Consciousness and Awareness...
"Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not;
one can be aware
of being conscious,
but not conscious of awareness.
God is the totality
of consciousness,
but awareness is beyond all--
being as well as not-being."
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
life in the Overself...
The ceaseless longing for personal happiness which exists in every human being is a right one,
but is generally mistaken in the direction along which satisfaction is sought.
For all outward objects and beings can yield only a transient and imperfect delight that can never be equivalent to the uninterrupted happiness of life in the Overself.
— Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 1: What the Quest Is > # 168
Paul Brunton
a flimsy construction...
"The ego,
being a flimsy construction and being bound up in time and space,
will have to fall apart.
The ego,
in fact,
continuously falls apart and has to be reinforced by vanity, greed, jealousy, and evil."
-Janwillem van der Wetering.
the eternal Now...
To live in the ego is to live in time,
to live in the Overself is to live in timelessness.
But because man must live in both to live on earth at all,
let him learn the art of resting in the eternal Now,
the continuing moment which opens on to eternity.
— Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 2: The Double Standpoint > # 64
Paul Brunton
sense of self...
"So why are we so afraid? Because we have this idea of who we are that is limited and separate. We have an image of ourselves as somebody who can be hurt or damaged or offended."
"We have to see, through our own investigation, that this sense of self, this sense of separateness, is an illusion…
It is that little conclusion – that I am the person I imagine myself to be – that opens us up to fear.
Because that person we imagine ourselves to be also imagines that it can be hurt at any moment, that illusory sense of self sees life as very dangerous.
Someone can come up and say an unkind word, and the illusory sense of self immediately go into conflict and pain and suffering.
We feel insecure because our sense of self can be harmed so easily."
Adyashanti
break the law...
If the machine of government is of such a nature,
that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,
then, I say,
break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
Success...
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
a bowl of questions...
The forms of ourselves look at our eyes in bewilderment..
What is this human speaking of?..
The dream, the experience..
What is he speaking of?..
Why should I listen to words that have no meaning?..
All these question marks and still I rest in a bowl of questions..
Why should I care about Reality?..
Why should I care about life?..
Still the question marks appear..
The mind says: "listen"..
The mind seeks Freedom..
The mind says; " I am you"..
The Soul says; " there is no you"..
So much to think about and yet the mind is tired...
namaste, thomas
Zen Mind...
I am a lineage Zen teacher from the school of Huineng, the school of sudden enlightenment. The principle of "no mind' is "wu hsin" in Chinese and "mu shin" in Japanese. It is a main principle of the teaching and points to the same result as does Nagarjuna.
The "mind" is samsara. With "no mind" there is no samsara, no confusion, no suffering.
What is mind? we can only find empty thoughts and stories. As we look at those thoughts and stories we find they are empty, both philosophically and as energy events that never actually attain "existence" in any kind of inherent or independent fashion. Our thoughts, concepts and stories are all empty and fictional by nature. Their subjects and objects don't exist other than as imputations.
Realizing this empty quality of all the mind's events, we realize the mind itself is empty as there is only its contents that make up the mind itself. We can't find this "mind" outside of empty thoughts. We discover the mind is "no mind". We then rest in "no mind", yet fully alert and vividly awake and naturally responsive in the most immediate way.
However to be authentic, the mind has to have dissolved, revealing its true emptiness, its true nature. The mind events may begin to arise again, but they release upon the arising and never get a foothold in consciousness. We discover Zen Mind, a knowing self-presence beyond the mind, that actually IS experience not a viewer of it.
Experience is realized to be "knowingness/experience". There isn't knowing awareness as a subject and phenomena as an object, but rather phenomena ARE knowing awareness. That's why you can never have experience without the knowing of the experience, because the experience itself is nothing more than the knowing of it. There aren't two pieces...
Jackson Peterson
the intellect...
The intellect must at some state see that
what it is trying to understand,
is beyond
its comprehension,
is of a totally different
dimension.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
the Beloved...
Come, come,
the Beloved has arrived!
The rose garden is blooming,
run and offer your life and the world
to the rising Sun.
Smile and see the beauty hidden
In an ugly face,
weep, weep for those who have turned
away from love.
What a day, what a day!
A day of resurrection!
The lover has once again broken free from his chains.
The scroll of our deeds brought by the angels lays open.
Beat the drum and say no more.
The heart and mind have gone,
the soul has flown to the Beloved!
--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
suffering...
The Disciples were involved in a heated discussion on the cause of human suffering.
Some said it came from selfishness.
Others, from delusion.
Yet others, from the inability to distinguish the real from the unreal.
When the Master was consulted,
He said;
"All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
You as Consciousness...
The darkness of night enters our consciousness..
will we awaken in the morning as the egoic consciousness that we have believed that we are?..
the world is in turmoil, as egos' fight for wealth and power..
we remain as spectators watching death and destruction..
the few, remain as masters leading us to death..
bombs and viruses await our future..
what are we to do?..
this is a dream..
painful and full of drama and fear..
the evil and the good are both consciousness..
both have chosen parts to play..
the game continues..
the path is narrow..
the gate is small..
You as Consciousness will understand what I have just said...
namaste, thomas
the Overself...
The declaration of Jesus that whosoever will save his life shall lose it, is uncompromising.
It is an eternal truth as well as a universal one. It is needed by the naïve as well as by the sophisticated.
Only those who, under the strain and struggle of quotidian existence in these difficult times, ardently yearn for the peace of self-forgetting can begin to understand the first faint echo of that satisfaction which losing one's life brings. It means in plainer language that those who seek salvation in some deep, hidden, and fundamental part of themselves have to make this firm resolution that the physical, the emotional, and the intellectual activities of the personal self shall count less.
They will not be able to do that unless they desire salvation more than anything else in their lives. Jesus' statement means that they should seek to liberate the life within them from the very limited idea which the personal ego forms around it and within which it remains confined to the physical, emotional, and intellectual planes alone, and bring it to function also in the intuitive-spiritual plane.
It means that the inexorable condition which the Overself imposes before it will reveal itself in all its beauty, its grandeur, its peace, and its power is that they should abnegate this unbalanced interest in the lower activities of this world in which they are so totally immersed. If this abnegation leads to the extreme point of withdrawal from the world then they must even be willing to obey and to take the consequences. But since it is fundamentally an inner thing, it does not necessarily lead a man to take this extreme step--so long as he keeps his inner life and being inviolable even whilst trafficking with the world.
Such an achievement may seem very far off from human possibility and indeed we find in history that not many have either cared, or been able, to realize it, for it is far too painful to the ego. But the metaphysical truths of successive rebirth on earth and of the unreality of time should give some comfort here.
The first teaches a great patience while men labour daily at the task of remaking themselves. The second teaches that the Overself is even now ever present with all, that in the eternal Now there is no futurity and that theoretically the possibility of its realization does not necessarily belong to some distant rebirth.
— Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 4: Detaching from The Ego > # 230
Paul Brunton
self annihilation...
I thought of You so often,
I completely became You.
Little by little, You drew near,
And slowly but surely, 'I' passed away."
Javad Nurbakhsh
_In the Tavern of Ruins_
in M. I. Waley
_Sufism: The Alchemy of the Heart_
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1991 (1931), p. 24
Let go, Be Quiet...
"This Quietness is no-mind, this no-thought is Freedom.
Identify yourself as this Nothingness, as this Quietness,
and be careful not to make it an experience
because this is mind tricking you out of it
with the trap of duality;
the trap of witness and witnessed.
Being is Being, there is no witness and no witnessed.
Experiencing it is to say 'I am Free,'
which is exactly the same trap as saying 'I am bound.'
After letting go of object,
do not hold onto the subject either.
Let go, Be Quiet."
Pooja
metaphysics...
But let it not be thought that the metaphysical effort is a wasted one.
On the contrary, it is essential for training the mind to think correctly about the Overself,
for supplying it with the firm conviction that such an ultimate reality does exist,
and for encouraging it to take up the practical quest of ultramysticism;
whilst after the latter quest has been successfully realized the metaphysical effort again becomes useful when the sage seeks to communicate to others a precise report and accurate explanation of his own grand experience.
— Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 132
Paul Brunton
IT will not change...
Name and form is not real.
Look at the substratum from where they arise.
That is real.
IT will not change.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
the unseen...
Only that knowledge which is of being and of the unseen,
can make the soul look upwards.
Plato
Integral Spirituality...
At the end of "Integral Spirituality" by Ken Wilber, the following questions are asked of the reader:
"Why were you looking everywhere, when God is the Looker? Why are you constantly seeking something, when God is the Seeker? When exactly were you planning on finding Spirit, when Spirit is always the Finder? How exactly were you going to force God to show his or her Face, when God's Face is your Original Face - the witness of this very page - already and right Now?
Why were you expending so much effort, when ever-present awareness is spontaneously and effortlessly arising right now, as is the awareness of this book (past), and the area around it, and your body, and the room you are in - notice them all, and notice that they are all effortlessly arising in your present awareness, they are all effortlessly arising in your timeless Wakefulness, right here, right now -
and how much effort do you have to make in order for this present awareness to happen? Where were you planning on seeing God, when God is the ever-present Seer? How much knowledge did you think you had to cram into your head to know God, when God is the ever-present Knower? How much of this book - or any book or books - did you think you had to read in order to find Spirit, when the very Reader of this sentence is Spirit?
When the very reader of this sentence is God fully revealed? Feel the Reader of this sentence, feel the simple feeling of Being, feel the Feeler in you right now, and you are feeling the fully revealed God in his or her radiant glory, a One Taste of the divine Suchness of the entire Kosmos, a not-two-ness of self and Self that leaves you breathlessly enlightened and fully realized in this and every moment. Hear the sounds all around you? Who is not enlightened?"
"...By giving up the search and resting in the Searcher,...blinding your ego with your Self, overcoming all difficulties in spiritual seeking by giving up seeking itself, nodding your head in recognition that the great game or play is up, the game of Hide and Seek is over, because you were It and You found out."
Art...
In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do, and that
sign becomes this art.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Coleman Barks
"Birdsong"
Maypop, 1993
Forgiveness...
The quality of forgiveness that burns up all things except beauty is the quality
of love.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Nature is such that no two things are created alike; and the human being cannot
expect his or her mate, whom nature made, to be as docile and flexible as that
creature whom his imagination alone conceives. To make a friend, forgiveness is
required which burns up all things, leaving only beauty.
Love is the fire that burns all infirmities. ... By criticizing, by judging, by
looking at wickedness with contempt, one does not help the wicked or the stupid
person. The one who helps is he who is ready to overlook, who is ready to
forgive, to tolerate, to take disadvantages he may have to meet with patiently.
To resist evil, however, usually means to participate in and be guilty of the
same evil.
There is a story told of Muhammad, that a man who had always maligned
him and behaved as a bitter and treacherous enemy, came to see him. His
disciples, hoping for revenge, were disappointed and indignant to find that
Muhammad treated his despicable enemy with courtesy, even deference, granting
his request.
'Did you not see the gray in his beard?' asked Muhammad after the
man had gone. 'The man is old, and his age at least called for my courtesy.' It
is forgiveness and that forbearance which is a recognition of the freedom and
dignity of the human being, that consume all ugliness and burn up all
unworthiness, leaving only beauty there.
two masters...
"No one can serve two masters;
for either he will hate
the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to
one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and
mammon."
Jesus
_Matthew_ 6:24, also _Luke_ 16:13
["Mammon" is the biblical rendering of _mamonas,
meaning wealth, riches or simply money. It signifies
greed: "The lust for money is the root of all evil."
More broadly, Jesus is saying that one cannot serve
both God and oneself, that is, one's own perceived
self-interest arising as desire for self-gratification
in all its varied forms. Riches are regarded as the
"elixir" for satisfying these desires, and wealth is
not desired for its own sake, but for what it can do
as a panacea for want.
Compare Buddha's Four Noble Truths: 1) There is
suffering. 2) The Cause of suffering is desire. #) The
way to overcome suffering is to terminate desire (by
"roasting" the seeds of desire). The way to terminate
desire by roasting the seeds of desire is the
Eightfold Path. Each element of the Eightfold Path
begins with "right." The essence of righteousness
(_dharma_) is to do what one feels to be right just
because it is right, rather than what one thinks will
make one happy.
For when one performs action with an eye to the
fruits, then the seeds of desire (latent impressions,
sanskaras) are watered. When one performs action
without concern for the fruits, but rather because it
is right so to do, then the seeds of desire are
roasted and eventually no longer sprout in the mind.
And in virtually every religion, to do what is right
because it is right is to serve God as that which is
highest within oneself. In this sense the atheist who
does right just because it is right is more
meritorious than the believer who only does what
"should" be done out of fear of punishment.
The phrase "feels to be right" is chosen here to
indicate that knowledge of what is right is a matter
chiefly of the heart rather than the mind. For it is
the heart that apprehends true values intuitively, and
it is the job of the mind to determine how best to act
on them after they are given by the heart.
Tom Hickey
=====
Live Unity, Celebrate Diversity
All is God...
To me you are your own God.
But if you think
otherwise, think to the end.
If there be God,
then all is God's and all is for the best.
Welcome
all that comes with a glad and thankful heart.
And love all creatures.
This too will take you to
your Self.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
Enlightenment...
On the most absolute level, enlightenment never happens to a me or a you.
Enlightenment is less about a me or a you than anything we will ever experience! Strictly speaking, enlightenment isn't even an "experience" at all.
It is the discovery, the sudden noticing of, the spacious "field" of consciousness in which every experience comes and goes.
Enlightenment is trans-personal.
That doesn't mean that it's impersonal.
That means that it transcends every category of "personal" or "impersonal".
It is the fundamental nature of the absolute.
Enlightenment is itself, Light, openness, vastness, spaciousness, with or without a "person"...
Even if the whole universe was empty of people, enlightenment would still be here and now in all it's fullness and would simply continue to manifest (in a non-human way of course) through trees or rocks or whatever else remained in existence in the manifest world.
In fact, it is already, always so here and now in everything under the sun, and in the sun itself!
Francis Bennett
Psalm...
"All my life I have looked for you.
Could you let these eyes fail
before they have rested on your form?
Could you forsake me in that way?
Oh, Lord, be kind to your servant --
show yourself to me.
This is my truth, this is my life.
This is what I want more
than the world has to offer."
_Psalm_ 119
in Jonathan Star
_Two Suns Rising:
A Collection of Sacred Writings_
NY: Bantam, 1991, pp. 82-83
Light...
We should be brave to open our doors to receive all
available light from outside.
Let rays of light come in,
in sharp-driving showers from the four quarters of the earth.
- Swami Vivekananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Living At The Source - Yoga Teachings of Vivekananda
Edited by Ann Myren & Dorothy Madison
Shambhala, 1993
Basic Eternal Essence...
Forgetting that Being,
you are lost
into the process
of becoming.
You get tied up
with becoming
something
all the time.
you want to be this,
you want to be that.
You don't want to end
the becoming
into Being,
wherein lies the whole secret
of becoming.
Becoming is itself not an independent
something.
it's a radiation of Being,
it's a projection of Consciousness,
that basic eternal Essence
which Thou art.
- Swami Amar Jyoti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
Happiness...
"Unconditioned Consciousness is Happiness
and Quietness with no when, no where, just Now.
This Happiness conditioned by thought becomes mind.
Even the 'I,' the first condition, is a disturbance in Happiness.
Due to desires and hopes of the ego no one is happy.
So to come to Happiness do not think, or give rise to desire,
simply keep Quiet, because thinking is the graveyard.
To be happy you should have and hold nothing,
otherwise your pockets will smell like dead fish.
My dear friend, Happiness is not an experience,
It is your nature so you need to do nothing for it.
Only Self knowledge brings Happiness because
Happiness is the nature of Self."
Poonja
become the path...
"Worthy persons deserve to be called so because they are not carried away by the eight winds: prosperity,decline,disgrace,honor,praise,censure,suffering, and pleasure.They are neither elated by prosperity nor grieved by decline. The heavenly gods will surely protect one who is unbending before the eight winds."
"He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye."
"Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue."
"To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance."
"You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself."
"When one is deluded, it is as if one were dreaming. And when one is enlightened, it is as if one had awakened."
Gautama the Buddha
Higher Self...
It is a mistake, however, to turn the higher self into a mere
convenience to be used chiefly for obtaining healing or getting
guidance,
for healing the sicknesses of the physical body, or guiding
the activities of the physical ego.
It should be sought for its own
sake, and these other things should be sought only occasionally or
incidentally, as and when needed.
They should not be made habitual.
In
his periodic meditations, for instance, the aspirant should seek the
divine source of his being because it is right, necessary, and good
for him to do so and he should forget every other desire.
Only after
he has done that and found the source, and only on his backward
journey to the day's activities,
may he remember these lesser desires
and utilize the serenity and power thus gained for attending to them.
— Notebooks Category 10: Healing of the Self > Chapter 5: The
Healing Power of The Overself > # 133 Paul Brunton
Nothingness...
Nothingness by Alan Watts has been viewed thousands of times by seekers of Truth..
What draws souls to this knowledge?..
It is the inward knowledge of Reality..
We are Nothing..
It is that simple..
We fear being Nothing..
Our egos' fear being Nothing..
Nothingness means being without egoic consciousness.. that is all
Do we exist?..
Yes , as Energy..
No personality or egoic consciousness..
Get beyond this fear of Nothingness..
There is only God (Divine Consciousness) and beyond that, the void of Pure Awareness..
What is there to fear?..
You are the Energy of God without the personality of separate ego or name..
Should you fear Reality?..
Of course not, You have never been born or shall never die..
You are Pure Awareness..
Surrender the illusion of separation..
God is All that does exist..
Love is All that does exist...
namaste, thomas
Posting about Judas...
Why have I posted about judas?..
Because most of what you have been taught have been lies..
You are in the world of lies, the world of duality and satanic illusion..
up is down and down is up..
It is up to you to find the Truth..
I can only point my finger to the Truth..
Who is Jesus (Yeshua), who is Judas?..
Waking up, requires courage and wisdom..
Forget the voices of religion, school, and family..
Look into your Heart and Mind..
Find Truth..
It will be difficult to overcome the mind manipulation that has been done to you..
Seek only Truth..
It is your only religion...
namaste, thomas
Because most of what you have been taught have been lies..
You are in the world of lies, the world of duality and satanic illusion..
up is down and down is up..
It is up to you to find the Truth..
I can only point my finger to the Truth..
Who is Jesus (Yeshua), who is Judas?..
Waking up, requires courage and wisdom..
Forget the voices of religion, school, and family..
Look into your Heart and Mind..
Find Truth..
It will be difficult to overcome the mind manipulation that has been done to you..
Seek only Truth..
It is your only religion...
namaste, thomas
the gospel of judas...
The Gospel of Judas consists of 16 chapters which document Jesus's teaching about spiritual matters and cosmology. Judas is the only one of Jesus's disciples who accurately understands the words of his master. This Gospel contains few narrative elements; essentially, the Gospel records how Judas was taught by Jesus the true meaning of his message, and was then stoned to death by the other disciples.
The Gospel contains ideas which contradicted those circulating in the early Christian church. The author argues that God is essentially a "luminous cloud of light" who exists in an imperishable realm.[9] Adamas, the spiritual father of all humanity, was created in God's image and dwelled in the imperishable realm.
At the beginning of time, God created a group of angels and lower gods. Twelve angels were willed to come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].[10]
The angels of creation were tasked with creating a physical body for Adamas, which became known as the first man Adam. Gradually, humanity began to forget its divine origins and some of Adam's descendants (Cain and Abel) became embroiled in the world's first murder. Many humans came to think that the imperfect physical universe was the totality of creation, losing their knowledge of God and the imperishable realm.
Jesus was sent as the Son of the true God, not of one of the lesser gods. His mission was to show that salvation lies in connecting with the God within the man. Through embracing the internal God, the man can then return to the imperishable realm.
Eleven of the disciples Jesus chose to spread his message misunderstood the central tenets of His teaching. They were obsessed with the physical world of the senses. They continued to practise religious animal sacrifice, which pleased the lower gods but did not help to foster a connection with the true God. They wrongly taught that those martyred in the name of Christ would be bodily resurrected.
In contrast, Jesus is able to teach Judas the true meaning of his life, ministry and death. Mankind can be divided into two races, or groups. Those who are furnished with the immortal soul, like Judas, can come to know the God within and enter the imperishable realm when they die. Those who belong to the same generation of the other eleven disciples cannot enter the realm of God and will die both spiritually and physically at the end of their lives. As practices that are intertwined with the physical world, animal sacrifice and a communion ceremony centered around cannibalism (the symbolic consumption of Jesus' flesh and blood) are condemned as abhorrent. Death is seen not as a glorious event but simply as a way to escape the perishable realm of the flesh.
Of crucial importance is the author's understanding of Jesus' death. The other Gospels argue that Jesus had to die in order to atone for the sins of humanity. The author of Judas claims this sort of substitutionary justice pleases the lower gods and angels. The true God is gracious and thus does not demand any sacrifice. In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus's death is simply a final way for him to leave the realm of the flesh and return to the luminous cloud.
from Wikipedia
Empires...
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires;
but what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius?
Upon force.
Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love;
and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Ashtavakra Gita...
It is hard to find
A man who has desire
For what he has not tasted,
Or who tastes the world
And is untouched.
Here in the world
Some crave pleasure,
Some seek freedom
But it is hard to find
A man who wants neither.
He is a great soul.
It is hard to find
A man who has an open mind,
Who neither seeks nor shuns
Wealth or pleasure,
Duty or liberation,
Life or death. . .
He does not want the world to end.
He does not mind if it lasts.
Whatever befalls him,
He lives in happiness.
For he is truly blessed.
-Ashtavakra Gita 17:4-7
the sage...
The life of a sage appears to others to be as
purposeless as the actions of an infant.
The
infant lives in the bliss of ignorance,
while the
self-realized sage lives in the bliss beyond both
ignorance and knowledge.
In fact, the sage is
no longer even an individual,
in spite of the
presence of a fully developed intellect.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
the play of duality...
The mysterious character of the Overself inevitably puzzles the intellect.
We may appreciate it better if we accept the paradoxical fact that it unites a duality and that therefore there are two ways of thinking of it, both correct.
There is the divine being which is entirely above all temporal concerns, absolute and universal,
and there is also the demi-divine being which is in historical relation with the human ego.
— Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > # 386
Paul Brunton
Remember Self...
What is the undercurrent which vivifies the
mind, enables it to do all this work?
It is the
Self.
So that is the real source of your activity.
Simply be aware of it during your work and do
not forget it.
Contemplate in the background of
your mind even whilst working.
To do that, do
not hurry, take your own time.
Keep the
remembrance of your real nature alive, even
while working, and avoid haste which causes
you to forget.
Be deliberate.
Practice
meditation to still the mind and cause it to
become aware of its true relationship to the
Self which supports it.
Do not imagine it is
you who are doing the work.
Think that it is
the underlying current which is doing it.
Identify yourself with the current.
If you
work unhurriedly, recollectedly, your work
or service need not be a hindrance.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985
You are It...
Truth (nonduality, Ultimate Reality, supreme enlightenment) is utterly simple. It is right here. You are it. This is it. It is all there is. It is this seeing-hearing-breathing-sensing-awaring-thinking-being, just as it is—one vast energy, uncontained, authorless, ownerless, seamless, boundless, timeless, placeless, without beginning or end, with no inside or outside. This vastness is showing up as trees and birds and cars and airplanes and clouds and cluster bombs and dogs and cats and zebras and rocks and planets and galaxies and also as the absolute emptiness of deep sleep. It is everything and everything is nothing other than it, and yet it is no-thing in particular that can be separated out and grasped as an object. It is never not here, and it is always already fully realized.
So-called awakening or enlightenment is not about going somewhere new and exotic, crossing some imaginary finish-line, or attaining something that isn’t fully present Here / Now. It is simply recognizing that the problem that seems to be binding us is imaginary, like worrying about what will happen to us if we fall off the edge of the flat earth. And above all, seeing through the root problem, the one at the center of the story who seems to be bound or free, the mirage-like separate self who seems to be unenlightened and seeking liberation. This self seems very real until we look closely and discover that it cannot actually be found, that it is nothing more than ever-changing thoughts, mental images, sensations, feelings, memories and stories creating a kind of mirage that we have learned to think of as “me,” the one who is supposedly inside my body, presumably authoring my thoughts, making my decisions, and steering “me” through life.
Because of the way consciousness gets hypnotized by thoughts and by the mental tendency to divide and reify and grasp, we think that this self is real, that something is missing, that we are apart from the enlightenment that we seek, that this is not it, that we must find something we don’t have, that we must figure all this out and have some experience we’re not presently having and become different from how we are. We must get somewhere. This whole virtual reality created by thought and imagination and sensation has been compared to dreaming while in the waking state. And part of the dream-story is that we are a separate somebody who is trapped in a dream, trying to wake up, or perhaps somebody who is sometimes awake and then sometimes lost in the dream-world again, somebody who is trying to be permanently awake. But this search to wake up from the dream is itself part of the dream.
We are trying to solve an imaginary problem. Our search for enlightenment is like a mirage chasing a mirage. The virtual reality created by thought and imagination and sensation is simply another shape appearing Here / Now, happening to no one. No one is actually trapped inside it, and thus, no one breaks free of it. Freedom is already here, but it is not the freedom we imagine. It is not the freedom for “me” to be as I want to be and to do what I want to do. It is not “me” free from the dream-state. It is the freedom that recognizes that there is no other, no inside or outside, the freedom that has no problem with apparent limitation.
This is not something to figure out and think about and eventually “get.” It is simply recognizing what is right here, right now. Not by thinking ABOUT it, not by looking FOR it, but by relaxing into the utter simplicity of what is, just as it is.
How do we do that? There’s no way to put the pathless path through the gateless gate into words anymore than you can tell someone how to swim or how to ride a bicycle or how to fall asleep at night. This letting go is something we can only discover, and in the case of waking up, it isn’t so much a doing as an absence of doing. And we’re not discovering anything new and exotic. We’re simply noticing that what we are seeking is already fully present, that nothing needs to be done, that the obstacles have all been imaginary, that there is no gate and no one to pass through it.
Joan Tollifson
Don't worry...
"Rabbi Nahman said:
Why should one worry about one's
livelihood?
There is nothing to worry about except
that one may die of hunger if one has no livelihood.
And so what if he dies.
For he must die anyway."
Rabbi Nahman
in Alan Unterman
_The Wisdom of the Jewish Mystics_
NY: New Directions, 1976, p. 70
paradox...
What a paradox,
to know that who we are is that in which everything appears,
matter, energy, time, space, and every known and unknown universe,
and then to have human experience.
Isaac Shapiro
Universal Divine Qualities...
Whatever conclusion you arrive to, if it is from the mind, let it dissolve, until you remain empty handed.
Whatever arises at the body level, allow it to dissolve as well, inviting the body to be clear and transparent.
Allowing gross and subtle objects to dissolve is the recognition that they are not concrete, not set in stone.
The true nature of all forms is formless, seamless.
..
Careful not to create boundaries where none exists!
All the help you need is available to you when you open up to the divine.
The divine quality of bounty and love are available to the truth lover.
Divine qualities are not personal. They are universal.
..
Beauty, generosity, kindness, love, empathy, joy and happiness...are universal divine qualities that shine through anytime the heart is open.
Magdi Em Be
Divine Majesty...
When you look carefully, this world is all war:
Mote fights with mote, like belief with unbelief. . . .
But in the light of the spiritual eye, our war
and our peace are not from ourselves: They are "between His
two fingers."
The war of nature, the war of acts, the war of
words--in the midst of the individual parts a frightful war.
The world subsists through this war: Look at
the four elements and resolve this difficulty.
The four elements are four sturdy pillars,
through which the roof of the heavens is kept in place.
But each pillar destroys the other: Water's pillar
destroys that of fire.
So creation is built upon opposites: Inevitably
we are warring over profit and loss. . . .
But that world is naught but everlasting and
flourishing, since it is not compounded of opposites.
Each opposite inflicts reciprocal annihilation
upon its opposite; when opposition disappears, subsistence
alone remains. . . .
Colorlessness is the root of all colors, peace
the root of all wars.
That world is the root of this abode full of
heartaches; union is the root of every parting and separation.
Why are we in such opposition, oh friend? Why
does Unity give birth to this multiplicity?
Because we are the branch, and the four
opposite elements the root. The root has engendered
its qualities in the branch.
Since the substance of the spirit is beyond
separation, it does not partake of these qualities: Its qualities
are those of the divine Majesty.
--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Mathnawi VI: 36, 45-50, 56-57, 59-63
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983
immanent and transcendent...
God is not merely transcendent to the world;
He is in the world.
So everything in the world
has to be considered spiritual in its ultimate
essence.
God is not only in the world, but is
the world.
He is both immanent and transcendent.
- Swami Krishnananda
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Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
Unlimited Awareness...
At the back of the mind is a doorway with the words ‘I am’ written above it.
First, turn towards that doorway; then walk through it.
Turning towards it is an activity of the mind; walking through it is the dissolution of the mind.
That dissolution is the revelation of our essential nature of ever-present,
unlimited Awareness, the abode of peace, happiness and love.
Rupert Spira
Unconditional Love...
These Two Words are all the education that you need within this life..
We have thousands of books of spirituality and bibles from thousands of years of inquiry..
They are all the paths of humility called Love..
This Humility of Love is called the 'state of non-ego'..
This state of non-egoic desire and attainment is the only reason that We are here..
The seach for Love is found within almost all humans..
Why do people seek something that is not visible and yet contains the only Joy found within this manifestation ?..
The answer is that the Love that we seek is really the Joy of Reality or what some call God..
The answer to the Knowledge of life and God is found within the words: 'Unconditional Love'..
Unconditional Love and non-egoic consciousness are One and the Same..
You stop judging others and begin to see the pain and struggles within others..
The ego was the Judge..
Love sees no reason to Judge..
God does not Judge you, as there is no one to Judge..
Karma becomes just a false myth..
You have returned to the place of non personality..
The place called " Unconditional Love".........
namaste, thomas
the gospel of mary magdala...
The Gospel of Mary
In this gnostic gospel, Mary Magdalene appears as a disciple, singled out by Jesus for special teachings. In this excerpt, the other disciples are discouraged and grieving Jesus' death. Mary stands up and attempts to comfort them, reminding them that Jesus' presence remains with them. Peter asks her to tell them the words of Jesus which she remembers. To his surprise, she does not reminisce about past conversations with Jesus, but claims that Jesus spoke to her that very day in a vision.
But they were grieved. They wept greatly, saying, "How shall we go to the gentiles and preach the gospel of the kingdom of the Son of Man? If they did not spare him, how will they spare us?" Then Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brethren, "Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will be entirely with you and will protect you. But rather let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us and made us into men." When Mary said this, she turned their hearts to the Good, and they began to discuss the words of the [Saviour].
Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Saviour loved you more than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the Saviour which you remember - which you know (but) we do not, nor have we heard them." Mary answered and said, "What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you." And she began to speak to them these words: "I," she said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.' He answered and said to me, 'Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of me. For where the mind is, there is the treasure.' I said to him, 'Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it through the soul or through the spirit?' The Saviour answered and said, 'He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind which [is] between the two - that is [what] sees the vision...'
(the mid-section of the original text is missing)
"[S] it. And desire that, 'I did not see you descending, but now I see you ascending. Why do you lie, since you belong to me?' The soul answered and said, 'I saw you. You did not see me nor recognise me. I served you as a garment, and you did not know me.' When it had said this, it went away rejoicing greatly.
"Again it came to the third power, which is called ignorance. It (the power) questioned the soul saying, 'Where are you going? In wickedness are you bound. But you are bound; do not judge!' And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me although I have not judged? I was bound though I have not bound. I was not recognised. But I have recognised that the All is being dissolved, both the earthly (things) and the heavenly'.
When the soul had overcome the third power, it went upwards and saw the fourth power, (which) took seven forms. The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death, the
fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom. These are the seven [powers] of wrath. They ask the soul, "Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?" The soul answered and said, "What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been overcome, and my desire has been ended and ignorance has died. In a [world] I was released from a world, [and] in a type from a heavenly type, and (from) the fetter of oblivion which is transient. From this time on will I attain to the rest of the time, of the season, of the aeon, in silence."
When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Saviour had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, "Say what you (wish to) say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Saviour said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas." Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things. He questioned them about the Saviour: "Did He really speak with a woman without our knowledge (and) not openly? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?"
Then Mary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Saviour? Levi answered and said to Peter, "Peter, you have always been hot - tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on the perfect man and acquire him for ourselves as He commanded us, and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Saviour said." ... and they began to go forth [to] proclaim and to preach.
From The Nag Hammadi Library in English, J M Robinson, Harper Collins
One Dance...
Loosen the load of sweetness I'm carrying.
The sling-knot is biting into my shoulder.
This day has been so meaningless.
I feel I can't go on.
When I was with my teacher, I heard a truth
that hurt my heart like a blister,
the tender pain of seeing
something I loved as an illusion.
The flocks I tended are gone.
I am a shepherd without even a memory
of what that means, climbing this mountain.
I feel so lost.
This was my inward way, until I came
into the presence of a Moon, this new knowledge
of how likenesses unite. Good Friend,
everything is You. I see only God.
Now the delightful forms and motions
are transparent. I look through them
and see myself as the Absolute. And here's
the answer to the riddle of this dream:
You leave, so that we two
can do One Dance.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
selfishness is egoic consciousness...
"Basically, there is only one precept --
not being selfish.
If people are selfish, they will violate the precepts.
If people are not selfish, they will not violate the precepts."
Venerable Master Hsuan Hua
_Spring Sun, Lotus Flower:
Quotes form the teachings of Vernable Master Hsaun Hua_
Burlingame, CA: Buddhist test Translation Society, 2004, p. 10
dispassion and detachment...
What you need will come to you,
if you
do not ask for what you do not need.
Yet
only few people reach this state of com-
plete dispassion and detachment.
It is
a very high state,
the very threshold of
liberation.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
the Quest...
There is nothing more important in life than the Quest,
and the time will come when the student discovers that there is nothing more enjoyable as well.
This is inevitable in a Quest whose essential nature is one of infinite harmony and unbroken peace.
No worldly object, person, or pleasure can ever bestow the satisfaction experienced in uniting with the Overself.
— Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 1: What the Quest Is > # 166
Paul Brunton
Misapprehension...
Within the prison of your world appears a man who
tells you that the world of painful contradictions,
which you have created,
is neither continuous nor
permanent and is based on a misapprehension.
He
pleads with you to get out of it,
by the same way
by which you got into it.
You got into it by forgetting
what you are,
and you will get out of it by knowing
yourself as you are.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Do We Exist ?...
Many mystics will tell You that You are the Creator..
Many, as I, have found that We are Light, Love, and Consciousness..
But, is this the Final Reality?..
It is the Reality of Creator God and the base of existence but is it the Final Reality?..
My question of the Final Reality went without answer, while within the Light..
The answer therefore must be found within Your own Consciousness..
Perhaps, the answer cannot be given..
Perhaps, Consciousness does not know the answer..
Can you imagine God not knowing what created God..
God is Light,
Who said; " Let there be Light" ?..
There is much for you to ponder today...
namaste, thomas
the heart...
The heart has divine instincts;
it just needs to be turned loose in the sky.
Does not every angel know where God lives,
and will beat on God's door all night if it is locked.
Saint Teresa of Avila
Love Poems from God
Trans. Daniel Ladinsky
New York: Penguin Compass, 2002, p. 275
what makes ego disappear...
The method is actually simple..
You as higher Self watches the thoughts of Your
mind..
This is called being Awake..
As thoughts of ego arise,
merely look at the
ego and the ego will disappear, as, it is not Real..
and All unreality will
disappear as the True Self becomes Predominant...
namaste, thomas
You are what you think...
Man's whole conduct in life depends upon what he holds in his thought.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The heart, which is called a mirror in Sufi terms, has two different actions
which it performs. Whatever is reflected in the heart does not only remain a
reflection but becomes a creative power, productive of a phenomenon of a similar
nature. For instance a heart which is holding in itself and reflecting the rose,
will find roses everywhere. Roses will be attracted to that heart; roses will be
produced from it and for it. As this reflection becomes stronger, so it becomes
creative of the phenomenon of roses. The heart that holds and reflects a wound
will find wounds everywhere, will attract wounds, will create wounds; for that
is the nature of the phenomenon of reflection. ... There is another aspect of
this reflection, and that is what one thinks, one becomes. One becomes
identified with it. Therefore, the object which is in one's thought becomes
one's own property, one's own quality.
A person (lacking mastery) holds a thought in mind, whether it is beneficial to
him or not, without knowing the result which will come from it. It is like a
child who holds a rattle in his hand and hits his head with the rattle and cries
with the pain, and yet does not throw the rattle away. There are many who keep
in their mind a thought of illness or a thought of unkindness done to them by
someone and suffer from it, yet not knowing what it is that makes them suffer
so, nor understanding the reason of their suffering.
Man's whole conduct in life depends upon what he holds in his thought. The
thought of the wicked produces in him wickedness, and the thought of the good
creates goodness. The love of Rasul, the divine ideal, enables one to
concentrate upon this ideal. Since all in the garb of matter are to be separated
one day in life, good or wicked, friends or foes, what alone is reliable is the
ideal which man creates within himself, call it Christ, Buddha, Krishna or
Muhammad.
feed Love...
A Native American elder told this tale to George Bernard Shaw
Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean
and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the
good dog, all of the time.
When asked which dog wins, he replied,
The one I feed the most
a yogi...
A yogi has no particular path;
He simply renounces imagining things.
His mind then ceases of its own accord,
And the perfect state just naturally occurs.
~ Dattatreya's Song of the Avadhut (2.28)
Tao Te Ching...
Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self needs strength.
He who knows he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of willpower.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1989
yourself...
Don't look for help from someone other
than yourself.
The remedy for your wound
is the wound itself.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
perceptions and expectations...
What is strange is that the experience which comes with the Overself visitation assumes any one of a wide range of feelings,
from the most delicate to the most overwhelming.
With time and growth it may become well settled, or--though rarely--its light may shine from the beginning.
There are even other possibilities.
It is safer to keep out the preconceptions and the expectations, safer too if the ties of books and bibles are left outside for a while.
That is, accept the freedom of utter surrender to the Overself, of dissolving in it and letting the wind blow where it listeth.
— Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 5: Preparing for Glimpses > # 120
Paul Brunton
show your face...
O Sun, fill our house once more with light!
Make happy all your friends and blind your foes!
Rise from behind the hill, transform the stones
To rubies and the sour grapes to wine!
O Sun, make our vineyard fresh again,
And fill the steppes with houris and green cloaks!
Physician of the lovers, heaven's lamp!
Rescue the lovers! Help the suffering!
Show but your face - the world is filled with light!
But if you cover it, it's the darkest night!
--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 1960
Translation by Annemarie Schimmel
"Look! This is Love - Poems of Rumi"
Shambhala, 1991
you can...
“You can alter your thoughts, and so alter your condition.
Strive to perceive the vastness and grandeur of your responsibility.
You are powerful, not powerless.
You are as powerful to obey as you are to disobey; as strong to be pure as to be impure; as ready for wisdom as for ignorance.
You can learn what you will, can remain as ignorant as you choose.
If you love knowledge, you will obtain it;
if you love wisdom you will secure it;
if you love purity you will realize it.
All things await your acceptance,
and you choose by the thoughts which you entertain.”
James Allen
--
Conquer...
"Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth"
Gautama the Buddha
himself alone...
On this Short Path he searches into the meaning of Being, of being himself and of being-in-itself, until he finds its finality.
Until this search is completed, he accepts the truth, passed down to him by the Enlightened Ones, that in his inmost essence he is Reality.
This leads to the logical consequence that he should disregard personal feelings which continue from past tendencies, habits, attitudes, and think and act as if he were himself an enlightened one!
For now he knows by evidence, study, and reflection that the Overself is behind, and is the very source of, his ego, just as he knows by the experience of feeling during his brief Glimpses.
Bringing this strong conviction into thought and act and attitude is the "Heavenly Way" [or "As If"] exercise, a principal one on the Short Path.
He pretends to be what he aims to become:
thinks, speaks, acts, behaves as a master of emotion, desire, ego because he would be one.
But he should play this game for, and to, himself alone,
not to enlarge himself in others' eyes, lest he sow the seed of a great vanity.
Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 6: Advanced Meditation > # 109
Paul Brunton
control...
Are you crying because you have no control?
What if, instead, you simply decided to laugh at
the idea of having no control?
Wouldn't you, then, be experiencing the dramas
in your life very differently?
But, then again, maybe you don't even have any
control over making that decision either!
In other words, you may not have any control over
deciding that you have no control.
- Chuck Hillig
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003
Reality unveiled...
O you who are sincere, if you want this Reality
to be unveiled, choose death and tear up the
veil;
Not a death leading to the tomb, but a death
which is transmutation and leads you into the
Light.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
Re-cognize...
"Self shining presence-awareness is not the result of effort.
There is
no need to try to do something with the expectation that suddenly
awareness will be there.
Presence-awareness is always here and now
whether it is recognized or seemingly lost.
It is not something that
can be created or destroyed.
Conceptual thinking is like the cloud
that seemingly blocks the sun.
Being at ease in non-conceptual
naturalness is presence awareness already here and now.
Re-cognize
again, and again, and again, and the knowing it is always so is
constant in spite of what appears and disappears.
Self-knowing,
self-shining-- just this, nothing else".
Sailor Bob Adamson
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Awakening...
Emerson's simple account of his awakening
from Nature....
"Standing on the bare ground,
— my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,
— all mean egotism vanishes.
I become a transparent eye-ball;
I am nothing;
I see all;
the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
I am part or particle of God."
we are all servants...
Nobody appears inferior to us when our heart is kindled with kindness and our
eyes are open to the vision of God.
Bowl of Saki, June 7, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
We are so situated in life that whatever position we may occupy we are never
independent, we are never self-sufficient. Therefore, every individual depends
upon others for help, and others depend upon him for help; only the position of
the person who is one among many who receive help becomes lower in the eyes of
those who count themselves among the few who can help.
This makes every person a master as well as a servant. Yet everyone, in the
intoxication of his mastership, forgets his place as a servant, and looks upon
the one who helps him as his servant. The wise, whose feelings are awakened,
think on this question deeply, and do their best to avoid every possibility of
giving even an idea to a servant of his servantship, far less insulting him in
any way or hurting his feelings. We are all equal, and if we have helpers to
serve us in life we ought to feel humble and most thankful for the privilege,
instead of making the position of the servant humble. ... One cannot commit a
greater sin than hurting the feelings of the one who serves us and depends upon
our help. Once the Prophet heard his grandson call a servant by his name. On
hearing this he at once said to his grandson, 'No, child, that is not the right
way of addressing elders. You ought to call him 'uncle.' It does not matter if
he serves us, we are all servants of one another, and we are equal in the sight
of God.'
There is a verse of Mahmud-i Ghaznavi: 'The Emperor Mahmud, who had thousands of
slaves to wait on his call, became the slave of his slaves when love gushed
forth from his heart.' Nobody appears inferior to us when our heart is kindled
with kindness and our eyes are open to the vision of God.
As Christ teaches, 'Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him
twain.' What does all this teach us? It is all a lesson in sympathy for one's
fellow man, to teach us to share in his troubles, in his despair. For whoever
really experiences this joy of life, finds that it becomes so great that it
fills his heart and his soul. It does not matter if he has fewer comforts or an
inferior position than many in this world, because the light of his kindness, of
his sympathy, of the love that is growing, the virtue that is springing up in
his heart, all fill the soul with light. There is nothing now that he lacks in
life, for he has become the king of it.
Knowing Self...
Approaching the Self is like walking on a razor's
edge:
Two cannot go there,
you can't even bring
your mind or a thought.
So the only One who can
help you is Self.
Anything that touches this Flame
becomes Flame.
Touch a Sage and you become
a Sage,
knowing Self you see only Self and this
Self is your Teacher.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
no one else...
In creation,
God Himself manifests.
In suffering,
He Himself suffers;
He Himself
is puzzled in His creation;
and one day He Himself realizes His perfection.
God
only exists,
no one else.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Only One...
"To attain union is so impossibly difficult because
it is impossible to become
what you already are!
Union is nothing other than knowledge of oneself as the
Only One."
Meher Baba
_The Everything and the Nothing_, 1
Beacon Hill, NSW, Australia: Meher House Publications,
1963, p. 9
lower and higher wills...
The Balance required preceding enlightenment is not only between intellect and emotion,
thought and will,
but also and mainly between the lower and the higher wills,
between ego's desires and Overself's self-contentment.
— Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 3: Its Requirements > # 431
Paul Brunton
Freedom...
We love this word..
countries declare this word with pride filled with lies..
politicians use this word to kill millions..
what does this word really mean?..
the world says that it means to live without fear..
do you feel without fear?..
fear is the opposite of Love..
fear is the ego declaring that it must survive..
Love exists without fear..
fear is found only in the belief of yourself as separate ego..
what you must contemplate upon is the illusion of fear and the Reality of Love..
your ego will tell you that it is a waste of time ..
you are on the road to find out...
namaste, thomas
Stop...
There is a very simple secret to being happy.
Just let go of your demand on this moment.
Any time you have a demand on the moment to give you something or remove something, there is suffering.
Your demands keep you chained to the dream state of conditioned mind.
The problem is that when there is a demand, you completely miss what is now.
Letting go applies to the highest sacred demand, and even to the demand for love.
If you demand in some subtle way to be loved, even if you get love, it is never enough.
In the next moment, the demand reasserts itself, and you need to be loved again.
But as soon as you let go, there is knowing in that instant that there is love here already.
The mind is afraid to let go of its demand because the mind thinks that if it lets go, it is not going to get what it wants - as if demanding works.
This is not the way things work.
Stop chasing peace and stop chasing love, and your heart becomes full.
Stop trying to be a better person, and you are a better person.
Stop trying to forgive, and forgiveness happens.
Stop and be still.
Adyashanti
the thought...
The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops into habit.
And the habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love,
born out of concern for all beings.
Gautama the Buddha
the path...
"The path is clearly defined
and quite simple to follow;
Yet most lose themselves
in ideological fogs of their own making.
Lao Tzu
in Brian Walker, Tr.
_Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu_, 63
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, p. 80
the world of rings...
The world is made of rings.
The hooks
are all yours.
Make straight your hooks
and nothing can hold you.
Give up your
addictions.
There is nothing else to
give up.
Stop your routine of acquisitive-
ness, your habit of looking for results
and the freedom of the universe is yours.
Be effortless.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
encounter at a hermitage...
I had walked to a hermitage in the Hindu Kush to visit its Sheikh,
and also to see if I could find some way of stilling my doubts about
some way of proving the real existence of the Hidden Path. It was
only after many adventures that I at last came across the friendly
sight of smoke rising through the chimney-hole of that simple
building.
A man, plainly dressed, an honest expression on his face, was
sitting quietly at the door of the hermitage.
He said, "Welcome, brother." Far from feeling glad, I was
disturbed to find so little respect for me in this man, who was
surely a watchman.
"Are you the watchman?" I asked.
"I am called that," he said.
"I am looking for the Ancient, the Guide," I told him.
"I am called that," he answered.
And then I was glad that the great teacher had called me
brother. As we went into the house a small dog ran to the Sheikh's
side, delighted that he had come back.
"Welcome, brother," said the Sheikh to the animal, and I was
again downcast to think that by this greeting I had been put on a
level with the dog, that I had not been honoured at all. But out of
politeness I said nothing, for I was the guest.
Soon we were seated before a bowl of yoghurt; when the Guide
spoke, it was to recite a poem:
"A puff of smoke against a mountain--the heart grows glad.
A kind word to a little dog--the heart grows sad."
I was amazed that he could understand my secret thoughts in this
way, and uneasy, and rather ashamed.
"Teach me," I said.
He answered, "What do I sing, and what does my lute sing? You
and I are not in harmony, although I understand your thoughts. What
have you already taught yourself? What have others taught you? You
are uneasy because you have come so far and at the end of your
journey have found someone who can read your thoughts. And you feel
that perhaps you could learn this power, and then use it to your
heart's content. I seem acceptable to you, as people sometimes
think of doctrines as being acceptable to them. But are you
acceptable to me? People never bother to think that the doctrine may
not accept them."
For the first time I was overcome by real fear; alone with this
man of power in such a lonely place, I began to tremble.
And the Guide continued, "You must go away. You are still too
raw for a teacher to develop; a fruit must be touched by the right
things, by those elements which ripen it. Go away, strive, work in
every possible way. When you are nearer maturity you will be able
properly to understand the experience of our master, Ben-Adhem, who
gave away the throne of Balkh to be with us.
"For he was walking along the road one day when he saw a stone
on the ground. It had written on it, "TURN ME OVER AND READ." So he
picked it up and looked at the other side. And there was
written, "WHY DO YOU SEEK MORE KNOWLEDGE WHEN YOU PAY NO HEED TO WHAT
YOU KNOW ALREADY?"
Turning from the Sage I thought to myself, "I wish that everyone
could have an encounter like this, so that at least it would be
common knowledge that teaching of this kind exists in the world."
He went on, "Often the penalty of knowledge is to be laughed at.
Tell people of our discussion here and they will think you mad. In
this way, real knowledge protects itself."
I made no attempt to shape words, but in my heart, as earnestly
as I could, I framed the thought, "How can I serve?"
And, also without words, Shah Firoz spoke directly to my
heart, "Increase the desire to serve and a chance of service may be
given you."
Only when through frequent effort I had reached this stage did I
realise the true value of my encounter with him who is called "Shah
Firoz"
Firman-Bardar of Badakhshan
as collected by Idries Shah
true being...
When it is said that the mystic's own mental construction is
responsible for the visions he sees,
whether these be of a living guru
distant in space or a dead one distant in time or a scriptural God,
it
is not meant that such construction is a voluntary activity.
On the
contrary, it is both involuntary and subconscious.
This is the
psychological explanation of such phenomena, but what is the
metaphysical one?
This is that the mystic, not having evolved to an
understanding of the formless, timeless, matterless character of true
being, nor to the capacity to concentrate on it, is given a
spaced-timed-shaped image on which to concentrate.
What gives him this
image?
It is his own Overself.
— Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives > Chapter 15: Illuminations > # 104
Paul Brunton
the world of No-place...
I wonder at these people who say,
"How can the saints and
the lovers love that ineffable world, since it has no place or form
and is beyond description?
How can they derive replenishment and aid
from it and be affected by it?"
After all, they themselves are
occupied with the same thing night and day.
Take this person who
loves another person and derives replenishment from her:
After all,
this replenishment, kindness, goodness, knowledge, recollection,
thought, joy, heartache -- he derives all these things, and all dwell
in the world of No-place.
Moment by moment he receives
replenishment from these meanings and is affected by them, but this
does not cause him any wonder.
Yet he wonders how some people are in
love with the world of No-place and draw replenishment from it.
--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Fihi ma fih (The Discourses of Rumi) 38-39/50
Translation by Professor William Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, 1985
awakening...
“All that is necessary to awaken to yourself
as the radiant emptiness of spirit
is to stop seeking something more or better or different,
and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.”
― Adyashanti
the gap...
Present-moment awareness creates a gap not
only in the stream of mind
but also in the past-
future continuum.
Nothing truly new and creative
can come into this world except through that gap,
that clear space of infinite possibility.
- Eckhart Tolle
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Power of Now"
Eckhart Tolle
New World Library, 1999
don't go back to sleep...
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you;
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want;
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep."
Rumi...
My Me...
"My Me is God,
not do I recognize any other Me,
except my God Himself."
St. Catherine of Genoa
in Aldous Huxley
_The Perennial Philosophy_
New York: Harper & Row, 1945, p. 11
you are the creator...
Your strongest held beliefs about "how things
are"
will draw into your life those very experiences
that will work to support and prove your strongest
held beliefs about "how things are."
The Universe loves you so completely that it's
compelled to present itself to you in ways that will
tend to validate your strongest held beliefs
- no matter
how self-limiting or off-the-wall those beliefs might be.
In short, the Universe wants to make you right.
- Chuck Hillig
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003
surrender...
If he turns his problem over to the Overself in unreserved trust,
he must admit no thoughts thereafter of doubt or fear.
If they still knock at his door,
he must respond by remembering his surrender.
— Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life > Chapter 4: Surrender > # 104
Paul Brunton
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