consciousness
How can consciousness be ONE? Are there not many consciousnesses? False Vedanta Teachings
Is consciousness really ONE? Evidence please! This video is an extract taken from this longer video here: https://youtu.be/vRXc72C9Yfw
To attend satsang, see here: https://tomdas.com/events
For guided meditations see the ‘guided meditation’ playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TomDasNonduality/playlists
For recommended reading for liberation see here: https://tomdas.com/2020/10/19/recommended-reading-books-for-enlightenment-liberation-and-self-realisation/
To book a 1 to 1 session with Tom see here: https://tomdas.com/nondual-spiritual-counsellor/
Everything Appears In Consciousness
Questioner: Before I came into the spiritual path, my idea of thoughts, feelings and sensations, was that they all appeared in my mind…
The Shining of My Lord – Quotes explaining the Essential Spiritual Practice
The following quotes, taken from the publication ‘The Shining of my Lord’ by Sri Muruganar, clearly and concisely explain the direct path to Self-Realisation.
In this context, the words ‘sadhana‘ and ‘tapas‘ both essentially mean spiritual practice.
‘Swarupa‘ means your own true nature, referring to the Self, the Ultimate Reality that you ARE.
The word ‘pure’ in the phrase ‘pure consciousness’ refers to consciousness devoid of any objects or arising phenomena, a reference again to the Self, your Swarupa.
I recommend you listen to this video in which the following quotes are read aloud for you, as this can often result in the same teachings being heard in a different and more powerful way:
502. The sadhana is to withdraw the mind from the sense objects of the world, which arise through the ignorance of taking the body to be ‘I’, and fix it in the feet of the Lord’s grace, pure consciousness. For those who are fully convinced of the efficacy of this sadhana, and who are able to practise it, there will be no need to abandon it to perform any other great tapas
503. Until everything shines wholly as swarupa, eschew all [perceived phenomena] as your enemies.
508. Those who abide as pure consciousness will experience the truth, the Self that exists as their own intimately close associate, but if the mind is allowed to move about among the senses through the pathways of the five senses, life will become shameful, losing its beauty.
509. If consciousness leaves the heart and manifests outwardly, it will experience perplexity through the false and deceitful sense objects. If it becomes extremely clear and remains firmly settled in consciousness-the-supreme, pure grace, and then merges with it, life will become blissful.
516. The ego deserves to be stigmatised whereas the Self alone deserves to be worshipped and saluted. Save and protect yourself completely from the treacherous maya, whose form is the ego, by the daily practice of abidance in the pure Self in order that the abidance may become firm and habitual.
492. For those who keenly desire as their principal priority a merger with the beauty of grace, the swarupa that abides in the heart as pure consciousness, it is not even slightly acceptable to have any connection with objects enjoyed by the senses, which are concepts of the fake entity, the deluding consciousness.
417. If we perform sadhana to the limit of our abilities, the Lord will accomplish for us that which is beyond our capabilities. If we fail to do even that which is within our capabilities, there is not the slightest fault in the grace of the Lord.
423. Devotion exists in many different forms, varying according to the quality of the devotee’s mind. However, only devotion to grace, the swarupa that shines as pure consciousness, enables one to reach directly the unsurpassed state of the supreme.
How to discover the world is an illusion? Discovering the truth of the world.
Here Sri Ramana not only outlines how we can discover for ourselves the truth of the world, but also he succinctly outlines the path to liberation:
If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind completely from the world and turn it within and abide thus, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self, which is the substratum of all experience, you will find the world, of which alone you are now aware, just as unreal as the world in which you lived in your dream.
~Ramana Maharshi, Maharshi’s Gospel
The above was an excerpt taken from the following post: Ramana Maharshi: ‘…unless you give up the idea that the world is real…’
Also see Ashtavakra Gita – all is illusion, I am the Self
Q. Does awareness or consciousness arise in the brain, or is consciousness itself the primary ground of existence?
Question: Does ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’ have a source, eg. is the actual brain organ the source of all manifestations and sensations? Or is consciousness primary and the ground of existence?
Tom: I don’t know the answer to that question. I only know about ending suffering. When suffering ends, one could say that all there is is consciousness, as this is the undivided experience, but this is only an experiential truth, not a scientific one, and so your actual question remains unanswered.
I wrote an article on this topic while back, feel free to take a look: Is everything really consciousness?
Q. This understanding stays for a while and then gets muddled…how to get back to the clear state?
Questioner: Usually this understanding stays for a while and then again gets muddled or covered by personality and it’s needs. How do we keep going back to the clear state…Although there is nothing called going back.
Tom: This is not a trick question: what covers up the ‘clear state’?
Q. The personality and it’s story.
Tom: Does it really get in the way? If so, how? If not, how?
Q. It’s like a forgetting of the clear state and thinking of ourself as a personality and the story it carries. This is taken as real and suddenly we are captured by it’s momentum unless some teaching or saying re-points to the clear state again. There is forgetting of the clear state.
Tom: Exactly. There is your answer. The force of habitually taking yourself to be a ‘me’ or a body-mind is ignorance. Letting that subside or seeing through that is enough. Eventually the habit will reverse and ignorance won’t reappear. It never really appears anyway. Namaste.
Directly pointing out the True Self
Hi everyone
Following lots of positive feedback from both the online and in person meetings over the last 2 weeks, I will continue to go over some essential basic teachings that focus in on directly pointing out one’s True Nature in upcoming meetings, both online and in person.
As always, details of all my events are listed here: https://www.meetup.com/Non-duality-Kingston-London/
While these pointings are simple, there is something about experiencing them in person with a real-time direct interaction that makes these teachings so especially powerful. There are many teachings you can read in books or watch online, but the pointing out the true nature teachings usually have to be done in person to really hit home. This is why with this teaching I often get comments like ‘I’ve heard the same words before but this time it really made sense!’.
For those of you who already have come this far, we will take the teachings deeper still…
So, do come along to the next meeting if you are able to. If you have never been to a meeting before, I highly encourage you to attend this week’s meeting (London) or the week after (Online). We are going to meet at the Druid’s Head this Thursday at 7pm.
Hope to see you then
Tom
Jiddu Krishnamurti: ‘Complete Attention’
Jiddu Krishnamurti used words in a very specific and often unusual way. He, generally speaking, uses the word ‘attention’ to signify awareness without the presence of the ego or chooser, and therefore without resistance or direction. Below is an example, taken from The Book of Life, June 12th:
What do we mean by attention? Is there attention when I am forcing my mind to attend? When I say to myself, “I must pay attention, I must control my mind and push aside all other thoughts,” would you call that attention? Surely that is not attention.
What happens when the mind forces itself to pay attention? It creates a resistance to prevent other thoughts from seeping in; it is concerned with resistance, with pushing away; therefore it is incapable of attention. That is true, is it not?
To understand something totally you must give your complete attention to it. But you will soon find out how extraordinarily difficult that is, because your mind is used to being distracted, so you say, “By Jove, it is good to pay attention, but how am I to do it?” That is, you are back again with the desire to get something, so you will never pay complete attention. … When you see a tree or a bird, for example, to pay complete attention is not to say, ”That is an oak,” or, “That is a parrot,” and walk by.
In giving it a name you have already ceased to pay attention… Whereas, if you are wholly aware, totally attentive when you look at something, then you will find that a complete transformation takes place, and that total attention is the good.
There is no other, and you cannot get total attention by practice. With practice you get concentration, that is, you build up walls of resistance, and within those walls of resistance is the concentrator, but that is not attention, it is exclusion.
Also, see here: If you listen completely there is no listener
Video: Satsang 3rd Jan 2019
These Satsangs are streamed live on Facebook here:
Tom Das 