The Supreme is the universal solvent, it corrodes every container, it burns through every obstacle. Without the absolute denial of everything the tyranny of things would be absolute. The Supreme is the great harmonizer, the guarantee of the ultimate and perfect balance – of life in freedom. It dissolves you and thus re-asserts your true being.
Nisagdatta Maharaj
This consciousness is a tree, but there was a seed – go to the seed. The consciousness you have now is the same as the child consciousness; hold on to that, that is enough. So long as the consciousness is there everything is so important to you, but if that vanishes, then what is the worth of this whole world to you? Who is the knower of the seed? Give attention to how this “I Amness” has appeared – then you will know. Accept this identification only: that you are this manifest pure beingness, the very soul of the universe, of this life that you observe, and presently you are just wearing this bodily attire. Make a note of it; you have taken down so many things in life, just for fun, why don’t you take this down also and see what happens? See what happens when you look at the moon and know that the moon is there provided you are there; because you are the moon is. This grand concept, this joy, you directly experience and enjoy.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Religion is chiefly the understanding that you are a part of the totality. Being a separate individual is the entire problem. All sensuality, all search for knowledge, all search for pleasure, is related to this problem. You have created a sense of duality by separating yourself from the totality.
You have a sense of self-identity that makes you anxious. The sense of separate existence is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In this reflection the unlimited and the limited are confused and taken to be the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of yoga.
All the scriptures are of no use.
The scriptures are for the ignorant, not for the one of knowledge. Whatever can be told through words has no permanence. It can be compared to a dream. The religions of the world are the games of the ignorant.
The traditional scriptures are unable to locate the Absolute, which is beyond the grasp of the Vedas, because it is not conceptual. There are many volumes written about spirituality which do not destroy your concepts but add to them. All the volumes do not tell you what you are.
Spiritual books help in dispelling ignorance. They are useful in the beginning, but become a hindrance in the end. One must know when to discard them. Whatever you think of as spiritual knowledge was gained in the realm of consciousness. Such knowledge is merely a burden upon your head and is going to add more misery. It is nothing more than spiritual jargon.
In scriptures there are additions by unauthorized writers. Most of them are ignorant people, whose books would have been ignored in the normal course. Hence, these writers indicated the names of Vyasa etc, as the author, for easy acceptance by people. Also there are very few who question the content of the scriptures. They are taken for granted as the Truth. Even if it is not the Truth, it does not matter. For the common man spirituality comes last in their list of priorities. There are other important matters, like supply of food, rising prices, political instability etc, which need immediate attention. Spirituality can wait until one gets very old. Hence, as years pass, doubtful untruth gets established as the Truth.
The scriptures are concepts of poets. They offer bribes as well as they threaten.
There are so many religions. Even if people lose their lives, they will not accept anyone else’s religion. The basis of it is loyalty to a concept. Consensus means identification with concepts. But are wakefulness, sleep, hunger and thirst different for different religions? Why are there so many religions?… one likes one’s own concepts and wants others to follow them. If this succeeds one gets followers. This leads to creeds and religions. Those who teach and those who learn… all pass away. Religion is formed by the concepts of their followers, nothing else.
Many people study Yoga, which is the joining of knowledge and ignorance. Each seeker accepts, or invents, a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into a mould of words, builds them into a system, establishes a tradition, and begins to admit others into his ‘School of Yoga’. It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless, nor indispensable; in each one can progress up to the point… when all desire for progress must be abandoned, to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases. In solitude and darkness the last step is made, which ends ignorance and fear forever.
The ignorant follow religious practices for the satisfaction of following a tradition, and also for entertainment. Everybody has directly or indirectly taken initiation as per the religion to which he or she belongs. It is important to know that principle which takes the initiation. It is necessary to find out the nature of that principle.
Religions have come down through traditions. Is there a religion without dogma? Even a jnani has to follow traditions until a certain stage has been crossed.
Religions are based on concepts and emotions. Those emotions are so violent and absorbing that people have immolated themselves. Those who have identified themselves with Jesus Christ have not realized that unless individuality is given up Reality can never manifest itself. One individual has identified with another individual.
Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he acts. For most people service of their bodies and their minds is their religion. They have their religious ideas, but do not act on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but they will not act on them.
Spirituality is to realize the absolute meaning of your beingness, not the meaning of what is seen and felt.
All the prophets, creeds, religions, etc, are not real… they are only the play of this consciousness.
Spirituality is nothing more than understanding this play of consciousness. The ultimate religion is Self-realization. The religions based upon the bodily behaviour of human beings take them to their downfall. The highest religion means to live with the conviction that we are pure consciousness. Liberation means to be free… then one is not affected by the bondage of mind, intellect and ego. Only the religion of one’s own Self will last to the end.
The greatest negation of religion, the greatest sin, is to believe that the body is your true nature. Your religion is to remain as the Self. The highest religion is searching for one’s nature and stabilizing there.
In spirituality there is no profit or loss.
It is the Atman, not the personality, that is drawn to spirituality. Whether you practice spirituality or not, it makes no difference to the Absolute.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The body is made of food, as the mind is made of thoughts. See them as they are.
You are neither the body nor the mind, they appear and disappear according to their own laws. Let the body and mind work according to their own inclinations and the conditions, but know you are not them.
Miseries abound because we identify ourselves with the body. It is the nature of the body-mind to experience joys and sorrows. If you know that you are not the body, there is no suffering. In deep sleep there is no identification with the body, hence there is no experience of happiness or sorrow. Yet the mind goes on working, taking itself to be the body. It is false. If there is no mind then nothing can be witnessed. With the conviction that you are neither the body, nor the mind, you will understand this fraud.
The body-mind complex is merely an object, a phenomenon, and no phenomenon can act. You think you decide, but that is purely a concept. The individual as an object thinks he can decide, but in fact no object can decide. Everything is conceptual, and the concept of acting is in your body-mind complex.
The mistaken idea: ‘I am the body-mind’ causes the self-concern, which obscures the universe, just as a speck in the eye, by causing inflammation, may wipe out the world. It is useless to fight the sense of being a limited and separate person unless the roots of it are laid bare. Selfishness is rooted in the mistaken ideas of oneself.
To get rid of the habit of the body-mind is difficult and will take considerable time. It is done by substituting one habit for another. The substitute habit is to think constantly that you are not the body. Observe and understand that events are started by your mind, but you are only its witness. Do not participate. Be no longer concerned. All the world activities happen through the mind. If you think ‘I am the body-mind’… then you are doomed.
Any thoughts or actions will be based on body-mind identity, and in order to see your true nature there must be abandonment of this identity with the phenomenal centre. This cannot come about by any volitional action… it happens without any special efforts. There is no question of doing anything because there is no one to do anything.
You can only kill the body, you cannot stop the mental processes, nor can you put an end to the person you think you are. Just remain unaffected. This complete aloofness, unconcern with mind and body is the best proof that, at the core of your being, you are neither mind nor body. What happens to the body and the mind may not be within your power to change, but you can always put an end to your imagining yourself to be body and mind. Whatever happens, remind yourself that only your body and mind are affected, not yourself.
Outside your consciousness nothing exists. All being, like all knowing, relates to you. A thing is because you know it to be either in your experience or in your being. Your body and your mind exist as long as you believe so. Cease to think that they are yours and they will just dissolve. By all means let your body and mind function, but do not let them limit you. If you notice imperfections, just keep on noticing… your very giving attention to them will set your heart and mind and body right. Man becomes what he believes himself to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself, and you will find yourself to be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the mind.
You have to be separate from your mind and your body. This is the total message. You are that sense of presence, and not the body-mind.
Take steps to separate your real self, that in you which is changeless, from your body and mind. The more earnest you are at remembering what needs to be remembered, the sooner will you be aware of yourself as you are, for memory will become experience. Earnestness reveals being. What is imagined and willed becomes actuality… here lies the danger as well as the way out.
Does the mind appear in the body, or the body in the mind? Surely there must be a mind to conceive the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. Realize that the body depends on the mind, and the mind on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness, and not the other way around.
Matter and mind are not separate, they are aspects of one energy. Look at the mind as a function of matter and you have science, look at matter as the product of mind and you have religion. The confusion is apparent and purely verbal. What is, is. Neither mind nor matter come first. Matter is the shape, mind is the name. Together they make the world. Pervading and transcending is Reality… pure being-awareness-bliss… your very essence.
There is no duality. There is the body and the Self. Between them is the mind, in which the Self is reflected as ‘I Am’. Because of the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight, it takes itself to be the body, not the Self. All that is needed is to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self. When the mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problems. It remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool and the expression of the creative fire within. The ultimate value of the body is that it serves to discover the cosmic body, which is the universe in its entirety. As you realize yourself in manifestation, you keep on discovering that you are ever more than what you have imagined. As there is no beginning, there is no end.
A person caught in a whirlpool suffocates and drowns. One who dives to the bottom of the vortex gets out. We are caught in the whirlpool of the body-mind… dive deep into the mind to get out of it.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
There is nothing wrong with being afraid but if we give into it we desensitise the body and suffer. Fear can be used to enliven the body and bring focus to the mind, when this is clear we can welcome it in the knowledge that we benefit from it.
We are in very strange times now and anyone who does not feel fear is either enlightened or has a mental problem, I am not sure which in my case LOL.
What I have been talking about for years now is happening and if we can face this and not try to hide in the hope that it will go away it can change for the better, we will all come out of it stronger in ourselves. If we are able to be open and allow the impact of information to be felt it will lead us to our true self. Yes we will have to face the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and uselessness but if these are fully felt we arrive in a place within ourselves where we are the power that creates the universe. This is where the change for the better for ALL can take place, ONLY from here. You are not alone in this as many are realising what is happening and are willing to be open without hiding and it is in this way that we can bring about change.
There are no plans or strategies that will change the present situation on this planet. Only by allowing what we see and hear etc to have its affect upon us without denying it will bring about the much needed change. “I” is the greatest power that exists and only “I” can change the dream of the world. The requirement now is that we take what is happening to face whatever arises as reaction and stay present to it until “I” is revealed, We are heading into a time of mass enlightenment, conscious awareness of the fact that we are all the same Being, it is already happening. The fear is of the one that imagines itself to exist, the ego, and that one will die in the fire of the fear leaving behind this which never dies and is never threatened, “I”.
This is our adventure.
Avasa
Out of all the many awakenings that have been described to me, it is continuously confirmed that one of the first realisations that arises is the seeing that noone awakens. And yet we see that the majority of teachings, both traditional and contemporary, are constantly speaking to an apparent separate seeker (subject) and recommending that in order to attain enlightenment (object) they should choose to meditate, selfenquire, purify, cultivate understanding, still the mind and the ego, surrender, be honest, seek earnestly , give up seeking, do therapy, do nothing, be here now, and so on . . . the ideas are as endless and as complicated as the mind from where they are generated.
These recommendations arise from the belief that the “enlightenment” of the “teacher” has been attained or earned through the application of choice, effort, acceptance or surrender, an d that other seekers can be taught to do the same.
Of course there can be nothing right or wrong with earnest seeking, meditation, self enquiry, understanding and so on. They are simply what they appear to be. But who is it that is going to choose to make the effort? Where is the effort going to take the apparent chooser to? where is there to go if there is only oneness? If there is no separate individu al there is no volition, and so how can an illusion dispel itself?
There is no person that becomes enlightened. Noone awakens. Awakening is the absence of the illusion of individu ality. Already there is only awakeness, oneness, timeless being, radical aliveness. When the dream seeker is no more it is seen (by noone) that there is nothing to seek and noone to become liberated.
Here is oneness, the realisation of wholeness that cannot be attained or owned. This is the awakening in which the awareness of what is arises together with the dreaming of that which cannot be known. There can be a dance between dreaming and being, and in that dance there can be a retu rn to the fascination of personal ownership.
However, the realisation that the dream seeker is also oneness is liberation, the uncaused, impersonal, silent stillness which is the celebration of unconditional love. This is all there is.
There is no me or you , no seeker, no enlightenment, no disciple and no guru . There is no better or worse, no path or purpose, and nothing that has to be achieved.
All appearance is source. All that apparently manifests in the hypnotic dream of separation the world, the life story, the search for home, is one appearing as two the nothing appearing as everything, the absolute appearing as the particular.
There is no separate intelligence weaving a destiny and no choice functioning at any level. Nothing is happening but this, as it is, invites the apparent seeker to rediscover that which is . . . the abiding, uncaused, unchanging, impersonal silence from which unconditional love overflows and celebrates. It is the wonderful mystery.
Tony Parsons
All there is is wholeness . . . boundless energy appearing as everything . . . the sky, trees, feelings, thoughts, whatever. It is the mystery of no thing simultaneously being everything.
There is nothing apart from the boundless everything and yet, because it is free, it can appear to be separate from itself . . . it can appear to be the story of me. There is nothing right or wrong in that appearance which is wholeness apparently happening.
Contracted energy seems to arise in the human being and create a sense of separation out of which arises a unique sense of identity . . . a self consciousness. The me is born and the story of me seems to begin. Me is the story and the story is me and one cannot exist without the other. They both only appear and function in a dualistic subject object reality. Everything seems to be personally experienced as a series of events in real time happening to a real me. Within that story time, journey, purpose and free will and choice seem to be real.
This sense of separation is not just an idea, a thought or a belief. It is a contracted energy embodied in the whole organism which influences every experience. As a consequence the me experiences a tree, the sky, another person, a thought or a feeling through a veil of separation. It is as though me is a something and everything else is lots of other separate somethings happening to me. What arises from this once removed sense is a subtle feeling of dissatisfaction. A feeling that something is lost or hidden.
For most people this sense of dissatisfaction is not that apparent, and because they believe they are individuals with free will and choice they seem motivated to try and create a successful story . . . good relationships, good health, wealth, personal power or whatever else.
However, for some there is a greater sensitivity about something else that seems to be missing. This feeling generates a longing for a deeper sense of fulfilment. There can be an investigation into religion, therapy or the meaning of enlightenment. Because the me has become convinced that it has the means to influence its story, it also assumes that it can find deeper fulfilment through its own choice, determination and action.
The me may, for instance, go to a priest or a therapist or a teacher of enlightenment in order to find what it thinks it needs.
Often because the me feels it has lost something, there can be a sense of inadequacy and so what is pursued is a teaching that satisfies the need to do something which will bring about a personal transformation and make the me worthy of fulfilment. All of this activity is apparently happening within the story of me which is functioning in an artificially dualistic reality. So me is searching in the finite for that which is infinite. It is a something looking for another something, and what it really longs for remains unobtainable by already being everything. It is rather like trying to catch air with a butterfly net. It isn’t difficult, it is wonderfully impossible. The essential futility of that searching inevitably fuels the sense of a me who feels even more unworthy and separate.
However, in the seeking activity there can be experiences along the way that encourage the me to search further and try harder. Personal therapy can bring a transient sense of personal balance in the story. Practices like meditation can bring a state of peace or silence. Self enquiry can bring an apparently progressive experience of understanding and strengthened awareness. But for awareness to function it needs something apart for it to be aware of. Awareness simply feeds separation, and a state of detachment can arise and be mistaken for enlightenment. All of these states come and go within the story of me.
The basis of all teaching of becoming enlightened is the idea that a change of belief or experience can lead to a personal knowing of oneness, self realisation or of discovering your own true nature. The whole investment in a progressive path goes on feeding the story of me attaining something. Even the suggestion of personal surrender or acceptance can be initially attractive and bring a satisfying state . . . for a while. There are many so-called non-dual ‘teachings’ which feed the story of me becoming liberated.
However, the oneness that is longed for is boundless and free. It cannot be grasped or even approached. Nor is there anything that would need to be done or changed or made better than that which is already everything.
The me experience can be very convincing because “the world” it lives in seems to be dominated by lots of me’s in lots of stories. But the me construct is inconstant and has no foundation. All of the me story is only a dance of wholeness which is without significance or purpose.
A deep and uncompromising exposure of the artificial construct of separation and the story of me can loosen the constraints that keep it locked in place and reveal the way in which seeking can only reinforce the dilemma. The apparent sense of separation, however, is at its essence an energetically contracted energy which no amount of conceptual clarity will ever undo.
When there is an openness to the possibility of that which is beyond self-seeking, then it seems that the contracted energy can evaporate into the boundless freedom which it already is. And still this is only another story which attempts to point to and describe a total paradox . . . the apparent end of something that was never real . . . the story of me.
All there is, is boundless freedom.
Tony Parsons
Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.
– Adyashanti
Spiritual maturity is being ready to let go everything. Giving up is a first step, but real giving-up is the insight that there’s nothing to be given up, since nothing is your property.
Nisargadatta Maharajah
You, who are the creator of all, have limited yourself to the concept of being in the size of a body and therefore something that is limited to the length of one lifetime.
You, who are the creator, have fallen into identification with the action of words arising as mind and cease to see that you are what knows of their arising.
Prior to time and space you are the Stillness within which they arise.
Avasa