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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3010, Saturday, December 8, 2007
Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and
thus make yourself indispensable.
Andre Gide, posted to SufiMystic
A principle is the expression of perfection, and, as imperfect
beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment
limits of its compromise in practice.
- Ghandi
Action does not lead to perfection; perfection is expressed in
action.
- Nisargadatta, from I Am That
Questioner:
If 'I' also be an illusion, who then casts off the illusion?
Maharshi:
The 'I' casts off the illusion of 'I' and yet remains as 'I'.
Such is the paradox of Self-Realization. The realized do not see
any contradiction in it. You give up this and that of 'my'
possessions. If you give up 'I' and 'Mine' instead, all are given
up at a stroke. The very seed of possession is lost. Thus the
evil is nipped in the bud or crushed in the germ itself.
Dispassion (vairagya) must be very strong to do this. Eagerness
to do it must be equal to that of a man kept under water trying
to rise to the surface for his life.
Questioner:
Cannot this trouble and difficulty be lessened with the aid of a
Master or God chosen for worship? (Ishta Devata) Cannot they give
the power to see our Self as it is to change us into themselves
and take us to Self-Realization?
Maharshi:
Ishta Devata and Guru are aids very powerful aids on this path.
But an aid to be effective requires your effort also. Your effort
is sine qua non (an indispensable or essential condition,
element, or factor). It is you who should see the sun. Can
spectacles and the sun see for you? You yourself have to see your
true nature.
- Ramana Maharshi
Most people's activities are valueless, if not outright
destructive. Dominated by desire and fear, they can do nothing
good. Ceasing to do evil precedes beginning to do good. Hence the
need for stopping all activities for a time, to investigate one's
urges and their motives, see all that is false in one's life,
purge the mind of all evil and, then only, restart work,
beginning with one's obvious duties.
- Nisargadatta, from I Am That
You must find your own way. Unless you find it yourself, it will
not be your own way and will take you nowhere. Earnestly live
your truth as you have found it, act on the little you have
understood. It is earnestness that will take you through, not
cleverness - your own or another's.
- Nisargadatta, from I Am That
It is earnestness that is indispensable, the crucial factor.
Sadhana is only a vessel and it must be filled to the brim with
earnestness, which is but love in action. For nothing can be done
without love.
- Nisargadatta, from I Am That