some show the ladder
rare is He/myG who helps one climb
u r not content with now
u want to have the future now itself
u cant because its still in the future
hence the worry....whther u will get or not
the way u want
though the Self is always there, it is not
recognized by you even with a controlled mind because you are
not conversant with it.
[having a book by illiterate .person ..or by an intelligent man..even with all concentration ..cannot
understand without knowledge of that language]
Thought for the day
நாம் யாரும் வேண்டுமென்றே நமது கையையோ, காலையோ காயப்படுத்த மாட்டோம். ஏனென்றால்,அவ்வாறு செய்தால் நமக்கு வலிக்கும் என்பது தெரியும். இதுபோல் சராசரம் முழுவதும் ஒரே ஜீவ சைதன்யமே உள்ளது என்று உணரும்போது, பிறருடைய வேதனையும், தனது வேதனையாகத் தோன்றும். அவரைக் காப்பதற்கு மனம் வரும். நாம் விரைவோம்.அவசியமின்றி ஒரு உயிருக்கும் துன்பம் விளைவிக்கத் தோன்றாது. ஒரு பூ மலர்ந்த பிறகு பத்துத் தினங்கள் செடியில் வாடாமல் இருக்குமெனில், பத்தாவது தினம் மட்டுமே நமது முன்னோர் அதைப் பறிப்பர்.
____________________________________________________________
My-essence
-
Breath is essential for the life of the body
Awareness of breath ------- inner center
If you try to be aware of your breathing…..you cant think.
Witnessing-passive aw w/o action-become dead to past-thoughts/feelings/events
No judging/evaluating
Stopping the mind….by whom ?—mind itself divided---CRAZY[outer by inner]
Just watch ---mind will unwind by itself-look at it with
Deep love/respect/reverence----Gods Gift-like clouds in sky;flowers on trees,rivers running to seas
While dreaming—events are lifelike not dreamlike quality
While the unconscious creates dreams and tremendous activity goes on,conscious mind is asleep and so is not fully aware of the dream.Unconscious knows no logic-absurd/illogical seem real
Everybody lives in his own world-as many worlds as there are minds
When the mind is-all is a dream asleep/awake
U r witness --Passive alertness-loose-natural-relaxed-looking thro corner of eyes
Osho-awareness-key to living in balance
First become conscious of your consciousness. And in that very becoming, in that very silence " when you are only conscious of your consciousness and not of any other content " no thought, no desire, no dream " you are just conscious of your being conscious, the mirror is reflecting itself and nothing else
"Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action.
Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful.
The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation."
Myessence
Life-first half layering self with thoughts feelings emotions-good bad judgements
Second half unlayering…..again reverting to unconditioned stage
What I say has very little value. You will forget it the moment you shut this book, or you will remember and repeat certain phrases, or you will compare what you have read here with some other book - but you will not face your own life. And that is all that matters
- your life, yourself, your pettiness, your shallowness, your brutality, your violence, your greed, your ambition, your daily agony and endless sorrow - that is what you have to understand and nobody on earth or in heaven is going to save you from it but yourself.
you can tremendously influence the world if in yourself you are not violent, if you lead actually every day a peaceful life - a life which is not competitive, ambitious,envious - a life which does not create enmity.
When we employ wrong techniques in life-wrong in the sense that there was no proper relation to the facts of life-then we get rebuffed and receive a kick from nature.
To GET THE ROOT, THE FUNDAMENTAL, treat
ALL KINDS OF LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE AND ALL YOUR DAILY ACTIVITIES AS YOU RESPOND TO PEOPLE AND ADAPT TO CIRCUMSTANCES,THROUGH SO MANY UPSETS AND DOWNFALLS, WHETHER JOYOUS OR ANGRY, GOOD OR BAD, FAVORABLE OR ADVERSE -
As TRIVIAL MATTERS, THE BRANCHES.
BE SPONTANEOUSLY AWARE AND KNOWING AS YOU ARE GOING ALONG WITH CIRCUMSTANCES
the moment you can see your whole life as a dream, it has lost all its impact on you. You have become totally free -- free from all bondage of the body and the mind, free from all limitations. You are ready to enter into the limitless consciousness of existence itself.
--------------------------------------------
Basically you are totally free to choose, but once you choose, your very choice brings a limitation.
If you want to remain totally free, then don't choose. That's where the teaching of choiceless awareness comes in. that’s why the insistence of the great masters just to be aware and not to choose.
Because the moment you choose, you have lost your total freedom, you are left with only a part. But if you remain choiceless, your freedom remains total.
So there is only one thing which is totally free and that is choiceless awareness. Everything else is limited.
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sometimes even harmful things are not so harmful. Once in a while you can enjoy it, but there is no obsession to enjoy it too much. That obsession is part of the repression.
if you can't enjoy, then what is this life for?
enjoy anything (love, life, food, a beautiful scene, a sunset, a morning, beautiful clothes, a good bath -- small things, ordinary things),
if you cannot enjoy this things, and there are people who cannot enjoy anything: they become interested in God. They are the most impossible people; they can never reach to God.
God enjoys these trees, otherwise why does He go on creating them? He is not fed up at all, not at all. For millennia He has been working on trees flowers and birds, and He goes on listening.He goes on replacing: new beings, new earths, new planets. He is really very, very colorful! Look at life, watch it, and you will see the heart of God -- how it is.
--------------------
-everyday is just a day there are no good days or bad days. It is up to our attitudes to decide.
-Life is always in a state of change; there is nothing wrong with this because it is teaching us something each day.
-detach urself from the past/future and enjoy what u have right now
- learn to flow from one moment to the next.
-------------------------------
Choiceless Awareness
Awareness is to understand the activities of the self, the ‘I’, in its relationship with people, with ideas, and with things. That awareness is from moment to moment.
awareness demands constant pliability, alertness. This is not difficult. It is what you actually do when you are interested in something...
As long as the mind uses consciousness as the self-activity, time comes into being with all its miseries, with all its conflicts, with all its mischiefs, its purposive deceptions; and it is only when the mind, understanding this total process, ceases, that love will be. You may call it love or give it some other names; what name you give is of no consequence.
----------------
The Zen consciousness
be thoroughly egoless and mindless. If a flower comes reflect a flower, if a bird comes it reflect a bird.
show a beautiful object as beautiful, an ugly object as ugly. Everything is revealed as it is. There is no discriminating mind or self-consciousness . If something comes, reflect; if it disappears just let it disappear . . . no traces of anything are left behind. Such non-attachment, the state of no-mind, is the truly free working .
-----------------------------------------------------
live a heart centred life:
your tensions will start disappearing,
you will
become more and more cool/calm
find beauty in things which you have never, ever conceived could be beautiful.
The smallest things will start having tremendous significance.
The whole world will become more and more mysterious every day; you will become less and less knowledgeable, more and more innocent - just like a child running after butterflies or collecting sea shells on the beach.
You will feel life not as a problem but as a gift, as a blessing, as a benediction. life becomes more and more enjoyable. The heart loves to have fun and opens in the spirit of fun and playfulness
------------------------------------
don't be a burden for anybody in the future, because then u will be a past. be forgotten completely as if u had never been here. Just the way a bird flies in the sky and leaves no footprints in the sky, disappear like those footprints. So that UR no more a burden on anybody.
-------------------------
You may be gone, but you loved somebody and that love created a ripple that will remain and remain and remain. It can never disappear, it will have its own repercussions...it will go on vibrating.
------------------
the past should not be a burden on the present. The past is like dust covering a mirror. It distorts the vision and it becomes heavier and heavier and does not allow you to live in freedom in the present and the same is true about the future.
If you think too much of the future, while you are thinking of the future the present is slipping by from your hands which is the only reality.
1. --------------------------
• LIVE IN EQUANIMITY, CALM AND CONTENT. FREE FROM ALL CARE,
• ACT NATURALLY AND REASONABLY.
• DO NOT STRUGGLE TO AVOID ILLUSION NOR SEEK FOR SATORI.
• KNOW THAT ILLUSION IS UNFOUNDED AND THAT SATORI IS NONE OTHER THAN YOURSELF.
when you die somebody weeps, not for the other fellow,
but for his or her own loneliness.
It is because you are afraid to be
as nothing, politically, socially, religiously, that sex becomes a
problem; but if in all these things you allowed yourself to diminish,
to be the less, you would see that sex becomes no problem at all.
To be a true human being, free
of all bondages, and being honest with the Almighty, is being a Sufi.’
- Thakur Ram Singh (quoting his
Master Mahatma Ram Chandra)
“Suf” means wool. Wool
is warm. If the heart is warm, then there is love. A saint whose heart is soft
and warm is Sufi.
‘In spirituality thereis no better
utterance than silence, because spirituality is a flow from and to the heart.’
one can make an
effort to understand these great Masters only either through one’s personal
experience or by having a glimpse of their way of living and their conduct.
The anecdotes connected with them throw some light in this direction. With
the passage of time there is a possibility of some distortion in the facts
creeping in, but what is important is their essence
it is the love for the
Master that takes the disciple further and further on to the path of
spirituality.
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Abu Yazid al-Bistami
HJ Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bistami (Bayazid) was one ofthe great Sufi
Masters of 8th-9th Century AD, whose ancestors were Zoroastrians from
Persia. It is said that Bayazid al-Bistami was the first one to speak about the
reality of ‘fana’ (Annihilation i.e. merging ones identity completely with the
Almighty)
Bayazid saying, “I want not to want
except what He wants.” Abul Hassan Kharqani said, ‘I want not to want’ is
exactly the wanting, which is the real desire.
[easanodayinum asai arumin]-----------no i/he
It was revealed to Bayazid that one could enter into the Presence of
the Almighty not by renouncing the world, as the value of the lower world to
‘Him’ was like the wing of a mosquito. Nor could one enter into ‘His’
Presence through tawakkul(the state of trust in Allah), as the Almighty
never betrayed the trust of any one. One could, however, enter the Presence
of the Almighty only through the Almighty.
O My Lord, Your obedience to me is greater than my obedience to
You.” Meaning thereby, O God, You are kind to grant my request and I have
yet to obey You.
The only way to the Almighty is to “leave yourself
and come.” Ibrahim Khawwas explained this by sayingthat the way that the
Almighty showed to Bayazid with the most delicate word and the simplest
explanation was to ‘leave your self-interest in thetwo worlds, this world and
the Hereafter, leave everything other than ‘Me’ behind.’ That is the best and
the easiest way to realise the Almighty and the most perfect and the highest
state of affirming Oneness, not to accept anything or anyone except the
Almighty.
[sarva dharman -----sharanam vraja-18/66]
Sufi Masters have, therefore, laid great emphasis on the
practice of meditating upon the face of their Master (tasawwur), which is
done to the state of perfection. He also said that for the knower a time will
come when the light of knowledge will reach him andhe would be able to
see the incredible Unseen.
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essence-2
Looking at the tree, remember the one who is looking; eating, remember the one who is eating; walking, remember the one who is walking. Rather than emphasising the outer, emphasise the inner, and slowly slowly it becomes clear who this seen is. That is our true reality and that is what God is.
develop indirect ways, aesthetic ways, poetic, loving ways. One has to learn how to trust, one has to learn how to dissolve, how to become one with things.
All that is beautiful in existence, all that has splendour and majesty, is part of God. Whenever you see beauty it is divine. Wherever you see it, bow down to it. It is the manifestation of God. It may be in a flower, it may be in a human face, it may be in a star or anywhere, but wherever you feel the awe and the presence of the majestic, bow down! Make it a point, make it your meditation. And you will be surprised: the more you recognise beauty, the closer you start coming to God, the more you can see splendour hidden everywhere. And it is everywhere. In the stone it is lying there -- one just needs to discover it. In the ugliest rock there is a splendour -- the eyes are just needed to find it.
If one starts looking for it, one comes across it more and more. The ugly slowly slowly disappears, because nothing really can be ugly. Because all is God -- how can there be ugliness ? The ugliness exists because we have not understood. It is a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation; it needs more sympathy so that it can open its heart.
See it in the lightning, in the clouds, in the rain, in the sounds, in the silence. Just be in search of the majestic and then you will not need to go to any church, to any temple, to any mosque, because then the whole existence becomes His temple. It is!
Feel more and more compassion. Flow into compassion... for no reason at all, because compassion can't have any reason, it is its own joy. If you do it for some reason it is no more compassion. It has to be spontaneous, on the spot, with no idea, with no motive.
develop a sense of unconditional love for the inner, spiritual essence of all the people that you connect with in your life. Even the difficult people, as they are often holding up a mirror for you to understand an aspect of past habits which, deep down, you would like to examine at this timeYour sense of unconditional love naturally includes full acceptance of yourself, just as you arewith the personality that you adopted for this lifetime of experience. You can catch those old thought patterns of self-criticism and remember that you live in a universe which is naturally full of love and unconditional acceptance
you will be sad, but accept that sadness and be grateful. That too is good. Go with total
acceptance of whatsoever is. Say yes to everything, whatsoever happens, and then each moment
brings infinite possibilities for growth
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” - Lao-Tzu
most of us have problems like this, with things that disrupt how we like things, with people who change what we are used to, with life when it doesn’t go the way we want it to go.
Go with the flow.
What is going with the flow? It’s rolling with the punches. It’s accepting change without getting angry or frustrated. It’s taking what life gives you, rather than trying to mold life to be exactly as you want it to be.
“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever is happening. This is the ultimate.” - Chuang Tzu
Realize that you can’t control everything. you can influence things, but many things are simply out of your control. First step is realizing that these things will happen. Not might happen, but will. There are things that we cannot control that will affect every aspect of our lives, and we must must must accept that, or we will constantly be frustrated. Meditate on this for awhile.
Realize that you can’t control others. Ah, one of the biggest challenges. We get frustrated with other people, because they don’t act the way we want them to act. Maybe it’s our d in law. But we have to realize that they are acting according to their personality, according to what they feel is right, and they are not going to do what we want all of the time. And we have to accept that. Accept that we can’t control them, accept them for who they are, accept the things they do. .
Accept change and imperfection. When we get things the way we like them, we usually don’t want them to change. But they will change. It’s a fact of life. We cannot keep things the way we want them to be … instead, it’s better to learn to accept things as they are. Accept that the world is constantly changing, and we are a part of that change. Also, instead of wanting things to be “perfect” (and what is perfect anyway?), we should accept that they will never be perfect, and we must accept good instead.
Enjoy life as a flow of change, chaos and beauty. Remember when I asked what “perfect” is, in the paragraph above? It’s actually a very interesting question. Does perfect mean the ideal life and world that we have in our heads? Do we have an ideal that we try to make the world conform to? Because that will likely never happen. Instead, try seeing the world as perfect the way it is. It’s messy, chaotic, painful, sad, dirty … and completely perfect. The world is beautiful, just as it is. Life is not something static, but a flow of change, never staying the same, always getting messier and more chaotic, always beautiful. There is beauty in everything around us, if we look at it as perfect.
When you detach from worldly concerns and express a higher frequency of consciousness, the conflicts of the lower frequencies of consciousness become automatically healed. When you let go of any form of conflict within yourself, you are able to rise to a higher frequency of consciousness in a state of harmony and balance
allow balance to enter your life through a spiritual state of consciousness, it will manifest immediately and very powerfully in your daily life. You will also be helping to raise the global consciousness in a very powerful and constructive manner.
three words you have to remember: relaxation, thoughtlessness, silence.
Just go on becoming more and more aware, and you will find your life changing for the better in every possible dimension. It will bring great fulfillment
Don't choose! A choiceless awareness is the goal. Just remain aloof; don't choose. The moment you choose, you have fallen into the trap of the world, or into the trap of the mind.
11. Whatever you choose you will repent because the other will remain and haunt you. If one needs absolute freedom then choiceless awareness is the only thing.
Awareness means you come with an inner light, you move fully alert. Each step is taken in awareness -- the walking, the coming, the sitting -- everything is done in full awareness
Listen. Watch. Be aware. And by and by a different quality of being arises in you which is neither the body nor the feelings nor the thoughts. A different pillar of flame starts gathering within you and becomes more and more crystallized. As this awareness becomes crystallized, for the first time you will feel more and more that you are -- the feeling of being. And then moods will become more and more irrelevant. They will come and go, but you will remain unperturbed. The climate will change around you, but you will remain unchanged. Whatsoever happens on the outside will not in any way change you within. The within remains absolutely pure and uncorrupted.
25. Consciousness without thinking: that's what awareness is. Being alert and with no thought. Try it! whenever you see thinking gathering, disperse it! pull yourself out of it! Look at the trees with no screens of thinking between you and the trees. Listen to the chirping of the birds with no chirping of the mind inside. Look at the sun rising and feel that inside you also a sun of consciousness is rising... but don't think about it, don't assert, don't state, don't say. Simply be.
26. The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind. Call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent.
In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence -- they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track -- you start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don't have a fixed mind: you don't say, "I would like only the intervals." That is stupid -- because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen, you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings. Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go -- wherever they want to go. Nothing is wrong! Don't try to manipulate and don't try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satoris. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic -- a total silence, undisturbed.
Awareness grows very slowly, but it grows. One has to just be patient.
As it grows you will start feeling many things which you have never felt before. For example, you will start feeling that you are carrying many tensions in your body of which you have never been aware because they are subtle tensions. Now your awareness is there you can feel those very subtle, very delicate tensions.
So wherever you feel any tension in the body, relax that part. If your whole body is relaxed, your awareness will grow faster because those tensions are hindrances.
As your awareness grows even more, you will be surprised to know that you don't dream only in sleep; there is an undercurrent of dreaming even while you are awake. It goes just underneath your wakefulness -- close your eyes any moment and you can see some dream passing by like a cloud in the sky. But only when you become a little more aware will it be possible to see that your wakefulness in not true awakenedness.
The dream is floating there -- people call it daydream. If they relax in their chair for a moment and close their eyes, immediately the dream takes over. They start thinking that they have become the president of the country, or they are doing great things -- or anything, which they know at the very moment they are dreaming is all nonsense. You are not the president of the country, but still the dream has something in it, that it continues in spite of you.
Awareness will make you aware of layers of dreams in your waking state. And they will start dispersing, just as you bring light into a dark room and the darkness starts dispersing.
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Unselfishness of purpose; universal charity; pity for all animate beings;
140. Truthfulness and unswerving faith in the law of Karma, independent of the intervention of any power in Nature-- a law whose course is not to be obstructed by any agency, not to be caused to deviate by prayer or propitiatory exoteric ceremonies;
141. A courage undaunted in every emergency, even by peril of life ;
142. An intuitional perception of one' s being the vehicle of the manifested Avalokiteshvara or Divine Atma (Spirit);
143. Calm indifference for, but a just appreciation of, everything that constitutes the objective and transitory world, in its relation with, and to, the invisible regions.
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xx
meditation
meditation means more and more creating a stillness, more and more becoming silent.Meditation means gaining the inner balance. When you gain the inner balance and there is no trembling, the whole body-mind has become still, then the center of right knowledge starts functioning. Through that center, whatsoever is known is true.
Meditation is just a strategy to take away your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your identity with the body, and leave you absolutely alone inside, just a living fire. And once you have found your living fire, you will know all the joys and all the ecstasies that human consciousness is capable of.
Bhagavan gave another wonderful piece of Bhakti-soaked advice to Sampurnamma,
“You must cover your vegetables when you cook them, then only will they keep their flavour and
be fit for food. It is the same with the mind. You must put a lid over it and let it simmer quietly.
Then only does a man become food fit for God to eat”.
1.! The concept 'I-am-the-body' is the sentient inner organ (i.e. the mind). It is also the
illusory samsara. It is the source of all groundless fears. If there is no trace of it at all,
everything will be found to be Brahman. (17)
2.! The concept 'I-am-the-body' is the primal ignorance. It is known as the firm knot of
the heart (hrdayagranthi). It gives rise to the concepts of existence and non-existence.
If there is no trace of it at all, everything will be found to be Brahman. (19)
3. !Jiva is a concept, God, the world, the mind, desires, action, sorrow and all other
things are all concepts. (25)
4.! The mind is unreal. It is like a magic show. It is the son of a barren woman. It is
absolutely non-existent. Since there is no mind there are no concepts, no Guru, no
disciple, no world, no jiva. All concepts are really Brahman. (36)
5.! The body, etc., are only concepts. Hearing, etc. (i.e. hearing, reasoning and
contemplating) are concepts. Self-enquiry is a concept. All other things are also
concepts. Concepts give rise to the world, the jivas and God. There is nothing
whatever except concepts. Everything is in truth Brahman. (30)
6.! Abiding without concepts is the undifferentiated state. It is inherence (in Brahman). It
is wisdom. It is Liberation. It is the natural state (sahaja). It is Brahman. It is Siva. If
there is no concept at all everything will be found to be Brahman. (26)
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Food for Thought...
The important thing is not to think much,
but to love much;
and so, do that which best stirs you to love.
Saint Teresa of Avila
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If you are seeking closeness to the Beloved,
love everyone.
whether in their presence or absence,
see only their good.
if you want to be as clear and refreshing as
the breath of the morning breeze,
like the sun have nothing but warmth and light
for everyone.
Shaikh Abu-Said Abil-Khair
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You do not have to struggle to reach God,
but you do have to struggle to tear away
the self-created veil that hides him from you.
Paramahansa Yogananda
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O, friend! Nobody veils you, but yourself.
In your path there is no thorn or weed, but yourself.
You asked: shall I reach the Beloved or not?
Between you and the Beloved there is nobody, but yourself.
Awhadoddin Kermani
All those who are unhappy in the world
are so as a result of
their desire for their own happiness.
All those who are happy in the world
are so as a result of
their desire for the happiness of others.
Shantideva
Before you ask God for what you want,
first thank God for what you have.
Talmud, B'rachot 30b
How long will you keep pounding on an open door
begging for someone to open it?
Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya
I do not desire suffering;
yet fool I am, I desire the cause of suffering!
Shantideva
Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
Between the two my life flows.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
In the morning, the one who does not understand will
consider what he will do,
while the one who understands will
consider what the one will do with him.
Ibn 'ata 'illah
Until you become an unbeliever in your own self,
you cannot become a believer in God.
Shaikh Abu-Said Abil-Khair
Student: Sir, if one gave up the I, nothing whatsoever would remain.
Ramakrishna: I am not asking you to give up all of the I. you should give up only the "unripe I." the "unripe I" makes one feel: "I am the doer. these are my wife and children. I am a teacher."
Renounce this "unripe I" and keep the "ripe I" which will make you feel that you are God's servant, His devotee, and that God is the doer and you are His instrument.
Sri Ramakrishna
Worn-out garments are shed by the body,
worn-out bodies are shed by the dweller within the body,
new bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments.
Not wounded by weapons, not burned by fire,
not dried by the wind, not wetted by water,
such is the one.
Not dried, not wetted, not burned, not wounded,
innermost essence, everywhere, always,
being of beings, changeless, eternal, for ever and ever.
Bhagavad-Gita 2:22
Where are you hurrying to?
you will see
the same moon tonight
wherever you go!
Izumi Shikibu
There is no difference in the destination,
the only difference is in the journey.
Inayat Khan
All the violence, fear and suffering
that exists in this world
comes from grasping at "self".
What use is this great monster to you?
if you do not let go of the "self",
there will never be an end to your suffering.
Shantideva
In the pursuit of learning,
every day something is acquired.
in the pursuit of Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Lao Tzu
Correct behavior
means that you are
occupied with commendable activity.
Ibn 'Ata'
There is only one virtue
and only one sin
for a soul on the path:
virtue when he is conscious of God
and sin when he is not.
Abu Hashim Madani
I see now
that all creatures
have perfect enlightenment
- but they do not know it.
Buddha
satyameva jayate
truth alone is victorious
Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.6
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meditation
meditation means more and more creating a stillness, more and more becoming silent.Meditation means gaining the inner balance. When you gain the inner balance and there is no trembling, the whole body-mind has become still, then the center of right knowledge starts functioning. Through that center, whatsoever is known is true.
Meditation is just a strategy to take away your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your identity with the body, and leave you absolutely alone inside, just a living fire. And once you have found your living fire, you will know all the joys and all the ecstasies that human consciousness is capable of.
krishnananda
a small thing like a few words that we speak to a brother is as important as the big matter that we regard as God-realisation or the practice of yoga
these are serious things to reflect and meditate upon. There is nothing that is unimportant. Before God at least,
nothing is unimportant, insignificant or unnecessary. We should not imagine that we
are wiser than God, or that we can distinguish between the important and the
unimportant. There is no such thing as unimportant in this world.(BRAHMANDA!)
Be human first
learn to think rightly.
be human first.
-to be a human being- implies a way of thinking, a
method of conducting oneself in life, an attitude towards life, a particular relationship that we adopt with other people, and our life as a whole. All these imply what we
consider to be human.
be aware of all the subtle shades of difference in conducting oneself in life, be cautious inwardly and outwardly, and be wholly human, and then
to aspire for the divine.
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Discontent
in certain experiences that we undergo in life, we begin to feel that in every one of our experiences, and inour every activity, we seem to be lacking something.
Due to this lack, there is a total dissatisfaction in life.
We are not satisfied with the daily eating of our meals; we feelthat there is something more than merely sustaining ourselves with food. We are not satisfied with mere dressing; we feel there is something more than the clothes. We are not satisfied with our mere office-going or mere factory work;
we begin to feel that there is something more than all this. We are not satisfied with anything. We have an inexplicable feeling within that in everything we do there is something lacking. We may not beable to explain ourselves properly, but our hearts speak a language which ordinarily we cannot explain or understand. In everything that we do, there is a want. Something is left out in everything that we do, on account of which we feel a kind of lacuna.
This is the beginning of the higher life. While this kind of discontent is present in every person, literate or illiterate, itbecomes consciously developed in the literate, the understanding, and the truly educated.
In Sanskrit we have a beautiful term to designate this condition of consciously feeling this peculiar lack or want in one’s life. This term is viveka-literally it means discrimination. The capacity to distinguish between the necessary and the unnecessary, the true and the false, the real and the unreal are all the various translations of this term viveka. We begin to realise intelligently and consciously that in everything that we do there is something left out. We never feel that we are complete in our life.
This condition of conscious apprehension of a want in one’s life arises only in the higher stages of development of the human mind.
There is a kind of tension between the ideal and the real. So, we live a life of tension of various kinds, all of which boil down finally to the ultimate tension or conflict between the ideal and the real-the ‘ought’ and the ‘is’. Something ought to be, but something else is. The ‘ought’ is the ethical and moral value that we have introduced in our life. This is also the philosophical, the metaphysical and the scientific objective in life. Things ought to be this, but they are not. They are something else.
This ideal which remains now as a concept in our minds has taken possession of us so vehemently that our lives have become a misery without its implementation. All of us are unhappy merely because of the simple reason that the ideal has not become the real, and we cannot live that ideal. If it would bepossible to give up the ideal entirely, we would have done it, but we are finding that it is as dear to us as our own hearts or our own breath, and this haunts us day and night.
according to the psychoanalytic technique, the solution was to bring out these ideals so that there may be harmony betweenthe ideal and the real. One satisfies these desires, not materially, but psychologically atleast. What is psychological satisfaction?
These ideals get acted out through dreams. One may become in dream what one wants to become in waking life. Dreams, fantasies, and building castles in the air are some of the ways in which these ideals are expressed. Many a time one tries to substitute for these ideals. “When I cannot get this, I shall get something else, so that I’ll forget this
completely for the time being.” But these ideas and ideals cannot be easily forgotten.
Forgetting a devil is not the same as exorcising it. The devil is there, but we close oureyes and pretend it is not there-that is not a solution. We don’t see it, but it sees us.
So substitution is, therefore, not a good psychological method for clearing these avenues of the mind. Suppression is also not a goodmethod. Suppressionand repression are the causes of our illness and destruction. Substitution, again, is obviously not a solution.
The desires will have to be vaporised completely, like the camphor that burns up without leaving any residue, orlike the mist that melts before the rising sun. These ideals should sublimate themselves into either the reality that is in front of us, or disappear into nothingness. There is no other way left to deal with these cherished ideals.
We do not have the wisdom to know the difference-that is our difficulty. We do not know what can be changed and
what cannot be changed. We mistake the ‘cannot’ for the ‘can’. We try the impossible and then suffer-the sufferers are those who try the impossible. If it is possible, we can change it, but if we cannot change it and yet we want to, then we suffer in society. These are the simple forms of mental tension which philosophy studies in its superficial levels, and which has to lead to psychoanalytic techniques, especially today in the West.
mostly people
float on the surface of the mind. They cannotgo deep into their minds, because their minds are merely extrovert. They think only outwardly, and cannot move the mind inward. The mind cannot think of itself. This isthe difficulty with the mind. It can only think of others.
The mind has become a subject of the judgement of other persons and
things. It has never been able to subject itselfto that self-same analysis to which it wants to subject other people and things in the world. The mind is not honest and dispassionate in its habits-it wants to judge others but not itself. Because it sees itself as the judge, why should it judge itself? The judge judges only the defendants, but not himself.
When we employ wrong techniques in life-wrong in the sense that there was no proper relation to the facts of life-then we get rebuffed and receive a kick from nature. If our ways of living are unconnected with the
realities of life, one may say that life becomes a failure, and one becomes a grieved person, cursing nature. But nature is not going to listen to our curses. We can go on cursing and belabouring, but what does it care? We do not know nature, and therefore we do not understand it.
There is something deeper than the sociological and the outer reality,
through all of which we have to attune ourselves systematically, stage by stage. When we
attune ourselves and harmonise ourselves through all the levels of reality, we are one
with nature, one with truth, and ultimately one with God. This is yoga.
Some of these conflicts are
called defence mechanisms, or we may say certain contrivances which the mind makes
use of in releasing itself. Some of these are the attempts of the mind to utilise other
persons and the objects of the world as instruments in bringing about a release of
conflict. When there is no peace within us, we just try to forget the fact that we have no
peace within, and we try to drown ourselves incertain outer phenomena. We just engage
ourselves in hectic activity and forget the boredom of life.
people carrying their radios with themwherever they go. Whether
they are in the bathroom, or at the lunch table, or in the meditation room, it makes no
difference-the cell-phone must be there. They go to the market to purchase something, and
the cell-phone is hanging on their shoulders. Theytry to drown themselves in the sound of
this instrument, because they have no peace within. They want to manufacture some
peace artificially with instruments that theyhave created, because there is no peace
inside. “If I have not got something, I will import it from outside. I will drown myself in
a loud sound so that I may not hear any other sounds. I do not want to hear the sound of
my own mind, because it is very inconvenient.So let me hear the sound of the cell-phone,
tuned very high; or let me just move about from place to place.” These people never sit
in any place; they become a permanent tourist throughout their lives so that they have
no time to think of their problems, because to think of problems is another problem.
“Better not to think about them-let them die out,” these people imagine to themselves.
While the forgetting of
these problems by engaging oneself in something quite different is one of the methods of
the mind, there are other ways which it adopts, such as associating ourselves with larger
groups of people or busying ourselves with some work of the family. We become a social
worker, or at least think that we are one, though we might not be in a position to do any
good to society or think of larger things such as world problems, world peace and world
brotherhood. We have no peace within us, and we want to bring peace to the world. We
become a sort of important person due to talking about world peace, world brotherhood,
international harmony and many other thingsof the same kind. While there is no
intrinsic importance in us, we have an artificial importance in the eyes of the people to
whom we are talking about these big things. We talk only of the world-nothing smaller
than that-and this is one of the ways of the extension of the difficulty of the mind into
outer conditions of life. The mind imagines that by going on expanding its field of
activities it will be able to be free from the conflicts that are within.
We do not eat with peace, we do not speak with peace, and we do
not sleep with peace. When we eat our meals we are not at peace, because we are
thinking of something else. When we go to bed, we do not think of our having gone to
bed; we think of something else-about yesterday or tomorrow. We should think of
these examples for a few minutes and judge for ourselves whether this is correct or not.
Whenever we act, we think of something else other than that.
when we are expected to do something or meet someone,
we may be anticipating something else. Now we are here, but we may be subconsciously
thinking of what is going to take place after an hour. The future is there already touching
us, so that we are never wholly living in the present. We are living always in an artificial
future which has not yet become a reality to us. We are living in an imaginary world of
fantasies, imaginations, reveries and ideals that may be realised or not.
Sometimes we belong to a community, and we begin to associate ourselves with it. We
talk about it again and again, and we cannotextricate ourselves from the idea that we
ourselves are a part of that community. “I am a Hindu, a Maharasthrian; I am this, I am
that.” These are the communal selves . Then we have the family selves. We have got
family names which are called surnames, and to each person a surname is attached. It is
a family heritage. We have so many associations. Then come the personal associations of
“I am a judge, a teacher, a businessman, a professor.” These are also selves we have
created, but they are false selves. Socially also we have created these false selves. As if
the inner problems were not sufficient, we have created additional problems by adding
all these from outside. Inwardly there are also many layers; I shall touch upon these
inner layers a little later on. Layers and layers of self are covering the true self. Like
layers of clouds can make the sun dark, layers of the false self have made our true selves
a mass of darkness, confusion, and therefore unhappiness.
our pet desires, ambitions and cravings, sometimes acquired by heredity and sometimes they are newly created by our own wrong thinking and imaginations of the future. What a mess we have created in our minds. It should be very
clear why we are unhappy in this world. Wehave a cloud of confusion covering the light of our minds, and we cannot see through this cloud properly. We try to see the world through this cloud of conflicts, but because we see unclearly through this mist of conflict, we see a world of conflict in front ofus. The whole world is chaos. We begin to
see that the world is not all right, because we see the world through this screen of darkness that holds sway over our own minds. This screen has become dark through many layers of conflict getting layered, one over the other for years and years together.
Yoga philosophy and psychology tells us that we have been doing so for ages. We have passed through several births; we should not imagine that this is our first birth. We have been living through many bodily incarnations. Through the process of evolution we have come to this present level of the state of mankind. The layers of wrong thinking and unfulfilled desires are all there with us, which we have carried through the different incarnations of the mind.
Yoga began to contemplate the mysteries behind the phenomenon of unhappiness persisting in spite of one’s having everythingin life. We may be the king of the whole world, yet it is doubtful if we are going tobe happy; we will havemany problems. What is above this world? Why not conquer that? Maybe we have ambitions. Desires cannot
be overcome even if we were the kings of this world. Death will come to us when it is time to leave this world. These are important difficulties of a person, even if he is the emperor of the whole world. How long are we going to be the emperor? It may be for a few hours. We may be asked to quit this world to a place of which we have absolutely no
knowledge. Do we know when we will have to leave this world? Do we know where we go after leaving the world? No! What a pity, we do not know when to leave this place, and we do not know where we are going. Can there be a worse suffering than this? Yet, we seem to be cosily imagining that everything isokay. In a state of intense ignorance, we may be in a state of bliss. This is also a kind of bliss, as not to know anything is also bliss. That seems to be our final resort.
There seems to be a fundamental conflict between man and nature. The conflict between man and society is small when compared to this conflict between man and nature. There Iis a larger conflict of the irreconcilabilitybetween man and nature, because we do not know what this huge cosmos is. Inasmuch as we have not been able to answer this question of the relationship between us and this cosmos, we have not been able also to answer this question of our relation with human society. What wecall human society is only a small fraction of the vastuniverse before us. Just as a finger is a part of a person’s larger body, this so-called society which is apparently troubling us so much is only a part-a very small part, insignificant perhaps-ofthis vast and magnificent creation. It is creation that is posing a problem, not this small human society. The problem of society is a part of the problem ofthe world as a whole.
The adhyatmaand the adhibhuta,
the subject and the object, man and nature, havebeen in this sort of relationship-not
really related, but only apparently connected. So we have not been able to know what to
do with this world. Nature has always been lying outside us. It has never become a part
of us; it has never become ours. We have never been able to control or master nature
fully, because it was always something different from us, and not ours. Ever since
creation, this has been the situation. We have never been able to possess a thing
properly. If we could possess itreally, why should it leave us after some time? We lose
things, as we say. Why should we lose a thing that is really ours? The reason is that it is
not ours. We have been thinking that it was ours, but it asserts its real nature of not
being ours when it leaves us. “I am not yours, my dear friend. Don’t think I am not
going.” Things may leave us; it may be a person, it may be our own relationships, our
own possessions-whatever it is-all that we possess may leave us.
upanishd-essence
krishnananda-essence
The whole theme of the Upanishads is centred in two fundamental conceptions of Reality-Brahman and Atman. Both words are often used to mean the same thing. “This Atman is Brahman” (Mand. Up., 2.). The further implications of this statement are the different theories of spiritual philosophy. The philosophy of the main declarations of the Upanishads, however, consists essentially of the eight conclusions drawn above. This is the Ultimate Truth, transcending empiricality, extending beyond the egoism of human nature. The whole process of the realisation of Truth is, therefore, a sacrifice of the ego, and is a great pain. Suffering in the process of the experiencing of Infinitude cannot be abolished for the individual so long as the individual itself is inconsistent with the Infinite. Hence, the attempt towards the attainment of the perfectly Real is generally looked upon with a sense of fear, disgust and even hatred. The human being is always attached to the immediate concerns of life. He has no eye to look to the beyond. He is grieved about the past, doubtful about the future and worried about the present. He is ever diseased in his spirit due to his violation of the eternal law. He is caught in the whirl of ignorance, passion and sin, and is constantly dashed by the huge waves of uncontrollable sorrow. Every moment he finds himself in a fix. He ceaselessly dies to himself in time, and seems to recover new sense just then and there. His whole life is a flux of states-now destroyed, now renewed. He has no idea of anything besides himself, anything that is vaster and truer. He is imprisoned within his fragile body, within his whimsical mind, within his childish intellect, within his conceited individuality. A shower of superphysical knowledge upon him seems to be music played before the deaf. He thinks too highly about himself and, with canine avidity, licks the pricking bone even with his torn tongue. The Upanishads are not unaware of the futile attempts of man to grasp the Limitless Being, and they warn him that it is not to be comprehended through logic, but to be heard from the wise one (Katha Up., II. 8, 9). Reason is meant to strengthen belief in what is heard from reliable sources, and not to walk unaided. It is an empty pride to think that one can depend totally on oneself and reach the Eternal. Reason and faith should go hand in hand if the desired fruit is to be reaped. That which is agreeable at present does not remain so the next moment, nor does the disagreeable appear so forever. The immutable Reality is unperceived and unfelt, and the apparition seems to give us life, light and joy. The sole purpose of the Upanishad teaching is to disentangle man from the chain of samsara, to show him the way to the Glorious Light that shines within himself. Man is not a sinful mortal creature in truth; the Upanishad calls him “son of the Immortal”- amritasya putra (Svet. Up., II. 5). But he can know himself only through sacrificing himself. The highest sacrifice is the offering of the self to the Absolute. The greatest yoga is the sinking of the self into unity with the Absolute, by denying the separate, and asserting the One.
Such an act which refuses to feed the individual self-sense with its diverse requirements, compels the relative self-interest to dissolve itself in the Absolute-Interest, which soars high above the limitations of Space and Time, and engages itself in its establishment in the perfect satisfaction and uncontradicted experience of completeness and utter Reality. The awareness of the state of the Pure Self unimpeded by phenomenal laws or separative restrictions, and the infinite rejoicing in the free flow of the law of the Spirit, is the life of the exalted Self-realised one. He exists as the Divine Being, which is the supreme condition of the fullest freedom of Eternity. Without such a knowledge of the fundamental nature of existence, life becomes intense with conflict and war between the opposing forces. It is impossible for the individual to blossom into Infinity in the midst of such a heated strife among disturbant powers of Nature, without reconciling and pacifying them in a more expansive consciousness and a higher order of reality where they disclose their inner truths and melt into the bosom of Being with a fraternal embrace. The difficulties in coming to any settled opinion of things as they are the miseries of everyday experience, the quandaries in determining the essential truth and falsehood of life, the concomitant selfish desires, the failures, the kicks, the blows, the burning anxieties, the vain beliefs, the mocking expectations and hopes that confront the human being in his struggle for existence, give him opportunities to discriminate the Eternal, and direct him on the way that leads to the realisation of the Absolute.
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So what is wrong with you? Are you a freak? No. You are just human. And you suffer from the same malady that infects every human being. It is a monster inside all of us, and it has many arms: Chronic tension, lack of genuine compassion for others, including the people closest to you, feelings being blocked up, and emotional deadness. Many, many arms. None of us is entirely free from it. We may deny it. We try to suppress it. We build a whole culture around hiding from it, pretending it is not there, and distracting ourselves from it with goals and projects and status. But it never goes away. It is a constant undercurrent in every thought and every perception; a little wordless voice at the back of the head saying, "Not good enough yet. Got to have more. Got to make it better. Got to be better." It is a monster, a monster that manifests everywhere in subtle forms.
Life seems to be a perpetual struggle, some enormous effort against staggering odds. And what is our solution to all this dissatisfaction? We get stuck in the ' If only' syndrome. If only I had more money, then I would be happy. If only I can find somebody who really loves me, if only I can lose 20 pounds, if only I had a color TV, Jacuzzi, and curly hair, and on and on forever. So where does all this junk come from and more important, what can we do about it? It comes from the conditions of our own minds. It is deep, subtle and pervasive set of mental habits, a Gordian knot which we have built up bit by bit and we can unravel just the same way, one piece at a time. We can tune up our awareness, dredge up each separate piece and bring it out into the light. We can make the unconscious conscious, slowly, one piece at a time.
The essence of our experience is change. Change is incessant. Moment by moment life flows by and it is never the same. Perpetual alteration is the essence of the perceptual universe. A thought springs up in you head and half a second later, it is gone. In comes another one, and that is gone too. A sound strikes your ears and then silence. Open your eyes and the world pours in, blink and it is gone. People come into your life and they leave again. Friends go, relatives die. Your fortunes go up and they go down. Sometimes you win and just as often you lose. It is incessant: change, change, change. No two moments ever the same.
There is not a thing wrong with this. It is the nature of the universe. But human culture has taught u some odd responses to this endless flowing. We categorize experiences. We try to stick each perception, every mental change in this endless flow into one of three mental pigeon holes. It is good, or it is bad, or it is neutral. Then, according to which box we stick it in, we perceive with a set of fixed habitual mental responses. If a particular perception has been labeled 'good', then we try to freeze time right there. We grab onto that particular thought, we fondle it, we hold it, we try to keep it from escaping. When that does not work, we go all-out in an effort to repeat the experience which caused that thought. Let us call this mental habit 'grasping'.
Over on the other side of the mind lies the box labeled 'bad'. When we perceive something 'bad', we try to push it away. We try to deny it, reject it, get rid of it any way we can. We fight against our own experience. We run from pieces of ourselves. Let us call this mental habit 'rejecting'. Between these two reactions lies the neutral box. Here we place the experiences which are neither good nor bad. They are tepid, neutral, uninteresting and boring. We pack experience away in the neutral box so that we can ignore it and thus return jour attention to where the action is, namely our endless round of desire and aversion. This category of experience gets robbed of its fair share of our attention. Let us call this mental habit 'ignoring'. The direct result of all this lunacy is a perpetual treadmill race to nowhere, endlessly pounding after pleasure, endlessly fleeing from pain, endlessly ignoring 90 percent of our experience. Than wondering why life tastes so flat. In the final analysis, it's a system that does not work.
No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you. And in between those times, life is so boring you could scream. Our minds are full of opinions and criticisms. We have built walls all around ourselves and we are trapped with the prison of our own lies and dislikes. We suffer.
Suffering is big word in Buddhist thought. It is a key term and it should be thoroughly understood. The Pali word is 'dukkha', and it does not just mean the agony of the body. It means the deep, subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness which is a part of every mental treadmill. The essence of life is suffering, said the Buddha. At first glance this seems exceedingly morbid and pessimistic. It even seems untrue. After all, there are plenty of times when we are happy. Aren't there? No, there are not. It just seems that way. Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine it closely. Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension, that no matter how great the moment is, it is going to end. No matter how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your days guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more. And in the end, you are going to die. In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.
You can't ever get everything you want. It is impossible. Luckily, there is another option. You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of this endless cycle of desire and aversion. You can learn to not want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them. This does not mean that you lie down on the road and invite everybody to walk all over you . It means that you continue to live a very normal-looking life, but live from a whole new viewpoint. You do the things that a person must do, but you are free from that obsessive, compulsive drivenness of your own desires. You want something, but you don't need to chase after it. You fear something, but you don't need to stand there quaking in your boots. This sort of mental culture is very difficult. It takes years. But trying to control everything is impossible, and the difficult is preferable to the impossible.
You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes flow naturally. You don't have to force or struggle or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. You just change. It is automatic. But arriving at the initial insight is quite a task. You've got to see who you are and how you are, without illusion, judgement or resistance of any kind. You've got to see your own place in society and your function as a social being. You've got to see your duties and obligations to your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to yourself as an individual living with other individuals. And you've got to see all of that clearly and as a unit, a single gestalt of interrelationship. It sounds complex, but it often occurs in a single instant. Mental culture through meditation is without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding and serene happiness.
the very state of dependence on another may be the cause of the deep psychological neurosis. When one breaks that pattern, what happens? One is sane! One must have such sanity to find out what truth is. Dependence has been from childhood, it has been a factor against pain and hurt, a factor for comfort, for emotional sustenance and encouragement - all that has been built into one, one is part of that. This conditioned mind can never find out what truth is. Not to depend on anything means one is alone; all one, whole - that is sanity, that sanity breeds rationality, clarity, integrity.
Truth is being from moment to moment, and happiness that continues is not happiness. Happiness is that state of being which is timeless. That timeless state can come only when there is a tremendous discontent - not the discontent that has found a channel through which it escapes, but the discontent that has no outlet, that has no escape, that is no longer seeking fulfillment.
Only then, in that state of supreme discontent, can reality come into being. That reality is not to be bought, to be sold, to be repeated; it cannot be caught in books. It has to be found from moment to moment, in the smile, in the tear, under the dead leaf, in the vagrant thoughts, in the fullness of love - for love is not different from truth.
Love is that state in which thought process as time has completely ceased. And where love is, there is transformation. Without love, revolution has no meaning, for then revolution is merely destruction, decay, a greater and greater, ever-mounting misery. Where there is love, there is revolution, because love is transformation from moment to moment.
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you were not in communion with your wife, except physically
Do you did not know know her, except Physically she did not know me.
We were both both isolated, each pursuing his or her own interests, ambitions and needs, each seeking from the other gratification, economic or psychological security
Such a relationship was not a relationship at all:
it was mutually self-enclosing process of psychological, biological and economic necessity, and the obvious result was conflict, misery, nagging, possessive fear, jealousy, and so on.
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every thought is wrong. All thoughts - remove from your mind so the screen of the mind is completely empty, so you have a vast sky open and nothing moves in the mind
don't pull your mental energy away, because mental energy is the root of all thoughts. It is the mother of all thought processes, good or bad. The mental energy has not to be pulled away. get out of the mental energy, out of the mess of mental energy; pull yourself out.
stand out of your mind, as a watcher. Whatever is going on in the mind, don't even interfere. simply watch. simply go on seeing it, as if it is somebody else's mind, and have nothing to do with it -- it is none of your business.
In this indifferent aloofness, all thoughts disappear.
And with thoughts disappearing there is no mind, because mind is nothing but a collective name of thoughts.
When your consciousness starts getting involved in the mind, pull it back.
Remain aloof, stand aside. Keep a distance between your self and the mind ... and there is no need to do anything else.
Once your consciousness becomes accustomed to not being involved in the mind, you don't have to pull it again and again; to be out of the mind is so peaceful, so joyful, so blissful, that consciousness itself becomes aware that to be in the mind is to be in hell.
Being aware is simply being aloof, but alert. Whatever the mind is doing, let it do;
whatever is going on in the mind, let it be. simply be out of it.do not be a participant -- that's all that is needed, and mind dies its own death.
By your examining you are entering into the territory of the mind. And mind is such a subtle phenomenon -- the moment you enter into it, it starts exploiting your energy for its own purposes.
Do not analyze, do not examine, do not justify, do not condemn. Don't make any evaluation. Simply stand aside, as if the road is full of traffic and you step by the side of the road and stand there, without bothering who is going, who is coming, who is good, who is bad.
This discovery of awareness has been such a miracle: the traffic simply disappears, just by your stepping out of it. You don't have to examine, you don't have to control, you don't have to dispel anything. You don't have to do anything at all -- just pure awareness is enough to kill the mind.
A man of meditation knows perfectly well that all things are ephemeral. You came into the world without anything, and you will have to go from the world without anything; so you can use things -- but you cannot possess them. You can use things just the way you use the railway train. Just because you are sitting in the railway train you don't start declaring that you are the owner of the train! You are using it for a time being; at one station you get in, at another station you get out.
Life should be taken just the same way. Whatever life gives to you -- use it, but don't become the owner. Don't cling to it, and then when it goes out of your hands, you are not sad, you are not frustrated;
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meditation implies awareness: awareness of the earth, the beauty of the earth, the dead leaf, the dying dog, the dog that is diseased, not just awareness of something or the other, to be aware of your environment; to be aware of your neighbour; to be aware of the colours you carry, why you wear that colour and those beads, to be aware of that; to be aware of the beauty of the wind among the leaves; to be aware of your thoughts, your feelings. That means to be aware without choice - just to be aware. That heightens your sensitivity. To observe diligently everything.
That is,
to be aware of your feelings, your conditioning, your opinions, your judgments, and to your beliefs, so that in that awareness, there is no choice - just to be aware of the beauty of the earth, the skies and the lovely waters.
And also the ugliness,pettiness,frivolity of humans.
And when you are so aware, then there is attention.
To attend: to attend to what the speaker is saying, not only to the speaker but to what your wife is telling you, or your husband is telling you or your children are telling you, what the politicians are telling you - their trickery, their search for power, position; to attend. When you so profoundly attend, there is no centre as the 'me' to attend. That is also meditation.
Intelligence simply means ability to respond, because life is a flux. be aware and to see what is demanded of you, what is the challenge of the situation. behave according to the situation and not according to the ready-made answers.
depend on ur own insight; trust ur own being. love and respect urself.
Walking on the road, walk more consciously; keep alert that you are walking. Breathing, doing nothing, just breathe conscious that you are breathing. The breath is going in - be conscious of it;the breath is going out - be conscious of it.
Make every opportunity a device to become more conscious, and soon more and more consciousness will be flowing in you, will be flooding you... more than you were working for. Then you will see the hands of the divine helping you. And once those hands have been seen, trust arises.
Then you know that you are not alone.
It is the greatest altruistic act one can do - to become aware - because by becoming aware you release awareness into existence, fresh awareness again released. And the quantity, the total quantity of awareness, increases in the world whenever a man becomes alert.
always step back into yourself-learn to go deep within
-step back and you will be safe.
Do not lend yourself to the superficial forces which move in the outside world. Even if you
are in a hurry to do something, step back for a while and you will discover to your surprise how much sooner and with what greater success your work can be done.
If someone is angry with you, do not be caught in his vibrations but simply step back and his anger, finding no support or response, will vanish. Always keep your peace, resist all temptation to lose it. Never decide anything without stepping back, never speak a word without stepping back,never throw yourself into action without stepping back.
When you get the sense of the relativity of things, then whatever happens you can step back and look; you
can remain quiet and call on the Divine Force and wait for an answer. Then you will know exactly what to do.
Tags:
essence, spirit