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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3100, Sunday, March 9, 2008, Editor: Mark
Editors note: At the risk of being redundant, I've included two
somewhat longer versions of quotes I posted yesterday, having had
them gently pointed out to me by loving souls...
How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot.
It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to
shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
All the things that truly matter -
beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace -
arise from beyond the mind.
-Eckhart Tolle, posted to The_Now2
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery from "The Little Prince"
Chapter 21
When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the
sense-organs, the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in
the heart, the names and forms disappear. Not letting the mind go
out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called
"inwardness" (antar-mukha). Letting the mind go out of
the Heart is known as "externalisation" (bahir-mukha).
Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the 'I' which is the
source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists
will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity
"I". If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the
nature of Siva (God).
- Ramana Maharshi
To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted
within yourself; otherwise, the mind, which has incredible
momentum, will drag you along like a wild river.
It means to inhabit your body fully. To always have some of your
attention in the inner energy field of your body. To feel the
body from within, so to speak. Body awareness keeps you present.
It anchors you in the Now. The body that you can see and
touch cannot take you into Being. But that visible and tangible
body is only an outer shell, or rather a limited and distorted
perception of a deeper reality.
In your natural state of connectedness with Being, this deeper
reality can be felt every moment as the invisible inner body, the
animating presence within you. So to "inhabit the body"
is to feel the body from within, to feel the life inside the body
and thereby come to know that you are beyond the outer form.
You are cut off from Being as long as your mind takes up all your
attention. When this happens - and it happens continuously for
most people - you are not in your body. The mind absorbs
all your consciousness and transforms it into mind stuff. You
cannot stop thinking.
To become conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness
from the mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your
spiritual journey. It will free vast amounts of consciousness
that previously had been trapped in useless and compulsive
thinking.
A very effective way of doing this is simply to take the focus of
your attention away from thinking and direct it into the body,
where Being can be felt in the first instance as the invisible
energy field that gives life to what you perceive as the physical
body.
Having access to the formless realm through the inner body is
truly liberating. It frees you from bondage to form and
identification with form. We may call it the Unmanifested,
the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings.
It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also of joy and
intense aliveness. Whenever you are present, you become
"transparent" to some extent to the light, the pure
consciousness that emanates from this Source.
You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are
but constitutes your very essence.
- Eckhart Tolle, from The Power of Now, posted to The_Now2
I first believed without any hesitation in the existence of the
soul, and then I wondered about the secret of its nature. I
persevered and strove in search of the soul, and found at last
that I myself was the cover over my own soul. I realized that in
me which believed and that in me which wondered, that which was
found at last, was no other than my soul. I thanked the darkness
that brought me to the light, and I valued this veil that
prepared for me the vision in which I saw myself reflected, the
vision produced in the mirror of my soul. Since then I have seen
all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all.
And what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if
there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and
that I shall be whoever there will be in the future. And there
was no end to my happiness and joy. Verily, I am the seed and I
am the root, and I am the fruit of this tree of life.
- from The Teachings of Hazrat Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan,
Selected & Arranged by Hazrat Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, posted
to SufiMystic
On this tree is a bird: it dances in the joy of life.
None knows where it is: and who knows what the burden of its
music may be?
Where the branches throw a deep shade, there does it have its
nest:
and it comes in the evening and flies away in the morning, and
says not a word of that which it means.
None tell me of this bird that sings within me.
It is neither coloured nor colourless: it has neither form nor
outline:
It sits in the shadow of love.
It dwells within the Unattainable, the Infinite, and the Eternal;
and no one marks when it comes and goes.
Kabīr says: "O brother Sadhu! deep is the mystery. Let wise
men seek to know where rests that bird."
- Kabir, translated from Hindi to Bengali by Kshiti Mohan Sen and
then into English by Rabindranath Tagore