Achariya Ajay
Speaks on "Home is the Heart"
Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 11:00am
Knowing that his earthly life was soon coming to an end, Jesus chose to return to his boyhood home of Jerusalem to observe the Passover. His welcome home, with joyous welcoming shouts of “Hosanna” and the strewing of palm branches along his pathway, has given rise to our observance of the Holyday of Palm Sunday. There is a beautiful human touch in this, as well as a profound spiritual significance. What is “home” to us? It is the place where we feel the happiest, the safest and the most loved. To the true devotee the entire cosmos is “home” for in it he finds naught else but God, the desire of his heart. Our spiritual journey home is not through time and space, but to the heart of God, which resides within each of us and pervades the entire universe.
—Achariya Ajay
From Gurus and Swamis: AUM
"When our eyes are open to love and the truth of God, when we have made our hearts the mystic Jerusalem, when wisdom guides and love blesses us, when humility and patience are awakened and renunciation removes all finite desires in our hearts, in the joy and gladness of our souls, we welcome the Christ to enter and abide with us. This is the mystic truth of Palm Sunday."
—Swami Premananda, “Seven Mystic Holydays”
"I live in the universe of God, and the entire universe of God lives within me. The light of the whole universe is the light within me. The perfection of God emanating from the heart of the universe is the root of my own self-consciousness. Thou and I are ever one!"
—Swami Kamalananda, “Reflections on Still Waters"
"The world with all its wealth, heaven with all its celestial beings, thou and I, and all creation are but an evanescent glory. Then, my friend, why art thou so overpowered by grief?
"In a home like the temple of God, or in a simple cottage under a bough, free from attachment and greed; who shall be denied happiness in such a life of purity and renunciation?"
—Swami Sankarachariya, “Moha-Mudgar”
Noble Thoughts: "Let Noble Thoughts come to us from every side." —Rig Veda
"The heart is nothing but the Sea of Light."
—Jalaluddin Rumi, quoted in "The Mystic Vision" by Andrew Harvey
"He who consists of the mind, whose body is breath, whose form is the light of Consciousness, whose resolve is true, whose Self is space, containing all actions, containing all desires, containing all odors, containing all tastes, pervading this whole world, the unspeaking, the unconcerned; this my Self within the heart is smaller than a grain of rice, or a barley-corn, or a mustard seed, or a grain of millet, or the kernel of a grain of millet; this my Self within the heart is larger than the earth, larger than the sky, larger than the heavens, larger than all these words."
—"Chandogya Upanishad"
"This birth is God's self-knowledge, which from all eternity has sprung from his fatherly heart, wherein lies his joy. And everything which God desires to bring forth is consumed in his self-knowledge, which is its birth, and he seeks nothing outside of himself. He has all his pleasure in his Son and he loves nothing but his Son and everything which he finds in his Son. For the Son is a light which has burned from all eternity in God's fatherly heart. If we want to come there, we must rise from natural light to the light of grace and thereby grow to that light which is the Son himself."
—Meister Eckhart, "Passion for Creation"