vedanta

Love, happiness and non-duality

~ Tom Das ~ 11 Comments

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When the ego is seen through, all there is is what is. This is actually love, this is the real love.

Q. What is the relationship between love and non-duality?

A. Non-duality, as you call it, when it is fully seen, has nothing to do with trying to become more loving. But when the intrinsic-Freedom-that-already-exists is recognised, there is a tendency to become more loving, more open. Not that that actually matters. Openness and love are just what tend to happen when the illusion of a separate doer-entity is seen to be illusory. They are side effects.

Q. If in seeing this Freedom one tends to become more loving, then why do you say non-duality has nothing to do with being more loving?

A. This is about what is true, not what you want to be true. You may want to be more loving, more ethical or more whatever, but so-called ‘non-duality’  is about seeing what already is, right now. It is the ego or person that wants to become more loving, more ethical, more radiant, more popular, and so on. So the desire to be more loving is actually a subtle form of ego. ‘Non-duality’, or whatever you want to call it, is not about a continuation of the ego, but seeing that this ego is a fiction, that the sense of doership is an imagined belief without any evidence to underpin it.

It is the ego or person that wants to become more loving, more ethical, more radiant, more popular, and so on.

Who cares about love? Who cares about being ethical? It’s the ego of course. The ego cares, the doer-entity cares and it is the ego that wants to improve itself and therefore perpetuate itself. Ask yourself, ‘what is this entity that cares about being loving, being ethical?’. If you really are interested and you look, then it can become obvious that there is no ego there, it was all just a belief all along, a false belief. The story of doership is false.

Then all there is is what’s happening. Nobody doing anything, just what’s happening. I call this Freedom, but it doesn’t really have a name. It is simply what’s happening. It is simply the way things actually are, not they way you want things to be based on your projection which is in turn based on beliefs and concepts. It is the simplicity of life stripped clean of false notions and narratives, in which false notions are seen through as they arise.

I call this Freedom, but it doesn’t really have a name. It is simply what’s happening.

In Freedom, you don’t care about love, or any other projected ideal. You don’t try to be more ethical. Maybe you are more loving, maybe you are not. That’s why this automatically tends towards love – because there is no motive, because the ego is not at play. It may go against intuition but love does not care about love. Love just is when things are seen for what they are. To put it more poetically, in seeing truth (of no-self), love is.

In seeing truth, love is

Q. What about happiness?

A. Again, who cares about happiness? It’s the ego! The ego cares, and the ego is a fiction. Relax your mind and look for the ego – where is it? It is just empty thoughts, there is no entity there! But you have to really want to know the truth to see this: by that I mean that you have to be willing to drop all your ideas and concepts about yourself and your life. Then you really have to actually look – at least most people do. Some people just see this spontaneously, but all you have to do is notice what is already true.

When this is seen, that there is no ‘self-entity’, the neurotic drive for happiness naturally dissipates, and then Joy naturally arises. Why? Because the (neurotic) drive for happiness is actually a form of suffering. When there is no concern for happiness, then Joy naturally tends to manifest. A feeling of wellbeing may not always be there, but who cares? That’s just the way things are. No feeling-state or mind-state is permanent. Everything changes. Nothing lasts forever. Who cares? That’s the freedom.

Investigate the present reality instead of chasing a future projection.

When you are trying to get somewhere, you are chasing a projected ideal, something conceptual, not something actual. Instead of chasing the conceptual, why not remain with the actual, with what is actually happening now? Investigate the present reality instead of chasing a future projection. When the ego is seen through, all there is is what is. This is actually love, this is the real love. The lack of a centre, the lack of a doer, that’s what love really is. It’s not an emotion at all. It’s not necessarily even feeling loving, although that may happen when it’s appropriate.

When the ego is seen through, all there is is what is. This is actually love, this is the real love.

Without the ego at play, all there is is natural functioning. Emotions then act accordingly when they are required. It’s not healthy to be happy all the time, nor is it likely to be physiologically possible. Our varied  emotions, fears and mental states are there to guide us as we navigate the world.

So, when the ego is seen through, this is what we could call love, although love is just a label for this as it actually is. This ‘love’ is not what most people mean by ‘love’. It is not an emotion, it includes everything that is happening, and it is not dependent on what is happening. It is un-conditional you could say. It is always here because it is none other that what is here. It is universal motion seeing through illusion. It is what is recognising what actually is.

Don’t accept a lie

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

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Don’t accept a lie.
If you see there is no evidence for there being a separate ‘you’,
Then whenever this thought or notion ‘you’ turns up in daily life,
See through it.
Deny it.
Not out of a belief,
Not as a formula to be repeated,
But as something that is clearly seen.

Roadmap to enlightenment: a (fairly) comprehensive guide to spiritual practices

~ Tom Das ~ 35 Comments

This is one of a series of introductory articles – please see the homepage of tomdas.com for more introductory articles. Also see:

In Brief: how to attain Liberation

The entire path explained: the Path of Sri Ramana (Parts 1 and 2; PDF downloads)

This is one of the most important posts I have written – it condenses years of spiritual seeking which has involved exploring dozens of spiritual teachings, reading hundreds of books and texts from spiritual teachers and spiritual traditions across the world, undergoing all sorts of spiritual practices and meditations over the years, entering samadhi’s and experiencing visions of infinite oneness, and a genuine realisation of the Freedom-that-already-is.

The aim of the post is to guide you to a Freedom beyond words, but also stay concise. For all those people who have asked me: ‘That’s all very well but how do I actually become enlightened? How can we free ourselves from suffering? What do we do?’, this is for you, and others like you.

Continue reading →

Nisargadatta Maharaj: Ignore your thoughts

~ Tom Das ~ 9 Comments

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“It is the mind that tells you that the mind is there. Don’t be deceived. All the endless arguments about the mind are produced by the mind itself, for its own protection, continuation and expansion. It is the blank refusal to consider the convolutions and convulsions of the mind that can take you beyond it.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

My comments:

The word ‘mind’ in the above quote is synonymous with the false sense of individual separate self. This self, this ‘I’, is just a notion, an idea reinforced by the mind. The ‘I’ is a thought, and it is reinforced by thoughts.

Trying to figure this all out (ie. more thought) is a function of the same mind that is ultimately false, imaginary: it is a fruitless endeavour.

A particularly effective sadhana (spiritual practice) is to ignore the content of thoughts as they appear within our consciousness. The energy of the sense of ‘I’ then begins to loosen and its mechanics are exposed and revealed. We can then start to see things as they actually are.

There are broadly two ways this can be done:

1) by concentrating on something else such as a mantra, the breath, or by chanting, etc – ie. a distraction from thoughts;

2) by allowing thoughts to wash past you like clouds in the sky, and in so doing not paying attention to the content of thoughts, eg. a surrender, acceptance, gratitude or mindfulness practice.

When looking for a sadhana, you will naturally be able to find the one that works for you by looking to see which one gives you greatest sense of peace and relief, and by seeing which practice you are naturally inclined towards.

For more about spiritual practices and how they work click here

Bhagavad Gita: Krishna teaches that nature does everything

~ Tom Das ~ 2 Comments

Arjuna Krishna

Under the influence of false ego one thinks himself to be the doer of activities, while in reality all the activities are carried out by nature as natural process

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3 verse 27

Here, in the Bhagavad Gita (The Lord’s Song), Krishna tells his friend Arjuna a great truth: that the notion of there being any separate entity that takes itself to be the doer is false. There is no doer, the ego is a false entity; there is only nature acting according to its own inherent principles.

 

Join us! Regular Non-Duality & Spirituality Meetings Online and In Person

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

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Why not join us? We meet online twice a week to discuss non-duality and spirituality. All are welcome, no prior knowledge is required.
Click here for more details or click on the ‘meetings tab‘ above.

Being fearless

~ Tom Das ~ 2 Comments

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Being fearless,
The body becomes wide open,
The heart sensitive and vast:
All thoughts, feelings and sensations are welcome here,
Even fear.

Completely open
We truly feel.

Willing to feel,
We are truly alive.

Not resisting,
We feel whole, connected.

Not knowing what will happen next,
Isn’t this true freedom?

Unknowable yet known (Upanishads, Sufism, Ramana and Taoism)

~ Tom Das ~ 7 Comments

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If you think: “I know Brahman well,” then surely you know but little of Its form
Kena Upanishad

One of the astounding things about this is that it is impossible to put this into words. Put what into words you may ask?….this! Just this! Call it Tao, God or call it Brahman – these are really just meaningless words unless we understand what the words are pointing to.

All the great teachings have tried to express the Inexpressible. They have tried to indicate That which gives meaning to life but is beyond meaning, That which is transformative but at the same time nothing changes when It is ‘realised’ (how can that be?), That in which suffering and separation are seen to be imaginary and illusory. When That is understood, all the scriptures can be made sense of, and all of the scriptures are also seen to be ultimately inaccurate.

The Tao Te Ching, that wonderful poem from ancient China, starts with the confession that what it is writing about cannot be written about:

The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao
Tao Te Ching, verse 1

What you are seeking is constantly being realised, whether you realise it or not! One of the advantages of the concept of God is that God is not meant to be knowable. However with the concept of self-realisation and the ever increasing preponderance of the all-knowing guru on the spiritual scene, it is often thought that this is something that can be known by the mind. Here’s what our Sufi friend Abol-Hasan has to say about it.

One may speak of those absent,
but one who is Ever Present,
one can say nothing of
Sheikh Abol-Hasan, saying 92

Throughout the ages, people from all walks of life have spontaneously awoken to this ‘understanding’: scholars and illiterates, men and women and children, those with a spiritual tradition and those without one.

All true knowers of truth are always fuzzy when it comes to how to realise this for oneself, for there is no single path and no single practice that has the monopoly here. This is not always a popular message, and certainly not one that is easy to grasp (it’s impossible to grasp) and pass on through the generations.

Here we can see the Kena Upanishad trying to express the futility of organising a spiritual system around this understanding:

The one who has thought it out does not know it.
It is not understood by those who understand it;
it is understood by those who do not understand it.
Kena Upanishad

This is ever present, it is none other than Our-True-Self, which is simply life devoid of the illusion of doership. It is here, yet cannot be known by the mind or senses. It cannot be captured in words.

I do not think I know It well, nor do I think I do not know It. 
He among us who knows the meaning of “Neither do I not know, nor do I know”
— knows Brahman.
Kena Upanishad

This realisation is nothing to be gained. When you realise, there is no realisation at all. It all just falls away. What is there to realise? Who is there to realise? There is just this. This is enough. Realisations come and go in this. And this is not a concrete thing that you can grasp or possess, but it is life just happening right now as it is.

Boddhidharma, the Indian monk and founder of Zen (Chan) Buddhism tells us just this, and he says it repeatedly – here is just one example:

“To say he attains anything at all is to slander a Buddha. What could he possibly attain?”
Boddhidharma from the Bloodstream Sermon

Ramana Maharshi was someone who had a spontaneous realisation of all of this as a teenage boy. He had no guru and knew little of any spiritual teaching. Over the years he learnt the language of Advaita Vedanta and found that its teachings described that which he was already experiencing. Here’s what he has to say about self-knowledge (Atma-Jnana in Sanskrit):

Q: When a man realises the Self, what will he see?

M: There is no seeing. Seeing is only being. 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 realization of the not-true as true…At one stage you will laugh at yourself for trying to discover the Self which is so self-evident.
Ramana Maharshi

And he repeats this again and again (italics added by me):

If we talk of knowing the Self, there must be two selves, one a knowing self, another the self which is known, and the process of knowing.

The state we call realisation is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realised, one is that which alone is and which alone has always been. One cannot describe that state. One can only be that.
Ramana Maharshi

So if this is unknowable, how to reach this ‘understanding’ at all? Let us listen to the Maharshi:

Q: But how is one to reach this state?
M: There is no goal to be reached. There is nothing to be attained. You are the Self. You exist always. Nothing more can be predicated of the Self than that it exists. Seeing God or the Self is only being the Self or yourself. Seeing is being.

You, being the Self, want to know how to attain the Self. It is something like a man being at Ramanasramam asking how many ways there are to reach Ramanasramam and which is the best way for him.
Ramana Maharshi