7 Swans a Swimming

[Guest guest]

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?Did you

see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -An armful of

white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto

the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,Biting the air

with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill

dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a

waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you see it, finally,

just under the clouds -A white cross Streaming across the sky, its

feetLike black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the

river?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to

everything?And have you too finally figured out what beauty is

for?And have you changed your life?

Mary Oliver

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Meditation

(by Kabir)

The ageless nectar is trickling in the celestial cave,Where a jingling

sound arises without playing on an instrument-- this is understood

when one meditates--Where lotuses have blossomed without a pond.The

swan of the soul climbs upon them and plays.Light is seen shining

without any moon; here and there a swan comes into view.The gaze is

fixed on the tenth gate, on which the Unmanifest Person

meditates.Death, the fierce, does not come near. Concupiscence,

anger, pride, and greed are burned up.The thirst of many ages is

quenched; karma, confusion, sin, and misery are disappearing.Kabir

says: Listen, brother sadhu! Having become immortal, one never dies.

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SONGS OF KABÎRTranslated by Rabindranath Tagore

New York, The Macmillan Company; 1915

II. 24. hamsâ, kaho purâtan vât

TELL me, O Swan, your ancient tale.From what land do you come, O Swan?

to what shore will you fly?Where would you take your rest, O Swan, and

what do you seek?Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise, follow

me!There is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where the

terror of Death is no more.There the woods of spring are a-bloom, and

the fragrant scent "He is I" is borne on the wind:There the bee of the

heart is deeply immersed, and desires no other joy.

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SONGS OF KABÎRTranslated by Rabindranath Tagore

New York, The Macmillan Company; 1915

II. 105. man mast huâ tab kyon bole

WHERE is the need of words, when love has made drunken the heart?I

have wrapped the diamond in my cloak; why open it again and

again?When its load was light, the pan of the balance went up: now it

is full, where is the need for weighing?

The swan has taken its flight to the lake beyond the mountains; why

should it search for the pools and ditches any more?Your Lord dwells

within you: why need your outward eyes be opened?Kabîr says: "Listen,

my brother! my Lord, who ravishes my eyes, has united Himself with

me."

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The Tao if Pooh

Benjamin Hoff

"In the story of the Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Ducking stop

feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has

something Special , a Swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But

until we recognize that its there what can we do but splash around,

trading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've

got and do what they can do.

There are things about ourselves that we need to get rid of; there are

things we need to change. But at the same time, we do not need to be

too desperate, too ruthless, too combative. Along the way to

usefulness and happiness, many of those things will change

themselves, and the others can be worked on as we go. The first thing

we need to do is recognize and trust our own Inner Nature, and not

lose sight of it. For within the Ugly Duckling is the Swan, inside

the Bouncy Tigger is the Rescuer who knows the Way, and in each of us

is something Special, and that we need to keep."

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"The conflict is in man. Unless it is resolved there, it cannot be

resolved anywhere else. The politics is within you; it is between the

two parts of the mind. A very small bridge exists. If that bridge is

broken through some accident, through some physiological defect or

something else, the person becomes split, the person becomes two

persons--and the phenomenon of schizophrenia or split personality

happens. If the bridge is broken--and the bridge is very

fragile--then you become two, you behave like two persons. In the

morning you are very loving, very beautiful; in the evening you are

very angry, absolutely different. You don't remember your

morning...how can you remember? Another mind was functioning--and the

person becomes two persons. If this bridge is strengthened so much

that the two minds disappear as two and become one, then integration,

then crystallization, arises. What George Gurdjieff used to call the

crystallization of being is nothing but these two minds becoming one,

the meeting of the male and the female within, the meeting of yin and

yang, the meeting of the left and right, the meeting of logic and

illogic, the meeting of Plato and Aristotle.

Osho Ancient Music in the Pines, Chapter 1

Commentary: The image of integration is the unio mystica, the fusion

of opposites. This is a time of communication between the previously

experienced dualities of life. Rather than night opposing day, dark

suppressing light, they work together to create a unified whole,

turning endlessly one into the other, each containing in its deepest

core the seed of the opposite

The eagle and the swan are both beings of flight and majesty. The

eagle is the embodiment of power and aloneness. The swan is the

embodiment of space and purity, gently floating and diving upon and

within the element of the emotions, entirely content and complete

within her perfection and beauty. We are the union of eagle and swan:

male and female, fire and water, life and death. The card of

integration is the symbol of self-creation, new life, and mystical

union; otherwise known as alchemy."

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Bright ray of light as

wintersun dawns on the pond

- "Good morning Miss Swan."

ZenZei

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