' Duality Disappeared '...
"From the un-manifest I came,
And pitched my tent,
in the Forest of Material existence.
I passed through mineral and vegetable kingdoms,
Then my mental equipment carried me into the animal kingdom;
Having reached there I crossed beyond it;
Then in the crystal clear shell of human heart
I nursed the drop of self in a pearl,
And in association with good men
Wandered round the Prayer House,
And having experienced that, crossed beyond it;
Then I took the road that leads to Him,
And became a slave at His gate;
Then the duality disappeared
And I became absorbed in Him."
-Abdullah Ansari
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, New Delhi
' Turning the mind '...
How is it possible for the mind to know the Lord
who imparts His light to the mind,
and shines
within the mind,
except by turning the mind
inward and fixing it on the Lord?
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
' The Whole of Identity '...
It is an endeavour to lift to a higher plane,
and expand to a larger measure,
the whole of his identity.
It brings in the most important part of himself--being, essence, Consciousness.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 1:
What the Quest Is > # 2 Paul Brunton
' Born Again '...
“Shariputra, if there is a good man or a good woman who hears spoken ‘Amitabha’ and holds the name, whether for one day, two days, three, four, five days, six days, as long as seven days, with one heart unconfused, when this person approaches the end of life, before him will appear Amitabha and all the assembly of holy ones.
When the end comes, his heart is without inversion; in Amitabha’s Land of Ultimate Bliss he will attain rebirth.
Shariputra, because I see this benefit, I speak these words:
If living beings hear this spoken they should make the vow, ‘I will be born in that land.’
-Shakyamuni Buddha
The Buddha Speaks of Amitabha Sutra
Based on the Chinese text translated by Tripitaka Master Kumarajiva of Yao Qin
' Your Working Capital '...
The desire for truth is the highest of all
desires, yet, it is still a desire.
All desires
must be given up for the real to be.
Remember
that you are.
This is your working capital.
Rotate it and there will be much profit.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
' Being Consciousness '...
It is an endeavour to lift to a higher plane,
and expand to a larger measure,
the whole of his identity.
It brings in the most important part of himself--being, essence, Consciousness.
-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 1:
What the Quest Is > # 2 Paul Brunton
' Grace '...
Grace is a word and thought that you have carried within the Dream..
Even now, you do not know what this word means..
In my experience, I have found that Grace is an Energy of Love that knocks you to the ground..
We try to search for another name to discribe this Power..
But, we return to this one word because there are no other words to compare..
Love comes close, and is found within this 'Yogic' Breath of Reality..
This non-separation called Love travels further into the Nothingness of One..
The 'First Reality' enters the Door of Love but Love must move further..
Love is the search for Truth..
Love is the surrender of all desires..
In 'Final Reality',
Love is 'You'...
-thomas
' 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
' Story of a Soul '...
I wondered for a long time why God has preferences, why all souls don't receive an equal amount of graces. I was surprised when I saw Him shower His extraordinary favors on saints who had offended Him, for instance, St. Paul and St. Augustine, and whom He forced, so to speak, to accept his graces. I was puzzled at seeing how Our Lord was pleased to caress certain ones from the cradle to the grave, allowing no obstacle in their way when coming to Him.
Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the Lily do not take away from the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers.
And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to Lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God's glances when He looks down at his feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.
It is with great happiness, then, that I come to sing the mercies of the Lord with you, dear Mother. It is for "you alone" I am writing the story of the "little flower" gathered by Jesus.
-St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
' Aha ! '...
But even a seeker who gets a genuine glimpse into his or her own selflessness is still not necessarily out of the woods. So attached are we to conventional ways of knowing, that our minds are apt to seize on this very insight with the thought, "Aha! Now I know that I am nothing!" But knowing that you are nothing is not at all the same as not knowing anything. Only if you can allow all thoughts - even the thought "I am nothing" to dissolve away without a trace will you be able to enter the gate of true unknowing. This is the state of emptiness or kenosis in which all conventional knowledge is wiped out, for as the Hindu saint, Lalleshwari, says:
Neither silence nor yogic postures
enable you to enter there.
In that state there is no knowledge,
no meditation, no Shiva or Shakti.
All that remains is That.
O Lalli, you are That.
Attain That.
Kenosis, however, is not the same as Gnosis. There remains one last barrier to full Enlightenment. We might call this the First Distinction, and compare it to the sensation of our bare skin. Even though we have shed all our clothes, we still feel a nameless, primordial sense of separation. This is how the anonymous Christian author of the Cloud of Unknowing expresses it:
Long after you have successfully forgotten every creature and its works, you will find that a naked knowing and feeling of your own being still remains between you and your God. And believe me, you will not be perfect in love until this, too, is destroyed.
The trouble with this First Distinction is that it is prior to thought, language, and all other forms of distinction. As such, it is not something that you create. In fact, it creates you - or rather, the First Distinction is that very experience of being a `you.' Consequently, there is no way `you' can surrender it. In fact, any effort `you' make to do so simply serves to keep this distinction in place. This is why Enlightenment always comes spontaneously as an act of grace. And this grace acts only in a state in which, not only has all your knowledge been erased, but even your attempts to attain knowledge have fallen away. Thus, Zen master, Hakuin, writes:
When all the effort you can muster has been exhausted and you have reached a total impasse...it will suddenly come and you will break free. The phoenix will get through the golden net. The crane will fly free of the cage.
Here is how the Christian mystic, Dionysius the Areopagite, describes the seeker who suddenly finds that the Primal Distinction has been shattered:
He breaks free...away from what sees and is seen, and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united by a completely unknowing inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.
This is also why the Sufis insist that the spiritual path leads, not to greater and greater knowledge, but to greater and greater bewilderment.
- Joel Morwood
' Remember Now '...
"Repeat my name so continuously that if and when you lose consciousness of your body,
the repetition will be there because I then become you.
You lose yourself completely in me.
If you cannot do that, just a moment before dying take my name.
Even then you will come to me.
But how will you remember at the last moment unless you start remembering from now on!”
-Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher, vol. 13, pp. 4818-19
Revised Online Edition, p. 3874
' The Mistake '...
To accept that the universe is an illusion
without including him who accepts it as
such as also being an illusion is a basic
mistake common in spiritual seeking.
When this mistake is seen for what it is,
the seeking will be over.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' The ego's own advancement '...
Students who have come finally to philosophy from the Indian Advaita Vedanta, bring with them the belief that the divine soul having somehow lost its consciousness is now seeking to become self-conscious again.
They suppose that the ego originates and ends on the same level--divinity--and therefore the question is often asked why it should go forth on such a long and unnecessary journey.
This question is a misconceived one.
It is not the ego itself which ever was consciously divine, but its source, the Overself.
The ego's divine character lies in its essential but hidden being, but it has never known that.
The purpose of gathering experience (the evolutionary process) is precisely to bring it to such awareness.
The ego comes to slow birth in finite consciousness out of utter unconsciousness and, later, to recognition and union with its infinite source.
That source, whence it has emanated, remains untouched, unaffected, ever knowing and serenely witnessing.
The purpose in this evolution is the ego's own advancement.
When the Quest is reached, the Overself reveals its presence fitfully and brokenly at first but later the hide-and-seek game ends in loving union.
-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea > Chapter 4: True Idea of Man > # 256
-- Perspectives > Chapter 26: World-Idea > # 48 Paul Brunton
' You, you, you, you, you "...
Whatever your name, Shiva, Vishnu,
the genius who inspired Scherazade,
savior of the Jains, the pure Buddha,
lotus-born God, I am sick.
The world
is my disease,
and You are the cure,
You, you, you, you, you, you, you.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
' The "I"...
"The "I" is only there when thoughts are believed.
Pay attention to the space between thoughts."
-Jac O'Keeffe
' Consciousness '...
Consciousness can exist apart from the world,
from the things and creatures in it,
and even from the ego,
but the world exists only as a projection of consciousness.
In this sense the world has no lasting reality but, by contrast, the consciousness has.
-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone >
Chapter 1: Absolute Mind > # 130
Paul Brunton
' Exploration of Heart '...
"Benares is to the East,
Mecca to the West,
But explore your own heart;
For there is Rama and Allah."
-Kabir
in Ramdass
Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
NY: Bantam, 1990 (1978), p. 123
' It Is Already There '...
Realization is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already
there.
All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought 'I
have not realized'.
Stillness or peace is realization.
There is no moment
when the Self is not.
So long as there is doubt or the feeling
of non-realization, the attempt should be made to rid oneself
of these thoughts.
They are due to the identification of the
Self with the not-Self.
When the not-Self disappears, the
Self alone remains.
To make room, it is enough that objects
be removed.
Room is not brought in from elsewhere.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
' A Singularity '...
The total number of minds in the universe is one.
In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.
- Schrodinger
' When the Idea is Gone '...
"Where the creature ends, there God begins to be.
God only asks that you get out of his way insofar you are creature, and let him be God in you.
The least creaturely idea that ever entered your mind is as big as God. Why?
Because it will keep God out of you entirely.
The moment you get ideas, God fades out and the Godhead too.
It is when the idea is gone that God gets in.... Ah, beloved people, why don't you let God be God in you?
What are you afraid of?
You get out of his way and he will get out of yours -- you give up to him and he will give up to you.
When both have forsaken self, what remains is an indivisible union."
-Meister Eckhart, from Whom God Hi Nothing: Sermons, Writings & Sayings
Edited by David O'Neal
' My Beloved '...
in the beginning
in the endless space of awareness
i was a word
i answered to
a name of recognition
and memory
soon i fell silent
in the question of who i am,
my own distant shore, my own Lover
for there is no other,
never was,
never will be
how can there be two?
a me and a not you?
and if, in the course of water and
my own womb of tranquility, I should
meet thee,
i shall call upon myself and
love thee,
My Beloved
-Ana
' Being Infinite '...
The intelligence which works so untiringly in the world around us knows what to do without having to prepare a plan.
It does not need to think in the way human beings think.
Being infinite, its wisdom is infinite.
-- Notebooks Category 27: World-Mind > Chapter 2:
Nature of World-Mind > # 12 Paul Brunton
' Limitless Awareness Being '...
Don't try and fathom God.
He is inscrutable.
Disappear as
ego and you will find the Supreme Lord sitting inside your
Heart;
initially, in the form, 'I Am', then finally, as Absolute
and Limitless Awareness Being.
- Mooji
' You are Home '...
Everywhere is Consciousness and everywhere is
Home.
"Everywhere" is but a small corner of your
heart.
You are that vast.
There is no travel because
you are always Home.
Surrender your ego and you
are Home.
- Papaji
"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995
' The World-Idea '...
Just as the World-Idea is both the expression of the World-Mind and one with it, so the Word (Logos) mentioned in the New
Testament as being with God is another way of saying the same thing.
The world with its form and history is the embodiment of the Word and the Word is the World-Idea.
-- Notebooks Category 26: World-Idea > Chapter 1:
Divine Order of The Universe > # 71 Paul Brunton
' The Path to Enlightenment '...
The Buddic and Christian method of Enlightenment are the same..
There was no forest, therefore, Jesus went to the desert..
The Secret of Enlightenment is to Surrender the Desire for Existence and Egoic Consciousness..
This System worked for me and will work for you..
But, this Desire for Truth must be met within the Desire for Freedom..
This Freedom that you seek is only found when 'you' no longer exists..
'You', As the Reality, will appear as Pure Light and Knowledge..
This is called 'Pure Awareness' and contains no egoic consciousness..
-thomas
' Limitless Awareness Being '...
Don't try and fathom God.
He is inscrutable.
Disappear as
ego and you will find the Supreme Lord sitting inside your
Heart; initially, in the form, 'I Am', then finally, as Absolute
and Limitless Awareness Being.
- Mooji
' Ultramystic '...
The grand illumination itself is sudden but the process of achieving it is a task so complex that it can be carried through only by successive stages.
For the obstructions to be cleared on the way are heavy and numerous while the advances involve shifting from one tentative standpoint to another.
The way to ultimate being cannot be travelled in a single leap; there must be a time-lag until the moment when it actually dawns.
The interval naturally falls into elementary, intermediate, and advanced stages.
Nothing once gained in yoga need be discarded; only we take it up into the wider gain which absorbs and preserves but also transcends it.
The newer knowledge does not disqualify the results of earlier investigations.
For the price of advanced yoga must be paid partly out of the profits got from elementary yoga.
For want of a better term, we have sometimes designated the highly advanced meditation exercises here given as "ultramystic"--for a study of them will reveal that the common or popular forms of yoga do not exhaust the possibilities of man's quest of the Overself.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 6:
Advanced Meditation > # 20 Paul Brunton
' What Is Contemplation? '...
CONTEMPLATION is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life.
It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive.
It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being.
It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being.
It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.
It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes both beyond reason and beyond simple faith.
For contemplation is a kind of spiritual vision to which both reason and faith aspire, by their very nature, because without it they must always remain incomplete.
Yet contemplation is not vision because it sees “without seeing” and knows “without knowing.” It is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in words or even in dear’ concepts.
It can be suggested by words, by symbols, but in the very moment of trying to indicate what it knows the contemplative mind takes back what it has said, and denies what it has affirmed.
For in contemplation we know by “unknowing.” Or, better, we know beyond all knowing or “unknowing.
from New Seeds of Contemplation
Thomas Merton
' Longing of Heart '...
"He who is called Krishna is also called Shiva and Shakti, and that is He again who is called Jesus and Allah.
There is only one Rama and he has a thousand names.
"Truth is one; It is only called by different names.
All people are seeking the same Truth; the disagreement is due to differences in climate, temperament and names.
Everyone is going toward God.
They will all realize Him/Her if they have sincerity and longing of heart."
-Sri Ramakrishna
in Swami Nikhilananda
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Abridged Edition)
New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1958, p. 300
' Philosphical Mystics '...
There are mystics who experience the Overself in its glow of love and joy of freedom, but without receiving knowledge of the cosmic laws, principles, and secrets.
There are other mystics who are not satisfied with the one alone but seek to unite and complete it with the other.
They are the philosophical mystics for whom the meaning of the self and the meaning of the world have become two sides of the same coin.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 4:
Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > # 106 Paul Brunton
' Original Source '...
All spiritual teachings are only
meant to make us retrace
our steps to our
Original Source.
We need not acquire anything new, only give
up false ideas and useless accretions.
Instead of doing this, we try to grasp something
strange and mysterious because we believe happiness
lies elsewhere.
This is a mistake.
- Ramana Maharshi
' What is God? '...
Which God are you talking about?
What is God?
Is he not the very light by which you ask the
question? 'I am’ itself is God.
The seeking
itself is God.
In seeking you discover that you
are neither the body nor mind, and the love of
self in you is for the self in all.
The two are one.
The consciousness in you and the consciousness
in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and
that is love.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' A New Identity '...
One of the Buddha’s primary teachings was the teaching of “no self.”
People think that what he meant was no ego, but he did not mean no ego.
“No self” means something far more profound.
Within the context of how he used the word “self,” you could also interpret it in a theistic manner to mean something like “soul.”
The Buddha was saying there is no secret essence that is immune to the world of change, and there is no unchanging pseudoentity parked behind your eyes that moves on when your body ceases to function.
This was what he brought to the world that was truly new.
Isn’t it ironic that as a practitioner of a religion that has this as one of its fundamental tenets, I was unknowingly using the religion to create and hold on to a new identity?
From "The Most Important Thing"
Adyashanti
' Rest wtihin Self '...
We try to save so many things in life with vague mysticism, but the mysticism has to stand on a base of total frankness and on a cold and piercing examination of things.
Most people only see in life what it's permissible to see, but we must free ourselves from all existing ideas... then life becomes rich and abundant even in moments of deep suffering.
The distress here is really terrible [Auschwitz].
And still, in the evening, when the day recedes, I walk with bright footsteps by the wire fence, and from my heart arises always the feeling that Life is wonderful and grand...
I find rest within myself. And this "Self", this deepest and richest part of me, I call God.
- Ethy Hilthum, from the journal of a young Jewish girl who died in Auschwitz
' Forget Oneself '...
Sometimes we find satisfaction in self-pity.
The reason is that
it is our nature to find satisfaction in love; and when we are
confined to ourselves we begin to love ourselves, and then
self-pity arises because we feel our limitation.
But the love of
self always brings dissatisfaction, for the self is not made to be
loved; the self is made to love.
The first condition to love is to
forget oneself.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
' Rest Within Self '...
We try to save so many things in life with vague mysticism, but the mysticism has to stand on a base of total frankness and on a cold and piercing examination of things.
Most people only see in life what it's permissible to see, but we must free ourselves from all existing ideas... then life becomes rich and abundant even in moments of deep suffering.
The distress here is really terrible [Auschwitz].
And still, in the evening, when the day recedes, I walk with bright footsteps by the wire fence, and from my heart arises always the feeling that Life is wonderful and grand...
I find rest within myself. And this "Self", this deepest and richest part of me, I call God.
- Ethy Hilthum, from the journal of a young Jewish girl who died in Auschwitz
' The Water of the Mind '...
The water of the mind, how clear it is!
Gazing at it, the boundaries are invisible.
But as soon as even a slight thought arises,
ten thousand images crowd it.
Attach to them, and they become real.
Be carried by them, and it will be difficult to return.
How painful to see a person trapped in the ten-fold delusions.
~Ryokan
' Inner Solitude '...
"It is not to be learned by fleeing the world, running away from things, turning solitary and going away from the world.
Rather, one may learn an inner solitude, wherever or with whomever he may be.
We must learn to penetrate things and find God there."
-Meister Eckhart
Matthew Fox
Meditations with Meister Eckhart
Rochester, VT: Bear and Company, 1983, p. 90
' Surrender to the Overself '...
Anxieties subside and worries fall away when this surrender to the Overself grows and develops in his heart.
And such a care-free attitude is not unjustified.
For the measure of this surrender is also the measure of active interference in his affairs by the Divine Power.
-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life >
Chapter 4: Surrender > # 153 Paul Brunton
' Disappear into Self '...
Birth is when I appear out of myself.
Life is when I dance within myself.
Death is when I disappear into myself.
~ Adyashanti
' Dhammapada '...
"He who has no thought of 'I' and 'mine' whatever toward his mind and body,
he who grieves not for what he has not,
he is, indeed, called a bhikkhu [monk, renunciate].
Gautama the Buddha
Dhammapada 367
in Andrew Wilson, Ed.
World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts
St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1995, p. 638
' Corinthians 13 '...
Love is
patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud.
It is not rude, it
is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of
wrongs.
Love does not
delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are
prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be
stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
' Very Tao '...
The last phase of the Short Path has no special procedure,
no specialized method.
Life is its Way, or, as the Chinese sage said,
"Usual life is very Tao."
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 5:
Balancing the Paths > # 226 Paul Brunton
' The Transcending of Thought '...
The transcending of thought happens not
through suppression but through the natural
absence of volition or desire brought about
by the recognition of one’s true nature.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Real Darkness and Real Light '...
"On May 14th, (1926) Meher Baba revealed to the mandali [circle of disciples]:
'Before the veil was torn asunder and I became God conscious, I experienced the greatest electric-like shock that created for some time severe vibrations, which are indescribable.
This was followed by intense darkness and finally there was Light.
The greatest imagination fails to conceive of the idea of this Effulgence, before which the light of the worldly sun is like a shadow of a drop of the infinite ocean of dazzling Light.
Similarly, the darkness I experienced when I had my Realization cannot be described.
'The world experiences light and darkness, but what I am explaining bears no similarity to these.
Very few persons can see the Real Darkness and the Real Light.'"
-Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
Myrtle Beach, SC: MANifetation, 1st edition, 1988, Vol. 3, p. 794
Revised Online Edition, p.652
' Conditioned Phenomena '...
"After doing something we should forget about it and go on to the next matter.
Nothing should be taken as ultimately real.
As the Vajra Sutra says,
'All conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows, like dew drops or flashes of lightening.'
One should contemplate them thus."
-Master Hsuan Hua
Spring Sun, Lotus Flower: Quotes from the Teachings of Venerable Master Hsuan Hua
Burlingame, CA: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 2004, p. 40
' Impersonal '...
In your sleep your personality goes completely, and
you become impersonal.
There is, however, a seed
of personality potentially present even in sleep, on
account of which you wake up the next morning.
For
all practical purposes your personality is wiped off,
and so it is that you are very happy in sleep, indicating
thereby that impersonality is the source of happiness,
that personality is the source of sorrow.
The more you
are personal, the more you are grief-stricken.
The
more you become impersonal, the more you become
happy.
- Swami Krishnananda
Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986
' The Matrix '...
"Let it be ok that nothing is happening.
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."
-Jac O'Keeffe
' God's Responsibility '...
At first he learns that he is personally responsible for his thoughts and actions, for their results in himself and outside it in his destiny.
Then if he accepts this truth and in the Long Path works upon it, he is led to the discovery of the Short Path and that he is God's responsibility.
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 4:
The Changeover To the Short Path > # 42 Paul Brunton
' Duality '...
"The savour of wandering in the ocean of deathless life has rid me of all my asking:
As the tree is in the seed, so all diseases are in this asking."
-Kabir
The Songs of Kabir
Tr. by Rabindranath Tagore, intro. by Evelyn Underhill, [1915]
' Enlightenment '...
"On May 14th, (1926) Meher Baba revealed to the mandali [circle of disciples]:
'Before the veil was torn asunder and I became God conscious, I experienced the greatest electric-like shock that created for some time severe vibrations, which are indescribable.
This was followed by intense darkness and finally there was Light.
The greatest imagination fails to conceive of the idea of this Effulgence, before which the light of the worldly sun is like a shadow of a drop of the infinite ocean of dazzling Light.
Similarly, the darkness I experienced when I had my Realization cannot be described.
'The world experiences light and darkness, but what I am explaining bears no similarity to these.
Very few persons can see the Real Darkness and the Real Light.'"
-Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
Myrtle Beach, SC: MANifetation, 1st edition, 1988, Vol. 3, p. 794
Revised Online Edition, p.652
' Merging with Source '...
All have to be in love!
What business do you have not to be in love?
You are existence itself, consciousness itself.
If duality has any significance
then it is for the divine, in its aspect as the finite,
to feel the sense of love for the infinite.
And it will not abandon this search until it merges
with its own source.
- Mooji
' Sublime Generosity '...
I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
He said, "You're not mad enough.
You don't belong in this house."
I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, "Still not wild enough
to stay with us!"
I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.
He said, "It's not enough."
I died.
He said, "You're a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting."
I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, "Now you're the candle
for this assembly."
But I'm no candle. Look!
I'm scattered smoke.
He said, "You are the sheikh, the guide."
But I'm not a teacher, I have no power.
He said, "You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings."
But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.
Then new events said to me,
"Don't move. A sublime generosity is
coming toward you."
And old love said, "Stay with me."
I said, "I will."
You are the fountain of the sun's light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.
The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say "Thank you, thank you."
Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.
This comes of smiling back
at your smile.
The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.
That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.
--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Version by Colman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
' Not my Will '...
As it is written; "Not my will but Your Will be Done"...
this 'Will' that is spoken of is your belief that you are an ego, separate from God..
This 'will or ego' is the wall preventing You from Freedom..
This is the secret of the surrender of our will..
This is the secret of the surrender of the 'ego'..
This is the secret of God Realization..
This is the secret of Reality..
This is Unconditional Love and Light..
This is 'You' without 'you'..
- thomas
' Sexuality '...
If sexuality is an attribute of animal and human life, sexual love is an ordinary fact of human nature.
Why should it be regarded as suspect, why should it be treated as anti-spiritual?
If the answer is that the passions of sex drag man down into the mud, philosophy shows how they can be sublimated so as to lift him up to heaven.
They can be brought to dismiss their ancient enmity towards spiritual aspiration, to unite and work together for man's redemption, his enlightenment, and his salvation.
-- Notebooks Category 5: The Body >
Chapter 7: Sex > # 60 Paul Brunton
' Ripe of Heart '...
If the seeker is earnest, the light can be
given.
The light is for all and always there,
but the seekers are few, and among those
few, those who are ready are very rare.
Ripeness of heart and mind is indispensable.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
' The Musician '...
“The flute does not know music: it does not know ‘G’ from ‘B flat;’ it does not know tempo or emphasis, and cannot make music come out of itself: it’s just a hollow bamboo stick with holes in it! It is the musician who has the knowledge and the skill and the intention and the dexterity, and whose breath blows through the instrument and whose fingers manipulate the openings so that beautiful music flows out. When the music is ended, no one congratulates the wooden stick on the music it made: it is the musician who is applauded and thanked for this beautiful gift of music.
It is precisely so with what we think of as our ‘selves.’ We are instruments, hollow sticks, through which the Breath, the Spirit, the Energy which is Presence, All That Is, Consciousness, flows. Just as it is not the flute making the note, but the Musician making the note through the instrument, so it is the breath which is Presence which animates this mind and body and comes out through this mouth to make it seem that this mouth is speaking words.
The basic misunderstanding, the basic ignorance, is this unwitting usurpation of the role of Musician by the instrument. This inversion of the truth is spontaneously realized when the Understanding occurs. It becomes obvious that there is no individual, that there is ‘nobody home,’ no entity here to be the doer or not. Because awakening is simply the Understanding that there is no one here to awaken.”
~ David Carse, Perfect Brilliant Stillness
' To Be '...
To BE, and to know that one is, is most important. And to be of interest, a thing must be related to one’s conscious existence, which is the focal point of every desire and fear. For, the ultimate aim of every desire is to enhance and intensify this sense of existence, while all fear is, in its essence, the fear of self-extinction.
To delve into the sense of ‘I’ -- so real and vital -- in order to reach its source is the core of Nisarga Yoga. Not being continuous, the sense of ‘I’ must have a source from which it flows and to which it returns. This timeless source of conscious being is what Maharaj calls the self-nature, self-being, swarupa
This dwelling on the sense ‘I am’ is the simple, easy and natural Yoga, the Nisarga Yoga. There is no secrecy in it and no dependence; no preparation is required and no initiation. Whoever is puzzled by his very existence as a conscious being and earnestly wants to find his own source, can grasp the ever-present sense of ‘I am’ and dwell on it assiduously and patiently, till the clouds obscuring the mind dissolve and the heart of being is seen in all its glory.
- Appendix to I AM THAT
Maurice Frydman
' The Love of Place '...
I saw a wise man dying of starvation.
Leaves fall in the slightest
wind in December.
And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook
for some mistake with the spices.
Since then, I Lalla, have been waiting
for my love of this place to leave me.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
' The Ideal Life '...
He who can live up to his ideal is the king of life; he who cannot live up to it is life's slave.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
The ideal life is at least to try to live up to one's ideal. But in order to have an ideal one must first awaken to an ideal. Not everyone possesses an ideal; many people do not know of it. It is no exaggeration to say that the wars and disasters we have gone through, the unrest that all feel, and the disagreement among the people which is sometimes seen and sometimes not seen, are all caused by one thing and that is the lack of an ideal.
Is it power which is the object of the spiritual person, or is it inspiration after which he seeks? It is in fact neither of these things which he pursues, but all such things as power and inspiration follow him as he proceeds on his path towards the spiritual goal. The goal of the spiritual person is self-realization, and his journey is towards the depth of his own being, his God, his ideal.
God is the ideal that raises mankind to the utmost reach of perfection. ... There is no ideal that can raise the moral standard higher than the God-ideal, although love is the root of all and God is the fruit of this. Love's expansion and love's culmination and love's progress all depend upon the God-ideal.
That which makes us esteem those whom we esteem is their ideal. That which raises man from earth to heaven is his ideal. And that which pulls man down from the heavens to the earth is also his ideal. When he does not live up to his ideal, he falls to earth. And when he raises his ideal he goes from earth to heaven. He can rise to any height, according to the stature of his ideal.
' The Virgin Mother '...
Several antique religions make the Virgin Mother a chief feature.
Why stretch the credible so far to accept literally what is, after all, only a symbolism?
The pure in heart--that is, the ego-free--shall see God--that is,
shall give birth to the awareness of a new life within them.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 2:
Organization, Content of Religion > # 52 Paul Brunton
' Self Inquiry '...
Sri Sadhu Om spent many years in the company of Sri Ramana Maharshi and decades in the company of Sri Muruganar. The Sri Sadhu Om quotes in The Seven Steps to Awakening come from the book The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One. The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One is available as a free e-book at happinessofbeing.com.
Many pages in The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One are devoted to explaining why Self-inquiry is really Self-attention. Here is a quote by Sri Sadhu Om: "In Sanskrit, the terms 'atman' and 'aham' both mean 'I'. Hence, 'atma-vichara' means an attention seeking 'Who is this I?' It may rather be called 'I-attention', 'Self-attention' or 'Self-abidance.'"
Often English translations of these teachings have so many non-English words that the book becomes a foreign language course instead of a spiritual teaching. The quotes in The Seven Steps to Awakening contain almost no non-English words. This was accomplished by selecting quotes that contain only English words, with a few exceptions such as the words Guru and Yoga which are already familiar to most English readers.
In the book The Supreme Yoga Swami Venkatesananda writes the following two definitions of the word vichara:
1. "Vicara or inquiry is not reasoning nor analysis: it is directly looking into oneself."
2. "Vicara, usually translated 'inquiry' is direct observation."
The spiritual meaning of the term "Self-inquiry" is directly looking into one's Self, which can also be described as Self-attention. Since the true Self is awareness, this can also be described as attention to Awareness or Awareness aware of itself. This is not two awarenesses, one watching the other. This is just one Awareness aware of itself. And what is itself? Itself is Awareness. Thus, Awareness of Awareness. Directly looking into one's Self is directly looking into Awareness because the Self is Awareness.
Sometimes the quotes refer to "Self-knowledge." "Self-knowledge" in these teachings does not mean conceptual knowledge. "Self-Awareness" or "Self-Experience" are closer to the spiritual meaning.
When the quotes are warning against false knowledge, the word "knowledge" does mean conceptual knowledge.
The above quotes are from the introduction to the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.
' All An Illusion '...
The man of understanding who has lost
his identity as a separate individual re-
mains identified with pure, infinite Con-
sciousness while he continues to live out
his life as an ordinary person in the world,
knowing full well, however, that it is all
an illusion.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1966
' A Dream Environment '...
Earth life is but a dream, lived out in a dream physical body amid dream environment.
Dream experiences are only ideas; during sleep-dream man sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells exactly as he does during waking-dream.
Hence waking is but materialized ideas, but still ideas.
God's cosmic dream:
all universal activities are but different ideas of God, divine ideation made material and thrown upon the screen of human consciousness.
The cosmic illusion is impinged upon man's sense and seen from within by Mind through consciousness, sensation, and bodily organ.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 3:
The Individual and World Mind > # 23
Paul Brunton
' Liberation Enough '...
To know that the known cannot be me nor mine, is liberation
enough.
Freedom from self-identification with a set of memories
and habits, the state of wonder at the infinite reaches of the
being, its inexhaustible creativity and total transcendence,
the
absolute fearlessness born from the realization of the illusoriness
and transiency of every mode of consciousness — flow
from a deep and inexhaustible source.
To know the source as
source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the
source only is self-realization.
- Nisargadatta
' The Shadow of Reality '...
As long as you seek for something,
you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
-Shunryu Suzuki
' The Sense of Reality '...
There are three stages on the path of world enquiry.
The first yields as its fruit that the world is but an idea, and this stage has been reached from the metaphysical end by thinkers such as Bishop Berkeley, and nearly reached from the scientific end by such a man as Eddington.
The second stage involves the study of the three states, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and yields as its fruit the truth that ideas are transitory emanations out of their permanent cause, consciousness.
The third stage is the most difficult, for it requires analysis of the nature of time, space, and causation, plus successful practice of yoga.
It yields as its fruit the sense of Reality as something eternally abiding with one.
— Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 0:
Introductory Paras > # 1 Paul Brunton
' Entirely Lived '...
Human beings, whatever they may think, do not
live and exercise volition but are entirely lived.
The importance of an individual life, and even the
fact of living itself, has been vastly overestimated
and exaggerated.
Nature itself defies the human
presumption of the "sacredness of life" with the
strongest possible demonstration that life is purely
incidental to the totality of the manifest, functional
order.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar
"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1996
' Stubborn Illusion '...
"People like us, who believe in physics,
know that the distinction between past, present,
and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
- Albert Einstein
' Individual Existence '...
A rare but complete illumination must not only pass from the first to the final degree of intensity,
but must also contain a picture of the cosmic order.
That is to say, it must be a revelation..
It must explain the profounder nature of the universe,
the inner meaning of individual existence,
and the hidden relationship between the two.
-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 105
-- Perspectives > Chapter 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > # 31 Paul Brunton
' The Reason for Existence '...
The Reason for Existence is to understand Reality..
Within the media, you will find lies..
The transformation of mind is achieved within repitition..
Mantras existing as truth is lost within Reality..
You cannot fight against God..
This Mind is beyond your egoistic desire..
The ego is a Dream of Separation,, no more..
Love is the Key of Knowledge..
When This Frequency of non-ego is applied within Mind,
All is changed..
My paragraph has ended, therefore, I will also...
- thomas
' Who Am I ? '...
After you have rejected
what was to be rejected
and accepted
what was to be accepted,
then
only acceptance
remains hollow.
At that end you'll say,
'What's this acceptance for, even?
I don't need it."
Then
you'll arrive at
'Who am I?'
- Swami Amar Jyoti
"In Light of Wisdom"
Swami Amar Jyoti
Truth Consciousness, Boulder, Colorado, 1983
' Maximus of Tyre [2nd century AD.]:
The eye cannot see God, words cannot name Him, flesh and blood cannot touch Him, the ear cannot hear Him; but within the soul That which is most fair, most pure, most intelligible, most ethereal, most honorable, can contemplate Him because it is like Him, can hear Him because of their kinship.
... The soul holds herself erect and strong, she gazes at the pure light [of the Godhead]; she wavers not, nor turns her glance to earth, but closes her ears and directs her eyes and all other senses within.
She forgets the troubles and sorrows of earth, its joys and honors, its glory and its shame; and submits to the guidance of pure reason and strong love.
For reason points out the road that must be followed, and love drives the soul forward, making the rough places smooth by its charm and constancy.
And as we approach heaven and leave earth behind, the goal becomes clear and luminous—that is a foretaste of God's very self.
On the road we learn His nature better; but when we reach the end, we see Him.
' The First Principle '...
What the Sage Plotinus called the First Principle,
the One,
is as high as enlightenment can bring the seeker.
-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2:
Our Relation To the Absolute > # 152
Paul Brunton
' 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
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
' Mind does not exist '...
"The ultimate nature of mind is primordial awareness, from which thoughts emanate like light radiating from the sun.
Once this nature of mind is recognized, delusion vanishes like clouds dissolving in the sky.
The nature of mind free from delusion is without birth, existence, or cessation.
In the terminology of the Mantrayana, it is called primordial continuous mind, or ever present simplicity.
It is also described in the sutras; for example, the Prajnaparamita says:
'Mind,
Mind does not exist,
Its expression is clarity.'"
~Dilgo Khyentse
From the book, "The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones",
published by Shambhala
' A Higher Power '...
He will understand the real spirit of meditation when he
understands that he has to do nothing at all, just to sit still
physically, mentally, and emotionally.
For the moment he attempts to
do anything, he intrudes his ego.
By sitting inwardly and outwardly
still, he surrenders egoistic action and thereby implies that he is
willing to surrender his little self to his Overself.
He shows that he
is willing to step aside and let himself be worked upon, acted
through, and guided by a higher power.
— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 7:
Contemplative Stillness > # 238 Paul Brunton
' Abil-Kheir---Piousness And The Path Of Love '...
"Piousness and the path of love are two different roads.
Love is the fire that burns both belief and non-belief.
Those who practice love have neither religion nor caste."
-Abu Saeed Abil-Kheir
Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil-Kheir
Renditions by Vraje Abramian
Prescott, AZ: Hohm Press, 2001, p. 9
' The Unchanging '...
Mind says, 'The unchanging is boring.'
The Unchanging,
which is the true Self, does not attract the personal mind.
But the 'unchanging' the mind speaks about is not the
Unchanging I speak about.
Mind, which is by nature changeful,
can never know the magnificence of the Unchanging.
The day
it begins feeling attraction for the Unchanging is the day it
will begin merging inside its blissful Source.
- Mooji
' Always Wise '...
I remember one day when A.E. (George Russell), the Irish poet and statesman, chanted to me in his attractive Hibernian brogue some paragraphs from his beloved Plotinus that tell of the gods, although the number of words which stick to memory are but few and disjointed, so drugged were my senses by his magical voice.
"All the gods are venerable and beautiful, and their beauty is immense. . . . For they are not at one time wise, and at another destitute of wisdom; but they are always wise, in an impassive, stable, and pure mind.
They likewise know all things which are divine. . . . For the life which is there is unattended with labour, and truth is their generator and nutriment. . . . And the splendour there is infinite. . . ."
-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 2:
Inspiration > # 120 Paul Brunton
' Nothingness '...
When I consider the weirdest of all things I can think of, do you know what it is? Nothing. The whole idea of nothing is something that has bugged people for centuries, especially in the Western world. We have a saying in Latin, Ex nihilo nihil fit, which means, "Out of nothing comes nothing." In other words, you can't get something out of nothing. It's occurred to me that this is a fallacy of tremendous proportions. It lies at the root of all our common sense, not only in the West, but in many parts of the East as well. It manifests as a kind of terror of nothing, a putdown on nothing, a putdown on everything associated with nothing such as sleep, passivity, rest, and even the feminine principle which is often equated with the negative principle (although women's lib people don't like that kind of thing, when they understand what I'm saying I don't think they'll object). To me, nothing—the negative, the empty—is exceedingly powerful. I would say, not Ex nihilo nihil fit, but, "You can't have something without nothing."
How do we basically begin to think about the difference between something and nothing? When I say there is a cigar in my right hand and there is no cigar in my left hand, we get the idea of is, something, and isn't, nothing. At the basis of this reasoning lies the far more obvious contrast of solid and space. We tend to think of space as nothing; when we talk about the conquest of space there's a little element of hostility. But actually, we're talking about the conquest of distance. Space or whatever it is that lies between the earth and the moon, and the earth and the sun, is considered to be just nothing at all.
But to suggest how very powerful and important this nothing at all is, let me point out that if you didn't have space, you couldn't have anything solid. Without space outside the solid you wouldn't know where the solid's edges were. For example, you can see me in a photograph because you see a background and that background shows up my outline. But if it weren't there, then I and everything around me would merge into a single, rather peculiar mass. You always have to have a background of space to see a figure. The figure and the background, the solid and the space, are inseparable and go together.
We find this very commonly in the phenomenon of magnetism. A magnet has a north pole and a south pole— there is no such thing as a magnet with one pole only. Supposing we equate north with is and south with isn't. You can chop the magnet into two pieces, if it's a bar magnet, and just get another north pole and south pole, another is and isn't, on the end of each piece.
What I am trying to get into basic logic is that there isn't a sort of fight between something and nothing. Everyone is familiar with the famous words of Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question." It isn't; to be or not to be is not the question. Because you can't have a solid without space. You can't have an is without an isn't, a something without a nothing, a figure without a background. And we can turn that round, and say, "You can't have space without solid."
Imagine nothing but space, space, space, space with nothing in it, forever. But there you are imagining it and you're something in it. The whole idea of there being only space, and nothing else at all, is not only inconceivable but perfectly meaningless, because we always know what we mean by contrast.
We know what we mean by white in comparison with black. We know life in comparison with death. We know pleasure in comparison with pain, up in comparison with down. But all these things must come into being together. You don't have first something and then nothing or first nothing and then something. Something and nothing are two sides of the same coin. If you file away the tails side of a coin completely, the heads side of it will disappear as well. So in this sense, the positive and negative, the something and the nothing, are inseparable—they go together. The nothing is the force whereby the something can be manifested.
We think that matter is basic to the physical world. And matter has various shapes. We think of tables as made of wood as we think of pots as made of clay. But is a tree made of wood in the same way a table is? No, a tree is wood; it isn't made of wood. Wood and tree are two different names for the same thing.
But there is in the back of our mind, the notion, as a root of common sense, that everything in the world is made of some kind of basic stuff. Physicists, through centuries, have wanted to know what that was. Indeed, physics began as a quest to discover the basic stuff out of which the world is made. And with all our advances in physics we've never found it. What we have found is not stuff but form. We have found shapes. We have found structures. When you turn up the microscope and look at things expecting to see some sort of stuff, you find instead form, pattern, structure. You find the shape of crystals, beyond the shapes of crystals you find molecules, beyond molecules you find atoms, beyond atoms you find electrons and positrons between which there are vast spaces. We can't decide whether these electrons are waves or particles and so we call them wavicles.
What we will come up with will never be stuff, it will always be a pattern. This pattern can be described, measured, but we never get to any stuff for the simple reason there isn't any. Actually, stuff is when you see something unclearly or out of focus, fuzzy. When we look at it with the naked eye it looks just like goo. We can't make out any significant shape to it. But when you put it under the microscope, you suddenly see shapes. It comes into clear focus as shape.
And you can go on and on, looking into the nature of the world and you will never find anything except form. Think of stuff; basic substance. You wouldn't know how to talk '' about it; even if you found it, how would you describe what it was like? You couldn't say anything about a structure in it, you couldn't say anything about a pattern or a process in it, because it would be absolute, primordial goo.
What else is there besides form in the world? Obviously, between the significant shapes of any form there is space. And space and form go together as the fundamental things we're dealing with in this universe. The whole of Buddhism is based on a saying, "That which is void is precisely form, and that which is form is precisely void." Let me illustrate this to you in an extremely simple way. When you use the word clarity, what do you mean? It might mean a perfectly polished lens, or mirror, or a clear day when there's no smog and the air is perfectly transparent like space.
What's the next thing clarity makes you think of? You think of form in clear focus, all the details articulate and perfect. So the one word clarity suggests to you these two apparently completely different things: the clarity of the lens or the mirror, and the clarity of articulate form. In this sense, we can take the saying "Form is void, void is form" and instead of saying is, say implies, or the word that I invented, goeswith. Form always goeswith void. And there really isn't, in this whole universe, any substance.
Form, indeed, is inseparable from the idea of energy, and form, especially when it's moving in a very circumscribed area, appears to us as solid. For example, when you spin an electric fan the empty spaces between the blades sort of disappear into a blur, and you can't push a pencil, much less your finger, through the fan. So in the same way, you can't push your finger through the floor because the floor's going too fast. Basically, what you have down there is nothing and form in motion.
I knew of a physicist at the University of Chicago who was rather crazy like some scientists, and the idea of the insolidity, the instability of the physcial world, impressed him so much that he used to go around in enormous padded slippers for fear he should fall through the floor. So this commonsense notion that the world is made of some kind of substance is a nonsense idea—it isn't there at all but is, instead, form and emptiness.
Most forms of energy are vibration, pulsation. The energy of light or the energy of sound are always on and off. In the case of very fast light, very strong light, even with alternating current you don't notice the discontinuity because your retina retains the impression of the on pulse and you can't notice the off pulse except in very slow light like an arc lamp. It's exactly the same thing with sound. A high note seems more continuous because the vibrations are faster than a low note. In the low note you hear a kind of graininess because of the slower alternations of on and off.
All wave motion is this process, and when we think of waves, we think about crests. The crests stand out from the underlying, uniform bed of water. These crests are perceived as the things, the forms, the waves. But you cannot have the emphasis called a crest, the concave, without the de-emphasis, or convex, called the trough. So to have anything standing out, there must be something standing down or standing back. We must realize that if you had this part alone, the up part, that would not excite your senses because there would be no contrast.
The same thing is true of all life together. We shouldn't really contrast existence with nonexistence, because actually, existence is the alternation of now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't. It is that contrast that presents the sensation of there being anything at all.
Now, in light and sound the waves are extraordinarily rapid so that we don't hear or see the interval between them. But there are other circumstances in which the waves are extraordinarily slow, as in the alternation of day and night, light and darkness, and the much vaster alternations of life and death. But these alternations are just as necessary to the being of the universe as in the very fast motions of light and sound, and in the sense of solid contact when it's going so rapidly that we notice only continuity or the is side. We ignore the intervention of the isn't side, but it's there just the same, just as there are vast spaces within the very heart of the atom.
Another thing that goes along with all this is that it's perfectly obvious that the universe is a system which is aware of itself. In other words, we, as living organisms, are forms of the energy of the universe just as much as the stars and the galaxies, and, through our sense organs, this system of energy becomes aware of itself.
But to understand this we must again relate back to our basic contrast between on and off, something and nothing, which is that the aspect of the universe which is aware of itself, which does the awaring, does not see itself. In other words, you can't look at your eyes with your eyes. You can't observe yourself in the act of observing. You can't touch the tip of a finger with the tip of the same finger no matter how hard you try. Therefore, there is on the reverse side of all observation a blank spot; for example, behind your eyes from the point of view of your eyes. However you look around there is blankness behind them. That's unknown. That's the part of the universe which does not see itself because it is seeing.
We always get this division of experience into one-half known, one-half unknown. We would like to know, if we could, this always unknown. If we examine the brain and the structure of the nerves behind the eyes, we're always looking at somebody else's brain. We're never able to look at our own brain at the same time we're investigating somebody else's brain.
So there is always this blank side of experience. What I'm suggesting is that the blank side of experience has the same relationship to the conscious side as the off principle of vibration has to the on principle. There's a fundamental division. The Chinese call them the yang, the positive side, and the yin, the negative side. This corresponds to the idea of one and zero. All numbers can be made of one and zero as in the binary system of numbers which is used for computers.
And so it's all made up of off and on, and conscious and unconscious. But the unconscious is the part of experience which is doing consciousness, just as the trough manifests the wave, the space manifests the solid, the background manifests the figure. And so all that side of life which you call unconscious, unknown, impenetrable, is unconscious, unknown, impenetrable because it's really you. In other words, the deepest you is the nothing side, is the side which you don't know.
So, don't be afraid of nothing. I could say, "There's nothing in nothing to be afraid of." But people in our culture are terrified of nothing. They're terrified of death; they are uneasy about sleep, because they think it's a waste of time. They have a lurking fear in the back of their minds that the universe is eventually going to run down and end in nothing, and it will all be forgotten, buried and dead. But this is a completely unreasonable fear, because it is just precisely this nothing which is always the source of something.
Think once again of the image of clarity, crystal clear. Nothing is what brings something into focus. This nothing, symbolized by the crystal, is your own eyeball, your own consciousness.
How do we basically begin to think about the difference between something and nothing? When I say there is a cigar in my right hand and there is no cigar in my left hand, we get the idea of is, something, and isn't, nothing. At the basis of this reasoning lies the far more obvious contrast of solid and space. We tend to think of space as nothing; when we talk about the conquest of space there's a little element of hostility. But actually, we're talking about the conquest of distance. Space or whatever it is that lies between the earth and the moon, and the earth and the sun, is considered to be just nothing at all.
But to suggest how very powerful and important this nothing at all is, let me point out that if you didn't have space, you couldn't have anything solid. Without space outside the solid you wouldn't know where the solid's edges were. For example, you can see me in a photograph because you see a background and that background shows up my outline. But if it weren't there, then I and everything around me would merge into a single, rather peculiar mass. You always have to have a background of space to see a figure. The figure and the background, the solid and the space, are inseparable and go together.
We find this very commonly in the phenomenon of magnetism. A magnet has a north pole and a south pole— there is no such thing as a magnet with one pole only. Supposing we equate north with is and south with isn't. You can chop the magnet into two pieces, if it's a bar magnet, and just get another north pole and south pole, another is and isn't, on the end of each piece.
What I am trying to get into basic logic is that there isn't a sort of fight between something and nothing. Everyone is familiar with the famous words of Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question." It isn't; to be or not to be is not the question. Because you can't have a solid without space. You can't have an is without an isn't, a something without a nothing, a figure without a background. And we can turn that round, and say, "You can't have space without solid."
Imagine nothing but space, space, space, space with nothing in it, forever. But there you are imagining it and you're something in it. The whole idea of there being only space, and nothing else at all, is not only inconceivable but perfectly meaningless, because we always know what we mean by contrast.
We know what we mean by white in comparison with black. We know life in comparison with death. We know pleasure in comparison with pain, up in comparison with down. But all these things must come into being together. You don't have first something and then nothing or first nothing and then something. Something and nothing are two sides of the same coin. If you file away the tails side of a coin completely, the heads side of it will disappear as well. So in this sense, the positive and negative, the something and the nothing, are inseparable—they go together. The nothing is the force whereby the something can be manifested.
We think that matter is basic to the physical world. And matter has various shapes. We think of tables as made of wood as we think of pots as made of clay. But is a tree made of wood in the same way a table is? No, a tree is wood; it isn't made of wood. Wood and tree are two different names for the same thing.
But there is in the back of our mind, the notion, as a root of common sense, that everything in the world is made of some kind of basic stuff. Physicists, through centuries, have wanted to know what that was. Indeed, physics began as a quest to discover the basic stuff out of which the world is made. And with all our advances in physics we've never found it. What we have found is not stuff but form. We have found shapes. We have found structures. When you turn up the microscope and look at things expecting to see some sort of stuff, you find instead form, pattern, structure. You find the shape of crystals, beyond the shapes of crystals you find molecules, beyond molecules you find atoms, beyond atoms you find electrons and positrons between which there are vast spaces. We can't decide whether these electrons are waves or particles and so we call them wavicles.
What we will come up with will never be stuff, it will always be a pattern. This pattern can be described, measured, but we never get to any stuff for the simple reason there isn't any. Actually, stuff is when you see something unclearly or out of focus, fuzzy. When we look at it with the naked eye it looks just like goo. We can't make out any significant shape to it. But when you put it under the microscope, you suddenly see shapes. It comes into clear focus as shape.
And you can go on and on, looking into the nature of the world and you will never find anything except form. Think of stuff; basic substance. You wouldn't know how to talk '' about it; even if you found it, how would you describe what it was like? You couldn't say anything about a structure in it, you couldn't say anything about a pattern or a process in it, because it would be absolute, primordial goo.
What else is there besides form in the world? Obviously, between the significant shapes of any form there is space. And space and form go together as the fundamental things we're dealing with in this universe. The whole of Buddhism is based on a saying, "That which is void is precisely form, and that which is form is precisely void." Let me illustrate this to you in an extremely simple way. When you use the word clarity, what do you mean? It might mean a perfectly polished lens, or mirror, or a clear day when there's no smog and the air is perfectly transparent like space.
What's the next thing clarity makes you think of? You think of form in clear focus, all the details articulate and perfect. So the one word clarity suggests to you these two apparently completely different things: the clarity of the lens or the mirror, and the clarity of articulate form. In this sense, we can take the saying "Form is void, void is form" and instead of saying is, say implies, or the word that I invented, goeswith. Form always goeswith void. And there really isn't, in this whole universe, any substance.
Form, indeed, is inseparable from the idea of energy, and form, especially when it's moving in a very circumscribed area, appears to us as solid. For example, when you spin an electric fan the empty spaces between the blades sort of disappear into a blur, and you can't push a pencil, much less your finger, through the fan. So in the same way, you can't push your finger through the floor because the floor's going too fast. Basically, what you have down there is nothing and form in motion.
I knew of a physicist at the University of Chicago who was rather crazy like some scientists, and the idea of the insolidity, the instability of the physcial world, impressed him so much that he used to go around in enormous padded slippers for fear he should fall through the floor. So this commonsense notion that the world is made of some kind of substance is a nonsense idea—it isn't there at all but is, instead, form and emptiness.
Most forms of energy are vibration, pulsation. The energy of light or the energy of sound are always on and off. In the case of very fast light, very strong light, even with alternating current you don't notice the discontinuity because your retina retains the impression of the on pulse and you can't notice the off pulse except in very slow light like an arc lamp. It's exactly the same thing with sound. A high note seems more continuous because the vibrations are faster than a low note. In the low note you hear a kind of graininess because of the slower alternations of on and off.
All wave motion is this process, and when we think of waves, we think about crests. The crests stand out from the underlying, uniform bed of water. These crests are perceived as the things, the forms, the waves. But you cannot have the emphasis called a crest, the concave, without the de-emphasis, or convex, called the trough. So to have anything standing out, there must be something standing down or standing back. We must realize that if you had this part alone, the up part, that would not excite your senses because there would be no contrast.
The same thing is true of all life together. We shouldn't really contrast existence with nonexistence, because actually, existence is the alternation of now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't. It is that contrast that presents the sensation of there being anything at all.
Now, in light and sound the waves are extraordinarily rapid so that we don't hear or see the interval between them. But there are other circumstances in which the waves are extraordinarily slow, as in the alternation of day and night, light and darkness, and the much vaster alternations of life and death. But these alternations are just as necessary to the being of the universe as in the very fast motions of light and sound, and in the sense of solid contact when it's going so rapidly that we notice only continuity or the is side. We ignore the intervention of the isn't side, but it's there just the same, just as there are vast spaces within the very heart of the atom.
Another thing that goes along with all this is that it's perfectly obvious that the universe is a system which is aware of itself. In other words, we, as living organisms, are forms of the energy of the universe just as much as the stars and the galaxies, and, through our sense organs, this system of energy becomes aware of itself.
But to understand this we must again relate back to our basic contrast between on and off, something and nothing, which is that the aspect of the universe which is aware of itself, which does the awaring, does not see itself. In other words, you can't look at your eyes with your eyes. You can't observe yourself in the act of observing. You can't touch the tip of a finger with the tip of the same finger no matter how hard you try. Therefore, there is on the reverse side of all observation a blank spot; for example, behind your eyes from the point of view of your eyes. However you look around there is blankness behind them. That's unknown. That's the part of the universe which does not see itself because it is seeing.
We always get this division of experience into one-half known, one-half unknown. We would like to know, if we could, this always unknown. If we examine the brain and the structure of the nerves behind the eyes, we're always looking at somebody else's brain. We're never able to look at our own brain at the same time we're investigating somebody else's brain.
So there is always this blank side of experience. What I'm suggesting is that the blank side of experience has the same relationship to the conscious side as the off principle of vibration has to the on principle. There's a fundamental division. The Chinese call them the yang, the positive side, and the yin, the negative side. This corresponds to the idea of one and zero. All numbers can be made of one and zero as in the binary system of numbers which is used for computers.
And so it's all made up of off and on, and conscious and unconscious. But the unconscious is the part of experience which is doing consciousness, just as the trough manifests the wave, the space manifests the solid, the background manifests the figure. And so all that side of life which you call unconscious, unknown, impenetrable, is unconscious, unknown, impenetrable because it's really you. In other words, the deepest you is the nothing side, is the side which you don't know.
So, don't be afraid of nothing. I could say, "There's nothing in nothing to be afraid of." But people in our culture are terrified of nothing. They're terrified of death; they are uneasy about sleep, because they think it's a waste of time. They have a lurking fear in the back of their minds that the universe is eventually going to run down and end in nothing, and it will all be forgotten, buried and dead. But this is a completely unreasonable fear, because it is just precisely this nothing which is always the source of something.
Think once again of the image of clarity, crystal clear. Nothing is what brings something into focus. This nothing, symbolized by the crystal, is your own eyeball, your own consciousness.
' Without '...
Relax without laziness.
Focus without tension.
Perceive without projecting.
Witness without judging.
Enjoy without craving.
Reflect without imagining.
Love without condition.
Give without demanding.
Receive without possessing.
Serve without self-seeking.
Challenge without dominating.
Meditate without identity.
Correct without blaming.
Overcome without pride.
Laugh without cynicism.
Cry without pity.
Confront without hatred.
Guide without superiority.
Be without self-defining.
Live without arrogance.
Enter without self-importance.
Depart without regret.
Be one with God.
- Mooji
' Think of it '...
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
' Insight '...
Insight reveals the goodness, beauty, power, and stillness of the Inner Reality whence this world of turmoil and strife has emerged, and which cannot be dragged down to that world.
However, the ordinary faculties of thought, feeling, and acting can be so profoundly affected by the experience of attaining insight that they will then see all problems in a different light.
Thus, practical help follows indirectly in this, as well as in other ways.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 4:
Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > # 189 Paul Brunton
' You Want Out '...
You want out,
You want escape,
You want relief.
You meditate
To block out life.
You chant
To put the world on hold.
You pray
To get what you want.
You take drugs
To get there faster.
Ram Tzu knows this - -
Your noble search for God
Is but a sly dodge.
- Ram Tzu
-No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
' Remember the Truth '...
I keep weeping for you, my soul,
good sir, gently trying to let you
see the nature of what you love.
Not even the shadow
of an iron anchor
will last from here.
Remember the truth
that you are.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
' Truth, Virtue, and Beauty '...
Plato's teaching that the three great ideals of truth ,virtue, and beauty are reflected down to and through all levels of
existence--however obscured and diminished and feebler they become with each descent--is one of the grandest offerings of
the Western world.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 3:
Its Requirements > # 256 Paul Brunton
' It Tickles the Mind '...
One will always find that the most evolved sages
can be amused; that is why they are pleasant to
meet and to speak to.
Worrying comes from self-
pity and fear, and fear is made of the clouds of
ignorance; the light will dissolve it.
Humor is the
sign of light:
when the light from above touches
the mind it tickles the mind, and it is the tickling
of mind which produces humor.
- Hazrat Inayat Khan
' The Language of Silence '...
When one remains without thinking,
one understands
another by means of the universal language of silence.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
' The Primary Use of Philosophy '...
The primary use of philosophy is not to console the suffering and give refuge to the unhappy.
Religion can do that.
People ought not come to it because they are tired of life and joyless.
They should come because it can inspire their life and because they appreciate the beauty of its silent contemplations,
the truth of its sublime ideas.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1:
Toward Defining Philosophy > # 187 Paul Brunton
' I do not know myself '...
I do not know myself,
nor you, my Lord.
I mistook the body
for my identity.
I didn't know
that you are
me, and I you,
yet still I keep wondering
who you and I are.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
' Power over mind '...
You have power over your mind - not outside events.
Realize this, and you will find strength.
- Marcus Aurelius
' The Wholeness of Life '...
Living in time and space as we do, we perforce live always in the fragmentary and imperfect, never in the whole, the
perfect.
Only if, at rare moments, we are granted a mystical experience and transcend the time-space world, do we know the beauty
and sublimity of being liberated from a mere segment of experience into the wholeness of Life itself.
-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity > Chapter 4: Time, Space, Causality > # 3
-- Perspectives > Chapter 19: The Reign of Relativity > # 10 Paul Brunton
' Doing Nothing '...
Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you
can’t hear,
and not bothering.
- Winnie the Pooh
' Understanding Life '...
Understanding makes the trouble of life lighter to bear.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
We often suffer because we do not understand. Many conditions and many people are difficult to tolerate because we do not understand them, but once we understand we can tolerate almost anything.
All tragedy of life, all misery and inharmony are caused by one thing and that is lack of understanding. Lack of understanding comes from lack of penetration. The one who does not see from the point of view from which he ought to see becomes disappointed because he cannot understand. It is not for the outer world to help us to understand life better; it is we ourselves who should help ourselves to understand it better.
What a great thing is understanding! It is priceless. No man can give greater pleasure to his fellow man than by understanding him. The closest friend in life is the one who understands most. It is not your wife, brother or sister, it is the one who understands you most who is your greatest friend in the world. You can be the greatest friend of God if you can understand God. Imagine how man lives in the world -- with closed eyes and closed ears! Every name and every form speaks constantly, constantly makes signs for you to hear, for you to respond to, for you to interpret, that you may become a friend of God. The whole purpose of your life is to make yourself ready to understand what God is, what your fellow man is, what the nature of man is, what life is.
Now coming to a still greater secret of life I want to answer the question: how can we grow to read and understand the message that life speaks through all its names and forms? The answer is that, as by the opening of the eyes you can see things, so by the opening of the heart you can understand things. As long as the heart is closed you cannot understand things. The secret is that when the ears and eyes of the heart are open, all planes of the world are open, all names are open, all secrets, all mysteries are unfolded.
' A Better Philosophy '...
The misery on which the Indian mind likes to dwell, and which leads to the idea of escape from rebirth as the highest good fortune, does not obsess the philosophic mind.
The latter does not deny life's brevity and tragedy, sorrow and pain, but at the same time it notes life's beauty and glory, joy and reward.
In this it is very Greek.
If the mysticism of India could be married to the sanity of Greece, a broader and better philosophy would be the offspring.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 1:
Situation > # 148 Paul Brunton
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