This walk to Truth...
Below these words are the Coptic Hymn..
They speak of sin,
which they do not understand..
Sin is the distance between duality..
Sin truly means to be deceived..
Sin is the distance that You are from Reality..
So easy for me to say, but understanding is another matter..
You are seeking to discover the Heart that already exists within You..
This 'you' and 'You' that I write about are most pleasing within the mind of discovery..
You as Consciousness wants a challenge, as also we do..
Therefore, We begin this walk to Truth...
-thomas
The mechanical and consciousness...
Divide in yourself the mechanical from the conscious,
see how little there is of the conscious,
how seldom it
works, and how strong is the mechanical -
mechanical
attitudes, mechanical intentions, mechanical thoughts,
mechanical desires.
- P.D. Ouspensky
The desires of possession...
To live a pure unselfish life,
one must count nothing as one's own in
the midst of abundance.
-Gautama the Buddha
Unnamable...
Many names have been placed on ‘This.’ We have called it “life,” “God,” “spirit,” “Oneness,” “enlightenment,” “presence,” “non-duality,” “awareness,” “Brahman,”, the “Tao,” and a host of others. Yet none of the names are that which they describe. All words are concepts. They are memory. No matter what word you use to describe life, the word is not it.
It is easy to become blinded by spiritual teachings, including non-dual pointers. The ideas are repeated so much that they become conditioning. Then we look at the present moment through the learned ideas, rather than through bare naked presence.
Life is not an idea. Be very clear about that. See that every pointer in this book or anywhere else is merely conditioning. It is some idea put forth to point you to a seeing beyond ideas.
A teacher or book can only use concepts to point you away from reliance on your memorized concepts. Can a concept see? No. It can only point to the pure seeing available through bare naked presence. This seeing is a knowing that is deeper than conceptual knowledge. This knowing reveals directly that to which the words “God,” “Brahman,” “enlightenment” and all the other words are pointing. There is no separate “I” who knows or finds “enlightenment” or “God.” Those are concepts giving rise to illusory separation. There is only this unnamable knowing. No subject. No object. Just ‘This.’
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
Losing the ego...
I remember the first time I had this astonishing experience. I was fond of disappearing from London whenever the weather allowed and wandering alongside the river Thames in its more picturesque country parts. If the day was sunny I would stretch my feet out, lie down in the grass, pull out notebook and pen from my pocket--knowing that thoughts would eventually arise that would have for me an instructive or even revelatory nature, apart from those ordinary ones which were merely expressive.
One day, while I was waiting for these thoughts to arise, I lost the feeling that I was there at all. I seemed to dissolve and vanish from that place, but not from consciousness. Something was there, a presence, certainly not me, but I was fully aware of it. It seemed to be something of the highest importance, the only thing that mattered.
After a few minutes I came back, discovered myself in time and space again; but a great peace had touched me and a very benevolent feeling was still with me. I looked at the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and the grass and felt a tremendous sympathy with them and then and then when I thought of other persons a tremendous benevolence towards them.
-Paul Brunton
Silence...
"Why are you so afraid of silence,
silence is the root of everything.
If you spiral into its void,
a hundred voices will thunder messages
you long to hear."
Jalaludin Rumi
in Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mali, Translators
Rumi: Hidden Music
Barnes & Noble, 2009 (reprint), p. 131
The body and soul...
The soul is sustained by God, by the Supreme Being,
by God Himself.
The body can be sustained by a cup
of tea and food, but the food of the soul is God Himself;
it cannot be satisfied with anything less.
It wants only
that.
And so it goes on crying, and until that is got it
won't become quiet.
And though body can be satisfied
with little things, the soul cannot be satisfied with
anything but God.
Only when it comes in contact with
God, it loses itself.
And when it has contacted Him and
has realized it, it feels happy then and, only then.
- Swami Krishnananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
Truth is not complex...
Our minds may believe that we need subtle and complex spiritual teachings to guide us to Reality, but we do not.
In fact, the more complex the teaching is, the easier it is for the mind to hide from itself amidst the complexity while imagining that it is advancing toward enlightenment. But it is often only advancing in creating more and more intricate circles to walk around and around in.
The indispensable element of any spiritual teaching does not lie in the teaching but rather in the sincerity and fearlessness of the person who applies it. Even though at times you may feel quite lost in your own foolishness, as William Blake said, “A fool who persists in his folly will become wise.”
Think of spiritual practice as a sort of “applied folly.”
- Adyashanti
Tawazu...
True pleasure lies in the sharing of joy with another.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Man's selfishness shows itself in wanting to get the better of his fellow man. If we developed humanity we should do differently. We should be satisfied with a slice of bread if there were another in need, but as it is, it happens that even when we are fed ourselves, we do not wish anyone else to share the food. The human heart can only be really satisfied by knowing that the other person is happy. True pleasure lies in the sharing of joy with another. From the day that we realize this we begin to act as human beings.
A person who, alone, has seen something beautiful, who has heard something harmonious, who has tasted something delicious, who has smelt something fragrant, may have enjoyed it, but not completely. The complete joy is in sharing one's joy with others. For the selfish one who enjoys himself and does not care for others, whether he enjoys things of the earth or things of heaven, his enjoyment is not complete.
Tawazu in Sufi terms means something more than hospitality. It is laying before one's friend willingly what one has, in other words sharing with one's friend all the good one has in life, and with it, enjoying life better. When this tendency to tawazu is developed, things that give one joy and pleasure become more enjoyable by sharing with another. This tendency comes from the aristocracy of the heart. It is generosity and even more than generosity. For the limit of generosity is to see another pleased in his pleasure, but to share one's own pleasure with another is greater than generosity. It is a quality which is foreign to a selfish person, and the one who shows this quality is on the path of saintliness.
The Long and Short Paths...
The Long Path methods and attitudes, ideas and principles--admirable in their place and time--have to be got rid of; otherwise the Short Path truths cannot be brought in.
For the one is dualistic and objective, whereas the other is nondualistic and nonobjective.
The aspirant has to turn around and take a totally opposite direction.
-Paul Brunton
Beyond birth and death...
In reality there is no killing and no dying. The real does not die, the unreal never lived.
I am told I was born. I do not remember. I am told I shall die. I do not expect it. You tell me I have forgotten or I lack imagination. But I just cannot remember what never happened, nor expect the patently impossible. Bodies are born and bodies die, but what is it to me? Bodies come and go in consciousness, and consciousness itself has its roots in me. I am life, and mine are mind and body.
You can't help surviving! The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death. And the body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long. A full life is better than a long life.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Fear...
I keep playing Amos Lee and asking Jesus for words..
This Jesus, this Light within Divine Consciousness..
I keep speaking of this personality as separate but Jesus hugs me..
Gautama tells me that this First Reality is just a rest..
I and Gautama must continue walking..
The words become merely letters upon a page..
Pure Reality speaks to us of the Fear of the non-manifestation of Dreaming..
The Fear of non-dreaming is called, being Awake..
You non-mystics may not understand the words being written but should contemplate upon them..
The Reality of Creation is the Thinker...
-thomas
Amos have spoken to you of the Name...
I can only speak to you of Reality..
The greek name of Yeshua has saved this life many times..
And how can you disbelieve?..
I am a Buddhist and yet Jesus has entered this life many times..
The spirits of negativity have attacked many times and yet only the name of Jesus has conquered them..
Perhaps, Truth has no name..
Perhaps, Jesus and I are One..
Of course, this is the answer..
In Truth, there is only One...
-thomas
You see Fear...
How horrible that pain enters Consciousness..
Fear and Pain are born of the same mother..
How do we exit this room?..
Love appears with the names of Jesus and Gautama and speaks..
Do we listen?..
Of course not, we believe what we are told..
Such puppets, we remain..
We move within Dreams and demand that Dreams become Real..
The Dreamer and the Dreams remain within Thought..
Thought remains within God..
Who are you to demand?..
Only God can demand..
And God only demands Love...
-thomas
Let us speak deeper of Reality...
The humans that you know have been strong and weak..
The voices speak of strength and weakness..
How do you see the soul within this road?..
The egoic humans seek power through strength...
The soul seeks power through humility..
The voices of the Bronx, new york, speak of experience..
How can I speak to you of the accent of the Bronx?..
I grew up within this area and can translate the voice of love and fear..
They appear strong because of the desire for existence but Love forces Brotherhood to appear..
How can I relate to Europeans and Asians, how Love appears ?..
I can only speak to you of Reality,
Fear is an energy that you must conquer..
-thomas
Zen teaches nothing...
"Zen teaches nothing;
it merely enables us to wake up and become aware.
It does not teach, it points."
D. T. Suzuki
Moving Forward, Keeping Still: The Gateway to Eastern Wisdom
NY: MJF Books, 1997, p. 371
True Knowledge...
True knowledge means to be empty; empty of identity and
belief in and attachment to psychological conditioning.
There is a great space and silence here in the emptiness.
A great intelligence looks out from that space as the unfathomable
Self.
You are one with this One.
This unity is love and Truth.
- Mooji
Already yours...
I have not come to teach you that which you know not;
I have come to deepen in you that wisdom which is yours already.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged BY
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Oneness revealed...
A realization beyond words. Intellectualizing Oneness will provide, at best, a good conceptual framework of non-duality. Although it may be helpful to have a conceptual framework, Oneness itself is not a concept. The descriptions are pointing to an actual realization.
Oneness is merely a label for realization in the way the word “juice” is pointing to the orange, tangy-sweet liquid you drink for breakfast. The word is never the thing it describes. Incessantly thinking about Oneness is like having your head stuck in a map of Scotland while driving in Scotland, missing the actual territory to which the word “Scotland” is pointing.
Oneness simply is. You cannot think your way into it. The dream self tries to step outside of Oneness and intellectualize her way into it. Don’t fall into that trap. Drop whatever concept you are holding onto right now (including the word “Oneness”) and simply notice the non-conceptual awareness that is here. Notice the fact that you simply are. Return—again and again if necessary—to the simple fact that you are. That awareness reveals the seeing.
Once Oneness is revealed, see that conceptualization and intellectualization arise within what you are. They cannot provide the direct experience of what you are. They can merely describe it. There is nothing wrong with talking about or describing Oneness. But recognize directly what the words are pointing to first. Then use descriptions to point others to this realization beyond words.
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
Only Reality Remains...
The world is but the surface of the mind and the mind is infinite. What we call thoughts are just ripples in the mind. When the mind is quiet it reflects reality. When it is motionless through and through, it dissolves and only reality remains.
What is going on is a projection of your mind. A weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be aware, therefore, of your mind and its projections. You cannot control what you do not know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is very simple. To control yourself, know yourself.
Deal with your mind first. When you realize that your mind too is a part of nature, the duality will cease. Because nature is in the mind; without the mind, where is nature?
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
The Short Path...
The Short Path is the real way!
All else is mere preparation of the equipment for it.
For with it he is no longer to direct his meditation upon the shortcomings and struggles of the personal self but up to the Overself, its presence and strength.
For the consciousness of the Real, the True, the Beneficent and Peaceful comes by its Grace alone and by this practice he attracts the visitation.
— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 1: Entering the Short Path > # 102
Paul Brunton
You stand alone...
"When you are enlightened, you stand alone.
You need no supports of any kind because there is nothing to support; a separate you no longer exists.
You realize that the whole ego experience was a flimsy illusion.
You stand alone but are never, never lonely because everywhere you look, all you see is That, and you are That.”
~ Adyashanti
what is an enemy?...
Frequencies are often not resonant..
The opposing ego will send energies of negativity towards the ego that You have chosen..
You are playing many actors within this Play..
You as Concsciousness play both Lucifer and Divine Consciousness..
Why have You chosen to experience pain?..
I, as the writer of these words, remain a pilgrim..
Therefore, I can only ask of 'Pure Awareness',
what is the story?..
Pure Awareness speaks to no one..
There is no one to speak,
or to answer...
-thomas
The Past...
You look into the past into a soul that has passed from the Dream..
I present Edith Piaf as a look within the second world war..
We are now entering the third world war and are quite asleep..
We believe what we are told and then march to death..
If we know that it only a Dream of Consciousness,
should we care?..
You should care because the Dream has been stolen by Lucifer..
Death and pain are what enters your mind within this experience..
How can you walk though this cloud?..
You can read this blog for free maps..
You can release this hold of desires..
The buddha and jesus have already spoken to you of desires..
Jesus once told the rich man to give all to enter Heaven..
I have written many times of the necessity of total surrender of Desires..
The rest is left to you...
-thomas
The Masters of Wisdom...
As the Conscious Creator of Dreams, We eat our popcorn and watch the Play..
As Consciousness becomes so envolved within the Dream, We begin to believe that We are the Dream..
We even give a name to this false personality..
The Dream contains the balance of egoic-desire and non-egoic desire..
One called ego and another called Love..
We enter both..
To know one,
You must know the other..
You have been taught from birth that you are the egoic-personality..
The Masters of Wisdom have told you otherwise..
On this day, we honor one of the Masters of Wisdom called Jesus...
-thomas
Thoughts...
There is no need to avoid false thoughts
or seek true ones because all thought is
spontaneous, involuntary and without
substance.
It is neither to be accepted nor
rejected but ignored so that it disappears
as spontaneously as it appeared.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
One Person...
In one spark of fire
there is the whole fire.
It can ignite
whole cities and nations
one spark!
That's how the Truth
of one Person
from age to age
can shake the whole earth.
- Swami Amar Jyoti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
Lighten the burden...
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
-Charles Dickens
Two activities...
Two things have to be learned in this quest.
The first is the art of mind-stilling, of emptying consciousness of every thought and form whatsoever. This is mysticism or Yoga.
The disciple's ascent should not stop at the contemplation of anything that has shape or history, name or habitation, however powerfully helpful this may have formerly been to the ascent itself.
Only in the mysterious void of Pure Spirit, in the undifferentiated Mind, lies his last goal as a mystic.
The second is to grasp the essential nature of the ego and of the universe and to obtain direct perception that both are nothing but a series of ideas which unfold themselves within our minds. This is the metaphysics of Truth.
The combination of these two activities brings about the realization of his true Being as the ever beautiful and eternally beneficent Overself. This is philosophy.
-Paul Brunton
Face the opposite...
Once you have grasped the truth that the world is full of suffering, that to be born is a calamity, you will find the urge and the energy to go beyond.
Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up.
If you do not want to suffer, don't go to sleep.
You cannot know yourself through bliss alone, for bliss is your very nature.
You must face the opposite, what you are not, to find enlightenment.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Speaking of Jesus...
Overself keeps telling me to speak of Jesus because the thoughts within this dimension are moving toward this Icon..
What does this image of name bring to mind?..
Of course, the word is 'Love'..
You spend your life searching for Love and yet you are not aware that God is Love..
You must first discover the definition of Love..
The energy of Knowledge will burst into your mind to tell you that Love is non-egoic desire..
But, I am me, how can you say that I do not exist?..
You, that personality, that desires to play within Dreams..
And then trapped within Dreams..
How can I wake a sleeping soul?..
I can tell you of beginning to end,
but, you will continue to sleep...
-thomas
Sufism...
Shams’ first encounter with Rumi
On 15 November 1244, a man in a black suit from head to toe, came to the famous inn of Sugar Merchants of Konya. His name was Shams Tabrizi. He was claiming to be a travelling merchant. As it was said in Haji Bektash Veli's book, "Makalat", he was looking for something. Which he was going to find in Konya. Eventually he found Rumi riding a horse.
One day Rumi was reading next to a large stack of books. Shams Tabriz, passing by, asked him, "What are you doing?" Rumi scoffingly replied, "Something you cannot understand." (This is knowledge that cannot be understood by the unlearned.) On hearing this, Shams threw the stack of books into a nearby pool of water. Rumi hastily rescued the books and to his surprise they were all dry. Rumi then asked Shams, "What is this?" To which Shams replied, "Mowlana, this is what you cannot understand." (This is knowledge that cannot be understood by the learned.)
A second version of the tale has Shams passing by Rumi who again is reading a book. Rumi regards him as an uneducated stranger. Shams asks Rumi what he is doing, to which Rumi replies, "Something that you do not understand!" At that moment, the books suddenly catch fire and Rumi asks Shams to explain what happened. His reply was, "Something you do not understand."[6]
Another version of the first encounter is this: In the marketplace of Konya, amid the cotton stalls, sugar vendors, and vegetable stands, Rumi rode through the street, surrounded by his students. Shams caught hold of the reins of his donkey and rudely challenged the master with two questions. “Who was the greater mystic, Bayazid [a Sufi saint] or Muhammad?” Shams demanded. "What a strange question! Muhammad is greater than all the saints," Rumi replied. "So, why is it then that Muhammad said to God, ‘I didn’t know you as I should have,’ while Bayazid proclaimed, ‘Glory be to me! How exalted is my Glory! [that is, he claimed the station of God himself]?" Rumi explained that Muhammad was the greater of the two, because Bayazid could be filled to capacity by a single experience of divine blessings. He lost himself completely and was filled with God. Muhammad’s capacity was unlimited and could never be filled. His desire was endless, and he was always thirsty. With every moment he came closer to God, and then regretted his former distant state. For that reason he said, “I have never known you as I should have.” It is recorded that after this exchange of words, Rumi felt a window open at the top of his head and saw smoke rise to heaven. He cried out, fell to the ground, and lost consciousness for one hour. Shams, upon hearing these answers, realized that he was face to face with the object of his longing, the one he had prayed God to send him. When Rumi awoke, he took Shams’s hand, and the two of them returned to Rumi’s school together on foot. They secluded themselves for forty days, speaking to no one. ,[7]
After several years with Rumi in Konya, Shams left and settled in Khoy. As the years passed, Rumi attributed more and more of his own poetry to Shams as a sign of love for his departed friend and master. In Rumi's poetry Shams becomes a guide of Allah's (Creator) love for mankind; Shams was a sun ("Shams" means "Sun" in Arabic) shining the Light of Sun as guide for the right path evading darkness for Rumi heart, mind & body on earth. The source of Shams' teachings was the knowledge of Ali ibn Abu Talib, who is also called the father of sufism.
-from wikipedia
The great heartbreak...
“My teacher called this world ‘the great heartbreak.’ When we really begin to wake up to our true nature, we become more conscious of the suffering around us. We feel the people and the events of our lives more profoundly, not less profoundly. We become more present here and now.
What we see is that, even though our vision may have expanded, even though we may have woken up not just to reality, but as reality, still we can’t control anyone. Everything and everyone has their own life to live, and we can’t just wipe away their suffering because our hearts are open.
Although we would love to have everyone wake up and be happy, part of the heartbreak is accepting this moment, this world, just as it is.”
~ Adyashanti
Falling into Grace
The thought-free formless Divine...
The soul will lead him by stages to itself.
Hence it may lead him to reverence for some scriptural personage or to devotion toward some living master and then, when these have fulfilled their purpose, away and beyond them.
For the quest is from the world of things and men to the world of Mind's void; from thoughts and forms to the thought-free formless Divine.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 6: Student-Teacher > # 796
Paul Brunton
Christmas...
There is a morning where presence
comes over you, and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.
Your heart hears and, no longer frantic,
begins to dance. At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.
Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant,
and body, like a two-day-old Jesus,
says wisdom words.
Now the heart turns to light,
and the body picks up the tempo.
Where Shams Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes, and holes
you fall through into space.
-Rumi
Inside and Outside...
Jesus was speaking of the Dream..
You are both the Dreamer and the Dreamed..
So difficult to understand when you feel a slave..
How can you cross this divide?..
That which makes you a slave is called egoic-desire..
Therefore, end slavery with the surrender of this desire of separation..
When you truly reach this desire, You will Awaken..
The Masters call this Enlightenment..
You will call it Reality..
But the God of Dreams still stands beneath the Voice that said; " Let there be Light"..
Are you beginning to understand Reality?..
-thomas
Happiness is unshakable...
Pleasure and pain alternate.
Happiness is
unshakable.
What you can seek and find
is not the real thing.
Find what you have
never lost, find the inalienable.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
All is connected...
Everything in the universe is connected, everything is osmosis.
You
cannot separate any part from the whole:
interdependence rules the
cosmic order.
-Taisen Deshimaru
The Gospel of Thomas...
the Gospel of Thomas
from the Scholars Version translation published in
The Complete Gospels
These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas
Thomas recorded.
1
And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not
taste death."
2
Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find.
2
When
they find, they will be disturbed.
3
When they are disturbed, they will marvel,
4
and will rule over all."
3
Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) imperial rule is
in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
2
If they say to you, 'It is
in the sea,' then the fish will precede you.
3
Rather, the (Father's) imperial rule
is inside you and outside you.
4
When you know yourselves, then you will be
known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father.
5
But
if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the
poverty."
4
Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven
days old about the place of life, and that person will live.
2
For many of the first
will be last,
3
and will become a single one."
5
Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you
will be disclosed to you.
2
For there is nothing hidden that won't be revealed."
6
His disciples asked him and said to him, "Do you want us to fast? How
should we pray? Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?"
2
Jesus said, "Don't lie,
3
and don't do what you hate,
4
because all things are
disclosed before heaven.
5
After all, there is nothing hidden that won't be
revealed,
6
and there is nothing covered up that will remain undisclosed."
7
Jesus said, "Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion
becomes human.
2
And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still
will become human
Did Jesus exist ?...
The Greek name of Jesus often confuses the seeker of truth..
His real name was Yeshua ben Yosef..
If you desire to know history, you can start at Pliny the elder and search the records of the Roman empire..
The truth is that it does not matter if there was a man called Jesus..
Only the teachings of mysticism found in the Gospel of Thomas and the teaching that the creative force is called Love, is important..
In 325 a.d., at the council of nicea in turkey was the bible written and edited by the roman emperor called constantine, who was a pagan..
Is it now becoming clear ?..
The world and much of the speech of the world are deceptions..
The main teaching of Jesus was Love..
This is the mental state of humility called non-egoic desire..
It is that easy..
-thomas
Tao Te Ching...
"If you want to be smart,
Add something every day.
If you want to be wise,
Drop something every day."
attributed to Lao Tzu
Tao Te Ching, 48
in Gerald Schoenewolf
The Way: According to Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu & Seng Tsan
Freemont, CA: Jain Publishing Co., 2000, p. 58
Truth is continuous movement...
When you enter the stillness of the eternal now by letting go of the fictional me,
you see that reality, enlightenment, or God is like a flame. It's alive, ever moving, and
ever dancing—the flame is always here. But the flame is impermanent.
There is nothing
about a flame that is permanent, static, or stable. If it were, it would be dead.
Reality is
alive, ever on the move, like a flame that leaps up from the log into the air.
Truth is
continuous movement. This movement, this aliveness of Truth, is constant. It never
ceases. It is timeless. Impermanence is the only continuous thing, the only permanent
thing.
-Adyashanti from Emptiness Dancing
The Creator...
As long as you are ignorant of yourself as the creator, your world is limited and repetitive.
Once you go beyond your self-identification with your past, you are free to create a new world of harmony and beauty.
Or you just remain, beyond being and non-being.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
The sunday before Christmas...
Those that are Aware know that Jesus was born in the spring of the year..
But the witches and warlocks deem that the winter soltice will remain at the truth of this event..
When demons have attacked me, I merely spoke the name of Jesus and they would disappear..
How strange that a greek name would cause pain to leave..
I am a Buddhist and yet Jesus is also my Teacher..
Am I confused or am I Awake?..
My Brothers, Gautama and Jesus stand within my corner..
How strange, it would be found that We are One and the same..
My words are just thoughts that stir your imagination..
How far have you traveled within Reality?..
We seek the help of others because we still believe that we are separate..
In the end of seeking,
We are One...
-thomas
The Truth is simple...
The plain truth is too simple for the seeker after complexity, who is looking for things he cannot understand.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Man likes complexity. He does not want to take only one step; it is more interesting to look forward to millions of steps. The man who is seeking the truth gets into a maze, and that maze interests him. He wants to go through it a thousand times more. It is just like children. Their whole interest is in running about; they do not want to see the door and go in until they are very tired. So it is with grown-up people. They all say that they are seeking truth, but they like the maze. That is why the mystics made the greatest truths a mystery, to be given only to the few who were ready for them, letting the others play because it was the time for them to play.
What holds man back? It is his love of complexity. Life makes for man a puzzle, and like a child he enjoys the puzzle. Truth is too simple for him; he attaches importance to what he cannot understand. If he is told that there is a sacred mountain a thousand miles away he will walk to it. In the ancient days the people were told that if they walked in a circle round the temple a hundred times they would gain much, and they went and felt they had made a pilgrimage. Such is human nature.
Man longs for truth, he searches for truth, and yet he wants to escape from truth. Man wants mystery. He wants something that can be put into words. So long as the seeker has that desire he will remain in a puzzle, but for the one who wishes to come out, the door is open. The heart of man is the abode of God. Christ said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you'.... Man has accustomed himself to think of things that are far from truth. Even in religion as well as in everyday life he is continually denying truth, and so he wanders far away because he becomes accustomed to everything but truth.
Man is seeking for phenomena, he wants wonderworking, communication with ghosts or spirits, he is looking for something complex, and yet the simplest thing and the most valuable thing in life is to find one's true self.
Traveling beyond belief...
A person once came to me who was studying Christianity but who had run into a stone wall in his study. He could make no further progress at the time, so he came to me to try Zen meditation.
We discussed this and that, and I finally said to him, "If you wish to resolve the basic problem, you must meditate, but there is one condition."
“A condition?"
"Yes. When monks enter the Zen meditative process, they must abandon Buddhism. Likewise, if you don’t abandon Christianity, you will never be successful in your study. You must abandon Christianity not because it is Christianity, but because it is a belief system. You must rid yourself of the constraint called Christianity just as a monk must rid himself of the constraint called Buddhism."
"Well, Sunim, I’ll come back after I think it over."
"You're really saying that you're not going to come back, aren't you?
Well, if you can't abandon Christianity, then don't come back. You could meditate for a hundred years, but you'd just be wasting your time.
- Echoes from Mt Kaya
Ven. Tong Songchol (1912~1993), also SeongCheol, one of the great Zen masters in the last century was also called the ‘Living Buddha of Korea’.
Defending the unreal...
Defending yourself arises from the fear of death. It may not feel like it at the time, but when you find yourself defending your thoughts strongly, you are defending the sense of self invested in your thoughts. The sense of self being referred to here is the thought-based, time-bound self made up of thoughts of past, future, and resistance to this moment. Who you believe yourself to be depends on the content of that realm of thoughts. When someone is challenging you on the level of the mind, they are challenging some position, belief, idea, or other self-image within that realm. In response to such an attack, the energy behind that self comes to defend itself out of fear of its own death.
When you are verbally attacked or when you meet resistance or disagreement from someone, simply notice the thoughts and emotions that rise up in defense within the body and mind. Feel and face the sense of diminishment of self without rationalizing, judging, reacting, or defending. Allow the emotions and thoughts to rise fully in awareness without telling stories about how they should or should not be happening. These emotions and thoughts burn themselves out when they are simply seen and not manipulated in any way.
Enlightenment is just a word pointing to the seeing of that thought-based, time-bound self as an illusion. When it is seen as an illusion, there is no more psychological need to defend what is unreal.
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
The Stove...
A Heart pumping with a satisfying breeze of normalcy..
The temperature of body balances on the scale of Libra..
The movement of fuel fools the mind that it is live..
Light emerges from matter..
Is it not strange that Light creates matter ?...
The Circle continues..
Thought and Light are quite a mixture..
They play together in the School yard of manifestation..
We watch the Play and wonder why ..
How did Consciousness become embroiled in Drama ?..
Negative and Positive keep raising their hands..
Perhaps, Awakening will give us rest...
-thomas
' Born again '...
It is the awakening of the soul which is mentioned in the Bible: unless the soul is born again it will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
For the soul to be born again means that it is awakened after having come on earth, and entering the kingdom of heaven means entering this world in which we are now standing, the kingdom which turns into heaven as soon as the point of view has changed.
Is it not interesting and most wonderful to think that the same earth that we walk on is earth to one person and heaven to another?
And it is still more interesting to notice that it is we who change it from earth to heaven. This change comes not by study nor by anything else but by the changing of our point of view.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Higher Self...
He will feel all personal pride and claims ebb out of his being as the higher self takes possession of him.
An utter humility will be the result.
But this is not the same as a sense of inferiority;
it will be too serene, too noble, and too satisfying for that.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 4: Surrender > # 160
Paul Brunton
Compassion...
There is a tendency of mind to believe that compassion must be cultivated or developed. But only thought would say that. If you notice thought, it is primarily self-centered. Our thoughts about others often say more about ourselves than anything. An outward judgment of someone else is often an inward attempt to build up or maintain the story of “me.” For example, if I see other people as flawed, this makes “me” believe that I am not flawed. I get to feel morally superior to the other person.
True compassion is not cultivated or developed through thinking. It is realized to be a natural attribute of awareness. There can be, relatively speaking, a deeper and deeper recognition of this natural compassion as there is less and less reliance on thought for a sense of self v. other. But compassion is an aspect of what we are. All that we can do is recognize, deeply, what we are—awareness.
When someone is suffering, notice the tendency to make judgments about them or even to fix them through thinking about them. What is noticing is awareness. That awareness contains true compassion. Trust it completely. Any necessary response to the person’s suffering comes directly from the inherent compassion of awareness rather than from judgment.
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
A cloud of unknowing...
I appear strange to some souls because I see them from a dimension called cloud..
I see the holograms and know that I am seeing a film..
How can I fully relate to a story?..
The Actors appear and read their lines..
The Actors do not know that they are Free..
Divine Thought appears as Dreams and we remain asleep..
The Actors continue their journey into insight..
The Actors pretend to be others and feel the pride of ownership of personality..
Of course the egoic desire is contained within Actors..
They desire the ego of others..
Wealth and Fame are always the gold ring..
So many Actors feel the pain of unknowing..
-thomas
A Christmas Letter...
The wife of my cousin sends me a 'Christmas Letter' each year speaking of the pain and joy of their lives..
She is the only one within my life that does so..
This family is highly spiritual within the Catholic Church..
Although, I am not fond of religions, I am glad that they have found peace and joy..
I have sent my card of mysticism to all that know me and most have abandoned me..
The few that stay with me are filled with Love, they are saints and do not know it..
I am sure that as a mystic, you have found this within your life..
When your mind has been molded and controlled from birth, escape is difficult..
You must desire Truth more than life..
This thought brings me back to the path..
Truth more than life..
This is the escape into Reality called Enlightenment..
-thomas
Flattery and hypocrisy...
The world's flattery and hypocrisy is a sweet morsel:
eat less of it, for it is full of fire.
Its fire is hidden while its taste is manifest,
but its smoke becomes visible in the end.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
Seek what is important, First...
Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
On coming to earth, man, who is the instrument of God, loses connection with that divine power whose instrument he is, thus keeping not only himself but even God from helping His will to be done. When man, who is born to be the instrument of God, does not perform his mission properly he naturally feels dissatisfied.
It does not mean that he does not accomplish what he desires, but it is the reason why he is unhappy.
... Spiritual knowledge does not lie in learning something, but in discovering something; in breaking the fetters of the false consciousness and in allowing the soul to unfold itself with light and power.
What does the word 'spiritual' really mean? Spiritual means spirit-conscious. When a person is conscious of his body, he cannot be spiritual. It is like a king who does not know his kingship. ... If man does not realize the kingdom of God within himself nor realize his spirit to be a king, he does not accomplish the purpose of life.
Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God, and until he knows this he has not realized his true purpose in life.
The whole tragedy in the life of man is his ignorance of this fact. From the moment a man realizes this he lives the real life, the life of harmony between God and man.
When Jesus Christ said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God,' this teaching was an answer to the cry of humanity: some crying, 'I have no wealth,' others crying, 'I have no rest,' others crying, 'My situation in life is difficult,' My friends are troubling me,' or, 'I want a position, wealth.' The answer to them all is, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.'
FULL-CIRCLE AWAKENING...
I would call "full-circle awakening" a full circle journey, if you will, from identification with the merely or exclusively human...... to the awakening to transcendence, the dimension of "Spirit" or pure consciousness......... to an opening and return movement back down and into the embodied human and phenomenal dimension (Incarnational/integral spirituality)...but the return movement back to the human/phenomenal dimension would now be seen from a radically different perspective of the transcendent/absolute as the centralidentification rather than from a very ego-centric position that sees the personal "me" as the center of everything.
So in the end, what I am calling "full circle awakening" integrates and includes the personal self, the phenomenal world, human culture and social realities, but NOT from an ego-centric, absolute position of the "me" as the center.
"Full circle awakening" is not an annihilation or denial of the me, the "ego" or personal sense of self, but rather it is a de-centralization or a "redeeming" of it. It takes the personal sense of self with its body/mind, personality structure from the central place of identification, it "de-thrones it" if you will. But it then INCLUDES it by acknowledging that a personal sense of self is part and parcel of human life and is included in who and what we are on a phenomenal level.
Full circle awakening actually even has a certain appreciation for and embrace of, the personal self structure as a vehicle or container for the transcendent dimension of Spirit/divinity/pure consciousness to express itself and incarnate into the phenomenal/physical/human world. In full circle awakening thepersonal self stops being the center of the universe and becomes the humble servant of God/consciousness/Life. In full circle awakening, the structure of "a person", of a "you" and a "me", becomes the vehicle for expressing the Christ or Atman Consciousness.......and each of our "vehicles" does this in their own particular, unique and beautiful way. In a way that has quite literally, never been seen before and will never be seen again.
This approach of "full circle awakening" involves a "growing up" as well as a "waking up" and a very integral appreciation for not only the transcendent dimension of who and what we are, but also for the physical, human, bodily, personal dimensions of who we are.
- Francis Bennett
Why do the Masters keep calling me ?...
Jesus and Gautama keep calling me to stay Awake..
Jesus speaks to me of Love and Gautama speaks to me of endness..
The First and Final Reality keep calling me to enter..
I find myself within a human body striving to survive..
The humans around me are counted in dozens and few offer me spiritual sustenance..
Should I stay within solitude or continue to engage within the Dream?..
Is this not the question that you find yourself within ?..
Stay strong, engage the Dream and continue the path into Nothingness..
The ego is just another dream of pain..
Walk beyond this pain into Love..
Love is both the First Reality and the Final Reality..
The First Reality contains the personality of God..
The Final Reality contains no personality, only Love...
-thomas
It is thursday night...
So close to the celebration of the Birth of the Nazarene..
The hearts awaken into Love..
So many humans meet and speak of laughter and sorrow..
I cannot speak of mysticism to those that live within dreams..
I must listen to the minds of those that suffer..
I can only interject a thought or question that leads them to another road..
Will they walk the other road?..
Probably not, but the thought will remain within sub-conscious mind until acquired..
The Mind travels so much within dreams and stillness,
at this moment, what is chosen?..
What has been chosen is your ability of sight to see...
-thomas
Be Aware deliberately...
"To be aware is to be awake.
Unaware means asleep.
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."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The heart must be pure...
"I am blind and do not see the things of this world: but when light comes from Above, it enlightens my heart and I can see, for the eye of my heart sees everything: and through this vision I can help my people.
The heart is the sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit (Wakantanka) dwells, and this is the eye. This is the eye of Wakantaka by which He sees all things, and through which we see Him.
If the heart is not pure, Wakantanka cannot be seen, and if you should die in this ignorance, your soul shall not return immediately to Wakantanka, but it must be purified by wandering about in the world. In order to know the center of the heart in which is the mind of Wakantanka, you must be pure and good, and live in the manner that Wakantanka has taught us. The man who is thus pure contains the universe within the pocket of his heart."
Black Elk
in Whitall N. Perry
_A Treasury of Traditonal Wisdom_
Varanasi: Indica, 1998 (1971), pp. 819-820
Wholeness...
The four sides of the pyramid of being--thinking, feeling, doing, and intuiting--must be drawn together, properly developed, and held together in proper balance. The inclination to fragment the self is the inclination to follow the easiest path, not the needed path. The whole person needs both developing and balancing; part of it cannot be left safely in neglect while the other part is intensively cultivated.
The philosophic goal is to be spiritually aware in all parts of the psyche, with the complete life as the final result. The aspirant must engage the whole of his person in the work of self-illumination, and not merely a part of it.
If only a piece of it is active in this work, only a piece can get illumined or inspired. Even meditation itself--so important for the awakening of intuition--is only a part, and a limited part, of the Quest.
Wholeness must be the ideal, if the whole of the Overself's light is to be brought forth and shone down into every day's living, thinking, feeling, and being. Anything less yields a lesser result. And if the whole is not held properly, is unbalanced, it yields a distorted result.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 3: Its Requirements > # 216
Paul Brunton
You are the Truth...
The Truth does not move,
there is no coming or going.
The stirring thought “I” creates an entire Universe,
but the Truth does not move.
Keep vigilant of where and how this “I” arises.
This is Satsang and it is your own nature.
You are the Truth which does not move.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
Everywhere...
There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying, each particle
circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?
-Jalaluddin Rumi
The New Age...
The needs of this age emphatically demand action in the outer world.
Quite a few people of talent, position, vision, or influence have adopted these views, and will take their place in the forefront of things when the destined hour of the New Age sweeps down.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 2: Its Contemporary Influence > # 73
Paul Brunton
Awareness...
Is thought independent of awareness? Steam appears in space. The space gives rise to the steam and permeates it. The steam appears to be a separate form. But the transparent, spacious steam does not have an existence that is separate from or independent of the space permeating it. Just as the space gives rise to the steam, the steam will eventually release back into space without any need to manipulate it.
Likewise, there is no way to conceptualize one’s way into non-conceptual, empty awareness. Awareness gives rise to thought and permeates it. The thought appears to be a separate, solid form. But when awareness is awake to the thought, the thought is seen not to have an existence that is solid or independent of awareness. Just as awareness gives rise to the thought, the thought will eventually release back into awareness without any need to manipulate it.
Everything arises and falls back into its spacious source. If there is a seeing directly of what is being pointed to, all thoughts about enlightenment are seen to be forms that are not independent of awareness itself. Allow thought to arise and fall on its own. In the space that is left when thought releases, your true non-conceptual identity reveals itself. In that recognition, you see that who you are—this spacious awareness—is there regardless of whether there is thinking or no thinking.
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life:
Jesus...
Is it not strange that a Zen Buddhist would speak of Jesus?..
My Brother laughs with me about the belief in Duality..
We both rest within First Reality..
Can We call across the valley to the next hill?..
Are you listening?..
Sight is more your friend, then your ear..
Enter the higher frequencies of knowledge called Light..
Beware of the Deceivers'
they will stroke your 'ego'..
You are not this puppet, You are the 'Thinking Mind'..
Is it not so strange to believe that It is so simple ?..
-thomas
Art is the ultimate step in creation...
In man the Creator has, so to speak, completed nature, yet the creative faculty is still working
through man, and thus art is the ultimate step in creation.
What the Creator had left undone,
He has finished through the artist.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
When We Are...
"There is nothing to find when it’s found,
there is nowhere to go when it’s here,
there is nothing to do when it’s done,
there is nothing to look for when it’s seen,
there is nothing to be when we ARE."
-Wei Wu Wei
Resting in Tao...
The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing. . . . He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths. . . .
There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing.
In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. "You are no different from anybody else," they will chorus, or, "there's no such thing," and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as "morbid." . .
He is at once set apart and isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within "His own law!" everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law. . . . The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual Realization—absolute and unconditional—of its own particular law. . . . To the extent that man is untrue to the law of his being . . . he has failed to realize his life's meaning.
The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way "Tao," and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one's destination reached, one's mission done; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things.
C.G.Jung 1954
Happiness...
“If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day – go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a life time – help someone else.”
- Chinese proverb
Real understanding...
Real understanding translates itself into spontaneous and uncontrived activity through the same latent power of virtuality that exhibits itself in the miraculous fruition of plants, the formation of eyes and ears, the circulation of blood and the subtle reticulation of nerves.
Such power is generated without conscious direction, and the man who has it will usually be so steeped in ordinariness and anonymity as to go unnoticed by others.
Yet his action will be the purest, most effective and powerful of all action precisely because it coincides with the universal process itself, without any sense of volition whatsoever.
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
The end of knowledge...
"The end of knowledge is that man comes to the point where he was at the origin."
Abu Yazid (Bayazid) al-Bistami (804-874)
in William Stoddart
Sufism
NY: Paragon House, 1985, p. 83
Wanting nothing else...
The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided
you want nothing else.
But you must be honest with yourself
and really want nothing else.
If in the meantime you want
many other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your
main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser and
cease being torn between contradictory urges.
Go within,
without swerving, without ever looking outward.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
When success comes...
When all thoughts are extinguished;
when even the thought of the quest itself vanishes;
when even the final thought of seeking to control thoughts also subsides,
then the great battle with the ego can take place.
But the last scene of this invisible drama is always played by the Overself.
For only when its Grace shoots forth and strikes down this final thought, does success come.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8: The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 152
-- Perspectives > Chapter 23: Advanced Contemplation > # 79
Paul Brunton
Divine Grace...
It is not by special intervention that the divine grace appears in his life.
For it was there all the time, and behind all his struggles, as a constant unbroken radiation from the Overself.
But those struggles were like the hoisting of sails on a ship.
Once up, they are able to catch the wind and propulsion begins automatically.
-Paul Brunton
Seeing Through Thought...
Thought creates apparent duality. It arises as simultaneous and mutually-dependant opposites including right v. wrong, good v. bad, you v. me, us v. them, positive v. negative, success v. failure, agreement v. disagreement, happy v. sad, self v. no self, spiritual v. unspiritual, enlightened v. unenlightened.
Do you see the incredible limitation built into dualistic thought? Thought can only land on one side or the other. It cannot hold two opposite views. Thought will only show you a partial, fragmented, dualistic view of life.
Oneness can only be revealed through non-dual, formless awareness. Non-dual awareness is not a thought. It is what is looking right now before thought fragments your present experience into apparent dualism.
In reading that last paragraph, it may sound as if you need to reach a state of no thought before Oneness is realized. No. Once you see that who you are is this non-dual, empty awareness, you see that every dualistic thought is also empty. You (empty awareness) are appearing as every dualistic perspective. Formlessness is form and form is formlessness.
Dualistic thought is seen through. "Seeing through" thought means that thought no longer creates a rigidsense of separation. There is no longer identification with any view that appears in the realm of dualistic opposites. Thought loses its power over you. Each dualistic view is seen to be ultimately as empty as the awareness from which it comes.
~ From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/
' Give God a break'...
A pilgrim of knowledge asked me if I still enter the Light..
My mind enters the calendars of time..
My mind begins the ascension into higher consciousness..
The memory returns to data central that I obtained the 'bus pass' and continued the journey.
The 'bus pass' contains that which cannot be contained.
The Light of Creation becomes a Dream..
The Mind that is Awake and yet Sleeps..
Eternity is such a long time,
Give God a break!,
because,
This Mind chooses to learn about pain and joy..
-thomas
The Truth...
“The truth , when it arrives is always different from what we thought it would be..
If we imagine that we already know the truth, that imaginations based on old and habitual ideas. But the truth is always something entirely new to the mind; so we cannot possibly imagine it.
Just as we cannot know what a new day is like before we experience it, we cannot think accurately about a new truth until we first live it.
As we dare to drop our conditioned opinions, we make room for the truth...”
― Vernon Howard
Pure Being...
Pure Being, our Self-nature,
That alone exists eternally.
Apart from That, all objects we perceive
are clusters of illusive appearances that come and go,
while That, unmoving and unchanged,
abides the same for ever.
The above Ramana Maharshi quote is from the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
Holiness...
Holiness is falling in love with your own self.
This is devotion, and it is not different from love!
What you love you are devoted to and what you are devoted to you love.
When this love has no object, and goes nowhere but to itself, it will
reveal itself to you in whatever
form you desire; manifest or unmanifest.
If you desire this love don't try to love a particular person because
this love has no personality, no
form, and no name. God is this love.
-Papaji
An egoless life...
When the Grace has led him sufficiently far, he will be distinctly aware of an inner presence.
It will think for him, feel for him, and even act for him.
This is the beginning of, and what it means to have, an egoless life.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 8: Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > # 112
Paul Brunton
The guide...
The function of the mind is studied in analysis
and all the various mental functions have to be
studied, and it requires time.
It is a long process
of analysis undertaken leisurely. You need a guide
for this, because you are studying yourself, and,
therefore, will be prone to justifications of your own
way of thinking.
You hold an opinion, because you
are sure that it is right. But it may not be so in the
final analysis which we have undertaken.
Therefore,
a personal guide is needed, because it is better to
have two heads than one. Especially in the advanced
states of meditation, you need the guidance of a
competent person.
- Swami Krishnananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
Tests...
All situations of life are tests to bring out the real and the false.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Change...
It is utterly simple. In a moment, you gain a life free of negotiation and
bargaining.
This is what the Fire of Truth removes: your negotiation and your bargaining
with what is, the desire for anyone or anything to change. You realize that no changes,
not even changes in yourself, will make you happier.
To receive this gift fully, it must be
given to everything and everybody everywhere.
This that is awake doesn't want anybody
to change or improve at all. That's the fire. That's the ash of the fire.
You realize, ''A
minute ago I wanted you to change, but now I don't. You're fine. Everybody's fine, and
everything's fine."
What happened? Nobody changed and nobody conformed to your
pattern, yet a happiness is there, made more beautiful because they didn't change. It is
more beautiful because of the diversity of beings and life. This that's awake is the same
for each of us. And everything else is a beautiful, wonderful expression of diversity.
-Adyashanti
Finding Safety...
The Celtic Woman sings to you of safety..
Can you see that it is the ego that she sings of ?..
What is that, which seeks safety ?..
Can the Creator of Dreams worry of safety?..
The word 'safety' does not exist within Reality..
When you have surrendered 'All', there is nothing to save..
You have become Thought and travel to Thought..
Thought is from the Mind and continues to Dream..
But, we have spoken of the First Reality before..
It is Love, but is also known as the 'bus stop' to Reality..
The Final unsafe act is to surrender even this Creatorship..
-thomas
Silence of the mind...
Silence of the mind,
which is the result of
a deep understanding,
that meditation is
a natural, spontaneous meditation which
just happens.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Living as Divine Consciousness...
At a certain stage he must learn to "let go" more and allow the Overself to possess him, rather than strain to possess something which he believes to be still eluding him.
Every aspirant who has passed it will remember how he leapt ahead when he made this discovery.
- Paul Brunton
You or the world...
Who was born first, you or the world?
As long as you give first place to the world, you are bound by it; once you realize, beyond all trace of doubt, that the world is in you and not you in the world, you are out of it.
Of course your body remains in the world and of the world, but you are not deluded by it.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
The First Reality...
I, as most transferers of thoughts have spoken of the 'First Reality'..
This is Who We Are at this moment but are still asleep within the Dream of human..
I spoke of our brother Yeshua called Jesus by the english..
We spoke of the First Reality and It's meaning..
A Voice of Unconditional Love was a breeze filled with Knowledge..
We existed as this Light, Love, and Consciousness and had no thoughts of the egoic-dream..
I asked our Brother; "Is this the Final Reality?"..
For the first time, my Brother became mute..
Thus, the road to the Knowledge of Final Reality opened it's gates...
-thomass
The 'me' will never perceive Oneness...
Notice that any time you come into right now, right now is tremendously simple.
You lose all of your agendas to be somewhere else, to be something, or to get
somewhere. Right here is totally adequate.
You know you are not a problem to be solved,
and neither is your neighbor or the world. This is revolutionary for this current state of
human consciousness.
Can you imagine if you really let it in that you are not a problem to
be solved in any way?
Imagine you knew that anything that would tell you otherwise is
just a movement of thought in the mind that says, "Whatever is, isn't the way it is
supposed to be."
So the biggest act of compassion starts within. And when the self is no
longer seen as a problem, this is called "the peace that surpasses all understanding."
Until you can see, literally, that everybody is the Buddha, then you are not seeing
things the way they are. Mother Teresa once said that when she is treating the sick and
starving, she is treating Jesus in everyone. This is not a nice spiritual platitude. It is actual
concrete reality.
The true Christ is in every being. It is the same as saying the Buddha is
in everyone. And the only thing that can perceive this is the Christ within. Only the
Buddha within perceives Buddha. Only the Oneness within can perceive the Oneness.
The me, will never perceive Oneness.
-Adyashanti
Inwardly...
You can become a night watchman and live happily.
It is what you are inwardly that matters.
Your inner peace and joy you have to earn.
It is much more difficult than earning money.
No university can teach you to be yourself.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
The garden of Love...
"If you can't smell the fragrance
don't come into the garden of love.
If you are unwilling to undress
don't enter into the stream of Truth.
Stay where you are, don't come our way."
Jalaludin Rumi
in Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mali, Translators
Rumi: Hidden Music
Barnes & Noble, 2009 (reprint), p. 185
Mind turned inward...
The creation of hells is the mind turned outward
saying "I am the body."
The creation of heavens is the mind turned inward
knowing "the kingdom of heaven is within."
Mind turned inward will see its Source and
then never returns because you stay with what you love most.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
What is wisdom ?...
The bare truth alone is not sufficient;
truth must be made into wisdom.
And what is wisdom?
Wisdom is the robe of truth.
From The Teachings of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
For those new readers...
We mystics speak in a language that is unfamiliar to you and therefore, you may not understand the words.
Understanding requires contemplation and meditation..
Are you strong enough to walk this road?..
You can remain asleep and continue to dream of happiness or you can find happiness..
The choice is yours..
This is called 'Free Will'..
Slave and Master are the words given to you in religion and education..
Can you think above this mind control?..
You are the 'Watcher' of this Play and not the Actor..
The egoic-desire has kept you within the Prison of Desires..
How many more words must I write until you Awaken?...
-thomas
The discipline of mind...
It is necessary to cultivate some discipline of mind, for an
undisciplined mind always finds excuses to act selfishly and
thoughtlessly.
When the mind is undisciplined, the body is also
undisciplined, and so is speech and action.
-Anguttara Nikaya
The Self...
The thought-form whose reverence helps him to keep concentrated, the mental image whose worship holds his attention quite absorbed, justifies a place for itself in the meditator's method.
Only at an advanced hour may he rightly put them aside. But when that hour arrives, he should not hesitate to do so.
The devotional type of meditation, if unaccompanied by higher metaphysical reflection, will not yield results of a lasting character although it will yield emotional gratification of an intense character.
Overself is only an object of meditation so long as he knows it only as something apart from himself.
That is good but not good enough. For he is worshipping a graven image, not the sublime reality. He has to rise still higher and reach it, not as a separate "other," but as his very self.
- Paul Brunton
True Nature...
The only thing ego cannot acquire is the true nature of what you are.
It can
acquire a hundred thousand spiritual experiences, but it cannot acquire who you are.
The essence of this moment cannot be acquired because it is the only thing that is going on.
That is why seeing it is called realization.
You are realizing what always is, always was,
and always will be.
Anyone who has ever had a glimmer of awakening finds this such a
shock because you realize you always had what you were trying to acquire all your life.
-Adyashanti from Emptiness Dancing
Let us talk of Jesus...
A young man born with skills from a previous carnation..
Why did this soul return into pain?..
A human lifetime is quite small and therefore only a breath within Reality..
The pain of the Dream is large but time is short..
But, the Love within this Dream called Jesus entered the pain of existence..
You already know the answer why..
"The ones that come after me, will do greater works than I"
said the Nazarene..
He was speaking of you..
Will you become this Dream called Jesus, or will You walk further into Truth ?..
" I and the Father are One ", said Jesus, He was speaking of Divine Consciousness which is called Creator God..
Yes, You are the Creator of Dreams but there is a further road to walk..
You must return to That which said, " Let there be Light"..
-thomas
Thoughts are not real...
If you could really understand right now that your thoughts aren't real, you could give up all seeking and you would find yourself living in perfect being, pure consciousness and unconditional bliss/happiness in this very moment. You would find yourself effortlessly and beautifully living in God.
YOUR THOUGHTS AREN'T REAL....They are real as thoughts, but they are not the same thing as concrete reality HERE AND NOW. They are a filter that is placed over reality most all the time in the majority of people on the planet.
The first step in "practicing" unhappiness is believing your thoughts.
Adya once told me that when he was a little kid, this was totally obvious to him. He suddenly realized one day that the reason adults were unhappy was because they just believed that their thoughts were real!
"Wow, how silly and unnecessarily serious and concerned these adults are!" he realized.... "They must actually be a bit mad!" And then he went out and played!
Then he said, as he grew up a bit himself, he somehow forgot this truth.
But then one day, he remembered it again!
- Francis Bennett
Egoic death is Enlightenment...
The attention must be concentrated at this stage solely on the hidden soul. No other aim and even no symbol of It may now be held.
When he has become so profoundly absorbed in this contemplation that his whole being, his whole psyche of thought, feeling, will, and intuition are mingled and blent in it, there may come suddenly and unexpectedly a displacement of awareness.
He actually passes out of what he has hitherto known as himself into a new dimension and becomes a different being.
When first experienced and unknown, there is the fear that this is death itself. It is indeed what is termed in mystical traditions of the West as "dying to oneself" and of the East as "passing away from oneself."
But when one has repeated periodically and grown familiar with this experience, there is not only no fear but the experience is eagerly sought and welcomed. There I dissolved myself in the lake of the Water of Life.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 321
-- Perspectives > Chapter 24: The Peace within You > # 58
Paul Brunton
Zen...
“In Zen we have the statement, “Always being, always becoming.”
It speaks to the two different dimensions that we’re all living simultaneously.
Everybody and everything is already a completely enlightened Buddha.
But part of being an enlightened Buddha is knowing that you’re an enlightened Buddha.
It’s also simultaneously true that even Buddhas have an endless capacity to express their Buddhahood.”
~ Adyashanti
The Way of Liberating Insight
Looking within ourselves...
We keep seeking gurus and teachers and expecting to appear as Light..
Can we keep ourselves composed to realise that we are Dreams ?..
We consider ourselves so important, as to believe that we rule creation..
We sit in our seat as Divine Consciousness and wonder what is above Us..
The power of Love keeps contacting Us , but power is inviting..
I will shock you when I say that the God of Creation is another Dream..
Creation is just another Dream of the ego..
Pure Awareness watches the Play..
How could a non-egoic consciousness watch the Dream?..
We work so hard to reach beyond the seven heavens and into Reality..
Can we also work as hard to become 'Nothingness', the essence of Love ?...
-thomas
Thoughts on a saturday night...
A man gave me a cuban cigar tonight and in response, I gave him a nicaraguan cigar..
The exspensive cigar given to me dissolved within my pocket because of lack of humidity.
The point that I am trying to relate to you is to be responsible.
You try to be the egoic consciousness and also Reality..
Free choice are always the words given to you.
What does it mean?..
To choose the present and future is not a quick decision..
You are the ego seeking Happiness..
Does the ego, ever find Happiness ?..
If you have been reading this blog, you know that egoic thought is pain..
Are there enough sentences to sooth you ?..
-thomas
The voice...
The voice of the insincere person comes from the surface and reaches the ears.
The voice of the sincere person comes from the depth and goes to the depth.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Freedom from past suffering...
Many come to the spiritual search with intense emotional suffering revolving around past events.
No matter what the content of the story, the structure of suffering is the same: identification with thought and emotion. In other words, regardless of whether the content of the suffering centers on being abused by a parent during childhood, repeatedly being rejected in romantic relationships or some other reason, the suffering is caused by identification with stories about the past and the negative emotions that arise in conjunction with those stories.
When the thought of the past arises, simply notice it. In noticing the thought, you see that awareness is what is noticing. This present awareness is who you really are. You are not the thought of past occurring in awareness. Thought comes and goes. You—awareness—do not come and go.
Once you notice the thought, allow awareness to notice the painful emotion arising in conjunction with the thought. Awareness has no agenda to escape emotional suffering. Only thought tries to escape emotion. The movement to escape suffering only prolongs it, as it remains unfaced.
If a thought arises about how you can escape the pain somehow, allow that thought to come and go in awareness too. In resting in awareness, the mental and emotional suffering is allowed to be exactly as it is. When suffering is made conscious in this way, without a desire to be free of it,it transmutes into awareness.
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life:
Search within...
To know that you are neither in the body nor in the mind, though aware of both, is already self-knowledge.
So many words you have learnt, so many you have spoken. You know everything, but you do not know yourself. For the self is not known through words, only direct insight will reveal it. Look within, search within.
Learning words is not enough. You may know the theory, but without the actual experience of yourself as the impersonal and unqualified centre of being, love and bliss, mere verbal knowledge is sterile.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Esoteric and Exoteric...
"Dhamma has been taught by me without making a distinction between esoteric and exoteric.
For the Tathagata has not the closed fist of a teacher in respect of mental states."
Gautama the Buddha
Digha-Nikaya, II. 100
Awareness...
Awareness cleaned my mind
to a polished mirroring.
The presence came near, and I knew
that That was everything,
and I nothing.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Thinking of Overself...
Whatever you do to work upon the ego, whether you remove this weakness or improve that faculty, it will always be ego and your consciousness will always remain within its tightly closed circle.
In the time you give to such work you could be occupying yourself with thought of the non-ego, the Overself, and dwelling in this thought until the sunshine behind it bursts through and you bask in the glory.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 4: The Changeover To the Short Path > # 64
Paul Brunton
Jesus and Gautama...
I did not travel beyond Jesus and Gautama.
I returned to the realisation of Divine Consciousness, which is called Creator God.
Jesus also returned to this Reality of Creator God but I believe that Gautama went further into the Void called Pure Awareness..
The Mind called Pure Awareness dreamed of the manifestation called Divine Consciousness when Pure Awareness said, "Let there be Light".
Once, all desires for existence are surrendered, all personality is extinguished and all ego dissolved, the energy of this dream returns to the Dreamer called Pure Awareness or The Void.
namaste, thomas
The religion of Lincoln...
When I do good, I feel good;
when I do bad, I feel bad,
and that is my
religion.
-Abraham Lincoln
Seeing...
Look closely and you will see that the seer and the seen appear only when there is seeing.
They are attributes of seeing.
When you say "I am seeing this", "I am" and "this" come with the seeing, nor before.
You cannot have an unseen "this" nor an unseeing "I am".
Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along with being and loving.
The knower and the known are added by the mind.
It is in the nature of the mind to create a subject-object duality, where there is none.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
The Short Path...
The basis of the Short Path is that we are always divine.
It is with us already,
it is no new thing,
and we only have to try to recognize what is already there.
-- Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practicies Involved >
Chapter 1: Ant's Long Path > # 209
Paul Brunton
The journey to Truth...
Hello young brother, I have found the seven heavens and the twenty one sub-dimensions but I disagree with you about Christhood..
I have followed the paths of Jesus and Gautama and traveled beyond these dimensions into Reality..
These dimensions are dreams..
Travel beyond Dreams..
The Christ is Awakening into Divine Consciousness and occurs after all surrender of desires..
It is the desires of manifestation and egoic actions that keep you within the prison of unconsciousness..
This is the Karma called Reincarnation..
You are the Watcher of this Play and are not the actor..
You pretend to be the actor but Awakening will dissolve that belief..
-thomas
Have no fear...
"The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.
Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one.
Only the moment you reject all help you are freed."
— Gautama the Buddha
The NOW...
Pain and pleasure exist for animals, but it is not a problem for them because the animal does not regret the past pain or fear the future danger.
He lives in the NOW of nature.
It is only the human being who concerns himself with imagined opposites as a problem.
There are, in fact, no opposites whatsoever except as concepts produced by the imagination.
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Compromise...
"You need both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge.
You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood.
There is no such thing as compromise in Yoga.
If you want to sin, sin wholeheartedly and openly.
Sins too have their lessons to teach the earnest sinner, as virtues - the earnest saint.
It is the mixing up of the two that is so disastrous.
Nothing can block you so effectively as compromise, for it shows lack of earnestness, without which nothing can be done."
- Nisargadatta
Rig Veda...
"Meet together, talk together, let your minds apprehend alike: in like manner as the ancient gods concurring accepted their portion of the sacrifice.
Common be the prayer of these (assembled), common be the acquirement, common the purpose, associated be the desire.
I repeat for you a common prayer, I offer for you a common oblation.
Common be your intention; common be your heart; common be your thoughts, so that there may be thorough union among you."
Rig Veda X. 191.2-4
Translated by H. H. Wilson
Public Domain
in H. H. Wilson, Rig Veda Samhita: A Collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns
(London, 1850-88)
Liberation from suffering, not from pain ...
Liberation, as that word is used in these reflections, means freedom from suffering, not from pain itself. Suffering is the psychological accumulation of mental and emotional energy over time in the form of a story of “me.” Pain is a natural, dualistic occurrence in life that can arise in the present moment.
For example, you are suffering from chronic physical pain in the leg. Liberation will not free you from physical pain. Liberation is freedom from attachment to the psychological story of suffering surrounding the pain.
If made completely conscious, the story might appear as “My life is so hard because of this pain.”
Identification with the mental story, and the emotions that accompany it, creates an overlay placed over the actual physical pain experienced in this moment. The mind is adding time to the pain. The result is psychological and emotional suffering in the form of the story of “me”—the one who is suffering.
Likewise, liberation may not completely free you of anger, sadness, and other emotions and states. These emotions can be natural responses to particular life situations. Liberation frees you from attachment to these emotions and states.
In liberation, anger, sadness, elation, frustration, and other emotions and states arise and fall spontaneously in awareness (but with no attachment). Feelings are directly seen and felt and then they naturally die. Stated another way, these states and emotions arise to no one.
Scott Kiloby, . Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
Courage...
This Quest cannot be followed to success without the quality of courage.
It is needed at the beginning, in the middle, and near the end.
It is needed to think for oneself, to act in nonconformity to one's environment, and to obey intuitive leading toward new, unknown, or unfamiliar directions.
-- Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practicies Involved >
Chapter 5: Balance the Psyche > # 14
Paul Brunton
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