22

"Even if one lives in the world, one must go into solitude now and then. It will be of great help to a man if he goes away from his family, lives alone, and weeps for God even for three days. 

Even if he thinks of God for one day in solitude, when he has the leisure, that too will do him good."

- Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Dev.

21

Sri Ramakrishna spoke about nothing but God. He used to tell me :

 'Do you notice this human body? Today it is and tomorrow it is not. And coming to this world it suffers no end of misery and pain. Why should one worry about taking another birth? God alone is eternally true. If one can call on Him, it is good. Taking a body one has to suffer from its accompanying troubles.'

- Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi.

20

19

If one has form oneself, 

the world and God also will appear 

to have form, 

but if one is formless, 

who is it that sees those  forms, and how? 

Without the eye can any object be seen? The  seeing Self is the Eye, 

and that Eye is the Eye of Infinity.

~ Ramana Maharshi’s 

Forty Verses on Reality. Verse 4.

Ulladu Narpadu

18

BRAIN UNPLUGGED 

If enlightenment means something, it's not what people believe it is. It's an ordinary life experienced in absolute peace, from the understanding that you are not a separate entity, that you are the totality of life. And this is it.

 And awakening is not a spiritual experience. It's a physical experience, and it's a painful experience. Because you will see how your body starts freaking out when your brain is unplugged from all these beliefs and ideas. It's not like "Enlightenment! I am in bliss!".

 Absolute non-sense. It doesn't work that way. 

When your ideas start collapsing, your body experiences that. And this is why you write me "Cesar, I don't know what's happening, I'm losing control!". You are not losing control, you were never in control. You were never in control because you never existed. "I'm having panic attacks!"; welcome on board! "I feel sick and I'm tired and exhausted!"; see? Your world is collapsing, and the body is experiencing that. 

Cesar Teruel

17

"The eye of the Self, consciousness, alone constitutes true seeing. That eye never perceives anything at all. If it be said that the eye perceives anything whatsoever, then that eye too, like the thing it perceives , is a mental creation. It is not the true eye."

- Sri Muruganar

Sri Guru Ramana Prasadam

16

Do not try and hold life to your mind’s agenda.

Accept playfully.

Let life be a moment to moment discovering.

Do not strangle life with plans;

let life show you its own mysteries and beauty.

Now your beingness can open,

and your mind and heart will not cultivate fear,

but radiate wisdom, light and joy.

~ Mooji

15

14

 

13

12

28. If one knows what one’s own nature is,

then

[what will remain and shine is only]

the

beginningless, endless and unbroken existence-consciousness-bliss [anadi ananta akhanda sat- chit-ananda].

~ UPADESA UNDIYAR

Notes by Michael James as per the translation done by Swami Sadhu Om.

Abiding in this state [of Self],

having attained the supreme bliss,

which is devoid of bondage and liberation,

is abiding in the service of God [or is abiding as enjoined by God].

Note: Bondage and liberation are both mere thoughts, and hence they can exist only in the state of ignorance (ajnana) and not in the state of true knowledge (jnana), the state of Self-abidance.

Compare here verse 39 of Ulladu Narpadu, in which Sri Bhagavan says,

‘Only so long as one, being a madman

[a person devoid of true knowledge],

feels “I am a bound one”, will there exist

thoughts of bondage and liberation.

[But] when one sees oneself [by enquiring] “Who is the bound one?” and

when [thereby] the ever-liberated one

[the real Self] alone remains as the

established truth,

since the thought of bondage cannot remain,

can the thought of liberation remain?’

Since God is the perfect Whole, He does not need or want any service from us. But when we rise as a separate individual feeling ‘I am this body’, we experience endless misery, and hence it becomes necessary for the all-merciful God to run to our rescue in order to save us from our own

self-created problems.

Thus,

by our rising as ‘I am so-and-so’,

we make it necessary for God to serve us.

Therefore,

the only true service we can render to God is to cease rising as an individual and thereby to refrain from making it necessary for Him to serve us.

Hence,

to abide eternally as Self instead of rising again as an individual is truly to abide in the service of God.

In the Sanskrit version of this verse,

the meaning of which is,

‘The soul [jiva] who attains here the supreme bliss which transcends bondage and liberation, is indeed divine [daivikah]’,

Sri Bhagavan has made no direct mention of ‘abiding in the service of God’, which is the central idea in the original Tamil version of this verse.

However,

Sri Bhagavan once explained that the word

‘daivikah’ (divine) which He used in the Sanskrit version of this verse is intended to imply ‘one whose actions are the actions of God’, because he who has attained the state of supreme bliss has lost his individuality and is hence not other than God, the one supreme reality.

Compare verse 1139 of Guru Vachaka Kovai, in which

Sri Bhagavan says,

‘If it be asked, “If they [those who abide as Self] have lost the sense of doership, how can the actions [of their body, speech and

mind] go on?

We do see such actions going on,” rest assured that, since their inner attachments

have died, they have God Himself residing in their heart and doing [all those actions].’

11

Avidya is only our ignorance and nothing more. It is ignorance or forgetfulness of the Self. Can there be darkness before the Sun? Similarly, can there be ignorance before the Self-evident and Self-luminous Self? If you know the Self there will be no darkness, no ignorance and no misery.

It is the mind which feels the trouble, misery, etc. Darkness never comes nor goes. See the Sun and there is no darkness. Similarly, see the Self and avidya will be found not to exist.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

...from Talk 363; 20th February, 1937

10

Turiya 

Turiya is the mind in quiescence and aware of Self. There is the awareness that the mind has merged in it's source. Whether the senses are active or inactive is immaterial. In nirvikalpa samadhi the senses are inactive. To know implies the subject and object. To be aware means to be thought-free.( Talks 253)- Ramana Maharshi ( from 'Conscious Immortality')

9

Don’t be a storehouse of memories.

Leave past, future and even present thoughts behind.

Be a witness to life unfolding by itself.

Be free of all attachments, fears and concerns

by keeping your mind inside your own heart.

Rest in being.

Like this, your life is always fresh and imbued

with pure joy and timeless presence.

Be happy, wise and free.

~ Mooji 

(from ‘White Fire’)

8

After all endings -

It is here!

After the duration of all manifestation -

It is here!

When one discovers this,

you are supremely happy.

Even after this recognition, mind will come. 

As time, as past, as memories, as intention. 

All of this, it will come. But it will not come with the same virality, potency or authority, like the old. The old mind now is in recession.

🗝 Mooji

7

"Everything is just Now. Your existence is just Now. Just timeless Now. All the rest is just a dream due to conditioning and memory." ~ Mooji

5

4

24. What is happiness?

Happiness is the very nature of the Self; happiness and the Self are not different. 

There is no happiness in any object of the world. We imagine through our ignorance that we derive happiness from objects. 

When the mind goes out, it experiences misery. In truth, when its desires are fulfilled, it returns to its own place and enjoys the happiness that is the Self. 

Similarly, in the states of sleep, samadhi and fainting, and when the object desired is obtained or the object disliked is removed,

the mind becomes inward-turned, and enjoys pure Self-Happiness. 

Thus the mind moves without rest alternately going out of the Self and returning to it. 

Under the tree the shade is pleasant; out in

the open the heat is scorching. A person who has been going about in the sun feels cool when he reaches the shade. Someone who keeps on going from the shade into the sun and then back into the shade is a fool. A wise man stays permanently in the shade. Similarly, the mind of the one who knows the truth does not leave Brahman. The mind of the ignorant, on the contrary, revolves in the world, feeling miserable, and for a little time returns to Brahman to experience happiness. 

In fact, what is called the world is only thought. When the world disappears, i.e. when there is no thought, the mind experiences happiness; and when the world appears, it goes through misery.

- Sri Ramana Maharshi. Who am I?

3

Understand that what you are is this unlimited universal consciousness. 

==================================

Questioner: I was pondering what Maharaj said about all consciousness being the same this

morning, and for just a few seconds, it was as if everything was one and I was behind it. Is this the aim?

Maharaj: That is not the aim, IT IS SO. 

It is there and it is only because of identity with the body  that what is, doesn't seem as if it is.

Please understand that there is only one thing to be understood, 

and that is 

that you are the  formless, timeless unborn. 

It is because of your identification with the body as an entity that your  consciousness, which is universal consciousness, 

thinks that it is dying. 

Nobody is dying, because nobody was born.

The millions of forms are the manifestation of consciousness. 

It is the millions of forms which get created and destroyed, but universal consciousness itself is unborn and undying. 

Just imagine if  all the millions of forms which have been created were still here - how could other forms be created? 

It is because consciousness is unborn and undying that the millions of forms get created  and destroyed; 

it is a continuous process. 

Understand that what you are is this unlimited universal consciousness. 

Only that 

in which consciousness manifests itself 

is limited and is created and destroyed. 

The total potential of consciousness remains. 

It is unlimited.

You are seeking knowledge from the standpoint of identification with the body and whatever  can be grasped by the mind. 

When this body machine is there, the technique of using it is there, and

that is what you are identifying with now, 

but it is not your true identity. 

You have no control over it, it has appeared and it will disappear.

I talk to you from the perspective of the universal consciousness and I know that all bodies are  the essence of food and that they will vanish.

~ Consciousness and the Absolute

The final talks of 

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Edited by  Jean Dunn

world

For a realized Being,

their world is their own Self.

And from their Self they look

at the world and they always

relate form a sense of wholeness. 

You can say that it is a fact

that you are perceiving,

but you can’t say that

what you are perceiving is a fact.

The meaning of a thing is not inherent

in the thing, it is in the mind of the perceiver. 

The part of ourselves that is constantly

relating through memory and identity,

that is the dreaming part of us.

The person wants to know

what to do with things,

the consciousness is clarifying them

and blessing them.

~Mooji