Friday, December 31, 2021

Adyashanti

 This life is a dream. To call it a dream is not to disparage it; that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. It’s no different from dreams you have at night. You wake up from your dreams into this dream we call life, and when you go to sleep, you wake up in another dream world. But that which is awake in both worlds, the dreamer, is always the same. Awareness is always present. That’s the reality. What doesn’t come and go, even in the dream state? That’s who you are.

                                                               


Your inner light


** Your Inner Light shines when you are at Peace with yourself and around you. Let go of the Struggle and feel the Beauty inside you. Allow all to just be and just be you.**

                                         

 

Empty Mind

 


Isha Upanishad

 


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.

The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu


                                       


THE REALITY

 


Sri Sivananda

 Search, Understand, Realise Hold fast the lamp of Dharma. Entertain thoughts of Divine Love. Preserve equanimity in success and failure. Restrain the senses. Calm the mind. Fix it on God. Soar high in the realm of bliss. Behold unity. You will have cosmic vision.


                                                   


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.



Freedom by Swami Vivekananda

   


You are the omniscient, omnipresent being of the universe. But of such beings can there be many? Can there be a hundred thousand millions of omnipresent beings? Certainly not. Then, what becomes of us all? You are only one; there is only one such Self, and that One Self is you. Standing behind this little nature is what we call the Soul. There is only One Being, One Existence, the ever-blessed, the omnipresent, the omniscient, the birthless, deathless.
"Through His control, the sky expands, through His control the air breathes, through His control the sun shines, and through His control all lives are."
He is the Reality in nature, He is the Soul of your soul - nay more, you are He, you are one with Him. Wherever there are two, there is fear, there is danger, there is conflict, there is strife. When is it all One, who is there to hate, who is there to struggle with? When it is all He, with whom can you fight? This explains the true nature of life; this explains the true nature of being. This is perfection, and this is God. As long as you see the many, you are under the delusion.
"In this world of many he who sees the One, in this ever-changing world, he who sees Him who never changes, as the Soul of his own soul, as his own Self - he is free, he is blessed, he has reached the goal."
Therefore know that thou art He; thou art the God of this universe - tat tvam asi - (thou art That).
All these various ideas that I am a man or a woman, or sick or healthy, or strong or weak, or that I hate or I love or have a little power, are but hallucinations. Away with them! What makes you weak? What makes you fear? You are the One Being in the universe. What frightens you?
Stand up then and be free. Know that every thought and word that weakens you in this world is the only evil that exists. Whatever makes men weak and fear is the only evil that should be shunned. What can frighten you?
If the suns come down, and the moons crumble into dust, and systems after systems are hurled into annihilation, what is that to you? Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe. Say: "I am Existence Absolute, Bliss Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, I am He." And like a lion breaking its cage, break your chain and be free forever. What frightens you, what holds you down? Only ignorance and delusion; nothing else can bind you.


🕉 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.



Thursday, December 30, 2021

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.

                                              


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.

                   

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.


                                            


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)


                                  


Mary-Kali by Ravi Zupa



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)


                                                

Anthony de Mello, Awareness

 

““Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don’t you experience it? Because you’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!””


                                             


   

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.



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


Sivananda


                                                  


The goal of life is God-realisation by Sivananda

All desires are gratified by realising God. God can be realised by pure, subtle reasoning. There is not an iota of happiness in objects, because they are insentient. There are mental uneasiness, discontentment and restlessness even in multi-millionaires and kings. All sorts of fears, miseries and troubles will melt away when the knowledge of God dawns. You will be freed from the Samsaric wheel of births and deaths with all its concomitant evils. Form a strong habit of remembering God at all times. Control the senses. Be balanced in pleasure and pain, heat and cold, praise and censure. Have unshakable faith and unflinching devotion towards God


                                           


Sri Sivananda

 The Light Is Within You Be righteous always. Never deviate from the path of righteousness. Stand upright. Be bold. Be fearless. Practise Truth. Proclaim it everywhere. March forward in the spiritual path. The light is within you. Fix the mind on the Lord. Kill egoism and pride. Cultivate fellow-feeling and universal brotherhood. Love all. You will have full life. Control the senses. Pray fervently with intense faith and sincerity. Have an unshakable conviction in the existence of God and in the efficacy of spiritual practices. Be humble and simple. You will attain Immortality.


                                                      


Swami Vivekananda.

 There is but One Existence, and

that One-Existence seen through different constitutions appears either as the earth, or heaven, or hell, or gods, or ghosts, or men, or demons, or world, or all these things.
But among these many,
"He who sees that One in this ocean of death,
he who sees that One Life in this floating universe,
who realises that One who never changes, unto him belongs eternal peace;
unto none else, unto none else."
This One existence has to be realised.

Excerpt from: Lectures and Discourses.
ONE EXISTENCE APPEARING AS MANY


Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Spirituality

 Spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, to the significant and to the sacred.


                                              


Ann Shulgin Peyote

 It opens up doors you wouldn't even know were there otherwise. It was a very extraordinary, sacred experience - everything you look at is infused with light.


                                                                


Annamalai Swami

 Question: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If so, why can't I see the Self clearly? Why is it hidden from me?

Annamalai Swami: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You think that one can see the Self or that one can experience it. This is not the case. The Self is the presence, the consciousness, where seeing and experiencing occur.

Even if you don't see the Self, It is indeed there. Not without humor, Bhagavan noticed that people just open the newspaper and take a look at it. Then they say, "I read [literally 'I saw'] the newspaper." But in fact they didn't see the newspaper, they only saw the letters and pictures on the surface. There can be no words or pictures without the paper, but people always forget about the paper while they read the words.

Then Bhagavan used this analogy to show that while people see the names and shapes that appear on the screen of consciousness, they ignore the screen itself. This kind of partial seeing leads to the conclusion that all shapes are unrelated to each other and separate from the person seeing them. If people were aware of consciousness rather than the forms that appear in it, they would realize the appearance of all the forms that manifest within the one and indivisible consciousness.

This consciousness is the Self you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never see it because it is not separate from you.


                                      


Joseph Campbell

 People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.


                                                


Christian Kundalni