The Light of All Lights

One day a group of musicians came to play for Ramana Maharshi. The instruments included flute, violin and harmonium.

Afterwards there was a discussion about the various instruments and which was the most pleasing. The Maharshi said that he himself listened to nothing but the harmonium as its steady, monotonous, one-pointed rhythm helped to keep one centered in the Self.

Q: What is the significance of the spot between the eyebrows?

RM: It is a reminder not to see with our eyes. The mind functions both as light and objects; if divested of objects the Light alone will remain.

Q: But must we know that there is such light?

RM: Sight or cognition pertains to the present state because there is light. Light is the essential requisite for sight. It is plain in our daily life. Among the lights, the sunlight is the most important. Hence they speak of the glory of millions of suns.

Q: I cannot go within sufficiently deeply.

RM: It is wrong to say that. Where are you now, if not in the Self? Where can you go? All at is necessary is the stern belief that you are the Self. It is better to say that the other activities throw a veil over you.

- Conscious Immortality (Roy Eugene Davis)

The Best Asana for Self-Realization

 

Q: Is it good to devote some time to stay healthy?

Annamalai Swami: "It is difficult to do sādhana if the body is not in good condition. Hatha yoga is one way of staying healthy. Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) used to say, however, that of all the different āsanās, nidhidhyāsanā is the best. He would then add that nidhidhyāsanā means abidance in the Self.

"Don’t pay too much attention to the body. If you worry about the well-being of your body, you identify with it more and more. Look at it as a useful vehicle: maintain it, fuel it properly and repair if it breaks down, but don’t become attached to it. If you can keep your attention on the Self without being distracted by unpleasant bodily sensations, you are healthy enough to do sādhana. If you do your meditation earnestly and continuously you will begin to find that health problems will not distract you. When your abidance in the Self is firm and strong, you cease to be aware of the body and its pains.

""   "We must take care of the body by giving it food, shelter and clothing. This is necessary because the journey to the Self is only easy when the body is healthy. If a ship is not in need of repair, if it is in good condition, we can easily use it to go on a journey. But we should not forget the purpose for which we have been given this body." 

ALL ONE

Question: Is it necessary to renounce the world?

Anandamayi Ma: "No, why? Where is the place where God is not? The natural way of life itself could be transformed into the spiritual way of life. In fact, there is nothing which can be 'other' to God; so properly speaking, to live in the world is to be on the way to Self-realization. Since this perspective has been lots to us we perforce speak in the language of  'otherness to God'. To realize one's self means to discover that there is naught else except God, God alone is, and all else is God only."

The Path to Self-Abidance

 “Fold back the speech into the mind. Fold the mind into the intellect. Fold that intellect into the ‘witness’ of the intellect. After gaining perfectly the attitude of a witness to one’s own thought processes, this witnessing faculty also should be folded into the tranquil Atman, the Supreme Self.”

 

-Kathopanishad 1.3.13

Isvara Pranidhana (Surrender of the Ego)

  

Lord, take me where You want me to go;
Let me meet who You want me to meet;
Tell me what You want me to say; and
Keep me out of your way.

Father Mychal Judge

Realization

 

"To me, there is no desire for the continuance of enjoyments, nor for the abandoning of enjoyments, Whatever comes, let it come. Whatever departs let it go.

"When the mind is destroyed by the mind and has arrived at the state devoid of egotism, and when thought has dropped down (or vanished) through thought, I remain self-abiding and alone"

-"The Story of Prahlaaada" in The Essence of Yoga Vasishta (Samata Books)

Vedanta from the Creator of HBO's 'Deadwood'

 

"When I was writing Deadwood, my formal voice changed....The reason that happened then I think is that I accepted that the formal voice is God's voice. No matter how you distort it or reverb it, it's still God's voice. Once you accept that, when you're writing, the question becomes, what would be necessary to God, if the narrator has to be true to the narrator's nature and the characters have to be true to their natures? If we were to say that God as a narrator wants to place the characters in a situation most congenial to their discovery of their deepest nature - which is that their sense of themselves as separate is predicated on an upper misapprehension, and they are all one thing - how would you go about telling the story."

"...The idea of being an auteur, I don't believe in that. I don't care whose name is on a script. We are organs of a larger organism which knows us although we do not know it. I regard myself as vessel of whatever that larger organism is, its instrument, rather than as the source of the scenes. So a lot of what I do is try to get out of the way. That's the way I work in my writing. That's the way I work with the actors. That's he way I edit. It put me in the path of an enormous amount of energy."

-David Milch, writer of creator/writer of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, in his recent memoir, Life's Work.