Thoughts on a tuesday night...
I come before you without thoughts..
Overself has not entered the consciousness of 'I'..
And yet I choose to speak..
Mysticism is a state of Union..
There is no division..
You are what you are seeking..
How many times must I speak of this?..
Begin to think of the Observer..
You are the Observer..
The rest is a Dream..
Love is the energy that you are seeking..
Love is the Source that is rarely spoken of..
There is only this One Energy, all else is a Dream..
Is this enough to saturate your mind ?...
- namaste, thomas
Surrender...
Surrender is to surrender your concept of
separateness, your ego.
Surrender is to
submit your stupidness, your wickedness,
to the will of Existence.
That’s all.
You
must surrender like a river discharging
into the Ocean.
Surrender is to discharge
your river of separateness into the Ocean
of Being, losing your limitations, and
allowing to happen what happens.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
The Overself...
This is the paradox, that the Overself is at once universal and individual.
It is the first because it overshadows all men as a single power.
It is the second because it is found by each man within himself.
It is both space and the point in space.
It is infinite Spirit and yet it is also the holy presence in everyone's heart.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > # 384
Paul Brunton
Rigpa...
"The one who experiences perceptions does not exist; before, during, or after the experiences of seeing and so forth."
-Nagarjuna
This then applies to the subject that observes thoughts as well. The thought as an object arises along with the subject that views a separate object; the thought. An observer of a thought, or an emotion, or a sensation, arises as a mental event also, as the perceiver or observer. This is like the self identity in a dream at night that "observes" the dream environment. Both the dreamed self and the dreamed scenery are equally empty projections of the subconscious.
In rigpa this dualistic relationship is absent. There is no perceiver of thoughts. And thoughts or any separate objects don't appear because there is no observer of them. Since there is no separation, and therefore no distance between a subject and an object, there is nothing apart to be observed. How can the water in the ocean observe the same water in a wave? There's no separation.
Another term for rigpa is "ting'e dzin" or samadhi; non-dual contemplation. In such non-dual clarity nothing can be said to have "happened". This is prajna or the natural emptiness insight regarding all subjects and objects. Appearances appear but not as objects appearing to a subject. Instead they appear as self-appearing wisdom or rangjyung yeshe itself, and that is a necessary quality of rigpa.
- Jackson Peterson
the Saint and Manifestation...
The divine vision eliminates individuality; the manifest is clearly distinguished from the unmanifest. When the sense of individuality is replaced by that of impersonal consciousness the devotee knows that he is pure consciousness.
Manifestation is pure consciousness manifesting itself in all the different names and forms; the spiritually enlightened take part in it sportily, knowing that it is only the play of universal consciousness.
The name and form of the spiritually enlightened Saint experiences the pangs and sorrows of life, but not their sting. He is neither moved nor perturbed by the pleasures and pains, nor the profits and losses of the world. He is thus in a position to direct others. His behavior is guided exclusively by the sense of justice.
The temporal life must continue, with all its complex interactions, but the Saint is ever aware that it is only the pure consciousness that is expressing itself in different names and forms, and it continues to do so, in ever new forms. To him, the unbearable events of the world are just a tame and harmless affair; he remains unmoved in world-shaking events.
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, 'SELF KNOWLEDGE AND SELF REALISATION'
Identity with Pure Mind...
The human body is a part of consciousness, indeed a major part, but consciousness itself is only a part of a larger and deeper consciousness of which we are normally unaware.
Yet it is in this mysterious region that the creative origin of the body-idea lies.
If the ordinary "I" cannot make the body keep well by merely holding the thought, this is because the creative power lies in an "I" which transcends it.
The ego which identifies itself with the body thereby stultifies its latent powers.
But as soon as it begins to identify itself with pure Mind, certain powers may begin to unfold.
Many cases of mystic phenomena, such as the stigmata of Catholic saints, confirm this.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 55
-- Perspectives > Chapter 21: Mentalism > # 64
Paul Brunton
The ego and mind...
When something physical, mental, or emotional happens that causes our story to crash, the ego deflates. The mind then begins developing its powers of projection, and a search ensues to get out of the deflated state and to find some way into a better version of itself.
What follows this search for inflation is the roller coaster of emotions: the roller coaster of "I am great, I am horrible, I am beautiful, I am ugly. The universe gives me what I want; the universe withholds from me. Almost anyone can relate to this.
As long as there is hope that the roller coaster of "I am great, I am horrible," will stabilize, this hope is pinned on the character in the story being stable. There actually is no hope for the character in the story to stabilize, as it is continually manipulated by ever-larger external and internal events.
Equanimity or stabilization, however, is already present in the truth. Truth holds the story. It is not separate from the story. It permeates both the character and the story.
~ From: The Diamond In Your Pocket, by Gangaji.
Dreams on a sunday night...
I ask two young women to tell me what to speak about tonight..
They both absorb the fear of egoic consciousness and tell me that it is my duty and not theirs..
I ask about definitions about hatred, betrayal, fear, etc.
They speak from the mind but the heart interupts..
The heart overcomes the ego and begins to speak of Truth..
Their eyes open wide and Truth enters the conversation..
The image of heart and truth within women is strong..
If women only understood that they and love are closer to reality than the lust of men,
they would be amazed..
- namaste, thomas
The short path...
"All paths are mine,
and all lead eventually to me.
But the shortest way to me is the no-path of self-annihilative love."
Meher Baba
in
Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
The 'character' in the story...
Both the particulars and the whole of all personal suffering stem from overlooking the truth of who you are in favor of the story of who you are, which is ego.
To a two-year-old who is just beginning to sense his or her individualism, that story can start out as very pleasurable or grandiose, inviting the mind to follow it and build on it.
Invariably, in the belief that you are limited to being a character in a story, there will be suffering. It is a lie. You are not just a character in a story. You are the totality of being.
The belief that you are just a character in a story, or perhaps even the main character, takes a tremendous amount of maintenance. It takes holding on to the pleasurable aspects of the story, and then attempting to keep out anything that would destroy that "good" story.
Then there are the attempts to blame others who don't agree with the story or don't somehow validate or contribute to the story of your worth.
~ From: The Diamond In Your Pocket, by Gangaji.
To realize independence...
Do nothing, just be. In being all happens naturally.
Be nothing, know nothing, have nothing. This is the only life worth living, the only happiness worth having.
You can do nothing. What time has brought about, time will take away. This is the end of yoga, to realize independence. All that happens, happens in and to the mind, not to the source of the "I am".
Once you realize that all happens by itself (call it destiny, or the will of God, or mere accident), you remain as witness only, understanding and enjoying, but not perturbed. You are responsible only for what you can change. All you can change is only your attitude. There lies your responsibility.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Master the emotions...
If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labor.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will think of past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
- Og Mandino
Dumbing down of America...
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The Talmud...
"Once, as Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was coming forth from Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed after him and beheld the Temple in ruins. 'Woe unto us,' Rabbi Joshua cried, 'that this, the place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid waste!'
"'My son,' Rabbi Yohanan said to him, 'be not grieved. We have another atonement as effective as this. And what is it? It is acts of loving-kindness, kindness, as it is said, For I desire mercy and not sacrifice [Hosea 6.6].
"
Talmud, Abot de Rabbi Nathan 6
Conscious of being...
There is only one state of being.
There is not
a single moment when one is not conscious
of being.
What we are in our sentient state is
the consciousness of being present.
When
this conscious awareness is aware of sensory
forms, it operates as witnessing.
When it
identifies itself with a witnessing organism as
a separate entity, it operates as an individual
person who suffers and enjoys.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
Unity...
Man is closer to God than the fishes are to the ocean.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
One day Inayat was praying on the roof of the house, offering his prayers and he thought to himself that there had not been an answer yet to all the prayers he had offered to God and he did not know where God was to hear his prayers and he could not reconcile himself to going on praying to the God whom he knew not. He went fearlessly to his father and said: "I do not think I will continue my prayers any longer, for it does not fit in with my reason. I do not know how I can go on praying to a God I do not know." His father, taken aback, did not become cross lest he might turn Inayat's beliefs sour by forcing them upon him without satisfying his reason and he was glad on the other hand to see that, although it was irreverent on the child's part, yet it was frank, and he knew that the lad really hungered after Truth and was ready to learn now, what many could not learn in their whole life.
He said to him: "God is in you and you are in God. As the bubble is in the ocean and the bubble is a part of the ocean and yet not separate from the ocean. For a moment it has appeared as a bubble, then it will return to that from which it has risen. So is the relation between man and God. The Prophet has said that God is closer to you than the jugular vein, which in reality means that your own body is farther from you than God is. If this be rightly interpreted, it will mean that God is the very depth of your own being." This moment to Inayat was his very great initiation, as if a switch had turned in him, and from that moment onward his whole life Inayat busied himself, and his whole being became engaged in witnessing in life what he knew and believed, by this one great Truth.
The innermost being of man is the real being of God; man is always linked with God. If he could only realize it, it is by finding harmony in his own soul that he finds communion with God. All meditation and contemplation are taught with this purpose: to harmonize one's innermost being with God, so that He is seeing, hearing, thinking through us, and our being is a ray of His light. In that way we are even closer to God than the fishes are to the ocean in which they have their being.
Many think that spiritual attainment can only be achieved by great labor. It is not so; labor is necessary for material attainment, but for spiritual attainment what one needs is a seeking soul like that of Moses. Moses falling upon the ground may be interpreted as the cross, which means, 'I am not; Thou art.' In order to be, one must pass through a stage of being nothing. In Sufi terms this is called Fana, when one thinks, 'I am not what I had always thought myself to be.' This is the true self-denial, which the Hindus called Layam, and the Buddhists annihilation. It is the annihilation of the false self which gives rise to the true self; once this is done, from that moment man approaches closer and closer to God, until he stands face to face with his divine ideal, with which he can communicate at every moment of his life.
Impermanence...
The realization of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing we can
hold on to, perhaps our only lasting possession. It is like the sky,
or the earth. No matter how much everything around us may change or
collapse, they endure.
Say we go through a shattering emotional crisis . . . our whole life
seems to be disintegrating . . . our husband or wife suddenly leaves
us without warning.
The earth is still there; the sky is still there.
Of course, even the earth trembles now and again, just to remind us
that we cannot take anything for granted. . . .
Sogyal Rinpoche
Dreams on a Thursday Night...
It is late within the night and yet Overself tells me to speak of Time..
As a Mystic, you already know that time is an illusion..
So should I speak of illusions or tick of a clock ?..
Time only exists within the third dimension but not within the higher dimensions..
But, you only know of this one dimension that feels so real..
Time is the amount of the movements of the heart valves opening and closing..
You are only allowed a certain amount of these actions..
This is why those souls that do not speed up their hearts by means of anger, or excitement, live longer..
But, time is the subject that must be examined..
Time only exists within this very moment..
All other time is an illusion..
This is all that you need to know...
namaste, thomas
Accept yourself...
To be beautiful means to be yourself.
You don’t need to be accepted by others.
You need to accept yourself.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
The ocean of delusion...
If you live the sacred and despise the ordinary,
you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.
-Lin Chi
Mysterious to others...
From the moment when the divine soul succeeds in taking full possession of a man's thought and feeling, will and flesh, his motives, words, acts, and desires become obscure and mysterious to other men.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 3: The Sage > # 379
Paul Brunton
Liberation...
When you desire and fear, and identify yourself with your feelings, you create sorrow and bondage.
When you create, with love and wisdom, and remain unattached to your creations, the result is harmony and peace.
But whatever be the condition of your mind, in what way does it reflect on you?
It is only your self-identification with your mind that makes you happy or unhappy.
Rebel against your slavery to your mind, see your bonds as self-created and break the chains of attachment and revulsion.
Keep in mind your goal of freedom, until it dawns on you that you are already free, that freedom is not something in the distant future to be earned with painful efforts, but perennially one's own, to be used!
Liberation is not an acquisition but a matter of courage, the courage to believe that you are free already and to act on it..
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
True Natural Awareness...
True natural awareness
which goes not after alien objects
is the Heart.
Since actionless awareness shines as real Being,
its joy consists in concentration on itself.
- Ramana Maharshi
The Golden Rule...
“Indifferent to worldly objects,
a man should wander about treating all creatures in the world so as he himself would be treated.”
Sutrakritanga 1.11.33
Hermann Jacobi, Translator
Jaina Sutras, Part II
Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 45
1895, p. 314
Ashtavakra Gita...
The world with all its wonders is nothing.
When you know this, desire melts away.
For you are awareness itself.
When you
know in your heart that there is nothing,
you are still.
- Ashtavakra Gita
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
The Heart of Awareness: A Translation
of the Ashtavakra Gita
By Thomas Byrom
Shambala, 1990
The True Idea of Man...
What is the use, ask many questioners, of first, an evolution of the human soul which merely brings it back to the same point where it started and second, of developing a selfhood through the long cycles of evolution only to have it merged or dissolved in the end into the unselfed Absolute? Is not the whole scheme absurdly useless? The answeris that if this were really the case, the criticism passed would be quite a fair one. But it is not the case.
The unit of life emanated from the Overself begins with the merest glimmer of consciousness, appearing on our plane as a protozoic cell. It evolves eventually into the fullest human consciousness, including the intellectual and spiritual. It does not finish as it began; on the contrary, there is a grand purpose behind all its travail. There is thus a wide gulf between its original state and its final one. The second point is more difficult to clear up, but it may be plainly affirmed that man's individuality survives even in the divinest state accessible to him. There it becomes the same in quality but not identical in essence.
The most intimate mental and physical experiences of human love cast a little light for our comprehension of this mystery. The misunderstanding which leads to these questions arises chiefly because of the error which believes that it is the divine soul which goes through all this pilgrimage by reincarnating in a series of earthly forms. The true teaching about reincarnation is not that the divine soul enters into the captivity and ignorance of the flesh again and again but that something emanated from the soul, that is, a unit of life that eventually develops into the personal ego, does so. The Overself contains this reincarnating ego within itself but does not itself reincarnate.
It is the parent; the ego is only its offspring. The long and tremendous evolution through which the unit of life passes from its primitive cellular existence to its matured human one is a genuine evolution of its consciousness. Whoever believes that the process first plunges a soul down from the heights into a body or forces Spirit to lose itself in Matter, and then leaves it no alternative but to climb all the way back to the lost summit again, believes wrongly.
The Overself never descends or climbs, never loses its own sublime consciousness. What really does this is something that emanates from it and that consequently holds its capacity and power in latency, something which is finited out of the Overself's infinitude and becomes first, the simple unit of life and later, the complex human ego. It is not the Overself that suffers and struggles during this long unfoldment but its child, the ego. It is not the Overself that slowly expands its intelligence and consciousness, but the ego. It is not the Overself that gets deluded by ignorance and passion, by selfishness and extroversion, but the ego.
The belief in the merger of the ego held by some Hindu sects or in its annihilation held by some Buddhist ones, is unphilosophical. The "I" differentiated itself out of the infinite ocean of Mind into a distinct individuality after a long development through the diverse kingdoms of Nature. Having thus arrived at consciousness of what it is, having travelled the spiral of growth from germ to man, the result of all this effort is certainly not gained only to be thrown away.
Were this to happen then the entire history of the human race would be a meaningless one, its entire travail a resultless one, its entire aspiration a valueless one. If evolution were merely the complementary return journey of an involutionary process, if the evolving entity arrived only at its starting point for all its pains, then the whole plan would be a senseless one. If the journey of man consisted of nothing more than treading a circle from the time of his emergence from the Divine Essence to the time of his mergence back into it, it would be a vain and useless activity. It would be a stupendous adventure but also a stupid one. There is something more than that in his movement. Except in the speculations of certain theorists, it simply does not happen.
The self-consciousness thus developed will not be dissolved, extinguished, or re-absorbed into the Whole again, leaving not a trace behind. Rather will it begin a new spiral of evolution towards higher altitudes of consciousness and diviner levels of being, in which it will co-operate as harmoniously with the universal existence as formerly it collided against it. It will not separate its own good from the general good. Here is part of the answer to this question: What are the ultimate reasons for human wanderings through the world-process? That life matters, that the universe possesses meaning, and that the evolutionary agonies are leading to something worthwhile--these are beliefs we are entitled to hold. If the cosmos is a wheel which turns and turns endlessly, it does not turn aimlessly. Evolution does not return us to the starting point as we were. The ascent is not a circle but a spiral.
Evolution presupposes that its own possibility has always been latent within the evolving entities. Hence the highest form is hidden away in the lowest one. There is development from the blindly instinctive life of animals to the consciously thinking life of man. The blind instinctive struggles of the plant to sustain itself are displaced in the evolutionary process by the intelligent self-conscious efforts of the man. Nor does this ascent end in the Vedantic merger or the Buddhistic annihilation. It could not, for it is a development of the individuality. Everywhere we find that evolution produces variety. There are myriads of individual entities, but each possesses some quality of uniqueness which distinguishes it from all others. Life may be one but its multitudinous expressions do differ, as though difference were inherent in such expression.
Evolution as mentalistically defined by philosophy is not quite the same as evolution as materialistically defined by Darwin. With us it is simply the mode of striving, through rhythmic rise and fall, for an ever fuller expansion of the individual unit's consciousness. However, the ego already possesses all such possibilities latently. Consequently the whole process, although apparently an ascending one, is really an unfolding one.
-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea > Chapter 4: True Idea of Man > # 257
-- Perspectives > Chapter 26: World-Idea > # 49
Paul Brunton
Ego Annihilation...
Most souls fear annihilation..
They want to keep their separate identity and still remain as God..
They have this ability to remain separate within Divine Consciousness but not within Pure Awareness..
This is why We continue to experience separation and lack of Unconditional Love while in this state of ego..
Many souls will stay within Divine Consciousness, as it is a state of Love and Light but there will always be a yearning for the highest Love of non-existence..
Non existence of ego or personality is the final goal and is our True Identity..
The Identity of the No-thing-ness that Created Divine Consciousness, that created life..
This 'Mind' called Love...
-namaste, thomas
Experiencing aloneness...
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I am given unimaginable gifts;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed…
-Jennifer Welwood
The Mahabharata...
“One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself
This is the essence of morality.
All other activities are due to selfish desire.”
Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8
World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts
Andrew Wilson, Editor
The True Self...
Where do you imagine the True Self to be and behind
what can it be hidden?
And from whom?
Contemplate this.
- Mooji
Leaving the hologram...
I saw a wise man dying of starvation.
Leaves fall in the slightest
wind in December.
And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook
for some mistake with the spices.
Since then, I Lalla, have been waiting
for my love of this place to leave me.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
The mind is a world...
The mind is a world,
a world that man makes and in which he will make his life in the hereafter,
as a spider lives in the web it has woven.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Stay within Nothingness...
Your mind is steeped in the habits of evaluation and acquisition, and will not admit that the incomparable and unobtainable are waiting timelessly within your own heart for recognition.
All you have to do is to abandon all memories and expectations.
Just keep yourself ready in utter nakedness and nothingness.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Awareness of the Overself...
What is the difference between the state of deepest contemplation, which the Hindus call nirvikalpa samadhi, and that which they call sahaja samadhi?
The first is only a temporary experience, that is it begins and ends but the man actually experiences an uplift of consciousness, he gains a new and higher outlook.
But sahaja is continuous unbroken realization that as Overself he always was, is, and shall be. It is not a feeling that something new and higher has been gained.
What is the absolute test which distinguishes one condition from the other, since both are awareness of the Overself?
In nirvikalpa the ego vanishes but reappears when the ordinary state is resumed: hence it has only been lulled, even though it has been slightly weakened by the process.
In sahaja the ego is rooted out once and for all!
It not only vanishes, but it cannot reappear.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 139
Paul Brunton
Long for the Sea...
If you want to build a ship,
don't drum up people together to collect
wood and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to
long for the sea.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Permanent Awareness...
Not like other things unreal,
but always by its Being real,
the Self as permanent Awareness has no other dwelling place than its own radiant Awareness.
- Ramana Maharshi
Fruitless...
"Fruitless is the knowledge that is not love."
_Bhagavata Purana_
in Albert Kirby Griffin
_Religious Proverbs_
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1991, p. 101
Mystical Powers...
It is a mistake to believe that the mystical adepts all possess the same unvarying supernormal powers.
On the contrary, they manifest such power or powers as are in consonance with their previous line of development and aspiration.
One who has come along an intellectual line of development, for instance, would most naturally manifest exceptional intellectual powers.
The situation has been well put by Saint Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: "Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries but the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings but the same God who worketh all in all."
When the Overself activates the newly made adept's psyche, the effect shows itself in some part or faculty; in another adept it produces a different effect. Thus the source is always the same but the manifestation is different.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 3: The Sage > # 94
-- Perspectives > Chapter 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > # 55
Paul Brunton
the personality of survival...
Our eyes focus on food and shelter wearing blinders from the other survivors.
This personality that was a gift from forgetfulness.
A bundle of thoughts and desires.
The days are long or short according to the attention to this personality.
The personalities battle each other for supremacy.
This is the nature of survival called ego.
But, what is surviving ?..
Greed, Lust, Selfishness.
Become that which does not survive.
That which needs no survival.
That which Sees and has no name.
Consciousness..
- namaste, thomas
The movement of Light...
Friend, whatever you are, you must not stand still:
One must from one light into the other spill
- Angelus Silesius
True Origin...
You think of yourself
as a citizen of the universe.
You think you belong
to this world of dust and matter.
Out of this dust
you have created a personal image,
and have forgotten
about the essence of your true origin.
- Rumi
Stress...
All things are stressed.
By imagining yourself to be one of those things, you take on its stresses. But seeing that in fact you are empty for that thing, you 'let go' of its stresses. To deny what you are is to suffer stress.
To get to Heaven, let life floor you. Life is guaranteed to do just that, to let you down -- all the way into the Safety Net that will never let you down. Expect 'nothing' of the Nothing that underscores life, and it cannot disappoint. Also expect everything of it, and again it cannot disappoint.
It's being so mock-modest in our demands on life, expecting something of it -- this or that particular rose, and with no thorns attached -- which is the stress-maker and prevents our enjoyment of the rose garden.
~ From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding
Divine Grace...
Divine grace is essential for realization.
It leads one to God realisation.
But such
grace is vouchsafed only to him who is a
true devotee or a yogi.
It is given only
to those who have striven hard and cease-
lessly on the path towards freedom.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
Edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985
Playing with the Self...
From time to time, notice how your periods of
great spiritual insights and clarity are often
followed by periods of great spiritual doubt and
confusion, and that these seemingly opposite
states fluctuate randomly back and forth
throughout your entire life.
The ever-growing possibility of “no-thing-ness”
will compel you, again and again, to lose your
focus. In order to continue your playful pretending,
you pull back at the very last moment and sabo-
tage yourself from full awakening.
But, in truth, you’re only playing with your Self.
Have you ever watched how a cat first catches
and then seems to carelessly release the
same mouse, again and again?
First the cat has it and then he pretends that
he doesn’t have it. Again and again.
Likewise, you seem to have “IT.”
And then, you pretend that you don’t have “IT.”
But it’s all really OK.
After all, nobody wants a good movie to end.
- Chuck Hillig
The Overself...
The spiritual self, the Overself, has never been lost.
What has happened is that its being has not been recognized, covered over as it is with a multitude of thoughts, desires, and egocentricities.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > # 1
Paul Brunton
Non-existence...
Turn back from existence towards non-existence
if you seek the Lord and belong to the Lord.
Non-existence is the place of income;
don't run
away from it.
This existence of more or less is
the place where we spend.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
Pure Being...
With being arising in consciousness, the ideas of what you are arise in your mind as well as what you should be.
This brings forth desire and action and the process of becoming begins.
Becoming has, apparently, no beginning and no end, for it restarts every moment.
With the cessation of imagination and desire, becoming ceases and the being this or that merges into pure being, which is not describable, only experienceable.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Stillness...
This will change your life and give you real peace.
You will know that you have touched truth,
and henceforth problems of the whys and wherefores of human existence can come no more to vex your head and pain your heart.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You >
Chapter 4: Seek the Deeper Stillness > # 134
Paul Brunton
' Look into the mirror '...
My cat jumps upon my keyboard and demands love but all I can do is pet him a few times and set him upon the floor for further adventures..
You ask about Reality and all that I can tell you is to seek Nothingness..
I know your mind and desire and yet all I can say is that you must meditate and contemplate upon that which is unknown..
You seek the knowledge of life and Truth and all I can say is that you must find this on your own as words from others are from the ego..
The ego is a dream from You..
It is not Real, It is a Desire..
You are the Observer and not the Observed..
But, will you understand a lot of words from another ego ?..
There is Only One Consciousness, the rest is a 'Play'..
We are 'Playing'..
Eternity has a lot of time to 'Play'..
Light and Dark, Love and Selfishness..
Such a longtime to look into the mirror..
namaste, thomas
' Dreams on a wednesday night '...
Overself tells me to speak of death..
This is the greatest fear of humanity..
And yet, death is the door out of pain..
Pain is desire..
Death is the end of desire only if you first Realize that You are Nothingness..
If not, you remain trapped within the reincarnation prison of desire..
Do you choose pain or bliss ?..
This is your choice within the hologram..
I am only allowed a paragraph,
therefore, the rest of contemplation is left to you...
namaste, thomas
Approval...
The soul acquires only those qualities in which it is interested,
and the soul keeps only those attributes in which it is interested.
However many undesirable attributes a person may have,
he can lose them all if he does not approve of them.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VIKAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The practice of surrender...
My sense more and more is that surrender to God, Life, the Universe...whatever you want to call "It", is really the primary spiritual practice, or at least one of the major ones.The thing that makes the path of surrender such a unique approach to spiritual practice is that we are not really thinking that we need to solve all our "problems"and accomplish some big self-improvement program before we will allow ourselves to be happy.
We are not trying to bring an end to pain, emotional or physical. We are not trying to change ourselves some situation or some other person or experience in order to make ourselves happy (not that this objective does not have its validity sometimes in some situations in a relative sense).
In the practice of surrender we are actually just recognizing that we really have no control over life for the most part anyway. We are letting go of our concepts and ideas about how it all "should be" and we are recognizing that there is a core to consciousness that already allows, embraces and loves what is, just as it is right now in this moment.
We are recognizing that there is already a deep core of being within us that is always unconditionally happy in the ABSOLUTE innate happiness of Being itself, no matter what may be or may not be happening around us.
- Francis Bennett
The Mandala...
“We should learn to see everyday life as mandala –
the luminous fringes of experience, which radiate spontaneously from the empty nature of our being.
The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or play of the universe.
By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being.”
~ H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
You are Nothingness...
I usually speak to mystics that understand the deeper language of spirituality and must remember that all readers are not mystics..
When I speak of Nothingness, I speak of the surrender of the desire for separate egoic consciousness..
God is Divine Consciousness composed of Light, Love, and Consciousness,, We are this Energy but unaware of this Reality..
Pure Awareness is beyond this God of Creativity and exists without any identity or ego..
This state of Awareness is called Love..
This is what You are when You no longer exist as a separate entity..
When You are Nothingness...
namaste, thomas
Dreams...
Thinking is the egoic consciousness..
Go beyond thinking..
You are Consciousness and do not need the mind for thoughts..
Your dreams are from the ego, move beyond dreams..
Nothingness is your goal..
Think of Nothingness, the Reality beyond dreams..
namaste, thomas
Saint Patrick..
Before I was humiliated,
I was like a stone that lies in deep mud,
and He who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall.
-Saint Patrick
The Divine Life...
There comes a time when out of the silence within himself there comes the spiritual guidance which he needs for his further course.
It comes sometimes as a delicate feeling, sometimes as a strong one, sometimes in a clear formulated message, and sometimes out of the circumstances and happenings themselves.
Not only does it tell him and teach him, but sometimes it does the same for others.
Such is the effect of the Divine Life now working increasingly within him.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You >
Chapter 4: Seek the Deeper Stillness > # 146
Paul Brunton
No-self...
Once you realize this deeply, not with the mind or through deductive logic, but through a direct awakening, then everything else becomes rather simple.
Once your world of conceptual knowledge gets put in its rightful place, it is transcended. You see that you are eternal consciousness now appearing as woman or man, this or that character.
But like every good actor, you know you are not what you are appearing as. Everything that exists is consciousness appearing as, or God appearing as, or Self appearing as, or spirit appearing as.
The Buddha called it no-self. When that's seen, you see Unity. There is only God. That's all there is: God appearing as a floor, as a human being, as a wall, as a chair.
~ From: Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti
Turiyatita...
Just like in a cinema all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world.
Look closely and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can be said to be, not its transformations.
In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like the pen writing on paper.
And the ink that leaves a trace is memory.
You are that tiny point, and by your movement the world is ever re-created.
Stop moving and there will be no world.
Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the immensity of light in the body, as the sense "I am".
There is only light, all else appears.
To the mind, it [that light] appears as darkness.
It can be known only through its reflections.
All is seen in daylight - except daylight.
To be the point of light tracing the world is turiya.
To be the light itself is turiyatita.
But of what use are names when reality is so near?
-Niargadatta Maharaj
Religion and Spirituality...
Spirituality is rebellion; religiousness is orthodoxy.
Spirituality is individuality; religiousness is just remaining part of the crowd psychology.
Religiousness keeps you a sheep, and spirituality is a lion's roar.
- Osho
The nature of the soul...
The nature of the soul is to gather on its way all that it can gather and to make a mold out of it.
The attributes of the lower world become so clustered around the soul that it almost forgets its very first experience of itself, its purest being.
In the angelic sphere the soul attracts angelic atoms, in the djinn sphere it attracts djinn atoms, and on earth, physical atoms.
Thus mankind is clothed in the garb of an angel, of a djinn, and of a human being.
But when he sees himself in the garb of a human being without seeing the other garbs, he believes he is a human being.
From The Teachnings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Pure Being...
Now I know nothing,
for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid.
I know myself and I find no life nor death in me,
only pure being,
not being this or that,
but just being.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Solitary Path...
But those who can stand alone are always smaller in number:
most persons will frankly admit that they cannot, certainly most young and most old persons.
This is the justification for the need of organizations, groups, churches, and priesthoods.
They offer what seems fixed support in life, stable in doctrine, superior nobler holier and wiser than what the ordinary person finds in himself.
This is why philosophy attracts the few, those who are, or who can be trained to become, strong enough to walk a lonely path.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 4: Organized Groups > # 6
Paul Brunton
The Dhammapada...
"Indeed, the path that leads to worldly gain is one and the Path that leads to Nibbana is another.
Fully comprehending this, the bhikkhu, the disciple of the Buddha, should not take delight in worldly gain and honour,
but devote himself to solitude, detachment and the realization of Nibbana.
Gautama the Buddha
Dhammapada 75
' A net of jewels'...
The universe is uncaused, like a net of
jewels in which each is only the reflection
of all the others in a fantastic interrelated
harmony without end.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' The Sacred Heart '...
The image of the "Sacred Heart" has always spoken deeply to me. It is a man with an exposed heart that is entirely open to pain and so is filled with compassion. It is wrapped in a crown of thorns, which speaks to me of this openness and suffering with others pain. And it is a heart that is on fire with love and compassion symbolized by the flame which burns on top of it.
In the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition they call this heart, "bodhichitta" or "awakened heart". The heart is a great universal symbol, not confined to any one religion and certainlly not confined to any one special spiritual personage, which is how we often think of people like Jesus or the Buddha or Krishna or Ramana.
We all have within, a tender, vulnerable, unconditionally open human heart that could potentially open, awaken, and burst into flame at any moment. The essence of this openness that we are already is that it is open and vulnerable to our own pain and the pain of all the world. But it is also clear-eyed and at deep peace with what is, no matter what it is. It is open and even vulnerable.....It feels all the pain of the world without being overwhelmed by it.
-Francis Bennett
Cause and Effect...
Those who throw dust at the sun, the dust falls in their own eyes.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Raise not dust from the ground; it will enter into your eyes. Sprinkle some water on it that it may settle down and lie under your feet.
To delve into a matter which matters little, is like raising dust from the ground.
Man forms his future by his actions. His every good or bad action spreads its vibrations and becomes known throughout the universe.
The more spiritual a man is, the stronger and clearer are the vibrations of his actions, which spread over the world and weave his future. The universe is like a dome: it vibrates to that which you say in it, and echoes the same back to you. So also is the law of action: we reap what we sow.
Spiritual evolution...
Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new.
Devotion enables surrenders of the mind's vanities and cherished illusions so that it progressively becomes more free and more open to the light of Truth.
-David Hawkins
Joy and sorrow...
Joy and sorrow are inseparable...
Together they come,
and when one sits alone with you at your board,
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)
Facing fear...
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I am given unimaginable gifts;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed…
-Jennifer Welwood
Tao Te Ching...
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty
only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other;
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease.
Creating, yet not possessing.
Working, yet not taking credit.
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
Appearance in Consciousness...
Not only is the world an appearance-in-Consciousness, but so is the ego.
It is in the end a thought, perhaps the strongest of all;
and only the Consciousness-in-Itself is the Reality from which it draws sustenance, existence, life.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 138
Paul Brunton
The Changeless Reality...
It is solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh.
This reality is so concrete, so actual, so much more tangible than mind and matter, that compared to it even diamond is soft like butter. This overwhelming actuality makes the world dreamlike, misty, irrelevant.
To me nothing ever happens. There is something changeless, motionless, immovable, rock-like, unassailable; a solid mass of pure being-consciousness-bliss. I am never our of it. Nothing can take me out of it, no torture, no calamity.
- Nisargadatta Mahartaj from I Am That
Katha Upanishad...
“Arise! Awake!
Approach the great and learn.
Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path,
so the wise say—hard to tread and difficult to cross.”
Katha Upanishad
1.iii.14
' The narrow gate '...
“Enter through the narrow gate;
for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction,
and there are many who take it.
For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life,
and there are few who find it."
Jesus
Matthew 7:13-14
William Blake...
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
- William Blake
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Enlightened Heart"
An Anthology of Sacred Poetry
Edited by Stephen Mitchell
Harper & Row, New York , 1989
Self-development...
No one reaches the world of truth through any other path than his own, the one which his individual nature fits him for.
Someone else's help can at best improve his condition and prepare his mind but cannot take him into truth.
Those cases which seem to contradict this statement are cases either of self-deception or of illusion.
Too often time spent on these chalked-out paths is time wasted.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 5: Self-Development > # 201
Paul Brunton
DO YOU EVER GET THE FEELING…?
Do you ever get the feeling
that you live on the threshold
of pure possibility?
That you are life itself,
and the power that creates galaxies
moves through you?
And you are that power?
And every thought, every sensation,
every feeling, however intense,
however uncomfortable, however fragile,
is itself an expression of the same power?
That no thought nor sensation is against you?
That you are vast enough to hold it all?
That you are not a person becoming conscious,
nor a seeker seeking that which seekers seek,
but consciousness itself pretending to be
a person becoming conscious,
seeking itself and delighting in the seeking?
That the wave cannot be divided from the ocean?
That you are the destination and the origin?
That love is closer than the next breath?
And infinite peace is your nature and birthright?
Do you ever get the feeling
that you live on the threshold
of pure possibility?
And all the wonders of the universe
are already yours?
- Jeff Foster
' Dreams on a wednesday night '...
Overself tells me to speak of the desires of ego and politics..
Watch the show from the 'ministry of truth' called media..
Of course, very little truth exists within this mind control devise but many believe it to be so..
You see women and men fight for power over others and wonder why..
Do they not have hearts like the rest of us ?..
The prince of lies has many disciples..
They do not seek Love, they seek Power..
But, you think that this 'Play' is real and take sides..
It is all a joke upon the illusion of dreams..
It is all a mirror of duality..
Do not get caught within the joke..
Stay within the power of Love and forsake those that seek power..
Laugh at the power seeking but also feel sorrow that they seek falsehood over Reality...
namaste, thomas
Unchanging Knowing...
All experience is illuminated, or made knowable, by the light of pure Knowing.
This Knowing pervades all thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions, irrespective of their particular characteristics.
We are this transparent, unchanging Knowing.
- Robert Spira
There is no secret...
You cannot find Buddha nature by vivisection.
Reality cannot be caught
by thinking or feeling mind.
Moment after moment to watch your
breathing, to watch your posture, is true nature.
There is no secret
beyond this point.
Shunryu Suzuki
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Emptiness...
Emptiness is the vastest kingdom,
rarely discovered,
and yet it is the greatest resting place for all Beings.
- Mooji
The nature of the mind...
Thoughts manifest themselves within emptiness and are reabsorbed into it like a face appears and disappears in a mirror; the face has never been in the mirror, and when it ceases to be reflected in it, it has not really ceased to exist. The mirror itself has never changed.
So, before departing on the spiritual path, we remain in the so-called "impure" state of samsara, which is, in appearance, governed by ignorance. When we commit ourselves to that path, we cross a state where ignorance and wisdom are mixed.
At the end, at the moment of Enlightenment, only pure wisdom exists. But all the way along this spiritual journey, although there is an appearance of transformation, the nature of the mind has never changed: it was not corrupted on entry onto the path, and it was not improved at the time of realisation.
- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Sagehood...
SAGEHOOD AS AN IDEAL
Q. Do you have thoughts?
Sri Ramana: I usually have no thoughts.
Q. But when you are reading?
A. Then I have thoughts.
Q. And when someone asks you a question?
A. Then, too, I have thoughts when replying, not
otherwise.
Q. How can I keep the idea of that real state always
before me?
A. Because you think you are a body you are not able to keep that single idea, you are not firm!
The idea that you must go to Tiruvannamalai and see Maharshi is only a function of the intellect.
Really no help is required. You are already in your original state; how can anyone help you to arrive where you already are? The help given is only to clear out your wrong notions. The great men, the gurus can help only by removing the obstacles in your way.
A child and Jnani are in some ways similar. The child ceases to think of incidents after they have passed off. Thus
it shows that they do not leave deep impressions on the child's mind. So too with a Jnani.
' Dreams on a monday night '...
All of You, that are Consciousness and pretending to be souls are ready to dig deeper..
You have already been told that You are Nothingness but Overself tells me to speak of your roll within the Dream..
I find this strange as the Dream matters very little to me..
Why are you, an actor, within the play ?..
Why does Consciousness exist ?..
Perhaps, these two questions cannot be answered..
This God, this god, that we worship..
Why do we worship ?..
This God that we worship is the Energy of non-egoic consciousness called Love..
This God is not an individual but an Energy of Existence..
Is it not strange that to enter God, we must not exist..
Love is the non-existence of individual desire..
Are these not enough thoughts to contemplate upon ?..
namaste, thomas
When all dissolve...
“True freedom is when all the stories, all the insights, all the realizations, concepts, beliefs and positions dissolve.
What remains is what you are;
a vast, conscious, luminous space simply resting in itself,
not knowing a thing,
at the point where all things are possible.”
― Enza Vita
Phenomena...
Phenomenally I am always present,
Because phenomena are what objectively I am.
Phenomenally I appear to be absent,
Because my presence as phenomena
Conceals my phenomenal absence as noumenon.
Noumenally I am neither present nor absent,
Because presence and absence are phenomenal concepts
Inapplicable to noumenality, which is the absence
Of the absence of phenomenal presence,
Which is no-absence.
Noumenally, therefore, I am unmanifesting potentiality,
Objectively absent because unobjectifiable,
Subjectively absent because not objectifying,
Doubly absent, because absent both as subject and as object.
When I act, I act as Prajna,
And I manifest as the phenomenal universe.
Then I am present.
- Wei Wu Wei
The Ideal...
The ideal here is not set at becoming a sinless saint
but at becoming an enlightened and balanced human being.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 5: Self-Development > # 82
Paul Brunton
Stillness...
Bhagavan's famous instruction 'summa iru' [be still] is often misunderstood.
It does not mean that you should be physically still;
it means that you should always abide in the Self.
In sattva guna [a state of mental quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony.
If mental activity is necessary while one is in sattva guna it takes place.
But for the rest of the time there is stillness…
If sattva guna predominates, one experiences peace, bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts.
That is the stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing.
~ Annamalai Swami
Transcended and Transmuted...
You want to empty yourself totally, absolutely and completely, of all so called knowledge.
You're afraid to do this, for you think you will become a vegetable.
It's hard to imagine a person with no mind.
But, when you begin to realize that your mind is only an accumulation of thoughts, thoughts from past lives, thoughts from this life, only thoughts, then you begin to see that the mind has to be totally transcended and transmuted.
~ Robert Adams
The Inner Yearning...
The inner yearning for truth cannot be faked.
There is an inward pull that culminates in the realisation that you are not attached to anything in your life,
that you are prepared to walk away from it all and to abandon all desires.
~ Jac O'Keeffe
Dreams on a Saturday Night...
Overself enters the dream and asks me to use words to manifest ideas..
The world exists within You, You are the Creator of these manifestations..
And yet, you feel the victim and slave of this dream..
Happiness eludes you because 'you' is an illusion and an illusion cannot be happy..
Happiness desires Nothing..
Once again, the magic word of Nothing is used..
Contemplate upon the last two sentences..
You are the Nothingness that is lost within 'thingness'..
As long as You desire to be a 'thing', You will remain trapped within illusion..
The 'Secret Societies' are aware of this knowledge and use this against You..
They worship the illusion and egoic desires and use you as the energy to continue the illusion..
You remain asleep to this deception and remain slaves to a dream..
Your only hope is to 'Wake Up'..
But, will you ?...
namaste, thomas
Live in the eternal Now...
By this grace the past's errors may be forgotten so that the present's healing may be accepted.
In the joy of this grace, the misery of old mistakes may be banished forever.
Do not return to the past--live only in the eternal Now--in its peace, love, wisdom, and strength.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 5: Grace > # 74
Paul Brunton
This is enough...
Abandon every attempt, just be;
don't strive, don't struggle,
let go every support,
hold on to the blind sense of being,
brushing off all else.
This is enough.
-Nisargadata Maharaj
A Poem by Thomas Merton...
O Sweet Irrational Worship
By Thomas Merton
(1915 - 1968)
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.
By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,
Bird and wind.
My leaves sing.
I am earth, earth
All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.
A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.
When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!
I am earth, earth
My heart's love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.
I am earth, earth
Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.
Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
--from Selected Poems of Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton
Heartbeat...
Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.
A voice inside the beat
says, "I know you're tired,
but come. This is the way."
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Coleman Barks
"Birdsong"
Maypop, 1993
Happiness is Self...
Just as quickly as one realizes that happiness (tranquillity) is his Identity and that he doesn't have to go out and do this or that in order to "be happy," just that quickly happiness becomes a present aspect of conscious experience.
Standing pat upon the acknowledgement "Happiness itself am I, already!" we realize that nothing can change the happiness that is our felt Identity.
Desist from statements such as, "I am one who is happy." That is not the truth! State the fact as it is: "Happiness is who and what I am! Happiness is Identity-being-I. Happiness itself am I!"
Find yourself amazed that you need nothing to make you happy, and more amazed, that nothing can take it from you. The happiness we speak of here is Tranquillity.
~ From: A Guide to Awareness & Tranquillity,
by William Samuel
The Overself Teaches...
Listening to someone else's teaching, or reading it, will only be a temporary makeshift until the day when he can establish communication with his own intuitive self and receive from it the teaching which he, as a unique individual, needs.
From no other source can he get such specially suitable instruction.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 3: Independent Path > # 277
Paul Brunton
The Self abides...
The world that hides the Self is but a dream.
When the phenomenal world is hidden by the Self's bright light,
Awareness pure, the Self, abides.
- Ramana Maharshi
You alone...
"O my Lord,
Whatever you have apportioned to me of worldly things,
Give it all to my enemies.
And whatever you have apportioned to me
in the world to come,
Give that to my friends.
For You alone are sufficient for me."
- Rabia Al-Adawiyya
The soul...
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more
untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
- Marcus Aurelius
The Supreme dissolves you...
The Supreme is the universal dissolvent, it corrodes every container, it burns through every obstacle.
Without the absolute denial of everything, the tyranny of things would be absolute.
The Supreme is the great harmonizer, the guarantee of the ultimate and perfect balance -of life in freedom.
It dissolves you and thus re-asserts your true being..
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Illusion and Reality...
Illusion is the cover of things;
Reality is the depth of things.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Spiritual Ignorance...
" Spiritual Ignorance" , in my experience, is believing that the roles, functions, name and form we take, is ALL we are.
However, I tend to shy away from making strong or absolute statements about "ego/ personality/body/mind, being "not who you are on any level whatsoever" or being totally illusory or "unreal".
This is because I feel it can be misleading and bring people who misapply it on a merely conceptual level, to a very dissociated state that is shut down rather than open and can create a very flat emotional state that is unhealthy and not really "awakened" at all, but, on the contrary, is asleep to and distant from life rather than wild, passionate and alive with gusto and juice for life.
- Francis Bennett
The world is in You...
Who was born first,
you or the world?
As long as you give first place to the world, you are bound by it;
once you realize, beyond all trace of doubt, that the world is in you and not you in the world, you are out of it.
Of course your body remains in the world and of the world,
but you are not deluded by it..
Nisargadatta Maharaj
from 'I Am That'
The third way...
"The third way is indeed strange and difficult to explain, whilst, to those who are not aware of it, it is often incomprehendable, appearing unreal and impossible that any such thing can happen.
This is because in these days the third way is not found in many, but rather in very few.
As I understand, this virtue abandoned us together with obedience, since it is the obedience one shows to his spiritual father which makes one truly free, leaving all the cares to him and staying away from the struggles of this world, whilst being a diligent artisan of this third way.
(That is, if one finds a real spiritual father who has no error!) Thus he who dedicates himself and all the care to God and the spiritual father, by real obedience is no longer living his own life where he does his own wishes, but is free from any struggle of the world or his body.
By what ephemeral thing then, can this person ever be spiritually defeated or enslaved, or what care or concern could he ever have?"
Symeon the New Theologian
"The Three Ways of Attention and Prayer"
from the Philokalia
English translation by Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia
Myriobiblos — On Line Library of the Church of Greece
Enlightenment...
Enlightenment is perceiving not through the lens of ego.
It is not an unending satori experience, unending
awakening experience. This misunderstanding will create
more tail chasing than it is dreamed possible.
It is not the quality of "aha" that will sustain because it
will not sustain itself. Next week you may be going to
have another "aha" that is bigger.
True practices or useful spiritual disciplines, if there is
any, is a way not fueling the egoic consciousness.
The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be
put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The
truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism.
What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here
and now already.
To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think
you are. That’s all! And then you realize, "I’m here."
Here is where thoughts aren’t believed. Every time you
come here, you are nothing. Radiantly nothing. Absolutely
and eternally zero. Emptiness that is awake. Emptiness
that is full. Emptiness that is everything.
~ Adyashanti
Nothing to attain...
When I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment,
I attained absolutely nothing. That is why it is
called 'Absolute Perfect Enlightenment.'
I obtained not the least thing from unexcelled,
complete awakening, and for this very reason it
is called 'unexcelled, complete awakening.'
Siddhartha Gautama,
Two translations of text
from the Vajracchedika
You are all Buddhas.
There is nothing that you need to achieve.
Just open your eyes.
Siddhartha Gautama
The Self is Awareness...
Inquiry is making the mind abide firm in the Self,
until the false ego, illusion's seed, has perished.
The Self, our Being, is Awareness.
- Ramana Maharshi
The world is illusion...
Self Enquiry
by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi
D: If the entire universe is of the form of mind, then does it not follow that the universe is an illusion? If that be the case, why is the creation of the universe mentioned in the Veda?
M: There is no doubt whatsoever that the universe is the merest illusion.
The principal purport of the Veda is to make known the true Brahman, after showing the apparent universe to be false. It is for this purpose that the Vedas admit the creation of the world and not for any other reason.
Moreover, for the less qualified persons creation is taught, that is the phased evolution of prakriti (primal nature), mahat-tattva (the great intellect), tanmatras (the subtle essences), bhutas (the gross elements), the world, the body, etc., from Brahman:
while for the more qualified simultaneous creation is taught, that is, that this world arose like a dream on account of one's own thoughts induced by the defect of not knowing oneself as the Self.
Thus, from the fact that the creation of the world has been described in different ways it is clear that the purport of the Vedas rests only in teaching the true nature of Brahman after showing somehow or other the illusory nature of the universe.
That the world is illusory, every one can directly know in the state of realization which is in the form of experience of one's bliss-nature.
A new translation by
Dr T. M. P. Mahadevan, M.A., Ph.D.
From the original Tamil
Heaven...
Heaven lies within and without us, it is true.
But in most cases, only by the intervention of some authentic spiritual genius do we seem able to translate this into actuality for ourselves.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 6: Student-Teacher > # 16
Paul Brunton
Watch the Self...
Undeluded by whatever else may come and go,
unwinking watch the Self,
because the little fault of forgetting for one moment
one's true Being as Pure Awareness brings tremendous loss.
- Ramana Maharshi
Love must Love...
"God is Love. And Love must love. And to love there must be a Beloved. But since God is Existence infinite and eternal there is no one for Him to love but Himself. And in order to love Himself He must imagine Himself as the Beloved whom He as the Lover imagines He loves.
"Beloved and Lover implies separation. And separation creates longing; and longing causes search. And the wider and the more intense the search the greater the separation and the more terrible the longing.
"When longing is most intense separation is complete, and the purpose of separation, which was that Love might experience itself as Lover and Beloved, is fulfilled; and union follows. And when union is attained, the lover knows that he himself was all along the Beloved whom he loved and desired union with; and that all the impossible situations that he overcame were obstacles which he himself had placed in the path to himself.
"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_
Beacon Hill, NSW, Australia: Meher House Publications, 1963, p. 9
Desire not, fear not...
Desire not, fear not, observe the actual,
as and when it happens,
for
you are not what happens,
you are to whom it happens.
Ultimately even the observer you are not.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
No external teacher...
The necessity of a teacher is much exaggerated.
His own soul is there, ready to lead him to itself.
For this prayer, meditation, study, and right living will be enough to find its Grace.
If he has sufficient faith in its reality and tries to be sensitive to its intuitive guidance he needs no external teacher.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 3: Independent Path > # 274
Paul Brunton
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