The cause of suffering...
It is only your mind that prevents self-knowledge.
[The cause of suffering is] self-identification with the limited. Sensations as such, however strong, do not cause suffering. It is the mind, bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking "I am this", "I am that", that fears loss and craves gain and suffers when frustrated.
Nothing can trouble you but your own imagination. (
There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind.
A level of maturity is reached when nothing external is of any value, and the heart is ready to relinquish all. Then the real has a chance and it grasps it. Delays, if any, are caused by the mind being unwilling to see or discard.
Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Denies self...
When all of a man's thoughts are put together,
this total constitutes his ego.
By giving them up to the Stillness,
he gives up his ego,
denies his self,
in Jesus' phrase.
Paul Brunton
Are We Nothingness?...
Everyday, I receive requests for the teachings of Alan Watts and his writing about Nothingness..
Therefore, It is my duty to speak of this mystery..
Alan is correct, we are Nothingness..
we, as the two letters imply are a personality of illusion..
We, as Divine Consciousness are the 'Watcher' of 'we', the illusion of self..
This is the story of false self and real self..
The 'Real Self' is the Creative Energy called Divine Consciousness and is Us..
When Divine Consciousness finally Realizes that it too is a Dream, it evaporates into 'Pure Awareness'..
No more ego or personality..
No more ego or personality is the definition of Love..
Are you now beginning to understand Reality?..
We are the Energy of Love, which has no singularity called ego or personality..
No-Thing-Ness means that You are beyond ego and beyond manifestation of illusions..
You are No-thing..
Only God Is....
namaste, thomas
subject to change...
"All that is subject unto genesis and change,
is verily not true; ...
for naught that doth not stay with its own self is true."
Hermes Trismegistus
in G. S. Mead, Translator
_Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis_
London and Benares: The Theosophical Publishing Company, 1906,
St. Francis of Assisi...
"I beseech Thee, O Lord,
that the fiery and sweet strength of Thy love may absorb my soul from all things that are under heaven,
that I may die for love of Thy love as Thou didst deign to die for love of my love."
St. Francis of Assisi
_The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi_
Translated by Fr. Paschal Robinson
Philadelphia: Dolphin, 1905, p. 145, at sacred-texts.com
Awakened Being...
Do not be afraid of what appears to be chaos or dissolution -
embrace the full measure of your life at any cost.
Bare your heart to the Unknown and never look back.
Sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage are indispensable qualities in awakening from the dream state of ego to the peace and ease of awakened Being....
Adyashanti
Zen Poem...
Rain roared through, now
the autumn night is clear.
The water wears a patina of gold
and carries a bright jade star.
Heavenly River runs clear and pure,
as gentle as before.
Sunset buries the mountains in shadow.
A mirror floats in the deep green void,
its light reflecting the cold, wet dusk,
dew glistening,
freezing on the flowers.
- Tu Fu
The heart must be empty...
Until the heart is empty, it cannot receive the knowledge of God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
When a person comes to take a lesson on any subject, and he brings his own knowledge with him, the teacher has little to teach him, for the doors of his heart are not open. His heart that should be empty in order to receive knowledge is occupied by the knowledge that he already had acquired.
It is not solid wood that can become a flute, but the empty reed. It is the perfection of that passiveness in the heart of the messenger which gives scope for the message from above; for the messenger is the reed, the instrument. The difference between his life and the life of the average man is that the latter is full of self. It is the blessed soul whose heart is empty of self, who is filled with the light of God.
There are many ideas which intoxicate man, many feelings there are which act upon the soul as wine, but there is no stronger wine than the wine of selflessness. It is a might and it is a pride that no worldly rank can give. To become something is a limitation, whatever one may become. Even if a person were to be called the king of the world, he would still not be emperor of the universe. If he were the master of earth, he would still be the slave of Heaven. It is the person who is no one, who is no one and yet all.
The Sufi, therefore, takes the path of being nothing instead of being something. It is this feeling of nothingness which turns the human heart into an empty cup into which the wine of immortality is poured. It is this state of bliss which every truth-seeking soul yearns to attain. It is easy to be a learned person, and it is not very difficult to be wise. It is within one's reach to become good. And it is not an impossible achievement to be pious or spiritual. But if there is an attainment greater and higher than all these things, it is to be nothing.
All the great saints and sages, the great ones who have liberated humanity, have been as innocent as children and at the same time wiser, much more so, than the worldly-wise. And what makes it so? What gives them this balance? It is repose with passiveness. When they stand before God, they stand with their heart as an empty cup; when they stand before God to learn, they unlearn all things the world has taught them; when they stand before God, their ego, their self, their life, is no more before them. They do not think of themselves in that moment with any desire to be fulfilled, with any motive to be accomplished, with any expression of their own; but as empty cups, that God may fill their being.
Watch your mind...
Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give
it your full attention.
Don't look for quick results,
there may be none within your noticing.
Unknown
to you, your psyche will undergo a change,
there will
be more clarity in your thinking and feeling, purity
in your behaviour.
You need not aim at these - you
will witness the change all the same.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
All is Self...
Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking,
you are avoiding what is.
You don’t want to be where
you are:
Here.
Now.
When the mind is quiet,
all is Self.
- Papaji
Know Yourself...
To know that you are neither in the body nor in the mind, though aware of both, is already self-knowledge.
So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken. You know everything, but you do not know yourself. For the self is not known through words, only direct insight will reveal it. Look within, search within.
Learning words is not enough. You may know the theory, but without the actual experience of yourself as the impersonal and unqualified centre of being, love and bliss, mere verbal knowledge is sterile.
Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Jesus Speaks...
We are all One. The divine realms, the spiritual realms, and the physical realms are all One, and your scientists have discovered this though their ongoing studies in physics. There is nothing that is not part of the One, because the One is All That Exists, and every particle of consciousness is an eternal and inseparable part of that Whole, even though it may choose to experience itself as individual, separate, alone.
You knew this consciously and experientially when God created you One with Himself, and then, when you built, developed, and entered into the illusion, you forgot. But to forget is not to lose or be without, it is merely a temporary state in which the infinite abundance of your perfection, wisdom and knowledge – bestowed on you at the moment of your creation by your infinitely loving Father, God, the Source of All, Who, in His infinite Love for you, gave you everything that He had – is hidden from you only by your own choice to enter the illusion.
Your sense of individuality, separateness, aloneness, even abandonment is but part of that illusion, because it is impossible that you could ever be separated from the One that is All that exists. Your choice to experience that unreal state has brought you much pain and suffering, and you have now collectively decided to return to Reality, to the experiential knowing of your true state at One with your Creator.
What you are now in the process of doing is awakening from the dream, the quite terrifying dream that you are alone, separate, infinitesimally small and insignificant beings in a universe of such a vastness that the very thought of it totally overwhelms you. It is so terrifying that for many the only apparent escape was to deny it and pretend that you were simple human beings, born by chance from the primordial slime, and doing the best that you could to survive in an environment that was unaware of you, and which you hoped would remain unaware of you lest it chose (should it in fact have intelligence) to destroy you because you were so weak, feeble, and valueless.
Others invented a god, a being of immense power who constantly watched and judged you, to whom you believed that you owed undying allegiance and obeisance, and who you believed would reward you if you behaved in a fashion that you judged he would approve of, even to the point of judging others who you saw as unworthy of the standard that you had set, and who you therefore chose to attempt to subjugate or destroy to honor him. You have finally become collectively aware of the insanity of this kind of belief, you are releasing yourselves from it, and many are attempting to build a universal culture that lovingly embraces all on the planet for the good of all mankind.
You were created in Love and from Love, and within the illusion you have been forever seeking that Love – which seems to have been withdrawn from you – in relationships of all kinds. But none of them ever satisfies the need that lies buried deep within you, the only real need that you have and which has always been provided for you, to be One with your Source. You were created One with your Source, and separated from it you could not exist for even an instant, and so, thinking that you are separated, and therefore without love, it is your destiny to forever seek the Love that only It can provide.
But that Love is within you, where It was placed at the moment of your creation, and it is within that you will find It when you let go of all your preconceptions that keep you thinking, reasoning, and puzzling over where you might find It! It is closer to you than you can possibly imagine, but while you accept the illusion as real and try to find within it what you seek you will continue to be dismayed and disappointed, because you are searching in the distance for something from which you have never been separated.
Your guides, angels, saints, and mentors in the spiritual realms are constantly trying to help you see the truth of this, but you keep allowing yourselves to be distracted by the apparent charms and enticements or the fears and anxieties of the illusion. However, the awareness that life as you are presently experiencing it is an illusion is dawning on ever greater numbers of you, as you realize that God, the divine Source, being infinitely loving could never have created the threatening and inhospitable environment in which you appear to have your existence, because, to even the most cursory investigation it is abundantly apparent that it is not an environment created in Love.
Love is your nature, Love is your Source; you can never be separated from that Source, and therefore what you are experiencing must be illusory. An environment that encourages and provides pain and suffering, and that suggests that sacrifice is required of you to make you worthy of Him Who created you perfect in infinite Love makes no sense at all, and you are, at last, admitting the truth of that, and therefore letting go of judgment and opening to unconditional acceptance and love of all forms of life.
And doing just that, and nothing else, dissolves the illusion, because its whole premise is antithetical to Love, and when there is only Love there is no place for the illusion, and all the pain and suffering associated with it, and so it dissolves, it disintegrates, it is no more, and you awaken into the eternal joy of experiencing yourselves as One with Love.
Your loving brother, Jesus.
John Smallman
Light, Love, and Intelligence...
"Ultimately there is light and love and intelligence in this universe.
And we are it, we carry that within us, its not just something out there, it is within us.
This is what we are trying to re-connect with, our original light and love and intelligence, which is who we really are.
So it is important not to get so distracted by extraneous things, but to really remember what we are here on this planet for."
(Jetsun-ma Tenzin Palmo)
Three levels of Surrender...
When I speak of the 3 levels of surrender...
1) Allowing what is.
2) Accepting what is.
3) Loving what is...
Each level is actually simply a progressively deeper sinking into or penetration into the depths of the pure consciousness/presence that is already at the core of your being in this moment here and now.
The essential nature of pure consciousness/presence/awareness is that it is simply present without commentary.
I have even lately been calling this presence, 'the openness' because the very nature of it is that it is unconditionally open to whatever comes and goes within it.
It never 'shuts down' on anything that comes; no experience, no person, no circumstance, no emotion or feeling.
So acceptance or surrender is not something you 'do', it is something you already are and always have been.
Surrender does not need to be conjured up out of sheer will power or created or developed...
it just needs to be dis-covered in your own heart.
It has always been here.
Who you are already IS surrender and allowance and acceptance and LOVE.
You have always been that.
Francis Bennett
Eliminate false ideas...
All spiritual teachings are only
meant to make us retrace
our steps to our
Original Source..
We need not acquire anything new, only give
up false ideas and useless accretions.
Instead of doing this, we try to grasp something
strange and mysterious because we believe happiness
lies elsewhere.
This is a mistake.
- Ramana Maharshi
Simply attention...
No tension, no intention, simply attention.
No struggle between the in and the out,
just stay relaxed and at ease.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Freedom from hypnosis...
Beloved, remember this:
Your life, however it may appear, is naturally pointed
towards awakening to the eternal.
Strive for truth and freedom from the hypnosis of
psychological conditioning.
Do not let the lower tendencies sabotage your unity
with the Supreme by enticing you with the ephemeral.
- Mooji
Pure Knowledge...
Pure Knowledge is not imparted by another;
it comes unasked.
It is the one that is listening;
it is your own true nature.
Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Death...
Death, why do I not fear you any longer?..
Your skeletal face reminding me of the dissolving of the illusion..
You no longer have the power of fear..
Fear has been conquered by Love..
Love cannot be dissolved, It is not an illusion..
This dream of fear and separation is soon to be ended..
Look for the Light within..
The tunnel of Light is a trap..
The tunnel is a trip back into reincarnation..
The Light within is Reality..
As the Nazarene said; " The Kingdom of God is within"..
You are this Light..
Do not be fooled by deception..
Return to Your Self...
namaste, thomas
Thoughts on a Thursday Night...
The day 'Thursday' was named after the pagan god, Thor..
Thor was the manifestation of Thunder..
Is it not strange that we create gods from energy"..
But, all is energy, so the misconception is understandable..
What is not understood is that We are Energy..
We use the Thought creation energy from the human mind to create holograms that we call life..
And all of this time, we believe that we are the mind doing this creation..
But, now that you read these words, the Truth appears within your mind that 'You' are the Consciousness that watches the mind..
You are the 'Watcher'..
Are you now understanding?..
You are Consciousness..
There is nothing that is not Consciousness..
Energy is the blood of Consciousness..
They are inseparable..
Love is the Energy of non-separation and is inseparable..
God is Love and Love cannot be separated, It can only pretend to be separate
This pretense, we call ego...
namaste, thomas
The Saint...
The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of
the present moment, harmony with things as they
happen.
A saint does not want things to be different
from what they are;
he knows that, considering all
factors, they are unavoidable.
He is friendly with
the inevitable and, therefore, does not suffer.
Pain
he may know, but it does not shatter him.
If he can,
he does the needful to restore the lost balance –
or lets things take their course.
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
Uttaradhyayana Sutra...
"Even were the wealth of the entire world bestowed lavishly on a man,
he would not be happy:
contentment is difficult to attain."
_Uttaradhyayana Sutra_, 8.16 [Jain]
in Andrew Wilson
_World Scripture: An Anthology of Sacred Texts_
NY: International Religious Foundation, 1991, p. 296
Innocently go to...
If you have any image of what the Truth is, slay it immediately because that's not It.
We must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence into the unknown,
beyond where all paths end, to that place where we go innocently or not at all, not once but continually.
Adyashanti
Stages of Enlightenment...
In the early stages of enlightenment, the aspirant is overwhelmed by his discovery that God is within himself.
It stirs his intensest feelings and excites his deepest thoughts.
But, though he does not know it, those very feelings and thoughts still form part of his ego, albeit the highest part.
So he still separates his being into two--self and Overself.
Only in the later stages does he find that God not only is within himself but is himself.
Paul Brunton
Awakening...
Fear is the essence of egoic consciousness..
Love conquers fear..
The Realization of the Reality of Love over Fear is called Awakening..
namaste, thomas
The suicide of ego...
The ego is an illusion but the irony of this illusion is that it must commit mental suicide of itself to enter Enlightenment, while all the time submitting the fear to the mind that the body is dying..
As the Nazarene said; " you must die to be born"..
The you (ego) must enter the death of illusion to awaken into non-illusion..
This is the short path to Reality but the long path requires reincarnations..
Where does the courage to commit egoic suicide come from?..
Is it Consciousness Itself or the hidden desire of ego to end the pain of ego...
namaste, thomas
The lover of this world...
The lover of this world is like someone in love
with a wall illuminated by sunrays;
he doesn't
realise that the radiance and the splendor do
not come from the wall but from the sun;
he gives
his heart to the wall and when at sunset,
the rays
of sun disappear,
he is in despair.
- Rumi
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
One precept...
"Basically, there is only one precept -- not being selfish.
If people are selfish, they will violate the precepts.
If people are not selfish, they will not violate the
precepts."
Venerable Master Hsuan Hua
_Spring Sun, Lotus Flower:
Quotes form the teachings of Vernable Master Hsaun
Hua_
Burlingame, CA: Buddhist test Translation Society,
2004, p. 10
In the other world...
“In the other world” means in a world which is veiled from our eyes, our physical eyes;
but it does not mean a world far away from us, beyond our reach.
Both the living and the dead inhabit the same space; we all live together.
Only a veil separates us, the veil of this physical body.
Separation means being unable to see one another.
There is no other separation.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The mirror remains...
In the mirror of your mind, images appear and disappear.
The mirror remains.
Learn to distinguish the immovable in the movable, the unchanging in the changing, till you realize that all differences are in appearance only, and oneness is a fact.
This basic identity -you may call God, or Brahman, or the mattrix (Prakriti) ,
the words matter little-
is only the realization that all is one.
Once you can say with confidence born from direct experience "I am the world, the world is myself", you are free from desire and fear on one hand and become totally responsible for the world on the other.
The senseless sorrow of mankind becomes your sole concern.
Nisargadatta
Ego --- The False Center...
Ego - The False Center
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
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...
Present Everywhere...
"Once Mrs. Tarkhad, after preparing food for everyone in the house, was about to serve the dishes, when she heard a hungry dog barking. She immediately took a piece of bread and threw it to the dog, who ate it with great satisfaction.
"Later, when she went to the masjid, Baba said to her, 'Mother, you have fed me sumptuously. My afflicted pranas have been satisfied. Acts like this will stand you in good stead. Sitting in the masjid, I never speak the untruth. First give bread to the hungry and then eat yourself. Note this well.
"Mrs. Tarkhad was puzzled and did not understand what Baba was saying. Therefore, she questioned him, 'Baba, how could I feed you when I am dependent on others and take my food as payment?'
"Baba replied, 'Eating that lovely bread, I am heartily content, and am still belching. The dog you saw, and to whom you gave the piece of bread is one with me. I roam in their forms. He who sees me in all these creatures is my beloved. So abandon the sense of duality and distinction and serve me as you did today.'
"Baba thus explained that he was present everywhere and in everyone."
Prof. Dr. B. H. Briz-Kishore
_A Solemn Pledge:
True Tales of Shirdi Sai Baba_
New Delhi: New Dawn (imprint of Sterling), 2000, p. 63
The unseen world...
The next world is the same as this,
and this world is the same as the next,
only what is veiled from our eyes we call the unseen world.
And the reason why a person does not observe the unseen world is that he is accustomed to observe only what is before him;
he never turns within to see what is within him.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Here i Am...
I don't know what awakening is.
Life has become very ordinary yet sublime at the same time.
I don't know if any memories are true,
I don't know about yesterday or tomorrow and even now outside of thought.
Thought gives the illusion that I am Darshana but outside of thought where the hell is Darshana?
Is the body calling itself Darshana or is it my mind?
am I my mind or am I aware of the mind?
Whether there is thought or no thought, an invisible Presence notices every subtlety of thought, sensations, even the sense of Presence is noticed..
Yet looking for the Looker of all everything, nothing is found, It is a full nothing.
This nothing feels very alive.
This feels like me Here i AM.
Darshana Ji
You, yourself...
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself,
and that person is not to be found anywhere.
You yourself,
as much as anybody in the entire universe,
deserve your love and affection.
Gautama the Buddha
Winter...
"What you call bareness and poverty is to me simplicity.
God could not be unkind to me if he should try.
I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold, for it compels the prisoner to try new fields and resources.
I love to have the river closed up for a season and a pause put to my boating, to be obliged to get my boat in.
I shall launch it again in the spring with so much more pleasure.
This is an advantage in point of abstinence and moderation compared with the seaside boating, where the boat ever lies on the shore.
I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times.
It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.
I find it invariably true, the poorer I am, the richer I am.
What you consider my disadvantage, I consider my advantage.
While you are pleased to get knowledge and culture in many ways, I am delighted to think that I am getting rid of them."
- Henry David Thoreau
Uplift Results...
The basis of Short Path practices is that the mind is like a transparent crystal which takes on the color of what is brought into propinquity with it.
By turning the mind away from the ego,
even from its improvement,
and towards the Overself,
uplift results..
Paul Brunton
First, you forget yourself...
First, you forget yourself,
then you find yourself.
You forget yourself as personal
you and you find yourself as seamless, boundless infinite eternity.
None of it is your doing.
Magdi Em Be
OneTeacher...
There is one Teacher, God Himself; we are all His pupils.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
According to the Sufi point of view there is only one teacher, and that teacher is God Himself. No man can teach another man. All one can do for another is to give him one's own experience in order to help him to be successful. For instance if a person happens to know a road, he can tell another man that it is the road which leads to the place he wishes to find. The work of the spiritual teacher is like the work of Cupid. The work of Cupid is to bring two souls together. And so is the work of the spiritual teacher: to bring together the soul and God. But what is taught to the one who seeks after truth? Nothing is taught. He is only shown how he should learn from God. For no man can ever teach spirituality. It is God alone who teaches it. And how is it learned? When these ears which are open outwardly are closed to the outside world and focused upon the heart within, then instead of hearing all that comes from the outer life one begins to hear the words within. Thus if one were to define what meditation is, that also is an attitude: the right attitude towards God. The attitude should first be to seek God within. And, after seeking God within, then to see God outside.
If truth is to be attained, it is only when truth itself has begun to speak, which happens in revelation. Truth reveals itself; therefore, the Persian word for both God and truth is Khuda, which means self-revealing, thus uniting God with truth. One cannot explain either of these words. The only help the mystic can give is by indicating how to arrive at this revelation. No one can teach or learn this, one has to learn it oneself. The teacher is only there to guide one towards this revelation. There is only one teacher, and that teacher is God. The great masters of the world were the greatest pupils, and they each knew how to become a pupil.
'There is One Master, the Guiding Spirit of all Souls, Who constantly leads His followers towards the light.'
To the Sufi therefore there is only one Teacher, however differently He may be named at different periods of history, and He comes constantly to awaken humanity from the slumber of this life of illusion, and to guide man onwards towards divine perfection. As the Sufi progresses in this view he recognizes his Master not only in the holy ones, but in the wise, in the foolish, in the saint and in the sinner, and has never allowed the Master who is One alone, and the only One who can be and who ever will be, to disappear from his sight.
The Persian word for Master is Murshid. The Sufi recognizes the Murshid in all beings of the world, and is ready to learn from young and old, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, without questioning from whom he learns. Then he begins to see the light of Risalat, the torch of truth which shines before him in every being and thing in the universe, thus he sees Rasul, his Divine Message Bearer, a living identity before him. Thus the Sufi sees the vision of God, the worshipped deity, in His immanence, manifest in nature, and life now becomes for him a perfect revelation both within and without.
The Real is Real...
Many of us are sleeping much more than we have in the past.
especially if we are retired.
Perhaps, it is to escape the dream and enter Reality..
Is it not strange to realize that to escape the dream, you must enter a dream?..
There are many strange ideas that will be presented to you.
You are on a bus trip through a unknown land but the bus will return home soon..
You will remember very little of this dream.
Memory is a subject that will not enter your consciousness..
Memory belongs to the past and does not exist within Now..
Light and Love is the present tense..
The minutes will lead you to Freedom..
Be happy, The Real is Real...
namaste, thomas
Zen Buddhism...
Buddhism (Zen) & Non-Duality:
Buddhism looks at non-duality also as the absence of the sense of a separate ego. Simply because that is the Truth, it is not Hindu or Buddhist, it is simply the Truth. Instead of asserting that "You Are All", Zen simply stops at the negation of the false sense of separation. This sometimes helps prevent the confusion of the small "i" versus big "I" concepts in Advaita and Hinduism.
In both cases, a shift of awareness is what creates an encounter with the non-dual nature of Reality. Such a shift of awareness can produce an experience such that one encounters the emptiness or absence of the sense of separate existence. There are states where the organism continues to function, with each sense organ working perfectly, but there is no center or "i" to be found.
So in my view, Hinduism and Buddhism only differ in the nature of the non-dual experience. If you are experiencing the natural working of the organism, without any sense of separation, you are enjoying a Buddhist enlightenment experience, while if you feeling the expanded sense of the Oneness with everything, you are experiencing enlightenment from the Hindu perspective. Of course I may be over simplifying it a bit, but I think you get the idea.
At the end, it does not matter what you label it, and if you wish to argue it differently you may. The point is that the roots of non-duality lie in the absence of the sense of separation and to help you understand it all even better, let’s expand this idea of no-self even further.
from Anmolmehta.com
Lose yourself...
"Know that when you learn to lose yourself,
you will reach the Beloved.
There is no other secret to be learnt,
and more than this is not known to me."
Ansari of Herat
in Aldous Huxley
_The Perennial Philosophy_
NY: Harper, 1945, p. 376
Waking from dreams...
Some people think that you wake up from the dream of physical reality when you die,
and in a way, that is true since the physical body drops off and yet you continue to exist.
After you drop the body, you then witness the experiences of your soul on the subtle planes, rather than those of your body and soul working together on the physical plane.
But this, too, is still a dream.
When you wake up from the dream of both the body and the soul,
you recognize that you are the pure awareness that holds both the body and the soul.
from 'Living the Paradox of Enlightenment' by Thomas Razzeto
Bliss...
The undisturbed state of being is bliss;
the disturbed
state is what appears as the world.
In non-duality
there is bliss;
in duality - experience.
What comes
and goes is experience with its duality of pain and
pleasure.
Bliss is not to be known.
One is always
in bliss, but never blissful.
Bliss is not an attribute.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
ego is a notion...
We have only to eliminate the ego-notion,
by succeeding in the
difficult task of understanding that it does not exist,
except as a
notion.
Wei Wu Wei
Belief...
Confusion is the name of the game..
If you remain confused, you will not be in control of your thoughts and are easily led into fiction as reality..
In this world of deception, we are children lost in the forest of darkness looking for Light..
Belief is a precious gem and should not be squandered..
Belief is the Creative Source of Reality and manifests the illusions that we place this mental power upon..
Some call Belief, a power of Magic,
But, the Wise Know it as the power of Consciousness..
namaste, thomas
Fear and Desire...
The cosmic dance that’s generated between what
you fear and what you desire provides both the
energy and the momentum to keep your Game
in (e)motion.
Fear (yin) and desire (yang), however, are but
different sides of the same cosmic coin.
Although they’ve each taken root in the very heart
of their opposite, they still appear to chase each
other around the famous symbol of yin-yang.
In truth, though, they’re really the very best of
friends.
- Chuck Hillig
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003
Individuality...
Man’s tragic predicament derives from
the fact that thought and its processes
have become excessively developed to the
exclusion of intuition,
so much so that
every person confidently thinks of himself
as an individual figure exclusive even of
the very ground of nature!
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Abandon false ideas...
There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real, which you are, anyhow. The problem is not mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any.
You must unlearn everything. God is the end of all desire and knowledge.
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 from I Am That
who am I ?...
If this me is not I, then
who am I?
If I am not the one who speaks, then
who does?
If this me is only a robe then
who is
the one I am covering?
- Rumi
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rumi: Hidden Music
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
Ram Tzu speaks...
Ram Tzu knows this…
You may obliterate your own body
But you will never kill your self.
When egos destroy their habitat
It is a monumental display of conceit,
An infant throwing all its toys
Out of its playpen,
Pitiful as the chest pounding
Of a gorilla in a zoo.
Who is fooled by your posturing?
You are powerless
Devoid of substance
As free to choose as
Characters in a play.
What makes you believe
In your own reality?
Find the answer to this
And meet God.
- Ram Tzu
The True Lover...
"Your earthly lover can be very charming and coquettish,
But never very faithful.
The true lover is the one who on your final day
Opens a thousand doors."
Jalaluddin Rumi
in Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mali
_Rumi: Hidden Music_
London: Harper Element, 2001, p. 84
Nisargadatta Maharaj quotes...
In every body there is a dream, but the dreamer is the same, the one Self, which reflects itself in each body as "I am".
To me all [persons] are equal. Differences in appearance and expression are there, but they do not matter. Just as the shape of a gold ornament does not affect the gold, so does man's essence remain unaffected.
There is absolutely no difference between me and others, except in my knowing myself as I am. I know it for certain and you do not. The difference is only in the mind and temporary. I was like you, you will be like me.
My self and your self are one. I know it, but you don't. That is all the difference - and it cannot last.
I am the other person, the other person is myself; in name and shape we are different, but there is no separation. At the root of our being we are one.
The Short Path...
The Short Path frees him from all gnawing regrets about the past, with its sins of commission and of omission, its errors and follies, its mistakes and deficiencies.
Instead it puts his mind to work upon their contraries--what is beautiful and worthy, what is truthful and serene, what is pure and noble.
This is the inner work to which a man is called, this transition from long detours, painful struggles, and entrapment in self-centeredness which all form the Long Path.
Let them go, turn around, turn to the Short Path and find peace--
a peace which is not only felt but also understood..
Paul Brunton
" Now, I have become death, the destroyer of worlds"...
Openheimer said this quote from the Bhagavad Gita upon the explosion of the first nuclear bomb..
Death is the end of the illusion of materiality..
Death is a rest from pain..
Why not go beyond Death?..
The egoic consciousness is the one that is subject to death..
You as Consciousness witnesses the death of the illusion of life called body..
And yet, You are still trapped within the illusions of ego and enter the higher dimensions of existence..
When do You wake up?..
Perhaps, a few more lives will awaken you..
Going beyond thought is one method..
Surrendering All is another..
There are many ways to Awaken..
Reading these words is another..
These worlds that are so important to us are just illusions..
Look within instead of looking without..
The rest of this journey is left to You...
namaste, thomas
"This too, will pass"..
A powerful king, ruler of many domains, was in a position of such magnificence that wise men were his mere employees. And yet one day he felt himself confused and called the sages to him.
He said: "I do not know the cause, but something impels me to seek a certain ring, one that will enable me to stabilize my state"
"I must have such a ring. And this ring must be one which, when I am unhappy, will make me joyful. At the same time, if I am happy and look upon it, I must be made sad."
The wise men consulted one another, and threw themselves into deep contemplation, and finally they came to a decision as to the character of this ring which would suit the king.
The ring which they devised was one upon which was inscribed the legend:
THIS TOO, WILL PASS
Fariduddin Attar
Purged of Dogma...
‘Yesterday a conversation about divinity and faith led me to a great and stupendous idea, the realisation of which I feel capable of devoting my whole life to.
This idea is the foundation of a new religion corresponding to the development of mankind – the religion of Christ, but purged of dogma and mystery, a practical religion, not promising future bliss but providing bliss on earth.
I realise that to bring this idea to fruition will take generations of people working consciously towards this goal.
One generation will bequeath this idea to the next, and one day fanaticism or reason will implement it. Working consciously to unite people with religion is the foundation of the idea which I hope will occupy me.‘
Leo Tolstoy (age 27)
Diary entry, 4 March 1855
One Awareness...
Mainstream science holds that the material qualities and chemical processes of the body and the brain give rise to our personal consciousness. In other words, the material world is the foundation of reality, and consciousness is a byproduct that comes forth from specially organized matter, and this allows all sentient beings to be alive and aware. But what if it is the other way around? What if your awareness is fundamental? What if your awareness is unconstructed and everything else is created within this?
Honest scientific research into subjects such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, spirit communication and past lives all point to a nature of reality that is profoundly different from what is commonly believed. This research shows us that while there is a relationship between our personal
consciousness and our body, the body is not the source of our consciousness. The true nature of the self is beyond the body. Of course we all see that our bodies were born into the world, this is beyond dispute. But is it not also true that both our bodies and the entire world are born into our awareness?
Our amazing awareness itself is not even visible to us and yet we know it exists because we experience the world through it. Our awareness holds everything that we experience. Our awareness hosts our entire personal reality. Everything that you experience, physical or spiritual, arises out of your awareness and is witnessed by your unchanging awareness.
And the mystic carries this even further. A mystic understands that the awareness that looks out of your eyes is the same awareness that looks out of his or her eyes. What is seen is different but the awareness is the same. There is only One Awareness, that of the eternal divine essence and this formless, unseen, Divine Awareness is what animates all of life! What a miracle! What a mystery!
Living the Paradox of Enlightenment by Thomas Razzeto p.19
Eternal Life...
Most humans seek Eternal Life as a state of Being..
Why?..
The egoic controlled, seek eternal life through a long human life and afterwards within the continuous lives of reincarnation..
The Spiritually advanced see eternal life through the Being of Creative Source called Divine Consciousness or what most call God..
Once again, I ask Why ?..
Why do you fear non-existence ?..
Are you so important to Reality, that you should exist forever..
The Truth is that You are the Energy called Love..
Love does not possess an ego or personality..
Love is Pure Awareness and is all that does exist..
All else is a dream from Pure Awareness..
You are the Energy of Love but you are not aware of this non-existence of personality..
You still desire the separation from complete love by existing as a separate entity, even a separate entity within God..
" I and the Father, are One"..
The Nazarene was speaking of Divine Consciousness, but in Pure Awareness,
there is only One, when there is no 'I'...
namaste, thomas
Finding Peace...
"If there is peace in your mind, you will find peace with everybody.
If your mind is agitated, you will find agitation everywhere.
So first find peace within and you will see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.
You are this peace!
You are happiness,
find out.
Where else will you find peace if not within you?"
~ Papaji
Renunciation...
Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world,
but
accepting that they pass away.
Aitken Roshi
Love of Real Self...
Were it so [that we love only ourselves], it would be splendid! Love your self wisely and you will reach the summit of perfection. Everybody loves his body, but few love their real being. Your real being is love itself, and your many loves are its reflections according to the situation at the moment..
That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is you basic urge. Be true to your own self, love your self absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself, you cannot love them.
Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.
When you realize the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear, and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realization can break it..
Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Djinn and Angelic planes...
There are some souls who halt in their journey to earth at either the djinn or the angelic plane a much longer time than a traveling soul would usually stay. And yet they cannot stay:
the energy that is still there keeps them restless until they have accomplished their journey.
Therefore, they come on earth as human beings, yet showing in their nature the character of the plane at which they had stationed on their way.
They cannot help feeling homesick, for they often unconsciously feel that they do not belong to this earth, that they had some experience somewhere else that they long to have again. And the only way these souls can find is through the love of art, science, or knowledge to the djinn world, and through piety, purity, and spirituality to the angelic plane.
This not only gives then a substitute for the life they have had, but to a greater or lesser extent the realization of that plane, because in the human being all planes are manifest.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Fear and Archons....
The mass media constantly plants the seeds of fear..
Newspapers, radio, television, film, books, music, games,..
The 'Archons' absorb the energy of fear, It is their life force..
The 'Archons' control the puppets, that we call leaders..
This is why wars are fought..
The duty of the puppets is to serve the Archons..
Wealth and power await those that serve the duality called Archons..
You may know these 'Thought Forms' by other names, according to your religion and knowledge..
They are the ego to the non-ego..
They are servants of the negative within this dream..
They create the horror within horror films..
What happens when you no longer feel fear?..
The Archons dissolve into the nothingness of non-thought..
Love is the state of no-fear..
Are you now beginning to understand the Mystics?..
namaste, thomas
Liberating the soul...
Verily, he is victorious who has conquered himself.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Our greatest enemy is ourself. All weakness, all ignorance keeps us from the truth of our being, from all the virtues hidden in us and all perfection hidden in our souls. The first self we realize is the false self. Unless the soul is born again it will not see the kingdom of heaven. The soul is born into the false self; it is blind. In the true self the soul opens its eyes. Unless the false self is fought with, the true self cannot be realized.
The soul is a bird of paradise, a free dweller in the heavens. Its first prison is the mind, then the body. In these it becomes not only limited, but also captive. The whole endeavor of a Sufi in life is to liberate the soul from its captivity, which he does by conquering both mind and body.
If a man has control over himself, he will smile and be patient even if he is exposed to rages a thousand times. He will just wait. He who has spiritual control has great control; but he who has it not can control neither spiritual nor physical events. He cannot control his own sons and daughters, for he never listens to himself first. If he listened to himself, not only persons but even objects would listen to him.
There is a poem by the great Persian poet Iraqi in which he tells, 'When I went to the gate of the divine Beloved and knocked at the door, a voice came and said -- Who art thou?' When he had told, 'I am so and so', the answer came, 'There is no place for anyone else in this abode. Go back to whence thou hast come'. He turned back and then, after a long time, after having gone through the process of the cross and of crucifixion, he again went there -- with the spirit of selflessness. He knocked at the door; the word came, 'Who art thou? ', and he said, 'Thyself alone, for no one else exists save Thee'. And God said, 'Enter into this abode for now it belongs to thee'. It is such selflessness, to the extent that the thought of self is not there, it is being dead to the self, which is the recognition of God.
Cowardice...
"Tokimune is said to have once asked Bukko the National Teacher: 'The worst enemy of our life is cowardice, and how can I escape it?'
Bukko answered, 'Cut off' the source whence cowardice comes.'
Tokimune: 'Where does it come from?'
Bukko: 'It comes from Tokimune himself.'
Tokimune: 'Above all things, cowardice is what I hate most,.and how can it come out of myself?'
Bukko: 'See how you feel when you throw overboard your cherished self known as Tokimune. I will see you again when you have done that.'
Tokimune: 'How can this be done?'
Bukko: 'Shut out all your thoughts.'
Tokimune: 'How can my thoughts be shut out of consciousness?'
Bukko: 'Sit cross-legged in meditation and see into the source of all your thoughts which you imagine as belonging to Tokimune.'
Tokimune: 'I have so much of worldly affairs to look after and it is difficult to find spare moments for meditation.'
Bukko: 'Whatever worldly affairs you are engaged in, take them up as occasions for your inner reflection, and some day you will find out who is this beloved' Tokimune of yours.'"
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
Zen Buddhism And Its Influence On Japanese Culture
Kyoto: The Eastern Buddhist Society Otani Buddhist College Showa XIII (1938), p. 40
the paradox...
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.
Paul Brunton
It was the river...
“I sat there and forgot and forgot,
until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched...
Eventually the watcher joined the river,
and there was only one of us.
I believe it was the river.”
Norman Maclean
Contentment...
"Even were the wealth of the entire world bestowed lavishly on a man, he would not be happy: contentment is difficult to attain."
_Uttaradhyayana Sutra_, 8.16 [Jain]
in Andrew Wilson
_World Scripture: An Anthology of Sacred Texts_
NY: International Religious Foundation, 1991, p. 296
The world is a concept...
From your true being as Awareness alienated and deluded do not pursue appearances, deeming them as real.
They are false, since disappear they must.
But your own being as Awareness is real and cannot cease to be.
The world appears distinctly only in wakefulness and dream with concepts filled.
In concept-free, all empty sleep, one sees no world; so then conceptual is the world's whole substance.
The above Ramana Maharshi quotes are from the book:
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
Infinitely Creative Awareness...
To take appearance for reality is a grievous
sin and the cause of all calamities.
You are
the all-pervading, eternal and infinitely creative
awareness - consciousness.
All else is local and
temporary.
Don't forget what you are.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
The game of reincarnation...
You are not the illusion of self that continues through different lives and dimensions in the attempt to find Reality..
The 'self' or ego that reincarnates is a part of the illusion of separation that plays within the holograms of consciousness based information gathering..
You have been trapped within the Circle of Ignorance..
You entered into this Circle, when You began to believe that You are that which You create..
You pretended so well that You fooled Yourself..
This Circle of returning to Reality is called the 'Long Path'..
The 'Short Path' ends the Circle and Self is Realized as Reality..
The 'Short Path' is the surrendering of the illusion of egoic consciousness and the Awakening into Reality..
The 'Short Path' ends the game of Reincarnation..
How long do you desire to continue the game of reincarnation ?...
namaste, thomas
Release your struggle...
You are not here to fix anything, because nothing is broken, but
everything is continually changing and expanding.
Release your
struggle, and seek joy and fun,
and in doing so, you will align with
the fantastic expanding rhythm of this Universe.
- Abraham-Hicks
You are beyond creation...
"You are infinite,
you are really everywhere,
but you think you are the body, and therefore consider yourself limited.
If you look within and experience your own soul in its true nature,
you will realize that you are infinite and beyond creation."
Meher Baba
_Meher Baba Calling_, 43
Ahmednagar: Meher Nazar Books, 6th ed., 1992 (1964)
Look Within...
If you need time to achieve something,
it must
be false.
The real is always with you;
you need
not wait to be what you are.
Only you must not
allow your mind to go out of yourself in search.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Talks with Ramana...
Talk 406.
Mr. Cohen, a resident disciple, has been for some days past thinking
about a book called Nirvana written by a prominent Theosophist,
wherein the author claims to reach nirvana every night after going to
sleep.
He claims to see his own Master and other Masters of the
Theosophical Society as bright lights within the ocean of light which
is nirvana. He asked Sri Bhagavan how it could be possible,
considering the Advaitic teaching that the nirvanic experience is the
same as that of the pure consciousness of Being.
M.: Nirvana is Perfection. In the Perfect State there is neither subject
nor object; there is nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to know.
Seeing and knowing are the functions of the mind. In nirvana there
is nothing but the blissful pure consciousness “I am.”....
D.: But after how long? and why should a man who is ready for the
Absolute knowledge stick to the knowledge of the Relative?
M.: Everything happens in its own time. The one who is ready for the
absolute knowledge will be made somehow to hear of it and follow
it up. He will realise that Atmavidya (self-realization) is the highest of all virtues and
also the end of the journey.
Then, asked about the difference between external and internal
nirvikalpa samadhis, referring to article 391 above, the Master said:
External samadhi is holding on to the Reality while witnessing the
world, without reacting to it from within. There is the stillness of a
waveless ocean. The internal samadhi involves loss of bodyconsciousness.
There is no such thing as Two...
God is truth, and truth is God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Many intellectual people, with their various ideas, differ from one another in their opinions and in their way of looking at things, in their speculations, but do the prophets differ from one another? No, they cannot differ. The reason is that it is the various minds which differ, not the souls. The one who lives in his mind, is conscious of his mind; the one who lives in his soul is conscious of the soul. ... When a person is living in his mind, he is living through the darkness of the night. The moment he rises above his mind and awakens in the light of the soul he becomes spiritual. And if a thousand spiritual people speak, they will say the same thing, perhaps in different words but with only one meaning, for they have one and the same vision. This is why spiritual realization is called the truth. There are many facts but only one truth. The facts can be put into words but not the truth, for God is truth, the soul is truth, the real self of man is truth.
We generally confuse truth with fact, and we often use the word fact for truth. When we look at it from the mystic's point of view we find that words are too intricate ever to explain what is truth. ... Truth is that which cannot be pointed out, because all things that can be compared have their opposite, but neither God nor truth has an opposite. Names are to point out forms, and words are to distinguish one thing from another, while definitions come from the pairs of opposites or at least from differences. That which is all-pervading and is in all things and beings, that which every word explains and yet no word can explain, is God and is truth.
The seeker after truth goes out into the world and he finds innumerable different sects and religions. He does not know where to start. Then he desires to find out what is hidden under these sects, these different religions, and he begins to seek the object which he wishes to gain through wisdom. Wisdom is a veil over truth, even wisdom cannot be called truth. God alone is truth, and it is truth that is God. And truth can neither be studied nor taught nor learned; it is to be touched, it is to be realized; and it can be realized by the unfoldment of the heart.
Truth is one, God is one, life is one. To me there is no such thing as two. Two is only one plus one
Humility is Freedom...
In humility is the greatest freedom.
As long as you have to defend the imaginary self
that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart.
As soon as you compare that shadow
with the shadows of other people, you lose all joy,
because you have begun to trade in unrealities
and there is no joy in things that do not exist.
~Thomas Merton
Pure Unbounded Existence...
Meditation on the void has, as one of its chief aims, the overcoming of egoism.
It not only destroys the narrow view of self but sublimates the very thought of self into the thought of pure unbounded existence.
Employed at the proper time and not prematurely,
it burns up the delusion of separateness.
Paul Brunton
Only Consciousness Remains...
Everything is Energy including Consciousness.
Consciousness is the Thought or Thoughts that form the illusions of materiality that are called human bodies or other material objects..
These holograms exist in this dimension and the higher dimensions..
They exist as long as You believe that You are separate from Consciousness.
Once the egoic-consciousness is dissolved,
Only Consciousness remains..
namaste, thomas
Consciousness...
All experience is thought-experience.
What we know as the world is a series of thoughts,
not a number of material things plus a number of mental thoughts.
Consciousness runs through all of them as their common element:
they originate from it,
exist in it,
leave it behind when they vanish.
Paul Brunton
Reflect the Light...
"Dear friend,
your heart is a polished mirror.
You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it,
because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets."
Al-Ghazali
in J. Fadiman and R. Frager, Eds.
_Essential Sufism_
San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997, p. 124
Tao Te Ching...
"You govern a kingdom by normal rules;
You win a war by exceptional moves.
But you win the world by letting alone.
How do I know this is so?
By what is in me."
Lao Tzu
_Tao Te Ching_, 57
Translated by John C. H. Wu
NY: Barnes & Noble, 1997 (1961), p. 117
question your answers...
Many people think that it is the function of a spiritual teaching
to provide answers to life's biggest questions,
but actually, the opposite is true.
The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to
answer your questions, but to question your answers.
For it is your conscious and unconscious assumptions and beliefs
that distort your perception and cause you to see separation and division where there is actually only unity and completeness.
In the end
It is very simple
Either
We give ourselves
To silence
Or
We don't.
Adyashanti
Let us examine, ' thanking the darkness'...
The darkness is the selfishness of egoic consciousness and is also known as the duality of consciousness called Lucifer..
Lucifer was the brightest of Light..
But, envy called him into the occupation of deceit and lies..
Remember, God is the energy and knowledge of Truth..
Duality of Truth and Untruth is the Dream that We have chosen..
To know Truth, You must first know untruth..
The angel of deceit has the job of showing you the mirror of yourself..
Are you Love or selfishness?..
This is the Drama that You have chosen to experience..
In this world, there are many religions that are supposed to tell you the Truth..
But, you have found them to be infiltrated by the Luciferian worshipers..
Many of you are not yet aware of this knowledge and are still asleep..
There are constant wars that are created as a sacrifice to the false god of ego..
Lucifer demands servitude to attain wealth, power, and fame..
Look at those that achieve these goals and begin to think of their master..
Beware, the secret societies that demand the control of your mind and soul..
This is enough knowledge for now..
Contemplate what has been writen...
namaste, thomas
Thanking the darkness...
I first believed without any hesitation in the existence of the soul, and then I wondered about the secret of its nature.
I persevered and strove in search of the soul, and found at last that I myself was the cover over my own soul.
I realized that that in me which believed and that in me which wondered, that which was found at last, was no other than my soul.
I thanked the darkness that brought me to the light, and I valued this veil that prepared for me the vision in which I saw myself reflected, the vision produced in the mirror of my soul.
Since then I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all.
And what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and that I shall be whoever there will be in the future.
And there was no end to my happiness and joy.
Verily, I am the seed and I am the root, and I am the fruit of this tree of life.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Reality is...
Q. What about bringing down divine consciousness from above?
As if the same is not already in the Heart? "O Arjuna, I am in the expanse of the Heart," says Sri Krishna. "He who is in the Sun, is also in this man.", says a mantra in the Upanishads. "The Kingdom of God is within.", says the Bible. All are thus agreed that God is within. What is to be brought down? From where? Who is to bring what, and why?
Realization is only the removal of obstacles to the recognition of the eternal, immanent Reality.
Reality is.
It need not be taken from place to place.
Ramana Maharshi
Talks with Ramana Maharshi
Sri Ramanasramam: Tiruvannamalai, 2006, p. 174
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