Excerpt from Markandeya Purana
Canto 40
The Yogi's bliss
Dattatreya spoke:
I will succinctly declare to thee the ailments that prevail in the soul of a yogi when it is viewed: harken to me. He longs for rites performed with a view to future fruition, and the objects of human desire, for women, the fruits of alms-giving, for science, for supernatural power, for the baser metals and riches, for heaven, god-head, and supreme god-head, for actions that yield copious supplies of elixir vitae, for flying on the storm-winds, for sacrifice, and the power of inhabiting water and fire, for the fruits of sraddhas that contain every gift, and religious mortifications. Thus he longs when mentally ailing by reason of fasting, meritorious acts and worship of the gods, and by reason of those several actions.
A yogi should strenuously restrain his mind when beset with such thoughts. By making his mind cling to Brahman he is liberated from ailments. When these ailments are overcome other ailments still beset a yogi, arising out of goodness, passion and ignorance.
Ailments arising from illusive vision, from hearing, and from the deity, and mental aberration, and enthusiasm -- these five are roots of bitterness which tend to embarass the religious meditations of yogis. The ailment arising from illusive vision is such for a yogi because in it appear Vedic matters, poetic matters, science, and the mechanical arts without end. The ailment connected with hearing is so called because he perceives the meaning of sounds in all their completeness, and he receives sound from thousands of yojanas. The wise call this ailment one from the deity, as in the case of a madman, when like a god he sees all around and in the eight directions. When the yogi's mind wanders without support through his own fault by reason of his fall from all rules of good custom -- that is well known as mental aberration. When the seething whirlpool of knowledge like a whirlpool of water engulfs the mind -- that ailment is called enthusiasm. All beings of divine origin, when their religious meditation is destroyed by these great and terrible ailments, revolve again and again.
Therefore the yogi, having clad himself with a mental white blanket, should cast his mind prone on supreme Brahman, and meditate on him. A yogi should always be intent on religious meditation, he should eat sparingly, he should subdue his sense. The yogi should contemplate in his head the subtle conditions of the seven objects, viz., earth etc.; he should contemplate the subtle earth to be his soul, until he comprehends its subtlety. He deems the earth to be his soul, and he quits its bonds. Moreover he quits the subtle in water, and also the form in the fire; and he likewise quits touch in the wind, as he bears the subtle form in mind; and he quits the subtle activity of the sky, and likewise its sound. When he enters with his mind into into the mind of all created things, his mind bearing a mental subtle condition of them becomes subtle also. Likewise a man, conversant with religious devotion, on attaining to the intellect of all creatures, gains and relinquishes the most perfect subtlety of intellect. For the man conversant with religious devotion, who relinquishes these seven subtle things after having thoroughly comprehended them, there is no retrogression, O Alarka! The soul-cognizant man, after fully seeing the subtlety of these subtle condition of the seven objetcs, then utterly abandoning it may proceed to supreme bliss. And toward whatever thing he evinces feeling, O king! to that very thing becomes attached, and he perishes. Therefore the corporeal being, who after perceiving the mutually-associated subtle things abandons them, may gain supreme bliss. Having conjoined these very seven subtle things, O king! passionlessness towards created and other things tends to the final emancipation from existence of the man cognizant of the entities.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Sunday, November 30, 2014
General George Patton's Prayer to God
General George Patton, United States Army
World War II, at time of Battle of the Bulge
December 23, 1944, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
The Cathedral Fondation Pescatore
A prayer to God.
"Sir, this is Patton talking. The past fouteen days have been straight hell. Rain, snow, more rain more snow - and I am beginning to wonder what's going on in Your headquarters. Whose side are You on anyways? For three years my chaplains have been telling me that this is a religious war. This, they tell me, is the Crusades all over again, except that we're riding tanks instead of chargers. They insist that we are here to annihilate the Germans and the godless Hitler so that religious freedom may return to Europe. Up until now I have gone along with them, for You have given Your unreserved cooperation. Clear skies and a calm sea in Africa made the landings highly successful and helped us to eliminate Rommel. Sicily was comparitively easy and You supplied excellent weather for the armored dash across France, the greatest military victory that You have thus far allowed me. You have often given me excellent guidance in difficult command situations and You have led German units into traps that made their eliminatiion fairly simple.
"But now You've changed horses midstream. You've given von Rundstedt every break in the book., and frankly, he's beating the hell out of us. My army is neither trained nor equipped for winter warfare. And as You know, this weather is more suitable for Eskimos than for southern cavalrymen.
" But now, Sir, I can't help but feel that I have offended You in some way. That suddenly You have lost all sympathy for our cause. THat You are throwing in with von Rundstedt and his paper-hanging god [Hitler]. You know that without me telling that ourn situation is desperate. Sure, I can tell my staff that evrything is going according to plan, but there's no use telling You that my 101st Airborne is holding out against tremendous odds in Bastogne, and that the continual storm is making it impossible to suppply them even from the air. I've sent Hugh Gaffey, one of my ablest generals, with his 4th Armored Division, north toward that all-important road center to relieve the encircled garrison and he's finding Your weather more difficult then he is the Krauts.
"I don't like to complain unreasonably, but my soldiers from Meuse to Echternach are suffering tortures of the damned. Today I visited several hospitals, all full of frostbite cases, and the wounded are dying in the fieldss because they cannot be brought back for medical care.
The last words of Patton's prayer:
Damn it, Sir, I can't fight a shadow. Without Your cooperation from a weather standpoint, I am deprived of accurate disposition of the German armies and how the hell can I be intelligent in my attacks? All this probably sounds unreasonable to You, but I have lost all patience with Your chaplains who insist that this is typical Ardennes winter, and that I must have faith.
"Faith and patience be damned! You have just got to make up Your mind whose said You are on. You must come to my assistance, so that I may dispatch the entire German Army as a birthday present to your Prince of Peace.
"Sir, I have never been an unreasonable man; I am not going to ask You to do the impossible. I do not even insist upon a miracle, for all I request is four days of clear weather.
""Give me four days so that my planes can fly, so that my fighter bombers can bomb and strafe, so that my reconnaissance may pick out targets for my magnificent artillery. Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud, so that my tanks roll, so that ammunition and rations may be taken to my hungry, ill-equipped infantry. I need these four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla. I am sick of this unnecessary butchering of American yout, and in excahnge for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver you enough Krauts to keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work.
"Amen."
World War II, at time of Battle of the Bulge
December 23, 1944, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
The Cathedral Fondation Pescatore
A prayer to God.
"Sir, this is Patton talking. The past fouteen days have been straight hell. Rain, snow, more rain more snow - and I am beginning to wonder what's going on in Your headquarters. Whose side are You on anyways? For three years my chaplains have been telling me that this is a religious war. This, they tell me, is the Crusades all over again, except that we're riding tanks instead of chargers. They insist that we are here to annihilate the Germans and the godless Hitler so that religious freedom may return to Europe. Up until now I have gone along with them, for You have given Your unreserved cooperation. Clear skies and a calm sea in Africa made the landings highly successful and helped us to eliminate Rommel. Sicily was comparitively easy and You supplied excellent weather for the armored dash across France, the greatest military victory that You have thus far allowed me. You have often given me excellent guidance in difficult command situations and You have led German units into traps that made their eliminatiion fairly simple.
"But now You've changed horses midstream. You've given von Rundstedt every break in the book., and frankly, he's beating the hell out of us. My army is neither trained nor equipped for winter warfare. And as You know, this weather is more suitable for Eskimos than for southern cavalrymen.
" But now, Sir, I can't help but feel that I have offended You in some way. That suddenly You have lost all sympathy for our cause. THat You are throwing in with von Rundstedt and his paper-hanging god [Hitler]. You know that without me telling that ourn situation is desperate. Sure, I can tell my staff that evrything is going according to plan, but there's no use telling You that my 101st Airborne is holding out against tremendous odds in Bastogne, and that the continual storm is making it impossible to suppply them even from the air. I've sent Hugh Gaffey, one of my ablest generals, with his 4th Armored Division, north toward that all-important road center to relieve the encircled garrison and he's finding Your weather more difficult then he is the Krauts.
"I don't like to complain unreasonably, but my soldiers from Meuse to Echternach are suffering tortures of the damned. Today I visited several hospitals, all full of frostbite cases, and the wounded are dying in the fieldss because they cannot be brought back for medical care.
The last words of Patton's prayer:
Damn it, Sir, I can't fight a shadow. Without Your cooperation from a weather standpoint, I am deprived of accurate disposition of the German armies and how the hell can I be intelligent in my attacks? All this probably sounds unreasonable to You, but I have lost all patience with Your chaplains who insist that this is typical Ardennes winter, and that I must have faith.
"Faith and patience be damned! You have just got to make up Your mind whose said You are on. You must come to my assistance, so that I may dispatch the entire German Army as a birthday present to your Prince of Peace.
"Sir, I have never been an unreasonable man; I am not going to ask You to do the impossible. I do not even insist upon a miracle, for all I request is four days of clear weather.
""Give me four days so that my planes can fly, so that my fighter bombers can bomb and strafe, so that my reconnaissance may pick out targets for my magnificent artillery. Give me four days of sunshine to dry this blasted mud, so that my tanks roll, so that ammunition and rations may be taken to my hungry, ill-equipped infantry. I need these four days to send von Rundstedt and his godless army to their Valhalla. I am sick of this unnecessary butchering of American yout, and in excahnge for four days of fighting weather, I will deliver you enough Krauts to keep Your bookkeepers months behind in their work.
"Amen."
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