“You will come in due course to realize that your true glory lies where you (the illusory mind-made-self ) cease to exist.”
~ Ramana Maharshi. (Sent in by Walt Motley – Thanks Walt)
The mystic-poet, William Blake, once noted the contrast between himself and a certain religionist, in the lines: “Both read the Bible day and night. But thou read’st black where I read white.”
The point is well illustrated by a fundamentlalist minister who once confronted an enlightened shoe-maker over the issue of eternal damnation.
The preacher taunted, “If I were like you and feared not the fires of hell, I could strike you down, steal your horse and saddle and ride away without a care!”
The shoe-maker quietly answered, “If you were truly awakened, that idea would never occur to you!”
All those who fully understood the life and teachings of Jesus came to realize that ‘Christ’ is not a person, but another name for the infinite presence latent in each of us — the divine Light, that scripture says, shines in everyone that comes into the world.
This means that essentially, you too are not a person, but the infinite, unborn, undying, field of awareness that witnesses every thought, feeling and eperience of your manifest self.
The challenge now, and in every ‘now’, is for you to turn from your confining egoic limitation and, like Jesus, become intentionally one with the limitless Christ-consciousness.
~ For more on The Inner ‘Christ’, >>>Click Here
Kirk: “what kind of chips do you recommend?” (See above)
Pete: I recommend your favorite kind … and as you enjoy them, be very present with what is happening. This is not as easy to do as it sounds. Usually, when we are eating etc. we are not fully savoring the chips but thinking of something else … like somebody’s ideas about enlightenment, or what was said or done in the past, or, what might or might not happen in the future.
If you can be deeply present with the chip-eating experience (or any other experience for that matter) it can be a portal into your conscious oneness with the alive awareness that is your essential, infinite and eternal nature/beingness (sorry, words are inadequate here.)
First, you focus on (notice, be aware of etc.) the taste and texture of the chips, the movement of your hand etc. between bag and mouth etc. and even the thoughts that come into your head at this time and any feelings they inspire.
Then, turn your attention back to what is aware of all these sensations, thoughts and feelings. Notice that this silent witness to your interior and exterior world is not a ‘thing’, that it has no form, no age, no limitations etc. This still silent ‘field’ or ‘background’ is the real You … the eternally awake and aware You … it has always been so. To actually see this, as all the sages attest, is ‘enlightenment’.
This aware Self is pure and wholly innocent no matter what you have done as a form nor what has been done to your form by other forms.
Once this is seen, it is realized that it is not the finite, temporary ‘Kirk’ person who sees ’something’ but rather it is the alive awareness that recognizes ItSelf, as though it had been asleep and was waking from a (bad) dream.
Then One is aware that you are just playing the role of a person sitting in a chair eating chips, or not doing so, and you can go on playing the game and not get taken in by it as before. You also realize that everyone else is also an expression of the One, as you are, and that they are part of the game too.
So, become aware of the self-shining awareness within, Kirk, and if you stay with it, it will become a Light that reveals many rare treasures.
A woman goes into a fabric store and asks the shop assistant for some nice soft lacy material for her honeymoon nightie.
The assistant says “About two metres ought to do that!” and the woman says “Oh no, I’d better have about fifty metres.”
The assistant says “Fifty?! But surely that’s way too much?”
The woman says “I know, but the man I’m marrying is a guru devotee and he would rather seek than find.”
The assistant nodded knowingly and said: “Poor man, it sounds like he needs to read Nadeen’s book — From Seekers to Finders!”
PS. You might like check out the latest words of wisdumb from Puppetji — Puppetji vs Baggage
For two years, a small man sits quietly on a park bench. People walk by, lost in their thoughts. One day someone asks him a question. In the weeks that follow there are more people and more questions. Word spreads that the man is a “mystic,” and has discovered something that brings peace and meaning into our lives.
It sounds like fiction, but today that man, Eckhart Tolle, is known worldwide for his teachings on spiritual enlightenment through the power of the present moment. His first book, The Power of Now, is an international bestseller, and has been translated into 17 languages.
More than 20 years have passed since Eckhart Tolle answered his first question on that park bench. While his audience has grown, his message remains the same: that it is possible to stop struggling in your life, and find joy and fulfillment in this moment, and no other.
Sounds True: Can you describe to us your own experience of spiritual awakening (and of course, can you define spiritual awakening as well)? Was there a singular event that occurred or has it been a gradual process?
Eckhart Tolle: Since ancient times the term awakening has been used as a kind of metaphor that points to the transformation of human consciousness. There are parables in the New Testament that speak of the importance of being awake, of not falling back to sleep.
The word Buddha comes from the Sanskrit word Budh, meaning, “to be awake.” So Buddha is not a name and ultimately not a person, but a state of consciousness.
All this implies that humans are potentially capable of living in a state of consciousness compared to which normal wakefulness is like sleeping or dreaming. This is why some spiritual teachings use terms like “shared hallucination” or “universal hypnotism” to describe normal human existence. Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination.
~ From an Interview with Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now and the End of Suffering, by publisher: Sounds True. circa July/2008
~ Read More of Eckhart’s interview.
~ Watch a YouTube video clip of a talk on ‘Enlightenment’ given by Eckhart two years ago.
Stand up, wake up, take note!
New possibilities have arrived
For these lives we had thought were our own.
The possible human stands free now
Of its past constraints,
Of the cage it grew up in, that served it well,
Trembling now with wonder at what it sees.
Old habits of mind fall away like old skin
No longer needed, no longer helpful
Outgrown and abandoned.
A different world, a new earth
Comes into view, fresh and alive
By a change of perception,
A new way of seeing.
We are joined together now
In a new maturity
A new awareness of how it is,
How we are carried on a new wind,
And a new response stirs.
~ by Alice Gardner, © 2009
“The outer (spiritual) Teacher gives the instructions, the inner Teacher sends the strength — the alert application is the student’s. Without will, intelligence and energy on the part of the student (of truth), the outer Teacher is helpless. The inner Teacher bides Its time. Obtuseness and wrong pursuits bring about a crisis and the student wakes up to his or her own plight. Wise is the student who does not wait for a shock, which can sometimes be quite severe.”
~ by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (I Am That)
Allow awareness to rest into the quietness in the room. Notice that the same quietness that is “out there” in the room is also “in here” in the body and mind. Just rest into that quietness. The quietness is a portal to the pure awareness that is who you are.
What are you seeking? You may believe that you are seeking more money, a better relationship, a better drug, a new job, or enlightenment. But what is it that you really want?
If you are really honest, you will discover that you already know those ‘things’ outside you will not provide the permanent contentment you are seeking. Even if you get the new job or the new lover, at some point the newness will wear off and the seeking for something more or something better will begin again.
If you are really honest, you will discover that what you are really seeking is the end of seeking itself. But if you listen into the quietness that is already here in this moment, that silent stillness already contains peace.
That peace is who you already are. The notion of seeking into future to find what you already are is insanity. Just rest as awareness in this moment. The end of seeking is already here in the quiet stillness of awareness.
~ From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby. If you would like to get an inspirational reflection like this each day by email for free, >>>Subscribe Here.
Sometimes the question arises, ‘If all is one, then why don’t I know what you’re thinking?’
The problem appears because of our life-long experience as an ‘individual.’ We totally identify as an individual and see others as individuals too.
Once it is understood that I am Awareness and not just this human form, it is also seen that there really is no-one here or there – no ‘me’. The ‘me’ who believes it has control and power is in reality imaginary.
Einstein talked about the mind of God. This can be expressed as if ‘God’ is dreaming and we are all dreamed characters.
The ‘individual’ is imaginary — a belief only — and a dominant belief, as beliefs tend to be. This whole imaginary world is within a belief system.
What we (all) are is the awareness of a human experience. The individual experiences which are yours and mine appear as you and me in awareness. This experience can’t hear your thoughts and that experience can’t know mine.
Awareness is all there is, everything else is an appearance in or on it. In growing up we have been taught to identify with the perceptions of the human form that we came to think we are, that we’ve identified as. With the development of the ‘me’ belief as a central idea it is then thought that ‘I’ exist as an individual in a big world.
The perception is from a ‘me’ perspective that receives its thoughts just as different TVs around the world are receiving different images. My TV can’t receive a programme that’s airing in Newfoundland and vice versa. ‘My’ thoughts, which aren’t mine anyway, appear to me — to this dream figure. That dream figure receives its own thoughts and sometimes different figures receive the same thought but react to them differently. And we don’t ‘think’ anyway — thoughts appear.
The important thing is to understand, at least theoretically at first, that I am the awareness of everything that happens to this human. We ask the question, of ourselves, WHO AM I? And notice the answers that arise in the mind. At some point we may simply notice that the real ‘I am’ is watching this whole process (as if from above or behind).
There is nothing intellectual, philosophical or difficult about enlightenment although it often appears so and is usually treated so. The truth of who you are is unbelievably simple — it’s the mind that complicates it. Right now, whether you know it or not, you are awareness and it is as if you have stepped forward into (and identified with) the character you thought you were.
Now it’s time to metaphorically step back to what you have always been in essence — infinite, eternal, limitless, spacious Awareness..
~ by Roy Townsend
What is pointed to here is neither revolutionary nor new. It is the same reality that has been pointed to by uncounted spiritual guides for more than three thousand years.
The ending of mind-made suffering does not come about through adherence to any system, method, ritual, or belief; nor is there an exclusive path to enlightenment.
Self-created suffering ends at the moment there is a clear seeing or realization of Truth, a clear realization of what is — within you. To realize Truth, the mind must be free of any and all systems of belief, which is to be, as the Buddha put it, in the ‘highest state.’
This requires that no interpretation, no opinion, no idea, no belief, no ritual, and no judgment be in the way. It requires a mind that is free of all that. In that state of mind — the highest state — suffering ends.
~ From the book: The Christ is Not a Person: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Destiny of Man by J.C. Tefft pp xiv