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Post by Smithee on Jul 10, 2012 10:08:59 GMT 10
“My suffering is unbearable.”
Said the Master, “The present moment is never unbearable. It is what you think is coming in the next five minutes or the next five days that drives you to despair. Stop living in the future.”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 11, 2012 9:20:02 GMT 10
The Master made it his task to systematically destroy every doctrine, every belief, every concept of the divine, for these things which were originally intended as pointer were now being taken as descriptions.
He loved to quote the Eastern saying: "When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger.”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 12, 2012 8:18:48 GMT 10
“I have been four months with you and you have still given me no method or technique.”
“A method?” said the Master. “What on earth would you want a method for?”
“To attain inner freedom.”
The Master roared with laughter. “You need great skill indeed to set yourself free by means of the trap called a method,” he said.
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Post by Smithee on Jul 13, 2012 9:33:36 GMT 10
“What is it you seek?” asked the Master.
“Peace,” said the visitor.
“To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace only brings disturbance.”
And to a religious group that came to gawk at him and ask for a blessing, he said with a roguish smile, “May the peace of God disturb you always!”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 14, 2012 9:42:05 GMT 10
The Master’s attitude to social service was perplexing. At times he was all for it. At others he seemed indifferent.
The explanations he sometimes gave for this inconsistency were just as enigmatic. He said.
“The one who wishes to do good must knock at the gate. For the one who loves, the gate is always open.”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 15, 2012 10:45:47 GMT 10
To those disciples who were naively confident that there was nothing they couldn’t achieve if they went at it with a will the Master would say, “The best things in life cannot be willed into being.
You can will to put food in your mouth but you cannot will an appetite. You can will to lie in bed but you cannot will sleep. You can will to pay someone a compliment but you cannot will admiration. You can will to tell a secret but you cannot will trust. You can will an act of service but you cannot will love.”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 16, 2012 11:39:08 GMT 10
"How does one recognize enlightenment?"
"By the fact that, having seen evil as evil the enlightened person cannot do it," said the Master.
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Post by Smithee on Jul 17, 2012 9:11:07 GMT 10
“Why…. why…. why?” demanded the disciple when, to his astonishment, the Master insisted on his leaving the monastery forthwith, barely twenty-four hours after he had been welcomed.
“Because you do not need a Master. I can show you the way but only you can do the walking. I can point to the water, you alone can do the drinking. Why waste your time here gazing starry-eyed at me? You know the way. Walk! The water is right in front of you. Drink!”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 18, 2012 11:19:33 GMT 10
In his younger days the Master had been a political activist and had led a protest march against the government. Thousands of people had left their homes and jobs to join the agitation.
The March had hardly begun when he called the whole thing off. “You simply cannot do this; this march had been planned for months and has cost the people dearly. They will accuse you of being inconsistent,” said his agitated followers.
The Master was unmoved. “My commitment is not to consistency,” he said, “but to the Truth.”
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Post by Smithee on Jul 19, 2012 10:46:57 GMT 10
Irritated by the Master’s paradoxical language, a philosopher from Europe exclaimed, “I have heard it said that east of the Suez Canal two contradictory statements can be simultaneously true.”
The Master enjoyed that one. “East of Suez,“ he said, “and one inch into reality. That is why Reality is an unintelligible mystery.”
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