Devotion

Sri Ramakrishna: “It is enough for a man to pray to Him, alone in solitude, weeping, '0 God, reveal Yourself to me as You are.' 

God is both inside and outside. It is He who dwells inside us. Therefore the Vedas say, Tat tvam asi - That thou art.' God is also outside us. He appears manifold through maya; but in reality He alone exists. 

Therefore before describing the various names and forms of God, one should say, “Om Tat Sat- Om, That alone is Truth.''

It is one thing to learn about God from the scriptures, and quite another to see Him. The scriptures only give hints. Therefore to read a great many scriptures is not necessary. It is much better to pray to God in solitude. 

It isn't necessary to read all of the Glta. One can get the essence of the Gita by repeating the word ten times. It becomes reversed and is then ‘tagi’ The essence of the book is: '0 man, renounce everything and worship God.'”

The Master went into an ecstatic mood while watching the evening worship of Kali in the company of the devotees. He was in no condition even 
to salute the image. Very carefully he returned to his room with the devotees and sat down; he was still in an ecstatic mood. He spoke to them while in that state.

- The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Be still

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Q: Bhagavan often told devotees to 'Be still'. Did he mean 
‘Be mentally still'? 

AS: Bhagavan's famous instruction ‘summa iru' [be still] is often misunderstood. It does not mean that you should be physically still; it means that you should always abide in the Self. 

If there is too much physical stillness, tamoguna [a state of mental torpor] arises and predominates. In that state you will feel very sleepy and mentally dull. Rajoguna [a state of excessive mental activity], on the other hand, produces emotions and a mind which is restless. 

In sattva guna [a state of mental quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony. If mental activity is necessary while one is in sattva guna it takes place. But for the rest of the time there is stillness. When tamoguna and rajoguna predominate, the Self cannot be felt. 

If sattvaguna predominates one experiences bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts. That is the stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing.

- LWB

Quotes

Self

Having realized the One Self, and that there is nothing outside of It, one knows that the image one has worshipped is THAT in a particular form.

Having found Reality, one perceives it in this particular guise: the deity I adored is none other than the One Self, the Brahman - there is no second.

Thus, the One is the Lord I worshipped.

When one has dived into the depth of the sea, water is known to be He in one form. The aspirant who advances along the path of bhakti will, when he has attained to the vision of his Master, become a true servant. The methods of ‘not this, not this’ and ‘this is Thou, this is Thou’ lead to the One Goal.

- Anandamayi Ma

Pain

D: People practicing meditation etc., are said to get new diseases; at any rate, I feel some pain in the back and front of the chest. This is stated to be a test by God. 

Will Bhagavan explain this and say if it is true?

B: There is no Bhagavan outside you and no test is therefore instituted. What you believe to be a test or a new disease resulting from spiritual practices is really the strain that is now brought to play upon your nerves and the five senses. 

The mind which was hitherto operating through the nadis to sense external objects and thus maintaining a link between itself and the organs of perception is now required to withdraw from the link and this action of withdrawal naturally causes a strain, a sprain or a snap attendant with pain, which people term disease and perhaps tests by God. 

All these would go, if you would but continue your meditation bestowing your thought solely on understanding your Self or on Self-realization. 

There is no greater remedy than this continuous yoga or union with God or Atman. There cannot but be pain as a result of your discarding your long acquired vasanas.

D: Hatha Yogic practices are said to banish diseases effectively and are therefore advocated as necessary preliminaries to Jnana Yoga.

B: Let those who advocate them use them. It has not been the experience here. All diseases would be effectively annihilated by continuous Self-enquiry.

- Crumbs from His Table

Goal of life

Swami Chinmayananda

A human life is a rare and invaluable gift — for a human embodiment is only one among eighty-four lakh possible embodiments of life on earth. As such, it is not to be wasted in suffering from egoism, selfishness, fears, anxieties, desires, and cravings — or any other passing unrealities.

The spiritual seeker, who has had enough of the outside world, will not waste his time on the trifles of the day, but will seek the eternal truth within. This is the serious business of life. All other things are secondary. Making a living is necessary, but it is not the purpose of life. If making a living is meant for life — then what is “life” meant for? Can there be anything which is more lasting in value and purpose than realizing the Self, the reality, and transcending all pain and discontent? This moment, this concept, this truth, is the most tremendous truth of life

The character

When the Buddha talked about the realization of no-self, he was talking about the self that’s an image in the mind being completely seen through. And when there is no image of self, experience has nothing to bounce off of. Everything just is as it is, because there's no secondary interpretation. The one that’s interpreting is the one that’s in pain. And that’s the one who suffers. That’s the one who causes others to suffer.

The false self, the self that’s an image in the mind, uses every experience to measure itself: “How am I in relationship to what’s happening? Am I wise? Am I stupid? Am I clumsy? Am I courageous? Am I enlightened about this?” That’s the movement of consciousness reflecting on an image of itself that doesn’t actually exist. It’s always measuring each and every experience, and then believing in the interpretation of the experience rather than seeing “Everything just is.”

Everything actually just is. From the perspective of consciousness, even resistance just is. And if you resist resistance, that’s just what is. You can’t get away from it. You start to see that the only thing that goes into resistance, a story, or an interpretation of what is—whatever it is—is this mind-created persona. It's like a character in a novel. When you read a novel, every character has a point of view. It has beliefs. It has opinions. There’s something that makes it distinct from other characters. Our persona is literally this mind-created character that’s always making itself distinct. So it always needs to evaluate everything against its preconceived idea.

There’s another vantage point. The other vantage point is not only outside the character, it's also inside the character. It’s the ultimate vantage point that’s outside, and it’s also playing all the parts from the inside.

That’s basically what it means to really wake up: we’re waking up from the character. You don’t have to destroy the character called “me” to wake up from it. In fact, trying to destroy the character makes it very hard to wake up. Because what’s trying to destroy the character? The character. What’s judging the character? The character.

- Adyashanti