Talks with Ramana...
D.: There must be stage after stage of progress for gaining the Absolute.
Are there grades of Reality?
M.: There are no grades of Reality. There are grades of experience
for the jiva and not of Reality. If anything can be gained anew, it
could also be lost, whereas the Absolute is central - here and now.
Talks with Ramana #139
Enlightenment...
"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_
Asheville, NC: MANifestation, v. 18, p. 6235
Ennoble our Soul...
There are ages of aristocracy and there are ages of democracy of all kinds, not only in regard to government but also in regard to religion.
There is however no doubt that the aristocratic form of religion has always been misused.
This happens when the religious authority turns religion into a means, an instrument to keep the people under a certain law for worldly purposes.
Then naturally that aristocracy breaks down and there comes a time of democracy.
And it is necessary that religious democracy should come, because it is in religious democracy that fulfillment of the religious ideal lies.
Religious democracy means that no one should ever think that he is human while someone else is divine and that God is in heaven, unattainable, imperceptible, and far away from his soul.
He must realize that divinity is in his soul, that God is within him, that his soul can expand because he is not different from God, nor is God different from him.
Only the danger of democracy is when it comes too soon, before a person is ripe, then it brings disaster; for man’s natural progress is to follow his highest ideal, but when he is blinded by the spirit of democracy he becomes so agitated that he wishes to break that ideal.
He comes down instead of going up....The main purpose of life is to ennoble our soul.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Beyond Christmas...
Here we are, beyond the lights, presents, and parents..
And yet, we think little of the birth of the Philosopher..
The Zoroastrian Mystics that carried gifts to the infant, become the focus of this day..
The 'Star' of direction was the Consciousness of Reality..
We live in a fog and yet, there are a few that see beyond the day..
What is the meaning of this day?..
We lay confused within the egoic illusions of grasping for desires..
And yet, the refusal of desires is the map Home..
How foolish, we are..
The Star that we follow contains no desire of gifts,
we give the gift of our 'self'..
and we receive the gift of 'Everything'..
How strange, that we have confused this Truth..
namaste, thomas
We Are Asleep!...
Impossible to believe as we stare at this screen before us..
We awoke this morning from the nothingness and into the illusion of materiality..
All of this time, we firmly believe that we are awake in reality..
We pass through this day wondering why we are here..
Perhaps, instead of crying at our unknowing,
We should laugh at our ignorance..
As all of the Mystic Masters have told you,
" The answer is within"..
Within what?..
The Heart and Mind..
This is why you are here..
The mind will lead you to the 'Door'
The heart will open the 'Door'..
As the Nazarene said;
" Knock and the Door shall be opened"..
The mind is the ego that desires to exist but still seeks freedom..
The Heart is Divine Consciousness that offers freedom to the mind..
The mind is troubled by this decision between annihilation of it's existence and
the freedom that is promised by this sacrifice of existence..
Reality is beyond the mind (ego),
To view Reality, the mind (ego) must dissolve into nothingness...
Courage is the name given to those that fear and yet still proceed..
Are you Courageous?..
namaste, thomas
True Nature...
"From the unknown past,
being conditioned by their own deeds
and deluded by two fundamental misconceptions,
people have wandered about in ignorance.
First,
they believed that the discriminating mind,
which lies at the root of this life of birth and death,
was their real nature;
and, second,
they did not know that,
hidden behind the discriminating mind,
they possessed a pure mind of Enlightenment
which is their true nature."
– THE TEACHING OF BUDDHA
BUKKYO DENDO KYOKAI 1994
psychic hypnosis...
"See once and for all
that human affairs can improve
only when minds awaken
from psychic hypnosis."
– Vernon Howard
pain and suffering...
Pain and suffering, sin and evil, disease and death, exist only in the world of thoughts, not in the world of pure Thought itself.
They are not illusions, however, but they are transient.
Whoever attains to pure Thought will also attain in consciousness to a life that is painless, sorrow-free, sinless, undecaying, and undying.
Being above desires and fears, it is necessarily above the miseries caused by unsatisfied desires and realized fears.
But at the same time he will also have an accompanying consciousness of life in the body, which must obey the laws of its own being, natural laws which set limitations and imperfections upon it.
This much can be said to be the element of truth contained in some theoretical doctrines of Vedantic Advaita and Christian Science.
— Notebooks Category 10: Healing of the Self > Chapter 1: The Laws of Nature > # 78
Paul Brunton
The Mirror...
Your sense of Self as being that of Divine Consciousness (God) is correct according to the Realization of the illusion of false self known as ego..
This ' First Reality' of Divine Consciousness Realization is very important but there is a step beyond that which most Spiritual Teachers do not speak of..
The Final Reality is very frightening to those that are still controlled by the ego and is usually only taught to those that are close to dissolving the false self..
The Real Self, known as Divine Consciousness is also an illusion from the Mind of Source..
Source said; " Let there be Light "..
Divine Consciousness is Light, Love, and Consciousness..
Many souls believe that Divine Consciousness is Source, but, It is only the Source of the Dreams and illusions and We are the Divine Consciousness that does this Creating by using the Power of Thought..
The Final Reality is that 'Source' has no ego or personality..
It is Pure Love and Pure Awareness..
We return to this 'Pure Awareness', when we surrender even the Identity of Divine Consciousness (God) and return to Source as the Energy of Pure Love Awareness..
But, there will be no ego or personality to see Itself..
This is why Divine Consciousness was Dreamed into Existence..
It is a Mirror...
namaste, thomas
Ego.. the false center...
The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
A center is born.
But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.
The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.
The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.
Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.
They are not concerned with you.
They are concerned with the society.
Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.
They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good.
One man kills somebody - he is a murderer.
And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality.
Morality means only that you should fit with the society.
If the society is at war, then the morality changes.
If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality.
Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge.
The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a self - not possible.
And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives.
A child comes back to his home - if he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say, "What a beautiful child! You are a pride to us." You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure - he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back bench - then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try harder next time, because the center feels shaken.
Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention.
You get the idea of who you are from others.
It is not a direct experience.
It is from others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you carry your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it.
You come with it.
You are born with it.
So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego. It is a false thing - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, you ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are.
The others have given you the idea.
That idea is the ego.
Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the self.
And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.
You will simply be confused, a chaos.
Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center.
And if you are daring, the period will be small.
If you are afraid, and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted.
I have heard: One small child was visiting his grandparents. He was just four years old. In the night when the grandmother was putting him to sleep, he suddenly started crying and weeping and said, "I want to go home. I am afraid of darkness." But the grandmother said, "I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark; I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here?" The boy said, "Yes, that's right - but that is MY darkness." This darkness is completely unknown.
Even with darkness you feel, "This is MINE."
Outside - an unknown darkness.
With the ego you feel, "This is MY darkness."
It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still mine. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being.
It is just like going to a forest. You make a little clearing, you clear a little ground; you make fencing, you make a small hut; you make a small garden, a lawn, and you are okay. Beyond your fence - the forest, the wild. Here everything is okay; you have planned everything. This is how it has happened.
Society has made a little clearing in your consciousness. It has cleaned just a little part completely, fenced it. Everything is okay there. That's what all your universities are doing. The whole culture and conditioning is just to clear a part so that you can feel at home there.
And then you become afraid.
Beyond the fence there is danger.
Beyond the fence you are, as within the fence you are - and your conscious mind is just one part, one-tenth of your whole being. Nine-tenths is waiting in the darkness. And in that nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden.
One has to be daring, courageous.
One has to take a step into the unknown.
For a while all boundaries will be lost.
For a while you will feel dizzy.
For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives.
That is your soul, the self.
Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises.
But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself.
It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful.
The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it.
You have a flowering center within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petaled-lotus. One thousand means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies.
But you are satisfied with a plastic ego.
There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never alive. So you can have plastic flowers, they are good in a way. They are permanent; they are not eternal, but they are permanent.
The real flower outside in the garden is eternal, but not permanent. And the eternal has its own way of being eternal. The way of the eternal is to be born again and again and to die. Through death it refreshes itself, rejuvenates itself.
To us it appears that the flower has died - it never dies.
It simply changes bodies, so it is ever fresh.
It leaves the old body, it enters a new body. It flowers somewhere else; it goes on flowering.
But we cannot see the continuity because the continuity is invisible. We see only one flower, another flower; we never see the continuity.
It is the same flower which flowered yesterday.
It is the same sun, but in a different garb.
The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it, there is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob.
When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual?
The ego is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, its not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the self.
And that's why you are so miserable.
With a plastic life, how can you be happy?
With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego creates many miseries, millions of them.
You cannot see, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it.
Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable.
Ego is hell.
Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer.
You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems.
This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. Is has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem.
If somebody says, "There is nothing," immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact.
Ego is false, it is nothing.
That you also know.
How can you miss knowing it? It is impossible! A conscious being - how can he miss knowing that this ego is just false? And then others say that there is nothing - and whenever the others say that there is nothing they hit a wound, they say a truth - and nothing hits like the truth.
You have to defend, because if you don't defend, if you don't become defensive, then where will you be?
You will be lost.
The identity will be broken.
So you have to defend and fight - that is the clash.
A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody.
It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back.
A disciple was with the master. He was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it."
The master said, "That is his problem, not mine."
You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you. And it is like knocking against a wall - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you.
The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry.
It lives on attention.
So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks that you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego?
Other's attention is needed.
In millions of ways you attract the attention of others; you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you immediately change so that people pay attention to you.
This is a deep begging.
A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else.
Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree...if the whole world suddenly disappears, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center.
But you, if the wife escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, you are completely shattered - because she had been paying attention to you, caring, loving, moving around you, helping you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. You start thinking about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center.
This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this.
And start looking for the ego - not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close you eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone.
You expected something, and it didn't happen.
You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why.
Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask:
Who is making me miserable?
Who is the cause of my anger?
Who is the cause of my anguish?
And if you look outside you will miss.
Just close the eyes and always look within.
The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego.
And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will prefer to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it.
And remember, there is no need to drop the ego.
You cannot drop it.
If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says, "I have become humble."
Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it's not dead.
Don't try to be humble.
Nobody can try humility, and nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the real center.
And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic.
He is simply simple.
He's not even aware that he is humble.
If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there.
Look at humble persons.... There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say, "I am humble," and then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them.
"You are really humble," they would like you to say. "In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are." Then see the smile that comes on their faces.
What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says, "No one is like me." It can feed on humbleness - "Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man."
It happened once:
A fakir, a beggar, was praying in a mosque, just early in the morning when it was still dark. It was a certain religious day for Mohammedians, and he was praying, and he was saying, "I am nobody. I am the poorest of the poor, the greatest sinner of sinners."
Suddenly there was one more person who was praying. He was the emperor of that country, and he was not aware that there was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying:
"I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at our door." When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said, "Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody?"
This is how the ego goes. It is so subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning; you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it.
Just watch! No need to drop it.
You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back.
Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch.
Whatsoever you do - humbleness, humility, simplicity - nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don't say it. Don't repeat it - WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don't try to find some cause outside. Try to see from where this misery is coming.
It is your own ego.
If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. THE VERY UNDERSTANDING IS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE EGO.
And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never traveled on it.
The whole path towards the divine, the ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops.
When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops.
And then you never say, "I have dropped the ego." Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery.
I was just looking at a few cartoons of Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he is playing with blocks, making a house out of children's blocks. He is sitting in the middle of the blocks building the walls. Then a moment comes when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, "Help, help!"
He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned. This is childish, but this is all that you have done also. You have made a house all around yourself, and now you are crying, "Help, help!" And the misery becomes a millionfold - because there are helpers who are also in the same boat.
It happened that one very beautiful woman went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. The psychiatrist said, "Come closer please." When she came closer, he simply jumped and hugged and kissed the woman. She was shocked. Then he said, "Now sit down. This takes care of my problem, now what is your problem?"
The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel.
But you are in the same boat - you cannot help.
Rather, you will harm.
People who still have their own problems cannot be of much help. Only someone who has no problems of his own can help you. Only then is there the clarity to see, to see through you. A mind that has no problems of its own can see you, you become transparent.
A mind that has no problems of its own can see through itself; that's why it becomes capable of seeing through others.
In the West, there are many schools of psychoanalysis, many schools, and no help is reaching people, but rather, harm. Because the people who are helping others, or trying to help, or posing as helpers, are in the same boat.
...It is difficult to see one's own ego.
It is very easy to see other's egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them.
Try to see your own ego.
Just watch it.
Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it.
It drops just like a dead leaf.
The tree is not doing anything - just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing.
The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that.
When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery, simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping.
It settles into the ground, dies of its own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have dropped it. You see that it has simply disappeared, and then the real center arises.
And that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatsoever you want to call it.
It is nameless, so all names are good.
You can give it any name of your own liking.
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
Love is Reality...
I think that we tend to forget that God is Love..
Therefore, what is Love?..
Love is the state of non-egoic consciousness..
Therefore, We are All God,
when there is no longer a 'We' but only 'God' (Love)..
Most on earth worship the god of ego called selfishness..
What is 'Worship'?..
Worship is the constant thought of that which is desired..
I believe that We are all Love (God),
pretending that We are separate from Love,
but, still attempting to find Love and immerse within Love..
namaste, thomas
Satsang...
Only Satsang will take you out of suffering,
because it shows you the Silence that you have
always been.
Satsang is abiding as your Self,
not as "I-am-so-and-so."
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Non-Ego is Heaven...
Just as a man who has escaped from the inside of a burning house,
and finds himself in the cool outdoors ,
understands that he has attained safety..
so the man who has escaped from greed, lust, anger, illusion, selfishness, and ignorance into exalted peace and immediate insight,
understands that he has attained heaven...
...........
— Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 4: Seek the Deeper Stillness > # 1
Paul Brunton
The Source...
If You were 'Pure Mind' and nothing else, what would you do with your existence?..
If You existed as Pure Awareness,
perhaps,
You would want a mirror called life to see who You Are..
A Dream exists, just as soon as it is Thought..
You believe this Dream to be real, just as you believe all dreams to be real, until You Awaken from the Dream..
If You are the binding force called Love, You would need the opposite of Love (ego) to understand what Love is..
When speaking of ' Source', I am speaking of the very beginning of Creative Thought Dreams..
That which said; "Let there be Light"!,
All things within manifestation are made from this Light, including us..
This is why You return to Light, upon awakening from the Dream of ego and separation...
namaste, thomas
Hide and Seek...
You are Divine Consciousness, so the only one leaving you hanging is your own false belief that You are a separate entity called ego..
Everyday, You choose to awaken as this egoic consciousness and sometimes when you feel the energy of Love, for a short time, You awaken as Divine Consciousness..
It is the ego that keeps you in the prison of your mind , not God..
You are God, playing this game of 'hide and seek'..
You hide within the non-love state called ego and then You seek the love state called non-ego..
This state of non-ego is called Divine Consciousness..
namaste, thomas
Karma is egoic consciousness...
You have been told of karma and know that it is the science of cause and effect..
This is true for the illusion of egoic consciousness but does not exist within Reality..
Karma deals with the illusion of duality and the belief in egoic duality..
There is no duality within Reality, and therefore karma is non-existent..
Do you believe that God is a victim of karma?..
Of course not!..
Once, you understand and Realize (Enlightenment) that You are Divine Consciousness,
karma is ended..
Until, You are of this Realization, you will be a prisoner of the higher dimensions,
or what the Saints call the seven levels of heaven..
You will strive within each dimension to reach the higher dimension by becoming less egoic or
what we call, more loving..
Ego is the opposite of Love and must be dissolved slowly (long path) or quickly (short path) to Realize that You have always been the energy of Love, Light, and Consciousness..
All of this time and experience within the pain of separation because no one has told you that,
there is only God and nothing else..
All else is a dream from God and an illusion..
These dimensions are called the 'long path' and the 'short path' is called Enlightenment..
It is your choice..
namaste, thomas
Enlightenment...
The discovery of his true being is not outwardly dramatic,
and for a long time no one may know of it, except himself.
The world may not honour him for it:
he may die as obscure as he lived.
But the purpose of his life has been fulfilled;
and God's will has been done.
— Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 78
Paul Brunton
Prince Ravanna of Orissa,India, brings Jesus to India...
Prince Ravanna sees Jesus in the temple and is captivated.
Hillel tells him about the boy and Ravanna gives a feast in his honor..
Ravanna becomes a patron of Jesus and takes him to India to study the Brahmic religion...
Hillel said that we call this child the Day Star from on high, for he has come to bring to men a light, the light of life, to lighten up the way of men and to redeem his people, Israel...
Ravanna brought Jesus to Orissa,India, and the Brahmic priests were glad to welcome home the prince, and with favor, they received the Jewish boy....
And Jesus was accepted in the temple, Jagannath, and here learned the Vedas and the Manic Laws...
The Brahmic masters wondered at the clear conceptions of the child,
and often were amazed when he explained to them the meaning of the laws...
.............
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi
a great grace...
He who finds a thought ,
that enables him to obtain a slightly deeper
glimpse into the eternal secrets of nature,
has been given great grace.
Albert Einstein
the essential thing...
"The essential thing,
however,
is the training to habituate one's mind and thought continuously ,
that it ever remain fixed in his heart and mind,
that everything one sees with one's eyes --
the heavens and the earth and all that is therein --
constitutes the outer garments of the Holy One."
Rabbi Schneur Zalman
_Tanya_
Translated by N. Mindel
New York: Kehot, 1973, p. 225
quoted in Edward Hoffman
_The Way of Splendor:
Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology_
London: Jason Aronson, 1992, p. 109
ego seeking motive...
Discard every self-seeking motive
as soon as it is seen,
and you need
not search for truth;
truth will find
you.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power...
Poindexter "Poindexter" (USA) - This review is from: 'The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power' a book written by Vernon Howard..
I'm not talking about the usual ups and downs that everyone goes through. If you're life is good for the most part, check out an Anthony Robbins book or something. Now, if your pain and suffering is to the extent that you feel life is dark, murky, pointless... then that energy will be the fuel/drive to find a way out.
I assure you that this book is the answer to your pain and suffering.
In a nutshell, here's the bizarre answer: get in touch with your True Self. You're identified 100% with the false in you and that is the root of your pain and suffering.
Yes, it does sound bizarre. And you'll probably resist this because you know no other way but your world of pain and suffering. I've been there, I know. I guarantee you with all my heart that there truly is a way out. Seeing the false as false and thus getting in touch with what's True is the ONLY answer. Anything else you do is mere candy-coating.
I immersed myself in Tolle's resources, Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Anthony DeMello, and Gangaji. Now, Vernon also points in the same direction as the these people. But Vernon's style is fierce whereas the other people's style is gentle. And by the way...
I love Anthony De Mello, but it turns out that A LOT of the stories/metaphors and what he had to say in general were from Vernon Howard's resources, including this book.
As I read Mystic Path, it totally struck a chord with me like no other. It's an amazing book that's fresh and brand new despite being written in the 60's. In fact, I was blown away chapter after chapter at this man's style. He knows what he's talking about.
Poindexter..
Imagination...
When one has imagined something,
that imagination is created,
and what is once created exists.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
time and space cross...
I am part of the load
not rightly balanced.
I drop off in the grass,
like the old Cave-sleepers, to browse
wherever I fall.
For hundreds of thousands of years I have been dust-grains
floating and flying in the will of the air,
often forgetting ever being
in that state, but in sleep
I migrate back. I spring loose
from the four-branched, time-and-space cross,
this waiting room.
I walk into a huge pasture.
I nurse the milk of millennia.
Everyone does this in different ways.
Knowing that conscious decisions
and personal memory
are much too small a place to live,
every human being streams at night
into the loving nowhere, or during the day,
in some absorbing work.
--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks,
"We Are Three"
Maypop, 1987
Similarities...
"We do not look for gulfs when we compare religions,
rather we try to find similarities and unity.
This is the essential difference between the Chinese and Western viewpoints.
We firmly believe in the truism that all faiths are paths leading toward the Ultimate Reality,
just as the spokes of a wheel converge to its axis."
Abbot Mingzing
in Whitall N. Perry
_A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom_
Varanasi: Indica, 1998, (1971), p. 802
Duality Ends...
“It is only through silent awareness that our physical and mental nature can change. This change is completely spontaneous.
If we make an effort to change, we do no more than shift our attention from one level, from one thing, to another. We remain in a vicious circle.
This only transfers energy from one point to another. It still leaves us oscillating between suffering and pleasure, each leading inevitably back to the other.
Only living stillness, stillness without someone trying to be still, is capable of undoing the conditioning our biological, emotional and psychological nature has undergone.
There is no controller, no selector, no personality making choices.
In choiceless living the situation is given the freedom to unfold. You do not grasp one aspect over another for there is nobody to grasp.
When you understand something and live it without being stuck to the formulation, what you have understood dissolves in your openness.
In this silence change takes place of its own accord, the problem is resolved and duality ends.
You are left in your glory where no one has understood and nothing has been understood.”
~ Jean Klein, 'I Am'
Knowledge of Self is Knowledge of God...
"... the Prophet, peace be upon him, said;
"Whoever knows himself knows his Lord."
If you wish, you can say that this tradition is the forbidding of gnosis and stating the inability to attain to Him -
and that is a permissible statement;
and, if you wish, you can say that it is the affirmation of gnosis.
The first is that if you do not know yourself, so you will not know your Lord.
The second is that you recognise yourself, so you do recognise your Lord."
Ibn 'Arabi
_The Seals of Wisdom_
simplify your life...
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!
Live the life you’ve imagined.
As you simplify
your life,
the laws of the universe will be simpler.
- Henry David Thoreau
Undifferentiated Being...
Without keeping steadily in view this original mentalness of things and hence their original oneness with self and Mind, the mystic must naturally get confused if not deceived by what he takes to be the opposition of Spirit and Matter.
The mystic looks within, to self; the materialist looks without, to world. And each misses what the other finds. But to the philosopher neither of these is primary. He looks to that Mind of which both self and world are but manifestations and in which he finds the manifestations also.
It is not enough for him to receive, as the mystic receives, fitful and occasional illuminations from periodic meditation. He relates this intellectual understanding to his further discovery got during mystical self-absorption in the Void that the reality of his own self is Mind.
Back in the world once more he studies it again under this further light, confirms that the manifold world consists ultimately of mental images, conjoins with his full metaphysical understanding that it is simply Mind in manifestation, and thus comes to comprehend that it is essentially one with the same Mind which he experiences in self-absorption.
Thus his insight actualizes, experiences, this Mind-in-itself as and not apart from the sensuous world whereas the mystic divides them. With insight, the sense of oneness does not destroy the sense of difference but both remain strangely present, whereas with the ordinary mystical perception each cancels the other.
The myriad forms which make up the picture of this world will not disappear as an essential characteristic of reality nor will his awareness of them or his traffic with them be affected. Hence he possesses a firm and final attainment wherein he will permanently possess the insight into pure Mind even in the midst of physical sensations.
He sees everything in this multitudinous world as being but the Mind itself as easily as he can see nothing, the imageless Void, as being but the Mind itself, whenever he cares to turn aside into self-absorption. He sees both the outer faces of all men and the inner depths of his own self as being but the Mind itself. Thus he experiences the unity of all existence; not intermittently but at every moment he knows the Mind as ultimate.
This is the philosophic or final realization. It is as permanent as the mystic's is transient. Whatever he does or refrains from doing, whatever he experiences or fails to experience, he gives up all discriminations between reality and appearance, between truth and illusion, and lets his insight function freely as his thoughts select and cling to nothing.
He experiences the miracle of undifferentiated being, the wonder of undifferenced unity. The artificial man-made frontiers melt away. He sees his fellow men as inescapably and inherently divine as they are, not merely as the mundane creatures they believe they are, so that any traces of an ascetical holier-than-thou attitude fall completely away from him...
— Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2: Our Relation To the Absolute > # 154
Paul Brunton
Happy Christmas to Every One...
Today, we celebrate the birth of a Master Mystic called Yeshua ben Yosef, that we now call Jesus..
Although, Jesus was actually born in the Spring time of the year, the Christian Church decided to use
the pagan holiday of the Winter Solstice as the official birthdate, so that people would not complain
that they had lost a day of celebration, when the pagan holidays were ended..
Most of the stories about the birth of Jesus are just tales that were told about other man-gods that
were also the lead figures of other earlier religions..
Religions were invented as a means of controlling the lives and minds of the human population and are
not the True essence of Spirituality..
The Soul called Jesus was an Avatar, which is a personality of Consciousness that appears within the
dreams of this Dimension to remind fellow souls that Reality is Love and not selfish thoughts and
conduct..
While meditating in the desert for forty days, He struggled against the power of ego and the actual
intervention of the highest luciferian force that controls this illusion..
He could have had a 'Kings life' while within this Dream, but He knew that Unselfish Love is the
only Reality and these temptations were just illusions of egoic consciousness..
This meditation within the desert was to 'Die' to self, and to be 'Reborn' to Self..
Since He Realized that He was Divine Consciousness and had no doubts of this Truth, He was able
to manifest objects, heal the sick, and to have the ability to appear and disappear ..
This was Divine Consciousness changing the Dream at will..
The greatest lesson to learn from Jesus is that there is absolutely no difference between You and He..
As He said;
" Those who come after Me, will do greater works than I "..
Thanks for volunteering to be born, Jesus..
namaste, thomas
the Luminous Awareness...
That's all you have to do - just abide in that
stillness.
If you know how to be with that stillness without
looking for
anything else,
then that stillness is no longer just a
stillness and
that stillness is the Buddha Mind, it is the luminous
awareness.
In that stillness you are going to discover your true
nature.
The discovery of your true nature is the true
liberation, is the
bodhi, is the great awakening.
- Tulku Thubten Rinpoche
The Light Within...
The light which shines
Higher than this heaven ...
Verily, that is the Same
Light ...
Which is here
Within
a person.
- Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7,
the doors of memory...
There is a storehouse of all knowledge in the universal mind.
If you can touch it, all the knowledge that is there in amplitude will be poured out to you with perfect ease.
For this the doors of memory should be laid open.
Divine mind is the stream of the fountain, and each individual mind is just like a drop.
Man shows from the beginning of his life on earth signs of having known things that he had never been taught.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Contemporary...
You speak of con-temporary and I think of 'with time'..
And yet time does not exist to the mystic..
Only experience within the illusion of ego and bliss within non-self exist..
Why is this voice called forward ?..
Perhaps, the conveyance of thought from consciousness needs a pen..
The Self plays this game of 'hide and seek'..
We see ourselves solitary with a longing for the non-aloneness of Unity..
This Unity, we call Love..
Why do we seek outside for what is only found within?..
Once again the rules of this game change..
Hide Love and then seek It..
What a shock to find that It was hidden by the vibrations of self..
Once self is dissolved, Love appears..
How easy, Truth Is...
namaste , thomas
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi...
CHAPTER 3
Birth of Jesus. Masters honour the child. The shepherds rejoice. Zacharias and Elizabeth visit Mary. Jesus is circumcised.
THE time was nearly due for Jesus to be born, and Mary longed to see Elizabeth, and she and Joseph turned their faces toward the Judean hills. 2 And when upon their way they came to Bethlehem the day was done, and they must tarry for the night. 3 But Bethlehem was thronged with people going to Jerusalem; the inns and homes were filled with guests, and Joseph and his wife could find no place to rest but in a cave where animals were kept; and there they slept. 4 At midnight came a cry, a child is born in yonder cave among the beasts. And lo, the promised son of man was born. 5 And strangers took the little one and wrapped him in the dainty robes that Mary had prepared and laid him in a trough from which the beasts of burden fed.
6 Three persons clad in snowwhite robes came in and stood before the child and said, 7 All strength, all wisdom and all love be your, Immanuel. 8 Now, on the hills of Bethehem were many flocks of sheep with shepherds guarding them. 9 The shepherds were devout, were men of prayer, and they were waiting for a strong deliverer to come. 10 And when the child of promise came, a man in snow-white robe appeared to them, and they fell back in fear. The man stood forth and said, 11 Fear not! behold I bring you joyful news. At midnight in a cave in Bethehem was born the prophet and the king that you have long been waiting for.
12 And then the shepherds all were glad; they felt that all the hills were filled with messengers of light, who said, 13 All glory be to God on high; peace, peace on earth, good will to men. 14 And then the shepherds came with haste to Bethlehem and to the cave, that they might see and honour him whom men had called Immanuel. 15 Now, when the morning came, a shepherdess whose home was near, prepared a room for Mary, Joseph and the child; and here they tarried many days. 16 And Joseph sent a messenger in haste to Zacharias and Elizabeth to say, The child is born in Bethlehem.
17 And Zacharias and Elizabeth took John and came to Bethlehem with words of cheer. 18 And Mary and Elizabeth recounted all the wonderous things that had transpired. The people joined with them in praising God. 19 According to the custom of the Jews, the child was circumcised; and when they asked, What will you call the child? the mother said, His name is Jesus, as the man of God declared.
Inward Seeing...
The translation of the Sanskrit phrase antardrishti is literally "inward seeing" in the sense of seeing beneath appearances what is under them.
It does not refer to clairvoyance in the psychic sense, but rather to the metaphysical or mystical sense.
It can be particularized as meaning entering into the witness state of consciousness.
The ordinary person sees only the object; penetrating deeper, he enters the witness state which is an intermediate condition;
going still deeper, he reaches the ultimate state of Reality when there is no subject or object,
whereas in the witness there is still subject and object,
but the subject no longer identifies himself with the object as the ordinary man does.
...............
— Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 8: Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > # 85 Paul Brunton
only a thought...
The edges of our bodies only exist in our minds.
The
difference between the space inside us and the space
outside us is only a thought.
I contain you, you contain
me.
Together, we breathe the earth.
Consciousness is
the world.
Clearly seeing this is the only solution.
Merry Christmas.
~ Fred LaMotte
Seeking Love...
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself,
that you have built against it.”
― Rumi
Surrendering ego...
Unready means afraid.
You are afraid of what you are.
Your destination is the whole.
But you are afraid you will lose your identity.
This is childishness, clinging to the toys,
to your desires and fears, opinions and ideas.
Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert itself.
Do not worry about others.
Deal with your own mind first.
Learn to look without imagination,
to listen without distortion.
.............
The above Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj quotes are from the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
All-inclusive universal Self...
Although the aspirant has now awakened to his witness-self, found his "soul," and thus lifted himself far above the mass of mankind, he has not yet accomplished the full task set him by life.
A further effort still awaits his hand. He has yet to realize that the witness-self is only a part of the All-self.
So his next task is to discover that he is not merely the witness of the rest of existence but essentially of one stuff with it. He has, in short, by further meditations to realize his oneness with the entire universe in its real being.
He must now meditate on his witness-self as being in its essence the infinite All.
Thus the ultramystic exercises are graded into two stages, the second being more advanced than the first.
The banishment of thoughts reveals the inner self whereas the reinstatement of thoughts without losing the newly gained consciousness reveals the All-inclusive universal self.
The second feat is the harder...
..........
— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 6: Advanced Meditation > # 88
Paul Brunton
Truth...
"All truth passes through 3 stages:
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
silent awareness...
“It is only through silent awareness that our physical and mental nature can change.
This change is completely spontaneous.
If we make an effort to change we do no more than shift our attention from one level, from one thing, to another. We remain in a vicious circle.
This only transfers energy from one point to another. It still leaves us oscillating between suffering and pleasure, each leading inevitably back to the other.
Only living stillness, stillness without someone trying to be still, is capable of undoing the conditioning our biological, emotional and psychological nature has undergone. There is no controller, no selector, no personality making choices.
In choiceless living the situation is given the freedom to unfold. You do not grasp one aspect over another for there is nobody to grasp.
When you understand something and live it without being stuck to the formulation, what you have understood dissolves in your openness.
In this silence change takes place of its own accord, the problem is resolved and duality ends.
You are left in your glory where no one has understood and nothing has been understood.”
― Jean Klein, I Am
One and Alone...
"Naught ever can be known in God:
One and Alone Is He.
To know Him,
Knower must be one with Known."
......
Angelus Silesius
_Selections from The Cherubinic Wanderer_
Translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch
London, 1932
The Witness...
The Witness is both an abstract metaphysical concept and a concrete mystical experience.
It is not an ultimate one,
yielding pure Being,
the unsplit Consciousness,
but a provisional one...
.....
— Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 98
Paul Brunton
The Dream Continues...
Just because the body dies, does not mean that you are free from illusions..
The Consciousness continues in the form and word that we call 'soul' or 'spirit'..
The Consciousness continues into a new dream because 'we' still believe that we are separate from God..
This separation from God has been taught to you from birth and is seen within the world as truth..
This is of course a falsehood and used as a control over your subconscious mind..
The soul that believes that it is a separate entity will enter a higher dimension and continue to try to become God..
On this higher dimension , you will be deceived by the fourth frequency entities that appear as angels or beings that you may know from spiritual books..
They will lead you back into reincarnation and into this dimension and earth to enter another human body and continue to be a power source to these entities because of the energy of your emotions of hatred and fear..
This is why, there are continuous wars and hatred directed to a new enemy of the day..
These are the Luciferian minions that are often found in exorcisms..
Do not be fooled by their talk of karma and reincarnation, They are lies!..
You are not the mind , soul, or spirit, that needs to return to the state of pain called life..
You are Divine Consciousness dreaming of this life experience and are not attached to the illusion of trying to reach God..
You are God!.. There is Nothing that is not God...
God is Light, Love, and Consciousness and contains no ego to return to any body unless You choose to..
You have 'Free Will' to decide of any future within any new dreams or no more dreams..
No more dreams mean that You will Awaken as Divine Consciousness and exist as the Energy of Light, Love, and Consciousness..
This is called 'Reality'..
You are Divinity and are not the pawn of any other entity..
namaste, thomas
The Direct Method...
"Reality is simply the loss of the ego.
Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.
It will automatically vanish and reality will show forth by itself.
This is the direct method."
.........
Sri Ramana Maharshi
in Stephen Mitchell
_The Essence of Wisdom:
Words from the Masters to Illuminate the Spiritual Path_
NY: Broadway Books, 1998, p. 9
Source creates All...
Man can produce out of his thought Satan, an angel, or a devil,
and he can produce out of his thought God.
When he comes to the realization that all is from one source and all is developing to one goal,
then he begins to see that that source is God.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Advaita...
Advaita is the teaching of nonduality,
which has become best known in the West through the nondual spiritual teachings of the revered Indian saint, Ramana Maharshi.
He taught that self-realization, or the realization of the oneness of who we are, is not some distant goal that only a few can attain.
The Self is that which is always and already present, that which doesn't come and go.
The love, peace, and happiness we have all been seeking is already here and is, in fact, who we are.
Through simple self-inquiry, we can awaken from the dream of a separate self to the reality of Oneness, to the spiritual truth of who we are as nondual consciousness.
...........
Dennis Waite
Delusion causes suffering...
A primary cause of suffering is delusion:
our inability, because of a subtly willful blindness, to see things the way they truly are but instead in a distorted way.
The world is in fact a seamless and dynamic unity:
a single living organism that is constantly undergoing change.
our minds, however, chop it up into separate, static bits and pieces, which we then try mentally and physically to manipulate.
One of the mind's most dear creations is the idea of the person and, closest to home, of a very special person which each one of us calls "I": a separate, enduring ego or self.
In a moment, then, the seamless universe is cut in two.
There is "I" -- and there is all the rest.
That means conflict -- and pain,
for "I" cannot control that fathomless vastness against which it is set.
It will try, of course, as a flea might pit itself against an elephant, but it is a vain enterprise.
...............
John Snelling
Bhagavad Gita...
Out of Compassion for them,
I, dwelling in their hearts,
destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.
Krishna
- Bhagavad Gita 10.11
Negation as a path...
See the false as false,
and what remains is
true.
What is absent now,
will appear when
what is now present, disappears.
Negation
is the only answer to finding the ultimate
truth –
it is as simple as that.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Pure Knowing...
It is only because you are made of pure Knowing itself,
that you are able to know anything,
such as a mind, body or world.
If, instead of shining your light of Knowing upon any object,
you shine it back upon itself,
it's eternal, infinite and innately peaceful nature will gradually or suddenly reveal itself to itself,
and in time everything will be revealed as that alone.
..........
Robert Spira
Awakening through meditation...
I am an Advaitin on the fundamental point of nonduality of the Real, but I am unable to limit myself to most Advaitin's practical view of samadhi and sahaja. Here I stand with Chinese Zen (Ch'an), especially as I was taught and as explained by the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng.
He warns against turning meditation into a narcotic, resulting in a pleasant passivity. He went so far as to declare: "It is quite unnecessary to stay in monasteries. Only let your mind . . . function in freedom . . . let it abide nowhere."
And in this connection he later explains: "To be free from attachment to all outer objects is true meditation. To meditate means to realize thus tranquillity of Essence of Mind."
On samadhi, he defines it as a mind self-trained to be unattached amid objects, resting in tranquillity and peace.
On sahaja, it is thorough understanding of the truth about reality and a penetration into and through delusion, to one's Essence of Mind. The Indian notion of sahaja makes it the extension of nirvikalpa samadhi into the active everyday state.
But the Ch'an conception of nirvikalpa samadhi differs from this; it does not seek deliberately to eliminate thoughts, although that may often happen of its own accord through identification with the true Mind, but to eliminate the personal feelings usually attached to them, that is, to remain unaffected by them because of this identification.
Ch'an does not consider sahaja to be the fruit of yoga meditation alone, nor of understanding alone, but of a combination seemingly of both. It is a union of reason and intuition. It is an awakening once and for all.
It is not attained in nirvikalpa and then to be held as long as possible. It is not something, a state alternately gained and lost on numerous occasions, but gradually expanded as it is clung to. It is a single awakening that enlightens the man so that he never returns to ignorance again. He has awakened to his divine essence, his source in Mind, as an all day and every day self-identification. It has come by itself, effortlessly.
...........
— Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 141 Paul Brunton
Nothing to Grasp...
He who passes through these deeper phases of the Void can never again call anything or anyone his own.
He becomes secretly and spiritually deprived of all personal possessions.
This is because he has thoroughly realized the complete immateriality, spacelessness, timelessness, and formlessness of the Real--
a realization which consequently leaves him nothing to take hold of, either within the world or within his personality.
Not only does the possessive sense fall away from his attitude towards physical things but also towards intellectual ones...
........
— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8: The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 180 Paul Brunton
Creation and Creator...
The Sufi sees both the Creator and the creation in man.
The limited part of man’s being is the creation,
and the innermost part of his being is the Creator.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Awaken Now...
"There is no need to wait until another life or for future generations.
Before you is the Buddha [the Awake],
who proves to you the possibility of penetrating to God."
Chang Po-tuan
in Whitall N. Perry
_A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom_
Varanasi: Indica, 1998, (1971), p. 870
Live Unity, Celebrate Diversity
Intimacy...
About the total intimacy of the observer and observed.
~~
Since the un-awakened mind is worldly and operates in the field of form and duality, it is unable to comprehend total 'intimacy': the total 'intimacy' of the perceived object and the perceiver, the total intimacy of phenomena and consciousness.
It is in the death or dissolution of the dualistic mind that total intimacy is revealed. There is no other way.
Once total intimacy is revealed, and once the realization of this intimacy has matured and uprooted all the vasanas of separation, then one can talk metaphorically and poetically ... lovingly expressing the divine.
The mind and the external world are a dream and the characters in the dream are dream characters that are made out of the dreamer ... YOU: Aware awake consciousness, universal and vibrantly alive.
YOU, as consciousness, are not a dream. YOU are Reality, pure consciousness dreaming all dreams. The one and only Reality. Right here, right now, YOU ... aware awake consciousness, read these words, that are made out of yourself.
Once you come to this deep understanding, you will dream sweet dreams, bathed in peace and happiness.
YOU, as consciousness can choose that path. You, as a dream character chooses nothing.
The dream character is imagined, dreamt by consciousness. Only consciousness is Real.
Once YOU, consciousness, release the dream character from its imagined choices, you return to the true chooser, the true creator.
But if you continue to feed the dream character with independent choosing capability, you remain entangled in the dream, hoping the dream character will deliver freedom and happiness.
............
Magdi Em Be
" Seek ye first"...
Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
On coming to earth, man, who is the instrument of God, loses connection with that divine power whose instrument he is, thus keeping not only himself but even God from helping His will to be done.
When man, who is born to be the instrument of God, does not perform his mission properly he naturally feels dissatisfied. It does not mean that he does not accomplish what he desires, but it is the reason why he is unhappy.
... Spiritual knowledge does not lie in learning something, but in discovering something; in breaking the fetters of the false consciousness and in allowing the soul to unfold itself with light and power.
What does the word 'spiritual' really mean? Spiritual means spirit-conscious.
When a person is conscious of his body, he cannot be spiritual. It is like a king who does not know his kingship. ... If man does not realize the kingdom of God within himself nor realize his spirit to be a king, he does not accomplish the purpose of life.
Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God, and until he knows this he has not realized his true purpose in life.
The whole tragedy in the life of man is his ignorance of this fact. From the moment a man realizes this he lives the real life, the life of harmony between God and man.
When Jesus Christ said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God,' this teaching was an answer to the cry of humanity: some crying, 'I have no wealth,' others crying, 'I have no rest,' others crying, 'My situation in life is difficult,' My friends are troubling me,' or, 'I want a position, wealth.'
The answer to them all is, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.'
Love is Supreme...
"Love is supreme and only love counts.
However much you read, hear or understand about spirituality,
it does not lead you to Knowledge.
Knowledge is a totally different thing and it can only be gained through love --
love, pure and steadfast."
.........
Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
_Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba_
Myrtle Beach, SC: Manifestation. v. 4, p. 1423
Zen Teaching...
Making offerings to all the Buddhas of the universe is
not equal to making offerings to one follower of the Way
who has eliminated conceptual thought.
Why?
Because
such a one forms' no concepts whatever.
The substance of
the Absolute is inwardly like wood or stone, in that it is
motionless, and outwardly like the void, in that it is without
bounds or obstructions.
It is neither subjective nor
objective, has no specific location, is formless, and cannot
vanish.
Those who hasten towards it dare not enter, fearing
to hurtle down through the void with nothing to cling to
or to stay their fall.
So they look to the brink and retreat.
This refers to all those who seek such a goal through cognition.
Thus, those who seek the goal through cognition
are like the fur (many), while those who obtain intuitive
knowledge of the Way are like the horns (few).
.........
The Zen Teaching
of Huang Po
John Blofeld
p. 31-2
" Now you know me"...
At a court banquet, everyone was sitting according to their rank,
waiting for the king to appear.
A simply dressed man came in and took
a seat above everyone else.
The prime minister demanded that he
identify himself.
"Are you the adviser of a great king?"
"No, I rank above a royal adviser."
"Are you a prime minister?"
"No, I outrank a prime minister."
"Are you a king in disguise?"
"No, I am above that rank as well."
"Then you must be God," the prime minister said sarcastically.
"No, I am above that."
"There is nothing above God!" shouted the prime minister.
The stranger replied calmly, "Now you know me.
That nothing is
me."
Traditional
as collected by James Fadiman & Robert Frager
Freedom...
How many steps will you climb before You return to Your Self ?..
How many dimensions , dreams, and illusions before You are Free..
How many celestrial beings and star beings will you need to become Free?..
Freedom from what?..
Freedom to where?..
Freedom from whom?..
What is the definition of Freedom?..
What is the definition of Love?..
Could they be the same?...
namaste, thomas
Returning to Source...
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 identity is the final goal and is our True Identity..
The Identity of the Nothingness that Created Divine Consciousness that created life..
This is the Identity of Pure Awareness and the Voice that said;
"Let there Be Light"..
This 'Light' is Divine Consciousness and is 'Us' at this present moment..
We are the 'Creative Force' of Dreams and Illusions..
Pure Love is sacrificing this Identity of God and returning as Pure Love to Pure Love,
this is the return to 'Pure Awareness'..
This 'Pure Awareness' of Complete Love contains no ego or personality..
This Is 'Source'..
This is Home...
namaste, thomas
Divine Knowledge...
"Then that moon
Whose face shone like the sun,
Seeing I had cast hope away,
Filled a goblet of Divine Knowledge
And, passing to me, bade me drink,
Saying, 'With this wine,
Tasteless and odourless,
Wash away the writing
On thy being's tablet.'
Intoxicated from the pure draught
Which I had drained to the dregs,
In the bare dust I fell.
Since then I know not if I exist or not,
But I am not sober, neither am I ill or drunken.
Sometimes, like His eye, I am full of joy,
Or, like His curl, I am waving;
Sometimes, alas! from habit or nature,
I am lying on a dust heap.
Sometimes, at a glance from Him,
I am back in the Rose Garden."
..........
Mahmoud Shabistari
The Secret Rose Garden of Sa'd Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari
Translated by Florence Lederer [1920] p. 90
Reality alone exists...
Reality alone exists - and that we are.
All the rest is only a dream,
A dream of the One Mind, which is our mind without the 'our'.
Is it so hard to accept?
Is it so difficult to assimilate and to live?
............
'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei
The slaying of ego...
The Truth that you must slay the ego, goes back to the beginning of time..
The early teaching of this Knowledge is found in Hindu and Buddhist literature..
The bottom line is that You are the Creator of your experience..
Your desires will be created..
Desire is the Consciousness creating a new dream..
They will be dreams that we call illusions but these illusions will trap You within the dreams, when You begin to Believe that the dreams are real..
To leave these dreams and Wake Up, You must stop identifying Your Self as a personality of these dreams..
This is the slaying of the ego..
This stops the dream and Awakens You into Reality..
This is called Enlightenment, as You Realize that You are Light, Love, and Consciousness..
You can call this the slaying of the ego , the dropping of the ego , the Awakening from ego or just living in Humility..
Humility is the word used in Christian teaching for the slaying of ego..
Unconditional Love is also a definition of the slaying of ego..
There are many words and concepts that point to the Realization that You will never be Free until the ego is dead...
namaste, thomas
Finding God...
"Help us to find God."
"No one can help you there."
"Why not?"
"For the same reason that
no one can help the fish
to find the ocean."
.....
Anthony de Mello, SJ
Why did Jesus, speak in parables ?...
When one studies the teachings of Christ, as recorded in the New Testament, he never claimed that he came to die for the sins of mankind or even that he came to save everyone at that time. In actuality, he on purposely cloaked his teaching in parables to prevent the masses from understanding the true meaning of his teachings.
Matthew 13,10 The disciples came to him and asked;
“Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
He replied; “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it...
from The Reluctant Messenger
seeking pleasure...
Pleasure depends on things, happiness does not.
As long as we believe that we need things to make us happy, we shall also believe that in their absence we must be miserable.
Mind always shapes itself according to its beliefs.
Hence the importance of convincing oneself that one need not be prodded into happiness; that, on the contrary, pleasure is a distraction and a nuisance, for it merely increases the false conviction that one needs to have and do things to be happy, when in reality it is just the opposite.
But why talk of happiness at all? You do not think of happiness except when you are unhappy.
A man who says "Now I am happy" is between two sorrows, past and future. This happiness is mere excitement caused by relief from pain. Real happiness is utterly unselfconscious. It is best expressed negatively as: "there is nothing wrong with me, I have nothing to worry about".
Once you have grasped the truth that the world is full of suffering, that to be born is a calamity, you will find the urge and the energy to go beyond.
Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up.
If you do not want to suffer, don't go to sleep.
You cannot know yourself through bliss alone, for bliss is your very nature.
You must face the opposite, what you are not, to find enlightenment...
Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Forms appear within You...
If you have really dis-covered the unconditional happiness and peace of Being that already dwells within at and as the core of your very being itself and mine, and every form that exists, you will no longer feel compulsively compelled and driven to search for your happiness in all these passing forms in themselves, as if they were separate from you to begin with, which they are not. After all, you don't seek to possess your hands and feet, do you?
And yet, after dis-covering the unconditioned happiness of the Self, when you are no longer looking to passing objects as a potential source of fulfillment in and of themselves, you can appreciate and enjoy them as temporary manifestations of the very Self that you already are.
You no longer believe them to be separate entities that exist apart from God and you recognize the ultimate source of them as being your source too, innate within you already. So there is no longer a need or a desire to "possess" physical forms and hold onto any of them forever as a potential, final source of your happiness, which in themselves, they can never be.
You are no longer looking at the various forms, as some kind of separate "entity", put here by God to somehow ultimately fulfill you, any more than you would look at the fleeting form of a rose in itself, as beautiful as it is, to fulfill you. It is lovely of course, but it is not able to do that.
You are then able to relax and let go of the unrealistic expectations you used to have about forms and simply enjoy them for what they are; pleasant, beautiful, even exquisite perhaps...........but temporary art "pieces" of Brahman, temporary manifestations of the source of unconditional happiness that you already ARE within and which is also already within every form you see "appearing around you", as it's very essence and ground.
All these forms are not actually "appearing around you" at all, they are actually constantly appearing and disappearing, WITHIN you! "Brahman, (God, unconditional happiness, the source of wholeness and peace), is in all creatures and all creatures are within this Brahman, ever united....."
Francis Bennett
The World of Suchness...
“As simple as that sounds, it is nevertheless extremely difficult to adequately discuss no-boundary awareness or nondual consciousness.
This is because our language — the medium in which all verbal discussion must float — is a language of boundaries.
As we have seen, words and symbols and thoughts themselves are actually nothing but boundaries, for whenever you think or use a word or name, you are already creating boundaries.
Even to say "reality is no-boundary awareness" is still to create a distinction between boundaries and no-boundary!
So we have to keep in mind the great difficulty involved with dualistic language. That "reality is no-boundary" is true enough, provided we remember that no-boundary awareness is a direct, immediate, and nonverbal awareness, and not a mere philosophical theory.
It is for these reasons that the mystic-sages stress that reality lies beyond names and forms, words and thoughts, divisions and boundaries. Beyond all boundaries lies the real world of Suchness, the Void, the Dharmakaya, Tao, Brahman, the Godhead.
And in the world of suchness, there is neither good nor bad, saint nor sinner, birth nor death, for in the world of suchness there are no boundaries.”
............
― Ken Wilber, No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth
Freedom from the body...
News of someone’s death was brought to Sri Bhagavan.
He said;
“Good. The dead are indeed happy. They have got rid of the
troublesome overgrowth - the body.
The dead man does not grieve.
The survivors grieve for the man who is dead.
Do men fear sleep?
On
the contrary sleep is courted and on waking up every man says that
he slept happily.
One prepares the bed for sound sleep. Sleep is
temporary death. Death is longer sleep.
If the man dies while yet
alive he need not grieve over others’ death.
One’s existence is evident
with or without the body, as in waking, dream and sleep.
Then why
should one desire continuance of the bodily shackles?
Let the man
find out his undying Self and die and be immortal and happy.”
from: Talks with Ramana
KENA-UPANISHAD...
FIRST KHANDA.
1. THE Pupil asks: 'At whose wish does the mind sent forth proceed on its errand? At whose command does the first breath go forth? At whose wish do we utter this speech? What god directs the eye, or the ear?'
2. The Teacher replies: 'It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye. When freed (from the senses) the wise, on departing from this world, become immortal 1.
3. 'The eye does not go thither, nor speech, nor mind. We do not know, we do not understand, how any one can teach it.
4. 'It is different from the known, it is also above the unknown, thus we have heard from those of old, who taught us this 2.
5. 'That which is not expressed by speech and
by which speech is expressed, that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore.
6. 'That which does not think by mind, and by which, they say, mind is thought 1, that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore.
7. 'That which does not see by the eye, and by which one sees (the work of) the eyes, that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore.
8. 'That which does not hear by the ear, and by which the ear is heard, that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore.
9. 'That which does not breathe by breath, and by which breath is drawn, that alone know as Brahman, not that which people here adore.'
Bhagavad Gita... chapter 7, verse 16...
Among the virtuous ones who turn towards Me (the Divine) with devotion, O Arjuna,
there are four kinds of bhaktas,
the suffering,
the seeker for good in the world,
the seeker for knowledge,
and those who adore Me with knowledge,
O Lord of the Bharatas...
Krishna
Earnestness...
"How do you go about finding anything?
By keeping your mind and heart on it.
Interest there must be and steady remembrance.
To remember what needs to be remembered
is the secret of success.
You come to it through earnestness"
~Nisargadatta Maharaj
'I AM THAT'
Thusness...
Just don't seek from another
Or you'll be far estranged from self.
I now go on alone
Meeting it everywhere.
It now is just what I am,
I now am not it.
You must comprehend in this way
To merge with thusness.
- Dongshan (771-853)
Who Am I Then ?...
Who Am I Then?
What is arising now is not a new belief system, a new religion, spiritual ideology, or mythology. We are coming to the end not only of mythologies but also of ideologies and belief systems.
The change goes deeper than the content of your mind, deeper than your thoughts. In fact, at the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought, the newfound ability of rising above thought, of realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought.
You then no longer derive your identity, your sense of who you are, from the incessant stream of thinking that in the old consciousness you take to be yourself. What a liberation to realize that the "voice in my head" is not who I am.
Who am I then? The one who sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought -- or the emotion or sense perception -- happens.
~ From: A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle
beyond the mind...
"Our way then takes us beyond knowing;
there may be no wandering from unity;
knowing and knowable must all be left aside;
every object of thought, even the highest, we must pass by,
for all that is good is later than This and derives from This as from the sun all the light of the day.
"'Not to be told; not to be written':
in our writing and telling we are but urging towards it:
out of discussion we call to vision:
to those desiring to see, we point the path; our teaching is of the road and the travelling;
the seeing must be the very act of one that has made this choice."
.......
Plotinus
_The Six Enneads_, 6.9.4
Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page, 1917-1930, at sacred-texts.com
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