Rupert Spira - What is the "I "?

What is the "I "?

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Unmani - Devastation to Transformation

Photo by Olivier Malcor

Photo by Olivier Malcor

Waking up to the truth of your nature as Life itself is nothing less than total devastation, that once begun, snowballs into an never-ending mysterious transformation. Everything you have believed about yourself and about your life is thrown into disarray. Structures that were previously believed to be solid, are seen to be illusory. Wherever you have believed you could stand safely is seen to be just a temporary experience, that can never be permanently grasped. All the passing personal identities that play out are seen to be only masks that Life itself likes to play with, but none of them are ever your true face. It is like sand slipping through your fingers. You can never find what you were looking for. Nothing can ever be grasped or held on to. It is an endless losing what you think you know, like a wave of destruction that leaves nothing but what is true - See more at: http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/devastation-to-transformation/#sthash.7mYPbQQT.dpuf

Photo by Olivier Malcor

Waking up to the truth of your nature as Life itself is nothing less than total devastation, that once begun, snowballs into an never-ending mysterious transformation. Everything you have believed about yourself and about your life is thrown into disarray. Structures that were previously believed to be solid, are seen to be illusory. Wherever you have believed you could stand safely is seen to be just a temporary experience, that can never be permanently grasped. All the passing personal identities that play out are seen to be only masks that Life itself likes to play with, but none of them are ever your true face. It is like sand slipping through your fingers. You can never find what you were looking for. Nothing can ever be grasped or held on to. It is an endless losing what you think you know, like a wave of destruction that leaves nothing but what is true.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Real Mind is beyond the Mind

source Kopp Delaney

Questioner: On several occasions the question was raised as to whether the universe is subject to the law of causation, or does it exist and function outside the law. You seem to hold the view that it is uncaused, that everything, however small, is uncaused, arising and disappearing for no known reason whatsoever.
Maharaj: Causation means succession in time of events in space, the space being physical or mental. Time, space, causation are mental categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.

Q: As long as the mind operates, causation is a valid law.
M: Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free.

Q: Yes, one can see that ultimately to speak of one thing being the only cause of another thing is altogether wrong. Yet, in actual life we invariably initiate action with a view to a result.
M: Yes, there is a lot of such activity going on, because of ignorance. Would people know that nothing can happen unless the entire universe makes it happen, they would achieve much more with less expenditure of energy.

Q: If everything is an expression of the totality of causes, how can we talk of a purposeful action towards an achievement?
M: The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at a particular point. It is the illusion of time that makes you talk of causality. When the past and the future are seen in the timeless now, as parts of a common pattern, the idea of cause-effect loses its validity and creative freedom takes its place.

Q: Yet, how can anything come to be without a cause?
M: When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be without a particular cause. Your own mother was not needed to give you birth; you could have been born from some other woman. But you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without the most important factor: your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something tangible or conceivable. Thus is created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.

Q: What do you mean by holes? And how to find them?
M: Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them—your very seeing them will make them go.

Q: Since my seeing the contradiction makes it go, is there no causal link between my seeing and its going?
M: The concept of causality does not apply to chaos.

Q: To what extent is desire a causal factor?
M: One of the many. For everything there are innumerable causal factors. But the source of all that is, is the infinite Possibility, the Supreme Reality, which is in you and which throws its power and light and love on every experience. But, this source is not a cause and no cause is a source. Because of that, I say everything is uncaused. You may try to trace how a thing happens, but you cannot find out why a thing is as it is. A thing is as it is, because the universe is as it is.

 Excerpts from 'I am That' Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated by Maurice Frydman.

Anthony De Mello - Awareness

source Kopp Delaney

“Come home to yourself. Observe yourself. That’s why I said earlier that self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary thing. After a while you don’t have to make any effort, because, as illusions begin to crumble, you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness. Everything changes and you become addicted to awareness. 

 There’s the story of the disciple who went to the master and said, Could you give me a word of wisdom? Could you tell me something that would guide me through my days. It was the master’s day of silence, so he picked up a pad. It said, Awareness. When the disciple saw it, he said, This is too brief. Can you expand on it a bit? So the master took back the pad and wrote, Awareness, awareness, awareness. The disciple said, Yes, but what does it mean? The master took back the pad and wrote, Awareness, awareness, awareness means awareness. 

That’s what it is to watch yourself. No one can show you how to do it, because he would be giving you a technique, he would be programming you. But watch yourself. When you talk to someone, are you aware of it or are you simply identifying with it? When you got angry with somebody, were you aware that you were angry or were you simply identifying with your anger? Later, when you had the time, did you study your experience and attempt to understand it? Where did it come from? What brought it on? I don’t know of any other way to awareness. You only change what you understand. What you do not understand and are not aware of, you repress. You don’t change

Rumi - Choose Love

Because of the beloved
my heart is happy,
my soul illuminated.

From the beloved’s greenery
hundreds of blessed rivers
are flowing to the rose gardens.

In order to enter into your rose garden,
the soul makes peace with the thorns.

Choose love. Choose love.
Without this beautiful love,
life is nothing but a burden.

Hafiz - I have learned so much

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
and freed
Me
Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

Nisargadatta Maharaj - Awareness is Free

source Georgos Tsamakdas

source Jane Adams

 “Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness. As waves they come and go. Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence. These are all metaphors of course; the reality is beyond description. You can know it only by being it.”

“The main thing is to be free of negative emotions — desire, fear etc., the ‘six enemies’ of the mind. Once the mind is free of them, the rest will come easily. Just as cloth kept in soap water will become clean, so will the mind get purified in the stream of pure feeling.

When you sit quiet and watch yourself, all kinds of things may come to the surface. Do nothing about them, don’t react to them; as they have come so will they go, by themselves. All that matters is mindfulness, total awareness of oneself or rather, of one’s mind.

You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know what you are not. The Self is known as being, the not-self is known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The observed, observation and observer are mental constructs. The Self alone is.

To divide and particularize is in the mind’s very nature. There is no harm in dividing. But separation goes against fact. Things and people are different, but they are not separate. Nature is one, reality is one. There are opposites, but no opposition.

Use every opportunity to remind yourself that you are in bondage, that whatever happens to you is due to the fact of your bodily existence. Desire, fear, trouble, joy, they cannot appear unless you are there to appear to. Yet, whatever happens, points to your existence as a perceiving center. Disregard the pointers and be aware of what they are pointing to. It is quite simple, but it needs be done. What matters is the persistence with which you keep on returning to yourself.

The body is a material thing and needs time to change. The mind is but a set of mental habits, of ways of thinking and feeling, and to change they must be brought to the surface and examined. This also takes time. Just resolve and persevere, the rest will take care of itself.

Don’t bully yourself. Violence will make you hard and rigid. Do not fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way. Just be interested in them, watch them, observe, enquire. Let anything happen — good or bad. But don’t let yourself be submerged by what happens.

The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun during solar eclipse. Just realize that nothing observable, or experienceable is you, or binds you. Take no notice of what is not yourself.

To be aware is to be awake. Unaware means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.

The mind produces thoughts ceaselessly, even when you do not look at them. When you know what is going on in your mind, you call it consciousness. This is your waking state — your consciousness shifts from sensation to sensation, from perception to perception, from idea to idea, in endless succession.

Then comes awareness, the direct insight into the whole of consciousness, the totality of the mind. The mind is like a river, flowing ceaselessly in the bed of the body; you identify yourself for a moment with some particular ripple and call it: ‘my thought’. All you are conscious of is your mind; awareness is the cognizance of consciousness as a whole.

There is consciousness, in which everything appears and disappears. Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness. As waves they come and go. As ocean they are infinite and eternal. Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence. These are all metaphors of course; the reality is beyond description. You can know it only by being it.

If you want to live sanely, creatively and happily- search for what you are. While the mind is centered in the body and consciousness is centered in the mind, awareness is free. The body has its urges and mind its pains and pleasures. Awareness is unattached and unshaken. It is lucid, silent, peaceful, alert and unafraid, without desire and fear. Meditate on it as your true being and try to be it in your daily life, and you shall realize it in its fullness.

Mind is interested in what happens, while awareness is interested in the mind itself. The child is after the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the toy.

One is what one is timelessly. It is the mind that realizes as it gets cleared of desires and fears. The man who seeks realization is not addicted to desires; he is a seeker who goes against desire, not with it. A general longing for liberation is only the beginning; to find the proper means and use them is the next step. The seeker has only one goal in view: to find his own true being. Of all desires it is the most ambitious, for nothing and nobody can satisfy it; the seeker and the sought are one and the search alone matters.

The seeker will dissolve, the search will remain. The search is the ultimate and timeless reality. The search for reality is itself the movement of reality. In a way all search is for the real bliss, or the bliss of the real. But here we mean by search the search for oneself as the root of being conscious, as the light beyond the mind. This search will never end, while the restless craving for all else must end, for real progress to take place.

One has to understand that the search for reality, or God, or Guru and the search for the Self are the same; when one is found, all are found. When ‘I am’ and ‘God is’ become in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is. The two are one.

Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.

As long as you are a beginner certain formalized meditations, or prayers may be good for you. But for a seeker for reality there is only one meditation — the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts. To be free from thoughts is itself meditation.

You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don’t get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it.

Don’t go by past experience. Watch your thoughts and watch yourself watching the thoughts. The state of freedom from all thoughts will happen suddenly and by the bliss of it you shall recognise it.

I am reading newspapers, I know what is going on [with wars and suffering in the world]. But my reaction is not like yours. You are looking for a cure, while I am concerned with prevention. As long as there are causes, there must also be results. As long as people are bent on dividing and separating, as long as they are selfish and aggressive, such things will happen. If you want peace and harmony in the world, you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds.

Such change cannot be imposed; it must come from within. Those who abhor war must get war out of their system. Without peaceful people how can you have peace in the world? As long as people are as they are, the world must be as it is. I am doing my part in trying to help people to know themselves as the only cause of their own misery. In that sense I am a useful man. But what I am in myself, what is my normal state cannot be expressed in terms of social consciousness and usefulness.

I may talk about it, use metaphors or parables, but I am acutely aware that it is just not so. Not that it cannot be experienced. It is experiencing itself! But it cannot be described in the terms of a mind that must separate and oppose in order to know.

The world is like a sheet of paper on which something is typed. The reading and the meaning will vary with the reader, but the paper is the common factor, always present, rarely perceived. When the ribbon is removed, typing leaves no trace on the paper. So is my mind — the impressions keep on coming, but no trace is left.

This world of yours, that so much needs looking after, lives and moves in your mind. Delve into it, you will find your answers there and there only. Man becomes what he believes himself to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself and you will find yourself to be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the mind.”

-Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1971~
Excerpts from “I Am That” Chapter 48

Lisa Kathleen - A Baldface Truth

And it is this: no matter how profoundly it is seen that there is nothing happening, no matter how completely it is known that existence is spontaneous smoke and mirrors, the exact opposite is always just as profoundly and completely present as well. Life, with all its joy and misery will keep on coming and there is nothing that can change that. Absolutely nothing.

This means that enlightenment, like life itself, is but a dream. What a crusher that can be! First we realize that life is a play, a movie, a projection, and we are simply its puppets. Then we realize that the nothingness of everything is present, then that it is just as unreal. And finally, if anger, resentment, confusion, fascination and enchantment are released we see that there is a very narrow path, the razor’s edge indeed, that traverses them both.

This is a tough road. The temptation to fall to either side is constantly present. The lure of the nothingness can be a true siren-call and despite the strangeness of it, I often long to return to experiencing the world as simply not real. While I lived in that land suffering was a joke and only the poor alien humans around me were experiencing it. The burden of life’s pains and cares was gone and I couldn’t even begin to imagine it back into action. Being there was a huge relief and absolutely an incomplete picture.

What tore me out of it was falling to the other side, i.e., life itself. It presented to me on a silver platter the most intense of experiences ever to come my way, each of them utterly challenging, utterly beyond my limited abilities to cope. I fell to the other side of that narrow edge and began a solid year of simply trying to get through each day. What a shock! I’d thought that I would never again have to live with the usual suspects eating me alive, but there it was. 

Welcome back into the world, Lisa…

There is no such animal as enlightenment, just like there is no such one called physical reality. Yet put the two together and call it “what is” and it’s close. Not a bullseye, as that’s unreal too, but close. Life just shows up, and the awakened part does too. For me it was first total ignorance of all but physicality and my own inner world, then it expanded into seeing the invisible as being awesomely present in each nano-moment. My confusion was in imagining that those two are separate and discreet and that one was better, more spiritual and hence more valuable than the other. Not true. And in seeking one and denigrating the other I lost sight of their unity. They cannot be separated and it’s self-deception to imagine them unequal or even different.

Everything is equal, in the beginning and the end. Meanwhile, we do what we do, are as we are, and with what is called luck (but is really just life showing up as it will) we believe in life, then we believe in nothingness, and then we just walk that sharp edge called “both”.

Here’s to narrow paths…

http://onespaciousness.wordpress.com/ 

Ibn Arabi - The world is illusory

The world is illusory: it has no real existence.
This is what is meant by "imagination"
(Idiayaly). You have been made to
imagine that the world is something separate
and independently real, outside of the
Absolute. But in reality it is not so. Do you
not see that in the world of sensory things
a shadow is attached to the person from
whom it originates and that it is impossible
to separate a thing from its essence'?
Therefore know thy own essence and who
thou art, what thy inmost nature is and
what thy relation is to the Absolute. Know
in what respect thou art the Absolute, in
what respect the world, and in what respect
"other" (than God), "different," etc. And
here it is that "knowers" become ranked according
to degrees.