Unfortunately, and contrary to what some teachers say, the following do NOT lead to liberation, as anyone’s own personal experience can testify:
-simply seeing ego for what it is
or
-seeing the false as false
or
-seeing the world but knowing it is illusory or false
or
-knowing yourself as the unchanging witness to all phenomena
or
-knowing yourself as the consciousness or awareness in which all (and as which all) phenomena arise
or
-merely saying or affirming based on exploring one’s experience ‘there is no person’
(Can you think of any other similar teachings that don’t work? Please let me know in the comments below…)
These are all conceptual.
If these actually worked as teachings, many more would be liberated very quickly.
Even if there is some genuine experiential understanding, it is still ultimately mind-understanding or ego-understanding and not at all the true spiritual knowledge (which has nothing to do with the mind or thought or even the body, all of which are time-bound).
At best these can alleviate suffering, but not abolish it entirely, which only occurs with genuine liberation.
What is needed is to actually turn away from objective phenomena (towards the Self). You will find that unless this is done, the suffering and the sense of being an individual person keeps on returning no matter how hard you try.
Has this been your experience too?
🙏🙏🙏
Author: Tom Das
No freedom in the Matrix
Saying:
-this matrix is also part of Freedom and so no need to exit the matrix
or
-there is Freedom within the Matrix
or
-‘look how wonderful and amazing and beautiful the Matrix’ is and proceed to worship it (pay it attention)
or
-The matrix was created for a reason and so we should enjoy it
All these are concepts that keep you trapped in the matrix.
All these are ego-preservation strategies.
All these are born of ignorance.
This teaching is itself within the matrix, a message within the matrix to help you break free from that which never truly bound you
❤️🙏❤️
Ps. Let me know if you know of any other ego preservation strategies like these
❤️🙏❤️
The path of Being cannot be taught in words | Silence | Sri Sadhu Om | The Paramount Importance of Self Attendtion
The path of being (sat) cannot be taught in words, because the nature of this path is no different to the nature of its goal, and since the goal is absolute silence, untainted by the rising of the ego, it can be made known only by silence.
In other words, in this path there is nothing to be done, so there are no exercises that can be prescribed. In order just to be, the ego does not need to do anything, and must not do anything.
All that is required of it is just to die: that is, to subside and disappear forever.
~ the above is an excerpt from The Paramount Importance of Self-Attention by Sri Sadhu Om
What is the nature of Maya? | Sri Ramana Maharshi | Upadesa Manjari (Spiritual Instruction)
Question 5. What is the nature of maya?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Maya is that which makes us regard as nonexistent the Self, the Reality, which is always and everywhere present, all-pervasive and Self-luminous, and as existent the individual soul (jiva), the world (jagat), and God (para) which have beenconclusively proved to be nonexistent at all times and places.
~Sri Ramana Maharishi, Upadesa Manjari (Spiritual Instruction)
Tom’s comments:
ie. Maya is that which makes you think there is no Self or Ultimate Reality, but makes you think there are individual persons (jivas), there is a world (jagat), and there is a force that governs these…When in fact the opposite is true.
Shakara did not teach ‘The world is an illusion, only Brahman is real, the world is Brahman’
As far as I’m aware Shankara never actually taught ‘The world is an illusion, only Brahman is real, the world is Brahman.’ – this appears to be a misquote.
The actual teaching is ‘Brahma satyam, jagat mithya, jivo brahmaiva naparah’
..which means:
‘Brahman is Truth/Reality, the world is illusion, the Jiva (individual Self or ‘I’ or ‘I Am’) [when enquired into] is nothing but Brahman’
The Self can Never be a Witness
The Self is not a witness at all, and it can never be a witness in Truth, but as long as we think we are a body-mind entity, and as long as we see a world outside of or apart from ourself, the Self is indicated or pointed out as being the Subject or the Witness merely for the purposes of the teaching.
When in Self-Enquiry we turn our attention away from the objects, which means we turn our attention away from the various gross and suble phenomena that are perceived, and towards the Subject or Self (‘Witness’), also known as the I AM or the 1st person, eventually the ego-mind which takes itself to be a body-mind entity dissolves or dies and all that is left is the Subject-Witness-Self.
This Self can no longer truly be said to be either a Subject (for there are no objects present), nor can it be said to be a Witness, as there is nothing to witness. It is All, it is the Sole Reality, ‘One without a second’, as it is often described as being in the Upanishads.
Hence Bhagavan Ramana is recorded as saying:
If you refrain from looking at this
Or that or any other object
Then by that overpowering look
Into absolute Being you become
Yourself the boundless space of pure
Awareness which alone is Real Being.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Guru Vachaka Kovai, Verse 647
The ego/mind, when attending to objects, considers itself to be an object (the body-mind). However, when the ego attends or pays attention to itself (also known as the I-sense, or first person, or I am), and in so doing no longer pays attention to the objects it was previously attending or paying attention to, it discovers its true nature without objects, ie it’s true formless nature, then it has actually discovered its actual or real nature which is Self.
This is why Sri Ramana states In Day by Day with Bhagavan:
‘The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world’
Can I practice Self-Enquiry whilst doing everyday tasks? Who Am I? Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi
No need to convince others | Non-duality & Advaita
Everybody has their own path. Traditionally one is encouraged to follow one’s own path and allow others to follow their path, trusting that the One Power is guiding us all in the way that is most beneficial for each of us.
We are therefore encouraged NOT to convince others to adopt our own point of view, for this becomes another distraction on our own path as well as a dissipation of our own energies. Ultimately there are no others, and so this kind of discourse in which we try to convince others as to the superiority of our own view becomes a grand detour into illusion.
This does not mean that we cannot share our own spiritual insights and thoughts, but that we should tread lightly and lovingly in how we share. We can acknowledge that we do not necessarily have all the answers for everyone else, and that different teachings suit different people at different times.
All teachings and teachers have their place, even the ones we may not like!It is said in the Bhagavad Gita:
3.26 Let not the wise disrupt the minds of the ignorant who are attached to action. They should not be encouraged to refrain from work, but to engage in work in the spirit of devotion.
and
3.29 The person of knowledge should not confuse the mind of those people of imperfect understanding who, deluded by the Gunas [Energies or Forces] of Nature, are attached to action in the material world.
Tom Das 