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Glad to hear that, friend. This quote is from today.
Mind says, 'The unchanging is boring.'
The Unchanging, which is the true Self, does not attract the personal mind.
But the 'unchanging' the mind speaks about
is not the Unchanging I speak about.
Mind, which is by nature changeful,
can never know the magnificence of the Unchanging.
The day it begins feeling attraction for the Unchanging
is the day it will begin merging inside its blissful Source.
~ Mooji
Ramana Maharshi Meets Paramahansa Yogananda
On November 29th, 1935 Paramahansa Yogananda met with Ramana Maharshi. Below is an account of their meeting.
Yogananda with four others arrived at 8.45 a.m. He looks big, but gentle and well-groomed. He has dark flowing hair, hanging over his shoulders. The group had lunch in the Asramam.
Mr. C. R. Wright, his secretary, asked: How shall I realise God?
M.: God is an unknown entity. Moreover He is external. Whereas, the Self is always with you and it is you. Why do you leave out what is intimate and go in for what is external?
D.: What is this Self again?
M.: The Self is known to everyone but not clearly. You always exist. The Be-ing is the Self. ‘I am’ is the name of God. Of all the definitions of God, none is indeed so well put as the Biblical statement “I AM THAT I AM” in EXODUS (Chap. 3). There are other statements, such as Brahmaivaham, Aham Brahmasmi and Soham. But none is so direct as the name JEHOVAH = I AM. The Absolute Being is what is – It is the Self. It is God. Knowing the Self, God is known. In fact God is none other than the Self.
D.: Why are there good and evil?
M.: They are relative terms. There must be a subject to know the good and evil. That subject is the ego. Trace the source of the ego. It ends in the Self. The source of the ego is God. This definition of God is probably more concrete and better understood by you.
D.: So it is. How to get Bliss?
M.: Bliss is not something to be got. On the other hand you are always Bliss. This desire is born of the sense of incompleteness. To whom is this sense of incompleteness? Enquire. In deep sleep you were blissful: Now you are not so. What has interposed between that Bliss and this non-bliss? It is the ego. Seek its source and find you are Bliss. There is nothing new to get. You have, on the other hand, to get rid of your ignorance which makes you think that you are other than Bliss. For whom is this ignorance? It is to the ego. Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains over. It is eternal. You are That, here and now.… That is the master key for solving all doubts. The doubts arise in the mind. The mind is born of the ego. The ego rises from the Self. Search the source of the ego and the Self is revealed. That alone remains. The universe is only expanded Self. It is not different from the Self.
D.: What is the best way of living?
M.: It differs according as one is a jnani or ajnani. A jnani does not find anything different or separate from the Self. All are in the Self. It is wrong to imagine that there is the world, that there is a body in it and that you dwell in the body. If the Truth is known, the universe and what is beyond it will be found to be only in the Self. The outlook differs according to the sight of the person. The sight is from the eye. The eye must be located somewhere. If you are seeing with the gross eyes you find others gross. If with subtle eyes (i.e., the mind) others appear subtle. If the eye becomes the Self, the Self being infinite, the eye is infinite. There is nothing else to see different from the Self.
He thanked Maharshi. He was told that the best way of thanking is to remain always as the Self.
^ Wind, that was excellent. Swami Tapovan's life story is also great.
I keep posting Paul Brunton's quotes because I have several books of his and from what I have read, he had at least attained a certain kind of understanding. He wished not to have students, I'm not sure if he was fully enlightened. He once had a near death experience where he was asked to if he wanted to go the spirit world or remain on Earth. As much as he would he wanted to go to the other side, he felt that he still had something to do here on Earth so he chose to stay here and lived much longer.
"From the first moment that he sets foot on this inner path until the last one when he has finished it, he will at intervals be assailed by tests which will try the stuff he is made of. Such trials are sent to the student to examine his mettle, to show how much he is really worth, and to reveal the strength and weakness that are really his, not what he believes are his.
The hardships he encounters try the quality of his attainment and demonstrate whether his inner strength can survive them or will break down; the sufferings he experiences may engrave lessons on his heart, and the ordeals he undergoes may purify it. Life is the teacher as well as the judge."
"When his own ego becomes intolerable to him with increasing frequency, he may take this as a good sign that he is moving forward on this road."
~ Paul Brunton
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.n...9d3e1991b76ddc
Thanks for this, and all your posts, Wind.Quote:
Posted by Wind
I was reading the thread posted by Bill, The Hero's Journey by Joseph Cambell, and while I enjoyed watching the documentary, I did wonder about the message to seek bliss as a way to discover true self.
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Pure being-Conciousness-Bliss) from the Upanishads is the basis of Ramana Marhashi's teachings. It is mentioned in the documentary the Joseph Cambell was suggesting to focus on Ananda by doing that which you are most passionate about. The interviewees stressed that bliss is not to be confused with human emotions, but there's the rub of it: without a clear experience of true self (Sat), and an awareness of pure consciousness (Chit), isn't there potential for the continuation of suffering, rather than abiding bliss (Ananda)? In Ramana's teachings once self is, bliss is unavoidable. I'll keep seeking the source of the 'I' thought.
Sound & Silence
“There are two ways of contemplation of Brahman: in sound and in silence. By sound we go to silence. The sound of Brahman is Aum (ॐ). With Aum we go to the End, the silence of Brahman. The End is immortality, union and peace. Even as a spider reaches the liberty of space by means of its own thread, the man of contemplation by means of Aum reaches freedom. The sound of Brahman is Aum. At the end of Aum is silence. It is a silence of joy. It is the end of the journey, where fear and sorrow are no more: steady, motionless, never-falling, everlasting, immortal. It is called the omnipresent Vishnu. In order to reach the Highest, consider, in adoration, the sound and the silence of Brahman. For it has been said: God is sound and silence. His name is Aum. Attain, therefore, contemplation, contemplation in silence on Him.”
- Krishna Yajur Veda, Maitra Upanishad, 6.22-23
http://oi61.tinypic.com/29qmxir.jpg
FYI .....As always when I hear Matt Kahn, I am struck by its worthwhile message about living grounded as energetically sensitive beings...
A gentle, loving, inner peace and silence is here and now in this moment. It has always been this way. It is always here. It is right here within you and all around you, a stillness, an apparent void, a seeming nothingness out of which everything arises, exists, and eventually returns.
You know this. You have felt this.
There is nothing more than this.
You are this.
This is truth.
Author: Unknown.
Very often, on the direct path to Self-knowledge, the mind seems to charge in the form of resistances, doubts and fears very strongly.
Expect this. Your love and urge for Truth is under attack but don't worry, the power and advantage is still with you for yourself and Truth are one.
Always this happens on the direct path.
Remember, you are the untouched presence observing the entire battles and drama of the person.
You don't need to move the mind aside to get to Truth for Truth is not apart from you.
Simply recognise and stay as the witnessing Self.
The most profound victory is when the negative mind has no more significance for you, no attraction.
This is the case when you are clear that you are the formless and unchanging Self.
~ Mooji
Down the ages that's what man has been doing: decorating his prison cell. You have really made it beautiful inside; it almost looks as if it is a temple. You have painted your chains beautifully. You have covered your chains with gold and silver; they look like ornaments. Hence you go on cooperating.
And freedom is the basic requirement if you want to know God, if you want to know at all what this life is and what the benediction of this life is and what the beauty of this existence is. If you want to know it at all you will have to come out of your prison. You will have to risk. Because the prison seems comfortable and you have lived in it so long, you have become accustomed to it. You will have to come into the open, under the sun and the moon and the sky. You will have to come into the wind. You may have lived so long in the cage that you may be afraid to open your wings again.
You may have completely forgotten that you have wings. This is the situation where man exists. But before We Can make a breakthrough out of the prison walls, we will have to understand how the prison is made, what the strategy is, of what it consists.
The most fundamental strategy is that the priests and the politicians and the pundits have been substituting every real thing with something unreal. That is the most fundamental strategy of how this prison, this slavery, has been created.
-Rajneesh
Man has valued what is valueless, decorated his prison cell/dreams. Put such value on what is valueless that he has to buy insurance to protect it's great seeming worth.Quote:
Posted by Meggings
Ultimately this body that he perceives as being so beloved, of such value, is no more than dust and water. But he will go to great lengths to protect it.
Willing to kill others to protect this small pile of dust, no amount of effort or concern is too great---this is the prison cell, man would decorate!
But freedom is your true nature, not the chains that you have grown accustomed to. Even the priests/politicians/ guards are part of the prison/dream. Every prison must
have it's guards. They also have their own cells and have decorated them too.
Man has went to great lengths to un-remember his true identity...the space in which all things in time occur. Even when awakening, he tries to negotiate a deal in which
he can maintain possession of his little pile of dust, the body, his prison cell.
To be released to from his chains, he must have the willingness! to let go of his cell and all things of time, no matter how cherished.
The willingness to step out into the void and leave it all behind.
With Love
bazz
You say, 'Mind troubles me.
Help me Mooji! I don't want to believe my mind anymore.'
Sounds credible, like this person is really hot for liberation.
But is the 'person' really true?
If you want to overcome the mind, you have to also overcome the person.
They go together.
The person and thinking.
The person and striving.
The person and restlessness or discontentment.
The person and attachment.
The person and desire.
The person and practice.
The person and training.
All of these, they go together.
But the person itself also is observable.
So far we have been thinking the person observes everything.
You feel your starting point is the person.
Your starting point of the practice is 'I am the person'.
This 'I am the person' belief is even saying 'I am the supreme consciousness' while continuing to function as the person.
And it is this person that experiences a sense of being established in the Self but then it goes back out into the mind field, oscillating between the two continually.
'But when is all this going to stop?' it asks.
'When will I finally get this monkey off my back?'
But the monkey is not only on the back, the monkey is in the mind.
Remember, this oscillation is itself phenomenal.
You are the witness of this.
As this mist of misunderstanding clears, a deeper awareness becomes obvious to itself.
Now, you understand: But I am just here as the unmoving seer.
I am not the person.
As the power of this seeing is felt, automatically the umbilical cord to the psychological identity is cut.
The monkey vanishes without leaving even a banana skin in sight.
There remains only the expanse of pure peace and undisturbed Being–the Supreme Self.
~ Mooji, India 2015
An individual is used to activities that make him gain something.
God-realisation or enlightenment is hard because it goes against the norm.
There is no gain.
There's only loss.
Loss of one's identity, loss of attachment, loss of desires, loss of fear
and loss of interest in the world's affairs.
The rational mind or ego can't comprehend a mechanism based on loss.
Yet the soul knows it.
The soul is beyond the mind.
As the song says
"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose"
Bart Marshall says that you must be prepared to loose everything including your life and you must be sincere about this, however it would seem that only the obstacles to enlightenment are removed. The desire for enlightenment must be heart felt and yet there must be acceptance that if this does not happen this is ok. There is the belief that enlightenment certainly is possible for this one.
Thy will be done = surrender.
Part of the challenge is that though Christ taught non-duality--people are brought up to believe that Christ was so special that we can not do what he did.
Yet he was clear that we could do what he did and more.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within--yet religion in the West does not teach meditation/go within.
The Father and I are one---Of myself I do nothing it is the Father within.
That is clear enough--yet religion teaches that the Father is some where out there in Heaven--not the Heaven within.
The difference between spiritual teaching and religion is that Mystics the Enlightened teach from direct experience that you are God --look within.
Religion is all about God out there, not about you being "I am That which is."
C
Whatever is happening, my joy is unbroken.
Whatever is occurring, whether it be laughter or tears,
my joy remains as firm as a mountain – unshakable.
My peace is never deeply disturbed.
Even if there is something shaking within, it is seen and held in spacious grace.
I know nothing and yet tremendous love and the grace of God flows unceasingly.
The power of the Self is continuously radiating a subtle vibration and light,
not because I am doing anything especially radiant.
The light and vibration is grace and it is always on.
All this is our natural shakti.
~ Mooji
You say you have been trying so hard to find the Self.
But you, the one who is trying so hard to find the Self is who or what exactly?
Nobody is challenging this identity. In fact, many feel uncomfortable to have their notion of self threatened.
Therefore, it is easier and more comfortable to perpetuate this collective assumption that the ego is real.
And yet, do you know how important it is to be aware that you are aware of this?
It would expose the 'seeker' as a mere idea or assumption inside the consciousness you already are and reveal the true Self behind the imagined self.
The person who is searching for freedom can never find it. This 'person', the one searching, is itself observable, isn't it?
Please try to understand and confirm this.
Here's another grenade insight:
Because the person is always a complexity and a nuisance, freedom cannot be 'for' the person. Freedom is freedom 'from' the person.
For an intelligent being, the 'person' or personal identity is the most desirable thing to loose.
And every day I am trying to push you out of this little bubble of personhood into your real existence,
the vast realm beyond all concepts—the realm of perfect Being.
Thereafter, you will look at any and every human being and see only the Source because you are looking from and as the Source itself.
This is God meeting God—the true meaning of Namaste.
~ Mooji, India 2015
Strong message. I like Barry's approach to this. Barry knows that the thinking process is not him. He instantly feels detached this way.Quote:
Posted by Wind
ENSLAVED TO THOUGHTS?You have lots of thoughts about you all day. The gravitational pull that keeps them close is from the Planet Self.
The mind is obsessed with the idea of being a self. And it doesn’t recognize: That’s the dilemma.
Your attention orbits around the Planet Self because the self provides the gravitational pull to all the thoughts, making them about YOU.If you realized they weren’t about the REAL you, they could simply come and go. Your attention would be freed up from the slavery of selfing and would attend to the conscious contact: A recognition of life in and of itself. You’d be traveling lighter — not by any procedures or practice but simply by recognition of what is so.
The reason I’m hooked on the narrative in my head is because I think it’s about me. By freeing up some of the attention from the selfing there is awareness of the conscious contact; then the enslavement is over. Once you recognize you’re not the self you will lose interest in all its activities. Simply by entertaining that the selfing is not “you.”
You’ll lose interest in obsessing with the thoughts, making up stories about the feelings you’re having or not having. The attention that’s glued to the screen of selfing will be released; it will be available to the conscious contact — each moment’s experience.
Most of your attention goes to what’s NOT happening (the past and future) instead of what IS happening. When that devotional practice of selfing is dismissed you can attend to what IS happening: The conscious state of what you are — conscious contact. You’ll be aware of existing. The I am.
When that “I am” is in place you can have an immunity to all the “I am nots.” Simple as that! Just an entertaining of the I am gives you recognition of what “is.”
When you are identified as a self, you are living as though you were solid, a thing --- a NOUN. Which gives you the inability to recognize the active experience called living. You accept an interpretation by the head to replace the living-ness of it.
You think living is about something that has happened, or something that may happen. You think living is about having expectations, withholding yourself from this moment in favor of a mystical moment that will be better than this moment, because it seems like there’s nothing happening in this moment. From what point of view? From the point of view of the self as a noun!
Life is a verb — appearing every moment new. Always happening. Otherwise, it would be called “was-ing.” or “will-be-ing.” Selfing works wonders with this; you could “was” yourself into a great mythical past or “will-be” yourself into a hopeful (or fearful!) mythical future. But all of nothing’s happening.
In selfing life is happening TO you. Self has become such a strong reference point that everything that is happening is now happening TO you.
That’s a huge interpretation, and when you interpret life you miss it. It’s impossible not to. You cannot corral a verb. You just go along with it.
You don’t have to CHANGE the fact that you’re living totally in interpretation. Attend to the awareness; and that awareness will stop your attention from giving up to selfing. That whole production will move to the background; and the background, which is the awareness, will move to the foreground. The emphasis will shift. And you’ll travel lighter.
Just entertain the idea you’re not the self you think you are.Self-centeredness binds you to things, and a meaning is given to those things so that they can affect you. Circumstances don’t bind you; the self-centeredness binds you to the circumstances.
A thought is just a thought; but it changes dramatically when it becomes MY thought. The interpretation of the thought as being mine is slapped on it. Now the thought, whose nature it is to come and go, doesn’t go by so quickly anymore.
A thought comes into awareness. You hear the thought. But how you hear it is, "I’m the thinker of it." The thought becomes observed as being mine. The act of identification. My thought.
The MY connects it with the file system called Paul. Paul has a lot of files about life related to Paul. As soon as the thought becomes identified as MY thought the file system gets opened, pulling up old ideas and downloading them into the thought. The binding agent isn’t the thought; your claiming it is the binding agent.
Now you’re bound to that thought; and instead of going on its way it’s orbiting around you. The Planet of You provides the gravitational pull that keeps the thoughts circling.
If you lose interest in the idea that you are that planet then you will lose interest in the THOUGHTS ABOUT YOU as that planet --- releasing the thoughts from their gravitational orbit so that they can come and go, and they are freed.
By Paul Hedderman---http://www.zenbitchslap.com
Namaste
b
Deep. I always thought that repetitive prayers just for the sake of doing it was conceptually wrong.