' Dispassion '...
The knowledge of Truth comes about when dispassion
arises in a man after he has learned from personal
experience that whatever life provides is truly hollow.
The man of the world becomes the man of wisdom
through recognizing that non-attachment is liberation
whereas the passion for sensory objects and experience
is bondage.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' The End Of Your World '...
With awakening there also comes a total reorganization of the way we perceive life—or at least the beginning of a reorganization. This is because awakening itself, while beautiful and amazing, often brings with it a sense of disorientation. Even though you as the One have awakened, there is still your whole human structure—your body, your mind, and your personality. Awakening can often be experienced as very disorienting to this human structure.
So it is the process that happens after awakening that I want to explore. As I’ve said, for a very few people, the moment of awakening will be complete. It will be final in a certain sense, and there will be no need for a continuing process. We might say that such people had an extraordinarily light karmic load; even though they may have experienced extreme suffering before awakening, one can see that their karmic inheritance, the conditioning that they were dealing with, wasn’t too deep. This is very rare. Only a few people in a given generation may wake up in such a way that there’s no further process to undergo.
What I always tell people is this: don’t count on that person being you. Better to count on being like everyone else, which means that you will undergo a process after an initial awakening. It won’t be the end of your journey. What I will attempt to do here is to point you in a direction that may be useful and orienting as you embark on that journey. As my teacher used to say, it’s like getting your foot in the front door. Just because you’ve gotten your foot in the front door doesn’t mean you have turned the lights on; it doesn’t mean you have learned to navigate in that different world that you’ve awakened to.
I’m very happy that this book, which is based on a series of talks I’ve given, offers me the opportunity to address this subject—the question of what happens after awakening. The information that exists on life after awakening is not usually made public. It’s most often shared only between spiritual teachers and their students. The problem with that approach is that, as I’ve said, a lot of people are now having these moments of awakening, and there is very little coherent teaching available for them. In that sense, this book is meant to be a welcoming to that new world, that new state of oneness. At this point I’d like to address those readers who are thinking, “Well, I haven’t had one of those glimpses. I don’t think I’ve really awakened.” Others may not be sure if what they have experienced is awakening or not.
Wherever you are on this path, I believe this information is relevant. For, as it turns out, what happens after awakening is relevant to what happens before awakening. In fact, the spiritual process isn’t any different before awakening than afterward. It’s just that, after awakening, the process is happening from a different perspective; you may think of it as a bird’s-eye view versus a ground-level view. Before awakening, we don’t know who we are. We think we are a separate, isolated person, in a particular body, walking around in a world that is distinct from us.
Once awakening has happened, we are still walking around in that world; we just know that we are not limited to a particular body or personality and that we are actually not separate from the world around us. It’s important to note, as well, that we do not become immune to misperception simply because we’ve had a glimpse of awakening. Certain fixations and conditionings will linger even after we perceive from the place of oneness.
The path after awakening, then, is a path of dissolving our remaining fixations—our hang-ups, you might say. So it’s not that much different from the path to awakening, which is path of dissolving certain delusions we have, certain tendencies to contract. The difference is that, before awakening, our personality structure feels much weightier, much heavier, much denser, because our whole identity is actually wrapped up in our conditioning.
After awakening we know that the conditioning of our body-mind system is not personal; we know that it doesn’t define us. That knowledge, that living truth, makes it much easier and much less threatening to address the unraveling of our illusions. So there is a great similarity in what we’re doing spiritually before awakening and what we are doing afterward. We are doing it from a different perspective;
before awakening we are doing it from the perspective of separation, and after awakening we are doing it from the perspective of nonseparation. But what we’re actually doing, the approach, the process itself, is quite similar. You might say that it’s just happening on different levels of being. In that way, almost everything I’ll be discussing in the chapters that follow can be applied to wherever you find yourself; it can be translated to your own experience.
~ Adyashanti ~
The End Of Your World
' The meaning of Grace '...
The real Short Path is really the discovery that there is no path at all:
only a being still and thus letting the Overself do the work needed.
This is the meaning of grace.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 5: Balancing the Paths > # 223
Paul Brunton
' Awakening within the Matrix '...
Awakening within a Dream is a frightening experience..
To see what others cannot is disconcerting..
Awakening from the Dream is beautiful and Real..
But, We have chosen to once again ride the circular train of reincarnation..
How can We leave this slavery of Energy Theft ?..
You create that which is within the mind..
The Mind of Thoughts began the Hologram of Light..
This Light is a Beacon of memory..
The binding of this Light is held tight by the magnetism of Love..
Take the Red Pill and discover a whole new Universe...
-thomas
' The Candle '...
A very close friend of Hamdun was on his deathbed.
The sheikh was with
him until his last breath.
As the man died, Hamdun blew out the
candle.
The other people present exclaimed, "At a time like this, more
light is called for!"
He replied,
"Before the candle was his.
Now it
belongs to his heirs!"
-as collected by Fadiman & Frager
' The One Mind '...
The One Mind is experiencing itself in us,
less in the ego-shadow and fully in the Overself,
hardly aware in that shadow and self-realized in the light that casts it.
-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 1: Absolute Mind > # 24
-- Perspectives > Chapter 28: The Alone > # 45 Paul Brunton
' On Death Row '...
"Having been on death row for over thirty years, I have had to deal with major issues of anger, self-worth, and forgiveness. I can truthfully say that my Buddhist practice has transformed me from being a drug and alcohol addict to being more human. I have had to learn to accept my fate. I saw how much I had hurt so many people and I came to the realization that no matter what I did to get here, I knew I was never going to get out of prison alive. So I had to make the best of a very bad situation.
My transformation started with reading The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. At first I did not understand Milarepa’s devotion to his guru, Marpa. How could someone be so devoted? After Venerable Robina Courtin of Liberation Prison Project first visited us in 1997 and said in one of her talks, “You have to do the work, no one else will do it for you,” it really struck home. I literally had to take my life apart and rebuild it to see who I am. I had no one left to face except myself.
Robina helped me to prepare to take the Bodhisattva vows, the precepts. (These vows are the foundation of the Mahayana Buddhist path: they help you to commit yourself to the activities and life of a bodhisattva, an enlightened person.) During this time, I not only committed them to memory, but also practiced living according to them and devoting my every action to benefiting other living beings. My practice gave me insights into how people think and react to different situations and problems.
Once I accepted this new space of being, a whole new world began to open up and I was amazed at how I missed it in the first place. My life in here is now spent helping others, even at great criticism from fellow inmates. Over the years I have made many crafts for friends and family. I have written to numerous troubled people and have helped the sick and the dying here on death row. I do not do this for praise or to be recognized for it. I do it because I can.
This is the way it is. I created all this mess. I don’t have anyone else to blame. My practice has helped me make the best of an awful situation. That’s the reality. I have to own up to it and face it daily. Once I began to do this, my anger gradually lessened, as I knew it was all up to me. My family and I are now closer. My mother’s mind is more at ease. I put myself here; no one else can be blamed. The burden should not be placed on my family. I have to carry it. Only when you can really see the harm that you have done to yourself and stop blaming everyone else for all your problems can you see the avalanche of heartache you have caused others. No one will ever know how sorry I am. It still really hurts my heart after all these years.
And whatever awaits me in the next life, I will accept it as well. I don’t fear death. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “When you realize emptiness, there is no fear.”
-- Mitchell Willoughby, Death Row Inmate
' Let the mind buzz '...
Let the mind buzz. It is buzzing.
Just recognize what is not buzzing.
There is a stillness here that no movement can touch.
It is our real home that has been deserted by us while
we are bemused by the world.
Though deserted, it is not a desert.
It is the oasis, the source from which all comes.
- Mooji
' Sri Ramana Maharshi '...
Question: You are Bhagavan. So you should know
when I shall get jnana. Tell me when I shall be a
jnani?
Sri Ramana Maharshi : If I am Bhagavan there is no
one besides the Self- therefore no jnani or ajnani. If
otherwise, I am as good as you are and know as
much as yourself. Either way I cannot answer your
question.
Coming here some people do not ask about
themselves. They ask: ‘Does the jivan muktas see
the world? Is he affected by Karma? What is
liberation after being disembodied or while alive in
the body?
Should the body of the sage resolve
itself in light or disappear from view in any other
manner? Can he be liberated though the body is left
behind as a corpse?
Their questions are endless. Why worry oneself in
so many ways? Does liberation consist in knowing
these things?
Therefore I say to them, leave liberation alone. Is
there bondage? Know this. See yourself first and
foremost.
' The other side '...
look at it from the other side.
For it is also an attempt by the Overself first to reveal Itself,
second to communicate with them.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 6: Experiencing a Glimpse > # 358
Paul Brunton
' Witnessing is essential '...
Discover all you are not.
Body, feelings, thoughts,
ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or that
- nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is
you.
A mere verbal statement will not do - you may
repeat a formula endlessly without any result
whatsoever.
You must watch yourself continuously
- particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing
nothing.
This witnessing is essential for the separation
of the self from the not-self.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Adyashanti '...
SB: Could you say a little more about the difference between mystical experiences and true awakening?
Adyashanti: When the personal “I” merges and becomes one with everything, that’s a mystical experience. Or your consciousness expands infinitely, or your kundalini [innate spiritual energy] awakens, or you have a vision of the Buddha or Mother Mary, or you feel totally blissed out and peaceful. Even an ongoing experience of being unified with God or Buddha is just another mystical experience.
But even though they’re the highest, most beautiful states a human being can have, mystical experiences are happening to the dream character you take to be “me” – and this “me” is the one you wake up from. Awakening is the realization that you are the awakeness or lucidity that’s experiencing every moment of the dream, including the so-called spiritual or mystical, without being caught by it. As I said before, awakeness is not an experience, it’s a fact, whereas a mystical experience happens to someone at a particular place and time.
Another way I like to put it is, you’re not the personality or mask, you’re the one that’s always peering through the mask, always awake to every moment of your life without being identified with it. At the same time, you feel deeply intimate with the dream because the dream is known to be an expression of the awakeness itself. At first, of course, the dream may seem to be different from the awakeness.
But when awakening completes itself, the awakeness sees that everything that’s perceivable, including this human body, mind, and personality, is an expression of itself. The realization is completely nondual. As the Heart Sutra puts it, form is emptiness, emptiness is form."
' Egohood '...
Men love their egos more than anything else,
or those extensions of their egos which are their families.
But if and when the lesser self submits to the higher self,
which is Egohood,
this love is harmonized with love for the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 4: Surrender > # 172 Paul Brunton
' Mental maturity '...
"A level of mental maturity is reached when nothing external is of any value and the heart is ready to relinquish all.
Then the real has a chance and it grasps it.
Delays, if any, are caused by the mind unwilling to see or to discard."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Muhyi-al-Din ibn al-'Arabi '...
"Beware of becoming delimited by a specific knotting and disbelieving in everything else, lest great good escape you.... Be in yourself a matter for the forms of all beliefs, for God is wider and more tremendous than that He should be constricted by one knotting rather than another."
Muhyi-al-Din ibn al-'Arabi
Bezels of Wisdom, 113
"He who counsels his own soul should investigate, during his life in this world, all doctrines concerning God. He should learn from whence each possessor of a doctrine affirms the validity of his doctrine. Once its validity has been affirmed for him in the specific mode in which it is correct for him who holds it, then he should support it in the case of him who believes in it."
Muhyi-al-Din ibn al-'Arabi
Meccan Openings, II. 85.11
quoted in William Chittick
Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al'Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity
NY: SUNY, 1994, p. 176
' The Reality behind Consciousness '...
The experience explains a man to himself for the first time, lights up the fact that he lives in two planes at one and the same time.
It reveals his ego as the illusion which envelops his consciousness and his Overself as the reality behind his consciousness.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 6: Experiencing a Glimpse > # 315 Paul Brunton
' If I hold you '...
If I hold you with my emotions, you'll become
a wished-for companion.
If I hold you with my eyes, you'll grow old
and die.
So I hold you where we both mix with the infinite.
- Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
Maypop, 1994
' The Mind of Clear Light and its Realization in Dzogchen '...
The moment the Mind of Clear Light reveals itself as current consciousness, a unique wisdom is immediately present. It's hard to say which comes first. In any event, we call that wisdom "rigpa" in Tibetan or gnosis.
Our ordinary deluded state of mind is the Mind of Clear Light in a contracted state called "sem" in Tibetan. By relaxing into one's own natural "empty awareness", the contraction releases. It's the "empty awareness" aspect that never contracted and always remains as the changeless host of experience.
Studying, thinking, conceptualizing, doing practices with intent or making any mental efforts; increases the contraction.
So by relaxing as "empty awareness", the awareness that knows and observes, without any mental topics, goal orientation or efforts, the contraction releases and rigpa wisdom appears spontaneously and naturally.
The personal self is part of the contraction and disappears automatically as relaxation deepens. What remains is the impersonal Dharmakaya nirvana.
This is like letting a jar of swirling muddy water (thoughts) settle by leaving it alone. The water clears to crystal clarity all by itself. Doing anything to the jar (mind) keeps the mud swirling.
Even the personal "self" that seemed to be directing and managing the action of "letting the body and mind relax", disappears as it was itself the heart of the contraction.
-Jackson Peterson
' Is my portrait of me, real ?'...
If you take this portrait of me to be real,
Then what am I, really?
But why hang it there,
If not to anticipate people getting to know me?
Looking at this portrait,
Can you say that what is hanging there
Is really me?
In that case your mind will never be
Fully united with the wall {as in Bodhdharma’s wall-gazing meditation cave}.
~ Dogen
' The seer and the seen '...
"...the seer and the seen appear only when there is seeing.
They are attributes of seeing.
When you say "I am seeing this," "I am" and "this" come with seeing, not before.
You cannot have an unseen "this" nor an unseeing "I am."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' One's true identity '...
"Irrespective of whether a person believes through the medium of ideas or idols,
with sincere love and faith in God,
he or she can get nearer to Him,
Who is already the nearest of all.
The essence of faith lies not in the shape or manner of one's belief,
but in the depth and sincerity behind it.
The faith that can move mountains can, and does, move the greatest of them —
the mountain of Ignorance that denies an individual a glimpse of one's true Divinity and also conceals
one's true Identity."
Meher Baba
in Bal Natu
Glimpses of the God-Man
Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Press, 1994, Vol. 6, p. 75
' Mix with the infinite '...
If I hold you with my emotions, you'll become
a wished-for companion.
If I hold you with my eyes, you'll grow old
and die.
So I hold you where we both mix with the infinite.
- Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
Maypop, 1994
' Full knowledge and perfect Love '...
"Let no one believe that he has received the divine kiss,
if he knows the truth without loving it or loves it without understanding it.
But blessed is that kiss whereby not only is God recognized but also the Father is loved:
for there is never full knowledge without perfect love."
- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
In Cantica Serm. VIII, 6; Migne, P. L., CLXXXIII, 813
quoted in Doctor Mellifluus-Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on St. Bernard of Clairvaux
' Wait in your own emptiness '...
Before you cross the threshold into dreamless
sleep, absolutely everything in the world that you
hold near and dear will have to be surrendered
and left behind.
You can only enter that empty kingdom with
empty hands, empty mind and an empty heart.
If you’re coming with anything in your hands,
mind or heart, you’re required to wait at the
threshold until you finally put it down.
Even in the waking world, surrendering fully to
how life really is also requires that, sometimes,
you sit quietly in the middle of your mess and
in the core of your chaos and just wait.
Wait with no expectations.
Wait in your own emptiness.
- Chuck Hillig
' Metaphysics and Mysticism '...
Metaphysical knowledge is the rain, devotional fervour is the sunshine.
Both are needed to bring the plant to flowering and fruition.
But rain attracts people less than sunshine.
And so we find that most aspirants avoid the labours of metaphysical study for the pleasures of mystical practice.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 122
Paul Brunton
' Thoughts on a wednesday '...
Ramana speaks of the truth that loss of ego is Reality..
This one sentence is the most important sentence of your life..
This is the only path to Truth..
The rest of days are spent within a warmth of light called Love..
The media of mind-control is quite accurate when they call their shows and words,
'Programing'..
This world is formed from desire and mind..
The yin and yang appear, once again..
This 'Thin Line' that the mystic masters spoke of,
contain the concept of the tight rope of neither..
As long as you see one, you must see the other...
-thomas
' The Tzaddik '...
"People say you should not seek greatness,
but I say you should seek only greatness.
Look for the greatest possible Tzaddik.
Choose only the greatest Tzaddik as your teacher."
Rabbi Nachman
Sichot Haran #51
The Essential Rabbi Nachman
Translated by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum
' Seek it's identity '...
Reality is simply the loss of ego.
Destroy the
ego by seeking its identity.
Because the ego is
no entity it will automatically vanish and reality
will shine forth by itself.
- Ramana Maharshi
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985
' Beyond the intellect's touch '...
The intellectual point of view is necessarily a developing one and its search for truth an unending one.
It can never secure or offer any final formulation since reality is beyond the intellect's touch,
even if it comes within the intellect's understanding.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 84
Paul Brunton
' The Observer '...
Perhaps, this experience of humanity is really no different from the moments of history..
What is the power that creates negativity ?..
Is it spiritual or material ?..
Why does 'Thought' desire to experience pain ?..
The holograms continue to dance to music and also to dance within war..
The slow death of this dream is consistent..
We, as the Observer can easily see the drama..
-thomas
' Only One '...
"Do Thou my separate and derived self
Make one with Thy Essential!
Leave me room
On that Diván which leaves no room for twain"
-Jami
"Salaman and Absaab"
Quoted by F. Max Müller
London: Ongmans, Green & Co, 1903, p. 359
' A mental concept '...
The doctrine of Advaita is after all a conception existing in a human head, for it had to take shape in that head, even if it had been revealed by the god Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma as Indian myth and legend would have us believe.
Even if the doctrine were revealed in the deepest mystic experience by the discoverer digging within himself, it still remains a mental concept interpreted and formulated by the discoverer himself.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 80
Paul Brunton
' Know Thyself '...
At the end of his long life of selfless teaching, the Buddha said that you must strive on the path yourself—the Awakened Ones only point the way.
Like the Buddha, all genuine mystics will tell you that the ultimate authority and touchstone of truth is not any scriptures or dogmas or teachers, but your own deepest experience.
“Don’t take my word for it,” they will say, “find out for yourself!” Just as a scientist tests hypotheses using experiments, so you should test the teachings in the laboratory of your life using spiritual practices.
It makes sense that you should be your own ultimate authority, because it is your own true nature that you must discover and know. As the oracle at Delphi commands: “know thyself.” And as Jesus instructs: “examine yourself, and learn who you are, how you exist, and what will become of you” (Jesus, Book of Thomas).
The reason the genuine mystic directs your attention inward to seek your own true nature is because, as Jesus says, “He who has not known himself does not know anything, but he who has known himself has also known the depth of all” (Jesus, Book of Thomas). And Rumi tells you: “It’s you yourself that hide your own treasure” (Rumi, Mathnawi). So the genuine mystic will always point you to yourself, to discover the depths of your own true nature.
The mystical injunction to know yourself and look to yourself as your own ultimate authority, however, does not mean that teachers and teachings have no value in the mystical path. The point is that they only show the way, as the Buddha says.
If you invest a particular teaching or teacher with ultimate truth, you will be implicitly separating yourself from the truth, and you will fail to realize the truth of your own nature. In the end, however, when you realize that the teachings and teachers—and indeed the entire world—is not separate from you, then you will see that your entire life is the truth of your own deepest being revealing itself to itself. Thus, to see truth in nothing reveals the truth in everything...
- Thomas J. McFarlane
' Suffering '...
"Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting;
it is a sign of unwillingness to move on,
to flow with life."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' True understanding '...
Rare in the world is one who no longer even cares for
experience.
In him the true understanding has already dawned.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Intellect and emotions '...
These are truths not only when they are known by the intellect,
but also when they are felt by the emotions.
The two must come together and be two sides of the same coin.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 77
Paul Brunton
' Sincerity and Longing '...
"He who is called Krishna is also called Shiva and Shakti, and that is He again who is called Jesus and Allah. There is only one Rama and he has a thousand names.
"Truth is one; It is only called by different names.
All people are seeking the same Truth; the disagreement is due to differences in climate, temperament and names.
Everyone is going toward God. They will all realize Him/Her if they have sincerity and longing of heart."
-Sri Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Abridged Edition)
by Swami Nikhilananda
New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1958, p.300
' Belief in Limitation '...
We are All One! That is easy to say but very difficult for you to accept and understand because in your illusory world all seem separate. Your modern physicists have finally discovered and accepted that absolutely everything is connected to everything else that you can see in the observable universe. And yet in your daily lives you live constantly with an intensely strong sense of separation because you are surrounded by individual impenetrable or non-integrated forms, forms that resist coalescence, unlike the air that you breathe and the water that you drink that easily and constantly flow and intermix. Sometimes in powerfully loving relationships there is a strong sense of oneness, but nevertheless you still occupy individual bodies. It is indeed very confusing.
Here in the spiritual realms, from which you truly are not separated, we mingle and mix with one another easily to exchange ideas or to share our love for each other, and when we choose to differentiate ourselves for whatever reason we just flow apart. But we are never separated from each other, our eternal state is at One with God, the Supreme Creator in Whom all exist, and, therefore, with each other. You have all chosen to experience separation, and until you change that choice, that is what you will experience.
Why would you continue to choose separation when it leaves you feeling alone, abandoned, and without love? It is because the illusion has become so real for you, a place in which billions of individuals appear to be constantly struggling for physical survival and because you identify utterly and completely with your bodies which always seem to be under some kind of physical or emotional threat. But bodies are just vehicles of limitation that you built and have chosen to occupy. You can choose to remove those limitations and experience a sense of vastness, of completeness, and of Oneness with All That Exists. But you have become so accustomed to limitations that you fear to live without them.
Your whole way of human life is based on a very powerful belief in limitation!
However, by going within to your quiet and holy inner sanctuary you can experience the vastness that is God, Creation, Love, and, therefore, You! To do so you need surrender to the divine flame of Love burning constantly within you, to let go of your beliefs, whatever they may be because they are very effective illusory distractions, and open your hearts so that the Love within can embrace you and demonstrate to you that you are as vast as all of Creation, as vast as God, and eternally embraced by the Love that is Reality. To fully experience that state would instantly destroy your physical form, your human body, because the energy of that state is infinitely powerful. Nevertheless you can experience a sense of that divine state, your natural state, that will permanently banish all your doubts about your Oneness with God.
You are on Earth to go through the awakening process and to assist others to do so. To awaken is a choice that only you can make, and in truth all living entities have already made the choice to do so, but you have not yet chosen when to do so. That choice of timing can, naturally, only be made in the eternal now moment, and when that happens you will awaken. Presently, those of you reading or listening to this message know this, but you are patiently biding your time as you assist others to make that same choice. You may feel that you have no choice, that you are waiting for some future divine event to wake you up, but in truth you always have the freedom to choose, and the moment of that choosing is drawing ever closer.
It is a confusing paradox to be experiencing life as a human within the space/time envelope while at the same time knowing that space and time are unreal. That is why it is essential that you go within daily to connect with the Love that resides there. That safe inner sanctuary is the doorway through which you enter Reality, the divine realms in which utter joy is eternally experienced.
Often, when you go within, your mind fills with distracting thoughts – all the shoulds, anxieties, and “must dos” that daily life as a human seems to demand of you. This is merely your egos attempting to draw you out from that place of divine peace and back into the illusion. Just acknowledge those ego thoughts, acknowledge that they are distracting you from your place of peace, but do not engage with them. If you do get drawn in, as often happens, when you realize this just intend to return to that place of inner peace without any judgment of the fact that you were distracted. Distractions are an essential aspect of the illusion that you built and initially it is difficult to disassociate yourselves from them for more than a few moments.
Reciting mantras, focusing on a candle or on your breath, or playing quiet music intended to assist you get into a meditative state can be helpful. But everyone of you are different and respond differently to the various methods that can assist you to reach inner peace in meditation, and of course there is no requirement that insists that you use a prescribed method for meditation. Do what feels right and comfortable for you, and practice that for a few weeks to give yourselves time to adjust to your new routine. Changing routines in an effort to find one that works better for you can be self-defeating, as it may well be your ego's attempts to keep you distracted. Relax, allow, and as thoughts or distractions arise do not engage with them. However, when you do and become aware, just set the intent to return to quietness, and realize that there is no such thing as failure.
Meditation is a practice to enable you to connect with your true Self, the Self that is One with God. Concert pianists spend long periods of time daily practicing to maintain their professional competence, so do not be surprised at the amount of practice that you have to put into meditation to find the peace and stillness that you seek. Do not judge yourselves as successful or unsuccessful and do not seek to see yourselves making progress because that is just further distraction. Just set a regular time and place for your practice, and when the time you have allowed is over go back to your daily living. If you maintain your practice without expectations you will find peace and contentment.
Your loving brother, Jesus.
John Smallman ( receiver of knowledge )
' Receive Liberty '...
Imagine yourself standing outside a fire station when sirens scream
and firemen clamber on to their engines. As a fireman dashes by you
ask, 'Where are you going?'
Responds the fireman, 'To a fire that happened ten years ago.'
You think you must be dreaming. Something is wrong.
Firemen do not race to fires that happened ten years ago.
Yet we behave just as strangely when responding with wild emotions
to events of ten or fifty years ago.
We must cut the cord of time which binds us to the past.
We must cut ourselves away from unconscious responses arising from
past defeats and sorrows.
Right now, receive your liberty."
- Vernon Howard.. Esoteric Encyclopedia of Eternal Knowledge, p. 178
' Counsciousness creates differentiation '...
Consciousness creates differentiation ,
the egg does not create the chicken..
The chicken creates the egg..
The Source is that which is ignored..
Perhaps, a few minutes of thought would remedy that..
We float within thoughts of division and anger..
To feel good is so easy but the ego involves itself..
Speakers from the voices of money and power say a lot..
But, you have been here awhile to think original thoughts..
Does Humanity have a chance to leave a cave of darkness and enter the unknown knowledge of Light ?..
-thomas
' Love God '...
"I have only one message to give and I repeat it age after age.
My message to one and all is: Love God.
One must love God with all sincerity to such an extent that one loses one's self completely in love.
And how does one love God?
One can love God as He ought to be loved by trying one's utmost to make others feel happy even at the cost of one's own happiness."
Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
Manifestation, Vol. 14, 1st. ed., p. 5049
Revised Online Edition, p. 4055
' From the unreal to the Real '...
"From the unreal lead me to the real;
From darkness lead me to the light;
From death lead me to immortality."
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28
(from Pavamana Mantra of Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita)
Translated by Swami Nikhilananda
' Metaphysics '...
Metaphysics is ordinarily concerned with the criticism of superficial views about the experienced world and the correction of erroneous ones, whilst it seeks to construct an accurate systematic and rational interpretation of existence as a whole. This is good in its own place because we shall be all the better and not worse for finding a metaphysical base for our beliefs.
It is quite clear however that metaphysical systems cannot alone suffice for our higher purpose, for being based on personal assumptions, reasoning, or imaginations, if they partially enlighten mankind they also partially bewilder by their mutual contradictions. Hence philosophy steps in here and offers what it calls "the metaphysics of truth."
This is an interpretation in intellectual terms of the results obtained from a direct mystical insight concerned with what is itself incapable of intellectual seizure. Through this superior insight it provides in orderly shape the reasons, laws, and conditions of the supersensuous experience of the Overself, unifies and explains the experiences which lead up to this consummation, and finally brings the whole into relation with the practical everyday life of mankind.
It is the sole system that the antique sages intellectually built up after they had actually realized the Overself within their own experience. Such a point needs the utmost emphasis for it separates the system from all others which carry the name of metaphysics or philosophy. Whereas these others are but intelligent guesses or fragmentary anticipations of what ultimate truth or ultimate reality may be and hence hesitant between numerous "ifs" and "buts," this alone is a presentation from firsthand knowledge of what they really are. It bars out all speculation.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 19
-- Perspectives > Chapter 7: The Intellect > # 30 Paul Brunton
' I am Home '...
Do not run away from worldly activities, only
always keep in the "I am SELF,"
stay as the
screen on which all the projected activities
take place.
In all activities simply keep quiet
and know "I am Home."
Your business is
to keep quiet.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' You are a Buddha '...
Go back to your essence being now!
No psychoanalysis here, just a pill-free freedom.
Nothing is a reading of what you are.
You are not this thing or that thing.
You are no-thing actually.
I wish to meet you, not your story.
It will be a beautiful meeting, a sweet union.
Come out of this fickle hiding place.
Don't keep hiding inside this human form and its dramas.
I know who you are.
You are a Buddha.
- Mooji
' Truth clears away illusions '...
These teachings carry human thought as far as it will go;
beyond them there can be only what superhuman beings could comprehend.
This illumination is the final one, the terminal result and reward of all the arduous search of man's questing mind.
Truth clears away the remaining illusions which effort and instruction failed to clear away.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 7:
Metaphysics of Truth > #17 & #18 Paul Brunton
' What is really going on ? '...
The right and left are fighting for a vision of future humanity..
Do you choose Freedom or serfdom ?'..
Watch the words being twisted..
Watch the lies that lead to mind contol..
Many of you are Mystics and are aware of the opposite of Mind..
The opposite of mind control is called Truth..
Truth is the only path to Freedom..
The Luciferian concept of truth is called opposite for a reason,
this stance of knowledge is called untruth or lies..
The Battery of this Dimension needs power to exist,
you supply this energy..
Reincarnation is the continuity of circuit...
-thomas
' Every Moment '...
"To think in meditation that,
if God is favorable,
He may appear at any moment is quite right.
In fact,
we expect Him at every moment in meditation."
Shivapuri Baba
in Renu Lal Singh
Right Life: Teaching of the Shivapuri Baba
NorthShire, U.K.: Coombe Springs Press, 1984, p. 56
' The Great Way '...
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have
no preferences.
When love and hate are both
absent everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however, and
heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
- Seng-T’San
' Paradoxical '...
If the enigma must be put into worded statements to satisfy demands,
then they must be paradoxical ones.
Those who require smooth, eloquent,
and uplifting utterances may get comfort.
But the truthful way is in the end the better way.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 16
Paul Brunton
' To suppress desire '...
Any action taken to suppress desire can only strengthen it.
Desire can only fall away gradually by itself.
It is a rather curious fact that each man craves for certainty and security as an intrinsic part of happiness for himself,
but without any clear idea of what this 'himself' is!
-A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
' When the mind is quiet '...
When the mind is quiet, we come to know
ourselves as the pure witness.
We withdraw
from the experience and its experiencer and
stand apart in pure awareness, which is
between and beyond the two.
The personality,
based on self-identification, on imagining
oneself to be something:
‘I am this, I am that’,
continues, but only as a part of the objective
world. Its identification with the witness snaps.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Silence '...
Whether it is ever possible to put into words that will not be idle ones truths of our real being has been a question whose answers are well argued for and against.
But whatever the judgement may be, who can doubt that similes, metaphors--that is, symbols--may be offered, suggestive hints given forth, and clues left behind by those whose knowledge and experience carries authority.
And these, too, are only words.
Those who say that, in this matter, human language is suspect, completely untrustworthy, and utterly helpless, that its use here can only set up false images and fresh illusions, are going too far.
It is to condemn us to hopelessness.
And it does not explain why Lao Tzu, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, John of the Cross, and Ramana Maharshi spoke or wrote despite their avowals.
Of course their communication is all a matter of reference to levels.
On the ordinary practical level--the immediate one--expression through any art, be it music, painting, drama, or literature, is not futile and does give something, does affect its audience.
If it be given by an enlightened man to those still groping in darkness or dusk, it has its place and is justified.
But on the ultimate level, with the mind absorbed in the Void, what is there to say?
And to whom could it be said?
Silence then becomes the correct attitude.
When humanity attains this level, the descent of divine teachers and their words will not be needed.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 15
Paul Brunton
' Learning to learn '...
"Under the right teacher, the disciple learns to learn, not to remember and obey.
Satsang, the company of the noble, does not mold, it liberates.
Beware of all that makes you dependent."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Value '...
I noticed an Arab of the desert sitting in a company of jewelers.
He
said:
"I had once lost my road in the desert and consumed all my food.
I considered that I must perish when I suddenly caught sight of a
bulging canvas bag.
I shall never forget the joy and ecstasy I felt on
thinking it might be parched grain nor the bitterness and despair when
I discovered it to be full of pearls."
Sa'di
' The World-show '...
Human intelligence has penetrated to the fact that behind the world-show there is a Reality but cannot penetrate the latter itself.
Both science and metaphysics concur in this discovery,
but no human writing has ever described it or can ever do so.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 14
Paul Brunton
' Why talk of happiness ? '...
"..why talk of happiness at all?
You do not think of happiness except when you are unhappy.
A man who says:
"Now I am happy," is between two sorrows--past and future.
This "happiness" is mere excitement caused by relief from pain.
Real happiness is utterly unselfconscious."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' A pail of pearls '...
I noticed an Arab of the desert sitting in a company of jewelers.
He
said: "I had once lost my road in the desert and consumed all my food.
I considered that I must perish when I suddenly caught sight of a
bulging canvas bag.
I shall never forget the joy and ecstasy I felt on
thinking it might be parched grain nor the bitterness and despair when
I discovered it to be full of pearls."
Sa'di
as collected by James Fadiman & Robert Frager
' Needing only a spark '...
The metaphysics of truth is set out in such a way that the student believes he is proceeding step by step purely by logical deduction from ascertainable facts, that his reasoned thinking upholds the findings of transcendental experience, whereas not only is he doing this but at the same time is proceeding upon a path which conforms to his own latent insight.
It kindles a higher intelligence in its students.
Consequently the sense either of sudden or of growing revelation may often accompany his studies, if he be sufficiently intuitive.
The authentic metaphysics of truth can bring him close to the mystical experience of reality.
Then the trigger-pull which will start the experience moving need only be something slight, perhaps a printed inspired sentence, perhaps just a single meeting with one who has learnt to live in the Overself, or perhaps a climb in the mountains.
For then the mind becomes like a heap of dry wood, needing only a spark to flare up into a blazing pile. The close attention to its course of thought then becomes a yoga-path in itself.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 6
-- Perspectives > Chapter 7: The Intellect > # 33 Paul Brunton
' Greed '...
"You need some food, clothing and shelter for you and yours,
but this will not create problems as long as greed is not taken for a need.
Live in tune with things as they are and not as they are imagined.."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Never to be measured '...
"An inconceivable number of thousands of kotis of aeons,
never to be measured,
is it since I reached superior (or first) enlightenment and never ceased to teach the law."
-Gautama the Buddha
Saddharma-Pundarika Or, The Lotus Of The True Law, XV
Translated By H. Kern (1884)
Sacred Books of the East, Vol XXI
' Metaphysics of Truth '...
If philosophy harmonizes the two opposite elements of metaphysics and mysticism, it also transcends them through the ultramystic contemplations.
The present volume carries the quest to a height where all reasoning reaches its ultimate limit and must then be dropped.
At such a point it becomes necessary to separate the purely rational and ratiocinative portion of this teaching from the advanced-yoga--that is, ultramystic--portion.
Accordingly the phrase "metaphysics of truth" will be used henceforth to indicate only the former portion.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 5
Paul Brunton
' Pervading Creation '...
"As ghee pervades milk,
So does the Lord pervade creation.
Many are the praters and listeners of this;
But few are those who churn themselves,
To get the all-pervading Lord."
-Kabir
in Issac A. Ezekiel
Kabir: The Great Mystic
Punjab: Radha Soami Satsang Beas, 1966, p. 319
' Nothing but Thee '...
"The one who found that there is nothing but Thee,
has found the final knowledge."
-Dabestan-e-Madaheb
' Transcendental Knowledge '...
Although every tenet of the metaphysics of truth is worked out with strict rationality and scientific respect for facts,
there is a hidden support in transcendental knowledge running right through them all.
The whole intellectual structure is supported by a solid core of super-intellectual insight.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 7:
Metaphysics of Truth > # 3 & # 4 Paul Brunton
' Today is Friday '...
This day of Liberation..
The night of Friday, awakens a sense of Freedom..
Slavery becomes a daily chore..
But, life is filled with pain within the material plane..
The pain is presented as a warning device to save life and soul..
To walk alone or with lover within the two days is called love..
To walk alone with presence of mind is the Seeker..
To find Love within the partner is to dissolve together..
To find Love, alone is to speak with God..
Tomorrow is Saturday..
-thomas
' Said, Monkey '...
"If it were just a matter of playing football with the firmament, stirring up the ocean, turning back rivers, carrying away mountains, seizing the moon, moving the Pole-star or shifting a planet, I could manage it easily enough.
Even if it were a question of my head being cut off or my belly being ripped open and my heart cut out or any kind of transference or transformation, I would take on the job at once,' said Monkey.
'But if it comes to sitting still and meditating, I am bound to come off badly. It's quite against my nature.'"
Wu Cheng'en,
Monkey: Journey to the West
Chapter XXIV
' Just for a second '...
Just for a moment, flowers appear
on the empty, nearly-spring tree.
Just for a second, wind
through the wild thicket thorns.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
from "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
' Constant Reflection '...
Constant reflection on metaphysical and ethical themes reaches a point where one day its accumulated
weight pushes him around the corner into a mystical realization of those themes no less surely than
meditation might have done.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect >
Chapter 7: Metaphysics of Truth > # 2
Paul Brunton
' The Monkey Mind '...
"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
' Your Ocean Being '...
This effortless stillness
that is your ocean Being,
this great peace and infinite silence,
is just Here.
It is your perfume.
This love, this spaciousness, this contentment,
simply emanates out of you.
But your true Self, this ineffable flower,
no one can find.
It has neither form nor shape.
Neither size, weight, nor colour.
It is ageless—timeless.
And yet, without It,
none of this could be.
- Mooji
' What is understanding? '...
Try to ask yourself this question and you will see that you cannot
answer it.
You have always confused understanding with knowing or
having information.
But to know and to understand are two quite
different things, and you must learn to distinguish between them.
In
order to understand a thing, you must see its connection with some
bigger subject, or bigger whole, and the possible consequences of this
connection.
Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller
problem in relation to a bigger problem.
-P.D. Ouspensky
' You may call it Love '...
When the sense of distinction and separation
is absent,
you may call it love.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' The meaning of life '...
The meaning of life is that, life has no meaning
other than the living of it as a dream over which
one has really no control.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' On Spinoza's Doctrine '...
(a) Spinoza taught that God was the whole of things in the universe. This brought him into the category of pantheism. Philosophy says this is true but only part of the truth. For God is not only immanent in the universe but also transcends it. God still would be God even if there were no universe.
(b) He declared that the unknown reality was Substance. Philosophy says this is only an attribute of Reality and as such still not the ultimate itself, any more than the quality of fragrance is the flower itself.
(c) He believed in Causality, as science did in the nineteenth century, and as all must do who do not comprehend the final truth that Reality is nondual, hence leaves no room for the duality of cause and an effect.
Spinoza's pantheism made him declare that everything is God. This is the theological outlook. The philosophical one declares that everything is a manifestation of One Infinite Reality. For if the ego also is God, then who is God?
(d) Spinoza's teaching that God has two attributes, Mind and Matter, that reality has two aspects--mind and body, made him a dualist. Philosophy knows only one reality--Mind. It admits causality only for the immediate and practical purposes of the illusory world.
(e) His teaching on how to live so as to fulfil the proper purpose of life is identical with philosophy's teaching. He saw that man so far must become wholly free inwardly, and as free as possible outwardly. This is to be achieved by self-mastery, by overcoming desires, subjugating passions, and simplifying existence. This brings true happiness.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 7:
Metaphysics of Truth > # 99 Paul Brunton
' Neither time nor space '...
"Reality is neither subjective nor objective, neither mind nor matter, neither time nor space.
These divisions need somebody to happen to, a conscious separate center.
But reality is all and nothing, the totality and the exclusion, the fullness and the emptiness, fully consistent, absolutely paradoxical.
You cannot speak about it, you can only lose yourself in it."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Every midwife knows '...
"Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb
softens from the pain of labour
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
"Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart, it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones, like trusted midwives are saying,
welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace."
~ Rumi
' What's the Difference? '...
Why do some "see" as rigpa (pure awareness) and some don't?
The difference is whether rigpa is projecting a secondary consciousness that is a micro-second too slow to witness the momentary projections AS they are being projected, and therefore is "seeing" them as though they are already there and pre-existing.
Otherwise rigpa is "seeing" it's projections as its own immediate creativity; and they release upon the arising.
Suddenly seeing that rigpa is itself projecting the "time lagged" secondary consciousness, is its immediate release.
-Jackson Peterson
' Fascinated by contrasts '...
"We love variety, the play of pain and pleasure, we are fascinated by contrasts.
For this we need the opposites and their apparent separation.
We enjoy them for a time and then get tired and crave for the peace and silence of pure being."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' What you really are '...
From galaxies to subatomic particles,
everything is in motion...
everything except you,
what you really are.
-Art Ticknor
Solid Ground of Being
' The nature of being '...
"It is the nature of being, to see adventure in becoming,
as it is in the very nature of becoming to seek peace in being.
This alternation of being and becoming is inevitable;
but my home is beyond."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' A Mystical Experience '...
“In one sense, enlightenment is realizing that there is no separate self.
We might hear that a hundred thousand times, "There is no separate self." But what happens when we take it inside and seriously consider what it could mean?
We would find it means that everything I as a separate self holds as true isn't. The taste of no separate self is totally liberating.
"No separate self" does not mean there is a spiritual experience that goes something like, "I have extended myself infinitely everywhere, and have merged with everything." That's a beautiful, wonderful experience for a separate self to have, but that's not what Oneness is.
Oneness is not merging. Merging happens between two and since there is only one, then any experience of merging is one illusion merging with another, as beautiful and wonderful as that experience may be.
Even when I experience having merged with the absolute, with the infinite, with God, it simply means that my fictitious self has merged with another fiction. Mystical experiences aren't enlightenment.”
~Adyashanti
' Always the NOW '...
In contemplating deeply Nature's beauty around one, as some of us have done, it is possible to slip into a stillness where we realize that there never was a past but always the NOW--the ever-present timeless Consciousness--all peace, all harmony; that there is no past--just the eternal.
Where are the shadows of negativity then?
They are non-existent!
This can happen if we forget the self, with its narrowed viewpoint, and surrender to the impersonal.
In that brief experience there is no conflict to trouble the mind.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 184
-- Perspectives > Chapter 19: The Reign of Relativity > # 33 Paul Brunton
' The Real is beyond words '...
"Christianity is one way of putting words together and Hinduism is another.
The real is, behind and beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind.
It is easily had when nothing else is wanted.
The unreal is created by imagination and perpetuated by desire."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Infinite and Universal '...
Consider the fact that our individual lives are totally suspended during sleep, that the waves of personal consciousness then merge utterly in the ocean.
How clearly this shows the Divine to be also the Infinite and Universal, our lack of true spirituality, and our possession at best of its pale reflection!
For where else could we go to sleep except in this Infinite and Universal Mind?
Yet we know it not!
To get rid of such ignorance, to attain transcendental insight into the fourth state of being, is the most wonderful of all the tasks which this philosophy sets before us.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 3: The States of Consciousness > # 179
-- Perspectives > Chapter 19: The Reign of Relativity > # 18 Paul Brunton
' The Two Truths in Dzogchen '...
In discussing Dzogchen here, often people confuse the lower level understandings of the "Two Truths" with the Dzogchen and tantric understanding.
In Dzogchen there are no "two truths". The absolute and the relative are both, equally, empty concepts.
All phenomena are equally the single expression of the Great Perfection, and are therefore perfect.
The lower view claims there is true variation amongst "relative" phenomena and values: better/worse, good/bad, moral/immoral, right/wrong, attainment/non-attainment, realization/absence of realization.
Since all phenomena and ideas are equally empty of inherent existence, no "other" existence is findable.
Pema Rigtsal:
"No matter what arises in samsara and nirvana, at the very moment of its appearing, it arises in ultimate timeless emptiness. There is not an iota of good to be cultivated or bad to be rejected. This is called “great timeless inseparable truth.” Empty when appearing, appearing when empty, this magnificent timeless sameness of emptiness and appearance is called “the view of Dzogchen” and also “the view of the ultimate sacrifice” or “the view free of all propositions.” In reality, therefore, all phenomena are merely mental labels, and in reality not even the smallest thing exists to be cultivated or rejected."
- Jackson Peterson
' What is beautiful ? '...
"What is beautiful?
Whatever is perceived blissfully is beautiful.
Bliss is the essence of beauty."
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Jackson Peterson to Transparent Being '...
Imagine a single tower of all windows and a single Consciousness in the middle of the tower is looking out of all the windows at the same time.
But at each window frame it seems the window frame is what is conscious and looking out. The illusion is at the individual window frame but the window frame is itself not the consciousness "looking" through it.
That's "our" situation.
There is only one Consciousness (Dharmakaya) looking out of all of our eyes.
There is no individual person or entity that is conscious and aware.
The individual is just an impermanent window frame.
Our consciousness is the same single Consciousness.
The individual "mind" is the window frame.
See?
' The Still Void '...
This transparent light-world is the source of creation, the cosmic birthplace, the home of dazzling primal energy.
Galaxies, universes, suns, and planets come forth from here.
The revelatory, blissful vision of God's Form may happen only once in a lifetime.
Beyond it all is God without Form--the still void.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation >
Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 315
Paul Brunton
' The next step is yours '...
Rumi speaks with few words..
This, Sufi Muslim Mystic..
The Truth is found within all minds..
Philosophy may speak of ego and desire,
but, Truth is the goal of Happiness..
To speak within a self is beautiful..
Love is a White light that illuminates Wisdom..
To awaken from a Dream is a cup of coffee in the morning..
You are a tribe of wanderers that walk towards Freedom..
The next step is yours...
-thomas
' I am filled with you '...
I am filled with you.
Skin, blood, bone, brain and soul.
There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
Nothing in this existence but that existence.
- Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
Unseen Rain
Threshold Books, 1986
' Dissolving the mind '...
The answers to real questions are not verbal or conceptual
but dissolve the mind in emptiness.
- Mooji
There are two different ways to realization:
(a) The path of yoga meditation whose goal is nirvikalpa samadhi.
(b) Gnana whose goal is sahaja samadhi.
This looks on the world as being only a picture, unreal.
Both seek and reach the same Brahman, the world disappearing for both.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 130 Paul Brunton
' A Realization of timeless fact '...
It is objected, why search at all if one really is the Overself?
Yes, there comes a time when the deliberate purposeful search for the Overself has to be abandoned for this reason.
Paradoxically, it is given up many times, whenever he has a Glimpse, for at such moments he knows that he always was, is, and will be the Real, that there is nothing new to be gained or searched for.
Who should search for what?
But the fact remains that past tendencies of thought rise up after every Glimpse and overpower the mind, causing it to lose this insight and putting it back on the quest again.
While this happens he must continue the search, with this difference, that he no longer searches blindly, as in earlier days, believing that he is an ego trying to transform itself into the Overself, trying to reach a new attainment in time by evolutionary stages.
No! through the understanding of the Short Path he searches knowingly, not wanting another experience since both wanting and experiencing put him out of the essential Self.
He thinks and acts as if he is that Self, which puts him back into It. It is a liberation from time-bound thinking, a realization of timeless fact.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 6: Advanced Meditation > # 110
-- Perspectives > Chapter 23: Advanced Contemplation > # 26 Paul Brunton
' Who ever goes there disappears '...
That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness.
All the objects of consciousness form the universe.
What is beyond both, supporting both is the Supreme State, a state of utter stillness and silence.
Whoever goes there disappears.
It is unreachable by words or mind.
You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality; but these are names given by the mind.
It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state beyond being and not being.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
I Am That (c13 p35-36)
' Very important attitude '...
First you realize the place that you're in right now,
whether you think it’s good or bad,
whether you think you're happy or sad,
whether you think you're rich, or poor, or sick, or healthy,
the place where you're in right now is your right place.
That's the beginning.
You stop trying to be someone else.
You stop trying to change your life.
You're in your right place, right now, just the way you are.
If you can become happy and peaceful in the place
where you are right now,
all of a sudden you will find circumstances will change in your favor,
and then again you will be in your right place.
Whatever change comes along as far as your body-mind is concerned,
you are in your right place.
The more you can see that, the more you can look
at what I just said intellectually, intelligently,
the more peaceful you become,
the more the karmic patterns begin to break away
and you begin to awaken.
It may be gradual at first.
You notice that things that used to annoy you, no longer annoy you.
You notice that people that you live with, the conflicts you've had,
they stop because you've stopped.
There's no more trying to get even.
There's no more trying to win your point.
There's no more trying to find the right book,
or the right teacher, or the right anything.
You remain centered.
You remain free.
~Robert Adams - T.39 - Sitting in the Silence - 27th January, 1991
' Truth is utterly simple '...
It is precisely for the reason that Truth is utterly
simple, basic, elementary and totally obvious,
that it is completely overlooked.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Reflecting the Overself '...
The ego totally ceases to exist and is fully absorbed into the Overself only in special, temporary, and trance-like states.
At all other times, and certainly at all ordinary active and everyday times, it continues to exist.
The failure to learn and understand this important point always causes much confusion in mystical circles.
The state arrived at in deep meditation is one thing; the state returned to after such meditation is another.
The ego vanishes in one but reappears in the other.
But there are certain after-effects of this experience upon it which bring about by degrees a shift in its relation to the Overself.
It submits, obeys, expresses, and reflects the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 213
Paul Brunton
' The central fixation of self '...
"When the awakening is very deep, we no longer operate from a place of personal self. In other words, everything doesn’t relate to “me.” Thoughts don’t relate to me; feelings don’t relate to me; what others do doesn’t relate to me; and what happens in the world doesn’t relate to me. In the egoic state of consciousness, literally every single thing that ever happens is happening to a me. Right?
That’s the “normal” state of consciousness. Nobody can really explain what the personal self is; we just feel it. It’s a visceral thing. It’s not just how we act and what we say; it’s our central fixation of self.
As we see through it, we realize that the personal self is not who we are and that it was not ever anything substantial to begin with. And as we really see into our true nature, there is a paradox that arises: the more we realize that there isn’t a self, the more intimately present we actually are."
(from "Emptiness Dancing" by Adyashanti)
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