20020925
20020918
Quando é preciso ser prático
A história seguinte é atribuída ao sábio Mohammed Gwath Shattari, um dos mais admirados pelo Imperador Humayun. Morreu em 1563, e existe um templo em sua homenagem em Gwalior.
Três viajantes cruzavam juntos as montanhas do Himalaia, discutindo a importância de colocar na prática tudo aquilo que aprenderam no plano espiritual. Estavam tão entretidos na conversa, que somente tarde da noite se deram conta que carregavam consigo apenas um pedaço de pão.
Resolveram não discutir sobre quem merecia come-lo; como eram homens piedosos, deixariam a decisão nas mãos dos deuses. Rezaram para que, durante a noite, um espírito superior indicasse quem receberia o alimento.
Na manhã seguinte, os três se levantaram junto com o nascer do sol.
- Eis o meu sonho - disse o primeiro viajante. - Eu fui carregado para lugares onde antes nunca estive, e experimentei a paz e a harmonia que tenho buscado em vão nesta minha vida terrena. No meio de tal paraíso, um sábio de longas barbas me dizia: "você é meu preferido, jamais buscou o prazer, sempre renunciou a tudo. Entretanto, para provar minha aliança contigo, gostaria que experimentasse um pedaço de pão."
- Muito estranho - disse o segundo viajante. - Porque, em meu sonho, e vi o meu passado de santidade, e o meu futuro de mestre. Enquanto olhava o que está por vir, encontrei um homem de grande sabedoria, dizendo: "você precisa comer mais que seus dois amigos, porque terá que liderar muita gente, e necessitará de força e energia."
Disse então o terceiro viajante:
- Em meu sonho eu não vi nada, não visitei lugar nenhum, não encontrei nenhum sábio. Entretanto, a determinada hora da noite, despertei de repente. E comi o pão.
Os outros dois ficaram furiosos:
- E porque não nos chamou antes de tomar esta decisão tão pessoal?
- Como poderia faze-lo? Vocês estavam tão longe, encontrando mestres e tendo visões sagradas! Ontem discutimos a importância de se colocar em prática aquilo que aprendemos no plano espiritual. No meu caso, Deus agiu rápido, e me fez acordar morrendo de fome!
~ Paul Rabbit in Warrior of The Light
20020916
Yoga vem de uma editora (Escala) especializada em sondar segmentos lucrativos lançando "revistas-sondas". Os experts torcem o nariz para essas iniciativas. Para esta, porém, usaram textos de estudiosos e instrutores certificados.
Mas esse zelo criou um problema com a hierarquia da informação. Toneladas de teoria e uma abordagem pouco pessoal. Os temas são apresentados em uma sequência definida; se você lê algo fora da ordem, tem a impressão de que faltam dados, e quando se interessa mais por alguma coisa, a informação acaba muito depressa. Nem tinha como ser de outro jeito, no espaço limitado de uma revista que tenta mostrar um pouco de tudo.
O projeto gráfico é surpreendentemente pobre e não tira muito proveito da rica iconografia hindu. Não achei os créditos das faixas do CD... vou ter que reler pra encontrar.
Zen é uma revista sobre bem-estar, não sobre budismo. É feita pela JBC, próspera editora nipo-brasileira. Arrisco-me a acusar alguns dos caras de não saberem realmente do que estão falando, especialmente na área que tem mais a ver com o título da publicação. Mas não chega a ofender. O perigo é impulsionarem um "Zen de butique" superficial e vazio, como já aconteceu com algumas escolas de Yoga e com a interminável onda Feng Shui. Para o vulgo, o que é Zen? "Estar tranquilo." E o que é Yoga? "Uma ginástica." Sinto muito - a culpa por esses erros de concepção é dos divulgadores.
20020915
It is both near and far, both within and without every creature; it moves and is unmoving. In its subtlety it is beyond comprehension. It is invisible, yet appears divided in separate creatures. Know it to be the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer.
Dwelling in every heart, it is beyond darkness. It is called the light of the lights, the object and goal of knowledge, and knowledge itself.
~ Bhagavad Gita 13:15-17
When someone asks you a question, answer him or her sincerely, and when you are not asked, do not force your teaching upon others.
~ Jae Woong Kim, "Polishing the Diamond"
20020910
em São Paulo
Nascido numa família ortodoxa Brahmane, conheceu Amma após completar seus estudos universitários. Depois desse encontro, decidiu dedicar-se à vida espiritual, ordenando-se Sanyasin em 1994. Hoje viaja o mundo inteiro, divulgando a mensagem de amor da Santa Mãe.
Local: Instituto de Engenharia (Auditório) Av. Dr. Dante Pazzanese, 120 - Vila Mariana
Dias: 13 e 14 de Setembro (Sexta e Sábado)
Horário: 19h, pontualmente.
O evento é GRATUÍTO, porém com inscrição antecipada obrigatória e com vagas limitadas. Para se inscrever, entre em contato com Denise, no fone (11) 5084-3503 entre 11h30 e 17h.
20020909
20020907
Mala beads are used as an aid in reciting prayers and mantras. 108 is an auspicious number in Buddhist practices at many different levels. For beginning students, 108 or a multiple of 108 is the number of prostrations or mantras offered during practice. Mentally counting the number of mantras chanted while physically moving beads helps to sharpen the mind and improve memory.
The number 108 has the prime numbers of 3x3x3x4, thus there can be 9 aspects of 12 things, 12 aspects of 9 things, 3 aspects of 36 things, 4 aspects of 27 things, etc..
A student of the Dharma can use mala beads as a memory aid for a list of prayers, a complex table of psychological characteristics, or for memorizing entire texts.
Mala beads originated in the East and made their way into Catholicism as rosaries.
20020903
"Both strict monism and dualism are fatally flawed, for neither alone encompasses the whole of truth. In other words, it is not a choice between the God-is-man-and-world view of pantheistic monism and the God-is-separate-from-man-and-world view of theistic dualism. It is both. Panentheism, which describes "all in God, and God in all," and monistic theism are Western terms for Advaita Ishvaravada. It is the view that embraces the oneness of God and soul, monism, and the reality of the Personal God, theism. As panentheists, we believe in an eternal oneness of God and man at the level of Satchidananda and Parasiva. But a difference is acknowledged during the evolution of the soul body. Ultimately, even this difference merges in identity. Thus, there is perfectly beginningless oneness and a temporary difference which resolves itself in perfect identity. In the acceptance of this identity, monistic theists differ from most vishishtadvaitins. The Vedas declare, "He moves and He moves not; He is far, yet is near. He is within all that is, yet is also outside. The man who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings is free from all fear." Aum Namah Sivaya."
~ Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
20020902
When desire is equated with the idea of an individual self, which some people think remains eternally unchanged, that kind of self goes with the desire. Desire then becomes ruinous to the welfare of humanity. But the desire which is at the root of all desire, relative as well as absolute, can never be exterminated. If this were exterminated there would be no humanity. There would be no God either, for what makes God God but desire? When he created the world this desire was moving in him, the desire to see himself in himself through making himself not himself. God wanted to see himself; he wanted to hold a mirror before him. [...] So God desired to see himself, and when that thought awakened in him, from that moment a mirror was created and that mirror was a mirror of consciousness. God saw himself in the mirror, and that reflection of himself in a mirror was not God. By making himself not God, by reflecting himself in the mirror, God, by making himself not God, made himself God. When we understand this we understand the essence of all religions, however different the interpretations or explanations, or the languages used, may be. This God is not the Christian God or the Jewish God, but God in his pure consciousness. [p. 48-49]What necessity had God to create the world, and what is the effect of his creation? When God moved or thought, that was the very moment when something arose out of unconsciousness. So long as God was all by himself there was no God, but God became himself by thinking his creation. By thinking, God divided himself into two, i.e. he made the world. By making the world, God became God. This is something quite contrary to ordinary Christian ways of thinking but this is the Buddha way. [...] So God created the world to make himself known to himself. [p. 76-77]
When Buddha had enlightenment, Buddha as questioner and question became identified. [...] So there was no question which came out of himself and projected itself, like something demanding solution. [...] As it came out of himself as a question, the solution also must come out of himself, and that solution comes out of himself when the question and questioner became one. [...] When you have name, that name is the beginning of consciousness. Consciousness consists in separating itself from itself. When Buddha proposed that question he separated himself from himself, from himself questioner and question separated. When enlightenment takes place that question comes back to the questioner. [...] So when I say the questioner is identified with the answer it is the same as saying God thinks and the world has come. The world is God's thought, some theologians would say: God wills. Will moves in him and this will is the creation of the world. So his willing is his creative activity and willing is thinking. Thinking is willing. Questioner will question, i.e. he separates himself from himself. Willing is only possible when we have someting to will, so Buddha separated and asked the question. When that separation took place, that is thinking; so willing is thinking and thinking, willing. So in God we can say there is no distinction between willing, thinking and doing. They are all one. As they are one in God, so are they in us all. That is where we are all God. Christians think that to identify this carnal body (to think we are carnal is already on the intellectual plane) with God is most sacrilegious as only Christ could be God, but when we ascribe divinity to Christ or God we must have something divine in us to say that. If there were nothing divine in ourselves, we could never talk about divinity. [p. 90-91]