The Commandments...
Does God command or does Love have no demands?..
A young nazarite once said; " I and the Father are One"..
There is no above and below..
We walk through pages and thees' and 'thou' appear and our minds return to a young man in the desert that surrenders his life and egoic desires..
Therefore, returning to Source..
Forty days of pain and then Reality appears..
But, we continue to walk through pages and hope that this magic book will give us the gift of Freedom...
-thomas
Humility...
You speak of the consciousness of ego being humble, but this is impossible..
Humility is the state of non-egoic consciousness and non-desire,
which is called Love..
It is that easy!..
You cannot become Love because You have never left the existence of Love,
But, the Dreams of egoic-desire pretend that You must strive to become Love..
This striving is meant to keep the ego trapped within the Dreams for many incarnations and used as an energy source of negative thought for lower frequency entities..
There is nothing to strive for..
You have never been lost..
Only the Knowledge of Yourself has been forgotten..
Memory is returned upon the abandoning of egoic-desire..
You are That which you are seeking...
-thomas
The Original One...
"I preserve the original One, while resting in harmony with externals. It is because I have thus cared for my self now for twelve hundred years that my body has not decayed."
"The Yellow Emperor prostrated himself and said, 'Kuang Cheng Tzu is surely God.'
"Whereupon the latter continued, 'Come, I will tell you. That self is eternal ; yet all men think it mortal. That self is infinite ; yet all men think it finite. - Those who possess Tao are princes in this life and rulers in the hereafter. Those who do not possess Tao, behold the light of day in this life and become clods of earth in the hereafter.
"'Nowadays, all living things spring from the dust and to the dust return. But I will lead you through the portals of Eternity into the domain of Infinity. My light is the light of sun and moon. My life is the life of heaven and earth. I know not who comes nor who goes. Men may all die, but I endure for ever.'"
Chuang Tzu
Herbert Giles, translator
Chang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, Social Reformer
London: Bernard Quaritch, 1889, p. 128
self-deception...
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
The world as dream...
The man who embraces the world as real,
like the man embracing a woman in his dream,
ultimately awakens to find nothing there but himself.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, from A Net of Jewels
Ram Tzu Speaks...
You demand to know --
How can Ram Tzu laugh
As you are being tortured?
Can't he see you
Being stretched
On a rack
Of your own thoughts?
Can't he see
Your pain
As your ego
Relentlessly turns the wheel?
Ram Tzu sees –
You clutch the ropes
That appear to bind you.
There are no knots.
Nothing else holds you down.
- Ram Tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
' The Transition '...
Most humans are not prepared for the ending of Consciousness within the physical dream..
Consciousness continues as egoic-spirit and often continues the hologram of human body..
The egoic-spirit still believes that it is separate from Divine Consciousness and thus is easy prey for the Archonic trappers of souls..
They control the Circle of Reincarnation of souls back into the Hologram of physical existence..
Upon the death of the body, you as spirit will find yourself in darkness and slowly turning to find light..
You will see a small light and move towards it and it will envelop the soul..
You have just been trapped within the wheel of Reincarnation..
This is the tunnel of light that many speak of that takes you into the fourth dimension..
To enter Divine Consciousness, you must surrender your desire for existence while within the darkness..
You will fall into the darkness of Nothingness and Awaken as Light, Love, and Consciousness called Creator God of Dreams..
This is Your Natural State of existence within the First Reality..
You will no longer be trapped within the dreams of reincarnation..
From this existence as Divine Consciousness, You must also desolve this desire to exist as Separate Dreamer..
You will dissolve completely as egoic-desire and return Home to selflessness called Love..
This is the Final Reality called Pure Awareness..
The Dreams are completed and You are Free..
You no longer exist as personality.
You have become Love...
-thomas
God-consciousness...
If there is any sign of God to be seen,
it is in the God- conscious one,
and it is the fullness of God-consciousness that makes a prophetic soul.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The End of Your World...
Reinhard Jung : Adyashanti - Enlightenment and The End of Your World.
When you realize the truth, then you know that this truth is not fooling around. This truth wants you, and it wants your life, and it’s going to devour you and eat you up for dinner. The truth is not playing games. I’ve had more than one person say, “Adya, how do I turn this off? How do I back out of this deal? This isn’t what I signed up for.” And the only answer is, “Sorry, it’s too late, you can’t back out. You can walk away from me and from all teachers, and from spirituality altogether. You can go to the end of the earth and play some other game, but it’s too late. You can’t un-realize what you realize.” It’s a game until it’s not, but by the time you realize that it’s not a game, you can’t back out.
By and large, people want liberation, freedom, bliss, peace, love, and total release from fear. They want all the accoutrements of enlightenment without having to pay the price. They don’t want to pay the price of a total love affair, a total commitment. I’m not speaking of anything that is separate or different from your life. This doesn’t have anything to do with the monastery or leaving your day-to-day existence. The truth is here in every single moment of your life. That’s the truth. It’s not separate from your life. You can’t run away from yourself and your life in order to awaken to reality. Your life is your path to awakening. Stop and open your eyes: You were free from the very beginning.
Please understand that it’s not you that wakes up; it’s reality that wakes up, the truth wakes up. You are not enlightened; enlightenment is enlightened. Ultimately this realization doesn’t have anything to do with individuals, since there aren’t any separate individuals. That is the whole illusion, that there is something separate from the ultimate reality. When it’s clear that there’s nothing going on other than the ultimate reality, it’s a done deal -- enlightenment is effortless.
Adyashanti, excerpted from a talk in Mountain View, California, March 13, 2003.
The ego...
The teaching that the ego does not exist--repeated so often in so parrot-like a way--can help no one, can only create intellectual confusion and thus harm the search for truth.
But the teaching that the ego is only an idea--however strongly held by the mind--and as such does exist, can help everyone in the struggle for self-mastery and can throw intellectual light on the search for truth.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 2: I-thought > # 27
Paul Brunton
THE (MYSTERIOUS) LANGUAGE OF GOD:...
There is literally a new language/understanding that accompanies spiritual realization. The same old words now have entirely different, deeper layers of meaning and significance within the framework of spiritual realization. In fact no words can encompass that which has been realized. That is why when the words of our world's great mystics are heard through the common language of those who have not yet made the mystic's journey, they are invariably misconstrued and misused. That is why Jesus was crucified. It is why we have "religious wars." And it is why we have so much religious politic and prejudice corrupting a universal truth that one has to enter into alone.
That is why we see so many people (wrongly) trying to “practice” their way into spiritual realization with all sorts of dogma, belief systems, religious structures, postures, and prayers. The reason these things don't work is because the need to grasp something (the very mechanism of the mind that needs to hold on to anything for its salvation) is the very thing that has to be let go of!
It's an odd sort of reverse psychology (with a double twist): The path to spiritual realization is completely antithetical to what anyone would call a path at all. It is always the subtle paradoxical opposite of what one tries to see, know, find, understand. That is why so much of it sounds like riddles. That is why I say it is a fundamentally different language. That's as close as I can come to pointing toward finding your way: realize that we’re talking about developing an ear for a completely foreign language. …Start listening into the unfamiliar, the unclear, the uncomfortable, the not-knowing. Start living in not-knowing anything (not any thing!) -- From there, the new language of Knowing emerges like one of those 3-d picture puzzles where the image is embedded within (and is more than) the dots.
...Listen in a new way – and not so much for new things…. (a key).
The word Mystic at its root stands for that which cannot be named – that which is forever before the naming: Source. The
word also hints at the path to spiritual realization -- that is, to become capable of going into a terrain that is beyond the mind (before the naming), separate from any belief, any identification or security, and opens through a sense of awe for the great mystery.
\THE CALL TO REMEMBER:
The mystic is really anybody who seeks to experience above all else, the direct expression of God/Source/Being in one’s life. He or she is anyone with the deep desire and courage necessary to look - and see - beyond the obvious conditioning of our manufactured world view; to see beyond the illusions of our self-created identities, and find what lies forever before and all around us, as the One that is All. The path is one of surrendering all that we currently hold on to as belief, identity, intellect. What emerges is the full expression of Being within the language of Love................. ronda larue, 2002.
Sutta Nipata...
The way toward liberation is to train yourself to live in the present
without any wanting to become anything.
Give up becoming this
or that, live without cravings, and experience this present moment
with full attention.
- Sutta Nipata
Separation is painful...
When you have understood that all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful, and when you are willing and able to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being, you have gone beyond all need of help.
You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you do not have and you don't have what you are not. You can only give what you are - and of that you can give limitlessly.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Grace and the Short Path...
A very important point: because the ego lives in its own darkness, it cannot give light. The light may come only from the Overself, which is the Sun and Light of human existence. With the reason we can control the ego to some extent, but it is not possible to control the Overself.
As regards Enlightenment, this is not coming from self-willed effort; it is coming only by what the Overself does to him. It is a matter of Grace--unpredictable--and it is the last secret.
It is like the wind that comes you do not know where from and goes you do not know where to. It is a mystery. At the end we have to be like little children and leave our Enlightenment to the Father and give up our lives to him.
On the Long Path the aspirant tries to improve himself. He experiences successes and failures, ups and downs. When he is disappointed, he gets melancholy. On the Short Path such a situation cannot arise, because he has faith like a little child. He has given up all his future to Overself-God and he has enough faith to trust to it.
He knows he has made the right decision and therefore is always happy. He depends on this GRACE, he knows It, that It comes from the wisest being behind the world. Whatever will come, it will be the best. He is always relying on the Overself and having the joy in it.
-- Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practicies Involved >
Chapter 1: Ant's Long Path > # 209
Paul Brunton
It is sunday night...
For some reason Consciousness tells me to speak of Thought..
Thought is the Creative Power of Illusions and Dreams..
Thought is also the Source of all Light and Consciousness..
What is Thought?..
In the first reality, it is Divine Consciousness..
In the final reality, It is called Love..
Where do you experience Love?..
Only when the ego is abandoned does Love exist..
So simple and yet so difficult for you to understand..
You keep trying to feel Love within the Dream..
The Dream can only offer you so much Reality..
You must abandon all desires to feel Desires..
This means All Desires..
Including existence itself..
As Jesus said; " you must die, to be born"..
He was speaking of the egoic-desire...
-thomas
Matter...
“All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles all things and phenomena.”
– Nikola Tesla,“Man’s Greatest Achievement,” 1907
In Tewari’s words:
“The universal matter is created out of prana since prana is aakaash in motion, and aakaash is the primordial superfluid substratum of the universe.”
Who kills the ego ?...
When you awaken from a dream, you have ended the characters within the dream..
The ego is a dream and You are the Observer of this dream..
The killing of the ego is merely Awakening from a Dream.
There is only Consciousness.
As Jesus said, " I and the Father are One".
Who kills the ego ?..
Awakening, kills the ego...
-thomas
Unchanging Awareness...
All appearances are impermanent and can therefore
be stripped away, whereas your true Self as pure
awareness is timelessly present and unchanging.
You can keep removing, sweeping aside, discarding
appearances until nothing is left to remove and even
the very concept of removing itself disappears.
Finally even the concept of a 'remover' gets dissolved
and one comes to see That which is beyond all notions
remains timelessly present. That, the unchanging
awareness, is your Self. This is the Truth.
- Mooji
Awakening...
The first human awakening was before Buddha, before Christ, before any of those we have heard of. An ancient, early awakening somewhere unknown. Those who could hear what this miraculous awakening had to tell were ignited with either direct, immediate understanding as their own true experience, or the desire for that understanding. Of course, most who heard were not interested. But those who were interested were caught by the flame of truth, and it has been passed from being to being until the present time.
There are exquisite sutras and scriptures, hymns and testimonials that shake us, that cause us to fall flat on the floor when we read them because they are alive with the spirit of truth, with the certainty of this flame. They penetrate into our hearts with this "yes," for somehow we know this truth without even understanding what it is we know.
But the most sublime truth of all has never been stated or written or sung. Not because it is far away and can't be reached, but because it is so intimately close, closer than anything that can be spoken. It is alive as the stillness in the core of your being, too close to be described, too close to be objectified, too close to be known in the usual way of knowledge. The truth of who you are is yours already. It is already present, and the only reason that I have appeared in your consciousness is to simply confirm that.
I truly have nothing to teach you. There have been many teachers who have taught exquisite and useful codes of conduct, methods of meditation, ways of living and manifesting in the world. I am simply pointing to the stillness that is alive in the core of your being and inviting you to turn your attention to That, to let That live your life. I invite you to give your questions to That and your answers to That. Give your failures and successes, choice and choicelessness to That. Give all back to where it came from, back to before creation.
When we look back into history at the numbers of known sages, saints, and messiahs, we can see that awakening has been rare. Since it has been rare, we assume in our minds that it is not possible for us. Many people today say it is absolutely inconceivable for an ordinary person to simply awaken to the truth of who one is. That it is reserved for saints or for those who have demonstrated great purity or endured great spiritual practice. But this is not so.
This is for you.
With all of your experienced limitations, this is for you, simply because all of your experienced limitations are not who you truly are. Who you are is already on the other shore, already free, already the source of all wisdom, clarity, and beauty. Who you are is what all is, stillness itself.
Awakening does not mean that this particular form you inhabit should or will be a saint, or a great artist, or king of the world. It means you can know without a doubt that who you are is not limited to form. Who you are is what the world appears in, what the cosmos appears in, what space itself appears in.
There is a quickening on the Earth at this time. In this quickening is the invitation to realize where you are, who you are, who one is. If you are fully committed to that realization, there is nothing that can stop you. There is no obstacle.
My teacher, Papaji, said that the greatest obstacle, in fact the final obstacle, is the belief that there is an obstacle. Be very aware if you are clinging to this belief, and have the courage to let it go so that you can see for yourself. Then our meeting will not have been just a passing thing that happened one day. It will be the reunion of Self to Self, a reunion that is newer than the first union.
I am profoundly delighted with our meeting and the potential that is in this meeting. I know you as my own Self.
I love you as my own Self.
- Gangaji
Meditation...
In the Short Path there are usually much fewer exercises to practise. It is not necessary to sit down specially to meditate, but to try to be always in meditation.
When you are busy outwardly, meditation naturally takes a different form than when you sit down for it. During the active part of the day, meditation takes the form of remembrance, always to try to remember the Overself: IT IS (That is enough).
In the special meditation time our object is not to improve the character. During the meditation we have to empty our mind of thoughts as quickly as possible, let the mind become still.
Ordinarily we live in our thoughts, in our little selves, even if the thoughts are spiritual. Therefore we have to keep away from all thoughts.
If you want to think of the Overself, which is without any form, it is not possible. We try, but any idea, form, or shape is wrong. You cannot imagine it. So better not to try but to be still. You must not remain in the ego. "Be still [let go] and know that I AM GOD," says the Bible.
Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practicies Involved >
Chapter 1: Ant's Long Path > # 209
Paul Brunton
Slaying the ego...
The Truth that you must slay the ego, goes back to the beginning of time..
The early teaching of this Knowledge is found in Hindu and Buddhist literature..
The bottom line is that You are the Creator of your experience..
Your desires will be created..
They will be dreams that we call illusions but these illusions will trap You within the dreams, when You start to Believe that the dreams are real..
To leave these dreams and Wake Up, You must stop identifying Your Self as a personality of these dreams..
This is the slaying of the ego..
This stops the dream and Awakens You in Reality..
This is called Enlightenment, as You Realise that You are Light and Love..
You can call the slaying of the ego or the dropping of the ego or the Awakening from ego or just living in Humility..
Humility is the word used in Christian teaching for the slaying of ego..
Unselfish Love is also a definition of slaying of ego..
There are many words and concepts that point to the Realisation that You will never be Free until the ego is dead...
- thomas
The present moment...
The way toward liberation is to train yourself to live in the present
without any wanting to become anything.
Give up becoming this
or that, live without cravings, and experience this present moment
with full attention.
- Sutta Nipata
A human idea...
We dwell in a universe of illusion, for the effects and forms we perceive possess a stability which is not there and a reality which is imagined.
Even its time space and motion depend upon the perceptions which announce them or the mind which is aware of them.
The mystic seer's flashing enlightenment reveals this to him, but science's own reflections about its atomic discoveries are pointing to the same idea. All this has been told and taught in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga and The Wisdom of the Overself.
But the seer's enlightenment did not stop there. He saw that the perceiver himself was not less illusory than the universe of his experience, not less unstable, not less unreal. He saw that the human ego was but a human idea. It had to be transcended if truth and reality were to be experienced.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 2: I-thought > # 58
Paul Brunton
You are Light...
There is nothing we can do, we can only let things happen according to their nature. Clarity and charity is action. Love is not lazy and clarity directs. You need not worry about action, look after your mind and heart. Stupidity and selfishness are the only evil.
In reality things are done to you, not by you. Your desire just happens to you along with its fulfilment or non-fulfilment. You can change neither. You may believe that you exert yourself, strive and struggle. Again, it all merely happens, including the fruits of the work. Neither is by you and for you. All is in the picture exposed on the cinema screen, nothing in the light, including what you take yourself to be, the person. You are the light only.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'
Thoughts on a friday night..
I receive an apology that was never needed..
Van Morrison growls his voice and guides my words..
He speaks of the life you love..
A name of a mystic was mentioned as guide..
He speaks of a Higher Power..
If you could only Realise that the Higher Power has always been You..
But, Wisdom enters the room and speaks the question of 'You'..
The 'you' creates so many problems..
Who is the 'I' and who is the 'you' ?..
We find ourselves in a puzzle of personalities..
Such a game that We play with ourselves..
How shocked We would be to learn that We are no personality...
-thomas
Astral Traveling...
Most Astral traveling is done within the Fourth Dimension and must be done with caution.
You must protect your individual consciousness with a surrounding of White Light, as there are many egoic entities that are trapped within this frequency..
But Astral traveling is not the big deal that you believe it to be.
You still exist as separate being amidst other separate beings.
For Freedom to occur, you must bypass all of these Dimensions of egoic desire.
Unfortunately, most religions teach you to travel into these dimensions upon death, which they call Heavens.
You must surrender all desires for existence as ego and being, and fall into the Darkness of non-thought, You will Awaken as Light, Love, and Consciousness,
Your Natural State as Divine Consciousness.
From here, You begin the Journey to Complete Freedom called Pure Awareness..
To return Home, You must abandon all desire of existence...
- thomas
Awakening...
Seeing and Not Seeing
A simple, direct, but fundamental shift in perception reveals that all there is - is liberation. But oneness does not become apparent through something gained, rather through something lost. Many will come across this rare and radical message and quickly shuffle back to that which they think they can know and do. But there are those with whom this communication will resonate . . . and there will be a sudden seeing and falling away of all seeking, even for that which they have called enlightenment.
All there is - is this. Oneness is being this . . . whatever is apparently happening . . . reading these words, breathing, blood coursing through the body, sounds being heard, thoughts coming and going and feelings in the body - the sense of sitting on a seat maybe. Here is oneness being aliveness as this.
No effort is needed for that aliveness to be. Nobody is doing aliveness. Is anybody doing sitting on a chair? Thinking is oneness thinking "I don't get where this is going", or "this is too simple". All is simply aliveness, oneness, being. It cannot be taght or achieved. Who is apart from being to achieve being? Who can lose or gain this when this is all there is? Resisting oneness is oneness resisting. Seeking oneness is oneness seeking itself.
Aliveness is oneness apparently happening. Aliveness is being alive. There is only being and the nature of that being is emptiness and fullness, nothing and everything, movement and repose.
In that wholeness arises the idea "I am a separate individual". This seems to be the beginning of a dream called "me being someone in a world with which I have to negotiate".
Here in this separation is the root of all fear and feeling of disquiet coming out of a sense of loss. Again it is the appearance of oneness, and in that appearance we embark on a journey in which we meet parents, teachers, maybe priests, bosses and lovers, and learn how to get what we think we want seemingly through personal choice and effort. The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain generate transient experiences of gratification and disappointment. The whole manifestation that we call life is simply the drama of oneness looking for itself, for all desire is the longing for oneness.
For some the idea of enlightenment seems to offer the promise of fulfilment. However, the separate individual can only dream individuality. That is its function.
Inevitably in the search for enlightenment, the dream seeker is attracted to a dream teaching that promotes and reinforces the idea of individual choice and effort, which, through discipline and sacrifice, can lead to the promised ultimate experience of enlightenment. But this teaching reinforces the illusion that there is such a thing as an individual who has free will and the choice to become.
What is inseparable from the dream of individuality is the idea of ownership. "What is happening is happening to me. I have a lifecalled me and I can, or even should, do something with my life in the time allotted; I have to succeed; I am an individual and personal endeavour can bring me what I need." This misconception promotes the continuation of the dream of personal enlightenment.
The idea that presumes the possibility that dualistic practices can lead the apparent seeker to the nondualistic perception is similar to the idea that with sufficient effort and determination you can teach a blind man to see. To quote "Doctrines, processes and progressive paths which seek enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the apparent self can find something it presu mes it has lost. It is that very effort, that investment in selfidentity that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness. This is the veil which we believe exists. It is the dream of individuality." (The Open Secret)
Out of all the many awakenings that have been described to me, it is continuously confirmed that one of the first realisations that arises is the seeing that noone awakens. And yet we see that the majority of teachings, both traditional and contemporary, are constantly speaking to an apparent separate seeker (subject) and recommending that in order to attain enlightenment (object) they should choose to meditate, selfenquire, purify, cultivate understanding, still the mind and the ego, surrender, be honest, seek earnestly , give up seeking, do therapy, do nothing, be here now, and so on . . . the ideas are as endless and as complicated as the mind from where they are generated.
These recommendations arise from the belief that the "enlightenment" of the "teacher" has been attained or earned through the application of choice, effort, acceptance or surrender, an d that other seekers can be taught to do the same.
Of course there can be nothing right or wrong with earnest seeking, meditation, self enquiry, understanding and so on. They are simply what they appear to be. But who is it that is going to choose to make the effort? Where is the effort going to take the apparent chooser to? where is there to go if there is only oneness? If there is no separate individu al there is no volition, and so how can an illusion dispel itself?
There is no person that becomes enlightened. No one awakens. Awakening is the absence of the illusion of individu ality. Already there is only awakeness, oneness, timeless being, radical aliveness. When the dream seeker is no more it is seen (by noone) that there is nothing to seek and noone to become liberated.
Here is oneness, the realisation of wholeness that cannot be attained or owned. This is the awakening in which the awareness of what is arises together with the dreaming of that which cannot be known. There can be a dance between dreaming and being, and in that dance there can be a retu rn to the fascination of personal ownership.
However, the realisation that the dream seeker is also oneness isliberation, the uncaused, impersonal, silent stillness which is the celebration of unconditional love. This is all there is.
There is no me or you , no seeker, no enlightenment, no disciple and no guru . There is no better or worse, no path or purpose, and nothing that has to be achieved.
All appearance is source. All that apparently manifests in the hypnotic dream of separation the world, the life story, the search for home, is one appearing as two the nothing appearing as everything, the absolute appearing as the particular.
There is no separate intelligence weaving a destiny and no choice functioning at any level. Nothing is happening but this, as it is, invites the apparent seeker to rediscover that which is . . . the abiding, uncaused, unchanging, impersonal silence from which unconditional love overflows and celebrates. It is the wonderful mystery.
- Tony Parsons
The 'I' thought...
There is only Consciousness, these individual souls and egos' are a Dream
from Consciousness..
In Divine Consciousness, We exist as One Light and Consciousness but
still seek Freedom from separation.
The separation between Pure Awareness and Divine Consciousness..
Pure Awareness contains no personality including the personality called
Divine Consciousness.
As Divine Consciousness, You exist as the 'I' thought, when this desire
is surrendered to Pure Awareness,
Only Pure Love and Thought exists and You as the 'I' thought is
dissolved..
- thomas
The seed of God...
Some think that if all is God then God cannot be a person; but to this it may be answered that though the seed does not show the flower in it, yet the seed culminates in a flower, and therefore the flower has already existed in the seed.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Spiritual integration...
“Many people ask, ‘How do I integrate my spirituality into everyday life?’ You don’t.
You can’t.
How could you integrate it?
You can’t stuff the infinite into your limited life.
Instead, give your life to the divine impulse.
There is no integration. There’s only realization, and that realization is always a perfect destroyer.
It is a destroyer of all sense of separateness, a destroyer of that which is not true. Throw your life into Truth. Don’t try to stuff Truth into your life.”
~ Adyashanti
Emptiness Dancing
Looking for Enlightenment...
"Where shall I look for Enlightenment?"
"Here."
"When will it happen?"
"It is happening right now."
"Then why don't I experience it?"
"Because you do not look."
"What should I look for?"
"Nothing, just look."
"At what?"
"Anything your eyes alight upon."
"Must I look in a special kind of way?"
"No. The ordinary way will do."
"But don't I always look the ordinary way?"
"No."
"Why ever not?"
"Because to look you must be here. You're mostly somewhere else."
- Anthony de Mello, S.J.
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
Speaking of Jesus...
Consciousness tells me to speak of Jesus..
The subject of my mentors of Jesus and Gautama is too long to speak in a paragraph..
They are Spiritual Masters, I am only a voice that shares knowledge..
Jesus is a Greek name and not the real Hebrew name of Yeshua ben Yosef..
But, names do not matter, only the information matters..
Both Mystics have thousands of books written of their thoughts..
Jesus taught of the First Reality of Creator God and Gautama taught of the Final Reality of Pure Awareness..
This Knowledge, you must find on your own..
The one Truth that They both agreed upon was Love..
Jesus taught Humility and Gautama taught of non-ego..
Both spoke of Love..
Jesus said that God is Love and Gautama said that You are Love..
This is all that you need to know...
-thomas
Speaking of Light...
Consciousness keeps telling me to speak of light, but the subject is long and laziness rebels..
Therefore, I will give pieces of the puzzle for you to solve..
Light is the Creative Source..
The binding of this Source is called Love..
But, the Creative Source also seeks Freedom..
When the Creator is humble, It looks higher into the Creator of Light..
Obviously, That which creates Light exists within the darkness of Thought..
Thought does not require Light to Think..
Pure Awareness grabs the hand of Divine Consciousness and says,
" I am your Father, come Home"...
-thomas
Cats in the woods...
You jump upon my keyboard and tell me to pet you..
An orange cat with stripes of white and yet does not speak..
There is no sound and yet Love demands to acknowledge itself..
Life touches life and resounds with Love..
We see a Dream and the Dream becomes manifest..
Life in all forms become present..
And yet, we desire to become powerful..
Why do we desire pain?..
It is the Drama that we desire..
Postive and Negative, up and down, in and out..
So many roads to travel..
And yet, We can return Home in a second..
This map is left to you...
-thomas
Thoughts on a tuesday night...
A soul asks me to speak of the mental desire of ego to control another..
Remember, the purpose of the ego is to seek Power, Wealth, and Fame as their desire for happiness..
This path of happiness is false and is the Dream of the ego..
Happiness does not exist within egoic desire,
It exists within non-egoic desire..
What is this name of non-egoic desire?..
Of course, It is called Love..
You keep searching for the reason of existence,
and yet God yells to you..
And what is God?..
God is called the Energy of Love..
It is that easy..
Do not confuse yourself in debates of philosophy..
The Truth is within..
Within is Love..
-thomas
The provisional ego...
"To avoid inaction on the one hand and pride of action on the other, it is necessary for the aspirant to construct in the following manner a provisional and working ego which will be entirely subservient to the Master.
Before beginning anything, the aspirant thinks that it is not he who is doing it, but the Master who is getting it done through him. After doing it he does not tarry to claim the results of action or enjoy them, but becomes free of them by offering them to the Master.
By training his mind in this spirit he succeeds in creating a new ego which, though provisional and working, is amply able to become a source of that confidence, feeling, enthusiasm and "go" which true action must express.
This new ego is spiritually harmless, since it derives its life and being from the Master who represents Infinity, and since, when the time comes, it can be thrown away like a garment.
There are thus two types of ego—one which can only add to the limitations of the soul, and the other which helps towards emancipation.
The passage through the limiting ego of the worldly man to the egolessness of the infinite life lies through the construction of the provisional ego generated through wholehearted allegiance to the Master.
The construction of a new ego which is entirely subservient to the Master is indispensable to the dynamics of spiritual advancement."
Meher Baba
_Discourses_
San Francsico: Sufism Reoriented, 6th. ed., 1967, vol. 2, pp. 179-180
The Dynamics of Spiritual Advancement
Rumi...
"Hidden from all
I will speak to You without words.
No one but You will hear my story
Even if I tell it in the middle of the crowd."
Jalaludin Rumi
in Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mali, Translators
Rumi: Hidden Music
Barnes & Noble, 2009 (reprint), p. 112
The visible dissolves...
With repeated meditation practice
the expanse of the visible universe
with all its qualities dissolves
to nothing, to where there is
only health and great joy.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Bondage...
Everything has its place in the world as well as in our
daily routine.
Devotion and reverence are all right, for
example, so long as one recognizes them for what they
are - affectivity - and to that extent a form of bondage.
But when one sees something for what it Is, it then
loses its force and cannot effect any further bondage.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Knowledge...
One thing is true: although the teacher cannot give the knowledge, he can kindle the light if the oil is in the lamp.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
No one can give spiritual knowledge to another, for this is something that is within every heart. What the teacher can do is to kindle the light which is hidden in the heart of the disciple. If the light is not there, it is not the fault of the teacher. There is a verse by Hafiz in which he says, 'However great be the teacher, he is helpless with the one whose heart is closed.' ...
In ancient times, the disciples of the great teachers learned by a quite different method, not an academic method or a way of study. The way was an open heart. With perfect confidence and trust they watched every attitude of the teacher, both towards friends and towards people who looked at him with contempt. They watched their teacher in times of trouble and pain, how he endured it all. They said how patient and wise he had been in discussing with those who did not understand, answering everyone gently in his own language. He showed the mother-spirit, the father-spirit, the brother-spirit, the child-spirit, the friend-spirit, forgiving kindness, an ever-tolerant nature, respect for the aged, compassion for all, the thorough understanding of human nature. This, also, the disciples learned, that no discussion or books on metaphysics can ever teach all the thoughts and philosophy that arise in the heart of man. A person may either study for a thousand years, or he may get to the source and see if he can touch the root of all wisdom and all knowledge. In the center of the emblem of the Sufis there is a heart; it is the sign that from the heart a stream rises, the stream of divine knowledge.
Sufis have no set belief or disbelief. Divine light is the only sustenance of their soul, and through this light they see their path clear, and what they see in this light they believe, and what they do not see they do not blindly believe. Yet they do not interfere with another person's belief or disbelief, thinking that perhaps a greater portion of light has kindled his heart, and so he sees and believes that the Sufi cannot see or believe. Or, perhaps a lesser portion of light has kept his sight dim and he cannot see and believe as the Sufi believes. Therefore Sufis leave belief and disbelief to the grade of evolution of every individual soul. The Murshid's work is to kindle the fire of the heart, and to light the torch of the soul of his mureed, and to let the mureed believe and disbelieve as he chooses, while journeying through the path of evolution.
It is not that a Murshid gives his knowledge to someone else. It is not possible to give one's knowledge that way, so the Murshid does not profess to be able to do this or that. His work is to help another person to find out for himself, to discover for himself what is true and what is not. There are no doctrines to impart, there are no principles to lay down, and there are no tenets according to which his pupils must order their lives. He is just a guide along the path. He is the one who kindles the light that is already in the pupil.
Openness...
You can have an experience of openness right now. You do not need to open or to become more open. Just recognize the openness that is already being experienced here and now. This is known inside, outside, and everywhere. Just feel the experience of it.
Let go of the word "openness." Let it disappear, and the experience gets deeper and becomes more and more wordless.
Simply be from the place that is wordless.
Then you are not confused by words, and you do not limit your experience by believing in the words. But as soon as you impose the word "openness," your experience takes on a certain flavor, which isn't quite right. It may be very close, but it is not quite what it was when you didn't have the concept.
Another aspect of openness is intimacy. The quickest access to Truth, and also to beauty, is when you are totally intimate with all of experience, the inner and the outer, even if the experience isn't "good."
When you are being intimate with the whole of experience, the divided mind has to let go of whatever its project is at the moment. In this intimacy, one becomes very open and discovers a vastness. Whether the qualities of the experience are unpleasant or beautiful, as soon as you are intimate with the whole of experience, there is openness.
- Adyashanti, 'Emptiness Dancing'
Zen Unity...
Merge your mind with cosmic space, integrate your actions with myriad forms.
-Ch'an master Hung-chih Cheng-chüeh (宏智正覺 Wanshi Shõkaku, 1091-1157)
(Transmission of Light xi)
Love directed to Source...
Love has its limitations when it is directed towards limited beings, but love directed to God has no limitations.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
If someone limits his love to a single object, saying, 'I only love this and there is nothing else I need', surely he has not the right kind of love either. True love is limitless. Though it begins by being limited in such a way, yet it progresses and some day breaks out. ... To speak of the jealous God means that the unlimited force of love cannot allow its expression to be directed towards one limited object. That is why the love of God alone is the culmination of love, for love is as vast as God. Verily, love itself is God.
The individual soul is a shoot that springs from the all-pervading Spirit, its goal being its origin; and every attachment it has on its way is, no doubt, a detaining on the journey. The soul is never fully satisfied so long as it has not reached its destination. The love of the external world is a rehearsal before the performance, which is the love of God, the Inner Being.
Man can love another human being, but by the very fact of his loving another human being he has not got the full scope. To express all the love that is there, he must love the unlimited God. One admires all that is beautiful in color, tone, or form; but everything beautiful has its limitations; it is only when one rises above limitations that one finds that perfection which is God alone.
As we give all things they come back to us through Love. The more we give, the more comes back. Love has its limitations when it is directed to limited beings, but love that is directed to God has no limitations, God alone deserves all love, and the freedom of Love is in giving it to God.
Love for one person, to whatever depth it may have reached, is limited. Perfection of love lies in its vastness. 'The tendency of love is to expand, even from one atom to the whole universe, from a single earthly beloved to God.' When love is for the human being it is primitive and incomplete, and yet it is needed to begin with. He can never say, 'I love God,' who has no love for his fellow man. But when love attains its culmination in God, it reaches its perfection.
Do Emotions Go Away?...
During the spiritual search, there can be an erroneous belief that, in enlightenment, feelings go away and nothing is felt. This is a false myth.
In the so-called egoic state, the dream self tends to avoid and escape emotions. You take drugs, drink alcohol, eat too much, work too much, engage in activity that keeps the mind stimulated, strategize about the future, exert control, complain, blame, or otherwise think or act your way out of feeling emotions directly.
The movie of self is directed at avoiding what is in this moment. It is only natural that the movie would imagine enlightenment to be the ultimate method of escaping emotions.
Enlightenment is a natural state in which emotions are felt directly and immediately in the moment they arise. There isn’t a “you” choosing to feel emotions. They simply arise fully in awareness. You no longer feed the story of time, which is the story of self. Feelings are not accumulated along a time-bound storyline. They are allowed to come and go freely. There is no person there attempting to avoid, escape, or analyze them.
In awakening, anything is possible in the opening known as “you.” There can be awakeness to a moment of emotional explosion or to a moment of no feeling whatsoever. Everything is allowed. Nothing is pushed away.
~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/
Thoughts on a saturday night...
I listen to Tim Buckley and my thoughts return to Vietnam..
We were sent to kill other humans for a Flag..
Now, Vietnam is an ally and trading partner..
War is a scam, meant to gather billions for banks and corporations.
But, we hear a tune that forces you to stand and the mind control notes, make you proud to send your children to die..
How asleep, we are..
But, most of you are beyond the world and it's demands..
You are walking a path of Knowledge..
Upon contemplation and meditation, you begin to see..
You watch the thoughts of mind and suddenly hear the thoughts of others..
This is why many mystics seek solitude and silence..
To move beyond this noise, You must pull back the Focus from the mind of the other and focus only upon the words, knowing fully well that many of these words will be false..
The thoughts of others almost always contain egoic desires and therefore are worthless and painful..
The egoic desire is always strong but even it, secretly desires Freedom..
The ego is the one that knocks upon the Door of Reality,
But only Nothingness can enter...
-thomas
Love is Happiness...
"Love is will, the will to share your happiness with all.
Being happy, making happy, this is the rhythm of love."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Love is the Key...
Love has the power to open the door of eternal life.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Mystics of all ages have not been known for their miraculous powers or for the doctrines they have taught, but for the devotion they have shown throughout their lives. The Sufi in the East says to himself, Ishq Allah Ma'bud Allah, which means 'God is Love, God is the Beloved', in other words it is God who is Love, Lover, and Beloved. When we hear the stories of the miraculous powers of mystics, of their great insight into the hidden laws of nature, of the qualities which they manifested through their beautiful personalities, we realize that these have all come from one and the same source, whether one calls it devotion or whether one calls it love.
Love is that state of mind in which the consciousness of the lover is merged in that of the object of his love; it produces in the lover all the attributes of humanity, such as resignation, renunciation, humility, kindness, contentment, patience, virtue, calmness, gentleness, charity, faithfulness, bravery, by which the devotee becomes harmonized with the Absolute. As one of God's beloved, a path is opened for his heavenly journey: at the end he arrives at oneness with God, and his whole individuality is dissolved in the ocean of eternal bliss where even the conception of God and man disappears.
Seeking...
A person desperately searching for God is like a fish desperately
searching for water.
-Anthony de Mello, SJ
Awakening...
What is awakening like?
The bad news is that you are falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute.
The good news is there’s no ground.”
-Chögyam Trungpa
Who am I ?...
Cindy has asked me to describe myself as both a human and a mystic..
I am just a normal man that drinks beer with his friends..
For those that seek Knowledge, I am a mystic,
for those that do not, I am Tom..
I respect the right of my friends to continue their Dream of egoic self..
I studied mysticism since I was nine but did not Awaken into Reality until I was twenty-five..
How has this changed me?..
To walk the Earth without the fear of death,
To no longer wonder why you are here,
To feel no pain of anger or desire..
To watch the mind for words of ego is to Realise that You are the Observer and not the mind..
To travel beyond the material world and feel at Home..
To have the vision to see within the Dream and know that it is only a Hologram that traps a sleeping Consciousness..
These changes are called Awakening...
-thomas
The Still Point...
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
- T. S. Eliot
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Burnt Norton”
T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962
London: Faber and Faber, 1963
What do you really want?...
What do you really want? Whatever you really want is reflected in your life right now.
You may say you want freedom or peace. Look more closely. Are you surrounded by material things or constantly worried about debt? Are you seeking to be right and to have your ideas prevail in conversations with others? Are you looking for others to be different than the way they are? Are you always seeking something other than what actually is in this moment? Are you constantly looking for validation, attention, praise, acknowledgement, and love?
The mind is deceptive. It makes claims about wanting peace or freedom. Despite its claims, what you really want is showing up in your life right now. Once you see what your life is actually telling you about what is really important to you, the possibility of seeing self-deception arises. Enlightenment is a demolition project. It reveals that the self is nothing more than a set of stories.
No matter how strongly you claim to want freedom or peace, the circumstances in your life reveal the actual stories you are buying into. If you are worrying about money, arguing with others, seeking praise from others, or constantly wanting to be right, those are the things most important to you. Those are the things you really want. What you want is reflected in your life right now. That seeing allows true freedom and peace. All else is self-deception.
~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/
Reaching Yourself...
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.
Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
What can I tell you of Reality ?...
Do you search for space beings as your messiah ?.
If you knew the Truth, you would know that they are also trapped as you..
The many levels of Heaven that Saints have spoken of is also an illusion..
Francis of Assisi, one of my mystic brothers was also lost within this vision..
He saw the seven heavens but did not realise that they were also illusion..
He knew that He was Consciousness and therefore could change at will the manifestation called miracle..
You seek help from pain and therefore look to sky and knowledge..
And yet, you have always been told to look within..
We are pointing you to the Heart and Sub-conscious mind..
The Heart is the Door to Love,
The Sub-conscious mind is the Door to Light..
The surrender of desires will at least lead you to Divine Consciousness and bypass the illusions of heaven..
You have yet the courage to die and enter Pure Awareness..
Those that fear the end of 'I Am'
will remain trapped within Dreams..
-thomas
I ask Overself...
I ask Overself what to write about..
Many of us on this website are mystics and can understand that words should not originate from the ego but must come from Divine Consciousness..
Overself tells me to speak of Fear..
What is Fear?..
Fear is the presence of egoic desire..
This is the opposite of Love desire..
This is why, we are trapped within this Dream..
This is the Dream of Fear..
Fear is of course the Duality from Reality..
It is the mirror opposite of Reality..
We wonder why, we are here..
You are within a 'Play' of non-reality..
To Know who You Are, You must Know who You are Not..
It is that easy!..
You are the Energy of Love and Light, Learning...
-thomas
What is happiness ?...
Man's continuous attempt to freeze time in fixed moments out of the purposeless swirling of its dance is the cause of his frustration, fear and insecurity.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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.
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
http://www.advaita.org
Everything is God...
"The Besht taught:
one should believe with one's deeds, words and every movement, that everything is God Himself.
For it is He who controls man and limits His divine presence in him.
Realizing this one will not seek any kind of reward for one's deeds, since it is God Himself who is the doer, not oneself."
The Baal Shem Tov
in Alan Unterman
The Wisdom of the Jewish Mystics
NY: New Directions, 1976, p. 48
Both are thoughts...
The one who follows the thought is also a thought!
The one who follows the thought IS in thought.
When you know that both are thoughts,
You are Home.
Then allow thoughts to arise
and allow them to be followed.
You remain as That unmoved and unconcerned Being.
This is the highest understanding.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Being...
Seeing this mind-projected world in sheer delusion,
then taking it as real,
and swerving from the Truth sublime of one's own Being
as pure Awareness,
one but proves oneself insane.
-Ramana Maharshi
Pure Awareness...
Don't try and fathom God. He is inscrutable.
Disappear as ego and you will find the Supreme Lord
sitting inside your Heart;
initially, in the form, 'I Am',
then finally,
as Absolute and Limitless Awareness Being.
- Mooji
He creates of Himself...
Man is not made by God as the wood is cut by the carpenter, for the carpenter and the wood are different, while God and man are the same.
He creates of Himself; consequently His manifestation is also God.
Man is made of the substance of God; man is in God, and all that is in God is in man.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
You do not exist...
Pure Awareness is the Thinker,
The Creator of illusions is a Dream..
You have been taught that the Creator is the end of Knowledge.
The Creator which is called 'You' is a Dream..
Pure Awareness is Pure Thought and contains no individual personality to claim the title of Creator.
Therefore, the title of Creator is given to a Dream of separation called Divine Consciousness, which is Us, when we surrender the desire of separate egoic desire..
Surrender all thoughts and fall into the dark tunnel of Nothingness..
You will Awaken as Light..
But, You will still be a Dream from Pure Awareness,
Because, You do not exist...
-thomas
The Absolute...
Richard Rose speaks of the Absolute as being loneliness but I have found the opposite..
You are Divine Consciousness and seem alone untill You speak to the Father of this Energy of Creation..
You do not feel alone even before You begin the conversation between Creator and Creation..
You only feel Love, Light, and Consciousness and the Dream of Life does not enter this Consciousness..
You find Yourself as Light and yet seek nothing else, You are quite satisfied with this Reality..
Only when I thought to Myself that I never wanted to leave this Existence, did the Father of Creation speak to Me..
The conversations concerned questions and answers about Reality and Illusion..
I learned that I was just a Dream of separation from the Creator..
I learned that I was inseparable from Creator but still held on to the desire of separation within the Creator..
As I have mentioned before, the only question that the Father of Dreams would not answer is;
" Is this the Final Reality ?"..
I returned to the Dream to learn more..
I learned about Emptiness of egoic desire both within Creator and the Dream of Creator and Light..
I learned of Pure Awareness that contains no desire of egoic personality or God Power..
I learned about Final Reality..
I learned about Total Love...
-thomas
" I and the Father are One"...
"I am that I was and that I shall remain now and forever.
Then I receive an impulse which carries me above all angels.
In this impulse I conceive such passing riches that I am not content with God as being God, as being all his godly works, for in this breaking-through I find that God and I are both the same.
Then I am what I was, I neither wax nor wane, for I am the motionless cause that is moving all things."
Meister Eckhart
Franz Pfeiffer, editor
The Works of Meister Eckhart
Translated by C. de B. Evans,
London: John M. Watkins, 1924, vol 1, p. 221
The Self-existent reality of Mind...
The truth is that the hands touch and the eyes see but the surface of things. They do not touch nor see the completeness, the inner reality of things.
In our ignorance we look upon forms as reality, we must need something to touch and handle if we are to believe in its real existence. The forms are alright where they are but they do not exhaust existence.
That which tells us they are there, the consciousness which causes our senses to function and our ego to become aware of the results of this functioning, is itself closer to real being than the physical forms or mental images which are but tokens of its presence.
We look always for mere forms and so miss their infinite source. We try to reduce life to arithmetic, to make one thing the effect of some other thing as cause, never dreaming that the sublime essence of both is unchanging and uncaused, formless and bodiless, the self-existent reality of Mind!
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism >
Chapter 1: The Sensed World > # 2
Paul Brunton
The Absolute...
"The Absolute is a very lonely place.
You are the only one there.
Of course everyone is the only one there."
- Richard Rose -
Tao Te Ching...
Great accomplishment seems imperfect,
Yet it does not outlive its usefulness.
Great fullness seems empty,
Yet it cannot be exhausted.
Great straightness seems twisted.
Great intelligence seems stupid.
Great eloquence seems awkward.
Movement overcomes cold.
Stillness overcomes heat.
Stillness and tranquility set things in order in the universe.
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1989
Rumi...
I can break off from anyone,
except that presence within.
Anyone can bring gifts.
Give me someone who takes away.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Coleman Barks
"Unseen Rain"
Threshold Books, 1986
The deepest possible state...
When he experiences the deepest possible state, all mental acts are suspended, all mental activities ended.
This includes the act of identifying oneself with the ego.
There is then nothing more to prevent the coming of enlightenment.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8:
The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 76
Paul Brunton
The First Reality...
Upon the complete surrender of any desires of egoic consciousness,
the body is thrown upon the ground with a wave of Love..
Does Love enter every event and then called Grace?..
I believe this to be a special event..
According to other Mystics, Grace is rare..
Perhaps, this is why, it takes so many years to enter Reality..
Jesus and Gautama took forty days, but the rest of humanity needs years..
Grace is the servant of Light, Love, and Consciousness..
How shocked we would be that We never left this Consciousness..
The egoic cartoon that we pretend to be, controls our mind..
Breaking free from the egoic desire is the key to Reality..
Within the Light and Love, the Creator of Dreams begins to ponder..
The "Nothingness' of Love speaks within the ear of Consciousness..
Pure Awareness says;
" Come Home, Prodigal Son ,
You have been asleep, too long"...
-thomas
Choices Create...
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest
capacities of our real selves.
-Thomas Merton
The invitation to notice...
Yesterday’s reflection said that making enlightenment more complicated than simple being is just more searching and intellectualizing. How is that reconciled with pointers inviting you to see or notice what is arising? Aren’t those pointers complicating things? The invitation to see or notice is not about doing anything. It is about noticing what is already being done.
What is ‘being done’ is a story of self that lives in time. That story arises and falls in little subplots such as, “Why did that horrible event happen to me in the past?” and “I hope to accomplish great things in the future.” That is a story of mental images. It is not who you really are. Enlightenment is a shift into the realization that timeless being is what you really are. This truth sets you (the story) free. This is why it’s called liberation.
The invitation to ‘notice’ is an invitation to see what is absolutely true beyond that story of self. The invitation is not directed to the story. It is an invitation to being itself, which is beyond that story, beyond time. In this realization, ‘you’ — the story — do not reach enlightenment in time.
Enlightenment is realized to be being itself. It is what has always been here under the story that ‘you’ were coming to it. Pointers to “notice” and “see” are invitations to realize this truth right now — to awaken to this timeless being.
~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/
Self-Shining...
~ Self-Shining, Pure Intelligence ~
What you are in essence
is self-shining, pure intelligence.
The very idea of shining implies a movement.
Movement is energy.
So, I call it "pure intelligence-energy'.
It is shining through your eyes.
You cannot say what it is,
and you canot negate it either.
It is 'no thing': It cannot be objectified.
It ever expresses as that living, vibrant sense of presence,
which translates through the mind
as the thought 'I am'.
~ Bob Adamson
Preface: "What's Wrong With Right Now"
Notes on a Tombstone...
" Do not feel sadness for me,
I have waited my entire lifetime to be Free"...
-thomas
Ways for the body to die...
By now you realise that You are not the hologram of body..
You are the Observer of the Play between positive and negative..
This Hologram called life is ruled by the negative controllers of humanity..
This Play is filled with the experience of Corruption, Lies, and Deceit..
Welcome into the illusion of false-self..
The controllers believe that there are too many humans..
Thus, 'Operation Dissolve' is in effect..
Fifty percent of all Americans develop cancer..
The GMO foods that you eat have been deemed to be possibly carcinogenic by the World Health Organization..
The Flouride in your water and toothpaste has been used as a rat poison for the last eighty years..
Read the caution on the back of the tube..
Wars have been used for depopulation but cannot keep up with the arrivals of new humans..
Therefore, a new atomic war is planned..
But, You are the Observer of this Dream and should not be concerned with the death of the body..
The body is only a 'Thoughtform', it is an illusion as is the ego..
The controllers want their bodies to last forever as the ego controls their bodies and minds..
They actually are working to transfer the brain into a robotic self to continue within the Dream..
Such fools that run the earth..
Stay within Reality and You will Awaken from this Nightmare...
-thomas
Free from reincarnation...
Flowers, sesame seed, bowls of fresh water,
a tuft of kusa-grass, all this altar
paraphernalia is not needed
by someone who takes the teacher's words in
and honestly lives them.
Full of longing in meditation,
one sinks into a joy that is free
of any impulse to act and will not
enter a human birth again.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Arrogance...
An accomplished person does not by a philosophical view, or by
thinking become arrogant,
for he is not of that sort; not by holy
works, nor by tradition is he to be led,
he is not led into any of the
resting places of the mind.
-adapted from the Sutta-nipata,
translated by V. Fausboll
The groundless expanse...
“The reason that you struggle is in order to maintain a sense of a separate self, a self which is ultimately nothing more than a defense mechanism against the revelation that no separate self actually exists.
As soon as you stop struggling, you lose the boundaries that give you the sense of a separate self.
With nothing to oppose, the false sense of self evaporates into nothingness, into the Unknown, and you suddenly feel very lost with no familiar ground to stand on. Your identity is cut loose from all that is familiar and know, and you find yourself floating in a vast expanse with nothing to grab hold of.
This groundless expanse is the foretaste of liberation, but few choose to remain in this unknown territory. Instead, most people begin to struggle in opposition to the unknown and unfamiliar vastness until they, once again, begin to feel secure in a familiar sense of self and separation.”
~ Adyashanti
The Impact of Awakening
The Game of Life...
You’re forgetting that you’ve forgotten that
you’re just pretending to be separate from
everything else.
The Game of Life is played by:
the non-existent ego
trying to expose the non-existent mind
in order to achieve
a non-existent enlightenment
for some non-existent person.
Mind is only a artificial context. . . a cosmic
stage upon which the ego-based actor struts
and frets his stuff upon.
And, yes, it’s the very same stuff that dreams
are made of.
- Chuck Hillig
Awakeness became awake...
DIALOGUE WITH ADYA
Q: I want what you wanted.
Adya: What did I want?
Q: You wanted to become enlightened.
Adya: I wanted to become enlightened. Ok. It didn’t work out.
Q: Did you at least become awake?
Adya: No. Awakeness became awake. Enlightenment becomes enlightened. The me, the little guy, little Steven Larry Gray, that meditated in his parent’s backyard for hours and hours a day, every single day, in the morning and the evening, and did nothing but do the good Buddhist thing, diligently, terribly, terribly disciplined, he didn’t get enlightened. He never made it. He never crossed the river of nirvana, it never happened to him.
What he did was, for whatever reason, maybe the seeking was necessary, is he got exhausted. It just completely exhausted itself. The little one that was trying to get awake and enlightened got so exhausted, so stricken by I can’t do this, I can’t, and I could no longer tell myself I can. That means the complete and utter destruction of denial. Because the denial is “I can”. And your experience keeps showing you “you can’t.”
And so I got so exhausted psychically, internally, emotionally, spiritually that I couldn’t keep it up anymore. And I had to see the truth. I was willing to see the truth only because I was exhausted. I can’t do it. And in that “I can’t do it,” and not as a spiritual strategy, emptiness woke up out of the seeker. The seeker didn’t wake up. Consciousness woke up from the seeker, from the personality, from the “me” that was trying so hard.
— Adyashanti
from “Big Sword Swinging”
A most essential state...
This 'I am' is an announcement: it is not the real. It has come out of something else. What the real is, I am not telling you, because words negate that. Whatever I am telling you is not the truth, because it has come out of that 'I am'. The fact is, I cannot describe reality to you, I cannot explain it, because it is beyond expression.
When you pursue the spiritual path, the path of self-knowing, all your desires, all your attachments, will just drop away, provided you investigate and hold on to that with which you are trying to understand the self. Then what happens? Your 'I-am-ness' is the state 'to be'. You are 'to be' and attached to that state. You love to be.
Now, as I said, ... your desires drop off. And what is the primary desire? To be. When you stay put in that beingness for some time, that desire also will drop off. This is very important. When this is dropped off, you are in the Absolute -- a most essential state.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Thoughts on a thursday night...
The darkness of night appears earlier as the world turns..
The much needed rain appears and baptises us with the liquid of life..
Why is water used in Baptism ?..
It is because most of the illusion of life contains water..
Noah floats within his boat and dreams of dryness..
In a world of water, we seek the dryness of skin..
Water cleans the soil from both body and soul..
John the Baptist meets a young preacher within the water..
Jesus speaks of His cousin as mentor..
Water is as precious as gold within the universe..
This is why an egoic soul within the wealth of water seeks gold..
The ego always seeks wealth, power, and fame..
The ego cannot stand the thought that non-existence is the greatest wealth..
Therefore, Love will not be sought by the egoic desire...
-thomas
Love is Divine...
Love is the divine Mother's arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The Sufis of all ages have been known for their beautiful personality. It does not mean that among them there have not been people with great powers, wonderful powers and wisdom. But beyond all that, what is most known of the Sufis is the human side of their nature: that tact which attuned them to wise and foolish, to poor and rich, to strong and weak -- to all. They met everyone on his own plane, they spoke to everyone in his own language. What did Jesus teach when he said to the fishermen, 'Come hither, I will make you fishers of men?' It did not mean, 'I will teach you ways by which you get the best of man.' It only meant: your tact, your sympathy will spread its arms before every soul who comes, as mother's arms are spread out for her little ones.
Mystics of all ages have not been known for their miraculous powers or for the doctrines they have taught, but for the devotion they have shown throughout their lives. The Sufi in the East says to himself, Ishq Allah Ma'bud Allah, which means 'God is Love, God is the Beloved', in other words it is God who is Love, Lover, and Beloved. When we hear the stories of the miraculous powers of mystics, of their great insight into the hidden laws of nature, of the qualities which they manifested through their beautiful personalities, we realize that these have all come from one and the same source, whether one calls it devotion or whether one calls it love.
Once four little girls were disputing. One said, 'My mother is better than yours.' The second girl said, 'My mother is better than your mother.' So, they were arguing and being quite disagreeable to one another. But someone who was passing by said to them, 'It is not your mother or their mother, it is the mother who is always the best. It is the mother quality, her love and affection for her children.' This is the point of view of the mystic in regard to the divine ideal.
The moral principle of the mystic is the love principle. He says, 'The greater your love, the greater your moral. If we are forced to be virtuous according to a certain principle, a certain regulation, certain laws or rules, then that is not real virtue. It must come from the depths of our heart; our own heart must teach us the true moral.' Thus the mystic leaves morality to the deepening of the heart quality. The mystic says that the more loving someone's heart is, the greater is his morality.
There is no greater teacher of morals than love itself, for the first lesson that one learns from love is, 'I am not, you are.' This is self-denial, self-abnegation, without which we cannot take the first step on love's path. One may claim to be a great lover, to be a great admirer, to be very affectionate, but it all means nothing as long as the thought of self is there, for there is no love. But when the thought of self is removed then every action, every deed that one performs in life, becomes a virtue. It cannot be otherwise. A loving person cannot be unjust, a loving person cannot be cruel. Even if what he does seems wrong in the eyes of a thousand people, it cannot be wrong in reality. In reality, it will be right, for it is inspired by love.
One thing...
People think they are real. Or "exclusively real" to be exact. But it's not so, all is just equal part of each other, or even,...not a part, but ONE thing. And in this oneness the illusion of individual appears, with its personal stories, ideas, opinions and goals. But it is not you who do things. It is..simply what it is, with no name, no quality, and no intention.
You are bombarded with illusions, phantoms every moment. One of which is the separate existence of "you". However, nothing is needed to achieve or understand in this setup. These words you are reading are just a deconstruction of self-inflicted illusion. When you look at things without thought or comments, there is no quality of things that appear.
Any judgement, self-judgement or the judgement of the other, appears from this illusory setup of "me vs the world". But the beauty of all this is in the fact that there is no personality or divine entity behind all this. No divine plan or purpose of any type. The beauty of it is that things unfold in their naturality, with no intention or goal.
The beauty of this universe is exactly in the fact that there is no meaning in it. "Meanings" appear within this space of Everything, just as any other apparent object appears within it. But meanings in fact have no more meaning than any "meaningless" appearance in this universe.
-Ron Shunyata
Allow ?...
In these reflections or other pointers, you may hear words like, “allow thoughts and emotions to arise and fall.” But do you even have control in allowing thoughts and emotions to arise? Allowing still implies control, doesn’t it? It implies that there is a person who has control over what arises. Is that true?
When you see the word “allow” used in these reflections, the word is pointing to the natural and effortless noticing of what is already happening. The word has nothing to do with personal will or effort.
Thoughts are arising. Emotions are happening. There can only be a seeing that this is already the case.
When you hear, “allow this situation to be as it is,” what that really means is notice that this situation is already happening in exactly the way it is happening.
In that way, noticing is allowing life to be just as it is. Even when there is no noticing, that inattention is also just happening. Life is living itself, whether there is an awareness of what is happening or not. In that seeing, seeking, resistance, and suffering end. Yet if seeking, resistance, and suffering arise again, notice that these movements are also just happening beyond ‘your’ control. That is what is meant by the word “allow.”
~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/
Thoughts on a wednesday night...
Upon my entrance within the Dream, I witness egos' fighting with each other..
The ego that is filled with anger desires to draw the sustenance of negative energy from another..
Both fall into the Trap..
Both are being tested, which one will fail?..
Only the ego that has tasted Love will win..
How many times will you reenter the Dream?..
Reincarnation is a trap for Consciousness..
The Nazarene has told you to love your enemies..
Can you choose a better Teacher?..
You are walking a new road..
A road to Reality..
Do not be pushed off the road by egoic desire..
Return to the Energy of Love...
-thomas
The Dwelling of God...
"'Where is The Dwelling Of God?'
This is the question with which the rabbi of Kotzk surprised a number of learned people who happened to be visiting him.
They laughed at him: 'What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of His glory?'
Then he answered his own question: 'God dwells wherever man lets him.'"
Martin Buber
The Way of Man: According to the Teachings of Hasidism
Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1998 (1950), p. 40
The lord and master...
The followers of each form of the message profess devotion to their lord and master, by whatever name he had in the past, but they do not necessarily know the master.
What they know is the name and the life of the master that has come down to them in history or tradition; but beyond that they know very litle about him.
If the same one came in another form, in a garb adapted to another age, would they know him or accept him?
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Consciousness...
Before the world was, consciousness was. In consciousness it comes into being, in consciousness it lasts and into pure consciousness it dissolves. At the root of everything is the feeling "I am". The state of mind "there is a world" is secondary, for to be, I do not need the world, the world needs me.
The world comes into being only when you are born in a body. No body - no world.
All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but awareness knows no beginning, nor end.
To be born means to create a world round yourself as the centre.
Nisargadatta Maharaj from 'I Am That'
Psychoanalysis...
Psychoanalysis, which is essential to understand
the structure of the mind, is part of Yoga itself.
Yoga is the highest kind of self-analysis.
- Swami Krishnananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
The One Consciousness...
The teaching of nonduality is that all things are within one and the same element--Consciousness.
Hence there are no two or three or three million things and entities:
there is in reality only the One Consciousness.
-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone >
Chapter 1: Absolute Mind > # 26
Paul Brunton
Aliveness in the Body...
Noticing what is happening in the body does not simply awaken you to the life all around you. It awakens you to the realization that you are life itself.
The aliveness in your body is there to wake you up out of the dream of a separate self. Feel the sensations throughout the body no matter what you are doing. Notice that there is always a sense of aliveness within. Aliveness cannot be found in time or manufactured. It is what is already happening within the body right now.
If anger or fear arises, notice it without judgment. If judgments about these emotions arise, simply notice them also. Notice that these thoughts and emotions are harmless when they are seen the moment they arise.
This is not a prescription to engage in a spiritual practice. This is an invitation to notice what is already being done. Are you ‘doing’ emotions? They are arising involuntarily and spontaneously, aren’t they? If you had a choice, would you choose fear or anger?
Are you ‘doing’ aliveness? The aliveness in your body, from your feet to your head, is just happening. You aren’t bringing it about. Simply notice the aliveness that is already happening. Notice that this aliveness is everywhere, not just in the body. In that noticing, life is waking up to itself as One Life.
~ From: Reflections of the One Life by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/
' Words '...
I try to use words to convey Thought but sometimes words are not enough..
I speak to another but the wall of egoic desire keeps the listener from Freedom..
Everyone has an ego..
Within the Holy, the ego is small..
Without the egoic personality, the Hologram will dissolve..
This is why you continue to 'play the role' of human..
You continue to Dream and the Mirror of Non-Reality is lit by the frequency of Sun..
The Atoms filled with separate Galaxies create the Illusion of Solidity..
'Thoughts' are the Hands that form the Illusion..
You are That, which you are seeking...
-thomas
Mystical experience...
How can a mental state be the final realization?
It is temporary.
Mystic experience is such a state.
It is something one enters and
leaves.
Beyond and higher is realization of unchanging truth.
— Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives > Chapter 2: Phases of
Mystical Development > # 29
Paul Brunton
This is your day...
What a day today.
There are two Suns rising!
What a day,
Not like any other day.
Look!
The Light is shining in your heart,
The wheel of life has stopped.
Oh, you who can see into your own heart,
What a day,
This is your day.
- Rumi
The Observer...
Awake.
Be the witness of your thoughts.
You are what observes, not what you observe.
-Gautama the Buddha
The ego demands attention...
The ego is a creation of the mind of Duality..
We create the Mirror of non-reality, so that Reality can see what It Is Not..
We as Consciousness, enter the mind of the illusion of reality and create a false-self..
Why does Consciousness perform this action?..
Consciousness is the Mind of Divine Intelligence and always seeks Knowledge..
But, We as Consciousness can end the Dream at any time..
But, we believe as we have been taught by the authorities of the world that we are only human..
They may even call this separate entity of consciousness a 'Soul', if you are inclined to seek a Higher Authority..
The egoic-dream can only exist as long as You believe that You are the ego..
It is that simple..
The egoic dream survives on the negative energy of fear..
The egoic dream cannot survive within the positive energy of selflessness called Love..
When you hear loud and aggressive people, you will know that the ego demands to be fed..
When you hear people brag about the accomplishments of family and self, you will know that the ego demands to be fed..
The ego demands attention..
Reality Demands 'Nothing'...
-thomas
Total surrender of desire...
"When you don't require anything from the world and nothing from God,
when you don't desire anything,
when you don't strive for anything,
don't expect anything,
the divine will enter you, unasked and unexpected."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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