' Beloved '...

"Beloved, I sought you
here and there,

asked for news of you
from all I met;

then saw you through myself
and found we were identical.

Now I blush to think I ever
searched for signs of you."



-Fakhruddin Iraqi (? - 1289)
from William Chittick / Nasr Seyyed Hossein
_Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality)_

' Grace '...

Grace is everything.

Grace is another name for what we are.

Grace is indefinable, ever perfect and timeless.

It is that in which time and breath play as names and forms
in their brief dance called life.

We are the experiencing and simultaneously the witness of all this.

Grace is that which calls you away from the chaos,
away from the noise of the world.

Grace is the same as peace,
but here there is no peacekeeper
nor anyone being a doer.

Grace is the breath of the Self.



- Mooji

' Be Free of the Past '...

The personal history which has gone before--let it really go and be free of the past,

which can become a mental prison for unwary persons;

learn to abide in the timeless,

coming out of it as duties call but holding on to it as the background.




-- Notebooks Category 24: The Peace within You > Chapter 3:
Practise Detachment > # 227 Paul Brunton

' Rig Veda '...

"The stranger asks the way of him who knows it:

taught by the skilful guide he travels onward.

This is, in truth, the blessing of instruction:

he finds the path that leads directly forward."



-Rig Veda 10.32.7
The Hymns of the Rig Veda
Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith
London, 1889

' Matter Is Spirit '...

All that is constructed is subject to destruction; all that is composed must be decomposed;

all that is formed must be destroyed; that which has birth has death.

But all this belongs to matter:

the spirit that is absorbed by this formation of matter or by its mechanism lives, for spirit cannot die.

What we call life is an absorption of spirit by matter.

As long as the matter is strong and energetic enough to absorb life or spirit from space, it continues to live and move and be in good condition, but when it has lost its grip on the spirit, when it cannot absorb the spirit as it ought to, then it cannot live, for the substance of matter is spirit.



From The Teachings Of
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

Selected & Arranged By
HAZRAT PIR VILAYAT INAYAT KHAN

' Now '...

There was never any more inception than there is now,

Nor any more youth or age than there is now;

And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.



~ Walt Whitman

' Becoming God '...

"From the beginning of all beginnings I have been saying,

I say it now,

and to the end of ends I will say it,

that HE WHO LOVES GOD BECOMES GOD."




-Meher Baba
Listen, Humanity
Edited by D. E. Stevens
NY: Crossroads, 1998 (originally published 1967), p. 240

' Demand Nothing '...

When you demand nothing of the world,

nor of God, when you want nothing, seek

nothing, expect nothing then the Supreme

State will come to you uninvited and

unexpected.



- Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

' World Enquiry '...

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

Van Morrison - Bring It On Home To Me (Live At Porchester Hall, London /...

' A Surrender '...

Enlightenment is merely an understanding in

which there is no comprehender.

It is a surrender

in which there is no one to surrender anything.



- Ramesh S. Balsekar

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

' Life Is Spontaneity '...

You ask:

"How to live my life?"

But with the question you are suffocating life itself for life is spontaneity.



~ Mooji

' The Real Spiritual Awakening '...

That is the real spiritual awakening,

when something emerges from within you that is deeper than who you thought you were.

So, the person is still there,

but one could almost say that something more powerful shines through the person.



~ Eckhart Tolle

Alison Krauss & Union Station - The Lucky One

' Passing On Transmission '...

"If we are to discuss this matter, the simple fact is that there is nothing whatsoever to point out to people.

If there were anything at all to indicate to people, Buddhism would not have reached the present day.


For this reason the successions of Buddhas extending a hand and the successions of Zen masters passing on transmission have done so for lack of practical choice; there has never been an actual doctrine."



-Fu-an
in Thomas Cleary
Teachings of Zen Buddhism
NY: Barnes & Noble, revised and expanded edition, 2000 (1998), p. 103

' Tripping Over Joy '...

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,

I am afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.


- Hafiz

I Heard God Laughing
Renderings of Hafiz
by Daniel Ladinsky
Dhama Publishing Company, 1996

' Surrender the ego '...

Give the ego back to the Overself and then the Overself will use it as it should be used--in harmony with the cosmic laws of being.

This means that the welfare of all others in contact with the ego will be considered as well as the ego's own.



-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself >
Chapter 2: Inspiration > # 49 Paul Brunton

' Therlogia Germanica '...

"The more mine and I,

that is to say I-attachment and selfishness,

recede, the more God's I,

that is God Himself, increases in me."



Theologia Germanica
Bengt Hoffman, Tr.
NY: Paulist Press, 1980, p. 79

' The Inner Guru '...

You don't see the inner Guru because you look
somewhere else.

Stop looking and It will reveal
itself without your effort.

Just stop the mind from
chasing all its loves and enjoyments.



- Papaji

"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995

' How Long Will It Take? '...

There is a wonderful story about a young man who checks into the monastery, full of juice and ready to be enlightened yesterday. He asks the abbot, "How long will it take me to be enlightened?" To which the abbot answers, "About ten years." The young man says, "Ten years! Why ten years?" The abbot replies, "Oh, twenty years in your case." The man asks, "Why do you say twenty years?" The abbot says, "Oh, I’m sorry. I was mistaken…thirty years."

If you really get it, you realize that to even ask the question gets you ten years. As soon as the thought, "When will I really be free?" comes up, time has just birthed itself into existence. And with this birth of time you have to think, "Probably at least ten years, maybe forever." Where can you go in order to get here? Any step takes you somewhere else.

This is surprising to the mind because the mind always thinks of freedom, or enlightenment, as some sort of accumulation, and of course there is nothing to accumulate. It’s about realizing what you are, what you have always been. This realization is outside of time because it’s now or never.

As soon as your idea of enlightenment becomes time-bound, it’s always about the next moment. You may have a deep spiritual experience and then ask, "How long will I sustain this experience?" As long as you insist on the question, you remain time-bound. If you are still interested in time and the spiritual accumulations you can have in time, you will get a time-bound experience. The mind is acting as if what you are looking for isn’t already present right now. Now is outside of time. There is no time, and the paradox is that the only thing that keeps you from seeing the eternal is that your mind is stuck in time. So you miss what’s actually here..

Have you ever felt that you really didn’t like being here very much and that you wanted some wonderful eternal experience? That’s what is often thought but not said when the teacher says, "Be here right now." Inside you are feeling, "I am here, and I don’t like being here. I want to be there, where enlightenment is." If you have a really true teacher, you will be told that you are mistaken, that you have never been here. You’ve always been in time, therefore, you have never actually shown up here. Your body was here, but the rest of you went somewhere else.

Your body has been going through this thing called "life," but your head has been going through this thing called "my fantasy about life" or "my big story about life." You have been caught in an interpretation about life, so you have never really been here.

Here is the Promised Land. The eternal is here. Have you ever noticed that you have never left here, except in your mind? When you remember the past, you are not actually in the past. Your remembering is happening here. When you think about the future, that future projection is completely here. And when you get to the future, it’s here. It’s no longer the future.

To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are. That’s all! And then you realize, "I’m here." Here is where thoughts aren’t believed. Every time you come here, you are nothing. Radiantly nothing. Absolutely and eternally zero. Emptiness that is awake. Emptiness that is full. Emptiness that is everything.


- Adyashanti

' A Bakalama '...

"There is no Path safer and smoother than that of bakalama.

Bakalama means resigning the self to the will of the Almighty,

to have no consciousness that anything is 'mine.'"



-Sri Ramakrishna
in F. Max Mueller Ramakrishna: His Life and Saying, 343
London: Longmans, Green, 1898, p. 178

' Moves Without Trace '...

As you can walk through a busy marketplace and not
touch or speak to a single person,

in the same way
you can move through this mind field and yet not get
entangled with any thought activity.

Such a one moves
without trace and is called a Buddha.



- Mooji

' Reality '...

The world is a reflection of your mind. The universe is an emanation of yourself. If you didn't exist there would be no universe. The universe exists because you exist. You are the universe and that's true of every so-called fact in your life. It's a fact that someone is dying and if someone dies, that's a fact but it's not the truth.

The truth is: we are all unborn. No one was ever born. If no one was ever born how can you die? No one was born and no one dies. Again I'm expressing my confession. That's how it appears to me. That's what I mean when I say, "This teaching is useless to most people", because you can't do anything with it, yet things happen, lives improve, spirituality grows, happiness ensues, bliss comes.

It all happens spontaneously. Just by being present and this Is what satsang is all about. By being present without taking thought without manipulation, without playing mind games, without trying to improve yourself, without thinking of yourself without thinking of others, everything good happens, all by its self. Why?

Because emptiness is goodness, nirvana is absolute reality.. The unborn is the Self and you are that - what else can I say. So what do you think about this? I'm open to questions.



- Robert Adams

' In this way, you will not suffer '...

These forms are transient and to be attached to them
is to be confused.

Anything that rises, be it thought,
desire, emotion, feeling or object will give you suffering
and no one in the world can avoid this.

Both the
enjoyer and the enjoyed are washed away.

But the wise discriminate between the Real and the
unreal.

They know what is Real and so allow their
feelings and thoughts to arise because they know all
is One and the same!

In this way you will not suffer.



- Papaji

"The Truth Is"
Sri H.W.L. Poonja
Yudhishtara, 1995

' Appearing to Exist '...

Just because something exists, however, it
doesn't necessarily mean that it's real.

Reality is that which persists in all states;
waking life, dream life and in dreamless sleep.

If this is true, then, anything that fundament-
ally changes can't actually be considered as
"real."

That doesn't mean, of course, that it doesn't appear
to exist!



- Chuck Hillig

Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003

' It Is Your Birthright '...

When I allow it, it is, when I avoid it, it is.

It requires no effort, demands no standards and holds no preferences.

Being timeless it sees no path to tread, no debt to pay.

Because it acknowledges no right or wrong, neither does it recognize judgement or guilt.

Its love is absolutely unconditional.

It simply watches with clarity, compassion and delight as I move out for my return.

It is my birthright.

It is my home.

It is already that which I am.



- Tony Parsons

' To 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

' You begin to Awaken '...

The beginning of freedom is the realization
that you are not the possessing entity - the
thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe
the entity.

The moment you start watching the
thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes
activated.

You then being to realize that there is a vast realm
of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only
a tiny aspect of that intelligence.

You also realize
that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love,
creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the
mind.

You begin to awaken.


- Eckhart Tolle

' The Spirit of Meditation '...

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

' Fullness '...

"All things in the world are born from Fullness.

Fullness is born from Emptiness."



-Lao Tzu
Tao Te Ching, 40
Thomas H. Miles, Tr.
NY: Avery, 1992, p. 77

' Creations of the Mind '...

How can the mind which has itself created the world
accept it as unreal?

That is the significance of the
comparison made between the world of the waking
state and the dream world.

Both are creations of the
mind and, so long as the mind is engrossed in either,
it finds itself unable to deny their reality.

It cannot deny
the reality of the dream world while it is dreaming and
it cannot deny the reality of the waking world while it
is awake.

If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind
completely from the world and turn it within and abide
there, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self
which is the substratum of all experiences,

you will
find the world of which you are now aware is just as
unreal as the world in which you lived your dream.



- Sri Ramana Maharshi

"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
Edited by David Godman
Arkana, 1985

' The separate-self '...

"The realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: there is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate—each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God…in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other.

“This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense. The separate-self is, at bottom, simply a sensation of seeking. When you feel yourself right now, you will basically feel a tiny interior tension or contraction—a sensation of grasping, desiring, wishing, wanting, avoiding, resisting—it is a sensation of effort, a sensation of seeking.

“In its highest form, this sensation of seeking takes on the form of the Great Search for Spirit. We wish to get from our unenlightened state (of sin or delusion or duality) to an enlightened or more spiritual state. We wish to get from where Spirit is not, to where Spirit is.

“But there is no place where Spirit is not. Every single location in the entire Kosmos is equally and fully Spirit…The Great Search simply reinforces the mistaken assumption that there is some place that Spirit is not…There is only Spirit.

“The Great Search for Spirit is simply that impulse, the final impulse, which prevents the present realization of Spirit, and it does so for a simple reason: the Great Search presumes the loss of God. The Great Search reinforces the mistaken belief that God is not present, and thus totally obscures the reality of God’s ever-present Presence. The Great Search, which pretends to love God, is in fact the very mechanism of pushing God away; the mechanism of promising to find tomorrow that which exists only in the timeless now."



--Ken Wilber, from “Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-Present Awareness,” the final chapter from Wilber’s book The Eye of Spirit

' The Suffering of Desire '..

All suffering is born of desire.

True love
is never frustrated.

How can the sense of
unity be frustrated?

What can be frustrated
is the desire for expression.

Such desire is
of the mind.

As with all things mental,
frustration is inevitable.




- Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

' Nobody Exists '...

You don't even exist! You're all an optical illusion. Nobody exists.

I'll tell you this much. We've all been totally brainwashed since birth.
Everything we believe is false, everything. You are false.
I am false. There is no reality. If there were a reality, you'd not be able
to express it, for it would be beyond human conception. If there were a
truth, we would not be able to understand it, for it would be beyond the
finite mind. The finite mind cannot understand anything, cannot know
anything. Yet there's no finite mind, so there's no one to know anything.

This is a dream world you're in now. You are dreaming the mortal dream,
that you are a man, you are a woman, you are a child, you have a job,
you go through certain experiences, things happen to you in your life.
Yet this is not true. This is a lie. In reality, you've never been born,
you do not prevail, and you do not die. There's no one who ever dies,
for there's no one who was ever born.

How can you see yourself this way? By remaining silent.
By not reading so much. By not remembering anything.

You should understand yourself, that you are the one. You are the only
one. There are no others. There is only that which has always been,
and that is you. When you realize you do not have to practice sadhana,
or meditate, or go through spiritual practices with yoga, life becomes
easy, wonderful. There's no striving for anything. There's no trying to
become somebody or something. You are your self. You have always
been your self, the self which is bright and shining, the self which is.
You are that self.


-Robert Adams - The collected works.

' Transmission of Rigpa in Dzogchen '...

Namkhai Norbu said to me in 1986: “rigpa is that changeless awareness, present right now, in which thoughts appear and disappear. Whether thoughts are present or not makes no difference to your awareness in which they are appearing”..

A huge insight and shift occurred which freed the mind from trying to manage, reduce, transform, modify or eliminate all thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions, as though the awareness needed to be free of unwanted thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions. That clear and perfect space of rigpa cognizance suddenly “knew” itself freshly.

How could one “practice” being that in which all thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions appeared, since that was already, always happening? There is an infinitely empty, unchanging, aware space for all thoughts, emotions, sensations, perceptions and experiences to freely appear and disappear.

It was seen that rigpa awareness was always free and pure, as nothing ever altered it. I zealously spent the next two days trying to share this insight with everybody at the retreat. It was a huge shift in seeing.

An even deeper experience of rigpa occurred when engaging in Douglas Harding’s “Headless Way”.

The whole point is that it’s not whether thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions or negative mind states were present or not; rather its about being “that changeless, stationary emptiness” which is hosting thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions or minds states whether occurring or not. It’s like being a stable movie screen in a theater which never changes no matter what movies appear upon it, yet without the movie screen, movies have nowhere to appear.

However, the identity-making aspect of subconscious mental activity will generate a new delusion of egoic identity such like “oh, I see... ‘I am’ this unchanging empty space of awareness”. But that whole conceptual construct of believing oneself to be this “empty space of awareness”, is itself arising in the authentic identity-less hosting space of empty cognizance.

“If thoughts (emotions, sensations and perceptions) arise, or if no thoughts (emotions, sensations and perceptions) arise, that which remains equally present in either condition, is the pure presence of rigpa.”


- Garab Dorje

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth 1967

' Who does not Trust '...

The very highest is barely known.
Then comes that which people know and love,
Then that which is feared,
Then that which is despised.

Who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

When actions are performed
Without unnecessary speech,
People say, "We did it!"




- Lao-tzu

Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1989

' Stillness '...

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

' This Miracle '...

The beginning and end
of spiritual practice
is to rest in the heart.

How a dogwood blossom opens
simply can't be comprehended.

How the moon floats
in the womb of the pond
is beyond the mind.

Empty your head of thoughts,
fill your chest with love.

There is no other way
to get through this miracle.


-Fred LaMotte

Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire (Historically Accurate Almanac) CO...

' Between '...

Lost in the wilderness between
true awareness and the senses,

I suddenly woke inside myself
like a lotus opening
in waterweeds.



- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic

From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992

' Pulling You Home '...

"At a certain point it is unnatural to believe your thoughts,

to feel the weight,

the gravity of concepts,

it gets more heavy,

it gets more dense,

because the Silence,

the Grace,

is pulling you home."



-Jac O'Keeffe

' Glimpses of Reality '...

Those who have followed the Quest in previous lives will generally receive a glimpse at least twice during the present one.

They will receive it in early life during their teens or around the threshold of adult life.

This will inspire them to seek anew.

They will receive it again in late life during the closing years of the reincarnation.

This will be bestowed as a Grace of the Overself.

Those aspirants who bemoan the loss of their early glimpse should remind themselves, in hours of depression, that it will recur before they leave the body.

In addition to those glimpses which attend the opening and closing years of a lifetime, a number of others may be had during the intervening period as a direct consequence and reward of the efforts, disciplines, aspirations, and self-denials practised in that time.



-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 4: Introduction To Mystical Glimpses > # 48
-- Perspectives > Chapter 22: Inspiration and the Overself > # 59 Paul Brunton

' The Original Whim '...

"Everything in the universe is, and from the beginning has been, a materialization of the divine Original Whim working out irrevocably without default, deflection or defeat.

It is the unfolding upon the screen of consciousness of the film of creation, sequence after sequence, according to the pattern that issued from the Original Whim.

However, when God as God-Man plays the role of Audience He can alter or erase at His avataric whim any thing or happening which was destined from the Original Whim.

But the very arising of the avataric whim was inherent in the Original Whim."



-Meher Baba
"The Working of the Avatar"
The Everything and the Nothing. 63
Beacon Hill, Australia: Meher House Publications, 1963. p. 106

' Transcendental Understanding '...

The transcendental understanding of which the sages speak
cannot be transferred or transmitted.

It must happen in the
effortless silence of the phenomenal void,

and there is no way
to get it through exertion or effort.




- Ramesh S. Balsekar

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

' How To Be A Buddha '...

Let there be a silent understanding and no more.

Away with all thinking and explaining.

Then we may say that the Way of Words has been cut off and movements of the mind eliminated.

This Mind is the pure Buddha-Source inherent in all men.

All wriggling beings possessed of sentient life and all the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas are of this one substance and do not differ.

Differences arise from wrong-thinking only and lead to the creation of all kinds of karma.

All the visible universe is the Buddha; so are all sounds; hold fast to one principle and all the others are Identical.

On seeing one thing, you see ALL.

On perceiving any individual's mind, you are perceiving ALL Mind.

Obtain a glimpse of one way and ALL ways are embraced in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way.

When your glance falls upon a grain of dust, what you see is identical with all the vast world systems with their great rivers and mighty hills.

To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.

Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha."



-Huang Po

' Your Self '...

"Do not look for a sanctuary in anyone except your self".


Gautama the Buddha

' No-one Awakens '...

There is no person that becomes enlightened.

No-one awakens.

Awakening
is the absence of the illusion of individuality.



-Tony Parsons

' Direct Perception '...

Awareness alone is whatever it turns it's attention to, seems to exist at the time: only that.

If to Void then there is nothing else.

If to world, then world assumes reality..

What is it that is aware?

The thought of a point of awareness creates, gives reality at the lowest level to ego, and at the highest to Higher Self but when the thought itself is dropped there is only the One Existence, Being, in the divine Emptiness.

It is therefore the Source of all life, intelligence, form.

The idea held becomes direct experience for the personality, the awareness becomes direct perception.



-- Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2: Our Relation To the Absolute > # 129
-- Perspectives > Chapter 28: The Alone > # 35 Paul Brunton

' Authentic Self-illumination '...

Fortunately,

Truth is already shining in Its own light

right within.

Its silent speech proclaims unceasingly,

I am.

This is the clue.


Those who have already experienced authentic Self-illumination

know directly that they are neither the body nor the mind.

They know that they are transcendental Consciousness

and Peace Absolute.

This experience is open to all.


The Light of Pure Consciousness is eternally shining in us.


The greatest obstruction is clinging to the ego position

and ego purposes.


In transcending the ego

there is first the recognition of the need to do so.


Egolessness equals Enlightenment-Emancipation-Truth-I AM.





-The above quotes by Srimati Margaret Coble

are from the book Self Abidance, Second Abridged Edition

' Perfect Longing for Source '...

"A monk once said to Abba Philemon:

"I am very conscious of now my mind constantly wanders all over the place,

drifting after things that are not good for it.

What can I do, father, to be delivered?"

And he hesitated a little while and then replied:

"This is a remnant of the obsessions your external life inflicts on you.

It still troubles you because you have not yet reached the heights of perfect longing for God.

The longing for the experience of God has not fallen on you like fire."



-Abba Philemon
in John Anthony McGuckin, Tr.
The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent
Boston: Shambhala, 2002, pp. 16-17

' Enlightenment '...

Repose in this condition of vast emptiness is accompanied by intense and vivid happiness.

He knows that he is with the living God.

He understands that he has come as close to God as it is possible for a human being on earth to do and yet remain human and alive.

But he knows and understands all this not by the movement of ideas--for there are none here--but by a feeling which captures his whole being.

But it is during this final experience of the Void, when he passes beyond all relativity, that he experiences Mind to be the only reality, the only enduring existence, and that all else is but a shadow.

Entry into this stage is therefore a critical point for every aspirant.



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8:
The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 32 Paul Brunton

' The Dreamer '...

It is more than 'Dreaming',

Love is Awakening As Love..

It is that simple and still not understood..

The 'Dreamer' is the 'Ego'..

It has always been a Dream..

You are Consciousness..

You are the 'Creator of Dreams ..

You Are The Dreamer..

Stop Dreaming and return to Reality..

This is called 'Awakening' or 'Enlightenment'..

You, as separate self, surrender All..

This is upon a mental altar of surrender..

Meditation is the First Step..

Leaving the body is next..

The more that you give away is the most freedom, you will possess..

This is called Love...


-thomas

' Beyond Ideas '...

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there lies a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.



- Rumi

' Tao '...

"In carrying water and chopping wood--there is the wonderful Tao."

This ancient Chinese sentence is a subtle, clever way of saying that not only in meditation is the glimpse to be sought, but also in the world's work and life it is to be found and kept.

Such is the ultimate state, this emptiness of mind amid activity of body.

It is possible only by knowledge, the unforgettable recognition and understanding that within this emptiness lies Tao.



-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 8:
Glimpses and Permanent Illumination > # 84 Paul Brunton

' Falling into Grace '...

"There was a great Zen master named Dogen who lived hundreds of years ago, and one of his definitions of enlightenment was 'intimacy with the ten thousand things.' Of course, in the context of his teaching, the 'ten thousand things' refers to everything.

So when we open to this space of unknowing, we start to feel a literal intimacy with every part of our experience. The sense of distance starts to drop away, and arising within that field of unknowing is a sense of presence.

It's very subtle thing. We begin to touch upon something without boundaries, without walls, without definitions, without borders. We're touching upon something that's immensely vast.
...
By allowing yourself to viscerally and emotionally connect with this open expanse of being, it's possible that you will see that this open space of unknowing, this pure field of awareness, is actually what you are at the most essential level.

It's the part of you that has always existed and that never changes.

Everything that occurs comes to be within this field of awareness and pure being.

If you allow yourself to feel it, to sense it, you'll see that this deep field of unknowing has been with you all along, that there's literally not any moment, ever in your life, where it was absent."


- Adyashanti

' Look into your Heart '...

Your vision will become clear

only when you look into your heart.

Who looks outside, dreams.

Who looks inside, awakens.



- Carl Jung,

' The Unchanging Self '...

All appearances are impermanent and can therefore
be stripped away, whereas your true Self as pure
awareness is timelessly present and unchanging.

You can keep removing, sweeping aside, discarding
appearances until nothing is left to remove and even
the very concept of removing itself disappears.

Finally even the concept of a 'remover' gets dissolved
and one comes to see That which is beyond all notions
remains timelessly present.

That, the unchanging
awareness, is your Self.

This is the Truth.



- Mooji

' The Nondualist World '...

While the dualistic division of subject/object (self and non-self) is practised, there is ordinary physical sense-experience.

But when consciousness is detached from this division, the real nondualist world as it is, and not as it is received by ordinary minds, reveals itself.

(This can be done by entering the gap between two thoughts.)



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 8:
The Void As Contemplative Experience > # 164 Paul Brunton

' You Are Divine '...

You are Divine. It’s time to start being that; quit pretending your not. . . .

You are required right now. There is an amazing shift in consciousness and you are needed. Consciousness has been silently inviting you into your bigness.

Throw off all your smallness and all your veils.

Look at someone like Adyashanti - it’s clear he’s thrown off all his smallness, and look at Eckhart - you are the same Being.

And Ramana, and Buddha and Mohammed and Moses. You continue to pretend and go on with the suffering because of that, and you fail yourself.

Enough already! Have you had enough of smallness yet? It’s time now. I know you’re gods and you have all the freedom that gods have, but Enough Already.

Stillness is saying Enough Already. Can you feel it? Let’s all just unveil ourselves.

The gifts you’ve been given are not to be squandered, but to be shared.



-Pamela Wilson

' Life's Meaning '...

It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere

that it begins to have meaning.



- P.D. Ouspensky

' The Awake Silence '...

"To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are.

That's all! And then you realize, "I'm here."

Here is where thoughts
aren't believed.

Every time you come here, you are nothing.

Radiantly
nothing.

Absolutely and eternally zero.

Emptiness that is awake.

Emptiness that is full.

Emptiness that is everything."

"All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different,
and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are."



-Adyashanti

' The Ashtavakra Samhita '...

He must not let the Ashtavakra Samhita be misunderstood.

It does not preach mystic idleness and indifference.

The world is there for both sage and student, and both must work and serve--the difference being mental only.

Illusionism is not the doctrine except as an intermediate stage towards truth, which is higher.

One must participate in God's work by assisting evolution and redeeming the world, not squat idly in peace alone.



-- Notebooks Category 19: The Reign of Relativity >
Chapter 1: The Cosmos of Change > # 57 Paul Brunton

CAROLINA IN MY MIND by Allison Krauss & Jerry Douglas

' The Test of Compassion '...

Adopting an attitude of universal responsibility is essentially a personal matter.

The real test of compassion is not what we say in abstract discussions but how we conduct ourselves in daily life.


-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

' An Unfinished Painting '...

I am divinity and I am a fucking mess.

I am God and I am a weird, original, flawed, unfinished painting of a “human being”.

I have no limits, and so I limit myself in ingenious ways.

I play with boundaries and edges, multiplicity and Oneness, form and the formless.

I love dancing in the in-between, bridging gaps, holding on and letting go, grabbing and releasing, coming closer and moving away, only to come closer again.

All movements are dear to me.

I have no bias, no prejudice.

I love the opening and the closing too, the space and the darkness.

I am perfection, and I love making the most ridiculous mistakes.

I learn from it all, delight in it all.

I am complete and I love the erotic ache of the unfinished and the unresolved too.

You will never capture me, yet I am always present; I dance peacefully, restlessly, on the edge where the world comes into form.

Will you join me here, my love?



- Jeff Foster

' Ripe for Grace '...

When a man has come to the end of his tether,

dry of all hope for accomplishment of his aim by self-effort,

he is ripe for the Grace-invoking effort of the Short Path.



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 4:
The Changeover To the Short Path > # 166 Paul Brunton

' Join in the Dance '...

When you truly realize that this life and
living is an absurdity, then you join in the
dance.

You take part in this absurdity.

The body-mind organism continues to live
In the world, but without any sense of
personal doership.



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

' The ego wants attention '...

"The ego thinks it gains something by getting attention—it wants to validate itself.

It wants to be visible because then it feels real, so it looks for attention to make itself experience visibility.

In this way ego has created a story, and the attention it receives enables the idea that you are that ego, that you are the one seeking attention.

Then mistaken identity happens!

See how this game works?"


-Jac O'Keeffe

' The Long and Short 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

Something to Think About '...

In life, only mad people ask for perfection. The perfectionist is another name for someone who is getting ready to become mad.

Change your basic philosophy of that of an achiever. Relax into your being. Don’t have any ideals, don’t try to make something out of yourself, don’t try to improve upon God. You are perfect as you are. With all your imperfections you are perfect. If you are imperfect, you are perfectly imperfect — but perfection is there. Once this is understood, where is the hurry? Where is the worry? You have already slowed down. And then it is a morning walk with no destination, going nowhere. You can enjoy each tree and each sunray and each bird and each person that passes by.
Perfectionism is a neurosis. It is an illness. And the more you try to become perfect, the more frustrated you will become. The goal of perfection has led the whole of humanity towards madness; the earth has almost become a madhouse. I don’t teach perfection. What do I teach? I teach wholeness, not perfection. Be whole; be total; but don’t think about perfection.

A person remains incomplete unless he becomes enlightened. You cannot expect perfection from a person before enlightenment, but you can expect perfection in a skill. You cannot expect perfection in the being, but in the doing it can be expected, there is no problem about it. An archer can hit the target without ever missing it — and may not be in it. He has learned the technique, he has become a mechanism, a robot. It is simply done by the head and the hand.
Meditation has nothing to do with perfectionism, but perfection comes as a by-product. As you become silent it follows you, wherever you go it is there — and it is not something dead, hanging around you. It is growing. That is the most miraculous thing about it, because we always think of perfection as the dead end.

Why this obsession with perfection? Then you will be tense, anxious, nervous, always uneasy, troubled, in conflict. The English word ‘agony’ comes from a root which means: to be in conflict. To be constantly wrestling with oneself — that is the meaning of agony. You will be in agony if you are not at ease with yourself. Don’t demand the impossible, be natural, at ease, loving yourself, loving others. And remember, a person who cannot love himself because he goes on condemning, cannot love anybody else either. A perfectionist is not only a perfectionist about himself, he is about others also. A man who is hard on himself is bound to be hard on others. His demands are impossible.

If you love the woman, you love the woman with all her limitations, with all her imperfections; she loves you with all your imperfections and limitations. But this is what — particularly to the Indian mind — is very significant: perfection. And to demand perfection is a kind of neurosis. It will drive the other neurotic, and as far as you are concerned, you are already neurotic. If you ask perfection in any human being you will create trouble for yourself and for the other, and your life will be nothing but misery. The real man of understanding and intelligence accepts the imperfections of the other and still loves. Love is great enough; it can even love people who have no character, people who are not pure according to your ideas, people who sometimes go astray, people who sometimes commit small sins. Love is big enough to accept all this and to transform it too.

A perfectionist is neurotic. And not only is he neurotic, he creates neurotic trends around him. So don’t be a perfectionist, and if somebody is a perfectionist around you escape away from him as fast as you can before he pollutes your mind. All perfectionism is a sort of deep ego trip. Just to think of yourself in terms of ideals and perfection is nothing but to decorate your ego to its uttermost. A humble person accepts that life is not perfect. A humble person, a really religious person, accepts that we are limited, that there are limitations.

wants to be the first, ego wants to put everybody below itself; hence it takes itself seriously. Hence it is perfectionist: it demands perfection, which is impossible. Nobody is perfect; nobody can exist for a single moment if he is perfect. Imperfection is the way of life, because it is possible to grow only if you are imperfect. If you are perfect there is no more growth, no more evolution. If you are perfect you are stuck. Perfection means death; imperfection means flow, growth, movement, dynamism. The ego demands perfection of oneself and of others too.

It asks for the impossible, and because the impossible cannot be achieved it can go on living. It is not happy with the ordinary; it wants the extraordinary, and life consists only of the ordinary. But the ordinary is beautiful, the ordinary is exquisite. There is no need of anything extraordinary. The ordinary life is sacred, but the ego condemns it as mundane. It demands extraordinary life. Hence all the religions go on inventing stories about their founders which are all untrue: Moses separating the sea, Jesus walking on the water… all these stories are inventions, lies, created by the followers just to prove that their master is extraordinary; he is not an ordinary human being.

Buddha says: Meditation is enough to solve your problems, but something is missing in it — compassion. If compassion is also there, then you can help others solve their problems. He says: Meditation is pure gold; it has a perfection of its own. But if there is compassion then the gold has a fragrance too — then a higher perfection, then a new kind of perfection, gold with fragrance. Gold is enough unto itself — very valuable — but with compassion, meditation has a fragrance.

Meditation makes one perfect — not a perfectionist, remember. A perfectionist is a neurotic. Meditation makes you perfect, but not a perfectionist. Perfection comes just like a shadow to meditation: you need not bother about it, you need not care about it. it is simply there, it will follow you. The perfectionist has an idea of a goal ahead of him and the meditator has no idea of perfection; perfection follows him from the beyond like a shadow. That is the difference between a perfectionist and a perfect man. Perfection is behind the perfect man and ahead of the perfectionist. Because it is ahead it drives him nuts. he is trying to become it, he is sacrificing his present for the future and once you become accustomed of sacrificing your present for the future your whole life will be ruined; not only this but your future lives will be ruined.

Meditation is not a static thing. It is a balance. You will have to attain it again and again and again. You will become more and more capable of attaining it, but it is not going to remain forever, like a possession in your hands. It has to be claimed each moment — only then is it yours. You cannot rest, you cannot say, ‘I have meditated and I have realised that now there is no need for me to do anything more. I can rest.’ Life does not believe in rest; it is a constant movement from perfection to more perfection. Listen to me: from perfection to more perfection. It is never imperfect, it is always perfect, but always more perfection is possible.

Perfection is a goal somewhere in the future, totality is an experience herenow. Totality is not a goal, it is a style of life. If you can get into any act with your whole heart, you are total. Totality brings wholeness and totality brings health and totality brings sanity. The perfectionist completely forgets about totality. He has some idea how he should be, and obviously time will be needed to reach that idea. It can’t happen now — tomorrow, day after tomorrow, this life, maybe next life… so life has to be postponed.

The ego remains imperfect and goes on demanding perfection. My whole message is to see the truth, to see the hell that ego creates in the name: of perfection, uniqueness — and to let it drop. Then there is a tremendous beauty — no ego, no self, just a deep emptiness. And out of deep emptiness is creativity, out of that nothingness arises bliss, SATCHITANANDA, truth. Being, bliss, all arise out of that absolute purity. When the ego is not, you are a virgin. Christ was born out of a virgin; your nothingness is that Mother Virgin, Mother Mary.

The moment you desire something you are saying that “I am wiser than the whole.” You are saying that “You don’t know what has to be done and I have come to advise you.” You are telling the whole that “The way things are is not right: they should be according to me.” Prayer is just the opposite of desire. Prayer means, “The way things are is absolutely perfect, they are as they should be. Hence, I have nothing except a deep gratitude.” Real prayer is bowing to existence in tremendous thankfulness because whatsoever is, the way it is, is the most perfect way it can ever be. A prayerful heart knows that the universe is perfect each moment; it is moving from perfection to more perfection. The world is not moving from imperfection to perfection, remember: it is moving from perfection to more perfection. That’s the understanding of the prayerful heart. But we are full of desires.

You are human, in a certain time, in a certain space, with certain limitations. Accept those limitations. Perfectionists are always on the brink of madness. They are obsessed people — whatsoever they do is not good enough. And there is no way to do something perfectly — perfection is not humanly possible. In fact, imperfect is the only way to be. So what do I teach you here? I don’t teach you perfection, I teach you wholeness. That is a totally different thing. Be whole.

Don’t bother about perfection. When I say be whole, I mean be real, be here; whatsoever you do, do it totally. You will be imperfect but your imperfection will be full of beauty, it will be full of your totality. Never try to be perfect otherwise you will create much anxiety. So many troubles are there already; don’t create more troubles for yourself.
I don’t teach perfection. Perfection simply creates neurosis in people.

Perfectionists are neurotics; they drive themselves crazy in trying to be perfect, because they are trying to do the impossible. I teach totality; I teach wholeness, not perfection. Be total in whatsoever you are doing. Be total. If you are angry, then be totally angry. If you are in love, then be totally in love. If you are sad, then be totally sad. Don’t be halfhearted in anything. That is a totally different approach towards life.

The path of Buddha is of total surrender: total surrender to the dhamma, to tao, to the universal law, to God. These are different names for the same phenomenon. We are living in a cosmos, not in a chaos. Everything is as perfect as it can be; nothing can be improved upon. The very idea of trying to improve upon things is sheer stupidity. Those who have known, they have known the absolute perfection of existence. Then what is left? To dissolve in the whole and celebrate!

' Gender '...

Source has no division called Gender..

Consciousness existed before Light was Formed..

And yet, when the ego is surrendered,

We exist as Light..

We never desire to leave this Light and Love..

And yet, We must find the Consciousness that said;

" Let there be Light "..



-thomas

' The Fruit of Silence '...

"The fruit of Silence is Prayer.

The fruit of Prayer is Faith.

The fruit of Faith is Love.

The fruit of Love is Service.

The fruit of Service is Peace."



-Mother Teresa
on her "business card"
in Navin Chawla
Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography

' A Wrong Idea '...

In this moment - for you, right now, - there is a clear light of awareness in which everything is appearing.

It is what you are.

You are that!

It is free, totally unobscured, full and complete.

Christ said, "I am the light of the world."

You, as that awareness, can say the same thing.

Separation from that is a total illusion.

It never happened, except in imagination.

It is based on a `me' that never existed.

It is just a wrong idea.



- John Wheeler

' The Eternal Birth '...

"We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has

borne and never ceases to bear in all eternity...

But if it takes not place in me,

what avails it? Everything lies in this,

that it should take place in me."



- Meister Eckhart

K D Lang's Crying

K D Lang's Crying

' Joy and Sorrow '...

Joy and sorrow both are for each other. If it were not for joy, sorrow could not be; and if it were not for sorrow, joy could not be experienced.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan


Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Life is differentiated by the pairs of opposites.

If there was no pain one would not enjoy the experience of joy. It is pain which helps one to experience joy. Everything is distinguished by its opposite. The one who feels pain deeply is more capable of experiencing joy. And personally, if you were to ask me about pain, I should say that if there was no pain life would be most uninteresting to me. For it is by pain the heart is penetrated, and the sensation of pain is deeper joy. Without pain the great musicians and poets and dreamers and thinkers would not have reached that stage which they reached and from which moved the world. If they always had joy, they would not have touched the depths of life.

There is the sun and there is the moon, there is man and woman, there is night and there is day. The colors are distinguished by their variety and so are the forms. Therefore to distinguish anything there must be its opposite; where there is no opposite we cannot distinguish. There must be health in order to distinguish illness; if there were no health and only illness then it would not have been (distinguished as) illness. ... Life is a puzzle of duality. The pairs of opposites keep us in an illusion and make us think, 'This is this, and that is that'. At the same time by throwing a greater light upon things we shall find in the end that they are quite different from what we had thought.

Seeing the nature and character of life the Sufi says that it is not very important to distinguish between two opposites. What is most important is to recognize that One which is hiding behind it all. Naturally after realizing life the Sufi climbs the ladder which leads him to unity, to the idea of unity which comes through the synthesis of life, by seeing One in all things, in all beings.

' To Be Fully Alive '...

To be fully alive,

fully human,

and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.



- Pema Chodron

' If the Balloon Burst '...

If there is an infinite ocean that is everything and nothing,

and somewhere within this ocean there was an apparent balloon,

also full of everything and nothing..

what would be left if one day the balloon burst?



-Jim Newman on Non-Duality

' Saint Francis of Assisi '...

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."



-Saint Francis of Assisi

' Yoga and self-analysis '...

Psychoanalysis,

which is essential to understand
the structure of the mind,

is part of Yoga itself.

Yoga is the highest kind of self-analysis.



- Swami Krishnananda
Facets of Spirituality
Complied by S. Bhagyalakshmi
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1986

' Unconditional Openness '...

“The place of our life is always the fullness of the present moment. Awakening isn’t about moving to a different place; it’s about a different sense of the same place….

“The wonderful thing about this process is that it generally moves to love. Not the personal love that most people think of; instead, it’s an unconditional openness to life…

“This is a complete opening to the unformed, the undirected, the uncontrolled, the unexpected, and the unpredictable. This openness is often called love...This love is not some cold, intellectual understanding; it’s an openness of heart...a truly sensitive vulnerability to what is.”



--Darryl Bailey, three quotes from his wonderfully clear books:

' Having Peace '...

"Ask not that events should happen as you will,

but let your will be that events should happen as they do,

and you shall have peace."




-Epictetus
Enchiridion
in Epictetus: The Discourses and Manual [Enchiridion], Together With Fragments of His Writings
Translated by P. E. Matheson
Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1916, p. 470, at sacred-texts.com

' Forget the mind '...

Don’t pay too much attention to the mind.

It may be
throbbing with identity but this is observed as a
phenomenon arising inside the great awareness.

Now it may say, ‘I cannot do this or that thing’ or ‘this
is not for me,’ but these are mere thoughts appearing
in the great vastness.

Know this vastness to be your
own unchanging Self.



- Mooji

' Realization '...

In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others.

In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone.

True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization..



Eckhart Tolle

' Nondual Truth '...

The expression used by some Buddhists,

"the Undivided Mind,"

has the same meaning as "the Oneness with all things"

used by many mystics--that is,

a permanent knowledge got in a single glimpse,

a great nondual truth.




-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2:
Enlightenment Which Stays > # 118 Paul Brunton

' A Palpitating Aliveness '...

“In truth we are not separate from each other or from the world,

from the whole earth, the sun or moon or billions of stars, not separate from the entire universe.

Listening silently in quiet wonderment, without knowing anything,

there is just one mysteriously palpitating aliveness.”



--Toni Packer, from The Light of Discovery

' We Are That '...

We are neither different nor separate from Consciousness, and for that very reason we cannot 'apprehend' it.

Nor can we 'integrate' with it because we have never been other than it.

Consciousness can never be understood in relative terms.

Therefore, there is nothing to be 'done' about it.

All is Consciousness and we are That.



- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels

' The Paradox '...

It comes to this paradox--

that the farther they travel on the path of ego-effort,

the farther they move from their goal,

and the less they try to approach their Source the closer they come to it!



-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 2:
Pitfalls and Limitations > # 102 Paul Brunton

' Five Precepts of Buddhism Explained '...

The broad category of moral conduct has been codified throughout the history of Buddhism, beginning in the Buddha’s time, into five precepts for conduct. The number of precepts for the behavior if monks has run into the hundreds in some sects. For laypeople, the Theravada tradition has five precepts.

These five precepts have common elements with most moral conducts in the other major traditions. Some aspects, especially the precept to refrain from taking life, have been a continuing focus of attention throughout the history of Buddhism. Today, we shall explore them in depth through teachings from between the fifth and the twentieth centuries.
The Five Precepts

I undertake to observe the rule:

1. to abstain from taking life

2. to abstain from taking what is not given

3. to abstain from sensuous misconduct

4. to abstain from false speech

5. to abstain from intoxicants as tending to cloud the mind

Abstain from taking life

In the five precepts, “taking life” means to murder anything that lives. It refers to the striking and killing of living beings. Taking life is the will to kill anything that one perceives as having life, to act so as to terminate the life-force in it, in so far as the will finds expression in bodily action or in speech. With regard to animals it is worse to kill large ones than small. Because a more extensive effort is involved. Even where the effort is the same, the difference in substance must be considered.

In the case of humans the killing is the more blameworthy the more virtuous they are. Apart from that, the extent of the offense is proportionate to the intensity of the wish to kill. Five factors are involved: a living being, the perception of a living being, a thought of murder, the action of carrying it out, and death as a result of it. And six are the ways in which the offense may be carried out: with one’s own hand, by instigation, by missiles, by slow poisoning, by sorcery, by psychic power.

Related: How to Get Rid of Pests and Bugs the Buddhist Way
Abstain from taking what is not given

“To take what is not given” means the appropriation of what is not given. It refers to the removing of someone else’s property, to the stealing of it, to theft. “What is not given” means that which belongs to someone else. “Taking what is not given” is then the will to steal anything that one perceives as belonging to someone else, and to act so as to appropriate it. Its blameworthiness depends partly on the value of the property stolen, partly on the worth of its owner. Five factors are involved: someone else’s belongings, the awareness that they are someone else’s, the thought of theft, the action of carrying it out, the taking away as a result of it. This sin, too, may be carried out in six ways. One may also distinguish unlawful acquisition by way of theft, robbery, underhand dealings, stratagems, and the casting of lots.
Abstain from sensuous misconduct

“Sensuous misconduct” – here “sensuous” means “sexual,” and “misconduct” is extremely blameworthy bad behavior. “Sensuous misconduct” is the will to transgress against those whom one should not go into, and the carrying out of this intention by unlawful physical action. By “those one should not go into,” first of all men are meant. And then also twenty kinds of women. Ten of them are under some form of protection, by their mother, father, parents, brother, sister, family, clan, co-religionists, by having been claimed from birth onwards, or by the king’s law.

The other ten kinds are: women bought with money, concubines for the fun of it, kept women, women bought by the gift of a garment, concubines who have been acquired by the ceremony which consists in dipping their hands into water, concubines who once carried burdens on their heads, slave girls who are also concubines, servants who are also concubines, girls captured in war, temporary wives. The offense is the more serious, the more moral and virtuous the person transgressed against. It involves four factors: someone who should not be gone into, the thought of cohabiting with that one, the actions which lead to such cohabitation, and its actual performance. There is only one way of carrying it out: with one’s own body.
Abstain from false speech

“False speech” is the will to deceive others by words or deeds. One can also explain: “False” means something which is not real, not true. “Speech” is the intimation that that is real or true. “False speech” is then the volition which leads to the deliberate intimation to someone else that something is so when it is not so.

The seriousness of the offense depends on the circumstances. If a householder, unwilling to give something, says that he has not got it, that is a small offense; but to represent something one has seen with one’s own eyes as other than one has seen it, that is a serious offense. If a mendicant has on his rounds got very little oil or butter, and if he then exclaims, “What a magnificent river flows along here, my friends!” that is only a rather stale joke, and the offense is small.



- From Tricycle

' How did J get its sound? '...

Both I and J were used interchangeably by scribes to express the sound of both the vowel and the consonant.

It wasn’t until 1524 when Gian Giorgio Trissino, an Italian Renaissance grammarian known as the father of the letter J, made a clear distinction between the two sounds.

Trissino’s contribution is important because once he distinguished the soft J sound, as in “jam” (probably a loan sound), he was able to identify the Greek “Iesus” a translation of the Hebrew “Yeshua,” as the Modern English “Jesus.”

Thus the current phoneme for J was born. It always goes back to Jesus.

The English language is infamous for matching similar phonemes with different letters and J is certainly no exception.

In addition to the aforementioned soft J sound, as in “jam,” which is phonetically identical to the soft G as in “general,” the J in Taj Mahal takes on a slight variation of that same sound and is probably the closest to Trissino’s original phonetic interpretation.

And, coming full circle, the J sound you hear in the word “hallelujah” is pronounced “halleluyah.”



- from Dictionary.com

Ladysmith Black Mambazo/Mint Juleps "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

' The Gender of God '...

Source has no division called Gender..

Consciousness existed before Light was Formed..

And yet, when the ego is surrendered,

We exist as Light..

We never desire to leave this Light and Love..

And yet, We must find the Consciousness that said;

" Let there be Light "..



-thomas

' The Game of Life '...

The Game of Life is played by:
the non-existent ego
trying to expose the non-existent mind
in order to achieve
a non-existent enlightenment
for some non-existent person.

Mind is only an artificial context. . . a cosmic
stage upon which the ego-based actor struts
and frets his stuff upon.

And, yes, it’s the very same stuff that dreams
are made of.



- Chuck Hillig

Seeds for the Soul
Chuck Hillig
Black Dot Publications, 2003

' Deep Spiritual Experience '...

In deep spiritual experience, the boundary lines fall away, and we have a boundless—or, more accurately speaking, a boundaryless—experience of being.

This brings an extraordinary sense of freedom and well-being and intimacy with the total environment and with our oneness with all things.

These are not just nice-sounding spiritual platitudes or simple or fancy concepts that one is supposed either to agree or to disagree with; they are attempts to give words to actual perception, to recognize existence in a particular way—in a truer way.

The ego mind is created through memory and concepts, and concepts by their nature create boundaries, because every time we call something a name, it is relevant only in relationship to what it is not.

As I have said, part of awakening is to begin to see and experience life directly, not through all these boundaries that are created by language and memory.

Deep spiritual revelation shows us that we are not separate from all that is, that life itself has no beginning or end, and that it is always changing forms.

Water turns into a vapor or steam, falls to the ground, gets cold, becomes ice, gets heated up, melts, turns into a gas, and so it goes.

A tree falls in the forest, and its elements decay back into the ground, releasing nutrients and giving rise to new trees and new elements, and the new trees fall, and life does not end; energy is conserved, life changes form, and there is never more or less of it.



-Adyashanti, from The Most Important Thing

' A By-product of Perception '...

"The oneness state is inclusive and open, welcoming everything. It brings folks from separation to unity. It allows one to relax, and then further opening can happen from there. Science has come to recognize this fact also; that all is connected and interdependent and only appears to be separate to enable functioning.

The nondual viewpoint is the flip side of the unity viewpoint—a hairline away from recognizing that all that presents is actually not real.

It’s in the mind, imagined, an illusion, etc. Just as we see that things can be taken personally or not, depending on your perception, it becomes clear that perception is making things appear as they are, and without this perception things are not as they seem at all.

In fact, they are not real at all. They are just appearing with no substance beyond what perception gives them. The danger here is when one does not do the work to recognize this and one grabs nonduality/non existence as a concept, then nothing can shift.

Nonduality offers a recognition that the deep void, stillness, silence is in fact Real and that whatever appears (as and in the world, etc.) is temporary and a by-product of perception."



-Jac O'Keeffe

Eric Andersen - Violets of Dawn

' Oneness with the Universe '...

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka [the Great Mystery], and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.

The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations.

But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men."



-Black Elk
in Joseph Eppes Brown
The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux
Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, p. 115

' Why Wait ? '...

This notion that we must wait and wait while we slowly progress out of
enslavement into liberation, out of ignorance into knowledge, out of
the present limitations into a future union with the Divine, is only
true if we let it be so.

But we need not..

We can shift our
identification from the ego to the Overself in our habitual thinking,
in our daily reactions and attitudes, in our response to events and
the world.

We have thought our way into this unsatisfactory state; we
can unthink our way out of it.

By incessantly remembering what we
really are, here and now at this very moment, we set ourselves free.

Why wait for what already is?



— Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 1: Entering
the Short Path > # 1 Paul Brunton

' The Void '...

Tesshu was a renowned sword fighter and zen adept.

He visited Dokuon and declared portentously that everything that existed was a pure void, that neither he nor Dokuon really existed but just imagined they were there.

Master Dokuon said nothing while Tesshu preached away, but when he had finished he picked up his long smokers pipe and gave Tesshu a smart blow on the head.

Tesshu was so angry at this that he almost killed Dokuon and would have done so if the Master had not said,

"The void is very soon aroused to anger, I see..."

Tesshu smiled weakly and departed.

' Radical Emptiness '...

R
To the extent that the fire of truth wipes out all fixated points of view, it wipes out inner contradictions as well, and we begin to move in a whole different way. The Way is the flow that comes from a place of non-contradiction - not from good and bad. Much less damage tends to be done from that place. Once we have reached the phase where there is no fixed self-concept, we tend to lead a selfless life. The only way to be selfless is to be self less - without a self. No matter what it does, a self isn't going to be selfless. It can pretend. It can approximate selflessness, but a self is never going to be selfless because there is always an identified personal self at the root of it.

Being selfless isn't a good, holy, or noble activity. It's simply that when there is no self, selflessness happens. This selflessness is very different from having a moralistic standpoint. When action is selfless, it tends to do no harm. It tends to be the salvation, the secret alchemy that awakens and removes conflict. It's a byproduct of not having a self. It just so happens that reality is overflowing with goodness and love.

This is radical emptiness - where everything is arising spontaneously. There is no more need to discriminate with the mind between what seems to be the right thing or the wrong thing to do. In ego-land it's helpful to have an ego that can discriminate between right and wrong, but at a certain point, that's not what you are operating by. You are operating by the flow of the Tao, which is a higher order of intelligence. You don't need to intellectually discriminate anymore because the Tao discriminates without discriminating; it knows without knowing; it moves without moving. There is no sense of being enlightened or unenlightened. Since there is no self, there is nothing to be enlightened or unenlightened.

We can talk about enlightened beings and non-enlightened beings, and conceptually that has a use. But when there is no self, when there is radical emptiness, the whole enlightenment thing is sort of irrelevant because reality has become conscious of itself, which is enlightenment. That's what is often missed. People believe that enlightenment is an improvement on reality, like becoming a super human being or God-knows-what. But enlightenment is when reality is awake to itself as itself within itself.


- Adyashanti

' Mind Rests in Source '...

Grace is always present.

You imagine it as something high in the sky, far away, something that has to descend.

It is really inside you, in your heart . . .

When the mind rests in its source, grace rushes forth,

sprouting as from a spring within you.



Ramana Maharshi

' Existence '...

Not only is the world an appearance-in-Consciousness, but so is the ego.

It is in the end a thought, perhaps the strongest of all;

and only the Consciousness-in-Itself is the Reality from which it draws sustenance, existence, life.



— Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5:
The Key To the Spiritual World > # 138
Paul Brunton

' A State of Mind '...

The idea that I am not the body gives reality to the body,

when in fact,

there is no such thing as body;

it is but a state of mind.



- Nisargadatta Maharaj

' The World Existence '...

Philosophic discipline relates at every point to the act of living.

For once insight has been unfolded, the philosopher is continuously aware of the oneness of the stuff of the world

existence--which includes his own existence, too.



-- Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2:
Enlightenment Which Stays > # 239 Paul Brunton

' Align Yourself '...

What people really want is to be fully themselves.

They want the sense of aliveness, of being myself fully.

But they want it through this, that, or the other.

They don't realize that nothing can give it to you because you already have it.

And not only do you have it, you are it, you are what you're looking for already.

You don't know that because you're always looking somewhere else.

You can only know that in the Now by aligning yourself with the Now and with the power that is there within you.



- Eckhart Tolle