Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
This is the purpose of the religious life to awaken joy through service to and for one another.
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Transformation
No credit can be given for predicting rain—only for building arks
Imagine that you met a remarkable person who could look at the sun or the stars and, amazingly, state the exact time and date. Wouldn’t it be even more amazing still if, instead of telling the time, that person built a clock that could tell the time forever, even after he or she were dead and gone?
“what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved.”
Think back to January 2011 and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a ‘meet the people’ event outside a supermarket in Tuscan. The attack, in which six people died and Giffords was seriously injured, shocked America.
Some saw it as the inevitable outcome of a politics become intolerant and ‘uncivil.’ The Republican politician Sarah Palin, then widely seen as contemplating a Presidential bid herself, was vilified for having shown Giffords caught in the crosshairs of a rifle sight as a campaign ‘target.’ She attempted to address the damage with a speech mourning the dead, but vigorously defending free speech and forthright debate as key American virtues. It fell to Obama in his public role to address the memorial service for the dead. With the eyes of the world and of a shattered local community watching, how would he respond? Continue reading
Humility
Humility does not come easily for people brought up on bullet points and clear answers. For Americans in particular, who have raised pride and self-esteem to a high art, even the word ‘humility’ raises hackles. It is more acceptable – even expected – for Americans to sing their own praises. When Mohammad Ali was taken to task, chided for arrogance when he claimed he was “the greatest,” he said “It ain’t arrogant if you can do it!” Fifty years later, young Americans are still told this story by their sports coaches as they are encouraged to succeed. Maybe for winning at sports it’s not bad advice, but as a preparation for life in the messy uncertainties of the 21st century it has all the hallmarks of a neurotic response…..
Rules of Living by The Dalai Lama
Psychological Literacy
We have noted already that the default psychological protection against fear and anxiety is neurotic defense. It is a way of dealing with complexity by withdrawal from contact with the world and so not dealing with it at all. Persons of tomorrow, by contrast, embrace the world. They engage with their existential reality in a spirit of hope, courage, invention and play. Continue reading
Service to the powerless , the power of truth and the cause of justice
English translation of Editorial of the Sinhala Daily, Aththa, Colombo, 11 February 1984
“He has told us that what gives him strength amid the encircling gloom of our society is the inner flame burning within him. The consciousness of a union with the absolute and of the presence of a bright spark of the divine within him and in all others motivates him, animates him and sustains him. His religiosity is both internal to him and expresses itself in service to others and the community.”
Mr.Nadesan who turned 80 on 11 February 1984 is one of the most remarkable and admirable sons of the 20th century in Sri Lanka. He was born at the dawn of the century and now lives to see it coming to its end. He has witnessed and has been a participant in all the major events that have transformed our country.
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I will try
I will try.
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I come, like red bird, to sing.
But I’m not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and–
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I come, like red bird, to sing.
But I’m not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and–
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?
-Mary Oliver
we break open to the place inside which is unbreakable…..
There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable. Continue reading
ONE TUSK 