Thought for the Day

Wednesday 11 December

Each of us sees the Unseen in proportion to the clarity of our heart, and that depends upon how much we have polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more – more Unseen forms become manifest.

— Jalaluddin Rumi

Eknath Easwaran's Commentary

As your meditation deepens, there will still be occasions when you get upset, but you will be able to watch what goes on in the lab of your mind. It’s like getting into a glass-bottomed boat, where you venture out onto the ocean and watch all the deep-sea creatures lurking beneath the surface: resentment sharks, stingrays of greed, scurrying schools of fear. You slowly gain a certain amount of detachment from your mind, so you can observe what is going on, collect data, and then set things right.

Some of the chronic problems that millions of people suffer from today might be solved by gaining a little detachment from their minds and emotions, so they can stand back a little when the mind is agitated and see the ways in which it makes mountains out of molehills. Many problems simply are not real; they start to seem real only when we dwell on them. The thorniest problems to solve are those that are not real; yet most of us go on giving them our best efforts.

The Thought for the Day is today's entry from Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By.