not afraid to forget who you are

morten brekkevold

 

When you are not

afraid to forget who you are,

life in the kitchen, or life in the office,

might contain huge and overwhelming happiness.

Everything you look at, the door, the walls meeting in the

corner of the room, the light shining on the cell phone, might be

so alive that it looks back. Other people might not be who you

thought they were. Family members might be as fresh

and surprising as strangers. And you, whom you

have only apparently known all your life,

might be fresh and surprising

to yourself too.

 

John Tarrant

bring me the rhinoceros

🦏

 

the pain of being stretched

bisa butler

 

Tagore says:

‘When the string of the violin

was being tuned it felt the pain of being

stretched, but once it was tuned then it knew why it

was stretched’. So it is with the human soul. While the soul

goes through pain, torture and trouble it thinks that it would

have  been much better if it had gone through life without

it. But once it reaches the culmination of it then,

when it looks back, it begins to realize why

all this was meant: it was only meant

to tune the soul to a

certain pitch.

 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

wahiduddin’s web

 

attend to your attitude

absorbed in stillness

 

It is

an unavoidable fact

of life that inferior influences

sometimes prevail: improperly motivated

people ascend to power, there is injustice and conflict

and poverty, and spiritual life in general descends into darkness

and decay.  While these difficult times are inevitable — and the arrival

of this hexagram indicates that this is such a time — this does

not mean that we have to stagnate personally as well. 

By turning inward and realigning ourselves

with proper principles, we initiate

the return to light, truth

and progress.

 

The image

of P’i is of heaven

moving away from the earth. 

When this happens, the inferior qualities

in ourselves and in others come to the surface and

seek expression.  It is unlikely now that you can affect what

others do and say or that your activities will bear much fruit.  While

it is natural to feel anxious and disappointed about this state of

affairs, it is essential to disengage from these inferior

emotions now.  To indulge in them is to

abandon  your superior self and

plunge into a state of

disintegration.

 

What is

wise now is to accept

that external progress is unlikely. 

Turn your attention inward and examine your

own thoughts and attitudes for inferior influences

and departures from the principles of the Sage. 

By withdrawing into solitude and refining

your higher nature, you continue

to grow while all else around

you stagnates.

 

The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 12, P’i Standstill (Stagnation)

 

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whenever something happens

the way of heaven

 

Can what happened to you

stop you from being fair, high-minded,

moderate, conscientious, unhasty, honest, moral,

self-reliant, and so on — from possessing all the qualities that,

when present, enable a man’s nature to be fulfilled? So then,

whenever something happens that might cause you

distress, remember to rely on this principle:

this is not bad luck, but bearing it

valiantly is good luck.

 

Marcus Aurelius

the annotated marcus