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Nondual Highlights Issue #2712, Saturday, January 27, 2007, Editor: Mark
Are you worried? Do you have many "what if" thoughts?
You are identified with your mind, which is projecting
itself into an imaginary future situation and creating fear.
There is no way that you can cope with such a situation,
because it doesn't exist. It's a mental phantom.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, posted to AlongTheWay
In Pali, heart and mind are one word (citta), but in English we
have to differentiate between the two to make the meaning clear.
When we attend to the mind, we are concerned with the thinking
process and the intellectual understanding that derives from
knowledge, and with our ability to retain knowledge and make use
of it.
When we speak of "heart" we think of feelings and
emotions, our ability to respond with our fundamental being.
Although we may believe that we are leading our lives according
to our thinking process, that is not the case. If we examine this
more closely, we will find that we are leading our lives
according to our feelings and that our thinking is dependent upon
our feelings. The emotional aspect of ourselves is of such great
importance that its purification is the basis for a harmonious
and peaceful life, and also for good meditation.
- Ayya Khema, posted to DailyDharma
Truth Comes at a Cost
If I was to translate the enlightened state down into human
terms, I'd have to describe it as contentment. Being nobody,
going nowhere, needing no reason to exist. To the ego, that
probably sounds a little boring and of course to an ego it is.
But then again, there's really nothing for the ego in
enlightenment. [...] I'm not saying that ego is bad or evil
because it's not. I'm saying that ego is a social and personal
construct and therefore an illusion. But there's nothing wrong
with an illusion. A painting is an illusion; a movie is an
illusion; a good novel is an illusion. The problem isn't with
illusion; the problem is with the emotional attachments and
addictions of ego.
To most people "attachment" is a very abstract word
that they think they understand. People in spiritual circles
think of attachments in terms of things that they are attached
to. They identify the things attached to and endeavor to let go
of them, but this misses the whole point of what attachment
really is. Attachment isn't about things attached to; it's about
emotion in the form of a magnetic energy of attraction. That
energy is how you know who you are as an ego. That energy is who
you are as an ego. Ego defines itself by what it does and does
not like. There is no ego outside of this emotional energy of
attraction and repulsion -- better known as love and hate, like
and dislike, good and bad, right and wrong, us and them, me and
you. Without emotional investment in the ego's points of view,
what's left of ego but a hollow shell with a little personality
mixed in?
You breathe life into your ego in the form of emotional
addictions. Emotion is the very life-force of ego. So the point
of detachment isn't to detach from things, but to detach from
your emotional bonds with things. And you don't simply let go of
emotional bonds; you burn through them with investigative
awareness. You see them for what they are: prisons, false
structures holding you in spiritual infancy. You may think that I
am being a bit harsh -- which I am, but awakening to truth is a
harsh business. Bottom line is "What do you want more: to
feel better or to realize the truth?" Sure, truth
realization feels really good, but no one gets there whose
driving motivation is simply to feel good. Feeling really good is
a byproduct of the awakened state; it is not the state itself.
The state itself is reality, and it's won at the hands of
unreality. Simply put, ultimate truth comes at a cost, and the
cost is everything in you and about you that is unreal. The end
result is freedom, happiness, peace, and no longer viewing life
through the veils of illusion.
- Adyashanti
M: Would you like to ask any questions?
V: Not many, but I shall be grateful if I am told how to bring
peace to my mind.
M: Because of the self, the atman, you are connected to the world
through the body. The self is nothing else but the knowledge that
"you are." Meditate on that principle by which you know
"you are" and on account of which you experience the
world. Meditate on this knowledge "you are," which is
the consciousness, and abide therein.
V: But the concentration is just not there.
M: Ignore the mind the way you disregard the crowd you encounter
on the streets.
V: I shall try. M: As a matter of fact, mind is a universal
dynamic principle, but we restrict it to the limits of the body
and then depend on it - hence all the trouble. Consider the water
in Lake Tansa. That water belongs to the whole of Bombay. Out of
that water, can we claim some as yours or mine? In a similar
vein, understand that the self is universal. But you have
conditioned it by confining it to the body; therefore, you face
problems. This self is also termed Ishwara - God - the Universal
Principle. If you hold on to that, profound knowledge will
descend upon you and you will have peace.
V: I try to meditate on that, but the mind wanders here and
there. If I try to remain indifferent to mind, it will be a
long-drawn-out process.
M: But are you not the root of any process?
V: The root of everything is life.
M: Yes, but the life force is universal and not personalized.
Once you realize this, you have no more troubles.
- Nisargadatta, The Nectar of Immortality: Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj's Discourses on the Eternal
The way you experience yourself is your only reality. It is
precisely this experience of yourself we are deepening. If you
are in a state of forgetfulness, completely identified with the
mind, you don't really exist. The way you experience yourself is
just a mess. There is nothing stable inside, nothing you can rely
upon. There is just the fluctuation of thoughts, emotions and
energy. This type of existing is called suffering. You are not
suffering because of your desires or attachments. The primal
reason you are suffering is because of the way you experience
yourself, your own isness.
When you are unconscious, each thought, each emotion creates your
sense of identity. In this way, you are made from the movement of
the mind. Now, you are learning something fundamental - how to
exist before the mind. You are learning how to be present before
a thought arises on the screen of consciousness.
- Aziz Kristof
Behave as if you were pure awareness, bodiless and mindless,
spaceless and timeless, beyond 'where' and 'when' and 'how'.
Dwell on it, learn to accept its reality.
- Nisargadatta