Nonduality Salon Highlights, #2117

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#2117 - Monday, April 18, 2005 - Editor: Gloria

Knowledge or ignorance,
Freedom or bondage,
What are they?

What is "I,"
Or "mine,"
Or "this"?

Or the form of the true Self?

-Ashtavakra Gita 20:3

From "The Heart of Awareness: A Translation of the Ashtavakra Gita," by Thomas Byrom, 1990

Turn your vision inwards and the whole world will be full of the Supreme Spirit. The world is said to be illusion. Illusion is really Truth. Even the material sciences trace the origin of the universe to some primordial matter...subtle, exceedingly subtle. (Talks, 199)

- Ramana Maharshi

Selected excerpts from Hunting the 'I', by Lucy Cornellsen, chapter: "Thus Spake Ramana", pages 78-86. (published by Sri Ramanashramam)

This is the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven mentioned in the Bible and this world are not two different regions. 'The kingdom is within you' says the Bible. So it is. The realised being sees this as the Kingdom of Heaven whereas others see it as 'this world'. The difference lies only in the angle of vision. (Talks, 609)

In a sense, speaking of Self-realisation is a delusion. It is only because people have been born under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realisation, because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it. Who is to realize what, and how, when all that exists is the Self and nothing but the Self? (Day by Day).

There is no jnana as it is commonly understood. The ordinary ideas of jnana and ajnana are only relative and false. They are not real and therefore not abiding. The true state is the non-dual Self. It is eternal and abides whether one is aware or not. (Talks, 499)

Jnana, once revealed, takes time to steady itself. The Self is certainly within the direct experience of everyone, but not as one imagines it to be. It is only as It is. (Talks, 141)

He who instructs an ardent seeker to do this or that is not a true Master. The seeker is already afflicted by his activities and wants Peace and Rest. In other words he wants cessation of his activities. Instead of that he is being told do something in addition to or in place of his other activities. Can that be a help to the seeker? (Talks, 433)

Reality is one only. How can it be realised? Realisation is thus an illusion. Practice seems to be necessary. Who is to practice? Looking for the doer, the act and the accessories disappear. Moreover, if realisation is not present here and now, how can it, newly got, be of any use? Realise what is present here and now. The sages did so before and still do that only. Hence they say that it looks as newly got. Once veiled by ignorance and later revealed, Reality looks as if newly realised. But it is not new. (Talks, 439)

Dvaita and Advaita are relative terms. They are based on the sense of duality. The Self is as It is. There is neither dvaita nor advaita, I AM THAT I AM. Simple Be-ing is the Self. (Talks, 433)

'Be still and know that I am God'. To be still is not to think. Know, and not think, is the word! (Talks, 131)

'I am that I am', I am is God...not thinking, 'I am God'. Realise 'I am' and do not think 'I am'. Know I am God'...it is said, and not 'Think I am God'. (Talks, 354)

The ultimate Truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that need be said. (Talks, 96)

posted to MillionPaths

The Poet's Obligation

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying, "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.