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....when we make it in our society and
then don't feel good inside-happy, at peace with ourselves- we are
confused...Disillusioned by the hollowness of success, some if us
sought a solution to our problems in other cultures, philosophies or
religions....I came to understand that I would have to approach my
inner being directly to find a lasting answer. Meditation has been the
best way to do this...There are innumerable meditative techniques.....
Our senses and thinking mind keep our
awareness aligned with the physical plane. But there are planes where
beings exist other than the physical.
There have been moments in your life
when you were pure awareness. No concepts, no thoughts like" I am
aware" or "That is a tree" or "Now I am meditating." Just pure
awareness. Openness. A spacious quality in your existence. Perhaps it
happened as you sat on a river bank and the sound of the river flowed
through you. Or as you walked on the beach when the sound washed away
your thinking mind until all that remained was the walking, the
feeling of your feet on the sand, the sound of the surf......For that
moment your image of yourself was lost in the gestalt, in the totality
of the moment. ...It was flowing - through you, around you, by you, in
you. At that moment you were the experience. You were the flow...the
moment in the fullness......
Your ego is a set of thoughts that
define your universe. Its like a familiar room built of thoughts; you
see the universe through its windows.
....Maybe getting people
politically activated requires fanning the flames of fear and urgency,
of moral outrage and the need to do something. Perhaps you and I just
opening to how it is in the universe, then doing whatever we see fit
about it, trusting one another to act in accordance with our deepest
truth, it not enough. But I don't believe that. If we must give up our
respect for one another's inner wisdom and coerce and manipulate one
another for the greater good, then it seems a rather hollow victory to
me.....Polarizing the world in to the good guys, then getting our
adrenaline rush from righteous indignation....fuel that feeds the
fear-and greed- driven economic policies that dominate the mind
connected to the hand that could push the button that would create the
nuclear conflagration?...
I have remembered Mohandas Gandhi and
Martin Luther King Jr., who opposed injustice, irrationality, and lack
of caring with firmness and confrontation. Yet they did so with open
hearts, with compassion that embraced all us poor, misguided mortals,
friend and foe alike. Gandhi said, "The British must be forced to
leave India, but I want them to leave as friends." And King said ,
"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a
friend.".....
"One does nothing and nothing is left
undone." This mystical injunction points to one of the key components
of the path of action non-identification with being the actor. I had
always assumed that I had to identify with a role while performing in
order to do it well. But each of us performs hundreds of acts each day
walking, blinking, driving, or knitting-to which we pay little, if
any, conscious attention, yet we usually perform them quite well. It
is now clear to me that very complex and and creative acts often take
place without our experiencing ourselves as actors. ... in the
Bhagavad-Gita , in which Krishna, who represents higher wisdom,
reminds the seeker after freedom not to be caught up in thinking of
himself as the doer. He says, "Only the fool whose mind is deluded by
egoism considers himself to be the doer.".......Maharajji ..
encouraged me to study the Bhagavad-Gita ...In the dialogue in the
Gita, Krishna (the voice of absolute wisdom) instructs Arjuna (the
seeker) to do his duty in the world but dedicate the fruits of his
action to God. Arjuna is enjoined to become an instrument of Dharma,
as such he would not lay claim to either his actions or their outcome.
Indeed, he would perform his duty impeccably as possible as an
offering to the higher spirit. Through such one-pointed ness in his
acts in the world, he would come to God or union. Thus the name Karma
Yoga, coming to union through living out one's karma. Another way to
say this would be that one makes one's karma (the situation in which
one finds oneself as a result of past actions) into one's dharma (the
word dharma means the path to liberation, as well as the liberating
truth itself). To be liberated is not to leave the world , but to
remain in the world and not be identified with it.....
Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian
poet, said, "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw
that life was duty (dharma). I acted, and behold, duty was joy!" And
Gandhi said "when you surrender completely to God, as the only truth
worth having, you find yourself in the service of all that exists. It
becomes your joy and recreation. You never tire of serving others."...
RamDass
From the book titled
Compassion in Action.. SETTING OUT ON A PATH OF
SERVICE by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush |
COMPASSION IN ACTION