|
|
Post by laughter on Jul 11, 2013 4:57:29 GMT -5
(From chapter 85 of "I AM THAT", "I Am: The Foundation of All Experience")
seeker: If I must go beyond myself, why did I get the 'I am' idea in the first place?
Niz: The mind needs a center to draw a circle. The circle may grow bigger and with every increase there will be a change in the sense 'I am. A man who has taken himself in hand, a yogi, will draw a spiral, yet the center will remain, however vast the spiral. A day comes with the entire enterprise is seen as false and is given up. The central piont is no more and the universe becomes the center.
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Jul 11, 2013 6:09:19 GMT -5
(From chapter 88 of "I AM THAT", "Knowledge by the Mind is not True Knowledge")
seeker: How did the 'I am' appear?
Niz: In your world, everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does not, you call it eternal. In my view, there is no such thing as a beginning or an end -- these are all related to time. Timeless being is entirely in the now.
seeker: The antahkarana or the 'subtle body' -- is it real or unreal?
Niz: It is momentary. Real when present, unreal when over.
seeker: What kind of reality? Is it momentary?
Niz: Call it empirical, actual, or factual. It is the reality of immediate experience, here and now, which cannot be denied. You can question the description and the meaning, but not the event itself. Being the not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The Immutable Reality lies beyond space and time. Realize the momentariness of being and not-being and be free from both.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2013 6:52:39 GMT -5
(From chapter 88 of "I AM THAT", "Knowledge by the Mind is not True Knowledge")seeker: How did the 'I am' appear? Niz: In your world, everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does not, you call it eternal. In my view, there is no such thing as a beginning or an end -- these are all related to time. Timeless being is entirely in the now. seeker: The antahkarana or the 'subtle body' -- is it real or unreal? Niz: It is momentary. Real when present, unreal when over. seeker: What kind of reality? Is it momentary? Niz: Call it empirical, actual, or factual. It is the reality of immediate experience, here and now, which cannot be denied. You can question the description and the meaning, but not the event itself. Being the not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The Immutable Reality lies beyond space and time. Realize the momentariness of being and not-being and be free from both. Another take on it.... Chopra: - Consciousness is the ultimate reality. There is only one consciousness, which pervades existence. - Out of primal consciousness all the matter and energy in the universe emerged. - Primal consciousness continues to play itself out as the evolving universe. But the source of consciousness is inconceivable, since it lies beyond time and space. - The human mind is an expression of primal consciousness, which is why we are able to perceive reality in the first place. - Mind comes first, matter derives from it. - To finally know reality, our subjective experience is a truer guide than the collection of facts. After all, this experience is the only reality we live with throughout our lives. www.deepakchopra.com/blog/category/18/sf_gate |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Jul 17, 2013 12:44:54 GMT -5
(From Chapter 88 of "I AM THAT", "Knowledge by the Mind is Not True Knowledge")
seeker: What will put an end to imagination?
Niz: Why should you want to put an end to it? Once you know your mind and its miraculous powers and remove what poisoned it -- the idea of a separae and isolated person -- you just leave it alone to do its work among things for which it is well suited. To keep the mind in its own place and on its own work is the liberation of the mind.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2013 12:19:34 GMT -5
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2013 12:29:11 GMT -5
"When you say you sit for meditation, the first thing to be done is understand that it is not this body identification that is sitting for meditation, but this knowledge ‘I am’, this consciousness, which is sitting in meditation and is meditating on itself. When this is finally understood, then it becomes easy. When this consciousness, this conscious presence, merges in itself, the state of ‘Samadhi’ ensues. It is the conceptual feeling that I exist that disappears and merges into the beingness itself. So this conscious presence also gets merged into that knowledge, that beingness – that is ‘Samadhi’."
Niz
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 9, 2013 15:48:23 GMT -5
(From chapter 88 of "I AM THAT", "Knowledge by the Mind Is Not True Knowledge")
seeker: Your working theory seems to be that the waking state is not basically different from dreaming and the dreamless sleep. The three states are essentially a case of mistaken self-identification with the body. Maybe it is true but I feel, it is not the whole truth.
Niz: Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge. But you can know what is not true, which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you do not know that you are free to investigate. And there can be no salvation without investigation because non-investigation is the main cause of bondage.
|
|
|
|
Post by serpentqueen on Aug 9, 2013 17:31:52 GMT -5
Niz: The quality of the performance is all that matters; not what the actors say and do, but how they say and do it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2013 13:18:30 GMT -5
Questioner: It will take much time if I just wait for self-realization.
Maharaj: What have you to wait for when it is already here and now? You have only to look and see. Look at your self, at your own being. You know that you are and you like it. Abandon all imagining, that is all. Do not rely on time. Time is death. Who waits--dies. Life is now only. Do not talk to me about past and future--they exist only in your mind.
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 17, 2013 8:36:32 GMT -5
(From Chapter 88 of "I AM THAT", "Knowledge by the Mind is not True Knowledge")
Q: I have found that realized people usually describe their state in terms borrowed from their religion. You happen to be a Hindu, so you talk of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva and use Hindu approaches and imagery. Kindly tell us -- what is the experience behind your words? What reality do they refer to?
Niz: It is my way of talking, a language I was taught to use.
Q: But what is behind the language?
Niz: How can I put it into words, except in negating them? Therefore, I use words like 'timeless', 'spaceless', 'causeless'. These too are words, but as they are empty of meaning, they suit my purpose.
Q: If they are meaningless, why use them?
Niz: Because you want words where no words apply.
Q: I can see your point. Again, you have robbed me of my question!
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 25, 2013 19:26:09 GMT -5
(From Chapter 1 of "I AM THAT", "The Sense of 'I am'")
Niz: Even to say that you are not the body is not quite true. In a way you are all the bodies, hearts and minds and much more. Go deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be verbalized but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not.
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Aug 25, 2013 19:28:15 GMT -5
(From Chapter 44 of "I AM THAT", "'I am' is True, all else is Inference")
seeker: Is the witness of ignorance separate from ignorance? Is not to say: 'I am ignorant' a part of ignorance?
Niz: Of course. All I can say truly is: 'I am', all else is inference. But the inference has become a habit. Destroy all habits of thinking and seeing. The sense 'I am' is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, reality or by any other name. The 'I am' is in the world; but it is the key which can open the door out of the world. The moon dancing on the water is seen in the water, but it is caused by the moon in the sky and not by the water.
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Sept 2, 2013 14:24:10 GMT -5
(From Chapter 92 of "I AM THAT", "Go Beyond the 'I am the body' idea")
Niz: People differ. But all are faced with the fact of their own existence. 'I am' is the ultimate fact; 'Who am I'? is the ultimate question to which everybody must find an answer.
Q: The same answer?
Niz: The same in essence, varied in expression. Each seeker accepts or invents a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into the mould of words, builds them into a system, establishes a tradition and begins to admit others into his 'school of yoga.' It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless nor indispensable; in each, one can progress up to the point when all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases; in solitude and darkness, the last step is made which ends ignorance and fear forever.
The true teacher, however, will not imprison his disciple in a prescribed set of ideas, feelings and actions; on the contrary, he will show him patiently the need to be free from all ideas and set patterns of behavior, to be vigilant, and earnest and go with life wherever it takes him, not to enjoy or suffer, but to understand and learn.
Under the right teacher, the disciple learns to learn, not to remember and obey. Satsang, the company of the noble, does not mould, it liberates. Beware of all that makes you dependent. Most of the so-called "surrenders to the guru' end in disappointment, if not in tragedy. Fortunately, an earnest seeker will disentangle himself in time, the wiser for the experience.
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Sept 2, 2013 14:35:45 GMT -5
(From Chapter 92 of "I AM THAT", "Go Beyond the 'I am the body' Idea")
Niz: Only when spirit and matter come together is consciousness born.
seeker: Are they one or two?
Niz: It depends on the words you use: they are one, two, or three. On investigation the three becomes two and the two becomes one. Take the simile of face, mirror, and image. Any two of them presuppose the third which unites the two. In sadhana, you see the three as two until you realize the two as one.
As long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself. To know yourself, turn your attention away from the world and turn it within.
seeker: I cannot destroy the world.
Niz: There is no need. Just understand that what you see is not what is. Appearances will dissolve upon investigation, and the underlying reality will come to the surface. You need not burn the house to get out of it. You just walk out. It is only when you cannot come and go freely that the house becomes a jail. I move in and out of consciousness easily and naturally and therefore to me, the world is a home, not a prison.
|
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2013 11:07:46 GMT -5
(From Chapter 94 of "I AM THAT", "You Are Beyond Space and Time")
Niz: A man who says, 'Now I am happy' is between two sorrows -- past and future. This happiness is mere excitement caused by relief from pain. Real happiness is utterly un-self-conscious. It is best expresseed negatively as, 'there is nothing wrong with me. I have nothing to worry about.' After all, the ultimate purpose of all sadhana is to reach a point when this conviction, instead of being only verbal, is based on the actual and ever-present experience.
Q: Which experience?
Niz: The expereince of being empty, uncluttered by memories and expectations; it is like the happiness of open spaces, of being young, of having all the time and energy for doing things, for discovery, for adventure.
Q: What remains to discover?
Niz: The universe without and the immensity within as they are in reality, in the great mind and heart of God. The meaning and purpose of existence, the secret of suffering, life's redemption from ignorance.
|
|
