Thread by @shettyanoop

Maya, is taken to mean illusion, but actually means ‘that which is not’. We sense everything in the mind & the senses being only the instrument of the mind. For as a matter of fact there is no illusion, only impermanence

So long as the mind functions, there is duality.
Once it is transcended, Reality shines forth.

#RamanaMaharshi

Let the vasanas play, they are transient imaginations
and even the "I" to which they occur is imagination itself.

Papaji

The Master is within. Meditation is meant to remove the ignorant idea that He is only outside.
When the wrong identification of oneself with the body ceases, the Master will be found as none other than the Self.

How is d ego to be destroyed ?
RM: Hold d ego first & then ask how it is to be destroyed. Who asks this qn ? It’s d ego.
Can d ego ever agree to kill itself ? This qn is a sure way to cherish d ego & not to kill it. If you seek d ego u will find it doesn’t exist.

Have you ever helped, really helped, a single man? Have you ever put one soul beyond the need of further help? When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others? To help others, one must be beyond the need of help.
Nisargadatta.

Problems need to be dissolved, not solved, because there is no solution.
The only way the problems get dissolved is, as soon as they arise, they are merely witnessed.

Ramesh Balsekar

"One's life is an act with no actor, and thus it has always been recognized that the insane man that has lost his mind is a parody of the sage who has transcended his ego. If one is paranoid, the other is metanoid."

ALAN WATTS

This beggar has not built any temple nor has he written any books. There is nothing about this beggar's life that is inspiring. But he has left a name for mankind.
Yogi Ramsuratkumar

"I made a blunder; I put on a body. It has given so much trouble. Never again! I will now go for moksha if it is granted to me."

Swami Veda Bharati

“Today I am blessed. Grant that my mind does not trouble me”
RM: find out whether there is such a thing as mind. If there is, describe it."
I stood still, not knowing what to say. Muruganar explained to me, "Don't you see? You have been initiated in the search for the Self."

"Why does hearing the truth only work in a small percentage of cases?" The simple answer to that is that only a small percentage of people are interested in the truth.

Papaji

Maurice Frydman died in Bbay on 9/3/76 wid Sri Nisargadatta by his side. During his last days Frydman got a visit by a professional nurse he didnt know. The nurse had been visited in a dream by an old man (Ramana Maharshi) in a loin cloth who told her to go & take care of Frydman

“You will have to court death sooner or later.
When it is certain that you must die one day,
why don’t you die now when you are still alive,
(i.e. let all your likes and dislikes be dead to you and remain as you really are, devoid of all vasanas).
- Brahmajna Ma

Meditation is a state of absence of thoughts, absence of mind or ego. & in deep sleep, there is Consciousness only - again no ego. It is those moments when we 'forget ourselves' when we feel most alive and happy. Only forgetting ourselves permanently, can bring lasting happiness

You are the Solitary Witness
of All That Is, forever free.
Your only bondage is
not seeing This.

Ashtavakra Gita

One day the wheel of thought will slow down & an intuition will mysteriously arise
RamanaMaharishi

The body, being insentient, (incapable of feeling or understanding) cannot say “I.” The Self, being infinite, cannot say “I” either.

Who then says “I”?

Ramana Maharshi

If one wants to abide in the thought-free state, a struggle is inevitable. One must fight one's way thru before regaining one's original primal state. If one succeeds in the fight & reaches the goal, the enemy, viz the thoughts, will all subside in the Self & disappear entirely

When people are born they are gentle and soft.
At death they are hard and stiff.
When plants are alive they are soft and delicate.
When they die, they wither and dry up.
Therefore, the hard and stiff are followers of death.
The gentle and soft are the followers of life.
Lao Tzu

How to stop the monkey mind?

Simply stop getting involved in the stories of your thoughts.

Jac O'Keeffe

To whom is the trouble? The trouble also is imagined. Pain and pleasure are to the ego, which is itself imagined. When the ego disappears through constant inquiry into its nature, the illusion of pleasure and pain also disappears, and the Self, their source, alone remains.

This psychosomatic bundle which is born will suffer or enjoy during its allotted span; so long as I know that I am not the one who experiences, but I am the knower, how am I concerned?

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Who in this world can be called normal?Everyone appears to b mad after one thing or another: some after money, some after beauty, some after music, others after their children & so forth, nobody is really quite balanced.the remedy for all ills is to still the mind.
AnandamayeeMaa

The Upanishads and scriptures say that human beings are only animals unless they are realised beings. Possibly they are worse also.

Ramana Maharshi

Rebel against your slavery to your mind, see your bonds
as self-created and break the chains
of attachment and revulsion.

Nisargadatta

The Guru is both 'external' and 'internal'. From the 'exterior' He gives a push to the mind to turn inward; from the 'interior' He pulls the mind towards the Self and helps in the quieting of the mind. That is Guru-kripa. There is no difference between God, Guru and the Self.

‘Duniya’ [world] means ‘do’ [two]. Where there are two there will be conflict and opposition. When you realize wholeness —the One without another— only then can there be true happiness. Then there is no coming and going and therefore no birth and death.
Anandamayee Maa

Whoever dies or is lost, what is that to you?
Die yourself and lose yourself, becoming one with love.

Bhagavan

Think of yourself as momentary,
without past and future
and your personality dissolves.
Nisargadatta.

Spiritual maturity is being ready to let go everything. Giving up is a first step, but real giving-up is the insight that there's nothing to be given up, since nothing is your property.

-- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Control the mind, cut off the senses, then you are a Yogi; after that, all the rest will come. Refuse to hear, to see, to smell, to taste; take away the mental power from the external organs. You continually do it unconsciously; so you can learn to do it consciously.
Vivekananda

There have been those few people in the world who have gone beyond birth & death.
There have been those people, who know the secrets, the answers to life, to the mysteries of life.
Yet they can do nothing for u until u can find out yourself who u really are
Robert Adams

It is not on the verbal level that one becomes a disciple, but in the silent depths of one's being. It does not matter who is the teacher - they all wish you well. It is the disciple that matters, his honesty and earnestness. The right disciple will always find the right teacher.

Treat thoughts like one would treat a person, ask them to go. When relaxed, the thoughts come and complain, who complains about others?
They are your own thoughts,
just kick them out!

Nisargadatta.

Dont worry about whether u r making progress or not. Just keep ur attention on the Self 24 hrs a day. Meditation is not something
that should be done in a particular position at a particular time. It is an awareness & an attitude
that must persist through the day.

All these yrs u been looking for methods, teachers, things to hold onto, things to rely on, where in truth, all u have to do is to realize, in ur heart, that all existence comes out of nothing. Therefore God is nothing. U are nothing. There is only nothing. Accept this & be free

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

The mind is a cheat!
The more pious it seems,
the worse the betrayal!

Nisargadatta

Religions are mere heaps of verbiage. Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what a man believes, watch how he acts. For most of the people, service of their bodies and their minds is their religion.

Nisargadatta.

To be born as a human being is a rare thing. But being born as a human being is worthless if you worry about not having money.
It is worthless if you become neurotic because you cant get a prestigious job.
It is worthless if u weep because u lose ur girlfriend."

Kodo Sawaki

A doubt arises & it is cleared. Another arises & that is cleared, only to make way for another, & so it goes on. So there is no possibility of clearing away all doubts. Find out instead to whom & from where the doubt come. Go to their source & stay there. Then they cease to arise

Habits create the false notion that thinking is a permanent institution, with which it is impossible to dispense, but inquiry and discrimination will blast this fallacy. None succeeds without effort and the successful few owe their victory to perseverance.

Neither birth, nor death,
nor the active mind,

Nor bondage, nor liberation,
affects you at all.

Why then, my dear,
do you grieve in this way?

You and I have no name or form.

DATTATREYA

Why do u fret at one man dying & care little for the millions dying every day? Entire universes are imploding & exploding every moment. all that is, lives & moves has its being in consciousness & I am in & beyond dat consciousness. I am in it as the witness & beyond it as Being.

We want to eat for years and live. We store things in a room, lock it and keep the keys with us. Has the monkey got a house? Can it put anything by for the morrow? It eats whatever it can get and sleeps on whatever tree available. Who is a real sannyasi, the monkey or ourselves?

Shankara said
(1) Brahman is real,
(2) The universe is unreal, &
(3) Brahman is the universe.
the third explains the other two. It signifies that the universe is real if perceived as the Self, & unreal if perceived apart from the Self. Hence Maya & Reality are one & the same.

Q: But, is it true that all existence is painful?
M: What else can be the cause of this universal search for pleasure? Does a happy man seek happiness? How restless people are, how constantly on the move! It is because they are in pain that they seek relief in pleasure.

Once you realize that all comes from within, that the world in which you live is not projected onto you, but by you, your fear comes to an end.

Nisargadatta.

AWAKENING: You want it very bad, and the more you want it, the more you're pushing it away, because a strong want, a strong desire, is a strong ego.

Robert Adams

All the things you want are in the “let go” category:
House, Wife, Body, Parents, Gods. Let Go.

What is left? What cannot go? That you ARE!
You cannot go because you have never come
and anything that comes must go.

Find out what it is.

Papaji

In reality nothing happens.
Onto the screen of the mind destiny forever projects its pictures, memories of former projections & thus illusion constantly renews itself.
The pictures come & go - light intercepted by ignorance.
See the light & disregard the picture.
Nisargadatta

People of intelligence examine their own mind
Ramana Maharshi

Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the void.
They do not know that their own mind IS the void.

Huang Po

Someone asked a devotee what had been the effect of following Ramana and Nisargadatta.
His answer was:
"Ramana Maharshi made me sleep in a Coffin
and I enjoyed Nisargadatta hammering nails to my Coffin"

The body is a treacherous friend.
Give it its due; no more.
Pain and pleasure are transitory;
endure all dualities with calmness,
while trying at the same time to remove their hold.

Swami Sri Yukteswar

"The Self alone can give you happiness. All happiness is from the Self. All trouble, sorrow and suffering is from the mind. You have to be very careful to be vigilant to see what is coming from the mind, and to see the happiness that is coming from the Self."

PAPAJI

Nothing can trouble you but your own imagination.
~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The body appears and disappears and your identity with it makes you speak of birth and death.

Ramana Maharshi.

"I want to be free is the first grace".
It is freedom itself calling you.
This desire will take you to where it rises from:Self.
All other desires will burn in this fire.

Papaji

Peace is the inner nature of humankind. If you find it within yourself, you will then find it everywhere.

Ramana Maharshi.

Where do all my thoughts come from?

I do not wish to think about them
but yet they attack me from all directions.

Where do they come from?

Who thinks these thoughts?

I do.

What is the source of the ‘I’?

Where does the ‘I’ come from who thinks these thoughts?”

Since the human body is
fundamentally nothing but
a concentration of dancing
energy patterns,
in direct relationship with all other organized fields of rhythm,
it is an obvious absurdity,
to think that there can be any such thing as a separate personal identity of any kind

Your own happiness is so vulnerable and short-lived, at the mercy of a bank-crash, or a stomach ulcer. It is just a moment of respite, a mere gap between two sorrows. Real happiness is not vulnerable, because it does not depend on circumstances.

Nisargadatta

When you have learned to regard your mind as a distant stranger, you will not pay any attention to all the obstacles it keeps inventing for you.
Mental problems feed on the attention that you give them. If you ignore them, they lose their power and finally vanish.
Annamalai Swami

To know yourself as you are, give up all ideas.
You cannot imagine the taste of pure water, you can only discover it by abandoning all flavorings.

Nisargadatta

Your real Self is not the body or the mind. You will not reach the Self while thoughts are dwelling on anything that is connected with the body or the mind. The path of sadhana is certainly not for cowards. It needs heart, blood & much persistence.

You can control a mad elephant;
You can shut the mouth of a bear or a tiger;
You can ride a lion;
You can play with the cobra;
You can be ever youthful;
You can walk on water and live in fire;
But control of the mind is more difficult.

Thayumanavar

The universe is a cosmic joke. It plays games with you.
It wants you to become attached to things.
Your mind appears to be very strong.
It will tell you all sorts of things to keep you attached.
There are very few people who break out of it.

Is there a causal link between the successive body-knowers, or body-minds?

Nisargadatta: Yes, there is something that may be called the memory body, or causal body, a record of all that was thought, wanted and done. It is like a cloud of images held together.

There is no answer to the question who am I? Any answer comes from the mind, and it should be discarded. If the inquiry is done properly, there will be no questions and no answers, simply silence. 1/2

And at the end, we find that we never did anything, including the inquiry. We might believe at the beginning due to the identity as the ego that 'I am doing the inquiry', but in reality the inquiry happened by the will and grace of The Self. 2/2

See how d entire show is made out of urself & is ur own creation. None of it is real but u, d eternal Self. Right here, right now, this very moment, notice d illusory angst of d I-thought dat creates d world, d body & d mind. Cease & desist from d illusory tales of d I-thought.

Q.: Are there heaven and hell ?

Ramana Maharshi: There must be someone to go there. They are like dreams.

“Always remember that you belong to no one, and no one belongs to you. Reflect that some day you will have to leave everything in this world --- so make the acquaintanceship of God now."
Lahiri Mahasaya (took mahasamadhi on 26th sept, 1895) cc @sanjeevsanyal

The representation of Kundalini as a serpent is merely to assist duller minds. The forms of representation of d chakras r also illusory. We r not concerned with anything less dan d Self. Kundalini & chakras exist for those who practice yoga not for those who practice Self-enquiry

You fear no one because you’re perfectly content to be nobody. You don’t give a damn about success or failure. They mean nothing. Honor, disgrace, they mean nothing!If you make a fool of yourself, that means nothing either. Isn’t that a wonderful state to be in!
Anthony DeMello

“Life is a mighty joke! He who knows this, can hardly be understood by others. He who does not know it, feels himself in a state of delusion. He ponders over this problem day and night, but finds himself incapable of knowing it.”
Meher baba

“Watch your mind, let not a thought
escape, however ugly, however brutal. Watch without choosing, weighing, judging, without giving direction or letting thought take root in
the mind. Watch relentlessly."
J Krishnamurti

With whom am l to be angry and for what? Anger came and dissolved on my remembering myself. It is all a play of gunas (qualities of cosmic matter). When I identify myself with them, I am their slave. When I stand apart, I am their master.

- Nisargadatta

Don't think about past problems, just leave them alone and sit down & relax. The past is a problem, the past is mind. When you go to the past all will be problems so don't go to the past. The mind is the past and the past is a graveyard. Don't go to the graveyard.
Papaji

Bhagavan told Papaji : I cannot show you God or enable you to see God because God is not an object that can be seen. God is the subject. He is the SEER. Don't concern yourself with objects that can be seen. Find out who the Seer is.
1/2

In Papaji's words "Then he looked at me intently. I could feel that my whole body and mind were being washed with waves of purity. They were being purified by his silent gaze. Then, there was a sudden impact of recognition as I became aware of the Self."

Having seen that you are a bundle of memories held together by attachment, step out and look from the outside. You may perceive for the first time something which is not memory. You cease to be a Mr-so-and-so, busy about his own affairs.
You are at last at peace.

Nisargadatta

Keep quiet and the whole structure of religion will collapse. Religion teaches you fear: ‘If you don’t do this or that you will go to hell.’ All religions are based on fear, fear of the consequences of not doing what the religious teachers tell you you must do.
Papaji

The most secure place to hide a treasure of gold is in some desolate, unnoticed place. Why would anyone hide treasure in plain sight?
And so it is said, "Joy is hidden beneath sorrow."

Rumi

The rejuvenating effects of sleep are due to man’s temporary unawareness of body & breathing.
The sleeping man becomes a yogi. Each night he unconsciously performs the yogic rite of releasing himself from bodily identification, dipping into the reservoir of cosmic energy

A foolish person can teach you, a wise person, a learned person, a student, a pious or wicked person, even a little child; everyone can teach you something.

Therefore have this attitude towards everybody,
then it may be said that you recognize God.

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

"When mind arises, trouble arises.
You have to check at the arising point of the mind itself. You just stay there, where the mind is arising. Mind is a thought. 'I' arises, everything arises. Before 'I', people report that they don' t see anything, which is peace, beauty, love."

Q: What should we meditate on?

RM: Who is the meditator? Ask that question first. Remain as the meditator, then there is no need to meditate. It is the sense of doership that is the impediment to dhyana.

Peace is one’s own mental property,
and hence you should never allow either household or social affairs to intrude into the holy precincts of your mind,
where only Parama-Shiva should reign supreme,
showering peace and bliss upon you.

~ Swami Ramakrishnananda

Mind is just a self-inflicted area of darkness in which the light of the Self has been deliberately shut out.

Sri Annamalai Swami

Sahaj mila so doodh barabar, maang liya so paani, keech liya so rakth barabar
What u get easily is like mother’s milk, what u get on asking is like water, what u get on snatching is like blood

Gorakhnath

The real saint can’t be serious. Just look around, look at the trees, look at the birds, listen to them - are they serious? Look at the stars, the moon, the sun - are they serious? Existence is utterly nonserious; it goes on dancing. It is an eternal celebration, a festivity

Q: What about religion?
RM: Forget religion. Observe people. Most of them are busy serving their body & mind. You think they are serving their religion?

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