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Nondual Highlights: Issue #3004, Sunday, December 2, 2007, Editor: Mark
What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual p
ath Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I surrender!"
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
- Hafiz, posted to Adyashantigroup
The search for Self Realization is the search for Self, and this
search is being made by the Self. The Self is seeking itself. The
irony is hilarious if you think about it, and yet can be
extremely frustrating when one feels bombarded by anxiety,
suffering and even frustration. Frustrated by frustration. It
becomes an evil circle. Suffering due to suffering. Anxious
because you want to end anxiety. Angry that you can't break free
of anger. Yet all of these emotions are simply appearing in
awareness. You need only shift your perspective and drop the
identification and attachment, and ultimately ask - To whom is
this arising? The moment this question is asked, immediately the
arrow points back toward the Self. One may not have instantaneous
realization, but awareness is now shifting, away from the object
and back to the subject, back to Self. It doesn't mean it won't
encounter something on the way. If you are away from your home
and you decide to return there, turning around and heading in
that direction doesn't mean that you are instantly at home. You
may walk past many things along the way, but ultimately you get
home. You are heading in the right direction. With inquiring into
who you are, you are directing the mind back to its home, its
source. And this inquiry can instantly bring you back to home.
However, you may continue to be aware of more internalized things
'along the way'. Just know that you are still pointing in the
direction of home and no matter what arises, simply inquire to
whom it is arising.
- Aja, from In This Moment
You cannot deliberately progress towards an open state, you can
only see clearly that you are in a blocked state. So, you let
your body-mind slowly become more open to your conviction that
you can attain nothing. That you are going to die in total
stupidity. You may die in the very next moment, so there is no
time to reach anything, to achieve anything. In sadhana you live
with the feeling that you are going to die the very next minute;
thus, you no longer make strategies and you just do things for
the sake of doing them. If you think that you will die within two
minutes, what do you do ? Nothing. You don't call anybody, you
don't think of anything, you just totally enjoy seeing, feeling,
smelling, listening to the last seconds of your life, the beauty
of life.
- Éric Baret
All spiritual methods are eventually realized to be useless, and
yet they are useful at the same time. They are useless becasue
consciousness is already the case. They are useful because they
help clarify and calm the mind so that we can more readily
recognize that consciousness is already the case.
- Philip Mistlberger
The seeker is he who is in search of himself.
Give up all questions except one: `Who am I?' After all, the only
fact you are sure of is that you are. The `I am' is certain. The
`I am this' is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.
To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what
you are not.
Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings thoughts, time,
space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you
perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you
are not what you perceive.
The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be
described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to
the end of your search and realize that you are the limitless
being.
- Nisargadatta, from I Am That
We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term.
But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real?
All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real
that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to
help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then
reality alone will remain, and we will be that.
- Ramana Maharshi
You think of the Path
As a long arduous climb
Up the mountain.
You concede there may be
Many paths
But you're sure
All have the same
Exalted goal.
Ram Tzu knows this...
There ARE many Paths.
Like streams
They flow effortlessly
(though not necessarily painlessly)
Down the mountain.
All disappear
Into the desert sands below
- Ram Tzu