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Post by Admin on Nov 3, 2021 17:56:59 GMT
—– How do you surrender? —– Everyday you should sit a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening by yourself. Don’t meditate more than one half hour. Sit by yourself and watch your thoughts. Don’t react to your thoughts. Whatever comes to your mind never react, just watch, smile, and you’re surrendering. As your thoughts come, as thoughts come to you, you no longer pay any attention to it, it doesn’t bother you, that’s surrendering. The next thought comes to you, you don’t pay any attention to it. It doesn’t frighten you, it doesn’t make you happy, it doesn’t make you sad, just watch it and it’ll go away, you surrender that thought. You keep it up, keep it up, and as you keep it up your mind will become calmer and calmer and calmer and quieter and quieter and quieter, until the mind dissolves itself in the heart and you will be free. ~Robert Adams – T238: Stop Fighting! 😊💕
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Post by Admin on Nov 3, 2021 17:58:21 GMT
If the mind, which is the instrument of knowledge and, is the basis of all activity, subsides, the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases.
~ Bhagvan Sri Ramana Maharishi
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Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2021 19:47:00 GMT
Question: Is then the world no better than a dream? BHAGAVAN: What is wrong with the sense of reality you have while you are dreaming? You may be dreaming of something quite impossible, for instance, of having a happy chat with a dead person. Just for a moment, you may doubt in the dream, saying to yourself, `Was he not dead?', but somehow your mind reconciles itself to the dream-vision, and the person is as good as alive for the purposes of the dream. In other words, the dream as a dream does not permit you to doubt its reality. It is the same in the waking state, for you are unable to doubt the reality of the world which you see while you are awake. How can the mind which has itself created the world accept it as unreal? That is the significance of the comparison made between the world of the waking state and the dream world. Both are creations of the mind and, so long as the mind is engrossed in either, it finds itself unable to deny their reality. It cannot deny the reality of the dream world while it is dreaming and it cannot deny the reality of the waking world while it is awake. If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind completely from the world and turn it within and abide there, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self which is the substratum of all experiences, you will find the world of which you are now aware is just as unreal as the world in which you lived in your dream.
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Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2021 23:13:20 GMT
"If you address the mind with “Who are you?” it will disappear."
~ Papaji
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Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2021 23:15:45 GMT
STOP THE 'INTERNAL DIALOGUE' "See what you're doing now! You're thinking. That spoils it. Learn to stay without thought. Even if for a few seconds. It's hard isn't it? This is the reason you have to ask yourself: 'To whom do these thoughts come?' It's only a modality to cause you to stop thinking.
~ Robert Adams ~
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 9:08:35 GMT
"The knowledge ‘I am’ is the same, whether it is an insect, worm, human being or an avatar (being of the highest order); the basic consciousness is the same in all of these."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 9:18:30 GMT
Ponder These Things l Find your self. Look to your self. Dive deeper, deeper within yourself. Try to understand who you are by diving deep within yourself. Do not look to man. Do not look to the universe. Do not look to things. Look to your self. Only you can know yourself. No one can really help you. In the last analysis you have to give up all reactions to this world. Whether you are enjoying yourself in this world, or you are having problems with the world, you have to look at it as a dream, as something that appears. Surrender yourself totally. How do you surrender yourself? By letting go, letting go of all the concepts, letting go of all the ideas, letting go of the beliefs, letting go of all your prejudices, all of your emotions. Just drop it. If you can do this, all of your sadhana, all of your meditations, all of your prayers, are no longer necessary. To whom are you praying? What is the meditation doing for you? If it makes the mind still and quiet, that's good. Yet if you simply awaken to your true nature, to your swarupa, there's no need for meditation, there is no need for prayer, there's no need for anything, if you live in the moment, spontaneously, and hold on to the truth, the truth being I am Brahman, I am the absolute reality, I am nirvana, I am that. Ponder these things. You have never been what you appear to be. The sky appears blue, but upon investigation you will find out that there’s no sky and there’s no blue. The rope appears as a snake. Upon investigation you will realize there's no snake. It is only a rope. The water appears in the mirage. Upon investigation you will find there’s no water. In the same way you appear as a body. You appear as a mortal. But upon investigation you will find that you are not a body, you are not mortal. You are beyond mortality. You are beyond anything that you can think about. You are beyond all concepts, all ideas. Consequently the best course for you is silence. There's absolutely nothing to debate. There’s really nothing to think about. There’s nothing to argue about. In the silence everything will be revealed to you. All you really have to do is to keep still. I know that's hard for some of you, for you keep chatting away all your life. Yet if you would learn to keep still, you would make tremendous spiritual progress. Feel the stillness within you. When your mind begins to think, stop it, catch it, put an end to it. Many of you have fallen under the impression that you come to hear lectures, talks. Let me ask you, how many lectures, how many talks have you been to all of your life? And what has it done for you? It simply adds more confusion. Always remember what you are trying to do. You're not trying to add more knowledge to your ignorance. You're trying to empty yourself of all your knowledge, all of your ignorance, everything that you have accumulated. You want to become empty. Yet most people seem to go to different teachers, read many books, and they add on. They keep adding, adding, adding, adding, adding. Yet the day must come in your life, when you stand naked before God, so to speak, when you have no crutches to hold onto. All the books are gone, there are no more teachers for you, there's no one to ask for help, there's no one to ask if you're on the right path. It is then that your sadhana actually begins. Ponder this very well. Your sadhana, your spiritual practice does not begin when you've gone to many teachers, and you've read many books. It actually begins when you give up everything. That's when real sadhana begins, when you have surrendered everything, when you’ve emptied yourself of all knowledge, all desires for liberation. When you have become an empty shell, then your spiritual life begins. Until that time you're only playing games with yourself. You and I know so many people who can recite scriptures backwards and front wards, quotations from everybody on this earth. They're walking encyclopedias. But do they have moksha? Do they have liberation? How can you, when you're so full up with garbage? When you have no one to turn to, nothing to read, you will turn within yourself, and you begin to inquire within yourself, “Who needs to read all these books? Who needs to go to all these teachers? Who needs to ask other people for help? Who am I? What is the source of the I? What am I?" Remember you're asking yourself all of this. "Where did I come from? Where was I before I was born? Where do I go after so called death? What is the purpose of life?" All of these answers are within yourself. Yet there are very few of us who are sincere enough to completely let go of everything. We’re afraid to do this. We think if we let go, we turn into a vegetable. We will lose our friends, our families. We will become worthless. Nothing can be further from the truth. Your real self is no thing at all. The real you is nothing. I use the term nothing here to denote it is not something. It is no thing. You come from nothing and you're going back to nothing. Absolute nothingness is your real nature. Rejoice. Ponder these things.
~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams Volume 1
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 16:26:35 GMT
"Everything in this universe comes, stays, and goes. What doesn't come, stay or go is your own Self."
~ Papaji
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 16:54:45 GMT
DEVOTEE: How to get rid of fear? SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI:
What is fear? It is only a thought. If there is anything besides the Self there is reason to fear. Who sees the second (anything external)? First the ego arises and sees objects as external. If the ego does not rise, the Self alone exists and there is no second (nothing external). For anything external to oneself implies the seer within. Seeking it there will arise no doubt, no fear - not only fear, all other thoughts centred round the ego will disappear along with it. D : This method seems to be quicker than the usual one of cultivating qualities alleged necessary for salvation ('sadhana chatustaya')? M : Yes. All bad qualities centre round the ego. When the ego is gone Realisation results by itself. There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self. The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only. It is beyond quality. The numeral one gives rise to other numbers. The truth is neither one nor two. IT is as it is. D : The difficulty is to be in the thought-free state. M : Leave the thought-free state to itself. Do not think of it as pertaining to you. Just as when you walk, you involuntarily take steps, so too in your actions; but the thought-free state is not affected by your actions.
- from Talk-146
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 17:00:55 GMT
Question : But we see pain in the world. A man is hungry. It is a physical reality. It is very real to him. Are we to call it a dream and remain unmoved by his suffering? Ramana Maharshi : From the point of view of jnana or Reality, the suffering you speak of is certainly a dream, as is the world of which that suffering is an infinitesimal part. In a dream you have when you are asleep you yourself feel hunger and see others also suffering from hunger. You feed yourself and, moved by pity, feed the others who are hungry. So long as the dream lasted, all this suffering was quite as real as the suffering you see in the world is to you now. It was only when you woke up that you discovered it to be unreal. You might have eaten heartily before going to sleep, but you still dreamt that you had been working hard in the hot sun all day and were tired and hungry. Then you woke up and found that your stomach was full and that you had not stirred from your bed. But all this is not to say that while you are in the dream you can act as if the suffering you feel in it is not real. The hunger in the dream has to be appeased by dream food. The fellow beings you find hungry in the dream have to be provided with dream food. You can never mix the two states, the dream and the waking state. Similarly, till you attain the state of Self-Realization and thus wake out of this illusory, phenomenal world, you must do social service by relieving suffering whenever you see it. But even so you must do it without ahankara, that is without the sense of: ‘It-is-I-who-am-doing-it’. Instead you should feel: ‘I am the Lord’s instrument.' Similarly you must not be conceited and think: ‘I am helping a man who is below me. He needs help and I am in a position to give it. I am superior and he is inferior’.You must help him as a means of worshiping God in him. All such service is serving the Self, not anybody else. You are not helping anybody else, but only yourself.
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Edited by David Godman
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 17:12:57 GMT
Q: Is the sense ‘I am’ real or unreal? M: Both. It is unreal when we say: ‘I am this, I am that’. It is real when we mean ‘I am not this, nor that.’ The knower comes and goes with the known, and is transient; but that which knows that it does not know, which is free of memory and anticipation, is timeless. Q: Is ‘I am’ itself the witness, or are they separate? M: Without one the other cannot be. Yet they are not one. It is like the flower and its colour. Without flower — no colours; with-out colour — the flower remains unseen. Beyond is the light which on contact with the flower creates the colour. Realize that your true nature is that of pure light only, and both the perceived and the perceiver come and go together. That which makes both possible, and yet is neither, is your real being, which means not being a ‘this’ or ‘that’, but pure awareness of being and not-being. When awareness is turned on itself, the feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned outward, the knowables come into being. To say: ‘I know myself’ is a contradiction in terms for what is ‘known’ cannot be ‘myself’. Q: If the self is for ever the unknown what then is realized in self-realization? M: To know that the known cannot be me nor mine, is liberation enough. Freedom from self-identification with a set of memories and habits, the state of wonder at the infinite reaches of the being, its inexhaustible creativity and total transcendence, the absolute fearlessness born from the realization of the illusoriness and transiency of every mode of consciousness — flow from a deep and inexhaustible source. To know the source as source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the source only is self-realization. Q: On what side is the witness? Is it real or unreal? M: Nobody can say: ‘I am the witness’. The ‘I am’ is always witnessed. The state of detached awareness is the witness-consciousness, the ‘mirror-mind’. It rises and sets with its object and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever its object, it remains the same, hence it is also real. It partakes of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the two. Q: If all happens only to the ‘I am’, if the ‘I am’ is the known and the knower and the knowledge itself, what does the witness do? Of what use is it? M: It does nothing and is of no use whatsoever. Q: Then why do we talk of it? M: Because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only —to cross over. You don’t build houses on a bridge. The ‘I am’ looks at things, the witness sees through them. It sees them as they are — unreal and transient. To say ‘not me, not mine’ is the task of the witness. Q: Is it the manifested (saguna) by which the unmanifested (nirguna) is represented? M: The unmanifested is not represented. Nothing manifested can represent the unmanifested. Q: Then why do you talk of it? M: Because it is my birthplace.
- Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Excerpt from Chapter 78. I AM THAT. All Knowledge is Ignorance.
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 18:22:12 GMT
The best devotee is unwavering in the conviction that he is not the body. - Nirupana 84. When you do not have Self-knowledge, you may go to the temple and worship. It becomes unnecessary when you know your Self. There should be no desires except for Self-knowledge. It takes strong dedication to achieve this. All desire for worldly learning will fade away. Then you will reach your true nature. One can get happily involved in what one likes. But this does not lead to the discovery of your true nature. If your attitude is fixed on external things, you will not have this knowledge. Krishna says: ‘Forgetting everything, you should just worship Me’. Be steady within your own Self. Presently, you are only listening. When you get the experience, you will know. Where there is devotion, there is love. Where there is love, there is devotion. As long as we take ourselves as the body, the difference like ‘me and mine’ will remain. I cognize that ‘I am’. That is consciousness. Worship consciousness with non-dual devotion. It is cognized in the body and its movement is due to prana. The ears do not listen. The one who listens through the ears is not a human being. Really speaking, that which is listening is of the nature of God. It is self-luminous. You believe otherwise because of the body. One should continuously hold onto consciousness. The light of the Self precedes other lights. It has no form, hence it is neither big nor small. Therefore it is all-pervading. This love is formless. It has no body. So long as there is prana, the Self resides as the seer. It neither comes nor goes. You are in the body but you are not the body. You are pure consciousness, pure vital force. The world is only the light of consciousness. The original state is ‘Oneness’. That only has to be properly understood. ‘I am consciousness’: this should be the conviction. All names are my names. The best devotee is unwavering in the conviction that he is not the body. All your needs will come to an end with Self-realization. Otherwise, you will not be satisfied even if you were the emperor of the whole universe.
!!! MEDITATIONS with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. An excerpt from Nirupana 84.
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 18:30:01 GMT
Observe how consciousness is working on its own. Do not interfere in its working with your intellect. Keep watching. You think you know, but you are not what you know. You are That to whom knowingness happens. That alone IS. It is the beingness. Whatever happens is to the beingness only. First there must be a conviction that you are not a human being. There is no such thing as time. It is your concept of time. If this is understood, body-consciousness will not affect you. Consciousness is the seed. It has sprouted and grown. It has become the world. In the beginning the devotee worships God. Later he lets Him go. Consciousness cannot be thrown away, nor can it be held onto. It is ‘you’. If everything is your Self, what do you throw away and what do you keep? So who will hold onto whom? Parabrahman is beyond delusion. It is the secret among secrets. It is known through a thought-free state. If one thinks about Him, one gets wrapped up in concepts. One wants one’s consciousness to be satisfied and happy. However, one’s true nature is obscured due to body-consciousness. Perfection comes only with Self-realization. Body-consciousness brings death closer day by day. Human beings suffer from the false concept of birth and rebirth. Once Truth is understood, there is no need of concepts. Atman resides in the body. He is beyond concepts. (Paramatman does not know whether He is or He is not.) A person has only to understand that he is not of the nature of a human being. He is only consciousness that lives in the body. The picture of the universe is painted out of the light of consciousness. It is our true nature. It does not need any rituals. We must behave in a dignified manner after knowing our worthiness. Actions, however carefully executed, are imperfect as long as they are based on body-consciousness. They are based upon the desire of having a better life. All that is, is the nature of the Atman in the body. It is beyond memory, beyond words. Forget that you are a human being. If you consider yourself a human being, all the laws of mankind will apply to you. Have the conviction that you are the perfect Atman.
!!! MEDITATIONS with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Excerpt from Nirupana 85.
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 18:36:15 GMT
Leave Everything Alone Whenever your thoughts dwell on the past, do not become angry with yourself. Leave them alone. Do not observe them. Do not watch them. Do not be the witness to them. Just leave them alone. They will disappear of their own volition, due to the fact that they never existed. This is an important point. This is the reason why you leave everything alone. Now if things existed, if there were such a thing as negative thinking, karma to get rid of, then you'd have a job on your hands. You'd have to do all sorts of things to remove your karma, your past sins. You'd be working continuously. Practicing all kinds of japa, mantras, everything, to remove all of these thoughts of the past. But I say to you, since these things never existed to begin with, why do any work at all? Oh, it's OK if you like to work, but I'm very lazy myself, and the less work I have to do, the better. I know it's difficult for some of you to think that you have to do absolutely nothing to become free because you're already free. For you've been brought up that you have to work, work, work to get ahead. Why do you want to get ahead? Ahead to what? To whom? Everything must change sooner or later. Everything must dissolve and return to the elements from whence they came. And new forms are always being born, so to speak. So what kind of goals are you trying to achieve? Your goals will vanish when everything else vanishes, sooner or later. Think how many civilizations we've had on this planet. Many civilizations, and they've also passed us where we are today. But where are they now? They're gone. Dissolved into the nothingness from whence they came. So it is folly to try to improve yourself, or to try to achieve anything. It is folly to try to change something or to become something. Just Be. You may ask, how do I just Be? By asking, you're not being. To just Be is to just Be. Not to be this or to be that. Or to try to discover how to just Be. Just Be, without trying to understand what that means. Without analyzing. Without pondering. Just Be. Just Be. Just Be. Just Be.
#T. 191 @ Just Be - October 15, 1992 ~ SILENCE OF THE HEART Dialogue with Robert Adams
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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2021 19:37:21 GMT
Questioner: If I am beyond the mind, how can I change myself? Maharaj: Where is the need of changing anything? The mind is changing anyhow all the time. Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it — and just be. If you give it rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength. Constant thinking makes it decay Q: If my true being is always with me, how is it that I am ignorant of it? M: Because it is very subtle and your mind is gross, full of gross thoughts and feelings. Calm and clarify your mind and you will know yourself as you are. Q: Do I need the mind to know myself? M: You are beyond the mind, but you know with your mind. It is obvious that the extent, depth and character of knowledge depend on what instrument you use. Improve your instrument and your knowledge will improve. Q: To know perfectly I need a perfect mind. M: A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part. Q: You mean to say that the greatest work is done by not working? M: Exactly. Do understand that you are destined for enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny, don’t go against it, don’t thwart it. Allow it to fulfil itself. All you have to do is to give attention to the obstacles created by the foolish mind.
- Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Excerpt from Chapter 65. I AM THAT. A Quiet Mind is All You Need.
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