Odilia Carmen Chirica

"Those who have reached their arms into emptiness are no longer concerned with lies and truth, with mind and soul, or which side of the bed they rose from. If you are still struggling to understand, you are not there. You offer your soul to one who says, “Take it to the other side.” You’re on neither side, yet those who love you see you on one side or the other. You say Illa, “only God,” then your hungry eyes see you’re in “nothing,” La You’re an artist who paints both with existence and non. Shams could help you see who you are, but remember, You are not your eyes." from " The Book of Love " by Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

"Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of the heart, and that depends upon how much one has polished it. Whoever has polished it more, sees more – more unseen forms become manifest."   Maulana Rumi ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

"Maulana Rumi has given us a beautiful illustration of a loving prayer that a simple and unsophisticated shepherd boy was muttering in his own humble way as Prophet Moses passed by him. He was saying: O God! where art Thou? I would like to serve Thee. I would knit for Thee woolen garments and comb Thy hair. I would like to serve Thee with milk, curd, cheese and clarified butter, tend Thee in Thine illness, kiss Thy hands and massage Thy feet. I would like to make a sacrifice of all my sheep and goats for Thy sake. These words of the shepherd boy sounded as heresy to the Prophet, who in a rage began to reprimand the boy saying: "Shut up your mouth, O infidel. Why are you talking like a fool? Withdraw your insolent words or else God will curse us with hell-fires for your blasphemy. God is not a human being and He does not stand in need of any of the things that you offer Him. He is a spirit, without any hands and feet, and you have insulte...

"There was once a brahmin priest who earned his livelihood by performing religious services for the people in his village. He was known for his devotion to the god Vishnu, and people regarded him as a holy man. Among his hundreds of followers was a shepherd who wanted to see God - even though he had no idea of what God was. His sheep did not require much attention, so he had plenty of time to visit the priest and barrage him with questions about God. "Why does Vishnu have four arms?" he would ask. "Why does he always sleep on a snake? Why does he have a lotus growing from his navel? Why does his wife just sit next to him without doing anything? If Vishnu is God, then who is Shiva? Which of them is the most powerful? Is there any God higher than Vishnu and Shiva? Which kind of God is the most powerful and kind to human beings?"  The priest gave the shepherd all kinds of philosophical answers, even explaining the symbolic meaning of the different limbs, weapons, ...

" Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind, Whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me; I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people. Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me. Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf & rock. Help me seek pure thoughts & act with the intention of helping others. Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me. I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy - Myself. Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes. So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame. " Native American Prayer ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

"Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery (Great Spirit), Teach me how to trust my heart, Teach me how to trust my mind, Teach me how to trust my intuition, Teach me how to trust my inner knowing, The senses of my body, The blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my Sacred Space and love beyond my fear and thus Walk in Balance with the passing of each glorious Sun." Native American Prayer ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

also known as VAGASANEYI-SAMHITA-UPANISHAD, ISAVASYA or ISA-UPANISHAD for further details check  wikipedia 1. ALL this, whatsoever moves on earth, is to be hidden in the Lord (the Self). When thou hast surrendered all this, then thou mayest enjoy. Do not covet the wealth of any man! 2. Though a man may wish to live a hundred years, performing works, it will be thus with him; but not in any other way: work will thus not cling to a man. 3. There are the worlds of the Asuras covered with blind darkness. Those who have destroyed their self (who perform works, without having arrived at a knowledge of the true Self), go after death to those worlds. 4. That one (the Self), though never stirring, is swifter than thought. The Devas (senses) never reached it, it walked before them. Though standing still, it overtakes the others who are running. Matarisvan (the wind, the moving spirit) bestows powers on it. 5. It stirs and it stirs not; it is far, and likewise near. It is inside of al...

also known as TALAVAKARA-UPANISHAD or KENOPANISHAD for further details check wikipedia FIRST KHANDA  1. The Pupil asks: 'At whose wish does the mind sent forth proceed on its errand? At whose command does the first breath go forth? At whose wish do we utter this speech? What god directs the eye, or the ear?' 2. The Teacher replies: 'It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye. When freed (from the senses) the wise, on departing from this world, become immortal. 3. 'The eye does not go thither, nor speech, nor mind. We do not know, we do not understand, how any one can teach it.  4. 'It is different from the known, it is also above the unknown, thus we have heard from those of old, who taught us this. 5. 'That which is not expressed by speech and by which speech is expressed, that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore. 6. 'That which does not think by mind, and by which, ...

"The name of Shri Bhagavan Dattatreya has occurred sometimes in these essays, but he is still practically unknown outside India. More lamentable still is the fact that although still worshipped by millions of Hindus he is thought of more as a benevolent God rather than a teacher of the highest essence of Indian thought. In the basic essence which runs through the 3 patterns of thought which I have classified as the Diamond Dharmas, we find their earliest expression in the Guru teachings of Dattatreya, which preceded them all and later became embraced in Brahma Vidya. Shri Dattatreya was a dropout of an earlier age than the period when Veda and Tantra merged to become one single cult. It was men like Dattatreya who helped to make this possible. Three of his close disciples were kings, one an Asura, and the other two belonging to the warrior caste. Dattatreya himself was regarded as an avatar of Maheshwara ( Shiva ), but later was claimed by Vaishnavas as the avatar of Vishnu. Not s...

by  St Bonaventure INTRODUCTION St Bonaventure was a Franciscan Monk born in central Italy in 1217. He joined the Order in 1243, and wrote a number of masterpieces including a biography of St Francis, and many other treatises. The most widely-known of his works is that dealt with here, "The Soul's Journey into God", a dense  summa  of medieval Christian spirituality. It is based on a vision of the Seraph, the six-winged angelic creature which had provided St Francis his critical mystical experience, and it was whilst meditating on this vision that St Bonaventure realised that "...this vision represented our father's rapture in contemplation and the road by which that rapture is reached." The actual Latin title of this work is  Itinerarium mentis in Deum , and it is of interest to this present work that Itinerarium can be translated as "plan for a journey (itinerary), which is part of the function served by any initiatory sys...

"The following is a pictorial key to the spiritual journey. It is archetypical, that is, these images/energies are present in each one of us, and the journey is also the same for each one us. Look carefully, feel, and see if it resonates with you. The images are drawings from Johfra Bosschart, a Dutch modern artist (1919-1998). Johfra is a rather unknown painter. Nevertheless his works are magnificent. The drawings on this page appeared as illustrations in The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, published by Lectorium Rosicrucianum, a Rosicrucian order founded by Jan van Rijckenborgh in Belgium (now an international order). The images give a quick overview of the spiritual journey. If you desire to know more, read the The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. This anonymous text appeared in 1616 in Strasbourg, Germany as the third pamphlet of an order called Fraternity of the Rose Cross. Nothing is known about the author or about the order itself. Thus the text stands ...

" Walking one evening along a deserted road, Mulla Nasrudin saw a troop of horsemen coming towards him. His imagination started to work; he saw himself captured and sold as a slave, or impressed into the army. Nasrudin bolted, climbed a wall into a graveyard, and lay down in an open tomb. Puzzled at his strange behaviour, the men – honest travellers – followed him. They found him stretched out, tense and quivering. ‘What are you doing in that grave? We saw you run away. Can we help you?’ ‘Just because you can ask a question does not mean that there is a straightforward answer to it,’ said the Mulla, who now realised what had happened. ‘It all depends upon your viewpoint. If you must know, however: I am here because of you , and you are here because of me .’" from the book  "The Expliots of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin"  by  Idries Shah ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen