We are all one.
There is no separation between us, only we do not realize it.
The same is true with rocks, with trees, with birds, with rivers: you can speak with all of them, and you will see how you can get love from everything.
#Papaji
Questioner: On all sides I hear that freedom from desires and inclinations is the first condition of self-realization. But I find the condition impossible of fulfilment. Ignorance of oneself causes desires and desires perpetuate ignorance. A truly vicious circle!
Maharaj: There are no conditions to fulfil. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be given up. Just look and remember, whatever you perceive is not you, nor yours. It is there in the field of consciousness, but you are not the field and its contents, nor even the knower of the field. It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in the results of your efforts — the motive, the desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration — all this holds you back.
Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.
Q: Does it mean I should abstain from doing anything?
M: You cannot! What goes on must go on. If you stop suddenly, you will crash.
Q: Is it a matter of the known and the knower becoming one?
M: Both are ideas in the mind, and words that express them. There is no self in them. The self is neither, between nor beyond.
To look for it on the mental level is futile. Stop searching, and see — it is here and now — it is that ‘I am’ you know so well. All you need to do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness. Unless you have already considered these matters carefully, listening to me once will not do. Forget your past experiences and achievements, stand naked, exposed to the
winds and rains of life and you will have a chance.
#SriNisargadattaMaharaj
Questioner: The other day you told us that there is no such thing as karma. Yet we see that every thing has a cause and the sum total of all the causes may be called karma.
Maharaj: As long as you believe yourself to be a body, you will ascribe causes to everything. I do not say things have no causes.
Each thing has innumerable causes.
It is as it is, because the world is as it is. Every cause in its ramifications covers the universe.
When you realize that you are absolutely free to be what you consent to be, that you are what you appear to be because of ignorance or indifference, you are free to revolt and change.
You allow yourself to be what you are not. You are looking for the causes of being what you are not!
It is a futile search.
There are no causes, but your ignorance of your real being, which is perfect and beyond all causation. For whatever happens, all the
universe is responsible and you are the source of the universe.
Questioner: I know nothing about being the cause of the universe.
Maharaj: Because you do not investigate. Enquire, search within and you will know.
Questioner: How can a speck like me create the vast universe?
Maharaj: When you are infected with the ‘I-am-the-body’ virus, a whole universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue lines of action totally futile. You concentrate, you meditate, you torture your mind and body, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but you miss the essential which is the
elimination of the person.
Questioner: In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time before we are ready for self-enquiry.
Maharaj: If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time.
You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within. Of all the Yogas it is the simplest and the shortest.
#SriNisargadattaMaharaj
"Realize that what you are cannot be born nor die, and with the fear gone, all suffering ends."
#SriNisargadattaMahara
Love... is seeing the unity under the imaginary diversity. #SriNisargadattaMaharaj
Questioner: How can we overcome the duality of the doer and the done?
Maharaj: Contemplate life as infinite, undivided, ever present, ever active, until you realize yourself as one with it.
It is not even very difficult, for you will be returning only to your own natural condition.
Once you realize that all comes from within, that the world in which you live has not been projected onto you but by you, your fear comes to an end.
Without this realization you identify yourself with the externals, like the body, mind, society, nation, humanity, even God or the Absolute. But these are all escapes from fear.
It is only when you fully accept your responsibility for the little world in which you live and watch the process of its creation, preservation and destruction, that you may be free from your imaginary bondage.
Questioner: Why should I imagine myself so wretched?
Maharaj: You do it by habit only. Change your ways of feeling and thinking, take stock of them and examine them closely.
You are in bondage by inadvertence. Attention liberates.
You are taking so many things for granted.
Begin to question.
The most obvious things are the most doubtful.
Ask yourself such questions as:
Was I really born?’ ‘
Am I really so-and-so?
‘How do I know that I exist?
‘Who are my parents?’
‘Have they created me, or have I created them?’
‘Must I believe all I am told about myself?’
‘Who am I, anyhow?’
You have put so much energy into building a prison for yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it.
In fact, demolition is easy, for the false dissolves when it is discovered.
All hangs on the idea ‘I am’.
Examine it very thoroughly. It lies at the root of every trouble. It is a sort of skin that separates you from the reality. The real is both within and without the skin, but the skin itself is not real.
This ‘I am’ idea was not born with you. You could have lived very well without it. It came later due to your self-identification with the body. It created an illusion of separation where there was none. It made you a stranger in your own world and made the world alien and inimical.
Without the sense of ‘I am’ life goes on. There are moments when we are without the sense of ‘I am’, at peace and happy.
With the return of the ‘I am’ trouble starts.
#SriNisargadattaMaharaj
You are perfect, only you don’t know it.
Learn to know yourself and you will discover wonders.
All you need is already within you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love.
Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.
Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of the love you bear for yourself;
all I plead with you is this: make love of yourself perfect.
In working with people struggling with their own narcissism or those who have survived difficult, hurtful or abusive relationships with "narcissists", nurturing genuine self-love is vital.
Sometimes, we engage in behaviours that are harmful to us or to people around us such as withdrawing from relationships, using substances, defensive outbursts, people-pleasing, self-neglect, self-sacrifice or harsh self-criticism. Even these are ways we attempt to care for ourselves, protect ourselves or keep ourselves safe. Without denying the harm these patterns may cause, recognising that they are imperfect ways we try to care for ourselves can help nurture an attitude of compassion, grace and forgiveness for ourselves. It can also help us foster the dedication needed to nurture kinder, stronger, more compassionate patterns in our relationships with ourselves and those close to us.
We need to learn to love ourselves more perfectly, from a place of wisdom. Beating ourselves up and berating ourselves for the more difficult parts of our personalities prevents us from loving ourselves and prevents us from being able to meet our needs and create the changes we might desperately want. We need to learn to approach ourselves with compassion and gentle strength. We can accept our mistakes, learn to correct ourselves, and become stronger and kinder, good inner parents to ourselves. We can reparent ourselves with love, patience and self-compassion, not with judgement or criticism.
#SriNisargadattaMaharaj
The cause of your misery is not in the life outside you, it is in you as the ego.
If you would deny the ego and
scorch it by ignoring it, you would be free.
If you accept it,
it will impose limitations on you and throw you into a vain struggle to transcend them.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
A visitor: What is the difference between meditation (dhyana) and investigation (vichara)?
Maharshl: Both amount to the same. Those unfit for investigation must practise meditation. In this practice the aspirant forgetting
himself meditates ´I am
Brahman' or 'I am Siva'; thus he continues to hold to Brahman or Siva; this will ultimately end on the residual Being as Brahman or Siva which he will realise to be Pure Being, i.e. the Self.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
"Meditate only on the Self. Try to realise that the body is not you, the emotions are not you, the intellect is not you.
When all these are stilled, you will find - Something else is there; hold it that it will reveal itself."
#SriRamanaMaharshi
The Self who was undifferentiated in sleep is differentiated in the present state, and sees the diversity.
The Real Existence is the only One devoid of objective knowledge. That is absolute consciousness.
That is the state of happiness, as admitted by all of us.
That state must be brought about in this waking state.
It is called jagrat sushupti. That is mukti.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
Suppose you have a headache and you get rid of it by taking some medicine.
You then remain what you were originally.
The headache is like the illusion that the body is the Self;
it disappears when the medicine called Self-enquiry is administered.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
He that has earned the Grace of the Guru shall undoubtedly be saved and never forsaken, just as the prey that has fallen into the tiger's jaws will never be allowed to escape.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
The elimination of thoughts is wisdom.
It is the Absolute Existence.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
Just as a Brahmin actor does not forget that he is a Brahmin,
whatever part he may be acting,
so also a man should not confuse himself with his body, but should have a firm awareness of his being the Self, whatever his activity may be.
This awareness will manifest as the mind gets absorbed in its own primal State.
Such absorption leads to Bliss Supreme, when the Self reveals itself spontaneously.
Then one will not be affected by pleasure
and pain, which result from contact with external objects.
Everything will be perceived without attachment, as in a dream.
Such thoughts as
‘Is this good or that?’
‘Is this to be done or that?’
should not be allowed to arise.
Immediately a thought arises, it should be annihilated at its source. If entertained even for a little while, it will hurl one down headlong like a treacherous friend.
Can the mind which is fixed in its original
State possess an ego-sense or have any problem to solve?
Do not such thoughts themselves constitute bondage?
Hence when such thoughts arise due to past tendencies, not only should the mind be curbed and turned back to its true State but also it should be made to remain unconcerned and indifferent to external happenings.
Is it not due to Self-forgetfulness that such
thoughts arise and cause more and more misery?
Though the discriminating thought,
‘I am not the doer; all actions are merely the reactions of the body, senses and mind,’
is an aid for turning the mind back to its primal state, nevertheless it is still a thought, but one which is necessary for those minds which are addicted to much thinking.
On the other hand, can the mind, fixed
unswervingly in the divine Self and remaining unaffected even while engaged in activities, give in to such thoughts as ‘I am the body. I am engaged in work’, or again to the discriminating thought, ‘I am not the doer, these actions are merely reactions
of the body, senses and mind’?
Gradually one should, by all possible means, try always to be aware of the Self. Everything is achieved if one succeeds in this. Let not the mind be diverted to any other object. One should abide in the Self without the sense of being the doer, even when engaged in work born of destiny,
like a madman.
Have not many devotees achieved much with a detached attitude and firm devotion of this nature?
#SriRamanaMaharshi
"Not like other things unreal, but always by its Being real, the Self as permanent Awareness has no other dwelling place than its own radiant Awareness."
#SriRamanaMaharshi
Striving after liberty is the first instinctive action of God in a man's mind.
#StiRamanaMaharshi https://cdn.nostrcheck.me/4707c8fa26c025f3694dc0a62d45fe597f7819deb8a45abb894f22cffbecb777/1d17bcd7e694775d1a69a4d3f53eb8d4775c24cb2ccee358e4608b86ac235dba.webp
Live always in the present;
there is no past or future, except
in the mind.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
To bring about peace means to be free from thoughts and to abide as
Pure Consciousness.
If one remains at peace oneself, there is only peace all about.
#SriRamanaMaharshi
Devotee.: What do you consider to be the cause of world suffering? And how can we help to change it, (a) as individuals? or (b) collectively?
Maharshi.: Realise the Real Self.
It is all that is necessary.
D.: Can we hasten our illumination for greater service? and how?
M.: As we are not able to help ourselves, so we have to surrender ourselves to the Supreme completely. Then He will take care of us as well as the world.
D.: What do you consider the goal?
M.: Self-Realisation.
D.: Is there any way to meet the appointed Guru for each?
M.: Intense meditation brings it about.
#SriRamanaMaharshi nostr:note1x7g8j3esl0yzzsd9yws7mh7d88grr0pcwvpxwk76rwympxg9u9lskhtt33