If enlightenment is dependent on special spiritual exercises or states of mind then it is conditional and limited
yoga
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
Thoughts arise. No thinker.
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?
You cannot know WHAT you are, only THAT you are and what you are NOT
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.
Ramana Maharshi: To remain as you are, without question or doubt, is your natural state
To remain as you are, without question or doubt, is your natural state
Ramana Maharshi
This is still an instruction for the spiritual seeker: ‘to remain as you are’.
With liberation, questions and doubts are irrelevant, as the natural state is simply whatever is. Nothing can obstruct it. It is always here and manifests as whatever is arising. It can never be obstructed and is always in plain sight.
However for the seeker, ie. the person that takes themselves to be the author of their thoughts and actions, the instruction to remain as you are and not worry about or get entangled with thoughts, questions and doubts, is one of the highest and most refined spiritual teachings available.
Be still, forget all concept of who you are, notice things as they happen. Regardless of what is happening, you know that you are, never what you are, only that you are.
When the mind and its concepts are no longer being believed, what use is there to talk of separation or no separation, self or no-self?
Quote: genuine spiritual realisation is ordinary
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.
Zen Master Huang Po: how to remove our illusions
Q: Illusion can hide from us our own mind, but up to now you have not taught us how to get rid of illusion.
A: The arising and the elimination of illusion are both illusory. Illusion is not something rooted in Reality; it exists because of your dualistic thinking.
If you will only cease to indulge in opposed concepts such as ‘ordinary’ and ‘Enlightened’, illusion will cease of itself. And then if you still want to destroy it wherever it may be, you will find that there is not a hairsbreadth left of anything on which to lay hold.
This is the meaning of: ‘I will let go with both hands, for then I shall certainly discover the Buddha in my mind’.
The arising and the elimination of illusion are both illusory…If you will only cease to indulge in opposed concepts such as “ordinary” and “Enlightened,” illusion will cease of itself.
Q: If there is nothing on which to lay hold, how is the Dharma [The Teaching, Enlightenment] to be transmitted?
A: It is a transmission of Mind with Mind [Tom – note that the Chinese word for ‘mind’ can also be translated as ‘heart’, so this could be ‘heart to heart’ transmission].
Q: If Mind is used for transmission, why do you say that Mind too does not exist?
A: Obtaining no Dharma whatever is called Mind transmission. The understanding of this implies no Mind and no Dharma.
Q: If there is no Mind and no Dharma, what is meant by transmission?
A: You hear people speak of Mind transmission and then you talk of something to be received. So Bodhidharma [the first Zen patriarch, the ‘founder of zen’] said:
The nature of the Mind when understood,
No human speech can compass or disclose.
Enlightenment is naught to be attained,
And he that gains it does not say he knows.
If I were to make this clear to you, I doubt if you could stand up to it.
Taken from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po (Chun Chou record no. 32)
Tom Das 