The Wisdom of Nisargadatta

[BlueStar]

I have felt the urge to write about Sri Nisargadatta Majaraj for some time now. So here goes!

I had been aware of his book “I Am That” for quite a while (well, actually it's not so much as book as a collection of live question and answer sessions, recorded and translated and produced in book form). It is widely renowned as one of the most powerful books of spiritual awakening ever written, or as many simply put it “the first and last spiritual book you’ll ever need to read.” That’s a bold statement, but its nevertheless maintained by many people that - assuming you are ready and open to it -once you work your way through this volume, you’ll have “GOT IT!" and any further seeking is simply unnecessary. I'm halfway through the book and in my view that statement is no exaggeration.

Nisargadatta had a remarkable gift for elucidating profound truths simply and powerfully using few words. His statements - often short and pithy yet deeply transformative - jump off the page and strike me with such power. I meditate upon his words and they dissolve into me; deeply resonant and alive. Many spiritual teachings lose themselves in the attempt to use words to convey that which is beyond words and their work becomes far more complex and convoluted than it needs to be, thus losing the original essence of what they seek to point to. All words are mere pointers - some pointers are more helpful than others, I guess depending upon the nature of the subject and the ability of the perceiver to receive them, as well as the clarity and expressiveness of the teacher. The words of Nisargadatta are among the most helpful pointers I've ever been given and pack such an incredible power that I had to share some of them!

Nisargadatta was born in Bombay on 17th April 1897 and passed away on 8th September 1981, aged 84. His outward life was seemingly unremarkable; raised on a farm, he later opened a shop selling clothes and tobacco, while marrying and having four children. It was when he was 34 that he was introduced to the man that became his guru. His guru’s instruction was clear and simple and is the basis of what might be deemed Nisargadatta’s essential teaching:

“When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realised within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.”

Living a very simple life following his spiritual realisation, he gave talks in his home amid the slums of Mumbai for the rest of his life, receiving thousands of visitors and having many of his discourses recorded, an assortment of which became edited into his famous “I Am That” as well as other books. As Dr Robert Powell says, “Like the Zen masters of old, Nisargadatta's style is abrupt, provocative, and immensely profound -- cutting to the core and wasting little effort on inessentials. His terse but potent sayings are known for their ability to trigger shifts in consciousness, just by hearing, or even reading them."

His teachings defy summarisation, but could be said to be rooted in the purpose of spirituality is to know who and what you are and to be rooted in that deepest essence of Self, referred to as the sense of “I am” (the sense of "I am" that is prior to “I am this” or “I am that”). Our true nature is boundless awareness - which is the source of, but distinguished from, the personal individual (egoic) consciousness, which is related to the body.

His book “I Am That” is quite simply the finest spiritual book I have ever read and has had a profound effect on me. I have found it deeply illuminating and would recommend it to anyone who is ready (and not everyone will be, I hasten to add. You will know in yourself whether this resonates). It is available online as a PDF file here (http://home.earthlink.net/~grharmon/I_Am_That.pdf). It is best to read it from start to finish rather than dipping in. It’s fairly advanced stuff which necessitates an open mind and heart. I knew I had to order a physical copy of the book just so I could attack it with a highlighter pen and underline all the bits which really jumped out at me (and it turns out that has necessitated a LOT of flourescent ink!)

[BlueStar]

What I would like to do is share some of my favourite quotations; words which I have found very powerful and transformative. I will keep adding to them, because there are a lot!

“Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you.”

“I see only consciousness, and know everything to be but consciousness, as you know the picture on the cinema screen to be but light.”

“My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you get stuck to things and get swept along with them.”

“You are the pure awareness that illuminates consciousness and its infinite content. Realise this and live accordingly. Go within and enquire “what am I?” or focus your mind on “I am”, which is pure and simple being.”

“Your self-image is the most changeful thing you have. It is utterly vulnerable, at the mercy of a passerby. A bereavement, the loss of a job, an insult, and your image of yourself, which you call your ‘person’, changes deeply. Separate consistently and perseveringly the ‘I am’ from ‘this’ and ‘that’ and try to feel what it means to BE, just to BE, without being ‘this’ or ‘that’.”

“To take appearance as reality is a grievous mistake and the cause of all calamities. You are the all-pervading, eternal and infinitely creative awareness - consciousness. All else is local and temporary. Don’t forget what you are.”

“All I say is: wake up, know yourself, be yourself.”

“When the psyche is raw, undeveloped, quite primitive, it is subject to gross illusions. As it grows in breadth and sensitivity, it becomes a perfect link between pure matter and pure spirit and gives meaning to matter and expression to spirit.”

“All perceivables are transient and, therefore, unreal. Only that which makes perception possible, call it Life or Brahman, or what you like, is real.”

“Mine is a non-verbal world. In your world the unspoken has no existence. In mine - the words and their contents have no meaning. In your world nothing stays, in mine - nothing changes. My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.”

“When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two.”

“The person is a very small thing. Actually it is a composite, it cannot be said to exist by itself. Unperceived, it is just not there. It is but the shadow of the mind, the sum total of memories. Pure being is reflected in the mirror of the mind, as knowing. What is known takes the shape of a person, based on memory and habit. It is but a shadow, or a projection of the knower onto the screen of the mind.”

“Your mind projects a structure and you identify with it. It is in the nature of desire to prompt the mind to create a world for its fulfilment.”

“Your personal universe does not exist by itself. It is merely a limited and distorted view of the real. It is not the universe that needs improving, but your way of looking.”

“Be fully aware of your own being and you will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your mind off your Self and make it dwell on what you are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of being well. [...] True happiness is spontaneous and effortless. Happiness is unshakable. What you can seek and find is not the real thing. Find what you have never lost, find the inalienable.”

“Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension. He pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way by which you got into it. You got into it by forgetting what you are, and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are.”

[SoulChild]

Hey, thanks for these quotes...this is great! :yourock:

[BlueStar]

Hey, thanks for these quotes...this is great! :yourock:

You are most welcome Elizabeth, glad you like them :) oh, and :yourock: too !

[SoulChild]

These are so awesome...and you couldn't have shared them in a more better time. This is really helping me. I just realized, I have not had any spiritual guidance in many years actually...but, I am really starting to feel alone, because my master teacher unfortunately is doing a life sentence. It is now sinking in emotionally, since we tried again and again for his release with no success.....not saying we are giving up on him...but, just reading these makes me realize how young (spiritually) I really am...and I can use some guidance/teaching......:girl_yes3 (1):

[BlueStar]

I'm glad you found these as helpful and enlightening as I do Elizabeth. It's taken me a long time to get back to this, but here are some more quoets I have highlighted from Nisargadatta's book "I Am That". I can't tell you what an effect his powerful words have on me. It's almost as though they MELT me....until all that's left is this state of being, of LOVE. I wanted to share...enjoy



All division is in the mind; there is none in reality.

Separation is an appearance. Just as the dream is not apart from the dreamer, the knowledge is the knower, the distinction is merely verbal.

When the sense of distinction and separation is absent, you may call it love.

Harmony between the inner and outer is happiness. On the other hand, self-identification with the outer causes is suffering. [...] It is the mind, bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking: “I am this”, “I am that”, that fears loss and craves gain and suffers when frustrated.

Living is life’s only purpose. The self does not identify with success or failure - the very idea of becoming this or that is unthinkable. The self understands that success and failure are relative and related, that they are the very warp and weft of life. Learn from both and go beyond.

You must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.

In the great mirror of consciousness, images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence - vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: “I-am-so-and-so”, obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and die.

Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions and repulsions, of scales and values, of motives and incentives; a mental world altogether. Biologically, we need very little; our problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires and fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind. You must conquer your mind and for this you must go beyond it.

Just remember yourself. “I am” is enough to heal your mind and take you beyond.

You give reality to concepts, while concepts are distortions of reality. Abandon all conceptualisation and stay silent and attentive.

There is only reality, in which no “thing” has any being on its own. Like waves inseparable from the ocean, so is all existence rooted in being.

Wisdom lies in never forgetting the self as the ever-present source of both the experiencer and his experience.

There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind.

Instead of searching for something for what you do not have, find what it is that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth or death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive.

When you have understood that all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful, and when you are willing to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being, you have gone beyond all need of help. You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you do not have and you don’t have what you are not. You can only give what you are - and of that you can give limitlessly.

[SoulChild]

Thank you so much..these are amazing me...I totally love this ;)

[BlueStar]

More quotes from Nisargadatta's "I Am That"... :)

Listen, remember and understand - the mind is both the actor and the stage. All is of the mind and you are not the mind. The mind is born and reborn, not you.

What is identity, after all? Continuity in memory? Can you talk of identity without memory?

The world is but a show, glittering and empty. It is, and yet it is not. [...] It appears exactly as it looks, but there is no depth in it, nor meaning. Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atma. To the Self the world is but a colourful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, yet all the time he is aware it is but a show. Without desire or fear he enjoys it, as it happens.

Desire nothing, for you lack nothing. The very seeking prevents you from finding.

Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover yourself as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover yourself as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there.

As long as you give reality to dreams, you are there slave. By imagining that you are born as so-and-so, you become a slave to the so-and-so. The essence of slavery is to imagine yourself to be a process, to have a past and a future, to have history.

Forget the known, but remember that you are the knower. Don’t be all the time immersed in your experiences. Remember that you are beyond the experiencer, ever unborn and deathless. In remembering it, the quality of pure knowledge will emerge, the light of unconditional awareness.

All happens as it needs, yet nothing happens. I do what seems to be necessary, but at the same time I know that nothing is necessary, that life itself is only make-belief.

When the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love. Get rid of all ideas about yourself, even of the idea that you are God. No self-definition is valid.

When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected!

Your weakness is due to your conviction that you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever recreated in you and by you. See everything as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being. You will find that in that light there is love and infinite energy.

[SoulChild]

This is one of the last things my master teacher taught me! Thanks for the reminder!

"Desire nothing, for you lack nothing. The very seeking prevents you from finding."

[BlueStar]

This is one of the last things my master teacher taught me! Thanks for the reminder!

"Desire nothing, for you lack nothing. The very seeking prevents you from finding."

You bet! The great universal truths can be presented in different ways by different teachers, but when the teaching is pure the truths are simple and cut to the heart of it. When we seek things to add to ourselves we are buying into the assumption that we are a separate little body/mind cut off from the rest of universe. The great teachers and even now quantum physicists tell us that this isn't the case. We lack nothing because we ARE everything :laugh:

[BlueStar]

More powerful words from Nisargadatta's "I Am That". Even though these are just fragments isolated from the conversations presented in that collection of his talks, I believe they are powerful and cut right to the essential truth of reality. I am humbled and grateful to have found his words. Enjoy :Boy_yes3:

More quotes by Sri Nisargadatta Majaraj

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j236/amoyan/Maharaj.jpg


What was never lost can never be found. Your very search for safety and joy keeps you away from them. Stop searching, cease losing. The disease is simple and the remedy equally simple. It is your mind that makes you insecure and unhappy. Anticipation makes you insecure, memory - unhappy. Stop misusing your mind and all will be well with you. You need not set it right - it will set itself right, as soon as you give up all concern with the past and future and live entirely in the NOW.

Only in the mind of man is there chaos. The mind does not grasp the whole - its focus is very narrow. It sees fragments only and fails to perceive the picture. Just as a man who hears sounds, but does not understand the language, may accuse the speaker of meaningless jabbering, and be altogether wrong. What to one is a chaotic stream of sounds, is a beautiful poem to another.

Your mind is the content of your consciousness; you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way.

Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion, that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realise that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear.

Any attempt to do something about your problems is bound to fail, for what is caused by desire can be undone only in freedom from desire. You have enclosed yourself in time and space, squeezed yourself into the span of a lifetime and the volume of a body and thus created the innumerable conflicts of life and death, pleasure and pain, hope and fear. You cannot be rid of problems without abandoning illusions.

How does personality come into being? By memory. By identifying the present with the past and projecting it into the future. Think of yourself as momentary, without past and future and your personality dissolves.

Don’t rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.

What is in the world cannot save the world; if you really want to help the world, you must step out of it.

Live your life intelligently, with the interests of your deepest self always in mind. After all, what do you really want? Not perfection; you are already perfect. What you seek is to express in action what you are. For this you have a body and a mind. Take them in hand and make them serve you.

You are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there because you find them interesting. Your very nature has the infinite capacity to enjoy. It is full of zest and affection. It sheds its radiance on all that comes within its focus of awareness and nothing is excluded. It does not know evil nor ugliness, it hopes, it trusts, it loves. You people do not know how much you miss by not knowing your true self. You are neither the body nor the mind, the fuel nor the fire. They appear and disappear according to their own laws.

The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun during a solar eclipse.

To be aware is to be awake. Unaware means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What is need to be is aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense “I am” tenaciously and not to swerve from it for even a moment. I did by best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realised within myself the truth of his teaching.

To be free from thoughts is itself meditation. You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don’t get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it.

The world is like a sheet of paper on which something is typed. The reading and the meaning will vary with the reader, but the paper is the common factor, always present, rarely perceived.

Man becomes what he believes himself to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself and you will find yourself to be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the mind.

[BlueStar]

More beautiful and enlightening words from Sri Nisargadatta. I hope you find them as powerful and deeply insightful as I do.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j236/amoyan/NisargadattaJean.jpg



Within the immensity of space floats a tiny atom of consciousness and in it the entire universe is contained.

[What happens to that spark of life after death?] It is beyond time. Birth and death are but points in time. Life weaves eternally its many webs. The weaving is in time, but life itself is timeless. Whatever name and shape you give to its expressions, it is like the ocean - never changing, ever changing.

There is trouble only when you cling to something. When you hold on to nothing, no trouble arises. The relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater. Give up all and you gain all. Then life becomes what it was meant to be: pure radiation from an inexhaustible source. In that light the world appears dimly like a dream.

Let the dream unroll itself to its very end. You cannot help it. But you can look at the dream as a dream, refuse it the stamp of reality.


Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an object. The object changes all the time. In consciousness there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and timeless, here and now.

[On the subject of someone who may die] So what? What does he gain by living on and what does he lose by dying? What was born, must die; what was never born cannot die. It all depends on what he takes himself to be.

Death is natural, the manner of dying is often man-made. Separateness causes fear and aggression, which again cause violence. Do away with man-made separations and all this horror of people killing each other will surely end. But in reality there is no killing and dying. The real does not die, the unreal never lived.

Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order in the world. In reality nothing happens. Onto the screen of mind destiny forever projects its pictures, memories of former projections and this illusion completely renews itself. The pictures come and go - light intercepted by ignorance. See the light and disregard the picture.

As long as you pay attention to ideas, your own or others, you will be in trouble. But if you disregard all teachings, all books, anything put into words and dive deeply within yourself and find yourself, this alone will solve all your problems and leave you in full mastery of every situation, because you will not be dominated by your ideas about the situation.

Your sadhana (spiritual practise) is to BE. The doing happens. Just be watchful. Where is the difficulty in remembering that you are? You ARE all the time.

I see things as they are, momentary events, presenting themselves to me in rapid succession, deriving their being from me, yet definitely neither me nor mine.

Why do you talk of action? Are you acting ever? Some unknown power acts and you imagine that you are acting.

Go back to that state of pure being, where ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it got contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am’. Your burden is of false self-identifications. Abandon them all. [...] I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ‘I am’ in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared - myself, my guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

Don’t you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which ‘I am’ is timelessly present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels, that disturbs.

You are the all-pervading, all-transcending reality. Behave accordingly: think, feel and act in harmony with the whole and the actual experience of what I say will dawn upon you in time.

Remember to remember: ‘whatever happens - happens because I AM.’ All reminds you that you are. Take full advantage of the fact that to experience, you must BE.

Remember the instruction: whatever you come across - go beyond.

Must you know everything beforehand? Don’t be anxious about your future - be quiet now and all will fall into place.

There is nothing to practise. To know yourself, BE yourself. To be yourself, stop trying to be this or that. Just BE. Let your true nature emerge. Don’t disturb your mind with seeking.

Life is NOW only. Do not talk to me about past and future - they exist only in your mind.

Until I met my Guru, I knew so many things. Now I know nothing, for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid. I know myself and I find no life nor death in me, only pure being - not being this or that, but just BEING. But the moment the mind, drawing on its stock of memories, begins to imagine, it fills the space with objects and time with events. It is the mind that, itself in movement, sees everything moving and having created time, worries about the past and future.

As all waves are in the ocean, so are all things physical and mental in awareness. Hence awareness itself is all-important, not the content of it. Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to you naturally and effortlessly.

You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in me. To you, you get born and die, while to me, the world appears and disappears. Our world is real, but your view of it is not. There is no wall between us, except the one built by you. There is nothing wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you. It covers up the world as it is, with what you imagine it to be - something existing independently of you and yet closely following your inherited, or acquired patterns. There is a deep contradiction in your attitude, which you do not see and which is the cause of sorrow. You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love, having its beginning, growth and fulfilment in love.

I am like a cinema screen - clear and empty - the pictures pass over it and disappear, leaving it as clear and empty as before.

Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Love says ‘I am everything’. And between the two my life flows.

All happened as it happened because it had to happen; everything happens as it does, because the universe is as it is.

Pain is physical; suffering is mental. Beyond the mind there is no suffering. Pain is merely a signal that the body is in danger and requires attention. Similarly, suffering warns us that the structure of memories and habits, which we call the person (vyakti), is threatened by loss or change. Pain is essential for the survival of the body, but none compels you to suffer. Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life.

[BlueStar]

More powerful, challenging words. Be open and just feel the ego crash and burn ;)


“All that lives, works for protecting, perpetuating and expanding consciousness. This is the world’s sole meaning and purpose.”

“The personal self by its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self. The ending of the self with its desires and fears enables you to return to your real nature, the source of all happiness and peace.”

“The very fact of observation alters the observer and the observed. After all, what prevents the insight into one’s true nature is the weakness and obtuseness of the mind and its tendency to skip the subtle and focus on the gross only. When you follow my advice and try to keep your mind on the notion of “I am” only, you become fully aware of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness, being lucid harmony (sattva) in action, dissolves the dullness and quietens the restlessness of the mind and gently but steadily changes its very substance. This change need not be spectacular; it may be hardly noticeable, yet it is a deep and fundamental shift from darkness to light, from inadvertence to awareness.”

“Keep steadily in the focus of consciousness the only clue you have: your certainty of being. Be with it, play with it, ponder it, delve deeply into it, till the shell of ignorance breaks open and you emerge into the realm of reality.”

“All happiness comes from awareness. The more we are conscious, the deeper the joy. Acceptance of pain, non-resistance, courage and endurance - these open deep and perennial sources of real happiness, true bliss.”

“When the mind takes over, remembers and anticipates, it exaggerates, it distorts, it overlooks. The past is projected into the future and the future betrays the expectations.”

“There is no good and evil. In every concrete situation, there is only the necessary and the unnecessary. The needful is right, the needless is wrong.”

“Every situation is a challenge which demands the right response. When the response is right, the challenge is met and the problem ceases.”

“In my world even what you call evil is the servant of the good. It is like boils and fevers that clear the body of impurities. Disease is painful, even dangerous, but if dealt with rightly, it heals.”

“In some cases death is the best cure. A life may be worse than death, which is but rarely an unpleasant experience, whatever the appearances. Therefore, pity the living, never the dead.”

“It is one of the peculiarities of a gnani (awakened one) that he is not concerned with the future. Your concern with the future is due to fear of pain and desire for pleasure, to the gnani all is bliss: he is happy with whatever happens.”

“There is nothing wrong with the world. What is wrong is in the way you look at it. It is your own imagination that misleads you. Without imagination there is no world. Your conviction that you are conscious of a world is the world. What you perceive is made of consciousness; what you call matter is consciousness itself. You are the space in which it moves, the time in which it lasts, the love that gives it life. Cut the imagination and attachment, and what remains?”

“When the mind is intensely interested, it becomes one with the object of interest - the seer and the seen become one in seeing, the hearer and the heard become one in hearing, the lover and the loved become one in loving. Every experience can be the ground for samadhi.”

“The main hindrance lies in our idea of, and addiction to, time, in our habit of anticipating a future in the light of the past. The sum total of the past becomes “I was”, the hoped for future becomes “I shall be” and life is a constant effort of crossing over from what “I was” to what “I shall be”. The present moment, the ‘now’, is lost sight of.”

“The present “I am” is as false as the “I was” and “I shall be”. It is merely an idea in the mind, an impression left by memory, and the separate identity it creates is false. This habit of referring to a false centre must be done away with; the notion “I see”, “I feel”, “I think”, “I do”, must disappear from the field of consciousness; what remains when the false is no more, is real.”

“The union of the seer with the seen happens when the seer becomes conscious of himself as the seer.”

“There is only life. There is nobody who lives a life.”

“Life is desireless. But the false self wants to continue - pleasantly. Therefore, it is always engaged in ensuring one’s continuity. Life is unafraid and free. As long as you have the idea of influencing events, liberation is not for you; the very notion of doership, of being a cause, is bondage.”

“Contemplate life as infinite, undivided, ever present, ever active, until, you realise yourself as one with it. It is not even very difficult, for you will be returning to your own natural condition. Once you realise that all comes from within, that the world in which you live has not been projected onto you but by you, your fear comes to an end.”

“Ask yourself such questions as: “Was I really born?” “Am I really so-and-so?” “How do I know that I exist?” “Who are my parents?” “Have they created me, or have I created them?” “Must I believe all I am told about myself?” “Who am I, anyhow?””

“You have put so much energy into building a prison for yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it. In fact, demolition is easy, for the false dissolves when it is discovered. All hangs on the idea “I am” (ego). Examine it very thoroughly. It lies at the root of every trouble. It is a sort of skin that separates you from the reality.”

“It is because “I am” is false that it wants to continue. Reality need not continue - knowing itself indestructible, it is indifferent to the destruction of forms and expressions. To strengthen, and stabilise the “I am” we do all sorts of things - all in vain, for the “I am” is being rebuilt from moment to moment. It is unceasing work and the only radical solution is to dissolve the separative sense of “I-am-such-and-such” once and for good. Being remains, but not self-being.”

“No ambition is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of the “I am”. If you want to make real progress, you must give up all idea of personal attainment.”

[SoulChild]

Oh goodie...some more! You know how I oh so love these!!! :) I don't know why, but it sparks a feeling within me...everytime I read these...as If I already knew....and like this is reminders.....:)

[BlueStar]

Oh goodie...some more! You know how I oh so love these!!! :) I don't know why, but it sparks a feeling within me...everytime I read these...as If I already knew....and like this is reminders.....:)

"There's no teacher that can teach us anything new. They can just help us to remember the things we always knew" ;)

There are plenty more, so I will keep them coming.

[BlueStar]

“All effort leads to more effort; whatever was built up must be maintained, whatever was acquired must be protected against decay or loss. Whatever can be lost is not really one’s own; and what is not your own of what use can it be to you? In my world, nothing is pushed about, all happens by itself.”

“Without knowledge of the knower there can be no peace.”

“I can only tell you what I know from my own experience. When I met my guru, he told me: “You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense ‘I am’, find your real self.” I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon. It took me only three years to realise my true nature.”

“The way to truth lies through destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world - God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts - fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems - all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realise that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear gone, all suffering ends.”

“What the mind invents, the mind destroys. But the real is not invented and cannot be destroyed. Hold on to that over which the mind has no power.”

“Cease to be the object and become the subject of all that happens; once having turned within, you will find yourself beyond the object. When you have found yourself, you will find that you are also beyond the subject, that both the subject and the object exist within you, but you are neither.”

“Renounce all lesser desires. As long as you are satisfied with the lesser, you cannot have the highest. Whatever pleases you keeps you back. Until you realise the unsatisfactoriness of everything, its transiency and limitation, and collect your energies in one great longing, even the first step is not made...Nothing physical or mental can give you freedom. You are free once you understand that your bondage is of your own making and you cease forging the chains that bind you.”

“By themselves neither pleasure nor pain enlighten. Only understanding does. Once you have grasped the truth that the world is full of suffering you will find the urge and energy to go beyond it. Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up. If you do not want to suffer, don’t go to sleep. You cannot know yourself through bliss alone, for bliss is your very nature. You must face the opposite, what you are not, to find enlightenment.”

“When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known and yet you recognise it as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present. The mind is no more. There is only love in action. There will be no fear.”

“The entire universe is your body and you need not be afraid of it. You may say that you have two bodies; the personal and the universal. The personal comes and goes, but the universal is always with you.”

“Begin by realising that the world is in you, not you in the world.”

“Realise yourself as the ocean of consciousness in which all happens. This is not difficult. A little of attentiveness, of close observation of oneself, and you will see that no event is outside your consciousness.”

“It is your mind that has separated the world outside your skin from the world inside and put them in opposition. This created fear and hatred and all the miseries of living.”

“There is a state beyond consciousness, which is not unconsciousness. Some call it super-consciousness, or pure consciousness, or supreme consciousness. It is pure awareness free from the subject-object nexus.”

“Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it - and just BE. If you give it rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength. Constant thinking makes it decay.”

“Understand that you are destined for enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny, don’t go against it, don’t thwart it. Allow it to fulfil itself.”

[BlueStar]

Interesting that only one person seems particularly moved by this thread. I'm sometimes surprised by what does or doesn't get attention. I guess the direct path (as it is called) is not for everyone. I share it only because it has helped me so much.

Here is an experiential insight into the awareness of "I am" that Nisargadatta prescribed as the sole spiritual practise necessary. "I am" is the experience of pure being, although sometimes he refers to the ego as being "I am" in terms of "I am this" and "I am that". Even then, inquiring into who or what this "I am" is can take you beyond it.

Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhYnrDBnQHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhYnrDBnQHc

[SoulChild]

I am sorry that I appear to be the only one enjoying this thread...perhaps if there were more members on this site, it would be more interests. If you notice, that when I post the qoutes on facebook, that I don't put the author, but I normally dont like to do that. But, I am just being truthful and honest...I didn't want to spook people out by the person "Nisargadatta"....people have misjudgements and misunderstandings of some Indians, or Hindus..and tend to stay away from it/them. My Master teacher himself basically told us to stay away also. Yet, information is used in many ways and at different times for certain reasons. He told us to stay away from the 'Transedental" meditation. Yet, our organization is bold and up front with what we say, and yet, information and facts are pulled from this and that way, and it is impossible to discount Indians/Hindus because thier history is one of or THE oldest. So, The Master taught us about meditating and he will use Hindu words such as "avatar" when there were Arabic words to describe them such as "Mutajisaad" (I may have spelled that wrong). Then I found that even when we called the White Man the (Devils children) and the Hindus were like had their own thing and very exaggerated beliefs...we still found Hindus and Whites following us, joining us, living with us, married to us, and believed as we do. He also told us to stay away from Hip Hop and Michael Jackson....but, hardley any of us actually followed that...especially the fact that we was not giving up listening and supporting Michael Jackson, and most of us were rappers....lol. But, what I found later in my life is that I have dismissed the white man as the devil and hindus are excess or whatever, and decided to take whatever information from where ever and use it for my own personall growth. I needed to hear what I heard at a younger age because of the 'slavery' mentality that weighed heavy in the black community. But, now that I am wise....no one can tell me that 'Yoga' shouldn't be performed. I do feel that some things are exxagerated, but I enjoy yoga to the point I can take it to. What I am trying to say is that these quotes here have touched me in a way, and I don't care who it is coming from. However, I will not take it to the exxaggeration. And you are right, I too am amazed at the different people who responded to my posts on facebook. It was very random...some people got a spark from different quotes...and some where just totally confused. Again, I just think we are at different stages of growth. Some people in my org may be stuck on the white man being the devil..But with growth, they will figure out that it was said for a purpose..not to be like go up to a white man and call him the devil....strickly a mental thing...as a matter of fact, that was a 80's thing...it was considered 'The Black Thing" (Its a black thing, you wont understand.......remember those t-shirts?) But with growth, as humans, we can learn so much from the different cultures......especially the older cultures like that of Indians/Hindus and Asians/Buddhist......Was I being too honest???No offense intended...

[BlueStar]

Thanks for sharing my friend, I like and appreciate your honesty :) I also admire that you have the ability to do something which many people do not, and that is to see beyond your own immediate culture and traditions to see the interconnectedness of all genuine expressions of spiritual truth. Truth is indeed independent of culture and context. Nisargadatta doesn't come from any particular spiritual background or tradition, but obviously being an Indian, he sometimes expresses his realisation in terminology from his culture.

When it comes to spiritual teaching, or teachers of any kind, I usually try to distinguish whether the teaching is coming from fear/divisiveness or love/connection. Sometimes as parents or teachers we tend to teach by means of warnings (this is dangerous, that is bad, this could hurt you) and this is coming from fear, even if it is intended from a place of genuinely wanting the person to be well and to avoid harm. Sometimes it's necessary to warn a child away from danger, of course. But with spiritual teachings, I find that if it's coming from fear or divisiveness you can feel it as a slight contraction in your energy...you pull inward, and sometimes such teachings actually reinforce our sense of ego. When it's coming from love or all-encompassing acceptance, there is a feeling of expansion and relaxing...the pull of ego is lessened a bit, because we learn to see ourselves in all things, in all people. This is how I distinguish between what is useful spiritual teaching for me and what isn't. I was brought up a Christian but I couldn't accept the restrictiveness of the teaching....or the fact a lot of it is clearly quite distorted. I had to be a spiritual rebel, nobody could tell me what I could or couldn't do. I had to learn that myself!

I admire you for being open to finding the truth everywhere. It doesn't mean you have to negate or leaving your existing spiritual or religious traditions, just that you are not fully bound by them as a lot of people tend to be. That's real freedom. I do understand when some teachings suggest you stick with them and don't look elsewhere, because it's easy to get lost in the 'spiritual marketplace' and frankly there's a lot of illusion and distortion out there. But so long as you stay rooted in your centre and deeper innate intelligence, there's no danger of being led astray because you are relying on your inner guide rather than outer signposts. When we follow our inner truth we'll never lead ourselves astray.

[SoulChild]

I am so appreciative that you overstood everything I just said, and where I was coming from! :two hearts: You are absolutely the best. It is so beneficial to me to even know you and to have you as a friend. sometimes it is hard to express my feelings. Lately, you have been taking my posts, and turning my words and my feelings,and expressing them in this beautiful way. Everything you said above is exactly what I was trying to say, but you put it together so well. I love that, and thank you. I am honored that you understand me! I just want to give you a big hug!!!:two hearts: and also, as you know, I appreciate all you do here...the daily Tao, and The Wisom of Nisargadatta! The Echart Tolle thread, I haven't had time...but, maybe I'll get the chance. Keep it up friend...don't ever stop!:ohyea:

[Narnia]

Interesting that only one person seems particularly moved by this thread. I'm sometimes surprised by what does or doesn't get attention. I guess the direct path (as it is called) is not for everyone. I share it only because it has helped me so much.

I understand how you feel sweets ...

I believe many are very interested in this thread because of the wisdom it harbours ... I for one enjoy it and I speak for myself here .... but I do not feel I have anything the contribute that may expand and or be insightful to the knowledge and wisdom here .... for me .... it is what it is ... and it is hard to dispute that or it is hard to not say the same thing, only differently.

Perhaps it is difficult to expound and or elaborate on such wisdom that one already understands and perhaps it may be seem a wee bit redundant ..... and the latter half of my statement I mean no offense.

So keep posting away .... :two hearts:

[BlueStar]

I am so appreciative that you overstood everything I just said, and where I was coming from! :two hearts: You are absolutely the best. It is so beneficial to me to even know you and to have you as a friend. sometimes it is hard to express my feelings. Lately, you have been taking my posts, and turning my words and my feelings,and expressing them in this beautiful way. Everything you said above is exactly what I was trying to say, but you put it together so well. I love that, and thank you. I am honored that you understand me! I just want to give you a big hug!!!:two hearts: and also, as you know, I appreciate all you do here...the daily Tao, and The Wisom of Nisargadatta! The Echart Tolle thread, I haven't had time...but, maybe I'll get the chance. Keep it up friend...don't ever stop!:ohyea:

Thanks so much my dear friend, I was really touched by your words! Big hugs are always appreciated, and I'm sending one right back to you! :two hearts:


I understand how you feel sweets ...

I believe many are very interested in this thread because of the wisdom it harbours ... I for one enjoy it and I speak for myself here .... but I do not feel I have anything the contribute that may expand and or be insightful to the knowledge and wisdom here .... for me .... it is what it is ... and it is hard to dispute that or it is hard to not say the same thing, only differently.

Perhaps it is difficult to expound and or elaborate on such wisdom that one already understands and perhaps it may be seem a wee bit redundant ..... and the latter half of my statement I mean no offense.

So keep posting away .... :two hearts:

I understand! I guess its not really a discussive thread, and thats cool...it is hard to add anything to Nisargadatta's words. They are not really meant to be read in a discursive fashion anyway, but to sink into the heart, where no words are necessary. I'm glad to know you've been here anyway :)

It's silly second guessing ourselves, really. Normally if the universe pulls me to do something, I do it..even if its just to blow my nose. Everything that has ever happened in the history of the universe has brought us to this point. I ought to trust and post whatever I feel wants to be post, regardless of whether one or one hundred people read it.

[Narnia]

It's silly second guessing ourselves, really. Normally if the universe pulls me to do something, I do it..even if its just to blow my nose. Everything that has ever happened in the history of the universe has brought us to this point. I ought to trust and post whatever I feel wants to be post, regardless of whether one or one hundred people read it.

Exactly!! :)

[planetlove]

rory rory rory ...
omg
im so happy that lizzy posted a few quotes on her fb .....
im so sorry i did not get in here earlier.....
finally someone who is seeing the world with my eyes .....
im so goner get this book .....i dl the pdf one im so gonner copy it for me...
enlightenment is much needed in this world and its great to read the words of a master who understands it the way im growing to see it ......
i wish i could talk to you ...
are you on skype ....
if so please let me know ...we can chat soon....
V

[BlueStar]

Glad you discovered the thread Varune! Everything in the perfect timing :) And I'm so glad you have resonated with these words, which are incredibly infused with power...deep, concise pointers to the deeper reality of life. You will love "I Am That". It is an incredible, transformative book. I am still working my way through it after the best part of a year. It has a way of changing you...bringing you back to self...I have a few spiritual classics that I adore, but I think if I had to give away all but one book, I would keep this one. It's simple, powerful, challenging and truly enlightening. So glad you can relate to it. I will PM you my MSN address: I don't mean to withhold it from anyone (if anyone wants it please just ask!), it's just I'm wary about posting it in public as I'm getting so much spam ;)

[BlueStar]

This is a documentary about Nisargadatta Maharaj which I really enjoyed watching, it is very nicely made. It's funny when you see footage of him for the first time, he's not at all what you might expect. He comes across as quite scary almost - I wouldn't want to antagonise him, hehe! Apparently the reason he shouts his answers is that he lived in a very noisy densely and populated part of Bombay, but it is a great reminder that enlightened masters are all different and consciousness expresses itself in different ways. they certainly don't all need to conform to some kind of serene stereotype we might have...and neither do we ;) Enjoy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsH6y0Y1ni4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SNJEHeQpTM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4hQsqO_dw0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M4kRMKtTXI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCcHNLz8FXc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkobYEDWdAc

[BlueStar]

“The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death. And the body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long.”

“It is the nature of consciousness to survive its vehicles. It is like fire. It burns up the fuel, but not itself. Just like a fire can outlast a mountain of fuel, so does consciousness survive innumerable bodies.”

“Abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, and so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross and subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.”

“Once you realise that the false needs time and what needs time is false, you are nearer the Reality, which is timeless, ever in the NOW.”

“Reality is what makes the present so vital, so different from the past and future, which are merely mental.”

“You must discard what is not your own, till nothing is left which you can disown. You will find that what is left is nothing which the mind can hook on to. You are not even a human being. You just ARE - a point of awareness, co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me: “Who are you?” My answer would be: “Nothing in particular. Yet I am.”

“You need nothing except what you are. You imagine you will increase your value by acquisition. It is like gold imagining that the addition of copper will improve it. Elimination and purification, renunciation of all that is foreign to your nature is enough. All else is vanity.”

“All the endless arguments about the mind are produced by the mind itself, for its own protection, continuation and expansion. It is the blank refusal to consider the convolutions and convulsions of the mind that can take you beyond it.”

“Abandon all thoughts, not only of the world, but of yourself also. Stay beyond all thoughts, in silent being-awareness.”

“No doubt, striving for improvement of the world is a most praiseworthy occupation. Done selflessly, it clarifies the mind and purifies the heart. But soon man will realise that he pursues a mirage. [...] It is the nature of all manifestation that the good and the bad follow each other in equal measure. The true refuge is only in the unmanifested.”

“The only way to renewal lies through destruction. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new piece. Only the people who have gone beyond the world can change the world. It never happened otherwise. The few whose impact was lasting were all knowers of reality. Reach their level and only then talk of helping the world.”

“There is nothing to do. Just BE. Do nothing. BE. No climbing mountains and sitting in caves. I do not even say “be yourself”, since you do not know yourself. Having seen that you are neither the ‘outer’ world of perceivables, nor the ‘inner’ world of thinkables, that you are neither body nor mind - just BE.”

Why is self-realisation so important? “Without it you will be consumed by desires and fears, repeating themselves meaninglessly in endless suffering.”

“Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness. That is all.”

“Hold on to the sense “I am” to the exclusion of everything else. When thus the mind becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and vibrates with new knowledge. It all comes spontaneously, you need only hold on to the “I am”.”

“How can anybody tell you what you shall become when there is no becoming? You merely discover what you are. All moulding yourself to a pattern is a grievous waste of time. Think neither of the past nor of the future, just BE.”

“You are not what you take yourself to be, I assure you. The image you have of yourself is made up from memories and is purely accidental.”

“The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating a sense of continuity. A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of ‘I’ and the person acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality, there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the ‘I’ and the ‘mine’. The teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is nothing of yours in this except the little point of ‘I am’, which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. ‘I am this, I am that’ is the dream, while pure ‘I am’ has the stamp of reality on it. You have tasted so many things - all came to naught. Only the sense ‘I am’ persisted - unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changeful, until you are able to go beyond.”

“[After realisation] nothing will remain, all will remain. The sense of identity will remain, but no longer identification with a particular body. Being - awareness - love will shine in full splendour. Liberation is never of the person, it is always from the person.”

“Creation is the very nature of consciousness. Consciousness causes appearances. Reality is beyond consciousness.”

“First you create a world, then the ‘I am’ becomes a person, who is not happy for various reasons. He goes in search of happiness, meets a Guru, who tells him: “you are not a person, find who you are.” He does it and goes beyond.”

“[To clear the mind] watch it relentlessly. Inattention obscures, attention clarifies.”

“Awareness is the point at which the mind reaches out beyond itself into reality. In awareness you seek not what pleases, but what is true.”

“Each thing has innumerable causes. It is as it is, because the world is as it is. Every cause in its ramifications covers the universe......For whatever happens, all the universe is responsible and you are the source of the universe.”

“When you are infected with the ‘I-am-the-body’ virus, a whole universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue totally futile lines of action. You concentrate, you meditate, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but miss the essential which is elimination of the person.”

[planetlove]

Thank you so much for sharing ....
I just finished watching all those videos ...
It brought me back to the day that ....I awoke from the illusion of Ignorance....
The unlimited intelligence ecstasy and bliss is you and you are it ........
Its like a kid from a very young Age playing hide and seek until ...someone finds you and says tag you are it ....
Thank you again Rory ....
V

[BlueStar]

Thank you so much for sharing ....
I just finished watching all those videos ...
It brought me back to the day that ....I awoke from the illusion of Ignorance....
The unlimited intelligence ecstasy and bliss is you and you are it ........
Its like a kid from a very young kid playing hide and seek until ...someone finds you and says tag you are it ....
Thank you again Rory ....
V

I love the way you put that Varune...I can so totally relate, and I love the metaphor of kids playing hide and seek. Glad you enjoyed the documentary :)

[planetlove]

I love the way you put that Varune...I can so totally relate, and I love the metaphor of kids playing hide and seek. Glad you enjoyed the documentary :)

That metaphor came to me when I realized the self ....
It was awesome ....I still remember the day ... I don't think i will ever forget it .....
I stood in silence for about a week in shock after i heard the voice within when it spoke..and told me who I was ....
and everything that our friend up there describes and also the sayings he has said i have come to realize also ...
enlightenment is a " Individualistic process " - I get excited still trying to tell people but ..I think ...they will think i'm nuts....
then i spoke to my mother and she told me when it happened for her ....she calls me her guru ....
we have a beautiful relationship now its trying to get my 2 brothers sister and family to realize it also ...for i only see the truth when i see them ...

[BlueStar]

Long overdue :) I love sharing such powerful words.


“Love is the refusal to separate, to make distinctions.”

“A jeweller who wants to re-fashion an ornament, first melts it down to shapeless gold. Similarly, one must return to one’s original state before a new name and form can emerge. Death is essential for renewal.”

“Why do you bring an outer doer? The world recreates itself out of itself. It is an endless process, the transitory begetting the transitory. It is your ego that makes you think there must be a doer. You create a God in your own image, however dismal the image. Through the film of your mind, you project a world and also a God to give it cause and purpose. It is all imagination - step out of it.”

“You must be free. To be free in the world, you must be free of the world. Otherwise your past decides for you and your future. Between what happened and what must happen you are caught. Call it destiny or karma, but never - freedom. First return to your true being and then act from the heart of love.”

“The person may be conscious, but it is not aware of being conscious. It is completely identified with what it thinks and feels and experiences. The darkness that is in it is of its own creation. When the darkness is questioned, it dissolves.”

“When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence after? The silence is one and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always there - at the back of the words. Shift your attention from the words to silence and you will hear it.”

“The mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for knowledge....the mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Of everything it wants an idea, for without ideas the mind is not.”

“There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real - which you are anyhow. The problem is only mental. Abandon all false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren’t any.”

“The knower is the unmanifested, the known is the manifested. The known is always on the move, it changes, it has no shape of its own, no dwelling place. The knower is the immutable support of all knowledge.”

“You may die a hundred deaths without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.”

“Everyone desires to BE, to survive, to continue, for no one is sure of himself. But everybody is immortal. You make yourself mortal by taking yourself to be the body.”

“Freedom means letting go. People do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go of everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realising that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own. It is like deep sleep - you do not give up your bed when you fall asleep, you just forget it.”

[SoulChild]

I love this thread so much, I come here often to just read the posts. I have to bring this back to the front of the forum! =)) One love!

[BlueStar]

I love this thread so much, I come here often to just read the posts. I have to bring this back to the front of the forum! =)) One love!

Hey Elizabeth, so cool to hear from you! I'm glad you enjoy the thread, it's one of my favourites too, I still haven't finished typing up my highlighted quotes from I Am That, but I will. In fact I started rereading the book again...I've never encountered such concise and powerful pointers to truth. I've found his words quite transformative and a true healing balm.

[Lion Spirit Walker]

Rory, my dear friend I don't believe you need worry about others entering into this thread. As of the time of my posting this there have been 866 views. As you had stated above, the thread is more about the insightfulness in what your sharing here.
The thread is being read. And I'm sure I speak for many in expressing appreciation for your taking the time to share these truths. Thank you very much.

[Anjou]

... the thread is more about the insightfulness in what your sharing here.
The thread is being read. And I'm sure I speak for many in expressing appreciation for your taking the time to share these truths. Thank you very much.

Exactly.
I dip into this thread and others multiple times (or for the first time) for inspiration or solace or edification.
Even when I have no particular wisdom to share or post, there is always plenty of wisdom to absorb.
All of it is greatly appreciated. :Boy_yes3:

[Kiran]

Rory, my dear friend I don't believe you need worry about others entering into this thread. As of the time of my posting this there have been 866 views. As you had stated above, the thread is more about the insightfulness in what your sharing here.
The thread is being read. And I'm sure I speak for many in expressing appreciation for your taking the time to share these truths. Thank you very much.

Same here.....always find much food for thought here....and always with much appreciation.

[BlueStar]

Thanks guys! Glad to know that it was worth my time transcribing and posting :) Thanks for your comments, really glad the words could inspire! :two hearts:

[Lion Spirit Walker]

Rory, your efforts are also inspirational. Never forget this my good amigo.

[Narnia]

Rory, your efforts are also inspirational. Never forget this my good amigo.

I completely agree with Michael!! :giveheart

[Kiran]

Thanks guys! Glad to know that it was worth my time transcribing and posting :) Thanks for your comments, really glad the words could inspire! :two hearts:

I hope you don't mind me asking Rory, while I truly appreciate all the gems of wisdom you post, I would dearly love to hear the words of Rory!! I know you post these here, Eckhart Tolle and many others...but I would love to hear what words of wisdom you would like to share from you. Is there any chance we could hear The Wisdom of Rory at some stage??
With much love and anticipation :)

[BlueStar]

I hope you don't mind me asking Rory, while I truly appreciate all the gems of wisdom you post, I would dearly love to hear the words of Rory!! I know you post these here, Eckhart Tolle and many others...but I would love to hear what words of wisdom you would like to share from you. Is there any chance we could hear The Wisdom of Rory at some stage??
With much love and anticipation :)

Aww that's really sweet of you to ask, and I'm very touched by the request :) I don't honestly feel like I have much worth sharing at the moment, which is why the blogs have temporarily stopped. If life is peaks and valleys then I'm in the valley right now, trying to make the most of the scenery there. But when I'm back enjoying the hillside vista I'll see what I can share then. Thanks again for the lovely comments everyone :two hearts:

[Lion Spirit Walker]

Take my hand my friend and I shall help you up, when you are ready.

[SoulChild]

I came to this thread to read again, and oh how it helps me so much! I just watched the vid on the first page for the first time, and oh how on point and needed for me that was!!!

[BlueStar]

I came to this thread to read again, and oh how it helps me so much! I just watched the vid on the first page for the first time, and oh how on point and needed for me that was!!!

Hey my friend, always wonderful to see you back here, I miss you when you're gone! We must have tuned in somehow last night, because this thread came into my mind and the strong urge to start posting more of the 'I am that' quotes again, and then a few moments later I got an email notification of your message! Synchronicity! I'm really glad the words help...they are powerful pointers back to reality and the truth of being. Must watch the vids again myself, I found them so inspiring and uplifting.

Stand by for more on this thread v soon... :)

[BlueStar]

I came to this thread to read again, and oh how it helps me so much! I just watched the vid on the first page for the first time, and oh how on point and needed for me that was!!!

Hey my friend, always wonderful to see you back here, I miss you when you're gone! We must have tuned in somehow last night, because this thread came into my mind and the strong urge to start posting more of the 'I am that' quotes again, and then a few moments later I got an email notification of your message! Synchronicity! I'm really glad the words help...they are powerful pointers back to reality and the truth of being. Must watch the vids again myself, I found them so inspiring and uplifting.

Stand by for more on this thread v soon... :)

[BlueStar]

“Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you ARE. You need not merit truth. It is your own. Just stop running away by running after. Stand still, be quiet.”

“To BE, you must be nobody. To think yourself to be something, or somebody, is death and hell.”

“The discovery of truth is the discernment of the false. You can know what is not. What is -- you can only BE. Knowledge is relative to the known. In a way it is the counterpart of ignorance.”

“The mind can operate with terms of its own making, it just cannot go beyond itself. That which is neither sensory nor mental, and yet without which neither senses nor mind can exist, cannot be contained in them. Do understand the mind has its limits; to go beyond, you must consent to silence.”

“There is no goal, nor a way to reach it. You are the way and the goal, there is nothing else to reach except yourself. All you need is to understand and understanding is the flowering of the mind. The tree is perennial, but the flowering and the fruitbearing come in season. The seasons change, but not the tree. You are the tree. You have grown numberless branches and leaves in the past and you may grow them also in the future -- yet you remain. Not what was, or shall be, must you know, but what is. Yours is the desire that creates the universe. Know the world is your creation and be free.”

“The cause of suffering is in the identification of the perceiver with the perceived. Out of it desire is born and with desire blind action, unmindful of results. Look around and you will see -- suffering is a man-made thing.”

“In reality there is only the source, dark in itself, making everything shine. Unperceived, it causes perception. Unfelt, it causes feeling. Unthinkable, it causes thought. Non-being, it gives birth to being. It is the immovable background of motion. Once you are there you are at home everywhere.”

“True awareness is a state of pure witnessing, without the least attempt to do anything about the event witnessed. Your thoughts and feelings, words and actions may also be a part of the event; you watch all unconcerned in the full light of clarity and understanding. You understand precisely what is going on, because it does not affect you. It may seem to be an attitude of cold aloofness, but it is not really so. Once you are in it, you will find that you love what you see, whatever may be its nature. This choiceless love is the touchstone of awareness. If it is not there, you are merely interested -- for some personal reasons.”

“To go beyond [pain and pleasure] you must go beyond consciousness, which is possible only when you look at consciousness as something that happens to you and not in you, as something external, alien, superimposed. Then, suddenly, you are free of consciousness, really alone, with nothing to intrude. And that is your true state. Consciousness is an itching rash that makes you scratch.”

On attaining self-realisation...

“Silence is the main factor. In peace and silence you grow.”

“My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense “I am” and to give particular attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense “I am”, it may look simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! [...]
Just turn away from all that occupies the mind; do whatever work you have to complete, but avoid new obligations; keep empty, keep available, resist not what comes uninvited. In the end, you reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-attachment, of inner ease and freedom indescribable, yet wonderfully real.”

[BlueStar]

http://static.flickr.com/87/253625459_6ac710ad79.jpg

“The “I” and “mine” having no existence in themselves, need a support which they find in the body. The body becomes their point of reference. When you talk of “my” husband and “my” children, you mean the body’s husband and the body’s children. Give up the idea of being the body and face the question: Who am I? At once a process will be set in motion which will bring you back to reality, or rather, will take the mind to reality.

For reality to be, the ideas of “me” and “mine” must go. They will let go if you let them. Then your normal state reappears, in which you are neither the body or the mind, neither the ‘me’ nor the ‘mine’, but in a different state of being altogether. It is pure awareness of being, without being this or that, without any self-identification with anything in particular, or in general. In that pure light of consciousness, there is nothing, not even the idea of nothing. There is only light.”

“Just like in a dream all is different except the sense of ‘I’, which enables you to say ‘I dreamt’, so does the sense of ‘I am’ enable you to say, ‘I am my real Self again. I do nothing, nor is anything done to me. I am what I am and nothing can affect me. I appear to depend on everything, but in fact everything depends on me’.”

“When the body is born, all kinds of things happen to it and you take part in them, because you take yourself to be the body. You are like the man in the cinema house, laughing and crying with the picture, though knowing fully well that he is all the time in his seat and the picture is but the play of light. It is enough to shift attention from the screen to oneself to break the spell. When the body dies, the kind of life you know -- a succession of physical and mental events -- comes to an end. It can end even now -- without waiting for the death of the body -- it is enough to shift attention to the Self and keep it there. All happens as if there is a mysterious power that creates and moves everything. Realise that you are not the mover, only the observer, and you will be at peace.”

“As long as you are enmeshed in the tribulations of a particular personality, you can see nothing beyond it. But ultimately you will come to see that you are neither the particular nor the universal, you are beyond both. As the tiny point of a pencil can draw innumerable pictures, so does the dimensionless point of awareness draw the contents of the vast universe. Find that point and be free.”

“[You create the world] out of your own memories. As long as you are ignorant of yourself as the creator, your world is limited and repetitive. Once you go beyond your self-identification with your past, you are free to create a new world of harmony and beauty.”

“Having seen that you are a bundle of memories held together by attachment, step out and look from the outside. You may perceive for the first time something which is not memory. You cease to be a Mr-so-and-so, busy about his own affairs. You are at last at peace. You realise that nothing was ever wrong with the world -- you alone were wrong and now it is over. Never again will you be caught in the meshes of desire born of ignorance.”

“Take the idea ‘I was born’. You may take it to be true. It is not. You were never born, nor will you ever die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you become mortal. Just like in a cinema all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world. Look closely, and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can be said to be, not its transformations.”

“It is like the flower and its colour. Without flower -- no colours; without colour -- the flower remains unseen. Beyond is the light which on contact with the flower creates colour. Realise that your true nature is that of pure light only, and both the perceived and the perceiver come and go together. That which makes both possible, and yet is neither, is your real being, which means not being a ‘this’ or ‘that’, but pure awareness of being and not-being. When awareness is turned on itself, the feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned outward, the knowables come into being. To say: “I know myself” is a contradiction in terms, for what is ‘known’ cannot be ‘myself’.”

“To see reality is as simple as to see one’s face in a mirror. Only the mirror must be clear and untainted. A quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free from ideas and opinions, clear on all levels, is needed to reflect the reality. Be clear and quiet -- alert and detached, all else will happen by itself.”

“The universe is full of action, but there is no actor. There are numberless persons small and big and very big, who, through identification, imagine themselves as acting, but it does not change the fact that the world of action is one single whole in which all depends on, and affects all.”

“Awareness with an object, we call witnessing. When there is also self-identification with the object, caused by desire or fear, such a state is called a ‘person’. In reality there is only one state; when distorted by self-identification it is called a person, when coloured with the sense of being, it is the witness; when colourless and limitless it is called the Supreme.”

Q: How am I to reach perfection? A: “Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realisation. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent your mind and quiet in your heart. Realised people are very quiet.”

[SoulChild]

Thank you my dear friend!

[SoulChild]

This thread will always bring me back to Mysteriouswisdom! ;-)