destroyer of illusion

Compassion is the destroyer of illusion, 

it isn’t helping ladies over the road or helping people get through life.  

 

Compassion doesn’t help the separate individual,

 it exposes the dream of separation and leaves freedom. 

 

 Unconditional love doesn’t recognize that there is

 a separate person who needs help… 

that is the freeing nature of the boundlessness

 that is palpable when we are together.

~ Tony Parsons

perhaps

How can we ever know the difference we make to the soul of the earth? Where the infinite stillness of the earth meets the passion of the human eye, invisible depths strain towards the mirror of the name.

In the word, the earth breaks silence. It has waited a long time for the word. Concealed beneath familiarity and silence, the earth holds back and it never occurs to us to wonder how the earth sees us. Is it not possible that a place could have huge affection for those who dwell there?

Perhaps your place loves having you there. It misses you when you are away and in its secret way rejoices when you return. Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you? That it could sense your presence and feel the care you extend towards it? Perhaps your favorite place feels proud of you.

We tend to think of death as a return to clay, a victory for nature. But maybe it is the converse: that when you die, your native place will fill with sorrow. It will miss your voice, your breath and the bright waves of your thought, how you walked through the light and brought news of other places.

Perhaps each day our lives undertake unknown tasks on behalf of the silent mind and vast soul of nature. During its millions of years of presence perhaps it was also waiting for us, for our eyes and our words. Each of us is a secret envoi of the earth.

~  John O'Donohue

from Beauty: Rediscovering the True Source of Compassion, 

Serenity and Hope

art by van gogh

separation is painful

When you have understood that all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful,

and when you are willing and able to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being,

you have gone beyond all need of help.

You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being.

You cannot give what you do not have and you don't have what you are not.

You can only give what you are - and of that you can give limitlessly.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

help

When another person makes you suffer, 

it is because he suffers deeply within himself, 

and his suffering is spilling over. 

He does not need punishment; he needs help. 

That’s the message he is sending.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

generosity of self

We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to our inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence. A dramatic example of this kind of transfiguration is the one all parents know. You watch your children carefully, but one day they surprise you; you still recognize them, but your knowledge of them is insufficient. You have to start listening to them all over again.

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than with the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their life into proper shape. The intellect identifies the goal of the program, and the will accordingly forces the life into that shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one’s own presence is externalistic and violent. It brings you falsely outside your own self and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs. You can perish in a famine of your own making.

If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to your self. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has a map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of your self. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more importantly it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to your self and seek to come into your own presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your life. The senses are generous pathways which can bring you home.

~ John O’Donohue 

from Anam Cara 

art by Odilon Redon