The hands of
Power
Are often destructive.
The hands of
Love
Are always creative.
– Sri Chinmoy
No matter how many times I fail
I shall not give up,
For my goal
Will not accept
Any defeat.
– Sri Chinmoy
If we believe
In our own
Self-transcendence-task
Then there can be
No unreachable goal.
– Sri Chinmoy
Extracts from Savitri by Sri Aurobindo
The soul in man
Is greater
Than his fate.
~
The life you lead
Conceals the light you are.
~
The great are strongest
When they stand alone.
~
The day-bringer
Must walk
In darkest night.
~
Our life is a march
To a victory
Never won.
~
Man can accept his fate,
He can refuse.
– Sri Aurobindo, Savitri
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
– William Wordsworth
When the rose is gone and the garden faded
you will no longer hear the nightingale’s song.
The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil.
The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.
If love withholds its strengthening care,
the lover is left like a bird without care,
the lover is left like a bird without wings.
How will I be awake and aware
if the light of the Beloved is absent?
Love wills that this Word be brought forth.
From: Teachings of Rumi E.M.Whinfield
– Rumi
Cosmic Consciousness
I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self
And Time and Space my spirit’s seeing are.
I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,
I am the wind’s speed and the blazing star.
All Nature is the nursling of my care,
I am its struggle and the eternal rest;
The world’s joy thrilling runs through me, I bear
The sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.
I have learned a close identity with all,
Yet am by nothing bound that I become;
Carrying in me the universe’s call
I mount to my imperishable home.
I pass beyond Time and life on measureless wings,
Yet still am one with born and unborn things.
28-7-1938
Sri Aurobindo
‘T is so Much Joy!
’T is so much joy! ’T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!
Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!
And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o’erwhelm me so!
By: Emily Dickinson