Be present as the watcher of your mind

Be present as the watcher of your mind -- of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react. Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.

Eckhart Tolle

Every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation

Every ego confuses opinions and viewpoints with facts. Further more, it cannot tell the difference between an event and its reaction to its event. Every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation. Only through awareness-not through thinking-can you differentiate between fact and opinion. Only through awareness are you able to see: There is the situation and here is the anger I feel about it, and then realise there are other ways of approaching the situation, other ways of seeing it and dealing with it. Only through awareness can you see the totality of the situation or person instead of adopting one limited perspective.

Eckhart Tolle

You are the very Awareness prior to thought

When people are engaged in being right, defending their mental position, an enormous amount of defensiveness and violence comes already. Why do two people become so agitated, in some cases even violent, when they're defending a mental position? Because that's what they derive their sense of self from. Thought has become invested self. That's the very essence of dysfunction---that humans derive their sense of self through thought. This is a delusion, because who they are is so much deeper than thought. They can only realize that when they detach from their thinking and observe their thinking.

Who or what is it that is able to observe that you are identified with a mental position? Who or what is it in you that is able to notice the emotional violence that comes as you start to defend your own position? You can then ask, "Wow, what's going on? What am I defending?" You are defending an illusory sense of self---your sense of self and your mind structure.

That very dysfunction, which looks relatively harmless on a small scale, is the very same dysfunction that drives the terrorist. So it's only in yourself that you can detect it. And if you see it, you see the root of human dysfunction and madness; identification with thinking. But the moment you see it, you are already one foot out of it. The seeing of it is not part of the dysfunction. So in other words, when you see that you are mad, you are no longer mad.

That's the arising of something new in humanity. I sometimes call it the unconditioned consciousness. But it is also a field of stillness, where you see the torn roots of the human mind. Once it emerges, it's a process that cannot be reversed. It emerges more and more fully, and you become less and less identified with the structure of thought. And then thought is no longer dysfunctional. It is actually beautiful. It can be used for helpful purposes. It's wonderful---you are no longer looking for an identity in the structure of thought because now you know that who you are is deeper. You are the very awareness prior to thought. You are the stillness that is deeper than thought, much vaster than thought. We call it "stillness" but it's just a word. We've reduced it to something. It's more than that. It's consciousness itself, unconditioned. Which is the essence of each human being. It's that when you meet anybody in a state of open, aware attention, without labeling them mentally or judging them, then that you are already operating as a current or conscious awareness between human beings.

That would dramatically change human relationships. When aware presence operates between human beings, they are no longer dominated by mind structures. On a deepest level, that is also love. That is the only dimension from where love can come into this world.

Eckhart Tolle

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify with your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind the light of your consciousness grows stronger.

Eckhart Tolle

Ego

(Eckhart Tolle)

Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality – and it has a relative, not an absolute, reality – this is also its definition: complete identification with form – physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every 'other' as well as with the Source. This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create? To find the answer to this, observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.

Eckhart Tolle

Miracle of surrender

When your pain is deep, all talk of surrender will probably feel futile and meaningless. You will have a strong urge to escape from it rather than surrender to it. You don't want to feel what you feel. What could be more normal? But there is no escape, no way out. There are many pseudo escapes — work, drink, drugs, anger, projection, suppression and so on — but they don't free you from pain. Suffering does not diminish in intensity when you make it unconscious.... When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don't turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it. Feel it fully. Feel it — don't think about it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it....Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace."

Eckhart Tolle

Inner alignment with the Now is the end of suffering

True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment. This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering. Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.

Eckhart Tolle

The egoless ‘I am’ is realisation

The egoless ‘I am’ is realisation. The experience of ‘I am’ is peace. The meaning of ‘I’ is ‘God’. The outgoing mind is bondage, the in-going mind is freedom. The heartward mind brings bliss. The restless worldly mind brings bondage and misery. The triads of knower, known and knowledge are one. You go to a cinema. Observe the projector light. If the projector light fails the whole show stops. Be Self-centered and finish your work in silence and come out. The world is nothing but the objectified mind.

Bhagavan

Q & A with Nisargadatta Maharaj

Below is an extract of a conversation with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Can you imagine how this discussion would seem to a person who hasn't read any spiritual literature at all or an atheist?

'Q' refers to questioner

'M' refers to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: The fact is that here and now I am asking you: when did the feeling 'I am the body' arise? At my birth? or this morning?
M: Now.
Q: But I remember having it yesterday too!
M: The memory of yesterday is now only.
Q: But surely I exist in time. I have a past and a future.
M: That is how you imagine -- now.
Q: There must have been a beginning.
M: Now.
Q: And what about ending?
M: What has no beginning cannot end.
Q: But I am conscious of my question.
M: A false question cannot be answered. It can only be seen as false.
Q: To me it is real.
M: When did it appear real to you? Now.
Q: Yes, it is quite real to me -- now.
M: What is real about your question? It is a state of mind. No state of mind can be more real than the mind itself. Is the mind real? It is but a collection of states, each of them transitory. How can a succession of transitory states be considered real?

Let go of excessive thinking

You don't solve problems by thinking; you create problems by thinking. The solution always appears when you step out of thinking and become still and absolutely present, even if only for a moment. Then, a little later when thought comes back, you suddenly have a creative insight that wasn't there before.

Let go of excessive thinking and see how everything changes. Your relationships change because you don't demand that the other person should do something for you to enhance your sense of self. You don't compare yourself to others or try to be more than someone else to strengthen your sense of identity.

You allow everyone to be as they are. You don't need to change them; you don't need them to behave differently so that you can be happy.

Eckhart Tolle in the Findhorn Retreat 2004

Suffering and Spiritual Awakening

What exactly is the connection between suffering and spiritual awakening? How does one lead to the other? When you look closely at the nature of human suffering you will find that an essential ingredient in most kinds of suffering is a diminishment of one’s sense of self. Take illness, for example. Illness makes you feel smaller, no longer in control, helpless. You seem to loose your autonomy, perhaps become dependent on others. You become reduced in size, figuratively speaking. Any major loss has a similar effect: some form that was an important part of your sense of who you are – a person, a possession, a social role – dissolves or leaves you and you suffer because you had become identified with it and it seems you are losing yourself or a part of yourself. In reality, of course, what feels like a diminishment or loss of your sense of self is the crumbling of an image of who you are held in the mind. What dissolves is identification with thought forms that had given you your sense of self. But that sense of self is ultimately false, is ultimately a mental fiction. It is the egoic mind or the "little me" as I sometimes call it. To be identified with a mental image of who you are is to be unconscious, to be unawakened spiritually. This unawakened state creates suffering, but suffering creates the possibility of awakening. When you no longer resist the diminishment of self that comes with suffering, all role-playing, which is normal in the unawakened state, comes to an end. You become humble, simple, real. And, paradoxically, when you say “yes” to that death, because that’s what it is, you realize that the mind-made sense of self had obscured the truth of who you are – not as defined by your past, but timelessly. And when who you think you are dissolves, you connect with a vast power which is the essence of your very being. Jesus called it: "eternal life." In Buddhism, it is sometimes called the "deathless realm."

Now, does this mean that if you haven’t experienced intense suffering in your life, there is no possibility of awakening? Firstly, the fact that you are drawn to a spiritual teaching or teacher means you must have had your share of suffering already, and the awakening process has probably already begun. A teacher or teaching is not even essential for spiritual awakening, but they save time. Secondly, humanity as a whole has already gone through unimaginable suffering, mostly self-inflicted, the culmination of which was the 20th century with its unspeakable horrors. This collective suffering has brought upon a readiness in many human beings for the evolutionary leap that is spiritual awakening. For many individuals alive now, this means: they have suffered enough. No further suffering is necessary. The end of suffering: that is also the essence of every true spiritual teaching. Be grateful that your suffering has taken you to this realization: I don’t need to suffer anymore.


Eckhart Tolle

Ten Secret forms of Selfishness

To help get us started on this Higher Path to true selfless living, following is a short list of unconscious ways in which we are secretly selfish. Study this list and see where the conditions outlined apply to your own present behavior. For extra benefit, make a list of your own!

Ten Secret forms of Selfishness:

1.Being self-enclosed.
2.Dominating (or hiding out in) a conversation.
3.Inflexibility
4.Being impatient
5.Running chronically late
6.Self-loathing or self-pitying
7.Not listening
8.Complaining about anything
9.Gossiping
10.Daydreaming

Guy Finley

True Listening

True listening is another way of bringing stillness into the relationship. When you truly listen to someone, the dimension of stillness arises and becomes an essential part of the relationship. But true listening is a rare skill. Usually, the greater part of a person’s attention is taken up by their thinking. At best, they may be evaluating your words or preparing the next thing to say. Or they may not be listening at all, lost in their own thoughts.

True listening goes far beyond auditory perception. It is the arising of alert attention, a space of presence in which the words are being received. The words now become secondary. They may be meaningful or they may not make sense. Far more important than what you are listening to is the act of listening itself, the space of conscious presence that arises as you listen. That space is a unifying field of awareness in which you meet the other person without the separative barriers created by conceptual thinking. And now the other person is no longer “other.” In that space, you are joined together as one awareness, one consciousness.

Just Now - An interview with Eckhart Tolle

Joseph Roberts: Can you speak about the challenges of finding balance in our increasingly complex lives?

Eckhart Tolle: As I call it, inner and outer purpose has merged. There are many people very much into spiritual growth who are still working in the business world and trying to come to some arrangement in the ego-dominated world, while at the same time keeping alive the awakening process. That's very, very hard to balance – being involved in the ego world and keeping alive the inner process of awakening.

To some extent, ego is still a challenge for everybody. Of course we all have egos. But, at least, the overall structure of what, say, people like you do, is not to do with making money but to explore different aspects of the awakening consciousness.

JR: I haven't looked at it quite that way. I just kind of do what I do.

ET: As I said in The Power of Now, the word "work" is going to disappear. Of course, then the words "holiday" and "vacation" will disappear, or "leisure" – all this dividing your life into segments between what you enjoy and don't enjoy will disappear.

JR: I remember reading your chapter on the pain body, which really jumped out at me as such a fresh concept, in such an alive way, that I was taken somewhere. Thank you for opening that portal.

ET: Yes, that has been helpful to many people, the awareness of the pain body.

JR: How do you speak about that concept now? Has your perception changed at all?

ET: It's basically the same, but over the years through giving talks and teaching I've gained different perspectives on it. Some of that is in the new book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, where I also expand on the concept. It's a continuous learning process, fascinating. One is always surprised at how many disguises the pain body and the ego have. You never stop learning about it. Although the main thing is to be aware of its existence within oneself. If you're not aware of that, you cannot be the witness when it arises, which means it takes you over. So the main thing about the whole pain body phenomenon is the state of awareness that is there when it comes so you can remain as a conscious observer.

The pain body is then no longer a huge problem because it no longer possesses you. It only possesses you when you're not aware of it and when it doesn't possess you any more, it cannot feed any more on the drama of life circumstances or relationships. It's unlikely that one is immediately free of it, but the main thing is that you don't get taken over by it, that you don't lose yourself in it completely. Then its energy gradually diminishes. That can take some years.

JR: Is there an emergence or is it more that the distractions evaporate? How would you describe it? In your new book, I feel like you're the modern equivalent of the explorers that came to the new world, but an explorer and documenter of consciousness, discovering a new world.

ET: Yes, discovering is the right word. It's not that you need to make a great effort to attain it or bring it about or acquire it. It's discovering it's already there in you – conscious awareness that's obscured, or partially obscured, in many people. It's a discovery of something already there.It's like waking up after a dream, because identification with the thinking mind and its stories and the old emotional conditioning is like being immersed in a kind of dream world, which very often turns into a nightmare – acting out old conditioned patterns again and again. The whole structure of the egoic mind is an old dysfunction.There's some evidence that the ego started about 6,000 years ago, but nobody can say for sure. Before that, humans were in a state of innocence. When we go beyond the dysfunction of the ego, we regain our original innocence, but on a much deeper level. This is why Jesus said unless we become as little children we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.So, returning to the original innocence, and at the same time going much deeper into that with full awareness – that's the process. We're coming out of thousands of years of dreadful suffering, almost the whole of recorded history of humanity. If you really look at it in an unbiased way, as if you'd never seen it before, one cannot but admit that, to a large extent, 80 to 90 percent of it is a history of pathological insanity, the suffering that humans have created for themselves and, of course, inflicting it upon others.

JR: And exporting it through colonization to the new world.

ET: Yes, so the important part of the awakening process is the realization of the insanity in human history, collectively, to this day playing itself out in world events. Also, to be aware of the insanity within oneself – old, dysfunctional patterns that come again and again that create suffering. So when you see that you're insane, then you're not completely insane. Sanity comes the moment you realize the fact of insanity. To see insanity is not a negative thing.

JR: At least you're out of denial.

ET: Yes, that's why in the film A Beautiful Mind, for example, which is about a mathematical genius who did have a mental dysfunction, his mind was developed in certain areas but he was also insane. The viewer of the film doesn't know that until a certain point when the character realizes that many of his experiences are delusions. At that moment, his healing begins. He's not cured yet, but his healing begins because he's recognized his own insanity. That recognition can only come out of sanity, which is the awareness of unconditioned consciousness.

JR: I remember you saying before you published your last book that the next one would be about why there isn't peace on this planet. Was finding a solution one of the major intentions of A New Earth?

ET: Yes, to see the nature of the major dysfunction. That's why I talk quite a bit about the ego in this book. We need to recognize the nature of the dysfunction. Sometimes, even very great Eastern teachers sometimes neglect that part because they're not really touched by the magnitude of, especially, the Western ego. So it's very important for us to see the dysfunction so that we can recognize it when it arises.

Part of the new book is about recognizing the ego, which I regard as a semi-autonomous energy. It's an energy field. Every thought you think is an energy field. It has a form and then it dissolves and then there is another form. The ego itself is an energy field and it has a collective and individual aspect. Every individual ego is part of the collective. They're connected. Every individual is a manifestation of the collective. To recognize that is essential because the ego, being a very clever entity, has many ways of reappearing. Even if you've seen it in one disguise, it can suddenly reappear in a new one. You might suddenly realize your whole sense of self, identity, is being derived from your possessions and social position. You see that your whole sense of identity is bound up with that and you recognize one aspect of ego. Well, usually it only comes to people when they suffer, when the identification with something no longer works. So, if someone loses their possessions, they suffer enormously because they are losing part of their identity.

Sometimes, they suddenly wake up to that false sense of self and decide they don't want any of those possessions anymore, or that job, or whatever, and they'll go to a monastery or somewhere where they can renounce.

Fine, they do that and then we see how clever the ego is. The ego has disappeared in that disguise. So let's say the person has become a Buddhist monk, but, without realizing it, they're now identified with a mental image of themselves as someone who's risen above their old identity, now defining themselves as a spiritually evolved being. He has exchanged one identity for another with a mental image of who he is now. The ego always works by comparing itself in a subtle way to others. Before, you had to be superior because of one thing; then you become superior because of something else. Suddenly a new set of identifications and it's so subtle; sometimes these spiritual egos can be much more subtle than the gross material-based egos. It's still there.

It's recognizing the ego in its many disguises. I've met Buddhist monks who had enormous egos without knowing it. I remember being in a monastery afraid to approach them because they seemed so aloof. Yet I've met other Buddhist monks who were like little children and it was a joy to talk to them because they'd laugh and not take themselves seriously at all. They didn't take the whole Buddhist thing seriously either, yet they practised it knowing it was only a form and they weren't identified with it.Of course, I'm not saying everybody who becomes a monk has ego, but the potential for ego is there in any situation. A cyclist might have a bigger ego than the man in the SUV, especially if he hates the man in the SUV for polluting the planet and thinks he's superior. If the ego cannot be superior in any field, it will happily identify with the image of the victim, which can give you a very strong ego too. An equally strong ego is someone who thinks of themselves as inferior or badly treated by life, because, again, you have a mental image and a story that you identify with.

It always comes down to identification with forms, one thought form or another. So you miss the one thing that really matters in life, which is that there is a dimension in you beyond form. Another way of putting it is the content in your life. Everything is content: your job, your nationality, your religion, your politics, your likes and dislikes. Your whole story – the story of "Me" – is content. All the thoughts in my head are content, because it is form. Some forms stay for years, others a few seconds. Content draws you in. For some people, it may be mostly material things; the whole attention might be focused on things. There's a dimension in us that has nothing to do with content. Self-realization is that I am not that. I'm not my story, not my grievances and hang-ups, not the story of me that I'm telling other people at parties or repeating in my head again and again. That is only form. It's temporary.

When you see what you're not, it's already liberating. Something inside you breathes a sigh of relief. Then, of course, the mind begins to ask, "What are you if you are not that?" It wants an answer. In other words, it wants some new form. It wants a new thought. There must be a thought that I am. But it doesn't work like that. That's why the great book the Tao Te Ching starts with the line that the Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao because Tao – in the ancient Chinese way of putting it – is the formless dimension. You could say pure consciousness, but with any term we use we have to be careful it's not mistaken for "It." Otherwise, the mind comes in and says, "Oh, consciousness, yes. I believe that I'm consciousness. " It's not another belief. It's finding that spaciousness inside yourself that's there when you let go of identification of form.

The dimension of pure consciousness is what I sometimes call "space consciousness, " as opposed to "object consciousness, " which consumes most people's attention 100 percent. One damn thing after another is what human history is. But that's also the human mind for many people; one problem after another, one thing after another to occupy the attention. Always something. Almost as if the world were conspiring to keep me away from what truly matters - finding myself beyond form, beyond content.

The Power of Now got written to say the quickest way to enter space consciousness is the present moment and living in alignment with the present moment rather than against it, and that's the end of the ego. The ego cannot tolerate the present moment. It cannot survive when you're conscious of, and accepting, being one with the present moment. If you're in a state of oneness with what is, rather than running away from it or trying to deny it or fighting it, that's already the end of the ego. Suddenly, inner spaciousness opens up in which no thought is required at this moment to judge, rather than accept, this moment.

The whole compulsion to think continuously has to do with denial of the present moment and this addiction to mostly useless, repetitive and distracting thinking that humans are suffering from. It is really intimately connected with the continuous denial of the present moment. You're always thinking about something else. Even if you're thinking about the present moment, you'd be interpreting it in terms of the past, which is still a denial of the present.The question is can you be in a state of openness towards what is right now, without imposing a mental interpretation on it, without denying or running away from it or making the present moment into a means to an end. The ego mind says, "I need to get to the next moment. This was just a stepping stone, but once I get there I'll be okay" because the mind is future oriented.The simple thing is becoming one with the present moment by no longer resisting it and by being open to what is. Any moment starts with this moment. There is no other. Not imposing an interpretation on what is, letting it be. Approaching it in a state of alert, open attention. Whatever it is that the present moment contains, you approach it in that state of alert openness.

Then the greater intelligence comes into your life immediately because you're no longer operating from the conditioned mind. When you open yourself up to the present moment, you also open yourself up to the unconditioned, the far deeper consciousness, the true intelligence. When that comes into your life, it deals with anything that needs to be done in this present moment. The response comes from that deeper level of intelligence, whatever you're doing.
That is where you bring in true intelligence. Krishnamurti called it the awakening of intelligence, which was also the title of one of his books. True intelligence has nothing to do with acquired knowledge or the ability to solve little puzzles, like IQ tests. That's a tiny ability, a small aspect of intelligence. I'm sorry if I'm offending anybody whose identity is from Mensa, but true intelligence is not that. It's not accumulating masses of facts and then calling yourself knowledgeable and deriving your identity from that because you're superior in your knowledge. True intelligence is not to be cunning and clever in your business dealings. Ultimately, that's self-defeating because you're not taking into account the whole. You're taking into account only self-interest. True intelligence is not to protect your country at the expense of other countries, because you're taking a fragment out of the whole and neglecting the rest. It might be clever, but it's not intelligence and cleverness always lets you down. It's not an enlightened way to deal with things.

So George W. Bush is clever but stupid at the same time. Another term I have for that is "stupid intelligence. " Now with him, you can actually see it's stupid, but for all those people making mistakes – let's say in the current American administration, and I'm only mentioning that because when people are in such positions of power their mistakes have huge repercussions, whereas a person with an ordinary job has relatively small repercussions with similar mistakes – you don't see this magnified version of what the ego is capable of, whereas if you take Hitler or Stalin, you see what the madness of the ego is capable of.

All these people have been to universities. They have degrees. They have high degrees from good universities. So, yes, they've developed mind – some more than others – but you can see how limited that is, completely lacking in wisdom. It is cleverness completely devoid of any wisdom, so cleverness is also of the ego. "What is my advantage?" is always the question. That is so limited, it always leads to suffering. First you create suffering for others and then it comes to you, always. That's the pattern.

Wisdom can only arise from the unconditioned dimension of consciousness and you don't have to make an enormous effort to bring that about. At some point in the future, in some remote state, as some Buddhists believe, "I need another 10 incarnations and then I'll be enlightened. " Some teachers might even tell you, "You'll be enlightened in only a few more incarnations, just wait."

There's no time to wait. There's no need to wait. Time cannot get you to the timeless state of consciousness, so if you're looking to the future that sometime you'll be in that state, no you won't. You can simply be in that state now simply by no longer living in antagonism with the present moment.

The only difference between you and the enlightened master is that the master lives in a state of oneness with the present moment, in complete inner "Yes." Nothing else. He might be much less knowledgeable than you; he probably is. Buddha and Jesus had much less information than a person has today because humans didn't know that much at the time, but it didn't matter. Information is not what it's about.

The realization is that the transformation of consciousness does not require time. Many people get angry when I say that because they've invested so much of themselves in a self-image as a spiritual seeker who is going to get there one day. They're so invested as seekers that, of course, they can't be finders. They're seekers and they're interested in the future more than the present, and that's the old pattern appearing in the new disguise – the old, egoic pattern.The new dimension of consciousness, new in the sense that it's relatively new on this planet, is already there. It simply requires you to be open towards the present moment. That is the new heaven: that the new state of consciousness is there. I explain in A New Earth a few things about object consciousness and space consciousness and how to enter. But, basically, it's so simple even a child could understand it.Eckhart Tolle.

Eckhart Tolle in an interview with Joseph Roberts

A website on Mathru Sri Sarada

There is a new website on Sri Mathru Sarada started by a her devotees on Navaratri 2007 . Interestingly there is an Ashtottara on Mathru Sri Sarada composed by none other than Sri Lakshmana Swamy after Saradamma's self-realisation. This Ashtottara is unique in that it is a composition on a living Jnani by a living Jnani and by a Guru on his disciple. You may check it out on page "Pooja Kalpamu"

The link is http://mathrusrisarada.org/

Bhagavan looking through a Binocular

An interesting photograph of Bhagavan.

Source: Mountain Path Oct to December '07 issue Volume 44 no.4

Swami Sivananda's Sadhana

I happened to read this lovely first person account by Swami Sivananda on his daily sadhana

"I get up daily between 3-30 and 4-00. a.m. As soon as I get up I offer prayers to the Lord. Then I press the calling bell and two of my attendants come to my room to help me to go to the bathroom. When I see them I think they are two parts of Virat Purusha who has come to help me. First I mentally prostrate before them and then with their help go to the bathroom. After the bath I come back and sit in my room. Then I start my Sadhana like this. First I think of the omnipotent, omniscient Paramatman and meditate on Him for some time. Thereafter I pray mentally to the Trimurtis and all gods in all their names and forms. Then I mentally visit all Holy pilgrim centres and bathe in all the Holy Rivers and Seas, in each and every place. I prostrate before the presiding Deity and worship mentally all the Devatas. Afterwards I do Japa of all Deities, one Maala each. Then I recite four Mahavakyas and some Vedic Hymns from the Vedas. Also I recite selected Mantras from the 10 Upanishads. I got by heart some slokas from the Epics of Mahabharata, Ramayana and Srimad Bhagavatam and I repeat them. I remember the saints and sages and mentally prostrate to them. Then I mentally think of the Acharyas—Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Madhvacharya and all other great Acharyas. I prostrate to them mentally. Then I recite some of the Hymns and Stotras taught by them. After this I do Pranava Japa and meditate.

After meditation I do a few exercises on the bed itself, followed by Pranayama. The entire routine of my Sadhana takes about 2-2 1/2 hours. After this I ring the bell for my attendants to bring my breakfast. Breakfast over, I go to office work. For the convenience of some devotees who wish to have a private Darshan to talk about their personal matters. I sit on the Verandah. Before they enter the main door I repeat Mahamrityunjaya Mantra three times and pray for their happiness and health, these devotees usually come to me to speak about their problems, spiritual or otherwise. I listen to them patiently and I pray to God mentally to give them courage and strength to overcome their problems and difficulties. Afterwards the visitors sit with me in silence. Then repeating Tryambaka Mantra I distribute the Holy Prasad to them. This has been my Sadhana over the Years.” All four of us were thrilled to hear from Gurudev’s own words about his Sadhana and all of us felt elevated and prostrated to him in deep devotion. Some times Gurudev would say to the devotees at the end of their meeting. “Sab accha ho Jayaga. Bhagavan ko yad rakho.”

SOME REMINISCENCESOF GURUDEV SWAMI SIVANANDA By SRI SWAMI DEVANANDA

Source: http://www.dlshq.org/download/reminiscences.htm

Beside the Point

The sky has never won a prize.
The clouds have no careers.
The rainbow doesn't say my work,
thank goodness.

The rock in the creek's not so productive.
The mud on the bank's not too pragmatic.
There's nothing useful in the noise
the wind makes in the leaves.

Buck up now, my fellow superfluity,
and let's both be of that worthless ilk,
self-indulgent as shooting stars,
self-absorbed as sunsets.

Who cares if we're inconsequential?
At least we can revel, two good-for-nothings,
in our irrelevance; at least come and make
no difference with me.

Stephen Cushman

Beauty of forgiveness

Sandalwood perfumes even the axe that hurls it down! The more we rub sandalwood against a stone, the more its fragrance spreads. Burn it, and it wafts its glory through the entire neighbourhood. Such is the enchanting beauty of forgiveness in life.

Swami Chinmayananda

The Path of Sri Ramana - By Sadhu Om

Part One of The Path of Sri Ramana is now also available here for free download as an e-book in Michael James's website: http://www.happinessofbeing.com/The_Path_of_Sri_Ramana_Part_One.pdf

Complaining

See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

Eckhart Tolle

Gratitude

Gratitude is the antidote to desire. While desire sees lack, gratitude sees abundance. Desiring is a subtle way of complaining about what is, while gratitude is rejoicing in what is. These are very different states of consciousness. Which state would you prefer to live in? You always have a choice. Desiring is our default position, so it takes awareness and willingness to be grateful rather than to desire something different. It is so easy to desire—too easy. It is much more difficult to find the place of gratitude and stay there because, for one thing, it means we have much less to do!

If we didn’t have our desires to run after, what would we do? If we were satisfied with life as it is, what would we do? The ego considers contentment dangerous because it equates it with being lazy, and that is the message it will give you to try to move you out of the place of gratitude. The ego can’t exist in this place. It is defunct, useless, out of a job. It loses all significance.

For this reason, gratitude can change your life. It can change what you do and how you do things. Who would think that something so simple as gratitude could be so powerful? The ego’s existence is built around steering us away from this amazing force, which is at the core of our being. Gratitude is the ongoing experience of essence, and it is powerfully transformative. It can transform us from an unhappy person to a happy one, from a selfish person to a loving one, and from a restless person to a peaceful one. It turns out that gratitude feels much better than desiring. It is a much better choice, but not necessarily an easier one.

By Gina Lake

Acceptance - By Gina Lake

One of the reasons people turn away from the moment and the peace and joy that reside there is that they are programmed to reject life as it is. They want life on their own terms, but it can never be that way. Even if the ego could have life on its own terms, which it does briefly and occasionally, it would soon want more or different or better than that. The ego doesn’t accept life, which is one reason it doesn’t want to give it attention.

The ego would rather give attention to its fantasies, dreams, memories, and even fears than to the actual reality of any moment, which in addition to being imperfect (from the ego’s point of view), is impossible to control or predict. This lack of control and unpredictability is deeply disturbing to the ego. Touching the Real makes the ego very uncomfortable because it is faced with the truth—that it is not the one making life happen.

As long as the ego remains in its made-up reality, it can play at being king. It pretends that it can make life go its way. It denies the obvious reality and chooses to believe what it wants to about reality.

Accepting whatever is happening—whatever it is—brings you into alignment with essence and into a state of real happiness, peace, and contentment. This is immediately uncomfortable for the ego, so this doesn’t usually last long. The egoic mind finds fault with even peace, declaring it boring, and drums up a problem to think about and solve. If you agree with its assessment of the moment, then you are back in identification with it instead of with essence. Fortunately, acceptance can bring you right back into the moment. Once you are aware of this, acceptance can be used as a pathway to essence.

Acceptance is synonymous with love. Love accepts. You could say that that is the definition of love. So when you accept what is happening, you land in Love’s territory. However, to stay there, you have to keep accepting what is happening, and that is challenging because the mind comes into nearly every moment with a reason to leave it. You must say no to the mind again and again before its hold is loosened. The more you say no to it, the weaker it gets; while the more you say yes to it, the stronger it gets. This takes diligence, commitment, and choice, and you are the only one who can make this commitment and this choice. For this reason, your spiritual evolution is in your hands to some extent. Other factors determine how and when you will unfold spiritually, but how fast you advance is largely up to you and your choices.

Accepting what is happening is not as difficult as you may think. You only have to accept what is happening in this moment, not in every moment throughout time. The ego has difficulty accepting what is happening in the moment because it spins a negative story about what this means for future moments. For instance, if you are feeling sick, it causes you to suffer over this by telling you how awful this will be and what a negative impact it will have on your life. The stories it spins are all lies. It never predicts the future accurately.

Accepting what is happening in the moment is also not as difficult as you may think because accepting it does not mean you have to like it. All you have to do is accept that you don’t like what is happening, if that is the case. Accepting this moment just means that you are willing to let it be the way it is. After all, what other choice do you have, since it is the way it is? The only other choice is to argue with it, complain about it, try to ignore it, or try to change it, which is what the ego does in nearly every moment. This is a recipe for suffering, and it doesn’t change what is happening; it only makes it unpleasant. By allowing whatever is happening to be happening, you align yourself with life rather than oppose it, and that makes every moment, regardless of what is happening, peaceful.

When the moment is okay just the way it is and your energy is not taken up in opposing it, you can really be present to it. What you discover is that every moment has much more to it than what you like or don’t like about it. It is rich with complexity, dimension, and beauty. The egoic mind paints the moment as black or white, good or bad. It has a simplistic view of what is happening according to its likes and dislikes, but the moment is not simple in the least. It is interestingly changeable, unpredictable, and intelligent. Who knows what will happen next? You never know. From the perspective of essence, life’s unpredictability is delicious, exciting, and fascinating. This is what you feel too when you are in acceptance. Essence accepts. So when you are accepting, you are expressing essence; and when you experience acceptance from others, you are experiencing essence. Think of all the times in one day you are either accepting or experiencing acceptance from others. Every time this happens, essence—the Divine—is showing up in your life.

Love is everywhere in the form of acceptance. You accept the sky, you accept gravity, you accept your breathing, you accept the color of the trees, you accept the silence between sounds, you accept the space between objects—you accept the majority of what is. This is you loving life and allowing it to be the way that it is. The mind interrupts this peace, this love, by telling you something is not right, not good, not desirable: That dog should not be barking, that sun should not be so hot, that air should not be so windy. If you agree with the mind, you suffer. If you don’t, you stay in essence, in allowing whatever is to be the way that it is. The egoic mind will tell you that accepting life means you won’t ever do anything. It tries to scare you out of acceptance by making it equal to passivity, laziness, and a lack of discrimination, which it deems dangerous to survival.

Acceptance is dangerous to the ego’s survival, but it is not dangerous to survival. It is a more effective strategy for survival than anything the ego can offer. Acceptance is love, and love connects you with everything because it connects you with who you really are, which is everything. What could be more beneficial to survival than being connected to everything and knowing that you are everything? Is there any reason that You, as the Divine, would not take care of yourself, as the creation? You are being taken care of and so is everyone else. The ego not only cannot take credit for your survival, it has interfered more than it has helped. Something else besides the ego is living your life, and the more you allow it to, the more it will take over.

Essence has been living through you and expressing itself through you as much as you have allowed it to. Every person is an expression of essence to a greater or lesser extent. The Divine is moving, speaking, doing, creating, laughing, playing, and working through each of you to the extent that you allow it to, but it is there in everyone. If you want to have an experience of the Divine, you are having it! And so is everyone else. You are not separate from the Divine. The ego is the sense that you are a separate person and the Divine is something apart from that, but that is just an idea. The ego is just the idea “I exist as a separate entity.” It is not true. You are the Divine in disguise as a human being. The more you come to see that you are not who you think you are, the more you will experience who you really are and who everyone else really is. The Divine is everywhere.

Website of Gina Lake: http://www.radicalhappiness.com/

Work Without Any Motive

Man generally plans to get the fruits of his works before he starts any kind of work. The mind is so framed that it cannot think of any kind of work without remuneration or reward. This is due to Rajas. Human Swabhava is always like this. When discrimination dawns, when the mind is filled with some more Sattwa or purity, this nature changes slowly. The spirit of selflessness slowly creeps in. The quality of Rajas creates selfishness and attachment. A selfish man has no large heart. He has no ideal. He is petty-minded. His mind is full of greed. He always calculates. He cannot do any service in a magnanimous manner. He will say: "I will get so much money. I must put forth so much work only." He will weigh the work and money in a balance. He cannot do a little more work. He will be ever watching the time for stopping his work. He is mercenary. He is hired for money. He is actuated by the hope of reward. He is greedy of gain. Selfless service is unknown to him. He has no idea of God. He has no glimpse of Truth. He cannot imagine of an expanded, selfless life. He has got into a narrow, circumscribed circle or groove. He dwells within this small grove. His love extends to his own body, his wife and children. That is all. Generosity is unknown to him.

If you expect fruits for your actions, you will have to come back into this world to enjoy such fruits. You will have to take birth again. A Nishkamya Karma Yogi says: "Do all works without expectation of fruits. This will produce Chitta Suddhi. Then you will get knowledge of the Self. You will get Moksha or eternal bliss, peace and immortality." This is his doctrine. That is the reason why Lord Krishna says to Arjuna:

Karmanyeva adhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachanaMa karmaphalahetur bhurma te sangostvakarmani.

"Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits; so let not the fruits of action be thy motive, nor be thou to inaction attached." Gita: Chapter II-47.

God dispenses the fruits of actions according to the motive. If the motive is pure, you will get Divine Grace and purity. If the motive is impure, you will get rebirth in this Mrityuloka to reap the fruits of your actions. Again you will do virtuous and vicious actions through the force of Raga-dwesha (likes-dislikes). You will be entrapped in the never-ending wheel of birth and death.

But you should not remain in a state of inertia also (Akarmani) thinking that you will not get the fruits if you work selflessly. You must not say: "What is the use of my work now? I can’t get any fruits. I will keep quiet." This is also bad. You will become Tamasic and dull. There will be mental inactivity. You will get purity of mind if you work in the spirit of Nishkamya Karma Yoga. This is a very great reward for your actions. You cannot imagine the exalted condition of a man of pure mind. He has unbounded peace, strength and joy. He is very near to God. He is dear to God. He will soon receive the divine light. Work without any sort of motive and feel its effects, purity and inner strength. What an expanded heart you will have! Indescribable! Practise, feel and enjoy this state.

Swami Sivananda

Offering no resistance to Life

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly.

Eckhart Tolle

How we can Develop our Spiritual Qualities

When we refer to developing virtues what we really mean is that we are going to remove all obstacles to experiencing our innate spiritual nature. We are actually uncovering what is naturally already within us. Our natural state is one of pure love, truth, righteousness and peace. Our basic spiritual nature which has been covered by our fear and defense mechanisms. This is why it is said that man is created in the image and likeness of divine.

This is also the reason we seek this qualities in ourselves and others. We seek the perfection which is actually within us: we seek our true self. We will never feel totally happy and satisfied until we manifest our loving and peaceful selves in our daily reality.

We must however avoid the traps of pride and guilt in this process. Our religious education is usually laced with feelings of spiritual pride when we can act righteously and guilt when we cannot.

I would suggest that such an approach is not the best. Both pride and guilt are based on the ego and comparing ourselves with others and also with an image of our possibly perfect self. Fear is often the motive to be "good". Being "good" out of fear, it has no value. Only when we are free to chose to be good out of love and the realization that we are all one being, can we speak of actual goodness.

Also we are not worthier or more lovable because we are loving, truthful and peaceful. All beings regardless of ability and ethics have the same divine worth as expressions on one divine consciousness. We are simply freer and happier when we are ethical and loving. We are not longer controlled by our fears and defense mechanisms.

Let us approach this goal of inner perfection without pride and guilt or self-rejection viewing it a process of self-maturation and self-liberation from our ignorance and weakness. Let us view it a path of joy and discovery as we free ourselves from whatever obstructs our love, peace, truthfulness, humility and kindness.

We can do this alone but it is often much more successful in groups. A group can mirror us and help us to see ourselves more clearly. Also it can support us in this process. Let us also remember that we can be responsible only for the quality of the effort and not for the results.

The Family of Spiritual Qualities

Spiritual qualities or virtues are like rays which radiate outward in different directions from a common center. They all originate in our inner self and penetrate into our personality.
Developing any virtue brings forth all the others. With faith we feel secure and are enabled to feel love and understanding and compassion, selflessness and peace. These are all aspects of our inner being. One enables the other.

Ways in which we can develop our virtuous nature:

1. Group work is very important and helpful. Our present society does not encourage us to develop love and truthfulness. We are taught that we have to be distrusting and defensive if we do not want to be used, hurt or cheated.
We need a support group of others who have the same goal in order to achieve this goal. This group can meet regularly (weekly is best) and discuss, share, pray, meditate, chant, or contemplate on the spiritual truths which enable us to be fearless in world.

2. We can pray for help in developing the qualities which seek.

3. We can read the scriptures of the various religions as well as the lives of persons who have been living examples of the strength and clarity necessary for this development.

4. We can contemplate on the meaning of all teachings and how they might apply to our daily lives.

5. In this series you are presented with a number of descriptions of how one might, feel think and act when he or she has perfected specific qualities. You may want to write your own descriptions. These function as inner thought forms allowing us to develop inwardly towards that image which we have in our minds. Such descriptions can be written or spoken onto a cassette and then read or listened to daily before sleeping and or upon waking, This will strengthen these qualities within us.

6. We can relax our mind and focus on a specific quality and ask that our subconscious present a visual symbol for that quality. We can then draw it at place it where we can see it daily so that we are reminded of that symbol daily.

7. Relaxation techniques in general bring us into contact with inner peace and clarity, thus augmenting all positive qualities within us. We have a wide variety of possible visualizations for this purpose.

Note: The mind may at times, rebel against the development of various qualities out of fear that it will lose some comforts or imagined forms of security or self-worth. If the mind reacts in negative ways we will need to be objective witnesses and find a balance between moving forward and allowing the mind to feel secure.We neither want to suppress ourselves nor do we want to remain stagnant. We need to find a friendly balance with our subconscious and inner child.

8. Meditation can bring us into contact with higher aspects of our nature. With time this daily contact will transform our personality.

9. Contemplation is a process in which we focus on a specific quality or teaching and seek to understand its deeper meaning and application in our lives. Such understanding enables us to live this quality much more fully.

For example is we are contemplating on "Love" we might ask:a. What is Love? b. What does it mean to love one's spouse, child, parent, friend, neighbor etc? c. When do I behave without love? In which situations and in relationships to which persons or behaviors? d. Where do I want to love more deeply and or steadily? e. What do I need to do or believe in order to love even in those above-mentioned situations?

10. We can analyze why we lose our love, peace of ability to be truthful in various situations, seeking to discover the fears and beliefs which cause us to become defensive or closed. Having discovered those aspects of ourselves, we can move forward to changing them.

11. Behaving as if we have already developed a quality can help us to align ourselves with it. Most religions follow this path of adjusting our behavior. This can be useful but can also create a split personality. We need to align our behavior to our highest values but also at the same time be honest to ourselves about what is going on within us.

12. Selfless service towards those who are in need is a wide field for developing various spiritual qualities. We are able to see our ego more clearly and can learn to put others' needs above our comforts. We have the ability then to develop selflessness - an extremely important inner quality.

13. Imagining that we are the other and seeking to determine his or her needs, feelings and beliefs enables us to develop compassion, understanding and love. Once we are free from identifying exclusively with ourselves, we can then be more aware of the others. This is basic to spiritual development.

14. Developing inner security is also basic to spiritual growth. Inner security is a prerequisite too love, peace, truthfulness, selflessness and all other virtues.

15. Self-acceptance is another extremely important prerequisite to feeling secure enough to love and understand others. Most often when we lose our peace and love it is because we feel that our self-worth is being undermined.

Robert Najemy (Author of 20 books - 100,000 copies sold, director of the Center for Harmonious Living in Athens Greece-with 3700 members and editor of the ezine "Clarity - The Psychology of Happiness".)

Source: http://www.turtlezen.com/developspiritqualities.html

Desire the good of all and the Universe will work with you

Your aims are small and low. They do not call for more. Only God's energy is infinite -- because He wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires will be fulfilled. The higher your aims and vaster your desires, the more energy you will have for their fulfilment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work with you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way.

Before desiring, deserve.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Seeking Reality

If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

It does not mean that you must be brainless and foolhardy, improvident or indifferent; only the basic anxiety for oneself must go. You need some food, clothing and shelter for you and yours, but this will not create problems as long as greed is not taken for a need. Live in tune with things as they are and not as they are imagined.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The cause of misery on the planet

All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of "me" or "us." That covers up the essence of who you are. When you are unaware of that inner essence, in the end you always create misery. It's as simple as that. When you don't know who you are, you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful divine being and cling to that fearful and needy self.
Protecting and enhancing that false sense of self then becomes your primary motivating force.

Eckhart Tolle

The Master Lesson

There are many lessons to be learned over many lifetimes. But the master lesson is that Oneness and the Eternal is already here and has always been here. That which you seek is already here, and has always been here.It is your seeking that leads you astray. It takes you further into the mind. Lost within the mind, you are trying to find answers there and this takes you even further into a world of illusion and separation.You are here to remember who we are.
You are here to awaken out of the illusion of separation. You are here to know and experience yourself in Oneness. You are here to find your way home.The present moment is the doorway home. The present moment is your home. If you can master the art of being fully present, then you have learned the master lesson. You will have liberated yourself from the prison that is the world of the thinking mind. You will have overcome the illusion of separation. You will be restored to Oneness.

By Leonard Jacobson taken from the website http://leonardjacobson.com/

The Advaita Teaching of Nisargadatta Maharaj: A Synopsis

All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself. You will revert to your natural state spontaneously and effortlessly. You will reach the Source of being, life and consciousness. Shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind. Refuse all thoughts except one: Who am I? Just live your life as it comes. Keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. Perception is based on memory and is only imagination. The world can be said to appear but not to be. Only that which makes perception possible is real. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown. Give up all names and forms, and the Real is with you.

Know yourself as you are. Distrust your mind and go beyond. Do not think of the Real in terms of consciousness and unconsciousness. It is utterly beyond both. It gives birth to consciousness. All else is in consciousness. Nothing you can see, feel or think is so. Go beyond the personal and see. Stop imagining that you were born. You are utterly beyond all existence and non-existence, utterly beyond all that the mind conceives. Question yourself: Who am I? What is behind and beyond all this? Soon you will see that thinking yourself to be a person is mere habit built on memory.

Inquire ceaselessly.How can Reality depend on experience when it is the very ground, the very basis of experience, the very fact of experience? Just be aware of your being here and now. There is nothing more to it. In reality you are not a thing nor separate. You are the infinite potentiality, the inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can be. The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become. You are neither consciousness nor its content. You are the timeless Source. Disassociate yourself from mind and consciousness.

Find a foothold beyond and all will be clear and easy. You are the Supreme Reality- all there is. Just trust and remember that. Wisdom lies in never forgetting the Self, the Supreme Absolute as the ever-present Source of both the experiencer and the experience. I am beyond consciousness and so in consciousness I cannot say what I am. Yet I am. The question “Who am I?” has no answer in consciousness and therefore helps to go beyond consciousness. Remember there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. All you need to do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness.You are free of being a percept or a concept. Abandon all conceptualization and stay silent and attentive. Be earnest about it and all will be well with you.

Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be. Let go of the idea that you are not aware of yourself as the ever-present, changeless inexpressible Reality. Just let go. Your difficulty stems from the idea that Reality is a state of consciousness. Essence is independent of consciousness. Self-knowledge is a new dimension altogether. Pure, concentrated longing will take you speedily to your goal. If you could keep in mind what you do not know, it would reveal to you its secrets. When you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected. Stop making use of your mind and see what happens.

Do this one thing thoroughly. That is all. Your weakness is due to your conviction that you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever recreated by you and in you. Once you realize that the world is your own projection you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist except in your own imagination!Realize that you are the Eternal Source. There is no reality but That. So how could you be “other?” And accept all as your own. Such acceptance is true love. Don’t try to understand! Don’t rely on your mind for liberation. Go beyond it altogether. Be aware of being aware. Broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are beyond space and time, uncaused, the very matrix of existence, the Supreme Absolute, the Noumenon- not unknowable, but unperceivable, un-objectival, inseparable- neither material nor mental, neither objective nor subjective- the Source of being, life and consciousness. You are the all-pervading, all-transcending Reality. Behave accordingly.

The actual experience will dawn upon you in no time. No effort is needed. Have faith and act on it. All will happen by itself: You are the subtle cause of the entire universe. All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly. To realize this as absolutely true is liberation. What you need will come to you. Whatever you come across, go beyond. Paramakash, your Self, is the timeless and spaceless Reality, mindless, undifferentiated, the infinite potentiality, the source and origin, the substance and the essence, both matter and consciousness, yet utterly beyond both. It cannot be perceived, but can be experienced as ever witnessing the witness, perceiving the perceiver, the origin and the end of all manifestation, the root of time and space, the prime cause in every chain of causation. Your idea that you were born and that you will die is absurd: Both logic and experience contradict it. Behave as what I say is true and judge by what actually happens. I know the Source of all experience. From moment to moment the little I need to know to live my life I somehow happen to know. The Supreme Absolute, the Self, is at the root of and utterly beyond all. You are That. Don’t you see that the Self, your Self, the Supreme Reality, is what makes everything possible? Know life as pure radiation from the inexhaustible Source.

There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. Stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don’t disturb your mind with seeking. The very absence of obstacles will cause Reality to rush in. You will know the Light of Absolute Awareness in all its clarity and the world will fade out of your vision. Awareness takes the place of consciousness. In consciousness there is the “I” who is conscious, while awareness is undivided. Awareness is aware of Itself. The “I am” is a thought, while awareness is not a thought. There is no “I-am-aware” in awareness. Awareness is not an attribute. One can be aware of being conscious , but not conscious of awareness. Awareness is not a form of consciousness. One who is aware is beyond every experience, utterly beyond awareness itself.
The fundamental Reality is beyond awareness, beyond becoming, beyond being and not-being. Give up all idea of the person , of personal attainment. Find out what you are.There is no effort in witnessing. You understand that you are the witness only, and understanding acts. If in the state of witnessing you ask “Who am I?” the answer comes at once, wordless and silent.
You find yourself utterly beyond the subject and the object. Both exist in you, but you are neither. You, the Supreme Absolute, are the very source of reality. Collect your energies in one great longing. My words are true and they will do their work. Enlightenment is a certainty. It is your destiny.Discard every self-seeking motive and Reality will find you. Who am I? Go into it deeply. Find out your real being. You are the beingness of being, utterly beyond the universal even. You are the non-dimensional Source of all dimensions. As you keep on giving up, you grow spontaneously in intelligence and power and inexhaustible love and joy. The Absolute can be reached by absolute devotion only. Don’t be half-hearted.The “person” is a shell imprisoning you. Break the shell. There is nothing you need. Nothing perceivable is real. Even space and time are imagined. All existence is imaginary. Only the Unlimited is real. Question the limits.

Go beyond. Set yourself tasks apparently impossible- This is the way. Look at consciousness as something alien, superimposed. Then suddenly you are free of consciousness. Whatever you feel needs to be done happens unfailingly. Selfless and intelligent, all the powers of the universe are for you to command: You are the Source Absolute. This is your natural state. Believe me, you are the Supreme Reality. You are the fullness of perfection here and now.Investigate what you know to its very end and you reach the unknown layers of your being. Go further and the unexpected will explode in you and shatter all. The crucial question is: “Who am I?”Just see the person you imagine yourself to be as a part of the world perceived within consciousness; and look at consciousness from the outside; for you are not the consciousness. You, the Supreme Reality, are utterly beyond.

I AM THAT, Talks with Sri NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ.

Fate and freewill

FREEWILL AND DESTINY ARE EVER EXISTENT. Destiny is the result of past action; it concerns the body. Let the body act as may suit it. Why are you concerned about it? Why do you pay attention to it? Freewill and destiny last as long as the body lasts. But jnana transcends both. The Self is beyond knowledge and ignorance. Whatever happens, happens as the result of one’s past actions, of divine will and of other factors.

There are only two ways to conquer destiny or be independent of it. One is to enquire for whom is this destiny, and discover that only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, by realizing one’s helplessness and saying all the time, ‘Not I, but Thou Oh Lord’ and giving up all sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you. Complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self enquiry or bhakti marga (path of devotion). Everything is predetermined. But a man is always free not to identify himself with the body, and not to be affected by the pleasures or pains consequent on the body’s activities.

Those alone who have no knowledge of the Source whence fate and freewill arise, will dispute which of them can conquer the other. Those who have realized their Self, which is the Source of both fate and freewill have left such disputes behind, and will have nothing more to do with them. Success and failure are due to prarabdha karma, and not to willpower or the lack of it. One should try to gain equipoise of mind under all circumstances. That is willpower

Bhagavan

The Mechanism of Destiny

Every act produces in the performer a double effect, on in the inner nature in the form of a tendency, good or bad, and the other in the form of fruit, reward or punishment. The past Karma influences the present life in two ways-first in the form of character or tendency internally and as fate externally. If you do an action, it creates a samskara or subtle impression in the subconscious mind or chitta. Samskara causes a tendency. Tendency develops into a habit by repetition of the actions. The habit manifests as character. Character develops into destiny. This is the order: samskara, tendency, habit, character and destiny.

Swami Sivananda

Silence

Whenever there is some silence around you — listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to silence awakens the dimension of stillness within yourself, because it is only through stillness that you can be aware of silence.

See that in the moment of noticing the silence around you, you are not thinking. You are aware, but not thinking.

When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning.

Eckhart Tolle

What is there to realize?

It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is, ever. How to realize it? All that is required is this: We have realized the unreal, i.e., regarded as Real what is unreal. We have to give up this attitude. That is all that is required for us to attain Jnana. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before.

Gems from Bhagavan by Devaraja Mudaliar

Being Quiet

Paramhansa Yogananda was once asked why his most advanced disciple, Rajarsi Janakananda, made such rapid spiritual progress. Yogananda replied, “He knows how to listen.”

Our minds are like short-wave radios: when the switch is set to “broadcast,” all we can hear is our own voice talking. A busy, chattering mind is always in “sending mode,” which prevents us from experiencing anything new. We only begin to hear when the switch is turned to “receive.” Similarly, true inspiration comes when the mind is calm and listening. Talking less is a marvelous practice for deepening one’s receptivity in meditation.

Paramhansa Yogananda said that most people use only one-tenth of their ability to concentrate. When you restrain your speech and practice silence, the mind becomes less impulsive. It is not always possible, or appropriate, to be completely silent, but we can practice being quiet. It is estimated that only a tiny part of our speech—some say 1%—is due to the demands of our outer environment. The rest of the time the urge to talk comes from the desire to relate to others. The admonishment given in monasteries, "Do not speak unless you can improve on the silence," is a helpful guideline for appropriate speech and staying inwardly receptive.

How to practice the art of being quiet:
1. Concentrate more on listening to life. Avoid the sense that you have to direct it.
2. Remain centered in yourself.
3.When you feel the urge to talk, restrain your first impulse to do so. Ask yourself, “Will my words contribute to the situation? Improve on the silence? Bless others?”
4.When you break your silence, speak as long as you feel inspiration but no longer; then return to the silence.

5. Enjoy the tranquility. Express a sense of inner calmness in everything you do.

Practice regularly the technique of being quiet. The more you do, the more you will experience its benefits: increased energy, deep concentration in meditation and outward activity, and inner serenity.

Bharat Cornell

Fact of present awareness

Drop all conceptualizing and recognize the undeniable fact of present awareness. There is nothing speculative or future-based about this. The being, consciousness and profound peace of this non-conceptual presence is completely evident, not theoretical. Recognizing this, you understand that all thoughts, concepts, doubts, worries and concerns are momentary, ephemeral appearances in the consciousness that you are. This is ABSOLUTELY not a process that takes time. Your being already is the case. You are not practicing or paying attention in order to be what you are. This is simply clarifying your present identity, not attaining anything.

John Wheeler from the website http://www.thenaturalstate.org/

The Reality behind the Veil

Life is a mystery until you touch the reality beyond the veil. When the mind is still and the search is intense, we have the vision to see reality all around us. Every person you meet is in a world you could know. Nature waits for our entrance, whether it is a forest or a rose. All around us is the Spirit Presence waiting for a quiet mind and an open heart. Walking through the markets and riding in the subway, we can be close to the reality. We are moving through various states of reality during the day.

~ Herman Rednick

Karma

We learn in time to accept everything that happens to us as the will of the Supreme Father, and hence never grumble or complain about misfortunes. The karma made in past births is like a shot from a gun; we cannot recall it and must endure the consequences. But once we have surrendered ourself to the Spiritual Preceptor, he guides our hands and prevents us from shooting out further bad karma.

Paul Brunton

Inaction

The follower of knowledge learns as much as he can every day;
The follower of the Way (Tao) forgets as much as he can every day.
By attrition he reaches a state of inaction
Wherein he does nothing, but nothing remains undone.
To conquer the world, accomplish nothing;
If you must accomplish something,
The world remains beyond conquest

Charles Muller

Religious and Yogic practices

Religious and yogic exercises have long been used as a personal and cosmic preparation, purifying personal motives and expanding cosmic views, in order to prepare for an eventual enquiry into impartial truth. In the end, that enquiry must leave behind all personal development and the entire cosmos that is seen through body and through mind.

Swami Atmananda Krishna Menon

Desire the good of all and the Universe will work with you

Your aims are small and low. They do not call for more. Only God's energy is infinite -- because He wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires will be fulfilled. The higher your aims and vaster your desires, the more energy you will have for their fulfilment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work with you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way. Before desiring, deserve.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Learn to live without self concern

"Learn to live without self concern. For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas, and live by truth alone".

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Interesting quotes on the Present Moment or Now

If Past to Future is on a horizontal line, the present moment is not in time - it is an vertical movement - transcending time. Osho

As you embrace the here and now, don't be surprised if you suddenly feel lucky - lucky to be blessed with a good mind, lucky to have friends who love you for who you are, lucky to be living in such an interesting time. ~ From The Art of the Moment by Veronigue Vienne

The Secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, nor to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.- Buddha

Freedom or Bondage

There is only one decision you need to make; either you are working at your Freedom or you are accepting your Bondage.

Robert Adams

A video clipping of Sri Lakshmanaswamy

I was thrilled to hear from Meenakshi Ammal, Tiruvannamalai that there is a small video clipping of Sri Lakshmanaswamy on Youtube. This video seems to have been taken on his birthday on December 25, 2004.

Sri Lakshmanaswamy gives darshan to devotees three or four times a year and his darshans are videographed but the recordings are not made available to the public.

The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-BeVGCINic

The essence of all spiritual discipline

Mind it is that binds man, and the same mind it is that liberates him. Mind is constituted of sankalpa and vikalpa — desire and disposition. Desire shapes and governs disposition. Desire is of two kinds — the noble and the base. The base desires are lust and greed. Noble desire is directed towards enlightenment and emancipation. Base desire contaminates and clouds the understanding. Sadhana is easy for the aspirant who is endowed with noble desires. Calmness is the criterion of spiritual progress. Plunge the purified mind into the Heart. Then the work is over. This is the essence of all spiritual discipline!

Bhagavan Ramana

True wealth is the radiant joy of Being

Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.

-Eckhart Tolle-

Direct Path - Atma Vichara

The 'direct' path is so called because it looks directly for underlying truth. However bad or good the world is seen to be, however badly or how well it is seen through personally, there is in the direct path no concern to improve that cosmic view. The only concern is to reflect directly back into underlying truth, from the superficial and misleading show of all outward viewing.

The direct path is thus no recent development. It was there from the start, before traditions and civilizations developed. And it has continued through the growth of tradition, along with the personal and environmental improvements that traditions have prescribed. For these improvements are inevitably partial and compromised; so that there are always people who aren't satisfied with such improvement, but just long for plain truth that is not compromised with any falsity.

To find that truth, no cosmological improvement can itself be enough. At some stage, sooner or later, there has to be a jump entirely away from all improvement, into a truth where worse or better don't apply. The only difference between the cosmological and direct paths is when the jump is made. In the direct path, the jump is soon or even now. In the cosmological approach, the jump is put off till later on, in order to give time for improving preparations to be made for it.

There are pros and cons on both sides, so that different paths suit different personalities. An early jump is harder to make, and it means that the sadhaka's character is still impure; so even having jumped into the truth, she or he keeps falling back unsteadily, overwhelmed by egotistical samskaras. Then work remains to keep returning back to truth, until the samskaras are eradicated and there is a final establishment in the sahaja state.

A later jump can be easier, with a character so purified that little or no work remains to achieve establishment. But there are pitfalls of preparing personality for a late jump, because a sadhaka may get enamoured of the relative advances that have been achieved, like a prisoner who falls in love with golden chains and thus remains imprisoned.

So what's needed is to find the particular path that suits each particular sadhaka, instead of arguing for any path as best for everyone.

- Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon-

Enter the sound of your name and through this sound, all sounds

Bhagavan recommended repeating "I" continuously for people who are unable to take up self enquiry. A similar technique has been recommended in a Tantric text called "Vigyan Bhairava Tantra" and OSHO has given a fine commentary on the same.

Techique no - 47 in Vigyan Bhairava Tantra

ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS.

OSHOs commentary

Your own name can be used as a mantra very easily, and it is very helpful because your name has gone very deep into your unconscious. Nothing else has gone so deep. If we are all are sitting here, and we all fall asleep and someone comes and calls "Ram," no one will listen except the person whose name is Ram. He will listen to it; he will be disturbed in his sleep. No one else will listen to the sound "Ram," but why does this man listen? It has gone down deep; it is not conscious now, it has become unconscious.

Your name has gone very deep within you, but there is a very beautiful phenomenon about your name: you never call it, others call it. Others use it; you never use it.

I have heard that in the first world war, for the first time in America rationing was created. Thomas Edison was a very great scientist, but he was very poor so he had to stand in the queue for his ration card. And he was such a great man that no one ever used his name before him. There was no need to use his name for himself, and no one else would use his name because he was so much respected. Everyone would call him Professor, so he had forgotten what was his name.

He was standing in the queue, and when his name was called, when it was asked who Thomas Alva Edison was, he just stared blankly. Again the name was called, then someone who was a neighbor to Edison said to him, "Why are you standing? Your name is being called. It is your name, Professor." Then he became aware and he said, "But how can I recognize it? No one calls me Edison. It has been so long... they just call me Professor."

You never use your own name. Only others use it -- you have heard it used by others. But it has gone deep, very deep. It has penetrated like an arrow into your unconscious. If you yourself use it, then it becomes a mantra. And for two reasons it helps: one, when you use your own name, if your name is "Ram" and you use "Ram, Ram, Ram...", suddenly you feel as if you are using someone else's name - as if it is not yours. Or if you feel that this IS yours, you feel that there is a separate entity within you which is using it. It may belong to the body, it may belong to the mind, but he who is calling "Ram, Ram..." becomes a witness.

You have always called others' names. When you call your own name it looks as if it belongs to someone else, not to you, and it is a very revealing phenomenon. You can become a witness to your own name, and with the name your whole life is involved. Separated from the name, you are separated from your whole life. And this name has penetrated deep within you because everyone has called you this from your very birth, you have always heard this. So use this sound, and with this sound you can go to the very depths to which the name has gone.

In the old days we gave everyone a name of God - everyone. Someone was Ram, someone was Narayan, someone was Krishna, someone was Vishnu, or something like that. They say all the Mohammedan names are the names of God - ALL the Mohammedan names! And all over the world that was the practice, to give a name which is really a name of God.This was for good reasons. One reason was this technique -- because if your name can be used as a mantra it will serve you a double purpose. It will be YOUR name - and you have heard it so much, so many times, and all your life it has penetrated deep. Then also, it is the name of God. So go on repeating it inside, and suddenly you will become aware that "This name is different from me." Then by and by this name will have a sanctity of its own. You will remember any day that "Narayan" or "Ram," this is God's name. Your name has turned into a mantra.

Use it! This is very good! You can try many things with your name. If you want to be awakened at five o'clock in the morning, no alarm is so exact as your own name. Just repeat thrice inside, "Ram, you have to be awake by five o'clock sharp." Repeat it three times, and then just fall asleep. You will be awakened at five o'clock because "Ram," YOUR name, is very deep in the unconscious.Call your name and tell yourself that "At five o'clock in the morning, let me be awakened." Someone WILL awaken you. And if you continue this practice, one day you will suddenly realize that at five o'clock someone calls you and says, "Ram, be awake." That is your unconscious calling you.

This technique says, ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS. Your name becomes just a door for all names. But enter the sound. First, when you repeat "Ram, Ram, Ram..." it is just a word. But it means something when you go on repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram..."You must have heard the story of Valmiki. He was given this mantra "Ram," but he was an ignorant man - uneducated, simple, innocent, childlike. He started repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram..." but he was repeating so much that he forgot completely and reversed the whole thing. Instead he was chanting "Mara, Mara..." He was chanting "Ram, Ram, Ram..." so fast that it became "Mara, Mara, Mara..." And he achieved the goal through "Mara, Mara, mara..."

If you go on repeating the name fast inside, soon it will not be a word: it will become a sound, just meaningless. And then there is no difference between Ram and Mara - no difference! Whether you call Ram or Mara, it makes no sense, they are not words. It is just the sound, just the sound that matters. Enter the sound of your name. Forget the meaning of it, just enter the sound. Meaning is with the mind, sound is with the body. Meaning is in the head, sound spreads all over the body. So forget the meaning. Just repeat it as a meaningless sound, and through this sound you will enter all sounds. This sound will become the door to all sounds. And "all sounds" means all that exists.

This is one of the basic tenets of Indian inner search, that the basic unit of the existence is sound and not electricity. Modern science says that the basic unit of the existence is electricity, not sound, but they also say that sound is a form of electricity. Indians, however, have always been saying that electricity is nothing but a form of sound.

You may have heard that through a particular RAGA, a particular sound, fire can be created. It can be created - because this is the Indian idea, that sound is the basis of all electricity. So if you hit sound in a particular frequency, electricity will be created.On long bridges, if a military, is passing, they are not allowed to march because many times it has happened that because of their march the bridge falls. It is because of sound, not because of their weight. They will be passing anyhow, but if they pass marching, then the particular sound of their feet breaks the bridge.

In old Hebrew history, the city of Jericho was very protected by great walls and it was impossible to break those walls by guns. But through a particular sound the walls were broken, and that sound was the secret of the breaking of those walls. If that sound is created before walls, the walls will give way.

You have heard the story of Ali Baba: a particular sound and the rock moves. These are allegories. Whether they are right or not, one thing is certain: if you can create a particular sound so continuously that meaning is lost, mind is lost, the rock at your heart will be removed.

You alone are responsible for your thoughts

Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. You will want to change them when you realize that each thought creates according to its own nature. Remember that the law works at all times and that you are always demonstrating according to the kind of thoughts you habitually entertain. Therefore, start now to think only those thoughts that will bring you health and happiness.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Truth is a pathless land

'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.

Jiddu Krishnamurti