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Philosophy
India Post
March 25, 2011
www.indiapost.com
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mma always said that whatever she said was out of her experience. Her sayings are direct, down to earth practical and even scholars wondered at the depth and content of her pithy sayings which are seemingly simple. They are characterized by an unrelenting emphasis on • The immanence of God as this entire world-play of forms, and God's transcendence as the formless; • A complete equanimity and contentment over what happens in the world; and • A non-dual devotion toward God as the Cosmic Principle with the realization that "All is HE, All is HIS doing." Here are a few of her sayings: Responsibility Responsibility is itself suffering. If we do not think "I am doing", but rather I am merely an instrument", then even twice the amount of work is painless responsibility. Happiness Happiness arises in the mind, not in the possessions. It is the mind that thinks, "I have", or "I lack". It is the mind that wants; and it is the mind that feels satisfied with whatever is available. A mind, which thinks otherwise, experiences suffering. To want anything that is not available is sorrow. Contentment is happiness. HENRY DAVID THOREAU
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et us consider the way in which we spend our lives. This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blankbook to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for - business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him out of mischief, and he
Worship Although we dimly perceive that there is ONE which is infinite, we cannot grasp it with our minds and worship IT; but we can perceive IT in a limited form and offer worship. So form is necessary. When you worship a form or symbol and deeply contemplate, how can the feeling for your own divinity not grow in you? This is what happens in the worship of form. I don't mean that one gets that
is 'Sadhana'. You often hear it said that That (the Real) is real and This (the world) is an illusion. I say that This is also real. You think that teaching children, providing for the household, defending clients in courts etc., is all worldly and that 'Sadhana' is something different from all things. If you do everything as His work and as He would have you do, what else is there to be desired? Love When love becomes primary (in
only between mother and child. The mother bears patiently the lapses of the child. The child is never at fault in the mother's eyes, however blameworthy he may seem to others. Such a love is found in a mother's heart and nowhere else. Do you think that my love will fade away simply because you don't come into my room and see me? As if love were intensified by embracing the four legs of my cot,
Responsibility is suffering if you think 'I am doing' If you do everything as His work and
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? -John Keats
as He would have you do, what else is there to be desired?
Jillellamudi Amma
result only in the worship of a form or symbol. Whatever the activity - cooking meals, farming - if that same 'Bhava' (one pointed attitude) is maintained, the result will be the same. In all kinds of worship, the result depends on the 'Bhava' one has. Ultimately, one should have the same 'Bhava' no matter what activity one is engaged in. Sadhana What ever you do in your daily routine with attention and devotion
your life), it is not possible for there to be a single person who is not loved. You love death, you will love life - love alone will be important. It is the nature of true love to remain constant in all circumstances. The loves of the world are changing; a word or a deed is enough to alter these. If the other person does not act according to your wish, you get angry. But the love I speak of doesn't change in that manner. Such love is found
or by moving about in my room! It is not correct to say that you have broken ties with your Mother (when you leave Jillellamudi); physical separation can never mean separation. When you are always remembering me, where is the separation? Mother's love? Love itself is Mother. The 88th birth anniversary of Jillellamudi Amma will be observed on March 28
wishes me to spend three weeks digging there with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to board, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little
get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be
they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would com-
Nothing more opposed to life than incessant business To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have Henry David Thoreau
money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! The ways by which you may
A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. -William Blake Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity. -John Milton Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for? -Robert Browning All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. -Alexander Pope Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. -William Wordsworth
been truly idle or worse popular, which is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being something less than a man. The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that
monly buy them off from their present pursuit. I see advertisements for active young men, as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. Excerpted from Life Without Principle
First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust - and we die too. -Percy Bysshe Shelley
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