Words That Flame From “The Unstruck Bell”
Here are a few lines that I highlighted in Eknath Easwaren’s book, The Unstruck Bell, because they speak to me:
You are not upset because of your children or your partner; you are upset because you are upsettable.
Great figures on the spiritual path, such as Jesus the Christ, Moses, the Compassionate Buddha, or Mohammed, have all given us the same message: “Live only for yourself and you will never grow; live for the welfare of all around you and you will grow to your full stature.”
This is what stilling the mind means: laying to rest permanently every negative and selfish force in consciousness.
When we go through life having to have everything just right before we can function, we will find it difficult to adjust, to be resilient, to accept any change at all.
When we have turned over in our mind the possible solutions to a problem for the fiftieth time, the fifty-first time is not likely to be any more productive.
That which makes you sick, if harnessed, can be that which makes you well.
Fear is a hammer; anger is a sledge hammer; and any self-centered desire is a real pile driver.
It is only when we identify with our thoughts and dwell on them that this stray wisp of resentfulness can billow up and cover the sky like a dark monsoon cloud.
But grace is not a matter of letting some higher power do all the work for us. In order to make progress on the spiritual path, we need to have the grace of our own mind as well.
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Tags: Easwaran, fear, grace, path, Peace of Mind, spiritual, thoughts, Unstruck Bell
Loved this, thanks for the morning inspiration.
You are welcome Merrill. Morning inspiration is a good thing.
non riesco a trovare da nessuna parte il significato di “UNSTRUCK”.potete darmene qualche accenno? grazie tante
Michele — “unstruck” is not a recognized word–non è una parola riconosciute. It means “not struck” or “non ha colpito”
i want to thank Dick R. for his attention on my question,very clearly.
Michele — Sei il benvenuto.
Michele’s question sent the Scout searching for the meaning of “unstruck bell” and she found this from Sitaram on the Literature Network Forums:
The “unstruck bell” is a term which denotes our internalized concept of the sound of a struck bell. The term is used in describing the result of years of mantra practice or prayer repetition, where the prayer becomes “prayer of the heart,” internalized, automatic, like some melody which we can no longer escape, now become a pattern in our metabolism.
And…just for fun, I plugged that into Google Italian Translator and came up with this (I won’t vouch for the translation):
La campana “unstruck” è un termine che caratterizza il nostro concetto interiorizzato del suono di una campana colpita. Il termine è usato per descrivere il risultato di anni di pratica mantra o ripetizione preghiera, dove la preghiera diventa “preghiera del cuore”, interiorizzato, automatico, come una melodia che non si può più sfuggire, ormai diventato un modello nel nostro metabolismo.