From ‘The Buddha's Sword’ by Gautam Sachdeva

“The seeing is

the only doing necessary”

-          Ramesh Balsekar

Ramana Maharshi ….. “Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating top. Its very speed cannot be followed by the eye and so it appears to be still. Yet it is rotating. So is the apparent inaction of the sage. This must be explained because the people generally mistake stillness to be inertness. It is not so.”

“Every since happiness heard your name,

it has been running through the streets

trying to find you.”

-          Hafiz

“The deeds are,

but no doer of the deeds is there.”

-          Gautama Buddha

An American tourist went to Cairo to visit the famous Polish rabbi Hafez Ayim. He was surprised to see that the rabbi lived in a simple, book-lined room, in which the only pieces of furniture were a table and a bench.

“Rabbi, where’s all your furniture?” asked the tourist.

“Why, where’s yours?” retorted Hafez.

“Mine? But I’m just passing through!”

“So am I,” said the rabbi.

The self, deluded by egoism, thinketh: “I am the doer.”

-          The Bhagavad Gita

“The present difficulty is that the man thinks he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the Higher Power which does everything and the man is only a tool. If he accepts that position he is free from troubles; otherwise he courts them. Take for instance, the figure in a gopuram (temple tower), where it is made to appear to bear the burden of the tower on its shoulders. Its posture and look are a picture of great strain while bearing the very heavy burden of the tower. But think. The tower is built on the earth and it rests on its foundation. The figure (like Atlas bearing the earth) is a part of the tower, but it is made to look as if it bore the tower. Is it not funny? So is the man who takes on himself the sense of doing.”

-          Ramana Maharshi

“Mere suffering exists,

no sufferer is found;

The deeds are,

but no doer of the deeds is there;

Nirvana is,

but not the man that enters it;

The path is,

but no traveler on it is seen.”

-          Gautama Buddha