1/26/2020
spiritual quotes
Its beautiful to be alone.
To be alone does not mean to be lonely.
It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
quotes 1
SILENT GURU: Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi has a reputation of being a Silent Guru. He is appropriately called the Silent One. Bhagavan felt that teaching denotes duality; the Guru and the disciple, while Bhagavan was the Pure Non-dual Essence. He was a self-made sage and his profound teachings are transmitted in silence. He had no guru to his credit. Swami Sadhu Om referred to Bhagavan as the Mouna Guru. Bhagavan did not even allow his true disciple, Sri Muruganar, or any-one of similar status, to consider or treat him as a guru. Those around him understood that guru is not the physical body but is the ever-living spirit; the Infinite Consciousness that exist within all of us.
But Bhagavan did not say anywhere that a guru is not necessary. The guru need not always be in human form. First a person thinks that he is an inferior and that there is a superior, all knowing powerful God who controls his own and the world’s destiny and worships him or does Bhakti. When he reaches a certain stage and becomes fit for enlightenment, the same God whom he was worshipping comes as a Guru and leads him on. That Guru comes only to tell him that ‘God is within yourself. Dive within and realise. God, Guru and the Self, are the same, said Bhagavan. Contact with Jnanis is good as they will work through silence. They will leave some day. Or you might leave them. But God’s contact remains even after the physical form of the Guru vanishes.
Bhagavan extolled Lord Dakshinamurthi as his guru. The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is that which alone is, and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term. That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it.
‘Continuously enquire and seek alone that grace in the Heart’ said Bhagavan. Our guru’s form is the Reality that sleeps without sleeping in the heart; the seat of consciousness. He is self-luminous effluence that shines in the heart like a beautiful lamp that needs no kindling. Only He who unifies the individual Self, bestowing in this way the direct experience of supreme Self knowledge, is extolled by the great ones as the real form of the absolute Reality and the true Self. Accept Him alone as the Guru, the Supreme.
But how many of us could immediately hear or experience the unspoken, the unwritten word. Some of us regretfully don’t seem to hear anything in the presence of elders or gurus as the mind is always wandering! Even if we are listening, we seem to trap trivial matters like a water filter that lets pure water flow down. In Tamil we call this ‘neyari’.
Then again, how do we learn from nature? Do we need to hear the melody of the flute to learn from the bamboo? The river that flows out to the sea and the bees that collect honey have a thing or two to teach us also. The bamboo, the bee or the river did not stand in front of us on a teaching pedestal. We learn by silent observation. Out ancient rishis too heard the pranava Om in their absolute silence and gave us the vedas. Even the illumined ones who have gained jnana at the holy feet of gurus, aspire silent teachings from Him. They need their silence for contemplation and inner learning.
Bhagavan’s views are presented as an exception to the general rule of guru-sisya parampara in the Hindu tradition. Thus it is food for thought while we reflect Guru Purnima. Hari Om
yogi ananda saraswathi
mooji spiritual quotes
I am here in service to your Freedom.
My whole life is here with you,
awaiting that moment when you
hatch out from the shell of personal identity
and take flight as pure presence.
~ Mooji
silence
#silence
Q: What is mouna [silence]?
A: That state which transcends speech and thought is mouna. That which is, is mouna. How can mouna be explainedin words?
Sages say that the state in which the thought ‘I’ [the ego] does not rise even in the least, alone is Self [swarupa] whichis silence [mouna]. That silent Self alone is God; Self alone is the jiva [individual soul]. Self alone is this ancientworld.
All other knowledges are only petty and trivial knowledges; the experience of silence alone is the real and perfectknowledge. Know that the many objective differences are not real but are mere superimpositions on Self, which is theform of true knowledge.
Q: As the bodies and the selves animating them are everywhere actually observed to be innumerable how can it besaid that the Self is only one?
A: If the idea ‘I am the body’ is accepted, the selves are multiple. The state in which this idea vanishes is the Self. Since in that state there are no other objects. It is for this reason that the Self is regarded as one only.
Since the body itself does not exist in the natural outlook of the real Self, but only in the extroverted outlook of themind which is deluded by the power of illusion, to call Self, the space of consciousness, dehi [the possessor of the
body] is wrong.
The world does not exist without the body, the body never exists without the mind, the mind never exists withoutconsciousness and consciousness never exists without the reality. For the wise one who has known Self by diving within himself, there is nothing other than Self to be known. Why?
Because since the ego which identifies the form of a body as ‘I’ has perished, he [the wise one] is the formlessexistence-consciousness.
The jnani [one who has realised the Self] knows he is the Self and that nothing, neither his body nor anything else,exists but the Self. To such a one what difference could the presence or absence of a body make?
It is false to speak of realisation. What is there to realise? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything newor achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and createa huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was fillingthe space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-
long samskaras [innate tendencies] which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shinealone.
Q: But how to do this and attain liberation?
A: Liberation is our very nature. We are that. The very fact that we wish for liberation shows that freedom from allbondage is our real nature. It is not to be freshly acquired. All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion that weare bound. When we achieve that, there will be no desire or thought of any sort. So long as one desires liberation, so
long, you may take it, one is in bondage.
Be As You Are
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