I try to stay in the state of unconditional love.

I am blessed by seeing how one can experience love without too much expectation from one's children.

But I also see daily, how difficult it is to FEEL love unconditionally. It is something that we can feel only in an expanded state. Actually, not feel.
Be.
I think that at ego level, we can't love without condition. Because the moment I feel that I love you, I have created a separateness, and that is not unconditional love, but something approaching that.

I had to share this with my friends, as these words are just so thrilling. I'm reading The Concise Yoga Vāsiṣṭha By Swami Venkatesananda, and adding excerpts at the Living Metaphysics group.

The book has startling insights, including some that we consider of the light world today. Another contemporary ancient text! Sage Vāsiṣṭha is meant to have come from Lord Vishnu, and was the first Sage. The actual book, which was set down much later, at variously in the 6th to 14th century, fills several volumes.

The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha consists of spiritual instruction given to Lord Rama by Sage Vāsiṣṭha.

Imagine that we can have a glimpse of that amazing gathering through the pages of a book!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This excerpt is from the story of Queen Lila-[pronounced as Leela]-who
is seeking to see the true form of her dead husband, King Padma..The Goddess of
knowledge, Saraswati, is giving her insights and helping her to
experience it. She tells her that in another lifetime, she was Arundhati, wife of Sage Vāsiṣṭha.

The woman’s name, Lila, is itself of importance. According to Wikipedia :”Within monism, Lila is a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative play by the divine absolute (Brahman). In the dualistic schools of Vaishnavism, Lila more simply refers to the activities of God and his devotees, as distinct from the common activities of karma.”

An excerpt [emphasis and explanations mine]:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.multo.com/vlog/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/saraswati.jpg

Goddess Saraswati : “O Lila, give up this form of yours and attain the pure spiritual insight. For only Brahman can really see or realize Brahman.
My body is made of pure light, pure consciousness. Your body is not.
With this body of yours you cannot even visit the places of your own
imagination. Then how can you enter the field of another’s imagination?


But if you attain the body of light, you will immediately see the holy man’s house[what you are seeking to see].

Affirm
to yourself :‘“I shall leave my body here and take a body of light.
With that body, like the scent of incense I shall go to the house of
the holy man.’

Even as water mixes with water, you will become one with the field of consciousness.

By the persistent practice of such meditation,
even your body will become one of pure consciousness and subtle. For, I
see even my body as consciousness. You do not, for you see the world of
matter.

Such ignorance arises out of its own accord, but is dispelled by wisdom and inquiry.
In fact such ignorance does not even exist! There is neither unwisdom nor ignorance ; neither bondage, nor liberation.

There is but one pure consciousness.”
From The Concise Yoga Vāsiṣṭha by Swami Venkatesananda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sage Vasishtha and Rama by Peggy Kane

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These words are thrilling! We have heard them in our meditations.

 I remember the day I realized suddenly :”Only God can know God.”

To read the words above, in a beautifully translated version of the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, is
just an amazing and delightful affirmation of the words themselves.

1) What made you smile today?
What's making me smile right now--a "funny" being told by 88 year old Franki Wood in the 46th minute [approx.] of being interviewed by fellow Gaian, John. "There's a lot of fun in life..." Now, in the 49th minute, she's singing a song about getting a man! So sweet!

2) What’s the weather like where you are?

COLD! At least, 61-degrees F is cold for Florida!

3) Who did you talk to today? (you can tell us one or more)
Hmm.. my family, as we worked through something important today [no raised voices, or sulks or anything--yay!]; my sister, my parents in India; and co-workers. No friends today. Just on voicemails!

4) Are you hungry, thirsty or content right now?
Thirsty. You naughty Gaia you, keeping me from

[From the Team Blog].
5) What are you thankful for in this moment?
Everything!

Valentine's Day. It's not something I grew up with. Yet I think I had one of the most romantic relationships one can have, with the man I later married!

It was not a day that was celebrated in the India of my  youth; and yet now, it has become something that "everyone" talks about.

A slight correction: in one of our stories growing up, this bookworm read about St. Valentine and how his day is celebrated as Valentine's day "in the west." So it was not something unknown.The whole concept seemed foreign, a little distant to a child, and then interesting as I grew into the romantic years. But still, it is only recently that Valentine's Day has become a big thing in India.

This alignment happens on Feb. 14 2009, Valentine's Day.^[23]

According to a Wikipedia article,

"Ages are believed by some astrologers to affect mankind while other astrologers believe the ages correlate to the rise and fall of mighty civilizations and cultural tendencies. Aquarius traditionally "rules" electricity, computers, flight, democracy, freedom, humanitarianism, idealists, modernization, rebels and rebellion, mental diseases, nervous disorders, and astrology^[4]. Other keywords and ideas believed associated with Aquarius are nonconformity, philanthropy, veracity, perseverence, mankind and irresolution^[5]. "

For me, this is juxtaposed with:
"We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."
~Barack Obama, inauguration speech watched by millions worldwide, Jan. 20, 2009


and the precursor to this:

You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
~Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi

There is a message today from Barbara Wolf:

At 7:25 a.m. on 14th February - and for the 18 minutes of the alignment, I invite you, into the Universal Heart, to add your own intention for Love and Peace, and to co-create the dawning of the Age of Aquarius to that of the Cosmos. Join in whatever way feels appropriate for you. You may choose to align with 7:25 a.m. (UT) or 7:25 a.m. your own local time energizing a wave of intention that will surge around the Earth.

He’s finding new opportunities in markets like the United States, where he thinks there’s a role for small, community-driven loans in the recession. And in his updated book Creating a World Without Poverty, he’s offering solutions, talking about ways to redesign capitalism with a new approach he calls “social business.”
From "The Big Money"
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

According to a CNN report late Sunday, many ordinary entrepreneurs have been getting loans from Grameen America, and, contrary to the oversimplistic spin that it’s the poor people (read: subprime) who triggered the housing mortgage-turned-credit crisis-turned global financial crunch-turned global economic recession, the ordinary, struggling people of New York have just given Grameen’s founder Mohammad Yunus a chance to burnish his bank’s solid reputation as one where no deadbeats are welcome. “A whopping 99-percent” repayment rate, imagine that, enthused the CNN reporter standing on a street in Manhattan where, presumably, thousands of jobless and soon-to-be-jobless pound the pavement daily.

One of those featured by CNN, a woman who owned a small neighborhood salon, had augmented her income with small loans from Grameen, so she can sell shoes, clothes and quick-selling consumer items in between haircuts and manicures. All in all, she proudly told CNN, Grameen had lent her a cumulative $6,000 in increments—small loans that she repaid, thus entitling her to slightly bigger ones the next time. It’s exactly the same formula used by Grameen in Bangladesh a quarter of a century ago, and now widely used by those hundreds of microfinance programs so ably handled by nongovernment organizations for larger institutions like World Bank, ADB, or private ones like Planters Development Bank.  To prove it’s not all hype, the Nobel Prize was given to Yunus a few years ago, for being the “banker of the poor” not just in South Asia but to the rest of the Third World—and now, ironically, in the wounded rich economy of America.

From "The Bankable Poor"  The Business Mirror, February 16, 2009

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Grameen America is a microfinance company whose mission is to help alleviate poverty through entrepreneurship by providing loans, savings programs, credit establishment, and other financial services to the working poor, especially women, in the United States.

Grameen America is built upon the success of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

Founded by Professor Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank is the most widely recognized microfinance company in the world. The success earned both Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Accessible Microfinance is Necessary in America
The need for accessible microfinance in America is great. Despite being the world’s richest country, around 28 million people in the US are unbanked and nearly 45 million have only limited access to financial institutions. The problem is exacerbated by the US credit rating system which excludes all those who lack collateral, education, references or a banking history. The US financial system excludes the poor, especially recent immigrants, because they do not have credit ratings and cannot obtain them because they cannot meet some or all of the credit rating requirements.

According to US Census figures, some 36 million people lived in poverty in the United States in 2005. Among these poor persons, 8.7 million were first-generation immigrants and their family members. At a macro level, 20.4 million of the nation’s 36 million poor are women and 13 million of these women are in what the US Census Bureau has accepted as “deep poverty”. Of that number, 9.8 million are single mothers who are by far the poorest group with 38 percent living below the poverty line. This compares to 11 percent of all Americans who live below the poverty threshold.

From the Grameen Bank America website

This comes close to what I saw in a deep meditative experience.

The point of choosing my earthly parents. I was startled at how real it was.
Source
But the blue was deeper and the me-being was more amorphous.

Further from earth,  hovering over a night sky....

Otherwise of course, I come from
Google Earth India image

"If you can't understand my silence, you can't understand my words," my husband quoted to me one day.

This at first foxed me, and then seemed one of those clever things one says to impress. But it kept coming to me through the years.

And suddenly it comes up again.

As friends or co-members on Gaia, there is just a part of what we are thinking or feeling that we'll actually type out.
Only a few times out of the many that we think of each other, that we'll go out and shout out or message each other.
Only a few of the thoughts that we keep sending each other, that we'll actually get down to typing and sending.

What do you, as someone who knows me on Gaia, fill into those silences between when I reach out and don't; what I say and don't; what I do and don't do?

How do you fill in those silences? The ones that are active with thought, feelings and unformed movement of ether?

Do you fill those silences with the essence of me or the essence of you?

When I fill in those spaces between you expressed and you unexpressed, I see a reflection of me and what I know or intuit about you.

There's a lot in that silent space and how we fill it, that defines what Gaia is being.

"You've been a member of our community since February 23, 2007. That's over 2 years!"

So says my Settings page.

I forgot my Gaia anniversary yesterday!

Too busy enjoying Mary's 3rd Anniversary Party! and Resurrected1's  2nd GaiAnniversary!

Exploring Gaia with new member Hillora and attending the Countdown to Gina's 50th ~ March 5

Yup! Busy and enjoying this Gaia experience among my >20 groups, and almost >400  friends.

Last week, I visited my friends' profiles and realized that a person can actually remember and know that many people and feel close to them!  Now that I've learned the gift of Filling in the silence when I'm not writing or reading, I'm enjoying relating to all my friends in different ways.

And it isn't friends alone. I find myself thankful for all those on Gaia; the ones with whom I resonate and those that seem so different--you represent the present  and the potential of Gaia.

Thank you for helping me to open up to a community when I thought I had found a place where I could blog in peace and quiet, away from the madding crowd!

Famous last thoughts?

Ah! You're all truly gifts to me.

Update Feb. 26th: I've decided to grapevine/message other friends to thank them at this time; rather than make the comments too many in number. I value you all; even if you're not on my friends' list, for you make this Gaia community one that is full of potential!
Source