.

I believe that man can visualize the experience of the whole universal man only by realizing his individuality and never by trying to reduce himself to an abstract, common denominator. Man’s task in life is precisely the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it to arrive at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed individual can drop the ego.

--Erich Fromm