Impersonal witnessing

A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH

At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm, a complex of wave forms and resonances that is absolutely unique and individual, and yet connects us to everything in the universe. A deep realization of this oneness in the entire universe, being in consonance with the universal pulse, can transform our personal lives into a beautiful experience, a noumenal, natural, spontaneous living. Once you start seeing the material world in terms of universal rhythmic waves, your ideas of what is “real” and “true” will undoubtedly receive a transformation inasmuch as your perspective will have radically changed from personal involvement to an impersonal witnessing of events as they happen.

- NEW! Advaita Fellowship Newsletter JULY 2016 -
http://www.advaita.org/newsletter-template/news0716.html

Psychological Dependence on object

Strengthening Families by Increasing Spirituality
SwamiTejomayananda
(Part 13)

Psychological Dependence on Objects

Spirituality is freedom from slavery and dependence on the world of material objects. Yes, objects are there, they are valuable, they are necessary, they fulfill our needs; therefore, we must take care of them. But, unfortunately, instead of us possessing them, they possess and control us. A householder is one who holds a house; but in our case the house, holds us!

There are two types of dependence – physical and psychological. For example, when I am hungry, I will eat food; this is a natural physical dependence on food. But if there is no food and my worry over it becomes an obsession, it is psychological dependence. One day a young boy came to me and asked, “Swamiji, is it true that those devotees who went in search of God, somehow managed to get food all the time? Someone came and gave them food. Is it true?”

“Yes. It is true.”

“If I go in search of God, will I get food?”

“No”.

“Why not?”

“Because you are going in search of food, not God! You are already worrying about food. But those who went in search of God, the thought of food never entered their mind. The Lord took care of them. If they got food, they enjoyed it. If not, they were still satisfied.”

There was no psychological dependence. To free our mind from this kind of dependence is called spirituality.

Suffering

“Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing ever happened that didn't need to happen.”

You are your only hope, because we're not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we're aware of it or not. The whole world is about you.

Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to change the world so that they can be happy.

This hasn’t ever worked, because it approaches the problem backward. What The Work gives us is a way to change the projector — mind — rather than the projected.

It’s like when there’s a piece of lint on a projector’s lens. We think there’s a flaw on the screen, and we try to change this person and that person, whomever the flaw appears to be on next. But it’s futile to try to change the projected images. Once we realize where the lint is, we can clear the lens itself.

This is the end of suffering, and the beginning of a little joy in paradise.

- Byron Katie

The Search Begins With Yourself

What do you do with your life everyday? Do you allow your thoughts, your emotions to overwhelm you? To control you, to lead you? To make you think something is wrong someplace? Nothing can ever happen to you, no thing can ever hurt you. If you're trying to protect yourself, or to feel safe by putting burglar alarms on your house, these things cannot help you at all. Karmically whatever is supposed to happen to you will happen to you. Your job is to overcome everything. To transcend everything. To realize that, "I am that I am." To leave the world alone. There is nothing to fight and nothing to fear in this world. But most of you do not believe this. You think you have to change things. You believe you have to make things happen. If you do not make things happen things will break down; nothing will be right.
Who told you this? The only thing that will break down is your ego. Yet some of you will not allow this to happen. You will fight for your ego, you will protect your ego at all cost for you are afraid to let go. You do not know what is on the other side. You think if you let go you will be a wimp or a coward. You think all your good will be taken away from you, and this is impossible. The planets spin in their orbits, the sun shines, the flowers grow. All these things happen without confusion, without chaos, everything is unfolding as it should but you come along and want to change things. You want to make this a better world in which to live. The one who has created this world knows how to take care of it. It does not need your help, thank you. Find yourself first, then see if you want to change the world. Find yourself first, then see if you want to change your life. Find yourself first, then see if anything is missing from your life. It all begins with you. It ALL begins with you. You are the one!

~ Robert Adams

...from T125: 'The Search Begins With Yourself'
...free download of the transcripts as pdf file >> http://www.robert-adams.info/

spiritual quotes

self quotes 3

Self realization

The highest experience is when everything disappears, even God. Until this happens you will continue to be reborn.
So forget everything, even forgetting,
because forgetting and remembering belong to the mind. Without mind you can't see your God, or Guru, or country, or parents.
Just don't give rise to identifying as a body or mind or personality and there will be no forgetting or remembering.
First forget yourself which means stop identifying as the body.
You are the Essence which does not disappear. FIND IT!

~ Papaji

Liberation

Ramana says: "Liberation is not anywhere outside you. It is only within. If a man is anxious for deliverance, the internal Guru (Master) pulls him in and the external Guru pushes him into the Self. This is the grace of the Guru."

I thought

Ramana says: "Search for the source of the `I'-thought. That is all that one has to do. The universe exists on account of the `I'-thought. If that ends there is an end to misery also. The false `I' will end only when its source is sought."

Eternal bliss

Papaji Says: "The Atman consumes you, giving you eternal existence, eternal consciousness, and eternal bliss. And nobody knows it. Everyone is searching outside through the senses. Whatever you see, wherever you see name and form, it is not true. These names and forms will never give you peace or love. Whatever you see, feel, or experience through pleasurable sense objects ultimately will leave you hungry."
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.papajidaily

Death

Q: Are you not afraid of death?

M: I am dead already.

Q: In what sense?

M: I am double dead. Not only am I dead to my body, but to my mind too.

Q: Well, you do not look dead at all!

M: That’s what you say! You seem to know my state better than I do!

Q: Sorry. But I just do not understand. You say you are bodyless and mindless, while I see you very much alive and articulate.

M: A tremendously complex work is going on all the time in your brain and body, are you conscious of it? Not at all. Yet for an outsider all seems to be going on intelligently and purposefully. Why not admit that one’s entire personal life may sink largely below the threshold of consciousness and yet proceed sanely and smoothly?

Q: Is it normal?

M: What is normal? Is your life -- obsessed by desires and fears, full of strife and struggle, meaningless and joyless -- normal? To be acutely conscious of your body id it normal? To be torn by feelings, tortured by thoughts: is it normal?

A healthy body, a healthy mind live largely unperceived by their owner; only occasionally, through pain or suffering they call for attention and insight.

Why not extend the same to the entire personal life? One can function rightly, responding well and fully to whatever happens, without having to bring it into the focus of awareness. When self- control becomes second nature, awareness shifts its focus to deeper levels of existence and action.

- I AM THAT ch. 12

Witness

No personal, individual effort can possibly lead to enlightenment.
On the contrary, what is necessary is to rest helpless in beingness, knowing that we are nothing---to be in the nothingness of the no-mind state in which all conceptualizing has
subsided into passive witnessing.
In this state whatever happens will be not our
doing but the pure universal functioning to which we have relinquished all control.

*************

It is nothing but the personalization of the impersonal Consciousness as individual
identity, that constitutes the infamous 'ignorance' from which liberation is sought.
And liberation, or true knowledge, is the realization that this identity is merely an
illusion, a temporary aberration, like the shadow of a passing cloud.

Ramesh Balsekar
30th August

God alone

One cannot develop love of God or obtain His vision without work. Work means meditation, japa, and the like. The chanting of God's name and glories is work too. You may also include charity, sacrifice, and so on.

.

One realizes God even if one believes Him to be formless. One also realizes God if one believes that God has form. Two things are necessary for the realization Of God: faith and self- surrender. Man is ignorant by nature. Errors are natural to Him. Can one-seer pot hold four seers of milk? Whatever path you may follow, you must pray to God with a restless heart. He is the Ruler of the soul within. He will surely listen to your prayer if it is sincere. Whether you follow the ideal of the Personal God or that of the Impersonal Truth, you will realize God alone, provided you are restless for Him.

- Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

<3

Theory

Questioner: There are so many theories about the nature of man and universe. The creation theory, the illusion theory, the dream theory -- any number of them. Which is true?

Nisargadatta Maharaj: All are true, all are false. You can pick up whichever you like best.

Questioner: You seem to favour the dream theory.

Nisargadatta Maharaj: These are all ways of putting words together. Some favour one way, some favour another. Theories are neither right nor wrong. They are attempts at explaining the inexplicable. It is not the theory that matters, but the way it is being tested. It is the testing of the theory that makes it fruitful. Experiment with any theory you like -- if you are truly earnest and honest, the attainment of reality will be yours. As a living being you are caught in an untenable and painful situation and you are seeking a way out. You are being offered several plans of your prison, none quite true. But they all are of some value, only if you are in dead earnest. It is the earnestness that liberates and not the theory.

Questioner: Theory may be misleading and earnestness -- blind.

Nisargadatta Maharaj: Your sincerity will guide you. Devotion to the goal of freedom and perfection will make you abandon all theories and systems and live by wisdom, intelligence and active love. Theories may be good as starting points, but must be abandoned, the sooner -- the better.

~ from "I Am That", chapter 30

Life no longer identify with the drama

“When the mind is somber, broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits. When the mind is clear, a dark room has its blue sky. That which is self-concious and ulterior is far from the Truth. That which is Mindless, is near.” – Taoist poem.

There’s a common saying in Zen that says after Satori (Enlightenment, there sits the ordinary old man.

Something extraordinary happens through Enlightenment, but nothing at all. Vedanta — the philosophy Buddhism originates from — translates to “the end of knowledge.”

If Enlightenment is the end of knowledge, the end of struggles and the end of suffering, what is left in life? What is there left to do after the struggle is gone? After all, isn’t part of the beauty of life the struggle, the tears, the heartache and finding healing and peace through it all?

If there’s nothing left to do, if there’s nothing left to strive for, what’s the point of living? What’s the point of living when life itself has no point? What’s the point if the game of life isn’t worth playing?

There is a point though; the creation of your story. The only difference is after Enlightenment and the realization of One Taste, we no longer identify with the drama.

But detachment does not mean not participating. It’s not an escape from life; it’s simply creating your story with the awareness that you are not the story. It doesn’t bother you when your life takes a wrong turn or when something goes awry. In the same way you can celebrate when something wonderful in your life happens, but you don’t get attached because you realize that your story is not you.

Everything in life is a story. The evolution of the Universe, from unconscious matter to becoming conscious, is a story. The Eros of human consciousness, how we evolve from duality and separateness to Enlightenment and union, is a story.

The search for meaning and beauty outside ourselves, and realizing that happiness can only come from within, is yet another story. We turn even the most mundane things (like washing the dishes) into a story. We have all sorts of feelings about everything and we use those feelings and associations to mold our story. Life is a series of stories.

Suffer or happy

If Creation is perfect, and the Creator has done such a good job, why is there so much suffering? It is such a perfect job that it gives you the opportunity to be whichever way you wish to be. If Creation had not given you this opportunity, then there would be no possibilities, there would be no such thing as liberation.

So why create bondage and then liberation? Why couldn’t you have just been liberated? Then there would be no Creation. Only because there is Creation, now there is the possibility of going beyond that.

काहीही न करणे

श्रीब्रह्मचैतन्य श्रीगोंदवलेकर महाराजांचा नामबोध
२६ ऑगस्ट
कारणावाचून आनंद, तो खरा.
जगण्यामध्ये काहीतरी आनंद असला पाहिजे. जगणे हे आनंददायक आहे, मग आपल्याला दुःख का होते ? मनुष्य आनंदासाठी न जगता वस्तूसाठी जगतो. वस्तू ही सत्य नसल्यामुळे तिचे रूप अशाश्वत असते. अर्थात तिच्यापासून मिळणारा आनंद हा देखील अशाश्वत असतो. आनंद हा अर्थात अशाश्वत असणार, म्हणून तो खरा आनंद नाही. कारणाशिवाय आनंद मिळवण्यासाठी अगदी स्वस्थ बसायला शिकावे. हे 'काहीही न करणे' ही फारच उच्च अवस्था आहे. काहीतरी करण्यापेक्षा ती फारच कठीण आहे. भगवंताशी अगदी अनन्य होणे, आपले कर्तेपण पूर्ण मारणे, ही ती अवस्था आहे. आनंद पाहिजे असेल तर तुम्ही आनंदातच राहा ! कशाही परिस्थितीत आनंद राहावा. आपल्या मनासारखी गोष्ट घडून आली तर समाधान वाटावे. काल जे झाले त्याबद्दल दुःख करू नये, उद्या काय होणार याची काळजी करू नये, आज मात्र आनंदात आपले कर्तव्य करावे आणि भगवंताच्या अनुसंधानात राहावे. यातच सर्व आले.
भगवंताची प्राप्ती व्हावी असे वाटणे हे जन्माचे सार्थक आहे.
|| हरये नम: | हरये नम: | हरये नम: ||

साभार : अविनाश नगरकर जी

Loving what is

HOW DO WE RELATE TO OUR THOUGHTS?

Most people think that they are what their thoughts tell them they are. One day I noticed that I wasn’t breathing — I was being breathed. Then I also noticed, to my amazement, that I wasn’t thinking — that I was actually being thought and that thinking isn’t personal.

Do you wake up in the morning and say to yourself, “I think I won’t think today?” It’s too late: You’re already thinking! Thoughts just appear. They come out of nothing and go back to nothing, like clouds moving across the empty sky. They come to pass, not to stay. There is no harm in them until we attach to them as if they were true.

No one has ever been able to control his thinking, although people may tell the story of how they have. I don’t let go of my thoughts — I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.

Thoughts are like the breeze or the leaves on the trees or the raindrops falling. They appear like that, and through inquiry we can make friends with them. Would you argue with a raindrop? Raindrops aren’t personal, and neither are thoughts.

Once a painful concept is met with understanding, the next time it appears you may find it interesting. What used to be the nightmare is now just interesting. The next time it appears, you may find it funny. The next time, you may not even notice it. This is the power of loving what is.

- Byron Katie, 'Loving What IS'

self quote 2

Renunciation

When the individual soul feels renunciation towards worldly enjoyments, scriptures say it has reached its highest perfection.

As the mind is freed from its choice and dislike of things, so the soul is liberated by avoiding its egoism and personality. Then it no longer is conscious of the pain that attends future birth and reincarnation.

Whoever in his understanding comes to know this state of supreme and inexpressible joy, he is sure to overcome all his worldly appetites that bind him fast to this earth.

But whoever labors in his mind with affections to this world, he has to wander in it continually and he destroys the supreme joy of his soul in his continuous turmoil.

Maharṣi Vasiṣṭha in Yoga Vasistha Maharamayana

Buddha quotes happiness

Buddha then said:

"Happy are they who are contented. Happiness is for those who hear and know the truth. Happy are they who have good will in this world towards all sentient beings. Happy are they who have no attachments and have passed beyond sense-desires. The disappearance of the word "I AM " is indeed the highest happiness."

Self love

M: The eternal, unbroken, natural state of abiding in the Self is jnana. To abide in the Self you must love the Self. Since God is verily the Self, love of the Self is love of God; and that is bhakti. Jnana and bhakti are thus one and the same.

(From 'Maharishi's Gospel', Book I, Ch. IV ['Bhakti and Jnana'])

self quotes 1

Nobody

I am nobody.
I know nothing and am nothing.
Such complete joy.

~Sri Mooji

How to Handle the Spiritual Challenge of Worldly Life by David Truman

How to Handle the Spiritual
Challenge of Worldly Life
by David Truman

Spiritual attitude

Source : http://www.soulprogress.com/html/ArticlesFolder/Articles/SpiritualChlngWorldlyLife.shtml

Quotes

It is the mind which feels trouble and misery etc if u know the self there will be no darkness, no ignorance, no misery

No doer

Question : I see you doing things. How can you say that you never perform actions?
Sri Ramana Maharshi : The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like the space; though this body speaks like the radio, there is no one inside as a doer.

Be wise

Be  wise that's the goal of human birth

The apparently Self-realised person does not hanker after more pleasure in daily living, nor does he resist whatever comes his way as a sense objects. Wanting some thing positively or not wanting something negatively are both aspect of volition, and in case of apparently Self-realised person there is absolutely no volition. His sensorial apparatus responds to an external stimulus without the intervention of the mind. He lives his life 'like a dry leaf in the breeze'. He knows that his life is being lived according to God's Will or the Cosmic Law, like everyone's life, and merely witnesses life happening naturally.

~ Ramesh Balsekar

Self inquiry

Every night when you sleep you experience leaving everything behind - your relations and friends, your house, your country, the mountains, and rivers. You don't see anything when you are asleep and you have no trouble; you are happy. This is a very short experience which we have every night due to the compassion of your own Self; giving you a hint to discover Eternal Bliss. This is for a very short time. When you go to sleep you are at peace. The only troublesome states are waking and dreaming. Who wakes up and gets into trouble? Who dreams? The dreamer gets into trouble, but no one knows who they are and where they have to return to. This is so simple that every reasonable person can solve it, here and now.

We speak every day about this which has been lost. You turn outside to a guide who is deceiving you and you trust that guide. Who is that guide? It is your own mind. Although he has always deceived you, you return to the same guide because you are used to him. He has been your guide since the beginning, but he has always deceived you. Now ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” for the first time. This question has never been asked. You have simply trusted the mind to tell you what to do and you have obeyed. This is the time for all of us here to ask this question. Do away with this guide and you will return to your Eternal Home, to Existence, to Consciousness, to Bliss.

Is there any time when you are not in the mind, when you stop your race after pleasures of the senses, when you simply see? Keep still and this guide disappears, simply with the question, “Who are you?” Then you will know what the mind is, and it disappears. This question has never been asked. This guide has never been challenged before. Wherever you have gone until now you have allowed it to deceive you. It has told you this or that is good, and you accepted it - that this is a world of pleasure, and you accepted it - that these gods will give you pleasures in heavens, and you accepted it. When you challenge the mind it disappears instantly. This is why every day we emphasize the question, “Who are you?”

Man is tool

From: ~~~ Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 63.

Bhagavan:

The difficulty is
that man thinks he is the doer;
it is a mistake.

It is the higher power
which does everything
and man is only a tool.

If he accepts that position
he is free from troubles,
otherwise he courts them.

~~~~~~~

Spirituality person behavior

Q: Some people seem to keep spirituality separate from life. Why is this? Is awareness only when you are meditating?

Sadhguru: If your spirituality is time-bound, from five to seven in the morning or whatever time, you are just trying to be spiritual; there is nothing spiritual about you.

If your spirituality is time-bound, from five to seven in the morning or whatever time, you are just trying to be spiritual; there is nothing spiritual about you.

What conclusions have you made about being spiritual? If you have made the conclusion that being spiritual means speaking kindly to everyone, you are mistaken. If someone is communicating with different aspects of life in different ways, out of their understanding, out of their sensitivity, out of their own experience – they know how to communicate with a baby, a buffalo, a mountain, they know how to speak to the bus driver – if they know it out of this awareness, then it is wonderful and fine. That is how life should be.

If someone, out of their so-called spirituality, is trying to speak with whatever they believe is kindness or goodness, to every aspect of life, they are just moralistic and stupid. Maybe they are good people, but they have no sense of life. There is no inner experience; it is just coming from their goodness and morality. They may make good citizens, but they will not know anything of the beyond.

If one is communicating in different ways with different aspects of life because of theirunawareness or prejudices, that is a different aspect altogether. How one talks to a bus driver may be a way of seeing where that person is, or may not be at all. It is best that you do not judge a person by the way they are speaking to someone at a certain moment. If there is a pattern of addressing something kindly and another aspect of life rudely, then you know it is coming from ignorance.

Spirituality – Not a Moral Code

First, let us understand that spirituality is not a moral code. Spirituality means you are beginning to experience that which is beyond the physical. It has nothing to do with the way you communicate and handle the world around you. The way you do that is just a question of your capability, intelligence, exposure, inclination, and what kind of objectives you have in your life.

Spirituality means you are beginning to experience that which is beyond the physical.

There was a yogi who lived many decades ago. Once, he was sitting in the forest, absolutely blissful, but if people came anywhere near him, he threw stones at them. He never hit anyone, but he threw stones at them like a mad man. As far as people were concerned, he was a madman throwing stones. It was only much later when people looked back, they were able to see that not once did he hit anyone. He always made sure of that. He just did not want people around him. He knew that if people came, they would ask for things, and because of the way he was – his energy was in a certain state – naturally miracles would happen. Then people would gather and mess up his whole life. So if people came anywhere near him, he would throw stones at them.

If you go by one’s behavior, about what he is doing or what he is saying, you will definitely come to a wrong conclusion, a wrong judgment. If you had knownSadhguru Sri Brahma, if somebody came and said something stupid to him, he would just kick them – not out of arrogance or hatred. That was how he dealt with people. I don’t do that. This is not because I am more realized or less realized, it is simply from being a little smarter with the world. How you operate is just a question of your inclination, intelligence and exposure. It has got nothing to do with your spirituality.

http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/spirituality-not-moral-code/

Surrender

SURRENDER

Q: What is unconditional surrender?

Ramana: If one surrenders oneself there will be no one to ask questions or to be thought of. Either the thoughts are
eliminated by holding on to the root-thought ‘I’, or one surrenders oneself unconditionally to the higher power. These are the only two ways for realization.

Q: Does not total or complete surrender require that one should not have left even the desire for liberation or God?

Ramana: Complete surrender does require that you have no desire of your own. You must be satisfied with whatever God gives you and that means having no desires of your own.

Q: Now that I am satisfied on that point, I want to know what the steps are by which I could achieve surrender.

Ramana: There are two ways. One is looking into the source of ‘I’ and merging into that source. The other is feeling ‘I am helpless by myself, God alone is all-powerful and except by throwing myself completely on him, there is no other means of safety for me.’ By this method one gradually develops the conviction that God alone exists and that the ego does not count. Both methods lead to the same goal. Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.

Q: I find surrender is easier. I want to adopt that path.

Ramana: By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in the one. Surrender is complete only when you reach the stage ‘Thou art all’ and ‘Thy will be done’.

Chapter 7 Be As You Are edited by David Godman

Image from Sat Temple

Self realization

8th January, 1935
TALK 14.

An old man came and sat in the hall. Maharshi was reading Sarma’ Sanskrit recension of Arunachala Akshara Manamalai (the first of The Five Hymns to Arunachala). The man asked softly: “It is said that realisation is beyond expression; and expression always fails to describe the realisation. How is it?”

Maharshi.: The point has been mentioned in Arunachala Ashtakam, Verse three where it is admitted that, although the expression of realisation is impossible, still its existence is indicated. Soon after there were visible signs of emotion in the man. His breath was deep and hard and he fell on the floor prostrating humbly and got up only after one or two minutes. Remaining calm a brief while, he left the place. Evidently the man had some illumination. He sought confirmation from Maharshi, who responded fittingly. He found confirmation, and humbly and feelingly acknowledged the divine intercession on his behalf.

Grace

CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY

Grace is within you; if it were external it would be useless.Grace is the Self; you are never out of its reach. If you remember the guru, it is because you have been prompted by the Self.
Isn't grace already there? Is there a moment when grace is not operating in you?

Your remembrance of the guru is the fore­
runner of grace, Grace is both the response and the stimulus. That is the Self and that is grace. There is no cause for anxiety.

Q: But isn't a guru's grace or God's grace necessary for one' s progress with vichara?

M: Yes, but the enquiry that you are making is itself guru's grace or God's grace.

p. 149

Sadness

SADNESS IS NOT NATURAL

Sadness is always a sign that you're believing a stressful
thought that isn't true for you. It's a constriction, and it feels bad.

Conventional wisdom says differently, but the truth is that sadness isn't rational, it isn't a natural response, and it can't ever help you. It just indicates the loss of reality, the loss of the awareness of love.

Sadness is the war with what IS. It's a tantrum. You can experience it only when you're arguing with God. When the mind is clear, there isn't any sadness. There can't be.

What does compassion look like? At a funeral, just eat the cake. You don't have to know what to do. It's revealed to you.
Someone comes into your arms, and the kind words speak
themselves; you're not doing it. Compassion isn't a doing.

Whether or not you're suffering over their suffering, you're standing or you're sitting. But one way you're comfortable, the other way you're not.

You don’t have to feel bad to act kindly. On the contrary:
the less you suffer the kinder you naturally become. And if compassion means wanting others to be free of suffering, how can you want for others what you won’t give yourself?

- Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy

I am here

I am here to meet you, but not superficially.
The invitation is for a much deeper meeting.
The true meeting is where you yourself, as a person, disappear.
It happens often, naturally, but you don’t remember.
Even throughout a single day it occurs;
when you are without self-reference,
when you are in the pure state, the natural, primal mind
—but not being conscious of it.

The opportunity here is to wake up,
to be free from the influence of the psychological mind,
free from the confusion or doubt as to your true nature.
And not merely as an intellectual conviction!
Awakening is a good term for this,
because then you will see that we have been sleeping.
Eyes wide open, limbs moving, mouth speaking, mind thinking
—but still sleeping, and not aware of your true nature.

How rare it is in the human kingdom
that beings are aware of that silence,
that space that is unmoving, that does not age,
it does not grow, it doesn’t expand or contract,
and yet everything that moves, that appears or disappears,
take their birth from Here.

Your calling is to discover this consciously, powerfully.
Only then will you be able to face the storms
that come from the body-mind identity,
and the psychological noise that comes from personhood.
You will see through all of these things.
They will not overwhelm you anymore.
I want to remind you that it is possible to be free of such states.

It is not difficult to awaken to the True.
What seems difficult is to overcome the reflex
to go back into the old regime of identity
—that will happen for a time.
The tendency to want to protect our projections and attachments
will in fact create this feeling of separation
and will slow you down.

But don’t despair!
All of this is going somewhere very beautiful.
And where is that? To You. Right Here.
Sitting inside the heart of your own Being.
The drive, the natural evolution of conscious beings,
is to return to the Source.
Not out-out-out, but in-in-in…
there is no other place for you to be proven than Here.

I present to you a powerful invitation,
a powerful claim which I hope you will fulfill
by coming to that recognition irrefutably for yourself.
Recognise the divinity behind the façade of the person.
I wonder if you are up for it.

For once you should take this invitation personally.
It is for You. Come with that attitude. Just to be open.
You are not being asked to create the Self.
It is not about creativity or imagination.
Even a blind man can see what is being pointed to here,
for it is beyond the realm of names and forms.
Don’t think you know your limits.
It is better to have a sense that you are unlimited
than that you are limited and knowable.
Keep your doors open.
Not for who may come in, but for who may come out.

~ Mooji

Mind feeling

Q: How does one eliminate feelings, thoughts, grief, fear, cravings, and addictions while meditating? Are positive affirmations useful for this?

Adyashanti: Stop trying to eliminate anything. It is the belief that a thing needs to be eliminated that maintains its existence. Be an open space for whatever arises. When everything is allowed to arise, you have the opportunity to perceive that which does not arise or subside. You are That. Positive affirmations are fine for the mind only. Leave the mind to the mind. You are not this mind. Stop trying to rearrange your mind and discover what lies before it. You are the consciousness that contains the mind. Ask yourself this question, before the mind, body, and emotions: Who am I? Meditate on that. Seek the seeker.

...from "The Impact of Awakening"

Depressed

A lady was depressed and troubled because she could not meditate. Bhagavan pointed out that the Self is more immediate than any state and that she was creating unnecessary worries:

"Each question of yours is prompted by a thought.
Your nature is Peace and Happiness. Thoughts are the obstacles to realization.

One’s meditation or concentration is meant to get rid of obstacles and not to gain the Self. Does anyone remain apart from the Self? No!

The true nature of the Self is declared to be Peace. If the same peace is not found, the non-finding is only a thought which is alien to the Self. One practices meditation only to get rid of these alien fancies.

So, then, a thought must be quelled as soon as it rises. Whenever a thought arises, do not be carried away by it. You become aware of the body when you forget the Self. But can you forget the Self? "

Talks no 462

World

You will have to decide for your own good.
You can't please the world.
Who has ever pleased the world?

~ Papaji

Mind feeling

Q: How does one eliminate feelings, thoughts, grief, fear, cravings, and addictions while meditating? Are positive affirmations useful for this?

Adyashanti: Stop trying to eliminate anything. It is the belief that a thing needs to be eliminated that maintains its existence. Be an open space for whatever arises. When everything is allowed to arise, you have the opportunity to perceive that which does not arise or subside. You are That. Positive affirmations are fine for the mind only. Leave the mind to the mind. You are not this mind. Stop trying to rearrange your mind and discover what lies before it. You are the consciousness that contains the mind. Ask yourself this question, before the mind, body, and emotions: Who am I? Meditate on that. Seek the seeker.

...from "The Impact of Awakening"

Suffering

"Who is it that loves and who that suffers?
He alone stages a play with Himself;
who exists save Him?
The individual suffers because he perceives duality.
It is duality which causes all sorrow and grief.
Find the One everywhere
and in everything
and there will be an end to pain and suffering."

~ Anandmayee Maa.

Liberation

In Liberation, you stand alone. You stand alone because you need no supports of any kind. You need no supports because you have realized that the very notion of a separate you no longer exists; that there is nothing to support; that the whole ego experience was a flimsy illusion. So you stand alone but never, never lonely because everywhere you look, all you see is That, and You are That.

– Adyashanti

Emptiness

Interviewer: Why is it we all so desperately want to be loved?

KRISHNAMURTI: Because we are so desperately empty, lonely.

Interviewer: But you say that loving is more important than being loved.

KRISHNAMURTI: Yes, of course—which means one must understand this emptiness, this loneliness in oneself. A mind that is self-concerned with its own ambitions, greeds, fears, guilt, suffering has no capacity to love. Love can only come into being when there is a total self-abandonment. And total abandonment can only happen with the understanding of oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom and therefore wisdom and love go together. This means there is love only when I have really understood myself and therefore know in myself there is no fragmentation at all—no sense of anger, ambition, greed or separative activity.

Dream

You dream that you are awake, you dream that you are asleep --- and you do not realize you are dreaming because you are still in the dream!
Indeed, when you do realize that this is all a dream, you will have already awakened.

*************

One who has seen his true nature, no longer regards life as being full of menace and misery as most people do.
His previously mistaken sense of personal
volition and responsibility, has disappeared in such freedom and joy, that life is now just an amusing spectacle like a game or dream, in which he has no real part.

Ramesh Balsekar

Still mind

समाधानसमाधान-हिताहितविकल्पनाः। शून्यचित्तो न जानाति कैवल्यमिव संस्थितः॥17-18॥

संदेह और समाधान एवं हित और अहित की कल्पना से परे, शून्य चित्त वाला पुरुष कैवल्य में ही स्थित रहता है।
One with still mental state, stabilises in Kaevaily (-absolute-state, singleness, oneness), above the imagination of doubts and solutions welfare or anmity-harm-inimical-evil-injury, to anyone.

I am

When there is I there is problem when there is no I there is peace and happiness... <3

Liberation

Everyone who attains liberation
must go through difficult experiences,
lots of troubles, tribulations and fear for some time.
Bigger than you imagine can come.
Actually, we are all experiencing these things on drip-feed
throughout the life, but remain unaware of this.
And if they are coming more intensely now
it is because you are at a stage where you can bear their weight.
Perhaps more love or the presence of a supporting spiritual being
raises your courage and new possibilities begin flowering.
But if you want to keep or protect your person,
these forces will grow and wrap themselves
around any sense of self you take yourself to be.
Self-inquiry, contemplation, self-surrender help you to surrender,
to offer everything up to the higher power
and to merge yourself with the God-Self.
And thus you find every good thing is with you.
The greatest love becomes your fragrance.
The greatest power flows inside you.
Nevertheless, doubts, hesitations and resistance will come.
Know all is well if you don't turn to yourself personally.
If you turn to yourself, turn to yourself Impersonally.
Thus you turn to the Supreme, to the Lord of the universe.
Just keep your head there under His holy feet
until duality and unicity become one.

~ Mooji

Wisdom

Bondage

"Bondage is when the mind is tangled in one of the senses, and liberation is when the mind is not tangled in any of the senses."

~ Ashtavakra Gita.

Mind is always engaged in the pursuit of pleasures of senses- be it the pleasure of greater knowledge, greater power, physical satisfaction, a new experience or any thing this clever, cunning mind can envision.

We may ask what is wrong in it? For the very simple reason that pleasure bring pain, frustration, sorrow and fear, howsoever we avoid them. Pain is the shadow of pleasure. Because when we are denied a pleasure which we desire and seek earnestly, we become anxious, envious, fearful and hateful. A inner- conflict arises, and that is the cause of our bondage.

Those who know don't talk

Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know.

Close your mouth,
block off your senses,
blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust.
This is the primal identity.

Be like the Tao.
It can't be approached or withdrawn from,
benefited or harmed,
honored or brought into disgrace.
It gives itself up continually.
That is why it endures.

~ Lao Tzu

...from "Tao Te Ching" (verse 56), translation by S. Mitchell

Consciousness

You are consciousness. You are empty. You are just in this moment only. Whenever you see name and form you are sleeping. What do you see in the world without name and form?

Where is consciousness as pure, immaculate eternity, permanent happiness, love and bliss? When you look from there, from emptiness, you see everything. Nothing beyond that. Nothing to do. Only to be as you are.

We have misconceived ourselves, that we have been born and we are the body and we are suffering and we have to die. Where it comes from nobody knows; it is just a concept. It is not real. You have been trained by your family, your society, your religion. Yet this emptiness is your own nature. This is what you are, and really you need not do anything about it. You need not do penance or retire to a cave.

Screen doesn't Change

You are the screen which doesn't change.
Oceans of water cannot make you wet,
fires will not burn you and
movies of romance will not affect you.
So allow the projections of the mind
which is everything you see within and without.
Like this you must remain That which is untouched,
That which is before identification and intellectual grasps.
This is eternal Being.

Suffering

The calmest sea will be subjected to suffer ripples by the slightest wind. The mind is no different, the slightest vasanas keeps it moving and moving. Vasanas are a subset of samskaras that link together to form habit patterns or personality traits. These are associated with subtle desires hindering the knowledge that behind this moving mind is the background of Chaitanyam – Consciousness which is limitless and changeless. Hara Hara Mahadeva.

Yogi Anand Saraswati

Conscious Immortality

CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY

The disciple surrenders himself to the master. That means that there is no vestige of individuality retained by the disciple, and thus no cause of misery.

Without understanding it correctly, people think that the guru teaches the disciple, 'Thou art That,' as something which will make him more powerful than anything else. The man is already vain; what will happen if the same 'I' is greatly inflated?

He will be even more foolish and ignorant! This false ‘I’ must perish. Its annihilation is the fruit of 'guru service'.

Q: Does education make a sage more useful to the world?

M: Even a learned person must bow before an illiterate sage. Education is learned ignorance.

p. 145

Love of master

Love is not poison for master...
Do that right thing and forget..
There will be no trace of desire or wants In mind..
Mind is clear as before
After doing sadhna.. he is already exhausted
And Dispassionate about worldy affairs..
One who Knows the truth ..
Never attached to such things

Ego

Today's live webcast at 7:30pm PDT http://www.advaita.org/webcastCalendar.php

***
There is no seeker other than the ego, whatever the seeking – money, fame, power or enlightenment, what the ego seeks is his destiny - God’s will / cosmic law. The ego is the impersonal consciousness, identified with a particular body mind organism as a separate entity with a sense of personal doership. Enlightenment is the total acceptance that no individual is capable of ‘doing’ anything, good or bad. This at once gets rid of the accumulated burden of (hatred) for oneself for one’s own actions and hatred for the others for their actions. After enlightenment, all that the ego (without the sense of personal doership) does is to do whatever he feels like doing in any situation as if he has free will. Thereafter, with the total acceptance that whatever happens is God’s will / cosmic law, he merely witnesses whatever happens through his body and any other body, without blaming or condemning anyone neither himself nor the other. When the body dies, the consciousness is released from its identification and becomes impersonal once again. That is all life and living is all about.

- Ramesh S. Balsekar, from a letter written to a seeker, June 2006

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Marriage

How to Make Marriage Work

On this Spot, Sadhguru addresses a question with far-reaching consequences in life – to marry or not to marry? And what are the fundamentals of a successful marriage? Read on to find out. Also on this Spot, Sadhguru’s new poem “Shadowless.”

ne of the questions that I am asked frequently is how to choose the right person for companionship and marriage. Trying to find the perfect partner is expecting the impossible. One reason why marriage can be tumultuous is because you have to share so many things in this relationship. The issue is neither marriage, nor is it about a man and a woman, husband and wife. In any situation where you are forced to share a lot with other people, you will face similar problems.

Trying to find the perfect partner is expecting the impossible.

In a marriage or cohabitation, you usually have to share the same space, the same everything. Consequently, every day, you are treading on each other’s toes in one way or the other. In other relationships, if someone is overstepping the boundaries, you can create a distance. Here, you do not have a choice. The greater the overlap, the greater the possibility of friction.

There are many couples who are living beautifully together, who are profoundly in love, and who are fantastic companions to each other. At the same time, this relationship can assume the ugliest forms. One contributing factor is that generally, no one gets to know the ugly things that are happening behind closed doors. If someone on the street steps on your feet, you will react in a different way, because everyone is watching. But in this relationship, no one is watching, so anything can happen.

What is needed to make a marriage successful is not the perfect person – there is no perfect person on the planet. What you need is absolute integrity. Whether someone is watching or not, you should act in the same way. Who you are should not change depending upon where and with whom you are. Once you have established your way of being, interacting with another person can be a joy. Another aspect is that if you try to extract something out of each other, and you or the other person does not get what he or she wants, there will be constant conflict.

What you need is absolute integrity.

You as an individual have to evaluate if this is just a passing interest, or if there is a strong need to have someone by your side. Not everyone has to get hitched, nor does everyone have to live alone. This is something that individuals have to look at for themselves. You should only get married if there is such a strong need in you that without a companion, you cannot live, and you believe marriage will be a stepping stone for your wellbeing.

There is nothing wrong with getting married. But if you get married without you having the need to do so, then it is a crime, because you will cause misery to yourself and at least one other person. We would advise everyone to get married if the human race was in danger of disappearing, but the human population is exploding. If you do not reproduce, you do humanity a great service. Leaving that aside, the important thing is this – not everyone needs to get married.

When someone asked Gautama the Buddha, “Should I have a companion?” he said, “It’s better to walk alone than to walk with a fool.” I am not that cruel. I am saying: if you find a similar fool, then something can be worked out. But based on your need – not because of what society is saying, not because others are getting married, not because you worry about being alone.

Companionship or marriage does not solve existential problems. It just takes care of some of your needs.

What is your intention for your companion? It should not be something like, “If I’m getting lost, let me have another person who gets lost with me.” Companionship or marriage does not solve existential problems. It just takes care of some of your needs. If you have strong physical, emotional, or psychological needs, then you should look for a companion. You should not get married for social and financial reasons alone.

Another point to remember is that you get married because you need support. This support may be physical, emotional, psychological, social, or financial – whatever it may be, you do not get married out of charity for the other person. You get married because you need certain things. If the other person is willing to provide them to you, and you live in gratitude, then there will not be too much friction.

Do not look for the ideal man or the ideal woman – there is none. If you understand that it is your needs that make you seek a companion, find someone who is reasonably compatible with you. If you accept, respect, love, include, care for, and take responsibility for each other, it can be a beautiful relationship.

http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/sadhguru/spot/how-to-make-marriage-work/

Your story

THE AMOUNT YOU ATTACH TO YOUR STORY
INDICATES THE AMOUNT YOU CAN LET GO

Katie: Yes! So when you see us you cannot project - you
don't have the capacity - and you don't have anything to
project a somebody anywhere.

If you're nobody, you're going to project nobody.
Good. Good, sweetie! If I think I'm a body, I'm talking to a body. If I am no body, there's nothing you can do to be a body for me. To the final end, you're projecting yourself. And then investigate that and even lose that. It’s still just one more concept.

I am no more than four questions and not even that. It is
power beyond description. It is limitless. Infinite. There’s nothing that can survive it. Nothing. Because it is nothing.
And it allows nothing.

So when I hit those veils I didn’t even hit them.
It was a child’s play.

What people taught for years or centuries, it doesn’t even burn through them. It can’t exist for it. It just notices.

So there's no choice when you have The Work. Like the choice to go further into the void, or go beyond even the void— well, there's no decision to make.

It doesn't allow one. It's so free. It’s so beyond freedom.

It’s God. It's power without power.

- Byron Katie, Losing the Moon

Mind

Simply turn away from the mind stuff.
You know, this is one of the greatest Sadhanas
—the Jnani's sadhana, best sadhana.
Drop it, leave it right there, carry it no further.
It is finished. Done. Move on. Not out of fear.
In fact, it is a natural response of consciousness.
It does not store up impressions.
Consciousness neither wants nor needs
to write an autobiography.
It is only the mind that wants to do that.
And mind means identity.
Without identity, there is no psychological mind.

~ Mooji

Illusion world

Once a question was asked by a very good student to an excellent teacher:

"Master you speak that everything is an illusion, but I see everything as real and solid. Can you be an illusion? Can I be illusion? Can the world be illusion? Master, please help, I am confused."
The Master kept quiet and then said, "Let us have a walk in the forest." After walking for awhile the master said, "It is very hot, you go down and get some water at the river there and I will stay in the shade."
So the student goes and slides the vessel into the water of the river. He looked up and saw a beautiful young girl across the river, immediately fell in love with her, and proposed to marry her.
"This is not the custom here. All the marriages are arranged by our parents," she said. "But I also like you and so you must speak to my father. Come and follow me and I will show you who my father is. He is the proprietor of the village. We have a lot of land, cows and horses. So I will point him out and hide behind the doors and see what he says."
So they went to the village and when they were near she said, "That man sitting there, smoking a hooka and chewing paan is my father. Go and speak to him."
He went there and said, "I saw your daughter one hour ago at the river and fell in love with her. Can you marry her to me?"
The father said, "Who are you?"
"I am a brahmin from a nearby village," he replied.
"What is your education?" asked her father.
"I have learned philosophy, the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Sastras. I know astronomy, geology and oceanography and all the eight sciences of the world.
The father said, "Very good. You look quite young and qualified. I don't hesitate to give the hand of my daughter to you, but with one condition. She is my only child and I am very attached to her. So if you want to marry her you must stay here with me, and you can't take her to your village.
"Agreed," said the boy.
"We will announce it to all our neighbors and you will be married in one month," said the father.
After a month they were married and after three years they had one child. Then after five years the parents registered their will in the name of their son-in-law. Now, all the village belonged to him. A couple of years later both her parents died, and after ten years they had another child and then another.
After 18 years there came a flood and the river was rising. All the farms were destroyed and they went to a nearby hill to stay, but slowly the water was rising there as well. The cows were floating away and everything was destroyed.
Finally, the water came up to his shoulders and he put one child on his shoulders and a child in one hand and his wife and another child in the other. But the current was very strong and his son slipped as he reached for him the wife slipped and as he went to hold the wife the other son slipped away.
So, now with everything lost, the river receding. He sits there at the edge of the river and cries about the loss of his children. Finally, the river recedes until it is at the original level.
He feels a hand on his shoulder and his teacher asks: "What are you thinking about? Your vessel is in the water. Why don't you draw it? This should have taken you one minute, but already it has been five minutes!"
He looks at his face and stammers, "Fi, five, five minutes you say! Did you say five minutes? What about my wife and what about the children?!"
The master replies, "This is the answer to your question. All this is illusion. Just now you came and you fell in love with a girl, but where is that girl now? You are just fetching water for me. All these things are just coming from the mind. They never existed! No wife was there, no children were there, no marriage was performed and no village was there. The mind creates an instant and in that instant you lived nearly 20 years and in the same instant your vessel was emerged into the water."
So this is how it stands and you have to be wise.