Life 41 (Oct 21 - Jan 22)

[winston]

What is the only offering that the Divine seeks from us?

All your charity and worship are of no significance to the the Divine.

Show your charity and wealth to the income tax department.

The Divine needs only your love. There is no tax on love.

Some sit in meditation but their minds are in the market or in the hairdressing shop. Is this meditation or repetition of the Divine Name?

The mind should be immersed in the Divine. Instead, it is filled with desires.

What is needed is the Divine. He will fulfil all your desires.

Mere chanting of His name is not enough. Offer your love to Him. Love is not your property.

In fact, it is the property of His. Surrender to the Divine, what is His.

What is the use of a long life without this offering? You have no right to offer your love to anyone other than Him. When you offer all your love to Him, He will look after all your needs.

- Divine Discourse, Sep 03, 1999.

Devotion should manifest itself in every action. Everything done out of love for the Divine and as an offering becomes devotion.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Celebrate with Peace

[The holiday season] is a wonderful time, especially if we remember to celebrate with feelings of peace and good will, banish our harsh judgments and foolish prejudices and remind ourselves of our interrelatedness with other people, sentient beings, and the natural environment that surrounds us.

— Earl Ikeda, “O Bodhi Tree, O Bodhi Tree”

[winston]

Cherishing Family

While an attitude of nonattachment is essential, it would be sadly misguided to imagine we need to give up love and affection for our family members, in order to follow the Bodhisattva Way of universal compassion.

— Jampa Thaye, “Bringing It All Back Home”

[winston]

Uniting Heart and Mind

Both must go hand in hand — heart and mind together.

One has to understand and one has to use one’s emotions positively, emotions that are fulfilling and bring a feeling of peacefulness and harmony, to one’s own heart.

— Ayya Khema, “Love Is a Skill”

[winston]

At times, we feel that there is no peace and joy in our hearts. What is the root cause for this? How can we change how we feel?

Compassion towards all creatures is the greatest virtue and wilful injury to any creature is the worst vice.

Have full faith in this; spread love and joy, through compassion and be full of joy and peace, yourself.

You do not have joy and peace now, mainly because your vision is warped and wobbling.

The vision is now directed towards the faults, and failings of others, never towards one's own faults and failings.

The ears too, delight when stories of failures and foibles of others are related. No attempt is made to examine the failures and foibles of oneself.

Really speaking, inquiry and the investigation have to begin with oneself. For, what we see in others is the reflection of our own selves, our own prejudices and preferences.

Besides, when your attention is focused on faults and failures, vices and wrongs, the mind too becomes infected with the pollution and it starts relishing only experiences of such tastes.

- Divine Discourse, Oct 25, 1974.

If instead of searching for a hundred faults in others, one corrects any one of their own faults, one would be sanctifying one’s life.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

Not Good, Not Bad

Suppose you’re trying to work, you’re really busy, and the phone rings.

We resent the ringing because we’re trying to work.

But the problem isn’t the phone ringing.

It’s just ringing. It’s not good or bad.

— Charlotte Joko Beck, “When You Are in Harmony”

[winston]

Piercing Awareness

To investigate is to contemplate with a silent mind.

It’s to illuminate that which is cloudy or confused—to explore and to discover what we have not yet noticed or understood.

This kind of deep inquiry provides us with the tools to free the mind from suffering and the pitfalls of an unexamined life.

— Narayan Helen Liebenson, “Practicing Questioning”

[winston]

With what attitude should we offer our prayers and involve in divine works?

Become a kin to the Divine, His kith and kin.

Don’t aspire to be a wage-earner in the Divine's household. Don’t demand wages calculated and bargained for.

Work done for wages will not be as sincere and as joyful as that done through love and reverence.

Brothers and sons don’t demand wages at so much per day, as their right! They are looked after nicely and well by the Master of the household; everything is found for them, whether they demand or not!

“Whoever has no thought other than of Me, whoever always dwells in reverence to Me, with such, I always reside and for such I provide their wherewithal here and hereafter.” This assurance is given by the Divine in the Scriptures.

Reading this assurance, many ask, “Well, we are doing this worship and that; let us see what He does for us in return." But, introspect: do you pay attention to the conditions laid down for the conferment of Grace?

- Divine Discourse, Dec 1966.

The Divine is your true relation. He comes to you in the form of your son, your daughter, your friend, and all other relations.

Source: radiosai.org

[winston]

What is the Purpose of Life?

by Sadhguru

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ7ZvPghdy8

[winston]

What Is Right Livelihood?

Right livelihood involves mindfulness of our place in the whole and thus becomes the foundation for intelligent social activism and ecological responsibility.

— Krishnan Venkatesh, “Why Right Livelihood Isn’t Just About Your Day Job”