Sivananda

 Look Within

Within you is the hidden God. Within you is the immortal soul. Within you is the inexhaustible spiritual treasure. Within you is the ocean of bliss. Look within for the happiness which you have sought in vain in perishable sensual objects. Rest peacefully in your own Atman

Swami Vivekananda

The Vedas cannot show you Brahman, you are That already; they can only help to take away the veil that hides the truth from our eyes. The first veil to vanish is ignorance; and when that is gone, sin goes; next desire ceases, selfishness ends, and all misery disappears. This cessation of ignorance can only come when I know that God and I are one; in other words, identify yourself with Atman, not with human limitations. Dis-identify yourself with the body, and all pain will cease. This is the secret of healing. The universe is a case of hypnotisation; de-hypnotise yourself and cease to suffer.

Svetasvatara Upanishad

 He who is the cause of all and who enables all things to function according to their nature; who brings to maturity all that can be ripened; who, being non-dual, rules over the whole universe and engages the gunas in their respective functions-He is concealed in the Upanishads, the secret part of the Vedas. Brahma knew Him who can be known only from the evidence of the Vedas. The gods and seers of olden times who knew Him became Brahman and attained Immortality.(5-6)

Peak Experiences

Don’t try to recreate peak experiences. Instead, just accept them as the gift that they are, and don’t beat up on yourself for not being able to stay there. Because if you stayed there, they wouldn’t be peak experiences. They would be normal, every day in time hum drum boring, experiences. So, savor the peak experiences and compliment yourself upon your achieving of them, and expect more of them, and leave everything else out of the equation.

Excerpted from Tucson, AZ on 2/20/01

Our Love,

Esther

(and Abraham and Jerry)

Live In Atman By Swami Sivananda

Wake up from the dream of forms. Do not be deceived by these illusory names and forms. Cling to the solid living reality only. Love your Atman alone. Atman only persists. Live in Atman. Become Brahman. This is real life. Approach the sages, the doctors of divinity with faith, devotion and humility. Take a dose of medicine called Jnana. Then the disease of Ajnana will be eradicated completely. You will attain everlasting peace. Do not be deluded by Maya. Be calm as the waveless ocean. Be broad-minded as the sky. Be pure as the crystal. Strive ceaselessly for the realisation of the Atman. Be patient as the earth. You are bound to succeed. You will succeed. Rest assured.

Padmā

In the old days, the Saints would purify and then awaken. With the energy in the world of today, many are having a spontaneous awakening experience, sometimes called a sudden awakening, and then go through the purification process.

Enlightenment Itself mostly evolves from conscious spiritual practice and living in the present moment mindfully after a sudden awakening.

Yet someone who is a seriously ripe practitioner realizes from the instant of that awakening, that enlightenment doesn't really exist, as there is no ONE to be unenlightened. There is truly only Self.

You are beyond the concept and belief of God right now in this instant, and since you are That, you have unlimited power and potential to realize Self.

RAMESH BALSEKAR

 

🕉 Wise Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna. (36)

There are three dolls―

the first made of salt,

the second made of cloth, and

the third of stone.

If these dolls are immersed in water,

the first will become dissolved and lose its form,

the second will absorb a large quantity of water but retain its form, and

the third will remain impervious to water.

The first doll represents the man who merges his self in the universal and all-pervading Self and becomes

one with It;

he is the liberated man.

The second represents the Bhakta or the true lover of God,

who is full of Divine bliss and knowledge.

And the third represents the worldly man who will not admit even a particle of true knowledge into his heart.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

"Heart" is merely another name for the Supreme Spirit, because He is in all hearts. The entire Universe is condensed in the body, and the entire body in the Heart. Thus the Heart is the nucleus of the whole Universe.

The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu

 LAO TZU

Those who would take over the earth

And shape it to their will

Never, I notice, succeed.

The earth is like a vessel so sacred

That at the mere approach of the profane

It is marred

And when they reach out their fingers it is gone.