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    TS CLOSE THE EYES GENTLY

     

     WINTER

     

    Now Winter is here ...

     

      

     

                    It is time for the Yunus Emre farm to close gently the eyes and go to sleep  for the coming winter ...

     

     

     

    Well this sleep will only be superficial ... works are on schedule so as to welcome you in the best way next year ... and besides a visit is always possible ..

     

     

     

    So we shall be back very soon with new Satyananda Yoga, Ecology and Permaculture programs ..

     

     

     

    Om shanti 

     

     

     

                


  • Taken From: "The Essential Rumi"
    Translated by: Coleman Barks


    ****
    Drink all your passion,
    and be a disgrace.

    Close both eyes
    to see with the other eye.

    Open your hands,
    if you want to be held.

    Sit down in this circle.

    ***
    Be empty of worrying.
    Think of who created thought!

    Why do you stay in prison
    when the door is so wide open?

    Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
    Live in silence

    ***
    The children follow,
    not knowing the taste of wine, or how
    his drunkness feels. All people on this planet
    are children, except for a very few.
    No one is grown up except those

    free of desire.

    ***

    If you haven't left child's play,
    how can you be an adult?
    Without purity of spirit,
    if you are still in the middle of lust and greed
    and other wantings, you're like children
    playing at sexual intercourse.
    They wrestle
    and rub together, but it's not sex!
    The same with the fightings of mankind.
    It's a squabble with play-swords.
    No purpose, totally futile.

     

    ***
    Your actions mean nothing, the sex and war that you
    do.


    ***


    ***

    Experience that breathing.
    From books and words come fantasy,
    and sometimes, from fantasy comes union.

    ***

    Gone, inner and outer,
    no moon, no ground or sky.

    ***
    The wine we really drink is our own blood.
    Our bodies ferment in these barrels.
    We give everything for a glass of this.
    We give our minds for a sip.

    ***

    There are thousands of wines
    that can take over our minds.

    Don't think all ecstasies
    are the same!

    ***

    Every object, every being,
    is a jar full of delight.

    Be a connoisseur,
    and taste with caution.

    Any wine will get you high.
    Judge like a king, and choose the purest.

    ***

    Thirst drove me down to the water
    where I drank the moon's reflection.

    ***

    First, when I was apart from you,
    this world did not exist,
    nor any other.

    Second, whatever I was looking for
    was always you.

    Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?


    ***

     

     

    ***

    This is the schema of slavery and mastery
    dancing together. This is not being.

    Neither words, nor any natural fact
    can express this.

    ***

    Sometimes organization
    and computation become absurd.

    ***

    Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
    no light and no land anywhere,
    cloudcover thick. I try to stay
    just above the surface, yet I'm already under
    and living within the ocean.


    ***


    Be melting snow.
    Wash yourself of yourself.

    ***

    The body is a device to calculate
    the astronomy of the spirit.
    Look through that astrolabe
    and become oceanic.

    ***

    You kiss a beautiful mouth, and a key
    turns the lock of your fear.

    ***

    The friend comes into my body
    looking for the center, unable
    to find it, draws a blade,
    strikes anywhere.

    ***

    Do you know what I'm doing?
    That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
    As much as a pen knows what it's writing,
    or the ball can guess where it's going next.
    ***

     

    ***


    "Since I was cut from the reedbed,
    I have made this crying sound.

    Anyone apart from someone he loves
    understands what I say.

    Anyone pulled from a source
    longs to go back.

    At any gathering I am there,
    mingling in the laughing and grieving,

    a friend to each, but few
    will hear the secrets hidden


    within the notes. No ears for that.
    Body flowing out of spirit,

    spirit up from body: no concealing
    that mixing. But it's not given us
    to see the soul. The reed flute
    is fire, not wind. Be that empty."

    ***

    I have a thirsty fish in me
    that can never find enough
    of what it's thirsty for!

    ***

    What hurts you, blesses you.
    Darkness is your candle.
    Your boundaries are your quest.

    I can explain this, but it would break
    the glass cover on your heart,
    and there's no fixing that.

    ***

    Are these enough words,
    or shall I squeeze more juice from this?
    Who am I, my friend?

    ***

    For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
    Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
    that work is over.

     

     

    Free of who I was, free of presence, free of
    dangerous fear, hope,
    free of mountainous wanting.

    The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece
    of straw
    blown off into emptiness.

    ***

    The mother and father are your attachment
    to beliefs and bloodties
    and desires and comforting habits.

    Don't listen to them!
    They seem to protect,
    but they imprison.

    They are your worst enemies.
    They make you afraid
    of living in emptiness.


    ***

    When you are with everyone but me,
    you're with no one.
    When you are with no one but me,
    you're with everyone

    Instead of being bound up with everyone,
    be everyone.
    When you become that many, you're nothing.
    Empty.


    ***

    A lover's food is the love of bread,
    not the bread. No one who really loves,
    loves existence.


    ***

    To an Egyptian, the Nile looks bloody.
    To an Israelite, clear.
    What is a highway to one is a disaster to the other

     


    ***

     

    Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
    Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

    or cultural system. I am not from the East
    or the West, not out of the ocean or up

    from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
    composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

    am not an entity in this world or the next,
    did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

    origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
    of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

    I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
    worlds as one and that one call to and know,

    first, last, outer, inner, only that
    breath breathing human being.


    ***

    Come to the orchid in Spring.
    There is light and wine, and sweethearts
    in the pomegranate flowers.

    If you do not come, these do not matter.
    If you do come, these do not matter.

    ***

    Who comes to a spring thirsty
    and sees the moon reflected in it?

    ***
    The rest of this poem is too blurry
    for them to read.

    ***


    What is form in the presence of reality?
    Very feeble. Reality keeps the sky turned over
    like a cup above us, revolving. Who turns
    the sky wheel? The universal intelligence.

    ***
    Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
    absentminded. Someone sober
    will worry about things going badly.
    Let the lover be.

    ***

     

    A night full of talking that hurts,
    my worst held-back secrets. Everything
    has to do with loving and not loving.
    This night will pass.
    Then we have work to do.

    ***

    Let yourself be silently drawn
    by the stronger pull of what you really love.

    ***

    How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.
    How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you.

    ***

    Pale sunlight,
    pale the wall.

    Love moves away.
    The light changes.

    I need more grace
    than I thought.

    ***

    We must drown, away from heroism,
    and descriptions of heroism.

    ***

    The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the
    question,
    nor is it bought with going to amazing places.

    Until you've kept your eyes
    and your wanting still for fifty years,
    you don't begin to cross over from confusion.

    ***

    What the sayer of praise is really praising is
    himself, by saying implicitly,
    "My eyes are clear."

    Likewise, someone who criticizes is criticizing
    himself, saying implicitly, "I can't see very well
    with my eyes so inflamed."

     

    Don't ever feel sorry for someone
    who wants to be the sun, that other son,
    the one that makes rotten things fresh.

    And don't ever envy someone
    who wants to be this world.

    ***

    Just because you can't drink all that falls
    doesn't mean you give up taking sips
    of rainwater. If the nut
    of the mystery can't be held,
    at least let me touch the shell.

    ***
    The rooster of lust, the peacock of wanting
    to be famous, the crow of ownership, and the duck
    of urgency, kill them and revive them
    in another form, changed and harmless.

    ***
    A true person is more calm and deliberate.
    He or she doesn't worry about interruptions.

    ***

    There's a hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.
    We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box
    is stuffed full of anything, no music.
    If the brain and the belly are burning clean
    with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the
    fire.
    The fog clears, and the new energy makes you
    run up the steps in front of you.

    ***
    When you're full of food and drink, an ugly metal
    statue sits where your spirit should. When you fast, good habits gather

    like friends who want to help.


    ***
    You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
    in the dark with eyes closed.
    Listen to the answer.
    There is no "other world."
    I only know what I've experienced.
    You must be hallucinating.


    ***
    "Just as you can't come close,
    I can't go out!"

    This is how animal energy becomes monstrous
    and ruins your life's freshness and beauty.

    ***

    That's why you see things in two ways.
    Sometimes you look at a person
    and see a cynical snake.

    Someone else sees a joyful lover,
    and you are both right!

    Everyone is half and half,
    like the black and white ox.

    ***

    Do you pay regular visits to yourself?
    Don't argue or answer rationally.

    Let us die,
    and dying, reply.



    ***

    Do you know
    what you are to me? During the day,
    you're my energy for working. At night,
    you're my deepest sleep.

    ***

    "Would you like one piece of silver now,
    O Lord of my spirit, or three at breakfast
    tomorrow morning?"
    The Sufi answered,
    "I love the half a coin already in my hand
    from yesterday more than the promise of a whole one
    today, or the promise of a hundred tomorrow.
    A sufi is the child of this moment."

     


    ***
    A hand shifts our birdcages around.
    Some are brought closer. Some move apart.
    Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious
    of who draws you and who not.

    ***


    Be tough, and strength will come.

    ***
    I'm through. Read the rest of this poem
    in the dark tonight.

    ***

    A certain person came to the Friend's door
    and knocked.
    "Who's there?"
    "It's me."


    The Friend answered, "Go away. There's no place
    for raw meat at this table."


    The individual went wandering for a year.
    Nothing but the fire of separation
    can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned
    completely cooked,
    walked up and down in front of the Friend's house,
    gently knocked.


    "Who is it?"


    "You."

    Please come in, my self,
    there's no place in this house for two.
    The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through
    the eye of the needle.
    It is a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end,
    not a big ego-beast with baggage."

    ***


    Every holy person seems to have a different doctrine
    and practice, but there's really only one work.

    ***
    "The one who keeps me in here is the one
    who keeps you out there.
    The same who will not let you in will not let me out."


    ***

    Then suddenly he leaned and whispered something
    in the second king's ear, and that second, that
    second king became a wanderer too.

     

    They walked out of town hand in hand.
    No royal belts, no thrones.

    This is what love does and continues to do.

    ***


    So they wandered around China like birds
    pecking at bits of grain. They rarely spoke
    because of the dangerous seriousness
    of the secret they knew.

    ***

    All that world-power wants, really,
    is this weakness.

    So the kings talked in low tones,
    and carefully. Only God knows what they said.

    They used unsayable words. Bird language.
    But some people have imitated them, learned
    a few birdcalls, and gotten prestigious.


    ***

    You are every image, and yet
    I'm homesick for you.

    ***

    Who sees inside from outside?
    Who finds hundreds of mysteries
    even where minds are deranged?

    See through his eyes what he sees.
    Who then is looking out from his eyes?

    ***
    Touch my skin so I can be myself.

    ***

    Most people guard against going into the fire,
    and so end up in it.

    ***


    Listen to presences inside poems,
    Let them take you where they will.

    Follow those private hints,
    and never leave the premises.

    ***


    Submit to a daily practice.
    Your loyalty to that
    is a ring on the door.

    Keep knocking, and the joy inside
    will eventually open a window
    and look out to see who's there.

    ***

    Come back, my friend! The form of our love
    is not created form.

    Nothing can help me but that beauty.
    There was a dawn I remember

    when my soul heard something
    from your soul. I drank water

    from your spring and felt
    the current take me.

    ***

    Advice doesn't help lovers!
    They're not the kind of mountain stream
    you can build a dam across.

    An intellectual doesn't know
    what the drunk is feeling!

    Don't try to figure
    what those lost inside love
    will do next!

    ***

    I saw you and became empty.
    This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
    it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
    existence thrives and creates more existence!

    ***

    ***

     

    To praise is to praise
    how one surrenders
    to the emptiness.

    ***

    We rarely hear the inward music,
    but we're all dancing to it nevertheless,


    ***


    When I am with you, we stay up all night.
    When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

    ***

    Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
    They're in each other all along.


    ***

    We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
    We are tasting the taste this minute
    of eternity. We are pain
    and what cures pain, both. We are
    the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

     


    ***


    I want to hold you close like a lute,
    so we can cry out with loving.

    ***

    Love is vanishing into the sky. The mind,
    for learning what men have done and tried to do.
    Mysteries are not to be solved. The eye goes blind
    when it only wants to see why.


    ***

    If the drinker
    has a deep gentleness in him,
    he will show that,
    when drunk.
    But if he has hidden anger and arrogance,

     

    those appear,
    and since most people do,
    wine is forbidden to everyone.

    ***

    On Resurrection Day your body testifies against you.
    Your hand says, "I stole money."
    Your lips, "I said meanness."
    Your feet, "I went where I shouldn't."
    Your genitals, "Me too."

    ***


    This place is a dream.
    Only a sleeper considers it real.

    Then death comes like dawn,
    and you wake up laughing
    at what you thought was your grief.

    ***

    We began
    as a mineral. We emerged into plant life
    and into the animal state, and then into being human,
    and always we have forgotten our former states,
    except in early spring when we slightly recall
    being green again.


    ***

    Your bodily soul wants comforting.
    The severe father wants spiritual clarity.

    He scolds but eventually
    leads you into the open.

    Pray for a tough instructor
    to hear and act and stay with you.

    ***

    In your light I learn how to love.
    In your beauty, how to make poems.
    You dance inside my chest,
    where no one sees you,

    but sometimes I do,
    and that sight becomes this art.

    ***

    When the ocean surges,
    don't let me just hear it.
    Let it splash inside my chest!

    ***

    I am filled with you.
    Skin, blood, bone, brain, soul.
    There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
    Nothing in this existence but that existence.


    ***


    Give the beautiful ones mirrors,
    and let them fall in love with themselves.

    That way they polish their souls
    and kindle remembering in others.

    ***

    There is nothing worse
    than thinking you are well enough.
    More than anything, self-complacency
    blocks the workmanship.

    ***

    You've seen a herd of goats
    going down to the water.

    The lame and dreamy goat
    brings up the rear.
    There are worried faces about that one,
    but now they're laughing,

    because look, as they return,
    that goat is leading!

    There are many different kinds of knowing.
    The lame goat's kind is a branch
    that traces back to the roots of presence.


    Learn from the lame goat,
    and lead the herd home.

     


    ***

     

    Your intelligence is always with you,
    overseeing your body, even though
    you may not be aware of its work.

    If you start doing something against
    your health, your intelligence
    will eventually scold you.

    ***
    The movement of your finger
    is not separate from your finger.

    ***

    Give your weakness
    to the one who helps.

    ***

     

    It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship.
    It's the worshippers! I don't hear the words
    they say. I look inside at the humility.

    ***

    If the beloved is everywhere,
    the lover is a veil,

    but when living itself becomes
    the Friend, lovers disappear.

    ***

    A story is like a water
    that you heat for your bath.

    It takes messages between the fire
    and your skin. It lets them meet,
    and it cleans you!

    ***

    There are two types on the path. Those who come
    against their will, the blindly religious people, and
    those
    who obey out of love. The former have ulterior
    motives.
    They want the midwife near, because she gives them
    milk.

     

    The others love the beauty of the nurse.

    The former memorize the prooftexts of conformity,
    and repeat them. The latter disappear
    into whatever draws them to God.

    Both are drawn from the source.
    Any movings from the mover.
    Any love from the beloved.


    ***

    Friends are enemies sometimes,
    and enemies friends.

    ***

     

    There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
    as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
    from books and from what the teacher says,
    collecting information from the traditional sciences
    as well as the new sciences.

    With such intelligence you rise in the world.
    You get ranked ahead or behind others
    in regard to your competence in retaining
    information.

    You stroll with this intelligence
    in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
    marks on your preserving tablets.


    There is another kind of tablet, one
    already completed and preserved inside you.
    A spring overflowing its springbox.

    A freshness
    in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
    does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
    and it doesn't move from

    outside to inside
    through the conduits of plumbing-learning.


    This second knowing is a fountainhead
    from within you, moving out.

    ***


    ***

     

    With great speed they joined each other.
    When bodies blend in copulation,
    spirits also merge.

    ***


    Theologians mumble, rumble-dumble,
    necessity and free will,
    while lover and beloved
    pull themselves
    into each other.

    ***

    Someone who has heard about ecstatic love,
    but never tasted it, disrupts the banquet.

    ***

    the way you make love is the way
    God will be with you.


    ***

     

    Tell her, one surrendering bow is sweeter
    than a hundred empires, is itself a kingdom.

    ***

    You could be moving in a circuit without wing,
    nourished without eating, sovereign without a throne.


    No longer subject to fortune, you could be luck
    itself,



    if you would rise from sleep, leave
    the market arguing, and learn that
    your own essence is your wealth.

    ***

    Gamble everything for love,
    if you're a true human being.

    If not, leave
    this gathering.


    ***

    ***

     

    Muhammad says,
    "Love of one's country
    is a part of the faith."
    But don't take that literally!
    Your real "country" is where you're heading,
    not where you are.
    Don't misread that hadith.

    ***

    Don't regret what's happened. If it's in the past,
    let it go. Don't even remember it!

    ***

    The net, of course, finally closed
    around him, and as he lay in the terrible
    frying-pan bed, he thought,
    "If I get out of this,
    I'll never live again in the limits of a lake.
    Next time, the ocean! I'll make
    the infinite my home."

    Inside me a hundred beings
    are putting their fingers to their lips and saying,
    "That's enough for now. Shhhhh." Silence
    is an ocean. Speech is a river


    ***


    All our lives we've looked
    into each other's faces.
    That was the case today too.


    How do we keep our love-secret?
    We speak from brow to brow
    and hear with our eyes.

    ***

    I will search for the Friend with all my passion
    and all my energy, until I learn
    that I don't need to search.

    ***

    But knowing depends
    on the time spent looking!

    ***

    ***

     

    You fear losing some eminent position.
    You hope to gain something from that, but it comes
    from elsewhere. Existence does this switching trick,
    giving you hope from one source, then
    satisfaction from another.
    It keeps you bewildered
    and wondering, and lets your trust in the unseen grow.

    ***

    Those who inherit
    wealth don't know what work it took to get it.

    ***

    Nightingales are put in cages
    because their songs give pleasure.
    Whoever heard of keeping a crow?

    ***

    When light returns to its source,
    it takes nothing
    of what it has illuminated.

    ***
    The wine God loves
    is human honesty.

    ***


    "Dalqak, say what it is!"

    "I was far from the court when I heard
    that you needed a courier, someone who could go
    to Samarcand and come back in five days."
    "Yes!"


    "I hurried here to tell you
    that I will not be able to do it."
    "What!"
    "I don't have the stamina or the agility.
    Don't expect me to be the one."


    ***



    ***

     

    With deceptive people, cover the jar, and shield it.
    But be calm with those in duality.
    Speak sweetly and reasonably.
    Patience polishes and purifies.

    ***

    The snake is your animal-soul. When you bring it
    into the hot air of your wanting-energy, warmed
    by that and by the prospect of power and wealth,
    it does massive damage.
    Leave it in the snow mountains.
    Don't expect to oppose it with quietness
    and sweetness and wishing.

    ***

    I am a cow, or thistles for camels
    to browse on. People who insult me
    are only polishing the mirror.

    ***

    Learn from Ali how to fight
    without your ego participating.

    God's lion did nothing
    that didn't originate
    from his deep center.

    Once in a battle he got the best of a certain night
    and quickly drew his swords. The man,
    helpless on the ground, spat
    in Ali's face. Ali dropped his sword,
    relaxed, and helped the man to his feet.


    "Why have you spared me?

    How has lightning contracted back
    into its cloud? Speak, my prince,
    so that my soul can begin to stir
    in me like an embryo."

    Ali was quiet and then finally answered,
    "I am God's Lion, not the lion of passion.
    The sun is my lord. I have no longing
    except for the One.


    When a wind of personal reaction comes,
    I do not go along with it.

     

    There are many winds full of anger,
    and lust and greed. They move the rubbish
    around, but the solid mountain of our true nature
    stays where it's always been.


    There is nothing now
    except the divine qualities.
    Come through the opening in me.

    Your impudence was better than any reverence,
    because in this moment I am you and you are me.

    I give you this opened heart as God gives gifts:
    the poison of your spit has become
    the honey of friendship."


    ***

    Earth-love, spirit-love, any love
    looks into that yonder, and whatever I try to say
    explaining love is embarrassing!
    Some commentary
    clarifies, but with love silence is clearer.
    A pen went scribbling along, but when it tried
    to write love, it broke.
    If you want to expound on love,
    take your intellect out and let it lie down
    in the mud. It's no help.


    ***

    Any love based on physical beauty
    is not love.


    ***

     

    When someone does not feel grateful
    to that, the forms appear to be as he feels.
    They mirror his anger, his greed, and his fear.
    Make peace with the universe.

    Take joy in it.

    ***

    Your intellect is in fragments, like bits of gold
    scattered over many matters. You must scrape them together, so the royal stamp can be pressed into you.

    ***

    "Water! There! There!" It's that There!
    that keeps him asleep. In the future, in the distance,
    those are illusions. Taste the here and the now of
    God.

    This present thirst is your real intelligence,
    not the back-and-forth, merciful brightness.
    Discursiveness dies and gets put in the grave.

    This contemplative joy does not.
    Scholarly knowledge is a vertigo,
    an exhausted famousness.


    Listening is better.

    ***

    What goes comes back. Come back.
    We never left each other.

    ***

    With company you quicken you ascent.

    You may be happy enough going along,
    but with others you'll get farther, faster.

    ***

    Stay together, friends
    Don't scatter and sleep.

    Our friendship is made
    of being awake.


    ***

     

     

    Much of our thought is of the past, or the future.
    They're free of those. Before a mine is dug,
    they judge coins. Before vineyards,
    they know the excitements to come.

    In July they feel December.

     


    ***

    ***

     

    The Prophet Muhammad said,
    "There is no better companion
    on this way than what you do. Your actions will be
    your best friend, or if you are cruel and selfish,
    your actions will be a poisonous snake
    that lives in your grave."


    But tell me,
    can you do the good work without a teacher?
    Can you even know what it is without the presence
    of a Master? Notice how the lowest livelihood
    requires some instruction.
    First comes knowledge,
    then the doing of the job. And much later,
    perhaps after you're dead, something grows
    from what you've done.


    Look for help and guidance
    in whatever craft you're learning. Look for a generous
    teacher, one who has absorbed the tradition he's in.


    ***

    Don't feed both sides of yourself equally.
    The spirit and the body carry different loads
    and require different attentions.
    Too often
    we put saddlebags on Jesus and let the donkey
    run loose in the pasture.

     


    Don't make the body do
    what the spirit does best, and don't put a big load
    on the spirit that the body could carry easily.

    ***

     

    Look how the caravan of civilization
    has been ambushed.
    Fools are everywhere in charge.
    Do not practice solitude like Jesus. Be in
    the assembly,
    and take charge of it.

    ***


    ***

     

    Deliberation is one of the qualities of God.
    Throw a dog a bit of something.
    He sniffs to see if he wants it.


    Be that careful.
    Sniff with your wisdom-nose.
    Get clear. Then decide.

    ***

    We are the night ocean filled
    with glints of light. We are the space
    between the fish and the moon,
    while we sit here together.


    ***

    Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands,
    or your own genuine solitude?
    Freedom, or power over an entire nation?


    A little while alone in your room
    will prove more valuable than anything else
    that could ever be given to you.

    ***

    This we have now
    is not imagination.

    This is not
    grief or joy.

    Not a judging state,
    or an elation,
    or sadness.

    Those come
    and go.

    This is the presence
    that doesn't.


    ***

     

     

     

    ***

     

    This
    that we are now
    created the body, cell by cell,
    like bees building a honeycomb.

     

    The human body and the universe
    grew from this, not this
    from the universe and human body.

    ***

    I walk into a huge pasture.
    I nurse the milk of millennia.

     


    Everyone does this in different ways.
    Knowing that conscious decisions
    and personal memory
    are much too small place to live,
    every human being streams at night
    in the loving nowhere, or during the day,
    in some absorbing work.

    ***

    A secret turning in us
    makes the universe turn.
    Head unaware of feet,
    and feet head. Neither cares.
    They keep turning.


    ***

    Walk to the well.
    Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
    circling what they love.
    Whatever circles comes from the center.


    ***

    No better love than love with no object,
    no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

     

     



    If you could give up tricks and cleverness,
    that would be the cleverest trick!

    ***

     

    Real value comes with madness,
    matzub below, scientist above.

    Whoever finds love
    beneath hurt and grief

    disappears in to emptiness
    with a thousand new disguises.


    ***


    Dance, when you're broken open.


    Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.


    Dance in the middle of the fighting.


    Dance in your blood.


    Dance, when you're perfectly free.



    *** end ................but no end ..........................................


  • What are these 18 "ities" ?


    They are 18 qualities or virtues to be cultivated in the garden of our mind. 

    Because in yoga we can imagine that our mind is like a garden; for most of us we dont know what is in this garden, and what we oftenly see are the so-called bad sides of it. And if we try to eradicate those "bad sides" then we fail because we dont konw how to do it. 

    Actually those "bad sides" of our mind are like the weeds in the garden: the more we try to weed them the stronger they grow ! 

    That is why instead of trying to get rid of our weeds, we are going to PLANT GOOD SEEDS, BEAUTIFTUL FLOWERS AND PLANTS , and in the course of time and patience one day there will be no weed anymore. All will have been replaced by wonderful colorful brillant flowers. 

    And in fact our mind is same a this garden. 

    The 18 "ities" are 18 seeds of beautiful plants and flowers. 

    Up to us to plant them, nurture them, look after them, to ultimately become a real Human being. 

    That is the advise of Sri Swami Sivananda to all spiritual aspirants. 

    Each month we can take up one "ity", and work on it. 

    Like this we will learn a lot about ourselves, about out moods, mind, characters, and we will see ourselves evolve in the course of time. 

    Thus here they are :   

     

    1. serenity  

     

    Isn't it difficult to be serene all time ? 

    In fact what does it mean .. to be "serene"? 

    Actually as long as we are identified with ego and its multi-faces .. we cannot live in serenity.. no way 

    But if we manage to be in union, in harmony with Atma, the soul, if we have this inner connection with our true being, then everything changes and whatever happens outside we stay in serenity inside. 

    So if we work with serenity during one month, observing the situations which trigger the lost of serenity, observing how sensitive we are to such and such event etc .. then we learn about our functionning and with time, patience and love, we may manage to establish in serenity. 

      

    2. regularity

    According to the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, regularity is one of the most important factor of the yoga practice.

    Abhyasa: constant, regular practice which extands over a long period of time.

    Only through abhyasa will the sadhana give fruits.

    In addition, regular practices shows a stable and positive mind.  

    3. absence of vanity 

    Being neither over-confident, nor under-confident, actually having no vanity means simply being what we really are, which is not that easy however...  

    4. sincerity 

    At first we should be sincere to ourselves. Then we should be sincere to those who are sincere with us.

    Here again, being sincere meaning following the inner nature, not the conditionned mind...  

    5. simplicity 

    Without trying to “show”, just be yourself.

      

      

    6. veracity 

    Sister of sincerity, following our inner truth, being true to ourselves is the utmost condition to feel at peace inside.

     

    In the last 4 ities – absence of vanity, sincerity, simplicity, veracity – we find a common idea :

    Being just what we really are.

    Is it so difficult?

    Yes.

    Why ?

    This is what we shall discover when we work with the ities.

    The situations in which we are ..more complicated than we thought .. and why ?

    The situations where we actually “show” .. whereas it is absolutely unnecessary .. so why ?

    The situations where it is so difficult to be really sincere... why ?

    Why is it so difficult to be just what i am ?

    The work with the ities brings light, remove the darkness which lies inside, thus allows us to become what we are. 

    7. equanimity 

    Equanimity means to remain centered whatever happens, whatever the color of the experience, be it of pain or happiness.

    Again to reach the state of equanimity the main point is to be connected with our inner nature, which knows neither temporary pain nor temporary happiness, but permanent contentement, bliss. 

    8. fixity 

    Fixity is the ability of the mind to stay focused on its goal, be it short term or long term goal.

    In the todays world where millions of information fly from people to people in less than a second, where thousands of attractions of all sorts tend to grasp our minds and senses wherever we go whatever we do, fixity is very hard to maintain unless it is regularily cultivated with strong determination. Sankalpa is a very powerful tool to help cultivate fixity. And of course techniques of meditation. Learning the functionning of the mind is the only way to manage its control... 

    9. non irritability 

    What irritates me? Why does this man/woman irritates me ? why does this situation gets on my nerves suddenly?

    Lets work one months with “non irritability” and learn about ourselves.. so as to become as tranquille as a calm lake in the mountains.

    10. adaptability

    This is the quality of understanding well the nature of people with whom we come into contact and ajust our mode of approach to them, so as to be pleasing to them. In the spirit of Serving and Loving, accepting others as they are.

    This applies to our actions as well as our speech and thoughts.

    Additionnaly adaptability is also the quality to acquire so as to remain in “equanimity” whatever happens in our life.

    If we see life as a boat and our journey in life as a travel in this boat, well when wind blows and the sea becomes more agitated and storm comes then the boat becomes to move in all directions...

    If WE inside the boat, stay rigide then most probably the next coming wave will just push us into the sea ...

    Whereas if we are flexible, ajust and adapt our body to the moving boat in the storm, then we are more likely to stay serene into the boat, cross the storm and continue the journey at peace...

    11. humility:

    respect everybody, considere none as inferior to you” are the words of Sri Swami Sivananda.

    consideration is the key to respect and respect is the key to humility” are the words of Swami Niranjananda.

    We should remember that humility is the very quality of our true nature.

    Only ego wants to play bigger roles, show other faces, feel superior or whatsoever ...

    Connect to humility and you will feel your true nature... simple and beautiful.                               

    12. tenacity

    Sri Swami Sivananda:

    “This is the natural friend of fixity.

    Once you have fixed your aim and chosen your path, stick to it, do not waver, be steadfast.

    Never compromise your fundamental principles.”

    Tenacity goes with fixity and determination, and again sankalpa helps maintain the goal and meditation techniques will greately help to discover the mind tricks and manage them.

    13. integrity:

    “Develop an integral personality, tie the loose ends of your character” says Sri Swami Sivananda.

    Our acts should be the reflection of our thoughts and inner feelings.

    As Swami Niranjan says:

    “Yoga brings harmony between hands, head, and heart”

    Once this harmony, this union is achieved there is integrity, hands (body), head (mind) and heart (souls) are together dancing the dance of life.

    Yet non- integrity makes us live a life which is not in agreement with our inner wishes, inner inclinations.. and thus creates imbalance leading often to disease...

    14. nobility:

    “Never look into the defects of others, always appreciate the good qualities of everyone.

    Never stoop into ignoble thoughts, words or actions. Be dignified in bearing.”

    By doing so not only we keep the contact with our inner soul, our inner nature, but also we awaken this energy in others, we awaken positivity in others and create good energy which will benefit to others.

    15. magnanimity:

    Keeping the connection to the goal, and having high goal.

    Avoiding silly talks and childish prattles, not letting the mind dwell on little and insignificant things.

    Taking a broad view of things and ignoring the faults of others.

    Being great and noble- minded in whatever we do. 

    16. charity 

    “Give, give and give. This is the secret of abundance. Radiate thoughts of goodness and love. Forgive the faults of others. Bless the man who injures you. Share what you have with others. Disseminate spiritual knowledge to one and all. Use the material wealth, knowledge and spiritual wisdom that you possess as a divine trust.” Sri Swami Sivananda

    17. generosity 

    In whatever you give be liberal. Have a large heart. Do not be miserly. Take delight in the joy of others, in making them happy. Generosity is a sister-virtue of charity. It is the fulfilment of charity, magnanimity and nobility.

    18. purity 

    “Be pure at heart. Eradicate lust, anger and greed. Be pure in your thoughts. Think of the well-being of all. Be pure in your words; never utter harsh, unkind words. Be pure in body. Keep it clean and healthy. Let the dress and surroundings be clean. Observe the rules of physical, moral and spiritual hygiene.” Sri Swami Sivananda.

    Purity corresponds to the yama “saucha”.

    Again if we keep the connection to our inner nature which is connected to the whole thus to all around us, then purity becomes a must.

    If i am not clean in my own being, not only it brings negative energy to me but also it affects others negatively.

    Likewise,

    If i am clean in my own being, then it affects not only me but others and the whole positively.


    Hari om tat sat





  • THIS MANTRA IS CHANTED H24 IN MANY MANY ASHRAMS AND YOGA CENTER ALL AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE WELL BEING OF MANKIND MAHA MRİTYUN JAYA MANTRA - WE CHANT IT AT LEAST EVERY DAY IN THE YUNUS EMRE FARM , AND BEFORE EACH YOGA CLASS OR PRACTICE and even much more ... THE WORDS ARE SANSCRIT and the mantra is UNIVERSALY chanted by many spiritual traditions.

     

     

     MAHA MRITYUN JAYA MANTRA

           clic on the mantra to hear it.. fabulous version 1 hour 

    here same but shorter version with wonderful images and quotes from Dalai Lama  

      

                      OM TRAYAMBAKAM ॐ त्रयम्बकं

     

      

    Om Trayambakam
    Yacamahe sugandim puşti vardanam
    Urvaru kamiva bandhanat
    Mrityor mukşiya mamritat

      

     

    The literal meaning of the mantra is as follows: “We worship the three-eyed one (Lord Shiva) who is fragrant (in a state of supreme bliss), and who sustains all living beings. May he liberate us from (the eternal cycle of birth and) death. May he lead us to immortality, just as the cucumber is released from its bondage (the vine to which it is attached).”

     

    Benefits of chanting the Mahamrityunjaya mantra 

     

    The Mahamrityunjaya mantra is a potent combination of sounds that, if repeated with faith, dedication and perseverance over a period of time, leads, not only to victory over the fear of death, but eventually to victory over death itself or moksha (liberation). It is therefore known as a ‘moksha mantra’. It is stimulating and heating (unlike the Gayatri mantra, which is soothing and cooling). It bestows longevity, and is designed to cure illness. It wards off evil or negative forces by creating a protective psychic shield around the practitioner. It is said to destroy sorrow and poverty, and to fulfil all of one’s desires. Anyone who wishes to remove obstacles in life and overcome difficult situations or illness should repeat this mantra regularly. If chanted a minimum of eleven times, last thing at night, it will ensure a better sleep and more positive dreams.

    The vibrations of the mantra act directly on our psychic centres (CHACRAS) and re-organise the flow of PRANA ( energy of LIFE) thus bringing our body-mind-spirit in alignement with eachother which leads to better HEALTH at ALL levels.

    And if those chantings remind you "religious" chantings, please keep in mind two things :

    First, the yogic Tradition is far more ancient than any religion,

    Second, that we are here in the SPIRIT 's realm

    And Spirit has NO religion. Spirit know no boundary, no limit, no color...

    It does not mean that you should leave your religion if you have one, no! but simply that mantra chanting are not religious practices, but spiritual practices, with no limitations ...

    Om shanti

      

      


    • click on the Gayatri and listen ..om shanti  
    • AUM BHUR BHUWAH SWAHA,
      TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM
      BHARGO DEVASAYA DHIMAHI
      DHIYO YO NAHA PRACHODAYAT
    • *************************
    •   GAYATRI mantra is said to be the MOTHER of the VEDAs"
    •   
    • it bestows RIGHT KNOWLEDGE, INTUITION, CLARITY of MIND, VIVEKA, WISDOM and much more ..  The meaning of the Gayatri mantra is so large, huge that books could be written about it...
    • Even its origin is almost unknown...
    • But the important are neither its origine nor its meaning...
    •   The important is its VIBRATION,
    •   
    • In the whole world the GAYATRI mantra is sung for the benefit of all mankind, to bring peace, true knowledge, and wisdom into the world
    •                            om shanti
    • ***************************
    •   

      Translation of the words of GAYATRI MANTRA

       
    •  

      Oh God! Thou art the Giver of Life,
      Remover of pain and sorrow,
      The Bestower of happiness,
      Oh! Creator of the Universe,
      May we receive thy supreme sin-destroying light,
      May Thou guide our intellect in the right direction.

       
    •  

      ************************

       
    •  

        

       
    •  

      om shanti

       
    •  

        

       
    •