Monday, September 30, 2019

From Swetasvatara Upanishad:



"Thou art the Primal Being.
Thou appearest as this universe
Of illusion and dream.
Thou art beyond time.
Indivisible, infinite, the Adorable One.
Let a man meditate on thee
Within his heart.
Let him consecrate himself to thee,
And thou, infinite Lord,
Wilt make thyself known to him."






Adyashanti

It doesn’t matter how profound a vision is or how wonderful the kriyas, or the kundalini, or the bliss. No matter how beautiful the spiritual experience is, it is only an experience, and experiences come and go. Freedom is found only in that which does not come and go. If it doesn’t come and go, that means that it’s present now. When you have a beautiful spiritual experience and then seem to lose it, ask yourself: What was present then that is still present now? Then you know where to put all of your attention, all of your dedication, and all of your heart. Don’t put it anywhere else. You are that permanence which contains all becoming and all be-going.


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The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Innumerable are the ways that lead to God. There are the paths of jnana, of karma, and of bhakti. If you are sincere, you will attain God in the end, whichever path you follow. Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of yoga: jnanayoga, karmayoga, and bhaktiyoga.

                                         





— Open

Put simply, the soul through all sentient life evolves, and as it does so, the yearning for higher harmonies of unity and oneness, break unjust and misaligned realities down. Our heart felt yearning to be as-one with all of life, is the engine for this quantum shift to take place.

Unknown



— Eckhart Tolle

When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree exists, you add something to the flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature too comes to know itself. It comes to know its own beauty and sacredness through you


                                                                    

Sri Yukteswar

Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.


                                                                    

Sunday, September 29, 2019

- Dada Bhagwan

“If one realizes his own Self, then he himself is an Absolute Supreme Soul (Parmatma).”
- Dada Bhagwan

After Gnan Vidhi (Self Realization)

“What is the sign of having attained the Self Realization? Presence of awareness; constant awareness.”

~Dada Bhagwan
A conviction is established that “I am Pure Soul” and its awareness gets initiated.
Worries vanish because you obtain the right understanding of ‘Who the Real Doer is’ and thus you remain stable even in adverse circumstances.
The inner weaknesses of anger, greed, pride and deceit gradually decrease and one's experience of bliss of the Self increases.
Experience of eternal peace, happiness and harmony with all living being’s starts with the application of scientific concepts of Akram Vignan.
Self Realization brings love for all living beings, leading to the intent for world salvation.
There arises a feeling of oneness with everyone because the True Self (Soul) is the same in everyone.

  
                                             





- Sri Chinmoy, God-Life: is it a far cry?

Is the Presence of the Supreme in our minds and in our bodies the same thing as the soul?

The Presence of the Supreme is anywhere in the body, the vital and the mind. But it is the soul that is always conscious of the Presence of the Supreme. From time to time we are conscious of God’s Presence in the heart, but in the mind we very rarely feel it and even if we do, we doubt it. In the vital, even if we get some inner strength from God, we try to use it in a wrong way. We try to destroy the world in an aggressive manner. In the physical, we are so dull and inert that we do not feel the Presence of the Supreme. But when we go deep within, we see that His Presence is always in the physical, in the vital and in the mind. God’s Presence pervades our existence, but one part of our existence is more illumined than the rest, and that is the soul. The soul, being fully illumined and in constant touch with the Highest, feels the Presence of the Supreme all the time. If we make considerable progress in the spiritual life, our heart, like the soul, will become consciously and constantly aware of the Supreme’s Presence. Then gradually this awareness will dawn in the mind, the vital and the body.


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THE HIGHEST PATH-Conscious Immortality



When a man surrenders himself as a slave to the divine Lord he realizes at the end that all his actions are the actions of God. He loses his mine-ness.

This is what is meant by ‘doing the will of God’. This is Siddhanta [the final view; the settled conclusion]. When a man realizes that he has lost his ahamkara (I-ness) and that he is not different from Isvara, he is a jnani. Th
is is Vedanta.

But see! The goal is the same. There are two ways open to one: bhakti and jnana. A bhakta surrenders to God and rests secure in His protection. A jnani knows that there is nothing beside the Self and so remains happy.

One must adhere firmly to either of these courses. This path is the highest of all and suited only for advanced aspirants. Those who follow the other paths are not ripe for this until they become advanced on their own paths. [See Spiritual Instruction 2.2]

Thus it is really by the Grace, whether Guru, Self, etc. that they are brought to this highest path. Of course, they might have practiced the other paths in former existences and thus were born ripe for this one; others try the other ways and after progressing finally turn to Self-enquiry. But the last laps of all paths are the same — surrender of the ego.


                                          





The Bhagavad Gita, 16:1



"Be fearless and pure; never waver in your determination

or your dedication to the spiritual life. Give freely. Be self-controlled,

sincere, truthful, loving, and full of the desire to serve. Realize the truth

of the scriptures; learn to be detached and take joy in renunciation.

Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and

gentle, show good will to all. Cultivate vigor, patience, will, purity;

avoid malice and pride. Then, Arjuna, you will achieve your divine destiny.”

~ ~Krishna 

                                     

            



Swami Sivananda Saraswati.


   The Lord is within you, He is seated in your heart. Whatever you see, hear, taste and touch is God. Therefore hate not anybody, cheat not anybody, harm not anybody. Love all and be one with all. You will soon attain eternal bliss, immortality, and perennial joy.



Yoga Vasisham

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A. G. Mohan

The mind is like a river. The thoughts are like the various droplets of water. We are submerged in that water. Stay on the bank and watch your mind.

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Michael A. Singer. “The Untethered Soul.”

There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it. If you don’t understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of ‘trying to find myself.’ They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of them.” 

                                                                          

Adi Granth/Sikh Scriptures,

“They who reflect, who reflect upon You,
they live peacefully in this world.
They are freed, they are freed who remember the Divine [God],
their snare of death is cut.
They who remember the Fearless One, the Fearless One,
all their fears are dispelled.
They who serve, who serve my Beloved,
they merge with the Divine Form.
Blessed, blessed [happy] are they who remember the Divine.
Says Nanak, the servant, I offer myself to them.”
(Adi Granth/Sikh Scriptures, translated in, “The Name of My Beloved, Verses of the Sikh Gurus, Devotional Poetry from the Guru Granth and the Dasam Granth”, by Nikky Singh, The Sacred Literature Trust Series)


                                                        

Saturday, September 28, 2019

— Ramesh Balsekar

Consciousness has produced this play. Consciousness has written the script. Consciousness is playing all the characters. And Consciousness is witnessing the play. It’s a one man show.


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~ The power of the Dharma, Stephen Knapp

Generally speaking, many Hindus will respect all religions. They may be initiated by a Vedic guru, devoutly practice yoga, attend the temple regularly, yet still go to see some Christian preacher, or Buddhist teacher, or even hear an Islamic Imam talk about God. They may do this with the idea of attaining new insights, yet still not consider themselves falling away from their own path or converting to a different religion. Yet, if a Christian or Muslim would do such a thing as participate in an alternative religion, or even a different sect from which they belong, they may be considered sinful and apostates, or at least hypocrites and deserving of some punishment. But such narrow-mindedness hardly touches the person following the Vedic path.
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― A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is

“Such deluded persons, symptomatically, dwell in dualities of dishonor and honor, misery and happiness, woman and man, good and bad, pleasure and pain, etc., thinking, "This is my wife; this is my house; I am the master of this house; I am the husband of this wife." These are the dualities of delusion. Those who are so deluded by dualities are completely foolish and therefore cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

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Nityananda of Ganeshpuri

"God is conducting tests all the time; every occurrence in life is a test. Every thought that crops up in the mind is in itself a test to see what one's reaction will be. Hence one must be always alert and aloof, conducting oneself with a spirit of detachment, viewing everything as an opportunity afforded to gain experience, to improve oneself and go on to a higher stage."


                                                                 

Robert Adams



Most of us are stuck in a dream world. We're stuck in a dream world because it presses down on us. It appears so real.
Things are happening every day. Yet, one day you will awaken. It's the same as awakening from your dream at night.
There is no difference.


When you awaken to the dream at night, do you have any interest in the dream? You may for a while. If you're into dreams, you may try to decipher what the dream means, for a little bit. But after a while you forget all about the dream.
So it is with this world. When a person awakens, or a person becomes liberated, they are able to see the dream, but they know they are not part of it. They also observe everything, but they are not part of the dream. The world no longer has any power over them, over the awakened person, the liberated person.

The world has no power whatsoever over you once you're liberated.

                                       




Paramahansa Yogananda

Feel the love of God; then in every person you will see the face of the Father, the light of love which is in all. You will find a magic, living relationship uniting the trees, the sky, the stars, all people, and all living things; and you will feel a oneness with them. This is the code of divine love.


                                                                                 

Eckhart Tolle

“One of the dysfunctional patterns of the mind is the assumption that the Now needs to be filled with something all the time. Of course you have to do things, but see if you can also experience the spaciousness of this moment, the inherent goodness of this moment, regardless of what it contains.”

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Friday, September 27, 2019

Ananda as Atman, the Ultimate Essence or Rasa


By David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri)


The Vedic idea – which we find clearly expressed in the Taittiriya Upanishad – is that the entire universe arises from Ananda. Ananda is commonly translated as Bliss, which is perhaps the best equivalent in the English language, but is much more than that. Ananda refers to an unbounded peace and joy that overflows from the transcendent into time-space creation. This Ananda is our own inner nature and the pursuit of Ananda should be our true way of life. Yet Ananda is not just feeling good or happy, but is the fullness of feeling, in which we can understand every aspect of life as part of our own inner being, with a Divine fervor that is able to embrace and go beyond sorrow and death.

                                               

  


Kabir

Go deeper …
Past thoughts into silence.
Past silence into stillness.
Past stillness into the heart.
Let Love consume all that is left of you.


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​Michael Kewley May all beings be happy

With wisdom, everything is seen as clouds passing through an empty sky, some pleasant, some unpleasant, some attractive and some unattractive, but all having the same universal quality of impermanence (Anicca).
There is nothing to hold on to and nothing to understand.
There is only this moment, and in this moment the whole of our life exists.

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Remember

“Remember, that you are the source of what you seek. You are the freedom, you are the goodness, you are the wisdom, you are the worthiness, you are the love and the presence. All the self-limiting ideas are just that—ideas

~~unknown

                                        




Robert Adams

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https://www.godbrahmanistheoceanofloveandconsciousnessdivinityis.com/2019/09/rpbert-adams.html



Inner Space, The Kingdom of the Heavens Within You



WITHIN this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it is the Creator:

Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars.


The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;

And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells up.

Kabir says: “Listen to me, my Friend! My Beloved Lord is within.”

                                          



– From Guru Granth Shahib

‘For the sake of it, you journey to sacred shrines and holy rivers;

but this priceless jewel is within your own heart.’