Archive for the ‘sufism’ Category

Marpa, a Tibeten mystic was once asked by one if his disciples how he feels now that he’s enlightened. Marpa replied, “Just as miserable as before!”. The disciple asked, “but how?” to which Marpa replied, “sometimes I like to have a taste of the world so i go back.”.

You see, Marpa’s quality has changed. Misery, happiness, they’re both clouds in the sky. Just because you one day learned that clouds were not the sky did not mean the clouds disappeared. When you can turn your awareness freely from the clouds to the infinite sky and back again, you are free.

My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me.

~ Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms.

Many people are all to willing to drop their pain. Anything that relieves of our pain we’re all-too-willing to do – almost.

What Aurobindo points out is that we like to hold on to our virtues. Not only do we eagerly choose positivity over negativity we greedily layer ourselves with virtuous robes. If I were to tug at a cloak of pain you would ask me to pull it off. If I were to tug on your virtuous cloak you would push me away. Wearing garments of virtue keep us living within a state of tension and struggle because we’re always afraid they’ll get dirty. And that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? We all know a beautiful pair of white shoes gets dirty the fastest – especially when there’s somewhere we need to be looking our best.

The mind has a habit of splitting things up into two parts – good bad, happy sad, yes no. The thing is the fruits of love contain the seeds of hatred; the fruits of success contain the seeds of failure. When we walk in this world we cannot walk east without ending up in the west. By dropping all dualities, by dropping mind; life becomes whole. Be as eager to drop your virtues as you are of your sins and discover who you are.

God is now; life is now; existence is now. Thoughts happen after now, words follow shortly after – actions come all to late. Tomorrow and yesterday sit on top of thoughts, words and actions. Destroy the foundation and the house will fall.  Using thoughts and words to fix problems of today, tomorrow or yesterday is like more water on a drowning victim.

I’m a thoughtful chess piece being moved about by a silent chess master. How I long to be one with the real king of this game.