Self

Q: When a man realizes the Self, what will he see? 

Sri Ramana Maharshi : 

There is no seeing. 
Seeing is only being. 

The state of Self-realization, as we call it, 
is not attaining something new or 
reaching some goal which is far away, 
but simply being that which you always are 
and which you always have been. 

All that is needed is that 
you give up your realization of the not-true as true. 

All of us are regarding as real that which is not real. 
We have only to give up this practice on our part. 

Then we shall realize the Self as the Self;
in other words, `Be the Self'. 

At one stage you will laugh at yourself for trying to discover the Self which is so self-evident. 
So, what can we say to this question? 

That stage transcends the seer and the seen. 
There is no seer there to see anything. 
The seer who is seeing all this now ceases to exist 
and the Self alone remains. 

Q: How to know this by direct experience? 

Sri Ramana Maharshi : 

If We talk of knowing the Self, there must be two selves,
one a knowing self, 
another the self which is known, 
and the process of knowing. 

The state we call realization is simply being oneself, 
not knowing anything or becoming anything. 

If one has realized, one is that which alone is 
and which alone has always been. 

One cannot describe that state. 
One can only be that. 

Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization, 
for want of a better term. 

How to `real-ize' or make real that which alone is real ?

~ From Be as you are book

 

Love

Those who try to understand God through the intellect alone, arrive at some cold and dry concept which misses the very essence of divine nature. It is true that God is infinite knowledge, existence, power and bliss, but true understanding comes from knowing His essence as infinite love. In the ‘beyond state’ from which the entire universe springs and into which it ultimately merges, God is eternally infinite love. It is only when God’s love is viewed in the limited context of forms -- which arise in the interim period of the appearance of the illusory universe of duality -- that its infinity seems to have been impaired.

When God’s love experiences itself in and through the manifested forms of the universe, it goes through the following phases: (i) experiencing itself as extremely limited, (ii) experiencing itself as becoming less and less limited and becoming more and more like infinite love, and (iii) experiencing itself to be what it really is: infinite in essence and existence. The experience of limitation in love arises due to ignorance caused by the sanskaras which are by-products of the evolution of consciousness; and the process of love becoming infinite is characterised by the shedding of these limiting sanskaras. After going through the almost unconscious stages of the mineral kingdom, love becomes conscious of itself as lust in animals. Its first appearance in human consciousness is also in the form of lust.

Lust is the most limited form of love in human consciousness for it is undiluted selfishness, because all the objects to which lust clings are desired for the sake of and from the viewpoint of the limited and separate self. At the same time, it is a form of love, because it has in it some kind of appreciation for others, though this appreciation is completely vitiated by thick ignorance about the true Self. When human consciousness is caught up in the duality of the gross sphere of existence, love cannot express itself as anything other than lust of some type. A man likes curry because it tickles his palate.  There are no higher considerations, so it is a form of lust. It is only a craving for the sensations of taste. Mind also has cravings for bodily sensations of sight, smell, sound and touch, and nourishes its crude ego-life through the excitement derived from these sensations. 

Lust of every type is an entanglement with gross forms, independent of the spirit behind them. It is an expression of mere attachment to the objects of sense. Since in all forms of lust the heart remains unfed and unexpressed, it becomes a perpetual vacuum and it is in a state of unending suffering and non-fulfillment. When the heart is in the clutches of lust,the deluded spirit remains in stupor. Its functioning is severely curtailed and perverted by the limiting ignorance to which it is subject. Its higher potentialities are denied expression and fulfillment, and entails a state of utter bondage.

In the lustful life of the gross sphere, God is experiencing Himself as a lover, but it is a state of a lover who is completely ignorant about the true nature of himself or the beloved.. It is nevertheless the beginning of a long process by which the lover breaks through the enveloping curtain of ignorance and comes into his own Truth as unbounded and unhampered Love.

HAPPINESS

HAPPINESS AND FULFILLMENT COME ONLY FROM THE SELF

To keep the mind in the Self one must have no desires for anything other than the Self. This is a very difficult state to attain. The desire to seek pleasures in the outside world always seems to be stronger than the desire to seek pleasure in the Self. Why is this so?

Annamalai Swami: All happiness ultimately comes from the Self. It does not come from the mind, the body or from external objects. If you have a great desire for a mango, when you finally eat one there is great feeling of pleasure. When a desire is fulfilled, the mind sinks a little way into the Self and enjoys some of the bliss that is always present there. Then it rises again. It remembers the happiness and tries to repeat the experience by eating more mangoes or gratifying other desires.

Most people are completely unaware that pleasure and happiness come from the Self, not from the mind or the body. Because most people have only experienced the peace of the Self when a great desire has been fulfilled, the come to the conclusion that the pursuit of desires is the only way to get an experience of happiness and peace.

If you try to follow this standard route to happiness you will end up with a lot of frustration and a lot of suffering. You may occasionally experience a few brief moments of pleasure, but for the rest of the time you will experience the pain of frustrated desires, of desires that don’t seem to produce any pleasure when they are fulfilled.

If you try to repeat pleasures again and again the novelty soon wears off. A mango, which you have been looking forward to for days, may give you a few seconds of happiness when you eat it, but eating five or six more will not prolong your pleasure. Prolonged indulgence is more likely to produce pain than pleasure.

Most people in the world spend their whole lives self-indulgently pursuing goals, which they think will produce happiness for them. Most of these people never stop to do mental accounts properly. If they did they would realize that each ten seconds of happiness is followed by hours or days when there is no happiness at all. Some people do realize this, but instead of giving up this way of life, they indulge in it even more. They think that with a little more effort and a little more sensory, mental or emotional indulgence they can expand the short periods of happiness and contract the longer intervening periods when happiness is not experienced.

This approach never works. If there are many strong desires in the mind, the mind cannot sink completely into the Self and experience the full peace and bliss that is there. …

The desire-filled mind only experiences the bliss of the Self in a very diluted form. If you want the full bliss of the Self, and if you want to experience it permanently, you will have to give up all our desires and attachments. There is no other way.

- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 295

The Mind of Clear Light

The Mind of Clear Light 

The most essential nature of our mind is called the "Mind of Clear Light" in all the Tibetan traditions. It's the goal for all practitioners. It's the primordially enlightened mind of a Buddha. 

It's not produced through practice, meditation, acquiring virtue, renunciation or transformation. It's our basic state that can only be self-revealed. 

It requires initially an inward view into the very nature of our own consciousness. The mind looks at itself nakedly without intellectual grasping. 

It's like looking into a mirror in order to see the qualities of the mirror itself instead of attention being limited to the reflections. The glass mirror is seen to be clear and transparent; vividly bright. 

Likewise the mind when directed upon itself as an empty aware knowing, it's most essential nature can be self-revealed and self-known. That self-knowing is a quality of the mirror itself not secondary knowledge and assumption from without. 

- Jackson Peterson