3

THE GIFT OF YOUR SENSITIVITY

You are awake.

You are sensitive.

You feel everything.

Sometimes you wish you didn't feel everything.

But you do.

The depths of loneliness.

The heights of joy.

Sometimes it feels like it's too much.

Sometimes you dream of numbing yourself.

It's a lot, living this close to life, this close to death, this close to yourself.

But then, you realise, numbing the pain would also numb the joy.

And you refuse to be numb like the others.

So you walk, your heart exposed all day, every day, every fucking day.

Great sorrows ploughing through.

Bliss cascading like a waterfall.

Unable to switch it off.

Unable to run.

(Where would you run to?

There is only you.)

You, and your raw, broken open heart.

You, and the thrill and dread of being alive for another day.

Another whole day!

Sensitive to the tiniest little flicker or flutter of experience.

To the breeze on your face.

The cracked glass in the old window.

The spider web in the half light.

The contraction and expansion of each sacred breath.

A morning shifting into afternoon.

A secret or promise kept or not.

A plan crumbling into shiny Unknowing.

You will take this intensity, yes.

You will commit to this living, yes.

You will walk this path, of course.

Even though you will doubt it, often.

There is no other path for you.

You feel everything.

You are sensitive.

You are awake.

And our noisy world needs you,

now more then ever.

- Jeff Foster

2

The mind always seeks 

external knowledge, 

leaving aside knowledge about itself....

Ramana....

1

"He alone knows to whom He will reveal Himself under which form. By what path and in what manner the Almighty attracts any particular person to Himself with great force is incomprehensible to the human intelligence. 

The path differs indeed for different pilgrims. Very often He destroys misfortune by misfortune, and removes sorrow by sorrow. To advance in this spirit means for everyone to tread his own path. One's own path is the path that leads to Self-realization, to the supreme, ultimate Goal itself."

~ Ma Anandamayi 

(Matri Vani, Vol.II,168, page 112)

being presence

Have no fear and plunge into your own Being.

When "you" disappear, all fear will also.

Stay Quiet, Be Still, Here you are.

Stay as the Presence in your Heart.

Do not fear meeting the Self, it is what you have always been.

Nothing can be lost, have no fear.

(The Truth is)

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

5

At Deoghar once a Sadhu came and said he could tell everybody’s thoughts by looking at their faces. I told this to Mother and suggested to Her that he might be asked to tell Hers. She did not say anything and so I called the sadhu to Her room and said, "Let us know what is passing in Her mind.” The sadhu stared at Her eyes for a very long time and as Mother did not turn Her gaze he eventually closed his eyes and said, "She is not an ordinary lady. I cannot tell what is passing in Her mind." 

Once a palmist came and Mother's palm was shown to him. He looked at it for a few moments and then prostrated before Her, saying, "She is a great Sadhu - I never saw such a hand before in my life."  

Mother had a very strong sense of humor and sometimes She would relate stories with gestures and keep us laughing for hours together. Generally, however, She was reserved and would only listen, rarely speaking. 

When a visitor came to visit Her She would talk to him and listen to him for some time. Within a short time, She would know him so thoroughly that he could hide nothing from Her.

- The Life and the Teachings of Sri Brahmajna Ma

4

Samādhi is our natural state of clear self-awareness, because it is a state that the mind enters only by the practice of self-attentiveness: that is, by attending only to ‘I’. 

~Sri Ramana Maharshi

3

God will bear whatever burdens we put on Him. All things are being carried on by the omnipotent power of a Supreme God. Instead of submitting ourselves to It, why should we always be planning, ‘We should do this or that’. 

Knowing that the train carries all the load, why should we, travelling therein, suffer by carrying our small bundle on our heads, instead of leaving it on the train and being happy.

- Gems from Sri Ramana Maharshi.