Retirement: The Doorway to Freedom

Retirement is wonderful.

It's doing nothing without worrying

about getting caught at it. Gene Perret

-1-

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass

under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water,

or watching the clouds float across the sky,

is by no means a waste of time. (J. Lubbock)

I'm retired - goodbye tension, hello pension!

Retirement can be a great joy if you can figure out

how to spend time without spending money.

Work is not always required of man.

There is such a thing as sacred idleness. (George Macdonald)

Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees,

books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. (William Shakespeare)

-2-

Retirement means doing whatever I want to do.

It means choice. (Dianne Nahirny)

Retirement, a time to do what you want to do, when you want to do it,

where you want to do it, and how you want to do it. (Catherine Pulsifer)

O, blest retirement! friend to life's decline -

How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,

A youth of labor with an age of ease! (Oliver Goldsmith)

I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long:

the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming

instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten. (George Bernard Shaw)

-3-

There are so many interesting ways to spend your time.

I feel like early retirement is a gift, but it's such an incredible gift.

It's a gift I need to use. (Martha Felt-Bardon)

If you believe that achievement ends with retirement, you will slowly fade away.

First of all, keeping the mind active is one way to prolong your life

and to enjoy life to its fullest for as long as possible. (Byron Pulsifer)

Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to. (Harry Emerson Fosdick)

There is a whole new kind of life ahead, full of experiences just waiting to

happen. Some call it retirement. I call it bliss. (Betty Sullivan)

-4-

Retirement is a time when one is done eking out a living and can sit back and

enjoy the fruits of labor. Feel the breeze, smell the flowers, hear the birds, and

appreciate this wonderful life. Retirement is also the beginning of a journey of

self-discovery. So go ahead, and rediscover yourself. Life holds a lot in store

when you have the time to explore its full potential. (author unknown)

The luckiest among us will “die with our boots on.” The reason is simple:

The most healthy, productive, and satisfying transition to a post-career life will

not be a transition from work-to-leisure but a transition from work-to-work –

even though our post-career work may be very different from work

we performed before we retired.

For most of us, post-career work will be tailored work, work customized to

reflect our needs, our deepest desires, and the highest and best use of our gifts –

especially time, talent, and treasure. Work tailored to our gifts

will be productive and satisfying. (Phil Burgess)

-5-

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism,

not a return to the hedonism of youth. (Mason Cooley)

He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next

move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time,

that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous

of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre. (Albert Camus)

How much they err who, to their interest blind,

slight the calm peace which from retirement flows! (Mrs. Tighe)

Planning to retire? Before you do find your hidden passion,

do the thing that you have always wanted to do. (Catherine Pulsifer)

-6-

For the ignorant, old age is winter;

for the learned, old age is the harvest. (Yiddish saying)

Old age takes away from us what we have inherited

and gives us what we have earned. (Gerald Brenan)

In your old age you will complete for the glory of God the tower of your soul

that you began to build in the golden days of your youth. (Mother Teresa)

-7-

One of the joys of retirement is the freedom to choose

who you spend your time with.

It takes effort to know our job is not our life. God is our life. Love is our life.

To retire is to withdraw but we can step up our efforts to live love, live life. (Cheryl Peterson)

Retirement has been a discovery of beauty for me. I never had the time before

to notice the beauty of my grandkids, my wife, the tree outside my very own

front door. And, the beauty of time itself. (Hartman Jule)

Retirement is wonderful if you have two essentials -

much to live on and much to live for.

I have made noise enough in the world already, perhaps too much,

and am now getting old, and want retirement. (Napoleon Bonaparte)

-8-

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you

didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)

We have to thank God for this retirement. (Virgil)

-9-

Retirement:

The Doorway to Liberation

Grieving in my heart, I appeal to you:

Do not throw away this life, and do not live in error;

be done with the past, and begin your regeneration

today. (Sant Kirpal Singh)

(Sat Sandesh, May 2008, p.17)

He who is born as human and by good luck is connected

with the Sound Current and practices it, is great.

He is the monarch of monarch, for he will be

one with the Creator. (Baba Sawan Singh)

-10-

I do not seek for gratification of my senses or passions,

but have retired from the world for the sake of

Supreme Enlightenment. (Buddha)

Having diverted your mind from the world, give up all aspirations and hopes

except that of reaching the pure spiritual region. (Baba Sawan Singh)

This life is for the purpose of ending our coming back into this world. (Baba Sawan Singh)

-11-

Hazur Baba Sawan Singh:

To one who had recently retired on a pension, Hazur said:

You should look upon this day as your most lucky day. You have played your

game well. All your worldly duties are over. Now you should do something for

yourself. Up to this time, you have been doing other's work. Now do your own.

All desires and worldly cravings should be turned out of your mind. Tell your

mind that you have finished your game in the world and now God's innings

begins. Take your mind out from family, property, wealth, honor, country and

all other connections with the world. Bring your mind to such a state that

existence or non-existence of these things may have no effect on you.

Now devote all your thought, attention and time to God and God alone. Become

His now. Cleanse your mind of everything else. Think day and night of Bhajan

(spiritual practice) and of nothing else. Work hard. Fight the mind fearlessly.

The Guru is with you. With His help, subdue the mind.

Baba Sawan Singh

If, during lifetime, entry has been made into the eye center and the sound current

has been grasped, life has been usefully spent. If this has not been done,

even though all else has been done - and most successfully –

then life has been wasted. (Spiritual Gems, 143)

-12-

Nam being a rare pearl, the Guru does not scatter it before swine. The veils of

illusion are rent only when the disciple is fit to receive this wealth. Ibrahim

Adham, the King of Bokhara, had to spend twelve years at the feet of Kabir to

gain spiritual wealth which no worldly possession and treasure can ever equal.

Nam is not a thing to be regarded lightly.

Nor is it as easy to come by as so many people seem to imagine.

Guru Nanak had to sleep on a couch of pebbles for eleven years

when he was seeking Nam.

For twelve long years after the age of seventy,

Guru Amardas fetched water for his preceptor.

Guru Tegh Bahadur meditated in an underground cellar

at Baba Bakala for nearly twenty seven years.

Prophet Mohammed remained in a cave of Hara for six years.

Swami Ji meditated for seventeen long years

in a secluded chamber in his house to devote himself to this practice.

Baba Jaimal Singh was for years lost in meditation in the gullies of river Beas.

He used to buy chapattis from a nearby railway station and whenever pangs of

hunger tormented, ate them after softening them in river water. (Baba Sawan Singh, Discourses on Sant Mat, 48, 49)

-13-

It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task.

You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have

not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have performed nothing

at all. So man has come into the world for a particular task, and that is his

purpose. If he doesn’t perform it, he will have done nothing. (Rumi)

He is born to no purpose, who, having the rare privilege of human birth,

is unable to realize God in this life. (Ramakrishna)

To know the sweetness of the Infinite within us, that is the cause,

the reason, the purpose, the only purpose of our being. (Nicholas of Cusa)

This world is swept away by aging, by illness, by death. For one swept on by

aging no shelters exist. Keeping sight of this danger in death, do meritorious

deeds that bring bliss. Make merit while alive. (Buddha)

-14-

Sant Kirpal Singh

In the past, a true brahmcharya would spend his first twenty-five years in a

jungle ashram, learning the Vedic and Shastric scriptures. Then he would enter

the grehastha ashram (take up the duties of a householder).

After conscientiously bringing up his one or two children to the stage of

adulthood, he would then return to the forests in the vanprasth ashram wherein

he would study for self-realization.

Having realized the Truth, he would leave that stage and journey around in the

world, helping the people to awaken. (The Night is a Jungle)

Those personalities who are Truth personified never advise the seekers to leave

their hearths and homes to take up vigil in the jungles and lonely places.

This is not at all necessary.

When you meet a complete Satguru,

Competent in His method:

Laughing, playing, eating, weaving,

You will gain salvation by following Him.

It is not a matter of leaving the condition wherein God has placed you; there is

no need to change your location, but simply change your angle of vision.

Bow down to the Satguru’s words, not His body only, or you remain very far

away from Him and from your aim. (The Teachings of Kirpal Singh, Stay in the World)

You can make your home a lonely forest. Is not the night a lonely forest?

Just consider for a moment. Those who have made the best use of their nights,

by knowing oneself and the Overself, have themselves been made. Those who

have wasted their nights in frivolous pursuits have wasted themselves. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/jungle.htm)

-15-

The greatest purpose of human life is that one should know one’s Self

and know God, and all the rest is mere dissipation. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/vegdiet.htm)

So put in more time, please, to your practices. Develop love for God within

you. You will be blessed. You will have made the best use of your life. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/mt/truelove2.htm)

If we live recklessly when our hair is black, at least when it turns to white

we should give some thought to how we are living, and what it will avail us. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/listen.htm)

In this human body you can go back to your home and in no other.

You are fortunate you have the human body. What you can do here in a short

time, cannot be done in the other world - the higher planes - in ten times as long. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/lok/god-enter.htm)

What takes months to do here, there takes years to do. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/lok/riseabov.htm)

You may do it today, or tomorrow, or next year, in ten years’ time or later on

in life, or you can take millions of births to do it, but this very work

will have to be done sooner or later. (ruhanisatsangusa.org/gemsq.htm)

-16-

20 Scientific Reasons to Start Meditating Today New research shows meditation boosts your health, happiness, and success!

September 11, 2013 by Emma Seppala, Psychology Today

I started meditating soon after 9/11. I was living in Manhattan, an already

chaotic place, at an extremely chaotic time. I realized I had no control over my

external environment. But the one place I did have a say over was my mind,

through meditation. When I started meditating, I did not realize it would also

make me healthier, happier, and more successful. Having witnessed the benefits,

I devoted my PhD research at Stanford to studying the impact of meditation. I

saw people from diverse backgrounds from college students to combat veterans

benefit. In the last 10 years, hundreds of studies have been released. Here are 20

scientifically-validated reasons you might want to get on the bandwagon today:

It Boosts Your Health 1 - Increases immune function

2 - Decreases pain

3 - Decreases inflammation at the cellular level

It Boosts Your Happiness 4 - Increases positive emotion

5 – Decreases depression

6 - Decreases anxiety

7 – Decreases stress

It Boosts Your Social Life 8 - Increases social connection & emotional intelligence

9 - Makes you more compassionate

10 - Makes you feel less lonely

It Boosts Your Self-Control 11 - Improves your ability to regulate your emotions

12 - Improves your ability to introspect

It Changes Your Brain (for the better) 13 - Increases grey matter

14 - Increases volume in areas related to emotion regulation, positive emotions & self-control

15 - Increases cortical thickness in areas related to paying attention

It Improves Your Productivity 16 - Increases your focus & attention

17 - Improves your ability to multitask

18 - Improves your memory

19 - Improves your ability to be creative & think outside the box

20. - It makes you wise(r)

-17-

Meditation gives you perspective: By observing your mind, you realize you don't have to be

slave to it. You realize it throws tantrums, gets grumpy, jealous, happy and sad but that it

doesn't have to run you. Meditation is quite simply mental hygiene: clear out the junk, tune

your talents, and get in touch with yourself. Think about it, you shower every day and clean

your body, but have you ever showered your mind? As a consequence, you'll feel more clear

and see thing with greater perspective. "The quality of our life depends on the quality of our

mind," writes Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. We can't control what happens on the outside but we do

have a say over the quality of our mind. No matter what's going on, if your mind is ok,

everything is ok. Right now.

It Keeps You Real Once you get to know your mind, you start to own your stuff and become more authentic,

maybe even humble. You realize the stories and soap operas your mind puts you through and

you gain some perspective on them. You realize most of us are caught up in a mind-drama

and become more compassionate towards others.

Note: The original article contained research studies related to each benefit. To read the

research Google “psychology today” and go to their main site. In the search box in the upper

right type “20 Scientific Reasons to Start Meditating Today” and the article should appear.

Penetrate Within Paul Brunton

Learn to penetrate within yourself, your deeper, almost unknown self. It will

need patience to return day after day; not stopping until the truth is reached, the

peace is felt, the blessing descends. It will need perseverance until the source of

the strength is found. Thereafter it will take you over: this is grace. But

remember - with each return from the day's efforts you will be confronted by the

world again, by its harsh reality yet glorious beauty, its stark conflicts yet benign

interludes. So know this world in which you have to live, its petty minds and

noble souls. Learn from both. And when you have seen enough of the world's

surface, ask for its tremendous secret.

-18-

Six Other Reasons to Meditate Meditation isn't just for relaxing. Here are six other benefits.

Linda Wasmer Andrews, Psychology Today

Why meditate? Outside of spiritual contexts, the most common reason is stress management.

But as these latest research findings demonstrate, meditation is much more than just a

relaxation technique. Here are a half-dozen more good reasons to take up meditation.

To enhance concentration

Meditation has an undeserved reputation for being esoteric and difficult to learn. In truth, it's

really nothing more than the practice of focusing the mind intently on a particular thing or

activity. It seems logical that regular meditation would hone a person's powers of

concentration, and a recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience found just that. In the study,

three months of intensive meditation training led to improvements in attentional stability - the

ability to sustain attention without frequent lapses.

To lower blood pressure

Research suggests that meditation may help lower blood pressure. In a study published in the

American Journal of Hypertension, 298 college students were randomly assigned to either a

Transcendental Meditation (TM) group or a waiting list (control) group. The study found that

TM helped the students decrease psychological distress and increase coping ability. More

interestingly, in a subgroup of students at risk for high blood pressure later in life, these

changes were associated with a reduction in blood pressure. That's heartening news, because

young adults with even slight elevations in blood pressure have a three times greater risk of

developing full-blown high blood pressure within the next 30 years.

To improve sleep

Research indicates that meditation may help fight insomnia. In a study from India's National

Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, researchers looked at how sleep was affected

by vipassana meditation. This form of meditation involves focusing the mind on mental and

physical processes in order to develop insight. The study included 105 healthy men between

the ages of 30 and 60. Half were experienced vipassana meditators, and half had no

experience with any type of meditation. The meditators showed enhanced slow wave (deep)

sleep and REM sleep across all age groups. In contrast, the non-meditators showed a

pronounced decline in slow wave sleep with age, a sign of declining sleep quality in the older

men.

To manage pain

One of the best-studied medical uses of meditation is for helping manage chronic pain. The

form of meditation often employed for this purpose is mindfulness meditation, which involves

fully focusing on whatever is being experienced from moment to moment. The idea is to take

note of the here-and-now experience without judging or reacting to it. For chronic pain

sufferers, mindfulness may help them notice and accept their pain without becoming anxious

and panicky, which just makes the pain worse. However, a study from the University of

Montreal suggests that long-term practice of mindfulness meditation may also lead to physical

changes in the brain that directly affect pain perception. The study matched 17 expert

meditators with non-meditators of the same age and gender. Structural MRI brain scans

-19-

showed that the meditators had a thicker cortex in certain pain-related areas of the brain. This

cortical thickening was associated with lower pain sensitivity.

To live longer Meditation may influence not only quality of life, but also quantity. Three converging lines of

research explain why. One, meditation may help counter the body's stress response and all the

physical wear and tear that goes along with chronic stress. Two, meditation may help slow

aging by decreasing oxidative stress - cellular damage caused by highly reactive molecules

known as free radicals. Several studies have linked meditation to reductions in various

measures of oxidative stress. There is also evidence of enhanced activity by antioxidants -

molecules that defend the body against free radicals - during meditation. Three, meditation

may help fight chronic inflammation throughout the body, which contributes to diseases as

diverse as obesity, atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Research

indicates that meditation can dampen several inflammatory processes.

To connect with others

Meditation might seem like the ultimate in self-absorption. But at least one form of meditation,

known as loving-kindness meditation, also seems to help build a sense of social

connectedness. In loving-kindness meditation, the mind is sharply focused on compassionate

feelings and well wishes that are directed toward real or imagined others. A study in the

journal Emotion found that just a few minutes of this form of meditation practice increased

positive, connected feelings toward strangers. (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/minding-the-body/201007/6-other-reasons-meditate)

The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this

life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to

discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need

to live, and die, well. (Sogyal Rinpoche)

-20-

Meditation: A Portal to a New Dimension Andrew Cohen

One of the many miraculous functions of meditation is that it is a portal to a different

dimension.

When you go deeply into the meditative state, your awareness detaches itself from the

thought-stream. Then your identification with emotion, memory, time and body begins to fall

away. You become aware of something very mysterious. Imagine that you had been fast

asleep in a small dark chamber and then you suddenly awakened to find yourself floating in

the infinite depth of a vast, peaceful ocean. You literally become aware of a new dimension,

when moments before you had experienced yourself as being trapped, a prisoner of your body,

mind and emotions. When you awaken to this new dimension, all sense of confinement

disappears. You feel that you have access to the whole universe and also to that which the

universe exists within. You're aware of body, mind, time, and space, but there's another

dimension that extends in all directions, unlimited by any of it. Meditation is the portal to this

dimension, a door to the realization of limitlessness.

Why is this experience significant? Because the infinite context you awaken to is not just a

quiet place inside your own head. It's a deeper dimension of reality itself. Life, death and

everything in between, reality as a whole -- the seen and the unseen, the known and the

unknown, all that ever was and ever could be -- is made up of both the manifest and the

unmanifest. But most of the time, all we are aware of is the manifest dimension, the domain

of time and space and becoming. Meditation will give you the direct, conscious experience of

the unmanifest dimension, which is the ground of being itself.

The "ground of being" is empty. It is an objectless, timeless, spaceless, thoughtless void. But

everything that exists has come from this no-place, including you and me. Paradoxically,

while empty, this no-place is pregnant with infinite, unborn potential. It is the ground we all

emerge from, the womb of the entire universe. When something came from nothing, 14

billion years ago, the nothing didn't disappear. That unmanifest, unborn dimension is the

ever-present ground out of which everything is arising in every moment. And meditation

allows you to know this ground within your own experience. Even in the awareness of the

body and the movement of thought, beneath it all, in the state of meditation, you become

conscious of a current of stillness that is the echo and the reflection of the ground of being.

There is a great mystery there. In the infinite depth of that emptiness, there arises a knowing,

a pure knowing itself that seems to answer all our questions and relieve us of all our

existential doubts.

Whenever we journey far enough beyond the conditioned mind -- beyond thought, beyond

form, beyond time -- we will always discover this same mystery. That is why we meditate, so

we can awaken to the instantaneously liberating nature of the ground of being. The more

profound is our experience of the ground of being, the more we begin to emanate that

mysterious knowing which is enlightened consciousness itself.

-21-

The Wise King Sant Kirpal Singh

There is a story of a kingdom wherein they chose a new king every five years. During the

five years, the king was the supreme ruler and his every word obeyed; but at the end of this

period, the people would take the king to a dense forest full of wild animals and reptiles and

leave him there. On the day the king was chosen he would rejoice at his good fortune, but on

the expiration of five years, he would be led off to the jungle sadly lamenting his lot in life.

Many kings came and went in their turn, until one day a man was chosen who had the serious

thought, "What will happen to me after five years?" He was a man of considerable

intelligence and was duly concerned for his future life. So after some careful thought, he

secretly started to send workers into the forest to cut some of the trees and make a huge

clearing. They then made orchards, gardens, beautiful buildings, and appropriate

surroundings, until the whole place became a luxurious kingdom. A man can do wonders in

five years, and when the time was up and he was told that he must leave the throne, he smiled

happily and said, "Yes, let's go."

The people were naturally amazed and asked why he was rejoicing. He told them, "I have

already prepared my destination and have taken possession there; so I have no fear of going.

What is more, I will actually enjoy more comfort there, for here I had many responsibilities,

yet there I will have none."

All souls have this golden opportunity while in the human form and so we should make use of

it and prepare while we can, for the day will come when we have to leave. (http://www.ruhanisatsangusa.org/dieb4death.htm)

Few are the wise ones who turn the heart away from worldly objects,

and spend their time in gathering riches for the life beyond,

before departure from this lonely earth. (Ansari of Herat)

Before we know it our life is finished and it is time to die. If we lack the

foundation of a stable practice, we go to death helplessly, in fear and anguish. (Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche)

-22-

Our regularity in meditation and the amount of our leisure time we spend in

sweet remembrance of the Master is directly proportional to the extent of our

passion, zeal, love, and eagerness to reach our goal in the least possible time. (Sant Darshan Singh)

Of all spiritual practices…the dhikr (remembrance of God) is the practice most

apt to free spiritual energy…The advantage of the dhikr is that it is not restricted

to any ritual hour; its only limitation is the personal capacity of the student. (Henry Corbin)

What guarantee have you of life? Your body may be destroyed in a single

moment. Therefore, with every breath remember the Name of the Lord and

discard every other thought. As long as there is life, continue fearlessly

repeating the One Lord’s True Name. When the oil of life is exhausted and the

wick of the lamp extinguished, there then will be quite time enough

to sleep both day and night. (Kabir)

-23-

The day is now ended, our lives are shorter. Now we look carefully at what

have we done. Let us be diligent; let us live deeply, free from our afflictions,

aware of impermanence so that life does not drift away without meaning. (Thich Nhat Hahn)

In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.

He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which

We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,

We spend our lives in folly and desolation.

When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,

Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,

But those without will remain locked in the coffin.

So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,

Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;

Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers. (Attar)

The worm is in the root of the body’s tree; travelers, it is late!

Life’s sun is going to set. During these brief days that you have strength,

be quick and spare no effort of your wings. (Rumi)

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and

death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a

flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain. (Buddha)

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.

Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. (Psalm 39:4)

-24-

Every day and every hour convey thanks to the Master – the God in Him,

Who has put you on the Way – and for all other gifts you enjoy.

In this way you will be aware of the Master all the time.

Without Him you can do nothing and with Him you can do all things. (The Teachings of Kirpal Singh, True Living: to World and to God)

Do your best and leave the rest to the Master-Power overhead

and leave off all worry and anxiety. It is time to be gay and happy. (Spiritual Elixir, 192)

May your soul be happy;

journey joyfully. (Rumi)

Kirpalct@yahoo.com

For more booklets go to: kirpalsingh.org (Spiritual Quotations for Lovers of God)