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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3031, Saturday, December 29, 2007, Editor: Mark
Everything spontaneously appears or happens without any entity
with any volition being behind it.
- Gilbert Schultz, posted to NondualitySalon
It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in
the results of your efforts - the motive, the desire, the failure
to achieve, the sense of frustration - all this holds you back.
Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That
Question: I see you doing things. How can you say that you never
perform actions?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: The radio sings and speaks, but if you open
it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like
the space; though this body speaks like the radio, there is no
one inside as a doer.
Question: I find this hard to understand. Could you please
elaborate on this?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Various illustrations are given in books to
enable us to understand how the jnani can live and act without
the mind, although living and acting require the use of the mind.
The potter's wheel goes on turning round even after the potter
has ceased to turn it because the pot is finished. In the same
way, the electric fan goes on revolving for some minutes after we
switch off the current. Prarabdha (predestined Karma) which
created the body will make it go through whatever activities it
was meant for. But the jnani goes through all these activities
without the notion that he is the doer of them. It is hard to
understand how this is possible. The illustration generally given
is that the jnani performs actions in some such way as a child
that is roused from sleep to eat eats but does not remember next
morning that it ate. It has to be remembered that all these
explanations are not for the jnani. He knows and has no doubts.
He knows that he is not the body and he knows that he is not
doing anything even though his body may be engaged in some
activity. These explanations are for the onlookers who think of
the jnani as one with a body and cannot help identifying him with
his body.
- Ramana Maharshi, from The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi,
edited by David Godman
It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between
the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to
walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just
find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But
when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse
to play the game, you are out of it.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That
Question:
What do we experience when we connect with our real self? How
does that experience change the way we live our own life?
Answer:
You no longer create suffering for yourself. Anger, resentment,
regret, grievances, anxiety, guilt, etc, which are all
inseparable from the egoic state of consciousness, no longer
arise. And when you no longer create suffering for yourself, you
no longer create suffering for others. You have deep empathy, not
only with other human beings, but also with nature and all life
forms. You see all life forms as manifestations of the one
formless and eternal Life, which is what you are in essence, and
you can sense that essence not only in yourself, but in all
beings. In other words, everywhere you encounter yourself.
- Eckhart Tolle
When Realization dawns, then what happens? You are no longer
'you'. You remain established in the inner silence and freedom
without any concern for your welfare, content with whatever comes
along - and life goes on in perfect effortlessness.
- Ramesh Balsekar
Here's a video clip of Adyashanti on this topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWOYbXS8Dgk&feature=related
Here's a printed interview with Eckhart Tolle you may find
interesting:
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/eckharttolle.htm
link posted to The_Now2