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