Consciousness

Q : Were you a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj? 
Robert Adams : I wasn't a student of his but I was with him for a while. 

Q : Are you also familiar with Jean Kline? 
Robert Adams: No, I don't know her. 

Q : You knew Nisargadatta frankly? 
Robert Adams : I knew Nisargadatta, yes.

Q : Did you spend much time with him? 
Robert Adams : Six months. 

Q : Six months? 
Robert Adams : Um-hm. 

Q : Continuously? 
Robert Adams : Yes. 

Q : Was that before you went to Ramana Maharshi? 
Robert Adams : No, that was after. 

Q : After? What kept you there for six months? 
Robert Adams : I was interested. 

Q : In what? 
Robert Adams : In watching his actions. I was there when Balsekar was his interpreter. 

Q : Moira Patan wasn't his interpreter then? What was your conclusion after watching him in action? 
Robert Adams : My conclusion is “All is well, and everything is unfolding as it should.” 

***

Q : Could you say something about the difference between understanding something and being that understanding? Nisargadatta would keep saying if you say you've understood, 
you haven't understood.

Robert Adams: True.
Understanding something is when I am talking or you read a book and intellectually it makes a lot of sense to you. 
But even if it makes sense intellectually to you,
you have not experienced that. 

If you have not experienced that, 
it makes no difference how long you've been reading books or 
how long you've been discussing truth, or
how many classes you've gone to or 
how many teachers you've had. 

You have to be able to do something yourself to 
have an experience of the reality. 
Therefore there comes a time in our lives
when we stop reading books. 
We stop running around to teacher to teacher to teacher. 
We stop going and identifying with certain places in the world and running all over the world. 

We become still, we go within ourselves a lot. 
We have a lot of time to ourselves. 
We question ourselves, we observe ourselves, 
we look at ourselves and 
then the Guru within you will tell you what to do, 
how to do it and where to go and everything will go well with you.

******

Think of some of the teachers that you know or heard about. 
Nisargadatta, he always prayed. 
He realized that he was consciousness. 
He was self-realized, but at the same time he chanted, he prayed, he had devotion. 
It sounds like a contradiction. 
For you may say, 
"If someone is self-realized and knows himself or herself to be all there is, to whom do they pray?" 

Try to remember that all spiritual life is a contradiction. 
It's a contradiction because words cannot explain it. 
Even when you are the Self, 
you can pray to the Self, which is you.

Ramana Maharshi always had chanting at the ashram, 
prayers, devotional hymns.
These things are very important. 
Many westerners, who profess to be atheists, come to listen to lectures on Advaita Vedanta, 
and yet nothing ever happens in their lives. 
As long as you do not have devotion, faith, love, discrimination, dispassion, it will be very difficult to awaken.

Therefore those of you who become bored with practicing self-inquiry may become very devotional. 
Surrender everything. 
Give up your body, your thoughts, all the things that bind you, 
whatever problems you may believe you have. 
Surrender them to your favorite deity. 
You are emptying yourself out as you do this. 
Do a lot of it. 
Become humble. 
Have a tremendous humility. 

If you can just do that you will become a favorite of God 
and you'll not have to search any longer. 
But of course the choice is always yours.
What are you chasing in life? 
What are you going after? 
What are the things that interest you? 
Whatever you put first in your life, that's where your heart is. 
All of the things that have transpired in your life up to now, 
forget them. 

Be aware all of the time that there are no mistakes. 
There is nothing from the past that can interfere with your life if
you become devotional and have faith in God. 
You'll be automatically protected from anything. 

And if you have enough faith, you can totally remove all karmic aspects of your life. 
You can transcend all of karma. 
You can make life easier for yourself, if you have faith.

There are many people who practice Advaita Vedanta, 
and some people are here tonight 
who really do not like to hear these things. 
They just want to hear me say that you are consciousness. 
All is well. 
You are absolute reality. 
You are really not your body or your mind-phenomena. 
Yet once they leave this room they turn back into their rotten selves, with all the negatives and all the anger, and all the hurts, and all the suspicions,
and all the things that they've had inside of them for years.

~ From Robert Adams Satsangs book

Silence

When the mind is free of all of its content, all of its conditioned thinking, it enters into the solitude of silence. That silence can only arise when one sees the limitations of one’s thinking. When one sees that his or her thoughts will not bring truth, peace, or freedom, there arises a natural state of silence and inner clarity. And in that silence there is a profound solitude, because one is not seeking a more advantageous relationship with thought or with the accompanying emotions that are derived by thought.

In that solitude all ideas and images are left behind, and we can intuitively orient ourselves toward the unborn and uncreated ground of being. In that ground we find our true being; and in the same manner in which our being is uncreated, it is also undying. 

Therefore, all that we will ever be or can be is found in our solitude (within ourselves) and is timelessly present in its fullness and completeness, now and eternally.

- Adyashanti

SRI BRAHMAJNA MA biography part 4

" I DO NOTHING BUT EVER REMAIN LIKE THE SUN"

She has described the stages of Realization in Shatchakra, 
a chapter in the book Brahmajna Maya Katha and it is 
believed that she had the fullest Realization at about the age of thirty-two.

Thereafter She used to mix with others and discuss with them ordinary subjects, also so-called religious customs. Several photographs were taken of Her between 32 and 4o. She was 
at that time quite indifferent. But thereafter She would not 
sit for one at all. The college students and intelligent and 
educated men of the neighboring villages used to come to 
her and all became her devotees, and some of the educated young men never took up any temporal activities and are now either Brahmacharies or Sannyasins.

It is an peculiarity of her life that she used to have a favorite disciple always with her, on whom she used to depend very much. But they would change one after the other like the British Prime Ministers.

After I came to her I became Her favorite and for four years remained Her personal attendant till she passed away five years ago.

Some months before I came to her she used to say, "One more man will come to me and then my work will be finished."
She came to Kolgata several times and seemed to be waiting for somebody. Many visitors came to see her but she said that none of these was the man she was looking for.

After I met her she said, "This is the last man to come to me.“ 
I knew nothing at all of all this at that time but when I took 
the garb, after renouncing my temporal activities within a 
year after I met her, I was informed all about it.

Mother was credited with wonderful powers and when 
I went to Her native village with her many people related
stories of these. I questioned Mother but she replied,

" I did not do anything. I am always in the same condition.
Others get the benefit of their own faith and wonders are worked through the faith of the people concerned. I do nothing but ever remain like the Sun."

After I met her she became very retiring, and would not receive any visitors; we also had instructions not to talk to anyone about her, and we lived in places where no one knew who she was. Many thought she was my own mother and as she used to wear the white cloth usually put on by Bengali widows, no one used to take her for a saint. When anyone came and talked to her she would carry on the conversation without giving any hint of her specialty. But everyone would be struck by her intelligence and wit. When visitors came and asked questions, her attitude of putting counter questions was very much like our Bhagavan’s.

She had a wonderful memory. A song which she liked she could remember with intonations if she heard it sung but once, and she could repeat it months afterwards. I composed some songs and sang them to her. Sometimes she would ask me to sing a particular song and if I could not remember she would always help me. She was also a poet by nature. She could dictate songs and poems as if she was quoting from memory.

- The Life and Teachings of Sri Brahmajna Ma 
by Swami Prabudhananda

Ego and world

Sri Ramana Maharshi ~~~ Talk 53.

The world is not external.

The impressions cannot have an outer origin.

Because the world can be cognised only by consciousness.

The world does not say that it exists.

It is your impression.

Even so this impression is not consistent and not unbroken.

In deep sleep the world is not cognised;
and so it exists not for a sleeping man.

Therefore the world is the sequence of the ego.

Find out the ego.

The finding of its source is the final goal.

Bliss

Undisturbed state of being is bliss.
Disturbed state is what appears as the world.
In non duality there is bliss.
In duality experience.
What comes and goes is experience with its duality of pain and pleasure.
Bliss is not to be known.
One is always bliss but never be blissful.
Bliss is not an attribute.

....
One without the sense of duality has no occupation.
No intension or desire and
No sense of doership.
~Nisargdatta maharaj

Self is not an object of experience

THE SELF IS NOT AN OBJECT OF EXPERIENCE

Q: There is nothing to be seen in the ReaL?

M: Because you are accustomed to identifying yourself with the body, and sight with the eyes, you say you do not see anything.

What is there to be seen?
Who is there to see?
How do you see?

There is only one Consciousness, which manifests as the ‘I’-thought, identifies itself with the body, projects itself through the eyes and sees the objects around.

The individual is limited in the waking state and expects to see something different. The evidence of his senses will be the seal of authority, But he will not admit that the seer, the seen and the sight are all manifestations of the same Consciousness.

Meditation helps to remove the illusion that the Self must
be visual. How do you see the ‘I’now? Do you hold a mirror in front of yourself to know your own being? The awareness is the ‘I’. Realize that: it is the Truth.

- CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY

Vasnas

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Q: You talk a lot about vasanas. Could you please tell me exactly what they are and how they function? 

AS: Vasanas are habits of the mind. They are the mistaken 
identifications and the repeated thought patterns that occur again and again. It is the vasanas which cover up the experience of the Self. Vasanas arise, catch your attention, and pull you outwards towards the world rather than inwards towards the Self. This happens so often and so continuously that the mind never gets a chance to rest or to understand its real nature. 

Cocks like to claw the ground. It is a perpetual habit with 
them. Even if they are standing on bare rock they still try to scratch the ground. 

Vasanas function in much the same way. They are habits and 
patterns of thought that appear again and again even if they are not wanted. Most of our ideas and thoughts are incorrect. When they rise habitually as vasanas they brainwash us into thinking that they are true. The fundamental vasanas such as 'I am the body' or 'I am the mind' have appeared in us so many times that we automatically accept that they are true. Even our desire to transcend our vasanas is a vasana. When we think 'I must meditate' or 'I must make an effort' we are just organizing a fight between two different vasanas. You can only escape the habits of the mind by abiding in consciousness as consciousness. Be who you are. Be as you are. Just be still. Ignore all the vasanas that rise in the mind and instead fix your attention in the Self.

- LWB