One Pointed Devotion

Those whose hearts are habitually focused devoutly on the feet of God, like a magnetic needle that always aligns itself to point to the north, will not get mentally perplexed and lose their bearings in the world, that sea of desires and attachments.

~ Guru Vachaka Kovai by Muruganar, Translated by Dr T. V. Venakatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman

Surrender

I say that I have surrendered
But what have I given up?
It's easy to talk in this fashion
Though it's nothing but empty words,
Which came from the tongue too glibly
In a sentimental way.

***

It is all just show and pretending,
Prostrating and that sort of thing.
Quoting in texts and of shastras,
Perfect in word not in deed.
I'm sick, sick, sick of this business,
I want to start fresh but I can't.

***

Transmute me until I am blended
With you so that both are One.
When there's no longer the talk of surrender
Then alone has surrender begun.

***

~ Major Chadwick

(17 April is Chadwick Day.)

the one infallible means

Vichara is the process and the goal also. ‘I am’ is the goal and the final reality. To hold to it with effort is Vichara. When spontaneous and natural, it is realisation. If one leaves aside Vichara, the most efficacious Sadhana (spiritual practice), there are no other adequate means whatever to make the mind subside. If made to subside by other means, it will remain as if subsided but will rise again. Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realise the unconditioned, absolute being that you really are.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi