It is true that no man can arrive at the truth about God through his own thinking, which is merely the ego thinking. But it is also true that through keen, close, and sustained reflection he can arrive at the truth which perceives the ego's limitations, the intellect's limitations, and thereby know the time has come to suspend such efforts to stop and to surrender in mystical meditation to the non-thought side of his being.

Idea is not the ultimate reality, it is only a manifestation of something which is its ultimate reality. The latter seems to be an abstraction. Intellectually it must be so because it is beyond the power of finite, human mentality to conceive it. But it may not be beyond the power of a higher faculty lying latent within us to have the experience of this reality--at least for a time. It is not known how to verify whether this is so or not unless the intellect humbly realizes its own limitations and voluntarily abnegates itself at a certain stage. In most cases this is done prematurely, hence the self-deceptions and hallucinations which are rife in mystical circles, but in the philosophical mystic's case it would come only after the fullest use of critical thought and analytic reasoning. This is the proper moment for such a suicidal act. For in the end he will be brought to such an abrupt turn. Perhaps Jesus' statement, "Except ye become as little children ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven," is appropriate here, if understood as an invitation not to foolishness but to surrender of all human pride.

Why me?

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over -- 5 crore children startplaying tennis, 50 lakh learn to play tennis, 5 lakh learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the Grand Slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, *When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"

Happiness keeps u Sweet,

Trials keep u Strong,

Sorrow keeps u Human,

Failure Keeps u Humble,

Success keeps u Glowing,

But only God Keeps u Going.....

Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Is Eckhart Tolle a re-incarnation of Meister Eckhart?

I purchased an interesting book titled "Eckhart Tolle & Sri Aurobindo- Perspectives on Enlightenment by A.S.Dalal printed in 2008. This book is a comparitive study of the teachings of these two teachers. There is an interview of Eckhart Tolle by AS Dalal & Dr.Mistry in 2002 during Eckhart Tolle's visit to India.

The last question in the interview by Dr.Mistry was that the being in the present form of Eckhart Tolle must have been growing in previous incarnations until it flowered in the present incarnation and that it was unlikely that the totality suddenly put forth ET in this present life? In fact Dr. Mistry hinted that ET might be "Meister Eckhart" reborn. Meister Eckhart was a 13th century German mystic and philosopher. ET seemed to have laughed at this suggestion and did not agree or disagree with Dr.Mistry and answered the question of rebirth in a very impersonal way. However, there is a footnote to this interview which caught my attention:

However subsequent to this interview, in an article on "Living in the Now" (published in the July / August 2002 issue of Body & Soul magazine), Peter Occhiogrosso writes about Eckhart Tolle: In a dream several years after his transformation, he (ET) says, 'Somebody called me "Eckhart" I saw books written by [Meister] Eckhart and I knew I had written them. I realized it was a sign, and that it was my name.' " Soon after, he discarded his given names of Ullrich Leonard and adopted the name he now uses.

Reincarnation

Found this interesting weblink on cases of re-incarnation from an article in the Indian express newspaper - http://www.johnadams.net/

Nishkama Karma

The literal meaning of nishkama karma is "desireless action," i.e., selfless action. More generally, it means action performed without desiring or fearing the consequences; action performed with indifference to the outcome. It's used to describe the practice of doing actions without any expectation of the fruits (results or reactions or effects). Nishkama Karma Yoga is another name for Karma Yoga, which is one of the main themes of the Bhagavad Gita.

The following passage records how Sri Ramana Maharshi once demonstrated nishkama karma:
Mr. Rangachari, a Telugu pandit in Voorhees' College of Vellore, asked about nishkama karma. There was no reply. After a time Sri Bhagavan [Ramana] went up the hill and a few followed him, including the pandit. There was a thorny stick lying on the way which Sri Bhagavan picked up; he sat down and began leisurely to work at it [sic]. The thorns were cut off, the knots were made smooth, the whole stick was polished with a rough leaf. The whole operation took about six hours. Everyone was wondering at the fine appearance of the stick made of a spiky material. A shepherd boy put in his appearance on the way as the group moved off. He had lost his stick and was at a loss. Sri Bhagavan immediately gave the new one in his hand to the boy and passed on.
The pandit said that this was the matter-of-fact answer to his question.

Laughter

This is worth considering. It is significant. The first thing to understand is that except for man, no animal is capable of laughter. So laughter shows a very high peak in the evolution of life. If you go out on the street and see a buffalo laughing, you will be scared to death. And if you report it, then nobody will believe that it can happen. It is impossible. Why don't animals laugh? Why can't trees laugh? There is a very deep cause for laughter. Only that animal can laugh which can get bored. Animals and trees are not bored. Boredom and laughter are the polar dualities, these are the polar opposites. They go together. And man is the only animal that is bored. Boredom is the symbol of humanity. Look at dogs and cats; they are never bored. Man seems to be deep in boredom. Why aren't other animals bored? Why does man alone suffer boredom? "The higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom. The lower intelligence is not bored so much. That's why primitives are happier. You will find people in the primi-tive societies are happier than those in civilized ones. Bertrand Russel became jealous when for the first time, he came into contact with some primitive tribes. He started feeling jealous. The aboriginals were so happy, they were not bored at all. Life was a blessing to them. They were poor starved, almost naked. In every way, they had noth-ing. But they were not bored with life.

OSHO

"To decide to be at the level of choice is to take responsibility for your life and to be in control of your life."-Arbie M. Dale

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action."-Meister Eckhart

All things must die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.

The future peace or liberation is “hidden” behind the “seemingly unsatisfactory form" that the present moment takes, whereas we keep searching for liberation as something to be attained in the future. Allowing the moment creates spaciousness in our consciousness. Out of this spaciousness, words, actions or simply spaciousness will arise, which will have much greater impact.

Lord Macaulay's famous statement on India in The House of Commons

The following extract from the speech of Thomas Babington Macaulay in the House of Commons on February 2, 1835 - "I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they become what we want them, a truly dominated country."

Confusing activity with results

"It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? Don't confuse activity with results. There is no reason to do a good job with something you shouldn't do in the first place.

-Henry David Thoreau

I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to sit quietly in his room.

- Blaise Pascal

You are responsible

Here is an excerpt from From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, OSHO. The ending is controversial but the spirit behind this is appreciable.

You are responsible for whatsoever you are.
If you are miserable, you are responsible.
Don't throw the responsibility on anybody else, otherwise you will never be free of it.
Because how can you be free if I am responsible for your misery?
Then unless I free you, you cannot be free;
if it is in my hands.
And if it is in my hands,
it can be in somebody else's hands.

Those who are with me have to understand,
howsoever hard and painful it is,
you and you alone are responsible,
for everything that is happening to you,
has happened to you, will happen to you.

Once you accept all responsibility in its totality,
you become mature.
You stop throwing tantrums and
you stop seeking messiahs.
There is no need for any Jesus to save you.
Nor can any Jesus save you - he was exploiting your situation.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

Basho

There is neither disciple nor Master in the final understanding

Final understanding is understanding that there is nothing to understand. The world is a spontaneous appearance. The one who perceives it is included in it as a character in the dream. In reality, there is no Master, no disciple, no teaching, and no realization. That all happened in the dream. Final understanding means freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth: the current dream continues for its allotted time, and then is over. There is a famous quatrain from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

There was a door to which I found no key:

There was a veil past which I could not see:

Some little talk awhile of me and thee

There seemed-and then no more of thee and me.

The Way of the Bird, Ranjit Maharaj

Laughter

"This is worth considering. It is significant. The first thing to understand is that except for man, no animal is capable of laughter. So laughter shows a very high peak in the evolution of life. If you go out on the street and see a buffalo laughing, you will be scared to death. And if you report it, then nobody will believe that it can happen. It is impossible. Why don't animals laugh? Why can't trees laugh? There is a very deep cause for laughter. Only that animal can laugh which can get bored. Animals and trees are not bored. Boredom and laughter are the polar dualities, these are the polar opposites. They go together. And man is the only animal that is bored. Boredom is the symbol of humanity. Look at dogs and cats; they are never bored. Man seems to be deep in boredom. Why aren't other animals bored? Why does man alone suffer boredom? "The higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom. The lower intelligence is not bored so much. That's why primitives are happier. You will find people in the primi-tive societies are happier than those in civilized ones. Bertrand Russel became jealous when for the first time, he came into contact with some primitive tribes. He started feeling jealous. The aboriginals were so happy, they were not bored at all. Life was a blessing to them. They were poor starved, almost naked. In every way, they had no-thing. But they were not bored with life.

Ambition

Ambition needs future, it needs space to grow. It cannot grow here and now; there is no space. This moment is so small, so atomic. Ambition needs the future; and the greater the ambition, the greater the future that is needed.

Non-ambition means to accept yourself as you are. But that doesn't mean that there is no possibility of growth. On the contrary, when you accept yourself as you are the transformation sets in. You start growing, but the dimension differs. Then the dimension is not in the future but in the eternal.

“UNLESS AMBITION IS KILLED, you will remain in misery. Ambition is the source of all miseries. What is ambition? 'A' wants to be 'B', the poor wants to be rich, the ugly wants to be beautiful. Everyone longs to be someone else, something other than what he is. No one is content with himself. That's what ambition is.

Whatsoever you are, you are not content with it. This is ambition. Then you are bound to be in misery, because you cannot be anything else. You can only be yourself; nothing else is possible. All else is just futile, harmful, dangerous. You can waste your whole life, your whole existence.

Whatsoever you are, you are. Accept it; don't desire it to be otherwise. This is what non ambition means. Non ambitiousness is basic to all spiritual transformation, because once you accept yourself, many things start happening. But the first thing.... If you accept yourself totally, the first thing that happens to you is a non tense life. There is no tension. You don't want to be anything else; there is nowhere else to go. Then you can be here and now. There is no comparison. You yourself are unique. You no longer think in terms of others.

Then there is no future. Ambition needs future, it needs space to grow. It cannot grow here and now; there is no space. This moment is so small, so atomic. Ambition needs the future; and the greater the ambition, the greater the future that is needed.

If your ambition is so great that it cannot be fulfilled in this life, then you will create an afterlife. You will create heaven, you will create moksha, you will create the concept of rebirth. I am not saying that there is no rebirth. I am saying that you believe in rebirth not because it is there but because your ambitions are so great that they cannot be fulfilled in one lifetime. Your belief in rebirth, reincarnation, is not because it is a fact. It is because of ambition and desire. Reincarnation may be a fact, but for you it is just a fiction. For you it is just a matter of the future, of more space to move in.

Remember, you cannot be ambitious in the present moment. It is impossible. There is no space. The present moment is so atomic, so small, that you cannot move in it. You can be in it, but you cannot desire in it. It is long enough to be, but it is not long enough for desiring. To desire you need future, time. Really, time exists because of desire. For the trees here, there is no time. For the birds singing here, there is no time. For the stars and for the sun and for the earth, there is no time. Time exists because of human desire. If humanity was not on this earth, there would be no time; there would be no past and no future.

Your desire creates the future. Your memory creates the past. They are both parts of your mind. Don't desire, and the future disappears. And when there is no future, how can you be tense? How? There is no possibility of being tense if there is no future And if there is no past -- if you know that it is simply memory, the dust collected on the way -- how can there be any anxiety? With the past, anxiety enters. And with the future -- plans, imaginations, projections -- tension exists. When the past drops and the future is not open, you are here, now. No anxiety, no tension, no anguish.

Nonambition means to accept yourself as you are. But that doesn't mean that there is no possibility of growth. On the contrary, when you accept yourself as you are the transformation sets in. You start growing, but the dimension differs. Then the dimension is not in the future but in the eternal.

Know this distinction well. You can move in two ways. If you move in the future, you are moving in the mind: a fiction, a dream world. If you don't move in the future, then a different dimension becomes open for you from this very moment. You are moving in the eternal. The eternal is hidden in the moment. If you can be here right now, in the moment, you have entered the eternal. If you go on thinking of the future and the past, you are living in the temporal. The temporal is the world, and the eternal is nirvana.

Buddha is reported to have said again and again that if you can be in the now, there is no need of any technique to meditate. It is enough. It will do all that is needed. But how can you be in the now if you are ambitious?

The ambitious mind cannot be in the now. It can be anywhere else but it cannot be in the now. The ambitious mind always moves away from the present. It is thinking of that which is to come; it is thinking of tomorrow. It is thinking of an afterlife; it is not interested in the life that is here. It is interested in something that should be. It is not interested in the 'is'; it is always interested in the 'ought', in the 'should'. That interest is nonreligious. A religious mind, a religious consciousness, is interested in existence as it is.

OSHO
Discourse Series
The New Alchemy : To turn you on
Chapter – 1
Title: Surrendering to what is

You may read all the books in all the libraries in the world; you may write thousands upon thousands of pages of your own thoughts. But if your mind is not thoroughly clear; if your knowledge does not come from the real source—you will never know who you are, you will remain forever a stranger to your true self.

Inner and outer purpose

The most important thing to realize is this: Your Life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet - because it is the purpose of humanity. Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence. Your outer purpose can change over time. It varies greatly from person to person. Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling your outer purpose. It is the basis for true success.

Eckhart Tolle in "A New Earth"

Mind, Heart and Being

The heart should be listened to first if there is any kind of conflict between mind and heart. In any conflict between love and logic, then logic cannot be decisive, love has to be decisive. Logic cannot give you any juice - it is dry. It is good for calculations; it is good for mathematics and good for scientific technology. But it is not good for human relationships, not good for the growth of your inner potential.


Above the heart is your being. Just as mind is logic and the heart is love, being is meditation. Being is to know yourself - and by knowing yourself, to know the very meaning of existence.


Being should be your ultimate..... there is nothing beyond it; it is part of God within you. It will give you that which neither the mind nor the heart can give; it will give you silence, it will give you peace, it will give you serenity, it will give you blissfulness - and finally, a sense of being immortal.

A visit to Guhai Namasivaya temple

During my last visit to Tiruvannamalai, I decided to visit the Guhai Namasivaya temple on the Arunachala Hill. I had read about the life of Guhai Namasivaya, a great Yogi who who lived in Arunachala around the 16th century. The life story of Guhai Namasivaya is very interesting and given in great detail in the following websites:

David Godman's website, Arunachala Grace, and An article in the Mountain Path

This temple is not visible from the ground level and there is a pathway behind the South entrance of the Arunachaleswara temple. The pathway is adjacent to the Shakthi theatre. The approach to the temple is an environmental disaster. Mid-way, I nearly decided to return to the hotel and the picture below might explain why I was contemplating such a move. As you can see the photo below, the approach is full of garbage and filth and the stench is terrible. The Arunachala Hill also serves as a natural toilet for people to attend calls of nature. I am still clueless as to why the Government has permitted construction of residential houses on the Arunachala Hill, which is believed to Lord Shiva himself. The residents living below the temple have no public sense at all. It is high time, the locals wake up and realise the mess that they are creating. I don't know what the local civic body is doing about all this - I guess just turning a blind eye!

My disgust soon changed to happiness once I was inside the temple. The samadhi /sanctum sanctorum felt vibrant and my mind simple quitened and I forgot all about the climb.

The temple is maintained very well by a couple , Guhai Namasivaya Gurukkal and his wife and ably supported by some locals. The last Kumbabhishekam of this temple conducted on August 28, 1991 and a Kumbabhishekam is being planned subject to getting funds from devotees. The Samadhi of Guhai Namasivaya has a Shiva lingam over it and an idol of Parvati. The atmosphere inside the cave / temple is something that needs to be experienced.

(Samadhi of Guhai Namasivaya)

Overall, the temple is excellent, with very little crowd and the surroundings inside the temple are perfect for peace and quiet.

Interestingly, this temple is home to a cute dog, who seems to have taken upon itself the mission of protecting this temple and is the unofficial guardian. This dog never dirties the temple and has practically been living here since birth.

I hope to make more visits to this temple in the future. In Tiruvannamalai, the Guhai Namasivaya temple is a great place for contemplation and prayer.

Don't be deluded by your thoughts and vasanas. They are always trying to trick you into believing that you are a real person, that the world is real, and that all your problems are real. Don't fight them, just ignore them. Don't accept delivery of all the wrong ideas that keep coming to you. Establish yourself in the conviction that you are the Self and that nothing can stick to you or affect you. Once you have that conviction you will find that you automatically ignore the habits of the mind. When the rejection of the mental habits becomes continuous and automatic, you will begin to have the experience of the Self.

Annamalai Swami's response to a question. Extract from the book "Living by the Words of Bhagavan" by David Godman

To change your character is easy; the real work consists in changing your consciousness, in becoming conscious - more conscious, more intensely, and passionately conscious. When you are conscious it is impossible to be angry, it is impossible to be greedy, it is impossible to be jealous, it is impossible to be ambitious. And when all anger, greed, ambition, jealousy, possssiveness, lust, disappear, the energy involved in them is released. That energy becomes your bliss.

OSHO

Successful in the world

A man who is successful in the world feels the pain of being a failure as nobody else can feel it. There is a proverb that says that nothing succeeds like success. I would like to tell you: nothing fails like success. But you cannot know it unless you have succeeded. When all the riches are there that you have dreamt about, planned about, worked hard for, then sitting amidst those riches is the beggar - deep inside empty, hollow; nothing inside, everything outside.

OSHO

Never forget that you are a watcher

Whatsoever you are doing - walking, sitting, eating, or if you are not doing anything, just breathing, resting, relaxing in the grass - never forget that you are a watcher.

You will forget it again and again. You will get involved in some thought, some feeling, some emotion, some sentiment- anything will distract you from the watcher. Remember, and run back to your center of watching.

Make it an inner process, continuously.... You will be surprised at how life changes its whole quality. I can move my hands without any watchfulness, and I can also move my hand absolutely watching from inside the whole movement. The movements are totally different. The first movement is a robot movement, mechanical. The second movement is a conscious movement.

Awareness, The key to Living in Balance by OSHO

Action arising out of awareness

The man of awareness, understanding, acts. The man who is unaware, unconscious, mechanical, robot like, reacts.

And it is not that the man of awareness simply watches - watching is one of the aspects of his being. He does not act without watching. When you act moment to moment out of your awareness and watchfulness, great intelligence arises. But it happens through two things: watching, and action out of that watching. If watching becomes inaction, you are committing suicide.

Awareness- The Key to Living in Balance by OSHO

Time is the world and Eternity is God

Time is the world and Eternity is God; horizontal is the world, vertical is God. Both meet at a point - that is where Jesus is crucified. Both meet, the horizontal and the vertical, at a point - that point is Here and Now. From Here and Now you can go on two journeys: journey in the world, in the future; the other journey into God, into depth.

Become more and more aware, become more and more alert and sensitive to the present. So remember one thing: whenever you realize that you have gone to the past or into the future, don't create a problem out of it. Simply come back to the present, not creating any problem. It's okay! Simply bring back your awareness. You will miss millions of times; it is not going to happen right now, immediately. It can happen, but it cannot happen because of you. It is such a long, long, fixed mode of behaviour that you cannot change it right now. But no worry, existence is not in a hurry. Eternity can wait eternally. Don't create aa tension about it.

Awareness, The Key to Living in Balance by OSHO

Papaji's favourite form of the Divine Mother

Question: What is your favorite form of the Divine Mother? Will you please tell us a story about her in this form?

Papaji: From the beginning my Mother has been Mother Ganga. She is not only a river, but she is the Mother. Because of her compassion she flows over this soil. I have tread her banks from the Bay of Bengal to Uttarkashi, from 1910 to the present. My family went on yearly visits to Haridwar. I will tell you a story of Ganga Ma which happened when I was at the Maha Kumbha Mela in Prayag, the Mela which comes only once in 144 years.

In the Mela there are so many traditions and centers each trying to promote their own propaganda 24 hours a day. One day it was too crowded for me so I went for a walk downstream to where the Yamuna, Saraswati, and the Ganga flow as one to the Bay of Bengal. After about five kilometers a girl ran up to me and fell at my feet. I looked around but her family was nowhere in sight, which was very strange because a young Indian woman never goes out alone.

'Where are your parents?' I asked. She replied, 'I have no parents, I am alone.' 'Why are you here?' I continued, 'Why don't you go back to the Prayag where the Kumbha is being performed? Why are you alone out here?

Then she said, 'In this Mela everybody comes to remove their sins by having a bath in the confluence of the three Holy rivers. Everybody leaves their sins, but what can I do with them? I have vowed to take the sins away from these people, and I do, but I must leave these sins at the feet of a true Saint and be free of them. I have been searching the Mela for seven days, but I have not found anybody who could take these sins. But now I have found you who are the only person to whom I can release my sins. I am the Ganga!'

Then I looked at her beautiful eyes and knew that they were not human, and I noticed that her body was transparent and that I could look right through it. She stood up and walked out onto the river and slowly became one with the water. I stood there for many hours wondering what had happened and how I could have been so blessed to have seen her in her real form. She had been living in the heavens, but has compassionately come down to earth in response to Sage Bhagirathas penance. Now she blesses all those who see her, or taste her, or touch her. This is the experience of my Mother.

(Excerpt from the book THE TRUTH IS, Bhakti Chapter)

Bring your self into focus

You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly.

The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being -- we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Effort and penance

The saints and Yogis, by immense efforts and sacrifices, acquire many miraculous powers and can do much good in the way of helping people and inspiring faith, yet it does not make them perfect. It is not a way to reality, but merely an enrichment of the false. All effort leads to more effort; whatever was built up must be maintained, whatever was acquired must be protected against decay or loss. Whatever can be lost is not really one's own; and what is not your own of what use can it be to you? In my world nothing is pushed about, all happens by itself. All existence is in space and time, limited and temporary. He who experiences existence is also limited and temporary. I am not concerned either with 'what exists' or with 'who exists'. I take my stand beyond, where I am both and neither.

The persons who, after much effort and penance, have fulfilled their ambitions and secured higher levels of experience and action, are usually acutely conscious of their standing; they grade people into hierarchies, ranging from the lowest non-achiever to the highest achiever. To me all are equal. Differences in appearance and expression are there, but they do not matter. Just as the shape of a gold ornament does not affect the gold, so does man's essence remain unaffected. Where this sense of equality is lacking it means that reality had not been touched.

Mere knowledge is not enough; the knower must be known. The Pandits and the Yogis may know many things, but of what use is mere knowledge when the self is not known? It will be certainly misused. Without the knowledge of the knower there can be no peace.

I AM THAT, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Self enquiry

The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be verbalised but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Awakening

An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state.

Eckhart Tolle

Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'. The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally without any interference on your part.

Sincere longing for Reality

You need not chase the 'I am' to kill it. You cannot. All you need is a sincere longing for reality. We call it atma-bhakti, the love of the Supreme: or moksha-sankalpa, the determination to be free from the false. Without love, and will inspired by love, nothing can be done. Merely talking about Reality without doing anything about it is self-defeating. There must be love in the relation between the person who says 'I am' and the observer of that 'I am'. As long as the observer, the inner self, the 'higher' self, considers himself apart from the observed, the 'lower' self, despises it and condemns it, the situation is hopeless. It is only when the observer (vyakta) accepts the person (vyakti) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and the inner the Supreme Reality manifests itself.

This union of the seer and the seen happens when the seer becomes conscious of himself as the seer, he is not merely interested in the seen, which he is anyhow, but also interested in being interested, giving attention to attention, aware of being aware. Affectionate awareness is the crucial factor that brings Reality into focus.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Discard every self seeking motive

Discard every self seeking motive as soon as it seen and you need not search for the Truth; Truth will find you.

If you seek Reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking. Even the idea of being a man or woman, or even human, should be discarded.

Some pearls of wisdom from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

True Communication!

True communication is communion – the realization of oneness, which is love. Usually, this is quickly lost again, unless you are able to stay present enough to keep out the mind and its old patterns. Although brief glimpses are possible, love cannot flourish unless you are permanently free of mind identification and your presence is intense enough to have dissolved the pain-body or you can at least remain present as the watcher. The pain-body cannot then take you over and so become destructive of love.

Eckhart Tolle

Awakening

Awakening is a shift in consciousness in which thinking and awareness separate. For most people it is not an event but a process they undergo.

Even those rare beings who experience a sudden, dramatic, and seemingly irreversible awakening will still go through a process in which the new state of consciousness gradually flows into and transforms everything they do and so becomes integrated into their lives.

Instead of being lost in your thinking, when you are awake you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it. Thinking then ceases to be a self-serving autonomous activity that takes possession of you and runs your life.Awareness takes over from thinking. Instead of being in charge of your life, thinking becomes the servant of awareness.

Awareness is conscious connection with universal intelligence. Another word for it is Presence: consciousness without thought.

The initiation of the awakening process is an act of grace. You cannot make it happen nor can you prepare yourself for it or accumulate credits toward it. There isn’t a tidy sequence of logical steps that leads toward it, although the mind would love that. You don’t have to become worthy first. It may come to the sinner before it comes to the saint, but not necessarily. That’s why Jesus associated with all kinds of people, not just the respectable ones….

Awakened doing is the alignment of your outer purpose — what you do — with your inner purpose — awakening and staying awake. Through awakened doing, you become one with the outgoing purpose of the universe. Consciousness flows through you into this world. It flows into your thoughts and inspires them. It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it. Not what you do, but how you do what you do determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny. And how you do what you do is determined by your state of consciousness.

From the book, A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle

The secret of happiness

To end the misery that has afflicted the human condition for thousands of years, you have to start with yourself and take responsibility for your inner state at any given moment. That means now. Ask yourself, “Is there negativity in me at this moment?”Then, become alert, attentive to your thoughts as well as your emotions. Watch out for the low-level unhappiness in whatever form it takes, such as discontent, nervousness, being “fed up”, and so on. Watch out for thoughts that appear to justify or explain this unhappiness but in reality cause it.

The moment you become aware of a negative state within yourself, it does not mean that you have failed. It means that you have succeeded. Until that awareness happens, there is identification with inner states, and such identification is ego.

With awareness comes disidentification from thoughts, emotions, and reactions. This is not to be confused with denial. The thoughts, emotions, or reactions are recognized, and in the moment of recognition, disidentification happens automatically.

Your sense of self, of who you are, then undergoes a shift: before you were the thoughts, emotions, and reactions; now you are awareness, the conscious Presence that witnesses those states.

Eckhart Tolle, Chapter 4 of A New Earth

The ultimate spiritual practice

To welcome whatever arises in this moment is the ultimate spiritual practice. If you practice just this one thing, you won't need to read any more books or learn any other meditation techniques. Welcoming whatever arises in this moment, outside or inside of you, brings freedom. The conditioned mind will tell you not to do this, for it believes that by resisting, it will become free. The opposite is true. By resisting, you become even more stuck. When you no longer believe what the mind is saying, you realize that the quickest way for transformation to happen is to welcome what is. In that moment, life is free to move through you. The conditioned mind is no longer obstructing life.

Eckhart Tolle