post 6

YOUR LIFE CANNOT GO WRONG

In reality, your world is set up so that nothing happens to you, but everything happens for you - for your awakening, for your growth, for your inspiration, for your exploration - even if you forget that, or sometimes cannot see it, or sometimes fall into distraction and despair.

When there is no fixed destination, you cannot ever lose your destination, so you cannot ever lose your path, so nothing that happens in your life can take you off your path. Your path IS what happens, and what happens IS your path. There is no other.

Everything is a gift on this unbreakable path that you call your life - the laughter, the tears, the times of great sorrow, the experiences of profound loss, the pain, the confusion, the times you believe you'll never make it, even the overwhelming heartbreak of love - even if you forget that sometimes, or cannot see that sometimes, or lose faith absolutely in the entire show sometimes.

But even the loss of faith in the show is part of the show, and even the scene where 'something goes wrong' is not indicative of the show going wrong, and so you are always exactly where you need to be, believe it or not, even if you are not.

Life can be trusted absolutely, even when trust seems a million light-years away, and life cannot go wrong, for all is life, and life is all. Understand this, know it in your heart, and spirituality is profoundly simple, as simple as breathing, as natural as gazing up at the stars at night and falling into silent wonder. 

The universe is more beautiful than you could ever imagine.

 - Jeff Foster

post. 5

GOD

I don´t see that there is any God who created the world. I certainly experience a quality of godliness in existence, but it is a quality, not a person. It is more like love, more like silence, more like joy – less like a person. You are never going to meet God and say hello to him, how are you? I have been looking for you for thousands of years; where have you been hiding?

God is not a person but only a presence.

And when I say "presence," be very attentive, because you can go on listening according to your own conditioning. You can even make "presence" something objective – you have again fallen into the same trap. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being: it is your own presence. It is not a meeting with somebody else.

Osho, The Goose is Out, Talk #7

post 4

Ordinarily speaking we say we are happy when we get the thing we are longing for.  At the time when we desire something, our mind is in a state of unrest; but when we get that thing, the state of unrest is replaced by a sense of peace. Therefore, happiness follows when a preceding state of unrest is ended. Happiness is identical with the feeling of rest or peace. - Sri Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamigal

post 3

Jnani  

A jnani has attained Liberation even while alive, here and now. It is immaterial to him as to how, where and when he leaves the body. Some jnanis may appear to suffer, others may be in samadhi; still others may disappear from sight before death. But that makes no difference to their jnana. Such suffering is apparent, seems real to the onlooker, but not felt by the jnani, for he has already transcended the mistaken identity of the Self with the body.

The jnani does not think he is the body. He does not even see the body. He sees only the Self in the body.  If the body is not there, but only the Self, the question of its disappearing in any form does not arise.

- Gems from Bhagavan (Chapter 12)

post 2

JNANI

Question: I am trying to understand the jnani’s point of view about the world. Is the world perceived after Self-realisation?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Why worry about the world and what happens to it after Self-realisation? First realise the Self. What does it matter if the world is perceived or not? Do you gain anything to help you in your quest by the non-perception of the world during sleep? Conversely, what would you lose now by the perception of the world? It is quite immaterial to the jnani or ajnani if he perceives the world or not. It is seen by both, but their view-points differ.

Question: If the jnani and the ajnani perceive the world in like manner, where is the difference between them?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Seeing the world, the jnani sees the Self which is the substratum of all that is seen; the ajnani, whether he sees the world or not, is ignorant of his true being, the Self.

Take the instance of moving pictures on the screen in the cinema-show. What is there in front of you before the play begins? Merely the screen. On that screen you see the entire show, and for all appearances the pictures are real. But go and try to take hold of them. What do you take hold of? Merely the screen on which the pictures appeared. After the play, when the pictures disappear, what remains? The screen again.

So with the Self. That alone exists, the pictures come and go. If you hold on to the Self, you will not be deceived by the appearance of the pictures. Nor does it matter at all if the pictures appear or disappear. Ignoring the Self the ajnani thinks the world is real, just as ignoring the screen he sees merely the pictures, as if they existed apart from it. If one knows that without the seer there is nothing to be seen, just as there are no pictures without the screen, one is not deluded. The jnani knows that the screen and the pictures are only the Self. With the pictures the Self is in its manifest form; without the pictures it remains in the unmanifest form. To the jnani it is quite immaterial if the Self is in the one form or the other. He is always the Self. But the ajnani seeing the jnani active gets confounded.

- The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, edited by David Godman

Photo is by Bernd Kalidas Flory

post 1

As the self is filled by the Self, 

so is all filled continuously by you. 

There is no meditator or meditation. 

Why does your mind meditate shamelessly?

~ Avadhuta Gita (1.26) [*]

 

Comment by Swami Ashokananda: "Shamelessly" - One should be ashamed to meditate, because meditation pre-supposes a shameful forgetfulness of one's true nature. If one does not know The Self meditation is the way to realization. After realization one will cease to meditate. 

[*] Translation by Swami Ashokananda https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Avadhuta_Gita/Chapter_1

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post 10

(Fro Be as You are)

Q: What is the nature of the mind?

A: The mind is nothing other than the ‘I’-thought. The mind and the ego are one and the same.

The other mental faculties such as the intellect and the memory are only this. Mind [tnanas], intellect [buddhi], thestorehouse of mental tendencies [chittam], and ego [ahamkara]; all these are only the one mind itself. This is like

different names being given to a man according to his different functions. The individual soul [jiva] is nothing but thissoul or ego.

Q: How shall we discover the nature of the mind, that is, its ultimate cause, or the noumenon of which it is amanifestation?

A: Arranging thoughts in the order of value, the ‘I’-thought is the all-important thought.

Personality-idea or thought is also the root or the stem of all other thoughts, since each idea or thought arises only as

someone’s thought and is not known to exist independently of the ego. The ego therefore exhibits thought-activity.The second and the third persons [he, you, that, etc.] do not appear except to the first person [I]. Therefore they arise

only after the first person appears, so all the three persons seem to rise and sink together. Trace, then, the ultimatecause of ‘I’ or personality.

From where does this ‘I’ arise? Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom. When the mindunceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind. This is the direct path for all.The mind is merely thoughts. Of all thoughts the thought ‘I’ is the root. Therefore the mind is only the thought ‘I’.

The birth of the ‘I’-thought is one’s own birth, its death is the person’s death. After the ‘I’- thought has arisen, thewrong identity with the body arises. Get rid of the ‘I’thought. So long as ‘I’ is alive there is grief. When ‘I’ ceases to

exist there is no grief.

Q: Yes, but when I take to the ‘I’-thought, other thoughts arise and disturb me.

A: See whose thoughts they are. They will vanish. They have their root in the single ‘I’- thought. Hold it and they willdisappear.

Q: How can any enquiry initiated by the ego reveal its own unreality?

A: The ego’s phenomenal existence is transcended when you dive into the source from where the ‘I’-thought rises.

Q: But is not the aham-vritti only one of the three forms in which the ego manifests itself. Yoga Vasishtha and otherancient texts describe the ego as having a threefold form.

A: It is so. The ego is described as having three bodies, the gross, the subtle and the causal, but that is only for the purpose of analytical exposition. If the method of enquiry were to depend on the ego’s form, you may take it that anyenquiry would become altogether impossible, because the forms the ego may assume are legion. Therefore, for thepurposes of self-enquiry you have to proceed on the basis that the ego has but one form, namely that of aham-vritti.

Q: But it may prove inadequate for realising jnana.

A: Self-enquiry by following the clue of aham-vritti is just like the dog tracing his master by his scent. The mastermay be at some distant unknown place, but that does not stand in the way of the dog tracing him. The master’s scent isan infallible clue for the animal, and nothing else, such as the dress he wears, or his build and stature, etc., counts. Tothat scent the dog holds on undistractedly while searching for him, and finally it succeeds in tracing him.

Q: The question still remains why the quest for the source of aham-vritti, as distinguished from other vrittis[modifications of the mind], should be considered the direct means to Self-realization.

A: Although the concept of ‘I’-ness or ‘I am’-ness is by usage known as aham-vritti it is not really a vritti

[modification] like other vrittis of the mind. Because unlike the other vrittis which have no essential interrelation, theaham-vritti is equally and essentially related to each and every vritti of the mind. Without the aham-vritti there can beno other vritti, but the aham-vritti can subsist by itself without depending on any other vritti of the mind. The aham-vritti is therefore fundamentally different from other vrittis.

So then, the search for the source of the aham-vritti is not merely the search for the basis of one of the forms of theego but for the very source itself from which arises the ‘I am’-ness. In other words, the quest for and the realization of

the source of the ego in the form of aham-vritti necessarily implies the transcendence of the ego in every one of itspossible forms.

Q: Conceding that the aham-vritti essentially comprises all the forms of the ego, why should that vritti alone bechosen as the means for self-enquiry?

A: Because it is the one irreducible datum of your experience and because seeking its source is the only practicablecourse you can adopt to realize the Self. The ego is said to have a causal body [the state of the ‘I’ during sleep], but

how can you make it the subject of your investigation? When the ego adopts that form, you are immersed in thedarkness of sleep.

Q: But is not the ego in its subtle and causal forms too intangible to be tackled through the enquiry into the source ofaham-vritti conducted while the mind is awake?

A: No. The enquiry into the source of aham-vritti touches the very existence of the ego.Therefore the subtlety of the ego’s form is not a material consideration.

Q: While the one aim is to realize the unconditioned, pure being of the Self, which is in no way dependent on the ego, how can enquiry pertaining to the ego in the form of aham-vritti be of any use?

A: From the functional point of view the ego has one and only one characteristic. The ego functions as the knotbetween the Self which is pure consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient. The ego is therefore

called the chit-jada-granthi [the knot between consciousness and the inert body]. In your investigation into the source

of aham-vritti, you take the essential chit [consciousness] aspect of the ego. For this reason the enquiry must lead tothe realization of pure consciousness of the Self.

You must distinguish between the ‘I’, pure in itself, and the ‘I’-thought. The latter, being merely a thought, seessubject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and thinks, dies and is reborn. But the pure ‘I’ is the pure being, eternalexistence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion. If you stay as the ‘I’, your being alone, without thought, the‘I’-thought will disappear and the delusion will vanish for ever. In a cinema-show you can see pictures only in a very

dim light or in darkness. But when all the lights are switched on, the pictures disappear. So also in the floodlight of thesupreme atman all objects disappear.

Q: That is the transcendental state.

A: No. Transcending what, and by whom? You alone exist.