You see people suffer and you seek the
best way of helping them. The answer is
obvious -first put yourself beyond the
need of help. Be sure your attitude is of
pure goodwill, free of expectation of any
kind.
Those who seek mere happiness may end
up in sublime indifference, while love
will never rest.
As to method, there is only love - you
must come to know yourself - both what
you appear to be and what you are. Clarity
and charity go together - each needs and
strengthens the other.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973
Self...
All creeds are but preliminaries for the masses, leading up to the real truth of the Self. The religions are not necessarily the highest expression or the highest wisdom of their founders, who had to consider the times in which they lived and the mental capacities of the people. The highest wisdom is too subtle for most minds, and so a whole scheme of worlds, gods, bodies, evolution etc. had to be given out because people seem to find it easier to believe all these things rather than believe the simple Truth of the one reality--Self. Thus, reincarnation, astral planes, survival after death, etc. are true but only from a lower standpoint. It is all a matter of standpoint. From the highest, that of the real Self, all else disappears as illusory and only the Reality remains. It is true that subtle astral bodies exist, because in order to function in the dream-world a body is necessary for that world; but it too is real only on its own plane whereas the One Self is always real, always and eternally existent, whether we are aware of it or not. Hence it is better to seek that, because the other self-bodies are only conditionally real.
from Conscious Immortality, talks with Ramana edited by Paul Brunton
from Conscious Immortality, talks with Ramana edited by Paul Brunton
Disidentification with ego...
There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something
other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish),
and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and
play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify
themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their
eternal identity with pure being.
~Wei Wu Wei
other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish),
and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and
play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify
themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their
eternal identity with pure being.
~Wei Wu Wei
Saint Teresa of Avila...
Collection of Quotes from Saint Teresa of Avila, mystic and doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. Quotes on humility, courage, pain, trials, prayer, knowing ourselves, God's Will and other topics. St. Teresa of Avila is one of the most universally beloved teachers of the spiritual life, acclaimed by Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians alike for the assistance her writings and example provide in growing in intimacy with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
"All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted. "
"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself."
"God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher."
"Pain is never permanent."
"God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person."
"I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him."
"Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All thing pass; God never changes Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices."
"To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that."
"To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience."
"We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us."
"We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble."
"There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers."
"It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found - not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater."
"The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit."
"O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it."
"Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds. "
"The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too."
"Praised be the Lord, who has redeemed me from myself."
........ from crossroadsinitiative.com
"All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted. "
"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself."
"God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher."
"Pain is never permanent."
"God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person."
"I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him."
"Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All thing pass; God never changes Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices."
"To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that."
"To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience."
"We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us."
"We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble."
"There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers."
"It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found - not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater."
"The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit."
"O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it."
"Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds. "
"The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too."
"Praised be the Lord, who has redeemed me from myself."
........ from crossroadsinitiative.com
A dream...
Evolution, liberation, nirvana, are terms for the novice that is not yet
Enlightened to the Truth that what we are seeking is already Ourselves.. why run
towards the Truth when You are already the Truth.. this is a game of the ego, to
keep you running in circles.. so that you never find Truth.. Just sit in silence
and let go of the desires of the ego.. When You enter Enlightenment, You will
Realize that all of this is just a dream that You woke up from.............
namaste, thomas
Enlightened to the Truth that what we are seeking is already Ourselves.. why run
towards the Truth when You are already the Truth.. this is a game of the ego, to
keep you running in circles.. so that you never find Truth.. Just sit in silence
and let go of the desires of the ego.. When You enter Enlightenment, You will
Realize that all of this is just a dream that You woke up from.............
namaste, thomas
Egoic consciousness...
The truth is that a whole new state of consciousness already exists, that
every part of your experience that’s unfolding right now is already
enclosed within absolute stillness, absolute ease. And so there really isn’t
anywhere to go or anything for which to search. Struggle only gets us
deeper into the very thing we’re trying to escape. This is a very important
thing to know about egoic consciousness: The harder we try to get out,
the deeper we dig ourselves in.
~ Adyashanti
every part of your experience that’s unfolding right now is already
enclosed within absolute stillness, absolute ease. And so there really isn’t
anywhere to go or anything for which to search. Struggle only gets us
deeper into the very thing we’re trying to escape. This is a very important
thing to know about egoic consciousness: The harder we try to get out,
the deeper we dig ourselves in.
~ Adyashanti
Sheikh Ansari Jabir ibn...
Sheikh Ansari Jabir ibn 'Abdullah al-Ansari (1006-1088 ce) He was called Sheikh al-Islam and he was also given the title Zayn al- 'Ulama (Ornament of the Scholars) and Nasir al-Sunnah (Supporter of the Prophetic Tradition). Later on in Persian texts he was called Pir-e Herat (the Sheikh of Herat).
Some of Ansari works include Kashf al-Asrar "Unveiling of the Secrets" (Commentary of the Qur'an), Tabaquat al-Sufiyya (The Generations of the Sufis), "Munajat" (Intimate Invocations) which is incorporated into the Kashf al-Asrar and in the Tabaqat.
'The Friend Beside Me'
O God
You know why I am happy:
It is because I seek Your company,
not through my own (efforts).
O God,
You decided and I did not.
I found the Friend beside me
when I woke up!
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 407 - 'Munajat - The Intimate Invocations' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'Where Are You?'
O God,
You are the aim of the call of the sincere,
You enlighten the souls of the friends, (and)
You are the comfort of the hearts of the travellers---
because You are present in the very soul.
I call out, from emotion:
"Where are you?"
You are the life of the soul,
You are the rule (ayin) of speech, (and)
You are Your own interpreter (tarjaman).
For the sake of Your obligation to Yourself,
do not enter us into the shade of deception, (but)
make us reach union (wisal) with You.
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 598 - 'Munajat - The Intimate Invocations' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'Pursuit of the Friend'
The heart left,
and the Friend is (also) gone.
I don't know whether I should go after the Friend
or after the heart!
A voice spoke to me:
"Go in pursuit of the Friend,
because the lover needs a heart
in order to find union with the Friend.
If there was no Friend,
what would (the lover) do with (his) heart?"
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 1, p. 628 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'The Beauty of Oneness'
Any eye filled with the vision of this world
cannot see the attributes of the Hereafter,
Any eye filled with the attributes of the Hereafter
would be deprived of the Beauty (Jamal) of (Divine) Oneness.
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 511 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'In Each Breath'
O you who have departed from your own self,
and who have not yet reached the Friend:
do not be sad, (for)
He is accompanying you in each of (your) breaths.
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 268 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi
Some of Ansari works include Kashf al-Asrar "Unveiling of the Secrets" (Commentary of the Qur'an), Tabaquat al-Sufiyya (The Generations of the Sufis), "Munajat" (Intimate Invocations) which is incorporated into the Kashf al-Asrar and in the Tabaqat.
'The Friend Beside Me'
O God
You know why I am happy:
It is because I seek Your company,
not through my own (efforts).
O God,
You decided and I did not.
I found the Friend beside me
when I woke up!
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 407 - 'Munajat - The Intimate Invocations' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'Where Are You?'
O God,
You are the aim of the call of the sincere,
You enlighten the souls of the friends, (and)
You are the comfort of the hearts of the travellers---
because You are present in the very soul.
I call out, from emotion:
"Where are you?"
You are the life of the soul,
You are the rule (ayin) of speech, (and)
You are Your own interpreter (tarjaman).
For the sake of Your obligation to Yourself,
do not enter us into the shade of deception, (but)
make us reach union (wisal) with You.
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 598 - 'Munajat - The Intimate Invocations' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'Pursuit of the Friend'
The heart left,
and the Friend is (also) gone.
I don't know whether I should go after the Friend
or after the heart!
A voice spoke to me:
"Go in pursuit of the Friend,
because the lover needs a heart
in order to find union with the Friend.
If there was no Friend,
what would (the lover) do with (his) heart?"
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 1, p. 628 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'The Beauty of Oneness'
Any eye filled with the vision of this world
cannot see the attributes of the Hereafter,
Any eye filled with the attributes of the Hereafter
would be deprived of the Beauty (Jamal) of (Divine) Oneness.
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 511 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi
~~
'In Each Breath'
O you who have departed from your own self,
and who have not yet reached the Friend:
do not be sad, (for)
He is accompanying you in each of (your) breaths.
Sheikh Ansari - Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 268 - 'Maqulat-o Andarz-ha - Sayings and Advice' - A.G. Farhadi
Reincarnation...
The interesting part of Truth is that it is seen in everything even
in that which seems to conflict.. The past and future are just thoughts that
flow through our minds.. If you had lost your memory in such a problem as
alzheimers, would you still have a past?.. What you are remembering are the
stories of dreams and we call these dreams, past lives.. We are Consciousness..
We exist within all the stories and dreams.. We are not separate, as in the form
of ego or body.. We exist within All.. Once, You Truly know that You are
Consciousness, You will Know that You have no past or future and You have never
had a past or future, You have always existed as the "Seer"..............
namaste, thomas
in that which seems to conflict.. The past and future are just thoughts that
flow through our minds.. If you had lost your memory in such a problem as
alzheimers, would you still have a past?.. What you are remembering are the
stories of dreams and we call these dreams, past lives.. We are Consciousness..
We exist within all the stories and dreams.. We are not separate, as in the form
of ego or body.. We exist within All.. Once, You Truly know that You are
Consciousness, You will Know that You have no past or future and You have never
had a past or future, You have always existed as the "Seer"..............
namaste, thomas
God as Love...
So really what it comes down to, it's God. Wherever you look, it's God
appearing as this, that, and what you really love and appreciate in each form
is the divine formless out of which each form comes. But to be able to sense
that you have to sense it in yourself first. And that is seeing the beauty in
everything, that's really what it means.
~Eckhart Tolle
appearing as this, that, and what you really love and appreciate in each form
is the divine formless out of which each form comes. But to be able to sense
that you have to sense it in yourself first. And that is seeing the beauty in
everything, that's really what it means.
~Eckhart Tolle
Chandogya Upanishad...
In the beginning was only Being,
One without a second.
Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos
And entered into everything in it.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the innermost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that.
Merge in the sea and become one with it,
Forgetting they were ever separate streams,
So do all creatures lose their separateness
When they merge at last into pure Being.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the innermost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that!
One without a second.
Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos
And entered into everything in it.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the innermost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that.
Merge in the sea and become one with it,
Forgetting they were ever separate streams,
So do all creatures lose their separateness
When they merge at last into pure Being.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the innermost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that!
Eternal Life and Enlightenment...
"How shall I attain Eternal Life?"
"Eternal Life is now. Come into the present."
"But I am in the present now, am I not?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you haven't dropped your past."
"Why should I drop my past? Not all of it is bad."
"The past is to be dropped not because it is bad
but because it is dead."
~ Anthony de Mello, SJ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Where shall I look for Enlightenment?"
" Here."
" When will it happen?"
"It is happening right now."
"Then why don't I experience it?"
"Because you do not look."
"What should I look for?"
"Nothing, just look."
"At what?"
"Anything your eyes alight upon."
"Must I look in a special kind of way?"
"No. The ordinary way will do."
"But don't I always look the ordinary way?"
" No."
"Why ever not?"
"Because to look you must be here. You're mostly somewhere else."
Anthony de Mello, S.J.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
363
"How long does the present last? A minute? A second?"
"Much less and much more," said the Master. "Less, because
the moment you focus on it, it's gone.
"More, because if you ever get into it, you will stumble upon
the timeless and will know what eternity is."
~ Anthony de Mello, S.J.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You may be capable of great things,
But life consists of small things.
Big things seldom come along. One should know the small as
well as the big. We may all yearn to make lasting achievements
and to be heroes, but life seldom affords us the opportunities to
do so. Most of our days consist of small things the uneventful
meditations, the ordinary cooking of meals, the banal trips to
work, the quiet scratching in the garden and it is from these small
things that the larger events of life are composed.
We rarely have the occasion to make grand gestures. The champion gymnast's greatest moment is but an hour out of an entire
lifetime. The works of great artists are viewed for very short times.
The master musician's best composition is but one work in a sea
of musical tones. If we want to be successful, it is the small things
that we should pay attention to.
We must not fall into the trap of waiting so long for the big things
that we let numerous small chances slip right by us. People who
do this are always waiting for life to be perfect. They complain that
fate is against them, that the world does not recognize their greatness. If they would lower their sights, they would see all the beautiful opportunities swirling at their feet. if they would humble themselves enough to bend down, they could scoop untold treasures up into their hands.
~ Deng Ming-Dao
"Eternal Life is now. Come into the present."
"But I am in the present now, am I not?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you haven't dropped your past."
"Why should I drop my past? Not all of it is bad."
"The past is to be dropped not because it is bad
but because it is dead."
~ Anthony de Mello, SJ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Where shall I look for Enlightenment?"
" Here."
" When will it happen?"
"It is happening right now."
"Then why don't I experience it?"
"Because you do not look."
"What should I look for?"
"Nothing, just look."
"At what?"
"Anything your eyes alight upon."
"Must I look in a special kind of way?"
"No. The ordinary way will do."
"But don't I always look the ordinary way?"
" No."
"Why ever not?"
"Because to look you must be here. You're mostly somewhere else."
Anthony de Mello, S.J.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
363
"How long does the present last? A minute? A second?"
"Much less and much more," said the Master. "Less, because
the moment you focus on it, it's gone.
"More, because if you ever get into it, you will stumble upon
the timeless and will know what eternity is."
~ Anthony de Mello, S.J.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You may be capable of great things,
But life consists of small things.
Big things seldom come along. One should know the small as
well as the big. We may all yearn to make lasting achievements
and to be heroes, but life seldom affords us the opportunities to
do so. Most of our days consist of small things the uneventful
meditations, the ordinary cooking of meals, the banal trips to
work, the quiet scratching in the garden and it is from these small
things that the larger events of life are composed.
We rarely have the occasion to make grand gestures. The champion gymnast's greatest moment is but an hour out of an entire
lifetime. The works of great artists are viewed for very short times.
The master musician's best composition is but one work in a sea
of musical tones. If we want to be successful, it is the small things
that we should pay attention to.
We must not fall into the trap of waiting so long for the big things
that we let numerous small chances slip right by us. People who
do this are always waiting for life to be perfect. They complain that
fate is against them, that the world does not recognize their greatness. If they would lower their sights, they would see all the beautiful opportunities swirling at their feet. if they would humble themselves enough to bend down, they could scoop untold treasures up into their hands.
~ Deng Ming-Dao
Purgatory...
Purgatory means "to purge".. and what are you to purge?.. Identity!.. can you even imagine purging the identity of Divine Consciousness.. This is Who We Are, Divine Consciousness!.. This state of Being is far beyond the heavens spoken about within books.. This is the place of Light and Love.. Why would We wish to leave such a blissful state?.. because, It is not the Final Freedom... The Final Freedom is Complete Unity with God.. This means that You cannot exist even as Divine Consciousness.. You must surrender even this designation of separation called Identity.. You must die to be born.. Are We strong enough to give everything?.. But, all this is moot because We are still on the lower state of Consciousness that actually believes that We are the body, mind, and thoughts and completely unaware that We Are Divine Consciousness............ namaste, thomas
Attar of Nishapur ...
Attar of Nishapur (1145 - 1221 ce) saint and mystic, one of the most voluminous authors in Persian literature on religious topics. His best-known work, Conference of the Birds, is an elaborate allegory of the soul's quest for reunion with God
So long as we do not die to ourselves,
and so long as we identify with someone or something,
we shall never be free.
The spiritual way is not for those wrapped up in exterior life.
Farid ud Din Attar
~~
Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you.
If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself,
how will you be able to understand
the secret of your existence when you die?
Farid ud Din Attar
~~
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer 'thou' and 'I' exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
Farid ud Din Attar - translation Margaret Smith -The Jawhar Al-Dhat
~~
In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers."
Farid ud Din Attar, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'
~~
The whole world is a marketplace for Love,
For naught that is, from Love remains remote.
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love.
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
The earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars
The center of their orbit find in Love.
By Love are all bewildered, stupefied,
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? "Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer "Thou" and "I" exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.
Farid ud Din Attar, in Essential Sufism, James Fadiman and Robert Frager
~~... from wahiduddin.com
So long as we do not die to ourselves,
and so long as we identify with someone or something,
we shall never be free.
The spiritual way is not for those wrapped up in exterior life.
Farid ud Din Attar
~~
Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you.
If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself,
how will you be able to understand
the secret of your existence when you die?
Farid ud Din Attar
~~
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer 'thou' and 'I' exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
Farid ud Din Attar - translation Margaret Smith -The Jawhar Al-Dhat
~~
In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers."
Farid ud Din Attar, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'
~~
The whole world is a marketplace for Love,
For naught that is, from Love remains remote.
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love.
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
The earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars
The center of their orbit find in Love.
By Love are all bewildered, stupefied,
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? "Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer "Thou" and "I" exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.
Farid ud Din Attar, in Essential Sufism, James Fadiman and Robert Frager
~~... from wahiduddin.com
Lifted into poetry...
Occasionally, while within Consciousness, the mind reaches for words that contain Spirit.. this is called True communication.. needing no rymes or reason, the words flow easily to the reader with recognition.. Awareness is the real lesson of poetry.. a few chosen words that open the door of the soul.. a few words that bring Freedom.. a few seconds absent from the ego.. the feeling of Reality is strong and pleasant.. Love enters through a crack in the door of illusion.. and after all, Love is no illusion and is always ready for company........... namaste, thomas
Liberation...
"Distracted as we are by various thoughts, if we will continually contemplate
the Self, which is itself God, this single thought will in due course eliminate
all distraction and will itself ultimately vanish. The pure consciousness
which alone finally remains is God. This is Liberation.
To stay constantly centered on one's own pure Self is the acme of yoga, wisdom,
and all other forms of spiritual practice.
Even though the mind wanders restlessly, involved in external matters, and so is
forgetful of its own Self, one should remain alert and remember;
the body is not 'I.'
Who am I? Inquire in this way turning the mind backward to its primal state. The
inquiry 'who am I?' is the only method of putting an end to all misery and
ushering in Supreme Beatitude.
Whatever may be said and however phrased, this is the whole truth
in a nutshell."
--Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi--
the Self, which is itself God, this single thought will in due course eliminate
all distraction and will itself ultimately vanish. The pure consciousness
which alone finally remains is God. This is Liberation.
To stay constantly centered on one's own pure Self is the acme of yoga, wisdom,
and all other forms of spiritual practice.
Even though the mind wanders restlessly, involved in external matters, and so is
forgetful of its own Self, one should remain alert and remember;
the body is not 'I.'
Who am I? Inquire in this way turning the mind backward to its primal state. The
inquiry 'who am I?' is the only method of putting an end to all misery and
ushering in Supreme Beatitude.
Whatever may be said and however phrased, this is the whole truth
in a nutshell."
--Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi--
The Method for Liberating all Suffering and Afflictive States...
It's not that afflictive emotions are an impossibility to experience in the state of Awareness but rather they release upon the arising, like air bubbles that arise from deep under water and pop upon reaching the surface. Likewise many mental energy traces can arise from the subconscious depths of mind but "pop" or release when entering surface consciousness. This occurs because there is no longer a central "I" thought that would congeal and reify the arisings. The "I" thought has lost it's center place in consciousness and has been replaced by naked presence of Awareness, which relegates the "I" thought to the periphery position of being just another bubble-like thought arising amongst the all others. The shift from the centrality of the "I" thought in consciousness to Awareness being recognized as our center, is the result of the "direct introduction to Awareness" or "pointing out" being perfectly executed. Of course this could occur in one's own investigations, but is difficult because the "I" is itself the blind spot in consciousness that maintains the experience of I-ness or ego. When the "I" moves to the periphery of mental experience, who is left to be afflicted? The arisings of karmic mental energies continue to arise and release until fully exhausted. That's the final or fourth level in Dzogchen called " the exhaustion of all phenomena". At that point the physical body dissolves and disappears, revealing the Body of Light, as it's karmic causes for appearing are released or "exhausted". The method is to simply, nakedly observe the arisings without judgment, including the sense of there being an "observer", without engagement in the mental arisings. Notice how all the arisings eventually release upon their appearance in consciousness. All the arisings are themselves impermanent flashes of consciousness appearing as thoughts,emotions, feelings, identities, and perceptions that then dissolve back into consciousness. When not so intimately observed, the flashes coalesce into "stories". The rapidity and intensity of the flashes of mental events determine the degree of trance-like absorption into the stories. It is the "me" thought that gets energized and absorbed into the stories as a role play of subjectivity, not Awareness. So observe this sense of "me" with naked awareness, and it will release. Regardless of the intensity of the appearances, just nakedly observe. Non-dual Awareness or Being will naturally and organically be revealed to be the true center and nature of your consciousness as this naked, non-judgmental "observingness" practice matures. ...... by Jackson Peterson on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 6:02am
Wisdom of Vernon Howard...
A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.
All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.
Beauty is only skin deep, but it's a valuable asset if you're poor or haven't any sense.
Can you think of anything more permanently elating than to know that you are on the right road at last?
Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.
Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.
It is a true miracle when a man finally sees himself as his only opposition.
Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.
Learn to see things as they really are, not as we imagine they are.
Our freedom can be measured by the number of things we can walk away from.
Quit thinking that you must halt before the barrier of inner negativity. You need not. You can crash through... whatever we see a negative state, that is where we can destroy it.
Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidence.
Study carefully the law of cause and effect.
To change what you get you must change who you are.
Truth is not a matter of personal viewpoint.
We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.
All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.
Beauty is only skin deep, but it's a valuable asset if you're poor or haven't any sense.
Can you think of anything more permanently elating than to know that you are on the right road at last?
Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.
Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.
It is a true miracle when a man finally sees himself as his only opposition.
Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.
Learn to see things as they really are, not as we imagine they are.
Our freedom can be measured by the number of things we can walk away from.
Quit thinking that you must halt before the barrier of inner negativity. You need not. You can crash through... whatever we see a negative state, that is where we can destroy it.
Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidence.
Study carefully the law of cause and effect.
To change what you get you must change who you are.
Truth is not a matter of personal viewpoint.
We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.
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
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
Show me!...
" Show me something now, in your experience, that is at distance from yourself,
and made out of something other than yourself. Love is the natural condition of
all experiences. There is never any separation, there is never real duality ".
~Rupert Spira
and made out of something other than yourself. Love is the natural condition of
all experiences. There is never any separation, there is never real duality ".
~Rupert Spira
Right Now!...
"No [the final understanding isn't an illusion], isn’t [the final understanding]
right now? You say it’s illusion, but you miss out on the basic point. It’s right
now, in this immediacy, you are. That’s the final understanding. You can’t get
away from this now. People say you have to try to stay in the now. Realize
you can’t get out of it. You can never get away from it. Only conceptually.
This is always the actuality. This moment is the livingness. This is the only
time anybody will ever live. Right now."
~ Bob Adamson
http://urbangurumagazine.com/?p=399
right now? You say it’s illusion, but you miss out on the basic point. It’s right
now, in this immediacy, you are. That’s the final understanding. You can’t get
away from this now. People say you have to try to stay in the now. Realize
you can’t get out of it. You can never get away from it. Only conceptually.
This is always the actuality. This moment is the livingness. This is the only
time anybody will ever live. Right now."
~ Bob Adamson
http://urbangurumagazine.com/?p=399
You are Him...
"My dear!
You haven't the feet
for this path --
why struggle?
You've no idea where
the idol's to be found --
what's all this
mystic chat?
What can be done
with quarrelsome
fellow travelers,
boastful
marketplace
morons?
If you were really a lover
you'd see that faith and infidelity
are one...
Oh, what's the use?
nit-picking
about such things
is a hobby for
numb brains.
You are pure spirit
but imagine yourself a corpse!
pure water which thinks
it's the pot!
Everything you want
must be searched for --
except the Friend.
If you don't find Him
you'll never
be able
to start
to even
look.
Yes,
you can be sure:
You are not Him --
unless
you can remove yourself
from between
yourself
and Him --
in which case
you
are
Him."
Hakim Sanai (1044? - 1150?)
from _The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry_
Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson and Nasrollah Pourjavady
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/SanaiHakim/MysticChat.htm
You haven't the feet
for this path --
why struggle?
You've no idea where
the idol's to be found --
what's all this
mystic chat?
What can be done
with quarrelsome
fellow travelers,
boastful
marketplace
morons?
If you were really a lover
you'd see that faith and infidelity
are one...
Oh, what's the use?
nit-picking
about such things
is a hobby for
numb brains.
You are pure spirit
but imagine yourself a corpse!
pure water which thinks
it's the pot!
Everything you want
must be searched for --
except the Friend.
If you don't find Him
you'll never
be able
to start
to even
look.
Yes,
you can be sure:
You are not Him --
unless
you can remove yourself
from between
yourself
and Him --
in which case
you
are
Him."
Hakim Sanai (1044? - 1150?)
from _The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry_
Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson and Nasrollah Pourjavady
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/SanaiHakim/MysticChat.htm
Zen Poetry...
Without Name and Form
Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person's affairs.
The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.
Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)
Mind at Peace
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un) (The Enlightened Heart 34)
Being as Is
Food and clothes sustain
Body and life;
I advise you to learn
Being as is.
When it's time,
I move my hermitage and go,
And there's nothing
To be left behind.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)
The Ultimate Attainment
The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.
From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)
Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person's affairs.
The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.
Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)
Mind at Peace
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un) (The Enlightened Heart 34)
Being as Is
Food and clothes sustain
Body and life;
I advise you to learn
Being as is.
When it's time,
I move my hermitage and go,
And there's nothing
To be left behind.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)
The Ultimate Attainment
The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.
From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
P'ang Yün (龐蘊 Hõ Un)
The Holy-Day Season...
"There are two things happening in the holiday season. There is the nature of winter, an invitation to return to something that is very deep, very mysterious, very dark. There's also the delight within the darkness, something sparkling within our own self that is in many ways unknown. This is the intrinsic nature of awakeness itself."
~ Adyashanti
~ Adyashanti
Confusion of Self...
This problem is found both within this forum and the world.. the constant question within literature is "who am I"?... are you the thoughts and memories that constantly change and which we call "ego".. this "self" of our mental creation.. The path of spirituality is different from the path of religion, so, I will center on the path of spirituality which is the personal quest for Knowledge of Truth.. Some humans believe that we should groom this ego self, into a blessed being.. But, this vision of self is not Real.. It is a creation of mind.. If we stay Awake, we can see the ego and the pain that it causes to ourselves and others.. So, if we try to change the ego into a loving being, we are only fooling ourselves.. the purpose of ego is to show us what God is not.. This is necessary in the beginning of our journey.. but, once learning about the anti-Christ nature of ego, we must move on to elimination of this illusion of Self.. This is why Jesus taught by speech and action that humility and Love are the essence of the path to Liberation.. and what is Liberation?.. It is the Freeing of Self from false self.. Humility and Love are the state of non-ego and are our Real Self called Divine Consciousness(God)............. namaste, thomas
Sufi Poems...
Bring all of yourself to his door:
bring only a part
and you've brought nothing at all. - Hakim Sanai
I am a bird of the heavenly garden
I belong not to the earthly sphere.
They have made for two or three days
A cage of my body. - Rumi
O Beloved, there is no room left in my heart
For anything but You! - Hafiz
Sweep with your soul,
before your beloved's door.
Only then will you become her lover. - Baba Aziz
There are as many paths to God as there are souls on Earth. - Hadith
If I adore You out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell!
If I adore you out of desire for Paradise,
Lock me out of Paradise.
But if I adore you for Yourself alone,
Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty. - Rabia
Between me and You, there is only me.
Take away the me, so only You remain. - Hallaj
Give me ecstasy, give me naked wonder, O my Creator!
Give birth to the Beloved in me, and let this lover die.
Let a thousand wrangling desires become one Love. - Rumi ..... from buddhasangha.com
bring only a part
and you've brought nothing at all. - Hakim Sanai
I am a bird of the heavenly garden
I belong not to the earthly sphere.
They have made for two or three days
A cage of my body. - Rumi
O Beloved, there is no room left in my heart
For anything but You! - Hafiz
Sweep with your soul,
before your beloved's door.
Only then will you become her lover. - Baba Aziz
There are as many paths to God as there are souls on Earth. - Hadith
If I adore You out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell!
If I adore you out of desire for Paradise,
Lock me out of Paradise.
But if I adore you for Yourself alone,
Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty. - Rabia
Between me and You, there is only me.
Take away the me, so only You remain. - Hallaj
Give me ecstasy, give me naked wonder, O my Creator!
Give birth to the Beloved in me, and let this lover die.
Let a thousand wrangling desires become one Love. - Rumi ..... from buddhasangha.com
Ego suicide...
Suicide is the destruction of self... which self are you?.. are you the body?, or perhaps the mind, maybe even spirit.. yes, even the individual spirit is a self.. but, this knowledge will usually be found in Divine Consciousness.... If you can see your Thoughts, then You are the Seer and not the Seen... This self that must be killed is that which is seen and is a mirror of images that do not exist...You are ending a dream that is usually a nightmare................. namaste, thomas
Meditation...
Jesus and Meditation
Jesus often left his apostles and the crowds to distance himself in the wilderness areas of Palestine to engage in long periods of dynamic-mind, spiritual meditation wherein he communicated with God. The 40 days following his baptism were spent in such a manner.
Samadhi
In the Samadhi or Shamatha, or concentrative, techniques of meditation, the mind is kept closely focused on a particular word, image, sound, person, or idea. This form of meditation is often found in Buddhist and Hindu traditions including Yoga, as well as in Medieval Christianity, Jewish Kabbalah, and in some modern metaphysical schools. Eknath Easwaran developed another, related, method. He called it "passage meditation" -- silent repetition in the mind of memorized inspirational passages from the world's great religions. Easwaran believe that, "The slow, sustained concentration on these passages drives them deep into our minds; and whatever we drive deep into consciousness, that we become."
Mindful Awareness Traditions
Vipassana and anapanasati are parts of broader notion of mindful awareness, which is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, the ultimate goal in Buddhism that leads to Enlightenment, and expounded upon the in the Satipatthana sutta. While in anapanasati meditation attention is focused on the breath, in vipassana, however, the mind is trained to be acutely aware of not only breathing, but all things that one comes to experience.
The concept of vipassana works in believing that the meditator's mind will eventually take note of every physical and mental experience "real-time" or as it happens, the goal being that it will gradually reveal to the practitioner how one's mind unknowingly attaches itself to things that are impermanent in nature. Thus, when such things cease to exist, one experiences the suffering from its loss. This very wisdom, achievable solely through vipassana meditation, in turn gradually frees one's mind from the attachment that is the root of suffering.
For one practicing this form of meditation, it is also very important to note that the wisdom presents itself into the mind of meditator only when he/she is NOT thinking but yet possessing an acute awareness of what goes on in their mind, body and surrounding. The nature of vipassana is sophisticated; one may desire a veteran instructor to provide initial guidance.
In other words, in Vipassana (insight, or seeing things as they are) meditation, the mind is trained to notice each perception or thought that passes without "stopping" on any one. This is a characteristic form of meditation in Buddhism, especially in some Theravada traditions, and is also a component of Zazen, the term for meditation practice in Zen.
However, in at least some forms of vipassana, one does not attend to whatever perceptions arise, but purposely moves one's attention over their body part by part, checking for perceptions, being aware and equanimous with them, and moving on. This form of meditation has some resemblance with "choiceless awareness" — the kind of meditation that J. Krishnamurti addressed.
Specific Traditions
Specific classifications include:
Observation (e.g., exploring the mind and all its thoughts)
Focus (e.g., exploring one thought to the exclusion of all else)
Trance (experiencing emptiness)
Theravada Buddhist practice involves both Samadhi and Vipassana, as well as the developing of "loving kindness" (Metta).
Zen Buddhism practices Zazen, similar to Vipassana.
Abrahamic Traditions practice forms of meditation that use God, Saints and/or Prophets as concentration focus
Some people, including the controversial Guru Rajneesh (also known as "Osho"), taught forms of "Dynamic Meditation" that involve violent exercise and hyperventilation, akin to aerobic exercise or those like the Sufi whirling.
Meditation based on questioning "Who am I" draws from various traditions, especially Vipassana, Insight Meditation, Zazen, and with the express purpose of getting to know one's true nature, and/or experiencing Kensho, Satori, Enlightenment. This method teaches to be wary of trance-like states of relaxation, and advocates intense inquiry into the nature of thought, mind, ego, self, and desire.
Jesus-style, dynamic-mind, spiritualized meditation engages the spiritized creative consciousness and full awareness. The mind and thinking processes are expanded rather than shut down, by-passed, distracted, or dulled. The only requirements are sincerity, persistence, and God-consciousness.
Other styles of meditation incorporate physical fatigue, fasting, psychic dissociation, profound aesthetic experiences, vivid impulses, fear, anxiety, wild dancing, or psychotropic drugs to initiate "mystic communion". Often these trancelike states of visionary consciousness are considered as a religious experience or spiritually enlightening.
On every mountaintop of intellectual thought are to be found relaxation for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit. From such vantage points of high living, man is able to transcend the material irritations of the lower levels of thinking -- ego, worry, jealousy, envy, revenge, and the pride of immature personality. These high-climbing souls deliver themselves from a multitude of the crosscurrent conflicts of the trifles of society, thus becoming free to attain consciousness of the higher currents of spirit concept and celestial communication through the art of meditation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies
Email us at: Comments@TheNazareneWay.com
Jesus often left his apostles and the crowds to distance himself in the wilderness areas of Palestine to engage in long periods of dynamic-mind, spiritual meditation wherein he communicated with God. The 40 days following his baptism were spent in such a manner.
Samadhi
In the Samadhi or Shamatha, or concentrative, techniques of meditation, the mind is kept closely focused on a particular word, image, sound, person, or idea. This form of meditation is often found in Buddhist and Hindu traditions including Yoga, as well as in Medieval Christianity, Jewish Kabbalah, and in some modern metaphysical schools. Eknath Easwaran developed another, related, method. He called it "passage meditation" -- silent repetition in the mind of memorized inspirational passages from the world's great religions. Easwaran believe that, "The slow, sustained concentration on these passages drives them deep into our minds; and whatever we drive deep into consciousness, that we become."
Mindful Awareness Traditions
Vipassana and anapanasati are parts of broader notion of mindful awareness, which is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, the ultimate goal in Buddhism that leads to Enlightenment, and expounded upon the in the Satipatthana sutta. While in anapanasati meditation attention is focused on the breath, in vipassana, however, the mind is trained to be acutely aware of not only breathing, but all things that one comes to experience.
The concept of vipassana works in believing that the meditator's mind will eventually take note of every physical and mental experience "real-time" or as it happens, the goal being that it will gradually reveal to the practitioner how one's mind unknowingly attaches itself to things that are impermanent in nature. Thus, when such things cease to exist, one experiences the suffering from its loss. This very wisdom, achievable solely through vipassana meditation, in turn gradually frees one's mind from the attachment that is the root of suffering.
For one practicing this form of meditation, it is also very important to note that the wisdom presents itself into the mind of meditator only when he/she is NOT thinking but yet possessing an acute awareness of what goes on in their mind, body and surrounding. The nature of vipassana is sophisticated; one may desire a veteran instructor to provide initial guidance.
In other words, in Vipassana (insight, or seeing things as they are) meditation, the mind is trained to notice each perception or thought that passes without "stopping" on any one. This is a characteristic form of meditation in Buddhism, especially in some Theravada traditions, and is also a component of Zazen, the term for meditation practice in Zen.
However, in at least some forms of vipassana, one does not attend to whatever perceptions arise, but purposely moves one's attention over their body part by part, checking for perceptions, being aware and equanimous with them, and moving on. This form of meditation has some resemblance with "choiceless awareness" — the kind of meditation that J. Krishnamurti addressed.
Specific Traditions
Specific classifications include:
Observation (e.g., exploring the mind and all its thoughts)
Focus (e.g., exploring one thought to the exclusion of all else)
Trance (experiencing emptiness)
Theravada Buddhist practice involves both Samadhi and Vipassana, as well as the developing of "loving kindness" (Metta).
Zen Buddhism practices Zazen, similar to Vipassana.
Abrahamic Traditions practice forms of meditation that use God, Saints and/or Prophets as concentration focus
Some people, including the controversial Guru Rajneesh (also known as "Osho"), taught forms of "Dynamic Meditation" that involve violent exercise and hyperventilation, akin to aerobic exercise or those like the Sufi whirling.
Meditation based on questioning "Who am I" draws from various traditions, especially Vipassana, Insight Meditation, Zazen, and with the express purpose of getting to know one's true nature, and/or experiencing Kensho, Satori, Enlightenment. This method teaches to be wary of trance-like states of relaxation, and advocates intense inquiry into the nature of thought, mind, ego, self, and desire.
Jesus-style, dynamic-mind, spiritualized meditation engages the spiritized creative consciousness and full awareness. The mind and thinking processes are expanded rather than shut down, by-passed, distracted, or dulled. The only requirements are sincerity, persistence, and God-consciousness.
Other styles of meditation incorporate physical fatigue, fasting, psychic dissociation, profound aesthetic experiences, vivid impulses, fear, anxiety, wild dancing, or psychotropic drugs to initiate "mystic communion". Often these trancelike states of visionary consciousness are considered as a religious experience or spiritually enlightening.
On every mountaintop of intellectual thought are to be found relaxation for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit. From such vantage points of high living, man is able to transcend the material irritations of the lower levels of thinking -- ego, worry, jealousy, envy, revenge, and the pride of immature personality. These high-climbing souls deliver themselves from a multitude of the crosscurrent conflicts of the trifles of society, thus becoming free to attain consciousness of the higher currents of spirit concept and celestial communication through the art of meditation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies
Email us at: Comments@TheNazareneWay.com
Actions...
I am sure that you have heard the expression, " Actions speak louder than words".. It was the actions of Jesus that spoke this Truth that the ego must die before You can enter Reality.. The main teaching and really the only teaching of Jesus was the Knowledge and Action of Unconditional Love.. Unconditional Love is the state of non-ego.. This yoga of Jesus to find Truth and Reality through the mind and body was the most simple method to teach those that had no books or teachers advanced enough to teach the people, the path of ego death and birth into Reality........... namaste, thomas
The ego... by Jesus the Christ...
A discourse by Jesus
NOTE: This teaching was given on August 29, 2006.
We have now reached a turning point in my discourses on the ego. My first nine discourses on “The least you should know about the ego” form the Alpha polarity. My last discourse on magnificent confusion forms the nexus of the figure-eight, and we will now enter the lower figure, the Omega polarity.
The first discourses presented the overall view, the big picture, so that you have a foundation for knowing that you are more than the ego. It was an attempt to show you the forest without focusing on the individual trees. Why did I start out this way? Because you are not only a person who is lost in the forest, you are a person who has grown up in the forest. Thus, your upbringing has not given you a clear understanding of the real cause that makes your life an ongoing struggle.
Therefore, I had to start out by showing you that you are lost but that there is something outside the forest. It is not until you recognize yourself as lost that you can start looking for a way out instead of feeling hopeless – or even content – in the shadow of the trees. You now understand that the core of your identity is the Conscious You and that you are MORE than the earthly identity built by your ego.
You should also recognize that you already know you are more than the ego, because it is the Conscious You who has studied my previous discourses on the ego. You have done so only because you want to be more than what you are right now. You don’t really think it was your ego that compelled you to read these long and somewhat complex discourses on the ego, do you? So you should allow yourself to recognize that you already know there is something outside the ego forest.
However, having a mental image of the forest is not the same as being outside that forest. You still have to follow the trail that leads you out, and for a time your vision of what is outside will be blocked by a number of individual trees. Thus, in this next section we will look at the individual trees, namely the games that the ego has constructed in order to keep you trapped in the forest. The strategy of the ego is to get you so entangled in the branches of one or more individual trees that you forget about the trail.
Let me assure you that having made it this far, especially if you have recognized that you are in a state of magnificent confusion, is an accomplishment. My first discourses were actually designed to act as a filter to filter out those who are not ready to let go of their egos. I am in no way passing judgment upon such people; I am simply stating the fact that not everyone is ready to see through and leave behind the ego.
Virtually every human being on this planet is somewhat blinded by the ego. Yet the vast majority is not ready to even acknowledge the existence of the ego, let alone take a long look in the mirror and recognize: “I have an ego, and I need to rise above it!” Such people will have taken one of the “easy ways out” that I offered between the lines in the first discourses, and their egos will have found an excuse for not continuing. Yet anyone who starts the series will have had certain seeds planted, and in good time they will sprout and come to the surface of awareness so that the person can take another look at the ego.
My point is that if you have sincerely studied my previous discourses, you are ready to begin looking at the specific games that your own ego is playing. In fact, you have already overcome some of these games or you would still be so identified with the ego that you would not be open to this teaching. Thus, as I describe the games, I hope you will begin to recognize that as a spiritual seeker, you have risen above some of the most destructive ego games.
I hope this will give you some encouragement in realizing that you might be further along on the path than you thought. Even if you have overcome the very lowest ego game, you are still in a much better place than those who are trapped in that game. Thus, I hope you will recognize that if you have overcome one ego game, you can overcome them all, for they are truly all cut from the same cloth. As I will explain further, the ego has only one game that comes in numerous disguises, some more subtle than others. Yet once you see the basic strategy of the ego, you can more easily expose the rest of its games.
My point is that as I expose the ego games in this section, I will start with the most primitive and then gradually work up toward the most subtle. I hope you will honestly look at yourself, recognize which games you have left behind and build a positive momentum. As you build this momentum, you should be able to acknowledge when you come to the first game that you have not yet – completely – overcome. And then you can use your momentum to avoid a negative reaction – such as guilt or denial – and simply acknowledge that since you have already risen above one or more games, you can surely rise above this next one as well.
As you continue to build on your accomplishments, you will reinforce the momentum until it becomes an unstoppable force that pulls you through the forest and simply cuts down the trees that are in your way. Before you know it, you will see the light filtering through the trees, and one day you will break through the last brush and enter the open field, where your eyes can finally see the horizon of Being.
Think about what it is like to be lost in a forest. The biggest problem is that you have no absolute point of reference, you have no horizon but only a very limited field of view. You only see trees and have no way of knowing which direction to follow in order to get out of the forest. Yet as you cut down the individual trees, you will eventually catch a glimpse of the horizon and now you will have a firm direction to follow. In the beginning it might seem like overcoming the ego is hopeless, but if you keep overcoming the individual ego games, you WILL one day break through and catch a glimpse of your own Higher Being. From then on, you will never again be completely lost in the forest.
The master game of the ego
Although I will describe the individual games used by the ego, I will start out by describing the master game. You may not be able to clearly see this game at this point, but I want to plant the seed in your mind so that it can germinate and eventually break through to your conscious awareness.
As I explained in my first discourses, the Conscious You created the ego by deciding that it would no longer make decisions. This is illustrated in the old fairy tale about the sleeping beauty. The princess is the Conscious You and one day she falls victim to a plot hatched by the evil Godmother, namely the prince of this world. Thus, the princess falls asleep and an impenetrable forest grows up around her castle. The forest, of course, is the ego and the individual trees are the illusions of the ego, the ego games. One day a prince comes by, penetrates the forest and kisses the princess who awakens. The prince symbolizes the Living Christ who can take on many forms, both as an outer teacher and as the inner teacher of your Christ self. Regardless of the form, the Living Christ always serves to awaken the Conscious You to the need to come up higher.
In the fairy tale, the prince and the princess live happily ever after, and here is where the fairy tale departs from reality. In the real world, the Conscious You is not home free by being awakened. It/you must personally cut down all of the trees that surround the castle, and only then will you live happily ever after.
The master strategy of the ego involves two elements. The first one is that the ego will do anything it can to prevent the Conscious You from awakening to the realization that there must be more to your identity. For the majority of human beings, this strategy is still working and they still identify themselves completely with the identity that the ego has built in the material world. The fact that you are reading this means that you are a spiritual seeker, and thus your ego’s first strategy has failed. You know there is more to your identity and you are actively looking for it.
Thus, you are now the target for the ego’s second strategy, which is to prevent you from clearing the thorny trees around the castle. Each of these trees represents a decision, a decision based on the mind of anti-christ, the mind of duality and separation. This is where I would like to leave the fairy-tale analogy behind and instead refer to the image of a spiral staircase. Each decision that was based on the mind of anti-christ took you further down the spiral staircase, the staircase that leads into the darkness of separation from your higher Being. This is what the Bible refers to as “the valley of the shadow of death” (Proverbs 23:4).
The separation from your I AM Presence and your true sense of identity truly is the consciousness of spiritual death. Thus, the decisions based on the illusions of the mind of anti-christ brought you further into the consciousness of death. We might say that each of these decisions was a Death decision. One kiss from the prince is not enough to raise you out of the shadow of death. You must consciously walk the staircase and undo each of the decisions that brought you down the staircase. And this is precisely what the ego will do everything in its power to prevent you from doing.
In order to take a step up the spiral staircase, you must come to see through the dualistic illusion that brought you down to that step. You can do this only by seeing the Christ truth that counteracts the illusion, the truth that makes you free. And then you must choose the truth of Christ over the “truth” of anti-christ. You must choose life over death. I would like to call each of these decisions a “LIFE decision.”
What I am hoping to help you see is that the ego will do anything to prevent you from making these LIFE decisions. And in order to accomplish this overall goal, the ego – and the forces of anti-christ – have invented a number of subtle games. The goal is to keep you entangled with a particular illusion, so that you cannot let go of it and rise to the next step on the path.
What is a LIFE decision?
When I talk about LIFE decisions, I am not talking about minor decisions, such as whether to bring an umbrella or what to have for lunch. Nor am I talking about big decisions in your material life, such as what career to pursue or what person to marry. I am talking about the kind of decisions that affect how you see yourself, God, the world and the relationship between these three factors in your life. I am talking about decisions that affect your sense of identity.
As I explained in the previous discourses, when you descend one step on the spiral staircase, your old identity dies and a new one is born. Thus, in order to ascend one step, the old – human – identity must die and a new more spiritual one must be born. That is why I said:
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John, Chapter 3)
This spiritual rebirth requires you to voluntarily and consciously – if it is not conscious, it cannot be voluntary – let the old human identity die and accept that you are reborn into a higher spiritual sense of identity. To make this less abstract, let me give an example.
Many people struggle with alcoholism and use various programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, to combat this condition. Some manage to stop drinking by using the force of conscious will to suppress the urge to drink. This is commendable, but it comes with a price, namely that you must struggle to uphold the decision, often for the rest of your life. An organization such as AA maintains that you are an alcoholic for life and that you must continue to suppress the urge to drink. I am not denouncing this approach for people at a certain level, but there is a higher approach.
You see, there is only one reason why you could become susceptible to alcoholism in the first place, namely that you have accepted a sense of identity as a human being who has no real purpose to life and who is powerless to overcome certain problems. Thus, if you can’t overcome a problem (to stop the pain) and if you really are not worth anything, it is okay to dull the pain through alcohol.
You then gradually slide into a physical and emotional addiction, but one day the Conscious you wakes up and realizes this cannot go on or you will die. So you go into a treatment program and use the force of will to suppress what is seen as the cause of the problem, namely the urge to drink. However, the real cause is your sense of identity as a basically worthless human being whose life has no higher purpose.
The real solution is to transcend that state of consciousness, which you can do by internalizing the Christ truth that you are a unique, spiritual being who is infinitely loved by God and who came to Earth for a specific spiritual purpose. Once you accept this new sense of identity – once you let the old identity die and are spiritually reborn – you will see that you are worthy and that your life has a mission that is far too important to let alcohol stand in the way of its fulfillment.
Thus, you have not simply suppressed the urge to drink – which is only the effect and not the cause – but you have accepted a higher sense of identity. For the new person that you now are, drinking is simply unthinkable. It is not even an option and the ego and the prince of this world have no way to tempt you into drinking. You are so focused on your mission that you do not even notice their temptations. (This leads them to stop and attempt to come up with another kind of temptation that works at your new level of consciousness. Nevertheless, you have still made significant progress and it has become harder for them to tempt you.)
Do you now see the overall strategy of the ego? You have descended the staircase by accepting a lower sense of identity than your true identity, which is that you are a unique spiritual being. You have accepted that you are a human being with certain limitations. The ego is trying to prevent you from letting go of a limited sense of identity and accepting a higher one. It does this by either keeping you in spiritual blindness (so you don’t see your limitations or the alternative) or making you so attached to your current sense of identity that you are not willing to let go of it.
Your current sense of identity is based on something in this world, it is a worldly or material sense of identity. Thus, the ego is trying to keep you so entangled with or attached to the “things of this world” that you either cannot see or cannot accept your true spiritual identity. The ego seeks to accomplish this through the individual ego games, each of which is designed to keep you so focused on something in the material world that you cannot or will not look beyond it. You are not willing to give up your limited sense of identity in order to rise to a broader sense of identity. You are not able or willing to let go of your belief that you ARE the lower identity and that there is nothing more to you than what that identity specifies.
How did you descend the staircase of life?
Let us now consider how you descended the staircase that led you to your present level of consciousness. Here this is where the fairy tale – and even the Bible – gives an incorrect description of the process. The Bible describes the Fall of man as one momentous event. In a sense it is true that losing contact with your spiritual teacher was a momentous event, but it happened as the result of a gradual process.
Many religions and many New Age teachings present the Fall of Man as one event and they present the solution – salvation or whatever it is called – the same way. This is one of the illusions created by the prince of this world. He wants you to believe that if only you belong to the right Christian church and believe all its doctrines, I – or rather the church’s idolatrous image of Christ – will one day appear in the sky and save you. Or he wants you to believe that if only you are loving and kind to everyone, you will one day spontaneously wake up and be enlightened.
Both philosophies – and the many others that spring from the same consciousness – have the same goal, namely to pacify you so that you do not realize the true key to salvation, spiritual growth, enlightenment or whatever you want to call it. That key is to understand the mechanics of how you descend and ascend the spiral staircase and the role of LIFE decisions. Let me explain.
The consciousness of anti-christ is subtle, which means that the Fall did not happen as the result of one decision on your part. You gradually started experimenting with the dualistic mind, and you gradually descended the spiral staircase. At some point the Conscious You did make the momentous decision that it would no longer be in command of your life, but most people did this without fully realizing what was at stake. They had already become so partially blinded by the duality of the mind of anti-christ that they did not fully understand what had happened. They did not understand that they had just made the quintessential Death decision.
Compare this to descending a staircase. If you walk down the steps, each step will send a jolt up your legs, and you know you have descended one step. You experience each step as a discrete and distinct event and you know you have gone one step down. Yet now imagine that you lie down on the staircase and allow gravity to pull your body down. You simply slide down the steps and because your body spans several steps, it becomes harder to realize that you have descended a step and that this is a discrete event. After all, which step did you just descend, the one under your head or the one under your feet? And when you do not clearly see that you have taken a step down, you can slide quite far down the spiral staircase before you even realize what has happened.
My point is that when you descended the staircase of consciousness, you did not clearly see what was happening. You did not realize that each step was a discrete event that caused your old sense of identity to die and a new – more limited one – to be born. The reason why you did not see this was that you were blinded by the dualistic logic of the mind of anti-christ, as Eve was blinded by the serpent in the Garden of Eden when he said, “Thou shalt not surely die!”
Do you see that this is the very same lie that is behind each of the steps you have taken down the staircase? You think that you will not surely die by making a death decision. After all, you have already gone part of the way suggested by the ego and you are still alive, so why not follow the ego a bit further? This is the logic that allowed you to slide down the spiral staircase until you could no longer see the exit door at the top and even forgot there is something at the top of the staircase. This is when the conscious you accepted a sense of identity as a human being instead of a spiritual being.
Now, here is where we must once again correct the fairy tale. It is true that the Conscious You is asleep, but only metaphorically speaking. You are asleep in the sense that you do not see the reality of life, namely that you are more than a material, human being and that the world is more than the material universe. Yet you are not asleep in the sense that you are unconscious. Thus, you are painfully aware of the consequences of the ego-based decisions and you cannot escape experiencing those consequences. Here is where we need to take a closer look at what exactly it means that the Conscious You stopped making decisions.
How you can make decisions without making decisions
In my previous discourses, I said that at some point the Conscious You decided that it would no longer make decisions, and it allowed the ego to make decisions for you. This is true, but there is a deeper understanding that we now need to uncover.
The fact is that there are some decisions that can be made by the ego and there are some decisions that can only be made by the Conscious You. The Conscious You is an extension of your I AM Presence and a spark of God’s Being. It is sent into the material world with the command to multiply and have dominion. This means that you must multiply your sense of identity as a co-creator, and only the Conscious You can make decisions about your sense of identity. Only the Conscious You can make a Death decision – a decision that leads you to a lower sense of identity – or a LIFE decision – a decision that leads you to a higher sense of identity. The ego cannot make such decisions, but it can influence how the Conscious You makes such decisions.
To illustrate this, consider a company that is owned by one person. The owner does not want to make all the day-to-day decisions and has hired a CEO to run the business while he spends time in his private office or in his country club. The CEO can make most of the decisions related to running the business, but some decisions must still be made by the owner. One year the CEO makes some bad decisions and the company loses money. Yet he does not admit this to the owner. Instead, he comes up with a plan that makes it seem like it was market conditions that led to the loss, and if only the owner will approve a loan from the bank, the company will regroup and be much stronger next year.
Because the owner really does not want to run the company himself, he believes the CEO and approves the loan. This obviously takes the company one step down the ladder of debt, but the owner thinks it will only be a temporary setback and he again retreats into his private world. The next year the company is still not showing a profit, but again the CEO comes up with a convincing plan and the owner – who really doesn’t want to leave his private world – approves another loan.
Obviously, this process can continue for as long as the owner believes the CEO. As long as the CEO can avoid something that shakes the owner’s trust, he can get away with quite a lot and the company can slide into hopeless debt before the owner realizes what is going on. Once the situation gets so bad that the owner can no longer ignore it, he will have to wake up and run the company himself. However, what will it take to get to that point? That depends on the balance between the owner’s desire to stay in his private world and his desire to avoid having the company go down. As long as there is no distinct event that shatters the owner’s illusion, the slide can continue indefinitely.
Yet what is the real problem here? Although the owner has retreated from running the company, he is not completely isolated. He still feels the consequences of the company not making a profit and he still has to make the most important decisions. So although he might feel as if he is no longer making decisions, this is only an illusion. He is still making the Death decisions that take the company to a distinctly lower level, yet what he is NOT doing is taking charge of gathering the information UPON WHICH THESE DECISIONS ARE BASED. He allows the CEO to present to him a selective picture of the situation and then he bases his LIFE and Death decisions on the image presented by the CEO.
This is the exact dynamic between the Conscious You and the ego. The Conscious You decides that it no longer wants to be in command of your life, so it allows the ego to make the day-to-day decisions. Yet the ego cannot decide on your sense of identity, so the ego can only make decisions within the framework of how the Conscious You sees itself. The ego’s decisions are based on the duality consciousness, which means they will inevitably lead to undesirable consequences.
The Conscious You will experience these consequences, but the ego will present you with a “company report” that makes it seem like this is just a temporary setback. You are the victim of circumstances beyond your control, but if only you will make the decision recommended by the ego, you will see that things will get better. The ego will present you with a view of the situation that is based on dualistic thinking. The ego really believes its solution will work, but in reality a solution based on the duality consciousness cannot solve problems created by the duality consciousness.
Yet if you still do not want to take back the responsibility for running the company, you might believe the ego. You will then make a Death decision that takes you down to a distinctly lower sense of identity. You might not realize what is happening, but the ego will now begin to make decisions based on this lower sense of identity. By accepting a lower sense of identity, you have given the ego more freedom to act, and this will lead to even more unpleasant consequences. Thus, you have already set the stage for the next crisis.
Do you see the mechanics? You make a Death decision that takes you to a lower level of identity. The ego now takes over and makes the minor decisions based on this new sense of identity. Each of these decisions leads to unpleasant consequences, and in order to escape those consequences, you will – as long as you refuse to take command of your life – make another Death decision that takes you further down the staircase.
When it comes time for the next company report, the ego will present a rosy picture that makes it seem like it is not the ego’s fault, and certainly not your fault. Sure things are tough right now, but they are sure to get better. And in the meantime, why don’t you – the new HUMAN being – simply make yourself comfortable by taking advantage of the pleasures the material world has to offer. Stop worrying about the purpose of life and simply have a little fun. Live a little—until you have to die some more.
The only way out
Once you have forgotten your higher identity, you cannot see any way out of your dilemma. You do not understand that the unpleasant consequences are the inevitable result of decisions based on the duality consciousness. You have forgotten that there is an alternative to this state of consciousness, so you think the only way to escape the unpleasant consequences is to make better dualistic decisions. You think you can solve your problems without transcending your current sense of identity—which is the source of your problems. And this is precisely what your ego and the prince of this world want you to keep believing. They want you to believe in the illusion that you can solve a problem with the same state of consciousness that created the problem (which is what they believe).
At some point, the Conscious You will experience such severe consequences that it will wake up and say, “I can’t keep doing this anymore; I have to change something.” Yet even after this awakening, the ego will do anything to prevent you from realizing the reality I have just described. That reality has the following components:
•Only the Conscious You can make LIFE and Death decisions, decisions that take you up or down the staircase of identity.
•You have descended that staircase because you made Death decisions.
•You made those decisions because you allowed the ego to gather the information upon which you based the decisions.
•Because the ego can see only the mind of anti-christ, all of its information was dualistic in nature and could only create more problems.
•The ONLY way out is to start making LIFE decisions.
•Such decisions must be based on the reality of the Christ mind rather than on the illusions of the mind of anti-christ.
•Only the Conscious You can access the Christ mind. The ego can NEVER do so.
•The Conscious You ALWAYS has the option to reach for the mind of Christ. No matter how far you have descended down the staircase, you can still ask for guidance, and you will receive it. When the student is ready, the teacher will ALWAYS appear, and the teacher will give the student exactly what is needed to take the very next step up the spiral staircase. The challenge for you is to recognize the teacher and be willing to follow his/her directions.
The problem is that before you can make use of this “open door that no man can shut,” you – meaning the Conscious You – must decide to take back responsibility for your life. You must take back responsibility for making LIFE decisions and you must take back responsibility for gathering the information upon which you base those decisions. You must refuse to allow the ego to back you into a corner, where it seems like you have to make decisions based on two extremes that are both defined by the mind of anti-christ. You must refuse to be manipulated into a situation where it seems like your only option is to choose the lesser evil. You must take back your responsibility to discern between the truth of Christ and the illusions of anti-christ.
My overall point is this. Once you have made the decision not to take command, you allow the ego to provide the information upon which you make the big decisions, and you slide down the staircase without realizing what is happening. You experience it as a blur rather than as a string of discrete events, each one causing the death of the old you and the birth of the new you. However, you cannot ascend the staircase the same way. You cannot simply slide up the staircase—you must walk by your own efforts. You cannot expect a spiritual teacher to pull you up the staircase as the ego pulled you down. You must stand up and decide to walk by your own effort.
The real key is to realize that walking up the staircase requires you to take a number of discrete and distinct steps. In order to climb to the next step, you must remove both feet from the previous step, meaning that you must decide to leave that step behind forever. This requires you to willingly let the old sense of identity die and allow yourself to be reborn into a new sense of identity. This is what Paul described:
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians, Chapter 4)
For each step you take up the spiral staircase, YOU must make a decision. This decision must be based on the following:
•You see that what brought you to your current step on the staircase was a decision that YOU made.
•You see that the decision was based on the illusions of the mind of anti-christ presented by the ego.
•You see why this illusion is wrong and why it could only lead to unpleasant consequences.
•You see this because you have recognized the truth of Christ that makes you free from the illusion.
•You now consciously and with no regrets or attachments choose to let go of the illusion and accept and internalize the truth of Christ.
By making this LIFE decision, you have allowed the old you to die and you have been spiritually reborn into a new sense of identity. This does not mean you are now saved and will live happily ever after. It means you have ascended one step on the spiral staircase, and you are now ready to face the next challenge. Only when you have faced every decision that brought you down the staircase, will you reach the top and live happily ever after.
The ultimate LIFE decision
Let me summarize what I have revealed in this discourse: You can sleepwalk your way down the spiral staircase of life, but you CANNOT sleepwalk your way back up! You can get down by making unconscious decisions, but you can get back up ONLY by making conscious decisions.
Let me return to the analogy of the owner of a company. After several years of bad financial results, the owner finally wakes up and realizes his CEO has fed him a distorted view of the company’s situation. Yet he now faces the crucial decision of whether to take back charge of the company or whether to simply fire the bad CEO and hire another one so he can continue to retreat into his private world. He decides to do the latter and hires a new CEO. Yet he is unaware that it is actually the old CEO who has taken on a disguise and has presented himself as a different person.
As a spiritual seeker, you have already made some LIFE decisions, and for each decision, you fired the ego which caused you to rise to a higher sense of identity. The problem is that the ego will immediately change its disguise and present itself as a capable CEO who can run your new company for you. My point is that many spiritual seekers have made significant progress, yet they have not yet come to the point of making the ultimate LIFE decision.
This decision is the firm commitment that you will take charge of your life and that you will remain in charge. You will make the important decisions and you will take responsibility for attaining the vision of Christ before you make such decisions. You will keep making one LIFE decision after another, and you will keep doing so until you reach the top of the spiral staircase. You will never again allow your ego to talk you into abandoning your responsibility to discern between the reality of Christ and the unreality of anti-christ.
Now, before you become discouraged and start feeling like it is an insurmountable task to overcome all of the ego’s illusions, let me make it clear what you are up against. You might take an honest look at yourself and see that you still have a ways to go before you are free of the ego. And in your current state of confusion it might seem very difficult to see through the ego’s illusions. Yet who ever said you have to see through the ego’s illusions all at once or that you have to do so with your current level of consciousness?
Why do you think I keep talking about a spiral staircase? The key to climbing a staircase is to take one step at a time, and all you need to do is focus on two steps at a time—the step you are on right now and the one right above it. You don’t need to look at the top step and you certainly don’t need to climb the staircase by taking one giant leap. You simply keep putting one foot above the other, and as long as you keep taking one doable step at a time, you WILL make it to the top. The ego can stop you only by preventing you from rising above a certain step.
Let us say that the spiral staircase has 33 steps. You take stock of your life and realize you are on Step 10. At this stage you do not have the Christ discernment and insight to see through the ego illusion that prevents you from rising from Step 32 to Step 33. Yet you don’t have to see through that illusion right now. You only have to see through the illusion that prevents you from rising from Step 10 to Step 11. And I can assure you that you do have what it takes to dismiss that illusion. You simply need to ask for the Christ vision you need, and if you ask with an open mind, you WILL receive an answer.
It is a spiritual law, that when the student is ready, the teacher WILL appear. The teacher may appear as the inner teacher of your Christ self or as an outer teacher that might have a variety of disguises. Yet the teacher will ALWAYS find a way to present you with the insight you need in order to rise to the next step. If your mind is open, you will recognize the Divine direction and use it to rise to a higher level of identity. And once you have that higher sense of identity, you will have what it takes to dismiss the next ego-illusion and take another step.
I hope you now see what is the ego’s master strategy. It is to prevent you from making the ultimate LIFE decision, but also to prevent you from making the next LIFE decision. It is precisely to accomplish this goal that the ego and the prince of this world have come up with a number of games that are designed to make you stuck at a particular step. As you begin to study these games, you will see that you have already overcome some of them. And this should give you the inner knowing that you can overcome all of them by simply taking one step at a time.
I realize that it can still seem like climbing the staircase is an overwhelming task. Yet the fact that you are reading this teaching proves that you are not at the lowest step. So how did you rise to your current step? You did so because the Living Christ in some form reached out to you and you heeded the call. You accepted the teacher’s directions and used them to make a LIFE decision that brought you one step higher. And you continued to do this until you reached your current step.
My point is that so far the teacher has been there for you for every step of the way and you have followed the teacher’s instructions. Based on this fact, is it rational to doubt that the teacher will be there for each of the following steps as well? Is it rational to doubt that you can and will follow the teacher as you have already done? Why not simply realize that you have already stepped on to the true path, and as long as you keep following it by reaching for the higher vision of Christ, you WILL make it all the way home. Thus, you should accept the message in the full quote that I gave in part earlier:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Proverbs 23:4)
Trust that the teacher will be with you each step of the way, and as long as you keep moving, you will make it to the goal. As the old saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” However, the journey is completed only by those who keep taking the NEXT step.
....... from askrealjesus.com
NOTE: This teaching was given on August 29, 2006.
We have now reached a turning point in my discourses on the ego. My first nine discourses on “The least you should know about the ego” form the Alpha polarity. My last discourse on magnificent confusion forms the nexus of the figure-eight, and we will now enter the lower figure, the Omega polarity.
The first discourses presented the overall view, the big picture, so that you have a foundation for knowing that you are more than the ego. It was an attempt to show you the forest without focusing on the individual trees. Why did I start out this way? Because you are not only a person who is lost in the forest, you are a person who has grown up in the forest. Thus, your upbringing has not given you a clear understanding of the real cause that makes your life an ongoing struggle.
Therefore, I had to start out by showing you that you are lost but that there is something outside the forest. It is not until you recognize yourself as lost that you can start looking for a way out instead of feeling hopeless – or even content – in the shadow of the trees. You now understand that the core of your identity is the Conscious You and that you are MORE than the earthly identity built by your ego.
You should also recognize that you already know you are more than the ego, because it is the Conscious You who has studied my previous discourses on the ego. You have done so only because you want to be more than what you are right now. You don’t really think it was your ego that compelled you to read these long and somewhat complex discourses on the ego, do you? So you should allow yourself to recognize that you already know there is something outside the ego forest.
However, having a mental image of the forest is not the same as being outside that forest. You still have to follow the trail that leads you out, and for a time your vision of what is outside will be blocked by a number of individual trees. Thus, in this next section we will look at the individual trees, namely the games that the ego has constructed in order to keep you trapped in the forest. The strategy of the ego is to get you so entangled in the branches of one or more individual trees that you forget about the trail.
Let me assure you that having made it this far, especially if you have recognized that you are in a state of magnificent confusion, is an accomplishment. My first discourses were actually designed to act as a filter to filter out those who are not ready to let go of their egos. I am in no way passing judgment upon such people; I am simply stating the fact that not everyone is ready to see through and leave behind the ego.
Virtually every human being on this planet is somewhat blinded by the ego. Yet the vast majority is not ready to even acknowledge the existence of the ego, let alone take a long look in the mirror and recognize: “I have an ego, and I need to rise above it!” Such people will have taken one of the “easy ways out” that I offered between the lines in the first discourses, and their egos will have found an excuse for not continuing. Yet anyone who starts the series will have had certain seeds planted, and in good time they will sprout and come to the surface of awareness so that the person can take another look at the ego.
My point is that if you have sincerely studied my previous discourses, you are ready to begin looking at the specific games that your own ego is playing. In fact, you have already overcome some of these games or you would still be so identified with the ego that you would not be open to this teaching. Thus, as I describe the games, I hope you will begin to recognize that as a spiritual seeker, you have risen above some of the most destructive ego games.
I hope this will give you some encouragement in realizing that you might be further along on the path than you thought. Even if you have overcome the very lowest ego game, you are still in a much better place than those who are trapped in that game. Thus, I hope you will recognize that if you have overcome one ego game, you can overcome them all, for they are truly all cut from the same cloth. As I will explain further, the ego has only one game that comes in numerous disguises, some more subtle than others. Yet once you see the basic strategy of the ego, you can more easily expose the rest of its games.
My point is that as I expose the ego games in this section, I will start with the most primitive and then gradually work up toward the most subtle. I hope you will honestly look at yourself, recognize which games you have left behind and build a positive momentum. As you build this momentum, you should be able to acknowledge when you come to the first game that you have not yet – completely – overcome. And then you can use your momentum to avoid a negative reaction – such as guilt or denial – and simply acknowledge that since you have already risen above one or more games, you can surely rise above this next one as well.
As you continue to build on your accomplishments, you will reinforce the momentum until it becomes an unstoppable force that pulls you through the forest and simply cuts down the trees that are in your way. Before you know it, you will see the light filtering through the trees, and one day you will break through the last brush and enter the open field, where your eyes can finally see the horizon of Being.
Think about what it is like to be lost in a forest. The biggest problem is that you have no absolute point of reference, you have no horizon but only a very limited field of view. You only see trees and have no way of knowing which direction to follow in order to get out of the forest. Yet as you cut down the individual trees, you will eventually catch a glimpse of the horizon and now you will have a firm direction to follow. In the beginning it might seem like overcoming the ego is hopeless, but if you keep overcoming the individual ego games, you WILL one day break through and catch a glimpse of your own Higher Being. From then on, you will never again be completely lost in the forest.
The master game of the ego
Although I will describe the individual games used by the ego, I will start out by describing the master game. You may not be able to clearly see this game at this point, but I want to plant the seed in your mind so that it can germinate and eventually break through to your conscious awareness.
As I explained in my first discourses, the Conscious You created the ego by deciding that it would no longer make decisions. This is illustrated in the old fairy tale about the sleeping beauty. The princess is the Conscious You and one day she falls victim to a plot hatched by the evil Godmother, namely the prince of this world. Thus, the princess falls asleep and an impenetrable forest grows up around her castle. The forest, of course, is the ego and the individual trees are the illusions of the ego, the ego games. One day a prince comes by, penetrates the forest and kisses the princess who awakens. The prince symbolizes the Living Christ who can take on many forms, both as an outer teacher and as the inner teacher of your Christ self. Regardless of the form, the Living Christ always serves to awaken the Conscious You to the need to come up higher.
In the fairy tale, the prince and the princess live happily ever after, and here is where the fairy tale departs from reality. In the real world, the Conscious You is not home free by being awakened. It/you must personally cut down all of the trees that surround the castle, and only then will you live happily ever after.
The master strategy of the ego involves two elements. The first one is that the ego will do anything it can to prevent the Conscious You from awakening to the realization that there must be more to your identity. For the majority of human beings, this strategy is still working and they still identify themselves completely with the identity that the ego has built in the material world. The fact that you are reading this means that you are a spiritual seeker, and thus your ego’s first strategy has failed. You know there is more to your identity and you are actively looking for it.
Thus, you are now the target for the ego’s second strategy, which is to prevent you from clearing the thorny trees around the castle. Each of these trees represents a decision, a decision based on the mind of anti-christ, the mind of duality and separation. This is where I would like to leave the fairy-tale analogy behind and instead refer to the image of a spiral staircase. Each decision that was based on the mind of anti-christ took you further down the spiral staircase, the staircase that leads into the darkness of separation from your higher Being. This is what the Bible refers to as “the valley of the shadow of death” (Proverbs 23:4).
The separation from your I AM Presence and your true sense of identity truly is the consciousness of spiritual death. Thus, the decisions based on the illusions of the mind of anti-christ brought you further into the consciousness of death. We might say that each of these decisions was a Death decision. One kiss from the prince is not enough to raise you out of the shadow of death. You must consciously walk the staircase and undo each of the decisions that brought you down the staircase. And this is precisely what the ego will do everything in its power to prevent you from doing.
In order to take a step up the spiral staircase, you must come to see through the dualistic illusion that brought you down to that step. You can do this only by seeing the Christ truth that counteracts the illusion, the truth that makes you free. And then you must choose the truth of Christ over the “truth” of anti-christ. You must choose life over death. I would like to call each of these decisions a “LIFE decision.”
What I am hoping to help you see is that the ego will do anything to prevent you from making these LIFE decisions. And in order to accomplish this overall goal, the ego – and the forces of anti-christ – have invented a number of subtle games. The goal is to keep you entangled with a particular illusion, so that you cannot let go of it and rise to the next step on the path.
What is a LIFE decision?
When I talk about LIFE decisions, I am not talking about minor decisions, such as whether to bring an umbrella or what to have for lunch. Nor am I talking about big decisions in your material life, such as what career to pursue or what person to marry. I am talking about the kind of decisions that affect how you see yourself, God, the world and the relationship between these three factors in your life. I am talking about decisions that affect your sense of identity.
As I explained in the previous discourses, when you descend one step on the spiral staircase, your old identity dies and a new one is born. Thus, in order to ascend one step, the old – human – identity must die and a new more spiritual one must be born. That is why I said:
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John, Chapter 3)
This spiritual rebirth requires you to voluntarily and consciously – if it is not conscious, it cannot be voluntary – let the old human identity die and accept that you are reborn into a higher spiritual sense of identity. To make this less abstract, let me give an example.
Many people struggle with alcoholism and use various programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, to combat this condition. Some manage to stop drinking by using the force of conscious will to suppress the urge to drink. This is commendable, but it comes with a price, namely that you must struggle to uphold the decision, often for the rest of your life. An organization such as AA maintains that you are an alcoholic for life and that you must continue to suppress the urge to drink. I am not denouncing this approach for people at a certain level, but there is a higher approach.
You see, there is only one reason why you could become susceptible to alcoholism in the first place, namely that you have accepted a sense of identity as a human being who has no real purpose to life and who is powerless to overcome certain problems. Thus, if you can’t overcome a problem (to stop the pain) and if you really are not worth anything, it is okay to dull the pain through alcohol.
You then gradually slide into a physical and emotional addiction, but one day the Conscious you wakes up and realizes this cannot go on or you will die. So you go into a treatment program and use the force of will to suppress what is seen as the cause of the problem, namely the urge to drink. However, the real cause is your sense of identity as a basically worthless human being whose life has no higher purpose.
The real solution is to transcend that state of consciousness, which you can do by internalizing the Christ truth that you are a unique, spiritual being who is infinitely loved by God and who came to Earth for a specific spiritual purpose. Once you accept this new sense of identity – once you let the old identity die and are spiritually reborn – you will see that you are worthy and that your life has a mission that is far too important to let alcohol stand in the way of its fulfillment.
Thus, you have not simply suppressed the urge to drink – which is only the effect and not the cause – but you have accepted a higher sense of identity. For the new person that you now are, drinking is simply unthinkable. It is not even an option and the ego and the prince of this world have no way to tempt you into drinking. You are so focused on your mission that you do not even notice their temptations. (This leads them to stop and attempt to come up with another kind of temptation that works at your new level of consciousness. Nevertheless, you have still made significant progress and it has become harder for them to tempt you.)
Do you now see the overall strategy of the ego? You have descended the staircase by accepting a lower sense of identity than your true identity, which is that you are a unique spiritual being. You have accepted that you are a human being with certain limitations. The ego is trying to prevent you from letting go of a limited sense of identity and accepting a higher one. It does this by either keeping you in spiritual blindness (so you don’t see your limitations or the alternative) or making you so attached to your current sense of identity that you are not willing to let go of it.
Your current sense of identity is based on something in this world, it is a worldly or material sense of identity. Thus, the ego is trying to keep you so entangled with or attached to the “things of this world” that you either cannot see or cannot accept your true spiritual identity. The ego seeks to accomplish this through the individual ego games, each of which is designed to keep you so focused on something in the material world that you cannot or will not look beyond it. You are not willing to give up your limited sense of identity in order to rise to a broader sense of identity. You are not able or willing to let go of your belief that you ARE the lower identity and that there is nothing more to you than what that identity specifies.
How did you descend the staircase of life?
Let us now consider how you descended the staircase that led you to your present level of consciousness. Here this is where the fairy tale – and even the Bible – gives an incorrect description of the process. The Bible describes the Fall of man as one momentous event. In a sense it is true that losing contact with your spiritual teacher was a momentous event, but it happened as the result of a gradual process.
Many religions and many New Age teachings present the Fall of Man as one event and they present the solution – salvation or whatever it is called – the same way. This is one of the illusions created by the prince of this world. He wants you to believe that if only you belong to the right Christian church and believe all its doctrines, I – or rather the church’s idolatrous image of Christ – will one day appear in the sky and save you. Or he wants you to believe that if only you are loving and kind to everyone, you will one day spontaneously wake up and be enlightened.
Both philosophies – and the many others that spring from the same consciousness – have the same goal, namely to pacify you so that you do not realize the true key to salvation, spiritual growth, enlightenment or whatever you want to call it. That key is to understand the mechanics of how you descend and ascend the spiral staircase and the role of LIFE decisions. Let me explain.
The consciousness of anti-christ is subtle, which means that the Fall did not happen as the result of one decision on your part. You gradually started experimenting with the dualistic mind, and you gradually descended the spiral staircase. At some point the Conscious You did make the momentous decision that it would no longer be in command of your life, but most people did this without fully realizing what was at stake. They had already become so partially blinded by the duality of the mind of anti-christ that they did not fully understand what had happened. They did not understand that they had just made the quintessential Death decision.
Compare this to descending a staircase. If you walk down the steps, each step will send a jolt up your legs, and you know you have descended one step. You experience each step as a discrete and distinct event and you know you have gone one step down. Yet now imagine that you lie down on the staircase and allow gravity to pull your body down. You simply slide down the steps and because your body spans several steps, it becomes harder to realize that you have descended a step and that this is a discrete event. After all, which step did you just descend, the one under your head or the one under your feet? And when you do not clearly see that you have taken a step down, you can slide quite far down the spiral staircase before you even realize what has happened.
My point is that when you descended the staircase of consciousness, you did not clearly see what was happening. You did not realize that each step was a discrete event that caused your old sense of identity to die and a new – more limited one – to be born. The reason why you did not see this was that you were blinded by the dualistic logic of the mind of anti-christ, as Eve was blinded by the serpent in the Garden of Eden when he said, “Thou shalt not surely die!”
Do you see that this is the very same lie that is behind each of the steps you have taken down the staircase? You think that you will not surely die by making a death decision. After all, you have already gone part of the way suggested by the ego and you are still alive, so why not follow the ego a bit further? This is the logic that allowed you to slide down the spiral staircase until you could no longer see the exit door at the top and even forgot there is something at the top of the staircase. This is when the conscious you accepted a sense of identity as a human being instead of a spiritual being.
Now, here is where we must once again correct the fairy tale. It is true that the Conscious You is asleep, but only metaphorically speaking. You are asleep in the sense that you do not see the reality of life, namely that you are more than a material, human being and that the world is more than the material universe. Yet you are not asleep in the sense that you are unconscious. Thus, you are painfully aware of the consequences of the ego-based decisions and you cannot escape experiencing those consequences. Here is where we need to take a closer look at what exactly it means that the Conscious You stopped making decisions.
How you can make decisions without making decisions
In my previous discourses, I said that at some point the Conscious You decided that it would no longer make decisions, and it allowed the ego to make decisions for you. This is true, but there is a deeper understanding that we now need to uncover.
The fact is that there are some decisions that can be made by the ego and there are some decisions that can only be made by the Conscious You. The Conscious You is an extension of your I AM Presence and a spark of God’s Being. It is sent into the material world with the command to multiply and have dominion. This means that you must multiply your sense of identity as a co-creator, and only the Conscious You can make decisions about your sense of identity. Only the Conscious You can make a Death decision – a decision that leads you to a lower sense of identity – or a LIFE decision – a decision that leads you to a higher sense of identity. The ego cannot make such decisions, but it can influence how the Conscious You makes such decisions.
To illustrate this, consider a company that is owned by one person. The owner does not want to make all the day-to-day decisions and has hired a CEO to run the business while he spends time in his private office or in his country club. The CEO can make most of the decisions related to running the business, but some decisions must still be made by the owner. One year the CEO makes some bad decisions and the company loses money. Yet he does not admit this to the owner. Instead, he comes up with a plan that makes it seem like it was market conditions that led to the loss, and if only the owner will approve a loan from the bank, the company will regroup and be much stronger next year.
Because the owner really does not want to run the company himself, he believes the CEO and approves the loan. This obviously takes the company one step down the ladder of debt, but the owner thinks it will only be a temporary setback and he again retreats into his private world. The next year the company is still not showing a profit, but again the CEO comes up with a convincing plan and the owner – who really doesn’t want to leave his private world – approves another loan.
Obviously, this process can continue for as long as the owner believes the CEO. As long as the CEO can avoid something that shakes the owner’s trust, he can get away with quite a lot and the company can slide into hopeless debt before the owner realizes what is going on. Once the situation gets so bad that the owner can no longer ignore it, he will have to wake up and run the company himself. However, what will it take to get to that point? That depends on the balance between the owner’s desire to stay in his private world and his desire to avoid having the company go down. As long as there is no distinct event that shatters the owner’s illusion, the slide can continue indefinitely.
Yet what is the real problem here? Although the owner has retreated from running the company, he is not completely isolated. He still feels the consequences of the company not making a profit and he still has to make the most important decisions. So although he might feel as if he is no longer making decisions, this is only an illusion. He is still making the Death decisions that take the company to a distinctly lower level, yet what he is NOT doing is taking charge of gathering the information UPON WHICH THESE DECISIONS ARE BASED. He allows the CEO to present to him a selective picture of the situation and then he bases his LIFE and Death decisions on the image presented by the CEO.
This is the exact dynamic between the Conscious You and the ego. The Conscious You decides that it no longer wants to be in command of your life, so it allows the ego to make the day-to-day decisions. Yet the ego cannot decide on your sense of identity, so the ego can only make decisions within the framework of how the Conscious You sees itself. The ego’s decisions are based on the duality consciousness, which means they will inevitably lead to undesirable consequences.
The Conscious You will experience these consequences, but the ego will present you with a “company report” that makes it seem like this is just a temporary setback. You are the victim of circumstances beyond your control, but if only you will make the decision recommended by the ego, you will see that things will get better. The ego will present you with a view of the situation that is based on dualistic thinking. The ego really believes its solution will work, but in reality a solution based on the duality consciousness cannot solve problems created by the duality consciousness.
Yet if you still do not want to take back the responsibility for running the company, you might believe the ego. You will then make a Death decision that takes you down to a distinctly lower sense of identity. You might not realize what is happening, but the ego will now begin to make decisions based on this lower sense of identity. By accepting a lower sense of identity, you have given the ego more freedom to act, and this will lead to even more unpleasant consequences. Thus, you have already set the stage for the next crisis.
Do you see the mechanics? You make a Death decision that takes you to a lower level of identity. The ego now takes over and makes the minor decisions based on this new sense of identity. Each of these decisions leads to unpleasant consequences, and in order to escape those consequences, you will – as long as you refuse to take command of your life – make another Death decision that takes you further down the staircase.
When it comes time for the next company report, the ego will present a rosy picture that makes it seem like it is not the ego’s fault, and certainly not your fault. Sure things are tough right now, but they are sure to get better. And in the meantime, why don’t you – the new HUMAN being – simply make yourself comfortable by taking advantage of the pleasures the material world has to offer. Stop worrying about the purpose of life and simply have a little fun. Live a little—until you have to die some more.
The only way out
Once you have forgotten your higher identity, you cannot see any way out of your dilemma. You do not understand that the unpleasant consequences are the inevitable result of decisions based on the duality consciousness. You have forgotten that there is an alternative to this state of consciousness, so you think the only way to escape the unpleasant consequences is to make better dualistic decisions. You think you can solve your problems without transcending your current sense of identity—which is the source of your problems. And this is precisely what your ego and the prince of this world want you to keep believing. They want you to believe in the illusion that you can solve a problem with the same state of consciousness that created the problem (which is what they believe).
At some point, the Conscious You will experience such severe consequences that it will wake up and say, “I can’t keep doing this anymore; I have to change something.” Yet even after this awakening, the ego will do anything to prevent you from realizing the reality I have just described. That reality has the following components:
•Only the Conscious You can make LIFE and Death decisions, decisions that take you up or down the staircase of identity.
•You have descended that staircase because you made Death decisions.
•You made those decisions because you allowed the ego to gather the information upon which you based the decisions.
•Because the ego can see only the mind of anti-christ, all of its information was dualistic in nature and could only create more problems.
•The ONLY way out is to start making LIFE decisions.
•Such decisions must be based on the reality of the Christ mind rather than on the illusions of the mind of anti-christ.
•Only the Conscious You can access the Christ mind. The ego can NEVER do so.
•The Conscious You ALWAYS has the option to reach for the mind of Christ. No matter how far you have descended down the staircase, you can still ask for guidance, and you will receive it. When the student is ready, the teacher will ALWAYS appear, and the teacher will give the student exactly what is needed to take the very next step up the spiral staircase. The challenge for you is to recognize the teacher and be willing to follow his/her directions.
The problem is that before you can make use of this “open door that no man can shut,” you – meaning the Conscious You – must decide to take back responsibility for your life. You must take back responsibility for making LIFE decisions and you must take back responsibility for gathering the information upon which you base those decisions. You must refuse to allow the ego to back you into a corner, where it seems like you have to make decisions based on two extremes that are both defined by the mind of anti-christ. You must refuse to be manipulated into a situation where it seems like your only option is to choose the lesser evil. You must take back your responsibility to discern between the truth of Christ and the illusions of anti-christ.
My overall point is this. Once you have made the decision not to take command, you allow the ego to provide the information upon which you make the big decisions, and you slide down the staircase without realizing what is happening. You experience it as a blur rather than as a string of discrete events, each one causing the death of the old you and the birth of the new you. However, you cannot ascend the staircase the same way. You cannot simply slide up the staircase—you must walk by your own efforts. You cannot expect a spiritual teacher to pull you up the staircase as the ego pulled you down. You must stand up and decide to walk by your own effort.
The real key is to realize that walking up the staircase requires you to take a number of discrete and distinct steps. In order to climb to the next step, you must remove both feet from the previous step, meaning that you must decide to leave that step behind forever. This requires you to willingly let the old sense of identity die and allow yourself to be reborn into a new sense of identity. This is what Paul described:
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians, Chapter 4)
For each step you take up the spiral staircase, YOU must make a decision. This decision must be based on the following:
•You see that what brought you to your current step on the staircase was a decision that YOU made.
•You see that the decision was based on the illusions of the mind of anti-christ presented by the ego.
•You see why this illusion is wrong and why it could only lead to unpleasant consequences.
•You see this because you have recognized the truth of Christ that makes you free from the illusion.
•You now consciously and with no regrets or attachments choose to let go of the illusion and accept and internalize the truth of Christ.
By making this LIFE decision, you have allowed the old you to die and you have been spiritually reborn into a new sense of identity. This does not mean you are now saved and will live happily ever after. It means you have ascended one step on the spiral staircase, and you are now ready to face the next challenge. Only when you have faced every decision that brought you down the staircase, will you reach the top and live happily ever after.
The ultimate LIFE decision
Let me summarize what I have revealed in this discourse: You can sleepwalk your way down the spiral staircase of life, but you CANNOT sleepwalk your way back up! You can get down by making unconscious decisions, but you can get back up ONLY by making conscious decisions.
Let me return to the analogy of the owner of a company. After several years of bad financial results, the owner finally wakes up and realizes his CEO has fed him a distorted view of the company’s situation. Yet he now faces the crucial decision of whether to take back charge of the company or whether to simply fire the bad CEO and hire another one so he can continue to retreat into his private world. He decides to do the latter and hires a new CEO. Yet he is unaware that it is actually the old CEO who has taken on a disguise and has presented himself as a different person.
As a spiritual seeker, you have already made some LIFE decisions, and for each decision, you fired the ego which caused you to rise to a higher sense of identity. The problem is that the ego will immediately change its disguise and present itself as a capable CEO who can run your new company for you. My point is that many spiritual seekers have made significant progress, yet they have not yet come to the point of making the ultimate LIFE decision.
This decision is the firm commitment that you will take charge of your life and that you will remain in charge. You will make the important decisions and you will take responsibility for attaining the vision of Christ before you make such decisions. You will keep making one LIFE decision after another, and you will keep doing so until you reach the top of the spiral staircase. You will never again allow your ego to talk you into abandoning your responsibility to discern between the reality of Christ and the unreality of anti-christ.
Now, before you become discouraged and start feeling like it is an insurmountable task to overcome all of the ego’s illusions, let me make it clear what you are up against. You might take an honest look at yourself and see that you still have a ways to go before you are free of the ego. And in your current state of confusion it might seem very difficult to see through the ego’s illusions. Yet who ever said you have to see through the ego’s illusions all at once or that you have to do so with your current level of consciousness?
Why do you think I keep talking about a spiral staircase? The key to climbing a staircase is to take one step at a time, and all you need to do is focus on two steps at a time—the step you are on right now and the one right above it. You don’t need to look at the top step and you certainly don’t need to climb the staircase by taking one giant leap. You simply keep putting one foot above the other, and as long as you keep taking one doable step at a time, you WILL make it to the top. The ego can stop you only by preventing you from rising above a certain step.
Let us say that the spiral staircase has 33 steps. You take stock of your life and realize you are on Step 10. At this stage you do not have the Christ discernment and insight to see through the ego illusion that prevents you from rising from Step 32 to Step 33. Yet you don’t have to see through that illusion right now. You only have to see through the illusion that prevents you from rising from Step 10 to Step 11. And I can assure you that you do have what it takes to dismiss that illusion. You simply need to ask for the Christ vision you need, and if you ask with an open mind, you WILL receive an answer.
It is a spiritual law, that when the student is ready, the teacher WILL appear. The teacher may appear as the inner teacher of your Christ self or as an outer teacher that might have a variety of disguises. Yet the teacher will ALWAYS find a way to present you with the insight you need in order to rise to the next step. If your mind is open, you will recognize the Divine direction and use it to rise to a higher level of identity. And once you have that higher sense of identity, you will have what it takes to dismiss the next ego-illusion and take another step.
I hope you now see what is the ego’s master strategy. It is to prevent you from making the ultimate LIFE decision, but also to prevent you from making the next LIFE decision. It is precisely to accomplish this goal that the ego and the prince of this world have come up with a number of games that are designed to make you stuck at a particular step. As you begin to study these games, you will see that you have already overcome some of them. And this should give you the inner knowing that you can overcome all of them by simply taking one step at a time.
I realize that it can still seem like climbing the staircase is an overwhelming task. Yet the fact that you are reading this teaching proves that you are not at the lowest step. So how did you rise to your current step? You did so because the Living Christ in some form reached out to you and you heeded the call. You accepted the teacher’s directions and used them to make a LIFE decision that brought you one step higher. And you continued to do this until you reached your current step.
My point is that so far the teacher has been there for you for every step of the way and you have followed the teacher’s instructions. Based on this fact, is it rational to doubt that the teacher will be there for each of the following steps as well? Is it rational to doubt that you can and will follow the teacher as you have already done? Why not simply realize that you have already stepped on to the true path, and as long as you keep following it by reaching for the higher vision of Christ, you WILL make it all the way home. Thus, you should accept the message in the full quote that I gave in part earlier:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Proverbs 23:4)
Trust that the teacher will be with you each step of the way, and as long as you keep moving, you will make it to the goal. As the old saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” However, the journey is completed only by those who keep taking the NEXT step.
....... from askrealjesus.com
Subject and Object...
In grammar, sentences are built up basically from three things: a subject, a verb, and an object, with the subject acting upon the object through the verb. A sentence is not considered complete unless it has these three things, this relationship between the subject and the object. In metaphysics, every experience also requires a subject and an object--a person or a thing who is affected by or produces an action on a second entity. All statements about human experiences must include this subject-object relationship. Thus, in the relationship between a man and his thoughts, the man is the subject and the thoughts are the objects. In Oriental metaphysics, a similar relationship holds good--except that the subject is there called the seer, the object is called the seen, and seeing describes the relationship between the two. All existence in the time-space order as experienced by a human being necessarily has these three elements within it. There is no subject without an object, no seer without a seen plus the relationship or the action between them. They are always linked together. If however we look beyond this existence to the timeless spaceless Reality, it is obvious that there can be no such relationship therein, for it is completely nondual, the Reality which never changes, which has no second thing. We learn from mentalism that this Reality is Mind. If we are ever to find it we know that it cannot be found as if it were a second thing, with us as subject and it as object. In that sense we can never find it, but only substitutes which themselves are in duality. We have indeed to set up a search for the kind of consciousness where there is no object to be experienced and therefore where there is no subject-ego to receive the experience. Such is the unified consciousness which is none other than Mind itself. We can use this criterion not only with reference to our experiences of the world but also with reference to our inner mystical experiences and check from this on what level they really are.
Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2: Our Relation To the Absolute > # 135......... Paul Brunton
Notebooks Category 28: The Alone > Chapter 2: Our Relation To the Absolute > # 135......... Paul Brunton
Being Aware...
Being aware is like empty space. It is boundless, not itself occupying space -
has no preferences for what appears in it or through it as time and space and
sensed objects.
The persons who appear as sensory objects to be apprehended, may be judged as
highly aware or as ignorant - by a mind process which apprehends these persons.
Yet, that mind which apprehends persons and makes judgments, is itself a sensed
object, along with its judgments about what is or isn't enlightened behavior.
As a person is a sensed object, and therefore is appearing through *it*, and is
recognized by *it*, is not itself the source of recognition and being.
At the same time, whatever is appearing as a sensed object, is never separately
existing from that to which it appears.
Attachment to sensed objects, is itself a sensed object.
Once this is clear, the "I" the "attachment" the "object of the attachment" is
seen as the same process (of objectifying that which is not itself an object).
Therefore, even "attachment" as it arises, is nonseparate from being aware.
There is now no obstacle to undivided awareness, which is like empty space,
unbounded and unlocated.
- Dan
has no preferences for what appears in it or through it as time and space and
sensed objects.
The persons who appear as sensory objects to be apprehended, may be judged as
highly aware or as ignorant - by a mind process which apprehends these persons.
Yet, that mind which apprehends persons and makes judgments, is itself a sensed
object, along with its judgments about what is or isn't enlightened behavior.
As a person is a sensed object, and therefore is appearing through *it*, and is
recognized by *it*, is not itself the source of recognition and being.
At the same time, whatever is appearing as a sensed object, is never separately
existing from that to which it appears.
Attachment to sensed objects, is itself a sensed object.
Once this is clear, the "I" the "attachment" the "object of the attachment" is
seen as the same process (of objectifying that which is not itself an object).
Therefore, even "attachment" as it arises, is nonseparate from being aware.
There is now no obstacle to undivided awareness, which is like empty space,
unbounded and unlocated.
- Dan
Fear and Love...
We look at these two words and barely know them.. this is the reason that we live in ignorance.. what is fear?, Why do we experience a thought that brings us pain?.. The ego fears death and non-existence.. but, we are not the ego and yet we still feel fear.. this shows the level of Consciousness that we hold.. If You do not fear the death of the ego, then, You have no fear.. What is Love?.. Love is non-fear.. True Love is non attachment.. Complete Love is Complete Loss of the egoic consciousness...............namaste, thomas
Sanai...
Sanai (1118 -1152 ce) (Abû'l-Majd Majdûd b. Adam Sanâ'î) is revered as one of the first great mystical poets of Persia. He produced many lyrical poems and a religious epic, The Walled Garden of Truth.
Don't speak of your suffering -- He is speaking.
Don't look for Him everywhere -- He's looking for you.
An ant's foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there's a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He'll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy --
All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.
Sanai
~~
'The Puzzle'
Someone who keeps aloof from suffering
is not a lover. I choose your love
above all else. As for wealth
if that comes, or goes, so be it.
Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.
But as long as you live here inside me,
I cannot say that I am suffering.
Sanai, translation by Coleman Barks - 'Persian Poems'
~~
'The Way of the Holy Ones'
Don't speak of your suffering -- He is speaking.
Don't look for Him everywhere -- He's looking for you.
An ant's foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there's a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He'll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy --
All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.
Sanai, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'
~~
Those unable to grieve,
or to speak of their love,
or to be grateful, those
who can't remember God
as the source of everything,
might be described as a vacant wind,
or a cold anvil, or a group
of frightened old people.
Say the Name. Moisten your tongue
with praise, and be the spring ground,
waking. Let your mouth be given
its gold-yellow stamen like the wild rose's.
As you fill with wisdom,
and your heart with love,
there's no more thirst.
There's only unselfed patience
waiting on the doorsill, a silence
which doesn't listen to advice
from people passing in the street.
Sanai - "Persian Poems" - Coleman Barks
from wahiduddin.com
Don't speak of your suffering -- He is speaking.
Don't look for Him everywhere -- He's looking for you.
An ant's foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there's a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He'll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy --
All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.
Sanai
~~
'The Puzzle'
Someone who keeps aloof from suffering
is not a lover. I choose your love
above all else. As for wealth
if that comes, or goes, so be it.
Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.
But as long as you live here inside me,
I cannot say that I am suffering.
Sanai, translation by Coleman Barks - 'Persian Poems'
~~
'The Way of the Holy Ones'
Don't speak of your suffering -- He is speaking.
Don't look for Him everywhere -- He's looking for you.
An ant's foot touches a leaf, He senses it;
A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there's a worm hidden deep in a rock,
He'll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy --
All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;
He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.
Sanai, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'
~~
Those unable to grieve,
or to speak of their love,
or to be grateful, those
who can't remember God
as the source of everything,
might be described as a vacant wind,
or a cold anvil, or a group
of frightened old people.
Say the Name. Moisten your tongue
with praise, and be the spring ground,
waking. Let your mouth be given
its gold-yellow stamen like the wild rose's.
As you fill with wisdom,
and your heart with love,
there's no more thirst.
There's only unselfed patience
waiting on the doorsill, a silence
which doesn't listen to advice
from people passing in the street.
Sanai - "Persian Poems" - Coleman Barks
from wahiduddin.com
Sa'd al-din Mahmud Shabistari...
Sa'd al-din Mahmud Shabistari(1288 - 1340 ce) is one of the most celebrated authors of Persian Sufism. Because of his gift for expressing the Sufi mystical vision with extraordinary clarity, his Gulshan-i Raz (Secret Rose Garden) rapidly became one of the most popular works of Persian Sufi poetry.
Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out, He will enter it.
In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauties.
Mahmud Shabistari - 'Rose Garden of Mystery'
~~
'One Light'
What are "I" and "You"?
Just lattices
In the niches of a lamp
Through which the One Light radiates.
"I" and "You" are the veil
Between heaven and earth;
Lift this veil and you will see
How all sects and religions are one.
Lift this veil and you will ask---
When "I" and "You" do not exist
What is mosque?
What is synagogue?
What is fire temple?
Mahmud Shabistari, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'
.......... from wahiduddin.com
Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out, He will enter it.
In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauties.
Mahmud Shabistari - 'Rose Garden of Mystery'
~~
'One Light'
What are "I" and "You"?
Just lattices
In the niches of a lamp
Through which the One Light radiates.
"I" and "You" are the veil
Between heaven and earth;
Lift this veil and you will see
How all sects and religions are one.
Lift this veil and you will ask---
When "I" and "You" do not exist
What is mosque?
What is synagogue?
What is fire temple?
Mahmud Shabistari, translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut - 'Perfume of the Desert'
.......... from wahiduddin.com
Quotes by Sri Ramakrishna...
"Unalloyed love of God is the essential thing. All else is unreal."
~~
"I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, "God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous."
~~~
"Do you know what I see? I see Him as all. Men and other creatures appear to me only as hollow forms, moving their heads and hands and feet, but within is the Lord Himself."
~~~
"God is in all men, but all men are not in God; that is why we suffer."
~~~
"Many are the names of God and infinite the forms through which He may be approached."
~~~
"There are pearls in the deep sea, but one must hazard all to find them. If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them. Dive again and again. You are sure to be rewarded in the end. So is it with the finding of the Lord in this world. If your first attempt proves fruitless, do not lose heart. Persevere in your efforts. You are sure to realize Him at last."
~~~
"What are you to do when you are placed in the world? Give up everything to Him, resign yourself to Him, and there will be no more trouble for you. Then you will come to know that everything is done by His will."
~~~
Quotes by Sri Ramakrishna
~~
"I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, "God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous."
~~~
"Do you know what I see? I see Him as all. Men and other creatures appear to me only as hollow forms, moving their heads and hands and feet, but within is the Lord Himself."
~~~
"God is in all men, but all men are not in God; that is why we suffer."
~~~
"Many are the names of God and infinite the forms through which He may be approached."
~~~
"There are pearls in the deep sea, but one must hazard all to find them. If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them. Dive again and again. You are sure to be rewarded in the end. So is it with the finding of the Lord in this world. If your first attempt proves fruitless, do not lose heart. Persevere in your efforts. You are sure to realize Him at last."
~~~
"What are you to do when you are placed in the world? Give up everything to Him, resign yourself to Him, and there will be no more trouble for you. Then you will come to know that everything is done by His will."
~~~
Quotes by Sri Ramakrishna
Mind/Matrix/Creator...
This is a story on the mind/matrix/creator:
"One way of gaining insight into the cosmic doctrine of karma is through the
parable of the Kalpataru, the wish-fulfilling tree, narrated by Sri Ramakrishna:
Into a room full of children at play walks their uncle, who, of course, knows
better. Laughing at their preoccupation with make-believe games, he asks them to
go out to the massive banyan tree, which will grant them whatever they wish! The
children rush out, stand under the branches of this huge tree that cover the
sky, and ask for what all children crave: toys and candy. In a flash they get
what they want, but along with an unexpected bonus: the built-in opposite of
what they wished for. With toys they get boredom; with candy, tummy aches.
Sure that something has gone wrong with their wishing, the children ask for
bigger toys and sweeter candy. The tree grants them their wishes, and along with
them bigger boredom and bigger tummy aches. Time passes. They are now young men
and women and their wishes change, for they know more. They ask for wealth,
power, fame, sexual pleasure--and they get these, but also cupidity, insomnia,
anxiety, and frustration/disease.
Time passes. The wishers are now old and gather in three groups under the
all-encompassing branches. The first group exclaims, "All this is an illusion!"
Fools, they have learnt nothing. The second group says, "We are wiser and will
wish better next time." Greater fools, they have learnt less than nothing. The
third group, disgusted with everything, decides to cop out and asks for death.
They are the most foolish of all. The tree grants them their desire, and with it
its opposite: rebirth, under the same tree. For, where can one be born, or
reborn, but within this cosmos!
All this while one child has been unable to move out of the room. Being lame,
he was pushed down in the scramble and when he dragged himself to the window, he
was transfixed watching his friends make their wishes, get them with their
built-in opposites and suffer, yet compulsively continue to make more wishes.
Riveted by this utterly engrossing
lila of desire and its fruits, a profound swell of compassion welled up in the
heart of this lame child, reaching out to his companions. In that process, he
forgot to wish for anything for himself. In that moment of spontaneous
compassion for others, he sliced through the roots of the cosmic tree with the
sword of non-attachment, of nishkama karma. He is the liberated one, the mukta
purusha"
www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Hinduism/2000/08/The-Wish-Fulfilling-Tree.aspx#ixzz1fN\
peLabp
"One way of gaining insight into the cosmic doctrine of karma is through the
parable of the Kalpataru, the wish-fulfilling tree, narrated by Sri Ramakrishna:
Into a room full of children at play walks their uncle, who, of course, knows
better. Laughing at their preoccupation with make-believe games, he asks them to
go out to the massive banyan tree, which will grant them whatever they wish! The
children rush out, stand under the branches of this huge tree that cover the
sky, and ask for what all children crave: toys and candy. In a flash they get
what they want, but along with an unexpected bonus: the built-in opposite of
what they wished for. With toys they get boredom; with candy, tummy aches.
Sure that something has gone wrong with their wishing, the children ask for
bigger toys and sweeter candy. The tree grants them their wishes, and along with
them bigger boredom and bigger tummy aches. Time passes. They are now young men
and women and their wishes change, for they know more. They ask for wealth,
power, fame, sexual pleasure--and they get these, but also cupidity, insomnia,
anxiety, and frustration/disease.
Time passes. The wishers are now old and gather in three groups under the
all-encompassing branches. The first group exclaims, "All this is an illusion!"
Fools, they have learnt nothing. The second group says, "We are wiser and will
wish better next time." Greater fools, they have learnt less than nothing. The
third group, disgusted with everything, decides to cop out and asks for death.
They are the most foolish of all. The tree grants them their desire, and with it
its opposite: rebirth, under the same tree. For, where can one be born, or
reborn, but within this cosmos!
All this while one child has been unable to move out of the room. Being lame,
he was pushed down in the scramble and when he dragged himself to the window, he
was transfixed watching his friends make their wishes, get them with their
built-in opposites and suffer, yet compulsively continue to make more wishes.
Riveted by this utterly engrossing
lila of desire and its fruits, a profound swell of compassion welled up in the
heart of this lame child, reaching out to his companions. In that process, he
forgot to wish for anything for himself. In that moment of spontaneous
compassion for others, he sliced through the roots of the cosmic tree with the
sword of non-attachment, of nishkama karma. He is the liberated one, the mukta
purusha"
www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Hinduism/2000/08/The-Wish-Fulfilling-Tree.aspx#ixzz1fN\
peLabp
Nag Hammadi Text...
Nag Hammadi Coptic Text
BLATZ
(18) The disciples said to Jesus: Tell us how our end will be. Jesus said: Since you have discovered the beginning, why do you seek the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who shall stand at the beginning (in the beginning), and he shall know the end, and shall not taste death.
LAYTON
(18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will come to pass." Jesus said, "Then have you laid bare the beginning, so that you are seeking the end? For the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the person who stands at rest in the beginning. And that person will be acquainted with the end and will not taste death."
DORESSE
19 [18]. The disciples say to Jesus: "Tell us what our end will be." Jesus says: "Have you then deciphered the beginning, that you ask about the end? For where the beginning is, there shall be the end. Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will know the end, and will not taste death!"
Funk's Parallels
POxy 654 1, GThom 1, GThom 85.
Visitor Comments
Might not Jesus be referring to the revolutionary idea that we were created from the beginnig and continue to the end (Union with God) and that birth and death are illusions that do not really exist as ordinary people think of them?
- active-mystic
I think Jesus is refering to the nature of God being like a Mobius strip, no beginning and no end, only one-sided.
- new gus
Or perhaps He is referring to a circle, with neither beginning nor end. It also brings forth the phrase, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Perhaps there is no end and no beginning, just different states of being.
- seeker
“And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive at where we started And know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding in The Four Quartets
- San
Seek the beginning and not the end. For the beginning of life is the end of the dead world and of the worldly illusion of the death of the living.
- Simon Magus
Since we have always existed at least as idea in the mind of God, we shall always exist at least as the same.
- bibliosopher
At the beginning one knows one's innate self. Return to the beginning and one has arrived at one's end. There is no death.
- Rodney
At the end of our lives, we review it all back to the beginning. At the beginning of our lives, as our true spiritual selves, we know the end is death of the physical body, but that our spiritual self is eternal.
- Kay
Isn't this a paraphrase of Confucius? Confucius was asked about Death, And He replied "How do you ask about death, when you do not yet understand life?"
- FogMoose
When you have perceived [been taught] where you came from and why, then that knowledge entails knowing where you are going. And it means that you have polished your imperishable [higher] body. So you shall be [again] immortal and not die even though your planetary body of course dies
- Thief37
"You've got to learn how to die, before you want to be alive." -Wilco. Don't concern yourself with death, just accept it and live. Only then will you comprehend beginning and end, exist as one.
- Taurus
This seems to parallel Buddhist philosophy. You are already in Nirvana (the kingdom of god is inside and around you). The end as the beginning seems to denote the timeless nature of reality. The idea of self is illusory, if you know this, you will know you were never born and will never die. The End is truly the Beginning.
- Spiral
In the beginning, Adam had life everlasting. Jesus brought us back to that state. (Jesus is the last Adam, first of many brothers.)
- Random
The question is not what you become after death, the question is: What were you before you were born?
- Michael
There is no beginning or end, both past and future have already occured. When we accept that our end has already occured long before our beginning, then we shall not fear death, for the passing of time as we know it is an illusion
- David
The question that comes to my mind is this: Did the disciples ask the question "Tell us what our end will be" referring to their own personal end or to the fate of mankind? If they did indeed ask this question in regards to mankind then this saying could be looked at in a different perspective altogether. There are many mentions of the end of the earth and of heaven. And at that time a new kingdom will be established on earth. In essence an end and a new beginning. The quote "Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will know the end, and will not taste death!" could be looked at like this. All who live through this great time of peril, and have chosen Jesus as their savior will come to see Christ establish the new kingdom on earth. These men have reached the beginning/end and will be given the gift of eternal life.
- Anonymous
Look, and it can't be seen. Listen, and it can't be heard. Reach, and it can't be grasped. Above, it isn't bright. Below, it isn't dark. Seamless, unnamable, it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all conception. Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end. You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.
- Tao-te-Ching 2
In the relative, the beginning of a thing is known and the end of a thing is not known. To reach understanding of the unknown, start with the known. Know the beginning and you will know the end.
- TechnoMonk
There is neither an end nor a beginning. Therefore, if you know of the beginning, you know of the end. Time is irrelevant, and only exists in our minds. For Jesus, who reached ChristConsciousness, he was aware that time was an illusion, that beginning was the end, and vice versa. To attain a higher consciousness, we must also be aware of that.
- ButterflySkyy
What has started must end. I do not claim to know all things beginning or end, but knowing either is to know both. For they are one.
- Maitreya
Scholarly Quotes
F. F. Bruce writes: "This saying is reminiscent of 2 Esdras 7.30 ('the world shall be as it was at the first beginnings'), but perhaps it is to be understood in the sense of Revelation 22.13, where Jesus says: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.'" (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 121)
Marvin Meyer writes: "To return to the beginning is to attain the end; compare Gospel of Thomas saying 49. Also compare Manichaean Psalm Book 155,9-12: 'Holy ones, rejoice with me, for I have returned again to my beginning. I [have] received my clean garments, my robes that do not become old. I have rejoiced in their joy, I have been glad in their gladness, [I have rested] in their rest from everlasting to everlasting.' Secret Book of John II 9,5-8 makes a similar point: 'And he spoke, and glorified and praised the invisible spirit, saying, "Because of you everything has come into being, and everything will return to you."'" (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 77)
Gerd Ludemann writes: "The beginning and the end correspond (cf. Logion 4). Brought back to the beginning, the Gnostic will not taste death. The latter is meant in a metaphorical sense. The non-Gnostic does not live at all (cf. 11.2)." (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 599)
Funk and Hoover write: "Thomas consistently opposes speculation about the end (compare Thomas 3; 51; and 113). The idea that one returns in the end to one's beginning has parallels in gnostic texts: the goal of the gnostic's existence is to escape the created world of evil and return to the state of primordial perfection that existed at the beginning. Aspects of this concept are also reflected in Thomas 49. The final phrase in 18:3 is particularly Thomean (compare Thom 1; 91:4; 85:2; 111:2). All these factors led the Fellows to designate the saying black." (The Five Gospels, p. 483)
Stevan Davies writes: "The light that is within people and outside of them exists now. As a result, those who search for the end are told that the end (i.e., the kingdom of God) is present already (Gos. Thom. 51, 113). When asked about the end, Jesus responds in terms of the beginning (Gos. Thom. 18); when asked about the kingdom to come, Jesus responds in terms of the kingdom which is already here (Gos. Thom. 113)." (http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/jblprot.htm)
...... from earlychristianwritings.com
BLATZ
(18) The disciples said to Jesus: Tell us how our end will be. Jesus said: Since you have discovered the beginning, why do you seek the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who shall stand at the beginning (in the beginning), and he shall know the end, and shall not taste death.
LAYTON
(18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will come to pass." Jesus said, "Then have you laid bare the beginning, so that you are seeking the end? For the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the person who stands at rest in the beginning. And that person will be acquainted with the end and will not taste death."
DORESSE
19 [18]. The disciples say to Jesus: "Tell us what our end will be." Jesus says: "Have you then deciphered the beginning, that you ask about the end? For where the beginning is, there shall be the end. Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will know the end, and will not taste death!"
Funk's Parallels
POxy 654 1, GThom 1, GThom 85.
Visitor Comments
Might not Jesus be referring to the revolutionary idea that we were created from the beginnig and continue to the end (Union with God) and that birth and death are illusions that do not really exist as ordinary people think of them?
- active-mystic
I think Jesus is refering to the nature of God being like a Mobius strip, no beginning and no end, only one-sided.
- new gus
Or perhaps He is referring to a circle, with neither beginning nor end. It also brings forth the phrase, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Perhaps there is no end and no beginning, just different states of being.
- seeker
“And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive at where we started And know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding in The Four Quartets
- San
Seek the beginning and not the end. For the beginning of life is the end of the dead world and of the worldly illusion of the death of the living.
- Simon Magus
Since we have always existed at least as idea in the mind of God, we shall always exist at least as the same.
- bibliosopher
At the beginning one knows one's innate self. Return to the beginning and one has arrived at one's end. There is no death.
- Rodney
At the end of our lives, we review it all back to the beginning. At the beginning of our lives, as our true spiritual selves, we know the end is death of the physical body, but that our spiritual self is eternal.
- Kay
Isn't this a paraphrase of Confucius? Confucius was asked about Death, And He replied "How do you ask about death, when you do not yet understand life?"
- FogMoose
When you have perceived [been taught] where you came from and why, then that knowledge entails knowing where you are going. And it means that you have polished your imperishable [higher] body. So you shall be [again] immortal and not die even though your planetary body of course dies
- Thief37
"You've got to learn how to die, before you want to be alive." -Wilco. Don't concern yourself with death, just accept it and live. Only then will you comprehend beginning and end, exist as one.
- Taurus
This seems to parallel Buddhist philosophy. You are already in Nirvana (the kingdom of god is inside and around you). The end as the beginning seems to denote the timeless nature of reality. The idea of self is illusory, if you know this, you will know you were never born and will never die. The End is truly the Beginning.
- Spiral
In the beginning, Adam had life everlasting. Jesus brought us back to that state. (Jesus is the last Adam, first of many brothers.)
- Random
The question is not what you become after death, the question is: What were you before you were born?
- Michael
There is no beginning or end, both past and future have already occured. When we accept that our end has already occured long before our beginning, then we shall not fear death, for the passing of time as we know it is an illusion
- David
The question that comes to my mind is this: Did the disciples ask the question "Tell us what our end will be" referring to their own personal end or to the fate of mankind? If they did indeed ask this question in regards to mankind then this saying could be looked at in a different perspective altogether. There are many mentions of the end of the earth and of heaven. And at that time a new kingdom will be established on earth. In essence an end and a new beginning. The quote "Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will know the end, and will not taste death!" could be looked at like this. All who live through this great time of peril, and have chosen Jesus as their savior will come to see Christ establish the new kingdom on earth. These men have reached the beginning/end and will be given the gift of eternal life.
- Anonymous
Look, and it can't be seen. Listen, and it can't be heard. Reach, and it can't be grasped. Above, it isn't bright. Below, it isn't dark. Seamless, unnamable, it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all conception. Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end. You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.
- Tao-te-Ching 2
In the relative, the beginning of a thing is known and the end of a thing is not known. To reach understanding of the unknown, start with the known. Know the beginning and you will know the end.
- TechnoMonk
There is neither an end nor a beginning. Therefore, if you know of the beginning, you know of the end. Time is irrelevant, and only exists in our minds. For Jesus, who reached ChristConsciousness, he was aware that time was an illusion, that beginning was the end, and vice versa. To attain a higher consciousness, we must also be aware of that.
- ButterflySkyy
What has started must end. I do not claim to know all things beginning or end, but knowing either is to know both. For they are one.
- Maitreya
Scholarly Quotes
F. F. Bruce writes: "This saying is reminiscent of 2 Esdras 7.30 ('the world shall be as it was at the first beginnings'), but perhaps it is to be understood in the sense of Revelation 22.13, where Jesus says: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.'" (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 121)
Marvin Meyer writes: "To return to the beginning is to attain the end; compare Gospel of Thomas saying 49. Also compare Manichaean Psalm Book 155,9-12: 'Holy ones, rejoice with me, for I have returned again to my beginning. I [have] received my clean garments, my robes that do not become old. I have rejoiced in their joy, I have been glad in their gladness, [I have rested] in their rest from everlasting to everlasting.' Secret Book of John II 9,5-8 makes a similar point: 'And he spoke, and glorified and praised the invisible spirit, saying, "Because of you everything has come into being, and everything will return to you."'" (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 77)
Gerd Ludemann writes: "The beginning and the end correspond (cf. Logion 4). Brought back to the beginning, the Gnostic will not taste death. The latter is meant in a metaphorical sense. The non-Gnostic does not live at all (cf. 11.2)." (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 599)
Funk and Hoover write: "Thomas consistently opposes speculation about the end (compare Thomas 3; 51; and 113). The idea that one returns in the end to one's beginning has parallels in gnostic texts: the goal of the gnostic's existence is to escape the created world of evil and return to the state of primordial perfection that existed at the beginning. Aspects of this concept are also reflected in Thomas 49. The final phrase in 18:3 is particularly Thomean (compare Thom 1; 91:4; 85:2; 111:2). All these factors led the Fellows to designate the saying black." (The Five Gospels, p. 483)
Stevan Davies writes: "The light that is within people and outside of them exists now. As a result, those who search for the end are told that the end (i.e., the kingdom of God) is present already (Gos. Thom. 51, 113). When asked about the end, Jesus responds in terms of the beginning (Gos. Thom. 18); when asked about the kingdom to come, Jesus responds in terms of the kingdom which is already here (Gos. Thom. 113)." (http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/jblprot.htm)
...... from earlychristianwritings.com
Religion and Spirituality...
Religion is the business end of God worship.. Spirituality is the sole (soul) path to Truth that some call God.. The business leaders of religion, called by various names meant to imply holiness or wisdom, tell you what you are to believe.. It is a form of mind control and soul control.. as, you cannot progress without their blessing.. The eastern religions actually do recognise God, but, they are wise enough to Know that Everything is God and there is Nothing that is not God, including You.. but, this is the Truth that you must find for yourself................. namaste, thomas
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