Tag Archives: wise words

The Dharma of Keeping

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A curious title for a post, I thought as the words popped into mind. And it’s one that could be hinting at, pointing towards, any number of ideas, topics, or whatever.

In this case, however, it is really quite straightforward: The title refers to a three-line quote I rediscovered when I was transferring notes from a full notebook to a new one the other day.

Actually, ‘three-line’ quote may not be quite correct. In fact, I have no idea if it is a longer quote consisting of three lines, or, three individual one-liners that I happen to have grouped together.

Whatever the case, I don’t know where I found this quote or these quotes. All I can say is that I was surprised to come across them as I performed the normally routine task of transferring notes.

Surprised,  because each of these lines I think, hold a special message for me; a unique piece of advice. You could even call them guidance.

Each individual line and its message is wrapped around  and driven by the verb to keep:

Keep your spirits up
Please help keep the silence.
God’s will be done and keep calm.

As a whole, this quote (these quotes) constitute  a kind of ‘how to live in the world’ mini-guide. Each – and all – of the three lines point to an aspect of what we might call Right Living – guiding us to the means by which we may approach daily life with its ups and downs, its sorrows and joys, good and bad times, mistakes, hurts, confusion, that make up our lives as flawed human beings living the best we can in an imperfect world.

Keep your spirits up

What with all those ups and downs, sorrows, daily crises – in our own lives and in the world around us – how are we to keep  our spirits up?

How do we free ourselves of the pain and suffering caused to us by all these travails?

How do we remain positive and optimistic in the face of what passes for a life ‘in the world’?

All good questions, and there are many many answers out there in that same crazy, mixed-up world that’s giving us all the trouble in the first place.

Speaking only for me, I have nowhere near reached the point where I can say that my spirits are consistently lifted, that I let nothing disturb me.

Why is that? The answer is simple: because I’m a human being. Or perhaps it’s better to say I inhabit a human body which is subject to one thing only: constant change.

I’m learning more and more that the only one I can address such questions to is me. If there are any answers to how to keep my spirits up, I’m realizing slowly that I won’t find them out there in the world or in the things of the world.

So, going within has to be at least my tentative response. It seems that there really is nothing else that will keep my spirits up for more than some fleeting often illusory moments here and there.

Please help keep the silence

What silence? Well may you ask: hardly what you’d call a quiet place to live, this world of ours.

Once again, for me, going within is a good start. Though I’m not the quietest person in the world, especially ‘within’. Too many thoughts, emotions coming and going, all the craziness of an overactive mind and heart.

But it’s a start.

I keep re-centring  when I can. I focus on my breath; recite some favourite prayers; chant mantra (the names of God); I sometimes just sit. All these do help me, will help me, I know. They do, sometimes, every now and again, for little moments, create that little (vast?) space I call silence.

As to playing my part in keeping that broader, silence? Well I’ve mentioned before the invisible community – the heaps of people all over the world who are on the same or similar paths, practising their own unique ways of going within, of cultivating both inner and external quiet, or silence.

All of which tells me, I am not alone. And it says, my little contribution to silence – to being still and quiet – actually counts.

God’s will be done and keep calm

For me, ‘God’s will be done’ is simply another way of saying that the Universe (or life) is unfolding exactly as it does in the only way it can. It just is as it is. And me, being also that life, I play my part.

And that’s all: we play our part; we do our bit, and it all happens as it does.

Acceptance of this truth is also one of those aspiration things I keep near the top of my list. Surrender, I sometimes call it. Surrender, rather than being a ‘giving up’ as we sometimes use the word, is more about going with the flow of the river, or accepting and cooperating with the flow of the natural order of the Universe as we experience it in our lives.

That ‘keep calm’ bit reminds me of that meme that was everywhere a few years ago: ‘Keep calm and carry on’. It, in a real sense, is exactly what I’m trying to do.

Surrendering, or accepting that ‘the universe is unfolding as it should’ (to borrow once again from the astonishing Desiderata) seems to be the clearest most obvious way to that calm our quote speaks about: Calm acceptance, free from the resistance and struggle against the flow of the river of life that lies at the root of much of our suffering.

So, the Dharma of Keeping. One small (or perhaps not so small) set of clues about how to live right in the world – and with the world.

The river of life is calling me to the kitchen. Even hermit monks have dishes to put away. So, keeping calm, I carry on.

Hermitage on the Loch (courtesy: a member of our community

When You Say It All in a Text Message

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It wouldn’t be quite correct to say that I never get calls or texts on my phone. What would be correct is to say is that the vast majority are to do with what I might call The Bureaucracy: Reminders of Doctor and dentist appointments, notices from various government bodies, library notices; all that kind of thing.

And there is another emerging category that’s actually a lot more welcome: while my partner hermit and I have always phoned each other, lately we’ve been texting more and more as an extra way to communicate with each other.

Sometimes these texts are about the mundane things we all have to do in the world, but then there’s another dimension in which texting allows us to keep in touch with each other’s feelings, thoughts, doings, and simply as a means of keeping the connection open and strong.

The other day, for example, such a text arrived unannounced in my phone. Like some I get from The Bureaucracy, this one was essentially a little series of reminders. But rather than being about the things of the outside world, these ones, in this text, spoke directly and deeply to the enrichment of the inner life – my inner life.

Powerful messages, all of them, that really go to the heart of one’s (my) efforts to live a life more centred on my spiritual quest and my commitment to living more in sync with Absolute Reality.

On first reading of this text (and on each rereading, of which there have been many), I really felt strongly that I needed to contemplate deeply and prayerfully on the pieces of this whole. And, as well, to share my reflections with you.

Sit in your cell as in Paradise

This little – yet tremendous – injunction references an answer to a question posed to Abba Moses, one of the early Desert Fathers:

Go sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.

Essentially Moses’ advice is, remain within the confines of your dwelling place – whatever and wherever form that place takes. This can be a literal geographical location, or even your own body as it moves in the world. We all have a body, we all dwell there.

Sitting in one’s cell is not a simple or passive activity. It is in fact hard work as we wrestle with the mad monkey mind, and attempt to grow spiritually.

So, what about the ‘as in Paradise’ bit? Well, to me this feels very much like thinking of one’s cell as the place to be. What I mean to say is that it’s the only you can possibly be in right now, in the present of the here and now.

It’s not about judgements of is it good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, painful or not. Just acceptance of where youu’re at right now. Doesn’t mean you’re stuck there and by no means suggests you resign yourself to your circumstances. It simply means you see it like it is, at this moment.

And it’s about understanding that, while you are in that place, it’s where you know you need to be. Your cell – your dwelling place – has within it everything you need to live, grow, learn, and prosper in the spiritual life.

Whatever the ‘place’ you are in is like, we can try to cocoon ourselves, make a space within the space, even if it is just being aware of our bodies sitting in the space. Cocoon myself is an expression I’ve been using lately to describe the act of isolating myself in any way I can from my surroundings. This can apply on the macro scale or the micro as we seek to centre ourselves and find quiet and a peaceful place.

It’s not as if in this cocoon (or whatever it might be)  that  all will be bliss and light all of a sudden. No, I think the suggestion here is we try to develop an attitude of non-attachment towards the things of the world that trouble us, those things that cause us suffering, precisely because we are attached to them.

That is the purpose of sitting in your cell. That is the everything that your cell will teach you.

You know my friends, I’m a bit weary tonight, and with your permission I will continue with this sharing of my contemplation, my reflections, in my next post.

Thank you for staying with me.

Peace and love

Paul the Hermit

Less Desires, Less Entanglements Equals More Freedom

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Along with many other spiritual seekers across many world cultures and over time as well, I have a more or less daily practice of opening a spiritual book, scripture, or other text ‘at random’ (as if there is such a thing) to receive a message, a lesson, or a little bit of guidance for the day.

In my case, that text has for ages now been the Bhagavad Gita. And over I think the last two or three years, one verse in particular has come up time and again, sometimes on two or three days in a row.

Much thanks to the Hermit Pilgrim who created this beautiful painting

So frequently has this occured that not only have I neglected to examine the verse in any depth, I actually began to ignore it when it came up and went right away to pick another one at random.

Well, this morning, I opened my Gita and there was that verse again – for the second day in a row. However, today, for some reason, I realised that this verse has been calling out to me. Or put it more sensibly: the Divine has been calling on me to take some notice of this verse and its meaning.

So, first of all, allow me to share with you the verse in question.

The Lord of Sri said:

It is said there is an eternal Banyan tree with its roots growing upwards and branches downwards, whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree knows the Vedas

         Bhagavad Gita 15:01

Photo: Jyotirmoy Gupta on Unsplash

For me at least, this verse has always appeared quite complicated, complex really, and full of symbolism. Of course, being from an ancient religious text, it’s likely to be all those things isn’t it?

Still, despite reading the verse many times and studying and hearing a few commentaries on it, for some reason it has remained for me rather daunting. At least I can say that I was convinced of the notion that this verse confused me, entangling me in convoluted and sometimes upside down thinking.

Like the Banyan tree itself I guess. Considered especially sacred among all other sacred trees in India, the Banyan is well known for its way of growing willy nilly, every which way, until the whole thing becomes a complete and dense tangle.

And it is this tangle that is at the heart of the metaphor used to illustrate the lesson in this chapter of the Bhagavad Gita: The tree is Samsara, the illusion that is the material universe in which all of us living beings are entangled. It’s as if we’ve walked into that tangle of branches and roots believing that’s where we will achieve our desires.

A major city in the middle of tourist season is another neat metaphor for this tangle we’re talking about. We look for worldly pleasures there, but find chaos, confusion, and often unhappiness

We are so attached that we identify completely with that physical world (convinced we are merely physical beings ourselves) and are convinced that this is where we can fulfill all our needs.

As the verse says, the leaves of the tree are the Vedas, and one who knows the tree, knows the Vedas. The Vedas are the sacred Hindu scriptures which in this context can be said to represent knowledge. But not knowledge of a mundane ‘ordinary’ kind.

The knowledge to realise (because we already possess this knowledge, we just aren’t aware of it yet) is that we are not the body, so we have no need to be bound to the tree of Samsara with its suffering and its endless entanglements. It is Self Knowledge.

This Self Knowledge leads us to develop what a following verse calls ‘the weapon of detachment’ with which we can chop down this very strong tree of attachments and illusions

A little note: I don’t like this weapon and chopping metaphor at all. I simply pass it on to you as written.

As we begin and progress with this process of truly realizing we aren’t the body, and therefore have no need to identify with or be attached to worldly objects and desires, then slowly the tangle binding us begins to clear, to fall away bit by bit.

I din’t think we need to actually get to that point of cutting down the whole tree before we begin to see results. to reap the benefits if you want to put it that way.

Each and every small thing, desire, compulsion or aversion we no longer feel ourselves bound to, frees us just that much more.

As with any tangle we get ourselves caught up in, once we loosen that first thread (to switch metaphors), the task of unravelling becomes easier.

It’s true – and I think I’ve mentioned it previously – some of my attachments and compulsions are loosening. Some (small ones I admit) have fallen away completely.

As you read in my little note, I’m not comfortable with the whole cutting down trees with weapons metaphor. Perhaps the loosening of threads, the unravelling of tangles and knots sits better with us.

Perhaps my – our? – efforts at detaching from the desires and aversions, from the compulsions for worldly things and objects, and for sense pleasures, can be achieved by a more gentle untying we could call it. A kinder, gentler, calmer, friendlier, means to realizing we are already free.

The Time is Always Right for Niceness

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Scrawled in the margin of a page in my notebook are two words: Be nice. Nothing else on the page to suggest a context, source, or inspiration. But, here’s the interesting thing: Just below those two lonely words, and in brackets, I’ve written:

Do nice, Consume nice, Share Nice.

Most likely we’ll never know what prompted me to write that particular series of words. I mean, they’re not exactly new ideas are they? Still, discovering (or is it rediscovering) them today, I thought that, while not original, they do present us with a neat little package of behaviours, attitudes and actions; a perspective or way of looking at things that might just help us (or I should say me) along the road to spiritual growth, for being better, doing better; oops! You get the idea.

Be nice. All of us long to be nice to others, to family, friends, work colleagues, strangers, the world as a whole. Some of us would even feel better if we could only be nice to ourselves now and again.

Speak softly, go slowly in my interactions with others – loved ones or strangers, it doesn’t matter. While we all wish for others to be nice to us, we are all very aware that life doesn’t always work that way. But at the very least if we can be nice in every situation, then it’s better for everyone.

So, when slighted by another, spoken to with a loud or aggressive voice, or in some other way treated ‘not so nicely’, pause. Breathe. Then with confidence in yourself and what you have to say or do, be nice to that other.

Smile (when you can and it’s appropriate), be calm, assertive, but stay nice.

As to being nice to Self. Well, I’m trying to give up the negative self talk, and the self critical thoughts, as well as not so nice thoughts about other people or situations. Being nice to others is also an act of niceness to ourselves. We feel good when we’re nice to others (and bad when we’re not so nice to others).

Meantime is so Yesterday. Make it Nicetime today!

Do nice

The verb do suggests doing; taking action. Do nice things for others – and for Self also. Sometimes it’s easy to do nice things for others, sometimes not so easy. Still, as with everything, it is the efforts we make that are the key: remember, nice makes nice.

Anyway, we’re all familiar with the brilliant (genius really) Random Acts of Kindness concept and movement. It’s a truly revolutionary idea that’s rightly spread far and wide and has become an integral aspcet of everyday life for many many people. Really any act of kindness, random or otherwise, is another way to describe doing nice.

And, once again, we shouldn’t forget about ourselves. Doing nice things for ourselves lifts our spirits, changes moods, enriches our lives overall. Don’t forget that doing nice things for others is just one more way we can do something nice for ourselves.

Consume nice. What am I putting into my body? What am I looking at, listening to, reading, buying – what am I consuming? How much of this consumption can I label as nice? How much of it is of benefit to myself or to any or all other beings, or to Earth herself?

And, the flip side of that question: Of all that I consume, how much is doing harm, again to myself, other beings, the planet itself?

Heaps, if you’re anything like me. I am engaged in constant struggle to change my habits of consumption. As I make these efforts, fight these battles with old old habits (I think I talked about this in a recent post?), I remind myself to be kind to myself when I fail to make forward steps – and just as or more often when I take a step (or two, or…)backwards.

Share nice. This one’s easy: reread all of the above. Well, okay, maybe there’s a little more to it than that. Actually, isn’t there an old aphorism that we’re all supposed to have heard in kindergarten? ‘Share nicely‘? I guess back then it was about sharing toys and other playthings with the other kids.

Now we are all grown ups, it means, well much the same really. If you have been blessed with material prosperity, be free with the way you share that good fortune.  Be free and generous with how, and with whom, you share that wealth with.

Equally, no it’s not equally at all; it’s way more important and significant. Share your time; share your skills; share your knowledge; share your experience. The best thing of all to share – the nicest thing – is your love.

Love works well, not only with those close to us, those we call loved ones. Love can be shared in all our interactions with the world, whether it’s family, friends, work colleagues, or with strangers we encounter as we go about our day-to-day lives.

Share nicely of course isn’t only about what you share; it’s also about how we share. Share with a nice attitude. We’re right back where we started, be nice. Approach all with an attitude of love, generosity, and kindness.

So, how does all this nice stuff contribute to our spiritual growth?

The Greatest Hashtag of Them All

Well, I think as we’ve just seen, nice equals love. I feel that having nice – love – as the foundation of our being, doing, consuming and sharing, helps us move forward on the path to the realisation that happiness does not come from outside of ourselves – and certainly not from material things like money, possessions, and the like.

Nice can really only start with me – with you. From within my own Self, which in truth is non-different than your own Self.

There is a beautiful – truly beautiful – expression that has become an empty, flavourless, hollow, meaningless platitude. I’d like to rehabilitate that expression right now.

I want to say with my heart and my love, to all of you:

Have a nice day

and

To Speak or Not to Speak & What Not to Speak About When You Do Speak

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Have I mentioned lately that I talk far too much? No? Well then, it’s way past time to once again confess; it’s  time that I finally get it out into the open: the thing is you see, umm, I talk too much. There I’ve said it.

But wait, there is no need for concern: I have a prayer (stuck in my Bhagavad Gita, where else?) that I pray at least a couple of times a day. Well, rather than being a prayer, it’s a kind of affirmation or instruction to myself. Okay, it’s a prayer.


It’s a nice injunction, I think. I don’t recall where I borrowed it from, but I’m grateful that I came across it. It’s important to me; a vital instruction that I feel assists me in my aspiration to be a bit more thoughtful, and a bit less vocal.

Does it work?  Well with the risk of repeating myself, I will say yes. Maybe I’m a bit more thoughtful and perhaps a bit  less vocal. But, on the other hand, I wouldn’t say I was anywhere close to the ‘spending no time’ level.

Now that I’m thinking about it, illusion, fear, and wrong thinking are common themes in many people’s lives, and we might even say that they dominate our culture whether it’s the media, celebrity gossip, or any of the rest of the illusory and speculative talk that goes on all around us.

Tunnel to the Light

Anyway, fear is the biggie isn’t it? Fear of not having enough; fear of not being good enough; fear of what might happen or what might not. This list is endless. Fear of illness or ageing; fear of losing friends or fear of not having any! Fear of ‘missing out on the good life’ we imagine everyone else is living.

Then there is what’s called, the fear of the other, most often promoted and replicated by the mass media through their creation of illusions, fake news, exaggerated  or one-sided information (I hesitate to use the terms ‘facts and figures’ but you know what I mean). And then they sell us on ideas that we need to fear some other person, people, thing, time, impending catastrophe that never comes.

I don’t need to go on here: as I said, the list is endless. All that’s left to say about these fears and the illusions we are force-fed and made to believe are real, is that it all boils down to costing us a great deal of time spent and usually wasted, in wrong thinking of one kind or another.

It seems to me the media (news and social), advertising, and governments of all persuasions, are really quite happy for us all to be ‘getting the wrong end of the stick’. I think that’s the expression. Our societies are drowning in, for want of a better word, propaganda.

Buy this, do that, don’t do the other thing. Be afraid of (insert the latest scapegoat, political opponent, boogy man, the Apocalypse. Again it’s an endless list).

Then there are the fears we invent for ourselves, the illusions about ourselves that in our wrong thinking we come to believe are all real and true. One thing you can say about wrong thinking is that it makes for more and more wrong thinking. More illusions about who we are, what we do (or can’t do), what we are like, who likes (or doesn’t like) us. Here I once again risk repeating myself, but yes, it’s a long long list.

So, what can we do? Well, we could use a little reminder like the one we’re talking about here. It’s possible that it can help us correct a little of the wrong thinking that leads to fears and illusions.

Then there is what we might call discernment. Not so much deciding between one thing and another; more like coming to know what is real or illusion, a genuine, rational fear that I need to act on, or some inherited, manipulated, received  or otherwise irrational, baseless, or invented ‘fear’.

We won’t get rid of wrong thinking by trying to push it away. It’s about replacing the wrong thinking with some right thinking. We can try to recognise that wrong stuff as it comes up. We can make an effort to stop allowing ourselves to get away with our own misunderstandings, our own wild imaginations, wishful thinking, and confusions. As my teacher said just the other day, use your mind to control your mind.

One word we haven’t discussed from my little injunction is discussing. We discuss things when we talk or communicate  with others or when we talk to ourselves. Here we are at another issue for discernment: what shall we talk about?

Actually I was about to write that one excellent strategy for not spending time discussing illusions, fears, and wrong thinking is to simply stop talking altogether. That’s all there is to it: Don’t talk!

But obviously that’s a ridiculous notion right? Stop talking? Perhaps for a set time? Or perhaps as a kind of ‘time-out’ strategy? But as a principle for a whole life, it’s not going to appeal to the majority of us. Actually, that feels to me like a bit of wrong thinking creeping in: a life of no, or at least limited talking is very appealing to me. Just difficult.

Still that does seem to be what my treasured injunction suggests I do. Mind you, it’s very specific isn’t it? Spend no time, it says. Discussing what? Illusions, fear, and wrong thinking.

So, how do we manage to follow this suggestion ‘to the letter’ as they say?

Here’s another little prayer I say everyday. This one is from Thomas Merton.


Keep silent ‘except in as far as God wills it’. For God I could say the good of all concerned; Truth; my heart; my goodwill; my love. It’s all God; it’s all the Divine.

I guess it gets back to something I said earlier about thinking before I speak. To this I would now add, feel before I speak: What’s right? What’s wrong? Does this help? Will this hurt someone else for myself.

About right and wrong: In the religious  tradition I was ‘raised in’ it was deemed that at the age of seven or eight a child is suddenly, without any preparation, able to discern right from wrong. Which means they are now responsible for the consequences of their thoughts, words, deeds. In other words, they are now capable of sinning and suffering  the consequences.

I can’t (obviously) speak for you or anyone else, but it’s been a very very long time since I was seven or eight, and I still find it tricky sometimes working out right from wrong. Of course while I know I am now responsible for my thoughts, words and deeds, I also know that we are all flawed; nobody’s perfect, so we’re going to make mistakes. 

So, all I can do – all any of us can do – is appeal to the innermost Self and use my intellect and my heart to try to discern as best I can, what is right and what is wrong.

Only in the innermost places where the real Self dwells can we know reality from illusion; it is only in our ‘heart of hearts’ as they say, combined with our rational thinking mind, what fears are real and what fear is illusion. And it is only then that heart and intellect can determine when our thinking is headed down the wrong (or the right) track.

It’s only then that we will know what and what not to spend our time discussing, either with others or internally within ourselves.  This all sounds like a long, convoluted, tricky process (told you I talk (write) too much!), but it needn’t be.

Like all things it takes practise, and once we begin to know that innermost Self, it will soon become a spontaneous way of living, when we begin to ‘just know’.

Your own inner divinity (which is the real you) wishes for you peace.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

One, Without a Second, is All There Is

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Right at the front of my Bhagavad Gita (the only book aside from the notebook I’m writing this in, that I personally own), I have recorded and inserted sayings and various words , that are important to me. Among those things is a statement I first heard many many years ago, that is common among the First Nations’ peoples of this country:

I [We] stand always on sacred ground and beneath sacred skies.


It is not an affirmation of ownership or possession. It is, instead, an affirmation of belonging to the land, to nature. It is a prayer of thanks, and it is a declaration of the knowledge of unity with the rest of the natural world, that is the hallmark and foundation for Indigenous cultures throughout the world and through time.

I’ve valued – treasured – this sentiment for a very long time – probably from even before I first heard it, which was so long ago as to be lost to memory. Perhaps I always knew it because I’ve somehow always thought this idea was a fundamental truth concerning my existence as a being living on this planet.

Well, now I have heard another statement that for me makes a perfect compliment for this one. The other day, during a lecture, my teacher mentioned that in his student days a fellow student said:

Wherever you are, you are walking through Ishwara

(Ishwara being her preferred name for the divine – for all that is.)

There is a feeling or sense of ‘belonging’, of awe and wonder when we attempt to immerse ourselves in what we term the natural world.

Once again I immediately felt the bell of Truth ringing clearly through this statement. Yes, I thought, everything is divine – including our own selves – so of course it follows that wherever we go, whatever we do, we are always in the divine.

You’ve probably read a number of times me quoting my teacher quoting his teacher:

It’s not that there is only one God, there is only God.
          Swami Dayananda Saraswati

Emphasis very much on only. Meaning of course, that it’s not that God is within us, or that we are within God; we are not surrounded by God; and it’s not that God ‘sits in our hearts’. The reality (for my teacher’s teacher) was that all that is, everywhere, everything, every thought, every word and deed, everything there is, is the divine.

Another way to describe the divine or God, that appeals to me is that Ishwara (also my own preferred name for the Divine) is in reality the natural order of the universe as dictated by the laws of nature. Those laws of nature, the rules that govern how the universe works, are also Ishwara, as are all that is manifest or in existence  as a consequence of the workings of those laws.

In other words, the Divine is the sum total of what some would call the entirety of creation.***

For the hermits a sacred site. Part of a grove we named The Sentinels. A place of experience of unity and oneness of creation

For me this an enormously comforting and reassuring concept. Of course, for me at least, it is also an extremely difficult one to wrap my head around. But here’s a small summary of what I think I’ve grasped so far.

Ishwara – the Divine – is all there is; everything. Also divine is the natural order of the Universe as governed by the laws of nature. These laws are neither good or bad – there is no duality. They are neutral.

You and I, as one more entity among who knows how many others, act as we do and are subject to the laws of nature, just like everything else. We can’t change or influence those laws; we can only live our lives as they unfold.

To quote from Desiderata: No doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should

And, well, then things just work out as they do. While we can’t change the laws of nature, or bend the universe to always suit our liking, it is also true to say that every action we take, every thought we think, every word we utter, even our very presence as a living being in our time and place, do indeed contribute to ‘how things work out’. Another way of saying this is to say, we do our bit, and the universe does its bit and what happens, well, happens.

For me, this is not at all as simple or as straightforward as it sounds. Naturally  we see ourselves as individual selves, as entities on our own. After all, to state the obvious, we live and operate in a material (dualistic) world. So automatically we see ourselves as individuals living in, but always separate from all the other individual entities, as well as being disconnected from the world itself.

It is part of human nature (for the most part) to long for connection; there is so often a drive within us pushing us to create family, enter relationships, feel we belong to a community or communities, and for many but not all, there is the almost instinctive urge to seek connection with the rest of nature.

Many forms, One reality

We often think of these longings as goals to achieve, as something outside of ourselves to attain, to reach for. Consequently, so very often we tend to focus our attention outwards, towards other people, or material things.

But, instead, all these inclinations, desires and longings are simply our Self (note the capital?) endeavoring to open itself to discovering (or rediscovering?) that which already exists: our oneness with, and our non-separation, and non-difference from, The All That Is.

Peace and Love from Paul the Hermit

FOOTNOTE

***Just a few thoughts about naming, or giving labels to the Universe and its laws.  Obviously it’s a personal choice for each of us what we choose to call that creation. Then, on the other hand, we don’t have to call it anything at all. For me personally it is very difficult, even near impossible to not name it. By naming the creation, I don’t think I am attributing the manifestation of the Universe to some distant entity living in some heavenly abode (as my teacher likes to say). Rather I am acknowledging the intelligence  and order, beauty, complexity of all that is and how it all works, as its own reality. At the same time, I am learning to understand that I as my true nature am not separate from the rest of creation, and I feel the need to have a name towards which I am able to focus my thanks and my reverence.

When Love is a Yoga and Lovers are Yogis

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There was light at the end of the research tunnel

These last few days I’ve been researching and thinking about an idea for a blog post. But I’ve come to realise that I am grossly underqualified to write about the topic I had in mind. Let me put it another way: I am completely and utterly unqualified in any way whatsoever to go there. In fact, after all the research, I think I’m going to disqualify myself from ever going there in writing.

However, I’m a great believer in the idea that no quest for knowledge is ever a waste of time or effort; there is always something to be learned. During my research I came across a topic I believe I am qualified to discuss, as it forms an integral and vital part of my own personal spiritual practice.

Why I’ve decided to write this post, though, is because I made a discovery that lead to an insight that I know will lead to a great progress in that practice. It’s nothing new, not really, but it was one of those occasions we’ve all experienced of ‘I knew that, but now I really know it.’ For me, it was a realisation of something that till then had been a nice cosy theory and belief.

Bhakti Yoga is that practice. It is really a key foundation, a valuable component of my spiritual life.

Wikipedia opens its entry on Bhakti Yoga (see the link just above) with a description of the practice that mirrors what I think is the traditional understanding of Bhakti Yoga:

Bhakti Yoga (also called Bhakti Marga, literally the path of Bhakti) is a spiritual path or practice within Hinduism focused on loving devotion towards any personal deity.

In the same entry there is a description of the origins and meanings of the two words, Bhakti and Yoga:

The Sanskrit word Bhakti is derived from the root bhaj, which means “divide, share, partake, participate, to belong to”. The word also means ‘attachment, devotion to, fondness for, homage, faith or love, worship, piety to something as a spiritual, religious principle or means of salvation’.

The term Yoga literally means “union, yoke”, and in this context connotes a path or practice for ‘salvation, liberation’. yoga referred to here is the ‘joining together, union’ of one’s Atman (true self) with the concept of Supreme Brahman (true reality).

For some, dancing while chanting the names of their God, demonstrates their devotion and celebrates their union with each other and with God

In other words, those called to a religious or spiritual life, practise Bhakti Yoga whenever they pray or otherwise express devotion towards their personal conception of God, or the Divine. This particular definition seems to be saying that such a conception of the Divine, or God, is in the form of a personal deity who is a kind of representative of true reality, which the devotee is aspiring to join with.

Some Bhakta Yogis are full-time, full-on practitioners. People like contemplative nuns or monks, hermits who retire from the world into seclusion. Anyone basically whose entire life and activities are spent in devotion.

So, when I discovered all this, I became intrigued; I decided to go off on a tangent and explore the word Bhakti itself. Wikipedia has a separate entry for the word on its own:

Bhakti is a term common in Indian religions which means attachment, fondness for, devotion to, trust, homage, worship, piety, faith, or love. In Indian religions, it may refer to loving devotion for a personal God

…

is often a deeply emotional devotion based on a relationship between a devotee and the object of devotion.

…

In ancient texts the term simply means participation, devotion and love for any endeavor.

May refer to devotion to a personal god? While I thought this entry doesn’t contradict our first quote above, it does seem to broaden, and deepen, the meaning of Bhakti. Expand might be the better word.

In some traditions a simple life on the road is a way to commit full time to Bhakti or devotion.

It struck me that that object of devotion might be anything. Or even everything. You see? I told you it wasn’t a new idea. It’s just that it’s resonated deeply within me now. It appears that the object of Bhakti Yoga practice doesn’t necessarily have to be a ‘personal god’.

Many many people would say ‘I like animals’ or ‘I think we should save the world’. But, while that may imply a kind of love for or at least a fondness for, I think Bhakti is something more – actually several somethings more!

For example, some people have a particular attraction to and love for, the ocean, or it might be a river they view as, if not sacred in a religious sense, then as special to them in some deep, comforting, even therapeutic way. Others have similar relationships with and feelings for trees, or even a particular tree.

Animals as either individuals or as a species or group, can have the same appeal and call to other people. Then there are those who feel strongly in their hearts you could say, that Earth itself is a sacred object, or others have a knowing that the planet is a living entity and worthy of our devotion.

Bhakti begins with love and devotion, which is about caring for, affection towards, loyalty to, emotional engagement with the object of devotion. But even more than that, there is faith in that object of devotion; faith as in trust, confidence that the love is real, that the ‘relationship’ is sound and real.

Homage and worship too are key aspects of Bhakti. The deep inner feeling we have towards a thing, person, or other being, that is beyond what we normally call ‘love’. It’s about seeing and actually realizing ‘in our hearts’ our desire to be merged or united with that thing, person, or other being.

Actually, seeing that word other just now got me thinking. I had to go back and reread our definition of Yoga up there near the beginning. It says Yoga means ‘union, yoke’. It goes on to add: yoga refers to a ‘joining together, union’.

This passage seems to be suggesting that Yoga (in our case Bhakti Yoga) is both an already existing union, and a process of joining together to achieve union. One thing I would say here is that in my practice of Bhakti (and love as a general thing to strive for and be) it’s both.

Trees are special beings for many people from a whole variiety of cultures all over the world

But, in the end, it seems to me that the process or practice, the path of Bhakti, serves to awaken us, to assist us to acknowledge, recognise, and realise in that really knowing way, our pre-existent true nature.

That true essential nature can be said to be the reality of our oneness with all things, living and non-living. And their oneness with us too of course. In fact, by putting it that way, I’m saying there is only one, or oneness. What’s that expression? One without a second.

May you be a Bhakta Yogi. Or, perhaps you already are one?

Love and peace from Paul the Hermit

Life has manifested itself as the multitudinous forms that comprise the universe. It is the one Universal Life, Power or Shakti (the laws of the universe or natural laws) that controls, guides and actuates all movements and activities in all beings, creatures and things.

                — Swami Ramdas

Flee, Be Silent, Pray Always Part 3

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Namaste and welcome

Well, here we are with the third and final part of our contemplations on Flee, Be silent, Pray Always, the answer discovered by our friend Arsenius who was looking for a way to be saved from the the things of the world.

In a very real sense, this third injunction might be seen as the most important of the three. Indeed, again in a very real sense, those first two seem to me to be prerequisites for the third. Certainly, many of us would like to flee to a place and state of silence in order to escape the world and its many and varied causes of our suffering. Such people are simply and completely over the noise, the chaos, war, greed, the complexity of relationships, and all the rest.

Then there are many many others who, rather than looking to escape the world, are wanting to ‘flee’ towards a place and state of silence in order to engage more fully with the world by contemplation, meditation, and most of all, prayer. Such people are working towards making their entire lives a prayer.

And then there are the third group which is made up of those who have some sense of running away from the world while at the same time they feel compelled to move towards a contemplative life that they sense will be the best way they can actually serve the world.

I think I can include myself in this last group. I’ve never coped well with masses of people, being in the workforce, or dealing with the horrors that the world seemed to be overwhelmed with.

At the same time, I’ve always wanted to (and have tried to) combat injustice, racism, violence and the rest. I guess you could sum it up by putting it this way: I was (still am) an oversensitive person who one day had had enough of trying to ‘fight the system’ when it was the system making and changing the rules of the game as it went along.

Better I thought, to turn inwards in order to reach or realise my oneness with all living things. I’ve always been predisposed to praying as well, so it was a natural evolution in many ways. My intention and commitment these last few years has been (and still is of course) to pray continuously and with all my being.

My prayer is for the release from suffering for all living beings and that’s my central focus for prayer. For me, it feels very much that I am a lot more use to others living what I think of as a prayerful contemplative life than being actively engaged with the world out there in the midst of it all so to speak.

Pray Always

Prayer for me is not so much about petitioning some all-powerful being who is seemingly on a whim able to grant or refuse my wishes. For me it is more an affirmation of the reality of my already existent oneness with the entirety of the universe. It’s a way of seeking to actually realise that this oneness is my very Self.

Prayer is about being present, not wishing blindly that things be different than they are. In praying I seek to affirm that the ‘universe is unfolding as it should’, as it says in a famous poem I’ve always loved. (Actually if you don’t know about Desiderata [Things Desired] then please do check it out; you’ll love it).

I think that in this sense, prayer is in fact an act of mindfulness, or rather an act which will help develop a mindfulness practice. It is a way to practise being fully focused and present to whatever is going on, whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

And if we’re able to be present – even on a temporary or momentary basis – then we will be more calm, more at peace, and more able to achieve some clarity in our lives and with whatever is the intention with our prayer.

I know it might sound like a clumsy attempt at a clever play on words, but we’ve described mindfulness as the practice of being fully present. But we can put it another way. We can define that state of being fully present as being in presence.  Like what we might say to a friend who is daydreaming while we are trying to talk to them. We might say something like ‘so and so, your presence would be appreciated’.

In presence of what? I would say everything. When we are absolutely in the present moment (again even momentarily), when we are able to realise our oneness with all things. Essentially the universe is there – or is it here? – with you in that present moment. It’s a moment when we may indeed feel we are in the presence of all that is.

Some may call that presence God, or the Divine, or Universal Consciousness. Others may see it as being in the presence of their own true and authentic Self.

That leads quite nicely to the next aspect of prayer that I want us to look at. Praying to God. I’ve spent so long on mindfulness because I wanted to stress that I don’t think it’s necessary to have a personal name or form for God, or even a notion of an unmanifested, invisible ‘force’ called God, in order to pray.

On the other hand for me, and I know for a lot of people, there are names and forms of the universal consciousness that pervades and permeates the universe, that I personally resonate with and I can reach out to them whenever the feeling or inclination arises. It sounds a bit odd to say, but for me to think that all that is, is all that is, sort of sums it up.

And as a result of that, any prayer  I pray is addressed to my own Self which is simply part and parcel of all there is. In other words, it’s a personal choice for any one of us what form or name we choose to pray to. Or if we don’t pray to a name and form at all. All is one.

One thing I’ve mentioned I think a couple of times is the idea of making all our activities into a prayer, but other than the discussion on mindfulness and presence, I’ve not really addressed the how and why.

Why is pretty obvious. Because living and acting mindfully helps us in so many way such as being more peaceful, more relaxed, happier, and so on. The how, now I’m thinking about it is the purpose of this post. And it’s also true to say we’ve been talking about it since this series began.

That is to say, we flee from the aspects of our lives that don’t serve us and which can be changed. This might be a decision to spend 30 minutes every day sitting quietly and undisturbed. And as we’ve mentioned a few times already it could be going all out and moving to a desert cave somewhere.

In both those scenarios we give ourselves the opportunity to be silent and, hopefully also surrounded by silence. How to pray always? There’s an expression I love and try to live by: Follow your Dharma. Here Dharma means your own truth, being authentic to who you are, having the intention to do what’s right in all situations. And of course actually following through with that intention if at all possible. In this way you transform every action into prayer.

Living a life of prayer does seem on the face of it to not involve much use of spoken prayers, as in saying prayers with words. Well, I don’t intend to be humourous here, but a great deal of prayer does it fact involve talking to one’s Self. To the real self, that part of us that’s part of everything else. It can do us good to have these deep conversations.

Then of course there are the many many prayers that already exist to serve people from so many traditions, cultures, to suit all kinds of purposes and intentions.

Many of us will be familiar with a number of prayers learnt when we were children. If you’re anything like me, they still pop up by themselves from time to time.

Actually as I deepen my prayer practice, I’m discovering that I’m remembering all sorts of prayers from many and varied sources. I think as I dig deeper, more and more are coming up to the surface.

This prayer (by Thomas Merton I think) resonates deeply with me

If these ‘pre-prepared’ prayers say what you want to say and in a way that resonates with you, then you are free to choose those that feel right for you. I guess I mix and match the prayers I use; it’s always dependent on my feelings, thoughts, and intentions at the time.

Like  Arsenius, I try to be open and responsive to whatever the ‘answers’ are, even though my ego does sometimes when it doesn’t like the answer, try and control outcomes.

One point about such prayers: I find it tempting oftentimes to simply recite them at what I’ve heard described as lip level. By rote and without emotion, in other words. At those times I try to slow down or pause to reflect on what I’m doing and why to get back in touch with Self.

A major part of my prayer life is chanting mantra. I try to spend more time chanting as time passes. There are a number that I use depending on inclination and need.

I chant anywhere and sometimes a mantra will start chanting itself, surprising me by its arrival

(This photo isn’t me by the way)

Now, probably one of the most important aspects of my own prayer life: I know I’ve mentioned my intentions in praying at all, but one aspect I haven’t mentioned is praying as devotion.

Devotion as in worship, praise, as in gratitude for the beauty in my life, as an expression of love. Knowing with the mind that all is one is fine, but these kinds of prayers help us to cement our awareness of that oneness of all living beings. As I said earlier, I, like you or anyone else, may use particular names and forms to represent this oneness, but, well, it’s all one, so we are non-different from all those names and forms.

Lord Sri Krishna is among my favourite forms of Universal Consciousness  (also known as Brahman)

There are many representations of the Divine, but Krishna and this picture of Him are special to me.

Focusing your devotion on a particular form seems to help make it easier or more real. It’s tricky to pray to and with a thing that has no form and is invisible.

So, my friends I hope what I’ve said here is of some little interest to you and that you have found at least something you can use for your own life.

With peace, love, and with my prayers

Paul

Insights Gained on the Kora (A Follow On Post to our last one).

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Namaste and greetings friends

The previous post on this blog was about the notion of Kora, or the circumambulation of a sacred site or object on foot as a kind of pilgrimage. If you missed it, you can find that post here.

While researching for that blog, I came across an old file in a forgotten folder which also touched on Kora as a topic. I’d forgotten all about it as it was really only a first draft of a proposed post that, at the time didn’t go any further.

Reading it again, I right away realized it was a great theme for its own post and would follow on quite nicely. So, before I share that with you, allow me a minute to set the context.

In early 2020 we had just arrived in a small outback town in central NSW. We’d planned our arrival to coincide with the onset of the very first lockdown put in effect as a response to the outbreak of Covid 19. Our hermitage remained there for about six months before that first (of several as it turned out, though we didn’t know it at the time) lockdown eased and we moved on.

As with that last post, this one features a sports ground, and my adoption of it for the purposes of my own circular pilgrimage practice.

Thank you for your patience

Across the road from the little apartment in which we took refuge a few months ago as fear of the Corona virus spread and travel was restricted, is a sports ground. In freer, safer times, they play cricket, and – in the winter – football there.

That ground, or rather the oval shaped fenceline surrounding it, has become a Kora for us. A Kora is a kind of pilgrimage in the form of a mindful and meditative Circumambulation.

Kora is a Tibetan word, but the concept of pilgrimages circling sacred sites is common to most religious traditions. I guess you might say, we’ve kind of adapted the practice to suit our purposes.

Anyway, a few days ago I noticed that markings had been painted on the grass: a set of giant squares and other lines. I realized that football must soon be returning, along with the reopening of cafes, restaurants, and so on in the town.

As I continued on my Kora that day, I began to notice that many leaves had been painted along with the grass. It occurred to me that these blue-hued leaves could be seen as a kind of symbol for at least one aspect of the current ‘crisis’ that I’d been thinking about already.

Since first adopting this ground as my own Kora, I’d often seen – and sometimes collected – leaves blown from neighbouring trees by winter winds. I’m always doing stuff like that. Sort of my way of connecting with nature.

Then, on the day in question, I saw the return of human activity to that grassy leaf-strewn space.

I make no comment here, no judgements about rights and wrongs. Life must go on. And with life, the cultural activities of all human communities must resume.

I simply point out that it seemed to me that blue paint on winter-blown leaves is an apt metaphor for the impacts that we, the human species, have on the world we live in.

Also, as you can see from my photo, that impact isn’t always ugly, or bad. In this case, I think it’s actually quite beautiful.

The other thing to say is (as I read on a sign taped to the fence on the same sports ground) please remember to social distance. (note: the pandemic is officially no longer with us, but when you think about it, it might be seen as a wise precaution at any time. There are always germs around waiting to spread!)

Oh okay, one more thing. In a time – in a world – where social distance has become a verb, remember that the only distance between any of us is purely physical and an invented mental construct. All life, despite seemingly unlimited names and forms, is one. There is no separation.

Peace and Love

Aspire to a Balanced Life

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‘I pause to rest when I feel the need’.

Makes sense, don’t you think? It is a really excellent affirmation to give oneself isn’t it? A wise piece of advice also. And I agree with you: great advice, sensible, logical, very helpful for anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, it’s not something I can honestly tell you that I practise on any kind of regular basis. It’s more likely that I would have to admit to you that:

‘I am always hurrying to get things done, and until I do, there’s no rest. Doesn’t matter how I feel’.

And it doesn’t seem to matter whether I have a lot to do, or only a little – or even if there’s nothing needing my attention. Whatever the situation, you will catch me in a hurry, going as fast as I can to get whatever there is, done. ASAP.

Okay, I admit it: I am exaggerating slightly. But not by much. Always rushing, always ‘getting ahead of myself’, always in a hurry. It’s been a problem for, well, forever really.

And I know I’m not alone. The world – as in society, economics, education, and the rest – is in a never-ending race to do whatever they do, and to get it done as quickly as possible, regardless of the cost to the planet and all of us who live on Her.

And, obviously, we are all caught up in this ‘race’, in pretty much every area of our lives.

Whether it’s an exercise program we set for ourselves, or which has been forced upon on us by advertising, cultural shaming, false identification with our bodies. Or the intense and all-pervading pressure to be ‘more productive’ at work. Or the newest mobile app that will magically make even our off-work lives more productive and (supposedly) give us that extra edge in the marketplace (whatever that means).

And remember school? High school? College? The night classes you took for fun and relaxation? How many classes began with the teacher giving the following little speech:

‘Now, we can really take our time with this class/course/semester, and we will be able to take as many breaks as we like. We have plenty of time to cover all the material. So, sit back, relax, take your time and enjoy.’

Not many I’m guessing.

Now, as a hermit, you might think I lead a quiet life. And it’s true: I do. Relatively speaking that is. All of us are required to be constantly taking some kind of action in order to maintain life.

Just like everyone else I have to do whatever it takes to just be alive: Cooking, eating, cleaning, laundry, shopping, praying, meditating, relating to loved ones as well as other people I encounter.

Then there’s reading, studying, talking (way too much in my own case), thinking. Well, that’s probably enough to be getting on with, I think.

Despite my hermit life, all these and more I do. And for me, it’s always in a rush and hurry. Well, not always perhaps, but too often for my liking, and way too often for my mental health, peace of mind and for the calm, peaceful like, I aspire to.

Whatever our personal lifestyle, or way of living, we are all in the same boat, so to speak.

Fix your mind of truth and be free from the concerns of the material world.

So, what to do? How can we slow down, get some sort of equilibrium or balance in our lives? How do we stop the rush, the panic, the pressures that besiege us and sometimes overwhelm us?

Well, there’s the problem. I won’t say I have no idea. I can’t say I don’t know. But, and here’s the point, while I can tell you how I am trying to do.If you’ve read what I’ve told you already, you will realise that whatever I try only works sometimes. And a very few sometimes’s at that.

Mindfullness

I try all the time to make everything I do, even if it’s just walking down the street, or washing the dishes, a prayer. Which is really simply another way to say that I try to do everything mindfully.

Sounds really simple when I put it like this, but of course it’s not at all. It takes discipline (I want to talk about this a little more later on). It’s about focusing on how you are interacting with the world around you, and obviously this starts with being fully mindful in each moment as you take action in the world, whatever it might be.

Simplify.

Not easy, I know. Life is full of details and complications. It’s full of conflicting priorities, each with their own sense of urgency and importance. The simple advice is to do what you can. Once again, tackle all the things you have to do one step/thing at a time.

Did you notice the italics? Be alert to the old urgent vs important dichotomy: not everything is of equal importance, regardless of appearances. Equally, we have to discern a thing’s or action’s degree of urgency for ourselves. With obvious exceptions, most things aren’t as urgent or immediate as they are presented.

Minimise.

Sound familiar?

Listen carefully to the commands to buy, buy, buy, and do, do, do that we are constantly being bombarded with from all direction. Ask yourself one of the big self enquiry questions: Do I really need … ?

Related to this is the question of how much money we actually need to have a good life, support our families, and so on. No guru, teacher, book, or anything else can help with this one; we are all different and have our own unique and specific needs. Only you can know what is right for you.

Discipline.

I mentioned this aspect of the solution to bringing a calmer, slower, less pressured vibe of equilibrium to our lives. For me (self-discipline is what we’re talking about here) is not only about willpower, though of course, it’s an important part of the picture. A quote from Bhagavad Gita that I think points us in a helpful direction:

What does it mean, ‘fix your mind on truth’? While it is very often an extremely difficult thing to do, fixing your mind on truth simply means keeping your mind (and consequently your body and heart too) focused on what is actually real, important, and meaningful to you. It means staying focused on what truly resonates with you as the way you wish to live your life.

So hard is this for me to do, that I am engaged in an ongoing project (please forgive the productivity cult lingo) to keep focused on what is true and real to me. To be honest, while I’m pretty sure that it does get easier with practise, I will always be refocusing on my truth. As they say, it comes with the job description for all of us human beings.

Now, about the second half of that Bhagavad Gita quote. If we do manage to reach that stage where we are able to focus on the meaningful and important, the truth for us, will all our troubles, problems, pressures, commitments of all kinds, just magically go away? Can we eliminate completely ‘the concerns of the material world’?

Absolutely not. The only thing that will potentially cease is our constant state of  being stressed.

While the things we worry about now won’t disappear, the worry itself may lessen. Our abilities to function more effectively and happily in the world (in our family, our work, our own mind) will also improve. We really may become one of those people who always (or most of the time) take things in our stride.

But we should remember that the pressures, conflicts, health issues, the need to support ourselves and family, relationships with all their ups and downs, remain; they are part of the human condition; they are the natural order of things in this material world.

What we can do, is try as much as we can to control our minds, trying to remain focused on that which is true and meaningful to us.

Minimise, simplify as far as possible in all everything. We can focus on all that is true and meaningful in the life you are creating on an ongoing basis. And, of course, it is one considered and deliberate step at a time.

For Thoreau, going to live in the woods was the natural thing to do. It resonated with his soul and heart.

Of course going to live in the woods isn’t for everyone, but if it speaks to  you; if it is in tune with your own truth and you feel it would give your life meaning, then why not?

All of us have within us our own ‘going to the woods’ equivalent. It might be anything. Go find it! Rest there.

The last words of this post are the same as the first. Actually as I think about it now, I see more clearly that this entire post with all its words and thoughts, might be summed up very nicely by that one small affirmative statement. Well, I might add three more words of my own:

In all things, I pause to rest whenever I feel the need.
Peace and love from me to you.