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Nondual Highlights Issue #2510, Wednesday, June 28, 2006, Editor: Mark



We are 'what' we think ...

All that we are, arises with our 'thoughts' ...
With our 'thoughts' we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And 'trouble' will follow you ...

As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

-The Buddha,
Dhammapada, posted to Poetic_Mysicism





If one finds waning interest in things external but no special joy in inwardness, one may well be approaching the danger zone of no- man's land where one belongs neither to the world nor to the Truth. The way out is to revive one's spirit of enquiry.

To accept someone as one's Guru implies investing total faith in Him, in what the Guru says. And what does Bhagavan (Sri Ramana Maharshi) say? He says that the Self alone is and that the Guru and the Self are non-different. If one had total faith in Bhagavan, the moment one hears or reads, the moment one knows what Bhagavan says, those words should become one's own experience. (52) Thus to have total faith in Bhagavan as Guru means to experience His presence as the Self.It is faith in His words which keeps us at self-enquiry. What is this self-enquiry that one strives to pursue? The process seems simple enough. Bhagavan has explained that the sense of "I", one's identity, the feeling that "I am so and so", exists only in the waking and dream states. Even in dream it often undergoes drastic changes of name, form, circumstance and so on. And in deep sleep, the identity, this "I"-thought as Bhagavan calls it, is totally absent. However, in deep sleep one is not conscious of the experience that exists when identity ceases. To consciously observe the dissolution of the "I"-thought into the source constitutes self- enquiry.

Bhagavan has also clearly delineated the methodology for doing so. The means to track the "I"-thought to its source while remaining alert is to isolate it. The mind is a bundle of thoughts, in which each and every thought is linked with or can exist only in relation to the "I"-thought. Without the connection with the "I"-thought no other thought can subsist. The "I"-thought, although it is thus the central thought can also not exist by itself. That is, since it has no consciousness of its own but only reflects the consciousness of the Self, it cannot bear pointed scrutiny. Hence it camouflages itself by constantly associating itself with other thoughts. How to penetrate this camouflage is, therefore, the question. "By questioning the "I"-thought, by questioning its locus standi" answers Bhagavan. "When any thought arises ask of yourself "For whom is this thought?" The answer will come "For me". Then again ask "Who am I?" This question will scorch all other thoughts and attention will rest on the "I"-thought. Repeat this process as often as attention wanders to other thoughts and give attention invariably to the "I"-thought. Then it will automatically merge in the source, the Self.

There can be no doubt that self-enquiry is the sure means to Self- knowledge. But we must be sure that what we are practicing is self- enquiry as taught by Bhagavan.Having understood the technique clearly we fail to remember the attitude with the enquiry is to be made.Has not Bhagavan repeated that it is not merely a verbal question? To ask the question "Who am I?" one must really be in doubt about one's true nature.

If the enquiry is real, it is bound to prevent the rising of any other thoughts, on any motivation. Only the intense searchlight of attention on the "I"-thought will remain and then the "I"-thought will automatically dissolve into its source, the Self.
- Sarada Nataragan, from
Surging Joy, posted to MillionPaths





To be able to apprehend without knowing
is to be at the pivot-trigger of the dao.

- Zhuangzi, posted to AdvaitaToZen





Among the great things which are to be found
among us, the Being of Nothingness is the
greatest.

- Leonardo Da Vinci, posted to AlongTheWay





Birth is not a beginning
Death is not an end.
There is existence without limitation
There is continuity without a starting-point.

Existence without limitation is space.
Continuity without a starting point is time.

There is birth, there is death,
There is issuing forth, there is entering in.

That through which one passes in and out
Without seeing its form ...

That is the 'Portal of God.'
The 'Portal of 'God' is 'non-existence'
All things sprang from 'non-existence'

Existence could not make existence existence
It proceeded - manifested from non-existence.

And non-existence and nothing are one.
Herein is the abiding-place of the sage.

- Lao Tse, posted to Poetic_Mysticism

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