April 19, 2011
“A devotee in love with God feels always the pangs of separation and is therefore always enwrapped in transcendental ecstasy.”
Srimad Bhagvatam 1.6.20
“We could not seek God unless He were seeking us. We may begin to seek Him in desolation, feeling nothing but His absence. But the mere fact that we seek Him proves that we have already found Him.”
A Merton Reader, ed. by Thomas P. McDonnell, (New York: Image Books, 1989) 134
March 27, 2011
“Becoming detached from material things does not mean becoming inert altogether, as men with a poor fund of knowledge think. Naiskarma means not undertaking activities that will produce good or bad effects. Negation does not mean negation of the positive. Negation of the nonessentials does not mean negation of the essential.
“Similarly, detachment from material forms does not mean nullifying the positive form. The bhakti cult is meant for realization of the positive form. When the positive form is realized, the negative forms are automatically eliminated.”
Srimad Bhagvatam 1.2.7
“Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between “things”
and “God” as if God were another “thing” and as if His creatures were His rivals.
We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but
rather we become detached form ourselves in order to see and use all things in and
for God. This is an entirely new perspective which many sincerely moral and ascetic
minds fail utterly to see.”
Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation. (New York: New Directions Books), p 21
March 13, 2011
“So this false ego, “I am this material body. I belong to this material world, I belong to this community, sect, or nation,” so many, they are all based on ahankara. Ahankara-vimudhatma kartaham iti manyate [Bg. 3.27]. Actually, every one of us who are in this material world, they are, we are all under the full control of this illusory energy and working differently according to the influence of the different modes of material nature.
“I am not real karta. Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani [Bg. 3.27]. Gunaih karmani. I am under the influence of different gunas, and still, falsely, I am thinking that “I am the doer. I have got the capacity of acting. And the effect, whatever I have produced, it is due to my labor.” This is called illusion, moha. Mohah ayam aham mameti [SB 5.5.8]. This conception of life is moha. Moha, delusion or illusion, just like a person in feverish convulsion is lying unconscious, thinking something else.”
Srila Prabhupada Srimad-Bhagavatam class 3.26.26 — Bombay, January 3, 1975
“If we take our vulnerable shell to be our true identity, if we think our mask is our true face, we will protect it with fabrications even at the cost of violating our own truth. This seems to be the collective endeavor of society: the more busily men dedicate themselves to it, the more certainly it becomes a collective illusion, until in the end we have the enormous, obsessive, uncontrollable dynamic of fabrications designed to protect mere fictitious identities – “selves,” that is to say, regarded as objects.”
Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable (New York: New Directions) 15
February 23, 2011
“Those who think that devotion to God and kindness to the jivas are mutually different from each other, and perform accordingly in their life, such persons will not be able to follow the devotional culture. Their performance is only a semblance of devotion. Therefore, all the types of beneficence to others, like kindness, friendliness, forgiveness, charity, respect, etc. are included in Bhakti. Charity of medicines, clothes, food, water, etc. shelter during adversities, teaching of academic and spiritual education, etc. are the activities included in the devotional culture.”
Aphorisms of the Truth – by Bhaktivinoda Thakura
“If we are without human feelings we cannot love God in the way in which we are meant to love Him – as men. If we do not respond to human affection we cannot be loved by God in the way in which He has willed to love us – with the Heart of the Man, Jesus Who is God, the Son of God, and the anointed Christ.”
Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude. (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux). p.13
February 7, 2011
31-25 :-(
“What I am saying is this: the score is not what matters. Life does not have to be
regarded as a game in which scores are kept and somebody wins. If you are too intent
on winning, you will never enjoy playing. If you are too obsessed with success,
you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life
has probably been wasted.”
Thomas Merton. Love and Living. (New York: Harcourt) p. 12
“A person in Krsna consciousness is always transcendental to the material modes of nature. He has no expectations for the result of the work entrusted to him, because he is above false ego and pride. Still, he is always enthusiastic till the completion of such work. He does not worry about the distress undertaken; he is always enthusiastic. He does not care for success or failure; he is equal in both distress and happiness. Such a worker is situated in the mode of goodness. ”
Bhagavad Gita 18.26
January 22, 2011
“This first stage is technically called sadhana-bhakti, or devotional service in practice. The result of sadhana-bhakti must be ecstatic love, attachment for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, which is also called prema-bhakti. In the neophyte stage, sadhana-bhakti includes faith, association with devotees, and practicing devotional service. Thus one is freed from all unwanted things. One then becomes fixed in devotional service and increases his desire to act in devotional service. Thus one becomes attached to the Lord and His devotional service.”
Chaitanya Charitamrta, Madhya 8.68
“…all prayer, reading, meditation and all the activities of the monastic life are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and of our situation as willed by him. …Purity of heart is then correlative to a new spiritual identity – the “self” as recognized in the context of realities willed by God…”
Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Image Books, 1971) 68
November 25, 2010
“Such knowledge in Krsna consciousness can be achieved by a faithful person who believes firmly in Krsna. One is called a faithful man who thinks that simply by acting in Krsna consciousness he can attain the highest perfection. This faith is attained by the discharge of devotional service, and by chanting Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, which cleanses one’s heart of all material dirt.”
Bhagavad Gita 4.39
“Prayer is then the first and most important step. All through the life of faith one must resort constantly to prayer, because faith is not simply a gift which we receive once for all in our first act of belief. Every new development of faith, every new increment of supernatural light, even though we may earnestly working to acquire it, remains a pure gift of God.”
Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness (New York: Image, 1963). p. 81. Prayer is therefore the very heart of the life of faith.
October 20, 2010
“Krsna wears a pearl necklace that appears like a chain of white ducks around His neck. The peacock feather in His hair appears like a rainbow, and His yellow garments appear like lightning in the sky. Krsna appears like a newly risen cloud, and the gopis appear like newly grown grains in the field. Constant rains of nectarean pastimes fall upon these newly grown grains, and it seems that the gopis are receiving beams of life from Krsna, exactly as grains receive life from the rains.”
Madhya 21.109
“The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythm that are not those of the engineer.”
Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable (New York: New Directions, 1966) p. 9.
“Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.”
Raids on the Unspeakable: p. 10.
Reclaiming scripture from the empirical and dogmatic analyzers. Scripture is poetry, not a collection of essays.
"Use common sense and if you have none then consult with others." SP letter 10/25/76
The Yoga Of Ecology
View From a New Vrindaban Ridge 