‘Liberation doesn’t care’ for being loving, caring and nice or being good and unegotistical. It’s just its nature to be like this, loving. You could say love and affection are mere side effects!
Year: 2019
REAL MEANINGS
When it is said ‘all is full’ or ‘all is whole’,
All that is really meant is nothing is required for liberation.
When it is said ‘nothing is real’,
All that is really meant is nothing is required for liberation.
When it is said ‘nothing is required for liberation’,
What is meant is that there is no separate ‘me’ that could require anything.
…JUST THIS…
Too simple for words!
Ramana Maharshi – Deep Sleep and Self-Realisation
Questioner: Miseries appear in jagrat (waking sate). Why should they appear?
Ramana Maharshi: If you see your Self they will not appear.
Q: If I turn to look who I am I do not find anything.
RM: How did you remain in your sleep? There was no ‘I-thought’ there and you were happy. Whereas there are thoughts flowering in the wake of the root-thought ‘I’ in the jagrat and these hide the inherent happiness. Get rid of these thoughts which are the obstacles to happiness. Your natural state is one of happiness as was evident in your sleep.
Q: I do not know anything of my sleep experience.
RM: But you know that it was happiness. Otherwise you would not be saying “I slept happily”. When there is no thought, no ‘I’, and nothing In fact except yourself, you are happy. That is the whole Truth. This is exactly what is conveyed by the Mahavakya- Tatvamasi (You are That). Find your Self: and then “That” is known.
Q: How is that Brahman?
RM: Why do you want to know of Brahman apart from yourself? The scripture says “You are That”. The Self is intimate to you and you cannot indeed be without the Self. Realise it. That is the Realisation of Brahman also.
Q: But I am unable to do it. I am too weak to realise my Self.
RM: In that case surrender yourself unreservedly and the Higher Power will reveal Itself.
Q: What is unconditional surrender?
RM: If one surrenders oneself there will be no one to ask questions or to be thought of. Either the thoughts are eliminated by holding on to the root-thought ‘I’ or one surrenders oneself unconditionally to the Higher Power. These are the only two ways for Realisation.
Talk 321 – Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
‘PATH’ TO LIBERATION
The appears to be a path, a process…
A path appears to be needed…
Many teachings and practices appear to be helpful…
And yet…
Nothing is needed!
Nothing is needed!
LOVE & SURRENDER
Never underestimate the importance of surrender or letting go of the ‘me’. It is the same as meditation or being still. It is something that is the natural result of insight into non-duality/no separation and is not something you have to necessarily do, although it may start off that way. It takes us to Love, total and ordinary Love. ❤
We could say that if you are doing surrender in order to become enlightened then that is more ‘me’ or egotism. It is totally fine to do this btw. However surrender naturally results when this ‘me’ and the control me neurotically tries to exert is seen/felt/realised to be totally unnecessary and therefore the ‘me’ is non-conceptually/non-verbally realised to be a waste of energy.
Many staunch non-dualists do not advocate surrender, as who or what is there to do the surrendering? I totally agree!
And yet never underestimate the value of surrender!
😂😂
When the heart is open, even slightly, it is easy to sense those teachers whose hearts are not fully open, whose hearts remain resistant to the naturally purifying effect of love, whose minds cling on to the ‘me’, and in whom the me energy (ie. egoic vasanas) continues despite their words saying otherwise.
❤🙏❤
💥 ‘PATH’ TO ENLIGHTENMENT 💥
This is always fully known.
This is always full.
This IS always.
This IS.
THIS.
.
💥
❤
TRUTH!
None of my words are really true, and neither are any of your words either, not when it comes to ‘Non-duality’. This is not ultimately about having the right concepts or having an accurate description of the ways things ‘really’ are, thankfully.
It is much simpler than that, and from the vantage point of the dualistic mind, much more radical too.
There is just an energetic pointing to a total freedom which can never be encapsulated solely by words, but words may be used (apparently) nonetheless.
It simply is ‘what is’.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: The First and Last Freedom
I’ve put together some quotes from The First And Last Freedom written by J. Krishnamurti. My first introduction to the teachings of J. Krishnamurti were through a book called The First Krishnamurti Reader which I read as a teenager, and the first few chapters of this book were lifted straight from The First and Last Freedom. Reading this book subsequently propelled me to zealously consume almost all the writings of ‘K’ I could find! (Perhaps I had not read it carefully enough!)
Here I have chosen quotes that I felt summarised much of what he was trying to get across. Of course, the quotes are very concise, so take your time with them – do not speed read this if you want to ‘get’ what they are pointing at – ie. the very absence of ‘you’.
Best wishes
Tom
——
It is only if you are aware of inward insufficiency and live with it without escape, accepting it wholly, that you will discover an extraordinary tranquillity, a tranquillity which is not put together, made up, but a tranquillity which comes with understanding of what is. Only in that state of tranquillity is there creative being.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
——
Truth is not something to be gained. Love cannot come to those who have a desire to hold on to it, or who like to become identified with it. Surely such things come when the mind does not seek, when the mind is completely quiet, no longer creating movements and beliefs upon which it can depend, or from which it derives a certain strength, which is an indication of self-deception. It is only when the mind understands this whole process of desire that it can be still. Only then is the mind not in movement to be or not to be; then only is there the possibility of a state in which there is no deception of any kind.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
——
Thus regeneration is only possible in the present, not in the future, not tomorrow. A man who relies on time as a means through which he can gain happiness or realise truth or God is merely deceiving himself; he is living in ignorance and therefore in conflict. A man who sees that time is not the way out of our difficulty and who is therefore free from the false, such a man naturally has the intention to understand; therefore his mind is quiet spontaneously, without compulsion, without practice. When the mind is still, tranquil, not seeking any answer or any solution, neither resisting nor avoiding – it is only then that there can be a regeneration, because then the mind is capable of perceiving what is true; and it is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
——
A mind that would be in a state in which the new can take place – whether it be the truth, whether it be God, or what you will – must surely cease to acquire, to gather; it must put aside all knowledge. A mind burdened with knowledge cannot possibly understand, surely, that which is real, which is not measurable.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
——
We do not have to seek truth. Truth is not something far away. It is the truth about the mind, truth about its activities from moment to moment. If we are aware of this moment-to-moment truth, of this whole process of time, that awareness releases consciousness or the energy which is intelligence, love. So long as the mind uses consciousness as self-activity, time comes into being with all its miseries, with all its conflicts, with all its mischief, its purposive deceptions; and it is only when the mind, understanding this total process, ceases, that love can be.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
——
Love is not of the self. Self cannot recognise love. You say ”I love; but then, in the very saying of it, in the very experiencing of it, love is not. But, when you know love, self is not. When there is love, self is not.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
——
Truth, God or what you will, is not something to be experienced, for the experiencer is the result of time, the result of memory, of the past, and so long as there is the experiencer there cannot be reality. There is reality only when the mind is completely free from the analyser, from the experiencer and the experienced. Then you will find the answer, then you will see that the change comes without your asking, that the state of creative emptiness is not a thing to be cultivated – it is there, it comes darkly, without any invitation; only in that state is there a possibility of renewal, newness, revolution.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
ON APPEARANCES
‘Things appear’…’This appearance’…
…Appearance is a descriptive term. This is how things appear to be. To say something ‘is’ or ‘is not’ is to stray into the domain of concepts and beliefs. No need to go there.
HOW TO MISS A GENUINELY REALISED SPIRITUAL TEACHER
What if a teacher was genuinely realised but used language in a different way to your teacher of choice? Would you pass them by?
It’s my experience that when people truly get this, they do not necessarily parrot their own teacher (although they may), but have their own unique expression of the same truth. Often this expression can be radically different, at least on the surface.
Take Nisargadatta Maharaj – he expressed his teaching in a very different way to his Guru (Siddharameshwar Maharaj) who taught in a more traditional way which emphasised progession through various specific stages and reading of traditional texts. And Siddharameshwar Maharaj taught in a different way to his guru, Bhauhaseb Maharaj (so much so that Bhauhaseb’s disciples initially rallied against Siddharameshwar) who stressed meditative practice over book reading. Similarly look at other teachers who claim the same lineage: Ranjit Maharaj, Ramakant Maharaj and even Ramesh Balsekar – all have very different expressions, using almost completely different language and methodologies.
We can see the same in the centuries gone by: when we read the various Upanishads, some appear highly dualistic, whilst others are staunchly non-dualistic, some Upanishads are heavily theistic whereas some do not refer to a deity at all.
In Chan/Zen, we can see how each of the Patriarchs, starting with Bodhidharma, expressed the inexpressible in their own inimitable style.
There are many ways to talk about this. There are many ways we can come to this. No need to judge the teachers too much.
When I was a seeker, I used to often judge various teachers, especially when they expressed things that seemed at odds with my own personal understanding. Now I can see how right many of them were (Not all though! Not all teachings are equal!)
I know it’s difficult as a seeker, I really do. Just remember to keep an open mind, watch out when you become too critical, and focus on your own path so you can ‘attain a genuine realisation for yourself’, so to speak 😊 😜
Be open to the notion that some people may be expressing the same thing you are, but just in a different way, and perhaps just in a way you don’t fully understand.
Tom Das 