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  • THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY

    The reign of violence will never come to an end until, first, most human beings accept the same, true philosophy of life; until, second, this Perennial Philosophy is recognized as the highest factor common to all the world religions ; until, third, the adherents of every religion renounce the idolatrous time-philosophies, with which, in their own particular faith, the Perennial Philosophy of eternity has been overlaid ; until, fourth, there is a world-wide rejection of all the political pseudo-religions, which place man’s supreme good in future time and therefore justify and commend the commission of every sort of present iniquity as a means to that end. If these conditions are not fulfilled, no amount of political planning, no economic blue-prints however ingeniously drawn, can prevent the recrudescence of war and revolution.

    Aldous Huxley

    THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY.pdf

  • The way to peace

    Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are never justified. Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.

    Nisargadatta Maharaj

  • Death Experience

    It was about six weeks before I left Madura for good that a great change in my life took place . It was quite sudden. I was sitting in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden, violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it; and I did not try to account for it or to find out whether there was any reason for the fear. I just felt, ‘I am going to die,’ and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends. I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, then and there.
    The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ or any other word could be uttered, ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process. ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and blends with all the other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else, I was still centred on ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.

    Sri Ramana Maharshi

  • Death

    Everyone has to die; so die as your true nature. Why die as a body? Never forget your true nature. It may not be acceptable to many, but it is a fact… this body has nothing to do with you. If you must have an ambition have the highest, so that at least while dying, you will be the Absolute. Decide that now firmly, with certainty and conviction. Giving up the body is a great festival.
    Death is generally considered to be a traumatic experience, but understand what happens. That which has been born, the knowledge ‘I am’ which is the same everywhere, but which has gotten itself limited by the body, again becomes unlimited. A speck of consciousness is given up. Why the fear? How has this fear of death crept in? That which cannot die somehow became convinced that it was going to die. It is based on the concept that one is an individual who is born… all the fear arises from mere words told to you by someone. This is the bondage. It is like someone gives you a drink and then tells you, “I have put poison in that drink, and in six months you will die.? Immediately you become very frightened because you think that you will die. But then you meet a friend and he tells you not to worry. He says, “Here, drink this and there will be no death for you. First there is one concept which fills you full of fright, and then there is another concept which negates the first concept. Like this you get involved with the flow of maya and there are concepts, ideas, creations… pain alternates with pleasure… but all of it is just ignorance and misery. It is only when you search for your Self that you become aware that it is all a fraud.
    Be still in your beingness. Then even it will disappear and you will merge in Truth. All that needs to be done is to find out your real source and take up headquarters there. From the Absolute standpoint, your beingness is only ignorance. Nothing comes and nothing goes; it is a mirage. All there is is the Absolute, all there is is the Truth. The witness of the consciousness never comes into the realm of the consciousness. When you pursue this spiritual path of understanding the Self, all your desires just drop off… even the primary desire… to be. When you stay put in the beingness for some time, that drops off. Then you are in the Absolute… there is no movement for you. You are minding the show. Consciousness extinguishes itself, knowingness disappears, and you, the Absolute remains. That is the moment of death.
    When this life force leaves the body, it will not seek permission from anything. It came spontaneously and will leave spontaneously. That is all that happens in what is called death. Death is the culmination of the experience ‘I am’. After the termination of the ‘I amness’ there is no experience of knowingness or not knowingness. What did you know prior to your birth? Similarly, after death this instrument is missing; without the body there is no experience. Eternity has no birth and no death, but a temporary state has a beginning and an end. Even when the consciousness goes, you prevail – you always are – as the Absolute. As the consciousness you are everything that comes into manifestation. Whatever is, is you. But, when you fully understand the knowledge ‘I am’ and all its manifestations, then you will understand that, in truth, you are not that. You are the unlimited, which is not susceptible to the senses. By limiting yourself to the body you have closed yourself to the unlimited potential which you really are. Treat the body like a visitor or a guest, which has come and which will go. You must know your position as a host very clearly while it is still here, and while it is here you must also know what your position will be after it leaves.
    In spirituality there is no question of doing… only observing and understanding. But, if you try to understand spirituality through various concepts, like birth and rebirth, you will get caught up in them in a vicious cycle. And once you are caught up in them you are bound to have them. Out of concepts the forms are created. Right now, think of that last moment when the body will go – at that time with what identity are you going to quit? When you become aware of your true nature, then at the end of your life you will not be prepared to give even one paisa to extend your life. You will have lost all love for this manifested world and you will not want even this consciousness for five minutes more.
    The vital breath leaves the body, the ‘I amness’ recedes and goes to the Absolute. That is the greatest moment, the moment of immortality. The ‘I amness’ was there, the movement was there, and now it is extinguished. Being alive is never as an individual, but simply being part of the spontaneous manifestation. Now that has subsided in death. The ignorant one will struggle and get frightened at the moment of death; most reluctantly he will give up the consciousness to a concept he has come to call time. But the jnani gives up the beingness to his own true nature; for him it is the happiest of moments.

    Nisargadatta Maharaj

    On_Death-Nisargadatta_Maharaj.pdf

  • You are beyond everything

    There are no conditions to fulfill. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be given up. Just look and remember, whatever you perceive is not you, nor yours. It is there in the field of consciousness, but you are not the field and its contents, nor even the knower of the field. It is your idea that you have to do things that entangles you in the results of your efforts – the motive, the desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration – all this holds you back. Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.”

    Nisargadatta Maharaj

  • The Fasting of the Mind

    PHENOMENAL life in an apparent universe is nothing but objectivisation: all that we know as ‘life’ is only that process. Living, for the ordinary man, is a continual process of objectifying. From morning till night, and from night till morning, he never ceases to objectify except in dreamless sleep. That is what manifestation is, and it is nothing but that, for when objectifying ceases the objective universe is no more—as in deep sleep. But when Ch’an monks ‘sit’ they seek to empty their minds, to practise a fasting of the mind, for while the mind ‘fasts’ there is no more conceptualisation; then no concept arises, not even an I-concept, and in the absence of an I-concept the mind is ‘pure’ (free of objects); then, and only then, it is itself, what-it-is and as-it-is. When that is permanent it is objectively called being enlightened, when it is temporary it can be called samddhi. In that state of fasting the mind is only ‘blank’ in so far as there is a total absence of objects; itself it is not absent but totally present, then and only then. Nor is ‘objectivising’ replaced by ‘subjectivising’; both counterparts are absent, and the subject-object process (whereby subject, objectifying itself as object, thereby becomes object, which object is nothing but subject), the ‘spinning of the mind’, ceases to operate and dies down. The mind ceases to ‘do’; instead, it ‘is’. In the absence of objectivisation the apparent universe is not, but we are; which is so because what we are is what the apparent universe is, and what the apparent universe is—is what we are; dual in presence, non-dual in absence, sundered only in manifestation.

    Open Secret,
    Wu Wei

  • Proverbio Arabo

    Onesto è colui che cambia il proprio pensiero per accordarlo alla verità. Disonesto è colui che cambia la verità per accordarla al proprio pensiero.

    Proverbio Arabo

  • I the only spectator and enjoyer of it

    The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the world was mine, and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor bounds, nor divisions; but all proprieties and divisions were mine; all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world, which I now unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the kingdom of God.

    Traherne

  • Some Dialogues from Conscioiusness and the Absolute

    Some Dialogues from Conscioiusness and the Absolute

    http://www.prahlad.org/gallery/consciousness_absolute.htm

  • Self-transformation

    If you want to awaken all of humanity,
    then awaken all of yourself.
    If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world,
    then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.
    Truly, the greatest gift you have to give
    is that of your own self-transformation.

    Lao Tzu