' The Dream '...
I keep writing of the Dream that we exist within..
What am I really speaking of ?..
Upon the complete surrender of all desires for existence and personality called ego,
Reality becomes Light..
You find personality of Divine Light and Consciousness..
You barely remember the experiences of Dream and concentrate upon the flow of Thought called Wisdom..
These thoughts of Wisdom are better than any book or film that you have experienced..
It is having an 'Aha' moment every moment..
And yet, within this 'Play' of Love, You seek more..
Why within Love, would I seek more ?..
Perhaps, it is not I that is seeking,
but, merely Consciousness looking into a mirror..
The rest of this 'Thought-road' is left to you...
-thomas
The deep Self...
One who handles a sword well
gets power.
Someone generous
and disciplined wins what
the public religions offer.
But, knowledge of the deep self comes
only from a teacher who is That.
Everything we do mixes
in the ground of the self.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Humility...
We can never sufficiently humble our limited self before limitless perfection.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
I have seen with my own eyes souls who have attained saintliness and who have reached to great perfection; and yet such a soul will stand before an idol of stone with another, with a fellow man, and worship, not letting him know that he is in any way more advanced than other men, keeping himself in a humble guise, not making any pretense that he has gone further in his spiritual evolution. The further such souls go, the more humble they become; the greater the mystery they have realized, the less they speak about it.
The first aspect of prayer is giving thanks to God for all the numberless blessings that are bestowed upon us at every moment of the day and night, and of which we are mostly unconscious. The second aspect of prayer is laying our shortcomings before the unlimited perfection of the divine Being, and asking His forgiveness. This makes man conscious of his smallness, of his limitation, and therefore makes him humble before his God. And, by humbling himself before God man does not lose any virtue. God alone has the right to demand complete humility.
There is a beautiful story told of the King Akbar that when he was grieving with an almost ungovernable grief over the death of his mother, his ministers and friends tried to comfort him by influence and power. Akbar replied, "Yes, that is true, and that only makes my grief greater; for while I have everyone to bow before me, to give way to me, to salute me and obey me, my mother was the one person before whom I could humble myself; and I cannot tell you how great a joy that was to me."
Think, then, of the far greater joy of humbling one's self before the Father-Mother God on Whose Love one can always depend. A spark only of love expresses itself in the human father and mother; the Whole of Love in God. In whatever manner a man humbles himself it can never be enough to express the humility of the limited self before Limitless Perfection.
' Questions'...
Questions arise on the spiritual search. The most an answer can do is point you to presence. Presence is non-conceptual. It isn’t an idea. It isn’t a conceptual answer. It is the very presence that is alive right now, the presence in which questions and answers arise and fall.
The spiritual search is just mind movement. One question after another arises in this search. If there is an underlying belief that there is some conceptual answer out there that needs to be found in order for Oneness or enlightenment to be revealed, that belief creates the problem. It is fuel for more questions. Conceptual answers do not reveal presence. They appear and disappear in presence. Answers beget more questions. Such is the cycle of seeking.
Allow the questions to arise. Instead of looking for an answer, let the concepts point you to what is non-conceptual—presence. The direct realization of presence reveals that enlightenment is not about getting your questions answered. It is about seeing that they don’t matter anymore.
In recognizing that you are presence, it is seen that only the false self is invested in the game of seeking conceptual answers. The false self needs questions so that it can continue its search into future. As the false self is seen through, the game is over. In that seeing, there is a deep non-conceptual knowing that presence is your true identity. Presence has no questions. It simply is.
-Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment (
' Thoughts'...
We have to let our thoughts lose themselves for a while in the source whence they arose and not let them actively follow each other from the first moment of our awakening till the first moment of our return to sleep.
-Paul Brunton
" Why, that's me ! "...
Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention
to this and that, there is another self more really us
than I.
And the more you become aware of the unknown
self -- if you become aware of it -- the more you realize
that it is inseparably connected with everything else that
is.
You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the
Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies.
You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great
telescopes.
You look and look, and one day you are going
to wake up and say, "Why, that's me!" And in knowing that,
you know that you never die.
You are the eternal thing that
comes and goes, that appears -- now as John Jones, now
as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown -- and so it goes,
forever and ever and ever.
- Alan Watts
Thought-constructions...
Whatever the universe be in human experience, it is, in important ways, like a dream.
That is, we must grant existence to a dream world as an indubitable fact because it is a perceived and experienced world; but at the same time we must refuse its form ultimate existence, and hence enduring reality, because it is neither perceived nor experienced after we awake from sleep.
This twofold character of the dream world also belongs to the familiar and so-called real universe. It is plain, yet paradoxical at the same time.
For this reason, ancient Tibetan philosophers declared the world to be both existent and non-existent.
To the unenquiring mind it vividly is what it seems to be, but to the awakened insight of the sage its form presents itself like a more enduring version of the transient form of a dream world.
Both forms are thought-constructions. Both have Mind as their underlying "substance." Therefore Mind is their reality. Apart from Mind the world could not even exist, just as apart from the dreamer his dream could not exist.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 1: The Cosmos of Change > # 34
-- Perspectives > Chapter 19: The Reign of Relativity > # 42
Paul Brunton
' The Gospel of Thomas '...
(66) Jesus said, "Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone."
(67) Jesus said, "If one who knows the all still feels a personal deficiency, he is completely deficient."
(68) Jesus said, "Blessed are you when you are hated and persecuted. Wherever you have been persecuted they will find no place."
(69) Jesus said, "Blessed are they who have been persecuted within themselves. It is they who have truly come to know the father. Blessed are the hungry, for the belly of him who desires will be filled."
(70) Jesus said, "That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves. That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you."
(71) Jesus said, "I shall destroy this house, and no one will be able to build it [...]."
(72) A man said to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me."
He said to him, "O man, who has made me a divider?"
He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I am not a divider, am I?"
(73) Jesus said, "The harvest is great but the laborers are few. Beseech the Lord, therefore, to send out laborers to the harvest."
(74) He said, "O Lord, there are many around the drinking trough, but there is nothing in the cistern."
(75) Jesus said, "Many are standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber."
The universe is a Dream...
From the beginning nothing is.
There really has never
been any beginning, nor is there any end.
The universe
is a dream.
So is the one who is supposed to understand
this!
Belief in oneself is, in fact, the only real obstruction to
awakening from delusion.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
The Clay of Manifestation...
When the soul comes into the physical world it receives an offering from the whole universe, and that offering is the body in which to function.
It is not offered to the soul only by the parents, but by the ancestors, by the nation and race into which the soul is born, and by the whole human race.
This body is not only an offering of the human race, but is an outcome of something that the whole world has produced for ages, a clay that has been kneaded a thousand times over, a clay that has been prepared so that in its very development it has become more intelligent, nore radiant, and more living;
a clay that appeared first in the mineral kingdom, that developed in the vegetable kingdom, that then appeared as the animal, and that was finished in the making of that body that is offered to the new-coming human soul.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
" I am not I "...
"I am not I."
These words are nonsensical to the intellect,
which can make nothing of them.
But to awakened intuition they are perfectly comprehensible.
- Paul Brunton
' There is no easy way out '...
Below this post, tom petty will sing words speaking of this fact..
The surrender of all that you hold dear will be the most difficult task assigned to you..
This is the road of the mystic..
You have all to lose and all to gain..
You are losing pain, desire, anger, loss, greed, hate, and fear..
all those things that make you human..
It is because , You have never ben human..
You play the role quite well within speech and action but Reality tugs at your sleeve..
You seek more than 'play'..
You seek Truth...
-thomas
Time ...
Years are needed before the sun
working on a Yemeni rock
can make a bloodstone.
Months must pass before cotton seed
can provide a seamless shroud.
Days go by before a handful of wool becomes a halter rope.
Decades it takes a child
to change into a poet.
And civilizations fall and are ploughed under
to grow a garden on the ruins,
the true mystic.
- Sanai
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Colman Barks translation from
“The Hands of Poetry”
Truth comes at a cost...
If I was to translate the enlightened state down into human terms, I'd have to describe it as contentment. Being nobody, going nowhere, needing no reason to exist. To the ego, that probably sounds a little boring and of course to an ego it is. But then again, there's really nothing for the ego in enlightenment. [...] I'm not saying that ego is bad or evil because it's not. I'm saying that ego is a social and personal construct and therefore an illusion. But there's nothing wrong with an illusion. A painting is an illusion; a movie is an illusion; a good novel is an illusion. The problem isn't with illusion; the problem is with the emotional attachments and addictions of ego.
To most people "attachment" is a very abstract word that they think they understand. People in spiritual circles think of attachments in terms of things that they are attached to. They identify the things attached to and endeavor to let go of them, but this misses the whole point of what attachment really is. Attachment isn't about things attached to; it's about emotion in the form of a magnetic energy of attraction.
That energy is how you know who you are as an ego. That energy is who you are as an ego. Ego defines itself by what it does and does not like. There is no ego outside of this emotional energy of attraction and repulsion -- better known as love and hate, like and dislike, good and bad, right and wrong, us and them, me and you. Without emotional investment in the ego's points of view, what's left of ego but a hollow shell with a little personality mixed in?
You breathe life into your ego in the form of emotional addictions. Emotion is the very life-force of ego. So the point of detachment isn't to detach from things, but to detach from your emotional bonds with things. And you don't simply let go of emotional bonds; you burn through them with investigative awareness. You see them for what they are: prisons, false structures holding you in spiritual infancy. You may think that I am being a bit harsh -- which I am, but awakening to truth is a harsh business.
Bottom line is "What do you want more: to feel better or to realize the truth?" Sure, truth realization feels really good, but no one gets there whose driving motivation is simply to feel good. Feeling really good is a byproduct of the awakened state; it is not the state itself. The state itself is reality, and it's won at the hands of unreality. Simply put, ultimate truth comes at a cost, and the cost is everything in you and about you that is unreal. The end result is freedom, happiness, peace, and no longer viewing life through the veils of illusion.
- Adyashanti
Thomas Merton...
"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center
of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the
realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine
and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even
though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream
of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world,
the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole
illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.
Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life:
but the conception of "separation from the world" that we have in
the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion,
we are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the
bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the
world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest,
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a
relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud ....
To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking
seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our
monastic thinking ....
I have the immense joy of being man,
a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate.
As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could
overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only
everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained.
There is no way of telling people that they are all walking
around shining like the sun."
~ Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
' Forgiveness '...
I would much more enjoy the pleasure of Loving my enemies,
than the mental pain of hating my enemies..
Pain is the 'alarm bell' that alerts you to something that must be corrected..
Within this state of Spiritual Knowledge,
you have no enemies...
-thomas
' The Tomb '...
The Tomb was found empty.
The Shroud contained the Image of human transforming into Light..
Light has always been our Home..
The 'Thoughtform' called Jesus was always Divine Consciousness..
Divine Consciousness cannot die as Light cannot die..
The Force that holds Light together is called Love..
Love is called Source..
-(thoughts from a letter written today)
namaste, thomas
See simplicity in the complicated...
Practice non-action.
Work without doing.
Taste the tasteless.
Magnify the small, increase the few.
Reward bitterness with care.
See simplicity in the complicated.
Achieve greatness in little things.
In the universe the difficult things
are done as if they are easy.
In the universe great acts
are made up of small deeds.
The sage does not attempt anything very big,
and thus achieves greatness.
Easy promises make for little trust.
Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.
Because the sage always confronts difficulties,
he never experiences them.
- Lao-tzu
Reality appears when when ego dissolves...
God comes when the ego goes.
When you are
nowhere, He alone is everywhere.
He takes the
position of your personality.
You vanish, and He
comes in, not before that.
- Swami Krishnananda
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Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
' Peace '...
True peace cannot be found in the story of you.
Dualistic thought divides reality into pairs of opposites and then picks a side. It attempts to bring about peace by supporting its side and opposing the opposite side. Even to be against conflict IS conflict. To oppose something is to make an “other” out of it. Conflict is born in the mental division between self and other.
Peace is your natural state. It is not something that one attains through thinking. So it is not something achieved in a time-bound spiritual search (i.e., story). Time is thought. The separate self is a time-bound, thought-based illusion. To say that “I’ will find peace in the future is to feed a story of thought. That illusory entity will never find peace because it sees itself as separate. Its goal is not peace. Its goal is separation. In that separateness, it must find an “other” against which to define itself. Conflict is created in that division.
Timeless, non-dual presence is what you really are. It is the pure seeing right now that is prior to the “I” thought. That presence is already naturally at peace. It is already undivided because it is prior to any mental division between self and other. In recognizing that what you are is non-dual presence, the “I” thought no longer has power over ‘you’ when it arises. Therefore, there is no desire to define that self against or be in conflict with an “other.”
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
Nomenclature within the Dream..
He who is filled with the knowledge of names and forms has no capacity for the knowledge of God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
A man filled with earthly knowledge -- and what he calls learning is often only the knowledge of names and forms -- has no capacity for the knowledge of truth or God. It is the innocent and pure soul who has a capacity for learning.
When a person comes to take a lesson on any subject, and he brings his own knowledge with him, the teacher has little to teach him, for the doors of his heart are not open. His heart that should be empty in order to receive knowledge is occupied by the knowledge that he already had acquired.
Intellect is the knowledge of names and forms, their character and nature, gathered from the external world. It shows in an infant from birth, when he begins to be curious about all he sees; then, by storing in his mind the various forms and figures he sees he recognizes them as an addition to his knowledge of variety.
Man thus gathers the knowledge of numberless forms of the whole world in his mind and holds them... and calls that 'learning'. This becomes his world, although it neither gives him a sense of unchanging comfort, nor does he thereby gain an everlasting peace.
You need not wait to be what you are ...
It is the clinging to the false that makes
the true so difficult to see.
Once you
understand that the false needs time and
what needs time is false, you are nearer
the Reality, which is timeless, ever in the
now.
Eternity in time is mere repetitiveness,
like the movement of a clock.
It flows from
the past into the future endlessly, as empty
perpetuity.
Reality is what makes the present
so vital, so different from the past and future,
which are merely mental.
If you need time to
achieve something, it must be false.
The real
is always with you; you need not wait to be
what you are.
Only you must not allow your
mind to go out of yourself in search.
When you
want something, ask yourself: do I really need
it?
and if the answer is not, then just drop it.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
from "I Am That"
Surrendering all...
So Cheap..
By Adyashanti
(1962 - )
I am all hollowed out now
Like a reed.
I gave everything for this.
And still I laughingly wonder:
How could it have been so cheap?
' The experience of God '...
How can I be bold enough to speak of God ?..
When the Nazarene said that; " I and the Father are One",
He was not joking..
The experience of God is both Solitude and Unity..
Within the 'First Reality',
I and the Father would speak..
In the 'Final Reality',
There was no one to speak...
-thomas
' Good Friday '...
How can I speak of a good friday when a Mystic is murdered ?..
There are few within the earth and life is short.
This young jew had such courage..
Within the desert, He pushed Lucifer into oblivion..
Gautama did the same within the jungle..
We stare with wonderment of these souls..
We only seek food and life..
How can we meet these souls of Reality ?..
Love is the map that they have given you..
Love is the space of Light and Wisdom,
and yet we seek wealth..
When We Awaken,
We will be Free...
-thomas
Jesus as a Jewish Mystic by Marcus Borg...
Borg sees Jesus in five different ways: (1) Spirit person; (2) healer; (3)wisdom teacher; (4) social prophet; and (5) movement founder. It is under the first classification that Borg sees Jesus most clearly in the identity of a Jewish mystic.
For Borg, there is a clear definition of terms. "My claim that Jesus was a Jewish mystic means Jesus was one for whom God was an experiential reality. He was one of those people for whom the sacred was, to use William James' terms, a firsthand religious experience rather than a secondhand belief.."
Borg goes on to give a straight forward definition of a mystic: "As I use the term, people who have decisive and typically frequent firsthand experiences of the sacred.."
In delving deeper into this concept, Borg differentiates between two types of experience - the kind which occur in "eyes open" and in "eyes closed" forms. The first would consist of someone who sees the world as an epiphany in which the Eternal breaks through, with "light shining through everything or bathing everything in its glow."
The second type, "eyes closed", involves experiences that are associated with contemplation or meditation, a rising up (or deepening) that brings one to communion or union with God.
Finally, in terms that are of great help to our own understanding of what it is to be a Christian Mystic, Borg mentions what he calls "defining characteristics of mystical states of consciousness." The source of these are William James' remarkable work.
Ineffability: Direct explanation of the experiences cannot take place with words, as in, "I walked across the room and saw a bird on the window sill." Instead, one must resort to the language of metaphor.
Transiency: One does not constantly live in this altered state of consciousness. Instead, the vision or perception will come and go.
Passivity: One cannot make these things happen. They are, to use Christian terms, the product of grace. At the same time, there is evidence that one must psychologically prepare one's self - make the house ready for guests, as it were.
Noetic: There is, in those who experience these mystical states of consciousness, the conviction that they now KNOW something that they didn't know before. It is a deep, certain understanding and not something merely intellectual, as in the solution of a puzzle.
Transformative: The person finds that how they see and who they are, undergo a radical change. The person who once saw the everyday world now sees the presence of God, the dance of the world.
Borg goes on to state, "The portrait of Jesus as a Spirit person is history remembered and not simply history metaphorized. This is the basis for my claim that Jesus was a Jewish mystic, for him, God was an experiential reality. He knew the immediacy of the sacred in his own experience. And this claim leads to a second claim: Jesus' experience of God was foundational for the rest of what he was."
You are Thought...
Money...
You seek freedom on the path of non-fear..
Fear is the experience that You have chosen..
You find yourself in slavery to materiality and tyranny..
You fear pain and death..
How do You Awaken from this nightmare ?...
I grab upon the hand of this 'Thought and desire' called Love..
Love is the surrender of all desires..
A time within mind is necessary to understand..
Love has no body but exists only within Thought..
You are Thought...
-thomas
' The death of a Mystic '...
You will hear the words of crucifixion and pain..
This young teacher of Truth, set upon by dogs of evil..
He came back into the Dream of ego and spoke of the Door of Freedom..
When contemplating His pain, the pores flowed with blood..
Fear of pain is stronger than the fear of death..
This is why, you exist within a Dream of fear..
Fear is the illusion of non-Love..
And yet, Love conquers all Dreams and Illusions..
This day, we remember this 'One' young man of Love...
-thomas
Resting within peace...
Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind,
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.
Rest in natural great peace.
-NYOSHUL KHEN RINPOCHE
We are already Divine...
The idea that we have to wait for liberation from the ego and enlightenment by the Overself,
to evolve through much time and many reincarnations,
is correct only if we continue to remain mesmerized by it,
but false if we take our stand on reality rather than appearance:
we are now as divine as we ever shall be--but we must wake up from illusion and see this truth.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 1: Entering the Short Path > # 25
Paul Brunton
See the imaginary as imaginary...
You are the infinite potentiality, the inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can be. The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become.
Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination! However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it. Realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real. See the imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.
All scriptures say that before the world was, the Creator was. Who knows the Creator? He alone who was before the Creator, your own real being, the source of all the worlds with their creators.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Sometimes, I speak to witches...
There are at least six witches that read my blog each day..
They seek power within illusions to feel separate and knowledgeable.
But, the Truth is that they seek Freedom..
Seeking the control of Nature and Human is an egoic-desire..
The Nazarene keeps telling you that the meek shall inherit the earth..
You do not listen, you want Power..
Look inside the mind and discover desire..
The mind is a child seeking power over illusions..
We praise the mind so much and give it numbers towards genius..
All of these quests are desires of ego and are powerless..
The True Power of existence is only found within Love...
-thomas
We Are others...
Love, as the word is generally understood,
denotes separation,
whereas in true non-
objective relationship,
we do not love others,
we ARE others.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
Pure Consciousness...
Quote from Saint Paul: "In Him we live and move and have our being."
In Mind we have God, man, and the universe.
All are of Mind, pure Being, pure Consciousness, so in Mind we humans live, move, and have our being.
Is not this a mentalistic statement equivalent to the religious statement of Saint Paul?
The fact that the saint arrives at it through his own personal experience and that the mentalist arrives at it either through his own deep reflection or personal revelatory experience does not alter the identity of the basic idea.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 5:
Comments On Specific Religions > # 97
Paul Brunton
Wisdom...
Wisdom does not emanate from thought or belief. It emanates from the direct seeing of reality the way it really is. When life is filtered through the story of “me,” reality is not being directly experienced in that way. It is being processed through a self-centered story. When that filter is happening, thoughts, experiences, states, emotions and circumstances are interpreted in terms of what they mean for the central figure “me.”
Even knowledge is usurped by this story. Knowledge, in the way it is being used here, means conceptual knowledge. Reality is being interpreted through a set of stored files (i.e., learned concepts). Once there is identification with those concepts, the “me” is born. It’s all about being right. That is not wisdom.
Wisdom arises naturally from awareness. In seeing this identification with concepts, the desire to be right loosens its grip. Wisdom is seeing the ways in which there is a sense of self invested in learned concepts. There is nothing to do to cultivate wisdom. Doing comes from the mind. There can only be a present seeing of what is already arising. What is already arising is identification with these learned concepts, including concepts about spirituality, religion, politics, philosophy, and various world views. That seeing is wisdom. It allows the seeing through of this false sense of self invested in ideas.
Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' I have no more time left for the ego '...
I have spoken to you of the boredom of ego,
now we will enter the core of seeking..
The egoic-desire will haunt you within life until you reach surrender..
The soul seeks survival within the Dream of human but turns to Reality when the end of the Dream is near..
There is no more time left for lies..
The ego loses the power of mind..
You now find yourself within the 'cross roads'..
Pick the road less traveled, said the mystic..
Truth is the only Reality,
all else are Dreams and Lies..
The 'prince of lies' is an illusion of pain..
All of these encounters are thoughts within Dreams..
Go beyond Dreams..
Help me to open the Door of Freedom...
-thomas
Die before death...
The common man seeks every opportunity to live.
But the seeker of Truth looks for every opportunity to die—
to die to what is unreal, false and untrue and
to be resurrected as true life—timeless existence.
- Mooji
Keep at center...
The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold fast to the center.
- Lao-tzu
Solitary Path...
The quest is to be walked alone.
Yet although this means that one must have a solitary and creedless path if the Word is to be said,
the Touch is to come,
the Glimpse is to be seen,
or the Feeling of the presence is to enter awareness,
the gracious revelation is the sacred compensation.
- Paul Brunton
The game of ego is boring...
If you speak of non-egoic desire, the voices will sound that you are egoic..
Hypocrisy will be thrown about to defend their egos' and attack yours..
This game of ego is boring..
There is so much more to learn than egoic arrogance..
We are here to return Home..
The egoic-desire is the only wall that prevents Love from climbing this wall..
Beyond the learning of the non-reality of egoic-dream, we must travel within Light..
Light is the First Reality of Consciousness and is Your present state except that You still sleep within Dreams..
Within this state of Light and Consciousness, We begin to look further..
Imagine, looking beyond Heaven and Nirvana..
Heaven and Nirvana are the states of Love and Knowledge,
but, what if there is a place of Creation beyond these two states of First Reality..
Final Reality is composed of Love and Thought and is Your Home..
It is called Pure Awareness,
and answers to no name or personality...
-thomas
' Presence '...
Presence is eating potato chips,
Presence just means eating potato chips, walking your dog, sitting on the couch, shuffling papers at work, talking on the phone with a friend, listening to your favorite music, or driving down the road thinking. Presence is your everyday existence without the need for something more to happen.
Seeking could be described as eating potato chips while desiring to reach a state of enlightenment or to be an awakened person eating chips or to have some experience other than the simple fact of eating chips right now. Presence is simply eating chips without that desire for some future moment.
Presence is so simple that it is overlooked by the mind seeking something other than what is happening now. In presence, life is simple. There is only the crunch, crunch of the chip, the sensation of it going down your throat, and then biting into the next chip. It’s that simple. Just that—the reality of eating chips. It’s not about the story of a person eating chips. It’s much simpler. It’s just eating chips.
The desire for something more than what is happening is the problem, not the road to the solution.
-Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
Self-realization happens suddenly...
There are no steps to self-realization. There is nothing gradual about it. It happens suddenly and is irrevocably. You rotate into a new demension, seen from which the previous ones are mere abstractions. Just like on sunrise you see things as they are, so on self-realization you see everything as it is. The world of illusion is left behind.
With some, realization comes imperceptibly, but somehow they need convincing. They have changed, but they do not notice it. Such non-spectacular cases are often the most reliable.
The experience [of self-realization] is unique and unmistakable. It will dawn on you suddenly, when the obstacles are removed to some extent. It is like a frayed rope snapping. Yours is the work at the strands. The break is bound to happen. It can be delayed, but not prevented.
All will come through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
The Philosophic Quest...
One of the first fruits of philosophy is perhaps the balanced understanding which it yields.
In no other way can men arrive at so truthful, so fair, and so just a view of life, or indeed of anything upon which they place their thinking mind.
And this splendid result could not come about if the philosophic quest did not bring the whole man of thought and feeling, of intuition and will, into activity in a harmonious and well-integrated way.
Thus wholeness is holiness in the truest sense.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 160
Paul Brunton
Nothing changes...
”You do not have any problems;
only your body has problems...
In your world, nothing stays,
in mine nothing changes."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Choosing parents...
Does the soul consciously and intentionally chose its parents?
Yes, according to its consciousness at that time.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VIKAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Being without thought...
Stay as simple natural Being without thought
or doership.
Out of nothing you can do anything
and not leave footprints.
No intention is no
limitation, just stay quiet,
simply do not stir a
thought.
-Papaji
Being Awareness ...
EXPERIMENT - Being Awareness
Sit comfortably, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and settle in. Notice your present experience. Feel the various sensations of your body—touch, sound, taste, and smell. Take your time to observe each of these.
Bring your attention to any emotions you may be experiencing. Notice how they feel in the interior of your body.
Be aware of the thoughts that arise and pass through your mind like clouds that come and go in the sky. Don't try to stop or change them. Notice when your attention hops onto a train of thought.
Ask yourself, "What is this that is aware of thought?" Don't think about it. Relax into this background awareness.
Notice the nature of this awareness. Does it exist at any time other than now? Can it be located in space? Does it have any center or boundary? Does it have any form at all? Explore your experience of it.
Can this awareness be defined, or is it empty of all definitions? Does it refuse anything, or is it open to all experience? Is it unconscious, or is it awake, aware, and knowing?
Now be this empty, open, awake awareness.
-from In Touch by John Prendergast
' The state of no- mind '...
Attempting to understand this title requires contemplation..
The mind is the creator of separate identity..
The mind is part of Consciousness but contains only illusions..
These Dreams of existence within a separate body is an excursion into discovery..
You travel along until You become trapped within the desires of existence..
And then, You spend many lifetimes attempting to return Home..
This Circle of Thought,
This game of Dreams..
The Dreams of day and night..
You believe that You are Awake within day and sleep at night..
Within night, You travel within the higher frequencies and mostly remain within the egoic-consciousness..
Within day, You are actually asleep..
Return to the Son that never sets...
-thomas
The Supreme...
"The world and the mind are states of being.
The supreme is not a state.
It pervades all states,
but it is not a state of something else."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The stage of revelation...
As one goes further in the soul's unfoldment
one finally arrives at the stage of revelation.
Life begins to reveal itself, and every condition,
every soul, every object in the world will reveal
its nature and character to one.
-Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
From: A Meditation Theme for Each Day
Selected and arranged by Hazrat Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Between two thoughts...
During the gap--infinitesimal though it be--between
two thoughts, the ego vanishes.
Hence it may truly be
said that with each thought it reincarnates anew.
There is no real need to wait for the series of
long-lived births to be passed through before
liberation can be achieved.
The series of momentary
births also offers this opportunity, provided a man
knows how to use it.
-Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 8: The Void As Contemplative Experience > #
162 Paul Brunton
Do decisions have consequences ?..
'Cause and effect', raise their heads..
Karma speaks in an asian accent..
We cannot control the decisions of others..
Suggestion is a string of words that influence mind..
But, the humanic-illusion continues to be a puppet of egoic-desire..
How long can we save the ego from pain ?..
The pain within ego is your Savior..
If you did not feel pain,
you would remain the same, within the prison of desire..
When you feel the pain of anger,
ask yourself, "who, really feels this pain?"..
You are the Observer,
not the victim...
-thomas
The root of pain ...
What is the root of pain?
Ignorance of yourself.
What is the root of desire?
The urge to find yourself.
All creation toils for its self and will not rest until it returns to it.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
The One Consciousness...
"The realization 'I am formless consciousness' is simply the opposite of 'I am an individual somebody.'
Even with that realization, there is still going to remain the appearance of somebody. So embodiment is simply a reflection of the realization that every manifest thing that exists is the one body of the one consciousness.
This is a return to wholeness, to a completeness that includes the unmanifest and the manifest alike. It is perceiving that both formless consciousness and the world of form are simply two aspects of an unnameable mysterious whole."
~ Adyashanti
The Impact of Awakening
Abide in the timeless...
The personal history which has gone before--let it really go and be free of the past, which can become a mental prison for unwary persons;
learn to abide in the timeless,
coming out of it as duties call but holding on to it as the background.
-Paul Brunton
Thoughts about presence...
Thoughts are thoughts. They cannot reveal the truth of who you are. You are not a thought. You are the presence in which thoughts arise. But even that last sentence is a thought. It is merely pointing to presence. It is tempting to read such a pointer and forget that the pointer itself is just another thought, no matter how clear it is.
Every sentence in these reflections is a thought. The words are merely pointing to the awakeness that is your true nature in this moment. The mind hears these pointers repeated often and tends to mistake the words for that to which they are pointing. Just remember that the grandest and clearer pointers to presence are still just thoughts.
They come and go like all thoughts do. Don’t mistake them for the truth. Just notice that they arise and fall in presence.
You cannot know what you are through thoughts. You can only know that you are. This knowing is not intellectual, philosophical, or mental. This knowing is the direct experience that you are the presence through which words pointing to presence appear and disappear.
- Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' The Dream and the Dreamer'...
Within the Creative Source, only Light is seen,
unless Consciousness enters the Dream..
Why does Love desire a walk ?..
Why, the wind blows is a clue..
Within Dreams, miracles happen..
Is the miracle of seeing, available ?..
We keep playing a game that we have outgrown..
Love keeps showing me, negative and positive..
Who am I to believe ?..
Only Love came to hug me..
Perhaps, Love is the only answer...
-thomas
' On St. Patricks Day'..
By now, you know that I am Irish..
St. Patrick was born of Italian parents and I often tell my Italian friends of this fact..
I think of Patricio many times within this Dream..
A man that was enslaved by Irish Pirates, escaped, and returned to Ireland to free those slavers..
How much courage could a human possess to return to a land of slavery ?..
I know that courage is stronger than fear,
How deep is our fear ?..
How much courage do we possess ?..
This is why, this soul Awakened into Reality..
Would you be surprised to learn,
that You are of the same Mind ?..
You are Truth..
Feel It !...
-thomas
the 'Final Reality' ...
"The Buddha also taught another somewhat challenging idea:
the notion of emptiness…
we can simply say it’s the view that there is no real self and no real world that exists in exactly the same way it appears to us now.
The Buddha said that when we don’t comprehend emptiness, we don’t see what’s really there –
we see only a coarse version of reality.
So from the Buddhist point of view,
there is not only no savior,
there is also no one to be saved."
-Dzogchen Ponlop
Be content...
Be content with what you have,
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
-Lao-Tzu
Self as Source...
Past, present, future become mere dreams when considered against the background of THAT.
If man could switch his thought of self over to the Source,
and keep on identifying it with that,
his consciousness would be transformed.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You >
Chapter 3: Practise Detachment > # 240
Paul Brunton
St. Patrick and Christ...
Christ beside me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ within me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me.
- Saint Patrick
' The Last Desire '...
As a mystic, you spend each day in the dissolving of desires..
Within Dreams, all are desires..
You can dissolve each desire slowly and this is known as 'The Long Path'.
But the 'Short Path' is a bursting of Light..
All of these desires originate from the egoic consciousness..
This Dream that You are experiencing is filled to the brim with desires..
This desire to be separate from Source is the highest desire of delusion..
This desire of separation is called experiment..
You, as Divine Consciousness has the desire to watch a hologram of 'other'..
Learning often is seen embracing pain..
Pain is the bell that rings when you stray from the path..
The 'Last Desire' is to surrender this desire to be God..
You have forgotten that 'you' are an illusion..
You have never been separate from Source,
because Source is all that has ever existed...
-thomas
The nature of the soul...
The nature of the soul is to gather on its way all that it can gather and to make a mold out of it.
The attributes of the lower world become so clustered around the soul that it almost forgets its very first experience of itself, its purest being.
In the angelic sphere the soul attracts angelic atoms, in the djinn sphere it attracts djinn atoms, and on earth, physical atoms.
Thus mankind is clothed in the garb of an angel, of a djinn, and of a human being.
But when he sees himself in the garb of a human being without seeing the other garbs, he believes he is a human being.
From The Teachnings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Mister nobody...
"If you listen to me long enough, you'll hear me contradicting myself, constantly ... you're nothing ... you're everything ... there's no self ... well of course, there's a self ... .
If you went to my teacher, and had the great revelation of 'no self', of emptiness, I'm nothing, and the freedom of that, and that's totally true ... I'm nothing, and the great liberation of realizing that ...
then the next thing, you'd get this great smile, and you'd see that my teacher’s really happy that you've finally kind of woken up out of your some-thingness, and then you'd get a quick rap on the head, crack, with a stick. 'Okay Mr. nobody, who did that hurt ?'
Then you'd scratch your head, and walk out of the room, hmmm... 'gosh I really thought I was nobody, there for a minute' ...
Of course it was true ... it wasn't a way of saying what was discovered wasn't real. It was a way of saying what was discovered, may not be the whole ... the whole truth, may not be the end. There may be more to this.
The discovering our infinite formlessness , also can lead to, realizing it's all one. Form ... formlessness ... is one. So this form, that appears to have a self, that appears to have 'me', appears to have, is not other than the formless one.
It's on the level of talk, the truth is fraught with total contradictions.
And the more awake we become, we become capable of holding these contradictions, effortlessly, because the truth, the true I, the true I of awakening, actually sees the oneness, and the mind sees in the oneness these totally contradictory experiences, are happening, simultaneously.
Of being the all, and everything, the supreme reality, and being this particular, individual, human being.
And both are true.
As we awaken, we begin to discover, one to the exclusion of the other.
First you're a human being ... then you're Mr. nobody ... and then Mr. nobody, is a human being.
And they're both simultaneously, true ... they're both simultaneously happening.
The danger of teachings is that, almost everything that can be said ... the opposite can be said to be almost equally true.
This presence of being is vast.
It's all inclusive."
~ Adyashanti
from the youtube video, "Spontaneous Awakening" -Pt 8
' Grace '...
Grace is a word and thought that you have carried within the Dream..
Even now, you do not know what this word means..
In my experience, I have found that Grace is an Energy of Love that knocks you to the ground..
We try to search for another name to discribe this Power..
But, we return to this one word because there are no other words to compare..
Love comes close, and is found within this 'Yogic' Breath of Reality..
This non-separation called Love travels further into the Nothingness of One..
The 'First Reality' enters the Door of Love but Love must move further..
Love is the search for Truth..
Love is the surrender of all desires..
In 'Final Reality',
Love is 'You'...
-thomas
Jnanadeva...
"It is not that appearance is spread before and the seer watches remaining behind.
It is his pulsation when he sees himself."
-Jnanadeva
Amritanubhava, 246
in B. P. Bahirat
The Philosophy of Jnanadeva
The Unmanifest and the Manifest...
To avoid being lost in the bewildering diversity of the play of maya, it is necessary to remember the essential unity between the Absolute and the relative, between the Unmanifest and the manifest.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The understanding of Truth is not a matter of time. Indeed, it is prior to the concept of time.
When it takes place, it happens suddenly, almost as a shock of timeless apprehension.
It means a sudden cessation of the process of duration, a split-second when the functioning of time itself is suspended and integration takes place with what is prior to relativity -- direct apprehension of the Absolute.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
True Happiness...
True happiness is uncaused and this cannot
disappear for lack of stimulation.
It is not
the opposite of sorrow,
it includes all sorrow
and suffering.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' I walk with the Buddha'..
By now, you know that 'Buddha' means 'Awakened One'..
Is it a source of pride ?..
Not for the 'Buddha' that has been freed of ignorance..
The 'Buddha' is 'Divine Consciousness' and is called Reality..
We keep looking into this manifestation of life and cannot see the higher frequencies..
We remain trapped within lower frequencies and dreams..
We call this separation of Thought, egoic-consciousness..
It is a Dream of adventure called separation..
We play the game of gain and loss..
The 'Buddha' has always been You..
But, You have forgotten much since You walked this road of adventure..
Many Buddhas' will be surprised when Divine Consciousness has dissolved and only Pure Awareness exists..
The Buddhas', beyond the 'First Reality' see only the 'Void' of Nothingness..
Love is the 'Walker' that enters this road..
To See without eyes and identity is Pure Awareness and Reality...
-thomas
Are You really left behind ?...
I hear of words that speak to me of separation and pain..
There is no separation within Reality..
What you think is above you is really just the Observer watching..
What you have not yet discovered is that You are the Observer..
The egoic-desire keeps you within Dreams..
All you have to do, is surrender All..
What is All ?..
All thoughts and desires equal All..
So simple to say and yet so difficult to achieve..
Can you imagine the nonsense of trying to be perfect ?..
There is no trying, there is only Realisation..
These seven dimensions that you walk are a ride within an amusement park..
Reality does not need steps..
Reality is where You are standing...
-thomas
Higher than the angel...
Every soul starts toward manifestation with the inclination of arriving at the destination of his journey, and that destination is the human plane.
While descending toward this destination, every soul touches two distinct planes on its way, the angelic and the djinn plane.
There are souls who, owing to lack of strength or owing to the attraction of a certain plane, remain and settle in that plane, instead of progressing further.
But there are some who come to their real destination, and it is they who fulfill the purpose of life.
It is therefore that man is considered greater than the djinn and higher than the angel.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
The Happiness of Freedom...
The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power.
To be free in the world, you must die to the world.
Then the universe is your own, it becomes your body, an expression and a tool.
The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
Source is within Consciousness...
The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos.
It is within our consciousness.
Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart:
it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind.
-Paul Brunton
' The Adored '...
“I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.”
― Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul
' The expression of Life'...
As the Observer, You witness the entities as spectors of Light and Thought..
These 'Dancing Atoms' of Energy..
These moving frequencies of Discovery..
The Observer and the Observed are the same..
"I and the Father are One",
said, a wise Observer..
So, We sit within Stillness, to witness Reality..
We call this, Meditation of Thought..
The Final Meditation is that when Thought is left behind,
only Reality remains...
-thomas
Consciousness within Dreams...
Those who think that the heavenly knowledge is sufficient are mystical,
but the joy of the heavenly knowledge and the full understanding of it come from being able to express it in this world's medium of expression.
From The Teaching Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
An Inner Revolution ...
Realization of the ultimate Reality is a direct and sudden existential awakening to one’s true nature that opens the door to the possibility of an inner revolution.
Such a revolution requires an ongoing emptying out of the old structures of consciousness and the birth of a living and fluid intelligence.
This intelligence restructures your entire being, body, mind, and perception.
This intelligence cuts the mind free of its old structures that are rooted within the totality of human consciousness.
If one cannot become free of the old conditioned structures of human consciousness, then one is still in a prison.
- Adyashanti
The seeker after stillness...
The seeker after stillness should be told that the stillness is always there.
Indeed it is in every man.
But he has to learn, first, to let it in and, second, how to do so.
The first beginning of this is to remember.
The second is to recognize the inward pull.
For the rest,
the stillness itself will guide and lead him to itself.
-Paul Brunton
' The Friend '...
"My tired heart, take a sigh of relief
for time has come for you to heal.
The Friend who helps all lovers
has come into this world
in the form of
a man."
Jalaludin Rumi
in Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mali, Translators
Rumi: Hidden Music
Barnes & Noble, 2009 (reprint), p. 110
The ego is a fiction...
What I want to tell you is astoundingly simple if only the listener is totally absent.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
People imagine that they must somehow change themselves from imperfect human beings into perfect ones known as sages. The absurdity is that the one thinking along these lines is himself a fiction.
-
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
http://www.advaita.org
Sin...
”To nourish the ideas:
"I am a sinner, I am not sinner," is a sin.
To identify oneself with the particular is all the sin there is.
The impersonal is real, the personal appears and disappears."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Most of my friends are asleep...
The human personalities that You interact within each day are a story..
We love stories..
A story is a continuence of thought and desire..
So many books and movies consist of story..
A story is the beginning and end of experience..
A story is the Mind, seeking..
Why does the 'Story-teller' desire manifestation ?..
Three dimensions are more inclusive that one..
You are the 'Story-teller' and the Story..
Producer, Director, Writer, and Actor are existing within Dream..
Let Us continue to think and write New Stories...
-thomas
Discern the Real...
The person is noisy and seeks Silence but cannot find it.
Silence is not the gift one receives after strenuous seeking alone.
Trust. Grace reveals what mind cannot.
Silence is here, unearned and unrecognised and yet, timelessly present.
It is unmixed presence and is therefore synonymous with You but not with your person.
You exist without the person but the person cannot exist without You.
Discern the Real from the Unreal.
- Mooji
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
Liberation...
Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now but for your being more interested in other things.
And you cannot fight with your interests.
You must go with them,
see through them and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgement and appreciation.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
' The Thoughtform '...
You are both the Thinker and the Thought..
Even in Dreams, We think of the mirror of Duality..
These altars of searching for higher..
Were you not told that the meek shall inherit the earth ?..
What a Mystical Joke it is to inherit a Dream..
We argue with a 'mirror' about sight..
To be without desire is to be Free..
The Creator of Dreams has the Desire to Create..
Where will You rest upon completion of the puzzle ?...
-thomas
' Action '...
You seekers of entertainment seek 'action'..
Action is the Wind between Stillness and Force..
This movement of energy, which is often wasted, flows within Thought..
This creates Manifestations and Suns..
This circular rotation of Energy flows within the Hologram and Thinker..
The 'Thinker' thinks Himself, alone..
And yet, there is no pain of loneliness..
The highest revelation is that Pain does not exist within Love..
This state of non-pain is called Happiness..
You might call it Heaven...
-thomas
'Be not afraid' ...
When you open yourself to the continually changing,
impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and
of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care
about other people and your capacity to not be afraid.
You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open,
and your mind open. And you notice when you get
caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression.
You
develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those
negative seeds, from now until the day you die.
And,
you begin to think of your life as offering endless
opportunities to start to do things differently.
- Pema Chödrön
Practicing Peace in Times of War
' I am not -- Thou art '...
It is false love that does not uproot man's claim of "I"; the first and last lesson of love is "I am not".
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
It is not love, but the pretense of love, that imposes the claim of the self. The first and last lesson in love is, 'I am not -- Thou art' and unless man is moved to that selflessness he does not know justice, right or truth. His self stands above or between him and God.
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.
He who says, 'I love you but only so much, I love you and give you sixpence but I keep sixpence for myself, I love you but I stand at a distance and never come closer, we are separate beings'- his love is with his self. As long as that exists, love has not done its full work. Love accomplishes its work when it spreads its wings and veils man's self from his own eyes. That is the time when love is fulfilled, and so it is in the life of the holy ones who have not only loved God by professing or showing it, but who have loved God to the extent that they forgot themselves.
Man is here on earth for this one purpose, that he may bring forth that spirit of God in him and thus discover his own perfection. The three stages towards this perfection are the following. The first stage is to make God as great and as perfect as your imagination can. ....
The second stage is the work of the heart... The first lesson that love teaches us is: 'I am not. Thou art.' The first thing to think of is to erase ourselves from our minds and to think of the one we love. As long as we do not arrive at this idea, so long the word love remains only in the dictionary. Many speak about love but very few know it. Is love a pastime, an amusement, a drama; is it a performance? The first lesson of love is sacrifice, service, self-effacement. ... To close the eyes for prayer is one thing, and to produce the love of God is another thing. That is the second stage in spiritual realization, where, in the thought of God, one begins to lose oneself in the same way that the lover loses the thought of self in the thought of the beloved.
And the third stage is different again. In the third stage the Beloved becomes the Self, and the self is there no more. For then the self, as we think it to be, no longer remains. The self becomes what it really is. It is that realization which is called Self-realization.
The ' short path' to Overself...
Most people who start the short path have usually had a glimpse of the Overself, because otherwise they find it too difficult to understand what the short path is about. The long path, through its studies and practices, is the period of preparation for the advanced quest. It is called the long path because there is much work to be done on it and much development of character and emotions to go through. After some measure of this preparation the aspirants enter the short path to complete this work. This takes a comparatively much shorter time and, as it has the possibility of yielding the full self-enlightenment at any moment, it ends suddenly.
What they are trying to do on the long path continues by itself once they have entered fully on the short path. On the long path they are concerned with the personal ego and as a result give the negative thoughts their attention. On the short path they refuse to accept these negatives and instead look to the Overself. Thus the struggles will disappear. This change of attitude is called "voiding" them. The moment such negative ideas and feelings appear, then instead of using the long path method of concentrating on the opposite kind of thought, such as calmness instead of anger, the short path way simply drops the negative idea into the Void, the Nothingness, and forgets it.
Now such a change can only be brought about by doing it quickly and firmly and turning to the Overself. Constant remembrance of the Overself has to be done all the way through the short path. The long path works on the ego; but the short path uses the result of that work, which prepared them to come into communion with the Overself and become receptive to its presence, which includes its grace. In order to understand the short path, it might be helpful to compare it to the long path which consists of a series of exercises and efforts which gradually develops concentration and character and knowledge.
But the long path does not lead to the goal. On the long path you often measure your own progress. It is an endless path because there will always be new circumstances which bring new temptations and trials and confront the aspirant with new challenges. No matter how spiritual the ego becomes it does not enter the whitest light, but remains in the greyish light. On the long path you must deal with the urges of interference arising from the lower self and the negativity which enters from the surrounding environment. But the efforts on the long path will at last invoke the grace, which opens the perspective of the short path.
The short path is not an exercise but an inner standpoint to invoke, a state of consciousness where one comes closer or finds peace in the Overself. There are, however, two exercises which can be of help to lead to the short path, but they have quite a different character than the exercises on the long path. The short path takes less time because the aspirant turns around and faces the goal directly. The short path means that you begin to try to remember to live in the rarefied atmosphere of the Overself instead of worrying about the ego and measuring its spiritual development. You learn to trust more and more in the Higher Power. On the short path you ignore negativity and turn around 180 degrees, from the ego to the Overself. The visitations of the Overself are heralded through devotional feeling, but also through intuitive thought and action. Often the two paths can be treaded simultaneously, but not necessarily equally.
Often the aspirant is not ready to start these two exercises until after one or several glimpses of the Overself.
The "remembrance exercise" consists of trying to recall the glimpse of the Overself, not only during the set meditation periods but also in each moment during the whole working span of the day--in the same way as a mother who has lost her child can not let go of the thought of it no matter what she is doing outwardly, or as a lover who constantly holds the vivid image of the beloved in the back of his mind. In a similar way, you keep the memory of the Overself alive during this exercise and let it shine in the background while you go about your daily work. But the spirit of the exercise is not to be lost. It must not be mechanical and cold. The time may come later when the remembrance will cease as a consciously and deliberately willed exercise and pass by itself into a state which will be maintained without the help of the ego's will.
The remembrance is a necessary preparation for the second exercise, in which you try to obtain an immediate identification with the Overself. Just as an actor identifies with the role he plays on the stage, you act think and live during the daily life "as if" you were the Overself. This exercise is not merely intellectual but also includes feeling and intuitive action. It is an act of creative imagination in which by turning directly to playing the part of the Overself you make it possible for its grace to come more and more intoyour life.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 5: Balancing the Paths > # 2
Paul Brunton
' Time '...
Judy Collins and Sandy Denny have just sung of Time,
but, where are the thoughts of mind ?..
As a Mystic, you already know that time only exists within Dreams and Illusions..
While within Light, there is no thought of time or what we call the continuence of thoughts..
It is important that you understand the formation of thoughts that compose the boxing of desires called time..
Time is a culmination of thoughts that lead you into different histories and desires..
You can enter the different egos' within reincarnations if you want to witness stories of pain..
This continuence of desire must end..
You have already entered the stage of many lives..
You have played the actor of humility and ego..
You have played the game of Duality..
The Sun is setting , return Home..
The Father of Light is preparing a banquet..
But, only Nothingness can enter this Party...
-thomas
Infinite Consciousness...
Just as one's dream in sleep exists nowhere but
in the mind (both as cause and effect),
so does the
universe exist only in the mind of infinite Conscious-
ness.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
The Pure Clear Light...
Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light from which
everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe
returns; the original nature of your own mind.
The natural state of
the universe unmanifest.
Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge
with it.
It is your own true nature, it is home.
-Tibetan Book of the Dead
Enlightenment and hope...
Enlightenment is not about hope. If you have hope, the mind is still locked in its dream of future. The idea that the future will be better has the story “right now is not enough” built into it. Hope arises from a present sense of lack. It’s the perfect recipe for continuing unhappiness. Once it is seen that future is just thought arising now, it is seen that living for a future moment (i.e., hope) is just identification with thought. It’s the “me” that will never truly be happy because it is always looking for something else in some other time.
Enlightenment is about hopelessness, but not the hopelessness the mind knows. The mind only sees the world dualistically. It’s in the business of labeling everything as good or bad. It sees hope as good and hopelessness as bad.
Hopelessness, the way it is used here, means the absence of the need for hope. It is the absence of the need for a projection towards future. It may be more precise to say that enlightenment (i.e., presence) is beyond both hope and hopelessness. This moment is all there is. It is already abundant.
When that is seen fully, hope is seen as irrelevant. There is no need for it. “Hopelessness”—as in utter despair—is also seen as just another harmless dualistic story the mind tells. These stories disappear on their own when they meet the light of present awareness.
-Scott Kiloby. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
Cosmic and Infinite Self...
We must move from consciousness to its hidden reality, the mind-essence which is alone true consciousness because it shines by its own and not by a borrowed light.
When we cease to consider Mind as this or that particular mind but as all-Mind; when we cease to consider Thought as this thought or that but as the common power which makes thinking possible; and when we cease to consider this or that idea as such but as pure Idea, we apprehend the absolute existence through profound insight.
Insight, at this stage, has no particular object to be conscious of. In this sense it is a Void.
When the personal mind is stripped of its memories and anticipations, when all sense-impressions and thoughts entirely drop away from it, then it enters the realm of empty unnameable Nothingness.
It is really a kind of self-contemplation. But this self is not finite and individual, it is cosmic and infinite.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8: The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 8
-- Perspectives > Chapter 23: Advanced Contemplation > # 66
Paul Brunton
The Greatest Love...
The concept of us being anything but a human body that
occasionally feels a bliss called Love is difficult..
The sub-conscious mind has
been trained to believe that we are a body with a soul that might arrive in a
good place called heaven, if we are good..
The most difficult idea to wrap our
minds around is that in Final Reality, we do not exist..
In daily life, to not
exist is called humility and is praised as good and loving..
but, to take this
Truth to the highest plane of humility and love is to not exist within Spirit..
Only Spirit Existing..
As Jesus said;"
you must die, to be born"..
giving your
greatest gift,
(life,self) is the greatest Love...
- thomas
The Changeless Witness...
”Names and shapes change incessantly.
Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind.
That is enough."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Age '...
He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel
the pressure of age,
but to him who is of an opposite
disposition,
youth and age are equally a burden.
- Plato, from The Republic
Teacher and Student...
When the divine relationship between the guru as Consciousness and the
disciple as Consciousness becomes ripe enough to fructify,
they meet like two
empty mirrors facing each other.
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power '... by Vernon Howard
Poindexter "Poindexter" (USA) - This review is from: The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power (Paperback)
I'm not talking about the usual ups and downs that everyone goes through. If you're life is good for the most part, check out an Anthony Robbins book or something. Now, if your pain and suffering is to the extent that you feel life is dark, murky, pointless...
then that energy will be the fuel/drive to find a way out. I assure you that this book is the answer to your pain and suffering. In a nutshell, here's the bizarre answer: get in touch with your True Self. You're identified 100% with the false in you and that is the root of your pain and suffering. Yes, it does sound bizarre. And you'll probably resist this because you know no other way but your world of pain and suffering. I've been there, I know. I guarantee you with all my heart that there truly is a way out. Seeing the false as false and thus getting in touch with what's True is the ONLY answer. Anything else you do is mere candy-coating.
I immersed myself in Tolle's resources, Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Anthony DeMello, and Gangaji. Now, Vernon also points in the same direction as the these people. But Vernon's style is fierce whereas the other people's style is gentle. And by the way... I love Anthony De Mello, but it turns out that A LOT of the stories/metaphors and what he had to say in general were from Vernon Howard's resources, including this book.
As I read Mystic Path, it totally struck a chord with me like no other. It's an amazing book that's fresh and brand new despite being written in the 60's. In fact, I was blown away chapter after chapter at this man's style. He knows what he's talking about.
The Hologram...
Most humans only know and teach about the Consciousness that We are..
The We, that We call Divine Consciousness (God)..
For most souls this is enough to Realise in this life and will afford them the Heaven that they seek..
but, for those few that seek Complete Knowledge, They surrender everything including this Heaven,and Divine Self and return to the Nothingness that is called Pure Awareness..
This No-thing-ness gave birth to 'Thought'...
'Thought' is what we call Divine Consciousness and is the experiencer and Creator of that which we call Life and materiality..
The physical self is a holographic illusion projected from this Divine Consciousness and can be changed according to our belief..
This changing is called a miracle because we are unaware that We have the ability to control the hologram because,
We Believe that We are the hologram...
- thomas
Wisdom...
Not all the knowledge learned from books and from experiences in the world and collected in the mind as learning is wisdom.
When the light from within is thrown upon this knowledge, then the knowledge from outer life and the light coming from within make perfect wisdom; and it is that wisdom that guides man on the path of life.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Our Buddha-Nature...
Our original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any trace of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy-and that is all.
Enter deeply in it by awakening to it yourself. That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught besides.
Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress toward Buddhahood, one by one, when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature that has been with you all the time;
and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all. You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream.
That is why the Tathagata [the Buddha] said: I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment.
-Huang Po
Surrendering the ego...
If he is willing to look for them, he will find the hidden workings of the ego in the most unsuspected corners, even in the very midst of his loftiest spiritual aspirations.
The ego is unwilling to die and will even welcome this large attrition of its scope if that is its only way of escape from death. Since it is necessarily the active agent in these attempts at self-betterment, it will be in the best position to take care that they shall end as a seeming victory over itself but not an actual one.
The latter can be achieved only by directly confronting it and, under Grace's inspiration, directly slaying it;
this is quite different from confronting and slaying any of its widely varied expressions in weaknesses and faults. They are not at all the same. They are the branches but the ego is the root.
Therefore when the aspirant gets tired of this never-ending Long Path battle with his lower nature, which can be conquered in one expression only to appear in a new one, gets weary of the self-deceptions in the much pleasanter imagined accomplishments of the Short Path, he will be ready to try the last and only resource.
Here at long last he gets at the ego itself by completely surrendering it, instead of preoccupying himself with its numerous disguises--which may be ugly, as envy, or attractive, as virtue.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 4: Detaching from The Ego > # 167
-- Perspectives > Chapter 8: The Ego > # 6
Paul Brunton
The void...
People are scared to empty their minds
fearing that they will be engulfed by the void.
What they don’t realize is that
their own mind is the void.
- Huang Po
' Enlightenment '...
The word, 'Enlightenment' has taken on a superior connotation and a wall that few can climb..
The truth is that Enlightenment is nothing more than our natural state..
All that you have done, is awakened from a dream..
Perhaps, the word 'Awakened' should be used instead, as not to frighten the walkers..
Teachers, gurus', etc. are good helpers to start you on your journey to Reality but only you can open the door to Truth..
Just as Yeshua and Gautama, I listened to the teachers and saw which way their fingers pointed and then proceeded to walk on my own..
I had no expectations except that I was determined to find out what was True and what was False..
I followed no ceremonies, mantras, or prayers..
I only meditated..
I followed the breath until the breath was left behind..
I found Truth...
- thomas
' Where are we now ?'...
You as Consciousness finds Yourself within a Dream of pain..
Not only do You have the pain of the continuence of existence with the constant feeding and warmth of the human hologram but You also have to witness lies and deception, corruption and death, within the political elite..
You stand and watch the egos' hate and fight with each other for power, wealth, and fame..
The philosophical humans that we follow into the prisons of religions did not desire this to happen..
These individual humans of Truth, that spoke of Freedom, spoke of individual action..
You entered this world alone and alone you will exit..
Alone means, All-one, but in the context of understanding the moving of the holographic manifestation into the Reality of Dreamer, The egoic presentation still exists..
You discover that You are the Dreamer, but a Higher Voice speaks to You..
Together, You speak of the Dream, but, You wonder,
"What is next ?"..
Love flows through You and yet You desire to learn more ?..
This desire to Learn is the essence of God...
-thomas
Transcendental Consciousness...
Fortunately,
Truth is already shining in Its own light
right within.
Its silent speech proclaims unceasingly,
I am.
This is the clue.
Those who have already experienced authentic Self-illumination
know directly that they are neither the body nor the mind.
They know that they are transcendental Consciousness
and Peace Absolute.
This experience is open to all.
The Light of Pure Consciousness is eternally shining in us.
The greatest obstruction is clinging to the ego position
and ego purposes.
In transcending the ego
there is first the recognition of the need to do so.
Egolessness equals Enlightenment-Emancipation-Truth-I AM.
-The above quotes by Srimati Margaret Coble
are from the book Self Abidance, Second Abridged Edition
The Absolute within the Dream...
"God incarnates Himself in a human form. It is true that He dwells everywhere, in all living creatures, but the desires of the human soul cannot be fulfilled except by an Avatara or Divine Incarnation.
The human being longs to see Him, touch Him, be with Him and enjoy His Divine company. In order to fulfill such desires, the Incarnation of God is necessary. When an Avatara or Divine Incarnation descends, however, the people at large do not know it. It is known only to a few chosen disciples. Can everyone comprehend the indivisible Absolute Brahman, Existence-Intelligence-Bliss Absolute?
"When the Supreme Lord incarnated Himself as Rama, only twelve sages knew it. The other saints and sages knew Him as the prince of the Raja Dasaratha. But those twelve sages prayed to Him, saying: 'O Rama, Thou art the indivisible Existence-Intelligence-Bliss Absolute. Thou hast incarnated in this human form. By Thine own power of Maya Thou appearest as a human being, but in reality Thou art the Lord of the universe.'"
Sri Ramakrishna
in The Gospel of Ramakrishna
Ed. by Swami Abhedananda, [1907], p. 409-410
Sight evolves...
A child must be taught from the beginning that things are not as he sees just now,
but that when he sees differently he will find the same thing different.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
Layman P'ang...
A layman of the path is not yet a monk but a seeker..
Layman P'ang was wise beyond his years..
He was a Master of the path and yet was just considered a common worker..
Remember when Jesus said;
" The last shall be first and the first shall be last"..
We are all workers within the fields of knowledge..
Although, in Reality, We are Consciousness,
we still walk within dualities..
Love and Fear are the highest dualities..
Forget the emotion of hate,
It is only the ego screaming..
If you have walked with me this far,
You are young,
walk further than me,
and tell me of Your journeys...
-thomas
A peaceful mind...
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
- Layman P'ang (c. 740-808)
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Enlightened Heart"
An Anthology of Sacred Poetry
Edited by Stephen Mitchell
Harper & Row, New York , 1989
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