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Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2021 14:45:38 GMT
What Brahman is cannot be described. All things in the world — the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, the six systems of philosophy — have been defiled, like food that has been touched by the tongue, for they have been read or uttered by the tongue. Only one thing has not been defiled in this way, and that is Brahman. No one has ever been able to say what Brahman is.
~ Sri Ramakrishna Parahamsa
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Post by Admin on Jul 11, 2021 16:13:45 GMT
Questioner: Does it take time to realize the Self, or time cannot help to realize? Is self-realization a matter of time only, or does it depend on factors other than time? Maharaj: All waiting is futile. To depend on time to solve our problems is self-delusion. The future, left to itself merely repeats the past. Change can only happen now, never in the future. Q: What brings about a change? M: With crystal clarity see the need of change. This is all. Q: Does self-realization happen in matter, or beyond? Is it not an experience depending on the body and the mind for its occurrence? M: All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect nothing from experience. Realization by itself is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of experiences. Yet the new experiences, however interesting, are not more real than the old. Definitely realization is not a new experience. It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. It is awareness, which makes experience possible. Just like in all the colours light is the colourless factor, so in every experience awareness is present, yet it is not an experience. Q: If awareness is not an experience, how can it be realized? M: Awareness is ever there. It need not be realized. Open the shutter of the mind, and it will be flooded with light.
~Sri Nisaraghatta Maharaj I AM THAT, Chapter 80.
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2021 7:59:14 GMT
As long as you believe that you are time-bound, you will not be able to do anything everlasting. What cannot be forgotten is the eternal. Infinite measures and devices in the world cannot remove the covering over the Self, but they only increase it. What appears to you or whatever is seen, cannot be perpetual. The fact that you are not a man or woman is not worldly knowledge, but beyond it. Once you have Self-knowledge, everything becomes holy for you. Taking a bath in all the places of pilgrimage of the entire world cannot help in removing the ignorance. A Mantra is a combination of words, with a certain meaning and purpose. Even that cannot free you from ignorance. Your charities and donations too cannot help. If you perform different acts of piety, your fitness for Self-knowledge doesn't improve. Your penance and suffering become unnecessary. What is helpful is Consciousness, which has full faith in the Guru and readiness to follow His words. What is that Consciousness? It is that, because of which you experience the waking and sleep states. The light of that Consciousness is your own, but not as a human. The human Consciousness is great, due to which we come to know of our existence. Because of that, you see the world in your heart. Nothing else is more important or superior. The highest benefit of Consciousness is by becoming exactly as per the Guru's words, with complete trust. Consciousness is because of the body, but it has no body. It has the capacity to remember the Guru's words with full faith. What is that, which Bhagavan Krishna claims as His form? It is the formless Consciousness in the body. You remember all sorts of things, but who contains your attention and all your memories? Who is the knower of everything, even without trying to know? Krishna says ' That is my Consciousness.' The body or its ears do not listen. It is the Consciousness that listens. It is the knower of even Samadhi, but the latter does not know it. It will be enough if you make this Consciousness your own, in full faith."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2021 14:26:26 GMT
Most of you still believe that you have to read books. Find sacred teachers. Meditate for hours. Travel the world looking for the right person, the right place, the right thing. Searching for the holy grail to become free. What are you doing when you do this? Aren't you accumulating more knowledge? You want to empty the garbage pail, not keep adding to it. True? But yet you keep adding to it. Every time you read a new book it comes out. You're adding to the garbage pail. In other words you're inflating your ego more and more, your ego becomes bigger and bigger. Because you have something new to talk about don't you. A new teacher, a new method, a new mantra, you become excited over this and you become excited over that. This is what keeps you back from realization. Always remember this. Never forget this. You want to subtract, you want to delete, not add on. No matter how many times I tell you this there is still somebody who calls and says, "Robert have you read this it just came out. Great book!" or, "I found a new method, standing on my head repeating a mantra will do it." (laughter) Think of what you're doing. There are no new methods. There are no methods. All you have to do is remove the world. You do this simply by looking, by observing, by watching intelligently. And inside of you something tells you, "This is not real. This is not me. I have nothing to do with this world. My nature is Brahman. I am the absolute reality. I am consciousness. I am pure awareness, not the world." You want to unlearn everything you've ever learnt. You want to become a divine madman. Know absolutely nothing. Nothing means no thing.
You may say then, "Well what about a profession? This is okay for people who live in ashrams or who've given up the world but I've got to work for a living." It's all foolishness. What you have to do will be done without you. This again is something to remember. Your body will do whatever has to be done and do it perfectly and good, when you get yourself out of the way. As long as you believe that you are the doer and it's up to you to make things right or wrong, you suffer accordingly. But when you let go and let God so-to-speak, everything works harmoniously, beautifully and you will always find yourself in the right place doing the right things. Yet you never plan anything, you never scheme, you never try to make anything happen you are simply observing the world, observing conditions by not reacting to them at all. This is how you become self-realized. When the last ounce of world is removed from you and there is nothing left, you awaken to the truth of your being. But as long as you're holding onto something. Things frighten you, things make you angry, things make you mad then you have a problem. Again you have to unlearn everything you've learnt. You have to let go of everything you've been holding onto. To be free you have to become nothing, perfect nothing, no thing and then freedom is yours. Another problem we have on this path is judgement. Many of us are very judgmental and this again keeps you back from your realization. When you're judgmental who are you judging but yourself. If you're familiar with metaphysical Advaita you begin to understand that there is only one Self! And you are that Self, so whom are you judging? You're judging yourself. You hurt yourself when you judge someone else.
You have to learn to leave people alone, to leave the world alone and not be judgmental. You say to yourself, "Well this person is doing this, this person is doing that." This person is you! This person is not separate from you. When you hear about the bank robber, hear about the murderer, you hear about man's inhumanity to man you want to become outraged, but as long as you're studying Advaita and you're coming on this path, you will have to understand that there is nobody to be outraged at. There is nothing to be outraged at. It's all yourself. There is only one Self and that Self is you. You are that Self. Out of you emanates everybody and everything. So you're becoming outrageous to yourself. This strikes me to be very funny when I see people being angry at people, hurting people, hurting themselves. It comes back to you. It comes back in different ways, strange ways, but it always comes back to you. Then you say, "Well you mean I'm supposed to be a doormat and let people walk all over me?" On the contrary, that will never happen to you if you're in the right consciousness. If you're in the right consciousness people will not walk all over you at all. People will leave you alone. When you understand that you are the one Self, who can hurt you? But think of the ways you get mixed up in this world by believing situations are real. Think of your life just today since you got out of bed. How many things turned you on, to anger, to hatred, to disharmony? It's your fault, it's always your fault. A wise students of Advaita never reacts to anybody or anything. But when your ego is at play then you're going to say to yourself, "They can't talk about me like that. They can't do this to me, I'll show them. I'll get even. I'll do this and I'll do that."
Who are you hurting but yourself, for you believe you are a body going through experiences and that is a lie. You're not a body and you're not going through any experiences. You are Brahman. You're all-pervading. You're not a body that appears to be a body that is bound, you are boundless awareness. Whenever you're judgmental, again you can never get the correct picture. I use the keyhole example again. You look through the keyhole and you see four people fighting with each other with knives and clubs, beating the hell out of each other. And you're looking through the keyhole and you're saying, "Wow this is terrible. This is awful, look what's going on, they're beating each other to death. I've got to do something to stop this." So you open the door and you're surprised you are no longer looking out of the keyhole you're seeing the whole picture. You are seeing these people on the stage and you see an audience of millions of people and they're acting this out. It's not real. It's all a play. It's a play of consciousness, it's a leela and you're amazed. Now the audience represents consciousness. The players on the stage represent the ego. The ego is always fighting, always angry, always trying to get even. Only thinks about me me me me me. While the infinite lies in sweet repose smiling, observing, watching, does nothing. Then you notice the play is over and the people who were fighting go down to the audience and become part of the audience. They have overcome, they have transcended, they're a part of consciousness and new players take their place. Now there is a war on the stage. Like the war in the Bhagavad-Gita or like the civil war.
Nation against nation people are killing each other, there is blood all over the place but now you're able to see the whole picture and you're not disturbed for after a while all the players come down off the stage and join the audience and they become part of consciousness. Then you look you again and you see there is nothing, there is no longer an audience, there is no stage, there is no players, there is absolute bliss. Everything has turned into bliss, into joy, into happiness. So you see all of your judgements were wrong.
Remember you were programmed since you were a child to believe certain things are good and certain things were bad, this is this way and that is that way, but nothing is anyway, everything just is and your programming makes you feel upset, your programming makes you feel something is wrong that you have to take some action to do something to somebody. This is all a lie.
🌹 Robert Adams, T222: Uncreate The Universe!
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Post by Admin on Jul 13, 2021 16:39:41 GMT
You are that consciousness, and there is absolutely nothing to think about. There is no thing you have to get rid of. There is no special reading you have to do. There is no one you have to really see. You simply have to be aware of the fact that absolute reality is all there is. There's not even room for a thought, for a question, for an answer. There's no room, because the absolute reality takes up all the room. There is nothing to wonder about. You do not have to be worthy. You do not have to deserve it. There is no use thinking about your past, because your past never existed and never will exist. The past and the future are just dreams. Awaken from the dream by realizing absolute reality is the only power. It is everywhere. There is not the world and absolute reality, and then you have to overcome the world to find your reality. There is no world to overcome. There is no God to pray to. Brahman is yourself. Shiva is your consciousness. You are that. What else is there to know? You do not have to be a scholar of the Upanishads. You do not have to memorize various passages. You have to become like a little child and stay centered in the present. No one exists but you. You are the only existence. There is no other existence. If you took this room and everything in it, the tape recorders, the bodies, the flowers, the carpet, and began to melt it down to it's most minutest particles, you would get pure energy from everything. Everything will come from the same source. That source is absolute reality. It is the substratum of all existence. And that source is you. You are that. You are nothing else. Everything else is a lie. You're searching, and you're striving, and you're looking for this, and you're looking for that. Give it up. Stay put. Do not allow your mind to think past your nose. Catch your mind. Observe it thinking, and laugh.
☘ Robert Adams, T62: The Land Of The Jnanis
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Post by Admin on Jul 15, 2021 8:57:46 GMT
Do not take life’s experiences too seriously. Above all, do not let them hurt you, for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences. Play your part in life, but never forget it is only a role. If circumstances are bad and you have bear them, do not make them a part of yourself. What you lose in the world will not be a loss to your soul. Trust in God and destroy fear, which paralyses all efforts to succeed and attracts the very thing you fear. All Nature will commune with you when you are in tune with God. Realisation of this truth will make you master of your destiny. Paramahansa Yogananda
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Post by Admin on Jul 16, 2021 11:12:17 GMT
When you go to a theater you see pictures projected on a screen. Some are of mountains and rivers, some of romance, and some are people being attacked by robbers. When the movie is over the screen has no wetness from the river, nor smell from the romance, nor bullet holes from the robbers guns. The screen is immaculately clean. This manifestation is all a projection of your desires which fall across your mind and cause you to identify yourself as the projected watcher of the picture. You are not these projections, you are the screen. If you identify yourself with the immaculate, unchanging, eternal screen itself, which is the same before, during, and after the show, you will not change and so you will not suffer the changes but enjoy them. All Beings are this one immaculate screen. There is no need for practice to clean the dust off it because it is beyond everything. The teachers who want you to do lifetimes of practice can clean this dust off their own minds
🌺 Papaji
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Post by Admin on Jul 16, 2021 11:14:24 GMT
Don't talk of means, there are no means. What you see as false, dissolves. It is the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation. Investigate - that is all. You cannot destroy the false, for you are creating it all the time. Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and it will cease to be.
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
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Post by Admin on Jul 16, 2021 11:19:51 GMT
The Lord whose home is the interior of the Heart-Lotus is extolled as the Lord of the Cave. If by force of practise the feeling ‘I am He, I am the Lord of the Cave’(Guhesa) becomes firmly established, as firmly as your present notion that you are the ego is established in the body, and thus you stand forth as the Lord of the Cave, the illusion that you are the perishable body will vanish like darkness before the rising sun.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi.
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Post by Admin on Jul 16, 2021 15:55:48 GMT
Of course you are your true Self - how can you not be?! You just THINK you are not. Therefore stop taking thought and the truth will reveal itself to you ❤
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2021 8:04:04 GMT
Devotee: But is it not funny that the ‘I’ should be searching for the ‘I’? Does not the enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ turn out in the end an empty formula? Or, am I to put the question to myself endlessly, repeating it like some mantra? BHAGAVAN: Self-enquiry is certainly not an empty formula; it is more than the repetition of any mantra. If the enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ were a mere mental questioning, it would not be of much value. The very purpose of Self-enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its source. It is not, therefore, a case of one ‘I’ searching for another ‘I’. Much less is Self-enquiry an empty formula, for it involves an intense activity of the entire mind to keep it steadily poised in pure Self-awareness. Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realise the unconditioned, Absolute Being that you really are.
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2021 9:21:32 GMT
4. Is the state of 'being still' a state involving effort or effortless? It is not an effortless state of indolence. All mundane activities which are ordinarily called effort are performed with the aid of a portion of the mind and with frequent breaks. But the act of communion with the Self (atma vyavahara) or remaining still inwardly is intense activity which is performed with the entire mind and without break. Maya (delusion or ignorance) which cannot be destroyed by any other act is completely destroyed by this intense activity which is called 'silence' (mouna). - Sri Ramana Maharishi. Spiritual Instruction.
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2021 9:25:28 GMT
/ Thoth / "Know ye, O man, ye are only a spirit. The body is nothing. The soul is all. Let not your body be a fetter. Cast off the darkness, and travel in Light. Cast off your body, O man, and be free, Truly a Light that is One with the Light." / - Thoth /
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2021 9:26:53 GMT
"The effort of the seeker and the Grace of the Guru are synonymous and simultaneous."
Sri Ramana Maharshi
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Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2021 14:20:36 GMT
You say you want to know why your mind still says things to you like, ‘You are unworthy,’ or ‘You don’t deserve freedom and this path is not for you.’ Why does the mind say these things? Because, quite likely, you are on the verge of an important discovery which could result in the mind losing its grip on you. It is as though it senses this and gathers all its strength together. As in the past, it seems to know you are likely to take the bait and respond as the identity you are not. This bad marriage has been going on since the beginning of time. Like other bad relationships, the ego will not permit you to easily divorce him. A thought, a spark from the ego-fire strikes, and something is triggered back into identity. You, the self-doubting presence, log in and the tired old game continues. All the psychological mind needs to do is to get you to identify as a person. Though you are the pure Self, the formless and timeless consciousness, you will easily forget this when you become personally identified. The ego-mind has done enough because from here on you will be 'fighting with yourself'. But at some point you won’t be so easily deceived anymore. As you continue to mature through perfect understanding and grace, the ego's voice will lose its influence and hold over you. You discover you cannot be anything that appears and disappears. You are the alive, constant and unchanging presence and space in which all phenomena are perceived as a play of transience. You are the ever-perfect Self forever. Bless you that this understanding deepens tremendously in your hearing it again today.
🌺 Mooji
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