Monthly Archives: June 2010

“Prayer reinforces humility. It is all too easy in the crush of human events to forget how little control we have. Indeed, it is to some degree a psychological necessity to think of ourselves as more effective, more powerful, and more in control than we really are. Just as necessary, though, Luther realized, is the recognition, daily or more often, that we are not the masters of our fate.”

– from Commentary on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, Part Three: The Lord’s Prayer – http://everything2.com/title/The+Lord%2527s+Prayer

Kabir – The couplet

??????? ???? ????, ????-???? ?? ?? ??? ?
????? ?? ???? ????, ??? ? ???? ??? ?

transliterated:

Balihaari guru aapno, ghadi ghadi sau sau baar |

Maanush se devat kiya, karat na laagi baar ||

Translation:

Thank you, (Lord) Teacher, in every moment, many times in each moment  |

Turned the base in man to The Divine, with great ease, and minimal effort ||

Thinking today:

In our arrogance, we take ourselves to be masters of our own destiny and lord of all we see and survey. The Lord, the True Master, lays no such claim, but constantly endeavors to raise us to be just that, and make our ‘wishful thinking’ reality, while at the same time opening our inner eyes to the very tininess of our thinking.

For all that we see will be dust at some time in the future, but the real wealth we carry, our inner self, our thought, our reason, our knowledge, will live on and grow for ever, if only we agree to share.

All the material riches of the world fade to nothing in the face of our true inner potential, and this is a clarion call to balance the pursuit of the material wealth of the world with an equal time spent with the inner self. There is no need to give up one to realize the other, for the material riches of this world are the bounty the soul created for the body – the only requirement is for balance so that we leave a real legacy for the generations that will follow us.

.

“And the small grain of sand

That had bothered him so

Was a beautiful pearl

All richly aglow.”

– from poem “Lessons from An Oyster” – full poem and source at end

Kabir – The couplet

?????? ????? ?? ???????, ?? ???? ??? ??? |

????? ?? ????? ???, ??? ?????? ??? ||

transliterated:

Tinka kabahun na nindiye, jo paanv tale hoye |

Kabahun udh aankhon pade, peed ghaneri hoye ||

Translation:

Despise not that tiny grain, that is to be found under the foot |

Were it to float up and into the eye, extremely painful be to you it would ||

My understanding:

We cast away tiny things, despise them as beneath us, and look down on them as not worth our attention and time. However, history is replete with tales of victory of the little, the slow or the meek.

David beat Goliath with just a small catapult; Aesop told us the tale of the slow tortoise beating the speedy hare in a race; Jataka tales tell us the story of the ant who freed the elephant; the tiny wasp or bumble bee always reminds us of how huge it is when in flight; BP has learnt and is teaching the world the importance of the one failed test and the consequence of not paying attention.

Little pleasures fill our day with more happiness than the big one we chase but never find; little acts of kindness are what reap big rewards; little murmurs of politeness crescendo into a wealth of well-being and communal peace.

Focus on the little things, and the big things will naturally happen. Ignore them, and even the big things dissolve into a cloud of tiny fragments that quickly floats away and out of reach.

Every thing and every being on earth and all around us is here for a purpose – look and you will find a new understanding and appreciation of the complexity of the eco-system we live in and are members of!

Poem : Lessons from an Oyster

By Georgy – (http://www.turnbacktogod.com/poem-lessons-from-an-oyster/)

There once was an oyster

Whose story I tell,

Who found that some sand

Had got into his shell.

It was only a grain,

but it gave him great pain.

For oysters have feelings

Although they’re so plain.

Now, did he berate

the harsh workings of fate

That had brought him

To such a deplorable state?

Did he curse at the government,

Cry for election,

And claim that the sea should

Have given him protection?

‘No,’ he said to himself

As he lay on a shell,

Since I cannot remove it,

I shall try to improve it.

Now the years have rolled around,

As the years always do,

And he came to his ultimate

Destiny  stew.

And the small grain of sand

That had bothered him so

Was a beautiful pearl

All richly aglow.

Now the tale has a moral,

for isn’t it grand

What an oyster can do

With a morsel of sand?

What couldn’t we do

If we’d only begin

With some of the things

That get under our skin.

Read more at http://www.turnbacktogod.com/poem-lessons-from-an-oyster/#ixzz0r19L7h00