freedom
Total Freedom
Freedom from suffering is a total freedom.
Which means you are free to suffer.
Suffering is ok. When it’s ok, it’s no longer suffering. Just sensations, some more comfortable than others, the body-mind organism naturally responding to the feedback provided by the senses.
It’s just what ever is happening.
What is.
Freedom, no doer, who sees there is no doer?
Q: But who sees there is no doer? Isn’t it the ego itself that sees through the illusion of self?
I use the word ‘ego’ to be synonymous with ‘doer’. Because there is a belief in being a doer, there is the notion that ‘I can change this’, ‘I can get somewhere better’, which is the seeking. This seeking is a subtle form of suffering.
When the doer is seen to be false, the seeking starts to collapse, and suffering fades.
To answer your question: who or what sees there is no ego? That which previously saw the ego is that which sees there is no ego. It is never the ego that sees: the ego is a construct of thought, which is always the seen.
Freedom is Absolute Total Forgiveness
(This question is continued from a prior post: Responsibility: if there is no doer and no-self…then what about responsibility?)
Question: OK, you mentioned total forgiveness? That’s confused me. Why do you say that?
Tom: Well everything is just unconditionally accepted, choicelessly. That’s just the way things are. Whatever happens is whatever happens, and in that sense it is totally accepted regardless of what the body-mind thinks of it.
You could say our naturally awareness accepts and ’embraces’ everything within that happens within our awareness. In that sense there is constantly total forgiveness, or total love, not the emotional love or forgiveness, though these phenomena tend to arise more frequently, but the choiceless acceptance/love/forgiveness of whatever is happening.
Poetry: Notice the tendency to cling
Notice the tendency to cling,
Notice the suffering that ensues,
Clinging…suffering…
Suffering…clinging…
Be sensitive to any psychological discomfort,
See how subtle this suffering can be!
The clinging is the suffering
The suffering is the clinging.
Then, perhaps, notice how the mind sets up another ideal:
The ideal of not clinging.
The goal of no clinging,
And therefore no suffering.
– how wonderful that would be!
(so the mind thinks)
The mind is caught in the same trap!
Learn to see this trap,
Learn to sense this trap,
Learn to feel what this trap feels like,
Learn its taste, its weight,
In all its guises,
Learn the tune it plays in your body and mind.
In Freedom all is allowed:
Clinging, no clinging,
It’s all allowed.
There is no trying to get rid of anything,
No striving for perfection,
But seeing life for what it is,
Naturally emerges.
There is nothing wrong with striving for change,
For trying to achieve an ideal.
Nor is there an issue with letting go,
With allowing things to be as they are.
Both these movements have their role,
Both clinging and lettings go are parts of life.
Freedom doesn’t care,
Freedom doesn’t mind,
And so things naturally balance out,
Or not
– either is ok.
❤
Ramana Maharshi Quote: There is no goal to be reached.
Tom’s comments:
God is already here,
wholeness is ever-present.
Call it what you want,
THIS-IS-IT
(At this level, even self-inquiry is a joke)
Interview with Tom Das on Conscious 2
Action starts at 20 mins 30 secs into the video
Interview was streamed live on 18th Feb 2016
Poetry: The one who is afraid
The one who is afraid
clings to words,
to dogma,
to ideas.
Freedom doesn’t care.
Ramana Maharshi: remaining quiet and aware is the state of mind to aim at
Questioner: There are times when persons and things take a vague, almost transparent form, as in a dream. One ceases to observe them as outside, but passively conscious of their existence, while not actively conscious of any kind of selfhood. There is a deep quietness in the mind.
Is it at such times that one is ready to dive into the Self? Or is this condition unhealthy, the result of self hypnotism? Should it be encouraged as yielding temporary peace?
Ramana Maharshi: There is Consciousness along with quietness in the mind. This is exactly to be aimed at. The fact that the question has formed on this point, without realizing that it is the Self, shows that the state is not steady but casual.
The word ‘diving’ is appropriate when there are outgoing tendencies, and when, therefore, the mind has to be directed and turned within, there is a dip below the surface of externalities. But when quietness prevails without obstructing the Consciousness, where is the need to dive?
Taken from Talks with Ramana Maharshi, Talk 348
Tom’s comments:
The sadhana (spiritual practice) that Bhagawan recommends above is to simply remain quiet (in mind and thought) and also to remain aware.
This is self-knowledge. This is the Self.
When thoughts can come and go without disturbing this essential quality of mind, there is no need to ‘dive’ using the tools of Self Inquiry (ie. the question ‘Who am I?’). With time it may be seen that nothing ever disturbs this ‘peace that passeth all understanding’, and that nothing ever did.
It was always here, fully manifest, right under our noses.
Here is the gateway to Self-knowledge or liberation.
You cannot know WHAT you are, only THAT you are and what you are NOT
Tom Das 