Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3429, Saturday, January 31, 2009, Editor: Mark
Rest in beauty
awaken in love
myself, yourself
we rise like waves
splash and play
on the banks of life
sign our names
on this lovely sand
and then back again.
Ocean calls.
This embrace has no beginning or end.
- Dr, Harsh K. Luthar, posted to NondualitySalon
In spite of your beliefs to the contrary, you are not
what you think, feel, say, do, have, want or fear.
You're actually the context or the space in which
all of those other things appear to show up in.
In short, you are "what is."
You are what creates you.
It's all happening both within... and AS... you.
So, instead of reacting out of your fear, you need
to learn how to respond out of your love.
Romantics are always looking for "The One."
But, everywhere you go, you're always (and only)
meeting "The One."
Every one is "The One."
- Chuck Hillig, posted to The_Now2
the existential grip
Adya: Awakening can happen at various depths, right , in a manner
of speaking. There is metaphorically speaking what I call
awakening on the level of mind. I know that sounds ridiculous but
its awakening from identification with all mind stuff.
Q: And then heart
A: And then heart which is the emotional body
Q: Right
A: And then gut, which is... so you've heard me talk about this.
Q: Right, I feel like I'm stuck in the gut...
A: Right cause that's the existential grip in the gut and one can
be quite awake emotionally and mentally but not here (gut). This
is our most existential sense of self. It's not necessarily a
thought although ultimately it is, not necessarily an emotion
although it manifests as emotion, just an irrational grip. It's
that that just kind of says 'no.'
Q: Ahh,,, help
A: Right. It's almost like a child either coming into conception
or certainly coming into birth and coming out and going, 'Holy
shit!!'
Q Save me!
A: Right. There it is, boom. Wherever it gets started. So that's
what you're dealing with, that's fear of survival, right. So
that's only met by meeting the fear itself. I wish I could give
you a great technique. I really wish I could. I really can't.
Q: You don't need to.
A: Thank you very much; you let me off the hook. I can just tell
you the way it is. It's the fear of survival and when that
arises, spontaneously 'cause only the truth, everything
ultimately arises spontaneously, but when that arises
spontaneously that which is willing to let go, even if it means
death now, when that arises that lets go. I would love to have a
5 step plan how to make that happen but there's really not a 'how
to' to it. It maybe just knowing that that's the way it is. It's
like planting a seed. That which is the fear, the irrational
fear, it's really a fear of 'being', a fear of incarnation. It's
just an irrational fear.
Q: Oh fear of the separateness?
A: Sure. All fea is ultimately based on separateness. Right?
Spirit manifests as form, as apparent form, and as soon as it
does that, the dance of separateness begins. And there it is. It
loses itself in this mysterious dance of form, right? Form is
magnetic. It attracts consciousness and crystallizes it. That's
what form does. There's spirit, boom, form happens or the
appearance of form, crystallization, the illusion of separation.
Just like that. It's just the nature of it.
Q: You lost me on the crystallization.
A: Well that's just means it's the magnetic force. Just pulls
consciousness. The crystallization is 'I'm form!' That's the
first thought. 'I am this body.' And with that there's the
unavoidable fear. It's not avoidable, is it?
Q: So it's not that I'm not brave enough, that would keep me from
complete realization?
A: No, no.
Q: Okay, it's always been a fear of mine.
A: Ha, ha. It's nothing to do with bravery and it's nothing that
the illusion of ourselves can take creditfor. As I say it arises
and it's spontaneous and it's the only way it's authentic. And
it's not courage. By the way some people won't even notice when
it happens. It will just be part of the whole process. They won't
see a distinct moment. Some people will. I had a very very
distinct moment when that fear that came from here, it was that
'I'm going to be annihilated by what's happening.' I won't go
into what was happening but there's the sense, not the sense, the
absolute undeniable knowledge 'I'm going to be annihilated.' And
something said, 'If that's what it takes, okay.' It wasn't
courage though. I'm a guy, you know. We know courage and macho
and 'I can do it' and dun-da ... dun. It wasn't courage at all.
It was a fact. It didn't come from any sense of me. It didn't
come from any doer. It just arose. It comes from Being itself.
It's in every being. It's in all beings. It arises when it's
ready to arise.
Q: So it's just a natural process.
A: It's all a natural process.
Q: So I don' need to worry anymore about not being brave enough?
A; No, bravery has nothing to do with it fortunately. You can't
be brave enough.
Q: That's good to know.
A: Instead of like bravery is a sort of bracing in a certain
sense. I mean it's a willingness to take action but its also sort
of a bracing. This isn't bravery. This doesn't take bravery. The
bravest people in the world won't do this. They can't find it
cause they look into their bravery and they just can't come up
with it. It's from somewhere else. It comes from Being. It comes
from an unknown silent place. It's more like it's allowed to
arise. It's never forced.
Q: This really helps.
A: And you don't think anything of it, that your idea, whatever
remains of your idea of yourself, cannot do it. Because it can't.
It's not meant to do it. And as you realize it, it can relax.
It's not it's job to let go.
Q: Well, the first awakening was accidental. Just happened.
A: It's all accidental. It always appear at times I'm telling
people to do this or do that but this is just like throwing
things in and neither you nor me have any control over what may
happen. It may be part of the overall workings of things starting
something but neither one of us has any ultimate control of it.
Q: Or any clue as to what did what...
A: Exactly.
Q: How it happened.
A: Not in the end, no. Cause there is no such thing as one thing
causing another. It's all one so everything, the cause of any one
thing is literally everything else.
Q: Four years ago you gave me the homework of opening more. I'm
sure you don't remember. But you said 'open more.' But now I feel
like maybe it's more, if the fear arises just be with the fear...
A: Just 'yes.'
Q: Cause I thought it was death that I was afraid of but its
really fear that I'm afraid of. Not death. So... just...
A: Yes
Q: Not be afraid of the fear.
A: Yes. Just yes.
Q: Embrace it. No.
A: Just yes. It's nt yes to what you're saying, it's just yes.
The fear... yes. Cause you see in that there's no real doing,
you're not bracing, you're not being with it. The fear arises
cause the fear is basically a experiential 'No.' Yes...even to
the 'no.' Yes!
Q: Thank you.
A: And even the 'yes' arises on its own.
Adyashanti Omega 2007 disk 16, posted to adyashantigroup
Pursue the inquiry 'Who am I' relentlessly. Analyse your entire
personality. Try to find out where the I-thought begins. Go on
with your meditations. Keep turning your attention within. One
day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will
mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking
stop, and it will lead eventually to the goal.
- Ramana Maharishi, quoted in In Days of Great Peace by
Mouni Sadhu
Q: What exactly is this Self of which you speak? If what you say
is true there must be another self in man.
Sri Ramana: Can a man be possessed of two identities, two selves?
To understand this matter it is first necessary for a man to
analyse himself. Because it has long been his habit to think as
others think, he has never faced his 'I' in the true manner. He
has not a correct picture of himself: he has too long identified
himself with the body and the brain. Therefore I tell you to
pursue this enquiry, 'Who am I?' You ask me to describe this true
Self to you. What can be said? It is That out of which the sense
of the personal 'I' arises and into which it will have to
disappear.
Q: Disappear? How can one lose the feeling of one's personality?
Sri Ramana: The first and foremost of all thoughts, the primeval
thought in the mind of every man, is the thought 'I'. It is only
after the birth of this thought that any other thoughts can arise
at all. It is only after the first personal prooun, 'I', has
arisen in the mind that the second personal pronoun, 'you', can
make its appearance. If you could mentally follow the 'I' thread
until it led you back to its source you would discover that, just
as it is the first thought to appear, so it is the last to
disappear. This is a matter which can be experienced.
Q: You mean that it is possible to conduct such a mental
investigation into oneself?
Sri Ramana: Certainly. It is possible to go inwards until the
last thought, 'I', gradually vanishes.
Q: What is then left? Will a man then become quite unconscious or
will he become an idiot?
Sri Ramana: No; on the contrary, he will attain that
consciousness which is immortal and he will become truly wise
when he has awakened to his true Self, which is the real nature
of man.
Q: But surely the sense of 'I' must also pertain to that?
Sri Ramana: The sense of 'I' pertains to the person, the body and
brain. When a man knows his true Self for the first time
something els arises from the depths of his being and takes
possession of him. That something is behind the mind; it is
infinite, divine, eternal. Some people call it the Kingdom of
Heaven, others call it the soul and others again Nirvana, and
Hindus call it Liberation; you may give it what name you wish.
When this happens a man has not really lost himself; rather he
has found himself.
Unless and until a man embarks on this quest of the true Self,
doubt and uncertainty will follow his footsteps through life. The
greatest kings and statesmen try to rule others when in their
heart of hearts they know that they cannot rule themselves. Yet
the greatest power is at the command of the man who has
penetrated to his inmost depth.
What is the use of knowing about everything else when you do not
yet know who you are? Men avoid this enquiry into the true Self,
but what else is there so worthy to be undertaken?
- Interview with Ramana in Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret
India,
Ramana Maharshi video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNXM4Sq-GIA