Israel Kamakawiwo'ole ➖ 'Over The Rainbow' & 'What A Wonderful World' ...

' A Brahmana '...

While residing at the Veluvana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (408) of this book, with reference to Thera Vaccha, who was also known as Thera Pilindavaccha, due to his offensive ways.

Thera Pilindavaceha had a very offensive way of addressing people: he would often say, "Come here, you wretch", or "Go there, you wretch" and such other things. Other bhikkhus reported about him to the Buddha.

The Buddha sent for him, and spoke to him on the matter. Then, on reflection the Buddha found that for the past five hundred existences, the thera had been born only in the families of the brahmins, who regarded themselves as being superior to other people.

So the Buddha said to the bhikkhus, "Bhikkhus! Thera Vaccha addresses others as 'wretch' only by force of habit acquired in the course of his five hundred existences as a brahmin, and not out of malice. He has no intention of hurting others, for an arahat does not harm others."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:

Verse 408: Him I call a brahmana, who speaks gentle, instructive and true words, and who does not offend anyone by speech."




-Gautama the Buddha
Dhammapada, verse 408

' Space and Time '...

Recognize the serenity of your own inner Being.

Let your attention be one with it.

Feel its vibration.

Do not create any image about this.

Allow the space and the sense of emptiness simply to be.

There is no better place to be than where you are right now.

In this instant, there is nothing to do or undo.

Nothing to change.

Nothing to fix.

Nothing to heal.

Nothing to become.

There is a natural sense of satisfaction or completeness.

Take full rest in your Self.

The world is not waiting for your next move.

You have space and time to be your Self.



- Mooji

' A Mystical Experience '...

Mostly as a result of meditation, but sometimes during an unexpected glimpse, a mystical experience of an unusual kind may develop.

He feels transparent to the Overself; its light passes into and through him.

He then finds that his ordinary condition was as if a thick wall surrounded him, devoid of windows and topped by a thick roof, a condition of imprisonment in limitation and ordinariness.

But now the walls turn to glass, their density is miraculously gone, he is not only open to the light streaming in but lets it pass on, irradiating the world around.



-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 6: Experiencing a Glimpse > # 166
Paul Brunton

General Martin Dempsey sings 'Parting Glass' at his retirement ceremony

' Without Beginning or End '...

-------------------------------------------------

"In Reality and as the only Reality [parabrahman], the soul [atma] is always God [paramatma] without beginning and without end.

False illusion [evolution to and reincarnation in human form] begins with the descent of the soul in seven material stages and real illusion [involution in human form] ends with the ascent of the soul to the seventh spiritual plane [God-realization, atmabrahm*].

"God is a macrocosm, God is a microcosm and God is also always beyond both.

Knowingly man is body and man is mind, but unknowingly, as in deep sleep, man is also beyond both."

-------------------------------------------------

These new words that Westeners find difficult to understand..

Words are 'Mental Depictions' of Thought..

Aliken the Germans, the Indians place a few thoughts together to form one form..

Tear the Latin words apart, to find Truth within English..

We are on a Journey together because these letters without ink shout Loudly..

I speak in Mystical Language so that you that know, will know,

and those that do not know , will think it just a good story...


-thomas

Buddhism Explained By Alan Watts

' Anger '...

“Holding on to anger,

is like grasping a hot coal,

with the intent of throwing it at someone else;

you are the one who gets burned.”


– Gautama the Buddha

' Only the Present Exists '...

"Man's world consists only of the present.

Whatever you can do to serve God,

do immediately and determinedly without delay."



-Rebbe Nachman
Chayey Moharan #431
The Essential Rabbi Nachman

' Nirvikalpa Samadhi '...

This mysterious experience seems also to have been known to Dionysius the Areopagite.

It is definitely an experience terminating the process of meditation, for the mystic can then go no higher and no deeper.

It is variously called "the Nought" in the West and nirvikalpa samadhi in the East.

Everything in the world vanishes and along with the world goes the personal ego; nothing indeed is left except Consciousness-in-Itself.

If anything can burrow under the foundations of the ego and unsettle its present and future stability, it is this awesome event.

But, because it is still an experience, it has a coming and a going.

Although it is forever after remembered, a memory is not the final settled condition open to man--for that, philosophy must be brought in.

Mysticism may remove the ego temporarily after first lulling it, but philosophy understands the ego, puts it in its place, its subservient place, so that the man remains always undeserted by the pure consciousness.



-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? >
Chapter 4: Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > # 116
Paul Brunton

' The Inner Guru '...

"There will be a day when there is a realization that books just don’t do it for you any more.

Keep reading and soaking up all that you are drawn to take within until that happens.

Feel into the instructions you come across, and follow what has a rightness, an appropriateness, for you.

Whatever brings more clarity—use it.

Whatever feels dry and barren, drop it.

Otherwise we are just following concepts of the "right thing" to do, and that’s a path that goes nowhere!

There is a difference to what feels like the "right thing for you" and the "right thing."

This is discernment and cultivation of the inner guru."



- Jac O'Keeffe

' Miracles '...

Miracles honor you because you are lovable.

They dispel illusions about yourself

and perceive the light in you.

They thus atone for your errors

by freeing you from your nightmares.

By releasing your mind

from the imprisonment of your illusions,

they restore your sanity.


A major contribution of miracles

is their strength in releasing you

from your false sense of isolation,

deprivation and lack.


Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind,

or a state of miracle-readiness.

The miracle is a learning device

that lessens the need for time.

It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval

not under the usual laws of time.

In this sense it is timeless.


The miracle makes no distinction

among degrees of misperception.

It is a device for perception correction,

effective quite apart from either the degree

or the direction of the error.




-The above quotes are from the book

A Course in Miracles.

' Beyond body and mind '...

"In Reality and as the only Reality [parabrahman], the soul [atma] is always God [paramatma] without beginning and without end. False illusion [evolution to and reincarnation in human form] begins with the descent of the soul in seven material stages and real illusion [involution in human form] ends with the ascent of the soul to the seventh spiritual plane [God-realization, atmabrahm*].

"God is a macrocosm, God is a microcosm and God is also always beyond both. Knowingly man is body and man is mind, but unknowingly, as in deep sleep, man is also beyond both."



-Meher Baba
God Speaks: The Theme of Creation
Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented, 2nd revised edition, 1997, p. 69

* Self is Reality — (ayam atma brahma) — Mandukya Upanishad 1.2
Brahman is one without a second (ekam evadvitiyam brahma) — Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6:2:1
Brahman is true; the world is false (brahma satyam jagan mithyā) — Adi Shankara, Brahmajnanavalimala verse 20

' Buddha Mind '...

This Zen master, Fu Ta-Shih, was Bodhidharma’s contemporary. He was born in 497 a.d. This is part of one of the earliest Zen texts recorded. It refers to the Buddha Mind as the “Mind King”, reminding us of the “All Creating King” and “Rigpa King” as described in the Dzogchen Kunje Gyalpo tantra..

Mind-King Inscription

Attributed to Fu Ta-Shih (Mahasattva Fu)
Translated by Jess Row

(The word ming literally means “inscription,” as an engraving on stone, or figuratively something that should be preserved in one's heart/mind)

1..

To perceive the mind of the Buddha, the king of emptiness,
is subtle, mysterious and difficult.

Without shape, without any distinguishing characteristics,
Still it has the strength of a great spirit.

It can extinguish a thousand calamities,
And bring about ten thousand attainments.

Although its essential nature is empty,
It reveals all aspects of the dharma.

Look for it and there’s nothing to see,
Call out: you’ll just hear the sound of your own voice.

It is the greatest leader of the dharma,
Its moral strength transmits the teachings.

If water tastes salty,
Only the mind-king can perceive its underlying clarity.

We can see that it exists
Even though we can’t see it in front of us.

The mind-king is exactly like this.

The mind-king stays within the body, unmoving,
and faces the gates of perception, where things come and go.

It adapts to the capabilities of all beings, following every necessity,
Remaining completely at ease, with no obstruction.

But remember: what the mind-king does, anyone can do.

2.

The mind that understands our root consciousness—
That same conscious mind sees the Buddha.

Mind is, so Buddha is.
Buddha is, so mind is.

Every moment possessing Buddha mind—
Buddha mind thinking “Buddha.”


-Jackson Peterson

Your Homework Is to Stay Home Inside Your Heart

' Permanent Joy '...

To find permanent joy, you must look in the right
direction.

You will not find it in any outside object.

Every object will rise, stay, and then cease.

You
have to look somewhere else for permanent, eternal
joy.

Don't attribute joy to something else, be it a person,
the sun, moon, or stars.

Stop this tendency of going to outside objects,
whatever they may be.

Stop your mind from going
in any direction outside.

Then you must return to your
inner beauty.

That is your own nature: bliss eternal,
which you have never felt.


- Papaji

' The Suprasensory Master '...

The “Man of Light” in Sufism is described as the transformation of the “Body of Light”. This is from the Sufi master Namjodin Kobra from around 1000 a.d. :

“This face is, in reality, your own face and this sun is the Sun of the Spirit which oscillates within your body.

Then your entire body is immersed in purity, and at that moment you see before you a person made of light, who generates light.

The spiritual traveler, too, then experiences his entire body as generating light.

It may be that the veil will fall from all individuality, so that you see totality through the totality of your body.

The faculty of inner vision is opened first in the eyes, then the face, then the breast, then in the whole body.

This person of light in front of you is called by the People (Sufis) the ‘Suprasensory Guide,’

and is also known as the ‘Suprasensory (Personal) Master’ ...


-Jackson Peterson

' The Basis of all Existence '...

The intellectual knowledge of the Truth is merely its shadow and not the Truth itself.

The Truth is a higher state of awareness which leads you out of the little personal and physically materialistic everyday life into a new world of being--the world of your higher self which transcends these things.

It is a real experience and not a mere speculation.

It brings with it the peace which passeth understanding of which Saint Paul spoke,

frees you from anxieties, fears, and all other negative ideas.

It reveals to you that God,

in the sense of a Universal Intelligence and Universal Power,

is actually the basis of all existence.




-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 1:
The Place of Intellect > # 203
Paul Brunton

Rod Stewart - Country Comfort (1970) [HQ+Lyrics]

' The Thought, 'I Am' ...

Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought ‘I am’.

The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience
and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet.

Once
you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously
and quite naturally, without any interference on your part.



"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973

' Projected Identity '...

Nagarjuna wrote:

"The one who experiences perceptions does not exist before, during, or after the experiences of seeing and so forth. Knowing this, all thoughts of an "experiencer"
(perceiver) of perceptions either existing or not existing are over-turned."

Cutting deeper into the illusion of a separate individual self, it can be discovered that the awareness or consciousness that seems to be a valid "perceiver" is not a person or a sentient "being" at all. It’s just an after-thought inferred to be the owner of “just previous” perceptual, emotional and mental events..

When asleep having a dream at night, the self we seem to be, seems to be perceiving people , objects and landscapes. But since "you" have no functional eyes or ears in your dream body, the "perceiving" as seeing and hearing are imaginary projections of colors, shapes and sounds. And those colors, shapes and sounds are occurring in an imaginary, projected identity (self) that seems to exist as a functional witnessing consciousness or person.

Likewise, our daytime consciousness as a self-existing entity and perceiver, is only a projection of subconscious conditioning. There is no actual "person" present having perceptions, anymore than the self in your dreams at night is a real person who can perceive.

Notice when fear or other negative emotions arise, how it’s tacitly assumed that an actual “perceiver” and “experiencer” of those emotional states, exists. But there isn’t one. This is usually the biggest “blind spot” in consciousness; the invisible elephant occupying the middle of the room.

Our eyes can't see and our ears can't hear. Our eyes are passive receivers of photons; the images are "generated" in the occipital cortex and mind from electro-chemical neural signals. Our ears are passive receivers of soundless vibrations. The sounds are generated in the brain and mind. There are no sounds in the universe, only vibrations.

Likewise there is no little independent person in the brain and mind that sits in an inner movie theater and watches the pictures and hears the sounds. Rather the "witness" is an artificial projection of subconscious conditioning that seems to be perceiving the pictures and sounds; the imaginary "me" or "I" that is sensed as “you". That's the "me" that seeks enlightenment because it's generated as a "seeker". The "me" as "you" is an imaginary puppet of subconscious forces with no freedom, no autonomy, no ability to choose or decide; and has no existence except as being imagined. In other words, it’s empty of being itself.

The “perceiver” is projected in one piece combined with “its” mind-generated perceptions perceived. It doesn't pre-exist a perceptual event. Just like your dream character at night doesn't pre-exist it's dream landscapes.

This means there is no hope for redemption, enlightenment or freedom from suffering for the person your mind believes yourself to actually be and for who "you" sense you normally are. How could there be? The one thought, believed and felt as "you", is merely a momentary subconscious mental construction based on past memories and conditioning. The illusion of duality arises as a “perceiver” perceiving that which is perceived. There is only a perceptual event, but with no actual perceiver; the sense of there being a “perceiver” is only the next mental event. There is no one “in there” inhabiting the karmic flow or perceptual show.

The empty, aware space as the knowing context in which the content as the movie, and its imaginary observer as the audience is appearing; is something else again... but it’s not “perceiving” the show, rather it IS the show and the knowing that it’s just an empty, uninhabited show.


-Jackson Peterson

' CHRISTMAS MUSINGS on Incarnation, Awakening and Being Human '...

The word awakening usually refers to the liberating recognition that we are not limited to the body or encapsulated inside it. We are the radiant presence being and beholding it all, the no-thing-ness showing up as everything, the awareness in which the body-mind-world-universe appears, the all-inclusive Here-Now that is at once ever-present and ever-changing.

But at the very same time, being human and apparently embodied as a particular, unique expression of the infinite is also part of what we are, and it’s not some dreadful mistake that we need to transcend and leave far, far behind. It’s the ocean waving, the living reality expressing itself as you and me, just exactly as we are.

And how are we? Like an ocean wave, “the body” is not the static, persisting, independent, solid “thing” that any label seems to imply, nor is “the mind” or “the person” or “the brain” or “planet earth” or anything else. What appears to be solid and substantial is actually thorough-going impermanence, and what appears to be separate and independent is in fact an undivided and seamless totality. Nothing is ever actually “out there” or “in here.” No separation really exists between inside and outside, between subject and object, or between awareness and content.

Some forms of spirituality, particularly versions of Advaita, seem to suggest that we should totally deny being an apparent individual. Instead of saying that we are not limited to the body or encapsulated inside it, many teachers assert that we are not the body in any way at all. Period. According to such teachings, we should identify only as pure consciousness, limitless and impersonal, transcendent and beyond it all. This can be a very appealing idea because as “mere mortals,” we are vulnerable to pain, disability and death. Our human lives often seem messy, uncertain and unresolved. And many of us are deeply convinced that we are not okay, that something is fundamentally wrong with us. There is a pervasive feeling of not being good enough.

Many of us spend our lives trying to be somebody else—somebody other than the person we actually are, somebody we think is more talented, more compassionate, more enlightened, more intelligent, more fashionable, more beautiful, more handsome, more confident, more disciplined, more generous, more successful, more skillful, more peaceful, more manly, more feminine, wealthier, healthier, stronger, fitter, taller, shorter, thinner, younger, older—whatever it is. We are endlessly chasing self-improvement or the fantasy of escape.

Waking up is a process (always immediate, always now) of questioning and seeing through all these thoughts, stories, beliefs, and self-images. It is a process of recognizing the fluid, insubstantial, ever-changing nature of the apparent body-mind-world and also recognizing the boundless and impersonal awaring presence being and beholding it all.

But being awake also has something to do with being comfortable and at ease being exactly as we are—not just in the transcendent sense of being pure consciousness or no-thing at all—but also as a unique person in the play of life. THIS person. The one we actually are, not the one we think would be better, or the one we think we “should” or “could be” or “could have been” (if only…), but THIS person, right here, right now, just as we are.

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a lay ordination ceremony where you are given a little bib-like Buddhist robe along with a Buddhist name, a name that your teacher chooses for you. The name is usually in some Asian language, and in the Zen schools I’m familiar with, it has two parts, one being something about who you are, and the other something you are becoming or aspiring to (or at least, that’s my never-ordained, ex-Zen student understanding of it).

Once ordained, you have a shiny new Buddhist name like Myozen, Sojun, Dairyu or Ryuten—something foreign and exotic. The English translation is typically something that sounds idyllic, spiritual and above the fray, such as “Quiet Mountain/Heroic Effort” or “Way of Joy/ Boundless Equanimity” or “Lotus Flower/Empty Mind.” This definitely seems like a step up from being Joe Blow.

But there’s one Buddhist teacher in NYC (Barry Magid) who apparently gives people their own actual, ordinary, everyday names at lay ordination. In other words, instead of being named something exotic-sounding like those examples above, I would be given the Buddhist name Joan Tollifson.

I think this is so wonderful. Your Buddhist name, your sacred name, what you are and what you are aspiring to is exactly who you are—this very person, this vulnerable and transient lump of flesh right here, this utterly unique, ever-changing expression of totality, this human being that is messy, imperfect, unresolved, flawed and yet absolutely perfect, just as it is—THIS is who you are called to be. Exactly this. THIS wave, just as it is, not some other bigger, better wave somewhere else.

I’m not a Christian or a theologian, but I feel maybe this is what Christianity points to with the mystery of the incarnation—that God comes down to earth, takes on human form and human vulnerability and experiences human suffering and limitation—i.e., GOD is not just some transcendent, ethereal, beyond-it-all, heavenly being who lives far away in some sanitized heaven where everyone has left all this messy human stuff behind and dissolved into pure consciousness or pure light, but rather, GOD is right here in the nitty-gritty of ordinary life, hanging on a cross, feeling the excruciating pain of those nails. And, of course, GOD is also the resurrection, the way we can rise from the dead, metaphorically speaking, again and again.

God is both the transcendent (pure consciousness, pure light, unconditional love) and the relative world of apparent forms and earthly dramas. In fact, these apparently different realities are not two! This is the liberating message and realization of non-duality. Kabir expressed it by saying, “All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”

THIS is the pure light, THIS is nirvana! Right here, right now. God is both the crucifixion and the resurrection, both enlightenment and delusion. These apparent polarities are two sides of the same coin. They are different, and those differences are discernable, but the two sides are also inseparable, and we can never say exactly where one side ends and the other begins. They are one event, and there is no such thing as a one-sided coin or a one-ended stick.

As human beings, we are all the expression of totality, the waving of the infinite ocean, the dance of emptiness—each one of us, exactly as we are. As a person, we are never exactly the same way twice, or from one moment to the next, for we are ever-changing and inseparable from everything else. And as boundless awareness or radiant presence, we are the whole, the totality, the alpha and omega: Here-Now, ever-changing and ever-present.

It seems to me that our true calling is indeed to fully embody THIS life, exactly the one we actually ARE, just as it is. So, enjoy the incarnation and the precious gift of life. Enjoy the whole show, even the messy, dark, scary, seemingly imperfect parts. Enjoy BEING the whole enchilada, the Holy Reality, right here, right now. And enjoy being YOU in every sense. This is it!


Merry Christmas!
Joan Tollifson

' The mind must die '...

"The mind must die, not the body.

The body may die a thousand deaths; the atma [soul] is there, alive.

It never dies.

Even when body and mind both are dead in the Realization state,

the atma is there living forever."




-Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
Myrtle Beach, SC: MANifestation, 1st., ed., , Vol. 4, p. 1191
Online Revised Edition, p. 693

' Your own reflection '...

When the mind goes out looking for the reality of
Consciouness, all that it will ever find is just more
mind.

Instead, turn around and see whose mind is doing
all this so-called looking.

Who you really are has absolutely no polarity.

Since Consciousness stands in opposition to
nothing, it creates no real opposite.

Who you think you are, however, does appear
to have an opposite.

The Game begins anew whenever you start
pretending again that you don’t recognize your
own reflection.




- Chuck Hillig

Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003

' The Unchanging Essence '...

The Long Path is based on the beliefs of ordinary living,

which start from the imagined reality of the person and therefore start with a fiction.

The Short Path rejects this from the beginning and seeks to penetrate without delay to the unchanging and unchangeable Essence.



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 5:
Balancing the Paths > # 8 Paul Brunton

' Heaven and Hell '...

As the Nazarene has said;

" There are many Heavens within our Fathers Thoughts "..

Heaven and Hell are aspects of Thought..

These devisions of Dream are just more Thoughts..

Good and Bad, acccording to our demands, desires, and fears..

Only the ego and body suffer in our nightmares, and thoughts of Heaven bring us joy..

Remember, All is Thought, from the 'Thinker',

This Source of manifestation that is influenced by our Thoughts and Desires..

Only the false ego can enter Hell..

The Reality of Real Self is beyond suffering..

You are not the separation called ego..

Therefore, Hell is not Real for the Self that contains no thoughts of separation...


-thomas

The Best Christmas Song I've Ever Heard. It Will Give You Chills.

' Waking from the mind '...

When you truly wake up from the mind and the world,

you realize there is no other, there is only you.

You see that everything and everyone is an aspect of you.

All love is self love, all doubt is self-doubt,

all forgiveness is self forgiveness.


- Gautama the Buddha

' Egoless Consciousness '...

The limitation of the Long Path is that it is concerned only with thinning down, weakening, and reducing the ego's strength.

It is not concerned with totally deflating the ego.

Since this can be done only by studying the ego's nature metaphysically, seeing its falsity, and recognizing its illusoriness, which is not even done by the Short Path, then all the endeavours of the Short Path to practise self-identification with the Overself are merely using imagination and suggestion to create a new mental state that, while imitating the Overself's state, does not actually transcend the ego-mind but exists within it still.

So a third phase becomes necessary, the phase of getting rid of the ego altogether; this can be done only by the final dissolving operation of Grace, which the man has to request and to which he has to give his consent.

To summarize the entire process, the Long Path leads to the Short Path, and the Short Path leads to the Grace of an unbroken egoless consciousness.



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 5: Balancing the Paths > # 206
-- Perspectives > Chapter 23: Advanced Contemplation > # 3 Paul Brunton

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Canon (Official Video)

' Christmas in New York '...

Warmth has been our friend, lo, these many days..

The winds of summer still flow across our faces..

Perhaps, it is just the body and mind finally conceding their jurisdiction..

The pains of winter have not yet given their Christmas gift..

Brown still reigns and white is yet to attack..

Green has died but will be reincarnated again soon..

We are all of these colors and fahrenheits..

We flow as wind..

We drop as snow..

We cover the living creation..

We see the opposites that become the circle..

Life and death are the circle within the dreams..

They are both false but give us the notion of time..

Time and pain are the chalk upon the board,

the eraser is Reality...



- thomas

' Human Misery '...

Whatever happens in the working of the universe at the

present moment has to be accepted.

Not accepting it

means human misery.




- Ramesh S. Balsekar

"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996

' Having an Ego '...

An ego we have, we are; its existence is inescapable if the cosmic thought is to be activated and the human evolution in it is to develop.

Why has it become, then, a source of evil, friction, suffering, and horror?

The energy and instinct, the intelligence and desire which are contained in each individualized fragment of consciousness, each compounded "I," are not originally evil in themselves; but when the clinging to them becomes extreme, selfishness becomes strong.

There is a failure in equilibrium and the gentler virtues are squeezed out, the understanding that others have rights, the feeling of goodwill and sympathy, accommodation for the common welfare--all depart.

The natural and right attention to one's needs becomes enlarged to the point of tyranny.

The ego then exists only to serve itself at all costs, aggressive to, and exploitive of, all others.

It must be repeated: an ego there must be if there is to be a World-Idea.

But it has to be put, and kept, in its place (which is not a hardened selfishness).

It must adjust to two things: to the common welfare and to the source of its own being.

Conscience tells him of the first duty, whether heeded or not; Intuition tells him of the second one, whether ignored or not.

For, overlooked or misconstrued, the relation between evil and man must not hide the fact that the energies and intelligence used for evil derive in the beginning from the divine in man.

They are Godgiven but turned to the service of ungodliness.

This is the tragedy, that the powers, talents, and consciousness of man are spent so often in hatred and war when they could work harmoniously for the World-Idea, that his own disharmony brings his own suffering and involves others.

But each wave of development must take its course, and each ego must submit in the end.

He who hardens himself within gross selfishness and rejects his gentler spiritual side becomes his own Satan, tempting himself.

Through ambition or greed, through dislike or hate which is instilled in others, he must fall in the end, by the Karma he makes, into destruction by his own negative side.




-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 1:
What Am I? > # 191 Paul Brunton

' Christmas by Rumi '...

There is a morning where presence
comes over you, and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.


Your heart hears and, no longer frantic,
begins to dance. At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.


Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant,
and body, like a two-day-old Jesus,
says wisdom words.


Now the heart turns to light,
and the body picks up the tempo.


Where Shams Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes, and holes
you fall through into space.


- Jalaluddin Rumi

' A Radical Distinction '...

Pure Awareness is seen to be radically distinct from mind and perceptions. It’s like the space which hosts all experiences without any involvement in mental activities, imagination or perceptions.

Our actual consciousness, as Pure Awareness, has no personal identity, no memories, no thoughts, no material body and no connection to our world. It just “is”, like empty space just “is”.

This is why there is nothing to do in the Tibetan Dzogchen teachings, because your quality of awareness, already “is”.

Consider and observe “your” body, thoughts, personal identity, all people, world and universe as an infinitely large, self-existing, perfect hologram floating in the vast and empty space of changeless Pure Awareness, your transparent and space-like consciousness that is “aware” right now.

The reflections in a mirror are clearly not “detached” and apart from the mirror, yet the reflections never alter the crystal clarity of the unchanging mirror.


- Jackson Peterson

' Trance Meditation '...

The Overself should not be reached merely in trance; it must be known in full waking consciousness.

Trance is merely the deepest phase of meditation, which in turn is instrumental in helping prepare the mind to discover truth.

Yoga does not yield truth directly.

Trance does not do more than concentrate the mind perfectly and render it completely calm.

Realization can come after the mind is in that state and after it has begun to inquire, with such an improved instrument, into truth.



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 7:
Contemplative Stillness > # 122 Paul Brunton

' What is Sin ?'...

First,

We must examine the word 'Sin'..

Sin is an ancient hebrew archery term

that means, 'Missing the Mark'..

Sin are the actions of mind and body that declare that the 'False self' called ego is the Real Self..

The State of Love is the opposite of Sin and contains no 'False self' or 'ego'..

This is the State of Existence called 'Christhood' or 'Buddhahood '..

The 'Prodigal Son' is the release of the 'False self' and the Awakening into 'Real Self'.

This is the return to Reality or what we call 'Source' or 'Father'...



-thomas

' The Hell Experience '...

To clarify, the hell experience is found within the 'Thoughts' of the Thinker.

If you 'Believe' that 'You' are a separate entity within this Dream,

and separate from Source , You will enter the space of pain..

The souls that worshiped pain and destruction will be magnetically attacted to other entities within 'That Dream'..

' Birds of a feather '..

This occurs within manifestation and beyond the body life..

Remember, You are Consciousness and can Create any Dream,

even if they are false and filled with pain...


-thomas

Piano-playing street performer brings audience to tears | Extraordinary ...

' The Nature of Reality '...

The wise can nohow deem as real

a world divided and destroyed by time's wheel.

Whole, eternal, perfect, ever-shining

and transcending time and space,

such is the nature of Reality.



- Ramana Maharshi

' Just let it be '...

Q: Reincarnation is probably my biggest issue with the Buddhist teachings.

A: Buddha, number one, the Buddha, as a matter of fact a big part of his teaching was refuting reincarnation.

Q: I didn't know that.

A: Yeah most don't. In fact alot of Buddhists don't even know that. That was the hallmark of his whole teaching. That is what distinguished him from the religion of the day. He said there is nothing to reincarnate.

Q: How did that message get...

A: Because the Buddha was a really smart guy and the Buddha didn't just get lost in dualism. So dualism is "there is" or "there isn't." That's dualism, right? And what he talked about was rebirth. Now everyone goes rebirth and reincarnation are the same thing. By the way I don't really care what the Buddha said. I only care about the truth. If what he said happened to be true, great. If not, well then. Just cause he says it doesn't lend it in my mind lend it instant credibility. We all have to prove everything true of false for itself. Rebirth is totally different than reincarnation. Rebirth is what you do when you go to sleep at night and you have a dream and boom there you are. And then you sleep for an hour and then boom you have another one. And often time there are what we call karmic links. Right? Chains of conditioning. Your dreams are in many senses manifestations of your conditioning, or the stuff you got to work out or whatever. Every once and awhile they come from a deeper source. That's what's being reincarnated or rebirthed. Right? Not an entity that is being transferred from one dream to the next to the next to the next. It's not the 'me' that's being reborn, if anything its the karmic tendency with no separate self anywhere to be found. And as we all know in our life what has the most potential to keep being reborn? Not even in a spiritual sense. What tends to be reborn? We all know it...drama. Illusion. I love you. I hate you. You did me wrong, da da da da. All this illusory conditioning. This is what we call karma. This keeps being reborn. You think its dead and all of a sudden, it's like those birthday candles you just can't blow out. And so our own ignorance has a tendency to keep rebirthing itself. But that's very different then there is an entity that travels from one to the other.

By the way none of this is important in terms of awakening, enlightenment or any of that stuff. But its important to you so that's why I'm talking about it.

Q: And its a mystery. It's one of the questions all religions talk about. Where we go when this form...

A: Nowhere.

Q: ...expires

A: Nowhere.

Q: Explain to me what you're saying.

A: We go nowhere just like when we are alive, when we're here. We are the light of consciousness. Pure spirit. Right? It's not going anywhere. So the body drops, right, there it is (meaning only consciousness is left)! It is where is was all along. And then it's like if a body comes, okay, a body comes, wonder if the illusion thing is going to happen again. But either way...

Q: So don't get stuck in the illusion.

A: Right. The mind kind of goes 'like where am I going to go?' Subtle forms of mind can keep dreaming and create all sorts of new worlds that don't really exist, to go to. Fundamentally this light of consciousness it's here. The rest is sort of chugging along. It appears, disappears, appears, disappears within the light of consciousness, within spirit.

The more we come to realize that in our hearts, in our very being. The nice thing is it's not that we have a simple transcendent experience of Pure Beingness. That's nice, that's beautiful. We realize we are the deathless. But also it frees up this very fragile human incarnation, it frees it of fear, contradiction. It frees it to actually be able to really experience this miracle of this apparent world.

Q: Just let it be.

A: Let it be. And that's love. What flows out of us when we're just letting things be? That's love, isn't it? The deepest letting be. And you know who's the hardest person you ever let be?

Q: Yourself.

A: That's it. Once you discovered the letting be for there...

Q: That's freedom.

A: The whole world.

Q: Thank you.

A: Thank you very much.



- Adyashanti, from Big Sword Swinging, disc 2

' All That Is '...

I have thrown from me the whirling dance of mind
And stand now in the spirit's silence free,
Timeless and deathless beyond creature-kind,
The centre of my own eternity.

I have escaped and the small self is dead;
I am immortal, alone, ineffable;
I have gone out from the universe I made,
And have grown nameless and immeasurable.

My mind is hushed in a wide and endless light,
My heart a solitude of delight and peace,
My sense unsnared by touch and sound and sight,
My body a point in white infinities.

I am the one Being's sole immobile Bliss:
No one I am, I who am all that is.



- Sri Aurobindo

' Religions '...

Most religions are just money making tax free corporations..

They control the thoughts and bodies of their members..

They remain tax free as a reward for controling billions of humans..

They teach very little Truth and therefore must resort to the power of Fear, to survive as a corporation..

The idea of everlasting Hell keeps the humans within the pews..

Why would a Consciousness named Source that is held together by the Bond called Love,

desire Fear and Pain for It's Creation ?..


-thomas

' Contemplate This '...

Where do you imagine the True Self to be and behind

what can it be hidden?

And from whom?

Contemplate this.



- Mooji

' Being the Observer '...

"Duality is when there is separation, diversity, subject-object, where I am the subject, and the world is seen in reference to me. This is how life appears when the labeling mechanism in mind is active, and things are divided into this and that, me and you, good and bad, etc.—there are opposites. The world is seen in reference to me, and the personal I is the reference point. I am the subject, and I am here and having my life. All else is an object outside and separate from me.

When we step back to observer, the labeling is less, because judgment is not active. In observer things are not taken personally, so duality is there, but it’s not running as deeply. The subject (personal I) is not so drawn into its own drama, and this sense of "all about me" is no longer fueled.

Step back from observer, and we hit pure being, union, is-ness. Here the interconnectedness is more obvious than the difference between things. In seeing another person, perception will notice what is similar in all people, and the difference in personalities and in visual appearance is not noted as anything significant. Things are recognized to be different on the outside but same on the inside. The interconnectedness of all manifestation is recognized.

You can’t make this perception happen, it either shows itself or it doesn’t. It’s like first recognising what is the same instead of what is different. (Fear and the personal I sees difference as it wants to protect itself. When it's all the same as what you are there is no fear). The essence is the same, and the outward manifestation is different, and it dawns like a eureka moment."



-Jac O'Keeffe

' What We Really Are '...

We must take a higher position than ordinary religion offers and come face to face with the mystery that is Mentalism.

The nonbeing of the universe, the nonduality even of the soul may be too mathematical a conclusion for our finite minds; but that this matterless world and all that happens in it is like a dream is something to be received and remembered at all times.

We are important only to ourselves, not to God.

All our whining and praying, chanting and praising, gathering together and imagining that this or that duty is required of us is mere theatre-play: Mind makes it all.

In this discovery we roll up the stage and return to the paradox of what we really are--Consciousness!



-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 3:
Religion As Preparatory > # 104 Paul Brunton

Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Paste Studio NYC live from The Manhattan Center

' The Whole Structure '...

Everything is meaningless, if you take it part by part.

Everything is wonderful, if you take it as a whole.

So, whatever you want to see,

you must see as a
whole structure.



- Swami Krishnananda

Your Questions Answered
Swami Krishnananda
The Divine Life Trust Society, 1995

' Losing your world '...

There is a very famous poem written by the third patriarch of Zen, Seng-ts’an, called the Hsin-Hsin Ming, which translates as Verses in Faith Mind. In this poem Seng-ts’an writes these lines: “Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.” This is a reversal of the way most people go about trying to realize absolute truth. Most people seek truth, but Seng-ts’an is saying not to seek truth. This sounds very strange indeed. How will you find truth if you don’t seek it? How will you find happiness if you do not seek it? How will you find God if you do not seek God? Everyone seems to be seeking something. In spirituality seeking is highly honored and respected, and here comes Seng-ts’an saying not to seek.


The reason Seng-ts’an is saying not to seek is because truth, or reality, is not something objective. Truth is not something “out there.” It is not something you will find as an object of perception or as a temporal experience. Reality is neither inside of you nor outside of you. Both “outside” and “inside” are not getting to the point. They both miss the mark because outside and inside are conceptual constructs with no inherent reality. They are simply abstract points of reference. Even words like “you,” or “me,” or “I,” are nothing more than conceptual points of reference existing only in the mind. Such concepts may have a practical value in daily life, but when assumed to be true they distort perception and create a virtual reality, or what in the East is called the world of samsara.


Seng-ts’an was a wily old Zen master. He viewed things through the eye of enlightenment and was intimately aware of how the conditioned mind fools itself into false pursuits and blind alleys. He knew that seeking truth, or reality, is as silly as a dog thinking that it must chase its tail in order to attain its tail.. The dog already has full possession of its tail from the very beginning. Besides, once the dog grasps his tail, he will have to let go of it in order to function. So even if you were to find the truth through grasping, you will have to let it go at some point in order to function. But even so, any truth that is attained through grasping is not the real truth because such a truth would be an object and therefore not real to begin with.


In order to seek, you must first have an idea, ideal, or an image, what it is you are seeking. That idea may not even be very conscious or clear but it must be there in order for you to seek. Being an idea it cannot be real.. That’s why Seng-ts’an says “only cease to cherish opinions.” By opinions he means ideas, ideals, beliefs, and images, as well as personal opinions. This sounds easy but it is rarely as easy as it seems. Seng-ts’an is not saying you should never have a thought in your head, he is saying not to cherish the thoughts in your head. To cherish implies an emotional attachment and holding on to. When you cherish something, you place value on it because you think that it is real or because it defines who you think you are. This cherishing of thoughts and opinions is what the false self thrives on. It is what the false self is made of. When you realize that none of your ideas about truth are real, it is quite a shock to your system. It is an unexpected blow to the seeker and the seeking.


The task of any useful spiritual practice is therefore to dismantle cherishing the thoughts, opinions, and ideas that make up the false self, the self that is seeking. This is the true task of both meditation and inquiry. Through meditation we can come to see that the only thing that makes us suffer is our own mind. Sitting quietly reveals the mind to be nothing but conditioned thinking spontaneously arising within awareness. Through cherishing this thinking, through taking it to be real and relevant, we create internal images of self and others and the world. Then we live in these images as if they were real. To be caught within these images is to live in an illusory virtual reality.


Through observing the illusory nature of thought without resisting it, we can begin to question and inquire into the underlying belief structures that support it. These belief structures are what form our emotional attachments to the false self and the world our minds create.


This is why I sometimes ask people, “Are you ready to lose your world?” Because true awakening will not fit into the world as you imagine it or the self you imagine yourself to be. Reality is not something that you integrate into your personal view of things. Reality is life without your distorting stories, ideas, and beliefs. It is perfect unity free of all reference points, with nowhere to stand and nothing to grab hold of. It has never been spoken, never been written, never been imagined. It is not hidden, but in plain view. Cease to cherish opinions and it stands before your very eyes.


-Adyashanti

' The Egoless Void '...

If we think, "I strive to become one with God," or, "I am one with God," we have unconsciously denied the statement itself because we have unconsciously set up and retained two things, the "I" and "God." If these two ultimately exist as separate things they will always exist as such.

If, however, they really enter into union, then they must always have been in union and never apart. In that case, the quest of the underself for the Overself is unnecessary. How can these two opposed situations be resolved?

The answer is that relativity has taught us the need of a double standpoint, the one relative and practical and constantly shifting, the other absolute and philosophical and forever unchanged.

From the first standpoint we see the necessity and must obey the urge of undertaking this quest in all its practical details and successive stages. From the second one, however, we see that all existence, inclusive of our own and whether we are aware of it or not, dwells in a timeless, motionless Now, a changeless, actionless Here, a thing-less, egoless Void.

The first bids us work and work hard at self-development in meditation, metaphysics, and altruistic activity, but the second informs us that nothing we do or abstain from doing can raise us to a region where we already are and forever shall be in any case. And because we are what we are, because we are Sphinxes with angelic heads and animal bodies, we are forced to hold both these standpoints side by side.

If we wish to think truthfully and not merely half-truthfully, we must make both these extremes meet one another. That is, neither may be asserted alone and neither may be denied alone. It is easier to experience this quality than to understand it.

This is puzzling indeed and can never be easy, but then, were life simple and less paradoxical than it is, all its major problems would not have worried the wisest men from the remotest antiquity until today.

Such is the paradox of life and we had better accept it. That is, we must not hold one standpoint to the detriment of the other. These two views need not oppose themselves against each other but can exist in a state of reconciliation and harmony when their mutual necessity is understood.

We have to remember both that which is ever-becoming and that which is ever in being. We are already as eternal, as immortal, as divine as we ever shall be. But if we want to become aware of it, why then we must climb down to the lower standpoint and pursue the quest in travail and limitation.



-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 2: The Double Standpoint > # 5
Paul Brunton

Bob Dylan - Abandoned Desire (Desire Sessions, Edited)

' Zoroaster '...

"Let all strive with thought,

word and deed to satisfy Mazda [God].

Let each one choose to perform good deeds as his worship."



-Zarathushtra
Vahestuesh Gatha, Yasna 53, Verse 2
Translated by Mobed Firouz Azargoshasb

' The Tao '...

"The vital essence of all things:
It is this that brings them to life.

It generates the five grains below
And becomes the constellated stars above.

When flowing amid the heavens and the earth
We call it ghostly and numinous.

When stored within the chests of human beings,
We call them sages."




-Inward Training, 1
in Harold D. Roth
Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism
NY: Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 46

' The Mystic '...

He is a man whose perception goes farther, whose awareness goes deeper than the rest of his fellow men.

It must go so far and so deep that it rests durably in the "I Am" of the Overself.

Without this he does not possess the first, the most essential and most important of all the credentials needed for communicating to others the art of attaining the Overself.

The second credential, and admittedly a lesser one, is the compassionate desire to effect this communication as much as possible.

The third is that he have special power to teach others what he knows.



-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 6: Student-Teacher > # 396
Paul Brunton

' The Way Beyond '...

Words and questions come from the mind

and hold you there.

To go beyond the mind,

you must be silent and quiet.

Peace and silence; silence and peace,

this is the way beyond.

Stop asking questions.



-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

' The Nearness of Source '...

It is God who yawns and sneezes
and coughs, and now laughs.

Look, it's God doing ablutions!

God deciding to fast, God going naked
from one New Year's Eve to the next.

Will you ever understand
how near God is
to you?



- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic

From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992

' Awareness of "I Am"...

He is a man whose perception goes farther, whose awareness goes deeper than the rest of his fellow men.

It must go so far and so deep that it rests durably in the "I Am" of the Overself.

Without this he does not possess the first, the most essential and most important of all the credentials needed for communicating to others the art of attaining the Overself.

The second credential, and admittedly a lesser one, is the compassionate desire to effect this communication as much as possible.

The third is that he have special power to teach others what he knows.



-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 6: Student-Teacher > # 396
Paul Brunton

' Unerring Intuition '...

"The Religion of Life is not fettered by mechanically repeated formulae of the unenlightened, purblind and limited intellect.

It is dynamically energized by the assimilation of Truth,

grasped through lucid and unerring intuition,

which never falters and never fails,

because it has emerged out of the fusion of head and heart, intellect and love."



-Meher Baba
in Bal Natu
Glimpses Of The God-Man, Vol. VI
Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Foundation, 1994, p. 87

' Beyond Ego '...

The personal ego has its singularities and particularities, its present aims and past memories, its life within time, its own temperament and special characteristics.

All this amounts to this: it is unique.

The individuality is the highest, subtlest, and finest, even divinest part of being.

It is out of time. It is pure essence, the other is a compounded entity.

For it the hours do not pass; for the other there is a constant sequence, a moment-to-moment existence.

Sometimes men catch a glimpse of it, this other self which is really their own best self and which is not something to be attained by a progression since it is forever present.

It does not have or need thoughts.

Every moment which they give to identifying themselves with it is their salvation.

If this takes one far from kith and kin, from all speech with all persons, it also carries him into a diviner relationship and communication with them.



-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego >
Chapter 1: What Am I? > # 143
Paul Brunton

' Beyond Desires '...

The mind freed of "me"

and its desires is free to move

in boundless space with the silent pulse of the universe.



- Ramesh S. Balsekar,

' Happy Holyday '...

This is the original meaning..

To Be Holy is to fully understand the meaning of existence..

Thus, there is no anger or violence within the mind..

The outside influence of media created the story..

Negative Vibrations feed the false illusion ..

The Vampires of Energy appeared with hunger..

But,

Only Truth Exists..

The Dream Ended...


-thomas

Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade of Pale, live in Denmark 2006

' Recital of the Sarmoun Brotherhood..(Sufi Mystics) '...

He who knows and does not know that he knows:
he is asleep. Let him become one, whole.
Let him be awakened.

He who has known but does not know:
let him see once more the beginning of all.

He who does not wish to know, and yet says that he needs to know:
let him be guided to safety and to light.

He who does not know, and knows that he does not know:
let him, through this knowledge, know.

He who does not know, but thinks that he knows:
set him free from the confusion of that ignorance.

He who knows, and knows that HE IS:
he is wise. Let him be followed.
By his presence alone man may be transformed.


I who know, and do not know that I know:
let me become one, whole.
Let me be awakened.

I who have known, but do not know:
let me see once more the beginning of all.

I who do not wish to know, and yet say that I need to know:
let me be guided to safety and light.

I who do not know, and know that I do not know:
let me through this knowledge, know.

I who do not know, but think that I know:
set me free from the confusion of that ignorance.

He who knows, and know that HE IS:
he is wise. Let him be followed.
By his presence alone man may be transformed.


We who know, and do not know that we know:
let us become one, whole.
Let us be transformed.

We who have known, but do not know:
let us once more see the beginning of all.

We who do not wish to know, and yet say that we need to know:
let us be guided to safety and light.

We who do not know, and know that we do not know:
let us, through this knowledge, know.

We who do not know, but think that we know:
set us free from the confusion of that ignorance.

He who knows, and knows that HE IS;
he is wise. Let him be followed.
By his presence alone man may be transformed.

As with our forebears
So with our successors.
So with us.
We affirm this undertaking.
So let it be.

' Passing by '...

"Jesus said,

'Become passers-by.'"



-The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 42
Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin
in James MacConkey Robinson, ed.
The Nag Hammadi Library in English.
Leiden, New York, Cologne: E. J. Brill

' Your Original Mind '...

The utter incomprehensibility and perfect virtue of
the Unborn are present at all times in the mind of
each one of you and cannot be obtained anywhere
else.

People speak of the essential mind of the
Buddhas and patriarchs, but there is not a hairbreadth
of difference between their minds and your mind right
now.

Yet you want to give rise to thoughts, to see
outside yourselves for Buddha-hood.

You create
the very obstructions that hinder you and keep you
from conforming to your original mind.



- Zen Master Bankei

' The Ultimate Reality '...

He is quite right in questioning the usefulness of getting involved in an endless study of the intricate classifications of his surroundings, if they are illusory.

From the standpoint of the Ultimate Path such a study is a waste of time and therefore is not indulged in.

The aim of this path is to know the ultimate reality--knowing which, all its illusory reflections are naturally understood.

However, he must be careful in the use of the word "illusory."

The world is not illusory but the apprehension of it through the senses is.

Each object regarded separately as an independent entity is illusory but regarded as what it is in its formless essence it is real.

To put this in plainer language: everything seen is merely an idea in the mind.

Ideas come and go and in this sense only are unreal; but the stuff out of which they are formed--that is, Mind--does not come and go and constitutes the ultimate basis of all ideas and therefore of their ultimate reality.

He seeks to understand what this Mind is.

He may now begin to realize that all the theosophical teachings about the seven principles of man, the five tattvas (cosmic forces), and prakriti (root matter) are teachings given to beginners who are unable to grasp the great truth that all these are merely ideas and that Mind alone is what he should seek to know.

H.P. Blavatsky gave these teachings because she knew that the nineteenth-century West was not metaphysically minded but rather scientifically inclined and science in those days was horribly materialistic.

What else could she do but give out these lower grade teachings?

She herself writes in one of her books that she has given only three or four turns of the key in the lock of universal mystery.

The time has come in the mid-twentieth century to give the remaining turns which will make known the higher philosophical truth for which mankind is now better prepared.



-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 3:
The Individual and World Mind > # 3
Paul Brunton

The 20 Greatest Doo-Wop Songs (1953-1964)

' The Flawless 'I'...

The supreme reality –
in which the noble nature of pure grace flourishes,

and which merges with us
so that all the many false appearances
such as ‘this birth’ and ‘the next birth’

cease to exist –

shines out as the truth-imbued and flawless ‘I’.


-Muruganar
The Seven Steps to Awakening.

' What is Truth ? '...

Truth is only discovered in the moment.
There is no truth that can be carried over
to the next moment, the next day, the next year.
Memory never contains truth, only what is past, dead, gone.

Truth comes into the non-seeking mind fresh and alive.
It is not something you can carry with you, accumulate, or hold onto.

Truth leaps into view when the mind is quiet, not asserting itself.
You cannot contain or domesticate truth, for if you do, it dies instantly.

Truth prowls the unknown waiting for a gap in the mind’s activity.
When that gap is there, the truth leaps out of the unknown into the known.

Instantly you comprehend it and sense its sacredness.
The timeless has broken through like a flash of lightning
and illuminated the moment with its presence.

Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament.
Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself
and illumines the human heart from the inside out.



-Adyashanti

' Ram Tzu knows this '...

Ram Tzu knows this:

You are perfect.

Your every defect
is perfectly defined.

Your every blemish
is perfectly placed.

Your every absurd action
is perfectly timed.

Only God could make
Something this ridiculous
Work.



- Ram Tzu, No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"

' The Energy of Compassion '...

Jesus told us to love our enemy.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
This teaching helps us know how to look
At the person we consider to be the cause for our suffering.

If we practice looking deeply into his situation
And the causes of how he came to be the way he is now,
And if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition,
We may see that we could have become exactly like him.

When we do that, compassion arises in us naturally,
And we see that the other person is to be helped, and not punished.
In that moment, our anger transforms itself into the energy of compassion.


- Thich Nhat Hanh

' The body is in You '...

"You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.

Q: We are told there are many levels of existence. Do you exist and function on all the levels? While you are on earth, are you also in heaven (swarga)?

M: I am nowhere to be found! I am not a thing to be given a place among other things. All things are in me, but I am not among things. You are telling me about the superstructure while I am concerned with the foundations. The superstructures rise and fall, but the foundations last." ...

Q: If I am free, why am I in a body?

M: You are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there because you find them interesting. Your very nature has the infinite capacity to enjoy. It is full of zest and affection. It sheds its radiance on all that comes within its focus of awareness and nothing is excluded... You are neither the body nor the mind, neither the fuel nor the fire. They appear and disapppear according to their own laws.

That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love yourself absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you are."



~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from "I Am That"

' The Key to the Short Path '...

What is the key to the Short Path?

It is threefold.

First, stop searching for the Overself since it follows you wherever you go.

Second, believe in its Presence, with and within you.

Third, keep on trying to understand its truth until you can abandon further thoughts about it.

You cannot acquire what is already here.

So drop the ego's false idea and affirm the real one.


- Paul Brunton

The Parting Glass - Ceiliuradh at the Royal Albert Hall

' Neti Neti '...

This Self is That which has been described as Not this, not this [neti neti].

It is imperceptible, for It is not perceived;

undecaying, for It never decays;

unattached, for It is never attached;

unfettered, for It never feels pain and never suffers injury.

‘Him who knows this these two thoughts do not overcome:

For this I did an evil deed and For this I did a good deed.

He overcomes both.

Things done or not done do not afflict him.




Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.22
Swami Nikhilananda
The Upanishads; A New Translation, p. 173

' Meditation '...

Meditation depends upon the strength of mind.

It
must be unceasing even when one is engaged in
work.

Particular time for it is meant for novices.



- Sri Ramana Maharshi

' When you are not '...

The beginning, the end, the manifest and the hidden.

The seer and the listener, all is Him,

He is in everything yet He is beyond,

there is nothing else, everything is Him;

abandon the duality of me and you,

see one, there aren't two at all,

understand this and disappear in it;

when you are not, then truly He is.



-Hazarat Ali

Rodriguez - Inner City Blues

' At that moment '...

Whatever action happens,

whether you
eat ice cream or meditate,

at that moment
you could not have done otherwise.



- Ramesh S. Balsekar

"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996

' Bypassing the mind '...

“At the outset of self-enquiry, it is necessary to make an effort to abide in the Self.

This results in a natural abiding in time.

The unnatural state of an outward focused mind must be brought around to being inward focused, and this alone is where effort lies.

Mind thinks it has something to do in order to realise its true nature.

It only has to be quiet,

not engage with thought and then it must be bypassed.”



~Jac O'Keeffe

' Inner Stillness '...

The Long Path developed in him through yoga-meditation the capacity to find the inner Stillness.

The Short Path added to it

(1) the knowledge that the Stillness is himself,

and (2) the practice of continuing remembrance to be the Stillness.



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 4:
The Changeover To the Short Path > # 68 Paul Brunton

Jackson Browne - Something Fine / Lyrics HQ

' The Duststorm of Dream '...

Some speak of Dust..

The material separating from the frequency of Hologram..

All Energy is transferred as a seed..

The 'Thoughts' of the individual chose 'self' or 'love'..

It is that easy, egoic desire is easy within weakness..

How do we get Home?,

says the one, that suffers..

Where is Home ?,

Why is it safe ?..

You are Consciousness and lost within illusions and dreams..

I will give you spots upon a map..

You would not believe, if you did not find Truth on your own..

Follow the dots..


-thomas

"Waving Through a Window" from the DEAR EVAN HANSEN Original Broadway Ca...

' Swami Brahmananda Saraswati -The Six Enemies'...

"In truth then victory is really this; for the one who has no risk of inner defeat. In truth, by the suppression only of outer (usual) enemies no one can become permanently victorious; because from those enemies there is no lasting suppression. True knowledge of victory occurs then from obtaining control over internal enemies. Really, only by the permanent subjugation of internal enemies is the subjugation of the external enemy achieved; because the inner enemy gives rise to the creation of the external enemies.

"The internal enemies are kaama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (delusion), mada (intoxification) and maatsarya (jealousy). This is really the shhaDarivarga, the group of six inner enemies which create any external enemies of the world; therefore if you wish to experience happiness and peace one must gain victory over all one's gross enemies, then you should cut off the place of birth of the six subtle enemies, kaama (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (delusion), mada (intoxification) and maatsarya (jealousy). Without gaining victory over the shhaDarivarga (group of six enemies) then you cannot completely irradicate the external enemies. This is fixed.

"This is the proven experience of those who have gained victory over these internal subtle enemies, that if the birthplace of the external enemies becomes destroyed and all enemies have become eradicated then afterwards no enemies remain and in truth this is considered to be a real victory. For him the true and lasting store-house of happiness and peace is opened."




-Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, Shankarachrya of Jyotir Math (Badarinath)
Shri Shankaracharya Vaksudha (1947)
Translation from Hindi by Paul Mason

' The Open Secret '...

Namkhai Norbu has described this Natural Awareness as the "open secret:"

This is the open secret, which all can discover
for themselves.

We live our lives, as it were
"inside out," projecting the existence of an "I"
as separate from an external world which we try
to manipulate to gain satisfaction.

But as long
as one remains in the dualistic state, one's
experience has always underlying it a sense of
loss, of fear, of anxiety, and dissatisfaction.

When, on the other hand, one goes beyond the
dualistic level, anything is possible.



- Namkai Norbu, p. 68: The Crystal and the Way of Light

' What would Overself Do ?'...

Once you are clearly aware of the presence of the Overself,

you will find that it will spontaneously provide you with a rule of conduct and a standard of ethics at all times and under all

circumstances.

Consequently you will never be at a loss to know what to do in difficult moral situations, nor how to behave in challenging ones.

And with this knowledge will also come the power to implement it.



-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 3:
The Overself's Presence > # 97 Paul Brunton

' Dreams and Phantoms '...

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;

with enlightenment, attachment to liking and disliking ceases.

All dualities come from ignorant inference.

They are like dreams, phantoms, hallucinations—

it is foolish to try to grasp them.

Gain and loss, right and wrong;

finally abandon all such thoughts at once.



- Hsin Hsin Ming
Translated by Richard B. Clarke

' True and false spirituality '...

The conditioned mind, that is the God. That's God. Culturally that is God. To the point we don't even have news programs anymore, all we have are 2 idiots arguing their point of view. Right. Isn't that right? And somehow we think if we get 2 extreme idiots and they both expound their points of view somehow we're supposed to find the truth in all that. Do you see what I mean? We grow up in that culture. One idiot talked that way, the other idiot talks that way and somehow we're supposed to derive something that's non-idiotic.

We're taught that. That's what we're taught. Go to college you'll be taught it. They'll teach it to you. They might not put it that up front but basically that's what you'll be taught. Gather all points of view then make up your own then that's what's true. So this is part of our consciousness. It's funny but it's also significant when you start to see this is the way most human beings are locating what's true for them. What I think and interpret about things. My judgments about things and people and events and oneself. That's this is where human beings place, that that's where their reality is.


Spirituality in it's true sense is really seen as a threat...by the conditioned mind. False spirituality is seen as no threat. False spirituality just becomes more ideas. More things to believe in. But true spirituality undercuts--holds a mirror up---doesn't write on the mirror, doesn't write anything on the mirror like 'here's what to believe, here's what to think, here's what to'....that's all false spirituality. True spirituality just shows a mirror. It puts it in your consciousness so we see...'oh, this is insane. I'm insane.' And so the orientation is to the unconditioned. There is no creating the unconditioned. You can't manufacture it. You can't derive it. You can't make it. It is there. As I say many times the quickest touch point for the unconditioned is Awareness itself.



-- Adyashanti at Mount Madonna Retreat 5-29 to 6-3 2007

' The World-Idea '...

How hard for the average mind to grasp this central fact, that the World-Idea is the world-creation.

The one does not precede the other. The second is not a copy in matter of the first.

Man has to work, with his senses and his intellect, when he wants to convert his ideas into objects.

But the World-Mind does not need to make an effort in order to make a universe, does not in reality have anything to do at all, for Its thought is the thing.

Some mystics and most occultists have failed to perceive this. Their realization of the Spirit did not bring with it the full revelation of the Spirit.

This is because they have not thoroughly comprehended--usually through lack of competent instruction--its utter emptiness.

Nothing can come out of the Universal Mind that is not mental, not even the material world which men believe they inhabit and experience.

Science is on its way, through its delvings into atomic structure, to a suspicion of this tremendous fact; but so many scientists are so devoid of metaphysical faculty that they uphold materialism and deny mentalism!



-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 3:
The Individual and World Mind > # 57
Paul Brunton

Alan Watts - Being Completely Here And Now

' They are not '...

You are looking for satisfaction in the outside world

because you think that all these objects

you see in front of you

are real.

They are not.



-The above Annamalai Swami quote
is from the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.

' No place to enter '...

Between birth and death,
Three in ten are followers of life,
Three in ten are followers of death,
And men just passing from birth to death also number three in ten.

Why is this so?

Because they live their lives on the gross level.

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.

He will not be wounded in battle.

For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons to place to pierce.

Why is this so?

Because he has no place for death to enter.



- Lao-tzu

Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972

' The Sufi Believes '...

The Sufi believes that consciousness has,

so to speak,

produced
matter, or substance, out of itself,

while yet remaining itself in
its original state.



-From The Teachings of
HAZRAT PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

' December the Eight '...

The Buddha’s day of enlightenment is currently considered as December 8th in Japanese Zen traditions. It’s called “rohatsu”.

Here from the Buddha’s “Ariyapariyesana Sutta”, the Buddha describes the final stages of “awakening”. The demon, Mara, that he refers to, is his own ego, with its daydream facades of false beliefs and illusory mental constructions.

“Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of perceptions of physical form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not heeding perceptions of diversity, perceiving ‘Infinite space,' enters and remains in the dimension of the infinitude of space. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of space, perceiving ‘Infinite consciousness,' enters and remains in the dimension of the ‘infinitude of consciousness’. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the ‘infinitude of consciousness’, perceiving ‘There is nothing,' enters and remains in the dimension of ‘nothingness’. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the ‘dimension of nothingness’, enters and remains in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

"Then again the monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of (karmic) perception and (karmic) feeling. And, having seen that with discernment, his mental fermentations (karmic traces) are completely ended. This monk is said to have blinded Mara. Trackless, he has destroyed Mara's vision and has become invisible to the Evil One.

“Having crossed over, he is unattached in the world. Carefree he walks, carefree he stands, carefree he sits, carefree he lies down. Why is that? Because he has gone beyond the Evil One's (karmic, egoic mind) range."

When first asked what had happened in his enlightenment, he said “I became Awake”. (Bodhi).

What he then explains for many years following his “Awakening”, is that his daydreaming mind ceased daydreaming; like awakening from a dream at night; the dreaming ceased.

Being present and awake means the absence of all daydreaming regarding the past, present and future. The mind is not engaged in any thought process containing conceptually believed thought constructions. There is no self construct, no “others” construct, no objects construct, no problems constructs, no identity construct, no imaginary constructs; there is only immediate “presence of awareness” absent all daydreaming or engagement in thought. Then, one lives an ordinary life of peaceful ease free of all stress, yet seeing with such brilliant, thought-free clarity, that all that needs to be done, gets done with a joyful ease of spontaneous action. This describes perfectly how a Dzogchen or Zen master would live when one’s “inner thought world” ceases...



- Unknown soul

MELANIE SAFKA Dust in the Wind

' Deeper '...

The deeper one penetrates into the Void the more he is purified of the illusions of personality, time, matter, space, and causality.

Between the second and third stages of insight's unfoldment there are really two further subsidiary stages which are wrapped in the greatest mystery and are rarely touched by the average mystic or yogi.

For both of them are stages which lead further downwards into the Void.

The yogi touches the edge of the Void, as it were, but not its center.

These two stages are purificatory ones and utterly annihilate the last illusions and the last egoisms of the seeker.

They are dissolved forever and cannot revive again.

Nothing more useful can and may be said about it here.

For this is the innermost holy of holies, the most sacred sanctuary accessible to man.

He who touches this grade touches what may not be spoken aloud for sneering ears,

nor written down for sneering eyes.

Consequently none has ever ventured to explain publicly what must not be so explained.



-Unknown speaker

' A Chili Night '...

A 'Chili cookoff' was presented to the audience..

Why would the audience not receive the pleasure of taste..

The meats of chichen, pork, and shrimp tempt the cannibal within our incisors..

The precision of hologram is important..

Energy consuming Energy is the process of Hologram..

To complete the Circle is the balance of Energy..

We as egoic entities accept this challenge..

Therefore,

Who are yOU ?...


-thomas

' The Enlightened State '...

"The enlightened state is not, as is commonly supposed, the special state.

The unenlightened state is the magical, mysterious, incomprehensible state.

Awake is just awake.

It's not something more, it's everything less.

My state is natural and easy.

I carry no baggage.

I labor under no delusion.

I don't spend my lifeforce animating a fictional persona.

All paradox lies with the unawakened state.

The awakened don't have something that the unawakened are missing, it's the other way around.

The unawakened posess massive structures of false belief.

They create and maintain these vast realms of past, present and future; of great meaning and importance; of a deep and wide emotional range; all woven together out of sheer nothingness.

Something from nothing; that's the magic, that's the special state.

The unawakened state is the one that requires such ceaseless dedication and devotion and which seems so fantastically improbable.

The awakened state is nothing compared to that".

and:

"The lifeforce I'm not using to project a false self is now available for much more fun and interesting purposes.

It's a whole different universe once all that petty self crap has been left behind".



- posted by Roy Whenary to Open Awareness

' Being One with Now '...

By making peace with the present moment....

That present moment is the field on which the game of life happens.

It cannot happen anywhere else.

Once you have made peace with the present moment, see what happens, what you can do or choose to do, or rather what life does through you.

There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life.

Being one with life is being one with now.

You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you.

Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.



From: Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth)

' The Nondual '...

Everything comes in pairs as death with life and darkness with light.

Whatever seems to be necessary to existence is so only because its opposite is equally necessary.

Duality is a governing factor of the world and everything within it including ourselves.

That alone is outside the world, is nondual, which is the untouchable Reality.

This is the Chinese idea of yin and yang, and the Bhagavad Gita's expression "the pairs of opposites" conveys the same idea.

Duality is a fact.

It is here.

But it is also an illusion and the opposite truth which completes it is the nondual.

We may deplore the illusory nature of our existence, but we need not get lost in it for it is fulfilled, completed, and finalized in its complement the Real.



-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea > Chapter 3: Polarities, Complementaries, Dualities of The Universe > # 10
-- Perspectives > Chapter 26: World-Idea > # 42 Paul Brunton

' Realize the Unity '...

It's sheer illusion
to try to separate
the phenomena
from the Reality,
and then try
to love phenomena first.

It just doesn't happen that way.

Naturally
we end in failure.

You don't have to try
to achieve
unity with others.

It is fallacious thinking
and doing.

Realize the unity
of everything
and everyone
within you
first.



- Swami Amar Jyoti

"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983

' The Unborn Buddha-mind '...

"That which transcends both the self and the other, that's what my
teaching is about.

Let me prove this to you: While everyone is turned
this way to hear me, out back there may be sparrows chirping, human
voices calling, or the sighing of the wind.

But, without your
consciously trying to hear them, each of those sounds comes to you
clearly recognized and distinguished.

It's not you doing the hearing, so it's not a matter of the self.

But
since no one else does your hearing for you, you couldn't call it the
other!

When you listen this way with the Unborn Buddha-mind - you
transcend whatever there is."



- Bankei (Zen Sage)

' Who You Are '...

You’ve probably heard before that there’s nothing to get.

To the seeker it is very confusing and frustrating to listen to all this talk about “There is no enlightenment”, “There is nothing to get”, “There is nothing you can do”.

Essentially this is true, but for the apparent seeker, such phrases seem contradictory to what the seeker believes.

There actually is no way to say it that conforms to the preconceived dualistic notions of the mind.

The mind believes in some sort of enlightenment, which when obtained will end all the troubles, and there will be eternal bliss. Rubbish!

All you are is all you will ever be, and there need be no “enlightenment”, only the seeing of the fact of Who You Are, and not being deluded into believing in what you are not.



- J.D. Hazelwood

Boz Live 2004)

' Viet Nam is my welcome visitor '...

Tonight, my largest amount of visitors are from Vietnam..

How strange, that I meet the grand children of those that I was expected to hate..

I was a teacher of aircraft..

My grandfather was a 'Bird-Colonel' from West Point..

After months of munitions placed upon us,

we gave up all thoughts of future life..

What a time to become a Mystic..

What do humans seek ?...

The political elite that send you to die..

How many Angels will save you ?..

How will the Hologram survive as an instrument of learning ?...


-thomas

' Christ-mass by Rumi '...

There is a morning where presence
comes over you, and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.


Your heart hears and, no longer frantic,
begins to dance. At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.


Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant,
and body, like a two-day-old Jesus,
says wisdom words.


Now the heart turns to light,
and the body picks up the tempo.


Where Shams Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes, and holes
you fall through into space.



- Jalaluddin Rumi

Glenn Miller - Moonlight Serenade - 1941

' Your World '...

Your world is transient, changeful.

My world
is perfect, changeless.

You can tell me what
you like about your world -

I shall listen care-
fully, even with interest, yet not for a moment
shall I forget that your world is not, that you
are dreaming.



- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973

' Awareness 'is' Love '...

We don't "have" awareness, we "are" awareness.

And awareness "is" love.

When it is wide open, when it is not fixated on some narrow and contrived identity, some narrow craving, argument, irritation, or fear, the nature of awareness is unconditionally affectionate, tender, sensitive, and compassionate.

Advaita Vedanta, Christian meditation, the Buddhadharma, Kabbalah, Vipassana, Tibetan Dzogchen, Zen practice, Sufi practice, and all true forms of mysticism, at their very best, are simply doors to this discovery.

The radical, unconditional mercy of Jesus, the uncorrupted compassion and understanding of the Buddha - these are just metaphors for your own pure heart, the core of your own being. Yours, mine, everyone's.



-Scott Morrison

' What is Advaita, Advaita Vedanta, Enlightenment and Define Non-dual or Non-duality Teachings? '...

In the East, non-dual teachings are referenced by the term Advaita Vedanta. In Sanskrit, "Advaita" means "not two" and "Vedanta" means "the end of knowledge." Non-dualism is the "experience" which is beyond knowledge.

However, in non-duality, there is no experiencer and no experience. There is no perceiver or perception. The points of reference of the experiencer, the perceiver, as well as the witness, are limited and therefore, all objects of perception can only exist in limitedness.

Self-realization is the discovery of oneself as the infinite Peace, the eternal formless, the indescribable Love, the unfathomable Sacred, which is transcendent of conditioned thought. It is transcendent of you, as you think that you are, as well as transcendent of the world and all objects.. It is the Mystery beyond the dual mind.

With integration and the full embodiment all form is recognized as none other than the Real and as the manifestation of the formless as Itself. There is no self-referencing whatsoever and no abidance anywhere.

Who you are is beyond the mind and cannot be intellectually understood. When the illusory veil of the ego is lifted, the perception of duality culminates, which removes the illusion of separation and the illusion of all opposites. The concept of individuality is released into the Ocean of Love. Like water pouring into water, without the possibility of return, it then manifests as waterfall, river, or ocean.

Sacred Love is the topic of enlightenment. Although we speak about it and use words to point to it, the Love remains untouched. Presence shines to Itself, by Itself and in Itself. The dual altered state of consciousness is freed and it realizes the incredible beauty of its true nature, which is the eternal Silence. Then, in service, becomes the hand-maiden to Truth. Consciousness recognizes Itself by being fiercely now, by intense investigation and, once the mind is tranquil, by making no effort.

At this point, effort is seen to be a future endeavor and a moving away from the Truth of Being. Until that time, it is essential to observe the functioning of dual thought and recognize that you are the spaciousness in which all comes and goes. You remain still, immovable, being vigilant, being Heart. It is the realization that Love is all there is, Love is all there ever was and that you are this Loving now and naturally free. The illusory pain and suffering were caused by the shadow cast by duality and the uninvestigated assumption of "me."



- Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy