' Remain Empty '...
My most auspicious advice: Remain empty. Leave
all that personal mind-stuff aside.
Stay as impersonal Awareness alone. This is the
highest way and choice.
Accept and follow this
advice with all your heart.
You will find it sufficient to win you freedom.
- Mooji
' Seeking Mind '...
If you wish to move in the One Way do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the [discriminating] mind is the greatest of all mistakes.
- Seng-tsan, Verses on the Faith Mind
' Divine Stillnesss '...
The strange result of going deeper and deeper into the Real is that silence falls more and more as a curtain over his private experience and private thought.
The strong urgency of communication which the missionary and the reformer feel, the strong need of expression which the artist and the writer have, trouble him no longer.
The inner voice is tight-lipped, or speaks to him alone.
He begins to see how much apostolic utterance is merely the overflow of personal emotion, how much artistic achievement is motivated by personal ambition, how much spiritual service is simply another phase of the ego adoring and serving itself.
Thomas Aquinas came to such an insight late in life and he, the author of so many books dedicated to the glory of God, could never again write another line.
Those who stand on the outside may consider such a severe restraint put upon oneself to be harsh and fanatical, perhaps even antisocial.
But it is safe to say that all these critics have never tracked the ego to its secret lair, never had all movement of their individual will stopped by the divine Stillness.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 4:
Seek the Deeper Stillness > # 193 Paul Brunton
' What is Reincarnation ?'...
As long as you desire to exist separate from Source,
you will continue to incarnate as separate ego.
-thomas
' Sympathy is the root of religion '...
Sympathy is the root of religion, and so long as the spirit of sympathy is living in your heart, you have the light of religion.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Those great souls who have brought the message of God to humanity from time to time, like Buddha, Krishna, Jesus Christ, Moses, Abraham or Zarathushtra, were well known as most learned men. But whatever they learned, they learned from the love principle. What they knew was compassion, forgiveness, sympathy, tolerance, the attitude of appreciation, the opening of the heart to humanity.
Sympathy is something more than love and affection, for it is the knowledge of a certain suffering which moves the living heart to sympathy. That person is living whose heart is living, and that heart is living which has wakened to sympathy. The heart void of sympathy is worse than a rock ... The feeling of sympathy must be within, it need not manifest purely as sympathy but as an action to better the condition of the one with whom one has sympathy. There are many attributes found in the human heart which are called divine, but among them there is no greater and better attribute than sympathy, by which man shows in human form God manifested.
In a popular English song there is a beautiful line, which says, 'The light of a whole life dies when love is done.' That living thing in the heart is love. It may come forth as kindness, as friendship, as sympathy, as tolerance, as forgiveness, but in whatever form this living water rises from the heart, it proves the heart to be a divine spring. And when once this spring is open and is rising, then everything that a man does in action, in word, or in feeling is all religion; that man becomes truly religious.
A great poet has said in Hindi, 'Sympathy is the root of religion, and so long as the spirit of sympathy is living in your heart, it is illuminated with the light of religion'. This means that religion and morals can be summed up in one thing and that is sympathy, which in the words of Christ, as interpreted in the Bible, is charity. All beautiful qualities as tolerance, forgiveness, gentleness, consideration, reverence and the desire to serve -- all these come from sympathy. Another poet has said in Urdu that it was for sympathy that man was created, and the day when man discovers this special attribute in himself, he is shown his first lesson of how life should be lived.
' Aspects of Buddha '...
"When Shakyamuni attained enlightenment,
all the myriad dharmas within Buddha's mind,
that is, mountains, rivers, grass, and trees, all became Buddha.
All are aspects of Buddha.
In this sense, each and every one of us has been enlightened by Shakyamuni Buddha."
-Dogen Zenji
The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dogen's "Bendowa"
With Commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
Translated by Shohaku Okamura and Taigen Daniel Leighton
Boston: Tuttle, 1997, p. 103
' Enlightenment '...
However dark or blundering the past,
however miserable the tangle one has made of one's life,
this unutterable peace blots it all out.
Within that seraphic embrace error cannot be known,
misery cannot be felt, sin cannot be remembered.
A great cleansing comes over the heart and mind.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 4:
Seek the Deeper Stillness > # 102 Paul Brunton
' A Hologram of Solidity '...
While, we are Consciousness within a Hologram of solidity,
We remember..
This little jount within Dreams brings knowledge but does not bring peace..
The voices of division entice us to egoic consciousness..
But, Reality draws us back into Reality..
The word 'Love' arises within Consciousness..
And we wonder why..
Love is the loss of egoic development..
And yet, we all seek the warm blanket of love..
This basic desire of life is all that is desired..
And yet, we hear that desire is unaccepted within mind..
The desire for non-desire might be not understood..
But, Love is naturally understood...
-thomas
' Forgetfulness '...
"Forgetfulness is exile.
Remembrance is redemption."
-The Baal Shem Tov
in Edward Hoffman
The Hebrew Alphabet: A Mystical Journey
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998, p. 40
' When there is no desire '...
No object of desire is real,
no object of desire is worth your peace.
If your house is desires, burn it down.
It is only the absence of desire that makes you happy,
so allow no desire to rise.
Just allow yourself to be dissolved by love.
When there is no desire there is love and beauty.
If you do desire then only desire peace
because what you think you will become:
Water poured in the ocean becomes the ocean.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' The State of Discovery '...
"We’re birthed into sangha, into sacred community.
It’s called the world.
It’s flowing and it moves, and as soon as you don’t move with it, it dies, does it not? The teaching dies if it doesn’t stay fresh.
Your own realization dies if you don’t move with it.
That’s why I always suggest to live in a state of discovery -- not a state of discovery where you are looking for an ultimate conclusion, for that’s the greatest illusion of all.
Live in a state of discovery because that’s how the truth lives."
-- Adyashanti, Pacific Grove, CA September 16, 2005.
' Self-forgetting '...
Self-forgetting is inherent in self-knowing.
Consciousness
and unconsciousness are two aspects of one life.
They
co-exist.
To know the world you forget the self - to know
the self you forget the world.
What is world after all?
A
collection of memories.
Cling to one thing that matters,
hold on to 'I am' and let go all else.
This is sadhana.
In
realization there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to
forget.
Everything is known, nothing is remembered.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Consciousness '...
"Abiding in the Self is not the reward for working through a process.
There is nothing to work through.
In fact, no amount of energetic, emotional or mental processing will result in realising the Self.
Equally, no amount of spiritual practice will directly result in self-realisation.
These are simply thoughts arising in consciousness.
Consciousness is not concerned with working things out; it does not seek resolution.
Nothing needs resolution.
All unfolds as it unfolds.
Everything that can possibly be, that you can perceive as an object, a project, a methodology, a technique, be it physical or in thought, is arising in consciousness.
It will subside and have its death in consciousness."
~Jac O'Keeffe
' A Free Mind '...
If the mind can reach a state where it is free from its own ideas,
projections, and wishes,
it can reach true happiness.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 1:
The Search for Happiness > # 77 Paul Brunton
' Half of this nation are zombies '...
On a rainy night, I speak to you of mind domination..
Has not hypnotism and mesmerism entered your thinking ?..
So many thoughts enter your mind from the media..
Who owns the media ?..
Six corporations control your mind..
Mind control is real..
As Hitler said:
"Speak a lie enough times and it will be believed "..
Which is why, he was so successful with mass mind control..
Therefore, who is the liar ?..
You seekers that seek Truth will understand these words..
The others will remain mentally maimed..
Seek Truth..
Otherwise, you have wasted yet, another life..
- thomas
' Riches '...
"Look at me — I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation.
We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right.
Riches would do us no good.
We could not take them with us to the other world.
We do not want riches.
We want peace and love."
Red Cloud (Sioux)
in Kent Nerburn, Ph.D. and Louise Mengelkoch, M.A.
Native American Wisdom
Novato, CA: New World Library, 1991, p. 13
' No fight : No blame '...
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things
and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
- Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
' The Divine Calm '...
It is not only that he must remove the impurities,
the faults and the weaknesses,
which obstruct the divine entry or prevent the divine settlement,
but also that he must,
by continually training himself to remain undisturbed by troubles and unexcited by good fortune,
keep mind and heart always calm so that the divine guest may be able to remain permanently.
-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 3:
Practise Detachment > # 135 Paul Brunton
' The Ever-Presence '...
You can begin the quest by trying to get rid of your idea of time.
This will be your honourable diploma,
this will be your certified matriculation,
when you succeed in turning time's illusion into the reality hidden behind it, into the Ever-Presence.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 151
Paul Brunton
' Out of You '...
We consider bibles and religions divine -
I do not say they are not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you, and
may grow out of you still.
It is not they who give the life, it is you
who give the life.
Leaves are no more shed from the trees,
or trees from the earth, than they are
shed out of you.
- Walt Whitman
' I Circle around God '...
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows
' Trust a few '...
As you read the thoughts of Shakespeare,
He speaks of the works of the egoic atachment..
The belief that 'You' are the thoughts of ego keeps 'You' in servitude..
This separation between Dreamer and Dreamed are the subject of this paragraph..
This Duality of thought creates the negative vibrations of this Hologram..
The egoic-desire to be separate from Reality brings about the pain of separation from the binding energy of Reality called Love..
And yet, most of us seek this somewhat fleeting joy of human existence called Love..
What else is left to seek ?..
Let power, wealth, and fame, remain the desire of fools..
You seek Freedom..
Release the ego and 'You' will be Free...
-thomas
' Distinguish between Spiritual Experiences and Realizations '...
In Buddhism, we distinguish between spiritual experiences and spiritual realizations.
Spiritual experiences are usually more vivid and intense than realizations because they are generally accompanied by physiological and psychological changes.
Realizations, on the other hand, may be felt, but the experience is less pronounced.
Realization is about acquiring insight.
Therefore, while realizations arise out of our spiritual experiences, they are not identical to them.
Spiritual realizations are considered vastly more important because they cannot fluctuate.
The distinction between spiritual experiences and realizations is continually emphasized in Buddhist thought.
If we avoid excessively fixating on our experiences, we will be under less stress in our practice.
Without that stress, we will be better able to cope with whatever arises, the possibility of suffering from psychic disturbances will be greatly reduced, and we will notice a significant shift in the fundamental texture of our experience.
-Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche,
"Letting Go of Spiritual Experience," (Fall 2004)
' The Reality of Non-Duality '...
To know this Reality directly
is possible only through practicing non-duality.
When you live this non-separation,
all things manifest the One, and nothing is excluded.
Whoever comes to enlightenment, no matter when or where,
Realizes personally this fundamental Source.
-Hsin Hsin Ming
Translated by Richard B. Clarke
' A Unified Existence '...
When his mind moves entirely and wholly into the One Infinite Presence,
and when it settles permanently there,
the divided existence of glimpse and darkness,
of Spirit and matter, of Overself and ego,
of heaven and earth, will vanish.
The crossing over to a unified existence will happen.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind >
Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 122
Paul Brunton
' Jalaluddin Rumi Poem '...
Once the blossoms are gone,
the fruit becomes
visible;
when one fades away,
the other starts
growing.
How could bread give strength without
being broken?
How could the grape give wine
without being crushed?
- Rumi
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
' Today '...
“Today means boundless and inexhaustible eternity.
Months and years and all periods of time are concepts of men,
who gauge everything by number;
but the true name of eternity is Today.”
-Philo (20 BC – 50 AD)
Hellenistic Jewish philosopher
' Past and Future '...
Just as there is no particular point in a circle which is the true beginning or true end of it,
so there is in reality no point in time which is the true past or true future.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 36
Paul Brunton
' What is the Heart ?'...
You see the drawing of the 'Heart' every day when the subject is Love..
You already know that they are not denoting the physical heart..
Why is the 'Heart' used as the symbol of Love?..
Most people are unaware that the 'Heart' produces much more voltage than the Brain..
Voltage is used as the Energy source of the body and mind to function the operating of the human body hologram..
Light is the building Source..
So why is the 'Heart' involved in Love ?..
Heart is the Energy source and therefore contains no personality..
'No personality' is the 'Door' to Reality..
'No personality' is 'Pure Awareness', otherwise known as Reality..
'No personality' called non-egoic desire is known as 'Love'..
'Love' is Known as 'God'..
'God' is Known as 'Reality'..
The Heart is Consciousness expanding...
-thomas
' Mullah Nasrudin '...
Mullah Nasrudin,
standing on the bank of a river, watched as a dog came to drink.
The dog saw itself in the water and immediately began to bark.
It barked and barked all morning and into the afternoon, until it was foaming at the mouth.
Finally, dying of thirst, the dog fell into the river--whereupon it quenched its thirst, climbed out, and happily walked away..
Nasrudin said,
"Thus I realized all my life I had been barking at my own reflection."
' Radical Emptiness '...
To the extent that the fire of truth wipes out all fixated points of view, it wipes out inner contradictions as well, and we begin to move in a whole different way. The Way is the flow that comes from a place of non-contradiction - not from good and bad. Much less damage tends to be done from that place. Once we have reached the phase where there is no fixed self-concept, we tend to lead a selfless life. The only way to be selfless is to be self less - without a self. No matter what it does, a self isn't going to be selfless. It can pretend. It can approximate selflessness, but a self is never going to be selfless because there is always an identified personal self at the root of it.
Being selfless isn't a good, holy, or noble activity. It's simply that when there is no self, selflessness happens. This selflessness is very different from having a moralistic standpoint. When action is selfless, it tends to do no harm. It tends to be the salvation, the secret alchemy that awakens and removes conflict. It's a byproduct of not having a self. It just so happens that reality is overflowing with goodness and love.
This is radical emptiness - where everything is arising spontaneously. There is no more need to discriminate with the mind between what seems to be the right thing or the wrong thing to do. In ego-land it's helpful to have an ego that can discriminate between right and wrong, but at a certain point, that's not what you are operating by. You are operating by the flow of the Tao, which is a higher order of intelligence. You don't need to intellectually discriminate anymore because the Tao discriminates without discriminating; it knows without knowing; it moves without moving. There is no sense of being enlightened or unenlightened. Since there is no self, there is nothing to be enlightened or unenlightened.
We can talk about enlightened beings and non-enlightened beings, and conceptually that has a use.. But when there is no self, when there is radical emptiness, the whole enlightenment thing is sort of irrelevant because reality has become conscious of itself, which is enlightenment. That's what is often missed. People believe that enlightenment is an improvement on reality, like becoming a super human being or God-knows-what. But enlightenment is when reality is awake to itself as itself within itself.
- Adyashanti
' That is all '...
We live in illusion and the appearance of things.
There is a reality.
We are that reality.
When you understand this,
you see that you are nothing,
and being nothing, you are everything.
That is all.
-Kalu Rinpoche
' Beginning and Ending '...
What begins must end.
What appears must
disappear.
The duration of appearance is a
matter of relativity,
but the inviolable principle
is that whatever is subject to time and duration
must end and is therefore not Real.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Grace is Necessary '...
It does not lie within man's power to gain more than a glimpse of this diviner life.
If he is to be established firmly and lastingly in it,
then a descent of grace is absolutely necessary.
Artificial methods will never bring this about.
Rites and sacrifices and magical performances,
puzzling over Zen koans or poring over the newest books,
will never bring it.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 5: Grace > # 100 Paul Brunton
' Grace is Present '...
Grace is always present.
You imagine it as something high in the sky, far away,
something that has to descend.
It is really inside you, in your heart.
When the mind rests in its source, grace rushes forth,
sprouting as from a spring within you.
-Ramana Maharshi
' Talking to God '...
In my conversations within Higher Consciousness,
I only found Truth and Wisdom spoken..
All answers must be Truthful,
and therefore, the finality of existence was questioned,
Silence entered this room..
The 'First Reality' could not entertain the thought of non-existence..
This is why I tease 'First Reality' into the experience of calmness..
The answer given to me for the life experience was,
"to treat others as I would want to be treated"..
It is that easy..
No other Philosophy needed...
-thomas
' Playfully, You hid from me '...
Playfully, you hid from me.
All day I looked.
Then I discovered
I was you,
and the celebration
of That began.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
' The Last Jihad '...
The last jihad is the destruction of 'Identity'..
whether, this Identity be God, Love, non-self, etc..
As long as 'you' point to a vision, 'you' will become the vision...
but, 'you' will still be 'you'.....
All desire for life, both here and after here are the same prison..
one of gold..
and one of dirt..
Stop seeking life..
Enter the nothingness of non-desire..
This beautiful Ocean of Love called egoic-death...
-thomas
' Intellectual Faith '...
The Age of Faith has been succeeded by sceptic psychology, but the cycle of development is not at an end yet.
For we shall return anew to our starting point, but this time it will be an intellectual Faith.
We have learned to question the universe and life; we have pushed thinking to its uttermost limits; we can go no farther and must perforce sink to our knees once more in humble prayer.
Then we shall acquire an unshakeable faith that will survive every question, every doubt, and that will carry us through the struggles of existence with serenity and strength.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 7:
Beyond Religion As We Know It > # 28 Paul Brunton
' Emptiness '...
Emptiness is the vastest kingdom,
rarely discovered,
and yet it is the greatest resting place for all Beings.
- Mooji
' An Astral Vision '...
In an astral vision a relation or a friend may appear to a person and tell him something about the other side of life.
Before another a saint or sage may appear.
One may see the vision of one’s friends or relations, past and present.
One may see faces never seen before, and yet faces that once existed in the world.
When the visions are clear it is the moment when the soul is clear from all earthly shadows, and therefore heavenly pictures, so to speak, appear upon the curtain of man’s heart.
Every unseen form that we see in a vision, be it of a spirit, fairy, or angel, or of a teacher, sage, or saint, is according to man’s evolution.
As highly evolved a person is, so high is his vision.
Sometimes he attracts the object of his vision, sometimes the object of his vision wishes to manifest to him, and sometimes he creates the object of his vision before him.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
' The old mind '...
For the "old mind" to be forsaken and the "new mind" installed, the seeker has had to experience a kind of revulsion with yet another turn on the wheel of old age, sickness and death.
Once it is finally understood that the belief (old mind) in things having an independent nature is the cause of suffering and disappointment, the understanding comes creeping in that "attachment" is about an existence that cannot be the way it appears.
Now that the root cause of suffering is grasped (new mind), and happiness is the much preferred condition (even bugs do not want to suffer), the path opens, and transformation begins.
The "misknowing" is the belief in a self and world that have independent, self-standing status.
So then, accumulating more concepts premised on fundamental error cannot get to the taproot of human misery.
- Paul Brunton
' Entering Reality '...
I also found a Higher Positon within Divine Consciousness..
Perhaps, It is my fault..
To be Free is to be without another..
This desire of attachment is a prison..
It is called ego attachment..
When I spoke to the Other,
the answer of finality was not answered..
Therefore, the Other must also be met..
And perhaps, entered...
-thomas
' The soul becomes Divine '...
"Now mark how God unites with things.
He unites with things while yet remaining one in Himself, all things being one in Him.
Therefore Christ says, "You will be transformed into me, but I shall not be transformed into you.
"This is due to God's unchangeableness and His immensity, and the littleness of things.
As to this, the prophet says that all things are to God as a drop in the ocean [Wisdom11:22].
If you were to cast a drop into the ocean, the drop would become the ocean and not the ocean the drop.
Thus it is with the soul:
when she imbibes God she is turned into God,
so that the soul becomes divine but God does not become the soul."
-Meister Eckhart
Sermon Ninety-Four
The Complete Mytical Works of Meister Eckhart
Translated by Maurice O'C Walshe
New York: Herder & Herder Crossroad, 2009, p. 456-457
' Based on a misapprehension '...
Within the prison of your world appears a man who
tells you that the world of painful contradictions,
which you have created, is neither continuous nor
permanent and is based on a misapprehension.
He
pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way
by which you got into it.
You got into it by forgetting
what you are and you will get out of it by knowing
yourself as you are.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Give the ego back '...
Give the ego back to the Overself and then the Overself will use it as it should be used--in harmony with the cosmic laws of being.
This means that the welfare of all others in contact with the ego will be considered as well as the ego's own.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 2: Inspiration > # 49 Paul Brunton
' The Infinite '...
"Where one sees nothing else,
hears nothing else,
understands nothing else,
that is the Infinite.
Where one sees something else,
hears something else,
understands something else,
that is the finite.
The Infinite is immortal,
the finite is mortal."
-Chandogya Upanishad, VII, 24
Translated by Max Müller
The Upanishads, Part 1
Sacred Books of the East, v. 1, p. 123
' A Friend '...
A friend is one who does not disturb your mind.
Maintain no friendship with ones who disturb your
mind, no matter how close they are, be it a person,
a place, or idea.
Do not accept the invitations of
foolish persons because when you live in their
society Truth will not kiss you.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' This is our work today '...
The message for our times is: "The day of professional spirituality is past.
It has bred religious hypocrisy and mystical futility.
The day of a spiritualized mundane existence is here.
We are to live in the world but not be of it.
We are to set aside an hour a day for meditation and reflection but to attend to all other duties the rest of the day.
Thus we shall have the chance which ascetics and monks lack, of translating spiritual ideas into spiritual deeds.
The attraction toward the divine need not mean repulsion from the world.
There is room in human life for both the heavenly and the earthly.
To deepen knowledge and increase beauty, to spread compassion and to uplift man--this is our work today."
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1:
Toward Defining Philosophy > # 425 Paul Brunton
' Misapprehension '...
Within the prison of your world appears a man who
tells you that the world of painful contradictions,
which you have created, is neither continuous nor
permanent and is based on a misapprehension.
He
pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way
by which you got into it.
You got into it by forgetting
what you are and you will get out of it by knowing
yourself as you are.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Heart's desires '...
Man's bodily appetites take him away from his heart's desires; his heart's desires keep him away from the abode of his soul.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There are two parts in man. One part is his external self, which the soul has borrowed from the earth; and the other part is his real self, which belongs to his Source. In other words an individual is a combination of spirit and matter, a current which runs from above and attracts to it the earth from below, shaping it in order to make it a vehicle. The human body is nothing but a vehicle of the soul which has come from above and has taken the human body as its abode. Thus an individual has two aspects of being: one is the soul, the other is the body. ... Whether he is in the forest or amidst the world's strife, the soul of man is always capable of rising to the greatest heights, if only he wishes to attain to them. ... Man does not need to trouble about what is lacking outside, for in reality all is within himself.
The soul cannot see itself; it sees what is round it, it sees that in which it functions; and so it enjoys the comforts of the shell which is around it, and experiences the pains and discomforts which belong to the shell. And in this way it becomes an exile from the land of its birth, which is the Being of God, which is divine Spirit; and it seeks consciously or unconsciously once again the peace and happiness of home. God therefore is not the goal but the abode of the soul, its real self, its true being.
Plato wrote that we live in a shadow world, where we confuse the shadow of ourselves with reality. This is the Nafs, the false ego, which stands in the light before God, causing, so to speak, a spiritual eclipse. ... The Nafs turns us from the One to the many, enticing us with the things of this world. Then man attaches himself to one thing after another, which brings, at best, momentary satisfaction. Through his spiritual practices the Sufi learns to chain the Nafs, to perceive that it is only a shadow of reality; and finding the sun of truth within his being, looking upon it, one is no longer aware of the shadow. Then the Nafs is not destroyed, but harnessed. The whole of man's being is attuned to God and everything within him serves God.
The one and only thing that hinders man from advancing spiritually, or at least from advancing towards the goal for which he is destined and which he is longing to attain, is this: that the mind is so absorbed by the demands and wants of the physical body that it has hardly a moment to give itself entirely to the reflection of the light of the soul.
' The Supreme '...
Even the glimpse is so dazzling that it can never be forgotten and will tend gradually to reorientate the whole life.
Henceforth this new element with all the immense assurance it conveys will characterize his inner life.
Thus his outward life becomes a consecrated one.
He feels safely held by a power higher than his own.
He becomes strong enough to meet life face to face, not suborned by its hardships any more than by its happinesses.
"The life of that person is beautiful and blessed who has properly and adequately known the Mind which exists within the mind," says an old text, The Yoga of the Sage Vasistha.
The quest is not a coldly intellectual affair nor a vaguely dream-life one.
He who has adequately comprehended its significance is stirred to his innermost depths with a devotion to it, a reverence for the Real which spreads outward and in time comes to animate both his feelings and his activities.
If the Supreme escapes all definition, it does not escape life.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1:
Toward Defining Philosophy > # 207 Paul Brunton
' Thoughts of a Thursday Night '...
A 'Nor-eastern' enters this hologram..
So early, only November..
The traffic upon the Interstate is at a standstill..
Probably, because a few suffer the lack of friction..
Nature is a 'Mother'..
Stray cats beg for food..
We give food for the homeless..
We enter into the jaws of winter..
And yet, we have not entered the day of Thanksgiving..
The poor turkeys die for our communion..
The soul keeps looking for information..
Wisdom is information without ego interference..
Days like this, are called Knowledge....
-thomas
' A Friend '...
A friend is one who does not disturb your mind.
Maintain no friendship with ones who disturb your
mind, no matter how close they are, be it a person,
a place, or idea.
Do not accept the invitations of
foolish persons because when you live in their
society Truth will not kiss you.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' The Infinite Nothing '...
Enlightenment is awakening from the dream state of separateness to the reality of One.
It means waking up to what you truly are and then being that. Realize and be. Realization is not enough.
After Self-realization one must act, do and express what one has realized.
This is a whole new way of life -living in reality instead of living out the programmed ideas, beliefs, and impulses of your mind.
The truth is that you already are what you are seeking.
You are looking for God with his eyes.
This truth is so simple, shocking and radical that it is easy to miss among one's flurry of seeking.
He is here to shake his students awake and not to ask them to dream better.
We must wake up to the fact that we are all already living Buddhas.
We are the emptiness, the infinite nothing.
Let go of all ideas and images in our minds:
they come and go and are not even generated by us.
- Adyashanti
' The Great Paradox '...
The Great Paradox: There's nothing that's you
and, at the very same time there's nothing that's
not you.
Here's the height of spiritual irony: The Teacher
points directly to the Truth, but then the student
begins worshipping the Teacher.
Or, even worse, the student begins to worship
the pointer that the Teacher was using!
But, as Consciousness, Itself, you are really the
ultimate source of all of the great teachers.
You are really the ultimate Source of all of their
spiritual teachings.
You only created them in your personal drama
to remind you, again and again, about what you're
pretending to forget.
The teachers and their teachings both appear
....and disappear...within the heart of who you are.
- Chuck Hillig
' Empty of ego '...
Only when a human being becomes empty of ego does it become a vessel of the manifestation of the Supreme.
When there is sufficient space made through the absence of the person, then the divine cannot hide.
It must reveal itself as the Lord inside that form.
- Mooji
' The Emanation of the Reality '...
The cosmos is neither a phantom to be disdained nor an illusion to be dismissed.
It is a remote expression in time and space and individuality of that which is timeless spaceless and infinite.
If it is not the Reality in its ultimate sense, it is an emanation of the Reality.
Hence it shares in some way the life of its source.
To find that point of sharing is the true object of incarnation for all creatures within the cosmos.
-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea > Chapter 1:
Divine Order of The Universe > # 179
Paul Brunton
' The Center of our Being '...
"What if our religion was each other.
If our practice was our life.
If prayer, our words.
What if the temple was the Earth.
If forests were our church.
If holy water--the rivers, lakes, and ocean.
What if meditation was our relationships.
If the teacher was life.
If wisdom was self-knowledge.
If love was the center of our being."
- Ganga White
' Appearing to exist '...
Just because something exists, however, it
doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s real.
Reality is that which persists in all states;
waking life, dream life and in dreamless sleep.
If this is true, then, anything that fundamentally
changes can’t actually be considered as
“real.”
That doesn’t mean, of course, that it doesn’t appear
to exist!
- Chuck Hillig
Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003
' In Communion '...
The demand for inspired teachers is always insistent but the supply is wholly insufficient.
Unless the teacher is an inspired one he will be of little help to the would-be mystic.
By inspired, we mean either in communion with his higher self or fully united with it.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 6:
Student-Teacher > # 335 Paul Brunton
' The Dwelling of Light '...
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts;
a sense sublime
Of something far away deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the minds of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things,
all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
- William Wordsworth, from Tintern Abbey
' Veterans Day '...
Enter into the mind of a combat veteran..
Most of you do not remember the vietnam war..
After a month of not sleeping because rockets were killing us,
I decided that I did not care to live any longer within this hell..
Death was more desireable than further days within this mental and physical pain..
At this point of time, I did not carry a weapon as I walked through Saigon..
The Vietnamese stared at me in amazement as I walked alone within the streets..
A sniper would sometimes turn their rifle towards me,
but, I continued to walk..
A Guardian Angel protected me..
A voice would warn me of danger..
It sounds strange, does it not ?..
And yet, I still speak to you at seventy two years old..
Wars are created by Satanic Subjects,
as a sacrifice for future monetary gain..
-thomas
' Falling into Reality '...
The falling into Reality is often a fear filled experience, as you feel as though you are dying..
and in fact, you are dying..
The you as ego must die before entrance into Divine Consciousness..
this is why God is called a jealous God, as only God can enter God..
In fact, we have never left God and the entrance is just a "Realization" that we have never left God..
The dissolving of the ego during life is to lessen this fear of death that we experience upon Enlightenment..
this fear will drive many away from this experience, this is the work of the ego and courage must be applied to drive through this obstacle of fear..
as Jesus said;" you must die, to be born"...
- thomas
' A Higher Will '...
His behaviour is spontaneous, but not through mere impulse nor through unused intellect.
It is the spontaneity, the forthrightness of an inspired man who knows where he is going and what he is doing,
who is directly guided in his relations with other men by a higher will than his own ego's.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 2: Inspiration > # 51 Paul Brunton
' The Test of Reality '...
If something is real, it has to satisfy three qualities:
First of all, it can not disappear. If something disappears, it has to disappear into something. When we put a cube of ice in a glass of water. The ice disappears into water. So, the reality of ice is water. That's the first test.
The second test of reality, is that it can not change. So, the water is not real too because its made out of H2O. When the water is heated, it becomes the vapors. So, H2O is the same in the ice and in the water. But the names and its labels change. That's the second test.
The third test of reality that it can not be known by something other than itself. If it is known by other than itself, then its reality is relative or dependent upon its knower so it can not be absolute reality.
These are the three qualities of the reality of our experience.
What is it in our experience that satisfies all these three tests is awareness. All else is illusory, disappearing, changing and known by the awareness of it.
-From the Rupert Spira audio
entitled "The Test of Reality"
' No place for death 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
' Matter '...
We must understand that matter is not a thing but a thought within consciousness.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 4:
The Challenge of Mentalism > # 123 Paul Brunton
' Just Be Honest '...
"At all times be honest with yourself.
You cannot live out from a level of awareness to which you have not arrived.
At a certain time in your evolution, you register the realisation that nothing that the world can give you will satisfy a deep yearning for the truth.
Your interest in things of the world falls away naturally.
There are some who adopt this position in an intellectual manner, advocating an immunity from pain because of their spiritual beliefs.
Invariably life presents them with an uncomfortable lesson in humility and re-positions their place in the scheme of things.
The inner yearning for truth cannot be faked."
~Jac O'Keeffe
' The Law of Opposite Polarities '...
There is no thing, be it as vast as a sun or as small as a cell,
which is not subject to the law of opposite polarities and which therefore does not manifest itself in two entirely contrary ways.
Yet man, because his senses are so limited, sees it in only a single way.
It is this incompleteness which creates his illusion that the thing really exists in time,
is measured in space, and is shaped in form.
- Paul Brunton
' The Magic Pearl '...
My true home is on Cold Mountain,
perched among cliffs beyond the reach of trouble images leave no trace when they vanish.
I roam the whole universe from here,
lights and shadows flash across my mind.
Not one dharma appears before me,
since I found this magic pearl
I can go anywhere everywhere is perfect.
-From The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain translated by Red Pine
' The Void Nature of Thoughts '...
What we normally call the mind is the deluded mind, a turbulent vortex of thoughts whipped up by attachment, anger, and ignorance. This mind, unlike enlightened awareness, is always being carried away by one delusion after another. Thoughts of hatred or attachment suddenly arise without warning, triggered by such circumstances as an unexpected meeting with an enemy or a friend, and unless they are immediately overpowered with the proper antidote, they quickly take root and proliferate, reinforcing the habitual predominance of hatred or attachment in the mind and adding more an more karmic patterns.
Yet, however strong these thoughts may seem, they are just thoughts and will eventually dissolve back into emptiness. Once you recognize the intrinsic nature of the mind, these thoughts that seem to appear and disappear all the time can no longer fool you. Just as clouds form, last for a while, and then dissolve back into the empty sky, so deluded thoughts arise, remain for a while, and then vanish into the voidness of mind; in reality nothing at all has happened.
When sunlight falls on a crystal, lights of all colors of the rainbow appear; yet they have no substance that you can grasp. Likewise, all thoughts in their infinite variety – devotion, compassion, harmfulness, desire – are utterly without substance. There is no thought that is something other than voidness; if you recognize the void nature of thoughts at the very moment they arise, they will dissolve. Attachment and hatred will never be able to disturb the mind. Deluded emotions will collapse by themselves. No negative actions will be accumulated, so no suffering will follow.
-Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
' Thoughts on a Friday Night '...
A chilly rain falls upon us..
We wander through fog to meet friends..
A young woman picks notes on a guitar..
Her voice impresses me..
She sang for three hours without stoping..
The people cheer, she packs up..
The young people show us great kindness and respect..
I therefore, declare that 'Love', which is non-desire for power,
will Win..
If you are still reading these words, then, you are Awake..
The Hologram is changing..
Truth has reared It's Beautiful Face
The 'negative energy seeking virus' will be destroyed..
Love is Reality and will prevail over pain...
-thomas
' Infinite and beyond Creation '...
"You are infinite, you are really everywhere,
but you think you are the body,
and therefore consider yourself limited.
If you look within and experience your own soul in its true nature,
you will realize that you are infinite and beyond creation."
-Meher Baba
Meher Baba Calling, 43
Ahmednagar: Meher Nazar Books, 6th ed., 1992 (1964
' The Unchanging One '...
As soon as you recognize your true nature as the unchanging
Awareness and confirm your position as That itself, the unchanging
One, it won’t matter anymore what the psychological, personal mind
is saying.
Its play and presence will become distant, like looking at the moon in
full daylight.
You won’t be listening to it for very long, I tell you. It will
gradually lose its influence and appeal and fall away..
- Mooji
' Inspiration '...
The inspiration may be pure Spirit but, because it must come into a particular man, he receives it in a particular way, interprets, expresses, and communicates it in a personal way, so that the purity is at best a little adulterated, the integrity a little lost.
His character may be as selfless as he can make it, but the colouring of his mind can only fade out to a particular extent because his body is still there, his entire past history is there graven in the subconscious, and body is interfused with mind.
All this will vanish with death, or some while after death if he is not fully advanced.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 2: Inspiration > # 88 Paul Brunton
' As If You Had A Choice !'...
I am pointing beyond words to the richness that lies there.
It is a silence profound and deep
out of which all the words come
and to which all the words return.
Do not deny the words...do not deny anything!
Life is not your enemy!
There is no going back to the Source
because the Source cannot be left.
Listen and perhaps you will hear.
Look and perhaps you will see.
Open your heart and perhaps you will feel.
All that is Grace.
Breathe, live, die... as if you had a choice
in the matter
but know in your deepest place
that your every choice is given
and you are powerless to refuse.
- Wayne Liquorman
' To see and hear '...
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
- Marcus Aurelius
' Two kinds of drops '...
In the fountain there are two kinds of drops:
the one constantly touches the source as goal;
the other rises, breaks on the way,
and so drops in the source disconnected on the way.
The latter is the life of the people who simply live and die.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
' Repeated Introspection '...
The other part of the answer is that the Overself is always here as man's innermost truest self.
It is beginningless and endless in time. Its consciousness does not have to be developed as something new.
But the person's awareness of it begins in time and has to be developed as a new attainment. The ever-presence of Overself means that anyone may attain it here and now.
There is no inner necessity to travel anywhere or to anyone in space or to wait years in time for this to happen.
Anyone, for instance, who attends carefully and earnestly to the present exposition may perhaps suddenly and easily get the first stage of insight, the lightning-flash which affords a glimpse of reality, at any moment.
By that glimpse he will have been uplifted to a new dimension of being. The difficulty will consist in retaining the new perception.
For ancient habits of erroneous thinking will quickly reassert themselves and overwhelm him enough to push it into the background.
This is why repeated introspection, reflective study, and mystical meditation are needed to weaken those habits and generate the inner strength which can firmly hold the higher outlook against these aggressive intruders from his own past..
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 3:
The Overself's Presence > # 4 Paul Brunton
' Everything '...
You have considered yourself to be a separate“self” only
because of having regarded a “solid”object with a name,
that is the body, as yourself.
But in fact the body itself is
nothing but an insignificant, vastly intricate complex of
electrical wave-patterns, a series of rhythmic functions, a
throbbing field of energy, and emptiness.
What you actually
are, then, is what everybody else is: sentience itself.
Therefore, instead of being a puny self by way of an object,
you are indeed everything.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' World-Minds '...
If the divine activity ceases in one universe it continues at the same time in another.
If our World-Mind returns to its source in the end,
there are other World-Minds and other worlds which continue.
Creation is a thing without beginning and without end,
but there are interludes and periods of rest just as there are in the individual's own life in and outside the body.
-- Notebooks Category 27: World-Mind > Chapter 2: Nature of World-Mind > # 51
-- Perspectives > Chapter 27: World-Mind > # 30 Paul Brunton
' All manifestation arises from that '...
"Your mind turns outward to fulfill desires.
In understanding the derivation and role of desires, you begin to turn the mind inward.
Be quiet physically and mentally.
Without desires and attachment to an object or an outcome, you will taste tremendous love and happiness.
When you stop looking outside and want truth above all else, you will see that the outward and inward focus of the mind are the same.
Any seeming differences are a conceptual creation of mind.
Both inward and outward orientation of mind will cease to exist.
Then there is only that which is and all manifestation arises from that."
-Jac O'Keeffe
' Timeless Being and Awareness '...
You must realize first of all that you are the proof
of everything, including yourself.
None can prove
your existence, because his existence must be con-
firmed by you first.
Your being and knowing you owe
nobody.
Remember, you are entirely on your own.
You do not come from somewhere, you do not go
anywhere.
You are timeless being and awareness.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' The soul and mind '...
The soul brings its light from Heaven; the mind acquires its
knowledge from earth. Therefore, when the soul believes readily, the
mind may still doubt.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Belief is natural, and disbelief is unnatural, for belief is born in
man, and unbelief is acquired. ... Every child born on earth is born
with a tendency to believe what is told him, but the experience of
the individual in this world full of falsehood teaches man to
disbelieve. That shows that every soul comes from the world of truth,
and opens his eyes in the world of falsehood. Every child comes into
the world with that purity of heart whose natural tendency is to
believe and later he acquires the tendency to doubt. The Prophet has
therefore said: 'Every child is born a believer, it is afterwards
that he becomes an unbeliever.' ... For doubt is earth-born and
belief is heaven-born.
The tendency to doubt, to be depressed, the tendency towards fear,
suspicion and confusion, the tendency to puzzle -- where does it all
come from? It all comes from the thought of getting something in
return: 'will another give me back what I have given him? Shall I get
the just portion back, or less?' if that is the thought behind one's
acts there will be fear, doubt, suspicion, puzzle and confusion. For
what is doubt? Doubt is a cloud that stands before the sun, keeping
it from shining its light. So is doubt: gathering around the soul it
keeps its light from shining out, and man becomes confused and
perplexed. Once selflessness is developed, it breaks through the
cloud saying, 'What do I care whether anyone appreciates it; I only
know to give my service, and that is all my satisfaction. I do not
look forward to get it back. I have given and it is finished; this is
where my duty ends.' That person is blessed, because he has
conquered, he has won.
Understanding does not depend upon the head; it depends upon the
heart. By the help of the head one can make it more clear, it becomes
intelligible and one can express it better. But to begin with it must
come from the heart, not from the head. Besides, a person who only
uses his head says, 'It must be so because I think it is so', whereas
the person who has the heart quality says, 'It is so because I
believe it to be so'. That is the difference. In one person there is
a doubt, in the other there is conviction. ... Spiritual attainment
is nothing but conviction. ... When a person arrives at the stage
when the knowledge of reality becomes a conviction, then there is
nothing in the world that will change it. And if there is anything to
attain to, it is that conviction which one can never find in the
outside world; it must rise from the depths of one's own heart.
' Mind identification '...
Acceptance of what is immediately,
frees you from mind identification
and thus reconnects you with Being.
Resistance is the mind.
- Eckhart Tolle
' There are many female mystics '...
I keep reading of the male mystics,
but, I also read the words of the female mystics..
In Reality, there is no gender..
But, love is found within many forms..
The main idea of Reality is that Truth is found by many..
The female should not be offended by strength of muscle..
It is only a material object..
Your mind and that of Source is the same..
I will not forget you..
Spend some time within this sphere of Light..
We will know each other..
We will know Truth...
-thomas
' Who is the One Observing ?'...
From the position of observer, take that last step.
Who's the one observing ? Go there.
Who is that ultimate, absolute observer, where 'seeing itself' arises from ?
Let attention rest there.
Let it be ok that nothing has happened.
Let the show be over, let the movie, the story of 'I' as an individual person, be over.
And see what happens.
Truth will reveal itself, absolute clarity of how this matrix works, will show itself to be no more than a matrix.
And somehow, a capacity to enjoy what ever is unfolding is always there.
You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to have good health, you don't have to do it before your body dies, it's got nothing to do with anything :
it's right now, place your attention behind any stories, any concepts.
From there, freedom arises, beauty arises, love arises.
But don't take my word for it, do it.
And prove me wrong, I'd be delighted.
I'll take on that challenge any day.
Do it and find out.
-Jac O'Keeffe
' Paradox '...
Paradox is both the primal and the final truth.
Life, whether we approve of it or not, is like that.
Things are dual and so is man's nature a pairing of negative and positive.
But even more is the entire cosmos itself both real and unreal.
-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea > Chapter 3:
Polarities, Complementaries, Dualities of The Universe > # 1
Paul Brunton
' No sufferer exists '...
"Mere suffering exists,
no sufferer is found;
The deed is,
but no doer of the deed is there;
Nirvana is,
but not the man that enters it;
The Path is,
but no traveler on it is seen."
- Gautama the Buddha
Visuddhi-Magga, XVI
in Paul Carus
Buddha, The Word
' Mandukya Upanishad '...
The Self is not outer awareness, It is not inner awareness, Nor is it the suspension of awareness.
It is not knowing, It is not unknowing, Nor is it knowingness itself It cannot be seen nor grasped, It cannot be contained.
It is beyond all expression and beyond all thought.
It is indefinable.
The only way to know it is to become it.
It is the final resting place of all activity, silent and unchanging, the Supreme Good, One without a second.
It is the Supreme Self It, above all else, should be known.
- Mandukya Upanishad
' Taoism and Dzogchen '...
I want to share with all of us about some insights through thogal practice that have arisen here:
There is a condition of utter clarity and transparency that is absent completely of any sense of there being a perceiver or observer. When seeing trees or clouds for example; there are just vivid trees and clouds with no subject owning the perceptions. It's a moment of total openness with no one in a central position that the visual experiences are occurring to.
Along with that naked perception is the wisdom that no self ever existed as an experiencer of life. There is just life happening, but for no one.
It's like you have a pair of colored glasses that when you put them on, everything is seen through the lenses that color experience and perception as "I am seeing" and "I am experiencing". All perceptions and experiences now seem like "yours". But if you pop the glasses off suddenly, seeing is then taking place minus the sense that "you" are the one seeing, there is just naked perception occurring for no one. That is what Nagarjuna means when he says "the perceiver is an illusion".
Now my point and advice is; the practice of thogal triggers this pure impersonal "seeing" automatically. Then the insights regarding "anatta" or "no self" arise spontaneously. I believe the main cause is the exposure to full sunlight coming into the eyes. Here's why:
To use Taoist yoga theory and terminology; the eyes are pure "yang", the mind and body are completely yin. The sun is the strongest source of pure yang. By flooding sunlight into the eyes the natural yang of the eyes overflows and transforms the yin mind which includes the illusion of a "me-self", into pure yang. That is the moment of authentic rigpa, which Taoists call "Shen". Shen and rigpa are described identically in both systems and in both are located behind and in the eyes.
In Taoism when that process continues further and deeper, all the subtle yin pranas as well as the physical body are fully transformed into pure yang. When the yin physical body is transformed fully into pure yang, which is a pure light of five colors, the physical body vanishes and an indestructible "diamond body" appears as the vehicle or radiant display of one's rigpa consciousness. Hundreds of Taoist adepts are recorded to have achieved this full transformation including Lao Tzu. They are then known as "Immortals". That is the sole purpose and goal of Taoist yoga. From there they go further and transform the "body of light" into Great Emptiness and from Great Emptiness they realize the Tao.
In Dzogchen we would say the karmic (yin) mind and karmic (yin) body are transformed into their essential and primordially pure energies (yang) and light (pure yang). But both systems emphasize sun gazing practices to bring about the full energetic liberation into Original Light.
From the view of quantum bio-physics, we could say thogal or sun gazing triggers a quantum coherent state of consciousness through a massive exposure to quantum photons, that transforms the brain and physical body into a fully quantum coherent state in total synchrony with the quantum awareness state (rigpa). This is when ESP begins to manifest as there is no longer a limit to one's non-local quantum consciousness. The body/mind no longer follows the rules of classical physics but is now fully quantum in nature and function.
-Jackson Peterson
' Escape from Planet Earth '...
It sounds like 'Science Fiction', does it not ?..
Never the less, you find yourself trapped within a human body..
Ever the question, "Why am I here", constantly appears..
Go to the Scholarly Science and Theological Masters,
pay a fee to find Truth, only to find that they do not know..
The Truth is that 'You', have chosen to be here..
There is only 'Thought' or what is called 'Consciousness'..
All other apparitions of matter and dream originate from,
this Creator, This Source..
This constant returning into the Matter of Reincarnation,
without memory, is a sign of ignorance..
You have reached the time to move forward into Reality..
Meditate..
Breathe..
Remember..
Return...
-thomas
' Who owns Reality ?'...
"Nothing that I have belongs to me.
All that I have belongs to you.
What will I lose if I surrender to you
What belongs to you!"
-Kabir
Translated by Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri, Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
American Edition, Vol. 14, p. 5026.
Revised Online Version, p. 4038
' Getting up, early '...
"Nasrudin, my son, get up early in the mornings."
"Why, father?"
"It is a good habit.
Why, once I rose at dawn and went for a
walk.
I found on the road a sack of gold."
"How did you know it was not lost the previous night?"
"That is not the point.
In any case, it had not been there the
night before.
I noticed that."
"Then it isn't lucky for everyone to get up early.
The man who
lost the gold must have been up earlier than you."
-as collected by Idries Shah
' Metaphysics '...
Metaphysics proves the existence of reality but is unable to enter into it.
Indeed, metaphysics must in the end criticize the desert-sand dryness of its own medium of thinking and not make the mistake of regarding thought-activity as the ultimately real, when it is itself only a section cut from the whole of human experience and existence.
The intellect offers a reality which can never be a felt reality but only a described one and then only in negative terms.
Intellectual work can only paint the picture of reality; we have to verify this picture by realizing it within our own experience.
The final office of reasoned thought is to reveal why reason is not competent to judge reality and why thinking is not competent to know reality.
Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation homepage > Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 7:
The Intellect > Chapter 8: Intellect, Reality, and The Overself
Paul Brunton
' Thoughts on a Friday Night '...
" You will be in a world of pain ",
was the catch phrase of the military..
Somehow, these non-philosophers had already figured it out..
In these very thick frequencies of matter,
the third dimension almost looks Real..
Within this Frequency called Dimension,
We sense the suffocation of the weight of matter,
through the process of Pain..
Pain is instilled within this Dimension as a warning alarm..
You must repair that, which feels pain...
-thomas
' What is Anger ?'...
A Saint was asked..
" What is Anger ?"..
He gave a wise answer..
" It is Punishment that we give ourselves,
for someone elses mistake "...
-thomas
' Not seeing others '...
Self-realized people do not see "others."
The
question of others does not arise.
They will
see one thing everywhere;
the others are also
included in that vision of the One.
When you see
the ocean, you have seen all the waters.
There is
no need of seeing different drops.
The "other
people" question will not arise, because they will
be merged together with that Universal Being.
- Swami Krishnananda
Your Questions Answered
Swami Krishnananda
The Divine Life Trust Society, 1995
' Make no interpretations '...
"Look around you without thinking, without conceptualizing.
Make no interpretations, come to no conclusions.
Be in pure perception, pure seeing and pure observing.
Any action arising is spontaneous and there is no choice."
~Jac O'Keeffe
' The Observed becomes One '...
Our earlier division into a dualism of observer and observed must now come to an end.
But let us not make the error of mistaking it for the final stage.
There still lies a path beyond,
a path which leads to the ultimate where both observer and the observed become one.
Paul Brunton
Intellect, Reality, and The Overself
' Virtues and Sins '...
Our virtues are made by love, and our sins caused by the lack of it.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
There is one moral; the love that springs forth from self-denial and blooms in deeds of beneficence.
The orthodox say, 'This is good, that is bad. This is right, that is wrong,' but to a Sufi the source of all good deeds is love. Someone may say that this is the source of bad deeds also, but that is not so; it is lack of love.
Our virtues are made of love, and our sins are caused by lack of it. Love turns sins into virtues, and its lack makes virtues meaningless. Christ said when a woman was brought before Him accused of sin, 'Her sins are forgiven, for she loved much.' Heaven is made so beautiful with love, and life becomes a hell through the lack of it. Love in reality creates harmony in one's life on earth and peace in heaven.
' The Real cannot be stated '...
The Real can never be stated because it can never be thought.
Therefore it is quite clear that ordinary means of knowledge are unable to grasp it.
But such knowledge is not useless.
For if religion can give us a symbolic idea and mysticism an intuitive idea of the Infinite, metaphysical knowledge can give us a rational idea of it.
And to possess such an idea keeps us at least from falling into errors about the reality behind it.
If metaphysics can never perform the task it sets itself--to know reality--it can perform the task of knowing what is not reality.
And such a service is inestimable.
The function of reason is ultimately a negative one; it cannot provide a positive apprehension of the Overself, but it can provide a clear declaration of what It is not.
Reason can demonstrate that the Overself can possess no shape and can in no way be imagined.
-Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation homepage > Notebooks of Paul Brunton > Category 7:
The Intellect > Chapter 8: Intellect, Reality, and The Overself
' Silence Is '...
Silence is —
it does not need our help,
it carries on,
it holds us when we need holding,
it calms us when we need soothing,
it is the ground we stand on
and the space around us.
It is not a state we enter into,
but is there,
as the foundation of every moment,
welcoming us with open arms,
in our joyous moments
and in our agony.
It befriends us
with no preconceived notion
of who and what we are.
It waits patiently for us,
with us, within us.
It is no less part of you
than your fingers or toes.
And as it is part of you,
you cannot lose it —
for it is always with you.
Silence is —
it does not beg for your attention,
nor ask for grand awards.
It is the grand unifier
of all existence,
the fabric of our world.
Silence is —
it is the greatest mystery.
As are you.
You are Silence;
Silence is you.
-by Arielle Nugent.
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