Thanks to all who attended Satsang with me this Thursday. It was a wonderful evening and it was wonderful to be in Presence with you.
❤️🙏❤️
A reminder: when confused or unsure in your seeking, or when too caught up in the mind and uncertain of where to turn, simply be still. All will become clear. All will be revealed unto you.
Another reminder:
The entirely of Vedanta can be summed up in the two statements: ‘I am that I am’ and ‘Be Still and know that I am God’ – so says Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi
Just a reminder that Satsang will take at the Druid’s Head, Kingston upon Thames, London UK this Thursday at 7pm. Further details can be found here.
No prior knowledge or experience is required, so if you have never attended before and feel in some way drawn to this, why not come along? We are a small and welcoming group that focus on bringing these wonderful teachings directly into daily life.
If you are not in the UK, you can still attend online meetings. Details are on the same link and I recommend you register on meetup (see link) if you want to receive notices of any upcoming events or changes to events, as this is where I post all my events.
We had a lovely meeting in Kingston at the Druids’s Head Pub yesterday, and it’s amazing how a spontaneous teaching can apparently arise through interactions with others. This morning I felt moved to write down some of what was said, so here it is:
Towards the end of the apparent seeker’s apparent journey, the very interest in non-duality or liberation itself becomes a hindrance. What are you looking for? And who or what is looking?
The answer to the first question is you are looking to feel better/not feel bad. The answer to the second question is that it is the illusory ego/’small self’ that is looking. So the seeking is perpetuating the ego, or the seeking is the ego.
The ego/mind can logically start to realise that lasting freedom cannot be found in any object whatsoever, gross or subtle, and it can also recognise that all experiences or states of consciousness, no matter how lofty or sublime, are all objects that are fleeting and so eventually lead to suffering and so push the motion of the hamster wheel that is called samsara (suffering). Therefore chasing experiences and states of consciousness is not the answer – this just leads to more suffering.
What is the solution?
1. It can be seen that there is no lasting satisfaction resulting from the search, so there is no point to seeking.
2. It can be intellectually known that Liberation is not an object and that Liberation must already be here (if it exists at all) if it is something permanent or lasting.
Reflect on these.
More fundamentally than either of these 2 above, which are both forms of ego-intellectual understanding, it can be seen that there is no person/body/mind, that these are illusory appearances that we engender with an artificial sense of self by conceptual projection and overlay and self-reinforcing labelling of felt/perceived energies.
Put simply, there is no-one here. There was never anyone here. It was all just an illusion in consciousness (when this is seen, then it is also seen that the path to enlightenment and the spiritual practices are also illusory). We don’t even need to use the word consciousness really, but it can be a useful pointer.
No person, no problem.
Meditate/reflect on this: as long as there is a person (ie. belief in being a person, or thinking the body or mind are real), there is suffering, and there must be suffering, for the body is subject to change and decline and all the other things that come along with this that you can hopefully reason out for yourselves.
Lastly, may I point thatall of this is a teaching, and these words work to remove the ignorance. The teachings are antidotes given to the seeker and wielded by the seeker. No words are the truth. Please read the above in this context. The words are never quite it (and of course they are it, as everything is it, and there is no ‘it’, ‘it’ being just an expression…oh dear!)
So following last week’s Facebook live event I’ve decided to hold another one this week:
When: This Thursday 7th December 2017 at 8pm (UK Time) Where: just click on my facebook page at the time above. You can find it here: www.facebook.com/tomdas.nd
You can ask questions by posting comments in the comments bar. I hope to see you then!
With love
Tom
Here’s the link to my previous Facebook Live video last week, enjoy!
Dear All
Hello everyone and Happy New Year to you all!
🙏
Tom Das 