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Post by Reefs on Oct 19, 2014 21:32:37 GMT -5
"The first thing you do after waking up is to meditate on that consciousness, that “I Amness”, worship that consciousness for some time before you start your daily activities. Before you fall asleep at night, again abide in that consciousness, “I Amness”. In such a mood go into sleep. The consciousness which meditates on the Self, that Self will be revealed to you." "We know little of our inner world of thoughts and feelings. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life." "Meditation is keeping quiet and watching yourself. Meditation is giving attention to the consciousness." "But for a seeker for reality there is only one meditation.....the rigorous refusal to harbour thoughts. To be free from thoughts is itself meditation. You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind until it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Do not get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it. Experiment anew, do not go by past experience. Watch your thoughts and watch yourself watching the thoughts. The state of freedom from all thoughts will happen suddenly and by the bliss of it you shall recognize it." "Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness, and finally go beyond it. The art of meditation is the shifting the focus of attention to ever subtler levels, without losing one’s grip on the levels left behind. In a way it is like having death under control. One begins with the lowest levels. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the ‘ I-am-so-and-so’, beyond ‘so-I-am’, beyond ‘I-am-the-witness-only’, beyond ‘there-is’, beyond all ideas into the impersonally personal pure being." "Stabilize yourself by meditation. Your senses are very active, they are not under control. By meditating that particular weakness of your mind will be brought under control. You are moving about like a calf that just jumps about here and there. If you have been trying and cannot. Persistence! That deep longing must be there. You must need something very badly, then you will think of it continuously, you will be persistent about it, then you will reach that stage." "The only way to give up identification with the body is continuous practice of meditation, and thinking on what the Guru has said. Gradually this self-limitation will disappear and the sense of separation will go. One has to meditate deeply over a long period. Meditation means the beingness absorbing itself into the beingness. Over a long period of this kind of meditation one will come to know the Knower of this beingness. I am the Knower of this consciousness. I can only know something else, I cannot know myself. That riddle will solve itself by continuous deep meditation." "For meditation you should sit with identification in the knowledge ‘I am’ only. Confirm to yourself that you are not the body. Dwell only in the knowledge ‘I am’, not merely the words ‘I am’. Meditate with the conviction that I am that self only, the atman." "Meditation is the deliberate daily exercise in discrimination between the true and the false, and renunciation of the false. Seeing the false as the false is meditation." ""You must persist in meditation until you come to a stage when you feel there is no meditation. When the purpose of meditation is gained it will drop off naturally." "The fulfilment of meditation rests in totally obliterating the memory and non-memory of manifestation along with the sense of being. So long as the guna, sense of being, is there, witnessing happens. Abidance in the non-witnessing state is the advaita state, the highest. Therefore all experience must be swallowed, including the feeling of the sense of being, which is the primordial experience." "Not through the intellect, but through intense meditation you will realize that you are the universal consciousness." "If you seriously meditate, you'll wind up in the loony bin." - U.G.
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Post by justlikeyou on Oct 20, 2014 7:55:52 GMT -5
Q: Without your advice, millions of people are already following your advice.
Maharaj: The knowledge that I am expounding will dissolve your identity as a personality and will transform you into manifest knowledge. The manifest knowledge, the consciousness, is free and unconditioned. It is not possible to either catch hold of or give up that knowledge because you are that knowledge, subtler than space. This knowledge that you are the manifest must be opened through meditation; you do not get it by listening to words.
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Post by laughter on Oct 20, 2014 13:45:01 GMT -5
Q: Without your advice, millions of people are already following your advice. Maharaj: The knowledge that I am expounding will dissolve your identity as a personality and will transform you into manifest knowledge. The manifest knowledge, the consciousness, is free and unconditioned. It is not possible to either catch hold of or give up that knowledge because you are that knowledge, subtler than space. This knowledge that you are the manifest must be opened through meditation; you do not get it by listening to words. Nice, and very applicable to the current turn of the dialog. It implicates two truism's I've found in terms of both real life and dialog here on the forum. Interested?
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Post by zendancer on Oct 20, 2014 16:10:16 GMT -5
Q: Without your advice, millions of people are already following your advice. Maharaj: The knowledge that I am expounding will dissolve your identity as a personality and will transform you into manifest knowledge. The manifest knowledge, the consciousness, is free and unconditioned. It is not possible to either catch hold of or give up that knowledge because you are that knowledge, subtler than space. This knowledge that you are the manifest must be opened through meditation; you do not get it by listening to words. Nice, and very applicable to the current turn of the dialog. It implicates two truism's I've found in terms of both real life and dialog here on the forum. Interested? Yes.
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Post by laughter on Oct 20, 2014 17:01:14 GMT -5
Nice, and very applicable to the current turn of the dialog. It implicates two truism's I've found in terms of both real life and dialog here on the forum. Interested? Yes. Whelps, both pretty obvious -- nothing you dint' know! -- but they can shape life and dialog. The first is that noone can do self-inquiry for another. Noone can directly hear a description of the result, it's something that someone has to do for themselves. The second is that you can't quiesce someone else's mind -- they either attend the actual, or they don't. This is the beautiful and maddening paradox of the unique and limited perspective, ever locked behind subjective, that is not two from what it is on. It's the wonderful, sublime and ever tickling ... cosmic joke!
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Post by justlikeyou on Oct 22, 2014 7:19:07 GMT -5
Questioner: Does Maharaj go into samadhi?
M. I am stabilized in the Highest. There is no going into samadhi, or coming down from samadhi; that is over.
Q. Should we continue our meditation?
M.• It doesn't mean this is an excuse for you to give up meditation, you must persist in meditation until you come to a stage when you feel there is no meditation. When the purpose of meditation is gained it will drop off naturally.
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Post by lilsun13 on Oct 22, 2014 8:06:58 GMT -5
I like meditation, especially when feeling stressful. It sure takes away the stress and start feeling fresh again. Being aware in the present also brings out consciousness. All you have to do is aware through the 5 senses of smell, taste, touch, hear, and see. It's like observing while life unfolds each moment. For example, as you tie your shoe, pay attention and focus, feel, and just do but not daydreaming. As the mind drift away, you just have to keep coming back to the observing and doing. As you keep doing this, you feel consciousness(love) at a deeper level It's really nice. I try to take time out and be aware during the day... belsebuub.com/articles/how-to-be-awarelilsun13
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Post by laughter on Oct 22, 2014 8:52:24 GMT -5
I like meditation, especially when feeling stressful. It sure takes away the stress and start feeling fresh again. Being aware in the present also brings out consciousness. All you have to do is aware through the 5 senses of smell, taste, touch, hear, and see. It's like observing while life unfolds each moment. For example, as you tie your shoe, pay attention and focus, feel, and just do but not daydreaming. As the mind drift away, you just have to keep coming back to the observing and doing. As you keep doing this, you feel consciousness(love) at a deeper level It's really nice. I try to take time out and be aware during the day... belsebuub.com/articles/how-to-be-awarelilsun13 Welcome to the st.org forum lilsun. Please refrain from posting links to your website outside of the marketing section -- I haven't moved this post because it is, of course, relevant to the thread.
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Post by justlikeyou on Oct 23, 2014 8:02:23 GMT -5
Questioner: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation?
Maharaj: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little.
The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life.
The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness.
Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our character.
We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters.
Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand its causes and its workings, we overcome it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious.
The dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels adequate and become quiet.
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Post by justlikeyou on Oct 24, 2014 7:50:29 GMT -5
Questioner: The inner teacher is not easily reached.
Nisargadatta: Since he is in you and with you, the difficulty cannot be serious. Look within and you will find him.
Questioner: When I look within, I find sensations and perceptions, thoughts and feelings, desires and fears, memories and expectations. I am immersed in this cloud and see nothing else.
Nisargadatta: That which sees all this, and the nothing too, is the inner teacher. He alone is, all else only appears to be. He is your own self (swarupa), your hope and assurance of freedom; find him and cling to him and you will be saved and safe.
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Post by justlikeyou on Oct 29, 2014 12:06:35 GMT -5
Niz - "By eliminating the intervals of inadvertence during the waking hours you will gradually eliminate the long interval of absent-mindedness, which you call sleep. You will be aware that you are asleep."
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Post by justlikeyou on Nov 5, 2014 9:32:13 GMT -5
"It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities). Meditation is a sattvic (pure, true) activity and aims at complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity, activity). Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness."
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Post by justlikeyou on Nov 8, 2014 13:57:24 GMT -5
I AM THAT, Chp 6. Meditation
Questioner: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation?
Maharaj: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and nderstand its causes and its workings, we over-come it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels adequate and become quiet.
Q: What is the use of a quiet mind?
M: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps.
Q: As I can make out, I live on many levels and life on each level requires energy. The self by its very nature delights in everything and its energies flow outwards. Is it not the purpose of meditation to dam up the energies on the higher levels, or to push them back and up, so as to enable the higher levels to prosper also?
M: It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities). Meditation is a sattvic activity and aims at complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity). Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness.
Q: How to strengthen and purify the sattva?
M: The sattva is pure and strong always. It is like the sun. It may seem obscured by clouds and dust, but only from the point of view of the perceiver. Deal with the causes of obscuration, not with the sun.
Q: What is the use of sattva?
M: What is the use of truth, goodness, harmony, beauty? They are their own goal. They manifest spontaneously and effortlessly, when things are left to themselves, are not interfered with, not shunned, or wanted, or conceptualised, but just experienced in full awareness, such awareness itself is sattva. It does not make use of things and people -- it fulfils them.
Q: Since I cannot improve sattva, am I to deal with tamas and rajas only? How can I deal with them?
M: By watching their influence in you and on you. Be aware of them in operation, watch their expressions in your thoughts, words and deeds, and gradually their grip on you will lessen and the clear light of sattva will emerge. It is neither difficult, nor a protracted process; earnestness is the only condition of success.
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Post by justlikeyou on Nov 17, 2014 17:54:13 GMT -5
Chapter 51 - I Am That.
M: The Self is near and the way to it is easy. All you need doing is doing nothing.
Q: Yet I found my sadhana very difficult.
M: Your sadhana is to be. The doing happens. Just be watchful. Where is the difficulty in remembering that you are? Your are all the time. M: Why do you talk of action? Are you acting ever? Some unknown power acts and you imagine that you are acting. You are merely watching what happens, without being able to influence it in any way.
Q: Why is there such a tremendous resistance in me against accepting that I just can do nothing?
M: But what can you do? You are like a patient under anaesthetics on whom a surgeon performs an operation. When you wake up you find the operation over; can you say you have done something? Q: But it is me who has chosen to submit to an operation. M: Certainly not. It is your illness on one side and the pressure of your physician and family on the other that have made you decide. You have no choice, only the illusion of it.
M: Your burden is of false self-identifications -- abandon them all. My Guru told me -- 'Trust me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done'. I did believe him and soon realised how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: 'I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.
M: Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all. It is only when you have a vested interest in any particular level, that your attention gets caught in it and you black out on other levels. Even then the work on the blacked out levels goes on, outside the field of consciousness. Do not struggle with your memories and thoughts; try only to include in your field of attention the other, more important questions, like 'Who am l?' 'How did I happen to be born?' 'Whence this universe around me?'. 'What is real and what is momentary?' No memory will persist, if you lose interest in it, it is the emotional link that perpetuates the bondage. You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace. Don't you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels, that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is all. (...) By remembering what I told you you will achieve everything. I am telling you again: You are the all-pervading, all transcending reality. Behave accordingly: think, feel and act in harmony with the whole and the actual experience of what I say will dawn upon you in no time. No effort is needed. Have faith and act on it. Please see that I want nothing from you.
Q: Can I think 'I am God'?
M: Don't identify yourself with an idea. If you mean by God the Unknown, then you merely say: 'I do not know what I am'. If you know God as you know your self, you need not say it. Best is the simple feeling 'I am'. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don't think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking.
Q: My thoughts will not let me.
M: Pay no attention. Don't fight them. Just do nothing about them, let them be, whatever they are. Your very fighting them gives them life. Just disregard. Look through. Remember to remember: 'whatever happens -- happens because I am'. All reminds you that you are. Take full advantage of the fact that to experience you must be. You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold on, that is all. The world is made of rings. The hooks are all yours. Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you. Give up your addictions. There is nothing else to give up. Stop your routine of acquisitiveness, your habit of looking for results and the freedom of the universe is yours. Be effortless.
Q: Life is effort. There are so many things to do.
M: What needs doing, do it. Don't resist. Your balance must be dynamic, based on doing just the right thing, from moment to moment.
M: When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence. M: Now, what you have learnt here becomes the seed. You may forget it -- apparently. But it will live and in due season sprout and grow and bring forth flowers and fruits. All will happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don't prevent it.
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Post by steven on Nov 20, 2014 1:37:42 GMT -5
"It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities). Meditation is a sattvic (pure, true) activity and aims at complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity, activity). Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness." Aye ??
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