From the Wordly to the Divine

 "It is easy to be worldly, it is difficult to be Divine. From the heart and base of the spinal cord, we must awaken the Kundalini so Cosmic Energy can rise to the highest. By obtaining purification of spirit, we obtain Divine powers. Upon awakening of the Kundalini, set it forth on the road to God."

-Swami Kailashananda

La Vida es un Sueño (Life is a Waking Dream)

"There is no society, there is no suffering and there is no world. The world, the society and the suffering that you perceive are all part of your dream. They have no reality except in your own mind.

"If you see a hungry man in your dream you can cook him a dream meal and give him some dream food. That will give him some temporary relief. If, instead, you wake up, you solve the problem permanently because you discover that the hungry man only existed in your imaginary dream world.

"The world is like a reflection in a mirror. The world which we see is merely a reflection of our gunas, our own state of mind. We see the reflection, forget the mirror, and imagine that we are looking at a real world which is separate from us.

"You are continuously radiating a mental energy which affects everything and everyone around you. If you are in a rajasic or a tamasic state you are automatically infecting the world with your unwholesome state of mind. The jnani, who is established in the reality beyond the gunas, experiences only continuous peace and bliss. He alone can help other people by radiating this peace and bliss to them. If you try to help this world with some physical activity, the good that you do may be more than wiped out by the negative mental vibrations which you inflict on the world. If you make your mind pure, you automatically help everyone in the world because each person will receive a cleansing and healing measure of your own purity.

"An ant is walking on the floor with a grain of sugar on its back. Suddenly a man steps on it and kills it. Finish: instant death. We are in the same situation as the ant, for death may come at any moment. You can take nothing with you when you die, not even your mind. So why not die to the world now?

"The world that you are attached to is nothing more than a long dream. You may feel hungry in your dream and then wake up to find that you are suffering from indigestion pains because you ate too much the night before. How much reality do you then give to the hunger pains that you felt in your dream?

"If you see suffering all around you it is just a reflection of your own inner suffering. If you want to alleviate suffering go to the root cause which is the suffering inside yourself. Immerse yourself in the Self. End the maya dream and wake up to the real world of jnana. Your ideas about the world are all wrong because you are misperceiving it. Your mind is processing what you see in such a way that it makes you think that there is a suffering world outside and apart from you. If you want to get rid of that suffering world you must eliminate the mental processes that make you misperceive it. When you reach the state of jnana there will be no misperceptions. Your vision will be completely clear. You will be aware that there is no suffering and no world. You will be aware that the Self alone exists." 🕉

-Annamalai Swami

Svadhyaya (Self-Study)--->Moksha

"If you examine yourself, you will see. There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman [Self]. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must enquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is ‘samsara.’ But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that."

-Anandamayi Ma

Raga (Desire) and Shraddha (Faith)

 "The world is the Lord's. He created it for His own play. We are mere pawns in His game. Wherever He keeps us and in whatever way He does so, we have to abide by it contentedly."

&

"The world is going on because not all can be free of desires. People with desires are born again and again."

&

"It is best therefore to surrender all desires at the feet of God. He will do whatever is best for us. But one may pray for devotion and detachment. These cannot be classed as desires."

-Sarada Devi

🐜 Viveka - Discrimination 🦢

"Sugar and sand may be mixed together but the ant rejects the sand and eats the sugar. Similarly, pious men and paramahamsas (great yogis) reject the unreal (i.e.; lust and gold) and choose the Real (satchidaananda)."

-Sri Ramakrishna

Fleeting Mumukshutva (A Strong Desire for Liberation vs. Worldly Life)

Questioner: When I first started meditating I had an intense desire for liberation. This period lasted for 3-4 years. In the last twelve months my enthusiasm has been slipping. I now seem to be more and more content with my worldly life.

Annamalai Swami: The satisfaction which comes from the outside world is transient. At death it will all be lost. Human life is given to you for the sole purpose of realising the Self. If you die without realising the Self your life has been wasted. Death can come at any time. I am telling you this so that you will become aware of your own death. If you are constantly aware of the possibility that you may die at any moment, your enthusiasm will increase. Try to cultivate this awareness and see if it makes any difference to your sadhana.

Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma: All this is Verily Brahman (Self)

 

23. Anything seen as other than Brahman-Self is bound to cause fear and trouble. Therefore, it behoves one to stick to the single attitude that everything sensed is Brahman-Self alone. In due course even this one thought must be given up, in order to abide firmly in the free undisturbed blissful state of the sole Brahman-Self. (Ch.15, v.5)          

24. The total discarding of the mind is alone victory, achievement, bliss, yoga, wisdom and liberation. The sacrifice of the mind is, in fact, the totality of all sacred sacrifices. (Ch.15, v.7)          

25. The firm denial of the existence of the mind and the firm belief in the existence of Brahman-Self, is the sure way to the conquest of mind, leading to the experience of the sole effulgent Self. (Ch.15, v.11) 

26. If one gives the slightest room for the thought that the mind exists, pure Awareness itself will vibrate as the ruffled mind, which is the parent of all trouble and illusions. Therefore, one should ever abide in the conviction that there is no mind, and that the pure Awareness-Self is the sole Existence. This is the easy way to conquer the mind with all its vagaries. (Ch.15, v.12)          

27. There is no such thing as the troublesome mind, no world of names and forms, not the least bit of ego. All these are nothing but the perfect Brahman-Self, which I am. In this conviction one should abide firmly, until one achieves the state of sleepless-sleep which is alert-peace-eternal. (Ch.16, v.7)

-Essence of Ribhu Gita

The Ego's Grandest Illusion

 

“Only the ego wants to get rid of the ego.” 

― Francis Lucille, The Perfume of Silence

The Wisdom of the Body

"While doing yoga, the body must tell one what to do, not the brain. Brain has to cooperate with the message it receives from the body. I will often say to a student, "Your brain is not in your body! That is why you can't get the asana." I mean of course that his intelligence is in his head and not filling his body. It may be that your brain moves faster than your body or your body may fail to fulfill the instructions of your brain owing to lack of right guidance from your intelligence. You must learn to move the brain a bit more slowly so that it follows the body, or you have to make the body move faster to match the intelligence of the brain. Let the body be the doer, the brain the observer."

BKS Iyengar, Light on Life

The Importance of a Relaxed Mind

 "Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed."

-Indra Devi

Real Asana = Concentration

 

"In an asana, the mind has to reach inside the body to find a quiet space until a point comes where perfect balance is felt. If the mind is wandering while practicing, then one is not fully present, and there can be no union. Involvement, interpenetration and insight are the required qualities for the practitioner."

-Geeta Iyengar

Deep Within, You are Lord Shiva Already

"Whatever you can perceive or have awareness of is something else and not the Real Self. This concept is simple to put into words, but is very difficult for us to truly understand because we have identified with what we can perceive for thousands of lives already."

-Sri Dharma Mittra

Read the rest here

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Signs on the Path

 

“The surest signs of spiritual progress are a lack of concern about spiritual progress and  an absence of anxiety about liberation.” 

― Ramesh S. Balsekar

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Saint vs. Sage

 

"The saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The sage is a man who rids himself of his ego."

_Wei Wu Wei

 

True Renunciation (Vairagya)

"Freedom from all desire is eternity. All attachment implies fear, for all things are transient. And fear makes one a slave. This freedom from attachment does not come with practice; it is natural when one knows one’s true being. Love does not cling; clinging is not love. There is nothing to gain. Abandon all imaginings and know yourself as you are. Self-knowledge is detachment. All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency. When you know that you lack nothing, that all there is, is you and yours, desire ceases."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Real Religion

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” 

-Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 5:44, King James version)

context:

41And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

Two Birds

 "Two birds living together, each the friend of the other, perch upon the same tree. Of these two, one eats the sweet fruit of the tree, but the other simply looks on without eating. In the self-same tree the individual (bird) is drowned in grief because of delusion and impotency. When it beholds the other (bird), viz., the adorable Lord, it realises its own glory and gets freed from sorrow."

-Mundaka Upanishad

Your Natural State

Question: “What is happiness? Is it inherent in the Self or in the object, or in the contact between the subject and the object?"

Ramana Maharshi: "When there is contact with a desirable object or memory thereof, and when there is freedom from undesirable contacts, or memory thereof, we say there is

happiness. Such happiness is relative and is better called pleasure. But we want absolute and permanent happiness. This does not reside in objects but in the Absolute. It is peace free from pain and pleasure. It is a neutral state."

The Nectar of Intelligence

 

"You have to reflect upon [the knowledge] when you are watching TV, walking down the street, etc. When your mind is purified enough, it comes all at once. It’s not a voice or something. But you get the knowledge. You have to realize it, you have to reflect upon it.

“...Enlightenment comes at any moment, when you are not expecting it. [You realize] ‘That’s it! I am the eternal witness. I was never born and will never die.’  The mind becomes enlightened. But the Self is already there.”

-Sri Dharma MIttra

Read the full article: The Nectar of Intelligence: Yoga for Self-Realization with Sri Dharma Mittra 

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The Way out of suffering

 “This momentum of practice leads toward freedom from the cycle of birth and death. We haven’t escaped from that cycle because we still insist on craving and desiring. We don’t commit unwholesome or immoral acts, but all that means is that we are living in accordance with the dhamma of morality. For instance, there is a chant in which people ask that all beings not be separated from the things that they love and are fond of. If you think about it, this is very childish. It’s the way of people who still can’t let go. This is the nature of human desire—desire for things to be other than the way they are: wishing for longevity, hoping that there will be no death or sickness. Such are people’s hopes and desires. So when you tell them that their unfulfilled desires cause them suffering, it clobbers them right over the head. But what can they say in reply? Nothing, because it’s the truth! You’re pointing right at their desires. Everyone has desires and wants them fulfilled. Nobody is willing to stop; nobody really wants to escape. So our practice must be patiently refined. Those who practice steadfastly, without deviation or slackness, and have a gentle and restrained manner, always persevering with constancy—those are the ones who will know. No matter what arises, they will remain firm and unshakable.”

— Ajahn Chah (from Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah)

Brahma Satyam, Jagad Mithyam

 

"Does one get faith by mere studying of books? Too much reading creates confusion. The Master used to say that one should learn from the scriptures that God alone is real and the world illusory."

-Sarada Devi

All Answers are Within

 

Solve all your problems through meditation. Exchange unprofitable religious speculations for actual God-contact. Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Through man's ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful.

-Lahiri Mahasaya

 

Be Still and Know

 

“If the mind falls asleep, awaken it. Then if it starts wandering, make it quiet. If you reach the state where there is neither sleep nor movement of mind, stay still in that, the natural (real) state.” 

― Ramana Maharshi, The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi

Brahman - The Self - Indescribable

 

“What Brahman is cannot be described. All things in the world — the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, the six systems of philosophy — have been defiled, like food that has been touched by the tongue, for they have been read or uttered by the tongue. Only one thing has not been defiled in this way, and that is Brahman. No one has ever been able to say what Brahman is.” 

― Sri Ramakrishna, Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna

Be YOURSELF

 

"Divine happiness, even the tiniest particle of a grain of it, never leaves one again; and when one attains to the essence of things and finds one's Self-this is supreme happiness. When it is found, nothing else remains to be found; the sense of want will not awaken anymore, and the heart's torment will be stilled forever. Do not be satisfied with fragmentary happiness, which is invariably interrupted by shocks and blows of fate; but become complete, and having attained to perfection, be YOURSELF."

-Anandamayi Ma

3 Types of Life

 “The spiritual life (adhyatma-jivana), the religious life (dharma-jivana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. 

"The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance. 

"The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine, but as yet without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules of some sect or creed which claims to have found the way out of the bonds of the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. 

"The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one's true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.” 

― Śrī Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Vol 1

Thich Nhat Hanh: Being Peace

I had the good fortune to cover Thich Nhat Hanh speaking on fostering peace at Loyola University in 2003, for Yoga Chicago magazine. He spoke at length about how to deal with anger on a personal level. 

“Every one of us has a seed of anger that lies deep in the depths of our consciousness. When that seed of anger is able to sleep quietly we are able to laugh and to lead our daily life, but if some­one comes and says something and does something touching the seed of anger in us, that seed of anger will manifest as an energy of anger in the upper level of our consciousness and we will be inhabited by that energy of anger and we will suffer. If we do not know how to handle the anger we will allow the anger to possess us and push us to say and do things to create suffering for us and do things to the other person or persons. That is why a good practitioner when she knows that anger is manifesting, she immediately goes back to her breathing.”

We shouldn’t try to fight anger. “Mindfulness is just recognizing that anger is there and embraces anger in the most tender way. When your child, your baby suffers and cries, you as the mother go into the room of your baby and the first thing you do is to pick your baby up and hold your baby tenderly in your two arms. You do not know what is the cause of the suffering of your baby, but the fact that you pick up your baby and hold him or her tenderly in your arms, you can already bring a relief. Your anger, your fear, your violence–you don’t know yet what is the nature of it, the roots of it. But if you know how to generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and recognize it and embrace it tenderly with the practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking, you can bring relief to your yowling baby, which is your anger, your fear or your despair.”

Such mindfulness doesn’t happen overnight. “We shouldn’t wait until an emotion comes to begin to practice because if so we’ll forget the practice,” he said. “Every day we have to devote five minutes to deep belly breathing–mindful breathing–and in three weeks it will become a habit. A good habit. And when a strong emotion manifests you will remember how to practice.”

Nor can it be done in a void. It’s important to have the support of a community, or Sangha. He said, “For those of us who are just beginners in the practice, we need a brother or a sister to assist us in difficult moments.” He wrote in Touching Peace (1992) that interpersonal relationships are the key to success in mindfulness practice, and “Without an intimate, deep relationship with at least one person, transformation is unlikely.”

He concluded by reminding us that we can choose which seeds we want to grow and that peace begins at home. “Our family and our school should be the place where we practice selective watering, so that the seeds of hatred and fear will not be watered anymore–instead the seeds of joy, peace, understanding and compassion will have a lot of chances to be watered and educated. Politicians, journalists–we all have to come together and have a discussion as to how to reorganize our way of daily life. There is no way to peace–peace is the way.”

Read the entire article, with context, here.

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Transcending Judgy-ness

More than anything else, judgment will take you out of the present moment. It will take you out of Oneness into separation. Whenever judgment arises within you, just notice it. Acknowledge it. Confess it. It is just an energy arising within you. Do not judge it or try to get rid of it. Just bring it to consciousness with love, acceptance and compassion. In this way, judgment will be transformed into love.

-Leonard Jacobson

"Trace the Thought to its Place of Origin"

"I return hastily from an exploration of some usually veiled

sanctuaries of the great temple and enter the hall when the

evening meditation period has run out half its life. I slip

quietly to the floor and straightway assume my regular meditation

posture. In a few seconds I compose myself and bring

all wandering thoughts to a strong centre. An intense

interiorization of consciousness comes with the closing of eyes.

"The Maharishee's seated form floats in a vivid manner

before my mind's eye. Following his frequently repeated

instruction I endeavour to pierce through the mental picture

into that which is formless, his real being and inner nature, his

soul. To my surprise the effort meets with almost instantaneous

success and the picture disappears again, leaving me with

nothing more than a strongly felt sense of his intimate presence.

The mental questionings which have marked most of my

earlier meditations have lately begun to cease. I have repeatedly

interrogated my consciousness of physical, emotional and

mental sensations in turn, but, dissatisfied in the quest of self,

have eventually left them all. I have then applied the attention

of consciousness to its own centre, striving to become aware of

its place of origin. Now comes the supreme moment. In

that concentration of stillness, the mind withdrawn into itself,

one's familiar world begins to fade off into shadowy vagueness.

One is apparently environed for a while by sheer nothingness,

having arrived at a kind of mental blank wall. And one has

to be as intense as possible to maintain one's fixed attention.

But how hard to leave the lazy dalliance of our surface life and

draw the mind inwards to a pin-point of concentration!

"To-night I flash swiftly to this point, with barely a skirmish

against the continuous sequence of thoughts which usually

play the prelude to its arrival. Some new and powerful force

comes into dynamic action within my inner world and bears

me inwards with resistless speed. The first great battle is

over, almost without a stroke, and a pleasurable, happy, easeful

feeling succeeds its high tension.

"In the next stage I stand apart from the intellect, conscious

that it is thinking, but warned by an intuitive voice that it is

merely an instrument. I watch these thoughts with a weird

detachment. The power to think, which has hitherto been a

matter for merely ordinary pride, now becomes a thing from

which to escape, for I perceive with startling clarity that I have

been its unconscious captive. There follows the sudden

desire to stand outside the intellect and just be. I want to dive

into a place deeper than thought. I want to know what it will

feel like to deliver myself from the constant bondage of the

brain, but to do so with all my attention awake and alert.

"It is strange enough to be able to stand aside and watch the

very action of the brain as though it were someone else's, and

to see how thoughts take their rise and then die, but it is

stranger still to realize intuitively that one is about to penetrate

into the mysteries which hide the innermost recesses of man's

soul. I feel like some Columbus about to land on an uncharted

continent. A perfectly controlled and subdued anticipation

quietly thrills me.

"But how divorce oneself from the age-old tyranny of

thoughts? I remember that the Maharishee has never

suggested that I should attempt to force the stoppage of thinking.

"Trace thought to its place of origin," is his reiterated

counsel, "watch for the real self to reveal itself, and then

your thoughts will die down of their own accord." So, feeling

that I have found the birthplace of thinking, I let go of the

powerfully positive attitude which has brought my attention

to this point and surrender myself to complete passivity, yet

still keeping as intently watchful as a snake of its prey.

"This poised condition reigns until I discover the correctness

of the sage's prophecy. The waves of thought naturally begin

to diminish. The workings of logical rational sense drop

towards zero point. The strangest sensation I have experienced

till now grips me. Time seems to reel dizzily as the antennas

of my rapidly growing intuition begin to reach out into the

unknown. The reports of my bodily senses are no longer

heard, felt, remembered. I know that at any moment I shall

be standing outside things, on the very edge of the world's

secret. . . .

"Finally it happens. Thought is extinguished like a snuffed

candle. The intellect withdraws into its real ground, that is,

consciousness working unhindered by thoughts. I perceive,

what I have suspected for some time and what the Maharishee

has confidently affirmed, that the mind takes its rise in a

transcendental source. The brain has passed into a state of

complete suspension, as it does in deep sleep, yet there is

not the slightest loss of consciousness. I remain perfectly

calm and fully aware of who I am and what is occurring. Yet

my sense of awareness has been drawn out of the narrow

confines of the separate personality; it has turned into something

sublimely all-embracing. Self still exists, but it is a

changed, radiant self. For something that is far superior to

the unimportant personality which was I, some deeper, diviner

being rises into consciousness and becomes me. With it arrives

an amazing new sense of absolute freedom, for thought is like

a loom-shuttle which is always going to and fro, and to be

freed from its tyrannical motion is to step out of prison into

the open air.

"I find myself outside the rim of world consciousness. The

planet which has so far harboured me, disappears. I am in the

midst of an ocean of blazing light. The latter, I feel rather

than think, is the primeval stuff out of which worlds are

created, the first state of matter. It stretches away into

unreliable infinite space, incredibly alive.

"I touch, as in a flash, the meaning of this mysterious universal

drama which is being enacted in space, and then return to the

primal point of my being. I, the new I, rest in the lap of holy

bliss. I have drunk the Platonic Cup of Lethe, so that yesterday's

bitter memories and to-morrow's anxious cares have

disappeared completely. I have attained a divine liberty and

an almost indescribable felicity. My arms embrace all creation

with profound sympathy, for I understand in the deepest

possible way that to know all is not merely to pardon all, but

to love all. My heart is remoulded in rapture."

-Paul Brunton, A Search in Secret India