I work

The feeling 'I work' is the hindrance...
Ask yourself 'who works?'
What is destined to happen will happen...
If you are destined not to work,
work cannot be had even if you hunt for it;
if you are destined to work,
you will not be able to avoid it;
you will be forced to engage yourself in it..
So leave it to the Higher Power;
you cannot renounce or
retain as you choose...
Maharishi's Gospel... p...4..
Ramana Maharshi

Silence

Sri Bhagavan: The silence of solitude is forced. Restrained speech in society amounts to silence. For the man then controls his speech. The speaker must come forth before he speaks. If engaged otherwise speech is restrained. Introverted mind is otherwise active and is not anxious to speak.
Mouna(Silence) as a disciplinary measure is meant for limiting the mental activities due to speech. If the mind is otherwise controlled disciplinary mouna is unnecessary. For mouna becomes natural.
Vidyaranya has said that twelve years’ forced mouna brings about absolute mouna - that is, makes one unable to speak. It is more like a mute animal than otherwise. That is not mouna.
Mouna is constant speech. Inactivity is constant activity. ~Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

Realization

Spiritual science says there are six symptoms of Realization.

I never said neglect your food-body. This is the media through which you can identify yourself. There are so many concepts from childhood till today: ‘I am born’, ‘I am a man or woman’, so many concepts are there, social concepts, religious concepts. And within this circle we are living our life. After perfectly identifying (yourself) there will be dramatic changes within you, called signs of Realization. Spiritual science says there are six symptoms of Realization.

There is the question: ‘How can I identify whether I’m Realized or not? What is the sign of Realization, what is the sign of Enlightenment?’ After having Conviction, after absorbing the knowledge of Reality, some changes are taking place.

*‘Shama’ means to forgive and forget. Petty matters are giving irritation. After having the Conviction you’ll be calm and quiet, just like Gautama Buddha or Jesus Christ, you know them? There’s no irritation. ‘Shama’ means forgive and forget. If anything happens against your mind, you’re not getting irritated, no anger is there.

*‘Dama’ means tolerance or patience. Tolerance comes spontaneously within you. Where petty matters would irritate us, there may be some violence inside, patience will appear. You will feel it. If any incidents happen against your mind, you’re not getting irritation. There’s tolerance, patience,

*‘Titiksha’ means just to know the Reality, anxious to know the Reality: who am I?

*‘Uparati’ means there is no attraction of the world. There are so many attractions to the world: publicity, money, sex, there are so many attractions to the world. No greediness, no attraction to the world. You’re living in the world, but there’s complete calm and quiet.

*'Bhakti’ means devotion, total devotion. After knowing the Reality there is total devotion.

*‘Shraddha’ means full trust and faith.

These are the six symptoms given in spiritual science. You can measure yourself. And after having the Spontaneous Conviction about the Reality, these changes are taking place. What you are prior to beingness, how you will be after leaving the body, at that time there was no anger, nothing is there. And these symptoms will appear spontaneously within you. You’ll be calm and quiet.

Sri Ramakant Maharaj

Silence

Silence is never-ending speech. Vocal speech obstructs the other speech of silence. In silence one is in intimate contact with the surroundings. Language is only a medium for communicating one's thoughts to another. Silence is ever speaking.

― Ramana Maharshi

(photo: Golden Ears Provincial Park, British Columbia, by Lizzy Gadd)

consciousness

When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others?”

Question: When we talk of helping humanity, we mean a struggle against disorder and suffering.

Maharaj: You merely talk of helping. Have you ever helped, really helped, a single man? Have you ever put one soul beyond the need of further help? Can you give a man character, based on full realization of his duties and opportunities at least, if not on the insight into his true being?

When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others?

Q: The adequate supply of means of livelihood is good for all. You may be God himself, but you need a well-fed body to talk to us.

M: It is you that need my body to talk to you.I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own.

You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That, Chapter 68: Seek the Source of Consciousness .

(photo: Buddhist novice in temple, Myanmar by Sasin Tipchai)

Surrender

Being completely absorbed in ātma-niṣṭhā [self-abidance], giving not even the slightest room to the rising of any thought other than ātma-cintanā [thought of oneself or self-attentiveness], alone is giving oneself to God. Even though we place whatever amount of burden upon God, that entire amount he will bear. Since one paramēśvara śakti [supreme ruling power or power of God] is driving all activities [everything that happens in this world], instead of yielding to it why should we always think, ‘it is necessary to act in this way; it is necessary to act in that way’? Though we know that the train is going bearing all the burdens, why should we who go travelling in it suffer bearing our small luggage on our head instead of remaining happily leaving it placed on that [train]?

Ramana

Divine love

"Grieve not for lost love, whether it is through death or the fickle fluctuations of human nature. Love itself is never lost, but just plays hide and seek with you in many hearts; that in   pursuing it you might find its ever greater manifestations. It will keep hiding from you, and disappointing you, until you have quested long enough to find its abode in the One who resides in the deepest recesses of your own soul, and in the hearts of everything"

~~Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
(The Divine Romance)