The AWESOME PARAGRAPH! thread.

[manitou]

 

                                              NOTE TO MODERATOR:   Any chance this topic can be pinned for continual use?

 

 

 

                                                           THE AWESOME PARAGRAPH THREAD              

 

                          

 

 

Like when you read something that is so clarifying that it could almost knock one into enlightenment.  I think it would be nice to have a place to share those paragraphs that hit very deeply.

 

I just read a paragraph that blows my socks off.  It's pg. 248 of Vasistha's Yoga.  I've studied this tome before, but I didn't really 'see' this paragraph the first time around, apparently.

 

PRAHLADA continued to contemplate:

 

   O self, it is your own light of purity that shines in the sun; your nectarine coolness that radiates through the moon.  The heaviness of the mountains is derived from you, as also the speed of the wind.  Because of you the earth is firm and space is empty.  Luckily, you have been realized*  by me: luckily, I have become yours.  Luckily, O Lord, there is no distinction between you (the self) and me---you are I, I am you.  Whatever is referred to as you (the self) or as I, whichever be the root and whichever be the branch, to that I offer my salutations again and again.  Salutations to my self which is infinite and egoless: salutations to the formless self.*

 

(*emphasis mine)

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by manitou

[manitou]

The italicized words were the ones that jumped out at me.  First, this sentence:  Luckily, you have been realized by me.  What a casual way of putting that which is virtually the sum of one's life's work into a simple thought.  Luckily, you have been realized by me.  Those words are everything.  Those are the words of the god-consciousness, the I AM, - and so many different words for the same thing in so many different religions.  It, the consciousness, is speaking to us from within.  It is saying it is ecstatic that you have finally made considerable progress through your own ego, seeing it as the reckless driver it has always been.  You can glimpse the true light, right there through that haze.  The truth dwells in you while you are in concert with it's consciousness.  It is ecstatic that you are forever changed and finally seeing from a balanced place of clarity.  You have found love.

 

And 'Salutations to the Formless Self'.   Do words get better than this?

[Limahong]

On 8/24/2020 at 5:20 AM, manitou said:

Like when you read something that is so clarifying that it could almost knock one into enlightenment

 

Hi Barbara,

 

Clarifying => clarity => clear day = >...

 

 

On 8/24/2020 at 5:20 AM, manitou said:

O self, it is your own light of purity that shines in the sun; your nectarine coolness that radiates through the moon.

 

 

On 8/24/2020 at 5:20 AM, manitou said:

Luckily, you have been realized*  by me: luckily, I have become yours.

The italicized words were the ones that jumped out at me.  First, this sentence:  Luckily, you have been realized by me.  What a casual way of putting that which is virtually the sum of one's life's work into a simple thought.  Luckily, you have been realized by me.  Those words are everything.  Those are the words of the god-consciousness, the I AM, - and so many different words for the same thing in so many different religions.  It, the consciousness, is speaking to us from within.  It is saying it is ecstatic that you have finally made considerable progress through your own ego, seeing it as the reckless driver it has always been.  You can glimpse the true light, right there through that haze.  The truth dwells in you while you are in concert with it's consciousness.  It is ecstatic that you are forever changed and finally seeing from a balanced place of clarity.  You have found love.

 

On 8/24/2020 at 5:35 AM, manitou said:

'Salutations to the Formless Self'

 

 

 

- Anand

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Limahong
Enhancement

[manitou]

Another paragraph that hits me: (pg 252) Vasistha's Yoga:

 

Living is appropriate to one whose mind is well controlled by his self-knowledge and who is aware of the truth.  He should live who does not entertain notions of egoism and who is unattached to anything, who is free from likes and dislikes and has a calm mind, whose mind has reached the state of no-mind.  It is proper that he should live who is established in the perception of the truth and who functions here as if playfully, who is inwardly neither elated nor depressed by external events, who is free from the desire to acquire or to reject.  He, hearing of whom or listening to whom, people experience great joy - life alone is appropriate to him, and not death.

[zerostao]

From Chang Chung-yuan's Creativity and Taoism, p. 108

 

The direct opening of one's innermost being takes place in the midst of illogical and uncommon expressions. Such direct way of awakening the new consciusness is far beyond the approach of intellectual analysis. The secret cannot be found in intellectual abstraction and metaphysical subtlety; the truth of Tao really lies in the concrete realities of our daily activities.

[doc benway]

Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm.

 

          ~ John O’Donohue

[Limahong]

7 hours ago, manitou said:

Living is appropriate to one whose mind is well controlled by his self-knowledge and who is aware of the truth.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, manitou said:

He should live who does not entertain notions of egoism and who is unattached to anything, who is free from likes and dislikes and has a calm mind, whose mind has reached the state of no-mind.

 

 ... no-mind.

 

7 hours ago, manitou said:

It is proper that he should live who is established in the perception of the truth and who functions here as if playfully, who is inwardly neither elated nor depressed by external events, who is free from the desire to acquire or to reject. 

 

 

7 hours ago, manitou said:

He, hearing of whom or listening to whom, people experience great joy - life alone is appropriate to him, and not death.

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

 

[Limahong]

On 8/24/2020 at 5:20 AM, manitou said:

Any chance this topic can be pinned for continual use?

 

Hi Barbara,

 

I hope that it is alright with you that I took the liberty of adding my pictorial/gif/... perceptions to your above two sharing.

 

I am solely responsible for my perceptions... but if there are any objections from TDB... I will stop.

 

From time to time ~ I may do likewise to some sharing from other Bums I am well acquainted with... through time and tide... barring no objections.

 

- Anand

 

 

[Limahong]

8 hours ago, silent thunder said:

 

 

Hi Creighton,

 

I have copied this from the John Blofeld and Tseng Lao-weng thread ~

 

John Blofeld wrote the following account of his meeting with Tseng Lao-weng and I'm deeply grateful he did, its resonance, when I first encountered it struck me like lightning on a clear day, like silent thunder it rattled through me with an acute resonant echoing awareness... the words, (or rather, what the words pointed to), shattered through the mundane sleeping life trance into potent shining wakeful awareness and unfolded me into the present moment with a fierce yet gentle familiarity.  This was like finding home, without knowing I had been away from it... or rather realizing I was always home, but in my sleeping trance, awareness of it had been occluded in fog.  Lost my awareness of the forest while amidst all the trees...

 

The meeting occured sometime between 1937 and 1949 when Blofeld, then a citizen of China traveled extensively to remote monestaries and retreats, seeking out renowned Daoist Sages, Buddhist Masters and Mongolian Lamas.

 

The sense of the words settling in awareness was akin to stumbling upon a previously unknown meadow in the valley of my innermost self and finding, that although I'd never recalled having been there before, it was my original home... utterly familiar and reflected my most authentic experience and the sum total of my path.

 

- Anand

 

[manitou]

You can go to ST's post and click on it - you'll see the whole original post.  Blofield told of a sage who had his way with a student who asked how there could be a difference between Daoism and Buddhism.  It's wonderful.

[silent thunder]

Yea, I decided to link to my comment as it's several awesome paragraphs and longish and I didn't want to splash the thread with a TL:DR post right out of the gate.  Tseng Lao-weng basically eviscerates the overprocessed, overthinking, pill seeking 'doers' of Daoism.

 

Kind of odd that Anand quoted my reaction to it here and not the paragraphs themselves...  

My comment about the quote is irrelevant emotive context. 

 

The quote however, is a shiny Daoist pearl... it still resonates as it did that first time.

 

I'll always remember rene for being the one to introduce it to me.  After that one taste... I spent over a year, tracking down a copy I could afford of Mr Blofeld's out of print book, The Secret and Sublime.  I highly recommend it. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by silent thunder

[manitou]

51 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

'll always remember rene for being the one to introduce it to me.  After that one taste... I spent over a year, tracking down a copy I could afford of Mr Blofeld's out of print book, The Secret and Sublime.  I highly recommend it. 

 

 

I'm on it.  Right after 500 more pages of Vasistha's Yoga.  

[Limahong]

5 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Kind of odd that Anand quoted my reaction to it here and not the paragraphs themselves...  

My comment about the quote is irrelevant emotive context.

 

Hi Creighton,

 

Nothing odd ~ I just like the... comment about the quote... in the right and... irrelevant emotive context. 

 

- Anand

 

[manitou]

Still Vasistha , p.253-

 

"Living is appropriate to one whose mind is well controlled by his self-knowledge and who is aware of the truth.  He should live who does not entertain notions of egoism, and who is unattached to anything, who is free from likes and dislikes and has a calm mind, whose mind has reached the state of no-mind.  It is proper that he should live who is established in the perception of the truth and who functions here as if playfully, who is inwardly neither elated nor depressed by external events, who is free from the desire to acquire or to reject.  He, hearing of whom or listening to whom, people experience great joy - life alone is appropriate to him, and not death."

 

 

[Limahong]

On 8/27/2020 at 2:20 AM, manitou said:

Another paragraph that hits me: (pg 252) Vasistha's Yoga:

 

Living is appropriate to one whose mind is well controlled by his self-knowledge and who is aware of the truth.  He should live who does not entertain notions of egoism and who is unattached to anything, who is free from likes and dislikes and has a calm mind, whose mind has reached the state of no-mind.  It is proper that he should live who is established in the perception of the truth and who functions here as if playfully, who is inwardly neither elated nor depressed by external events, who is free from the desire to acquire or to reject.  He, hearing of whom or listening to whom, people experience great joy - life alone is appropriate to him, and not death.

 

1 hour ago, manitou said:

Still Vasistha , p.253-

 

"Living is appropriate to one whose mind is well controlled by his self-knowledge and who is aware of the truth.  He should live who does not entertain notions of egoism, and who is unattached to anything, who is free from likes and dislikes and has a calm mind, whose mind has reached the state of no-mind.  It is proper that he should live who is established in the perception of the truth and who functions here as if playfully, who is inwardly neither elated nor depressed by external events, who is free from the desire to acquire or to reject.  He, hearing of whom or listening to whom, people experience great joy - life alone is appropriate to him, and not death."

 

Hi Barbara,

 

Page 252 or page 253?

 

By questioning thus ~ I am not being critical. Why?

 

I just want to stress these ~

(a) The awesomeness of the paragraph in question.

(b) By sharing my perceptual pictures/gif/... of it ~  I have internalized the paragraph.

 

Because of (a) and (b) ~ I am sensitive to the difference... 252 and 253.

 

A great weekend.

 

- Anand

 

[dwai]

@manitou another really amazing book is "Tripura Rahasya" (Translated as "The mystery of the Three Cities"). Between that and "Yoga Vashishtha", pretty much everything that one could want to know about nondual practice is covered in the most beautiful, story-based manner. 

 

[manitou]

Thanks Dwai, 

I'll look it up for sure.  Vasistha's Yoga just makes my heart sing.

[manitou]

V.Y. again -

 

Oh Rama, if you thus overcome this sorrow of repetitive history (samsara), you will live here on earth itself like a god, like Brahma or Vishnu!  For when delusion is gone and the truth is realized by means of enquiry into self-nature, when the mind is at peace and thought-waves in the mind-stuff have subsided and there is unbroken flow of peace and the heart is filled with the bliss of the absolute, when thus the truth has been seen in the heart, then this very world becomes an abode of bliss.

 

Such a person has nothing to acquire, nor anything to shun.  He is untainted by the defects of life, untouched by its sorrow.  He does not come into being nor go out, though he appears to come and go in the eyes of the beholder.  Even religious duties are found to be unnecessary.  He is not affected by the past tendencies which have lost their momentum:  his mind has given up its restlessness, and he rests in the bliss that is his essential nature.  Such bliss is possible only by self-knowledge, not by any other means.  Hence, one should apply oneself constantly to self-knowledge - this alone is one's duty.