Seamless Unity

"We have a word for leaf, twig, branch, trunk, roots.  The words make it easier for us to categorize and comprehend reality.  But we must not think that just because we have words for all the parts of a tree, a tree really has all those parts.  The leaf does not know when it stops being a leaf and becomes a twig.  And the trunk is not aware that it has stopped being a trunk and has become the roots.  Indeed, the roots do not know when they stop being roots and become soil, nor the soil the atmosphere the sunlight.  All our names are arbitrarily superimposed on what is, in truth, the seamless unity of all being."

Expansion

                                                                                  

"The year before, at an evening party, he had heard a piece of music played on the piano and violin. At first he had appreciated only the material quality of the sounds which those instruments secreted. And it had been a source of keen pleasure when, below the delicate line of the violin-part, slender but robust, compact and commanding, he had suddenly become aware of the mass of the piano-part beginning to emerge in a sort of liquid rippling of sound, multiform but indivisible, smooth yet restless, like the deep blue tumult of the sea, silvered and charmed into a minor key by the moonlight. But then at a certain moment, without being able to distinguish any clear outline, or to give a name to what was pleasing him, suddenly enraptured, he had tried to grasp the phrase or harmony — he did not know which — that had just been played and that had opened and expanded his soul, as the fragrance of certain roses, wafted upon the moist air of evening, has the power of dilating one’s nostrils.”
                                                                                            Proust, Swann In Love

Listening

"Sometimes you hear a peace of music on the radio or someplace without having any clue about what it is and who did it, but nevertheless are spontaneously overwhelmed by its beauty and just want badly to know the references in order to hear it again? In such a case, the music itself appeals to you directly and that's enough. We should listen to any work of art, and in fact to life itself, with an open mind. You let truth unfold and unveil in your non-qualified awareness."
                                                                                                              LD

What is Mysticism?

Mysticism, is taking of more and more into your field of vision until there is nothing left outside - not even the one who is looking.

To Know The SELF

"To know or to study yourself is not merely to have knowledge of your gross body and other things associated with it.  That which gives you power, vigor, strength and the effulgence of life is something different.  Modern science calls it energy and the Ancient Sages called it the Self, or God.  In reality, it is there that your real existence lies.  That is the real "you".  To study yourself means to know that Self without which you have no existence, power or vigor.  But that is very subtle.  You cannot perceive it, but you can experience it.   As you go more and more into it, you will get the power to understand that Self. 

In the beginning one will not get real dhyana (meditation).  What we do in the beginning cannot be called real meditation as it is just a practice or exercise to attain the state of dhyana.  Even then, we will say that we are meditating.  Results will be gained if you try constantly.  Suppose we place a pot of water on the stove to cook rice.  If someone were to ask, "What are you dong?" we would say, "I am cooking rice."  In reality the rice is not being cooked, only the water is being boiled.  Even then, that is what we would say.  So even in the initial stages of dhyana we would say that we are meditating. (although it is actually the preparation needed for real meditation.)"
                         
                                   Dialogues With Mata Amritanandamayi:
                                                Awaken Children Vol. 2
                           

Plato's Journey through Unknowing

He who has been led by his teacher in the matters of love to this point, correctly observing step by step the objects of beauty, when approaching his final goal will, of a sudden, catch sight of a nature of amazing beauty, and this, Socrates, is indeed the cause of all his former efforts.  This nature is, in the first place, for all time, neither coming into being nor passing into dissolution, neither growing nor decaying; secondly, it is not beautiful in one part or at one time, but ugly in another part or at another time, nor beautiful towards one thing, but ugly towards another, nor beautiful here and ugly there, as if beautiful to some, but ugly to others; again, this beauty will not appear to him as partaking of the level of beauty of the human face or hands or any other part of the body, neither of any kind of reason nor any branch of science, nor existing in any other being, such as in a living creature, or in earth, or in heaven or in anything else, but only in the ever present unity of Beauty Itself, in Itself, with Itself, from which all other beautiful things are derived, but in such a manner that these others come into being and pass into dissolution, but it experiences no expansion nor contraction nor suffers any change.

Whenever a man, ascending on the return journey from these mortal things, by a right feeling of love for youths, begins to catch sight of that beauty, he is not far from his goal.  This is the correct way to approaching or being led by another to the realm of love, beginning with beautiful things in this world and using them as steps, returning ever on and upwards for the sake of that absolute beauty, from one to two and from two to all beautiful embodiments, then from beautiful embodiment to beautiful practices, and from practices to the beauty of knowledge of many things, and from these branches of knowledge one comes finally to the absolute knowledge, which is none other than knowledge of that absolute beauty and rests finally in the realization of what the absolute beauty is.
                                                        Symposium 211
                                                        

THE KEY

11. For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.		יא. כִּי הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם לֹא נִפְלֵאת הִוא מִמְּךָ וְלֹא רְחֹקָה הִוא:
12. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"		יב. לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲלֶה לָּנוּ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה:
13. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"		יג. וְלֹא מֵעֵבֶר לַיָּם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲבָר לָנוּ אֶל עֵבֶר הַיָּם וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה:
14. Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.		יד. כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ:

The Seeker is the Sought

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

                                             You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
       You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstacy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
       You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
       You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
       You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

 T.S. Elliot (excerpt from The Four Quartets)