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.

Stillness

#Osho

Stillness has many dimensions. One is silence: that is the polar opposite of sound, soundlessness. The second dimension is no movement: that is the polar opposite of movement. Mind is movement, just as mind is sound. Sound travels, mind also. Mind is in constant movement, never standing still. You cannot conceive a still mind. There exists no such thing, because when stillness is, mind is no more; when mind is, it is movement. So what is the movement of mind? Through it we can conceive the second dimension of stillness, no movement.

Efforts

Effort is necessary
to move oneself deeper and deeper
in the practice of Self-enquiry,
not philosophising on the subject.

~ Ramana Maharshi

Vasanas Desire

Hidden tendencies arise to leave when you are Quiet,
so it is a good sign when vasanas arise.
Do not be dismayed because they are Self.
Let vasanas arise, they do not exist.
The world is a playground for the wise
and a graveyard for the foolish.
Let the vasanas play, they are transient imaginations
and even the "I" to which they occur is imagination itself.
Abide as Substratum and allow circumstances to come and go.
Stay Quiet with no intention, no notion,
not even inquire for Freedom, and don't utter the word "I."
Then the gods and demons of the vasanas will vanish.

Your true nature does not come and go.
Play with what comes and goes.
When they arise they will disappear.
Allow them to go away.
Let things happen through mind-ego
and just stay Quiet as they happen,
with the firm conviction: I Am I Am.

Surrender

COMPLETE SURRENDER MEANS GIVING UP ALL THOUGHTS

Ananya saranagati [complete surrender] means to be without any attachment to thoughts, no doubt, but does it mean to discard even thoughts of food and water which are essential for the sustenance of the physical body?
He asks, ‘Should I eat only if I get anything by God’s direction, and without my asking for it? Or should I make a little effort?’ All right. Let us take it that what we have to eat comes of its own accord. But even then, who is to eat? Suppose somebody puts it in our mouth, should we not swallow it at least? Is that not an effort? He asks, ‘If I become sick, should I take medicine or should I keep quiet leaving my health and sickness in the hands of God?’ In the book Sadhana Panchakam written by Sankara, it is stated
that for treatment of the disease called hunger one should eat food received as alms.
But then one must at least go out and beg for it. If all people close their eyes and sit still saying if the food comes we eat, how is the world to get on? Hence one must take things as they come in accordance with one’s traditions, but one must be free from the feeling that one is doing them oneself. The feeling that I am doing it is the bondage.
It is therefore necessary to consider and find out the method whereby such a feeling can be overcome, instead of doubting
as to whether medicine should be administered if one is sick or whether food should be taken if one is hungry.
Such doubts will continue to come up and will never end. Even such doubts as ‘May I groan if there is pain? May I
inhale air after exhaling?’ also occur. Call it Iswara [God] or call it karma [destiny]; some karta [higher power] will carry on everything in this world according to the development of the mind of each individual. If the responsibility is thrown on the higher power things will go on of their own accord. We walk on this ground.
While doing so, do we consider at every step whether we should raise one leg after the other or stop at some stage? Isn’t the walking done automatically? The same is the case with inhaling and exhaling. No special effort is made to inhale or exhale.
The same is the case with this life also. Can we give up anything if we want to, or do anything as we please? Quite a number of things are done automatically without our being conscious of it.
Complete surrender to God means giving up all thoughts and concentrating the mind on him. If we can concentrate on him, other thoughts disappear. If the actions of the mind, speech and body are merged with God, all the burdens of our life will be on him.

BHAGAVAN.