* Who Am I translations courtesy of Professor Gregory
To see reality is as simple as to see one's face in a mirror.
Only the
mirror must be clear and true. A quiet mind, undistorted by
desires
and fears, free from ideas and opinions, clear on all the levels,
is
needed to reflect the reality. Be clear and quiet, alert and
detached,
all else will happen by itself.
~~ Nisargadatta
Q : How am I to reach perfection ?
Nisargadatta :
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 realization. It may profit others , but
not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind
and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet.
Gems from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Conversations
"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
realizing 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 about it."
____________________________________________________
MARALENA
NDS
This email message is a notification to let you know that
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File : /Abhishiktananda.doc
Uploaded by : maralena <teawhiskers@aol.com>
Description : Abhishiktananda re: Nonduality and Christianity
I have just
downloaded to the Nonduality Salon "FILES" a word
document named: Abhisshiktananda: Nonduality and Christianity.
I am wondering if any of you are familiar with Swami
Abhishiktananda
(Henri Le Saux) (he was a Benedictine Monk who at one point came
in
contact with Ramana and the teachings of Advaita) ? Any who would
or
could take the time to read it… I would be very
appreciative, and
would welcome your thoughts and/or comment of the possibility of
such. The following caption was a small bit taken from the file.
Abhishiktananda and the Challenge of Hindu-Christian Experience
"What gnaws away at my body as well as my mind is this:
after having
found in advaita a peace and a bliss never experienced before, to
live with the dread that perhaps, that most probably, all that my
latent Christianity suggests to me is nonetheless true, and that
therefore advaita must be sacrificed to it... In committing
myself
totally to advaita, if Christianity is true, I risk committing
myself
to a false path for eternity. All my customary explanations of
hell
and the rest are powerless against a reality that exists in a way
unknown to me.... Supposing in advaita I was only finding myself
and
not God? And yet, it is only since I made the personal discovery
of
advaita at Arunachala that I have recovered peace and a zest for
life."
~ Swami Abhishiktananda
From: "Open Mouth Already a Mistake"
by Richard Shrobe, ( Zen Master Wu Kwang )
Don't Know is Closest to It
For those of you that are new to our style of practice and
Zen practice in general, I will now introduce you to the practice
of "not knowing". Usually, people want to learn
something, to
know something. Zen practice actually moves in the opposite
direction; from knowing to not knowing.
This not knowing is represented in the classical Zen literature
by a famous story about Zen Master Poep An. Poep An was one
of the main figures of Chinese Zen during the T'ang Dynasty,
which was the Golden Age of Zen in China. He lived around 900
AD. At the time this story takes place, Peop An was not yet a
master.
Making a Zen pilgrimage didn't mean the same thing as traveling
means to us today because, of course, there were no airplanes,
trains, or buses, just ox carts or foot travel, for the most
part, and
most of the main centers were in the mountains. So, the journey
to call on the various Zen Masters was a rather arduous one.
in and of itself, the hardship of travelling hundreds of miles
over
every kind of terrain, not knowing where you would sleep that
night,
or where you would find food, was a practice in facing oneself.
This
was a practice, as the old Zen Masters say, in "putting it
all down."
Poep An came to a particular monastery and greeted Master Ji
Jang, who was to become his final teacher. Ji Jang asked Peop An,
"You're travelling all around China; what's the meaning of
your
pilgrimage?" Initially, Peop An felt stuck and momentarily
all thinking
stopped. Then he said, "don't know". Ji Jang responded,
"Not
knowing is most intimate". Sometimes you'll see this
translated as:
"Not knowing is closest to it." So, Poep An decided,
I'd better stay
here and see what this guy has to offer.
After spending some time at the monastery being introduced into
this "don't know", Poep An decided he would continue on
his
pilgrimage. He told the Master, "Tomorrow I'll be leaving
here to
become a wandering monk again". Ji Jang said, "Oh, do
you think
you're ready?". Poep An said, "Certainly!"
"Then let me ask you a
question," said Ji Jang. "You are fond of the saying
that 'that the
whole world is created by the mind alone'. So, you see those big
boulders over there in the rock garden? Are they inside your mind
or outside?" Poep An said, "They're inside my mind. How
could
anything be outside it?" The Zen Master said, "Oh,
well, then you'd
better get a good night's sleep because it's going to be hard
travelling with all those rocks inside your mind"! Peop An
was
undone and taken aback, and stayed there with this Master and
finally attained great awakening.
This one sentence, "don't know" or "Not knowing is
most intimate",
is very much at the heart of our practice. The word intimacy is
also
quite interesting. Closeness. Becoming one with something. Really
being able to fathom something. And, of course, many of our
difficulties come about by holding on to some conception of
knowing, or some opinion, or some dualistic attitude that
separates
us from our experience. So, as we cultivate and enter into this
attitude of not knowing, true intimacy becomes a possiblity, true
at-oneness with our own experience and with the world that we
find
ourselves in.
This means hearing, but not with the ear;
hearing, but not with the understanding;
hearing with the spirit, with your whole being...
The hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty,
to the ear, or to the mind.
Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties.
And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens.
There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you
that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.
Fasting of the heart empties the faculties,
frees you from limitation and from preoccupation.
Fasting of the heart begets unity and freedom.
Confucius
~~~~~~
IMO it is necessary to practise denial of the reality of Saguna,
otherwise one is part of the dream lost in the
dream.......ONS..Tony.
~ All that is necessary is to recognize that it is a dream, and
to see through
and beyond that to the neutral pure awareness in which it all
takes place.
Being for or against any aspect of it is what the ego-mind does.
~ Xan
If a man is free from all pairs of opposites
and always lives in solitude [established in himself alone],
he gains perfect wisdom even while in the present body
and shines forth with great effulgence.
~~~~~~~~~
Devikalottera, V. 79
~~~~~
____________________________________________________
VIORICA
WEISSMAN
Million Paths
"I write for those who have felt the truth in intuitive
flashes as well as for
those who must be argued into it by intellectual
reasonings."
Paul Brunton, Reflections on My Life and Writings, p. 125.
A BOW TO PAUL BRUNTON
I will always be grateful to Paul Brunton, for it was his first
book that was
also my first encounter with the spirituality of the East. I
vividly
remember how, more than a quarter of a century ago, his Search in
Secret
India held me spellbound for weeks and months. I read it over and
over
again. The world it portrayed of holy men and sages seemed
strangely
familiar to me. His book laid the foundation for my subsequent
lifelong
professional and personal interest in India's spiritual
traditions.
There is a jewel of perfect ecstasy of being who you are. You are
at
the level of consciousness that has the greatest pleasure and
ecstasy
you are capable of accepting. Regardless of what I tell myself,
or
what I have at times experienced, my greatest pleasure right now
is
to be penniless in a room in San Francisco writing this book.
