Monday, July 3, 2023

Satisfaction: 42 years at the Himalayan Institute: Guru Purnima 2023




"If one observes how karma works itself out, it may be said from the human side that this living out of karma can only be described as a kind of hunger and its satisfaction."  — Rudolf Steiner



Our karma is our own permanent being,

our true self.  — Rudolf Steiner




"The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt



 


Ma Swaha

Today, July 3, 2023, is Guru Purnima.

The site of the Himalayan Institute,
where Darlene and I have lived since July 3, 1981,
is the former Kilroe Seminary of the Sacred Heart




The Himalayan Institute's Meditation Shrine



Rudolf Steiner:  "All community-building eventuates in a higher being descending from the world of the spirit to reign over and unite people who have come together in a common cause."



"On the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience."  —Luke 8:15





"Serious, good will is the greatest, most beautiful quality of the spirit. Success lies in a higher, invisible hand. Only intention gives value to our efforts."  — Friedrich Schiller

  




Rudolf Steiner:  "States and all other human communities come and go before our eyes. But what human beings have formed out of their souls, as such communities, constitute humanly conceived ideas of eternal value, with an eternally enduring significance. And when this human race once again appears on the Earth in a new form, then it will see the fruits of these elements of eternal value."




My guru, Swamiji
Glenview, Illinois, 1975


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!"



 

Light on the Path, Rule #1: Kill out ambition. "It is easy to say, I will not be ambitious: it is not so easy to say, when the Master reads my heart he will find it clean utterly."






"The Lord dwells in the hearts of all creatures


and whirls them round upon the wheel of maya.


Run to him for refuge with all your strength,


and peace profound will be yours through his grace."



                                   — Bhagavad Gita 18:61-62





Guru Gita 76:

Dhyana mulam guror murtih

Puja mulam guroh padam

Mantra mulam guror vakyam

Moksha mulam guroh krpa


The root of meditation is the guru's form

The root of worship is the guru's feet

The root of mantra is the guru's word

The root of liberation is the guru's grace.




"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



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


"Not I, but Christ in me."



Rudolf Steiner:  "The essential secret, therefore, is this: The human being must know how to keep silence about the paths along which his ego unfolds, and to regard his deeds, not his personal ego, as the criterion. The real heart of the secret lies in his deeds and in the overcoming of the ego through deed. The ego must remain concealed within the deed! Elimination of the interests of the personal ego from the onstreaming flow of human karma — this belongs to the First Degree. Whatever individual karma the ego incurs in the process is thereby wiped out. Nation, race, sex, position, religion — all these work upon human egoism. Only when man has overcome them will he be free of egoism."


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


P. G. Wodehouse:  “He's like one of those weird chappies in India who dissolve themselves into thin air and nip through space in a sort of disembodied way and assemble the parts again just where they want them. I've got a cousin who's what they call a Theosophist, and he says he's often nearly worked the thing himself, but couldn't quite bring it off, probably owing to having fed in his boyhood on the flesh of animals slain in anger and pie.”




I was never looking for a guru;
I was just looking for someone who
could teach me how to meditate better.







Rudolf Steiner:  "Persons of a choleric temperament should purposely put themselves in situations where rage is of no use, but rather only makes them look ridiculous."


Rudolf Steiner: "Let us suppose that a person intended to accomplish something in the world through inner spiritual means. The individual has to prepare himself or herself by learning above all to suppress his or her wishes or desires. And while one becomes stronger in the physical world if one eats well and is well nourished and thus has more energy, one will achieve something significant in the spiritual world — this is a description, not advice — when one fasts or does something to suppress or renounce wishes and desires. Preparation that involves relinquishing the wishes, desires, and will impulses arising in us is always part of the greatest spiritual endeavors. The less we will, the more we can say that we let life stream over us and do not desire this or that, but rather take things as karma casts them before us; the more we accept karma and its consequences; the more we behave calmly, renouncing all that we otherwise would have wanted to achieve in life — the stronger we become."




"I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!"  —Luke 12:49-50



Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

For our God is a consuming fire.

— Hebrews 12:28-29



"In the beholding of God we do not fall;
in the beholding of ourselves we may not stand."
                          — Julian of Norwich




"I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."  — Galatians 2:19-21



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?'"




"When spiritual life and ordinary life are brought into direct connection with each other, then, for the first time, large numbers of people will feel spiritual life as a vital necessity."  — Rudolf Steiner





Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

— Matthew 11:28-30




Namaste: I salute Jesus Christ in you


Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.



"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you"
— Matthew 7:7





Rudolf Steiner: "If we give up ourselves to mutual help, through this giving up to the community a powerful strengthening of our organs takes place. If we then speak or act as a member of such a community there speaks or acts in us not the singular soul only but the spirit of the community. This is the secret of progress for the future of mankind: To work out of communities."



Rudolf Steiner: "Wherever we are gathered together we are gathered in the name of the search for wisdom and the search for love."



  "Yogaḥ Karmasu Kauśalam" ["Yoga is skill in action"]
— Bhagavad Gita 2:50
The motto of the Himalayan Institute



"Let each one of us see in one another what is just and imbued with strength.
Let strength generate and empower strength.
Only then shall we move forward together."
— Rudolf Steiner


"Something must come about anew that resembles the working of the old Mysteries, something that is described as an offering and devotion of the whole human being, an opening out of the whole human being within his or her task.... the impulse to give one's whole humanity as an offering to the work that you have recognized as being holy."  —Rudolf Steiner











"And the Veda was made flesh, and dwelt among us."




Jesus: Krishna, redeemed by Christ





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]




The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."
— Galatians 5:22-23





"Let your work be the shadow that your I casts when it is shone upon by the flame of your higher self."
— Rudolf Steiner




Rudolf Steiner:
This ability to rise to the point at which thoughts of the spirit can grip us as powerfully as can anything in the physical world: this is Michael power. It is confidence in the ideas of spirit — given the capacity for receiving them at all — leading to the conviction: I have received a spiritual impulse. I give myself up to it. I become the instrument for its execution. First failure — never mind! Second failure — never mind! A hundred failures are of no consequence, for no failure is ever a decisive factor in judging the truth of a spiritual impulse whose effect has been inwardly understood and grasped. We have full confidence in a spiritual impulse, grasped at a certain point of time, only when we can say to ourself: My hundred failures can at most prove that the conditions for realizing the impulse are not given me in this incarnation; but that this impulse is right I can know from its own nature. And if I must wait a hundred incarnations for the power to realize this impulse, nothing but its own nature can convince me of the efficacy or impotence of any spiritual impulse.
If you will imagine this thought developed in the heart and soul as great confidence in spirit, if you will consider that man can cling firm as a rock to something he has seen to be spiritually victorious, something he refuses to relinquish in spite of all outer oppostion, then you will have a conception of what the Michael power, the Michael being, really demands of us; for only then will you comprehend the nature of the great confidence in spirit. We may leave in abeyance some spiritual impulse or other, even for a whole incarnation; but once we have grasped it we must never waver in cherishing it within us, for only thus can we save it up for subsequent incarnations. And when confidence in spirit will in this way have established a frame of mind to which this spiritual substance appears as real as the ground under our feet — the ground without which we could not stand — then we shall have in our heart and soul a feeling of what Michael really expects of us.







Rudolf Steiner, "Verse for America"


May we be centered in the feeling
of compassionate love in our hearts
as we seek to unite with human beings who share our goals
and with spirit beings who, full of grace,
behold our earnest, heartfelt striving,
strengthening us from realms of light
and illuminating our love.




Rudolf Steiner:  "You can calmly feel the truth as an ideal placed before you at an immeasurable distance yet with the awareness that you are on your way toward it."




Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
— 1 Peter 4:8

Rudolf Steiner:  "...these societies built on brotherliness and spiritual insight are the worst beset with conflicts. They present the widest opportunities for fighting, for partings-of-the-way, for splitting up into separate factions within the larger group, for group resignations, for sharp attacks on those who stay and those who leave, and so on. In short, human strife is at its most rampant in groups dedicated to brotherhood.... When people apply their ordinary soul habits to what they think they are understanding of teachings about the higher worlds, then this inevitably develops strife and egotism. Thus it is just by grasping the true nature of the higher worlds that one is led to understand how easily societies with a spiritual content can become involved in conflicts and quarreling, and how necessary it is to educate oneself to participation in such groups by learning to tolerate the other person to an immeasurably greater degree than one is used to doing."



Socrates:  "What the most decent people experience in relation to their community is so hard to bear that there's no other experience like it."

Abraham Lincoln:  "I am like the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. When they asked him how he felt about it, he said that if it were not for the honor of the thing, he would rather have walked."

"Sometimes the only writing material you have is your own blood."  — Daniel Berrigan

"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." — Matthew 10:16



I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.


— Matthew 5:44-45




“To create centers of peace & love in which the Christ can resurrect.”
~written on the urn that holds the ashes of Rudolf Steiner



"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  — Margaret Mead




“A healthy social life is found only when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.”  — Rudolf Steiner
















"Only love works."  —  Rudolf Steiner










Rudolf Steiner:  "If anyone is to work for the community, he must perceive and feel the value, the nature and importance, of this community. He can do this only when the community is quite different from a more or less indefinite sum of individual human beings. It must be informed by an actual spirit, in which each single one has their part. It must be such that each one says 'It is as it should be, and I will that it be so.' The community must have a spiritual mission, and each individual must have the will to contribute toward the fulfilling of this mission."






The words of Benedictus, from scene 7 of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Drama “The Portal of Initiation”:

You have been joined by destiny
together to unfold the powers
which are to serve the good in active work.
And while you journey on the path of soul,
wisdom itself will teach you
that the highest goal can be achieved
when souls will give each other spirit certainty,
will join together in faithfulness
for the healing of the world.
The spirit’s guidance has united you in knowledge;
so now unite yourselves for spirit work.
The rulers of this realm bestow on you,
through me, these words of strength:

Light’s weaving essence radiates
from person to person
to fill the world with truth.
Love’s blessing gives its warmth
to souls through souls
to work and weave the bliss of all the worlds.
And messengers of spirit
join human works of blessing
with purposes of worlds.
And when those who find themselves in others
join with each other
the light of spirit radiates through warmth of soul.





John 15:1 - 16:3

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. 
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. 
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. 
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. 
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. 
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. 
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. 
These things I command you, that ye love one another. 
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 
But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 
He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 
If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 
But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. 
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: 
And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. 
They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. 
And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.








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






The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.








At-one-ment


Washed in the Blood of the Lamb are We
Awash in a Sonburst Sea
You—Love—and I—Love—and Love Divine:
We are the Trinity

You—Love—and I—We are One-Two-Three
Twining Eternally
Two—Yes—and One—Yes—and also Three:
One Dual Trinity
Radiant Calvary
Ultimate Mystery














Continued:












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