Suicide...
This feeling of hopelessness that prompts
suicide is misplaced Reality..
Suicide is required of the ego and is
misinterpreted by the ego as suicide of the body because the ego does not want
to die..
This is why Knowledge is so important..
To Know that You are Divine
Consciousness and not the body or mind is necessary for happiness within this
life..
This feeling of Divine Consciousness is called Unconditional Love and is
Our Being..
Our Being cannot be killed...
namaste, thomas
The battle...
The path of the master requires self-discipline and will power to make headway through life.
He conquers himself;
he battles with life;
he is at war with destiny;
he crusades against all that seems to him wrong.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged BY
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Zen...
Zen is not some kind of excitement,
but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
Shunryu Suzuki
The harmony...
I have not really known myself,
or anyone else.
I’ve tried to go good, and not
just what my appetities wanted,
But that was all infatuation
with this precious, isolated, body.
That you and I were constantly joining,
I didn’t know. I didn’t know
That even to ask “What are You?”
or “Who am I” breaks the harmony.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
The polishing cloth...
To know the self as the only reality and all else
as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and
joy.
It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as
imagined, learn to see them as they are.
When
you can see everything as it is, you will also see
yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror.
The same mirror that shows you the world as it is
will also show you your own face.
The thought `I am'
is the polishing cloth. Use it.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Silence and Stillness...
The sacred dimension is not something that you can know through words and ideas any more than you can learn what an apple pie tastes like by eating the recipe.
The modern age has forgotten that facts and information, for all their usefulness, are not the same as truth or wisdom, and certainly not the same as direct experience. We have lost touch with the intuitive wisdom born of silence and stillness.
To hold a question inwardly in silent and patient waiting is an art rarely mastered these days. Inquiry is a bridge between the ego and the soul, and beyond to the Infinite. (I am using the term soul here to mean the essence, presence, or beingness that you are.
- Adyashanti
The Gospel of Mary Magdaline...
(Pages 11-14 are missing.)
" '… it.'
"And Desire said, 'I did not see you go down, yet now I see you go up. So why do you lie since you belong to me?'
"The soul answered, 'I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You (mis)took the garment (I wore) for my (true) self. And you did not recognize me.'
"After it had said these things, it left rejoicing greatly.
"Again, it came to the third Power, which is called 'Ignorance.' [It] examined the soul closely, saying, 'Where are you going? You are bound by wickedness. Indeed you are bound! Do not judge!'
"And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me, since I have not passed judgement? I have been bound, but I have not bound (anything). They did not recognize me, but I have recognized that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven.'
"When the soul had brought the third Power to naught, it went upward and saw the fourth Power. It had seven forms. The first form is darkness; the second is desire; the third is ignorance; the fourth is zeal for death; the fifth is the realm of the flesh; the sixth is the foolish wisdom of the flesh; the seventh is the wisdom of the wrathful person. These are the seven Powers of Wrath.
"They interrogated the soul, 'Where are you coming from, human-killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?'
"The soul replied, saying, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died. In a [wor]ld, I was set loose from a world [an]d in a type, from a type which is above, and (from) the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time. From this hour on, for the time of the due season of the aeon, I will receive rest i[n] silence.' "
After Mary had said these things, she was silent, since it was up to this point that the Savior had spoken to her.
Andrew responded, addressing the brothers and sisters, "Say what you will about the things she has said, but I do not believe that the S[a]vior said these things, f[or] indeed these teachings are strange ideas."
Peter responded, bringing up similar concerns. He questioned them about the Savior: "Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it? Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
Then [M]ary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what are you imagining? Do you think that I have thought up these things by myself in my heart or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"
Levi answered, speaking to Peter, "Peter, you have always been a wrathful person. Now I see you contending against the woman like the Adversaries. For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us.
"Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said."
After [he had said these] things, they started going out [to] teach and to preach.
Zen...
“Some may slander, some may abuse;
They try to set fire to the heavens with a torch
And end by merely tiring themselves out.
I hear their scandal as though it were ambrosial truth;
Immediately everything melts
And I enter the place beyond thought and words.”
― Yoka Genkaku
Mysticism...
"Hence there is a single religion and a single creed for all beings endowed with understanding, and this religion is presupposed behind all the diversity of rites."
Nicolas of Cusa
in Norman D. Livergood
The Perennial Tradition: Overview Of The Secret Heritage, The Single Stream Of Initiatory Teaching Flowing Through All The Great Schools Of Mysticism
Hermes Press, Introduction
The Cosmic Breath...
It's not the Cosmos
that's going to tumble down
back into your bottleneck,
into the bottle;
it's the breath in the bottle
which has to mingle
with the Cosmic breath.
It's the Oneness
which the objective world
has to seek
rather than expecting
the subjective Divine to descend
into
egotistical bottles
with labels on them.
- Swami Amar Jyoti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
Be still...
If a man asks why he can find no trace of God's presence in himself, I answer that he is full of evidence, not merely traces.
God is present in him as consciousness, the state of being aware; as thought, the capacity to think; as activity, the power to move; and as stillness, the condition of ego, emotion, intellect, and body which finally and clearly reveals what these other things simply point to.
"Be still, and know that I am God" is a statement of being whose truth can be tested by experiment and whose value can be demonstrated by experience.
— Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > # 409
Paul Brunton
shadows and lies...
Those that are able to see
beyond the shadows and lies
of their culture will never be
understood,
let alone believed
by the masses.
-Plato
your mind...
Anything that you respond to is a product of your mind.
It is your mind that becomes angry.
It is your mind that becomes stubborn.
It is your mind that wants to get even.
It is your mind that is hurt.
But if you subdue your mind, tell me, where is the anger?
Where is the depression?
Where is the response to conditions?
There isn't any.
When the mind is subdued there is only eternal peace
and that peace is the self, consciousness.
Consciousness is always peaceful, always happy.
It has nothing to do with conditions.
All conditioning comes from the mind.
Therefore I say to you, do not try to change conditions.
Do not try to change situations.
Simply learn how to control the mind by making it passive and quiet,
and then you will find that things turn out better for you
than you can possibly ever hope for.
~ Robert Adams.
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.
— Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > # 384
Paul Brunton
Perfect...
"Perfect is he who,
by practice and meditation,
lifts his soul to its real abode,
freeing it from all bonds,
both internal and external and thus detaches his mind from the world and its phenomena."
~ Shiv Dayal Singh, "Sar Bachan"
'NOTHINGNESS' by Alan Watts...
When I consider the weirdest of all things I can think of, do you know what it is? Nothing. The whole idea of nothing is something that has bugged people for centuries, especially in the Western world. We have a saying in Latin, Ex nihilo nihil fit, which means, "Out of nothing comes nothing." In other words, you can't get something out of nothing. It's occurred to me that this is a fallacy of tremendous proportions. It lies at the root of all our common sense, not only in the West, but in many parts of the East as well. It manifests as a kind of terror of nothing, a putdown on nothing, a putdown on everything associated with nothing such as sleep, passivity, rest, and even the feminine principle which is often equated with the negative principle (although women's lib people don't like that kind of thing, when they understand what I'm saying I don't think they'll object). To me, nothing—the negative, the empty—is exceedingly powerful. I would say, not Ex nihilo nihil fit, but, "You can't have something without nothing."
How do we basically begin to think about the difference between something and nothing? When I say there is a cigar in my right hand and there is no cigar in my left hand, we get the idea of is, something, and isn't, nothing. At the basis of this reasoning lies the far more obvious contrast of solid and space. We tend to think of space as nothing; when we talk about the conquest of space there's a little element of hostility. But actually, we're talking about the conquest of distance. Space or whatever it is that lies between the earth and the moon, and the earth and the sun, is considered to be just nothing at all.
But to suggest how very powerful and important this nothing at all is, let me point out that if you didn't have space, you couldn't have anything solid. Without space outside the solid you wouldn't know where the solid's edges were. For example, you can see me in a photograph because you see a background and that background shows up my outline. But if it weren't there, then I and everything around me would merge into a single, rather peculiar mass. You always have to have a background of space to see a figure. The figure and the background, the solid and the space, are inseparable and go together.
We find this very commonly in the phenomenon of magnetism. A magnet has a north pole and a south pole— there is no such thing as a magnet with one pole only. Supposing we equate north with is and south with isn't. You can chop the magnet into two pieces, if it's a bar magnet, and just get another north pole and south pole, another is and isn't, on the end of each piece.
What I am trying to get into basic logic is that there isn't a sort of fight between something and nothing. Everyone is familiar with the famous words of Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question." It isn't; to be or not to be is not the question. Because you can't have a solid without space. You can't have an is without an isn't, a something without a nothing, a figure without a background. And we can turn that round, and say, "You can't have space without solid."
Imagine nothing but space, space, space, space with nothing in it, forever. But there you are imagining it and you're something in it. The whole idea of there being only space, and nothing else at all, is not only inconceivable but perfectly meaningless, because we always know what we mean by contrast.
We know what we mean by white in comparison with black. We know life in comparison with death. We know pleasure in comparison with pain, up in comparison with down. But all these things must come into being together. You don't have first something and then nothing or first nothing and then something. Something and nothing are two sides of the same coin. If you file away the tails side of a coin completely, the heads side of it will disappear as well. So in this sense, the positive and negative, the something and the nothing, are inseparable—they go together. The nothing is the force whereby the something can be manifested.
We think that matter is basic to the physical world. And matter has various shapes. We think of tables as made of wood as we think of pots as made of clay. But is a tree made of wood in the same way a table is? No, a tree is wood; it isn't made of wood. Wood and tree are two different names for the same thing.
But there is in the back of our mind, the notion, as a root of common sense, that everything in the world is made of some kind of basic stuff. Physicists, through centuries, have wanted to know what that was. Indeed, physics began as a quest to discover the basic stuff out of which the world is made. And with all our advances in physics we've never found it. What we have found is not stuff but form. We have found shapes. We have found structures. When you turn up the microscope and look at things expecting to see some sort of stuff, you find instead form, pattern, structure. You find the shape of crystals, beyond the shapes of crystals you find molecules, beyond molecules you find atoms, beyond atoms you find electrons and positrons between which there are vast spaces. We can't decide whether these electrons are waves or particles and so we call them wavicles.
What we will come up with will never be stuff, it will always be a pattern. This pattern can be described, measured, but we never get to any stuff for the simple reason there isn't any. Actually, stuff is when you see something unclearly or out of focus, fuzzy. When we look at it with the naked eye it looks just like goo. We can't make out any significant shape to it. But when you put it under the microscope, you suddenly see shapes. It comes into clear focus as shape.
And you can go on and on, looking into the nature of the world and you will never find anything except form. Think of stuff; basic substance. You wouldn't know how to talk '' about it; even if you found it, how would you describe what it was like? You couldn't say anything about a structure in it, you couldn't say anything about a pattern or a process in it, because it would be absolute, primordial goo.
What else is there besides form in the world? Obviously, between the significant shapes of any form there is space. And space and form go together as the fundamental things we're dealing with in this universe. The whole of Buddhism is based on a saying, "That which is void is precisely form, and that which is form is precisely void." Let me illustrate this to you in an extremely simple way. When you use the word clarity, what do you mean? It might mean a perfectly polished lens, or mirror, or a clear day when there's no smog and the air is perfectly transparent like space.
What's the next thing clarity makes you think of? You think of form in clear focus, all the details articulate and perfect. So the one word clarity suggests to you these two apparently completely different things: the clarity of the lens or the mirror, and the clarity of articulate form. In this sense, we can take the saying "Form is void, void is form" and instead of saying is, say implies, or the word that I invented, goeswith. Form always goeswith void. And there really isn't, in this whole universe, any substance.
Form, indeed, is inseparable from the idea of energy, and form, especially when it's moving in a very circumscribed area, appears to us as solid. For example, when you spin an electric fan the empty spaces between the blades sort of disappear into a blur, and you can't push a pencil, much less your finger, through the fan. So in the same way, you can't push your finger through the floor because the floor's going too fast. Basically, what you have down there is nothing and form in motion.
I knew of a physicist at the University of Chicago who was rather crazy like some scientists, and the idea of the insolidity, the instability of the physcial world, impressed him so much that he used to go around in enormous padded slippers for fear he should fall through the floor. So this commonsense notion that the world is made of some kind of substance is a nonsense idea—it isn't there at all but is, instead, form and emptiness.
Most forms of energy are vibration, pulsation. The energy of light or the energy of sound are always on and off. In the case of very fast light, very strong light, even with alternating current you don't notice the discontinuity because your retina retains the impression of the on pulse and you can't notice the off pulse except in very slow light like an arc lamp. It's exactly the same thing with sound. A high note seems more continuous because the vibrations are faster than a low note. In the low note you hear a kind of graininess because of the slower alternations of on and off.
All wave motion is this process, and when we think of waves, we think about crests. The crests stand out from the underlying, uniform bed of water. These crests are perceived as the things, the forms, the waves. But you cannot have the emphasis called a crest, the concave, without the de-emphasis, or convex, called the trough. So to have anything standing out, there must be something standing down or standing back. We must realize that if you had this part alone, the up part, that would not excite your senses because there would be no contrast.
The same thing is true of all life together. We shouldn't really contrast existence with nonexistence, because actually, existence is the alternation of now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't. It is that contrast that presents the sensation of there being anything at all.
Now, in light and sound the waves are extraordinarily rapid so that we don't hear or see the interval between them. But there are other circumstances in which the waves are extraordinarily slow, as in the alternation of day and night, light and darkness, and the much vaster alternations of life and death. But these alternations are just as necessary to the being of the universe as in the very fast motions of light and sound, and in the sense of solid contact when it's going so rapidly that we notice only continuity or the is side. We ignore the intervention of the isn't side, but it's there just the same, just as there are vast spaces within the very heart of the atom.
Another thing that goes along with all this is that it's perfectly obvious that the universe is a system which is aware of itself. In other words, we, as living organisms, are forms of the energy of the universe just as much as the stars and the galaxies, and, through our sense organs, this system of energy becomes aware of itself.
But to understand this we must again relate back to our basic contrast between on and off, something and nothing, which is that the aspect of the universe which is aware of itself, which does the awaring, does not see itself. In other words, you can't look at your eyes with your eyes. You can't observe yourself in the act of observing. You can't touch the tip of a finger with the tip of the same finger no matter how hard you try. Therefore, there is on the reverse side of all observation a blank spot; for example, behind your eyes from the point of view of your eyes. However you look around there is blankness behind them. That's unknown. That's the part of the universe which does not see itself because it is seeing.
We always get this division of experience into one-half known, one-half unknown. We would like to know, if we could, this always unknown. If we examine the brain and the structure of the nerves behind the eyes, we're always looking at somebody else's brain. We're never able to look at our own brain at the same time we're investigating somebody else's brain.
So there is always this blank side of experience. What I'm suggesting is that the blank side of experience has the same relationship to the conscious side as the off principle of vibration has to the on principle. There's a fundamental division. The Chinese call them the yang, the positive side, and the yin, the negative side. This corresponds to the idea of one and zero. All numbers can be made of one and zero as in the binary system of numbers which is used for computers.
And so it's all made up of off and on, and conscious and unconscious. But the unconscious is the part of experience which is doing consciousness, just as the trough manifests the wave, the space manifests the solid, the background manifests the figure. And so all that side of life which you call unconscious, unknown, impenetrable, is unconscious, unknown, impenetrable because it's really you. In other words, the deepest you is the nothing side, is the side which you don't know.
So, don't be afraid of nothing. I could say, "There's nothing in nothing to be afraid of." But people in our culture are terrified of nothing. They're terrified of death; they are uneasy about sleep, because they think it's a waste of time. They have a lurking fear in the back of their minds that the universe is eventually going to run down and end in nothing, and it will all be forgotten, buried and dead. But this is a completely unreasonable fear, because it is just precisely this nothing which is always the source of something.
Think once again of the image of clarity, crystal clear. Nothing is what brings something into focus. This nothing, symbolized by the crystal, is your own eyeball, your own consciousness.
Live Consciously...
"Only in the degree that you live consciously in the realization of God and let this realization of God dwell within you does it become true that you do not live alone -- that the place whereon you stand is holy ground, and God is with you and He will never leave you or forsake you.
"Every person who has known dissatisfaction, incompleteness, and frustration will some day learn that there is only one missing link in this entire chain of harmonious living.
That is the practice of the the presence of God -- consciously, daily, hourly, abiding in some great spiritual truth, and it makes no difference which scripture: Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or Moslem."
Joel S. Goldsmith
_Practicing the Presence_
HarperSanFrancisco, 1991 (1958), p. 11
No-thing...
You can’t turn either towards Consciousness
or away from Consciousness.
In fact, “you” can’t even “turn” at all because
your life is really only a melodramatic story that
Consciousness has been telling Itself.
And your only choice is whether or not you want
to believe in the validity of your story.
As usual, the ego wants to proudly say, “That’s
my story and I’m sticking to it.”
Actually, since you and your story arise
simultaneously, your story is also sticking to
you!
Without the historical framework of your time-
based story, though, “you” are really “no-thing.”
Actually, being “no-thing” might not be such a
bad idea.
- Chuck Hillig
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003
Itivuttaka Sutta...
If you seek after truth, you should investigate things in such a way
that your consciousness as you investigate is not distracted by what
you find, or diffused and scattered; neither is it fixed and set.
For
the one who is not swayed, there will be a transcending of birth,
death, and time.
Whether you walk or stand or lie down, Stretch your
limbs or draw them in again, Let you do all these things attentively,
Above, across, and back again.
Whatever your place in the world, Let
you be the one who views the movement Of all compounded things with
attention.
- Itivuttaka Sutta
Zen...
IF you're afraid of being grabbed by God,
don't look at a wall.
Definitely don't sit still.
Jiyu Kennett (Essential Zen)
Renewal...
Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world some day
remains to be seen.
But within ourselves we must renew it each day.
- Herman Hesse
The Mysteries...
We live in the age of full disclosure, the celebration of exposure, scorning modesty, tearing off the garment of discretion in the name of "truth."
It is fashionable to tell all, and this is confused with intimacy.
So many of us are starved for beauty, because we have forgotten that beauty is the balance of revelation and concealment.
Implication is the soul of charm.
God hides in every creature through the power of modesty.
Not by what is expressed, but by what remains hidden, art releases the fragrance of the infinite.
In the silence between words, poetry happens.
Let us not be in a hurry to reveal the Mysteries.
Fred LaMotte
We speak of Light...
But what are we speaking of ?..
Light is actually Your Being and Existence..
And yet, we still do not know what it means..
We think of ourselves as humans or souls and yet we still do not know of what we speak..
So much confusion of Reality..
We keep seeking happiness through the higher dimensions of illusion trying to find our way home..
We Mystics, keep pointing our fingers towards the Light but you still do not know what Light is..
Light is the Energy of Consciousness, which consists also of the binding energy called Love..
And yet, you are still confused..
We are bodies, how can we be Light ?..
Light creates the manifestations of dreams that we call life..
Light is the Creator of Dreams..
We are Light..
The rest of this Realization can only be found when you have become Nothing...
This mystery is left to you...
namaste, thomas
Forgetfulness and Remembrance...
"Forgetfulness is exile. Remembrance is redemption."
The Baal Shem Tov
in Edward Hoffman
_The Hebrew Alphabet: A Mystical Journey_
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998, p. 40
Universal Memory...
There is a still deeper sphere to which our memory is linked,
and that sphere is the universal memory,
in other words, the divine mind.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected &Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
God Is...
Francis Bennett;
God is Existence, Consciousness and Bliss
We have been told by those who know by direct experience that God is Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. But what does that actually mean?
If God is existence itself then God cannot really be said to exist. But I exist and you exist. Then you and I must exist in this God who is existence itself, and logically it must follow that God is in us. “In God we live and move and have our being” said Saint Paul.
Then we might think, “If I am in God and God is in me, why don’t I know it?
Why have I been running around everywhere looking for God who is already within me?”
Looking for God is completely understandable. We are hard-wired to look for God.
The question is, why do we continue looking in the wrong direction?
Why do we look for God out there somewhere when God has always been within our own heart?
The really ironic thing is that once we find God in our hearts, we begin to see God in everything, and we see everything in God.
The Sufi...
The sufi opens his hands to the universe
and gives away each instant, free.
Unlike someone who begs on the street to survive,
a dervish begs to give you his life.
Jalaluddin Rumi
in John Moyne and Coleman Barks
Open Secret: Versions of Rumi, 686
Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1984, p. 13
Only an instrument...
When there is really a conviction that I am
only an instrument,
like the billions of human
beings through which God or Totality functions,
how can there not be a tremendous sense of
freedom?
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Speech...
Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action,
where it often substitutes for both.
John Andrew Holmes
Zen...
In Zen,
poverty is voluntary,
and considered not really as poverty so much as,
simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.
Alan Watts
Never look back...
There's a point when you intuitively realize that to be free you have to give up your attachment to freedom. You have to quit asking yourself: Is it still there? Am I okay? You have to decide to never look over your shoulder again to see if you're free or if others know you're free. You just have to let yourself burn there - no matter what.
This isn't something I can help you with. I can tell you what you need to do, but you have to do it. In the beginning teachers can help a lot. But the deeper you go, all they can do is point, and clarify, and tell you what you need to do. Only you can take this step. Nobody can push you into this place.
It's like Buddha's final night under the Bodhi tree. What did he do when confronted with this? He reached down and touched the ground and said, "I will not be moved." Finally - when everything that could be thrown at him was thrown, and he was still unmoved - it was done. He never looked back.
~ Adyashanti - The Impact of Awakening
Aspiration...
Aspiration which is not just a vague and occasional wish but a steady settled and intense longing for the Overself is a primary requirement.
Such aspiration means the hunger for awareness of the Overself, the thirst for experience of the Overself, the call for union to the Overself.
It is a veritable power which lifts one upward, which helps one give up the ego more quickly, and which attracts Grace.
It will have these desirable effects in proportion to how intensely it is felt and how unmixed it is with other personal desires.
— Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 1: Devotion > # 53
Paul Brunton
The Sea...
Day and night there is movement of foam on the Sea.
You see the foam, but not the Sea. Amazing!
We are dashing against each other like boats:
our eyes are darkened though we're on clear water.
O you who've gone to sleep in the body's boat,
you've seen the water,
but look at the Water of the water.
The water has a Water that is driving it;
the spirit has a Spirit that is calling it.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
The Soul...
The soul produces the mind out of its own self, and yet the mind is constructed fully after the formation of the body.
The experience the mind gains through the body as its vehicle becomes its knowledge, and it is knowledge that makes mind.
What in the soul may be called vibration in the body becomes atom.
The physical body becomes dependent in its experience and expression, thus making the soul dependent and limited.
If the soul could see independently of the mind and body, it would see infinitely more.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
the ultimate way...
The ultimate way is without difficulty;
those who seek it make their
own hardship.
The true mind is originally pure;
those who exercise it
make their own defilement.
- Hui-kung
Karmic Debt...
Sin is just another word for "Karmic Debt",
so when Jesus said;" your sins are
forgiven",
He was speaking of the end of this cause and effect..
What was the
method of erasing this debt?..
Could it be that all karma is linked to the
belief in the false ego?..
Could all karmic debt be released by the Realization
that You are not the ego that is attached to this debt..
Since God is beyond
karmic debt and has no lessons to learn, you therefore, through Realization of
your True Nature leave all karmic debt to the illusion of ego and this ego does
not exist anymore..
Therefore, You are Free from Karma and the continuous cycle of Reincarnation...
namaste, thomas
Leave thoughts behind...
Don't be a storehouse of memories. Leave past,
future and even present thoughts behind.
Be a
witness to life unfolding by itself.
Be free of all
attachments, fears and concerns by keeping
your mind inside your own heart.
Rest in Being.
Like this, your life is always fresh and imbued
with pure joy and timeless presence.
Be happy, wise and free..
- Mooji
When the mind stops...
My invitation in this moment is to do nothing. A thought may appear -- do nothing with it.
Relax into any thought or emotion that arises, and allow the natural ease, the natural truth of who you are to take precedence over the thought.
In this stopping, you can freshly recognize the truth of what is always here, the truth of who you are. Now, in this moment, with your mind, choose that truth.
Tie your mind to that truth so that whatever challenges may appear, they meet a mind that is tied to the truth, a truth that is confirmed whenever the mind stops.
From: The Diamond In Your Pocket, Gangaji
To Transcend Thinking...
It is a fundamental error to turn the pure mind into an object of experience in an attempt to reach comprehension.
Mind can know everything else and is the inescapable condition of every experience, for by its light every object and every event is revealed, but it cannot itself be known in the same way that we know everything else.
Ordinarily there is a knower and a known, and mind would have to transcend such a relation were it to become aware of itself, which means that it would have to transcend thinking itself.
Mind itself produces the categories of time, space, and cause which make world experience possible and knowable--that is, thinkable--which is why it cannot be grasped in the same way.
The nature of mind is unique, and before its sublime verity speech trembles into silence.
— Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2:
Our Relation To the Absolute > # 74
Paul Brunton
'We' are also an illusion...
To accept that the universe is an illusion
without including him who accepts it as
such as also being an illusion is a basic
mistake common in spiritual seeking.
When this mistake is seen for what it is,
the seeking will be over.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Awakening to Empathy...
Every blow in life pierces the heart and awakens our feelings to sympathize with others; and every swing of comfort lulls us to sleep, and we become unaware of all.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
'If the soul is awakened, how does it awake, and who awakens it?' We see that the time for nature to awake is the spring. It is asleep all winter and it awakes in the spring. There is a time for the sea, when the wind blows and brings good tidings, as if it awakes from sleep; then the waves rise. All this shows struggle, it shows that something has touched it and makes it uneasy, restless; it makes it want liberation, release. Every atom, every object, every condition and every living being has a time of awakening.
Sometimes there is a gradual awakening, and sometimes there is a sudden awakening. To some persons it comes in a moment's time -- by a blow, by a disappointment, or because their heart has broken through something that happened suddenly. It seemed cruel, but at the same time the result was a sudden awakening and this awakening brought a blessing beyond praise. The outlook changed, the insight deepened; joy, quiet, independence and freedom were felt, and compassion showed in the attitude.
It is the thoughts that spring from the depths of the heart which become inspirations and revelations, and these come from the hearts of awakened souls, called by the Sufis, Sahib-i Dil. The bringers of joy are the children of sorrow. Every blow we get in life pierces the heart and awakens our feelings to sympathize with others, and every swing of comfort lulls us to sleep, and we become unaware of all. This proves the truth of these words, 'Blessed are they that mourn.''
All experiences...
"True awakening" is not about having mystical or peak spiritual experiences....
It is actually the simple discovery of the ground of all experience.
It never comes and goes and so is on a whole different level than ANY experience,
which can only,
always come and go,
Francis Bennett
Calm...
Calm in quietude is not real calm.
When you can be calm in the midst of activity, this is the true state of nature.
Happiness in comfort is not real happiness.
When you can be happy in the midst of hardship,
then you see the true potential of the mind.
Zen master: Huanchu Daoren
Two votes...
When all your desires are distilled;
You will cast just two votes:
To love more,
And be happy.
Rumi
Compassion...
Bergson was right. His acute French intelligence penetrated like an eagle's sight beneath the world-illusion and saw it for what it is--a cosmic process of continual change which never comes to an end, a universal movement whose first impetus and final exhaustion will never be known, a flux of absolute duration and therefore unimaginable.
And for the sage who attains to the knowledge of THAT which forever seems to be changing but forever paradoxically retains its own pure reality, for him as for the ignorant, the flux must go on. But it will go on here on this earth, not in the same mythical heaven or mirage-like hell. He will repeatedly have to take flesh, as all others will have to, so long as duration lasts, that is, forever. For he cannot sit apart like the yogi while his compassion is too profound to waste itself in mere sentiment.
It demands the profound expression of sacrificial service in motion. His attitude is that so clearly described by a nineteenth-century agnostic whom religionists once held in horror, Thomas Huxley: "We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it."
The escape into Nirvana for him is only the escape into the inner realization of the truth whilst alive: it is not to escape from the external cycle of rebirths and deaths. It is a change of attitude. But that bait had to be held out to him at an earlier stage until his will and nerve were strong enough to endure this revelation. There is no escape except inwards.
For the sage is too compassionate to withdraw into proud indifferentism and too understanding to rest completely satisfied with his own wonderful attainment. The sounds of sufferings of men, the ignorance that is the root of these sufferings, beat ceaselessly on the tympanum of his ears. What can he do but answer, and answer with his very life--which he gives in perpetual reincarnation upon the cross of flesh as a vicarious sacrifice for others.
It is thus alone that he achieves immortality, not by fleeing forever--as he could if he willed--into the Great Unconsciousness, but by suffering forever the pains and pangs of perpetual rebirth that he may help or guide his own.
— Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 4: The Sage's Service > # 17
Paul Brunton
There is Consciousness...
Don't say "everybody is conscious".
Say "there is consciousness", in which everything appears and disappears.
Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness.
As waves they come and go.
As ocean they are infinite and eternal.
Know yourselves as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence.
These are all metaphors of course;
the reality is beyond description.
You can know it only by being it...
Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am that'
" To Be or not To Be, that is the question"...
The personal identity is the ego but also extends to the personality of Divine Consciousness which most call Creator God..
The Final Reality is that of non-personality called Pure Awareness, which contains no personality or egoic consciousness..
That's right,, We do not exist !..
Hard to believe, isn't it ?..
A dream realizing that it is a dream..
The Dreamer is all that does exist..
We are only the Dreamer when We exist as Divine Consciousness but no longer exist when We surrender this Dream that we have always called Creator God..
The Original Thinker that Dreamed of Us and the personality of Divine Consciousness does not have a duality called Creator God..
Thus, We are the mirror to reflect back what would be, if Pure Awareness had an ego..
You have always been told that You will exist forever..
This is both True and False..
You are the Energy of Thought..
Thought will exist forever..
But, separate personality or ego has always been only a Dream...
This 'Thought' , that I am speaking of contains a magnetic force of Unity called Love..
This is why most humans seek the Bliss of Love, even though they know that the ego must dissolve in this quest...
namaste, thomas
A matter of harmony...
Sagehood has nothing to do with governing others
but is a matter of ordering oneself.
Nobility has
nothing to do with power and rank but is a matter
of self realization.
Attain self-realization, and the
whole world is found in the self.
Happiness has
nothing to do with wealth and status, but is a matter
of harmony.
- Lao-tze
Three stages of enquiry...
There are three stages on the path of world enquiry.
The first yields as its fruit that the world is but an idea, and this stage has been reached from the metaphysical end by thinkers such as Bishop Berkeley, and nearly reached from the scientific end by such a man as Eddington.
The second stage involves the study of the three states, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and yields as its fruit the truth that ideas are transitory emanations out of their permanent cause, consciousness.
The third stage is the most difficult, for it requires analysis of the nature of time, space, and causation, plus successful practice of yoga. It yields as its fruit the sense of Reality as something eternally abiding with one.
— Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 0: Introductory Paras > # 1
Paul Brunton
Rabbi Yeshua Speaks...
His disciples said to him:
Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel,
and they all spoke concerning (lit. in) thee.
He said them:
You have neglected him who is alive before you,
and have spoken about the dead.
from The Gospel of Thomas
finding Truth...
It is not the egoic self that finds Truth,
It is the non-self that discovers Itself...
namaste, thomas
Personal identity...
Personal identity and enlightenment cannot
go together.
Indeed, there is actually no such
thing as either personal identity or enlightenment,
and the apperception of this fact is itself
enlightenment.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
The mind is infinite...
The mirror can do nothing to attract the sun. It can only keep bright.
As soon as the mind is ready, the sun shines in.
[The light] is uncaused and unvarying by itself, and coloured by the mind as soon as it moves and changes.
It is very much like a cinema.
The light is not in the film, but the film colours the light and makes it appear to move by intercepting it.
The world is but the surface of the mind and the mind is infinite.
What we call thoughts are just ripples in the mind.
When the mind is quiet it reflects reality.
When it is motionless through and through, it dissolves and only reality remains.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The false self...
This is the ego that we falsely think of as being our real self.
This is the ego to which memory ties us.
This is the illusive part of our dual personality;
this is the known part of our being,
a mere shadow thrown by the unknown part which is infinitely greater.
This moves from one earthly body to another,
from one dream to another,
through the phantasmagoria of existence without awakening to reality.
— Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 234
Paul Brunton
The Universal Religion of Love...
"The universe is my ashram, and every heart is my house, but I manifest only in those hearts in which all other than me ceases to live.
"When my universal religion of love is on the verge of fading into insignificance, I come to breathe life into it, and to do away with the farce of dogmas that defile it in the name of religions, and stifle it with ceremonies and rituals."
Meher Baba
"Final Declaration"
in Bhau Kalchuri
_Lord Meher: Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba_
Manifestation, v. 13, p. 4544
To Love...
“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business.
What we are asked to do is to love,
and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”
― Thomas Merton
In the midst of activity...
"The time of happiness does not differ with me from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were on my knees," said Brother Lawrence as he went about his work in the monastery kitchen.
This is the reward--or rather part of the reward--which philosophy holds before us.
It is worth striving for. And the Gita tells us that no efforts are in vain; all bring their fruit sometime, somewhere--if not in this birth then in another, if not in this world then in the next.
For the man or woman busy with his bit in the world's work, the Quest must be carried on in the midst of activity.
He must not let the difficulties which arise inevitably out of such work cause him to abate his trust in the divine laws.
These should be his safeguard, his dependence, his armour, and his weapons.
— Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practicies Involved >
Chapter 5: Balance the Psyche > # 107
Paul Brunton
Samadhi...
What most do not understand is that to ' Awaken' into Samadhi or Full Consciousness,
the egoic consciousness must be fully surrendered to the Universe..
While in this state of Samadhi, You are no longer within the manifestation of body,
You are within Divine Consciousness..
In Samadhi, You as the 'Source' of the Creation of Dreams called Manifestations, Realize that this life and worlds were just another Dream..
Samadhi and the illusion of ego cannot exist at the same time..
"You cannot serve two Masters ,".. said a Master Mystic..
Therefore, the Dream of World and Life and the Reality of Consciousness called Samadhi cannot exist at the same time..
You are either Awake or Asleep..
namaste, thomas
Clear the mind...
What is most essential to Buddhism is based on clarifying the mind.
If
you want your mind to be clear, it is important to put opinions to
rest.
If opinions are not stopped, then wrong and right are confused;
if the mind is not clear, reality and illusion are mixed up.
If you
stop opinions and clear the mind, then reality and illusion are both
empty, wrong and right do not stand.
- Hsueh-yen
Don't forget...
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
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
This Secret Union...
"In this secret union the loving soul flows forth and escapes from itself, and is swallowed up and as it were annihilated in the abyss of eternal love, dead to itself and living in God, knowing naught and feeling naught except the love that it savors.
For it loses itself in the immense desert and darkness of Godhead.
But to lose oneself thus is find oneself....
In truth, that which puts off the human and puts on the divine is transformed into God, the same as iron in the fire takes on the appearance of the fire and is changed into it.
But the essence of the soul thus deified subsists, just as the red iron does not cease to be iron."
François Louis de Blois (1506-1566)
_Insitutio Spiritualis_, XII
in Henri Plard
_Angelus Silesius, Pelerin chérubique_
Paris: Aubier, 1946, p. 53
The eyes of a Mystic...
Things that seem real to an average person are unreal in the eyes of the mystic, and the things that seem unreal in the eyes of the average person are real in the eyes of the mystic.
Little things that people take to heart will seem to him of little importance;
things that people become confused with will become clear to him;
things that matter so much to everyone will not matter to him;
many things that frighten and horrify people will not have the same effect upon him;
disappointments and failures will not take away his hope and courage.
His thought, speech, and action change: as his outlook becomes wide, so everything he says or does will be different.
In the first place mystical life is a puzzle, in the second place a bewilderment, and in the third place a miracle.
There comes a time when all that he had accepted in his mind , all that he believed in, appears to be quite the opposite of what they seemed.
Imagine an evolved person being more bewildered than an unevolved one.
Ane yet it is so, for at this stage a man begins to see that things are not as they seem.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Beginning...
Beyond that mysterious point there is no knowable,
and therefore,
it is called Beginning,
the creative utterance which is the starting-point of all.
Kabbalah
Actors...
"Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it.
If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one.
If it is his pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally.
For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you;
to choose it is another's."
Epictetus
The Manual [Enchiridion] Of Epictetus, 17
in The Discourses of Epictetus
Translated by P.E. Matheson
1916, p. 472
The ego and the Atman...
“He who believes himself to be acting or experiencing is known as the ego, the individual man.
When the objects of experience are pleasant, he is happy.
When they are unpleasant, he is unhappy.
Pleasure and pain are characteristics of the individual — not of the Atman, which is forever blissful.”
Sri Shankara
My thoughts on the Judas Gospel...
In this Gnostic Teaching, God is a Luminous Light of Love and Consciousness..
In the times that I surrendered the belief in separate ego consciousness,
I Awakened into this Luminous Light that is spoken of in this Gospel..
I found that I was inseparable from this clear 'White Light' of Consciousness, Light, and Unconditional Love..
There was an Energy of Love and Knowledge that flowed through this Light..
Although, I thought that I was alone within this Light, I proclaimed to Myself that I never wanted to leave this Bliss..
At this thought, A "Voice" appeared in the form of a masculine voice and asked me if I wanted to stay or return to the body..
This Higher Intellect of Knowledge within this Light is whom, Jesus called 'Father'..
This 'Voice' would answer all of my questions except for one..
That one question is;
"Is this the Final Reality ?"..
It has taken me many years to find the answer to that question..
And yes, I did decide to come back into the body as I did not want my friends and relatives to feel the pain of my dead body and I wanted to tell others what I have found...
namaste, thomas
The Gospel of Judas...
The Gospel of Judas consists of 16 chapters which document Jesus's teaching about spiritual matters and cosmology. Judas is the only one of Jesus's disciples who accurately understands the words of his master. This Gospel contains few narrative elements; essentially, the Gospel records how Judas was taught by Jesus the true meaning of his message.
The Gospel contains ideas which contradicted those circulating in the early Christian church. The author argues that God is essentially a "luminous cloud of light" who exists in an imperishable realm.[9] Adamas, the spiritual father of all humanity, was created in God's image and dwelled in the imperishable realm.
At the beginning of time, God created a group of angels and lower gods. Twelve angels were willed to come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].[10]
The angels of creation were tasked with creating a physical body for Adamas, which became known as the first man Adam. Gradually, humanity began to forget its divine origins and some of Adam's descendants (Cain and Abel) became embroiled in the world's first murder. Many humans came to think that the imperfect physical universe was the totality of creation, losing their knowledge of God and the imperishable realm.
Jesus was sent as the Son of the true God, not of one of the lesser gods. His mission was to show that salvation lies in connecting with the God within the man. Through embracing the internal God, the man can then return to the imperishable realm.
Eleven of the disciples Jesus chose to spread his message misunderstood the central tenets of His teaching. They were obsessed with the physical world of the senses. They continued to practise religious animal sacrifice, which pleased the lower gods but did not help to foster a connection with the true God. They wrongly taught that those martyred in the name of Christ would be bodily resurrected.
In contrast, Jesus is able to teach Judas the true meaning of his life, ministry and death. Mankind can be divided into two races, or groups. Those who are furnished with the immortal soul, like Judas, can come to know the God within and enter the imperishable realm when they die. Those who belong to the same generation of the other eleven disciples cannot enter the realm of God and will die both spiritually and physically at the end of their lives. As practices that are intertwined with the physical world, animal sacrifice and a communion ceremony centered around cannibalism (the symbolic consumption of Jesus' flesh and blood) are condemned as abhorrent. Death is seen not as a glorious event but simply as a way to escape the perishable realm of the flesh.
Of crucial importance is the author's understanding of Jesus' death. The other Gospels argue that Jesus had to die in order to atone for the sins of humanity. The author of Judas claims this sort of substitutionary justice pleases the lower gods and angels. The true God is gracious and thus does not demand any sacrifice. In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus's death is simply a final way for him to leave the realm of the flesh and return to the luminous cloud.
from Wikipedia
Infatuated by Love...
"Happy are the days of them that are infatuated by love for Him,
whether they be sorrowed by separation from Him or made joyous by His presence."
Sadi
_The Bustan of Sadi_
Translated by A. Hart Edwards
London: John Murray, 1911, p. 60
The Pure Mind...
This pure mind shines forever with the radiance
of its own perfection.
But most people are not
aware of it, and think that mind is just the faculty
that sees, hears, feels, and knows.
Blinded by
their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing,
they don't perceive the radiance of the source.
If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking,
this source would appear, like the sun rising.
- Huang Po
Surrender and wait...
"The student should not habitually think that the problems with which he believes himself beset are really as grave as they appear.
If he can let go, relax, and surrender his entire life with all its circumstances,
and even all its aspirations, to the Higher Power,
he should then patiently await the outcome of this surrender,
in whatever form it manifests itself."
Paul Brunton
Zen...
Zen is a double-edged sword,
killing words and thoughts,
yet at the same time,
giving them life.
Although beyond human intellect and philosophy,
Zen is their root and source.
Masao Abe
There is one door...
"Why speak of those
Who have become one with the Lord?
They have the Word and are consummated.
The worldly know not;
They suffer grievous blows in separation.
O, Nanak, there is but one door
To the Lord's mansion.
There is no other sanctuary."
Guru Nanak
in J. R. Puri
_Guru Nanak: His Mystic Teachings_
Punjab: Radha Soami Satsang Beas, 1982, p. 275
The heart sees...
One sees clearly only with the heart.
Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
What is Advaita ?...
In the East, non-dual teachings are referenced by the term Advaita Vedanta. In Sanskrit, "Advaita" means "not two" and "Vedanta" means "the end of knowledge." Non-dualism is the "experience" which is beyond knowledge.
However, in non-duality, there is no experiencer and no experience. There is no perceiver or perception. The points of reference of the experiencer, the perceiver, as well as the witness, are limited and therefore, all objects of perception can only exist in limitedness.
Self-realization is the discovery of oneself as the infinite Peace, the eternal formless, the indescribable Love, the unfathomable Sacred, which is transcendent of conditioned thought. It is transcendent of you, as you think that you are, as well as transcendent of the world and all objects. It is the Mystery beyond the dual mind.
With integration and the full embodiment all form is recognized as none other than the Real and as the manifestation of the formless as Itself. There is no self-referencing whatsoever and no abidance anywhere.
Who you are is beyond the mind and cannot be intellectually understood. When the illusory veil of the ego is lifted, the perception of duality culminates, which removes the illusion of separation and the illusion of all opposites. The concept of individuality is released into the Ocean of Love. Like water pouring into water, without the possibility of return, it then manifests as waterfall, river, or ocean.
Sacred Love is the topic of enlightenment. Although we speak about it and use words to point to it, the Love remains untouched. Presence shines to Itself, by Itself and in Itself. The dual altered state of consciousness is freed and it realizes the incredible beauty of it's true nature, which is the eternal Silence. Then, in service, becomes the hand-maiden to Truth.
Consciousness recognizes Itself by being fiercely now, by intense investigation and, once the mind is tranquil, by making no effort. At this point, effort is seen to be a future endeavor and a moving away from the Truth of Being. Until that time, it is essential to observe the functioning of dual thought and recognize that you are the spaciousness in which all comes and goes. You remain still, immovable, being vigilant, being Heart. It is the realization that Love is all there is, Love is all there ever was and that you are this Loving now and naturally free. The illusory pain and suffering were caused by the shadow cast by duality and the uninvestigated assumption of "me."
~ Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy
Time...
When in deep sleep we have absolutely no sense of Time's existence at all.
We are then in eternity!
When we become thoroughly convinced of the illusoriness of time, and make this conviction a settled attitude, eternity reveals itself even during the waking state.
This is life in the Overself.
This is not the same as totalizing the past present and future;
all those belong to illusion.
This realization gives perfect peace.
— Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 84
Paul Brunton
Happiness...
Happiness is your nature.
It is not wrong to desire
it.
What is wrong,
is seeking it outside when it is inside.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
The exposed heart...
We awaken and open our hearts when we are no longer trying to shut down and protect ourselves from the pain of life, from this vulnerable human condition, the basic fragility of being a human being, which never really leaves us.
When we are willing to live with a raw, exposed heart that is open to the pain of the world......we allow it to touch our tender heart of loving-kindness and to release the fragrance of our compassion and concern into a world so in need of that perfume!
Francis Bennett
The Illuminate...
The illuminate sees objects as other persons do, only his sense of materiality is destroyed, for he sees them too as ideas, unreal.
The illuminate's viewpoint is not the yogi's viewpoint.
The illuminate finds all the world in himself, says the Gita.
This means he feels sympathetically at one with all creatures, even mosquitoes or snakes.
— Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 24
Paul Brunton
There is only You...
What can I say ?..
I can only tell you the Truth that I have found..
Is there an exit from pain ?..
The only exit that I have found is the exit from a dream..
Can my words be understood by those that seek help from others?..
Only you can decide.
Who are the others ?..
All is Consciousness..
Therefore, who are You?..
Many questions and yet you will not be given answers..
The Answer is that, there is no entity that will save you,
There is only You, but You are not aware that there is only One..
Once, You understand that there is only You..
You will understand...
namaste, thomas
There is only One...
I speak often of dreams and Consciousness..
I speak of ourselves..
But, there is only One Self..
There is only Pure Awareness..
That which dreamed of a mirror called Divine Consciousness..
We are Divine Consciousness..
This Truth is found through Enlightenment..
Are we aware of Consciousness?..
Do we know what we are ?..
I keep giving you these questions,
do you know the answers?..
namaste, thomas
Hindu Mysticism...
Hinduism has perhaps the oldest tradition of mysticism.
In Hindu philosophy, and particularly in the metaphysical system known as the Vedanta, the self or atman in a person is identified with the supreme self, or Brahman, of the universe.
The apparent separateness and individuality of beings and events are held to be an illusion (Sanskrit maya), or convention of thought and feeling.
This illusion can be dispelled through the realization of the essential oneness of atman and Brahman.
When the religious initiate has overcome the beginningless ignorance (Sanskrit avidya) upon which depends the apparent separability of subject and object, of self and not-self, a mystical state of liberation, or moksha, is attained.
The Hindu philosophy of Yoga incorporates perhaps the most complete and rigorous discipline ever designed to transcend the sense of personal identity and to clear the way for an experience of union with the divine self.
Mysticism has traditionally been the province of the sadhus, who sometimes go to extremes of asceticism in the course of their devotions, for example by standing for years on one leg or eschewing clothing.
Such pursuits are held to be a necessary corollary of the spiritual struggle to achieve mystic liberation..
"Mysticism," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008
Three things...
Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun,
the moon,
and the truth..
Gautama the Buddha -
The color of Love...
I have stilled my restless mind, and my heart is
radiant: for in That-ness I have seen beyond
That-ness, in company I have seen the Comrade
Himself.
Living in bondage, I have set myself free: I have
broken away from the clutch of all narrowness.
Kabir says: "I have attained the unattainable,
and my heart is colored with the color of love."
- Kabir
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"Songs of Kabir"
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore
Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1977
The religion of Heart and Head...
"I am not come to establish any cult, society or organization; nor even to establish a new religion.
The religion that I shall give teaches the knowledge of the One behind the many.
The book that I shall make people read is the book of the heart that holds the key to the mystery of life.
I shall bring about a happy blending of the head and the heart.
I shall revitalize all religions and cults,
and bring them together like beads on one string."
Meher Baba
_God Speaks_
San Francisco: Sufism Reoriented,
Inc. 2nd. ed., 1973, p. xxxvi
He is only...
The seeds of His love blossom in every heart.
The sounds of His flute fill every celebration.
Everyone thinks that he sings and dances
But no -
He is the only one singing.
He is the only one dancing.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
In the Arms of the Beloved
Translations by Jonathan Star
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1997
A quiet rest...
Those who look for advancement by looking for inner experiences or for discoveries of new truth do well.
But they need to understand that all this is still personal, still something that concerns the ego even if it be the highest and best part of the ego.
Their greatest advance will be made when they cease holding the wish to make any advance at all, cease this continual looking at themselves, and instead come to a quiet rest in the simple fact that God is, until they live in this fact alone.
That will transfer their attention from self to Overself and keep them seeing its presence in everyone's life and its action in every event.
The more they succeed in holding to this insight, the less will they ever be troubled or afraid or perplexed again;
the more they recognize and rest in the divine character, the less will they be feverishly concerned about their own spiritual future.
— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 5: Balancing the Paths > # 222
Paul Brunton
The hoax of reincarnation...
What is being incarnated ?..
It is the illusion of separation called ego..
It is not 'You'..
You are the Consciousness that watches the dreams of reincarnation..
You are the 'Creator' of manifestations with merely a desire..
When You are finally convinced of this Reality by inner Knowledge or by Enlightenment,
You will have returned to 'Being' the 'Watcher'..
You as the 'Watcher' and 'Consciousness' can choose to Awaken from these Dreams at any time..
You only have to surrender the belief in this separation called ego..
This will be the most difficult action that the mind must go through..
The mind, which is the ego, must commit mental suicide of the ego and fall into the darkness of Nothingness..
You will Awaken as Light, Love, and Consciousness..
This is Your Natural State of existence...
namaste, thomas
A Definite Task...
Every soul has a definite task, and the fulfillment of each individual purpose can alone lead man aright; illumination comes to him through the medium of his own talent.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Not everyone knows for what he is really looking. He waits to be told. But when the truth is told him, he has little difficulty in recognizing it. Every soul has a definite task, and the fulfillment of this individual purpose can alone lead him aright. Illumination comes to him through the medium of his own talent. By taking his particular line in life, he fits into the scheme of the whole, and thus attains his own goal.
It is in unfoldment that the purpose of life is fulfilled, and it is not only so with human beings but also with the lower creation; even with all the objects that exist the fulfillment of their existence lies in their unfoldment. ... We learn from this that every being and every object is working towards that unfoldment which is the fulfillment of its purpose. There is a saying of a Persian poet, Sadi, that every being is intended to be on earth for a certain purpose, and the light of that purpose has been kindled in his heart. In all different purposes which we see working through each individual, there seems to be one purpose which is behind them all, and that is the unfoldment of the soul.
The ultimate purpose, for which the soul is seeking every moment of our life, is our spiritual purpose. And you may ask how to attain to that purpose. The answer is that what you are seeking for is within yourself. Instead of looking outside, you must look within. The way to proceed to accomplish this is for some moments to suspend all your senses such as sight, hearing, smell, touch, in order to put a screen before the outside life. And by concentration and by developing that meditative quality you will sooner or later get in touch with the inner Self which is more communicative, which speaks more loudly than all the noises of this world. And this gives joy, creates peace, and produces in you a self-sufficient spirit, a spirit of independence, of true liberty. The moment you get in touch with your Self you are in communion with God. It is in this way, if God-communication is sought rightly, that spirituality is attained.
Everything a person does, spiritual or material, is only a stepping-stone for him to arrive at the inner purpose ... When the desire to live brings one in touch with one's real life, a life which is not subject to death, then the purpose of that desire is accomplished. When one has been able to perceive fully the knowledge of one's own being, in which is to be found divine knowledge and the mystery of the whole manifestation, then the purpose of knowledge is attained. When one is able to get in touch with the Almighty Power, then the desire for power is achieved. When one has been able to find one's happiness in one's own heart, independent of all things outside, the purpose of the desire for happiness is fulfilled; when one is able to rise above all conditions and influences which disturb the peace of the soul and has found one's peace in the midst of the crowd and away from the world, in him the desire for peace is satisfied. ... It is in the fulfillment of these five desires that one purpose is accomplished, the purpose for which every soul was born on earth.
The Dreamer...
You are the Consciousness that watches the Dreams..
You are not the imagined self that travels through the frequencies..
This imagined self is an illusion and dream that continues to dream..
All that You have witnessed has been a dream..
Perhaps, Awakening is ready to happen..
Then "Light" appears,
and It is You...
namaste, thomas
The Gospel of Mary Magdaline...
Chapter 4
(Pages 1 to 6 of the manuscript, containing chapters 1 - 3, are lost. The extant text starts on page 7...)
. . . Will matter then be destroyed or not?
22) The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots.
23) For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone.
24) He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
25) Peter said to him, Since you have explained everything to us, tell us this also: What is the sin of the world?
26) The Savior said There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin.
27) That is why the Good came into your midst, to the essence of every nature in order to restore it to its root.
28) Then He continued and said, That is why you become sick and die, for you are deprived of the one who can heal you.
29) He who has a mind to understand, let him understand.
30) Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body.
31) That is why I said to you, Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged be encouraged in the presence of the different forms of nature.
32) He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
33) When the Blessed One had said this, He greeted them all,saying, Peace be with you. Receive my peace unto yourselves.
34) Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the Son of Man is within you.
35) Follow after Him!
36) Those who seek Him will find Him.
37) Go then and preach the gospel of the Kingdom.
38) Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it.
39) When He said this He departed.
The silence of the Void...
The transcendental understanding of
which the sages speak cannot be trans-
ferred or transmitted.
It must happen in
the effortless silence of the phenomenal
void,
and there is no way to get it through
exertion or effort.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Being the Witness...
“I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.
It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.
It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.
And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.
That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.”
― Osho
Religions...
"I am sort of a collector of religions,
and the curious thing is I find I can believe in them all."
George Bernard Shaw
in Rosalie Maggio
_The Journey Inward: Quotations for the Soul_
NY: Barnes & Noble, 1997, p. 180
The Womb of Consciousness...
Just as the human embryo is nourished and kept alive in complete dependence upon the mother inside whose body it is carried,
its consciousness being in dreamless slumber like a hibernating animal,
so the human adult is in reality just as dependent for his own existence on the Overself.
His spiritual yearnings are a kind of nostalgia for the direct, free, unimpeded-by-the-ego consciousness of that dependence, which is blessfully similar to the embryo's.
The womb is a great symbol in several ways.
— Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge >
Chapter 1: Origin, Purpose of Religions > # 9
Paul Brunton
Rabbi Yeshua Speaks...
His disciples said:
"Show us the place where you are,
because it is necessary for us to seek it.
He said to them:
"Whoever has ears should hear!
Light exists inside a person of light, and he shines on the whole world.
If he does not shine, there is darkness."
from the Gospel of Thomas
Remove all thought...
Remove all thought:
do not waste your life and effort in other endeavors.
Bondage is bondage to thoughts and notions:
freedom is freedom from them.
There is no salvation without the total renunciation
of all notions or ideas or mental conditioning.
Though appearing to be intelligent,
thought is unable to comprehend anything really.
The above Yoga Vasistha quotes are from the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
The mind is nowhere...
When the mind is nowhere, it is everywhere.
When it occupies one tenth,
it is absent in the other nine tenths.
- Takuan
Here and Now...
If the investigation of time made in depth by intelligence shows the real essence of it to be an eternal Now, so a similar investigation of space shows its real essence to be an eternal Here.
Both these results are also to be reached in actual experience sharply and clearly in meditation in depth.
But where are they?
The answer is given briefly and precisely by mentalism:
they are in consciousness.
— Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 53
Paul Brunton
Without ego...
When one is without ego,
one becomes immediately
free of all personal judgments,
and perceives life
and the world with divine eyes and mind.
Nothing is
offensive to them and they remain in perfect serenity
and peace always.
- Mooji
Take responsibility...
While man blames another for causing him harm, the wise man first takes himself to task.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The worldly struggle is outward struggle. The struggle on the spiritual path is inward struggle. No sooner does one take the spiritual direction than the first enemy one meets is one's own self. What does the self do? It is most mischievous. When one says one wants to fight it, it says, 'I am yourself. Do you want to fight me?' And when it brings failure, it is clever enough to put the blame on someone else. Do all those who have failed in life accuse themselves? No, they always accuse another person. When they have gained something they say, 'I have done it.' When they have lost something they say, 'This person got in my way'. With little and big things, it is all the same. The self does not admit faults; it always puts the blame on others. Its vanity, its pride, its smallness, and its egotistical tendency which is continually active, keep one blind.
By a study of life the Sufi learns and practices the nature of its harmony. He establishes harmony with the self, with others, with the universe and with the infinite. He identifies himself with another, he sees himself, so to speak, in every other being. He cares for neither blame nor praise, considering both as coming from himself. If a person were to drop a heavy weight and in so doing hurt his own foot, he would not blame his hand for having dropped it, realizing himself in both the hand and the foot. In like manner the Sufi is tolerant when harmed by another, thinking that the harm has come from himself alone. ... He overlooks the faults of others, considering that they know no better. He hides the faults of others, and suppresses any facts that would cause disharmony. His constant fight is with the Nafs (the self-centered ego), the root of all disharmony and the only enemy of man.
The mystic develops a wider outlook on life, and this wider outlook changes his actions. He develops a point of view that may be called a divine point of view. Then he rises to the state in which he feels that all that is done to him comes from God, and when he himself does right or wrong, he feels that he does right or wrong to God. To arrive at such a stage is true religion. There can be no better religion than this, the true religion of God on earth. This is the point of view that makes a person God-like and divine. He is resigned when badly treated, but for his own shortcomings, he will take himself to task, for all his actions are directed towards God.
The world is an idea...
In the process of sense-perception,
registering impressions of the world are somehow transformed into mental states, that is, ideas.
The world itself we never perceive, but only ideas.
— Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism >
Chapter 1: The Sensed World > # 24
Paul Brunton
Putting the ego aside...
“Until the whole world is free to agree with you or disagree with you,
until you have given the freedom to everyone to like you or not like you,
to love you or hate you,
to see things as you see them or to see things differently—
until you have given the whole world its freedom—
you’ll never have your freedom.”
~Adyashanti
Rabbi Yeshua Speaks...
Jesus said,
"I shall choose you,
one out of a thousand,
and
two out of ten thousand,
and they shall stand as a single one."
from The Gospel of Thomas
Surrendering the ego...
“Let go over a cliff,
die completely,
and then come back to life -
after that you cannot be deceived”
Zen proverb
Love...
"Love cannot be described in any language.
But if and when a rare individual experiences true love, it is manifested in every cell of his body.
In other words, it is like seeing the very Lord Himself in that
manifestation.
Love has a definite existence which can only be experienced and cannot be described by superficial examples.
As and when it is experienced, not other proof is necessary."
~ Sawan Singh (20th century Indian Sant Mat mystic),
"The Philosophy of the Masters ~ Series III"
100 % Consciousness...
At 100% Consciousness, You have Awakened as the Creative Source called Divine Consciousness..
At the lower end of Consciousness, You exist as manifestation..
There is a level beyond Consciousness called Pure Awareness, but, we will leave this to a further post..
As you dissolve the egoic consciousness, you enter the higher Consciousness..
As the higher Consciousness, you begin to understand Wisdom..
Your goal is to raise Consciousness into the Energy called Love..
Love is also called Light, Consciousness, God, and selflessness..
Is it now becoming clear ?..
You are Dreaming of a 'Play'..
We are Actors..
The World is a stage..
You are experiencing entertainment..
Good and Bad are the Dualities that You have chosen..
You have bitten the apple of the knowledge of good and bad..
Only You can return Home...
namaste, thomas
Zen...
IF you're afraid of being grabbed by God, don't look at a wall.
Definitely don't sit still.
Jiyu Kennett (Essential Zen)
Honesty...
Honesty is the gateway to success;
it is indeed
fifty per cent of success.
Learning is not necessary,
no need to be learned.
All that you have to do is to be
sure and sincere that you are crying for God only and
nothing else.
Let the aim of life be clear in your mind,
first.
I repeat, your aim should be nothing other than
the Ultimate Reality.
- Swami Krishnananda
The Optimist...
It is the optimist who takes the initiative;
the pessimist follows him.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Knock...
“Knock, And He'll open the door.
Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun.
Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens.
Become nothing,
And He'll turn you into everything.”
~ Rumi (13th century Sufi mystic)
Knowing Emptiness...
Nirvana is the actual antidote or "active ingredient" in the medicine
of the Dharma.
A single, direct, nondualistic realization of emptiness
eradicates permanently some portion of the desire, hatred, and
ignorance that have bound one in misery for infinite cycles of time up
until that moment.
Repeated realizations over many lifetimes are still
needed before all of the ancient roots of ignorance can be eradicated.
During this training, the bodhisattva alternates between periods of
meditation on emptiness and periods of compassionate action in the
world.
Even after the bodhisattva escapes samsara altogether, she must
still practice for a long time to overcome the "hangover" of dualistic
appearances, the aftereffects of having been ignorant for so long.
Finally, these last limitations are cleared away and the bodhisattva
becomes a buddha.
A buddha continuously knows emptiness directly while
also simultaneously acting compassionately in the world of persons and
forms.
--from "Introduction to Emptiness: As Taught in Tsong-kha-pa's Great
Treatise on the Stages of the Path" by Guy Newland, published by Snow
Lion Publications
Unity is Love...
‘I AM’ itself is God.
The seeking itself is God.
In seeking you discover that you are neither
body nor mind, but the love of the self in you
for the self in all.
The two are one.
The
consciousness in you and the consciousness
in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity,
and that is love.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Life is given...
Life is given.
Nothing is earned,
so learn to serve others,
not your own desire and greed
and ego.
They steal your energies,
whereas devotion builds your strength
and protects the intelligent flame
that leads to the truth within.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
The false and real self...
When a man dives within, he finds that his real self is above the perpetual motion of the universe.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There is in man a false self and a real self. The real self contains the eternal; the false self contains the mortal. The real self has wisdom; the false self ignorance. The real self can rise to perfection; the false self ends in limitation. The real self has all good, the false self is productive of all evil. One can see both in oneself: God and the other one. By conquering the other one, one realizes God. This other power has been called Satan; but is it a power? In reality it is not. It is and it is not. It is a shadow. We see shadow and yet it is nothing. We should realize that this false self has no existence of its own. As soon as the soul has risen above the false self, it begins to realize its nobility.
In order to see this question more clearly one must picture oneself as two beings, one the king and the other the servant. When one of them expresses a wish, it is the king who wishes. And the part that says, 'I cannot,' is the servant. If the servant has his way, then the king is in the place of the servant. And the more the servant has his way, the more the servant rules and the king obeys. In this way naturally conflict arises and that reflects upon the outer life; one's whole life becomes unlucky. One may be pious or good or religious, it makes no difference. If man does not realize the kingdom of God within himself nor realize his spirit to be a king, he does not accomplish the purpose of life.
The soul of man is a dweller in heaven. It is able to see more than the eyes can see. It is able to hear more than the ears can hear. The soul is able to expand further than man can journey. The soul is able to dive deeper than any depths that man can ever touch. The soul is able to reach higher than man can reach by any means. Its life is freedom, it knows nothing but joy and sees nothing but beauty. Its own nature is peace, and its being is life itself. It is not intelligent. It is intelligence itself. It is spirit. Its nature is not human but divine. ... Man is a process, manifestation is a process through which the spirit goes from one condition to another condition, from one pole to another pole. And through this whole process the attempt of the spirit is to find itself. ... The highest perception of freedom comes when a person has freed himself from the false ego, when he is no longer what he was. All the different kinds of freedom will give a momentary sensation of being free, but true freedom is in ourselves. When one's soul is free, then there is nothing in this world that binds one; everywhere one will breathe freedom, in heaven and on earth.
It is therefore that the Sufi seeks God as his love, lover and beloved, his treasure, his possession, his honor, his joy, his peace; and his attainment in its perfection alone fulfills all demands of life both here and hereafter.
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