' Our True Nature '...
Pleasure for the Sage is more intense because he's not worrying about when he'll have it again.
If it comes again, fine if not, it doesn't bother him..
When there is only witnessing and no witness, the split-mind is reunited as whole-mind into which the ego disappears along with the affliction of volition.
Mind dissolves the absence and what remains is our true nature in all its pristine radiance.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' Achieving Peace '...
Those who look for advancement by looking for inner experiences or for discoveries of new truth do well.
But they need to understand that all this is still personal, still something that concerns the ego even if it be the highest and best part of the ego.
Their greatest advance will be made when they cease holding the wish to make any advance at all, cease this continual looking at themselves, and instead come to a quiet rest in the simple fact that God is, until they live in this fact alone.
That will transfer their attention from self to Overself and keep them seeing its presence in everyone's life and its action in every event.
The more they succeed in holding to this insight, the less will they ever be troubled or afraid or perplexed again; the more they recognize and rest in the divine character, the less will they be feverishly concerned about their own spiritual future.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 5: Balancing the Paths > # 222
Paul Brunton
' The process of Realizing is removal '...
There are many spiritual people you know who think they have a mission. They have come to save the world. They can't even save themselves, and they're looking to save the world. The world will go on the way it's going on without your help, for or against. Leave the world alone.
The worst thing you can ever do is to search for enlightenment, for liberation. This keeps you back. It keeps you back because there is a self that is searching. There is an I that is searching. There is a me that is trying to become something, and the whole idea is to remove something from your consciousness.
Therefore, the process of realization is removal, not adding.
Removing this and removing that. Removing all concepts and all preconceived ideas. Removing all of your thoughts, no matter what kind of thoughts they are. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, they all must go. And what is left will be nothing, no-thing. You are that. You are that no-thing.
Doesn't it feel good to be nothing, instead of believing you are thoughts, and you are human, and you have a job to fulfill, and you have a mission?
-Robert Adams
' Stream of Consciousness '...
In answering questions and writing paragraphs,
sometimes a new Voice begins speaking..
I merely type the words and later voices ask me to speak of these words..
These words may or may not include you..
These words are found within Thought..
This thought of 'you' or 'I' is such a waste of time..
We are here for the same reason..
Death and distruction has become the mantra of bankers..
Wars are profitable for the loaner and manufacturer..
We the people, die for the profit of others..
But, we are smart people and believe media..
Let laughter enter this scene upon this final line...
-thomas
' Be selfish '...
"By all means be selfish; the right way.
Wish yourself well, labor at what is good for you.
Destroy all that stands between you and happiness.
Be all; love all; be happy; make happy.
No happiness is greater."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Purpose of Spiritual Practice '...
All practices are only meant to validate the existence of one’s true nature or God.
Once a glimpse is made, one need only then surrender one’s life on the strength of this experience.
This is why we must seek: to validate.
Some get a glimpse and that is enough for surrender.
Some need constant reassurance even though they have had a glimpse etc.
-Atreya Thomas
' A sublime vacancy '...
A further result of this contemplation of the world as the great Void is that the work done by mentalistic study is advanced still further, for not only are the things experienced by the five senses seen to be only thoughts but the thoughts themselves are now seen to be the transient spume and spray flung out of seeming Emptiness.
Thus there is a complete reorientation from thoughts to Thought.
Instead of holding a single thought or scenes of ideas in perfect concentration, the practiser must now move away from all ideas altogether to that seeming emptiness in which they arise.
And the latter, of course, is the pure, passive, undifferentiated mind-stuff out of which the separate ideas are produced.
Here there is no knowing and discriminating between one idea and another, no stirring into consciousness of this and that, but rather a sublime vacancy.
For the Mind-essence is not something which we can picture to ourselves; it is utterly formless. It is as empty and as ungraspable as space.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8:
The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 115 Paul Brunton
' The very denial '...
"By no effort of logic or imagination can you change the "I am" into " I am not."
In the very denial of your being you assert it.
Once you realize that the world is your own projection,
you are free of it."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The self '...
The "self" in Buddhism
It's time to disentangle the Buddhist confusion regarding the soul or self. Most Buddhist masters and teachers, even the Dalai Lama stumble and stutter when asked about this topic.
The question is: "If there is no self-entity in Buddhism, then what reincarnates and can remember past incarnations?" The Buddha often spoke of his many past lives in perfect memory and detail.
The great Japanese Zen master Dogen Zenji, made very clear there is no soul or spiritual entity within our body or energy complex. But once when asked from a student what they should do after they die and are afraid in the after-death world, Dogen said at that time while in the after-life state, they should pray to the Buddha's for protection. What???
In Tibetan Buddhism there is a practice called "phowa" where one is trained on how one's "mental consciousness" (yid lus) should leave the body at death for a better after-death state and reincarnation. There are also full descriptions of what one needs to do before reincarnating in the next life. That indeed is a perfect description of a "soul". In In Tibetan Bon they are much less embarrassed by discussing such "soul" notions.
Dzogchen text translator and Dzogchen teacher Malcolm Smith wrote to me:
"...In fact, there is even a passage in Dzogchen RR ["Rigpa Rangshar" Tantra] that asserts it is ok to refer to vidya (rigpa) as a self...."
"...If we have to have a soul, it might as well be vidya (rigpa), it is after all, permanent, unconditioned, a knower, stainless, and free from the three realms. But If we don't have to have one, vidya (rigpa) still has these characteristics. It is our essenceless essence."
We need to understand that our consciousness has three simultaneous characteristics: emptiness like space, knowing clarity, and energetic formation. "Energetic formation" means we always have some level embodiment present. The energetic formation aspect is a "thigle" or sphere of pure awareness surrounded by various densities of life force or prana or chi. This is the "soul" or energetic self that reincarnates as a mental body (yid lus).
But here's the deal; Buddha pointed out that this "self" is empty. That means it is never a fixed, permanent entity of unchanging characteristics. In fact it is dependent upon upon memories, mind, perceptions, interdependent relationships and karmic energetic dynamics. So even though it survives death as consciousness, it's an ever changing identity and energetic continuum.
That is the only "who" that you are. Focus only on the energetic formation aspect, which includes its software of conceptualizing and reification of subjects("me") and objects, and you have localized karmic selfness. It is the energetic formation that gets entangled with a human brain and its brain chatter, at least until death or deep samadhi.
Focus on your empty knowing aspects of pure awareness and you experience vast and infinite Buddha Mind, the Mind of Clear Light, nirvana.
So, there is a "soul" in Buddhism, it's absurd to think otherwise. But the soul is empty, in constant flux, but an unending continuum of experiencing
-Jackson Peterson
' Eternity '...
We must look for eternity in the present moment now,
and not in some far off afterlife.
We must seek for infinity here,
in this place, and not in a psychic world beyond the physical body.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 216
Paul Brunton
' The end of knowledge '...
"The end of knowledge is that man comes to the point where he was at the origin."
Abu Yazid (Bayazid) al-Bistami (804-874)
in William Stoddart
Sufism
NY: Paragon House, 1985, p. 83
' Before the mind '...
"Before the mind--I am.
"I am" is not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me,
I do not happen to the mind.
And since time and space are in the mind,
I am beyond time and space, eternal and omnipresent."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Mystical experience '...
How can a mental state be the final realization?
It is temporary.
Mystic experience is such a state.
It is something one enters and leaves.
Beyond and higher is realization of unchanging truth.
-- Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives >
Chapter 2: Phases of Mystical Development > # 29
Paul Brunton
' Happiness '...
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
-Gautama the Buddha
' Does God Exist ?'...
"...ultimately you are proof that God exists, not the other way round.
For before any question about God can be put,
you must be there to put it.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Eternal Now '...
The idea of Eternity,
which is a prolongation of time,
is not the same as the idea of the Eternal Now,
which is a cancellation of time.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 86
Paul Brunton
' You are addicted to Love '...
You might as well face it,
You are addicted to Love..
The Producer of thoughts consists of the Energy of non-egoic desires..
Why does 'Source' desire Dreams of separation ?..
To truly know Love,
you must first learn of fear..
Hatred is not the opposite of Love..
Fear is an energy that feeds the fearful..
The entities that live upon fear are the non-reality based manifestations of fear..
They are still within Consciousness but are lost within desires...
- thomas
' Drarma practice '...
Anything that acts as an antidote to self-grasping is Dharma practice.
Whereas, even though we may engage in a great variety of practices
that may appear to be spiritual,
if they do not act to destroy our
self-grasping,
they are not Dharma practice.
-Gomo Tulku
' Self as Overself '...
His relationship to the Overself is one of direct awareness of its presence--
not as a separate being but as his own essence.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 301
Paul Brunton
' A quiet mind '...
A quiet mind is all you need.
All else will happen
rightly, once your mind is quiet.
As the sun on
rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness
affect changes in the mind.
In the light of calm and
steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and
work miracles without any effort on your part.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Only Truth has value '...
Give one little chance to His will and see what happens.
I think you will be surprised.
The subject of TRUTH is without substance,
yet so very full and pregnant that no other subject has any value in comparison to it.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' The ego cannot be improved '...
When he finds out that all his efforts at self-improvement are movements around a circle,
that the ego does not really intend to give itself up in surrender to the Overself and therefore only pretends to do so,
he realizes that left to himself he cannot succeed in really changing his inner centre of gravity.
Help is needed from some outside source if he is to free himself from such a hopeless position.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 6: Student-Teacher > # 26 Paul Brunton
' The Original Knowing '...
Pierre Thériault: Many out there say that enlightenment is not about experiences. And many say it is much more a dismantling of the old, than a transformation into something new. Please feel free to write a lot about what you call the manifest, and thanks for sharing those letters with us.
Edward Muzika: Pierre Thériault, Experiences and knowing go hand in hand. But it is not a conceptual knowing. It is knowing that all so-called conceptual knowledge and ideas, including about one's own identities, are all add-ons to the fundamental feeling of being alive and existing.
When you abide in that original knowing, directly perceiving/feeling one's own self, resting there for a long bit, extraordinary experiences come along with a direct perceiving without the intermediary of mind or concepts.
With the subsidance of mentation, of mind, one then operates directly as a manifestation of universal consciousness. But even that is a concept and serves no one. Just trust to find oneself, and abide there, baking in that oven of self abidance until you arethoroughly cooked, or as Robert Adams said, you have become a hollow shel of your former existence.
As for extraordinary experiences, I post letters from students and others about their experiences mostly to inspire others to maintain or increase their intention and persistence towards abiding in the I Am sense, which becomes a recognition and abidance in Self.
-Edward Muzika
' Desire ceases '...
There is nothing to gain.
Abandon all imaginings
and know yourself as you are.
Self-knowledge is
detachment.
All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency.
When you know that you lack nothing,
that all there is, is
you and yours, desire ceases.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Don’t believe what ‘spiritual teachers’ say '...
There is ultimately no such thing as a spiritual teacher or spiritual seeker until thought arises to tell that story of separation. The mind projects thoughts onto reality. We call this a 'building,' that a 'teacher,' this a 'Republican,' and that 'enlightenment.' That is a dream of thought. Nothing wrong with it. No need to deny it. It’s beautiful. But separation isn't ultimately true.
Notice the tendency to believe what so-called teachers say. Enlightenment is not a belief. It is not an idea that you memorize and carry around like a belief in Santa Claus. If you believe what teachers are saying, you will likely miss what is being pointed to. There are many expressions of this inexpressible realization. Getting caught up in comparing and contrasting the messages only keeps the mind in the false notion that ‘This’ can be grasped intellectually. The words are pointing beyond adherence to the words, to the immediate experiencing of what you are and what life is beyond your ideas about that.
“You” are a set of past thoughts, beliefs, opinions, perspectives, and feelings to which awareness has attached. When that separate self is seen through, there is only ‘This’—a totally alive mystery. The portal to ‘This’ is now. In this moment, the past is seen to be nothing more than presently arising thought. There is no way to teach what is. All spiritual teachings are past thoughts. Second-hand knowledge.
Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment
' The Short Path Man '...
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 apoint 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
' I am with you, always '...
Because, I am You...
This devision of mind that you call pain and pleasure or what others call sin and freedom..
My voice is your voice, but ego denies this Reality..
We both cover with cloth..
Our veins equally bleed..
But, the voice of Reality calls us Home..
This 'Entertainment' of manifestation of Dreams was interesting but Reality is Home..
-thomas
' Find the Inalienable '...
'Pleasure and pain alternate.
Happiness is unshakeable.
What you can seek and find is not the real thing.
Find what you have never lost,
find the inalienable."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Quantum Physics and Prasangika Buddhist View '...
"From the 'I' and the aggregates of body/mind, down to the atomic particles, everything is labeled on another label. Something is imputed to one base, which is labeled on another base, and that base is labeled on another base. Everything exists being labeled. Everything is a label, starting with our aggregates of body/mind. So, from the I and the aggregates of body/mind down to the atomic particles, everything is completely empty of existing from its own side. The concrete things that appear to us are hallucinations."
Lama Zopa
Quantum Physics professor at Oxford, England, Vlatko Vedral:
"But Buddhism tells us that we should not confuse the label with the object. More importantly, just because we have a label for something, it does not mean that this something is real. Quantum physics is indeed very much in agreement with Buddhistic emptiness."
"Discovering a particle means observing certain effects which are accepted as proof of its existence.’ Eddington claims here that a particle is just a set of labels that we use to describe outcomes of our measurements. And that’s it. It all boils down to a relation between our measurements and our labels!"
Richard Conn Henry, Professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins:
"There is another benefit of seeing the world as quantum mechanical: someone who has learned to accept that nothing exists but observations (descriptions) is far ahead of peers who stumble through physics hoping to find out ‘what things are’. "
"In place of “underlying stuff ” there have been serious attempts to preserve a material world — but they produce no new physics, and serve only to preserve an illusion."
As Sir Arthur Eddington explained: “It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character.”
Liberation in Buddhism is based on the realization of twofold emptiness;
that's the whole essence of liberation.
Emptiness is like seeing all factors of mind, awareness and energy areempty like clouds with no solid center and with no static duration. There is fundamentally nothing happening, but what "isn't happening" is vividly apparent as though happening, like a dream at night.
The first fold of emptiness insight is seeing there is no self, soul, mind or personal identity except what is fictionally believed; much like whoyou convincingly "seem" to be in a dream at night.
The second emptiness insight is seeing that everything that appears as objectively real, acquires its illusory status of existence purely from thoughts that say so. All phenomena "exist" only by virtue of their conceptual descriptions.
Seeing and directly knowing the empty, yet vivid nature of ALL subjective and objective phenomena, is what Nirvana is.
This isn't a gradual result, rather it's an "all at once" insight that sees the generic nature of ALL phenomena to be empty, without exception. It's the sudden, all-inclusive, all-pervasive nature of the emptiness insight that springs open the samsaric prison door by revealing no prisoners ever existed to be freed.
-Jackson Peterson
' Awareness '...
The actions of a man who has attained this degree are inspired directly by his Overself, and consequently are not dictated by personal wishes, purposes, passions, or desires. They are not initiated by his ego's will but by a will higher than his own.
Since there is no consciously deliberate thinking, no attempt at ordered logical formulation of ideas, there is also no hesitation, no broken trends. There is only spontaneous thought, feeling, and action, all being directed by intuition.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 88
Paul Brunton
' The emptiness of emptiness '...
No one really knows
The nature of birth
Nor the true dwelling place.
We return to the source
And turn to dust.
Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain,
But at the peak
We all gaze at the
Single bright moon.
If at the end of our journey
There is no final
Resting place,
Then we need not fear
Losing our Way.
No beginning,
No end.
Our mind
is born and dies:
The emptiness of emptiness!
-Ikkyu
' Peace '...
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.
It demands greater heroism than war.
It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.
- Thomas Merton
' One great Grace '...
There are little graces, such as those which produce the glimpse;
but there is only one great Grace:
this produces a lasting transformation,
a deep radical healing and permanent enlightenment.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 5: Grace > # 13 Paul Brunton
' Absolute Presence '...
Only in the absolute absence of all conceptualization is to be found the perfect peace of Absolute Presence.
The only true meditation is the constant impersonal witnessing of all that takes place in one's life as mere movements in the universal Consciousness.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' Non- identity with the object '...
The translation of the Sanskrit phrase antardrishti is literally "inward seeing" in the sense of seeing beneath appearances what is under them.
It does not refer to clairvoyance in the psychic sense, but rather to the metaphysical or mystical sense.
It can be particularized as meaning entering into the witness state of consciousness.
The ordinary person sees only the object; penetrating deeper, he enters the witness state which is an intermediate condition; going still deeper, he reaches the ultimate state of Reality when there is no subject or object, whereas in the witness there is still subject and object, but the subject no longer identifies himself with the object as the ordinary man does.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 8: Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > # 85
Paul Brunton
' Harmlessness '...
Meet your own self. Be with your own self,
listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in
mind ceaselessly.
You need no other guide.
As long as your urge for truth affects your
daily life, all is well with you.
Live your
...life without hurting anybody.
Harmlessness
is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will
take you speedily to your goal.
This is what
I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga.
It is
the art of living in peace and harmony, in
friendliness and love.
The fruit of it is
happiness, uncaused and endless.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Come fully inside '...
Some beings have had enough of experiencing.
Their urge for
freedom is very strong now.
That company I find most alive.
At
some point many relationships become worn out and tired.
They
mostly begin to fall away.
Do not grieve.
Do you honestly want to
find those old conversations interesting again?
A voice within says:
Come fully inside.
Come lay down here in the silence of Being.
If there is a sadness it will be to spend our life in separation from
our inmost being.
- Mooji
' A word unsaid '...
"There is that which is in me.
I know not what it is - but I know it is in me.
It is a word unsaid - it is not in any dictionary, or symbol, or utterance.
What it swings on, greater than the Earth I swing on.
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me."
-- Walt Whitman
' Plotinus on Dialectic '...
We must begin by distinguishing the three types. Let us take the musician first and indicate his temperamental equipment for the task.
The musician we may think of as being exceedingly quick to beauty, drawn in a very rapture to it: somewhat slow to stir of his own impulse, he answers at once to the outer stimulus: as the timid are sensitive to noise so he to tones and the beauty they convey; all that offends against unison or harmony in melodies or rhythms repels him; he longs for measure and shapely pattern.
This natural tendency must be made the starting-point to such a man; he must be drawn by the tone, rhythm, and design in things of sense: he must learn to distinguish the material forms from the Authentic-Existent which is the source of all these correspondences and of the entire reasoned scheme in the
work of art:
he must be led to the Beauty that manifests itself through these forms; he must be shown that what ravished him was no other than the Harmony of the Intellectual world and the Beauty in that sphere, not some one shape of beauty but the All-Beauty, the Absolute Beauty; and the truths of philosophy must be implanted in him to lead him to faith in that which, unknowing it, he possesses within himself. What these truths are we will show later.
-- Ennead I.3.1. Plotinus
' Forget the self '...
”To know the world you forget the self-
to know the self you forget the world."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Matter is a myth '...
All this implies that matter is also a myth, unreal.
Still more it implies that the ego is a myth, illusory. Here, then, is the first practice of the ultimate path:
think constantly of that Mind which is producing the ego, all the other egos around, and all the world, in fact.
Keep this up until it becomes habitual.
The consequence is that one tends in time to regard his own ego with complete detachment, as though he were regarding somebody else.
Furthermore, it forces him to take the standpoint of the all, and to see unity as fundamental being.
- Paul Brunton
' The Original Mind '...
“Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.”
Ikkyu ―
' Easter '...
How does a carpenter become a Teacher of Wisdom ?..
The Schools envolved are not mentioned within the elite books..
At what age does a human decide that Truth is more important than existence ?..
This step into an Unknown Door..
This sacrifice of All..
This 'Light' does not blind..
Intellect continueing to exist as Creator of Dreams..
This walking between Reality and the Dream is amazing..
You have left a map called Shroud..
Consciousness changed the color of hologram..
-thomas
' Fear and greed '...
”Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind.
The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Ultimate Being '...
Each one has a concept of the Ultimate Being;
on that you concentrate.
The word "ultimate"
implies the finality of it, and there is nothing above
it.
When you ask for it, you need not ask for anything
else.
On that you fix your mind.
This is the whole
of religion, philosophy, and yoga.
- Swami Krishnananda
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Your Questions Answered
Swami Krishnananda
The Divine Life Trust Society, 1995
' Balanced understanding '...
One of the first fruits of philosophy is perhaps the balanced understanding which it yields.
In no other way can men arrive at so truthful, so fair, and so just a view of life, or indeed of anything upon which they place their thinking mind.
And this splendid result could not come about if the philosophic quest did not bring the whole man of thought and feeling, of intuition and will, into activity in a harmonious and well-integrated way.
Thus wholeness is holiness in the truest sense.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 160
Paul Brunton
' Good Friday '...
The death of Yeshua ben Josef, also known as the Greek translation of sound as being the Teacher called Iesous,
the other religions of non-duality called this teacher, Issa..
This Mystic called Jesus, after the letter J was invented in the eighteenth century..
This Jewish Teacher that never stopped being Jewish, was murdered for telling humans that God is Love..
There was no giving of pain to pay for your future sins..
This young Mystic was only about Truth..
Such, a strange concept as we exist within a world of lies..
And yet, this play of death was so important that billions of individualized souls believe,
to follow this strange un-taught road called non-egoic desire,
this Reality called Love...
-thomas
' Pleasure and Pain '...
”Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what pain is."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Cause and Effect '...
We cannot live only for ourselves.
A thousand
fibers connect us with our fellow men;
and
among those fibers,
as sympathetic threads,
our actions run as causes,
and they come
back to us as effects.
- Herman Melville
' Philosophy '...
Philosophy refuses to regard itself in an exclusive sense. It admits all labeled points of view. But it refuses to limit itself to any of them. For they deal with apparent truth. The point of view which deals with real truth is really no point of view at all.
The would-be philosopher should not feel bound by labels, categories, and other fences which people want to put on others simply because they themselves live quite willingly surrounded by such fences and cannot understand someone who refuses to do so. Philosophy is a path which ends in the pathless--a way to the inner freedom which comes with truth.
It would be difficult to put philosophy into any category of its own for it has links with everything and with nothing, with particular religions and with no religion at all, with particular metaphysical systems and with none, with the different theologies and creeds, and so on; it has no organization and no one founder or apostle.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 152, 153, 154
Paul Brunton
' Whatever '...
"Do not grieve or complain that you were born in a time when you can no longer see God in the flesh.
He did not in fact take this privilege from you.
As he says:
Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers, you did to me."
Saint Augustine of Hippo
Sermo 103, 1-2, 6: PL 38, 613, 615
' The end of pain '...
The end of pain lies not in pleasure.
When you
realize that you are beyond both pain and
pleasure, aloof and unassailable, then the
pursuit of happiness ceases and the resultant
sorrow too.
For pain aims at pleasure and
pleasure ends in pain, relentlessly.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Free from prejudices '...
Most people look for labels, affix them or accept them, and then are forced to stand up for all the ideas bearing the label they identify themselves with.
They limit their search for Truth as soon as they join a group.
They must then accept untruths along with truths.
Philosophy, as we use the term, cannot be limited to any single set teaching, for it is universal.
It approaches the truth universally, free from prejudices, exclusions, and labels.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 151
Paul Brunton
' Pretend-knowledge '...
Unconscious people read the scriptures
like parrots saying Ram, Ram,
in their cages.
It's all pretend-knowledge.
Read rather, with me, every
living moment as prophecy.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
' The Philosophy of experience '...
We do not narrow the meaning of this expressive term [i.e. philosophy]down to the merely academic and theoretical.
We cling to its ancient significance and declare that there is no other study whose rewards are so great as those of philosophy.
But it is to be studied not only from ponderous books, but also from pulsating experience.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 139
Paul Brunton
' More excellent '...
But in the same manner as those who energize enthusiastically, and become divinely inspired, perceive indeed, that they have something greater in themselves, though they do not know what it is; but of the things by which they are excited they speak, and from these receive a certain sensation of the moving power, which is different from them;
―in this manner also we appear to be affected about that which is perfectly simple when possessing a pure intellect we employ it, and conclude that this is the inward intellect which is the source of essence, and of other things which belong to this arrangement.
We are sensible, therefore, that the nature which is perfectly simple is not these things, but that it is something more excellent, more ample, and great, than that which we denominate being, because it is also superior to reason, intellect, and sense, imparting, but not being these.
-- Enneads, V.3.14, last two sentences,
Plotinus, Taylor translation.
' It is monday '...
The worst day of the week..
This emergence into dreaming..
The dream of freedom only lasts two days..
When you have become old, like myself,
days have no power upon mind..
The idea of time becomes that which exists within hours..
This eighty years of dreaming becomes a comedy of errors..
I speak in paragraphs and therefore will not make you suffer more...
-thomas
' Falling from the Self '...
This villainous vast world so false
that cheats and churns the minds of all,
how did it come to be?
By nothing else but by the fault of falling from the Self
instead of clinging firmly to It.
-The above Ramana Maharshi quote is from the book:
The Seven Steps to Awakening
' He is in despair '...
The lover of this world is like someone in love
with a wall illuminated by sunrays;
he doesn't
realise that the radiance and the splendor do
not come from the wall but from the sun;
he gives
his heart to the wall and when at sunset the rays
of sun disappear,
he is in despair.
- Rumi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
' The Ultimate Consciousness '...
The simple name "philosophy" is an old one and it is enough for this teaching.
Mentalism is its metaphysical branch,
mental quiet is its mystical practice,
and the Overself is the ultimate Consciousness of man.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 135
Paul Brunton
' The I AM '...
"Whenever you think of yourself
or try to be conscious of yourself,
realize that the 'I AM' occupies the throne
of your entire field of consciousness."
- Christian D. Larson
from the book A Course In Materialization
' Mere thoughts '...
We speak of diversity in the manifest world as of water in a mirage.
Time, space and duality itself are all notions or concepts--mere thoughts.
All is nothing but Consciousness appearing as mind,
whether mountains, oceans, rivers, animals or human beings.
The true guru is not hiding anything of the Truth.
He is the very source of knowledge, indeed the knowledge itself, and everyone is free to take away as much as he can.
There is no question of any personal giving or receiving because no individual ever did exist.
-
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' Absolute perfection is now '...
”Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.
The secret is in action - here and now.
It is your behavior that blinds you to yourself.
Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect - whatever your idea of perfection may be.
All you need is courage."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Eternal Word '...
"That person alone is righteous who,
having naughted all created things,
stands facing straight along the unswerving line into the eternal Word,
where, in the right, he is idealised and transformed.
That person is gotten where the Son is gotten and is the Son himself."
-Meister Eckhart
in Franz Pfeiffer
Translated by C. de B. Evans
London: John Watkins, 1924, vol. 1, p. 52
' Love is Eternal '...
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.
-From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
' Philosophy '...
Viewed from the standpoint of the house in which we all have to live--that is, the body--Advaita Vedanta seems to deal only in ultimate abstractions--however admirable and lofty its outlook.
The body is there and its actuality and factuality must be noted and, more, accepted. This is why I do not give any other label to the ideas put into my later books than the generic name philosophy. I do not call it Indian philosophy since there are ideas in the books which do not belong to India at all.
I do not identify it with any particular land, race, religion, or teacher from the ancient past or the modern present. Philosophy cannot be limited only to abstract ideas. It includes those ideas but it also includes other things. Its original Greek meaning, "love of wisdom," concerns the whole of man, and not only his abstract thoughts, intellect, feelings, body, or relation to the world around him.
It concerns his entire life: his contacts with other people, the morality which guides him in dealing with them, and finally his attitude towards himself. Philosophy must be universal in its scope; therefore, it may embrace ideas which originate not only in India or in America or in Europe, but in every other period of civilization. Not all ideas are philosophical, but only those which are true, useful, in harmony with the World-Idea, and able to survive the test of practice and applicability.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 1: Toward Defining Philosophy > # 128
Paul Brunton
' You are not the mind '...
Don't be so quick to believe in the mind’s projections. You
are not the mind. Don't come under its spell.
The mind is
a great magician.
It has hypnotized 7 billion human beings.
In the realm of personhood, it is full of tricks and has the
power to make a lot of mischief, confusion, distortion and
delusion.
But yours is a greater power.
It is the power of
the pure Self.
The power to observe with detachment, to
recognize that all phenomena are transient appearances
and that oneself is the formless witness, timeless and
ever-perfect.
- Mooji
' All is temporary '...
How do you understand anything?
Any knowledge of any kind that you think you have can only be in the consciousness.
How can the consciousness, which came later, give you any knowledge about that state which exists prior to its arrival?
Any thought that you have reached or are going to reach that state is false.
Whatever happens in consciousness is purely imaginary, an hallucination; therefore, keep in mind the knowledge that it is consciousness in which everything is happening.
With that knowledge, be still, do not pursue any other thoughts which arise in consciousness.
What is necessary is to understand with sure conviction is that all is temporary, and does not reflect your true state.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Overself '...
The Overself is not a goal to be attained but a realization of what already is.
It is the inalienable possession of all conscious beings and not of a mere few.
No effort is needed to get hold of the Overself, but every effort is needed to get rid of the many impediments to its recognition.
We cannot take hold of it; it takes hold of us.
Therefore the last stage of this quest is an effortless one.
We are led, as children by the hand, into the resplendent presence.
Our weary strivingscome to an abrupt end.
Our lips are made shut and wordless.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 3: The Overself's Presence > Paul Brunton
' Both sides to de-cide '...
What would happen if You awakened one morning to discover that You are the Creator ?..
Of course , this would not be believed..
The role of slave feels like home..
The media of knowledge only lies to you..
You have decided to experience a dream that is opposite..
The mirror of knowledge needs both sides to de-cide...
-thomas
' Know thy Self '...
In the center of the circle
is seen the perfect formula of creation
a perfect equation
between Light and phenomena.
Get to the Source first
and open your eyes;
the whole phenomena is Light-full.
You'll see then
there never was darkness.
Stream, know thy Source
ray, know thy Center
man, know thy Self;
that will be
the real solution.
- Swami Amar Jyoti
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
' Pass on to the unknown '...
We have got to travel in the void and be happy about it…
All that we
know clearly is insufficient.
We must pass on to the unknown …
at the
same time I think we make problems for us where there really are none.
There is too much conscious "spiritual life" floating around us, and we are
too aware that we are supposed to get somewhere.
Well, where?...perhaps
we are already in that where.
… As for "spiritual life": our "Life in the
Spirit" is all-embracing, or it should be.
~Thomas Merton
' Self as Divinity '...
The idea that we have to wait for liberation from the ego and enlightenment by the Overself,
to evolve through much time and many reincarnations,
is correct only if we continue to remain mesmerized by it,
but false if we take our stand on reality rather than appearance:
we are now as divine as we ever shall be--but we must wake up from illusion and see this truth.
Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 1: Entering the Short Path > # 25
Paul Brunton
' Intuition takes over '...
Stand in your original state of wholeness,
the state before you were born when there was no knowledge "I am" and therefore no need or want of any kind.
All suffering will end as soon as you stand in pure Awareness.
Intellect is very much necessary to understand certain fundamentals,
but there is a strict limit beyond which it cannot go.
Thereafter it is only when intellect gives up all efforts and acknowledges total surrender that intuition takes over.
Awakening can only happen spontaneously by itself.
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' Only the 'I Am' endures '...
”All kinds of experience may come to you--remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient,
and only the "I am" endures."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Six days ago '...
Six days ago, we cared about Truth..
Six days ago, we loved..
Six days ago, we connected..
Six days ago, we enjoyed Thought..
Six days ago, we were a group..
Six days ago, we were human...
-thomas
' Great Wisdom '...
"Wisdom is usually understood to be clear discernment.
In zazen, all knowledge vanishes of itself.
Mind and discrimination are forgotten forever.
The wisdom-eye of this body has no discrimination but is clear seeing of the essence of awakening.
From the beginning it is free of confusion, cuts off concept, and open and clear luminosity pervades everywhere.
This wisdom is no-wisdom;
because it is traceless wisdom,
it is called great wisdom."
Keizan Zenji, Zazen Yojinki
Jackson Peterson to Dzogchen Discussion
' The end of Mesmerism '...
This Doctor of physical knowledge became enamored of the Mind..
It is so easy to control the conscious mind..
The sub-conscious mind is the computer of data and decision..
The sub-conscious mind is the 'Creator' of Manifestation..
But, we believe ourselves to be slaves..
Only, a paragraph,
but can wisdom be seen ?..
-thomas
' Before desiring '...
”The higher your aims and vaster your desires,
the more energy you will have for their fulfillment.
Desire the good of all and the universe will work with you.
But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way.
Before desiring, deserve."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' self-torture '...
Seekers continue to practice all kinds of self-torture without
realizing that such 'spiritual practice' is a reinforcement of
the very ego that prevents them from their natural, free state.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Living in the timeless '...
The personal history which has gone before--let it really go and be free of the past,
which can become a mental prison for unwary persons;
learn to abide in the timeless,
coming out of it as duties call but holding on to it as the background.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You >
Chapter 3: Practise Detachment > # 227
Paul Brunton
' Name and Form '...
You are the space which never moves
and never travels.
Inner and outer space
is due only to name and form.
Remove this
form from mind by removing attachment
to any object, thought, or action.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' The greatest teacher '...
”The greatest guru is your inner self.
Truly he is the supreme teacher.
He alone can take you to your goal and he alone meets you at the end of the road.
Confide in him and you need no outer guru."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The release from untruth '...
In the last reckoning life is really a process whereby the individual becomes conscious of his own true identity.
The spiritual nature of man does not exist potentially, but actually.
The discovery of his own identity is simply man's destruction of the hypnotic illusions of Ego, Time, Space, Matter, and Cause--his moment of release from untruth.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 75
-- Perspectives > Chapter 19: The Reign of Relativity > # Paul Brunton
' Pure Awareness '...
Stand in your original state of wholeness,
the state before you were born when there
was no knowledge "I am" and therefore
no need or want of any kind.
All suffering
will end as soon as you stand in pure
Awareness.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1966
' Diamond Sutra '...
For if you are caught up in ideas, then you will be caught up in the
self.
And even if you are caught up in ideas about nothingness, you
will still be caught up in the self.
That's why we should not get
attached to the belief that things either exist or do not exist.
This
is the hidden meaning when I say that my teachings are a raft to be
abandoned when you see true being.
-Diamond Sutra
'Rumi and the new year '...
I have returned, like the new year, to break the
locks of the prison and smash the claws and teeth of these
man-eating spheres.
The seven waterless planets are devouring the
creatures of earth — I will throw water upon their fire and still
their winds.
I have flown from the beginningless King like a
falcon in order to kill the parrot-eating owls* of this ruined
monastery.
From the beginning I made a covenant to
sacrifice my spirit to the King. May my spirit’s back be broken
should I break my pledge and covenant!
Today I am Asaf, Solomon’s vizier, sword and
firman in hand — I will break the necks of any who are
arrogant before the King.
If you see the garden of the rebellious
flourishing for a day or two, grieve not! For I will cut their
roots from a hidden direction.
I will break nothing but injustice or the evil-
intentioned tyrant — should anything have a mote of savor, then
I am an unbeliever should I break it
Wherever there is a polo ball, it is taken away
by the mallet of Oneness — if a ball does not roll down the
field. I will smash it with the blow of my mallet.
I now reside in His banquet, for I saw that His
intention is Gentleness. I became the least servant of His way
in order to break Satan’s legs.
I was a single nugget, but when the Sultan’s
hand grasped hold of me, I became the mine — if you place me
in the balance, I will break the scales.
When you allow a ruined and drunken man like
myself into your house, do you not know at least this much: I
will break this and break that?
If the watchman shouts, “Hey!” I will pour a
cup of wine on his head; and if the doorman seizes hold of
me, I will break his arm.
If the spheres do not rotate round my heart, I
will pull them up by the roots; if the heavens act with
villainy, I will smash the turning heavens.
Thou hast spread the tablecloth of Generosity
and invited me to lunch — why doest Thou rebuke me when I
break the bread?
No, no — I sit at the head of Thy table, I am the
chief of Thy guests. I will pour a cup or two of wine upon the
guests and break their shame.
Oh Thou who inspirest my spirit with poetry
from within! Should I refuse and remain silent, I fear I would
break Thy command.
If Shams-i Tabrizi should send me wine and
make me drunk, I would be free of cares and break down the
pillars of the universe.
– Translation by William Chittick
“The Sufi Path of Love”
SUNY Press, Albany, 1984
' No one saves us '...
“No one saves us but ourselves.
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path.”
― Gautama the Buddha
' Let Light Enter '...
We should be brave to open our doors to receive all
available light from outside.
Let rays of light come in,
in sharp-driving showers from the four quarters of the earth.
- Swami Vivekananda
' Conscious attention '...
”Correct your attitude to your body and leave it alone.
Don't pamper, don't torture.
Just keep it going most of the time below the threshold of conscious attention."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Understanding Mind '...
We must get our minds quite clear about this position. It is all a matter of standpoint. From a practical standpoint the world is composed of many entities affecting and inter-reacting with each other in a causal manner. From the ultimate standpoint the world is Mind-essence, and this being the only existence cannot change its nature and come into a second birth; it cannot fall into the duality of cause and effect. But the Mind's finite productions, ideas, can do so.
Therefore it is admitted that causality fully reigns in the realm of ordinary experience. But when we seek to understand Mind in itself we seek to transcend ordinary experience. Mind in itself is not subject to causality.
The question of causality depends, like the question of the universe, on the particular point of view which we take up. It is real when considered as pertaining to two things, just as a dream table and chairs are real when considered by the dreamer himself. It is fictitious when we look not at the multiplicity of things but at the essence wherefrom they are derived, just as the dream table and chairs are fictitious when looked at from the broader point of view of the man who has awakened with the dawn.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 75
Paul Brunton
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