JustinS
Member-
Content count
685 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by JustinS
-
-
Mind Is Restlessness Itself. ~ I Am That (Nisargadatta Maharaj)
Questioner: I am a Swede by birth. Now I am teaching Hatha Yoga in Mexico and in the States.Maharaj: Where did you learn it?
Q: I had a teacher in the States, an Indian Swami.
M: What did it give you?
Q: It gave me good health and a means of livelihood.
M: Good enough. Is it all you want?
Q: I seek peace of mind. I got disgusted with all the cruel things done by the so-called Christians in the name of Christ. For some time I was without religion. Then I got attracted to Yoga.M: What did you gain?
Q: I studied the philosophy of Yoga and it did help me.
M: In what way did it help you? By what signs did you conclude that you have been helped?Q: Good health is something quite tangible.
M: No doubt it is very pleasant to feel fit. Is pleasure all you expected from Yoga?Q: The joy of well-being is the reward of Hatha Yoga.
But Yoga in general yields more than that. It answers many questions.
M: What do you mean by Yoga?
Q: The whole teaching of India -- evolution, re-incarnation, karma and so on.
M: All right, you got all the knowledge you wanted. But in what way are you benefited by it?Q: It gave me peace of mind.
M: Did it? Is your mind at peace? Is your search over?Q: No, not yet.
M: Naturally. There will be no end to it, because there is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind. Yoga is not an attribute of the mind, nor is it a state of mind.Q: Some measure of peace I did derive from Yoga.
M: Examine closely and you will see that the mind is seething with thoughts. It may go blank occasionally, but it does it for a time and reverts to its usual restlessness. A becalmed mind is not a peaceful mind. You say you want to pacify your mind. Is he, who wants to pacify the mind, himself peaceful?Q: No. I am not at peace, I take the help of Yoga.
M: Don't you see the contradiction? For many years you sought your peace of mind. You could not find it, for a thing essentially restless cannot be at peace.
Q: There is some improvement.
M: The peace you claim to have found is very brittle any little thing can crack it. What you call peace is only absence of disturbance. It is hardly worth the name. The real peace cannot be disturbed. Can you claim a peace of mind that is unassailable?Q: l am striving.
M: Striving too is a form of restlessness.
Q: So what remains?
M: The self does not need to be put to rest. It is peace itself, not at peace. Only the mind is restless. All it knows is restlessness, with its many modes and grades. The pleasant are considered superior and the painful are discounted. What we call progress is merely a change over from the unpleasant to the pleasant. But changes by themselves cannot bring us to the changeless, for whatever has a beginning must have an end. The real does not begin; it only reveals itself as beginningless and endless, all-pervading, all-powerful, immovable prime mover, timelessly changeless.Q: So what has one to do?
M: Through Yoga you have accumulated knowledge and experience. This cannot be denied. But of what use is it all to you? Yoga means union, joining. What have you re-united, re-joined?Q: I am trying to rejoin the personality back to the real self.
M: The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it. Beyond the self (vyakta) lies the unmanifested (avyakta), the causeless cause of everything. Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.
Q: Yoga helps in the search for and the finding of the self.
M: You can find what you have lost. But you cannot find what you have not lost.Q: Had I never lost anything, I would have been enlightened. But I am not. I am searching. Is not my very search a proof of my having lost something?
M: It only shows that you believe you have lost. But who believes it? And what is believed to be lost? Have you lost a person like yourself? What is the self you are in search of? What exactly do you expect to find?Q: The true knowledge of the self.
M: The true knowledge of the self is not a knowledge. It is not something that you find by searching, by looking everywhere. It is not to be found in space or time. Knowledge is but a memory, a pattern of thought, a mental habit. All these are motivated by pleasure and pain. It is because you are goaded by pleasure and pain that you are in search of knowledge. Being oneself is completely beyond all motivation. You cannot be yourself for some reason. You are yourself, and no reason is needed.Q: By doing Yoga I shall find peace.
M: Can there be peace apart from yourself? Are you talking from your own experience or from books only? Your book knowledge is useful to begin with, but soon it must be given up for direct experience, which by its very nature is inexpressible. Words can be used for destruction also; of words images are built, by words they are destroyed. You got yourself into your present state through verbal thinking; you must get out of it the same way.Q: I did attain a degree of inner peace. Am I to destroy it?
M: What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realise the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what is it that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive.
Q: What are the means to such perception?
M: In life nothing can be had without overcoming obstacles. The obstacles to the clear perception of one's true being are desire for pleasure and fear of pain. It is the pleasure-pain motivation that stands in the way. The very freedom from all motivation, the state in which no desire arises is the natural state.
Q: Such giving up of desires, does it need time?
M: If you leave it to time, millions of years will be needed. Giving up desire after desire is a lengthy process with the end never in sight. Leave alone your desires and fears, give your entire attention to the subject, to him who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask: 'who desires?' Let each desire bring you back to yourself.Q: The root of all desires and fears is the same -- the longing for happiness.
M: The happiness you can think of and long for, is mere physical or mental satisfaction. Such sensory or mental pleasure is not the real, the absolute happiness.Q: Even sensory and mental pleasures and the general sense of well-being which arises with physical and mental health, must have their roots in reality.
M: They have their roots in imagination. A man who is given a stone and assured that it is a priceless diamond will be mightily pleased until he realises his mistake; in the same way pleasures lose their tang and pains their barb when the self is known. Both are seen as they are -- conditional responses, mere reactions, plain attractions and repulsions, based on memories or pre- conceptions. Usually pleasure and pain are experienced when expected. It is all a matter of acquired habits and convictions.
Q: Well, pleasure may be imaginary. But pain is real.
M: Pain and pleasure go always together. Freedom from one means freedom from both. If you do not care for pleasure, you will not be afraid of pain. But there is happiness which is neither, which is completely beyond. The happiness you know is describable and measurable. It is objective, so to say. But the objective cannot be your own. It would be a grievous mistake to identify yourself with something external. This churning up of levels leads nowhere. Reality is beyond the subjective and objective, beyond all levels, beyond every distinction. Most definitely it is not their origin, source or root. These come from ignorance of reality, not from reality itself, which is indescribable, beyond being and not-being.Q: Many teachers have I followed and studied many doctrines, yet none gave me what I wanted.
M: The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But you must be honest with yourself and really want nothing else. If in the meantime you want many other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser and cease being torn between contradictory urges. Go within, without swerving, without ever looking outward.Q: But my desires and fears are still there.
M: Where are they but in your memory? realise that their root is in expectation born of memory and they will cease to obsess you.Q: I have understood very well that social service is an endless task, because improvement and decay, progress and regress, go side by side. We can see it on all sides and on every level. What remains?
M: Whatever work you have undertaken -- complete it. Do not take up new tasks unless it is called for by a concrete situation of suffering and relief from suffering. Find yourself first, and endless blessings will follow. Nothing profits the world as much as the abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms of loss and gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is beyond all conflict.
Q: Yes, I was always attracted by the idea of ahimsa (non-violence).
M: Primarily, ahimsa means what it says: 'don't hurt'. It is not doing good that comes first, but ceasing to hurt, not adding to suffering. Pleasing others is not ahimsa.Q: I am not talking of pleasing, but I am all for helping others.
M: The only help worth giving is freeing from the need for further help. Repeated help is no help at all. Do not talk of helping another, unless you can put him beyond all need of help.Q: How does one go beyond the need of help? And can one help another to do so?
M: When you have understood that all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful, and when you are willing and able to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being, you have gone beyond all need of help. You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you do not have and you don't have what you are not. You can only give what you are -- and of that you can give limitlessly.
Q: But, is it true that all existence is painful?
M: What else can be the cause of this universal search for pleasure? Does a happy man seek happiness? How restless people are, how constantly on the move! It is because they are in pain that they seek relief in pleasure. All the happiness they can imagine is in the assurance of repeated pleasure.Q: If what I am, as I am, the person I take myself to be, cannot be happy, then what am I to do?
M: You can only cease to be -- as you seem to be now. There is nothing cruel in what I say. To wake up a man from a nightmare is compassion. You came here because you are in pain, and all I say is: wake up, know yourself, be yourself. The end of pain lies not in pleasure. When you realise that you are beyond both pain and pleasure, aloof and unassailable, then the pursuit of happiness ceases and the resultant sorrow too. For pain aims at pleasure and pleasure ends in pain, relentlessly.Q: In the ultimate state there can be no happiness?
M: Nor sorrow. Only freedom. Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore, cannot be destroyed. Realise that freedom.Q: Am I not born to suffer as a result of my past? Is freedom possible at all? Was I born of my own will? Am I not just a creature?
M: What is birth and death but the beginning and the ending of a stream of events in consciousness? Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful. Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure -- and we build castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness. It is all misunderstanding and misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.
Q: My knowledge is limited, my power negligible.
M: Being the source of both. The self is beyond both knowledge and power. The observable is in the mind. The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of knowledge or liking. Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person. -
@Tearos It is about realizing who you really are, already and always have been not your ego. So there is no need to hurt yourself while manifested in this physical form. From the dualistic perspective it seems to appear that one has to get rid of the ego or kill it, but from the nondual perspective it is simply recognizing that it was never really there but of a believed thought. Not suicidal but wanting a shift in perspective is how I would put it.
-
@Sahil Pandit Truth is this stuff wouldn't be much of a value to anyone. Nothing to gain from this, but to lose everything. The self will want to avoid this stuff like a plague or use it to dig itself deeper. In a sense this stuff should devalue you or only give you some pointers.
-
"The nature of the I is to be lacking in some way, because it runs separation. So it will always have that feeling of lacking something. It's death is it's freedom, but it can't enjoy the freedom because it's dead. There's a paradox in it, and that's just how it works. So the I will throw up whatever it can throw up, stuff that thought that it thought it had resolved, lack of trust, or whatever painful actions that it has to take. It will throw up whatever it can, of course, it is dying. A lot of things suffer just before they die."
-
“No need for anything but this -
Presicely where I am and what i am
Is life complete - surpassing bliss
In this alone, all things belong
Where all is right and nothing wrong.”
- John Butler
-
“How does one describe a quality of divinity that is beyond consciousness, beyond existence, beyond even the subtlest division?
We can use the word Divinity itself. True Divinity. Totality. A profoundly “exquisite delicacy” that is prior to differentiation or distinction as Lorne Hoff put it. It is uncaused and can only be known by collapsing the dynamics of consciousness and merging with it. Brahman is the knower of Brahman.
As the sage Shankara framed it:
“Brahman is real
the world is not real [the half truth]
Brahman is the world”Put another way:
“The whole world is nothing but Brahman, the supreme.” (Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.12)In other words, the world appears to us because it is Brahman, not because it has reality in itself. It is as if Brahman has a brief musing and the result is the vastness of space and time and universes and beings. This is a very different perspective than prior in Unity (Atman) when the world is mySelf, arises from me and I contain it.
We so underestimate the divine.”
Davidya -
How does that little girl in the projection realize herself as the screen prior? Well, anything that the little girl can do is only played out within the framework of the projection. She can’t get out of herself because she was never really in herself. The only she can do is to start dismantling her perceived notions of who she thought she were, and that means the entire framework within that projection (ex. Me and My World) to not be taking it personally.
The distance the little girl has to jump in order to be the screen is 0. She is played out within the screen but to her it will feel like a great distance that has to be traveled “the spiritual journey” until it makes a loop back. What has changed then? Nothing but everythint? To who? Huh? If the projection is a seeker and wants to “abide” in the screen and wake up from the dream of consciousness, it has to go through a death period to experience with the body mind the prior.
People say “nothing ever happened” or “there is nothing going on” or “nothingness” is because the screen has always been the screen whatever chaotic film may have been projected onto it.
-
LML: And outside of that awareness there is suffering. Identification with the personal always involves suffering, even with what people call happiness.
SUZANNE: Identification and taking something to be other than what it is–seeing it as something that is not the Vastness, or as something that is not good, or not desirable. There is one way to end suffering and that is for everything to be seen for what it is, because then we don’t ask that something be different in order for suffering to stop.
JLW: So, seeing something for what it is implies seeing with the eyes of the Vastness.
SUZANNE: That is correct.
JLW: Thus, the way to end suffering is to. . .
SUZANNE: . . . see with the eyes of the Vastness.
JLW: People are going to read this and out of their deep yearning, they may try to apply it and wonder. . .
SUZANNE: “How am I going to do this?”
JLW: Yes, how does one shift from seeing through the personal eyes to seeing through the eyes of the Vastness?
SUZANNE: Your question is contrary to how the Vastness actually exists, which is that it is always perceiving things for what they are from within Itself. The implication that one should figure out what to do in order to see with the eyes of the Vastness implies that that isn’t already constantly occurring, and you have to do something to connect with that. I have always hesitated to say, “do this or do that.” I say only “see with the eyes of the Vastness,” which is already happening, because this leaves the mind confounded about what to do.
JLW: When the mind is confounded, it is stopped, and there is an openness.
SUZANNE: I am not necessarily aiming for the mind to be stopped. I guess the aim would be for the mind to recognize that it doesn’t know. The mind needs to see that there is nothing for it to do. It is not the doer and it doesn’t have to find the correct position. It’s like, That which has been happening all the time and which has always been the doer, finally shows Itself to Itself for what it is.
LML: So, that showing Itself to Itself just happens?
SUZANNE: It just happens and it is always happening. There is this wave of constancy of the Vastness perceiving Itself that is always going on and the mind can say, “How am I going to do that? How am I going to perceive that? How am I going to perceive that wave of perception that is always perceiving itself? How am I going to connect with it? What can I do in order to see with those eyes that are seeing all the time?”
LML: All of those questions are just thoughts in the mind.
SUZANNE: Exactly! So there, you just saw it for what it is–just thoughts. In seeing things for what they are, the Vastness is doing the very thing that the mind tries to figure out how to do.
LML: The mind didn’t see that? Something beyond the mind saw that?
SUZANNE: Yeah! The mind didn’t see that. So, how do you try to explain this in a practice, right? If I gave a practice, it would be colluding with that same construct that passes itself off as the doer.
LML: Are you saying that spiritual practices can perpetuate the construct of a doer?
SUZANNE: Spiritual practices imply that something has to be done in order to become the Vastness or in order to see that the Vastness has always been the doer. That is part of what I think this life of Suzanne has just been arranged to convey–that this is always who everyone is, nothing changes. This is always who the doer has been. It is seeing itself all the time, in every moment.
-
Beautiful interview with her.
http://www.spiritualteachers.org/suzanne-segal-interview/
JLW: Initially, you thought something was wrong and now you have discovered that what you are experiencing could be called enlightenment or awakening. Is this how you see it now?
SUZANNE: I have tended not to call this enlightenment and to call it only the “naturally occurring human state,” because this is who everyone is. The most obvious thing to this view of the Vastness is that it is who everyone is. And so to call IT something like “enlightenment” or “awakening” Swell, maybe. The Infinite does become something that is forefront in the awareness, so I guess you could call it a “waking up” to That. But it is not like you become something else once you see That. It is who you are. It is always who you have been. So, it is the seeing of what you have always been.
JLW: Could you say then that awakening is a shift from not seeing who we have always been to recognizing That?
SUZANNE: Okay, but that recognition doesn’t change who you really are, ever. You have always been That. And yes, there is a way that the Vastness Itself can perceive Itself so directly, without any fogging or shading or taking anything else to be who you are. I guess you could call it a waking up, but what seems most important to convey is that this is who everyone is all the time, whether the direct awareness of it is there or not.
-
Suzanne Segal's story on how NonExistence hit her completely unexpectedly while boarding a train.
https://realization.org/p/suzanne-segal/segal.collision.html
-
1 hour ago, cetus56 said:That is the very nature of consciousness. Duality. To see this is the final liberation that extinguishes every last vestige of desire for conscious experience on any level.
"No experiencer, no experiences, got it.....So, what is there after no more experiences?" <-- says the mind. LOL, oh how it keeps on looking for what is after, what is after, what is it for me, would it feel good?
@Natasha Beautiful. The girl in the screen is the dream character (little mind), the projector is Consciousness, and the Screen is the Absolute. The projector (consciousness) and the projection (dream) come and go but the screen remains. From duality, to nonduality, to nonexistence. I am That.
-
@cetus56 Bingo! OUCH! C’mon man can you stop that, you’re ruining my story here of how I got enlightened and I’m back to tell the story. It was soo woww...ooo..ahhh LOL.
12 minutes ago, cetus56 said:But will they truly surrender everything by allowing consciousness to be absorbed completely by the absolute as so nothing at all remains, not even the experience?
Amen.
“Oh god but what about all my favorite collections of my top 5 spiritual ecstasies, universal consciousness, and noself? You mean you mean there there nothing....?”
16 minutes ago, cetus56 said:The truth is there is no truth within conscious experience on any level. And the absolute cannot be tainted by conscious experience. Nisargadatta: "The absolute has no awareness of itself".
Right on it. ☠️
-
This is a very vague illustration and only post signs.
Duality (identification with mind/body)
"I am sitting here writing these words." - total identification (There is no "I am here thinking these thoughts, and my hand starts to move.)
Non-Duality (identifcation with I AM, abiding in nondual (1) awareness)
"I am having an argument with Lisa." non-identification with thoughts/emotions (Which one is Lisa?)
Awareness is not localized to any specific place, just resting in I Am, prior to thoughts/emotions.
Who is the one taking this photo? Imagine that there is no one taking this photo. That's you!
Non-Existence/Prior to Non-Duality (Total Annihilation of both and seen through the dream of Existence/ No Universe/ Absolute Nothingness)
... I can't even...
^This throughout the entire Existence, complete annihilation. At this point, realization happens that there was never a world, people, or a Universe. The world is only there as long as there is a perceiver. No Existence/Consciousness, no world. This is prior to Non-duality, prior to Consciousness.
At this point there are NO preferences between dual or nondual states, as these experiences come and go within the Absolute. You’re out. Zippo, nadda. Game over.
These are all words and concepts and are a waste of your time. Haha I just wanted to share.
-
The woman in red is self inquiry and has the sword of Truth, and the woman in yellow is the little mind.
-
A thought came in very intimately while meditating and it said "Is it bad to identify with thoughts." The mind replied to it "neither, just identifying with it causes suffering." Then it said "Why are you self inquiring? Stop doing all of this." I really noticed this time that self inquiring is going the complete opposite direction from the little mind. It is supposed to be going against your ENTIRE self agenda. It's doing the complete opposite of your very mechanism to stay alive, so of course there is going to be kicking and screaming.
"You feel like you're going to die, part of the body has to die. A part of your brain actually has to break. There is a death, so the very mechanism that creates your identity, this network in your brain.. All your fears of death is going to come up. It's not just a thought of you dying, that's just a spiritual concept. It's going to viscerally feel like a death, it has to. Be OKAY with it, if you understand what it is YOU'RE ALREADY HALF WAY THERE!" (7:20)"If you make a list of things I would never do, START DOING THEM!" (48:00) lol
-
From the neuroscience perspective fluids come together in the brain a few micromiliseconds after an action takes place and says it’s “I.”
Start at 9:15
Both guys are physicists and self realized.
-
Repeating of mantra JUST happens. There is no one thats doing them, only an after thought that says “Oh I’m saying these mantras.” You’re an afterthought. Actions just happen. Haha!
-
"Is there such thing as nonduality prior to the word nonduality? There is no such thing as nonduality." First minute.
"You don't want liberation, you don't want it, because if you have it you won't be there to appreciate it." Ouch!
-
Abiding in nondual awareness can still lead to identification with the Oneness, Self, Absolute. Jac takes it a step further to see that duality and nonduality are still within conceptualizations and that there is one step further which is That. To see through the identification of the nondual. The meta of Reality, the inception of nonduality, beyond form and formless.
Finish it off.
"Nonduality is still within the movie. It's nothing special. Take it off the pedestal if you have it on a pedestal."
-
“I used to be into healing chakras and working with energies but it was just a temperory fix until something else came along to disturb them.”
”The new age thing plays a role but its very far from Truth.”
-
“The mind will never know the Truth, hence, it is when the end of seeking it will reveal itself. But this happens through the maturity of one’s journey. There is a softening that happens when you realize the mind will never know it.”
-
My advise would be to not change any thoughts as that's more thoughts. Be aware of thoughts, and notice who is it that is aware of these thoughts? Don't think about it, just rest your awareness on it. Be interested in that! Rest in that. Thoughts will eventually lose it's power over you.
-
-
Her cute little trailer for her DVD is just so simple and clean. Haha I am not promoting her in anyway it's just that I think she's a true gem!
https://jac-okeeffe.com/dvd-going-nowhere
"It's Prior to Nonduality, duality and nonduality are still within duality, both categories. Still in the area of conceptualization. So we can see where dualism is still at play and pull back and see that wow the nondual nature of all that is, that's Consciousness....prior to that!"
in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Posted
“If you feel emptiness as an experience than mind is active and will soon replace emptiness with fear. This is not about feeling emptiness but being emptiness. It cannot try to be it. You are it. You cannot think your way into emptiness. You can only think your way into your thoughts.
The golden key here is effortlessness. After all, what is natural requires no techinque, and no action on your part. Switch off the movie in the interested of your mind no matter how realistic it appears. Stop actively thinking. Think into what is unchanging. This is not something to do. It is effortless and it is the not doing of anything that invites the natural state to present in your consciousness.
Effortlessly be that that observes all and then go where ultimate seeing stems from. Be there and rest there. Totally, natural.”
Jac O’Keeffe (Born to Be Free)