Friday, August 25, 2017

members of each other










The way we are, we are members of each other. 
All of us. Everything. 
The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, 
but in who knows it and who don’t.

...

It was a community always disappointed in itself, 
disappointing its members, 
always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, 
always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill…
And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, 
beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, 
as it is said we may be perfected by grace.

And so there we all were on a little wave of time lifting up to eternity, 
and none of us ever in time would know what to make of it. 
How could we? 
It is a mystery, for we are eternal beings living in time.




~ Wendell Berry
excerpts from Jaber Crow



Sunday, August 6, 2017

who?









The Student

Who makes my mind think?
Who fills my body with vitality?
Who causes my tongue to speak? Who is that
Invisible one who sees through my eyes
And hears through my ears?

 The Teacher

The Self is the ear of the ear,
The eye of the eye, the mind of the mind,
The word of words, and the life of life.
Rising above the senses and the mind
And renouncing separate existence,
The wise realize the deathless Self.

Him our eyes cannot see, nor words express;
He cannot be grasped even by the mind.
We do not know, we cannot understand,
Because he is different from the known
And he is different from the unknown.
Thus have we heard from the illumined ones.

That which makes the tongue speak but cannot be 
Spoken by the tongue, know that as the Self.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the mind think but cannot be
Thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the eye see but cannot be
Seen by the eye,that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the ear hear but cannot be 
Heard by the ear, that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes you draw breath but cannot be 
Drawn by your breath. that is the Self indeed.
This Self is not someone other than you.



~ The Kena Upanishad
translation by Eknath Easwaran