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"RELAX, YOU ARE NOT THE DOER"

What is stress?

Stress is the tension between this moment and your mental image of how this moment 'should be'. 

Stress is your narrow focus on a mental list of 'things to do', the imaginary burden of 'all the things that haven't been done yet'. 

Stress always involves future-thinking, a forgetting of your true Ground - this moment, here, now.

When your focus shifts from what is NOT present, to what IS present, from 'lack' to what is abundantly here, and instead of trying to complete a list of a thousand things, you simply do the next thing, the one thing that presents itself now, with your full attention and passion and presence, lists get completed effortlessly - and even if they don't, creative solutions are found, without stress.

Relax. You are not the doer.

- Jeff Foster

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There is trouble only when you cling to something. When you hold on to nothing, no trouble arises. The relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater. Give up all and you gain all.

🌺 Nisargadatta Maharaj

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HSIN HSIN MING part 6

Consider the movement in stillness and the stationary in motion,

both movement and rest disappear.

When such dualities cease to exist

even Oneness itself cannot exist.

This ultimate state

is not bound by rules and descriptions.

For the Realized mind, at one with the Way,

all doing ceases.

Doubts and irresolutions vanish

and the Truth is confirmed in you.

With a single stroke you are freed from bondage;

nothing clings to you and you hold onto nothing.

All is void, clear, and self-illuminating,

with no need to exert the mind.

Here thinking, feeling, knowledge, and imagination

are of no value.

In this world of “as it really is”

there is neither self nor other.

To swiftly accord with that,

only express nonduality.

- The Hsin Hsin Ming (Shinjinmei in Japanese) is a verse attributed to the Third Chinese Chan (Zen) Patriarch Seng’tsan (known as Sosan in Japan). Written in the 6th century, it is considered the first clear and comprehensive statement of Zen. (Eric Putkonen)

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Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

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Question: Robert, have you always had this realisation?

Robert: I guess. There is no telling. People have asked me about this so I will tell you a little bit about it:

When I was a small child in a crib, a little man used to be on the other side. For a long period l would lie there and he would be talking to me from the edge of the crib. And of course being a baby, I didn’t know what he was talking about. As far as I know he was talking to me ever since I was born. I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

I used to believe everybody had that experience. When I was about five or six years old, I told my parents about it, and they thought I was playing games. I told my friends, and they laughed at me. So I stopped saying anything about it. The visitations stopped when I was about seven. My father died. And all of a sudden, the little man stopped coming to me.

Then I asked my mother, ‘What am I doing here? I don’t belong here.’ I didn’t understand what I was saying but I felt that I was out of place. My mother thought I was crazy, and so did a lot of other people. She took me to the doctor, and the doctor told her it would go away.

When I was going to school I never really fit in because I was always daydreaming. I had strange experiences. I used to sit in the class and become swallowed up in consciousness. I became omnipresent. I had out-of-body experiences. I just merged with consciousness. I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then when I was about fourteen years old, I went to the library to do a book report. I passed the philosophy section and saw a book on yoga masters. I didn’t even know what that meant at the time. I opened the book to a page, and there was a picture of Ramana Maharshi. My hair stood on end, because it was the same person who appeared to me when I was a baby in my crib! Since then I have never been the same.

Robert Adams🌷

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D.: Surrender is said to be bhakti. But Sri Bhagavan is known to favour enquiry for the Self. There is thus confusion in the hearer.

M.: Surrender can take effect only when done with full knowledge. Such knowledge comes after enquiry. It ends in surrender.

D.: The knowledge of the Supreme Being is after transcending the individual self. This is jnana. Where is the need for surrender?

M.: Quite so. There is no difference between jnana and surrender. (Smile).

D.: How is the questioner satisfied then? The only alternative left is association with the wise or devotion to God (satsanga or Isvara bhakti).

M.: Smiled and said, “Yes.”