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Question: I'd like to take this opportunity to comment on how almost all questions put to you concern the difficulties of grokking(understanding) that there is no separation of the "me" and the big IT (you also answered one of my questions awhile ago in which I referred to it as "wanting to have my mystic cake & eat(know) it too).
Answer: Yes, most –if not all- questions I receive come from the sense of being a separate character. This phantom is mostly seen as a responsible agent with volition, able to manipulate its destiny in time and space. Question: What do you think of the idea(?) that a person's mind is both the object & the instrument of change as far as achieving awareness is concerned.....is this perhaps a misconception? Answer: Awareness is a word that points to the Presence-That-IS, not to something that has to be achieved. As for the person and her or his mind, I have to say once again that the person does not have an independent existence. There is only the One appearing AS the seeming person with a mind. We talk/write about the mind here as if it is a thing, but when looked into it no such thing can be found. There is only the present thought. Even a changed mind is still an idea, which is itself nothing but mind. All the mind can ‘do’ here is to recognize its natural limitations. We can also see the mind as the thinking process, which functions in the pairs of opposites. As such it is not the right tool to comprehend the One Context in which it appears. It can be understood that prior-to-the-mind is not some-thing that can be grasped by the mind and that anything that can be grasped, is itself mind. In this recognition the mind/thinking-process can be seen for what it is. Have a look and investigate who or what it is that sees the mind. Question: Clearly the greatest challenge for all of us is to put into words - which necessitate the use of subject/object - these truths which are essentially non-dualistic. Perhaps we need a new language? Answer: Or perhaps we need a clear understanding of what language is. As you say, it requires subject/object. A ‘language’ that does not have this division is Silence. The language of words (whether spoken, written or thought) is a conceptual representation based on past experience, and not the actuality it aims to point out, describe, or understand. We will never capture the smell of a rose into words, but when we understand the function of words they can lead us to a flower bed. If language cannot capture the smell of a rose, how much more so does this apply to the One Source from which both (language and rose) are but an expression. The ‘answer’ is not in the words one hears or reads, but in the Awareness of such hearing and reading. Whether ‘we’ read the Upanishads or a billboard, the Aware Presence that knows the reading right now, before it is conceptualized as ‘I read,’ is the true Mystery-I-AM.
If or when you have a question you'd like to see answered in this newsletter send it to:
author@awakeningtothedream.com Painting by: Tim Landry. Title: '4 Questions' Visit him : http://www.timlandry.com/exh22.html/ |
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The concept “I-am-the-body” is the sentient inner organ, the mind. It is also the illusive bondage to identification with birth and death. It is the source of all groundless fears. If there is no trace of it at all everything will be found to be the Reality of the Supreme Absolute Being.
The concept “I-am-the-body” is the primal ignorance. It is known as the firm knot of the heart. It gives rise to the concepts of existence and non-existence. If there is no trace of it at all, everything will be found to be the Reality of the Supreme Absolute Being. The ego or separate soul is a concept. God, the world, the mind, desires, action, sorrow and all other things are all concepts. Abiding without concepts is the undifferentiated state. It is inherence in the Supreme Being. It is wisdom. It is Liberation. It is the natural and true state. It is the Reality of the Supreme Absolute Being. It is the Supreme Formless God. If there is no concept at all, everything will be found to be the Reality of the Supreme Absolute Being. The body is a concept, and the various functions of manifest existence are only concepts. Hearing, reasoning and contemplating are concepts. Inquiry into the ultimate nature of one’s own existence is even a concept. All other things are also concepts. Concepts give rise to the world, the separate souls, and God. There is nothing whatever except concepts. Everything is the Reality of the Supreme Absolute Being. The mind is unreal. It is like a magic show. It is like the son of a barren woman. It is absolutely non-existent. Since there is no mind there are no concepts, no Master, no disciple, no world, no separate soul. All concepts are the Reality of the Supreme Absolutely Being.
From The Ribhu Gita (Six Verses Selected by Sri Ramana Maharshi)
Painting by: L. Caruana. showing birth and death, a datail from: 'The Face of Kali' Visit him at: http://www.lcaruana.com/webtext/home.html |
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From: The Four Quartets We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.
T. S. Eliot
Found at: http://www.ubriaco.com/fq.html Painting by: Maxfield Parrish. Title: 'The Waterfall' |
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All beings are from the very beginning the Buddha; It is like ice and water: Apart from water no ice can exist, Outside sentient beings, where do we seek the Buddha? Hakuin Zenji (Hakuin Ekaku) 1689-1796 |
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Found at: http://www.christinewykes.com/ |
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