nonduality

The Hierarchy Of Needs Can Be Found Within

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

For seekers, the qualities in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs can be sought in the world, in Maya, and within, in the Heart, through self inquiry. For most of us, it’s usually a combination of the two. Tom supports us in both. But perhaps, what we are truly seeking in the pyramid can only be solidly actualized where it truly exists.

This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das on April 3rd, 2025, and put together by volunteers.

To download full unedited satsang recordings see here: https://payhip.com/tomdas

To attend satsang, see here: https://tomdas.com/events

Sri Ramana Maharshi on great public workers trying to reduce misery and suffering in the world

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Excerpt from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 272

Devotee: There are widespread disasters spreading havoc in the world e.g., famine and pestilence. What is the cause of this state of affairs?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: To whom does all this appear?

D: That won’t do. I see misery around.

M: You were not aware of the world and its sufferings in your sleep; you are conscious of them in your wakeful state. Continue in that state in which you were not afflicted by these. That is to say, when you are not aware of the world, its sufferings do not affect you. When you remain as the Self, as in sleep, the world and its sufferings will not affect you. Therefore look within. See the Self! There will be an end of the world and its miseries.

D: But that is selfishness.

M: The world is not external. Because you identify yourself wrongly with the body you see the world outside, and its pain becomes apparent to you. But they are not real. Seek the reality and get rid of this unreal feeling.

D: There are great men, public workers, who cannot solve the problem of the misery of the world.

M: They are ego-centred and therefore their inability. If they remained in the Self they would be different…

The following will NOT lead to liberation

~ Tom Das ~ 1 Comment

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?

🙏🙏🙏

No freedom in the Matrix

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

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

❤️🙏❤️

Effort vs. letting go | When you let go of everything…

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Q. I want to see if I comprehend properly, between the terms self-effort and self-inquiry, because what comes into my mind is letting go, which seems to be somehow in contradiction to the term effort.”

Can drugs and psychedelic substances lead to non-dual realisation or enlightenment? (Jiddu Krishnamurti)

~ Tom Das ~ 7 Comments

Question: A well-known author has written a great deal about the use of certain drugs which enable man to arrive at some visionary experience of union with the divine ground. Are those experiences helpful in finding that state of which you speak?

Jiddu Krishnamurti: You can learn tricks, or take drugs, or get drunk, and you will have intense experiences of one kind or another, depressing or exciting. Obviously the physiological condition does affect the psychological state of the mind; but drugs and practices of various kinds do not in any way bring about that state of which we are talking. All such things lead only to a variety, intensity and diversity of experience – which we all want and hunger after, because we are fed up with this world. We have had two world wars, with appalling misery and everlasting strife on every side; and our own minds are so petty, personal, limited. We want to escape from all this, either through psychology, philosophy, so-called religion, or through some exercise or drug – they are all on the same level.

The mind is seeking a sensation; you want to experience what you call reality, or God, something immense, great, vital. You want to have visions; and if you take some kind of drug, or are sufficiently conditioned in a certain religion, you will have visions. The man who is everlastingly thinking about Christ, or Buddha, or what not, will sooner or later have experiences, visions; but that is not truth, it has nothing whatever to do with reality. Those are all self-projections; they are the result of your demand for experience. Your own conditioning is projecting what you want to see.

To find out what is real, the mind must cease to demand any experience. So long as you are craving experience, you will have it, but it will not be real – real in the sense of the timeless, the immeasurable; it will not have the perfume of reality. It will all be an illusion, the product of a mind that is frustrated, that is seeking a thrill, an emotion, a feeling of vitality. That is why you follow leaders. They are always promising something new, a Utopia, always sacrificing the present for the future; and you foolishly follow them, because it is exciting. You have had that experience in this country, and you ought to know better than anyone else the miseries, the brutality of it all. Most of us demand the same kind of experience, the same kind of sensation, only at another level. That is why we take various drugs, or perform ceremonies, or practise some exercise that acts as a stimulant. These things all have significance in the sense that their use indicates that one is still craving experience; therefore the mind is everlastingly agitated. And the mind that is agitated, that is craving experience, can never find out what is true.

Truth is always new, totally unknown and unknowable. The mind must come to it without any demand, without any knowledge, without any wish; it must be empty, completely naked. Then only truth may happen. But you cannot invite it.

Hamburg, Germany 4th Public Talk 14th September 1956