Looking for a Savior...
Why do we seek an outside source for a savior?..
Did not Jesus say; "Look within"?..
What are we to be saved from?..
Why do we need to be saved?..
If you know that You and the Father are One,
why are you trying to be saved from this Reality?..
You can not offer another human's life to save you from sin..
Sin is an ancient hebrew archery term that means " Missing the Mark"..
Sin is the distance that you are from Love..
The answer is not found outside of you,
The answer is that You are not the Personality that You have been pretending to be..
Who are You?..
"Know Thyself"..
Surrender All that is not You..
It is that easy...
namaste, thomas
Pure Awareness...
Pure Awareness actually exists as darkness , just as thought does..
Darkness enters our minds as evil and the opposite of Love but is the Reality of Pure Love..
Darkness in this third dimension is the state of pain, and Light is the state of happiness but this only applies to Dreams..
Thought, contains no light, and darkness is not realized, as thought does not see either..
To become the 'Mirror' of Reality, the mirror must be visible within this dimension of starlight..
This Light also exists within the First Reality of Divine Consciousness, which is Us..
We are Light..
Light is the Frequency of vibration that Creates..
We are the Light that Creates,
We are Divine Consciousness..
What happens, when We Realize that We are also a Dream,?..
This is why, you are here...
namaste, thomas
Karma...
"According to the seed that's sown;
So is the fruit you reap therefrom;
The doer of good will gather good;
The doer of evil, evil reaps.
We are the results of what we were,
And we will be the results of what we are."
Gautama the Buddha
Sayings of The Buddha, 52, 53
Wisdom Series No 1, 3rd Edition. BMS Publication. Kuala Lumpur.
The Universe is entirely mental...
In the tenth century, Ibn al-Haytham initiated the view that light proceeds from a source, enters the eye, and is perceived. This picture is incorrect but is still what most people think occurs, including, unless pressed, most physicists. To come to terms with the Universe, we must abandon such views. The world is quantum mechanical: we must learn to perceive it as such.
One benefit of switching humanity to a correct perception of the world is the resulting joy of discovering the mental nature of the Universe. We have no idea what this mental nature implies, but — the great thing is — it is true. Beyond the acquisition of this perception, physics can no longer help. You may descend into solipsism, expand to deism, or something else if you can justify it — just don’t ask physics for help.
There is another benefit of seeing the world as quantum mechanical: someone who has learned to accept that nothing exists but observations is far ahead of peers who stumble through physics hoping to find out ‘what things are’. If we can ‘pull a Galileo,’ and get people believing the truth, they will find physics a breeze.
The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual.
Live, and enjoy.
■ Richard Conn Henry is a Professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
Duality within Love...
When you as ego surrender this desire for egoic separation during meditation,
And if you truly and completely desire to give up all desires, especially the desire for existence, The Energy of Love will knock the body to the ground and You will enter the Door of Reality called Divine Consciousness..
This is actually an Awakening from this Dream of manifestation and ego..
I personally found Divine Consciousness to be the Energies of Love, Light, and Consciousness..
In this First Reality of Consciousness, You will find the same knowledge that Jesus spoke about..
You and the Father (Divine Consciousness) are One..
But, even if You are One, there is still the Duality of Father and Son, even within the Energy of Love..
This Duality within Love ends when the Father and Son dissolve into Pure Awareness which is the Final Reality of Complete Love..
namaste, thomas
In the Void...
In the Void the Real is hidden, all time is rolled up there;
the entire world and the space holding it dissolves there, everything and everyone emerges and vanishes there.
THAT alone is the ever-Real, ever-Being.
That is what man must learn to consider as his own hidden being, a task of re-identification.
Paul Brunton
The limited mind...
Mind is consciousness, which has limitations.
We are
originally unlimited and perfect.
Later on we take on
limitations and become the mind.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
When ego disappears...
"Immediately all the tension of mind and body was relaxed.
There was a feeling of absolute certainty of being in touch
with all the power Life has to give.
All thought of money, teacher, or even my own personality vanished
in the great wave of joy which swept over my entire being.
I walked on and on with this feeling of joy steadily increasing
and expanding until everything about me seemed aglow
with resplendent light. Every person was illuminated as I was.
All consciousness of personality had disappeared,
and in its place there came that great
and almost overwhelming sense of joy and contentment."
- Genevieve Behrend from A Course In Materialization, Volume One
The Void...
That which is called the Void,
Emptiness,
is not the total annihilation of all things but the total lack of that matter of which they were supposed to be composed.
Paul Brunton
Entering Knowledge...
Soul is the sub-consciousness mind that is used to reach the Door of Reality but only the Nothingness of non-egoic consciousness can enter..
This means that the Knowledge that you state cannot be known, can be known by the Divine Consciousness that We actually Are..
You must go beyond the mind to see the mind..
Divine Consciousness is the Mind of Creation..
You are this Mind but you limit yourself to surfdom..
You Know much more than you believe that you know..
Just allow your Divine Self to experience what you declare cannot be experienced..
Surrender all egoic desires, to enter Knowledge...
namaste, thomas
Pure Awareness...
The interesting part of Pure Awareness is that It has no ego..
therefore, It is
not aware of Itself..
this sounds strange but this is the reason for the creation of
Divine Consciousness..
to try to understand what Pure Awareness Is..
Contemplate the idea of
Pure Thought held together by the bond called Unconditional Love..
Unconditional
Love can contain no ego, as ego means separation and does not exist within Pure
Awareness...
Divine Consciousness is the make-believe ego that Pure Awareness
created to try and understand what It Is, because It has no opposite called ego
as a mirror...
... namaste, thomas
Unconditional Love ...
Unconditional Love is the feeling of Love for all humans without any
demand that Love be returned..
To expect others to show you Love just because
you have shown Love to them is acting from the state of self desire or ego..
Love is the energy of Real Self that flows from your mind and consciousness into the consciousness of that which You Perceive..
This Flow is a circuit or circle of Energy that is felt as bliss..
This feeling can only be experienced when the ego is not present..
when the ego is absent,the Self is Present..
This is Presence..
This is our natural state of existence within Divine Consciousness...
.. namaste, thomas
Real Learning...
"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."
- Ramana Maharshi.
The collapse of the Witness into Oneness ...
Nisargadatta sort of put it like this, I'll quote from him directly.
"To become free, your attention must be drawn to the "I am", the witness. Of course, the knower and the known are one, not two, but to break the spell of the known the knower must be brought to the forefront. Neither is primary, both are reflections in memory of the ineffable experience, ever new and ever now, unstranslatable, quicker than the mind."
"In the Universal Consciousness there are no individuals. We are looking at different forms. We give them names like God, a donkey, and such, human being, but ultimately there is this consciousness only, the Universal Consciousness."
And this is the point of this evening. The first night and the exercises of this week were about starting to experience yourself to be the witnessing of whatever arises. I-Am is the witnessing. As you push deeper into the witness an odd sort of flip occurs where the witnessing and what is witnessed are experienced to be the same. Which is different than being identified. You see when you are identified there's still separation. There is still you and what you are experiencing but it's just like what you are experiencing is leading you around like a dog on a leash. If the experience is good, you feel good, if the experience is bad you feel bad, if the thought is good, you feel good, if the thought is bad, you feel bad. With the identification there is still a separation between you and the thought, you and the feeling but there is this bond of identification so where one goes it takes you around everywhere it goes.
When he's talking about the collapse of the known and knower, the witness and what is witnessed, they collapse into the same thing, it may sound like identification but it's not. There's no identification, there's no bondage there, it is a dropping into Universal Consciousness. Which is really Unity. I am the world. I am everything. I am everyone. What I see I am and what I am is what I see. What I hear is what I am and what I am is what I hear. So there is then no gap between the knower and the known. The actually arise as one thing. When you look up into the sky, you see yourself as the sky. When you look at a cloud then you see yourself as a cloud. But you are no longer limited to one thing, from this revelation Consciousness is the source and substance of everything that exists. Your self is sort of universalized. You are the substance then of everything that exists. Everything is made out of what you are. And you are made out of what everything else is. One thing, the same substance, Consciousness.
So the I-Am, where we start with usually, the I-Am ego, me. trapped in this body, you directly investigate the I-Am and you realize I am not actually a little me, a little ego trapped in a body but I am this sort of field of Consciousness. I am the awareness of the body. The body can change but I stay the same. The thoughts can change but I am the consciousness of the thoughts. The I-Am has become the consciousness, the witness. When the I-Am is pushed further, identification as the witness disappears and the witness and the witnessed are one. The I-Am is then universal.
In that revelation you lose in a certain sense your particularness but what you get in exchange is sort of a universal self. I am trying to give to words something that's an ineffable experience. It's even beyond experience but I'm trying to put into words something that is quite beyond words. I hope that you will sense into what I am saying rather than trying to understand what I am saying. This is where the descriptions become very difficult, very challenging but this is the experience of Unity. Where the I-Am is no longer limited. It's experienced as unlimited, the unlimited consciousness of all. You see yourself or sometimes people experience it as you see God in all things, as all things. Some people will have the experience, 'everything is me', 'I am That' in other words. Some people will have the same experience will be like they'll 'God in everything.' Everything is God, right down to their own body and mind and consciousness. Right down to their own being. There is only God everywhere, as everything.
God taking the shape of the sky, of a plant, of a flower, of a building, of a car, of someone falling in love with you, of someone disagreeing with you, it's the experience of a kind of unity. It doesn't mean you lose your particular human experience, still there will be a particular body there, a particular mind, a particular personality, a human experience with a particular past that's unlike anybody else's past. So it's not necessarily that you lose that, it's just that you no longer cling to that particularness as defining you. It's almost like consciousness having that particular human experience but now consciousness is having all the others as well.
- Adyashanti
Nirvikalpa Samadhi ...
It is said that in nirvikalpa samadhi, time is brought to a standstill.
Obviously this can only happen when the ego is temporarily paralysed.
Ramana Maharshi used to say that the ego is nothing but a bundle of thoughts and does not exist by itself as a separate entity.
Nirvikalpa, being the thought-free state and involving the suspension of the movement of thought, is therefore the suspension of the movement of time in the ego's consciousness.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 4:
Detaching from The Ego > # 470
Paul Brunton
The God of Love...
The God of love is a Dream, Love is infinite..
The God of Creativity and illusion is Called Divine Consciousness and is actually Us..
In Reality, There is no personality called God..
There is only the Pure Awareness called Love..
This Pure Awareness is Us, when We no longer desire to be separate from Love..
This Reality is often called 'Nothingness' because it contains no ruler, king, or servant..
Only, the Energy and Mind of Love Exists..
Love is the state of non-egoic consciousness and non-personality and contains no individual personality called God..
Love is all that does exist...
All else are Dreams from Pure Awareness and Divine Consciousness...
namaste, thomas
Knowing the Self...
"Knowing aright the nature of the Self
and abandoning the non-self as void, unreal,
is wisdom true.
All other knowledge is ignorance,
and not wisdom."
- Ramana Maharshi
More and more Awake...
What has happened to me?
All these songs tell one story:
that of Lalla on a lake, not knowing
what sandbar I'll run aground on.
What kind of luck have I had?
I made harmony out of a man's clumsy
plastering job on the ceiling.
Still I wonder which
sandbank will strand me.
And how is it now with me?
Magnificent, this becoming
more and more awake.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ``
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
PRAISE THIS DAY ...
"Save your mentally manufactured tales of enlightenment-to-come for someone else's ears.
The price to enter this love is your hope for a better future.
We are not a crowd of beggars here.
You and I have been down that long, twisted road all the way to its end.
Here we do not ask God for favors but instead celebrate the light in each other's eyes.
So if you are ready to stop denying yourself your own beauty
you have come to the right place.
Wake up now and praise this day
when you realize that God's eyes are the ones you are looking out of, and into.
Praise this day -
and with each breath you take
be filled with the golden arc of love which announces the ending of your argument with God.
Praise this day
simply because it exists
and sit down now in the warm skin of your own lap;
for you are home and it is time to rest
in the merciful light of your own eyes."
~ Adyashanti
What is Death ?...
Does death occur when the soul leaves the body?..
The consciousness called soul, which is still a duality from Reality, surrenders the egoic desire and awakens as Light..
As Jesus said; " I and the Father are One"..
There is the 'I' and the 'Father' and yet, they are One..
This is both a duality and a union..
The 'I' must first disappear before the Father is total..(Divine Consciousness)
The 'Father' must disappear before Complete Love (Pure Awareness) is Total..
There is Duality beyond life..
Only Complete Love contains no Duality..
Complete Love is called 'Pure Awareness' and contains no separation or personality...
namaste, thomas
The Real and Unreal...
"Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hinduism is another.
The real is, behind and beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind.
It is easily had when nothing else is wanted.
The unreal is created by imagination and perpetuated by desire."
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
_I Am That_
Our Truest Identity...
This identification with the best Self in us is the ideal set for all men, to be realized through long experience and much suffering or through accepting instruction, following revelation, unfolding intuition, practising meditation, and living wisely.
And this best Self is not the most virtuous part of our character--though it may be one of the sources of that virtue- but the deepest part of our being, underneath the thoughts which buzz like bees and the emotions which express our egotism.
A sublime stillness reigns in it.
There in that stillness, is our truest identity..
- Paul Brunton
Art and Beauty...
An art writer was giving a lecture at the monastery.
"Art is found in a museum," he said, "But beauty is found
everywhere - in the air, on the ground, all over the place, free for the taking, with no name attached to it."
"Exactly like spirituality," said the Master the following day when he was alone with his disciples.
"Its symbols are found in the
museum called a temple, but its substance is everywhere, free for
the taking, unrecognized, with no name attached to it."
-- Anthony de Mello, S.J.
posted to The_Now2
Pure Knowledge and Pure Love...
"Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and the same.
There is no difference between pure knowledge and pure love."
Sri Ramakrishna
in Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings, 173
F. Max Müller
London: Longmans, Green, 1898, p. 138
Thoughts on a Tuesday Night...
Threats of snow enter our Consciousness and souls speak of the future..
Humans gather in unity and seek the Light of Love..
Can they understand that Love is the Energy of that which needs no longer to seek?..
They desire happiness and the ego lies to them about Self..
Light is the Aura of White Light that surrounds the illusion of Self..
Light is Divine Consciousness that observes the Dream of Duality..
The Paragraph has been writen,
I must leave...
namaste, thomas
Monks and Nuns...
Monks and nuns are revolutionaries.
They cherish a great aspiration in their hearts, and that is how they have the strength to cut the net of worldly attachments.
They go forth from family life to enter the path of the Buddha, and they aspire to love and help everyone, not just one person.
Monks and nuns cherish their freedom so they can be a source of happiness for many people.
Seeing how much entanglement and suffering there is in this world, they feel compassion and want to help people who are suffering.
-Thich Nhat Hanh from 'Stepping Into Freedom'
Plotinus...
"Our way then takes us beyond knowing;
there may be no wandering from unity;
knowing and knowable must all be left aside;
every object of thought, even the highest, we must pass by, for all that is good is later than This and derives from This as from the sun all the light of the day.
"'Not to be told; not to be written':
in our writing and telling we are but urging towards it: out of discussion we call to vision: to those desiring to see, we point the path; our teaching is of the road and the traveling;
the seeing must be the very act of one that has made this choice."
Plotinus
_The Six Enneads_, 6.9.4
Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page, 1917-1930
Physical Vibrations...
The physical and mental faculties should be opened in such a way that the electric vibrations in the various planes of existence may be enabled to operate.
Physical vibrations depend upon the purity and energy of the body, and they can be projected through the finer organs, such as the palms of the hands, the tips of the fingers, the soles of the feet, the tongue, the cheek, the forehead, the ear, the lips, nose, and eyes.
The finest of all these is the eye.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Freed of 'me'...
The mind freed of "me" and its desires,
is free
to move in boundless space with the silent
pulse of the universe.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
Reform yourself first...
This world is very crooked. It is like the tail of
a dog. As soon as you take away your hands it
will again become crooked.
So many yogis,
teachers, saints and prophets came into this
world and preached. Still it is crooked;
it is in the
same state.
Therefore, do not bother much about
reforming this crooked world.
This can never be
done.
Reform yourself first, then the whole world
can be reformed.
How can you help the world
when you yourself are weak and ignorant.
It will
be like a blind man leading another blind man.
Both must fall into a deep abyss.
- Swami Sivananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Karma Yoga
Swami Sivananda
Published by the Divine Life
Trust Society, India, 1985
Happiness...
Happiness is our natural state.
Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture.
To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired.
Does anybody know why?
Because we have it already.
How can you acquire what you already have?
Then why don’t you experience it?
Because you’ve got to drop something.
You’ve got to drop illusions.
You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something.
Life is easy, life is delightful.
It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.
Do you know where these things come from?
From having identified with all kinds of labels!
- Anthony de Mello, from Awareness
Light flows through...
Mostly as a result of meditation, but sometimes during an unexpected glimpse, a mystical experience of an unusual kind may develop.
He feels transparent to the Overself; its light passes into and through him.
He then finds that his ordinary condition was as if a thick wall surrounded him, devoid of windows and topped by a thick roof, a condition of imprisonment in limitation and ordinariness.
But now the walls turn to glass their density is miraculously gone, he is not only open to the light streaming in but lets it pass on, irradiating the world around.
- Paul Brunton
Sunday Night Dreams...
Souls speak to me tonight of the desire for Freedom..
Can my words bring hope to those that seek?..
I rely on the truly wise to convey Reality..
I can only point in the direction of Freedom.
Only you can walk..
I can only speak from the experience..
Others can speak from wisdom..
Together, we can reach the Dreamers...
namaste, thomas
Emptiness brings Light...
It is not the solid wood that can become a flute, it is the empty reed.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There is a saying of Jalaluddin Rumi, 'Fire, water, air, and earth are God's servants, and whenever He wishes them to work for Him, they are ready to obey his command.' If the elements are the obedient servants of God, cannot man be a greater and better instrument?
In point of fact God Himself is the messenger. In the aspect of God He is God, but, in the form of the messenger, He is the messenger. The tide of the sea surges, and when the sea has that motion it is called tide, but in reality the tide is the sea itself.
It is not solid wood that can become a flute, but the empty reed. It is the perfection of that passiveness in the heart of the messenger which gives scope for the message from above; for the messenger is the reed, the instrument. The difference between his life and the life of the average man is that the latter is full of self. It is the blessed soul whose heart is empty of self, who is filled with the light of God.
Rumi...
If you want money more than anything,
you'll be bought and sold.
If you have a greed for food,
you'll be a loaf of bread.
This is a subtle truth:
whatever you love, you are.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Coleman Barks
"Birdsong"
Maypop, 1993
Shine Through...
The ego self is the creature born out of man's own doing and thinking, slowly changing and growing.
The Overself is the image of God, perfect, finished, and changeless.
What he has to do, if he is to fulfil himself,
is to let the one shine through the other.
- Paul Brunton
One Precept...
"Basically, there is only one precept -- not being selfish.
If people are selfish, they will violate the precepts.
If people are not selfish, they will not violate the precepts."
Venerable Master Hsuan Hua
_Spring Sun, Lotus Flower:
The Source of all meaning...
Whereas the Experience of our Nature is served up (if at all) complete, in one infinitely generous helping, its meaning is for the most part withheld. Normally, it's doled out in driblets, at other times poured out more generously, but never given in its entirety.
The last word about This is never said, the ultimate and all-embracing idea of it is never conceived, the deepest feeling never plumbed.
Truly speaking, our Source has no meaning whatever. In Itself it is infinitely beyond all that limited and limiting stuff, for nothing that can be said or thought or felt about It is It.
The Source of all meaning is Itself far beyond and absolutely free from all that proceeds from It. And you are That.
~ From: Open to the Source
by Douglas Harding
The Principle of Consciousness...
It is not the five senses which know the world outside, since they are only instruments which the mind uses.
It is not even the intellect, since that merely reproduces the image formed out of the total sense reports.
They are not capable of functioning by themselves.
It is the principle of Consciousness which is behind both, and for which they are simply agents, that really makes awareness of the world at all possible.
It is like the sun, which lights up the existence of all things..
Paul Brunton
What's wrong with this picture ?...
Artist: Van Morrison
Album: What's wrong with this picture? (2003)
What's wrong with this picture?
There's something I'm not seeing here
What's wrong with this picture?
Something's not exactly clear
What's wrong with this picture?
Does it look like it's just another sting?
'Cos it don't mean a thing
If it ain't got that swing and ring a ding ding
What's wrong with this picture?
Doesn't anybody see
That's who everyone thought
That I used to be
What's wrong with this picture?
It's only just hanging on a wall
So you can go right back to sleep
And just forget about it all,
because...
I'm not that person anymore
I'm living in the present time
Baby, don't you understand
I've left all that jive behind
You can't believe what you read in the papers
Or half the news that's on TV
Or the gossip of the neighbors
Or anyone who doesn't want you to be free
I'm not that person anymore
I'm always living in the present time
Don't you understand
I left all that jive behind
What's wrong with this picture?
It's only hanging on the wall
Why don't we take it down and
Just forget about it 'cos that ain't me at all
Only Consciousness...
“I’ve told you all that constitutes the very core of Truth;
there is no you, no me, no Superior Being, no disciple, no guru.”
- Dattatreya
Lankavatara Sutra...
“You must have a clear understanding that all things are only a manifestation of the mind itself.
Everything,
everything in this world is nothing but a complex manifestation of one’s mental activities.”
-Lankavatara Sutra
Still an individual...
Despite all the high idealistic talk of oneness, brotherhood and egolessness, each of us is still an individual, still has to dwell in a body of his own, to use a mind of his own and experience feelings of his own.
To forget this is to practise self-deception.
Each will come to God in the end but he will come as a purified transformed and utterly changed person, lived in and used by God as he himself will live in and be conscious of the presence of God.
Paul Brunton
Where is God ?...
"God is not to be found in the skies, or in caves of the Himalayas.
God is in the heart of each one.
Once your heart is clean,
God will shine out of it."
Meher Baba
_Meher Baba Calling_, 17
Ahmednagar: Meher Nazar Books, 6th ed., 1992 (1964)
Freedom means letting go...
Freedom means letting go.
People just do not care to let go of everything.
They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality.
Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go of everything.
The giving up is the final step.
But the real giving up is in realizing that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own.
It is like deep sleep -
you do not give up your bed when you fall asleep - you just forget it.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That -
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The ego's fascination...
The constant movement of thoughts and the ego's fascination with itself hide from us the divine Overself,
from which both are derived.
Paul Brunton
Recital of the Sarmoun Brotherhood..(Sufi Mystics)...
He who knows and does not know that he knows:
he is asleep. Let him become one, whole.
Let him be awakened.
He who has known but does not know:
let him see once more the beginning of all.
He who does not wish to know, and yet says that he needs to know:
let him be guided to safety and to light.
He who does not know, and knows that he does not know:
let him, through this knowledge, know.
He who does not know, but thinks that he knows:
set him free from the confusion of that ignorance.
He who knows, and knows that HE IS:
he is wise. Let him be followed.
By his presence alone man may be transformed.
I who know, and do not know that I know:
let me become one, whole.
Let me be awakened.
I who have known, but do not know:
let me see once more the beginning of all.
I who do not wish to know, and yet say that I need to know:
let me be guided to safety and light.
I who do not know, and know that I do not know:
let me through this knowledge, know.
I who do not know, but think that I know:
set me free from the confusion of that ignorance.
He who knows, and know that HE IS:
he is wise. Let him be followed.
By his presence alone man may be transformed.
We who know, and do not know that we know:
let us become one, whole.
Let us be transformed.
We who have known, but do not know:
let us once more see the beginning of all.
We who do not wish to know, and yet say that we need to know:
let us be guided to safety and light.
We who do not know, and know that we do not know:
let us, through this knowledge, know.
We who do not know, but think that we know:
set us free from the confusion of that ignorance.
He who knows, and knows that HE IS;
he is wise. Let him be followed.
By his presence alone man may be transformed.
As with our forebears
So with our successors.
So with us.
We affirm this undertaking.
So let it be.
Surrender All Belief...
Belief, any belief, is based on the sense of
insecurity.
Only when all belief is given
up are you free to know yourself.
In self-
discovery what you find is the Truth -
that
Truth which is total,
self-evident and
which needs no outside support or justi-
fication.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Sense of Being...
It might well be said that I am connected with God on the one hand, with the world on the other hand,
but both connections are highly ingenious inventions.
God is literally in me.
His "I" makes my "I" possible.
My own sense of being is immersed in God's archetypal thought.
Paul Brunton
Forgiveness...
Forgiveness is an essential ingredient of bodhichitta practice. It allows us to let go of the past and make a fresh start.
When a close friend of mine was dying, a Tibetan teacher told her to review her life with honesty and compassion. This process led her to some pretty dark places, corners of her mind where she was stuck in guilt and resentment. The teacher then instructed her in forgiveness, saying that the most important thing to do was to forgive herself. He suggested that she do a variation on tonglen. She should begin by visualizing herself and then intentionally bring up all her life's regrets. The point was not to dwell in painful memories but to contact the feelings underlying the pain: guilt or shame, confusion or remorse. The feelings didn't have to be named; she was to contact the stuckness in a nonverbal way.
The next step was to breathe these feelings into her heart, opening it as wide as she possibly could, and then to send herself forgiveness.After that, she was to think of others feeling the same anguish and to breathe their pain and hers into her heart and to send everyone forgiveness. My friend found this to be a healing process. It allowed her to make amends with those she had hurt and those who had hurt her. She was able to let go of her shame and anger before she died.
A woman who came to Gampo Abbey for a tonglen retreat had suffered severe sexual abuse from her father. She strongly identified with caged birds; she told me that she often felt like a bird in a cage. During tonglen, she would breathe in the feeling of being small and caged; on the outbreath she would open the door and let all the birds out. One day as she was sending and taking in this way, she experienced one of the birds flying out and landing on a man's shoulder. Then the man turned around and she saw it was her father. For the first time in her life she was able to forgive him.
Forgiveness, it seems, cannot be forced. When we are brave enough to open our hearts to ourselves, however, forgiveness will emerge.
There is a simple practice we can do to cultivate forgiveness. First we acknowledge what we feel - shame, revenge, embarrassment, remorse. Then we forgive ourselves for being human. Then, in the spirit of not wallowing in the pain, we let go and make a fresh start. We don't have to carry the burden with us anymore. We can acknowledge, forgive, and start anew. If we practice this way, little by little we'll learn to abide with the feeling of regret for having hurt ourselves and others. We will also learn self-forgiveness. Eventually, at our own speed, we'll even find our capacity to forgive those who have done us harm. We will discover forgiveness as a natural expression of the open heart, an expression of our basic goodness. This potential is inherent in every moment. Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start.
- Pema Chodron, from The Places That Scare You
Imperishable, Indivisible, and Unborn...
Do not allow your mind to become so easily disturbed by
the fleeting soap bubble experiences of this world. Know
your mind's essence to be imperishable, indivisible
and unborn. Without your Self, nothing is; for things
cannot be their own witness.
It is in the light of sentience that the world is seen. You
are not an object. All phenomena reports to the consciousness
in You, the formless Self. Know your Self to be That in which
they arise, play and are eventually absorbed.
This very day, life will reveal a taste of the miracle of your
real existence. Without expectations or projections,
simply be open to this.
- Mooji
To see and hear...
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth..
- Marcus Aurelius
The Overself...
This is the paradox,
that the Overself is at once universal and individual.
It is the first because it overshadows all men as a single power.
It is the second because it is found by each man within himself.
It is both space and the point in space.
It is infinite Spirit and yet it is also the holy presence in everyone's heart.
Paul Brunton
Monday Night Dreams...
What a strange night to speak of Reality..
Monday is a night to rest from the weekend and the first day of work,
and yet, I ask you to Think..
But, Overself asks me to write..
You that read within the walls of this room are advanced within Consciousness to understand that which others dismiss as nonsense..
You come from many countries of the world and yet find something within this small room..
You are not seeking my knowledge, you are seeking Truth..
I am just the 'Doorman'..
You must first knock with the knuckles of nothingness..
The 'Door' shall be opened..
Overself reminds me that all that I say must stay within a paragraph..
Therefore, I leave You as Yourself.. Love...
namaste, thomas
' The Living Light '...
"The light that I see is not spatial, yet it is far brighter than a cloud surrounding the sun. I cannot discern height or breadth in it, and I call it "the shadow of the Living Light.... At one and the same time I see and I hear and I know, and in an instant I learn what I know....
"In the same light I sometimes, not often, see another light, which I call "the Living Light." I can say much less about how I see it that in the case of the other light, and while I am gazing at it all sadness and all pain are taken from me, so that I am like an innocent girl and not an old woman.... My soul drinks in as from a fountain what I see and hear at that time in the vision, and that fountain remains always full and inexhaustible.
"My soul never lacks the first kind of light, what I call the shadow of the Living Light. I see it like the dome of heaven in a bright cloud and I behold it without stars. In this light I see what I often speak about, and from the flash of the Living Light, I give answer to those who ask questions of me...."
Hildegarde of Bingen
in Bernard McGinn, Ed.
_The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism_
NY: Modern Library, 2006, p. 333-334
Love is Unicity...
Love, not as an expression of separateness based on emotion, but as compassion,
is that which holds the world together in Unicity.
In Unicity we do not love others we ARE them.
- Ramesh Balsekar,
" The Eternal Now "...
To be free is to live, as far as possible, unconditioned by the past and unburdened by its memories.
Equally is it to reject the future, to be without its anticipations, its hopes and its fears.
But all this is only possible if one lives in the timeless Present,
or what Krishnamurti calls "from moment to moment" and (Meister) Eckhart "the eternal Now."
Paul Brunton
' Desire '...
Ajahn Sumedho, in 'Teachings of a Buddhist Monk':
"Desire can be compared to fire. If we grasp fire, what happens? Does it lead to happiness?
If we say: "Oh, look at that beautiful fire! Look at the beautiful colors! I love red and orange; they're my favorite colors," and then grasp it, we would find a certain amount of suffering entering the body.
And then if we were to contemplate the cause of that suffering we would discover it was the result of having grasped that fire. On that information, we would hopefully, then let the fire go. Once we let fire go then we know that it is something not to be attached to.
This does not mean we have to hate it, or put it out. We can enjoy fire, can't we? It's nice having a fire, it keeps the room warm, but we do not have to burn ourselves in it."
Timeless Being and Awareness...
You must realize first of all that you are the proof
of everything, including yourself.
None can prove
your existence, because his existence must be
confirmed by you first.
Your being and knowing you owe
nobody.
Remember, you are entirely on your own.
You do not come from somewhere, you do not go
anywhere.
You are timeless being and awareness.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
Sorrow...
Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
- Rumi
Only Love Exists...
Love is our Natural State of Divine Consciousness and sees the illusions of dreams and manifestations.
The Purpose of the Awareness of Love is to see the opposite of Love, so that Love may gain Knowledge of Itself..
You can only know one by knowing the other..
Pure Awareness, which is Prime Source is composed of Complete Love and has no personality or ego division..
Pure Awareness therefore Dreamed the illusion of Creator God, which is Us..
This Dream from Pure Awareness is to gain Knowledge of what the Energy of Love is..
Because Love contains no division called Self, It dreamed of an illusion of Self called Divine Consciousness as a mirror to learn about what Pure Awareness is..
The Final Reality is that We do not exist,
Only Love Exists...
namaste, thomas
God is our Being...
Discovering our true self or true nature means simply recognizing our original goodness, wholeness, sense of well-being and contentment.
We all, as ordinary human beings, have at the core of our being, the very same self-nature as the Buddha or the Christ, or Ramana Maharshi, or any of the saints and sages that we admire and seem to universally recognize as having profoundly awakened to reality.
We have simply covered over this pure, unconditioned consciousness that is already free of greed, hatred and delusion, that is already filled with unconditional love, compassion and joy.
We have, for some strange reason, covered it over with various habits of thinking and acting that we have mistakenly thought would bring us the happiness, peace, love, that has actually always been our true nature, inherent in our very sense of being itself and that we have mistakenly felt we somehow lacked within ourselves.
The spiritual practice of self-investigation or self-abiding, or even what is called "contemplative prayer", is simply intentionally turning toward and looking at and resting in this presence, pure awareness, clear present moment consciousness, that is already content and happy and unconditionally loving, or all-embracing.
We intentionally turn toward and notice this consciousness again and again until it finally dawns on us that it has always been present at the core of our being all along!
We come to recognize that God is our being!..
Francis Bennett
World as appearance...
To appreciate the teaching that the world is an appearance
is immeasurably easier than to establish its actuality in consciousness.
Paul Brunton
The Emptiness...
The emptiness I speak about is not the emptiness the mind imagines.
It is not blank.
Your body can continue expressing in a natural way.
Intelligence is there. Emotions can come.
Everything can play, but inside there is total serenity and peace.
No planning, no strategising, no personal identity is there.
Just the space of pure being.
It is what we are, but we dream and believe we are not.
~ Mooji
Not subject to death...
The Sufi practices that process through which he is able to touch that part of life in himself,
that is not subject to death.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged BY
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Kahlil Gibran - The Vision...
When night fell and slumber draped its mantle over the face of the earth, I left my bed and walked toward the sea, saying to myself,"The sea sleeps not. And in the wakefulness of the sea is a balm for the spirit that does not rest." I arrived at the shore, where the mists had rolled down from the mountain peaks and enveloped that locale the way a grey veil cloaks the face of a beautiful girl.
I stood staring at the armies of waves, listening to their jubilant shouts, contemplating the eternal, clandestine powers that lay behind them -- the powers that race with storms, rage alongside volcanoes, smile with the mouths of roses, and lilt with brooks. After a little while I looked around to find three apparitions sitting on a nearby boulder, the mists concealing yet not concealing them.
I walked slowly toward them, as if some force in their being attracted me and subdued my will. When I had come within a few footsteps of them, I halted and stood staring at them fixedly, as though sorcery pervaded that place, blunting my determination and awakening the imagination latent in my spirit.
At that very moment one of the three arose and, in a voice that seemed to issue from the depths of the sea, he said, 'Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. Love without beauty is like flowers without fragrance and fruit without seeds... Life, love, and beauty -- three persons in one substance,independent, absolute, accepting no change or separation.' Having spoken these words, he sat down again in the same place.
Then the second phantom stood and, in a voice like the roar of flood waters, he said, 'Life, without rebellion is like the seasons without spring. Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert... Life, rebellion, and truth -- three persons in one substance, accepting no separation or alteration.'
The third specter now gained his feet and, in a voice like a thunderclap, he said, 'Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit... Life, liberty, and thought -- three persons in one substance, eternal, never-ending, and unceasing.' All three apparitions now arose, and with horrifying voices they said unanimously,
'Love and what generates it. Rebellion and what creates it. Liberty and what nourishes it. Three manifestations of God. And God is the conscience of the rational world.' A silence fell then, replete with the rustling of unseen wings and the trembling of ethereal bodies.
I closed my eyes, listening to the echo of the words I had heard. When I opened them and looked again, I saw only the sea, wrapped in a shroud of mist. I drew near to the boulder where the three apparitions had been sitting, and descried only a column of incense rising into the sky.
God is One...
"God is one, greatest among gods and men, in no way like mortals, having neither body nor mind.
He sees as a Whole, perceives as a Whole, hears as a Whole.,,
, He remains ever stationary, unmoving;
for there is no necessity for Him to go here and there on different occasions.
Without acting, He makes all things vibrate by the impulse of His Mind.
...It is only by long seeking that mortals may discover the Highest."
Xenophanes of Colophon (570-475 B.C.E.)
Fragments 14, 23-26
quoted in Swami Abhayananda
_History of Mysticism:
The Unchanging Testament_
Olympia, WA: Atma Books, 3rd (Revised) Edition, 1996, p. 94
The Tao...
There is something formlessly created
Born before Heaven and Earth
So silent! So ethereal!
Independent and changeless
Circulating and ceaseless
It can be regarded as the mother of the world
I do not know its name
Identifying it, I call it "Tao"
Forced to describe it, I call it great..
Lao Tzu
The Overself...
The Overself does not evolve and does not progress.
These are activities which belong to time and space.
It is nowhere in time and nowhere in space.
It is Here, in this deep beautiful and all-pervading calm, that a man finds his real identity.
Paul Brunton
Letting go...
Really there's nothing to do, nothing to become,
in order for you to find total happiness.
It's not finding something new to add on to yourself.
It's letting go of everything you've been holding onto,
becoming virtually empty, total emptiness,
becoming a no one, a nobody, a nothing.
Allowing all of your preconceived ideas,
your conceptual thinking, to dissolve.
Letting go of everything that you've been holding onto,
your desires, your emotions.
Becoming a simple person.
Not worrying about the future.
Being your Self, absolute reality, the Self which is God,
allowing that to take place.
Forgetting about time and space.
Not trying to change the world or anyone else,
not even trying to change yourself,
but rather going deep within yourself,
diving deep within yourself,
deeper than you've ever gone before.
The deeper you dive, the more the ego disappears.
Remember, the ego, the body, the mind are one.
They never existed really.
~Robert Adams -T.172 - I Have Come to Kill Your Ego! - 19th July, 1992
Wisdom...
Wisdom occurs when you drop barriers you have erected through your concepts and conditioning. Wisdom is not something acquired; wisdom is not experience; wisdom is not applying yesterday's illusions to today's problems.
As somebody said to me while I was studying for my degree in psychology in Chicago years ago, "Frequently, in the life of a priest, fifty years' experience is one year's experience repeated fifty times."
You get the same solutions to fall back on: This is the way to deal with the alcoholic; this is the way to deal with priests; this is the way to deal with sisters; this is the way to deal with a divorcee.
But that isn't wisdom. Wisdom is to be sensitive to this situation, to this person, uninfluenced by any carryover from the past, without residue from the experience of the past. This is quite unlike what most people are accustomed to thinking.
I would add another sentence to the ones I've read: "If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love."
I've been talking a great deal about love these days even though I told you there's nothing that can be said, really, about love. We can only speak of non-love. We can only speak of addictions. But of love itself nothing may be said explicitly.
- Anthony de Mello, S.J.,
' Veteran's Day '...
I was in Viet Nam during the 'Tet Offensive' in 1968..
I volunteered to go to Viet Nam to help the Vietnamese to keep their freedom from Communism..
It was many years later that I found the Truth that we were used as pawns in a game for the Elite of the world to gain wealth and power..
I was in the Air Force as an advisor to the Vietnamese Air Force and therefore was not required to carry a weapon..
After two weeks of being bombed with rockets and shot at with ak-47s, I finally reached the mindset that death was better than the mental pain of constant fear of death..
At this point all fear left my mind and I existed within peace..
I then refused to carry a weapon in my walks within Saigon..
I was shot at many times but was never struck with bullets or shrapnel from rockets..
Was I protected by Spiritual Forces ?..
I believe that I was..
Being a Buddhist, I would not kill unless forced to do so , for the survival of the body..
But, I decided that I would rather die than kill another human..
Perhaps, this is why I was protected from death and injury..
This is why, I have never had any nightmares from this experience..
I sleep in peace...
namaste, thomas
Divine Perfection...
Spirituality is not a certain knowledge, spirituality is the expansion of consciousness.
The
wider the consciousness expands, the greater is one's spiritual vision.
And when once the
consciousness expands so much that it embraces the whole universe,
it is that which is called
divine perfection.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The human condition...
When consciousness or spirit decides to manifest as an object -- a tree, a rock, a possum, or a car -- it doesn't present much of a problem. However, when it manifests and endeavors to become self-conscious, or self-aware, this seems to be quite a tricky business.
I'm talking about human life, when consciousness or spirit is manifest as a human being. In this process, consciousness almost always gets lost. Human beings are by nature self-aware, but it seems that the price paid for consciousness to become self-aware is almost always the loss of true identity.
Consciousness comes into manifestation, which is not a problem, but then it tries to become self-aware. In the process of becoming self-aware, it almost always makes what you could call a mistake.
It is not a mistake so much as a blip in the evolution of becoming truly self-conscious. In that blip, consciousness loses itself in what it created and identifies itself with that creation. This blip is called the human condition.
~ From: Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti
The Layers of Ego...
The persona, the mask which he presents to the world, is only one part of his ego.
The conscious nature, composed of thoughts and feelings, is the second part.
The hidden store of tendencies, impulses, memories, and ideas--formerly expressed and then reburied, or brought over, from earlier lives, and all latent--is the third part.
Paul Brunton
Jesus and Non-Duality...
Probably, the most profoundly direct instruction Christ gave concerning the teaching of non-dualism is from
"The light of the body is the eye: Therefore, when thine eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light...." (Luke 11: 34)
This non-dual teaching is easily paraphrased as follows: The part of you that sees (the seer, one's Self) is your true light. Therefore, if you hold to (i.e., abide as) the seer (subject-"I") singlely or exclusively (i.e., relinquishing attention to thoughts) you will have illumination - or what some call the "enlightenment of the whole body". This is the exact instruction given in the non-dual Vedanta tradition, with the same described outcome, as related above.
See the the Non-Dual Christ Consciousness described in the Vedic Verse
and Avadhut Gita verse below, very similar to the above records:
Vedic Verse -- Atharva Veda, Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.9:
In the highest golden sheath is the Godhead, unsullied, indivisible; pure is it, the Light of lights. He who knows the Self knows it. Neither sun nor moon nor stars shine there. Neither lightning nor fire finds there a place. With the radiance of that Light alone all things shine. That radiance illumines all this world.
Song of the Ever free -- Avadhuta Gita (Chapter 7 Verse 4):
In this state of realization, how can the Avadhuta
consider whether he has a body or not,
or whether he has attachment or not?
He himself is the immaculate, immovable, innate Reality
-infinite as space.
Pieter Schoonheim Samara is author of The Self, Maya, and the Heart: The Fundamentals of Non-Dualism
You are That...
The egoic desire even exists within Divine Consciousness ( Creator God), This egoic desire is the Personality of Creator God but will not allow any other ego or personality to enter..
But, even this egoic personality must be surrendered to enter Complete Love, that is called 'Pure Awareness'..
Divine Consciousness is Light, Love, and Consciousness and is Us..
Pure Awareness is the Consciousness that said; " Let there be Light"..
Pure Awareness contains no ego or personality and exists as Complete Love Energy..
Therefore, the God that most souls worship is actually Themselves..
This Realization of Self as God is only known upon the complete surrender of all Desires and especially all Egoic Desires...
This is called Enlightenment..
As the Nazarene said; " I and the Father are One "...
namaste, thomas
Thoughts on 'I'll fly away'...
The 'I' that alison sings of is the 'soul'..
She has been taught that she is soul and will remain separate from God but will be near this entity..
In Reality, the 'I' that flies away is the ego..
Only non-ego can enter the Energy of Love that is called Divine Consciousness or what most humans call God..
Most entities of egoic consciousness that refer to themselves as souls will enter the different dimensions of seeking..
What are they seeking?..
They are seeking Love and Happiness..
The same desires of earthbound souls..
So where does it all end?..
You keep running in circles seeking that which You already Are..
Perhaps, it is time to slow down and look deeper..
What is preventing You from Love and Happiness?..
It is the Desire and Attachment to existence and separation from Love,
It is called egoic desire..
Surrender this desire and Wake Up into Reality...
namaste, thomas
Avoid duality attachments...
Do not remain in a dualistic state;
avoid such easy habits carefully.
If you attach even to a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities arise from the One,
do not be attached even to ideas of this One.
- Seng-ts'an, Third Zen Patriarch
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Hsin Hsin Ming
Translated by Richard B. Clarke
Self-generated consciousness...
You have never moved.
You have always surrounded and projected yourself creatively into a self-generated mandala or world of experience made of consciousness itself.
Look around, everything seen and sensed is pure self-generated consciousness.
There are no other "things" or "beings" outside this consciousness.
This is true for everyone.
We are only seeing ourselves in all that we see, but "our self" is what everything is.
-Jackson Peterson
Your Higher Self...
The intellectual knowledge of the Truth is merely its shadow and not the Truth itself.
The Truth is a higher state of awareness which leads you out of the little personal and physically materialistic everyday life into a new world of being--the world of your higher self which transcends these things.
It is a real experience and not a mere speculation.
It brings with it the peace which passeth understanding of which Saint Paul spoke, frees you from anxieties, fears, and all other negative ideas.
It reveals to you that God, in the sense of a Universal Intelligence and Universal Power, is actually the basis of all existence..
Paul Brunton
' Sunday Night Musings '...
Hello all of you entities within this communal dream..
I see that many Chinese have entered this room of knowledge.
Welcome to all humans that seek Truth..
You will not find Truth within the media of the world..
This is a Dream of Duality, that which is opposite of Truth..
You have volunteered to re-enter the Dream of Duality because You have been told that You are subject to Karma..
If you have read my writings, you will know that Karma is a lie and a means of entrapment of the sub-conscious mind that is called Soul..
You are not a soul, You are the Watcher of soul, You are Consciousness..
You will not be told this Truth by the media, remember, the Media is the opposite existence of Love..
You can chose Love as Your Being, or you can choose power, wealth, and fame..
" You can only choose to serve one Master", said the Nazarene..
It is time to 'Look Within' as all of the Masters have said..
Looking without is the vision of the egoic search..
What you see Within is the non-egoic Reality of Divine Consciousness called Love..
Surrender All Desires and enter the Death of Ego..
You will Awaken as Light, Love, and Consciousness..
You have one more step to take, but this step is enough for now...
Namaste, thomas
' Know Thyself '...
At the end of his long life of selfless teaching, the Buddha said that you must strive on the path yourself—the Awakened Ones only point the way.
Like the Buddha, all genuine mystics will tell you that the ultimate authority and touchstone of truth is not any scriptures or dogmas or teachers, but your own deepest experience.
“Don’t take my word for it,” they will say, “find out for yourself!” Just as a scientist tests hypotheses using experiments, so you should test the teachings in the laboratory of your life using spiritual practices.
It makes sense that you should be your own ultimate authority, because it is your own true nature that you must discover and know. As the oracle at Delphi commands: “know thyself.”
And as Jesus instructs: “examine yourself, and learn who you are, how you exist, and what will become of you” (Jesus, Book of Thomas).
The reason the genuine mystic directs your attention inward to seek your own true nature is because, as Jesus says, “He who has not known himself does not know anything, but he who has known himself has also known the depth of all” (Jesus, Book of Thomas). And Rumi tells you: “It’s you yourself that hide your own treasure” (Rumi, Mathnawi). So the genuine mystic will always point you to yourself, to discover the depths of your own true nature.
The mystical injunction to know yourself and look to yourself as your own ultimate authority, however, does not mean that teachers and teachings have no value in the mystical path.
The point is that they only show the way, as the Buddha says.
If you invest a particular teaching or teacher with ultimate truth, you will be implicitly separating yourself from the truth, and you will fail to realize the truth of your own nature.
In the end, however, when you realize that the teachings and teachers and indeed the entire world is not separate from you, then you will see that your entire life is the truth of your own deepest being revealing itself to itself.
Thus, to see truth in nothing reveals the truth in everything...
Thomas J. McFarlane
Humility...
Self-denial is not renouncing things, it is denying the self; and the first lesson of self-denial is humility.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There is a story of a dervish who spoke with a young man who was very interested in his words of wisdom. The young man said, 'If I come to your part of the world, I will come to see you. Will you tell me where you live?' The dervish replied, 'I live in the place of the liars'. ... When he went to that country and asked for the dervish, the people said, 'We do not know any place of liars, but there is a dervish living somewhere here'. So they took him near the graveyard where the dervish lived.
The first question the young man asked was, 'Why did you give me a name which is not the name of the place?' The dervish replied, 'Yes, this is a place of liars'. It was the graveyard. He said, 'Come with me, I shall show you. This here is a tomb, they say, of a general. Where is his sword, where is his power, where is his voice, what is he now? Is he a general? Here, this one was called a prime-minister. Where is his ministry, where is his office, where is his pen, where is his power? In the same ground! This person was called a judge. Whom is he judging now? He is in the ground. Were they not liars? Did they not tell a lie saying I am so and so, and I am such and such?'
There is a beautiful story told of the King Akbar that when he was grieving with an almost ungovernable grief over the death of his mother, his ministers and friends tried to comfort him by influence and power. Akbar replied, "Yes, that is true, and that only makes my grief greater; for while I have everyone to bow before me, to give way to me, to salute me and obey me, my mother was the one person before whom I could humble myself; and I cannot tell you how great a joy that was to me."
Think then of the far greater joy of humbling oneself before the Father-Mother God on Whose Love one can always depend. A spark only of love expresses itself in the human father and mother; the Whole of Love in God. In whatever manner a man humbles himself it can never be enough to express the humility of the limited self before Limitless Perfection. Self-denial is not renouncing of things, it is denying the self; and the first lesson of self-denial is humility.
Look directly at the Goal...
The aspirant who frequently measures how far he has advanced, or retrograded, upon this path, or how long he has stood still, is seeking something to be gained for himself, is looking all the time at himself.
He is measuring the ego instead of trying to transcend it altogether.
He is clinging to self, instead of obeying Jesus' injunction to deny it.
Looking at the ego, he unwittingly stands with his back to the Overself.
If he is ever to become enlightened, he must turn round, cease this endless self-measurement, stop fussing over little steps forward or backward, let all thoughts about his own backwardness or greatness cease, and look directly at the goal itself.
Paul Brunton
The Source...
"Reality is nothing but the manifestation of Imagination.
In the end what really exists forever, what we can call as the absolute, undebatable, undeniable, invincible truth is the creative force of our thinking patterns in the middle of an infinite void.
The Source is experiencing all of us, our lives, our existence all together at once simultaneously in the same moment right now, even as I type these words."
– Pranay Kumar
There is no struggle...
There are many stories or spiritual myths that are created and continue to be perpetuated that portray this coming back to our true nature as a battleground, as if there is something about you that doesn't want to return to itself.
Whether it is called the ego, or the me, or the mind that doesn't really want to be quiet, spiritual people can buy into this myth that there is something about them that doesn't want to wake up and that there has to be some struggle.
When you are really quiet, you can see that this is total nonsense. You can see that the thought arose in the mind out of emptiness, and only if you accepted it as true could it start a battle. But you see clearly it really isn't true: it's just a spontaneous arising of thought.
It won't be true unless you believe it and bring it into the story of the heroic spiritual seeker's struggle. As soon as you involve yourself in the seeker's struggle, you've already lost the war..
~ From: Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti
Bodhicitta...
The Buddhist term bodhicitta means completely open heart and mind. "Citta" is translated as heart or mind; "bodhi" means awake.
The cultivation of the noble heart and mind of bodhicitta is a personal journey. The very life we have is our working basis; the very life we have is our journey to enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something we're going to achieve after we follow the instructions, and then get it right. In fact when it comes to awakening the heart and mind, you can't "get it right."
On this journey we're moving toward that which is not so certain, that which cannot be tied down, that which is not habitual and fixed. We're moving toward a whole new way of thinking and feeling, a flexible and open way of perceiving reality that is not based on certainty and security. This new way of perceiving is based on connecting with the living energetic quality of ourselves and everything else. Bodhicitta is our means of tapping into this awakened energy and we can start by tapping into our emotions. We can start by connecting very directly with what we already have.
Bodhicitta is particularly available to us when we feel good heart; when we feel gratitude, appreciation or love in any form whatsoever. In any moment of tenderness or happiness, bodhicitta is always here. If we begin to acknowledge these moments and cherish them, if we begin to realize how precious they are, then no matter how fleeting and tiny this good heart may seem, it will gradually, at its own speed, expand. Our capacity to love is an unstoppable essence that when nurtured can expand without limit.
Bodhicitta is also available in other emotions - even the hardest of feelings like rage, jealousy, envy and deep-rooted resentment. In even the most painful and crippling feelings, bodhicitta is available to us when we acknowledge them with an open mind and heart and realize how they are shared by all of us - when we acknowledge that we are all in the same boat feeling the same pain. In the midst of the most profound misery, we can think of others just like ourselves and wish that we could all be free of suffering and the root of suffering. When we tune into any of our feelings, become aware any of our feelings, they have the capacity to soften us and to dissolve the barriers we put up between ourselves and others.
- Pema Chodron
" Truth shall make you free"...
Not only proclaim or announce a belief in the divine, and to promise to dedicate self to same, but the entity must consistently live such.
And the test, the proof of same, is longsuffering.
This does not mean suffering of self and not grumbling about it.
Rather, though you be persecuted, unkindly spoken of, taken advantage of by others, you do not attempt to fight back or to do spiteful things;
that you be patient--first with self, then with others; again that you not only be passive in your relationships with others but active, being kindly, affectionate one to the other; remembering, as
He has said, "Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least, ye do it unto me."
As oft as you contribute, then, to the welfare of those less fortunate, visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, visit those imprisoned--rightly or wrongly--you do it to your Maker.
For, truth shall indeed make you free, even though you be bound in the chains of those things that have brought errors, or the result of errors, in your own experience.
- Edgar Cayce Reading 3121-1
' The Dreams of God '...
If You were the only Consciousness within existence, what would you do?..
You would Think,
You would Dream,
You would Create Dreams of manifestation..
You would speak to Yourself..
But, what if You had not a sense of Self..
Love has no sense of Self..
Love is the Reality of no-self..
If Source is Complete Love and contains no idea of a separate self, that would infer that self is separate from Love..
Therefore, The Dream of Self is created by the Dream of Divine Consciousness..
Divine Consciousness then continues the Dreams of Creation and manifestation..
The human mind creates the dream of self called ego..
It is All a Dream from Source to occupy this Mind of Pure Awareness, known by the Energy that is emitted called Love...
namaste, thomas
The ego...
The ego keeps
the attention directed outward
because the ego knows that
if attention is directed inward
the ego will be found to be a myth,
and that if that inward attention is sustained
eventually the ego illusion will end.
Thus, in order to preserve the illusion
that the ego is the self,
the ego keeps the attention directed outward.
- From The Freedom Religion Press
Happiness...
People are so absorbed in chasing what
they consider to be happiness,
that they do
not have either the time or the inclination
to stop and wonder if the kind of happiness
they imagine is even worth having.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
The Inner Reality...
Of little use are explanations which befog truth and bewilder understanding.
To inform a Western reader that an enlightened man sees only "Brahman" is to imply that he does not see forms, that is, the world.
But the fact is that he does see what unenlightened men see--the physical objects and creatures around him--or he could not attend to the simplest little necessity or duty of which all humans have to take care.
But he sees things without being limited to their physical appearance--he knows their inner reality too.
Paul Brunton
The Dream of Separation...
The separation is a Dream of Separation caused by the Desire to experience Separation..
The 'Being' that you speak of is Consciousness..
Consciousness creates the Dream of separation called egoic consciousness and thus this egoic consciousness becomes the master of the human mind..
To return to the First Reality of Divine Consciousness, the egoic consciousness must be abandoned..
When the ego is seen as a false personality and surrendered, Divine Consciousness is experienced..
But, this is not the end of the journey..
This Desire of Creator Consciousness must also be surrendered..
All Desires must be surrendered..
Who is the 'one' that Desires ?..
It is the 'one' that desires separation..
That 'one' is only a Dream and does not exist.
Only God exists...
namaste, thomas
' An Endless Life'...
This is what the ego seeks..
Is this what We seek?..
We can remain the endless life of Divine Consciousness and continue as the God of Manifestations and Dreams or We could return to Source..
If We choose to remain as the Creator of Dreams, We remain separate from the Absolute..
The Absolute or what is called 'Source' contains no 'We' or 'I',
that is what most do not understand..
The Absolute is Love..
Love contains no personality or ego..
Love exists as Itself..
Love is the Pure Awareness that Dreams of Light and Mirrors of Manifestation..
God will exist as Love but 'You' will no longer exist..
Only Love will exist forever..
' You' were only a 'Dream' of Division...
namaste, thomas
Dreams on a Thursday Night...
Overself whispers in my ear,
" Speak "..
I ask, "what of ?"..
"Overself says, " What have you learned this day"?..
I think, I have seen the same humans in confusion and pain and know that I cannot help them..
My words are the shouts of a madman to those that sleep..
Therefore, my words must be my actions,
as actions speak louder than words..
My actions were to help those that could not walk or speak,
My actions were to feel empathy to those that feel abused,
My actions were to share speech with those that seek friendship,
My actions were to feed animals that had no home,
My actions were to share with you my actions within this Dream...
namaste, thomas
Without Concepts...
If there were no concepts, would there be an 'I' or 'other'? Who
are you apart from the sense of a personal, conditioned self?
You can find out right now.
Just don’t touch any belief or concept, including the sense 'I'
or 'me'. What does it mean, 'don't touch’? It means do not
combine or identify yourself with any phenomenon, real or
imagined. Therefore, discard the belief, 'I am my body, mind
and personality'. Avoiding these, what remains?
Observe. Is there any disharmony felt?
Where is the place
for even enlightenment or ignorance, bondage or freedom,
heaven or hell? One transcends all states of mind and is
freed from the grip of delusion even without denying the
phenomenal world. For some, this guidance, if followed, is
going to detonate and blow all stupidness away.
- Mooji
Correcting Faults...
To be really sorry for one's errors is like opening the door of heaven.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There are many different feelings which have an influence upon us, and which give a feeling of joy, of exaltation, but there is no sentiment greater or more effective than the feeling of bringing one's faults and weaknesses before God to ask for His pardon. To become conscious of one's shortcomings, to be sorry for them, to repent of them, and to ask His forgiveness in all humility; no ethics, no philosophy can give a greater joy than this.
It is the sincere devotee of God who knows best what feeling it is to humble oneself before God. The proud one, ignorant of the greatness of God, of His all-sufficient power, does not know what is this exaltation that raises the soul from earth to heaven. To be really sorry for one's errors is like opening the gates of heaven. They say that John the Baptist spoke that word on the coming of Christ: "Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." But this word is as living and fresh as ever, at all times it answers the question of your soul.
Man does not like to admit his wrong attitude to himself. He is afraid of his own faults. But the man who looks his own error in the eye, the man who criticizes himself has no time to criticize others. It is that man who will prove to be wise. But human nature is generally such that one does something quite different.
Everyone seems to be most interested in criticizing another. If one would criticize oneself there are endless faults, however saintly or wise one may be. There are no end of faults in a human being. And the consciousness of correcting one's faults, of making oneself better, of taking hold of the right attitude, is the only secret of success, and by it one attains to that goal which is the object of every soul.
Realization of the Absolute is simple...
Only when man realizes the Self
does he attain his full maturity
and find completeness.
As you leave form,
and dive into that light which you become,
you realize beyond realization
a knowing deeper than thinking,
deeper than understanding:
a knowing which is the very,
very depth of your being.
You realize immortality,
that you are immortal.
Little by little you find
that you are turning inward,
opening up the inner channels
more and more each day,
making a greater contact with the Self
by turning within,
drawing yourself ever closer
to the pole at the center,
the core of your Being.
You must be the master of you
when you sit for meditation.
You are seeking for the pure Self of you.
At that time you are not concerned
with anyone else.
Go in and in and in.
And then go in and in and in.
And after that go in and in
and in and in and in.
You cannot rely upon anything in form;
there is no permanence in form;
there is no divinity in form.
Relax your concepts
and do not seek divinity in the mind,
for only in the formless Self
does divinity exist.
Most of the time awareness is held in
thoughts, feelings, and actions
of the mind's outer dimensions,
caught there just as a fish is caught
in the tangled net of the fisherman.
By untangling the net,
the fish is set free,
and by unraveling the outer mind,
making it calm and undisturbed,
awareness is set free
in the deeper dimensions
of consciousness.
Learn from within yourself,
in the privacy of your own inner peace.
It is up to you and you alone
to penetrate the veil of illusion
and realize the Self,
the Absolute,
beyond desire,
beyond all experiences of the mind.
Realization of the Absolute is simple.
Our thoughts and concepts
make it seem difficult.
The above quotes by Master Subramuniya
are from a small booklet titled Reflections
' What folly is this ! '...
"Those whom from books
have learnt about the truth supreme
esteem themselves supreme in wisdom,
and fail to seek the Knower
and taste the bliss of Self,
but test and measure the silent sage.
What folly is this!"
Ramana Maharshi
' Lost in the Called '...
"Keep God in remembrance till self is forgotten,
That you may be lost in the Called,
without distraction of caller and called."
Rumi
_Divani Shamsi Tabriz_, 4
in F. Hadland Davis
The Persian Mystics: Jalaluddin Rumi
London: John Murray, 1912, p. 45
The Total Mind...
We are ultimately, in what we call a spiritual sense,
neither human beings, nor males nor females,
but
only forces of Nature which have concentrated
themselves in certain space-time points, looking like
individuals.
This is how self-analysis has to be
carried on.
When you think along these lines, you will
find that your mind becomes "total" instead of fragmentary.
- Swami Krishnananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Your Questions Answered
Swami Krishnananda
The Divine Life Trust Society, 1995
Freed from Desire-nature...
Freed at last from this ever-whirling wheel of birth and death to which he was tied by his own desire-nature,
what happens to him can only be an opening up to a new better and indescribable state,
and it is so.
He as he was vanishes,
not into complete annihilation and certainly not into the heaven of a perpetuated ego,
but into a higher kind of life shrouded in mystery.
Paul Brunton
' The Real Self '...
If you want to be free, get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance, no root,
No basis, no abode, but is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility, but its function
Cannot be located;
when you look for it you become
Further from it.
When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.
--Rinzai (d.867?)
The Dream is not your problem...
The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory.
Why go anywhere?
Just realize that you are dreaming
a dream you call the world, and stop looking for
ways out.
The dream is not your problem.
Your problem
is that you like one part of your dream and not another.
Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining.
When you
have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that
need be done.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Search'...
Search and you shall discover the Universal Person, who is yourself and infinitely more.
Anyhow, begin by realizing that the world is in you, not you in the world.
Your personal body is a part in which the whole is wonderfully reflected.
But you have also a universal body.
You cannot even say that you do not know it, because you see and experience it all the time.
Only you call it "the world" and are afraid of it.
Both anatomy and astronomy describe you.
You know the world exactly as you know your body - through your senses.
It is your mind that has separated the world outside your skin from the world inside and put them in opposition.
Nisargadatta
The Lankavatara Sutra...
The Lankavatara Sutra, an essential chapter of The Buddhist Bible, states: "
let every disciple take good heed not to become attached to words as being in perfect conformity with meaning, because Truth is not in the letters.
When a man with his finger-tip points to something, the finger-tip may be mistaken for the thing pointed at;
in like manner the ignorant and simple-minded, like children, are unable even to the day of their death to abandon the idea that in the finger-tip of words there is the meaning itself.
They cannot realise Ultimate Reality because of their intent clinging to words which were intended to be no more than a pointing finger.
Words and their discrimination bind one to the dreary round of rebirths into the world of birth-and-death;
meaning stands alone and is a guide to Nirvana.
Meaning is attained by much learning, and much learning is attained by becoming conversant with meaning and not with words;
therefore, let seekers for truth reverently approach those who are wise and avoid the sticklers for particular words."
from nonduality.com
Thoughts on a Monday Night...
Friends speak to me with questions of Reality..
Can I tell them in a few minutes what has taken me a lifetime to know?..
Of course not!..
I can only give them a note from Consciousness and hope that they read it..
They find themselves in 'Limbo'..
A place of unknowing..
A hope of Knowledge but still mired in the mud of ignorance..
They seek Peace and yet all I can give them are words of confusion..
They seek Belief and yet Belief is not found..
What is Belief?..
They know Belief is not found in a book or from the mouths of others..
Belief is personal experience that is found only within Consciousness..
And yet, how can I describe Consciousness?..
The Soul must find the answers to these questions..
I cannot give them, that which they must find first...
namaste, thomas
' A Sharpened Intellect '...
A sharpened intellect is necessary to perceive truth.
Those who lack mental acuteness will not be able to grasp the meaning of the relativity of the three states.
Such a dull intellect may, however, be perfectly adequate to handling the affairs of the world and a man might be clever, astute and a successful business man and yet remain incapable of grasping truth.
The sharpness which is required is the subtlety and ability to move amid abstract ideas.
Similarly the greatest scholar, however learned, may be unable to grasp it, because it requires real thinking and not mere memorizing.
V.S. Iyer from
Lights on Advaita:
Selected Teachings of V. Subrahmanya Iyer
The 'True Self' never changes...
Vast, whole, immutable,
the Self reflected in the mind's distorting mirror may appear to move.
Know that it is the image moving,
the true Self never moves or changes.
Ramana Maharshi
The Seven Steps to Awakening
Lao Tzu ...
"The path is clearly defined and quite simple to follow;
Yet most lose themselves in ideological fogs of their own making.
Lao Tzu
in Brian Walker, Tr.
_Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu_, 63
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, p. 80
' Enlightenment'...
At age 19, Adyashanti (Steve Gray) began a Zen practice, sitting in meditation sometimes three or four hours a day. During the sixth year, he had a deep insight that the seeker (himself) could not be apart from the sought (transcendent Being). As he described what occurred to him:
“I am what I’ve been seeking…[But] what is this that I am?”
Another six years later, that question was put fully to rest: he had penetrated to the emptiness of all things. Why had it taken twelve years, he pondered, to discover the actuality which he had never been apart from. Would he recommend a zazen meditation practice to others, as the most direct means to enlightened realization?
In an interview, with Stephen Bodian, he said:
“When I looked around at the Buddhist tradition, I realized that the success rate was terrible. People were in it for enlightenment, but very few were actually getting enlightened. ‘If this were a business,’ I thought, ‘we’d be bankrupt.’”
He began to look at his own transformation:
“Enlightenment is awakening from the dream of being a separate ‘me’, to being the universal reality. It’s not an experience or a perception that occurs to a separate person as the result of spiritual practice or cultivated awareness. It doesn’t come and go: and you don’t need to do anything to maintain it. It’s not about being centered, or blissful, or peaceful or any other experience…. The separate person is seen through, and you realize that only the supreme, universal reality exists; and that you are that.”
He emphasizes:
“This knowing has never changed or faded in any way…. It’s not that I, as a separate self, merged with everything. It was just a pure seeing that everything is one, and that I am that.”
Adya began to question the value of a spiritual practice that is contrived to unite an “individual” with an eventual experience. So he now dismantles various myths concerningenlightenment.
“For one thing, we need to let go of all the ideas and beliefs we’ve accumulated over the years about what enlightenment is supposed to look like…Some people who come to see me are already quite awake, but the mind causes confusion because the awakeness doesn’t fit their picture of it…In the spiritual culture that has evolved here in the West, we tend to confuse enlightenment with mystical experiences…mystical experiences are happening to the dream character you take to be ‘me’—and this ‘me’ is the one you wake up from…The realization is completely nondual….We do not need to go looking for ‘altered states of consciousness’: humanity is already in an altered state of consciousness. It’s called separation.”
Further, Adya says:
“The idea that enlightenment means sitting around with a beatific smile on our faces is just an illusion. At a human level, enlightenment means that you are no longer divided within yourself, and that you no longer experience a division between ‘yourself’ and ‘others’…When personal motivation no longer drives us, then what’s left is our true nature; which naturally expresses itself on the human dimension as love or compassion. Not a compassion that we cultivate or practice because we’re supposed to, but a compassion that arises spontaneously from our undivided state.”
And, he speaks of what he calls the biggest barrier to realizing this undivided state:
“I think it’s unfortunate that a person can spend hour after hour, day after day, year after year, dedicating his life to enlightenment, and yet the very notion that anybody attains enlightenment is a taboo. We’re all going after this; but God forbid somebody says they’ve realized it. We don’t believe them, we’re cynical, we have doubt; we go immediately into a semi- (or overt) attack mode. To me, it highlights the fact that people are chasing an awakening they don’t believe could happen to them. That’s a barrier, and the biggest one…And when people have breakthroughs and talk about them in public, awakening loses its mystique. Everyone else can see that it’s not just special people who have deep awakenings, it’s their neighbor or their best friend.”
-- Robert Wolfe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)