hermit's chronicles

Here is Stephanie Mallard's exciting party game that promotes non-attachment. Especially great for Seekers: When all the guests have arrived you count the number of gifts or guests, assuming every person has brought a gift to exchange. Then you put as many slips of paper with numbers on them as there are gifts, 30 gifts = 30 slips of paper with the numbers 1 to 30. Before opening the gifts every person draws a number. #1 starts by selecting a gift from under the tree. All participants watch as #1 unwraps their gift and displays it for all to see. Then #2 has the option of taking #1's gift or selecting a new gift from under the tree. If #2 selects a new gift than they unwrap it and display it for all to see. #3 then has the option of taking from #1 or #2's gift or selecting a gift from under the tree. The fun begins when one brave soul decides to take an already opened gift rather than an unwrapped gift. If #3 takes #1's or #2's gift than whomever has handed over the...

Some are comfortable taking but not giving. Others are comfortable giving but not taking. Only a few, so very few are wholeheartedly easy With giving as well as taking Not letting either leave any residue.

Samarth Guru Ram Das was guru to King Shivaji in the 1600s. The name Samarth meant “all-powerful” and there are many stories of his miraculous powers. He lived in a mud hut next to the king’s palace. The king was highly regarded for his concern for his subjects and for his generous feeding of the poor, but apparently now and then his ego got the best of him. When this happened the guru would do things like splitting a rock in which there were many tiny bugs and asking the king, Who was feeding these bugs? The realization of the triviality of his own efforts would again humble the king. *** One day the king (Shivaji) came out of the palace and did obeisance to the guru (Samarth Guru Ram Das). Then the king handed him a scroll in which he had bequeathed all his kingdom to the guru. The guru took the scroll, read it, accepted it, and then said to the king, “Now you run it for me!” *** I am in the world but not concerned with the world. I am going through the marketplace, but not as a purc...

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited. - Ramakrishna Paramhaunsa

O Kabir, why be afraid of anyone When the Lord Himself protects you? What does it matter if A thousand dogs bark fiercely When you are seated on an elephant? - Kabir

Whatever may be Guru - he may be a lunatic or any common person. Once you have accepted him, he is the Lord of the Lords. - Neem Karoli Baba

I give them what they want, so they will want what I give. - Shirdi Sai Baba