Thanks for Sharing the Flame

Happy Thanksgiving!

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." ~Albert Schweitzer

Heye

School for the Enlightened

I do not know how an enlightened person is supposed to behave.

I guess the best an enlightened person can do is to be natural. Any forced change in personality is like putting on yet another mask.

An enlightened person can continue to improve themselves, though.

I do not think "enlightened" means "perfect".

Enlightened people still go to Life's school. Maybe they just advanced to a new grade.

Hidden Meaning

a lot of love songs are really Love songs

My Lesson

Humility, or being humble, is the defining characteristic of an unpretentious and modest person, someone who does not think that he or she is better or more important than others.

From Wikipedia

Whoa....

I feel peace.
I feel tingliness.
No drugs required.

tingles

tingles

waves of tingles

what is this?

I haven't felt this calm in years. (Have I ever felt this calm?)

Dream Date November 22, 2008

I was laying unclothed and on my back on white sheets in a bed. There was a man laying unclothed on his back on top of me. On top of him was an unclothed baby laying on its back. We were all entangled in white sheets. There was a sense of purity. In my head I started to feel as if something or someone was coming. I was saying, in my head, "Something is coming, something IS COMING," and then in real life the phone rang and awakened me.

To the Presence

I have not done the work
But still You give me the gift

Thank you

I will live the rest of my life
With You in my heart

So I Feel, Truly....

I am ready to put-in effort, now.

Ubiquitousness

Sometimes lately it seems as if different people are really all the same person.

Another Poor Man's/Woman's Philanthropy Idea

I've been saving Coke rewards lids and have been entering them into my account on their website. I saw today that points can be donated to Toys for Tots. So, if you drink any Coke, look for the bottles with the red lids or boxes of cans with the points on them. You can enter these online at the Coke rewards web page. If you don't feel like typing all of them in, you can send the lids to me in the mail and I'll enter them here.

If you want to do it on your own and need help getting started, let me know and I can help show you where to go on their site to donate your points.

I Have Something for You

I have one gift card here for a Blockbuster movie rental. We rent our movies through Netflix so really I have no need for it. If any of you live near a Blockbuster store, comment on this post or send me an email. The first person to claim dibs on it can have it. I'll send it in the mail. It expires December 31, 2008 so please be sure to use it before then.

Please, someone claim this!

Tuva

I've been listening to various Tuvan throat singing music for over an hour, now. I lost myself, even saw a vivid vision of a horse.

This feels like an important discovery to me.

Huun-Huur-Tu

Huun-Huur-Tu does things to me that I can't describe. It stimulates me, makes me feel as though I were expanding, as though I were no longer within the confines of my skin. I feel a vibration within.

If you have high-speed Internet, watch this video. I want to know what you feel. If you feel nothing, I want to know that, too.





I LOVE these guys!!!

And, Kongar-ol Ondar:



This is insanely cool:

On Loan

Swami insulted Sophia, she reacted.

Someone praised Sophia, she felt pride.

I pray for humility.

"If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know who you are." - Mother Teresa

Any specialness I have I have borrowed from the same source from which others may borrow theirs.

Especially difficult and paradoxical is trying not to be proud for being humble.

By Now You Know I'm Strange

I am so full of love right now that I think I might explode or erupt like a volcano.

I am not manic, though by these words one might assume I am, and it's true, I am labeled "bipolar", but no one can visibly see everything that is moving around inside of me. I appear calm, quiet. I'm sitting still yet inside there is a loud party going on. It's a big celebration. I'm celebrating the burning, the desire, the hunger, the love.

I feel so much HUNGER to know things. There are so many PATHS for me to take, on which I may find words to describe what this is, more labels. I am overwhelmed with curiosity to know more about THIS. I want to LEARN and I want to GROW, and I wish I could shout out to the world, "Hey, you should try THIS flavor of ice cream!"

Is there anyone out there that is blissed out about what is?

Is there anyone out there that is obsessed, like I am obsessed?

I am delighted to be suffering. I am a masochist!

It is called MONOMANIA. Check this out: Monomania = Mono-mania. Mono = ONE.
-----

I just had to get that out. It reads like the words of insanity. A few years ago, before I became a "seeker", if I had read these words on someone else's blog I would have thought, "This person is a little strange."

I know I'm strange, but I have a Friend. Others are too normal to notice their Friend. Maybe by letting a little strangeness into their lives they'll see they're not alone.

We're all mutual Friends.

The Golden Sufi Center

The Golden Sufi Center and the Teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee have put some nice texts and information on the Internet. I discovered some of the books recently on Google Books and what is written seems to resonate with me very strongly. There are so many beautiful things to read in these books that it is like Christmas for me to have them all here on the Internet. If you are interested in reading some of these books yourself, the pdf files are generously available for download on this page: http://www.goldensufi.org/books.html You can also buy a hard copy which might be more convenient to read, but if you're poor like me the pdf files are just right.

For a few years I have been looking for the right Teacher to work with me. The things I want to learn might be within the pages of these books.

Now I Bow Before You, My Life is Yours

There is a spark that lives within me.
Sometimes I can feel it and sometimes I can't.
I want the spark to turn into fire
So that I can burn until
All that is left is You

---------

I AM a free woman.
I AM free to be devoted to the multiverse, beyond and in between
I AM free to be devoted to You, to Man
Devoted to Ideal, to Creature, to Teacher
I AM free to burn with the fire of Love
Free to suffer the yearning for Truth
I AM free to walk the Way
Free to search for the Key to Mystery
Free to wish for Growth and Enlightenment
In Myself and in Others
I AM free to belong to You.

-------

Every day, I forget to pray
But now I type my prayer
Using the keyboard
I pray for self-control
I pray for discipline
I pray for humility
I pray for patience

-------

When I was a child
I would say, at night:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
The truth is,
I have been sleeping for far too long.
I wish to wake before I die.

Intimate and Impersonal

The following comes from a piece of Sufi literature but the idea is probably universal in any student/teacher relationship:

An "important element of the Sufi path is
the relationship with the teacher. Sadly the relationship
of teacher and disciple is often misunderstood in the
West, causing much pain and confusion. In our Western
tradition we do not have a model for the relationship
with a spiritual teacher; it is not a part of our cultural
context, as for example it is in India. Also in the West we
have a tendency to personalize every relationship, illustrated
by the way, in America, we tend to address
everyone by his first name. Furthermore, the closer we
feel, the more love we feel for someone, the more personal
we want to make this relationship. The relationship
with the teacher is both intimate and impersonal.
These two qualities can appear irreconcilable opposites,
until we realize that this relationship belongs to the
level of the soul, not the personality.

The Sufi says that you need a teacher, you need a
guide. In the words of Rûmî, “Whoever travels without
a guide needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.”
The teacher is like a ferryman to take you from
the world of the ego to the dimension of the Self, and
as the Sufi Abû Sa‘id simply stated, “It is easier to drag
along a mountain by a hair than to emerge from the
ego by oneself.” The teacher knows the inner potential
of the student and helps her to grow into it, to make the
journey to the farther shores of love. The teacher also
knows the pitfalls and dangers of the journey, and if it is
difficult to cross an unknown land or desert by oneself,
it is far more dangerous to journey into the depths
within oneself without a guide.

In the Sufi tradition, the teacher is traditionally
“without a face and without a name,” because it is the
teaching that matters, the guidance and not the guide.
However, for many wayfarers the difficulty arises due
to the importance and intimacy of this relationship.
For the sincere seeker the teacher is the most important
person in her life: without her teacher she would remain
stranded within her ego. At the beginning the
wayfarer cannot recognize how this relationship belongs
to the soul— that it is the soul that is guided, the soul
that makes the journey Home. The wayfarer sees the
teacher through the eyes of the ego, and through a conditioning
that understands close relationships only as
belonging to the personal sphere, as parents, siblings,
friends, lovers. Moreover, because the relationship with
the teacher happens within the heart, it carries a quality
of intimacy and unconditional love that can be almost
overwhelming. Thus the wayfarer only too easily projects
onto the teacher all of the personal patterns that have
been attached to parent-figures or lovers. Only much
later, usually after a painful process of detachment (often
accompanied by dreams of the teacher dying), does
she come to recognize the real nature of this relationship."

~Love is a Fire: The Sufi’s Mystical Journey Home, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

If anyone is interested in reading any of the wonderful texts of the Golden Sufi Center, please let me know and I can direct you to some free copies online.

I Belong to the Beloved

Himalaya

I saw this at the Foreign Film Festival in 2000. It became one of my favorites. (There are English subtitles.)

I Cannot Live Without You

I still soar when I hear this.

“We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.” ~Pablo Casals

Fusion

An old friend of mine once turned me on to Waterbone.

"“August Moon,” includes a Nepali woman singing, who is “balanced” by a male Tibetan folk singer, making this track “one of the few pieces to combine this cross-cultural artistry.” The track uses electric beats and instrumentation. Notes say they thought the tracks wouldn’t be usable because the Nepali woman wouldn’t look the two American males in the eye."

The composers "“slowly found their way through the clouds, lifted their arms to the heavens and pulled down a symphony infused with the crystal chants of monks, the jubilant choruses of Nepali and Tibetan children singing their traditional hymns, and the honks and thumps of indigenous horns, drums, and flutes. The music here is the result of weeks interacting and recording the harmonic heartbeat of a place of pristine holiness and simple pleasures; the archway to the Himalayas.”"

No Matter Where I Go I Hear the Beating of Our One Heart

The One, The Only.

Requiem - Mozart

Something

I've Had Some Time

I took some time off the blog because I'd had some things to process. I'm still processing them and will probably do so for a long while. I've also been spending some time in the Spiritual Teachers Forum which is such a wonderful place where there are a number of people who are just amazing to "talk" with.

I'm overwhelmed with joy right now.

I am getting ready to respond to comments. If I don't watch a movie with my husband tonight then I'll get to them in just a little while. One of things that I find that adds to my joy is the connection I have with you here online.

Host to the Host

Last night I felt a presence.

To look for it with these eyes and yet realize that it is what is looking through these eyes is indeed a marvelous epiphany.

It is the air that is breathed and the lungs which breathe it.

Through Seeing It, It Sees Itself

"The eyes which regard God are also the eyes through which God regards the world." ~Traditional