Thread by @shettyanoop

At a certain point, when you ask the question ‘who am I?’, no answers will come and yet no disappointment will be there. A full contentment will be there, but you won't be able to locate yourself tangibly for your true Self is formless.

Jump within yourself.
Be yourself.
Nothing exists as it appears, nothing.

R. Adams.

Leave your front and back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea.

Shunryu Suzuki

"As long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will not abandon it. Discovery cannot come as long as you cling to the familiar. It is only when you realize fully the immense sorrow of your life and revolt against it that a way out can be found."
Nisargadatta

When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress & anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me & attracting me. There is a great secret here

To know that you are a prisoner of your mind, that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation is the dawn of wisdom. To want nothing of it, to be ready to abandon it entirely, is earnestness.

Nisargadatta

As you become spiritually mature, you become humble,
filled with humility and love and you smile at the world,
you understand its nature as maya. Its constant change.
You no longer hate the world nor love the world.
You just observe the world.
Robert Adams.

The only burden you've ever had is your mind. See if you can stop your mind for a few seconds, and see how peaceful you are. Where there are no thoughts, there are no worries, there are no fears, there're no anxieties, there are no desires, no wants, no greed, no hurt, no enemies

One who has become enamored with the song within, one who is united with the inner universal pulse, such a one has become immune to the buffeting of the storms of circumstance without.

Ramesh Balsekar

Question : What is non-attachment?

As thoughts arise, destroying them utterly without any residue in the very place of their origin is non-attachment.

Wanting to reform the world without realizing one’s true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones & thorns. It’s much simpler to wear shoes
Ramana Maharshi

"When you have nothing to do with your friend, he'll go away. So when you have nothing to do with your mind it'll dissipate. Act like you don't own it, it's not yours."
#RobertAdams

As we become deeply involved in advaita, non duality, we find that all the teachings tell us that all we have to do is make the mind quiescent, calm, peaceful, relaxed

It is just like your tape-recorder. It records, it reproduces - all by itself. You only listen. Similarly, I watch all that happens, including my talking to you. It is not me who talks, the words appear in my mind and then I hear them said.

Nisargadatta

Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart.

Nisargadatta

Q: How many Upanishads does one have to read to understand the Self?

Ramana Maharshi: How many mirrors do you need to see your face?

If the thoughts "I did" and "I didn't" are given up,
then all actions will end up as meditation.

Ramana Maharshi

You are the infinite potentiality, the inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can be.
The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become.

Nisargadatta

“we” are all being lived by life! Do we choose to be born, to grow old, to be well or ill, or to die? Do we choose to be born to particular parents, in a particular environment, with particular physical, mental & temperamental characteristics? Do we have any volition?
RBalsekar

Self-realization takes apparent time and involves the gradual dissolution of all the old habits of thinking, feeling, acting and relating on behalf of a separate entity and, as a result, the realignment of the mind, body and world with the experiential understanding of our self

D : Why are there good & evil.
RamanaM : They are relative terms. There must be a subject to know the good and evil. That subject is the ego. Trace the source of the ego. It ends in the Self. The source of the ego is God. This definition of God is probably more concrete

The thought I am meditating is an ego thought. If real meditation is taking place, this thought cannot arise
#AnnamalaiSwami

The world u perceive is a very small world indeed. And it is entirely private. Take it to be a dream & be done with it
Nisargadatta

All the age-long vasanas carry the mind outward & turn it to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up & the mind turned inward. For that, effort is necessary for most people. Of course everybody, every book says: "Summa iru" (Be quiet or still). But it is not easy.

Mind is just a shadow. Attempts to catch it and control it are futile. They are just shadows chasing shadows. You can’t control or eliminate a shadow by chasing it or by putting a shadow hand on it. These are just children’s games.

Questioner: Surely everybody deserves peace.

Nisargadatta: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.

Questioner: In what way do I disturb peace?

N: By being a slave to your desires and fears.

Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you.

Nisargadatta

The whole life of one
who has realized
the falseness of 'I,'
becomes Brahman.
Siddharameshwar Maharaj (Nisargadatta’s guru - though he met him only once & just spoke 1 sentence)

There is really nothing you have to do, there is nothing u need, there is no place u have to go, there is no special book u have to read, there is no special teacher u have to see, this is between u & urself
#RobertAdams

You don't realise what a monstrous imposition the mind is until you have lived without it, completely happily, completely silently, and completely effortlessly for a short period of time.
#DavidGodman

The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their prarabdha karma. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what u may to prevent it. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent
Ramana Maharshi

All the actions the body is to perform are already decided upon at the time it comes into existence. The only freedom you have is whether or not to identify yourself with the body

Sivaprakasam Pillai: When will external objects vanish?
Ramana Maharshi: If the mind, which is the cause of all thoughgts & activities, vanishes, external objects will also vanish

What is jnana? After the mind rejects objects, one after another, as transient & unreal, That which survives this elimination is Jnana
Seshadri Swami

Major Chadwick: If I concentrate on the Self & commit suicide will I attain moksha?
RM: Fear & shock will cause thoughts to spring up involuntarily & life would continue so that you have to take another body. Instead just still ur mind

At least on one’s bday one should mourn one’s entry into this world (samsara). To glory in it & celebrate it is like delighting in & decorating a corpse. To seek one’s Self & merge in it is wisdom

Q: Bhagavan, people scoff at me, calling me a "superstitious idolater"
RM: Why don't you retort by calling them worse idolaters? For do they not wash, dress, embellish, feed and thus '"worship" their body so many times every day? Is not the body the biggest idol?

If the passions are something external to us, we can take arms and ammunition and conquer them. They all come from within us. If by looking into the source whence they come, we prevent their coming up and we shall conquer them.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

RM: The look has a purifying effect. Purification cannot be visualized. Just as a piece of coal takes long to be ignited, a piece of charcoal takes a short time, and a mass of gunpowder is instantaneously ignited, so it is with grades of men coming in contact with Mahatmas.

When you recognize the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and fears, and the sense of 'mine' as embracing all things and people needed for the purpose of avoiding pain and securing pleasure, you will see that the 'I' and the 'mine' are false ideas, having no foundation in reality.

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.

Nisargadatta

A visitor asked:
The path of realization is difficult.
Worldly matters are easy of understanding,whereas this is not.

RM: Yes.The mind always seeks external knowledge,leaving aside its own inner knowledge.

We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.

Albert Einstein

The present difficulty is that man thinks he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the higher power which does everything and man is only a tool. If he accepts that position he is free from troubles, otherwise he courts them.

Ramana Maharshi.

All that you need to do is find the origin of mind and abide there.
Your efforts can extend only thus far.
Then the Beyond will take care of itself. You are helpless there.
No effort can reach it.

Ramana Maharshi.

People keep busy because they find it difficult to bear their own consciousness.
They look for various forms of entertainment to escape from themselves.
The greatest challenge lies in looking at oneself - by being "alone" with oneself.

Nisargadatta

Only mind is born, not you

NISARGADATTA.

You have created God in your own image & you worship that God. The truth is that God should worship you
Robert Adams

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
Eckhart Tolle

Psychology will not help you. Psychiatry will not help you. Getting stoned out of your head will not help you. Liquor will not help you. The only thing that will help is to find out from where the I comes from. Where does that first pronoun come from, I?

The sastras are not meant for the wise because they do not need them; the ignorant do not want them. Only the mumukshus look up to the sastras. That means that the sastras are neither for wisdom nor for ignorance.
Ramana Maharshi

As a kid #YogiRamsuratkumar playfully threw one end of the rope at a sparrow, while he was drawing water from a well. The bird was hit & died. This traumatic event led him to contemplate & enquire deeply on 'life' & 'death'. it sharpened his awareness abt 'creation', life & death

The 'mind' is the instrument that supports your personality with thoughts, and those thoughts are the instruments that will forever prevent 'peace of mind'.
There is only peace if freed of the 'mind'. There can only be peace if you are out of your 'mind'.
#FloydHenderson

If a room is filled with various articles, d space in d room has not vanished anywhere. To have space we have not to create it, but only to remove d articles stocked in d room. Even so, God is there. Only u do not see it on account of d samsara rubbish u have filled ur mind with.

Man’s root lies in the brain.
Therefore the remedy for all ills is to still the mind.
When man’s mind has been stilled, all will be well with him,
both physically and psychologically.
Anandamayee Maa

Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.
#EckhartTolle

The desire to be free has already arisen in your mind. You have spent millions of years so this desire for freedom can arise. Now listen to it, reflect on it continuously, meditate on it. This process has to continue constantly.

Papaji

A thought arises and it is perceived.
What makes it "my thought"?
The bird sings and it is perceived.
Does one make it "my song"?

~ Wu Hsin

Q: How am I to practice desirelessness?
N: Just turn ur mind away. Desire is merely the fixation of the mind on an idea - get it out of its groove by denying it attention. Go back to your attempts till d brushing away of every desire and fear, of every reaction becomes automatic

Whatever is sensorially perceived is like a mask, merely d seemingly real outward appearance of what lies behind.Reality is, not the presence, but the absence, not d positive but d negative, not d seen phenomena but their unseen source, not d known actual but d unknown potential.

When u come out of prison u will see ur mind is there intact. All ur knowledge is intact, but u r out of it. It'll be working automatically & it will beautifully run ur life. When u merely become a witness consciousness, the mind is automatically functioning.

Q: Should I worship God with form or without form? Which is more suitable for me?
Bhagavan: First of all find out if you have a form. If you say 'yes, I am having a form', then find out who says so.
Find out that ‘I’. Enquire which is the real ‘I’. Then let us go to God.

The obstructing vasanas [mental habits & tendencies] may look like a large hill which obstructs ur progress. Don't be intimidated by d size. It is not a hill of rock, it is a hill of camphor. If u light one corner of it wid d flame of discriminative attention, it will all burn

Q: How to get rid of useless thoughts?

Nisargadatta: Like wrong telephone calls, disconnect useless thoughts; don’t entertain them. Make use of useful ones and then be free of thoughts as far as possible. You get engrossed in memories, be attentive, say ‘go, I don’t want you’.

Silence is the most potent form of work.
However vast and emphatic the scriptures may be, they fail in their effect. The Guru is quiet and Grace prevails in all.
This silence is more vast and more emphatic than all the scriptures put together.
#RamanaMaharshi

Give up the sense of doership.
Karma will go on automatically,
or karma will drop away from you.

Ramana Maharshi.

Silence is the true upadesa. It is suited only for d most advanced seeker. The others are unable to draw full inspiration from it. Therefore, they require words to explain d truth. But truth is beyond words ,it does not warrant explanation. All that is possible is to indicate It.

The statement that the Jnani retains prarabdha while free from sanchita & agamya karmas is only a formal answer to the questions of the ignorant.
Of several wives none escapes widowhood when the husband dies; even so, when the doer goes all three karmas vanish.
Ramana Maharshi

The three kinds of karmas are: prarabdha, being that portion of one’s past karma to be worked out in the present body; sanchita being the outstanding balance of past karma, and agamya being the karma that will bear fruit in future births.

You imagine that your possessions protect you. In reality they make you vulnerable.
Realize yourself as away from all that can be pointed at as "this" or "that". You are unreachable by any sensory experience or verbal construction.

Nisargadatta

‘Drishtim jnanamayim kritva pasyeth brahmamayam jagat’. The world is as we see it. If we see it as material, it is material. If we see it as Brahman, it is Brahman.Can you see d picture in a film without d screen? If we remain as we are, everything adjusts itself to that attitude

If one could only concentrate on the interval between thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves, that would be self realisation

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