You intuitively already know this in your heart | Self-Knowledge | Advaita Vedanta | Non-duality

April 8, 2022April 3, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ 2 Comments

This knowledge is already fully within you

All the Spiritual Knowledge you ever need is already within you (it actually is you). What is this Spiritual Knowledge? It is knowledge of what you truly are, namely Pure Ever-Blissful Ever-Full Eternal Formless Spirit.

You already fully know this

You already know this. You have always eternally known this. This knowledge has always been within you, intuitively, meaning non-verbally ie. NOT knowledge in the mind and NOT knowledge known by a person. It is innate inborn knowledge that cannot be lost, ever, and does not need to be gained ever.

If you look within, take the time to really feel, then perhaps you will intuit that you have always known that you are infinite, formless and divine, beyond time and space.

Intuitively you have always known that you are not merely flesh and bone, you are not this mere body and mind.

You do not need any new knowledge or understanding in the mind for this path.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, in truth there is no problem, and there never has been, and never will be (no problems are real, and time such as past and future are also not actually real)…and you already intuitively and deeply know that there is no problem…but…

…But so long as you believe the limiting ideas thrown out by the mind – and all the mind’s ideas are limiting – then you will consider yourself to be limited. You will consider yourself to have name and form, you will consider yourself to be flesh and blood, and to be subject to birth, disease, suffering and death. You will consider the world to be real and you will consider problems to be real.

In Truth you are Spirit Divine, Eternal, Lumonious, Blissfull, devoid of time, space, individuality, devoid of one iota of suffering, devoid of one iota of multiplicity or duality, ever whole, pure, pristine Beauty and Love.

This ‘knowledge’ is not in the mind – no body or mind is required for this ‘knowledge

As I said, you know this already – ‘in your heart’ – meaning intuitively this is known, ie. this is not known and can never be known with the mind or with concepts/thoughts, but it is always known in your Heart or Being.

Your True Nature always knows itself to be Divine, fully. This knowledge does not require and body or mind, both of which, together with the world, are non-existent and unreal.

In truth there is no you and me. There is only ONE, THAT. And ‘we’ are THAT ONE.

The only ‘issue’ (not that there really is any issue) is that we take on wrong concepts, believing ourselves to be a body-mind entity living in a world when actually these are all false and non-existent In Truth.

‘Ignorance’

All ‘we have to do’ to realise this is lose the wrong concepts, lose the wrong beliefs, which means to stop attending to them, to stop paying attention to the body + mind + world, especially our thoughts and concepts. All we have to do is have faith in our own innate unborn non-mental non-conceptual knowledge of what we are, and attend to and nurture that intuitive-faith-knowingness-self.

Then, as ignorance slips away, all will eventually be seen to be One and Yourself, Shining as Pure Consciousness, initially with Objects Present (Savikalpa, with forms or with objects) and then in its pure Divine Form devoid of objective phenomena (Nirvikalpa, without form or without objects).

‘Self-Knowledge’

This is Self-Knowledge devoid of a shred ignorance, this is what already IS, this is what you already are, this is what is already and eternally intuitively known ‘in the heart’, meaning never with the mind.

The Self always fully knows itself to be Divine and Full, without words, without a body and without a mind – ignorance never really ever was.

If anything is needed, all we have to do is to nurture and attend to this intuitive self-knowledge. It is the guru, it will teach us, it will reveal itself to us.

‘The Teaching’

Therefore the teaching is simply: KNOW THYSELF or BE THYSELF or ATTEND TO THYSELF or HAVE FAITH IN AND NURTURE YOUR OWN INNATE INTUITIVE KNOWING/KNOWLEDGE

Ignore body/mind/world and see/intuit only consciousness-beingness-love-bliss. Attend to your beingness-knowingness, which is Self-Knowledge. Nurture, stoke and tend to this intuitive knowing – it will grow and consume everything. This is what you truly are.

And of course, you know all of this already

Namaste

❤️🕉

Sadguru – the true teacher within | Satguru

April 4, 2022March 28, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Q. Tom, what do you think of neo-advaita?

March 30, 2022March 28, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Questioner: Tom, what is your view on some of the Neo-Advaitists who do not seem to agree that there is a Self? All I hear from them is ‘there is only what is; there is no self’?

Tom: If you find these types of teaching helpful, meaning if they provide you with some kind of ease/happiness/peace/fulfilment/a sense of freedom, then that is good, and in that case I encourage you to engage with them as there is likely to be something of value there for you.

However my sense is that for the most part they are not truly liberating teachings but are predominantly spoken of from the mental/intellectual level. But what do I know! It is for you to decide what is right for you. What do you think?

Questioner: I’ll be totally honest with you. I can find some peace of mind with many ‘spiritual’ teachings. For instance I sometimes envy my Christian friends who seem so sure they will be spending eternity in heaven, but I left Catholicism and I can never believe that again. With Buddhism and nonduality I see different views within each, some saying there is a self, others denying self.

For me I can navigate life somewhat with some peace and happiness, but there always seems to be the ultimate fear of death no matter what. The neo-Advaitists say they have conquered death because they’ve died already, so to speak. But isn’t that throwing the baby out with the bathwater? So many contradictions.

In Buddhism some say the ‘self’ reincarnates, some, like Zen say there is no such thing. For Ramana is the Self immortal? What Self is there after death? Is it just silent and empty? You say it is found in deep sleep. But deep sleep is still ‘on this side’, in life. It is not the same as death. How can one know death while alive? How is one certain I AM is not also impermanent? Isn’t Ramana’s Self also an objectification? Like I doubt the truth of my Christian friends’ heaven, I always doubt that Self.

Tom: Yes, I had all these same doubts as you. My idea was to keep on searching until I found something that gave me all the answers I was looking for. The problem is that you will not find such a thing! There are always unanswered questions and problems with all spiritual systems and teachings on the conceptual level if you are intellectually probing/questioning enough.

However for me what then happened is that I unexpectedly fell in love with Sri Ramana Maharshi, and started to develop faith in his teachings (even though I perceived many ‘flaws’ and problems with his teachings). However, it was following his teachings with faith and love and devotion, despite the apparent problems with the teachings, that allowed all my doubts and questions to be answered and resolved so that now none remain. So this is what I share now.

Namaste

Isn’t all ONE ALREADY? So why seek the SUBJECT?

February 4, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Piercing the veil of illusion

January 21, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

When the mind starts to become profoundly still, and starts to shake off the notion ‘I am a body-mind, I am a person’, then not only does deep Bliss-Oneness-Love start to arise and the sense of individuality wane, but the intuition-seeing occurs that all of these things we perceive – such as body, mind and world – all of these are intuited-seen-perceived to be just a mere dancing of thought, a mere projection of mind-stuff, like a dream: empty, unreal, illusory, nothing more.

As thoughts markedly and profoundly slow down, all this comes to be seen directly.

A very useful teaching: Structural and Dynamic (or functional) aspects of the ego | Liberation

January 8, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

This is a very useful teaching for those seeking spiritual liberation. I also have written about this here in this article: Essential teachings for liberation: we need a ‘double teaching’ as we suffer from ‘double ignorance’| The ‘two wings’ of the teaching | Buddhism | Vedanta

I bow down to my Own True Self! | Yoga Vasistha

January 8, 2022January 8, 2022 ~ Tom Das ~ 2 Comments

Here is a prayer or salutation that was read out by someone at Satsang this Thursday. It is taken from the wonderful text Yoga Vasistha, where it is referred to as a prayer:

‘Salutations to that reality in which all the elements, and all the animate and inanimate beings shine as if they have an independent existence, and in which they exist for a time and into which they merge.

‘Salutations to that consciousness which is the source of the apparently distinct threefold divisions of knower, knowledge and known, seer, sight and seen, doer, doing and deed.

‘Salutations to that bliss absolute (the ocean of bliss) which is the life of all beings whose happiness and unfoldment is derived from the shower of spray from that ocean of bliss.‘

~Vasistha’s Yoga (translated by Swami Venkatesananda)

As you can see, the prayer is naturally divided into three sections, with each one corresponding to Sat-Chit-Ananda (Reality-Consciousness-Bliss), which refers to the Self, ie. what we truly are, or Brahman, the Divine Absolute. So this is really a prayer to God, Brahman, or a Prayer to Ourself:

I bow down and worship my Own True Self!