"Many are called, but few are chosen"...
I find many indivualized sources of Consciousness called Souls in pain..
I can only tell them to drop the ego if they desire to end confusion and pain..
But, the ego is strong and they bypass this coaching..
There is nothing else left to do but print words of encouragement from Gurus' and Mystics..
The end of ego is the most difficult journey that you can make..
In meditation, you must die!..
That's right, you must die!..
Are you strong enough to die mentally to self?..
This is called Enlightenment..
Gautama and Jesus did..
As Jesus said; " you must die, to be Born"..
Can you?..
This is called the 'short path'..
"Many are called, but few are chosen"...
namaste, thomas
Give All to receive All...
I sit with a young cat that I found in my backyard, watching my every move and wondering who am I ?..
I know who I am but cannot convey this knowledge to the watcher..
I, as the Watcher wonder why I spend so much of this consciousness upon the watchers of me..
who cares?..
I am a voice and a sensory perception..
What more do I need to know..
The Voice that matters sees me as a Dream..
The Father of Light is also a Dream from Awareness..
The lack of Energy that you feel is the 'Dark night of the soul'..
Give everything,,
That is the secret..
Give All to receive All..
So simple and yet so difficult..
Forgive me for emptying my mind...
namaste, thomas
The Inner Teacher...
Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru).
The outer teacher (Guru) is merely a milestone.
It is only your inner teacher that will walk with
you to the goal, for He is the goal.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
He's Free...
Take someone who doesn't keep score,
who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,
who has not the slightest interest even
in his own personality:
He's free.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Coleman Barks
"Open Secret"
Threshold Books, 1984
Divinity comes from You...
We consider bibles and religions divine –
I do not say they are not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you, and
may grow out of you still.
It is not they who give the life, it is you
who give the life.
Leaves are no more shed from the trees,
or trees from the earth, than they are
shed out of you.
- Walt Whitman
Spirit and Matter...
There is a conflict between spirit and matter.
Matter absorbs the spirit in order to exist, and the spirit assimilates matter, for its own property.
The whole of manifestation may thus be regarded as a continual conflict between spirit and matter,
the spirit developing into matter on the one hand and assimilating matter on the other:
the former being called activity and the latter silence, or construction and destruction, or life and death.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Learned...
1. Why do people call me learned?
What is the mark of real learning?
Learning that all garnered knowledge of things
is empty ignorance
and that true knowledge
is the search for the Knower.
2. Those who,
learning to forget completely all objective knowledge,
turn inward firmly and see clearly the truth,
abide serene.
Those who try to recall forgotten things pine bewildered,
fretting over false phenomena.
3. When knowledge marred by doubt and error
disappears in true Awareness clear and pure,
one thus established firmly in Self-Being,
free from falsehood,
has crossed over to the further shore of the river of knowledge.
4. Even the knowledge sense-perceived of the world without
has for its ground the Self above.
To search for knowledge somewhere else apart from That
is but to grasp the shadow,
not the substance.
5. Whatever notion may arise,
never to let it live or grow,
but to turn it that very instant,
firm and stern,
back to its source and merge it there,
this is robust, intense detachment.
6. Many are the ills that flow from mixing with mad folks
afflicted with turbid minds and rattling tongues.
Best friendship is with those good men whose minds are dead
and who abide in the pure silence of awareness.
7. Those who do not dive into the Heart
and there confront the Self in the five sheaths hid
are only students answering out of books
clever questions raised by books,
and not true seekers of the Self.
The above Sri Ramana Maharshi quotes are from the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
" Let the dead bury the dead"...
Certainly we are living
compared to stones,
but compared to
Spirit
we are dead.
In a dream you think
you are seeing and observing
but those who are standing
outside you, awake,
know you are sleeping still.
The living ones
call the dead 'the dead'
and higher living Beings
call living ones the dead.
- Swami Amar Jyoti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
Thinking creates time...
"My thinking creates time.
Within
time-thinking I maintain my illusory sense of self-identity and separation.
I think, therefore I continue."
Tony Parsons
Within Our Consciousness...
The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos.
It is within our consciousness.
Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart:
it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind.
— Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 2
Paul Brunton
The Physical Manifestation of the Ego-Self ...by James Blanchard Cisneros.
The physical manifestation of living through the ego-self results in a feeling of void, a spiritual emptiness living with the sense that something is missing in our lives. On the other hand, love, being the opposite of fear, gives us a sense of fullness and spiritual fulfillment. We have been created in the fullness of God, in the Love of God, in His image. Feeling empty or living in fear is by definition an unnatural expression. Feeling empty or living in fear comes from a false belief in separation from God. Anytime we allow fear or emptiness to come into our hearts and minds, we have separated ourselves from our trueselves. Our trueselves are literally a part of God, just as our brother or sister is a part of God. God is all, and all is Love. There is nothing else; everything else is simply a contraption of the ego, a manifestation of the illusion of who we believe ourselves to be. It is the ego's best effort to fill us up with itself.
The ego promises us that if we follow its rules and laws, we will obtain peace of mind and joy. But in truth, the ego can only offer what it is. It can offer us what is unreal, temporary and unfulfilling. We have tried to fill ourselves with the gifts the ego offers. At first, the gifts are small but large enough to temporarily satisfy us. Yet, being temporary and unreal, the same gifts that once satisfied us ultimately become small and meaningless. Once our minds have digested the ego's gifts, we again have a sensation of feeling empty. The ego promised us fulfillment. It promised us that its gifts would bring us true joy and peace of mind. But after digesting its gifts, we again feel empty, and we begin to ask why. Then the ego, in order to protect itself from these questions, offers us bigger gifts. It knows it cannot continue to fool us with little illusions for they no longer fill the emptiness within. Thus, it offers us larger illusions, and at first our reaction is, "Wow!" For a short time, we believe that these illusions, that we call real, will satisfy the empty feelings we possess within. Yet, big or small, these are illusions, and illusions, being nothing, can by definition never fill us up.
Again, we ask, “Why? How could this be? I felt satisfied a while back; why am I not satisfied now?” The ego again becomes nervous, for it hates being questioned. It would rather we never ask such questions, or ask no questions at all. It does its best to keep us busy, for it understands that when we're busy we cannot find time to question it. So the ego does its best to fill our time with as many illusions as possible. It understands that its existence is in jeopardy every time we ponder its reality. It understands that it cannot fill us with its lies forever, so it keeps raising the level of illusions in order to temporarily shut us up. And it succeeds every time we buy into it.
Illusions themselves offer their own brand of truth. And if we believe in the illusions we are pursuing, we will also believe in the truth they are offering. Illusions appear to create a truth, which the ego believes is true, and will defend until death. But illusions are nothing, and that which is nothing cannot create truth. Illusions can only create a false truth; this might temporarily satisfy us, but it will never fulfill us.
What is true is eternal, is based in love, and offers us eternal peace of mind and joy. What is false is temporary, and is based on illusions, which can only offer temporary peace of mind and joy, which fades into nothingness, creating a sense of emptiness and a state of confusion. Peace of mind and joy are eternal, and what is eternal cannot be temporary. Temporary peace of mind and joy therefore do not exist. They are illusions created by the ego to keep us from understanding and experiencing real eternal peace of mind and joy.
The ego, once more in defense of its existence, will offer bigger illusions, and bigger lies. Once again we have a choice: we can choose to buy into these greater illusions and lies, or we can choose to question them. By questioning illusions, we take the first step in undoing them.
Freedom of choice is one of our greatest gifts. So don't judge yourself for having chosen such illusions in the past, for it is those illusions and their lack of fulfillment that have brought you to this point in your life. Now you are truly allowing yourself time to reflect, and to ask if any of the ego's illusions and lies have brought you true happiness. True happiness brings with it peace of mind and joy. Has the ego offered you true peace of mind and true joy? Are you at peace with yourself, your family, friends, neighbors and with the world in general?
You already know the answers to these questions. You have already experienced enough pain. Eventually, you'll recognize that there must be a better way. To recognize means to "know again," which implies that you knew before. As you begin to recognize your trueself or Godself, you will increasingly be unable to tolerate your beliefs in illusions.
Now that you have chosen to search inside yourself, understand that the ego will not go quietly into the night. Your search for light and truth is fearful to the ego, for it resides in darkness. It will use its last resources to defend itself. It will make you as uncomfortable as possible. It will tell you that you're being ridiculous, that you should snap out of it. You will hear the ego, but, at the same time, you will remember where it has taken you before. You have heard its defenses before, but now they will no longer work against you. No longer will you choose to blindly follow the ego. Even other people's egos will try to join yours in its defense, for they understand that if one falls, others in the group may follow.
In your everyday life, you lead by example. Other egos will not be comfortable if you choose to remember your trueself and decide to change. Once your change toward your Godself begins, you'll clearly see it in your life. Those ruled by ego will begin to slowly fade away, spending less time with you. They may attack you for not being your "old self." Yet, you now understand that you cannot live like your old self did, for your old self is not your trueself now. Even if you start spending less time around certain individuals, your love and respect for them will actually increase. As your love and respect for yourself increases so too will your love and respect for all your brothers and sisters. Even some of the places you used to go will now seem different, for there are places where the ego feels at ease, and there are places where it doesn't.
You'll go to new places - perhaps places you thought you would never go - and you'll meet new people. These people and places will serve you in your search for remembrance. Throughout your remembrance process, other people who are ruled by their ego-selves will attack your process, even and especially family members or those closest to you. They will feel their own egos, their way of life under attack. You need only be yourself during these encounters. Speak your truth. Stay true to yourself. Never attack others for their beliefs, and respect their processes even though you might perceive them as not respecting yours.
My friend, I am here to remind you that peace of mind, love and joy are your inheritance. Peace of mind, love and joy are the main attributes of the Godself. We all have a Godself, because we are simply our Godselves and nothing else. Everything else, including our ego-selves is an illusion we have created to help us live in the illusionary world. The ego is a speck of dust that we have made into a mountain. Yet still, what is even the highest mountain compared to the universe, to All That Is? As the illusion that is the ego slowly dissolves in the light, so too will the mountain, in time, return to dust.
Union with God...
This is the purpose of life..
The incredible part of this quest is that We have never been separated from God..
Are we not fools?..
We search for something that we already have..
Why are we in this confusion?..
The game of separation called egoic consciousness is the answer..
Why do We play this game?..
Because We need a mirror to see Ourself..
We must see what We are not, to see what We are..
We, as the consciousness of ego is the mirror..
Is it all a game or a school of Knowledge?..
Only God Knows...
namaste, thomas
What is Mysticism...
To many modern Christians, words like "meditation," "mystic," and "mysticism" bring to mind Eastern religions, not Christianity. Certainly Eastern religions are known for their mysticism; however, mysticism is not only a vital part of the Christian heritage as well, but it is actually the core of Christian spirituality. Mysticism simply means the spirituality of the direct experience of God. It is the adventure of "the wild things of God."
The direct experience of God is a kind of knowing, which goes beyond intellectual understanding. It is not a matter of "belief." It is marked by love and joy, but it is not "emotional experience." In many ways, it is better described by what it is not. To describe what it is, we must use metaphors—the marriage of the soul to Christ, the death of the "old man" and birth of the "new man," being the "body of Christ."
Jesus proclaimed "I and the Father are one," (Jn. 10.30) showing the world what the union of God and man can be. Christian mysticism is about nothing else but this transforming union.
Christ is the sole end of Christian mysticism. Whereas all Christians have Christ, call on Christ, and can (or should) know Christ, the goal for the Christian mystic is to become Christ—to become as fully permeated with God as Christ is, thus becoming like him, fully human, and by the grace of God, also fully divine. In Christian teaching this doctrine is known by various names—theosis, divinization, deification, and transforming union.
A common misconception about mysticism is that it's about "mystical experiences," and there are many volumes on such experiences in religious literature. But true mysticism is not focussed on "experiences" (which come and go) but with the lasting experience of God, leading to the transformation of the believer into union with God.
..............http://frimmin.com/faith/mysticismintro.php
What you think, you will become...
No object of desire is real,
no object of desire is worth your peace.
If your house is desires, burn it down.
It is only the absence of desire that makes you happy,
so allow no desire to rise.
Just allow yourself to be dissolved by love.
When there is no desire, there is love and beauty.
If you do desire then only desire peace
because what you think you will become:
Water poured in the ocean becomes the ocean.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Compassion...
Jesus told us to love our enemy.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
This teaching helps us know how to look
At the person we consider to be the cause for our suffering.
If we practice looking deeply into his situation
And the causes of how he came to be the way he is now,
And if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition,
We may see that we could have become exactly like him.
When we do that, compassion arises in us naturally,
And we see that the other person is to be helped, and not punished.
In that moment, our anger transforms itself into the energy of compassion.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Sutta Nipata...
"Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth."
--Sutta Nipata
Detachment...
He has reached a point where contact with the Stillness is now possible,
where its glorious blessing is now available.
But he soon finds that on returning to the everyday world, as return he must, the contact swiftly vanishes.
Is there anything he can do here to reduce and delay the loss?
The real obstacle is, as always, his ego.
If he cannot remove it,
he can practise temporarily suspending it.
— Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 3:
Practise Detachment > # 191
Paul Brunton
Pure Awareness...
One ever-present pure Awareness,
this alone has true existence.
The world perceived and measured by you is but illusion,
jaundiced yellow,
caused by the ego's concepts false and treacherous desires..
Ramana Maharshi
Maitri Upanishad...
"One assumes the form of that which is in one's mind.
That is the eternal secret."
Maitri Upanishad
in George Feuerstein
Teachings of Yoga
Boston: Shambhala, 1997, p. 38
All illusion...
The man of understanding who has lost
his identity as a separate individual re-
mains identified with pure, infinite Con-
sciousness while he continues to live out
his life as an ordinary person in the world,
knowing full well, however, that it is all
an illusion.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
Nothing...
speaking about the non-existence of self..
speaking about nothing but still pointing to something..
the ego challenges ego..
where does it end?..
does the ego win and we all close our doors..
does nothingness win and we have no doors..
who is the speaker ?..
who listens?..
does it matter ?..
Is it matter?..
mattering about nothing...
namaste, thomas
Enlightenment...
Enlightenment absorbs this universe of qualities.
When that merging occurs, there is nothing
but God. This is the only doctrine.
There is no word for it, no mind
to understand it with, no categories
of transcendence or non-transcendence,
no vow of silence, no mystical attitude.
There is no Shiva and no Shakti
in enlightenment, and if there is something
that remains, that whatever-it-is
is the only teaching.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
no word will suffice...
"What is this awesome mystery
that is taking place within me?
I can find no words to express it;
my poor hand is unable to capture it
in describing the praise and glory that belong
to the One who is above all praise,
and who transcends every word...
My intellect sees what has happened,
but it cannot explain it.
It can see, and wishes to explain,
but can find no word that will suffice;
for what it sees is invisible and entirely formless,
simple, completely uncompounded,
unbounded in its awesome greatness.
What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one,
received not in essence but by participation.
Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive."
Symeon the New Theologian
in _The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives_
Translated by John Anthony McGuckin
Boston: Shambhala, 2003
The Circle...
We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started,
and know the place for the first
time.
T.S. Eliot
Consciousness Itself...
Chandrakirti, a Mahayana Buddhist guru, said,
"We teach the illusion of existence only as an antidote to the obstinate belief of common mankind in the existence of this world."
What he means by this is that the world is only relatively existent in relation to the physical senses and the physical brain.
The senses report its existence quite correctly and Mentalism agrees with mankind in the factuality of this experience.
But it says this is only a relative truth, that the basic or real truth is that both world and self exist in consciousness, that they are nothing else than Consciousness itself.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 135
Paul Brunton
Jnana...
"Ignorance conceals the pre-existent Knowledge just as the water plants cover the surface of a pond. Clear away the plants and you have the water. You don't have to create it; it is already there.
Or take another example — a cataract grows on the eye and prevents a man from seeing: remove the cataract and he sees. Ignorance is the cataract.
_Jnana_ (Knowledge) is not something to be attained. It is eternal and self-existent. On the other hand, ignorance has a cause and an end. The root of it is the idea that the devotee is separate from God. Remove that and what remains is _Jnana_."
Sai Baba of Shirdi
in Arthur Osborne. The Incredible Sai Baba. (London:
Rider 1958), p. 26-7
The Uninvolved Witness...
It is not you that comes and goes or fades.
It is
the mind that comes and goes and passes away.
Understand, know and be in your true position
as the uninvolved witness of all phenomena.
- Mooji
The mystery of Mind...
The mystery of Mind is undoubtedly the biggest mystery of all, for when he understands that he will have the key which unlocks the door to all the other problems. However, it is necessary to grasp the following:
there are two phases of Mind. The first is Consciousness in its everyday form, that is, the consciousness of this time-space-matter world. He has the illusion that this consciousness is a continuous and unified whole, but actually it is like a stream of machine-gun bullets, being made up of an incessant series of disconnected thoughts. Because these thoughts arise and disappear with extraordinary rapidity, the illusion of continuous consciousness, the illusion of an unchangeable, solid world, and the illusion of a separate ego are born.
The word "illusion" used here must not be misunderstood. The existence of this amazing trio is not denied for a single moment, because they are there staring him in the face. But this existence is purely relative. It is not absolutely permanent and therefore not real in the Oriental definition of that much-abused word. He must not confine the notion of Mind to that fragment of it which is used in everyday consciousness.
What is called Consciousness is merely a portion of what is called Mind, or, functionally regarded, merely one of its faculties. It is the transient and relatively less important portion too. Whether consciousness lives or dies, Mind will always go on because it is the hidden source. Now this Mind in its own pure stage (i.e., unexpressed through everyday human consciousness) is utterly beyond the range of human thinking because it is Absolute, timeless, spaceless, idea-less, and matterless.
It has no shape to be seen, no sound to be heard. Consequently from the average human standpoint it is a great Nothing and as a matter of fact some of the Tibetan sages did call it a Great Void. As he cannot pull it down to the grasp of his little human mind and therefore is not ordinarily aware of it, it has sometimes been referred to as the Unconscious Mind, for want of a better term. But such a description is not a good one, as it may lead to dangerous misunderstandings. A better descriptive term must be found. To quote a phrase from one of Disraeli's novels: "The conscious cannot be derived from the unconscious. Man is divine."
It is this Infinite Mind which has been called God, Spirit, Brahman, and so forth. He has to get the knowledge that his own little individual stream of consciousness has flowed out of this great source and will eventually return to it and disappear into it.
This is Truth. This universal, impersonal Being is what all are after. The ones who seek it consciously are the people who have taken up the Quest. Those who are after it unconsciously take to drink and other sensual enjoyments and pursue the allurements of this most alluring world.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 130
Paul Brunton
Rumi on false ego...
Rumi on False Ego...
by Sologak
Rumi teaches us that our worst enemy is hiding within ourselves, and that enemy is our Nafs or false ego(نفس). Rumi describes our heart as a mirror. Naturally, this mirror becomes dusty, and we have to wipe it to take the dust off. In a mystical way, Rumi is effectively instructing us the way of wiping this mirror so the reflection may fall more clearly, equaling wiping our hearts from the falseness and dualities that are surrounding us. Therefore, Nafs or False Ego(نفس) equals any inclination which springs from disregard of love, harmony, beauty, and being unconcerned with well being of all others.
Rumi also teaches that in Sufism, there are four stages of self purification:
1. Self becoming emptied
2. Self becoming illuminated
3. Self becoming adorned
4. Self-having-passed-away.
The Sufi, through these stages of purification, travels the inner way, the 'Spiritual Path'. Having traveled this path, the Sufi becomes a perfect being and arrives at the threshold of the 'Truth'. In this 'True Center' for higher education, there are no professors and his and her only guide will be the absolute 'Love'. Here, Sufi's only teacher is love, his and her books are love, and his and her being is love...
Who is in the house of my heart,
I cried in the middle of the night.
Love said,
"It is I, but what are all these images that fill your
house?"
I said, they are the reflection of your beautiful face.
Love asked,
"But what is this image full of pain?"
I said, it is me lost in the sorrows of life
and showed Love my soul full of wounds.
Love offered me one end of a thread and said:
"Take it so I can pull you back
but do not break the delicate string."
I reached towards it but Love struck my hand.
I asked, why the harshness?
Love said,
"To remind you that whoever comes to Love's holy space,
proud and full of himself
will be sent away.
Look at Love with eyes of your heart.
Who gets up early
to discover the moment
light begins?
Who finds us here,
circling bewildered like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty,
and finds the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob,
blind with grief and age
smells the shirt of his lost son
and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up
a flowing prophet?
Or like Moses,
goes for fire and finds
what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish,
and there's a gold ring.
An oyster opens his mouth
to swallow one drop
Now there's a pearl.
A Vagrant wanders empty ruins
Suddenly he's wealthy.
But don't be satisfied with poems
and stories of how things
have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage:
Love has opened your heart
Start walking towards love.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of
feeling the wings you've grown, lifting...
..... Rumi
the experience of silence...
All other knowledges are only petty and trivial
knowledges;
the experience of silence alone is
the real and perfect knowledge.
Know that the
many objective differences are not real but are
mere superimpositions on Self,
which is the form
of true knowledge.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
The Heart Connection...
Don't spend your energies on things that generate worry, anxiety, and anguish.
Only one thing is necessary.
Lift up your heart to God."
Padre Pio
in Carol Kelly-Gangi
_The Essential Wisdom of the Saints_
NY: Fall River Press, 2008, p. 102
the individual...
Think of yourself as the individual and you are sure to die;
think of yourself as the universal and you enter deathlessness,
for the universal is always and eternally there.
We know no beginning and no ending to the cosmic process.
Its being IS:
we can say no more.
Be that rather than this--
that which is as infinite and homeless as space, that which is timeless and unbroken.
Take the whole of life as your own being.
Do not divorce, do not separate yourself from it.
It is the hardest of tasks for it demands that we see our own relative insignificance amid this infinite and vast process.
The change that is needed is entirely a mental one.
Change your outlook and with it "heaven will be added unto you."
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 95
Paul Brunton
Mundaka Upanishad...
"Brahman is supreme;
he is self-luminous, he is beyond all thought.
Smaller than the smallest is he, greater than the greatest, nearer than the nearest.
He resides in the lotus of the heart of every being."
_Mundaka Upanishad_ 3.1.7
the right road...
Not till your thoughts cease all their branching
here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts
of seeking for something, not till your mind is
motionless as wood or stone, will you be on
the right road to the Gate.
- Huang Po
The Overself...
Whoever can understand that substance is inseparable from life and that life is inseparable from mind, whoever can intellectually perceive that the whole universe itself is nothing less than Mind in its different phases, has found the theoretical basis for an appreciation of the wonderful possibilities which dwell behind human experience.
The mind's powers can indeed be extended far beyond their present puny evolutionary range.
He who reflects constantly upon the true and immaterial nature of Mind and upon its magically creative powers tends to develop these powers.
When he becomes capable of successful and ego-free concentration, these powers of mind and will come to him spontaneously.
It is natural that when his will becomes self-abnegated, his emotion purified, his thought concentrated, and his knowledge perfected higher mental or so-called occult powers arise of their own accord.
It is equally natural that he should remain silent about them, even if only because they do not really belong to the named personality which others see.
They belong to the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 53
Paul Bruton
Falling into Love...
We speak of Love often, but, we really do not know what it is..
Love is the mental and spiritual state of non-egoic consciousness..
It is this easy..
But, the egoic consciousness constantly fights against this Truth as it would mean it's demise..
You are the Observer of the ego and the hologram that we call life.
If You can watch the ego, then obviously, You are not the ego..
The Saints used the word 'Humility' to describe this event..
Humility grows the flower called Love.
You can try constantly to feel Love or You can 'fall into Love'..
'Falling into Love' is the surrender of the egoic desire while in meditation..
This method of egoic death is called 'Enlightenment'..
This is when You Realize that You are Light, Love, and Consciousness and all that You experienced was just a Dream..
Welcome to Reality...
namaste, thomas
Conquering fear...
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.”
– Nelson Mandela
Words...
How is one to understand the words of a
Guru?
You shake all the sentences he has
told you until all of the words fall off.
What
remains is the essence of his teaching –
absorb it.
- Swami Shantananda Puri
The Cross...
The cross is a symbol given to man by the creative imagination of his race's early seers.
Its flat crossbar is his ordinary everyday life which he shares with all other men.
Its upright bar is his higher spiritual life which he shares with God.
The entire figure tells him that crucifixion of his ego is resurrection of his spirit--normally and daily dead in the material life.
-- Notebooks Category 4: Elementary Meditation >
Chapter 5: Visualizations, Symbols > # 47
Paul Brunton
Easter...
We celibrate the the empty tomb of Yeshua ben Yosef, also known as Jesus, on this sunday.
The body of this Master Mystic was returned into Light.
This Light of Reality is witnessed on the Shroud..
Jesus, through His Knowledge that life is just a Dream , was able to re-enter the Dream , reconstitute the body and appear to His Disciples..
We, as Divine Consciousness are Light, Love, and Consciousness..
Jesus was able to perform what we call miracles, because He knew that all is Consciousness and Consciousness can manifest anything within this Dream..
As He said; " If you believe, and say, mountain be moved, It shall be"..
Belief is Consciousness in movement..
If you believe in the un-self-ish quality of Love, You will live as Love..
Love is the Reality that Jesus taught and practiced..
Love is the state of non-ego..
namaste, thomas
Manifestations of One...
"Once a dispute arose in the court of the Maharajah of Burdwan among the learned men there, as to who was the greater Deity, Siva or Vishnu.
Some gave preference to Siva, others to Vishnu. When the dispute grew hot, a wise pandit remarked, addressing the Raja,
'Sire, I have neither met Siva nor seen Vishnu; how can I say who is the greater of the two?'
At this the dispute stopped, for none of the disputants really had seen the Deities.
Similarly none should compare one Deity with another.
When a man has really seen a Deity, he comes to know that all the Deities are manifestations of one and the same Brahman."
Sri Ramakrishna
in F. Max Müller, Trans.
Ramakrishna: His Life And Sayings, 141
From The Collected Edition Of Prof. Max Müller's Works,
New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1898, p. 130-131
the physical body...
The conception that the physical body is made of sin and that this is the lowest aspect of being will very often prove to be a mistake,
for it is through this physical body that the highest and the greatest purpose of life is to be achieved.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Expand Awareness...
We perceive only partially and incompletely when we perceive anything through the senses.
When we set up the presentations of the eyes, ears, hands, tongue and nose, that is when we set up human experience as really being what it purports to be, we are merely surface seers.
The things of our experience really bear to the things as they are in themselves a relation resembling that of the hat coat shirt trousers and shoes which a man wears to the man himself.
The senses help us to know certain things only by shutting out many more things from our range of experience.
Hence to know the world as it really is, we would have to expand our field of awareness to a higher dimension.
--Wisdom of the Overself, Chapter II, para 6.
Paul Brunton
Possessions...
"It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome.
Its appeal is to the material part,
and if allowed its way it will in time disturb the spiritual balance of the man."
Charles Alexander Eastman (born Ohiyesa of the Santee Dakota Sioux)
The Soul Of The Indian: An Interpretation
(excerpted from section IV)
Creativity...
When the mind is fully withdrawn from the physical body and turned in on itself, the thoughts which are then entertained become creative and dynamic on their own plane.
What is desired or expected immediately manifests itself.
It is a wonderful dream-world where imagination rules supreme and assumes the fullest reality, externalizing itself instantaneously and bringing the man face to face with his own thought as though it were some thing outside himself.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism >
Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 47
Paul Brunton
The Final Reality...
The Final Reality is 'Pure Awareness' which is 'Source' and contains no personality or egoic consciousness..
This is the State of Pure Love.
This Awareness seeks to understand It's existence, by Dreaming and observing Itself by the Dream called Divine Consciousness, (otherwise known as Us)..
This is why We have the ability to create dreams that We call manifestations, otherwise known as life..
The wall that prevents Us from knowing Ourself as the Dream of Pure Awareness and the Personality called Divine Consciousness is the belief that We are the separation called egoic consciousness..
This is why Love is known as 'selflessness'..
namaste, thomas
Sanity...
“Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided,
that man and his present experience are one,
and that no separate "I" or mind can be found.”
― Alan Watts
Dualism...
“All the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings. In the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. No one can guarantee a philosophy's validity.
Because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. The fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.
Dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts.
All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political or social conviction may condition us.
We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence.”
― Namkhai Norbu, Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State
a sensory experience...
“To this I replied, "I still think that my body is not merely a sensory appearance, for surely it came from my parents, who were its cause and condition."
He said, "If you think that your body came from your father and mother, then what are the beginning and end of these parents? What are their source, their location, their final destination? Tell me!"
I answered, "I think that they exist, but I am not aware of what they are. It seems to me that a physical body without parents is not possible."
He retorted, "Consider this. Who are the parents of the body in a dream, in the bardo, and in the hell realms?"
With that, I arrived at the decision that this body has never existed, being simply a sensory experience.”
― Dudjom Lingpa, Buddhahood Without Meditation: A Visionary Account Known as Refining One's Perception
The Doer...
"The Besht [Baal Shem Tov] taught that a man should believe with perfect faith that his deeds, words, and every movement of his, everything is God Himself.
For it is He who controls man and limits His divine presence in him.
Realizing this, a man will not seek any kind of reward for his deeds since it is God Himself who is the doer, not the man."
The Baal Shem Tov
in Alan Unterman
_The Wisdom of the Jewish Mystics_
NY: New Directions, 1976, p. 48
" I am Home "...
Do not run away from worldly activities, only
always keep in the "I am SELF,"
stay as the
screen on which all the projected activities
take place.
In all activities simply keep quiet
and know "I am Home."
Your business is
to keep quiet.
- Papaji
recovering balance...
The impact of this discovery that the mind is merely dreaming the world around him and that the senses are merely contributing to this dream, may be quite unsettling for a long while afterwards.
Our life may be deprived of purpose, our existence of reality, our will of its power, and our desires of their vitality.
For those who have been too attached to earthly things, such a mental state may be useful medicine to cure them of their excessive attachments.
But man does not live by medicine alone; he needs bread.
Therefore, we must put this discovery eventually in its proper place along with all the rest of philosophic truth.
If we succeed in doing this we shall recover our balance, we shall live in the world but not be of it, we shall be adequate to our responsibilities but not be enslaved by them, we shall be active but not let activity destroy our inward peace.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 43
Paul Brunton
Nothing, nothing, nothing...
They arrive and others arrive,
and then they go, and the others go.
Day and night, a constant traffic.
Where do they come from?
Where do they go?
Does it mean anything?
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
The Rightful Identity...
Much has been written about the secret place within.
Here is where one goes
when something seems wrong in his affairs –
because nothing ever appears wrong
until this secret Identity has been forgotten,
leaving us to wander in a dream world of pseudo-values.
When something appears awry in our daily experience,
we need only return to the within
– to the rightful Identity –
to experience perfect comfort and find peace.
This tranquility is our veritable Identity.
It is wonderful to enjoy the conversation of one
who has manifestly discovered the Self
(the Heart says who is honest in this regard);
yet, we come to see and understand
that those we call "enlightened"
are not outside this single Awareness-being-I;
they are not another beside
this very consciousness of Being
the reader is!
William Samuel
the Friend...
Till man destroys "self",
he is no true friend of God."
Maulana Jalalu-'d-din Muhammad Rumi
in _The Masnavi_, Book 1, Story XI
Abridged and Translated by E. F. Whinfield (1898)
the destroyer of worlds...
When you stop pretending and fall asleep, you
withdraw the entire world into your heart just like
the spider withdraws its web into its own body.
Then, when you awaken again, you spontaneously
recreate the web-of-life and get quickly ensnared by
the irresistible seductiveness of your own reflection.
The fear-and-desire diversions that immediately arise
cleverly distract you from remembering the Truth of
who you really are.
But then, of course, you’re better able to play out into
the wonders of your wonderland.
Sleeping again, though, you once more become the
destroyer of worlds.
- Chuck Hillig
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003
mind created...
The empirical world of jostling names and forms is false and has no real existence in bright, full Awareness.
Like a ring of fire formed in the dark when one whirls fast a glowing joss-stick, 'tis an illusion, mind created.
Ramana Maharshi
Brahmajala Sutra...
This is what I say:
Your mind is spiritual and so too is the
sense-perceived world.
The spirit is timeless and it dominates all
existence as the great law guiding all beings in their search for
truth.
It changes crude nature into mind, and there is no being that
can't be transformed into a vessel of truth.
- Brahmajala Sutra
Mind over Body...
The constant practice of identifying himself with the mind rather than with the body-idea which inheres in it,
leads in time to a certain freeing of himself from himself.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 26
Paul Brunton
Understanding...
He who wants to understand, will understand.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
In India it is considered a great sin to awaken anyone who is asleep. If a man is asleep, do not wake him; let him sleep; it is the time for him to sleep; it will not do to wake him before his time. Thus a mystic understands also that a person who is taking his time to wake up must not be awakened to give him the mystic's idea. It would be a sin, because he is not prepared to understand it, and his beliefs would be shaken. Let him go on thinking God is in Benares; let him think He is in the temple of Buddha; let him think He is in heaven; let him think He is in the seventh heaven above the sky. It is the beginning; he will evolve in time and arrive at the same stage. The rest he is having just now is good for him. The awakening comes, all in its good time.
This explains what is meant by saying that Sufism is a religious philosophy; the philosophy is clothed with religion, that it may not break the ideals and faiths and beliefs of those who are beginning their journey towards the goal. Externally: the religion, inwardly: the philosophy. The one who wants to understand will understand. 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'
In whatever form, life expresses its meaning, if only man is able to understand it. The one who does not understand this will not understand life's meaning. His inner sense is closed; it is just like being deaf. In the same way his sense of communication with things has become dull, he does not understand them. But if a person does not hear he may not say that life is not speaking. In the same way, if a person cannot sense the meaning of life, he may not say that life has no meaning. The word is everywhere, and the word is continually speaking.
A mystic removes the barrier that stands between himself and another person by trying to look at life not only from his own point of view, but also from the point of view of another. All disputes and disagreements arise from people's misunderstanding of each other. Mostly, people misunderstand each other because they have their fixed points of view and are not willing to move from them. ...
If we are willing to understand, then understanding is within our reach. Very often, however, we are not willing to understand, and that is why we do not understand. Mankind suffers from a sort of stubbornness. A man goes against what he thinks is coming from another person. Yet, everything he has learned has come from others, he has not learned one word from himself. All the same, he calls it his argument, his idea, and his view, although it is no such thing. He has always taken it from somewhere. It is by accepting this fact that a mystic understands all, and it is this which makes him a friend of all.
You are the Reality...
You are the reality, you cannot talk of reality.
The moment you talk or think of something,
it is in phenomenality and therefore conceptual.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
the Name of God...
"One should not use the Name of God mechanically and superficially without the feeling of devotion.
To use the Name of God one must call upon Him with yearning and unreservedly surrender oneself to Him."
Sri Ramana Maharshi
in Arthur Osborne, Ed.
_The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi_
Boston: Shambhala, 1988 (1972), p. 56
Exist in Mind...
This invariable truth,
that man does not exist in matter but in mind, blesses those who receive it.
For it helps to console them in affliction, to guide them in meditation, and to illumine them in reflection.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 3
Paul Brunton
Nothingness...
So many souls enter this blog daily to seek an understanding of Nothingness..
What has caused the mind to question the desire for eternal life?..
Reality has entered the mind..
It is that simple..
Reality will speak the Truth and only the Truth as it knows nothing else..
Deception and lies belong to illusions..
You must see the False, to begin to understand the True..
Do not fear the unknown..
The wall that separates the known from the unknown is called egoic consciousness..
The main question is; " why do you desire to exist forever"?..
Keep asking yourself this question..
Who is existing?..
I will leave the rest of the questioning to you...
namaste, thomas
The Heart...
"The heart is the innermost man or spirit.
Here are located self-awareness, the conscience, the idea of God and of one's complete dependence on Him, and all the eternal treasures of the spiritual life....
Where is the heart?
Where sadness, joy, anger, and other emotions are felt, here is the heart.
stand there with attention....
Stand in the heart,
with the faith that God is also there, but how He is there do not speculate.
Pray and entreat that in due time,
love for God may stir within you by His grace."
St. Theophan the Recluse
in George A. Maloney, S.J.
_Prayer of the Heart_
Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1981, p. 25
True happiness...
True happiness is uncaused and this cannot
disappear for lack of stimulation.
It is not
the opposite of sorrow,
it includes all sorrow
and suffering.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
Born again...
As soon as a person is able to look at his spirit he is born again.
By looking at one’s spirit one can analyze how all that one says, thinks, and feels acts upon one’s spirit, and also how the spirit reacts.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The ignorance of ego...
"It is characteristic of the ego that it takes all that is unimportant as important and all that is important as unimportant.
"Thus power, fame, worldly attainments and accomplishments are really unimportant, but the ego takes delight in these possessions and clings to them as 'mine.'
On the other hand, true spirituality is all-important for the soul, but the ego looks upon it as unimportant.
For example, if a person experiences some bodily or mental discomfort while doing a work of spiritual importance, the ego steps in to secure the unimportant bodily or mental comfort even at the cost of giving up the really important spiritual work.
Bodily and mental comfort, as well as other worldly attainments and accomplishments, are often necessary, but they are not therefore important.
There is a world of difference between necessity and importance. Many things come to the ego as being necessary, but they are not in themselves important.
Spirituality, which comes to the ego as being unnecessary, is really important for the soul. The ego thus represents a deep and fundamental principle of ignorance which is exhibited in always preferring the unimportant to the important."
Meher Baba
Discourses
Edited by Don E. Stevens
San Francisco: Sufism Reoriented, 6th rev. ed., vol. II, p. 62
free of fear...
When one has the feeling of dislike for evil,
when one feels tranquil,
one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings;
when one has these feelings and appreciates them,
one is free of fear.
Gautama the Buddha
Becoming calm...
Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble.
You yourself, make the waves in your mind.
If you leave the mind as it is,
it will become calm.
Shunryu Suzuki
Life and Death are equal...
Consider life and death equal,
and the intellect is not afraid;
consider change as sameness,
and clarity is not obscured.
Lao Tzu
Becomes a machine...
Is repetitive action virtuous action?
If behavior and conduct are
merely repetitive processes then all human relationships actually
cease.
If I behave mechanically every day,
- repeating a certain code
of conduct which I have learnt,
which I find profitable, or which is
pleasant, repeating that over and over again,
- my relationship with
you ceases, completely - I have become a machine.
J. Krishnamurti
The Door is the Heart...
"It is one flash, the being-ready and the pouring in.
Nature reaching her summit, God dispenses His grace:
the instant the spirit is ready, God enters without hesitation or delay....
Thou needest not seek Him here or there, he is no further off than the door of thy heart."
Meister Eckhart
The world is Mind...
The way out is constantly to remember to think and to affirm that the world and all one sees and experiences in it has no other substance than Mind and gets its brief appearance of reality from Mind.
When this is thoroughly understood and applied,
its truth will one day stay permanently with him.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 18
Paul Brunton
I observe...
I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes.
I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles.
I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags.
I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit,
and the greatest lake on Earth as a drop of oil on my foot.
Gautama the Buddha
Reason...
Do not be flattered by reason,
reason is only
the child of the mind.
But true friendship
is born out of love and
is the water of life.
The footprints of the Friend
are all over the world.
Follow them and walk into life.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Rumi: Hidden Music
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
producing faith...
Once a person has realized how he can exist without the physical body,
it produces a faith that gives an ultimate conviction that nothing can change.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
overcome by pleasure...
"...“to be overcome by pleasure” means just this—
ignorance in the highest degree..."
Plato
_Protagoras_ 357e
Introduction to Zen...
Zen or Chan, Buddhist school that developed in China and later in Japan as the result of a fusion between the Mahayana form of Buddhism originating in India and the Chinese philosophy of Daoism (Taoism). Zen and Chan are, respectively, the Japanese and Chinese ways of pronouncing the Sanskrit term dhyana, which designates a state of mind roughly equivalent to contemplation or meditation, although without the static and passive sense that these words sometimes convey.
Dhyana denotes specifically the state of consciousness of a Buddha, one whose mind is free from the assumption that the distinct individuality of oneself and other things is real. All schools of Buddhism hold that separate things exist only in relation to one another;
this relativity of individuals is called their “voidness” (Sanskrit sunyata), which means not that the world is truly nothing but that nature cannot be grasped by any system of fixed definition or classification. Reality is the “suchness” (Pali tathatā) of nature, or the world “just as it is” apart from any specific thoughts about it.
DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES
Zen is the peculiarly Chinese way of accomplishing the Buddhist goal of seeing the world just as it is, that is, with a mind that has no grasping thoughts or feelings (Sanskrit trishna). This attitude is called “no-mind” (Chinese wu-hsin), a state of consciousness wherein thoughts move without leaving any trace. Unlike other forms of Buddhism, Zen holds that such freedom of mind cannot be attained by gradual practice but must come through direct and immediate insight (Chinese tun-wu; Japanese satori).
Thus, Zen abandons both theorizing and systems of spiritual exercise and communicates its vision of truth by a method known as direct pointing. Its exponents answer all philosophic or religious questions by nonsymbolic words or actions; the answer is the action just as it is, and not what it represents.
Typical is the reply of the Zen master Yao-shan, who, on being asked “What is the Way [of Zen]?” answered, “A cloud in the sky and water in the jug!”
Zen students prepare themselves to be receptive to such answers by sitting in meditation (Japanese zazen) while they simply observe, without mental comment, whatever may be happening.
Be the Observer...
Do what you feel like doing. Don't bully
yourself.
Violence will make you hard
and rigid. Do not fight with what you
take to be obstacles on your way.
Just
be interested in them, watch them,
observe, enquire.
Let anything happen -
good or bad.
But don't let yourself be
submerged by what happens.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Grace is the giver...
The quester who stops somewhere on the way, either dismayed by his own transgressions or exhausted by the paucity of results, is excusably human.
The sooner he gets back to the herd the better for his comfort.
The fact is that no results can be promised: all results are only probable.
If he expects to obtain a mystical experience,
he must not forget that Grace is the giver of it, not his own efforts.
-- Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practices Involved > Chapter 2: The Measure of Progress > # 76
Paul Brunton
I'll meet you there...
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi
The natural state...
You will recognize that you have returned to your
natural state by a complete absence of all desire
and fear.
After all, at the root of all desire and
fear is the feeling of not being what you are.
Just
as a dislocated joint pains only as long as it is out
of shape, and is forgotten as soon as it is set
right, so is all self-concern a symptom of mental
distortion which disappears as soon as one is in
the normal state.
Nisargadatta
futility of intentions...
By knowing for an absolute fact that he
does not live but is being lived,
the man
of wisdom is aware of the perfect futility
of all intentions.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Materialists and Mentalists...
Materialists of the scientific kind believe that there is a real material world of nature which is reflected, through sensation and thought, in the human mind.
Materialists of the religious kind hold the same belief but add to it belief in a second real world--that of the Spirit.
Mentalists reject this belief in a material world and declare the latter to be an appearance to sensation, an idea to thought;
they know only a single reality--MIND--and a direct relationship only with its products--ideas.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 4: The Challenge of Mentalism > # 122
Paul Brunton
Essential Zen...
A student asked Soen Nakagawa during a meditation retreat,
"I am very discouraged. What should I do?"
Soen replied,
"Encourage others."
Inspirational Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi...
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Man is the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
Satisfaction does not come with achievement, but with effort. Full effort is full victory.
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems”
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
the paradox of Self-Realization...
The ‘I’ casts off the illusion of ‘I’ and yet remains as ‘I’.
Such is the paradox of Self- Realization.
The realized do not see any contradiction in it.
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi: Three Volumes In One — Extract Version
Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 2000, Talk 28
Pervading Everything...
There are no separate listeners... consciousness is not segmented.
It is infinite & eternal, not in time nor in space ... pervading everything... like water pervades the entire ocean.
Abandon all self images and remain in your naked natural state.
Before being a man, a woman, before being a mother, a son or daughter, before being tall or short, before being wealthy or poor, before being handsome or beautiful....
your natural state is crystalline and infinite pure aware presence... formless and seamless.
It is the 'before' that you are, un-created, unborn ... awaiting your realization.
Unhidden, unveiled..
Magdi Em Be
the end of striving is surrendering...
We who honor philosophy so highly cannot afford to be other than honest with ourselves.
We have to acknowledge that the end of all our striving is surrender.
No human being can do other than this--an utterly humble prostration,
where we dissolve, lose the ego, lose ourselves--
the rest is paradox and mystery.
Paul Brunton
My Walden...
Henry David Thoreau is a favorite mystic of mine because his thoughts mirror mine..
We both have a pond behind our house in which to watch nature being nature..
The two canada geese and mallard ducks that return each year to give birth to a new generation..
The red tailed fox that slinks through the yard without a sound..
The small herd of deer that wander over my lawns at dusk..
The heron that fishes for carp everyday and clams this pond as it's own against all new comers..
The snapping turtles that crawl up the bank to lay their eggs..
The ferril cats that I feed and visit my deck every day and night..
The raccoons that steal the cat food..
The opossum that quietly moves over my deck to find any scraps of food left from the others..
The woodchucks that live beneath my shed..
The red tailed hawks that fly in lazy circles seeking a meal from the smaller birds that live in the trees..
How can this be possible, when I live within a city ?..
My answer is that all things are possible, If you Believe...
namaste, thomas
Duality...
When you don’t recognize the world as yourself,
you’ll always be entranced in seeing your own
unrecognized reflection.
The reflected image and the unblemished mirror
appear to arise simultaneously.
Without the mirror, though, the reflected image
is invisible.
Likewise, without the reflected image, the mirror
is equally invisible.
It’s the same with you and the world.
As cosmic co-conspirators, you appear and you
disappear simultaneously.
- Chuck Hillig
Forget yourself...
Life is a misery for the man absorbed in himself.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The more living the heart, the more sensitive it is; but that which causes sensitiveness is the love-element in the heart, and love is God. The person whose heart is not sensitive is without feeling; his heart is not living, it is dead. In that case the divine Spirit is buried in his heart. A person who is always concerned with his own feelings is so absorbed in himself that he has no time to think of another. His whole attention is taken up with his own feelings. He pities himself, he worries about his own pain, and is never open to sympathize with others. He who takes notice of the feelings of another person with whom he comes in contact, practices the first essential moral of Sufism.
A person who, alone, has seen something beautiful, who has heard something harmonious, who has tasted something delicious, who has smelt something fragrant, may have enjoyed it, but not completely. The complete joy is in sharing one's joy with others. For the selfish one who enjoys himself and does not care for others, whether he enjoys things of the earth or things of heaven, his enjoyment is not complete.
When a person is absorbed in himself, he has no time for character-building, because he has no time to think of others: then there is no other. But when he forgets himself, he has time to look here and there, to collect what is good and beautiful, and to add it naturally to his character. So the character is built. One need not make an effort to build it, one has only to forget oneself.
Every step in evolution makes life more valuable. The more evolved you are, the more priceless is every moment; it becomes an opportunity for you to do good to others, to serve others, to give love to others, to be gentle to others, to give your sympathy to souls who are longing and hungering for it. Life is miserable when a person is absorbed in himself; as soon as he forgets himself he is happy. The more he thinks of himself, his own affairs, work and interests, the less he knows the meaning of life. When a person looks at another he cannot at the same time look at himself. Illness, disappointments and hardships matter very little when one can look at them from a higher standpoint.
Zen Meditation...
"If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities,
discuss whether it is cold, warm,
whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O,
or even mineral water, or sake.
Meditation is Drinking it!"
- Taisen Deshimaru
the bondage of desire...
The mind bewildered,
which mistakes the body for oneself,
conceives the transient world of names and forms,
makes it seem real and lovable,
and promptly entraps one in the strong, illusive bondage of desire.
Ramana Maharshi
Zero...
"Free,
we are not the number One,
the first of all our objects,
but Zero -
their universal and Absolute Subject."
~ Wei Wu Wei
The Long Path of Reincarnations...
The Long Path is needed because it leads to a measure of release from egoism and animalism.
But it does not directly lead to the discovery of the Overself, its truth and reality.
That is the Short Path's work.
Paul Brunton
Desire leads to experience...
To know itself, the self must be faced with its opposite - the not-self.
Desire leads to experience.
Experience leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge - liberation.
And what is liberation after all?
To know that you are beyond birth and death.
By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature,
you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Free Will...
You have often heard the term "Free Will"..
This is Your own ' desire' to remain separate from Complete Consciousness..
You have chosen to appear as an individual soul and egoic belief that You can be separated and thus become a mirror for learning and entertainment..
You can continue this separation into the higher dimensions and continue to learn how to become Love or You can merely Wake Up and Realize that You have always been Love..
Love is God..
namaste, thomas
Being in but not of...
"The generally accepted idea of renunciation or detachment is an illusory way of getting away from Maya, because you miss the main point by running away.
The inner reaction to such renunciation is that the mind soon goes out of control, leaving the person concerned in a morass, which only creates more complications.
To overcome these new complications is still more difficult.
The real remedy lies in remaining in Maya, but not being of it."
Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
(www.lordmeher.org, Revised 2014, p2081)
meet the Friend...
Forgetful one, get up!
It's dawn, time to start searching.
Open your wings and lift.
Give like the blacksmith
even breath to the bellows.
Tend the fire that changes
the shape of metal.
Alchemical work begins at dawn,
as you walk out to meet the Friend.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Inside this flow...
Let the world call you lazy for not running about
like a frightened ghost.
Just be quiet inside yourself.
Don't bother about knowing how things should be
and simply begin observing without prejudice,
projections or desires.
Notice how life flows of its
own accord.
Nothing here is a chaos, but a harmony.
You are already inside this flow.
- Mooji
The Clay called Manifestation...
When the soul comes into the physical world it receives an offering from the whole universe, and that offering is the body in which to function.
It is not offered to the soul only by the parents, but by the ancestors, by the nation and race into which the soul is born, and by the whole human race.
This body is not only an offering of the human race, but is an outcome of something that the whole world has produced for ages, a clay that has been kneaded a thousand times over, a clay that has been prepared so that in its very development it has become more intelligent, more radiant, and more living;
a clay that appeared first in the mineral kingdom, that developed in the vegetable kingdom, that then appeared as the animal, and that was finished in the making of that body that is offered to the new-coming human soul.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VIAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Know It by Being It...
The jnana or what we sometimes call, the 'knowing' of pure consciousness/presence/God/the Absolute is not really a matter of knowing ABOUT something, as we can know about European history or world politics or nuclear physics.
This consciousness is not an object, but is pure subject.
We can only 'know it' by BEING it, by discovering that we ARE it already.
If we just know what we think of as "facts" about it, and simply try to communicate them in words, our 'knowledge' is purely intellectual and not a simple and direct, existential BEING of this reality that we already are!
It is not transmitted by erudite pundits who can articulately hold forth. It is transmitted and radiates ceaselessly from, the awakened heart as absolute love and clarity.
When one sees this awakened heart radiating from someone, it is quite unmistakable and obvious! It radiantly shines!
Francis Bennett
The Truth of Who You Are...
Is there some belief that in order to survive as an individual you have to understand with the mind?
As you inquire into the reality of that belief, you can discover that the truth of who you are, consciousness itself, already knows itself, is already in surrender to the mystery of itself, and in this realization you know yourself even more deeply.
Whatever understandings follow are secondary, even the most profound understanding of the unity of all existence.
The truth of who you are as pure consciousness, the totality of being, is infinitely deeper and vaster than any mental understanding of it..
From: The Diamond In Your Pocket, by Gangaji
the fountain...
In the fountain there are two kinds of drops:
the one constantly touches the source as goal;
the other rises, breaks on the way, and so drops in the source disconnected on the way.
The latter is the life of the people who simply live and die.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VIAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Love...
"'Tis not in religion I believe,
'Tis love I live in.
When love comes to you.
Say Amen!"
Sachal Sarmast
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