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What we do in meditation is to remove the obstacles that hide and cover our native capacity to love.
EKNATH EASWARAN -
The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers.
– Arab proverb
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Before words get past the lips, the first gatekeeper asks, “Is this true?” That stops a lot of traffic immediately. But if the words get past the first gatekeeper, there is a second who asks, “Is it kind?” And for those words that qualify here too, the last gatekeeper asks, “Is it necessary?Eknath Easwaran -
Ahimsa is usually translated as “nonviolence,” but this is misleading and falls far short of the real significance of the word. When all violence has subsided in my heart, my native state is love. I would add that even avoiding a person we dislike can be a subtle form of himsa or violence. Therefore, in everyday terms, ahimsa often means bearing with difficult people.
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In Kerala we have a giant, fierce-looking plant called elephant nettle. You have only to walk by for it to stretch out and sting you. By the time you get home, you have a blister that won’t let you think about anything else. My grandmother used to say, “A self-willed person is like an elephant nettle.”
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That is why the moment we see somebody who is given to saying unkind things, we make a detour. We pretend we have suddenly remembered something that takes us in another direction, but the fact is that we just don’t want to be stung. Whenever I complained of a classmate I did not like, my granny would say, “Here, you have to learn to grow. Go near him. Let yourself slowly get comfortable around him; then give him your sympathy and help take the sting out of his nettleness.Eknath Easwaran -
Offer unto me that which is very dear to thee – which you hold most covetable. Infinite are the results of such an offering.
– Bhagavatam
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Desire is will. Every strong desire has a great deal of will locked up in it; the problem is that usually we do not have any control over it. In a compulsive desire, all that will goes into satisfying only that desire. Every time you can turn against a strong desire, therefore, it immediately strengthens your will.
Eknath Easwaran
I discovered a truth that seemed to me a revelation... There seemed to be two universes which I termed the world and the earth, in either of which I could choose to live. Then I saw there was but one, and that I was living on the earth looking directly into infinity. ~ Harlan Hubbard
