~ Across the Sea ~

Across the Sea ....


Across the sea
there is the Friend
watching and listening
so close as your breath...

Piece by piece, remove the coverings
layer by layer, free yourself
from what only holds you down.
You know the holding you want is
the touch of a loving friend.

Across the sea
silence carries your every word,
sound and sigh become song--
the music of soul, understood by every heart.

Oh these heights, these depths
and the pains of being human!
Show me Beloved,
how each sensation is another texture
forming the bridge between soul and personality.

When will I outgrow the patterns and molds
I have been so fond of disliking?
The very things I have pushed away
have pulled me in,
like a part of myself that
won't accept a "no,"
keeps coming back
for the acceptance it chooses to know.

Across the sea
here with us,
you and I are that Friend.


(© 2002 Matisha- http://www.songofhome.com)

~ Words Can ~

Words Can ........



Words can heal.
Words can hurt.

A simple word can mend a broken heart.
Just put them out like some people do.
The damage that is done.
You can never undo.

So think of what you are trying to say.
Because some words never fade away.
They are held in the heart
or stuck in the mind.

Coming to the surface from time to time.
To raise us up or bring us down.
Sometimes the words that hurt the most.
Are the ones that we do not to say anymore.
The ones that use to flow freely from our lips.
Telling someone how much we really care.

~ MIND AND HEART ~

Thought, memory, will and reason, together with the ego as the fifth and principal factor, constitute the heart. It is these five things that may be called the heart; but in definitely naming the different parts of this heart, we call the surface of it mind, and the depth of it heart.

If we imagine this heart as a lantern, then the light in the lantern makes it the spirit. We call the heart a lantern when we do not think of the light. However, when there is a light, then we forget the word lantern and we call it light. When we call the heart spirit, it does not mean spirit void of heart, as it does not mean light without lantern, but light in the lantern.

The right use of the word spirit, however, is only as the essence of all things. The essential light and life from which all has come – that is the spirit. But we use the word spirit also in a limited sense, just as light is the all-pervading light of the sun and at the same time the light in the lantern, which we call light also.

People call a part of the breast, heart. The reason is that there is a part in this body of flesh that is most sensitive to feeling; and naturally – as man cannot grasp the idea of a heart outside of the body – he conceives this idea of the heart as being a part of his physical body.

The ego stands separate from the four faculties of thought, memory, will and reason. It is just like four fingers and thumb. Why is the thumb not called a finger? Because the thumb is the whole hand. These four are faculties, but the ego is a reality. It holds and accommodates within itself the four faculties; and in order to distinguish it as different from them, we call it ego.

As the surface of the heart is known by the imagination and thought, so the depth of the mind, which is heart, is known by feeling.

The difference between thought and imagination is that imagination is an automatic working of the mind. If the mind is fine, then there is a fine imagination. If the mind is gross, then there is a gross imagination. If there is a beautiful mentality, then the imagination is beautiful. Thought is also imagination, but imagination held, controlled and directed by will. Therefore when we say 'He is a thoughtful person,' it means that this person does not think, speak or act on impulse, but behind everything he does, there is will power that controls and directs the action of his mind.

There are nine principal feelings that can be distinguished as mirth, grief, anger, passion, sympathy, attachment, fear, bewilderment and indifference. Feelings cannot be limited to these nine, but when we distinguish numerous feelings, we may reduce them to these nine distinct feelings that we experience in life.

There are six diseases that belong to the heart: passion, anger, infatuation, conceit, jealousy and covetousness.

The more one thinks on the subject of the heart, the more one finds that, if there is anything that can tell us of our personality, it is the heart. If there is anything through which we feel ourselves or know ourselves – know what we are – it is the heart and what our heart contains. Once a person understands the nature, the character and the mystery of the heart, then he understands, so to speak, the language of the whole universe.

There are three ways of perception. One way of perception belongs to the surface, to the mind. It is thought. Thought manifests to our mind with a definite form, line and color.

The next way of perception is feeling. It is felt by quite another part of the heart. It is felt by the depth of the heart, not by the surface. The more the heart quality is awakened in a person, the more he perceives the feelings of others. That person is sensitive because to him, the thoughts and feelings of others are clear. The one who lives on the surface does not perceive feelings clearly. Also, there is a difference between the evolution of the two, of the one who lives on the surface of the heart and the other who lives in the depths. In other words, the one lives in his mind, and the other lives in his heart.

There is still a third way of perception that is not even through feeling and that may be called a spiritual language. This perception comes from the deepest depths of the heart. It is the voice of the spirit. It does not belong to the lantern, it belongs to the light – but in the lantern, it becomes clearer and more distinct. This perception may be called intuition; there is no better name for it.

In order to study life fully, these three perceptions must be developed. Then, alone, is one able to study life fully; and it is in studying life fully that one is able to form a judgment upon it.

Question: Could you explain further how the mind is the surface of the heart, and the heart the depth of the mind?

Answer: There are five fingers, but one hand. There are several organs of the body, but one body. There is a universe full of variety, but one Spirit. So, there is one heart that feels the various thoughts and imaginations that spring up and then sink into it. The bubbles are to be found on the surface of the sea. The depth of the sea is free from bubbles. The commotion is to be seen on the surface, the depth of the sea is still. The mind is the commotion of that something that is within us, that something which we call heart.

The happiness, knowledge, pleasure and love that is stored in our innermost being is in our profound depth. Changing emotions and passions, dreams, ever-rising thoughts and imaginations, all belong to the surface, as the bubbles belong to the surface of the sea.

Question: Can we say that the heart is nearer to the soul, and the mind, nearer to the body?

Answer: Yes, in a certain way. But at the same time, the soul experiences through the whole being, through the body, through the mind, through the heart, as it happens to be in different planes of existence.

Question: Is the heart one of the soul's bodies?

Answer: Certainly. The heart is one of the bodies of the soul, the finest body. It goes a long way with the soul, even on its return journey.

Question: Is the heart the same as the angelic body?

Answer: Yes, quite true.

Question: Is it, therefore, that the Catholics have a special devotion for the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

Answer: Of course. The heart is the shrine of God. If God is ever to be found anywhere, it is in the heart of man, especially in the heart of that man in whom the divine manifests.

Question: Is the heart the home of the soul?

Answer: Yes, one may call the heart a home of the soul, but I would call it a temporary hotel.

Question: Is the world of feelings higher than the world of thoughts?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is indifference?

Answer: This is a word that I always find difficult to explain, and I have made many people angry by talking about indifference. They say, 'Where is the love that you have come to preach to us? Indifference is quite contrary to love, to the message and the teaching.' When people read in Buddhism and Yogism about renunciation, Nirvana, Vairagya – which in Sufi terms of the Persian poets is Fana – they begin to ask, 'Have they all taught to become indifferent, have they taught such cruelty?' In reality, it is quite a different thing. Indifference is not lovelessness nor is it lack of sympathy. Indifference is most useful at the time when a soul has arrived at that sensitiveness when every little thing hurts. Then it is only indifference which keeps it alive.

You might say that it is not good to be sensitive. Yes, but without being sensitive, you cannot evolve. Sensitiveness is a sign of evolution. If you are not sensitive, then you cannot feel in sympathy with your fellow men. If you do not feel the feelings of your fellow men, then you are not yet awakened to life. Therefore, in order to become a normal human being, one has to develop sensitiveness, or at least to arrive at sensitiveness. When you are sensitive, then life becomes difficult to live. The more sensitive you are, the more thorns you will find on your way. Every move you make, at every turn, at every step, there is something to hurt you. It is only one spirit that you can develop, and that is the spirit of indifference; yet, not taking away the love and sympathy you have for another – that is the right indifference. To say to a person, 'I do not care for you because you have been thoughtless,' that is not the right kind of indifference, that is not the indifference that mystics relate as being Vairagya. The mystical indifference is that a soul retains sympathy and love, even at the thoughtlessness of a person, and expresses it as forgiveness. In the Bible, we read the words of Christ, 'Turn the other side of your face if a person has struck you on one side.' What else is this than the lesson of indifference? How can a sensitive person, a person of feeling, a spiritual, tenderhearted person, live in this world if he is not indifferent? He cannot live here one moment! There is only this one thing that protects him from the continual jarring influences that come from all sides.

Question: Why not call it detachment?

Answer: Detachment is not really the right word. We cannot be detached, we are never detached. Life is one and nothing can separate it. Detachment is only an illusionary aspect of life. There is no such thing as detachment in truth. How can there be detachment when life is one!

Often, in order to make it clearer, I have said that indifference and independence are two meanings of that one word, Vairagya. Indifference, alone, explains it only halfway.



(http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/II/II_41.htm)

~ Words ~

what is the word? Is the word just what we speak? Is that the word? No, that is only the surface of the word.

Our thought is a word, our feeling is a word, our voice, our atmosphere is a word. There is a saying: 'What you are speaks louder than what you say'. This shows that even when man does not speak, his soul speaks. And, how do the fortune-tellers read the future? They hear it. They say that they read it from the lines of the hand, by astrology, or from the actions of men. But what is all this? It is all a word. Word means expression, expression in voice, in word, in form, in color, in line, in movement: all are united in one thing and that is the esoteric side of mysticism. Of course, many people in the West have said it is very difficult to lead a meditative life in the activity of their world; they have so many responsibilities and occupations. Answer to this is that, for every reason they need more meditation.


When the Prophet Muhammad, felt the need to communicate, he went away from the town and remained in solitude on the top of a mountain; sometimes fasting, sometimes standing, and staying there night and day for two or three days. What did he find in the end? He found that a voice began to speak to him, a voice in answer to his soul's cry. His soul so to speak went forth, pierced through all the planes of existence, and touched the source of all things. How did the answer come and in what form? The answer came from everything: from the wind, the water, the sphere, the air – everything bringing the same answer.

This experience is not limited to a certain person or to a certain time. In our everyday life there are times when sadness comes, and it seems as if everything in the world, even the voices of beasts and birds, cause sadness. Then again comes the hour of profound joy. At that time the sun helps to give joy, and clouds covering the sun also give joy. The cold, the heat, the friend, and the enemy, all help to give joy.


This world to a mystic is like a dome, a dome that re-echoes all that is spoken beneath it. What is spoken from the lips reaches only as far as the ears, but what is spoken from the heart reaches the heart. The word reaches as far as it can; and that depends from what source it has come and from what depth it has risen.


The word is the key to the mystery of the whole life, the mystery of all planes of existence. There is nothing that is not accomplished, there is nothing that is not achieved or known through the power of the word. Therefore the principal and central theme in esotericism or mysticism is the word.