VIII: 16

[Krishna Jaya]

Chapter 12, Verse 16

 

“Those who are pure, impartial,

Skillful and calm,

Working for God and not for themselves

Are especially dear to me.”

 

Sri Aurobindo:

 

“They have given up all desire and action to the Master of their being, pure and still, accepting of whatever comes, neither pained nor afflicted by any result or happening, having flung away from themselves all personal initiatives.  They allow the divine will and divine knowledge to flow through them, undeflected by their own preferences.  For that reason, they are swift and skillful in all their actions.  This flawless unity with the divine will, this pure instrumentation, is the condition of this skill in action.

 

Again, they will neither desire the pleasant and rejoice at its touch, nor abhor the unpleasant and be sorrowful as a consequence of its burdens.  They have abolished the distinction between fortunate and unfortunate happenings, because their devotion receives all things equally as grace from the hands of their eternal Lover and Master.  The God-lover, especially dear to God, is a soul of wide equality, equal to friend and enemy, honor and insult, grief and happiness, heat and cold, and to all that troubles with opposite affections the normal personality.  Their minds are constantly fixed on the highest, on the one divine object of their love and adoration.”

 

Paramahansa Yogananda:

 

“Yogis who have reached the absolute goal have no need to peform activities or to start any undertaking with human motives rooted in egoism.  Their happiness does not depend on the well-being of the physical body nor on sense pleasures nor on the acquisition of material objects.  They have found supreme bliss. 

 

They are ever ready to perform spiritual and physical actions to help themselves and others, thus serving the God present in themselves and others.  When serving themselves through eating, thinking, feeling and willing, they perform these activities only to keep their bodies and minds fit to carry out God’s will.  They serve others not to obtain gratitude nor advantages from them, but to please the Lord within their body-temples.

 

Those who keep their souls united with Spirit are placed beyond the reach of vibratory sense perceptions.  Therefore, troubles of body and mind cannot disturb their peace.  No dependence on nor initiating desire for material things invades their states of eternal contentment.”

 

Sri Krishna Prem: 

 

“There are some who, in the name of devotion, give up their grip on life and muddle through, making spirituality an excuse for impracticality.  Truly surrendered Yogis are not simply ecstatic dreamers, so dazzled by the white, eternal Light that they are unable to successfully negotiate their ways through the shadows.  Rather, since ‘yoga is skill in action,’ their paths include mastery of the world as opposed to a weak withdrawal.”

 

Sri Eknath Easwaran:

 

“Once I took my wife and some friends to see the film version of Camelot.  One of the younger members of the party was just entering the age when the promise of romance seems eternal.  After the movie, I asked her what she thought of all those knights…

 

Oh, they must have had a very thrilling life, but just imagine what it must have been like to carry around those silly shields all the time.

 

Unfortunately, it’s not only in Camelot that people carry shields.  Virtually all of us labor under defenses that are much more rigid and cumbersome: our expectations.  When challenged, we shove those shields up in front of us. 

 

How much vitality is wasted in this way!  Krishna is telling us in so many words…

 

Throw your shield away.  Then your arms will be free to embrace me and all of Life, and the message will be clear to all.  There is nothing I want from you; all I want to do is give.

 

This is, in fact, what all of us are looking for: not only to receive such love, but to offer it freely and consistently.  Then our lives will be cherished by everyone around us.

 

There is a song from My Fair Lady in which Rex Harrison sings…

 

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

Why can’t a woman be more like me?

 

This was a very popular song.  In emotional relationships, we tend to have a rigid set of expectations which assume that the other person will act and think in a particular way.  Interestingly, it is not that person’s way, but our own.  Then, when he or she acts differently, we are surprised and irritated, or disappointed.  If we could but see behind the scenes, this sort of encounter would make good comedy, and it would make us laugh…

 

Here I am, relating not to you, but to my idea of you; and there you are insisting on acting in your own way instead.  How silly of me to be so irritated!”

 

[From a reading I received from master astrologer Ellias Lonsdale…

 

Ellias:  “Your Venus is saying to you…

 

 

Can you be in your vehicle the way women really are?

 

My Venus is almost exactly square your Venus, and my Venus wants to say to your Venus…

 

There’s nothing more important to a man of today than to integrate the Feminine.  It is, in fact, the main task of the times.”

 

…to which I would add that it is also important for a woman of today to integrate the Masculine. 

 

It takes two to tango, and when the male is integrating the Feminine and his female partner is integrating the Masculine, the two dancers dissolve into the one dance.]

Happy New Year Everybody!