Let the long accepted axioms of every-day life be dislocated like a hillside in a landslip.
To give is a better bargain than to get.
In the sound of your voice T dwell as in a world defended from evil.
* * * *
No volcano bursting up through peaceful pastures is a greater revolution than this; for this is the lava springing out of ‘ the very heart of Man; this is the upheaval of heaven-kissing summits whose streams shall feed the farthest generations, the forming of the wings of Man beneath the outer husk.
* * * *
As when one opens a door after long confinement in the house – so out of your own plans and purposes escaping- like air, light and sun-warmth pass out forever, having abandoned your own objects, looking calmly upon them, as though they did not exist. The property to be renounced are one’s objects.
* * * *
O bars of self, you cannot shut me in.
* * * *
Of the love that you poured forth, dear friend, in vain – like a cup of water in the wide and thirsty desert – but it was all your life to you. Do you dream that it is lost? Perhaps it is – it may well seem so just now to you – yet indeed I do not think so. Think not that the love thou enterest into today is for a few months or years – the little seed set now must lie quiet before it will germinate and many alternations of sunshine and shower descend upon it before it become even a small plant.
The little seed set now must lie quiet before it will germinate, and many alternations of sunshine and shower descend upon it before it become even a small plant. When a thousand years have passed, come thou again, and behold! a mighty tree that no storms can shake. Therefore leave time: do not like a child pull thy flower up by the root to see if it is growing.
* * * *
Tremble, tremble, O waves, – bear my love, too, on your breasts to generations yet unborn.
Ah! love – having journeyed through all life, having become freed even from thee – there remains nothing glorious but thee.
Exhaled out of ail frailty, out of this little tenement of flesh, so ephemeral, out of these hands and feet, which are and which are not – out of these eyes through which I look, on which I look – thou hast taken possession of earth and heaven – the Sun is thy right hand and the Moon thy left – In Thee all forms, of all I seek, are mine, and I in them attain at last to rest.
* * * *
From the accident of here and now, from this hill whence for a moment I overlook the fair garden of human life, from this few feet of human flesh which I inhabit; from these fierce desires which hem me in, these defects, these limitations, these mortal sufferings, this little creature dum, this brief imprisonment of life, I descend, I pass, I flow down, – (O strange, incredible transformation) I – I pass, I flow down, into the freedom of all times, into the latitude of all places.
* * * *
Behold! I acknowledge all my defects – you cannot snap the handcuffs faster on me than I snap them myself – I am vain, deceitful, cowardly – yet I escape. The handcuffs hold me not, out of my own hands draw myself as out of a glove, from behind the empty mass of my reputed qualities I depart, and am gone my way, unconcerned what I leave behind me. Into the high air which surrounds and sustains the world, breathing life, intoxicating with joy unutterable, radiant, as the winds of spring when the dead leaves fly before it – I depart and am gone my way.
O child, – are you worthy to follow and behold me? Leaving all – leaving all behind – caring no more for the world, for all your projects and purposes, than if you had been stunned by a blow on the head – leaving all to me, absolutely all to me. Then may be you shall see me.
* * * *
Could I but see thee once, or hope to see – one hair of thy head, one finger of thy hand, to hear one little word more from thy lips – it were more than all the worlds. But now the priests have got thee in their clutches; and already they wrap the sacred linen over thy head, thy features and thy hair they cover up, and round thy arms, thy fingers and thy hands, they wind and wind and wind the bands, and I shall see thee never more, sweet coz. And then they will paint thy likeness on the outer mummy case, and stand it by the wall, as if to mock me, throwing my arms around a lifeless shell, breaking my heart against it.
This is exactly what is being dealt out to the real Man. All ceremonies and conventionalities.
* * * *
The people want something tangible, palpable, material, gross, just like children, they cannot do without visible toys, being incapable of understanding the subtle Truth.
I accept you altogether – as the sea accepts the fish that swims in it. It is no good apologizing for anything you have done, for you have never been anywhere yet but what I have sustained you – and beyond my boundaries you cannot go.
* * * *
I am he that beholds and praises the universe, singing all day like a bird among the branches, and the haves put forth and the young buds burst asunder – yet I myself do nothing at all, but dwell in the midst of them singing.
* * * *
You cannot baulk me of my true life. Climbing over the barriers of pain – of my own weaknesses and sins – I escape. Where will you hold mc? by the feet, hands? – by my personal vanity? – would you shut me in the mirror-lined prison of self-consciousness?
* * * *
Behold! I love thee – I wait for thee in thine own garden, lingering till eventide among the bushes; I tune the lute for thee; I prepare my body for thee, bathing unseen in the limpid waters.
* * * *
Blessed art Thou whosoever from whose eyes the veil is lifted to see Me; blessed are thy mornings and evenings – blessed the hour when thou risest up, and again when thou liest down to sleep.
Who walks in the singleness of heart shall be my companion – I will reveal myself to him by ways that the learned understand not.
Though poor and ignorant, I will be his friend – I will swear faithfulness to him, passing my lips to his, and my hand to betwixt his thighs.
My Sun shines glorious in heaven, and my Moon to adorn the night; they are my right hand and my left hand – see you not Me between? Hark! my children sing – all day and night they are singing,
* * * *
Justice, justice, justice is nothing different from the law of Equality.
* * * *
Beware! For I am the storm; I care nought for your rights of property. I will make your riches a mockery.
The curse of property shall cling to thee; with burdened brow and heavy heart, weary, incapable of joy, without gaiety, thou shalt crawl a stranger in the land that I made for thy enjoyment. The smallest bird on thy estate shall sing in freedom in the branches – the plough boy shall whistle in the f furrow – but thou shalt be weary and lonely – forsaken and an alien among men.
For just inasmuch as thou hast shut thyself off from one of the least of these my children, thou hast shut thyself off from Me. I, the lord Demos, have spoken it – and the mountains are my throne.
There is no peace except where I am: though you have health – that which is called health— yet without me it is only the fair covering of the disease.
* * * *
Him who is not detained by mortal adhesions, who walks in this world yet not of it – taking part in everything with equal mind, with free limbs and senses unentangled – giving all accepting all, using all, enjoying all, asking nothing, shocked at nothing – whom love follows everywhere, but he follows not it – Him all creatures worship – all men and women bless.
Love is a disease if it impairs the freedom of the soul. Make it thy slave, and all the miracles of Nature shall lie in the palm of thy hand.
Let not desire and love tear and rend thee,
Slowly and resolutely – as a fly cleanses its legs of the honey in which it has been caught, so remove thou, if it only be for a time, every particle which sullies the brightness of thy mind.
Return into thyself – content to give, but asking no one, asking nothing.
* * * *
When thy body – as needs must happen at times – is carried along on the wind of passion, say not thou “I desire this or that”; for the “I” neither desires nor fears anything, but is free and in everlasting glory, dwelling in heaven and pouring out joy like the Sun on all sides. For as a light-house beam sweeps with incredible speed over sea and land, yet the lamp itself moves not at all; so while thy body of desire is (and must be by the law of its nature) incessantly in motion in the world of suffering, the “I” high up above is fixed in heaven.
You cannot violate the Law of Equality for long.
Whatever you appropriate to yourself now from others, by that you will be poorer in the end.
If you think yourself superior to the rest, in that instant you have proclaimed your own inferiority.
* * * *
Seek not your own life,— for that is death.
But seek how you can best and most joyfully give your own life away – and every morning forever fresh life will come to you from over the hills,
* * * *
Man has to learn to die – quite simply and naturally as the child has to learn to walk.
* * * *
You cannot run against the Law of Equality, you cannot cheat Nature, you cannot defeat Truth – the water will not run uphill for all your labours and lying awake over it at night. The claims of others as good as yours, their life as near and dear to you as your own can be,
So letting go all the chains which bound you – all the anxieties and cares – the wearisome burden – the artificial unyielding armour wherewith you would secure yourself, but which only weighs you down a more helpless mark for the enemy – having learnt the necessary lesson- of your own identity – to pass out – free – O joy! Free to flow down, to swim in the sea of Equality – to endure the bodies of the divine companions, and the life which is eternal.
To Thine Own Self be True, not by running out of yourself, after it comes the love which lasts. If to gain another’s love you are untrue to yourself, then are you untrue to the person whose love you would gain. Him or her whom you seek will you never find that way – and what pleasure you have with them will only end in pain.
* * * *
Be steadfast like a light. Let the moths come and be consumed in you.
Abandon Hope All Ye that Enter Here. To die – for this into the world you came.
No more beating about in the dark round the; walls of one’s prison and never hitting the secret door of exit. Begin today to walk the path of Equality which alone is gain. In the sunshine, as the sunshine, calm, contented and blessed, envying no one, railing not, re-pining not.
* * * *
Do you wish to become beautiful? You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones; not by multiplying knowledge shall you beautify your mind; it is not the food that you eat that has to vivify you, but you that have to vivify the food.
* * * *
A soldier who is going to campaign does not seek what fresh furniture he can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind. So if thou seekest fame or ease or pleasure or aught for thyself, the image of that thing which thou seekest will come and cling to thee and thou wilt have to carry it about – and the images and powers which thou hast thus evoked will gather round and form for thee a new body – clamouring for sustenance and satisfaction – Beware then lest it become thy grave and thy prison – instead of thy winged abode and a palace of joy.
For (over and over again) there is nothing that is evil except because a man has not mastery over it; and there is no good thing that is not evil if it have mastery over a man.
But now through pain and suffering out of this tomb, shalt thou come.
Lo! The prison walls must fall, even though the prisoner tremble.
* * * *
Set well thy house in order, open thy doors, let them stand wide for all to enter – thy treasures, let the poorest take of them: then come thou forth to where I wait for thee.
And so at last I saw Satan appear before me – magnificent, fully formed. Feet first, with shining limbs, he glanced down from amongst the bushes; and stood there erect; dark-skinned, with nostrils dilated with passion. ” Come out,” he said with a taunt, ” Art thou afraid to meet me?” And I answered not, but sprang upon him and smote him; and he smote me a thousand times, and brushed and scorched and slew me as with hands of flame; and I was glad, for my body lay there dead; and I sprang upon him again with another body; and he turned upon me, and smote me a thousand times and slew that body; and I was glad and sprang upon him again with another body – and with another and another and again another; and the bodies which I took on yielded before him, and were like cinctures of flame upon me, but I flung them aside; and the pains which I endured in one body were powers which I wielded in the next; and I grew in strength, till at last I stood before him complete, with a body like his own and equal in might – exultant, in pride and joy. Then he ceased and said “I love thee”. And lo! His form changed, and he leaned backwards and drew me upon him, and bore me up into the air, and floated me over the topmost trees and the ocean, and round the curve of the earth under the Moon – till we stood again in Paradise.
Tilleinathan Swami: It was a common apparently instinctive practice with him to speak of the great operations of Nature, the thunder, the wind, the shining of the Sun etc., in the first person, “I” – the identification with or non-differentiation from the Universe being complete. He would take a Pariah dog and place it round his neck (compare the pictures of Christ with a lamb in the same attitude) or even let it eat out of the plate with himself!
Sakshatkar (realization). The question is not to define the fact for we cannot do that but to get at and experience it.
* * * *
Krishna was an avatar in being libertine:— (To Me are all alike, whosoever loves Me the most gets most of Me, like the Ganges or the Sun.)
Asking for the things absent means ungratefulness for the blessings which you already enjoy. Have you not so beautiful waters, delicious landscapes and sweet airs to be thankful for? Enjoy them, let not your mind run out for things beyond control.