Sacred Poems - Sacred Thoughts

Thou Art My All in All

Thou Art My All in All, O Lord! - the Life of my life, the Essence of essence;
In the three worlds I have none else but Thee to call my own.
Thou art my peace, my joy, my hope; thou my support, my wealth, my glory;
Thou my wisdom and my strength.

Thou art my home, my place of rest; my dearest friend, my next of kin;
My present and my future, Thou; my heaven and my salvation.
Thou art my scriptures, my commandments; Thou art my ever gracious Guru;
Thou the Spring of my boundless bliss.

Thou art the Way, and Thou the Goal; Thou the Adorable One, O Lord;
Thou art the Mother tender-hearted; Thou the chastising Father;
Thou the Creator and Protector; Thou the Helmsman who dost steer My Craft across the sea of life.

Song by Sri Ramakrishna
"Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna"

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"Silence"

Hush! This is the hour of silence
When soul seeks its refreshment.
Turbulent mind, thou art ever restive, for sport and gain;
Thou art ever made for new sensation and art in feverish plight.
Wouldst thou rob me of my true happiness?
Be still, that thou mayest not miss this new and blessed joy.
How sweet is the sound of silence!
How tender is its touch!
How fragrant is its breathing!
How lovely is its form!
O be still yet awhile that my soul may see, hear and touch its own in this realm of peace divine."

-Swami Paramananda
"Silence as Yoga"

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"A Song of Samadhi"
(Rendered from Bengali)

LO! The sun is not, nor the comely moon,
All light extinct; in the great void of space
Floats shadow-like the image-universe.

In the void of mind involute, there floats
The fleeting universe rises and floats,
Sinks again, ceaseless, in the current "I".

Slowly, slowly the shadow multitude
Entered the primal womb and flowed ceaseless,
The only current, the "I am," "I am".

Lo! Tis stopped, ev'n that current flows no more,
Void merged into void - beyond speech and mind!
Whose heart understands, he verily does.

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On Enlightenment

Enlightenment is an illusion. All of the thoughts that the mind has created about enlightenment, the path, the destination, are maya weaving its web of deception, ever presenting us with new options, new directions in an attempt to keep the dance of creation going, steering us away from the Truth which is: THIS is IT! THIS IS ALL THERE IS! THIS VERY MOMENT IS ALL THAT WE ARE SEEKING. Realizing this Truth, will enable us to enjoy the dance of maya and its multifaceted creations.

Anytime we find ourselves "seeking", know that we are caught in maya's web. There is nothing to seek, there is nothing to "get". We have It all right here, right now.

Shakti is always in motion, always seeking to create and its most powerful creation is maya or illusion. Shakti does not care WHAT it creates since it is invested only in the ACT of creating.

To seek is to deny reality. To seek is to take ourselves out of the present into a fantasy, into an illusion the mind has created for play. All the mystery about existence is poppycock. There is nothing "out there" or "at the other end of the path" to be realized. Realization is an illusion. There are no barriers to be overcome, except to KNOW that we KNOW. We are already what we seek to become. And as long as we are in a body, shakti will continue its dance, its deception.

The seeker and the sought are one and the separation we feel between ourselves and that which we seek is the same separation we experience between us and God. That separation is illusion or maya.

So, be here now, knowing that you are like a fish in the depths of the ocean, seeking to quench its thirst for water.

And enjoy the illusion, celebrate the maya, for it is God's play, created simply for the purpose of play and enjoyment.

We are the breath, the exhalation of Spirit, and when Spirit inhales, all of this illusion in which we live will be destroyed. When Spirit exhales once again, yet another illusion will be created.

So, continue seeking and celebrating the illusion and indulging it, knowing that all is God, knowing that there is no place where God is not.

-Jody Hoelle

PEACE

Behold, it comes in might,
The power that is not power,
The light that is in darkness,
The shade in dazzling light.

It is joy that never spoke,
And grief unfelt, profound,
Immortal life unlived,
Eternal death unmourned.

It is not joy nor sorrow,
But that which is between,
It is not night nor morrow,
But that which joins them in.

It is sweet rest in music
And pause in sacred art,
The silence between speaking;
Between the fits of passion
It is the calm of heart.

It is beauty never loved
And love that stands alone;
It is song that lives unsung
And knowledge never known.

It is death between two lives
And lull betwen two storms,
The void whence rose creation
And that where it returns.

To it the tear-drop goes
To spread the smiling form.
It is the goal of life,
And peace, its only home.

-Swami Vivekananda

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"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us - universe - a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest ... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

- Albert Einstein

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"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

-Albert Einstein

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"The only real, valuable thing is intuition."

-Albert Einstein

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"The sage has no mind of his own.
He is aware of the needs of others.

I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.
Because Virtue is goodness.
I have faith in people who are faithful.
I also have faith in people who are not faithful.
Because Virtue is faithfulness.

The sage is shy and humble - to the world he seems confusing.
We look to him and listen.
He behaves like a little child.

Lao Tsu
"Tao Te Ching"

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The method of forgiving is this: Get by yourself and become quiet. Repeat any prayer or treatment that appeals to you, or read a chapter of the Bible. Then quetly say, "I fully and freely forgive X (mentioning the name of the offender); I loose him and let him go. I completely forgive the whole business in question. As far as I am concerned, it is finished forever. I cast the burden of resentment upon the Christ within me. He is free now, and I am free too. I wish him well in every phase of his life. That incident is finished. The Christ Truth has set us both free. I thank God."

Emmett Fox
"Sermon on the Mount"

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"He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in your own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong. The ideal of freedom that you perceived was correct, but you projected it outside yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you find that it was all the time within you, it was the Self of your own self. That freedom was your own nature, and this maya never bound you."

"He is the Great Poet, the Ancient Poet. The whole universe is His poem, coming in verses and rhymes and rhythms, written in Infinite Bliss."

"Seeing God everywhere, Thus do your work. Desire to live a hundred years; have all earthly desires, if you wish, only deify them, convert them into heaven. Have the desire to live a long life of helpfulness, of blissfulness and activity, on this earth."

"Work incessantly, holding life as something deified, as God Himself, and knowing that this is all we have to do, this is all we should ask for. God is in everything; where else shall we go to find Him? He is already in every work, in every thought, in every feeling."

"If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal. And this ideal we must hear about as much as we can, till it enters into our hearts, into our brains, into our very veins, till it tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every pore in our body. We must meditate upon it. 'Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh,' and out of the fullness of the heart the hand works, too.

"It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural. They are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie; but it is only a cow - not a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold to the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. The ideal of man is to see God in everything. But if you cannot see Him in everything, see Him in one thing, in that thing which you like best, and then see Him in another. So on you can go. There is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and you will achieve your end."

-Swami Vivekananda
"Jnana Yoga"

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