Quote: God is just a word that points to that which is beyond words
God
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 Presence that always is
Ask a thousand questions,
Receive a thousand answers,
The real answer is not in words:
It’s the Presence that always is.
Thoughts want to know what real,
Want to have it all figured out,
One day it’s all seen through,
What’s left is the Presence that always is.
When you can, stop. Allow silence to gently fill you up,
Feel it bloom and grow within your heart,
That warm glow, that inner light, infiltrating everything,
The Presence that always is.
Feelings come and go,
Sometimes flowing, sometimes sticky,
‘Embrace them with’, ‘allow them to merge into’,
The Presence that always is.
Deep within your heart,
Presence emanates and embraces,
The sacred heart within and without, embracing all,
The Presence that always is.
The totality of experience,
‘Body’, ‘mind’ and ‘world’,
Everything that is happening or has ever happened,
Is just this Presence that always is.
Who am I…? Presence is here
Silence…Presence is here
Preoccupied with thought and deed…Presence is here
Hurt and afraid…The Presence that always is.
Life and laughter…Presence is here
Tears and pain…Presence is here
Not sure what going on? Presence is here
Now what do I do? ……………………
See also I AM
Ramana Maharshi: Once you realise the Self, it becomes your direct and immediate experience. It is never lost.
‘Once you realise the Self, it becomes your direct and immediate experience. It is never lost.’
Ramana Maharshi
Time and time again I hear from spiritual seekers that they glimpsed the Self, they experienced that ecstasy, but it slipped through their fingers and fell away. Their question to me is how to get it back again. This is the wrong question, this is the wrong way, as it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the path.
Everything that comes can also go. Everything that comes, all experiences that have been attained, are not the Self.
The Self is no particular experience. It is always here, fully manifest, fully evident. Everything that is perceived is It. It is not different from whatever is being perceived to be happening.
Realising that ‘this is It’ is Self-realisation. It is simply seeing what already is the case. When it is seen, there is no desire to reach a new experience, and a seeing that everything happens spontaneously without the presence of a separate doer-entity. Here suffering falls away as the simple truth of no-doer is seen.
Actions, thoughts and desires continue to manifest themselves, spontaneously, but there is nobody doing it, just like the wind blowing or digestion happening. Things happen, no doer.
As long are you are alive, you always are, you always exist. No matter what happens, you are. This knowledge of (your) being is Self-knowledge. It is not something to attain, just something to be ‘acknowledged’. It is not separate from whatever is perceived to be happening. How can this ‘knowledge’ be lost?
Spiritual knowledge cannot be learnt
“There will come a time when one will have to forget all that one has learned.”
from ‘Who am I’ by Ramana Maharshi
Ultimate truth is simply that which never changes. It is here, now, everywhere and always already in its full glory. It is not separate from whatever is happening or from what is currently being experienced. Ultimate truth does not require you to believe in it or even do anything for it. Just drop all wrong thoughts and whatever remains is It. It cannot be caught in concepts.
The main role of the spiritual path is not to learn about ultimate truth, as it cannot be accumulated, but to discard falsehood. Seeing through false assumptions is what is called ‘spiritual knowledge’. It is not knowledge in the conventional sense at all really.
Conventionally speaking, learning is about accumulation of knowledge, but spiritual learning is more like pruning a hedge or chipping away at a block of stone to reveal a beautiful sculpture beneath. Put simply, spiritual learning is unlearning. Spiritual knowledge is seeing through false ideas.
“The state of Self-realisation, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been. All that is needed is that you give up your realisation of the not-true as true.”
Ramana Maharshi
Anything that is learnt as being true is in the realm of relative knowledge. Anything that is learnt can also be forgotten whereas the Ultimate neither comes nor goes. Any statement posited as being true can be questioned and doubted leaving with it the bitter taste of uncertainty.
The Ultimate cannot be conceptualised. Conceptualisation itself relies on the Ultimate for its existence. All statements of truth rely on supporting structures and logic, eg. underpinning scientific or philosophical reasoning. The Ultimate truth stands by itself without needing outside support. It is none other than what you truly are. Look and you shall see.
Quote: genuine spiritual realisation is ordinary
Bhagavad Gita: the most secret teaching
Lord Krishna states this is his most secret teaching: to love Him, to devote ourselves to Him, to be with Him knowingly.
He is already in each of our hearts, He is already everywhere and everything, everything is already done by Him.
Here knowledge, scripture and philosophy all crumble as, through our devotion, the heart opens. All are consumed by Him, and all we are left with is Him in all His glory.
We never were. All there ever was was Him.
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As Jesus said when asked:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And he [Jesus] said to him,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:36-38
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Also, as Shankara sung in his Bhaja Govindam:
“Worship Govinda, worship Govinda, worship Govinda,
Oh fool! Other than chanting the Lord’s names, there is no other way to cross the life’s ocean.”
(Govinda is another name for Krishna. Literally it means ‘protector of cows’ referring to Krishna’s youth as a cow herd.)
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So, all that’s left for me do to is bow down and praise Him
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Hare Krishna!
Om Namah Shivaya!
May all beings be happy and well!
Praise be to God!
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See also:
The pre-eminent form of worship
Poetry: the all knowing ego
The ego thinks it has all the ‘answers’,
Thinks it knows exactly how the enlightenment game works,
Thinks it knows which practice is best,
All its concepts lined up.
Of course it has no clue.
Pride means it pretends to know what it doesn’t,
Clinging to what it hopes will work,
According to its limited understanding.
Who can blame it?
My advice: realise first, talk later.
Ramana Maharshi: Laugh and cry!
The realized person weeps with the weeping,
laughs with the laughing,
plays with the playful,
sings with those who sing,
keeping time to the song.
What does he lose?
Tom’s comments:
Many truth seekers suppose that the ‘fully self-realised guru’ would act in a certain way:
speak, walk, dress in certain ways,
never angry, always kind,
never unhappy, ever-blissful
pure and faultless
What a prison!
Freedom does not care for that!
In Freedom our humanity naturally shines
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Also see All exist in me
Ramana Maharshi: just ‘lose’ the ego
Be what you are…All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That…
…The thought ‘I have not seen’, the expectation to see and the desire of getting something, are all the working of the ego.
You have fallen into the snares of the ego. The ego says all these and not you. Be yourself and nothing more!
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Talk 183
See also:
Ramana Maharshi on non-doership and self-realisation
Ramana Maharshi: Self-inquiry (atma vichara) and doership
Tom Das 