' Reality Check '...
Within this existence, you exist as the character that you play..
It is too difficult to believe that you are More..
Within this snow environment, you have time to think..
A Higher Consciousness appears within Dreams..
I can give you songs and different frequencies,
but, what will free you ?...
-thomas
' State of Happiness '...
Every Saint that I have ever studied has spoken about the time of Now,
being, the only state of happiness..
-thomas
' Powerful personality '...
Some folks hesitate to seize additional strength because they think it wrong or dangerous to be a powerful individual.
Somehow they have acquired the false notion that tyranny or dictatorship or cruelty are the outcomes of a powerful personality.
These characteristics are not power.
They are weaknesses disguised as power.
- Vernon Howard
' Want Nothing Else '...
"The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided you want nothing else.
But you must be honest with yourself and really want nothing else.
If in the mean time you want many other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser and cease being torn between contradictory urges.
Go within, without swerving, without ever looking outward."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The arrival of Enlightenment '...
Does enlightenment come all of a sudden? Or do we have to work slowly for it by degrees?
The answer varies with the case concerned. Most need time to fit and equip themselves for the glorious moment of insight, but a few receive it in a day.
It must be remembered that it does not actually happen in time but out of it, in the great Stillness.
The man does not know the absolute final truth a second before--and then it is all there.
How soon it can settle down in him will also vary with different persons--it was a few hours in one case but three years in another.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 53 Paul Brunton
' Meditation brings Wisdom '...
“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance.
Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back,
and choose the path that leads to wisdom.”
-Gautama the Buddha
' A Polished Mirror '...
"Dear friend, your heart is a polished mirror.
You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it,
because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets."
Al-Ghazali
in J. Fadiman and R. Frager, Eds.
Essential Sufism
San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997, p. 124
' Demand Nothing '...
When you demand nothing of the world,
nor of God,
when you want nothing,
seek nothing,
expect nothing,
then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
' You are It '...
The mind is like an inner journalist that attacks your
self-image and then reports about it.
But all the time
there is a higher seeing present that is not caught in
the bubble of this play.
It simply Is.
It is pure non-dual
awareness.
It has no conflict with anything.
It is what
you truly are.
It is you.
You are It.
- Mooji
' Seeing the Witness '...
When I look through the mind, I see numberless people.
When I look beyond the mind, I see the witness.
Beyond the witness there is the infinite intensity of emptiness and silence.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
' An Infinite Knowledge '...
ANTHONY: You or I cannot, of our own will, bring about a condition known as enlightenment. That is an infinite knowledge. Only a sage can do that because only a sage himself is infinite knowledge and can produce an infinite result. But you and I as finite psychological beings cannot.
No matter how intensely the ego thinks about the Over-self, the best that it can do is come up with another thought. Whereas if you sit next to a sage, what can he do? He can stop you from thinking, slow down the mental processes, and you could experience that infinite consciousness. So the sage could bring that about, whereas my ego can't bring that about.
My ego cannot produce this infinite consciousness. The best it can do is: "I have another thought—infinite consciousness, infinite knowledge." It can go on doing that forever, but never bring about its own cessation, whereas the sage can do that. He can produce this infinite result, this infinite activity, this infinite knowledge. Because the experience of your Overself, or the glimpse of it, is infinite. It is an experience of infinity.
-Anthony Damiani from Looking into Mind
' Go Beyond '...
"What is birth and death but the beginning and the ending of a stream of events in consciousness?
Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful.
Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure - and we build castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness.
It is all misunderstanding and misuse.
Wake up, go beyond, live really."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Where is God ?'...
"God is not to be found in the skies, or in caves of the Himalayas.
God is in the heart of each one.
Once your heart is clean, God will shine out of it."
Meher Baba
Meher Baba Calling, 17
Ahmednagar: Meher Nazar Books, 6th ed., 1992 (1964)
' True Intelligence '...
True intelligence is the working union of three active faculties:
concrete thinking, abstract thinking, and mystical intuition.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 1: The Place of Intellect > # 5
Paul Brunton
' The Father and the Son '...
Songs have been written about this relationship..
The Mystics reading these words will understand this bridge..
You are Free within non-desire and yet a higher Voice, speaks..
Unexpected and yet no fear is felt..
Thus begins the School of Understanding..
Questions are answered, until the final question was not answered..
At this point, I decided to learn more before proceeding..
Life once again appears as a film, and I am once again an actor..
But, what is not known within the witnesses, is that all is a stage, when dreaming..
Therefore, I will leave both you and I within Dreams until We Awaken...
-thomas
' Mental contact '...
Guru is not the physical form.
So the contact will
remain even after the physical form of the Guru
vanishes.
One can go to another Guru after one's
Guru passes away, but all Gurus are one and none
of them is the form you see.
Always mental contact
is the best.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985
' It is a vicious circle '...
"Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an instrument.
Both the physical and mental instruments are materials, they get tired and worn out.
The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in intensity and duration.
Pain is the background of all your pleasures.
You want them because you suffer.
On the other hand, the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain.
It is a vicious circle."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Lots of Nothing '...
I remember thinking that when I ‘woke up’ my troubles would all be over and that people would recognize that something had ‘happened’ to ‘me’ and that I would instantly become a teacher to other people. Hahahahahaha….the ego-mind makes up funny stories, doesn’t it?! Ordinary life goes on.
This morning I rediscovered that what ‘waking up’ really brings is Nothing. No inner life at all, rather Inner Silence without effort, no boundaries with ‘the rest of it,’ no permanent ‘self’ at all, no recognition, and No One to care. I could say that inner silence is ‘blissful’ but, that doesn’t exactly describe it. Nothing does.
The condition of ‘being awake’ has, of course, nothing to do with the ego-mind at all. It’s about walking around as The Absolute, and knowing there is actually nothing else being perceived but, The Absolute in all of its various forms, and in its conditions Beyond Form, Energy (Dark or Light) and Matter (Dark or Light). From an Absolute point of view, I could say that Nothing ever happens, and there is No One else here at all. “I” don’t exist at all, and so Nobody can or does love a “me.” Nonetheless, love is everywhere that The Absolute is recognizing Itself. A lovely paradox.
May all who read this ‘wake up’ in this lifetime: it is possible! Happy Solstice and Happy Holy Days (Holidays)
-Jonathan Labman to Adyashanti - Enlightenment and The End of Your World
' Love does not cling '...
Freedom from all desire is eternity.
All attachment implies
fear, for all things are transient.
And fear makes one a slave.
This freedom from attachment does not come with practice;
it is natural, when one knows one's true being.
Love does not
cling; clinging is not love.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' The Myths of True Self/Awareness '...
Please take what Im saying here not as some intellectual rant, but as an invitation to look into your own experience.
It may be best not to buy into the idea that True Self/Awareness has certain attributes or that you are acting directly from True Self/Awareness. New age spirituality and some nondual teachings sometimes erroneously assign these things to True Self/Awareness.
True Self/Awareness is simply that which is perceiving or that to which everything is coming and going.
Assigning attributes to True Self/Awareness or believing that it has a certain voice/action is at best, a belief, and at worst, dangerous.
For example, there are stories of people who committed suicide by believing that a thought that said suicide was a good idea was coming from True Self/Awareness.
Although that is an extreme example, there are other reasons not to assign attributes to Awareness or claim that your actions are coming directly from it.
Many teachers who have abused students have used the idea that their actions were coming directly from True Self/Awareness as a way to rationalize bad behavior. I've worked with people in relationships who were at the receiving end of partners or friends who justified their hurtful behavior by claiming that it was coming directly from True Self/Awareness.
Also, when one believes True Self/Awareness is inherently peaceful or blissful, there can be a tendency to regard any negative state as coming from ego while the positive states are coming from True Self/Awareness. This can create a constant seeking to GET BACK to the positive state ("I got it, I lost it" syndrome) as well as an avoidance of and resistance to negative states (bypassing).
Notice that when you are at peace or even experiencing bliss, it is mostly because there is no resistance to what is arising to awareness. It's all being accepted as it arises. It's not because True Self/Awareness is inherently peaceful or blissful. It isn't inherently anything.
Even when you are experiencing something negative or non-peaceful, awareness is still there. It's that to which the negative thought/emotion is happening.
This is a more mature view, IMHO, because it allows for everything - every positive, negative or neutral thought, feeling, or sensation, state, experience - to be as it is. It helps to end seeking and bypassing, which by their very nature come from the movement of chasing the positive and avoiding the negative.
And ironically, it provides more peace, acceptance and even bliss, but even those states come and go to awareness
-Scott Kiloby
' Ahimsa '...
The word ahimsa in Sanskrit signifies harmlessness, non-injury to others.
It was a quality at the heart of Gandhi's gospel and Saint Francis' preaching.
The saint of Assisi knew no Sanskrit but his instruction "to cause no offense whatsoever to anyone"
could also be used as a definition of ahimsa.
-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics >
Chapter 5: Spiritual Refinement > # 94
Paul Brunton
' This Time called Christmas '...
The Mystical Teacher called Jesus, by the modern mind.
This Soul was gifted with Awareness..
To Know the Source, as Father..
To Know that 'Emptiness' is Freedom..
To Know that a magnetism holds this Energy called Love..
And why does consciousness not seek the joy felt as ego fades ?..
The 'Dream' is in three dimensions..
The 'Fourth' dimension will await many of us...
-thomas
' You may call it Love '...
"When the sense of distinction and separation is absent,
you may call it love."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' End of story '...
"What you are running from does not exist...
and what you are running to, is already here...
who you think you are does not exist...
who you are is already here...
end of story..."
~~ Gangaji
' This is Grace '...
We need to know the truth, the wisdom-knowledge, but it is not enough.
We need to have the living mystic experience, the vital feeling of what I am, but it is not enough.
For we need to synthesize the two in a full actual intuitive realization, conferred by the Overself.
This is Grace.
This is to emerge finally--born again!
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 51
Paul Brunton
' Forget Confusion '...
Forget, the seed part of your dissertation..
This has nothing to do with gender..
This materialism is easy to hide within dreams..
The idea of singularity or duality must be examined..
If God is All, who are You ?...
" I and the Father are One ",
said the Nazarine Mystic...
My Brother, Yeshua,
asks you to think..
-thomas
' Alright, we are Awake '...
We read, until the mind grows sleepy..
We are Awake to know the end of the Story..
This idea of manifestation and the psychology of mind needs construction..
Many of you are Mystics,
Therefore, I can speak to you of Truth..
Leave this desire called Manifestation..
Being, the Light and Knowledge of Reality is difficult among those that sleep..
The Paragraph is almost over, but, you are only beginning to understand..
-thomas
' Without doing '...
Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.
Thus the sage knows without traveling;
He sees without looking;
He works without doing.
- Lao-tzu
' The world '...
The world looks just as it did before; being understood for what it is--a thought-series--does not alter its appearance.
The sage's perception of it is like other men's; his senses function like theirs; but he knows that his experience of it depends on the ever-presence of Consciousness; he is never without this awareness.
This is the large first difference
.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism >
Chapter 5: The Key To the Spiritual World > # 142
Paul Brunton
' The Sage knows without traveling '...
Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.
Thus the sage knows without traveling;
He sees without looking;
He works without doing.
- Lao-tzu
' The Overself '...
The Overself does not always play the part of a witness however. Still and unmoving though it be, nevertheless its presence paradoxically makes possible all man’s activities and movements.
In a broad sense it is not only the hidden observer but also, by virtue of its being a function of the World‑Mind, the inner ruler of the person.
Thus it arranges the karma of the coming incarnation before birth, for it contains all his karmic possibilities out of the past, and it is the secret actualizing agent which passes them down into time and space for his ultimate progress.
At critical moments in the personal life it may suddenly and dramatically interfere by engineering unexpected events or by imparting a powerful urge towards a certain decision. This also is an act of grace. In the result the man is super‑rationally guided or miraculously guarded.
- Paul Brunton
' The road is the goal '...
"Once you realise that the road is the goal,
and that you are always on the road,
not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom,
life ceases to be a task, and becomes natural and simple,
in itself an ecstasy..."
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Time and Space '...
"Events in time and space - birth and death, cause and effect - these may be taken as one; but the body and the embodied are not of the same order of reality.
The body exists in time and space, transient and limited, while the dweller is timeless and spaceless, eternal and all-pervading.
To identify the two is a grievous mistake and the cause of endless suffering.
You can speak of the mind and body as one, but the body-mind is not the underlying reality."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Ego and Agency '...
Ego believes it has agency and that it’s doing things, and constantly things happen that the ego doesn’t want to happen. In fact, the ego itself does things that it doesn’t want to do; yet it insists that it has agency. Strange, isn’t it? We bump into that over and over, even in one given day.
You hear it at retreats, like this: “How do I not have this thought? How do I not have this feeling?” As if you had agency. If you had agency you wouldn’t have to ask the question, would you? If we had this so-called free agency we’d just go, “Well, I don’t want to think -- click. I feel bad, I’ve got free agency, I don’t want to feel bad -- click -- I feel good.”
We think the enlightened ones figure this agency thing out. They’ve got total agency, so they can choose bliss, joy, and happiness, and they’ve got something figured out, when actually it’s just the opposite. They’ve realized just the opposite: There is no agency.
Ego has no agency, therefore it has no freedom. That’s why it’s constantly frustrated; that’s why it constantly lies to itself. It keeps pretending that it does. It would be terrible news if we were our egos -- because that would mean we are locked into a prison we could never get out of. But of course an ego is just a collection of thinking based on desire and aversion.
That vast unified field of being -- whatever we want to call that: pure consciousness, spirit, unified field -- as that gets more and more conscious, as that wakes up to its own nature, the experience as it gets very deep is that “Whatever is happening is what I want to be happening.” Because when you are only that field, you haven’t split yourself off; there’s only the One.
- Adyashanti
' Christmas by Rumi '...
There is a morning where presence
comes over you, and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.
Your heart hears and, no longer frantic,
begins to dance. At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.
Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant,
and body, like a two-day-old Jesus,
says wisdom words.
Now the heart turns to light,
and the body picks up the tempo.
Where Shams Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes, and holes
you fall through into space.
-Rumi
' The Winter Soltice or what is called Christmas '...
It is a pagan holy day or what we now call holiday..
The manifestation called Yeshua or what the Greeks called iesous or since the creation of the letter 'J' in the nineteenth century created the name of a Mystical Teacher called Jesus..
The Truth of this Dream is not the worship of another human..
The Teaching of this Teacher is that of Love that is to be worshiped..
Love is the state of non-egoic desire known as Freedom..
Love is the state called Heaven..
Love is the state called God...
-thomas
' Without Resistance '...
It is only resistance that transforms the eternity of the present moment into the transience of passing experience as time or duration.
Without resistance there is only eternity.
Real virtue cannot be cultivated.
It can only be the inevitable, natural consequence of understanding itself.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' What is Aware '...
(a) Awareness alone is whatever it turns its attention to, seems to exist at the time: only that.
If to Void then there is nothing else. If to world, then world assumes reality.
(b) What is it that is aware?
The thought of a point of awareness creates, gives reality at the lowest level to ego, and at the highest to Higher Self but when the thought itself is dropped there is only the One Existence, Being, in the divine Emptiness.
It is therefore the Source of all life, intelligence, form.
(c) The idea held becomes direct experience for the personality, the awareness becomes direct perception.
-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2: Our Relation To the Absolute > # 129
-- Perspectives > Chapter 28: The Alone > # 35 Paul Brunton
' Yeshe '...
Yeshe is short for Tibetan “ye ne’ shespa”, meaning “primordial wisdom consciousness”.
Ringu Tulku Rinpoche says:
"In the word ཡེ་ཤེས་, yeshe, ཡེ་, yé is short for ཡེ་ནས་, yé né, which means ‘right from the beginning’ or ‘primordially’. Some people translate it as ‘pristine’ or 'pure', meaning that it is untouched and unstained, and has been there all the time. But I think we can say that yeshe is the most natural (wisdom) state of our awareness or consciousness (shespa), which is unstained, uncontrived and completely ordinary. It is there all the time, but we don’t recognize it.”
Yeshe knows itself as being differentiated from karmic self-consciousness and the conceptualizing mind (sem).
The primordial awareness, yeshe, is that consciousness which is not dependent on any prior causes or conditions. It can’t be created through practices, insights or study.
It is the famous “Wisdom Eye” as the “third eye” between and above the two human eyes, it is that “eye of awareness” which “sees” thoughts, mental, images, day dreams, night dreams and all sensory perceptions. The “eye” doesn’t ever change or become the effect of what is “seen” or known.
It is what is already “seeing” or knowing as our capacity to know and experience..
It is permanently in the condition of nirvana, while “perceiving” the samsaric phenomena of karmic mind and karmic self.
It’s never obstacled, blocked or obscured. It has no intention to alter, modify or to transform its experienced displays as seen or as experienced.
Just reading this is enough to shift consciousness from being the “seen” to being the “seeing”.
-Jackson Peterson
' The opposite of Love '...
The opposite of Love is not Hate..
The opposite of Love is the illusion of separate ego..
The act of giving, is originated from Love.
The act of grasping and desire is originated from the ego..
There is not Duality in Reality because there is no illusion of separate ego..
Therefore, There is only the Energy called Love, which is Pure Intelligence..
The question remains; " Why does Love feel blissful ?"..
Why do almost all humans find it easy to give anything they own, including their own lives for the sake of Love ?..
The answer is that;
We all want to return Home...
namaste, thomas
' The First Step '...
The first step is to Realize that You are Divine Consciousness.
The next step is to surrender, even this desire and be absorbed back home into 'Pure Awareness'.
Pure Awareness is the state of existence of Pure Thought without the desire for separation from Source..
This is the state of non-egoic desire, otherwise known as 'Love'...
-thomas
' True Happiness '...
"True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away.
Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably.
Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only.
Find your real self (swarupa) and all else will come with it."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Formlessness '...
All that is limited by form, semblance, sound, color is called object.
Among them all, man alone is more than an object.
Though, like objects, he has form and semblance,
He is not limited to form.
He is more.
He can attain to formlessness.
When he is beyond form and semblance, beyond "this" and "that,"
where is the comparison with another object?
Where is the conflict?
What can stand in his way?
He will rest in his eternal place which is no-place.
He will be hidden in his own unfathomable secret.
His nature sinks to its root in the One.
His vitality, his power hide in secret Tao
Chuang Tzu
' A letter from P.B. to P.B. '...
(1) It is not the tyranny of the ego which is to be removed most of all--although that is a necessary part of the Great Work - nor is it that the ego must be uprooted and killed forever--although its old self must surrender to the new person it has to become.
No--let it live and attend to its daily work but only as a purified being, an ennobled character or quietened mind, an enlightened man--in short, a new ego representing what is best in the human creature.
He will still be an "I" but one that is in harmony with the Overself - a descriptive name that ought to be kept and not discarded. So do not in your writings attack the ego as so many do, but lift it up to the highest possibility.
(2) The teachers increase daily and ask others to follow them. The teachings multiply and the books about them too. They are not your concern. Let them do their very much needed work. But you are to enter a new and different rhythm and tell such as will listen that they need not be forlorn, lost, or without hope because they find none to appeal to their heart or mind.
They are asked only to follow the God within themselves, for "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." P.B. - give this message while giving all proper respect and honour to the teachers of today and yesterday.
Those who feel alone in this matter or who can only walk outside the groups on an independent path should be reminded that there is a God within them who can guide and help them if they turn to him.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 0: Introductory Paras > # 1 Paul Brunton
' Glen Island Casino '...
As a youth, I lived on the Shore Road and would walk or ride my bicycle to Glen Island Park..
I would study this old beautiful building and wonder how it came into existence..
I knew that my father and mother would listen to Miller and his band and dance in this place until the War began..
I was born just after the War and continued to live in this area..
The record player would play these old records and once dropped, would break..
Glen was traveling to France to meet his band,
when Fate entered the stage..
An English bomber pilot dropped his unused bombs into the English Channel as was protocol..
Unfortunately, Glenn's plane was hit by one of these bombs..
This is the History, that you were never taught...
-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."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Impersonality '...
You cannot ask that love be created in you.
You cannot turn toward God until the turning away from the self has occurred.
Every experience is an impersonal experience.
The personal experience loses its impersonality when the mind-intellect accepts this experience as its very own, accepts it or rejects it as good or bad.
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' An Intuition '...
An intuition comes into the mind suddenly.
But so does an impulse.
Therefore it is not enough to take this mark alone to identify it.
It is strong; so is an impulse.
It is clear; so is an impulse.
To separate the deceptive appearance from the genuine reality of an intuition,
look for the trail of assurance, relief, and peace to follow in its wake.
-Paul Brunton
' This Is Home '...
The thoughts that you consider important are only cousins to that which does exist..
To return to Thought instead of Dream is a dramatic event..
You are entering the space of Thinker..
To know Self as Source is an Awakening Experience..
To re-enter manifestation is unacceptable..
To remain the 'Watcher' is the first Reality..
To surrender the ' Watcher' is true courage..
This is the state of 'Pure Awareness''..
This is Home....
-thomas
' A Freezing Night in December '...
A saturday night is found within friends and a birthday party..
The same souls appear within the room of wisdom..
All are searching for Love..
Friendship is the bridge called Love..
Alcohol is the sacrament of sharing..
We lift our chalice with a prayer of hope..
Most will continue to search for Love,
but will always return to parties..
This search is unnecessary,
You have never left the Reality,
called Love...
-thomas
' Shaped by thoughts '...
We are shaped by our thoughts;
we become what we think.
When the mind is pure,
joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
-Gautama the Buddha
' They are not '...
You are looking for satisfaction in the outside world
because you think that all these objects
you see in front of you
are real.
They are not.
Annamalai Swami
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
' The ego does die '...
The ego does die, but it is not what many think.
The caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, dies to its old form and can never go back to being a caterpillar.
Yet, if you look closely, the main body of it still retains its caterpillar form.
Recognize that you are an ego and do not pretend to have wings by using non-duality jargon.
You intuit the source within; now offer yourself in deep surrender as ego incarnate to the fire of grace.
It is this fire which burns away all that is exclusive and leaves in its place a refined personality under the sole sovereignty of Non-Conceptual Truth, which makes the will of the individual the will of the One.
-Atreya Thomas
' Your Real Nature '...
"You are the Self, here and now.
Leave the mind alone,
stand aware and unconcerned and you will realize that to stand alert but detached,
watching events come and go, is an aspect of your real nature."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' A dream within a dream '...
This life is all a dream,
a dream within a dream.
We dream this world,
we dream that we die
and take birth in another body.
And in this birth we dream
that we have dreams.
All kinds of pleasures and suffering
alternate in these dreams,
but a moment comes when waking up happens.
In this moment,
which we call realizing the Self,
there is the understanding that
all the births, all the deaths,
all the sufferings and all the pleasures
were unreal dreams
that have finally come to an end.
Annamalai Swami
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
' The Great Mystery '...
"The original attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the 'Great Mystery' that surrounds and embraces us, was as simple as it was exalted. To him it was the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.
The worship of the 'Great Mystery' was silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking. It was silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of my ancestors ascended to God in wordless adoration. It was solitary, because they believed that He is nearer to us in solitude, and there were no priests authorized to come between a man and his Maker. None might exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. Among us all men were created sons of God and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity. Our faith might not be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who were unwilling to receive it; hence there was no preaching, proselyting, nor persecution, neither were there any scoffers or atheists.
There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. Being a natural man, the Indian was intensely poetical. He would deem it sacrilege to build a house for Him who may be met face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock, and yonder in the jeweled vault of the night sky! He who enrobes Himself in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire, He who rides upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth His spirit upon aromatic southern airs, whose war-canoe is launched upon majestic rivers and inland seas -- He needs no lesser cathedral!
That solitary communion with the Unseen which was the highest expression of our religious life is partly described in the word bambeday, literally 'mysterious feeling,' which has been variously translated 'fasting' and 'dreaming.' It may better be interpreted as 'consciousness of the divine'."
Ohiyesa (Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman), Santee Sioux
The Soul of the Indian
Houghton, 1911 (Public Domain)
' What cowards, we are '...
As the Realization of Reality, We have no excuse..
We already know Truth..
We present Knowledge, but this Knowledge is not understood..
The idea of 'Nothingness' is feared..
You already know the pain of existence,
does fear drive you forward ?..
We fear non-existence,
what cowards, we are..
All life, dies,
why do you cringe in fear ?..
-Forgive me for entering your soul without permission..
-thomas
' Out of this world '...
We do not ‘come into’ this world.
We come out of it as
leaves from a tree.
As the ocean ‘waves,’
the universe
‘peoples.’
- Alan Watts
' Restlessness causes chaos '...
If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and
expectations,
you would be able to discern the
beautiful pattern of events.
It is your restlessness
that causes chaos.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Life reaching out '...
AH: That fact, that the ego no longer has that kind of blind security in its own autonomy, leads to this long drawn-out process.
ANTHONY: Yes. You have to remember that even if no books were ever written, and there were no gurus, no teachers, no sages, no texts available, no companions to talk to, this still operates. It's a natural process. It operates regardless of whether you have flags flying, books written, or not. This is what I mean when I speak about life reaching out through experience to understand itself. And this is independent even of the cultural mores of the environment. This is a natural process. An apple or a pear on a tree ripens naturally. You don't have to go there and read to it about the genesis of the process of its growth, budding, and maturation! [laughter] It just happens. And the pear has no notion that it's Norwegian or Finnish or American, or anything like that.
AH: Some of the mystical experiences that I've read about use the expression "I am not" rather than "I am a grander self." It seems that the notion of a grander self is the conclusion of the philosophic work.
ANTHONY: Yes, it's a very long drawn-out path. But the important thing to understand is that this is a process that's going on in nature. You can be born on an island with nobody to talk to. Everybody would be carrying a stone weighing two hundred pounds and you wouldn't be carrying any.
-Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom
' To New York City Souls '...
Drop this burden called, Desire..
Visit, Chuang Yen Monastery, fifty miles, north of Illusion..
Take the Taconic, through forests of Pine Trees and Lakes..
Carmel is cheek to jowl..
The Park lies between the speeder to destination and the traveler..
Miles of Trees and artists of Architecture ..
Look into the skill of the stone cutter..
Some, become, Artists..
The Prison of Manhattan has entered your Soul..
Come North and experience, Freedom..
The Air and Mind, is Clear...
-thomas
' California Dreaming ',,,
I am listening to the 'Folk Rock' Group, called the 'Mamas and the Papas',
Attending Technical School in a military base in Illinois during Winter..
It was impossible to Breathe without all moisture freezing..
Of course, we all became ill..
But, this desire to find the Heaven called 'Warmth, Love, and Sun', is, of course desired..
But, years later will create that which is opposite, for experience and learning..
Viet Nam becomes a manifestation within this Dream..
And yet, this same song was played with great appreciation and hope..
We now find ourselves within the Final Destination..
Will we as 'Actors' called 'Ego' continue our 'Plays',
or should we call it, 'Playing'
and return Home?...
-thomas
' Stay Awake '...
"Keep God in remembrance till self is forgotten,
That you may be lost in the Called without distraction of caller and called."
-Rumi
Divani Shamsi Tabriz, 4
in F. Hadland Davis
The Persian Mystics: Jalaluddin Rumi
London: John Murray, 1912, p. 45
' The Overself '...
The name which will henceforth be here used is the ‘Overself’.
It is consequently from its own Overself that every individual receives the world‑picture.
We have pointed out in earlier books that the Overself has its human habitat within the heart.
Although associated of course with the whole body it has its most intimate association with the heart.
Just as a king’s rule may extend over a whole country and yet it may also be said to be definitely centered in the palace where he resides, so the Overself permeates the entire body and yet is also definitely centered in the heart.
Hence the heart is the focal point where the World‑Mind through its intermediary the Overself affects the personality.
The karmic forces become active within the heart therefore and there break into space‑time existence.
Like light‑photographs on a sensitive film, they develop into a tiny seed‑like thought‑form. This is the matrix of the world-to‑be.
Were this to remain here, then the individual would experience it only in the form of a dream.
Indeed, in an earlier period of cosmic evolution such was the strange way in which the immature human race did pass its existence.
-Paul Brunton
. The Natural Cessation of Conceptualization '...
What almost all Western minds can’t grasp, is that goal of the Madhyamaka and Prasangika emptiness teachings, is the natural and spontaneous (not intended) CESSATION of all conceptualization and mental “grasping for meanings” through thought.
This is like “thinking and conceiving” a rope to be a snake.
When the lights are turned up, it’s seen there is no snake; the snake was a mental construct imputed upon the rope.
Then, the mind naturally ceases thinking “snake”. You don’t have to practice “not thinking about that rope being a snake”.
That is how the natural cessation of conceptualizing occurs too; the mind sees ALL thoughts and concepts are fictions being applied to sensory phenomena (more concepts) or to other conceptual constructions.
You can’t think or cleverly conceptualize your way to nirvana.
Nirvana is already fully present and is known when all conceptualizing naturally ceases.
It’s what remains, but the mind has been too busy chasing and grasping for insights through thought, to notice.
Anything added to what I just shared is just more karmic mind-noise expressed as concepts. What did the Buddha wake up from? His own daydreaming in thoughts and concepts.
Boom! Finished!
-Jackson Peterson to Dzogchen Discussion
' Autonomous existence '...
Human beings have no independent or
autonomous existence whether they accept
the fact or not.
And whether they like it or
not, they are being helplessly lived within
the vast totality of an imponderably intricate
creation over which they have absolutely
no control.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
' The World-Mind consciousness '...
Our innumerable ideas are a kind of division of the mind but do not really involve its exhaustion for the ideas not only arise but must vanish back into it.
Although the mind perpetually empties itself into thoughts, it is never less itself, never less its own single presence.
Nor are these thoughts separate at any moment from the mind.
In the same way, except that it is not affected by the transiency which affects all thoughts, the Overself is not separate from the World‑Mind.
Every Overself exists in the World‑Mind just as different thoughts exist in one and the same human mind.
The World‑Mind’s consciousness may multiply or divide itself a million times but its stuff is not really divisible; it only appears so.
-Paul Brunton
' The egocentric filters '...
Our relative, or human, nature can and does experience meaning or the absence of meaning.
From the perspective of enlightened relativity we both transcend and experience meaning.
Life is experienced as both with and without meaning simultaneously.
The meaning that is experienced is not a philosophical meaning; it is not an idea that we impose upon life.
Rather, the meaning that is experienced is the simple awe and wonder of existence that we experience when we are in alignment with being.
Life is its own meaning when experienced directly and intimately, free of the egocentric filters of separation.
Only the egocentric filters of separation can experience life as negatively meaningless.
The view from enlightened relativity is the coming together of all the opposites into a unitary whole.
-Adyashanti - Enlightened Relativity
' The sum of memories '...
"The person is a very small thing.
Actually it is a composite, it cannot be said to exist by itself.
Unperceived, it is just not there.
It is but the shadow of the mind, the sum total of memories.
Pure being is reflected in the mirror of the mind, as knowing.
What is known takes the shape of a person, based on memory and habit.
It is but a shadow, or a projection of the knower onto the screen of the mind."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The perfume of Silence '...
There is nothing to do. When you look deeply you will see that most “doing” is reaction. Pure motiveless observation alone is empty of reaction for there is nobody to react. Then every action is spontaneous from moment to moment.
[Long silence]
You must not come to any conclusions in this kind of meeting. The speaking is more or less a pretext. The real perfume is in the silence.
Jean Klein The Ease of Being
' Attachment '...
But what does this non‑attachment mean?
The monks and ascetics glibly use this word but their sense of its meaning is not the same as the philosopher’s.
It does not mean that we are to prefer being well‑emaciated to being well‑nourished. It does not mean that we should deliberately choose dirty hovels in which to dwell, uncomfortable chairs in which to sit, ill‑paid menial work by which to earn our livelihood or poverty in preference to prosperity.
And it certainly does not mean that we are to turn our backs on wife, child, parent, friend and social status. Those who say it does mean these things make the mistake of confusing different levels of ethical reference, of propagating for universal practice a moral attitude which is perfectly right for themselves alone, perfectly right for men who have outwardly renounced the world and become monks.
All such public advertisements of piety, however, leave the philosopher cold.
He practises non‑attachment by understanding the transiency of all things and therefore by refusing to look for permanent happiness in this mundane sphere, by ever keeping at the back of his mind and in the inmost recess of his heart a secret reservation against dependence on any earthly thing or living creature for final happiness.
He will take the best that this world offers him, if he can, but at the same time he is fully prepared to take the worst. For he knows the real nature of the world and puts his ultimate faith in That where no person and no formed thing can dwell. He is, in fact, really attached only to one thing ‑ the Overself.
- Paul Brunton
' Diamond Sutra '...
"What is known as the teaching of the Buddha is not
the teaching of the Buddha."
Diamond Sutra
"What is the ultimate teaching of Buddhism?'
"'You won't understand it until you have it."
-Shih-t'ou
in Aldous Huxley
The Perennial Philosophy
New York: Harper, 1945, p. 127
' Before the beginning '...
"Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost.
That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death.
That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' You have to disappear '...
Papaji said, ‘To discover Truth, you will have to disappear.’
Now, who was he speaking to?
How do you disappear?
Can 'you' do it?
Who could carry out such an instruction?
Actually, nobody can.
It was not even an instruction.
But the words detonated like a grenade inside my being.
Sometimes the Master says things 'you' cannot do.
It is one of his most powerful teachings, a teaching no one can follow.
Grace alone does it.
- Mooji
' The sacredness of everything '...
ANTHONY: Now, what he's saying here is very important.
The sage finds that the world without—the externally manifested idea of the world—is one's own inner self That's quite advanced.
There are mystics who have an experience, a glimpse, of their own higher self, and they become recluses and hermits; they run away.
But there's another kind of experience that some mystics have where they feel the sacredness of every-thing around them.
They become acquainted with the fact that the World-Idea being manifested in them is also of the nature of the "I" It can actually occur that you come out of a trance state like that and bump into a chair and say, "Excuse me"; you actually feel the sacredness of the whole world.
This is not common for most mystics. At any rate, PB is pointing out here that these are shortcomings that mystics have.
First of all, it's not a continuous light; it flickers; even worse, it goes off and goes on again.
So the insight that the philosopher operates with is continuous, uninterrupted, without any break.
The philosopher continuously sees that consciousness underlies the reality of objects.
It's always there for the philosopher-sage.
-Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom
' Detaching from the body '...
What is meant when it is said that the Overself is man’s higher individuality must now be explained.
We know that the World Mind must be everywhere yet it is certainly not everywhere to the personal consciousness.
There must be a point‑instant in space-time perception where the latter can meet it.
In most mystical experience such a point is first felt to exist within the heart.
But the World‑Mind cannot be confined within such a limited perception.
And later mystical experience always transcends this centre within the heart and largely detaches the consciousness from the body altogether.
-Paul Brunton
' The pleasure of retirement '..
I watch a kitten that appears to have an eternal war with a piece of cloth..
My lover sent the frequency of the desire for kitten and a feral cat completed the arrangement..
Of course, our hands are lined with wounds..
The kitten must be 'Teething'..
What is Happiness but that which has no fear ?..
We exist in a Dream of Fear..
This Fear drains your energy..
Fear Not,
You cannot die...
-thomas
' No actual doctrine '...
"If we are to discuss this matter, the simple fact is that there is nothing whatsoever to point out to people.
If there were anything at all to indicate to people, Buddhism would not have reached the present day.
For this reason the successions of Buddhas extending a hand and the successions of Zen masters passing on transmission have done so for lack of practical choice; there has never been an actual doctrine."
Fu-an
in Thomas Cleary
Teachings of Zen Buddhism
NY: Barnes & Noble, revised and expanded edition, 2000 (1998), p. 103
' This too shall pass '...
You’re living out your life by unconsciously
reacting to what you’ve purposefully forgotten
that you already are.
Throughout your entire life, you will probably
remember…and then forget…this same truth
…again and again and again.
Just as the depth of your sleep cycle varies
throughout the night, so will you also feel clearer
and more spiritually awake at certain times in your
life than you will at other times.
Allow yourself to comfortably move in and out of
your uncomfortable confusion.
And remember: “This, too, shall pass.”
- Chuck Hillig
' Oppressions of time '...
That which never dies and was not born, which has existed from one eternity to another, can exist only in a timeless Now which is beyond human conception but not beyond human experience. He who can learn to live feelingly in this everlasting Now knows how artificial are all those oppressions of time to which humanity clings so slavishly and so short‑sightedly.
He knows that these divisions which it insists on making are mere conventions which help to make practical life possible but which are illusions in the greater absolute life of Infinite Duration. The passive submission to time keeps man enchained. The willed meditation on the infinite observer which is ever with him and within him is a revolt which weakens every link of his chains.
If the unimaginably stretched‑out time‑life of World‑Mind is beyond human reach the timelessness of pure Mind is within possible experience. As the Overself it is the stupendous ever-present fact of his life. If he ceases to ignore it and repeatedly strives to know it, the hour will certainly arrive when he shall do so.
For gently and gradually a realization will come to the student that he is no longer imprisoned by the body, that an inexpressible spaciousness of being is now his. The planetary scene will seem like a shadow show. The people in it will seem like shadow actors playing allotted parts.
He himself will feel fleshless and ethereal. A queer feeling that this is an experience he has been fated to meet since birth will creep into his heart. He will find in himself the wonderful confirmation of that which reason merely affirms and religion only hints at ‑ the glorious fact of the timeless soul.
-Paul Brunton
' We are manifestation '...
God is Truly Known as Consciousness..
And Consciousness is all that is Known..
Source, which is known as the nickname of God is Dreaming..
And we are the Dream..
To see yourself as a Dream is frightful but also liberating..
At this point, you must see Self..
If you think, you exist !..
This is the Desire to experience thoughts in three dimensions..
This is called Manifestation..
We are Manifestation, while within Dreams..
-thomas
' The Overself '...
Overself is limited to glimpses which are partial, because he finds the Overself only within himself, not in the world outside.
It is temporary because he has to take it when it comes at its own sweet will or when he can find it in meditation.
It is a glimpse because it tells him about his own "I" but not about the "Not-I".
On the other hand, the sage finds reality in the world without as his own self, at all times and not at special occasions, and wholly rather than in glimpses.
The mystic's light comes in glimpses, but the sage's is perennial.
Whereas the first is like a flickering unsteady and uneven flame, the second is like a lamp that never goes out.
Whereas the mystic comes into awareness of the Overself through feeling alone, the sage comes into it through knowledge plus feeling. Hence, the superiority of his realization.
-Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom
' Individual Salvation is an illusion '...
When the inter‑connectedness and inter‑dependence of all existence is grasped, the quest of a purely individual salvation is seen to be an illusory one. I am to be saved not for my own sake alone ‘ but because all are to be saved: this is the proper attitude we ‘should adopt.
We can now begin to understand what Jesus meant when he uttered the words: “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it.”
For this wider self, which was the Christ‑principle in Jesus, is the secret thread which ties man to man. It also offers the scientific basis of Jesus’ beneficent injunction: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”
It lives in the ‘I’ as the latter itself lives in the body. We can begin to understand too what Paul meant when he pronounced that truly mystical sentence: “I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me.” The Overself is indeed the Cosmic Christ to which we are silently called to dedicate our lesser existence.
from The Wisdom of the Overself
Paul Brunton
' The Illusion '...
Humanity’s ongoing progress towards the collective awakening is amazing! You are all doing a most wonderful job in assisting in the divine plan, just as you promised, contracted, and intended before you incarnated. Many of you have been following very difficult and demanding paths, filled with pain, anxiety, poverty, and, of course, suffering. You volunteered from the generosity of your loving hearts so that all who choose to awaken as the divine plan comes to fruition would be ably and lovingly assisted to do so. You are all receiving enormous assistance from those in the spiritual realms, but, because the density of the physical realm is so heavy, vast numbers are also reliant on the help provided by all of you, Light bearers and Light workers, to enable them to fulfill their divine destiny.
All are One, therefore, whatever anyone does affects everyone else! All who are presently incarnate – over seven billion people of myriad races, colors, and creeds – are on Earth at this moment because they volunteered to assist in clearing from humanity all that is not in complete alignment with Love. Some of you are calling it the clearing of core issues, and that is truly what it is, the core issues of fear, bitterness, resentment, and hatred, that have been leading you into conflict for eons. Those of you consciously doing this are doing it not only for yourselves, but also for those who have totally forgotten about the contracts they made to do this before they incarnated. And, at a deep level below their human awareness, those who have forgotten are, nevertheless, clearing an abundance of those issues, and your presence amongst them vitally increases their ability to do this.
There is no one on Earth who does not have issues to clear, because the game of separation you have been playing has been very intense and violently competitive, and everyone has been playing. This clearance is extremely healing for you as well, because, as many of you have noticed, the heaviness of three dimensional life does lift, giving you more energy and motivation, as issues are brought to the surface of your awareness, acknowledged, and released.
There is only Love, and It’s constant presence provides a vast healing energy for all who choose to turn to It by releasing their hold on righteous beliefs and behaviors, thus removing the blocks and obstructions that have closed off Its access to their hearts. All hearts will open to the divine field of Love that embraces them, allowing It to heal them, bringing them comfort and joy on a scale they have never before experienced as humans. And this is only the beginning!
God’s Will for you, for all conscious beings, is eternal joy! You were created from Love and in joy because God creates joyfully for the pure joy of doing so, and His Will is that you do the same because he knows what immense joy it will bring you. He created you like unto Himself to utterly delight in all of creation as He does, because to be fully alive is to be joy-filled, and that is the state He wants you to experience as fully as He does. His Love for you is boundless, and he wants you to know that by experiencing It in every moment of your eternal existence. That is all that He wants for you, and, truly, It is everything.
You are free, just as you were created, and God requires nothing of you. You do not need to do good deeds, pay Him obeisance, or seek His approval. He offers you His unconditional Love in every moment, knowing that It is what, as humans within the illusion, you are constantly and desperately seeking outside yourselves where It cannot be found. It is within you, where He placed It at the moment of your creation, and that is where you will find It. Seek not the distractions of the illusion, however alluring they may appear to you to be. Go within, and there you will find Yourself and God eternally at one with each other in joyous harmonious relationship from which nothing is lacking.
There is NO SEPARATION! You are as you were created, One with God. No other state exists or could exist, because God is All, and therefore, so are You!
The illusion is an infinitesimal distraction from Reality that you made and on which you have focused almost your whole attention for eons, so that you have indeed been mightily distracted by it from Reality.
Now it is time to mightily enlarge your attention and awareness so that you recognize and acknowledge who You are, the eternally beloved child of God, without Whom God would be incomplete. That, of course, isimpossible. What Is is unchanging and eternal, It is God and You at One in each other’s Presence forever. A timeless state, because there is no time, there is only now, the eternal now, and that is where you are in every moment of your existence, as you will most joyfully remember on your awakening, NOW!
Your loving brother, Jesus.
by way of John Smallman
' No more and no less '...
No more and no less is your desire..
How about 'Nothing, being your desire ?..
To desire , is to create..
Karma is as simple as that..
'Wish upon a star'..
The Answers have always been presented to you..
Why do you doubt a fellow traveler ?..
I am not here to create but to return to that which Dreams...
-thomas
' Unity and Love '...
To believe that Unity and Love is separate from You is called delusion..
If God is everything, what are You ?..
We desire to think of Big Brother as savior, but is this reality ?..
We exist as Thought and Dreams..
We do not suffer in the manifestation because, it is just a nightmare..
Hell is found within suffering and desire..
How far are we from this Delusion ?..
-thomas
' Nobody ever fails in Yoga '...
Nobody ever fails in Yoga.
It is all a matter of the
rate of progress.
It is slow in the beginning and
rapid in the end.
When one is fully matured,
realization is explosive.
It takes place spontaneously,
or at the slightest hint.
The quick is not better than the
slow.
Slow ripening and rapid flowering alternate.
Both are natural and right.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Overself '...
What is meant when it is said that the Overself is man’s higher individuality must now be explained.
We know that the World Mind must be everywhere yet it is certainly not everywhere to the personal consciousness.
There must be a point‑instant in space-time perception where the latter can meet it. In most mystical experience such a point is first felt to exist within the heart.
But the World‑Mind cannot be confined within such a limited perception. And later mystical experience always transcends this centre within the heart and largely detaches the consciousness from the body altogether.
Yet the finite self can never bring the World Mind in its fulness within this experience simply because finitude would itself merge and vanish while trying to do so.
This mystical meeting‑point, the Overself, represents the utmost extent to which the finite self can consciously share in the ultimate existence.
It is that fragment of God which dwells in and yet environs man, a fragment which has all the quality and grandeur of God but not all the amplitude and power of God.
- Paul Brunton
' Awakening is not realization '...
Awakening is not realization. Enlightenment is not realization. A peek into the glory, universality and Infiniti of the Self is not the realization of the Self.
It is the beginning of the journey.
Some confuse enlightenment with realization and feel that they have attained the summit.
Not only there remains shadow work to be cleared, which may take many years or more, but also there is the deepening of our understanding as well as in our living as the Self.
There comes a point in our contemplation where the peace is unshakable and the sweet perfume of the self emanates from our being and brings peace and clarity around us.
Remaining open and relaxing into being rather than in the thinking mind allows the Self to establish as your being.
The deepening revelation of the Self is unending.
A constant letting go, relaxation as formless being, moment by moment.
-Magdi Badawy
' Melting desires '...
If you've melted your desires
in the river of time, choose
to be a recluse, or choose
a family, the village job.
If you know the pure Lord within you,
you'll be That, wherever.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
' The Indwelling Presence '...
True worship is effortless, supreme meditation in the continuous, unbroken awareness of the within, the indwelling presence.
It requires no effort because there is nothing in it to be attained which one does not already possess.
What is generally understood to be prayer is nothing more than one fictitious entity called 'me' begging for something from another fictitious entity called 'God'.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' Acquisitive-ness '...
"The world is made of rings.
The hooks are all yours.
Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you.
Give up your addictions.
There is nothing else to give up.
Stop your routine of acquisitive-ness, your habit of looking for results and the freedom of the universe is yours.
Be effortless."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The false identity '...
The individual does not finally merge with his original
nature any more than a wave merges with water.
They
were not different to begin with.
A wave is nothing more
than the shifting shape of the water itself.
It is not a
question of joining separate things but of the abandonment
of something inessential and superficial, the false identity
of a separate individual entity.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' The intellect must stay in abeyance '...
The intellect is a tool, a tool for biological survival and adaptation.
The intellect is concerned with registering, classifying, naming, recording all the events that a person experiences.
We began to see that it is the very nature of the intellect not to be able to deal with the kind of formless thinking that the Overself works with.
If left to its own devices, the intellect would not be able to think its way out; it will always be in a cul-de-sac; it will always be caught in that realm.
Something has to come in and start guiding the intellect, in the sense of manipulating thoughts to produce certain concepts which further your understanding.
This is a process that keeps going on, and there will be many obstacles because there will be all kinds of interferences on the part of the ego.
But what the Overself has to do—which is the World-Mind working its understanding of itself out in you—is to guide those intellectual processes until there's a fulfillment, until there are no more questions.
When the questions stop—and PB says this has to happen naturally, not because someone tells you or the doctrine insists—when the questioning has been fulfilled, all the doubts answered, there comes a cessation of the thinking process itself, because now the experience of that reality must be grasped, and that means that the intellect must stay in abeyance.
-Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom
' Cosmic and individual imagination '...
His familiar ‘I’ is simply the sort of person a man imagines himself to be, an imagination which he changes from time to time during life.
All the other persons also exist besides ourself but like our own personality, they exist as thoughts.
Only when we or they find the truth behind personality do we or they attain an existence higher than that of a thought.
For the person to which we all cling so stubbornly is after all but a mere shadow thrown by the Overself, a pale relic of its transcendent self.
It may now become a little clearer why the egoistic approach to the world prevents us from arriving at truth, and therefore why the philosophic discipline demands the reining‑in of the person.
For the birth of objects as ideas cannot be accounted for and must remain incomprehensible and mysterious so long as we persist in thinking that the world-experience is solely our own experience.
The egoist ignores the one World‑Mind within which his little mind is itself contained, fails to perceive that his is only a semi‑independent perception.
Human experience is the final residue of a process of inter‑action, a fabric conjointly woven with a common mind in which all human beings dwell and think and which dwells and thinks in them.
The world itself is the outcome of a combined cosmic and individual imagination.
- Paul Brunton
' The Law of Causation '...
"Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself.
No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is.
When the source and the ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong.
The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Samsara '...
“The most subtle type of obscuration is to simply conceive of something – like simply thinking, “It is.”
Any notion we may hold is still a way of conceptualizing the three spheres: subject, object and action.
Whenever there is a thought which conceives the three spheres, karma is created.
People ask, ‘What is karma? I don’t get it! Where is karma?”
In fact, karma is our mind conceiving something. Karma is the doings of conceptual mind.
This subtle forming of a notion of anything is like a web, a haze that obscures our innate suchness just as mist obscures the sun from being vividly seen.
The great master Nagarjuna said, “There is no samsara apart from your own thoughts.” Samsara is based on thought; samsara is made by thought.”
-Dzogchen teacher, Chokyi Nyima:
' Sangha '...
"While "sangha" usually refers to a spiritual community associated with a particular tradition or religion, people who make up our sangha are from various backgrounds—Buddhist, Hindu, Christian. The spirit of our sangha is a mutual interest in the exploration of spiritual truth outside of the context of a particular tradition, religion, or teaching. There is an openness to it. These teachings seem to resonate with those who want to get to the real core of spirituality and are looking beyond exterior trappings for a more unencumbered expression of Truth.
Our sangha is, of course, made up of people who are interested in my teaching and the way it expresses itself. But my viewpoint is that I’m not really into me; I’m into the Truth. The teaching is pointing to a more universal Truth and toward an experience of sangha that is beyond all the particular expressions or forms that Truth can take. To me, real sangha is whatever is in service to the silence of the heart—wherever it shows up.
One of the most beautiful inquiries is, “What does my life serve?” This is a big question. It’s not asking, “What form is my service taking?” It doesn’t particularly matter what form our service takes when we are serving the silence of the heart. The only thing that’s important is, “What is my life really serving?”
All of us are servants, are we not? From the cradle to the grave, in some way we’re a servant of something. We can be a servant to many things: our minds, our desires, our fantasies, our ideas, our beliefs—and we’ve all been in service to all of those at some point in our lives. When we have some awakening to Truth—to what we actually are—then there is an opportunity to be a servant of that. When we realize what we are, we can serve what we are—instead of serving what we aren’t. To me this is what real sangha is.
What does it mean to be in service to the Truth right now? One of the most wonderful things about this sangha, and also one of the most challenging things about it, has been a continuous exploration of what it actually means to serve the silence of the heart—not only individually, but collectively. What does it mean to be in service of the Truth when one of your buddies woke up on the wrong side of the universe that day? What does that look like? It’s always asking us to put our realization into practice, into movement, into motion, into this world that will forever be perfectly imperfect.
Serving the Truth becomes our life instead of just an isolated event. It takes the abstractness out of spirituality. That’s the opportunity of real spirituality: to be in service to the silence of the heart."
~ Adyashanti
' Friday Night '...
A hospital visit tomorrow because humans suffer..
The lives of those around me suffer with infirmities..
Life within the 'Oak Circle' remains as normal with few exceptions..
People look for reasons to smile..
Perhaps, Love is a road to smiling..
Giving more than you receive is a door left open..
Pain and Death is always a thought within the elders..
To Know that You are the Watcher of this Play and not the Actor is wise, indeed..
The Dream will end, upon Awakening..
You will remain as Real upon Awakening..
Light will see only Light...
-thomas
' A drop of water '...
“Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret,
and in exchange gain the Ocean.
Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor,
and in the arms of the Sea be secure.
Who indeed should be so fortunate?
An Ocean wooing a drop!
In God's name, in God's name, sell and buy at once!
Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls.”
― Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi
' True happiness '...
“The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this:
the man or woman who asks for no return,
the perfectly unselfish person,
is the most successful.”
-Swami Vivekananda
' The world '...
“I do not dispute with the world;
rather it is the world that disputes with me.”
-Gautama The Buddha
' Resistance '...
Resistance to unwanted circumstances has
the power to keep those circumstances alive
and well for a very long time.
- Pema Chödrön
' Ego – Shadow '...
"The ego cannot be subjugated by one that takes it to be real. It is just like one’s own shadow.
Imagine a man who does not know the truth of his shadow.
He sees it following him persistently, and wants to get rid of it.
He tries to run away from it, but it still follows him.
He digs a deep pit and tries to bury it, filling up the pit; but the shadow comes to the top and again follows him.
He can get rid of it only by looking away from it, at himself, the original of the shadow.
Then the shadow will not worry him.
The seekers of Deliverance are like the man in this parable.
They fail to see that the ego is but a shadow of the Self.
What they have to do is to turn away from it, towards the Self, of which it is the shadow."
Ramana Maharshi, quoted in Maha Yoga or The Upanishadic Lore in the Light of the Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, K. Lakshmana Sarma, Sri Ramanasramam, 1937.
' This idea is an illusion '...
The personal ego of man forms itself out of the impersonal life of the universe like a wave forming itself out of the ocean. It constricts, confines, restricts, and limits that infinite life to a small finite area. The wave does just the same to the water of the ocean.
The ego shuts out so much of the power and intelligence contained in the universal being that it seems to belong to an entirely different and utterly inferior order of existence. The wave, too, since it forms itself only on the surface of the water gives no indication in its tiny stature of the tremendous depth and breadth and volume of water beneath it.
Consider that no wave exists by itself or for itself, that all waves are inescapably parts of the visible ocean. In the same way, no individual life can separate itself from the All-Life but is always a part of it in some way or other. Yet the idea of separateness is held by millions.
This idea is an illusion. From it springs their direct troubles. The work of the quest is simply this: to free the ego from its self-imposed limitations, to let the wave of conscious being subside and straighten itself out into the waters whence it came. The little wave is thus reconverted into the infinite Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 102
Paul Brunton
' Stillness '...
The Self alone is real. All others are unreal.
The mind and intellect do not remain apart from
you.
The Bible says, 'Be still and know that I am
God.' Stillness is the sole requisite for the
realization of the Self as God.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985
' You do not suffer '...
It is the person you imagine yourself to be that suffers, not you.
Dissolve it in awareness.
It is merely a bundle of memories and habits.
From the awareness of the unreal to the awareness of your real nature there is a chasm which you will
easily cross, once you have mastered the art of pure awareness.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
' There's nothing there '...
THERE IS no real ego but only a quick succession of thoughts which constitutes the "I" process. There is no separate entity forming the personal consciousness but only a series of impressions, ideas, images revolving around a common centre. The latter is completely empty; the feeling of something being there derives from a totally different plane—that of the Overself.
NG: Suppose someone can recognize that process to some degree. Is PB saying that when you reach that emptiness, you then have a feeling that there is something there despite the emptiness? Or is he saying that you recognize that your daily thoughts are really about nothing, and still you have, in that daily life, the feeling that there is really someone or some-thing and that feeling comes from the plane of the Overself?
ANTHONY: I think you said the right thing. When you investigate, when you're looking at your thoughts, you analyze and you see there's nothing there. You understand the illusory nature. You understand that fundamentally the ego is of an illusory nature. There's no reality there. But nonetheless there is the experience that you are real, that there's something real. And there you could, of course, distinguish between two things. On the one hand, existence, and on the other, the fundamentally "illusory" nature of the ego.
-Anthony Damiani from Standing in Your Own Way
'Dream and Reality '...
As Mystics, you already know of the transformation of Dream to Reality..
This older brother of wisdom..
This vision of humanity is a brother of Truth..
So further advanced within the transformation of Dream into Manifestation..
But, you are here to learn of thoughts that transform and advance..
You are here to Learn..
We always seek learning and call it curiousity.
But, is it now fun to seek and learn ?..
Prayer and Desire are brothers, which will win ?..
-thomas
' Remain in the center '...
"The ego is monkey catapulting through the jungle:
Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses,
it swings from one desire to another,
one conflict to the next,
one self-centered idea to the next.
If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life.
Let this monkey go.
Let the senses go.
Let the desires go.
Let conflicts go.
Let ideas go.
Let the fiction of life and death go.
Just remain in the center, watching.
Then forget you are there."
-Lao Tzu
in Brian Walker
Hua Hu Ching:The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu, 10
NY: HarperCollins, 1992, p. 13
' Clinging to an idea '...
"All Buddhas preach emptiness.
Why?
Because they want to crush the concrete ideas of the students.
If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness,
he betrays all Buddhas."
Bodhidharma
in Jon Winokur
Zen To Go
NY: New American Library, 1989, p. 146
' What are you here ?'...
Whatever is perceived is arising inside yourself only,
and when it departs you are still here to witness its
departure.
Reflect: As what are you here?
Inwardly,
see if that which is perceiving everything can be
found.
Can it be perceived?
The answer, if there is one,
cannot be merely mental, intellectual or theoretical.
It
must be a deep insight or direct experience, for anything
less will not satisfy deeply.
There is no question in the
human kingdom that is more important than this one.
- Mooji
' That, which is not defined '...
Suppose you know the definitions of all substances
and their derivatives,
what good is this to you?
Know the true definition of yourself.
That is indispensable.
Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it,
that you may attain to the One who cannot be defined,
O sifter of the dust.
- Rumi
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
' What's going on with your ego ? '...
ANTHONY: Don't kid yourself. Don't come to me from the point of view that the ego doesn't exist, because it's been around as long as the Overself' has been projecting itself, manifesting itself through some kind of a life.
The residue of all that living becomes a tendency which you're going to find is perhaps not a permanent entity, but good enough to drive you up a wall for the next indefinite number of incarnations.
If you think you're going to enter into the arena of spiritual struggle and quest without having a real good idea of what's going on with your ego, you're in for trouble.
-Anthony Damiani from Standing in Your Own Way
' A Dream Figure '...
Thus the witness‑self walks through this world incognito.
Only the few to whom philosophy grants her earned favours, find it out and know it by its true name.
The rest regard it under the limited aspect of a particular personality.
When they employ the word ‘self’ they do not usually refer it to anything beyond this physical being who stands before them in flesh and blood plus his little psychological collection of bitter‑sweet memories and transient moods, hot desires and cold fears.
It is within such small limits that they confine the meaning of this term. But the man who has come to genuine self‑knowledge knows what he really is over and above this named embodied individual; hence he may aptly adopt the expressive term ‘Overself when referring to it.
Theologians probably mean this when they speak of the ‘soul’.
But as our concept is as radically different from theirs in some ways as it is roughly similar to it in others, and particularly as it is not a theological theme for us, we prefer to call it the Overself.
The person is only a projection from the Overself as a dream‑figure is a projection from the mind of a dreamer. It is only a dependent creature which has forgotten its origin and now imagines itself to be the real ‘I’.
-Paul Brunton from WOTO
' A Higher Self '...
Paul Brunton speaks of a 'Higher Self '..
We see good as high, and bad as low in frequencies..
The frequency of light is higher than the frequency of darkness..
The Reality is that We exist as both Yin and Yang..
The scales of Justice is the photo of Reality..
The 'Higher Self' is the surrender of desire,
especially, the desire of separation called ego..
To exist as Reality is to not exist as Dream..
Wake Up !..
This is the Answer...
-thomas
' Sticks and stones '...
"All life is waken.
So also is everything which exhibits power, whether in action as the winds or drifting clouds, or in passive endurance, as the boulder by the wayside.
For even the commonest sticks and stones have a spiritual essence which must be reverenced as a manifestation of the all-pervading mysterious power that fills the universe."
Francis Laflesche (Osage), 1925
in Joseph Bruchac
Native Wisdom
San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995, pp. 87-88
' Holding an identity '...
ANTHONY:
And then that leaves you with your real inner being, your true inner "I." In other words, you have to dismiss all these vagaries, fantasies, thoughts, memories, selections from your past, anticipations of your future, expectations—you want me, to go down the list?
You have to remove all that, in order to identify with it. Or, in other words, you stop thinking. Now I'm sure after this you'll think much more!
When there is no more thinking, concept forming, which is concerned with creating an artificial object—whether your inner self or your outer self doesn't matter—then the inwardness or the principle that you are, which is illuminating or shining in you, is what you really are.
That is, so to speak, always there. But you're not aware of it because you're preoccupied with the images, not with the light which is illuminating those images. If you could temporarily stop those images, then there would be just a light shining, and you would know that "this is what I am."
Then the images resume. Now it is possible for the images to go on and to still hold an identity with the light which illuminates the images, and then one could say, "I'm identified with that light and not with the images."
-Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom
' The witness-self '...
Thus the witness‑self walks through this world incognito. Only the few to whom philosophy grants her earned favours, find it out and know it by its true name.
The rest regard it under the limited aspect of a particular personality. When they employ the word ‘self’ they do not usually refer it to anything beyond this physical being who stands before them in flesh and blood plus his little psychological collection of bitter‑sweet memories and transient moods, hot desires and cold fears.
It is within such small limits that they confine the meaning of this term. But the man who has come to genuine self‑knowledge knows what he really is over and above this named embodied individual; hence he may aptly adopt the expressive term ‘Overself when referring to it.
Theologians probably mean this when they speak of the ‘soul’. But as our concept is as radically different from theirs in some ways as it is roughly similar to it in others, and particularly as it is not a theological theme for us, we prefer to call it the Overself.
The person is only a projection from the Overself as a dream‑figure is a projection from the mind of a dreamer. It is only a dependent creature which has forgotten its origin and now imagines itself to be the real ‘I’.
WOTO
' Appearance for Reality '...
To take appearance for reality is a grievous sin and the cause of all calamities.
You are the all-pervading, eternal and infinitely creative awareness -consciousness.
All else is local and temporary.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
' The Higher Self '...
The touch of grace can be felt in an unmistakable manner but only after a man has been humbled chastened and made lowly.
When he finds that the net results of self‑help on the secret path are often doubtful in value and sometimes even dangerous in result through the pursuit of an erroneous course; when he discovers his own weakness after many a futile attempt to break his bad habits or to enlighten the darkness of his passage through life; when in short he feels that he cannot help himself any more, the time has arrived to call on an outside source for such help.
The gracious current of a stronger power than his own must be introduced into his inner life.
But it can only be introduced if he calls on it, if he aspires towards it and if he gives his devotion to it.
The basis of attraction between those who seek and that which gives is and must be faith and love.
All the way from the aspirant’s initial dream to his final achievement, he must resolutely resolve to stand or fall by his faith that this higher Self truly exists and that its realization is the hidden purpose of his incarnation.
from The Wisdom of the Overself
by Paul Brunton
' Forgiveness '...
FRD: The ego's not the one that does the forgiving, obviously.
ANTHONY: Ah, you're catching on. The ego doesn't forgive anyone. How often have you spontaneously forgiven someone who has hurt you deeply? Can you count the times? Well, that's how often you were enlightened.
DB: It doesn't seem like the ego's capable of doing anything except holding a grudge.
ANTHONY: You're catching on. Get your ego out of the way, then something in you can forgive.
-Anthony Damiani from Standing in Your Own Way
' The Night after Thanks-giving '...
This trust between indigenous and immigrant..
Wild turkeys are heavy upon pine..
To feel the cold of winter, brings adversaries to the warmth of fire and love..
What is real and what is false ?..
History is written by the victor..
The reality of America is one of death and theft..
But, you know this already..
The towns have indian names and yet the indians have died..
Therefore, you must walk beyond the history books and enter the reality of the Dream..
I have written beyond paragraph and therefore, must leave you...
-thomas
' Just keep it in mind '...
Anything you do for the sake of enlightenment
takes you nearer.
Anything you do without
remembering enlightenment puts you off.
But
why complicate?
Just know that you are above
and beyond all things and thoughts.
What you
want to be, you are it already.
Just keep it in mind.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' The self '...
THERE ARE THREE things man needs to know to make him a spiritually educated man: the truth about himself, his world, and his God. The mystic who thinks it is enough to know the first alone and to leave out the last two, is satisfied to be half-educated.
(v13, 20:4.95 and Perspectives, p. 257) Paul Brunton
ANTHONY: The word self is not capitalized, right? The truth about that uncapitalized self is that it is illusory, that you have to realize the non-existence of the ego. But even with that in-sight, with that understanding, you're still only one-third of the way. The next thing is to understand the nature of the World-Idea. Then, the third thing is the identification with your I AM, with your God.
So, the mystic comes to the realization that both the ego and the world that that ego perceives are illusory. That's the first realization as a mystic—the illusory nature of the ego and the concomitant world. Then you have to investigate the Idea of the world that's given to you, and when you do, you find out something about the World-Idea. That would be the second level. And the third level would be your I AM, the God within you. I'm just summarizing what has already been said.
' That Which is Looking '...
Only when you turn attention to awareness itself, there isn't anything behind it. That's what returning to the source means. It means that nothing is next. There's nothing behind it. With a thought there's always something behind it. There's always the awareness of thought. So awareness is behind it. With a feeling there's always something behind it. With the conditioned tendency there's always something behind it. There's always awareness behind everything that's perceivable. Everything that's thinkable. There's always something behind it: namely that awareness. Spirit.
To 'look within' doesn't mean to look for something really amazing to happen. To look for the states of consciousness to change. That's not what look within means. Have any of you looked within like that? I've spent so many hours looking within that way - not thousands, tens of thousands of hours looking within. And I was looking ... the same way we look outside. You know, like we're looking for something. And so you look inside. It's a great teaching, but then what do you do? You tend to look for stuff. Look for really groovy spiritual stuff to happen. Right? It's the same looking. It's not really different than looking for a million bucks, or a hot looking guy or gal or success. It's just looking for inner stuff. And there's a world of inner things and experiences, just like there's an outer world of things to look for.
But the inner world, it's not any more real or significant then the outer world. So to look within doesn't mean that, to look within in a way that you're looking for something. Looking for a treasure. It means to go to the root. And the root is the looking itself.
To turn within is to turn to that which is looking. So that we find out for ourselves that there isn't anybody that's looking! Looking is looking. There isn't someone there called 'me' that's behind awareness that's aware. Awareness is aware. It's the opposite: I'm not aware; awareness is aware of me. And this is quite a shock when you really come upon it!
This is really 'one without a second' as Ramana (Maharshi) used to say. That the self is one without a second. Without a second means: nothing behind it. No deeper return to go to. You've returned to your natural state. In Zen we used to call it 'taking the backward step.' We (generally) want to take the forward step: to pursue, to seek, to find. But the backward step is very simple ... return to what you are. Till that flash of recognition dawns, that awareness itself is what you are. Just like the flash of lightning in an empty sky - a spontaneous flash!
The easiest thing in spirituality is for it to become complex, instead of simple. But this is a very simple thing which is why it can penetrate so deeply. So quickly. So immediately.
-Adyashanti
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