Enlightenment...
Upon surrendering the egoic desire, the ego would warn me of the pain of death..
It would say to me, to return to the manifestation or else face the pain of nothingness..
This was a tough decision as pain is something to be avoided..But, I wanted the Truth so much that I was willing to die and become nothingness to learn Truth..
This is when my body was thrown to the ground within the wind of Love..
I entered Reality..
This is why I speak now..
Who wanted this experience?..
Was it the ego or was it Consciousness?..
Whoever it was, I am thankful...
-thomas
It is sunday night...
Consciousness tells me to write..
The subject offered is Self..
Therefore, I must ask; " Who are you"?..
You keep playing the part and character of individual ego..
And yet, you keep entering this room of discovery..
Obviously, you have tired of the Dream..
The pain of separation is too much to bear..
The words, Love and Fear enter the mind and seek understanding..
You have free will, what is your will?..
What will you choose?..
Who is the chooser?..
Perhaps, if there were no chooser,
only Freedom would remain..
-thomas
Awakening from a dream...
One forgets the Self and thinks the body is oneself
and goes through innumerable births
and in the end remembers and remains the Self.
Know this is only like awaking from a dream
wherein one has wandered all over the world.
Ramana Maharshi
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
Safe Haven...
So it all comes back to the crucial question of my true Identity.
If I insist on making an object, a thing and a third person of myself here, I am consumed with a thousand fears and better off dead.
But if I give up this unrealistic and unrewarding habit and come to Myself, I see that I have never emerged from that marvelous Abyss, that before Abraham was I am, before the first galaxy and the first atom, before time itself.
Right here and now, in the very place all this stormy weather of time and change come from, I am Home and dry. Where can I go from this Safe Haven?
~ From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding www.headless.org/
The ego is only an idea...
If we have written of the ego as if it were a separate and special entity, a fixed thing, a reality in its own right, this is only because of the inescapable necessities of logical human thinking and the inexorable limitations of traditional human language.
For in FACT the "I" cannot be separated from its thoughts since it is composed of them, and them alone.
The ego is, in short, only an idea, or a trick that the thought process plays on itself.
- Paul Brunton
Did Jesus Return ?...
Did Jesus return into the Dream upon death?..
It would not be the first time that a Guru returned to speak to his students..
The physical is a Dream of Light, Consciousness, and Desire..
It is not really physical..
It is a Hologram of Thought..
Thought intermingled with Light creates Manifestation..
Jesus always spoke of the 'First Reality',
which is called Divine Consciousness and is the Creator of manifestations..
This is the Father that He spoke of..
But, even the Father has a Father..
It is called 'Pure Awareness' and answers to no name..
-thomas
The Source of mind...
It is well known and admitted that only with the help of
the mind can the mind be killed.
But instead of setting
about saying there is a mind, and I want to kill it, you
begin to seek the source of the mind, and you find the
mind does not exist at all.
The mind, turned outwards,
results in thoughts and objects.
Turned inwards, it
becomes itself the Self.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985
The soul of Christ...
The soul of Christ is the light of the universe.
Bowl of Saki,by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Truth is the soul of religion. When Jesus came to earth he did not say, 'I have brought you a new religion never heard of by you or your ancestors.' He said he had not come to give a new law but to fulfill the law; in other words, 'I have come to continue giving you that which you have received before and have not understood.'
There are scriptures that mankind regards as religious scriptures, but imagine how little of that message a book can contain, and how much more must have been given that was never written in a book! If books were sufficient, then the book of Abraham or the earlier books that were kept as scriptures could be sufficient, but it was not the book. The messenger, whenever he came, came to give the life, the living spirit, the divine light that can shine like the sun during the day, so that no soul with the slightest spark of sincerity could ever doubt the truth and unity of the message.
The divine message has always been sent through those fitly endowed. For instance when wealth was esteemed the message was delivered by King Solomon; when beauty was worshipped, Joseph, the most handsome, gave the message; when music was regarded as celestial David gave his message in song. When there was curiosity about miracles Moses brought his message. When sacrifice was highly esteemed Abraham gave the message. When heredity was recognized, Christ gave his message as the Son of God. When democracy was necessary, Muhammad gave his message as the Servant of God, one like all and among all. ...
All Masters from the time of Adam till the time of Muhammad have been the one embodiment of the Master-ideal. When Jesus Christ is represented as saying, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,' it is not meant that either the name or the visible person of Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, but the Master-spirit within. It was this spirit which proclaimed this, moved by its realization of past, present, and future life, confident of its eternity. It is the same spirit which spoke through Krishna, saying, 'We appear on earth when Dharma is corrupted,' which was long before the coming of Christ. During his divine absorption Muhammad said, 'I existed even before this creation and shall remain after its assimilation.' In the holy traditions it is said, 'We have created thee of Our light and from thy light We have created the universe.' This is not said of the external person of Muhammad as known by this name. It refers to the spirit which spoke through all the blessed tongues and yet remained formless, nameless, birthless and deathless.
But the blind world, absorbed in its phenomena and impressed by a certain name and form, has clung to the name, forgetting the true being. It is this ignorance which has divided the children of men into so many divisions and separated one from the other by their own delusions: whereas in reality there exists one religion and one single Master, the only God. ... There has been one Teacher only, and He alone will be. All the names which the world has fought over, are His names, and all the physical forms that have won the adoration of the truth-seeking world are His forms.
Enlightenment...
When enlightenment comes through philosophic preparation for it,
the experience is sudden, direct, unexpected, and spontaneous.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2:
Enlightenment Which Stays > # 64
Paul Brunton
Thoughts on a friday night...
By now, the non-mystics are confused by words and thoughts that they do not understand..
This website is meant for advanced mystics but those that are beginning the path to Freedom are more than welcome..
The new reader must read the words many times to understand but they will understand..
We are speaking of ending the Nightmare of Duality..
The distance between Love and Fear..
You spend each day thinking and seeking Love and yet you are seeking a Joy that is only spoken of by those that have experienced it..
You want to know this mental feeling..
The more that you learn, the more egoic desire falls away..
The closer you find yourself to Reality..
What is Reality?..
It is the Energy of Love, which is non-egoic desire..
You are so close and yet anger still enters the mind..
Anger is egoic desire..
Grab the Heart and hold it in the air and declare yourself Free...
-thomas
Awareness makes experience possible...
All experience is born of imagination.
There is no such thing as the experience of the real. The real is beyond experience. All experience is in the mind. You know the real by being the real.
All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect nothing from experience. Realization by itself is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not more real than the old.
Definitely realization is not a new experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. It is awareness, which makes experience possible. Just like in all the colours light is the colourless factor, so in every experience awareness is present, yet it is not an experience.
Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'
The Original Nature of Mind...
Emptiness, the ultimate nature of Dharmakaya, the Absolute Body, is not a simple nothingness.
It possesses intrinsically the faculty of knowing all phenomena.
This faculty is the luminous or cognitive aspect of the Dharmakaya, whose expression is spontaneous.
The Dharmakaya is not the product of causes and conditions;
it is the original nature of mind.
- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Mentalism...
The fact is that the mere awakening to the truth of mentalism is itself a joyous event, while the final realization of it establishes him in a great calm and a decisive insight.
It will set him free from leaning on outside supports, on books, however sacred, or men, however respected--if life and development have not already done so.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 120
Paul Brunton
Overself pushing me..
Overself keeps telling me to speak but does not give the subject..
I can tell you of walking, when sitting in silence is the quicker path..
I can speak of dreams and illusions, power and ego, Truth and lies..
But, what shall I write about?..
Perhaps, the traveling into sub-conscious mind and the thin strand of light that connects the Dream to the Dreamer..
We are watching a Play and so into the Character that we believe that the Play is Real..
This is the Trap of Free Will..
The Dreamed entity of Consciousness will continue the Dream, again and again..
It is the Desires of experience that Trap You..
You always want more..
Perhaps, if You wanted Nothing,
you would find Freedom...
-thomas
Beyond personal identity...
The intuition 'I Am' is your truest name.
Love, joy, peace
and wisdom are your real nature.
This is true for all living
beings.
But, you will not fully know and be this until you
are willing, open and ready to go beyond your personal
identity into Truth.
- Mooji
Rumi...
Sometimes I feel like a king,
sometimes I moan in my own prison.
Swaying between these states
I can't be proud of myself.
This "I" is a figment of my imagination.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"Rumi - Whispers of the Beloved”
Selected and translated by
Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi
Thorsons, London 1999
Four kinds of Belief...
Belief is of four kinds.
The first kind is a belief accepted because it is believed by all.
The second is a belief accepted because it is believed by someone in whom the believer trusts.
The third belief is the belief that reason helps one to believe.
the fourth belief is conviction, of which one is as sure as if one were an eyewitness.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Intuitive Awareness...
There are moments when the Overself gets at a man's consciousness, and rarer moments when he gets at Its consciousness.
It is his profit to extend them, if he can, or to dwell long and often on their memory, if he cannot.
What he needs to cultivate is both the facility and the capacity to expand the slightest premonitory movement of the door of intuitive awareness to the widest opening of it.
Whenever he notices the very slightest indrawing to the Overself, whenever the least feeling of Its onset appears, he should at once begin to wrap himself around with the felt influence to the exclusion of everything else.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 5:
Preparing for Glimpses > # 114
Paul Brunton
Consciousness...
Consciousness keeps telling me to speak..
I have not yet had my shower, am I clean enough to speak of purity?..
Of course, I am joking..
What is purity?..
It is the existence within Consciousness, which is called Love..
The ego appears separate within the Dream and You are the 'Watcher'..
You watch the stories on television and therefore, understand the forms of illusion..
So many forms and thoughts projected from the minds,, that solitude is sought..
Why did Jesus walk into the desert and Gautama walk into the woods ?..
I am asking you to be singular within your walk..
Therefore, there will be only one egoic dream to surrender..
And when this is accomplished, Look above You into the Light Creator called Pure Awareness..
Do not look for yourself here, there is no separate observer..
There is only Source...
-thomas
Pure Perception...
Noesis versus Pure Perception..
The first level of pure perception, prior to these two steps, is the level of perception with no discernment, no discrimination at all, simply consciousness aware of awareness itself and nothing else. This ground of pure awareness is the fundamental ground spoken of in many spiritual traditions, and is the medium in which all levels of knowing appear.
The capacity to discern differences in the field of our awareness is a fundamental element of our consciousness. But here we need to make a difficult and subtle distinction: in describing this capacity, we want to discriminate it from the capacity to actually recognize the forms that arise. So in what we are calling pure perception, associated with is traditionally called nonconceptual awareness, there is the perception of differences within a field without recognition of those differences. There is awareness that there are different forms, but in perception these forms are not discriminated in such a way that they recognized or named.
This is consciousness with no mind involved, awareness with no knowing of any kind. There is merely the awareness of shapes, colors,movements, qualities; there is no recognition, knowing, or understanding of what one is perceiving. There is differentiation but not discrimination.
We refer to this perception without recognition as nonconceptual awareness, for recognition and knowing require concepts. There is awareness of content but no recognition of it; recognition requires a further step in the functioning of consciousness. The traditional metaphor for this pure perceptivity is the mirror. The mirror analogy describes the soul's primordial and original condition, which is the pure nonconceptual awareness of experience. This is the fundament ground of any experience, which is the pure nonconceptual bare awareness of experience before recognition, reaction, categorization, or an such phenomena occur. Becoming conscious of this nonconceptual awareness is an important aspect of inner work, and something we begin to understand from the first glimpses of recognizing the soul. Simply understanding that the soul is a medium that is aware of experience within its own field, we begin to understand the mirror-like quality of the soul.
A mirror reflects forms without adding anything to them. It merely registers the shapes, colors, and movements of the forms. Our consciousness functions like a mirror with respect to the forms that arise within it. This nonconceptual awareness is fundamental to the soul, a function that underlies and precedes all other functions of consciousness.
Thus we recognize here the quality of mind that is emphasized in many traditional spiritual teachings: the ground of nonconceptual awareness, of pure perception. We do not normally notice this dimension of consciousness, because our knowingness arises too fast for us to catch it. In ordinary experience, our knowing mind, in addition to our labeling, categorizing, and remembering mind, functions almost simultaneously with pure perception of objects. Normally, we perceive and know in the same act, thus always believing that consciousness functions only as the normal perception that always has some recognition of form. It is clear, however, that the pure capacity for perception, before recognition, is a necessary ground for all our experience, including experience of our inner content.
This ground of nonconceptual awareness that has the capacity for perception is the deepest ground of the field of the soul. It is this ground in which arise the forms of consciousness that constitute the, inner experience of the soul. We see from this perspective that the mirror metaphor is helpful but not completely accurate. It is accurate only in the sense that it can register what arises, without any reaction or response. However, our previous discussion shows the limitation of this metaphor: a mirror can only reflect what appears in front of it, while the consciousness of the soul creates (or becomes) the forms.
Consciousness is like a magical mirror that creates the forms that appear its surface. A better metaphor is a more modern one: on a television screen, images appear within the screen, and unfold as a series of shapes, colors, and movements that constitute a story in the experience of the viewer. Yet even the television screen is not a perfect metaphor, for our consciousness does not only produce the forms; it also perceives them. If we think of the light in the television screen as consciousness, if we imagine that this light perceives the forms it is projecting, then we come closer to understanding pure nonconceptual awareness.
A.H.Almaas The Inner Journey pp.49-51
Overself...
We are not just higher animals and nothing more but are possessed of something that the other animals do not possess--
a self-consciousness which can be developed until it matures into a thinking power as well as a totally superior kind of awareness--that of the Overself.
-Paul Brunton
The Experience of Love...
You have spent your life seeking the mind and experience of 'Love'..
The reason is that you have heard stories of peace and contentment within this Energy..
You seek outside of yourself for this experience..
It comes and goes according to your egoic desire and the egoic desire of the other..
This is your first clue..
The Ego separates You from Love..
Therefore, to Awaken into the experience of Love, the ego must dissolve..
Surrender all egoic desires..
Exist as 'Being'..
Remember the Nazarene telling you that the Kingdom of God is within?..
Stop looking outside for Knowledge..
Step inside Consciousness...
-thomas
Love is the quickest way...
"There is no religion higher than love.
Love is the only way leading to Truth and God-Realization.
Mind and intellect provide only superficial understanding; it is dry knowledge.
One should try to see God and experience Him.
The first thing is Reality, the second is Unity.
Love is truly a shortcut in the long path toward achieving God-Realization.
It is the quickest way."
Avatar Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
_Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher
Baba_
Myrtle Beach, SC: Manifestation, Volume 4, p. 1487
Conscious Immortality...
You who slept, are also now awake. There was no unhappiness in your sleep, whereas it is present now.
What is it that has happened now, that this difference is experienced?
There was no ‘I’-thought in your sleep whereas it is present now. The true 'I' is not apparent and the false 'I' is parading. This false I'
is the obstacle to your right knowledge. Find out from where
this false 'I' arises. It will disappear. You will be only what you
are — i.e. absolute Being.
Search for the source of the ‘I’-thought.
That is all one has to do. The Universe is on account of the 'I'-thought. If that ends, misery will also end.
Q: Can the soul remain without a body?
M: It will do so during the next deep sleep. The Self is then bodiless. But even now it is so.
In deep sleep you exist without ego; then you are free of doubts. Only now, in the waking state, ego rises and you have doubts.
ln deep sleep you are happy, in the waking state you are unhappy. Find out what that state of deep sleep is, from which you have come.
-Reinhard Jung
The Void...
What we call here the Void, following the Mongolian-Tibetan tradition, is not dissimilar from what Spanish Saint John of the Cross called "complete detachment and emptiness of spirit."
It is a casting-out of all impressions from the mind, an elimination of every remembered or imagined experience from it, a turning-away from every idea even psychically referable to the five senses and the ego; finally, even a loss of personal identity.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8:
The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 83
Paul Brunton
'Kingdoms'...
I read of Kingdoms and exclamations of 'I am"..
How foolish that we speak of an entity within a Dream..
The 'I am' wants to rule Dreams and Reality..
Upon Awakening into Divine Consciousness,
the 'I' remains as Creator..
And yet, the 'Creator ego' refuses to tell me of the 'Final Reality'..
I came back to find that Awareness that created Light..
That 'Mind' that bound Itself with the Energy of Love..
What is Love?..
Love is Source, It contains no "I am"..
This is what you are to learn in this Dream...
- thomas
Only Love can destroy Hate...
You have already heard this message from the great spiritual masters and yet the ego constantly speaks to you..
How clever is the Dream..
You must remain the 'Observer' of the mind (ego)..
All egoic desires must be observed and then discarded..
Revenge is the blood of egoic desire..
This is why the spiritual masters have always spoken of 'Forgiveness'..
What is forgiveness?..
It is the surrender of the egoic desire..
If the circuit of Hate is broken by Love,
Hate will die..
Hate needs both egos' to exist..
Hatred is a false dream and will dissolve with Knowledge..
- thomas
The walk of solitude...
No one saves us but ourselves.
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path.
- Gautama the Buddha
Mind and Awareness...
Mind is interested in what happens, while awareness is interested in
the mind itself.
The child is after the toy, but the mother watches
the child, not the toy.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
Creation...
Every form of existence can be reduced to a form of consciousness.
The final essence of all these consciousnesses is God.
-- Notebooks Category 27: World-Mind > Chapter 3:
World-Mind and ``Creation'' > # 16
Paul Brunton
An answer...
Cindy asks me, "how does a non-killer survive in the military?"..
Pure Luck..
Since, I was a teacher and advisor to the South Vietnamese Airforce, I was not required to carry a weapon..
Would I shoot back at someone that is trying to kill me?..
Probably..
Perhaps, this is why Consciousness protected me from harm..
I refused all weapons..
I was always warned five seconds before any destruction of the body..
Therefore, to this day, I am still alive..
You have an entity that helps you,
is this the famous 'Guardian Angel'?..
I do not know..
I only know a 'Voice' that warns me of all danger..
-thomas
Thoughts on a saturday night...
I turn off the 'talking heads' and listen to zen music..
I want no words to interfere with thought..
Therefore, what words are valuable?..
Obviously, any words that bring Freedom are most wanted..
By now, the non-mystics have left from boredom,
this is how it should be..
The pearls that are thrown are meant for those ready to receive..
We keep waking up in a Dream and being thankful that the Dream continues..
How strange are we?..
We find happiness and pain within the same illusion..
Are we so afraid to enter Reality?..
Is the Dream so important?..
Is existence all that matters?..
So many questions to answer..
Are you wise enough to know that non-existence is the Door to Reality?...
-thomas
mere mistakes...
When the full identity is reached that the Self is all and there is no "other",
the various perceptions rife in the absence of Self-inquiry and Self-abidance
are all seen as mere mistakes.
- Ramana Maharshi
The ego must be surrendered...
Realizing one's true nature requires no phenomenal
efforts.
Enlightenment cannot be attained or forced;
it can only happen.
So long as there is a pseudo-entity
considering itself a seeker working toward enlightenment,
for just so long will enlightenment be prevented from
happening.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Love yourself wisely...
Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfil them.
It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real , the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Your longing to be happy is there.
Why? Because you love yourself.
By all means, love yourself -wisely.
What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer. Love yourself wisely. Both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view - to make you happy.
Indulgence is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way. Once you have gone through an experience, not to go through it again is austerity. To eschew the unnecessary is austerity. Not to anticipate pleasure or pain is austerity. Having things under control at all times is austerity.
Desire by itself is not wrong. It is the choices that you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing - food, sex, power, fame - will make you happy is to deceive yourself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'
Let go of past and future...
In this moment here and now, letting go of past and future, seeking the pure consciousness in itself, and not the identifications it gets mixed up with and eventually has to free itself from--
in this moment he may affirm his true being and ascertain his true enlightenment without referring it to some future date.
-Paul Brunton
Knowing...
O worldly folk,
who long for and run after an endless series of unenduring things,
‘tis wisdom true to seek and know That one Thing
on knowing which all other things will cease to be.
- Ramana Maharshi
Tao Te Ching...
The very highest is barely known.
Then comes that which people know and love,
Then that which is feared,
Then that which is despised.
Who does not trust enough will not be trusted.
When actions are performed
Without unnecessary speech,
People say, "We did it!"
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1989
Dream and Waking...
CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY
DREAM AND WAKING
Q: Is there any real distinction between dream and waking?
M: Only an apparent one, not a real one. The dream is for one who says that he is awake. Both are unreal from the absolute viewpoint.
The ego arises when you wake up from sleep. In sleep you do not say that you are sleeping; you say it only when you wake up. But you are still there. You were not concerned with the body when asleep, so you can continue to be unconcerned.
In the waking state, ego identified itself with the physical body, and in dream, with the subtle mind. At that time the perceptions are also subtle.
Q: What is the difference between fainting and sleep?
M: Sleep is sudden and overpowers the person forcibly. A faint is slower and there is a tingle of resistance to it.
Realization is possible in a faint and impossible in sleep.
The Tao...
Chuang Tzu:
"Unawareness of one's feet is the mark of shoes that fit, unawareness of right and wrong is the mark of a mind at ease. .
The moment a centipede becomes conscious of his seventeenth or twenty-third pair of legs he cannot move any more. .
As fish forget themselves in water, so should men forget themselves in Tao."
Overlook faults...
Overlook the greatest fault of another, but do not partake of it yourself in the smallest degree.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
For the wise, who have risen above the ordinary faults of human life, it matters little if they find fault, but they are the ones who do not criticize. They, as a rule, overlook all that seems undesirable, and that action of overlooking itself prevents all the undesirable impressions from penetrating through their hearts. There is a natural tendency in man as in the animal to protect his heart from all hurt or harm, but that is the external heart. If man only knew what harm is brought to one's being by letting any undesirable impression enter the heart, he also would adopt the above-mentioned policy of the wise, to overlook.
Overlooking the faults of others with politeness, tolerance, forgiveness, and resignation is regarded as a moral virtue in the East. Man's heart is visualized as the shrine of God, and even a small injury in thought, word, and deed against it is considered as a great sin against God, the Indwelling One.
In the East, when we speak of saints or sages, it is not because of their miracles, it is because of their presence and their countenance which radiate vibrations of love. How does this love express itself? In tolerance, in forgiveness, in respect, in overlooking the faults of others. Their sympathy covers the defects of others as if they were their own; they forget their own interest in the interest of others. They do not mind what conditions they are in; be they high or humble, their foreheads are smiling. To their eyes everyone is the expression of the Beloved, whose name they repeat. They see the divine in all forms and in all beings.
The more the self learns, the more it overlooks the evil in others. It does not mean that the evil is not in others; it only means that one finds in oneself the enemy which one was seeing outwardly. And the worst enemy one was faced with in outer life one finds to be in one's own heart. It makes one feel humiliated, but it teaches the true lesson: one finds oneself having the same element which one wishes to resist in another.
Resistance...
"Whatever you resist you become.
If you resist anger, you are always angry.
If you resist sadness, you are always sad.
If you resist suffering, you are always suffering.
If you resist confusion, you are always confused.
We think that we resist certain states because
they are there, but actually
they are there because we resist them."
~ Adyashanti
My Secret is Silence
Consciousness...
The overlooked part is his consciousness; the forgotten self is his knowing power.
These exist uninterruptedly, even in apparently subconscious forms like deep sleep and swoon.
Yet he denies this share of his in the Real Being, identifies with the body instead of making it merely an object of awareness.
- Paul Brunton
To the Seeker in Vietnam..
I see that a soul in Vietnam is reading my blog..
I was an advisor to the Vietnamese air force during the 'Tet offensive'..
I carried no weapon, as an advisor, I was not required to..
I had no desire to kill anyone..
After two weeks of being hit with rockets and mortars, I accepted the fact that I would die..
I accepted death and would walk though Saigon without any weapon..
I was often shot at but I was protected by an unseen Power..
Whether, you believe this or not is entirely within your mind..
I was a Buddhist within this time and felt close to my Buddhist airmen..
These Wars of financial gain are created by the ego of selfishness and gain..
The bankers and corporations are the winners within all wars..
Do you understand that we were the puppets of songs and drums?..
But, we have Awakened into Reality..
We are finally Free...
-thomas
Thoughts on a wednesday night...
We, normal humans meet with those that have no path to walk..
I must speak in their language which is colloqualism..
I cannot speak in the mystic language, it would not be understood..
Therefore, My speech is that of example and not words..
My words are short and speak to the illusion..
Reality always invites me to speak further but the consciousness of the illusion will not contain such thoughts..
Therefore, as Jesus said; " you will know the tree by it's fruit"..
I can only offer Love, consciousness is left to them..
Where are you within this mixture ?..
-thomas
Knowing Truth...
If you want to know Truth, you must have
100% Love for Truth.
In this way there is
no difference between the ways of Love
and Knowledge.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
The core of heart...
Deafened by the voice of desire you are unaware
the Beloved lives in the core of your heart.
Stop the noise, and you will hear His voice in the silence.
-Rumi
Freedom from desires is Bliss...
Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'..
Nature is neither pleasant nor painful. It is all intelligence and beauty. Pain and pleasure are in the mind. Change your scale of values and all will change. Pleasure and pain are mere disturbances of the senses; treat them equally and there will be only bliss.
And the world is what you make it; by all means, make it happy. Only contentment can make you happy, desires fulfilled breed more desires.
Keeping away from all desires and contentment in what comes by itself is a very fruitful state, a precondition to the state of fullness. Don't distrust its apparent sterility and emptiness. Believe me, it is the satisfaction of desires that breeds misery. Freedom from desires is bliss.
You must not indulge in forecasts and plans, born of memory and anticipation. It is one of the pecularities of a gnani that he is not concerned with future. Your concern with future is due to fear of pain and desire for pleasure; to the gnani all is bliss: he is happy with whatever comes.
The World-idea...
Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom..
You see, the big issue here, in terms of what we've been doing, is to understand this double nature of the soul and the peculiar infiltration of the World-Idea in it, and that there are these two ways of trying to understand it.
There are two alternatives; the soul can get into a thought-free state, or it can get into a sahaja state. And Paul Brunton tries to make clear that the sahaja state is a superior state because there you reach the point where you recognize that reality and appearance are really only a distinction that the ego makes, not that the insight permits. And your understanding then becomes more accurate.
You know how Arnold [Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia] tried to describe it? He says, "The Dewdrop slips into the shining Sea."
Truly, it is the other way around: the ocean is slipping into the dewdrop! And that would be a way of trying to under-stand how the individual soul absorbs the World-Idea. But these are metaphors—they're all bunk. If you ever get enlightened, you're going to come and shoot me!—for lying.
Self-awareness...
Only by courtesy is the body, vulnerable and born to die,
called an entity substantial.
The sole reality, the only thing permanent and ultimate,
is Self-awareness,
That alone.
-Ramana Maharshi
Liberation...
"Any person, any embodied person, with that knowledge "I am," carries on his activities in the world with the shackles of name only.
If he had no name, it would not be possible to carry on with the activities.
In that inner core, that Knowingness or "I-am-ness," there are no shackles.
Once it is understood that "I am" is purely "I am," formless--and not that shackled body form--then no liberation is called for.
To be stabilized in that Beingness, which has no name and form, that itself is liberation."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
What is the Heart ?...
You see the drawing of the 'Heart' every day when the subject is Love..
You already know that they are not denoting the physical heart..
Why is the 'Heart' used as the symbol of Love?..
Most people are unaware that the 'Heart' produces much more voltage than the Brain..
Voltage is used as the Energy source of the body and mind to function the operating of the human body hologram..
Light is the building Source..
So why is the 'Heart' involved in Love ?..
Heart is the Energy source and therefore contains no personality..
'No personality' is the 'Door' to Reality..
'No personality' is 'Pure Awareness', otherwise known as Reality..
'No personality' called non-egoic desire is known as 'Love'..
'Love' is Known as 'God'..
'God' is Known as 'Reality'..
The Heart is Consciousness expanding...
-thomas
Desires...
Weak desires can be removed by introspection
and meditation,
but strong, deep-rooted ones
must be fulfilled and their fruits, sweet or bitter,
tasted.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
Nirvana...
By going beyond the level of being able to meditate in deep sleep, you will reach a place of perfect serenity, your original, bright, shining mirror devoid of all dust that had sat on it. You will see your original face, your true nature, the nature of the entire universe, and realize that you had always and originally been a Buddha. This is nirvana.
Many practitioners believe that they have attained enlightenment. Some say they have attained it multiple times. This is a big delusion. There is only one true enlightenment, such that the attained state never disappears and then reappears, but is constantly present even through the deepest sleep.
Tong Songchol (1912~1993), one of the great Zen masters of Korea in the last century, was called the 'Living Buddha of Korea'
Ishvara ...
In the waking state we experience the physical world, in the dream state our experience corresponds to the etheric astral world, in the deep sleep state we enter a still higher level of experience which is that of the God whose will is expressed in the other and lower two worlds.
This God the Hindus call Ishvara; I have called it World-Mind.
Now underlying these three states and therefore the Reality, the consciousness, the real consciousness underneath them, man experiences as enlightenment.
The other three are states whereas this is the Reality supporting those three states--waking, dream, and deep sleep. In deep sleep man reaches God, it might be said, but owing to his ignorance he is unaware so he does not benefit by it.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 3: The States of Consciousness > # 193
Paul Brunton
' The One '...
Words can never capture that which is beyond all things, but here we go anyway:
The One knows itself as the only reality. This is unquestionable.
The peace, that is the One, is beyond anything that the mind can comprehend. It is absolute. It is a peace born from timeless existence and sole presence that is truly at home with itself. It is a peace that just one taste of would satisfy a human mind for a lifetime. It is a peace so profound that nothing can disrupt it - just as nothing can touch space, nothing can touch this all-prevailing peace. It is vibrant stillness and screaming silence.
The source knows itself as timeless - without beginning and without end. This knowing is absolute. There is absolute certainty in the existence of the One. No question can arise in the One, as all is clearly known. Not a knowing of things, as the human mind collects, (although that is present moment to moment), but a knowing of the single reality, that I Am. The Love and Peace of the One are the same - seemingly different yet in perfect harmony and balance. Nothing moves, while everything is vibrant and seemingly alive.
As seeming individuals, we use a word called love. When speaking of the Love that is the One, the human conditional love is something different. The Love of the One, like the Peace, is absolute and unassailable. It is a Love that is complete and present in a source that is timeless. The mind would draw the analogy to a Love and Peace that have evolved into perfection over a timeless existence. Yet, the word perfection is too limiting.
The One knows itself as all pervading yet without location or space to fill. The One knows itself as absolute power - absolute presence, yet nothing to effect.
The One - as the attempt above describes, is what you are. The One does not exist without what you are and you are not without the One. One presence. One Consciousness. One awareness. There are no individuals within the One.
- John Greven
Desire...
Any action taken to suppress desire can only strengthen it.
Desire can only fall away gradually by itself.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Beingness...
"There is no other practice to be done, except to understand (that is, telling yourself with conviction) that it is this knowledge that you are which is itself the knowledge, and not the way you are using this knowledge at the individual level.
So the knowledge itself is the one that exists and must remain pure in and as that knowledge; and you must remain apart from it.
That knowledge that you are has mistakenly identified itself with the body and so you are thinking of yourself as the body.
But you are the "knowledge."
Strengthen your conviction that you are the knowledge that you are, this Beingness, and not the body."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
A Buddha...
As you can walk through a busy marketplace and not
touch or speak to a single person,
in the same way
you can move through this mind field and yet not get
entangled with any thought activity.
Such a one moves
without trace and is called a Buddha.
- Mooji
You Are Mind...
Anthony Damiani from 'Living Wisdom'..
ANTHONY: The greatest miracle of all is received. The miracle of the subjectivity which has been completely hidden from us in modern times. They speak about the human being as so many dollars worth of chemicals, but the miracle of subjectivity is something that the vastness of a galaxy can't comprehend. That's what's delivered. And I can't possibly communicate that. I don't think anyone can.
ANTHONY: There are more passages where he does this. But this whole business, to try to recognize the miracle of our own being, is something that I don't think can be communicated. It might just happen occasionally. I'm not talking about the miracle of our ego. This is a whole different ballgame.
But to die to the ego and to realize that you really ARE now—even if it's for a moment, you really ARE now—this is what I mean about the miracle of our own subjectivity, that we are consciousness or mind.
What is the breadth and depth of Andromeda or any galaxy in terms of time and space? To know that you are mind is a greater miracle than that.
As a matter of fact, the galaxy is like a terrestrial instance in your consciousness next to that. But could God do any less? If God gave you something, wouldn't it be the best and the greatest there could be?
The Original Mind...
People in the world cannot
identify their own mind.
They believe that what
they see, or hear, or feel,
or know, is mind.
They are blocked by the visual,
the auditory, the tactile, and the mental,
so they cannot see the
brilliant spirit of their
Original Mind.
-Huang Po
Sacrifice and renunciation...
Sacrifice and renunciation are two things;
sacrifice is made by love;
renunciation is caused by indifference.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged BY
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The moment of awakening...
At the moment of awakening, it was as though I was completely outside who I thought I was. There was a vast, vast, vast emptiness. In that vast emptiness, in that infinite emptiness, there was the smallest, smallest, smallest point of light you could imagine. And that smallest point of light was a thought, just floating out there. And the thought was: “I.”
And when I turned and looked at the thought, all I had to do was become interested in it, in any way interested, and this little point of light would move closer and closer and closer. It was like moving close to a knothole in a fence — when you get your eye right up to it, you don’t see the fence anymore; you see what’s on the other side.
So as this little point of “I” came closer, I started to perceive through this point called “me.” And I found that in that point called “me” was the whole world. The whole world was contained within that “I,” within that little point called “me.” There wasn’t really an I, but an emptiness that could go into and out of that point, in and out of it, and it’s like the whole world could flicker on and off, and on and off, and on and off.
And then I noticed there were all sorts of other points, points, and I could enter each one of those points, and each one of those points was a different world, a different time, and I was a different person, a totally different manifestation in each one of those points. I could go into each one of them and see a totally different dream of self and a totally different world that was being dreamed as well.
For the most part, what I saw was anything that was unresolved about the dream of “me” in a particular lifetime. There were certain confusions, fears, hesitations, and doubts that were unresolved in particular lifetimes. In certain lifetimes, what was unresolved was a feeling of confusion about what happened at the time of death.
In one lifetime, I drowned and did not know what was happening, and there was tremendous terror and confusion as the body disappeared into the water. Seeing this lifetime and the confusion at the moment of death, I immediately knew what I had to do. I had to rectify the confusion and explain to the dream of me that I died, that I fell off a boat and drowned. When I did this, all of a sudden the confusion from that lifetime popped like a bubble, and there was a tremendous sense of freedom.
Many past-life dreams appeared and each one of them seemed to focus on something that had been in conflict, something that was unresolved from a different incarnation. I went through each one of them and unhooked the confusion.
~ Adyashanti
Sahaja Samadhi...
Sahaja samadhi is not broken into intervals, is permanent, and involves no special effort. Its arisal is instantaneous and without progressive stages. It can accompany daily activity without interfering with it. It is a settled calm and complete inner quiet.
There are no distinguishing marks that an outside observer can use to identify a sahaja-conscious man because sahaja represents consciousness itself rather than its transitory states.
Sahaja has been called the lightning flash. Philosophy considers it to be the most desirable goal.
This is illustrated with a classic instance of Indian spirituality involving a king named Janaka. One day he was about to mount his horse and put one foot into the stirrup which hung from the saddle. As he was about to lift himself upwards into the saddle the "lightning flash" struck his consciousness. He was instantly carried away and concentrated so deeply that he failed for some time to lift himself up any higher. From that day onwards he lived in sahaja samadhi which was always present within him.
Those at the state of achieved sahaja are under no compulsion to continue to meditate any more or to practise yoga. They often do--either because of inclinations produced by past habits or as a means of helping other persons. In either case it is experienced as a pleasure. Because this consciousness is permanent, the experiencer does not need to go into meditation. This is despite the outward appearance of a person who places himself in the posture of meditation in order to achieve something.
When you are engaged in outward activity it is not the same as when you are in a trance. This is true for both the beginner and the adept. The adept, however, does not lose the sahaja awareness which he has achieved and can withdraw into the depths of consciousness which the ordinary cannot do.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 138
-- Perspectives > Chapter 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > # 40
Paul Brunton
' The Dream '...
The fact that the world seems so real to you is because the Mind is so strong..
Divine Consciousness is attached to the illusion of human by the sub-conscious mind called soul..
The is the element of separation that is dreamed of by Divine Consciousness..
You dream within the night and also within the day..
This dream of separation from Reality is called egoic-desire or false self..
This is the 'Character' that you have formed from memories and teaching..
This is the 'Part' that you play everyday with words that flow from the media..
You are Asleep!..
Awakening from the 'Dream' is called Enlightenment..
You have done nothing but discard the thoughts of Desire..
You have become Yourself..
You are Consciousness, all else are Dreams from the mind of Desire...
-thomas
Deepen the field of Awareness...
Don't fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way.
Just be interested in them, watch them, observe, enquire. Let anything happen - good or bad. But don't let yourself be submerged by what happens.
The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not change.
The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun during solar eclipse.
Just realize that nothing observable, or experienceable is you, or binds you. Take no notice of what is not yourself.
You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be aware of being aware.
Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'
Realizing the Self...
"At the last doorway to enlightenment stands the ego's final challenge, which is the central core belief that it is the source and locus of not only identity but also of life itself. At that point, one is all alone and shorn of all protection or comforting props, belief systems, or even memory.
There is solely available within one's aura the high-frequency vibration of the consciousness of the Enlightened Teacher, with its encoded Knowingness. The last step is intuited as a finality from which no turning back is possible, and thus there is consternation at the absoluteness of the finality. Then arises the knowing to walk straight ahead, no matter what, for all fear is illusion.
As this last step is taken by the Spiritual Will, death is experienced, but the fierce anguish lasts for only a few moments. The death of the ego is the only actual death that one can possibly experience, in contrast to which the previous deaths of leaving the body were relatively trivial.
The experience of death is terminated by awe at the revelation of the Ultimate Reality—and then even the awe disappears and the Self transcends the duality of Existence versus Nonexistence, Allness versus Nothingness, and Omnipresence versus Void."
"The serious student needs to know well in advance that at the very last doorway, he will be confronted by his willingness to surrender life itself—or at least that which has been believed since the beginning of evolution to be the very core of life itself.
This final gateway is very rarely passed, and one reason is the lack of preparation, the lack of certainty, and a final doubt of major magnitude."
- David Hawkins, from the last 2 pages of "Dissolving the Ego, Realizing the Self"
Drama...
Who is searching and learning?..
Who is that which contains all learning?..
Is God trying to learn to be God?..
Or is this just a 'Play' of experience and drama?..
-thomas
Pictures in a Dream...
Know that these countless things are pictures in a dream
and none is real apart from the beholder.
Shun this phantom world of names and forms
and dwell in the pure, blissful being of Awareness.
-Ramana Maharshi
Impersonal...
In your sleep, your personality goes completely, and
you become impersonal.
There is, however, a seed
of personality potentially present even in sleep, on
account of which you wake up the next morning.
For
all practical purposes your personality is wiped off,
and so it is that you are very happy in sleep, indicating
thereby that impersonality is the source of happiness,
that personality is the source of sorrow.
The more you
are personal, the more you are grief-stricken.
The
more you become impersonal, the more you become
happy.
- Swami Krishnananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
Each moment new...
And I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.
Since I scoured my mind
and my body, I too, Lalla,
am new, each moment new.
My teacher told me one thing,
Live in the soul.
When that was so,
I began to go naked,
and dance*.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
Liberation...
Liberation does not concern the person, for liberation is freedom from the person.
Basically the disciple and teacher are identical.
Both are the timeless axis of all action and preception.
The only difference is that one 'knows' himself for what he is while the other does not.
The idea of being a person, an ego, is nothing other than an image held together by memory.
-Jean Klein
Awakening...
Crossing the Bridge...
I can tell you from experience how utterly simple awakening is. Because you are already that which you seek (God-Source- Enlightenment), it just takes a wake-up call for you to remember that. But you are groggy with a lifetime of sleep in the all-pervasive conditioning of duality and dualism.
So when Ramesh Balsekar wrote his little book (Consciousness Speaks) that reminded me that Consciousness is all there is and I Am That, I suddenly knew, remembered, and woke up.
The deliverance that comes after the wake-up call, which flowed from my own inner voice of wisdom, filled in the details as to how this intuitive knowing that I Am That applies to daily life. It basically meant embracing every detail of life as an extension of that Consciousness that is all there is, as what is -- as is. And this meant that everything was exactly as it should be. So there was nothing left to do but just be.
It all sounds too simple to be true, but I assure you that if Destiny and Grace have determined that this is the moment for you to cross over that bridge from being the doer in life to just being, all of your Onion Vision conditioning will fall away, and you will live the rest of the journey with the clarity, freedom, and joy of Pearl Vision.
~ Satyam Nadeen, in: From Onions to Pearls www.satyamnadeen.com/
Questions and Answers...
what am i doing here? what am i supposed to accomplish in this lifetime? (attain awakening of the non-self? be kind, loving, and compassionate?)
You are here to experience 'Duality'.
Duality is the separation from Reality.
The Source of Creation and non-creation is One Mind that cannot be divided but the illusion of division can be manifested by Thought.
After experiencing Duality, your main mission is to dissolve the egoic desire.
The desire for anything, especially the desire for continued experience of manifestation must be surrendered to the Universe..
This Duality is seen as Love and the opposite of Love called Fear..
When Love enters the mind enough times, these thoughts will form a foundation of Thought within the sub-conscious mind which is called Soul..
If you have not Awakened into the Realization that you are Divine Consciousness by the end of your life span, you will return back into the manifestations called life to fulfill your desires..
Most humans are not aware that they have the power of Creation by using the mind to visualize desires..
Why do we create?..
Why does a Flower, bloom ?..
Because Creation is a learning experience of either Beauty or Pain, depending on the positive or negative training of the Soul...
-thomas
The Mystic Death...
The truth of your own nature, the mystics all testify, is that you are nothing, which reveals that you are everything.
In your deepest essence, you are identical with God or ultimate reality.
Your real Life is the birthless and deathless Life of God, and the Life of God embraces the whole of creation.
But as long as your identity is centered in the limited life of the ego, you cannot live in full consciousness of this Life.
Thus, you must die to your self-centered life in order to awaken into the Life of God.
As Rumi says, “You want Reality unmasked? Choose death!
Not the death that drags you to the tomb—the death that is a transmutation, so you at last change into the Light” (Rumi, Odes).
Or, as Jesus says, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:25-26).
Thus, the genuine mystic lives in and as God only insofar as the life in and as the ego is dead.
It is the ego’s delusion of grandeur that imagines you can escape suffering and attain immortality, when in fact your life centered in the ego must be completely sacrificed in the mystical death.
Any teacher or teaching that is not clear about this just feeds the ego’s propensity for megalomania and self-deception.
The genuine mystical path involves the perpetual surrender and sacrifice of all self-centered egoistic activity, up to and including the complete sacrifice of ego-centered life itself.
Thus all genuine mysticism teaches the cultivation of selflessness, love, and compassion...
-from integralscience.org
Let us speak of Source...
Let us speak of Source..
The Source of Creation of Dreams is called Divine Consciousness and once You Awaken into It, You feel that there is more..
After feeling Love and Knowledge as Your existence, why would you search for more?..
This is what I asked myself, even the Self that is the Light, Love, and Consciousness of Reality..
I am the energy of Love but I seek more..
Is this not strange?..
What caused Me to seek beyond Nirvana?..
After years of meditation, I realized that there is no Me,
there is only Thou...
-thomas
The law of balance...
Brahma the Creator is the sum total of all
desires.
The world is the instrument for
their fulfillment.
Souls take whatever
pleasures they desire and pay for them in
tears.
Time squares all accounts.
The law
of balance reigns supreme.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' One word'...
One word can be more precious than all the treasures of the earth.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There may perhaps be someone among our friends or acquaintances whose one word has weight and power; whereas another person says a thousand words that go in at one ear and out at the other. And this is because in one person his mouth speaks, in another person his heart speaks, and in another his soul speaks. There is a great difference.
Many, content with their honesty, speak just as they like at the moment. They do not mind what effect it will produce as long as they are sure that what they say is true. The truth that strikes like a hammer on the head of the listener is not desirable, one would be better off without it. This shows that it is not only a thing to consider that what one says is true, there is another consideration which is most necessary, and that is what effect it will make on the other. ... The complete spiritual life is not a dreamy one, but wide-awake, full of thought and consideration.
The word has a magic in it, it can turn friends into your enemies, and it can make your enemies your friends. The mystery of all success in every direction of life is in the word. The word has power to turn the mind of the listener warm or cold. The word can produce the effect of earth, water, fire, air, or ether. The word can produce depression or joy. The one who knows the chemistry of the word does not need drugs or herbs. He has medicine for every disease in the world, not only for bodily disease, but also for the disorders of the mind, which still remain unexplored by science. By a constant study of life, by special thought given to one's word, by careful watching of the effects of one's speech upon others, one arrives at a state of realization where one can heal hearts.
The most important question of your life...
I often ask souls to present me with the most important question of their life..
I always give them at least ten minutes to reply..
And yet, ninety-five percent return to me with no question..
Is it not strange?..
They walk within each day asking questions from the conscious mind to the sub-conscious mind and yet when Consciousness wants to be seen.. there are no questions..
Obviously, the ego is envolved within this wall of non-seeing..
So what can we do to Awaken them?..
I can write poems that lead the mind to mindlessness,
but, they will not understand..
The desire of egoic-consciousness is very strong within this Dream..
It is the only reason that the Dream exists..
Enough has been given to contemplate...
-thomas
Burdens...
It is the nature of life in the world that all the things we become attracted to in time become not only ties but burdens.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Being the Real...
Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'.
There is no such thing as the experience of the real. The real is beyond experience. All experience is in the mind. You know the real by being the real.
All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect nothing from experience. Realization by itself is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not more real than the old. Definitely realization is not a new experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. It is awareness, which makes experience possible. Just like in all the colours light is the colourless factor, so in every experience awareness is present, yet it is not an experience.
Experience, however sublime, is not the real thing. By its very nature it comes and goes. Self-realization is not an acquisition. It is more of the nature of understanding. Once arrived at, it cannot be lost. On the other hand, consciousness is changeful, flowing, undergoing transformation from moment to moment. Do not hold on to consciousness and its contents. Consciousness held, ceases. To try to perpetuate a flash of insight, or a burst of happiness is destructive of what it wants to preserve. What comes must go. The permanent is beyond all comings and goings. Go to the root of all experience, to the sense of being. Beyond being and not-being lies the immensity of the real. Try and try again.
Be interested in yourself beyond all experience, be with yourself, love yourself; the ultimate security is found only in self-knowledge. The main thing is eartnestness. Be honest with yourself and nothing will betray you.
A clear view...
This message
can never be understood with the mind. It is not an intellectual grasping.
It is the end
of all grasping,
of all wanting to get and to understand.
The end of trying to reach
something, somewhere,
some state of being.
And it is the end of the feeling that something is wrong or missing or that something is out of place.
It is arriving home.
A place we lost sight of, looking for something else.
The search and the grasping,
the looking for completion and fulfilment
are inherent to being identified
with this contracted energy
we have mistakenly called me.
The place we never left
is the true sense of I
that shines already
through the stories
that thoughts and emotions
are spinning.
This place
is a placeless place, home.
This is our felt sense of who we are.
On top of this open Emptiness, have accumulated over the years layers and layers of conditioning that have condensed into an energetic construct.
A clear view reveals
this erroneous assumption.
We are only Oneness looking for ourselves...
-Anamika Borst
The song within...
One who has become enamored with the
song within,
one who is united with the
inner universal pulse,
such a one has become
immune to the buffeting of the
storms of circumstance without.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
Self Realization...
A key stage of Transpersonal development is commonly known as Self Realization. This is not something a person achieves. Rather, it is described as the Self waking up to Itself here, through this apparent person. This is also known as liberation. Fully established, it is sat chit ananda (absolute bliss consciousness) or nirvana.
“He who knows this enjoyer of delight – the Self, the living soul, always near, lord of what was and whatwill be – no longer hides in fear.” (Katha Upanishad 2.1.5)
However, this is the awakening of the subject, the perceiver or observer. The world is still seen as separate and perhaps illusory. There is an inner sense of boundless wholeness which some confuse with nonduality. But as long as there is a distinct world, this is not it yet. In fact, this is dwaita, duality. Self + world = 2.
Some teachings discount talk of further development as illusory or misguided. Or they see talk of stages asconcepts that are a barrier to living it. While I fully agree the map is not the road, a map is very useful during the journey. And then it is put aside. Plus, if science is going to come to understand this process, we’re going to have to define the stages.
Happily, the Vedic texts have done this for us. Skipping a great deal to focus on the point of this article, the next major stage is the true beginning of Nonduality.
Unity
As Self Realization matures, there is typically a refinement of perception resulting from the sattva shift in perception of the world, mentioned above. We come to recognize that underlying the appearance of the world is the same Self as within.
Shankara described 4 Mahavakya or great sayings, each drawn from an Upanishad from each of the 4 primary Veda. We might call these the core recognitions, though how they unfold in this or that journey varies. They are well known:
I am That, Thou art That, All this (Self) is That, That alone is. (That, in this case, is Brahman)
- David Buckland
The Sahaja Awareness...
Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom.
ANTHONY: Perhaps you might follow me astrologically? Think of pure awareness, the awareness of Awareness, the sahaja, as the Sun-centered consciousness. And then think of the Awareness, the second Awareness, as the functioning of the undivided mind which can be either pure consciousness or particular manifestations.
The sahaja awareness is like the Sun-centered awareness. It knows both. It knows the undivided mind functioning as pure consciousness or producing spontaneously. So the Sun can know both. It can know the functioning of the undivided mind, the planetary powers, it can know that as just pure awareness. It can also know the product of that functioning. And it can know them both simultaneously!
Your original face...
There is no other task but to know your own original face.
This is
called independence; the spirit is clear and free.
If you say there is some particular doctrine or patriarchy, you'll be
totally cheated.
Just look into your heart; there is a transcendental clarity.
Just have no greed and no dependency and you will immediately attain certainty.
-Yen-tou
Conscious revisiting...
For teachings about Truth to be really practically helpful in life, they must really help us to face any division that remains after an initial recognition of Reality.
This means often a 'conscious revisiting' of all manner of trauma that we experienced in our early life - and in addition, that we may also carry with us from the karmic imprint of previous generations. It's not easy - and requires tremendous willingness and courage.
Our conflicting beliefs and emotional memories can seem like the last thing we want to face when there has been a recognition of the ultimate reality - and can almost seem harder to experience this when there has been a period of relief. But, this is very necessary as we can't be free of something we have not consciously seen - until then it controls us in ways we don't even recognise...
The stability of our True nature can bear all. True bliss and harmony means we remain undisturbed in the face of everything. This direct knowledge and understanding is where true love can at last begin to blossom and where we can actually meet each other without personal agenda.
This is where the magic begins
-Karen Richards
The Center of Consciousness...
Nisargadatta Maharaj From "I Am That"
Believe me, there is no goal, nor a way to reach it. You are the way and the goal, there is nothing else to reach except yourself. All you need is to understand, and understanding is the flowering of the mind. The tree is perennial, but the flowering and the fruit-bearing come in season.
The seasons change, but not the tree. You are the tree. You have grown numberless branches and leaves in the past, and you may grow them also in the future - yet you remain. Not what was, or shall be, must you know, but what is. Yours is the desire that creates the universe. Know the world as your own creation and be free.
There is nothing in the world that you cannot know, when you know yourself. Thinking yourself to be the body, you know the world as a collection of material things. When you know yourself as a center of consciousness, the world appears as the ocean of the mind. When you know yourself as you are in reality, you know the world as yourself.
Healing...
The words of healing brought back many memories of being healed from lung cancer. cancer of the nose, severe sinusitus. arthritus within both knees, and heart disease..
This was accomplished with the power of Belief and the Belief of a Faith Healer..
The Spirit of Reality entered the body and the manifestion rebooted..
We are a Hologram and can be restarted at any time..
Does this conjoin with the knowledge of Dr. Murphy?..
I do not know, I am only telling you of my personal experience..
We are Consciousness and can change the Hologram with just a Thought..
-thomas
The Topic of Egoic Desire...
You ask for a topic, what better topic is there but the prison that holds us?..
Do not run away with words that dismiss..
Face Truth and Reality with courage..
We are here for a short time..
Do not allow the ego to steal this time from You...
-thomas
Till self is forgotten...
"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
Time and Space...
The mind creates time and space and takes its own creations for
reality.
All is here and now, but we do not see it.
Truly, all is in
me and by me. There is nothing else.
The very idea of 'else' is a
disaster and a calamity.
-Nisargadatta
The ego's consciousness...
Anthony Damiani from 'Standing on Your Own Way'..
AP: Let's discuss what is the ego consciousness that immerses itself in the thought stream.
ANTHONY: That is the ego consciousness. If you're immersed in the thought stream, you're in the ego's consciousness. If you're not immersed in it, then you're in the Overself's consciousness. I'm trying to speak in a practical way. I'm saying something like this: If you pay attention to your thoughts, you're in the ego; ignore them, you're out of it.
See how subtle it is? Very, very subtle. Just a shift in attention and emphasis—if the attention shifts into the thought, identifies with the thought, you're in the ego consciousness. Shift the attention out of the ego consciousness, don't identify with the ego, the thoughts, and you'll be with the Overself. But I know you won't try it. You won't believe me.
Death is an old friend...
Death is the greatest fear that the illusion of self constantly presents before you..
An old joke says; " Everyone wants to get to Heaven but no one wants to die"..
The rulers of earth have taught your subconscious mind that Death is ugly and skelital..
The rulers of earth are slaves of the egoic master of deception and lies..
Death is an old friend that leads me Home..
As Consciousness and Awake, you see with clean glasses..
You are watching the Drama..
You think; " I am having another nightmare of duality from Love"..
You decide, "I have had enough of this pain of empathy for the dream"..
"I will Awaken and have conversations with the Father of Dreams"...
-thomas
" You" or "I"...
There is no "You" or "I," no object
to contemplate, no contemplation!
Everything is That lost in That.
The blind theologians didn't understand.
Then they saw, and their seven levels
of attainment dissolved to nothing.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
The breeze...
And you know that the breeze was always there, from the very beginning, and that it wasn’t reserved for special people.
If you didn’t notice it at some point in your life, you know it was because you weren’t listening, or because you thought you had to figure something out before you could listen, or because you thought there had to be some conclusion before you could just listen so deeply, so without agenda, so without hope of a better future that you would feel the movement.
Many of you know what I’m speaking of.
Truth never explains why it’s moving that way at that moment. And if you ask, it won’t give any information. It would be like a leaf asking the wind, “Why are you moving that way right now?” The question doesn’t make any sense to the wind.
- Adyashanti
fundamentally awake...
When you are fundamentally awake in the truth of life, you are substantially free of ego motivations, desires and reactions.
This is not to imply that one who is awake is somehow perfect. At times, you can react like anyone else, and experience fear and uncertainty, or feelings like hurt and anger, the difference is that now you know that you are caught temporarily in the illusion of separation.
You do not believe in the story that is presenting itself to you. You know that the past is somehow projecting itself into the present. You do not identify with emotional reactions. And yet, you take full responsibility for whatever is arising.
The experience is owned and accepted but not acted upon as if it is the truth.
~ From: Journey into Now, by Leonard Jacobson.
The essence of Tao...
Look, it cannot be seen -- it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard -- it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held -- it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark;
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
Victims of time...
We are victims of both the concept "time" and the feeling "time."
They keep us captive to a limitation which is only one side of existence: there is another side wherein we could claim our freedom.
But that would require a power to concentrate which cuts through the mesmeric suggestion holding us down and penetrates into the real Now.
This is not a new dimension so much as it is above all dimensions.
It is not a leaving-off of time so much as a discovery of the source from which time itself--chopped up and measurable as it is--is projected.
That source is infinite being: it is measureless.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 173
Paul Brunton
Who seeks enlightenment ?...
Anthony Damiani from Looking Into Mind.
WHAT OR WHO is seeking enlightenment? It cannot be the higher Self, for that is itself of the nature of Light. There then only remains the ego! This ego, the object of so many denunciations and denigrations, is the being that, transformed, will win truth and find Reality even though it must surrender itself utterly in the end as the price to be paid.
ANTHONY: YOU don't get the truth until you pay the price, and that means you get rid of the ego.
PC: The second quote says the ego, transformed, will win truth.
ANTHONY: Yes. The ego transformed, disciplined, purified. It is that which will win truth.
PC: But the first one says that the ego will not find truth.
ANTHONY: No, the ego cannot find truth because obviously the way it will get the truth is when it gives itself up. Now when it gives itself up, there's no ego that wins the truth. You want the truth, you get rid of your ego. But at the same time you're not going to get rid of your ego until you have sufficiently developed it, purified it, and brought it under the higher discipline, the higher philosophy.
" Know who You Are "...
I have become shocked at the many times that people come up to me and say that they love me..
I have done nothing to earn this pleasure except for being myself..
Perhaps, I should have said my Self..
This is the Key to this question..
Being Self is Being Love..
Being Love is Being Divine..
This is who You Are and who You Remain..
The world has many surprises for you in the near future..
Do not despair, always remember who You Are..
you will disappear and then reappear as Light..
The Dream called life will be forgotten within the Love of Reality..
Walk within each day Knowing who You Are...
- thomas
Prose...
It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one
constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality.
Good prose is
like a window pane.
-George Orwell
Consciousness...
It would appear to me that the witness itself is an aspect of the Consciousness, awake unto itself.
Quite right. Therefore I am saying that it is Consciousness which becomes the understanding in the process of disidentification. And in the process of disidentification, when there is something to witness, the understanding in action becomes the witnessing. Consciousness, understanding, witnessing are only notionally different. It is the same Consciousness in the process of disidentifying itself from the individual that becomes the understanding, which in turn becomes the witnessing. But basically, it is the same Consciousness.
In the witnessing there's no difference. The phenomenon is not separated out from the noumenon in which it arises?
In other words, it is the Subject witnessing its own objective expression as the functioning of phenomenon.
Which means no separation, right?
That is correct. No separation.
Which to me is where the joy comes. Because when there is no separation, there is just this quality, which is joy or love.
You see, even when there is no separation, the separation, phenomenally, still has to exist. When you are in the sun, there is you and your shadow. As a substance and a shadow there is a separation. But the shadow has no independent existence. Therefore, there is no separation.
That is why the question, "Is the manifestation real?" can only be answered with the paradox, "It is both real, and unreal." It is real to the extent that it can be seen, perceived. Therefore it is real. But it is only an appearance against the background of Consciousness. Without Consciousness, there is no appearance of manifestation. Therefore, the manifestation is unreal.
- Ramesh Balsekar
" What am I ?"...
PERCEIVE THESE TWO things now:
the dreamlike character of life in the world, and the illusory character of the personal ego.
Hence the need of the "What am I?" enquiry, that the illusion of the ego may be dispelled.
When you can see these things clearly, then you may be still and undisturbed, unentangled, and unillusioned amid the struggle of life.
You will be wise, free, impervious to the petty persecution of men—their lies, malice, and injuries—for being no longer identified with the personality, you are no longer their target.
- Paul Brunton
Dr. Murphy on 'self'...
" Retaining a full collection of the self"..
Notice the small 's' in self..
He is speaking of the 'egoic consciousness'..
Does the bell begin to sound?..
I speak of the capital 'S'..
Self, which is Source..
As a mystic, I believe that Dr. Murphy entered into the higher planes of illusions called Heavens..
I do not believe that he was able to surrender all desires and therefore, remained within the reincarnations into the higher frequencies..
As you desire, so shall it be..
Remember when Jesus said; " I and the Father are One"..
He did not say that He would remain in separation..
But, is the ego weak enough for you to See ?...
-thomas
Happiness...
"..why talk of happiness at all?
You do not think of happiness except when you are unhappy.
A man who says: "Now I am happy," is between two sorrows--past and future.
This "happiness" is mere excitement caused by relief from pain.
Real happiness is utterly unselfconscious."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The three paths...
"There are three different paths to reach the ideal, the path of 'I', the path of 'Thou', and the path of 'Thou and I'.
According to the first, all that is, has been, or ever will be, is I myself.
In other words, 'I am, I was, and I shall be, to all eternity.'
According to the second, 'Thou art, O Lord, and all is Thine.'
And according to the third, 'Thou art the Lord, and I am Thy servant or Thy son.'
In the perfection of any one of these three, God is realised."
Sri Ramakrishna
Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna
Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1997, p. 31
The mind...
The mind can have dealings only with kindred objects formed from its own substance, that is, with thoughts, ideas. Therefore when it knows material objects they must really be ideas.
Anthony: In a dream it's easier to recognize. When you wake up you see that what you experienced in the dream was an idea. That is, all you experienced was ideas—when you wake up!—but when you are dreaming you. can't say that. Because that fire that you are warming your hands by in the dream makes you feel warm all over. You feel that the fire is out there and you are warming yourself by it. But when you wake up you realize that they were just ideas. There was no fire there. That was just an idea in your mind, and that you were getting warm was another idea. So when you analyze dreams you can see that you always experience a world of ideas. When you are in the dream you can't say to yourself, "Well this is just an idea," unless you are an adept at yoga. When you're in the dream you actually experience the warmth of the fire.
Now in the same way, you are in the sensible world. You say that tree is an idea. Yes, it is an idea. When you really reflectively under-stand, then you know it is an idea. But for most of us that tree is out there, I am over here, in between there is distance, and to me that tree is just as real as I am. You don't say, "That is just an idea in my mind." You have to be reflectively aware that that is an idea, just like this body is an idea, that the two are ideas. But you don't have that experience in ordinary wakeful consciousness except at certain moments, like for instance if you experience a serious grief or bereavement. If someone that you love very much dies, for a few minutes you experience the world, the whole thing, as a dream. It is not real, it has a kind of unreality about it. But that will last for a few minutes, then it goes and then you are back.
Sometimes when you meditate you get a feeling of utter peace, quiet. You open your eyes and gradually you come back. That feeling that the world is a dream is still there, very strong. It takes a little time and then gradually you begin to go back into the world. You can also have an experience that the world is an idea in your wakeful consciousness, while you are awake. But this is not going to come easily, it is going to require effort. It is going to require the ability to keep the mind quiet.
-Anthony Damiani from Looking into Mind
Falling from the Self...
This villainous vast world so false
that cheats and churns the minds of all,
how did it come to be?
By nothing else but by the fault of falling from the Self
instead of clinging firmly to It.
- Ramana Maharshi
Desire...
That one is blessed and at peace
who doesn't hope, to whom
desire makes no more loans.
Nothing coming, nothing owed.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)