The Power and Peace of a One-Pointed Mind

“Developing a one-pointed mind will enrich your life moment by moment. You will find that your senses are keener, your emotions more stable, your intellect more lucid, your sensitivity to the needs of others heightened. Whatever you do, you will be there more fully. You won’t forget things, because now your mind is engaged. You won’t become mentally fatigued, for you are conserving your powers. And perhaps most precious of all, you will not ignore the distress or joy of others, because in looking into their eyes you will be looking truly into their hearts.”

- Eknath Easwaran, from the latest Blue Mountain Journal, “The Power and Peace of a One-Pointed Mind“

Real love always hurts because it transforms. If you are courageous enough and you can absorb the hurt, the pain, the agony of transformation, you will feel grateful later on. Only later on you can feel grateful; right now it will be rough going. Don’t be worried about the inner core. Let me destroy your outer core and you will be in touch with your inner core; there is no problem about it. The first thing is to destroy the hard crust that has grown around you, and it is hurting. You would like to remain as you are and be in touch with your inner core; that is not possible. I am helpless, I cannot help you that way. I have to dismantle the whole house – I don’t believe in renovation. First the whole house, the whole rotten ruin has to be destroyed and removed.

True lovers both give and receive trust. Although trusting can be scary, it is only by opening yourself up to love (and thus by letting yourself become vulnerable and trusting that the other person will not hurt you) that you truly discover the beauty in letting another person into your inner world. It's a feeling that lets you close your eyes and know that someone believes in you and will catch you when you fall. In other words, trusting fully allows you to fully feel love.

I 
Have 
Learned 
So much from God 
That I can no longer 
Call 
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even a pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.

From: 'The Gift' 

Why put requirements on feeling good? True life is being given to us all the time; we just have to let it in all the time. True life is instant and complete gratification that costs nothing. Being free is in your head.

Drop guilt — because to be guilty is to live in hell. Not to be guilty, and you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of the lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs.

When for the first time you fall in love, you meet the opposite. Immediately, it is as if you have got wings, you can fly; poetry arises in your heart. What is happening? The opposite has created something in you. Silence alone is not very beautiful, sound alone is not very beautiful, but the meeting of sound and silence is very, very beautiful -- that is music. The meeting of silence and sound is music.