Saturday, July 23, 2011

From ‘Journey to Unknown India’ by Walther Eidlitz

Thoughtfully Shri looked up at the ants and the colorful birds. “Nothing but atmas.”


….. a citation from Buddha I never forgot:

‘He scorned me, he beat me,
he conquered me by force
If you make room for this thought
you cannot be free of hate.
For through this hate,
there will be no peace upon earth
Only by not hating can hatred find peace.



“ ……… You know that I value the social endeavor of the West very highly. Yes, welfare institutions for the old and the sick, the right of all to have work and education – it is excellent, all of it. Protection for children and those who are ill, weak, or persecuted, this must exist. In our days it is, in fact, almost the only thing that distinguished humans from animals. But when I think of all these efforts at making the corruptible, changeable world pleasant for humans, it often seems to me to be as if somebody had fallen in the water and was in danger or drowning. Then another comes running to help him and manages to rescue his clothes, his hat, and his spectacles. The drowning man himself, the Atman, is allowed to go under.”



His eager, forced speech often hurried far ahead of his thoughts. It sometimes seemed as if he wanted to seize the divine secrets with a crowbar.



Sadananda wrote on the blackboard the syllable ma. “The word maya comes from the Sanskrit root ma ….. Ma means to measure. As long as we egotistically measure the things about us, value them according to the measure of joy or pain they give us, we are in the power of Maya, who hides God from us.

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