2
" Until modern times, we focused a great deal of the best of our thought upon rituals of return to the human condition. Seeking enlightenment or the Promised Land or the way home, a man would go or be forced to go into the wilderness, measure himself against the Creation, recognize finally his true place within it, and thus be saved both from pride and from despair. Seeing himself as a tiny member of a world he cannot comprehend or master or in any final sense possess, he cannot possibly think of himself as a god. And by the same token, since he shares in, depends upon, and is graced by all of which he is a part, neither can he become a fiend; he cannot descend into the final despair of destructiveness. Returning from the wilderness, he becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.(pg.95, " The Body and the Earth" ) "
10
" This prayer in praise of Lord Vishnu be,
His incarnations graced earth constantly.
शान्ताकारं भुजगशयनं पद्मनाभं सुरेशं
विश्वाधारं गगनसदृश्यं मेघवर्णं शुभाङ्गम्।
लक्ष्मीकान्तं कमलनयनं योगिभिर्ध्यानगम्यं
वन्दे विष्णु भवभयहरं सर्वलोकैकनाथम्।
I bow to Vishnu, Master of Universe unquestionably,
Who rests on great serpent bed, peaceful perpetually,
From His navel sprouts Lotus of Creative Power surely,
He the Supreme Lord of cosmos undeniably does be.
- 146 -
He supports the entire universe and all-pervading be,
He dark as clouds with beautiful Lakshmi form glowingly,
He the lotus-eyed, whom yogis see by meditation only,
He destroyer of `Samsar’ fear – the Lord of all `loks’ be.
- 147 - "
― Munindra Misra , Chants of Hindu Gods and Godesses in English Rhyme
11
" Love is soul work. Love can be met and joined with attraction and infatuation and all of that, but love will not fade when those things do. You can choose to close your heart to love, and run away, and avoid it for as long as you can in every way you can think of but if it was really, truly, the other-worldly, almost supernatural kind of love that we can only hope to be graced with at least once in this life experience, it will not leave you. You can love many people, but at the end of the day, the love you need to choose is the love that, even if you close your heart to, still moves you. The love you still write about. The love you can’t face. The love you’re still not okay with losing, that you’re angry about; the love that uprooted your life and contorted your being. The love you ran away from because it showed you who you are without the guise of worth given from someone else. This is love because these are all signs that you are closing your heart and to be doing so, there has to be something going through you for you to be able to close off. Real love will be the love you realize that remains even after you close your heart to it, because it sustains itself. It drives you forward. It brings up all the unhealed parts of you that you have to reconcile. "
12
" In essence, love makes no sense, In fact, there is more nonsense than sense in love. Great philosophers - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle alike, could only ponder on this delicate and mystifying subject, and that was way before I graced this planet with my own messed up resonance of amour. Perhaps, in an effort to make sense out of nonsense, the meaning of love was lost in translation over time, or by the mere fact that, to this day there has ben no valid interpretation. "
