In cleansing your enigmatic mirror of the dark,
Can you make it spotless?
Once Buddha was travelling with a few of his followers.
While they were passing a lake, Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Do get me some water from the lake.”
The disciple walked up to the lake.
At that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy and turbid. The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink?”
So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.”
After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake.
The disciple went back, and found that the water was still muddy. He returned and informed Buddha about the same.
After sometime, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back.
This time, the disciple found the mud had settled down, and the water was clean and clear. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.
Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be, and the mud settled down on its own, and you have clear water.”
Your mind is like that too ! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.”
Can you find the patience to wait until the dust settles and the water becomes clear?
Tao Te Ching
That heart has become clean and pure from the mud [which taints it]. It has become excellent and complete.It has cast the mud aside and come towards the Sea. Free from the prison of mud, it has become of the Sea.
~Rumi
because it is God who said, Out of darkness light is to shine, who did shine in our hearts, for the enlightening of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians
“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.”
11
Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
in another bird’s nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he’ll look like then!
12-13
From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you’re the hope of Israel.
All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
and wind up dead!
14-18
God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!
Listen to how they talk about me:
“So where’s this ‘Word of God’?
We’d like to see something happen!”
But it wasn’t my idea to call for Doomsday.
I never wanted trouble.
You know what I’ve said.
It’s all out in the open before you.
Don’t add to my troubles.
Give me some relief!
Let those who harass me be harassed, not me.
Let them be disgraced, not me.
Bring down upon them the day of doom.
Lower the boom. Boom!
Jeremiah 17
Let's all have a moment of silence to filter the namefags. /bows head
I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.
I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.
~Jesus
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.…
Genesis
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
John
"Dear friend, your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets." -al-Ghazzal
and we all, with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18
As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered by different degrees of this lust.
Bhagavad Gita
“Remember, the eternal mirror under discussion now has a time of being polished, and [a time] after being polished, but it is wholly the eternal mirror. This being so, when we are polishing, we are polishing the eternal mirror in its entirety… This is neither polishing the self nor the self polishing; it is polishing the eternal mirror.”
~Dogen, Shobogenzo, Kokyo
Once Buddha was travelling with a few of his followers.
While they were passing a lake, Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Do get me some water from the lake.”
The disciple walked up to the lake.
At that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy and turbid. The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink?”
So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.”
After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake.
The disciple went back, and found that the water was still muddy. He returned and informed Buddha about the same.
After sometime, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back.
This time, the disciple found the mud had settled down, and the water was clean and clear. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.
Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be, and the mud settled down on its own, and you have clear water.”
Your mind is like that too ! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.”
Just as a mirror, covered with dirt, shines brightly after being cleaned; so too, is the embodied one free from sorrow, after accomplishing the ultimate goal and realizing his True Self.
ŚVETĀŚVATARA UPANIṢAD
Odes of Solomon
ODE 13.
A strange little Ode.
1 Behold! the Lord is our mirror: open the eyes and see them in Him: and learn the manner of your face: 2 And tell forth praise to His spirit: and wipe off the filth from your face: and love His holiness, and clothe yourselves therewith: 3 And be without stain at all times before Him. Hallelujah.
Brahman can be seen, as in a mirror
In a pure heart; in the world of the ancestors
As in a dream; in the gandharva world
As the reflections in trembling waters;
And clear as light in the realm of Brahma.
-
Knowing the senses to be separate
From the Self, and the sense experience
To be fleeting, the wise grieve no more.
-
Above the senses is the mind,
Above the mind is the intellect,
Above that is the ego, and above the ego
Is the unmanifested Cause.
-
And beyond is Brahman, omnipresent,
Attributeless. Realizing him one is released
From the cycle of birth and death.
-
He is formless, and can never be seen
With these two eyes. But he reveals himself
In the heart made pure through meditation
And sense-restraint. Realizing him one is released
From the cycle of birth and death.
-
When the five senses are stilled, when the mind
Is stilled, when the intellect is stilled,
That is called the highest state by the wise.
-
They say yoga is this complete stillness
In which one enters the unitive state,
Never to become separate again.
If one is not established in this state,
The sense of unity will come and go.
-
The unitive state cannot be attained
Through words or thoughts or through the eye.
How can it be attained except through one
Who is established in this state himself?
-
There are two selves, the separate ego
And the indivisible Atman. When
One rises above I and me and mine,
The Atman is revealed as one's real Self.
-
When all desires that surge in the heart
Are renounced, the mortal becomes immortal.
-
When all the knots that strangle the heart
Are loosened, the mortal becomes immortal.
This sums up the teaching of the scriptures.
-
From the heart there radiate a hundred
And one vital tracks. One of them rises
To the crown of the head. This way leads
To immortality, the others to death.
-
The Lord of Love, not larger than the thumb,
Is ever enshrined in the hearts of all.
Draw him clear out of the physical sheath
As one draws the stalk from the munja grass.
Know thyself to be pure and immortal!
Know thyself to be pure and immortal!
Katha upanishad
No bad fortune, no good fortune, no loss, no gain;
Never seek such things in eternal serenity.
For years the dusty mirror has gone uncleaned,
Now let us polish it completely, once and for all.
++++
The mind-mirror is clear, so there are no obstacles.
Its brilliance illuminates the universe
To the depths and in every grain of sand.
Multitudinous things of the cosmos
Are all reflected in the mind,
And this full clarity is beyond inner and outer.
++++
Mind is the base, phenomena are dust;
Yet both are like a flaw in the mirror.
When the flaw is brushed aside,
The light begins to shine.
When both mind and phenomena are forgotten,
Then we become naturally genuine.
The Song of Enlightenment.