Home     About The Author     Book Preview     Reviews     Contact

Excerpts from The Standing Stone: The Challenge of the Master By Margaret Dillsaver

CHAPTER 12:

"How Guruji worked his magic during the rebirthing sessions, Indu couldn’t say. She emphasized that Guruji rarely spoke about what he was doing. Instead, he said that personal experience alone was the best teacher, that no words would be more powerful than one’s own inner realization. My conversation with Indu was about just this, the wonder of the spiritual path. Without embarking on such a journey, rarely do we permit real silence into our lives; rarely do we move beyond language. The Master’s challenge is to entice us to listen deeply, to feel the pulsation of energy, to move into the dimensionless form of being, and to recognize the amazing realm beyond the boundary of the mind."
 

CHAPTER 13: 

The Gāyatrī Mantra was a well-known man­tra which, simply translated, meant: “Oh Lord, please let me see Your Shining Light so it can guide my way.” Indu knew that the “Shining Light” was ever-present. It was only up to each person to see it and follow it. She began to inwardly repeat the mantra. No matter what personal heartbreak she might have, her only goal in life was to do just that, to see the Light and fol­low it. But how easily it could be obscured by personal desires and ambitions. She knew the ego had to be dead to the world before the world of light and love could be experienced. After several minutes of repeating it, she actually did feel heartened, and she was determined to enjoy the afternoon.
 

CHAPTER 21: 

When she heard him say this, Indu had been startled, sudden­ly grasping the reason Guruji had insistently taken them to the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. The illusion of being limited within the boundaries of the body was just as ridic­ulous as believing that the universe was confined within the dome of the planetarium or that the breadth of a water well was greater than the ocean. Fireworks illumined the night of her soul as this realization came—that the mind sets absurd limits to human existence, substantiating only dimensions within time and space, the realm of thought.

“But the ocean is greater than the well and the universe is greater than the dome of the planetarium and we are greater than the boundaries of body and mind,” she marveled with me. This was Guruji’s great lesson. “It’s only in our ignorance that we imagine otherwise.” Divine Nature wants us to recog­nize the absurdity of our self-imposed limitations.
 

CHAPTER 27:

“Remember,” she read his words which she’d recorded in her notebook, “the mind cannot be controlled. The thinking mind is more powerful than the pounding waves of the ocean. How to stop the waves of the ocean? You cannot. But you can watch, witnessing each thought entering and leaving. The witness is beyond the thinking mechanism. As a witness, automatically the inner silence will come. The mind cannot stop the mind. Always be the neutral observer in everything in your life.”


CHAPTER 30:

Her outlook on life was serious and ethereal, much more so than most might be. But her explanation for this was simple. Her depressions had driven her down the path to know God. They had taken her to Guruji who had taught her how to medi­tate and in those devout moments, a bliss, an ecstasy had come that had transformed her heavy, forlorn and despairing spirit. She saw in those moments the greater picture of life, the blos­soming that was possible if she nurtured the seeds that Guruji had planted. Her fear was that her personal, passionate desire would lock her in a union that would stifle that blossoming. But if George was her soulmate, then there was no danger.


CHAPTER 31:    

Reading again from her notebook, it was this type of lesson from her Guru which was deeply consoling: “Our life is a dream. When it is in our favor then we don’t mind. But when our dream is painful, then we want out. But it is not so easy. We must know God is within. We cannot find happiness outside ourselves. That outside happiness is only an illusion. True happiness is missing from our lives and that is what brings us pain. We can only remove the pain by finding true happiness which is be­yond our dream life. It is union with the Absolute.” He would continue, “God is our primary nature. Without worshiping that God, we cannot know who we are. I am not talking about religious God. I mean Absolute God because he is always with you. No church is needed in between.”

Cradling these teachings in her mind, Indu had decided to throw herself into her spiritual practice, praying that divine guidance would come. She knew that it would, that a light would shine once again in her grief-clouded heart, giving her a glimpse of the meaning of it all.
 

CHAPTER 32:

“How to know when God is with you?” he would say to them. “When the sun shines its light, other lights make no difference. Neither moon, nor electricity, nor candles, nothing is needed in the presence of the sun. When you feel God, you do not want to talk. When thinking mind stops, then God works. Do not believe it, feel it.” It was a command that Indu desperately had wanted to follow, and Guruji was showing her how.
 

CHAPTER 35:    

The emotional impact of those first ten days was being compound­ed by the haunting familiarity of a place unchanged. But she and George had changed. Between them they had practical­ly traversed the world, been in jobs and left them, renounced their own connection and re-established it. They were hardly the same two people. But the past and the future were united at that moment by the changeless face of uncertainty. They had been uncertain in the beginning as to the direction their lives would take, they were still uncertain as to how their destinies would intertwine, and once again, future projection led only to the abode of uncertainty. And the bridge for this time traveler was none other than their love, a love which it seemed had spanned an eternity.

 


 



 

Purchase The Book

 

 

           available in paperback
          

              available in e-book
 

Visit The Ashram


Ananda Ashram - Yoga Society of New York Inc.
 

 

 

HOME | ABOUT THE AUTHOR | BOOK PREVIEW | REVIEWS | CONTACT
© Copyright 2013 Om Full Moon Enterprises. All Rights Reserved.