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.

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