Author Archives

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gave up the ghost

May 20th

A Year With Hafiz
“Asking for the Hand of Marriage”

When someone becomes quiet in this world,
really quiet, those who aren’t may turn to
them, even from behind a wall or from a great
distance.

It is like a touch they, the unstill, wanted…
a touch that can come from the invisible, come
from an intimate region of the benevolent spirit
in someone in true peace.

Unknown to most, one asks for the hand of
marriage wherever their gaze falls.

I have to stop myself here; sometimes I just
cannot help but to cheer something that
has never quite been put in words before, as
that last line…about a “marriage” we always
seek.

That is all I can say now. If there is something
in your mind obstructing your vision, let
someone who can see…read all this to you.

The sunflower’s heart is not detectable to most,
but you know what it does. It so gladly turns,
offering its body toward its lover–the sun
all day long.

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How to Become Free of Hatred – repost from Jaya Row

repost from http://www.speakingtree.in/public/jaya.row/profile

What is true devotion? Is it mere allegiance to a particular deity or prophet? Does it necessitate a change in lifestyle? How does one know if one qualifies as a devotee? In Chapter 12 of the Bhagwad Gita Krishna lists 35 qualities of a devotee that help assess our spiritual level as well as develop the qualities to evolve further.

The first quality is ‘advesta sarvabhutanam’, one who hates no being. Yet the worst battles have been fought in the name of religion. People who profess to have devotion to the Lord often have conflict-ridden relationships. Devotion is not about professing love to God, it is the ability to love all. How can you love an unknown, unseen God when you dislike those you interact with daily?

The world lacks inclusive love. Everyone is deeply entrenched in feelings of otherness, antagonism and bitterness. This springs from insecurity and you project imaginary enemies. Partners are viewed as opponents, benefactors are viewed with suspicion and you end up utterly lonely and isolated. The Gita says there are no adversaries out there. Your worst foes are within. It is your lack of self-sufficiency that projects enemies outside. Yudhisthira was called ‘ajatasatru’, one whose enemy was not born because he did not consider anyone as a malefactor.

Even the love people claim is not true love. It is attachment, self-love. You expect returns from the person you love, make demands and impose restrictions. Ultimately the relationship breaks down. Attachment is the single most important cause of friction between spouses and the yawning gap between parents and children.

The solution is to become detached. People misunderstand detachment as giving up relationships. Many reject the idea and continue to suffer the devastating effects of attachment. A few give up their families and suffer. There are three states of being – indifference or lack of feeling, attachment or selfish love and detachment or pure love. The Gita asks you to give up selfishness which comes in the way of meaningful relationships. Continue the association but let go of expectations and demands.

Assess the people around you; understand them for what they are. Then you will not have unreasonable expectations of them. Do you hate a lion for its ferocity? Do you dislike a deer for its timidity? Do you get upset if a dog barks at you? No. You understand that they all function according to their nature. But you complain about a neighbour or boss because you have no understanding of their nature. As long as you feel negatively about anyone you will suffer, not the other person. If you want to be free of stress you must address your most intense dislikes.

In the past, the extended family lived together, harmoniously. Now, even nuclear families are breaking up because of selfishness. Single parents are becoming the norm! Enlarge your circle of love. Identify with the larger community. As your love expands, the friction in existing relationships reduces and you become truly happy.

When you think of your body you see maximum separateness. Move to your mind and you see oneness within the family. Identify with the intellect and you see oneness among all. It does not matter whether they are educated or not, wealthy or poor, refined or crude. They are all yours. Take the leap into the realm of the Spirit and all differences vanish. You see yourself in all beings and all beings in your own Self. You will be free of hatred.

Follow Jaya Row on speakingtree.in

ONLY DELHI: For the other 34 traits attend Jaya Row’s lectures on Gita Ch 12 at Kamani Auditorium, Oct 11-14th October, 6.30 to 8 pm. Contact: +91 9769179001. All are welcome

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love and understanding

I finally got it.  the worst revelation of my life, a long life of revelations. this one had to come to me now? so late? such a bad one? it’s really hard to handle. but, here it is:
people need love and understanding.  I knew that. it’s not my revelation. it’s my gospel to share.  so, stop right here, if you need to, and take that in.  people don’t need all your other bullshit, your “advice”, your self-help, you affirmations, your analysis. shut up. give them your love and understanding, and stop there.

no. my revelation is this: the “bad guys” know this secret, too!  yes! the child molesters, the grimy trolls under the bridge – they too realize that if they offer love and understanding, your prey, the deer, the kittens, the puppies, will crawl right into their lap. and worse!  they will love them – the “bad guys”!

ok.  I knew that too – abut the bad guys.  here’s what I really did not know. the bad guys extend to everywhere! they are not just the shady characters lurking in the bathrooms. they are you!  you, the person “who cares”!  yes, you are a bottom feeder too!  you feed off of the poor saplings who just need light and air and just want to grow. and you, in your false wisdom, your arrogance of total misunderstanding, you offer them your diseased hand, and the lick it, in humble adoration.  oh my God.  how could You have let this happen?!

yes. it goes beyond my wildest dreams. I have now seen that the sweetest person can be handed from one remora to the next, throughout her entire lifetime. ow can there be so many, in an unbroken chain? an entire civilization, starved for the beautiful, sweet  innocent idolators, who just need someone to cling to. “Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?”

I hope I have made myself clear. it’s just something I could never have believed – that the world could be so cold and damning to certain people, but that it was not attributable to circumstance, or “bad guys”, rather, these people, like a lightning rod, attracted zombies to them. stupid, dime-sized brainfeeders, with just enough savvy to understand the simple principles of mind control, espoused by Dr. Phil and Oprah.

of course, it has to begin at some point, in earnest. there has to be the coldest of criminals to begin this cycle. this is indeed the child molester – the one who takes the very center away from the sweetest child – takes it forever.  yes, another revelation: it is possible to break a human permanently, to condition them, through cruelty, to be blind to cruelty – the victim uses their defense mechanism of “flight” so many times, that it becomes a permanent “enabling” back door to the far more insipid “backdoor predator”. Not a child molester – and emotional remora! a loser. a dream-feeder.  and thus, the cycle is perfectly perpetuated: the blind lead the blind!

and i thought I knew it all!  thought I could save everyone! idiot.  poor dumb Kam. you can’t save a drowning rat! because the enemy is too unbelievable.  and the victims, the ones you love, they are too fucked up.  God, I still can not accept it.  did Jesus really finally accept it in the end?  is that the true ending to the allegory?  that you give and give and try to save them, and in the end, you give up?  and in order to hide your shame, you stage your own glorious crucifixion?  the only way out, for those who have seen, is the cross?

because that’s the advice everyone has always given me: you just can’t help everybody.  some people are just tragedies. well, sorry. even though I now know what I know, I will not let this cup be taken from me. I repeat: “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” – nothing short of that.

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your false piety is un-becoming

I don’t blame you.  everything you have ever eaten has been downloaded, not foraged.  with no training, you learned to defecate with the same organ you use to ingest. with no processing, you can only regurgitate.

you miss the faith. you must have the faith to chant the name of G*d, the One Energy. You can not wish me peace with the same mouth you curse me. ishvarapranidhana comes before all else, must come before all else, else there is nothing but air.

your place is litter-strewn, by your careless ego, which see nothing. hence it can not find the things which need to be picked up and discarded.  they are invisible to the eye drawn inward, but not inside, as is the essential invisible to such and eye.

your first step: accommodate just one more person in your boat; then the boat will disappear, and you will be in the ocean.

bless you. love you.

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your freedom

I hope you find it.  I don’t think it’s something you find, though. it is harder when your path is strewn with bodies, each one with a note of sorry pinned to it. a road paved with good intentions, but littered with personas.

to be free, you must take ownership of the bad things.  for those things you may not say your sorry. it’s the price of freedom.

you don’t let someone else speak for you.  ever.  this should be obvious.  freedom is before all freedom from fear.

the free carry their dead on their backs, up a hill, while their children hang from their skirts. freedom is love, and love has an earthly weight.

where were they when you were defenseless? a true friend will never leave you, even when you tell him to. the one who leaves because of threats or entreaties is a fair weather friend. the true friend must hang around, in case you get defenseless again.

friendship can not suppress freedom. what a sad and misguided thought that is. you climb to your freedom on the backs of your friends – those would be the ones you give you their back, not turn them on you.

when you learn about forever, I will still be here.

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the very humanity of the teachings of Jesus…

…renders them obsolete in a world without people. in the world of the loner. in a world without government; in  a world without commerce. the teachings of Buddha, in contrast, require no world. Buddhism is a doctrine about the struggle between human and universe.  Jesus’ teachings are about the struggle of the individual to understand and create his/her place in a society.

This bit of wisdom comes from a cult sci fi book, “Earth Abides”, by George R. Stewart, about the survivor of a pandemic, who suddenly finds himself alone, with lots of time to read.  Actually, I can’t be sure this is his idea originally – Pope John Paul said much the same in “Crossing the Threshold of Hope.”

Jesus said “Love one another.”  How is it possible to practice this faith, when there is none other? If there were no money, no system of commerce, how could I “… go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”  There are no poor.  I can not have possessions if there is no one else – the concept of ownership and private property are illusions create by a commercial society.

Jesus’ life, as we know it, was about a rebellion of love, against a society. He never concerns himself with “the universe.”  Satan tempts him only with corporeal and political desire – the temptations the have arisen from social and political organization.  Indeed, how could the message of Jesus be relevant to the Masai? “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s due”? Who is “Cesar”, when you are a nomad? How will you give away anything, when you have nothing in your culture like “ownership” – the herd is tended by the tribe, and the tribe follows the herd, to live, to survive.  None of the individual animals belongs to any individual.  “Love thy neighbor”?  In a nomadic tribe, who is the neighbor?

George Stewart does discover that the “old testament” speaks more to the questions of the one within the universe – make sense, given that the Jews were nomadic, had no Kingdom, per se (at that time).  How indeed would Jesus invitation to enter into the larger global society, have been appealing or even comprehensible by (at least the earlier) Jewish civilization? To acknowledge a caesar? Above JHVH? To support the poor and the sick, when nomadic survival was only survival of the fittest, not by dogma, but by the necessity of the desert.

And so, for us, we the modern social animal – will you be able to adopt such a social religion as Jesus’, if you do not desire in your heart to plunge into the seemingly absurd chaos which is fundamental to a liberal society of egoists? Love is only useful to salve the wounds of human interaction.  It becomes a useless burden if you intend to go it alone.