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

Advaita Fellowship www.advaita.org

Satsang & Events Calendar http://www.advaita.org/calendar.php

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.