"THE PERFECT WORLD"

God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods, hear me:
Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hear me:
I dwell in the midst of a perfect race, I the most imperfect.
I, a human chaos, a nebula of confused elements, I move amongst finished worlds --
peoples of complete laws and pure order, whose thoughts are assorted, whose dreams are arranged, and whose visions are enrolled and registered.
Their virtues, O God, are measured, their sins are weighed,
and even the countless things
that pass in the dim twilight of neither sin nor virtue are recorded and catalogued.
Here days and nights are divided into seasons of conduct
and governed by rules of blameless accuracy.
To eat, to drink, to sleep, to cover one's nudity, and then to be weary in due time.
To work, to play, to sing, to dance, and then to lie still when the clock strikes the hour.
To think thus, to feel thus much, and then to cease thinking and feeling when a certain star rises above yonder horizon.
To rob a neighbour with a smile, to bestow gifts with a graceful wave of the hand,
to praise prudently, to blame cautiously, to destroy a soul with a word,
to burn a body with a breath, and then to wash the hands when the day's work is done.
To love according to an established order,
to entertain one's best self in a pre-conceived manner,
to worship the gods becomingly,
to intrigue the devils artfully --
and then to forget all as though memory were dead.
To fancy with a motive, to contemplate with consideration, to be happy sweetly, to suffer nobly -- and then to empty the cup so that tomorrow may fill it again.
All these things, O God, are conceived with forethought, born with determination, nursed with exactness, governed by rules,
directed by reason, and then slain and buried after a prescribed method.
And even their silent graves that lie within the human soul are marked and numbered.
It is a perfect world, a world of consummate excellence,
a world of supreme wonders, the ripest fruit in God's garden,
the master-thought of the universe.
But why should I be here, O God,
I a green seed of unfulfilled passion, a mad tempest that seeketh neither east nor west,
a bewildered fragment from a burnt planet?

Why am I here, O God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods?

- Gibran Khalil

The Mask I'm wearing..

"Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
I wear a mask.
I wear a thousand masks - masks that I am afraid to take off, and none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that is second nature to me, but don't be fooled. For my sake, don't be fooled.
I give the impression that I am at peace, that all is sunny and unruffled within me as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game; that the water is calm and I am in command, and that I need no-one.
But don't believe me please. My surface may seem very smooth, but my surface is my mask, my ever-varying and ever- concealing mask. Beneath lies no smugness, no compliance. Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. I hide that. I don't want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind - non-chalant, sophisticated facade - to help me pretend, to sheild me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my liberation, my only peace, and I know it.
That is, it's followed by acceptance if it's followed by love. It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self built prison wall, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that can assure me of what I can't assure myself - that I am really something...
I am who I am ? Who am I ? You may wonder. I am someone you know very well. I am every man you meet. I am every woman you meet. I am every child you meet. I am right in front of you."Please - LOVE me !"

ANNOYANCES

Because your mind minds it, it annoys you. But my mind does not mind it, it just quietly watches it, that's why it does not annoy me, like it does you.

Dont mistake the inessential for the essential, and the essential for the inessential!

This unquestionably - as read by me was so stated by the Lord, was so stated by the Arahat:

"For the noble friend, who by will, who fully aware, who delibereately brin infinite, boundless and endless friendliness into being, this mountain like limitless Goodwill makes any substrate evaporate, the chains of mind, the mental fetter wears thin, slender and slack. If one without ill will cares for even one single living being, such one through that becomes quite skilled and clever, so far more the case for the Noble Friend, who by possessing a caring heart for all sentient beings without any even single exception, accumulates massive - yeah! - monumental amounts of merit!

Those Kings, gurus and priests who sacrifies life, objects of fire, who baths ceremoniously, devoted to mere forms and empty ritual, blindly attached to and obsessed by culture, tradition of ancient and unknown habit, do not ever experience even a sixteenth of the Release of Mind by Friendliness fully brought into being, just like the vagueness of even all the stars together, cannot neither ever outshine the moon. Since there cannot be any animosity whatsoever, nor enmity at all, neither any even atomic trace of hostility in a Nobly Released One, who by caring indicriminatelty and infinitely for all living beings, who by possessing such treasure of a Mind Relased into Firendliness, simply cannot never ever suppress, harm, repress nor kill any being, and cannot niether never ever cause antother to suppress, harm, repres or kill any breathing being.'

Source from the Pali Tiptaka, which are the 56 volume ancient sacred scriptues of the Buddhist, recited and compiled 483 BC, approximately 4 months after Buddhas death.

Comment:

Even minor Goodwill breaks major barriers, ever spreading like sweet rings in water!

What then to say about infinite Goodwill! Such forceful tidal wave of pure loving-care cannot ever be restrained nor surpassed.

MAKE MIND LIKE A SMILING MOUNTAIN!

:o)

Free Will - Yes or No?

I strongly believe in the saying that - Where there is a Will there is Way..

.. BUT I also started reflecting on Free Will. Its a controversial subject.

Are we the captain of the ship? Or, are we living our destiny - our past deeds, our Karma?

Here is what Robert Anton Wilson has to say from a scienftic perspective:

"All your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free-will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules"

hmm.. Is there a self? May be its too early to discuss that subject. So lets concentrate on.. IS there such thing as Free Will or do we live a pre-defined pattern ?

Arthur Schopenhauer put the puzzle of free will and moral responsibility in these terms:
Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life. ... But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns...."

Cause and Effect. Its called determinism, Free Will vs Determinism..

We are limited according to the laws of the universe, in our choices to x. Moreover, we are limited to our subconsious imprint,. WE will always make a choice that reflects our behaviour pattern, we might believe its Free and Independent however it is not.

UNTIL we are aware that we always react in the same way, until we say NO to our inner programming and choose be anew, to think differently, to react differently.. Until then we are a prisoners to our mind, to our self.. and there is no trace of Free Will.

My conlusion is that only liberated and enlightened beings can be Free of Will, Free of Cause & Effect, Free of limitations..

Down the Rabbit Hole

Through a coincidence I came across the "What the Bleep do we know anyway?" movie, which I have started watching a couple of days ago.. Its amazing how quantum physics, philosophy and spirituality all come together to form this blossoming lotus filled with unity, peace and love.. This movie is about getting a true insight into reality, and not about gaining anything for self-serving purposes.

The latest version is called "Down the Rabbit Hole", which you can find on http://www.whatthebleep.com/

Although I assume that most of my readers have already watched this movie, however for those of you who havent please stop what you are doing right now and go and get it..

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin." our beloved Mother Theresa..

To Infinity and Beyond

When you try to imagine infintiy, what comes to mind? I immediately visualise never-ending Space. But infinity is much more than that, it may be the answer to our never-ending questions.. May be ;-)

Bertrand Russell said very rightly: "If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all."

May be we have to re-phrase our question, rather then asking what is infinity we should ask what does infinity mean? How can infinity be applied to our every day living?


Douglas Adams points it with humor:

"It is known that there are an infinte number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely products of a deranged imagination."

Well the opinions may vary here.. To be or not be? Lets just accept the undebiable fact that we somehow think that we exist, hence lets look at the way infinity influences our world.

A very interesting point that Jean-Jacques Rousseau made is this:

"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being." Is there anyone, who will deny this fact? Although, as I wrote in earlier posts, RIGHT and WRONG can vary from being to being, from perception to perception, however TRUTH undeniably has only one mode of being. Agree?


William Wordsworth further stated: "Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity". This is very similar the Buddhist Teachings, which in my words has this underlying message:

.. for eons humas have been reborn.. suffering they choose, trapped like a mouse in a cage, walking the scroll wheel, over and over again. Yet they choose to come back, to do exactly what they have done before..


H. P Lovecraft sheds further light into this mystery: "We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." May be it is right what Thomas More said: "By confronting us with irreducible mysteries that stretch our daily vision to include infinity, nature opens an inviting and guiding path toward a spiritual life." Somethings we can simply not describe by words, only with feeling with faith, with awareness can they be understood. "Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude" - Alfred North Whitehead

I would like to close this post with Swami Sivananda's quote: "Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity."

I can only encourage you to meditate. And I can promise you that it will bring calmness, and insight if practiced right. If you are confused and looking for a way out. Meditate and be here in the now. The answers will come to you effortlessly.

BE!

- mehtap