' Already Dead '...
A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead.
It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it.
If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.
-G. I. Gurdjieff
' What Is True ?'...
It is very easy to conform to what your society or your parents and teachers tell you.
That is a safe and easy way of existing;
but that is not living...To live is to find out for yourself what is true.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
' Lastingly Happy '...
“All you want is to be happy.
All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness.
Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong.
It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience.
It is choices you make that are wrong.
To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself.
Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Your True Nature '...
The true spiritual secret is this:
what you seek, you already are.
True success is discovering your inner divinity~
it's the ability to love and have compassion, trust your intuition, and awaken to your unlimited creative nature.
-Deepak Chopra
' None Of These '...
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions,
the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education,
physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history,
belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications.
None of these is you.
-Eckhart Tolle
' The Changeless Witness '...
Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind.
That is enough.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Love Is '...
Love is not sexual intercourse.
Love is not vital attraction and interchange.
Love is not the heart’s hunger for affection.
Love is a mighty vibration coming straight from the One.
And only the very pure and very strong are capable of receiving and manifesting it.
-Mirra Alfassa
' Be Yourself '...
Divine happiness, even the tiniest particle of a grain of it, never leaves one again; and when one attains to the essence of things and finds one's Self-this is supreme happiness.
When it is found, nothing else remains to be found; the sense of want will not awaken anymore, and the heart's torment will be stilled forever.
Do not be satisfied with fragmentary happiness, which is invariably interrupted by shocks and blows of fate; but become complete, and having attained to perfection, be YOURSELF.
-Anandamayi Ma
' The Perfect Lovable '...
You are really in search of yourself, without knowing it.
You are love-longing for the love-worthy, the perfect lovable.
Due to ignorance you are looking for it in the world of opposites and contradictions.
When you find it within, your search will be over.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' If Ego Is Dropped '...
Love and ego cannot go together.
Knowledge and ego go together perfectly well, but love and ego cannot go together, not at all.
They cannot keep company.
They are like darkness and light: if light is there darkness cannot be.
Darkness can only be if light is not there.
If love is not there the ego can be; if love is there the ego cannot be.
And vice versa, if ego is dropped, love arrives from all the directions.
It simply starts pouring in you from everywhere.
-Rajneesh
' Just Be Quiet '...
Don't be too quick to interpret the moment.
Just keep quiet.
My encouragement would always be: never think anything is against you, everything is blessing.
Why should it be different?
Just be quiet.
Let it all work itself out.
-Mooji
' Love is not Selective '...
“Love is not selective, desire is selective.
In love there are no strangers.
When the centre of selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain cease;
one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure intensity,
inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That:
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Where Is The Kingdom Of Peace? '...
My kingdom is not of this world.
If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.
But now my kingdom is from another place.
- Jesus The Christ
' The False '...
“It is always the false that makes you suffer,
the false desires and fears,
the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people.
Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' He Who Climbs '...
He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning,
through beginnings that have no end.
He never stops desiring what he already knows.
–St. Gregory of Nissa
' The Doors of Your Mind '...
Leave your front door and your back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea.
-Shunryu Suzuki
' The Meaning of Life '...
The meaning of life is just to be alive.
It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.
And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
-Alan Watts
' The Highest Understanding '...
The one who follows the thought is also a thought!
The one who follows the thought IS in thought.
When you know that both are thoughts, you are home.
You are not at home, you ARE home.
Then allow thoughts to arise and allow them to be followed.
You remain as That unmoved and unconcerned Being.
This is the highest understanding.
-H. W. L. Poonja
' Christmas By Rumi '...
There is a morning where presence
comes over you, and you sing
like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.
Your heart hears and, no longer frantic,
begins to dance. At that moment
soul reaches total emptiness.
Your heart becomes Mary, miraculously pregnant,
and body, like a two-day-old Jesus,
says wisdom words.
Now the heart turns to light,
and the body picks up the tempo.
Where Shams Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes, and holes
you fall through into space.
-Rumi
' Why are you unhappy? '...
Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 percent, Of everything you think,
And of everything you do, Is for yourself - And there isn’t one.
-Wei Wu Wei
' Concentrated In The Present '...
When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet.
If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own nature.
Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained;
until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Be Audacious '...
You cannot live sheltered forever without being exposed, and at the same time be a spiritual adventurer.
Be audacious.
Be crazy in your own way, with that madness in the eyes of man that is wisdom in the eyes of God.
Take risks, search and search again, search everywhere, in every way, do not let a single opportunity or chance that life offers pass you by, and do not be petty and mean, trying to drive a hard bargain.
-Arnaud Desjardins
' Our True Nature '...
We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness.
When we return to our true nature, our thoughts and perceptions no longer appear as modifications of a single substance, they come into being and subside like waves of the ocean.
-Jean Klein
' The Search Will Be Over '...
You are really in search of yourself, without knowing it.
You are love-longing for the love-worthy, the perfect lovable.
Due to ignorance you are looking for it in the world of opposites and contradictions.
When you find it within, your search will be over.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Embrace Your Values '...
Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words.
Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions.
Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits.
Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values.
Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.
-Mahatma Gandhi
' Ego Veils the Heart '...
The sun can give heat and light to the whole world,
but he cannot do so when the clouds shut out his rays.
Similarly as long as egotism veils the heart,
God cannot shine upon it.
-Ramakrishna
' That Is Enough '...
Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind.
That is enough.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Only One Language '...
There is only one caste...
the caste of humanity.
There is only one religion...
the religion of love.
There is only one language...
the language of the heart.
-Sathya Sai Baba
' Pride of Wealth '...
Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth.
All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye.
Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme.
-Adi Shankara
' The Sense of Duality '...
The sense of duality, which is a barrier to true love, must prevail so long as the apperception of Truth has not occurred.
Once individuality is surrendered, there is only total Love.
-Ramesh S Balsekar
' Infinite Joy '...
The infinite joy of that most wondrous moment awaits you.
by John Smallman
Humanity’s progress towards awakening is quite phenomenal! God’s divine plan is for you to awaken, and it always has been since the moment that you chose to experience an unreal state of separation from Source, the Source with Whom ALL are One. Therefore it is inevitable that you awaken, and all that you can do is choose when this will be by choosing when to open your hearts to let Love enter. Here in the non physical or spiritual realms we are fully aware of the plan and have been observing its progress from the beginning, knowing that it would be totally successful, but we did not fully understand how incredibly rapidly it would be brought to completion. Completion is now very close indeed, far closer than we realized, and for this all of you in form are to be most heartily congratulated! You are all doing phenomenal work.
At this moment much is arising worldwide that is very unsettling for all of humanity, indeed it is very painful and frightening for many of you. Hang in there! You are all, without any exception, most fully and lovingly supported as your awareness of your divine nature intensifies and, along with that, your feelings of unworthiness, of not being good enough, even of being sinners deserving punishment also arise into your conscious awareness. These are thoughts of a negative and very self judging kind that are utterly and completely invalid!
Over the eons, as you have entered and exited the dream of unreality to learn lessons that, with much loving guidance, you had chosen to place on your life paths, you have – of course – made mistakes and errors because that is part of being a human in form, seemingly separated from Source. But they are all unreal! They only seemed to happen, as things do in dreams, and, there in the dream, they do seem totally real, even though they never happen because dreams are unreal. And in Reality they most certainly could never even be imagined let alone happen!
You are all going to remember that you are perfect divine beings, permanently and eternally One with Source, just as you were created. You are Love, and Love is always wholly, utterly, and most joyfully loving of Itself in every moment – in that It is COMPLETE – and as there is nothing other than Love, nothing else is possible. Consequently there can be no blame, disapproval, judgment, or punishment of any kind, because those states are unreal, and thus cannot and do not exist.
What is occurring now is the arising into your awareness of all the seeming mistakes, errors, and sins that it appears that you collectivelycommitted during all of your previous life times in the unreal dream environment that you built for yourselves so very long ago. You have been clinging to them, although they are hidden deep within yourselves – denied, buried out of sight, made invisible and inaccessible – because to acknowledge them would have caused you unhealable and relentless pain and suffering of an order of magnitude so enormous that you firmly believed that it would have destroyed you. Thus you buried it deeply and denied it. However, it was/is UNREAL! Consequently you remain Perfect just as you were created
But because you have you have held all this fear, hatred, resentment, and bitterness buried deep within yourselves it has blocked out Love. When you hold onto any of those feelings you are effectively choosing not to be Love. To be Love means that you totally, utterly, and completely, without any exceptions whatsoever, unconditionally accept and Love yourselves and all sentient beings. But when you attempt to set conditions for being Love, for offering Love, for being loving, you are blocking It out because there is no such thing as conditional Love, there is only Love!
The awakening process is the arising into your conscious human awareness of all these sins and errors it seems you have collectively committed over the eons so that you may acknowledge them, realize that they are unreal, that in Reality – your eternal state of joyful existence – they never happened and never could happen, and in that full awareness release those overriding and utterly invalid feelings of shame, guilt, and unworthiness.
How could even one of you, who are all without exception of any kind, the perfect divine creations of God – the beloved children of God, Beings of infinite perfection created like unto that Source, which is LOVE – be in any way unworthy of the Love from which and in which you were created?
Being One with God you are perfect, and therefore all that you have to do is to let go of any sense of guilt or shame, and allow your hearts, which are always totally worthy of Love, to open to receive It, delight in It, and share It with all with whom you interact in any way at all. Doing just that brings all to awakening, to full remembrance, and to full participation in the Oneness that is God. The infinite joy of that most wondrous moment awaits you.
-Your loving brother, Jesus.
' Silence Is Essential '...
Silence is essential.
We need silence just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light.
If our minds are crowded with words and thoughts, there is no space for us.
-Nhat Hanh
' Anger '...
Anger or bitterness toward those who have hurt you will block your path to higher ground.
You can have anger toward people or you can have freedom from people, but you can't have both.
-Vernon Howard
' A Projection of Your Psyche '...
“Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization.
You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened - at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling.
There is only one mistake you are making:
you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner.
What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you.
The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate.
You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche.
That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right!
You have to think yourself out of it.
There is no other way.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks
' Death and Reincarnation '...
Don't depend on death to liberate you from your imperfections.
You are exactly the same after death as you were before.
Nothing changes; you only give up the body.
If you are a thief or a liar or a cheater before death, you don't become an angel merely by dying.
If such were possible, then let us all go and jump in the ocean now and become angels at once!
Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be hereafter.
And when you reincarnate, you will bring that same nature with you.
To change, you have to make the effort.
This world is the place to do it.
-Paramahansa Yogananda
' The Foundation of Yoga '...
In the mirror of your mind all kinds of pictures appear and disappear.
Knowing that they are entirely your own creations, watch them silently come and go.
Be alert, but not perturbed.
This attitude of silent observation is the very foundation of yoga.
You see the picture, but you are not the picture.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' To Seek Spirit '...
The very desire to seek spiritual enlightenment is in fact nothing but the grasping tendency of the ego itself, and thus the very search for enlightenment prevents it.
The 'perfect practice' is therefore not to search for enlightenment but to inquire into the motive for seeking itself.
You obviously seek in order to avoid the present, and yet the present alone holds the answer:
to seek forever is to miss the point forever.
You always already are enlightened Spirit, and therefore to seek Spirit is simply to deny Spirit.
-Ken Wilber
' What You Worship '...
The meaning of your life depends on which ideas you permit to use you.
Who you think you are determines where you put your attention.
Where you direct your attention creates your life experiences, and brings a new course of events into being.
Where you habitually put your attention is what you worship.
What do you worship in this mindstream called your life?
-Gangaji
' Who am I ? '...
The question 'Who am I?'
is not really meant to get an answer,
the question 'Who am I?'
is meant to dissolve the questioner.
-Ramana Maharshi
' True Self-analysis '...
Millions of people never analyze themselves.
Mentally they are mechanical products of the factory of their environment, preoccupied with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, working and sleeping, and going here and there to be entertained.
They don't know what or why they are seeking, nor why they never realize complete happiness and lasting satisfaction.
By evading self-analysis, people go on being robots, conditioned by their environment.
True self-analysis is the greatest art of progress.
-Paramahansa Yogananda
' Happiness Is Your Nature '...
Happiness is your nature.
It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.
-Ramana Maharshi
' The Imaginary as Imaginary '...
Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it.
You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination!
However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it.
Realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real.
See the imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Law of Spirit '...
It is the law of Spirit that we must be that which we would draw to us.
If we would draw to us love, we must be love, be loving and kind;
if we would have peace and harmony in our environment,
we must establish it within ourselves.
-Charles Fillmore
' The Birth of Spirit '...
Never the spirit was born,
the spirit shall cease to be never.
Changeless the spirit remains,
Birthless and deathless forever.
-Emma Curtis Hopkins
' Our Freedom '...
Our Freedom can be measured by the number of things we can walk away from.
-Vernon Howard
' The Experience is Necessary '...
There is nothing but water in the holy pools.
I know, I have been swimming in them.
All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word
I know, I have been crying out to them.
The sacred Books of the east are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through.
If you have not lived through something it is not true.
- Kabir
' To Be Everything '...
It's dangerous
to be something;
it's foolish
to be nothing;
it's wise
to be everything.
- Swami Amar Jyoti
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
" Why, that's Me ! "...
Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention
to this and that, there is another self more really us
than I.
And the more you become aware of the unknown
self -- if you become aware of it -- the more you realize
that it is inseparably connected with everything else that
is.
You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the
Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies.
You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great
telescopes.
You look and look, and one day you are going
to wake up and say, "Why, that's me!" And in knowing that,
you know that you never die.
You are the eternal thing that
comes and goes, that appears -- now as John Jones, now
as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown -- and so it goes,
forever and ever and ever.
- Alan Watts
' Weapons '...
Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.
Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.
On happy occasions precedence is given to the left.
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left.
The commander-in-chief on the right.
This means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.
- Lao-tzu
' Death '...
Death is not extinguishing the light;
it is putting
out the lamp because dawn has come.
- Rabindranath Tagore
' God's Will '...
Does the God really has a will?
To make it simpler... does the Absolute Reality really has a will?
To make it even simpler... ...does the Absolute Reality think?
Can you have a will without thinking?
- adithya_comming
' Concentration and Contemplation '...
Concentration and contemplation are great things; but no contemplation is greater than the life we have about us every day.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
As one goes further in the soul's unfoldment one finally arrives at the stage of revelation. Life begins to reveal itself, the whole of life, each soul becomes communicative -- not only living beings but each thing. They say that the twelve apostles knew all languages. It does not mean that they knew English, French and Italian, but that they knew every soul's language, as every soul has its own separate language. They began to perceive vibrations and so every evolved soul will feel the vibrations of every other soul, and every condition, every soul, every object in the world will reveal its nature and character to him. Sa'di, the Persian poet, has said, 'Once a soul has begun to read, every leaf of the tree becomes as a page of the sacred book of life'.
A keen observation of life in time awakens us to the fact that when once the light is thrown upon life, life begins to reveal itself. As Sa'adi has said, 'Even the leaves of the tree become as pages of the sacred book once the eyes of the heart are open.'
Anyone who has some knowledge of mysticism and of the lives of the mystics knows that what always attracts the mystic most is nature. Nature is his bread and wine. Nature is his soul's nourishment. Nature inspires him, uplifts him and gives him the solitude for which his soul continually longs. Every soul born with a mystical tendency is constantly drawn towards nature. In nature that soul finds its life's demand, as it is said in the Vadan, 'Art is dear to my heart, but nature is near to my soul.'...
From the moment man's eyes open and he begins to read the book of nature he begins to live; and he continues to live forever.
' Attachment '...
If you students of the Way wish to become Buddhas,
you need study no
doctrines whatever,
but learn only how to avoid seeking for and
attaching yourselves to anything.
- Huang Po
' Wonder and Grief '...
"Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief.
The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat.
The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger.
In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful."
-- Mark Nepo, Inside the Miracle:
Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness
' We Have Forgotten '...
We walk for eighty years and fear the future..
We walk in a consciousness of up and down, in and out, positive and negative..
We are Dreaming of Duality..
We have forgotten Reality..
How could We forget Love?..
But, in Duality, we have drunk the liquid of forgetfulness..
To Dream, We are the Dreamer, but We have chosen to enter the Film..
How does it feel, to be an Actor?..
It does not feel correct, does it ?..
An Actor experiences non-reality through determination..
Surrender this Actor called Ego..
Light and Eternity keeps asking,
"where did You go?'...
-thomas
' Cup And Ocean '...
Cup and Ocean
These forms we seem to be are cups floating in an ocean
of living consciousness.
They fill and sink without leaving an arc of bubbles or
any good-bye spray. What we
are is that ocean, too near to see, though we swim in it
and drink it in.. Don’t
be a cup with a dry rim, or someone who rides all night
and never knows the horse
beneath his thighs, the surging that carries him along.
- Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi”
HarperCollins, 2001
' What Is A Person ? '...
There is no such thing as a person.
There are only restrictions and
limitations.
The sum total of these defines the person.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
' The Great Peace '...
In the world you will find only two kinds of people--the unconscious and the conscious.
The first kind know only their own little egos and their own large desires.
The second kind know continually that they are in the presence of the Overself, and enjoy its great peace.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2:
Enlightenment Which Stays > # 152 Paul Brunton
' No Above And No Below '...
Does God command or does Love have no demands?..
A young nazarite once said; " I and the Father are One"..
There is no above and below..
We walk through pages and thees' and 'thou' appear and our minds return to a young man in the desert that surrenders his life and egoic desires..
Therefore, returning to Source..
Forty days of pain and then Reality appears..
But, we continue to walk through pages and hope that this magic book will give us the gift of Freedom...
-thomas
' Fear As Power '...
Not the Creator of the Dream, but the controllers of the Dream need 'Fear' as a power source..
This is why 'Fear' is presented to your consciousness by the Media, twenty-four hours a day..
The controllers of the Dream control all systems of power within this Dream..
You are experiencing the 'Duality' of this Dream..
You that are Awake, are understanding these words..
Although, this Dream is an illusion, the ego feels the pain of materiality..
But, You that are Awake, remain the Observer of this Duality..
The Energy of non-egoic desire is called Love..
The Energy of Fear is called egoic-desire..
Is it now becoming more clear?..
You are Consciousness looking into a reverse mirror..
-thomas
' To Master Yoga '...
It is not enough to master yoga,
as this term is ordinarily understood.
Something beyond it is also needed.
Hence one of the texts belonging to this teaching,
the Lankavatara Sutra,
says of those who have perfected themselves in yoga:
"When they reach the eighth degree they become so drunk with the bliss of inner peace that they do not grasp that they are still in the sphere of separateness and that their insight into reality is not yet perfect."
-- Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives > Chapter 2:
Phases of Mystical Development > # 238 Paul Brunton
' Stop the Noise '...
Deafened by the voice of desire you are unaware
the Beloved lives in the core of your heart.
Stop the noise, and you will hear His voice in the silence.
-Rumi
' Awareness of Consciousness '...
“I see You, Every time I look into Buddha’s eyes.
I give myself to You.
Every time I alter one of Your 1,000s names.
Honestly & fully I love You.
Through Christ and Maria, Shiva and Shakti, Krishna and Radha, With every day that passes and every breath I take.
I enter gratitude for receiving Your Love.
Obeying Your Laws of Truthfulness and Ahimsa, Weaving Prana With hearts and souls of Gaia.
Through mysticism, shamanism, sufism, and ecstatic meditations.
I yearn to touch You, to feel You, to be You.
Within this amazing Journey of Awareness of Your Consciousness.”
― Natasa Pantovic Nuit, Tree of Life with Spiritual Poetry
' Don't Feel Bad '...
“Don’t feel bad about feeling bad.
Don’t be frightened of feeling afraid.
Don’t be angry about getting angry.
There is no need to give up when we are feeling depressed.
Nor should we be dismayed at the grief which often accompanies the outgrowing of anything which needs outgrowing.
We can be glad that our soul is speaking to us and pushing us onwards.
We frequently need to persevere with a period of inner turmoil before the dust can settle and be swept out the door.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion
' Light Noticed '...
“It is impossible for light not to get noticed,
especially in the dark.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo
' Seeds of Mind '...
. "There are two types of seeds in the mind:
those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy.
Spirituality is germination and sprouting of the second group and transforming the first group."
― Amit Ray.
' The Character Choice '...
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
' No One Saves '...
“No one saves us but ourselves.
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path.”
― Gautama the Buddha
' Peel the Potatoes '...
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking
about God while one is peeling potatoes.
Zen
spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
- Alan Watts
' Love and Ego '...
We speak of opposites in this world of Duality..
Ego is the prisoner pretending to be You..
Love is the Self not hiding..
The Mind tells You that it is master..
Love answers; "there is no master, there is only Truth"..
A master requires ego,
Truth only requires Consciousness..
In the end of seeking,
The seeker dissolves into Love..
Love is without ego and is called Freedom...
- thomas
' This Mind '...
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
' The Pain of Fear '...
Speaking of Fear '...
We, the seekers of Knowledge, speak of fear..
Where is the source of your fear?..
It is the source of ego death..
It is the pain of the non existence of Consciousness..
It is both..
It is the imaginary you, that desires happiness forever..
You believe, that happiness only exists within existence..
Whether this existence, is life or God..
Who is the one, that seeks happiness?
If there is happiness, then, there must be unhappiness..
Who experiences each?
In Pure Intelligence, neither is needed..
As there is no ego or identity to feel either..
- thomas
' Give Everything to Receive Everything '...
Paul Brunton speaks of Grace and my mind returns to a forest..
I sit beneath a tree and think of Gautama doing the same thing..
I will not move or seek water or food until I discover Truth..
And yet, within a half hour of meditation, a wind of Love knocks me to the ground..
Grace has entered this Dream and taken Me, Home..
The only egoic consciousness that does exist within Reality is that of Creator God..
And yet, I am not frightened, because only Love exists within this space..
I am Love and feel the wind of Love and Knowledge flow through my Being..
And yet, I speak to a Higher Creator within this Light..
We do not call each other by name and yet We have known each other for eternity..
But yet, when I ask my Father to tell Me of the Final Reality, His Voice is silent..
Nothingness has no voice and yet speaks to Me...
-thomas
' You Are Nothing '...
The truth of your own nature, the mystics all testify, is that you are nothing, which reveals that you are everything.
In your deepest essence, you are identical with God or ultimate reality.
Your real Life is the birthless and deathless Life of God, and the Life of God embraces the whole of creation.
But as long as your identity is centered in the limited life of the ego, you cannot live in full consciousness of this Life.
Thus, you must die to your self-centered life in order to awaken into the Life of God.
As Rumi says, “You want Reality unmasked? Choose death!
Not the death that drags you to the tomb—the death that is a transmutation, so you at last change into the Light” (Rumi, Odes).
Or, as Jesus says, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:25-26).
Thus, the genuine mystic lives in and as God only insofar as the life in and as the ego is dead.
It is the ego’s delusion of grandeur that imagines you can escape suffering and attain immortality, when in fact your life centered in the ego must be completely sacrificed in the mystical death.
Any teacher or teaching that is not clear about this just feeds the ego’s propensity for megalomania and self-deception.
The genuine mystical path involves the perpetual surrender and sacrifice of all self-centered egoistic activity, up to and including the complete sacrifice of ego-centered life itself.
Thus all genuine mysticism teaches the cultivation of selflessness, love, and compassion...
-from integralscience.org
' The Pot is Demolished '...
Just as the difference between the space in a pot and the space outside it disappears when the pot is demolished,
so also does duality disappear when it is realized that the difference between the individual consciousness and the
Universal Consciousness does not in fact exist.
- Ramesh Balsekar
' The Thoughtful Control of Mind '...
Those who have given deep thoughts to the world are those who have controlled the activity of their minds.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
He is thoughtful whose mind is directed by his will, whose mind fulfills his intentions, whose mind is under the control of his intention. ... Only those who have controlled the activity of their minds have given deep thoughts to the world. Those whose minds are working mechanically like a machine, or just reflecting the activity of those around them, may appear to be living beings, but the mystic would say differently; for it is not till a person has gained mastery over his mind, till he is above this activity, that he is a ruling power, a true person.
When we think about it, we find that all the things that are accomplished in this world are accomplished by the power of mind. ... Whatever man creates in science, in art, in phenomena or wonder making, in poetry, in music, in pictures, in everything that he brings into being, is all achieved by the power of mind. ... If he does not control his mind, he is not a master but a slave. It lies with his own mind whether he shall be master, or whether he shall be slave. He is slave when he neglects to be master; he is master if he cares to be master.
Mastery lies not merely in stilling the mind, but in directing it towards whatever point we desire, in allowing it to be active as far as we wish, in using it to fulfill our purpose, in causing it to be still when we want to still it. He who has come to this has created his heaven within himself; he has no need to wait for a heaven in the hereafter, for he has produced it within his own mind now.
People pursue spirituality with their brain: that is where they are mistaken. Spirituality is attained through the heart. What do I mean by the heart? Is it the nervous center in the midst of the breast, the small piece of flesh that doctors call the heart? No, the definition of the heart is that it is the depth of the mind, the mind being the surface of the heart. That in us which feels is the heart, that which thinks is the mind. It is the same thing which thinks and feels, but the direction is different: feeling comes from the depth, thought from the surface. When thought is not linked with feeling it is just like a plant rising up from the earth, the root of which has not gone deep. A thought without feeling is a powerless thought; it is just like a plant without a deep root. A tree the root of which has gone deep into the earth is stronger, more reliable, and so the thought deeply rooted in the heart has greater power.
' Beyond The Dream '...
You are Consciousness and yet You allow You to suffer..
The material plane is filled with the suffering of starvation of body and mind..
Why have We entered into this dense light film..
This is a Hologram..
We feel our skin and say, "this man is a liar"..
The atoms dance as you speak of delusion..
After all, It is only a dream..
Why do you grieve?..
We are 'Thought'..
We will continue to 'Dream', when this one is over...
- thomas
' The Two Paths '...
Contradictions between the two Paths: one is the ego and the other the Overself without ego.
The Short Path is without plane, intuitive, like Sudden Enlightenment.
On the Long Path they are looking step by step to get out of the darkness of their ignorance.
The next important point: on the Long Path many students want experiences--mystical, occult, psychical ones.
It is the ego wanting them and the satisfaction of progressing.
The ego feels important.
In the Short Path there is no desire for inner experiences of any kind.
When you are already in the Real, there is no desire any more.
For experiences come and go, but the Real does not.
Now you see why the popular religions are only attempts to get people to make a beginning to find God, but are not able to go too far and too quickly.
For those who are more developed and less bound to attachments, the teacher gives the Short Path.
In the teachings of Jesus and Buddha we find both Paths.
People have different stages of evolution and can therefore take what suits them.
The teacher gives them what they understand from their level of understanding.
-Paul Brunton
' Inquiry '...
Inquiry is making the mind abide firm in the Self,
until the false ego, illusion's seed, has perished.
The Self, our Being, is Awareness.
- Ramana Maharshi
' Let Go '...
All of your ideas, all of your concepts, they’ve
all got to go.
There has to be only silence,
quietness and everything will take care of itself..
Let go of everything.
- Robert Adams
Silence of the Heart
Dialogues with Robert Adams
Edited by The Infinity Institute
Acropolis Books, 1999
' The Non-Reality of Time '...
While within the First Reality of Light,
the word 'time' appears within Consciousness.
I look at this word and do not understand why it stands before Me..
This creature called Time does not exist within My World..
And yet, within this Dream, Time is a Tyrant..
How still and easy is the Spirit..
I look around and see only Light..
A Generator of Love Energy emits from My Being and enters the Circuit of Love Flow..
I am connected to Reality..
Wisdom flows along this circuit of Consciousness..
An old Friend appears and speaks to You..
You converse of Love and Forgiveness..
The 'Golden Rule' enters the conversation..
How strange, that the primitve Knowledge is the most important...
-thomas
' The Presence '...
“May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing that you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, danse, praise and love.
It is there for each and everyone of you.”
- Saint Teresa of Ávila
' The Short Path to Reality '...
Most people who start the short path have usually had a glimpse of the Overself, because otherwise they find it too difficult to understand what the short path is about.
The long path, through its studies and practices, is the period of preparation for the advanced quest. It is called the long path because there is much work to be done on it and much development of character and emotions to go through. After some measure of this preparation the aspirants enter the short path to complete this work.
This takes a comparatively much shorter time and, as it has the possibility of yielding the full self-enlightenment at any moment, it ends suddenly.
What they are trying to do on the long path continues by itself once they have entered fully on the short path.
On the long path they are concerned with the personal ego and as a result give the negative thoughts their attention. On the short path they refuse to accept these negatives and instead look to the Overself. Thus the struggles will disappear.
This change of attitude is called "voiding" them. The moment such negative ideas and feelings appear, then instead of using the long path method of concentrating on the opposite kind of thought, such as calmness instead of anger, the short path way simply drops the negative idea into the Void, the Nothingness, and forgets it.
Now such a change can only be brought about by doing it quickly and firmly and turning to the Overself. Constant remembrance of the Overself has to be done all the way through the short path.
The long path works on the ego; but the short path uses the result of that work, which prepared them to come into communion with the Overself and become receptive to its presence, which includes its grace.
In order to understand the short path, it might be helpful to compare it to the long path which consists of a series of exercises and efforts which gradually develops concentration and character and knowledge. But the long path does not lead to the goal. On the long path you often measure your own progress. It is an endless path because there will always be new circumstances which bring new temptations and trials and confront the aspirant with new challenges.
No matter how spiritual the ego becomes it does not enter the whitest light, but remains in the greyish light.
On the long path you must deal with the urges of interference arising from the lower self and the negativity which enters from the surrounding environment. But the efforts on the long path will at last invoke the grace, which opens the perspective of the short path.
- Paul Brunton
' It's God '...
So really what it comes down to, it's God.
Wherever you look, it's God
appearing as this, that, and what you really love and appreciate in each form
is the divine formless out of which each form comes.
But to be able to sense
that you have to sense it in yourself first.
And that is seeing the beauty in
everything, that's really what it means.
~Eckhart Tolle
' The Authentic Mystical Experience '...
There is only one way to settle his question of whether the Overself exists and that is the very way most moderns refuse to accept.
Each must gain for himself the authentic mystical experience.
Sugar can really be known only by its sweet taste,
the Overself only by opening the doors of the mind to consciousness of its presence.
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 3:
The Overself's Presence > # 437 Paul Brunton
' Life is the Same '...
Life is the same for the Saint and for Satan;
and, if they are different,
it is because of their
outlook on life.
The one turns the same life
into Heaven and the other into Hell.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mastery Through Accomplishment
Omega Press, 1978
' Love Contains No Self '...
The egoic preachers of religion will lead you into the trap of dimensions and the re-entry into reincarnation..
Most mystical teachers will lead you to the First Reality called Divine Consciousness, known to human souls as the Creator God..
You are, of course, shocked that You are the Creator God..
This belief in separation called ego and God are the reason that You are trapped within Dreams..
I tell you many times of your identity but unless You experience Reality, you will remain in wonder..
But, when You learn of the Final Reality, You will remain Dreaming of Creations..
You will fear the loss of Self..
As Jesus said, You must give all to be Born..
And what is All?..
All desires of existence is All..
Pure Awareness is called Love and is Home,
and contains no Self...
-thomas
' Unlimited Self '...
We cannot legitimately assert with the mind that Consciousness is limitless. That is going too far with the mind.
Although mind can know nothing of Consciousness yet, at the same time, all that is known through mind, is the Knowingness of Consciousness.
Unlimited Consciousness cannot frame or define itself within the limits of mind, although everything that appears in the mind is its expression.
However, the mind can explore its experience and can come to the conclusion that it has no evidence that Consciousness is personal or limited.
That is as far as the mind can go. We make this investigation and come to the understanding that there is no experiential evidence of a separate, personal, limited Consciousness.
In coming to this deep conviction, we open ourselves to another possibility, the possibility that there is only one Consciousness. We explore and experiment with this new possibility in our lives, and it is the response we get from the world in actual experience, that is the confirmation of this possibility.
As this conviction becomes deeper and deeper, so the confirmation from the world becomes more and more obvious.
Everything falls into place.
Like a landscape that appears very gradually out of the mist without our doing anything to bring it about, so it becomes more and more obvious, without our doing anything about it, that we, Consciousness, has only ever been experiencing its own unlimited Self and that the experience of the world is the revelation of its own infinite and eternal Being.
-Rupert Spira
' No Opposition '...
To divide and particularize is in the mind's
very nature. There is no harm in dividing.
But separation goes against fact.
Things
and people are different, but they are not
separate. Nature is one, reality is one.
There are opposites, but no opposition.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' Fear as Power '...
Not the Creator of the Dream, but the controllers of the Dream need 'Fear' as a power source..
This is why 'Fear' is presented to your consciousness by the Media, twenty-four hours a day..
The controllers of the Dream control all systems of power within this Dream..
You are experiencing the 'Duality' of this Dream..
You that are Awake, are understanding these words..
Although, this Dream is an illusion, the ego feels the pain of materiality..
But, You that are Awake, remain the Observer of this Duality..
The Energy of non-egoic desire is called Love..
The Energy of Fear is called egoic-desire..
Is it now becoming more clear?..
You are Consciousness looking into a reverse mirror..
-thomas
' All Ways Are Individual '...
There is no single path to enlightenment.
Yoga has no monopoly.
Life itself is the great enlightener.
I met a man once who, after the shock of hearing his wife tell him that she had ceased to love him, that she had for some time had a secret lover, and that she requested a divorce so as to be able to marry him, felt a collapse of all his hitherto confidently held values and beliefs.
For some days he was so affected that he could not eat.
But his mind by then had become so extraordinarily lucid concerning these matters and himself, that he experienced moments of truth.
Through them he came into a great peace and understanding, an inner change. What was the morning sun which awakened him?
He did no yogic exercises, entered no churches, was too intent on his worldly business to read spiritual books.
This brings me back to the theme: do not submit to the pressure of those who say there is only a single way to salvation (the way they follow or teach), do not let the mind be trammelled or narrowed.
The truth is that the ways are many, are spread out in all directions, are individual.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest >
Chapter 5: Self-Development > # 209 Paul Brunton
' Self-Interest '...
"Self-interest, caused by low selfish desire, is the root cause of contemporary world chaos and individual misery.
"My manifestation will embrace the economic, social and religious aspects of life. It will spiritualize all human activities in art, science, music, politics and drama. In the near future a great universal drama will be enacted, the theme of which will be pure love, selfless service. I will play the leading part in this world-awakening drama.
"The unfoldment of life and consciousness for the whole Avataric cycle, which has been mapped out in the creative world before the Avatar took form, is endorsed and fixed in the formative and material worlds during the Avatar's life on earth."
-Meher Baba
in Treasures from the Meher Baba Journals
Compiled & Edited by Jane Barry Haynes
Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Press, 1980, p. 73
' Nothing To Attain '...
Life is not a task.
There is absolutely nothing
to attain except the realization that there is
absolutely nothing to attain.
- Tony Parsons
"As It Is" - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening
Tony Parsons
Inner Directions Publishing, 2000
' Tyrants Aways Fall '...
When I despair, I remember that all through
history the ways of truth and love have always
won.
There have been tyrants, and murderers,
and for a time they can seem invincible, but in
the end they always fall.
Think of it - always.
- Mahatma Gandhi
' The Tao '...
Look, it cannot be seen -- it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard -- it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held -- it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark;
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.
- Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
' The Natural Consequences of Life '...
While man rejoices over his rise and sorrows over his fall, the wise man takes both as the natural consequences of life.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
It makes no difference to me if I am so praised that I am raised from earth to heaven, nor if I am so blamed that I am thrown from the greatest heights to the depths of the earth. Life to me is an ever-moving sea in which the waves of favor and disfavor constantly rise and fall.
In sorrow one may look to God, and in joy one may thank Him. One does not bemoan the past, nor worry about the future; one tries only to make the best of today. One should know no failure, for even in a fall there is a stepping-stone to rise; but to the Sufi the rise and fall matter little. One does not repent for what one has done, since one thinks, says, and does what one means. One does not fear the consequences of performing one's wish in life, for what will be, will be.
What will rise must fall, and what will fall must rise. Rise and fall are natural to life. No rise is permanent, or fall lasting. It is reality behind it all which is steady and dependent. ... Life is one living stream, continually running without beginning or end. Death is man's illusion. The change that hides man's existence from him he calls death. Life is still, but its flow, which is ever-moving, rises and fall in waves; it is this that created an illusion of rise and fall. All this we see is the manifestation of one Spirit in many and varied forms.
' The Unlimited is Perfect '...
Unless you know yourself well, how can you know another?
And when you know yourself, you are the other. (429)
The limited only is perfectible.
The unlimited is already perfect.
You are perfect, only you don't know it.
Learn to know yourself and you will discover wonders. (413)
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
' To the Short Path '...
The Long Path gives many benefits and bestows many virtues but it does not give the vision of truth,
the realization of the Overself, nor does it bestow Grace.
For these things we must turn to the Short Path.
-Paul Brunton
' Serapion '...
"One of the monks, called Serapion, sold his book of the Gospels and gave the money to those who were hungry,
saying:
I have sold the book that told me to sell all that I had and give it to the poor."
-Thomas Merton
The Wisdom of the Desert, XXXIV
New York: New Directions, 1970, p. 37
copyright Abbey of Gethsemane 1960
' The Glorious Real '...
Aim high, aim at the highest, and all lower aims are
thereby achieved.
It is looking below on the stormy
sea of differences that makes you sink.
Look up,
beyond these and see the One Glorious Real, and
you are saved.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
' The Way Things Are '...
If you look for the truth outside yourself,
it gets farther and farther away.
Today, walking alone,
I meet him everywhere I step.
He is the same as me,
yet I am not him.
Only if you understand it in this way
will you merge with the way things are.
- Tung-shan
' In Harmony '...
Even the poorest thing shines...
My daily affairs are quite ordinary;
but I'm in total harmony with them.
I don't hold on to anything, don't reject anything;
- Layman P'ang
' Health And Joy '...
With repeated meditation practice
the expanse of the visible universe
with all its qualities dissolves
to nothing, to where there is
only health and great joy.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
' HE IS IT '...
For enlightenment to happen the perceiver must turn right around and wake up to the fact that he is face to face with his own nature - that HE IS IT.
The spiritual seeker ultimately finds that he was already at the destination,
that he himself IS what he had been seeking and he was in fact already home.
-Ramesh Balsekar
' Self Deception '...
Self deception..
The ego declares that it is Reality..
But, you have been walking a long time and know better..
The media will tell you what you are..
But, you have been awake a long time..
The soul is an object of awareness..
Being a slave within the material has become normal..
To desire the material is a trap of reincarnation..
The circle of slavery..
To leave all desires is Freedom..
What are you waiting for ?...
-thomas
' The Religion of Love '...
"O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
that is my religion and my faith."
-Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi
'Tarjuman al-Ashwaq'
Theosophical Publishing House, 1911. Poem XI
' Who Is Brahman ?'...
Om.
Manas (mind) is said to be of two kinds, the pure and the impure. That which is associated with the thought of desire is the impure, while that which is without desire is the pure.
To men, their mind alone is the cause of bondage or emancipation. That mind which is attracted by objects of sense tends to bondage, while that which is not so attracted tends to emancipation.
Now inasmuch as to a mind without a desire for sensual objects there is stated to be salvation, therefore an aspirant after emancipation should render his mind ever free from all longing after material objects.
When a mind freed from the desires for objects and controlled in the heart attains the reality of Âṭmâ, then is it in the Supreme Seat. Till that which arises in the heart perishes, till then it (Manas) should be controlled.
This only is (true) wisdom. This only is true Ḍhyâna (meditation). Other ways are but long or tedious. It (Brahman) is not at all one that can be contemplated upon.
It is not one that cannot be contemplated upon. It is not capable of contemplation, (and yet) it should be contemplated upon.
Then one attains Brahman that is devoid of partiality.
Yoga should be associated with Swara (sound, accent). (Brahman) should be meditated upon without Swara.
By meditating without Swara upon Brahman, that which is cannot become non-existent.
Such a Brahman is partless, devoid of fancy and quiescent (or free from the action of mind).
Whoever cognizes "I" to be that Brahman
p. 35.....Thirty Minor Upanishads,
by K. Narayanasvami Aiyar, [1914],
' There Are None Liberated '...
The scriptures even proclaim aloud:
"There is in
truth no creation and no destruction; no one is bound,
no one is seeking Liberation, no one is on the way to
Deliverance.
There are none liberated.
This is the
absolute truth.
" My dear disciple, this, the sum and
substance of all the Upanishads, the secret of secrets,
is my instruction to you."
- Shankaracharya
"Teachings of the Hindu Mystics"
Edited by Andrew Harvey
' The Battle of Life '...
The final victory in the battle of life for every soul is when he has risen above the things which once he most valued.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The final victory in the battle of life for every soul is when he has abandoned, which means when he has risen above, what once he valued most. For the value of everything exists for man only so long as he does not understand it. When he has fully understood, the value is lost, be it the lowest thing or the highest thing. It is like looking at the scenery on the stage and taking it for a palace. Such is the case with all things of the world; they seem important or precious when we need them or when we do not understand them; as soon as the veil which keeps man from understanding is lifted, then they are nothing.
Do not, therefore, be surprised at the renunciation of sages. Perhaps every person in the spiritual path must go through renunciation. It is not really throwing things away or disconnecting ourselves from friends; it is not taking things to heart as seriously as one naturally does by lack of understanding. No praise, no blame is valuable; no pain or pleasure is of any importance. Rise and fall are natural consequences, so are love and hatred; what does it matter if it be this or that? It matters so long as we do not understand. Renunciation is a bowl of poison no doubt, and only the brave will drink it; but in the end it alone proves to be nectar, and this bravery brings one the final victory.
The real spirit of renunciation is willingness; and willing renunciation comes when one has risen above the thing one renounces. The value of each thing in life -- wealth, power, position, possession -- is according to the evolution of man. There is a time in his life when toys are his treasures, and there is a time when he puts them aside; there is a time in his life when copper coins are everything to him, and there is another time when he can give away gold coins; there is a time in his life when he values a cottage, and there is a time when he gives up a palace. Things have no value; their value is as man makes it; and at every step in his evolution he changes their value.
' The Separation of Me '...
"When you identify with a thought, that creates a fixed position in time and space—like a star in the night sky.
As you identify with more thoughts, you create more fixed positions, until you have an entire constellation of ideas and beliefs.
The lines of that constellation continue to grow and overlap, creating something that begins to look solid, like an object.
Those fixed points create an illusion of an individual 'me,' with its own boundaries separating it from the whole.”
-Mukti, Fly Free
' Patience and Perseverance '...
Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing,
a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering,
and a strength which is rock-like.
But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.
-- Notebooks Category 10: Healing of the Self > Chapter 5: The Healing Power of The Overself > # 97
-- Perspectives > Chapter 10: Healing of the Self > # 34 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.
-Rumi
' In This Form '...
"Not through study of the Vedas, not through austerity,
Not through gifts, and not through sacrifice
Can I be seen in this form
As you have beheld Me.
By undistracted [one-pointed] devotion [bhakti] alone
Can I be known,
And be truly seen in this form,
And be entered into, Arjuna."
-Krishna
Bhagavad Gita, 11:53:54
Twenty-Fifth-Anniversary Edition
Translated by Winthrop Sargeant
Albany: SUNY Press, 2009, p. 505-506
' Thought Power '...
Every soul has its domain in life, consisting of all it possesses and of all who belong to it.
This
domain is as wide as the width of the soul's influence;
it is so to speak a mechanism that works by the thought power of each individual soul.
From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN
' You are not a person '...
Being the source of both, the self is beyond both
knowledge and power. The observable is in the mind.
The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure
witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence
of knowledge or liking.
Have your being outside this body of birth and death
and all your problems will be solved.
They exist because
you believe yourself born to die.
Undeceive yourself and
be free.
You are not a person.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' The Lover of this World '...
The lover of this world is like someone in love
with a wall illuminated by sunrays;
he doesn't
realise that the radiance and the splendor do
not come from the wall but from the sun;
he gives
his heart to the wall and when at sunset the rays
of sun disappear, he is in despair.
- Rumi
Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
' Wisdom is Learned, Gradually '...
Wisdom can only be learned gradually, and every soul is not ready to receive or to understand the complexity of the purpose of life.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Man likes complexity. He does not want to take only one step; it is more interesting to look forward to millions of steps. The man who is seeking the truth gets into a maze, and that maze interests him. He wants to go through it a thousand times more. It is just like children.
Their whole interest is in running about; they do not want to see the door and go in until they are very tired. So it is with adults. They all say that they are seeking truth, but they like the maze. That is why the mystics made the greatest truths a mystery, to be given only to the few who were ready for them, letting the others play because it was the time for them to play.
Truth is simple. But for the very reason that it is simple, people will not take it; because our life on earth is such that for everything we value, we have to pay a great price and one wonders, if truth is the most precious of all things, then how can truth be attained simply? It is this illusion that makes everyone deny simple truth and seek for complexity. Tell people about something that makes their heads whirl round and round and round. Even if they do not understand it, they are most pleased to think, 'It is something substantial.
It is something solid. For, it is an idea we cannot understand, it must be something lofty.' But something which every soul knows, proving what is divine in every soul, and which it cannot help but know, that appears to be too cheap, for the soul already knows it. There are two things: knowing and being. It is easy to know truth, but most difficult to be truth. It is not in knowing truth that life's purpose is accomplished; life's purpose is accomplished in being truth.
' Brother Winter '...
The wind of future passes around the body and the mind cringes at the future..
Winter denies Autumn of it's glory..
The leaves remain green with a few turning yellow with fear..
The house remains standing with pride and declares that it will protect all those within..
But, Winter is proud with power and declares that it will return when time becomes older..
Autumn speaks and says that the power of life called Sun will walk with it for a while..
But, Sun warns that it must move south for the winter..
Darkness visits our knowledge of the day and says that it will become our friend of contemplation..
The Dream changes into another reality..
Last years thick cloth of protection is calling us into the storage bins of future use..
Snow enters the room and speaks,
"I am the cover of darkness and soil and will show the beauty of One Light"..
Winter ends the conversation with no longer a threat of power but a gift of future knowledge of his sister called Spring...
-thomas
' Kept in Servitude '...
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 keep '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 money, wealth, and fame, remain the desire of fools..
You seek Freedom..
Release the ego and You will be Free...
-thomas
' I Am Grace '...
Sophia (feminine aspect of God) calling to the soul:
Dearly beloved I have called you so often and you have not heard me.
I have shown myself to you so often and you have not seen me.
I have made myself fragrant so often and you have not smelled me.
Savorous food and you have not tasted me.
Why can you not reach me through the object you touch?
Or breathe me through sweet perfumes?
Why do you not see me?
Why do you not hear me?
Why why why?
For you my delights surpass all other delights
and the pleasure I procure you surpasses all other pleasures.
For you I am preferable to all other good things
I am beauty. I am grace.
Love me. Love me alone. Love yourself in me, in me alone.
Attach yourself to me.
No one is more inward than I.
Others love you for their own sakes.
I love you for yourself.
And you, you flee from me.
Dearly beloved, you cannot treat me fairly,
for if you approach me it is because I have approached you.
I am nearer to you than yourself, than your soul, than your breath.
Who among creatures would treat you as I do?
I am jealous of you over you. I want you to belong to no other,
not even to yourself. Be mine. Be for me as you are in me, though you are not even aware of it.
Dearly beloved let us go toward union.
And if we find the road that leads to separation we will destroy separation.
Let us go hand in hand. Let us enter the presence of truth,
Let it be our judge and imprint its seal upon our union forever.
-- Ib'n al-Arabi
' Fun to Pretend '...
The nature of the mind is to keep the screen
of Consciousness filled with seductive mani-
festations.
In short, we all love the razzle-dazzle that comes
along with the appearance of “The Other.”
Above all, your mind doesn’t want to be kicked out
of the “Ego Game” too quickly.
It desperately wants to be the last final Survivor.
The Big Cosmic Joke, however, is that the mind
is as non-existent as is the very ego that it’s been
trying so hard to protect.
Ah, isn’t it fun to pretend?
- Chuck Hillig
' Knowing is the Essence of Tao '...
Look, it cannot be seen -- it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard -- it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held -- it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark;
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.
- Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
' No Longer Striving '...
When he feels the gentle coming of the presence of the higher self, at this point he must train himself in the art of keeping completely passive.
He will discover that it is endeavouring actually to ensoulhim, to take possession of him as a disembodied spirit is supposed to take possession of a living medium.
His task now is purely negative; it is to offer no resistance to the endeavour but to let it have the fullest possible sway over him.
The preliminary phases of his progress are over.
Hitherto it was mostly his own efforts upon which he had to rely.
Now, however, it is the Overself which will be the active agent in his development.
All that is henceforth asked of him is that he remain passive, otherwise he may disturb the holy work by the interference of his blind ignorant self-will.
His advance at this point no longer depends on his own striving.
-- Notebooks Category 2: Overview of Practicies Involved >
Chapter 9: Conclusion > # 30 Paul Brunton
' What is Necessary ? '...
I know the Truth..
But, Jesus and Gautama are way beyond my pay-scale..
I follow them..
I cannot walk on water or turn water into wine,
or else, I would be drunk with the desire of sleep..
The question that should be explored is,
" What is Sleep "..
' Why is it necessary ?'..
What is Awakening ?..
Why is it necessary ?..
-thomas
' If you are happy '...
If you are happy
Run away from Ram Tzu.
Ram Tzu's venom is only safe
If you're already snake-bit.
- Ram Tzu
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
' Long for the Sea '...
If you want to build a ship,
don't drum up people together to collect
wood and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to
long for the sea.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
' Liberation '...
"Liberation is already dancing on the stage, or the platform, of our consciousness.
How can we experience that right now? Is there a method?
Actually there are many methods.
One method is expressed in this very old saying: “Rest in the natural state of mind.” This method is powerful, dynamic, and transformative.
“Rest,” of course, has many meanings, but here “rest” does not mean simply ordinary rest.
It does not mean just sitting on the sofa with our feet on the coffee table.
Not that kind of resting, but a deep resting.
Here resting means stopping all of mind’s effort, including the effort of seeking, meditating, analyzing, and trying to hold on to something.
It isn’t trying to get rid of or achieve something.
We just let go of all of mind’s effort and be in the natural state of mind and we don’t have to figure out what that is.
That’s the good news.
We are no longer the responsible agent who is going to make sure that enlightenment is going to arise on time.
That’s a big relief, isn’t it?"
-Dzogchen teacher Anam Thubten
' The Essential Rumi '...
Do you think I know what I'm doing?
That for one breath or half-breath
I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it's writing
or the ball can guess where it's going next.
- Rumi
"The Essential Rumi"
Version by Coleman Barks
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
' What is Grace ?'...
I read Paul Brunton's words about Grace and remember when Grace was given to me..
I did not know about the experience of Grace and still much of it remains a mystery to me..
What is Grace ?..
What I found upon my first experience into Enlightenment was that Grace was a 'Wave of Love' that opened a door for Nothingness to enter..
After the surrender of all desires and especially the suicide of the ego consciousness, Grace appeared..
Grace knocked the body to the ground and took Consciousness to meet Itself..
I became Light, Love, and Consciousness and knew instantly that life was a Dream..
I and the Father were One..
The Father is Light and I was Light and We conversed..
This duality within Divine Consciousness concerned Me..
I asked the Father if this was the 'Final Reality'..
For the first time, He would not answer..
I came back into the Dream and body to find the answer..
I found the answer..
The answer is found within these nine thousand writings..
Search within...
(Mysticson.blogspot.com)
- namaste, thomas
' A Lover of Wisdom '...
People sometimes ask me to what religion I belong or to what school of yoga I adhere.
If I answer them, which is not often, I tell them: "To none and to all!"
If such a paradox annoys them, I try to soften their wrath by adding that I am a student of philosophy.
During my journeys to the heavenly realm of infinite eternal and absolute existence, I did not once discover any labels marked Christian, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Zen, Shin, Platonist, Hegelian, and so on, any more than I discovered labels marked Englishman, American, or Hottentot.
All such ascriptions would contradict the very nature of the ascriptionless existence.
All sectarian differences are merely intellectual ones.
They have no place in that level which is deeper than intellectual function.
They divide men into hostile groups only because they are pseudo-spiritual.
He who has tasted of the pure Spirit's own freedom will be unwilling to submit himself to the restrictions of cult and creed.
Therefore I could not conscientiously affix a label to my own outlook or to the teaching about this existence which I have embraced.
In my secret heart I separate myself from nobody, just as this teaching itself excludes no other in its perfect comprehension.
Because I had to call it by some name as soon as I began to write about it, I called it philosophy because this is too wide and too general a name to become the property of any single sect.
In doing so I merely returned to its ancient and noble meaning among the Greeks who, in the Eleusinian Mysteries, designated the spiritual truth learnt at initiation into them as "philosophy" and the initiate himself as "philosopher" or lover of wisdom.
— Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1:
Toward Defining Philosophy > # 18 Paul Brunton
' Only a Hologram '...
Aziz Kristof quote...
"The Soul abides in the Other Dimension, she is eternally one with the Beloved.
The Soul has never incarnated!
The Soul never enters the body.
What you experience as your psyche and your body is the hologram projected by the Soul.
The Soul projects herself into this dimension to experience her relative separation from herself.
The Soul never incarnates.
It is the psyche which incarnates.
As you evolve in the form of human consciousness, you are actually looking for the way back.
As you trace the path back to your origin, you recognise the amazing fact that you have never been born!
Yes, it is all just a hologram, a projection in the dimension of time. "
-Human Buddha
' The Entrance into Independence '...
Independence means, not to be dependent on anyone else..
The small self enters into the Dream in an attempt to continue the illusion of ego..
It believes that it is not dependent on a separate Source of Creation of the Dream..
It lives in space and time as an illusion of personality..
It is independent..
It finds only pain in this independence..
It searches for an exit from this pain..
It finds a Door called Love and finds Peace for the first time..
It can only find this Door when the independence called ego is tired and asleep..
It finally enters this Door and finds that It has found Freedom and Love..
"Knock, and the Door shall be opened", said the Nazarene..
This is the True entrance into Independence...
- Thomas
' What is Freedom ? '...
We speak of opposites in this world of Duality..
Ego is the prisoner pretending to be You..
Love is the Self not hiding..
The Mind tells You that it is master..
Love answers; "there is no master, there is only Truth"..
A master requires ego,
Truth only requires Consciousness..
In the end of seeking,
The seeker dissolves into Love..
Love is without ego and is called Freedom...
- thomas
' Mere Ideation '...
Mentalism, the teaching that this is a mental universe, is too hard to believe for the ordinary man yet too hard to disbelieve for the illumined man.
This is because to the first it is only a theory, but to the second it is a personal experience.
The ordinary man's consciousness is kept captive by his senses, each of which reports a world of matter outside him.
The illumined man's consciousness is free to be itself, to report its own reality and to reveal the senses and their world to be mere ideation.
- Paul Brunton
' The Great Unknown '...
Exactly as a shadow appears when light is intercepted by the body, so does the person arise when pure self-awareness is obstructed by the "I-am-the-body" idea.
And as the shadow changes shape and position according to the lay of the land, so does the person appear to rejoice and suffer, rest and toil, find and lose according to the pattern of destiny.
When the body is no more, the person disappears completely without return, only the witness remains and the Great Unknown.
It is like washing printed cloth.
First the design fades, then the background, and in the end the cloth is plain white.
The personality gives place to the witness, then the witness goes and pure awareness remains.
The cloth was white in the beginning and is white in the end; the patterns and colours just happened - for a time.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
' The Truth is beyond mind '...
“All the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings.
In the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. No one can guarantee a philosophy's validity.
Because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. The fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.
Dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts.
All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism.
When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political or social conviction may condition us. We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence.”
― Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State
' Yield '...
Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.
Therefore wise men embrace the one
and set an example to all.
Not putting on a display,
They shine forth.
Not justifying themselves,
They are distinguished.
Not bosting,
They receive recogntion.
Not bragging,
They never falter.
They do not quarrel,
So no one quarrels with them.
Therefore the ancients say, "Yield and overcome."
Is that an empty saying?
Be really whole,
And all things will come to you.
- Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972
' Of All Form '...
Become conscious of being conscious.
Say or think
“I am”, and add nothing to it.
Be aware of the stillness
that follows the “I am”.
Sense your presence, the naked
unveiled, unclothed beingness.
It is untouched by
young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other
attributes.
It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form.
- Ramana Maharshi
' A Transient Character '...
The gain or loss which is momentary is not
real.
So, too, joy or sorrow is a momentary
state; the joy over a gain today may tomorrow
prove to be a sorrow.
If we knew the realities,
we should never grieve over the loss of
things which experience shows to be only of
a transient character.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mastery Through Accomplishment
Omega Press, 1978
' We Are Thought '...
You are Consciousness and yet You allow You to suffer..
The material plane is filled with the suffering of starvation of body and mind..
Why have We entered into this dense light film..
This is a Hologram..
We feel our skin and say, "this man is a liar"..
The atoms dance as you speak of delusion..
After all, It is only a dream..
Why do you grieve?..
We are 'Thought'..
We will continue to 'Dream', when this one is over...
- thomas
' The Principle of Life '...
We may honestly nourish the conviction that, amid all the constant alternations of ethical stagnation and awakening during
mankind's long and painful journey from ignorance to truth, good will must prevail in the end—not merely because we want to
console ourselves, but because the fundamental principle of life is unity.
--The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga,
Epilogue: The Philosophic Life
Paul Brunton
' Beyond Books '...
I can tell you information beyond definitions..
The Answer you have always sought is beyond books..
The Mystic understands my words..
Look not to definitions from humans,
they are controlled by ego attachment and cannot be Trusted..
Surrender all that is not needed..
Especially this Belief that You are something that You are Not..
You are on Vacation within Hell..
Learn and Leave...
-thomas
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