Peter Russell - The Path of no Path

Spiritual teachers with non-dual leanings say that there is no path to enlightenment. There is nowhere to get to; you are already enlightened, you just do not know it. There is no need for a technique or practice; they will only keep your mind trapped in the illusion of relative phenomena. Do not meditate; do nothing.

There certainly is a profound truth embedded in such statements. When awakening occurs, there is the realization that there really was nowhere else to get to, no higher state of consciousness to achieve. The world remains as it is, and your experience remains as it is. What shifts is your relationship to experience, or rather your non-relationship to it. The identification with a constructed sense of self is no longer there. “You” are not thinking, seeing, breathing; thinking, seeing, and breathing are just occurring. It is obvious that it always was this way; but all our wanting, striving, clinging, avoiding, and self-identification obscured this simple fact.

In this sense there is nothing to do. The very opposite: it is our doing that is the problem. When we let go of all attachments as to how things should or could be, we wake up to the truth of what is. Even the word enlightenment is misleading; it implies some other, “higher”, state of consciousness. This is what makes the statement “you are already enlightened” so confusing, But to say you are already awake, but not awake to your own wakefullness, or you are already aware, but not fully aware of awareness, makes more sense.

From the awakened perspective, it is true that there is nowhere to get to. This is why many teachers say: Do nothing. Stop. Don’t meditate. Don’t try and get somewhere other than you already are. There is nowhere to go. Nothing to do. There is no path.

And yet… Many of these teachers did tread a path. Some spent years investigating the true nature of our apparent “I-ness”. Others followed a path of total surrender, or a deep deconstruction of experience. My own glimpses of the truth have come in periods of deep mediation, when the mind is totally relaxed and still. Then I see so clearly there is nowhere to get to. And yet, if had not followed a path that allowed me to drop into a deep stillness and let go of my habitual mode of experience, I would not have fully appreciated this truth.

So from the unawake perspective—which is where I am most the time, and probably most of you are most the time—there are paths to follow. And, until such time as they are no longer needed, the paths that help the most are those that develop the skill of letting go, allowing the mind to relax, releasing all effort, all trying to get somewhere. So, do not meditate an intent to reach some enlightened state of being. But do take time to let the “doing mind” die away, to sink into your own being. Take time to learn how to do nothing.

 

text source: ScienceNonDuality

Vashishta - Deep inside of each one of us…

Deep inside of each one of us is light that is utterly peaceful
and quiet.
It is the you in me and the me in you.
It is unaffected and undisturbed by the outer world.
It is unchanged by birth and death.
It is not limited by time and space.
Teachers can teach you about the world, but only you can come to know the inner you.
This inner light is always pure, ever present, and free of sorrow.
Learn to rest in the Self.
Come to know the Bliss.

Deep inside of each one of us is light that is utterly peaceful
and quiet.
It is the you in me and the me in you.
It is unaffected and undisturbed by the outer world.
It is unchanged by birth and death.
It is not limited by time and space.
Teachers can teach you about the world, but only you can come to know the inner you.
This inner light is always pure, ever present, and free of sorrow.
Learn to rest in the Self.
Come to know the Bliss. - See more at: http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/deep-inside-of-each-one-of-us/#sthash.w92XygBh.dpuf

Miriam Louisa - Perhaps it is time?

Multiple exposure portrait by Christoffer Relander

would you believe me
if I assured you that
you can never be too old
(or too young)
to meet the unborn
deathless Bright
that is your actual identity?

would you believe me
if I whispered that you
and the world appearing
within that radiant
Knowingness
are inseparable
except in thought?

would you believe me
if I said, No, it is not
too late
to turn in, to dive down
into your immensity
and feel loved again by
your own shy Life?

if your days feel deadened
by weariness and futility,
if your world seems fragmented
and full of pain,
I implore you: please
don’t believe or not believe,
but glance, with thoughts
on hold,
at the ever-present invitation
to check this out for yourself

perhaps it is time?

      

 http://echoesfromemptiness.com/

Byron Katie - Thoughts

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, 

I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, 

I didn’t suffer, 

and that this is true for every human being.

 Freedom is as simple as that. 

I found that suffering is optional. 

I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. 

That joy is in everyone, always.

 http://www.thework.com/index.php

Rupert Spira - What is the "I "?

What is the "I "?

Listen and/or download free Podcasts HERE

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.

Continue reading HERE

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.