Adyashanti - The Quest

The Quest

The quest for enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. It’s not a quest for ideas about truth—that’s philosophy. And it’s not a quest to realize your fantasies about truth—that’s fundamentalized religion. It’s a quest for truth on truth’s terms. It’s a quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence.

In your quiet moments of honesty, you know that you are not who you present yourself as, or who you pretend to be. Although you have changed identities many times, and changed them even in the course of a single day, none of them fit for long. They are all in a process of constant decay. One moment you’re a loving person, the next an angry one. One day you’re an indulgent, worldly person; the next a pure, spiritual lover of God. One moment you love your image of yourself, and the next you loathe it. On it goes, identified with one self-image after another, each as separate and false as the last.

When this game of delusion gets boring or painful enough, something within you begins to stir. Out of the unsatisfactoriness of separation arises the intuition that there is something more real than you are now conscious of. It is the intuition that there is truth, although you do not know what it is. But you know, you intuit, that truth exists, truth that has absolutely nothing to do with your ideas about it. But somehow you know that the truth about you and all of life exists.

Once you receive this intuition, this revelation, you will be compelled to find it. You will have no choice in the matter. You will have consciously begun the authentic quest for enlightenment, and there is no turning back. Life as you’ve known it will never be quite the same.

A great Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” If there is a primary practice or path to enlightenment, this is it—to cease cherishing illusions. Seeking truth can be a game, complete with a new identity as a truth-seeker fueled by new ideas and beliefs. But ceasing to cherish illusions is no game; it’s a gritty and intimate form of deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth. You don’t find truth as much as you stumble upon it when you have cast away your illusions.

As the master said, “Do not seek the truth.” But you can’t stop seeking just because some ancient Zen master said to. Seeking is an energy, a movement toward something. Spiritual seekers are moving toward God, nirvana, enlightenment, ultimate truth, whatever. To seek something, you must have at least some vague idea or image of what it is you are seeking. But ultimate truth is not an idea or an image or something attained anew. So, to seek truth as something objective is a waste of time and energy. Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Seeking what you are is as silly as your shoes looking for their soles by walking in circles. What is the path that will lead your shoes to their soles? That’s why the Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth.” Instead, cease cherishing illusions.

To cease cherishing illusions is a way of inverting the energy of seeking. The energy of seeking will be there in one form or another until you wake up from the dream state. You can’t just get rid of it. You need to learn how to invert it and use the energy to deconstruct the illusions that hold your consciousness in the dream state. This sounds relatively simple, but the consequences can seem quite disorienting, even threatening. I’m not talking about a new spiritual technique here; I’m talking about a radically different orientation to the whole of your spiritual life. This is not a little thing. It is a very big thing, and your best chance of awakening depends on it. “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” And if you’re like most spiritually oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that.

Adyashanti

Anamika - Insights

Insights.
Are they true? 

Or they seem clear and we just assume that
they are true because there is clarity?


How do we know?  
How do we know anything?

And how can this passion for truth lead to anything anyway,
as at the end of everything,  when one really goes to the end,  there is nothing.  

Emptiness 
Everything falls apart,  returns to source. 
Void.  

At the end of everything is Nothing.   And at the beginning as well.

All expressions,  all intimations,  insights,  come up and disappear. 
Born out of Emptiness and returns.  
Only Emptiness remains.


Insights can point to the direction of truth at the moment of expression,  
but then they are instantly passed their prime.
Their moment of glory is immediate, never to return.

The pointing to what Is, eternal and unchanging is true,   is real.
Is the golden grail all through the ages,  the alchemist gold, 
the description of nirvana,  the diamond of the sutras. 
But the language used to express becomes
archaic and out dated in no time. 
As This is ever fresh and new,  and cannot be captured by any word, 
not even the most sublime as it defies all descriptions.
 
Its beyond the known, 
beyond language, 
beyond labels, 
its always pristine, 
always experienced in the ever present Now.  
Its the ever ongoing open experiencing of all that is.

Try as you might, 
you will never not be this,

As this is All there.

Potshots

Bede Griffiths - Christ within

“The resurrection does not consist merely of the appearances of Jesus to his disciples after his death. Many think that these appearances in Galilee and Jerusalem are the resurrection. But they are simply to confirm the faith of the disciples. The real resurrection is the passing beyond the world altogether. It is Jesus' passage from this world to the Father. It was not an event in space and time, but the passage beyond space and time to the eternal, to reality. Jesus passed into reality. That is our starting point.

It is into that world that we are invited to enter by meditation. We do not have to wait for physical death, but we can enter now into that eternal world. We have to go beyond the outer appearances of the senses and beyond the concepts of the mind, and open ourselves to the reality of Christ within, the Christ of the resurrection.”

 ― Bede Griffiths, The New Creation in Christ

Satsang with Jac O'Keefe

Jac You Tube channel

Satsang with Jac O'Keefe

Jac: Is there anybody here who's totally new to satsang ? No ? All veterans ? Okay then. We'll go straight for it.

Just drop on the inside, whatever that means for you. Don't think about it. Just drop on the inside and let it be okay to have nothing going on. Mind will grab a thought - oh it's boring, something should be happening, I should be saying something, I should be someplace, I forgot to make a phone call. It's all bonkum. Including anything I can say now. Do you use the work bonkum ? No ? Okay, rubbish. Because it's already too late. The moment that a mouth is open there is a concept and the chances are something is investing in the concept, something is believing in it, bingo we're out in the world, out in me, my, mine and pain will follow. Is it okay for there to be nothing happening ? Because liberation seems to have been set up in a context that our Western mind is used to - It's a goal, it's a target. There will be brownie points when I get there. Let's blow up the bubble because the show is over. It's not another way of living or experiencing or it's not another state. It's just what you are. And everything else is seen to have been nothing anyway. What you thought you were wasn't real anyway. So it's more that the show is over. But there seems to be this movie called creation still going on a bit. But you're not really caught in it cause it's not about you, you were never in it. So is it really okay to have the show over ? If the question arises feel free to ask. Silence is fine too. At some point the questions will stop. They haven't started yet but they mightn't start and that's okay too. But at some point the questions will stop in whatever you feel is your mind. And it's not that you come to the end of all the answers that are possible. It's just that questions are seen as more distraction. A prolonging of that belief that there is something to fix, something to work out, something to analyze, something to put to bed someplace. Not so. Seeing that it's all just futile and just running round and round about. That's about as clear as it's going to get.

Whatever might be yet to let go of, yet to be healed, yet to get closure on - you don't need closure on anything. Nothing needs to be healed, nothing needs to be resolved. Nothing. No passions or habits need to be broken. It's just mind giving you something else that you might have believed to be true in order to keep the show going. It's a great trick. And while you hear this you might think –I don't really want it so and that's what stops liberation, that's what keeps it out there. You think you want it, but you don't. One wants the show to continue. To experiencing the highs and lows except when pain comes and then you want out but you can't pick and choose. The idea of who you think you are is still running or it's not. There's not a designer option. What you really are is never involved in creation anyway and doesn't know a thing about it because there are not two. There isn't what you are and the created world. There isn't even one actually. One is one too many too. One is one too many. So now we're left with nothing again.

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Rick Linchitz - No You and No Me

WHY DOES CONSCIOUSNESS invent so may billions of individual stories? Why do we sit here?
The mind is always trying to control and understand the story and it can never do that because it’s actually part of the story. It only exists within the story. When the story is seen through and no longer believed as having independent reality, the mind is also seen as complete illusion. And in that seeing, all questions dry up. You don’t get any answers but there are no longer any questions. The questions dry up because there’s a knowing, too, that it just doesn’t matter. There’s a deep trust in the perfection of all and with that trust there is an, ok, I don’t know and I never will know. It’s such perfection seen in what is that there’s no need to search for anything. It’s so complete that there is no need for any questions.

There’s a need for the concept of individuality to find reason and purpose for everything. The beauty of awakening is no longer needing to ask that question. There’s a perfect embrace with the world just as it is, right in this present moment; there’s no need for anything to change. And every moment is like that—every moment in this eternal present, absolutely new, absolutely perfect, nothing to do, nowhere to go, just enjoying the show.

It doesn’t make for a good interview because eventually all the questions dry up and there’s a lot of blank airtime! It happens in satsang too. People start out asking questions and about half way through they just sit there and it’s pretty peaceful.

(Long silence)

read more Here

Rick Linchitz

  EVERY THOUGHT, every feeling, every emotion and every idea arises within this All There Is. There’s nothing outside of this. There’s nothing outside that can affect All There Is and. yet arising within this All There Is, is this idea that there are individuals. And along with this idea there is a belief that the individual can affect All There Is and, out of this simple idea, this simple confusion, all the seeking, the pain, the suffering arise. This is a real threat to the idea that we are individuals in charge of our destiny. This belief, which is just a thought which is arising in All There Is, is very precious.

Nirmala - The tired wanderer

the tired wanderer
loses the strength to go on
and in surrendering to hopelessness
is surprised to finally feel at home

the hurried creek
pauses in a cold, stony pool
and in sudden stillness
arrives
at the distant ocean

the frightened warrior decides
"I am ready to die"
and in willing abandon
becomes immortal

the fitful breeze
fades to calm in the afternoon heat
and in catching its breath
is reborn
as undying tradewinds

the troubled philosopher
finds nothing to believe in
and in unexpected silence
just smiles
at the still unanswered questions

the restless sea
becomes smooth and mirrors the clouds
and in ceasing all motion
rejoins
its own depths

the saddened lover
faces the loss of illusion once again
and in dying to passion
falls in love
with love itself

the weary sun
sinks into the embrace of the horizon
and in resting at last
welcomes other shores
to a new day

the book here

Devaji - The One Heart

The One Heart

In the human heart there lives this yearning and this pain to reunite in pure love. Every single one of us was disillusioned in some way with the conditional love that was felt in our families. And rightly so, because in truth this is not the love that you were seeking. How could it measure up to that which you know inside your heart to be true love, the union with your Beloved. Every heart holds the memory of this pure, ecstatic love.

Of course there’s been suffering. Of course we've been searching for that, but in all the wrong places; in places where it can not be found. We've been searching for the love externally that really has lived deep within our own heart all along, undiscovered because of this looking outward. The beauty of this journey is that it finds you again. In the reunion with the Beloved, the Beloved finds you. All that It wants is you.

Your true heart goes beyond the things that you love, beyond all the the expressions of joy. All of that is really still part of the character; the love of nature, of birds, of poetry, or of solitude. It feels so sacred and so connected but still, you are beyond even that. The love that you are is beyond everything that separates out one thing in favor of something else. Of course there is nothing wrong with any particular expression of love. The expression of love is beautiful but it is not the totality of who you are.

At some point you will be freed of absolutely everything, every preference, every perspective, every bit of knowingness. Here is the reunion of love that the character has always searched for: the absolute complete and total envelopment that is timeless and never-ending, that never judges, never abandons you, the total immersion into love itself where once again there is no you and another; totally merged like the raindrop falling into the ocean, knowing beyond reason that everything else was never really real.

Every heart has emerged from this one love and every heart has been longing to be home again. All the  great mystics realized the same thing that we know to be true deep down in our hearts; you are what you've been searching for. Let your heart rest in what your heart itself knows to be true. Have compassion for the wandering human mind looking for its true love in all the wrong places.

Every place in the heart that was hurt in the search folded upon itself. In opening in this moment, in trusting in the true nature of your heart in this moment, all that has folded begins to unfold of its own accord like a blossoming flower. It is its natural way, just in allowing, just in witnessing, just in being. There is no one in control, every moment unfolding perfectly, the heart finding its true love again. It’s what everyone has always really wanted. It’s what everyone knows somewhere inside. It's the true nature of love.

All disturbances have been acquired. All external distractions have been conditioned.There is not one heart that does not arise out of this pure beauty. There is not one heart that will not return to this. Let everything hidden come up that wants to be seen, that wants to be felt, that wants to unfurl, so that your true love is revealed. Then what would you search for in this life? What would you need? In this union with your own heart, with the Beloved, everything unfolds absolutely perfectly, unfettered, unfiltered by what had done the containing and bottling up. The doors begin to swing wide open.

Wouldn’t you give everything up for this, every fear, every substitute desire? Everyone is welcome. There are no exceptions, everyone is welcome back home.  Let us sit in the knowingness of assured reunion with the Beloved. When the mind starts to speak, know it for what it is, just the mind doing its thing.

You cannot force the heart open any more than you can force a flower to open. It’s all being orchestrated. Your heart is opening in its own perfect time and you are free to stop micromanaging God’s unfolding of Its own heart. Let everything come back to perfect peace in honoring the one Heart that patiently waits within.

Devaji