Enlightenment: The Ego, what is it? How to transcend it.

[Rich]

Welcome Krystar.

Question to all:
A friend asked me about meditation, if a beginner asked you what would you suggest? maybe a guided meditation? post some ideas.

[greybeard]

Yes welcome to Krystar.
Meditation for me is just close the eyes and not follow any thoughts that come up---they get quiet when they are not given the energy of attention.
The Mooji meditation recently posted is good.
No harm in going in at the deep end and its not too long.

Best wishes
Chris

[Rich]

Thanks Chris very useful.


Meditation for me is just close the eyes and not follow any thoughts that come up---they get quiet when they are not given the energy of attention.

I think that's good, simple, practical without need for a belief.



The Mooji meditation recently posted is good.

Yes, I listened to bit just now, I think guided med is good for beginners because they are somewhat entertaining/interesting for the mind too. You wont get easily lost in a train of thought because you have something to focus on.



No harm in going in at the deep end and its not too long.

What do you mean?

[greybeard]

Thanks Chris very useful.


Meditation for me is just close the eyes and not follow any thoughts that come up---they get quiet when they are not given the energy of attention.


I think that's good, simple, practical without need for a belief.



The Mooji meditation recently posted is good.

Yes, I listened to bit just now, I think guided med is good for beginners because they are somewhat entertaining/interesting for the mind too. You wont get easily lost in a train of thought because you have something to focus on.



No harm in going in at the deep end and its not too long.

What do you mean?

With Mooji you are getting absolute Truth and that can be hard for some to accept.
Absolute Truth being, there is no one else (a separate person)---there is only One without a second and you are that.
Eckhart Tolle tends to meet people where they are spiritually but then will say things like "There never was any one there to do anything to you" also statements like " You are the field in which everything arises and subsides"

Chris

[Grizz Griswold]

Yes welcome to Krystar.
Meditation for me is just close the eyes and not follow any thoughts that come up---they get quiet when they are not given the energy of attention.
The Mooji meditation recently posted is good.
No harm in going in at the deep end and its not too long.

Best wishes
Chris

Some people have trouble with too many thoughts when starting meditation.

Sometimes it helps to picture those thoughts as being leaves gently blown around by the wind.

That way there is no energy given to them.

barry

[KaiLee]

I started with relaxation methods first. Look up guided relaxation. I think this can be useful because it teaches you to concentrate on your body. Your breathing, perhaps the feeling of not feeling body parts as they become more and more relaxed. I would also recommend learning how to practise mindfulness. Learning how to direct your mind to the Now might be really useful. After you've learned relaxation and mindfulness you an then guide your own meditation.

[Wind]

The Quest of the divine soul has become his pole star. It was natural for him to feel repelled at first by the idea of overcoming the ego but now he sees its desirability. This will not mean giving it up in practical life however; for while he is in the flesh the ideal is to find a proper balance between egoism and altruism because he needs both…

- Paul Brunton

[greybeard]

If freedom is your Heart's desire,
say YES to Truth without hesitation or compromise.

Say to the Lord of the heart: Replace 'me' with You.
Rid me of ego and merge my mind in You.
If there is identity, replace this identity with Truth.
Let there be only Oneness here.
Dispel any arrogance, any ego and let me melt in You,
beloved Lord of my Heart.

This Yes is very, very powerful when it comes from the Heart itself.
It comes from the Heart and goes straight to the Heart
and sets off a time bomb in the earth-bound mind.

This Yes without compromise is the divine Grace that comes
to guide you back to your original innocence,
to your timeless and limitless Being.

Mooji

[Wind]

The mind wants you to do something to be free.

But you are already free, not as a person but as the presence, the intuition-I am.

Mind sets up one trip after another, apparently in search of the real.

It is saying: you are ever so near the goal, only strive a little harder, a while longer... soon, you will come to the seek.
But the one who is Self-aware knows: All this is nonsense. I am here.

What need I do to be what I already am?

~ Mooji

[GarethBKK]

Peace is the natural state. If peace isn't the experience, then there is disturbance. Think of the still pool of clear water, and then something stirs up the sediment. So, where is the disturbance coming from? Language for one. Try telling the brain that it no longer has language. Sit enjoying the experience of all of this without any words. No labels assigned to anything. No chatter going on inside the head. No stories being created. A simple letting go of tension. There is only this. All of it. This has no boundaries. This is it. This is peace. The water is still and clear again.

I wonder what terror the first humans to have a wordy thoughts must have felt.

[GarethBKK]

This morning I wondered into the garden and saw a taxi driver peeing against the hedge. Immediately, words arose inside the head: 'dirty', 'disgusting', 'he shouldn't be doing that', this is wrong'. Then something made me stop generating words, and an internal conversation took over.

"Where are these words coming from?"
"From an idea that there is a separate me, who owns that hedge, finds this moment 'wrong', and somehow thinks there needs to be a different this."
"Are the words disturbing the sediment and making the waters muddy?"
"Yes"
"Can you find a separate you?"
"No"
"Is there a different this?"
"No"
"Is this accepted now?"
"Yes"
"Can you let the words go and let the water become still, with the sediment slowly falling to the bottom?"
"Yes. Peace is here. I am back where I was before the words arose."

Oh to be a child without words! Without words there is simply this. All of it.

[Wind]

"What controls the course of our lives? Fate is something which descends on us from outside ourselves and to which we have made no visible contribution--as in the death of a beloved one. Destiny is something which arises out of our own causation."

"We have free will to change our character, but we must also call upon God's assistance. We are likely to fail without it and it is possible by striving too earnestly all alone to make ourselves mentally or physically ill. We should Pray and ask for God's help even when trying to make ourselves have faith in a Higher Power as well as in ourselves." - Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10628106_515843115218925_1603450824150063059_n.jpg?oh=1c6e3622ff949e61f6d9bcb6e96ecd5e&oe=5485E1F6&__gda__=1418548863_2fc4c5f0705d933d356a72cea8a21313


If the truth is real and infinite,
it must always be real and always be infinite.
If it is infinite it means that it is here now, ever present.

You must BE the thing that you are searching for.
What you are searching for is timeless and it is timelessly here, timelessly present.

~ Mooji

M3LHwXjM8YA

[Wind]

Grace sometimes touches life in such a way that one's whole being is set on fire in such a powerful way that one becomes filled with a confidence and urge to throw one's whole existence into the abyss of the Self.

You may find yourself saying, 'Remove everything. Save nothing. Remove every falsehood from my being.'

Then everything is thrown aside, including one's self, the 'thrower'. Unexpectedly, one finds a sense of great unburdening, a completeness, peace and quiet joy within one's heart. Now there remains an effortless silence and stillness. And it’s not that there remains an 'I' that received this. There is nobody to receive.

Inside one's being, one quietly knows: ‘I am neither a “receiver” nor a “giver”. I am no one.' And yet, one finds oneself saying, 'Thank you, Beloved.'

~ Mooji


"The way to be admitted to the Overself's presence can be summed up in a single phrase: love it. Not by breathing in very hard nor by blowing out very slow, not by standing on the head nor by contorting like a frog can admission be gained. Not even by long study of things divine nor by acute analysis of them. But let the love come first, let it inspire the breathing, blowing, standing, or contorting, let it draw to the study and drive to the thinking, and then these methods will become really fruitful."

"Out of the grand mystery of the Overself, the first communication we receive telling us of and making us feel its existence, is Grace."

- Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10352906_516863395116897_8351300706824817741_n.png?oh=68a8cfe3de9f0732ec11b29cb2d9b666&oe=54CDD302&__gda__=1418999994_caf82e1af3ff72713097836a57f3bace

[Wind]

"The devotional element belongs as much to this quest as to any other. Adoration of the divine soul and humility in the divine presence are two necessary qualities which the quester ought to develop. The first is expressed through meditation and the second through prayer."

"When we keep ourselves busy with everything external and our minds with thoughts about everything external, the intuition is unable to insert itself into our awareness. Even if it whispers to us, we will not realize what is happening. If we continue to ignore it, we may lose the capacity to hear it at all. It is then that we have to retrain ourselves to do so. The practice of meditation is one such way of training our receptivity." - Paul Brunton


Gangaji (https://www.youtube.com/user/stillinawareness/videos) has released several new videos, I won't post them all at once here.

yWPesKJ3BoI

[Wind]

Or maybe I will on second thought, I can't help myself... :rolleyes:

cjWyLDELRqc
qSqo5tZJ17g
5aXgKmUGfL0
p1AWRT5P6x0

[Wind]

llwN71L4mNc

[Skyhaven]

F1ZwaEzMtJw

[Wind]

Sometimes God challenges you to find strength you don’t have.
Only like this will you go beyond your imagined limits.
You must be pushed so far that you are forced to be humble.
Only then, when your pride and arrogance are crushed,
will you discover muscles that are not yours. You will find and use the muscles of God.

When you completely abandon yourself, your ego, this miracle becomes possible.

~ Mooji


The aim of the mystic is to know what he is, apart from his physical body, his lower emotion, his personal ego; it is to know his inner-most self. When this aim is successfully realized, he knows then with perfect certitude that he is a ray of the divine sun.

"Think of yourself as the individual and you are sure to die; think of yourself as the universal and you enter deathlessness, for the universal is always and eternally there. We know no beginning and no ending to the cosmic process. Its being IS: we can say no more. Be that rather than this--that which is as infinite and homeless as space, that which is timeless and unbroken. Take the whole of life as your own being. Do not divorce, do not separate yourself from it. It is the hardest of tasks for it demands that we see our own relative insignificance amid this infinite and vast process. The change that is needed is entirely a mental one. Change your outlook and with it "heaven will be added unto you." - Paul Brunton

https://scontent-b-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/q82/p843x403/10604419_518046934998543_6840410942168601249_o.jpg

[Skyhaven]

XbQMPUJJ-VI

[Rich]

Questioner: My question is, how do we fully let go of fear and embrace self love?

Bashar: By discovering how it is that the fear serves you in your belief system.
In other words, you don't hold on to a negative belief if you don't believe that it serves you
somehow in a ''positive'' way. Or at least what you believe to be a positive way.

M0yF96c9O7g

[Wind]

The search for Truth is the hardest thing I have ever done.
There is nothing I can do,’ you say.
Actually… no. There is nothing ‘you’ can do…
You are a ghost!
An apparition appearing inside your own Self.

~ Mooji

[greybeard]

Conscious TV non duality interviews.
Well worth listening to via the link

http://www.conscious.tv/


Non Duality - Awakenings (loaded 12 September 2014)
Bart Marshall - 'Only This Emptiness' - Interview by Iain McNay (watch this programme)
In the Vietnam War a mortar landed nearby that blew Bart into a clear and brilliant blackness that, "Felt like home. I would have gladly stayed in that blackness, but instead I was brought back into a world I could no longer view in the same way." When he returned in 1968 he experimented with LSD, read everything he could find that might offer clues to what had happened to him, studied meditation and attended workshops. After 20 years he hit a wall as a seeker and then met the teacher Richard Rose whom he studied with for 5 years. It was after a weekend with Douglas Harding that a breakthrough finally happened. "Being the source of everything that is nothing - everything and nothing, only this emptiness."

Deborah Westmoreland - 'Being Knowing Being' - Interview by Renate McNayNon Duality - Awakenings (loaded 12 September 2014)
Deborah Westmoreland - 'Being Knowing Being' - Interview by Renate McNay (watch this programme)
Deborah Westmoreland is a poet, a spiritual teacher and the author of Being Knowing Being, which is an upcoming book of spiritual essays. After several tragedies her big question was, "How can I end suffering?" She was sick and tired of Deborah. Her mind was too busy to sit in meditation so she started doing running meditations... finding the moment. Never got ahead of her breath, nor behind. She disconnected from all her belief structures and attachments till she awakened one day, and realized that she had always been in Heaven. She says, "You have to become disinterested in the character, not interested in the story. Suffering is optional... it's self-imposed." She never had a spiritual teacher, nor followed any teaching.

[Wind]

"The longer he lives the more he discovers that real peace depends on the strength with which he rules his own heart, and real security depends on the truth with which he rules his own mind. When he leaves his emotions in disorder they bring agony--as the accompaniment or the follower of the happiness they claimed at first to be able to give. When he lets his thoughts serve the blindnesses of his ego, they deceive, mislead, or trouble him."

"Grace works magically on the man who opens himself humbly and sensitively to receive it. His personal feelings undergo a transformation into their higher impersonal octaves. His very weaknesses provoke occasions for gaining effortlessly their opposite virtues. His selfish desires are turned by Grace's alchemy into spiritual aspirations."

"At the end of all its adventures, the lower self may indeed have to go, but the indestructible higher self will not go. In this sense there is no utter annihilation of the individual, no complete mergence of it into an all-swallowing ocean of cosmic consciousness…"

"The first question is also the final one; it is quite short, quite simple, and yet it is also the most important question which anyone could ever ask, whether of himself or of others. This question is: "What is consciousness?" Whoever traces the answer through all its levels will find himself in the end in the very presence of the universal consciousness otherwise called God." - Paul Brunton

https://scontent-b-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t31.0-8/p843x403/10580683_520480324755204_2584278125885106704_o.jpg

[greybeard]

5 Ways to Increase Your Spiritual Awareness
September 15, 2014 | By WakingTimes



Flickr - Consciousness2 - h.koppdelaneyPao L. Chang, Guest
Waking Times

Many of us seem to think that being spiritual means we have to be religious. Just because you aren’t directly affiliated with a specific religion doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to be more spiritual. The whole concept of spiritual awareness isn’t all about connecting with a higher divine power, but also connecting with nature and yourself. Once you have established this connection, you will see life from a whole different perspective. People with a highly developed sense of spiritual awareness are often less prone to depression, addiction, manipulation, and control. In addition, they generally understand what it means to be truly happy.

Here are five techniques that can help you increase your spiritual awareness:
Technique #1: Learn to Communicate With Your Soul

Your soul is an energy entity that holds part of your awareness and memories. Its energy is what animates your body. In other words, your physical body acts like a vehicle to house your soul, so that it can experience what it means to live in the material realm. For these reasons, your soul is your true identity. Your body isn’t your true identity, because it’s made of matter, which is made of atoms that are mostly empty space. The space that isn’t empty in atoms isn’t solid, but is actually made of energy. So, what does this mean? It means that matter and your body are more like illusions or projections. The only thing that is truly real is energy which is what your soul is made of.

To communicate to your soul, you need to first believe that you have one. Next, learn how to calm your mind so that you can hear the subtle voice and feeling inside you. A great way to calm your mind is to do breathing exercises. Meditation is also another great technique to strengthen your ability to communicate to your soul.
Technique #2: Get Plenty of Sleep

Create a schedule that makes it possible for you to get at least 6 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Once you have created this schedule, try to stick to it. Not only will you find that getting lots of sleep every single night allows your body to recover from fatigue, but you are also making it easier for you to focus your thoughts. Staying in control of your thoughts is important for increasing your spiritual awareness, because thought is the energy entity that constructs your reality.
Technique #3: Spend Time With Nature

The secrets of life are embedded in nature. If you want to increase your spiritual awareness so that you can understand what life is, you need to study nature and learn how to live in harmony with it. As your connection to nature strengthens, your spiritual awareness will also increase. The reason for this is because when you become more aware of your natural environment, you start to see why things occur the way they do. This awareness can help you understand who you are and why you are here.
Technique #4: Stay Positive and Laugh Often

Laughter is an important part of a healthy mind and body. When you laugh, you secrete a chemical that automatically boosts your mood and improves your physical health. After a good laugh, you will often find that your problems no longer seem so huge, causing you to have a positive attitude. The great thing about being a person who laughs a lot is that laughter is contagious. When you laugh, people around you will generally feel better, and pretty soon everyone will be happier and more spiritually connected.
Technique #5: Activate Your Pineal Gland

The pineal gland is a powerful and mysterious small gland located in the center of your brain. This small gland is also referred to as the third, inner or mind’s eye. The pineal gland is believed to have mystical properties. Many spiritual teachers believe it has the ability to see the spiritual realm and is the “seat of the soul.” The pineal gland is the section in the head that anchors the soul to the rest of the body.

When the pineal gland is working properly, it becomes easier to communicate to your soul and spiritual realms. Have you ever had an experience when you are in the process of waking up and you saw your room with a 360-degree view, even when you slightly opened your eyes? This 360-degree view is the result of your pineal gland being activated.

READ: Top 8 Supplements to Boost Your Pineal Gland Function

Most adults’ pineal gland is somewhat inactive due to the lack of use and the ingestion of harmful chemicals that can calcify it. One of the most harmful synthetic chemicals to the pineal gland is sodium fluoride. This form of fluoride is a wast byproduct of the fertilizer industry. The natural version of fluoride is known as calcium fluoride, which is often found in ground water and soil in tiny amounts.

Sodium fluoride is common in conventional toothpaste. It is unhealthy for the pineal gland because when it is exposed to sodium fluoride for long periods of time, it can calcify the pineal gland. For more techniques on how to activate your pineal gland, read this article titled Calcified Pineal Gland: How to Decalcify It.

About the Author

Pao L. Chang is the editor and founder of EnergyFanatics.com and OmniThought.org, two comprehensive blogs dedicated to educating people about energy mechanics, financial health, wellness, self-improvement, natural food, alternative medicine and spiritual well-being. He loves to explore the mystery of alternative medicine, the science of consciousness, quantum mechanics, sacred geometry and how energy affects the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual body. His main goal is to help people free their minds so they can find inner-peace, love and happiness. He is also the author of two published books, Staradigm and Natural Weight Loss Secrets.

This article was written by PL and Amber.

Source:

http://fluoridealert.org/articles/phosphate01/


http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/09/15/5-ways-increase-spiritual-awareness/
(More on the link)

Thanks to Good friend Dan for sending me the link

[Grizz Griswold]

We are living in an assumed identity....Mooji

5S-P27GaeQM

barry

[Wind]

"Is this benign state a past from which we have lapsed or a future to which we are coming? The true answer is that it is neither. This state has always been existent within us, is so now, and always will be. It is forever with us simply because it is what we really are."

"Just then, as thoughts themselves stop coming into his mind, he stops living in time and begins living in the eternal. He knows and feels his timelessness. And since all his sufferings belong to the world of passing time, of personal ego, he leaves them far behind as though they had never been. He finds himself in the heaven of a serene, infinite bliss. He learns that he could always have entered it; only his insistence on holding to the little egoistic values, his lack of thought-control, and his disobedience to the age-old advice of the Great Teachers prevented him from doing so." - Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/p370x247/10378929_521049204698316_7082860604009914207_n.jpg?oh=6be2f887c8aac78b2d8a0be7951cca9a&oe=54C5FB5F&__gda__=1418408930_4c3da4a6ac17e359bad5ac47d76ad4fe

[Wind]

What, it has been asked, if I get no glimpses? What can I do to break this barren, monotonous, dreary, and sterile spiritual desert of my existence? The answer is if you cannot meditate successfully go to nature, where she is quiet or beautiful; go to art where it is majestic, exalting; go to hear some great soul speak, whether in private talk or public address; go to literature, find a great inspired book written by someone who has had the glimpses. - Paul Brunton

rCDrBbciDvY

[Guish]

Conscious TV non duality interviews.
Well worth listening to via the link
She says, "You have to become disinterested in the character, not interested in the story. Suffering is optional... it's self-imposed." She never had a spiritual teacher, nor followed any teaching.

This is true. The conditioning of our mind makes us see things in a different way. In a meditative state, things look much simpler. Were things ever complex?

[greybeard]

The quote from Bart Marshall on Conscious TV that is relevant to where I find myself is.
"Nothing works"
There is of course the need to go through all the processes to come to this understanding.
Complete surrender and a single pointed desire to know The Truth is a necessity for The Grace of God (Self) to reveal that there is only One without a second and "I am That"

C

[Wind]

This identification with the best Self in us is the ideal set for all men, to be realized through long experience and much suffering or through accepting instruction, following revelation, unfolding intuition, practising meditation, and living wisely. And this best Self is not the most virtuous part of our character--though it may be one of the sources of that virtue--but the deepest part of our being, underneath the thoughts which buzz like bees and the emotions which express our egotism. A sublime stillness reigns in it. There in that stillness, is our truest identity. - Paul Brunton

[Skyhaven]

When a man literally walks in the light of his soul and the clear
light of the sun pours through him—revealing the Path—it reveals at the
same time the Plan. Simultaneously however, he becomes aware of the fact
that the Plan is very far as yet from consummation. The dark becomes more
truly apparent; the chaos and misery and failure of the world groups stand
revealed; the filth and dust of the warring forces are noted, and the whole
sorrow of the world bears down upon the astounded, yet illuminated,
aspirant. Can he stand this pressure? Can he become indeed acquainted
with grief and yet rejoice forever in the divine consciousness? Has he the
ability to face what the light reveals and still go his way with serenity, sure of
the ultimate triumph of good? Will he be overwhelmed by the surface evil
and forget the heart of Love which beats behind all outer seeming?

-The Tibetian-

[Guish]

When a man literally walks in the light of his soul and the clear
light of the sun pours through him—revealing the Path—it reveals at the
same time the Plan. Simultaneously however, he becomes aware of the fact
that the Plan is very far as yet from consummation. The dark becomes more
truly apparent; the chaos and misery and failure of the world groups stand
revealed; the filth and dust of the warring forces are noted, and the whole
sorrow of the world bears down upon the astounded, yet illuminated,
aspirant. Can he stand this pressure? Can he become indeed acquainted
with grief and yet rejoice forever in the divine consciousness? Has he the
ability to face what the light reveals and still go his way with serenity, sure of
the ultimate triumph of good? Will he be overwhelmed by the surface evil
and forget the heart of Love which beats behind all outer seeming?

-The Tibetian-

Point. It's much harder to stay sane in an insane world. Being spiritual in a world of temptations is the real test.

[Wind]

"The way to use a philosophic book is not to expect to understand all of it at the first trial, and consequently not to get disheartened when failure to understand is frequent. Using this cautionary approach, he should carefully note each phrase or paragraph that brings an intuitive response in his heart's deep feeling (not to be confused with an intellectual acquiescence in the head's logical working).

As soon as, and every time, this happens, he should stop his reading, put the book momentarily aside, and surrender himself to the activating words alone. Let them work upon him in their own way. He is merely to be quiet and be receptive. For it is out of such a response that he may eventually find that a door opens to his inner being and a light shines where there was none before. When he passes through that doorway and steps into that light, the rest of the book will be easy to understand." - Paul Brunton


Don't pay too much attention to the mind.
It may be throbbing with identity but this is observed as a phenomenon arising inside the great awareness.
Now it may say, ‘I cannot do this or that thing’ or ‘This is not for me’, but these are mere thoughts appearing in the great vastness.
Know this vastness to be your own unchanging Self.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

What, it has been asked, if I get no glimpses? What can I do to break this barren, monotonous, dreary, and sterile spiritual desert of my existence? The answer is if you cannot meditate successfully go to nature, where she is quiet or beautiful; go to art where it is majestic, exalting; go to hear some great soul speak, whether in private talk or public address; go to literature, find a great inspired book written by someone who has had the glimpses. - Paul Brunton

rCDrBbciDvY

I like it. No label, no complexity. Just you and emptiness. That's a summary of Zen.

[Grizz Griswold]

The quote from Bart Marshall on Conscious TV that is relevant to where I find myself is.
"Nothing works"
There is of course the need to go through all the processes to come to this understanding.
Complete surrender and a single pointed desire to know The Truth is a necessity for The Grace of God (Self) to reveal that there is only One without a second and "I am That"

C

Most all of us think that there is some thing we need do.

Our conditioning has shown us that we are the doer
and that only through our struggling we will finally arrive.

The doer/ego always tells us there is some thing to do,
to remember or another step.

But until we have the experience that we need do nothing,
can do nothing, it will always be put off for the future

With only a total desire for truth. the last step will have to be taken by grace.

barry

[Skyhaven]

The paradox might even be that one can actually get more done, if one doesn't force the doing, but let it flow from the natural way of things.

[Guish]

The paradox might even be that one can actually get more done, if one doesn't force the doing, but let it flow from the natural way of things.

Exactly. The fear of not doing enough and staying behind should be dissolved. When one is in harmony with the surroundings, the effort made is effortless.

[Wind]

"The test of bringing thoughts and theories, intuitions and revelations, to action is a means not only of expressing them but also of evaluating them. It is only by doing this, by bringing them face to face with the facts of life that he can learn what they are really worth or how they should really have been executed.

Even though the opportunity to act wisely has been lost, the knowledge has been gained. Even though he may never be able to make use of it again in this lifetime, it remains in his mind and will enrich his later incarnations. Experience of the world, however studded with faults and mistakes it may be, must always complement understanding of life if he is to accomplish his fullest development. The abstract is man's left arm, the concrete is his right one. As he applies his ideas directly to the outward life, they become fruitful. Thus he is able to see for himself whether the fruit is good or bad, and to judge the tree accordingly."

"When I was quite young, I became enthralled by poetry to the extent that I studied the laws of composing it and once succeeded in writing nearly eighty poems in a single month. To make those verses as beautiful as possible, I composed lists of beautiful words and put them in a small red notebook where I could constantly read and reread them, linger over their beauty, and eventually bring them into my compositions. There were such words as azalea, azure, nectarine, eventide, chimes, and so on.

But alas! with the passing of youth the fascination of poetry faded away and the fascination of the scientific attitude took its place. There was nothing wrong in this, except that I failed to keep the two by maintaining a balance between them; instead, I foolishly adopted a one-or-the-other attitude. To the scientist, the Himalaya Mountains cover an enormous graveyard filled with fossilized animals; but to the poet, how grand and how unearthly a sight is the dawn sun rising over the Himalayan peaks!"

- Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t31.0-8/p600x600/10631215_523488304454406_8100836184348354823_o.jpg

[Wind]

You say, 'Mooji, Mooji, help me to get rid of this ego-identity.
I just want to be nothing.'
But the one who is going to let go of this ego-identity is who?
Who is this 'I' who could possibly do it?
Even this one you are not.
Don't do anything at all. Don't lift even a finger for this.
What is here now?
'Nothing,' you say.
Don't doubt this nothing.
You are this nothing.
Be nothing, happy and free.

~ Mooji

[Wind]

For those with a sincere and urgent wish to be liberated, I tell them, ‘Leave everything, starting from this moment.’

Drop all notions about future, past, present — leave everything aside entirely. Don’t save anything or spare any favourite thought or feeling. Such an attitude will bring you a state of unmixed presence whereby all personal questions, doubts and concerns will hold no power. Only like this will you be able to gauge the real fickleness of personality along with its baggage of psychological obsessions.

And see if you can fully examine what is now without your add-ons, without your projections, because they are not only myths but they exhaust your being and make you tired and unhappy. Allow yourself to be empty and experience your fundamental nature free from imagination, fantasy and the hypnosis of conditioning.

When you allow yourself to be empty, visitors show up. They may say, ‘You are going to be stupid,’ or ‘How are you going to take care of your life?’ But just ignore it and discover your peace in this moment. I want to meet a human being who is at peace, not in pieces.

~ Mooji

IBN9hqJnb44

[Wind]

You are searching for God, but God is not 'other'.
How can you, as ego, be subject and God the object?
You are the object.
Drop your self and He is here.

~ Mooji

Whatever you do to work upon the ego, whether you remove this weakness or improve that faculty, it will always be ego and your consciousness will always remain within its tightly closed circle. In the time you give to such work you could be occupying yourself with thought of the non-ego, the Overself, and dwelling in this thought until the sunshine behind it bursts through and you bask in the glory."

"His quest for God has reached its terminus but his quest in God will now start its course. Henceforth his life, experience, and consciousness are wrapped in mystery."

- Paul Brunton

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[Wind]

In The Secret Path Paul Brunton writes:

"To obtain this Grace we must ask for it. This is not to say that asking is done by verbal action alone. That may suffice for some; for others, the request may be uttered mentally only. But for most of us we must ask with our whole life. Our course of action, our sacrifices of the primrose path, our surrender of time even, should show and express this great desire. And we may even be forced down on our knees, at unexpected hours of the night or day, to pray that the Light be granted us. If this happens do not resist or resent it. Yield, and if you feel an urge to weep when praying for the Overself's Grace, then let the tears flow as copiously as they come forth. Do not hold them back. There is great spiritual merit in weeping for the visitation of a higher power. Each tear will dissolve something that stands between you and the divine union. Never be ashamed of such tears, for they fall in a good cause. …." (p. 93)

To read this complete e-Teaching and to sign up to receive monthly e-Teachings taken from all 28 categories of PB's Notebooks and earlier publications click the link below: http://www.paulbrunton.org/eteachings.php

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[greybeard]

Enlightenment - Ajahn Brahm

A Buddhist view.

Ajahn has a lot of good videos on u tube.

Chris




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OnJ6HgD4RM

[Skyhaven]

MLlPIW8_MTs

[Wind]

You say you want to drop the 'I', but the 'I' cannot drop the 'I'.
There must be something that is not the 'I' to drop the 'I'.
It is That which is aware of 'I', the most holy concept, the immaculate concept.
Be That in which the 'I' itself arises.
Then you don't have to drop the 'I'.
You don't have to drop anything.
You don't have to kill anything.
You don't have to heal anything.
You don't have to fix anything.
You don't have to become anything, or unbecome anything.
You don't have to work on anything.
You don't have to evolve.
You cannot evolve to go back to what You are.
Have I gone to far?
This guidance is for the one who wishes to be conscious of their own consciousness right now.
If you intend to awaken next year, we have to go back to 'I' which is time and change.

~ Mooji

1BpHNUWHJe0

[Wind]

"When he can put the littleness of self aside for a moment and think of that Infinite Element within which he dwells, he will be overwhelmed with a sense of the wonder and mystery that surround the daily movements of mortal men. He can then neither sing its praises aloud with those who believe nor argue about its existence with those who disbelieve. He must remain as the thought finds him, with dumb lips and reverent heart, with quieted body and subdued emotion, silent indeed. This is his loftiest mood, this contented contemplation wherein the struggling I rests at last in the ever-peaceful I AM."

"He knows, having aligned himself harmoniously with the higher power that supports the universe, that it surely can and will support the little fragment of the universe that is himself. A sublime confidence that he will be taken care of in the proper way pervades him in consequence."

- Paul Brunton

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[Delight]

I have not seen this here.


Genuine healing occurs when we take ourselves mercifully into our own hearts and accept the totality of our lives. This healing of the soul or spirit, says Stephen Levine, is independent of bodily healing. We harden our hearts when we fail to forgive ourselves of our own pain. In this sense, one can only heal one's self; one can never truly be healed by another.

Conscious living and conscious dying require that we bring our pain into our hearts, rather than wall ourselves off from it. In this moving and personal two-part program, Levine illustrates this point by referring to several cases of dying individuals with whom he has worked. He also discusses the use of imagery in healing, maintaining that each individual should choose imagery consistent with their own sensibility. He leads a brief meditation exercise designed to bring the full scope of living into awareness.--Stephen Levine


Treat your illness as though it were your only child, with that same mercy and loving-kindness. If it were your child's body, you'd caress it, you'd hold it, you'd do all you could to make it well. But somehow when it's in our own body we wall it off, we send hatred and anger into it. We treat ourselves with so little kindness, so little softness."
--Stephen Levine

RxczoBb0Kw0

[greybeard]

Thanks Delight.
The thread is a broad spectrum on Enlightenment and related matters so all relevant posts posts are very welcome.

Best wishes
Chris

[Wind]

"The truth is that the mind creates its own objects--but not the individual, finite mind; only the Mind which is back of it and which is infinite and common to all individuals. This is difficult to understand, so to make it easier one has to think of dream. In that state he can see cities, men, women, and children, mountains and flowers, hear voices, feel pain, and so forth. What is more, everything is so real then that at the time it is the waking state to him, not dream. Now who created all these scenes and things? Not his finite mind, for he is not conscious of having done so. Hence there is a larger mind within him which has this power of manufacturing scenes, objects, and events so vividly that he takes them to be real. This reality is a myth or, as the Indians call it, Maya."

"Make it a matter of habit, until it becomes a matter of inclination, to be kind, gentle, forgiving, and compassionate. What can you lose? A few things now and then, a little money here and there, an occasional hour or an argument? But see what you can gain! More release from the personal ego, more right to the Overself's grace, more loveliness in the world inside us, and more friends in the world outside us."

- Paul Brunton

[Guish]

"The truth is that the mind creates its own objects--but not the individual, finite mind; only the Mind which is back of it and which is infinite and common to all individuals. This is difficult to understand, so to make it easier one has to think of dream. In that state he can see cities, men, women, and children, mountains and flowers, hear voices, feel pain, and so forth. What is more, everything is so real then that at the time it is the waking state to him, not dream. Now who created all these scenes and things? Not his finite mind, for he is not conscious of having done so. Hence there is a larger mind within him which has this power of manufacturing scenes, objects, and events so vividly that he takes them to be real. This reality is a myth or, as the Indians call it, Maya."

"Make it a matter of habit, until it becomes a matter of inclination, to be kind, gentle, forgiving, and compassionate. What can you lose? A few things now and then, a little money here and there, an occasional hour or an argument? But see what you can gain! More release from the personal ego, more right to the Overself's grace, more loveliness in the world inside us, and more friends in the world outside us."

- Paul Brunton

I'd say that it's dangerous to think in terms of gain or loss. My mantra is to keep pushing myself to live selflessly. The rest will take care of itself.

[Grizz Griswold]

Hi everyone, Chris mentioned Bart Marshall not too long ago.

Here are some of his videos quoting Richard Rose...Bart often calls
Rose his teacher.

Hope you enjoy.

barry

Agm5uJRyHrE

HdRMBuvpRFk

h7OzIvXmoLc

K00sOY6mTiI

[Wind]

"The time will come, if he perseveres, when his mind will naturally orient itself toward the spiritual pole of being. And this will happen by itself, without any urging on his part. No outer activity will be able to stop the process, for to make it possible his mind will apparently double its activity. In the foreground, it will attend to the outer world, but in the background it will attend to the Overself."

"But before he can even attempt to surrender the underself, he must first begin to feel, however feebly and however intermittently, that there is an Overself and that it is living there deep within his own heart. Such a feeling, however, must arise spontaneously and cannot be manufactured by any effort of his own... For such a feeling is nothing else than a manifestation of grace…"

"The seeker after stillness should be told that the stillness is always there. Indeed it is in every man. But he has to learn, first, to let it in and, second, how to do so. The first beginning of this is to remember. The second is to recognize the inward pull. For the rest, the stillness itself will guide and lead him to itself."

”An intense student may be endowed with the slenderest of good qualities, but if he can readily understand the truth--however theoretically--and expound it to others, this act of exposition will help him to become himself imbued with these ideas and his own mind will soak in their truth. This in the end will lead him to actualize the Divinity within himself.” Excerpt from Tripura, an archaic Sanskrit text, translated into modern language.

"The improvement of character and the elevation of moral condition are the foundation of all spiritual work."

- Paul Brunton

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[Delight]

Matt Kahn has an interesting perspective IMO.

JqvN9SBxoiQ

[Wind]

"Socrates' prayer to the god of Nature: ”O Pan! Do so that I become beautiful inside me. And all that exists outside and around me to be in harmony with what I have in me. . . My wish for material wealth is only for so much as a wise man can carry in his hand.” --from Plato"

"When you awaken to truth as it really is, you will have no occult vision, you will have no "astral" experience, no ravishing ecstasy. You will awaken to it in a state of utter stillness, and you will realize that truth was always there within you and that reality was always there around you. Truth is not something which has grown and developed through your efforts. It is not something which has been achieved or attained by laboriously adding up those efforts. It is not something which has to be made more and more perfect each year. And once your mental eyes are opened to truth they can never be closed again."

- Paul Brunton

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[Grizz Griswold]

A5Grfw4UX9I

Our primary addiction....I,Me,MY

barry

[Wind]

"Whatever the trouble be which distresses any man--be it physical or mental, personal or public, worldly or spiritual--there is one sure refuge to which he can always turn and return. If he has learnt the art of being still, he can carry his trouble to the mind's outer threshold and leave it there, passing himself into its innermost recess of utter serenity and carefree tranquillity. This is not a cowardly escapism or a foolish self-deception, although with the unphilosophical mystic it could be and often is. For when he emerges from the inner silence and picks up his trouble again, he will pick up also the strength to endure it bravely and the wisdom to deal with it rightly. This will always be the case if his approach is through philosophical mysticism, which makes inspired action and not inspired dreaming its goal. Furthermore, his contact with the inner Mind will set mysterious forces working on his behalf to solve the problem quite independently of his conscious effort and knowledge."

... When we understand that Mind is itself a reality apart from the fleshly brain, we can also understand why telepathy between two persons is perfectly possible…

- Paul Brunton

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[Wind]

"Metaphysical study will not weaken reverence but will rather put it on firmer ground. Metaphysical understanding will not weaken devotion but will rather more firmly establish it. What it will weaken, however, is the attachment to transient forms of reverence; what it will destroy is the error of giving devotion exclusively to the individual and refusing to include the Universal."

"We cannot help living in a human ego and feeling its wishes and desires, for most of us are infatuated with it. But it can be put in its place and kept there, first through a profound understanding, next through a lofty aspiration to transcend it, and third through a following of the Quest until its very end."

- Paul Brunton

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[greybeard]

The Divine Romance by Yogananda

A new look at origin & nature of cosmic creation


from page 27 from The Divine Romance by Yogananda.

"Everything here is nothing more than God's motion picture.
We are the players. We must play our parts well, but we must not identify ourselves too intensely with the drama.
Meditation shows us the way to this inner freedom. It is the only way by which we can realise that this world is a dream, that the Lord has created the entire cosmos out of His thought. So, though He created this dream earth, He has also shown the way to get out of it.

God's dream creation was not meant to frighten you, but prod you to realise finally that it has no reality. So why be afraid of anything."

This book was one of the first I read on spirituality that and "Autobiography of a Yogi"

"The Divine Romance" book is so full of devotion and love, if that is what moves you it is well worth purchasing.

Chris

Ps. I bought the book over twenty years ago---where has the time gone.
I know less now than I did then---that's genuine progress--laughing.

[Wind]

"It is the work of a lifetime to venture on such a great improvement of character as will place the lower self under our control, instead of our being controlled by it. We are likely to get disheartened at times by the seeming slowness of progress. This is partly because we are too apt to think in terms of this single incarnation only, whereas those who understand life's actual range think of it in terms of dozens and scores. Hence we have to learn a certain tolerant patience with ourselves, while at the same time maintaining an ardent aspiration for self-improvement and a critical attitude towards our weaknesses. This sounds contradictory but it is not really so. It is rather a matter of getting a proper balance between the two attitudes."

- Paul Brunton

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[Delight]

Matt Kahn is encouraging IMO. He also is really fresh IMO.

4fUzXQS3M-s

[Delight]

I cannot stop posting videos from Matt Kahn. His words were so amusing and pertinent to me today. I am loving how he explains things with a wry humor that makes me laugh...maybe someone will enjoy him too. Maggie

tV4iMNI0t3g

[Guish]

The Divine Romance by Yogananda

A new look at origin & nature of cosmic creation


from page 27 from The Divine Romance by Yogananda.

"Everything here is nothing more than God's motion picture.
We are the players. We must play our parts well, but we must not identify ourselves too intensely with the drama.
Meditation shows us the way to this inner freedom. It is the only way by which we can realise that this world is a dream, that the Lord has created the entire cosmos out of His thought. So, though He created this dream earth, He has also shown the way to get out of it.

God's dream creation was not meant to frighten you, but prod you to realise finally that it has no reality. So why be afraid of anything."

This book was one of the first I read on spirituality that and "Autobiography of a Yogi"

"The Divine Romance" book is so full of devotion and love, if that is what moves you it is well worth purchasing.

Chris

Ps. I bought the book over twenty years ago---where has the time gone.
I know less now than I did then---that's genuine progress--laughing.


Haha. I can still read the book from the start. Every time I read it, I discover something new.

[greybeard]

I am ignorant.
I know about the state called enlightenment
Yet I am ignorant because I do not know first hand through being that state.

This is why the mystics say it can not be spoken of, it is beyond description, or the mind to get it.

Chris

[Wind]

"When the questions concern the spiritual meaning of life, the spiritual techniques of communion, or the spiritual nature of man, and when they are strongly and earnestly felt, it is the pressure of the answer itself working upon the mind from within that is forcing the questions into the focus of attention. It may take years before the man can unite the two, however." - Paul Brunton

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[Guish]

I am ignorant.
I know about the state called enlightenment
Yet I am ignorant because I do not know first hand through being that state.

This is why the mystics say it can not be spoken of, it is beyond description, or the mind to get it.

Chris


It's about being in harmony with everything. Driving, eating, sleeping and working can be done in harmony. It's about being in the moment and ignoring the wandering mind.

[greybeard]

I am ignorant.
I know about the state called enlightenment
Yet I am ignorant because I do not know first hand through being that state.

This is why the mystics say it can not be spoken of, it is beyond description, or the mind to get it.

Chris


It's about being in harmony with everything. Driving, eating, sleeping and working can be done in harmony. It's about being in the moment and ignoring the wandering mind.

This I do Guish, thanks.
Im surrendered to what ever arises, moment by moment, well most of the time--smiling.

Regards Chris

[Guish]

I am ignorant.
I know about the state called enlightenment
Yet I am ignorant because I do not know first hand through being that state.

This is why the mystics say it can not be spoken of, it is beyond description, or the mind to get it.

Chris


It's about being in harmony with everything. Driving, eating, sleeping and working can be done in harmony. It's about being in the moment and ignoring the wandering mind.

This I do Guish, thanks.
Im surrendered to what ever arises, moment by moment, well most of the time--smiling.

Regards Chris


That's great. I still get caught in routine workload from time to time. Being deprived of sleep doesn't help to meditate. I slept twice during meditation this week.

[Delight]

Cynthia Sue Larson is someone I respect as she links science and is prejudiced towards lucid living, recognizing we are the awareness.

Quantum Jumping Tip: You're Bigger than Any Situation

6OrbQ10nc1Q

[Guish]

G4j6cUwCRmI

[Guish]

Cynthia Sue Larson is someone I respect as she links science and is prejudiced towards lucid living, recognizing we are the awareness.

Quantum Jumping Tip: You're Bigger than Any Situation

6OrbQ10nc1Q

Things just exist. We give a meaning to everything. I like the child analogy because a child lives in the moment and enjoys it. My 15 month baby calls everyone on the street when he walks. He likes everyone and wants to interact with everyone. There's no mental block at this age. This is what it means to go back to the source.

[Zampano]

Just wanted to say, that the last few posts are very important.
Surrender to every situation that arises, dont give them a meaning, stay in the moment, see the synchronisities, knowing that nothing can harm your true essence-be happy.
That is the 24 hour meditation...after some time you automatically behave like it and then miracles will happen.
All the best on your journey!

[Guish]

Time for a new koan:

  Everything Is Best

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

"Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer.

"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best."

At these words Banzan became enlightened.

[Guish]

One day there was an earthquake that shook the entire Zen temple. Parts of it even collapsed. Many of the monks were terrified. When the earthquake stopped the teacher said, "Now you have had the opportunity to see how a Zen man behaves in a crisis situation. You may have noticed that I did not panic. I was quite aware of what was happening and what to do. I led you all to the kitchen, the strongest part of the temple. It was a good decision, because you see we have all survived without any injuries. However, despite my self-control and composure, I did feel a little bit tense - which you may have deduced from the fact that I drank a large glass of water, something I never do under ordinary circumstances."

One of the monks smiled, but didn't say anything.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the teacher.

"That wasn't water," the monk replied, "it was a large glass of soy sauce."

[greybeard]

A major challenge is identification.
I am a seeker of enlightenment --I am a Christian---I am a Buddhist-- any statement that has I, me and mine, is, self; personal identification which is duality.

Chris

[Wind]

Don't be so quick to believe in the mind’s projections.
You are not the mind.
Don't come under its spell.
The mind is a great magician.
It has hypnotised 7 billion human beings.
In the realm of personhood, it is full of tricks and has the power to make a lot of mischief, confusion, distortion and delusion.
But yours is a greater power. It is the power of the pure Self.
The power to observe with detachment, to recognise that all phenomena are transient appearances and that oneself is the formless witness—timeless and ever-perfect.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

A major challenge is identification.
I am a seeker of enlightenment --I am a Christian---I am a Buddhist-- any statement that has I, me and mine, is, self; personal identification which is duality.

Chris

Nothing is you. Your name was given by your parents. Your job description was provided by your workplace. Your arguments were created by knowledge grasped since birth. What are you? Nothing. Realizing I'm nothing is everything.

Usually my wife gets bored and asks me to keep quiet when I start reflecting on this.

Warm regards,
Guish.

[greybeard]

A major challenge is identification.
I am a seeker of enlightenment --I am a Christian---I am a Buddhist-- any statement that has I, me and mine, is, self; personal identification which is duality.

Chris



Nothing is you. Your name was given by your parents. Your job description was provided by your workplace. Your arguments were created by knowledge grasped since birth. What are you? Nothing. Realizing I'm nothing is everything.

Usually my wife gets bored and asks me to keep quiet when I start reflecting on this.

Warm regards,
Guish.

Ha you too.
My wife thinks im talking rubbish--"You should hear yourself sometimes" she says.
I actually rarely speak about spirituality.
The spiritual section of Avalon is the main source and input.
Everything I write is really second hand, as yet I am ignorant of my true nature.

Best wishes
Chris

[Guish]

I've been more reflective since the birth of my son. It seems to have triggered my growth. I really observe the way I behave and tell myself that I need to get more detached to things. My wife thinks that I'll abandon them and live as a hermit in the future. She really believes this will happen. Poor soul..It's been great talking to you.

Cheers,
Geerish.

[Grizz Griswold]

A major challenge is identification.
I am a seeker of enlightenment --I am a Christian---I am a Buddhist-- any statement that has I, me and mine, is, self; personal identification which is duality.

Chris



Nothing is you. Your name was given by your parents. Your job description was provided by your workplace. Your arguments were created by knowledge grasped since birth. What are you? Nothing. Realizing I'm nothing is everything.

Usually my wife gets bored and asks me to keep quiet when I start reflecting on this.

Warm regards,
Guish.

Ha you too.
My wife thinks im talking rubbish--"You should hear yourself sometimes" she says.
I actually rarely speak about spirituality.
The spiritual section of Avalon is the main source and input.
Everything I write is really second hand, as yet I am ignorant of my true nature.

Best wishes
Chris

Ignorant of my true nature?...Your true nature runs out the corners of the monitor
and puddles up on my desk when i read your posts. hehe

It comes through the words of all you write and rings like a hundred foot bell.

No the "i" will never recognize it but there is surely something in you that does.

It's like a tree saying i can't see the forest for the trees....Would someone bring a chainsaw
and get some of these trees out of the way so i can find it.


Saint Francis of Assisi " What is looking is what you're looking for"....backward but still means the same thing.

It's like a good joke but we're forgetting to laugh.

Here's Mike Snider, funny but with a lot of meat.

http://www.firstknowthyself.org/audio/raleigh-sig-2013/raleigh-sig-2013-04-03-mike-snider-absolute-identity.mp3

Namaste....barry.....Smiling

[greybeard]

Hi Barry
I only heard Mike Snider once before--he was standing in for Adyashanti---and was hilarious and right on the button regarding enlightenment.

Thanks for your kind comments--knowing about, is unfortunately not it.
Though I believe I am That---proof would be appreciated.
However.
Ramesh jokingly said "If you have the choice of £1million or enlightenment, take the money"---meaning there is no one left to enjoy or appreciate the money if enlightenment occurs---- You could say enjoyment happens but no one is left to personally enjoy it
The me/self is replaced by Self.
See its all a pardox --its a joke on the mind.

Best wishes
Chris

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Hi Guish good talking to you too
There certainly is understanding/sharing going on with this thread.
Does my heart good.

Best wishes
Chris

[Guish]

Nothing can replace experience. Please read the following zen story.

Once upon a time, there were a father and a son of a family in a busy city. The father was a very skillful thief in the city. He was getting older and older and worried about his son, who was still rather young and knew nothing about his great art, would not be able to take care of himself and the great art will be missing when he dies. Afterall, the time was coming.

One late night, he made his son came along with him to a rich family at the center of the city. They hid themselves in a bush in the backyard of the rich family and were waiting until there were no more people by-passed on the street and all the members of the family were in deep sleep. And both of them started digging and digging and made a narrow and short tunnel passed under the wall and opened up inside the house. Both of them finally were in there. They saw many antique expensive things, and jewery, and diamonds, and gems... sitting on the desks in the treasure-room. The father took some jewery and diamonds, then quitely walked to the tunnel. The son was still picking up some more and did not know his father was gone until he was ready to be gone with him.

But there were many loud noises was made by his father outside the wall to wake up the people in the house. He was so upset with his father's actions but he could not do anything stop him.

Meanwhile, the homeowner lit up lamps and tried to find thieves. He knew he could not escape right away, and his eyes glanced around in seconds, he saw a big box with a lid on. Immediately, he opened the box and put himself in there and covered the lid gently to avoid making any noises. He kept himself as silent as he could in the box. When one of the people held a lamp coming close to him. He opened the lid, came out, blew out the lamp and ran back to the tunnel. People were running after him in his direction but he was faster than they were and he got into the tunnel quickly.

When he got out the tunnel and on the wayside he came to a well which he had seen before he got in the house. He picked up a rather big stepstone near the well and threw it into the well make a sound like a man falling into it.
People now got to the spot and thought that the thief should be falling into the very deep well and would be drowsy and dead in a short time and they got back into the house and got more sleep.

When the son was back to his house, his father was very glad to see his son back home in safe.
The son was still very upset with his father and complained:
-Why did you do that to me? You wanted me arrested there?
His father quietly said:
-Congratulations! My son. From now on you are able to take care of yourself. So, I will not worry about you anymore."

The art of teaching and learning in Zen is something similar to this art. No Scriptures, no Bible could help you in a situation like that. You are on your own in any situation you'd be in. At that moment you are wisdom and wisdom is you.

[Wind]

Everybody is invited to this bon fire.
Throw all your questions.
Throw all the answers as well.
Throw all your cares.
Have that much courage.
Say I have no time for answers anymore.
Put everything into this fire.
And do it now also.
This is the instant way.
Throw everything now.
No practice,
No philosophy.
But who can do it, you see?
Be willing to be completely empty.
Don't even be a woman.
Don't be a seeker.
Don't be anything.
Don't say any more prayers.
Don't chant any more mantras.
Don't go on any more pilgrimages.
Leave everything, because up till now even your seeking is an avoidance,
another excuse of your mind not to discover the ever-present truth.
Our minds want to say a lot about truth.
But nothing it says is true.
You are here before the mind.
You know it's ways.
This is why I say
throw everything in the fire right now.
It seems very drastic, my words,
but they are totally powerful.
Why keep walking around with the mind on your back?
Put him down and walk away free.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

Hi Friends,

Find an interesting article on the link below.

http://goodlifezen.com/letting-go-is-not-the-same-as-giving-up/

[Wind]

"In a world of constantly changing scenes, fortunes, health, and relationships, a precious possession is the knowledge that there is the unseen Unchanging Real. Still more precious is awareness within oneself of ITS ever-presence."

"The mind interprets its own experience in a particular way because, owing to its structure, it could not do so in another way. But these limitations are not eternal and absolute. When, as in dream, yoga, death, or hallucination, they are abruptly loosened, then experience is interpreted in a new and different way."

"If he will try to perceive the mind by which he perceives the world, he will be practising the shortest, most direct technique of discovering the Overself. This is what Ramana Maharshi meant when he taught, "Trace the `I' to its source."

"Be still and know that I am God" is the key to the enigma of truth, for it sums up the whole of the Short Path. Paradox is the final revelation. For this is "non-doing." Rather is it a "letting-be," a non-interference by your egoistic will, a silencing of all the mental agitation and effort."

"If God is everywhere, as He must be, then He is in man too. This fact makes possible his discovery, under certain conditions, of a diviner element in his being which is ordinarily obscured."

~ Paul Brunton


https://scontent-b-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10341697_534599366676633_3023798903150104955_n.jpg?oh=7d991fe9e74014e6cb5b987c62555ae0&oe=54BA399E

[Wind]

I come to call you Home.
Those who resonate with my words and follow them internally,
will find that place and know It's completeness, its joy and fullness.
I have come to call you away from suffering,
from fear and from a life of sorrow and into your own, divine Being.

I did not come here to give you decorative stories, to excite your imagination,
or sign you up for some long program but to show you how available Truth is,
and to remind you that you are never separate from It.

No person on this planet is apart from the Truth in the Heart
and yet the world is so vast and varied in expression.
The greatest good and greatest evil is here.
In this forest of duality and complexity you must find your way Home.

You must win your Self back. Wisdom and trust will be your compass.
Many voices came to call us but we are here today because
we are freshly called by the voice of God, Love, Truth.
Do not come half way home, but fully home.

I know the voice that called you is true and Truth
and that where you are being called to is also Real.
It is inside your own Heart.
It is what gives me the strength to be here.

I love to see the beings being set free from the hypnosis of conditioning;
from fears, false projection and the grip of ego.
And I know that to be liberated is not difficult.

It requires only openness and the sincere desire to be free.
I don't need to hear anything about your past.
Your stories are of no interest to me.
That is not how I know you.

I know you only through your Heart.
That is my true connection with you -
the living power of God.
It is That which I respond to in you
and it is only This that I know.

I can only keep reminding you of It by pointing you again and again to the obvious in yourself.
Now you must respond to my pointing.
This will complete this yoga of seeing.

Find and be one with That which is imperishable.
Be merged in the Absolute.
Don't go to sleep.

~ Mooji

[Wind]

"When one is up against an especially difficult situation for which no immediate solution can be found, it will help him if he will use the time while waiting for the change--which will come--in order to deliberately cultivate greater patience and forebearance, as well as a more objective attitude."

- Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t31.0-8/p843x403/10694312_538092222994014_1723357676598334684_o.jpg

[Wind]

You ask, ‘What breaks this spell of delusion? Is it determination?’
No. The Self does not need determination.
You don’t need some extra strength, courage or blessing.
You don’t need anything, for you are perfect and beyond need.
You are Truth itself, but presently you cannot step out of what you always thought of as your self,
your constructed self-image or self-portrait.
Your mind is not accepting that it is already done.
It is not even done.
It is neither finished nor unfinished.
It just Is.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

The perfect action occurs without an intention.

Guish.

[bodhii71]

Panache Desai - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview ( I found this interview intriguing if for nothing more than a mention of Matrayia... an indirect allusion that Panache may indeed be that person. The interview itself was worth a watch. Panche states his purpose for being here is to break apart the systems of control that are dominating and manipulating mankind and to be a fore bearer where in the future enlightenment will be commonplace.)

Those unfamiliar with Buddha at the Gas Pump can find over 200 interviews, well worth the time to check out.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQrgP83qdII

[greybeard]

Tony Parsons
The Open Secret

An interview on Conscious TV

A very direct and humorous discussion---very enjoyable.

Chris

There are subtitles, not in English, though the talk is.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL3aIolKCmA

[Wind]

"Think! What does the "I" stand for? This single and simple letter is filled with unutterable mystery. For apart from the infinite void in which it is born and to which it must return, it has no meaning. The Eternal is its hidden core and content."

- Paul Brunton

https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/1932361_539011152902121_250066544804233571_n.jpg?oh=fe95061e3a736507eb5027c09661e54f&oe=54B12DFD

[Wind]

"The knowledge got from metaphysics, the intuitive peace gained from meditation, must now be accompanied by practical work done wisely and altruistically in the world to express both. The student must evoke the strength to descend into this sharply contrasting activity. The quest is not a single-track but rather a triple-track affair. He must travel along it with his intelligence, his intuition, and his deeds. "All speak of the Open Path, only rare ones enter the complex path," wrote Shah Latif, the eighteenth-century Sufi poet.

When rational thought and mystical feeling and self-alienated action are thus integrated into one, when life becomes a sincere and successful whole, it becomes philosophic. It may be that such a combination of qualities has been rare in the past, but it is certain that it will be necessary in the future. The world will need men and women as leaders who have their roots deep down in the life of the divine self but who have their intellects very much alert, their hands very much alive, and their hearts very much expanded.."

- Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10665841_538623919607511_5055272260004741820_n.jpg?oh=b84af85db086c88a8e240436ed348556&oe=54F06495&__gda__=1424568092_032011723ad8fab87e055d0ca02b5304

[Wind]

If there is an ‘I’ who can ‘get it’,
there will be an ‘I’ who can ‘lose it’,
and this ‘I’ is nothing but thought.
It is the most costly thought when believed in,
for it exchanges your innocence for complexity
and your spontaneity for inhibition.

~ Mooji


"When thinking comes naturally to its rest, either because he has felt his way through intense reverence to the higher power or because he has apprehended the truth by the subtlest and sharpest perception, then stillness is born. It would be an error to continue either the feeling or the thinking beyond this time. The utter stillness must take their place, and he must humbly yield to it. At such a moment, the ego is withdrawn; the knowing intuition, the great Peace, alone remains."

- Paul Brunton

https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/s552x414/10414503_540237919446111_6971086643870546119_n.jpg?oh=e1a2348f35941c9317421a13b7a6fe6b&oe=54ECFF7D

[Grizz Griswold]

Douglas Harding and his unique perspective.

jcDMJvO6aHU

b0okQCx9108

barry

[greybeard]

The Douglas Harding videos brought to mind this one of Ramana Maharshi with Harding being the main contributor.
Thanks Barry

Chris



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSNEib2RDl8

[Wind]

"We complain that there is no response to our prayer for uplift or light. But that is because there is no propriety in our approach. The intellectually gifted comes with his arrogance and the artistically gifted with his vanity, while each man comes with his pride. The correct approach was described by Jesus: Become as a little child; for then we become humble, feel dependent, and begin to lay the ego aside. With that the door to the Overself opens and its grace begins to shine through."

- Paul Brunton

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We don’t have to close down the active world, the senses don’t have to shot down to make way for the Self. Let everything play. Don’t pursue anything. And yet at the same time whatever needs to be done gets done, what needs to be left gets left. Your life does not become a life of strategy and techniques. You are the natural Self.

~ Mooji

[Skyhaven]

Very funny, I don't get it, but funny it is. :o
NMHcak07pmE

[Shadowman]

Very funny, I don't get it, but funny it is. :o
NMHcak07pmE


I laughed like a hyena during my first few satori's,

the first realization of eternal being just completely releases

all the ego baggage of worry, fear etc. You really do lighten up, lol.

but when the final jump happened it was profound beyond description.

Completely AWESTRUCK,

With Love,
tim

[Wind]

Father Lord,
Thank you for the experience of life, for the joy of being,
for the field of harmony, grace and this deep contentment inside my Heart.
And beyond all this, thank you for the knowledge and unbroken experience of unity with you as the immutable One.

~ Mooji

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10704190_10152593964928962_3044045343355393457_n.jpg?oh=fa0594326b5871add426c4efc8237ee2&oe=54EDBBA0&__gda__=1423899077_aa4c57ac74bd4f03079b7fdb0e2a0319

[greybeard]

Every stream ends up in the ocean.
It finds to its surprise the ocean is identical to it self. Water is water.
That which thought is was a stream now finds itself, in Truth, the Ocean.

Chris

[Grizz Griswold]

Every stream ends up in the ocean.
It finds to its surprise the ocean is identical to it self. Water is water.
That which thought is was a stream now finds itself, in Truth, the Ocean.

Chris

Truth is ....that which thought is was a stream.... always was the Ocean!!!(smiling from ear to ear)

It just hadn't Realized it!

With Love.

barry

[Delight]

This is such important conversation for me today.....

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adding this one also...

rhcJNJbRJ6U

[Wind]

My dear Ego: ”It is obvious that in this world I cannot live without you. Your presence is overwhelming, fills every instinct, thought, feeling, and action. But it is also obvious that I cannot live with you. The time has come to adjust our relationship. So I have one request to make of you. Please get out of my way!” ~ Paul Brunton


As you listen in openness, something begins to stir inside your own heart.
Your simple role is just to say, 'Yes, rid me of ego and merge me with you.'
Then duality and non-duality become a harmony, a light play.
Your mind wants to write its name on this journey, but the Truth is: you have done nothing.
And in Truth, there is nothing you can really do or own.
Simply keep quiet. Gradually merge in the infinite bliss of being.
This privilege Grace has offered you.

~ Mooji

[Grizz Griswold]

3jBc8c7ftWY

Paul Heddermans take on.........
You are The Lion!
Realize You have always been what you are
and could never be anything different.

Namaste.....barry

[greybeard]

Non Duality - Awakenings (loaded 03 November 2014)
Eimear Moran is the Author of the book, 'The Garden Path Home to Eden - A new Way of seeing Love, Self and the Garden.' Eimear could always see the Divine in Nature and when her life seemed to fall apart she could only allow this total "free Fall" in the safe place of her Garden where she would sit with all her pain and loneliness. One day she sat in her Garden looking at a Hawthorn Tree; it was a grey, cold day and miserable. The tree looked poor and barren and she thought: "I must look as barren to this tree as he to me." In this moment she woke up and realized her true Nature. An amazing feeling of love came over her, it was a reality of heavenly perfection and she knew she had met God. Eimear can be contacted at: eimearmoran@eircom.net

Prajna Ginty - 'The Edge Of Grace' - Interview by Renate McNayNon Duality - Awakenings (loaded 03 November 2014)
Prajna Ginty - 'The Edge Of Grace' - Interview by Renate McNay (watch this programme)
Prajna is a Mother, Spiritual Teacher and Author of the book, 'Edge of Grace - A Seeker's Path to the Heart of Liberation.' She was on top of the 'Enlightenment Mountain' and spent 7 years in Samadhi when she was thrown by spirit into a cauldron of transmuting fire. A long walk in the dark night began where she felt she cannot live this life anymore. One night she went close to the Cliff and began jumping when something picked her up saying, 'this is your purpose and the life to live...you're staying, go home.' Prajna explains: 'I want everyone to know that regardless of their circumstances they can directly experience wholeness, return to the deepest peace and live in freedom'.

Bart Marshall - 'Only This Emptiness' - Interview by Iain McNayNon Duality - Awakenings (loaded 12 September 2014)
Bart Marshall - 'Only This Emptiness' - Interview by Iain McNay (watch this programme)
In the Vietnam War a mortar landed nearby that blew Bart into a clear and brilliant blackness that, "Felt like home. I would have gladly stayed in that blackness, but instead I was brought back into a world I could no longer view in the same way." When he returned in 1968 he experimented with LSD, read everything he could find that might offer clues to what had happened to him, studied meditation and attended workshops. After 20 years he hit a wall as a seeker and then met the teacher Richard Rose whom he studied with for 5 years. It was after a weekend with Douglas Harding that a breakthrough finally happened. "Being the source of everything that is nothing - everything and nothing, only this emptiness."


These can be found via the link below.
Thanks to Conscious TV
Chris

http://www.conscious.tv/

[Grizz Griswold]

Bart Marshall - 'Only This Emptiness' - Interview by Iain McNayNon Duality - Awakenings (loaded 12 September 2014)
Bart Marshall - 'Only This Emptiness' - Interview by Iain McNay (watch this programme)
In the Vietnam War a mortar landed nearby that blew Bart into a clear and brilliant blackness that, "Felt like home. I would have gladly stayed in that blackness, but instead I was brought back into a world I could no longer view in the same way." When he returned in 1968 he experimented with LSD, read everything he could find that might offer clues to what had happened to him, studied meditation and attended workshops. After 20 years he hit a wall as a seeker and then met the teacher Richard Rose whom he studied with for 5 years. It was after a weekend with Douglas Harding that a breakthrough finally happened. "Being the source of everything that is nothing - everything and nothing, only this emptiness."


These can be found via the link below.
Thanks to Conscious TV
Chris

http://www.conscious.tv/

Bart Marshall, Burt Harding and Richard Rose are very good teachers
and on Bart Marshalls, SIG group, You'll find Paul Hedderman, to me
He's the George Carlin of spiritual teachers, several have awakened
while listening to Paul. I highly suggest that all take the time to listen
to Burt and Paul at the link below.

http://www.selfinquiry.org/2012videos.html

Thanks Chris for your introduction of Bart Marshall
a while back.

In Lak'ech

barry

[Omni]

I think part of enlightenment may entail being able to see when you are wrong. So many do not have that ability. Maybe it's not enlightenment but it is indeed valued(by me at least).

[Chester]

In this interview Rupert Spira explains the cause of all suffering and how he has managed to end (his) suffering by realizing the illusion of the separate self.

"Enlightenment is awareness recognizing itself."

Rich Archer plays the role of the unconvinced.

stdMWPtZwnM

[Mist]

A huge thanks to Greybeard for starting this topic, and for the other members sharing such valuable material. I've been coasting through it for the last two days, trying to remind myself that the point is "letting go", not getting intimidated by the massive amount of knowledge on here to be "consumed" by the Type A perfectionist part of myself I keep trying to closet. ;)

Looking forward to reading more....many thanks.

[greybeard]

Hello Mist
Thanks for your kind comments.
There is an enormous amount to get through if you have started page one.
Many people have contributed and over 1000 guests view each week.
Its as though there is a progression from page one to page 156 so there is something here for every one.
I can take no credit for it.
The thread was originally inspired by the teaching of the late Dr David Hawkins and has grown and been expanded by many contributors.

Enjoy the adventure.

Best wishes
Chris

[Chester]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stdMWPtZwnM#t=4304

In this interview Rupert Spira explains the cause of all suffering and how he has managed to end (his) suffering by realizing the illusion of the separate self.

"Enlightenment is awareness recognizing itself."

Rich Archer plays the role of the unconvinced.

At 54:35 ish Rupert states “From the point of view of awareness... the only real point of view...”

And later he says -

“There is a meaning, there is a purpose, there is a destiny, there is something to be achieved...” but Rupert states this is only viewed as such by this apparently unreal separate self. And this could imply that ‘all of this’ is absolutely meaningless.

Now I ask you this... if one of your children came to you and asked you, “Mommy? (or Daddy) why are we alive? Why am I here in this world?” How would you respond? Would you tell them it is an illusion? Would you tell them it means nothing?

So my questions are – “What is there to be aware of?” And my answer is “experience.”

It seems the only way the ‘All that is’ can ‘experience’ is to somehow have something to experience which being the 'all that is' makes something other than itself (that which is experienced) impossible.

So how does the ‘all that is’ accomplish this? Could it be by experiencing an illusion? If the illusion is known to be unreal, how will the ‘all that is’ “get off” on its experience?

Wouldn't 'it' have to trick itself? Could "God's" first action have been self deception?

Another question is – “So I see this now - that I am (and all I am is) the awareness that has recognized itself - ... now what?” “Is this the end?”

And my answer is... “Not at all, in fact enlightenment is just the beginning.”

Now dive back into the illusion with the knowledge of the illusion that it is such and make it as real, as meaningful and as wonderful as you possibly can!”

Be ALL and your story! Both!

Perhaps what is equally important for awareness to recognize is its own imagination.

For by way of one’s imagination all comes forth especially the magical.

[Chester]

In this interview, Rupert demonstrates his ego is alive, well and kicking (the questioner’s ass).

He calls this – The Direct Path.

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Echart Tolle suggests we take what we know of the experience of humanity 1.0 and what we have learned while being humanity 2.0 to become humanity 3.0 which strongly implies that even if we could, he might should NOT return to humanity 1.0 and instead embrace the opportunity we have to – on our own terms – create the way humanity 3.0 manifests.

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No longer does God do it all (humanity 1.0) and no longer do we need to rebel against God (humanity 2.0). Instead, we realize we ARE God and thus we realize we now, via our imaginations, create (with full knowledge of our own, personal responsibility) the ever flowering experience (humanity 3.0). In this scenario we redeem both ourselves and God (for those who still wish for redemption).

[greybeard]

As said by Rupert---teachers meet you where you stand---basically they water down the Truth so that is attractive to the "seeker" and easily digested.

Eckhart, in particular, does this when speaking of the evolution of the human race---he will also say that you are not human. That you are the field in which events happen. Now and then he will slip in statements like "There never was anyone there to do anything to you."

Non-duality is quite direct--no messing about---You are That---

The individual is an illusion and so ultimately is ego---just a bundle of thoughts---however conditioning is very powerful.
In the dream and that's what is awakened from (being an individual person) everything is very valid--the pain and suffering is very real.
The Buddha saw this as misery and the teaching is about the freedom from ignorance and therefore can be summed up simply "No self, no problem"
Thats what a Buddhist Monk said to Eckhart when he asked for an explanation of Buddhism.

So basically its all levels and each level is very real and true for the seeming individual at that point in their uncovering of the ultimate Truth.
It would seem and Rupert says this more or less-- the direct path is now more commonly used, no longer a need for story telling etc.

Having been here there and every where and been on the spiritual merry go round, its great to see so many teachers now pointing to ultimate Truth.
The Mooji talks Wind posts here are very much in your face, Ultimate Truth, no diversions, no messing.

Chris

[Chester]

Ahhh I now see it -

self, no problem! This is where I am now at after becoming bored with 'no self.'

You know we are on the same page yet also, you know that I am a "both/and"er.

When this dog (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?40941-Horus-Ra-as-the-Archontic-Alien-Parasite-A-follow-up-interview-with-Maarit&p=890067&viewfull=1#post890067) had its teeth sunk deep within my flesh and I bent down to pull its jaws open, it was truly impossible for me to simultaneously be of the mind "this is all illusion." I also observed that my friend who was standing there when it happened, was not having the same experience. There were two of us, one bitten and the other not. Maybe we shouldn't call these beings "selfs?"

But what is interesting is that though the experience was (and remained for some time) painful - because of my deep inner knowing that it really is all illusion I didn't fall into the old habit of projection of fear thoughts.

[Wind]

"Awakening to the need of the Divine may come through some mental crisis or emotional shock which shakes the whole of man's being to its deepest foundations. It is out of the suffering and grief produced by such a situation that he plants the first trembling steps on the secret path. It is such outer torments of life that shatter inner resistance so that the need for spiritual help is acknowledged. And the more unsatisfactory outward life becomes, the more satisfactory does the blessed inward life seem both by contrast and in itself."

---

"The body is a thought-complex which I have, and as a thought it is certainly part of myself. But that does not make it properly me."

"This sense, force, or feeling within him, which calls itself I, has its innermost part in that which observes it, the Overself."

"The body in which he dwells is not himself. The intellect with which he thinks is not himself. The consciousness by which he utters "I" IS himself."

- Paul Brunton

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[Chester]

I feel like one point on a 5 pointed star.

I also feel I know exactly which direction my point is pointing.

Interestingly, this direction is "both directions."

27933

[Wind]

The emptiness I speak about is not the emptiness the mind imagines.
It is not blank.
Your body can continue expressing in a natural way.
Intelligence is there. Emotions can come.
Everything can play, but inside there is total serenity and peace.
No planning, no strategising, no personal identity is there.
Just the space of pure being.
It is what we are, but we dream and believe we are not.

---

We don’t have to close down the active world, the senses don’t have to shut down to make way for the Self.
Let everything play. Don’t pursue anything.
And yet at the same time whatever needs to be done gets done, what needs to be left gets left.
Your life does not become a life of strategy and techniques.
You are the natural Self.

~ Mooji

_Y3OoDh_RAE

[Mark]

Just checking in as it has been a while since I have visited my friends here in this particular space of Becoming.

I am currently reading the Course for Miracles.

It has been a curious journey so far. The text itself is written mathematically as its logic conforms strictly.

I find that its core teaching is very much the same as these teachings of non-duality.

Does anyone else here have experience with this text? What are your thoughts about it?

[Carmen]

Yes I've read it, in bits and pieces! It's very complex especially initially. I tend to go back and revisit this book when I have a breakthrough of spiritual understanding or realisation. I find that I can read some complex books with new eyes or wider understanding. I do this with all my key spiritual books. If the breakthrough is valid then I understand my books at the new level! It's wonderful when this happens.

[onawah]

The Course was a lifesaver for me years ago during the Gulf War, when the US was in a frenzy of "patriotism", even in the liberal little beach town, Santa Cruz, Ca., where I was living at the time.
Having lived for a few years with a Vietnam Marine Vet, I was having all kind of post traumatic stress syndrome symptoms, and the gov was spraying for the Medfly at the time with helicopters, which really set me off.
And that was curious, because I'd never had any negative encounters with copters, though my partner certainly had...
In any case, I felt like I was living in an insane asylum. I was browsing desperately at the public library, trying to find something that might help me to keep some shred of sanity, and came across the Course.
I read all the books in record time, then joined a couple of groups, later started my own group, and was thinking about moving to Ashland, Oregon, where there were a lot of people into the Course.
Eventually it was replaced with other tools, but for that time and place, it was certainly helpful, though not as perfect as I first thought.
I had left Christianity behind at a young age to pursue Buddhist, Hindu, Tantra, Wicca, etc. philosophies, but there was a part of me that still needed to reprogram and update that early Christian mindset; and that is constantly being revised to this day...
Currently I take any channeled info with a big, heaping tablespoon of salt.
There may be gems among the trash, but you really have to use a lot of discernment to know the difference.
Though basically, I think that anything that helps (in Truth, not denial) to foster love and keep our minds out of fear is worth pursuing.

[Mark]

Yes I've read it, in bits and pieces! It's very complex especially initially. I tend to go back and revisit this book when I have a breakthrough of spiritual understanding or realisation. I find that I can read some complex books with new eyes or wider understanding. I do this with all my key spiritual books. If the breakthrough is valid then I understand my books at the new level! It's wonderful when this happens.

I agree with the complexity part absolutely. It necessitates, for me, a continuous revisiting of certain passages, to internalize them and also to work against other ingrained ideas that are logically inconsistent. This seems to be one of those books that you can open to any passage and find useful information for that moment. I understand why you would go back and revisit it. Thank you for sharing Carmen. As it is my first read and I am going through slowly, I feel the work influencing the patterns of thought that are ingrained within me. So far, about 4 chapters and 17 lessons in, I have not yet found anything that my intuition has flared at in a negative way.


The Course was a lifesaver for me years ago during the Gulf War, when the US was in a frenzy of "patriotism", even in the liberal little beach town, Santa Cruz, Ca., where I was living at the time.
Having lived for a few years with a Vietnam Marine Vet, I was having all kind of post traumatic stress syndrome symptoms, and the gov was spraying for the Medfly at the time with helicopters, which really set me off.
And that was curious, because I'd never had any negative encounters with copters, though my partner certainly had...

Wow that sounds intense. It also sounds like a time when your life really needed some contextual grounding within higher forms of perception and experience.


In any case, I felt like I was living in an insane asylum. I was browsing desperately at the public library, trying to find something that might help me to keep some shred of sanity, and came across the Course.

Synchronicitous, eh? It is funny to me when things seem to pop up like that. I find that my rational mind sometimes tends to reject them just because of my training, as a scientist. I think to myself, could this really be meant for me, just because it has appeared? I have even banish the synchronicitious suggestion at times in the past, and choose something else to be contrary. I cannot say at this time whether that has been a negative or not, as the suggested path was not followed, but perhaps so.


Eventually it was replaced with other tools, but for that time and place, it was certainly helpful, though not as perfect as I first thought.
I had left Christianity behind at a young age to pursue Buddhist, Hindu, Tantra, Wicca, etc. philosophies, but there was a part of me that still needed to reprogram and update that early Christian mindset; and that is constantly being revised to this day...

It sounds like our paths have been similar. After an early life of indoctrination, it only took leaving home and going to college for me to begin to free myself from much of the indoctrination I'd undergone and to explore the same paths that you did. During that time, though, the Christianity remained a part of who I was. The deeper teachings primarily, although the ritual remained as well, as it is all part of the programming. I went to church still, as an adult at different times, especially after I had children, to ground them in a spiritual understanding of life. As it is an individual journey, I understood that providing this foundation would provide them with the ability to discern for themselves as they began and continued their own personal explorations, which I have and continue to augment with understandings based upon the deeper truths underlying all religious systems.


Currently I take any channeled info with a big, heaping tablespoon of salt.
There may be gems among the trash, but you really have to use a lot of discernment to know the difference.
Though basically, I think that anything that helps (in Truth, not denial) to foster love and keep our minds out of fear is worth pursuing.

I agree in regards to channeled teachings. So far, I have not found anything in the Course that is not based upon the profound logic that runs through its first chapters. But it is still early on.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. :)

[Grizz Griswold]

Just checking in as it has been a while since I have visited my friends here in this particular space of Becoming.

I am currently reading the Course for Miracles.

It has been a curious journey so far. The text itself is written mathematically as its logic conforms strictly.

I find that its core teaching is very much the same as these teachings of non-duality.

Does anyone else here have experience with this text? What are your thoughts about it?

I started reading A Course In Miracles around 1988, it has brought me much peace.

Yes there are other ways, other teachers that still point to the same truth.
If you feel drawn to the Course, it very well may be for You.
Some statements from the Course may seem radical or absurd.
This is because the thought system we now have, has been so imbedded
within us that the ego only allows for its own biased witnesses which will keep its
own thought system in place. The jury has been packed and the judge bought.
To change this, the ego tells us, this will take time but in reality time does not exist.

I like the statement "I Need Do Nothing" that the Course makes below.


To DO anything involves the body. And if you recognize you NEED do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time.

To some, the Course is hard to understand and for most, understanding is a work
in progress. Some benefit more from the Workbook some the Text.
Either way, doesn't matter, there can be great benefits from the Course.

This is the Course summed up.

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.

If You continue You may realize this statement to be true.

With Love
barry

[Mark]

This is the Course summed up.

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.

If You continue You may realize this statement to be true.

With Love
barry

Thank you so much Barry, for your words. I can read your experience beneath the text and know you know of what you speak. For me, the course is foundaional in that it is helping to sieve through the detritus of knowledge gleaned over decades of exploration. It reinforces Truth already internalized and experienced. Guides words through pathways of precision, if that makes sense.

Many blessings.

[greybeard]

"The moment you take up a position know that you are identifying with an illusion."
That did it for me from the course.
I was very opinionated.

I came to see that I do not have to be right.
I dont even need to have an opinion.
Great freedom comes from this.
The response "May be so" silently in my head covers a multitude of situations.

Of course sometimes I drop myself in it.
That can actually be fun as I find it hard to take myself seriously.

The daily lessons are very helpful in reducing ego, an entirely different way of looking at self, perception and life.
Its quite challenging but well worth doing.
There are many study groups and it really is worth while meeting up with like minded people.

The Late Dr David Hawkins was a great supporter of ACIM and maintained that healing could occur through the practice of the lessons.
He was also strong on The Twelve Steps of AA as a spiritual "tool".

Chris

[Mark]

The daily lessons are very helpful in reducing ego, an entirely different way of looking at self, perception and life.
Its quite challenging but well worth doing.

There are many study groups and it really is worth while meeting up with like minded people.
Chris

I am currently reading it with my partner, Sirayah and we are both taking a lot from it. Doing the reading and the workbook simultaneously seems to be a good way to go about it for us. It is interesting that as I travel through my days, I am continuously meeting people who have worked through the Course themselves, and their encouragement is definitely a boon. As are the words of all here who have shared their own experiences with me now. Thank you all so much. :)

[Chester]

Just checking in as it has been a while since I have visited my friends here in this particular space of Becoming.

I am currently reading the Course for Miracles.

It has been a curious journey so far. The text itself is written mathematically as its logic conforms strictly.

I find that its core teaching is very much the same as these teachings of non-duality.

Does anyone else here have experience with this text? What are your thoughts about it?

Lots of pages to tell you what you clearly already know. It is authoritarian as well. The Teacher's Manual (at the back of the book) is where you might start as from reading your posts - you are at least there and perhaps beyond. That book made a profound difference in my life but am well past it now (having achieved my current non-dual duality).

[Mark]

Lots of pages to tell you what you clearly already know. It is authoritarian as well. The Teacher's Manual (at the back of the book) is where you might start as from reading your posts - you are at least there and perhaps beyond. That book made a profound difference in my life but am well past it now (having achieved my current non-dual duality).

You know I love you, right, Chester?

Yes. Shhhh. Don't tell my lady. She still likes to argue with me about enlightenment. ;)

[Chester]

Lots of pages to tell you what you clearly already know. It is authoritarian as well. The Teacher's Manual (at the back of the book) is where you might start as from reading your posts - you are at least there and perhaps beyond. That book made a profound difference in my life but am well past it now (having achieved my current non-dual duality).

You know I love you, right, Chester?

Yes. Shhhh. Don't tell my lady. She still likes to argue with me about enlightenment. ;)

Here's the mind blowing statement in the Manual for Teachers that appears forever true (at least in my own experience).


The course.... emphasizes that to teach is to learn, so that teacher and learner are the same. [Also]... teaching [thus learning] is a constant process, it goes on every moment of the day, and continues into sleeping thoughts as well.

As I have claimed, I am not only 'stark raving enlightened,' I have graduated to 'in your face! enlightened' thus proving I definitely have much, much more to learn.

As quantum physicist John Hagelin says...


Enlightenment is just the beginning.

I sure hope so and so do my loved ones and friends (haha).

[Grizz Griswold]

As I have claimed, I am not only 'stark raving enlightened,' I have graduated to 'in your face! enlightened' thus proving I definitely have much, much more to learn.

As quantum physicist John Hagelin says...


Enlightenment is just the beginning.

I sure hope so and so do my loved ones and friends (haha).

Along with Enlightenment/awakening/realization then comes integration, putting it to use
in all situations.

"If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose".......Jack Handy


With Love
barry

[Mark]

Here's the mind blowing statement in the Manual for Teachers that appears forever true (at least in my own experience).


The course.... emphasizes that to teach is to learn, so that teacher and learner are the same. [Also]... teaching [thus learning] is a constant process, it goes on every moment of the day, and continues into sleeping thoughts as well.

Nice quote. I just began chapter 4 this morning, and this is exactly the point that they make there, in fact, this looks like the same grammatical formulation of it as well.


Teacher and pupil are alike in the learning process. They are in the same order of learning, and unless they share their lessons conviction will be lacking.

Nice synchronicity there, as it made a strong impression on me this morning, and doubly so now. Of all the quotes you could have chosen ...


As quantum physicist John Hagelin says...

[QUOTE]Enlightenment is just the beginning.

I sure hope so and so do my loved ones and friends (haha).

That is actually one of the most satisfying thoughts to me possible. That there IS so much more to learn ...

[Wind]

May all who come in search for Truth come swiftly to the full realisation of the timeless Self.
May you all expand in wisdom, loving kindness and openness.
And may all who meet you be touched and inspired by your peace, silence, wisdom and Grace.
May you never be overwhelmed by sorrow or ignorance but expand into the power and light of the Self wherever you find yourself.
Hold this inside your Heart: this life is for Freedom.
Remember also that you can be without the psychological mind,
but the psychological mind cannot be without you.
Judge which is the greater and make your stand in that.
The recognition of the Self does not need to be a lifetime practise.
Use your light to expose the fickleness and transience of the mind. Recognise each time your true position as the witness of the mind.
Don't imagine you are an object in consciousness.
You must be also behind consciousness.
You are also the witness of consciousness.
This conviction will develop in it's fullness.
Know that the whole universe supports your liberation.
Pay attention to that silence within you.
It does not belong to anyone.
It is not anyone's territory.
It is the infinite space of the Self.
It is your space.
It is what you are.
It is our Home.

It has been a great privilege to be with you here in London.
Namaste.

I love You.

~ Mooji, London 11th of November 2014

[Innocent Warrior]

May all who come in search for Truth come swiftly to the full realisation of the timeless Self...


This is perfection. Beautiful, Wind. :thank_you2:

[Wind]

Only when a human being becomes empty of ego does it become a vessel of the manifestation of the Supreme. When there is sufficient space made through the absence of the person, then the divine cannot hide. It must reveal itself as the Lord inside that form.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

Only when a human being becomes empty of ego does it become a vessel of the manifestation of the Supreme. When there is sufficient space made through the absence of the person, then the divine cannot hide. It must reveal itself as the Lord inside that form.

~ Mooji

Everything comes from emptiness. People who meditate listen more than talk.

[Guish]

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

[Wind]

The emptiness I speak about is not the emptiness the mind imagines.
It is not blank.
Your body can continue expressing in a natural way.
Intelligence is there. Emotions can come.
Everything can play, but inside there is total serenity and peace.
No planning, no strategising, no personal identity is there.
Just the space of pure being.
It is what we are, but we dream and believe we are not.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

The emptiness I speak about is not the emptiness the mind imagines.
It is not blank.
Your body can continue expressing in a natural way.
Intelligence is there. Emotions can come.
Everything can play, but inside there is total serenity and peace.
No planning, no strategising, no personal identity is there.
Just the space of pure being.
It is what we are, but we dream and believe we are not.

~ Mooji

I like how Mooji explains things in such a simple way. As Yogananda says it, high thinking and simple living is the right direction. Simple living can be simplified into no attachment while high thinking can be attained by meditation, practising detachment and refining one's lifestyle.

[Wind]

Without story making, without interpreting, without projecting, without desiring,
you are perfectly happy and in a natural state of peaceful harmony. But don't be thinking this is a personal state.
In the absence of the 'person' the ever-perfect presence prevails.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

Enlightenment is not something you need to achieve. It's what you always were. Forget your actual state to remember your real state.

[greybeard]

"If it is not about me I lose interest" I thought that I was interested in lots of things, nothing to do with me, but I get it now. Its my opinion about XYand Z Im actually interested in.
Absolutely everything is judged by the mind (me) That's what it does and its oh so subtle.

Its on here----Paul Hedderman--He swears up a storm ------Thanks Barry

Taken from http://www.selfinquiry.org/2012videos.html

"If you are offended by strong language dont watch this"


http://vimeo.com/59099716

And Bart Marshall --well worth listening to.


http://vimeo.com/59128409

[Grizz Griswold]

"If it is not about me I lose interest" I thought that I was interested in lots of things, nothing to do with me, but I get it now. Its my opinion about XYand Z Im actually interested in.
Absolutely everything is judged by the mind (me) That's what it does and its oh so subtle.


Hi Chris, We could hear someone say an event happened on planet Jupiter,
the ego will use it and we become worried about how this is going to affect the I/Me/Mine/ My. The ego always looks for opportunity to take advantage.

That's the reasons for asking, what am I not?
When the answer comes, we find out.....

I'm not the thinker!
I'm not these thoughts!
I,m not even the body!

The witness/awareness/eternal sky/ocean/all that is.... is the space in which all these
transient things occur.

Everyday, awareness and timelessness is experienced ...while zoning out...looking out the window... not thinking at all etc etc

But the thoughts of me/my/i come and we become preoccupied because these things are "about Me"
Hedderman says these many thoughts are the glue that holds the illusion together.

When the Realization comes, You will truly recognize, even these thoughts are just passing events taking place in awareness....in that which you truly are eternally.
Like foam on the Ocean or leaves blowing across the sky, there is no effect on Ocean, Sky
or to the eternal awareness/true self.


With Love
barry

[Iloveyou]

I ME ME MINE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvDHwVM-PJI

(please forgive this short interruption, I (!!!) have to poste this-)

[Wind]

The latest videos from Eckhart Tolle.

ztqZkpJ8IqE
U07k4-8AiKA

[Wind]

You say your spiritual sadhana is really paying off.
Every day you are becoming more and more peaceful.
You feel more kind, you have more space.
But you are who exactly?
Some people laugh, but still they don't get it.
Can you, this one you speak as, not also be perceived?
Often, it is right here that the biggest discomfort comes
as the bright light of inquiry exposes the false.
Now, if the mind does not catch you here, you are GONE FREE.
The biggest smoke comes out just when everything is about to vanish.
Strong doubt and fear may come, if not now,
then quite likely following any profound insight.
Paradoxically, you are simultaneously
right at your most seemingly vulnerable
and yet in the most powerful place of liberation.
The psychological serpent mind becomes
the pedophile of the spiritually naive being.
He will say, 'You’re safe here with me.
Don't go into the unknown without my protection.
Come and take some sweetie.'
Will you bite?
Your strength is in keeping quiet, empty and detached of identity whilst trusting in the grace of the Supreme Self.
Can you not see all this as phenomenal?
Just be without personal identity. Be empty.
Is this not all playing out right in front of You, the formless Self?
Can you be apart from the single Self? Who are You?
Consciousness walks along the edge of its own blade.
The blade of its subtlest projection, and yet none of this
really has any power without your interest, belief and identity.

~ Mooji

[Grizz Griswold]

Tony makes the statement that "there is no such thing as an enlightened person"
the person/i/me/my are just temporal things happening within consciousness.

7if7A99_Lpc

barr

[greybeard]

Men and women ---relationship in the spiritual search
Very hilarious and wise.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgsiTJ3ihgw

[Wind]

Very often, when you are guided into the direct experience of the Self
the mind rises up for its biggest fight.
But just stay put and feel the turbulence without identifying personally.
You are likely to get annoyed with this advice
as you are still inclined to protect your relationship with the mind,
but try and follow my pointing and just observe with detachment.
Now is the time where you must discern what is the mind and what is You.
What is so disturbed? What is rebelling so much?
Is this your true Self?
At this point, many give up, because the mind becomes unbearable.
It rebels more on this path than on any other path,
because on other paths the mind is included not threatened.
But do you want to be spiritual or free?

~ Mooji

[Wind]

"I remember the first time I had this astonishing experience. I was fond of disappearing from London whenever the weather allowed and wandering alongside the river Thames in its more picturesque country parts. If the day was sunny I would stretch my feet out, lie down in the grass, pull out notebook and pen from my pocket--knowing that thoughts would eventually arise that would have for me an instructive or even revelatory nature, apart from those ordinary ones which were merely expressive.

One day, while I was waiting for these thoughts to arise, I lost the feeling that I was there at all. I seemed to dissolve and vanish from that place, but not from consciousness. Something was there, a presence, certainly not me, but I was fully aware of it. It seemed to be something of the highest importance, the only thing that mattered. After a few minutes I came back, discovered myself in time and space again; but a great peace had touched me and a very benevolent feeling was still with me. I looked at the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and the grass and felt a tremendous sympathy with them and then when I thought of other persons a tremendous benevolence towards them."

~ Paul Brunton

https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/10805781_554119018058001_5334567748768753662_n.jpg?oh=8b70f41e0efc5ab48382c55f04de2aa9&oe=5510327B

[Wind]

You must get used to dropping your self-image.
Or more easy than dropping the self-image is to realise
that it is also observable. That is easier.
If you can observe it, find out who are you who is observing?
Don't make this a mental question.
The answer is there, but the answer does not need words or concepts.
The fact goes before the question even.
The self-image is seen. By what?
If it is seen, one of these two things must be phenomenal.
Come more and more into your right position as the pure Seer.
It is not a jerk into something more jerky, but if there is a jerk,
it is a jerk into total silence, stillness, serenity, peace and joy.
This Seer is not particularly interested in what is being seen.
A glimpse is enough.
If it takes a long time, there is still too much unspent sleep
as to require re-focusing and re-focusing and re-focusing.
Then, at some point, you naturally come to see that even the activity
of focusing and re-focusing is also phenomenal.
Contemplate.

~ Mooji

[Wind]

Visitations of grace

"When the feel of this unusual and ethereal presence suffuses the heart, the first duty is to drop all attention elsewhere and respond to it. This response is not only to be immediate, unhesitating, and unquestioning; it must also be warm, loving, grateful, and joyous.

These visitations of a higher presence may deceive him into thinking that he has reached a higher degree than he really has. If so, he may expect their light and strength to abide permanently with him. In that case he may plunge into emotional reactions of gloom and disappointment when they ebb. It would be better for him to receive them gratefully as well as to regard their passing as tests of his resignation to the higher self and of his trust that its inner working is not mistaken. It knows quite well what It is doing in and for him."

~ Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10805711_555917341211502_2880577825330548325_n.jpg?oh=999ab8c29107b37af55524817cac4d2f&oe=54D4CCBC&__gda__=1427562592_e2fb028a74f7222aab5421b4b6d40f60

[Grizz Griswold]

I would like to recognize Chris for being a beacon of higher consciousness here on Avalon.
I hope that others can join me in gratitude to Chris for He truly is a teacher in his own right.
His true and loving nature comes through in His words and by His example. His comments and
posts have given many a leg up on their own spirituality. We learn by teaching and Chris has shown
His teaching comes from His true self.

Are there others?.... yes
Let us honor them also....as we do, we honor and have gratitude for our own true self.

Here's to you Chris:yo:

With Love
Bazz

[Shezbeth]

I often have my dispositional disagreements with Greybeard but I accede that he is a wealth of knowledge, perspective, insight, research, and above all peace of mind.

In short, he typifies the term 'exemplary'. I choose different examples, but that doesn't detract that he is one in fact.

<shudders at his own hypocrisy>

[greybeard]

Oh shucks what can I say!!!
but THANKS
Without the encouragement and contributions of many and guests visiting, this thread would have died a long time ago.
Its never thought of as my thread.
Keep it coming.---Im in hibernation--virtually.
Thanks to wind and bazz in particular for keeping this resource going.
c

[Wind]

Chris indeed has been a great teacher and mentor! He has always been a good friend and a calming voice of reason here.

--

The Self is not going to be an experience the person is going to have.
The true experience blasts the 'person' out of the picture all together
and what remains is only the Self.


~ Mooji

[Guish]

82.   Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

[greybeard]

Anger exists, in duality, and all other things, thoughts included, come like waves on the ocean---they arise and subside but they do not affect the true Self, though it is aware of it.
Nothing is personal, however if the house catches fire, best to call the fire brigade.

C

[Guish]

Enlightenment does not occur when you live according to the moment. It occurs when you become the moment. Time loses importance, name holds no significance and the direction becomes irrelevant.

Yours,
Geerish.

[Meggings]

This earth symbolizes all that has been condemned, and heaven, all that has been desired. But I don't divide; to me, both are one. And the day will soon come for you too when you will be able to see that "this" is pregnant with "that." this world is just a womb for the divine; the earthly is just a cover, a protective cover, for the unearthly. The seed, the cell of the seed, is not against the tree, it is a protection. Matter is just a protection for the Divine.

Look, and always try to find the unity. In unity is religion, in disunity religion is lost. And avoid being against. If you are against, you will become rigid, hard, and the harder you become the more dead you will be.

I have heard that it once happened that a gang of robbers, by mistake, entered a monastery. They thought this house belonged to some rich man -- the monastery had a look of richness -- so they entered. But the monks gave them such a hard fight they were happy when they succeeded in escaping. When they met again outside the town, one of the robbers philosophized, "Not bad, we have a hundred rupees among us." The leader said, "You fools! I have always told you to avoid monks. We had five hundred rupees when we entered the monastery!" I also say to you: avoid monks. If you enter the monastery with five hundred flowers, you will have only one hundred when you come out. They are enemies, enemies of "this," and I say those who are enemies of "this" are bound to be enemies of "that" -- whether they know it or not.

Love "this" and love it so deeply that your love transcends "this" and reaches "that." That's what I mean: roots into this earth, and wings into that heaven.

-Rajneesh

[Grizz Griswold]

Paul speaks about mind/consciousness, the space in which all
temporary things occur in. We want to know ourselves as a noun
but the only way we can be ourselves is a verb.

FcVQtlSH6Ok

b

[Wind]

Sometimes I say to people, 'Keep quiet,'
but once the egoic identity drops away,
you will come to see that even this advice to 'keep quiet'
becomes meaningless.
There is nobody left to keep quiet.
When there is somebody there to keep quiet, there is noise.
When there is nobody left to keep quiet, there is Silence.

~ Mooji

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[Innocent Warrior]

"You have already understood the basic mechanics of the unconscious state: identification with the mind, which creates a false self, the ego, as a substitute for your true self rooted in Being. You become as a "branch cut off from the vine," as Jesus puts it.

The egos's needs are endless. It feels vulnerable and threatened and so lives in a state of fear and want. Once you know how the basic dysfunction operates, there is no need to explore all its countless manifestations, no need to make it into a complex personal problem. The ego, of course, loves that. It is always seeking for something to attach itself to in order to uphold and strengthen its illusory sense of self, and it will readily attach itself to your problems. Once this has happened, the last thing they want is to become free of them; that would mean loss of self. There can be a great deal of unconscious ego investment in pain and suffering.

So once you recognize the root of unconsciousness as identification with the mind, which of course includes the emotions, you step out of it. You become present. When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. The mind in itself is not dysfunctional. It is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek yourself in it and mistake it for who you are. It then becomes the egoic mind and takes over your whole life."

- Eckhart Tolle, "The Power Of Now: A guide to spiritual enlightenment", p47-48.

[Wind]

"The Long Path idea of reincarnation is illusory. The Short Path idea of it is that it is an undulatory wave, a ripple, a movement upward onward and downward. Since there is no ego in reality, there can be no rebirth of it. But we do have the appearance of a rebirth. Note that this applies to both the mind and body part of ego: they are like a bubble floating on a stream and then vanishing or like a knot which is untied and then vanishes too. We have to accept the presence of this pseudo-entity, the ego--this mental thing born of many many earth-lives--so long as we have to dwell in that other mental thing, the body. But we do not have to accept its dominance; we do not have to perpetuate its rule, for all is in the Mind. Where then are the reincarnatory experiences? Appearances which were like cinema shows. They happened in a time and space which were in the mind. The individual who emerged lost the individuality and merged in the timelessness of eternity. This is the unchanging indestructible Consciousness, the Overself."

~ Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10392350_558992360904000_3859492245919711534_n.jpg?oh=d4d9ab6428f25d853055d06b5475e12c&oe=55002940&__gda__=1427231480_1b0fa23e7b8faa62e587a9c70ff7ea40

[Grizz Griswold]

Paul Hedderman talks about thoughts as being a failed system.
"You can't think outside the box".... it's like stale popcorn.
Thoughts are the glue that sticks it all together...The idea of
being an I/Me/My ....EGO LAND
Paul invites us to entertain that we are not that!

e89mAmlJW5I

b

[Guish]

The paradox of enlightenment is that it's a state of nothingness. It's even more funny when you conclude that the Emptiness is indeed completeness.

[blotter]

The paradox of enlightenment is that it's a state of nothingness. It's even more funny when you conclude that the Emptiness is indeed completeness.
I 'popped' a few weeks ago and couldn't stop smiling at this. I was with my good friend who's definitely got some siddhi and was back to digging after some time the next morning. Soon enough though, I'm not beating myself up. The story isn't supposed to go that way until the winter solstice or so, right? :p

[Wind]

If few attain the wonder of Overself consciousness, it is because few can lift their minds to the level of impersonality and anonymity. But what all cannot do with their minds, they can do much more easily with their hearts. Let them approach enveloped in love, and the grace will come forward to meet them. By its power, the ego which they could not bring themselves to renounce will be forgotten.

Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rock-like. But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.

~ Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/q83/s552x414/1525420_560300500773186_9184702326982535719_n.jpg?oh=5086af8273f29feab1878ba452876d25&oe=5514D2C9&__gda__=1427421207_2d712065c8c1e6711fdc9af6addfe090

[AnamCara]

With respect, I must say I have never heard of a 'spiritual ego' nor the ego as either an adjunct, adversary or definition of God or 'not God'. Ego, as I understand it, is the 'created self' that has been forming both consciously and subconsciously from our own needs, beliefs, traumas, emotions, associations, experiences, etc. since birth. This is an intellectualized response to our human journey that arises from our perceptions, and this 'ego' takes on the pretense of protection. Beyond this ego or 'created self' is the true self or direct experience which needs no protection.

[Wind]

Love must marry knowledge

"Buddha did not go into deeper problems before he had gone into practical ethics. He taught people to be good and do good before he taught them to venture into the marshy logic of the metaphysical maze. And even when they had emerged safely from a territory where so many lose themselves utterly, he brought them back to ethical values albeit now of a much higher kind because based on utter unselfishness. For love must marry knowledge, pity must shed its warm rays upon the cold intellect. Enlightenment of others must be the price of one's own enlightenment.

These things are not easily felt by the mystic, who is often too absorbed in his own ecstasies to notice the miseries of others, or by the metaphysician, who is often too tied by his own verbosity to his hard and rigorous logic to realize that mankind is not merely an abstract noun but is made up of flesh-and-blood individuals. The philosopher however finds these benign altruistic needs to be an essential part of truth. Consequently the salvation which he seeks--from ignorance and the attendant miseries that dog its steps--is not for himself but for the whole world."

~ Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/t31.0-8/p640x640/10620505_560781247391778_4374905600281010515_o.jpg

[bodhii71]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMa-ri-2XWg

Probably one of the most impactful transmissions or talks I have ever encounter. I'm still vibrating from it, after purging pent up emotions.
With love,
Bodhi

[Wind]

’I am’ before the concept that I need to remember myself or that I could forget myself was believed.
The most effort in spirituality is to shift the consciousness from the person back into Presence.
You still feel the sense ’I am’ but it is not mixed with intention and identity. It becomes the pure witness.
The person is only a role played in Consciousness by Consciousness.

~ Mooji

6mUy51ms98U

[Guish]

The paradox of enlightenment is that it's a state of nothingness. It's even more funny when you conclude that the Emptiness is indeed completeness.
I 'popped' a few weeks ago and couldn't stop smiling at this. I was with my good friend who's definitely got some siddhi and was back to digging after some time the next morning. Soon enough though, I'm not beating myself up. The story isn't supposed to go that way until the winter solstice or so, right? :p

After some years of spiritual practice, I understood why it was said that you should leave your rational mind out of the spiritual quest. Spirituality is intuitive and just based on experience. Describing a meditative state is very tough. It should be experienced only. Great to make you smile, B! Cheers.

[greybeard]

Bart Marshall ‘Only This Emptiness’ - Interview by Iain McNay
In the Vietnam War a mortar landed nearby that blew Bart into a clear and brilliant blackness that, “Felt like home. I would have gladly stayed in that blackness, but instead I was brought back into a world I could no longer view in the same way.”
When he returned in 1968 he experimented with LSD, read everything he could find that might offer clues to what had happened to him, studied meditation and attended workshops. After 20 years he hit a wall as a seeker and then met the teacher Richard Rose whom he studied with for 5 years. It was after a weekend with Douglas Harding that a breakthrough finally happened… “Being the source of everything that is nothing - everything and nothing, only this emptiness.”




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCirEL0bchw

[Delight]

This is really worthwhile IMO. I felt he depicts my experience including seeing blue flashes so this supported me...thanks...Maggie



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMa-ri-2XWg

Probably one of the most impactful transmissions or talks I have ever encounter. I'm still vibrating from it, after purging pent up emotions.
With love,
Bodhi

[Grizz Griswold]

“Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no better when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, simple, and despicable; for what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more.”
― Francis of Assisi

"What your'e looking for is what is looking"
― Francis of Assisi

“Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that have received--only what you have given.”
― Francis of Assisi

b

[Wind]

Your attention has to shift from the position of the personal 'I'
to that of the unmixed witness, the one who observes
the play of the manifest world spontaneously.
When you come to the place of the unmixed witness,
already you are in the fragrance of beauty, light and joy.
But ultimately even this beingness state
will be recognised to be itself phenomenal.
It is perceivable by and inside the Unmoving.
But the Unmoving is not a thing, not an object.
Either it is not a thing or it is the only thing—whichever way you want.
And what are we speaking about?
You, us, I, That, God, Self, Supreme Being, Absolute;
in effect, You without 'you', the historical and hysterical 'person'.

~ Mooji

[Guish]

Your attention has to shift from the position of the personal 'I'
to that of the unmixed witness, the one who observes
~ Mooji


This is interesting. Sufficient meditation enables one to be detached from the body. I've used my words correctly because we are not the body. In this state, we can observe all our reactions but they no longer bother us as we know that these feelings/thoughts are not important. Hence, a spiritual person lives in society but is detached from the latter. Detachment is so important for one to have a clear view on things.

[greybeard]

Bart Marshall - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

This is a gold mine, packed with relevant information for those committed to awakening.
Not a short interview, but worth downloading to listen to repeatedly, a section at a time.
C


Bart Marshall describes his spiritual path as “self-guided eclectic.” It began with a death experience in Vietnam in 1968 and ended in 2004 on an airplane at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic as he returned from a workshop with Douglas Harding. In those intervening years he “turned over every rock” in his quest for a final answer, but counts three teachers as the most influential: Richard Rose, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Douglas Harding.

He founded Self Inquiry Group (SIG) in Raleigh, North Carolina (www.selfinquiry.org), and for many years held weekly meetings before stepping back in 2013. Sometimes called “the reluctant guru” by those who know him, Bart nevertheless travels widely to speak when asked, and teaches retreats and intensives with Deborah Westmoreland (Conscious TV interview) events that have proven to be highly transformative for participants.

Bart is the author of The Perennial Way: New English Versions of Yoga Sutras, Dhammapada, Heart Sutra, Ashtavakra Gita, Faith Mind Sutra, and Tao Te Ching, and an upcoming book, Christ Sutras (Fall 2014), which contains the complete sayings of Jesus from all sources arranged as topical sermons. He is currently completing a book of essays on spiritual matters, Becoming Vulnerable to Grace.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKM4aVJXxo4

[Grizz Griswold]

Hi Chris, Bart has a saying " Awakening is usually an accident, but there are things You can do to make yourself more accident prone"

Love

b

[Grizz Griswold]

Bart Marshall - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

This is a gold mine, packed with relevant information for those committed to awakening.
Not a short interview, but worth downloading to listen to repeatedly, a section at a time.
C


Bart Marshall describes his spiritual path as “self-guided eclectic.” It began with a death experience in Vietnam in 1968 and ended in 2004 on an airplane at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic as he returned from a workshop with Douglas Harding. In those intervening years he “turned over every rock” in his quest for a final answer, but counts three teachers as the most influential: Richard Rose, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Douglas Harding.

He founded Self Inquiry Group (SIG) in Raleigh, North Carolina (www.selfinquiry.org), and for many years held weekly meetings before stepping back in 2013. Sometimes called “the reluctant guru” by those who know him, Bart nevertheless travels widely to speak when asked, and teaches retreats and intensives with Deborah Westmoreland (Conscious TV interview) events that have proven to be highly transformative for participants.

Bart is the author of The Perennial Way: New English Versions of Yoga Sutras, Dhammapada, Heart Sutra, Ashtavakra Gita, Faith Mind Sutra, and Tao Te Ching, and an upcoming book, Christ Sutras (Fall 2014), which contains the complete sayings of Jesus from all sources arranged as topical sermons. He is currently completing a book of essays on spiritual matters, Becoming Vulnerable to Grace.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKM4aVJXxo4

Hi Chris, just finished watching the video. Bart has a way of explaining so that one has no doubt about what was said.
As Douglas Harding told Him, "Simplify" Bart has done just that.
Thanks for the video, very enjoyable.

Love

b

[Wind]

You say you really want to go to this space without desires,
but there is nobody to go there.
The apparent one who is trying to go there is perceived from there.
There is a space completely untouched by all efforts
including the one who is making them.
Recognise and be one with It.

~ Mooji

5-Bmowpdqds

[greybeard]

Paul Hedderman in great story telling form.
Very clear, there is little chance of miss-understanding and full of poignant moments pointing to Truth.
c




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcMr6KdlvdE

[Guish]

You say you really want to go to this space without desires,
but there is nobody to go there.
The apparent one who is trying to go there is perceived from there.
There is a space completely untouched by all efforts
including the one who is making them.
Recognise and be one with It.

~ Mooji

5-Bmowpdqds


This is so crucial. If one says " I want to be enlightened" , it becomes a wish, a desire which intensifies the ego. Each meditation session should be an adventure where one doesn't have objectives and doesn't measure things. One lives the moment as a detached observer. Give yourself to the moment, get carried away. Lose yourself to find yourself. Cheers friends.

[Wind]

This is so crucial. If one says " I want to be enlightened" , it becomes a wish, a desire which intensifies the ego. Each meditation session should be an adventure where one doesn't have objectives and doesn't measure things. One lives the moment as a detached observer. Give yourself to the moment, get carried away. Lose yourself to find yourself. Cheers friends.

Alan Watts said: "You can't get rid of your hallucination of being an ego by an activity of the ego. Sorry, but it can't be done...

If you try to get rid of your ego with your ego you will just end up in a vicious circle. You'd be like somebody who worries because they worry because they worry."

And I think that Paul Brunton had it right when he said:

"A great humility comes into him when at long last he steps aside from his ego sufficiently to allow the perception that it is not in his own power to enter the ultimate Enlightenment. Grace is the arbiter."

"The attitude of expectancy and hope in the matter of seeking illumination is a correct one. But the hour when this Grace will be bestowed is unpredictable; therefore, hope must be balanced with patience, and expectancy with perseverance. Meanwhile, there is all the work one can handle in attending to the improvement of character and understanding, the cultivation of intuition and practice of meditation, the prayers for Grace, and in self-humbling beneath the Will of the Overself."

The latest videos from Eckhart Tolle.

A retreat from the mind

-BSdzW84Piw

I have a desire the share my realization

MUCx5H48AwM

[Wind]

Mostly, we are experiencing
the state of personhood
and not our innate God-state.
Crisis helps us to find Christ,
our natural God-self-state.

~ Mooji

HF9yXAFAuos

[Guish]

Mostly, we are experiencing
the state of personhood
and not our innate God-state.
Crisis helps us to find Christ,
our natural God-self-state.

~ Mooji

HF9yXAFAuos

Personhood will never provide full satisfaction as personhood is by nature unsatisfied. For example, a person always feels that he needs to do more, achieve more and this is a vicious cycle as one can never be satisfied this way. One can always get more money or buy a bigger car. Budhahood or the enlightenment state is about living in the moment and being satisfied with it. The positive energy will automatically help the person to live in harmony and perform well. While doing the right thing, the man doesn't know it is the right thing as right or wrong doesn't exist. Follow your inner guru.

[Delight]

Another pithy Matt Kahn offering.
Love to all, Maggie

ZjwTW-sjIto

[greybeard]

Wishing all who visit and contribute here a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Chris

[Wind]

We keep God as 'other' and like this we keep our 'I' as separate from Him.
But neither you, the Self, nor God are 'other'.
Better still, let all else be 'other' and you be nothing.
The awakened one says: I feel you in me as my own Self whenever I, as ego, am no more.
Then ego is 'other'. In fact, it cannot even be found.
Therefore, let your prayer be, ‘Let me effortlessly forget myself personally
and remember and be united in You alone, timelessly.’

~ Mooji

[Guish]

Ego is a created identity. Upon enlightenment, a man realizes he is nothing. We are urged in so many ways to create an identity, form a character, to be defensive and to be careful of people. All these forces trap the soul and prevent enlightenment. It is also difficult because if the ego is gone, nothing is left. Everything is fake. What's real in nothingness and bliss. This defies rational thinking and therefore the ego always distract the person wanting enlightenment.

My wife will think I'm going crazy on my Birthday. Cheers spiritual friends.

[greybeard]

Happy Birthday Guish
Your kind of crazy I need.
The sane person seems crazy in a lunatic asylum to the inmates.
c

[Wind]

Have a good one, Guish!

"The place where you are, the people who surround you, the problems you encounter, and the happenings that take place just now--all have their special meaning for you. They come about under the law of recompense as well as under the particular needs of your spiritual growth. Study them well but impersonally, egolessly, and adjust your reactions accordingly. This will be hard and perhaps even unpalatable, yet it is the certain way to solving all your problems. This is what Jesus meant when he declared, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." This is that crucifixion of the ego which is true Christianity and which leads directly to the resurrection in the reality of the Overself.

Regard your worst, most irritating trouble as the voice of your Overself. Try to hear what It says. Try to remove the obstructions It is pointing to within yourself. Look on this special ordeal, this particular trial, as having the most important significance in your own spiritual growth. The more crushing it is, the more effort is being made to draw you nearer to the Overself. At every point of your life, from one event, situation, contact to another, the Infinite Intelligence provides you with the means of growth, if only you will get out of the egoistic rut and take them."

- Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10451157_568628346607068_1900874050530684095_n.jpg?oh=7790e779c577f7c9b96b2be85ce8dfb9&oe=553A277B&__gda__=1430629315_17cb647b3100c81714a1c1c9665b62e1

[greybeard]

If time is short, go to about thirty five minutes into the Q&A video

From my perspective a lot of spiritual teachers meet you where you stand which is ideal.
At some point in time you want to hear the bare bones---the "as it is" from the enlightened perspective.
That is, that which we seem to experience is a notion in the mind of God --to be found about 39 minutes in to the Q&A video.
The other video give helpful suggestions.

Both Bart Marshall and Paul Hedderman dont mess about
Its worth watching the Paul Hedderman videos posted earlier on in the thread.

C



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V7Gzr86E1Q

The way of the Heart


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd3To_TgHq8

[Wind]

Just saw this in Facebook.

Sometimes I meet beings who say they have realised the Self.
They believe or claim that they know and understand the Truth.
They say they sense it, feel it and are convinced it is what they are and so on.
However, it is often sensed here that the mind takes delivery for this understanding and purchases further life as the egoic ‘achiever’ of ultimate Truth. Consequently, the realisation does not get baptised in the Heart and a real chance of freedom gradually fades away.
Therefore, such beings can retain their sense of personhood, unknowingly. Some even edit my words to fit in with their personal inclinations, projections and spiritual fantasies, but I want to burn all of this to the ground in order that they attain true freedom.

What we speak about here is authentic transcendence, you see?
One has to overcome the hypnosis of personal conditioning.
They have to be free from the psychological influence of the mind.
I don’t mean that you should ‘stop’ your mind but rather, focus on the witness of mind.
Therefore, it has to be an authentic transcendence, not a Hollywood awakening.

Sometimes I say I don’t want or feel for your company.
You indulge too much mental and psychological noise.
There are too many relationships going on inside your mind.
Your representations of yourself mentally, emotionally, psychically are not authentic expressions of the Self.
Such a localised identity is not enough at this level of understanding, insight or, we could say, Self-knowledge.

So what has to happen?
You have to be That.
How are you going to be That?
The ‘you’ who you take yourself to be cannot be That.
Being That is not a verb, an action you will take.
It is an awakening, a recognition so profound that it changes your mind’s orientation immediately and irreversibly.
As real understanding takes over, it will be a life changing experience.
It is as though I am telling you to do something ‘you’, as ego, cannot do.
Your mind cannot do it, but it is required of you to, acknowledge and be That which you are.
You have to be open to expose what is not in service to your true nature.
It is the highest aspect of my work, guidance or teaching and it is more like an energetic correspondence, not only a verbal one.

Let the untrue be exposed and thoroughly burned.
Sometimes the way into that completeness, that recognition, is that whatever is untrue is rejected as it is recognised as false,
either by you or by me. And you may be thinking, ‘Oh my god, I really thought I was getting somewhere!
This is so discouraging’… and so your world feels like it is turned upside down.
Do not be disheartened, instead keep an attitude of gratitude.
It is your good fortune that your ‘world’ is being crushed. I myself don’t have a world.
Let yours be upside down so that what is true in you can reveal itself and begin unfolding in its authentic expression as true life and being.
Grace is helping you in every way. Trust it.

Say, “Yes, I am here, remove this sense of separation, this arrogance of separateness and merge me in you,
oh God, oh Universe Being, Self, Truth, Life. Don’t give me any technique.
Absorb me. Replace me with You.”
And finally: Trust your master.

~ Mooji

[greybeard]

Mooji is of course correct.

"Enlightenment is not an experience--experiences come and go" is what Eckhart Tolle said .

Some teachers will take you so far--one quote in recently posted video is " Even a sick chicken can lay a healthy egg,"
So the guru within will direct the "me" to an appropriate teacher, one that resonates with you, and where you are at at that time.

Every "true" teaching is "designed" to destabilise the mind, there is an expression that the light shines through the crack, sometimes a series of teachers may happen.

The path gets narrower and narrower till there is the realisation that nothing works.
The search is actually separating one from the Truth.
All the learned concepts of spirituality and enlightenment are seen as not true/ or at least no longer helpful.

Paul Hedderman says in one video The teacher said "I am a man standing beside water, selling water--then he laughed and said actually I am a man standing in water, selling water" Paul got it, and left the seminar.

So we are all standing in water buying water.
We are That which we seek.

I feel that it is essential to have an enlightened teacher to point the way at least to begin with--that may be by book video or seminar.

At some point in time true surrender is forced upon one by circumstances-- there is the dawning that I of myself can not do this.
There is the glimmer of understanding that what I believe to me doing is not so.
In other words I am not the doer.
Prayer--request for help may happen--- meditation may continue, the sitting still in silence variety. Self enquiry may continue, best done separate from silent meditation.

So that the understanding of the moment --of course being aware that the mind can not get "it"

c

[Shezbeth]

All the learned concepts of spirituality and enlightenment are seen as not true/ or at least no longer helpful.

Pardon me, but what then are you on about?

[Chester]

I thought the stoppage of seeking occurred upon enlightenment... at least, it seems that is what happened to me and which resulted in my stoppage of seeking.

Unfortunately, I also embraced my ego and realized as long as I look through the eyes of an individual and into the eyes of other individuals, I am both the Self and a self - both/and. I also slap my ego around some. I also set my ego up to be slapped around. I also....

am simply stark raving enlightened!!!!!

Scary huh?

["I thought you were supposed to appear humble when enlightened, right?"

"He who claims he is enlightened surely is not"]

So if my words touch something off inside the reader, ask yourself... what might be "touched"... can we say ego??? Mwwwahahahhahahaha.

[greybeard]

All the learned concepts of spirituality and enlightenment are seen as not true/ or at least no longer helpful.

Pardon me, but what then are you on about?


The post was in relationship to and context of last few videos posted.
If they are watched then what I have posted makes sense, possibly.
I am not enlightened but the presenter on those videos are.

It also shows a progression as does the whole thread--what I believed on post no, one is no longer relevant to "me" but it might be to another.

I can only suggest that the recent video is watched.
That was helpful to me--it may or may not be helpful to others.

Bart is fond of saying "Simplify" the mind does not like that.

Simple is---"Only God is and thou art that" that's what enlightenment is "God realisation"
The wave realises it is "The Ocean"

c

[Shezbeth]

I am not enlightened but the presenter on those videos are.

Is that a speculative statement, or a qualified statement?

[greybeard]

I am not enlightened but the presenter on those videos are.

Is that a speculative statement, or a qualified statement?

Its just languaging Shezbeth.
Could say "As far as I can tell" or "Its my understanding", from the descriptions of the way they perceive.
I am unaware of my True nature--I believe they are.
That's as best I can answer
The finger points at the video.
It will just take about five minutes from the 35 minute mark on the Q&A one.

C

[Shezbeth]

Its just languaging Shezbeth.
Could say "As far as I can tell" or "Its my understanding", from the descriptions of the way they perceive.

Thank you for the clarification of your position. For a moment it appeared that you were asserting some degree of authority, especially with statements like,...


Mooji is of course correct.

... etc.

[Guish]

Describing enlightenment is very hard. It should be experienced. The worse thing is people using rational arguments to understand it. Don't forget about the zen master who burnt all his books when he became enlightened. There's a meaning behind this.

[Shezbeth]

Is one to interpret that this suggestion stems from an enlightened position? It would seem far worse (than rationality) for unenlightened individuals to be promoting something they lack experience with,... kind of like the blind leading the blind if you ask Me. Worse still would be an ego claiming to be enlightened though,...

... just dropping in for my periodic reality check. Do carry on!

[GarethBKK]

Indeed, Guish.

Chris, The poverty of language is understood here on this thread by most. We look to your heart and see the purity of intent, and we love you for it.

[greybeard]

I thought the stoppage of seeking occurred upon enlightenment... at least, it seems that is what happened to me and which resulted in my stoppage of seeking.

Unfortunately, I also embraced my ego and realized as long as I look through the eyes of an individual and into the eyes of other individuals, I am both the Self and a self - both/and. I also slap my ego around some. I also set my ego up to be slapped around. I also....

am simply stark raving enlightened!!!!!

Scary huh?

["I thought you were supposed to appear humble when enlightened, right?"

"He who claims he is enlightened surely is not"]

So if my words touch something off inside the reader, ask yourself... what might be "touched"... can we say ego??? Mwwwahahahhahahaha.

Hi Sam
Good New year to you when it comes.

Seeking can stop before Enlightenment when it is seen to not bear fruit.
Hence the statement "Nothing works." From Bart Marshall.

Some spiritual practise may be retained--but there is no looking for an end result, apart from in the moment peace and quiet.
I have seen it suggested that enlightenment is an accident--in that you cant make it happen, there is no recipe.
However it is more likely to happen to those who have put in the work to remove obstacles and therefore become accident prone.
Im a bit like an enthusiastic puppy dog--"Look at what's found" Im not a teacher--I just like to share.
I could put a disclaimer on every titbit but the nature of the thread is take what you find to be interesting/helpful and investigate for yourself.

Every opinion is welcome here.

Im happy for you Sam as you certainly seem to be enjoying where you find yourself--and that's very important.

Im fond of the expression "Whatever gets you through the day"

All the best
Chris

[greybeard]

Indeed, Guish.

Chris, The poverty of language is understood here on this thread by most. We look to your heart and see the purity of intent, and we love you for it.

Your comments are much appreciated Gareth.
As is the post by Guish.
This thread would have ceased long ago without the support of like minded people.
Its not in the words its in the essence.
Much love to all
Chris

[Wind]

I think that all these people in the videos are enlightened, but their teachings vary.
In my opinion Tolle's teachings are easier to digest and Mooji is more challenging for the mind and ego, he leaves no room for it.
I also like very much Paul Brunton's books, I don't know if he was enlightened, but he was very aware and wise.

5ecPafIfFAo
rdgO4UDrwm8
9QIpxP_glO0

[Guish]

Is one to interpret that this suggestion stems from an enlightened position? It would seem far worse (than rationality) for unenlightened individuals to be promoting something they lack experience with,... kind of like the blind leading the blind if you ask Me. Worse still would be an ego claiming to be enlightened though,...

... just dropping in for my periodic reality check. Do carry on!

Hi Friend,

I don't think anyone can claim to be enlightened as the ' I refers back to the ego'. Enlightenment is the end of suffering as Budha became enlightened when he wanted to free himself and the world from suffering. Detachment and unconditional love were the things that guided his journey. It should be noted that his mind was completely still once he reached enlightenment. These observations highlight what spirituality is all about. The tool to reach enlightenment has been meditation from ages.

I don't know whether I'm enlightened or not. I meditate and share my experiences. I've experienced bliss while meditating and during my routine life. For me, enlightenment happens when one can observe the body's reactions as an external person. I don't know if someone can relate to that. Right now, I'm typing and not analyzing anything I'm saying. it's fluid and based on what I experience, I don't know whether it's logical or not. It just is what I want to say.

[Chester]

All the learned concepts of spirituality and enlightenment are seen as not true/ or at least no longer helpful.

Pardon me, but what then are you on about?

The post was in relationship to and context of last few videos posted.
If they are watched then what I have posted makes sense, possibly.
I am not enlightened but the presenter on those videos are.

It also shows a progression as does the whole thread--what I believed on post no, one is no longer relevant to "me" but it might be to another.

I can only suggest that the recent video is watched.
That was helpful to me--it may or may not be helpful to others.

Bart is fond of saying "Simplify" the mind does not like that.

Simple is---"Only God is and thou art that" that's what enlightenment is "God realisation"
The wave realises it is "The Ocean"

c


I disagree - under my definition though...

Chris, you are enlightened. In fact, you played a role in the achievement of my own enlightenment.

Isn't enlightenment simply discovering and truly knowing in a way you will never forget who/what you are?

The end of suffering is simply a consequence of enlightenment, no?

I don't suffer yet when I appear to, I appear to suffer magnificently!

Yet the smile never leaves the face.

[Guish]

"Late one night a female Zen adept was carrying water in an old wooden bucket when she happened to glance across the surface of the water and saw the reflection of the moon. As she walked the bucket began to come apart and the bottom of the pail broke through, with the water suddenly disappearing into the soil beneath her feet and the moon's reflection disappearing along with it. In that instant the young woman realized that the moon she had been looking at was just a reflection of the real thing...just as her whole life had been. She turned to look at the moon in all it's silent glory, her mind was ripe, and that was it...Enlightenment."

[Chester]

Is one to interpret that this suggestion stems from an enlightened position? It would seem far worse (than rationality) for unenlightened individuals to be promoting something they lack experience with,... kind of like the blind leading the blind if you ask Me. Worse still would be an ego claiming to be enlightened though,...

... just dropping in for my periodic reality check. Do carry on!

Hi Friend,

I don't think anyone can claim to be enlightened as the ' I refers back to the ego'. Enlightenment is the end of suffering as Budha became enlightened when he wanted to free himself and the world from suffering. Detachment and unconditional love were the things that guided his journey. It should be noted that his mind was completely still once he reached enlightenment. These observations highlight what spirituality is all about. The tool to reach enlightenment has been meditation from ages.

I don't know whether I'm enlightened or not. I meditate and share my experiences. I've experienced bliss while meditating and during my routine life. For me, enlightenment happens when one can observe the body's reactions as an external person. I don't know if someone can relate to that. Right now, I'm typing and not analyzing anything I'm saying. it's fluid and based on what I experience, I don't know whether it's logical or not. It just is what I want to say.

It seems easy to recognize that the writer of the words you are reading here is full blown enlightened as this writer also knows who/what s/he is. So if this writer can type that this writer is enlightened, it is easy to imagine that this writer can also just as easily state with words, "I... (knowing that an enlightened being who hears these words from this speaker/writer knows what the speaker means by using the letter "I" in relation to who/what s/he is) am enlightened."

The only being that would disagree is a being that did not recognize the other as enlightened, but it would be their mistake. In fact, show me one being that isn't already full blown, stark raving enlightened? Even the ones who can easily recognize that they are and just as easily state it?

[Shezbeth]

Allow me to speak plainly.

As Justone has indicated, I am quite literally attempting to - surreptitiously at that - coerce Greybeard into admitting he is enlightened. Personally, I find his views to be far more actionable than those of Tolle or Mooji. I'm not besmirching the latter, but I have direct experience with the former, and whether his humility (pride? ego? ^_~) will allow him to admit it or not, he is as much - if not moreso - as enlightened as the aforementioned.

This of course, is simply my opinion.

[Guish]

Is one to interpret that this suggestion stems from an enlightened position? It would seem far worse (than rationality) for unenlightened individuals to be promoting something they lack experience with,... kind of like the blind leading the blind if you ask Me. Worse still would be an ego claiming to be enlightened though,...

... just dropping in for my periodic reality check. Do carry on!

Hi Friend,

I don't think anyone can claim to be enlightened as the ' I refers back to the ego'. Enlightenment is the end of suffering as Budha became enlightened when he wanted to free himself and the world from suffering. Detachment and unconditional love were the things that guided his journey. It should be noted that his mind was completely still once he reached enlightenment. These observations highlight what spirituality is all about. The tool to reach enlightenment has been meditation from ages.

I don't know whether I'm enlightened or not. I meditate and share my experiences. I've experienced bliss while meditating and during my routine life. For me, enlightenment happens when one can observe the body's reactions as an external person. I don't know if someone can relate to that. Right now, I'm typing and not analyzing anything I'm saying. it's fluid and based on what I experience, I don't know whether it's logical or not. It just is what I want to say.

It seems easy to recognize that the writer of the words you are reading here is full blown enlightened as this writer also knows who/what s/he is. So if this writer can type that this writer is enlightened, it is easy to imagine that this writer can also just as easily state with words, "I... (knowing that an enlightened being who hears these words from this speaker/writer knows what the speaker means by using the letter "I" in relation to who/what s/he is) am enlightened."

The only being that would disagree is a being that did not recognize the other as enlightened, but it would be their mistake. In fact, show me one being that isn't already full blown, stark raving enlightened? Even the ones who can easily recognize that they are and just as easily state it?

Are you concluding that I'm enlightened? While I can live without desires now, there's still an inner voice that tempts me to desire things, get a bit angry and so on. The difference is that I can observe the voice now and it doesn't tire me. I have also noticed that if you start getting stuck in routine life, there's a tendency to become an distracted person again.

[greybeard]

Allow me to speak plainly.

As Justone has indicated, I am quite literally attempting to - surreptitiously at that - coerce Greybeard into admitting he is enlightened. Personally, I find his views to be far more actionable than those of Tolle or Mooji. I'm not besmirching the latter, but I have direct experience with the former, and whether his humility (pride? ego? ^_~) will allow him to admit it or not, he is as much - if not moreso - as enlightened as the aforementioned.

This of course, is simply my opinion.

I appreciate your opinion Shezbeth.
Everyone is enlightened but being fully aware of this is a different situation.
I can tick some of the boxes but am not enlightened as per Tim's definition or mine for that matter.
Recent posted videos by Bart Marshall and Paul Hedderman I have found to be helpful.
Bart Marshall Buddha at the gas pump interview is good too.
I work at removing obstacles but accept that I need the help of That which I really am--to whom prayers for this are directed.
When the work is done then there is a strong possibility that Grace will fall.
Over all think Guish and I are in agreement.
c


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKM4aVJXxo4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCirEL0bchw

[Wind]

Nobody can figure out the Truth.

All you can do is to flow in synchronicity with the universal consciousness through the grace of devotion, wisdom or selfless activity.
Like this, you come intuitively to discover the one Self.
But for this you must be humble inside your heart.

~ Mooji

[Wind]

"Is not excessive melancholy just as undesirable, and as much of a stumbling block in the path of spiritual progress as, for instance, excessive drinking--or any other fault? What is being gained by these self-demeaning tactics? Is anyone benefiting from them? The time has come to ask himself these questions. Certainly he is not alone in having made mistakes--everybody makes them! Consider what would happen, however, if everybody continued to punish themselves over and over again, needlessly remaining on the level of their own errors? What then is to be done? His gloomy situation can improve only when he is willing to change his attitude towards it. He must make a deliberate attempt to cultivate happiness!

Just as he raises the windowshade in the morning to allow sunshine to pour into the room, so must he open himself to the higher power and let hope pour into his heart! As long as he continues to cling to despondency and to misunderstand, he is shutting out the Overself and preventing its message from reaching him. Every day is a new day, with new possibilities of a fresh, determined, and more courageous approach to all daily difficulties. Let him forget the past, and start planning for a happier tomorrow! No one else can do this for him, but he can draw faith from the knowledge that his efforts will count towards his joyful resurrection."

- Paul Brunton

http://oi60.tinypic.com/209oswy.jpg

[Guish]

Nobody can figure out the Truth.

All you can do is to flow in synchronicity with the universal consciousness through the grace of devotion, wisdom or selfless activity.
Like this, you come intuitively to discover the one Self.
But for this you must be humble inside your heart.

~ Mooji

You'll notice that everything comes back to being selfless. Even in management theories, the concept of servant leadership is being thrown around now. I'm very happy that I worked on my own ego for years before being appointed as Head of Faculty in an international school. I've got the opportunity to enrich the careers of so many people. A wrong person at this position could have destroyed many careers as well. I'm not claiming to be perfect or right but I've seen power closely and the impact it can have. I just think that it's another step towards my own enlightenment because it really tests how much pure my intentions are despite being part of a control system I never wanted to be part of.

[greybeard]

Nobody can figure out the Truth.

All you can do is to flow in synchronicity with the universal consciousness through the grace of devotion, wisdom or selfless activity.
Like this, you come intuitively to discover the one Self.
But for this you must be humble inside your heart.

~ Mooji

You'll notice that everything comes back to being selfless. Even in management theories, the concept of servant leadership is being thrown around now. I'm very happy that I worked on my own ego for years before being appointed as Head of Faculty in an international school. I've got the opportunity to enrich the careers of so many people. A wrong person at this position could have destroyed many careers as well. I'm not claiming to be perfect or right but I've seen power closely and the impact it can have. I just think that it's another step towards my own enlightenment because it really tests how much pure my intentions are despite being part of a control system I never wanted to be part of.

Very Happy for you Guish--I am sure you will rise to the occasion.

Paul Hennerman speaks of "selfing" everything is self referential---the me is the centre of its Universe---everything relates back to the me.
The me takes what is happening---a verb-- and make a noun out of it. I am doing--its happening to me etc Everything is personalised by the ego to protect it self. Ego is self identification with the story of I, me and mine.
There is no little me without "selfing"

With enlightenment there is no person left.
Things continue to happen --there is a certain momentum--its not seen as happening to a me

Bart said the persona remains but bit by bit this is dissolving.
The mind cant get this---it does not make sense--it is beyond reason.
Many paradoxes.
Waking up is "game over" BUT after enlightenment there is a new game, according to Bart that's when the spiritual work begins.The Universe has something it can work with.

I cant do credit to this, but its in his video.

c

[Guish]

Nobody can figure out the Truth.

All you can do is to flow in synchronicity with the universal consciousness through the grace of devotion, wisdom or selfless activity.
Like this, you come intuitively to discover the one Self.
But for this you must be humble inside your heart.

~ Mooji




Nobody can figure out the Truth.

All you can do is to flow in synchronicity with the universal consciousness through the grace of devotion, wisdom or selfless activity.
Like this, you come intuitively to discover the one Self.
But for this you must be humble inside your heart.

~ Mooji

You'll notice that everything comes back to being selfless. Even in management theories, the concept of servant leadership is being thrown around now. I'm very happy that I worked on my own ego for years before being appointed as Head of Faculty in an international school. I've got the opportunity to enrich the careers of so many people. A wrong person at this position could have destroyed many careers as well. I'm not claiming to be perfect or right but I've seen power closely and the impact it can have. I just think that it's another step towards my own enlightenment because it really tests how much pure my intentions are despite being part of a control system I never wanted to be part of.

Very Happy for you Guish--I am sure you will rise to the occasion.

Paul Hennerman speaks of "selfing" everything is self referential---the me is the centre of its Universe---everything relates back to the me.
The me takes what is happening---a verb-- and make a noun out of it. I am doing--its happening to me etc Everything is personalised by the ego to protect it self. Ego is self identification with the story of I, me and mine.
There is no little me without "selfing"

With enlightenment there is no person left.
Things continue to happen --there is a certain momentum--its not seen as happening to a me

Bart said the persona remains but bit by bit this is dissolving.
The mind cant get this---it does not make sense--it is beyond reason.
Many paradoxes.
Waking up is "game over" BUT after enlightenment there is a new game, according to Bart that's when the spiritual work begins.The Universe has something it can work with.

I cant do credit to this, but its in his video.

c

Good points. The dissolving of the ego results into an emptiness which is bliss. Since there's no I, there is no desire, no attachment, no pain, no expectation, no recognition. Yet everything seems so complete. That's why I mentioned earlier that rationality can't grasp this but I've experienced this.

[greybeard]

Deborah Westmoreland ‘Being Knowing Being’ - Interview by Renate McNay

Deborah Westmoreland is a poet, a spiritual teacher and the author of Being Knowing Being, which is an upcoming book of spiritual essays. After several tragedies her big question was, "How can I end suffering?" She was sick and tired of Deborah. Her mind was too busy to sit in meditation so she started doing running meditations... finding the moment. Never got ahead of her breath, nor behind. She disconnected from all her belief structures and attachments till she awakened one day, and realized that she had always been in Heaven. She says, "You have to become disinterested in the character, not interested in the story. Suffering is optional... it’s self-imposed.” She never had a spiritual teacher, nor followed any teaching.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6wda4Ew8iU

[Zampano]

Hello everybody!
I just wanted to thank you all for the contribution to this fabolous thread and wish you a happy & healthy 2015!
New Years resolution: Let us stop looking for what is already here and experience it!
Be well
Guenther

[Guish]

Deborah Westmoreland ‘Being Knowing Being’ - Interview by Renate McNay

Deborah Westmoreland is a poet, a spiritual teacher and the author of Being Knowing Being, which is an upcoming book of spiritual essays. After several tragedies her big question was, "How can I end suffering?" She was sick and tired of Deborah. Her mind was too busy to sit in meditation so she started doing running meditations... finding the moment. Never got ahead of her breath, nor behind. She disconnected from all her belief structures and attachments till she awakened one day, and realized that she had always been in Heaven. She says, "You have to become disinterested in the character, not interested in the story. Suffering is optional... it’s self-imposed.” She never had a spiritual teacher, nor followed any teaching.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6wda4Ew8iU

Interesting. The path to spirituality is triggered by suffering. I started to practise detachment and had my first intense battle with myself when I broke up with a girl I loved at uni. The manipulation in that relationship was hard to take. I experienced hate, violence and hated the weak part of me. I practiced detachment for a few years till I met my wife and I now have a son. Self questioning and a lack of satisfaction to real life causes one to experience spirituality. However, one should be careful of charlatans while starting a spiritual life.

One will see that I'm telling a lot of personal things recently. Trainee human mentioned that my throat chakra is weak after I've been experiencing a burning sensation in my throat while meditating. Hence, I'm expressing myself freely now. I always had the tendency to keep personal things for me.

Cheers Friends.

[blotter]

this ride is becoming a lot more fun.. it's crazy how much tension is stored in the tongue, or in mine, anyway.

I said as much to a friend of mine and he quoted someone who is slipping my mind to the effect of: when one controls the tongue you can control pretty much all bodily functions.

happy new year to those of you celebrating it

[Wind]

"It is true that the inner life of most aspirants usually proceeds after the first stirring awakening on a somewhat monotonous flat ground. The advance, if any, is slow. But it is also true that certain times come at the end of these long intervals when it is possible to make a definite spurt forward, rapidly and decisively. The aspirant has to watch vigilantly for such opportunity and make the most of it when it does come. The most noteworthy sign of its presence is a sudden, unexpected surge of determination and resolution to bring about certain changes in the inner life. With this emotional arousing there comes some or all of the strength to effect the changes. The utmost advantage should be taken of these feelings while they temporarily manifest themselves. For the extent of the advance will depend upon the jolting force, the spiritual violence, and the positive and affirmative character of the thoughts held at the time, which are used to implement the new resolve.

Quite often it may involve making a revolutionary decision requiring some courage or at least enough to desert an old standpoint for a new one. Naturally the emotions which enter into such a change will be the higher ones. These energetic spurts arise from a brief arousal of the force called Spirit-Fire by the Orientals and are induced by the accumulation and release of favourable karma or by the gracious contact with an adept. They stimulate effort and energize the will beyond the ordinary. Every advantage should be taken of these stimulations while they last for they usually pass away after a time."

- Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t31.0-8/p235x350/10904015_573501056119797_743516328619069584_o.jpg

[greybeard]

Wishing all A Happy New Year
c

[Guish]

this ride is becoming a lot more fun.. it's crazy how much tension is stored in the tongue, or in mine, anyway.

I said as much to a friend of mine and he quoted someone who is slipping my mind to the effect of: when one controls the tongue you can control pretty much all bodily functions.

happy new year to those of you celebrating it

The tongue is still connected to the mind. Master your mind and you master your reality.

[Wind]

"It is the ego that lives in time and experiences these different abstractions of past, present, and future; but the real being behind the ego is on a different plane altogether. Now if mentalism throws light on the problems of time, of the real and the illusory, it also throws light on the question of free will and determinism. Since all is within the mind, to the extent that we learn to control mind we are able to exercise free will. But there it stops."

– Paul Brunton

http://oi59.tinypic.com/2nl8vhj.jpg

[Aspen]

Allow me to speak plainly.

As Justone has indicated, I am quite literally attempting to - surreptitiously at that - coerce Greybeard into admitting he is enlightened. Personally, I find his views to be far more actionable than those of Tolle or Mooji. I'm not besmirching the latter, but I have direct experience with the former, and whether his humility (pride? ego? ^_~) will allow him to admit it or not, he is as much - if not moreso - as enlightened as the aforementioned.

This of course, is simply my opinion.

I appreciate your opinion Shezbeth.
Everyone is enlightened but being fully aware of this is a different situation.
I can tick some of the boxes but am not enlightened as per Tim's definition or mine for that matter.
Recent posted videos by Bart Marshall and Paul Hedderman I have found to be helpful.
Bart Marshall Buddha at the gas pump interview is good too.
I work at removing obstacles but accept that I need the help of That which I really am--to whom prayers for this are directed.
When the work is done then there is a strong possibility that Grace will fall.
Over all think Guish and I are in agreement.
c


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKM4aVJXxo4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCirEL0bchw

Thank you so much Graybeard. My husband and I watched both these videos yesterday and they were excellent! Bart Marshall is obviously a gentle, compassionate and humble person. I like how he describes himself as the reluctant guru. It was surprising to me that he had a hard time answering the question about what advantage it was to be enlightened or awakened. He could not seem to think of hardly any. I guess it relates to the analogy they gave of the movie with Micheal Douglas, The Game, once you realize that all is illusion then it is hard to be fully engaged in the game of life. I also liked how he said that enlightened people were not superior to the unenlightened. He was careful to say that each of us should follow our destiny, and that it may not be enlightenment. Thought provoking, for me personally.

As a relatively new member, I had never spent time in this thread before. I think I will be spending more time here in the coming year!

[Wind]

Happy New Year.
Happy Now Here.
Only one wish worth making:
Let no more time be invested in the dream of personal identity.
Confirm: all appearances, including the 'I'-thought, are illusory and impermanent by nature.
Recognise: this observation occurs to and in the timeless Self.
Know: I am the timeless Self.

Om Namah Sivaya
Holy Spirit Ki Jai

~ Mooji

USBmFg5uxuE

[greybeard]

[/QUOTE]

Thank you so much Graybeard. My husband and I watched both these videos yesterday and they were excellent! Bart Marshall is obviously a gentle, compassionate and humble person. I like how he describes himself as the reluctant guru. It was surprising to me that he had a hard time answering the question about what advantage it was to be enlightened or awakened. He could not seem to think of hardly any. I guess it relates to the analogy they gave of the movie with Micheal Douglas, The Game, once you realize that all is illusion then it is hard to be fully engaged in the game of life. I also liked how he said that enlightened people were not superior to the unenlightened. He was careful to say that each of us should follow our destiny, and that it may not be enlightenment. Thought provoking, for me personally.

As a relatively new member, I had never spent time in this thread before. I think I will be spending more time here in the coming year![/QUOTE]

Hi Aspen
Im glad you got a lot from the videos.
With this thread its a bit like "Look at a page, any page" and there will be something of interest.
Truth is consistent, eternal, it does not change, though ways of expressing and perceiving may seem different.

Best wishes to you and your husband.

Chris

[Wind]

You say you have been on the spiritual journey for a long time now
and you are tired of searching. It is taking so long.
The one who is journeying to find the Self
is watched in and by the Self.
Who has grasped this?

~ Mooji

[Guish]

Act and do not react. An unconditioned mind can observe things without being affected by the surroundings.

http://www.wisethinks.com/2014/10/the-man-who-spit-in-buddhas-face.html

[Wind]

When your mind comes to now, you are free.
All thoughts are past.
All imagination is past.
All desire is past.
What is it that is now?
It is empty even of the concept of now.
It is not a job to be done because it was never undone.
Any effort to reach there is perceived from there.
What can perceive It?
Can It be something apart from It to perceive It?
Only It alone can know Itself.
There is no 'other'.

~ Mooji

[Wind]

"The fast pace of modern living and the busy clamour of modern cities prevent us from meeting ourselves. We have to sit down as if we were in the desert all alone surrounded by silence and slow the pace of thoughts until in the gaps between them we begin to see who the thinker is. But we must give it time, we must be patient. It is not out there right in front, but hidden deep inside. Inside there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

~ Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10929565_577381732398396_3393299378572796285_n.jpg?oh=994c45aded8ca70fb8ee0cce01a11975&oe=552770DF&__gda__=1428699061_500bb3524afa4a6015ae2bc6282722a3

[Guish]

When your mind comes to now, you are free.
All thoughts are past.
All imagination is past.
All desire is past.
What is it that is now?
It is empty even of the concept of now.
It is not a job to be done because it was never undone.
Any effort to reach there is perceived from there.
What can perceive It?
Can It be something apart from It to perceive It?
Only It alone can know Itself.
There is no 'other'.

~ Mooji

I could be wrong but Mooji is having difficulty to describe this state using words. It's because in this state, the mind stops. There is no thinking. While I'm typing, I can feel my breath slowing down and emptiness creeping in.

[Guish]

"The fast pace of modern living and the busy clamour of modern cities prevent us from meeting ourselves. We have to sit down as if we were in the desert all alone surrounded by silence and slow the pace of thoughts until in the gaps between them we begin to see who the thinker is. But we must give it time, we must be patient. It is not out there right in front, but hidden deep inside. Inside there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

~ Paul Brunton

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10929565_577381732398396_3393299378572796285_n.jpg?oh=994c45aded8ca70fb8ee0cce01a11975&oe=552770DF&__gda__=1428699061_500bb3524afa4a6015ae2bc6282722a3


Very true. Everyday, when I drive, I see the lack of patience and aggressiveness of people. When I want to meditate while driving, I turn off the CD, slow the breathing and cut myself off from the surrounding. Effortless effort is the idea behind not tiring the mind and body.

[Guish]

Showing people the truth is seldom wise.
The ego would prefer to cling to a subjective truth that doesn't challenge it's existence.
It's wise to not influence people not wanting change
Change will come just like clouds form

Cheers,
Friends.

[bodhii71]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6mv3EXHg4w

Sri Harilal Poonja ♥ Papaji ◦ Fulfilling the Last Desire

[Grizz Griswold]

Richard Lang has taken Douglas Hardings teaching (The Headless Way) and has gone an extra step.
A very enjoyable video. Hope all enjoy.

PAckqzUSPiw

Shorter video of Richard Lang

DzPlkxMjiz8

Namaste
b

[Guish]

Thanks Barry,

I like the relativity explanation in the video. The four stages clarifies a lot to people.

In my own experience, the identification with the body is the cause of all trouble and lack of harmony with the surroundings. Dissolving the ego and detaching to the self is a long process. As one keeps doing it, one feels a sense of emptiness and calmness. Being headless is a way of saying we are not the image we project. We are beyond this and as we go inside, there's vast emptiness. It can be quite challenging to get it. I understand it more when I look at my son. So perfect and no personal identity yet. He just gels with everyone. It's as if he's part of everything.

[Grizz Griswold]

Hi Guish,
Identification with self (little s) The i, the me and mine are cause for difficulty, anything you attach these labels to, become suddenly, more important,
at least seemingly so. But like the experiments by Richard Lang TrueSelf/Awakening is very near at all times...(Closer Than Your Breath)
We experience True Self constantly via the 6 senses, taste, touch, sight, smelling, hearing and by mind. Everyone has glimpses of True Self
but concern for self or the i constantly pulls us back away. Richard Langs experiments, give a taste of the vastness of True Self/Awakening in
very simple processes than anyone can use.

Thank you also Guish.

Namaste
barry

[Zampano]

One of my favourite "Buddha at the Gas Pump" interview: Leonard Jacobson
oFkqnTsFJXA

Simple 2 step technique:
1. The first step leads to the awakened state of Presence.
2. Mastery of mind and ego.

Very pleasant interview-enjoy!
Also references to Ramanas and Jesus teachings.

[greybeard]

Paul Hedderman having fun---but so true.
c




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jyiQhpFZRE

[greybeard]

Published on 18 Jun 2014

Paul Hedderman discusses Non-Duality philosophy. He's in rare form and the audience is lively. The audience gets settled down after the first few minutes and Paul dives deep into the nature of reality.

This covers a lot with usual Paul direct approach
Well worth listening to.

There are two follows on via u tube.
c



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8p4FUvTUfk

[greybeard]

Paul is, with great humour, kicking the ground from under your feet.
The me does not become enlightened--- what you truly are is free of the illusion that there ever was a "me"

The searching, though it has its uses, actually strengthens the concept of there being a me who can be liberated.
You are freed from the concept of the me---that is enlightenment.
There is no me and you, there is no other.
"Love the other as your self" comes close to it.

Ramesh said the big challenge is the thought that there is a doer (me)
Things are happening--that's life doing as it does.
You are untouched.
The body may well be affected.
Ramana when dying of cancer was asked if he was in pain--he said "There is pain" He did not own it.

Spiritual practices are useful as eventually one realises they dont work.
Then deep surrender can happen. Thy will be done not mine.

The prayer is solitary and focused " I want to know the Truth, nothing else will do, please remove the obstacles standing in the way, no matter what it takes

All thoughts of I, me, and mine strengthen the illusion.
When these thoughts arise they can be countered with "That's not what I am" they tend to be thoughts of past and future and can be countered with--That's not here and now.

With a little examination it will be seen that every thought is self referential---it leads back to me. This, as said, strengthens the illusion of a separate me.

c

[Meggings]

Here's a view on spiritual matters, enlightenment, ascension that I found tucked away in my computer. When I re-read it my thought was perhaps Greybeard's thread might be a place to copy it to. Since I liked it, my thought was perhaps others would as well. Please advise if it is not appropriate to here. I could not find a "Suzanne Lie" in forum searches.


http://suzanneliephd.blogspot.ca/

The Arcturians Speak on Becoming Masters
(Suzanne Lie writes: I appear to have written, received this message on 6-12-14, but I do not see it posted anywhere, so I am posting it today, Sept. 16, 2014)


Our dearest Suzille,

We did indeed wish to contact you in this NOW. We wish to begin with a private message, which you can rewrite for others to receive. Of course there are no “others,” as there truly is no separation between you and what on Earth is known as “others.” Others is a term that denotes that people or things are separate from you, which is not correct. More and more within your NOW this fact will become evident.


We wish to tell you that many changes are occurring on the inner levels of our grounded ones, meaning humanity. Those who are allowing their consciousness to expand beyond the illusion of time will feel these changes on a daily basis. However, those who are still bound to time, you will likely feel the changes in what they would call “later.”


Since there is no time, there is no later, except for within your third dimensional holographic projection. This holographic projection is beginning to morph and change because so many in habitants of the hologram are beginning to expand their consciousness beyond the confines of the holographic reality. Because of this expansion of consciousness, many of our away team are beginning to experience another reality, which is based on truth.


This “new reality” is not new as it is infinite. It is infinite because it resonates beyond the confines of time and space. We have talked much about the real world beyond the hologram many times, but there is something that we have not shared. We have hinted at what we are about to share many times, but it was not yet the NOW for it to occur.


The NOW meaning that you, and many of those with whom you share our messages, could not yet conceive of what we are about to say. This will not be shocking news, as we have said this message many times. The difference is that in the NOW more of humanity will be able to understand the core of this message rather than just the message’s lower emanation.


As we have said on myriad occasions, the reality you perceive is the reality that you live. What is occurring NOW is that there is a beautiful harvest of light. If you could see your world from our perspective, you would witness a beautiful light show much as those you might have seen at a concert.


We perceive Gaia’s Earth as a living being with different patches of light and darkness. For many eons Gaia’s body was primarily in darkness with timelines of light that were eventually snuffed out by the encroaching darkness. What we are seeing now is that there are growing patches of light that are unconditionally loving the myriad patches of darkness free from their bondage.


These patches of darkness, which are increasingly growing smaller, are slowing, or quickly, being transmuted into light. As our awakened ones are aware, the darkness of fear can only be transmuted with the light of unconditional love. The forces of darkness have continued their fear campaigns and as many fearful confrontations as they can. However, there is a growing majority of humanity that are refusing to participate in that illusion.


Since third dimensional Earth is a hologram, every one, including animals and all of Gaia’s creatures, have the ability to participate in altering this hologram. You are ALL programmers of Gaia’s hologram. During the long Kali Yuga, Earth was furthest from the Golden Age of direct light from the Multiverse. Hence, darkness was the programmer.


However, now you are in the Golden Age in which you are in direct alignment with the light of the Multiverse. Therefore, you all, that is every creature on Earth, have access to this higher frequency of light should they choose to accept it. Before you were within the Golden Age you needed to seek out the light, which was often hidden in the darkness.


In your NOW of 2014 and beyond, you have been in direct alignment with this flow of infinite light for over two of your years. We say to you, dear humans who have lived many years in the darkest times of the Kali Yuga, that two years are not very long in your time. However, the first thing that this light streaming from the ONE of the Multiverse is doing is releasing the illusion of time.


You will all cling to the illusion of time for as long as possible. After all, time has become a habit to which you have structured your life for many incarnations. However, we observe that many of you are beginning to release the illusion of time and float into your fifth dimension and beyond.


We also see how dangerous this can be to your earth vessel. If you are to float beyond time while driving a car, crossing the street or cooking at your stove, you could harm your earth vessel. Therefore, we suggest that you put aside certain “times” in your day in which you can place your earth vessel safely in a chair and allow your SELF to visit your true, fifth dimensional HOME.


This is much like giving a child his or her “playtime,” so that the child can be patient during times of third dimensional obligations and activities. To our perspective, you all appear much as race horses waiting in the gate for the bell to sound so that they can run as fast as you can.


You all want to “run HOME” as fast as possible, but your Mother Planet Gaia needs your growing light so that She can return HOME too. We know that we are asking a lot of you. However, if one is on the cusp of personal ascension it is because they have mastered much of their physical life. Therefore, they are often quite happy with their life.


Remember, our dear Ones, that ascension is not an escape. Ascension is the Mission that you volunteered for before you took this incarnation. Of course, not all of humanity volunteered for this mission, but if you find yourself reading this message, you are likely among those volunteers.


It is a vital component of your ascension process that you remember that YOU are the creator of your reality. Therefore, you programmed every thing that occurs in your holographic reality. We feel your collective resistance to this part of our message, but we remind you that you also programmed myriad parallel and alternate realities. Therefore, there are always options to every occurrence in your life.


From your perspective, death is a tragedy that creates great sorrow and loss. Conversely, from the perspective of your Multidimensional SELF who programmed your 3D life, death is a means to logout from the hologram. Also, facing death is a deep initiation that forces you to look deeply into your life to determine what is really important and what is just a third-dimensional distraction from your mission.


In fact, many of you have programmed into your holographic life that if you become too distracted from your true reason for incarnation that you will “reset” your program by having a near death experience or an actual death experience. The third dimension teaches you that death is your enemy and you must “be the strongest ones” to survive.


That message primarily occurs in the patches of darkness that are ruled by fear. When that timeline, area and/or population evolves into a higher frequency of consciousness, they begin to realize that third dimensional life is the illusion and the LIFE they wish to experience is actually in the higher dimensions of reality.


As more and more of you become Masters of your energy field, you are remembering that YOU have control of your emotions and thoughts. Thus, it is YOU that is creating your life. While one is trapped in the areas of darkness, it is very difficult to come to that conclusion. Hence, once you regain mastery of your energy field, you remember that you have taken an earth vessel to assist dear Gaia with Her ascension.


While in the third dimensional holographic projection is it easy to believe that only humans are important and the myriad other life forms that share your planet are far beneath you. However, once you become Master of your energy you realize that the planet is alive and ALL life is of equal importance. The truth is that Earth could easily survive, and in fact prosper much better, if all humanity would leave. However, without the “insignificant” insects, the entire ecosystem for Gaia’s planet could collapse.


It is important for our human ones to remember that they are not in any manner “better” than any other component of Gaia’s immense ecosystem. We are sure that those reading this message are aware that humanity has caused great harm to their home planet and have brought Gaia to the verge of destruction on more occasions than your limited “history” reveals.


Dear human expressions of your great Multidimensional SELF walk softly on the body of your Mother. Send Her your unconditional love with your every breath. Remember that your current physical incarnation, which appears so important to you, is a mere fraction of your SELF and less than a millisecond of Gaia’s ‘time.’


As you move beyond the limitations of that illusion of time, you also move beyond the illusions that you have held as truths for myriad incarnations. When you become aware of the truth of what is occurring around you, it is a great temptation to feel fear, anger, sorrow or judgment. But, these feelings lower your frequency to the state of consciousness in which you actually contribute your own energy to the very fear, anger, sorrow and judgment that you disdain in others.


Remember that YOU are calibrating your perceptions, and thus your experiences, to the versions of reality that resonate to your state of consciousness. Ascension occurs within your consciousness and expands far beyond your earth vessel. As you continue your ascension process, you will move out of alignment with the third-dimensional holographic projection of Earth and into alignment with Gaia’s true Planetary SELF in the fifth dimension and beyond.


Ascension does not make you a Saint. Ascension merely means that you have returned your consciousness to the frequencies of your Multidimensional SELF, which resonates above the illusions of the third/fourth dimensional realities. What is so very different in your present timeline, for which you have prepared for in many incarnations, is that the third/fourth dimensional holographic projection of Earth is closing.


Gaia and all Her inhabitants are returning to their true Multidimensional SELF. Those who wish to take on a physical form to study at a “planetary school of cause and effect” will need to log into a different planet. Those humans who do not feel complete with their lessons of cause and effect will simply shift from Gaia’s holographic projection to another planetary holographic projection to complete their education.


There is not judgment by an outer source, as the concept of “outer sources” is a third-dimensional illusion. In fact, the concept of “judgment” is also a third-dimensional illusion. While one is still feeling trapped in third-dimensional illusion, they will not be able to understand this message.


However, if the “egg” that has encased their embryo self is cracking, and they are emerging as their true Multidimensional SELF, they will know that our message is real. The act of “cracking the egg” will open the window of their mind to allow the ever-expanding light of the ONE to shine into their consciousness.


In closing we remind you to withdraw ALL attention from that which you do not want to manifest, while your recognize and send gratitude to the “everyday miracles” that are increasingly blessing your life.


Blessing BE to our ascending ones,

We will keep the light on while we await your return,
The Arcturians

[greybeard]

Paul pokes fun at spiritual teachers---one thing he said he heard from a spiritual teacher is "You are in the water buying water from a man standing in the water" He got it and stopped searching.
.
What I forgot to say as part of the prayer is "GRATITUDE."
There is belief that enlightenment can happen but if it does not, life as it is is a blessing filled with much to appreciate and be grateful for.

The enlightened are not saints---the persona carries on much as before. There is just the knowledge that the persona is not what I am any more than the pet dog is, but both are loved and cherished.
There is nothing which is not "I" the paradox is that there appears to be preferences.
We are at the movies and part of the film--enjoy the play.

I have to be in the right mood for Paul---as he is very in your face---he does however shake loose any remaining concepts.

c

[Guish]

Paul is, with great humour, kicking the ground from under your feet.
The me does not become enlightened--- what you truly are is free of the illusion that there ever was a "me"

The searching, though it has its uses, actually strengthens the concept of there being a me who can be liberated.
You are freed from the concept of the me---that is enlightenment.
There is no me and you, there is no other.
"Love the other as your self" comes close to it.

Ramesh said the big challenge is the thought that there is a doer (me)
Things are happening--that's life doing as it does.
You are untouched.
The body may well be affected.
Ramana when dying of cancer was asked if he was in pain--he said "There is pain" He did not own it.

Spiritual practices are useful as eventually one realises they dont work.
Then deep surrender can happen. Thy will be done not mine.

The prayer is solitary and focused " I want to know the Truth, nothing else will do, please remove the obstacles standing in the way, no matter what it takes

All thoughts of I, me, and mine strengthen the illusion.
When these thoughts arise they can be countered with "That's not what I am" they tend to be thoughts of past and future and can be countered with--That's not here and now.

With a little examination it will be seen that every thought is self referential---it leads back to me. This, as said, strengthens the illusion of a separate me.

c

I guess enlightenment is funny. One ends up being no-one with no desire, no attraction, no repulsion filled with nothing.

[Guish]

One day the Master announced that a young monk had reached an advanced state of enlightment. The news caused some stir. Some of the monks went to see the young monk. "We heard you are enlightened. Is that true?" they asked.

"It is," he replied.

"And how do you feel?"

"As miserable as ever," said the monk.

[greybeard]

One story is that in singularity God could not experience anything------- as duality,, an other is required to compare.
So He dreamt the whole thing up---in a dream anything is possible, there are no limitations.
You are that.
So Paul knows what "he" is through a process of --I am not that.
There is no noun---only verbing---only happening.
The challenge arises when an identification with the verbing happens--I am making that happen---etc.
The enthusiasm joy etc that he is expressing is not dependent on anything external.
When we dream there is nothing external yet it is very real---it is totally a figment of our imagination in dream time.
So real that we can wake in a cold sweat-- a nightmare can be woken from in a terrified state till there is the realisation that none of it is real.
The body can have a reaction.
However I feel life is to be enjoyed without being taken too seriously.

c

[Wind]

Why present yourself as something pitiful?
People will exploit you. Remember and live up to your original name.
Your name is 'I am'.
Be in your 'I am'. It is the holy presence, the light of God.
Be one with this.

~ Mooji

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