The Golden Buddha Story

This is an old story but enchanting enough to give it another outing on this blog.

In 1957 an entire Monastery in Thailand was being relocated by a group of monks. One day they were moving a giant clay Buddha when one of the monks noticed a large crack in the clay. On closer investigation he saw there was a golden light emanating from the crack. The monk used a hammer and a chisel to chip away at the clay exterior until he revealed that the statue was in fact made of solid gold.

Historians believe the Buddha had been covered with clay by Thai monks several hundred years earlier to protect it from an attack by the Burmese army. In the attack, all the monks had been killed and it wasn’t until 1957 that this great treasure was actually discovered.

I was able to share the story of the Golden Buddha at the end of a talk I gave recently when a woman in the audience asked “Is it just a utopian dream to think that I can find my ‘why’ at work? Where do I even start looking for my purpose?”

I explained that it’s already right there inside each of us, that it’s not necessarily found in another job, a new company or another country. It’s always been there and it’s way closer than we think.

What happens over the course of our life however is that we pile layer upon layer of clay over our own Golden Buddha. The heaviest layer of clay is of our own doing – it’s our own limited thinking and our unconscious conditioning. The other layers of clay get added on from external influences (parents, schools and teachers, bosses and co-workers, society, the media, the church, government and corporations). Eventually we are so laden with clay that we forget that the Golden Buddha is there all the time.

The secret to finding our Golden Buddha, our higher purpose, lies not in the future, but in our past. All we need to do is start chipping away at the clay and rediscovering those things we were passionate about as we grew up. We reconnect with why we first went into our profession or that job we really, really loved. We recall the times when we were in flow and time stood still. We chip away at our clay with a therapist or a trusted advisor. We get curious and we do something, anything. Action always precedes clarity. Action reveals the Golden Buddha.

At a company level, we also need to reclaim our Golden Buddha. I believe that most organisations are founded with a golden intent. They are started with a higher purpose to improve humanity and not damage the planet, however over time the clay appears in the form of poor management, flawed systems, board pressure, shareholder expectations or venture capitalist demands. The most vital role for leadership is to unearth that higher purpose again and make it both the glue and the guiding North Star of the company.

Imagine a world where every person and every company could return to their natural state, their Golden Buddha. Just imagine.

Hope this little story brightens your day!

Isabelle V. Lim

Sri Krishna As Godhead – Spirituality

Bala Krishna

 

It is interesting to read the notes of Sri Aurobindo, about  how he expresses  devotion to Sri Krishna. Imagine a man who had little liking for religion, then somehow  his intuition tells him  that one day he would be in the consciousness of Krishna. (See slide-show at the bottom of the post.)

 

Asked by a disciple as to why he choose Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo replied: “I could not question. It was Sri Krishna’s Adesh. I had to obey. Later on I found it was for the Ashram and or the work.” (Evening talks with Sri Aurobindo pg 23)

In 1908 when arrested and sent to prison, Sri Aurobindo was shaken in faith and it was the voice from within that assured him. In the famous Uttarpara speech Sri Aurobindo says:”When I was arrested and hurried to the Lal Bazar hajat I was shaken in faith for a while, for I could not look into the heart of His intention. Therefore I faltered for a moment and cried out in my heart to Him,

 

---

Sri Krishna Janmashtami

Janmashtami (also known as Krishnashtami or Gokulashtami) is a festival dedicated to Lord Sri Krishna to commemorate his birth on earth. This year it falls on August 17, and on this day (up to midnight), the whole story of Sri Krishna’s birth will be enacted by the devotees in their houses and many delicacies, prepared out of milk and curd, will be distributed as ‘prasad’ (food made sacred by offering to God) to everyone.

In his letters to sadhaks, Sri Aurobindo mentions about Sri Krishna:

“Krishna as a godhead is the Lord of Ananda, Love and Bhakti; as an incarnation, he manifests the union of wisdom (Jnana) and works and leads the earth-evolution through this towards union with the Divine by Ananda, Love and Bhakti.”

“The boy with the flute is Sri Krishna, the Lord descended into the world-play from the divine Ananda; his flute is the music of the call which seeks to transform the lower ignorant play of mortal life and bring into it and establish in its place the Lila of his divine Ananda.”

 

---

 Krishna by Sri Aurobindo

At last I find a meaning of soul’s birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna’s feet.

I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover’s flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy’s surprise
And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.

Nearer and nearer now the music draws,
Life shudders with a strange felicity;
All Nature is a wide enamoured pause
Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.

For this one moment lived the ages past;
The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last.

15-9-1939

Interesting slide Show with Sri Aurobindo and Sri Krishna

 http://www.slideshare.net/aurovir/sri-aurobindo-and-sri-krishna-1853775

 

Who Moves The Universe – Spirituality

Goddess Lakshmi is often depicted with two white elephants pouring water. This form of Goddess Lakshmi is known as Gajalakshmi. In some images four elephants are shown pouring water on Goddess Mahalakshmi. The four elephants are symbols of Kama (desire), the water may be to cool the “passions.”  This is a very old bronze Gajalaxmi medallion from Bharhut stupa railing pillar, sand stone, 2nd Century BCE, Indian Museum, Kolkata.
 

---

How best to understand the Hindu term of  “Brahma”  is best written in the Kena Upanishad. It’s beautifully and poetically expressed in the verse below. The meaning  is also clearly described. Brahma is the spirit that moves the universe, is neither male nor female but transcends both. Brahma is like a drop of the ocean that bubbles up and separates, then descend down to merges once more with its origin. I hope you enjoy this little piece, also the quote from Rudolf Steiner on masculinity and feminine. He gives another more western and clearly defined view on this principle. (see para. towards the bottom of the page)

Not that which the eye can see, but that whereby the eye can see: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore;

Not that which the ear can hear, but that whereby the ear can hear: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore;

Not that which speech can illuminate, but that by which speech can be illuminated: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore;

Not that which the mind can think, but that whereby the mind can think: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore.

The One Power that illumines everything and every one is indivisible. It is the Ear behind the ears, Mind behind the mind, Speech behind speech, Vital Life behind life. The ears cannot hear it; it is what makes the ears hear. The eyes cannot see it; it is what makes the eyes see. You cannot speak about it; it is what makes you speak. The mind cannot imagine it; it is what makes the mind think. It is different from the known; yet it is not unknown. Those who feel they know Him know Him not. Those who know that anything amenable to the senses is not Brahman. they know it best. When it is known as the innermost witness of all cognitions, whether sensation, perception or thought, then it is known. One who knows thus reaches immortality.

The spirit of the Upanishads is clear: the physical body is a finite creation within which exists the infinite and true soul or self, the Atman. A similar soul exists as the substantial reality in which all has its nature. This infinite, powerful soul is Brahman. The concept of Brahman, while often translated as ‘God,’ differs from the traditional abrahamic concept of God in that Brahman is not an anthropomorphic or human-like deity in the sky looking down upon mankind. Brahman is more of a force or energy, neither male nor female, transcending all universal realities yet existing in all universal things. To better understand the relationship between the Atman and Brahman, it can be said that the Atman is like a drop of water taken from the Ocean, while the vast ocean represents Brahman itself. To get in touch with the infinite Atman and thereby better know Brahman, we must reach awareness of our true selves through meditation and contemplation. We must first know who we truly are beyond our earthly, finite human bodies. This is what the ancient sages meant when they said “know thyself,” and what Jesus meant when he proclaimed “Neither shall they say, ‘Lo here!’ or ‘Lo there!’ for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.”

RUDOLF STEINER ON MASCULINITY & FEMININITY

“One could say that the male body now has a female soul, the female body a male soul. This inner one-sidedness of the human being is compensated by fertilization through the spirit, which abolishes the one-sidedness. Both the male with the female body and the female soul with its male body become double-sexed again through fructification by the spirit. Thus, men and women are different outwardly; internally their spiritual one-sidedness is rounded out to a harmonious whole. Internally, spirit and soul are fused into a unit. The spirit’s effect on the male soul in woman is female, rendering it both male and female; the spirit’s effect on the female soul in man is male, making it, too, male and female. The double-sexedness of human beings has retired from the outer world, where it existed in the pre-Lemurian period.

One can see that the higher essence of a human being has nothing to do with man or woman. The inner equality, however, does result from a male soul in woman and from a female soul in man. The union with the spirit finally brings about equality; but the fact that a difference exists before the establishment of the equality involves a secret of human nature. Understanding this secret is of great significance for all mystery science and is the key to important enigmas of life. For the present we are not permitted to lift the veil spread over this secret…

– LOVE & ITS MEANING IN THE WORLD by Rudolf Steiner (ISBN 0880104414)

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19121217p01.html

Womens’ Ecstatic Visions of God – Poems And Faith

 

 

…

Next week, I will be on holiday and far away from the computer. Gosh! I need a break, time away to relax and indulge myself in photography. I leave you with this post on Truth as seen by several ancient women poets whom I admire greatly. Hoping  you will all enjoy this post as much as I did writing it.   I do enjoy comments, if only a one liner once in a while. They provide me with valuable feedback, without them, I am lost to know what to write and publish here. Here we go with my last post for a while.

 

I
n every spiritual tradition, the same truth appears: I am sure you have all noticed that at some time or another. Writing on spiritual matters as I do, I honestly can say, there are as many paths to the divine as there are people.

 

While it is necessary to undertake specific practices in spiritual life – prayer or meditation, the vows of right behaviour and right speech, all the many paths that lead to “being awake and aware at the core of our being” – such practices do not create anything that was not there from the beginning. They only open the door to what is already present within us. We do not pray or meditate or engage in good works in order to reach a goal or to become some way “better,” but because these activities are the fundamental expression of the heart freed of the distortions of ego and dualistic thinking. Nothing we do can bring the Sacred into existence and nothing we do can destroy it: this is the message the mystics have always brought to us.

What follows in this post are several poems from different traditions and different times – all from women, yet each points to this idea of the hidden treasure of Truth that does not change.

 

---

…

A small image of Lal Ded

The first poem is from Lalla Ded, a fourteenth-century Kashmiri poet. she was also a mystic of the Kashmiri Shaivite Sect. She wrote many devotional and mystic poems, expressing her longing for the Divine.

…

I was passionate,

filled with longing,

I searched far and wide.

But the day that the Truthful One

found me,

I was at home.

…

To learn the scriptures is easy,
to live them, hard.
The search for the Real
is no simple matter.

Deep in my looking,
the last words vanished.
Joyous and silent,
the waking that met me there.

– Lalla Ded

 

 

---

…

 

Sun Bu-er (1124?) was the most famous woman teacher of Chinese Taoism. She began spiritual practice only at the age of fifty-one, when after raising three children to adulthood, she and her husband undertook study of the Way. Each became a fully realized being and teacher, and SunBu-er left behind a number of Taoist treatises and poems.

…

Cut brambles long enough,
Sprout after sprout,
And the lotus will bloom
Of its own accord:
Already waiting in the clearing,
The single image of light.
The day you see this,
That day you will become it.
-Sun Bu-er

 

Rabi’a

 

 

Interestingly, the inner sacred is almost never desribed as residing in a temple, but as being at home, kept from public view behind closed doors, in the inmost rooms of the self. Here is one example of such a poem, by the Sufi saint Rabi’a (717-801), a freed salve who lived in the simplest of huts on the outskirts of Basra, in what is now Iraq.

…

O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.
Here, I am alone with You.

-Rabia al Adawiyya

…

 

---

…

Painting of Mirabai by GR Sharma

…

From an early age Mirabai felt an irresistible attraction and devotion to Sri Krishna. As a young child she was given a Krisha doll, which she worshipped as if it embodied the living presence of Him. Although people misunderstood her, she considered Krishna to be both her best friend, lover and husband.  Swami Sivananda said of Mirabai  ‘It is extremely difficult to find a parallel to this wonderful personality – Mira – a saint, a philosopher, a poet and a sage. She was a versatile genius and a magnanimous soul. Her life has a singular charm, with extraordinary beauty and marvel.’

…

That dark Dweller in Braj
Is my only refuge.
O my companion,
Worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death
Will not devour.

My Beloved dwells in my heart,
I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.
Mira’s Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.
My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee,
Thy slave.

– Mirabai

The Astral Planes, Lessons – Spirituality

We  humans are not solid matter, we are vibrational beings. All creation is vibration by design of the Creator.  Our thoughts are powerful and can project us while on Earth to any place we can think of. Once we enter the astral realms, we are pure thought. We are our own creators.

I was told long ago, no two deaths are alike. On death, our thoughts project us to the  realm of light that most suits our earthly habits. It’s the reason we are told to keep our thoughts positive and to live to the best of our capabilities. We do not change after death.  We are the same person. Nothing changes other than the body is gone. People with huge ambitions now, will not shed those ambitions on death but seek a way over there to satisfy them. A selfish person here on Earth is not always lucky enough to realize the astral planes, or those helpers sent to guide them home. Such souls can stay earthbound until another time, when help is sent to rescue them.

I read recently of the soul of a man who had died on the “Titantic” then became earth-bound. He roamed the earth for years, often possessing others’ bodies to satisfy his Earthy needs. This soul had come from a wealthy family who had not known suffering or want. He lived only for himself, ignoring all the grinding poverty of others. He simply was blind to it. On death, he too, become blind.  He was in the dark. His darkness was the darkness of ignorance. He did not even realize he was dead. He eventually was given help and guided towards the  light, where he was able to realize his mistakes.  Below is a piece from Sri Yonganda on the astral planes.

---

Sri Yogananda from the book ‘Divine Romance’

From my garden – the first crocus

Everything in this material world is a copy of it’s counterpart in the astral world; but the material manifestation is a gross one, limited and distorted by the law of relativity.

 

The principle of duality or relativity is inherent in creation; shadow as well as light is necessary to apprehend a universe of separate forms and creatures.

Relativity operates in the astral world too; but on that plane there are no fixed limitations – everything is perceived as different vibrations of light, naught else. In the material world delusion is deeply embedded in that law of relativity, preventing the physical consciousness from understanding things as they really are. You don’t perceive things in their essence as light because the instrumentality of your physical senses is too gross. You instead experience the relative difference between solids, liquids, and gases as so radical that if you leave the solid shore and try to walk across the liquid ocean, you drown. In the astral world, even though you can cognize the shore as solid and the ocean as liquid, there is no drowning in the astral liquid. You differentiate the solids from the liquids only as varying vibrations of light, which do not clash with each other. You can glide just as easily through “solid” light and ‘liquid” light. Or you can walk on liquid light in your solid body of light, as Jesus showed when he walked on the water. To him, both his body and the sea were naught but relativities of astral light, which he could alter at will by the power of mind. He demonstrated that a fully God-realized master can control the astral light underlying material creation. That is how he performed his miracles, such as healing the sick and raising the dead, feeding multitudes with a few loaves and fishes, and resurrecting his own body.

There is not one human experience you can think of for which the astral world has not an exact duplicate. You can experience birth and death and marriage and disease and everything that you see in the physical world. Relativities of light can create sensations and perceptions experienced as real. In the material world, because the law of relativity is so heavily laden with delusive power, man is constrained by those “realities.” In the astral world, everything is changeable at the command of the mind.

How important it is to live in that finer realm! I am all the time there—even now as I am talking to you. Such happiness comes; there are no words I can use to describe it to you. In this gross world, you get tired of everything; even the most enjoyable things eventually become tedious or boring. But in the astral world the creations of your will are ever new. You will never tire of that world. If you want to be young you can be so. If you want to appear as a man or as a woman or in any form you wish, you can do so. You do not have to worry about money for your needs; a mere command of your will provides whatever you want. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to do that here? This earth is so limited; some persons have plenty while others starve. But in the heavenly astral world there are no such inequities; every being has according to his desire. If you want an opulent palace, it is there for you. If you want snow or heat or light or rain, you can have it just by the power of thought. With astral light the mind can create anything. You are free from all limitations when you know the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, which is behind this world.

…

Leslie Flint transcripts – from his website. Leslie Flint was the greatest voice medium ever to have lived. He has left us a wealth of information by ways of transcripts from voices on the astral planes, each giving evidence of their survival. Leslie, together with other great wisdom teachers, like Daskalos, and the Masters from the East, all agree to the conditions of the soul after leaving the Earth plane.    

http://www.leslieflint.com/transcripts.html

“Unfolding” – Inspirational Quotations

…

The great sages of India say:  The Self, which is Knowledge, is the only Reality. Knowledge of multiplicity is false knowledge. This false knowledge, which is really ignorance, cannot exist apart from the Self, which is Knowledge-Reality. The variety of gold ornaments is unreal, since none of them can exist without the gold of which they are all made. Here is a beautiful paragraph from William Segal on just this. The piece is called “Unfolding..”

….

Watching quietly, anticipating nothing, I am open to what is here, now. I look at myself reading these words. I read slowly. I see the way I am sitting. I sense my body, the arising and the movement of thoughts, of feelings – the way my breath comes and goes. I am the witness and the witnessing, passively watching and actively being watched.

I see that there can be a further letting go, a beginning relationship to an unchanging inner stillness. Like a white sheet of paper that retains its nature, I remain receptive but unstained, quietly in touch with what is taking place, attention wholly, in the moment. Is there help in a stop? In an unfolding to a fresh time/space? Is there a way to be without doing?

Listening to the silence which is present in the stillness I become aware of a new web of relationships, of a unity bringing the body/mind structure to another threshold. I sense that there is another Reality that can be served. Again, a stop.

Will the fragility of my attention survive the experience of  turning this page?

From William Segal, The Structure Of Man. (Sunderland, Mass: Green River Press, 1987)

Glimpse Of Spirit – Science and Spirituality

…

If consciousness is not simply an emergent property of life, as science assumes, but is instead the initial glimpse, we have of Spirit, we ought to stop wasting our time trying to explain how it derives from matter and turn our attention to consciousness itself.

….

The image on a television screen provides an analogy for what we then find. The television lights up its screen, and the film in the video we are watching modifies that light so as to produce one of an infinite number of images. These images are like the perceptions, sensations, dreams, memories, thoughts, and feelings that we consciously experience – we might think of them as the contents of consciousness. The light itself, without which no images would be possible, corresponds to pure consciousness. We know that the images on the screen are composed of this light, but we are not usually aware of the light itself. Our attention is caught up in the images that appear and the stories they tell. In much the same way, we know we are conscious, but normally we are aware only of the many different experiences, thoughts, and feelings that consciousness presents us with. Consciousness proper-pure consciousness, consciousness with no images imposed upon it – is the common property of us all.

…

When (in introspection of meditation) we detect pure consciousness, we have every reason to think that what I experience is identical with what you experience in that same state.

…

And identical with what God too experiences, not in degree but in kind. For at that level, we are down to what consciousness is, namely infinite potential – receptive to any content that might be imposed on it. The infinitude of our consciousness is only potential whereas God’s consciousness is actual – God experiences every impossibility timelessly – but the point here is that our consciousness themselves, are in fact identical.

…

~ Huston Smith

Beautiful Blissful Mother – Children Of Light

Divine Personage of Anadamayi Ma – Life Summary

.

.

.

Experience of Sublime Holiness

 

It was a cold evening in December 1924, when I was taken to Shahbag for darshan of the Mother by Rai Bahadur Pran Gopal Muhkerjee. We were taken straight to the room where Mother was sitting alone deeply absorbed in meditation. A dim lamp was burning in front of her and that was perhaps the only thing in the room. Mother’s face was completely hidden from our view, as in those days she used a veil exactly like a newly married village girl. After we had waited there for about half an hour, suddenly the veil loosened itself and Mother’s face became visible in all its brilliance and lustre. Hymns containing many veeja-mantras (sound symbols) began to be recited by the Mother in uncommon accents, producing wonderful resonance, which affected the whole surrounding. The stillness of the cold December night, the loneliness of the Shahbag gardens and, above all, the sublimity and serenity of the atmosphere in the Mother’s room – all combined to produce a sense of holiness which could be distinctly felt. As long as we were in the room we felt an indescribable elevation of the spirit, a silence and a depth not previously experienced, a peace that passeth all understanding. We came away from Shahbag late at night with the conviction that we had been in the presence of a superior being whom it is difficult to doubt or deny.

From the book: Mother as Seen by Her Devotees as told by Dr Nalini Kanta Brahma, Professor of Philosophy, Presidency College, Calcutta
“To believe in Him under any particular form is not enough. Accept Him in His numberless forms, shapes and modes of being, in everything that exists. Aim at the whole and all your actions will be whole.”

 

Anandamayi Ma, Cry Only For Him

 

In the summer of 1948, a lady from South India had come to Kishenpur with a party from Hrishikesh. Seemingly absentminded and obviously distressed, she told Ma: “First my husband passed away. I was upset but I could bear it, because I had my only daughter, a lovely talented child. When she was 12, she fell ill and died. Since then I cannot find peace of mind. She was all I had, so beautiful and promising. When she had hardly begun her life, she was torn away from me. Why did she leave me? I cannot understand. For some time I worked in an orphanage. I thought, if I have no child, let me at least serve motherless children. I got attached to these children and they to me. But my heart is still broken. My guru said: ‘Continue your sadhana’. But I cannot concentrate. All the time I am pining for my darling. Nothing appeals to me. I want my child back. What am I to do?”

Ma: “First of all, sorrow comes from the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. You say: ‘My daughter died’, and so you grieve. But who are you? Find out who you are! She was the fruit of your body. As long as you are identified with the body, there must be pain. It is inevitable. So many boys and girls die, young and beautiful, yet it does not affect you deeply. You only think this one child was your own and you have lost her.”

“Then there is another thing to be learnt – all sorrow is due to the fact that one keeps apart from God. When you are with Him, all pain disappears. Let your thoughts dwell on Him. Remember that your daughter is now with Him. The more you think of God, the nearer you will be to her. If you must shed tears, cry for Him.”

“Just as some blossoms fall off without bearing fruit, so do some human beings die young. For a while God had entrusted the child to your care and then He took her back unto Himself. Now He Himself is looking after her. One day you will go there too. Until then keep your mind on God and you will also be with your child.”

“How do you know that your child is not much better off where she is now? How much trouble and distress life has brought you! Would you have desired a similar fate for her?”

“Then again, on the level where there is only one Self, there is no question of birth and death. Who is born? Who dies? All is one Self”

“The same mind that identifies itself with the body can be turned towards the Eternal and then the pain the body experiences will be a matter of indifference. Since the body is bound to get hurt at times, there must be suffering as long as one is identified with it. This world oscillates endlessly between pleasure and pain; there can be no security, no stability here. These are to be found in God alone. How can there be both, the world and the One? On the way there seem to be two, God and the world, but when the Goal has been reached, there is only One. What worldly life is you have seen. Who is yours? Only your Guru, your Ishta (chosen deity); in Him you will find everything and everyone. “I am your child”.

Several months later the same lady came to Varanasi for Ma’s darshan. She looked younger and happier. “I have gotten over my grief,” she said “I am now reconciled to my fate. When Ma said ‘I am your child’, her voice was my daughter’s voice. My hair stood on end and I had a wonderful feeling which I cannot describe in words. From that moment the wound in my heart began to heal. I have gained an inner conviction that my child is happy where she is. I am finding peace and am able to attend to my meditation. Now I am planning to go on a pilgrimage to Badri and Kedarnath. I only wish all bereaved mothers could be comforted as I have been”

~ Old Diary Leaves, Atmananda