Wellspring: A surefire spiritual shortcut

Thursday, February 16, 2023

A surefire spiritual shortcut

Ma Swaha

The site of the Himalayan Institute,
where Darlene and I have lived since 1981,
is the former Kilroe Seminary of the Sacred Heart

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. —Luke 9:23-24

"The shortest cut is to cut the ego." — Swamiji, frequently

My guru, Swamiji

Swamiji, referring to his ashram: "Isn't this a cremation ground? You come here to be burned, and if you can't get that into your head, there's no point in your being here!"

"In the beholding of God we do not fall;

in the beholding of ourselves we may not stand."

— Julian of Norwich

Rudolf Steiner: "In truth, self-seeking and egoism bring their own punishment because the self-seeking person becomes more and more discontented, complains more and more that he comes off badly. When anyone feels this way about himself, he ought to acknowledge the law of karma and ask himself, when he is discontented: 'What self-seeking has brought this discontent upon me?'"

I've lived in my guru's ashram since 1981. As long as Swamiji was alive, complaining about anything would have been the purest folly. After all, God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, n'est-ce pas? Once, a great evil had just been done to me; I was walking by myself thinking about it when Swamiji, also alone, approached me. When he came close I stopped and said to him "Am I supposed to be OK with this?" He said "Yes." I said "OK, but only because you say so." And that was that.

"He must increase; I must decrease." — John 3:30

“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” — John 16:33

The quintessential Maha-Vakya: "ES IST ICH"

Rudolf Steiner: "In older languages the self was not specifically designated, for it was contained within the verb. The ‘I’ was not directly mentioned. The verb was used to show what one was doing, and this was what indicated that one was speaking about oneself. There was no name for the self. It only came about in later times that the human being gave his self a name, and in our German language that name [ich] contains the initials of Jesus Christ, which is an important symbolic fact." [Iesus CHristus: ICH]