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This article is an excerpt from Bob Weisenberg’s new ebook: Each Moment Is Like a Precious Diamond: Living Your Life to the Fullest Through Ancient Yoga Wisdom Articles, Poems, and Interviews from Elephant Journal’s Early Years. 

Available for purchase or free download on Bob’s website here.

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Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?
How did it make you feel?
Did it fill you with wonder and awe?
Did it startle you out of your ego?

Did you feel the infinite grandeur
And timelessness
Of the universe?
Did it make you feel small
Yet in a strange but unmistakable way
Infinitely large, too
As infinite as the universe itself?

Spiritual enlightenment
Is when we suddenly realize
That we’re staring at the wonder
Of the Grand Canyon
Each and every moment
Of each and every day.

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Your Next Masterpiece

What is it like to see the world
Through the eyes of a famous painter?
Suppose you are Monet or Van Gogh
Or Rembrandt or Picasso.

For the next 15 minutes
Look at every scene passing in front of your eyes
As the frame for your next masterpiece.
Can you see 25 different paintings
In the same simple country haystack?

Look at the rich array of details that emerge
From scenes you didn’t even notice before.
How vivid do the colors become
Or even the countless colorless subtle shades of grey
When you need to match them to your palette?

How infinitely fascinating is any scene
When you need to interpret
Every line and shape and texture and nuance
With your charcoal or brush?

How convincingly does this reflect
The startling infinite fascinating wonder
Of the workaday universe itself?

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Silence is the Roar of the Universe

Silence is the Roar of the Universe.
Emptiness is the Fullness of the Grand Canyon.
Nothingness is Always Abundance.
Boredom is Always an Invitation to Amazement.
Silence is the Roar of the Universe.

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Soulmates

Science and Yoga
Are soulmates.
Both find
Infinite wonder
Awesome mystery
And unanswerable questions
Even in the simplest things
We see all around us.

How do the
Molecules and atoms
Protons, electrons, and quarks
Of a rock
Know how to be
A rock?

Science and Yoga
Both inflame our awareness
As much by marveling
At what we don’t know
As what we do.

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Like Waves or Ocean?

It’s true.
We are like waves in the ocean.
We are more truly the ocean
than the wave.

But what if there were a wave
that lasted 70 years,
and was conscious
and could interact with other waves
and could sing and dance
and create new waves
before ultimately merging back
into the infinite ocean?

We would be in awe of those waves.
We would flock to see those waves.
We would rejoice in their very existence
and our ability to perceive them
until they eventually returned
to their true eternal ocean selves.

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Through the Window

In my living room
While lying on my back
On the couch,

I can gaze through the window
Past the roof of the house,
Past the bright green leaves
Of the lofty trees
Gently swaying in the breeze,
Past the endlessly changing forms
Of the brilliant white clouds
Slowly drifting by.

I can gaze through the window
Into the unfathomable infinity
Of the wondrous deep blue sky.

This is my favorite place
To read the Bhagavad Gita
And the Upanishads.

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See also:

Yoga Demystified: The Six Big Ideas.

Yoga Demystified: Poems & Articles.

Bhagavad Gita in a Nutshell: Big Ideas & Best Quotations.

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