' Surrender '...
You have heard this word, so many times
What does it mean ?..
What does it feel like to give everything away ?..
I hear the words of Jesus ;
" Give all and follow Me "..
He was speaking of the egoic-desire..
The material objects are just dreams of desire..
So now, you know the door to Freedom...
-thomas
' Enough is enough '...
There is no greater sin than desire,
No greater curse than discontent,
No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself.
Therefore he who knows that enough is enough
will always have enough.
- Lao-tzu
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
' Fear-thinking '...
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
-Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
' The mystery of Mind '...
The mystery of Mind is undoubtedly the biggest mystery of all, for when he understands that he will have the key which unlocks the door to all the other problems. However, it is necessary to grasp the following: there are two phases of Mind. The first is Consciousness in its everyday form, that is, the consciousness of this time-space-matter world. He has the illusion that this consciousness is a continuous and unified whole, but actually it is like a stream of machine-gun bullets, being made up of an incessant series of disconnected thoughts. Becausethese thoughts arise and disappear with extraordinary rapidity, the illusion of continuous consciousness, the illusion of an unchangeable, solid world, and the illusion of a separate ego are born.
The word "illusion" used here must not be misunderstood. The existence of this amazing trio is not denied for a single moment, because they are there staring him in the face. But this existence is purely relative. It is not absolutely permanent and therefore not real in the Oriental definition of that much-abused word. He must not confine the notion of Mind to that fragment of it which is used in everyday consciousness. What is called Consciousness is merely a portion of what is called Mind, or, functionally regarded, merely one of its faculties. It is the transient and relatively less important portion too. Whether consciousness lives or dies, Mind will always go on because it is the hidden source.
Now this Mind in its own pure stage (i.e., unexpressed through everyday human consciousness) is utterly beyond the range of human thinking because it is Absolute, timeless, spaceless, idea-less, and matterless. It has no shape to be seen, no sound to be heard. Consequently from the average human standpoint it is a great Nothing and as a matter of fact some of the Tibetan sages did call it a Great Void. As he cannot pull it down to the grasp of his little human mind and therefore is not ordinarily aware of it, it has sometimes been referred to as the Unconscious Mind, for want of a better term. But such a description is not a good one, as it may lead to dangerous misunderstandings. A better descriptive term must be found. To quote a phrase from one of Disraeli's novels: "The conscious cannot be derived from the unconscious. Man is divine."
It is this Infinite Mind which has been called God, Spirit, Brahman, and so forth. He has to get the knowledge that his own little individual stream of consciousness has flowed out of this great source and will eventually return to it and disappear into it. This is Truth. This universal, impersonal Being is what all are after. The ones who seek it consciously are the people who have taken up the Quest. Those who are after it unconsciously take to drink and other sensual enjoyments and pursue the allurements of this most alluring world.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism >
Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 130
Paul Brunton
' Pierce the needle '...
"When you realize yourself as less than a point in space and time, something too small to be cut and too short-lived to be killed, then, and then only, all fear goes.
When you are smaller than the point of a needle, then the needle cannot pierce you--you pierce the needle!"
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Negative energy in the body '...
Accumulated negative energy in the body..
In the unconscious state, attachment to painful stories of past creates an accumulation of negative energy within the body. This accumulation is essentially stored negative mental and emotional energy lying dormant within your mind and body. The story associated with this negative energy can be based in childhood abuse or trauma, bad relationships or marriages, a victim mentality, or any number of other stories. The energy tends to arise when you entertain that past or in relationships with people with whom you have a history of conflict.
Nothing needs to be done about this accumulated energy except a noticing of the space in the inner body and mind that is naturally aware of the energy as it arises. This space is naturally open to any feelings of fear, frustration, sadness, loneliness, or anger that arise and the corresponding stories that accompany the emotions.
In this conscious space, this accumulated energy is allowed to arise without trying to neutralize, analyze or escape it. Awareness has no agenda towards the energy. Only the mind seeks to neutralize, analyze and escape it. Awareness simply allows whatever arises to be just as it is. This is total acceptance. This acceptance releases the energy, revealing the awake, naturally peaceful presence that is the source of the energy.
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' The Mind behind Illusion '...
It is asked why, if the world is like a dream or a hallucination, we all have the same dream or suffer the same hallucination.
Why do we project it in common instead of independently, since we all do have quite different dreams when asleep at night or quite different reveries when awake by day?
The answer is that there is another and vaster Mind behind our personal minds which imposes the same world-image upon them all, so that all see it and live in it.
Moreover, they are of necessity themselves projected by this Mind so that this image is not less real for them than their own selves.
The mind makes for itself this world of illusion, this stage of space and time and form. But it does not make it independently of all prompting. For the image that it constructs is imposed upon it--or projected into it--by the Mind behind it.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism >
Chapter 3: The Individual and World Mind > # 64
Paul Brunton
' The greatest '...
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
-Atisha
' Just cry out '...
Fearful, always-moving mind,
the One who has no beginning
is thinking of how hunger
may fall away from you.
No ritual,
no religion,
is needed.
Just cry out one
unobstructed cry.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
' Truth has no agenda '...
When you start to see the light that you really are,
the light waking up in you, the radiance,
you realize it has no intention to change you.
It has no intention to harmonize.
It has no agenda.
It just happens.
The Truth is the only thing you'll ever run into that has no agenda. Everything
else will have an agenda.
Everything.
That is why the Truth is so powerful.
Give up your agendas and continue to expose yourself (to the Truth), and
harmonization will naturally occur.
Freedom is the realization
that this deep, deep peace
and this unknown
are what you are.
Everything else is just an extension of that unknown.
Bodies are just an extension of that unknown.
The trees outside are just an extension of the unknown
in time, in form.
Thought and feeling are also extensions of the unknown in time.
The whole visible universe, in fact,
is just an extension in time of this unknown,
this mountain of quiet.
So it's really important to get to the point of maturity
where you are willing to look at what is fundamental.
There is a difference between pulling the weeds of confusion out
and getting to the root of Truth.
Did, you ever pull weeds from a lawn, grabbing only their tops,
and discover they were back again so quickly
that it was as if the lawn was never weeded at all?
Clearing out identification is like this.
- Adyashanti
' Mentalism to Intuition '...
All life is a paradox, being at once a combination of reality and appearance.
An obstacle to the comprehension of mentalism is that one persistently, if unconsciously, views the world from the standpoint of the lower personality, which is extremely limited, and not from that of the higher individuality, which transcends both the intellect and the senses.
Even life on earth in the body is really a kind of mystical experience from the standpoint of the mentalist but it is only a blurred, vague, and symbolic one.
The thinking intellect finds it hard to grasp this situation because it is itself something which has been greatly filtered down out of the higher individuality.
Mentalism can be understood up to a point through the use of reasoning but after this point it can only be understood through the use of intuition.
- Paul Brunton
' Life becomes intelligible '...
Through motion and change, life becomes intelligible; we live a life of change, but it is constancy we seek. It is this innate desire of the soul that leads man to God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Man placed in the midst of this ever-changing world yet appreciates and seeks for constancy somewhere. He does not know that he must develop the nature of constancy in himself; it is the nature of the soul to value that which is dependable. But is there anything in the world on which one can depend, which is above change and destruction? All that is born, all that is made, must one day face destruction. All that has a beginning has also an end; but if there is anything one can depend upon it is hidden in the heart of man, it is the divine spark, the true philosopher's stone, the real gold, which is the innermost being of man.
What is this mortal world? What is this physical existence? What is this life of changes? If it were not for belief, what use is it all? Something which is changing, something which is not reliable, something which is liable to destruction. Therefore it is not only for the sake of truth, but for life itself that one must find belief in oneself, develop it, nurture it, allow it to grow every moment of one's life, that it may culminate in faith. It is that faith which is the mystery of life, the secret of salvation.
The whole of the external life is nothing but a succession of experiences, one after the other, night and day. That is why it is called a journey. Yet there is a part of life from which this life of changes has sprung; the life which is everlasting, which is eternal, the life to which all things return; and that life is the goal. Therefore, life is not only a journey; it is a goal. The goal is the stable part of life, the source of life; the manifested life called creation is the journey.
In this way we see that there are really two journeys. There is the journey from the goal to the life in the world, and there is the journey from the life in the world to the goal. And both journeys are natural. As it is natural to go forth from the eternal goal, so it is natural to go from the changing life to the life which is unchangeable.
' Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain '...
The ego’s objective is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. But pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. They arise mutually and simultaneously as dualistic opposites in the world of form. The concept of pleasure would be unrecognizable without pain, its opposite. The trap within the world of dualistic opposites is that the more you seek pleasure, the more you set yourself up for suffering when the other shoe drops. And the other shoe will drop. Pain will have to be faced at one point or another. Pain and pleasure simply do not exist without each other.
Emotional and psychological pain is a portal to presence. It is telling you exactly where you are identified with some story of past, future, or resistance to this moment. It is telling you what you are trying to avoid. Pain does not truly go away when you try to avoid or escape it by chasing after its dualistic opposite—pleasure (or the absence of pain). It simply goes dormant. This is the other shoe waiting to drop.
In the recognition of awareness, it is seen that awareness is naturally open to emotional and psychological pain in the very moment it arises. Awareness has no agenda to escape pain. In no longer escaping pain, the dualistic cycle of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain loses its strength. Non-dual presence allows all duality to arise naturally. This is radical non-resistance, the denial of nothing.
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' The mind undivided '...
The mind undivided,
that is,
without a subject-object parting of it into two portions,
passes into a deep contemplation.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 221
Paul Brunton
' Silence is absence of questions '...
Silence doesn't mean not talking. Silence is silence of the mind. Silence is absence of questions, absence of thinking, true meditation.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When the inquiring mind, intellectually creating problems, gradually comes to the understanding that the more problems it creates the more veils it creates between the Self and the understanding, then there is silence.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
http://www.advaita.org
' A clear and tranquil mind '...
"Life is not meant to be rich in spiritual significance at some distant date, but it can be so at every moment if the mind is disburdened of illusions. Only through a clear and tranquil mind is the true nature of spiritual infinity grasped -- not as something that is yet to be but that already has been, is, and ever will be eternal Self-fulfillment. When every moment is rich with eternal significance, there is neither the lingering clinging to the dead past nor a longing expectation for the future but an integral living in the eternal Now. Only through such living can the spiritual infinity of the Truth be realized in life.
It is not right to deprive the present of all importance by subordinating it to an end in the future. For this means the imaginary accumulation of all importance in the imagined future rather than the perception and realization of the true importance of everything that exists in the eternal Now. There cannot be an ebb and flow in eternity, no meaningless intervals between intermittent harvests, but a fullness of being that cannot suffer impoverishment for a single instant. When life seems to be idle or empty, it is not due to any curtailment of the infinity of the Truth but to one's own lack of capacity to enter into its full possession....
Spiritual life is not a matter of quantity but of inherent quality of living. Spiritual infinity includes in its scope all phases of life. It comprises acts that are great as well as acts that are small. Being greater than the greatest, spiritual infinity is also smaller than the smallest; and it can equally express itself through happenings irrespective of whether they are outwardly small or great. Thus a smile or a look stands on the same level as offering one's life for a cause, when the smile or the look springs from Truth-consciousness.
There are no gradations in spiritual importance when all life is lived in the shadow of Eternity. If life were to consist only of big things and if all the little things where to be omitted from its scope, it would not only be finite but would be extremely poor. The infinite Truth, which is latent in everything, can reveal itself only when life is seen and accepted in its totality."
-Meher Baba
Discourses, 7th ed, pp. 118-119
' Letting go '...
Leave your existence to existence, stop caring for yourself
so much and let the universe care for you; it is the best
mother.
There has to be some trust, not just belief, because
trust is intimate...
something lets go to this invitation to stop
holding yourself and let’s go to existence instead.
The very
letting go will be observed in your presence.
- Mooji
' When liberation is seen '...
You have to understand this is just metaphor, just the closest
I can get in language to something impossible to describe. Try to
imagine a translucent energy of awareness which is everywhere,
and imagine that being coagulated down into a very precise personal awareness in a particular space.
Now it seems that we are here in this particular space and these are our thoughts being generated by our mind. In a sense this is what the contracted feeling of being an individual is like. But it's not likely to be perceived
in this way because the person has always lived with that feeling
since the first moment they became self-conscious, so It's probably never been noticed. It's like not noticing the wallpaper that we've always lived with. Nevertheless we may feel uncomfortable in ourself, self-conscious, or even tormented.
When liberation is seen, this sense of tightness and contraction can dissipate. It can simply disappear in a moment. But what's
left is still a sense of localization unless liberation coincides with
physical death.
The body-mind organism still exists, probably
complete with its character, its personality traits and its preferences. This all remains. It is Oneness appearing as a body-mind.
-Richard Sylvester from The Book of No One
' Before '...
" Before you act, listen.
Before you react, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try. "
-Ernest Hemingway
' All is the Supreme Power '...
Ego says it matters, the Supreme says that it does not.
Even the power of decision is not from ego.
All is the
Supreme Power, do not attribute it to anything else because
this only reinforces the ghosts.
Face the One.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' The quality of forgiveness '...
The quality of forgiveness that burns up all things except beauty is the quality of love.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Nature is such that no two things are created alike; and the human being cannot expect his or her mate, whom nature made, to be as docile and flexible as that creature whom his imagination alone conceives. To make a friend, forgiveness is required which burns up all things, leaving only beauty.
Love is the fire that burns all infirmities. ... By criticizing, by judging, by looking at wickedness with contempt, one does not help the wicked or the stupid person. The one who helps is he who is ready to overlook, who is ready to forgive, to tolerate, to take disadvantages he may have to meet with patiently.
To resist evil, however, usually means to participate in and be guilty of the same evil. There is a story told of Muhammad, that a man who had always maligned him and behaved as a bitter and treacherous enemy, came to see him. His disciples, hoping for revenge, were disappointed and indignant to find that Muhammad treated his despicable enemy with courtesy, even deference, granting his request.
'Did you not see the gray in his beard?' asked Muhammad after the man had gone. 'The man is old, and his age at least called for my courtesy.' It is forgiveness and that forbearance which is a recognition of the freedom and dignity of the human being, that consume all ugliness and burn up all unworthiness, leaving only beauty there.
' Buddhahood '...
Buddahood does not happen by being made to happen.
It is unsought and naturally indwelling, and so is
spontaneously present.
Rest nonconceptually in this effortless, naturally abiding state.
- Longchepa
' Overself activates psyche '...
It is a mistake to believe that the mystical adepts all possess the same unvarying supernormal powers.
On the contrary, they manifest such power or powers as are in consonance with their previous line of development and aspiration.
One who has come along an intellectual line of development, for instance, would most naturally manifest exceptional intellectual powers.
The situation has been well put by Saint Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
"Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit.
And there are diversities of ministries but the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings but the same God who worketh all in all."
When the Overself activates the newly made adept's psyche, the effect shows itself in some part or faculty; in another adept it produces a different effect.
Thus the source is always the same but the manifestation is different.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 3: The Sage > # 94
-- Perspectives > Chapter 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > # 55
Paul Brunton
' When Love is Perfect '...
"Love is only
Perfect when itself transcends
Itself, and, one with that it loves,
In undivided Being blends"
Hakim Jami
Salaman And Absal
Translated by Edward Fitzgerald
' The purpose of position '...
Be mindful of the position of your body and of the purpose of this
position.
Know where you are.
-Barbara Ann Kipfer
' Stillness '...
"Sitting in stillness is all about going to the root of being.
This root is also the root of movement, energy, and emptiness.
The mind may be busy, but you can open to the silence from which thought arises.
Focus on the background rather than on the foreground of experience.
The more you relax the easier it is.
Utilize the stillness within the subtle body to unite with the stillness of awareness.
From that stillness all movement arises without disturbing the inherent stillness at the center of things."
~ Adyashanti
' Seeing beyond the Dream '...
The world is more and more shut off as his concentrated attention moves inward until it vanishes altogether.
It is then that he may become aware of his unknown "soul" and its peace.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 66
Paul Brunton
' The delusion of humanity '...
The fundamental delusion of humanity is
to suppose that I am here and you are out
there.
- Yasutani Roshi
' The soul is all light '...
The soul is all light; darkness is caused by the deadness of the heart; pain makes it alive.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Those who have avoided love in life from fear of its pain have lost more than the lover, who by losing himself gains all.
The loveless first lose all, until at last their self is also snatched away from their hands.
The warmth of the lover's atmosphere, the piercing effect of his voice, the appeal of his words, all come from the pain of his heart. The heart is not living until it has experienced pain.
Man has not lived if he has lived and worked with his body and mind without heart.
The soul is all light, but all darkness is caused by the death of the heart. Pain makes it alive.
The same heart that was once full of bitterness, when purified by love becomes the source of all goodness. All deeds of kindness spring from it.
' Recongnizing Self '...
Let him picture his own self as if it were at the end of its quest.
Let him see it enthroned on the summit of power and engaged in tranquil meditation for his own joy and for mankind's welfare.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 6: Advanced Meditation > # 125
-Paul Brunton
' Silence and Speech '...
Silence is the sea,
and speech is like the river.
The sea is seeking you:
don't seek the river.
Don't turn your head away from
the signs offered by the sea.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
' Transmuted Thoughts '...
Egoic consciousness isn’t just a mental phenomenon. The ego also holds tightly onto emotions and feelings, and also onto a general sort of energetic quality that goes along with this egoic trance. The content of our thinking produces many of the emotions and feelings that we experience. In a sense, our physical and emotional bodies are duplicating machines for our thoughts.
In other words, our bodies turn thoughts into emotions and feelings. It’s almost like turning water into wine; it’s an alchemical miracle that our bodies can be duplicators for our thoughts. On one side, there’s the content of thinking; but in our bodies, from our neck down, thinking arises as feeling, emotion, and sensation. I’m not saying that all of our emotions or all of our feelings are derived from thought, but probably at least 90 percent of them originate there.
Not only have we been taught to identify with the content of our thinking, but we’ve also been taught to identify with a certain emotional environment. Every human being has an inner environment that makes them feel like they’re themselves. It doesn’t have to be a particularly positive feeling; some people are identified with a very dense, heavy state of suffering, but when they feel that heavy state of suffering, they feel most like themselves.
Everybody has their own unique emotional environment—somewhat like an emotional North Pole. Not only are we taught to identify with the content of our thinking, but we’re also taught to identify with how we feel. We are also taught to recognize people in terms of their most common emotional states. We say it every day in our common language: “I am angry,” “I am sad,” or “he is an angry person,” or “She often seems sad.” By believing this about ourselves and others, we literally go into a trance with every feeling and every emotion we have.
~ Adyashanti ~
Falling Into Greace
' Surrender '...
Surrender is one of the hallmarks of non-dual realization (i.e., enlightenment). At first glance, when you hear about the spiritual principle of “surrender,” it may sound as if you need to do or become something or someone in order to be more surrendered. No. Surrender is an attribute of your natural state of presence.
The separate self contraction cannot become surrendered because the contraction is resistance to what is. If there is nothing you can do to gain surrender or be more surrendered, why even discuss surrender? Surrender is what is already here in this moment under all your efforts to obtain something from others, from life, and from the spiritual search. It is what is here in the absence of resistance to what is.
In order for surrender to be realized as an attribute of presence, notice the mental and emotional seeking and resistance that appears to obscure presence. Instead of doing something, notice what is already being done. Notice the ways in which thought and emotion are resisting what is and seeking something from others, from life, and from the spiritual search. In allowing these movements to meet the light of awareness, there is no more attachment to the movements. What is left is the natural rest of surrender. In that natural resting, it is realized that presence was never really obscured. There was merely a misperception happening. You falsely believed that you were the separate self contraction.
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenmen
' Awareness '...
Don't talk of different religions.
The one reality is everywhere,
not just in a Hindu, or a Muslim,
or anywhere else!
Realize:
your awareness is
the truth about God.
-Lalla
(Indian saint}
' Awakening into Consciousness '...
This phenomena of finding well-being amidst the difficult isn’t something that most people have experienced, because they haven’t really ever stopped trying to grasp at or push away a certain quality of thinking and feeling. If you just completely surrender to the emotions or thoughts, you will see the invitation there, the invitation to wake up from your idea of yourself and the whole emotional environment with which you identify.
There is a way that you can really stop. The truth is that a whole new state of consciousness already exists, that every part of your experience that’s unfolding right now is already enclosed within absolute stillness, absolute ease. And so there really isn’t anywhere to go or anything for which to search. Struggle only gets us deeper into the very thing we’re trying to escape. This is a very important thing to know about egoic consciousness: The harder we try to get out, the deeper we dig ourselves in.
❊ ❊ ❊
The invitation is simple: Let go of indulging in the mind, realize it doesn’t have the answers for you, and it doesn’t have the answers for us collectively. Together we can begin to stop the insanity within ourselves and amongst each other. Realizing our deep, essential nature and finding the peace and happiness that lie there is not just something for ourselves; it’s a gift to all of humanity. Because when we begin to become expressions of what’s possible for anybody and everybody, we arecontributing to the goodness at the very core of who each and everyone is. When we can relate to ourselves from stillness, from a place before the mind, then we can begin to relate to each other from that same place. Initially it might seem quite difficult to relate to someone else without getting pulled back into the egoic mind, back into the egoic consciousness, or even into the vortex of suffering, but if you simply hold that as your intention, it will start to happen—maybe all at once, maybe bit by bit.
There’s really nothing to learn here. Awakening is actually a process of unlearning. The important thing is where we’re acting from, where we’re relating from. when we relate from our true spiritual essence, then the quality of our relating is transformed. Then what we say to each other carries a whole different feel to it. It is then that we become expressions of peace, rather than expressions of the insanity of a divided world. This revelation begins with the recognition that you are not your mind, and you are not your ego or your personality. In fact, you are something much, much vaster.
~ Adyashanti ~
Falling Into Grace
' Timelessness '...
This is the abiding essence of a man, his true self as against his ephemeral person.
Whoever enters into its consciousness enters into timelessness, a wonderful experience where the flux of pleasures and pains comes to an end in utter serenity, where regrets for the past, impatience at the present, and fears of the future are unknown.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > # 183
Paul Brunton
' Direct experience of the Self '...
Direct experience of the Self is known as Self-realization.
This is often misunderstood to mean that there is a separate individual who is to have knowledge of the Self. The state of Self-awareness does not come about until the notion of a separate individual has been totally erased and the subject-object relationship has ceased to exist in a direct subjective awareness of the one indivisible Reality.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What is born must in due course die. The objective body will thereafter be dissolved and irrevocably annihilated. What was once a sentient being will be destroyed, never to be reborn. But the consciousness is not objective, not a thing at all. Therefore, consciousness is neither born nor dies, and certainly cannot be 'reborn'.
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
http://www.advaita.org
' Maya '...
"Suppose you come along and mistake a string for a snake. This mistake creates maya.
But, if you see that the string is only a string and nothing else, is maya gone?
No, because the accompanying suppositions and fears — 'What sort of a serpent is it? How long? Will it bite?' — these are maya.
In the end, when it is found that it is only a string, you laugh at your false presupposition because your fears are gone — the illusion is removed.
In the same way, when one attains Realization, he laughs at these false notions of maya — the world and all its connections — for he knows that they are totally false and not real."
Lord Meher
Online revised edition, p. 684
' Awakening is not for sissies '...
AWAKENING IS NOT FOR SISSIES!
The following is not a popular teaching..You will not hear it on the satsang circuit and you will probably not see it on an episode of Super Soul Sunday on the Oprah Winfrey network! You will also probably not read it in any of the books on the Watkins Bookstore list of the 100 most influential spiritual books at the end of the year!
As my old novice master in the Trappists used to say, "Everyone wants humility but no one wants the humiliations that go into forming it!" Likewise, everybody wants to awaken, but no one wants to pay the price of awakening. And the price of awakening is the willingness to let go of absolutely all that we think we know and find comfortable and spiritually consoling and to stand in a place of utter humility and insecurity, to stand in a place of not knowing anything at all. "In order to really know, we must go by a way in which we know not." said wise Saint John of the Cross!
Instead, we often want a "cheap grace" that requires little or nothing of us...We want a spiritual path that will hand us riches and impressive spiritual siddhis and powers. We want Life, or a teacher, a spiritual system, or a religion, to hand enlightenment to us wrapped in beautiful wrapping paper with a big red bow on top and sitting on a silver platter! We want a literal or figurative "savior" on a white horse with wings to swoop down from the heavens and save us from the big, bad devil-ego-monster.
But no-one is going to save us. Awakening requires a deep earnestness on our part that is willing to pay any price and is willing to relinquish anything and walk the extra 1000 miles in order to embrace the truth. But virtually no-one wants to hear this.
Granted, "efforting" and "doing" in the spiritual journey can certainly be overdone, and often is. Nonetheless, on the other hand, awakening is not normally something that just shows up in our life automatically either....For you see, in the end, there is no cheap grace.....True and authentic grace will always cost us the surrender of absolutely everything we hold dear!
Awakening is definitely not for sissies!
- Francis Bennett
' things and events '...
It is not the present which is fleeting past us with sickening
speed.
The present moment is indeed eternal.
It is our
imperfect perception that creates the horizontal succession
in time.
Sequential duration is a consequence of the
single-track verbalization of our split-mind, which does not
grasp the outer world instantaneously but interprets it
perversely by extracting bits and pieces and calling them
things and events.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' The black pearl '...
When you are completely clear, there is no subjective distortion; when
you are completely pure, there is true perception.
But even if you are
thus through and through, this is still now the transcendental key.
When the wind and waves have died out, the ocean of mind is as is;
when you get to the bottom of the ocean of mind, for the first time
you see the black pearl.
-Tzu-te
' Live by Truth alone '...
Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but
your own imagination,
you come to disregard your desires and fears,
concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Freeing the Soul '...
Every experience on the physical, astral or mental plane is just a dream before the soul.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The soul in itself alone is not other than consciousness, which is all pervading. But when the same consciousness is caught in a limitation through being surrounded by elements, in that state of captivity, it is called soul.
... Every experience on the physical or astral plane is just a dream before the soul. It is ignorance when it takes this experience to be real. It does so because it cannot see itself; as the eye sees all things, but not itself. Therefore, the soul identifies itself with all things that it sees, and changes its own identity with the change of its constantly changing vision.
The soul has no birth, no death, no beginning, and no end. Sin cannot touch it, nor can virtue exalt it. Wisdom cannot open it up, nor can ignorance darken it. It has been always and always it will be. This is the very being of man, and all else is its cover, like a globe on the light.
The soul's unfoldment comes from its own power, which ends in its breaking through the ties of the lower planes. It is free by nature, and looks for freedom during its captivity. All the holy beings of the world have become so by freeing the soul, its freedom being the only object there is in life.
' Experiencing Mind '...
When we experience Mind through the senses we call it matter.
When we experience it through imagination or thinking we call it idea.
When we experience it as it is in its own pure being, we call it Spirit, or better, Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone >
Chapter 2: Our Relation To the Absolute > # 134
Paul Brunton
' Asleep to Reality '...
It is within the dimension of being that Truth reveals itself— not the truth of mathematics or chemistry, philosophy or history, but a Truth that begins to disclose itself in those quiet moments when the ordinary routine of life suddenly becomes transparent to a sublime sense of meaning and significance unknown in common hours.
Such vital and unexpected encounters with being indicate a Truth that lies just beneath the fabric of our ordinary lives, reminding us that the life we cling to may be more folly than we ever imagined, and that there is a Reality that has the power to unlock the mystery of our lives if we will just submit to its exacting command to leave behind our fearful commitment to security and life as we have known it.
We are all born with being veiled in obscurity. We may recognize the transparency of being shining in the eyes of an infant, but such being is not conscious of itself. It is veiled in an absence of self-awareness. Infants live in a magical world of unconscious being, while adults live in a world of egocentric separation and denial of being. Rectifying and restoring being to its true dominion and sovereignty is what spiritual awakening makes possible.
The question of being is everything. Nothing could be more important or consequential—nothing where the stakes run so high. To remain unconscious of being is to remain asleep to our own reality and therefore asleep to Reality at large. The choice is simple: awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep.
~ Adyashanti ~
The Way Of Liberation
' The Universal Mind '...
There is no object external to the self.
What you
call the object is self itself.
Let us take the example
of a dream in which a tiger chases a man.
He runs in
fear and finally climbs up a tree. The tree, the tiger,
the chase, etc., are all a projection of his own mind and
his dream-personality also is a process of his mind.
So the one mind becomes everyone of these in the dream.
It is subjective as well as objective.
This is what is
happening in the waking condition also; and, even as the
one single mind became all objects in the dream, the
universal mind has become all these external objects
around here even in waking life.
They are nothing but
the universal mind ultimately.
- Swami Krishnananda
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Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
' Self disappears in the ego-thought '...
That which IS, by its very nature, is out of time--while thinking involves a series of points in time.
Thinking is finite and limits awareness to finite objects. Therefore, to contact the infinite we must go beyond thought. Because human intellect is too finite, it follows that our thoughts cannot encompass it.
Since that which IS cannot be taken hold of by thinking of any kind, a part of the essential requirement for contact with it is the non-acting of the thinking function.
The mind must be emptied of all its contents in order that its true nature--awareness--should be revealed.
At present, it is always entangled with some thought so that awareness by itself is lost in that thought.
Self disappears in the ego-thought, and the "I" mistakes the object for the subject--whether the object be the world outside it, or thoughts inside it.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 154
Paul Brunton
' The Demiurge '...
Demiurge: The Vengeful Old Testament God...
The Demiurge is the name that the Gnostics Christians gave to the Old Testament God, often noted for His vengeance and wrath. The Gnostics did not believe Jesus was teaching about the same God that the Old Testament refers to; instead, Jesus preaches the message of the “Good Father” or the “True Father.
Only in certain books of the Old Testament refer to “God” as “Our Heavenly Father” or the “Good Father”; these books include Isaiah and Psalms. In other Old Testament books, The God considered the Demiurge comes to people saying he is the “god of their fathers. ”
Ironically, the Book of Isaiah is among the books of the Nag Hammadi Library – the Dead Sea Scrolls. It should give everyone something to think about when you realize that the other books discovered were not added to the canonized Bible. In fact, they were quickly declared heresy by the Roman Catholic Church, including the Protestant Churches (the churches who are named for protesting their beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church). Why was Isaiah the exception to this rule? We do know that Isaiah prophesied the coming of Jesus. Many scholars and Biblical historians also believed that Isaiah was a prophet of the True Father and was proclaiming the end of the Demiurge’s reign.
First, let me say that the concept of the Demiurge is not a dogmatic teaching among Christian Wiccans – actually, the distancing of all forms of dogma is the very thing Wiccans who acknowledge the Holy Trinity is trying to do. Therefore, it is not a necessary concept or belief requirement of any Wiccan of the Trinitarian Tradition. Whether you choose to agree with this concept is up to you . . . however, it does explain alot about the difference in the Vengeful Old Testament God and the God of Love that Jesus proclaimed in the New Testament.
The actual word “demiurge” is an ancient Greek word meaning ‘craftsman’ or ‘artisan’. Plato, in the Timaeus, uses the word for the maker of the universe. Plato says of this maker that he is unreservedly good and so desired that the world should be as good as possible. The reason why the world is not better than it is that the Demiurge had to work on pre-existing chaotic matter. Thus, the Demiurge is not an omnipotent creator. Early Christian philosophers were quick to claim that the Demiurge represented “pagan philosophy’s anticipation of the God of revealed religion.”
In the beginning times of the developing earth and universe, the Gnostic Goddess known as Sophia; She was the personification of the Divine Feminine. Her name is a word which is Greek for “wisdom”, it is not synonymous with the modern name Sophia, (as in Sophia Loren) *smiles*.
There are various versions of Her myth. According to one, Sophia is the active creative force and Her consort is the passive creative force. The male aspect of the Divine is the Unknown but Good God and the Heavenly Father of Jesus. The story goes that Sophia desires to have a child God, but she does not “actively mate with the Good Father in a fashion that we might envision – however, Her thoughts become manifest by accident (after all She Is a Goddess!) – Her thoughts to have a child is infused with Heavenly Light and brings this Child God into being.
The exact means by which this cosmic birth process occurred was and continues to be the subject of much debate among the Gnostic Christians. According to this version of creationism, Sophia’s desire somehow veiled infinity, casting the shadow of heavenly matter (but lacks spirit); He is a shadow of a jealous Heaven and therefore is not pure. The Demiurge emerged from Sophia like a bad reflection or a bad dream about Heaven; The Demiurge is a total parody of the true, Hidden God.
Embarrassed at Her own actions, Sophia then threw the jealous and revolting Godform out of Heaven. After seeing the results, Sophia banished Yaldabaoth from Heaven and gave It independent existence. She did not want the other Aeons (or immortal beings) in Heaven to see Her mistake. Sophia then enters into a cloud and begins to cry for all eternity at Her foolish mistake.
He is called Yaldabaoth, which means “child, pass through to here” or the name Samael, the Blind god or “the God of the Blind. This type of “blindness” corresponds with the Spiritual Mysteries hidden within each of us. This Godform was the arrogant creator-god of the Old Testament. In his arrogance, he spoke of no other Gods – due to His ignorance, He does not even recognizing his own Mother Sophia.
According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition: the Demiurge – (dm´ûrj´´) (KEY) [Gr.,=workman, craftsman], name given by Plato in a mythological passage in the Timaeus to the creator God. In Gnosticism, the Demiurge, creator of the material world, was not God but the Archon, or chief of the lowest order of spirits or aeons. According to the Gnostics, the Demiurge was able to endow man only with psyche, sensuous soul; only the True God could add the pneuma, or the rational soul. This is the “feminine aspect of the Spirit” – the Greek term pneuma, often associated with the Holy Spirit of the New Testament. The Gnostics identified the Demiurge with the Jehovah of the Hebrews. In philosophy, the term is used to denote a Divine Being that is the builder of the universe rather than its creator.
Some Gnostics taught that the world is ruled by evil archons, among them being the deity of the Old Testament, who hold captive the spirit of humanity. They believe that this is the “true Satan”, the Hebrew “ha-satan” or adversary of the True God or the Good Father.
In the Demiurge’s own arrogance and ignorance, He creates the visible world but begins to withhold knowledge from humanity. This is made example, when Adam and Eve are instructed to not eat of the “Tree of Life” and the knowledge of good and evil. At this point, humankind becomes aware of themselves, their own ideas, their own opinions and begins to question the “only God they know” – thus, the anger of the Old Testament God begins and His vengeful tactics of ruling the earth is well documented.
' Happiness or unhappiness '...
Our thoughts have prepared for us the happiness or unhappiness we experience.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
All our possessions, all that we collect in life, all these things which we shall have to leave one day are transitory; but that which we have created in our thought, in our mind, that lives. A person thinks, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' At this time he has no money, no knowledge, no capability; but a thought came, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' Then he thinks of something else. Perhaps years pass, but that thought has been working constantly through a thousand minds, and a thousand sources prepare for him that which he once desired. If we could look back to all we have thought of at different times, we would find that the line of fate or destiny, Kismet as it is called in the East, is formed by our thought. Thoughts have prepared for us that happiness or unhappiness which we experience. The whole of mysticism is founded on this.
Every good or bad word or deed is reproduced before us, though it seems as in a dream. If we watched life keenly, we should see how true this is. Joy, sorrow, love, all depend on our thought, on the activity of our mind. If we are depressed, if we are in despair, it is still the work of our mind; our mind has prepared that for us. If we are joyful and happy, and all things are pleasant, that also has been prepared for us by our mind. It is only when our mind works without control that unhappiness, sorrow, trouble, pain, or whatever we experience comes without our intention. No one could wish to create hell for himself; all would create heaven for themselves if they could; and yet how many allow their minds to create these things for them, regardless of their own intention.
The control of the activity of mind is called concentration in the language of the mystics. The meaning of this word is often not rightly understood. People are apt to think that concentration means only closing the eyes. But one may close one's eyes for hours, and still the thoughts keep coming like a moving picture. People are never at rest, never at peace; anxiety and sorrow do not disappear just because they close their eyes. It is concentration that does that. Concentration is activity of mind in the direction desired; our desire dictates in which way the mind is to be active; the mind acts according to our wishes.
In point of fact, whatever one makes of oneself, one becomes that. The source of happiness or unhappiness is all in man, himself. When he is unaware of this, he is not able to arrange his life. As he becomes more acquainted with this secret, he gains mastery. The process by which this mastery is attained is the only fulfillment of the purpose of this life.
' Deeply in love '...
Trying to fall in love is like trying to make your heart beat
backwards.
It can't be done.
I am already what you are.
And so we
don't fall in love; we simply notice that we are in love already, and
always have been.
We don't fall in love; it is the 'we', the 'me' and
the 'you', the 'inbetween', that falls away in love, revealing the
intimacy of our own absence.
We are all so deeply in love that we
don't realize it.
-Jeff Foster
' Let it explain itself '...
In the glow of the experience any attempt to analyse it destroys it.
Let it explain itself.
Do not bring it within the narrower walls of the intellect.
For then you bring in the ego and unwittingly dismiss the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 5: Preparing for Glimpses > # 174
Paul Brunton
' To bowl without numbers '...
The unity of life and soul are seldom seen,
but, sometimes,
time stands still..
A space within hologram and Observer becomes apparent..
The 'life forces' dance to the joy of life..
Pins of desire, still stand..
You continue to throw Energy within the Dream..
To Know that You are the Observer is Freedom...
-thomas
' To live is to be willing to die '...
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is
to be continually thrown out of the nest.
To live fully is
to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment
as completely new and fresh.
To live is to be willing to die
over and over again.
- Pema Chödrön
When Things Fall Apart: Heartfelt Advice for Hard Times
' Indifference '...
He who can be detached enough to keep his eyes open to all those whom circumstances have placed about him, and see in what way he can be of help to them, he it is who becomes rich - he inherits the kingdom of God.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Those who are inclined to do kindness in life must not discriminate among the people around them, between those to whom they must be kind and those to whom they need not be kind. However kind and good a person may be to those he likes, to those he wishes to be kind to, he cannot for this be called kind by nature; real kindness is that which gushes out from the heart to the worthy and to the unworthy. ... In the Quran it is said, 'God alone is rich, and everyone on earth is poor.' Man is poor with his myriad needs, his life's demands, the wants of his nature; and when one keenly observes life, it seems that the whole world is poverty-stricken, everyone struggling for the self. In this struggle of life, if a man can be considerate enough to keep his eyes open to all around him and see in what way he can be of help to them, he becomes rich; he inherits the kingdom of God.
The soul of the spiritually inclined man is constantly thirsty, looking for something, seeking for something; and when it thinks it has found it, the thing turns out to be different; and so life becomes a continual struggle and disappointment. And the result is that instead of taking interest in all things, a kind of indifference is produced; and yet in the real character of this soul there is no indifference, there is only love.
Although life seems to make this soul indifferent, it cannot really become indifferent. It is this state, working through this life, that gives a man a certain feeling, to which only a Hindu word is applicable, no other language having a word which can render this particular meaning so adequately. The Hindus call it Vairagya from which the term Vairagi has come. Vairagi means a person who has become indifferent; and yet indifference is not the word for it. It describes a person who has lost the value in his eyes of all that attracts the human being. It is no more attractive to him; it no more enslaves him. He may still be interested in all things of this life, but is not bound to them. ... His connection with people in the world is to serve them, not asking for their service; to love them, not asking for love; to be friends with them, not asking for friendship.
Indifference, however, must be reached after interest has taken its course; before that moment it is a fault. A person without an interest in life becomes exclusive, he becomes disagreeable. Indifference must come after all experience -- interest must end in indifference. Man must not take the endless path of interest: the taste of everything in the world becomes flat. Man must realize that all he seeks in the objects he runs after, that all beauty and strength, are in himself, and he must be content to feel them all in himself. This may be called the kiss of the cross: then man's only principle is love. Vairagya means satisfaction, the feeling that no desire is to be satisfied any more, that nothing on earth is desired. This is a great moment, and then comes that which is the kingdom of God.
' All self forgotten '...
All self forgotten, having no intention of my own, every breath by the will of God alone. Suffused in the primordial darkness uncreated and eternal, within the mystic void subtle streams of stillness move.
All striving ceases.
The subtle stream flows unbound carrying spirit to its source unseen and unknowable. The primordial ground awakens within itself and flows out in infinite expression.
The myriad forms cannot help smiling at such good fortune and grace as earth and sky reveal the living body of radiant being.
The whole universe my intimate companion, shivering in the night chill— unbound liberation.
~ Adyashanti ~
' The Bhagavad Gita '...
“The happiness which comes from long practice,
which leads to the end of suffering,
which at first is like poison,
but at last like nectar -
this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one's own mind.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita
' Reflection of thought '...
Man's whole conduct in life depends upon what he holds in his thought.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The heart, which is called a mirror in Sufi terms, has two different actions which it performs. Whatever is reflected in the heart does not only remain a reflection but becomes a creative power, productive of a phenomenon of a similar nature. For instance a heart which is holding in itself and reflecting the rose, will find roses everywhere. Roses will be attracted to that heart; roses will be produced from it and for it. As this reflection becomes stronger, so it becomes creative of the phenomenon of roses.
The heart that holds and reflects a wound will find wounds everywhere, will attract wounds, will create wounds; for that is the nature of the phenomenon of reflection. ... There is another aspect of this reflection, and that is what one thinks, one becomes. One becomes identified with it. Therefore, the object which is in one's thought becomes one's own property, one's own quality.
A person (lacking mastery) holds a thought in mind, whether it is beneficial to him or not, without knowing the result which will come from it. It is like a child who holds a rattle in his hand and hits his head with the rattle and cries with the pain, and yet does not throw the rattle away. There are many who keep in their mind a thought of illness or a thought of unkindness done to them by someone and suffer from it, yet not knowing what it is that makes them suffer so, nor understanding the reason of their suffering.
Man's whole conduct in life depends upon what he holds in his thought. The thought of the wicked produces in him wickedness, and the thought of the good creates goodness. The love of Rasul, the divine ideal, enables one to concentrate upon this ideal. Since all in the garb of matter are to be separated one day in life, good or wicked, friends or foes, what alone is reliable is the ideal which man creates within himself, call it Christ, Buddha, Krishna or Muhammad.
' Stillness within experience '...
Instead of trying to control our minds or environments by contracting or hiding in order to find this inner stillness, we must throw our senses wide open—listening, feeling, seeing—and become very wide and vast. we welcome all our experience, both that which is happening on the inside as well as that on the outside. When you welcome all of experience into your awareness, a certain type of stillness starts to emerge organically.
I’m pointing to a stillness that is directly related to this capacity to open to all experiences, not just those that are pleasant and comfortable. Even if you have a very busy mind, if you let go of judging your mind for being busy, even in the midst of the busyness, this stillness is there. Similarly, if you let go of judging the exterior situation—your world—for being noisy or chaotic, even for a moment, this true stillness is there. And when we arrive at this inner stillness and inner stability, our emotional being opens. It is only then that we begin to realize that so much of our instability is caused by our constant arguing with what’s happening.
Yet letting things simply be as they are is something that we're taught. In many ways we’re taught to be in a constant state of friction with, to be in battle with what is. we’re taught that the way to find happiness or peace is to always be trying to change what is, whether it’s changing your inner experience or trying to change the world around you. when we operate from this viewpoint, it puts us in a sense of future, where real freedom or real peace can be found in some time other than now. This leads to our deep-rooted belief that to find peace and freedom, we need to change our inner or outer environment.
To tell ourselves—to tell life—that it shouldn’t be the way that it is is a type of insanity. This insanity destabilizes us. It’s a bit like going up to a brick wall, telling it that it shouldn’t be there, and then continuing to walk into it. Every time you bump your head on it, you judge the brick wall for being there, and then you walk into it again, again bumping your head. Then you say it shouldn’t be there, at which point you condemn yourself for the pain you have in your head. It’s a kind of insanity to be constantly arguing with what is and thinking it should be different. It’s a way that we keep bumping into life. when we collide with life in this way, we always feel interior friction, and we can never find the inner stability for which we yearn.
~ Adyashanti ~
Falling Into Grace
' The Beloved '...
"The Beloved is all in all, the lover only veils Him;
The Beloved is all that lives, the lover a dead thing.
When the lover feels no longer Love's quickening,
He becomes like a bird who has lost its wings. Alas!
How can I retain my senses about me,
When the Beloved shows not the light of His countenance?
Love desires that this secret should be revealed,
For if a mirror reflects not, of what use is it?
Knowest thou why thy mirror reflects not?
Because the rust has not been scoured from its face.
If it were purified from all rust and defilement,
It would reflect the shining of the Sun of God.
O friends, ye have now heard this tale,
Which sets forth the very essence of my case."
-Rumi
The Masnavi, Book I, Prologue
Translated and abridged by E.H. Whinfield, [1898], at sacred-texts.com
' Misinterpreting the message '...
Does recognizing timeless awareness mean that you follow whatever impulse arises in awareness, including the impulse to cheat on your spouse or hurt others?
To the mind, awareness may look like a state of ignorance, apathy, depression, or nihilism. This view results from trying to grasp the pointers conceptually rather than looking to where the words are actually pointing.
The actual awareness to which these words are pointing is naturally free, loving, peaceful, and open. It is not a particular state, attitude or impulse. It is the ground or essence of all states, ideas, impulses and attitudes. It is a fundamental Oneness and therefore an unconditional love of life. If there truly is no separation and if your true nature is unconditional love, is there a “me” who would desire to harm “myself” or “others?”
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' A human life '...
A human life presents the only opportunity for attaining the realization of Overself.
It ought not to be taken away from any man, however evil he may be, and however remote from this goal, in punishment for his crime.
-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea >
Chapter 4: True Idea of Man > # 44
Paul Brunton
' The ego is exposed '...
Understanding is all, and any effort to understand is an obstruction to it.
The impasse disappears when the ego recognizes that it is strangulated in its own trap.
The ego is annihilated by being exposed as the illusion it is, and this itself is the Understanding.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' See the light '...
"In reality nothing happens.
Onto the screen of the mind destiny forever projects its pictures, memories of former projections, and thus illusion constantly renews itself.
The pictures come and go--light intercepted by ignorance.
See the light and disregard the picture."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Ego surrenders to Overself '...
His destination is also his origin.
But if you say that he was born in the eternal Spirit, the question arises how can time, which is placed outside eternity, bring him to eternity.
The answer is that it does not bring him there, it only educates him to look for, and prepares him to pass through, the opening through which he can escape.
Need it be said that this lies at the point where ego surrenders wholly to Overself?
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 4: Surrender > # 85
Paul Brunton
' Buddhahood '...
"The road to Buddhahood is open to all.
At all times all living beings have the germ of Buddhahood in them.
If the element of the Buddha did not exist in everyone,
there could be no disgust with suffering,
nor could there be a wish for nirvana."
Thich Nhat Hanh
in Ana Matt
Buddhism: A Reader
Berkeley, unpublished manuscript, p. 31
' To taste eternity '...
If you want a kingdom and get it,
you'll have no peace.
If you give it away,
still you won't be content.
Only a soul free of desire
can taste eternity.
Be living, yet dead!
Then knowing comes
to live in you.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
' True autonomy '...
So how do we find our true autonomy? It is important to remember that autonomy isn’t the same as separation. In fact, it has nothing to do with separation. True autonomy is not about “me” as an ego; it’s about life itself. It’s spirit embodying form, inhabiting a human life, and standing up in that form. The paradox is that first we often awaken from form. We come to realize that we can’t be defined by our bodies, minds, egos, and personalities. That’s why the term “waking up” is so instructive: we’re literally waking up from identity, from who we think we are. We’re also waking up from all the ideas that culture has placed within us and all the emotions to which we’ve become addicted.
Many things are within us from which to awaken, but that’s not the completion of the spiritual journey. We actually wake up, which is almost like an up-and-out process. Literally, the energy within us goes up and out. Eventually, what will happen is that same energy, that same consciousness, will then come down and in. It will begin to move in a different way. It will come back down and back into form, back into our humanness. Spirit comes back, as it were, to itself—back into body, back into mind, and back into our human life. In so doing, it begins to realize and awaken to its true autonomy, a sense of being that is quite independent, while not being separate.
It’s important that we don’t make up ideas about all this, that we don’t create a whole theory or theology about how spirit should manifest, about how it should discover its own true autonomy. Because as soon as we do that, then we’re back in the mind, and we’ve lost our freedom and illumined creativity. Of course, we can still access our minds. In this way, the mind is a beautiful tool. But if we’re used by it, we’ll quickly find ourselves back in the spinning web of egoic consciousness. We can’t have an idea of what life should look like, about how spirit should be manifesting as our very life, because all of those ideas would just be products of the past—something we learned, imagined, or desired. Once again, we find ourselves back in the unknown—not in the idea of the unknown, but in the lived reality of it. It’s the mind humbled, on its knees, with bare feet and free of the known.
~ Adyashanti ~
Falling Into Grace
' The colors of ideas and beliefs '...
It is not the original revelation of the Overself which theycommunicate or transmit but the impact of the revelation upon their own mentality.
A prism does not transmit the pure white light which strikes against it but only the several colors of the spectrum into which it breaks that light.
The mystic's mentality is like a prism and breaks the pure being of the Overself into the egoistic colors of ideas and beliefs.
-- Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives >
Chapter 9: Inspiration and Confusion > # 76
Paul Brunton
' Seeing truly '...
Seeing truly is not merely a change in the direction
of seeing but a change in its very center, in which
the seer himself disappears.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Seeking Self '...
There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep seeking reality though in fact we are reality.
We think that there is something hiding reality and that this must be destroyed before reality is gained.
How ridiculous!
A day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts.
That which will be the day you laugh is also here and now.
- Ramana Maharshi
' The Short Path '...
The Short Path man ought not to depend on authorities, scriptures, rules, regulations, organizations, gurus, or writings.
His past history may outwardly force such an association on him, but inwardly he will seek to liberate himself from it.
For his ultimate aim is to reach a point where no interpreter, medium, or transmitter obtrudes between him and the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 1: Entering the Short Path > # 83
Paul Brunton
' The unknown potential '...
Whatever is sensorially perceived is like the wrapper of the real thing, a sample, a description, an advertisement, a mask, merely the seemingly real outward appearance of what lies behind.
Reality is therefore not the presence but the absence, not the positive but the negative, not the seen phenomena but their unseen source, not the known actual but unknown potential.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' He is single '...
"His love entered and removed all besides Him
and left no trace of anything else,
so that it remained single even as He is single."
Bayazid al Bistami
in Reynold A. Nicholson
_The Mystics Of Islam_
London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1914, p. 115
' Be aware of being conscious '...
Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness.
That is all. Very little can be conveyed in words.
It is the doing as I tell you that will bring light,
not my telling you.
The means do not matter much;
it is the desire, the urge, the earnestness that counts.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Righteous '...
Where the Overself lives fully in a man, he will not need to consider whether an act is righteous or not.
Righteous acts will flow spontaneously from him and no other kind will be possible.
But for a beginner to practise prematurely such nonresistance to his impulses would be dangerous and foolish.
-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics >
Chapter 1: Uplift Character > # 108
Paul Brunton
' Forgiveness '...
For-Give-Ness..
These are the three sylables of non-egoic desire..
What is given and what is taken away ?..
It is the same gift..
You are surrendering the egoic desire and You are taking away the false self..
Once again we meet this word of many thoughts but contain only one meaning..
It is the action of two egos' surrendering for the feeling of joy..
And as you already know,
Joy is Love..
Keep diving into this Pond called Love..
You will become a better swimmer...
-thomas
' Separation is Fear '...
"...when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it.
Alienation causes fear, and fear deepens alienation.
It is a vicious circle.
Only self-realization can break it.
Go for it resolutely."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Movement '...
Everything in the universe comes, stays,
and goes.
What doesn't come, stay, or
go is your own Self.
- Papaji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
This quotation is from:
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' LIFE DEMANDS A RESPONSE '...
None of us ever knows what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. we never know what’s going to be demanded of us in any given moment. we really don’t know anything other than this moment, right here, right now. But one thing we can be fairly certain of is that the next moment is going to be a little bit different than this moment, that life undulates and moves and is very unpredictable. Like an ocean, sometimes in life the waves are calm and easy, while at other times they’re rough and challenging.
Because the nature of life is uncertain and changing, not subject to our own needs for predictability and control, we can’t imagine how we could actually live from this deep space of awareness. Our minds can’t imagine living life in a way that is this open and groundless. what often happens is that we’ll begin to touch this deeper ground of being and then something happens, and we get pulled out of it. The kids are crying. You have to go to work. Someone calls you on the phone and it’s an emergency. You find that a friend or co-worker is agitated and you get lured into an argument. If we lose our awareness in these types of situations, if we become unconscious, then we get pulled from the ground of being. we tend to go right up into our minds, and we start to relate to the world from the standpoint of thinking. Life can be very challenging and it therefore demands something from each of us. It demands a response.
I want to introduce a phrase, said by an old Zen master, which I really like. he called this space of not knowing “doing nothing.” In this space, there’s “no doing happening,” which means we’re not leaping back into the mind and starting to do—creating beliefs, ideas, and opinions. To clarify, he emphasized the word “doing,” rather than the word “nothing,” to make a point that there is a way that this field of being can actually manifest as action, as doing. Doing nothing does not refer to just sitting in a cave all day or on the couch avoiding what is happening in our lives. But it is pointing to a very fresh and creative way of responding to our lives, to the spontaneous action that arises directly from the reality of not-knowing.
So how do we begin to respond to life from this state of unknowing? how do we respond without going back into the matrix of the mind? how do we respond without being caught, once again, in old habits of action and reaction? That is a very deep question: how do we “do” the doing of nothing? how do we be, as a verb, the depth of our being?
~ Adyashanti ~
Falling Into Grace
' Absence from consciousness '...
It is because we have the Overself ever present within us that we are ever engaged in searching for it.
The feeling of its absence (from consciousness) is what drives us to this search.
Through ignorance we interpret the feeling wrongly and search outside, among objects, places, persons, or even ideas.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 2: Its Choice > # 158
Paul Brunton
' A monday within experience '...
Sunshine has appeared with fanfare,
the storms have continued their path..
The rooms of earth are filled with fear and want..
It still feels strange to walk within a room and feel only love..
The souls look upon you with eyes of welcome..
How have you deserved this joy ?..
The love of friendship is a beautiful door to enter...
-thomas
' Imagination and Reality '...
“All the manifested world of things and beings are projected by imagination upon the substratum which is the Eternal All-pervading Vishnu, whose nature is Existence-Intelligence;
just as the different ornaments are all made out of the same gold.”
Adi Shankaracharya
Atma Bodh
Translated by Swami Chinmayananda
Kerala: Chinmaya Mission,1987, p. 16: Quote nr. 9
' The Self of Being '...
How you meet what you see is determined by who
you think you are and the level of wisdom that you
have gained,
how deep your understanding dwells
inside the Self of Being.
- Mooji
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Writing on Water
Mooji (Anthony Paul Moo-Young)
Padam Sangha Limited, London, 2011
' Awareness '...
Be clear about what awareness is. Take a moment to pick two objects within your view in the room. Make sure the objects are at least three feet apart. Let’s say it’s a lamp and a door. When you are looking only at the lamp or only at the door, there is focused attention. For the most part, attention is directed primarily at the object while the surrounding objects seem vague in the periphery.
Now, instead of focusing on one of the particular objects, notice the space that holds or allows both objects but is focused on neither object. This is a gentle space that simply allows. It isn’t focused on the lamp or on the door. This space just recognizes itself as that which allows those two objects, and all other objects in the room, to just be as they are. This is spacious awareness. It is what knows the present moment directly. This is what you are.
When these reflections invite you to notice thoughts, emotions, experiences, states, or other objects or movements, it is not an invitation to place focused attention on those objects or movements. It is an invitation to recognize this spacious awareness and see that these things are appearing and disappearing in it. As you become comfortable knowing that this awareness is what you are, it is realized that the objects or movements in awareness are not separate from awareness.
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' True Self against ephemeral person '...
This is the abiding essence of a man, his true self as against his ephemeral person.
Whoever enters into its consciousness enters into timelessness, a wonderful experience where the flux of pleasures and pains comes to an end in utter serenity, where regrets for the past, impatience at the present, and fears of the future are unknown.
- Paul Brunton
' Bhagavad Gita '...
"The one who sees Me everywhere,
And who sees all things within Me;
I am never lost unto him,
Nor is he ever lost to Me."
-Krishna
Bhagavad Gita 6:30
Translated by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Atma Jyoti Ashram, 2004
' Ashtavakra Gita '...
For see!
The Self is in all beings,
And all beings are in the Self.
Know you are free,
Free of `I",
Free of `mine.'
Be happy.
- Ashtavakra Gita
Chapter 15, verse 6
' The Ego's Addiction to Pain and Struggle '...
Make no mistake about it: Egos are addicted to pain. They’re addicted to struggle. In fact, egos tend to bond, in some part, through pain and struggle. When you have a conversation with somebody—a friend or a stranger—and they tell you the most wonderful, glorious thing that ever happened to them in their life, you’ll probably be interested. You’ll probably listen, and maybe you’ll even celebrate with them. But if you’re like most people, when that same person tells you the worst, most terrible thing that ever happened, you’ll start listening even closer. It’s like you’re being pulled into the reality of that person’s inner life. This is very telling.
Egos tend to bond in pain, not in happiness.
I’m not saying there’s no happiness at all in the egoic state of consciousness; of course, even while within it, we can and do experience moments of happiness, joy, and relative peace. So it wouldn’t be true to suggest that to be caught within the imagination of ego is all bad. If it was all bad, nobody would remain caught for long. Part of the challenge is that the experience of being led by our egos is both good and bad. There are times when you’re very accepting of life, and there are times when you’re very rejecting of life. This back and forth of acceptance and rejection, of pushing and pulling, of “I love” and “I hate,” this is what keeps our consciousness caught in the ego, and this is what makes us so prone to being sucked into the vortex of suffering.
But we all have the seed of awakening within us. This awakening does not require you to totally disengage from your mind or even from your ego. The very notion that there is something you need to get rid of is a notion that belongs to the mind, to the ego itself, because minds and egos divide life. What I’m speaking about is not division at all. You are simply being invited to wake up from a trance. The less you push your mind away, the easier it is to wake up from it. The conflict of getting frustrated with your mind, your suffering, is what holds your mind in a limited view of things. It doesn’t matter why you’re in conflict. It doesn’t matter what you’re denying. It doesn’t matter what in yourself you’re struggling to change. The mere fact that you’re struggling guarantees that your consciousness will not be able to wake up from its state of limitation.
~ Adyashanti ~
Falling into Grace
' Attributes of the ego '...
What we find as the attributes of the ego are a reflected image, limited and changing, of what we find in the Overself.
They ultimately depend on the Overself both for their own existence and their own nature.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 128
Paul Brunton
' Be One with God '...
Relax without laziness
Focus without tension.
Perceive without projecting.
Witness without judging.
Enjoy without craving.
Reflect without imagining.
Love without condition.
Give without demanding.
Receive without possessing.
Serve without self-seeking
Challenge without dominating.
Meditate without identity.
Correct without blaming.
Overcome without pride.
Laugh without cynicism.
Cry without pity.
Confront without hatred.
Guide without superiority.
Be without self-defining.
Live without arrogance.
Enter without self-importance.
Depart without regret.
Be one with God.
- Mooji
' Nothing and Everything '...
When I see that I am nothing, that is Wisdom.
When I see that I am everything, that is Love.
My life is that which moves between these two.
-Nisardagatta
' Truth '...
Does your search for truth involve only mentally weighing and comparing ideas against one another? In searching with the mind, you pick whatever belief provides mental security and a sense of self. You buy into beliefs in order to protect yourself from having to fully face the fear of the unknown. But truth is not about feeling secure. It is about what is true.
Are you afraid that your core beliefs will be threatened if you question them? Anything that is threatened or destroyed by mere questioning is not real. It is only a belief you are holding onto so that you do not have to fully face your fear of the unknown.
Hidden within every belief is doubt and fear. Doubt is mental uncertainty about your belief that is repressed so that the belief can continue. Fear is like the energetic glue in the body that holds the belief together. In questioning a belief, awareness is finally able to see the hidden mental doubt and the fear that unconsciously fuels the belief.
By seeing the fear directly, without the veil of mental analysis, the fear is seen to be merely raw energy. In that seeing, fear dissipates naturally. It is seen that there was a false sense of self invested in that belief. As the belief falls away, there you are—pure presence—free of the need for a false, mind-created self based solely in fear. That is truth.
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' Teacher and seeker '...
The true teacher acts by proxy, as it were, for the aspirant's Overself until such time as the aspirant himself is strong enough to find his own way.
Until that moment the teacher is a shining lamp, but after it, he will withdraw because he does not want to stand between the seeker and the latter's own self-light which gradually leads the disciple to dispense with him!
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 6: Student-Teacher > # 843
Paul Brunton
' When I despair '...
When I despair,
I remember that all through
history the ways of truth and love have always
won.
There have been tyrants, and murderers,
and for a time they can seem invincible,
but in
the end they always fall.
Think of it - always.
- Mahatma Gandhi
' Words '...
Words are but the shadows of thought and feelings.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Although the elements may be called earth, water, fire, air and ether, this must not be taken literally. Their nature and character, according to the mystics, are different. But, as words are few, one cannot give other names to these elements, although in Sanskrit we have distinctive words for them. 'Ether' is not ether in the scientific sense; it is capacity.
'Water' is not water as we understand it in everyday language; it is liquidity. 'Fire' is understood differently; it means glow or heat, dryness, radiance, all that is living. All of these words suggest something more than is ordinarily meant by them. ... Every activity of the outer world is a kind of reaction. In other words, a shadow of the activity which is behind it and which we do not see.
A world of idea is hidden in a word. Think, therefore, how interesting life must become for the one who can see behind every word that is spoken to him its length, breadth, height, and depth. He is an engineer of the human mind. He then does not know only what is spoken to him, but he knows what is meant by it. By knowing words you do not know the language; what you know is the outside language, the inner language is known by knowing the language of ideas. So the language of ideas cannot be heard by the ears alone, the hearing of the heart must be open for it.
' The Tranquil Center '...
Just as a flat-surfaced mirror will correctly give back an image of whatever is presented before it, so a properly quieted mind will register objects, creatures, and persons such as they are and will not disturb them by distortions, prejudices, or expectations.
One whose inner being is purified, controlled, and concentrated is able to live in the world and yet not be of the world, is able to go through worldly experiences and happenings and yet not be pulled out of his tranquil center by them.
-Paul Brunton
' The pleasure-pain motivation '...
In life nothing can be had without overcoming obstacles.
The obstacles to the clear perception of one's true being
are desire for pleasure and fear of pain.
It is the pleasure-pain
motivation that stands in the way.
The very freedom from all
motivation, the state in which no desire arises is the natural
state.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' These do not matter '...
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
-Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"The Essential Rumi"
Version by Coleman Barks
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
' The Overself is the Teacher '...
Ultimately, there is only one real Master for every spiritual seeker, and that is his own divine Overself.
The human teacher may assist him to the extent of giving him a temporary emotional uplift or a temporary intellectual perception, but he cannot bestow permanent divine consciousness on another individual.
All that the teacher can do is to point out the way through the labyrinth; the journey must be made by the seeker himself.
For example, an individual living alone on a desert island could travel through all the stages of the Quest and attain the highest realization even though he had no visible teacher.
The Overself will give him all the guidance and help he needs. However, he is likely to mistakenly believe that his own ego is making the progress.
- Paul Brunton
' Welcome to the Dream '...
Light and Darkness collide and Create..
Light is a necessity of vision..
Darkness says;
Create this 'yin yang' at Your will..
Light is the Father of Dreams..
Light enters Darkness and creates Dreams..
We enter the Dreams and experience emotions beside the Eternal Emotion of Love..
We learn what We are not..
This Dream is the 'Mirror of God'..
Welcome to the Dream...
-thomas
' Just be empty '...
"Thoroughly experience what you received from heaven,
but do not reveal what you attain.
Just be empty, that's all.
The mind of the ultimate person functions like a mirror.
It neither sends off nor welcomes.
It responds but does not retain."
Chuang Tzu
in Victor Mair, Tr.
Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu_
NY: Bantam, 1994, p. 71
' Faith '...
Faith is the bird that feels the light
And sings when the dawn is still dark.
-Rabindranath Tagore
' The embodiment of oneness '...
Oneness is not some fancy belief system or grand philosophy. It is beyond thought. It is a truth that cannot be expressed. It is simply lived effortlessly, naturally, and lovingly.
Kabir once said, “Many understand the drop merging into the ocean but few understand the ocean merging into the drop.” Beyond the conceptualization and the experience of Oneness, there is an embodiment of Oneness. This is the living truth of Oneness, embodied in the human form. As the old saying goes, you will know him “by his fruits.” It is easy to walk around uttering fancy words such as “it’s all One” or claiming to have had a Oneness experience. But the degree to which one is living in separation and conflict with others and resisting or escaping from what is in this moment is most telling.
The embodiment of Oneness is an exalted way of pointing to simple presence itself. When life is lived in this moment without resistance, conflict, and separation—when love and peace infuse each action and relationship—Oneness is embodied. The ocean has merged into the drop.
-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
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