Meditation, Spiritual Practices, and the Way

Section 4

"Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." - Jesus ..........

If you look for a practice, breathe love. If you seek a way, breathe love. Let inspiration fill you, let expiration fill yourself with love. Be led, be taught, be opened. HOW? By love. To that guru of gurus, that breath of breaths, to the Way, the Truth, Oneself. Breathe love, Be love, Love. Be.

"The kingdom of heaven is within you. Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all things shall be added unto this. " - Jesus ..........

These things I do, and so shall you do, and even greater things than these. " - Jesus. ..........

"I understand," said the aavaka, "that the story of the Western Paradise is not literally true." "Your description of paradise," the Buddha continued, "is beautiful; yet it is insufficient and does little justice to the glory of the pure land. The worldly can speak of it in a worldly way only; they use worldly similes and worldly words. But the pure land in which the pure live is more beautiful than you can say or imagine. However, the repetition of the name Amitabha Buddha is meritorious only if you speak it with such a devout attitude of mind as will cleanse your heart and attune your will to do works of righteousness. ... He only can live and breathe in the spiritual atmosphere of the Western Paradise who has attained enlightenment. ... There are five meditations. The first meditation is the meditation of love in which you must so adjust your heart that you long for the welfare of all beings, including the happiness of your enemies. The second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you think of all beings in distress, vividly representing in your mind their sorrows and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul. The third meditation is the meditation of Joy in which you think of the prosperity of others and rejoice with their rejoicings. The fourth meditation is the meditation on impurity, in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of wrongs and evils. How trivial is often the pleasure of the moment and how fatal are its consequences. The fifth meditation is the meditation on serenity, in which you rise above love and hate, tyranny and thraldom, wealth and want, and regard your own fate with impartial calmness and perfect tranquility. A true follower of the Tathagata founds not his trust upon austerities or rituals, but giving up the idea of self relies with his whole heart upon Amitabha, which is the unbounded light of truth. " - Buddha ..........