Do Not Be in Conflict with Anyone or Anything

YOU CAN SIT WITH ME WHEREVER YOU ARE
(Robert Adams)

"You come to sit with me, you can always sit with me wherever you are. I am trying to tell you, do not look for reasons why you do something. When you start giving up all reasoning, all ambition, when you start surrendering all of your so-called power, your human power that you think you have, this is when the mind begins to slow down. The mind will never slow down by trying to make it slow down. I do not care what method you use. When you are using Vipassana Meditation or you’re using breathing, whatever method you are using you are using your mind. It is your mind that you are still using. That is why you can never get anywhere. You must use your mind, no matter what you do. Therefore stop doing anything. I know many of you have been practicing sadhana for twenty-five to forty years. Practicing many forms of meditation. Going to teachers, reading many books. And what becomes of you? You may get a good feeling, then it goes away and you are back where you started from. The only thing that you should do or must do, is not to be in conflict with anything.

"Do not be in conflict with anyone or anything. When you are not in conflict with anything, the mind begins to surrender itself and goes back into the heart, and you become your Self. This is the easiest thing that you ever had to do, it is simplicity itself. It is simplicity itself, because there is nothing you have to do. There is nothing you have to become. Here is no one you have to change. You are That. Do not analyze what I am saying. Do not even agree with what I am saying. Just be open. Open you heart by remaining still, silent."

-Robert Adams

Real Yoga (No BS)

In this in-depth 'Yoga is Vegan' podcast, Sri Dharma Mittra discusses his first encounter with yoga, ahimsa, yogic diet, karma yoga, reincarnation and the meaning of life, meditation and more. Click here to hear him in his own words.


(He left Brazil and came to NYC to meet and commit to his guru the year I was born). Jai Guru!

Read another recent interview, with my gurubhai Adam Frei, here.

Presence

Q&A with Ramana Maharshi

QUESTION : While sitting near you, what sort of mental state should I have so as to receive the transmission from the Self?


Ramana: Keep your mind still. That is enough. You will get spiritual help sitting in this hall if you keep yourself still. The aim of all practices is to give up all practices. When the mind becomes still, the power of the Self will be experienced. The waves of the Self are pervading everywhere. If the mind is in peace, one begins to experience them.

Question: Which is better for me, to gaze at your eyes or your face? Or should I sit with closed eyes and concentrate my mind on a particular thing?

Ramana: Gaze at your own real nature. It is immaterial whether the eyes are open or closed. Everywhere there is only the one, so it is all the same whether you keep your eyes open or closed. If you wish to meditate, do so on the "I" that is within you. It is the Self. Because it has no eyes, there is no need either to open or close the eyes. When you attain Self-knowledge, there will no longer be any ideas about the world. When you are sitting in a room, whether the windows are open or closed, you are the same person, in the same state. In the same way, if you abide in the Reality, it is all the same whether the eyes are open or closed. It matters little whether external activities go on or not.

Question: In my present state, is there sufficient faith, humility and surrender in me? If not, how to make them complete?

Ramana: You are perfect and complete, so abandon the idea of incompleteness. There is nothing to be destroyed. Ahankara, the individual "I", is not a real thing. It is the mind that makes the effort and the mind is not real. Just as it is not necessary to kill a rope that one imagines to be a snake, so also there is no need to kill the mind. Knowing the form of the mind makes the mind disappear. That which is forever non-existent is already removed.

Question: What books should I read for personal study?

Ramana: The Self is the real book. You can glance anywhere in that book; nobody can take it away from you. Whenever you are free, turn towards the Self. Thereafter you may read whatever you like.

Question: How to uproot the weariness, fear and anxiety that arise during meditation?

Ramana: Find out to whom these questions occur. By conducting this enquiry these things will disappear. These things are impermanent. Do not pay attention to them. When there is knowledge of duality, fear arises. Fear only comes when you think that there are others apart from you. If you direct your mind towards the Self, fear and anxiety will go away. In your present state, when your mind is agitated, if you remove one kind of fear, another will rise up and there will be no end of them. It is a laborious task to pluck the leaves off a tree one by one. The "I" feeling is the root of all thoughts. If you destroy the root, the leaves and branches will wither away. Instead of forming bad habits and taking medicine for them, it is better to see that such bad habits are not formed.

Question: During and after meditation, I get many thoughts about the unhappy people of the world. What will happen to the world?

Ramana: First find out whether there is an "I" in you or not. It is this ego "I" that gets these thoughts and, as a result, you feel weakness. Therefore find out how identification with the body takes place. Body consciousness is the cause of all misery. When you conduct the enquiry into the ego "I", you will find out its Source and you will be able to remove it. After that there will be no more questions of the type you are asking.

The body itself is a disease. To wish for a long stay of that disease is not the aim of the jnani [one who has realised the Self]. Anyhow, one has to give up identification with the body. Just as the "I am the body" consciousness prevents one from attaining Self-knowledge, in the same way, one who has got the conviction that he is not the body will become liberated even if he doesn't desire it.


From inner-quest.org; more here.

Rupert Spira on Self-Inquiry and Suffering

This is a paraphrase:

The only thing suffering cannot stand is being seen clearly. The reason for that is that it is an illusion. You can’t do anything to an illusion because it isn’t there, like the water in a mirage. The very best you can do is to see that it is not there. That alleviates the desire to collect it, alleviate it. You can’t do anything to a nonexistent self. There is nothing there to do anything to. Clear seeing, experiential understanding, is the best you can do. As a result or byproduct of that clear seeing, that suffering dissolves or vanishes in time. In order to remain present, suffering requires the illusion of a separate self; it revolves around this illusion. Without it, it cannot stand. There may be old habits in the mind and body, but they cannot stand when they are no longer supported by a belief in a separate self. They disappear as a by-product of this exploration -- not as its goal. Suffering vanishes in the same way a headache vanishes. You wake up in the morning with a headache. By evening it’s gone, and you don’t know when it disappeared or why or how. It’s just not there anymore. That’s how suffering disappears. Its disappearance is a byproduct, not a goal. If you make it a goal you perpetuate suffering. That’s how suffering perpetuates itself, sometimes for decades, by trying to get rid of itself.

Suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body. Pain is not a mistake, when you put your hand in the fire. It’s the intelligence of the body telling you to take the hand out of the fire. It is pain working on behalf of your well-being. Similarly, suffering is cooperating with your desire for happiness. It is telling you that you have mistaken yourself for a limited self and to have another look.