Pointing To The Moon

The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. - Ramana Maharshi

"The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like the space; though this body speaks like the radio, there is no one inside as a doer." -- Ramana Maharshi

(via Michael Jeffrey's compilation of 400 Good Spiritual Quotes)

 

 

The Wind is Our Ally

A tendril falls in front of her face as she moves the broom around the bench. Not even from the corner of her eye does the shimmering ahead peek in. And then in the next instant, the breeze settles the sand again.

It's particularly difficult to ensure the sand is level around the bench because there are edges of the iron legs to navigate around. The fine particles of sand are spread unevenly like snow drifts. She smoothes the piles into even flat sheets. The brush strokes are measured, only frantic when the drifts rise like dancing ghosts and her hard work begins all over.

We watch her every motion: sometimes the broom is heavy, sometimes light, sometimes she bends, sometimes straightens, sometimes she circles around her work, sometimes she zigzags, sometimes following a fine lace pattern on an imaginary hem.

The witness is not the Mystery.

One day she wearies. She comes to rest, propping her broom against the bench.

The wind does the rest.

The wind cradles every speck of sand. Then with a gentle breath, the burnished gold buried under millimeters of grain is revealed at least as far as where horizons tumble over ledges.

Even when she awakes refreshed, and even should she pick up the broom from time to time absentmindedly to rearrange a few particles of sand, she will always know the ground she walks on.

[A related story continues here. And a hint to the metaphorical piece: The broom and action of brooming is the habituated ego-mind and its thought-streams.]

Bathe

I told an anam cara (spiritual friend) that he seemed to be poised in front of a large inviting lake. Others were playing, splashing, immersed in the water. He stood there.  And stood there, hesitating, considering, weighing.

In a perpetual holding pattern.

I only realized recently that while this metaphor is true for him, I was talking to myself too.  We're at this crossroads: What we long for most, says Gangaji, is what we fear most.

A woman last Monday whispered: Turn to Him. In the language of my heart, that means: Go ahead, face the water. You don't have to show dive. Slip into the sweet water. And...

Bathe.

Bathe in the bouyant Mystery of your Self.