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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3744, Sunday, December 13, 2009, Editor: Mark
The strange and beautiful thing about now is that it never leaves
you and it doesn't change, the field of now. Because the essence
of now is the unconditioned consciousness, the field in which all
phenomena happen.
- Eckhart Tolle, posted to The_Now2
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
Rumi, version by Coleman Barks from Essential Rumi
How do we think without thinking?
Think from the depths of non-thinking.
- Dogen, posted to AdvaitaToZen
Before the beginning you are pure Consciousness.
You are the Fullness of Love in Love
and the Emptiness of Awareness.
You are Existence and the Peace beyond peace.
You are that screen on which all is projected.
You are the Light of Knowledge,
the One who gave the concept of creation to the creator.
Forget what can be forgotten and know yourself
to be that which can never be forgotten.
You are the substratum on which everything moves,
let it move.
You are Now, you are Nowness:
what "I" is there which can be out of this Now?
You are Truth and only Truth Is.
- Papaji, from The Truth Is, posted to AlongTheWay
Self-forgetting is inherent in self-knowing. Consciousness and
unconsciousness are two aspects of one life. They co-exist. To
know the world you forget the self - to know the self you forget
the world. What is world after all? A collection of memories.
Cling to one thing that matters, hold on to 'I am' and let go all
else. This is sadhana. In realization there is nothing to hold on
to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is
remembered.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
Friday, December 11, 2009
At 5-30 p.m. the Swiss lady complains to Sri Bhagavan that she
gets a headache if meditation be prolonged for some time.
Ramana Maharshi: If the meditator and meditation be understood to
be the same there will be no headache or similar complaints.
Questioner: But they are different. How shall we consider them to
be the same?
Ramana Maharshi: That is due to your outlook. There is only one
and there are no differences. On meditation the relative
consciousness will vanish. That is not annihilation; for Absolute
Consciousness arises. The Bible itself says, "The Kingdom of
Heaven is within you." If you consider yourself to be the
body there is some difficulty in understanding the statement. On
the other hand if you know who you really are, the Kingdom of
Heaven and all are included in your true Self.
They are concepts arising after the ego has arisen. Drishtim
jnanamayeem krtva pasyet Brahmamayam jagat (Direct your look
within and make it absolute). With that absolute awareness
realised, look without and you will realise the universe to be
not apart from the realised Absolute.
Because your outlook is externally directed you speak of a
without. In that state you are advised to look within. This
within is relative to the without you are seeking. In fact, the
Self is neither without nor within. Speaking of Heaven one thinks
of it as above or below, within or without, since one is
accustomed to relative knowledge. One seeks only objective
knowledge and hence these ideas.
Really speaking there is neither up nor down, neither in nor out.
If they were real they must be present in dreamless sleep also.
For what is real must be continuous and permanent. Did you feel
`in' or `out' in sleep? Of course not.
Questioner: I do not remember.
Ramana Maharshi: If there was anything there that could be
remembered. But you admit your existence then. The same Self is
now speaking. The Self who was undifferentiated in sleep is
differentiated in the present state, and sees the diversity. The
Real Existence is the only One devoid of objective knowledge.
That is absolute consciousness. That is the state of happiness,
as admitted by all of us. That state must be brought about even
in this waking state. It is called jagrat sushupti. That is
mukti.
- Ramana Maharshi, from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi part 2